Massenomics Podcast - Ep.161: The Kern US Open Recap

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

There was some monster numbers that went down at the Kern US Open this year (from the lifters that actually showed up).  It looks like the Wilks Formula has possibly been blown up out of making any sense anymore for some of these lifters.

M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Massanomics 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. store and buy yourself some of that sweet massanomics gear. Welcome everyone to episode 161 of the Massanomics Podcast, aka the world's strongest podcast,

aka the lifting podcast about nothing. Your favorite two hosts are here again this week, Tommy and Tanner. Tommy, I believe you just got back from down south. You were visiting Canada, is that right? Yep, our neighbors to the south. Which we have determined is actually... Depending on where you're at, they are our neighbors to the south. I guess technically for us, some of them are, yeah. Like our friend Big Kyle Hendricks is our Canadian neighbor to the south.

That's right. So is that where you were visiting? But I was actually in Florida. Slightly farther south. Not a lot, but a little bit. And, you know, I had to go to a wedding and got to take in the Florida sights and sound. Anytime like you can go to a wedding that's in a nice place and you can kind of almost turn it into a vacation, too. Like that's kind of a nice little bonus, you know.

So I went to the Clearwater Beach area, which was my first time in that area. Actually, the only time I'd been to Florida, I went on a cruise one time. We stopped in Key West, which is kind of like a weird little place. I don't know. I guess, yeah, it has, like, Florida weather and stuff, but it's not, like, probably not the Florida you think of when you think of Florida. Yeah. And this was much more, like, in my mind, it felt like Florida. Was the water clear?

You know, I didn't think it really was at all, to be honest. Like I'm no ocean expert, but I've been in the ocean in a few places. Okay, the beach in Clearwater Beach is massive. Like, I don't know, it might be from when you step on the beach to where you touch the water it might be 200 yards or more it's super wide and it goes for miles and miles and miles but the thing about the ocean there is it's like the lake here there's like no current to it like there's no like waves there's like no current the waters i don't know it's kind of like a lake it's not super clear but it's not like super dark either. And so like, if you like want to go and like play in the waves and like, maybe I caught

it at a bad time, but it just seemed like it was super, super mellow compared to like when we were in Hawaii a few months ago. I mean, there was literally one day I couldn't go in the water because the waves were so intense. Like I thought I would maybe die. I did go in, but I got slammed so hard that I was like, I'm not doing that again. Like I realized I have no power against this. Like it was, it was brutal. Uh, so you didn't go surfing. So I did not go surfing. Didn't even see anyone attempting it. Was the water warm?

It was, it was, Oh, I mean, to me it felt good. Like it wasn't, uh, you know, I was in San Diego like a year ago and that water was much colder than this, which I guess maybe makes a little bit of sense. The one thing that surprised me about this trip, and there's probably people listening that do a lot more traveling than me. I get on an airplane probably two to three times a year, I'd say, is about my number, which I think is a probably an average amount maybe even more than average probably more probably more than average probably and um

so i'm on the plane and uh we fly from our small town to minneapolis and then the plane goes from minneapolis to tampa yeah and the the uh minneapolis to tampa flight was it was i think one of the newer like airbus planes like it was it was a nice plane nicer than the nicer than the one i ones i normally ride and um so it's fairly big i don't know what those have 40 rows in them maybe and uh you know normally flight attendants are very friendly and nice people. And I got some signs. I got some actual rudeness from a flight attendant. And I was almost offended by it. What did you do?

I'm not the type of guy that just gets offended by things. But I thought there was a certain level of rudeness when it's like, if I'm in a restaurant and you're a waitress and you're being rude, your only job is to serve me and wait on me. And as long as I'm not being a dick, you have no reason to be upset at me right and that's kind of how i feel about flight attendants like your job is literally to provide me with a happy flight and especially if you're not uh being a prick to begin you know if you're yeah being yeah and so this is how it starts my wife and i have started game of Thrones, and we're trying to just marathon our way through the series.

So as soon as we can get the laptop out and be in the zone on Game of Thrones, we're in the zone, which I think is fair. I think most people on the plane are doing something similar to that. And so we're in row 24, so we're about the halfway mark in the plane, and we're listening, and the person comes by and, um, right away, like we see them coming. So I have one headphone out of my ear already and they're getting close. And while they're getting close, I'm bending over to get my backpack under the seat. All right. No big deal. The attendant says, ladies, is there something you would like?

Now I get called a lady because I have long hair and a beard it comes with it well and so I'm bent over so all she can see yeah so she says ladies what would you like now I can handle that if I couldn't handle that I wouldn't have long hair it comes with the territory you're gonna get called a lady sometimes I can laugh about it I don't care no big deal so that's fine it's fine most people say'm sorry, but this is the first sign. She just says, ladies, can I get you something? And I look right at her. She stares right at me. Doesn't say anything or smile or anything. I'm like, well, it's kind of weird that you clearly know I'm not a lady and you're not even apologizing for it. Like not even acknowledging. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sure. All right. Whatever. I'll just get over that one i'll let that one slide then um she goes snack and i was like normally i feel like they don't say snack

they say cookies or yeah like mix yeah and i'm like oh well what are the choices and she stops and gives me a look like and i was like that was apparently the wrong question yeah and so i'm like okay i'm waiting yeah and she goes um cookies and right away i'm like oh i want the cookies so i got cookies and she keeps going she's peanuts i go cookies she says the mix i said cookies and she says one more thing i said cookies and then she gives them to me so at this point now you are called me a lady you're mad that i asked what the snacks are you say the first snack and i say i want that one and then you say a second one i also say i want the first one you say the third one i again say i want the first one you say the fourth one and i still say i want the first one were you getting mad at that and at this

point i'm like wow this lady is really, really annoying. And I'm thinking, maybe I'm in my own head about this too much. And she goes by, and I say to my wife, I go, Leah, was that lady kind of rude? Yeah, she was pretty rude. I'm like, all right. So I wasn't the only one here. And that was probably the first rude flight attendant I've encountered. Yeah.

That's not good. I don't know if it was a jealousy thing or if she just had it out for me. She must have just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Oh, man. I've been on some military planes where it's like a commercial – like when I've flown overseas, it's like a commercial airline, but it was all military people on the plane. But it's like flight attendants on a, you know, it looks, it's just on a really big plane.

But I mean, they are like regular commercial flight attendants, right? Yes, they're commercial flight attendants. But they're only serving military people. A plane full of people, military people in uniform. And it's like mostly all men and like, you know, like average armyunts like that aren't, you know, I mean, some of these guys, they've probably only been on a plane one or two other times, you know, like kind of get wild and stuff like that. But the worst way to send like I've never and I kind of took it with a grain of salt because I understand. Yeah, they're not ideal. Yeah.

Like you're probably not enjoying your job right now either, I suppose. But it's also like it's probably still kind of your job not to just be mean. Because I'm not doing anything to upset them personally. I'm not – I'm behaving and following their rules and stuff like that. You don't really have to be mean to me just because you don't really like being here. Don't just lump me in with everyone else. Right. But I can't – it's been too long to remember the specifics, but I just – I'll never forget, like, wow, that is the worst flight attendant experience I've ever encountered.

I can't picture it being worse. See, I – yeah, I can give them – It's kind of a special circumstance. Yeah, I think they kind of get a pass there'd be like almost if you worked in a restaurant and a two busloads of high school boys right and you'd be like oh god i'm probably not getting any tips out of this they're gonna be assholes the whole time like you just know what you're getting into but i did feel like i was being cordial and nice and that's why i got caught so off guard in the whole thing a paying customer i am a paying customer you know i don't know if you check, but airline ticket prices typically aren't cheap either.

Exactly. So, you know, I just want to watch my show, eat my cookie, and be left alone. Not too much to ask in this day and age. Not to me. But, yeah, otherwise, Florida, you know, Florida's good and beaches are good. Did you see any of those guys from the headlines? Florida man? No, I didn't.

I had my eye out, but I didn't see any of those guys from the headlines? Florida Man? No, I didn't. I had my eye out, but I didn't see any of them. I saw you in the paper. It said Florida Man went to wedding and nothing real crazy happened. Yeah, that was the one. Yep, that was me. Crazy stuff. And came back. Tanner, you also did some traveling this weekend.

I did. I traveled to... I don't know if yours was as fun as mine probably not maybe it had the intentions of being fun and it changed in a hurry to uh t south dakota technically i believe we talked about that it's next to sioux falls south dakota it's like a little three-hour drive uh for us in the context of doing strength sports in south dakota is about the most optimal location. Oh, it's a three-hour drive. It's like, that's it?

Yeah. That's an easy deal. Yeah, compared to some times when we go six hours to find a competition. But did South Dakota's strongest man there. I think we talked about this maybe last week or the week before that I was doing that. Competed in the heavyweight division. And I'll just go a little – won't talk about this forever

because we've got some other super important stuff to get here to here always yeah but i'll just go chronologically a little bit there was five events on the day uh the first event was the log press which was uh for the heavyweight men my division was 255 pounds for clean and press away as many reps as you can in a minute and i ended up with six which was really good for me. That was a pretty good PR. I was pretty pumped about that. I think maybe had I took a little break in between there, maybe had I pushed it harder, maybe I could have tried for seven. But I don't know.

I was happy with six. But to hit a PR in competition, that's always ideal. Yep. And it's been a while since I've competed. So for that first event, it was fun to feel the excitement of competition again. Oh, damn. Like it had been a while where I'm like. So not counting like the Masonomics Strongman, how would it have been?

Like two years? Probably a year and a half. A year and a half. Yeah, since I've done some. Yeah, probably a year and a half. And also the warming up for a strongman like that. At the time, I was like, damn, this is considerably harder than warming up for powerlifting because typically the implement that you're warming up on is also the implement that is going to be used.

And everyone has to use that one, or if you're lucky, maybe there's two of them. everyone has to use that one or if you're lucky maybe there's two of them so you really are at the mercy of of the collective group and the timeline which uh they did keep the whole day the whole event was rolling really good so kudos to them of of keeping it rolling quick but that puts a lot of pressure on you as far as the warm-up of like if you're screwing around like messing with your shoes and changing things and not ready to go you'll miss like there's just missed your warm-up no no and that actually worked out you know I got kind of worried about it at times I'm like oh geez I need to take like more smaller jumps or this isn't the weight that I want or I didn't do as many but all in all I think it worked out well I took a couple bigger jumps and then it just felt easy anyways so i wasn't wasting as much energy yeah um but so log went good then second event was

axel deadlift off of wagon wheels which in training the last day i went heavy it went really well for me i did our our our competition weight was 550 for as many reps as you can do in a minute and my last training day heavy training day was like two and a half or three weeks out, and I did the competition weight for three sets of five. And on every set, I felt like I knew I could have done more reps. And it really felt really good. It finally clicked on that. It took me quite a while.

That position of the wagon wheel height and it being an axle is really an so what would you think is worse the axle or the height oh i don't know the combination of the two is what really makes i guess that is an option too yeah the axle the thickness puts it farther away from your body oh yeah which that makes that is awkward the being forced to use straps by it being an axle is you know a lot most a lot of people you know i think enjoy using straps probably i straps mess up my setup i just don't use them you know i used to training over under grip for power lifting and not using straps so the having to use straps the being a little farther away from your body the height and everything.

And almost everyone I talk to agrees that it's a really, that axle from that height is really an awkward pull. That's just a tough combo. Yeah, like it's a really awkward pull. And just about everyone agreed. You know, there wasn't, I didn't talk to anyone that was like, this is the advantageous deadlift for me. This is where I come alive. So I kind of think it sucks equally for everyone. But my honest expectation, if I was feeling good, I was hoping to get 10.

I did the first, I guess I'd say this, after that good training day, I noticed my lower back had been bothering me, and it kind of got worse every week leading up to it. I was doing less and less you know putting less load on it but it was just getting feeling worse and worse and worse and then like the full week leading up to the competition i basically didn't do anything that uh would aggravate it whatsoever and i was kind of hoping that i'd go into it and you know with the time off that it would feel good and feel recovered. And I did the first rep and I was like, Oh, this does not feel like I want it to.

And I did the second rep and I was like, well, that feels even worse than that. I thought that it couldn't feel worse than that first rep. And that second one, I was like, that feels even worse. And then I, I like literally paused at the bottom of the third one. And I was like debating of whether I was going to continue to go. And then for a second, I was like, Oh, I can, I think I can do another one. And I went to pull on and I was like, that hurts. Yeah. And I stopped there. And I, cause I was

like, I was going to be lucky to squeeze out like four, you know, at that point there was no difference. And I literally had that thought in my head. I was like, is there any, is there any reason to do this reason to do this and it's like well no there's not because I'm not going to get the 10 I want if I would have been able to go to that level it would be worth yeah you're at eight and it's like well yeah two more right then it then it's worth it but at the point I was I was like it's not even worth it I'm gonna hurt my back worse and then I'm not gonna be able to compete in the other events so I stopped there wasn't a huge deal because i you know mentally i knew that the my back was maybe be an issue so i was kind of already knew that it was possible that i'd have to just back out of that event to a degree and

keep going on the others um so then the next event was the yoke the yoke carry ours was which typically when you say your back hurts the yoke is is not the one you want to go to next. No. And the back, the way my back pain has been, it's, it's really the deadlift of like the being, uh, the, the, the weight in front of the weight out in front of my body, you know, like that is what's really bothering me. Um, and being bent over and, you know, kind of the deadlift position. what's really bothering me um and being bent over and you know kind of the deadlift position so the way you i am with a yoke and keep can keep a vertical up upright back it really hadn't

bothered at all um so i was like oh well deadlift sucked but we got the yoke here and my yoke training had gone really well actually so i was pretty optimistic that i could do well there. And our weight was 675, and it was 50 feet down and back. I made it about three-fourths of the way down the first 50 feet, and I was making a very good time for myself. Yeah, it was moving great. It looked pretty effortless. Yeah, had I finished the whole thing, I would have had a good competitive time. I think I was on pace for like a 20-second run,

which would have been good for me, you know, based on what my training was going like. But I took a step. We were on turf, like a padded turf, which was a little bit different. I'm used to training on concrete. Yeah, especially with something like a yoke where you have all that weight on you like a difference in feel it it is pretty big like even the last few years you know we've like at the massonomics dry man going from training on cement to even kind of that gravelly texture felt different yes yes and it is um so it's going

really good but i took a step and uh never had this feeling before in my life because I've never done this before. But my right knee buckled in, you know, in in my body towards the towards your other. Yeah. Towards my other knee. And I felt the pop immediately. You know, I could you know that you get that feeling like you almost feel like you can hear it pop. And I don't know if I could hear it pop, but I have that feeling like, you know, like this hasn't happened. Yeah. Right. this isn't good and uh you know then that that second almost feels like it plays out like I have a thousand thoughts in that one second and like almost where I in my mind I was thinking oh can I keep going but like when I watch it on video there's no thought you know I drop it

immediately and uh gonna back away from it and walk away and then i realized oh my right leg isn't like uh working yeah right it's not does i can't put any weight on it i take a few steps and then i kind of sit on you know go and sit on the ground off on the side and it didn't hurt it wasn't like an excruciating pain, you know, when it happened. Yeah. It wasn't like you slammed your finger with a hammer. Right, right. I wasn't like, ah.

I was more like, and also it's tough because you have a lot of adrenaline in the moment. Yeah, you're kind of almost more in like a little bit of shock. Right, right. I was kind of like shocked, and I'm like, oh, man, what did I just do? And even for a split second there, I'm like, did I just quit and I should have kept going? Like, is this not anything yeah am i just panicking yeah right right uh so then i like get up after a couple minutes of sitting there and i can't really tell what's going on and i try to put like see if i can put any weight on it

and it doesn't hurt that bad but like i couldn't my knee felt like it was like in almost like a jello. Yeah. A jello suspension. Like jello, like where it's just going to slide around. But then I sat around for a couple hours and started to feel a little bit better. Like I had something I could use as like almost a cane, could walk around and then even set that down. And I could kind of limp around on it so i wasn't really sure but anyways didn't didn't continue competing so i skipped the sandbag event and the atlas stone event i was really looking forward to doing the

atlas stones my training had gone really well on that i mean and plus they're just a fun event yeah and it's just a lot of fun and i was really looking forward to doing it in competitions probably i don't know if that it's my personally best but it might be my my favorite to do in a competition uh but i didn't get to do that that was probably the most frustrating part anyways i went to the orthopedic surgeon got it checked out i haven't had my mri yet but uh he checked it out and said it's pretty confident that it's either ACL tear or meniscus tear, but he kind of leaned more towards a meniscus tear. And based on what he said and what it feels like to me, I think that might be the case too.

Not that I know what I'm talking about, but kind of going off of what he said, I feel like it's probably could be a meniscus tear. And so I did not finish. Wow. Yeah. So you got to walk away with a back injury. Yeah. The back, I'm not so worried about. It's almost more like I just have like something.

It's probably just a little agitated. I feel like some inactive, you know, lessening the activity on it, that's going to be better in time. Well, your knee will take care of the lessening of activity for you. So that is exactly what I thought in my mind. I was like, well, the back's going to be fine because I'm not going to be able to do anything now for, uh, I have my MRI in like a week. And then I talked to him and at the time he said, there's probably like an 80% chance I would need surgery. But I'm sure there's a lot of people out there listening that have, uh, torn ligaments in their knee before.

It's fairly common in sports and stuff like that. And based on what I've talking to him and, you know, talking to others, I feel it's, you know, in time I'll be able to squat just like I would want to squat. You'll be stronger than you ever were. Superhuman. But so now my silver, I've been trying not to be, uh, you know, I don't want to be stronger than you ever were superhuman but so now my silver i've been trying not to be uh you know i don't want to be a debbie downer about it so i've been looking at the bright side and i was um i certainly have plenty of time to bench press now that that is the big one so i

did say that i uh monday i got back went back to the gym right away. It was pretty refreshed because I had kind of deloaded for this meet, and then I did the log press, but then I half-assed did the deadlift and then did half-three. Did a 30-foot walk. Right. So I was like, well, I feel great, actually, aside from my knee being blown out like the rest of me feels good. So I had the best bench day I've had in a long time

because I didn't press for like 10 days really so bench felt great so i was like oh i guess at least that's a post uh acl tear bench press pr and most importantly now you are on the road to recovery exactly when that when hashtag road recovery kicks in well everything's a pr now like as soon as i can squat and deadlift again that yeah like i don't have to wait for real prs i just have a post recovery pr say be afraid very afraid of a man on a comeback that's right you're gonna be on a comeback pretty soon i'm cammon yeah that's right i do uh other bright things to look at with this tanner is you know, is from a financial perspective, you're putting money towards your insurance deductible fairly early in the year. Oh, my insurance deductible is we have a high deductible plan, and it will be met. There you go.

An MRI. Family, do whatever you got to do. I had to get x-rays, which that's significant. Seeing the orthopedic surgeon once. I'll get MRI, which that alone I believe is enough for me to. I don't think those are cheap. No. And then meeting with them again and then potentially surgery.

So there will be no issue of hitting the deductible this year. Well, there you go. And I also got to hit it last year. So fortunately it's two years in a row. Defending champion deductible over here. But I do think I'm going to use this opportunity. Now I have nothing else to focus on, so in June in the USPA meet that we're sponsoring, I'm planning on doing the bench only.

Are you really? This is the perfect opportunity to do it. And I'm going to try to hit – my real goal is to hit a bench press PR. That'd be pretty awesome. Competition PR or all-time PR? Well, I don't know that I can break my all-time PR to competition standard. Competition PR is really what matters, though. Yeah, so that's kind of my thing that I'm going to.

Yeah, that's something to shoot for. Yeah, exactly. Keep me something to lift for, for the short term at least, and keep me from being too much of a downer about about that i uh i do think though um i was leaning towards this even before the competition my my thought was i have been getting injured more doing strongman stuff the strongman has not been kind to you i would say lately but i shouldn't even say lately and every year that i get older i'm not getting younger and like i don't like to use it as an excuse yeah i don't like to use it as an excuse because i still don't think i'm so old that like there's people far older than than me that would still compete in strongman but i also think maybe everyone's body is a little bit

different and very possible that i don't do everything with perfect uh technique you know and maybe that that causes injuries too i can't just blame my body you know it's probably some of my own doing but fact of the matter is i've been getting relatively serious injuries competing in Strongman. I was kind of planning on this being my last one, and tearing my knee kind of solidifies that. I probably will not come back to Strongman quick. You're not going to be ready to make a comeback to Strongman when you're 35 or on the other side of 35?

And the events that are out there now that I don't have to consciously think about something that I injured doing them before, you know, not like to worry about doing it. Like I'm not would not be excited about going and doing a heavy yoke again. Yeah. My life now. Oh, yeah. Basically, like that was like my it felt so good right until that one step that I took. I'm like, I don't know what I did wrong. Like, I don't feel like I, you know, I don't feel like something like. I'm like, I don't know what I did wrong. I don't feel like I did – I don't feel like something –

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not qualified to even have an opinion or anything, but it just seems like if something was going to happen, that all of the wear and tear and training would have done it. Yeah. Like, it's just strong man's hard on a person's body. It is. So I do feel like i'm more likely to be able to compete in power lifting more oh it's a much lower impact sport for sure

no doubt about that the moving with the weights is it's you know for some reason outside of strong man there's not a lot of times you have to load 600-plus pounds on your back and run around with it. And, you know, unless you're really training for that, it's not, you know, the safest position to be in a lot of times. I am probably afraid that my best days of strongman are behind me at this point. Well. I'm not really afraid. It's more like that's just – I'm not even disappointed about that. But if this didn't make me realize that you know i'd you shook your hands a strong man and said it was fun about that's kind of what it

was like because i had i even told my family you know like this might they because they want to know if they should come or not and i you know they they enjoy watching this stuff and i kind of mentioned mentioned uh not sure if i'll do you know i'm gonna really do many of these again after so this could be one of your last chances and then once that happened i'm like well i guess i wasn't wrong yeah i could feel it it's like when a mom says she knows she's having a boy like i know i'm having an injury yes yes uh well but it was still fun though i mean like i wasn't like i didn't leave being like oh this has ruined my life yeah you know i hate these events i hate the promoters i hate right no i i thought it was a really quickly run meet and run well and i think the events were set

up cool and uh the most the thing even at sitting there hurts i was like gosh i'm just disappointed i didn't get to do the atlas stones yeah you know like that was the biggest uh the one thing i had to look forward to my body took it right right well i would say there is something to uh having that level of self-awareness to like be like oh you know what i can be happy yes i can like be happy about what it was and not be always saying I'm on some comeback or I'll be back in two years or five years or ten years. I don't even think that's called being a quitter. I think it's just being like, well, I mean, really, what are you going to do?

Let's say you make a comeback, a run at this again, and at 38 you want to do it again. Right. Okay, you can, but, I mean, you're not going to. I'm not going but i mean you're not going to i'm not going to be you're not going to beat you're still in the open class you're not going to be like just you're not going to come back in the absolute best shape of your life at 38 and i could like that's that's like a realistic scenario that could happen maybe i would do that but like if i do it's probably going to be like, let's just see if I can just still do this. Like go have fun. Yeah, right. And then just like pray to God I don't get wrecked again.

That would really be the thing. It's like, but what am I going to hurt now? It's five years later that, you know. And I mean, realistically, I've been 10 years ago is when I started squatting and deadlifting heavy and stuff. So it's like been 10 years of, know i never stopped like in 10 years and i don't i still don't think that that's like i don't want to use that as an excuse because i don't want to like feel like i'm making excuses because i don't also really like this doing that but i think that's just a realistic thing you know that everyone's probably only got so many

and you're not saying you're going to quit training no no no you'll probably even do some strongman stuff yeah i mean still right but it's i mean it's like saying if you're not saying you're going to quit training or anything. No, no, no. You'll probably even do some strongman stuff in your training still. Right. But it's, I mean, it's like saying if you're just, like you had shoulder pain for a while. Yeah. If you had shoulder injury after shoulder injury after shoulder injury, would you be like, I'm still going to do bench nationals? Oh, right. Exactly. It's like at some point you just got to be like, this is a sport that almost no one cares about. What am I wrecking myself for here?

Right. And I'm saying that as a person that's a fan of the sport. Yeah, right, right. You know? Yeah. And it's like to be like – so my best case scenario, if I'm on my best day, I win like South Dakota's strongest man against a couple people. Well, it's like the same thing of like – it's like the same thing of like the college athlete

that's had their sixth knee surgery and is like, my life the same thing. It's like the same thing of the college athlete that's had their sixth knee surgery and is like, my life is this game. It's like, well... It's like you're going to be done in a year from that. You're going to be done with a minor in business

and a major in some human resources. I don't know if having six knee surgeries is good for your resume or really even a good life story. Maybe it says persistence and maybe also says you're dumb i don't know well that that kind of is you know that kind of is the line of like where is it uh like like there is a thing called quality of life after the age of 35 and

you got to keep that in mind at some point yes i agree so i've in the future i'll probably but right now i'm just focused on bench and I'd like to be able to, uh, back to where it all started. That's what, and I, pardon me is like, well,

I do like benching and it is much easier than that other stuff. So I guess it'll be, it's not the worst position to be in. Yeah. So that's that. That's about, that's about it of that might depending on how you look at things you might think that sounds grim or optimistic yeah it's kind of your take that's right um but i guess maybe we should talk about people that can still perform at optimal performance some people that can there's only a few left in the world. The Kern U.S. Open was this past weekend.

I heard about that. There were some really big lifts. There was. This will actually be like a big lift segment because we're talking about some big lifts. This is a two-for-one. It's what happened in lifting this week plus big lifts mixed in. Before we even get into the details, we talked a lot about there will be dropouts. There was dropouts and there was more dropouts and there was even a few more dropouts.

In addition to the ones we knew about a week out, there was more. Yeah. So I don't know what the deal is. Steve Johnson didn't compete and I saw Nick Best didn't compete. Those are a few that we thought maybe were and weren't. It got towards like for the super heavyweight and three Oh eight. And you know, it got to be like, who is anyone competing that, that we know at all.

Yeah. And you know, you don't want, if someone is hurt or whatever's going on, you don't want them to show up and just have a shitty day or hurt themselves more. is hurt or whatever's going on you don't want them to show up and just have a shitty day or hurt themselves more but that's the thing that sucks about being a fan of this sport yeah is that and i'm like putting quotes yeah i mean yeah they're athletes but it's like you can't if the point of a sport is to have a competition it just gets tough to be a fan when like at any given point a competition has like anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of the people not being able to

make it yes it's it sucks i mean it's a lot of things that are outside most people's control but um so that was the first thing you know but that aside there were still some great competitors that showed up some really crazy numbers you know really crazy number especially on the women's side and we'll get to that in a minute but um i don't know do we want to talk like open powerlifting they were there they uh they ran the meet with uh their open lifter software did you hear from any of the people like did did you hear them say anything like that went really well i believe it did yeah i got the impression it did and i don't know if we ever talked about this but like i got to work with the guys and making that software for them.

So it was kind of cool to see. We were both out of town, so we basically didn't get it. I don't think you got really a chance to watch the live stream at all. No, I have in the past years. I was out traveling around, and so I couldn't really talk to my wife. I ended up just sitting around and doing nothing all day, watching Powerlifting. So, yeah, we were out doing touristy things. Had you not been in Florida, she would have wanted to sit down and watch yes like we always do we would sit down and watch the meet every

Saturday that's going on do you do you think the my guess without even knowing the software very well like will that kind of become the standard would you guess well that's that's the hopeful goal but so what I was saying is you know they they had this was kind of the first big meet uh they were going to run their new open lifter software and I did I was saying is this was kind of the first big meet. They were going to run their new OpenLifter software, and I was able to work with them and build the interface out for that and just try and do something new and different and hopefully better in every way than some of the previous solutions out there. So this was kind of the first big, big test,

and the impression I got from some of the feedback i saw looking around was that it was pretty well and people were excited about it so um that's still as far as a product or an idea goes it's still fairly young in its lifetime but i think there's a lot of opportunity there and i know the guys over at the uh open powerlifting team are like really pushing and developing that so it's exciting to see where that could go that's a good tool like i could picture that well and then the thing is like it works perfectly with their thing is like okay if they start people start using that it's in the format they want it in which is the whole issue is so then is is it an easy way to shoot that to them yes yes in theory yes it should be

much easier for them to just get and go with it'd be good where it's like they're not getting some scanned in pdf that has pencil and pen marks through it so for them in the long run it could really it makes work very very yeah yep and i i think too i mean then you know i think it addresses some issues for um even spectators yeah and fans directors and meet directors and even loaders you know there's some different things with like weights coming up and just from the little bit I've seen, it's like much more, you know, maybe intuitive, not to excel. Yeah. Yeah. So there, it's got a lot going on for it, but,

uh, yeah, I, I, I was pretty excited to see that finally kind of out in the wild and, um, yeah. So, so with that though, they got, because open power lifting was doing it, they got the meet up right away. Right away, yeah. Like, as quick as you possibly could. What about, before the numbers even, what is the deal with the stage? So, from what I understand, okay, it's on a stage, which I guess makes sense in that power lifting happens on the ground. So if you can raise it up, more people can see it.

But what I believe happened is that the way the stage was put together is when things are engineered to support a certain amount of weight, it's not with the idea that you're dropping 1,000 pounds on it. Like, okay, yeah, this stage can support 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, however many pounds it's designed. But you're not dropping it. People usually aren't with the idea that, oh, I'm going to drop 3,000 pounds down on it or 900 plus or whatever it is repeatedly. And I think what started to happen is, like, it was starting to actually damage and, like, compress the stage, I believe, is what was going on. Okay. And with that, it started to warp the actual

like platform yeah the guys were dead lifting on and so you could see like it was like a like a like a wet noodle flopping around like a skateboard ramp like a to me that looked terrible like i mean i don't know if it was really an issue or not but just aesthetically it was terrible yeah when the front of the deadlift platform is literally flopping around in the air. Absolutely horrible. It looks like someone's going to be severely hurt is what it looks like. It raises a lot of questions because I've never seen that before. Last year, it seemed to be a big deal was the walkouts and the squat really wobbly because of the stage or something like that.

I think there were some complaints about the kabuki bar last year or something and this year is what i seem to i mean i didn't even really look at comments but as soon as i saw that i was like oh everyone's gonna be talking oh yeah yeah the first like when you say kaylor wolves deadlifts like well there's something very different than a normal deadlift video going on here and we all know what it is well and it is you know i don't not even saying it's indian's fault and you know there's obviously still bugs to be worked out it's like oh how do you test that oh just go get another guy that can deadlift 900 and tell him to do a few reps yeah exactly but it is like yeah it kind of sucks because this is

supposed to be like maybe the premier meet of the year and every time one of the top five of the year and every time like that looks like crap yeah it did yeah um and i haven't i haven't done enough digging but i thought i saw some things like some people were maybe saying like they couldn't get a proper deadlift set up with that i feel like the bar like it would maybe almost roll or something like it was so slanted if you're in a funny spot maybe but i did see i did the one thing i saw was kaylor said everyone shut up about the stage it wasn't that big of a deal you know and he's the one lifting the most weight on it so i kind of take his word for yeah so if he's gonna say it's fine then i guess he's kind of got to take his word for it right like oh he says it's good so it's got to be good yeah uh but yeah i did have a good look to it.

Like if you're playing basketball and every time someone shot or dunked, the whole room is just flying around. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. And if it was happening in the NBA championship. Yeah, yes. Wouldn't they get something better for the championship of the NBA? Could have had someone come hang on the rim for a little bit just to see how that was going to go. But, yeah, so that's not ideal.

But regarding the actual lifting, Kaler did walk away with the biggest deadlift of 220 weight class. Yeah, 220 with a 950.2 pound deadlift which is a it was a you know a very convincing white light deadlift yeah it wasn't like a soft lockout like you have shaky knees it wasn't like it got like it's like oh it was almost a lockout in the game the down command right which that seems to be what those deadlifts are like a lot of times but his was not like to me i was like well he left no doubt yeah that's how i i feel like you've seen a lot of deadlift records that are much more questionable than that so i i and i didn't even think i really even saw anyone complaining about it even i don't which is also the surprising thing is like i think he did it well enough that he actually

couldn't people couldn't even i mean other than the fact that it wasn't a jeffrey right i was just like to say um kaylor did ask us though i don't know if i talked to you about this he asked us in he slid into our dms and asked what the world record jefferson deadlift is yeah and he wanted to know i don't know the answer exact answer to that it's like a it's like a mystical know that there's only one reason he wants to know that it's so he can begin an intense training right into exactly uh other thing about kaylor though secret weapon he was wearing the mass dynamics deadlifter shirt uh the week prior to his training he was deadlifting in the deadlifter shirt and the next week he hits an all-time world record coincidence kind of hard to draw that conclusion that's true coincidence so causation correlation absolutely we'll just

say yes there's no room for it to not be the reason they are directly tied having the shirt and deadlifting 950 pounds yeah so a huge congrats to him for – That was pretty cool. I feel like that Kaler is a lifter that, you know, it's hard not to like. Oh, for sure, yeah, yeah. I think most people would be pretty pumped to see him. He seems, like, pretty, like, mellow for the most part. I mean, he gets excited about his lifts, but he's not, like, freaking out

and screaming at people. Like, he just seems like a pretty easygoing guy. It's like man like he's doing that and he makes it seem like that effortless yeah it's hard to not be when he got that 950 is almost like jesus is he even gonna celebrate like he didn't do it and then he kind of like he kind of paused and uh you know didn't say or do anything and then he kind of let out a scream yep uh celebration and and he ended with a 2085 pound total yeah really good total half of it was from his deadlift for actually weighing in at 214 it says here almost half of it was from his deadlift yeah it's just the ratio how those things work yeah that's crazy though um and kind of the

deadlift battle was between uh him and yuri belkin. And I think a lot of people were going into... He squatted 914, which is a massive squat. He weighed 227.9, almost in the 220 weight class. But Yuri just doesn't seem to really care about weight classes at all. So he squats 914.9, benches 507, which those two right there are crazy. So already he's at like, what, a 1420 total with those two. And he's like one of the best deadlifters in the world. And he's the guy that can deadlift 900 and some pounds.

So it's like, all right, are we going to be looking at like 23, high 23s from him? You know, like what's going to be here? Like, is he going to take the all-time Wilks from Zaheer for a guy? Right. Because that's there to be here like is he going to take the all-time wilks from zaheer for a guy right because that's there it seems like yeah um but i think a lot of people were surprised when he he deadlifted 881 881.8 and i think there's probably a number of factors there maybe the biggest one is that a lot of his like really recent like big deadlifts have been in those wrpf meets where they have these crazy plates that don't exist anywhere besides the wrpf yep and uh these were on actual calibrated plates you know maybe he was just thinking like well this is all i gotta do to be the top guy yeah i think

i would bet that's part of it like i bet he came here to win twenty thousand dollars like i bet he you know he probably cared more about winning $20,000 than whether he dead lifts over or under 900 I also think the 915 pound squat probably has a factor like that's got to be a squat PR for him like he's probably beat up after like let's see uh yeah best squat yeah that is his that is his best squat like is it by a significant by 30 pounds the best one i've seen before that he uh not counting single ply his best one was 881 so yeah so it's a 30 40 yeah so i i i would tend to believe he was prioritizing his squat training over the recent history and probably not and you know because of

that his deadlifting training probably had to take a back seat and like it is powerlifting it's not a deadlifting competition so like it is the point of the sport is to put up a total so what was It was still 23.03. Is that a PR total for him or not? It's got to be. Total. Well, yeah. Yes, it is. Yes.

So he paid a PR total. Yeah. Yeah. And he won the money. He won $20,000. Yeah. Actually, it's a pretty good. it's about a 30-pound PR. Yeah.

27, I guess he had that meet where he had a 970 deadlift. Right. That was in Russia under probably optimal conditions for him, too. Right, right. But, yeah, I mean, that's still a crazy performance out of him. Yeah, that is nuts. That's the one that's just like hard to wrap your head around. Yeah. easy performance out of him yeah that is that is nuts that that's the one that's just like hard to wrap your head around yeah this guy that weighs 227 and just when looking at him you would never

guess that he can squat 915 bench over 500 and then still basically pull 902 like it's just so hard to like believe that that guy anyways 22 pounds. 100 pounds less than the other people. And he's not like, he doesn't walk around looking like the most jacked guy you've ever seen in your life. You know, he's just like a freak. He is an anomaly, yeah. Yeah, and an anomaly really is the best way to say it. I don't know if there's anyone that has that combination while still just kind of seeming like the unassuming guy you know yeah and then you know the guy's side i don't even really know what happened on the guy's side

outside of that really yeah i know andy huang dumped a 881 squad over his head And he totaled 21.49. That Legrand put up a pretty good total. I know. I don't know. Yeah, that's about the whole lot of the people weren't competing that we're following up to. Several guys totaling over 2,000, which is always a good sign. But probably where things were the craziest with this meet, though, was the women. Yes. probably where things were the craziest with this meet though was the women yes and like specifically the battle between mariana and steffi yeah i think it was like this what was it the uh

like the deadlift or the was it the squat or the deadlift i think it was the squats like the world all-time world record was broken like four or five times between the two of them right like during that and there it's insane to believe so they were both in the 123 pound weight class right um really hard to believe mariana squats 573 like and i think that was like a 60 pound pr for her something like not even in the same weighing 120 what she was doing before. Weighing 123-pound woman. Is this correct? That is more than any 123-pound male has ever squatted before? That's what they're saying, yeah. It's more than any male in that weight class.

And I think even the one above it, too, is what they said. But how many – there's no men in those weight classes. How many guys do those? Yeah. Your sample pool of people is so small. Right. But still, it's pretty crazy that there hasn't been any men that have squatted that much. Yeah, I would guess in the untested 123, if it actually is the same for guys,

untested 123 pounders, there's got to be so few of those. You know? Yeah. I think IPF has a, is that their smallest one? Dalton Lecoe, I think, is in that weight class. Yeah, and there's that little, little guy from Russia that wins every year. And I cannot, like, it starts with an F, Federico or whatever his name is. And I don't think he's anywhere near that.

Those numbers are just crazy. But yeah, so Mariano comes out, squats 573. Steffi does 507. PRs for both of them going into bench Mariana benches 292 Steffi benches 242 how about that Steffi though that's I believe that's probably a PR on both lifts yes and she gets done and she's like damn I'm a hundred and some pounds behind her yeah I'm having like the best meet of my life doing everything I'm supposed to. I'm sure she wasn't looking at it that way.

You know, that's not how you can go into it. You still got to like have that in your mind. Yeah. Like, ah. Yeah. This is happening. Especially when it's like I am doing everything perfectly. Because I don't think it was known ahead of time that Mariana was going to be in the 123-pound weight class.

I think that was kind of a surprise. She cut down to that. Yeah, I think that was kind of a last minute surprise. So, yeah, that probably wasn't the outcome you were expecting. And then deadlift is, you know, at this point, it's like, who knows what Mariana can do? She's just destroying everything. But that is where Steffi finally got here. And that was when Steffi had a 529.

Mariana had a 485. Still crazy lifts. Yeah. and Mariana had a.485. Still crazy lifts. Mariana finishes with a 1,350-pound total for a 720 Wilks score. Now, beating the – what was the prior world record Wilks? Well, she had the old world record. And sure, did Stephanie have the old?

No, Stacey Burr had it. Oh, yes, she did. Okay, so Stacey had the old. So the old one that Stacey Burr had just broke was 6.68. So the record was shattered by 60 Wilks points. See, that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Like, it was a 10% improvement.

Right. It's like everyone's running 10-second 100-meter dashes, and you're going with a 9-second? Right. That's not even in the same ballpark. Yeah. And, like, Steffi Cohen, for having the crazy performance that she did, had 6.98. That's her Wilks. meter dashes yeah with a nine second right that's not even in the same ballpark yeah and like stephy cone for having the crazy performance that she did had 698 that's her wilks and she would have

shattered the record she would have shattered the record she did too well yes yes like her had mariana not even been competing you would have been like man stephy crushed that record yeah and she got beat by 30 points yes and she missed her last deadlift so she would have got if she got her last deadlift, she would have had a broken 700 Wilkes, making her the first or second woman to do it, depending on what order. What was that last deadlift? Was that like 540 or something? I think it was like 540, so she left about 10 pounds out there.

She pulls for so long before it comes off the ground. That's what I don't get. How is that even possible? That's what I don't understand. It's like, what's happening in that first three seconds when nothing's going on? Then it just starts to go. I don't pull sumo. Yeah.

But even the people that I do know that pull sumo, it doesn't wait like that. I feel like her technique must be flawless in order for that to work that way. Most people. Like, literally no flaw in the technique. Yeah, it has to be perfect. Yeah. Like, who else, like, is stuck to the ground and just keeps going and then it goes right it's so weird and like sumo is like the stance that that's going to have like that's not going to happen conventional where you just can you imagine

someone pulling on it for that long and then it goes yeah what are they doing for that first three seconds yes and and her form and she doesn't like break form and then it moves. She like stays perfectly. She does. Yeah, she is like truly a master at what she's doing. It's so weird to see how it works like that. But now the crazy thing of all this

is the Wilk score. And it's like, it feels like you're just watching the formula break under itself. Yeah, yeah. It's like, has science gone too far? Yeah. But it just feels like it's like, it feels like you're just watching the formula break under itself. Yeah, yeah. It's like, has science gone too far? But it just feels like it's falling apart. And I'm not saying women aren't good at powerlifting or anything like that.

I'm just saying the formula is like now starting to not work at all. work at all and uh you know like if you look at open power lifting the top uh 10 wilks scores at all time seven of them are female three of them are male okay maybe women just are better at lifting than men maybe that's what that really tells us women are better than men but um like to just show like okay so what do we got to do like the next who's the next closest man here like zaheer isn't really power lifting right now so we'll just say yuri he's the next closest man here? Zaheer isn't really powerlifting right now, so we'll just say Yuri. He's the next most active competitor. What's his best Wilks now? His best Wilks now is 629, so he's almost a full 100 points behind.

I'm just curious. If he could maintain the same body weight, what total? At 290, and actually that best Wilkes he ever had was in 2017. So let's just do a quick Wilkes calculator just to even get an idea of what this would even take. Okay, if he's a male and he weighs 219 pounds, and let's say he lifts 2,800 pounds. I'm just totally guessing that would give him a 774, which is too much. He needs to be at 720. So let's say 2,600.

That would give him. There we go. So he would have to lift 2,600. So he'd have to break the world record by 100 pounds. Of any lifter, like regardless of weight class. Andrei Milanochev's world record. And he'd have to do it weighing in the 220-pound weight class, which Andre Milanochev's world record. And he'd have to do it weighing in the 220 pound weight class. But I like,

there's a lot of crazy things happening in lifting, but I don't know what that will ever happen. But what, what the numbers to actually be there. If so, you have to squat and a thousand, a thousand squat and deadlift a thousand and bench 600 weighing on sub 220. You know,

it's not, I would go as far as to say it's impossible, right? Like, I don't think that's something. I don't think that's impossible for a person to do. Right. It's impossible for a 219 pound person to do. Right. Would it be possible for someone of Hafthor's size to do?

I think if Hafthor says, like, I pray to God I'd never get hurt and I'm completely dedicating my life to powerlifting yeah I'd say well he probably could do that but what would his will his body weight what if you did that weighing 430 pounds yeah 430 pounds doing that his Wilkes is 627 right so what's your reason which brings him right back to 100 pounds under. And which brings him under what Yuri's Wilkes is right now already. What would Thor have to total to break the 700 Wilkes? At 3,000, he would have a 724 Wilkes. There you go. Back to impossible.

You know, like that's not going to ever happen. Well, what about Mr. 3K14? Multiply. going to ever happen well what about mr 3k 14 multiply uh well tanner you didn't put any rules on this but so it's kind of like it it is i would say as close to impossible as you get for a man to be able to break that into that 700 number right i mean well you just have to bench squat and deadlift 1,000 pounds each. Right. Raw. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's safe to say under current conditions,

a man will probably never hit a 700 Wilks. Right. But so is the point then that women are stronger than men, or is it that, you know, like, is Mariana that much stronger than Yuri, Andre, Hofthor, that much stronger than they could ever be? Like, they literally could not be capable of doing that. It brings up the great debate. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, because the Wilkes formula is just a man-made thing that was made at some random point in time by a guy. I would like to think that the calculation is probably flawed in the way

that it, I still think it's a pretty good tool for measuring things, but these are pretty extreme. And these are the absolute. Yes. These are the abs. These are probably pushing. I think it's safe to say pushing the formula in ways that was never

expected to be used. You know know it probably i think this brings up the whole thing of the debate people always have is like there needs to be something better but no one knows what that is ipf points oh you're right yes how do i forget uh yeah it is ipf points yeah she probably has 10 million ipf points so um how many shrewd bucks or any other imaginary number you want to use to compare other people to other people but uh it still is insanely impressive i mean just the total a 1300 50 pound total by 123 pound woman like that it doesn't seem possible even it was 123 pound man i'd be like that that still seems really, really high.

Like, too high for a guy. And then, like, yeah. They're just, women are crazy good at powerlifting. Yeah. Yeah. At least a few of them here. At least seven of the top ten are. So, had Mariana, Steffi, Stacey, and CeCe all been competing in this,

like it looked like they're going to at one point in time, how cool would that have been? You know, how much cooler would that have been? It seems like at this point in time you could say, like, it would be one of the greatest women powerlifting meets in the history of the world ever. Yeah, it would be. Or it may ever be. Because how many times do you get all four of them together,

assuming that would happen? Right. So I don't know. Maybe next year if that is a thing. Yeah. That'd be cool. They're talking about at Big Dogs they're going to have a – A women's division?

Yeah. But it's going to be only Australian women this first year, I think. Yeah. That'd be cool. I think it was maybe like Lady Cats or something like that. So there is – okay. So like where that gets interesting now is like, is it just the total though?

Well, yeah, and then if it's just the total, Steffi and Mariana aren't competitive. CeCe is the only one in that group that can compete in the total. And even then on a total, she's on a whole different playing field than them. Right. You know, her biggest total is almost 1,600. Right. So, you know, she's looking at between 250 and 350 more

pounds than them you know 170 more than stacy burr yeah but like if it is just a total cc is the only one that if it's a total competition cc is the only one that would ever have a chance of going competing for that yeah and then you know if it is just total, I think there's also women with totals bigger than those two. Right, exactly. So that's where it gets tricky again. So, okay, yeah, dude, I don't know. I'm glad I don't have to be in the position to make those decisions because it wouldn't be fun if someone's going to be a bad upset.

We'll just sit here and judge. We will just judge from afar. We'll just cast our opinions at them. With our really polarizing opinions over here. We don't know what the right answer is, but we don't like what you're doing now. We're not going to suggest anything better, though. No, no, no. Just criticize.

Tanner, we're at like the hour mark right now already. Holy crap. Our color commentary is just running on and on here. When you got good stuff like this to say, you have to say it. Do we have time for any segment? We can hit a segment or two. Do we have anything else to say about the U.S. Open? I think we kind of covered it all.

No. Also, if you guys really want some in-depth coverage, hit up another podcast. They probably will go much more in-depth these things. You probably, if you've been listening to us for a while, you kind of knew what you were going to get from us on our US Open coverage, so don't act surprised. We could do underrated, overrated,

right? You know, in the sake of time, I could skip the rules. I don't know. I don't make the rules, so I can't say that. This week, I'm just going to paraphrase the rules. I don't know. I don't make the rules, so I can't say that. This week, I'm just going to paraphrase the rules. I don't know if that's – I'm going to have to consult the rules further to know if that's – It's kind of like we're in like a chaotic anarchy over here.

The rules don't apply. I've been so accustomed to reading the rules, though, now that paraphrasing them is getting hard. And they're so long, even the cliff notes of the rules is – That is also the problem. Is long. them is getting hard and they're so long even the cliff notes of the rules is that is also the problem is long uh but basically uh i asked tommy some topics here um some of them are lifting related some of them are not most of them at this point in time are no longer lifting related but we do sprinkle them in uh he has to decide whether those uh items are underrated or overrated there's no no real gray area he has to come up with an answer of one or the other at the end um he has his druthers i remember that

much yep the druthers are always key and that that's the that's the gist of it stick around next week and i'll give you the more detailed rules though just as a refer or you could go back and listen to last week's if you didn't need to refer you could pause you could pause right now go listen to the weeks before rules and then come back okay topic number one underrated or overrated food delivery services and i don't know the names of them you might i mean there's uber eats yeah all types of things mostly things we don't have in our area of the country that's why i don't know i don't know the names of any of the uh postmates you know things like that but yeah uh with me all right i'm a cheap guy even like the places in town that do deliver

i'm cheap so i'm like i don't want to pay the delivery fee and tip the guy like because uh you know like i that's at least five dollars right there. And all of a sudden, like my fast, essentially fast food is now getting significantly more expensive. Convenience-wise, it's really, really nice. You know, like what's better than to sit on your couch doing nothing and to keep sitting on your couch doing nothing and someone brings you food? Like that's like the perfect. That you didn't have to make either. You didn't have to it you'd have to go get stuff for you have to look for things like you just do nothing like that's yeah that's the perfect situation yeah so the convenience factor so underrated there's nothing better than sitting around and getting food brought to you

it's so awesome how do those actually work though if you order from Qdoba and they are tied to one of these services do you have to line both things up no I don't think so I don't actually because I've never used one because we don't have that here I don't know for sure how it works but I think there's some I understand the concept but yeah I get the concept but I don't know the ins and outs of it we're sheltered from the world but um just because I can't be a part of it I'm gonna say it's overrated it's expensive so it's overrated it's the part that would get me is just like you said I don't be a part of it, I'm going to say it's overrated. It's expensive, so it's overrated. That's the part that would get me.

Just like you said, I don't like paying for delivery. Now that you've maxed out your insurance deductible, Tanner, probably money doesn't matter to you about anything. That's true. Hog wild. Underrated or overrated? The Avengers movie. To me, this kind of falls in with Game of Thrones.

We've talked about it before. I was a guy that didn't really watch Game of Thrones. I am now halfway through the third season. So I'm cruising through. Yeah. I really enjoy it. You know,

there's something to say about a good story is a good story. Whether you hate medieval stuff or whether you, whatever your view is on the time era and the genre, a good story is still a good story. Game of Thrones is a good story. But at the time, I think I said, the hype people put around it is so overrated. Yep.

And now, I don't follow all the Marvel movies because there's 10 million of them, and they come out all the time. And it kind of seems like it's not special anymore because there's one coming out every month. I'm like, we're still supposed to be excited about this because one just came out a month ago. Who are these characters even?

It's like, yeah, this is almost a TV show. It's like now, um, are they shot perfectly? Yes. Are the special effects about the best in the world? Yes. Do they have the biggest cast in the world?

Yes. Do they have, are they based on great comic books that have tons of history and fans and novelist? Yes. They have all that stuff, but are they hyped like insane amounts? Is the world telling you you should like this?

Is everyone just saying this is what we're supposed to like? Yeah, those things are all there too. And that's what gets annoying. And when it comes out, just like with Game of Thrones, you get a whole slew of memes based around it. And it's like memes that I don't really care about. All the Infinity Stone memes and all that stuff stuff i don't really care about those memes anymore they're probably funny if you follow all of it but i just i don't follow all of it and then now

probably the worst part of it this is probably the part that is the worst is the people that are now like well it actually isn't the best one the other the one from three years ago was far superior it's like okay like now you're being like it's like you love the thing you love the series everyone like is saying this is the best one we're like no no now i am this is is everyone sitting back waiting for to hear everyone else's opinion on how many stars they give it on a let's see what local person from town x let's see what their review is yeah i hope they put it up on social media soon oh they did all right oh they thought the one from three years ago oh and in case anyone wanted to know what um wasn't some of their favorites they also listed some of their least

favorite ones too so we now have the full spectrum and so it's like seeing those things out there i'm like why is like uh it's overrated i i want to see it someday i do but it's just the hive mind thing of like everyone's got to get behind something like ah it ruins it for me so i'm saying it's overrated but i am going to watch it someday i i agree with all of that and i have no problem if you like it well i just the hype around it drives me nuts right underrated or overrated gluten uh way underrated because everyone should be getting as much gluten in their diet as possible uh it's one of those things too like gluten and cleanses and your liver and what it can and can't process and all this stuff. It's just like, it's just made up marketing things. Yeah.

It's just marketers out there preying on people's stupid tendencies. Yeah. Actually, this is really funny. I had a friend in college that he would get really, really drunk. And for some reason, after he'd drink like 20 beers he'd puke and he thought that he was maybe gluten intolerant but he didn't turn out his case of beer he didn't call it gluten he called it glycerin so it was like the dumbest like series of things that you could ever um like put together as your argument for being sick from drinking a

lot of beer uh but gluten i mean if you have actual uh celiacs okay that's one thing but i would guess this is totally a made-up number but i wouldn't be surprised if it's not far from the truth nine out of ten people that think they have some level of gluten intolerance probably have zero yeah because they're probably like just pounding sweets and other like candy all day long that's just loaded with just disgusting sugar yeah gluten whatever has it in it and they just it's just something people use to blame their stuff on yeah everyone needs a scapegoat gluten's that scapegoat so yeah um what was it gluten was that the one yeah gluten is underrated or overrated could be both actually yeah it just depends on how specific i think blaming gluten on things is overrated yeah i

think um gluten is underrated as a as a dietary uh supplement is very underrated okay all right this last one is a recurring theme to underrated, overrated. If you remember, think back, Tommy and listeners along. We had the penny at one point in time. We talked about how Canada does not no longer mince the penny, I believe. It's still allowed in circulation. We then also had the $10 U.S. bill at one point in time and underrated, overrated.

We discussed that. Today's's you have to think about it carefully before answering about this particular uh for this particular currency bill it is the two dollar united states bill uh with mr jefferson on it yes uh is a classic bill a lot of people don't know it exists even i would i would venture to guess on this one uh two dollar bills are probably underrated because I think most people nowadays, if you gave them one, would be like, what the hell is this? Get this fake money out of here.

Also a good question, why does it still exist even? I don't know if they meant the $2, if they meant new $2 bills or not. Also, it could actually be done. I don't know. I can't remember. I don't know. When I worked at, when I was a loan officer in a bank, I would get, I would occasionally. People would pay their loans in $2 bills.

Well, no, I would occasionally change in money and just carry $2 bills around in my pocket because people would think, like, if I would owe anyone money, you know, it would be kind of funny to give them. Like, I had to give them, like, $20 in $2 bills, and it's almost like, is this real? Yeah. dollar bills and it's almost like is this real yeah but if i remember right like most of the ones i would get they'd be in just fine condition but a lot of them would be like from the set you know older oh they would be that old actually yeah uh but i don't know maybe i'm not sure but a big thing is uh people would come into the bank and get them if they're going on a trip to mexico because they would use the if they, if you're staying in an all inclusive, uh,

Oh, they get them for like a tips. Yeah. They give them for tips. Really? Why not just more dollars? Well, because you can half as many,

you know, your, your stack would be half as thick, I guess. I don't know. I've never done that, but there's just like multiple, many people that would come in and do that same thing.

Wow. I didn't, I didn't know that was a thing. Um, it appears to still be in currents are in circulation uh are like still being printed okay yeah it looks like it's still going so highlight though is thomas jefferson that is of course the highlight um i think uh legend has it there's a reference to it. There's a deadlift bar somewhere. It's like when you look at the penny, if you look really close, you can see Lincoln. You ever notice that?

Do you know that? On what now? On the penny. If you look really close, you can see him in the – On the front? No, in the – In the – Let's see, the Lincoln Monument Memorial.

Oh, he's back there? There's a little speck for him. You can see if you look really close at the penny, it's on there. I think if you look close enough at the $2 bill, there is a deadlift bar in the background. I wondered if that wasn't the case, yeah. Actually, I'm blowing it up right now. Oh, yeah.

This is kind of like the Da Vinci Code. Oh, yeah. See, it makes a star of that behind the two here. It's a bunch of deadlift bars crossed. Oh, Very cool. This is crazy. Is Nicholas Cage here anywhere? Nick Cage.

Yeah. So, yeah, $2 bill is incredibly underrated. I agree. Very true. Plus, it's a good-looking bill. It is a good-looking bill. Old Thomas. It just looks like a deadlifter.

It does. Built like one, too. The gleam in his eyes. Built like one. That is for sure. He had long arms for his body. Yeah. Really advantageous as a deadlifter.

Especially for when you deadlift between you and the crotch. Yep. A little extra clearance. Never hurt nobody. So you did say underrated on the $2 bill. Two-hour bills are underrated. I do have a little teaser we'll wrap this episode up but um we'll just tease the whole thing i do have to talk about i just

thought of it now the jefferson territory within the united states a few people have brought this to my attention wow and i've not heard of this that's we'll just save the whole thing for next time there is a i enjoy me some history there, there is a portion of the United States now that would like to become their own state. Oh, boy. Yes. Some of those types of people, huh? So we'll get to a little more specifics on that next time, maybe.

All right. Well, let's wrap this up. All right. That wraps us up here. Check out our website and purchase any of our t-shirts just about everything's in stock the last thing that came out was with the deadlifter shorts uh we have run very low on those but we have uh restock orders back on the way in same with our lift shorts so be on the lookout for restock on both

of those if you're looking for any size that we don't have currently. Like us on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, and most importantly, follow us on Instagram. Tommy, what do you got for the Instagram handle? At Tomahawk underscore D. And make sure to follow the official Masonomics page at Masonomics, and we will catch you next time for episode 162. See ya. You just heard the Masonomics podcast. With your ears, you're welcome. See ya. From your friends at Masanamics Studio, home of the world's strongest podcasts, stay strong.