Massenomics Podcast - Ep.72: Big Brad Neitzel

Episode Date: August 21, 2017

This week, Tyler sat down with Powerlifter/Strongman/Almost-Doctor Brad Neitzel to shoot the shit about Brad's path from bodybuilding to strongman to everything in between. Brad is strong as shit, and is a damn good podcast guest. Check it out! Or check it out in video below: 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 2020.. 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  

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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Massanomics podcast. I am joined this week in, this technically be St. Paul, Minnesota-ish, the greater St. Paul, Minnesota, with Big Brad Neitzel.

Brad, how's it going today? Not too bad. Brad is from Minnesota. He is a fellow giant person. Trying to be. We just got done lifting, or not to be we just got done lifting or not lifting we just got done eating and we left uh we left buffalo wild wings and it was pouring rain outside there was like a 45 minute wait and we had people standing like a bunch of little like

korean people standing in the entryway trying to get out of the rain and we walk out and this this little lady goes or a kid had said something the little lady goes jeez look at them so we did leave some food for them but uh but anyway brad welcome to the podcast brad's been listening to massonomics for before we get into all your your iron cred i would i'm interested to know in like how you stumbled across massonomics in general because we don't have like a very awesome marketing plan so i'm always interested to hear like like how in the world did you find this like how did you stumble into anything that we do here i think it had to have been on on uh instagram i have no clue how i actually originally found you guys but i think i found you guys i'm like oh it's a pretty cool shirt i guess i'll start to listen to these guys that's all it takes all it takes is one good shirt for tommy to design and then we're all set yep if tommy doesn't hit that out of the park we're we're all screwed

but uh no so brad you have kind of a actually a pretty long very interesting training history um i want to get into just right now let's start right now with what you're doing so right now you are training as a right now lifting right now i'm training training for a powerlifting meet yep okay and you had done some strongman stuff is that something you did just kind of because that was available or have did you is that something you're maybe interested in getting into a lot more of so i've done strongman usually when i get bored with just squatting benching and deadlifting yeah you know because it gets boring i don't blame you so and you know i actually want like kind of want to be an athlete still like actually moving

not just be so fat just yeah just kind of fat somewhat fat yep somewhat so i'll just bounce back and i found that in the off season you know if when you're training for strength apart with me it's a great way to gauge your progress in that for sure yeah so when was your last powerlifting meet i competed last in march this year and was that gpr everything yep okay well those are good numbers to go off so tell us what were your numbers in march uh i weighed in at 270 something or another and I squatted 661 bench 369 pulled 733. Legit. Well I think that comes out to like a 1763 total. That's strong. How old are you? 28 just turned 28. Ah to be young. So that is uh those are pretty legit numbers those are big numbers but you hadn't always trained for just top end strength either nope you said you we talked a little bit early you had a bit of a uh

younger past as like a fat kid and then super fat that was the so fat stage. Let's start with, talk to me about super fat Brad. So super fat Brad peaked at 12 years old. The high school coaches were just waiting for me to get there. Yeah. I was 12 years old and 225 pounds. No shit. Yep. How tall?

I mean, were you a tall 12 year old or were you just? Yeah, I was, I mean, I was probably like 5'8 at the time. Okay. So, I mean, for. For a 12-year-old, that's probably tall. Yeah. Yeah. But it was pretty fat.

Just fat. Like man boobs and everything. Did you, did you like gather some athleticism throughout the next few years? Yep. So, what happened was my uncle and my grandpa, they both raced. And then I used to just like to ride ATVs for fun. So I went trail riding with him once. And there's a motocross race the next day.

And he goes, how old are you? 12. And there was like the 9 to 12 class, right? Yeah. And he goes, I'm going to sign you up. So I was 225 pounds on this like 90cc quad. It's just like begging for mercy mercy I think I weighed as much as the quad did and I vividly remember getting last place and getting lapped by a girl nice so

from that point on I think I dropped like 50 pounds that summer really yeah was that what it was you're like I can't be I can't be getting beat by a girl yep no that was it I mean I not only beat but lapped in like a four lap race like it was pretty i remember the day like clear as day it was muddy it rained the night before there was this one jump that i was so fat i couldn't get up i rolled backwards down and had to get a running start at this again just to get over the top this was on a motorized vehicle right this was on a motorized atv so it wasn't like you didn't have the legs to get up no like like like the the internal combustion engine did not have what it needed it failed me that day so to stop picking on a fat 12 year old then uh so so you you drop some weight that summer out of just like, I can't be doing this anymore.

Well, I just stopped eating like a 12-pack of Cosmic Brownies at once. Nice. Nice. And then, so that puts us to like high school age-ish? Seventh, eighth grade. Okay. I lost and started playing basketball then. And then what about like through high school?

Sports? So I played basketball in high school during the winter and then I would race motocross during the summer. Okay. And then all throughout this, I was training, you know, like once I was 12, that was when I first started to lift weights. Okay. When I was 12. So you started lifting pretty early. Yep. Wild. So what was the, so throughout high school, what was your training like? What was the purpose? Was it just something it did was it so in the beginning when i was like 14 15 when i couldn't i wasn't able to drive we had weights in the basement and a lot a lot of it was focused on just conditioning and not being fat so i want to

be faster at racing and uh more conditioned for basketball and in high school you're like i sure hope girls are interested you know what i mean like you're like, I sure hope girls are interested. You know what I mean? You're like, well, that's probably important at that age. Well, yeah. Then I got to high school. I was 6'4", 185 pounds. Then you were basically a beanpole then. I was a skinny fat with like 11-inch arms.

Oh, no shit? Yeah. Really? Yeah. So all that training got you nowhere. Basically. Just lost the fat. So then you, I know at some point you had gotten into how old were you when you because you had done a bodybuilding show at 17 was my first 17 you know so what

prompted that like how did you go from you you were a fat kid and then you got tall you know and then you were a skinny fat kid and then you're like i want to do a body i want to get like spray tanned and everything so this was i think it was like my junior year of high school and i was lifting like the day i turned 16 i got a truck and i got a membership at a gym and i got a job working at the gym okay and then i busted my ankles up and i only played like three games my jv year or my my junior year and i just realized i like lifting more than actually playing basketball and then especially with that injury i had i couldn't even play yeah so what are you gonna do and i realized i just love lifting so much and then usually with a lot of hobbies i got i'm

either all in or all out yeah so i started lifting i'm like there's a show coming up in like five months so i just signed up on the spot nice so how did the show go i got second so did you like did you come in just then like like did i mean did you get in really good shape it wasn't a situation where you can't you were you ever see those memes where you're the guy who gets tricked into you know so so you showed up you got jacked you got tan in that amount i was very tan and very skinny what was the food thing like leading up to that because if you were ever a fat kid, you probably weren't like super disciplined. And so to get that super lean, especially for a show, is like a really a fight for especially a couple of months. What was that like?

So I did all my stuff on my own the first time. And I was obsessed with like watching the Jay Cutlerler dvds you know where you just watch for like eight hours straight and he's sitting there just eating chicken and rice and like no voice just just talking just like i hate all of this so i'm eating it so then i was just doing all my stuff and i would end up doing like an hour to a cardio day all i would eat was like chicken water and then some type of like green vegetable that's all i would eat really for like three or four months no shit and i i vividly remember that there was this one jay cutler dvd where he would wake up in the middle of night to do cardio and then go back

to sleep because he thought it tricked his body into burning more fat i was like 17 i'm like i'll do whatever jay says whatever he says so i started sleeping in the basement of our house so i could wake up at 2 30 to do 45 minutes of cardio. Then I would go back to sleep until 5.30, wake up, do more cardio, go to school. And after school, I would go train, come home, do cardio, and go to bed. That's fucking bananas. Yep. So I don't even know what – I can't even imagine what that would be like

so what what does a guy do after that like you got done with that show did you like did you rebound out of that diet pretty hard i rebound like a really oh i think i put 20 pounds on in day and a half no shit i suppose like a fair amount of water because you probably cut out i mean you can you can call it water, but it was fat. You just added as much food to you. That's crazy. Usually if it's water, you'll lose it. You'll lose it back out.

I never lost it back. That's fucking nuts. So was that the only bodybuilding show you've done? No, I did two more the following year. Okay. The next year. And did you get any better guidance, or was it just just cut like DVDs? I had some help from a guy that I found at the gym, old school kind of guy. I was basically the same.

I feel like, especially with bodybuilding, I guess you can hurt yourself doing about anything, but with what it takes, the discipline for bodybuilding, for a show cut, and I don't know what this is like, but i've done a lot of looking into it you know like like nobody fucking likes that and i feel like if you don't have guidance you'll fuck you can like like just totally head the wrong direction too soon too late like um that's the thing where like you could you definitely just like just find somebody to coach you through it so you you found like an og and uh and what did what did he help you with it was

basically the same kind of thing you know it was just like telling you how much chicken and beans to eat yeah it was like your typical meal plan did he tell you that you were allowed to sleep throughout the night yep i stopped waking up in the middle of the night to do cardio like dude you know you understand that the amount of sleep you get is more important than the amount of cardio you get right that's fucking insane so how did you decide to go from trying to be as lean as you possibly can to a sport in which now you're trying to be as strong as you possibly can so basically i think i did my first powerlifting meet in when i was 22 years old okay so that from 17 to 22 i was at uh i I was in school, in college, and basically I would lift during the winter, get fat,

up to like 240-ish, whatever pounds. And then during the summer, I still wanted to race. So I would cut down to about 210. And I did this back and forth for about four summers. Just like massive, wild weight fluctuations? I'd go up to like 240 240 250 to back down to 210 like every summer really yeah i guess that's not well that still is a lot gaining and losing 30 pounds every summer for however for five years straight yeah i guess you get really good at it yeah um so

so you did that for the racing thing and then did you just decide that you know i think powerlifting would be cool basically or did your training just kind of lead you in that direction basically my parents ran out of money okay because racing can be a pretty expensive sport yes i think my last year racing i was lucky enough to have a sponsor where we were you know new york we were in we're in tennessee kentucky you know all over the east coast and then without that and then i went off to chiropractic school and realized that i can't do this i needed something to have that like drive to train because i can't train just to train like i have to be training for something yeah yeah and i realized

that i just wanted to stop dieting so much and start gaining weight and it's just then I met someone up in the cities that started like hey you should try strongman and my first strongman I signed up for a month out uh-huh and I just did it I really enjoyed it like the athleticism that went along with it wasn't just about max strength like you could be the strongest guy in the world but if you can't walk yeah essentially you can't run you can't sprint like you're not going to win and i think we've talked about it on the podcast before like you know we've had strongman competitions you know ones that like you know ones that i the one that i won i know for a fact i wasn't the strongest person there you know it was like maybe being faster you know best at a guy here or there but yeah it's it's definitely not a like the sport of strongman is not a measure

of true strength it really is strength and athleticism strategy it's like a it's just like a like a manliness competition it is you know like it's like a manly game of chess but uh maybe checkers not quite chess and i oh we'll have to geez it's gonna be now with the episodes we're piling up now nobody's gonna hear about t Tanner's strongman competition for like three more weeks. I think we teased it last week that like Tanner's going to do this power, this or the strongman competition. It was going to be so cool. And now I've got going to have like three episodes stacked in front of it.

So y'all are just going to have to wait till we get back home. But, um, but yeah, so so first strongman competition how'd it go what were you how old were you at this point see i would have been 24 i believe okay so where were you at strength wise let's just say what were your big three lifts looking like at that time as you got into that um i was benching like low 300s like okay and then i think i was squatting just over 500 with like an ugly in heels good morning type of stuff going on and pulling mid sixes okay so stronger than than i am now that's wonderful um i think the very first powerlifting meet I did was the Wisconsin USAPL state meet. Okay.

And I squatted 485. I benched 292. Solid. And then I pulled the American record at 638 at the time. No shit. So you've kind of always been a deadlift has been your thing. Well, I mean, even when I was... Is that why you decided, like, I should be a chiropractor?

Yeah, because, like, essentially with motocross and lifting... My back's legit that why you decided like i should be a chiropractor kind of yeah because like essentially with motocross my back's legit as fuck i'm a chiropractor like if it was for a chiropractor like i'd just be folding in half right now just laying in bed um what about like okay so with the motocross stuff my question is being just big doesn't that automatically put you at a disadvantage or is there some amount of body weight and strength that you should is there like a minimum amount of muscle mass you should have to do that well i could sit and debate that all day long with with with uh motocross racers because they all think the lighter i am the faster it's going to move right yeah right so that's that's what i think so the only way it really hurt me was on the starts you know where everyone's lined up going to the first corner right yeah so i always said that like if it was like a sandy track rough you know the better because i would

able i was able to be stronger like if you hit me i'm like you're fucked you're out of luck like i'm gonna hit you back and you're gonna crash yeah and you gotta figure you're uh you know your your wheels are spending a lot more time on the dirt than theirs yep so i mean like like even when you're going through a turn you can only go through a turn as fast as the dirt than theirs yep so i mean like like even when you're going through a turn you can only go through a turn as fast as your skill allows yeah so if i was using more horsepower per se yeah then the next guy what's the point if he has 70 horsepower and he's only using 20 to go through a turn yeah and i'm going to use 30 40 but we're going through i'm going through faster still yeah interesting what about uh flying through the air it hurt a lot more falling

yeah i can't imagine i can't imagine i don't have the need for speed so i wouldn't even know what any of that would be like i'd be like i feel like i'm putting a lot on the line right now by going all fast next to all you other guys going all fast maybe let's tone it down i got a mortgage to pay um so so you're strong you do a strongman competition had anybody so talk to me about that first powerlifting meet again you pulled the american record so yeah with uh with like a you know kind of an average bench and an average squat below average bench what was your body weight at then let's say this was when the usal still had the trip the 242 weight class 220 before they change everything so this was the 242 junior american record at the time okay in fact i remember because i opened with the record

no shit just just to be a dick did you get any more lifts other than the one yep okay so i think i think i pulled like did you did you go three for three on the deadlift oh god. I think I put like 660 on my third and I got stuck in my knees. Gotcha. So at least you got two. You didn't just open with one and then miss out. So then from there, have you been like – how has it been getting – because what are you at now? You're probably 70 pounds heavier than that now, 60, 70 pounds heavier than that? Yep.

And so has that been something – was there ever a moment where you're like all right i gotta just dial it in and fucking get bigger or was that something you just did over time so that hit me about last fall actually okay what were you weighing last fall i was i still i always would cut down to 264 for the usa oh so you kept fucking around trying to be under yeah no shit i would get up to like 280 i get stronger i'm like it's time for meat i'd start dieting dieting dieting and then you would you feel i've literally never cut a weight for anything because that's just not i cut weight just to not be fat but i've never cut weight for a competition i can't even imagine like expecting to be to feel strong and then being 20 pounds lighter and be like okay well today's the day i'm gonna go do my best

because i feel like i would show up and just not have it and then i would be disappointed every meet unless i suppose you're able to were you able to like temper your expectations because of the weight cut well i always knew my bench sucked so i was just like and that's usually what's affecting the most the most so i'm like ah fuck it you know like who cares about i guess your deadlift is gonna probably hang it i can hang it through that yeah yeah so then last fall i was like i did the usapl deadlift nationals at 264 okay and i did that was my first equipped deadlift meet too and was that like uh it was equipment did you get did you get to spend a lot of time with the equipment i didn't spend a whole lot of time you just like got into a suit you're like here we are

basically like a couple weeks out like i bought a suit and you're like, here we are. Basically, a couple weeks out, I bought a suit. I deadlifted it a few times, strongman style. I'm like, hell yeah, I can pull more weight. And then I diet down, the suit fits you differently. Oh, no. I'm doing a deadlift. It was the first time I did a deadlift-only meet, so I stopped squatting as much.

So my legs shrunk, my suit felt differently, and all I pulled was my opener at Deadlift Nationals. No shit. So you had had basically like a, I got smaller. This meat sucked. What am I going to do about it? Yep. So that was a point where I'm like, you know what? Forget this. I'm just going to start getting bigger.

So you did. You sat down and you're like, listen, I'm strong. I want to be stronger. You know, I'm not, like you're not at a point now where you're like health is on the line because you're fucking 40 pounds heavier no i mean you're not like you're not like sick fat if you were like 5 11 weighing 315 it'd be a different story what do you say anyway now 300 right now 300 right now so at six foot four that's still pretty small compared to yeah those guys and it's the nice thing is yeah being tall is you can carry 300 pounds and not be like super fat you know um so you get uh you get to

there and you decide all right i'm just gonna get bigger did were you just what did you do food wise did you just get let yourself go out the rails for a while or did you kind of plan your way into what i did was my goal was never to gain weight per se. Yeah. It was to slowly eat more and get stronger. Yeah. So I was just going to let whatever happened, happened. Yeah. And then I just slowly gained weight over, you know, a couple pounds a month rather than focusing on it.

You need to gain a pound a week. I was just like, if I gain weight, that's cool. If not, I'm just going to focus on getting stronger and eating more. Yeah. Yeah. And you could probably, yeah. Which is probably, they say, you know, the more gradual gradual you do it the better off and more sustainable it is anyways like i think like the rp thing is like one percent of your body weight a week at the most so for guys like you and i you know you at

that time would have been like two and a half pounds a week but i think they also say like no more than you don't want to go up or down in any direction for more than like 90 days at a time then you got to hold for 90 days so the more gradual you do it that hold isn't probably as necessary but so you did that the right way so you didn't come out like 300 pounds of fucking mashed potatoes no which was which was a win so what was it like then so i you know i had recently done where i just put on a bunch of weight just to peak my lifts and see what that was like and try to feel like eating my way to strength. What was it like for you? Had you maybe plateaued?

Had you felt a plateau for a while as your body weight was stable before that you got past? Or were you continually getting stronger, but your meat performance was just eating it? So I would say during the winter, I was like like 285 just kind of stalling for a while yeah and then just you know i was strong just kind of then i decided to do a part of the meeting in march yeah and i had to wait waiting at 275 and then just peek peeking for that you know i think my squat that was the year before i did a USAPL state meet, I squatted 556. Uh-huh.

And then this meet, I hit 661. No shit. And I only weighed in 15 pounds heavier. But that, that's it. I'll carry this body weight with me forever. Yeah. And then my bench was the same way. No shit.

Like, I think I only hit like 330 the year before. And then I smoked 369 on my third. Nice. And that's, yeah, for for me like my bench went up no joke like i put on about 25 or 30 pounds of body weight my bench went up 40 pounds oh yeah like now that i'm like 295 300 you know i'm almost hitting my competition max for reps now yeah yeah i would love to like i wouldn't love to because i didn't enjoy the feeling of being that much heavier i like feeling that much stronger but like

be like man if i could just eat my way to like 385 pounds of body weight i think i could get myself a 500 pound bench i probably couldn't but that's what i'm going to say because i'm never ever going to eat my way to 385 but uh but yeah that's that's interesting so you you would kind of then just committed to like you're not going to go so you're not doing like strength at all costs per se no you're not one of those guys who's just running like fucking recklessly i'm going to eat everything i'm going to be a 400 pound dude just so i can squat that slow and steady do you have a line that you would maybe like like where would there be something for you to where you'd be like oh maybe i should like but like it's 320 330 340 you know i i always said when i was younger about feel

yep if i always said like someday i hope i weigh 275 pounds and then i get here i'm like i'm still tiny yeah yeah yeah yeah you get you can yeah and so and a lot of times it depends on the world you're in too you know like you can go to some strongman competitions and be like i'm a fucking child yep you know you're like well i guess i got a long ways to go you know it is weird going to restaurants and things you know it still is weird we're gonna have a bottle of it but yeah i think uh thank you yeah you you can get caught up in the real world where like like jesus dude how much you're gonna fucking grow well and the other thing is i'm going to school to be a chiropractor i'm almost done so

if i can't do that i mean what is it really worth it yeah yeah no shit yeah so are you do you plan on like so with the chiropractic practice do you plan on trying to emphasize that on sports specific or you just kind of get up get set up get moving i feel like with all your training experience it'd be foolish to not try to uh serve the specific needs of things that you're most familiar with at least in one capacity or another yeah i think just because the natural just what i do and what I've done and continue to do. So just naturally gravitate towards that. Yeah.

I don't think I have to set up. I mean, how many people are you going to tell that they shouldn't deadlift? You're going to be like, like half the chiropractors I know, like, well, you shouldn't be deadlifting.

What are you trying to do? If anyone says he shouldn't be deadlifting, I'm going to tell him to leave. Yeah. Just out. I can't help you. Yeah. Be like,

I'm, I'm, I'm the chiropractor and i deadlift you know we've got uh you know i had a guy i won't sell anybody out but we had a guy who who i know and used to train with who he was like about my size you know he's like a 280 pound dude and was dead lifting and he just meant he hurt his back and he had gone to the chiropractor he didn't hurt his back dead lifting he heard it just it just started bothering him and so he was telling his chiropractor like well you know yeah i mean i was dead lifting but i don't think i heard it then and he said i've you know picked up barbells and stuff and i just don't remember any specific incident and the guy's like well how much were you dead lifting he's like well he's and at that time he was you know he wasn't like super strong deadlift he's like i mean i deadlifted like 425 or something and and the chiropractor is

like wow i mean what are you doing trying to deadlift 425 pounds you're gonna kill yourself and it's like this is a 300 and you know like damn near 300 pound dude who like in my opinion if he doesn't have if you're through almost 300 pounds and you don't have the strength to lift 425 pounds you need to lose weight you know like but definitely it's not the deadlift like you're not like overdoing it by deadlifting because you're not even strong in the deadlift i just it doesn't make any sense to me so any doctor that tells you like well you just shouldn't be deadlifting just in general not like in response to a condition that you have be like get the fuck out of here oh for sure like we were talking about this earlier where dead lifting is like the most innate movement that you use on a daily basis

dead lifting is far more natural of movement than a squat yep and and when we talk about like the true hinge pattern not not from kind of squatting down to pick something up not to lift with your legs not your back but like to bend over to brace yourself to grab ating down to pick something up, not to lift with your legs, not your back, but to bend over, to brace yourself, to grab a thing, and to pick it up. Ask a two-year-old to pick something up off the floor. See how they do it. They're doing it right. It's us and our soft fucking lifestyle that's doing it wrong. Which actually brings up, too, how you said the word bracing.

Yeah. I mean, like you said, the guy didn't even hurt himself deadlifting. He probably hurt it picking up a couch off the ground. Yeah. I get hurt. Probably like the most painful back injury I ever had. I got hurt fucking sneezing. Yeah.

And it was because I was like reaching like across my bed for a thing and I sneezed. And I'm not even joking. I'm pretty sure that I like fractured a rib because of it. And I'm not even joking. I like fractured a rib because of it. And I'm not even joking. Cause like the, for like two weeks at work, if I would cough at all, like I would have like, I would like get crunched up into this ball of fucking pain. It was nuts.

So I'm certain that I had cracked a rib. I actually, I have an amazing story about cracking a rib. Let's hear it. So my, my, my friend in undergrad was the one that convinced me to do a powerlifting meet first and so i've never done one knew nothing about powerlifting you know i'm coming off racing and bodybuilding and using like these velcro belts that's all you touch right with these like leather gloves yeah and so i'm about to squat the first time with like an actual like inser power belt yeah and he goes you want to put it as tight as you possibly can.

Okay. So I have the thing on like the railing of a rack, you know, I'm sucking my gut and he's trying to get it tighter, tighter, tighter. We finally get it to like the smallest notch we can. He's like, now just unrack it and squat. So I get underneath the bar, go to unrack it. All I hear is drop the bar, drop to the ground. I cracked a rib.

From? The belt being too tight. The belt being too tight. Unracking the bar. And you were overextended. Yep. No shit. I cracked a rib.

That's fucking pretty sweet. I actually, I had to back out of my first powerlifting meet because I cracked a rib. Because your belt was too tight. Yep. On your first lift. Yep. My first try. Jesus Christ. It your belt was too tight. Yep. On your first lift. Yep. My first try. Jesus Christ.

It's a miracle you stuck with it. Let's talk about injuries. Have you had any injuries? Have you been fortunate, unfortunate, anything major, surgeries, setbacks? Well, let's just start with racing. From racing, I assume there's lots. Racing was a lot of beating yourself up. Yeah.

Wipeouts, that type of shit. I lost track of how many concussions I've had. I've snapped helmets in half from falling. No shit. Landed on. Hip contusions, sprain strains. Basically, just getting hit with a baseball bat over and over again. Yeah.

That's the best way to put it. And then at the end of racing, I tore my ACL. I believe I first heard it racing i got it stuck underneath the wheel and it pulled me back under uh-huh but with racing it's not a big deal because you're like in one plane you're not going back yeah you're just straight and so then the best story i got about getting hurt is this acl tear okay so i don't know if you ever heard of poop when you tore your cell no i don't know if you ever heard of poop when you tore your acl no i don't know if you ever heard of octoberfest i sure have i was giving a piggyback ride and no questions i'm gonna follow

up with that you give it a piggyback ride octoberfest piggyback ride octoberfest and i heard a snap and that's how i tore my acl ouch but uh so that was good but as far as lifting goes uh partially tore my hamstring a few times just because just stupid yanking on the bar type of deadlifting yeah the worst one so far was a but i tore tore my bicep doing deadlifting deadlift you mixed grip yep you said what did it you'll never do that again so it was on like a warm-up set no she's my last warm-up set you know like if you ever watched like eric like erica uh, uh, Lily Bridge deadlift, you know, the bar kind of comes out on his warm-up sets.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like that happened to me and then the bar drifted up and then as it drifted down, it snapped my bicep right, right when I had that extension in that elbow. So what's your, uh, where are you at now with the reverse grip? Hook grip. You hook grip solely? Are you going to, you mix grip only in competition i never mix grip never anymore

so either i pull how long how long has this been since you've changed that um i pulled so my first powerlifting meet i still pulled mix grip i pulled 722 in that us apl meet okay and then i had a bicep i only pulled mix grip like two weeks out just get used to it again yeah and i had bicep uh irritation up at my shoulder so bad for three weeks i couldn't bench i'm like fuck this like yeah it'll fuck up your other lift yep so i'm like i just got determined i was gonna get used to it get used to it and then the following year i pulled a hook grip and i pulled a hook grip at deadlift nationals too no shit it's that was actually one of the things that I covered this week with the coaching thing I was at was like the yeah the mixed grip thing is I guess in the sport of power lifting if you have to in a meet if you just have

to like do it only in competition and maybe only in your last stretch of preparing but you really expose yourself to a lot of risk you know one of the things that that we had talked about was the one the imbalances if you train for it too frequently but just um you know like julian always julian says now is like he doesn't let anybody lift mixed grip anymore he's like if you're trying to train just to be stronger, put on straps, stay double overhand then, and just get stronger so that you don't have to go mixed grip to pull that much more. You'd be strong enough that if you went mixed grip, you'd pull even more, but you're not taking that risk anymore.

And you see it all the time, though. The bicep tears and the deadlift, it's all mixed grip. That's all it is. And it's even fucking crazy. I'll see people do it with straps. They'll fucking set up mixed grip and straps. With straps, yup. And I'm like,

what are you, what are you, what are you doing here? I used to do that. I didn't know you better. You know, and I, and I'm not like an expert on anything,

but you, I see it as like, well, you're taking one thing and now you're making it twice as risky because now it's heavier than you can even hang on to and you're exposed to that risk. So, um, I've, I've actually started lifting now when i deadlift like my grip is is pretty legit because my hands are huge oh so i got these baby hands yeah you got baby hands i i have i have big man

like look at that let's see this here so we have my my hands we are about the same physical size and my fingers are each like a full inch longer than brad's i win so that's enough that's enough dick measuring for today that's right when people say they can't pull hook grip because their hands are too small yeah you're not like a big guy with huge hands like i can hook grip i could hook grip i could practically hook grip an axle but i have uh but so my grip as far as just hanging onto the bar is okay, but I feel so much more connected and not engaged with like, I don't know. It's an, it's a weird feeling, but when I'm in straps, I feel like I deadlift more effectively

and not from a pulling mechanics standpoint. That's cause, cause your lap, I'm not that underhand. Like if you have that underside, like you lose, you lose it. It's not pulling as efficient as the other side so but when i go even even yeah when i use straps though i just i feel so connected to the weight it doesn't feel like it's something that is um yeah i don't know i just so now i'll just lift what's heavy and when i feel like i'm if i'm lifting a heavy weight and i don't feel strong i'll just put straps on and i can knock out a couple more reps and what what are we lifting for other than to feel strong and to lift more weight well so you can still keep pushing that needle up you know without having to really even with a bunch of chances even with the power lift

i mean i train the straps 95 of the time time. Yeah. Because I'm still doing farmers. I'm still doing other stuff. You're still doing the grip work. And I've never dropped a deadlift in a competition. Yeah. And some people grip is their limiting factor. Just like some people in the squat, some people are going to fail dead in the bottom. Some people are going to fail halfway up. Some people on a bench are going to fail at the chest.

Everyone just has their spot in the deadlift. Some people are going to fail off the floor. They're going to fail in the deadlift. Some people are going to fail off the floor. They're going to fail just above the knee. Some people's grip's going to give out before they get it locked out. It just is that. If that's not your problem, why spend all that fucking time trying to hang on to it? And, like I said, risk the bicep. The torn bicep is the thing that scares the shit out of me with strongman stuff.

Oh, I would be lying to you if I didn't still think about it once in a while. Yeah. Like for some of those events. You know, like stones and stuff like that. And my thing is always, if you watch strongman competitions, like the World's Strongest Man, the guys who are really fucking strong, when they're doing stones that are even stupid heavy, they're doing it in a way that you don't want to teach people to do stones. Because, I mean, they're doing stones that are even stupid heavy they're doing it in a way that

you don't want to teach people to do stones because i mean they're standing it up right they're hinging it up but they are curling it up and you know they're not even standing it up lapping they're just pulling it into their chest because they're so strong uh one motion stones too like you said like uh yeah they just grab it up and off they go, which is like he's just really strong. But that's so much bicep risk. I'd be like, I don't fucking know. Like I'd be – we had a guy tear his bicep at our strongman – or not ours, but the state strongman competition here last summer.

Fuck, that was a rough one to watch on a light stone, field stone. It's usually like I've seen – And field stones are worse than Atlas stones for it because you can grab it. Yeah. You know, on an Atlas stone, you got to be a little more engaged in the front. You're not just going to be able, you know, it doesn't have handles on it. You know, you could really tear if you're rowing it into yourself. But, you know, that field stone, he had a good grip on it and he just went for it and pop.

You could see it. Just you could just see the hole just right in his fucking arm. Yep. And that's that's rough because that's a fucking shitty recovery you know it wasn't the best but i was lucky enough that i was able to tear it and i had surgery within six days no shit so i was like that night i like i went actually went to urgent care and it was closed and i was literally like up against the window knocking to see if anyone was still in urgent care i mean like if you guys wanted to do surgery tonight i'm here so then like i think they opened at like 80 on the next day and i was there at 8 a.m yeah got the you know mri that

afternoon got the console and i was in surgery within six days and another list of reasons why brad's parents are out of money now that i have kids i'm like i'm like every time it's like so i got an mri i'm like well who paid for that because if i had to get an mri tomorrow i'd be like it would fuck my whole financial situation up so now like when i was a kid i'd be like you know you get hurt you'd be like i don't know we should maybe get x-rays maybe i broke a bone just because you're like to be like, yeah, I'm probably a badass. And you go get x-rays. And your parents are like, you fucking pussy.

You didn't break shit. Get out of here. And then I think I remember the one time where I was like, all right, I don't think I did anything. And it kept getting worse. And then my mom was like, we need to take him to the emergency room. And I go, and sure enough, I broke my wrist. So the bicep thing happened you learned your lesson there now you don't do that at all nope unless it's like

a super high level strongman i just wouldn't even sign up if it's like an over under axle deadlift i'm like no yeah how's that work with the strongman stuff what about well most of the axle stuff though like you're you're allowed to strap in on an axle deadlift. If it's a high enough contest, they're not going to be stupid. They're going to let you use straps anyways. Yeah, like you'll always... If it's an axle deadlift and you're not strapping in, they're fucking stupid. The only time it happens if you have local shows where a guy's like,

What, straps? Gay. Get out of here with that shit. But I think it's it's interesting that uh and and then you wouldn't have any trouble with like a you know an axle clean and press because the weight's light enough like you would over under like you wouldn't have a problem over undering to try to clean like a 315 or something yeah i could double i wouldn't yeah i wouldn't could you yeah i still can i don't know that i well i might be able to but i would just you know i know i wouldn't tear a bicep on that I, well, I might be able to, but I would just, you know, I know I wouldn't

tear a bicep on 315. Well, first of all, I'd have to be able to press 315 over my head. That's the issue. Clean the shit out of it. Yep. What you do, here's what you do in strongman competitions, okay? I'm going to give you a little tip. This is what I do anytime there's a deadlift event, because I look bigger than a lot of

the people I compete against. I just do. But the key is here. So there's a deadlift event. We had our car deadlift event and everybody is deadlifting this thing and doing a good job of it, except for, except for a couple of us.

I get up there and up to this place time. I'm like in second place and I get up there and by a mile, the biggest dude there. And I get there and it's my turn. And I knew, cause I had practiced lifting this car and was not able to lift this car so i'm like fuck and it had rained so the crowd is like in in under the tent so everybody's on top of you so i sat there and really went after it like

to no avail for like for like 30 seconds of my one minute time slot and then what you do if you're gonna fail even a press like that where you know clean and present as you get up there you go and then when you're done and you give up you just kind of grab your hamstring no you don't grab anything you just kind of you just kind of shake out a little bit you're just like i don't know and then people people will be like oh he must have must have got hurt or something because he obviously could do that and then when you walk away you're like i definitely obviously could do that i'm you don't have to own up that you got hurt or didn't get hurt but so yeah so what you do is you you you double overhand it nobody else double overhands it at all so you're gonna be like man this guy is about to decisively press

this shit and then you go and you fail and then you just kind of that's usually what happens yeah you just shake out the shoulder a little bit. Be like, I don't know. It's not today. And then people are going to be like, you know what? Brad would have won that event. But his shoulder thing acted up. Actually, I broke this collarbone and separated the shoulder twice racing.

So I forgot about that. Really? So that's going to be my excuse. You can always lean back on that. No. Recently, you went to one of Chris Duffin's seminars, correct? Yep. What was that?

And where was that? That was in Chicago in June, the KMS level one certification he does. Talk to me about, one, what the certification structure is. Is that just kind of a notch to have on your belt as a coach, or what is that? So kind of, so what they do. Because everyone and their dog now has a certification or a course. So just if you attend the weekend, you don't get the certification for it. Okay.

So how the certification part works is you have to do like an assessment on someone and submit that, submit like what exercises you did, what protocol you're using to fix that pattern. So I haven't officially done that yet, but that will happen because he will list you on the website. And I looked on there the other day, and I think there was only one doctorate-level person certified. Really?

So within about six months here, all of that, DC at the end of my name. Nailed it. Yep. But, yeah, the seminar, like the best way to describe that seminar is it took like two to three years worth of like trial and error yeah done in one weekend no shit yep and how much of that you had mentioned we talked earlier like a lot of that is bracing yep and stability yep um is there some sort of a uh very quick glossy version i don't

want you to teach the whole thing to us obviously is there like a so give me like a nutshell version nutshell version of what was what was some of the most eye-opening things for you because the most eye-opening stuff is almost always the most simple yep so the simplest is breathing is not bracing bracing is not breathing and flexing is not bracing yeah so like those are all separate things okay so basically you have your diaphragm your pelvic floor yep if those things aren't level upon one each other you know you're going to be losing force yep so if you overextend overextend or hunch hunch over pelvic tilting you're going to be looking like what they call an open scissor chain yeah and you're gonna be losing all that all that force either backwards

forwards whichever way it is which is then how your vertebrae eats it yep and you're just going to lose weight that you could be putting on the bar instead yeah so by effectively you know keeping that stacked and inflating and bracing 360 degrees all the way around like we were saying before you stick your hand your thumb in your back by your ql yeah and you brace that should move out yeah and if you're just flexing right here you're not having that 360 degrees and that's when you're more prone to back injuries and just by practicing that bracing i put almost 50 pounds on my squat in really short time not because i got stronger just that much more efficient with movement and moving weight what about the actual position of the bracing because i see what what about the actual position of the bracing

because i see what what about someone who let's just say people who wear a belt high so the belt positioning is going to be come down to whatever is most comfortable for you for the belt to be yeah and that you can still maybe expand into the belt so be bracing below the belt so a common error is your belt too tight. Yeah. Because if your belt's too tight and you can't properly expand all the way around, like you're – essentially it's the same thing happening, but your belt's causing it. Yeah. It's like if you were trying to like flex your arm and I take a ratchet strap

and go all the way around your bicep. Are you going to be able to flex that arm? Are you going to be able to brace that arm? No. No. Yeah. That's wild. Does Duffin put that on himself yep he was there

he was there for two we were there friday night all day saturday and sunday really how many people attend something like that i think there was 50 of us there really yeah cool good group any dickheads not not really i mean i suppose you're not gonna sign that some of those like i've done a lot of seminars and very various ranges of things from training to work stuff to sales stuff and like it seems like every once in a while there's like a couple of people that are fucking pain in the ass who's like you're just like stop making this about you or stop trying to stump the guy putting on the thing but i suppose like if you're gonna pay to go to like like that's a well that's also a very specific thing like you're not to pay to go to like, well, that's also a very specific thing.

Like you're not going to pay to go see Chris Duffin talk about, you know, strength training just to be like, I'm going to go there and show Chris Duffin what's up. I mean, the dude just pulled a thousand not too long ago. Yeah. Yeah. So it was cool. Cause I bet there was about a half a dozen chiropractors, PTs there. Really?

Like actually practicing for like doctors there. That's, that's, that's good. Yeah. Cause we had talked earlier about how, you know, you can just like,

I wouldn't want to go to, if I had to choose a doctor who lifts or a doctor who doesn't, whether it's a general practitioner or a chiropractor or a PT, like I would prefer a doctor that lifts for sure i'd prefer to i'd prefer to fucking eat at a restaurant where the chef lives frankly because the guy's not going to be like shorten me on my steak they're not going to give you like three ounces he's gonna be like why do we even have a six ounce steak on the menu because that's what i look every time i see that shit i'm like oh you guys have a six ounce cheeseburger well i'm gonna need three yep um but anyway even like rehab everything from injury i mean there's a difference

between gen pop rehabbing injury pain free and there's a difference between a athlete rehabbing injury you know just some minor pain yeah but you're still healing the injury. Yeah, yeah. So that's interesting. So what's next? What's kind of your master plan here? So you're about to, when are you done with school? I'll be done in April. I'll be done with school. How many years of school is that?

I have never not been in school. Really? Between undergrad, I did a double major in exercise sports science with a pre-chiropractic minored in psych and nutrition. And then I went to school for chiropractic, which is a three and a half years as well. Jesus Christ. So if anyone tells you a chiropractor doesn't go to school very long, I would beg to differ. Well, you just went to school much longer than you needed to.

Well, undergrad I did. I mean, I may have dicked around a little bit there i went to college twice and i got zero credits each time so you went to college once you just did it for a long time i'm very good at it so basically we've gone to college the same amount of time, and nobody's given me a doctorate, which is kind of insulting to me. It kind of sucks. Yeah. But, no, I think that's great. So you plan on setting up, staying here in the Twin Cities? That's really up in the air.

That's what's up in the air? I need to figure out my life in that aspect. But I know exactly how much I'm going to pull in October. How much is that? First off, how do you know that? First off, how do you know that? Well, my goal is to squat 705, bench 402, pull 744. That's going to be an 1850 total at 275.

I like that. That's solid. Our close friend of Massanomics, Brandon Franklin, has a saying that chicks can't hear anything under 2,000. What do you have to say about that? I'm so unsteady. like you're like give me another year just give me another year every time my wife she kind of has a little bit of a crush on on uh on old frank daddy's what is it frank daddy 77 i think that's what it is but he uh

anyway so she'll every once in a while she'll text she'll text that to me when she's talking shit. Or I'll put something about lifting on his shirt. And she'll be like, chicks can't hear anything under 2K. I'm like, fuck you, Megan. Is there like a drug tested equivalent for that? No. I'm going to guess that the drug, yeah, you're right. I'm going to guess that the drug tested equivalent is like, is about 1,700 probably, I would say.

Chicks can't hear anything under 1700 drug tested he actually has i wish i could i wonder if i can look that up quickly i'm pretty sure he he has his i love his stuff because his uh now he's he's all in on basically that he's not in a drug tested federation at all so i'm'm pretty sure the next one's going to be chicks. Don't care if you're drug tested. Well, it's Frank daddy 27 by the way, but no, I'm trying to think of what his shirts were.

He had some shirts that he was having made. That was just basically like, it was literally like trend on a t-shirt. Yes, this is what it is. It's, it's, it's strength,

but it's all fucking weird. And it's basically just like capital trend on it which i think is perfect just perfect that's owning it mr franklin which i like that's funny but uh but no that's yeah what is the drug tested we should ask him what is the drug tested equivalent without uh having him take offense to it too he'll basically tell you no one cares only you your mom and your girlfriend cares yeah no and he'll say his your girlfriend only cares about his his 2k but uh so you're gonna pull what'd you say 744 so when is the road to 800 when are you getting there you've got a you've

got a time in your mind, don't you think? I think so. Well, like even with all my deadlift training for these meets, I deadlift not as focused as squat and bench. Yeah. Cause my squat and bench, you know, I'm focusing on a total. Yeah. And so your deadlift like, isn't the thing holding you back?

Nope. Yeah. So I haven't a hundred percent been focusing on that. Yeah. I mean at your body weight what were you saying you're shooting for bench 402 402 so i mean like with with like a good structural improvement and like you know you just get your bench up to a 450 you know i mean that's where it'll get to because you're not like deficient it's not like you you're like

super shitty you don't have like wicked long skinny arms or anything like that ohient it's not like you you're like super shitty you don't have like wicked long skinny arms or anything like that oh and it's just kind of skinny and long just kind of skinny so i suppose though with that you're just going to have to add some body weight too and and without rushing to that it's just going to be what it'll be but you said your squat's going to be what 705 that's not a small squat that's a pretty serious squat geez we're gonna have to have you and tanner are gonna have to fucking duke it out dude tell him to sign up i know we should we should i don't know where he's at with his power lifting stuff he's been like i think grinding the strongman stuff because it's it's been easier on his shoulder as he's been kind of easing his

bench easing back into benching but one thing i did for my shoulder was i narrowed my grip a lot did you you know i've been i've been playing with that too because i found that like easing back into benching. But one thing I did for my shoulder was I narrowed my grip a lot. Did you? Yeah. I've been, I've been playing with that too. Cause I found that like I'm more powerful in a wider position, but I pay for it for a lot longer. Like I can restrict that range of motion.

I can move the weight. I can, I can do the thing, but I fucking hurt. Well, I kept tweaking my pecs so many times. Really? I don't,

I don't hurt my pec. It's my AC joint. You know, it just every single time I go wide. And then because I've been doing some cube programming, and so every single set is, or every single bench session is basically traditional grip, narrow grip, and then pause sets. And I go narrow, like not extremely narrow, but I go narrow, and I legitimately feel, even with weights that are similar or heavier, I'm like, fuck, I'm moving this better.

You know, it's like maybe I just don't need to bother limiting the range of motion. I just need to do the deal. No, I mean, honestly, if you watch some of the best benchers out there, like they have pretty narrow grips. like their hands are well within i suppose equipped is a bit different you know you really can't some of the best benchers out there literally are grabbing just inside well i mean i can but are you the the exception of the rule? No. Are you above? No. Are you special? No. I'm not even normal. I think if you pull your average, like, 315-pound dude,

my bench press is even just probably about average from all of them. Not even dudes who lift, which is a bummer. Well, I think we're about got everything wrapped up today. Anything else you got to get out there today? You super big shout outs you got to make oh i mean i i i'm gonna have to plug those sponsors for sure let's hear it well first of all i gotta thank uh contraband sports for all the gear and they helped me out if it wasn't for them i wouldn't have been able to go down to florida to compete in strongman nice and most of the contests everything i do uh south side athletic for providing me an amazing place to train which south side athletic is hella legit think massonomics gym only times 10 and more awesome burnsville minnesota yeah yeah i was looking through it looks how many fucking monoliths you said they had in the one

section in the bully room which is a smaller room we have three competition benches two deadlift platforms two monoliths and a rogue model stand nice badass and that's just one of the small rooms and that's where just like all the pantera gets played loud as shit with the doors closed what else you got out there any other sponsors anything you gotta get out uh just those two okay how can they find you on the social media uh instagram brad knightsell 88 and knightsell i.e n-e-i-n-e-i-t-z-e-l brad yep knightsell 88 yep i like it so well thanks a bunch for listening everybody um make sure you go to massonomics.com uh you want to support the podcast go to the store while you're there you can find all of our hats, shirts, all the good stuff. Also, you're going to find all our articles, videos, and all that other stuff there.

While you are there, buy some stuff. Also, go to, I believe it's, what is it, Apple Podcasts now? Because it's not iTunes. Leave us a five-star review. We'd really appreciate it. What else do I have to plug? Follow us on Facebook. That's where we're going to keep you in the loop on all the cool stuff go to youtube.com forward slash massonomics make sure you subscribe to the page click the little notifications thing

every time we drop super cool videos of big shane doing big shane things you'll be able to see that and you can follow me on instagram that's tyler f and stone tyler eff i and stone and tanner runs the official massonomics page at massonomics and tommy and all of his beautiful beautiful hair can be found at tomahawk underscore underscore d uh thanks a bunch brad uh hopefully we can uh get you on again we'll get you back in the gym down at massonomics next time you make it to eastern south dakota which is you know practically all the time basically always and then we will uh we'll get you on the podcast again with the whole group so uh thanks a bunch for listening everybody we'll talk to you next week and stay strong oh we gotta have catchphrases get schwifty what's yours like fuck i didn't think about

oh shit i should have thought about this thanks You just heard the Masanamics podcast. Thanks a lot, guys. With your ears. You're welcome. Check us out on Facebook. Find us on Instagram at Masanamics. 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.