Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 514: Our Crazy Garage Gym Reviews Conspiracy Theory

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

I hope everyone is ready for a big home gym community conspiracy theory! Bring your knurled tinfoil hats for this one. And maybe we will get to that big equipment haul rundown... EliteFTS Use code MASS10 to save 10% on most orders! 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! Texas Power Bars Get the Barbell that changed the game!

You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. I hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings of 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, you all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massonomics. What's up, everyone? We're back for Season 2, episode 14 of the Massonomics podcast. It seems like it's been a while. but really it's only been a week 513 was just a week ago, wasn't it?

So we're back. My name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy. Does it feel like it's been a while? It feels like stained is just calling the name. Oh, oh. It's been one week since you looked at me. It's literally been like a week for some people.

Yeah. So we are back for episode 514. We have as long of a long, list of topics as I've ever seen on this show for us talking about this week. There's a lot here. We can just get right to it and we still might not get through all of them. We're going to go on a journey. I can tell you that much this week. There's going to be a journey. But first, it's going to take us to not far up the road to the north, our friends in North Dakota at barefoot. dot store and barefoot shoes. Just a new member, not a new member in the gym, a gym member with a

brand new pair of barefoot shoes today. I love to see them. They got themselves a pair of the ursus to rock in the gym. This was their first ever pair of barefoot shoes. They said they came quick and they like them already. So great testimonial right there out of Massonomics gym. I wear them every single day. I've got multiple pairs. Take a look on the store, see what you like the best, give it a try. Whatever you decide to go with, make sure to use discount code Massonomics. it'll save you 10% on anything you purchased from Barefoot. Thank you, Bearfoot. This episode is also brought to you by BuildFast Formula.

BuildFest Formula makes some incredible supplements, and they've been the go-to supplements for Tanner and I for the last several years. You don't have to take our word for it. You know, I was just looking on their website here, and how does this sound? BuildFast 80-20 protein is the Cats Pajamas. Rounds out my nutrition plan perfectly. That's from Nick M. That sounds like a smart guy.

Here, Mike H. He says it's my go-to for pre-workout. I take one scoop of this and one scoop of vaso blitz, and the energy and muscle fullness is unreal. And as a guy that's dabbled in all of these, I can say they ain't lying. They know what they're talking about here. Big fans of the 80-20 protein, every flavor,

great and delicious. 80% casein, 20% weight protein. It is magical stuff. They also got the vaso blitz, dual nitric oxide, support. supplement, full Blitz, fully loaded pre-workout formula, and Blitz 3D to combine it all together. There's even a little drink hack and glyco hack and creatine on there as well. If you'd like to get in on the Build Fast Formula action, use code Masonomics,

and you can save 10% on your next order. Buildfastformula.com code massonomics will save you 10%. Thank you, Bill. I think we've got to start what everyone wants to know about this week, though. Tommy, did you come hydrated for this week's episode of it? Not enough. About to be, though. Well, everyone wants to know you had some issues last episode that we recorded and are we going to repeat that?

God, I hope not. That sucked so bad. I actually totally forgot about that until I started editing the podcast. And at one point, I went off camera because, you know, I don't listen to the whole thing back. I kind of just jump around. And I'm missing. Jump around. Yeah.

I'm missing from the camera. I'm like, what is going on here? And then I start scrubbing through. I'm like, ah, yes, the Charlie Horn. that struck me there. And yeah, it was fat. And then also the fact that it's also a horse joke, a horse pie. I know.

That makes it even better. That's the whole like hidden thing within it. It was a horse reference in there. Another horse reference. I don't think I was even thinking about that at the time. Oh, not one bit. I was feared to, you know, caught in the moment fearing for your health and well-being over there. I was too.

You did just get back from a little trip, though. I did. went to the sunshine state of Florida. And Tanner, you and I have talked about this many times, but at this point, I have just pretty much lost all faith in the airline industry. If the worst part of traveling is always the airplanes every single time. And granted, it probably doesn't help that we live in a rural area

where you don't have a ton of airplane service. But man, it just, it just the airplane, it's every, it's cancellations and delays. You know, the night before you leave, your flight gets totally canceled and it's booked for like two days later, which that doesn't work for vacation. Now you're missing half your vacation. Like it just straight up doesn't work.

So then you're scrambling to find tickets like eight hours before you're going to go on an airplane and trying to deal with refl. It just kills the vibe so hard. You go to, uh, it's, and then coming back is never any better. Like there's always delays and cancellations and stuff on the way back. So what seems like it should be a quick, easy ride home, flight home turns into just an entire day in the airport.

again. And I know, I know, like you and I, every time we do a massonomics trip, it's like 70% chance there'll be some issue. You know, every time you do a personal trip, there's a 100% chance. Every time. We've never gone to Florida. Like we go to Florida every year and every single time there's an issue on the flights. Yep, without clockwork. Yep. It always is. But, you know, we went down there and you could say we brought a little bit of that weather down there with us. It was, it was. You did bring a little bit of it. I thought you should have, nobody told you get you to keep it. That was the problem.

No one told us to keep it up here. I forgot that. I brought it with me. And it was, it was fairly chilly, but also when it had been negative 20 something, 50 and 60 degrees feels pretty damn nice. Right.

Well, and it's like they say, if you don't like the weather, just wait a day. That's exactly it. But no, it was really good. Get away,

have a little trip, get a little time in the sun. And I'm back and better than ever. Did you, so did you feel like you needed a vacation after your vacation? Well, luckily, we came back on a Saturday. So I kind of had two days to get recalibrated. I mean, I did spend most of my Saturday in an airport, but. I don't know if you, you mentioned the sunshine state.

We've probably talked about this one in 513 episodes, but South Dakota was the sunshine state. Yeah, I think they, it's on our flag even. Is it on there actually? I couldn't remember. Yeah, that's what the yellow little seal in the, the middle has on it. Yeah, it's like it is the sunshine, I think.

Maybe I'm making that up. Yeah. That's what it is. No, yeah, I don't, was there ever a time where they both had that nickname or was it? I think so. I think it might have overlapped possibly even. Or it's like you can't, when you change it, people are still going to use that for a while. So like, you know, it sticks.

I don't hear people say that anymore about South Dakota. No, not as much. It was a thing when we were little. Right. Right. It hung around, I think, yeah. But now you're more. Which is a odd name.

for South Dakota. I feel like... Not that we don't have... Like, it's not cloudy here regularly. No, it's not like we're in the Pacific Northwest or, you know, it's all... Or Ohio, every time we go there, it seems like it's cloudy. Or it's not... It is sunny here frequently.

It's just also extremely windy and also really cold, too. So, like, you don't associate those two things as, like, the sunshine state if it's accompanied by extreme wind and bitter cold. Right, yeah. The summers are... as sunny as anywhere. You know, like, you know, it's as good as... The winters are even sunny, generally.

They're just also like... But they're going to be stretches of no sun for a long time, too, though, is the problem. Right. And it gets dark really early. Like, it's hard to call it the Sunshine State when it's dark at 4 p.m. Right, when there's just eight hours of possible daylight in a day. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

I have absolutely no idea where we could possibly start here. Is there anything here that sticks out to you? Oh. Oh, boy. No, because there's so much stuff on here that you put a lot of it in that I'm just really curious. Okay, also actually, just on the topic of being on vacation, I'll just say this. When I was on vacation, we're doing family stuff, we're playing. Also, I'm not sticking to my meals.

All I know for a fact is, so I didn't even bother to track because I just know I'm severely under calories every day. And there's just not even that many opportunities to even change it because I'm not going to restaurants. and cooking lunches everywhere we go. But man, after a while of that, I just not being on like taking almost a week break from Macro Factor, which I don't know if I've ever actually taken that much time off from it ever. Maybe when we went to the Arnold last year, I probably didn't do it.

But we also on the Arnold have a fairly, we stick to meals as good as we can, which still isn't great. But man, I just under calories most of the time. It is. I know I would be like it's just not eating enough. Like the thing is like we're eating a giant bowl of ice cream.

cream on vacation. I'm like, I actually just need this for the calories. Like, you know, I'm just, I know, like I had a group or sandwich,

you know, that's not exactly packed with calories there. But after a week of not doing Macrofactor, it just feels like I don't even know what I'm eating. And like it just feels like I've lost my way in life. So getting back to my routine and being on Macrofactor, it just feels like I'm firing on all cylinders again. Did your weight change at all?

Not a ton. I mean, you'd say I was down maybe a pound or two, but for Macrofactor, Also, what is it, discount code, Mastodomics, views MacroFactor. It gets you a few weeks free trial. It's a extra week on that trial. What I've settled into on MacroFactor, I don't know how long I've been using it.

It probably hasn't been a year yet, but I don't know. We'd have to look back in the annals to see when I started. But what I've settled into is if I'm gone on a trip, like we were in Sioux Falls for a basketball tournament, I just don't track. And like, I picked that up from you when we went somewhere on a trip. And I'm like, yeah, I think I'm fine just not. not tracking for two days. And then I get right back to it.

Right. And I'm like, what's the value in this actually? Right. And I'm like, what I've, the other thing I've noticed is I kind of just intuitively know a little bit. And my weight never changes at all. Like if it's a three day stretch, I come back,

my weight's not any different. Well, like, you know, it's just for you to gain weight in three days, like how terrible you have to be eating, you know, for that day,

do anything. So that's, well, it's net for, I mean, my baseline is 4,000 calories. So when we travel, I'm never eating more than that. It's always less.

Like, I'm always like, I need food to stay around my normal calories. Well, it's just protein. It's more, when you're traveling, it's more just, because it's so, my diet in my controlled environment is so high in protein. That's never even, I never, I'm like, oh, I need high protein foods. I'm like, everything is a high protein food. I get 300 grams a day without all cottage cheese. Well, right.

But when you are traveling, that is kind of the thing. Protein is the bad. I just got to make sure I get some protein. You know, like it's because you can, when you don't have your staple foods, you can get off the path on that. So easy. Breakfast, you know, was normally the spot you can pat it. And just depending on your breakfast situation,

that can quickly put you in a hole for the day. Yeah. How about this kicking off with some powerlifting news? Oh, that's what people know us for. We've got to give it to them. The SBD Sheffield, 2026. powerlifting. Oh, here's another interesting tidbit. We've got about 20 topics this week.

We don't know what the title topic is going to be. So anything we talk about could be the title of this episode. So play along with us as you're listening. Well, it'll be published. The title's out there. Let us know what you thought the title should have been in the YouTube comments. Let us know which of these should we have used as the title topic. So the 26 SBD Sheffield powerlifting championships took place

and completed. Tommy, do you know who won? I actually don't. I knew it took place. I saw some things on it. But oddly enough, all of the Instagram accounts that I follow that typically show this stuff, I didn't see hardly any highlights from it. So I do not know, actually. If I had to guess, maybe Austin Perkins, maybe. Austin Perkins won. Okay. He had an enormous total. I did see a big squat from him, but I did not see the rest. So that's why I was. He's crazy. It's actually insane how strong he is for his size. It's actually insane. It's actually Sevens or something.

Yeah, something like that, like $750 or $7.60. Yeah, like he's damn near closing in an 800-pound squat. He tripled a 740 squat in training or something like that. That does not make sense. It just doesn't. You know, because people that don't know, what does he weigh, 170-something? Body weight 74 kilos. So, what's that, 150, yeah, like 165-ish.

Right, right. Somewhere in whatever the class is there. Yeah. That is really crazy, though. Yeah, he is insane. I mean, you couldn't talk about the strongest power lifters in the world and not include him in the, you know, it's tough because he's so much smaller, but the weights he's moving. I mean, he's squatting, almost 800 pounds. There just has to be so few untested guys that are even beating that, I would think.

Right, right. And he's deadlifting just as much as that, too. You know, his deadlift is getting close to 800 also. Yeah, so he has about a 1,500 pound total before he's even benched even. Right, and then his bench is still well over 200 kilos. Yeah, so it was almost a 2,000 pound total. He missed 216 bench on his third attempt. Damn.

Okay, so that's like what, 460-ish? 200 is 440, yeah. Like he opens at 430 on bench. God. So it's kind of crazy. On the women's side, it was Tiffany. I don't know. Chapone.

I think she's French or something like that. I don't know that one. If I'm looking through the women's roster, this is maybe shows like, I mean, Amanda Lawrence and Heather Connor were both in there. And Megan Scanlon. So there are some Americans that I've heard of. The men's roster, Austin Perkins, of course.

There's several others there. But notably Russell Orhey, I don't think like he was closer to the bottom of the pack, actually his final results. I don't think he did how he would want to. That was, I did, because I do follow him, so I did see it. Yeah.

I got the impression there that maybe his squat didn't go the best and then I didn't see anything else. So you kind of assume nothing else went great when you didn't see anything else there either. Didn't they change that rule about not being able to put necklaces in your mouth? Well, didn't they do that? Yeah, but that is that, that's an IPF thing. Is the Sheffield technically an IPF meat? I don't know how that works.

Is it? Oh, I don't know that. You know? I mean, by all intents and purposes, it is. It is. Yeah. But it's this weird kind of exhibition SBD thing. That's, I don't know.

It probably is enough. It probably is, but I don't know. Yeah. So what sparkling water were you drinking over there? Oh, I got a Waterloo raspberry nectarine. I've got a liquid death. Oh. Regular.

Regular? Just a regular old. That's a relatively crispy crack. Not the crispiest, but yeah, so that's the SBD Sheffield. Okay. Well, everyone can relax now that they got the full recap from us. Yeah, I have nothing else to add on that. Austin Perkins is really strong and it makes sense to me that he won.

You have to seen that, yes. Next on the list. As long as we're talking about strong stuff. Yeah. Did you see this deadlift here? I did see this. This is. Have you heard this?

Have you seen about this? Talking about really strong people. Okay. I take it back. Austin Perkins is pretty strong. Yeah. This is insane. I mean, Austin Perkins is insane.

I'm being kind of silly, but. But this is just taking the extreme to a bigger extreme. What's it? Colton the record. Colton the record breaker. Yeah. 1,036 pound deadlift times four. Four reps.

He did it four reps. He did it four reps. He did it a thousand to the team. He's like, yeah, I deadlifted in a thousand 36 four reps. Four is officially you can say four reps. That's, we will allow that. We'll give them. literally is four reps.

There's no debate. He did four reps. Four reps. That's, yeah. Oh, man, that is crazy. I mean,

it doesn't look hard for him. No. It does not. Well, if you do anything for four reps, it's by, like almost by definition, not that hard for you.

I mean, you can be at an RP10 set of four, four, but like the first couple should. That's fairly easy, always, you know.

Right, right. It makes you really wonder, though, if, like, in a meat, if he could have straps on, you know, what would he pull in a meat? Like, if he was peaked with straps and everything and just letting it rip in a meat, what is that? No, I don't even know. Over 1,100. Like, I don't see that. You know, I mean, I want to see him and Thor do a thing against each other.

Like, that's what I want to see an deadlift exhibition of those two, like, see. But the problem is, you know, he pulls soup. It's what are the rules? Because strong man. Well, if it's a deadlift exhibition, then it's not a strong man competition. You know. True. True.

It seems like he would probably win, though, if they allowed the, you know, his, I think you would. You know, that would be the move for him is, there's probably a lot of money if you can figure out how to get that lined up and be on that one. It's also the oddity of the is the way it looks when he does it. Oh, it looks. It just looks way too easy. Right. Like even when Thor broke that last record, the 510, it did look pretty easy to him,

but in a different way. It doesn't look comically easy. Like it still looks like it's 510 kilos. Yeah. When Colton does it, you're like, I don't know, is it like 600 pounds? It just doesn't even make sense. That's what you think.

And you're like, well, he could do at least 100 more easy. That's your takeaway. Like, it just feels like he's sandbagging it. I'm curious what his ceiling is here. I mean, that's the million dollar question. And also, you know, if he has any type of John Hack longevity where he can just continue to get stronger slowly over the next, you know, five, six, seven, eight years,

where do those numbers end up if you can keep to? But it genuinely makes you wonder, can the human body actually take that amount of just stress for years on end? No one's ever done that before. So it actually is just uncharted territory. Big Colton says, what is his limit and can he break it? That's TBD, I guess, right? That's right.

What do we hop into next year? I don't know. Most of these are yours. Hit me with one. Okay. Let's get into some Masonomics stuff. Or at least I'll pick one. because we have several here.

So let's talk about the Arnold. I have two Arnold topics here. Yes, because the floor plan has officially been released. Yes. The floor plan is out. This is interesting. For people that don't know, the behind the scenes of the Arnold floor plan every year is typically do the booths,

can you start or can you order your booth in like August? Is that historically? Yeah, I mean, we did actually. I had started the process because I guess if anyone doesn't know, we started the process of getting a booth this year. And it was when the prices increased again. That's when we were like, we really took a hard look at then where we're like,

do we need to do this or not? Yes. And then we ultimately decided no. They did come back to us and offer the price of the prior year. They did bring it back down to that. And at that point, it's the principle. I mean, good.

But it's also, it is kind of like annoying. And also, we also made the right call. And that didn't really matter at that point in time anyways. But so that was many, many months ago. Yes. And typically how this works is in August, you can get your booth purchased. And almost immediately there's a floor plan that you look at and it's on the website. And you can just see and check this out.

And this year, the floor plan did not exist until about a week ago. And so instead of existing in August, it existed like very end of January, early February. And so we finally got the first look at who all of the booths are. And we had some interesting insights from it. Yeah. So what are your, what are the general takeaways from the floor plan? Like I've got some, we kind of talked about. Yeah.

So the general takeaways are, it is almost economically unfeasible for a small company to have a booth at the Arnold anymore. If you just look, the Arnold is like 80% booths that are four plus spaces large. you know, they're like 40 by 40 or bigger. It seems like that. Yeah. Especially when you say 80% like 80% of the entire map. Yeah.

Of the exhibits. Yeah. It might even be like 90%. Yeah. And it's boosts. You know, a booth is 10 by 10. Most of these booths are, you know, they buy multiple spots. So they're, they're 40 by 40 or bigger.

And, you know, there's some that are 20 by 22, which is, you know, a big square. But like that's the name of the game now. And if you look at the floor plant, it's the whole, like, middle 80% is that. And then on the very edges, the wings is where all the little 10 by tens are. And there's still not even that many when you say, no, there's not.

And when you look at it, you're like, well, that's where the small companies are. But then you look and it's like the fraternal order of police of Columbus, the Los Campione's, Jim Branch, the rain guard gutter service. It's a bunch of local.

It's just, yeah, it's just people. that had some marketing budget in the local area to do it. It's not back when we used to do this, it's not massonomics. Back when we used to be a proper freaking country. Yeah, when people could afford booths and put their goods and wares out for the world to see.

You know, it's not your massanomics, Huck Finn Barbell, Bochick, Go Strong, Barefoot shoes, barefoot shoes, hate brand goods,

donuts and deadlets, you know, all those things that used to be there. It's not any of those companies anymore. I mean, a lot of those don't exist. Lifting large. Yeah, live large.

That's, it's kind of just gone. And I think the fact that, you know, we stuck it out as long as we could. We like the yard of the lot. J.B. Boss. Jeebbaugh, yes, yep. And we stuck it out a long time. But now the fact that when we look at it and many of these people that we didn't talk about it and we just see that they're gone this year too, it's like, yeah, they're all gone.

Yeah, everyone's made this collective decision that, yeah, this actually isn't worth it anymore. It's almost shocking to me I'm like, I could name 20 that are people that we kind of became like friends with because of the Arnold and having booths there with them. None of them have boosts there anymore.

Like it's actually insane. I don't even know how that has happened that none of them have a booth there anymore. I mean, I kind of, I know exactly how it happened, but it just still is crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

Like we were like the last of a holding on group to that. And it is like a week. used to be a proper country thing. But like if I, in 2019, when you walk down, what was so cool up to me about the expo, what was so cool about the expo is you went and every 10 foot, it was a different thing like, what is this going to be? What is this? What is this?

What is this? It's a little equipment company. They make one little product. It's a little T-shirt company. You know, like every 10 foot was a different thing. They have a booth and it says pop anifar like it's candy. you know, like, it was like that, though. It's like, oh, here's like a ammonia booth.

And it just like every 10 foot was a different experience. And it was aisle by aisle of that. I actually remember being there and being like, I can't even understand which aisle is which aisle because there's so many of them and they're all just, there's so much variety. Like they don't, they all just mismatch to each other.

And it's not like that anymore at all. It's, wow, there's a 90 foot long, Rogue Fitness booth that's 200 feet wide. And then like, here's an enormous prime energy drink thing. And here's whatever supplement company that also has like five other umbrella brands. Right. And they're all enormous, like, elaborate setups. And it's just completely different in the way that I'm like, there's nothing really to browse at those, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Like, you just kind of walk by like, well, it looks cool. Yeah, it's just giant. displays. A lot of them, I don't even think you can buy anything really even. You know, it's not really. Here's an energy drink. Take it and be on your way. And that, that's what the game is now. Even in 2022 after everything that was going on and we went back, it still felt like that. Like when, like it used to. Yeah. Like even in 2020, it was just in that one little aisle, that one little corner was us live large, ghost, obsidian, huck fin, uh, yeah, Bill, Buff chick chick,

Yeah, exactly. Like it was that. You know, like, and I probably have to look at the map again because there was more, but that's seven just right off the bat that we were all there. Just off the top of your head. And none of those are there anymore. Every single one's gone. There's not a single one left.

It is because it's priced out of market, though. Like that is the reason. But it's not just the booth price. It's also the Arnold takes all of your money too. You know, whereas like Nick, I always said, it live large, 40 bucks used to get you into the Arnold and you had a great weekend. Now, like, that doesn't get you. You don't get to see Strongman for that.

And at the end of the day, like, that is what the Arnold is, is an athletic competition. Bodybuilding. That also happens to have a very large expo. Powerlifting, which they still do those things all really well. Yeah. But you pay for it too now, where you used to just kind of, you were there. And once you were there, it's like you're good. But now now just being there, you got to sell out a lot of money to actually experience everything.

Yeah. So I guess I still like the Arnold. But it's just, it's the reason. those are the reasons why the booth thing is different. And I don't see it changing again. I actually don't see it going back to that at any point. I mean, I don't think they just charge more for the strong man every year.

Right, right. So, you know, when they're taking $500, $300 of your money, it leaves very little money for you to give to the exhibitors. Right. So it's still fun. It's just different, though. Like the, the, the exhibit portion of it is just not the same.

Yeah, you know, it's just not the same. As far as the athletic competitions go, oh, those are great. I mean, they're better than ever. Like, it's a spectacle, like, you know, if you're into power lifting or strong man, I don't know if there's a better weekend you could go somewhere and take the outside of the lift,

Hardle viz classic. I don't know if there's a better weekend you could go and just take in all the sights and sounds and see some high level competition. Yeah. The other interesting point is last year, the biggest spectacle of the Arnold was the young LA booth. like they, I heard people throwing around numbers,

but they had to have spent like half a million dollars, right? I mean, that's on the people. I mean, it was insane. Like I just, it's hard to even explain without seeing what it was like. They probably gave away tens of thousands of T-shirts for free, I think. For sure. And am I correct? They're not there.

No, they're there now. Oh, they are there. They're not on the map, but then I saw in the Arnold email, it said, Young L.A. is back. And, okay. So I'm assuming that, and they made, you know, I don't know if it's just, hype up marketing, but they made it sound like it's even bigger this year. I'm like, well, it's just is the Arnold then.

Well, that's what I'm like, it's, that goes to the prior point where it's like, no, they take up like a third of the Arnold then. Yeah. Basically, like the whole right-hand side of the entire Expo was Young L.A. It's just like a whole village. It's also not really what I like that much. No, I don't think it's like. So, it's over like 20, like, but, you know, it's just a lot of, a lot of kids there to

take it all in. So the other bit of Arnold update is the, we will be there. We will be shooting videos there. We are going to, I mean, should we say this, where we're going before Columbus on that trip? Yeah, actually, we can, yeah, we can break that down because it's. We are flying on Friday. We're flying into Detroit and we have a gym tour secret,

a gym tour tour of Detroit on Friday. and then we're driving early Saturday morning to Columbus to go to the Arnold. And then we're going to do a video at the Arnold on some equipment companies as the plan. And then Saturday night is the crew dinner at the Eagle. And you can sign up for that on our website. If you're a supporting member, you can get in on that. There's currently like 40 to 45 supporting members signed up for that. we rented out.

We have the upstairs. You know, last year we had that room. We have the entire upstairs of the Eagle this year. Yeah, which is awesome. But because we can accommodate now almost, we can accommodate 60 crew members and we're at about 45 so we should be fine.

But because we can accommodate, because of what we had to do with our growing numbers and renting out the whole part of it, we also couldn't, we had to like commit to food and stuff like that too. Like they're not letting us order off the menu. it's kind of a catering type set up.

And we had to pay for it all. We have to pay. I think I can't remember if we have paid for it or we do have to. Big Hogan spearheaded this whole project. So shout out to Hogan for taking care of all this. But we have to pay for it. So what we're going to do, this applies like 50 people and I'm telling thousands of people on the podcast. But just as a little reminder.

Yeah, just as a heads up. Listen up. This might be relevant to you someday. We're going to charge everyone flat, I mean, you're going to get your food from it. And the food's really, really good. It's like one of my favorite places to eat. Oh, it's incredible.

It's freaking awesome. And Hogan went through the menu and got all this stuff lined up. So everyone's going to get charged. I'll probably send everyone that signed up an email. Just to be very clear what's going on here, though, is with that group of that big, like 50 people, they don't let you order off the menu. They say, nope, you just have to put it in an order for the food. And so we say, okay, we're making food for 50 people. And it costs this many thousands of dollars.

commit to like $2,000 worth of food. Yeah. And so now instead of to make that back, we're just having everyone, we're just splitting out by the number of people and everyone just pays their share. And drinks, drinks, drinks are still. Drinks will be separate. Yeah, they'll let you split drinks, but they would not let us split food. So that's why we have to do it this way.

Yeah. So, but the food is awesome. It'll be worth whatever we, whatever one has to chip in. And we'll just be like a chip in through our website. It's essentially a private Massonomics bar for the night, which. It is a private massonomics bar for the night, actually, is what we have ourselves with, It's going to be 50 Massonomics crew members the night of the Arnold. It's going to be a blast.

I'm very much looking forward to it. Yeah, it's going to be a lot. So if you're a supporting member and you haven't signed up yet, get yourself signed up. There should be a jacket ceremony. Got a couple jackets on the way, a few people that are going to be getting their Hall of Fame cups. And it's going to be a fun, fun night at the Arnold after the expo is over. So make sure to get signed up, you go to the Massonomics website. I think it's underneath the company tab.

There's an events button. On there, there's a form you can fill out, and that's how you get your spot. And if you're coming to that event, we're expecting you're going to eat and then that you're going to, we're going to charge you just so you know, it's not free.

That doesn't come with your supporting membership. Not yet. Yeah. Okay. Do we need to do, or need to? We can do whatever we want, but should we do supporting our supporting members and a maybe a certified training facility possibly. We'll see where the day takes us.

Okay. Supporting our supporting members. This is a relatively new segment, particularly in season two. It's just our 14th time that we've done supporting our supporting members. This is one of the ways we like to give back that those support us. We do have a supporting membership at Massanomics.com slash join. You can see all the different levels there that you can sign up. And a really good summary of everything that comes along with it.

It's actually crazy what you can get there for as little as $3 a month. There's so much value there. It's a real value. It is the gift that keeps on giving. And we do have this gift that's going to be coming. We're going to mail it out to everyone that's a supporting member later this spring, probably early spring is our timeline. So we're maybe just like a couple months away from that.

It's hard to say because spring in, you know, the Dakotas can really vary wildly on what that effect actually starts. Well, you could run into a false spring situation, which we're actually going to have this weekend. We're going to have ourselves a false spring. It's going to be like 50 degrees. Yeah. It just lulls you into false sense of security. And then it just dumps on you. That's what they call false spring.

So sometime this spring, crew gift, get signed up for supporting membership as soon as possible to make sure you get that crew gift. We're going to have a specific line in the sand coming up soon. We haven't set that yet. But there is going to be one. So best bet is just get signed up now. And you'll be safe and you'll get the gift. It's going to be really funny. So you're going to want to be in on this.

You're going to, it would suck to not be on it and to not get signed up, especially when we just warned you for like five minutes to get signed up. This week's supporting our supporting members, Big Zach got engaged. So congrats on the funeral coming up, buddy. There it is. Big Waffle Iron Jim.

His book, Griddling Gaines, The Lifter's Cookbook for Strength, is now available for pre-sale. I think on Kindle app, or I don't know where else you get it. I heard it's a New York Times bestseller. It's just popping off.

What does that mean? Because you know how often you see that on books? Isn't that kind of a joke almost? I don't know what that actually means, to be honest. The Lifter's Cookbook for. speed and power for pre-order on Kindle store. Yeah.

Big Mark competed in his BJJ tournament and got second place. Nice. Big Aaron. He got first place in his middleweight men's strong man, first city cold snap competition, including a Zerter Deadlift PR of 485 pounds. Oh, man. Yeah. It's not messing around.

No. Big Jordan broke the natural world record log press for the under 100,000. and five kilograms strong man with a log press of 322 pounds for a new world record. That was playing through his head as soon as the lift was done. Buck Cherry always comes out for a world record, as everyone knows. And this week's guest on unpaid and underrated was Big Cam. Go give that a listen. If you become a supporting member of Massonomics, another perk you could get is being a guest

on the unpaid and underrated podcast, our brady little sister podcast. I wondered about jumping into a certified training facility of the week. I would love to. Where should we go? Do you have any preferences for where we go? I think the world is our oyster. Oh, boy. Okay, well, we were just in Georgia, so we don't want to go there.

We got to explore something different. Yep. Wow, you know, I got to say, just looking at the map here, our presence in the Boston area is just crazy. I feel like that area has blown up since we were there. Do you see this? There's a lot of certifying there. Yeah.

Like if they all combine their powers, that'd be a pretty, we can go back. You could. There's so many over there. Is there anyone around there with pictures that we haven't done a tour of, an actual tour in person?

I'm trying to see what jumps out at me here. Okay, this one's, okay, this one's, it's somewhat minimal. but it's got a vibe to it here. Yeah. It's very close to Boston,

just south of Boston. Big Adams tiny gym. Big Adams, tiny gym. I like it. I love it. I want some more of it. Dorchester,

Massachusetts. All right. Big Adams, Tiny Gym. How many pictures we're working with here? Tree. Adam's Tiny Jim.

All right. Do you see this thing? Yeah, that's definitely a seller, right? Look at the walls. God, yeah. It's just,

This whole thing is just blacked out. It's got the old... The whole thing is blacked out. Yes. Floor, ceiling, walls, all black. What do you call this foundation when it's like this? Just old houses? Really old.

You know, it's not poured cement. It's not like block. It's just, it's like damn near cobblestone, you know? I suppose it's poured. I don't know, though. Like, it's just like very, very crudely poured. Yeah, it's not the version of poured that new house. houses have.

No. It's like, you know, and you, you find houses like this in, you know, in South Dakota, too,

but, uh, so it is just, but it's all painted black. And, uh, just, just like,

uh, Rolling Stone said. Exactly. Uh, you know, what's catching my attention right away is that he also has the diamond plate horse stall mats in here. He does.

Yeah. But, yeah, he does. If we're going to start talking equipment, though, we have I'm actually oh it's how hard to even pick out what's in here

because everything is so blacked out the only color in the entire gym is the mass onomics flags that he has on the wall and the yellow can in the drink spotter yeah it is just like crazy how blacked out this is yeah it's really impressive he has the it must be the the scout reverse hyper

folded up there You have to like the second photo to actually see that. Okay. Okay, let's just start with the first photo before I get ahead of myself here. All right. So we got toaster plate storage, which also is just full of black plates. Toasty. There is an SSB of some kind hanging, but it's so black, I can't tell.

There's a few barbells hanging in the corner. Yeah, they didn't even really notice those there. There's the, oh, is that the Aliko open trap bar there? That's not the rep one. I think it's the Aliko one. Oh. See that? Yeah.

there's a lap pull down, a plate loaded one of some kind. And then there's a rack. Or no, it's just a, is it a squat stand or is that a rack? I think that's kind of a squat stand. Yeah, with just some spotter arms on it and a bench. You know what that pipe kind of going across the top sort of reminds me of? The first Massanomics gym 1.0. The shitter pipe right across your head.

Looking at photo two, we got a TV in the corner and a fan. And it looks like a heater up there too, isn't it? I think so. Maybe an infrared situation. Uh-huh. Oh, I think on that lap pull down, we got a darko shorty bar, a long,

shorty bar maybe there, see that? Yep, yep. What else do we got? Is that a Titan flat bench there? Yeah, Titan flat bench. It's like a nice unit. I'm looking at photo three now,

which is just the other angle. Yeah, you got a Titan flat bench. Strongman corner. Yep, there is the strong man corner. A few Cerberus sandbags. I tell you that those red sandbags really pop in this in this black gym. They do. They'll stick out big time.

Yeah. And that's pretty much the whole place. Yep. Very cool. Damn. That is cool. I guess they don't call it Big Adams tiny gym for no reason. That would actually be tour worthy.

Like that would be a fun. You know, there's not a lot to look at with the aesthetic is like talk about being in a blacked out hole in the ground. You know what we missed, actually? There are some power blocks there on those rogue. Oh, yeah. Like those boxes, things they have. I don't know what that thing is on the right-hand side. Do you see that?

It's kind of angled at a 45-degree angle next to the plates. Yeah, it almost looks like a deadlift jack, but not really. I don't know for sure what that is. I don't know. I'm not lying when I'm saying because of everything's so blacked out. It's hard to even different. differentiate what things are. Yeah.

Cool place, though. Yeah. Pretty sweet. I don't know, though. Do you think you could get strong there? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, we get hella strong in Big Adams, Tiny Jim. It might be tiny.

Big Gaines. Yep. That's what they've always said. All right. Should we kick out the live listeners and maybe? Yeah, they're out of here. I could give a note from, this is actually important news, our newest sponsor, our latest newest sponsor of the Massonomics podcast, EliteFTS.com.

This is just in. They sponsor Massonomics. Check out everything that they've got over at Elite FTS. You know about Elite FTS at this point. It'd be weird if you didn't. But we do have a discount code there. It's Mass 10, and that'll save 10%. On a lot of stuff, certain big pieces of equipment, maybe not,

or if something's on a huge sale, maybe not. But sometimes it will stack out of other sales. You just got to try it if you're buying anything. They've got like a camber bar for sale right now. I've saw, of course, their bands. I talk about their bands just about every week. They're 25% off as we speak. And you can use the Massonomics discount code on top of that.

So thank you, Elitefts.com. Do you happen to have maybe that strength code button you could hit? We haven't heard that one in a little while. Oh, I would love to. This. is the Strength Company. We've set out to build a better barbell plate on American soil. We ended up here at Wisconsin's legendary Wapaca Foundry.

With over 60 years of ironworking experience, the Foundry had the knowledge, technology, and processes to build our weights to our exact specifications. The Strength Company plates are slim but rugged, smooth but easy the grip, and electrocoded for durability, and to look great in your gym. This is the next generation of American Isle,

only available from the Strength Company. Strength Company. Buy those damn plates. Buy the damn plates. I was just talking with Grant from the Strength Co recently. I think we might get him on the podcast at some point in time. Break our no-guess streak for Grant. We'll talk some updates from the Strength Co.

I hear a little bit more, everything they got going on. I do have a sack segment. Oh. It just reminds me. I like that. Very timely. Speaking of Big Grant, Tanner, maybe now I can get some publicity on the podcast.

Little long sleeve action. It just reminded me I got to go to my mailbox and get mine because it was delivered several days ago and I have not got around to that yet. And I do like this long sleeve tea. You know, it's actually very similar. This is like oddly similar to our long. sleeve tea that we also just released here recently. Yeah. It's like the same color and it's got like a more subdued front print and then

the bigger back print. It's like our Massonomics gym long sleeve. And there's is also on 100% cotton, you know, a heavy, heavy cotton tea. So it's great minds think alike. That's right. So that's one thing in my sack. You got one of those two, but it's in your mailbox. Okay. Then this showed up to the gym the other day. this little number. It's the November 10th, 1975, 50 fits. With the Gales of November remembered. S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald commemorative coffee mug.

That's a keeper right there. Yeah, that's pretty sweet. I can't remember who sent this now. I lost the little tag that went with it. But I was pumped about this when it showed up. I haven't even used it yet because I wanted to. get it down here to get a careful using that thing.

Yeah, this, well, kind of wondering if it needs to go back on my memorabilia shelf, though. That'd be a great spot for it. It'd look great up there. And along with that, something else came in the mail. Well, I got a Rory,

from Rory, I got my banner. Did you see that we used to be a proper country? I did see that banner because, yeah, you had it in your story, and then I saw it on the wall in the gym, which looks just great. I love that flag. Yeah.

That's awesome. So that's hanging up in the gym. So that also showed up. And then I'm not positive who sent this. I have some suspicions. But I got another thing for my Wall of Fame back here. I don't know where I'm going to put all this stuff. Actually, I have to like reimagine what this is back here

because my list of my growing amount of stuff to go back there is also so oddly. eclectic that I can't help but want to display at all. I was like, what is this collection of things? But the Band of Brothers book by Stephen E. Ambrose, the band of brothers book. Easy Company, 506 regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy

to Hitler's Eagles Nest. And this is the I don't know, classic edition, I guess is what it says. So the show is based on a book then? I think so. I mean, it's also based on reality. Well, yeah.

I think it's, uh, but this, this book doesn't look that long in the show. I don't know how they pack it all in here. Yeah. I do really want to read this. Yeah, that's that now too. Cool. Although I've seen the show 20 times. It also makes me want to watch the show again.

Yeah. If I'm being honest. Well, you know what? Just read it and then watch the show again. You might as well. Let's, got nothing but time. Yeah. So I don't know if potentially from the president of North Dakota would be my sneaking suspicion, but I don't know that for sure. Things just come randomly. I also think because people just send stuff from Amazon, I think the other day something showed up like someone, you know how you could not change the address to Amazon? I think somebody ordered something and it accidentally got sent. And like we even called Amazon and we're like, can you tell us who this came from? because we didn't buy this.

Uh-huh. And they're like, actually, we can't tell you that. So you think someone ordered something forgot to change the ad. They just left it as in the last address they sent to you. And you got sent to us. Yes. I don't know if that's what happened. That was our best guess of what happened, though.

Uh, uh, uh, because a lot of people do that, you know, they just order something from Amazon and have it sent directly. Mm-hmm. Well,

Speaking of books, what do you think about sports and books? I'm a big fan of both. Really big fan of both of them. Or do we need to get into something that's more title topic adjacent first and then come back to sports and books? Yeah, maybe. Maybe we'll do that. Okay. I've got at least two things here that are potentially title topic.

Yeah. I want to know. You have several things here that I still don't know what they are. So I'm the top of my list, maybe I'll tease it first and we'll come back to it. I have a piece of coop slash garage gym review speculation. Oh. That I've talked myself into this is correct. And I actually,

I 100% believe that this is true. This is just coming from my own. So we've got a fan theory here. I'm just, this is accurate. I will love to hear the feedback from people of what's going on here. And I think I've had this nailed. And shortly everyone will come out and say,

yep. Well, yeah, okay, you got, I, because we, you know,

He's the biggest guy in the space. So you've got to study his stuff. And we do. We study everyone. Yeah, I mean, yes. To be fair.

Yeah, we do. I'm from big to little and all across the board. You got me way too curious. I have to know now. I have to know. Okay. So I'll paint the picture.

And as I say this, people, you've either have noticed this or when I say it, you'd be like, okay, now that you mentioned, I have noticed this. But personally,

his, uh, his personal Instagram and his personal posting in general has dramatically increased and not just like, incidental posting, like particularly to Instagram and I don't know what other platforms he's all using. And his following has grown significantly. Oh, it has. Yes. Yes. And not accidentally. His frequency of posting, also his effort in posting to his personal account has increased exponentially. And you look at the garage gym reviews account.

Him on there has shrunk huge. And none of it. And none of it. of that is on accident. He's an intelligent man and built something. Well, and also businesses know that he's the face of it, so it's weird to have for sure. And not have him on it, which is. For sure. And I'm not saying he's, I haven't noticed that he's not involved

in that yet. Like that's not, but here's what I, here is what I believe to be happening. He, when he sold it, there was an agreement for X number of years, X amount of time. Yep. And probably where he can't do anything.

else in that amount of time, you know, like he's forbidden to do whatever, you know, something competitive in that amount of time. And we're coming to the end of that. And he is preparing for... He's ramping up the personal brand. Well, yeah. Well, you call it the personal brand.

It's just going to, it's not going to be called garage gym reviews. It's going to be, but what's going to happen is garage gym reviews is coop still to this point. They have other people doing stuff. Well, this is the thing, though. This is, okay, this is always my point of contention is garage and reviews is like a, I mean, okay, it's Pillar 4, which is a huge enormous company. I don't know, does that have 40, 50 employees. I get, yeah, in the scheme of things, that's not huge, but they have a ton of employees.

In the scheme of these things, it's huge. Garage and reviews has Coop. They have, what's his name? That's in a bunch of videos with him. They have the woman that does videos. They have the Lindsay. They have an editor. They probably have multiple people working on a content schedule.

They have a filmer. Like, I don't think, sometimes I think people still think like garage room reviews is coop. It's like, no, there's a team of people pumping these videos out. They probably have multiple people that are working like the customer, I shouldn't say customer service, but the affiliate programs with all the companies. For sure that. I bet they have many people, like knowing the workings of that. They definitely have multiple people working that.

Yeah. And then you look at the website and how many contributors they have writing blog posts. and then what goes with the content planning and the affiliate links and all that. Like, I don't know, on the garage and reviews payroll, there could be 15 people there, you know. I bet that there probably is. Yeah. Especially when you think part time, you know, some people are. Right.

Yeah, like some people are just contributors and stuff. But what I think is from a YouTube success standpoint without Coup there, like they can try to do it with whoever. It doesn't work though. Look at, look at the ones with Lindsay. She gets like, I'm not saying she does a bad job or anything, but she only gets two to three thousand views. The audience isn't there for her. Yeah. Even though they try to diversify it that way, like it makes sense for them to do that, but it doesn't really work.

And I think he's going to leave, do his own thing. And his own thing is just going to be garage. He's not going to be able to call it that. And garage gym reviews is going to, I mean, he fricking ace the test. He sold the company for however much. much, we don't know. Worked there for however long, collected his paycheck. Then at the end of it, starts his company 2.0 that does everything that the original

one did and like takes the whole audience with him and like, like, be like, now I own this 100% again. Well, okay, so this, we're speculating heavily here. Yeah, so I'm just speculating. It sounds actually part of the game. It's just fun to speculate. Yes, yes. What I don't think people probably realize is how much.

fricking money they are making off of affiliate sales through their website. I think some people think like, it's YouTube. I don't think people realize. Well, YouTube just funnels to affiliate sales like that. Yeah, but you Google.

They make some YouTube revenue, but it's peanuts compared to what they're making on affiliate. Yeah, the YouTube revenue is non-existent. Like it, I mean, I shouldn't say it's not existent, but in the scheme of things, it is actual peanuts.

It doesn't matter. Yeah. Where they're making all of their money, and I would not be surprised if it's many, many millions of dollars a year is in the affiliate side. Like it would not be surprising one bit for that number to be multiple, multiple millions. And you're not doing that purely off of links in YouTube videos, like your new YouTube videos. Like it's Google any single thing you're looking for in your gym and it goes back to the garage and reviews website.

Like they could just never do anything to that website for the next three years. And it's just it has a snowball of millions of dollars. It'll probably go down. But the amount is so, you know, it would. But that's the thing is, like, remaking that is an enormous undertaking. And it's not just remaking it. It's remaking it. Well, you got to compete with it.

Positioning high on Google. And that's where things get more challenging. But also if you're, if he, like, if he, in this hypothetical scenario, if he really is leaving, well, also if it's just you. Um, and maybe an editor, like, also your over and he can, then he can, right. Then he does, like, he can probably make more, you know, he can, I can just see how it could work. Yeah. It could. And it's a very funny scenario.

And there's a ton, like what you're saying right now, though, it's not that weird because if you look, it's kind of what people do. This is exactly what happens. Like there's whole, like over the past couple of years, just look, there's a great chance if you've been following in YouTube channels that have had any success for a while. This exact playbook has happened.

Channel gets popular. Private equity comes, buys them out. The people that are, or part of it either get fired right away or they have to stick on for a certain amount of time. Once they're basically probation or once they're once they serve their time, they break off immediately, do the exact same thing with a different brand and just let it ride. And then that old legacy thing that they had brings some people in. And it kind of keeps puttering

along because it has so much momentum and it can. Right. But it just does slowly eventually. The more the more engaged audience moves on to the next area. And like that happens. That's what I think's happening. Because it is what happens. It is like it's not an unusual thing in this day and age. Like that is an actual thing. Because why, tell me why what's in his, it's not against his, his interest to just build a personal following for no other specific reason, other than, it could be for an unknown reason, but you know what would be a really good reason when you know this is coming up soon and you need an audience to like, well, you can't just be like, okay, yeah, I'm going to start my own thing. I haven't spent any time to build this, build this audience. I've been online for the last 12 years,

10 years, and I haven't invested anything in my personal brand, but now, Oh, 2026 of the time I'm going to put some effort into my personal brand now. Yeah. That is kind of the timing thing is a little out there. Yes, I agree. I just, I'll be surprised if we don't see that with, and the way it's ramped up, like within the next 12 months, that would be my prediction. And that my prediction is,

Coop will not be associated with garage gym reviews within the next 12 months. I love, I love this take. He will have, he will have, I'm just calling it garage gym reviews 2.0. You know, call it whatever. Oh, I know. You want. garage you get built. Let me know in the first on the Massonomics podcast back in like 2018 or whatever.

Deep cut. This exact scenario happened to one of my favorite YouTube channels. It was donut. They do car stuff. Yeah. Donut got bought by private equity. Love donut. Yeah.

And they got just from you. They got kind of gutted. And then also the people were just like pumping out so many videos. They all got burnt out. And they said, hey, we all have been doing this. We're all well known online.

We'll just quit. And like of the 10 guys that were on there, like eight of them have all left started their own channels and they all have millions of subscribers and are doing probably, I would assume better than they ever have. Well, when something is based on the personality. Yeah.

Personality. It's just like massan, I mean, massonomics is the most insane example. If we, someone was like, yeah, we'll buy Massonomics and, you know, what's the number? Yeah. And be like, we're going to do it with a podcast thing.

And then it's like, we're, we're not happy anymore. We're going to leave and go to our own podcast called the Shmash a Shmomics. It's like, well, nobody's going to listen to Massonomics with the new people that are out of it. They're all going to come listen to Shmash, Shmash, Shmomics because it doesn't matter what it's called. Yeah. Okay. Okay, what's funny that you say that, though, because one thing that I've noticed is there's, and maybe it's just, you know, we're in the YouTube game a little bit. And we know there's always, you're always trying different things and doing different takes. But I feel like they've done a few less videos in their studio space lately. And it's been a lot more videos of Coop and Sam filming together. And it's not like, he's just filming with like a little DJI handheld thing. You know, it's not like some big, production and I'm like, oh, are they just, did they pair the staff down? Did they, did they trim the

staff? Or is it, uh, is it actually just like, is this what's working? Right. Or is it just like, hey, it's actually not worth it to pay all this people, you know, video or a filmer and editor to do this whole crazy thing when we can just like show up with this. And does the algorithm actually prefer a more, you know, a less polished. Yeah, like he just recently had that video of, uh, like first impressions of the, the rogue skier. And the first. It was like a 10 minute video. The first eight minutes is him just kind of unboxing and sort of talking about it. And then for like the last two minutes, he runs around with it in his yard and then does a few

pulls on and it's like, yep, it's good. And I'm like, I watched it. I'm like, oh, I actually didn't learn almost anything from this. You kind of tricked me on this one. Right. I'm not knocking you, but it was not what your typical video is on that channel. Yes. That's what my point was they're not doing the thing where they're in their studio space where they're

like very much like diving into the specifics. and, you know, it was a first impressions, but it is a different video than what they typically have been putting out lately. Yeah. I guess Coop himself, maybe we'll see this and he can comment and let me. If he says that's insane,

I'll believe that it's not true. Anyone else that says it, I don't believe them as of... And if he says that's insane, you'll reply back with the Lord of the Rings. Keep your little secrets, meme. You can keep your little secrets then. Yeah.

If that, mark my words on that, though. I mean, if it doesn't happen, we'll forget this happen. But if it happens, I'll say, called it. Hey, I think that's a, I think that's a great theory. I love that theory. Yeah. It doesn't happen. Yeah, like you said, whatever.

But I mean, that there's, there's, I've heard way crazier. Yeah. Well, it's, because it's just to your anecdotal examples, I'm like, it just feels exactly like what happens. like in these situations. And there's definitely something going on with his personal. I mean, there could be reasons outside of what I'm saying, but that's how I connect those dots. Yeah.

Okay. That's expert detective work there. Yep. That's got some type of investigative media prize for this. Home gym community tinfoil hat. Everyone's all distracted by the equipment and not what's going on. behind the scenes. Got everyone looking over here and you didn't notice what's going on over here.

That slight of hand. Learned that from the prestige. Have you seen it? I have actually, yes. The prestige is, we've talked about it. I like that movie. I want to watch it again. It's kind of crazy.

You get suddenly you sort of have to just sit and think for a minute. I feel like it's an underrated movie. That is Christopher Nolan, right? I think so. It has to be. Ellen's movies have some overlapping of time. Isn't that, is that Hugh Jackman and Batman? Chris, uh, yeah.

Isn't it? American Psycho. I know. Christian Bailey. Christian Bailey. Hugh Jackman, yeah. So what a cast there. Michael Kane, Scarlett John Johnson.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What a cast. Batman. Magic Batman. David Bowies in it too.

What a movie. Yeah, 2006, really? It's that old. Oh, okay. Dang. It used to be a proper freaking country, didn't we? I need to watch that again. I feel like it holds up big time.

I bet it does. I wish there's nothing. That's a movie, though, like, you never get to watch it for a first time again. I mean, that's true unanimously with all movies, but it means something more with that movie. It does. It has been, I mean,

it for a first time. It has been long enough that I have a hard time remembering a lot of what takes place, but as the movie starts to go on, you'll start to connect the dots and see what's coming. Right. Okay. I've got to another thing. I want to talk about this one. This is my theory on gluck. Stay tuned next week for her theory on gluck. And what the hell he's doing over there? No, this is my, Tommy, do you know who Solomon Nelson is? No, I saw this name in here and I had no idea what this was.

Well, you know who it is if I explain this. It's remember the Dr. Mike Exposet video. I mean, I didn't watch it, but I know what, you know, of course. Like, so that did, did you ever see this guy talking like Solomon Nelson? I have to look. Okay, I remember these thumbnails. I didn't click and watch it because I didn't care enough about it. Yes.

There was, if you remember the story, it was he made the video. Then like, uh, wolf, it's, the guy's name is Dr. Wolf. It's like him and Dr. Pack are together. Yeah, that Milo, isn't it something? Milo Wolf. Yeah. It's Milo Wolf. So Milo Wolf did a video with Mike like right after Solomon Nelson's original video and it was

kind of like defending it or stating their side or whatever. And I don't know there. I don't care. I also don't care enough to know the exact story, but some of the stuff they said in that video, that response video, maybe became, was proved to not be accurate or something like that.

Yeah. It really didn't care. At the end of the day, I don't know if we ever talked about it, but I don't really care that much about the particulars of Mike's PhD. I don't, I don't either because my thing, I think we maybe talk about offline.

I'm like, oh, you mean I can't take his gay jokes that he makes watching videos? I can't take those seriously anymore. He's entertaining. to me like he always was and yeah that's what i get about it and then for the most part and i still feel like he has a level of expertise about the stuff he talks about and like i don't say i don't think me or everyone has to agree with everything he says yeah but like it's unquestionable to me that he

has a deep level of understanding of but you mean you can disagree on opinions of course and like yeah think that everything he says is gospel but like like like oh expose his phd for to change my mind about what. I just, like, I wasn't, I didn't enjoy his stuff because I thought he had some high level pH, like, I didn't know anything about it. I never cared. I was like number 10 on my things that I cared about as far as Dr. Mike's credentials go.

So there was that video and then Solomon Nelson just recently shared a rebuttal video to that. Like, and it's so far away. so far removed. It just came out. I don't know if you go to Solomon Nelson. It's an hour and 11 minutes long, I think. Yeah, and when was that published two weeks ago? And when it was his original one published?

His original one looks like it was published four months ago. Yeah. And so this is now four months later, like a response to that thing that happened four months ago. And I'm kind of like, oh, so that's still a thing that is going on. Like you could have fooled me. I didn't think it was a thing. that was going on anymore. And it comes out a rebuttal to that.

Anyways, my point being, here's my point to the whole thing. I wanted to try watching part of it. And I tried it one night before going to bed. And I swear to God, I turned it on before it was a minute in, I fell asleep. And what I learned is it is the,

quite possibly the, I'm not saying pointless and that there's no point. I'm just saying it's so stupid. The whole thing is so stupid to me. And it's so boring to me that I've used this video. And I've never like rewound at the beginning. I've used this video to fall asleep like 17 nights in a row.

Or however. Deepest slumber. Like I turn it on and it puts me too. Like I can be like, oh man, my anxiety's high right now. There's a lot going on. I'm worrying about 17 things right now. I put on this Solomon Nelson.

video talking about... Every care in the world just melts away. Solomon Nelson's video talking about the rebuttal from Mike Wolf, or what's the... Milo Wolf four months ago about his video about Dr. Mike's PhD. And I'm like, this is the most boring thing I've ever seen. And it just like...

I'm not lying. I've used it to put me to sleep a dozen times. Like, I can just pop it on within minutes. I will not be like my mind's going 10,000 miles an hour. I put that on and I'm like, I'm so tired right now. It's all over. So try it. That is a sleep bag. Watch that video.

It's really interesting. You can tell his channel has really been built around Dr. Mike commentary because you just look, he has so many videos about him. And those videos always perform the best, which is always a weird topic for me. I mean, there's tons of channels that exist. play this. They, they just, they exist to, um, offer drama commentary. Yeah. And there's tons of people that make their, I mean, I personally just couldn't live with myself living, like having that be my thing is that I have to kind of piggyback off of like a negative thing off of someone else. I couldn't do that. But a lot of people do that. And you just look like his best video ever is, our most popular video ever is that one with a million and a half views.

And you just look before that and it's like 60,000, 100,000, 30,000, 100,000. 60,000. And then you have this million and a half. And then a Jeff Nippard one with 800,000. Then another Dr. Mike one with 500. Then another Dr. Mike one with 100. And then it starts to go back down to 60, then 50. And now another Dr. Mike one with 170.

And it's like, oh, yeah. Like, oh, yeah. It's just that's the thing. Those people, the algorithm rewards them for doing this stuff. And so people have to, like they're now chasing the numbers. They have to do it. And I don't want to make it sound like I'm defending Dr. Mike deeply.

and the whole thing, what I'm actually saying is I just don't give a shit. Yeah, that's my thing too. I literally don't care. Like, to me, it'd be way different if he was like a practicing doctor or something. But when I ask me what, when you ask me and like some people get offended, you say Dr. Mike, I just, okay, I've been brainwashed into saying that title. Me too, I guess. When you ask me, Dr. Mike, I think YouTube personality.

That's what I think. And you know who else is YouTube personality? Like tons of people with zero education, you know, like, and no one gets on their case. Like, they just get to do whatever they want, and they got no qualifications. Yeah. But all of a sudden people are mad at this guy because... Here's another hidden fact. A bunch of school is bullshit.

Well, yeah. Like, all over the crunch, all over the world. Yeah. At many levels. Like, bunches of, uh, uh, at least a certain part of every education is just bullshit. It's just checking the boxes. Yeah. Of course.

Like, that's the secret. That's what it all is. One of Canada's top business schools. Got really good grades. Yeah. It's mostly bullshit. It's all is. Like all of it is a little bit.

Yeah. I just, I even think anything. It's just, some of it's just checking boxes and whatever, you know. So yeah, I just sleep hack though. Watch that video.

And that one specifically, there's something about it like of how deep down the line is. I don't even know what got me to click on it the first time. I guess I just kind of wanted to see what was going on. And it's just, I'm going to, I'll put it on tonight when we finish this. And I'm a little wound up from the podcast.

I'll put it on. I'll be sleeping in seconds. I guarantee it. It is the, it is it gets. Yeah, it's perfect. That's good. I had no idea.

That name was in there. I'm just like, I do not know what this name is. It could have been any video, but I just thought it was relevant to bring up on the podcast because it is this thing that's connected with the, you know, the lifting and fitness world.

So it is funny in that way. Okay. Oh. Now, how long have we been going here? There's so many topics. We're still good. We're still good. Yeah.

Were we going to do the equipment thing in this episode? Maybe we'll wait on that. Okay. Well, that's what I'm wondering. Waiting a month. That's what I'm, that's kind of what I'm trying to decide. Do we wait on that then?

We've got several other things. Yeah, we got some other things. Is there a way to spit to make the, would the garage gym reviews? Is there something that's a potential title topic? We could go to the Solomon Nelson approach and really. That's what I'm saying.

Like, we're kind of being hypocrites. Well, not until we make like nine more videos about it. True. True. Maybe there's a way to put that. I don't know. I'm not necessarily specifically trying to draw attention to that, but it could be a good title topic.

Absolutely could be. And I think it's out of fun, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean, no matter what, Coup's still coming out ahead on any of this. Oh, I'm saying that as kudos. to him.

Yeah, we're not making any allegations against him. No, I'm like, I think I even said it. I'm like, he freaking nailed it. Like he did, he got his cake and is going to eat it too in my scenario. And he's got, and he's got the exit plan with the golden parachute here. Also, I'll say it this way. I have no sympathy and give two shits less about pillar for me.

You know, any company like that. I'm like, I don't care about those companies. Roast them. You know, like, uh, it's like, do, do it. I'd rather see an individual like who, you know, get successful from it than a group like Pillar 4 media. That being said, I'm sure the people have Pillar 4 are great. Oh, I, that's.

We don't know any of them, but I'm sure they're great. I'm sure they're great. Yeah. And when I say Pillar 4, I use them as like the evil empire. I'm not even talking about like employees. I'm like, everyone's got to have a job. Everyone works for somebody. It's like, I don't know, the powers that be whoever works.

The man. Yeah. It's always a man. It's almost like the proverbial pillar four. You know, when you talk about that, it's like, I don't know. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. Right.

I'm self-employed. Totally. That is, that is the thing. So that's the question, though. Do we talk about the equipment? Because that's a potential title topic. Well, at some point. I don't know.

I don't think we have time to this week. Okay. There's too much other stuff to talk about. Yeah, let's save that then. It's not going anywhere. It's equipment. It'll be there. We could go, we did SACS segment, so we could go, sports and books.

I've got an alternating count topic. I also have a cursive topic. Sports and books. Let's get into it. Okay. Let's hit it. Sports and books, we got a topic about the Super Bowl. We got to do our, everyone tunes in for our annual Super Bowl prediction.

I guess maybe I just key it off with books, though, to flip the order with books and sports. I don't have a ton on books. I was curious if you did, but I did have a couple things. I finished book three of the Red Rising series. Morning Star. I finished book three. Hell of a good book. Okay.

So it's just had me, oh man, the end of book three I just thought was outstanding. It's like one of those situations when you're going through the book and like as you're doing it, you're piecing together what's going to happen. Like you're just piecing it together just before it happens. Like I think that that's good writing when you're able to do that. And you're like, you've been in on the storyline for a long time. And like, the wool's been over your eyes, so to say. A reference you might follow.

And then like you figure out just a little bit before it actually happens. You're like, oh, shit. I get it now. And then it happens. Like, I feel like that's what the writing was like there. Okay. So that's, so what I'm curious now, because I feel like I've heard people mention this in the Discord,

is I get the impression that the first three are solid gold and maybe it eases up a little bit. Which is actually particularly funny reference for this book that you don't get. No, I do not. But then I get the impression that maybe the quality maybe goes down a touch after that. I'm going to find out because I want to see what else happens.

I could also be fine just stopping here, but I am going to continue. I actually got, I'm going to go on to the next ones and see what's up. All right. Well, it's too invested. It's still on my list. I mean, I do want to read them.

I'm just afraid to jump into a, like a huge series right now. I did have one other books thing. My wife's, you know, big reader, of course. We talk about the numbers. They're insane and she reads a whole bunch of books all the time. Her favorite series ever is Throne of Glass. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I have hers of brought up a few times. Yeah, and it's popular. Like it's, yeah. I think it's maybe this is a, stereotyping, but it's particularly popular amongst women. That's what I thought. The hero of the story is a woman also too. I can't relate.

Yeah. And I think it's written by a woman. I'm not saying that any of that matters, but we took a trip and we listened, I think I made it through like the first six chapters of the audio book version of the first book of that. And it was, how long ago was this? Just this last weekend.

We went to Sioux Falls and. Oh, like you were re-listening. Like she'd already heard it. before though. Oh, she's read the books like 20 times. Oh, she's read the books. She reads the books every year, like maybe multiple times.

I've never done that once in my life. She reads every, she's honestly probably read those books. I'm like maybe 20 times. I'll ask her, but she's probably read each one of them 20 times or listen to them. She does both. Okay. Yeah.

Oh, no. She was like, we'll just. So like, it's time. Get in on a annual listening and you happen to be taking part of. and I'm like I'm pretty interested now like six chapters in I kind of like no I need to hear more of this but I would say I don't know if it's just different styles of writing or what it is but I'm like this does not compare to me to because there's you could make a lot of parallels with the world of red rising and this you know it's both the sci-fi thing much different but also much the same in ways too

I'm like, I just don't think the writing is as good. Where I'm like, and maybe it's probably people preferences of different authors and stuff. But. Well, it just is part of it because like thrown a glass as young adult fantasy series? Is it the young adult part where they just have to. I think so. I'm not saying dumb it down, but like. No, I do think so.

A different audience a little bit than. I feel like I, that's what I notice. Yeah. When I. I could see it like that would make sense. You know, it's like the Harry Potter writing style is different than. Right. You know, and not that Harry Potter's not.

bad. It's just it's a different writing style versus other fantasy. But I am interested in throwing a glass. I'll probably pursue that more at some point. Well, it's just also you sometimes you do just stuff with your spouse. So you, it's more fun to talk to her about it because she is really interested. She's lived it year after year. Right. So then I can. And then like I've got to be listening. I'm back, well, what's? And she knows everything about it. right in front of you. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

That's my books. Have you read any books on your trip? I actually do have some book updates. I have finished the Green Mile. Oh, yeah. And, okay, have you seen the movie?

I have, but probably not in 25 years. Okay. I've never seen the movie. Yeah. I had no idea what it was. So I had no preconceived notions about what was taking place.

And yeah, I, that might be one of my favorite books of all times. It is so damn good. It is just, oh, God, that is just a good book.

This isn't going to be like Shawshank Redemption where you spring on me that Morgan Freeman's character in the book was a white guy. Red was actually a red-headed guy and not a black guy. Yeah. Because who plays in the movie the... Yeah, what is his name?

Is that one of the two guys that we confused with... Yes, Ving Rames and Michael Clark, Duncan. Yes, we've done this. thing before. Because that's Michael Clark Duncan. Yes. Yes.

And he is huge. He is huge. Yeah. And that's, I mean, dad. I, hmm.

But like, I've heard rumors that Michael Clark Duncan. Yes, he died in 2012. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. But he was super strong, actually. Yeah. I'm just looking at the pictures in the movie. He looks enormous in it. Oh,

yeah. And I bet he could bench over 500 pounds. Yeah, that's what the character is supposed to be. So it was, okay. it was cast well. But I,

the little bit that I did look into it was that it is one of the most faithful adaptations of any of his books to a movie. Okay. And there's only a few little parts that differ, but, uh, God, the book just had just the perfect amount of just crime, thriller, horror, a little bit of like fantasy mixed in. Like, it just did it all. Like, it, it did it for me. It was good. I, I, I really liked it. It was really good. It was, you have any interest in watching the movie, though now? I actually do now. Same, same thing for Shashank Redemption.

I've never seen that movie. Yeah. But I especially have an interest for watching the Green Mile. And, yeah, I would like to watch both those at some point. And if you look, it's crazy. You know, the IMDB top 250 list. You know, are you familiar with this? Have you ever looked at the, have you seen this here?

Oh, okay. I've never really been on IMDB website in my life. You know, people say I'm not much of a movie guy, but I used to make kind of a habit of trying to watch movies on the top 250 list. And Shawshank Redemption is regularly in the top. couple movies on the list. And I knew, like top 10. Like top three a lot of times even.

Oh, okay. And, uh, usually like that and the godfather. Yeah. Right up there at the top. And, uh, I knew the green mile was somewhere up there.

And like, I had to check and like, as of right now, the green mile was like number two, sorry, sorry, number 25. And just let me actually get to the right.

So is that like by rating? Yeah, by rating. And so right now, just to give you actually, Shawshake Redemption is number one on the IMDB top 250. Hell yeah. Godfather's number two. The Dark Knight is number three. Hell yeah. Godfather part two is four. Twelve and a man is five. Lord of the Rings.

Shinler's list. Lord of the Rings. Pulp Fiction. Good, bad, the ugly. More Lord of the Rings. Forest Gump, Fight Club. Inception. You know, great movies. Like all those movies. I was just going to say all those movies. Yes. Inception. Star Wars. Empire Strikes Back. The Matrix. Goodfellas. Interstellar. One flew over the cuckoo's nest. Seven. It's a wonderful life. I think that's the first one on that list I have not seen. so not even a movie guy. I've seen like, I actually haven't seen Godfather part two, but I've seen like the first 18 movies.

One flew over the cuckoo's nest. Is that also, uh, what is, uh, is that Jack? Jack, yep.

Like when he was young. Yeah. Who's that movie? Is that, uh, um, I don't know who directed it or anything. I'm just looking here.

Director Milo's farming. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. Good movie though. Yeah. Um, but,

uh, Green Miles. is number 25 on that list. I'm like, that is pretty crazy just as a, just a body of work that you've written books that have been at ad adapted into films. And the number one on the IMD list and number two, number 25 on the list.

Like that is an impressive body of work. But God, Green Mile is just so good. I loved it. It was. That's making me want to watch the movie again. What has it going for it, though, is like Shawshank Redemption is only about 100 pages. So there's just, it's just the story has to get on with it.

where Green Mile is like 450 pages. So you just get way more time to know the people and you get more invested in it. So that one, that was great. I loved it. The other book I read, I would never in a million years have picked this. But the comedian Anthony Juselnick, I find him very, very funny. The Jeselnick offensive. Standup is on another level too.

I like, you know, follow him on Instagram. I like hearing how he thinks about things. And he talks a lot about, you know, why he does comedy the way he does and how he comes up with jokes and you know, so I like hearing his process on stuff. And he's had a lot more lately

about the books that he reads. And he said like his favorite book of 2025 was perfection by Vincenzo Latrinoco. I don't know. It's something Italian. But it was originally written, I think in Italian then was translated to English

just a couple years ago. And the book's only 125 pages. It's about a couple that is trying to live the Instagram, a lifestyle. And they're freelance web designers, graphic designers, and they're living in Berlin. They're trying to live this picture perfect world.

And man, you know, being a freelance web designer myself. Right. You know, I found a lot of very interesting things in it. But I think anyone around our age that has grown up in the Instagram world and has tried to... So the book's not only for freelance web designers? No. And actually what's amazing about the book,

there's not a single line of diet. in the book. It's Tom did this. Anna did this. Then they did this. They didn't like this, but they did this. It's such an odd way of writing. But I just, I read that book in like a sitting. Like, you could just fly through it. And man, I mean, everyone that, if you read that book, you're going to be like, I know 10 people that are exactly like that or I know 10 people that used to live like that and they had to give in because you realize it doesn't work that way. And just, I mean, anyone our age is going to find a lot of truth in just, they're going to see a lot of parallels in their life and what they've recognized

with other people in the world. So that was, that was a pretty good read. What was that called? Perfection by Vincenzo Latrinoco. Yeah, it's something like Latranoico. Okay. Good book. So that's books, sports?

sports, Super Bowl. The Super Bowl. We've got the new England. Finally, the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Oh, man. Boston fans are going through a real drought over there. I do like the memes of where it's like, oh, finally this kid's in second grade

and he finally gets to see his team in the Super Bowl. He's had to live all the way to second grade without getting to watch his team in the Super Bowl. Some people just don't know. Some people don't know what's really like to. just really like a team just through the just through the pain of it all forever forever like no not their back in the Super Bowl they've never been there never been never has been never has never was but i mean everyone everyone's everyone's rooting for the sea ox right right i would if you don't

live in uh the greater new england area i would think so um you know as a viking's fan it's or where drake may where to where to where do you go to college Wasn't it Duke? Oh, I suppose if you're a big Duke football fan then, too, which is not anyone. So I take that back. A very small group of people. Yeah, you know, it's interesting as a Vikings fan, though, Sam Darnold, to have such a rocking year with the Vikings and then go on and do the same thing with another team. I guess when you got it, you got it.

Shocking. It's the Vikings way. That's how it goes. But, yeah, I mean. Got to hope for a Seahawks win there, right? I would think so. I mean, that being said, the Patriots are probably going to win then. Probably.

I do want the Seahawks to win, but this is a Super Bowl, actually, like all Super Bowls, where I just have no dog in the fight, so I really don't care at all. I don't care either, to be honest. If the Patriots win, I'm not even going to be disappointed. No, I won't care. As the other day, I do kind of just hope it's entertaining. Like last year's Super Bowl wasn't entertaining, you know. I just hope that they all have fun.

That's, I guarantee you they'll be having fun all right. What's that paycheck clears? They'll be having a good time. Bad bunnies, the Super Bowl halftime show. I got to, actually, I'm going to go out on the limb, big prediction here. A bunch of people are going to complain about the Super Bowl halftime show. What? They're going to complain about the halftime show?

I can't wait. That's never happened before. I'm going to log into Facebook around the halftime just to read all the stuff. terrible takes on the Super Bowl half-time show. I'm going to get the local, the vibe for the local scene. You know, for a bunch of people that haven't listened to any new music since 2004, I want to get their take on what they think of Bad Bunny. Yeah, that's what it'll be.

Ask my wife who she wanted to win the Super Bowl and she said Bad Bunny. What's her take? She's like, I don't really care about the teams. It's a fair take. Yeah. Anything else sports-wise? That's kind of it right now. It's the Super Bowl.

I think so. You know, me and one other thing for sports, me and Paul had this during the first annual Massanomics, pheasant hunting excursion. Yeah. We're in a little place called Schwannies. And on the TV, there's a rec center.

Nebraska basketball on. And I don't know. We made some dumb joke about Nebraska basketball. Yeah. And Paul's getting me updated because all of a sudden they're like 20 and O. And they're just like winning non-stop. Yeah, they're undefeated. They were just their best start ever.

They were ranked in the top 10 for like the first time ever. And so Paul gives me weekly updates on the state of Nebraska basketball. And then they faced Michigan and had their first loss of the year. And then I still had not seen a single game. I turned them on this past weekend. And who were they playing? It was like Illinois. And it was actually a pretty good game.

And then I saw them lose again. So I'm like, oh, the magic's over. It's over. They're killing it. They're ruining it. but that's all I got for basketball. Okay. Sports and books, that's a wrap.

Okay, I do have one more thing I wanted to get on this week's episode. It's not timely at all. Or do we need to shut it down. You can shut it down. I can save it. No, we can do one more. We get time for one more. Okay.

All right. You remember Jose, Boston, Jose got us on the discussion that's gone on for months about counting and how you count reps. Yes. Yes. And I did have one additional revelation on this. No, no. That we never discussed.

So I think it's worth discussing. This is important. There's more ways to slice this? Well, this is. Because I was doing these just this week. And I literally, after my set, grab my phone and put this as a topic in Asana, because I'm like, I think I need to know how people are doing this.

Because you could do this. This adds like a whole other layer of complexity. For whatever reason, when I do dumbbell standing curls, I like to do them alternating. And I don't know why. I don't know why I just have. I prefer, like if I'm doing a barbell curl,

obviously don't have the prerogative to do that. If I'm doing an incline dumbbell curl, or like the doctor might curl, I don't do them alternating. I like to do them simultaneously. I said, oh, really like I have a surprise, but then the second I thought about it, I'm like, oh, no, I just don't do standing curls anymore.

But when I did dumbbell, they were always alternating. I never did those at the same time. So any exercise that you do alternating, that's the best example to me is the standing dumbbell curl because for some reason, I feel like a lot of people do that alternate. They do.

Yep, yep, they do. So if you're going to do a set of 10 alternating dumbbell curls, do you count, I mean, this is important. Do you count one, one, two, or do you count one, two, or do you count one, two, all the way up to 20? I count to 20. I'm just a counting purist over here.

I go one, one. And actually, so on Juggernaut, I had sets of 15. To add a whole other thing to it, I go, one, one, two, two, three, three, four, four, five, five. One, one, two, three. That is how I do a set of 15 alternating dumbbell curls. I count to five, doubled three times. No, I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

I need to stop. And I bet I just have a feeling I'm not alone there. That's why I don't like this because I'm just, all these people are going to come out of the woodwork with their terrible counting schemes. And I'm just living in a world where I think people count by the number of something. That's why I had to write it in because I was almost laughing to myself as I was doing it. I'm like, okay, wait a second. I just counted one, one, one, two, two, all the way to five.

And then I started over and counted one, one, two, two, three, three. Just opened up Pandora's box accounting over here. But you would just count to 20. Oh, absolutely. That's what I do every time on that stuff. It's unilateral like that. Yeah. I, okay, I do make the exception where I said I was recently doing some single arm

tricep work with the pushdown and where that where you actually had to switch. You know, there I'm doing 10 and then I'm switching to the arm. Of course. Of course. That would be insane if you kept the count going. That would be really crazy. That would be insane. Nobody can do that.

With that being said, there's probably someone that counts the 20. If you're doing where you do one side and then the other side, you keep the number running up. You keep the count going. There cannot be anyone that does that honestly. There's got to be someone. That would be so wacky. If you be like, all right, switch, grab my other arm, 11, 12, 13.

There's going to be someone. I can just feel it. I don't think we ever talked to alternating count theory, though. Yeah. you're, there's going to be people. Do you think more people, now the splitting up by five, that's a whole separate thing. I'm not going to say people do that,

but do you think more people count one to 20 or count one to 10 doubling it? I actually don't know what would be more common. I could see. Yeah, it's probably like 50-50, isn't it? Yeah. Yep, on that one bit.

But then adding in the people that segment their counting like I do to that is really, it's another level. It actually becomes a mind game of counting. and I like that there you run a risk there of like are you focusing on the lift if you're uh I don't think about it that way but you maybe subconsciously you are thinking about like it takes some brain power to count that way a lot more than just running the number up that's for sure you would think so but it's a mind game when they got to do because alternating a set of 15 that means you're going to do 30 reps like I got to break this shit up so it is a lot it's a lot

Because in my mind, otherwise, I'm going to be here forever as if it changes the amount of, like, as if anything actually changes. Give you a break here. To that whole point, it did make me wonder a greater point. I'm like, are alternating exercises just inferior in general? Like, you're giving that muscle, like, it's that extra break each time. Oh, I get what you saying? You know, like, what lifting do you do that's like that besides the dumbbell curl? where you're like, okay, push it with my left leg, push it with my right leg.

People do the pull-up thing, are the push-up thing with dumbbells, you know, where they're doing push-ups and they do like a row one side of the side. True, true. I think that that's stupid also. I mean, I do alternating dumbbell curls, and I might just be making a case for them being stupid to do that. The only thing, though, I feel like there's something slightly different about being able to just do one side and, like, really position my body in a way to squeeze that by,

up and then go back to the other side. Some people could be doing it with one one leg hamstring curls. What would you do though? Like if the it wouldn't be natural on that machine. Well like on your machine yeah it's because you would need a machine

where they're independent. Some exist like that where each side is independent. Yeah. I guess you could do it that same thing like a standing one. You know standing that's what I was thinking like. Yeah. Instead of the standing double, you get standing alternating single.

There's probably science behind the alternating thing. And at the end of the day, that's picking nits of something that doesn't even matter. 100%. 100%. Like, we can all agree it doesn't actually matter. No. To any level that matters for anything that any of us or anyone listening to us. No, if it matters as someone, it's because you're, like, in the running for Mr. Olympia.

And the people that are doing that aren't talking about it online. They're just doing it. So, yeah. So by that, by default, it actually doesn't matter. Even then I might not be convinced it matters. No, I'm not sure. And I can still be like, no, I don't know. Nope, doesn't actually make a difference.

I believe it. Yeah. So that's the alternating count theory. The alternating count theory. It's official. It exists. Okay. I did want to mention one other very important thing.

Oh, not the hell. That is important. I guess I never really got to that this week, right? Because can we retroactively? This will count towards whatever becomes the title topic? Yeah, here we go. There it is. But now I had something else.

That wasn't one I originally. I love this ball. Yeah. That apparently made it through. I think so? It hasn't been flagged it. We'll give it a second test run. And if we make it here, I'm like,

I feel real good about that. I love this bar button. It's been tried twice. I love this bar. By this bar, I mean the Texas power bars. Drop the dumbbells. Quit worrying about how you count in an alternating scenario. Grab yourself a Texas power bar.

Grab it with both hands and it doesn't matter what way you count. Texas power bars have been making lifters stronger all across the globe since 1980. Made in Texas. since 1980. Some of the best bars known to man. I was talking about the Texas deadlift bar just the other day, and I said, that is the gold standard deadlift bar.

Every other deadlift bar ever made is measured against the Texas deadlift bar. How does it compare to a Texas deadlift bar? And you always compare to the one that's the best. Buy yours at Texas PowerBars.com. Let them know that you're good friends at Massonomic sent you. Thank you, Texas PowerBars. This episode is also brought to you by Juggernaut AI. Since 2009, Juggernaut has been your trusted training resource,

helping tens of thousands of athletes reach their goals from beginners to world champions. And here is how Juggernaut AI works. You download the app, you tell the system all about yourself, your goals, your lifting experience, what you're trying to get out of it. From there, it's going to create an individualized program specifically for you. And then once that program's created, you're checking in with the program every step of the way before you lift while you're lifting after you're lifting and it's making adjustments on the fly to make sure you are getting the most out of every training session.

Juggernaut AI, I've been running it for a couple of years now. I'm hitting some all-time PRs and lifts and it keeps lifting fun, which probably is actually the most important thing when you're an aging athlete like myself that you've got to be doing this for the fun of it. And I highly recommend it. So go to juggernaut AI. dot app that is their website and you can use code massonomics on the website only just on the website use code massonomics you can save 10% on the lifetime of your membership thank you juggernaut AI

what did you do where was your where were you at on juggernaut for your vacation what did you do um so i actually just came off of a delode and then um the way i i'm actually in my final strength block on my program and coming back into the final strength block it was relatively easy. So before we left I was able to get, you know, I lift three days a week.

I was able to get my first day in before we left. We got back on Saturday, late in the day, and then I lifted Sunday and Monday. So technically while I was gone, you know, I didn't lift for like five days. But that's just how I do vacations.

I never lift on vacation. And then, you know, today I did my Monday squat workout. It's Wednesday. So I'm like two days behind, but I'll make that up and should be right back on track next week. Did you feel good for your squat workout or bad? Not really, no. Deadlift. I did my deadlift on Sunday and that felt god awful. That felt terrible. Like your first day back you're saying.

Yes, it felt terrible. No, sorry. That was my second day back. I did bench the day before. Sorry, I did bench on Sunday. Deadlift on Monday. Deadlift felt so weak, so bad, so terrible. Squat today felt a marginal. Actually, I mean, it was a big day. I did four, four. There was a top set of 440 for three. And, you know, a few weeks ago I did 440 for five, which was like a PR. And, you know, I was also pretty hyped for that. That's always the thing, too, when it changes. Like, well, I did this a couple of weeks ago for five.

Now I got to do it for three. Like, it's not as cool. And, I mean, it didn't like fly by any means, but it didn't feel terrible. You know, it was fine. I've also been kind of running myself ragged lately, too. So I'm not, I'm just keeping it all into perspective here. Right, right. Well, the hype level does matter a lot, though, too.

Like, it can matter so much. Mm-hmm. Like, my deadlift today was very not exciting. Like, the numbers were just, it was just a very light, because last week I had a, it was an RP10. I probably ended up doing an RPE8, and that's kind of, I handle those as like nines, a lot of times in this one. So last week for my deadlift, I got very hyped

because it was the heaviest one I've done in a really long time. and part of the sometimes those RP 10s particularly on the deadlift at least in the way it programs me those really sneak up on you almost out of nowhere where it's like here you go here's an RP 10 and I'm like oh shit yeah it's usually the week before the other ones so yeah and I'm like damn okay shit I'm not really like and since I haven't been deadlifting all that heavy for quite a while like the numbers are very much a crap shoot and I just ultimately was like this is any less than five plates I'm going to be annoyed so just putting five, like I haven't done a set of six and anything close to five plates on a deadlift for a long time, but I'm like, I'm going to be mad at myself if I do any less than

this because I'm going to think, why didn't I just do at least, or five plates or 500, 495, I guess. So I did that and I got done and I'm like, it actually felt like an RP seven or eight, maybe seven and a half, something like that, which I was very happy about that. but then this week was 70 pounds less and I'm like it probably felt almost harder because I was so not excited by you know I'm like it probably felt the RPE was the same actually

if I'm being honest like it was almost the exact same RPE and that's how it goes though that is the name of the game but after you do it long enough you just keep the perspective of okay well but that's why it's that way because I'm just not getting hyped up but you always have the thing in your back of your mind are like, or did I actually just get really weak all of a sudden?

Right. But it also is part of the way the training actually goes, though, because I had that RPE10 deadlift and then coming around the beginning of the next week, I had an RP10 squat and bench. And then I have this weak deadlift day, but I'm like fried. You know, I don't really think I'm that fried, but I'm like, actually I am because of what I've done within the last seven days of training. So it kind of makes sense that you'd be, it should be a lighter day at that point too.

And it should probably kind of feel a little shittier. Plus you're sleeping like 12 hours a night. So like you're super recovered. Well, yeah, I got that Solomon. The super sleep secret there. Sleep hack. I did have my squat though, actually. That was more interesting.

I got, I did a safety squat bar with, not that this is any crazy weight, but on my recovery journey journey, I did 315 for a. set of eight and it really felt oh i was watching that i'm like that might be about the best i've ever seen tanner squat form look that and i was just really have i not been paying attention or has that changed because i i feel like it looked different could be from doing the because i did front squats for 25 weeks straight right yeah that would be that could force some change there yeah yeah could be possible also it felt the weight you know what my squat form always looks better when it's not that that was a hard set but it moved way you

easier than I was expecting. So then my technique is better. You know, if things move fat, it's rare someone has like bad technique when the weight's moving fast, at least bad for them. Like technique gets worse when it get, when you get slower. Slower. Right? Unless you just sit permanently ingrained with bad technique and that's the way it always looks.

But like as far as like, say, my knees caving in or, you know, my hips doing shooting back, when it moves fast, that's not going to happen. Probably the same with anyone. So that's part of it too probably. But it's not happening because you're strong enough to do it that way. So maybe it's just because I've been getting stronger. You know, I don't know. Just too strong.

Well, not there again. Squat specialist. Not overly excited about it because it's just still 315 pounds. But I was like, ah, 315 on the safety squat bar for a set of eight and it felt good. I'm like, okay. That's a huge thing. That's going the right direction. Yeah.

Hashtag road to recovery. Hashtag road to recovery. that's more training than it was one probably wanted to update but it made me think of it when you're talking about the hype part of it because I'm like oh I feel like I'm just experiencing that very much right now where when the hype levels are low things can feel a lot heavy they can they absolutely can well what's the better philosophy on those lighter days do you keep the hype level low and then it moves a little bit harder or do you get yourself that hyped up all the time to get it.

Yeah. That's been the change for me over the years is that the, uh, the amount of hype, the hype levels are just, just, just across the board so much lower than what they ever were before. And it actually works pretty good because it's,

it gets harder and harder to get hyped up for lifts all the time. Right. I'm not saying like you're not excited for it, but just like really be hyped. Like it's just hard to approach every, you can't do it every week. No. No, no,

you can't. It's really hard to do that. And so, um, Yeah, I've noticed my sessions in general. Because if you could trick yourself into getting really into it, you could probably make a weight like that, that deadlift you're talking about.

You could have made it move like way easier. Oh, yeah. But it's just the thing of you just, it's just the system levels of tiredness are, uh, right. You know, you're like, God damn, I've been on vacation for a week.

I've just been not eating good. I'm just so tired. I just got, just had to sneak a workout in yesterday. And I'm trying to get this one into date. Like you just have everything working against you. And it's just really hard to, get hyped up in that.

So sometimes it is just a matter of like getting the work done. A hundred percent. That is. Yeah. Actually, that's, that's like my, my training philosophy right now is getting the work done.

Yeah. And some days that's, some days that is a really, really fun. And other days, it's, it's just, nope,

this is a grind and I have an hour. Here we go. But I get the work done. That's all you need to do, you know. Yeah. Juggernaut AI. That was all a juggernaut AI.

Sorry, extended juggerna. That was the uncut director's, version of the Juggernaut AI ad. We do that every week. We usually just cut it. This week, you got the full version. Yes.

All right. Anything else this week? I've got to save something for next week, probably. Yeah. Stay tuned. Next week, we'll talk about that equipment. I mean, no guarantees. Maybe we will.

Is this the third or fourth episode that we've been teasing that equipment I got? Stay tuned next week to find out if we're going to talk about that equipment. It might be the title topic next week. It could be. Unless something better comes along. Well, it always could. Check out the Massonomics YouTube channel, though. We didn't really talk about it this week.

Our gym tour last week was, was it On On Onans? Yeah. Onens. That was a good one. Gym tour. Really good. That one's performing quite well, too. I love to see it.

I think that's a really fun basement gym tour. He's got some cool stuff in there. And we demoed some stuff that we haven't seen in other basement gyms. That one is fun. I got to see, I think I've watched the whole thing, and it was a cool tour. Make sure to check it out if you haven't. Yeah, I really enjoyed watching that one back.

And then the one coming out that would be out by the time this drops would be big roar mans. Yeah, I got that edited today. That's a good one. Oh, you did? Yep. So it's out there. Well, I got it sitting on my computer. I haven't uploaded it yet.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I had, it's just been so long. I had a lot of fun watching that one back. Yeah. Didn't we talk about Coop in the beginning of that video? I love that line. He says something. I totally forgot about this.

I can't remember what it was, but there was something about, oh, you know, he, he, he goes like, I feel kind of bad for you guys.

You know, you're here doing a tour at my gym, and you're going to go do another one later, and Coop's done both of those already. Yeah. Like, yeah, you know, our tours are a lot like his,

except ours are way better. I was like, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of similarities, except ours with a good one. or something like that. Yeah.

And you don't laugh or acknowledge it at all. You just keep moving along. And it was so funny. I like that. I thought there was something like that. It was like right at the beginning, wasn't it? It was very early on. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, gym tours. YouTube. Make sure you're subscribing. Follow along. We're having a lot of fun pumping up. More gym tours on YouTube than any other channel.

Mm-hmm. It's official. YouTube sent us a plaque. saying that. We haven't gotten any colored play buttons yet, but they just say more gym tours than anyone else on YouTube. Which, if we're being frank,

is way better than like a million subscribers. Oh, it's way more. I mean, we do it for the love of the game. We don't do it for subscribers. We just, no. We don't do it for views or subscribers or monetization. No, just for a lot of the game. We do it just because.

Also leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Tommy, where do they find you at? Can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird. Just make sure to follow Massanomics at Massonomics. See you.