Massenomics Podcast - Ep.116: The Strongman Showdown Returns

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

In this week's episode we discuss many of the world records that were broken at 2018 IPF Worlds.  Why are there so many... and will this crazy pace ever slow down?  Then we give some info on the 2018 Massenomics Strongman Showdown, and how we plan to make it even better than the last two years. 

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. and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics gear. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 116 of the Massanomics podcast. I'm Tanner, and I'm here with... Tommy.

Ryan. So Ryan's back for a second episode in a row here. How does it feel? Amazing. We're on a hot streak amazed balls the location is a little better this time yeah yeah so uh continuing we're on episode three of a different location now we are officially nomadic you know what that's from i know what it's really what's it from uh that skate video uh no tony hawk pro skater with chad mosca yeah mosca beats tanner i'm sure you even played some tony hawk back in the day I know what it's from. What's it from? That skate video. The Tony Hawk Pro Skater with Chad Muska. Yeah, yeah.

Muska beats. Tanner, I'm sure you even played some Tony Hawk back in the day, didn't you? Yeah. Just the other day, a song came on in the gym or something, and I said to Ryan, I was like, oh, Tony Hawk Pro Skater. It was one of them. It was Jerry was a race car driver. Oh, yeah.

That is a classic, yeah. Yeah, as a kid, that song was one of the crazier things I'd ever heard, I feel like. Like when you factor in that one, because that was 20 hawk one wasn't it when you factor in jerry was a race car driver and then like superman obviously instant classic um i'm trying to think what was even else was even on that was uh alien ant farm was on the third one i don't think they're on the first one it's it's it's all songs like now when i hear them i immediately associate them with uh with being tony hawk skater and being like 10 and yeah did you know actually when they when they made that um video game tony hawk didn't even skateboard yet and so to fulfill the prophecy

he had to become a skateboarder then it's like well i don't want to be a liar now i have to do they kind of called him out on it so he had to become a skateboarder after the video game came out. It's a crazy turn of events. That's not true. No, no. Because I don't know well enough to know. Well, it's just like actually the same thing happened. Tiger Woods, they made a golf game, and then he decided to become a golfer.

Trust the process. It's just how these things go. So where we're at today is in Massanomics Gym. We've never recorded from Massanomics Gym before. It only took us 116 episodes to give a shot. Well, we're almost in it. We're in the entryway. Maybe next time.

Actually, next week. Okay, so we could kind of plan out. This is almost like the podcast tour. Next week, we could go in the gym. And then after that, we could go in the bathroom in the gym. Although it's not an excellent tour because all you see is about a 10-foot wide span and then a little bit of a white wall at our back. But trust us, we are at the entryway of Massanomics Gym.

This actually, as far as the table goes, we're all squared up to the camera. So this is pretty good. That's true. We've never done it quite like this before like just a straight table in front of it it's uh i put a lot of thought into this setup today uh about five minutes before you guys came yeah i mean i think we could win a daytime emmy for this i think people have won more for a lot less presentation uh lighting in here actually isn't too bad so if you're watching on a video on youtube i think i think it'll look decent. Well, we're not positive.

It is a little echoey in here. It's all concrete walls and not much in this room, but we'll do what we can. We have some pretty advanced techniques and post-audio editing that will fix this up. A lot of money to... Our production budget is insanely big time uh money and our abilities are i mean the sky's the limit unlimited there's really no limit yeah uh but were we going to talk about i know last episode we we touched on ipf worlds it was starting and it's still not over we're only recording a few days later but a lot more of it

is done uh where we're going to talk about some of those results that we've seen yeah i think we could talk a little bit about it um you know the last time we did chat kind of the uh the consensus is there's a lot of world records and crazy stuff happening and uh the last few days have been no exception um actually one that's well kind of one that um i think we might have touched on a little bit was brett gibbs and the uh the battle for the 83s with um gibbs and that russell ory and uh again can't remember the guy's name again but um it actually came down to uh brett gibbs won it with an 830 kilo total which makes him the heaviest lifter yeah the heaviest 10x lifter in ipf history which is

pretty crazy and actually just to show how impressive that is uh yeah i think did he get third yeah um so just to show how crazy that that eight yeah yeah yeah just to show how crazy that 830 total is uh actually the next class up the the 93s, the winner of that, Ellis McClain, also had an 830 total. So Brett almost could have won. Almost could have won. I mean, he could have tied for the class. Actually, I think as far as IPF rules go, he would have had the better Wilks. If they had the same total and the better Wilks, I believe he wins, right?

Yeah. So, yeah, technically, I mean, he could have won that class too. But I think that's his first championship after making a run at it like six times and just never quite never quite getting it together so uh just to put that 10x thing in perspective i was just thinking to myself what would ray williams have to total for a 10 times body weight total 4 000 400 pounds yeah about 400 yeah yeah yeah i would say the only right now the only person coming to mind in the ipf that could make a shot at it would be a healthy jesse norris and he had to have been really close because i think at that 205 i think his total was right around

yeah it was like it was like 19 something or or 2000. So, you know, if he could ever get healthy again, it's been like three years. But he could have a legit shot. He's making progress. Do you follow him at all? It seems like it. He's really good at doing heavy sets of 10. God. Yeah, he's just like, oh, 495.

I did eight sets of 12 today. Legs kind of felt like jello. Yeah, it's like, oh, and then I did deficits, six plates for eight sets of 10. It's like, ah, man, if you're hurt, that just seems like a lot of time and tension to be doing this. I don't know what his normal training is like, but everything that, you know, from the past two years is just all super high volume and really heavy.

So I don't know how he does that. I have no idea. No, but i do look forward to when he does get back and back into competing yeah assuming it will ever happen so that his weight class would be the 93s yeah that was the one he was in so if he's there that's not happening where the 83s are totally no no way yeah 837.5 kilogram total, Justin Aras. He was 837? 840. That's his highest ever?

That's his best total, 840. Okay, so that's only 10 more kilos still. Yeah. Huh. Oh, actually, you know what? I think that that total, I think that that 19-whatever, that 2000, I think that was a Reebok record breakers, I think, when he did that. Oh, yeah. So that would probably be why then because, yeah, yeah,

I'm fairly certain on that one uh who so what russell or he did he break the world record squat then in that weight class i think maybe it's uh there's so many world records i know it gets tough to keep track numbers i'm gonna say he might have but also um i'm trying to remember because there was the i got i believe the guy from japan and now i can't remember what class that was at now but the guy from japan had it um oh no that was in that lighter class with um a taylor atwood um and taylor atwood i think set several world records yeah including including the total and maybe the deadlift or something like that but yeah he had several there um it's always exciting when we see uh friends of the podcast doing really well and

bonica yes bubbly power lifter was no exception to that yeah she what first woman ever to uh squat over 600 yeah what'd you do like 601 and that did not look hard like if she had a fourth attempt in her i think she could have pushed that up a little higher even yeah that it moved really quickly and that's a big squat yeah i mean that that's most guys will never squat 600 pounds right like like most guys right even most power lifting guys will never squat 600 pounds well none of us do statistically that is correct yeah very correct um and almost no women anywhere in any federation no did you notice it seems like she also does the thing where she has one

arm of the combo rack cocked in and i i don't know if there's like some greater conspiracy going on that we're not aware of but it's becoming more common it seems like i don't know um but yeah she had a really big day that daniella mellow also insanely strong how old is she i think she's 19 did it say and she's in the 84 weight weight class i think and she also i think broke like almost every world record in that weight class too yeah if i remember right she had like around a 275 280 bench uh she had like was it about a 500 pound squat like 501 or something and a 500 pound deadlift yeah which again uh 84 for the women so what is that one uh 160 plus 168 plus 16 yeah uh like probably 180 ish 180 pounds right around there but um

yeah just really really really impressive performances especially um i mean it seems like america across the board is doing amazing there one thing that i did think was kind of interesting that people brought up and i i could see how this could be addressed sometime soon is the number of weight classes for women and i don't know what the lowest is and i would assume they probably have the same number as guys i don't know what the lowest is, and I would assume they probably have the same number as guys. I don't know right off the top of my head. They might have one or two less. I think it's Heather Conner. She does like 47, doesn't it?

Yeah, she's in the smallest one. Yeah, and I think that's 47. And so that's like about 103 pounds or whatever. And then the biggest one is just 84 plus. So you really only have 80 pounds to swing. So I think just with the number of women getting into the sport, it seems like you could add maybe one or two more on the top end. Yeah, and I guess, again, I don't know how many women's classes there are total,

but it seems like with more and more people getting involved that you are getting a more diverse group of women, and it probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to not just say everyone over 84 kilos is just on their own yeah i suppose it's tricky if they because what what you could do is say add another class and then spread out some of the existing classes but the problem there is then all the records like if you change or maybe they even just just split the difference instead of 84 plus maybe Maybe they make like a, you know, there's 84. Then maybe you do like a 94 or a 98. And then it's just 98 plus. And that way you're at least changing into the old ones.

Yeah, you're not changing into the old ones. Just an idea, though, because, yeah, as far as women goes, you know, Bonica is a small lady. But it's, to me, I think about that in the men's even though too i mean you go 264 you and then you jump the most competitive and super heavyweight are guys that weigh 400 pounds yeah i do i do agree but which jumps between weight classes are not 100 pound jumps yeah it just but what like a 264 pound guy is a pretty big guy yeah especially like at the ipf level when you don't have these

right guys that have other things going on um so yeah once you get to that 264 i think you do kind of make the decision because you you could i mean as a guy you can lean out and be lean out but i mean you can be at 264 or if you really really want to go over that edge you know i also could understand the argument for like a 308 or something like that but also the number of competitive guys in those weight classes isn't that great exactly to begin with so that's probably the biggest reason i think against yeah making another one is that that's probably two of the least competitive weight classes i mean yeah i mean i mean not that it's not there's some of the best lifters yeah but as far as just as far as competition yeah go to any meet and i mean at least the ones we go to yeah the the lower ranks are stacked with people and then by the time even you get up to the what's

it 123 or what 120 120 is 264 yeah by the time you get to that 264 already it's thinning out quite a bit and the 264 plus a lot of meets has one to three guys and these are meets with like 100 plus competitors you know yeah and even at the world level you know super heavyweight everyone knows ray williams and then maybe jesu uepa that branton from yeah and then outside of that i don't even know if i can name anyone and i don't know if any of us can name any 120 guys other than dennis cornel. I mean. He doesn't even. Yeah. He's not even.

And there's that, what's that, Joe Pena or whatever now? Yeah. There's people that follow up much more closely than us that would be able to rattle off 10 people. But we're kind of on the above average level of fans and we don't know. Yeah. I was thinking of that yesterday. Just IPF lifters in general. Like, I don't really know a whole lot.

And that's mostly based on who I follow off of Instagram. But, like, I don't know. I don't know a ton of those guys. The other weight class we didn't talk about was the 105. Oh, yeah. That's where there was maybe the most interesting. The 105, that was actually the first bit of the live stream I've caught. And it was, like I said, I don't watch a ton of powerlifting live streams

because it seems like they're always like almost more hassle than what they're worth but uh seriously just google it it says oh yeah live stream on youtube youtube live stream works just fine you click on it they had like multiple camera angles when i was watching the 105 session i just caught it for the deadlifts and like the announcers weren't being super annoying like they were really knowledgeable i think they had one of the tsa guys on there if i remember correctly yeah um yeah like the people weren't annoying they were knowledgeable um they knew when to talk they knew when to shut up and uh the camera angle there's multiple camera angles so like there was a production element to the whole thing and you always had a i mean they had the

overlay for the lights so you never had any debate as to whether the lift was good or not uh the weight was uh if it wasn't on the screen i mean they were cutting to it on the camera so you always had a good idea of what they were going for um so yeah as far as the live stream goes they were doing a lot of things right there and it was where what was it live streamed through like well i watched it on youtube it was live streamed on youtube sure it wasn't on twitch probably wouldn't be a bad idea but um but no it was it was fun to watch so when i was watching it was the the 105s and it was kind of coming down to uh almost a four-way battle really with with garrett blevins bryce lewis um um mr mr deadlift uh which i

believe his last name is pronounced Weirbecky. Had no idea how you said that. That's what the announcer was saying. And then the other Bryce from Calgary Barbell, I cannot think of his, I don't know how you say his last name. I can't remember how you say that. But going down to the deadlifts, it was really cool. Actually, even before that, with the squats,

I think there were some pretty big squats. I think Garrett Blevins might have broke the world record for the squat, which I believe would be right around seven something. And then as far as bench goes, Bryce Lewis came out, had the bench world record. Garrett Blevins came out, chipped him a half kilo, took the world record from him. And then one other guy came out and chipped in another half kilo. So three world records were broken in three attempts. And I believe those were all like 500 501 502 whatever you know that half kilo kept breaking out to be so um big benches there and then going into the deadlift it had um uh the heavy favorite there would be the we're Becky from Poland uh when I

believe he's pulled close to 400 kilo in training or or maybe not even it might have been a meet but it wasn't a world level meet you know so he can pull in the high 800s and uh it sounded like his first one i think right around 360 he had trouble with he got it but he had trouble with it so they made it sound like oh there might be an opening here for someone else to to hop in and uh does that guy pull conventional or sumo no they're all sumo All of them are sumo pullers, yeah. That makes sense. And Garrett Blevins came out, and whatever he had loaded on the bar would have put him into first place. It was a pretty big jump, but that would have put him into first.

He pulled sumo or pulling sumo, had it fairly fast to his knees and could not do like the last three inches of the lockout, dropped it, kind of passed out actually got up he was fine so he stayed in second for the time being then Bryce Lewis comes out he's also doing I think like a 370 pull same thing pulls it off the floor fairly fast gets it to his knees cannot lock it out so the door is open for we're becky to come in and do his crazy deadlift and take it all he goes out there pulls it to his knees also cannot lock it out so now he is sitting in third garrett blevins in second bryce lewis in first and then bryce of calgary barbell came out and i

think had like 390 loaded on the bar and that would have jumped him into second and didn't break the floor so it went uh Bryce Lewis being his first world championship Garrett Blevins in second and then uh we're Becky in third so it was it was fun to watch like that was uh for kind of hopping in late like that I thought that was a really good session to hop to view and so like real competition at the very yeah it was actual competition yeah yeah which is kind of fun to see in powerlifting yeah because you don't usually see that because oh they might be the same weight but they're doing different divisions or sometimes it's hard for us to relate to that because when any of us are uh lifting in a powerlifting meet or your your average intermediate lifter

I mean sure I guess you're competing for places but really you're competing against your own numbers yeah your own numbers. Yeah. Your own historical numbers. Well, because, yeah, like when we go, we're so like just, I mean, trying to do our game plan. We don't even know what other people are doing. So it's like, oh, yeah. Well, even if you did, it's like, oh, I'm going to go for a PR here

to beat this person. Okay, so I can get third instead of fourth. Like it doesn't matter. Right, like, and that's the thing. At the IPF world level, it does matter. That's a big deal. And I think that's the thing it at the ipf world level it does matter yeah that's a big deal and i think that's kind of the cool thing to watch is because these people all have like you know coaches and handlers and they know like i again i don't know the exact rule on it but i thought they said even with the deadlift you can change it up until the point where they say

bar is loaded so they're talking about how so-and-so failed the coaches could yeah and they're gaming it and it just seems like a lot of other meets you don't see that level of strategy it's like so-and-so goes out with the idea that i'm going to hit this record and see what happens and it's not um you know for a second place finish at the world and and also outside of the u.s open not many meets have much on the line as far as a world championship because just the other there's the federations are so fractioned and fragmented that it kind of is just i mean there's they all have 10 000 world records and everything so that was so it makes it a little more exciting about the ipf is at least somewhat consolidated that uh what you just said about the world record to remind me of something that dave tate just posted like yesterday or today. And we actually...

It's about the total amount or more important about the total amount. Well, and he's talking about the number of potential records that exist. And we talked... I don't know. Do you remember, Tommy? Oh, we've talked about it. Well, we just talked about... Even when you go to a meet, there's like 40 to 50...

And we did the potential math. Yeah, there's 40 to 50 first place trophies at a meet. Yeah, potentially. And that's not even assuming... That's like most divisions don't even have people in them yeah maybe it was and then i i wouldn't uh wouldn't be able to find it but it was really good i wish i could oh here it is i i found it um just talking about we're in the participation power lifting age you know where uh uh everyone gets a trophy for just participating. But I said to put it in perspective, we calculated just over 18,000 total competitive powerlifters in the USA.

But that's not the part. Here we go. Yeah. The 66,000 divisions potential between powerlifting. Between all the federations, all the divisions, all the age groups. So there could be 66,000 world record of divisions in powerlifting. Yeah, a world record is impressive, but most of the time. Oh, yeah, of individual records.

Yeah, 6,600,000 world records. And that's the thing, though. It's like, yeah of individual records yeah six million six hundred thousand world records that's the thing though it's like yeah world records are cool but also your world record is just a made-up fragmentation of of that of age weight sex how you are preparing yourself for your for your like there's just so many divisions of it that's just the the mean but i i do still think even that being said there are a couple federations that are so heavily favored and populated that it is meaningful. Well, and I do think the IPF does make, I mean, we could be wrong, but I think the IPF has probably the biggest membership pool. And for the most part, most people would say the strictest, dumbest, whatever you want to call judging. So that, I mean, that does make these things a little more meaningful yep and i think uspa is probably the next big yeah and i would agree like they do you know

you know but then you know outside of that you start to fall into walked out squats or monolith squats and knee knee sleeve divisions uh knee wrap divisions drug tested non-drug tested deadlift bar stiff bar you know some some places don't even have calibrated plates some places it's a kilo actually it's kilo plates some places pound plates they might be calibrated pound plates but they're wider plates so there's just single ply multi-ply like there's so many things that pile on top of this and the ipf it seems like every year though still i mean these weight classes have been around now for i'm not sure like six years maybe yeah it's about that and still every year like all i don't know what percentage of the records get broken but it just

seems like a lot of the records oh and a lot of them just get shattered yeah i wonder do you think there's ever a point in time like five years from now will it still be every year that they're just getting broken or will they eventually be it seems like it just seems like in about five years or so it's gotta level out a little bit you would think and i feel like in the last however many years like powerlifting has grown so much so you do get those crazy and i'm sure you guys talk about this like you do get since there's so many more people doing the sport you get so many more freaks yeah you gotta do hit peak powerlifting at some point though where it's not just it can't just continually expand forever right it's not

gonna grow that many people care that much about it right i mean i wouldn't be surprised if it still blows up for five years or so but um yeah you eventually things got to slow down a little bit yeah but until then let's keep it interesting. Keep going. I don't know. I don't know if anyone's going to make a run at Ray Wilmes for a while. But even then, there's some up-and-coming young guys. Yeah. Joe Cepena. Yeah.

Could totally make a shot at it. Yeah. He said in five years, he squatted, you know. Yeah. 1,200 or something. Okay. Even if he could improve like two percent a year i mean that'd be about 20 pounds on a squat that is pretty significant when you're at that level but

if he did two percent a year he's 19 years old that's possible he's in ray williams territory in a hurry here you guys were talking earlier about um how at ipf worlds there's coaches and handlers and everything like that do you guys think there's an appropriate time to actually get a powerlifting coach, or do you think that's sort of everyone's own personal preference? Because between the three of us, as far as I know, we've never had any type of actual coaching. I think it's helpful to have someone like that when you go to a meet. Like the closest thing we have, Tanner, the last few meets you haven't competed,

so you can give us the objective view.'s what then that's all i'm trying to do there is just be like because sometimes as the person lifting it's a little hard to tell and you need someone that's not gonna because it's a different yeah it's a different environment so you don't it already feels different because you're not in the gym so for someone to give that objective view that's used to it like i think that's helpful at any level yeah but obviously when you're going for these like national and world records um that's a lot to be focused on between doing your thing what everyone else is competing what you need to do to kind of be playing this game of chipping people and changing your attempts like i don't i don't know how you could go into a high level meet

and i mean that'd be like LeBron coaching and playing yeah which he's probably he's probably capable of it but um but the average person no like that's not doable so yeah I think once you get to a higher level it's definitely I think almost all of them have that yeah they do I think yeah I think you kind of have to actually I think that's been a point of uh uh like contention or even issue for some of these people in the past is that these people step in as your coaches when they maybe haven't been training with you and maybe they don't know you better but they they lay out the game plan you kind of just have to do it yep but i do think at

any level i mean maybe you could make a case for a specially beginner it's really nice to have someone to at least talk to about your attempt selection yeah and same for intermediate you know for any of us it's really nice to be just like have someone else that's like just well i was i was thinking in between 6 10 and 6 30 on this one what do you think that's actually most things in life once you get them out of your head and act just as soon as you say them out loud you'll already some stuff immediately sounds dumb oh that was about it yeah yeah anything in life the minute you say it out loud, it runs through a different filter, and you're like, oh, yeah, what am I thinking here? And then once you can get feedback from someone else too,

that even adds another level to it. So, yeah, it's good to have that. So does that answer your question? No. Perfect. I was wondering about switching things uh changing gears here and talking about a new topic uh something we haven't have not even mentioned this year at all the last two years we have done the masonomic strongman showdown uh an event that we host

great fanfare yeah and i guess what's uh how would you for those that haven't been listening to us for the last couple years that wanted to know about the mass atomic strongman showdown how would you sum that up what it is that we um i would just say it's kind of like a three world's strongest man at that caliber it's like a three-hour strongman exhibition with a crowd of probably 400 to 800 people watching i think the crowd grows every year but yeah it's just uh it's a i would think well produced unsanctioned strongman event yeah and with the key being um entertainment entertainment yeah i mean obviously performance yeah performance and competition is a part of it but the big thing here is like let's make this a spectacle we try to keep it

moving and don't want to be there all day because it's long enough the way it is and try to get the crowd excited and play music and yeah yeah the so the last two years that that's been the goal the last two years everything you guys said and i think the second the first year went great and i think the second year was an improvement off of the first year for sure we are able to fine-tune some things and i would hope that this year uh will even be an improvement off of that but that is the biggest thing is ours is a show you know it's still people competing and trying as hard as they can but from a fan perspective it's i believe it's a lot better than your average strongman competition because they aren't typically set up for the fans. We're talking most events.

Once an event finishes, the next event is starting typically within five minutes, maybe even less depending on what the event is. So that keeps things moving really well. We've been to one of the biggest strongman events, the Rogue. The Rogue, yeah, the Rogue. Yeah, the Arnold that Rogue puts on. And it's not unusual between events there. Things can take 20 minutes to an hour to set up.

And it kind of, from a spectator point, once it's going, it's really awesome. But that really kills it. And they don't have, I mean, there's no music. There's no nothing to fill in besides maybe a few commentators. So that's like, we try to to like being fans of the sport try to address the issues that we see and make it so that anyone could come in and have a good time with it and another thing i like that we do is which i mean obviously at the arnold there are no weight classes but there's a lot of strongman federations there are different weight classes and we don't do that because obviously there's some people that are you know two upper 200s into 300 pounds and some people

that are below 200 pounds i think that's fun for people to see also to just kind of check out like oh okay this person is super light but still incredibly strong and hanging there yep so yeah so yeah that's so that's what we've done like the last two years this year what we've done the last two years as far as the competition goes we've had a pool of about 10 people and like ryan said it didn't matter your weight class you are all competing against each other and there's five events and best points uh you know just like world World's Strongest Man Finals or any strongman competition. Whoever totals the best points out of the five events wins, and we, you know, give out prizes for first, second, third.

And some of the events had prizes too. Yeah, and the individual events had money and awards associated with them as well, and it worked out really well that number of about 10 10 to 12 competitors and five events we would run through that and be done in about two hours and that that's our goal because it is supposed to be a almost an exhibition or something for the fans to watch and we wanted them to be able to watch it start to finish and yep have an mc keeping things moving along yep also music going in the background too so it uh keeps keeps the energy up for sure nope come on in big big jory's walking in right now we're

and i don't know nick's not playing the music in there you can you i told him you can play the music it's not going to affect what we're doing so don't don't worry about it see so we weren't lying we are recording in the way for the gym so far two people have lifted today actually that's our job that we're two jobs today one to podcast and we're also that person that sits at the front of the gym and like says hi to you punches cards yeah holding towels but so the twist that we're going to do on our strongman competition this year which is a big a big change to the format it um is i don't know how do you how do you just i i struggle with the best way to describe this i would just say it's more of a it's a team event it's a team

event this year okay so it's a team event where where uh one team we don't know the team names yet, so it's hard for me to explain this, but say we'll have a red team and a blue team. Black and white is possible too. I don't think anyone wants a white shirt. That's where Strongman is the only thing. It's the lamest of shirts. So it'll be two teams, and I would say we're going to have about 10 competitors on each team, so 20 competitors total. And each competitor will only do one event head-to-head against someone from the other team. So we're going to have about 10 individual battles, and whichever team wins the most of those battles will be... Each battle's worth a point. Yep, yep.

Pretty easy score keeping here. Yep, yep. And I think as far as keeping in mind what we said before, trying to make an exhibition, trying to make it a show, this is a way for us to even do that better than what we've done in the past. Yeah, because you don't have ten guys killing themselves for three hours. You just have guys going out there. Yeah, I don't think anyone is disappointed to see that they only have to do one event instead of five. That's just hard on your body and that's the only strong those are the only strongman competitions that i've done and yeah they're just tough well and

especially with as quick as we go through them you so you do in the past you do five really hard events within two hours yeah yeah it's it's like you're finally almost think you're breathing normal and you got to go out there again like you're not even maybe completely recovered didn't feel like that where i was like oh god yeah you're never completely recovered last year after the car deadlift i was pretty sure i wasn't gonna be able to walk for a day and the other bonus is that the sun was only 95 degrees and there was no and there was no wind so you had nowhere to escape to uh so this is a plus for the competitors as well i i think everyone's really excited about the fact that they're only going to do one event and plus side uh we're arranging it in a way that everyone gets

to do an event that a they're probably good at and b that they really like doing so that's going to make it make it a fun twist uh but i would i would say the other twist is uh traditionally had been uh limited to almost local guys and the competitor pool has opened up significantly this year yeah let's go go through what and this is all very tentative it's subject to change i've been basically i've been communicating with every you know i've got a list of about 20 people right now that we're looking at doing it and i've been communicating with them about what events they like and then uh looking at the possible events we could do based on our equipment and logistics you know we could really open it up and outside of just strictly strongman things we could do you know brain games like kilos to pounds like like

whoever can do it faster. You're just saying that because you want to do that event. Probably. So here's the events we're looking at doing and maybe if you're listening to this and you're into Strongman there's still time for some of this to

change. Some of it's a little subject to change so maybe you got some really good ideas here that you want to weigh in on but here's what we're looking at so far and i'll mention uh some of the names of the people competing some of them are are relevant to things we've done here in the past in the podcast so uh one of the first events that i think this one will happen for sure that you could mark this one in stone we'll have a rising bar max log event that's something we've done both of the last two years I think that could be really fun because I mean the crowd always likes that one and the two guys we have

signed up can move some yeah move some law so sure one of the guys you you've all probably heard of before uh is Tyler Stone Mr. Effingstein yeah maybe it's i guess it's been a while since you've heard his voice probably maybe you've forgotten about him now two weeks here with him gone but uh so he'll be doing max log and he can press a lot on max log i don't know if he knows what his max is on log on log uh he's won that event the last two years that we've done it um pretty much any competition he's ever had to do any type of overhead in yeah so and he who he'll be going against this year is uh jacob dagel from uh sioux falls area maybe sioux city actually somewhere somewhere around the south dakota iowa border and he's a super heavyweight uh strongman competitor and a very good one you

know he's done a lot of large competitions competed at nationals and he's a big man as well i don't know what jacob weighs if he's 330 is a guess but maybe a give or take 20 pounds 20 30 pounds from there but i would just say they'll both be pressing over 300 pounds how much you know what and what i would like to see is if it could get close to 350 pounds and I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't count that out from happening. I believe Tyler is very much a jerk. He can jerk, you know, it comes from maybe possibly his CrossFit background and that sort of thing, but he has that down very well. So I think that that brings the ceiling of his press up really high,

but it also makes it very much harder to predict how much he will do because there's, you know, that relies a little more on technique and how you're doing that day versus just how, how strong you are. So, uh, that'll be really interesting to see, I think. Yep. Uh, these events are also in no, no particular order, no particular order but the next one we're looking at doing is an elevated deadlift for Max that would also be like a rising bar event and one of the competitors of that's we're looking at putting in there you've also maybe heard of. Eve Baca. No we're looking at at Eve who's done the competition the last two years also taken on

co-host of the podcast here today Ryan now that I'm here I'm just I'm going to put my two cents in my two cents maybe we could do a silver dollar deadlift could we get that many silver dollars from now I think we could if we all put our money

together we could probably do it I think we could if we all put our money together. We could probably do it. I think it's very possible. I know that that's a joke, but I have already been looking at potentially getting boxes like that made and doing that event and just not having silver dollars in it, but something else tied to the sponsor.

Horse manure? Yeah. It is at a county fair, so. Really any kind. As long as it's heavy. it is at a county fair so really any time as long as it's heavy there's a barn pretty close to us the only thing I was thinking about

of that is it makes the addition of weight a little tricky to keep even so my theory there is whatever it is that goes in that box that's tied to the sponsor that would be set and then there'd also be a spot on top where you can just load plate where you just set plates on top to make the adjustment so maybe it's set the bar

set at 500 pounds or 550 pounds or whatever it is and then you can just add weight to that yeah i mean i mean worst comes to worst tires still look cool i mean that was an event that was an event at the arnold for a number of years so it's that's and that's what we're looking at right now is having it be from from uh truck tires and then i have to ask are we going to use the deadlift bar for that i think so i mean i think it i mean straps and deadlift i biggest thing there is we want to see as much weight lifted as possible and i think that's the well you could get a 25 pound bar and really confuse people lift even more weight yeah uh but that's that's what i picture is uh deadlift bar and straps you know traditional to to strongman so i think that's obviously cool

event seeing how what the max someone can deadlift is then we'd move on to another deadlift variation bar and straps, you know, traditional to strongman. So I think that's obviously a cool event, seeing what the max someone can deadlift is. Then we'd move on to another deadlift variation. Keep in mind here we're having probably at least 10 events, so we're able to kind of, you know, usually in a normal competition, you wouldn't have to deadlift. You see one deadlift and you're done, yeah. So we're going back to something we've done in the past as a car deadlift,

and that's for max reps. Grayson would be a competitor in there, and he's done it the last two years as well. The thing about Grayson, in the past he's competed each time, and I don't know what he weighs, like 175 pounds? Right around there, yeah. And where everyone else was probably at the least 200, and then some guys well well over 300 yep so

we'll we'll find a match up for him that's yeah that's appropriate and he he's a guy that i believe will enjoy this set up better than in the past because it makes it so he can be very very competitive uh one of the events that i think might be the coolest is last man standing stone over bar. Yeah. So the way that'll be is we'll have a yoke set up or possibly we'll use the wooden yoke that I've made in the past. And we'll probably our 330 pound Atlas stone. Each competitor will be standing on one side. If you've never seen this done before, each competitor will be standing face-to-face on one side of the yoke,

and the first guy will go and pick it up and throw it over to the other side. Put the ball in your court. And they'll go back and forth like that until someone cannot do it anymore. Yeah. And I think that'll be a fun one to watch. Yeah. Obviously, you've got to put some type of time limit on their time to respond, but that still is a fun one because you get to really see like how far will people push themselves yep those two

guys i i've seen that tim guy and he's pretty crazy and then brad like oh yeah he doesn't stop like yeah yeah so both the guys doing it are very very good with stones those guys will be really so yeah from a competitor level that that's a really fun matchup for sure yeah i know tim's loaded uh over 400 pound stones very hot tim's considerably lighter in the matchup tim probably only weighs 220 230 and brad's probably more like 275 yep but tim is an excellent atlas stone loader tim feathers and then brad neitzel who has been on the mass omics podcast before check that out if you haven't it's probably episode 100 and something yeah too long ago uh but he has done a 410 pound stone for three reps oh yeah so you know we think of the 330 pound stone as relatively heavy but these yeah but these guys could be doing that i don't know

if they could do it 10 times but probably five more than five i would assume more than five five yeah five to ten would be yeah so that potentially may be of the final event because i just picture that one being really fun and there's a lot of opportunity there as the other team members to really get behind physically and mentally and vocally get behind your guy going and really yelling and into it. Yeah, I like that. I'm excited about that one.

A new event that I think will be kind of interesting this year is I don't know exactly how this is going to be set up yet, but the competitors of this one are set. Oh, it is locked in, huh? It's set. Kind of a grudge match.

I'm not going to lie. When I saw that on the sheet with those two guys, that was like the one I was most excited for. But, yeah, that one's going to be good. Do you know the weight yet or not? Well, we haven't said the event even here. Yeah. So what it's going to be is a squat for reps, which if you watch world's strongest man in the past it's going to be set

up something similar to that where it's barrels dropping in not that one not that one it's going to be with a barbell and we're going to have something on the end of that barbell that is large. We are. The tanks of horse manure. Multi-use for that. And there will be support on each side. I don't know if support's the right word, but something on each side. An arm they need to hit, basically. Yeah, that they have to hit.

Yeah, something like a box that this device on the end of the, well, not device, but this large weight on the end of each side of the barbell is going to have to hit and max reps whoever can do the most and but it's going to be kind of a controlled squat where you'll get the squat command at the top you have to touch both make sure both sides touch and come back up and then have to wait for a squat command to go back again so that way it's not uh it won't be a bouncing doesn't it have a time limit on it or is it just go until you die i think we'd set a time limit on it but i also don't think it again yeah yeah we yep yep you're

right from experience a minute of anything is insanely long that's enough so we'll probably say it's you know a minute or a minute 30 or whatever but it won't matter i mean you'll be you'll be dead but competitors on that are going to be none other than Larry Shook, who we refer to as Larry Legend. The one and only. Yeah, he's been a hot topic of the podcast for years now. And then he'll be facing off against his arch nemesis, also from Massanomics Gym, is Thick Nick.

And these two compete against each other each year uh at the state level in power lifting in the master's class they they battle each other out in the uh 105 uh 105 class right yep but they go against each other and they're always back and forth but they are they actually tied this year at the our state competition exact same total so we're gonna hype that one up at least locally pretty significantly yeah that would be good these two going is that probably where we're going to use the most of the pyrotechnic budget yeah definitely the most smoke machine and flames will be going off during that one people would really like that yeah you asked about the weight

on that um over 400 pounds probably under 500 pounds yeah i think that's fair somewhere in there we'll do a little testing of that one beforehand but i don't want these guys doing 20 reps because that's fucking insane and i don't want them doing three reps because that's not very fun to watch yeah oh the winner the yeah our winner with three reps uh so next event i think this one will probably happen uh is the weight for height and that event if you don't know what it is it's what half thor for the last couple years he sets the world record on at the uh rogues age at the arnold it's uh throwing a weight over a certain height we all three of us have done this before yeah more of a highland games event but it's still a strong man.

Yep, it does come from the Highland Games, and that will be the idea behind this event is we will be wearing kilts. Yeah, yeah. You got to fit the part. Yep, yep. I look like an idiot out there. Yeah, exactly. So I think I'll be doing that one and going against another fan

favorite big shane so i'm kind of setting myself up to fail on that kind of are everyone loves you're the bad guy so yeah i'm gonna have if there's a tiebreaker it will go down to a pose and then i'm definitely screwed but yeah i have to kind of be the heel in that scenario because you will be everyone but the the one time shane and i competed against this we did this at a highland games we got first and second and shane beat me so uh it should be a bit of a bit of a savant you could say yeah so so this will be a grudge match on on that and i think that'll be a cool event to watch. It's not a super intense event for either him or I. We could add a 50-yard sprint to the start of it. That's what I mean.

We'll be chatting in between attempts. Again, back to the pyrotechnics. We could just light those things on fire before you throw them over. Hey, we could figure out a way for that to be on fire yeah we could call bud jeffries and ask him for some fire tips and gasoline is very cheap yeah and the audience will be pretty close so we want as much elephant element as danger for the kids in the first row as possible that's what makes them feel alive uh so that's that's a unique event i think yeah yeah i like that different. Then moving on next, a pretty classic strongman event.

We're going to have a heavy yoke. And I was talking with both of these competitors just earlier today, actually. We're looking at Alan Larson versus Trevor Simonsma. Or maybe it's Simonsma. I'm not sure how he pronounces that last name. But they're both Sioux Falls area, South Dakota competitors. And they're both big. And they're both strong yeah so I was taught you should probably be both of those things if you're gonna do this they're

both in that uh upper end of heavyweight lower end of super heavyweight weight you know 275 to 300 pounds and I was talking to them about the weights that we're going to do and how we're going to set this up and uh I'm giving some leeway to the people competing of how they want to do it because they're the ones doing it and I want everyone to be having fun while they're doing it so what we're talking about the way we'll do this is it'll be a short run so it's going to be a heavy yoke probably only a 25 foot run okay which would be last year 50 yeah so we took the yoke 50 feet last year so they're going to be taking it half that distance 25 feet but it'll be a i guess you'd call it a rising bar yoke it'll be like a last man standing yoke that's kind of where we'll jump

50 pounds at a time that's pretty cool yeah and the first guy that cannot finish it. And it's going to start, do you know what the starting, what they want the starting weight at? 700? I'm going to say 6. 800 pounds they're starting at. Okay, very cool. That's a lot. I like that. What was the last year when we did it? 600. 600. But people were cruising. Yeah, some, yeah, yeah.

A lot of us inexperienced guys could cruise with that at 50 feet. So it's not unrealistic. But their goal is someone to hit 1,000 pounds. That'd be really cool. Yeah, so we'd probably go 8, 850, 9, 950, and then hopefully 1,000. I mean, I'm not saying that they're not capable of it, but all those ones before it definitely don't help.

Yes, yes. That's plenty of warming up. Yeah. And I'll also leave the jumps up to them a little bit yeah yeah comfortable you know i want to get at least uh probably three out of each of them yep it would be the goal but they want to get to a thousand i think i would love i think the crowd would love that everyone would love to see that it's if you say 950 yeah that's cool but you take our crowd who is also a lot of people that aren't

necessarily heavily into strongman they're just spectators they hear a thousand and they're like it's like oh my god you know what's you know what's cooler than three numbers four numbers so i'm excited about that one too i think i think that's cool and you know they helped me come to come to that and you know without their help I don't think it would be that cool so yeah I'm excited to see that yeah me too and I really want just as a fan myself I really want to see a thousand pound yoke walk I would love to see that yeah next event I think this is something cool it's going to be a stone Atlas stone to shoulder series so there'll be two guys going and typically in a stone series in World's Strongest Man you'll see they

have two sets of stones and they're loading them to platforms yep and they're racing each other I don't have the ability to set two identical sets of stones next to each other but I want both of the people to be out there at the same time so the way we're going to do that is whatever the starting stone is say it's 200 pounds the first guy will go and if he successfully shoulders the 200 pounds uh 200 pound stone he'll set it down and then the other guy will it'll be his turn up on the 200 pound stone and they'll just move down the line yeah eventually uh i think with that we almost have to put the stones get so heavy that eventually someone can't do it because what what i

haven't figured out exactly on that yet say they two people both get the 300 stone in that format there's not a time element necessarily ah right so you have to be able to determine a winner so there's still uh something to be worked out on that minor details yeah the other option is uh they just go one person at a time and you just go and then how long it takes you get your yeah and it's your it's your time but uh the problem with that it gives a pretty specific advantage to whoever's going second yeah especially when there's only two people right and that's with any of these events there's always gonna where they're second, yeah, especially when there's only two people. Right, and that's with any of these events. Where they're not going at the same time,

there's a little bit of an advantage to the person that's able to go second, but that's unavoidable on some of these. But just generally speaking, the stone to shoulder, I think that's going to be a cool... Different. Yeah, definitely different. And we're not going to have the point system like what we see at the Arnold where it's lapped as we're so many.

Yeah, I think that's convoluted a little bit. It's difficult to tell. It leaves a lot of subjectivity to it. Yeah, in our crowd, I don't want to take 10 minutes to try to explain how this is being scored. I want them to be able to see. And then, yeah, let it get done. Everyone will be like, okay, what happened, though?

Yeah. Like, so how did he win uh so that'd be cool and one of the competitors in that so far is going to be Jake Heinrich, Jake the snake he's competed in most of all of the events we've done here and don't know exactly yet who's who he's going to be going up against but uh we'll we'll get that ironed out next event i'm going to do this one here first we'll we'll have a farmer carry head to head for max distance so we'll have two sets of farmers carry implements uh with a set weight and the two people start at the same time and whoever can make it farther without dropping it. Without dropping it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And I think possibly we'll set this one up. Just to add something more to it than that,

it will be best two out of three. So if you, the first one, if you lose, you get to go, you guys, they'll go again. We'll set it up again. Uh-huh. And you'll go again. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if the person that won the first one, if he wins again, it's over. If the other guy wins, they go to a third one. Yeah. Just because an event like this, farmer carry for distance, there's such a chance of that person just messing up. Oh, you just get a bad grip. Yeah, you just get your.

And then it's over. Yeah, and then it's over. And then they walk 10 feet and they had a bad grip and it's over. So this way it kind of lets those two going at it have a chance to redeem yourself if that happens. Because everyone here is only getting to do one event. So if you go out there and have that bad grip, bad setup and screw it up, it's not much fun for you. Yeah. It's not much else to make up for what you did.

Right. Right. So I think that's how we'll play that. And I think that makes it more interesting still too. Yep. Especially if somehow the guy that doesn't win the first time is able to win the second time. Yes. That would really make it cool.

Last event we're looking at and this one isn't completely set in stone yet is probably a sandbag over bar for reps or possibly instead maybe some sort of loading medley. And this will, the interesting twist on this event, which is different about everything we've ever done before.

Is that the competitors don't identify as male? Correct. The competitors in this event do not have wieners. So we're, you know, we try to include everyone here at massonomics you know we don't want to leave anyone out so we're uh uh it took us a little while to do it but we're also going to include women now it's a big step for us we're pretty progressive yep so that'll be uh i mean it is more of a uh a thing uh it is more of a nod to these ladies that they are actually willing to compete right yeah yes which is awesome yes definitely yeah i say that mostly all the way joking

but that'll be uh megan stone tyler's wife versus uh adele uh another lifter that trains out of their crossfit gym so that'll be cool i think even i think i do think honestly though from a crowd perspective it's a lot cooler that if we do have women oh yeah lifting too because women like i think that's cool to see that women are doing it and they can do this stuff like you don't have to be some scary big heavy guy to do this like really anyone can do this stuff right and you know i've got some alternate other lifters of some of these that we mentioned don't work out i got some other other people that I got to check with yet. And so we went over 10 events. That's the rough plan. If more people want to do it, I'm not going to go a lot over 10, but we could end up with 11 events. We could end up with nine, but I think it'll be somewhere around there. The other thing, if we do have an even number of events, what could happen and what I would really like to see happen is after 10 events, it could be five to five.

Speaker 1.: Tiebreaker, baby. Speaker 2.: And then we have to decide what we're going to do there. I believe we'd have a predetermined tiebreaker event. What I'm thinking off the bat is the farmers carry implements that we would have there. It would be a farmer's hold for max time and each team would pick a captain or pick a person that they want that they think is best at it and they would go stand literally facing each other and whoever dropped it first loses and whoever can hold on the longest wins yeah and i think that would be a fun uh yeah batter is there any way we could incorporate the

horse manure back into that yeah we do want the horse manure yeah we will have that perfectly good that perfectly good horse manure will be sitting around not getting put to use um but i could see that being really fun yeah that's that'll be an interesting one that's and to be honest so it's all this this team concept that whichever team wins more of the battles wins. The reality of it is that all the people on both sides of the teams are friends with each other. So they're all winners? Yeah. So everyone gets a trophy here.

It's not like there's this intense rivalry. But I do think if it is to come down to close. I think everyone here is a competitor. Like I could see, don't you picture yourself, regardless of, obviously you're just as good of friends with everyone on the other team, but when that last event is going to be close. Thinking about pulling a Nancy Kerrigan and hurting someone.

That's really what we want to see with this. The way, just as far as some of this will look, is that before each event, the two competitors will come out and stand inches away face to face and fight each other well it'll be like a pre-ufc way in they'll stand face to face and the announcer will uh you know kind of go over their little bit of bio and history height

and weight and talk about that and then at the end of each event they'll come back out and the judge will uh stand between them and hold up the hand of the winner so kind of some theatrics to it. Publicly embarrass the loser. That's true. Have you determined what the teams are going to look like yet? That's the other thing well honestly what I wanted to do is rig it in a way that I could figure out that it would come out five to five as close as possible i mean i don't consider that rig i've been trying to rig it to be as even yeah it's probably not the opposite of rigging i guess but as i was thinking of how to do that i can't because they're also by design these are all even

with it you know like the hope is that these are all very even because I want each event to be interesting. Like you could probably do these events. You could probably have this event five different weekends and you'd probably come out with very different scores depending on the weekend. So yeah, it does make it tough. So I don't know if we can do that. So my other thought is once we get them all, once I get everyone registered and, you dotted line that they're going to do it for sure, we pick either random out of a hat or we pick say Larry and Nick are team captains

and we draw straws to see who gets to pick first and if Larry picks Tyler then Nick gets Jacob by default. He gets the opposite and then Nick gets to pick. If Nick picks you, then Larry gets Eve, because we already have the set matchups. And I was thinking that, because it could just be kind of fun. Oh, yeah, fun just to see who's picking who. Yeah, yeah.

And then again, it still doesn't matter, but I just think it could be a fun twist to it. Instead of just out of a hat. But we could just end up doing it randomly out of a hat, too. And I don't think it matters. I really don't think it does. I look at all these events, and I don't see anybody that I'm going to go, oh, wow. And some of these, I'm like, oh, I'd pick him.

But I'm just basing that off of a few more videos I've seen of that person lifting before. It's really hard. It's more just because I've seen that person lift more than the other person. It's not actually based off of real experience. Anything you can prove, yeah. But, yeah, these will all be really, really close. So that's mostly the wrap-up on what we're going to be doing. Any other changes that we've talked about making? I mean, obviously, we're going to have a new logo this year.

A whole new set of gear for everyone to be sporting um yeah i mean it's it's just it'll be a good event yep so we will have uh we did this last year we'll have uh shirts uh available for sale whole merch table set up um hopefully our bleachers we will have thousands of bleacher seats available that's a barrier we've had the last two years is there's a lot of people that want to watch and we struggled to get enough seating so hopefully this year we will have enough seating for everyone that wants to watch the massanomic strongman showdown will be will we call it the strongman showdown then again it still is it still applies showdown it almost applies more potentially yeah yeah but that could be a game time decision we'll see uh We'll see what happens.

Other positive here, there's a good opportunity for us to make our massonomics versus. Last year, I made a video on each competitor. This year, that could be a versus. A versus meme. It ties right back to it. Stay back to the bigger picture. And you would trust the process, right? That's right.

That is right. And you would trust the process, right? That's right. That is right. They will come. But otherwise, maybe we want to wrap up. Check out YouTube. We have seen our subscriber numbers going up a little bit on YouTube, and we have seen a lot of views coming in on our Arnold videos there. So check those out. They are literally getting thousands of views now our Arnold videos

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Later. Bye. You just heard the Masanomics podcast. With your ears, you're welcome. Check us out on Facebook find us on Instagram at mass in Amix and make sure you visit mass in Amix calm and buy some of that sweet mass in Amix gear from your friends at mass in Amix studio home Stay strong.