Massenomics Podcast - Ep.103: The Arnold Interviews Pt. 2

Episode Date: March 26, 2018

This week, we share the rest of our interviews from The Arnold. Including Bill Kazmaier, Stan Efferding, Geno Bianchieri, Nick from Live Large, Stacy Burr, Jen Thompson, Tom Finn, Ray Williams, Terry Hollands, and Hafthor Bjornsson after his big win at The Arnold Strongman Classic.

Welcome to Massanomics, the world's strongest podcast. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Massanomics. Make sure you go visit massanomics.com. There you'll find the rest of our powerful content. While you're there, check out our store and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics gear. All right. Welcome to this week's episode sweet Mastinomics beer. All right. Welcome to this week's episode of the Mastinomics Podcast. I am your host, Tyler.

There is nobody else with me right now. This is going to be the last. Let me look at how many there are. Last of our interviews from the Arnold. What do we have? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine or 10. So we're going to open up right away.

We met with Bill Kazmaier again. If you remember our interview last year, anytime we talk with Bill, it's super interesting. But it was pretty cool hearing the way that he talks about things. When you listen to the way he talks about Half-, half Thor Bjornsson, he doesn't, most people just be like, he's awesome. He's big. And Bill goes into this like huge rants and it's so fucking awesome. The way that he describes everybody, you know, he's like, you know, there's one man's going

to walk down through the Valley and I'll, you'll just have to hear it. So, um, yeah. So up next here we have Bill Kazmaier and and this was also done at the SBD booth. So thanks to the people at SBD for helping us out and letting us set up in their space and probably kind of jam up their shit every time we were there. So Bill Kazmaier at the SBD booth. I think so. All right, guys, we're joined this year again by Bill Kazmaier, the legend.

How are you doing today, Bill? Fantastic, thank you. You've got a busy weekend ahead of you, the legend. How are you doing today, Bill? Fantastic, thank you. You've got a busy weekend ahead of you, I suppose. A little bit, three hard days. But I'm not lifting anything, so I'll be okay. That's good. Well, you look like you've been lifting some things. How's the guy stay that jacked?

You know, I'm going to be 65. But as a former World's Strongest Man, I've got to look like the World's Strongest Man. You might as well. You've got to look at if you can't still be it. I think you're probably still up there, aren't you? Probably not. I think Brad Shaw's probably got me by a little bit. Maybe Half Thor. Well, you're still the strongest

guy in a lot of rooms, I'd be willing to bet. Yeah, thanks for that. But it's really important, you know, that the whole physical culture promotes strength, fitness, and it's great to be around the guys that are doing it. You know, the Half Thors and the Shaws, Chris Takowski and Mario's from Poland.

There's so many fabulous, fantastic athletes that this weekend's going to be really great, and they'll define who's the world's strongest man. That's a great question. Now, who do you got your money on if you had to pick? You know, we got Shaw here, Thor, Jerry Pritchett, a few other greats. If you had to put your money on one on today, would you be willing to throw a name out there? Yeah, well, you can't.

You know, Hafthor is fantastic. He's my favorite. He gives me a lot of respect and calls me sir and Mr. Kazmaier. I love Jerry Pritchett. His deadlift is fantastic. But when you look at a guy who's four times the world's strongest man, you kind of have to go with him. And he's also a former champion.

As a matter of fact, if you'll remember, he tore off his bicep at the Arnold, and he just kept going. That's a chasmonaut. That's really a tough guy. And I like that about him. So it's going to be a great comp. Definitely. One other question along that lines we've asked this question to some of our audience before too greatest of all time strong man we'd look at

yourself a few icelanders uh brian shaw now a few other names in there any big big z of course any uh any opinion there greatest of all time it's's kind of tough. If you want to ask Brian Shaw to do 800 for 10 in the squat, 900 for a triple in squat and training, 500 for 15 on the bench, 600 for 5, 633 for 3, and 661, and that's without any specialization at all. And then you take it to the deadlift i held the world record there too and the total and the thing is that was back then we really didn't know you know much about training and recovery and the rest uh so i kind of have a

hard time with it you know although these guys are 100 pounds heavier are we going to use a formula or are we just going to say who's the biggest, strongest and the best? When we look at some of these partial deadlifts back in the day with the coins, no one knows that I had two torn hamstrings from the squat. I squatted 870 and tore one hamstring and I wrapped it up and I went 950 and tore the other one. So as we all know in a deadlift, it's pretty tough to pull with torn hamstrings. And I did 1,055. So could I have done 1, seventy five or more probably but that was then and this is now we got to get these guys they're due so one of those three guys is a tunis half Thor Eddie

Hall statically strong 200 kilo body weight Brian Shaw the same kind of weight six eight these are these are the strongest guys that have ever walked the strong, 200 kilo body weight. Brian Shaw, the same kind of weight, 6'8". These are the strongest guys that have ever walked the planet. Yeah, it's hard to argue with that. And we've got some maybe bias. We might back your corner in the argument. So maybe we'll just tell you you were the greatest of all time. Well, you know, that is really a nice honor and everything.

I guess what you have to do is wait 20 years from now and then look back through history. Because all I had to look at was John Cuck, about 2370. John Cole, a little over 2400 and a lighter body weight. And Don Reinhout, 2420. I did 2425. It's sort of like after watching the movie Everest. Have you guys ever look at that movie,

they climb to the top and they put their flag. Well, I was at the top of the mountain. I would never have dreamt 35 years ago that a guy would walk through the valley and look me right in the eye. Half-thorpe Bjornsson at 6'9 and 4'20. It's like, things have changed.

And I didn't know that back then i could have taken my body weight to 400 pounds i thought that 330 and more was enough but i lived in alabama where the temperature was 100 degrees and uh i didn't do everything right there's definitely been advancements in the sport since from from then, I would say, right? For sure. You know, I mean, look at Eddie. Just to help with cell metabolism, he lies in a hyperbaric chamber. I mean, there's very few people that can do that. You know, there's all sorts of stem cell work and blood-type transfusions,

centrifuge, and all the rest. PCP. So a variety of ways, including chiropractic and so many nutritional aspects and training that, you know, some of these guys are getting some help from the best trainers in the world. If anybody knows the name Stan Eifring, how do I, am I saying his last name right? Pretty close. The point is, I know him. I've listened to him in different seminars. He's an extremely intelligent guy and a lifter who has not only walked the walk, but as he talks the talk, he's helping a lot of guys. He's helped Brian. He's helped Hafthor. And when you get those guys

ready and willing to take advice from guys like me and Eddie Cohen and a few of the greats from the past, then that's where you make your advances. And we continue to contribute to the culture and to helping these guys, and that's probably why they're advancing. They're getting help. Back in my day, there weren't very many guys that would help me. I had one coach, Tony Fitton, who showed up at my workouts, and he helped me. He loaded the weights, and it helped a lot.

But nowadays you've got companies supporting these athletes and helping them to live the lifestyle that they do eating 10 or 20 000 calories in a day yeah it's pretty pretty pretty amazing well i think we're gonna let you get we got quite a line piling up a lot of people want to see you thanks a lot for your time it's always great to be able to sit and chat with one of the greatest that's ever walked the earth, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, and thank you, and thanks to SBD here for bringing you here and getting you out and talking to everyone.

It's pretty cool to see you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bye, guys. All right, so next we met up with uh nick at lit from live large um live large is an apparel company out of based out of ohio um they're probably one of the best around as far as uh really supporting the sport of power lifting um you know nick's these he's the real deal he's a good dude and for us it's always nice to talk to somebody who knows more about selling shirts than we do because i think he sells a lot more goddamn t-shirts than we do but uh um yeah it was nice

to sit down and talk to nick we also got to talk with stacy burr and uh her girlfriend jillian and stacy is an absolute exceptional follow on instagram um she's strong as shit um trains super super intensely and she's uh definitely shit trains super super intensely and she's definitely a lifter to keep an eye on for the next year she's going to do very very big things so this is Massonomics at the Live Large booth

at the Arnold Are you rolling Tommy? Alright we're here in the Live Large booth at the Arnold this year joined by Nick here from Live Large how's it going today? It's going great another Large booth at the Arnold this year, joined by Nick from Live Large. How's it going today? It's going great. Another exciting day at the Arnold. Can't wait.

Nick was just basically making fun of our lift shirt, saying that under no circumstances will he ever make a beautiful blue shirt. Let's talk about your color schemes here. This is literally the most blue you will ever get. That's it. There will never be a blue shirt ever in the history of Live Large. If you want one, fuck off. Ain't happening.

Sorry. Now, if you remember last year, we talked about we had the pizza eating contest last year in which we all got smashed by what looked like a 165-pound teenager. How did you come out in that? I literally just hung out and talked shit and ended up eating my entire pizza over the course of way longer than the time limit but uh that ringer just showed up and just crushed everyone like he's like an actual professional competitive eater guy who's like oh there's a real eating contest like no we're actually just dicking around this is not real in any way like

get out of here we were trying to have fun up And he showed up, like, hoping for a trophy, I think. But that was wildly impressive. I actually follow that dude on Instagram now. And holy shit. Like, he actually is a real, real, real fucking eater. It's insane. I think he was at Nathan's hot dog eating contest this year, too. He qualified.

Got smashed, but I think that's okay. I mean, anyone who's qualified for Nathan's is way overqualified to eat against any of us. Even Dan Bell. It's not going to out-total any of us, though, however. No, definitely not. So we also have a few of your athletes here. How's it going? How are we going to pile in here?

Let's go underneath. So we're joined by Stacey Burr. Stacey, let's run over. What was your big meet last year? Let's run through your three lifts from your last big meet. I did the U.S. Open last year, and I totaled 1333, 501 squat, 303 bench, and 529 deadlift. But you're so much smaller than I am. I live medium, but I try to stay pretty strong.

But you live large. Yeah, I live large. Small, ego's big, though. Ego's big, so it makes up for it. How did you get stuck behind this booth here with Nick? Man, Nick was blessed with me after the USF, and he saw me, and he took a shot on me and sponsored me, and we've been going ever since

and so I've been trying to work with him and trying to get Live Large out there for us. Well I think you're doing a good job. Are you competing in the US Open again this year? Is that a big one coming up for you? That's the one. Any numbers you're shooting for? All of them. I'm the strongest out now. We're about 11 weeks out. I'm the strongest now that I've ever been, and we're just now starting. So if it's less than 1450, I don't want to talk about it. So that's where we're going for. That's awesome. You tend to keep most of your training numbers pretty quiet.

You're not posting a lot of your big lifts and training like a lot of people do, I guess. Is there a reason behind that? Oh, there's plenty of reasons. How much time you got? How much time you got? Well, you know, I guess. Is there a reason behind that? Oh, there's plenty of reasons. How much time you got? How much time you got? Well, you know, I'm a platform lifter. When it counts, it's on the platform. And so in training, I train.

I do just that. It doesn't matter if it's a lightweight day or if it's a speed day or if it's a max effort day. I'm going balls deep every single day, and I'm training to build that strength. And the only time I really have to show that that's when it counts on the platform so while everybody's you know exhibition or you know dick whipping a little bit I'll stay back and I'll pay my dues and then when it counts that's when that's when it's money so show time I mean so I've trained with Stacy a few times now

and uh it's kind of of terrifying she's one of the people like if you're training in the gym you just want to stay like 20 feet away from her at all times like I'm just not gonna breathe in the wrong direction I'm not going to touch anything just like the level of intensity like trained with a lot of people I've never Nick. I mostly train with her on vacation in Hawaii. Yeah, so that's me on a relaxed state. Vacation training is still like here when most super intense people are like here, roughly. So, yeah, it's complete nonsense.

I don't know. Everybody talks about the intensity, but it's just, I mean, it's the work that's got to be done. It's just whatever the task is, that's what you got to do. And so I'm bringing the intensity. I'm bringing everything I got every time because it's going to be wild. It's going to be wild. So that's what you got to do to get better. I like it.

Yeah, we definitely believe you. No BS. Just watch. Just watch. And so, Nick, how can people find you guys on social media? Live Large Fitness on Instagram. LiveLargeFitness on Facebook. It's all stupid anyways. What about the website?

LiveLargeFitness.com. And, Stacey, how can people follow you? You can follow me from Nick at LiveLarge, of course, because he posts me all the time. And you can follow me at my name is Bama Burr, and that's me. And that's it, really. And now Jillian is here. The question is, what are you hiding that she's eating? Smoking, eating, you know, it goes hand in hand.

How much food back here, Jillian, how much food back here? You can come on in the middle here. How much food back here is earmarked for you? All of it. All of it. There's a whole pallet of back stock in the bag that we had to move some songs out. We had to put her some food back here is earmarked for you? All of it. All of it. There's a whole pallet of back stocking back that we had to move some stuff down. We had to put her some food back there. My backpack is stacked with snacks.

Take a peek right there. I think when I checked Instagram this morning, there was multiple donuts having been eaten literally during that one feed. So what are we talking over the course of how many? Was it 24 hours when those stories expire? Yeah. How many donuts have you eaten many is it 24 hours when those stories expire yeah four honestly they're pretty big too they're probably like this big i like it well see when we come here we don't get to eat we just end up running around all the time and so we come back small and have to start over you guys are doing it right down so strong guys they're strong so well thanks a lot everybody um i think that'll wrap us up for yeah we really appreciate it thanks a lot for your time thank you guys

up next we sat down with stan efforting at while he was at the arnold selling his cooler 2.0 um stan we really want to talk to you again this year just to get him to uh Stan Efferding, while he was at the Arnold, selling his Cooler 2.0. Stan, we really wanted to talk to you again this year just to get him to speak to you guys about what he's been doing, working with Half Thor and Brian Shaw. This was, I believe, I'm trying to remember when this was. I think this was partway through the Strongman competition, maybe after the first day. So he weighed in on kind of what he's been doing nutritionally with those guys. And we actually finally got somebody to admit how much they actually weigh, which is actually really hard because most of the time people just speculate. Nobody ever really knows

the athletes kind of don't say they kind of try to keep that a secret. So it was kind of nice. We actually got to put Stan on the spot and make him put a number on it. So this is Stan Efferding, and he is easily one of the best follows out there. His YouTube channel, he puts out all sorts of good free information. So for us, it's a huge honor to get to interview Stan. I think he's probably one of my top five favorite people in the fitness world. So it's a big honor for us to interview him. So here's Stan at the cooler booth at the Arnold

that's right all right we are here at the stand with Stan Efferding at the Arnold at the cooler booth Stan how's it going this year good man it's great been busy so first question we asked when we got here is why don't Tanner and I's arms look like your arms? I'm older than you guys. Oh, it just takes a little more time. Yeah, it's just time. Time under tension. That makes sense now. I can understand that.

Last year we visited with Mike O'Hearn, and he had some choice work. Have you ever heard of him? Never heard of him. Does it ring a bell? Yeah. He had a lot to say about you, and most of it wasn't the most pleasant. Do you have anything we can tell him this year? Just that I'm better looking than him.

My hair is nicer. That's about it. Your hair is real. Now, we're big fans. We've been following you for quite a long time, and we really noticed a lot of the stuff you've been helping with some of these strong men with their nutrition and all this stuff lately you want to tell us about what how you had some of these guys coming into it this year you know what we tried to do was improve the amount of food they could

eat and cause as little digestive problems as possible so we everybody talks about the steak and rice diet the vertical diet that I've been putting these guys on. Really focus first and foremost on how much can they assimilate, not just how much they can eat, but how much they can use. Getting them healthy with the blood tests and their blood sugars is really important, you know, so their insulin sensitivity is good. And then just start driving massive quantities of the kinds of foods that they can utilize real well. And that's kind of an experimentation process. I give them a diet.

I ask them how they feel about the meals after each one. And then we do the 10-minute walks, and we just start to try and get them to be able to utilize more food more often, and then just keep feeding them. I like it. Yeah. Now, I've heard a lot of people say this year, first off, it looks to me like Brian Shaw and Half Thor are bigger than they've ever been. At least, I mean, they look bigger, fuller, and actually even more jacked than probably ever.

They're not just fatter or simply larger. How, first off, do you know, like, what they weighed going in? Because it seems like I only hear speculation. Yeah, there's a lot of 400 this, 400 that, but like an exact number. It seems like they don't put it out there very often. Yeah, well, Brian was north of 440, and Hopthor was just under 430. And again, like you said, their waist came down, their upper bodies grew bigger. I mean, we saw recently that Brian Shaw posted a selfie with his shirt off.

When have you ever seen that before? No, first time. So he's excited about the results that he got, and it was because we drove healthier foods, tried to eliminate a lot of stuff that brings a lot of baggage with it, you know, a lot of digestive issues. So he didn't eat any wheat, he stayed away from high-allergen foods, and we drove most of the quantity with basically steak and rice, and then got a good foundation of healthy foods

so that all of his micronutrients were taken care of as well. And we focused on stimulating the liver, stimulating the thyroid. So now he's just a machine. He feels better. They're healthy. They felt great yesterday after the first two events. They're both extremely healthy today and strong.

I think it's going to be a great war. So Hafthor, in that 420 to 440 range now, he's a relatively young man to 440 range now. He's a relatively young man. Over time, could you see an optimal weight for him being above 450, or is he in that range now? What do you think? I think he's pretty optimum. I don't like to just do weight for the sake of weights.

I want to make sure that when he came to me, he was 420, but he was getting fatter, and he wasn't getting any stronger. So we tried to flip the script on that and make sure that he was adding muscle and not fat. And that's what we were able to change over the course of the last year. Brian responded extremely quickly because we've only been working together for a few months. And his body composition changed immediately. And the biggest thing, and I'll rat him out on this, but the number one thing he said when I talked to him about the diet was,

he goes, oh, my God, I'm regular. Because, you know, when you eat that much food, particularly that type of food, you know, IHOP for breakfast and burritos for lunch and pizza for dinner, that you're on the toilet all the time. We can relate to that. Yeah, we can relate to that. We know. We've all been there. And that's why I know this works because I've been there.

I've done it. I've done it. I've tried it both ways many ways over all the years So now we've got the kind of nutrients that he's using where he's regular and he's healthy and he feels good And his stomach's good and he can eat more often More food more often without all of the lethargy and the exhaustion. He sees his energy levels are extraordinary the lethargy and the exhaustion. His energy levels are extraordinary. Either of those two that you'd like to see win. I suppose you couldn't say one or the other today.

No, you know, I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm just happy that they're both healthy and that they're both, you know, got the results that they wanted from the program. And I'll be honest with you, I've been working with Thor for over a year, and when Brian Shaw came to me, I said, Thor, what do you think about that? And Thor says, go for it. He goes, I want the best Brian, you know, when I compete against him at the Arnold and the World's Strongest Man. He goes, I want us to be, you know, the best of our game.

So that was awesome of him to do. Yeah, that is awesome. Well, Stan, I want to recommend to anyone watching this, make sure that they, what is your YouTube channel? Is it just Stan Efferding? Everything's Stan Efferding, yeah. The Instagram is Stan Efferding. The YouTube's Stan Effer stan efforting everything's stan efforting yeah the instagram is stan efforting the youtube stan efforting my website stan efforting.com it's quality branding there so make sure you follow stan everything specifically now the youtube

my favorite thing stan puts out exceptional free information all the time it's from the rhinos rants to now the 10 minute talks and i highly recommend checking it out. It's good, really quality information, super entertaining. Stan you're a real asset. Thanks man. Thanks a lot man. We really appreciate it. And make sure you go to, let's talk about the cooler real quick. Yeah thecooler.com or stanheffering.com gets you to the same place.

Got the new cooler 2.0 and it's been flying off the shelves, we're excited. Thecooler.com. Damon's not here this weekend is he? No I missed him, he's traveling doing his book tour. Yeah good well thanks a lot stan i really appreciate it thank you i think we shook hands didn't we all right so this next one we have uh tom finn uh this is at the jb boss booth i'm gonna i'm gonna give a little context to this because this is about the most chaotic fucking two minutes of audio you're gonna hear um this is there's most chaotic fucking two minutes of audio you're going to hear.

This is there's a moment every year, I think, at the Arnold where somewhere between like 1 and 3 p.m. on that Saturday where the crowd is way too fucking packed. And everybody's trying to move one direction or another. And they're just trying to basically get away from where they are. And you can't get anywhere it's fucking the most miserable place in the world and this was when we had scheduled to meet um tom finn and uh jacked and homeless and tom callous at the jb boss booth um they were going to come there and there's going to be a whole bunch of fans piled up there and everyone's going to be chugging beer. And it was pretty cool, except it was at during that exact moment in the Arnold in which you can't fucking get anywhere. So we had this huge scene right in

front of boss's booth where people are pulling out fucking beer bongs and funnels out of their backpacks. And we've got cameras set up. And we're trying to move around through the crowd and trying to get shots. And so this whole thing is fucking loud. Everybody's yelling. I don't even know how the video is going to turn out with this because it was such tight quarters. We're talking like shoulder to shoulder, nuts to butts humanity for fucking, you know, basically of half a mile inside this building. And so we got in.

We pretty much came in, chugged a beer. We let the Toms and basically do a damn wrestling promo. And then we bugged right on out of there because I think we were going to pull our hair out if we had to stay. The crowd was so fucking thick, you guys. So here is a few minutes of a lot of us yelling and drinking beer with Tom Finn at the Arnold. This is also at the JB Boss booth. So thanks to them guys for at least giving us a little bit of shelter out of the crowd. We jumped behind into the booth and crowded that place up too.

So thanks to Boss and them, but here's Tom Finn and them at the JB Boss booth. So we are here at the JB Boss booth at the Arnold Classic 2018. Tom Finn is here raising all sorts of hell. He's throwing beers around. We're shotgunning beer. Joining with Jackton Holmes. Tom Callis is hiding out. I don't know where he is. Tom's hanging out back here. We're preparing to do a 21 beer

salute for all the fallen drunks out there. I dedicate this to every drunk that's dead. A 21 beer salute. First beer I had today took a half an hour to drink. Tell me about it. Well, last night we, what did we get? Tom got in a fight with Ronda Rousey. I got my hair ripped off the back of my head by Randy Couture, and we drank about 40 fucking beers with Brandon Popeye.

What's his last name? Purdue. And we woke up. I had one Pedialyte PD light one taco and three beers and I'm ready to fucking do it all over again baby let's get fucking stupid you say homeless man this the world's strongest homeless man I'm just happy to be here and I want everybody to give a big shout for JB boss right now boss right now we also have nwo Hulk Hogan here Tom Callis yeah we got Hulk Hogan checking in here we're ready to party we're very hungover had some pity lights this morning for breakfast a bacon burrito and now we're chugging

Miller lights we'll be intoxicated the Hilton Hotel probably drinking with Had some Pedialytes this morning for breakfast, a bacon burrito, and now we're chugging Miller Lights. We'll be intoxicated at the Hilton Hotel, probably drinking with Ronda Rousey again. Arnold's on his way. Come on down. 5, 2, 3. Chaos, right? So next we met with Gino, basically the pirate of powerlifting announcing for the USAPL. Gino is probably one of my favorite people to interview simply because he's so good on the mic.

He's a guy that can show up at 8 o'clock in the morning for a powerlifting meet and get people fucking super jazzed up to squat, which is impressive on its own. I mean, he's probably the world's best spreadsheet reader and somehow finds a way to make it super interesting. So Gino's really charismatic, really good on the mic, and he's been in the powerlifting world for an awfully long time. So this is a nice little conversation we have with Gino. We actually got to do this. When you see the video, which will be up on our YouTube channel at

youtube.com forward slash massonomics, we actually got to film this right up on the USAPL stage at the Arnold. So that was pretty cool. So here is Gino. I do not like being around these big boys.

I'm usually the big, well, the tallest, not the biggest. And I'm around a couple of giants here. They're like two tree trunks. I'm at the Sequoia Mountains. All right, let's go. That's what we've actually been finding, Gino, is that we go to interview a lot of lifters, power lifters. These guys, they're huge and they're strong.

They're just not that tall. That's right, because most of, you know, well, power lifters, what's the perfect body? The exact opposite of what I am, okay? You know, the shorter and the squatty. You know, I remember Arnold years ago when he was doing an interview. The little short guys, you know, they would pose down like this. And Arnold would say, I don't care that you're short. Stretch it out.

You know, give us the right pose. So it's nice to be around two giants man two gigantors here in the house you get that jonah and pretty soon they're coming for you so earlier that we were joking about what time it is what day it is what's this weekend like for you here at the arnold you know i don't know if i'm coming or going sometimes uh i get the the schedule last second and they they just, thank goodness, there's plenty of people walking around with clipboards that tell me what to do because I just kind of show up, and then they kind of drag me along

and tell me where to go, when to be there. And they're running the marathon out there today, and, man, was I nervous because I didn't see Arnold running, but I was nervous because I didn't think we were going to get here on time. But I'm looking forward to the Titan Bench Bash today. This is going to be good. And Jonah, the Titan Bench Bash, wish you were here, pal. We miss you.

Not the same without him. No, it's not. And you know what? That's okay. I think he took some time off for, what, like two weeks, and then he came back again. I heard he lost some weight, and I heard he's in good physical shape, and he's actually getting stronger. Who would have thought?

A super heavyweight loses weight and comes back with more strength. So I'm looking forward to seeing him back on the bench. I announced Jonah in, see, I'm all over the world and I forget, Denmark. Denmark two years ago when he won the world championship, Denmark, Denmark two years ago when he won the world championship and he stared down, he stared down my man from, from, from, from Finland. I forget his name right now. And with those steely blue eyes that he has, you know, and, and last year, what did he do? He tied, right? And there was a tie, but the body weight, he got the silver man. Jonah, you're number one in my book. You always will be, pal. For sure. Now let's not let that go to Jonah's head. Now you're coming our way here. When is

this? Really soon here. A couple of weeks? Yeah. The exact day is March 17th. St. Patrick's Day. St. Patty's Day. And from what I understand, in between sets, we're going to have a couple of kegs of green beer. Now, I know in Chicago they dye the river green. In South Dakota, we dye the beer green. So it's going to be a St. Paddy's Day powerlifting party. And, man, I hope you all come because I am looking forward to crank it up on St. Paddy's Day. Awesome.

That's going to be fun. Definitely. Now, is Masonomics going to have a lot of lifters there or what? Yes. We've got quite a few. How many have you got? I think we'll have seven or eight. Seven or eight?

Yeah. I hope I get to shout out a couple more state records for them and possibly some national records because the Massanomics boys, they rock all intensity, man, all intensity. The Massanomics boys are in the house. That's our favorite line. We cut that from you saying that last year, and we still use it all the time. Feel the traps on these boys, man.

Oh, my God, it's like two tree trunks. One other question. This weekend, could you pick out one moment, one lifter, or anything that really stuck out to you that you enjoyed seeing? I'm going to have to say it was as recently as yesterday with the Raw bench when Jen Thompson beat her own world record and threw up 314 pounds, I believe, at 134 pound body weight. That's crazy. That girl is just insane

She is a genetic freak I'm doing one of her meats to not to plug somebody else other than South Dakota We got the Battle of the Border coming up, which is a Jen Thompson meet coming up Later in April next month right after Jonah's meet by the way, out of the clutches of the largest blue whale in the ocean, right from the Old Testament, Jonah Leo will rise again. No whale can hold him down, and he will be on the bench once again. Jonah Leo does not sleep with the fishes. He kicks ass and takes them out.

Jonah, we'll see you on the bench soon. That is the perfect way to finish, I think. Thanks a lot, Gino. I appreciate it. Thank you both for having me. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Gino. Hey, thank you.

You guys are the best. Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing you in March here. What is your history? All right, next we caught up with, this was after the, I think the bench competition. We met up with Jen Thompson. We got to step outside, away from the noise. So I think this sounds a little better here than it was in some of the earlier clips in this episode. But we got to, yeah, I got to talk with Jen Thompson.

And I mean, she is basically one of the best bench pressers pound for pound that is on the face of the earth and um yeah she does it she does it better than anybody else so um yeah she's a she's a legend it's an honor to interview her and uh so here's here is jen thompson All right, we're here with Jen Thompson, world record holder and best pound-for-pound bench presser, man or woman, in the world. Would you agree with that? Yeah. The numbers don't lie, do they?

They don't. You really can't argue with them. They're just there. Tell us about how the meet went yesterday. It was awesome. It was the Grand Prix sponsored by SBD, and there was four of us. It was kind of everybody's game. So the competition was fierce, and it was awesome, and I had my day, and I pulled out a pretty handedly win. What did you bet?

Throw some numbers our way here. I squatted 342. I bencheded 313 and i deadlifted 446 jesus we've got a word like we were talking about it earlier uh maybe you call it like sneaky strong i wondered if you're ever around people that maybe don't understand lifting quite as well or don't know you from your lifting if you explain some of those things to them are they shocked or you ever get people that just don't believe you yeah everyone always says i think you would be bigger when they meet me they're like you're not as big as i thought you'd be which i figure is a compliment definitely so

what what is your secret then um well i think think competing-wise, I always open super light, and I make giant jumps in my lifts. So a lot of people have a hard time doing that, but I have sort of an unusual strategy that works for me. So I think that works. And then I think workout-wise, we do the three big lifts, but I do just a ton of accessory work. And I think that's what's made me really strong is all the accessory stuff I do.

Yeah, I think you're pretty well known for your heavy holds, right? Yeah. What's the heaviest holding that you've done before? For the bench, it was 520. And your body weight, just to remind everyone, is? 135. So my bench press strategy, which is to just get bigger apparently i'm fucking up that helps too weight pushes weight we say

i think you make a lot of men around the gyms in the world feel bad about themselves i hear about it sometimes on ig yeah and uh earlier this was off camera you happen to mention that our lift shirt you happen to sleep in that sometimes i want to make sure we get that on camera too oh yeah it's my favorite night shirt it's the most comfortable shirt i own and i brought i always bring it on special occasions so it's here it's probably why i slept so good the night before my competition, for sure. Yeah. Is it fun for you coming to the Arnold like this and like getting stopped by people? I imagine that doesn't happen when you're walking around your hometown all the time, but here you're kind of, you know,

a little bit of a celebrity. Is that a cool feeling or is that weird? It's super cool. Actually, my sister came down from Detroit yesterday and it's the first time she's seen me compete in years, and she took pictures of everyone taking pictures of me. So she's got, like, 20 different pictures of me getting my picture taken. But I love it. Like, people are always like, oh, I'm sorry to bother you. It's no bother. I think it's so cool that people want their picture with me, so it's neat.

Yeah, definitely. I think that's got us about wrapped up. Thanks a whole bunch for your time. Great work yesterday, and we look forward to seeing you lift in the future. I feel like I'm between, like, the Twin Towers or something. That's not the first time we've gotten that. Actually, everyone we've interviewed has been surprisingly short. What we lack in strength we try to make up for in just height.

Go grab Blaine Sumner over there and make you feel a little better. Yeah, yes, yes. Yeah, we stood next to him last year and interviewed him in this very same corner. He's as big as that pop machine over there for sure. You definitely have to stand more this way. Yes, definitely. Well, thank you. We really appreciate it.

It's awesome to meet you. Real nice meeting you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Now, that is an interview where you are definitely going to want to check out on YouTube. That's youtube.com forward slash massonomics. Just to see, compared to Tanner and I,

Jen is definitely a very normal-sized person, and the numbers that she can bench press are absolutely incredible. Yeah, that's pretty nuts. So up next, we made our way over to the SPD booth again, and we stopped by and talked to Ray Williams, who we were super stoked to get him, obviously. This was like right after he had his big squat day,

and we'll let him get into the numbers. But we had some questions we wanted to actually ask him this year. We were prepared enough and actually got to him. So my biggest concern, as always, when I watch him lift, is how much fucking time he spends with the bar on his back. I think he puts it on his back, he walks it out, he know uh sings a couple songs um but yeah so ray kind of got into what goes through his head and why why that's in his setup we have to talking about his his unreasonably small knee sleeves and how he's able to fit them over his giant legs

um but yeah apparently of all the things ray can do having big calves is not is not one of them but here's's Ray Williams at the SBD booth. We're joined here at the SBD booth. Big Ray Williams. Ray, coming off a big day yesterday. How'd squatting go? It didn't go as planned. I wanted 1080, but fatigue from the past three weeks of traveling really kind of threw me off,

so 1069 was the number. Yeah, I'd probably be okay with that. I don't know about you. World record day isn't bad. Yeah, I mean, it was a blessing. It was a true blessing. So you wanted to just totally smash your own world record as opposed to just beat it a little bit? I mean, when you train from October to, what is this, March for one meet?

Yeah. Like, I wanted total domination, but you can only do what the body will allow you to do. For sure. Now, speaking of what your body will allow you to do, I remember watching a video recently of you wearing your extra large SPD knee sleeves, putting them on. I wear 2XL knee sleeves, and I fight like a little girl to get mine up. Am I just a wuss, or is there a secret I'm missing out on? How are you getting those on?

Well, I have a hereditary disadvantage that most men don't have to worry about. I have small calves. So, plus, I roll my knee sleeves different than everybody else does. Most people just fold them one time. I fold mine at the bottom and at the top so that I can get under the knee apron and they just slide up easier. You just grab a hold of it and yank it up. What I just took away from that is you do not need large calves to have a big squat. No, no. Now, the question is is would you trade bigger calves for your big squat no not at all that's the right answer i'd probably trade my thick calves for your squat too

so uh what i'm wondering i don't think it's a question of if so much as when but 500 kilograms what do you think about that um i got to do some posterior chain work, and hopefully I can put it up by Worlds. That's the goal by Worlds. I want to make it a world record because, you know, health is a huge part of what we do. So I'm trying to do it while I'm healthy, while I got it. So that's the goal by Worlds, you know, and we'll see from there.

We've also noticed a few things with your squat. You seem to spend so much more time than a lot of other athletes with the bar on your back. At the top. You walk it out, you stay there. I feel like you sing a little song to yourself. I mean, we're talking like many, many, many seconds in which I would be, anytime I step back with a heavy squat, I feel like in a video game,

my power bar goes boop. And how do you stand out there for that long? Why do you stand out there for that long? And what's going through your head? It's a mentality. Pretty much when you squat that big you know i'm saying you have to have a fearless mentality because nine times out of ten i'm in the gym by myself um if something does happen i don't have anybody so i think i've conditioned myself to where i'm

not gonna squat it until i'm ready like i think the longest i stood with the bar on my back was like a minute so you know my body I'm conditioned to do it. It's second nature almost. Kind of like when I compete. I stand there and I'm not going to squat it until I'm ready. I like it. Ray, this week I saw you post a video. You did a

double deadlift. It was about over 800, about 820 pounds or so. But we happened to notice you were wearing a shirt that had this same lettering on it, our shirt. That was about the sexiest deadlift video we've ever seen. Any thoughts? Oh, yeah. You know, when you throw on the lift, you know what I'm saying, you got to go hard to go home.

You know what I'm saying? So I went hard. Amen. One other question I had. So I went hard. Amen. One other question I had. There's been some other meets coming up, non-USAPL, like the U.S. Open.

There's the tribute meet that's coming out soon, and they're starting to throw more money out there at some of that stuff. Is there any amount of money or anything that would get you to want to do that? I mean, is that something that you'd ever do? I'm just curious. I don't think there's a right or a wrong answer, but just curious your thoughts. I mean, money makes everybody think twice. I mean, that's why, you know, you have so many people that want to do it.

I mean, $40,000 is more money than some people make in a year. So, I mean, it's a lot, and it gives people a lot to think on. But as far as me right now, I'm more concerned about I want to be an IPF Hall of Famer. That's the goal. I mean, I came into this as a nobody. I built somewhat of a reputation, and I want to ride that hopefully one day into the Hall of Fame. Yeah, that's a pretty awesome point of view to take on it too, I think. I guess I have one last question, Ray. What time is it?

It's always money time. Always money time. It's always money time. You heard it here first. Thanks a lot, Ray. We really appreciate your time. Awesome, man. Thanks.

You're the best. Can we get a picture with you, Ray? Yes, sir. So when I asked Ray what time it was, I was really worried that he wasn't going to get the joke. So I'm glad he bit down on that one. Next, we're still at the SPD booth for this next one. This is Terry Hollins, a strongman competitor. I didn't realize, actually, until Tanner brought it up in this interview, actually, how many times Terry Hollins has strongman competitor. I didn't realize actually until Tanner brought it up in this interview

actually how many times Terry Hollins has competed at Worlds. Really, really fucking impressive. Most of the topic of conversation now, which is probably for anybody that sees him now, is how he's so lean and so jacked now because I think he's dropped, he says in this interview, but around 100 pounds. And so, yeah got he's on the uh the jacked and tan train but he gets in this and goes through like kind of how he dropped the weight still how much food he's eaten and uh what that uh transition has been like so um here's

terry hollins at the spd booth ready okay we're here with the big Terry Hollins, but what I'm wondering is what happened to the rest of you? Yeah, I mean, I've just been on a bit of a weight cut the last year and a half, two years. I've come down from about 450 to 330 now. So, yeah, I mean, it's more just I'm getting a bit older and I need to start looking after myself a little bit better. And power's not quite there where it used to be, but I'm hoping I can sort of make up for it on some of the moving events.

I mean, the strength's coming back, but initially I took like a 60-kilo drop on my deadlift and things like that, but it is working its way back up, and hopefully I can get somewhere near to where I used to be. That's what I'm wondering is do you think at a physique like this, do you think you can eventually get to the point over time where you're at that same strength level? I'm too sure i mean hopefully i can obviously and i'll keep working hard to do that but he's um you know i mean for me now at the point i'm at in my career

i'm enjoying doing strong man still i want to prolong my career as long as possible realistically my chance of winning world's strongest man have probably passed and i accept that now so for now it's about being as competitive as i can for as long as i can because i want to keep doing it you know because i still love doing it definitely how long did it take you to drop the weight off so i've dropped around about yeah 120 pounds in just over two years so i mean most of that's come sort of in the last year and a half i was gradually sort of coming down from 205 kilos to what's like 450. And I came down to about, well, just a touch under 400 pounds. And then from in the last year and a bit is where I've made the drop down to like 330.

Any like real specific changes or did you just have to stop force feeding to maintain that big weight? Yeah, I mean, it was a little bit of just cleaning up my diet a little bit. But the big one for me, which, you know, is not something I'm proud of. I used to like a good few beers on the weekend, and so I basically stopped drinking. We know how that goes. Yeah, exactly. So I stopped drinking completely.

I haven't drunk for a year now, any alcohol at all. And, yeah, just cleaned my diet up a little bit, tried to increase the intensity in my training sessions a little bit. Now, when you were at 450, it seems like a lot of those guys at that weight, you guys really are eating to an uncomfortable level all of the time anyways. Is it kind of easy when you are consuming that much food to just like not eat until it hurts and then the weight just kind of comes off? Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, I'm still hitting like 8 000 calories a day so it's not like i'm oh you know i'm really under eating i'm i'm cutting weight on 8 000 calories a day so it's

not too bad but um yeah i mean before i was probably 12 000 13 000 and eating a lot of shit food as well to be honest just because you know i'm not like guys like brian shaw who've got these ridiculous appetites and for me to hit 12000 calories a day, I have to eat some crappy food in there as well because I'm just not going to do that eating clean all the time. So it was just a case of just cleaning it up a little bit. I still eat way more food than I need, so I feel like I do. But yeah, it's just a case of just getting the shit out of the diet

and eating a little bit more healthily and stopping Drinking all the time. So if we were to tell people the Terry Hollins diet if you want to lose weight just 8,000 calories a day start there see what happens Dial it in from there. Question I've got for you Terry. So you got the killer physique now You've got this awesome British accent. I feel like the ladies have to be digging this. What do you think? I don't know actually the reason I'm here mainly is because my girlfriend was competing in the fitness category She comes second in the pro fitness, which you know, I'm over the moon for her

She's worked really hard and you know, I mean, yeah if you got a hot a hot girlfriend like that You've got at least look up half decent That's a good philosophy Yeah, how about world's strongest Man this year? Are you competing? Yeah, I actually got my invite since I've been here. They were trying to send it to me a few weeks ago, but for some reason they had the wrong email for me. But, yeah, no, I'm qualified.

End of April, off to the Philippines. I've got Arnold's Australia, Europe's Strongest Man, and FIBO in between then. So I've got a really busy couple of months coming up. Does that become a lot of competing? I mean how bad does that beat a guy up that kind of doing the whole tour thing? Yeah I mean it's pretty tough and I mean it's really closed in now. The season used to be a lot longer everything seems to happen at once now. You used to have the Arnolds in March and then Worlds in sort of

September time but for some reason now it's all really crammed together. The only positive is once i get past may i'm pretty much done for the year so i can relax a little bit but um i mean yeah it's going to be a tough couple of months but you know i'll pick and choose a little bit europe's is a big one for me and worlds obviously the fibo and arnold's australia are more for fun use them as training sessions so i'll train in the week as i normally would and use it as like an event training session and um hopefully you know i can pick up a few little decent placings in those two but obviously the main focus is always going to be world's strongest man yeah uh I don't know how much you

got to watch the Arnold Strongman or not here but curious if you had any takeaways between uh watching Thor Thor dominated awesome performance or Anything about Brian or Mateus? There's some good performances out there. Anything you noticed? Yeah, I mean, I watched most of it. If I wasn't watching it down here, I was watching it back in my hotel room on the live stream. But, I mean, Thor's looked in great shape for a couple of months now. I mean, he's been getting stronger and stronger.

I'm not surprised he won. I mean, obviously, I think Brian and Thor, they're head and shoulders above the rest of the guys as a strong man as a whole. But, you know, there were some good performances. I thought like Rauno Heinle did well on the axle yesterday. He was starting to struggle a little bit with injuries. Mateus did amazing on the stone. And, yeah, I mean, I really enjoyed it.

Gerry on the frame carry as well was really impressive. And, yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, they did amazing. And I've done the Arnold's a couple of times, and I think people sort of don't always understand how hard it is, I mean, on your body. By the time you get to that last event and it's like a 400-pound axle, I mean, that's a big weight if it was the first event, you know, let alone the last event. And for the guys to go out there and even get one rep is amazing. One other thing, just to put in perspective to our listeners,

you know, how good you've been at this for how long? Have you done more World's Strongest Man finals or World's Strongest Man competitions than anyone? Or how many have you done? So I've competed at World's Strongest Man now 13 times, and I made the final nine years in a row, which is the record for the most consecutive finals. So, yeah, I mean, it's been pretty good.

But, you know, obviously the aim is to get back to the final this year because I've missed it the last two years, and I was retired for a year as well. So, yeah, the plan is to get back to the final this year and see what happens. Awesome. Awesome. Terry Hollins, lean, not very mean.

Nice guy. Yeah, thanks for taking the time. I'm glad you're here with SBD. Thank you. Thank you. So if you've been paying attention to these interviews you're probably noticing a trend and that is that tanner and i have no idea how to start or finish these interviews so we end up uh kind of awkwardly trailing off or shaking hands with them three or four times and um yeah we're not actually good at that.

We have no idea what we're doing. Anyway, I'm going to tell you a little backstory behind this next one. So at this point in the weekend, we were pretty much over the Arnold. We had all of our stuff. We got all of our interviews that we thought we were going to get. It was later in the day, Sunday. And we thankfully got a tip that Half Thor was going to be making his way to the spd booth i don't know for how long he was there but we just got a heads up on it so we were literally we ate and we're packed up our shit out of the press room and we were

going to walk back to the airbnb and had we not drug our feet and taken our time we would have been blocks away by the time we got this call. So we got the heads up that Thor was going to be there. So we fucking packed everything up and just, you know, lowered our shoulder and piled our way through the crowd to try to get up to the get up to the SPD booth. And we got to interview half Thor Bjornsson again. So this year, however, we were almost prepared with some questions to ask him, kind of, in that we had actually thought about the possibility of interviewing him. Last year, I think, he just materialized in front of me when I had the microphone. So I was like, oh, shit.

And I asked him if he'd answer a few questions. So he did. And then I realized once I got things set up that I didn't, I was not prepared to actually talk to him. Like I didn't get on the plane going, so when you're talking to Half Thor, what are you going to ask him? So I just kind of froze. So this last year, as soon as I, I think the first question I asked him was, how are you feeling? Like a fucking asshole. And anyway, this year we were a little bit more prepared.

It's also coming off of a big win for him. So I think he was pretty receptive. The interesting thing with this is it gets, anytime he's around, obviously a crowd starts to pile up. But then you get camera crews and microphones out and shit. And it's just like, I think everybody gets nervous. Like, we were there. We tried not to take too much of his time. And there's obviously a lot of people waiting in line who wanted to talk to him, wanted to get pictures and we're kind of jamming up his time at the SPD

booth. So we made it quick. I think we got it in an under five minutes, but, um, yeah, but by the time we were done, there was hundreds of people waiting around, and it was definitely time for us to get the fuck out of the Arnold. So I believe this is our last interview of the Arnold. Yeah, so Hafthor Bjornsson at the SBD booth. And again, I cannot thank the guys from SBD enough for this. They were really, really exceptional. So SBD, we support them.

They help us out. We help them out. So SBD, we support them. They help us out. We help them out. So buy some shit from SBD. They're good people. So here's Hafthor Bjornsson at the SBD booth. All right, one last double check. Don't want to fuck this up. I'm recording.

All right, we're here at the SBD booth at the Arnold this year with Hafthor Bjornsson. We met last year. You probably don't remember, but big win last night. Congratulations. How does it feel to finally get it done here? Feels great, you know, all the, feels great knowing that all the hard work, you know, dedication, you know, finally paid off, you know. It's been a long journey, but coming here in Columbus, Ohio and finally taking the first place know it's a it means a lot to me. You've had a absolutely huge training year this year we've been following a lot of people follow you but you've been putting up

some huge numbers in training we've also been seeing some things that almost resemble powerlifting training out of you a lot lately is that represent a change in the way you've been training? Throughout the years I've been training similar but you know I always try to change, I always try to improve, become better. Few years back people said Thor can never win the Ardennals, it's too heavy for him, it doesn't suit him, he's not strong enough you know statically, can't get big enough numbers, you can can press enough and so on and so on but I guess I proved them wrong here I've been working very hard on my deadlift and my overhead presses the last eight years and it finally is

paying off big now you showed him a thing or two this weekend that's for sure can you describe that feeling when you hit that world record 1,041 deadlift? I mean, you do a great job of showing emotion out there. What are you thinking when that goes down? You know, at the moment, you're not really, you know, thinking about anything except, you know, you're going there and You believe you can lift the weight, you know for me it's like All the years all the dedication all the everything, you know

It's paying off and you know it's a It's more about you know, I wouldn't believe I couldn't lift it, and I would never lift it, you know. Before I go to the bar, I know I already did. I've been lifting it in my head before, you know, so I knew I was going to lift the weight. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

Now, on a lighter note, Half Thor, we really want to know what everybody wants to know. How in the fuck do you fit on an airplane to get here? It's difficult, man. It's very difficult. I mean, you're a big guy yourself. But I have to fly business class. Otherwise, I wouldn't fit, to be honest with you.

I believe it. I keep telling them that, but they won't give me the seats. So do you have your sight? You just did this first win here. Next, World's Strongest Man 2018. I assume that's what you got your sight set on next. Yeah, I have two big competitions coming up. I have Europe's Strongest Man first in April. And then I have World's Strongest Man in end of you know so I'm just going back home now training hard focusing you know on those two competitions you know I always have the goal to win them as

well I know you always got your crew of boys with you from Iceland do you guys get to celebrate at least tonight or what our All celebration and we go out and we might, you know, just eat some nice food then we go home and sleep. That's celebration enough then.

All right. Well, we got a lot of people lined up here to see you today. We don't want to jam up your day or their day anymore. Thanks a lot for your time. Congratulations

and wish the best of luck this season. There you have it. That was the fucking Arnold. So, uh, thanks a lot for listening guys. Um, I'm Tyler. You can follow me on Instagram at Tyler F and stone. Tommy can be found on Instagram at Tomahawk underscore D Tanner runs the official massonomics Instagram page. That's at Massanomics. All these videos will be done really soon, I think, and will be up on our YouTube channel. It's youtube.com

forward slash Massanomics. You'll get an idea of how much bigger Thor is than all of us. And yeah, so this was another awesome trip. We're really fortunate to be able to get to meet and talk to all these people. So hope you guys really like it.

We had a hell of a fun time making it. So, yeah, go to massanomics.com. Also, while you're there, go to the store and buy some shirts and shit. We have all sorts of stuff now, the lift shirt, the huge Shirt, all our OG stuff, hats, everything's out now. So massanomics.com, there's the store. All our articles are there as well. You can also sign up for our newsletter there. We pimp out a bunch of coupons, and they're the first people to get deals.

So, yeah. Well, thanks a lot for listening. We will talk to you next week with our 104th, which is technically the two-year episode. So thanks a lot for listening, and we'll talk to you next week with our 104th which is technically the two-year episode so thanks a lot for listening and we'll talk to you next week stay strong you just heard the massanomics podcast with your ears you're welcome check us out on facebook find us on instagram at massanomics and make sure you visit massanomics.com and buy some of that sweet Masanamics gear. From your friends at Masanamics Studio, home of the world's strongest podcast, stay strong. Thank you.