Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 407: Joe Stanek

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Big Joe Stanek joins us for this one to talk about powerlifting coaching, USAPL Raw Nationals signup issues, and Hunger Games. We also try to settle the Coke Zero Vs Diet Coke debate. Check out Joe's new site www.1repmethods.com Build Fast Formula Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! Juggernaut AI Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10%! The Strength Co Get some Go-To Plates! Swiss Link Use code MASS to save 15%! Texas Power Bars Get the Barbell that changed the game!

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! and everything. Masonomics. Masonomics. And I love drinking protein shakes, eating chicken bakes, talking about power lifting. Hey, guys. Oh, God.

I hit the wrong button. I don't know my buttons anymore. With the twins. There it is. It might have lost some of the timing. I'm going to edit it so you have like seven more wrong button pushes. Yeah. With the twins. You can imagine how cohesive that would have been.

I have a feeling you might get a second shot at that here. Yeah, this won't be the last time we talk about the twins, will it? I don't think so. Not our first and won't be our last, but this is episode... Actually that actually all that talking about twins 407 yeah this is episode 407 of the mass dynamics podcast the lifting podcast about nothing my name is tanner and my name is tommy and i love quarterbacks eating dirt pom-poms and short skirts fans who won't quit and

this is with the twins come on he just has the same button well my problem is last time i hit so many buttons by the time i hit the right one and i've been messing with my buttons and i did the – and then you know how – you know, nobody else understands this, but you can change the – you can color – Change the color, the position. They're just colored backlit buttons, and you can move them around and change the color. And I do this color coding in my mind that's supposed to, like,

help me remember it. Yeah, do the same thing. If you can remember it, it's helpful. But as soon as the system gets out of whack then it's all uh like my only two blue buttons are the cool beans buttons because of course they're blue because they're cold but sometimes even i forget that for some reason after hundreds of weeks sometimes i forget uh you know what i'm not gonna forget though i'm not gonna forget about build fast formula i mentioned i like drinking protein shakes and eating chicken

bakes. Yeah. When I, when I drink them protein shakes, it's with 80, 20 build fast formula nature's protein ratio, the 80, 20, a blend of casein and whey protein. That's sure to make you get them gains. Check out build fast formula.com. That's where you'll find 80-20, their full blitz. They got their pre-workout supplements, their drink hack supplements. Take that out if you'd like to have an adult beverage on occasion, maybe minimize those next-day side effects that you may experience. We're all about the lift and hard, live and easy here. That goes hand-in-hand, and what better to help you out with that than the drink hack? And of course, Veso Blitz, the only

pre-workout that's clinically proven to give you a better performance in the bedroom at the same time. And by clinically proven, I just made that up. So he had an asterisk behind that one. Yes. Asterisk, not clinically proven to do this uh check out buildfastformula.com make sure to use discount code massonomics when you're there they'll save you 10 on your entire order and you can use that every time you shop there massonomics discount code also if you sign up for a subscription on any of the supplements you save an extra 10%, 20% total, buildfastformula.com. And today's episode is also brought to you by Barefoot Shoes. Barefoot Shoes are our favorite barefoot footwear to wear in and out of the gym.

And this time of year when the weather gets a little feisty and the temps drop a little lower, Tanner and I both enjoy wearing the Barefoot Bruin Boots. They're a full--size boot quality leather and they got that great barefoot sole that you know and love from barefoot shoes. If you need something to wear inside the gym you can check out their Ursus lines available in both high and low top for whatever your preference is and if you happen to be that's that really really lucky person that wants to get a pair of the massonomics collabs i just checked tanner and according to my math

there's about 10 pairs left in total uh biggest size 10 and a half biggest size looks like they have is seven and a half so oh wow if you wear a small that's seven and a half men so nine women's eight and a half women's if you're between like seven and a half men's's seven and a half men, so nine women, eight and a half women. If you're between like seven and a half men and four and a half men, there's a chance there's one or two pairs of the Massanomics Barefoot Collab sitting and waiting. And you're going to want to get on that because once that thing's gone, it's gone forever. And we are happy to announce that this week the 10% off discount code has returned. Use code Massanomics. to announce that this week the 10 off discount code has returned use code massonomics and you can save 10 on your next order at barefoot.store one more time use code massonomics barefoot.store that's going to save you 10 on your next order thank you barefoot shoes and that's just not on the ursonomics that's on anything yes that on anything so yeah a pair of boots you could save

a decent chunk of change there we got you just got back well first of all some weather we've been having there's a little saying I don't know if you're familiar with this one and the saying goes there are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen

and I kind of feel like this has been one of those weeks because man kind of has been i go on vacation a lot of stuff to talk about don't go on vacation and damn i feel like we could fill three episodes of those stuff we got to talk about yeah we really could but uh luckily for you we're gonna jam pack it all into this one badass episode right here uh but you were just on vacation where where we at where you uh we took a little trip to someplace warmer we uh negligibly warmer we took a trip to the cities minneapolis for uh those people that maybe don't know the regional dialect but we went to the cities we went to a little indoor water park for the kids and uh they freaking loved it they just they went nuts and uh it was you know taking kids and stuff like this is kind of a newer thing for me you know my kids are one and three so i don't know how they're gonna handle it but yeah they both loved it our

boy thought it was like the best thing ever he was just losing his mind our daughter had a great time too and what's the water park area called? It's called Great Wolf Lodge. I think there's like a chain. I think they're actually a chain. That sounds familiar. Yeah, and they do, you know, it's a hotel. You stay at the hotel, then there's a water park. The Cities was also a former Tanner Explains the Midwest topic.

It was. So you should actually know that by now. They've been playing along. And we went there. The hotel rates on this, it works great. I'm really starting to embrace the fact that, you know, I have a bit of an unconventional schedule being that I'm, I'm self-employed and my wife's schedule is a, an unconventional one too. And the fact that she typically works three twelves. So I'm really starting to take Bud Jeffries,

live an unconventional life. Exactly. Yes. R. and uh i'm really starting to embrace the fact that we just need to lean into midweek vacations more because man that is just the way to do it the prices on everything are so much better in the middle of the week the crowds are non-existent like this whole thing prices for what we just did basically double if we were to go over the weekend you're on a saturday they're basically cut in half when you go in the middle of the week and that's like hundreds of dollars cheaper a night it's insane and then uh so we had two great days there and then we went this place is right by the mall of america went to the mall of america today and i mean it almost felt like you were in the aberdeen

mall there was no one in there you had probably looked less shitty than that. It looked a lot less shitty. But there was no one in there. And then we go to, they have a big, they have a big amusement park. Cinnabon. Cinnabon, yes,

but if you're not familiar with. What's Snoopy World or what's Camp Snoopy? Well, when we were children, it was Camp Snoopy. That was, that was what the amusement park was in the Mall of America. And now it is Nickelodeon. Okay.

Something. It's all Nickelodeon themed rides. So it's SpongeBob SquarePants and Paw Patrol and all of those things. But there was no one there. There was no one there. You had no lines for any rides at all. Most of the rides, you were the only one on the ride. And because it was so empty, some of the rides don't even run because there's no one there for them.

But that works out fine because our kids are small enough that they can't do half the rides anyways. So I don't know if there was any rides that they wanted to do that weren't open. So it was perfect to have essentially an amusement park to yourself. It's so easy.

And then same thing, you go to the food court, there's no lines anywhere. There's all of the restaurants. Like it was just just it's the way to do it it was so just chill and relaxing as we're chilling relaxing as a mall can be yeah and then we also did uh they have a thing called sea life where they do the you have like the aquarium where you're under the water in a tube you know and you can look and see the sharks swimming over you so yeah i i had a ton of fun our kids loved it and uh the weather worked as

good as it could have you know know, as good as like negative 20 degree weather can. And so it cooperated with us and it was, it was smooth sailing and we just got back like an hour and a half before the start of this episode. So yeah, it was, it was a good, it was a good trip. The weather was pretty intensely cold over the week, over the last week here though too, wasn't it? Dude, it's crazy how today the thermometer says like 15 and it's like damn felt nice really feels pretty pleasant

to be honest everyone i was talking to they're like yeah you can like be outside and like it was to any exposed skin the last prior days was like going to be hurting instantly it did and today you could like be out there without gloves and stuff and be like oh this isn't like immediately hurting my body you know like it's not like immediately hurting my skin before we left i was afraid to open the garage door loading the car up because the second i opened the garage door i know you're on a it's just a timer yeah pain sets in tonight i had the garage door open i didn't have a coat on i'm coming in that was no problem at all it was great but a lot of those lines i have some follow-up on on chapped lips have you had chapped lips yet this season we know there's a bit of a hot button around here a little bit have i used chapstick i've maybe used

chapstick uh once or twice in the last month so i have noticed my skin being drier and uh maybe my lips like being a little but really not not very much surprisingly for how dry it is super dry like in my house the static electricity like you can notice all that stuff way more but although i still have not had to use very much chapstick so like almost some almost not okay so to bring people up to speed quick tanner and i are both team no chapstick here we think it's not necessary i i don't even know if i've used chapstick once this entire year actually it's 2024 so i haven't used it this year but i probably haven't used chapstick in the last 10 months right the day where i thought i had to use it i was out blowing some snow and uh man around the court when that wind was like hitting you hard and all the snow is

coming back in your face you know your face is just pure ice and the wind's hitting you and you go inside and you look and you're it's like i actually think what i got was windburn i think it was more wind than anything because when we were driving in the car i'm like damn my lips are chapped and i'm putting on uh what's what's the one in the tube like that you squeeze out is that carmax am i mixing up carmax i think okay like that you squeeze out? Is that Carmex? Am I mixing up again? That's Carmex, I think. I feel like that's Carmex.

So I put on Carmex once thinking, okay, here's my one time I'm going to use it. And then it was, I don't know, a half hour later, I had to put more on. And then we were still in the car ride and I grabbed it again. And my wife goes, what's going on right now? I go, what?

She goes, you just put on ChapStick three times. I've never seen you do that in your life. And I'm like, I don't even think it actually works. And so after that, I thought about it. I thought, you know what? I think they're just windburn. I don't even think they're chapped. And I've been no, no chapstick since I've been fine. Hey, chapstick begets chapstick. You know, I mean, we talked about it before. Yeah, but I would allow, this is the month of the year, if you were to need ChapStick, this would be the time to smoke him if you got him, I would say.

This is when you get the free pass. We will allow passes now, but be aware. You don't want to start any bad habits, though. No. And we still really haven't got, we never really got really any snow out of the whole thing. You guys didn't? No.

Oh, we got over i mean our ground is white from back before you know like on that youtube video you watched when you said hey i'm surprised there's snow there that's still the amount of that that snow is the snow that we have from that day it's been so cold it's not going anywhere but uh there's really no snow looking ahead we got 30 degree days in forecast. That is going to knock the snow down so fast. It's going to be great. Take a little 30-degree action, like 50 degrees warmer than what it was. Yeah, that 50, 60-degree swing, we'll take that all day. Yeah.

You know what else you missed while you were gone? Well, you missed a lot of stuff, but we're right in the midst of sort of a massonomics competition. Yeah, okay, so I got to admit, I've been almost out of the game. we're right in the midst of a sort of a massonomics competition. Yeah. Okay. So I got to admit, I've, I've been almost,

you see my post in the discord. I've been almost out of the discord entirely. Yeah. And I, this is the last three days are, are to me almost comparable to the Arnold and how little I was actually on Instagram, you know,

at the Arnold, it's like at the very end of the day, you're like, what did I miss? And I ran across a post that we had that was saying something about chicken bakes and I thought oh that's kind of funny and like it was doing the thing where like Instagram was giving it to me in the wrong timeline so it was like I was seeing things in an order that was starting to confuse me even more

and then I hopped over to the discord and I see all this talk about a competition going on so yeah why don't why don't you break it all down for me because I believe I'm up to speed now but there's a chance I might miss something yeah and I did put a post I think it might have been like yesterday morning in the discord or maybe it's this morning I can't remember now it's all a bit of a blur with the chicken bakes but I said uh Tommy's been on vacation he doesn't even know all this is going on he's gonna come back and be like what did you do so we have uh someone did this with the costco hot dog they did seven days of eating nothing but the costco hot dog only consumable food that they had was okay and was that post

on instagram because i saw that one yeah it's an instagram real is somebody did someone put in the discord is that where we saw it yeah i think it's been shared a little oh and i put it on our instagram story oh okay that's right i was gonna say because i ran across that post somewhere yeah and we said i said well i don't know somebody said i don't know where it actually i don't know the point of origin but uh obviously the lines he draws well why doesn't someone do it with the the chicken bake of course and then even more turns out everyone wants to do wanted to do with the chickenakes. Then I put out a post on Instagram. It's practically like saying, do you want to eat gourmet meals for a week?

Right, right. So we're sponsoring these athletes where the deal is they save their receipts and we pay for all the chicken bakes. So it comes at no cost to them outside of maybe the side effects of eating nothing but chicken bakes for a week. When you say side effects, that's purely positive. There purely positive there's no negative all good things that happen so was just originally going to be one and we had big uh sam supporting member crew member that was all over it right away and i'm like yep you're you got the job and then there's just such so much demand for it i figured

why not get three so we can get a variety of experiences here so we really see how it hits different bodies. Right. Big Sam and we kind of have different body types. We have Big Sam, Big Grayson, other supporting member that's in on the action from Crew Falls of course and then the third contestant. I don't think he's not

a supporting member but he's very adamant about getting in on it. It's Big Matt McDougal. He's a Highland Games athlete, and he fit the bill. We also kind of needed a super heavyweight. Right, because you want different body types, different regions of chicken bake. Yeah.

So we got Grayson, Sam, and Matt, and they all kind of started at the same time. So they're all about, I think, wrapping up about day two of nothing but chicken. They're still in the honeymoon phase. Yeah. I said, you have to at least eat two chicken bakes per day. And cap, at first I said five,

and then I'm like, forget it. No, sky's the limit. You eat as many chicken bakes and we will reimburse them for you. As long as you finish, if you leave a chicken bake partially unfinished, that does not qualify for reimbursement. Yeah, we do not believe in wasting food out there.

So that's what's going on gonna be seven days and we had some discussion about the rules and liquids they can basically drink any liquids just not don't make mixed shakes yeah don't be blending up eating them right but if you want to drink some milk go ahead and drink milk if you want to drink water brewskis gator. I think that's fair. Whatever. Drink your liquids, but your food should just only be chicken bakes. And it seems to be they're all sticking to it.

Big Sam said initial reaction is his wedding finger. He almost couldn't get it off anymore because he's blowing up. I think he might have also said, I'll never. I have a thirst that I'll never be able to quench already. That's amazing. That's's good i like that uh how much how much of this are these guys documenting like in what i said i want at least a selfie picture with each chicken each time you're eating chicken banks too all right and if you can any of them can get any little video snippets that's fine because obviously at the end of it we'd like to make like a little bit of a real maybe one or three of them i'd love to hear like maybe it's just like even some closing testimonial yeah or even or even a few maybe like daily wrap-ups especially towards i mean

every day would be awesome they've been putting they've all been they've all been kind of doing on an instagram and i'm sharing those also. So people can are following along. I think on the massomics Instagram a little bit. Good. I gotta be honest. Maybe the one that shocked me the most was seeing Grayson said he's journaling his thoughts each meal. Good, good. Seeing Grayson take this on. I kind of thought Grayson was a big time macros guy. So I was pretty shocked to see Grayson. He probably is. That's why he thought I'm not sure the sodium levels fit what he would consider in his macros. But outside of that, yeah, it's a win-win, I guess. Yeah.

So very exciting. That's probably the biggest thing in the massonomics world that you missed, right, is the seven-day chicken bake challenge. That's what I felt like was the biggest thing. That's monumental. That's huge. Yeah, that's big. Do you have a can over there this weekend?

I do. I do have a can. Talking about all these chicken bakes is making me thirsty. These pretzels are making me thirsty. I got a blackberry lemonade Waterloo. Those are all right. We've had those before, right? I believe so.

Yeah, not bad. Lemonade or lemonade to any flavor. It's good. I like lemonade. The more time goes on, the more I like lemonade. Oh, yeah. Having an orange cream bubbly again. Nobody else is drinking these in the house.

On the topics of lemonade, you know, on the night of Crew Falls, we went to Look's Marketplace and ate dinner that night. I should have told you to get their lemonade. My wife got their lemonade when we were there once this summer, and it was the best damn lemonade I've ever had in a restaurant. They put, I don't know if they use sparkling water as a base in their lemonade because it had some bubbly to it. Oh, it was amazing.

Milk, milk, lemonade, around the corner fudge is made. Wow. That's what I would say. I don't even know what that means but sounds really really i think it's perverse perverted i have no idea not exactly sure don't know where i picked that up from but it's one of those things that just lives tale you could say yeah um we do have several other things here i've got this card thing but maybe i'll save that towards the end let's talk let's talk football for a minute unless you want to talk something else no let's do that i think that's okay okay so foosball can't be running

around playing all that foosball we we never talked uh after you know washington state we're fans of the washington state huskies through uh not anymore not anymore obviously but we were fans of who used to be caitlin deborah um and someone maybe made the i believe someone made the comment in the discord like oh tommy would you support alabama if he went there and i said oh i'd be conflicted thinking that would never happen well he's going to alabama which is kind of crazy um i guess i didn't see that one coming i wasn't sure if something like that would i called it on the podcast i said that exact exact thing so i guess i saw it coming yeah i said it well i said what if nick saban retires they're like he's going to be the first person they're calling,

which I mean, as far as winning goes, like, yeah, he's a, he's, he's a coach that knows how to win. So I guess as of right now, I feel like I never thought I would do this, but I kind of feel like I almost have to cheer for Alabama next year because I do not want to see him have a bad season at Alabama. That would look terrible. So. Yeah.

And unfortunately for him, a bad season Alabama is going to be like losing two games or three games right oh but actually if he lost two games i wouldn't that wouldn't bother me at all it's like okay give him no but i like for if you're an alabama football fan you don't want like your expectations are like almost too high yeah people just need to get into check there but it's essentially impossible shoes to fill not just big shoes it is totally and no one really i don't think anyone wants to admit that or at least the fans of alabama i don't think they want to admit that at least the the diehards wouldn't but uh what is interesting here that well there's a couple two things that are interesting here one is it makes the tennessee

alabama game really interesting because it's like brought that up two of the two of the better teams in the sec and you'll have uh two northeast south dakota coaches going right at it which is like how like out of all the people that could be who are you so the question is i mean the question literally was who are you going to cheer for in that scenario oh i mean alabama all day i take i take the millbank native over aberdeen native right sure and i do even though i don't have millbank ties uh here's the thing here's the deep dive on why i actually take alabama this is actually why i put the subject in here because this is something i want to talk about i don't think you brought this up on the podcast ever i

don't i might have brought it up i think i brought it we talked about it didn't we or i don't know if you did i know you talked about in the discord i don't know if you've talked this up on the podcast so here's the thing i went to play at the university of sioux falls where deborah came from that was his first head coaching uh role he came to my he he came to my school uh my nine-man football school twice uh in the that winter of like 2005 and uh recruited me after two basketball practices there's me and another guy and my my team that he came to recruit twice i ended up going there the other one was it big tron was that the other guy he was no big tron was our long since gone to sdsu uh you know you know he's he was in year three of his eight-year undergrad degree at that point, I think.

He's not here to defend himself, so you can say whatever you want. Coach DeBoer came, which is just hilarious. Geographically, nobody listening would understand this, but him coming to Millette, South Dakota. He's gone from coming to Millette, South Dakota in the middle of winter to recruit me to go play football. A high school class of how many kids are in your high school class? 25, and we are the biggest class in the middle of winter to recruit me to go play football. Yeah, a high school class of how many kids are in your high school class? 25, and we were the biggest class in the school. Driving like almost three hours to go recruit Tanner.

Yes, three hours, yes. And now he is out the coach of the most, arguably, or maybe not even arguably, the most prestigious college football program in the world. Kind of arguably the most prestigious coaching job in the United States. I don't know. You can make cases for that, but they're certainly up there.

But the flip side of the coin. Well, before you say that, though, Tanner, I wanted you to tell that story because I wanted to say, I think by the transitive property, you've basically been recruited to play football at Alabama at this point. That's exactly right. So I ran into someone at our local, you you know I go to our local college basketball games all the time and I ran into someone there and they you know they know the story and that's the

first thing he said he's like you've basically played at Alabama now and I said yes that is correct I have basically played I was recruited recruited to play in Alabama. I was essentially an Alabama football alumni. I had to walk away. Forrest Gump and me both. But Coach Heupel, Coach Heupel's father was the coach of Western Northeast South Dakota's local college football team when I would have been going to college. And he, the reason I'm cheering for Coach DeBoer over Coach Heupel's son is that he barely made an effort to recruit me.

I was recruited to play for him, but it was really piss poor. You were an afterthought. I was an afterthought all day. You know, there was like a minuscule scholarship amount on the table for me. I think I mentioned in the Discord, though, although the cost of schools is so vastly different. Right, it probably ended up being the same. 30 times more at the one school is actually still like a better deal,

you know, depending on what you consider a better deal, but financially cheaper to go with the awful offer. But because the offer was so poor there. You never forgot. That's why I would cheer for coach deborah just because you knew your market value yeah yeah to your guns and of course i that i say all that in jest but uh i would be i would be cheering for coach deborah i actually at least know him and have sat in the room and talked to him and gotten coached by him a little bit yeah yeah that's uh that's pretty crazy though had the when you look at a guy I mean there's if you follow

sports at all there's been so many things stats charts and numbers about it but to essentially go from coaching I think it said his first coaching job was at Washington High School here in Sioux Falls right yeah I actually lied when I said his first head coaching job then really uh I mean if you want to yeah I mean a little different tier here, but to go from coaching high school football to and that wasn't that wasn't head coach. So was it wasn't he? Oh, was he? Was he just the offensive coordinator? I think he was just like an offensive coordinator, like a receivers coach or something. Yeah. So to go from coaching high school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to coaching Alabama in like what, 15 years or something like that? 20 years is, uh, yeah, I think, uh, his first year head coaching would have been when I went there in 2005. So it's just in, so yeah, 19 years, he went from his first head

coaching job in Sioux Falls at an NAIA college. Like they weren't due to them. They were NAIA. Right. So 19 years from NAIA to, to to Alabama that is an insane trajectory that is insane and I did do they is a public knowledge what his contract is or not really I Saban was making like over 10 million a year it's got to be at some I think they had didn't wasn't there just like a 10 or 12 million dollar buyout on his contract with Washington just to even go there okay I think it was something like that but yeah I'd imagine they gotta be paying him close to 10 million a year just to I'm sure it is um and then the other one that i thought was funny one of the comments that i'd seen on the internet was something along the lines of like

imagine telling alabama fans that their um coach after nick saban would have been fresno state's head coach in like 2019 or something like that it's like yeah fresno state's coach to uh alabama in like five years is nuts it's crazy you could see that yeah i could see totally see it playing out though i see exactly what i mean you can either go after i don't know some old names that have already gone around the block a couple times or do you go for the person but there's no guarantee like there's no guarantee like and that's the thing this is all speculative no one knows there's been hires that look perfect on paper and they totally explode also there's so many factors that play into anyone winning or not winning that it's just like it's just like the president of the united states to get a political but not actually get political

you know like whatever people think the president is or isn't doing well there's also a whole bunch other people involved on it i draw a parallel of that to the head coach of the football team where and then you talk about recruiting all that and then i mean that's its whole own thing and then you add an nil which is still almost uncharted territory in this day and age people don't even know the the consequences of what that will or will not have on the sport 10 years from now right our guest has arrived tanner if we want to. Should I do a quick supporting our supporting members segment? I think so.

While you boot some people out. So this week on Unpaid and Underrated was Big Andrew. I thought that was a particularly good episode because I didn't really know that much about Big Andrew. You know, I know him from Discord and Instagram and stuff like that, but he's one of the people I haven't actually met in person yet. I think he signed up for the Lift Hard Live Easy Classic, if I remember right, but I enjoyed that episode, getting to know him better.

I don't think we have met him. No, I don't think we have. I'm pretty sure we have not, but he's interesting and certainly very aware of his name and all that, of course, but now I understand him way better than I did before, so that was cool. And I also never mentioned it. Well, let me do this first. Big Jesse had a powerlifting meet this week.

He hit a 515 squat, a 340 bench, and a 530 deadlift, so well done, Big Jesse. And then I forgot to mention last week's guest on Unpaid and Underrated was Big Trond. And Trond knows how to pen a ballad. Yes, that would be the thing. Also, I feel like I have known Trond for a long time. And I just never enunciate his name quite correctly. And I just really emphasize that fact to me when I listened to them say it on the podcast where they're yeah, Tron is, you know, and I just, I feel like I've never, I don't speak it that way, you know,

like that. I just like the D just falls away when I say it normally, even though I know it's there, I just don't, don't enunciate that. I know what you mean. It's probably supposed to be. I can see that. You can do that with people's names after a while, I think. So when you know someone, you can take liberties with how you say it. But on his episode, Big Tron released the I'm Just Crew,

the first Mastodonics adjacent hit single to hit the airways, I'm Just Crew, the first Mastodonics adjacent hit single to hit the airways. I'm Just Crew, a parody of I'm Just Ken, right? From the Barbie? I don't know. I've never seen the Barbie movie. I haven't seen that movie yet. It is on my watch list. Has Tommy seen it? No. It's kind of up there to me with Don McLean's American Pie as far as just really taking you

on a trip of the world. It's a really good song. And I don't know what the best way to listen to it is. Like, I don't know what we have. There's links on, I think if you go to the Unpaid and Underrated's website, they've got a link to the song there. I think if you go to the Spotify top charts in America,

you'll find it up there. It should be on the top. So thank you to all our supporting members. That's something we do for all of our anyone that becomes a supporting member you can go to massanomics.com slash join that's where you sign up you get shout outs like this each week also we get

special discounts that are just for you you also get information on upcoming drops you get early access to signing up for our meets and stuff like that so please become a supporting member we'd always love more in the crew. Also, get in on our Discord. That's the only way you get to our Discord community too.

Do you want to read an ad quick? I'll boot everyone. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I want to tell everyone about Juggernaut AI. Come with me if you want to lift to your full potential. All I need is your individual differences, your height, your weight, your weak points, and actually quite a bit of other information that I can't all rattle off in my terrible Arnold. Your sleep habits.

Yes. You actually need a lot of information from me. It takes like 30 minutes to an hour to even just get this started to set up. So my point there, it's pretty thorough. It's a lot more than what you might think of when it comes to an AI, quote unquote, AI-based training programming. So check out juggernautai.app. That's where you can learn more about it. When you choose to get signed up, that's where we want you to sign up at because that's where you can use discount code Mastodonomics. It's a training that Tommy and I have used for quite a period of time now. Many people in our Discord community have used it. A whole bunch of Mastodonomics gym members use it.

What I like is it will lead you right up to a testing date or for most of us, a lot of us that compete in any form of powerlifting, it'll lead you right up to that peaking for an actual powerlifting meet. Find out more. You can even get a free trial if you want to, juggernautai.app. All right, should I let our guest in? Let's do it. Big Joe, we are excited to get you on the Mastodonomics podcast.

It's been a long time coming, I feel like, so we're happy to get you on here. We've got all kinds of questions for you this week. I'm excited, guys. I, I know a lot of people have already extended congratulations on the, on the 400 plus episodes at this point, but you know, I've been, I've been listening for a while and it's, it's really cool that you guys got to that milestone. I think the statistic is that most podcasts end after like what, 20 or something like that. So maybe not even, yeah,

it's something like that. On that note, on that note too, I really like, I know it's, it's popular to make jokes about like every, every dude that's out there has a podcast. It's like,

yeah, I've got a podcast and I still think those are hilarious, even though most of them could be pinpointed at us. I love them still this is this is uh probably the wrong time to tell you guys that uh i'm starting a podcast classic uh well you mentioned is that is that a new is that uh have you been get you are starting a podcast then i don't think that's a joke then you're probably being serious when you say that so what's what's your intentions there yeah so um that's there's actually uh two podcasts that i'm starting up believe it or not i'm i'm diving headfirst and that's actually even better

that's actually why i'm uh talking to you on this this mic i actually i'm sure i i told you guys this uh over instagram but um i'm uh still at home with my family in Pennsylvania. I've had a bunch of canceled flights because of the weather in both Austin, where I'm living currently and here in Pennsylvania. So I actually went out. I drove over an hour to go and get this equipment so that I could talk to you guys tonight. I was planning on doing so, you know, just for the podcast sake. But I was like, all right, I got to get it early just so that I can I I can talk to them. Cause yeah, I've got, you know, a decent setup back in Austin, but it was always my intention to get this, um, the two podcasts that I'm doing. The first one, um, is going to just be based around like learning how to power lift. Um,

so just, you know, think of it like a power lifters, uh, library, uh, you know, less than an hour episodes on different topics and stuff like that. And then the second one's a little bit more of a passion project. I've always loved supplementation and the science behind it. I took some classes on it in school. So that one is going to be called supplement Saturdays. I haven't come up with the name for the first one just yet, but that one's going to kind of deep dive into various supplements, ingredients, the research behind them, and if they're useful. Are you going to dabble into maybe band supplements at all? Or is that one stay pretty clean?

No, I actually think I will. So I took this in college, I took this really interesting course called drugs and human behavior. And the professor was insane. he wrote the textbook and he said the way that i wrote this is i just did all of this and it covered real drug testing oh yeah it covered every every drug from like illicit substances all the way to performance enhancing substances and i i'm looking at the guy i'm like how did you survive this you know um it's awesome it's like it was a hell of a time yeah so i'm really looking forward to that i'm a huge podcast guy i love podcasts um i i don't know i feel like i feel like i am one of those people that needs like constant stimulation so um podcasts kind of scratch that itch you know

i find myself some weeks even though i although i very busy, but listening to so many hours of podcasts while I'm doing other things, like I listen at times to so many hours of podcasts that I can consume in one week and almost like not even realize I'm doing it in a way. Yeah. I guess that's why we all have a podcast. Yeah, literally. There's always going to be consumers for it. Yeah, I feel like there's a podcast for literally everything. So, I mean, I guess it's just going to be everything plus two more once I'm into the game, for sure. But those are launching in February.

So I'm real excited about it. Yeah. And for anyone that doesn't know background wise, I mean, you've been a power left power lifting coaching for a long time now, you know, I know you were with, uh, TSA for, for many years. Uh, also how many years have you been power lifting coaching? Yeah. So I have been doing it, uh, since 2015, uh, full time since 2016 since 2016, which is when I joined the strength athlete. So my background is basically just in exercise science. I started powerlifting when I was very young. I'll be 100% honest, was never super good at it, just very, very passionate about it. And I

do think that that helps as a coach for sure. And I don't know, I was just kind of always that kid that was, you know, reading research in school and trying to figure out like, can I gain an advantage from that? And that sort of led me to seeking an internship with TSA. And I was very lucky to get that. And I thank them for all the years that I was with them. You know, transitioned to that full time upon graduation and just did that for many years and then kind of started my own thing after leaving with Game Day Barbell. And now I'm actually going to be back to being a solo entrepreneur, which I think some people have guessed, but this is, you know, kind of your big exclusive here.

That's the first time that I've actually talked about that publicly. So what part of the country will you live in? Actually, probably back here in Pennsylvania, at least for the time being. So I have a very big family. I'm the oldest of six kids. And my parents are getting up there. And I've literally since like maybe seven months after I graduated from college, I left.

I grew up in this very small town called Sharon, which is literally right next to the Pennsylvania, Ohio border. I live about three hours from Columbus where the Arnold is. And I don't know. I just kind of always wanted to get out. So I've spent a lot of time in different places. I lived in San Diego for many years and now, uh, Austin for these last two. And, uh, at least while I figure out kind of like what's next, I want to spend some time with my family. Um, you know, even, even just being here for like the last month for the holidays, it's, it's been nice

to kind of feel sort of reconnected to my parents. Like you, you really don't, until you spend long periods of time with your folks, after you've grown up yourself, you really don't realize like, oh, my parents really didn't know what they were doing either. They're kind of just making it up along the way, just sort of like we all are. And I don't know, I'm looking forward to that. So yeah, probably, probably here in Pennsylvania. Long-term though, I have no idea. I really got to figure that out. Probably somewhere warm. It's about five degrees outside right now. So yeah, we've kind of warm compared to South Dakota. We've been or you said, growing up in Pennsylvania, not far from the Ohio border. Listeners of the show always love we have a burning geography question that comes up repeatedly.

And that first question, it's a two-part question. So I want to get your answer on both of these. First one, is Ohio in the Midwest? I would say no. No. Okay. Any further reasoning for how you get to that conclusion? Maybe it's just that I've kind of been all over Ohio and it's sort of just, it feels just like Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania is kind of considered the East coast to just like the people that you run into and like the culture. Yeah, it really just kind of feels like I'm in Pennsylvania, like they just stretch the state further. Okay, so that you already answered my second question, which was, is Pennsylvania in the Midwest, and you clearly don't think it is. I don't think it is either. But what would you say if someone thought that Pennsylvania was in the Midwest? I would think that they've never been to Pennsylvania before.

I believe that is also the correct answer. Like we don't have a lot when it comes to Pennsylvania, like at least here in, in Western PA, I think like the best thing we've got, like culturally is that we say yins to describe a group of people. Yeah. And Pittsburgh toilets. You got that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. That's something. Yeah. And there's, there's a Pramani brothers. If you guys have ever heard of that, that's a, that's a Pittsburgh sandwich company that they have like a really solid sandwich, like homemade bread, all that good stuff.

But their claim to fame is they put the coleslaw on the fries that typically goes on the side on top of the sandwich, like on the sandwich, sandwich it between the bread. It's, it's good stuff. But yeah, other than that, we don't really have much. So it's just like, if you don't know that it's just like, yeah, it's it's good stuff but yeah other than that we don't we don't really have much so it's just like if you don't know that it's just like yeah it's that's just kind of one of the things about pennsylvania that you just like like where where's the actual like culture where's like the midwest there's there's things that people in the midwest are just kind of known for you know so that's that's what i would say yeah so so far you you've passed as mid uh oh Ohio is not in the Midwest, so we can continue the show from here in good faith.

So you do have a big natural powerlifting background. You know, that's something that the TSA is about. I assume something that you've been about otherwise. So you have a deepest knowledge within like the USAPL, Powerlifting America, that sort of group. We had Big Steve on not too many weeks ago. I suppose it's been a few months ago now. Maybe it was back in November or December we had Big Steve on and he kind of operates in that same space. I assume you two are probably, you're not sworn enemies or anything like that, are you? No, no. Steve is a good friend. They just have a deep dislike for each other.

He slept on my couch, actually. We cuddled a little bit. Yeah, okay. Don't tell his wife. He probably doesn't take up much room on a couch. You could cuddle with him. He's surprisingly tall in person. I don't know if you guys have had the chance

to meet Steve in person. Yeah, yeah, we have. I think we meet him. No, we just met Angelo. No, I think he came a couple years ago. This last year, I don't think he came to the booth at the Arnold, but I think he came a few years back. So it's been a while.

Yeah, he's surprisingly tall. I don't know. A lot of people tell me that I'm tall. I get that a lot for some reason. I guess people are just short in powerlifting. Absolutely. I'm not that tall.

I'm maybe 5'10 on a good day. But yeah, I don't know. I guess when you coach Austin Perkins, you look tall all the time, no matter what. And do you coach Angelo also? I do. He says hi, by the way. We won't hold that against you. We won't hold that against you.

No, he's all right, too. We've had him on the podcast a couple times also. But he's also super short, too, right? He's in the shortlifter gang. Yeah, short kings, as they like to say. Yeah, he's definitely he's definitely in that that category but i mean hey it's that's kind of the sport of power lifting you know generally speaking most of the really successful lifters tend to be a little short for

their uh their weight since uh we do like to have fun with uh angelo at times and we we like to have fun with uh two white lights also and stuff. Is there anything trying to think of the question here, but in regards to Angelo, what's the most difficult part about coaching him aside from his bench press in general? Damn. Okay. I was going to say, but easy answers is his bench press aside from just overall his bench press. Yeah, aside from just overall his bench press. So Angelo is the type of lifter that I was actually just talking to him about this before we got on here. He's the type of lifter that is very self-aware.

And as a result, because it makes my job easier in that we can kind of speak the same language and sort of talk back and forth about, you know, technique and basically, you know, everything you would talk about with a coach, but it hurts him in the moment because he tends to start thinking too much, particularly like if we've had a string of like difficult workouts, which the um, the end of his, his last block was kind of difficult for him. He'll start thinking a little bit too much. And as a result, it'll, it'll just continue to throw things off. So I, I oftentimes, I don't really have to make changes to his, his program or even technique. It's more just like

Angelo, just, just pull dude, just, just bench, just squat. And, and and honestly if i can get him out of his head like that he usually you know gets back to it that makes sense um that's probably like that's probably like not an uncommon thing for people at a pretty high level to where it's like yeah you don't you know i he knows how to deadlift at this point in time you know there's not huge uh changes alterations to be made to his technique on lifts. You know, maybe there is sometimes, but like for the, that kind of makes sense that someone that's kind of made it to that level, I would feel like, you know, there, there is a phenomenon that I see particularly in like the higher level

lifters that I work with that I call technical drift that happens a lot where suddenly like we just have forgotten how to do one of the lifts. So one of the things that I like to do is I keep a notes file on all of my lifters and I'll sort of break down the different cues that I know have always worked well for them in the past. And you would not believe how many times I'll kind of have to re-say the same thing to somebody over the course of my coaching them because they'll get to a point where they'll change like one little thing. Like I was just talking to Austin and he said deadlifts were feeling a little bit off. And I look over the course of the past couple of sessions and he's slowly been inching his deadlift stance in. He didn't make that decision consciously.

I didn't tell him to do that but yet it's it's coming in somehow um so as soon as we got back to his normal stance they felt fine it's just it's amazing how often that'll happen i mean it happens with every kind of lifter don't get me wrong but for some reason particularly with like the the super strong people it's just maybe it's just more noticeable because they're moving so much more weight and then suddenly they're, they're not, you know, I could see that too. Uh, or even, uh, you know, the, the change in stance is definitely going to be noticeable, but maybe sometimes it's even just like, uh, this lifter was always great at like maintaining great, uh, upper back tightness in, uh, whatever lift it is. And all of a sudden, just over time, they

almost maybe take something for granted or stop, stop becomes becoming a conscious effort. And it just slowly over time drift away for that. I can totally see that too. Yeah. I like to have my athletes just kind of like look at that list consistently. And even if they, I don't want them to be constantly thinking about cues, because like I said, then you get into that Angelo territory where you're just kind of thinking way too much and just kind of need to do it. Um, and I mean, if you, if you look at the science behind movement acquisition, um, you know, we, we moved to a point where instead of doing several different parts to make up one movement, it's just our nervous system is squatting, benching, deadlifting.

And we always want to try to get to that point, um, whenever we're training, but sometimes you just need a little reminder. So you are, uh, we talked about it deep in the USAPL powerlifting America community. And in that community, just like every single community in the lifting world that we operate in, there's always, uh, there's always fun stuff going on and there's always drama and this and that, and there's, uh, there's always different things going on. And, um, something that we just came across and Tommy and I mentioned it for just a couple minutes before we started, started recording here. And I literally, uh, this is like coming out of point of ignorance. I, we actually don't know what's going on with this, but there's, there's certainly something there and you probably know a lot more about it than we do, but some, um, power

lifting America qualifying meat of sorts where it was maybe in, uh, at zoo culture, like Bradley Martin's gym recently where, you know, do you know what I'm talking about before I even say anything else that doesn't make sense related to this? Yeah, yeah, I do. So essentially, just to explain, I think it's first important to note that powerlifting America, unlike the USA, powerlifting doesn't have any qualifying totals right now. So first of all, is that because their numbers are so much lower, they don't have to have qualifying totals? Yeah, so essentially they're just trying to get people to compete. I think that's important context within this. Now, that said, there was literally a meet that was designed for

basically any lifter that was on Team Flex that was literally just held and people lifted the absolute minimum weight possible, uh, just to get qualified. Um, and what is the minimum weight possible to get qualified? Like to be, you know, technically speaking, it is just the bar with the bar plus the collars. Um, although I think if, if you looked at the meets description, it said that every lifter was only going to take one lift on each discipline. And I believe it was 75 kilos on deadlifts. Okay. But the other two was just 25 kilos.

So just the bar plus the collars. So yeah, that was literally what it was, was just getting lifters qualified. qualified um and i i think the the problem that people are having with it is more so that it was this sort of like just closed competition that people you know couldn't really enter and that it was only you know only people that were on team flex that want to do powerlifting american nationals were given the opportunity to do that um me, me personally, like I can tell you that Austin, when we decided that he was going to make the switch, we took a token meet and there have been similar meets that have happened recently. Like I know there was one, um, at, uh, Palmetto state barbell. Um, if you guys know, uh, Marshall who does all of the social media for powerlifting now that's his gym, um,

similar thing, like lift lifters had the option to go all out though. And I think that that's kind of the, that plus like the exclusivity is, is where people are just kind of clowning on the flex crew. Um, if I'm being honest, I don't really see, I don't really see a huge problem with that. Um, I don't really see a huge problem with that. Not that I necessarily like, not that I, not that I think exclusivity is, is a problem per se. I just, I don't know. I think that if you were in that situation, you would probably do it too. Well, you know, and I think it's more of a reflection on powerlifting America. Like it's okay. They did something that's within the rules, right? As long as they weren't breaking breaking the rules it's more just looks dumb for powerlifting America that it's just like all right anyone can do this uh I mean assuming they had a legal meet and everything um yeah to me it reflects

more powerlifting America than I guess it just starts it just feels like a little bit of a yeah it feels like a little bit of a farce kind of what lord then i'm like why do you even have to do that well but then i'm like i guess there needs to be something but why but again that's power to america though again is where it comes down to is right right like that's where the optics are yeah and i mean so i think that for for the sake of argument to um like one of the other reasons why like you typically have to qualify for a competition like if you're going like the traditional usa pl route like that also gives usa powerlifting the chance to drug test you and to catch you if you're one of those cheaters but as you guys know from your episode with steve that doesn't happen at every local powerlifting

america meet. So I kind of have to agree. Like at that point it should just be like, just sign up. Right. I don't know. Nationals. Yeah. That seems. And that was, that was kind of the way that it was in USA powerlifting before the meet really, the national meet really exploded. Um, I can remember 2015, which was the last time that I did raw nationals was the first ever 1000 lifter national meet for usa powerlifting and it ran really well um but from there they decided to implement qualifying totals just so that it would be you know easier for people to to organize the competition and for there to be an actual barrier to entry for it to actually start

to mean something and mind you they weren't like crazy qualifying totals that first year. And a lot of people would argue that they aren't crazy qualifying totals now, but I think in powerlifting America's case, like if it is your intention to make powerlifting America into like the destination to lift in the federation to lift in, I think it would just make more sense to, at that point, just to say like, you don't really need to do it. I mean, just people want to do nationals and sure. That'll mean that there'll be some people that kind of don't know what they're doing, doing nationals, but like, but doesn't that look better than every year? It's just like, Oh, okay. We just know like these hundred people are going to do just a token meet. Like, doesn't that start to look dumb if that happens year after year? i exactly and and i i

do think that that probably will go away next year um i i'm sure we'll get into it but especially considering the sentiment online um i think we're going to see a little bit more of a shift uh towards powerlifting america so they'll kind of need to do it in order to make sure that they have the personnel because right now powerlifting America definitely doesn't have the, the infrastructure to support a huge shift over from USA powerlifting. So I think in order to keep it. They're meet directors and States, like their numbers are really low on that currently, aren't they?

Yes. So they're definitely expanding, um, but quite rapidly from what I've seen, like on the calendar. Uh, but it's still nowhere near that. And, and there's still going to be situations where a lot of lifters have to travel very far just to do a competition. And I mean, in that, in that vein, that could also be part of why they've decided that you need to do at least one competition besides just like you know some people will do it and not necessarily know the rules of power lifting which is one thing um but they're probably doing it in service of those meat directors you know so that they get people that actually participate in those competitions

yeah yeah so that's power lifting america that's it that's all the power yeah that's the whole thing and then uh on the flip side of the coin usap l what was uh what's the story on the raw nationals uh sign up or do you explain that here there again something i can't explain but i just know that there's a thing yeah um how how do i how do i best summarize this shit show so i guess it's it's best to start last year um the just you know myself and and a few other coaches that have a lot of you know lifters in nationals traditionally uh all noticed that like the number of people that had entered nationals was getting kind of high so kind of all of the same kind of high what number are we

talking here around around halfway at the so first of all they had not announced what the cap was going to be and are we talking open or all classes here what's all classes all classes so that's the thing is that this and this is part of the problem is that uh raw nationals is traditionally like all the age divisions so not only is it open but it's it's masters and every teen and junior division so there's a lot of potential signups right um so we we were kind of noticing that it was about half of what we were thinking they were going to cap it out, just kind of based on, you know, past years, number of people that they've needed that sort of deal. And so literally all of us just put out a blast to all

of our lifters, all at once email, you know, text close friend story, all that good stuff. And obviously several of the people that we coach also coach so they were telling their athletes and then it just started like a wave and this was actually this was during collegiate nationals for usapl just to back up so what are you telling them though or what are you blasting out to them to go to go sign up oh because there's a good chance that it's going to fill up pretty quickly because we had noticed that the numbers started to jump a whole lot actually i think it was Steve, believe it or not, that originally noticed. So I guess we blame Steve on this one. I blame Steve on everything. But yeah, so basically put that started a wave

and literally people were lifting in Collegiate Nationals and they were like pulling out their phones to try to sign up because of how fast it was starting to happen so um i think what ended up happening this year so long long story short uh something similar happened except it filled up in like six hours so registration this year opened at midnight uh on sunday because of course that's the time to that's the time to open a new registration yeah which which i i think maybe that was done to try to like curb people from signing up but i think it ended up having the the opposite effect yeah um yeah and yeah so they had previously announced when it was going to happen just once, mind you, just once. And they had announced that there was a 1200 lifter cap. What they didn't announce, and this is an important detail, is that there was a cap on the number of lifters per day as well, which a lot of people are mad about.

But yeah, they announced it. And I think I remember seeing, I logged on maybe like 1 a.m or something like that and there was already 600 lifters out of the 1200 um so it was filling up super fast so again you see the same thing happening like all the coaches are kind of scrambling just trying like i am on my coaching discord like everyone if you want to do raw nationals you got to sign up now and i'm like i'm like calling some of my lifters that I know for, for a factor asleep right now, like just scrambling. And again, what ended up happening was that so many people who you, you could argue like really deserve to get like, like super high level lifters, not maybe not quite like the peak, but basically everybody

who's left in the USAPO, a bunch of lifters that you would think would be there on the national stage did not get in. We're talking like top 10 people in their weight class here. Yeah. Like a bunch of people did not get in or they barely just got in. And it has for a lot of people just kind of made nationals just not as appealing. And mind you, they sort of rescinded that later and said like if you if you have a pro card you will still get an invite to do nationals which i guess is good because if if you learn anything from your conversation with steve usap kind of blew it with the pro series um but there's just there's so many things that led to that that are bad like for example um i forget whose instagram i was looking

at but somebody made a stat of all of uh the people who signed up about half uh do not have a qualifying total so at all but how so is a qualifying total required then or they just signed up and they're they're plugging they're gonna get a qualifying total. Yeah. So that's the thing is I'm not really sure when they instituted that, but last year for sure, and definitely this year, you're able to sign up with no total whatsoever. And in fact, again, I can't remember the exact stat. I'll give you guys the Instagram afterward if you want to plug it or something like that.

But the stat line had like a bunch of people that had ever done a meet at all that had signed up so what that means that is essentially a bunch of people who have little to no experience are taking up all these spots and that's a problem and i can i can recall very recently even like up to 2019 where you would see people signing up literally like at the deadline the month before nationals. And now it's completely switched to the other way around. And when is, so when is nationals? So it's traditionally in years past, it's been in the summertime. They've moved it into the fall. I believe it, I forget which week in September it is, but it's in, it's in September.

And so when did registration open then? Like when was that crazy day when that happened this past sunday sunday okay okay damn okay so they they got this open like nine months ahead of time to interesting yeah so so there's like there's just a lot of like angry sentiments online and i feel like and this is this is the problem with powerlifting federations in general, don't get me wrong. One of the problems. There's many. Yeah, one of many. But the point that I was going to make, and this is just to say that it's not exclusive to USA Powerlifting, but in this case, I do believe that it is a problem here. This is just a complete disconnect between

the leadership and the lifter base um you know we very much uh there were a lot of us that were supporting usa powerlifting when they split from the ipf um you know the idea of the pro series seemed very appealing and they've butchered it and And I would not be surprised if after the Arnold, uh, they get rid of it completely because you know, the, the pro, the pro lifters don't like, they don't want to do it. There's no structure to it. Nobody knows what's going on. Nobody knows like what pro status is like, there's just no, there's no public communication about it whatsoever. And I think that's just kind of been the problem that a ton of lifters are calling for in general is for communication to be better and to feel like

you're actually having input on what's going on in there. And without getting too much into the detail, like there is opportunities for that. But again, like I've, I've been in that situation where I've, I've been to some of the like meetings that are is opportunities for that. But again, like I've, I've been in that situation where I've, I've been to some of the like meetings that are open about this stuff. And it just kind of feels like a boys club, if I'm being honest. Um, you know, you can, you can speak up and stand and talk about something, but then they'll, they'll just kind of shut you down. So it's, uh, just something where they're just not listening to their lifter base they're not

listening to the people that are actually consuming the product and brand that they're trying to create and honestly i i really do feel as if there will be a shift to powerlifting america as a result of that so could you see the usa apl dying dying uh dying from this or just uh i i don't know about die i think dying is is probably the wrong word um i i do think that that a lot of their younger base will certainly start to shift um simply because and again this is where i think the the leadership um and again don't get me wrong i i do think that usa powerlifting has a lot of good stuff that they're doing, too. I don't want to make this seem like I'm just hating. But I think that the leadership is not really paying attention to what their younger consumer values. Like if you look at collegiate nationals, that's probably the second most popular meet.

And tons of young lifters do it every year. The base of people who typically are powerless in these days is younger and they idolize these stronger lifters. So they're going to want to follow where they go. And I think that that's the mistake that USA feel is making. Um, I don't think that it's necessarily going to die, but I think it's going to start to die. I don't know if there's a better word for it, but I think as, as these lifters make the shift over towards the, the IPF and they certainly will, because basically, honestly, they basically already have at this point. Um, but now you're going to get those like second and third tier lifters because now they can't do nationals. Um, and some that are even signed up, like, I'll give you an example. I don't think he would mind

my saying this, but, um, Brandon Dudley, if you guys know him at all, bam, bam. Um, he got, he got into nationals because he was on one of the days that, uh, just didn't get as many lifters. So they didn't fill up the cap for the day. And he's, he's ahead by like, I think over a hundred kilos in terms of qualifying total of everybody in his weight class. So he's like, I don't know if I don't know if I want to do this, you know? So just to, to put a cap on it. Um, I think it's not necessarily going to kill it because it'll still cater to the local lifter. And ultimately that brings membership. Plus they have a lot of meat directors, but I think that over time, if you fail to cater to the audience, the majority of the audience,

which is the younger lifter that is interested in competitive lifting and all that, you will die. And I think that that's ultimately what's going to happen is you're going to see that slowly start to happen over the course of the next, we'll say three to five years. Yeah. So like when you, when you talk about those things, it brings up a lot of interesting points to me because it varies from marketing to how you actually make your money to what your target customer is. And I mean, do you know, I know they used to publish this stuff. Do you know what like USAPL membership numbers were like in the most recent year? Like, do they still put that out there?

So they do. They release all of this every year at the the national governing body meeting which again is is open to any card carrying member of the usapl you can't necessarily vote there but you can voice your opinion but yeah they they release all of the stats um i i don't know off the top of my head what they are but again just if we're talking like national meat participation um you know just looking at the fact that the majority of the competitors that are in raw nationals right now that are signed up for it are like around that junior age. And again, the collegiate nationals tends to be, you know, also a meat

that ends up selling out. Uh, I, I just, I think it's fair to say that the, the younger lifter is the consumer, right? Like they certainly have plenty of master lifters. Don't get me wrong. is the consumer, right? Like they certainly have plenty of master lifters. Don't get me wrong. Obviously plenty of open lifters, but I do think that the average age of power lifters these days is that, that, you know, mid to early twenties. Uh-huh. Well, and so, I mean, I just tried to Google find something here quick. First thing that comes up, I don't even know if this is right, but it says, uh, powerlifting was at an all-time high in 2019 in the USAPL with over 22,000 members. I don't know if that sounds even roughly right in your, in your mind or not, but if you say, okay, there's 22,000 members. If you just say, okay, they bounced back from COVID and they're around 20,000 today, still somewhere in there. Um, and you say, I don't know, what was

there like a thousand people trying to register for nationals? Well over that. Oh yeah. Well over a thousand trying to register. So it's like, damn, okay. What's that? A 5% of their 5% of their membership base is trying to attend nationals. Um, it is interesting because you think, well, okay, does that 5% like, are they diehards about nationals, you know, of that group, only a small percent of them are actual competitors, you know, at that, at that top level. So then it's like, it is kind of crazy because it's that perception of, okay, well, you got to appease the top, and I shouldn't just say appease, but you also have to make it appealing to the top, you know, top, top 1% to be interested. But in doing that, you also have to not screw over the other 20,000 plus people

that are doing it. So it does turn into this weird numbers game of, all right, it's got to be something that like people want it to be attainable and they want to reach for, but you also have to keep all the other 20,000 people happy. And I'm sure right now they're probably playing the numbers game of, oh, we still have 20,000 people that are here. So who cares if the top a hundred guys leave, but the top a hundred guys do do a lot of marketing. And I should say guys and girls, the top a hundred athletes do a lot of marketing and I should say guys and girls. The top 100 athletes do a lot of the marketing lifting that the other 20,000 aren't capable of doing at the same time. So, yeah, there is a very interesting dynamic, maybe even power struggle you could say going on there. Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly my thought like so just to give an idea here you know pop quiz guys who who do you think is is

the number one and two as far as popularity of the usapl well okay so when you say popularity are we talking instagram numbers or what do we how are we defining popularity well does russell or he still count as usapl or is that power lifting amer now? But I mean, it's Russell or he and I don't know. What about that girl that Joy? You know, I'm thinking very, you know, it's people like that to me. Yeah, so to be clear, I'm talking about

who are the two people that really built up the popularity of the USAPL? So we got Russ. Are you saying built up the popularity post-IPAPL? So we got Russ. Are you saying built up the popularity post IPF split? No, no. I'm talking period. Like what brought these huge numbers to- To be honest, I would say what brought the huge numbers was there's a meet in every single city. Like that's to me what brought the numbers. Like I think there's tons of people that get into powerlifting and don't know who the hell Russell Orhe is, but they see like, oh, I go to a gym and there's buddies that do this. Oh, and there's

USAPL meet, uh, 10 minutes from my house. Like to me, that's why USAPL powerlifting is popular. Not in powerlifting America. Can't get there for a long time because if I want to do a powerlifting, we live in South Dakota. If I want to do a powerlifting America meet, I got to drive to like, I don't know. I don't even know where I got to drive to. I probably got to drive 10 hours to get Chicago. Maybe. I don't know. Like it's not even attainable, you know? So like, if you're getting into the sport, if you're the average everyday guy, you can't even get into powerlifting America unless you're lucky enough to be in a geographic location that caters to it. Yeah. And that's, that's fair. I suppose maybe I was thinking more of like the awareness

that it exists. Um, and so I was, I was looking for Candido there. Oh yeah. Yes. Yes. That's a good one. Yeah. Tanner and I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm 34 Tanner, you're 36. 37 almost. When you say USAPL, I'm like, dude, Brad Gillingham is like the, like we're saying names like that come to mind for some of us. I think of, we think of like Bryce, even Bryce and other people like that. And like,

there's so many kids now that those names don't even Ray Williams, but like that stuff doesn't. Yeah. It's just like, you become less relevant really fast too. And it's funny because the 20 year old lifter, they don't care about Bryce or Ray Williams, even at this point at all.

You know, like they, it doesn't mean anything to them. Yeah. Like they don't know who that is probably. Cause it does moves so fast it's yeah just as an aside it's so funny how like everybody uses rp but like if you asked like you know your average like sub junior junior lifter like who mike t is they'd be like who yeah that's a good that there's another good example actually mike's super strong right now too too. And still, yeah. Has been strong forever.

Like, been strong so long. Yeah, he's crazy. So, like, the interesting thing to me, what you brought up, you touched on it a few times in this conversation, is, like, how young the average lifter in that group seems. And when we got into it, Tommy, like about 10 years ago or about kind of when you would have started, I don't know if I just was looking through different lens

because I myself was like more in my mid-20s now versus in the sub-masters range now, if it just felt different to me. But the group 10 years ago felt a lot older. Like powerlifting was like these people that had been doing it for a long time, and they're like like it's like the old guy in the gym that's like oh yeah the powerlifting is what you do yeah you know like when we went to our first meets it felt like you know maybe we were 25 plus and it felt like we were the young people there because everyone

was younger guys most of the people and this was a you these were us apl meets and uh at least locally the people that were into it have been the people that have been doing it for like 15 years and they're like here let me show you how to uh uh let me show you sunny you know kind of that sort of thing and now it is like the a young cool sport kind of um which it it feels like a weird transition and then uh what i wonder as a coach of those lifters, do you ever feel, because there certainly is like this online, like, like cool young,

it has a trendy component to it. Whereas you could definitely, and I don't think this is like being unfair. Cause I, yeah, people do what you like. I, I,

I'm not complaining one bit. Like, yeah yeah get a ton of 18 year old 60 get anybody wants to do it i think that's great yeah but like 10 years ago if you want to do powerlifting you kind of like had to almost go out of your way to do it and now it's like no it's like you can go to any gym and there's like guys that are like sumo pulling you know 600 pounds and like oh this is powerlifting and it's just like it's so much more accessible now that it used to be in that regards uh yeah so as a coach do you ever feel like a coach of these lifters do you ever feel like oh i need to stay on top of what's relevant to someone that's 20 you know that sort do you like someone that's uh 19 and you know someone that's 21 and i you know all right because i assume you're in your 30s also

you're dating me a little bit I'm 29 I would have guessed like early 30s maybe so so you're you're not that far removed for it but in some cases maybe you're a decade older than them which is something

but do you feel any of that or is that a thought that crosses your mind or not something that you even have to think about? You know, if I'm being honest, I think being in powerlifting these days kind of keeps me feeling young. I could see that actually. I could, I could. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I, I, yeah, I definitely like, I'm going to give a special shout out to my, my high school lifters. Um, so I actually, I have three, three high school lifters on my squad. They're all in, um, the Texas high school powerlifting association, which is, you know, it's a high school sport and actually, believe it or not, the biggest, yeah, the biggest one out of all the federations that exist in the world.

Um, and yeah, it really feels that way that I, I kinda, I almost have to feel connected to that now, mind you. Um, and I, to this day, I'm still not proud of it, even though I have a reasonable following on it. I do utilize TikTok as part of like the way that I advertise my business and I'm kind of getting ready to ramp up with that again. That definitely keeps me sort of connected to it. But yeah, I definitely, I feel like in order to be successful in powerlifting coaching, um, you very much need to know not only like what the younger demographic is, is looking for. Um, but also just kind of the, you know, the way that they think, right. Like you, you have to be able to relate to them when

it comes to like the way that they're looking at the sport. Cause they look at it through a different lens. Like, let's, let's just face it it like they have come up and this is this is kind of what i was referring to when i was talking about candido and obviously rust now and uh i think we mentioned joy like they have come up through the lens of of looking at these people and seeing their and seeing their success and and that's kind of like where that's what they're shooting for whereas like i don't know for me like when I was coming up, like I looked at, I looked at like Dan green and I was like, Holy shit. I'm never getting there, but that'd be, that'd be super cool.

Like it's neat to be, to be jacked and lifting a lot of weight. You know? And I think one of my like early idols in the drug testing space was, was Ben Rice. He has no Ben. Yeah. What's the platform uh twitch twitch yes that's how old i am i can't remember what twitch is called so

yeah yeah so back in the day before before ben was was you know just dead lifting 700 pounds every week on twitch um he was posting a lot on youtube and i remember seeing him and being like you know him talking about him being natural and that was one of the things that made me think like, Oh, you know, this is something that I could, I could really continue to pursue. Um, and, uh, yeah, but I just, I think it ends up just being different. And yeah, you do have a little bit of responsibility. Like when you, when you coach those lifters to kind of understand that a little bit more. Do you, do you, do you think there's any, uh any coaches or coaching groups or businesses, entities out there that, not to name names, but do you think this happens where maybe they haven't stayed cool enough and it whereas their level of coaching has never decreased, you know, their, their service they offer isn't worse, but maybe they miss, maybe they miss out on a portion

of their pie because they're not, uh, relevant enough. I mean, yeah, I think that, I think that those groups that, and I'm not going to name any names, but there's, there's certainly, there's certainly groups that like have missed the wave as far as creating content. You know, like if you, if you look at, I think the gold standard these days is the guys who are putting out content on powerlifting now. I mean, obviously that's a paid service, but it's, it really is kind of like a central place to go and learn about that stuff.

And, and obviously, you know, their, their pedigree makes them sought after as is, but like being able to put out content and sort of expertly explain what to do in order to be a successful power lifter, successful power lifting coach, that certainly helps you stay relevant. Um, you know, I, I, I think Steve is what 36 at this point, you know, and, and he coaches a ton of lifters that are younger than him and he's very sought after. this point, you know, and, and he coaches a ton of lifters that are younger than him and he's very sought after. Um, and so I, I think that that's, that's kind of what, um, it's almost part of the job at this point. You kind of have that. Um, now the key with it is to make sure that you balance it out. Um, I'll be the, I'll be the first one to say that, uh, you know, content production can be

super duper time consuming, um, especially if you're wanting to put effort into it. So yeah, I mean, obviously you guys, you guys know that. So it's, it's, it's very easy to kind of get lost in the sauce when it comes to the other side of it too. But yeah, I think that if you fail to produce content in this day and age with any business, not even just powerlifting coaching, you'll, you'll lose relevance despite the fact that you might be great. I know so many coaches who are wonderful at what they do and extremely talented and nobody knows who they are. You just kind of have to put them on your recommendation list because you simply can't handle enough athletes and then

you pass people on and hope that they are able to just kind of build business with word of mouth, which honestly, like word of mouth is still a good way to build a coaching business, particularly if you're, if you're serious about, um, you know, having like a small roster, I think it's, it's great to get to that point. Um, but I mean, we could, we can get into this, that, that could also be, um, a topic to talk about. But I also think that like, especially in today's economy, it can be a little hard to sustain a full-time business with like a small roster. So there's, there's an ebb and flow when it comes to that.

But yeah, long story short, just content production is important. And if you aren't doing it, you've kind of missed the boat. Yeah. We do this. we we're from south dakota as we've already mentioned uh so we're kind of mount rushmore experts so we do this uh mount rushmore thing on occasion with guests that we have on here and tommy i was thinking maybe it'd be fun if we start to make this even more and more niche all the time where it's like yep where the mount rushmore gets to be so niche that it's almost make make start to make this even more and more niche all the time. I like it. Where the Mount Rushmore gets to be so niche that it's almost start to make the Mount Rushmore more ridiculous. But what would be your Mount Rushmore? Now, there's four of them on there.

Mount Rushmore of modern era, USAPL, Powerlifting America, you know, drug tested powerlifting coaches, your Mount Rushmore of modern era. Uh, tested scene coaches. Wow. That's really, that's really, really difficult.

That's so difficult. Um, all right. I'm going to start off with, uh, an absolute legend. I don't know if you guys, uh,

I, I don't know for sure. I don't think you've had him on. Is Matt Gary? Do you guys know him? I know who he is, but we've not named him. His wife is Susie, right? Yep. I believe they're South Dakota natives, Tanner. Okay. Okay. I know the name too. So, okay. I know the name too. So, okay. So Matt is a legend in the sport of powerlifting of all of the people that I know professionally in the space. Um, I, he's,

he's probably been in it the longest. Um, and he has kind of along with Susie have kind of branded, uh, themselves as like the person that you want in your corner on me day. Um, so Matt is helping to head up the, uh, the national team for powerlifting America this year. And I think just going forward period, um, Matt is just a whiz when it comes to attempt selection. Like the guy has done stats, like just looking at looking for different patterns to see like, what will help you be, you know, the best powerlifting coach on meet day. He's got a book

on the subject. Like he is, he is the guy when it comes to that stuff. So, um, yeah, I would say first, first guy is definitely Matt for that reason alone. He, he probably has more like wins based on attempt selection in the first place. And I, I, I do think that the modern philosophy of trying to go nine for nine comes from matt specifically matt answers me i should say um so i guess maybe i don't know maybe you could like put half of each of their faces on that's fair that's one spot yeah yeah so so then for sure um i'm probably gonna go mike t next um mike because obviously like he he introduced the idea of RPE based training to powerlifting. You know, his, his thoughts around having like lifters,

having a time to peak is something that I think a lot of coaches utilize these days and just a lot of the different frameworks and the way that he thinks have influenced so many other coaches that I know. And obviously like he's coached a ton of really successful lifters over his years while still being a very successful lifter himself. Um, and I think that, you know, that that's a very, very, very big skill in and of itself. Um, it is just being able to be a high level lifter and a coach at the same time. Um, it can be very difficult to do that. He deserves some flowers for that one, for sure. How many, I don't even know if it's better to ask athletes, top level athletes or top level coaches, how many of them, just really rough number wise, use RP in their training?

Is it 90 plus percent? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would even say 95% at this point. Um, it's just, it's just a better model, you know, like, and now mind you, the way in which we all apply it is probably a little bit different. Like for, for me, the way that I look at it is it's, it's almost like a cap for my lifters and not necessarily a goal. Um, because at the end of the day, the thing that is going to influence your strength over time is being able to put more weight on the bar. And it doesn't necessarily matter quite so much if it's right at that RP. And I mean, if anything, it's, it's probably better because it means that your training stimulus is working really well. But yeah, I 95% plus for sure. I assumed it was probably over 90%,

but yeah, it is, it is interesting to hear that there's that many actually using it. probably over 90%, but yeah, it is, it is interesting to hear that there's that many actually using it. Yeah. Um, so that, that's, yeah, for, for that reason alone, I mean, again, Mike has, has like the power lifting brain when it comes to programming. Um, but yeah, RP alone should put him on that Mount Rushmore. Um, third one, I'm going to go, um, I'm going to go, I mean, I, I have to go with Marcellus, Marcellus Williams. Um, Marcellus is not only is he a very, very kind human being. Um, I've had a lot of very, uh, deep conversations with the man, uh, over the years. And I very much can say that he's influenced me personally as a as a human um but he just he's just the kind of get it done type of guy um Marcellus is is the only coach that I know that carries just like a gigantic roster but you will never hear a bad thing about

the guy um he's just he's so good with all of his clients he's very good at individualizing training whilst he's still keeping within his system um you know he's obviously innovative i'm sure we all know about the craft jumps at this point when it comes to the way that he does attempt selection yes maybe i don't think i've heard of that no could you explain it yeah okay well so so first of all uh you guys haven't had him on yet. Have you? No, no, we probably need to though. Okay. Yeah. So you need to get him on. Yeah. We're one for three so far on Mount, on, uh, powerlifting, uh, Mount Rushmore coaches.

Yeah. So, so Marcella should be, should be your next guest for sure. Um, but yeah, so the way I'll, I'll leave it to him to kind of explain it fully, but like, he's famous for taking these like astronomically large jumps. Like might see him jump like i think if you're collegiate nationals for his his lifter taylor i think he jumped him like 100 kilos total from first to third like just astronomically large um and his philosophy is like he he and mind you this is my rudimentary like outside looking and understanding of it but it's just like they they kind of match the jumps that they do in training and they they sort of train that way and then the way that marcellus will you know pick attempts is just based on like how the first and second attempt typically move compared to what he's seen in training and then that lets him kind of like

judge where that big jump should be um and it's it's obviously a skill like he, he has probably developed that. But again, just like really, really innovative thinker, really smart guy, I would say has definitely sort of paved the way as far as like, including a good amount of accessory work in your powerlifting training. You know, that's kind of been a pillar of systems for a long time, but I think there was certainly an era where people didn't really like the skipping accessory work was a normal thing and not only do we kind of know through science these days that like muscle mass is like continuously important for improving your total but like duh like who doesn't want to be jacked you know um so yeah and above everything else marcellus is also at least to my knowledge i think he's

probably coached the most pros slash national champions in usa pl at this point and now the the big three of his team are going over the ipf and they're going to do some damage for sure so that's uh bob ashton and brandon petrie um so definitely definitely him and then uh i'll i'll put steve in this as number four and uh i think that squeaking in yeah i think i i think that now mind you there's probably some recency bias um with with those two especially but like i think what steve has done has besides just you know contributing in a very large way um with his content to like the knowledge of the rest of the space um i think steve has improved the quality and professionalism that is expected of coaches um steve is one of those rare coaches that like he's actively trying to reduce the

size of his roster so that he can be more professional. And so he can spend more time with his wife. But I think that that is the direction that the sport needs to go in order to actually make this into a real profession and for coaches to be able to feel like they can really give lifters the attention that they deserve. We need to get to the point where coaching is valued more so that you can keep a small roster. Um, and so I think that Steve is paving the way for that and trying to normalize that. And, you know, again, just wonderful, wonderful coach overall has produced a ton of great lifters. Um, still hasn't produced a USAPL national champion. I know he told you guys

that on, on his episode. And, episode and um i i hope he gets that now obviously he's he's produced two crazy strong ipf world champions in wascar and natalie so like you know can't can't knock him for that but yeah uh that's that's probably my my mount rushmore for sure i think that's good you omitted yourself from it i I thought you were going to give yourself the recency bias and put yourself on that. No, no. So here's the thing. I am. I don't think I'm and maybe maybe I can speak to some of the other coaches that might be listening, but I am my own worst critic and I'm someone who deals with imposter syndrome a lot.

I'm someone who deals with imposter syndrome a lot. Certainly, I've helped a lot of lifters, amateur all the way up to the best in the world. I will continue to do that for as long as I'm able to serve the sport. I don't consider myself the best. I think that I'm good at a lot of the aspects of what make a good coach. I'm particularly gifted with programming. I think that I'm, I'm good at a lot of the aspects of what make a good coach. Um, I'm particularly gifted with programming. I think that I can kind of figure, I have a good system for figuring out what works for an athlete, um, just through a lot of trial and error. Um, but I think that there's a lot of stuff that I can improve on as far as, as technique goes. Um, I, uh, have, have severely bad ADHD. So, uh, saying completely like organized with my systems is something that has taken me a long time to figure out. Like I'm, I'm, I have so many discord bots programmed at this point.

Like, I don't think I could list them all. Um, but there, there's a, there's a lot of things that I think I still need to improve on before I belong on that, on that Mount Rushmore. Um, I'm just, I'm just happy to be along for the ride. We have a lot of bots in our discord too, but I don't think they're probably as, uh, they would, they would be as much of a purpose as yours do. Yeah. They would hurt your organization if our bots were unleashed into your discord. Yeah. I'm not, here's the thing. I'm also notoriously bad with technology, despite being like sort of that, that age group that has

grown up, you know, with like the dawn of social media and stuff like that. Um, so I don't know, maybe, maybe I just, maybe I need less spots. Maybe that's what I need. Uh, quick question, because I know this could, I'm going to ask you to try and keep this quick. Cause I know this could almost turn into a whole, uh, episode in itself. Do you have any concerns, problems, issues with the, I forget what it's called. Steve, Steve gave us the term with the coaching for America versus article 14. Do you have any problems with that, that you'll be facing? Yeah. So I'm actually in the same boat as Steve. So, um, my, uh, friend, Brian, uh, lay, he was the guy who won the 66 kilo, um, national championship last year. I helped coach him, um, at nationals. So I did the same thing Steve did. I signed up for that. And then the next week I was at the Arnold. And

so therefore I am, you know, not able to coach. So, um, yeah. Is it because someone narked on you? Let's, let's get this. How did this happen? I mean, if I'm being honest, I haven't been told by anyone, but like, again, that's public, that's like public knowledge. You know, the, the pictures of Brian and I, um, and other people for that matter, uh, from powerlifting American nationals are on my social media on brian's social media on other people's social media and the pictures of me at the arnold are on social media you know so all it would take is one person to to say something i mean if i'm being

honest this podcast right now is saying something so um yeah I'm just expecting to be told that I can't go back and coach my lifters. Um, which, which does kind of suck. Um, cause I do have some, some guys that are swapping over to powerlifting America. Um, and I, I want to be in their corner. Um, and I'm going to be there regardless. Yeah. But doesn't that present a problem for some of you guys going forward pretty soon here is if, if there really are groves of people making a jump to powerlifting america i mean there still are going to be a lot of people left in the usa pl doesn't that start to affect your guys's business where you have to become exclusive to one or the other yeah and i'm really hoping that they just kind of figure out like hey this is because if i'm being honest like if they just made it, even that coaches could just swap back and forth,

they'd see this huge increase in powerlifting America membership, which would be more revenue for that organization to put on better competitions and likely attract more of those lifters. It's just a cyclical thing. If they, if they would, even if, even if just powerlifting America would just let people come over, that would be huge. But it's not a powerlifting America rule. It's an IPF rule, correct? Exactly. Exactly. So, but you know, if they could make some kind of exception just for coaches or something like that, but if I'm being honest, like article 14 is a rule that seems like it was created to just spite

USAPL. And again, that's another problem with these powerlifting federations with these two specifically is that they're just, they're trying to outdo each other in like the worst way possible like it's you wouldn't think that the the federations are run by a team of older ladies and gentlemen like it just it doesn't make sense but they're think they are actually run by a team of older or maybe or maybe no no young person's diabolical enough to come up with this stuff maybe they haven't been around the block long enough to know how to screw enough people over. But from what I can tell you, there have been, especially since you've had Steve on and he talked about this, there's been a lot of serious rumblings about legal challenges.

I know there's a good chance that the French IPF team is actually challenging this because. Oh, oui, oui. that the French IPF team is actually challenging this because there's a few coaches that coach for the French team. Mind you, this is a volunteer job, right, that coach in other federations. And, you know, therefore, under Article 14, they are banned or sorry, suspended is the politically correct term um and so yeah that that's what i've heard is that they've been getting together a legal case for that um which i think will probably carry more weight than if one like individual did uh and especially because it's a european uh country that you know that that legal system kind of matches up a little bit more with i believe it's luxembourg is where the the ipf uh is headquarters are i'm pretty sure um so yeah

we'll see what happens i hope it ends up happening i don't know if it's going to happen this year but you know maybe next year by the time sheffield comes around or something like that luxembourg sounds like where an evil headquarters would be at kind of sounds like where an evil headquarters would be at. I'm just picturing Gaston at his desk just going, yes. I'm excluding all the Americans.

Just twirling his mustache. In Luxembourg in his palace. Throwing dollar bills around in the air. We've got this little game we like to play with everyone that we have on the podcast. It's called Overrated to underrated. It's a fairly simple game, but there are just a couple of basic rules that you have to adhere to if you're willing to,

if you're a willing participant, but you have your druthers to elaborate as much or as little on each topic as, as you would like to, but you do have to remember, you can't ride the line. Line riding is not allowed. You do ultimately have to decide on each't ride the line line riding is not allowed you do ultimately have to decide on each one and usually they're all very political and uh religious in nature so we try to have fun with this yeah so a little little fun fact one of the series that made me very popular on tiktok was underrated or overrated so i'm very used to this game okay there we go overrated or underrated as uh at least uh uh for some period here in your recent life you're you were there overrated underrated texas barbecue oh uh i'm i'm honestly gonna say underrated uh everybody hypes it up

but you are not prepared for the the flavor that you're going to get, especially like if you actively go and seek out. Just the little like mom and pop places that you don't hear about as much, you're just going to get a crazy experience. So, yeah, under underrated for sure. And that fact that there's just so many great places that have like different specialties and things that you um may not get you know i think certain parts of of texas barbecue end up being overrated because like everybody who's never had barbecue before goes to like the popular spots and they're like oh it's so good and then after you've had it for a while you're like yeah like it's it's okay but overall the the possibility of you know different things that you would have throughout texas

for sure underrated what uh if you if you what's what is quintessential like if you're going to order texas barbecue what would you be ordering on the menu at a texas barbecue uh joint for you brisket for sure man like that's that's the go-to i mean you know texas is is the beef state like that's that's the the place to do i mean beef ribs are probably like a close second um and then like you got to have like at least two good sides um usually mac and cheese always a go-to and then honestly living in austin pinto beans have become a favorite barbecue side for me um but like like i'm talking about like if you're ever i don't know have either of you ever been to austin before never been i have been i

have been a couple times i guess kind of okay but yeah i have so everybody tells you to go terry blacks don't get me wrong terry blacks barbecue is good but that's one of those ones that after you've had it for a while and been to other places you're like yeah it's okay um the best barbecue that you are going to have in texas is going to be snow's snow's barbecue i've had snow's barbecue recently even uh through a service where they pack it with dry dry ice and ship it here to south dakota it's like way too expensive but they ship like we had like pounds and pounds of snow's barbecue shipped in dry ice like how recently year this year is like no way yeah yeah snow's barbecue is like a whole it was like a smorgasbord of uh snow's barbecue uh it's just

funny i remember looking at all the packaging when we got it of what it was and it was from snow it was came highly recommended from someone and uh it was good yeah the i mean obviously getting it get fresh is going to be better but i mean the pit master is this like 94 year old lady um and she only does it on the weekends it's just it's so good it's incredible um just everything everything that comes out of that place is just so so good um and there's there's a lot of other great ones um galaxy barbecue is one that's like within austin the austin city limits that i would say it's popular but it's it gets outshined by terry black's lot and it doesn't make any sense because it's it's just way better barbecue

austin city limits what does that mean it's like a concert series isn't it okay okay i was gonna say just that phrase really stuck out in my head when you said that is it like old country music or something like that or not oh no they do like everything okay okay yeah it's two weekends and it's everything and i've been in all the years i've been in austin i still have not gone okay um i love music but it's just like the the crowds that show up for that are just insane and i'm i'm yeah i'm not privy to that yeah gigantic crowds okay this may not have immediate relevance to you but we can get into why if if need be but overrated or underrated the hunger games film uh collection the film series hunger games um i would say that's that's so random i would i would say overrated um only because like

i don't know don't get me wrong, there's some good acting in it, but most of the people that are in it are like not great. And there's changes from the books. I read a lot. There's there's changes from the books that I wasn't like in love with. So yeah, I'm going to say overrated. Like they're just, especially like the most recent one, which is obviously part of the original trilogy. But they change. You say obviously, but I can't say that.

Tommy, would you know that? No, I don't know that. OK, maybe maybe I'm coming at this from the standpoint of like, oh, yeah, OK. These guys, for some reason, like the Hunger Games. OK, I have seen at least one or two. I wouldn't mind watching them, but I've only seen part of the first one so i definitely don't know what's going on yeah may i ask what the relevance of that is you had a post uh from instagram maybe in about 2014 that said you were excited for the next uh hunger games movie to come out you went back that far on my instagram dear god what else yeah your recent stuff was all just

so coaching specific i couldn't find any like uh i so i was like i was i got sick of looking the recent stuff was all i had all my coaching stuff i'm like i need something like what else is going on so i scrolled all the way to the bottom and start sometimes i find my best stuff at the bottom you're reminding me to archive all of those posts. You've got some good ones back there. Yeah, there's some interesting ones for sure. The real secret is that I have a personal Instagram that's private, which is where all that good stuff would be. Right, right, right.

Yeah, so Hunger Games, and you did say it is overrated probably a little bit. Yeah, for sure. Like I said, I'm a big book guy. I'm weird and like to like listen to the audio book while I'm actually reading the book. Oh, simultaneously. Yeah. It's got to really stick in your brain that way, though. How big of a book guy are you? How many books a year do you think you read? Probably like 50 on average that's

pretty good do you want to know how many books my wife read in 2023 as long as we're talking about it how much 500 books oh my god how i we could we could spend a whole episode getting into the how but uh that's red that doesn't count audiobooks that does not count the audiobooks oh my god how many words per minute does she read

I've done a little bit of digging into it and I think she reads like almost 10 times faster than I do honestly not that I'm not a fast reader so that's not a great metric I don't know what you guys are like I can read fairly fast but I can't Not that I'm not a fast reader, so that's not a great metric. I don't know what you guys are like. I can read fairly fast, but I can't comprehend if I'm reading fast.

And she can read fast and comprehend, and I can't do that. So that's part of it. But just an interesting anecdote that our regular listeners will probably get a chuckle of by bringing that into the equation. But by any other metric, though uh, 50 here, you're, you're blowing anyone else we ever talked to brings up books. That's insane. Growing up in elementary school, um, we had this thing called the 25 book standard, um, which I think a lot of, a lot of elementary schools do

something like that. Um, but I like a challenge. so I'm like, I'm going to double that. And I did every year that I was in elementary school. I made it a goal, and I'll be damned if I didn't do it. Keeping the streak alive, I like it. We had a program called Accelerated Reader. Tommy, did you have that? Was that a South

Dakota thing? Yep. Okay. Ever heard of Accelerated Reader? Can't say that I... For us, it was more the books that were heard of accelerated reader? Can't say that. Can't say that. I, for us, it was more the books that were part of the accelerated reader program. They was a point system. There was a point system.

And they also had like a quiz, you know, if it was part, if the book was part of the program, there was a quiz that you would take at the end to test, you know, basic, it would quiz you on basic questions of the book to ensure that you actually

read it and comprehended it. And then it would, yeah. Award you points based off of, you know, how many books you read and how many questions you got longer and more complicated. It did gamify book reading.

And as, as a, as a younger kid, I ate it up. I read so many books because of that. I loved it. Oh yeah. Yeah.

There should be something like that. Again, there we go. There's a, there's a business idea of boys, some kind of, some kind of app that gamifies reading yes okay um overrated or underrated uh let's go with this one next austin perkins oh man i mean austin's austin's just criminally underrated that's that's he's

been underrated his whole career um i mean the only reason that i would continue to give him that rating is just because he's he he's approaching the summit of the mountain for sure um we have got very big plans for the course of this year um just as an aside i'm i'm super proud of austin in general we've talked about this on king of the lifts so i won't't get into it, but, uh, he has made such a turnaround over the course of my knowing him. Um, and again, he's, he said this before, but like he, he was very much living that college life, you know, just didn't have any, any focus, um, didn't have direction and was honestly squandering his talents. And he has, he has turned that into the craziest climb that I've ever seen of any lifter.

And I've just been privileged to help be a part of that. But yeah, he is the trajectory that he's on right now, knock on wood. He's just, he's gonna do something insane over the course of this next year. And hopefully, over the course of his career, it's, it's just one that is never equaled. And I, I truly think that he is one of those just generational talents, like same,

same kind of, you know, cut from the same cloth that like a John hack would be. So I really, I really do think that the, the, the plans that we have, as long as everything lines up for him it's it's just going to be insane so he's underrated because people just don't necessarily know his potential but luckily i'm kind of in the driver's seat on that so yeah yeah that was kind of a softball one on that particular line item i had written down aust Austin Perkins or we won't get into it because it's not the question. Maybe the more interesting question to ask overrated underrated would have been Taylor Atwood but we went with Austin Perkins for that one so we won't ask you the Taylor

Atwood over or under. We'll let the listeners make their own answers to that question. Last one, we haven't had either of them on the podcast, so I'm going to let my chips lie with whichever one we get on the podcast first, I think. That's the camp I'll fall in. You want me to

text Austin? I can do it right now. He'll come on. He loves being on the podcast. We do need to get him on at some point in time too, so yes, you should put a bug in his ear someday. Tell him we would like to get him on at some point in time, too. So, yes, you should put a bug in his ear someday. Tell him we would like to get him on. That would be a fun one. Last one, and this one's a bit of a deep dive one also,

so you may question the relevance, but I think it's – I'm just curious on the answer and betting it out. But overrated or underrated, Coke Zero. Oh, my God. So underrated. So, so underrated coke zero oh my god so underrated so so underrated i mean i want to give a a shout out to my my partner in crime uh at game day over these years uh matt holden uh who i will greatly miss working one-on-one with but uh the the man and i could have like three plus hour conversations about why coke zero is better than Diet Coke.

I mean, it just is, it just, it just tastes more like, that's what I want to know. That's what I want to know. What's the difference there as, as not a,

not a, not a soda drinker myself, like in any capacity, I don't really, I it's confusing to me. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously when,

when you're drinking any sort of like diet or zero sugar or whatever type pop, I'm saying that because I'm from Pennsylvania and we say pop. Actually, that's what we say, isn't it? I don't know why I said soda. That's the first time I've ever heard you say soda ever, Tanner. I thought you were trying to be accommodating to our guests. Yeah, I guess maybe I was just trying to read the room. All right, we're a pop trio in here. Can you guys sing? We you know sing we'll we'll we'll get it going yeah um but yeah the it just so coke zero just tastes more like the real thing simply put

um and maybe that comes down to like the type of artificial sweetener that's in it or something i can't imagine like the ingredient list is that different from diet coke but yeah it just tastes better that is the goal of it though isn't it like the ingredient list is that different from diet Coke, but yeah, it just tastes better. Um, is the goal of it though. Isn't it like, is, is that why Coke zero exists to taste more like Coke than diet Coke? I think, I think the actual reason is because people started to have a problem with the sweetener that was in diet Coke at the time. You know, it was one of those ones where like a study came out and you know some random news outlet picked it up and was like this particular artificial sweetener is terrible and it's just like well cancer or whatever yeah yeah and it's just like well not really but you know sensationalism and all that good stuff so

better switch it up um yeah honestly i don't really know the origins of coke zero but you know i hope whoever decided to come out with it got a big promotion um yeah it's just a better product it really is now what the the real question should have been is is vanilla coke zero coke vanilla zero how about that that that's also so good it's honestly like the best one is is cherry vanilla coke zero that one is very vanilla oh you're talking yeah yeah you just you don't see it i was gonna say where are you coming by this that's gotta be hard to find uh the last time i had it was probably like when i was in college in syracuse new york um yeah uh shout out wegmans one of the best grocery store chains

that's where uh big keith of the unpaid and underrated podcast uh that's where he always he always says he goes to wegmans and i've never heard of what that must be an east coast uh grocer chain sort of thing it's it's like a a central new york specific one central new york so yeah yeah the so uh wegmans claim to fame they have this is this is such like broke college kid stuff they have uh cans of tuna that are like 50 grams of protein per can and they're like two dollars i mean you know they they i don't know what they are now because inflation but back in the day they were like $2 or less. And so, you know, you obviously being into lifting weights and being in college, you're stocking up on that. Um, but yeah,

Wegmans was, was the stuff. Obviously we also have a HEB in Texas as well. That's, uh, something that Texans are passionate about. I'll be honest. I've, I've in my three years that I've been in Texas, I've never quite gotten it. Like it's a cool grocery store, but I don't really get it. How about, uh, you talked about macro friendly food items there. Have you ever had a Costco chicken bake before? Yeah, for sure. That's, that's like the, for me, that's like a, the rewards that I get at the end of shopping as I've,

as I've managed to spend an extra hour in Costco, just looking at all of the things that I probably don't need and picking up two or three extra food items that I definitely don't need. And then I'm like, Oh, chicken bake. Hell yeah. We like to think of it more at Costco as a chicken bake restaurant that you can buy a few knickknacks while you're strolling through to get your chicken bakes. I love that. I love that i love that um

yeah honestly that'd be kind of like having like two chicken bakes a day that'd be like a bulking hack my uh like we actually we're sponsoring three athletes this week uh you might be interested in this you said you're into supplementation and that sort of thing uh We're sponsoring three athletes this week that are all a seven day diet that the only food they're allowed to eat is Costco chicken bakes for seven consecutive days.

The only food that they will be eating is Costco chicken bakes. The number is up to them but they're saving receipts and we will be reimbursing them for their total number of chicken bakes. They just have to eat a minimum of two per day. That is the minimum. No max.

Some are shooting for six a day, I think, and I don't know how it's going. But the sodium content is pretty high, and I've already heard some comments from them just two days in about maybe like the water retention sort of thing. Dan, can I join? That sounds fun. We had a lot of applicants. It was a very intensive screening process. You know how you're talking about having to limit your number of athletes at time. We had to do the same.

So that way we could show this group like the dedication that they probably all deserve from us. Definitely. Great news though. It looks like you passed overrated, underrated today. So being a veteran of the program yourself, it's no surprise to us or anyone listening, probably. You threw me a curveball with the Hunger Games. That was some good research. Yeah.

We usually try to get something snuck in there. So you talked about your podcast you're going to have coming up. What else, uh, what about coaching specifically? Like could someone get you to be their coach tomorrow if they wanted, is that, is that a possibility? So again, um, obviously I won't get into it, but I, I am a solo entrepreneur again. So my new company name is One Rep Methods, One RM. So one of the things that I think is important going forward for my coaching business is, like I said, I very much want to keep my roster small. So in order to do that, I am limiting myself to 30 people between my weekly coaching and all access, which basically

is just the difference between checking in once per week and once per workout kind of thing. So at this point in time, I don't have room for that. However, obviously still have to be able to make money. I do have a third service, which is literally just programming only that if somebody wanted to get in on that, they could still do that. Cause that's, that's pretty easy. I don't, you know, have to be talking to that person very often. So that is available for sure. But no, as of right now, my, my higher contact we'll call it tears are full and likely will be for the foreseeable future.

Right. Awesome. Well, and everyone needs to make sure everyone's got extra podcast time for their ears, I think. So everyone needs to check out the two new podcasts coming up. Yeah. So those are Supplement Saturdays and the working name for the other one is One Rep More. So those will be live starting in February. And I should mention, if anybody out there also wants a free training program, that is something that I'm actually going to be launching this coming Monday is a free powerlifting template. There's two versions of it.

One that's built for people that are conventional deadlifters and one that's built for people that are sumo deadlifters. So you'll be able to find that at my website, onerepmethods.com. The one is a number. Are you going to the Arnold this year? Oh, heck yeah, man. Despite all the debacles of the USAPL, I have some lifters.

That's something we didn't even get into is there's a chance that the USAPL might not have their competition at the Arnold. Not in 2024, you're saying. Yeah, so there was an email that went out that basically said like, hey, we got kicked out of our usual spot, which

is just like insane. Like that hallway Yeah, C-Pod. That's like our spot. That's the spot. That's where it's been every year. So I guess weightlifting pulled rank because they're sponsored by Rogue. And Rogue was basically like, yeah, weightlifting needs this spot. So now USAPL Brass is kind of scrambling to figure out where they're going to host it. where they're going to host it. Now, I will say in the most recent post promoting the Pro Series finale, they did use the Arnold logo,

whereas the last few posts haven't. So maybe they found a spot, but there's been no further communication on it. They can't not do that at the Arnold. The place is enormous. They can't tell me they can't find a spot for it. Right. That would be a shame. If they don't, I think that's only going to push people further away.

It is a huge shame too because this is like the only year where the pro series finale like has like big cash prizes like it's not quite up to sheffield level but it's it's close for sure um and again if i'm being honest i really do think that it's probably going to go away after this year. Just because if I were in the brass's shoes, they'd probably be like, oh, well, all these people that we're catering to with the Pro Series are moving away anyway. So there's no point in spending all this money. So it would just kind of suck to not have the meet happen in CPOD because we usually draw a pretty big crowd of people. And most importantly, that's, you know, it's just kind of the tradition that comes along with it.

Now I can imagine that the production value will still be there and all that. We won't have to worry about that, but it's the location and potential lack of a crowd is definitely a problem. Like there's, there's even a chance that it may not happen in the convention center itself. Which again, that if that happens, that would be really bad. Yeah. That would suck. That would suck.

Okay. We will have a booth there. So it would be, we're mostly tied to it, but if you get any spare minutes, please stop by sometime and we'll say hi and maybe we'll bring in chicken bake or something. Hell yeah,

man. Hey, how about I bring you to it? Now you're talking our language. There we go. I got to figure out where there's a Costco in Columbus. I'm sure there's one. Awesome.

Well, we do really appreciate you coming on. This was a lot of fun. I think our listeners will enjoy this. Thanks, guys. It was a blast. Thanks a lot, Joe. Thanks, Big Joe. Thanks.

Cool beans. Cool beans. Cool beans. Cool beans. Beans. Cool beans. Joe with the Pittsburgh cool beans. Yeah, I wonder if they're pinto beans that he's been having down there in Texas. Probably, yeah. They're pinto beans that he brought back up to Pittsburgh.

A little bit of follow-up. Or Pennsylvania, I should say, not Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Big Mitten Patel did say Milk Milk Lemonade is from Family Guy. That's where I got that from. I must have missed that episode. I have to ask my wife.

She's a big Family Guy person. Is she? Oh, God. Her and her sister are all about Family Guy. Really? Have they seen all the newer ones and stuff, too? Not so much the newer ones, but they've definitely seen. What about the really old ones?

Do they watch the first couple seasons? They've seen more Family Guy than I have. Not that I've seen a ton, but i feel like for the most part i know a lot of the family guy jokes that that take place but um yeah she knows more of them than i do okay family guy maybe losing a little bit of relevance probably yeah probably well there's a point where i mean we're clearly not there yet but we just make so much of something that people just move on, you know? Right, right, for sure. Do you need to hit us with an ad?

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I was kind of busy, so I didn't get a chance to get back to this person, but I thought it'd maybe be appropriate to play it on air. Oh. Wow, okay. This is very special. Yeah, I see. You might recognize the voice. We'll see if I can get this to work.

Let me know if this is coming. Give me a thumbs up if this has come across. Yeah, there's Huck Finn. I needed somebody to work my booth the arnold i heard you're gonna be there i need somebody there friday saturday slinging some t-shirts let's get stupid let me know okay bye so if we're not busy enough on arnold weekend i guess we got an invite to work the uh huck finn barbell booth as well.

I'm always down to help a friend in need. Yep, I'm not working our booth, Tanner. I've moved over. I'm working the – Well, I don't know who's going to work ours if we're both there. Someone's going to have to figure it out. That's not our problem. That's a March us problem to worry about.

Yep, that's weeks away. I got plenty us problem to worry about. Yep. That's weeks away. I got plenty to worry about between now and then. Yeah. I've gotten back to him. I assume he wanted something other than that, but, um, I think they're working on upping their video production on their podcast.

And I assume that's some questions of that, but unfortunately for him, what, you know, asking me is kind of like the blind leading the blind. Cause he didn't mention, I did hear, was it the newest episode or a week ago? He was talking about how they were looking at getting another camera. And I think he was talking to Tom about how he had bought a new microphone, I believe, too.

It was something that he was messing with. So they always got something technical they're working on over there. Yeah. I've got something else here that's been a funny little thing more voicemails no oh no this has just been a funny thing in my house the last couple weeks and uh when i was coming down mary said you should talk about that on the podcast and i'm like i should take this for the podcast that is interesting so what happened if you're watching on video you can see this. I got this Christmas card in the mail this year. It was addressed to me, my name, my name specifically,

and to my address here in western northeast South Dakota. So someone that has my address. No return address. Oh, no return address. No return address. I'm going to cover up the sort of name that it does have on it to maybe because i i do so here's the thing got this christmas card addressed to me i do not know the person on like the name that's on it doesn't mean anything to me

like that i can remember the the well, it's just a last name. There's no first name. So I don't even know the full name. So I can't even like look on the internet. And I have some sort of feeling I'm supposed to know who this is. But just in my, maybe my old age or my fried brain, I'm like, I cannot figure out who that is. So maybe if I put this on the podcast maybe it's i'm like there's like an outside chance that this is a massonomics listener and i'm yeah i don't think that's unreasonable to

think lots of people technically but i am going to show the picture i'm all right with showing i'm going to show i've made the decision i'm going to show the picture because it's part of the part of the thing here so this is this is the picture uh okay you got a crazy reflection on there so i can't okay let me hold this up in a different way. Okay, can you put it closer? Okay, because you have two different cameras. So do the camera for our guests first. Okay, for the guests?

Yeah, do the camera for the guests, and then for that, show me the camera. Okay, there it is. The webcam one. Okay. And now showing Tommy that. I don't know who that is. Okay, so it's a man. Actually, I just thought of it now.

It's kind of a funny thing. You know what is in this picture? Twins. With the twins. It's a man who I would say is around our age, probably in his 30s, somewhere in there, and he's holding twin, is it twin baby girls? With the twins.

Yeah, presumably girls. Just looking straight at the camera. There's no lady in here besides the baby girls. Not that there's anything wrong with them. No, no, no, but I'm just saying to figure out the mystery. It's just a man and his twins here. That face doesn't look familiar to me so i don't know okay so it's not someone you know that would have been what my first question is do you know this person

oh i and again maybe if i maybe if i sat and looked in person right where i'm not i spent so much time looking at this because i'm like what i told you my webcam can you do just just the name on the webcam for me where no one else can see it, or is that too hard to do? Yeah, I can probably do that, right? Maybe. Yeah, because I can see what's up there. Oh, it's weird, the angles here. Let me adjust this angle. I just point it down, okay.

Hmm. Boy, that last name doesn't do anything for me either no i spent so much time looking at this because i'm like i said you go did you go to massonomics and put that last name into our yeah and i nothing popped up so then i'm like i thought maybe that's gonna be my first guess yeah but i told my wife many times i'm like this looks like someone i know like this guy totally looks like someone i would know yeah just generally but i cannot place it but also if there was someone that i knew from like 15 years ago and i never knew him that well and if they saw a picture of me today they might be like i don't know if i know that guy or not you know i don't like yeah and man it really it almost makes me think it can't be a

massonomics person because our customer list would have that person's name in there there's no way that that because someone could have my address if you know we sent them something and they had the address that way which isn't crazy to think um and i'm like is this you know because i i have a lot of cousins and stuff like that but but I'm like, this is not a first cousin of mine, but is it like some farther off relative? Did you go search your Facebook friend list just in case? I did. And there's no first name? Because I'm doing it for you right now too, and you're right.

There's nothing there. Huh. Yeah. The mystery goes deeper. And no return. the mystery goes deeper and no return. So it, it with the no return address and kind of like the nature of the picture being just like not your exact typical Christmas card picture.

There's elements of it that are just slightly different. It just made me wonder, like, is there a joke at play here that I don't understand? Like, I don't know what the joke is, but I'm like, is this some sort of joke that I don't understand?

Man, that's a, that's a mystery. I don't know what the joke is, but I'm like, is this some sort of joke that I don't understand? Man, that's a mystery. I don't know. Yeah. I have no idea. This week in unsolved Masonomics mysteries. Yeah, usually with Facebook, you can solve these things pretty fast, but... Yep. Yep, I could not solve it.

So, to be continued possibly mate you know hopefully someday i can come back here and report that i found found out the the mystery man and uh i know with the twins you know it's uh it's that thing what was that movie with jim carrey was it like the number 23 or something like liar liar no no the mask no not that one ace ventura 2 no not that one either uh is it 23 yeah the number 23 do you ever see that one i don't think so where he's it's one of his serious ones you know oh why so serious it's he starts to kind of go crazy and just see the number 23 and everything that happens in his life okay okay and yeah this number like 23 follows him everywhere in life oh where the hell oh i was gonna say where the hell was i going with this maybe like the twins are starting to follow us everywhere in life they're just appearing everything right

everything right it's just the twins now. Twins. Like why? Why is there twins everywhere? What's happening? It's the Twins. I can't get away from it. You know it's all about them Twins. Twins, Basil. Twins.

Twins, Basil. So that was my card thing. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. I can't wait for that mystery to get solved someday. Interesting, but no answers here today at least someone should make a true crime podcast out of this i think so that's what the if the world needs anything it's more podcasts we tried to you know you hit you hit the road a little road trip not too far about three and a half hours of the cities and you always gotta have a podcast and uh you know the kids they're either sleeping

or they have an ipad with a movie to watch while they're in the car and so we we try to have something to listen to and usually we're trying to listen to some true crime podcast and like they almost start to feel like a parody of themselves after you listen to enough of them and then you give it some time and go back you're like well i just know what you're you're gonna do this whole thing you're gonna have some wacky music playing yeah and then you're gonna like have like take a little artistic liberty with how someone was feeling at that time when you don't actually know that and uh then somehow this is also going to be 10 one hour long episodes is like this does not need to be 10 hours long like usually it's twice as long, you know, I mean, that's podcasting in general, right?

He complained about the length of something. But also it's just, yeah. Anyways, so yeah, we listened multiple hours to one. We listened to many, many hours to one. I'm already, you know, deeply thinking about it, which means I probably won't listen to it again now. Have you ever seen the show Ghostwriter? No, I have not. Familiar with Ghostwriter?

Have you ever heard Ghostwriter before? I mean, I'm familiar with what it is, ghostwriting. Right, but not the show. You've never heard it in the context of the show before. No, I didn't even know there was a TV show of it, no. There was a TV show called Ghostwriter. It was on PBS in the early 90s. Yeah, early 90s. That was a popular show in my house, Ghostwriter.

And something about it resurfaced in my brain. I hadn't thought of Ghostwriter in probably decades. Something about it resurfaced in my brain, and I thought of ghostwriter in uh probably decades something about it resurfaced in my brain and i got i showed it to both my daughters and they are hooked on ghostwriter okay the point is for kids yeah yeah it's a kid show it's for like almost more like 10 year olds kind of what i would say but they like it yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, I showed them, you know, they're like 15 minute episodes. I showed, uh, showed them one, but I, I was really hyping it up and making it seem cool because it's such a cheesy old, uh, show. Like it's, it was really

giving a little favor in there. Like I bring it up because I bet there's a whole bunch of people listening right now that are of about this age that watched ghostwriter uh and they'll get a kick out of this but uh like i picked my two-year-old daughter up from daycare a day later and she immediately was like uh you know she doesn't always say like completely full sentences but she's like ghostwriter ghostwriter ghost you know she was like chanting ghostwriter because she wanted to watch Ghostwriter so bad. Wow. And part of it is just because I was like hamming up the ghost. And I was watching it with him and I'm like, Ghostwriter!

It just hyped it so much. So I certainly had a big influence on it. But Ghostwriter is a big hit in our house, at least for right now. If you ever get a chance, shocking thing. First, I turned on the first episode. The first episode, the first actor that comes on, none other, I'm pretty sure, I got to look this up,

I'm pretty sure it was Samuel L. Jackson. Ah, who was it? Was it Samuel L. Jackson? Oh, I don't know. Or was it somebody else? Maybe I'm getting it mixed up now. I'm looking. Yeah, just Google ghost writer Samuel L. Jackson.

Is that a thing? Or do I have that wrong? Let's see. Yeah, it's... Yeah, it looks like it. He was Reggie Jenkins, Mr. jenkins samuel jackson in 1992 yeah here's what isn't damn that hardly even looks like him yeah that's why i'm saying it took it like uh because he was in pulp fiction was like that's what i was just that's as i was saying it

right now i was confused because in my mind when i watched this a couple days ago i thought ah this was before people knew who Samuel L. Jackson was. But then I'm like, wait a second. That timeline doesn't add up because I, that's exactly what I thought. Pulp Fiction says 94, which they would have filmed it in like 93 or earlier. But this was before that. Cause this was the first episode of Ghost Rider in 1992. Yeah.

So if anything would have been like a year later though, but like, he looks very different in these screenshots. Oh, but I'm just saying he wouldn't have been famous yet, though, right? Well, no, I think he was still famous. Oh, he was still pretty famous at that point. I don't think he was an unknown when he came to Pulp Fiction, I don't think. Okay, okay. I could be wrong.

Pulp Fiction was the first movie that I thought of in my head as registering Samuel L. Jackson kind of besides snakes on a plane. Right. That's true. Um, but so yeah, ghostwriter.

Oh, there's a lot of good, like music, uh, in ghostwriter too, where like they, like the kids are making songs all the time oh really like really really bad uh well actually like really moderate child actor singing

stuff damn i just had to look here okay first of all samuel jackson's uh imdb page is just incredibly long the first thing i can see with him that has a credit to his name is in 1972. Wow. Multiple things throughout the eighties. Is there anything that sticks out to you as something, you know, first thing that sticks out to me is something that I've heard of would be coming to America in 1988 school days. I feel like the days with a D A Z E.

I feel like I've heard of that, but I don't know. Uh, dead man out. I don't know if I do the right thing. I saw that. That was 89. Exorcist 3.

Never saw that. Goodfellas, 1990. I'm surprised he was in this Ghost Rider. That is surprising. It was a PBS kid I triple took at it. I'm sure at the time, of course, I didn't know who Samuel L. Jackson was. Patriot Games was 92.

I never saw Patriot Games, but also after Patriot Games, Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider word. Wow. So that's it. That was kind of my Ghost Rider segment for the week. Stay tuned as more unfolds there.

Has Tommy seen it? Ghost Rider? No. Mark it? No. Put it on the list. Go on the list. We're going to watch it.

You had a couple other things in here. I had a couple other things. It's getting late. It's getting late. That's what makes it because I could easily go off on these for a long time. Yeah, so they're not like a 30-second thing. I mean, they could be, but they could easily be more. That's why I think maybe we wait on those maybe.

We save those. Okay. Save those. You know what? I can't save any longer that I've been holding back and saving on. Oh, what? I want to know. Not going to save for another second.

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And when I checked before the podcast, they still were not. I made sure to throw one in there myself. You got to give it it's fun though because it was in a rogue rack but then the plates were very obviously the strength co plates that's awesome i'll have to go look for that one here yeah so uh whether you're rogue fitness or whoever buy yourself some strength co plates at the strength.co whether you're rogue fitness or just a regular old guy you'll love strength co plates yeah and today's show is also brought to you by texas power bars they didn't happen to be lifting on a texas power bar in that

post i you know i don't that would only make it even all the much sweeter if it was if rogue on the poster they're squatting on a texas power bar with uh the strength co plates and then they have some barefoot shoes on and there's a there's a stack of uh yeah of build fast supplements laying to the side uh jerry fuel cans and wool blankets from swiss link and uh check military surplus so awesome stage that and somehow get rogue to post that man all the massonomic sponsors that just but we're not in the post, just all of our sponsors, but not us. Be like dumb and dumber, like, oh man, some guys are just living the life. Today's show is also brought to you by Texas Power Bars. Buddy Caps, the founder of Texas Power Bars,

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was born. It was strong as a house, was the best in Erling, and was maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national, international, and world powerlifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar. To learn more about Texas Power Bars and buy one of their legendary bars, visit TexasPowerBars.com. Do we have anything else this week that's particularly burning that we need to get to? I don't think so

wind this one on down we might as well wind it down yeah make sure to stop to stop over at massonomics.com that's where you can buy all of our merchandise we've got our drink spotter light it's magnetic put it anywhere it's made from aircraft uh grade aluminum and it says the drink spotter on it with the massomics logo there in the back that's pretty sweet we've also got the original drink spotter we've got some hats massonomics heavy lifting crew uh buy these while you can because we're probably if we still got them at that point in time we'll probably take them to the arnold and sell everything that's left of those and that one will come if you got them they say yep we've. We've got the Alemonia, Ale-scented ammonia,

our collaboration with Obsidian Ammonia. We've still got some of those, but same way, we'll probably take those to the Arnold and come back with none, I would guess. So now's your chance on that. The Black Masonomics Gym Tea is going to go away. So if you want one of those, now's your last call for alcohol on one of those. Or you could say closing time. Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings,

and that's going to be particularly relevant here. We are working on kind of a bunch of new stuff right now. And for those of you that got the Black Jim t-shirt, I hope you had the time of your life. Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road. That's right. Time grabs you, life grabs, I don't know the next line. Time grabs you by the something.

It directs you where to go. Where to go. I haven't heard that song in so long. I kind of have a rule that I don't listen to that song. It's an unofficial rule. It's not strictly enforced. I just don't go out of my way to listen to that one so would you say you go out of your way to not listen to it or you just don't go out of your way to listen i just don't go out of my way to listen to it like oh okay i thought you were saying you go out of your way to not listen to no like if it somehow came up on something i would just hit next right away and not listen to

it if i was in control. Yeah. You know, luckily I haven't been in many social situations where that song gets played lately. So you're not, people aren't playing closing time at the touch tunes very often. Not especially,

you know, and I'm not, I'm not, it's like that still use touch tunes. Yeah. I think touch tunes is still, I would say I'm not in very many settings where touch tunes is part of the setting anymore. Yes.

True. That is it on that. Make sure to please, I would ask you also to leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. We need more reviews there. We desperately are in need of more reviews there. Please, please, please. We're begging you. That costs you nothing. I mean, that's nothing. there we desperately are in need of more reviews there please please we're begging you that costs

you nothing i mean that's that's nothing that's you don't even have to buy something from us just leave us that five-star review and then also buy something from us effort yes uh leave us that five-star review on apple podcast and then also another thing that's free to you subscribe to our youtube channel if you're not already this podcast goes goes on the YouTube channel. But also we have a new other video on there. I just as well say every week because it is every week. But I hesitate to say that in case we ever didn't have one. But there is a new. So there's a couple videos coming there every single week.

Yeah. So please subscribe. We'd like to see that number grow. You might even find them entertaining if you take the time to watch them. You might get a laugh or two. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two even on some of them probably not very much learning but you probably get a laugh or two at the very least you might be entertained yeah and what what else would you really want honestly i i don't want anything else in life to be besides to be entertained that's all i want you know my closing thought on the youtube is um i watch a lot of uh you know c10 truck videos yeah i do the

youtube mechanic i'm a youtube mechanic right we're all kind of youtube mechanics right right in our own way whether whatever we're mechanicing on everyone is kind of a youtube mechanic in their own way right it just depends on what on, everyone is kind of a YouTube mechanic in their own way, right? It just depends on what your discipline is. Sort of, actually, yeah. Yeah, like it just depends on what you're doing. Everyone's trying to fix something, and they're going to YouTube to figure it out. Right, and my discipline lately has been 1967 to 72 C10 Chevrolet pickups.

And I've watched a lot of videos on those, and some of them are so not good, but I just need to watch them because they have the con they have nugget is there. They have the information I need. And many times I've thought I'm going to start. This is going on. Yeah. I would absolutely never do it.

There is no time in my life, but like in an alternate universe, I'm like, God. And, and the number of subscriber subscribers that some of these people have where you're just dealing in a different niche that just has way more potential eyes, I think is the main difference there. And like these guys really are subject matter experts, right? Aren't they?

No. I mean, a lot of them. Yeah. Some channels are like that, but a lot of them are just dudes that... Just like, I replaced this radio, this is what I did, and they don't even... So they're just showing you what they did, not necessarily the right way of doing it. Yeah, just a lot of them are just them showing you what they're doing. They're just literally...

It'd be like if we're putting together the Rogue Rhino Belt Squat, and we just do a video, like a fairly... We do a 15-minute video minute video about well then you put you know you put uh all right now it's upright next to that one and both you know it's a 7 16th socket and and that's like what a lot of it is you know there's some people out there that really run actual shops actual shops and stuff like that that are doing it pretty well but a lot of them are that are just at home kind of mechanics themselves that they're then they have a some of them have you know views and subscribers on these like they're just they just hit so much

i think if it's you know you need to know how to disassemble the rear drum brake on one of these on this vehicle you know whatever it is i'm just using an example and i just think they just catch so many people searching that exact thing that is one of those things though i have thought about i mean it could be you could apply this to any niche but i have thought about lately with unlimited time like let's just say i would just was just had unlimited money and i had nothing to do i literally had to find something to for to keep me busy because you know i would have to do something right i think that would be so fun to be like, all right, I'm just going to find a local subject matter expert and be like, let's just make a run at this. Let's make some YouTube

videos where, you know, like the ins and outs of everything. And let's just try this for a few months and see where it goes. And if it does nothing, then it's like, okay, we'll, we'll both just go on and do our different thing. yeah oh that could be if you found like in that case let's say you there was someone well i mean you're talking about like you could do it yourself which in that case you could but and that same line like for me though where i have like an expert is is better though still too yes like someone is an expert because there are a lot of mechanics that have the 10 billion sayings for everything you know they've been around forever they have all the funny midwestern jokes about everything oh yeah they know that just get that on the camera oh and to like just get them working

away and doing their thing that would someone who would find that show so entertaining and it probably does exist 20 times on youtube already if not more for sure but to do it again i mean i something like that would be so fun to me i could i could totally see doing that i could see that yeah but i'm not at the point of unlimited money. If you want to help get me there, go to mass.com.com.com. Or time. Or time. That's even the bigger one.

It's time. I have negative time for new projects, but my mind, the way I'm like, yeah, that could be a venture. I know. There's just no shortage of ideas. It's just the time and sometimes maybe the money to make that happen. Yeah, right, right. And like the actual ambition to execute on certain things. shortage of ideas it's just the time and sometimes of maybe the money to make that happen yeah right right and like the actual ambition to execute on certain things but like if you did have an endless amount of time and money too you know you could you could really start to see where you could

all all take that too yeah did you know there's been uh there's been some talk that uh there's been as of right now it's become a bit of a a trend. There's an exodus of sorts of noteworthy creators taking a break from YouTube. Are they going somewhere else? No, they're just saying, I can't keep up with the algorithm, the feed, the needs of the channel or of the platform. And plus, a lot of creators feel like they're getting pushed out by Reels. They're saying our content is getting deprioritized in favor of reels and possibly you could say content from other channels or other things so it is probably so there's been a lot of i mean some creators with like millions of subscribers are calling it quits or putting their channel on an indefinite hiatus or even some of

that have bigger ones being like no i'm just like now taking a backseat. I have basically employees that are going to take this and run with it. I'll just be kind of a behind the scenes person. But that's been a bit of a trendy thing in the YouTube space right now is 2024 started with a lot of people saying, I do not feel like YouTube is sustainable for me anymore. Yeah.

Which is interesting because no, not us. We're just going in like it's 2014 baby. Yeah. We did that once in 2014. Unfortunately, we didn't stick with our putting in the effort. We should have put it in 2014 years ago. Yeah.

We're doing it in 2024. Yeah. We're a decade late to the party. Decade late and a dollar short classic. That's right uh well that's should we stop talking about stuff i suppose all right tommy where do they find you at you can find me at tomahawk underscore d you can follow uh me at tanner underscore baird but just make sure to follow massonomics at massonomics see ya