Massenomics Podcast - Ep.25: Massenomics at The Granite Games

Episode Date: September 26, 2016

This week we recap Tyler's day-trip to the Granite Games... Listen to find out who he met, who he saw, who was huge, and who was small. Click HERE to read the article on the day's activities, and check out the photo gallery. Don't forget to LIKE and SHARE this episode on Facebook... Make sure you LIKE the Massenomics Facebook page... If you don't already have a closet full of Massenomics gear, go to the MASSENOMICS STORE and load up on swag... Also, please CLICK THIS LINK TO GIVE US A 5 STAR RATING ON ITUNES... Click this text to follow Massenomics on Instagram... Vote Massenomics for President in 2016... Have your barber shave our logo into the side of your head.. Maybe get a Massenomics tattoo while you're at it.    Or you could sign up for our email newsletter at the bottom of this page. Stay Strong, M    

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, massive beer. Attention Menards guests, stop by our plumbing department and check out our Hunter Air Purifiers.

And my name is Tommy and I'm very interested in the Hunter Air Purifiers. They're whisper quiet and come with a filter change indicator light and a high performance ionizer. Is that part of it? Is that really the part of it? I mean, they don't require you to say,

but that's how I would say it. I know that was so broken. And as always, thank you for shopping at Menards. Me and my friend that worked there would have like competitions with each other who could do it more oh you actually yeah no you would actually read over the over the phone over the yeah like 555 was the inner like the intercom and yeah because you're supposed to read at that was like a phase they went through that was like a recording um they do most of its recording but that was a phase they've done that a few different times where they expect the employees to do those also periodically throughout the day.

So you would actually pop on and say that stuff? Yeah. But there's multiple different ones that you're supposed to say, but I would just say that. I had that one memorized. Because you're so good at it. I would just say, performance ionizer. And always thank you for shopping at menards and i would always do that dramatic too long pause there and the things just flew off the shelves right oh yeah like we we were out of hunter air purifiers air purifiers for months after that so So do you have a script

for that you're going to use when we pimp our t-shirts then? Attention, Masonomics guests. Stop by our online shop and check out our shirts and buy some shit. They're whisper quiet.

Might not make sense. Well, I think we're just going to roll right from that into the actual podcast. The meat of the episode today pretty much consists of, like usual, a very in-depth conversation into air purifiers. I may know a thing or two about it. Yeah. About such things. What do you think about Hunter air purifiers?

Kind of chintzy like i guess i don't honestly i don't understand the concept of like a standalone like an air purifier that you just put in the corner room when you have like a system that's meant to actually circulate air throughout your entire home well what if you have a lot of stank in that one room though i guess i i can think of actually several rooms in my house i could maybe just i want to defunk that one but i don't know that it takes out any... It's not like it would take out smell. I don't think so.

It's just running air through a filter. Buy a better furnace filter and then run the fan more often. Heating and air conditioning tips here at Mass Anonymous. Yeah, guys. I went to the Granite Games yesterday for a multi-purpose day trip um i went up there just to like i thought it'd be cool somebody somehow i was wrong i thought

it was in saint paul so i was gonna milk my wife's free airline ticket things i was just gonna fly there and check it out and then fly back the next day and then it was in saint cloud and i was like well fuck it then i'd have to rent a car, drive an hour. That would turn into it. But then it's like, well, that's closer to here. So I was like, well, maybe I'll just drive. And I thought, well, I could probably get someone to go with me, and Tanner was like, no.

And a couple other people. It wasn't that simple. It wasn't that simple. He was with child. But then a couple other possibilities didn't work out. And by then, Tanner had already committed me to hauling back a bunch of equipment for the gym. So I was like, well, I guess I'm going by myself. It really was a business trip then.

Yeah. This was nothing pleasure about this. I feel like since Massanomics doesn't actually make us any money, that I'm going to claim every single thing that I do as a massonomics expense I'm gonna write it all off yeah um I always try to capitalize on getting someone to haul equipment for me so I don't I never turned down that opportunity so I went there and um if you don't know what the granite games is it's essentially a non-crossfit branded crossfit competition it's really all it is there's varying levels though from like legitimate like games athlete you know like really really badasses

all the way down to there's some team competitions that are fairly scaled to where i think most amateurs not most but a fair amount of amateurs could could get in and do it if you wanted to so it was really cool tons of cool people there um i told my wife that brooke wells was going to be there so i said i'm definitely absolutely going to send a picture back with her and she was like yeah right and about i don't know what time it was yesterday but i did send my wife a picture of me me me with brooke wells so i think the response i got back from from megan was no that was the only thing she said um it didn't uh that interaction wasn't as silky smooth as

maybe you'd think it was so someone else someone else is taking pictures with if you don't okay brooke wells is uh hideous brooke wells in the opposite sense of the word. She's super fit and she's super strong. And I think she's pretty well known for being both of those things. Was she about like fifth in the last CrossFit? I think so, yeah. Fourth or fifth. Yeah, yeah. Like a legit – yeah.

She's not like the Anna Kournikova where it's like you're just good looking but suck at the sport that you play in but anyway so i um i i saw brooke wells because i've you know bordering on like obsessive about her but anyway not in a weird way the the least weird way that you could obsess over somebody so i uh someone else is taking a picture i said well shit i going to try and get in there and take a picture. That'll really, really be funny. So I said, hey, Brooke, mind if I take a picture?

And she says, yeah. So then I take a picture really quick because I didn't want to take a bunch of her time because she's also probably had to take 10,000 pictures that weekend. And then as I get done taking the picture, she goes, geez geez you're tall and and which there's an opening to have more conversation and i go huh thanks and i walked

away like walk away laugh giggling like totally totally dropped the ball oh brick you're so funny yeah no i just scurried off before i made it even weirder so um but no it was pretty cool there was a lot of like super crazy fit things happening and uh super crazy fit people doing doing fitness stuff so was it on the saint cloud campus is that where they had yeah so they they set it up in like in three three kind of buildings and they really it's not like it's just the slouches in one building it really depends on what the events are so they have the actual um it was like the hockey stadium there right on the ice they go and they have mats and they set up the lanes and that's where most of like the barbell a lot of the barbell stuff was there was no uh power rack set up for pull-ups or anything like

that there um and then there was the field house, which in there they had big rogue racks on each end. So that's where they did, you know, their pull-ups and muscle-ups and all that shit. There's still barbell stuff went on in there too. But then outside they did a bunch of, excuse me, a bunch of work on the track. So there was some just god-awful looking sled push things and handstand walk things.

And, um, but it was, it was, it was really cool. A lot of the workouts look fucking terrible. You know, Tanner and I just,

we went and pushed the sled today and Tanner was in a bad place. I felt after the first one, I was like, yeah, I'm tired. And after the second one, that would have been my limit. If not past my limit, if I was just there yeah, I'm tired. And after the second one, that would have been my limit. If not past my limit, if I was just there by myself.

Yeah. And the third, like I would have never pushed it again if we were not in a group, you know, not in a group setting. Yeah. Because that third one took me to a bad place. It was like a half hour before Tanner was on his feet. As far as he could. As far as he could. To failure.

Yeah. And I still believe truly that for every time that I stopped pushing the sled, that I still could have kept going. Yeah. It's one of those things where it sucks so bad. It's so hard. But we talked about that before. When it comes to pushing the sled you can almost always just take another step yeah so that's what you know tyler had said that before we started so then

you know we're kind of that thoughts in your head so it's always just like well i'll just take one more step and you're going so slow by then but you know the way that i can just keep taking another step and that's a that's a concept i got from uh julian pinot from uh strong StrongFit. And that was the thing he always says. And he'll basically just have people go. And it's like, well, you just keep going until your body won't. And it'll tell you that it won't by making you throw up. And so I still didn't get to that point because I'm too much of a pussy. I think is what it is.

But anyway, we went out and pushed. I don't know what weight. had like 90 plus seven plus 105 we had like 160 like 200 pounds on the sled and uh that's probably all relative to your surface and what yeah it's like and everything yeah because we pulled we did some poles with it and this sled has wheels on it too though right yeah it's got like really nice it's on rollerblades. It's a toboggan. We did some pulls on it in the grass, and that was fucking kind of cool, but the grass was not, at least at the Granite Games, they were on artificial turf.

So whatever amount of suck it was, it sucked the same the whole time. Whereas we'd go and you'd catch this you know we're at like a middle school football field so you'd catch this like weed patch big patch of shit that apparently is just like some sort of adhesive weed and it was just bogged down and it was just really inconsistent that was fun though i like doing the pulling thing yeah it was fun we need a longer rope because it sucks pulling like we had a 30 foot rope yeah so you'd probably want at least a 50 foot rope to i'd really like like a hundred foot rope would be ideal just to really like go for it and not have to fucking keep moving because we would we would pull it the 10 yards

then like get up and pull the slack out another 10 yards and then pull 10 yards again we did it like five times in a row but if you just had like a hundred foot rope you could really go to town on it yeah yeah but uh so there was uh but there was a they had a sled event there it was it was with the teams and they loaded um 550 pounds onto the sled and then three people you know either pushed or pulled it um they'd push it 50 yards they'd run 400 meters and they'd push it 50 yards and run 400 meters and they did that four times but also had to like run into you know they push it 50 yards that's 50 yards they got to run back out of and back into when they get done with their foreign so it ended up being like you know like a mile and a half and then 200 yards of pushing the actual

sled um which was bad and then there was the intermediate level though the weight was 500 pounds which is like well that's not even it's not even like like and you go measurably different yeah and then to the bot like the scale division was 450 pounds it It's like, well, you guys took a whole hundred pounds off when you're going from real legit badasses down to the scale division. But it's a real competition there. It's not like a little community place. So how do people get into it even? I believe anybody can sign up,

but I do believe they have qualifier workouts. So I don't know how they qualify teams unless they maybe just require minimum scores from each of the individuals so the three classes what are those again and what is so so the way they did it for the team works out workouts at least and i'm not i'm no expert on this i just showed up there for a day but um but they had teams of three men or teams of three women they also did have co-ed teams but I didn't watch any of those events so I don't really know but I think that was all I don't know if there was scaled versions of that or not

but in the teams of three they had a scaled version which is like the least difficult and then they had intermediate and then they had the like rx or as prescribed um level and but even the the scaled like the bottom level i believe still required like handstand walks and like toes to bar and shit which is i mean not just every average yeah yeah yeah so so there was but there some freaking really – and there was games athletes there. You know, I saw Rasmus Andersen was there. I saw Sam Dancer was there. I didn't get to talk to him. He was pretty, like, busy, obviously.

But my favorite thing about seeing CrossFit people in person is scoping out how small or big they actually are. But here's the deal so some of those people were really really small sam dancer's fucking huge yeah so sam dancer like we had taught we were talking before that he's like well he's like six foot tall or maybe six one and he was like 225 and that's that's big i suppose but that's not huge um sam dancer's fucking huge he's as huge as 200 and what is whatever he weighs could be his neck is like i mean his neck is enormous so i and i think i thought he had played college football or something he does he looks like a linebacker um he's a big

big bastard that's for sure so him squatting 600 pounds or deadlifting 600 some pounds. Makes sense. You see him, you're like, yeah, I get that. We know when I saw Dan Bailey and Matt Frazier and them in person, you're like, I don't understand how these guys are that strong. Yeah. Sam Dancer looks like he's strong as shit. Rasmus Anderson looks like a fit, normal dude. I'm trying to think of who else to run into.

Oh, Scott Pancheck's a little guy but he's a little thicker than i had expected and they had uh ron ortiz as a guy that won the i'm gonna pull up a picture so you guys can see because you guys have no idea who i'm talking about big poppy right no ron ron ortiz from thex. Hang on just a second here. Stall for me, Tanner. David Ortiz from the Red Sox. I think he's retiring this year. Okay, so Ron Ortiz is, I've got to find out how tall he actually is first. I see a lot of these people, and when you see them in person,

they seem a lot smaller. Ron Ortiz won the CrossFit Games last year in the Masters Division. So Ron is like 51 or 52 years old, and he is fucking enormous. Yeah, he looks jacked. Yeah, and he's tall. He's got to be 6'4". It said 6'3", 225. Yeah, and if he actually is 225, I would just be shocked.

If he's not heavier than that. Yeah, I mean, he was so big. I only saw him, like, standing around. It's weird that they were just looking up muscly dudes. Well, there was one of the Jersey Shore guys. Yeah, I don't know. Which one is that? Is he an Ortiz?

I didn't know that either. What's his name? Why is he all over this? Let's see what's going on with this guy. Ronnie Ortiz. Yeah, Big Ron. That's right, yeah. Okay, so it's not that Ron Ortiz.

And it's not the situation. No. But anyway, he's freaking huge. Like, he was a giant there. Like, I will tell you this. I was definitely still the biggest person that was at the granite games so if you're listening and you were at the granite games um if you're wondering who i was i was the biggest person at the granite games so if you saw anybody

who you're like that's definitely the biggest person here it was me um but no ron is just freaking huge i can't get this to blow up at all. No, he stood. I mean, he was like intimidatingly big next to me. I only walked past him, but Ron is a truck. But Ron is the same age as my dad. Ron is 52. And I sent my mom a picture of Ron saying, I don't understand why dad doesn't do CrossFit.

Why doesn't my dad look like this? Did you ask him if he could be your dad? I think that's up to my mom. What I think is interesting, I hadn't thought about it. So it's not affiliated with CrossFit, the company at all? No. So nowhere there? Do you see the words like Cross company at all? No. So nowhere there? Did you see the words like CrossFit at all?

Not on the event at all. Does Reebok have like a major presence there? No. Oh, really? No, because Reebok has a deal with CrossFit. So this was a... The company really is Granite Games then? Yeah, it used to be called the Cloudytown Throwdown

and it was basically a non... company really is granite games then or yeah it used to be called the cloudy town throwdown and it was basically a non i mean like it was basically just a kind of an open fitness competition obviously it was all crossfit based and it was all people that trained crossfit but yeah like a lot of people don't understand the way cross what like what it is but basically it's just this massive overlord company that just owns the licensing to it. And they make their money based on selling training for the certifications and then affiliate fees.

So if you want to open a CrossFit gym, you pay HQ $5,000 a year or whatever, and then your trainers will have to be licensed and they'll have to go take a course. And that license expires or they can take higher training. That's kind of how they make their money. So what do you think CrossFit HQ thinks of the Granite Games? I don't think they're a huge fan. But if they were really not a huge fan,

you'd think they'd have almost the power to one way or another get it to go away. No, I don't think they can. But I think that's why they're pretty diligent about not saying anything about it. I can see it. CrossFit, the company gets some positive. Because everyone just thinks it's basically CrossFit. Correct. And it's just all publicity for CrossFit.

Anyone would call it a CrossFit competition. Well, and CrossFit only has the only competitions that they have is the Open, which is for anybody and their dog to sign up and put your scores on the internet when they release those workouts. And then if you're good enough at that, then you'll go to regionals. And then if you're good enough at that, you make it to the games. So that's really all their structure is for. And I get that because their thing from a competition standpoint

is to find the fittest on earth, whatever, by whatever standards they determine. But I don't understand. I guess, I don't know. I don't think they'd have a place putting on a bunch of little, little competitions. Right. So I suppose they don't want them to not happen,

but I think they're, they probably want to make sure that their, that their name's not being thrown around without their permission. That's one thing I've noticed that they fight fucking really, really hard for. I know of podcasts and stuff out there that have had a lot of trouble. Like they can't say that they're a podcast about CrossFit, even though that's what their podcast is.

So yeah, you just, you don't, you don't fuck with HQ. I know some people that they refer to it as the death star and you, and you basically, you just, you don't go to war with them. That's for sure. they refer to it as the death star and you, and you basically, you just, you don't go to war with them. That's for sure. So who were the major sponsors of this? Um, so this is, this is the Kill Cliff granite game. So Kill Cliff, the energy recovery drink thing. Um, God, I wish I remember who else was on there. I know the whole thing was all put on by flow elite, um, flow elite.com. They did all the media coverage and broadcast it all um but so i think it was primarily kill cliff that did that does most of it um rogue obviously they had enormous banners and they provide all the equipment and shit too so i mean it's pretty

legit setup i mean they bring in shit tons of competition plates and build the racks and all that i mean there's a lot that goes into that goes into setting it up where you can have 40 people using barbells at the same time yeah that that is a lot you know in in you know in two different rooms so it wouldn't be impossible for there to be 80 people in two separate buildings using barbells and it's a kind of sounds like the gym yeah you remember like you guys remember like at our competition like we had i don't know how many volunteers we had helping just to move things around but yeah imagine the scale if you had if you had like you know they had what did they have like 30 30 or so lanes of people and trying to judge time yeah and a judge for each person and then like a few like super judges who are like would go up and be like, nudge this

other judge. Like, Hey, you're fucking up. Yeah. You know? And, uh, plus organizing just things like, Oh, I can't even imagine. Yeah. You're like stressing. No.

Just keeping, um, and then they'd have to come out. So if it's a different division, like from scaled to intermediate, the weights would change. So they'd have to come out and there was very specific, you know, each person would come out with two plates and they'd load this or they'd pull this off and put this on and so you have just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteers some of them i suppose spent the whole weekend just waiting for their time to run out and change plates yeah um yeah there's just there's a ton that goes into it flow sports flow elite had i couldn't i couldn't even count how many camera people

they had there running the, you know, cause they sold it like the live broadcast for it online and stuff too. And I'm sure they're producing all the content after the fact. Um, so that was, uh, um, Armin Hammer. I talked to him there and he's the one that is kind of the the face of flow elites stuff and he said yeah there's just a there's just a ton of shit that goes into that i mean it was crazy the how many people they had running around just for that i couldn't imagine we have enough trouble trying to put on one podcast i could not imagine but if crossfit hq really is

the death star that would mean that they do have have a 2 meter by 2 meter spot of vulnerability. So do you think that the Granite Games could find it and have their own loop? I think they're happy and competing in where they are. It was interesting. I think the CrossFit Games has a lot of people there who show up to watch it. Just going to go watch the CrossFit Games has a lot of people there who show up to watch it, right? Just going to go watch the CrossFit Games. When I was at the Granite Games, I was actually way an outlier because I didn't have anybody competing there.

Everybody there that I saw was friends of someone or whatever. So everyone was like, well, who are you watching? And I was like, I guess everybody. And then I had to get them past the point of thinking that i was just weird or just like looking whatever you weird just looking at fitness butts but uh because that was most of what i did but um yeah so like i don't know how many competitors like a thousand or two competitors there so you figure they had some of their family but most of the people sitting in the stands and stuff were really competitors in their own time or just somebody's mom and dad or siblings and stuff so while it's kind of a big event in that the competition level is pretty high

from a spectator standpoint there's not as big of it's not the super bowl or anything like that but you probably cool i mean it's probably harder to get a large number of spectators to saint cloud minnesota versus where they yeah i agree you know i mean plus plus i mean it's three days yeah oh it was three days yeah it's friday saturday sunday and the first you know i was there for one whole full day and to just watch i would have left about two hours earlier probably you know it's fun yeah but i also had to load a bunch of equipment that we bought and then drive four and a half hours home so i i would have left a little bit earlier probably if we could have but so was there a good payouts then for the winners i honestly have no i honestly have no idea i don't know because i'm

curious and also i'm wondering like some of the bigger name people they have there. I wonder if even they like pay any of them to come. Because I could picture that if they're trying to get, you know, more credible and better competition. I could see them even paying. I could see that too. So like Brooke Wells was there basically because I'm sure she was just paid by Kill Cliff or by the sponsors. Because they're doing like a little team video competition series through Rogue for something. So they were there just basically just doing like exhibition. Just recording their team series workouts in the downtime.

So she wasn't really competing. And I didn't. A few of the top, top level people there. I don't want to name any of them by name. But really I know that they probably can perform well better than they did so i don't know that they were really i think they got paid but they weren't coming there to fucking win it yeah they probably i would assume that they got paid to make an appearance let's see if i can find some sort of prize money here

i don't know i'm not seeing anything I'd assume there has to be something You know how CrossFit people do anything Yeah Just to win I don't know You see anything on here about money? Not yet Registration

Nothing better on a podcast Of listening to me scroll through my internet browser. Well, we'll just assume there was prizes. Yeah, and I'm going to just assume that I won most of it. So if you would like to send me your prize money. Yeah, I don't know. Their logo reminds me of the CrossFit Games logo even a little bit. Yeah, let's pull that up.

It is kind of a... So is there a lot of these unsanctioned events throughout the year? Everywhere. the crossfit games logo even a little bit yeah let's pull that up yeah and that's it is like kind of a so is there a lot of these kind of like unsanctioned events throughout the year everywhere no i don't but like ones of this size though i don't think so okay no i would guess this is one of the i could be wrong i would guess this might be one of the biggest ones that's that's there and when they say unsanctioned i just mean it's not just crossfit probably isn't like shaking their fist at them or whatever it's just not it's just not not their thing um but i do think uh yeah the logo is really simple oh my god it's identical i would be mad like that's probably borderline like i'm surprised they do that like it seems maybe i'm wrong maybe there's some sort of

affiliation there but man that is as close to that is wild i mean it's not the same logo but it's pretty but to say that the person made the reebok the crossfit one and then 10 minutes later made this one would be completely believable. Yeah, for sure. The fonts aren't the exact same. They give off the same appearance. They are definitely along the same vibe. That's for sure. That's crazy. I'm glad you pointed that out. Sponsor at the top.

The event name in the middle. Yeah, even the website. Date on the bottom. Shield designer on the edges. It's a little suspect yeah they might be getting some some nasty grams but um but no there's i mean because any competition really can be thrown in a at an affiliate or like local competitions too you know you could throw a competition for only members of your gym or you could just throw a competition and any tom dick and harry can come and sign up and i think those are they're everywhere you know i think there's there's probably thousands of those every year i would

believe that yeah um but yeah it was it was a lot of fun i got to see and meet some pretty cool people um i ran into uh mike mcgorick, host of Barbell Shrugged. He just liked the Massanomics Instagram page a couple minutes ago. Oh, Mike McG. Yep. You probably told me we were doing the podcast right now. It would be real cool if you could do that while we're recording. Yeah, if you could do that while we're recording the podcast, Mike, that'd be great. And he said, I just got a DM from him.

He wanted me to make sure I told everyone on the podcast that he really likes our podcast and he would like more people to subscribe to it. And then he sent you a picture of himself, too. I feel like there would be more value in that if he told the people that listen to his podcast instead of having us tell people that already listen to our podcast. I don't usually do this, but I like it so much. I never said Mike was smart. I like it so much I'm sending you a DM

and not telling anyone else. It's our secret. But no, he was there throwing his shirt on, and I was like, is that fucking, oh, no shit. And I was like, since he had his shirt off, I just assumed, I was like, are you competing? But no, I guess his wife, I believe it's Brandy McGoldrick, was competing there.

But he was kind enough to take a picture and climbed on top of me so we could both fit in the same frame. as brandy mcgoldrick was was competing there um but he was kind enough to take a picture and uh climbed on top of me so we could have both fit in the same frame um the other thing it was nice and it was sunny out we were there and if you know one thing about crossfit people is they are just begging to take their shirts off like if there is an opportunity for a shirt to come on they're coming off and out in the football stadium out there in the open air, there was like, I would guess, 30% of the men were wearing shirts. To where I was just wearing cargo shorts and tennis shoes, because I wasn't competing.

And I was like, I should fucking take my shirt off. I'll take my fucking shirt off. I didn't. But you wanted to. I wanted to. It's another, once some people get so fit apparently they just can't wait to show it off but during the competitions at all levels it happens it happens in our in our gym just during the regular workouts it happens um if you watch

the crossfit games it happens the thing i don't understand is why do these guys start with their shirts on because i think it would it's one they want to wait till they get a good pump though i guess yeah the thing i never understood and maybe crossfit maybe it doesn't happen as much in crossfit but once you get sweaty like i mean you touch yourself your hands everything's covered in sweat so like you're losing grip yeah same thing like i don't know maybe you don't get in much of a squat position but i would even think any type of jerk just the whole like when i get sweaty i'm wet and then just the fact of having more like moisture on a bar i just feel like it would do nothing but throw me off the whole time if you have ever the part of it i suppose is the pace

right so if you're just squatting like doing like a squat workout or a deadlift workout um with if you get popped your shirt off it would probably not really be that much of a factor right but if you get to the point where like the intensity is really high and you're breathing hard and you're kind of like redlining for like a certain amount of time and you are sweating to where like you will fucking sweat through you'll soak a shirt yeah um but once you've taken off your shirt and exercise with your shirt off at that point there's fucking no turning back it's the most freeing feeling in the world i'll tell you what i was not confident enough to exercise with my shirt off ever i would never take my

shirt off in a class or ever at all and then once i shed some weight i don't i don't remember the first time that i did but i know that once that happened i was like now i have to fight the urge to keep my shirt on during workouts in which it's just not appropriate it's like it's not even hard and i'm just like god fucking get this thing off it's different though in our gym like everyone keeps their shirts on most of the time but people are taking their pants off all the time like i don't say yeah there's never anyone on there that's when you're serious is when the pants are coming off tommy likes to squat in a spandex you know it's like my favorite thing actually i remember talking to tanner like a while before massonomics existed like it'd be really cool to like be able to lift

in spandex but at the y you just feel like such a weirdo because everyone would be like who is this guy look at this like and now that i do it it's like the best thing ever i feel like it's the same thing like you you can wear shorts and you can even wear short shorts that give you plenty of mobility right but it's the same thing with the shirt once once you've lost those shorts and you're going in just the spandex you're like man i'm fucking owning this whole raid and it's the. If you've got to do a fuck ton of pull-ups and push-ups and run and throw this shit, and it's all this bullshit, and once the shirt comes off, you know you mean business.

Yeah. And I think it's the same thing. It's like the hat in Over the Top. It's just like a switch. You've got to turn it backwards. I still don't know if I'll ever be okay with someone benching without a shirt on, though. Just getting sweaty and laying on the bench.

That would be a little bit weird. That one would be a tough one to handle, I think. Because no one's cleaning up after themselves. No. At least not at Mass Anonymous. Because we don't have towels. That's why none of our stuff gets cleaned. There's nothing to clean anything with.

If there was towels, then... They would also be gross. I feel like having towels is more of a sanitary. Yeah, that's what I'm having. I agree. But no, I always wonder like when you watch like the CrossFit games where like these people are competing for pretty narrow margins of victory. How much time does it take to take your shirt off?

Yeah. Mid-workout. And they all come off mid-workout. Maybe CrossFit makes them wear their shirt. But the guy, Fraser, he won it with his shirt on this year, I believe. I know. It's because his hair is like bear. Is he?

Yeah. Actually, that did stand out to me at the time because I think he was the only person. Probably. Whatever that final event was, that's the only thing I watched. And he was the only guy with the shirt on. So I'm thinking, oh, he's probably not that big and not that competitive. And then I realized, oh, he's the guy that won it.

He fucking smashed everyone. Unless he just wanted to make it look that casual. He didn't get to the point of trying hard enough. He needed his shirt on. You know what? I'm going to take her easy. And I'm going to leave my dress shoes on, too, while I'm at it. But it was a lot of fun i'm trying to

think in my head everybody i saw but there was just so much so much action there was uh you said there's quite a few other massonomics uh fans there was i would say me um i know that uh that armin was aware of massonomics in that that we had made sort of arrangements to try to get him on the podcast here one of these days. And he had helped me out with some – he's the guy that helped me out with some setup stuff when we had Austin on kind of remotely via the interwebs. I asked Armin how they had done that for their WODcast podcast. So he knows – he knew of it, which is about the closest to knowing of Masonomics than anybody else. So there was one other person in the building

who recognized my shirt, and that was it. So fortunately, I did wear the Masonomics shirt and did get a lot of funny looks because I don't look like I do CrossFit, and they immediately go, what the fuck is that shit? Masonomics. Because what the fuck is that guy doing here?

Something against CrossFit. Yeah, what's that guy all about? No, it was pretty cool. And then I stopped and loaded up a bunch of pretty fucking gnarly equipment. So what time was this at when the trade-off happened here? Well, it was supposed to be about 8 and it ended up being about 9. You only had a five-hour drive. Yeah, yeah.

In St. Cloud? Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, it was late at night, whole envelope full of cash in a McDonald's parking lot in a neighborhood that I don't know what the crime rate is like in saint cloud but i feel like there's some some crime happens in this neighborhood yeah um there was a few people like screaming at other people in the mcdonald's parking lot and like so you're saying you're pretty afraid someone's gonna steal those 110 pound plates not so much the plates i was very happy to get all of that cash out of my hands that's your problem like what you deal with that now yeah but uh no so we got what all we get tanner give us the rundown

oaky deadlift bar which we didn't have a power lifting style deadlift bar before so that'll be new to the gym we got another texas power bar so we've got two of those now. My personal favorite. Yep, and now not everyone has to fight over one. There's at least two of those to fight over now. Then we got a set of 50-kilogram calibrated Ivanko plates, which are the coolest-looking plates you're ever going to see,

while also being the most awful plates that have ever been made. And for people that don't keep up on their kilo conversions, it's basically a thousand pounds, 110 pounds a piece. And there's no lip on the plate whatsoever because they keep the plate thin as possible. Yeah. It really is just a disc.

Yeah. It's 110 pound smooth disc. It's nearly impossible to get your hands on. You can't set it down onto a flat surface without smashing your fingers. There's no way. Yeah, we couldn't get them in or out of the pickup. It's just fucking terrible. But they were such a good deal.

We were talking that basically just for a photo op, they're so fucking worth it they're so awesome to look at they just look fantastic like insanely enough that set of those new from ivanko costs like 700 for one set of plates yeah that's nuts that is that is and now and now that i see what they what they are like i don't know that i'd pay 50 for that's like because it's a liability you know it's like it's like it's like if someone gives you a dog for your birthday you're like oh fuck well now i gotta deal with this fucking dog you know like that's true and now so now we have fucking two plates that total 220 pounds that we have to use or else we're gonna feel like we wasted money on them and then we got a set of Ivanko calibrated collars.

They're two and a half kilo collars. And we got a USAPL slash IPF style squat stand slash rack slash, I don't know what to call it exactly. Yeah, it's pretty badass. Yeah, but it's like what you would see in a... In a meet. Yeah, in a sanctioned powerlifting meet. Did you get that put together tonight?

We had it sort of put together, but no wrenches. I got her tightened up, and it was sad to see. We had to get rid of a... For space considerations, we had to get rid of a... What do you call that uh an antique military press rack which we got for nothing yeah it was actually it was in my old high school and it was in the high school gym when we when i was in high school that's where that came from yeah and i don't recall ever using it there. And I think that may have been the last time it actually got used.

In the gym, no one ever used it. The ergonomics of it are just a little off. Yeah, it was weird because it was kind of way back behind you. Yeah. So you could never do that by yourself, really, with almost any weight on it. Even with just 135, a strong person would have a hard time doing that by themselves out of that rack. And it wasn't very adjustable. So like if you were done. And when you say it wasn't very, it means it's not.

It means it was not adjustable at all. I mean, unless you want to re-weld things, it's not adjustable. Unless you know how to weld, it's not very adjustable. But it, and so yeah, it's sad to go, but whatever, it didn't get used. It was, it was in the corner. But so this is, yeah, sad to go, but whatever. It didn't get used. It was in the corner. So this is, yeah, that's freaking nice. So we're hoping that at some point we can get another big full deadlift platform, put that at the end, and we have another spot to squat, another spot to deadlift, another spot to, you know,

you can do about anything out of there now. Yep. Just more toys. More toys. We're getting a pretty, oh, and we got a trap bar now too to add to the collection. Hashtag trap queen. That's right. We are trap queens now.

We're getting a pretty sweet collection of bars. It's like so many bars I don't even know what to – Well, we were talking today. Now, are we still waiting on – Yeah, we still have a safety squat bar and a Cambridge squat bar. I think they'll be here this week, but I've said that to people like a hundred different times. I think we have an episode in June in which we're pretty sure that they were going to be here in a week. This is like turning into the running joke of the show.

They've been known about, I think, since almost day one, and they still are not here. And it's the running joke at the gym. Everyone's always asking me like oh are they showing up soon? And I'm like well I think so but they were lost in the ocean somewhere. They were lost at sea. And then we thought maybe they were lost like on the

Mississippi somewhere. I do think we're going to get them pretty soon. I think I'm going to see them this week. But we almost don't have room for any bars. Our bar holders are full and all the racks and everything. And we were talking, for bars we don't have, kind of styles that you see around,

the big one would be a Duffalo bar. After that, what is there for a bar even? I don't keep up on everything, but I can't think of anything that I've seen that we don't have. A Duffalo bar is the biggest one that sticks out to me that we would uh and then you know super expensive like ivanko and alico competition yeah but as far as like a whole like different thing we really have no need for yeah most of our tsunami bars uh and i still don't know exactly what those are but that's something and then also louis that's a thing that exists that we don't own. Look up Tsunami Bar so we can decide.

Didn't you say that's like the bamboo bar? It's similar to it, but it's different. I think it looks different. Oh, well, if it looks different. Look at it here. Yeah. It's way bendier.

It's like a fun new way to sign it. I don't even understand it. And see, after this one, we'll look up that one that Louis Simmons makes out of Westside, where it has grips on the uh that one that louis simmons makes out of west side where you can it has uh like grips on the bar that you can move in and out what while you're pressing it i haven't seen that one either yeah what's that what's louis go to just go to west

side barbell and we'll see what this bar is called so people can google this crazy crazy bar that i'm sure he has a reason that it's super beneficial and why you should buy it but it's about the craziest looking thing so i'm sure if you're listening to this you certainly cannot hear the audio so um you know fucking deal with it but we're gonna look up a video of the tsunami bar here and then on west side look look up their bars or equipment or something and we'll find it. Store.

Whoa, what the fuck? So if you guys haven't seen a Tsunami Bar before, you gotta... Pretty much just punch that into YouTube. I don't understand. If I saw a video of that, I would think it's like a fake April Fool's thing of some kind. Is that actually how you lift with that? I guess, yeah. yeah i think so so it's kind of like a bamboo bar only except

you're actually supposed to whip it around like that but in a bamboo bar would never whip as much as that thing you know now that particular exercise i'm not familiar with that looks fucking stupid okay so the tsunami bar isunami Bar, I feel like... I think they're pretty expensive, too. What's he doing here? What's he doing? Clean. Why do you...

I don't know if that's really necessary outside of... Okay. Well, that looks like... He's going to clean it here. There you go. Look at him. Okay. Well, at a first glance, and I am no expert at really anything.

Well, okay, how about this? I'm going to agree with the first YouTube commenter who says this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Too dumb. Was this video meant to look like a joke? Oh, man. Now you've got to figure out what the name of that other bar is there too that that uh i don't know if it looks quite as crazy as that tsunami bar but there's another one yeah this is a different thing oh louis bar yeah louis bar

um we have the bully camber bar the, the Bulldog Squat Bar, Bulldog Bench Bar, Safety Squat, Mega Bow Bar. That's the Duffalo Bar, basically. Texas Power, Texas Squat, Texas Devil. The Freak Bar. The Freak Bar. Okay, I think I have seen this one. So we need to find a video of someone doing the Freak Bar because you won't be able to appreciate it. You see those handles?

Those move in and out on the bar so while you're pressing it you also move your hands together and apart like this what the fuck okay those listening you can't see what i'm doing here freak bar yeah okay i feel like you're gonna get some okay west side might help this. Okay. Well, let's see. That's the band bell. We're just going to go with Mr.

I don't see anything from West Side on this, so we'll just go with Ryan something or others. He's got the Freak Bar. How much was the Freak Bar? It was like $400. On sale. On sale. On sale. So not like prohibitively expensive.

I mean, so you press it and you just wiggle. And it has like springs. So it kind of pulls back. I don't get it though. What's it? I think you could just grease up your hands and do the same thing. So you press and then you just hold it and you can basically adjust your grip into like a close grip wide grip mid-press so this guy's like holding it down to his chest and then sliding his hands towards the middle of the bar and out a few times i can see how that would be a challenging exercise

but so is running and i don't fucking do that either well i don't know that we're going to own either of these two things i don't think we're missing out on anything right now a duffalo bar is something that we will have that would be a logical step i don't know what exists after that so maybe if someone has an awesome bar suggestion if you have yeah if you out there if you know of any awesome bars or any really cool little knickknacks i guess i would say what we what would be fun would be um some sort of like strongman dumbbell you know like those circus dumbbells those are pretty cool i think that's something we need to that would be something to have some of those get they're insanely what's the weight usually on those like 200 plus well well they're

low you got there's loadable ones oh there Yeah. So basically you can just load like 25-pound plates inside them. Yeah. Which we would need because there would be so many different, like, if we just get one 200-pound dumbbell, none of us could do anything. It's going to be too heavy for a bunch of people. Like you need something where multiple people could get some utility out of it. So those would be cool.

They do make those. Tanner and I were talking this week about they have um what are they called steel stones of steel or whatever what are they called uh yeah something like that but it's basically a atlas stone but it's made of steel and there's a little key thing and it's smooth like they look pretty legit and they you unlock it and then you can actually load, and it's centered with spacers. You can load plates in them, so you can adjust the weight. So it's almost a plate-loaded stone.

It really is, yeah, a plate-loaded Atlas stone, but everything's centered. I don't know how it would work, though, if you were off the equator a little bit. Yeah, I don't know. How do they sit in there? But those are so goddamn they're like 900 yeah yeah but i suppose once everyone starts nailing that 300 pound stone yeah how are we gonna get to 800 pounds 556 556 would be the world record so we um so yeah so but they also make that

same version of circus dumbbells, too, which they're like centered. Who makes these? God, I don't remember what they're called. But that was like, that circus dumbbell was like $800. It was like $800, too. So we're better off just getting a standard plate-loaded deal for it. And even those are probably like a few hundred bucks.

Yeah. But one of those is all a guy needs then at that point when we're done spending money on barbells, I guess. And right now we're a little limited on space, so that's why we're getting every barbell that we can and that sort of stuff that doesn't really have an effect on the ball space. Because then we're going to get, next we're going to get a leg press machine so we can put 40 plates on each side and we can do quarter reps.

We'll have to get way more sets of 50 kilo plates so we can load it up more efficiently. Especially if we're only going to do quarter reps. It's going to be the most hardcore press machine. With intense lockouts. Anyway, we'll talk about how much that stuff sucks at a different date. That'll do it for us

today though. Do we have anything else to cover guys? No, I don't think think so i think we've covered everything that matters yeah like we i don't know literally i don't know how we're gonna do i don't know how we're gonna be back next week yeah we're gonna have to buy some new shit or i'm gonna have to go on another trip that's the only way so uh that'll do it for us though uh make sure you go to a facebook page like the massonomics page on facebook please go to itunes give us a five-star review go to our facebook page like the massonomics page on facebook please go to itunes give us a five-star review go to massonomics.com scroll to the bottom of the page you can sign up to our for our email newsletter um go to the store while you're there buy yourself

some shirts some hats banners uh do we sell puppies not yet we'll sell massonomics working on the puppy well the puppy mill puppy mill. Yeah, yeah. We want to abuse them just the right amount. Just the right amount. It's got to be like mostly ethical. Yeah. Yeah. This turns into an awful joke.

So make sure you like, subscribe to the YouTube channel. And I'm Tyler. You can find me on Instagram at Tyler F. and Stone. That's Tyler E-F-F-I-N Stone. Tanner? Check me out at Instagram at. and Stone. That's Tyler EFF IN Stone. Tanner? Check me out at Instagram at Massonomics

and my Menards employee ID badge number is 1360052. And Tommy? You can find me on Instagram at Tomahawk underscore D. Can I get on the intercom with that badge number? Yeah, that should work.

Actually, if anyone's ever in a Menards, just pick up one of the phones and hit 555 and you have the intercom access. Have you ever done that? No, but it has crossed my mind before, but I haven't done it. I mean, there's probably not going to be much repercussions. They're just going to be like, sir, don't do that.

The Hunter air purifiers are already sold out. Maybe they'd be like well thanks like that's really weird really yeah i guess you could go to as you could like really pimp their air purifiers they might like it but technically you didn't do anything bad so he can't be mad at him but if you do what what i might do yeah like with that microphone you may not be welcome back so and then how are you gonna like replace your toilet when you need to or that's true i did guys when i installed my bidets i did break the toilet really yeah i tightened the things a little aggressively and i did have to go to menards for it so i guess these ones weren't as handy as the

others but that'll do it for us uh just so you know my bidets are installed so my butt is cleaner than tanner and tommy's as we speak. Definitely cleaner than mine right now. Wouldn't take much. All right, well, that'll do it. Thanks a lot for listening, and we'll see you next week. Stay strong. Later. Bye.

You just heard the Masanomics podcast. With your ears, you're welcome. Check us out on Facebook. Find us on Instagram at Masanomics, and make sure you visit Masanamics.com and buy some of that sweet Masanamics gear. From your friends at Masanamics Studio, home of the world's strongest podcast, stay strong. Thank you.