Massenomics Podcast - Episode 500 Live From Mt Rushmore

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Episode 500 is finally here. We decided the monumental occasion needed a proper recording location and Mt. Rushmore seemed like the perfect spot. We look back on 500 episodes and try to predict what the future holds for Massenomics. Thank you to everyone who has been along for the ride! EliteFTS Use code MASS10 to save 10% on most orders! Build Fast Formula Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! Juggernaut AI Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10%! The Strength Co Get some Go-To Plates! Texas Power Bars Get the Barbell that changed the game!

You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings of how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think. If you don't follow Massanomics, you all do it.

Social media, website, everything. Massonomics. Welcome, everyone. A very... Wait a minute. This isn't my basement. This isn't my basement either. It feels way different.

It's a little roomier in here. We're in four of our good friends' basement, actually, this week. This is a very, very, we always say it's a very special episode. This is actually a special episode, episode, episode 500 of the Massonomics podcast. I mean, we get to celebrate us. What else could you ask for on something like this? We literally have not missed a new episode every Monday for now 500 straight weeks.

Yeah, man, it's insane. Which is absolutely shocking. And for anyone that's listening to this audio only, You don't know where we're at yet. On video, this is not a green screen. We are with four of our good friends here, George, Thomas, Teddy, and Abe here in front of Mount Rushmore. Yeah.

On the Borglam Terrace of Mount Rushmore. All the South Dakota connections we could to get this spot on a rainy October afternoon. And completely uncoordinated. Tommy is wearing the Jefferson Deadlift. Had to represent. And I'm wearing the deep out of the vault. the high plains shirt with Mount Rushmore. In case there was any debate before,

you cannot question that this is a South Dakota-based company. Right. So this episode 500, we have a lot of special stuff planned for it. Also, I'd say, our family was asking if we're going to be nervous for it. And the whole time I was like, no,

I'm not going to be nervous until the second we just about started. And I'm like, wow, for the first time in like hundreds of episodes, I might actually be a little bit nervous to record an episode. It feels different. They asked us the question. I said, I'm not so much nervous about the content. We were there for all 500 episodes.

I don't know if you remember, Tanner, but we were there. But what concerns me is you can't see this, but we have two cameras, multiple microphones of podcasts. We have all this equipment throwing across the Black Hills here. So there's just a lot more variables. Also, it's sprinkling a little bit. And it's raining. Yeah, not ideal either. Where we're at is open to the public as we're recording.

You'll see people will come and coming around and getting a free little partial list early listen to the episode 500. We didn't live stream any of this episode, so everyone else is hearing this for the first time first when this comes out. This episode, much like all episodes, is brought to you still by the Strancoe, though. Big Grant from the Strancoe was actually here at Mount Rushmore. Was that maybe a year and a half ago or so when he was... Roughly. Last year for the Lift Hardly Vee Classic, he came and had to check it out for himself the first time.

And no coincidence, he makes some of the best made in America easy-to-grip black e-coded plates that are out there. When I say some of the best, they're just the best. Absolutely. And I'd like to think it's somewhat part of his trip here to Mount Rushmore. So go check out the Stringco. That's the Strength.com. You can also click our affiliates link page on our website and get to them through there,

just like a whole bunch of other affiliates that we've got as well. And this episode is also brought to you by Texas PowerBars. Texas, in case you're not familiar with the United States, happens to be one of the great states, just like South Dakota. And they have a very special individual over there. named Buddy Caps. And Buddy Caps set out to make what he believed was the greatest bar he had ever seen and trained with. And when he went out on that journey, on the other side of it, the Texas Power Bar was born.

It was strong as a house with the Bessnerling. It was maintenance free. And it was also like the String Coal plates made to last a lifetime. Just like Mount Rushmore. Just like these stone faces up here. Also legendary like these stone faces, too. The Texas Power Bar has set almost an unlimited amount of world, national, international, Asinomics, powerlifting records, and it continues to break them to this day.

So if you want a Texas power bar for yourself, head on over to Texas powerbars.com. Well, when in Rome, what do you think about starting off with a few Mount Rushmore statistics? Let's do it. Give me the rundown. What's going on with this place? Yeah, so we are on the Borglam terrace of Mount Rushmore. And for a new one that doesn't know Mount Rushmore was sculpted by famous sculptor Gutson Borglam.

And what did it went on from 1924 to 1941? And probably one of the more interesting things that I learned about it. So it took longer than this podcast actually is. Yeah. Not that much, though. We're almost 10 years. Yeah. Well, longer than we've gone now.

Probably we'll see if we can outlast the Mount Rushmore Construction period by the time we're done with this thing. But nobody died. And I could have sworn that like a bunch of people died. Oh, I thought you were going to say 20 to 30 people did. Right, right. That's a stat I found that nobody died throughout. the carving process. I guess people were just good back then.

We used to be a proper guy. It kind of makes us want to say it, doesn't it? High to the faces. How high do you think each one of those faces is? Not like from ground to there, but like how tall is each face? Okay. Is it like a hundred feet? Lincoln's kind of got a horse head too,

so his has to be a few feet taller than the other one. Seems like, well, he's got the tall hair out of that. 60 feet. Oh, 60. Okay. The stat I got. 410,000 tons of rock blasted. That's more than there was iron ore on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Oh, what I say? Jeez. And that's the number I relate to. Yeah. Guess how many people visit Mount Rushmore annually on average? Tens of millions? 10 million? 2.5 million on average about, so. I'm just going to overshoot all the numbers.

Let's just make them way bigger. There's no frame of reference for guessing. One something bigger than a million, I have no frame of reference. It loses all track. Last stat I have is that probably some people know this, maybe some don't. But as you can see on Mr. Washington, the figures were originally intended to be carved from head to toe. But they ran into issues in the process. And they said, I think we're good here.

Luckily they didn't. Give them the lapel and call it. Yeah. I'm just thinking, luckily they didn't start at the feet. Otherwise, it would be really like, yeah, we just have the knees down. Yeah, that was my kids' first questions. They go, where's the body at? nobody to see here.

Where the body's at? I'll keep those behind Mount Rushmore. This is also a national treasure episode where we'll be, wasn't that? For the Declaration of Independence. Yes. Yeah, so those are our Mount Rushmore statistics to kick it off, which just seems fitting, right?

It's not all that relevant to the 500 episodes that we've done prior, but it's pretty fitting today. It's relevant to the setting. Yeah. So we do have a few special things we're going to do this week. we're going to go over our 10 most listened slash viewed episodes ever. So that'll give us chance to recap some of the highlights there. We're also going to do a Mount Rushmore of our collective four favorite episodes ever.

We're going to have to agree. Like that's part of the hard part. It's not each picking four. We're going to have to come to a consensus more. We're also going to do our consensus Mount Rushmore of our top four segments ever of the podcast because there's been a lot of segments over the year. and we're going to make a couple calls, I think, throughout the episode of some old,

just some old Massonomics faithful people, if you're familiar with the backlog and everything that we've done in the first 499. I think you'll get a kick out of some of that. We'll do some supporting our supporting members. We're still going to do a certified training facility of the week. And who knows where else it'll take us. So, I don't know, do we want to,

we're also just probably going to, on memory lane ourselves a little bit. Oh, yeah. Gotta do some reminiscing. But does any of those make sense to you of what we would do first? Nah, just hit me with one. Hit me with one. I just wonder if we should first go down our top 10 episodes ever by the numbers.

Yes. Less do you think otherwise. This, okay, you sent this list. This is pulling a mix from our podcast feed and YouTube, combining numbers together. Some of these were obvious to me. And some of these were a little bit of a surprise to me. because they happened so long ago, but they've had that, for whatever reason, people keep hitting those episodes. And we won't give you the numbers of each one, but I will tell you this.

The Massonomics podcast has been listened to and viewed millions of times now, which is pretty wild, too. Been listened to millions, downloaded millions of times. So we start at the bottom of the list and work our way up. Yeah, we're starting at number 10 here. Okay, number 10? Yeah. So episode number was 327, and it was back in 207. and it was back in July of 2022.

Okay. I can almost remember that. Yeah, July 2022 was with John Hack. That was our number 10 episode. July 2020 with John Hack. And rightfully so. I mean, greatest, at least one of the greatest power life is all the time. It's not the greatest.

And he's always a good guest. People like him a lot. We like having him on. We've probably had him on two or three times, I think. It's for sure been two. It's possibly three. Okay. Number nine.

This is from July of 2021. This might be one of the older. This is the oldest one on the top 10 list. July 2021 episode 276 with Dr. Mike Isertel. I'm guessing that was the first time we ever had Dr. Mike on it. And it's funny thinking back on that because I did not know him that well at the time. Actually, you could say the world didn't know him that well at the time. True.

I remember looking him up. He had videos, but they were all much more serious training specific videos. I know he had some jokey stuff out there. But nothing like the online alias he has nowadays. You could say we were kind of hipsters when it came to the YouTube train. We found him before he was big. Yeah, we found him before. He was probably still fairly big at that point.

Right. Oh, what's in your can over there today too? Well, we got the finest Mount Rushmore Cafe Cold Brew that they have available. Actually, not cold brew. Iced coffee. They don't have iced coffee, but I said, can you do an ice coffee? She goes, I will make one for you. What can't they do at Mount Rushmore?

Anything for our friends on the Borglam Terrace. That's right. next one was from October of 2021, episode 288. So not two, just a couple months after the last one. We had a big Hunter Henderson. This one actually is one that surprised me when I see back on the list. She's got on to do some amazing things, no doubt about it, in powerlifting and in bodybuilding.

But we just haven't had a ton of contact with her over the years. So to see the impact that that one has had, also it's surprising. Yeah, her being at number eight puts her at the highest, Listen to female guests we've ever had on the show. I didn't know that. I wouldn't have guessed it. No.

Okay. Numbers, what is that? 10, 9, 8, 7 is 2023, April, 23. Our first repeat of the top 10 list. We have Dr. Mike for number 7 at episode 366. He's back again. Yeah, always. What did you say that was?

That was in April of 2023. I remember we were at the Army. Arnold and he came up to our booth and he said, hey, I got a lot of really good feedback the time it was on your podcast. He goes, how about your people talk to my people, both joking knowing that it's not a thing? It's just awesome. He goes, your people talk to my people and let's line up another podcast. And that was so cool at the time because his popularity online was really starting to take off. Right.

And that he was like, no, I want to spend some time talking to you guys. He was starting to get mobbed at places like the Arnold Sports Festival even. Okay. Next on the list. This is from February of 20th. 2022, big Jordan Feigenbaum of Barbell Medicine. That was episode 308. That's coming in at number six.

Still another one that surprises me. He's a great guest always. I just didn't realize the following or the... And he's been a repeat guest, so I think that this was the first time he was on. Okay. Because we talked to him about that later, too, and then I think we got him. That kind of happened again, too. Because we had a stretch there where there was a couple big ones.

I think the secret is there's anyone that we want on again. We should talk to them about how... successful their first run was. It was like, oh, it was like the top 10 of all time. Get me back on there, rest of run it back. Okay, then, so those were all virtual interviews so far. I think those were all recorded from either our separate basements or probably in your basement together. Like that Dr. Mike won, that first one.

I know that was in your basement. Probably the John Hack one. Yeah. Hunter Henderson, I bet, was too, honestly. But then this is the first in-person, completely in-person guess that makes, list. It's number five on the list. And pretty recent, October of 2024, episode 444, Juji Mufu, viral star to fitness icon. And that episode, okay, that was a milestone episode for us for multiple reasons. One, we were working with Juji, and he just seemed like this superstar that was so many levels above us, but it felt like we were ready to do this. And then we had done content

with him all day long. I don't know. We were, were we eight hours. into hanging out at his house shooting content. Right. And then we do this podcast. And I will say from a production standpoint, best-looking podcast we've ever done. Yeah. Like that's,

if Massonomics had an enormous following and an unlimited budget, that's what every podcast would be. It would be that. Yes, yes. That's like what by the time we're out to episode 1,000, that's what it would be like? Yeah. We'll have two of those episodes then.

We'll do that in like episode 888. Yeah. It was one of the coolest episodes, though. It was very fun to do in person, too. It took a while to set that up, actually, too. Not unlike today, there's a little bit of setup involved. From humping this stuff all, for anyone that's been to Mount Rushmore before, it's a little bit of a walk to where we're at.

Had a lot of gear to bring around. All this stuff, it's just, I told the Park Ranger, it's just like carrying the groceries. We, of course, have to do it in one trip. A trip, baby. Even at Mount Rushmore, it's still one trip, just like carrying in the groceries. And my traps were feeling. Actually, we walked up the first. The first set of stairs, you go, whew, I'm feeling that.

And I'm thinking, wow, I'm glad you mentioned that because so am I. And I don't want to feel like a piece of crap by myself over here. So what was that number five? Yeah. Then number four was from June of 2024. And that was a big coop. It was episode 426. We called it Coop of Garage Gym reviews, gear, YouTube, haters, and more.

Quite the elaborate episode topic on that one. That was a very timely one. It was after the. Yeah. the controversy of home JimCon. So, you know, we had to put our crack journalism team on that and get to the bottom of it. Well, that would have been the second time then.

Hey. How's it going? Hey. We got our first public appearance here. Put one in the old vice. How's going? Yeah, it's been a minute. What's happening?

The last person I think I'd run on to go in the Mount Rushford. Yeah. Well, now you're on the Massonomics podcast. Yeah, say hi there, everyone. Hey, I've seen you on. I always like enjoying the follow every time. Awesome. Yeah, that's awesome.

So you weren't with the volleyball team or whatever. Oh, yeah. My girlfriend, she's never seen Mount Rushmore. Well, you came to the right place. Yeah. Ah, well, welcome. Yeah, we've seen it all here, too. Yeah, awesome.

That's funny. Yeah, you too. I would talk more, but. It's all right. Duty calls. LRC water pole. LR, yeah, if we're new one that didn't hear. So we had a guest stop by here.

Yeah, yeah. I'll explain that. Big Dirt. He said LRC water polo team for life. Lake Region Conference water polo team was a fictitious sport. It was like the all-star team of the Lake Region Conference where we did this water polo. Like it was just all of the buddies from all the different schools we got together.

I don't know how it started, but it was like this fake water polo team. Do you know what boy state is? I do know what it is. We are all at Boy State together. We got these shirts made. So he's from a different school than you grow up. Yeah, yeah, not the same school. That's really funny.

What are the odds? You come to Mount Rushmore to record a podcast And you run into one year old buddies Just how it goes So we're talking about coop on that episode number four And that was actually the second time we had Yeah A big coupon

First one was in person A bit of an infamous episode For having some audio issues That one did make us Straight up Was there audio issues Yeah his mic was like a little hot Was that the old board or?

That was the old board And that was I had just moved into my new house in Aberdeen and so things were kind of in flux. Yeah, we brought Coop over to your basement. Yeah, and nothing, like my house was not unpacked, hardly at all. And we recorded that episode. It was not very good. Audio-wise, and I think the next week we bought this, and life's been better.

Yeah, life's been good. That Coop one is interesting, too, because a lot of people talking about, you know, being with people and working with them before they were big. Like, Coop at the time, garage gym reviews was nothing like what it was. In 2019. In 2019. Yeah, the first time we had on the show. And the funny part is, is 2019, at that point, we had been in communication with him for several years through DMs and things.

Yeah. Yeah. So now we're to top three. Actually, well, technically, if we're doing, this isn't a Mount Rushmore segment, but that would be the start of Mount Rushmore than at number four. But next is number three from April 4th, 2022, episode 3, 13 with Big Jim Wendler. Yeah. And Jim Wendler, I mean, people know how that goes, right? Yeah, it's iconic.

And these are starting to get into very large. numbers of listens and downloads. Jim Wendler was a big one for me because I'd been a follower of their stuff for way, way before Massonomics ever existed, you know, like a decade before that almost. So that was kind of a cool one. Number two is a very surprising one to me. It wasn't never positive, but it's partly because this YouTube video caught on a little bit more than others did at the time. And maybe it was just perfectly timely was episode 279 from August of 2021.

with Derek Thistleweight. Oh, yeah. That's our number two all time. That is surprising. Yeah, that one is attributed to YouTube a lot. Yeah. I mean, the podcast itself did fine, but it did get some traction on YouTube. Man, we've never had them back on, have we?

No. I guess we need to. Get it on the list. And are we ready for the most listened to episode ever? Hit them with it. Of the podcast. Episode 392 from October 2023, three time on the list. of top 10, Dr. Mike Isretel live in person, recorded from his basement at that time in Michigan.

That, in my opinion, is a very good podcast episode because if you're into Dr. Mike's thing at all, we fed him some great content where, you know, we were just serving up, we were giving him just lobbing the ball to him, and he was hitting it out of the park on multiple things. That's also where we got to record the chicken bake video with him as well. A very popular video that we had to. Yeah, that was from a content perspective, that episode was. We did a gym tour with him. The gym tour's gone really well.

God, we were at his house for only a couple hours. That was a very productive few hours. I want to say, thinking back on it now, though, because you never know how these trips go, that was one of the first trips ever that we did like that. So that was two years ago now. It was a building block trip for us. It was a building block trip. I remember sitting in the hotel that morning before we went thinking, like,

are we going to do this chicken bake video? And there's a whole story with that. But so we decide that. I mean, you forge a Costco membership cards. You can get in and get it while I'm setting up the thing. But that was one piece of it. But the second thing was we have to do another video. There's Dr. Michael, we're here.

Let's do a gym tour. And I was having these hesitations because he had just came out with his own gym tour on his channel within the past few months. And I thought, well, that's already been done. No one cares at all. That's old news. And you're like, well, we're here. Let's just do it.

Right. And I was like, okay, whatever. Like, you're right. We are here. Let's just do it. And it's not an exaggeration. to say that they met that may have changed the trajectory of right how massonomics approach content probably did actually that was outside of our own personal like massonomics

gym tours right that might have been the first ever gym tour we did that was not massinomics right and then we realized oh people do like that and that was shot terribly it's not how we shoot it at all nowadays right we had no idea what we're doing and that was that was maybe a turning point and all of this kind of was actually then wasn't it and just like like what you said the whole trip in general of starting to realize like oh wait, we could go on a trip like this, because we did Elite FTS Table Talk for the first time in that trip also. It's like, oh, yes, we can go on a trip like this. And not everyone has to be next door neighbors for us to be able to knock them out in the same trip.

It's like, no, we can just drive. And people will actually want to do content with us, which was also, I mean, that makes sense. But at the time, it seemed crazy that someone would want to block it out to do that. Right, right. Yeah, so that's our top 10 list by the numbers. It's not our Mount Rushmore list. We'll do that separately, I think. I mean, do we want to do that now?

Let's go to a different topic. Okay, we could also call someone too. Let's do a call. Okay. What are we at time-wise here? We've been going for 20-some minutes. I wonder, would you want to read an ad while I get the call ready? And then later I could read an ad while.

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Thank you, Juggernaut AI. We good, Tanner. Yeah, it should be ringing now. We'll see all the audio levels up. Can you hear that already? I think that sounds great. If it's hot, I'll bring it down. I guess we haven't said who this is.

It'll just be a surprise. Assuming you have. I don't even know who this is. Yeah. It's the good doctor. Maybe they don't know who. They've set it to block. Well, well, well, look who came crawling back.

I guess they really will let anyone back on here these days, won't they? How's it going, fellas? Pretty good. Tommy is your audio? Yeah, can you hear about? All right. For anyone that doesn't know yet, if you can't recognize the voice, well, you need to study the back catalog better because it's none other than big Dr.

Tyler Effington E. Back on the show, back and better than ever. Welcome back to the Massanomics podcast. So the cat's out of the bag on where you're at right now, right? Does Tyler know where we're at? Well, I sent him a picture about an hour ago. I sent him a picture of the setup, so he does know where we're at right now. That's not a green screen.

We are really at... There's thousands of people behind us going crazy right now. Tyler, when we started this podcast, everyone said, you guys will never record an episode from Mount Rushmore. No matter how hard you try, you will never record an episode from Mount Rushmore. That's all we were hearing right away. The first year, everybody kept saying that.

And here we are. Who's getting the last lap now? I tell you, I got something I want to run by you guys real quick. I'm going to put you on the spot. Is this a business proposition? Yeah, I'm going to need to borrow $7 or $8. It's a new podcast. So since you're at Mount Rushmore right now, I got to thinking about the Mount Rushmore of Strength

podcasts. Great question, actually. Have you guys addressed this on the show over to this episode? I don't think we have. I don't know we have a variation on this, but we have not actually discussed this topic. And you guys are going to be too humble. So I pulled some data this morning when I was doing a little thing. Lincoln. All right. Yeah. What do you have, do you have a Mount Rushmore then?

Well, not, here's the deal. I think this is a, this is a, the collective mind of the strength training community needs to come up with this, right? Right, right. You know what I mean? Like, they didn't let just one dickhead pick the four guys behind it. Maybe they did. The four guys. Well, if anyone gets to pick, it's the three of us. Yeah. Well, actually, we'd probably be the worst ones. But I was thinking this is 500th episode, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, what, congratulations, by the way, guys. we're not doing a nugget thing for this one. I was going to ask you, do you think there's any, because this won't come out for about three weeks. So we still have time, by the time this releases,

we could set up at the gym, do like a, how many nuggets do you think you could eat at once, not to sidetrack this completely? Listen, I know I could do a hundred. Do you think we, should I buy a hundred chicken nuggets and we do it finally?

We probably should. Can we wait? Mid-diet right now, dude. I've got a big fast coming up. What about like in a couple weeks from now? Oh, well, what day does the fast get done? It would be the perfect way to bring up. I'm going to be honest.

It would have to be like second week in November for me for like literally other not entertaining training reasons. But yes, I would definitely do it. But let's get back to business. So the Mount Rushmore of Strength Training podcast. Because when we started, I remember you guys, we were like, you know, some of these motherfuckers just been around long enough and nobody's doing it yet, right? Right.

So I got to thinking, I said would obviously the massonomics crowd is going to probably put you guys on the list. And I started looking, I said, I think you guys are on the list. I think Massanomics podcast is, this is going to sound real stupid. There is four dudes on the Mont Rushmore, right? Look a look behind it.

Oh, yeah. Just double second. Yep. Can verify. Just saying this is a top four list, not a top five list. Yeah. And I think you guys are on it. Well, some people put a fifth one on for the alien head. I don't know if you're aware of the conspiracy at all, but his podcast? Oh, the actual

Mount Rushmore. Right, right. Now, so started looking. I said, what are we going to use to quantify this? And it's tough. And I only use chat GPT for this, so it could have lied to me. But if I had to go through, you know, remember back in 2014-15 when like Strength Podcasts kind of like became a thing. Yep. Almost none of them are still doing it first off, which I think that's a criteria that should matter generally. We were actually talking about that just the other day. How so many that we discussed then have been gone for years. Yeah. Yeah. And so I would put so I started pulling some

numbers just seeing like, you know, I can't just use audience size because some of these, it's more like clout and fame than anything else. We're talking just the podcast. And your guys is five star, like bulletproof 600 with an overall five star rating on Apple podcast is higher than anyone else. There's only, I think, two other part. One's got you beat in overall reviews by like not many, like 100. And then there's, I think, the Mark Bell situation.

Right. But that's like a 4.6 or something like that. You know what I mean? It's not as high up an overall. So what I'm saying is as much as like, you know, the powercast or this new version that they've got going on over there is probably you got to put them on there because it's like the first one that all of us listen to, right? Right. I think so. You'd have to.

But I don't even know what the other three would be that I would put above you guys, which is a tremendous accomplishment being a couple idiots in my basement. I never should I never should have let you fools out of my basement I think that's the real lesson here yes yes so powercast is good and then us

the massonomics podcast yeah starting starting strength is one that's just below I think just below you in uh count in review count and I'd say that's legit I mean dudes obviously like icon

generally anyways but like has been doing it And I think that works. And that's three. And I don't know, let the audience pick number four. But I think it's safe to say that you guys have put yourselves atop the mountain. I think it's just the, it is the fact of just outlasting everyone. That is true.

It has been always been the strategy. But it actually will make up for in longevity. It actually kind of works, though. It's not that it doesn't work. And if we take it one step further and I'm going to go with, I mean, like the percentage of haters. you guys got a pretty high love to hate ratio. True. Right?

Listen, because you stayed out of all the politic and you didn't go to the conspiracy around you route and just make enemies as soon as you started the podcast. Well, and like the other two you mentioned on the list, they have a way different love to hate ratio, honestly, like significantly different than ours.

Like there's a lot of people that are firmly embedded on both sides of the camp. And with us, we just don't have many hate. We've talked about that recently. The only time that ever comes up is once the podcast, like if a YouTube video really goes off, then you start to get to the gen pop. But it's really just, it's not people that actually, there's people that actually hate those organizations, those other ones. With ours, it's just people that are like, oh, your quads are tiny. Or, you know, like, I'm like, they don't hate it.

You know, they're just like picking out things because they want to make fun of people on the internet, you know. Yeah, so you guys laugh like nerds. Right. It's like, oh, you sound like, one of you sounds like Beavis. I've always said if you look around the room and you can't figure out who the guy is, that sounds like Beavis, it's probably you. Turns out that was me all along. Who would have thought, huh?

I'm glad you came to that. Better least than never. Yeah, so we've told this story before, but the back catalog is so long that the realistic thing is a lot of our listeners really haven't listened to even like the first half of our episodes or the first 300 at this point, or it could even be the first 400 that they haven't listened to. So this is still new information for a lot of people, but really the way the podcast started,

and Tyler, go ahead and interrupt and then add at the end of it however you want to. But we were kind of starting the gym, that stuff. It was Professor Shons, Tommy, you and I, and you had just come into the gym, like maybe the first day you were ever in there, and you're like, oh, we should start a podcast. And I was like, yeah, that'd be really,

cool to do someday. Like that's something we should do someday. Like that's something I would think and say out loud. And you're like, no, I have the stuff. We should do a podcast like, I don't know, this weekend. And I was like, oh, wait a second. You like me to actually do it, not just something we're going to talk about, you know. And basically that's how we had a podcast. How interesting is that in this, also in this business, in this line of work too, how many times are people like not about it with their ideas, especially in podcasting is one. all the time. I should have five.

Oh, you don't have anything to say after your first. Five episodes in, your entire knowledge base has been white. Now, the nice thing was we started with actually nothing to say. Right. And then figured it out after that,

which is like, we just got to start doing stuff. I do think it was interesting that like, what the fuck were you idiotic's going to do? Like, I think about it. Because I'll tell you what attracted me to think generally. I liked you guys.

You guys were good dude. But like the name was awesome and the logo fucking rules. one of those things you're like, okay, this, just like at its core, you're like, if that just was already a thing, nobody would doubt it, right? It's dumb, but that is, there is so much truth in that, is that it seemed legit right off the bat, whether you knew what it was or not. You're like, oh, this is clearly something. Right. By the way, I've hired Tommy to do logos for me and some of my other businesses over these years,

and that's the only criteria I give him is like, just make sure it looks like it's already been a thing. I mean, yeah, and then when I'm not fucking around, like it's okay. Yeah. You don't get to hit home runs. It just got to look like it. exists. We can't have people like, what the fuck? But I think that started as like the fundamental. I was like, that's pretty cool. These guys seem to be about it. I had been kind of an urge to collaborate because I was just doing really lame writing on some of the CrossFit stuff I was doing. And thank goodness we didn't double down on the blogosphere, by the way. That would not have,

that tide was not rising, you know, and we kind of did some of it. Eat the damn sandwich. Wasn't that? Yeah. Yeah. Barry that, delete that, sense for that. That stuff. But I do think I do think that, you know, we, like, dabbled in it. And especially with Sean's, it was like, okay, well, there's all these, like, tools at your disposal in this fitness, entertainment type space or, I don't know, fucking whatever. Enthusiast, information. There's plenty of pathways you can go to it, go with it. And it was like, all right, well, podcast won, start writing some stuff. And honestly, what was interesting, and as much as this probably, like, pains you to hear, the podcast did well and was doing really, really well.

and always kind of has continued to grow. But as soon as like meme culture became like and Tanner's pretty good at it, like I kind of fall on my face a lot of that stuff. It was just like, if you ever don't do this and you go back fine, if you like, hey guys, I made it. I mean, Tyler would throw a meme in everyone's wild. I would just, I wouldn't get it. You know what I mean?

I would go. That's dumb. And then you guys would politely be like, okay, we'll post it. But like you guys got so good at the meme hustle, which like kind of makes the content. it really, really, really pop. Yeah. And that was like, that was like, I said,

podcast generally was like the workhorse. Yes. And then the consistent. Yeah. Yeah. And the blogs. And the blog stuff was going to inevitably die just because that's the way all that stuff is now.

Yeah. And it just ended up, that missile was headed straight to the ground. And then we left with the podcast and fucking growing an Instagram channel. The only way, finally there was a way to grow social media. Because otherwise, you had to like have a personality. or like or you know what I mean make like personality content where you're the one talking or you're doing this or we got to take our dicks out and instead like memes kind of became a thing that like made their way from just like the standard formats to start to apply to also a shit and you guys really really really have crushed that and I think that was when it went from like 5,000 followers 10,000 followers to wherever you're gonna have 50 something on one but it doesn't matter those numbers will all act like I don't know every single number by heart I know I don't know I don't I don't know I don't I don't know I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't I like to pretend, be like, I don't know, yeah, something like that.

I don't know. We can go. There's a metric that we based our success on early on and we're not going to, I won't say any names for the service. Oh, yeah. It's funny. We used to measure stick against people that are

completely irrelevant to us now at this point. But there was a local person who was just like thirsty fitness account and it pissed us off because you have so many followers and doing nothing of substance. And there was no product and was no So it was all fluff and who knows how real those numbers were. But like when people were talking about fitness and we had the pocket, you should collaborate.

This remember. And so we just like, but I remember that number. Yeah. Because I think it was around 10. Yeah. Okay. Or something like that. And I was like, God, we got to get past that.

And fucking. And I remember, I think I was still around when we popped past out. And then, and thank goodness. That is a ratio that you should always look to to measure your success. that needs to get the 100 to 1 to 1,000 to 1 to 1, a million to 1 so that nobody's ever going, oh, you got your little fitness thing? Like, I'm going to fucking burn this place down.

You know, the other thing about the podcast history lesson that I bring this up sometimes and talk about this is at the time I remember, you know, you knew more about podcasts than I think that either of us did. Obviously, you knew way more about it. You were prepared to start one in a week. But also there was this thought like, this was in 2015 and it was like oh man are we starting this too late like did we lost the bus and now that's a decade ago you know don't you remember that thought though where it was like oh dang that we need to be like three years ago

that was our first con that was in our first conversation in the gym was like dude here's the problem everybody's already been doing this and we're so fucking far behind right that was it we're like way behind There's like five fitness podcasts already. Is there room for a sixth one? Literally was it too. We're talking about the beginning of time here. Right. You're like, I don't know, man. It's just, we treated it like it was going to be getting into like large scale corporate

farming now. Yeah. Right. Just buy a thousand acres at $10,000 an acre and borrow money on all this equipment and just turn a profit on just that land this year from scratch. It's not going to work. But it just wasn't that way. It was odd that the whole tide continued to grow.

whether it wasn't any major bubble, but it was pretty interesting that that was our first thought. It was like, I mean, Rogan's been doing it for like four years. Yeah. I mean, all we got. And I don't remember the number we said in the beginning. I thought it was 300 or 500. It's like, you know, you 300 episodes, you know, like you'll, you'll have some people. Right.

Now, unless you're doing the conspiracy brandy podcast and you will not. But that's the top of the thing. Now, I do, what was kind of interesting was also, like, in the beginning, is like, when you people want to start a podcast and then they wonder why it doesn't get a bunch of momentum. It's like, bro, the first time you decided to start lifting weights, you suck at it. That's the other thing about podcasting is you have to do it and you're going to start it when you're the worst you're ever going to be. And then that's what you're putting forward, which is it's a fucking, and thank God, by the way. could you imagine if we put out those this is this is what makes me afraid now when you're like everybody go back and listen yeah but the first like big chunks of those are bad and we're figuring out

stuff and we didn't know what we were going to do or we're going to talk about so we're like ah you're going to lift weights in my garage okay let's talk about what we just did yeah i don't fucking know we're like doing stuff talking about it doing stuff talking about it and uh that's a formula that like works as long as you're willing to like eat the shit but i think it's important to like wallow or like like hide and hide your mediocrity for a while and hope that you could you imagine getting you know the views you get now on this first few episodes yeah it would be odd they would fall right off yeah i i do like those existing though still because it does tell it tells the story because it's such a long story at this point so it's

interesting for that to exist you know that just that that is there for those that want to dive in on that journey which at this point now is an insane journey to take on the entire entire catalog but uh not to discourage people from doing it giving Go, you don't have to do that. Yeah, you don't have to do that. Nobody has to do that. By the way, hold on, I got to touch on one more thing here because, thinking of the original episodes, guys, I don't understand this, the repeat anomics or recent, the people

that do throwbacks to those old episodes, do those guys hate me and think I'm lame and gay? Because I feel like I'm getting clowned on real hard on all that shit. The funny thing is, we don't know who that actually is. Right. And I don't know the answer to that either. I don't think so, because they kind of do it to us. So that's, I think that's out of love. Yeah, it is.

They just like to make fun of everyone equally. Do you think it's Mark Bell? He's it. I love that thought that it is. I highly, highly done it. I got a conspiracy podcast. Now, also, the biggest, if you're the, those, the, what's the word? It's either recent or repeat.

I don't know who's still doing it. Who's not. Yeah, that would be recent anomics. Recent. More commonly seen that. That dude's got to come in. And you got to do that, what's the game with the kids or the little, where you're trying to guess who the- Human centipede?

No, yeah. Where you're trying to guess who, like, who the bad guy is, who the spy is? Right. Oh, yeah. That guy's got to, that person should anonymously just show up to the list hard leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And everyone's just got to guess who it is. I like that idea.

So, yeah, shout out recentonomics. Shout out recent anonomics. Shout out recent anonics. sneak your way in and then just like and just let us know you'll be there and then as long as Tanner and Tommy don't reference like back and forth who's been before and who hasn't like you could really have a what's that fucking game that little kids game where the guys do in the space helmets I don't know that's irrelevant but but that'd be a fun little game yeah I like that yeah okay so well you can check out Tyler in the first couple hundred episodes that'd be your

first stop you can check out Tyler in the nugget chicken nugget challenge that we're going to get finally in 2020. Let's go. And then you can listen to Tyler every week on Conspiracy Randy podcast. Yeah, yeah. Check it out. It's a ton of fun. It's the most fun I have every week.

It's a blast. It's not for everybody. But if you like it, I truly believe it's the funniest podcast on Earth. I really do. It's the most fun. I go back and listen to it, not because I'm an egomaniac,

but because it's hilarious. So if you want to hear me having fun talking mad shit, it's not actually about conspiracies. We're just retarded. And that's a conspiracy Randy podcast. follow the accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and follow me at Tyler F and Stone. That's Tyler EFF, Ionstone, on Instagram.

Guys, I'll let you get back to your other calls. Appreciate you having me on. All right. See you, Tyler. Thanks, guys. All right. Mystery guest one is in the bag. What do you think, Tanner?

Mystery guest, do we call another one or do we do? Do we have a segment to break this up with? Yeah, we got a lot of ground to cover here. Also, should I do an ad, too? Do you got anything to change or should I hit an ad anyways? Hit them with an ad. I'll just give us a checkup since we've done. This week's episode along with every episode.

We're in South Dakota this week, but still representing our North Dakota friends barefoot shoes. I don't know if this comes across on camera, but I made the hike down here to Mount Rushmore in the barefoot shoes, of course. I saw Tommy was wearing them earlier this weekend as well. I thought about wearing my brewing boots, but not even necessary.

Didn't have to. Tommy, what kind are these that I wear? The version 2 of what are these? Ursus Gen 2 are great for outdoor hikes even. Barefoot dot stores where you check them out. Discount code is Massonomics. It'll save you 10% on every single order that you get there from Barefoot. And they have new stuff coming out all the time.

There's a new boot. They have a new winter boot coming out. If we're going to record this a couple months later, we would need them up here on Mount Rushmore, but we'll survive without them for now. So thank you barefoot and more from a couple other sponsors later in the episode. We'll get to another call in a little bit like we talked about. But first, another segment, I think, right?

Yes. Well, should we do a Mount Rushmore segment? Well, that kind of did one. Or do we have like a certified gym we want? Yeah, actually, you're right. And supporting our supporting members, really. Yeah, yeah, let's get to that. Okay, yeah.

So supporting our supporting members, this is a relatively new segment, even at episode 500, still a relatively new segment of the podcast. It's where we give back to those that support us. I'll just put this out there. We're at like, there's many hundred supporting members now. And it's a huge part of Massonomics. When that program started, obviously it didn't. We had no idea what it was going to grow into,

but it has become one of the biggest, if not the biggest thing currently, that keeps us going and keeps us doing stuff like this. So if you're not a supporting member yet, please consider joining. We would love to have you. It really is what keeps all this going. We make jokes about keeping the lights on, keeping the cameras on, keeping the soundboard on, keeping us engaged.

But the sporting membership program is the number one thing. We'd love to have you buy something from our website, become a certified training facility, all that. But the number one thing is if you're not a supporting member and you like anything that we're doing, please consider becoming one. This week we just kind of wanted to shout out our Hall of Fame members, everyone that has made it into the Hall of Fame.

I guess I should pull that list up. Specifically our top jacket level members. are top, because there's two levels of the Massonomics Hall of Fame and what that program is, is anyone that becomes a supporting member. Then you can get access to start checking out the list of Hall of Fame achievements. If you make 12 achievements, we send you the special Hall of Fame Cup, induct you into the 12 achievement membership program, which we've got about 40 of those Hall of Fame members now that have made it to the Hall of Fame Cup level. Then once you make 15 achievements, you actually make it into the jacket-level Hall of Fame, which we then present you with your Hall of Fame personally embroidered jacket.

We have a little ceremony for you. It's a lot of fun. And it's just our way to give back to those people that support the whole Massonomics thing as much as possible. So I'm going to run off our jacket-level members. We've got big scants. He's actually a master-completer. There are 16 achievements on the checklist. He has completed all 16.

he was the first ever 16 achievement member. Next, we've got Big Matthias Cash. He is also a master completer second ever to complete all 16 on the checklist, which completing all 16 on the checklist is kind of an insane achievement. Very, very impressive. There's many, many people that have been pushing towards that and haven't been able to do it. The third and final one that's master completer is Big Lou Nutter, out of Omaha, of course, has completed all 16.

And then our other jacket level Hall of Famers, we've got big Scott Dodds. he was the first ever into the jacket level Hall of Fame, also the first ever Masonomic supporting member. He signed up the second it was a program. First woman in the Hall of Fame is Big Jen, Big Jen Beanstra, first and only woman up to this point still. Then we've got big Eddie Woodard, corn-fed Highlander, jacket level, big Brad the Pad is in the jacket level,

big perfect little sweetie Bryce Woolman. And then last, but of course, course, not least. We've got Big Tommy the Stapler jacket level. We've got at four or five new jacket level members that are going to be getting their jacket probably before the end of 2025 also. So a new class getting inducted later this year. So thank you to everyone that supports. It really is the thing that keeps massonomics ticking. Then how about our certified training facility of the week? Yeah. You know, episode 500, this is a big milestone. And we couldn't just pick any random gym.

We needed something special, and we were thinking, you know what, we're here at this presidential monument. Maybe we need to go back to where this all started. Let's go back to Washington, D.C., and we start looking, and the closest gym to D.C. specifically would be the gym that memes built. Yeah. At mostly squat mats or at actually squat videos. This is a shed gym.

Yes, this is a shed gym. and almost internet famous Jim at that point. Kind of internet famous, Jim. Yeah. I mean, not kind of it is. I think these photos are a touch-out dated because I believe the rack direction has changed. So Matt's going to have to get on that and get that updated. But do you have the photos?

I've got one photo. First photo. So we're going to give this. I think there is only one, isn't there? Oh, is it? I didn't even. Oh, yeah. The other photos are of Washington, D.C., which is of not hell.

Okay. So we've got Mount Rush and right behind us. We don't need pictures of the D.C. I would say I really look forward to the day that I can visit this gym in person. I think that will happen someday. We'll do a gym tour here at some point in time. There's no doubt. But for the time being, we'll have to settle for a certified training facility of the week.

And like you said, this is in a shed right off the bat. Just judging by the size, is this shed maybe 10 feet wide? Yeah, because he's probably got an 8-foot platform there. That's what I figured 8-foot. So it's 10-foot. And then it's probably a little deeper than that, maybe figure. I guess 15 or 20. It's hard to tell a little bit.

And he has got this thing packed to the max. There's not a whole lot more you could fit in there. In this photo, he has a four-post rack. This one is, it's not a flat foot, right? Isn't this one bolted down, I believe? I think it is bolted down, yeah. And I know he's made some updates to some of this recently, but again, we're going with what he has here.

He's got those chrome-hansu-calibrated. I'm jealous of those. They look so good. Not a huge calibrated guy when it comes of lifting, but I can give the credit for how cool they love. look for sure. He's got a, I think it's a, is it a Bell's of Steel, like, wall, or freestanding tower, wall, slash wall mounted tower here. Yeah, maybe that's what that cable, cable, which very compact footprint. Plate-loaded cable machine. Yep, very compact footprint. Uh, works great in a home gym.

He has a, I don't know, is that actually, is that just weight storage or is that, that, that's a dumbbell cart also. Oh, is that he built that, weight cart. Like, I think those are his dumbbell weights that uses on there, maybe even for the loadable dumbbells. Gotcha. All right. Back to the rack. Looking at the plates. There's some rogue bumpers on there.

I believe we got a adjustable bench. I think it's a rogue adjustable bench. I think it's a rogue adjustable bench. Yeah, rogue adjustable bench on there. We got some spotter arms off the front because this is just a four post and he's lifting outside of it.

Typically, I believe. On the wall in the back. Well, actually, a little home gym hack right here. Because, you know, this is a small area, not only are all the walls covered in every type of massonomics slash band movie poster you could think of. But when the walls get covered, where do you go? You take it to the ceiling.

And that is another way to fill up valuable spaces. Most people aren't thinking the ceiling, but it does exist. It's an option. Yeah. From there, we're looking at the bars on the wall. We got an SSB. I'm not sure which one that I can't quite tell from the photo. What one that is?

We got a couple power bars. We got a log in the corner. We got some crash pads. There's in the foreground. you could say here, Tanner. There's a rackable. The foreground, you say. That's my favorite ground.

Of course, there is a rackable curl bar. It appears to be. Got a football bar and a couple other little odds and ends. What do you think? I'm missing anything? I think that's it. The other thing you can't tell it in the picture,

but you've seen it if you've seen it on Instagram, he's got his lights, his light show. Always growing. Light show lasers. I think there's smoke too. Isn't there? If there's not, there should be. Yeah, yeah.

So that adds the theatrics of it. No doubt. Do you think you could get strong? Oh, hell yeah. Classic. Definitely could get getting strong as hell in the shed that memes built. What do you think about giving this next guy a call? Let's do it.

Let's try it here. I think we're ready for most people. All right, guest number two. I don't know. I know who the guest list is. I don't know what order Tanner's going in here. Let's see. He's on vacation right now, too.

We'll see if he, too. We're not on vacation. We're on a trip. Yeah. Hello? Oh, Professor Shahn's, is that you? It is me. Who did I got out here?

Professor. Professor Shons, you're live on the Massonomics podcast. I believe, as Stained said it best, it's been a while, hasn't it? Who said that? Stained. It's been a while. I was like, is that some Massanomics guy that I don't know? Nope, just old stained.

Old Stained. Well, you guys got all the nicknames. you know, so it has been a while. When was the last time you were on the Massonomics podcast, do you think? Oh, God. You would probably know better than I would, but it was definitely in the basement of your old house. Well, of Tyler's house, right? Of Tyler's or Tommy's or?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Tyler's. Yeah. If I had to take a random guess, I would say episode 80 or 90, somewhere in there. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. I think it might have been the one my brother-in-law got roped into you, too. Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it has been a while. Stain was right. And we thought no better time than episode 500 here for Mount Rushmore to bring you back on the show. Like we've been saving this for a special occasion. And here we are a very special occasion. Yeah, I'm truly honored, truly.

So tell us what you remember about the very beginning of Massonomics. What does that, what does that storyline look like for you back in like 2014 or 2015? So I feel like I truly am the only person that has this story to the actual literal origin of Massonomics. So one day at the YMCA in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Tanner's setting up this tripod. He's filming himself lifting. And I'm like, well, that's a little unusual. That was before people did that, you know? Yeah.

That really was. It was a good point. That was actually before people did that. Like, that was a complete oddity at that time. Right. It wasn't a cell phone. Like you had a literal camera. Camcorder.

It was a camcorder. Yeah. It might have been a VHS camcorder. I'm not sure. It was that long ago. It might have the actual tapes in it possibly. But yeah. So he's setting it up and filming himself lifting.

And I'm like, okay. And then I noticed like you were putting it on YouTube. And I'm like, well, what do you? I'm like, are you doing a thing? And he's like, yeah, I might be doing a thing. I'm like, so I like doing things. Like, this sounds cool. Like, what, like, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your point?

with this. You're like, well, I don't know. I'm just doing a thing. And I'm like, I want to do the thing, too. So, like, let's do something. And I'm pretty sure that was the origin of massonomics. It was literally just like, oh, let's do a thing. We don't know what the thing is, but we're going to do it. And I think, funnily enough, like, that's been your guys' entire business plan, I'm pretty sure, from that day till now. Because I think you guys just do things. They're like, well, what's massanomics? I don't know. We just do things. Yeah. You're not totally wrong. It's only been refined slightly since that time. Yeah. And the things that we do have changed a little bit over 10 years, but it's still kind of true.

Like, that's fairly accurate. That really is how it started, though. I mean, that's true. And you're like, well, I like to talk about, you know, training, nutrition, stuff like that. So really, what it originally was there at the very beginning was YouTube videos, too. Like, that's the thing. Before it was even a podcast, it was, you know. Some might even say Aberdeen Strength Training. Aberdeen Strength Training before it was even Masonomics. That's right. Yeah. So you were, you got to, what did you record? off of because you would record videos like in your house and stuff. Yeah, no. Yeah, and my little apartment in South Sioux City. Like yeah, yeah, I did. Did you buy a camcorder or something? Yes, yes, I did. It was,

it was not a cell phone. Yeah. So I also did a camcorder. And then I had like a little like, I don't know, two foot marker board that I used to draw things on and write concepts on. And then I would record. in front of that. God, those were some terrible videos. But they all still exist. Have you ever gone back and looked at any of them? So that was going to be my next question. I'm like, you still don't have those on the interview. They're very much out there.

We were just talking to Tyler and he's like, is there any way you could remove those early episodes of the podcast? And the same is true for the YouTube. No, we cannot. It tells the story, I think. Oh, man. It's as embarrassing as looking back

on Facebook posts from like when Facebook started, maybe worse. Yes. Awesome. You know, what's funny, I was looking, I was thinking about those videos. I was, like, backing up one of my hard drives, and I'm switching to a new computer. And I had a whole bunch of massonomic stuff that I was going through. Tanner, I don't know if you remember, but Joel O'Daniel used to comment on like,

every one of my videos. Yeah. Yeah. I was just going through some of our conversations, and there was some pretty good banter back there. Maybe the people change over time, too, but there's still people that just live to do that to us still to this day, too. Is it still Joel? Not as, I mean, me might pop in there eventually. It's that same type of comment.

It exists to this day. One other thing, Shans, this will mean nothing to most people listening, but it would be a funny story for you. As we're recording here today at Mount Rushmore, we're in the open air where people are walking by and looking at Mount Rushmore, and none other than Dirk Waite walks by and stops. and talk to me during the podcast. He says, LRC water polo team represent Lake Region Conference and keeps on walking. So I just know you would appreciate that yourself. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I might be the only other person that would appreciate that.

Wow. Derek Wade. So oddly enough. That's hilarious. Yeah, so that's where we're at with Massonomics. I mean, I could ask this question by already another answer. Would you assume massonomics would exist? existed back in 2014 that we'd be in 2025 and it would exist and be recording us 500th episode

and obviously the answer is no yeah no uh absolutely not i in fact i remember having a distinct conversation with you about the podcast and being like like back when i was still part of it and being like do we want to keep doing this podcast thing is this going anywhere and at the time you're like uh like i'll do it a little bit longer and we'll see if you know you know takes off or anything so Yeah, absolutely not. But I think it's awesome that it still does. Somehow it persists. So it was crazy.

I was at a like a fundraising event the other day. And some guy came up and talked to me who knew me like kind of loosely through my work and stuff like that. And he's like, so you're still doing like that fitness stuff? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, yeah, like on your LinkedIn, you have like something with like a company that does fitness stuff. but I could completely forgot that I have like my time in massonomics on LinkedIn. So I'm like, there's another thing. Like maybe I should remove that so people don't go and look at the YouTube videos.

Well, it's somewhat at this point, if you put Masonomics on something, like there's enough stuff there, though. It's actually like have some become a pertinent thing on LinkedIn almost at a certain point. True. You know? It's a double-edged sword because it's like a legitimate company that does legitimate things now. Right. But then there's my piece of it prior to that.

That's like, what is this? And why would this guy ever put it on his LinkedIn? Yeah. What about one other story? Just this weekend, you were on a trip. And what happened in the airport to you? Yeah, so I was wearing my bench t-shirt, which I do like to wear. I travel with it just because it's interesting.

I like to see if anyone notices it. And I'll be damned if more often than not, I feel like someone notices my bench shirt. And I'm like, oh, like, are you like, massonomics? you know, and they're wearing something too, and they point to it. Like, this guy at the airport, he was in a hard hat and, like, pointed, he had like a sticker and pointed to it. So he's like, are you part of the crew? And I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think I am.

But I'm like, I know Tanner really well. And, like, you know, him and I are like really good friends and stuff. And he's like, wait a minute. He's like, are you shots? I recognize your voice from like the early podcast. And I'm like, oh, boy. Did you ever find out? Do you ever find out who that was?

I'm not sure who it was. He never, like, mentioned anything in the Discord or anything. Well, they were a hardcore listener. Yeah, yeah. So that's a great story. And that was in, would that have been in Omaha? Is that right? Yeah, it was in the Omaha airport. And I would have stopped and talked to him sooner, but it was the airport and we're like in a rush to get going. So actually, I felt kind of bad because I kind of like, oh, yeah, nice to meet you and got out of there. Great story, though. All right. Well, it was good to catch up on episode 500. I guess we'll be calling for episode 1,000 when that comes around. Oh, boy. I don't even know.

I mean, if it makes $1,000, I mean, that's super impressive. But I don't know. I don't even know if I'll be up for going on the Massonomics podcast at that point. What can we possibly talk about at that point? We'll be almost 50. We'll figure it out then. All right.

Sounds good. Awesome. See you, Sean. See, yeah. All right. Later is. The walkdown memory lane continues. Yes, it does.

Kind of fun stuff, isn't it? The podcast. I like his, description of how it started because that is pretty pretty accurate. Okay. I do think we should do a Mount Rushmore segment since we got a couple.

So I think we should save our Mount Rushmore of episodes for the last part. So what about our Mount Rushmore of segments? So we're going to pick our four favorite segments of the podcast. And should I run down the list that I wrote down first of segments or do we want to just like... Yeah, maybe because I don't know if we need to go in depth

on every one of these. We'll just mention each one a little bit. So do you have the list, too? Yeah, I got the list. Okay, so first one is what's in the can. And that came around where we drink sparking waters and we talk about them. It was born of you showing up with a LaCroix. I didn't even know what it was at the time.

Is that true? Yeah, I remember you'd show up to Tyler's house with the LaCroi. And everyone's like, what is that? I didn't know what this was and you would always drink it. And I'm like, oh, this is that hippie water that doesn't taste like anything. And the joke became like, well, we're going to make a tasting game out of this because it doesn't taste like anything. Right. And we've done that for hundreds of it.

that a lot. Then what was next? Fitness's finest. This was somewhat of a short-lived segment, but this is where we were- Very memorable, though, segment. Yeah, we would just review or talk through some of the gimmicky home gym. I shouldn't even say home gym. It was all the gimmicky, like, on TV, buy fitness products. Right. And maybe the takeaway from that was, does it fit under the bed? Yes. It's the ultimate takeaway. Yeah, it was like, does it fit under the bed? Then it was overrated, underrated. I mean, that goes without saying, right? We'll get more to that one, I think. Like, we'll talk more about that.

Then what? Supplements real are fake. This is another one that was... It seemed like we went hand in hand with fitnesses finest. It was right around that same time. I remember trying to think of just random, dumb segments we could do. And that one was really funny. Just the challenge with that is there's only so many insanely named supplements out there.

And once you get through those, then it's a little tougher to play that game. I also think, curious to your opinion, I think chat, GPT, AI ruined some of things like that. Like that's slightly ruined by chat GPD because it took a certain level of originality. Right, to come up with that stuff like that. And now when you think about that, you're like, if you listen to that now, you'd be like, oh, yeah, they just used chat GPT and it did all that stuff. Yeah, because back then it was like running a bunch of Google searches and looking through forums. And now you'd just be like, hey, come up with 10 names of supplements, five of them that are real but almost seem fake.

And five of them that are fake but almost seem real. Oh, yeah, because yeah, it would come up with the fake one. That's right. Yeah, I had to come up with the fake ones to try and trick you. And you had to come up with real ones that didn't seem real. Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

It would do it in 10, three seconds. Yeah. Not as cool anymore. Yeah. Heavy thoughts. Oh, that was a, I actually forgot about that.

That was a short-lived segment. Heavy thoughts was a vibe. That's where maybe we brought up something more. Was it, would serious be the right word or just like a different tone or inquisitive? Just like the thought. Here's a classic heavy thoughts. With weights,

it really isn't our turn. We really don't own them. We never own. The classic heavy thought segment is none of these weights were buying do we ever own. It's just our turn with them, right? And most possessions, you say that as long as they're not consumables. It's just, if it's a long lasting, it's, it's a long lasting item. You're like, who owns this? Like a house, you own it for a while and then you sell it. And then all of a sudden you're like, well, that's not mine anymore. I thought that was, like a house to me is the

thing. It's so mine until the day you sell it. And you're like, yeah, that's someone else is now. And you think about it. A lot of people don't live in a house for more than 10 years. Right. And it's like, oh, it's like the biggest thing in your life. But 10 years later. But the weights are, okay. comment of the week. Yeah. Instagram slash YouTube comment of the week. I forgot about that one too.

That one died out a little bit because we just got, it felt like some less dumb comment. I mean, I know they always exist, but what's in the sack? All time, classic segment right there. Very early, might have been one of the earliest segments, actually. That's to keep in mind as we're doing the list. Not on the list, but open powerlifting stat of the week.

Ooh, that was a good one. Yeah. I like that. It was a little collab. We're friends over at open powerlifting. Yeah. Sports and books. We bring that one back on occasion.

Not really in its full glory, but that is a good one, though. We do homage to some of these segments at some points in time. Supporting our supporting members, relatively new segment. Relatively new. I mean, only a few hundred episodes old at this point. So relatively new. Tanner explains the Midwest. That was a good one.

Would you, like, come up with a topic and then you'd, you'd, like, pose it to me? Yeah, I would just drop up. I would just, like, make a phrase. Tanner, could you explain this to people? Yeah, I think one of them was, all right, Tanner, I got a flat of pounders. We're going to hit these up. go to loggers, then we're going top shelf at the zoo. Explain that situation.

Explain what that means. That's a good one. I wonder if... I got a flat of pounders. We're going to do those. We're going to do the circus, get double-dipped wings. After that, we're going top shelf at the zoo. What does that mean, Tanner?

And like, if you're listening to this now and you haven't heard those episodes, you would still be like, what's that English? And if you've been to the meat, if you ever been to Aberdeen, now you go, I get all of that. I understand every word of that. I think maybe Whipp and Shitties was... Oh, Wippin Shitties could have been in there, too. One of our classic disclosings. that I see people still post viral clips on other podcasts, like seven years after we had that discussion, that they do that and they get a viral.

And I'm like, we did that. We explained whipping shitties long ago. Reading, well, reading podcast reviews. We haven't done that as much late. Now would be the time. Leave us a five-star review if you haven't. Tyler was talking about it. We're well over 600.

Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. That number supposedly maybe matters still. Who knows? Has Tommy seen it? One of my favorites. We might need to bring Has Tommy seen it back. We had probably a good 10 weeks stretching that one going. I came to the conclusion.

I thought I had seen some movies in my life. Apparently I haven't seen any movies in my life. I loved Has Tommy seen it. And it's like always ends with an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It's just shocking out of few movies apparently I've seen. We actually, maybe we'll cap the episode off where we talk about where we hint at some future plans. and we hint at future ideas. But I'd say there's like a movie-themed idea.

Yeah. We could incorporate the podcast. That would be a big shift in the paradigm. But maybe that'll come on later, too. Final one in the list. Best lift to gauge strength. Or a more recent take, best lift to, what's the worst lift to gauge strength? This is like a listener feedback question from a Q&A.

It was Big Kevin. I believe that originally, and we just started asking everyone this for months where what's the best lift to gauge? someone's strength. It was this elaborate question and we'd get their answers. And so it was basically a segment at one point in time. But on Mount Rushmore, there's only room for four.

Okay. Well, I think there's a home run choice. I actually think there's a couple of home run choices actually. I think what's in the can belongs on here. It's so pivotal. Probably. It's so pivotal. And so long running. Yeah, and long running to just what we've done at Massanomics. And there's a reason when we go on

gym tours, people are there greeting us with cans of sparkling water. Yeah. That's just become a new thing. That's true. Like people do it all the time. That's part of the schick. People just do that.

They know that that's the thing. I kind of transcended the segment. Yeah, that's why I think what's in the can belongs there. And then there's another one that I think is an easy belong and that's overrated underrated. That's the one I was going to say it's probably got to be that it was probably more than a segment at a certain point in time to where it was on every single episode for probably 300 episodes, I would say. where we ended every episode that way. It was long before we even had guests where I would just shoot four topics.

I spent a section of time every week just thinking of four topics to ask Tommy and then eventually when we shipped it more into having guests, we always prepared these topics for guests. And it was like hitting them with a cross punch every time where they're like, oh, you know so much about me and what I do, like the secret stuff. And overrated, underrated was the perfect way

to get people with that stuff. And to get them out of the lifting track of the lifting training track. That became a really valuable tool for us, actually, in the interview process, I would say. The other thing I'll say I really liked about overrated, underrated over the years is I feel like it was a way to force some experimental content into the podcast

where whether it was us or with a guest where we got to hear and make them do different ideas. And it just turned into this thing of you could see what stuck. And I would have a hard time saying what it was, but I think some good concepts and ideas came about that over the years. Do you guys want to say hi? Yeah. So overrated, underrated, what's in the can? So there's room for two more. Oh, this is where it gets front runners.

A little trickier. I was going to say there was one here. I wondered about, I wondered about what's in the sack just because it was so early. Tanner set. And I mean, we still do it to this day too. Right. I think longevity plays a big part of this. You know, like how early it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. That is a very good one. I 100% believe it belongs on there. So that leaves the fourth and final one.

And I could make the argument for several on here, but I think to tie this whole thing together, I think it has to come back to supporting or supporting members. There you go. I like that. I think that's the right choice. And you could also actually even honorable mention things that were not mentioned on here. You could say certified training facility of the week could belong.

I just had one other one in my mind and I already forgot it. But I think supporting our supporting members brings the whole thing together. It's that community element that I, I believe we do so well, and it's just a way to do that. And it's become the most important part of everything, basically. You know, everything builds off of that. Yes. So, yep, that's it.

That's, I actually, that is a home run choice. All right. So playing it back here, we had supporting our supporting members. What's in the can? Over under. Over under. And, uh, what's in Tanner Sack. There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's it. Right there. That's, you want to start a podcast? Take those four segments. You got a podcast right now. That is all you really need. Okay.

Do you think we do one final call for the episode? Let's try and see if we get it. It ties into the end of that Mount Rush more, actually. Okay. So we've heard from Professor Shons, we heard from Dr. Effinston E, which kind of like tied in how this all started. And then I think the final piece of the puzzle here. I believe I know who this is.

Tanner gave me some hints. So. All right. Ring it, hopefully he's ready. We're a little bit later than scheduled for him, I think. So we'll see if he's still... Hello.

Is that you number one? It's me. Who does number one work for? What's up, guys? Dodgilla in the house. How's going? Good. Just last leg of a six-hour drive from Pittsburgh.

Excellent. Were you competing this weekend? What were you doing? No, we were over at a wedding. Okay. some of the Kelly's family. Be a lot cooler if you had competed. It would be a lot cooler.

So anyone that doesn't know, Big Scott was the first ever supporting member of the MassDomics podcast. So we thought it would be very fitting to get him on for a few minutes for episode 500. Basically, what you're doing, Scott, is you're representing the entire group of supporting members by having your voice on the show this week. Oh, Jake, no pressure. Yeah, no pressure. So if this doesn't go well, you're going to have an angry mob after you. So basically we're just saying, you know, we're saying it to you and we're saying it to everyone, thanks for supporting. And, you know, in your case specifically, you started supporting before anyone even had an idea of what that even meant.

Before it was cool. Yeah, you just like click to give us a donation when you didn't even know what you were donating for. We didn't even really know what you were donating for, to be honest. Right, exactly. I just happened to get on the website that day to see what if there was anything new when I scrolled down. And I was like, yeah, I love these guys. Yeah. And then you go on to become the first ever member of the jacket level Hall of Fame.

Yes, sir. And like with many supporting members, you're just our buddies now, too. You know, at first it might have been you were listening to guys doing a podcast on the internet or whatever. But now we have, there's like hundreds of people that started that way. And they're just like our buddies. We can see them once a year, twice a year, four times year, once every three years. it doesn't really matter. It's like, oh, it's our old friends, you know?

The amount of friends that I came out of this is unreal, whether it's just seeing them at the lift our live easy or it's talking to almost every day on Instagram. Yeah, I guess it really is the friends we've made along the way then, isn't it? It really is. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we've already taken enough from you over the year, so we didn't need to take much more,

but just wanted to say thank you for supporting over all the years. And we're just getting started. Well, for the entire crew, we just want to say thank you for starting this entire thing and letting that, giving everybody ways to connect. And the community that you have built, it's just incredible. The amount of friends that everybody has been able to make because of two guys who started the podcast, it's unreal. So thank you.

you guys. Well, thanks a lot, Scott. Heck yeah, brother. Coming from you. Yeah. So I don't know if it's, who knows if it's in Ohio or Michigan or South Dakota or Kentucky or what state we'll see you next, but when we see it,

we'll catch up then. Well, I hope it's Michigan. It'll happen someday. Mark it up, mark it down. Yes, sir. All right. See you, buddy. Thanks a lot. See.

Dodzilla. and only Dodzilla. Okay. That's it. That concludes the call section. I had maybe some other people on the list that we could pinching a call. And I'm like, maybe we keep it to the people that really it's been some of the historically

super significant ones in that way. I like that. And I did think that was my thought with Dodds. It's like, no, he's like representing the supporting member crew. Because I'd love to call all of them. You know, I'd love to get everyone on here. But we just don't have time. We'll have to save that for episode 1,000.

Maybe for episode 1,000, we will make 1,000 calls. We'll say that from roughly 10 years from now. Yeah. We did supporting our sporting members, certified training facility of the week. I'm going to read another sponsor. And then maybe speaking of sponsors, we should do the in-memorium.

Small in-memorium segment. So this week, even from Outrushmore, still our newest sponsor of the podcast is EliteFTS. You can head over to EliteFTS.com. They have a discount code. up for us. It's Mass 10 for all of you that you can purchase anything from the site there. They usually have weekly sales that are also running and then you can stack Mass 10 on top of that

to save even more. The thing we use most frequently that we use all the time that we're kind of buying all the time is bands. Like in Massonomics gym, they cover one wall. It's nothing but a band wall from Elite FTS. Tommy's got a bunch in his home gym. So I do think whether it's commercial gym, whether it's something you're put in your gym bag or something you're going to hang on the wall in your home gym, head over to Lead FTS for bands, also chalk, any of that small stuff. And then big equipment. You know, they have commercial grade, home gym grade. And my favorite thing is probably still the TP, though.

Always filling the mass time. Always keep that thing on me. Elite FTS Multi-Ply TP. So thank you to Elite FTS, discount code Mass 10. Do you want to do an ad or should we do an in-memorium? Let's just move on to In-Memorium. Let's keep this rolling. Okay.

So this is a shout out to the old sponsors, the companies that no longer exist. They're no longer with us. They're no longer with us. I don't have any sad music or anything. I just think I don't have any sad music to put on. Oh, no, it's not my sound board. Yeah, it's not your board. Yeah, I was going to go hit it with the disturbed word.

No, mommy. No. Don't have that today. It looks so much like my board. I just thought that that was my board over there. trick myself. First one, Fusion Sports Performance, one of our old sponsors of the show. No longer with us.

Gone but not forgotten. RIP Fusion Sports Performance. And then the other one, do you remember it? Was it hybrid? Hybrid performance method. As far as I know they don't exist. I saw a post yesterday that claimed that maybe they're not dead, but. Not dead yet.

They might be dead for now. Yes. Okay. Do we talk about any other? Oh, wait, we still got to do our Mount Rush more. of episodes ourselves. Yeah, we got that one left. And then also just any

in general reminiscing that we had and then also just some future where we're going in the future, I think would be how we wrap it up. Yeah, okay, we'll wrap it up with the future talk because there's some crazy stuff there. Big things happening, as for usual. I'm not joking.

But what else? I don't know. Reminiscing's hard. Well, here's what I'd say. We didn't talk about it, but we made this a double family trip. We did. First time ever we've done that from Asinomics. Yeah, we brought our whole family out here to the Black Hills.

We rented a big barn dominium, Airbnb, all of us staying in. My oldest son was gone because he had a cross-country meet. Otherwise, our entire families, which is kind of chaos, getting all of our group together. Let's see. It's four, our three, five kids under six, seven. Yeah, seven, yeah, which is fun. No, it is, yeah. It's a fun memory for them.

They get to hang out with each other. and, you know, our kids are excited about leaving up to it. It's like our kids don't know each other that well. But you can hype kids up on like, oh, we get to hang out with Sunny. And they're like, ooh, I can't wait, you know. So it's kind of fun like that. And we go around and we've been doing some touristy Black Hills stuff. It's really fun.

But my point, our families didn't even barely but exist when we started the podcast. I don't even know if you were married. I was not married. The real question is, was I even, and I know we've said this before, was I even dating my wife at the time? Because it would have been 10 years ago. I don't think I was. I don't think I started dating her just a little after the podcast started.

So you've had two kids since then. I had just gotten married just before. And since the podcast started, have had three more kids. So we collectively had five kids just since the podcast started. I had one. And I was just married. Like I had a very young, new family at the time we started. Nothing like what it is now.

No. I've moved a, couple times, you know, bought and sold houses since then. I've... I moved one, two, three times. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah, three times.

You've sold two houses, bought. Well, and actually you lived, yeah, so you moved in the... Including moving to do it in a different town. Right, right. Yeah, actually, and that's the other thing. The podcast survived, not only just several moves in town, but me moving 200 miles from you and still keeping this going. Right. Where that would have been a bit of a technical challenge from the, if we did that the day this

first started, that would have been a little bit more challenging to keep this going. Well, we were very worried about that at the time. Oh, it was. It was like, oh, my God, what are we doing? Like, how are we going? It'd be way easier if that happened in 2025. Yeah. Well, it's also easier in hindsight that we know how well we can facilitate it.

But at the time, that was like a big deal. It was like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? Almost stressful. Yeah. Like, no, we were actually up, I think, until like two in the morning, a couple, a few nights trying to figure it out. Like, on actual week nights. You know, it's like, we got stuff to do tomorrow. We just have to call it quits here.

Yeah. So my point being that it has survived a lot of changes in terms of the podcast and just our lives. Virtually a lot of changes that has continued to exist and we have never not posted a new episode. Job and career changes too. True. Like I worked at a different, I worked in a different town at a different job when we started the podcast. And not only that, but also you worked for it. You started your own business in the time that the podcast started.

And then even since, I mean, there's been a lot of family. things that come up that could have very easily been like, no, we need to take a break for a week or two. We never took a break. Which is crazy looking back on how that's, it's just always been the thing. But that's because that's been our philosophy, though. It has been. And it's never been a chore.

I would say this to me, though, it's never felt like a chore. Maybe in the beginning when we didn't know what we were doing. It's like, ah, it was fun, but it was like, ah, okay. Like, how much longer is this going to be a thing? Right. Because it's like, what are we doing here? And then, like, as time has gone on, I will say this. I look forward to it.

single week. Oh, it's a, it's a break from the stressful parts of life. Yes, I personally don't post much on social media because I freaking hate writing captions. I hate doing that whole thing. I hate getting my photo ready, which is dumb because I do that stuff for my actual job. I think that's probably why I do so much from my other job that I'm like, no, I don't want to do any more posting. I don't want to get this photo ready. I don't want to do stuff.

And I do so little of that. But then I also think of like, no, but the amount of content that I'm a part of online is so big. and it's because of this. Like, I feel like this is my outlet for online content. Right. Yeah, and it is. And I, because I don't post much personally either. And if this didn't exist, I don't know that I would.

Actually, we both have said that multiple times. I don't know if it was for Masonomics, might not even have social media. Nobody might see anything from us ever. Like maybe five times a year, probably, honestly. And that's what all I do right now. Because half the personal stuff I do is because it ties even to Massanomics. Like literally half of it, it still ties back to Massonomics.

Yeah, there was a couple other big changes. But I do think that that's the real reason that I think it's existed because that was just, oh, I was going to say, we talked with Tyler and Sean's, the business survived changing the structure of the company, like, which that's what kills a lot of things like this is Tyler moved away. He ran the podcast. We figured out within the week how we were going to continue to. It wasn't perfect right away. And it evolved. And we even talked for like, oh, because there was a couple episodes where we did at Massonomics, GEO, him and my brother was on.

Yeah, we were, like, is this what it is? We were treading water to feel, to find our groove on that. And that's when, because I even remember when Tyler said it was going to be on, we said, ah, we could just do every other week or a couple times a month. Like that would be a big deal. And it was like, yeah, but for whatever reason, we just kept it going. To me, that would have been a big deal. Like, if we would have went down that road, that kills it, I think.

Like that. I mean, there's so many, just so much content ideas. It had to be a three person show forever. Which is a funny thought now because you're like, oh, three person would get a little crowded in here. There's three of us. And then also with Professor Shans, he was going a different direction and it probably,

I mean, he even said it himself. He was like, oh, what is the, he was confused of, he didn't, to him as like, what are we even doing with this? Like that's basically the truth. And rightfully so. Yeah. And he had moved to.

He had also moved and was less a part of it. But we had to figure all that out. And we had to have difficult conversations about that. Like, honestly, and that's the type of stuff that will sometimes kill something like this and it endured that as well. And looking back, maybe to me, actually the most, maybe the most unbelievable part of this whole thing is when you look at all of the pieces of content that have been made, I mean,

we're talking thousands. Yeah. Talking the number of hours of content out there. I mean, it's actually to the point where it's impossible to completely consume everything that massonomics has ever done. Right. There's just so much stuff out there. Between Instagram posts and YouTube videos and podcasts, like it's, I mean, you can't go back

in Instagram that far. and look at everything. It's just, it's like impossible to do. There's 7,000 Instagram posts. Yeah. And what's kind of crazy is just that sheer volume of things, how there never really was like back in the day. We saw this happen to a lot of people that were around at the same time as us.

They had a post or they had something that changed everything for them. Like they blew up, someone caught on to it and they had like this surge in popularity just for that to fizzle out and for them to never get it again. We never really had that one thing. It may be good that never happened. It might be looking back. Like we, there was definitely. Because you would have seen it going away like it always inevitably does.

And then your left thing, like it's like the low after the high. And then you crash on. And when you don't know what's going on, it was. But we never had that where it was, oh, yeah, we did this one thing and it just changed everything. It was just, it was always just steady, steady progress. Like, yeah, there were some things that went bigger than others. But it was never like we woke up the next day and said, things are different now. Like that never happened.

There was things that we'd get really excited about. Like, the best thing still at this day, it's like you take. text each other. It's like, oh, man, this is working. Yeah, just for example, this episode 500, the Gluck YouTube video just came out, and that was a great YouTube video for us. And we're just like pumped about it. You're like, oh, look at the numbers. Like, this is working. Yeah. And that summarizes to me, Masonomics. It's just, it's been the, it's the same thing as with the gym. It's just been steady progress. Yeah. Over years and now at this point, damn near a decade. And that's just how the company has always worked. And maybe that's good. Maybe that's bad. But for whatever reason, that's what's kept this going.

Yeah, I think it's good. So that's kind of the history lesson, right? I mean, there's a thousand other things that have happened to in the meantime. You take from this. You can do a lot. Dave Tate actually had a post about this just recently. He started doing this series on like business, I don't even know what he calls it, business sains, business advice.

And he said, simply outlasting your competition is like overlooked as how valuable that is, especially in business. He goes, if you're not in business, you can't make money. So just outlasting people is sometimes all you need to do. And outlasting doesn't just mean it's not that simple, though. Like the reason that him saying that is so impactful, because outlasting means you made just enough changes to be able to do that. Like you're staying, right.

You don't like, okay, you can pull up someone as you two channel. And that's what I think we've done. We've changed enough that we can still, I think, stay relevant in our little corner of the internet. And we still are entertaining to people. Like we could still be putting out stuff and have 10 viewers. Right. Okay. Yeah.

I guess we technically outlasts. but how relevant are we? You could still argue how relevant really are we to this day. But there's still at the end of the day is people that I believe do really enjoy Masonomics. As long as there's people enjoy that this, we'll keep doing it. We will keep doing it. Okay.

Should we do the Mount Rushmore of episodes? Oh, God. So are we going to do Mount Rushmore of episodes or Mount Rushmore of guests? Because it could be different. I think it's a guess. Because if we're going to do Mount Rushmore of episodes, I'm going to include episode 400, probably episode one for as terrible as this. Because some of these guests, too, I would struggle to say,

what time was that that they were on. Okay. But if you, you know what, I'll, I think I would let you include an episode in here, too, though. Okay. Of not a guest. Yeah. Like, I'm just going to, I think we'll play this a little looser. It can just be the, yeah, the Mount Rushmore of podcast moments maybe.

Ah, I'm changing the rules too much. Yeah. But we have to agree, though. We have to come up with four. That's the only rule. We have to agree on whatever this is. So it's the, well, this is the pinnacle themes of this. Okay.

Should I just rattle off some ones that? I think we're in the equation. And we're going to, so if we are going to say just episodes, to me, episode one, episode 400, episode number when Tyler leaves and it's just the two of us. I'm going to say, I mean, almost this episode, episode 300 was a big run. But then just guest episodes, Grant from the Strength Co. Dr. Mike, he appears so many times in our top list. Dave Tate, for obvious reasons.

Jim Wendler, Coop, Jujimufu, Chad Wesley Smith, live and in person. John Hack. Johnny Candido was kind of a fun one. Ed Cohn, Jessica Bittner, who's been on the show multiple times. Julian Pinoe for some funny, fun reasons. Derek Poundstone, possibly Greg Knuckles, Dan Bell, who's been on the show several times, Bud Jeffries. That's my list, almost off the top of my head that I'm just like, who of these guests are in the conversation for on the Mount Rushmore of episodes.

So is there any easy pickings for you? I've been thinking about this a lot, this list a lot, and there's not easy thinking for me. Because I could make the argument for any of these people, and I could also make the argument to substitute these people out for anyone on this list, because these are all great names on here. Okay, this one is special to me for a few reasons, is the Chad Wesley Smith one.

The fact that he said, I will come to Aberdeen to do an in-person one was crazy to me because it was at a point in time. when that was like that would be way less crazy today. Oh yeah. Like today it's like, well, yeah, you should.

There's reasons. That's mutually beneficial. Yeah, we get content. We could make this happen. But when Chad said that, it was like, oh my God.

Yeah. This could be a thing. You want to do this. And when he said, I'm bringing my video guy. It was crazy. It just felt like just the most unbelievable moment. And he's a guy that from day one,

we'd always looked up to from his training videos to his content on programming and just everything. And then to have it. come full circle and have him basically just come hang out with us, do a podcast, shoot videos, go out that night. That's a top massonomics moment for me. You know, we got to pay it back the other way

by going there and meeting up with him and Marissa too. So that's... I think for now we at least got to put that. That is on the Mount Rushmore unless we find a good reason that that has to come off. I'm good with that. So are we just doing guests then or... No, I'll take episodes

because I could very easily make an argument for episode 400. That's what I think. I think episode 400. To how this whole thing works. Yeah, and I really like episode 400. Still, if you haven't listened to that, I would go check out episode 400 because we did our top 40 moments, which really summarizes even, it's really still relevant today. You know, there's been things that would be added to that if we did our top 50.

We considered even this being our top 50, but I'm like, it's kind of a repeat of that episode and we didn't want to do it that way either. So I think episode 400 would be long on there, kind of. I agree. Okay. So we've got two on there. What about the Jujimuf, episode in person at his, because that was also kind of, or the Dr. Mike. See, those were two other names very high on my list too because.

I would almost like those two to share a spot because those two were similar at this turning point of this shift, like shift of what we do. And we touched on this, but they did kind of change our thinking on what is possible for this whole thing. Yeah. Not only from just it being these bigger projects that we went out and did. Right. And it seemed like at a point in time that, oh,

that would never happen. But then it also did just make us realize, like, yeah, we can do more than we even thought with this whole thing. Right. Okay. So those are contenders for sure. Grant, who's been on three times is a big one because we've become such good buddies with Grant.

And done so many things with him. How many people do you meet for the first time on a podcast and then go on to become friends with them? Like your close personal friends. And that's a weird one because that is where it all started was. We basically had a conversation with him on a podcast. And to this day... We hung out with him in person.

10 times since then. On the East Coast, on the West Coast, in the Dakota. At his house, at my house. He's gone on to sponsor this podcast for a very long time. We have bought many of his products over the years. Like, that's... I could make a strong case for that. I know.

It's a big one, too. To me, like right now I'm sitting at episode 400, Chad Wesley Smith, Grant, and then this is cheating, but taking Dr. Mike and Jujimufu and making them share a spot. because they're related in time frame and in just like that similar shift. Or if you make an alien face like those two of five.

Like in anyone else, you know, Dan Bell, you can make an argument for that was the in-person one in the episode 50. It was a big deal. And like it was a really big deal to us. We made him walk through the park to come record that episode with us. On Arnold weekend. There's just other ones on the list that were cool to me to get on. John Hack has been on the list multiple times. Coop did the one in person.

Jim Wendler and Dave Tate were both just really big ones for me. Derek Poundstone's in that category as well. Bud Jeffreys who went on to die shortly after that. Like it's kind of a big episode, obviously. But I think that's kind of the list unless you think otherwise. That five is, I mean, it's not a Mount Rushmore, but you know what? Those are 500th episode.

I think we get a bonus. We can do five. Yeah, we'll get a bonus episode. Okay. Okay, that's good. It's okay. I like that list. So are we, do we have one more ad?

I think we have one ad left because I've been getting up and checking these. So do you want me to read the final? You might as well finish out. I'll give this camera one more check. I think it's Build Fast. Okay, right? Yes. South Dakota Company, fitting we saved them for last year at Mount Rushmore,

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What's next? This is kind of episode 500. I think this is where we end with is what's coming next. A lot of it, a lot of it, unfortunately, It's a secret. And as for reasons, you'll come out later, you'll see why some of that is. If things go according to plan,

I think by the end of the year, people will hopefully have an idea. Yeah. But this, it's really big. We're not, actually, we use the word big a lot. This is, we are, the last month or two, we are, Massonomics has behind the scenes

gotten cranked up to 11. Actually, I'm just forgetting about actually several of the topics that this actually does encompass because there's, there's multiple things here. There's one particular idea that's something different that we've never done before. Somewhat unrelated to anything else that we've done. I mean, actually, it's just building.

Everything we do just builds off of something previously. But this idea has me just truly, truly excited. It's something that we've kind of this concept of what we want to do. We've bounced around several times through the years and there's never been a way that we've, we just can't figure out a way to tie the whole thing together. We finally had that aha moment about a week ago. And I damn near can't sleep at night. We're freaking stoked about it.

I'll say that. We're investing tons of time, tons of resources, tons of money. Like for us, I'll honestly just say that. A lot of Massonomics money and resources and time and just brainpower getting dumped into this project, which I think the final result. I think the final result is going to be something that only we could truly pull off. I don't know if there's anyone else that could pull it off quite likely. And I think we're going to have a lot of listeners that really enjoy it.

You know, it may not be, it's not going to be like. changing to every individual person, but to massonomics as a whole, it's going to be a big deal. I think so. I sure hope so. That's how we feel about it. If we pull it off, like as in the direction we're headed. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so, man. So that's that, and that is consuming a lot of our brain power. But the thing about that, while that's going on, we're still going to continue to do a new episode of the podcast every single week. What do you think, this is the game I like to play. We're at 500 now. It would seem crazy to think we're not going to make it to 600, right?

It does. We just have too many ideas. There's no way we're not going to make it to six. There's too much left to be done here. Like, 600 is in the bag, I think, right? So that would be after 10 years and beyond. That would put us at like 11 or if not going down 12. So what about 750?

I don't even know what the timeline. You say that's five more years from now. That's a big number, but I don't know. If you had to bet it would almost seem like we're going to be there, though. I just, we're not quitting. Yeah. That's what it feels like. Then the final question, a thousand episodes.

I would, there, that's the number. I don't know what's going to happen, but I almost think the answer is no. Like if you just had to make a bet, you say like, I don't know, something will shift. Like the podcasting won't exist or whatever it is. Nothing's forever. Right. Right. And I really like to take things one day at a time.

And a thousand is 500 weeks from now. Double the journey to this point. You know, that would be kind of unimaginable. The funny thing about the journey. of one to 500 is as crazy as 500 sounds. At the same time, if you were to describe us, what would episode 500 be? It's like, well, that's sort of in line with what episode one is.

True. True. Nothing's really shifted that much in the grand scheme of things. No, it's not out of whack. You know, it hasn't turned into a tech podcast. It hasn't turned into a podcast about politics. No. A podcast about sports.

You know, all these things that people tend to resort to. It hasn't done that. We've been able to stay true to what we wanted to do this whole time. True. that changing either. I don't think so. Then the YouTube is going to, I don't see that doing anything other than consistently being one

new video a week every single week. And that's when I still say, ah, if a week doesn't happen whatever, but we're getting to the point where we're starting to stack 15 of these at a time. Right. So to not have one would be a bit of a surprise. Right. Yeah, that could that could, there could not be one for a week or maybe it's like sometime is it just not worth, you know, does it be a weird week? It makes since not to put one out.

Or also there might not be one one week and there might be a week with two. We already done that. True. But obviously that revolves around the home gym tour trips that we're doing now. Like there's no secret there. And that we have multiple more of those planned. By the time this comes out, I can't remember exactly than this comes out. We're shortly headed on another one, another really big one with some of the biggest ones we've ever done.

You know, we've done a lot of really, all of them are awesome. Like we haven't done one yet that I don't love if I'm being honest. And we're sitting on a batch right now of just incredible tours. And I just, I feel like we're only hitting our stride. We're just only getting better at those. Yeah. I think it is just getting a little better, a little more refined each one. Like the most recent one as we're recording that came out as the Gluck one.

And I watch that, I'm like, got to tell you, between the way that was shot and the way it was paced and the discussion and the way we went into that, I'm like, I just feel like it's, like that's exactly what we want that to be at least. And it is a gym tour. That is the theme that brings it all together. But at the end of the day, it's almost just a podcast. of us just hanging out with friends and talking about gym life. Yeah. The merchandise side of it, I think that would stay pretty consistent for what it's been this last year or two, right?

We're coming up soon on black. Because we're getting this bigger reach with YouTube and it's just turning into this. We're more people want that stuff. Yeah. People want that stuff that we just, it's a different. Actually, at the beginning, we had to come out with something that caught people's eye and that's the reason

they're buying it, not because they had any idea. Had to almost be a meme worthy. They weren't going to buy it because they cared about us. Now that's changed. People buy it because they care about us. Yeah, they want to support us. They want, no, I want something that says Masonomics. I want people to know I'm on that team.

Right. And we've had to come up with more of that, which is awesome. It's way more fun, actually. Like, that's the apparel company I want to be, really. Like, I don't want to be the one that, like, oh, we have to do this funny parody and that people buy something. And that is fun to do. Right. We'd be occasionally.

That will always be a thing. That'll be mixed in. That's our personality and stuff. But what we're doing now is more fun, though. And I think Black Friday would be coming up soon. We got a ton of stuff coming for Black Friday. That hasn't slowed down. This time of year is so good.

What October hits through end of the year. And then we're potentially making our biggest project ever. It's a busy time at Massonomics. Yeah. Other pieces of the puzzle, you know, social media, that's going to continue to be what it is. Social media is ever changing. You know, reach on that was crushing it for a while.

Then it's slowed down. It'll gum up and down. You know, I hear something I haven't said on the, podcast. I've become slightly less. I enjoy, I still like them occasionally. I enjoy less making memes than I used to. I used to love coming up with the meme that I thought was the fun. You're telling me after a few thousand. You're starting to finally get a little tired of it. What I like to post more, we have so much content. I like to just, and even it doesn't perform as well on Instagram specifically. But I don't care because I like that more and it shows off what we're doing more. So it's more interesting

to me, even if it doesn't get as broad of a reach. But then if I do get the meme idea that I feel I can think it's funny. I still want to mix that in there because then it is fun, but I'm not sitting there thinking, how do I come up with two unique memes today? That's not my strategy anymore. You know, it's interesting. I'm just thinking about this right now. Has the overall gym culture and internet lifting culture change? You know, when we first started doing this, it was very much of the, ah, this is hardcore, this is crazy, beast mode. And I almost wonder if overtime has the mentality change of like, now that's actually not what this is. Yeah, I think it's changed. You can't write those jokes as much because nobody everyone agrees with that's dumb right right right it's like that's not even

a meme because at the time that was counter to the common now or the counter right it was counter to the common thought process and now it's like well you're writing the joke about it but it's like yeah we're all in on the joke now so yeah that is interesting to think about broader even broader of a picture this is a question that comes up for anyone that hasn't been along on the journey as long we both still have full-time careers outside of this which that I I'm just, I'm serious. In the last few months, that has become this thing where it's like, man, it's, we've always done a lot of work.

And both of us do a lot of work. So it kind of works out, okay, thank God, we both do that. Otherwise, this would be impossible. And that's our mentality of like, it sounds lame to say it, but like the keep grinding mentality, all that stupid stuff that we're just kind of joking about. But we do do that. Thankfully, otherwise this wouldn't be able to exist. But lately, it's like, man, this is, this is, I'm saying this is a good thing.

This is a lot of work now because we're figuring. out a lot of things that work really well. And it's like, no, what we just need is more of it. We need more of us. More, more, more. And we also are getting rewarded for that in terms of just friendships, the friends we made along the way, all that. Also financially, it becomes a bigger thing all the time where it's like, no, this is

working. It's funny, I care about the money. I don't care about the money. What the money is, though, it's, I've said this before, it's feedback that it's working. And it's like a giant game to us. like a giant fun game and we're like, how do we make it work more and how do we get more positive feedback in terms of dollars that it is working? And that's what we're constantly trying to feed. So it's, I, for years, I thought it was an impossible thought that we

basically couldn't have jobs anymore. It's not an impossible thought to me. Like I'm not, it may never happen and I would not be disappointed if that did never happen. But I can see a path where I'm like, it could get to that point that we have no choice left. Yeah, I know. And like, that would be a great bridge that we had to cross at that point. And I'm totally okay if it doesn't cross that bridge. It is fine to never be there. If it's say just like this, this is still great.

It is. It's still amazing. But yeah, the, the certain point, the time effort. Actually, not even the time resource. Just it gets impossible because when you're both working 40-hour jobs, massonomics is damn near. It feels like a 40-hour job. And then you have a family.

almost that time. We also want to be present in our family's lives, too. It's two 40-hour jobs. Yeah. Right. Yes. It's not, yeah,

it's a lot. But it's a lot for great reasons at the end of the day. Right. And thankfully, like I said, we enjoy doing that. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it.

Right. If we didn't love it, it was like, luckily we love it, so it's awesome. Luckily, we can go on these trips and we do 20-hour days, and it's like,

we're ragged, but it's like, you're at the finish line, you're like, that was awesome. Like, I'm like, yeah, home run, we did it. You know, and if you didn't, if you didn't love it, it wouldn't feel like that, I guess, right? And ultimately, the other thing we didn't touch on is continuing to grow this massonomics community.

Because I think that is, if you ask people that are involved in a part of massonomics and supporters, I think a lot of them would say that this, it sounds cliche, it sounds dumb, it sounds, I don't know, it probably sounds self-centered, but I think there's a lot of people that would say, no, massonomics has actually changed my life. Like I have a whole friend network across the country that I can tap into anytime I want, whether that's asking them questions, whether that's someone to hang out with, whether that's someone that wants to live. Like those resources are there.

Like I have this common thread with all these people that we might have totally different backgrounds, beliefs, whatever, but this is the thing that kind of binds all of us. And we're all just cool with that. There's literally hundreds of people that would make that comment. And I actually just even on a personal level, I agree that in the sense that if I'm traveling almost anywhere, I've got someone that I could look up and be like, hey, you got any recommendations for me? Like at the very least, I'm like, no, I have this network of people or the equipment stuff. Everything we do at this point, we have a network of people across the world. And it's not just us have a network.

No, we all have. I'm just saying, yeah. I mean that as just one of the members of that, not as us as the ringleaders of it, but just as one of the members of it that we get to utilize it in that same. And I think that's, I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, like we do some things to, you know, we put stuff out there and hopefully attract the right people. But there still is an element of luck that somehow, it seems like everyone that has joined us in this journey, been a part of it, has been cool people at the end of the day. And that comes along with doing the meets too, you know, like. Well, we've never even, in the whole episode, we have never even once, I think, hardly mentioned the Lyft Hardly vies Classic and how big of a thing that's, that event is the, is the in-person thing that ties it all together, along with home. Jim Con as ever-growing.

What the Arnold, at least has been to us, you know, that's shifted a little bit. In the early time, it was the Arnold. That was the in-person way we got to meet people. It's kind of shifted a little bit into other areas. But the lift-hardly-le-easy is the cornerstone of putting real-life bodies to Internet face, you know, internet accounts. It's the craziest best week of the whole year.

Yeah. I thought. I think that kind of wraps it up, doesn't it? Oh, man, that's it, huh? we somehow evaded the rain. I know. That didn't hit us. I don't know.

My anxiety on that was hitting. Stressing a little bit in the beginning here. I do care. It'll be fun to see in the background how many, there's a lot of people that have walked around as we've been recording this episode. A lot of people have been going around. I think they can't walk by.

Yeah. A lot of interesting looks that you get as you're doing this. But you do you do get in the zone and just kind of not worry about that. To me, they haven't even been there honestly. Yeah. Hardly even notice anyone. I did try to get the kids, you know, these kids like what you do when there's a news reporter you go sand mine i think you'll be able to see them like coming back here and probably

waving or something uh is that it we did all the ads uh okay overrated or underrated uh mount rushmore i mean it's it's impressive it's it's still i hadn't seen this for probably eight years and i was telling you on the way up here nowadays with there's so much a i garbage out there where everything's just fake on the internet that to come and see something of this scale still is somewhat hard to comprehend. Right? That's what I would say. It's cool.

And we talked about this even as you're saying, I think it truly by definition is underrated because people talk about it and I hype it up. But there is just that feeling when you walk up there and you're like, wow. It's big. And I'm not a person that would necessarily, I don't think that I would think that. But when you see it, you're still, you still have this moment of like, yep, that's pretty crazy that that's right there. We recorded a podcast here.

It is pretty crazy that we recorded this podcast here. I hope this will be a fun piece of massonomics lore. I don't think many people know that this is going on. We've managed to keep this completely secret, basically, as much as we've kept anything secret ever. We hope everyone enjoys us. Please watch it on YouTube. Please, if you're a listener, you've been a listener,

this episode, because it's so significant, it will probably get a lot of listens. No matter how you listen or watch, please head over to YouTube and leave us a comment. I don't know. Let us know something what you liked about this episode or let us know your favorite

Masonomics. Yeah, do you have a favorite Masonomics memory or something? You know, or how it affected you, how it shaped you. I love to hear those things. Like people DM like really serious stuff and that's awesome to hear. And there's little things that I don't,

insignificant to me at the time, but they were life-changing moments in people. And that's how they latched on to this whole thing. Yeah, it's obviously changed our lives. so much, which is just odd to think if it didn't exist. I have no idea. We wouldn't be here right now. Of course, I don't even know.

It would be so much different. I don't know if I'd live in the house I live in. I don't know if I'd... Dan, it would probably just be working on a truck doing God knows what. I guess I'd be really, really end old pickups. I'd have way more time for that. You know, like, what would you're... Because this is our hobby.

Yeah. So what would you're, I mean, you're into cars as is now. Would you just be really into cars? I don't know. I'd probably still lift, actually. Because I was already like firmly dead on like no getting out of lifting. I could see how I'd be less into it because I would have had, you just would have way more else to not be in it because you don't have people to talk about it with and a community to,

I don't want to say hold you accountable, but just like a community to be a part of with it. Yeah. Honestly, we could talk about 500 episodes all day in history and where we're headed next. But I think at some point in time, we just got to wrap up because we got five old. one through 1,000 coming next. So we've got to save something for those, don't we? Can't do it all today.

Tommy, where do they find you at besides Mount Rushmore? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but nobody cares about that. Just make sure to follow Massonomics at Massonomics. Say ya.