Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 426: Coop of Garage Gym Reviews: Gear, YouTube, Haters, & More

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Big Cooper Mitchell of Garage Gym Reviews joins us for this one! We talk about the transition to Pillar 4, Home Gym Con, and Coop gives Tommy advice on his new home gym. Check out our new coffee collaboration with Caffeine & Kilos! 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! everything. Massonomics. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 426 of the Massonomics podcast. We are Marshall. We are the lifting podcast about nothing. Recorded live from, of course. And my name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy. That did. Have you seen it? No, that actually did make me think of there was a comment in Discord this week.

Someone said top four football movies. And I was like, you know what? I'm actually having a hard time thinking of four football movies I've seen because I do not like sports movies. And I just I've seen Remember the Titans. So sports movies and I just, I've seen, remember the Titans. So that's on your Mount Rushmore. I guess by default,

it is little giants. I've seen that one a few times. So that's on your Mount Rushmore. I mean, I have seen the water boy, so I guess that falls in there. I'm kind of naming some classics here. And after that,

I've the list falls apart in a hurry. I was really struggling to think of any, how about any given Sunday? Nope. How about We Are Marshall? You haven't seen that? No. Actually, yeah.

No, I have not seen that. Varsity Blues? You haven't seen Rudy? I have not seen Varsity Blues or Rudy. Varsity Blues. Haven't seen it. Or Rudy. Neither one.

I have to put Remember the Titans and Varsity Blues both in mind. Those are locks. Those are dead ass locks where I would go fist to cuffs with people to, to hold either of those two in there. I bet the last time I saw, I remember the Titans. I think we watched it. You know,

when you're in school, you have like holiday movies you watch before. I think seventh grade, probably last time I saw that movie. Yeah. And, uh, the program people brought that one up. Never seen that one. And I think that's every football movie ever made. I saw that movie. Yeah. And the program, people brought that one up.

Never seen that one. And I think that's every football movie ever made. I think that's all of them. Won an award for best football movie ever made. Talladega Knights, does that count? It's football adjacent, I guess. Okay. Ah, this week's episode of the Massonom podcast is brought to us brought to you brought

to us bought to everyone by our fine friends over at the strength co check them out at the strength.co that's their website or you can call them at 949-326-7652 just give the strength call this week actually would you bring them up that's 9 949-326-7652 and call in an order. I'd like to place an order for a pair of 10s, please. So, yes, please call in all your orders to Strength Co. And then when you have a warm body there on the phone, you can let them know that your friends at Masonomics sent you. You can buy their Made in America, america veteran owned veteran founded uh olympic two inch iron plates the best

iron plates in the game they're made of iron check them out at the strength.co i am iron man I am Iron Man. I think there's straight-co mean potential there. There's got to be. Let me open up my old notes here. Did you forget? I forgot we were podcasting tonight. It would have been nice if someone would have told us. Is this thing live or recording this episode is also brought to you by barefoot shoes barefoot shoes have been our

favorite barefoot footwear for tanner help me out here three years now two years now forever forever i i was born with them since 1987 i was born just thinking about wearing barefoot shoes since forever they have been our favorite barefoot shoes if you head on over to www.barefoot.store you can also check them out for yourself and see what they're all about they have the classics like the ursus high top which is our favorite lifting shoe they have the the Ursus Low Top. Both of these options are available in suede or canvas. They also have the Oso, which is a nice little loafer if you want something to slip on, you know, relax, just get around, no problem.

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Thanks barefoot. Oh, big news, Tommy. Thank you, Barefoot Shoes. Thanks, Barefoot. Oh, big news, Tommy, this week. It's Drop Week. It's Collaboration Drop Week. Drop Week. Can you believe it? I thought it would never come. That's what she said.

Am I right? That's right. So it is a Drop Week. It is a collaboration. We're selling this as a bundle. There's a bundle here. We're the bundlers on this one. Bundle of joy.

So the only thing in the drop is this new collaboration bundle. And if you hadn't guessed it by now, we collaborated with our Californian friends over at Caffeine and Kilos. That's who we collaborated with, and I don't know if anyone has any wild-ass guesses of what we might collaborate with on Caffeine and Kilos, but lucky news for you, you don't have to be in the dark. You don't have to guess much longer because we're going to tell you.

Which thing do you want to... I'm going to tell you right now, Tommy, something smells good over here. Can you smell what I'm brewing? Yeah. Do you smell what the rock is cooking? Because I sure do. Let me do a little smell. Oh, my God, that smells good.

That does smell really good. I'm not just selling and exaggerating here. It smells really, really good. So what do you want to see first? Are we showing? Are we doing show and tell here actually are we showing i didn't know should we show it off i mean i got it i mean yes we do it's right here i just i didn't know so you've got it too i got it right here in front of me okay so it came in today it did hot off the hot off the usb are we showing it maybe we're not showing it i don't know that's what i wasn't

sure we can explain what the collaboration is i didn't know if we wanted to show it or not, though. Yeah, that's a fair point. I don't know. I guess it's only our live listeners that are going to get the early taste. Okay. Right. So I guess that's a treat. That's a treat for listening along live.

All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. Here we go. Do you got something there? Yeah. Do you want me to hold it up? Yeah.

What do you got? Okay. I have an upper body garment here. Oh. Are we ready for it? Hello. For the unveiling? Here it comes. Do, do, do.

It is the Cool Beans collab. And I'm not sure if this can be seen or not. Here, I'm holding up one for the Discord so they can see this. It says, cool beans. We got a walking coffee bean in the old school mascot style. And then it says, not until I've had my coffee. Limited blend, morning vibes. He's carrying the Massonomics mug and wearing the caffeine and kilos hat

real chill shirt he's a real cool bean if you ask me if there was ever a cool bean that uh i could find that's one cool bean and this is printed on the same shirt that the squats was printed on which is actually one of my favorites i i love that color and i think the fit is right i think it's a great blank so same blank yes always always has been the same blank and then of course because a tea isn't enough the piece de la resistance is you can see it on my screen here hopefully the cool beans coffee blend so this is ground coffee it's a lighter roast i think it's on the lighter side of a roast right tommy uh yes i believe so yeah i mean i haven't actually opened the bag yet so i could be wrong who knows i haven't had this we've i've had the sample where we chose yeah what it was going to taste like you know, the different samples. And it's a lighter roast.

It's quite delicious. And the coffee bag has this little sniffer hole on the back. I think that's the technical term for it. Yeah, it's a little sniffer hole. Sniffer hole. Dear God, does it smell good. It does. I love the smell of that.

I might like the smell of that even more than I like the taste of coffee. And I like coffee pretty well. Kind of makes me hungry for some reason. Smell that. Isn't that a delicious smell? So did we say these are ground already? Did we say that? Yeah, these are ground.

And it's got the similar logo on the package. It's got our cool bean. I like to picture our cool beans singing a jaunty tune as they whistle along. Not until I've had my morning coffee from Masonomics and Caffeine and Kilos. So we've got 12 ounces.

So this is a limited edition run. You buy your shirt size and then it comes with a bag of coffee. It's bundled together. We're the bundlers. Yeah. So get it people get it yeah this has been a little while in the making so tommy do you ever think massonomics would have its own coffee um you know i would say nothing's impossible but uh that was not something that was on my radar in the next 12 months. That's for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. No, me either. But a fun opportunity that we got to take advantage of there. But don't sleep on that because, like I said, it's, you know, there's only the number of coffee bags that we have now. So while supplies last, right? While the B-E-G-S is last. Yep. Let's see.

What do we want to move into here? Looks like our guests should be good. I was actually kind of, as we started, I was kind of finalizing that. We do have confirmation. We do have a surprise guest this week. But we do have confirmation, you're saying? We've got a like of a DM, a heart on a DM. So I feel like that means we're...

That's more than nothing. Yes, yes. Okay, so it should be good there. We had a very big post in this last week on Instagram. Are you aware of that, Tanner? I did see that post. There was a big post. Is it the record for the biggest post ever? I'm not... I can't that post. There was a big post. Is it the record for the biggest post ever?

I can't confirm that. What do you think is up there if it's not? There's a few viral meme reels that are in that same ballpark. So this one's at 3 million views right now. It's got 3 million views and 48,000 likes. And it is the one of michelle branch and it says honey i promise i didn't poop my undies again during squats today and it goes her turn it inside out so i can see uh and that has three million views right now it was very funny caught me off guard when i saw it i like could not remember where that was going how that song started yeah so that's a very popular you know you can't really

plan for three million you know that just that those just happen you know some of a good performing reel of like the post before that was randy moss saying i don't stretch and that one has 80 000 which that's a good yeah for sure for us you know like one after that is michael jackson talking about how his shoulders are all actually that might be funnier that one is so that one is funnier i think that that one's funny it literally this is literally the farthest i can move my arm and that my caption i use is what is your favorite part about power lifting and michael jackson like a really late in life michael jackson's like i literally my my right shoulder this is all the farther i can move it and my left shoulder this is all the farther literally the farthest it goes

i'm like that's funny to me because it's so close to real life and some what you know everyone's got shoulder problems uh but my point there is like these other ones that perform decently well i you don't know what the secret sauce is that make the make these go to a million or two million you know our last uh big one like that i think was leroy jenkins one that's right that went to a couple million um but it is just funny what the secret sauce is and you can't it's just it's a little random algorithm thing it is you know an old segment we used to have is instagram comment of the week yes there's a was a comment on that post that i just kind of like i feel like i'm like know, like. Was it the guy getting mad that that meme existed somewhere else already?

Right. I'm like, yeah, dude, welcome to the internet. Well, that's what I, and he said, almost as funny as the foreskin meme with the same song. And that is the meme that I saw that I pulled this from. Like, no secrets here. That's how every meme works. Every meme. Some of the ones I pull, I do just find from a movie I'm watching.

But it's also pulled from something else, though. Right. Like, it's always pulled from something. But you could make a case it's more original when it's not pulled from another meme, when you're just pulling it from a thing. But also, a lot of people just repost memes they didn't even make, though. You know, like, how many people do that? Like, they don't even do anything different. They just repost memes they didn't even make though you know like how many people do that like they don't even do anything different they just repost that's what he had said almost as funny as the foreskin meme with the same song which it was the inspiration for this but that

but i guess my rebuttal to that or my my what i replied was welcome to how meme culture works like that's exactly what are you saying like oh you ripped off a meme i'm like yeah that's what the memes are that is what a meme is is right people agree that they like this uh just this whole image of what's going on here and they say yeah like this will work good to convey a message and people use it over and over again and that is what a meme is uh big matt in the discord listening live he said uh he figured out because he's also a fellow meme maker enthusiast he goes i figured it out memes i spend the most amount of time on perform the worst i do think there is almost something to

that sometimes there's an inverse uh chart to be made there that's the time versus performance the cross they invert. Are they inverted? Because I was inverted. But I think there is something to that, though, because the best ones, you just think of them right away. And also, they're the easiest to make happen because it's so simple to explain. Right. That underwear one, I can't remember how much thought I put into that one.

I saw the clip clip and i'm like i want to use this right away and then i of course just like everyone that makes memes you have themes that you go back to and like shitting pants squatting is definitely one that i've used recur you know maybe not one of the most recurring but like i like the idea of actually shitting your pants in a squat because it actually happens to a fair number of people maybe at least once or so in the you know and some people probably happens a lot but like um so I like that one it's not as my new most favorite recurring theme is going into planet fitness and clogging the toilets and breaking the bars and you came

there was one you made like a year or two ago that, that I don't even know if I made that though. Did I, or you just said it or something? I don't know. We had a, was it cause it wasn't the Vince McMahon one where he's walking out. Yeah.

That was the one. I don't know if you made that or if I just remembered it when we were talking about it. I don't even know where it, okay. That's what it was. But then again, I had a different meme clip idea and i asked you

the other day what it should be and like oh maybe it reminds me of the planet fitness uh yeah so i've used that again a couple times because i do think this is this hilarious idea about just walking into a planet fitness fucking up the toilets breaking all their equipment because it's so dumb well it's like of course nobody's going in to just vandalize the planet fitness but uh is it is funny that you're just like blowing up you're saving the most disgusting shifts for the planet fitness yeah so that's a little peek behind the mask and I'm just mean curtain, right? Of course. And my favorite recurring theme in memes is spending an obscene amount of time at the gym, especially when I can couple that with drinking brewskis.

With 12 brewskis. And a number of beers that are like more than 10, but less than 30. It's always, I always like just a slight change. Like sometimes you're at the gym for three hours a day. Sometimes it's three and a half. Sometimes it's maybe like five sometimes you have 10 beers how absurd the number of hours are you at the gym there's a ratio of absurd time spent at the gym versus how many brewskis you could yeah some it might be just appropriate like nah threw back like eight brewskis but some it's like pollen polishing off a 12er of brewskis also the

different ways you can describe uh succinctly like drinking beers yeah and everyone just gets it you're right yeah i love to polish off a 12er oh that's good speaking of uh roast, coffee bean roast, did you see I have a topic about roast in here? It is that. I'm not, that wasn't about the coffee bean roast. That was about something else, actually. Are you slow cooking a roast while we're speaking?

This should be done any day now. On your smoker. Yeah, that's a follow-up from our grilling segment. Was that last week we talked about that uh no over i finally got to watch the uh tom brady roast yeah actually i watched it over like three different times of trying to watch three hours is a long one that's a lot how long it was three hours yeah i finally i had tried to watch it two times and this uh the other night i had some pre-time finally and i got to got to watch it or i stayed up late tried to watch it two times in this uh the other night I had some pre-time

finally and I got to got to watch it or I stayed up late enough to see it and did you ever watch any of that um I've seen probably uh this is really really old news at this point yeah I've probably seen a little over an hour of it I think and then I feel like some of the highlights on Instagram that maybe I didn't catch of their actual parts. Yeah. I just wanted to say some of that was just hilarious. Oh, I love. Okay. Have you watched? Did you ever watch the Comedy Central roast back in the day?

I guess I did watch some of it, but none of them in particular stick out. Those were. I was certainly aware of them very well and everything. Those were always my favorite things on Comedy Central. They were so funny because everyone is just going. Do you tell jokes that you don't normally tell and you can just be the biggest asshole and every everyone just is an agreement that everything is fair game and that's what makes it so funny is that everyone

really is there to have the best time ever right and a few of the guys it's just like you catch a level of comedy that you don't see in regular standup because they have a very specific topic. Like the constraints are like, these are the constraints. You are focused right here. You don't have to tell jokes about anything else. You're right here. And so people have just the most targeted specific jokes about these people. And yeah, the roast, they're always my favorite. They're the best things ever. I not that this would come up, but I personally, I don't think I could stand to be at, like, I would be like,

I'd be like, I don't want to participate in this. Like, okay. You're saying like just being there as a spectator or even, well, no, as a spectator is fine,

but like just in a hypothetical situation where you're like adjacent to Tom Brady. And it's like, Hey Gronk, do you want to come, uh, be at the real estate back? Uh,

nah, I'm good. I'm like getting ridiculed uh so because people they go hard oh they do well and tom tom brady to me he's reached the point of uh people that i would describe as like ryan seacrest and even the rock to a certain extent where they're not even people anymore they only i don't i think the only thing their brain thinks of is like how are people perceiving me right now? They're not even a regular person. And that makes it extra awkward for them.

Because you're like, dude, you're not a guy. You're just like a robot. You could just put a robot up there and it'd give the same reaction most of the time. Yeah, you're a robot, man. And then you look confused. Like, I don't know. A lot of people are like laughing and cracking up and having a good time. And like your reaction is confused, I guess.

It's like you don't even know what to do. So some of that is awkward on his part but as far as the comedians go oh so so funny uh my favorite I haven't yeah what was your favorite one so I um oh what is her name now I can't think it's the girl the blonde girl Nikki Glanzer Nikki Glanzer she's so funny she's so funny she was really funny she yeah she's hilarious she's and again i didn't see all the people i i have a harder time giving people that are not comedians uh high ratings because you got to assume that right plus percent of their jokes are written for them so i'm like uh yeah you can be funny you can have good delivery but there's a certain thing

of knowing like where the joke actually came from and Nikki Glazer. She's a comedian. So knowing it came from her more than likely came from her makes it even funnier too. So yeah, she was she was my favorite of what I saw at least I she was really good. Tony Hinchcliffe. Yeah, I didn't see any of this. I don't think oh my God.

He just the number of people that he brutally roasted in such rapid fire, in the most, he, like, I feel like he just picked people off so quickly and so dirty that I just can't recall seeing a comedic performance quite like that before. I was like, oh, my God. It was like a mic dropping moment almost i felt like like oh he just like just ran through all these people just like i'll definitely have to go back and watch because i'm not watching the whole show writing is ridiculous also the other guy that was

really good he uh andy what's the comedian's name um oh what the frick is Andy Schultz? Oh, and he had like a really, yeah. Yeah. Right. He has like, uh, he had that funny haircut where it's like buzzed on the sides or whatever, you know, he was really fun. He had some really well-written jokes too, where I'm like, Oh, these guys are just like really good comedians.

Yeah. You can tell, you know, you can just tell what they're joke writing and then their delivery. Um, but I just, I But overall, it was really funny. And I'd be excited for that to be a more... I don't know if all... I guess it depends a little bit on the subject matter. If you're completely... Don't give a shit about the person.

Well, so my wife was actually the one... She watched most of it. And that's why I was editing the Masonomics video or something. I think it was podcasting. That's why I didn't catch it with her. So I had to, the little bit that I was watching, I had to explain a bunch of stuff because she doesn't know much about Tom

Brady. She doesn't know who Robert Kraft is. She doesn't know like all of this. You wouldn't know half of that. Like some of that stuff was funny because it was awkward too. Well, that's what she's like. Okay.

I'm like, okay, just hit pause so I can explain to you what's going on here. Cause this joke revolves around understanding who these three people are and what they did and all that. But, yeah. If you have subject matters that are A-list enough, though, it's just going to be fun.

Yeah, it does transcend that. Well, I don't know if they can do that. Because the people they had there was an impressive group of people they assembled for it where it's like uh kim kardashian dana white uh obviously all the comedians that were there but then the football players too that's interesting to me because i enjoy football but like i just thought and then ben affleck and like i mean can you reproduce that frequent of any kind of frequency where you get the i think so i mean they've had

some pretty big names in the past i mean all the roasts are big names so like right right you know i mean they had justin bieber they had uh right james franco like donald trump was one back in the day i mean there's charlie sheen like there's ben and then they all celebrities are married to celebrities and friends of celebrities so like it usually is a pretty big panel that's exactly true um okay couple things on roast uh one of my favorite comedians i figured out who he was because of the roast anthony jeselnik and he he had like a he had like a real show but i think his comedy is so funny yeah but he had like a clip saying yeah they they talked to me and i wanted nothing

to do with this one i didn't he said i wanted like said I just didn't want to be a part of it at all. I don't really know what his reasoning was, but there was that. I think a part of what makes these so funny is everyone, I don't think this is a political statement, but so many comedians now it feels like they're trying to offer social commentary under the thing of like, I'm a comedian. I offer social commentary right under the thing of like i'm a comedian i offer social commentary and it's like i'm just pointing out how dumb this side is or how dumb this is and it's just back to the thing of people are so tired about hearing about politics and everything

and i think that's what makes this so great though is that it's just absurdism like so this so great though, is that it's just absurdism, like so like not rooted in reality at all. I mean, the events are based in reality, but the digs are just so out there. So crazy that it's just like, Hey, we're just telling some crazy one-liners and having a funny and telling funny jokes. And we're not doing this 10 minute buildup to like have this big thing for a social commentary. And then when it gets done, you're like, Oh, and that was the lesson I learned and it was kind of wrapped in a joke it's like no just hit me with some brutal one-liners for three hours straight and I don't know I don't watch enough stand-up comedy so that's maybe there is more of that going on than I realize but to me that is what I miss from comedy is like when we were growing up Saturday Night Live all that stuff

all the Saturday night live movies, just so many comedians. It was just like, they were making movies just to like have one liners and bits just going through the whole thing. Yeah. And now everything's like, I gotta have this deeper meaning of social commentary and just meaning and

symbolism. And it just can't be like dumb, absurd one liners that don't even make any goddamn sense. And that's the beauty of it. That's what I miss about comedy. Yeah. You brought, brought up something that reminded me,

did you see that Ron Will Ferrell came out as Ron Berger? I heard that he did. I didn't, I didn't look, I didn't see that part though. It was not the funniest part of the thing, but it was just fun. You know,

I would say that adding to just the craziness of the whole, right, right. But it went on for a really long time. I felt like, like Will Ferrell acting like he's, uh, you know I would say the adding to just the craziness of the whole right right but it went on for a really long time I felt like like Will Ferrell acting like he's you know he never kind of thing too though I know right welcome right and that's kind of

after a while to let it be funny and then be like okay yeah this is weird and then it just keeps going way too long you're like okay this has become funny again because you're just such an idiot yeah that's true that's kind of what it was like too uh yeah so i look forward to net also i i kind of like netflix being behind that uh not saying that netflix is the only people that make any good stuff but it just seems like it was pretty

well done in some ways and jeff ross i mean jeff ross is always a funny funny guy too uh i the one thing i was reading or i saw that because a lot of the comedy central ones i think were like an hour and a half long but what i had read was that yeah roast typically are three hours but just in the past comedy central just always edit it down to just get to the funniest of the funny because three hours is just so long for that stuff right i could see that too there's probably an hour hour and a half of that that could have got cut out and it would have just been even funnier actually because you get rid of the least funny stuff in there. Like Bert Kreischer and whatever, is it Tom Segura? Those two have the podcast together. I didn't think their bit was very funny. See, I don't know much about this thing they did like this presentation thing and it just

uh burt was not funny to like i'm like are you got it all together tonight man or what's going on because i'm like i don't like i like to a nicki glazer she's like oh burt you man you had the one you have that one joke it's so yeah that one joke you It's so funny. Yeah, that one joke. You take your shirt off. That's hilarious. And you're supposed to keep your shirt on. You're not supposed to take your shirt off, Bert. Yeah. Yes. I've got a music topic here, and also I want to talk about a training update. But I don't know how much time we got.

Maybe I should do a little supporting our supporting members. Yeah, probably should a can we could crack into a can oh yeah let's crack into a crispy old can i think i have a flavor i've never had and i can't remember if you said you'd had this one recently i'm holding in my hand a waterloo raspberry nectarine have you ever had that one i have a waterloo raspberry nectarine for real oh no say your flavor again though waterloo raspberry nectarine that could probably be good i have a 365 whole foods market black cherry oh and i just guarantee this thing's gonna be tasty you know they're bringing the flavor there yeah tea this thing's gonna be tasty you know they're bringing the flavor there yeah raspberry nectarine not too bad not a huge nectarine guy but if you like nectarines

you can taste it and this would be i i think could be highly rated so what do you give it out of five out of a possible five jd i go three and a half the nectarine is actually too much for me i'm just not a nectarine guy that's actually what's bringing it down this black cherry of some sort of is damn tasty i'm just going straight to a four on it i knew it was going to be good though i knew all along that's good stuff it's good stuff now supporting our supporting members. It's a relatively new segment to the podcast. I guess we've been kind of doing it for a while now,

but relatively new compared to some other segments at least. What we do here is we like to shout out, give back a little bit to some of those that choose to support us each month. And you can also choose to support us. All you've got to do is go to massanomics.com slash join. That's where you can find our different supporting membership options. There's a budget-friendly option for any budget there. No matter what your budget is, you can find something that works for you.

You put a little pad of paper down, bust out your pen or pencil, put them together, do a little number crunch and some figuring, and I think you'll find out you almost can't afford not to sign up to become a supporting member. You get to get in on our discord community. It's the only way you get in on our online discord. You get, there's a discount code only for supporting members. You get early info on drops.

You can listen along live to the podcast. That's the only way to do that. Bunch of other stuff. So check it out at mass dynamics.com join this week want to give a shout out to big uh big cody i think this is big cody the bird watcher he finished third place in the lightweight division at the costa mesa highland games in oc crew Lafornia. So congrats, Big Cody. Then we have,

also this week, Big Sam Brown, Big Lou, and Big Matt were all together in Omaha. Yeah, at the Deadlift, barbecue Deadlift annual event. Those three were all lifting there together. I know I saw Big Sam Brown hit a deadlift PR of like 625 or something.

I was going to say 620-something. So well done, the three of you guys. I'm sure it was nothing short of a fun time, right? It looked electric. And then coming up June 15th, we've got our next little crew meetup. This is the Garage Gym Throwdown in Watertown, and that is going to be on, what do we say, June 15th, brought to us by our friends at Build Fast Formula.

Supporting members Big Nathan and Big Abby are going to be hosting in their garage gym and hopefully we get a little crew of crew together to pump some iron in preparation for the lift hard live easy classic meet right all right i gotta look right now then so according to my training this week is that next week is that the next week is oh yeah we got something good we got some big lifts to do that week unless i'm dead lifting then i don't really have big lifts to do that week but i could probably move move some things switch some days around yeah okay speaking of build fast formula head over to buildfastformula.com that's where you can build smart build strong build fast

level up your life with innovative clinically dosed and research-backed supplements that just work uh full blitz pre-workout i took a little pre-workout the other day before my lift a lot of times i drink coffee when i go to the pre-workout i go to the full blitz i was just had some of that the other day i had a big lift and i went full full full blitz mode i was really hoping you were going to say you take a little pre-workout before the podcast obviously i figured that went without you know i usually like to hit the pre-workout about 9 p.m uh that way i just go without sleep altogether on nights that we podcast is the preferable. Productivity is through the roof. Yeah.

And not only that, I had some of their 80-20 protein just this morning. Check out all of their supplements, like I said, at buildfastformula.com. Anything you buy from them, any order, multiple orders, you can use discount code MASSANOMICS. It'll save you 10% on each of those orders. Any products you like there and you want to get a recurring purchasing agreement going with, you can save an additional 10% so you can save with,

with our discount codes, get stack it, get 20% off. Thank you. Build fast formula. And this episode is also brought to you by our good friends at Texas power bars. Memorial day has come and gone,

but that does not mean that you can't still take advantage of the $50 off Memorial Day savings over at TexasPowerBars.com. You can save up to $50 on your favorite bars. Bars like the Texas Deadlift Bar, the original Texas Power Bar, the Cerakote Texas Deadlift Bar, the Texas Squat Bar, or the 29mm Texas Power Bar. There's just a few of the great bars they have over at texas power bars we've been using i don't know that maybe the first bar we ever bought for the gym was the texas power bar tanner wasn't it it was certainly the new first new bar we ever bought for the gym and that's going on damn near 10 years now and those things are still kicking so still some of my favorite bars to use yeah honestly. Yeah, we love Texas Power Bars.

They are great. They hold up to a beating, and there's a reason they are the legend. So head on over to TexasPowerBars.com. Take advantage of that sale. You won't regret it. And when you place your order, let them know Massanomics sent you. Thank you, Texas Power Bars. Our guest has arrived,anner all right can't hold

anything back now can we our surprise guest this week boot all these freeloaders from here hello oh there he is sorry about that some technical difficulties my friends but we are in excellent can you hear us okay yeah i hear you great is my audio okay i'm using my airpods i have a mic if you'd like it to be better i don't it sounds good doesn't it okay yeah uh cool and the mustache is coming across great so i'm growing it out longer i told my wife i'm going to keep growing it until the our kid our uh my wife has a baby oh congratulations actually oh thank you twins we just found out uh last week but i told my wife i'm going to keep it growing until they come out yeah i'm going for the white herb you guys ever watch tombstone oh yeah absolutely

we're big tombstone fans around here i pegged you as tombstone yeah so that works out perfect i actually at times i actually trim my mustache so uh tommy are we starting recording we are we have been recording okay we're recording so we can roll with this this is important i just don't want to miss any of that but uh i have at times you know with my beard not trim my mustache for like over half a year at a time and i many times have wanted to cut the rest of my beard and just have the ridiculous mustache and i just have never really made that commitment because then the problem is that i don't have the beard anymore and eventually if i want to get rid of the mustache then i just look really weird with

nothing so the chain effect that's the craziest I've ever gone with facial hairs I did get to a point where I could actually curl my mustache up I got a picture somewhere that that's that's the farthest I've ever gone with facial hair ever because that's just I'm not I'm not good at that I have a buddy that does that and he carries around like mustache wax

yeah well it's a little too far for me you know I like all natural he also shakes his arms you know the type so he's probably listening right now okay so as far as formalities go for anyone that doesn't know we are here with our guests this week now with the one and only Cooper Dane Mitchell, the founder. You don't worry about that. The founder and a spokesman of garage gym reviews. So we're going to talk about a lot of that. Uh, Cooper Dane Mitchell. That's also my oldest son's

middle name is why that sticks out to me. So great choice to your parents. Yeah. That's my daughter's middle name too she always tells everybody we're the danes you know there's like that's our connection so she tells the boys like you know you know this is just me and dad's thing you guys are the great danes oh yeah so we do have we have a i'll just be frank we've got more questions here for you than we're ever going to possibly get to them all, but we'll just, we'll just start and see what we go to. Last we left off, we were waving to goodbye to you as you were pulling out of western northeast South Dakota, probably like five years ago. I don't know how long ago that was now. I would guess it was 2018 or 2019.

It was one of those. Yeah, dude. What a fun trip. I don't know how much of the details I remember telling you guys, but GGR was still somewhat in its infancy. It was growing, but it wasn't real big. It wasn't really small either, right? It wasn't, but I wasn't making much money from it.

Right. right i mean it wasn't but like there's like i wasn't making much money from it right and uh we were traveling um i i had actually prx sponsored the trip and to save as much money as i could i hired my buddy to film who had never filmed he had never filmed uh the entire time um and we slept in our rental car the entire way too so in the full trip up to north dakota and back we left that kia sorrento running the entire night every part of the trip every leg and stopped at maybe like 15 20 gyms man it's just like you know you look back on it it's like man doing that today sounds like a lot of work but at the time it was like this is amazing like i'm saving so much money i'm having so much fun it was yeah it was a good trip sleeping in a car sucks though is the only thing i would say oh it sucked you know that's the only part of that that i'd be like ah i'm gonna have a

rough time sleeping in the car yeah and i brought pillows but i i like stuffed them under the seat or something we couldn't find them so we get to the end of the trip we're unloading the car and we find the pillows you had extra gloves the exact yeah it's the rockies you had extra gloves oh yes yeah oh couldn't believe it. Yeah. Unfortunately, but that's okay. Uh, that video, you know, you did a tour of mass dynamics gym with us and, um, we still, we have people that are some of our most diehard, uh, mass dynamics loyalists that found us from that, you know, we have, there's a handful of things from us in the early stages that were, we brought in some audience that really stuck around for a while. And that's that,

like when we were on like starting strength radio as another example for the first time that brought in some people that will still be like, Oh yeah. Like they've been around so long. We forget where they even came from. They're like, yeah, I saw that review that,

uh, coop did, you know, like six years ago at this point or whatever it was. I looked 2019 here. Yeah. So 2019 we have, I mean,

guys coming from that time. I mean, that have stuck around from that time. years ago at this point or whatever it was i look 2019 here yeah so 2019 we have i mean guys coming from that time i mean that have stuck around from that time so it is cool to see the effect that had what's your what's your guys secret to the consistency like you guys are still friends being business partners or whatever you guys call this thing for as long as you have a fair comment still you know selling all sorts of apparel making all sorts of memes having podcasts traveling i know you guys have other jobs too but like how do you make the marriage work tommy what do you what is the secret sauce i don't actually know i think the perfect coincidence of yes it's that and i think we both do what we say we're

gonna do you know everyone if you've worked in a business yeah you know you work in an office and there's just people that say they're gonna do something never do it and you're just you check out in a hurry because you're like what's but we both do what we say we're gonna do like that's a good i know tanner's gonna make two posts every single day until the end of time i know we can count on tanner to be here to podcast with me every single week. Like, right. He knows that I'm going to have the shit together to, to, to send off for new t-shirt designs every single month.

Like we know we're going to have a new YouTube video. Like we started this a year ago and we're going to have one every single week and we'll keep that going until we decide not like we just, if we say we're going to do something, we do it and it happens. And that's when you can count on that, it makes it easier to keep things going that's good that's probably a good answer i would also say like both being aligned in what we want out of it too where it's like um yeah this it's great now we get to make money doing

it and that is an important factor of it at a certain point because we can't we both have families and other jobs and stuff. We can't do everything forever and get no return, but also like in the constraints that it has to be fun to like, we're not doing this to not have fun. So if we like, if it's like our option is a do this thing and it's no fun and maybe you could make a little bit more money or option B where here we can still make

money, but this is fun. Then it's like ah that's where kind of the value you know that's the sweet spot for us probably totally yeah not that we're turning down tons of opportunities to make a lot of money that we but just hypothetically at least that makes sense in my brain no i get it yeah no i think i think the there's the idea of like the overnight success everybody looks at the people as like who got the overnight success i was at the people as like the who got

the overnight success i was saying get a john call judy mufu with this yeah yeah because the dude was making content and online forever yeah right and then suddenly he does this wild video with the chairs and he's like this overnight success but he had all this time period built up before it that helped him get there afterwards um and people just don't give credit to the consistency over the long term right and i think you know not to take your guys on horn too much but i think you guys are showing you know you just stay at it you grow you grow we just say if you can just outlast everyone eventually that'll mean something i don't know if it means much but it'll mean something But obviously you can say it because you get it yourself too because the overnight success is basically a fallacy.

And also if you truly are, you're probably not going to last long-term anyways then. If you are really just an overnight success, that's still not sustainable long-term. And you get that though too because you get the consistent. We could just flip it on its head and ask you the exact same question too you know like the consistency is key and then also like you do need to probably be getting better at stuff as you're doing it consistently too in an ideal world like improving

while yeah sticking with it but you yeah get that that's part of the reps thing you know i mean everybody listening to this gets that you know you put in more reps you get better at the thing the other thing is like you gotta like i just am not good at things i don't like i just always been that way like if i like something truly like it like i'm the most curious person like i'll just dig dig dig you know and so if i no longer like it it's just like i'm just not it just doesn't work out so finding something that piques my interest, but like, it's something I'm going to do the rest of my life, like train. So I'm going to do the rest of my life. There's going to be new equipment that comes out. I'm going to be into it the rest of my life. I can always review it because there's always new stuff coming out because the incentives

are there for companies to create this stuff. And therefore they need people to, you know, review it and say what's good or bad about it. I feel like it's a nice flywheel that can keep me going because I enjoy it. For sure. Okay, I don't want these to seem too disjointed and jump from place to place, but I don't know, we've got a lot of questions, so we'll talk about some of them here. So Tommy just started his home gym, his garage gym. He moved.

Welcome to the team, pal. He moved to a different, he doesn't live in Western Northeast South Dakota. He lives in Southeastern South Dakota now. So he has a home gym, a garage gym. You've seen it a little bit, you said, but as the industry expert, do you have any advice for him in the start of his journey? What kind of training are you doing, Tommy? Are you doing mostly powerlifting type stuff?

I stick to a pretty, yeah, I'm running the Juggernaut AI app. I stick to a pretty basic powerlifting split, so I don't do anything too crazy. It's mostly your barbell movements and then a few just basic accessories that, you know, make use of dumbbells or whatever I have around. just basic accessories that you know make use of dumbbells or whatever i have around yeah that's like the training program for garage gym because just simple you can do so much with a barbell you get so strong um i get do you have a nice barbell i think yeah i saw your rack your racks i forgot is it wrap or rogue i have the bells of steel hydra actually or bells still okay yep um so i got that um have a 29 millimeter texas power bar showing up in the next week or so here so x's power bar and 29 yes did brandon campbell diamond turn you on to that well we kind of been texas power bar guys since

day one so that's kind of always had a special place in our heart and then 29 i mean you can say you're always a texas power bar guy but you would go with the newer right right i'm just getting started i i wouldn't put it past me to have a whole collection of these i don't know if you're aware but tanner has every generation of texas power bar from the 1980s to today from from the max up through the Texas Power Bar Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3. Don't bring up Mac Barbell to Buddy Caps. Okay, let's just say that. He's not a fan. I sent – so we don't talk directly with –

so Texas Power Bars has been a sponsor of the podcast for like five years now, and we don't talk to Buddy directly, but we talk to his son-in-law. Nobody talks to Buddy directly, but we talk to his son-in-law. Nobody talks to Buddy. No, no. We've been trying to get Buddy on the podcast for years. I still hold out some hope that we'll have it at some point in time, but we did make a video on this timeline of the Texas Power. And I did start it with the Mac.

I did send that off to him and I sent it to Mitch and I'm hoping it made it to Buddy. I don't know his opinion on that barbell, but still he had to at least appreciate the collection that I had to track down here for this. That's pretty cool. I've got an unused old Mac

Texas Power Bar. It was unused in that it was just left in the back of a pole barn really rusty as all get out yeah my buddy had it and dude there is no wear on any of the knurling that's cool like it's just pristine i restored it oiled it up yeah there's just something about like i know there's like i'm gonna gointage Weights. They're a podcast. With Rob? Yeah, Vintage Weights PGH is Big Rob.

Yeah, Rob. We've had Rob on before, and I've been on his and stuff. Dude, there's like this whole subculture, which I'm not really in. Right, it is a subculture. Yeah, dude, it is awesome. Efren. Yeah, Big Efren. I've gotten quite a bit of stuff from actually i got these uh my york roundhead salesman gold samples these are courtesy of efren

i i conned him into selling me these out of his personal collection so yeah that's cool yeah it's just like it's cool to see like it's cool it's cool to see just people are into that idea of strength culture and it growing over time and i love that it's like being um like restored or cared for still i think it's cool i like the nurse stuff i don't i don't have a ton of affinity for the older stuff but i get why people do i recently it's just within the last year and a half is when I started getting into it. I, I don't know. I don't know. I guess I feel like I ran out a little bit of, uh, newer stuff, but like my itch for equipment, uh, buying doesn't go away. So just it like, right. Gives me an Avenue to be like, ah, here we go. Like I can't readily just buy these. I can't

just go to the strength.co rogue.com you know and click add to cart like there's like the thrill of the hunt the thrill of the hunt exactly yeah and then the next thing you know you have a full york uh collection roundhead dumbbell set yeah so that's exactly right that's pretty cool yeah i'm kind of avoiding that too because i could get really into it and like i see like you know i know enough about kind of like nautilus and you know the spider cams the aluminum can't you know like all the talks about that stuff and i would just it would corrupt me i would just bankrupt myself but after this stuff i got enough stuff i'm trying to spend my time on yeah uh so garage gym reviews obviously you review a lot of gym equipment uh your

reviews carry a lot of weight you know what you say is important for the industry obviously um you have the biggest channel that does this and it matters like for an equipment company especially i mean it matters you probably cover more stuff than anyone else does right right right so so so my point it's it's it's really impactful and you probably are aware of that but when i wonder when you don't like something you're reviewing something and maybe there's parts of it you don't like do you feel uh and you've like you're to be truthful you feel like you're obligated to say some tell the truth and it might be negative like do you feel bad like if you have to say something bad do you do you feel like ah shoot sorry like i that i don't want to shit on you but like your thing sucks like does it do you feel

guilty about having to do that ever well especially if i if there's people behind it you know if like it's it's it's easy to hate people from a distance it's hard when you know them so to be honest I try to avoid not knowing a lot of people within the you know like I I talked about this I'm sure we'll we'll talk about this but like that response video I made to oh we got to talk about that yeah yeah to tim uh i i think a lot of people like i i'm not on the calls about money anymore i don't want to be on the calls about money like i don't want to be on like like everybody knows like the way that we operate the business it's through affiliate so um i don't want to know how much we're paid commission wise i don't want to know how much we're paid commission wise. I don't want to know the amount we're paid. Like I knew all that stuff and it's just really hard to parse and to

separate bias. Like it just like, I, I know there's people that would say there's no bias involved in any of this. That's a lie. I mean, bias is just inherent in everything you do. You just have to try and like, how can I avoid this as much as possible? So I try to not be on those conversations i also there's other stuff like i i saw this and i heard people talk about it in like the tech industry where you'd have big conglomerates like say samsung who would pay for like um trips and weird stuff like that to reviewers to try and incentivize them to do stuff. Dude, that same stuff happens in our industry.

But I just avoid it as much as possible. Like, you know, not maybe so blatantly, but just people like sweetheart stuff. Just people trying to be nice, trying to get you to like say nice stuff about them. And I just don't want that to affect the things I say. So there's people in the industry that are with companies that, dude, I really like. Like just the people themselves I really like. There's also people I don't like. And there's people I don't like within companies that people would think I would like that I just don't.

But I try not to let that be like the deciding factor of the product. Like I try to, and I don't do this perfectly. Like there's times I look at videos, I'm like, man, I should have, like if I could to, I don't do this perfectly. Like there's times I look at videos. I'm like, man, I would, I should like, if I could redo it, I would do it differently. But there are, I just want, I just want to, I want to review the product as it is, whether the, whether the people I like or don't like, or whether I'm making money from them or not, I try to as much as possible. I don't do it perfectly, but I try to. Which is, like you said, it's hard because there's people that I know. Every time I do a review, I get a call from somebody or an email from somebody

saying they're upset about something. And almost always, it's when the people are really involved in the creation of the thing, which is awesome because they really care about it. Like, say, engineers at these companies. And I've met them, I talked to them, all that sort of stuff. But if I critique something that they worked really hard on, or say I do a more clickbaity title, people get really upset. And so that stuff sucks at the same time. Like you make something good, I'm going to say it's really good. The part is way like weighting them equally both uh and this is for just life in general but the encouragement i give the good things i say and the critiques and the negative

things i say it's easy to like swing the pendulum and go one way but i try to just equally wait all right if this is good i'm going to call it out say it's good say how much i like it but it's not good i'm going to say it's not good and say how much i don't like it yeah that makes sense um yeah like the clickbaity titles that's it's that's tough it's easy for someone uh say they're work with the company they're the engineer their owner whatever and then to say did you really have to name it that? But also, like, you're in the business of creating content, and, like, you have to want people to watch what you're doing. You know, like, that is the goal.

And, like, that is part of the game is, you know, like, encourage, you know, doing the things necessary to encourage people to watch it within reason, too. Like, that is kind of the name of the game, too. Well, but it's like hate the game not the player you know it's like you're coming after me but that's literally the game that we play they give me only so many characters and only so many of those characters show up they give me this little thumbnail i gotta like attract attention as much as possible and the other thing that a lot of companies don't understand in our industry is like even negative things I say, the amount of eyeballs that draws, like, dude, the amount of eyeballs I drew to a video we did on the Nike barbell.

And I just like, it's just not, there's nothing about it that's unique or special. They charge extra, put the swoosh on. Dude, the thing's got so many views and you get people that are so upset about and it's like man i didn't say anything that wasn't factual i gave my opinion when i said it was my opinion and it's like man people get so upset but at the same time you're getting so much so much so many eyes to that uh so much engagement it's like i don't i'm i'm fine with that yeah that's fair um when you've i don't know how many years with that. Yeah, that's fair. Um, when you've, I don't know how many years, it's been a while now, but talk about your thing with Tim.

We'll talk about that later. But, uh, when you, when you sold the major, major, uh, portion of the ownership of garage gym reviews, was that a, like that a decision in the moment at that point in time was it a really tough decision or had you already done a lot of the tough stuff prior to that and it was like an easy decision once you got there to that point in time or was it like uh like i you know did you how hard did that weigh on you know, making that call at the time? Yeah, it was pretty hard. Um, I can say maybe like six months before I told my wife, like, I got to figure something out because I'm getting run down. Like my, my, like, I'm not, and I'm not trying to be the,

I'm not trying to be this guy. I'm not Mr. Manager. You know, I'm not trying to have a ton of employees. Like, that's not not like i wanted to do the thing i wanted to review the equipment use the equipment test the equipment create stuff about the equipment like that's what i really like doing well as you scale a business there's a whole lot of other things that you got to figure out than doing just the thing and what you realize is like do i really want to do this do Do I like doing this? And does this allow me to have time to like focus on things I actually want to do?

And it just wasn't. Like it just took away from the stuff I actually enjoyed and I felt like I was good at. And so it definitely weighed on me in terms of like, I'm giving up control. Are these people going to do what they say they're going to do? Like I have certain moral principles that I just won't go away from as a Christian. And so like, is that going to

like play a part? Is that going to be a challenge? What's the environment going to be like that I'm going to work in? Is there going to be expectation of me to say stuff that I'm just not going to agree with, you know, like all sorts of stuff like that. Also, there's a part of like an attachment to it. I don't want to equate it to my children. But in some way, it feels like a child like it's like I created this thing, incubated it from nothing at all the idea came up, there's just so much storied history. And because the brand is so synonymous with me there's also that part too there's just a lot of factors that played into it um but overall like

i mean just truthfully i'm very happy with how it's gone i mean there's certainly bumps along the road and there's certainly been things that i want to improve and try and do better and i've tried to apologize for at the same time like dude i'm able to focus on what i want to improve and try and do better. And I've tried to apologize for. At the same time, like, dude, I'm able to focus on what I want to focus on. I have full control on anything that comes out of my mouth or comes out of the channel. Now that doesn't mean like, this is like where we have to parse things.

Not everything that is from Garage Gym Reviews, the brand is coming from me anymore. There was a time where it was like, I wrote every article. I wrote every post. I created every post. I oversaw every post. Like that's not it. Like the stuff on the website, we have an editorial team of people doing that. And we have some really like, like we've got Kane Wilkes, who's an Olympian, uh, Olympic weightlifter, Dragon Wilkes, like writing content. He's doing that full time-time so like we've got people who know

what they're doing and are giving their opinions but as far as things that are coming from me my mouth and from the channels that i mostly control which is youtube and social media like i nobody nobody's like hey you need to sell this more. Nobody's like, hey, can you talk about this more? Like they basically get like, I'm just gonna talk about what I'm interested in. I'm gonna try to do it in like a truthful way. And the audience over time, like you're gonna benefit from that.

Like this is how it is. Like this is why I tell companies, like the brands, and that's what I tell our company is like, the brands, the only reason they care about GGR is because they care about the people they're selling to. They don't care about GGR. They just care about selling more product. So if we're just suddenly losing the trust of the audience, the brands don't care about us either. We can only serve one master. That master is the audience. Serve the don't care about us either. We can only serve one master, that master

is the audience, serve the audience, give them honest feedback, give them what they want, create things that they want. And the brands ultimately will benefit from it too. But dude, all the fights and people getting mad about stuff on the brand side, dude, I don't care about that. Like that is just so much less important because ultimately what we're trying to do is serve the audience. And there have been times where we haven't served the audience as much. And that's where it's like, we have to revert back towards the audience in everything that we do. So that's a long way of answering, but that's kind of my feelings on that. That's good. No, you hit on several, several bullet points that we have within there actually.

So that's, that's a good answer. Do you feel like, I mean, I take it by your answer, not really, but do you feel like with, with having to give up some of that control, like, are there any lines you have to walk now that are, do you have to do anything that's annoying to you that you're just like, ah, when I, when, when this was me and only me, I just did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted I answer to me. I mean, you answer to the audience and everything like that, but do you have to do like, it could even be, uh, remit, you know, it could just be like, you know, I work in an office day to day. I got to do a lot of dumb office crap. Like, do you have to do any crap now that just, you're like, like, you know what I'm saying? Oh yeah. Yeah. Without a doubt. I mean, pillar four, the company who bought GGR is a corporation and an ever growing corporation. When I came on, we had less than 50 employees. I think now I don't know the exact amount, but it's tremendously more than that. Like it's a, it's a lot of people, a lot of people that I don't necessarily know now amount, but it's tremendously more than that. Like it's a, it's a lot of people,

a lot of people that I don't necessarily know now they're not all working on a GGR. We have other brands within like sleep, like they call it pillar four because the goal is to basically have brands within four pillars of health, mental, uh, man, nutrition and sleep okay i'm obviously not the elevator pitch guy for the board at pillar force but the uh um we have all hands meetings you know like tomorrow i film every wednesday that's been my thing as long as i can remember well there's an all hands meetings you know like tomorrow i film every wednesday that's been my thing as long as i can remember well there's an all hands meeting in the morning that throws off my entire rhythm and

this is so like dude who cares you know like i'm i'm pretty good with the flow i can handle a lot but it's just like there's little things like that where it's like you know you there's a there's a corporate game that's played i'm not the corporate guy so i kind of just do my thing and that's expected everybody knows that nobody so you know when you do good work nobody really cares what you do just do your good work you know but a lot of other people we have people that are playing that game you know and so you got to play, you got to navigate, figure out that, that whole thing. So there's that, but generally like, I mean, it could have been a lot worse. It's just like, I like the people on our team. I like our, I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's a pretty good gig.

Yeah. Do they ever sit you down and give you a performance review and say how you stack up to the people amongst the other pillars no they don't do it because nobody compares you know we did uh so tommy and i were at home gym con this year it was our first i'm not allowed to talk about that yeah you you weren't at home gymahn we know that by now but uh but there was a couple of that's my ringtone now by the way that would be funny if that was your ringtone i would like that uh there was a couple of pillarillar 4 media guys there, though,

that we got to meet, and I asked them. I said, ah, you must be Pillar 1 and Pillar 2. Yeah, Nick and Logan. We sent them as covert ops. Yeah, that's what. We were going to figure out what was going on. I don't know if Tommy, what's the. I don't know how covert they were.

They kind of led with the Pillar 4 things. Oh, did they? But who's the guy that... Jim Crafter. I don't know if Jim Crafter knew, but there was a couple of Pillar 4 representatives there, actually. We were there. Yeah.

We were there. We were there. So what about that? You know, Tommy, did you watch the full original video? I did not see the full original video, I did not see the full original video, but I did see the full Coop commentary while I was watching the basketball game. So it was like a podcast in action. And I saw most of it too.

I think you handled that really well, obviously. I think it was handled well. But did that hurt your feelings or like what do you how do you how do you i mean you discussed a lot of this there but just a good question yeah yeah i i don't have anything against him i do think like there's things that he said that questioned things that i just don't want to be questioned. Like, not that they can't be questioned, but I just, I just, I just felt like they were, I felt like it was lies. And here's the thing with Tim is like, it's not like he was saying anything that's never been said before.

It's like he was saying things and he said it the loudest and stuck his head up the tallest. So I was going to chop it off. Cause just like has happened too long i'm just gonna i'm just gonna end it like i'm just gonna be truthful um so that that's why i responded specifically to tim which you know it's like part of that it's like the loudest it's a stupid word i don't even want to use it but like the loudest hater you know yeah i got my haters the loudest hater is the one who you like go after it which i don't necessarily like doing that but the reason i did i had heard things other things that were said like that and i just wanted to put i just wanted to speak what i thought on the situation and so with Tim it was like he was throwing out these things and I wanted to speak to the things that were true about what he said

because he did say things that were true I mean like and honestly I emailed the guy after and he wrote back a very kind response I mean I the thing is the only reason he would say something like that, I mean, there's the part of like, maybe it was clickbait or something like that, which I don't mind at all. Like, I mean, if he wants to build his name off of somebody else's, I've done that before. Like, everybody in content has done it. So good for him. I think that's a great tactic. And the fact that I responded, it's even a better tactic. You know, it's like great tactic and the fact that i responded it's even a better attack you know it's like he like good for him um but i would have no problem hanging out with the guy nothing like that i don't

have anything against him personally just some of the things he said definitely rubbed me the wrong way because they were just aren't true and it's speaking to things that like he would have no idea on you know like i don't know where he would get like you know some of the things he was saying it was just very like like numbers or that sort of thing numbers numbers and also like like the strength co thing where he like he like had this like just dramatic pause like you didn't forget and it's like man i like i don't know why i would lie like stranko is an affiliate like i have no reason i really like grant i've talked to grant from before he was even cast in plates like introduced him to heavy metal barbell ask grant what i think of grant like really nice

guy i love that dude but like um there's just things like that, but I just like, he just said it as if it was factual. And instead of saying, I think this, and it's just like, dude, I'm just not like going to play with that. And so I think, um, in a way I'm glad he did it because I've been wanting to talk about some of this stuff for a while. I just didn't feel like I had the right time or place to do it. So I'm glad I was able to have the outlet to speak about it. Yeah. And like, the thing is, I think some people think, because inherently,

I'm a part of a business that makes money off of this thing that that's all I care about. Dude, I'm as into this thing as anybody. Like, that's what people like dude i talk about this stuff all the time i got like my bookshelves j cups heavy mug knurled shot glasses a lot of this stuff i just bought like people i think i'd get all this stuff for free i bought those full the sore necks full price from sore necks when they came out just like anybody else like dude i freaking love this stuff i'm wearing a leico t-shirt like i just into the thing so it's like also you did it for a number of years without making any money just like a lot of people i didn't that was the thing is i didn't i didn't have a monetization vehicle when i started like i didn't even know i had

companies coming to me saying hey do you want to sign for this affiliate program and i was like affiliate program like i'm not a crossfit affiliate like i had no idea what affiliate marketing was like that wasn't the goal like now that's not to CrossFit affiliate. Like I had no idea what affiliate marketing was. Like that wasn't the goal. Like now that's not to say like, we don't make money. Like, you know, I don't want to go too far and act like I don't care about money at all. Cause I certainly do that provide for my family. But at the same time, like I love this thing.

I really do. That's why I can get excited, passionate about it. Talk about the equipment. But first, like I just, if it ever got to the point that i wasn't loving it i'd probably just stop because i couldn't do it like i just i'd do something else i can figure out how to make money doing something else so would you uh sit and have a brewski with tim oh yeah i'd love it i'd love it we should do a brewski podcast oh we should have surprised god contacted tim and like interjected him in here

without you without either of you knowing that the other person was going to be there you know just really like force an awkward scenario yeah bringing him to the table here here we go right right right yeah do you feel that oh good so do you feel you know obviously the selling the business or the acquisition or however you want to frame it, like that's obviously a huge move and a big change. Like, do you feel like when that happened though, like since then had maybe people's critiques or criticisms of you amplified since that time? Oh, without a doubt. Yeah. Oh, without a doubt. Oh, without a doubt. Yeah. Oh, without a doubt. And, and in different ways than maybe they did before. Whereas like there's a disagreement with opinion, you know, which will always exist there

and is completely fine. You say like talking like quality of equipment, like discussing equipment or. Yeah. Yeah. Specifically about equipment equipment then you have the side of like uh you know like lack like you know credentialism people not into the fact that maybe i don't look like i lift as much that kind of thing that's the funny old joke too also well that's the funny old joke when there was all this criticism my comment was hey can't we just talk about coop not lifting like like can't we just talk about coop? Not lifting. Like, can't we just, let's keep it simple. Like the good old days. Let's not make this personal.

Let's just say, Hey, that guy doesn't. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Then you have this side. Then you have this side. That's like the sold outside, you know? And so just like, I can see from people's perspective like he sold out but i don't think the quality

of content i don't think of what i've said i don't think i don't think things have changed from my standard of what i want to present and how i want to talk about equipment has changed um so i mean that's ultimately that that's the goal that's that's how i serve the audience um and the other fact is like dude i've never taken a single dollar from anybody other than brands in terms of that's how through affiliate commissions so it's like i i don't really like i don't really like talking about like the free like this is free content how can you complain about free content because like they do they do pay in a way through affiliates through buying through equipment so i recognize that side and i want to make sure that the content i created serves the audience at the same time like i i mean that's why i wanted to make the video to tim because i just don't feel like the

standards dropped in some ways i've tried to increase it so that's fair uh i've got one other home gym con story and this isn't directly related to you but it'd just be interesting to get your take because you have obviously a lot of experience in the industry so tommy and i were there we were shooting content we've been doing a lot more youtube content over the last say 18 months and we got several good videos out of home gym con. We talked to a lot of equipment manufacturers and did some fun, goofy stuff like we would normally tend to do. And, but part of that was, um, we were going to various boosts, various displays setups, you know, the ones that were of particular interest to us and, uh, speaking with the owner or whatever, you know, whoever the representative was they have there and asking them just one or two questions, maybe

something serious, throwing in something goofy, having fun. We put videos together at the end of the day and I think they turned out pretty cool. But out of all the booths we went to, everyone, I honestly, everyone was very nice. First of all, like, of course they're nice and we're trying, we're trying to to promote them we're trying to put them on a pedestal like we're trying to talk about cool stuff with them the one booth yeah rogue and we i had been talking to the rogue guys and a couple you know there there were customers of massonomics and they were cool guys and so this is nothing personally about them more just just a comment about Rogue's stance on this. It's odd to us that they would choose, knowing this convention's going on and knowing there's people like us or you could be there or just people filming content,

and they would take the stance of, no, we're not going to have anyone talk to anyone about anything on camera. have anyone talk to anyone about anything on camera at a trade show where like we're we want to get help give you publicity uh you know not that rogues certainly doesn't need us they don't need they don't need anyone there but i mean like it's just kind of uh a very corporate position to take right it's very corporate and also like tommy you made the point before where it's like you're not uh you're not city bank you're not a financial advisor where you right thank you people are red tape you're welding together pieces yeah it's like you're making metal to make you make pieces of metal and at the same time like your pieces of metal are like a couple percent different than the other guy's piece of metal like so like give us some personality to you know separate you from the rest

but maybe you've got a different take or maybe you've got enough view that we don't consider there so what what do you think about that so i'll say this uh rogue is um they can be defined by their name they're rogue they're one of one they like being they like not being beholden to anybody and they like just doing their thing at their own pace like it's just how that's how that's how i mean that's the ethos bill and katie henninger have built into that business and it goes from top to bottom people can have a problem with that and i've got a problem with it at times like you know because it plays it plays in the relationship that we have with them i would love to do more stuff like dude i haven't been out there since that last

film tour i did a long time ago like i would love to do a lot more i've got good relationships with some people at rogue but it's not really with bill and i would love i would love it i would love to have a good relationship where it's like you know send them feedback on equipment or something but there there's reasons mainly oh my life's turned off sorry about that mainly the um i think he's had some problems with some of the critiques i've had to some of their equipment and specifically possibly with some of the um like this is this is this is very much how rogue wants to play the game is they don't they don't necessarily care about opinions. They want to do spec for spec. They want their bars, you know, like you see some hashtags.

You can see it with some of Bill's hashtags, like pink slip for pink slip, which is like a racing term where it's like sell me your car if we're better than you, that kind of thing. He would like you to look at the F rating of all the bars and say, this bar is the best because of the F rating on this bar. Right. That, that kind of, that kind of thing, because the truth is, I mean, it's hard to beat rogue in that stuff. They're machining, like, dude, just their capabilities is ridiculous, but equipment is more than just that yes there's

a feel there's a usability to all this stuff too exactly and that's not even like this this mumbo jumbo hippie thing it's like no you can just use it right no instantly you know right yes yes but they're because i think bill is probably engineer minded which like dude anything negative i would say about that man like dude they've done more for the industry than anybody like oh i mean i have reasons not to be fans of road i'm a huge fan of road i'm a huge fan of road i really am um just what they've done for the industry and everybody i talk to that's competitor to them recognizes the same thing they may not like them but everybody knows rogue has done a lot for the industry same thing with crossfit you know it's like anybody who's in a different training

you know like powerlifting whatever looks at crossfit and says well there's problems with crossfit but man for the home gym space, garage gym space, they did a lot. But I think Rogue is like, they're that way. In fact, when I went there and filmed years ago, I wanted to talk to one of the engineers and get his name and get his take on stuff on camera. And they didn't want that. They wanted it to be presented as Rogue's engineering team. Whereas you see this dynamic difference between them and Rep, because Rep does the opposite in that their engineers are in all the videos.

People know the names of the engineers. They're like celebrities in some ways. Now, from a corporate perspective, that gives the engineers at Rep a lot of like negotiation strategy, right. You know, increase your salary,

keep me on, you know, like, cause people need me, you know, like people like me, you know, it's exactly.

Whereas rogue doesn't really have to deal with that because nobody knows anybody behind the scenes. Like name, name somebody at rogue besides Bill and Katie. No, I, the two guys I talked to, I could probably pick them out

of a lineup and that's just because we had a meaningful conversation with them and like we are we are with you that yes rogue makes amazing stuff i mean massonomics gym is full of rogue stuff i don't know if like tanner have you ever got anything from rogue and you're like this sucks i mean it's always good quality you know like you know what you're getting of course i mean you know what you're getting like it's been recovered and And so that was our whole point, though, is like, yes, I could not fault anyone for buying Rogue. It's all good quality, but man, they just come off like the most boring, faceless company

from an actual PR standpoint. Especially like you brought up Rep as a comparison. They were there at home, Jim Conn. We hang out with Adam. It's a company with personalities and real people in it. Not like, I don't know. Do they allow you to leave the work room to go home when you're done at work?

I don't know. Like you're just locked in your cage. Or we go to talk to the ATX people who prior to this, we know almost nothing about German company. And we come in there like, yeah, we would love to do it, but you got to wait. You need like. You need to talk to flow.

Like it's going to be better if you talk to him and come back later and talk to him and it's like i just really appreciate it just personally i appreciated those approaches to it a lot more where i'm like ah this is you're making this cooler for all of us i feel like by doing that but i sort of get it too but it's just i don't like it but that dude i would love it yeah i'm right there with you i would love it i like i would love to i would love to have a one-on-one video done with bill asking him questions like that i've asked them that multiple times um it's always like you know we'll get back to you you know i would love to i would love to do that i would love to like i the resources what rogue has done usa made stuff man i'm a huge fan but there are there I'm at, I'm at the same way.

I'm like, man, I just feel like there could be more integration into the community in some of those ways. Um, but I am glad, I mean, I think it's kind of cool. They went to home gym con. I mean, I didn't go, so I can't really throw stones. You weren't there. throw stones you weren't there I thought you were there okay that's somebody should have said something about that okay what we're from

South Dakota as you know you've been here before and we got Mount Rushmore where the Mount Rushmore State the four presidents carved in stone there so we like to talk about the Mount Rushmore of things what would Coops Mount Rushmore of things uh what would coop's mount rushmore of overrated home gym equipment be and it doesn't have to be brand specific you can take that however you want it could just be generally these types of uh pieces of equipment are a little

overrated in the gym space and your uh mount rushmore of the overrated home gym uh pieces yep uh number one vertical leg press like a vertical leg press i like how little space they take up they're just not they're just you even try have you ever tried like a vertical you try a high end i'm not sure i'm even like are you just saying just like a regular i mean well no it's a, well, no, it's a leg where it's literally like, it just rides up and down. Like you lay, you lay with your back flat on the ground. Okay.

Okay. I never knew what those were called. Okay. Yeah. I believe that. No, I never have. I've seen those certainly before,

but you even tried the best of the best, you know, like an arsenal, like vertical leg press that takes up, like they're huge. Right. And they got all the biomechanics there everything there now do the range of motion so short they put you in just a weird position there is no good and a lot of people use them because they take up little space right in a home gym you know so that would be up there i've got a picture just the equipment

carved into stone that's kind of cool i need to do like a thumbnail for that yes before you guys steal it uh we already have our top men on it top men uh definitely the texas power bar ah we'll cut that no um man that one's oh uh no um man that one's oh uh man i don't know i i like so much of this stuff it's so much easier for me to say what i what i right that's right that's we talked about this question specifically and i thought it's an interesting more interesting angle for you of like things that uh yeah you know i'm going

through my gym right now to think of what's overrated so i mean this one's gonna fire some people up uh there's times where i feel like resistance bands are overrated and not because I don't think they're effective, but like people love, you got the resistance band stance, man. You got the people that like resistance band till the day I die. You think they got them tattooed on the butt or something? Cause they like resistance bands so much. Like if you don't mention resistance bands in the home gym essentials video you're you're going to hell right um the resistance bands i think they can be effective depends

what you're training for like if somebody's trying to train for hypertrophy you know like you're getting the max amount of tension at the top of the rep not the stretch of the rep um so that i don't know i feel like that a treadmill probably yeah i just go outside dude i've got a true treadmill in my garage that i'll use like to warm up or to walk in the winter but when it's the summer man i just go on walks that's one of the beauties of garage you just go outside yeah so that's another one um yeah i'm trying to think of anything that really gets a lot of uh overrated fixed dumbbells overrated fixed dumbbells in a home gym specifically that makes sense yeah that makes sense for a lot of room yeah yeah take up a lot of room. Yeah. Yeah. Take up a lot of room. And honestly, like adjustables are getting so good that there are times where I actually

gravitate towards the adjustables because the companies are actually thinking about the knurling. You know, they're like thinking about the handle. Like you even use really good fixed dumbbells. Say Ivankos, like Ivanko makes a, or not a vanco uh intex yeah tech stainless steel delta series very good dumbbell nothing to say about they've got the

rotating logo right around pretty cool but you compare that handle feel to like a pepin dude the pepin is just or watson dude i've had i've had watson's dude pep and feel even better we got to mess at the at the rep booth at home gym con the uh rep and pep and whatever yeah you know and it pretty cool um yeah it was cool yeah okay well you got your mount rushmore out there you picked you came up with four so i know after this call I'm going to be thinking of something else. You know, to like dovetail into that, Tommy, we had this conversation kind of with Kayvon at Home Gym Con and some other people.

Kayvon Kuzani. Yeah, big Kayvon. Talking about like the fad construct of how some of this works sometimes especially like especially maybe in the home gym community but maybe just a larger gym community in general where like certain pieces of equipment get really heavy in favor for a while and like everyone's got to have it everyone's making it it's a race to everyone to produce one and then like a year later, you're like, Oh yeah, dude. Like I don't hear people, you know, maybe I don't.

It was, I mean, it's backed up by data and I can't remember if he told us this on camera or if it was off, but it was like in 2019, like the most searched word or phrase on the bells of steel website was belt squat. And he said, and that was the example of use. And he's like, we come out with it. And now he's like, I don't even think it's like in our top 50 of search terms on our website anymore. Yep. Oh, here's now that you've man, see, I knew it. The most overrated, one of the most overrated piece of equipment is jammer arms without the ability to lock them in position like the vendetta or the new PRX ones now that i have that i use them all the time

like like because you're simulating machines like that's the goal with them but when you've got them and all they are is basically like you know what football teams use right no home gym owners using that well nobody uses that in a gym setting like if you have that machine people don't use that like it's just yeah right yeah right without it out but those there that's a that's one of those like 2019 you know belt squats the hype train and the thing is like the the nerd side of people like the people that are into the equipment like the the rogue LT one 50 Cal trolley arms look amazing, dude. They feel amazing.

Like the engineering behind them is just like, Oh, so nice. I think people get wrapped around that where it's like, I like that. Right. But then in use the functionality of them, it's just like,

dude, these are, I can't figure out what to do with these. So, yeah, I think that's one. Yeah, that's good. Tommy, do we want to do over-under, or do you have anything else you want to hit on first? I know we have not covered our list.

Yeah, we can – So do you remember overrated and underrated from the last time we podcasted with you? We did. Yeah, we didn't mention it but we did bring you down into tommy's basement and uh have a lacroix i think we broke lacroix's with you at uh and recorded a podcast yeah yes that and tommy had just moved there i had just moved yes i had don't live there anymore but i had just moved there at the time that's right right. Okay. I got to tell you, man, that room you're in, that's the most blank room ever. Bro, get some stuff on the walls. This is where I'm – see, I moved into this house actually now like six months ago, and I keep saying, yeah, I'll decorate my office.

And what I do is I come down here every morning. I get to work. I don't even look behind me. And I've spent more time decorating my home gym in the last month than i have ever doing this so i'll get there someday i'll get there someday it's just so low on my priority list right now straight out of the male living space yeah well no my wife has a computer back there so it's not just for guys and conversely i look like i'm sitting in like, you look like you're from Wayne's world when he's, he's drinking and getting all his chips and stuff.

I'm not a sponsor by anybody. Pepsi, you know? Right. Right. It's like some people only do things for money and that's really sad. Yes. Okay.

So you remember overrated underrated. The most important part is you can't ride the Yes. Okay, so you remember overrated, underrated. The most important part is you can't ride the line. And you have to ultimately decide when you have your druthers to elaborate as much as little as you'd like. Druthers, great word, guys. Yes. And these are all going to be centered around Tim from Jim Crafters. Just kidding.

Yeah, man. from Jim Crafter. Just kidding. Overrated or underrated, Jim Kramer. Jim Kramer? Mad money. The TV financial. Jim Kramer. Jim Kramer. Underrated because you just do the opposite of what he's going

with, dude. He is the market. You just do the opposite of what he's going with, dude. I mean, he is the market. You just do the opposite of what Jim's pulling out, and you're golden, man. That one was so left field you couldn't even win. Well, you said Jim, so I was going to be the G-Y-M. Right, right, right. So it's like Jim Kramer. I want someone to open a gym called Jim Kramer,

and it'll have a financial twist to it. Is Mad Money still a show? Oh, yeah. Okay. I mean, dude, yeah, totally. He's a living meme. That dude's a legend. I bet he's just laughing to the bank.

Everybody's talking about him. But also, who watches that, though? Who watches that anymore? Why is that a thing? My dad and every other boomer on the world have you read any of his books no no trash just listen to the audio book was all yeah yeah uh you don't model your own personal uh financial uh uh you don't you don't invest your own personal financial. You don't, you don't invest according to Jim's recommendations.

No, I do the opposite. I do the opposite. I just do Bitcoin. All Bitcoin to the moon. Bitcoin eventually just all right. It out. I have a Bitcoin maximalist though.

If anything's going to work, it's going to be Bitcoin. Do you think so? Can I, okay. Can I ask you something? Can I, can I just ask,

can I pretend to be really extra dumb and ask what the problems are? Some of the comments like, okay, Bitcoin, my account gets hacked to my wallets lost. How do we solve that problem with Bitcoin? How is that solved? You don't have a financial institution to go with.

You don't lose your like you're done so so but isn't that like isn't like everyone over the age of 40 just like i just the biggest liability in the world at that point then oh without a doubt yeah now now now now but once we get there hopefully not well i mean yes i agree with you there oh but also at the same time how many people lose their Instagram account every year? It's like people lose their Instagram account all the time. And then like now they're like, oh, but Bitcoin's answer. It's like, dude, you can't keep a password for your Instagram account, but you're going to keep a password that if you lose it, you lose all of your money in the world.

Doesn't that seem like a huge liability? People lose Bitcoin because it increases the scarcity. Because it decreases how much is in the market. You know, that's right you know because it decreases the how much is in the market you know that's right that's it because then yeah at the end so then we all have our bitcoin so we can do bitcoin but before anybody messages me i'm not like i'm not crazy bitcoin guy i've got a very small amount of bitcoin don't steal my account uh are you a taco guy oh i love tacos do you uh i just had a taco today a bratwurst taco all right well let's go with this i'm not sure uh it was just a bratwurst but with everything you know it it is a taco yeah um are you missouri right yeah yeah is missouri in the midwest missouri is the midwest oh missouri is not the midwest

middle as we get in the first two letters of our pretty south as far as the middle goes missouri is more the south than the midwest to me i think like i okay i i could make a i could understand i could listen to an argument that someone says it is part of the Midwest, but I don't think you could say it is the Midwest. Well, if you define Midwest by the amount of alcohol consumed within that state. It's a factor. You guys are way more Midwest than we are. It's certainly a factor. But I would still say we you know we get anheuser

bush boulevard we got some breweries here i think missouri's midwest okay so the this next topic on overrated underrated will help us decide how midwest you are whether whether you whether you have an opinion whether you know what we're even saying here. No, no, no. Overrated or underrated Taco Johns? Oh, we don't have a Taco Johns. Aha! Aha! I think it's because we're too small, dude.

I think it's because we're too small. Taco Johns, I guess you can't ride the line underrated because i really have no idea if they're good or bad well next time you travel like make sure to stop at one if you're a taco guy you tell me overrated or underrated jack-in-the-box uh i think jack is overrated is it monster tacos like 99 cents for two i was gonna say jack-in-the-box is kind of cheap and crappy right is that their thing like it's like does anyone go there before midnight is do people do that crappy no of course not yeah okay i think so you need the grease i think the last time i had taco john's i was was in Phoenix, and it was when they had Steve Nash.

You know, they're putting up crazy points, and it was like if the Suns can put up 120 points, you get like two free tacos. Free tacos from Jack in the Box. Jack in the Box the next day. So, yeah, I got my two free tacos, and that was probably the last time I had Jack in the Box. Overrated or underrated functional trainers?

Underrated. underrated functional trainers underrated underrated functional trainers like it depends on the type of training you do a power lifter would look at a functional trainer and just be like it wasn't great like you don't not getting strong with it a bodybuilder would look at a functional trainer and be like there's five billion different movements i can do with this, you know? So for the general trainee, just the person, the garage gym, you know, guy, I think they're really, I think they're really very beneficial. And so I love that company that started putting them in racks because it just compacts everything. You saw a lot of those. Yeah. It seems like everyone's doing that now because that kind of, that kind of... That's the product of this year. Well, that's what we were going to ask you then.

It feels like that's the hype item right now is functional trainer. Yep. Rack-mounted functional trainer. The next one, just if you want to follow the trend, the next one is going to be an integrated Smith machine. We were talking about that. We did get to... We got to preview one of those at Home Gym Con too,

and we kind of... Yeah, I saw the video you guys did on bells of steel one yep yeah which is an interesting i think there's i think they said it like they can make it go at an angle uh they they talked about an option where you could use your own bar like he said that there was bigger challenges to that i thought that was cool though like as a barbell guy i'm like completely unnecessary and basically irrelevant like i'm not using my my smith machine let's have a rogue a girl three right well arsenal arsenal smith machine has a texas power bar including oh i'm sold here we go counterbalance i'm looking it up right now yeah yeah that's that's cool i i think you're right though about the smith machine thing we talked about it too how just smith machines in general feel like they're

um you know it used to be that they were one of the running jokes oh yeah now that's not the case totally because it's like planet fitness that's all they have. Totally. Because it's like Planet Fitness. That's all they have. You know, there's no squat rack. You got to use your machine. So they're stupid. Now everybody's like, I love Smith machine. Dr. Mike Isratel comes out. That's exactly what I said.

Dr. Mike says, yeah. And I'm right there with them, you know? Yeah, totally. Okay. All right. This is the last one. And the most important one. It's worth all the marbles.

So please think deliberately before you answer. But overrated or underrated? Puffy coats. Completely underrated. That's got to... I mean, dude, there's nothing warmer than a puffy coat. I know you guys have canada goose jackets

you guys live up north big richmond selling all your freaking your training shorts i know you guys are secretly billionaires buying all sorts of nice puffy coats i think they're vastly underrated do you have a preferred can take that to the freaking bag like he's trying to sell in my name on a t-shirt i my likeness tommy and i each i was gonna say we each have a picture of you on a t-shirt now so well at least you you one could maybe make an argument that it's a picture of representation of somebody with a puffy coat and a mustache yeah this happens to be green or fat same thing as a video honestly dude he nobody drives a joke deep into the ground that was great i think maybe you guys do we do honestly we're pretty good at doing that yeah you are pretty good we'll hang on to it for like a decade

actually so yeah we have ones that are going on 10 years now so yeah and actually we were doing it works yeah i saw you reposted the the basically the mormon coop at the yeah yeah yeah yeah that was uh like man i haven't seen that one for a while that was an old that was an oldie but again that much hot on the news newsreel today that that uh that was my point though i think even in that post i'm like let's get back to the like i think everyone's being a little too critical of coop right now let's get back to the funny the the coop memes that i think we can all laugh at together yeah i appreciate that yeah yeah where you're evangelically uh forcing people to the garage yeah that's my yeah that's my that's my thing yeah so puffy coats though um damn it tommy we should have both put puffy coats on when

we started the interview we weren't thinking yeah we could have it's summertime here it's hot we finally got our puffy coats off can we start this whole thing over and do it with puffy coats do you what coats do you really have i have a patagonia um uh what's the um race major the three or uh down uh down the down sweater the high filled down sweater it's a good one yeah i speaking of beating things into the ground forever i have a bit of a running you shouldn't ask this question okay here we go a bit of a running stance on coats that i am not you don't wear coats because you just walk in you're one of those guys you just walk i'm going somewhere warm i wouldn't say i don't wear coats what i don't like is babysitting coats i don't want to be in a scenario where I have to babysit a coat is the word I use. I hate going somewhere. And then like,

for, you know, I wear a coat for five minutes so I can babysit it for four and a half hours. You know, I'm like, I don't want to be beholden to a coat everywhere I'm going. Although in South Dakota gets to be like negative 30. So sometimes coats are necessity, you know, just between living and dying. I will wear a coat. I just don't want to babysit any more than I have to. That being said, I wear whatever coats my wife has bought for me. That's the type of, that's the type of, uh, uh, fashion. It's either whatever I wear either says massonomics or my wife bought it for me or my primary

sneakers are the ones that Tommy bought for me four years ago. Tanner's more of a model where people dress the model. Luckily, Massanomics has now come out with shoes, shorts,

pants, socks. You know, I can basically cover my body. Polos. Stuff that we sell that when I need something, I just grab it off a shelf by me. That's the back. Yeah. Nice. Functionality.

Yeah. Not an overrated piece of gym equipment, though, is a drink spotter. an overrated piece of gym equipment though is a drink spotter you know not sure if honestly the i would i need to get an xl because the the i love the functionality of the jay jay hook design right it's kind of cool yeah i know it's a it's uh it's the coolest one but not the most functional one i guess is how i think of that yeah i use it every day because I go out and I take my rings off and I put them in there before I work out right in the spot and just put them in. Then I go work out, take them out. So I'm interacting with it every day. That's exactly flip it. The bird every time.

Yeah. You, you use it every day when you like grab it and throw it in the garbage. Yeah, you use it every day when you, like, grab it and throw it in the garbage. These guys. These idiots. Great job. You passed overrated, underrated. So we're proud of you again.

You're two for two. Yeah, still, all these years later, you still got at it. Good. Nice. Has anybody not passed? No, nobody's not passed. You're, like, one of, like, 300 people that anybody not passed no nobody's not passed you're like one of like 300 people that have passed statistically you know we're getting so far down there that somebody's going to fail one of these days they should it is a bring brandon campbell diamond on failing i think brandon has been on basements overrated underrated he's gonna say underrated and then

just give him a big x yeah uh has brandon been on three times uh i believe so three times with the most so he's kind of got about a month ago he's one up to buy one how about this for question is brandon an equipment reviewer he would tell you he's not an equipment reviewer kind of is what he would say well what what would he say he is he says he is not what but if this is the question what would he say he is if that's not what he is i you know i don't know i don't maybe he wouldn't say oh oh yeah how would he define himself right i think he would say he's undefinable he fits he's like a he's like a he's a snowbird equipment reviewer you know it's like if he if he likes the equipment you know and he's feeling good

you know you can shoot the video win one take that's a secret sauce one take out you know man if he put some time into it he'd kill it because it didn't the dude know like he uh pete keller from french sport in our facebook group made a post about what would you like to see in a power bar or something so he goes on there and basically gives a consultation on everything that he should consider a barbell yeah you know and i just comment you know like what he said you know i mean the dude like he knows his stuff yes he does he just doesn't want to put the time as much time into it. Right. Oh yeah. Super nice.

Oh yeah. He's all right. We don't care what everyone else says about him. He's not that bad of a guy. Tommy, anything else for big coop? I think that's pretty good. Check most of the boxes.

Yeah, we, we really appreciated you coming on like this. We had to get to the bottom of this scandal, so we had to strike when the iron was hot. A scandalous guy. I'm glad my secretary put it through to me. Usually she shuts this kind of thing down.

Well, we had a direct line to pillars one and two, so we know how to get to you. I'm going to call that from now on. Every time I talk to Logan, they fill it with one. If I have a t-shirt. No, we appreciate it. Anything a listener, do you want them to follow your Coop Instagram at all? Do you want them to check that out? Because you've got your own.

Yeah, if they'd like to at home gym coop i am trying to one of the things i realized from tim is i wasn't made like there was a time where i just made content for the fun of it and i just don't do that a lot like i enjoy doing the reviews but like just experimental random stuff you know just equipment i really like whatever and i was like i'm just going to do that and so that's what i've been doing on home gym coop so if you want to watch that kind of stuff is this like your teaser to say there's gonna be a lot more memes coming soon ah there might i love me you know i love i love all that stuff but uh and then at garage gym reviews um garage gym reviews.com and garage room reviews, YouTube channel.

I want to get dude out. Like I want to, I want to get to a million subscribers. What do you, what's it halfway there? There's a long way to go, but that would just be actually. Okay. That, that actually reminds me of one question we, we didn't talk about how closely. So we're kind of getting back on the train here. Uh, how closely are you when you're making a video?

Like, do you guys, are you planning thumbnails and titles before the video is even made? Like, do you have that direction in mind? Oh, yeah. The title dictates the video. Yeah. The thumbnails. I do all the thumbnails. Nobody touches thumbnails.

And the, I mean, the most important part of the video, if you can nail these things, you got a video. Title, thumbnail, first 15 seconds. It's all about the hook. You got to capture, got to capture. But you have to, you've made a promise. That's what a title, thumbnail, first 15 seconds is. But you got to fulfill you've made a promise. That's what a title thumbnail for 15 seconds is. But you got to fulfill the promise throughout the rest of the video.

So it's like you make the promise, which is this is what I'm talking about. This is the shiny hype, good stuff. And then you got to give them the meat. Otherwise, that's what real clickbait is. You say something, it's something else. So if you're going to have, yeah, go ahead. Well, when a video comes out, how close are you paying attention to those first 24 hour analytics? Oh, close. Yeah. I, I, I'm a student of the game of Jim equipment. Uh, I watch everybody's videos of uh reviewers and of youtube itself i love i love all that like i'm always like you review content i love review content the best reviewer in the world right

now in my opinion is mkbhd dude is good yeah yeah no yeah and he's been around a long time and he's created a huge audience are you this is one thing that I wasn't super aware of. Like I knew it existed, but I didn't pick it up. I didn't notice it as much until recently. Are you ever doing the thing where something isn't going right? So we need to change the thumbnail in that first few days. Do you guys ever do that? Not a lot i mean do you see people doing that though i feel like i've seen more of that i've seen all the time and i'm totally open to the idea i i don't know i don't follow i don't follow the mr beast method right you know like i got people on my team that are really into mr beast it's just such a different type of content than what i'm doing yeah like everybody looks at the top and they're like, we should do that, but I'm not in the entertainment business. Yeah. It's like a game show. Entertainment.

Yeah. That's not, that's not my goal is to be entertainment. Like I want to have entertainment, but it's like more like infotainment, you know, it was like, I'm more about educating through the product with some entertainment, but I don't, I'm, I'm i'm you know i'm not that worried about i don't i don't do that as much i'm on to the next one it's i it's funny i uh this would be a difficult thing for me to wrap my head around the way we do it but like people even uh this this video is vastly underperforming there's no saving it now we We're deleting it because otherwise it just, it's existence is dragging down our, you know, I don't know if you say algorithm.

Yeah, our algorithm. So like we are, we're canning it. It's going away for good because it's hurting us enough. Like it's not only is it underperforming, it's actually hurting us negatively on other videos potentially. Yeah. The SEO game, you you know like the uh which is primarily on

you know google search search result pages but it's also on youtube um dude uh google's uh basically metrics for determining what does well on SEO was just leaked over the weekend. I don't know if you guys have seen this. Oh, I did not see that. It's vastly different than what people at Google have been telling people. So from my perspective, the way that you grow and do well is you serve the audience. Like that's it. Like there's principles and then there's like, you know, the strategy, the strict strategist,

you know, like I'm principled. I'm like, I, I, I do. I think I do well at knowing at, at knowing the base of like, like, this is what attracts people. This is what does well. If you focus on that, the game's constantly going to shift. It's going to change what you need to go for. Principles stay the same. So you focus on the principles, on the, on the fundamentals, you know, like my basketball coach would say, then I, then I think you're going to do well. When people start to play the game of like removing thumbnails, removing, I just,

I'm not into that. There's so much other stuff to focus on. That's, that's focusing on the urgent and not caring about the important. Do you guys try to keep to a certain posting, like a minimum number of videos per month or anything like that? I just try to do just cause I've done it forever to a week. We have a Tuesday release and then a Friday release. And we've done that for years. I've tried to go up to three videos. Just dude, it's like, it's honestly like it's a, it's a full-time job testing, creating notes, comparing, writing Excel spreadsheets on pricing on all updates. Like that's all stuff that I do myself. Cause I just liked, I want to be in the process. So because of that, it's like, dude, it's just a lot to

do two do you ever notice three is like uh kills do you ever notice if you get pricing wrong or anything like that that people let you know oh yeah or I forget somebody on the best weight plate video you know which like I mean I'm thankful that enough people watch and care enough that they're like coop you freaking idiot you left this one off you know and I'm thankful that enough people watch and care enough that they're like, Coop, you freaking idiot. You left this one off, you know? And I'm like, man, I really did. I think your follow-up video, did your follow-up video perform better than the original video? Maybe I'm off on that one. I think it probably did.

I think it did. I mean, it did well. It had a great title, too, because it was like, I messed up or something. So it's like. I've rarely done stuff like that. So because of that, I think people are like, what is he, you know, what what did he actually mess up on and it wasn't clickbait because i actually did mess up so i felt okay with the title yeah i think yeah i think we had an exact conversation about that too and that made sense i think that was that was a that was a great move though like that's uh turning

lemons into lemonade honestly right right yeah yeah and grant got a bunch of like right i mean they got left off that video they got more dedicated video yeah yeah and he made all the memes of saying like i love strength and then got a dedicated video so i mean good for him you know yeah good stuff um all right that's great So we'll see you at home, GymCon 2025? I'm hoping to be there. Either there or Garage GymCon 2025. One of those two. Excellent.

Maybe we'll see you at either or both. I'm hoping to be there. All right, awesome. We appreciate it. Thanks, Coop. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. See you later. it. Thanks, Coop. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. See you later.

Thanks a lot, Coop. Cool beans. Cool beans. Beans. Cool beans. There it is. What did you give them there? Those are garage-cooled beans.

Cooled out in the wintertime garage cool beans that was um i don't want to change topics too fast here but the t-wolves did pull it off tanner they did get a win tonight oh you don't have to tell me a i've been had it up on my screen b jack texted me 400 updates c he's in the room outside of me i could could hear him screaming when Nas Reed made a jumper and when Ant made one in there. And yes, 105 to 100. The dream is still alive, baby. So annoying. They could so easily be up.

They should be up 3-1. That's just, I mean, that's a fan saying fan shit. I mean, but I really don't, I really think if you objectively look, the Mavs are not a superior team. No. It's just they caught the T-Wolves on the worst three nights they could catch them.

That's not the narrative, though, by so many people, and it annoys me. I know. The fact of the matter is, what I'll say, I don't think they're the better team. Luka and Kyrie are really poised. They're playing out of their mind, and the T-Wolves are playing about as bad

as they played in the entire play. I teos are playing about as bad as they played in the entire i mean they are really has disappointed me in this series but we talked about it offline he's 22 and you know first time in the playoffs right right or did they play one round last year uh two years ago or something did they they to Memphis. Oh, okay, yeah, when he was like 20 then, I guess. 19, yeah, right. Yeah, been in the league for nine months. Right, but essentially his first real playoff run, of course. There's still, I mean, yeah,

there's really not that much hope for this series. If I'm being realistic, nobody has ever won a series. Yeah, statistically there is no hope for them. But it's still not impossible it's not over until the fat lady sings as they say and i they just they they they kind of stunk it up to their offense looked anemic at times uh yeah disjointed and i'm just like somebody do something please um but i think... Dude, if it wasn't for Nas Reid, these last two games, they would have been blowouts. He was the team, it felt like. Yep, yep.

So we'll continue to follow that. Maybe there's hope the Celtics are in the finals, so we're looking like a maverick Celtics finals, though. I just hate to root for the team that beats you, and I also hate to root for the Celtics. I know. I think the East was just – it's no fair. The East was just a cakewalking comparison.

Every year in the East, though. That's been the narrative for also like 25 years. Yeah, the East winner goes into the finals all fresh because they haven't played anyone. It's like, yeah, the top two teams in the East have good records, and then everyone else is like a 500 team. It's like that's the the top two teams in the East have good records, and then everyone else is like a 500 team. It's like that's the East in NBA for you. Yes.

I've got a music topic, but maybe we don't have time. Maybe that can be tabled, I guess. Oh, damn. We're at two hours already. Wow. Well, that's what I, but I would maybe like a little train. I was kind of hoping to get a little training update from you. Now as you've been using Juggernaut and progressing there.

Actually, let me start it this way. Yeah, Juggernaut AI. Since 2009, Juggernaut has been your trusted training source, helping tens of thousands of athletes reach their goals, Tommy being one of them. From beginners to world champions, Juggernaut AI can help you. Make sure to check it out. You go to juggernautai.app. Go to it on your web browser.

I say your web browser, not that, because that's where you can use discount code Mastodonomics. Seriously, check this out if you're interested in progressing your training. Maybe you've never had a coach. You've never paid anyone anything for training. You've just done some templates,

hopped around on some of that stuff. Give this a try with discount code MASSANOMICS. It ends up being about $30 a month. They continue to make that better and better all the time. We talked about some of those updates recently, and it is what Tommy uses. So, Tommy, how is your training going? Well, should I read one more ad?

Oh, yeah. Okay. We're going to put a little bookmark in that and come right back. We'll table that. This episode is also brought to you by Swiss Link. Swiss Link has been importing military-issue goods to the United States for over, like, a long time. So you know they're really good at it. They've been doing it a long time.

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Thank you. Swiss link. Thanks. Swiss link. Uh, training, training is going very good tonight. We're about like eight.

We were just looking at the calendar earlier. I think we're about like eight weeks away from the lift. Hardly easy. Today was the first day of my last strength block. And that means the reps are dropping and the weight is rising and so you've got about it's the first day of your last strength block and it's about four weeks long so i got four yeah so i got four weeks here uh and then i get into full-on peaking mode you know if like something wants to pop up to peak for yes it's something on july 20th 2024 in aberdeen south dakota yeah i like

to be peaked as much as possible you know really drive my body into the ground but uh so today was the start of it and um you know squats i basically haven't done anything less than a set of five for squats in like a over a year right and uh so today was sets of three which is uh kind of kind of scary to see that all of a sudden because i'm jumping up to what i did today my top set was 385 for a set of three nice that's good yeah and uh the feels like that came really fast out of nowhere because that's what she said that is exactly what she says it was not that many months ago where i had touched 315 for the first time in like a year so all of a sudden like i've just added 80 pounds to what um i mean not like the strength wasn't there but i just hadn't been putting up those numbers

and yeah it moved really really fast and as a gauge this is where the these tools with juggernaut and the smart barbell tracking app, where these things can make things a little less subjective and a little more objective, is when I compare my bar speed to weights from the previous week. So I go back a couple of weeks ago, I had done 370 for a set of five. I went to look at my detailed tracking and I look at my velocity. I think I was super hyped that week. So it's a set of five. I'm doing 370.

It's big weight. And at the time I got done with that and I was like, oh, I smoked those. That felt amazing. Like I was just, I was so jacked for it because I hadn't gone heavy in a while. And then this week it's like, okay, yeah. All right. We're, we're cranking up the weight we're lowering the reps i didn't quite have the same just like ampness for it you know and i got done with the

set and i thought i think i rated uh eight and a half or or an eight eight i think i rated an eight and actually i don't have to tell you what i think i rated it i'll tell you what i rated it i'm probably forgetting already i rated my top we've got an app for that yes i rated my top set eight seven and a half i was actually way off i rated a seven and a half but in my head i was like i was like that felt kind of slow i mean it was hard but it wasn't like it wasn't like crushing i mean it was seven and a half it was it was hard it just didn't feel amazing but then when i look at my bar speed my bar speed on all three of my reps was faster than my first three reps at 370 two weeks ago and i'm like there is objective data they're saying that even in my head it didn't feel amazing but all of those

numbers say they were better than the ones i did last week or two weeks ago that i thought were like really good so that gives you a little boost to look at that and see like oh yeah no you actually are moving more weight and you're moving it faster more consistently right and also my drop off feeling in your head that day is actually probably wrong right like when i look at my actually my velocity on my first one is faster than my best one ever from the old set and my drop off like almost is non-existent the three are super consistent when i look at my set from three weeks ago they start to drop off a fair amount. So when I look up the objective data, it says to me, no, you're doing things right. Things are going the exact way you want them to go.

Just trust the process, man. And then it, so that was my top set of, that was my top set of three. I had four more sets of three for drop sets after that at uh 355 they all felt pretty good so i am liking the way things are going at the moment so it's basically all positives really right it is all positives the only negative was i had to mow my lawn after and man that was a that was like more than a workout than anything after a hard leg day to go out mow your lawn and i'm on a bit of a hill so my calves yeah you do have my cows were screaming at the end of that thing you've got a pretty good hill there actually yeah yeah so yeah training is training the cardio it is the it was the cardio got a lot of steps in uh so training i'm very happy with where it's at but the way it's getting

serious like at least to an early at least relatively speaking you know you're having you're doing some stuff you haven't done for a while kind of it's getting up there i had to check the last time i did these numbers was just last time i hit this number well there was one time last march where i did 385 for a set of six and i thought it was so i marked it for like a six and a half or seven that was like actually it felt i was on pace to be going right up to a 550 squat again it was like i'm right everything i'm doing is aligning with when i hit a 550 squat right and uh had a little tweak and that just took me way too long to recover from but when i go back before that though these numbers are aligning with right when chad came the last time yep um this was this was where i was at like two or three weeks before

he showed up and then the day he showed up i had 405 for a top set of three um and i'll be at that same spot in about three i'll probably maybe even be past that in three weeks here actually yeah and and when that block finished i squatted 445 that was my third attempt i think there was more there that i mean not watching the video i know there was more there that day but i wasn't going to take a fourth attempt because i was maxing out all my lips over the course of good yeah yeah yeah that felt. Yeah, yeah. That felt good. I'm like, I've done more before. Like, knowing that I have 455 here doesn't change... It's not an all-time PR or anything. It doesn't change anything.

So, yes, I feel like my numbers are coming together in a way I want them to. Sweet. You can't really ask much more than that. No, not really. No. So, yeah, get on Juggernaut AI. And if you're not, also get the Smart Barbell app because it can provide you some cool objective data to analyze your lifts with. So it'll be interesting if, you know, that all lines up timing wise with the summer.

You know, if it worked out, you're able to line up your... What could happen? Yeah. Just what could work out, I know. What could be. What could be what could be uh how about your training though it's good i was actually i don't know if you notice i'm not coughing this week for the first time in three weeks finally um and i just was having like this

two things happened uh two weeks through the night well no two weeks ago my training had really ramped up i had a hard week like it was uh you had like a week where or i had like 560 or whatever on those deadlifts and on deadlifts i did 585 and i did uh set a 10 yeah that's a lot that was that taxed me like it felt pretty good at the time but i think i was just starting to kind of get sick and then i had a the hardest log press i'd had for a while. I had the heaviest squat. You know, it was all.

A neck tweak. I mean, I knew it was going to be, it was planned on being a hard week and coming down from that a little bit afterwards. But then I went into the gym the next, you know, the next training week, that first day. And I'm like, I am nothing hurt. Like it's not, I was not, I'm not injured though. Don't you? I was so burnt out.

And partly I think it was like sick too at the time, you know, a little, little bit sick. And I'm like, this shit feels so heavy. Like I just felt so fried. So I'm like,

I have to deload for like a week here. Basically. I like, I had no choice. I think deloads though for me it might be more of a mental break that i need than the physical even i mean right yes like yes physical it is nice to have it but i i think you know just with kids you just never get a good night of sleep so you're never really recovering there and then like i add in the stresses of just

my other shit going on with work. And then, you know, like massonomics is a time commitment to like, there's a lot of things going on. And so yes, physically you do get run down, but like I have to my advantage that I'm not moving insane amounts of weights, but those are ramping up. So I do start to feel more fatigue. But what I noticed, I'm like, dude, just when I go to the gym, I almost never have caffeine. just when I go to the gym, I almost never have caffeine. I don't take pre-workout. Like I can get, it's like Larry said, if I can't turn it on for one set, you might as well throw the dirt on me right now. And dude, that's like, that is like, that is my life model right there. It's like, dude, if I can't, if I can't just do this one thing, everything to the side and focus hard for

30 seconds, then it's's like i got too many other problems what am i doing yeah right but there does come a point where i think the deload kind of gives me that mental break of like yeah it gives me like a week to just kind of let my mind be like no we don't need to focus hard on anything in the gym yeah and it's just that like okay yeah like the numbers don't really matter i'm just kind of here to exercise whatever that means right so then when i do come back the next week it's like pressure which is yes which is this and like my deload even the weights i'm like they feel way harder than they should that's kind of the way that goes though yes and then that goes and that kind of gives you a little more anxiety going into

this right but that also makes you turn it on more so that when you're ready or those top sets you're like no this is what matters right here. These are the things that matter. These four sets, five sets that I just got to get done. And I've had, I've had now, you know, 10 plus days to just not do that thing. So now I can flip the switch, turn it on and get after it again. Well, here's the phenomena I think that exists in that deload feeling, because I experience that all the time. Because let's say a juggernaut AI deload, you're still doing some stuff. You are, but it's probably. The weights are back down maybe 20% in the reps,

or the total volumes maybe back down 50%. Yeah. Yeah. But there's still like some weight on the bar. And a lot of times that, there's a leg like there's a leg in your recovery so that's you also know like okay so for like an example for me two weeks ago on juggernaut um i score my deadlift was like 405 for a top set and then like 385 for a couple top sets that was my deadlift and then my delo load for juggernaut was two sets of four.

And the weight range it gave you was between like two 45 and three 15. Right. And it's like, you look at that and you're like, that's nothing. So you just, you're just so checked out on it that it feels way too heavy because you're just so checked out on it.

Like that is, yeah. You're like, there's a, this is certainly a big mental. Yeah. There's a big mental component. And heavy because you're just so checked out on it. That is, yeah. You're like, this is not from what I was doing. Yeah, there's a big mental component. And I think you're in the deload because you needed it after four, five, six, seven, eight weeks of hard training.

So you might kind of feel like shit during that deload because you might think, oh, this is a deload. Why doesn't it feel better? And it's like, no, because you need the deload right now. So even the deload, yeah, it's going to feel a little like shit. And then the following week after, you might think in your head, oh, the deload kind of felt like shit. What's this week going to feel like?

But that's when you realize the gain of the deload is the following week. There's some magic happening behind the scenes. You reduce that volumes by so much. And so today was my first day, not back in the gym because i didn't miss any days but my first day post deload and boy did i feel good again i was like i was like god damn i feel like i got some pop to now and i'm like so i am basically you know i have to intelligently manage the fatigue going forward but say there's eight weeks to go here till some fictitious goal post I am pretty much

going all gas no breaks for seven weeks here and like that's the timeline now as there's like seven weeks of this deload I feel like priming pretty well and I just have to manage it properly going through to hopefully,

I don't want another week of like not being able to do a damn thing because I overshoot my, you know, I shoot myself in the foot by getting a little too overambitious. So I just have to manage that appropriately. But I think I'm on pace to do that. The thing I'm finding, my training is going well and I'm feeling. So are you, okay, so yes like obviously you you've got your programming figured out you know what you're doing yeah things are feeling good you're

feeling healthy are you because another component you had another variable was the weight thing what's your weight so that's the so this would be my point on this whole thing is in the past when I've competed um say the law the last Strongman competition I did, there was a log press. It was in, it's where I tore my ACL in Biosuit Falls. Yeah, and that would have been like 20, well, that would have been like 2019. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would have been like 2019.

But for that one, for example, this Lift Hard, Live Easy Classic, there's a max log press event and my training to, if I was to ever do something like that, but my training, I'm training the log right now, obviously. And I'm progressing pretty well. Like it's really coming along quick, but I have what I have to continue to remind myself when I went into that, um, strong man event in Sioux falls. Now log press is not a great event for me, but I got, I was strong. And part of the reason I was so strong,

the weight class was two 75. I had to like, I didn't have to cut, but I had to like keep my weight and check the week of to make sure I was under two 75. And like the day of, I was very careful because I could have walked in at 282 if I wasn't careful. And I did the log. I think it was, uh, I think it was clean and no,

it was clean and pressed away. But anyways, I, I think I got 275 for a set of five, which is good. But I came in at, I really effectively weighed 280 pounds. So in my head, sometimes I'll be like, well well why can't i do yet 275 by five like i'm not even close to that what's wrong with me but my thing like i'm trying to stay under 250 pounds and it is the challenging part because the way my train i'm training hard and my body like i straight up want like my body wants to be putting weight on. Like I haven't trained this quite this hard in a while. So sometimes I forget about what this is like.

And oh, if I was going, uh, no holds bar on diet right now, I would be weighing something way out of range of being under 250, being able to be under 250 pounds, because I swear to God, like I just, I am straight up. I haven't felt this hungry in a really long time. And the weight I am, my diet, and I say diet as a real word in this scenario, over these last, like, month, I have not eaten this clean. I don't know if I've ever eaten this clean for this long a stretch of time. I haven't eaten anything, no piece of junk, not even, I haven't had a beer, haven't had a piece of junk food. I can't afford, honestly, like, trying to keep my weight in check. I am eating disturbingly clean.

Wait, because that's 250, or what's the? Yeah. Oh, okay, okay. I couldn't remember. I am eating, for me at least, you know, I'm probably not in bodybuilder territory range. You know, I'm not, not like a peak cut bodybuilder range. territory range you know i'm not not like a peak cut bodybuilder range but like for me that i eat chicken uh ground beef rice um cottage cheese some fruit you know fruits and vegetables i'm not cutting that stuff out but i'm like it is all i can do like i'll be like okay i had to my weight

had to have maintained and i'll step on the scale each morning. And I'm like, my God, I'm up a pound. How did I just gain a pound? I just, I felt like I starved myself yesterday. I mean, I'm still, I'm still eating a lot of calories. The smell of food is adding to the weight now. Right. I'm still eating a, you know, for an average person, they'd be like, well, you're eating a ton of calories.

But like, to me, it's just, it's so like, I am not eating a one shit. Like you, there's been so much, you know how it's like with kids. Oh yeah. The amount of stuff actually that I realized carbs around at all times, the random single things I'll grab and think are nothing. Like every time one of those, I have to tell myself not to pick my hand up and grab like a bite of their sin, the cinnamon roll or whatever it is. I'm like, God, that's like probably 500 calories today that I just like not meals,

but just like crap that I just didn't have an eaten. Right. Like we had, we've been, we were talking about pizza ranch and their fried chicken at work. Of course, the other day, the one thing I've really been hankering over this is like pizza and fried

chicken. And they brought it in and I just sat there and, uh, I had some carrot sticks so i munched on those where i've only ate and then i went and left and ate my food i've been seriously like uh you weren't even gonna do just the chicken taking the skin i thought about it and i'm like i don't know i am doing a pretty good job and part of it's just if you've been eating that clean the chicken probably would have uh cleaned you out so that's true take

take the chance there part of it is just the willpower test right now. Oh, it's the whole Dr. Mike thing. Once you have something good, you want more of it. And my thing is, I never actually do it. I lie to myself sometimes probably on how good I think I am eating. And right now, I'm actually doing it. And I'm like, it is a biatch for me. So part of it is just like, no, I have to prove to myself that I can do this. Because as a biatch for me so part of it is just like no i have to prove to myself that i can do this because you as like a power lifter or a strong man you get like no i need that yeah i need to be gaining 10 pounds for this prep right and like and like i and that's the only reason i do it

like i only do it because i i need to be doing it and then after a while like food man well and then i'm like can i not do that? Like, is it even possible? Like, do I have the willpower even anymore to not do that? So it's kind of a test to me that way. But wrapping that back around to my original point, the challenge for me at 6'2 or 6'3, while 2.50 to an average person is not a weight you would say is light by any means, if someone's 6'2 and a half, 2.50, you'd be like, that's not a weight you would say is light by any means if someone's six two and a half 250

you'd be like that's not a small person yeah but you also have like a bigger frame than me too right like me right i just can't picture you know you're an inch or two taller than me i just can't picture me at 250 like that just that blows my mind right because i don't know if bigger frame is a real thing i you know that's true. Like that might not be a thing. But I mean, I'm agreeing with what you're saying, but I don't know what it actually means. But I do, I am running into that thing where it's like, why, like, should I, do I, why, I don't need to be 275 to be strong, right? And like, and then I'm like, I'm not even sure. I'm just telling myself that I'm like, why? Like 250 is enough. Yeah. Like 250 is enough to be strong. But then, then I'm like, well, I guess everyone's different. And maybe like, I just at like six, three, maybe I have a

hard time, you know, getting to a certain strength, you know, at my height, you know, it's just, um, uh, might just be the way I am where it's like, there's a tipping point in there where I get to like two 65 and it's just like, things just exponentially easier. But so it's all kind of a little test, right. You know, it's all tough, but my training is going well and I'm feeling good. I just know if I went where it's like, I don't care if I get up to 275. I think you could put on 10 pounds in a couple weeks here. Yeah, I'd be crushing some, like things would be feeling light as shit. Other than the deadlift is always the caveat. I've always felt like where I can keep the body weight a little lower

and have the deadlift feel good. So that's feeling really good right now. The overhead press is the trickiest part though, where if I went up to 275 i'm pretty sure my numbers would just go right with it but uh without the body weight that's the i guess it's just the heart it's just a harder harder way to try to get there yeah and it is um i have noticed i am i am that's actually my one of my gauges for how i know things are going good is that i am starting to slowly gain weight again because yeah i naturally have almost no appetite and so i can

just like do you feel like you get hungrier when you're training i do get hungrier and i also just feel like oh i don't know if it's like a thing of like also somewhat mental training's going good so i need this anyways you know you kind of think it's like i have a hard day tomorrow i should probably eat a little extra tonight and that's like the day i feel like well i have a hard training today so i should probably eat more so extra tonight. And that's like the day I feel like, well, I have a hard training today so I should probably eat more. So it's basically like seven days a week

you're telling yourself I need to eat more. I got done with a hard session so I also need to eat more to replenish, you know. You start telling yourself. So like my weight is slowly creeping up

and I still, I don't pay very close attention to my weight just because I don't care that much. But I checked. I normally wouldn't either. And I need to start checking in the morning

just to see what it is doing. But when I checked the other day I was at like 212. And that is another but I checked. I normally wouldn't either. I need to start checking in the morning just to see what it is doing. But when I checked the other day, I was at like 212. And that is another thing I have to remind myself is like when I had my best powerlifting meet ever, you know. Yeah, what'd you weigh, 230? That was the only time in my life I ever saw the scale go above 230. I remember one night, I remember I stepped on the scale. Also, night is a little different.

But one night I stepped on the scale and saw 232 and was like, oh my God, I didn't think I could ever get there and uh but for the most part though like during that training block I was floating between like 220 225 ish but I know like when I'm at that number like oh that is full feed and that's like full power for me right but I'm not far from I also do know for a fact that i'm much better about getting high protein foods in my diet than i used to be for me it used to just be you'd have protein shakes and then just eating a lot of meat and man i am putting down the pure protein bars lately man go to costco they got those things on sale it's like i gotta get extra costco membership you can't

you can't yeah it's just like i got all these boxes of pure pro and then to break up the pure protein bars you know when you need more of a treat i get the costco like just the 10 gram kind of not really a protein bar but it's like man between all those things and just my meals and every it's like yep my protein's sitting pretty good right now yeah um there's something follow-up i was going to ask you about it but oh we'll just do like a little weekly training update for that at this point now we got as long it's usually not this interesting and it's kind of interesting right now so it'll be a right we're not just like i mean we are kind of just lifting for a random date nothing specific but right right yeah our random dates don't usually align very closely exactly that's why

it's mutually interesting at the same time. There is a part of my weight thing, too. I haven't been playing basketball still because of my ankle, and I think that that is a factor. So I have been trying to do more other cardio stuff. But just a really oddly thing, this has never come up before. my old my high school this summer is having a men's an alumni men's uh league over the summer league really league yeah not a game an alumni league where you can and actually like the current players are in the in the league also so it's like current uh you know players and alumni and stuff like that and uh i still haven't played basketball

yet on my ankle but i have the itch i don't think it's 100 but it could be in the ballpark that's one of those that just sucks because you're like ah you'd hate to tweak it now though that's it then i'm like oh i could hold back enough that uh i won't hurt it yeah and that is not how that works oh no it is not how it works so that's uh but i i showed it to my wife actually my wife and like the flyer for it and she's like because it was just is the funniest thing it's like this northwestern high alumni men's summer basketball league and she's like did you make this up for yourself it's like i gotta think of a more creative way to tell her i need to play basketball again right like and it was just a funny the way she said that because like yeah it's almost like

how could this exist outside of me having made it up? Especially if you understand the context of the school side. Where are they pulling all these people from? Is everyone commuting an hour to go do this? I don't know what the situation is going to be like. Also, just out of purely curiosity, I want to be involved almost to see what's happening here. See what's going on. See, my high school always does an alumni game Easter weekend. When people are back in town, they always does an alumni game easter weekend and i know people

are back in town they always do an alumni game where they get i've never actually gone to it but i know they get a pretty good turnout of you know people that i was you know people a lot bigger school though too yes yeah we're talking class sizes of 80 to 100 and some so how do they do that though wouldn't sometimes there be way more kit or not kids? Wouldn't there be way more people than there is for like two teams? Oh, no, no. They do a tournament. It's like a, oh, they do a tournament. Yeah.

Okay. Gotcha. So yeah, it's yeah. They usually have, I think like 10 teams or, you know, whatever the two, the actual bracket, you know, it's like an all day thing. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

So that's where the younger guys that are actually in shape really start to shine by the end of the day. Cause they can keep moving. See, I was talking about that with some alumni, too. You know, some fellow alumni. And then, you know, I know a few guys with some really good size that are alumni. And we were talking, like, Kent, you know, I don't know how well we can get up on the court with them. But, like, you know, one of these guys is like six eight three fifty the

other guy is six five three hundred you know and i'm six three two fifty i'm like we they could be i don't know what their guard you know how to we can't guard them but just body yeah right right i mean you know i don't know what's the game down it's going at our pace right there's a couple enormous men. I don't think these kids are equipped to body up with enormous grown adults. Yeah, that would be funny. Should we wrap this? Yeah, we probably should.

It was a fun episode with Coop though, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. He's our surprise guest this week. Tommy, where do they find you at? You can find me at

Tomahawk underscore Dean. Follow me at Tanner underscore Baird. Just please make sure to follow Massonomics at Massonomics. See ya. We'll see you next time.