Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 335: Silent Mike Farr

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Silent Mike rejoins us on the pod for the first time in several years. We talk about life as a gym owner, content creator, Shaq as a strongman, and Oreos being trash. Juggernaut AI: juggernautai.app and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% The Strength Co: https://www.thestrength.co/ BearFoot Shoes: https://bearfoot.store/ and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% Swiss Link: https://www.swisslink.com and use code MASS to save 15% Spud Inc: https://www.spud-inc-straps.com/ Texas Power Bars: https://www.texaspowerbars.com/

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

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics. Welcome back, everyone, for episode 335 of the Masanomics podcast. That sounds right. All right. Episode 335 of the Masanomics podcast, the lifting podcast about near fin. My name is Tanner.

And my name is Tommy. We got a lot of near fin to talk about today tommy we got a list full of near finn we do it's a very full list it is and um i'm excited for it we got a special guest this week like most weeks i'm gonna have silent mike on tap for us we've got sack segments, talking gym equipment stuff, talking veggie omelets. Veggie omelets. Lift shorts news. Lift shorts. Lift shorts news. Breaking news.

Yeah, breaking lift shorts news. We got a sack. We got a can. Yeah. Yeah. We better get going. Yep. New discount codes.

New discount codes. Speaking of that, have you heard about code Masononomics from our friends at Barefoot Shoes? You know, last week people heard about this Barefoot ad and the angry mob got their pitchforks out and said, give us a code. We want a code. And the people at Barefoot delivered. Oh, before you do that.

Oh. Oh. Oh, Tanner's reaching for a cord here. Where is the end of this? Oh, there it is. Okay. Is it right here? Oh, boy.

That's the wrong way. Oh, boy. The timing's all off. Should we just start this whole thing over? Yeah, here we go. Okay. Now, what did you say is coming up here? Barefoot.

Okay. Okay. Did you say it's coming up here? Barefoot. Okay. The comedic timing was just spot on there. There was no delay in anything. It was like you were planning that out for weeks.

Today's episode is brought to you by Barefoot Shoes. Most shoes harm your mobility by over-restricting your foot's natural movement. Barefoot shoes are designed with minimal restrictions so your feet can move the way they're supposed to. Move with more strength and confidence in every step. Barefoot Shoes was founded by Chris Duffin, who attributes proper foot biomechanics as foundational to his success in squatting and deadlifting over 1,000 pounds for reps. He helped create the company to provide a minimalist shoe that can be worn for anything from deadlifts to walking your dog. Go to barefoot.shoes to check out the best minimalist shoes available. And while you're there, make sure to use code MASSANOMICS

to save 10%, a whopping 10% on your order. So if you were on the fence before So if you were on the fence before, if you were riding the line before, you're over the line. We got you. We got you this time. Tanner and I both wear barefoot shoes. We love them.

Oh, that's an angry bear. Tanner and I both wear barefoot shoes. We love them. You should do the same. I was just wearing mine today. Did some deadlifting in them. Loved them. I didn't have mine on today, but.

And the best thing about it is saving 10% with discount code Masanomics. Can't be beat. You know what they say, put pencil to paper. And the other best thing about it is doing timely bear growls. I'm kind of pumped up now. Yeah. Did you? Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about telling you about something else um i was gonna tell you about uh juggernaut ai as long as we're talking about training today

we were both in there doing some training today we're both using juggernaut ai for our training and first of all what i want to you, we have a discount code with juggernaut AI. Also, it's also massonomics, but important, very important, important. If anything you take from this whole episode, listen, it's this, when you sign up for juggernaut AI, you go to juggernaut, AI.app juggernaut.app. We're not saying go to the app store. Go to the website. Type in juggernautai.app. Go to the website. Sign up on the website and use our discount code MASSANOMICS there.

That'll save you 10% for the lifetime of your membership. But you do have to do it through... Because the website will prompt you for a discount code. The app in the app store will not. Yes. This just came to light this week

that multiple people signed up because of like this just came to uh came to light this week that multiple people with signed up because of like completely unrelated came to us and said yeah i never got to enter my discount code but i'm also on like week eight of yeah like no you did it wrong people within massonomics gym not uh going about it the right way so trying to make sure people understand go to juggernautai.app and get signed up that way use discount code massonomics and then uh you can enjoy everything that there is to enjoy with the juggernaut app which is mostly just prs after prs they never end as far as i've seen they did just have an update recently i don't know if you noticed that they're uh now have on the bottom toggle there's uh tools uh i noticed that was probably the primary thing they actually changed

the icon color slightly too i noticed that yeah i did notice that uh probably the primary thing they actually changed the icon color slightly too i noticed that yeah i did notice that uh in the tools what they added that i noticed was an rpe planner um an rpe chart plate math i know some people have like separate apps for plate math and that sort of thing so this gets all with within the umbrella of the one app one rep max calculator pound to kilogram conversion. And then things that they're working on are a warmup planner, plan your warmup and workout plate math in either kilogram or flop or pound. And then strength levels,

you can calculate your juggernaut strength class based for squat bench and deadlift. So what I, my key takeaway from that. I just did a little one rep max calculation while you're talking there. And did you like what you found? I like what it's saying.

Okay. So you're, Tommy's using the tools as we speak, but what I like about it, so yeah, these tools are nice and it might be some things I use sometimes, but just how they're kind of constantly working on things behind the scenes and bringing more to this app. It's not just, they put this out there. It's not a dead app. Right, it's to this app. It's not just they put this out there. It's not dead there.

It's living and breathing. Continuing to work on things. And we've both been using it for many months now and both having success with it. So like I said, go to your web browser, type in juggernautai.app, and then sign up that way. Week 21 for me to be exact. We need that damn credit.

Don't cheap us out of this. Credit where credit's due. All right. Should we get right to it? Yeah, let's do it. God, there's just so many things on the list this week. I don't know where we even start on this list. Maybe we'll start.

Do we have supporting or supporting members? We do have that. Okay, then we're going to save some discord news for later okay how about the veggie omelet from last week tanner yeah uh well we didn't have the veggie sorry yes yes we had mres we had mres your first is my first mre tanners had countless mres in his life it was a real learning experience for me but you sent me a video of a guy actually eating the veggie someone popped it up on uh discord i can't remember who who shared it one of the big discord crew members that uh threw that

up there and i watched the entire video i watched the entire thing too and i actually i kind of want to give the guy credit because it was good like it was good listening to his review how he reviews food makes me really think like we're not bringing our a game when it comes to reviewing lacroix's and that's truely waters on this. That's true. Cause he takes it to another level. He's really finds the nuance in everything. He does.

Even the way, okay. Steve, 1989 MRE info is his YouTube channel. Did you see how many YouTube? How many does, how many subscribers does he have? Oh, that's views. Let's see. He has, yeah. 2 million subscribers.

I'm not surprised. It was a good video. He manages to make it very entertaining for a camera that's basically pointed at his hands, opening up an MRE. He also, so this guy gets, he has the veggie omelet MRE, which I believe he said was produced from 2005 to 2008. Yeah. Which is just the perfect wrong timing for me. Like I lived in this, I experienced the the era you have that you have that to your name you can say i i lived i lived that brief window in time and i like the name of

it the vomlet had you ever heard that i'd never heard the vomlet before i'm sure it's commonplace now but and it's funny how he talks about the vomlet does have like this reputation that's like the worst right that was right uh it's like a 20 minute video he opens the whole bag up he he's really good with the packaging where he in the maybe everyone that eats these a lot gets good at that but putting it in the heater like he gets them all wedged in there all nice and folded up tight and sets that to the side while he does the sides and i believe the sides in there were like dehydrated granola and blueberries which looked absolutely disgusting and i never had that like he said that they switched that menu item in the last year and i never remember and i subsequently like once i had the choice never

took the veggie omelet again of course so i never had that as a side yeah that one looked but he said it tasted yeah he said it was great it was it was good i thought it looked gross i'm not huge into like granola and blueberries oh That's not really my jam. But so he thought that part was good. Then I believe there was apple cider, which he said was awful. Oh, no, I think the apple cider was okay. It was the vanilla cappuccino. That was just sugar drink.

Why do you need two of those things in there? He did say that like six of the gum are what's supposed to be laxative. That's what he said. I took that. Have laxative properties with six of them. So I'm like, we both did one. I don't know if you have,

like, what's the case on any gum? Like how much gum do you have to chew, you know? Before it does something. Right, right. Yeah.

And then when there was a scone, which he said, actually he made it sound like that was the worst thing. I, when he was talking. Do you remember that? I didn't, don't remember thinking the scone was as bad as what he was talking about when,

but when he got into describing the scone and how bad it was i was laughing out loud like i was like rolling laughing and like it's all a little relatable to me so it's like it's just funny anyways but when he really started describing the scone and how bad it was just because he has this very and that's what i was laughing more in the build-up of it all because he's so like it's he's not laughing really at all he's being completely honest and genuine and it's sort of dead it all because he's so like, it's, he's not laughing really at all. He's being completely honest and genuine and it's sort of deadpan too, but he's just like, wow, this is just a very intense flavor.

Oh, just completely overdone on the vanilla. Like the way he's reviewing it, like you would never expect that from an MRE. So that was what made me laugh the most. But when he did get to the veggie omelet, it looks absolutely disgusting coming out of the tube. Like it looks like absolutely disgusting coming out of the tube like that doesn't look edible coming out of the tube it looks awful and the fact that you have to think of someone eating it no when i watched that i was like that's why i told you the discord i'm like

you have to watch this because you really get a feel for the veggie omelet and you can tell he's just fighting to eat it i believe i thought it was really funny in the comments someone wrote like steve's stomach deserves a purple heart for everything he went through here but i like he puts the salsa verde he covers it in this in salt and the salsa verde which looked awful too it looked like just green old puke that he dumps on it and then he at that point he says it's totally edible yeah well for a while and then he kind of after like a couple bites of it again he's like okay that it was also funny he had a shirt on that said clean plate club yeah yeah i see that that's probably like kind of his thing it's like he

always finishes it no matter uh and then also the fact that this is an mre from like 2007 or 2008 was the date on his so it is uh what 14 years old is he eating this thing yeah so that was a good video people should seek that out if they want more mre yeah more mre goodness that that we couldn't quite deliver oh i love that video though really good couldn't recommend it enough yeah that's great stuff i think that was a really good topic to lead off with um actually actually um what else did we have in there too so next on the list should we should okay are you are you ready for do you want a can or should we talk lift shorts uh maybe we should have a can okay okay this is a special uh user, Discord crew submitted can. So I'm going to need you to put the blinders on.

All that talk about the Vomlet really has me hungry. Really piqued your appetite. The Vomlet is such a perfect name for that, too. Yeah, it works great. I haven't even opened this thing yet. I got it in the mail. I put it in the fridge. Yeah, it works great.

I haven't even opened this thing yet. I got it in the mail. I put it in the fridge. And I wanted to save it for this special, special moment. It is packed with care. I can tell you that. Oh, we got a letter, which I always like to see. Okay, I'm going to try not to really look at this. Okay. Because kind of like to play the game too you know yeah it's all about the game and

how you play it yep i got to see the color of the can but i didn't read it so i'm coming i need a koozie at all i've got i got oh i brought i brought a camo one for you already all right reach your hand out there there we are here we go ready all right reach your hand out there there we are here we go that's a moderately crispy all right fairly strong flavor or smell whoa i'm getting um strong pomplamoousse nodes on the scent here yeah it's almost well that's very grapefruit very grapefruity and i almost for a second feel like it's in that diet soda line because it's so strong and it's very uh sweet compared to a sparkling water yeah that makes me think it has to be grapefruit something right is it

grapefruit anything else i kind of think it's just grapefruit let me take one it's it's just pretty sweet i'm just wondering if you pair grapefruit with anything if like is there a sweeter thing i don't know it sort of has that bitterness still at the end like a grape yeah i guess it's like the sweetness of the actual beverage that's getting me you know like right just how it is artificial sweetener yeah strong scent strong taste overall tastes pretty good i think it's grapefruit it really has the grapefruit smell too though most beverages don't have right right do you uh should we check it out look here so it says the finish long drink. Zero sugar, 99 calories citrus. Oh, there's alcohol in here.

Ooh. Gin, gin with natural grapefruit and juniper berry flavors. All right. So there was a little more going on. Wow. I guess now maybe I can see the alcohol part, but that was not apparent from the beginning juniper berry that's the sweetness well that's that's what they used to make gin isn't it i have no idea i believe it is okay so yeah but gin kind of has that dry well grapefruit kind of has that dryness to it and gin does too true so they really play off each other there interesting um

boy so alcohol i kind of feel like gets graded on a different scale too i because i couldn't drink like 10 of these in a night no it would i think i'd be hurting if i did that i mean i could drink two of those in a night yeah i think as if you wanted one of these i would for sure give it a three and a half if you want something in this flavor profile. Would you go with three and a half? I would for sure give it a three and a half for like if you're just going to have

like in a one-off scenario like this. Right, right. I'm not going to like drink a case of these though. That's not in the cards. It's tricky because the alcohol thing puts it in a little bit different scale. It does. It does.

I mean, I'm down with a three and a half and under those conditions you know under those uh with that thought process all right and now you're ready for part two of this tanner yeah we got this do we know who this is from oh is that i sorry yeah um big dodzilla scott Dodds. Oh, Big Scott. The first supporting member. The first. The original. The one. He also sent us some of these, too.

Some little Scott Dodds. Oh, Dodzilla trading cards. Yeah. All right. So we have one of him deadlifting here. And oh, mine's autographed. Oh, I got. Okay, I i got i just grabbed two random ones this one has a state deadlift record uspa so i technically got an autograph one and you did too yeah i've got uh uspa masters 220 division um 617 pound deadlift he He's wearing the Massanomic singlet in this one and wearing the lift hat and lift shorts 2.0 in this one.

Yep. It's a well-dressed man. That's pretty sweet. Might have to put these up in Massanomic. Oh, I think they'll look great in the gym. And then people will say, what's that? Just the 400 thing that people can be like, what is that? Why is there so many inside jokes in this room?

Well done. There's a letter in here too. I'm glad I took a second look there. Is it an on-air letter? It's best now when people specify right away like, yes, this is an on-air letter. This one can be read. It says, Dear Masonomics, I've been searching for something worthy of the What's in a Can segment for a long time.

I believe I have finally found it. This is long drink. Not going to mention the flavor or what's in it. We already covered that. But I think the zero calorie beverage is going to earn no less than a four and a half, possibly five stars. Oh, Scott. There's never been a five. Has there even been a four and a half?

I don't think. Maybe one or two. Who keeps the, is it Big David? Or does Kevin keep the shirt log? I forget who. Kevin keeps the shirts. I don't remember who. Oh, yeah, Big David.

It's one of the Big Davids. And I do like Scott. He might be able to tell us if there's ever been a four and a half. Scott has signed off on Scottott dodzilla dodds aka first supporting member he ain't lying there i do like his seal here the dodzilla deadlift dungeon i think he he was right though like he was good to wait for that like this is a very worthy of what's in the can that is this is a of what's in the can. That is. This is a great what's in the can segment. This is pretty good.

I could drink a couple of these and, you know, kick off the night. I could too. I mean, I didn't even realize there was alcohol in it. It is kind of weird that there's zero calories too. But I suppose. Canapolis, North Carolina. Canapolis with a K. That's weird.

And Big David did get back to us there. President's Choice Vanilla Cherry. We did give it a four and a half. Also, Ugly Cherry Coke. Oh, I missed that one. Okay. And Bubbly Lime. All four and a halves. Ugly Cherry Coke.

God. Rest in peace. I forgot about that one. Oh, I had my last one. Did you one oh i had my last one did you really i had my last one this last week i still have some birthday cakes sitting upstairs not as good so i had the dr ugly and the ugly cherry coke and dr i've been really rationing them and they're they are every time i have one i'm like yeah this is my favorite uh sparkling water and now they're gone that's

funny we did give bubbly lime a four and a half that's probably my most bought flavor so so i wasn't just making that number up at the time well done big dodzilla that was a great segment i love these cards my biggest thing is deciding where in the gym like i love the nuggets of there's so many nuggets in the gym of like things. People's old YMCA cards. Yes, yes. We have someone's card from jail. There's one rookie card that's been blown up on a banner, like one random one.

Lots of good stuff. These will have a good home there. All right. Should we talk about equipment or lift shorts? Oh, I think we got to talk about the lift shorts don't we just because it's pretty funny it it's very very noteworthy here and we'll post about this on instagram tomorrow so like you heard it first on the discord if you're listening live you're hearing it first if not you've you've already seen this we We post about this. So what happened is I got home from work today,

and my wife and my kids were all at home, and my mother-in-law was there too. And I've heard this name Poshmark before. I'm sure my wife's talked about it or my mother-in-law has talked about it before, and I was kind of just peripherally aware like that Poshmark is a thing that maybe it's like clothing related. Somebody's maybe told me about it before.

And, uh, she goes, I found lift shorts on Poshmark. And I was like, no, what? There's some confusion here.

I think like, it's not how that works. Trust me. This thing is don't work this way. And I'm like, what do you mean here? Like, you found some other shorts that say lift on them that are not, you know, and she's like, no, I found some of your lift shorts on Poshmark. And I'm like, show me, what are we talking about here?

So she pulls it up, and my wife also pull it up, and they are, there is a pair actually if you're listening right now someone could get on this there there is something relevant here that someone listening live might want to get this because one of the pairs is a limited edition pair of blue live shorts only 100 pairs of made only 100 ever made there is a pair of blue lift shorts. Only 100 pairs are made. Only 100 ever made. There is a pair of blue mediums on Poshmark of the, and they are like brand new. Even his

description, barely worn, limited edition, Massanomics blue lift shorts. And originally he had them marked at 50. Right now they're marked down to 30. If you're a medium, this is your chance at the blue lift shorts. This was our first ever pair of limited edition shorts

were the blue lift shorts. The blue ones. And there's also a pair of just the black medium lift shorts. I believe they also say like new, like only worn once or something like that. I'll tell you, they're also size medium. Massonomics lift shorts, size medium, barely worn. And this is real.

What are they charging for the regular ones? $35, marked down to $18. Wow. So that's just like a good deal. So $18 for the regulars, for the plain ones, you could say in this scenario. Yes, $30 for the limited edition. $30 for the limited.

They're really playing in that limited edition game. Oh, we're seeing in the Discord that blues are gone. Somebody bought them. They were not sold as of like a couple hours ago. Someone just, blues are gone. Someone here did it. David said 40.75 was shipping. Can anyone confirm they were the ones that got them?

Just very curious. And you know, this person was like, damn, those things really sold. But we kind of threw him a bone here. So do all these people have Poshmark? uh just very curious and you know this person was like damn those things really sold but we kind of threw him a bone here so do all these people have poshmark because like it looked like an app that my wife showed me but like you also could just go to the website i assume uh worthless without the certificate of authenticity yeah this person could be running an elaborate scam where they're making a fake That's true. There is no certificate

of authenticity, so you don't know for sure. Right. Pretty interesting, though. So now I guess we have to keep our eye on Poshmark for Big David did buy them. Rescued them. Did anyone, has anyone bought the um regular the regular well that's just a good deal if you wear mediums because they are they are definitely going to a good home with big david

buying them there's no doubt about that but i believe he said the well the 30 ones were 40 dollars with shipping so 10 so you're still getting a deal on the regulars. Technically, you're going to get them for $28. Right, right. I mean, they're used, but they do look pretty moderately used. I want to know, the regular Black Lift shorts, not all that surprising. We've sold a lot of pairs of those over the years. I mean, a lot.

Those could come up for sale. Limited edition blue ones, we only sold 100 ever and they sold like they were in high demand very high demand they all came that was one of our quickest selling products ever who liked who was so into mastonomics at that point in time that they rushed to buy a pair of those and over the course of the last couple years has soured so much on us that they are like, I don't even want these in my closet anymore. You got a great point there because it wasn't like they randomly came to the site and saw and then thought about it. That could have happened. Yeah.

It wasn't like a decision they slept on because the blue ones were gone within hours. Like it was right. It would be such an insane coincidence if you randomly got to the site and were like, oh, yeah, I'll get these. And they were in your size during that specific little window. Right. Could be a sizing issue, potentially. Maybe they're like, oh, it turns out I was a small and I ordered these mediums. Potentially, yeah.

Wow. It was interesting, though, I thought. Well, we did get them a safe home. Yeah. And the old story, the old version of the story was back in the day you found a lift shirt or someone found a lift shirt at the thrift store it was the aberdeen goodwill goodwill okay someone sent me a picture like hey found this here and it was you know them pulling the lift shirt out of the rack and it was like for like five bucks or something and i was like no, no, that is a travesty. So I went there like within a few, like later that day,

I think it was a weekend day. If I, this has been years ago and I went in, it was gone. I'm like, oh, somebody bought it. I'll never know. Also there I was offended. I'm like, who gave their lift shirt to Goodwill? Locally bought one. Right.

And then I, but then I was thinking, well, the, you know, we sold things at the Brown County fair a few few years i'm like someone randomly probably bought it for their dad and he wore it once and said i don't need this why do i have this right like what is this yeah but that's the original version of that story well it's nice to know that those shorts found a home so quickly i didn't i didn't think we'd have closure like that today yep i guess we'll have to get follow-up from Big David to see if he thinks they passed the authenticity test. That'd be funny if they did come

with a certificate of authenticity. If it was like, and even your note was in there. They just dumped it all. That would be amazing. It's the Discord anniversary, Tanner. Only comes around once a year. This is a one-year anniversary. It's so special we didn't even really know about it until...

Someone else pointed it out. I think Dutch Matt pointed it out. Yeah, brought it to our attention. A year. That's kind of hard to believe because... I would have guessed it's been way over a year already. I kind of was thinking like last summer, maybe even spring. So yeah, over a year for sure.

It's really hard to imagine Masonomics without the Discord now, isn't it? Yes. There's not many things that you could say fundamentally changed how we do some things and think about things

and interact with people, but the Discord is one of them. It'd be kind of like imagining Masonomics without a podcast or like without Instagram. Or without Instagram. Like it's such a channel for talking with the community and like people things filter through the disc you know like things surface and ideas and um it's just so much such a part of the community it is really weird that it's only been a year in that way

yeah because just one year ago from today, we thought we were riding high and MathSnomics is growing and things are going good. And this wasn't even a thing yet. Yeah. Man. Yeah. Just reading the comments. We had already had supporting memberships.

But they weren't really doing a whole lot no which i don't blame anyone like it was i mean you get a discount code but right right outside of that there wasn't a any major incentives but oh the discord flipped that flipped that thing on its head it really did change things didn't it is crazy to me though really wild that it's only been a year that doesn't seem right time flies as they say right that's right um what about a lot of times we do the sack segment at the end but uh i'll save half sack segment for end half for right now oh we're gonna split it up yeah because there's something it's a two-part yeah two-part sack And part of this is particularly relevant to do in the first half of the show, I think.

So we've got a little something, something here. One of the longest running segments on the podcast. Oh, sweet. Goody bear. We've both got stocking hats here. And actually, you can have whichever color you want. There's a maroon and a black. And it's got, I think, Third Street Barbell.

Yeah. Good company bear on there. Third Street Barbell beanies here. And these are courtesy of our good friends, longtime friends, Jim McD and Silent Mike over from Sacramento. We also already put the football. We have a good company football now, the gym football. So it just already put the football. We have a Good Company football now. The gym

football. So it just lives in the gym so we can fire the pigskin back and forth between sets. Yes. And then we also have a 3rd Street Barbell Good Company pennant on the wall. Yeah. We're decked out. Yep. It's like a 3rd Street Barbell satellite office.

What do we got? Oh, a little It's like a it's like a street barbell satellite office. What do we got? Oh, a little towel. Yeah. Good company. I like that. I like these beanies, too. These are these are well done. I like these.

Yep. Very nice. So thank you to our good friends, Silent Mike and Jim Meek D. And I thought it particularly relevant because we're going to be talking to old Silent Mike here in just a matter of minutes. It's a dark towel. I'm not sure if it shows up on the camera, but we got it held up. Beanies, maybe I'll hold that up too. So, yeah, people can't see it.

It's too small. Nice fold-over beanie with their little bear embroidered on it. Great stuff. Yep. Sweet. So we'll save the other little bit in here for post nugget the last little portion all right well if you get really sweaty during the interview tanner we do got the towel all right to dab yeah you'll be okay so that takes care of that part of the sack segment um um hmm do we want to talk about

some of the new equipment that we've got they're doing some wheeling and dealing on are they trying to buy the trying to lowball for $15 oh that's a steal for gently used lift shorts $15 I don't

know if you can get the plain ones for $15 that's pushing it. Sorry, what were you saying? I got distracted. Now someone's trying to re-buy the... There's been a lot of talk of dealing, wheeling and dealing on Discord last week. Speaking of wheeling and dealing, I got... Oh, yeah.

I had a pretty sweet Facebook Marketplace score. It was a barely used red seer coat Texas power bar and a barely used black seer coat Texas squat bar. $250 each, $500 total in South Dakota, which that type of shit never comes up. And not far away in South Dakota, which like that type of shit never comes up. And not far away in South Dakota either. And Big Jake the Snake had found that deal and he let me know about it.

And he's got a home gym and he wasn't sure if he wanted either of them. And I'm like, well, we can't wait on this. I'm going to buy these immediately. We will for sure take them all. Yeah, like I'm like, if you don't want, whatever you want, go ahead and have it. I'm going to tell her I'm buying them,

and then we'll sort that out because these need to be bought. And he's got them in hand now, and they are like literally never barely used at all whatsoever. So it was a steal. He's keeping the power bar, and we're going to bring the squat bar to Mass Dynamics Gym. So now we've got a second Texas squat bar. So we'll have a black Cerakote and a black regular.

Yeah. Whatever their regular black finishes. Yeah. Finishes called. But the, the brand new Texas squat bar for 250 bucks is just a steel. It is. Can't beat that.

That is a sweet steel. Yeah. And he was excited about the power bar too, because it was literally brand new too. And that shipped, you know, the Texas power bars and Texas squat bars are all reasonably priced, especially in comparison to other comparable top high-end quality barbells. But, you know, that squat bar shipped is a little over

500 bucks and the power bar shipped is like close to 400 you know it's like 380 bucks in the share quote finish so a couple of sweet deals and it was covid deals people that had bought did they say that yeah yeah that it was uh they had started a home gym and i remember at the time we even talked about it i was like yeah there's gonna be a lot of people bailing on this stuff at some point yep i was excited for um when that started to come around but the other direction and it you know here's a little taste of it having come getting a tech a brand new texas squat bar for half price so how many how many texas are how many texas power bars in general do we have now? We've got the two squat bars. We've got two squat, one deadlift, and three power bars.

Could have had a fourth one here potentially, but it's going to get home. Yep, so we have seven Texas power bars. That's a pretty good number. Not bad for a modest little gym. Those are rookie numbers. We've got to pump those up. Pump those up. Not bad for a modest little chip. Those are rookie numbers.

We've got to pump those up. Pump those up. And then the other thing we recently got was the Rogue Z Reverse Hyper. And I've used that like four or five times. I've got it kind of in my programming all the time now. It's slightly more than 10 times as much as a drink spotter, so we wanted to see if it was 10 times as functional. Yes.

It's still no drink spotter, but it is a nice piece of equipment and as it was a pretty good upgrade it really is that thing is it is built like a tank there's no doubt about that it is also incredibly large it is like is it surprising how wide it is um also that thing is not hard challenging to put together time consuming to put together the rogue reverse hyper z hyper comes in a lot of pieces a lot of freaking pieces yeah i mean it took two to three hours to assemble that was yeah i didn't have the pleasure of putting it together but i did see the number of boxes yeah which i kind of assumed maybe there was more that you got than the reverse hyper for the number of boxes that were there they could for sure put a little bit of that shit together before like i get

the idea of you disassemble stuff as much as possible for shipping it makes it more efficient cost-wise and everything but there's some things that i'm like no you could have put these couple parts to get you know they could have started assembled together um but is really great and now that it's put together i like it but by the time i finished putting it together that night i was like i don't even want to look at this right now because i wasn't going into it planning on a two and a half hour uh well and why would you it's like i'm like putting together a table right a little arm that comes right um but it is it is heavy duty it is built i still the the thing that did surprise me the most though is the width of it yeah doesn't

it seem incredibly wide i don't know i guess it didn't really seem like it to me but i'm maybe it's just in comparison to our homemade maybe yeah maybe the proportions of the old one were a little more square on the tabletop where this one is definitely more rectangular right so maybe that's what threw me off yeah and like our old one was so much taller. It was very tall. So that it's exaggeration from width at the bottom to width at the top was significant. You know, like there was a big difference in the footprint on top. The geometry was all off on that thing. And just today ordered a Stray Dog alpha alpha uh alpha series adjustable bench oh you did yep i'll be excited for that is that going to live on the in the back room is that

kind of my intention was eventually that we'd probably have a few of them so then like uh you know just start to slowly phase out those ones we have but yeah i think i don't know that's a tough one to really regulate where it goes because people are going to move out especially when it's a new bench people are going to take that wherever yeah yeah i never thought about that well yeah that's what's going to happen people are going to take that one everywhere so that's actually going to get some miles put on it between the two rooms yes i did see this big david uh wrote regarding his blue lift shorts he said please include the certificate of authenticity and original handwritten note.

And the person said, I'm at school. My parents are shipping it out. I'll try my best to get them to find it. Big Keith said, what's Alpha Bench? I'm not sure if he's serious there or not, or if he knows of the Stray Dog Strength. And we had them on the podcast here how long a couple few months ago yeah probably about two months ago yeah and i guess it's just their uh it's their version

whatever the rogue and rep both make an adjustable bench that a lot of people have and i think it's their their take on that it's got the um the way to the big difference is uh you know it's the ladder system but the ladder's on the top of the bench. Right, right. It's on the opposite of the... On the back of the bench pad. Yeah, right. It's the opposite of how you picture the...

Versus the base of the bench. Right, right. It looks like a cool piece of equipment, though. It is cool. Kurt Locker has one. There's a few other people that I follow and stuff that I've seen it with, and it's pretty sweet. A lot of customization options. So you did actually buy it though?

Yes, it's bought. Did you get it in red? Red and with black accents in a black pad. Yeah. And you can even pick the pad color and stuff, but it'd be fun to get wild on some of that stuff. But our gym is really starting to get a, get a little, you know, it never had a, it didn't,

it never had one originally because it was so mix and match. It was just whatever we could get. Oh, it was very mix and match. Yeah. And now it's kind of... The vibe was more like missing paint was kind of the vibe. Right, right.

Yeah, it's a lot of black and red now, though. There's actually almost no colors in the back area that aren't black and red. No, the back area is pretty much set. Yeah. It's that front area now that's still pretty mix and match. Mix and match, yeah yeah there's so many different

but it would actually wouldn't take you get the benches if you get the benches on the same page that kind of takes care of a good chunk of that area because then that's you got some machines and the machines are either black or silver well you got the two there's some white and blue yeah the white and blue and that's what i was of. Those are like the oldest machines in the whole thing probably. Right, right. Yeah. And the lat pull-down has a green pad. Right.

It's black with a green pad, yeah. Yeah. All right. So that's good equipment talk. We haven't talked much equipment for a while. So I'm excited. You know, I have an equipment addiction, I suppose. I'm excited for the incline bench.

That's a piece of equipment that I never used. You excited for the incline bench. That's a piece of equipment that I never used. You've been programming incline bench. Yeah, for years and years. And now, incline bench at least once every week. And I love it. And a new bench would be great.

Yep, yep. Someone was talking about the shirt that I'm wearing right now. For anyone that doesn't know, this is the OG logo is what we refer to this is this is the og we haven't had the og available we actually were discussing potential idea there yep yep so we do have some things coming at that we have talked quite a bit about our discord today

but i think it's still uh relevant and important to hit up supporting our supporting members it's a relatively newer segment to the podcast in comparison to segments like tanner sack and tanner sack you know much newer compared to like tanner sack because that was a segment back in like recording studio like 1.0 but it's also one of the fastest growing segments of the podcast it is that. That's true. That's true. It's become a big fan favorite, I think. So we have these supporting members. They get access to our Discord. They also get access to a discount code exclusive for them. We send out things like membership cards for them. You just get to be a part of the crew is really

what happens. And we like to give back to be a part of the crew is really what happens and we like to give back to them a little bit each week so we get feedback from them of what they've got going on their lives you know it could be competing could just be family stuff anything exciting or noteworthy we search it out and we like to shout them out here on the segment so there was a strongman competition at a brewery this was in the northeast this last weekend and i think from what i could figure out we had three crew members competing there there was a big johnny pov underscore strong is what he goes by on ig uh big johnny in the discord i think um big conrad was there competing and big chris and big chris everyone likes to joke about how we say his last name wrong because i still really don't know how you say his last name how do you how do you think you say chris's last name i don't

know because it's not that hard of one well i know that i would have said it a certain way and then you kept saying it one way, and then your way was wrong, but then I've heard you say it some other ways. And I'm so mixed around now that I don't even know what I would say. What would you say, like right now? I mean, I would say damninger, I think. Damninger. I think I would say damninger.

Not dominger. I don't know. What about dominger? I don't know. But anyways, Big Chris. It's one of those things I'm thinking about too much now that I have such a hard time saying. Yeah.

So Big Johnny and Big Conrad went head-to-head in the middleweight class. Johnny edged out Conrad by one point to take first place in that class. That's a blue on blue. Yeah. Yeah, that place in that class. Crew on crew. That's a blue on blue. Yeah. Yeah. That's crew on crew,

blue on blue. Interesting there, but across the country, there's two crew members competing each other. Yeah. And then a big Chris was in a different class. I think Chris said maybe he didn't have the performance he wanted, but you know, my comment on that was like um maybe he didn't place that high but just my thought

process on that i'm like keep it in perspective you're still like going out there and competing against people where i'm like there's a lot of people that just go to the gym and you know would talk about wanting to go do something like this. Oh, for years. And will never do it. Yep, never ever. I'm like, you're, you know, you're doing better than all of those people that don't have the balls to try it that would really like to and probably would, you know. Yep. But like, I'm like, just having the balls to go and do it is worth quite a bit in my opinion.

Absolutely. Because I've seen a lot of people that probably actually want to do that stuff, but won't do it just because they also should. Right. Right. But just like some, a number of different reasons. Sometimes it's ego based and,

you know, because you're never as strong as you think. Yes. We've seen a number of people over the years that should have competed and competed multiple times, but they just never think their numbers are where they should be. So they don't do it. And it's like,

that's kind of also part of why you don't think your numbers are where they should because you're not competing right so that's that was my little tidbit to him I was like keep it in perspective you know even if you didn't place how you want to you still it's like old Larry Legend says you know just doing it gives you just such a sense of accomplishment yes and he ain't wrong that's Larry also said Larry Legend also says um if i can't get it up for at least for just one big set you might as well start throwing the dirt on me now it is what he says classic larry if you know if i can't just get turn it on for just one set anymore and it's funny because he wasn't saying that smiling or laughing or he was just like talking and that was just what came on the dirt on me now uh so that was our supporting

member segment so shout out to those guys for all competing looked like a really cool competition one of the events you know that was keg related it was at a brewery one of the events was strongman cornhole cornhole where they had you know the throwing sandbags like they would use at the rogue where they were it was giant cornhole boards that were you know the hole was like that big and you're maybe like 20 feet back and you had to throw the sandbag to try to you know i assume it made it to the hole yeah it was scored i think so there was some skill to this yeah i don't know if it played out exactly the same way that Cornhole does. You know, it's not two on two. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, that was a cool idea, I think. I always like got. Big Chris said it was 25 feet from the hole. That was like some strong man events. Oh, and Big Johnny's in here, too. He said in the hole was five points. Wow. 40-pound sandbags.

On the board was three points. Wow, okay. So, yeah, it didn't matter. I think that that's a pretty cool event. That is. That's fun. And I think that was the last one maybe too, so that's a cool way to cap something off like that.

All right, so thank you, supporting members. And also, thank you to Spud Inc., Spud Inc. Straps. They sell a lot of equipment for strongman competitors. If you're into strongman competing and training uh they we have some of this stuff like the strongman stone strap it's something that you can help uh use as a training tool if you're learning to lift atlas stones or just for simply like moving them around the gym when you're not really training them you just need to get them up a couple steps or you know makes it it a little simpler to move them around.

You also use it on sandbags, too. I've seen some people around the gym use it for that, too. They have strongman harnesses. So if you're working on your truck pull practice or it's just you could hook it up to a sled and pull it that way. If you want to do sled pulls, they do have a few different options for the strongman harnesses. pulls they do have a few different options for the strongman harnesses and then they have the what I consider like the classic sputting strongman belt that's like the ratcheting belt it's a classic yeah then they have other things like kind of like an economy version of farmer's handles it's just straps you can get a pair of them for 80 bucks they can travel easily

anywhere you go and it's just straps that are kind of a simple way to make a farmer's carry device with just some plates and these straps all kinds of other options um check them out spud-ink-straps.com look for the black and yellow order $75 or more and you get free shipping. Well, there you go. Beat up. So thank you. Spud Inc.

Should we get our guests on the horn? Say goodbye to the discord. Let's do it. Okay. See you discord. They just won't leave, will they? No. They're just hanging on.

Okay. All right. Got them out of there. Now, should we try and give Big Mike a call? Let's do it. Big Mike. It's funny when you say it that way. big mike is that you oh you're not my headphones let's see what we... You can hear me now. We can hear you. Okay, now I think it's good.

Can you hear us? Yeah. All right, cool. I got a new pair of headphones. Hopefully it doesn't sound like shit. No, it sounds pretty good. Okay, sounds good. Beautiful.

What kind of headphones did you get? Dude, I've been on this refurbed, like, used product grind. I just feel so good when I get a deal, you know? So I got these Sony. Yeah, it's the best feeling ever. So I got these Sony over the ear guys that are normally like 400, 500 bucks.

Is it like the crazy WFM 4000, like just too many numbers and letters? Yeah, it might be, actually. It's not like the craziest pair, but it's like kind of a crazy pair. Do they have noise canceling and everything? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think those are kind of the gold standard. Dude, I got them for like $150. That's pretty good.

So are they wired or wireless? Wireless. Because I needed like a travel headphone. I use little AirPod Maxes, you know, but it's just not the same. I'll do those for cardio or something, but an airplane or like a real trip, I kind of want the signal to fuck you or like don't talk to me headphones, you know? Yeah. So, Mike, you know the podcasting game.

Obviously, we're recording this a little bit before the episode goes live, and we just wanted to thank you for you because we recorded this so much in advance for coming on our show before you were a guest on the Let's Get Stupid podcast. Yeah, you guys know how the priorities in my PR team work. There's only room for a couple of Midwesterners in my heart, and my heart goes out to Northeastern Western Dakotas. And those guys don't get it. We just have such a backlog of episodes we're trying to release that they don't realize we recorded this like in July.

And it just happens to come out after their episode. It was really cool for you guys to have me on when I was 16 and I first touched a barbell too. That was a good time. That was dope. We're early spotters of talent over here. Yeah, you really believed in me. You guys really trampolined my career, bolted me forward. Yeah.

You can thank us for that later. Yeah, I will. Only Milwaukee's finest. Is that what you guys drink too? Is that what everyone drinks out there? You gotta try pretty hard to find that around here. Yeah. What was hooked? Were they talking about drinking Miller Lite and that sort of thing?

Yeah, that stuff's all common. I don't know, though, anymore. Everyone's like, it's all the same everywhere, isn't it? I don't know. I feel like it's every bar in the country has the same beers. Everything is, you have Bud Light, Miller Light, Coors Light,

and then a selection of like some local IPAs. And yeah, there's a few local bars on tap. And then there's all of like the big independent breweries, like Sierra Nevada and like Surly stuff and whatever. I mean, it feels like it's the same everywhere. I think so too,

but they were so weird about it. They're like, we're in LA. Can't find a fucking Miller. Like, I mean, you're crazy going crazy dude like you're los angeles the biggest city on the planet i think you can find a miller light i think they're playing up the uh they're playing up the midwest vibe a little bit i think dude i didn't know uh sierra nevada was so big though that's that's out by us that's like our localish beer yeah i mean that's i think you'd have a hard time going to a bar that carries more than like 10 beers around here that doesn't have that

that's pretty cool and we're in the middle of nowhere so yeah true like my family's from ohio so like i know the midwestern thing but yeah i didn't they're like you know raising their nose up at bud light or something drinking miller Lite like they're fucking Don Perignon. I'm like, what's going on over there? You did hit on a pretty hot button issue around here. Ohio as the Midwest. Oh, yeah. It's been a long debated discussion on specifically whether Ohio is Midwest or not.

What's your take? I think it depends on where you're coming from so yeah my dad was born in cleveland and i called it the east coast which before your listeners get on my ass i realize a coast means there's water there and they're not in the atlantic ocean like i realize it's not but it's like just as close to the at Ocean as I am to the Pacific Ocean. You're going to call me, I'm on the West Coast. I think a pretty large portion of our listeners tend to think that Ohio is not Midwest lately. That seems to be the way the debate's moving. There's certainly camps of both. There's a lot of Ohioans in our group that want to claim it as Midwest, that insist it is.

But our perspective as being somewhere in the middle of the country, when we go out there, that is pretty close to the East coast. Like what you're saying, what you're saying checks out to me, just like in making that trip, I'm like, damn, we just spent like 25 hours to get here. We only got to go like two more and then we're, we're all the way East. What the hell are you guys is the question. Are you the north mid? Mid-north?

Yeah, we're the very western edge of Midwest, really honestly. Okay. We are on the razor's edge of Midwest. Yeah, because you could actually make almost the same argument for Ohio that if you go just a couple hours west, some people would even kind of say you're in the mountain territory. Right, yeah. The western half of South Dakota is much more like,

uh, Wyoming, Montana mountains, almost Colorado where the Eastern half is much more Minnesota, Iowa, uh, Illinois, that vibe. But then, but then you got like, yeah, you got Idaho and like Wyoming and stuff and they don't call that the Midwest. Right. I think Midwest, I think like Kansas. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we're right on that edge. We do live in a weird – but if you were here, the vibe is 100% Midwest. Whatever people think is Midwest, that's completely what our town is. Like all the stereotypes. Yes. Just look them up and then drive down the street, and you'll see them all. and we're also not far from canada either it's kind of why yeah and they got all that i do yeah you guys you guys yeah you got the midwest talk for sure uh i've only been to toronto really in terms of canada and that's like a whole another animal there's not a lot of a's and

stuff going on you know there's like it felt like new New York. There's so many people from everywhere. Yeah, that's different too. We're more like Big Jessica, the human forklift. She's basically straight north of us, right? I think she's west a little ways too, yeah. Where the hell is she? In the middle of nowhere? Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Yeah, which is the northern edge of nowhere, honestly. You go much more north of her and it's like... Polar bears? Yeah, Santa Claus? That sounds fake. Saskatchewan? Saskatoon? Saskatchewan. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Yeah, that's fake. That's not a place. I know Calgary's up there. Shout out my boy Bryce. But I don't know about Saskatoon. Yeah, they seem to say it's real. We can't verify it. I haven't been there, so I just have to take their word for it.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know, your listeners are blessed to have a geography lesson like this. They thought they were going to talk about some stupid barbells and lifting weights or something actually annoying. But now they know everything about North America. The people that clicked on this episode that saw your naming and don't normally listen to us, that's the

rude awakening they're in for. The people that normally listen to our show, they're like, oh no, this is right on track. This is exactly what we tuned in for. I've just been reviewing movies as content because lifting so stupid you know like what am i like the barbell's been the same for 100 years i don't have anything else to talk about it's round you load weights on it you move

it in different directions and it builds the muscle that's true but then people pop up out of the woodwork like constantly especially with the expansion of platforms that like are just reinventing the same stuff that we've spent uh you know the better part of over a decade maybe they're either producing or consuming or seeing and it's like people are doing it all over again and like getting wildly a ton of traction off of it like it just seems that i guess there there's just enough new people coming in that are consuming it all the time. They're like, well, I don't I've I need to know, like, what my cues I should look for in a front squat, even though like that video existed 30 times. A hundred of those videos existed in 2012. Right, right.

Yeah. That's why I'm a bad content creator. I'm a bad at my job. I'm not going to do that again. I'm over it. Like, you're right, though. Like TikTok, isn't TikTok the most downloaded app in human history? I think so. That's wild. At least in our, our version of the simulation. Like that's crazy. So yeah, there's a, I mean, like, I don't know if you guys know JPG.

He's like one of the big dogs on, on TikTok. he's like a bodybuilding coach he's a buddy of mine and he puts out really really good information but yeah like the scale to things if you had 50 000 instagram followers and you're like a power lifter you know five years ago you're like pseudo fucking tom cruise famous right but this dude's got like six million followers like what that was kim kardashian swear swear the biggest instagram in 2013 was like kim kardashian was six mil yeah but and we talk about this too though but what's so weird is how every platform the numbers are kind of just imaginary money like like the numbers aren't it isn't a static like line of six million means this across all things. 6 million on YouTube versus 6 million on Instagram versus 6 million on TikTok versus 6 million for podcasts all mean way different things. YouTube subscribers, for example.

Mike, do you know how many YouTube subscribers you have? Like 160? That's a lot. In terms of YouTube to me. That means more. That means way more. And I have a bias. I have like more of a 2012, 2013,

2014, 2015, like skewed perception of things. But like that YouTube number means way more to me than if I see a Tik TOK account that has that same number of subscribers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's because we're old, boys. We've gotten old. We're the old guys now. I still... I mean, if you're making a comparison, I think there's numbers to prove this too, that like a YouTube... Like an exact comparison of YouTube to TikTok followers, a YouTube audience is always more valuable than TikTok.

For sure. And podcasts being the top. My 1,000 VIPs on OnlyFans really do help pay the bills. tiktok for sure and podcasts being the top and like my my thousand yeah my a thousand vips on only fans really do help me the bills it is all relative for sure yeah it's definitely different i agree but the kids don't know that i don't know if the kids know that because they're watching them for three seconds you know all veiny with perfect lighting on tiktok and then they don't they don't you don't even know their names and i'm on tiktok a lot now i'm scrolling around and i'll recognize faces but i don't know names we're unbiased as well obviously and you like you know who christian guzman is like you know who matt ogus is like you know like the

og youtube cats because you're watching them for half an hour three times a week and i have gotten so comfortable and familiar with like the power lifting strongman instagram scene that it's like an account doesn't just show up to me that like that they're involved in that scene on instagram and i blindside that i don't like i'm like oh they got 80 000 followers i've never seen them before i'm like no i you know i've that doesn't that doesn't happen but that's like 100 of what tiktok like my experience on tiktok is i'm like yeah and there's a lot of them right there's like i didn't know the analytics i should have looked it up but like yeah the amount of accounts with a hundred thousand followers is insane there's probably millions how do you like i mean you've been you use all these uh yeah i pretend well you do a

good job obviously and you've have for years but like so tiktok being the newest one and obviously it kind of changed the game a little bit like how do you see it now do you like it like have you grown to like it better than some alternatives or uh what do you think um i think i'm a pretty bad consumer and that's like you guys like we our brain you get like content brain you always like look at things differently because you make it oh it's an issue at some point in time that i'm like i can't enjoy this because i'm just constantly thinking of how like we could use this it's like reverse engineering yeah how can i do the uh yeah yeah 100 and honestly like youtube early days i only really watched for like marketing purposes or they were my friends i never like consumed consumed it um i guess instagram

i would be the biggest consumer of you know that uh just because you caught around scrolling and like i like clothes and shoes and cars and sports so like my instagram the people i follow is a mix of that plus work stuff you know fitnessy where i don't really listen to podcasts either until i travel you know like it's hard not to throw on a three hour rogan on a road trip it just makes time fly by um but in my day-to-day i don't really like purposely go and consume stuff besides twitch twitch is like the first platform that um i like felt more of like a consumer or part of the community than a creator on and i've been watching that for i don't know eight years or something

i'm a nerd life boys yeah and we we're i i know i know you've uh streamed on twitch and it's for me it's um i've never i've i don't exactly even know what the twitch experience feels like or what that interface really looks like because i've never even used it before but i did like you'll be able to tell me right away if this is true i I'd read a few articles on it a while ago. Like there was some concern about Twitch getting, um, I dunno, phased out. That's not the exact right phrase, but that like YouTube was, YouTube was going to do things that would like take it over, push it out, whatever, that it wouldn't be viable going forward. Is that at all?

What's happening? I don't know if it's happening yet but it will happen i think it's almost guaranteed like twitch the best thing it has is culture um i assume your audience is probably around your guys's age that just kind of works on the internet so that some of them might know justin tv i don't know if you guys ever heard of that um but that was like the first like live streaming platform uh kind of around the early youtube days like 2010 um and that turned into twitch it was and then they followed it was like he was like one of the owners or whatever and they literally just followed him around like his life basically

yeah like 24 7 like i think he'd like go into the bathroom and like maybe even sometimes like the camera would follow him or hang out outside the bathroom, that sort of thing. No, there was no rules. There was some weird shit happening on that website. Then there was like, what was a roulette type website? Oh, like chat roulette? Yeah, you just had dicks everywhere. Oh, that was like great when I was going to college.

Everyone's like, oh yeah, chat roulette. Yeah, Justin TV was kind of like that, except it's just you choose the channel it's not as random like you click on the little thumbnail and you know who's wiener you're about to look at like it's kind of like that um and then amazon bought it so long story short i think it's going to get phased out because although the culture is so awesome and it has like that's like probably the thing i really like about anything that's why i like sports that's why i like clothes or whatever like the culture attached that's why i like sports That's why I like clothes or whatever like the culture attached. That's where I like powerlifting

Like I don't like deadlifts like that shit hurts like who cares? I like the culture I like the culture about it, you know, the culture aspect of powerlifting school in the community And twitch has that that's the one chance they have to survive but how they pay creators is literally like 50% less than YouTube It's owned by Amazon now, so they just don't care that much. I don't think, uh, I think you guys would like it when you dig in. Like you obviously know, uh, Ben Rice, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like he's the fitness mogul on Twitch. He was one of the early adopters and, um, you guys know game day barbell, like Joe Stanek and all those caps are kind of on Twitch and they don't stream as much cause they're kind of my

position just open the gym. But, um, there's some really like genuine good fitness folks on that website too. So like how much of your Twitch, cause when I think Twitch, I always just think people are just like watching video game streaming. Like how much of your Twitch consumption is video games versus other stuff? Uh, mostly video games for sure. Or they have, they have like an IRL section. They call it something else now. So like podcasts or guys kind of, you know, just being funny or whatever. I'll watch some of that. But a lot of mine's like actual gaming. I was kind of a, yeah, fake nerd.

But there is a lifting community like Ben Rice, for example, you know, I see it on his Instagram that he, you know, he's got all this, like his, I don't know, supporters or whatever, that are all listed on the screen behind him and all this stuff. And like, we have some of our hardcore supporters are like super into Twitch and super into him. And like they've done events now like around powerlifting. Yeah.

Like Ben Rice where I don't know the real details because I'm a little out of the loop. But it seems like they have a pretty hardcore group of, you know, relative numbers. Maybe they're smaller than other platforms. But like in the lifting scene, it's like super tight knit and um like you said the culture i think is a big deal yeah no it's amazing because then on top of that i've gone into chats watching gaming and uh i'll like talk or whatever and the the streamers like pro gamers are power lifters so they know like my content or bart kwan or omar like they know the homies because these guys like to lift they just happen to be like pro gamers so there's a lot of

overlap happening like more than you think which is really really cool right yeah it is cool and then uh you know this is relevant we're both using it now discord like uh discord for massonomics we were just talking about it it's our it one year since we launched our Discord this last week. Oh, dope. And we now, just one year into it, couldn't imagine Mastinomics with not having our Discord community because it plays such an important role of everything we do anymore. It's just funny that that didn't exist to us a year ago. Yeah, and that's all gaming-based.

Yeah. That started in the gaming industry in the Bay Area. which is funny yeah i mean exist to us a year ago yeah and that's all like gaming based yeah like uh you know like that started in the gaming industry you know in the bay area um and i'm actually still surprised how many people i don't really care if people use it or not but i am surprised how many people don't even know about it still yeah like discord is so easy to use it's so fun it's literally just a group chat it's just like the easy to use group chat, just like you said. Yeah. Yeah, it's so fun. And obviously the audio and stuff is made for video games,

and so it's super instant in the video even. It's way better than Zoom and FaceTime in my opinion. Yeah. And you guys use – I'm a member of – your guys is a Discord group actually, a Third Street Barbell Good Company group. Yeah. I didn't even think about it for business for a long time. Me and the boys had it to play

video games in, so we just needed somewhere to chat, so I created one. And then I'm like, oh, dude. And then obviously Twitch, like big Twitch streamers use it for business. I was like, oh, I'm an idiot. What am I doing? Yeah. I just want to shift gears. I don't want to miss talking about this. World's Strongest Man was in Sacramento the last couple years, and you got the opportunity to be out there and

spectate live in person. How was the in-person experience? Like, was it cool? Did it, like as a spectator, was it not that great? Like what, what, what are your comments on being there in person at it? So we went, um, both years, I mean, Jim McGee. And so one year, um, it was in this area called old sacramento which is super close to our gym and it literally feels you guys ever seen uh westworld yeah yeah dude it feels like westworld and so um you know like lewis and clark history history blah blah blah someone like moved from the east coast and ended up in sacramento and so like that's where they built it and i think it's like legitimately like the 49er type buildings.

Like they didn't like they've revamped them a little bit, but it's like a history, a historic area. And that's where they did Strongman. But it was COVID. So, you know, you you're only allowed to be in the area for like an hour. You go in, you're standing around for half an hour and you watch them lift stones real quick. You cheer and then you then you kind of like get kicked out i was like all right well this is pretty lame and i understand covid and we don't have to talk about covid because every other podcast on the planet does acting like they're a fucking doctor but as a spectator i was like all right this is very lackluster like

there's no booths like i expected girls and bikinis throwing rain monster at me i don't know a game of thrones theme or something something going on you know there's so much like money in that sport now and like such a big following um fast forward to this year and it was much more like i thought there's no game of thrones and there's no rain being thrown at me but they had a little expo uh they moved it in front of the capital which is a pretty cool view i actually think uh it might premiere this week on cbs it's very soon it is very soon so i think the views will be cool because we have this cool little bridge on one end and it goes down like a mile long street straight into the capital of california and they basically close down that whole street for the events um so i think the views were cool

the events are kind of hard um and i hate to make enemies you know because i don't know who puts this thing on and i know it's hard to run big uh events i guess not make enemies but i hate to be the critic you know when i'm not putting in the work right but um there's no like bleachers or anything and so like you're about eight rows deep of humans yeah and like yeah brian shaw's tall so i can kind of see his traps through the crowd i'm not that tall but i'm not that short i'm like 5 10 and so you're just kind of stuck like wiggling trying to see shit where they could have built like you know just like regular bleachers probably would have done it and you can see so much and you can still fit enough people in there

like little things like that i think could really be improved upon um it's definitely worth going to i think but i think some of the issues with all these things and uh i would even probably say the same for like usapl nats and stuff which i went to my first one this year um is that it's understandable they move every year right because you want to give like you don't want to give an advantage to a certain like state of lifters right if you're if it's's always in California, the time change for the, you know, the East coast guys, blah, blah, blah. I get it. But the better, you know,

the venue you're going to use or the city you're going to use, the better you can set up for the event. Yeah. You know, your resources there. Yeah. Maximize everything. Right.

Yeah. I feel like nothing at either places was maximized. That's the best word. It was never maximized. And it's already sucks to watch these sports, right, unless, like, the actual lift's happening. Like, it's a five seconds. Five seconds is really fun to watch.

So, like, how do we turn this up a little bit? And maybe they're not focused on that because maybe it is CBS running it, in which case I'll talk all the shit in the world. I don't care about big business, you know. And so maybe they don't care because they just care about their post-production. But I just see so much potential in these things and moving every single year. Like, I think they're coming back to Sacramento, but they're doing like Charleston in between or something.

Okay. Yeah, that's right. I think you're right. Yes. Yeah. And it's worth going to. You know, if you're a fan of strength, it's cool to go to.

I know you guys do the Arnold. You guys ever been to the Olympia? We never have been to the Olympia. We were actually talking about, we threw around the idea of coming to Sacramento this last year to go to World's Strongest Man. Actually, Tanner, we were in the gym and Tanner goes, do you think we should go? And I'm like, well, when is it? And we looked and it was in three days. I think next time it comes to Sacramento,

which I think that that's the case that they had one more year on the contract there or something like that. We will, we're going to try to make that happen. Because between you guys being there and Alan being around in Sacramento is just, it's, it's,

I think a cool city. And I'm glad that they have people like to hate on California, but it also is an awesome place to visit. I love California.ifornia exactly and it's just so different too like obviously i'm biased but like people like california i'm like dude i'm not in hollywood i'm not right i'm not even in san francisco san francisco's two hours away and it's like such a different city than where we're at yeah i i think it is worth going to and i I think it was free. So that's cool. You know, you'd have to pay, you know,

there's a lot of politicians walking around cause it was from the capital, like all that, like it had cool vibes for sure. Yeah, it was cool. Oh, that's cool. Um,

so you and Jim McD have been at it together for a really long time. Uh, you know, now with good company, third street barbell and everything and going back, I don't know, probably at least 10 years ago. What do you think?

Uh, what do you, I mean, it's a long time to work with anyone that closely on anything. What do you think is the secret sauce or whatever that has allowed you to, to. She just asked me like a marriage question. Yeah. So what is your advice for relationships? Right, right, right. Yeah. I don't Uh, have you ever thought about it before? Uh, a little bit. I think I'm an easygoing dude and I think I communicate really well not to like, you know, to my own horn. Um, but like that's, it is really is joking aside. It is kind of like a marriage, like business wise, it can be legally even right with taxes and shit and shit, let alone like how much you have to communicate and stuff.

And I'm still learning. You know, I've run a bunch of businesses over the last 12 years with a bunch of different people. And I would never say it gets easier, but you do get better at things. I just actually flew in, literally got off the jet like an hour ago, and I was hanging out with Bar Quan and Gio, the the owners of barbara gate and we always just end up talking stuff along this uh lines bart does say hi by the way too he says you guys were a lot of fun when he was on he was i was gonna mention it when he got when we had a break he is a really fun uh podcast guest also he was cool yeah yeah he's great um and we always like talk about this stuff and it really is like a lot of the things we'll talk about like relationships friendship otherwise, and business all are like cliche sayings.

But they're kind of true, like communication, like expressing your role, like expressing who you are, like what you need, what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you're, you know, partners good at. Like we can literally hop on a Dr. Phil podcast right now. It's the same shit. Like it is true. So, you know, every human is different how they communicate. Um, some people are easily being super blunt and being so super straight up other people, like even me, like, I don't love conflict. You know, I like to have fun. I like to joke. I, I don't like being all serious all the time, but there's kind of a time and place for all of it. Um, and I think some of the truth is, is is like and everyone probably already knows this but like jim and i are very different uh

so that like helps in some ways too where like our strengths are in different areas our our what we like is in different areas um podcasting and like content's kind of easy as long as you're like buddies i feel like like our podcasting career is really easy business has been uh a little harder, not for like any particular reason other than like, there's like more money on the line. So your, your stress, your stress level is already high. You're like experimenting costs money. Like when it comes to making content, it's like, it'll just cost you time for the most part. Yeah. When it comes to business stuff, like you're kind of guessing always,

and you hope you don't guess wrong more, more than you're guessing. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. The risk is just higher. And then it's kind of like being on like a legitimate sports team or like playing like kickball, like you can play kickball with any friends, have beer and have fun. But if you're going to go play like, you know, varsity college or like professional stuff, you could be with your best friend, but you guys are probably going to get into it at some point, you know,

you're going to yell at me. He said a bad pick or bad block or whatever. Something's going to happen. So I'd say it's a little bit like that. I wish I had some secret sauce. I really don't. I don't consider myself a good businessman. I am a businessman just by what I fell into in life. I wish I had better advice. would you say that you're a businessman or a business man i i'm definitely the latter jv business man yeah i feel like that like that was like the first influencer like line that was bars for influencers like none of these little fucks on tiktok are actually business men They're just like walking billboards. Yes. True. Dude, Jay-Z bars from Dakota? Never thought that happened.

We're pretty hip to the jive. Dude, that's good. I thought you just listened to George Strait all day and sit in Milwaukee's finest. Tanner could tell you that. I'm pretty lost in that. I didn't get that part of my childhood. Didn't have that part. But Tanner's pretty well versed in that part of my childhood. I didn't have that part. But Tanner's was pretty well versed in that

part of it, yes. They get BET up there, huh? You have to get that extra big satellite. Yeah. That's all true. Growing up, we had to have that. We had those enormous satellites. See, I didn't have that.

But you lived in a little more. I did live in the sticks. That was a thing. Even here, that's so weird i remember like driving by apartments and every like tiny patio is no one's hanging on their patio it's just full of satellites like how many channels you fucking need you know like what's what's going on you you want to know a sweet thing about those satellites like the actual legit big ones that were like you know like eight foot around or 10 foot or whatever. We get a lot of snow here where we're at and like sledding is a big thing, but we're in the prairie. There's no hills here. So sledding all around where I grew up, sledding was usually being pulled on a sled, like behind an ATV or behind a snowmobile or sometimes just straight up behind

a pickup. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds fun. yeah yeah that sounds fun yeah no it's it's way fun i mean get super dangerous when you get like uh enough kids that are old enough that are like driving things and going way faster than you should but those satellites you would uh tip that you know once they were not not in use anymore set them down like the round part down and you could sit like six people inside of there yeah it was a giant saucer sled like pull it behind a pickup it was like the best use of uh one of the satellites you could ever think of dude it's probably so cold up there though i don't even think i leave my house it's it is talk about the temperatures well i just before before we before we get off the topic here i just gotta get we get the west coast input on this because i'm not sure if we've got

um if someone what do you call it when um let's say you're driving in a car with someone and whether there's a few ways you could do it. You could hit the e-brake and spin around. Dude, I have to unfollow you guys because I see your clips. I see your clips. I feel too prepared. I don't like being so prepared. Okay.

Okay. So you know where this is going. So what do you call it? Yeah. Yeah. I think like, I feel too prepared. I don't like being so prepared. Okay. Okay. So you know where this is going. So what do you call it? Yeah. I think, I think like, oh, okay. This is good. Actually. I was going to say like, you would say pulling a donut, but what we would do is we might

even talk about it last time I was on here. There's something about a Bay area and obviously we're not the Bay area exactly, but we're an hour away. Rap music that literally just stuck in Northern California and no one else in the planet knows it. And there was lingo and slang that did the same, like ghost riding the whip and all that. That's what I'm talking about. With it and all that, right? So even the word hella, the word hella, I, I swear when I was growing up in high school,'d go visit somewhere even like

los angeles or ohio or something and people would look at me so weird when i said that and now everyone says it well i was talking to the game today boys and they're like yeah they're all like from like jersey and dc and stuff and they're like yeah we say hella oh i learned it from my friend from california i said you probably learned it from your friends from northern california like it was so specific but go threaten the whip or we call them side shows side shows is kind of when they would you like scrapers i don't i don't know how your guys editing is but a school you gotta show a side show and a scraper when you're when you throw this on tiktok like look up marshall lynch like there's a lot of celebrities from the area that kind of brought the culture to mainstream.

But we're talking like 1983 Cadillac DeVilles with 300,000 miles, but you're throwing $2,000 rims on them. You're lowering them. You're they used to have these things called whistle tips and they would, they would put a whistle basically in your exhaust pipe. So when you're revving, yeah, only in the morning,

this will be up making breakfast. You gotta be up making breakfast or something. Yeah. So those who, that's Oakland. So then you get like eight buddies with these scrapers. Your doors are open. You're just pulling the donuts,

listening to back Drake. And that's, that's that's my childhood i like that yeah i do like that but we don't have an exact term yeah but a side show is when a bunch of people would be pulling donuts the side show so i guess the long story of it is though is that like people were or weren't whipping shitties though is that no yeah if you're whipping a shitty out here i'm looking at you weird yeah yeah i'm throwing you some sherman who knows what you're doing okay all right uh that was

the main thing we wanted to get you on here this week to talk about so i think that's important yeah thank god we covered that um would you reckon so we have a gym here massonomics gym we you know it's not like our main business. We, it kind of operates on the side. It's a little bit of a club and you know, the way it works out, like I won't get into the details here, but like it just kind of works out and like, it's not super labor intensive. It's also not super profitable. And it like the way it's formatted, it never really would be. It just is what it is. It's a thing we can use. We enjoy, it's a place for us to lift and all that stuff. But you have a real business that's a gym and like a lot of people

will talk about uh you know how they want to own a gym someday or how they think it would be dope to own it own a gym or run a gym or like you know like how that's like almost that's some people's dream scenario almost i think it's what they're working towards. Right, right. The most direct question is, if someone told you that, would you recommend they do it or not? First off, I think you guys' situation with your gym is more powerlifting than anything else. That's what Westside Barber was.

That's what Super Training was. That's so normal. It's more of a men's club that pays dues. Yeah, I think that's the vibe. Yeah, that's the vibe. Yeah, that's right. Because especially where you guys are, even where I am, there's not 5,000 strict powerlifters. It's not that crazy.

Me and Bart were talking about that. There's not that many powerlifters. Even when we're talking about TikTok, like the bodybuilders have 6 million followers. The powerlifters still have 100K. You know, it's such a different thing. So the main question, I see it both ways, right? Because like everyone asks this question and I've asked everyone this question and people's very first take is always like gyms are terrible businesses. They're so hard to make money, right? Like you've probably heard people say like are terrible businesses. They're so hard to make money.

Right? Like you've probably heard people say that. Right. Don't open a gym if you want to make money. The general consensus for the most part. Yeah. But that's literally any industry you go to. So like I invest.

People say that about restaurants all the time too. So that's literally what I'm about to say. Apparel company. Yeah. Like pie ass. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my friends, you guys guys know big dan he's an old super

training guy like he lives with me and he owns his own company him and i invest in some companies here and there you guys just got an exclusive i haven't told anyone but we're investing in a restaurant together and like same thing i go to all my restaurant friends they all say like know the business yeah they're like oh restaurants are terrible don't do that i'm like well what do you what business do i open what business What business is great? Like I'm not, I'm not going to invent Bitcoin. Like if you don't invent Bitcoin, is there no business that's profitable? Like what are we talking about? Real estate, real estate. That's what YouTube videos tell me. If everyone just owns 10 houses, then no one's poor anymore. I think

that's how it works. Right. It's just such trash. So I think, and then counter to that, you know, to play a little bit of dad or mentor here, I do think that you wanting to open a gym or the dream of owning a gym isn't what you think it is. And no job is. We can scale that all the way down to college. I have a whole rant on college where you get an engineering degree because you like problem solving, but you don't know what a day-to-day job is being an engineer no absolutely it's and i don't either because i'm a college dropout but

the point is you don't know if you like that job you like what you think that job is you know and owning a gym is very much like that you you're not like or like you like lifting weights doesn't mean you like coaching people that's the classic thing i'm like yeah you like lifting like we all like you know like of course we like lifting but yeah so much of it that isn't you lifting even if you do like coaching it's probably a good chance you're not good at it either though is the other thing yeah exactly so that's an even better statement like yeah you want to open a gym and yeah maybe you're a great coach or a great lifter but like are you good businessman? Cause the truth is it's just another business. All businesses are run very similar, right? You need some marketing, you need some logistics, you need some data

analysis, you need a little bit of creativity and all those pillars of what you need change based on what the industry is, right? If you're running an architecture company, maybe you need less like pure creativity. If you're running a, uh, uh, an apparel company, maybe you need more creativity or whatever. I just made that off the top of the dome, but you know what I mean creativity. If you're running an apparel company, maybe you need more creativity or whatever. I just made that off the top of the dome, but you know what I mean. You're running construction or whatever. So I think you can make a shit ton of money in fitness. And I think you and I and all your listeners could probably think of a friend or an influencer or a coach that we know that makes a shit ton of money off their gym and other products. Um, you can make money a lot of freaking ways in a lot of places. Um, is it easy? No. So if you want to open a gym, don't open it as a hobby. Don't open it as a place you need to live

unless you want it to be the men's club. You have to look at it as a business and how you're going to make money and how you want to make money. But, you know, and don't just like open it wherever, however, whatever. Right. Like you have to do some research. But I don't suggest for it or against it ever. So I think it's possible, you know, if you're in the right city, you do your analytics, you check out your demographic, what style of gym you want to open to your business plan, etc. You can definitely make money. at freaking alpha land yeah where's that at uh houston texas yeah houston's kind of a hot spot too yeah i mean texas in general i suppose but yeah yeah yeah i think texas is huge like obviously powerlifting like there's high school powerlifting which is crazy um and then you get a bunch of big strong guys the ronnie coleman's you know there's a ton of history there right uh

and then there's there's just a shit ton of people yeah there's an insane amount of people like it makes sense who um uh we had him on the podcast he opened up his gym indy city barbell uh big steve uh what's yeah steve you know and it's funny We talked to him about that, and, you know, he had this idea of running a gym, and he wasn't from Indy or anything like that, but he, like, had done kind of his market research, and he's like, the kind of gym I want to open, there really isn't anything like that in Indianapolis, and it's a market size of this many people.

And that's why he went there. Yeah, and he went there because it just made sense, like, from what he saw. And I'm like, yeah, that's, I mean, we even told him at the time, I'm like, that's kind of the part that sometimes people are missing on. This is like, yeah. Does the market support this? Right.

Right. Right. 100%. I love Steve, by the way, big fan. He's old barb of a gay guy. So I used to see him all the time. Um, but yeah, like, yeah, he, he, he opened a, a like one-on-one or small group training facility when he lived in la

so he obviously had like some smaller dip your toe in type uh career with running a facility running a gym coaching people and then he yeah like you guys just said you do some market research you treat it like a legitimate business right you do your work and then you you you open one like it's not yeah it's not as easy as like just collect equipment and chuck it somewhere and you know build it and they will come like it's it's not that easy i wish it was oh especially nowadays almost nothing is build it and they will come like i think maybe 20 years ago that might have been the case but i there's so many things that are not that way anymore yeah you have to be yeah you have to be in like the exact place for that to actually work you know but yeah you know i i would never

tell anyone to not follow their dreams i'm a little bit risky with my money and like a little bit risky in general i think in in that aspect of my life but like i don't have kids i don't have a wife you know like if i fuck up i fucked up so so i. I have confidence and I have confidence in myself. I just run at things. I'd find a balance there too. You need to be able to take a risk and dive in head first. You can't really tiptoe around these things.

You don't have to be as crazy as me either. I think that's good advice. That all makes sense and probably jives with a lot of how we see it from our experience, too. It's cool. That's any business. Yeah. The other reference, too, is like it's okay lifting beer hobby, too.

I think that's what people don't understand. I've used this reference a lot or analogy where, like, we all drive cars, and we should know the basics. Like, inflate your tires, check check your oil maybe change your oil maybe battery you know like depending on who you are yeah yeah maybe add a supercharger and get 700 horses out of this stupid thing check your blinker when it's low yeah so there should be like certain levels and some people like it more or whatever and get to it but just because we all drive a car we don't need to be mechanics right like like the Yeah. So there should be like certain levels and some people like it more or whatever. Right. But just because we all drive a car, we don't need to be mechanics. Right.

Like the main thing everyone asks me is like how to program. That sounds like something that big mechanics would not want the world to know, though. Are you on the- Yeah, I'm actually their lobbyist. How do you guys know that? I'm a big lobby for mechanic in Pennzoil. But yeah, like everyone wants to be a coach. Everyone wants to learn how to program. Like, well, it's okay just to lift weights. It's okay to hire a coach and to like know about volume and intensity, but you don't have to know the intricacies.

Like, so you don't have to open a gym just because you like to deadlift. That's true too. That is a good point. that's true too like that's that's that is a good point you know it's like um so we probably had every opportunity that we could have offered like coaching services at some point in time but yeah but like it's also like well we're so familiar with so many people that are so much better at that and like what what do we have to add like what could we ever add to an equation like that like i'm like i'd like i just agree with that wholeheartedly that not every yeah a coach is a really good example of that where it's like you know some people are well equipped for it and i'm not telling people not to try it

if it's what they want to pursue and stuff like that but yeah sometimes it is kind of like knowing your lane too and well yeah just understanding the natural progression isn't lift get better at lifting and now you have to become a coach like that right it's the exception not the norm yeah or content creator

like some of you fuckers are boring some of you guys have no skill some just I'm not gonna follow you right just maybe some of you

should just be consumers of the yeah 100% yeah buckle down Sally and chill out and there again like I never want to tell someone not to do it because, like, anyone can do anything and try anything.

But, like, all that, like, running a gym or, like, getting TikTok famous. Like, getting TikTok famous is a lot of freaking work. It all involves a pretty high level of self-awareness, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, it really does. And that's kind of, like, going back to the Jim McGee question. Like, self-awareness too. Yeah. Yeah. No, it really does. And that's kind of like going back to the Jim McGee question, like self-awareness is going to lead you everywhere.

Like, what am I good at? What gaps do I need to fill on my team? What gaps do I need my business partner to fill? Or like, yeah, what am I good at on, on TikTok? Am I good at talking? Am I good at shaking my ass? Am I good at teaching? Like what kind of content can you even put out? And yeah, that's not true. I don't want't want to you know stop anyone from doing things either but the truth is like not everyone's cut out for this shit right right having thousands of people listen to you say dumb things all the time you know like like it's hard work boys yeah and then you find out there's people that like keep track of everything you say and hold it against you call you call you out every time you say something different that you said six years ago. Yeah. Fuck you for changing

your opinions. Yeah. I have a little change of gears here. Basketball. Your all-time starting five. Man, that's hard. So favorite to watch

or am I just trying to win? You're assembling the best team ever. All right. We're going Magic Johnson. Running the point. Yep, Michael Jordan. Got the two. LeBron James.

I'm going with Hakeem the Dream and Shaquille O'Neal and Shaquille O'Neal. You want the hot takes here? I think that Shaquille O'Neal should be in the best player of all time conversation. I'm a pretty big basketball fan myself. I always have been. Shaq is, I grew up just a big Shaq fan. He's just a big Shaq fan uh yeah he's he's my favorite player of all time by far hands down and so I agree with that but I know that that's not necessarily

the popular opinion what people what people hate it what people say and do agree with is in his peak he was arguably the most dominant player yeah but I don't know why they they have to say that yeah no one will say like in his in his time he's the best time. They have to say that. No one will say, in his time, he's the best player. They won't ever say that. They always just say dominant. What the fuck does that mean? Why can't you just say best? Say best, dude. He was the best player. At everyone's

absolute fucking peak, he was the best. In 2001, there wasn't any... If you were starting a basketball team, anyone would have picked Shaquille O'Neal. He was the best. In 2001, there wasn't any, like, if you were starting a basketball team, anyone would have picked Shaquille and he was the number one pick to start a basketball team. If it's 1999 to 2003 or, you know, like whatever. The conversation forever was, is Kobe better than Jordan?

Well, in those years, Kobe was behind Shaq. That's. He was number two option. That would be my, did you see the, uh, the dude just, there's a new Shaq documentary. No, I haven't. Yeah. I will be watching it. Dude. Okay.

So I think it's technically more about the Orlando magic, the expansion team. Oh, I have heard about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, dude. It's really good. And it just makes you love Shaq even more. Like when he was like 19, 20, 20 21 he was such a freak of nature and he's funny yeah when you're fucking

funny when you watch the orlando clips like he'll go coast to coast and you'll be like no oh my god that's like i don't know people were made that way like that is absolutely freakish and like so many people now gotta have like shack their mind. It's kind of just this big, kind of heavy guy. And it's like, right. No, he was like,

there's a free mean killing machine. Then like, yeah, I think you guys, uh, uh, probably a friend of the show. I don't want to speak for you, but Johnny Candido,

Johnny's been on Johnny. Yeah. I believe Johnny one time put in his story. He did world's strongest man. Yeah. Yeah. And if you hop on some PDs or more PDs or whatever, however you want, if he would World's Strongest Man. Yeah, and if you hop on some PEDs or more PEDs or whatever. If he would have done that

when he was 23 years old or whatever. I'm pretty sure people voted. Yeah. Oh, can you still hear us? Yeah, yeah, can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, we're good now. People voted that he would win World's Strongest Man.

That just tells... We're losing you, Mike, just in case you can still hear us. Is that something on my end? I don't know. Mike, you there? I've got a really good chat conversation going on here. I think my headphones broke.

Okay. Are you there now? I think my headphones broke. Okay. Are you there now? Yeah, I'm wondering if maybe his headphones, maybe it was those refurb headphones. The deal was too good to be true.

You don't get $400 headphones for $100. I think he's maybe switching the source. Okay. Yeah. I don't want to miss out on that chat conversation. We're echoing. Should I unplug this? Yeah, unplug this. Yeah, maybe unplug yours.

Just put it on speaker until you hear him. Oh, okay. Yeah. What? Wait, maybe you should just call him again. Should I? Because your phone is echoing everything we say i don't know or is you do you still have it on i'll just try recalling them back yeah we can't that's too good of a cliffhanger yeah no to be continued

we'll just fix all this in post not you hear me yeah we can hear you now can you hear us oh oh there we go there we go boys can you hear. Yes. I don't know what's going on. I think it's my headphone. So what happened? The weird story. I let my roommate borrow my car and he pulled it into the garage. And I think my phone attached to the car. Oh, I connect.

We kind of figured that headphone deal is too good. Yeah. The refurb headphones came back to get you. Dude, fucking pieces of shit. I think they might die, too, because now I'm on my phone. Let me see if these ones work. There was really good chat I'm on my phone. Let me see if these ones work. There was really good chat conversation going on too.

We were hitting the climax there. Yeah. We still got you really echoey again. All right. Let me try to hide. I was in a hallway. How are we now? That's better. Medium? now uh that's better yeah that's better

yeah yeah that's better medium yeah no yeah that's good the uh yeah i think they're followers sorry listeners for my car jack in our our conversation here um i think a bunch of people a large amount of people started over though so johnny johnny's got a pole johnny's a very smart kid dude yeah and i say kid lovingly some people get insulted by that but i mean that in the most loving way um he uh he puts out like just very good questions you know and he's a deep thought guy uh and he said if shack took peds or more peds would he be um world's strongest man if he trained it for a little while and he might even gave like a specification of training or something because johnny's way more well thought out than me and the question is fuck yeah there's no conversation about it where like a bunch of his followers

voted no that he that he couldn't do it and and to those people i say you've never played elite like freaks athletes yeah like i've played a ton of ex-pro nba players d1 players i've played with freak of freaks and they literally make me feel like an uncoordinated deer like like there's freak there and no no offense to half thor half thor played like the worst professional basketball league on the planet right and and he whooped ass as a strong man yeah and not he's not a great athlete and and this and that but this putting up one of the freakiest fucking kids ever stepped foot on our simulation shaquille o'neal he's gonna whoop ass he'd probably be a power leader he could do anything he wanted like there's just no question in my mind same with the football conversation

right people like it's the nfl players yes oh dude like do you know chubbs the the cleveland brown the dude just squatted 675 and nike freeze no belt and ask the grass you know what i mean like and he doesn't he probably squats once a month he doesn't know what the fuck's going on if he and he weighs 200 pounds if he wanted to be a power lifter it's fucking over for us well the freakiest of freaks are playing in the NBA and the NFL and it's where the money's at. It's where the fame's at. It's like what draws them in. And that's just, it's short

sighted or it's not understanding that fact to think that someone like Shaq wouldn't excel or think that Aaron Donald wouldn't be an insane powerlifter if he wanted to be a power, wanted to do powerlifting, you know? Yeah.

Like everyone we know that dominates in our world, we're like D two, D three, whatever, you know, like, but again, no offense to these guys.

Like Wes Kitts went freaking a little, you guys know where he's a cow, cow strength, weight lifter. He played deep football. Right. You're telling me that there's no linebacker in the NFL. That's more athletic than that. That if he waited for eight years and weightlifting is slightly different, right? Because it is highly technical, but you give it five years, like they're going somewhere, dude. There's just no doubt about it. to bodybuilding and the question was like so if all nfl players switch to bodybuilding if

bodybuilding was where was all the money was at and all the this talent pool that's in the nfl now yeah they all did bodybuilding instead how many of those guys would be on the olympia stage you know probably and like his comment was like he's like i think that there's 16 people that make the Olympia. I think 10 to 12 of them would be... Of the current stage would be gone. Yeah, and would be these NFL players if they chose to... I don't think that's the reason at all. Imagine Cam Newton.

He's a fucking black seabum, dude. He'd look insane. There's freaks out there, like yeah people don't randy moss randy moss was so skinny if he imagine if he doesn't have to run no more you just eat steak and freaking does peck deck all day he's gonna kill it even a lot of the no-name guys though once you get close to him you're like yeah holy crap six four two fifty yeah and like eight percent body fat like how does that happen? Almost every position. Like a running back has a chance to be like a 2-12 guy.

You don't even get to play and you look like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's what people just don't understand, dude. If you're a pro and you're on the bench, you're a fucking freak. You know what I mean? You're going into any gym, you're benching 400. Yeah, there's such levels to this game.

It's actually Shaq LeBron like LeBron could be world's longest man I have zero doubts like there's just so many animals like that that actually reminds me of a long time ago we wrote an article about uh if if these uh NFL players power lifted and I believe Tanner you wrote something in there about how um you know we assume that like Eli manning could probably bench 315 and the number of people that got so butthurt that no way eli manning bunch bench and i'm like dude this guy's like six five two twenty and he's been in a weight room he's been around football in a weight room his entire life like to assume that he couldn't bench 275 to 315 i'm like come on this

guy like i know you you look at the NFL field and you see one of the least athletic guys out there. I look at a guy that's six, four, uh, you know, whatever we said, two 40 and probably like 10 times more athletic than every one of us that thinks we're a little athletic, you know, why are they're just so mad that they never can bench 315 or it was so hard from them. You know what I mean? Like literally, like that's literally it.

I just tried to look up his combine. I don't think he did it. He probably didn't have to. That's how he was like getting drafted number one or whatever. Like I'm not, I don't need to do that. Like I'm not, he probably couldn't at every single day of his career,

but I don't think it's crazy. He probably could have. Right. Or, or yeah, even if they had, yeah. Like if he had yeah like if

he had a bad strength coach and he didn't bench or whatever not saying that you have to bench to be good right you guys know what i mean but if he benched like a power lifter for a year he's benching 315 i'll put my life savings on it yeah there's no way almost any quarterback almost any you know like you're telling me steve young that dude's a fucking savage that dude's benching 405 especially especially if that's what he wants to do you know like they don't want to do that they don't care so yeah yeah yeah i i just you know and i'm a bit of a hater but that just tells me that people haven't been around freaks yeah you go to any commercial gym there's some bumfuck idiot benching 315 you know what i mean even the gyms here like yeah yeah we used to go to the commercial gym, there'd be just

a random person that would pop in that looks like they've never touched a weight and they'd load up 405 on the bar and bench it. How does that happen? Yeah, and how does the arguably top three quarterbacks of all time, he's not going to do it? He's got no athletic phone in him? That's racist.

It's because he's white. I don't think there's really a bench press stigma yeah maybe not he's just like it's the accent it's the accent it's kind of all of it Brett Favre wearing Wranglers doesn't do it much for the athleticness yeah Mike we've got this little game we like to play you've actually played it before

it's called Overrated Underrated we've played it on your podcast before even so um you're well versed in overrated underrated um i absolutely love it dude and of course we had to come with the fire again this time so i got i got one more hat we gotta throw in there oh yeah have you guys seen miles garrett yeah he's a freak he's an absolute freak yeah yeah oh That dude can't powerlift? He's going world record powerlift and then he's winning IFBB Olympia. He's doing both. I would agree.

In the same year maybe even. I don't think it would take that long for him to squat 800-900 pounds and deadlift 800-900 pounds. I don't think it would take him that long if today he decided that's what he wanted to do. Dude, he's so built to be a conventional puller. His arms are just long as and deadlift 8,900 pounds. I don't think it would take him that long if today he decided that's what he wanted to do. Dude, he's so built to be a conventional puller.

His arms are just long as fuck with giant traps. Yeah, it would be crazy. My bad to interrupt. Back to overrated, underrated. No, Miles Garrett is in particular. That's where it's like the freak amongst freaks too. Yeah, overrated, underrated. So you know how to play.

You remember it. Yep. Love it. Okay, so let's kick it off here um i better consult my list to make sure i pick the right ones in the right order okay overrated or underrated apex legends oh that's good dude i love that i love that i actually think it's underrated and this kind of goes into this whole athlete, not playing athlete conversation where like apex legends for my non gamers out there. Um,

it's a very difficult game. So people talk shit on it because they'll hop in and they absolutely suck. But like, it's literally a very difficult game. It's one of the most difficult first person shooters, um, in, in the modern era. And that's the game I've been playing. It's good. It's a difficult game. It's one of the most difficult first-person shooters in the modern era.

And that's the game I've been playing. It's good. It's a good game. So I would still say, although it's popular, it's still underrated. So if you're playing a game, though, it's Apex Legends right now. Yeah, dude, this is sad.

And maybe it's part of getting old or what, but that's where I get any ounce of competitiveness I have out is there. The GM of my gym, and he's my other roommate, Kyle, uh, he basically runs third street. He's a, he's a really good gamer too.

And so him and I, we play like rank, like we play like competitive and we, we just get after it. It has fun. What else do you play besides if you're not playing Apex, what would you play? Um,

it kind of depends. Like I like, like the call of duties and the halos and all of that. Um, that's kind of like my vein. And i do have a switch um so when i travel i'll play a little you know mario kart or pokemon or something something more mindless on an airplane were you ever a fortnight guy at all in the very beginning for sure in the very beginning for sure um but i never like fell in love with it yeah but but it's a battle royale and so like yeah apex is a battle royale and so like yeah apex is

a battle royale too that style of game i love you know like it's like a hunger games for those gamers not out there you basically drop into a map and slowly over time this toxic gas will close on you and if you sit in the gas you die so it's making the map smaller and smaller there's typically around 100 people and then it's last person standing and it just feels so competitive dude it feels like i'm playing a sport i know it sounds nerdy but i love it i think it's i mean i i don't play video games but it sounds very like i get it and i understand and like it sounds super fun to me and like um i fear i would probably take get too deep into it like that i can't get yeah like when too honestly. Who do we talk to?

Oh, Joey Satsumari, right? Yeah, yeah. He's like, if I had an ex, he goes, I had to get rid of my Xbox because I just couldn't. He goes, I wouldn't have a business if my Xbox was in the same house as me. Joey's got a Halo tattoo, I think.

Yeah, yeah, he does. That's right. Yeah, dude, I was hanging out with Joey at Untamed a couple years ago. We played a couple times, but the first time I saw that, I was like, oh, you game or something, bro? He told me similar stories. He's like, not anymore, man.

We had to cause a closet, like a Grim one. I was like, dude, I get it. I get it. I think he was ranked pretty high. Yeah, he was actually ranked. Gears of War. Yeah, he was ranked high. Oh, yeah, Gears of War.

Gears of War, yeah. The other one is Joe Stanek. Joe Stanek was like low-key Halo Beast, doing tourneys and stuff. All right, good stuff. Overrated or underrated Oreos? You know the answer, dude. That's the most overrated snack on the planet. I don't want cocoa dust.

I don't want fake fucking plastic cream and so like even even within so one to call it a cookie is an insult you can't call it a cookie like it's a fucking chocolate snack yeah yeah it's just trash a cookie is a little weird to me but i just told my wife last night i said you know you know, I can't believe it, but not that long ago, I didn't think Oreos were that great. I think Oreos are pretty damn good. I literally told her that last night. So like it's all context. I'm very fat and fat is a mentality. I'm not shaming anybody or the body fat percentage. That's like a mentality. If there's a rack, a sleeve of Oreos in front of me, it's going to be gone. I'm going to eat it. There's no chance, but you know, I do try to eat well. I try to eat, you know, veggies and protein.

And so if I'm going to indulge and get a cookie, I'm not going to the store and be like, wow, I must really get an Oreo. Like I'm going to go get like a, you know, a mom and pop nice baked chocolate chip cookie and eat that thing. Um i shame you for eating them no they're yeah they're good but to call them like a delicious snack or even to be in your top five snacks you know like even gas station snacks it's not even ranked there it's like b2 see i agree i'm not an oreo guy yeah but um it i do where i like the cookies and cream flavoring of thing. I think it's like an ice cream. One of my favorite.

Right. McFlurry. Or like in a blizzard. Like, oh, that's so damn good. Yeah. And those are probably underrated. Like an Oreo, you know, blizzard blizzards in general are probably underrated. That's one of the best ice cream deals.

If you live in the Midwest, though, you can almost you almost can't say well dairy queen's tricky because it's like you go to minnesota and it's literally in every town with a population of at least 100 people yeah do you have dairy really all over the place we had a lot we had a lot when i was growing up and now we maybe have one the best substance and i swear it has like i've never done drugs but i swear it's got some opium or some shit in it is uh is a dairy queen ice cream cake you ever had one of them oh yeah yeah that's classic with like the fudge oreo bottom deal and then for some reason the frosting on them is like a different generation of ice cream because it's not frosting dude i literally am addicted to

that like that's the best thing that i've ever put in my mouth the last one we had i made the mess i kept like lying to myself like oh let's do a tiny sliver because that's what i'll do and i just like i think i had like 20 20 tiny slivers yeah it's like yeah i could have just had two huge pieces like half the cake dude it's so good yeah what do you guys have carvel is that the other deal oh no no we don't i think think Carvel, maybe, maybe that's more, I don't even know. Cause we don't really have them either, but I think that's kind of a Dairy Queen deal. Okay. Do you mean like Culver's? No, no, no. There's a, I think it's a Carvel. Oh, okay.

Culver's I've heard of too, but we definitely don't have that Carvel. Culver's is very Midwest and they have custard. It's not ice cream. It's custard at Culver's and it's, this is Carvel. Culver's is very Midwest and they have custard. It's not ice cream, it's custard at Culver's. This is Carvel. Carvel American Franchise Ice Cream. A layer of distinctive crunchy. It's from Atlanta. I've heard of that.

We don't have Culver's either. I don't think we have Culver's, but I've heard of it. Have you ever heard of Taco John's? No. Okay. That sounds pretty Midwest, though. Yeah, it's a cult classic on the Mathnomics podcast. We've probably said the word Taco John's upwards of thousands of times.

Yeah, we've ate it live on air. And it is Tex-Mex, very Midwestern Tex-Mex fast food. And it's like a must. Now that you know it it if you're ever i think that the farthest west they go is probably colorado okay maybe yeah yeah all right if you ever get the opportunity to go to one now that you know you have to like if we all right yeah i'm in you and we insist you may be disappointed but we insist you at least experience it so all right i gotta i gotta overrated, underrated for you, and this is going to decide the future of our friendships

because this is very important to me and my household. You're making the rules. Overrated? I don't even know if it's... I think it's where you guys are. I think it's worldwide or nationwide. So if it's not, then we'll just x-nay this and it's not funny anymore. But overrated, underrated

Arby's. Oh oh yeah actually i actually just had arby's this week for the first time i love it dude i absolutely love it um i like i think arby's is underrated because i like the big roast beef sandwich i think just the sizing is just more beef and like if we're talking about lifting weights and that sort of thing like it's not that bad as far as if you're going out and getting a fast food sandwich if you look at the macro breakdown on that roast beef sandwich there is a ton of protein in that thing like granted there's probably a shitload of sodium like yeah but like overall stan efforting told me that's good yeah there we go yes it's vertical you need that so red meat told me that's good. There we go. Yes, it's vertical. Red meat and sodium.

Arby's is the first vertical on the fast food. Also, I'm not a French fry fan much, but Arby's curly fries, I would take over a French fry most nine times out of ten. Dude, it's good. I think it's so underrated. People talk so much shit on it.

I like Arby's. I think it's pretty universally loved around here. I wouldn't say it's still underrated. People talk so much shit on it. I like Arby's. I think it's pretty universally loved around here. I wouldn't say it's still underrated, though. They have a good chicken. They have a chicken cordon bleu sandwich. I've never had chicken from Arby's. Yeah, chicken cordon bleu sandwich at Arby's. Also, they always had good turnovers.

I never had those either. They had a French dip for a while. I was a fan of that one. I even think their barbecue sauce is kind of vinegary. Their sauce is good. I think it's highly underrated. Yeah, I like Arby's. I don't eat that much fast food of those kind of places.

And if I do, Arby's is fairly high on my list. That's nice. Love to hear it. Overrated or underrated? John Stockton. Oh, that's good. Probably underrated. Um, and that's only in the sense that, um, as we kind of mentioned before, I'm a big culture guy. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a big, like, no,

no who came before you to know where to go kind of thing, you know? Um, and John Stockton's insanely good, you know, like he, he, he, for, for the package he has, and everyone says like, oh, watch who's guarding him in 1988. You know, it's the janitor and like all these dumb jokes. Yeah, it's mechanics and janitors. Yeah. I'm like, well, it wasn't.

Yeah. And at that time, he was playing the best of the best, and he was shitting on them. You know? Yeah. And if he grew up in this era, he'd probably have a different evolution to his game as kids do now growing up in this era. He'd probably be launching threes from 40 feet

and making every one of them, like if that's what he was doing. No, 100%. Right, right. Yeah, his scoring obviously wasn't what he's known for. He's an assist guy, but his field goal percentage, his free throw percentage were through the roof. He was highly efficient.

He was fun to watch. They won a ton of games. He had a little flash to him now and again uh i highly underrated highly underrated especially because i had basketball for some reason which kind of breaks my heart the new generation like on twitter and stuff's like really talking shit they're doing all that janitor mechanic stuff i'm like that's so ignorant you know yeah like uh there's different eras and sometimes it's hard to compare stuff like that that's how all sports are is it is different right yeah um yeah you can't you you can compare how great they are compared to number two of their time and that's pretty michael jordan or shack being so dominant in that era they're amazing you know like is lebron

james that far ahead of kevin durant or kobe you know that's where the conversation i would go if you're talking about greatest of all time. No, that makes sense. And I think Stockton is all-time assist leader and, like, at a number that, like, nobody can ever touch. Like, it's basically impossible for anyone to ever get close to it. I think he had, like, a 30-assist game in the NBA, which is absurd.

Yeah, and I think he's top five free-throw percentage. I might be wrong, but, like, yeah, he? Yeah. And I think he's top five free throw percentage. I might be wrong, but, yeah, he's insane. And there was, gosh, it was like Mark Jackson or Jalen Rose. I don't know. On one of these documentaries, it might have been about the Dream Team or something like that where John Stockton was fairly new into the league and these guys were talking about him and, like, everyone's kind of making fun of him like

you know like I got him big whoop you know like it's going to be no big deal it's like the little white guy you know like the thing is like he probably sucks and he like torches them for the game and they get done like like just like instant respect

and like they it took like one game for them to completely change their opinion of this dude you know it's just yeah cool there's a really good yeah there's a really good documentary it might be the same when you're talking about and they're talking about um the team going over there and that's obviously when jordan was like near his peak and he's driving the ferrari around barcelona and all this right and then and then they show b-roll footage of john stockton with driving like a minivan or something like that and he's like driving his wife around and no one's asking for a picture. It has a clue.

They're like, Oh, are you here to watch the Olympics? He's like, yeah, you're with my family. Yes. So John,

you said underrated. Okay. Yeah. I would say underrated. Okay. So do you keep a scoreboard or this? Yeah. Does this score get involved?

A lot of times. That's what we need. What we used to always do is put it each week on our Instagram story and some people are clamoring. They're pissed we haven't been doing that. Maybe we'll bring it back with yours on the Instagram story for the first time. Yeah, I think it's good. Let's do it.

Okay, and then last one and last one is always the most important one. It's usually worth all the marbles. So overrated or underrated new balance shoes. Dude, so like in this very moment um they're highly underrated uh overall like through their history i might even say underrated through history too actually like they've always been comfy they just haven't always been in style per se um so like my dad rocked it and they're they're kind of the typical dad shoe right but

like where fashion is right now it is kind of a cool crossover of like comfort functionality um and still looking cool so like my dailies we i talk about shoes like cars you know my dailies are like some beat some beat new balances um they're super comfy i go for walks often i've been i've been dieting and stuff and so like crazy comfy and then and then now like an actual sneaker uh streetwear game i i even think 2021 may i don't think it's come out for 2022 but i think they won sneaker of the year i think they won sneaker brand of the year kind of i don't know who gave it to them but someone you know kind of in the streetwear fashion game so um they're killing it one of my favorite shoes right now is a new balance five 50. It's kind of an old eighties,

nineties, uh, basketball silhouette. Um, so I would say, I would say underrated. I love them. Yeah. So I, I completely agree. And I, I also do believe I, they were, they were really on the cup in 2021. I think even in 2022, you know, they're still riding that wave even more. They got more collaborations coming out. So I think that they will, it'll be interesting to see if they ever do get like to that level of like Jordans where it's like, oh, everyone wants it. It almost starts to feel played out, but it looks like you've been, I was looking, I think we might have the exact same pair of shoes.

Do you have a nine, nine, three, the made in America? All gray. Is that, I think I like the nine, nine th3s but i think i have a 992 oh the 992 okay the 992 is a little better i think i think that's yeah slightly more loved model too but uh i think they just do like more collaborations but yeah they're so similar those are my two go-to's for sure the 550 if you want some more street weary um a little bit more flat silhouette like i even deadlifted them and then the 992s or 993s, ladies and gentlemen, those are the sneakers that you need to rock.

And I think they're slightly underrated in the way that they do have that made in America component to them because no one else is really doing that part of it. No, I don't think so. And I literally think they are. I think they're a Boston company, right? I literally think they're made in America. It's Northeast somewhere.

Yeah, I think it is Boston. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a fan. The only thing I'm not is their actual new basketball sneakers. I think they signed Kawhi. Kawhi is the perfect person for them to sign, though, isn't he? He kind of is, right? Kind of vanilla.

Yeah, the shoes just look like it's trying a little too hard rather than coming up with their own deal. On that subject, though, though, are there any performance basketball shoes nowadays that people actually get excited to wear about wear from like a fashion point very few actually uh the new lebrons that are coming out they've only been like previewed and peaked i think those are going to hit those are going to be really really popular um they're really clean really basic but you're right yeah Yeah. Like even guys in the league, they're still just wearing old Kobe's. Right. Yeah. Like it's, and I could

have, maybe I was watching a video or something on this, but up until like 2005, seven, maybe even 10, like basketball shoes were made out of things like leather and suede and things that were more fashionable. And now it's all this crazy, like fly knit, like mesh stuff that, you know, performance wise it performs great. Sure. But stylistically, it just looks like you're wearing some super futuristic, like cartoon animated, like crazy drawn by a kid. So it does kind of, that's not even functional. Yeah. It's like that, that part of like the idea of basketball shoes ever being fashionable, kind of almost seems like a foreign, foreign idea now, because no one's going out and buying like the new, the new Durant's to go rock, you know,

to go out for the night. Yeah. I think, I think the new LeBrons might sneak in there. They're the low top and they're just really basic and clean, but you're right. Some of the Kyrie's are okay. I haven't really bought them either. The only pair I bought were some James Harden's, but that was to actually play in. There's no pair that I wear with jeans or anything. You're kind of right.

Obviously, I'm nostalgic too, so it's cool that Jordan's are back in. What's your favorite basketball sneaker of all time? The play-in? Play-in? No, just aesthetic. Yeah, like stylized.

That's tough, man. I love the 90s, and obviously I'm nostalgic to it, but there's so many crazy foam posits, and there's some Jason Kidd ones. It looks like they got some fly freaking bug eyes on the side of them. But if I had to choose just one all-time, all-time, Jason kid ones. It looks like they got some fly freaking bug eyes on the side of them. Um, but if I had to choose like just one all time, all time,

maybe, maybe the Jordan three, you know, I mean the best sneaker of all time, like it's kind of hands down as the Jordan one, like it's the most iconic sneaker in the history of humans putting things on their feet. Um,

and I am a fan. I have a bunch of them, but personally maybe the Jordan three, which is weird with this TikTok crowd. Like they only wear like Jordan ones and like Nike blazers. Like that's all they know. Blazers are like, dude, I used to rock blazers probably 10 years ago. And now I love blazers.

I thought they were great shoes. And now I feel like I can't wear them because it's like a TikTok shoe. I know. And even the Jordan ones, like I've had them for so long and it's like, that's all they have. Like I'm a bit of a hipster too. So that doesn't help the case, but I do think the Jordan three that does make a strong case for one of the

best, just straight up sneakers because I, I mean, that shoe could come out today and people would never, ever, ever even think it's a basketball shoe. Like it's so clean and you know, it's got the high top and it's just,

yeah, that shoe just works good. And the elephant print. That's so clean. It's got the high top. That shoe just works good. And the elephant print. That's pretty iconic. There's a lot to it. I actually literally just bought a pair. My favorite, and you can judge me. I think I know what you're going to say, Tanner. I've got three.

I've got three favorites. I know for sure two of them. I think I know two of them. Can I guess quickly? You're going to say Shacknosis. shaknosis is probably my second third on the list shaknosis are sick i have some shaknosis and then you're gonna do the the like the pippin air up tempos more up tempo yeah the the one that's like those are amazing i love those and i like the dude there's a military green one coming out there's like a military green coming next month i think i'm gonna get it, dude. They're sick.

But yeah, the basic Pippins are amazing. Yes. And then maybe my, probably my favorite out of the three is the Kamikaze, the Sean Kemp Kamikazes with Reebok. Yeah, those are amazing too. I was lucky, like, yeah, I have those too. Because I was with Reebok for so long. Right.

Yeah, I had the low top Kamikazes. I had some. Right. Yeah, I have the low-top Kamikazes. I have some Strachnosis. I like the original pumps. The original pumps are sick. I think – There's so many good shoes. You know what's got a little bit of a comeback but not enough love still? I think it's the original Iversons, the Questions.

Those things hold up really good. Love them. I love some of the Adidas Kobes are coming back. They're not allowed to call them Kobes because because his wife reached out with nike but um like those ones not the crazy i think the crazy eights were like the first one the the one that looks like it's uh just a giant block of foam that one's been making a bit of a comeback lately yeah no i think it's coming back in like a white and they're calling it like a snormtrooper uh color it looks sick the the crazy eights are

my favorite shoe to play in ever i played in those for like four years yeah loved them where's phila at in the because wasn't grant hill uh uh feel like i like when he was in detroit like they're like those white kind of rectangle and they got like the logo on the bottom of the heel like are like women's fashion phila made a little comeback oh yeah like girls were wearing those the big stompers whatever those were yeah yeah i think that was hideous that that didn't really deserve a comeback the the actual grant hill ones aren't too bad like am i gonna wear them i don't know but they definitely have a place somewhere yeah um you talk about guys you want to watch when you're when they're young you watch some early grant hill

yeah uh highlights and he's fucking LeBron James. He's so insane. People don't even know his name. Tommy just pulled him up to refresh me. I forgot what the Grant Hill ones looked like. They're not the best, but they're in the conversation for sure. I'd wear them. I'd probably wear them with some sweats or something.

The Grant Hill one actually looks like the Jordan. I think it's like the nines and then they just slapped slapped a fila logo on the heel they look pretty similar yeah they probably did they probably did yeah it was around the same time yeah yeah yeah yeah they're not that bad they're not that great either just something's going on with all the uh souls of filas you know like they look so like sharp it looks like hard plastic rather than like i don't know it's like why is it shiny like it look so like sharp it looks like hard plastic rather than like i don't know it's like why is it shiny and it's shiny like yeah way yeah i didn't know you guys are a little

like sneaker heads dude there's another documentary i don't know why i've been on a documentary kick but they just did a uh it might be untold it might be netflix's it's basically like netflix's 30 for 30 kind of series yeah yeah um i think that's what the shack one is we just did a podcast on one on manchay teo and being catfish yeah but they have people talk about that yeah dude really good documentary insane story um and it's like right when all of us were like high school college too so like i remember it but i don't remember it um there's an and one street ball documentary that is really good the and one tai ball documentary. That is really good. The, the and one Thai cheese, uh, if listeners want to pull that sneaker up, that, that holds

a little special place on my heart too. Yeah. Then when I think and one, I start thinking of, was it the Daz too at that time? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Weber. Cause wasn't there Sprewells?

Yeah. Yeah. With the rims. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, weber had some like mirror looking ones and then spree well yeah dude the 90s were wild i guess that's probably like 2002 but dude you're stepping on the heel and it's blowing air and spin a fake rim yeah i had a bunch of that out of the movie dude that's wild i am kind of glad shoes aren't like that. That was too much for me.

They're kind of gimmicky. Okay, and one time, I do remember these now. I totally forgot about that one. Yeah, those are cool. Those are cool, but the culture and one was so good. Yeah, it was a good little documentary, too, for any basketball fans out there, kind of sneaker. They kind of talk about the business side, too, which is cool.

Good news, Mike. You passed overrated, underrated. I won. You passed, you win. I want to be number one on the leaderboard. What is this? You have a lot of strong people on this show, so I'm never going to out dot some or wilk some or nothing, but

I think I can whoop like Russ Wall's ass and all these John Hack, John Hack who, and underratedrated overrated. I think I got them there. Yeah, that's and that's like more important to I think at the end of the day. I think so. I think so for sure. Yeah, they're going to buy my

jersey for that underrated champ. Yes. No, really good Mike and we appreciate you getting on. We knew this was going to be fun. You know, obviously we we have different guests all the time, and some we have to prepare more for than others. And, like, honestly, we just don't have to prepare that much for you because we know we're going to have a fun conversation,

and we like those are the easy, fun ones. I appreciate it, man. I can't wait for you guys to finally head to the Wild Wild West, and we'll do a little podcast in person one day. We'll do it for sure i mean i think that is just a matter of time we're just going to continue to exist long enough and then we'll be there yeah i know we'll be around it's just as long as you guys are around then we'll know all right all right i got the dates then i'm putting the dates out there you got your calendars yep february 4th and 5th we're going to throw a powerlifting extravaganza at our gym.

Wait, like in like five months? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Sacramento is probably nicer than South Dakota in February. So that's not a terrible idea. Are February's like,

yeah, it's like 50, 50, 55. We could be maybe a little overcast. Yeah. It could still be well into the negatives. Yeah. It's like hoodie weather. Like you'll Maybe a little overcast, but nothing crazy. Yeah, it could still be well into the negatives. Yeah, it's like hoodie weather.

You'll need a little hoodie, but you don't need a jacket or boots. Tanner doesn't believe in babysitting jackets. I do not do coats. I don't do coats even when it's sub-zero. No way. What do you do? Just a hoodie? Yeah, I just don't like babysitting the coat going around. I just run from my vehicle into the building

and it's just there's a my vehicle into the building and like uh it's just there's a lot of i don't like being tied to this coat everywhere i go i don't blame that or like gloves like gloves seem so inconvenient i used to have that same mentality and now when i go out gloves hat coat i might even put a sweatshirt on under my coat or maybe even a small coat under my big coat. That's where I'm at now. To be fair, in my older age, I do do it a little bit better. But there used to be a point in my college days and younger, we would go out to the bars and stuff like that. Well, bars are different.

We'd run home in 20 below in just a long-sleeved tee because it's like, well, we're not bringing a coat to this bar. Someone's stealing it. Yeah, like for real. Someone came down and passed out. They'd be dead in less than a half hour it's is it normal that you just hang it at the front of the bar and just like let the prey that no one is it's kind of different everywhere yeah you kind of got to know where you're going like in one of our hot spots here it usually ended up just being like a pile on the floor of coats and it's like you know last call end of the night

which means your coat's gonna get stolen or like stomped yeah i don't like that yeah i don't like that i'll probably go no coach too uh i don't know if you listen to the let's get stupid podcast but these boys said some some kind of um strip club and it sounds like it's i don't know my job well they talk i think you guys know it you guys know it so light light room or something what the fuck was it it's the lamp lighter you know we we keep pretty close tabs on tom and tom so we know what they're up to Light room or something? It's the lamp lighter. The double L. We keep pretty close tabs on Tom and Tom so we know what they're up to all the time. Don't go there. It's terrible. It's that

renowned in your guys' north. We just know it from them talking about it. Tom Finn just has a pretty storied history with it, and it comes up frequently. And no.

But, I mean, around this part of the country. We have our own lamplighter here, though. Strip clubs are few and far enough between that they all kind of have their own little history to them. Yeah, some lore. I like that. They do, they do, yeah. Yeah, we've got the silver dollar here in western North and south Dakota.

We used to have two for being such a small community we had two strip clubs yeah and actually you just know you just had to know every stripper right that had to be actually awkward no not really but kind of like the lamplighter i the other one i it was before my time but i think it also had a dirt floor didn't it uh the pirates cold yes um the pirates cove is the name of the strip club yeah like a full pirate like the entire name of the strip club? Yeah. With a full pirate... The entire side of the building looked like an old pirate ship. And they're just dancing on the bow of the fucking boat. That's what it was like.

Captain Jack Sparrow. It was super grungy and not anything good. No, it was... It wasn't a place you want to take your family. It wasn't a family-friendly strip club. The buffet wasn't... The buffet want to take your family. It wasn't a family-friendly strip club. The buffet wasn't caught up to me.

Yeah, the seafood there was terrible. Yeah. What kind of boat is this? So where does everyone check Silent Mike out? Third Street Barbell. Good company. And what should people know as far as drops or apparel? merch, all that stuff? Yeah.

Third Street Barbell, Northern California, February 4th and 5th. We're going to try to run. I don't want to speak too soon in case I can't whip my shit up, you know, and I suck. But we're collabing with the Game Day Boys. We're going to throw a big old two-day powerlifting meet and hopefully like a mini expo content fun extravaganza with it. and hopefully like a mini expo content fun extravaganza with it um and that's why you guys are now cordially invited to come podcast get a little booth going and come party um so that's february 4th and 5th um third street barbo if you're in northern california we got day passes if you want to come smash some weights hang out i'm silent mike where you want to find me 50

effects podcast uh we throw out two episodes a week. I'm talking a lot of bullshit, a little bit of fitness, a little bit of fun. And then that's about it. Yeah. 3sb.co. That's where all my clothes are. If you guys are into any kind of gym,

wear a little bit of comfy clothes, trying to, you know, athleisure game. But that's it. That's where we're jamming, dude. We just busted out your beanies earlier on this podcast.

As a matter of fact, is it already cold? Is it already cold out there? No, it's still in the 90s lately. It's going to get there, though. These beanies will come in handy. Dude, it's 110 out here right now. Oof.

Yeah, it's a little toasty. No, that's cool. Yeah, good plug for 50% Facts. I'm personally a big fan. I don't hardly miss a single one. One of my favorite podcasts still. So check it out. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you, man. Hopefully hopefully we'll get you guys uh yeah we got a little studio

in the gym so if you guys can sneak out in february we'll just record do you guys drink i don't really drink but we have a bunch of like whiskey in there you guys like to drink a little bit we talk about drinking more than we drink at this point in time but we still do like to have fun we got families and yeah stuff so we've got to tone it. Get me on a podcast. Where all the worries just drift away. We'll do a little whiskey. Jim knows way more about it than me.

Jim's a fan. We'll do a little nice whiskey, a little podcasting. Sounds like a time. Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me, man. We'll talk soon. All right. We'll see you. Later, Mike. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me, man. We'll talk soon. All right. Thanks, Mike. Later, boys. Damn, this did turn into a long podcast, didn't it?

It is. Two hours and 16 minutes, right? Oh, baby. That reminds me of... Speaking of California things, I wanted to hit you with something else from California. Well, I wanted to hit you with something from California.

Oh, you hit me then. Unless you're still going there. Either way. Oh, I see. I was holding up the show here. You go. This is The Strength Company. We've set out to build a better barbell plate on American soil. We ended up here at Wisconsin's legendary Wapaka foundry with over

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If you are in the market for any plates, buy the Strength Co. plates. Anything else would just be a disservice to you and your barbell. Hop out there, head over to the Strength Co. and buy any size plate you need. A whole bunch of them, sets of them. All right.

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i used to really like steve miller band actually you did take the money in the run did you do something from fly like an eagle yep i said time keeps on slipping space cowboy well that i mean that's some people call me more right oh yeah we did that that's the main one yeah keep on a rock in me babe oh oh yeah fly like okay damn it i think we did that. That's the main one, yeah. Keep on a-rockin' me, babe. Oh, yeah, Fly Like a... Okay, damn it. I think we did all of them. Abracadabra.

Yeah. I think we hit the major hits. I know there's something we're missing here. Gangster of Love? That's Joker, Smoker, Late Night Joker. That one just has a lot of lines in it that everyone remembers. I think we got them all. Yep.

Damn it, Steve Miller. Why didn't you have more? He had a lot of pretty good hits, though. Okay, we'll check the ultimate hits album here. Rockin' Me, The Stake, Threshold, Joker, Abracadabra. okay we'll check the ultimate hits album here um rocking me the steak threshold and the joker abracadabra being a little bit generous with the term ultimate hits are on something else i think space cowboy why am i getting the joker and the space cowboy mixed ruin what's space cowboy gangster love

well i don't want to get flagged because it can get flagged in like one second so okay i'm just gonna say we got them all yeah all right hopefully it doesn't get flagged just from us using all of the from us singing it so beautifully today's show is also 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 the time, he was working for Image Barbell, building gym equipment. Around 1976, a local machine shop started making Olympic bars

for them, calling it the Image Bar. In 1977, Image Barbell became Champion Barbell. It was then that Buddy started looking at the bars with an intent of changing them for the better. In 1979, Buddy bought his first lathe to begin addressing the known issues. In 1980, his passion, drive, and purpose now had a greater mission.

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thought it was very very funny i believe the crew made it and it was uh fellas if your girl weighs a hundred pounds yeah uh has a tight hole and it's made in america that ain't your girl that's a straight cool 45 pound plate yeah that was well done that's really good uh and speaking of the second half of our sack segment, are you ready for this? I'm ready. Oh, awesome. Hey, that tied in pretty good. Yeah, from the Strength Co.

We have the, I'm assuming these were the only two ever made. Yeah, it's a big grant and big D, July 17, 2022, wedding commemorative koozie. White koozie, interesting choice on the white koozie. Yeah, I don't know if I've really ever seen commemorative koozie. White koozie. Interesting choice on the white koozie. Yeah. I don't know if I've really ever seen a white koozie. Well, the problem is I think they probably get dirty. Lots of koozies start white.

You just don't realize it. Yeah. Also, the cat's on there. Yes. You missed the cat, Tanner. I don't really know what Grant's cat's name is. I don't either. It's just a cat.

It's just Grant's cat. It's just like this always around cat. I guess we'll never really know the answer to that. Just hanging around. Yeah. Just lingering. This was quite the episode, though, Tommy, wasn't it? It was.

We hit them hard. We hit them long. We hit them fast and hard and long. High and low. We hit them all the directions and in all the places. All of them. Well, did we cover everything on our list, though? We still actually didn't

get through a whole list can you believe that i guess we'll have to come back next week geez one of these weeks we'll get the whole list done but until then we'll keep trying yep um i saw i was somewhere the other day and on the way out i was i was at this uh business and when i was leaving there was also another guy leaving, and he said, oh, I got to go do whatever he does. And he goes, whatever I don't get done today, I guess I'll have to do it tomorrow. And classic.

Working hard or hardly working. I mean, it's the same thing. Yeah. All right. Yep. Now that I got that out of my system. Go to our website. Buy some of our gear.

We've got everything there. We've got the shirts. There's a couple tank tops around before the summer gets over. Grab a bench-heavy tank top or a raw power tank top. We've got the lift shorts three. One of our most iconic shorts ever made. I don't think there's any for sale on, what's that thing called? Poshmark.

Poshmark. I cannot remember that. I had to ask my wife like 17 times what it was like poshmark i will never i refuse to remember that i used to i feel like i used to see a lot of ads i don't know if it was on tv probably on tv for it drink spotter we've got the drink spotter if you're into beverage safety we'd love to help you out there and take it to the next level with the drink spotter will fit on five eighths or one inch inch uh three by three racks also fits decently on a two by three rack so get one do not delay um any of our other shorts and shirts it's all there and please become a supporting member we'd love to have you

sign up i know last week i think it was we said we needed three more members uh i think we might have gotten them but we were lucky there was just three more spots that opened up. It is things outside our control, but there's three more spots. Right, so we really could use three more people to man up or woman up, whatever it is. Someone's got to do it. Yeah, and take those three spots. It doesn't have to be all of you. It just has to be three of you.

And then we could quit asking. And we'll wait. We'll wait for volunteers. We'll sit here and wait with dead air until someone volunteers. We're going to make this awkward if we have to. And you do volunteer with your money, just to be clear here. Yes. We need your money.

No free rides. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Tommy, where do they find you at? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. I don't know if I was very convincing with the review ask, actually. I feel like that was kind of an afterthought. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Leave feel like that was kind of an afterthought. Please leave us a review. Please,

please. I didn't want that just to sound like a filler. Like I didn't want you to actually do it. I do want you to. Yeah. You're like, Oh God, I need this podcast to last two more seconds.

I'll say something about reviews. Yes. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but just make sure to follow massonomics at massonomics. See ya.