Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 357: Clay Cooper Discovery Deadlift

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Big Clay Cooper (@discoverydeadlift) joins us for this one to talk about his journey of deadlifting in some on America’s coolest places. We talk about what it’s like rucking 500+ pounds of weights everywhere he goes, get his plans for his first Jefferson Deadlift, and we finally find out if Karl Malone is overrated, Juggernaut AI: juggernautai.app and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% The Strength Co: https://store.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. I hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings on how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think.

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! Massanomics! side everything massonomics welcome everyone for episode 357 of the massonomics podcast the lifting podcast about near finn recorded live from western northeast south dakota and from eastern southeast south dakota my name is tanner and my name is to Tommy. We got a good one today, Tommy. We got, uh, you know, if I was to count the topics that we have to try and cover today, there's like

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13. I think we have 13 things to try to hit on today. I'm guessing we'll get to four. There's a good chance we will not get to 13 of them. Yeah. I bet we will not. I don't even, I'm just curious what some of these topics even are. I know. Isn't that the beauty of it? We both just dump very ambiguous things in there and trying to surprise the other guy with what we got here. What could it be? Before we talk about that, everything else that we have to talk about this episode,

I want to talk about our good friends over at Juggernaut AI. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Juggernaut AI. You can head over. It's juggernautai.app. That's where you check it out, get the info. That's where you get signed up. If you do go over there and get signed up, please use our discount code. There's no reason not to.

It'll save you money. That discount code is MASSANOMICS. It saves you 10 percent in the lifetime of your membership and just like the juggernaut ai instagram ad that i came across today um it's like what we there's a quote from you and i in that uh ad i don't know if you've seen it tommy but it's talking about how we said you know know, we have people at Mathsonomics Gym that are using basically just brand new to lifting and are using it and seeing great success. And we have people that have been lifting for like basically powerlifting for 10 to 15 years and are using it now and having great success. So kind of no matter what your skill and experience level is, it's training that just kind of works over time. So get signed up.

Discount code MASSANOMICS. Thank you, Juggernaut. And this episode is also 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 Go to www.barefoot.shoes to check out the best minimalist shoes available

and use code MASSANOMICS to save 10% off your next order. Tanner, did you say to make sure to use code MASSANOMICS for Juggernaut? I think I did. Oh, did you? Okay. I was probably just so excited to read the Barefoot ad that I missed that part of it.

But yeah, make sure to use code MASSANOMICS. Now accepted everywhere things are accepted. Absofruitly. My wife said I'm not allowed to say absofruitly anymore. Breaking the rules already. My wife. My wife. We're kind of wearing the rack shirts tonight, aren't we, Tommy?

Yeah, we are. We've got the rack shirts covered. You know, we both actually had different shirts on. And then before the podcast started, we both went and uh rack shirts tonight aren't we time yeah we got the rack shirts covered you know we both actually had different shirts on and then before the podcast started we both went and changed our shirts didn't we it's like oh i gotta get my podcasting shirt on i can't just wear my lounging around the house mess you know i think i feel like i've had this shirt on too many podcast episodes so i change it now then i put this one on which i think is a safer bet for now i do the same thing. I do think about which one I'm going to wear for the podcast. I'm like, does it seem like I'm wearing the lift shit tee

for every single podcast episode? I can say I have done it on multiple occasions where I go back and click through the last three episodes just to see what I wore to make sure I'm not wearing the same thing every single time. Because by chance, I have a lot of Mastodonics t-shirts, and it's just a weird random coincidence that it seems to be the same one as on Wednesday.

You know, it's when you're doing laundry. They get in the same cycle. That's the problem. Yep. That is the problem. We got a lot to cover. We talked about timing. Where do we even start?

I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. We're going to have to just skip the weather this week. Yeah. Hey, well, we're actually not going to completely skip it. Has it been really cold up there? It's really freaking cold. Okay.

It's awful. It's been pretty cold here, but I don't think it's been as bad as what it is. Yeah, it's been really cold. But Saturday, we get a little bit of a respite from it, though, I think. Isn't it supposed to get up to 30 or more? I have 39 last I saw. Damn! Heat wave.

Melt some of this ice-packed. Okay, we didn't skip the weather at all, did we? No. We just totally did the weather. We completely did the weather. Let's just touch it on a little bit, and then we just do the full weather thing. Just can't avoid it. It has been really, really cold, though, so it is worth talking about.

Yeah. Well, you say it's February. You got to start. February is when you start. Yeah, well, you say it's February. You got to start. February is when you start to almost feel like the end could be in sight. Yeah, last month of true winter can't hold anything back now. I know, I know. It's coming in a hurry.

Okay, I put a few things on this list that are little, so we're going to knock a few of these out. Okay. I had my first ever encounter with someone outside the gym that was looking at me and they go are you one of the massonomics guys and i go yeah i think i got a snapchat of the encounter did you really from your from your wife she because were you at like uh like gymnastics yes yes and she sent me a snap and it said uh, this guy stopped to talk to Tommy about the podcast. And I responded to her. I said, oh, sweet, I can't wait to hear about it on the podcast.

So Big Noah, it was, we were at a, it's actually pretty cool. This gymnastics gym on Friday nights they have, I think they call it Ninja Night or something. You just bring your kids, and it's just like open gym. You can crawl and go crazy and stuff, our boy loves it he thinks it's so much fun and so we're in there and i see this guy and he's kind of looking my way and then were you wearing a massonomic shirt um i think i had a sweatshirt on that was not massonomics so i didn't have i don't think i had anything on at the time even. So it wasn't obvious.

Yeah, no, I don't think it was obvious. I don't, I don't think it was. And he goes, Hey, are you one of the massonomics?

You know, he's kind of like hesitating to say it. Cause it'd be a weird thing to say if, if he wasn't. And I'm almost just like waiting for it. And I'm like, yeah, yeah,

that is me. He goes, Oh, awesome. I love your stuff. I got this shirt, this shirt, this sweatshirt. I'm like, Oh sweet. You're the He goes, oh, awesome. I love your stuff. I got this shirt, this shirt, this sweatshirt. I'm like, oh, sweet. You're the perfect customer. He goes, I listen to the podcast too. I said, yeah, that's awesome, man. I've lived down here

for a few weeks now. He goes, okay, I wasn't sure what you were doing in the area. Big Noah, shout out for more followers in the Sioux Falls area. Sioux Falls is kind of a hot spot. It is for people that, for Masonomics, it kind of is. So that was big Noah. That was the big, that was the Noah topic. That was the Noah topic. Waffle House follow-up from last week.

It sounds like there may be a correction. Well, so I found out, you know, we were debating, where is this, what's going to be the best, closest Waffle House for us on the way to, uh, you know, we were debating where is this, where's going to, what's going to be the best closest Waffle House for us on the way to the Arnold, you know? Yeah. Uh, you know, where we stay, how there's like eight hotels in that one little area that we're at. Yeah. Yeah. There is a Waffle House in that little area. It's really almost across the street from our hotel. So like, remember the one night we went,

uh, we walked across the street to go to a different bar when we were trying to fire a bar open. It was to be like in that direction, kind of, it might actually even be closer than that. Cause that was like two hotels over. I, I think this wall,

I think the Waffle House is actually almost directly in front of our hotel. Okay. So, uh, big, big Joey said he's staying at the Hilton. Is that where we stay?

I don't know. So there's like five hotels right there, five or six of them, maybe even more. It's all the ones that are the Columbus that, that usually say Columbus airport on them. So it'll say like Columbus airport, whatever Hilton Columbus airport, whatever. I mean, that's, they're all out there. So we're definitely going to be able to, we will have an excuse not to hit up a Waffle House, right? Yes, we have every chance to do it now. There's nothing to blame but ourselves if it doesn't happen.

And we don't have to worry about going out of the way in Indianapolis to try and get there. It's right in front of us. Right. We don't have to, like, make a 20-hour drive, 22 hours, just to hit up a Waffle House. Yeah, yeah. We can wait until we're there there which makes things a lot easier

for sure. Waffle House seems to be a hot button issue though like from what I've been following along with the supporting members this week. People have some strong opinions on it, don't they? Yeah. We'll be the judges of that. Maybe we'll do a live episode while we're in there. Yeah.

How about the meat update? I think we should talk about lift hard live easy classic meat update yes i think we should too does anyone anyone listening live does anyone know how many days out where anyone pop open the days out tracker and tell me how many days we've got until meat day i think uh flying ryan your brother and, he changes his name to number of days. I believe he does. 170. There it is.

170 days out of all. And we did have some changes, right, to the VZ Classic? Big changes. Actually, as far as the actual meet goes, it doesn't change anything, but on paper it changes a lot, I guess you could say. So it's now going to be an XPC- sanctioned event with everything going on with with everything going on warranted uh we can wash our hands of the uspa and say that is an xpc meet which hey um i'm xpc sure i'm i'm excited for it it's gonna be awesome yeah and like so the meat directors stay in the same judges are going to be the judges.

The way we make the fun meat is still going to be the fun meat. Legitimately. Mostly. I think the main difference is somewhere on like a banner. There'll be a different logo. That is the only difference before. And yeah, depending on how much you,

you concern yourself with the dealings of what's going on, you can maybe take satisfaction in knowing that it's not part of the mess that is the USPA right now. And we're kind of relieved, I think, just to not have to deal with that. And so we knew there were some things going on behind the scenes with the meet and everything. And so we've kind of been waiting to find out what the answer was before we said what's going on behind the scenes with the meat and everything and so we've kind of been waiting we find out what the answer was right right before we said before we said what's going on with the meat we wanted to have a for sure answer so yeah now we know it is going to be an xpc meat which yes i think that is best for everyone involved that i think it's a awesome step in the other direction uh but yeah the uspa thing is just such a mess and we've tanner and i have talked about this offline a ton i'm not sure if we have a ton to add to the conversation.

Obviously, domestic assault, assault of any kind is bad. Pedophiles are bad. Sexual assaulters are bad. I think that goes without saying that that's how we feel about it. But yeah, it would just be really nice if powerlifting and these federations, I don't know, if you say get it together more or if they know there's a problem, identify it and act on it quicker. I mean, there's just so many things that could happen. Yeah, the whole thing's a mess,

and we're certainly not the people to be like, we'll leave some of that fixing of it up to other people, I guess, and see what the best way. But for us, how we're directly concerned was this meat. And we got a great solution here now with Big Dave, the meat director and everything. Like this was a great fix to this. Yes.

You know, this, the massonomics focus of this problem. Oh, absolutely. A huge relief to know that it just feels like it is in a better place now. Yes. Yes. Abso-fruitly. So, July 22nd. Right here in sunny

western northeast South Dakota. That's right. It could also be a tornado. It could be 50 mile an hour, 60 mile an hour winds. I mean, there could be lots of stuff happening besides sun that day yeah we'll be indoors though at least we're not dealing with the old strongman showdown uh scenario god uh just leaving it up to chance every year yeah okay you got a couple other things in here. I do. Okay. We,

I think we both have a special sack to talk about. Yeah. But I actually know let's talk about our special sack. I think you had a sack hand delivered to you. Yeah. I had a sack hand delivered to me as well. Okay. And I also have a bonus sack here too.

So this is like, I have a bonus sack too. Oh, okay. We both have two sacks today, believe it or not. This is a four sack segment. This, this is a full four a bonus sack too oh okay we both have two sacks today believe it or not this is a four sack segment this this is a full four sacker this could take this could take until the guest comes on there's just so much to cover here so first i'll pull something out of my

sack first if everyone's comfortable with it okay the first thing and this is radically simple strength by Paul Horn. I thought I was going to just surprise you with that. I didn't know you had also part of the two banger. Okay. Okay. I got to ask, did yours come with a little note? Did your book come with a little,

I came with a note addressed to Tommy. Oh, and mine came with a note addressed to Tanner. And I'm thinking, did Grant just mean to send this just to Tanner and not me? See, I thought that he meant to send this to you. And I was like, well, I'm going to just read it first before I send it to him. That's very funny because I said, I'm going to do the same thing. And I read the entire book too. I'm not done with it yet, but I have read quite a bit of it. So,

okay. Well, I'm actually really excited. So, uh, how far are you in it though? I am only through like, I'm on page 83 right now. So I do have a decent, you know, I'm like, okay, this is like 240 ish. Yeah. So I got a decent bit to go. So I read the whole thing. I did skip because it is a starting strength based book. And I don't, I don't care about starting strength programming at all right now. I skipped all the programming stuff, but maybe we'll do a full review when you're done with it. I, my spoiler alert,

quick review is I actually thought this was pretty good. I, I was, I was, well, the first little bit I like, and I agree with a lot of the full philosophy. There's a few things.

There's a few things in here that I, I don't, I just, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I just, I don't care for it. Like there's nothing wrong with starting strength programming. It just doesn't, it just doesn't do it for me. Right.

And there's a few minor things, but for the most part, I think this book is full of very simple, actionable things that I think would be great for a ton of people to read. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay.

Well, yeah, we should definitely say that. So we'll come back to this. But thanks, Big Grant from The Strength Co. Yes, thank you, Grant. There's also, I feel like there's also probably an 80% chance we get this author on for a podcast someday. Oh, we could absolutely. Probably Big Paul would love to hop on, I think.

Just make the media circuit. Yeah. He can hop on our show between the late night show and good morning America. If he has time. So that was the, it's funny. We both had the same thing there and neither of us knew that.

So did, did your note say Tanner, this is the book mentioned on the pod thought you might enjoy grant. Mine said, Tommy, don't tell Tanner about this, but I've always kind of thought he's a big piece of shit please keep this between you and i whatever whatever possible so i guess ours was otherwise but no mine says the same thing okay yep so the notes just got switched around yeah yeah all right

zigged when they should have zagged yep Yep. Geez. Have to talk to Grant about that shipping department of his. Yeah. Can we please speak to the VP of shipping? Yeah. All right. So now we need to get to the other sack. Yeah. Oh, but do you have, we also have probably got to get into a can at some point in time

here too. So don't be thirsty. We do. To me, this ties into this segment. Okay. Okay. Okay. It does.

It does then too. So all right. Okay. Okay. Just, that's what I was checking. So maybe we should start with that. Yeah. some point in time here too so we do to me this ties into this segment okay okay okay it does it does then too so all right okay okay just that's what i was checking so maybe we should start with that yeah let's start with that okay i'm cracking into a very very crispy friendly premium grain belt over here same z yeah we are just on the same page today And we didn't plan any of this even. It's been a little while since I've had a grain belt. Are they twist off? They're not twist off. They twist right off.

I don't need this then. No, you don't need that. I'm trying to think. I actually might have had a grain belt at, last time I was in Aberdeen a couple weeks ago. This bottle opener, I thought of it because when I had to grab one, because I didn't realize this was a twist off,

I had to grab this. And this was at the Gypsy Day Parade this year. Politician lady handing this out. She came up, walked up to me and goes, you look like you drink beer and handed this to me. You freaking hipster loser. Take this bottle opener. It's like I didn't know to be proud or offended by that, and I still don't know.

You with the generic micro hipster look. You look like a drunkard. Here's a bottle opener. So, yeah, we're both just enjoying a sip of. that's just right premium american lager the friendly beer brewed in the heart of america's grain belt isn't it brewed in minnesota i think so i mean is it still yeah yeah you know uh you know what they do around halloween time it's brain belt and it's zombies on it oh kind of cool huh my father-in-law is a big grain belt drinker i think it's pretty good yeah i would uh as far as light beers go because it's slightly different than the light beers you're used to it does have just a just

barely a different taste to it. Is this light, technically? Or is Greenbelt... There is a Greenbelt light. This is not a light beer. Do people drink Greenbelt light, though? I don't feel like I don't know that I've had that. I think it comes in a blue can, doesn't it?

Let me look here. I've got to see. This one has a red label on it. Isn't it funny how certain beers you know like the light version is blue and now looking here i don't think i've ever had that one before and same thing like corona right you say i want a corona i want a corona light you know you just say no i want to right um so how many jd & Associates awards do you give the Grain Belt Premium American Lager? I'm still rating this on that domestic sort of light beer scale. And as far as that goes, I feel like this is as good as any of them. I think I'd give it a four if you're just going, if we're talking domestic, you know, basic lagers, I have no problem with this.

I'd drink it all day. Let me take one more sip before I rate it. I'm between two numbers right now. You know, I could drink 10, 15 of these, no problem. Just give me enough time to do it. I think I'll give it a 4, too. I was leaning 3.5, and I think I might give it a 4. It is a good IPA. And then you put in in that crispy bottle and it just takes it to the next level

doesn't it that it that true that the bottle is an important part and then you put the bottle in a drink spotter i i can hear it clanging in your drink spotter there that's that made in america stainless steel that is that's how you know it's good. Yeah, I'll give it a 4.2. So did we say where these came from? No, we have not. We haven't got to that part yet. Okay.

So this is part of the sack segment, like we were saying. And this week's sack segment is, of course, courtesy of our friend, supporting member, live listener as we speak so we can't talk crap about him. Fellow South Dakotan. Yeah, fellow eastern southeast South Dakotan, Big Mo. Big Mo making it happen. All strength. And Mo brought a lot of goods.

Yeah. I guess I actually held this up and then i realized this is also the the card too um i'll read this one some weather we are having with these egg prices i may have uh may never financially recover from this. At the very least, I will never be able to afford another pair of lift shorts. Now, ain't that the truth? But then again, who can really? No, no one. So Mo packed this thing fully.

So first of all, he did give us each a grain belt. Yeah, so he like handled it. How did you get your six pack of eggs? Did you get a six pack of eggs? Yes, I also did get a six pack of eggs. Did you try yours? I have not got to the eggs yet. I was going to eat my older ones first.

I wasn't sure how fresh those eggs were. So I assume they were fresher than the ones I had in my fridge. So I'm eating mine, but I will get to those shortly. Okay. And then there was more food items though yes that's right i actually forgot about okay i didn't know maybe i was getting lucky here no no so we're talking we're talking a classic talked about uh on the massomics podcast uh menu item several times right yes that's what brought up many times and we've never done anything about it you get something in a red package that would be the red chewy chips ahoy and it is funny how they were about like what i expected now you in your head that you said they were essentially cookie dough

that you could just mold into a ball and do anything yeah which you maybe could to a certain extent but they could kind of do that, I think, a little bit. It would be a little messy, though. It wouldn't form into a super nice ball. So what is your assessment on the chewy chips? I mean, I like cookies. I have a hard time. You'd have to give me a pretty bad cookie for me to say I don't like cookies.

They don't like that cookie. So I like them. My wife likes them. My boy likes them. So they're a hit over here right now. Yeah, my kids basically ate the whole package already, and I did have a couple just to make sure that I – and after the first one, I'm like, yeah,

that's exactly what I thought that that was. You know, it's been a while, but they are pretty soft and mushy. They are. They are, but they're good. But they're good. I like them. So do you like those or the regular Chips Ahoy better, do you think, in a blue container? Okay, it's been a very long time since I've had those two.

I actually think I'd maybe pick the chewy over the regular ones. I don't think I like the chewy as well. There's just something about it that I don't. Okay. Well, might have to do some research here firsthand and and really make this decision if like if you took the chewy one and if you held it under milk for like 10 minutes i don't think you know but it wouldn't but but not even uh i didn't dip it in but like if you did there's something odd to me about the properties of this cookie that it wouldn't absorb so much

as a no i don't think quarter ounce of liquid yeah it's like it's like liquid repellent is inside there yeah yeah it would it would it would literally repel the liquid from it like it would it's like oil and water there's just so much oil in the cookie it won't mix with the water is is the problem it's something like that but i still think i'd probably pick chewy but i i have to get i'd have to get a regular to really to really know compare side by side yeah and was that it for the food items i think that's all the food i had i also had the this pair of most strength lifting straps in mind got them here okay and i had one other thing i don't know if you did or not yeah i wonder if we must have had different things for this last thing,

as far as I can tell. Okay, do you want me to show you mine first? Yes. Here we go. So you have a deadlift wedges. Wooden deadlift wedges. Okay. Pretty fancy, huh?

Yeah, you think that's fancy. Do you know what mine is? Oh, are they metal deadlift wedges? No, no. Mine's so big, I didn't even bring it down here into the fulfillment center. Mine's also made out of wood, but I have this helpful printed meme from him

that I, can you see this right now? Oh, a wooden deadlift jack, huh? Yeah, it is a wooden deadlift jack, and this thing is heavy duty. For those just listening, i'll probably have to describe this but if you're watching along you know you can see this in the picture i'll hold it up here a little better but uh got the drake meme for big mo made the helpful drake meme to know how to use it and i have used this and this thing is like four feet tall oh really and made

out of solid wood and probably weighs you know i don't know 20 pounds or something like that maybe 15 and it's pretty sweet it's got a like real nice clear coat finish on it i mean i was excited on these but uh these aren't four feet tall so that well those probably work better for you if you want to take yeah these fit better than a gym bag than a four-foot block of wood. Right, right. Wow. Well, and, I mean, those are just the material things. I also got to have a chat with Mo at my house, so that was one of the added benefits of my sack. I didn't get to be, Big Mo came and checked out Massanomics Gym here in western northeast South Dakota, but I wasn't there.

I wasn't able to make it, but he at least got to check out the gym i hope his experience was all right i wasn't there he told me full tour okay told me he thought it was pretty cool all right so thank you big mo hell of a sack segment and the funny part of big mo we had actually planned on meeting up when i was going through Brookings multiple times, but because when you have kids, you're always running behind schedule and things are always hectic. It didn't work out either time. And then it was, I think the day before he said, Hey, I'm going to be in the area. I had given him, I had given him my address. He said, I'll be in the area. Does, if I stopped by at like 11 o'clock or whatever he said, he goes, does that work? I said, yep. And then I'm just sitting here on my computer and the doorbell's ringing. I'm like, who the hell's ringing the doorbell to my house? And I sat here for like a minute thinking, do I even go to answer it? And I go

out there and, oh, there's actually a person standing there. Oh shit. Big most that he was totally forgot about it a hundred percent. And, uh, because it was, you know, negative 20 degrees, I say, oh, come inside. And I'm just thinking, oh, my wife is going to be like, you let a person inside her house when it looks this way. And sure enough, she came home. She's like, really? You had a friend coming and you had the house looking like this. And I just had to say, yeah, I forgot about the whole thing. So my bad.

The thing is, everyone's house looks like that. Oh, my God. Yes. It doesn't matter if you clean it. The second kids get loose. Yeah. It's just like you dumped everything everywhere. That's exactly right.

Thank you, Big Mo. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks a lot. I'm going to take some good pictures of the Jack and put it on Instagram for everyone to check it out, too. I think people will like that. Yeah. How about a little supporting our supporting members segment? Yeah, let's do it.

All right. Been hoping. We've got a doozy for supporting our supporting members segment? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Been hoping we could. We've got a doozy for supporting our supporting members this week. We've got a lot of people to run down on this one. This is a big one. Big week for our members and what we do each week on the podcast. We have these supporting members that choose to sign up and through our supporting membership program,

give us a little bit of their dough each month through this recurring membership and then say it's like a chewy cookie dough or more of a regular cookie dough it's not as chewy as the chewy chips okay okay it's somewhere in between it's like a an appropriate level of chewy not like it's not mush. So they support us and we support them back. One of the ways we do that is through this segment. So first one, I'm just going to start at the top. Big Tyler T. He did a powerlifting meet, a weightlifting meet,

and a strongman competition all in the same weekend, a weightlifting meet, and a strongman competition all in the same weekend, which that's insane. To further add to the insanity, he totaled 1815 with a 705 deadlift. I'm sure he won his class there, and he also won the strongman event. And he won what looked like to be an entire armories worth of sword awards. He won like 30 sword awards. I think there was a lot of those things.

So big Tyler T is very strong and also like very robust to be able to compete in all of those things in one weekend. Yeah. That's, that's, that's an accomplishment for sure. That's crazy um that is something to do all of those in one weekend next we've got big dan with the arm tats

and he's a coach uh strength coach and he had a client compete in their first weightlifting meet two female clients compete in their first strongman show and one that finished third in their first weightlifting meet. Two female clients compete in their first Strongman show, and one that finished third in their weight class all in the same weekend. So well done, Big Dan with arm tattoos helping everyone get strong. Then we've got Big Toby, longtime supporter. He did his first Strongman competition. He hit a 550-pound PR on the max deadlift event there's some medley events and also of note he did the atlas stone event where he got up to the 305 pound atlas stone so great job big toby big nate was a guest on another podcast. It was called Beyond the Pew,

and he got to play over-under with the hosts on that. He created an over-under game, and he said all the stuff he said about the druthers and everything that we say. Damn, this guy's really got this rehearsed down pretty well. What's the deal? I was cracking up watching it. So check out Behind the Pew podcast on YouTube,

and you'll see Big Nate on there. It was very good. He did a great job. Then we had Big Patrick. Big Patrick, this is non-lifting related, but also just really super cool he won fireman of the year for his fire department awesome so congrats big patrick very cool was it like a volunteer fire department with two people or

so this is like a fire so you're comparing it to a power lifting meet yeah yeah we gotta give it to someone. Like, Patrick, you were the only fireman here. Here's your award. Actually, you get five of them. We don't know why, but... And the award is actually swords as well. Big Tyler did win a lot of swords.

He did. There was a ton of those things. I wonder what he's going to do with all those. Good film of Game of Thrones battle scene with those things no kidding then last definitely not least this week oh wait that

was it that was all just kidding there was one other thing Big Joey, our Canadian friend to the south, he got a little... Speaking of, you know, we were talking about

Big Dan with arm tattoos. Now we've got Big Joey with Massanomics leg tattoo. So he got the Massanomics crew supporting member patch that we send out to everyone, sent out to all the supporting members here this last week or two ago. He got that tattooed on his thigh above the knee. And you sent this to me before I saw it in the Discord.

And so all I see is this video and I'm just thinking, what the hell? Like, who did this? What the hell is this? And then you said, it's Big Joey. He just put it in the Discord, and I was blown away. That's awesome. It is just mind-blowing to me that people get Mastodonomics tattoos, that there's multiple people that have done it now.

That's now the third Mastodonomics tattoo that I'm aware of. Could be more. Two of them are below the waist, which I don't know what that says about Mastanomics tattoos, but... I don't know what that does say about Mastanomics tattoos for sure. He said he got that while we were recording the episode live last week. So that's pretty funny. The way it should be, right?

Interesting tidbit, though. He hasn't actually received his actual mass which is hilarious doesn't have a patch but he's got the tattoo so i thought it'd be funny if his doesn't show up and then we refuse to send him another one or when his letter actually does show up it's one of those that jack didn't put the patch in it yes it takes two weeks to show up but there's nothing in it there's been four of those so had a lot of conversations about how that's even possible that that could happen four times when there are so few things to be putting in this envelope and you you forgot one of the two

things that goes in there i could see it once yeah i could maybe wrap my head around twice but four is really making me wonder how many there was total that's really funny so thank you to our supporting members very active community of supporting members they get access to our

discord, discount codes more stuff than you could shake a stick at I think it's basically perk city I think right it is perk city now more stuff than you could shake a stick at, I think. It's basically Perk City, I think, right? Mm-hmm. It is Perk City. Okay. Now, should we hit them with a little advertising?

Let's do it. All right. Do you want to get them first? Yeah, I probably should. This episode 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. Buddy set out on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he'd ever seen or trained with, and the Texas Power Bar was born. It was strong as a house with the best knurling and was maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national, international, world, and massonomics powerlifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar. To learn more about Texas Power Bars and buy one of their legendary bars, visit TexasPowerBars.com.

This episode is also brought to you by our good yellow friends over at Spud Ink Straps. You can check them out at spud-ink-straps.com. Spud Ink started because the lifting straps available at the time were not tough enough to handle the daily punishment that comes with training as a powerlifter, a strongman, any strength sport athlete, or that could easily fit in your gym bag. Spud Ink created straps to withstand whatever your training puts them through. Finally, training gear that works just as hard as all of you do. Whether you're looking for belts, harnesses, deadlift straps, bow ties, belt squat belts, gateway squatting gear.

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kicking off the last of the live listeners. That's it. They're out of here. Now should we get our guest on the horn? Big Clay. Let's do it. Alright. Let's do it. Hopefully we don't have any technical difficulties.

Yeah. It's a weird thing. is your phone ringing over there yet yeah can you hear it that's her oh you didn't answer there okay but i did just text him not more than five minutes ago, so I'm pretty confident we'll get him here. Okay. Well, we got other things on our list. The problem is these things could take anywhere between five minutes and 20 minutes each.

I don't know if we'll dive into those yet. Let me just try them one more time. Okay. Let's see how this works. Can you hear that ringing on your end? Cannot, but Zoom's weird that way. Yeah. Hi, you've reached Clay. Sorry, I can't hear you.

Oh, could you hear his voicemail? I could hear his voicemail. All right, now maybe we should talk about a topic. Well, oh, just kidding. He's calling now. Big Clay, is that you? Hey, it's me. Sorry, guys. ah no problem wouldn't be the first time that's happened we're just happy you came back to us after all yes well i'm glad i'm i'm here with

some professionals that that's happened before us uh well we can hear you loud and clear it sounds like you got a great connection and uh uh a great great voice radio, so we're excited to talk to you tonight. Thanks. I'll tell my wife you said so. It could be worse. You could be like us. We have faces for podcasting. Hey, I've seen you guys.

You guys are handsome devils. You guys know what you're doing. We are excited to get you on here, so this is none other than Big Clay Cooper at Discovery Deadlift on Instagram. At least that's where I follow you. I suppose maybe follow, got to handle something similar to that on TikTok and some other places too, probably. But we are, we're excited to get you on here. What would you explain to people in, you know, what's your elevator pitch? If

someone asked you what it is you do on the internet that people would be following along with, with you for? Um, yeah, that's a great question. I, I, um, I usually start with like, well, it's pretty weird, but, uh, I deadlift in the mountains or in the desert or in the forest. I go find some place by myself with my family and I bring a bunch of weights. So yeah, I'm not a good pitch man, I don't think. I think that's a really good short story. I think you summed it up pretty well, yeah. Right, right.

Yeah, yeah. So that's it. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. Just kidding. We got more questions than that. No, that was great. Yeah.

So, yeah, you did give the really short version of that, but we're going to get into all those details. And I would just start off by saying it's really cool. If anyone hasn't seen your stuff, actually, I would guess a lot of people have at least seen some of your videos come across them on the Internet because they have a really like viral uh you know a characteristic to them like just like the awesome shots and the scenery that you're at but how did this kind of get started for you you know what was your first uh trip out into you know the wilderness with a barbell and plates to go do some deadlifting. Yeah. Well, thank you first off. And yeah, I think, uh, so, you know, we'd have to go back to a time that nobody wants to go back to, and that's the spring of 2020. So right as, yeah, yeah. Scary. Right. As a, right. As COVID

started. So I, uh, I'm pretty lucky. I have access to a gym and my, where I work and, you know, I'm pretty lucky I have access to a gym where I work. And weight training has obviously just been a core part of what I like to do for a long time. And it's not just for the physical benefits, but the mental and emotional benefits as well. So global pandemic hits, and then that gym was shut down. So I cobbled together some weights from a classified ad and just kind of set up like a makeshift garage gym, just thinking, okay, this is who I am now. I lift in the garage. And I don't know if you want to call it like a nervous breakdown or what you want to call it, actually. I just got cabin fever one day and my wife looked out the window and sees me loading

plates into the back of her Subaru. And she was probably like, what the hell's going on? Uh, and I said, Hey, I'm just going to take these and like go out somewhere where there's some open air and some space. So, uh, I live in the salt Lake area. That's where I'm based out of. So there's a lot of beautiful country over here. And I just followed some dirt roads that I hadn't been on before, kind of came across this little outcropping next to a lake. I pulled the weights out and I'm, you know, a self-taught power lifter. So I would film myself just to be, you know, so I could watch it back later and like hate what I was doing. So I can absolutely, that's the name of the game. You guys get it. Yeah. So I like set up the phone with this little

makeshift tripod just a couple of rocks on the ground and uh yeah i kind of just i mean it sounds silly but it was a kind of a transformative experience for me it was just great to be outside in the open air um lifting so i was out there for about an hour and a half um you know i picked up the the phone afterwards and I was playing back some of the footage and I was like, Oh damn it. This is pretty like, this is really pretty out here. Uh, my ugly deadlifts aside. So I, uh, was driving back and I called my wife and I was like, Hey, this is who I am now, I think. And she was like, okay, just, uh, and that, so that's how it kind of started. Yeah. I, I, you know, I have a lot of anxiety. I've had anxiety since I was a kid

and nature and weight training have been two different ways for me it kind of started. Yeah, you know, I have a lot of anxiety. I've had anxiety since I was a kid. And nature and weight training have been two different ways for me to kind of combat that. So it was just kind of this out of necessity. I just threw them together one day and it's kind of grown from there. Yeah, it's super cool. Yeah, go ahead, Tom. Yeah, it is. And so when you did this first one and you make your, like, did you see traction on that right away? Or did you have to get quite a few videos going before people started to take notice of it? Yeah. You know, I, uh, I'm trying to

remember, I had like a, I had an Instagram that was just like me in the gym and I'm, there's probably like a dozen people. It makes me think of like Tobias in Arrested Development where he's like, there's dozens of us. So I probably had like 12 or 24 or something like that. I just posted it and it felt like good traction. More than anything, I was like, hey, I deadlifted by a lake today or whatever. And I remember like just enjoying it so much

and doing it several times. I think it probably was like two months into it, I realized one morning I had like 500 followers or one night. And I looked over to my wife and I was like, there are 500 people that care about this. And we were just like, this is kind of wild, thinking that 500 was just this massive milestone. But I think an inflection point as far as some traction, Coop at Garage Gym Reviews, I woke up one morning, it was like getting ready for work, and my phone was blowing up, and I realized somebody must have reshared something,

and he shared something on his page. And that was the first one that kind of went mini viral. Viral is probably overstating it, but that's where, you know, a few hundreds at a time, we're starting to pile in as far as followers go. Right. Right. So tell us some of the places you've been to and done this at like what, what are anything you can think of where, where have you all been and been deadlifting out, out in the outdoors?

Yeah. Yeah. So I think i've been to about 170 different like unique locations at this point um which is spread across 10 u.s states so it's been in the states mostly in the mountain west although i did make it back to new york and pennsylvania recently so that was kind of my first foray into the northeast um you know there's national parks like i'm based in utah so i've done all the big five national parks here uh the pacific northwest went up to olympic north park or national park in washington the columbia river gorge over there in oregon uh the grand canyon

um yeah sedona uh the tetons i I'm just trying to name them off now. I should have had them. I need to have them listed somewhere. But just, yeah, all kinds of country, a lot of high desert stuff, a lot of stuff up in the mountains, and then some coastal stuff. It'd be an interesting even Instagram post or something if you could kind of catalog all the different places you've been to. It would be pretty cool. Or even like pins on a map sort of thing uh would be a cool visual i think

on that yeah that's actually a great idea i'm gonna i'm gonna take that yeah well let's take our royalty i i was promised a silly goose time and this is actually uh really helpful feedback over here. That's a little happy accident. Yeah. It's a happy accident. Don't expect more of that. That's about all you're going to get that's helpful. No, too late.

I'm telling everyone, Tanner and Tommy, you're like geniuses. Yeah. Don't let them fool you that massonomics isn't about anything. It's about lots of things. So what are some places then on your bucket list that you haven't been to so um as far as international we have some

international plans this year 2023 um and kind of going back to like the you know i don't really synonymous with strength sports. So Iceland is, I think, our first international destination here. You just think about like just the massive strongmen that are coming out of there. I mean, everyone thinks of Hafthor, but, you know, I think that there's the stones there. You have volcanoes, you have coast. It's just looks like wild country. So I think Iceland has always been on our list.

We're going to make it happen this year um i i kind of have this idea of like trying to hit a pr underneath the northern lights i i don't know if i'm putting too much pressure on myself i can see the lights and then i'm like be really cool my wife my wife films everything i'm like honey honey get it you know and then like i throw my back out or something i don don't know. But, uh, yeah, so I think Iceland, uh, is, is where we'd want to go next. There's, um, you know, I've talked about Norway a little bit and Sweden in the States though. I think we just want to do some, a little bit more exploration. We haven't done as much in the Midwest, so I think we can do some less stuff. So I, yeah, I have to link up with you. You'd

have to show me all your spots guys. Yeah.. Yeah. Do you know where we're from specifically? We call it something specific. We're from western northeast South Dakota. It takes a little looking on the map to pinpoint that with all the directions, but we really are from western northeast South Dakota. So if you ever can find yourself coming this direction, we would love to hook up with you and maybe show you some hot spots. That would be awesome.

Actually, just as fate would have it, that's exactly what I was out of my next list was resting in Eastmore, South and Thorough. This is just uncanny. What are the odds? That's great. A lot of people say Mount Rushmore and the Badlands,

but yeah, I'm glad you're overlooking those and coming straight to us. Yeah, I was just coming to you guys. I want you guys to teach me the ways of strength gains. So if you can help me out in that regard. No, that would be awesome. Obviously the Badlands, you know. There's a national park out there, right? Badlands National Park?

There's Badlands National Park. I think there's, is it Jewel Cave or Wind Cave? I forget what one it is. And then there's... There's so many spots in the Black Hills. You could go, I mean, you could just get tired from going. Yeah, right. Yeah, there's a lot of sites out there.

We need to make it happen, guys. That would be awesome, actually. Yeah, and every time I think of Badlands, I think of the Springsteen song. So I imagine I already got the first track to my playlist going. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's probably an important element. You have to pick the right song to match the vibe, right? Yeah, yeah.

A lot of times it's just kind of like, I don't know, intuitive to whatever I'm listening to at that time or what I'm interested in. Like there's an eclectic collection, right? But when I started like posting and deadlifting, it was just like, oh, here's a set with a stationary camera. And yeah, if you look in the back, there's like a badass mountain or something. And then my wife, she's like, hey, I'll come with you. And then I think we were at Antelope Island in Utah, which is this. It's next to the Great Salt Lake.

It's like a really beautiful place. It has a wild buffalo that apparently, I guess, if you get too close, they will charge you. I didn't realize that as I was like, my dumb ass was like getting too close and taking pictures. But that was one of our trips where we were out there and I was deadlifting and I rucked the weights to the spot and she was kind of just like walking along with me with the kids and just enjoying the hike. And then she's like, here, let me get it. And she just kind of started moving around with the phone.

And I was like, oh, what are you doing? She's like, don't worry about it, just lift. And that was kind of the evolution of I guess how things got better um my better half ultimately was like let me help you you know you set some of this stuff up with rocks and you're like there's a dirt clod right in the frame so she she uh yeah we got a gimbal and she does all the filming so basically at this point now it's just we find a place we want to go to uh that's you know not all of them require like big hikes. Some of them require a little bit longer of a hike.

It just depends on the spot. But we go out there and rock or hike to the spot and then lift. And I can kind of just take it all in. And she really loves like capturing everything visually. So then she comes back and I usually edit things and put it together and write whatever I think I want to write that day. So yeah, it's kind of evolved over time. And Instagram came out with the reels, you know, so it was the music pairing.

The right timing, yeah, for that too. The right timing, yeah. Yeah, so you've kind of been able to make it into a family affair though too, which is actually really cool. Yeah, yeah, it's the really cool. Yeah, yeah. It's the whole family. My kids think it's totally normal for dad to bring weights camping and on hikes.

I think that they probably look at other dads. We were at Zion National Park a couple weeks ago, and there was this family that was getting ready to go on the hike, and they just had normal stuff in their backpack. Where's your barbell? Yeah, they're like, what the hell is this? That dad doesn't even have a barbell. They're like what the hell is this that dad doesn't even have a barbell they're hiking all that pack there's no yeah there's like there's no way that pack can carry an olympic plate so i think they think it's it's kind of normal now but it's been a lot of fun i think just uh we all love being outside and my kids my son's nine and my daughter's six and i

think that you just have that wild spirit in them you know we're being out in the wild in these big places that can make you feel small but make you feel small in all the right ways so it's uh yeah we have a lot of fun together we uh you know you see the very cool images and videos of you out there lifting and you do kind of document some of this but i think it's easy for for people to overlook like the process of you getting that stuff to where you need to get it in order to do the lift so like explain what that you know and you even talk about some of the rucking but like in some of the more uh severe ones what does that process actually look like for getting that those plates and that barbell there yeah i mean honestly there's been a few times where

I've been like, what the hell am I doing? Like in the middle of nowhere and like just dry heaving. Um, and I, I've gotten, I've gotten better shape over the course of it. So like I conditioned myself to handle it a lot better, but I think, you know, usually it's about a hundred to 145 pounds per trip. And depending on what my working weight is, like recently my working weight has been about 475. I've gone as heavy as 625 out there. I've gone as light as 225 for like we kayak like six miles one time with just the 225. So the length kind of sometimes will determine the working weight. The most severe, so you do, I would put like a, I have a couple of 55 pound plate bumpers

and I'll put one of them in the bag and then I'll carry two 45s in my hands. And that's usually my heaviest phase that I'll do, you know, first or second. And that's about 145 pounds. And then as I grab, you know, the 45s and I have some 35s after that, it gets a little bit lighter and then the barbell comes last. So it's usually like five to six trips there, uh, varying in length and then five to six trips back. So you have 10 phases in total. I think the furthest distance I've went has been about four miles when you count that in all those spots. Some spots are accessible with the truck. We went out to the Oregon coast and I drove right out onto the beach. But yeah, it just kind of varies. I've

learned to kind of love it. It sounds really masochistic, but it's nice. No one's hurrying me. learned to kind of love it. It sounds really like masochistic, but it's, it's nice. No one's hurrying me. I can, when I'm tired, I stop. And when I'm ready, I go again. So when you get the plates all out there and you're ready to start lifting, do you feel like you even need much warmup or at this point, are you just from moving everything? Are you, are you ready to go when you get right into it? I usually get right into it actually. Yeah. Yeah, I might hit a couple of just lightweight warm-up sets. But usually, I mean, nothing warms you up than just hauling a bunch of weight. Right, yeah.

So yeah, I think sometimes people would comment like they'd see me in more colder conditions. I've had some really cold lifts. And by the end of it, they're like, oh, this guy's just trying to be a badass. He's taking his hoodie off or something and i was like no i'm really hot at that point because your body really warms up so uh even in those like i like to lift in the cold actually a little bit better than the heat because your body starts firing on all cylinders and uh you know my body temp's pretty high even though it's cold outside so that air feels great.

If you came to western northeast South Dakota right now, it could possibly be your most dangerous lift because the last week here it's been about negative, feels like negative 25 degrees outside. So it could actually just be straight up like, I might lose a hand today. That's a good teaser. It's like, will I, will I not have frostbite in person? And here I am sounding all tough, like, I'll handle the cold. But when you say negative 25, I'm still thinking like, okay, I'm probably going to have a parka on. Yeah. I mean, that's a whole other level of cold.

So you're talking about the rucking and the fatigue and then getting out there and the delifting and you do the various weights and depending on your working weight. When you get out there, is it a programmed lift for the day? Are you doing 475 for five sets or three sets that day? Do you have a plan sets and reps like is it a part of your lifting program or is it like a separate day outside of maybe your lifting program where you're just this is just uh this is what the day is i'm getting there and i want to get the shot you know uh it's it's i always try to hit um the equivalent of what I would try to do in the gym when I'm out there. So I do try to – that authenticity is pretty important to me as far as I want to continue to program and get stronger.

That's not to say that it's not augmented because sometimes by the time I've rucked everything out there, I might not have everything in the tank that I would on the deadlift platform in the gym. So there are some times where it's like, okay, I was planning on five by six today, and now I'm doing four by four or something like that. So sometimes you make some concessions like that. But I do try to get in good work and usually parent with what I'm doing in the gym as far as the deadlift goes. I mean, the bench and squat and everything else usually happens in the gym. Um, and then with my deadlift programming, it kind of oscillates. I've been doing it for a few years now. So, uh, when I can, I do try to incorporate like the rock and the lift into what I would typically do. Okay. And then, so on that, through that ruck,

you know, at one point in time you, you, you pack the 55 and you carry two 45s, one in each hand. Have you noticed like your hand and, uh, grip strength, like a great improvement from care, you know, lugging around those 45s, one in each hand like that? Yeah, for sure. For sure. And like, honestly, sometimes that's the hardest yeah part of it all is just is just the grip and i you know my my weights are just like this haphazard collection of things that i found on classified ads too so some of those big like um bumper plates you know they're not super friendly so i'll put my hands in between like the hole and it's just yeah your fingers start to scream after a while or the 45s you just grip it so i'll put my hands in between like the hole and it's just yeah your fingers

start to scream after a while or the 45s you just grip it so i i've definitely noticed improve it not enough for me to be like one of those crazy hook grip badasses that like her you know like i mean i feel like hopefully we're getting there so like my my double overhand deadlift and like the hook grip stuff that i'm trying to incorporate more and more of has definitely improved because of the rug. Do you have an attachment to those old mismatched plates that you use? Would you be open to using other plates or is it like, no, these plates have been with me on these places? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I've incorporated a few new plates. places you know what you know what i'm saying like is it do you have yeah yeah yeah i think i mean um i i've incorporated a few new plates i've had some folks reach out to me like hey can i send you some plates which has been really cool and like unexpected so i've been like yeah if you if you want to i'd be happy to like shout you out in the story or something and use them well we'll tell you which ones to to accept uh the strength. is a sponsor of the Massanomics podcast. And Big Grant owns the Strength Co. He's been on the podcast a couple times. And listen to Big Grant and listen to those episodes,

and you can feel good about accepting plates from the Strength Co., I think. Well, you know, it just so happens that Big Grant reached out to me, too. That's not a coincidence. Yeah, I didn't think so. You guys were in for hoots over there. No, yeah, he sent me some plates, which I thought was, again, super kind of very cool. And yeah, I mean, the plates that I've been using, like obviously these plates have been to a lot of places and seen a lot of stuff. They've been to hell and back.

They've been to hell and back. Yeah, so it kind of feels like, you know know a kid who has like his security blanket or whatever but there's no you know i'm sure when grant's plates arrive i'm going to be pretty excited to throw them on the barbell so they're super nice they are it's like you kind of think plates are plates and then you see me like okay yep there is a difference i get it now no i i i've uh checked them out on instagram and they definitely look like it so i'm excited so yeah they they hold nostalgic value is it so much that i wouldn't accept badass plates from grant no um and uh use those because they have like i've beaten the hell out of them i mean those rogue bumpers used to be red i don't know what yeah

so what what bells of steel sent me some blue plates one time i think the other ones are just these old cap still you know those like the standard uh yeah yeah so what what about you said you moved the bar last if you're you're carrying a bar over a long distance what's the best way to carry a bar over a long distance over your back like a squat? You guys are asking the hard-hitting questions. Seriously, for what I do, it's such a niche thing. That is a great question because it's been an evolution.

Because I'm picturing one thought is you carry it like you're squatting kind of because then it's mostly resting on your back, but then your arms are kind of pinned up here for a long period of time. Then my other thought is, uh, yeah, you can throw it over one shoulder, right. And like lean it down towards the ground. Maybe that's a, maybe that's a good thought. Yeah, no. I mean, you just explained my, my thought process. So when I started, I was like, yeah, I'm just going to put this on my shoulders. Like I'm getting ready for a back squat. And then I remember the first time doing that. And I don't know how long the distance was, yeah, I'm just going to put this on my shoulders like I'm getting ready for a back squat. And then I remember the first time doing that. And I don't know how long the distance was.

But when I got to the spot and Mike took me out, I mean, maybe this says more about my shoulder mobility than anything at that time. That's what I'd be thinking about is mine. I'd be like, oh, they'd be screaming at me from that. Yeah, they were on fire. So I think now it's kind of evolved into a combination. More often than not, I just hold the barbell out in front of me with a supinated grip. So I'll just do a mixed grip, and I'll just carry it in front of me. But after a while, that can get pretty tiresome too.

So sometimes I'll throw it on my shoulders. I think you mentioned across one of the shoulders. It's all been happening. It's not always pretty i think that there's probably lots of b-roll where i'm just like oh and like making like you know just stopping and like looking up at my wife and be like what am i doing uh um but yeah i say that like oh what am i doing but it's this weird cathartic thing where it's like oh i i know what i'm doing i'm doing this thing i do and it's yeah it's whatever means i need to get the bar there i there's all kinds of different ways of carrying it but my favorite is probably just out in front of me what is the most

challenging surface to carry barbells and weights through sand dunes sand uh sand yeah absolutely like just ah man some of the the most difficult terrain um we went to the pink coral sand dunes in kanab utah just kind of down there around the arizona border and it's beautiful and the sand dunes are like this pink hue and it's it's just incredible and there was this you know this ridge up to the top and i thought like oh you know i can walk up there it's you know 50 yards 100 yards or something like that um it is not that easy to walk 100 yards up the the sand tune i uh i yeah i think i saw the face of god i just like, it was, it kicked my ass for sure. That one was pretty tough.

So I think the sand, and then as you're lifting, I call it like nature's deficit, but with each rep, you start compressing the sand. So by the end of it, you're pulling from the deficit. Right. Yeah. It's also another point, seeing your footwear choice before you wear barefoot shoes sometimes.

Barefoot shoes, another sponsor of the Mastodonomics podcast. Hey, barefoot. Yeah, so do you, will you, have you, do you have the Bruin boot yet by chance? I'm curious, that could be an interesting footwear choice to go with the hikes and to be deadlifting in. So you won't believe this because I, I'm just calling in and there's no video, but as you brought up barefoot, I reached down and I grabbed the Bruins and I'm holding the left Bruin in my

right hand right now. Yeah. So the craftsmanship here looks awesome. They had messaged me a while ago and they said, Hey, I think that this would be really, you know, something that you could use.

I haven't used them yet just because lately I've been in a lot of snow and ice. And with the genuine weather, I was like, I want to make sure I keep these – I have some waterproof stuff. Tip top, yeah. Yeah, but I am definitely planning on breaking these guys in here soon. And I've used the – is it the Ursus before? Yeah. And they've been great they've been great i've even like rucked and hiked in those a little bit too and um yeah so barefoot they make a quality

product for sure excellent all right big clay we've got this uh game we play with every every guest we have on the podcast and we've got uh got for you as well. It's called Overrated Underrated and we've got a very special discovery deadlift set of topics for you and it's your job to determine if each one is overrated or underrated

and you can elaborate as much or as little as you would like on that. You have your druthers, so to speak. You just have to remember that you do ultimately have to decide on each one whether it's overrated or underrated. You cannot ride the line. Alright. I can't be diplomatic.

I have to make a choice. Exactly. I'm so nervous. I think you'll find it an enjoyable experience. Overrated or underrated? Subarus. an enjoyable experience. So overrated or underrated, uh, Subarus.

I am going to go overrated. Uh, I, my wife is, I, so I sold her Subaru back and it was hers. And she reminds me of that all the time for my rig now, which is just an F one 50 and the f-150 is way better for hauling weights so uh i'm gonna say underrated i actually one time i brought a bench out there we were doing

uh i was like i'm gonna go bench at this spot and i shattered the back window um with shutting shutting it all the way so uh yeah i loved the subaru like it was good but i'm gonna say it's uh it's overrated especially now that uh i have the truck that that seems fair that that's it brings up a good point have you done you know you said you did try the bench that time you know because you in theory, you wouldn't need a bench with full on, you know, arms to rest the, the bar on because you could, in theory, sit on the bench, you know, hoist the bar off, roll it up to you, and then you could press that way. Also, uh, another thought is for the squat, you could do a Steinborn squat, I guess. I'd met, not that I've ever done a Steinborn squat, but that is a way that you could squat

outdoors. Yeah, no, I, and you, and that's a good point too. Yeah, so with the bench, you have these old rudimentary arms that were welded together. So I did have some arms for that one, the one that I wrecked my wife's back window. As far as the squats and stuff,

so I've done front squats, and I feel like every six days on instagram i have a story about how much i hate front squats but i make myself do them so i've done some like i but i haven't done any steinborns i uh that's something to think about you guys got me thinking about those and then you got to think about jefferson's too okay yes okay yes hold the phone that's that's what you really we really need you to do as a Jefferson deadlift. That would be the ultimate, in my opinion. Well, when I get out there to the Badlands,

you guys can teach me the finer points of the Jefferson. Let's get some, you know, when maybe it's not negative 25, or maybe when it is negative 25. I don't know. Maybe we just do it anyway. I like where that's going. I think there's definitely a lot of potential there yeah okay uh overrated or underrated the discovery channel um you don't have to say underrated i mean i don't know if that just means that i'm 35 now and like, I like documentaries more. We're the same age. So we get it too.

Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, no. Yeah. Like any kind of like, uh, Nat Geo or discovery channel documentary, if there's somebody out there surviving, I mean, obviously I love the outdoors and being in the outdoors. So, uh, yeah, you got like a six part docu-series on Olympic National Park. I'm there. I'm going to watch it. So I'd say underrated.

Okay. Overrated or underrated, Patagonia, the brand. You know, I don't have any Patagonia gear, so I feel like I can't. I can't. You're telling me I can't walk the line though. Right. You could just go out based on your perception, I guess, at that point then. You know, I, I don't know.

I think, uh, I know that they don't, they donate a lot of money, um, for causes. So I think that, yeah, that that's good. I'll, I'll say under it. I know that they're also expensive. So, right. So I've heard the Patagucci or whatever. that yeah that that's good i'll say underrated i know that they're also expensive so right so i've heard the patagucci or whatever so uh so i think it's cool that they use their money to like support uh things that they believe in um but maybe they you know it'd be cool if their clothes weren't as expensive i don't know i don't know anything so i'll say for their charity work i'll

say underrated but again i've never used any of their stuff. I think that's a good way to use your druthers on that one. What do you think, Tommy? I think you nailed it. Do they also have, are they like lifetime warranty on stuff too or something like that? A lot of their stuff, I'm not sure if it's a lifetime warranty, but they will buy it back at any point. So if you have heavily used stuff and you say I'm done with it they will give you credit in

some way for it now I don't know if you know if it's a $300 jacket and you say I'm done with it if that'll give you like 10 bucks yeah I don't know exactly how much credit they're getting it probably depends on the condition of the item too but uh like they do have I get their emails and they do have a uh a tab that you on their website for used items that you can buy. So, I mean, they are taking it and reselling it. Okay. No, and I think from a sustainability standpoint, that's pretty cool. That seems like it's a core principle.

Yeah. So anybody who I've talked to who has Patagonia stuff, though, I will say, like, does love it. So I just don't have any personal. It's certainly a vibe, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I actually read Nick Offerman, the actor who plays Ron Swanson, he, his latest book, he talks about going to Glacier national park and like him buying Patagonia gear and

stuff and like, uh, just how much he loves it, but he does it in a really like knowingly way. He's like, yeah, I get it. I spend a lot of money on Patagonia, but like, yeah, it seems like it's quality gear and it's cool that they do buyback stuff. We'll go underrated Patagonia. This next one's the last one. We usually save the best for last. We know you're a Utah guy, obviously. Our research department dug up that possibly you are a basketball fan or enjoy basketball.

Your research department. We're a very nice company over here. We have many departments. You guys had the interns on this. It's an unpaid internship. They didn't even get paid for this. No, no. Strict internship policy never paid.

That'd break company policy if pay was involved. It's not it's not even up to us it's just company policy at this point that we we just follow the rules we don't make them company men i did it we towed the company line for sure yeah yeah okay so overrated or underrated carl malone the mailman oh man um so growing up carl was my favorite player as a kid i remember i wrote a fan letter to him and i like sent one of my top flight cards in yeah and i was like he's gonna sign this and then they came back and he's like carl doesn't sign these things but here's one where it's like a printed sign thing and i was like this sucks so that like i remember being pissed

about that uh carl was a great player um but i think he's probably and it pains me to say this a lot of jazz fans probably wouldn't like like this but you know i don't know number three uh all time on the scoring list yeah number three all time on the scoring list. Yeah, number three all-time on the scoring list. Like, I mean, you know, one of the best power forwards. One of the best power forwards, but I don't know if he's really, like, it's funny, he's number three all-time in the scoring list, but, like, when people say, like, who is the best power forward of all time, I usually, yeah, I don't really hear Carl Malone as, like, the,

you know, as, you know, he's definitely up there, top whatever number you want to put on it, but I don't really hear him say, hear that name come up that often as like, this is, he's the best. Yeah, I, you know, and there's might be some jazz heads that are going to like this, but I'm going to say overrated for Carl. He just, I don't know, we couldn't, and obviously it doesn't help when you run up against Michael Jordan twice. But yeah, I think, you know, for as many,

his longevity, and obviously the guy was a total unit, like just a monster. Don't forget about his time in professional wrestling too. Oh man, I was a 12-year-old Utah kid. I lived and breathed that stuff. I was like, Carl and Diamond Dallas Page are taking on Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman. I think they lost, too.

I remember they had jazz players that would come to youth things in my hometown. And they had Greg Foster, who was one of our centers. Yeah, double zero. Yeah. Oh, that was Osterteg. Oh, that was Greg Osterteg. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although nice with the Osterteg reference. We didn't get Osterte that was Greg Oster tag yeah that's right yeah yeah yeah although although nice

with the Oster tag reference yeah we didn't get Oster tag we got Greg Foster that's kind of worse and I remember everyone was like who's gonna win the wrestling match and I could just tell Foster was so annoyed with the line of questioning I don't know

Greg Foster if you hear this and like maybe you're a big massonomics guy maybe you weren't annoyed you can correct the I don't want to Greg Foster, if you hear this, and maybe you're a big Masonomics guy, maybe you weren't annoyed. You can correct the... You were nice. You were a good guy at the camp. I'm probably going to go overrated with Carl. I think

the history of the game has shown us, and you see freaks like LeBron that are essentially Carl's size and what they can do. It's hard to compete so if you're talking to 12 year old me i'd say underrated you're talking to me now i'm gonna say overrated carl was jacked though one of the more jacked nba players from in history i mean uh david robinson was probably bigger maybe but carl would be right up there and some of the bigger like he had i bet

he had a decent could have had a decent deadlift oh yeah man those leverages yeah big boy yeah he big guy yeah you're bringing up david robinson though man that guy oh that guy was like an adonis dude like i remember just seeing his biceps and being like, holy, he could just pop someone's head off in the headlock. If David Robinson's career was lifting, it would be scary to think what his physique would look like or also be curious how strong he could be at some things. If that would have been the thing he was into. Yeah, if he would have trained.

You guys are saying this right now, and I'm not as much of a basketball fan but i 100 know who david robinson is i haven't picked out my head and i had to look at pictures i'm like damn this guy's arms are really big actually the admiral did not play he was he was uh he had some crazy stat lines too i think i think the admiral might have have had maybe a couple quadruple doubles to his name. Yeah, quadruple double. I think he scored 71 games too.

I think he did, and he had some crazy rebound number games too. Yeah, he was... It seemed like the Admiral was just a good dude too. I think so. I couldn't like the Spurs as a kid, right? Because they're in the Western Conference. He just seemed like a good dude too. I mean, I couldn't like the Spurs as a kid, right? Because they're in the Western Conference,

but you know, he just seemed like a good guy. He had him like Avery Johnson and then Duncan came and just wrecked us all.

I think David Robinson too had to come to the NBA late because he was in military service before. He was, yeah.

Was he in the Navy? I want to say he was like in the Navy. Yeah, he must, I mean, that would make sense why he in the navy i want to say he was like in the navy yeah i've he must i mean that that would make sense why he's the admiral yeah yeah that's where he played in college yeah yeah no he i mean yeah it just seems like a stand-up guy yeah and yeah i'd love this you know maybe i'm gonna send him a dm and be like david what do you think you could pull

you know actually i had a cool experience. I had one of, you know, how like Instagram or TikTok works, right? Well, for whatever reason, it seems like one of the videos just like gets stuck in that algorithm and like it's a, you know, get some traction. Right. I had one in particular where that happened and there were these different verified accounts like, and I was like, oh, this is cool. This is cool.

And then Kevin Garnett liked it. Really? I was like, yeah, I was like, I was like, Oh, this is cool. This is cool. And then, uh, Kevin Garnett liked it. And I was like, yeah, I was like, I was like the big, the big ticket. I was, I was laying in,

I was laying in bed. It was like 11. I couldn't sleep. And I was like, Oh, and I like sat up and my wife's like half asleep. She was like, Kevin Garnett just liked my reel.

She's like the basketball players. Like, yeah, the basketball player. Like, that's really cool. That is. I like quickly followed him. I was like, yeah, the basketball player. That's really cool. That is. I like quickly followed him.

I was like, maybe he'll follow me back. He doesn't follow anyone back, I don't think. But yeah, anyway, KG, he's a big listener to Massanomics here. Gotta be. What's up, man? He has strong Minnesota ties there, at least for a long point in his career, and just our neighbor to the east. So I would assume he's pretty into it.

Talking about the Instagram thing and the algorithm thing, do you ever feel like, hey, I'm figuring this algorithm thing out, or do you spend more time thinking, I do not understand it? Which side of the fence are you on? You've probably experienced some of both. Because it seems like sometimes you get on a hot streak and you think, yep, I know what the system likes. And then it can change on a dime, it feels like. Yeah, I think my experience has probably been that of most people that post any kind of content online.

I'm sure you guys can relate, right? Where you might curate something and you're like, oh, I feel really proud of this. And then it's like nobody sees it. And then I'll throw something haphazard together just one day to be like, oh, this is kind of a cool idea. And then it just takes off. So I don't know. Maybe I'm not a very smart man, I don't think.

I don't know if I understand. I don't know if I understand it. You know, I will say this, though, too. And this maybe sounds like a line, but honestly, Discovery Deadlift for me, I don't know if I understand it. I will say this, though, too. This maybe sounds like a line, but honestly, Discovery Deadlift for me, I know it's just like I'm taking weights out into the middle of nowhere and lifting them. But it feels a little bit like a microcosm for me. I'm just trying to be a better dude. The weight that we carry emotionally or the baggage that we all have, I don't know.

Maybe it's just some meathead trying to be poetic, but I, uh, I liked, I make what I like. And I think ultimately that's where I'm just like, Oh, if I like it, then I like it. And yeah, if more people see it, then that's great. But I think that, uh, it's freeing for me if, if it got to the point where I was just doing it to be like, Oh, how do I increase my engagement? Or, engagement? I think I'd be kind of, you know, that would miss the whole spirit of why I started doing this in the first place. Yeah, I feel like I've gotten to a nice place. If it performs well, awesome. If not, I was able to go to a beautiful place with my family and do some hard stuff. You still won. Yeah, still won. I think that's the only way for stuff like that to

be sustainable too is if you're doing what you like, doing how you like to do it. So then that's a formula for being able to do it for a long period of time. Good news, it looks like you passed overrated, underrated. So that's important.

Oh man, that's good. I won't even tell you guys how many years it took me to graduate college. So I'm glad that as soon as I heard that there was going to be some type of pass or fail, I got nervous. No worries. You did great. And overall, a great episode. We'll be excited to air this one. What else?

Is there anything we didn't hit on or anywhere that anyone needs to make sure to follow along with that we didn't mention anything that you want to get out there? No, you guys treated me to the ultimate silly goose time. This was great. I appreciate what you guys do. I was scrolling through your page today and just laughing to myself. No, sincerely, I think it's great what you guys do. And thanks for the opportunity. It was really cool when you guys reached out. I was like, oh, yeah, I'd love to talk to you guys. So, no, I think it's pretty straightforward. Like, I have an Instagram handle. I'm on TikTok. Yeah, we've done a few lifting competitions in the past where we've tried to raise money for folks in different situations. And I think we have another one of those that we'd like to get going to this upcoming year. So just kind of, if you follow along, hopefully we'll have a deadlift competition at some point where you can put your money to something good or for some folks who need it. And yeah, just go outside if you can. Go outside. Talk about your feelings, guys.

Guys, there's a lot of guys on here. Talk about your feelings. It's good. So I think. Easier said than done easier easier i hear you like i just say it so flippantly like yeah just open up your heart just bury it deep inside don't let it out i just picture i could see ron burgundy I can see Ron Burgundy just saying that. Just very deep inside.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. So, yeah, I'm excited. And, yeah, I'll obviously wait for you guys to post this, and then I can listen back to it and be like, do I sound like that? We have that feeling every week for the last seven years, so that doesn't go away. See, but you guys are true Stoics because you've been doing it for seven years you haven't allowed that to like you know yeah we just don't let it phase us that's right yeah that's why i know you guys are going to do

well when we're out there rocking in the badlands you know so we won't give up on you just like we won't give up on this podcast even when we should have years ago i'm glad i'm glad you didn't uh no thanks a lot fellas and thank your research team too we'll pass the memo along but we don't like to give them too much credit yeah don't pay them right the internet oh gosh no nobody gets paid around here cool awesome this was a great episode we appreciate it thank you for taking the time this is good stuff hey thank you both all right see ya thanks a lot see you fellas bye those are outdoorsy cool beans yeah you got a can of a couple cans of cool beans outside on a campfire right underneath the mountain campfire cool beans that's uh that was good stuff i think that was really fun

that was a good one yeah big clay gets it doesn't he he does he really does all that time outside really centered him yeah just gets it i feel like he's been following along with Mastodonomics for years after that. I think he's been a day one follower. He knows my impression. He might know us a little too well now that I think about it. Better not be trying to wedge in on our thing here. Next thing he's going to be having a silly goose time out there. Yeah, starting his own little discord crew out in the mountains without

us yeah it'll be like a discord crew only people in person real people um i still can't get over uh looking at david robinson's delts and david robinson do you have a google tab up, Tanner? Because you need to look. He's freaking jacked. Oh, I know. And 7'1", like if this guy, you can't tell me this guy wanted to do strongman. He wouldn't have just destroyed everyone in the world at that time.

Actually, we probably should have talked about it. It's funny. Okay. I have a topic that's been in our list of topics for a while. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should say David Robinson because I've often thought David Robinson is the most jacked NBA player. You know, there's other people of varying physiques and stuff, but as far as like super talented NBA players,

I don't think there's anyone with quite the physique of David Robinson, in my opinion. No, Ben Wallace was a pretty stacked dude um but even carl malone but like shack wasn't built like this though not like this well he was not near lean enough you know shack was lean enough maybe he'd resemble this i don't know though because david robinson's like has like a leanness and a musculature to him that is just odd to see on a seven foot it is that's why i couldn't believe because then i'm thinking well maybe he wasn't as tall as i remember

and then i'm flipping through and i see a picture of him taller than um uh uh tim duncan and i'm like what the hell you're taller than tim duncan you're seven one what yeah because some of these pictures when he's about to shoot a free throw it looks like he could just flatten the ball like yeah yeah like that's it's really apparent like there's some pictures where he's standing at the free throw line and it's like how could this do shoot the a free throw even like the way he's like just gonna crush that ball like a tiny little like this what i'm looking at his delts are fully capped out and they come in and make a crazy indent where it connects to his bicep it's i know it's an insane physique yeah it does make you wonder like what would he if he was like yep i want i want to compete in

strongman you know at what what height is a disadvantage eventually like how tall would someone have to be until they're like yeah you just like can't move like like an overhead press would have to be hard for him like he would think like he has an enormous wingspan near 10 feet in the air by the time he gets right there right but um there's some things he would have to be pretty good at i would think you know oh especially once he gains 100 pounds and really fills out yes yes uh david robinson interesting interesting uh interesting subject, though. But the subject I've had in current topics for a few weeks is Mike Bibby.

So Mike Bibby was the point guard for the Sacramento Kings during their really good run in the early 2000s. There was one year they lost to the Lakers in the playoffs, and a lot of people think it was like the worst officiated playoff series of all time. You know, a big conspiracy theory that they had to get Shaq and Kobe through there. But he was the point guard for them. You know, wore a headband a lot of times. The Kings were a cool team at the time.

If you look at Mike Bibby now, he looks really odd. I just found this i'm looking and odd is a good way of putting it because like he's muscular for sure but it kind of looks fake at the same time it looks really weird it almost looks like synthol like what synthol people look like in some ways but so he wasn't when he played in the NBA, he was, I would say, like a guy in good shape. Kind of. He didn't look like, he just looked like a basketball player, I guess. He looked like a point guard that played basketball.

And quote that, he looked like a point guard that played basketball. But when you look at pictures of him now, there's some pictures in particular that it just looks like a point guard that played basketball but he now when you look at pictures of him now there's some pictures in particular that it just looks like there's this one way off him with the ball machine you know yeah the yeah yeah yeah you know you shoot it and it yeah he bones the ball he looks pretty jacked in that one does but it does his arms look weird it does look it it does look off something is something seems strange there i 100 agree with you he almost and he kind of like he doesn't look you know he doesn't we're talking about david robinson david robinson's arms looks very lean like you can see every like sinew of muscle fiber in his like mike bibby kind of looks like an odd tick that's about ready to pop in

places or something like that well and it also yeah and it's because you wouldn't say well he's just running some crazy bulk or he's just heavy right now because it doesn't look like that either it's i had a look at a degree significantly different than what it looks oddly different like two separate body types almost. I don't really get it. Yeah, it just looks like someone put an air hose in him and pumped him up full of air and then said, all right, you're good, go along.

Yeah. And he kind of, in some pictures, he looks like Alex Rodriguez. Like there's one where he's sitting on the sideline of an Arizona game wearing a black Jordan shirt. Yes, I see that one right here. I could swear that that's Alex Rodriguez. Uh-huh. Yeah.

He has some of the pictures. He's unrecognizable from himself. I mean, I know. He looks just so different. Sometimes it looks like he's balding. He doesn't have hair. And the other times he has this really thick black hairline. And then depending on the photo,

his skin complexion is way different too. Yeah. Huh? Bizarre. And some of his facial features look different. And so like where I'm like, they almost look like, I don't know,

maybe that's like what happens after a lot of plastic surgery or something like that. Not really sure. I guess we'll have to get the research team and see what mike bibby's been up to i'm not judging him no like not trying to like say but i'm just saying it it's it alarmed me the first time i saw something i was like what is going on like is that the same human being or am i confused here no i i totally get there there does seem to be something that's get there there does seem to be something that's off in some way there do you remember mike bibby um a little bit yeah not not a ton but i mean if you were to ask me who he was i'd say he was a

point guard for someone for sure i just i think i'd have a hard guess he would have been like post uh white chocolate jason williams kings you know i think i don't know if they overlapped at all but um so yeah that that uh that's how i capped off that's how we capped off um big clay is talking about mike bivy that's been on our list to talk about for so many weeks it's been sitting in there it really felt like felt like a tie-in here though it did i 100 agree i totally agree i i know we have uh several other topics here to get to do we have time for one i don't know what we have time for but here's one i wanted to talk about i put this in the poll in instagram this week and i want to know what they i want to know the answer and the logic behind your answer here's the question if you could only have access to

one plate size in the gym fives tens 25s 45s which plate size would you choose to only be able to exclusively use well i'm going to tell you what i saw when i took the poll was the winner at the time was 45s and that's the wrong answer i kind of think it's the wrong answer right if you're really saying this is the only plate you can have in the gym you're telling me your workouts from going forward are going to be 135 225 225 315 405 like no you're going to miss out on so much training if that's actually like would the gym look cooler with a bunch of 45s in it 100 from from a visual standpoint i that's the right answer. But if that's the only plate you can use to train,

that is so the wrong answer. And fives, I don't think is right because it would just be, you couldn't get enough weight on the bar, right? That would be the problem. You definitely couldn't get enough weight on the bar. And tens is almost in that same ballpark where you're not

really going to get enough weight on the bar think about a deadlift like you could you know how many tens do you think you could get on the bar could you get i don't know 20 on each side yeah are the tens a half an inch across maybe yeah like say even if you could maybe you can't even get 20 on a side but if you could get 20 on a side, that'd be 200 pounds on each side. So the most you could ever lift is 445 with tens. For a lot of people, that's going to be a limiting, you know, would be an overly limiting factor for like the squat and the deadlift.

Yes. So the answer I picked was 25s because I think for deadlifting and squatting fives could also be a choice as just they could i feel like that options here i feel like that still is too much um i picked 25s i think that's that happy medium but now you got me thinking well how many 25s could you fit on a that's i for some people i think it would be limiting on the deadlift because i think the 25s are usually just about as thick as the 45s.

Yeah. If not the same thickness. That's what I was going to say. So can you might only be able to fit 10, 25s on each side of the bar. But there'd be 250 though. Yeah. But you'd be capped at 545. Yes.

So the only people that have that problem then is people that are lifting over that, which then that's not most people right yeah and then also how many of your if that really was your only way around it well even if you deadlift 600 pounds how often then are you going over 540 yes over 550 that's why i would still say i think 25s are the right answer here i think that is the way to go it does the biggest limit is going to be your bench training is going to be much harder when you're working with 25 pound or 50 pound jumps. That would be the more challenging one.

Yeah. Squat and deadlift. Yeah, it's not ideal, but I think you can make that work. I see. I think 25 is the right answer also. And I thought I thought it was interesting. So many people picked 45s. I think if you're that from a visual standpoint.

Yeah, I think if you're someone that squats and deadlifts in excess of 700 pounds or maybe even in excess of 800 pounds, 35s could be a better choice. They might be. Maybe even possibly 45s if you're strong enough. But for the more common strength athlete i think 25s are the right choice i 100 agree if you can because you're not going to make 90 pound jumps on everyone you're like exactly like the bench press for example what do you do then you're like well

i mean you could program that but what if you're someone whose max bench is uh 290 exactly now the only things you can do are 235 and 225. You're just kind of screwed there. Yeah, I think 25 is the right answer. I would take a lot of persuading to be pushed away from that. Yeah. I think that's almost definitively the right answer, unless you're maybe in the top fraction of a percentage strength.

If you're Dan Bell, 45s are the right answer for sure. Right, I agree. Yeah, because they can't be limited to a 550-pound lift. You know, like that's a warm-up for them. If you have multiple lifts over 600 pounds, then you can start to maybe say 45s. But what if it's 35s? You can fit 10 35s on a side,

so then you can go to 745. That would catch a lot of people then. You'd have to be squatting 800. But still, if you're Dan Bell or John Hack, you have to go 45s though probably. You have to. When you're John and you're regularly getting in the 800s just for your right it's yeah but the rest of us i i think 25s is the answer but then what if you're uh your brother for example his deadlift is uh you know

700 pounds so the most he ever gets to deadlift now is 545. But then you're flying Ryan, for example, again, your max bench is 300 pounds. So if you go 45s, you now can deadlift 675, but your bench, you can only work with 225 and 135. I think you still got to go. I think you'd still have to go with 25s, I think, in that case. Or what about 35s for him? I mean, maybe, maybe 35s.

But 25s are going to suit you better on squat. They're going to suit you way better on bench. It's just on deadlift. The other thing is on deadlift then, because you're going 25s. Right, you're working from a deficit right i guess you could you know we're not saying you couldn't use a block there's no yeah there's no rules here saying you couldn't use blocks that right you'd want to use a block right you can use a block to simulate the right height yeah yeah yeah that's what if if you had to open a gym and the old every plate manufacturer was closed the strength coat for whatever reason said,

we're not selling plates anymore. And you had to go on Facebook marketplace. And the only thing you could find a single weight plate, a guy selling tens or a guy selling 25s or a guy selling 45s. You couldn't buy, you had to only buy. I said, I'm only selling them in a set.

I think you got to go with the guy selling 25s. I think you do. It's a dilemma that we probably don't have to face, but I think it's an interesting discussion. It is. And I posted it more as a joke. And then after I posted it, I really thought about what is the right answer. Well, and it's not 45s. And it's interesting now that we're talking about it because I didn't give this that much thought at all. I just saw and I thought, well, the most practical would be the 25 and I clicked it right away

yeah and I saw that 45 was first and I'm like really am I thinking about this wrong and then I moved on and didn't think about it anymore so I'm glad you brought it up no doubt 45s look the coolest though like that's probably where people are yeah yes hands down well I think we finally settled that age-old debate, didn't we? People can finally know where we stand on that one. Which plate size would you go with if you could only choose one and had to exclusively have that plate size? Okay, we're not going to play Has He Seen It this week. We'll hold that off until next week.

Should we bring it in for a landing do you think or um it's getting close to 10 30 in the p.m let's we should probably i think we should probably land this puppy there's snakes on this damn plane we got to get it get her on the ground these monday through friday snakes on this do you know what he says on the on the censored version is that what he says uh monday through friday snakes is that what they make it sound like uh i yeah i think he says uh i think he said this mother effing plane he says on this why would you even make a censored version of that like that's something like some things don't shouldn't even have a censored version it's's just like, no, this only exists. Here's the famous line.

I got to hear it quick. Yeah. It's. I'm listening. You probably can't hear this, but. Okay. These monkey fighting snakes on this Monday through Friday plane. That's ridiculous.

Yeah. Monkey fighting snakes on this Monday through Friday plane. That's ridiculous. That's good. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag, but I would just say had a couple of new new items arrive um this week to the massonomics fc we got cats this week not cats yeah you said you were gonna let the cats out of the bag oh i thought you got a delivery of cats i didn't know about no yeah yeah we did too but they're still

in the bag they're not getting out of there it's funny i haven't seen the bag move in a while so i don't know what that means but oh there's a reason they call it a cat nap i think they're all taking quite the cat nap right now uh but we do have some some pretty exciting stuff i think coming for february i think we do too and further down the road we have some additionally even maybe further exciting things for 2023 that we've been working on pretty hard uh well i'm gonna i'm gonna clean up your statement there there's not maybe some maybe some additional things that are exciting in 23 there are some additional things that are coming in 2023 just to clarify yes there are exciting big things coming here in 2023 i mean

the occasional listener could take that as maybe they they're going to do something to us this year, maybe not. I want to be clear here. We are for sure. We are possibly doing other things in 2020 this year, and all of them are very exciting. Yeah. That's a little less ambiguous than saying, maybe we're going to do something else this year.

Yeah, we will be definitive about that one. We won't tell any of the actual details of any of it. No, we're just making the statement that things are coming. Yeah, big things are coming soon, right? Some are coming soon and some are coming less soon, but they're all coming. 2023 is the common thread there. Coming in the gym. They're coming at home.

Yeah, coming everywhere. All right. So head over to our store and check out our t-shirts. Our shorts, the lift shorts are back in stock. All sizes. This is an important announcement. Lift shorts back in stock.

Every single size that's small through two X. And you might say two X is that big enough to fit me? The two X fits a very large waist. Check out the sizing chart on the lift shorts. They're not called the lift shorts 1.0. They're just called lift shorts, but they, you know, you might refer to them as the lift shorts 1. What do you say to that?

Back in black. Yeah. Back in black. Love that Metallica song. Oh, yeah. It's a good old rock and roll. One of my favorite Pantera songs. So you can walk on over to your computer and get some lift shorts that are back in black.

I like it. And Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is also a song by ACDC. Yeah, and then you can take me higher when you get them, I guess. Absolutely. We talked with Big Clay about the Strength Co. And then I didn't tell you a little bit more, you know, some more details on the Strength Co. So I'm going to tell you that right now. Actually, I'm going to have my friend over here in the Massanomics Fulfillment Center explain it.

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 60 years of ironworking experience, With over 60 years of ironworking experience, the foundry had the knowledge, technology, and processes to build our weights to our exact specifications. The Strength Company plates are slim but rugged, smooth but easy to grip, and electro-coated for durability and to look great in your gym. This is the next generation of American Iron I only available from the strength company. There we go.

We talked about the strength call a lot this week. So I was kind of had to wrap my head around that. We need to actually actually specifically talk about, actually really talk about it. Right, right, right, right. Okay. This episode of the massomics podcast is also brought to you by SwissLink.

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I think it says all of them. There's just a button that says all of them. And what will you say? You know what? I'm not really much of a clothing or supply guy. I don't need any of that. Well, you probably are a little bit of an MRE guy and they do have a case of 12 MREs right here, $90. You can even pay for it in four interest-free installments of $22 and 49 cents. That's practically free at that point. Get on top of that. You're going to want these MREs. So make sure to visit SwissLink at www.swisslink.com. And while you're there, make sure to use code MASS at checkout to save 15% on your first order.

Thank you, Swiss Link. Thank you, Swiss Link. All this MRE talk's got me hungry. Me too. We've got time for a midnight snack almost. Curry chicken with basmati rice, lentils and vegetables. Sign me up.

Especially at 15% off. Chicken noodle stew, pasta marinara with vegetable meat crumbles, cheese tortellini with marinara sauce, spicy southwest chicken with rice vegetables, barbecue sauce with chicken, black beans, and potatoes. The Vomlet? I think that's in the vault collection. They only open that one up a few times a year,

so you've got to let them age. It's like a fine wine. It's in the cellar aging all the time. And Tommy, where do they find you at? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but just make sure to follow Mastonomics at Mastonomics. See ya.