Unpaid And Underrated - 154 : Came for the Powerlifting, Stayed for the Jokes (ft. Big Jon)

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

This week Joey and Keith get to know Big Jon. They dive right into great topics like planking, energy drinks, people watching, cats, and figs. Links Ü&Ü Hoodie Massenomics x Ünpaid and Ünderrated Colab Get Your Own Keith Head Follow The Podcast On Instagram @unpaid.underrated.podcast Online UnpaidInternPodcast.com On Youtube @Unpaid.Underrated.Podcast Our Guest On Instagram @Sarniapowerlifting Our Hosts @keithhoneycutt73 or his orange gym, @thenowhinecellar @joey_mleczko Special Guest: Big Jon.

And welcome back to episode 600 of the unpaid and underrated podcast, a podcast by crew for crew. I'm one of your host, Big Keith, joined as always here by Big Joey. Did you almost call yourself Big Joey? I sure did. Now if someone listened to that on like 1.5 speed, they wouldn't have caught it, but we don't let people get away with stuff on this podcast. I call Joey out for damn everything. It was your I twitch.

It had nothing to do with the pause. It was your host big. And I saw the I twig. What is my name? Yeah, that is a thing. And we are joined here with a fellow crew, Big John. How are you doing, Big John? I'm good.

I'm good. Thanks for having me. Oh, yeah. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Just get some general topics we always run through. Anybody drinking anything fancy? Cough syrup. Yeah, I've just got some electrolytes.

I've just got a liquid IV just trying to catch up on hydration that I was bad at this week, which is not good. I just finished my workouts. So it's just a protein check. Nice, nice. anything i got the unpaid and rated shirt on this week joey's got something what you got on uh it's actually one of my favorite shirts that i own multiple of oh yeah yeah then i'm not an influencer or something i may be a piece of shit but at least i'm not a social media there you go good deal good deal i don't have the shirt on but i got a banner right behind me

and uh yeah i also have the bench shirt on that i was gonna hold yeah one of the old school bench heavies but it wasn't a bench day so I didn't put it on so Oh you are one So like I think maybe I used to be really adamant about like I can't I can't wear my squat shirt unless I'm squat and I can't wear my dead lifter And I still will specifically try it I mean sometimes if I grab it

But like I don't care but I'll wear my bench in 315 squirt Squirt and go yeah I'm gonna squirt all over the place and then I'll go like squat or something But yeah I do try to coordinate but I'm not as I think with strong man now I just don't care as much Like with everything in life I just don't I'm not as obsessive about stuff in the gym. Scant says it's muscle confusion. You have the squat shirt to press or the bench shirt to squat? Speaking of Scant, so I've got a, I got a comp coming up this weekend.

I'm doing my strongman show, Big Dan Eager's hosting Salt City Classic number two in Syracuse. There's going to be, tune in next week. We'll do a, you know, somewhat a little bit more of a recap, but there's going to be like eight or nine crew there, I think, between competing, hosting, volunteering. So I think it's at least seven, I think. So there'll be a full house of crew there, which would be really cool. but anyway, scantz I listen to their

the Waffle Iron podcast, the half-baked thoughts, Big Jen was the episode guest this week and I feel like every other episode they talk about how I, but like in a positive manner like if he just, you know, believe in himself, he'd squat, you know, five plates and I'm like that would be really cool but god damn man,

as someone that's been stapled by like four between like 400 and like 430 pounds a few times, it's like to contemplate the idea of putting 500 in my back like maybe someday, but that block SSB Bach high slightly above parallel box squads I've been doing I've been really pushing that number up

so tune in next week to see what I hit on that but that knocked out a few of my notes here so thank you for the crew even like Paul Floss the other day he texted me out of the blue was like dude you're a lot stronger than you think etc etc etc so it's just to feel like getting that positive reinforcement

from your homies that think you're that believe you're stronger than you might believe yourself it's just a really cool thing that you know you don't get in a lot of places just having that camaraderie and support through other friends. Yeah, for sure. Sometimes what we say is that I guarantee Keith you could get 50% of that left. Yeah, that's fair.

Let's see. Speaking of Jen, calling me out on Discord today. I laughed at that so hard. It, you know, I went over it with Morgan. And I want to say, I do like things, right? Like, I like candy. I've got a thing of hot lips here. Do you guys know what hot lips are, right?

John, you would. Keith, do you know what this is? There's cinnamon raspberry flavored candies, okay? This bag has four left. This bag started with 12 three months ago. Oh, yeah. Okay. I like specific candies.

I enjoy some sweets, but, only once in a while. So I messaged Morgan and I was like, yo, is this a thing about me? Like, do I say I don't like them and I do? And she says, no, you bought a bag of mini eggs and it will rot over the next seven months and you won't let anybody touch them

because you're going to want them one day and then you'll throw them out. And that is me. Like, I do enjoy some of these things. I just don't enjoy them more than once or twice a week. Yeah, I don't have that willpower typically. that's harder for me to see. Except energy drinks, as sweet as possible.

Like, give me the freezy flavored, the candy flavor. I did my vision test last week. And as we talked about it on this podcast a few times, my eyesight's starting to go. So I haven't got any, I got a prescription and I got a prescription and I got to go at some point in trap frames on and everything. But the cool thing was really like when they actually, like going through the thing and like just seeing how,

bad your eyes really were. And then when they actually put the, you know, the thing in front of it, that's like your script or what your script should be and it's like crystal clear, um, Stephanie was with me because she didn't want me to drive with my eyes dilated. And, you know, I'm in the chair and she's 15 feet away. Maybe it was pretty, it was actually a really long room, which would make sense because you're looking at the, at the, uh, the thing far away to like measure your eye, your vision. But anyway, when I put on the actual like the mocked up pair of glasses that they like basically deduce is what my prescription should be, golly shit. My, because it's just like night and day, like, with him off, she's just like, this like blurry human and then with him on, it's just like, oh, that's the woman I married. Like, that's my young, right.

I was going to say, now you get to love her all over it. I'm like, this is awesome. A less blurry version of her. Yeah, so someday I'll actually go get my, you know, go try her own frames. So are you going to do the. You went this whole, you went this whole part of your life with like, like, you could just wake up and you could see. That's insane. Well, no, no, no, no. Like, I want to say, like, my, I just turned 40 and my vision did not deteriorate until like the last year. and a half. That's crazy. Like, and then I'm just like far, it's just like far side. Yeah, like a near side. I can't see shit as well when it's like 20 feet away kind of thing or even 10 feet away. I really. But someday I'll get that prescription. Are you going to do the the blippy orange frames? Please die. I doubt it. That was just a funny AI image that Matt made. Speaking to Matt,

big stall Matt, Matt, him and I had a little mandate down in Binghamton this week. So that was cool to catch up with him. and then we're going to be nemesis. And that's not, we are each other. Nemesis. Nemesis. Nemes. We are going to compete against each other this week at the Strongman show in the same class. So that'll be fun.

So that is that. That's good care of another thing. What else? Oh, tomorrow, April, yeah, April 17th will be the nine-year anniversary since my wife's Big Stephanie had spinal cord surgery to remove a tumor from her spinal cord that she was suffering with for several years. So huge props to her, nine years, you know, still getting after it, you know, she's been training the last couple years pretty regularly with the coach, you know, she's just very, very happy and proud of her progress. That surgery took a lot from her and physical things. She'll

never be able to get back. She had a laminectomy, so they literally, she's missing bone in her spinal cord, so she'll never be able to do certain things. She was pushing squats on her back for a while, and it just got to where, like, a couple of things started to pop in her upper vertebrae. And she's like I'm done with a bar on my back anytime soon. So, but she's still doing modified stuff and she's training three days a week, no matter what. Just so I'm very proud of her. So we both took tomorrow off. And we're going to go for a nice little beach walk.

I think it's supposed to actually rain. So we might be out there. But it's just like a thing we try to do every year, celebrate life on her surreversary. So kudos to her. Good for you, Stephanie. We love you up here too. To come up with something big next year for 10 years. But nine years is pretty wild.

I think it's been that long. But I'm, uh, I'm grateful every day. she's still here. Okay, so I see that you watched the shark movie that I hated. I did. And I threw it in there mainly because I feel like a lot of our opinions would have been the same on it. It was, I was like,

I wanted to, I almost wanted, I started it just to kind of be in jest of like, I mean, it was a shitty B movie, but Joey blew it out of proportion. It was really fucking bad. And it did start out like it was going to just be like a shitty, like,

sci-fi regular movie. And it was like, it just kept, it literally kept jumping the shark, no pun intended. it. It was just like, wait, why is now they're a great white? Like, the bull sharks, maybe I could understand, but then, like, well, they're not going to act like fucking piranhas and, like, hunting packs like that, probably. And it was just, right? Remember what I said? And it's like, shark movies,

when they take themselves seriously, you have to pretend you don't know anything about sharks. It was, uh, and, like, the dumb ones, like, Shark Nato and everything that the guys mentioned in the Discord, I give those a pass because they are meant to be silly. Like, it's a radioactive shark. Oh, we made this shark smarter through science. Yeah, they were trying to be a horror movie. And like you're watching it and the sharks are swimming through the house. Like through the kitchen. My house ain't big.

And you're like, they can't. If they stop swimming, they die. Where's this shark going? He's stuck in a house. Right? They probably don't have, I don't imagine they have basements in coastal towns like that. That like if you are next to a,

well, no, but I mean like in reality, do they? Like if you literally live next to a levee, all right yeah no you're it's a thing that broke like so like the water table has to be so high because you're right next to the fucking river or ocean or whatever I would have been there I think it was a river at that point no it was the ocean yeah yeah regardless but like I don't think they have basements that close to like great bodies of water this guy had a whole bunker I no no no but I'm saying my mind went to the reality of like there's not fucking basements here

and also like why is no one like getting on the roof why are they just like hanging out on the first story, like dig of, like, cut a fucking, like, if it was life or death, I could get through my goddamn ceiling to get on the roof, like, or at least into the attic. Like, like, if the house was filling with water somehow, like, Lake Ontario is flooding and it's

engulfing all of Rochester, New York, I don't think I'd ever happen, at least not in my lifetime, but. And sharks are in it somehow. Yeah, then there's, for sure, I think I could find a way to, like, punch through my fucking ceiling, pull myself up to the rafters, like, like, that would be very doable versus just being

stuck on the first floor of a house. I'm like, there's better things to do. We can't leave this kitchen island, which somehow the water is rising around us, yet never enough to cover this island. Like, I'm telling you, the movie was awful. Because it's just going back down the drain, you know. Once it got to counter level, it was just going down the drain.

That's probably what I want you to think. We had the ultra-rare card unveiling, I guess, for round two. And it was big Chris Mark, the man with two first names, little son of a bitch tricked me too because he literally texted me he's asked me a few times in the last couple months like hey do you know who got the rare card i'm just like i blow it off because i'm like i half the time he's so disconnected from kuru sometimes because i know he's kind of he's way behind an ar backlog and he's like barely keeping up with massanomics so sometimes i feel like he maybe just is talking crew stuff

just because he knows how deep i into it and i was just like no i'm not really sure who has it but i'm i'll keep an ear ear out on it and then he like literally texted me two days ago or whatever it was a couple days ago I was like, do you see, you, do you, you still don't know who has it yet? And I'm just like, no, I'm not sure. And then, and then fucking Megan posts the, the post on, with unveiling who the ultra rare card wasn't. It was sure enough, it was him. So I got a kick out of that because it was kind of a jab at me, which I really enjoyed. But, uh, kudos to Hogan for having those little, um, just, it's like a bit inside of a bit inside of a bit.

Like, yeah, like, you know, we're doing crew cards. That's awesome. And now we're going to do like ultra rare crew cards, like limited releases. and then there's like secrets of who they are and it's just like adding levels to just like our shenanigans as I enjoy. And the YouTube video this week.

Big Kevin in Columbus, Ohio. Anybody's chance to watch that? The Kev. What was it? Kev's a, Kev Cave, Kev Cave, Kev Cave. So his little 400 square foot gym. A lot of, uh, it was kind of funny

because it was like, it started out doing like three, uh, like, uh, Temple of Gaines machines taking up like like a large footprint and then it's just like on his rack for the next like half hour because I'm like wow this dude's got a lot of shit on his rack and like he's got all the different cable things and the different Smith machine at well not Smith machine but the VTF basically like his is the type of rack that like you could get away with only having that rack basically into a shit ton of stuff so it's a pretty entertaining video and I think I'd actually talk to him that because he recorded that the morning of the Arnold trip. I think I was drinking beer and shooting the shit with him that night. So it was kind of cool.

I'll be like, oh, I talked to him that night after he recorded this video. And I think that Tanner and Tommy did that the morning of, like, they recorded like an hour long, you know, walking podcast and then went to the Arnold for four or five hours and then went to the to the eagle for another four or five hours. So it was a long day for the boys. Yeah, he was good, too. He was very like a witty with them and Jim's gorgeous. geez.

So, yeah, it was a good one. I liked it. Nice. Anything stand out at you of like, oh, that might be a good piece for, you know, this commercial gym you have? We need a leg extension, like, girl. So we can get into it later. But like with our gym, it's, like, most of it's barbell.

Like, we have a couple of cable machines and we have like a GHT and things like that. But for the most part, we'll build all of our exercises through, like, barbell. So, which is kind of funny because now it's, it's back to the like, you know, no leg extensions, do the Bulgarian split squats. Oh, yeah. Full circle with Tommy's TED talk. But, uh, but yeah, I think that, plus I think my wife would appreciate if we had more leg machines.

So I was like, now I just start to squat more. So I was, I was curious if you meant like for her to use them or because she thinks you're just a skinny leg boy. Maybe that too, but just, but, uh, yeah, right now I, I, uh, I just stick to that meme of like, you know, squats. the bus left and everything's good. So you can't beat it. Yeah,

I agree. Did you get a chance to watch any of that, Joey? No, I got home from work and immediately had a nap. I'm not going to lie to you. I nap until 6 o'clock. I was so as I was traveling all this week for work and hotel hotel sleep is so hit or miss.

I either stay up until like 1 a.m. and then sleep right to my alarm or like I passed the fuck out. I feel like and I was like the complete like I did that one night. And then last night I was trying to stay up for the. pre-show and next thing I know it's like 4.30 in the morning and like my light in the bathroom, like I usually have to have like my noise maker on pitch black. Like I'm like electric taping like the the light on the smoke alarm and the microwave and stuff to make the room completely dark. Like I passed out with like half the lights on in the room and just slept for like eight hours straight. I was so

confused. It wouldn't like fucking what the hell happened when I woke up at four third o'clock in the morning? So I missed all the pre-show. So it'll be a completely new episode for me next week. Me too. I was also in bed by 9 o'clock last night. I saw their 9.30 start time and was like, no, I'm, congrats on the 10 years, but no, I'm not doing that. Yeah. I tried to pull some grease out of my couple different group chats. I was like, hey, so I fell asleep, did anything good happen? And then they, you know, lips is, you know, sealed, sealed shut to per Tanner's request of, you know, no spill on the grease on the pre-show. So, you know, most people live up to that. But then as far as last week's episode, they, It would have been the, uh, whatever the, what was the episode,

John? You, you listen to it. What was the last week's, what was Monday's Massonomics episode about? Well, they started with the, with,

Tommy and the circus. So I thought that was. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those memes are just perfect. Because he, like literally looks like he could be like a,

the, like the circus lead. Um, he just has that, you know, nice presence and the beautiful hair. So, but I thought that was really good.

And then, geez, what was the title topic? It was, you always get lost in the title topic because sometimes it's like the title topic is like 11, it's like anywhere from like a 4 to like a 20 minute segment

in a 12th of our podcast. Oh, it was a Rory. Rory was the guest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Some of our podcast. Yes, yes. Yeah.

One of many that they've had. Yeah. Yeah. He seems like he's a busy guy, especially like with all the orders. So. What's your rating there? Oh, easily it's five unbiased and honest stars.

Honest and unbiased, yeah. Honest and unbiased. That's all we're like a one, right? That's what everybody just wants. Yeah. Nobody wants those unbiased and dishonest opinions. Exactly. Yeah.

No, it's not like bias is just a natural formation of you growing up and becoming a human being. No, no, no, no. I'm unbiased. I mean, you do get with her. That was all coming from like people calling out other. And, you know. Oh, no, no, I get it because the rest of it was them talking about influencers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or content. And I think somebody who is, there is a lot of biased information out there. Well, of course there is. I mean, there's two different versions of bias, right? Like there's your, um, your natural bias, right? Where Keith, you have a natural bias all the time where there's just things that because they don't exist around you,

you don't know that they exist. That's a natural bias. Like dates. Like dates. Right? Or just things that like, well, I've never been to Mexico.

I would not know what this thing is. That's a natural bias. I wouldn't know what I'm missing. Exactly. Missing Mexico. Yeah. Somebody would get that. And then there's like,

of course, the bias that comes in anybody who is being paid to do something. Right? Like, that's a different form of bias. So just because somebody says

they're honest and unbiased. A, I've said this for years, objectivity doesn't exist. There is nothing objective about anybody's opinion. Whether you declare yourself a scientific genius or not, you don't have an objective opinion. You have an opinion that's formed based on your experiences, and your experiences have resulted in you seeing things this way.

Anyway, I know somebody in Discord tagged me and was like Joey's going to hate all the influencer talk this week. That was really funny. And I wonder if it came up because of my rant from two weeks ago. So I'm going to go ahead and give that five out of five spinning plates. Nice. Yeah. They also, that's the other part, now I remember, the other part that could have been

the title topic was just them walking through like their next tour. Sorry, their next like trip of tours. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the reason why I brought that up is they always say that if we can pull it off, And I just don't know, like, maybe you guys have more experience to me. Like, are they trying to do the, like, the Tiger King?

Like, that's the line that dawn. I don't know if you're, if you're familiar with Tiger King, I assume. I'm actually on the episodes of the backlog where they talk about it. Okay. Okay. So, no, no, I always, I always think that every time they say, if we can pull it off, and be like, they'll be the most clever son of a bitch there is. Well, and that's, of course, whenever they fly anywhere, that's the,

problem, right? Flying in Canada is one thing. When you fly in the U.S., it's a whole another ballgame, right? Anything can happen there. There was one other thing that, oh, yeah, and if you're listening to this and you maybe haven't listened to the past episodes, Rory did not mention that he has a kid's version of, we used to be a proper freaking country called we used to be a proper stinking country. So I know it was some talk in the discord where one person was saying that his daughter. My kid loves this song. Yeah, yeah.

His daughter is singing. We used to be a proper freaking country and she's six. And then I was like, hold up. We can help. We have a kid's version. So, you know, if you're listening to that, I wish Rory had dropped it on there, but he obviously didn't have time,

didn't come up naturally. He was awesome, by the way, on that episode. Like he, yeah, he's definitely in tune to the, to the universe here. But that was it. Keith, go ahead with your talk. Very unbiased, very honest. Yeah, I was a lot of the point.

were already touched on. One thing that stood out to me that it made me chuckled the most that I would kind of focus on was when Tommy was basically talking about like what if we just do a bunch of 40 year old content creators

doing shit from like 2015 Oh, playing game and let's do the mannequin challenge and I was just like and some of that stuff too it's like it would be vintage to where people like the 20 year olds today wouldn't know that that's like recycled shit

from 10 years ago either. Have you seen what the kids are doing now? Have you seen the same? sea lion? I don't know what it. Don't. Don't. So they'll be in a room full of people and one of them will yell, do the sea lion. And then what they do is they lay on their stomach, they reach back, grab their ankles, and they just jump up and down going, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, it's, oh, hold on, it's nothing worse than we were planking, so calm down over there. People died planking. Remember that. People died trying to out plank other people on the internet.

It is still stupid. It's my son keeps doing it. And I'm just like, I don't get it. I don't care. Can we please get your shoes on and go to school? But yeah, just the whole premise of people our age really trying to be like young content creators. And I'm like, I don't know. It's like it's just fun to come here and podcasts every week.

but I don't want to create content for, like this is the only content I want to create. I'm too tired to do anything else, but it was just, it was fine. I, I can see Keith doing a whole thing where he records videos. Like,

he'll stitch a video and it's just him sitting next to it, pointing and like, oh God, I'm not going to be that. Where I'm just laughing. Oh my God. Like, that's,

I hate those. And I hate when, like, the most annoying thing is, is I'll watch him because it's like, I had never seen that, like, the video that they're,

the actual one. I'm like, oh, that's a relevant video that I would like to watch. Why do I have to look at this stupid fucking douchebag? Either in the corner or stitched next to it. That's so annoying. But I'm like, where's the original? Just show me the original instead of this.

And then you have the pleasure of realizing that they have a million more followers than you do. And you're like, I hate the internet so much. But yeah, five out of five Massonomics iPod touches for me. Remember the days of the Masonomics iPod touches? We used to be a proper freaking country. My first lift hard live easy, I got to touch those.

And then he got a new stereo. Now we don't have iPod touches anymore. They're all still, you said that before. And someone literally posted the picture of the end. Oh yeah, they are still there. Like the next day. So I guess someone, the gym will have to post it again and be like, do you don't fucking listen.

First of all, correct. And second of all, I do have the, memory of a goldfish most days. I know, I know. Well, if you want to hit them with some affiliates, I can hit them with the gym radar at after. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have some affiliates.

We have one with Obsidian Omonia. It is code unpaid. It is 15%. I know we've been saying 10%. I believe it's 15%. We do have one at plate snacks. Plate snacks can help you decorate your gym. They can help you print your stickers

and they can help you. I just saw one today where they did a custom what do you call those weight stacks that you put on the pulling machines? I don't have machines. Plate stack? Just literally. Yeah, yeah.

So it's a plate stack plate snack where they customized it and things like that. They can customize your plates. And of course, if you want some home gym stickers, you can go get them there. Code unpaid.

And Beltfed strength. Lots of talk with Chris today in the Discord. Yeah. We did not drop the, none of us commented the code unpaid because we do want Chris to get his nut as well but he does offer a 10% discount when you order online using code unpaid. Oh, in a full circle moment, big Andrew from a couple weeks ago, instantless Vano, Fano, whatever, he was in, where's Chris at?

Johnson City, Tennessee and he actually was able to do a drop in and meet Chris. and I had to kind of coordinate that because if anyone knows Chris, he's very unresponsive on Instagram at times because he's managing a full-time business, obviously. So I don't think he had any luck getting a hold of him on Instagram. So I texted and got him connected on his behalf. And they had met up there last week. And I think they even did finally exchange numbers and go out and have some drinks that weekend too.

So it was a very cool crew moment bringing two of our friends together that might, you know, without this podcast or crew in general, that definitely wouldn't happen. So it's always happy to be a part of that. And I saw today Chris trimmed his beard, which I say boo, but also it looks great, buddy. And, you know, hit you a little ditty here about our friends at Jim Radar. I'm looking at the website now. It looks like Nate and Tommy have been doing some cool stuff. It's got a little more green to it.

They're leaning into the green theme. So go ahead and head over to Jim Radar. Get your gym certified. The new certified banners just dropped too. So, you know, if you want to get dual. It was not necessarily dual certified, but if you're not certified yet, the new banner that you get would be a Jim Radar certification banner. But for any existing Massonomics members, they can use a discount code that's in the Discord. Just check it out.

And I think you can get the new banner and a new paper thing for 50% off, I believe. So you can look into doing that. And then I guess my one callout for be anybody that has created the gym, but it hasn't published it yet. because from what I've heard through the grapevine and, you know, they've shared on the podcast. This is, you know, whatever the number is, there's like 25% of the people that created accounts or maybe even more than that or somewhere in that realm haven't published them yet. So they're just like lurking in the background and, you know, I don't know that they're helping massonomics. So that I'm not hurting, but I think it'd be cooler to get the published gym number up if you already are there. Like, so I don't know if there's people that just created accounts and haven't touched them yet or people have like filled it out like 90%, but they're just OCD.

and don't want to publish until they take like the perfect picture and get the right angle. Like, I don't know. But if you're listening to this and you've started your, uh, started to get your gym on gym radar, but you just haven't, you know,

gone all the way and got it published. Uh, I don't know. You don't really have, you don't have to have pictures. Just, I don't know. I think getting it published will get you followed quicker and we'll just get you

more involved in the community. But that's just me standing on my soapbox. So do what you want to do. I actually went all the way to my brother's house. And showed him how to use Jim radar. Huh. So that he is on there now. I don't think he's uploaded any pictures yet, but he has a published gym.

There you go. And I'll be going to watch WrestleMania with him this week. And I will be. Taking his pictures for him and upload him. Probably, probably. Keith, there's one other crew thing we forgot to discuss. Oh, yeah, my ass sticker. Do you have these?

Me or him? You, Keith. Yes. Antonio sent me like four or five of them. Oh, no. I told him it would be funnier to send them to me and not you. Yeah, he was, I think, well, so I think, well, so I think, you know, it takes a lot of balls to make a sticker of someone's ass.

So, like, he, he took the, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, like, dude, is this okay? Like, I feel somewhat uncomfortable doing this. I mean, to paraphrase, it was a couple weeks ago. I don't remember exactly, but like, he essentially asked permission before he printed off pictures of my ass. He asked you permission. Yeah, he asked, asked, permission. So yeah, now there's another sticker wrote. So I don't know that he's distributing too many of them. I don't really know. I don't think they're going everywhere. Yeah, but I, I sent one out to a former podcast, uh, guest because I was doing a sticker exchange anyway. And I was like, you have a super secret sticker here enjoy. Uh, so Jake, when you get that, you'll know.

Yeah. So I guess my ass is as famous as my face now. what's the different looks the same to me all right enough about my ass such an old man joke okay we got some

let's get our guest on the horn yeah yeah yeah you want to see if you can get him on the phone there yeah yeah yeah big John is that you yeah it is thanks hey welcome you're live here on unpaid and underrated you're the guest now and you know

everything's We're not going to mince any words. We're going to dive right in. We don't want to miss any gold, as I like to say. So you are kind of new to the crew. We talked about this in the pre-show there. Do you want me to tell the story, or do you want to tell the story? You can go ahead and start.

And then, yeah. Okay, so I was the MC at, I think it was a nationals qualifier. Full nationals. Okay, I was the MC at WRP Nationals. And John was there. And that wasn't the first time I've seen you. Wasn't the first time I've met you or talked to you. And then later, I followed you on Instagram.

And I saw a Masonomics poster or banner in your gym as seen right behind you right now. And I commented, I was like, whoa, you're into Massonomics. And you were like, oh, yeah. And then I DM'd you. I was like, well, I don't know, like, if you know, but like, I'm kind of in there too. And you, your reaction was, you're that Joey? And I'm like, yes. And then you said, well, when do I get to be unpaid and underrated?

And I said, well, you got to be crew. And then I think you signed up within half an hour. Yes. And in the comments I put, Joey made me. That's good. Yeah. So that got you scheduled on here. You've been listening to some of our back.

catalog and everything. So welcome. We have discovered that peer pressure and in-person meeting does work. Hey, there you go. We started the Ontario crew chat with me, you, Steve, Chris, the other Steve. Yeah, the other Steve from Burlington. Yep. Who I remember, I started the chat. I was like, I'm forgetting somebody and I know it.

Because Cam is not on Instagram. So he just isn't in the chat. and I was like, I know I'm forgetting somebody and they're very local. And then he messaged me and he's like, hey, how's Canadian shipping from this company? And I was like, dummy, it's this guy. Yeah. Interestingly enough, he shopped at the Costco that I used to work at. So I was like, do you ever go to Costco?

He's like all the time. And I'm like, you've walked past me for 10 years. Like, that's so crazy. So tell me now, because I did all that, who are? are you on Instagram and Discord? Yeah, so I have two main Instagrams. One is starting to powerlifting, so that's the business. But that's the more entertaining one.

It kind of falls into the same realm as Masonomics and unpaid 100. It's like it's supposed to be silly. So like we are reels are for fun. It's just something for my lifters to be able to do in between their sets. So we'll make reels and things like that. That's my main one, Sarnia powerlifting. And then I also have Jardle underscore SBL, which is my personal one. So that's my, my lifting as coach and lifter, I guess.

And then we, I think that's all the social that I use. Like obviously we have Facebook and stuff like that, but we don't really use it. And yeah. And on Discord, you're John at Sarnia? Big John. I was told. I put John at Sarnia powerlifting, and I was immediately correct. Yeah. There's a reaction for that one.

Exactly. And you were right. So yeah. Yeah. So big Donics on your pilot thing. Aaron is so quick on that. I think it's like he's, um, he's almost a bot at this point. Yeah. As soon as somebody joins, he puts the at, uh, here at Massanomics, everyone's big, which is the olive garden one. Yeah. And then immediately somebody will go, oh, I'm not that big.

And then he'll hit them with the Simpsons meme. and it's so fast and so quick and so reliable that I think Aaron is a bot. That works. So obviously with your bench heavy shirt that you have in your hands there, you've been around Masonomics for a while, didn't join crew until pretty recently. So tell me about how you found Massonomics and what brought you in. Yeah, I was one of the lurkers, I guess, but I still supported in a way, you know, through the shirts and such.

But it was probably around the beginning of 20, 23. So as you'll find based on the name, Sarnia powerlifting. You know, and sidebar, like, whenever we land on Sarnia powerlifting, people are like, oh, why did you call it that? And I always use the Wayne's World reference. It's not just a clever name, you know, the shitty Beatles. So it's like, that's what we do. We start your powerlifting.

So almost everything I do is powerlifting. So I started listening to Masanomics because, you know, obviously back then there was guests and there was a, a few, you know, very prominent Canadian power lifters that were on it. So I was listening to the to theirs. So, you know, Jessica Bittner was on there, Bryce Crichack. And, you know what? So I always say, like, I came for the powerlifting and I stayed for the jokes.

Yeah. And it ended up being one of those things where, like, you started listening to, you know, when you first, when you first jump into Massanomics, obviously, like, you, you know, I'm explaining to the people that know them more than I do. Like, you're like at the beginning, you're like, what is all of this, this first part? And then you realize that's actually what they're doing. Like that's the podcast is the first part before the guests would come on. And I actually, I thought it was so entertaining.

And then I just was listening to them a nonstop after that. I bought some shirts. And then when I opened my gym, which we can get to, it was like, I wanted banners everywhere. This room actually doesn't do it justice. This is the back room. But the front is like covered in banners. And so I, you know, I just bought tons and tons of massonomic. spanners. And, you know, and that's, and then from there, now we're crew and, you know,

keep meeting more and more people. So that's great. So, and actually, yeah, I think Joey, the first time we met was at a different meet closer to Sarnia. And that was, Anastasia was lifting and she had the Masanomics singlet on. And I, I immediately went to her around, like, where'd you get that singlet? And like, obviously, like, I knew, I knew it was, like, she was involved at that point. So it's nice that we're kind of growing in this Ontario area. Yep. Fastest growing massonomics market, the city of Ontario, as Tommy once called us.

So you're in Ontario. Is that where you're from? Or have you always been there? Yeah. But I used to live in Windsor, which is right next to Detroit. And I've worked in the States for 15 years. So a lot, like even it kind of just bleeds into the, into starting to powerlifting too. So like when we post things, everything's in pounds. Um, you know, I, uh, I just, I was

American for so long, if you, if you will. So, uh, and yeah. When you, when you lived in Windsor, you just, you just, you just cross the border every single day. Every single day. Yeah. It was, it was, were you just late for work because there was just some asshole at the gate being like, are, why the fuck are you going? You had a Nexus pass at that point, right? Yeah, but how the bridge works is like you, uh, because it's only two lanes, you, the Nexus doesn't, kick in until like you're already past it. So a lot of times you'd be stuck on the bridge. The bridge is just shaking because it was made 200 years ago.

It's like 150, but something crazy like that. And then, yeah, and you're just waiting for the lane to open up to be able to use the Nexus. And then sometimes even with Nexus, you get pulled in because they have to do their like routine stuff. And yeah, so you'd be late for work. And yeah, but yeah, I think that's a valid excuse. Yeah, I got stopped at the border.

Yeah, sure. And then I traveled a lot for work based on my role at the time. And so I've seen like all the big cities in the U.S. and travel and stayed in all the lovely hotels like you were talking about. So did that like not to get into too much in the weeds about your job or anything, but like I'm trying to envision like so your taxes like so as a Canadian citizen working in America, but paying tax, are you paying taxes on both? And then like your valuation has to fluctuate just based on the, the, the, what's the, that's the, that's a good question.

Yeah. What's the word where it compares the two numbers? Just the exchange. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The conversion and exchange. Like, because that, that's flip-flopped over the years multiple times, hasn't it?

So like, does your, so your paycheck literally is determined by which dollar is worth more, kind of? Yeah, 100%. And, yeah, so I worked based on like a TN visa and because I was a Canadian resident that. worked in the U.S. I would get paid based in U.S. U.S. dollars. And there's only a few banks that actually had direct deposit at the time that would like, you know, convert back over to Canada. And then you're totally right. When I got hired was the first time it flipped the wrong, like the wrong way. So like everybody used to get this giant kick up when they got hired in exchange. And it was like, this is sick. I got a hundred thousand dollar job because of the exchange rate.

But then it was it was just par for like six years, the one I first started. Yeah. And then, but with par, then how the taxes work is you pay U.S. taxes and then you get a tax credit in Canada. And then when it flips the other way, not so good. So, yeah, very complicated. You're right. It goes up and down. Your pay goes up and the taxes go the opposite direction. So that would be kind of nerve-wracking. I think you'd have to have a very, very happy with your income base salary to even consider kind of going across the bridge, I could imagine. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And they. And health care is a whole separate. Oh, yeah. I didn't think about that. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah.

And that was before remote was a thing. So I always said then I did become a remote employee at the end of my kind of employment there. And I said I was remote before it was cool. So we mean COVID. Yeah. So then I moved to Toronto and I was working for the U.S. company. And then stuff happened. And they were bought by another.

company and they let everybody go. And then I got hired on the Canadian side of it, the same company in the Canadian side. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Good deal. Now, how ironic would have been if, like, you and your family had moved to America at that point, too. That would have been full circle. That would have been just terrible. Good stuff, good stuff. All right. So you've been around, you know, you said you've been a lurker there for a while. So I'm sure you've been scoped out of Instagram and seeing people getting tagged and stuff and drops. What's that one thing that you went to go buy and we realized, oh, they don't actually keep everything in stock for in an indefinite amount of time.

Well, they just brought them back as the joggers. And I should buy, I should buy most that. Well, they sold out of the first review. Yeah, they did a review of it. Did the second batch sell out too? I don't, I don't pay attention. I'm not a jogger guy. I'm not sure if it did yet.

I should obviously check. The other thing is actually, what I learned from like the banner when I was ordering all the banners. Some of them are drop shipped, like their, their manufacturer will make them and ship them so they won't do Canada. So the heavy bench one, I wanted that massive because that's my specialty. And I wanted it like very prominent in the gym, the bench heavy piece. And that was one that we couldn't have. So if you, I mean, not to go to the back, like, if you DM Tanner and just say, hey, if I just like, VINMO you $30, can you just send me the, send me an image and I can just take it to a local printer. Like, I'm still giving you your nut, but like I get this like four by six banner that'll

look sick in my gym. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that or you know, to, to an American that you can pick it up from later or something like that. Yeah. So where there's a will, there's a way. So for sure. Well, now, now that your crew, you do get an hour's worth of shopping before the gen pop. Oh, so there we go. Yeah. They give us early access. So if you're not a supporting member and you're listening to this and you want that early access become a supporting member so you don't miss out on anything again so those joggers sold out and it was probably right before you joined the crew and you know you would have had your hands on those yeah uh do you have a hall of fame status yeah it's it's it's low i'm i'm working i'm working on i think anything above one is good it's a

i think we're at three counting today so nice nice like i said i should have got a photo with you And then we would have been for us. I'm sure it'll happen. You weren't at the strong man meet that I went to. No, I actually, I had a couple friends in there. And I obviously wanted to come, you know, see you in person. But I had to meet one of my lifters had to meet that day. So kind of like my schedule is based on.

Of course. Lifters. So, but yeah, and then I would one day I want to come with some stones anyway. So we'll get it. Yeah. Nice. Have you been. round long enough to get the supporting membership number or you probably came in a little

after those cards. Yeah, after the cards, yeah. So it was safe to say you're sex seven, so somewhere in the... Sex seven. Yeah, sex, 600. All right. Is the gym certified? So the gym is actually not certified, but it will be.

So what happened was right when I honestly was literally logging in when the gym radar like changed the name. from the certified. So then I was like, wait a minute, do I wait? Do I buy the gym radar one instead? And then I heard when you were doing the ad read that they would have given like a discount. So that that's kind of nice that they're giving the discount for people that already had the certified gym banners to get the gym radar one.

But I want to, I wanted to be certified because I just think it's funny. And in the front room of the gym, we have like a like a very prominent certification that's required in, in Canada for Canpiel, which is the same as powerlifting America. So I want to put it right next to it because I just like that one had like a full audit process of like what you had to send pictures that you had to write the right equipment and stuff like that. So I want to put it right next to it just to really. I mean, I don't know how many tanners denied yet, but as long as you're as long as you're silly and big, you'll probably get one.

Yeah. It would be funny to deny it now. now no you can't put that up next to the he just send a note he's like do not approve sorry about it that would be funny yeah uh well we we got a handful of people that submitted some stuff through your questionnaire being someone that's uh I don't know how deep your friends and family know you're even into masconomics so when you had to ask him to fill out this for unpaid and underrated how'd that go um no not a problem like I think like one of the

advantages is the like the people that I sent it to like some of them are my lifters so they feel like that was like a requirement that they had to do that's actually that's actually a good a good way to kind of bully people into doing it having this like authority to hold the word over there exactly if not they were going to begin all Bulgarians foot swisswis yeah yeah and but they're also like a good time and they understand the the vibe of me and um and then like uh you know one one was my coach like same idea like he like his job is to support me and everything I do. So yeah.

So not a problem. But then there's a couple of wild cards in there that wasn't totally sure what they were going to say. Some of them had a lot of fun. I will say that there were some of them that were not too serious goose. So did they at all ask like, what is this podcast? What do you do? I had a couple of conversations about like what it was. And a lot of them were familiar based on like the banners and things like that.

So, you know, the ad read for you guys, right? It's the, you know, the sister podcast of Masanomics, and it's to support, you know, people that are involved in Masonomics. So then they were like, yeah, this is sweet. This works. Awesome. Yeah. Good deal.

I had a whole train of thought there I was going to follow up with and it completely evaded me. Was it, was it Thomas the tank engine train? No, no, wasn't that. If it comes to me, I'll get back to it. But getting to our first game here, big. Jonathan, are you familiar at least fun, most fun? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so anyone listening for the first time or, you know, doesn't pay attention,

get a game we like to play here, a relatively new segment, if you will, called Least Fun Most Fun. So I'm going to give the guest a single topic and their job is to give me two separate answers, one for the least fun and one for the most fun. And this is one that we can elaborate on a little later too, and we kind of get into the meat and potatoes, but for now I just kind of want like some one-hitters for each. So least fun, most fun, owning a gym. there's got to be a good least fun i can imagine yeah for sure least fun's the plumbing

i don't even know how much you need to elaborate on that one but but yeah uh that's the least fun uh most fun is like almost having like an excuse to buy equipment right it's not almost excuse like that's literally your livelihood now is like you're not going to keep new lifters coming in if like all you have is rusty shitty bars and like you don't you know, maintain the gyms aesthetic and keeping new shit rotating in. That's why so many gyms close the door because I think they, they do the initial investment up front and then all their shit breaks and is falling apart. So that's why when you see a lot of gyms closing,

it's just garbage 15 year old equipment that they didn't maintain. Yeah, yeah. It's especially if it's like, you know, just purchasing items that are, you know, you're just going to go on the website with no research and just buy stuff that like isn't going to last. So, like, we took an approach to buy, like, I rather buy a used quality piece than a new piece of shit. So, like, we have, like, extremely good bars. Like, I would say, like, that's where I spend my money is on bars for that reason, right?

Like, I don't want to buy a bunch of cheap bars that we're going to wear out instantly. Sounds good. Now, is there a good resource out there that you would recommend someone to now? I was about to do the same thing. It sounds like it's an excellent thing for Jim Radar. Yes, there you go. There you go. I do need you to elaborate on the plumbing.

So do you just have a shitty landlord and you have shitty pipes? Like you got, is there a good poop story in there somewhere? Like as someone that did maintenance for years, I've dealt with a lot of plumbing issues and they're the worst. Yeah, yeah. We're good now. So like,

let's make sure that it's known that starting power lifting has been like covered in it. But yeah, even when the plumbers were called like the first time with the issue, they're like, oh yeah, we've been here so many times. Like this building. Like frighteningly enough,

this gym, like, uh, which is, it's like 1, 300 square feet. Like, it's much bigger in the back there. Um,

it used to be a bakery and that's scary. Like, like, like, like, imagine the gym. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. And just in general, like, like, like aesthetic for a gym is going to be a lot different than a bakery. But anyways, there was like,

toilets over here on this side. Imagine that. But on this side of the wall, it was just like starting to get wet on the ground over there. And, like, and we have like, carpet in certain areas.

And, you know, then we found out that that's where the actual like return, like the, like the, you know, the thing that the whole kind of like snake was. And the cap was like deteriorated. So both of the caps and all of these areas, you couldn't even plunge it. So that was just like, you know, I didn't, you know, you open a gym. You're like, you know you're going to have these problems, right? But all clean, all great. No shit anywhere. Good deal.

Yeah. I've dealt with something similar. My basement has backed up a few times because I had roots in the lines. And it wasn't until it's been about five or six years now since I actually found a clean out in the front yard that I dug up. And then so now if it ever backs up again, I can call the city in for free. They come out and snake it versus me having to pay road to root or like $7,800 to do it or go rent the machine myself and maybe get some of it cleared out. So plumbing is no joke for sure. Definitely.

So my question is usually the height. person question. And I want to preface this with, of course, we're all as straight as you can be. Of course. We're all very, very straight. But I do want to know, right before a big lift, who in all of the world would you have as a hype person, living, dead, fictional, anybody in the world that could slap your back before your big bench? When you were saying living dead, I immediately go to dead. You know, you just like, Like no actual person. It's just like if you rather somebody living or dead.

Living or dead. I want a dead person to do it. Yeah. I think that would scare me enough. Honestly, I, you know, nobody's ever caught that. It's from something. I can't remember what it's wrong when they did that. But I remember that.

If you could have dinner with anybody living or dead, who would you have? And you say dead. But self-promotion. like I have the best height people. Like I literally do. Like we like Joey, you saw it to meet. Like my team is something different. Like the, um, we, we, it's, it's very silly goose.

It's very, very, very. It is very, very vibe. So I have like already, one of my lifters is the best high person ever. Biggest slaps, biggest everything. So, uh, I'll just, I'll just say my own team. So. Yeah. I would point out too, like part of the reason I followed you after, um, after meeting you was seeing your team.

Now, there's always teams whenever we do these. We do these through Apex. Apex is a gym in Burlington. I've talked about them before. Great relationship with Dave the owner and the team there. And I just remember seeing there's, I don't want to say anything that like centers anybody out. But there's always people that are too damn serious.

We, yeah. on a silly amount of serious where you're just like, this is the warm up room. Take off your headphones. Drop the camera and go warm up. Like, stop. And then there was you guys and you guys were having a hell of a fun time. Yeah.

And I think that that was like, even that day, I was like, I got to find out who that was. Right. Because, yeah, you guys were definitely the silly geese of that meat. Yeah. I can attest to that. And we like, like, it's like in like this,

the, the shirts like where we call our coordinate and, you know, and we're having the best time ever. And at the end of the day, you're like, okay, does that make you guys good? Like, are you guys, like, are you guys just like the laughing stock? No, my life or won at all. Yeah, yeah, you guys won the best team there. Yeah, you did. Okay.

As little or as much as you want, do you want to talk about your occupation? We already talked about your former occupation, but you can tell us what you're doing now if you want. Yeah. So I was in the corporate world forever. And we kind of touched upon that. I was an actuary. What, what, what? Is that a bird?

It kind of sounds like an actual person. I was an actual person. So actuary, it's like finance that has to do with death. So it's like if you like the minute you factor in like life expectancy to things. things, it's something for an actuary to do. So I ran, uh, I ran one of the big three pension plans in the US and, uh, almost killed me. It's, it was just the hardest thing ever. And, uh, then I did like what we would call data analytics or talent analytics for a, for that same company. Like I, I, I didn't want to do pensions anymore. And, uh, uh, I saw a lot of things I

didn't want to see like how companies treat their employees and through data, like not like harassing. or anything like that. And yeah, so that I was done. You know, I'm 20 years in, I was, I was ready to retire. So luckily, I did, I did retire. So I took a buyout and I opened a gym. So I am, what I say is I'm a part-time business owner, part-time stay-at-home dad, full-time power lifter and coach. So I, so right now I'm very fortunate that I get to spend a lot of time with my son who's who's three so like uh he's like now in daycare but previously he would just hang out the gym with me or or like when we needed to be here or clean so uh yeah so i'm like i'm managed it's a small gym but now my most of my occupation is coaching so i i have a large team of lifters

and it's the it's very fulfilling and very happy with it nice do you do all in person or is it remote or a hybrid. Hybrid. Yeah. So I like to remote, you use the word. So a lot of people say online coaching. I call it remote coaching instead because I want to see you at some point. So like, you know, very like crew like, right? So even my, I, I have an in person. So we have times every day of the week that goes up and down. So evening and afternoons. And you can come and you can, if you're part of my team or not, you can come work out with me. So like you're paying for the program, but you're, welcome to come and train with me. And I will coach you one-on-one.

And we also do what we call powerlifting introduction. So we'll teach people how to do powerlifting if they've never done it before. But then, yeah, so those are the ones in person. Sometimes they have to do things on their own and they'll send me videos. I have a giant group of lifters in London, too, which is about an hour away. And they come once a week to live. Not that London, I guess. Okay.

Not London, England. I'm like way worse one. It does suck there. It can't confirm. Don't worry. I'm not offending any of my lifters that live there because they all would rather be here. But yeah, they come once a week and it's about 55 minute drive just to like hang out, live in the vibes, get the most amount of out of their lifts. So yeah, again, like a like a little crew. What's your demographic of your clients and your team members?

Because I see a lot of the local power lifters here are just the stereotypical broccoli head, 20 year olds. but then there's like the old heads and stuff and kind of everything in between. Do you have a mix and match or you just kind of, you have a, that's a good question. That's a good question. Yeah, I can't wait for this answer because I've seen, I see his team. I love that question. It's fantastic.

It's a range. I'm very, very proud to have a range. So I have, um, you know, I have some elite level power lifters that are in their 20s. And then I have some, uh, young, really, really young. I have a 14 year old and, uh, uh, uh, uh, two, 16 year old. Well, actually they're, I think they're 17, 2018. So they're, they're kind of like my next generation, if, if you will. And then I have like, I have moms.

I have, uh, you know, a retired like gentlemen, like giant ranges. And some of them just want to be strong. And then other ones want to compete. And I like all the range. Like it, it doesn't matter to me what your motivation is as long as you want to squat bench and deadlift. So, um, and, um, and, And so like, for example, I have like a big group of people. The, Starry is a very crossfitty town. I don't hold that against it. But I have a big group of people that I coach that just wanted to be stronger at CrossFit.

They wanted to be at the top of the leaderboards. They wanted bigger squats, bigger bench, bigger deadlift. I'll make that happen for them. And that and that's cool. Like that's like they're known. Like they'll wear the shirts. And it's like, oh my God, they're powerlifting people. Like the like they'll immediately low bar their squads.

Well, it's on a high bar, like, because CrossFit's always, you know, a high bar. And it's like, oh, that's one of John's lifting. So it's fun. Yeah. So big, big range, big demographic gender. It's about 50-50. And that's pretty cool to me too. Yeah.

Yeah. It's because you kind of have like, you know, oh, so you're going to, what, coach 20, like 18-year-old guys? No, like it's a, it's all over the place. Nice. So that's a lot of the coaching talk. as far as the gym. So you got out of the corporate job. Did you have a lull there where you had the kid and everything?

And then you got into the gym or give me like, I guess, the timeline of getting out of corporate world and then convincing your partner that you're opening a gym and doing this full time. Yeah. I went down to part time in my job. And it was before we moved to. So we lived in Toronto while my wife was in medical school. And, you know, and sidebar like, you know, all these people that are making home. gyms and like, you know, you're afraid of like dropping your weights and stuff like that. I was deadlifting 500 pounds in a 10th floor condo.

So like during COVID. So you did have a home. Okay. So that's good. You didn't just like buy a gym without having a home gym. No, no, no. So and I always said to I always said with by, so it works into into the story of how the gym was created.

So, you know, COVID starts and I said to my wife, I said, you know, if I can have one barbell in two 45s, I'll be good. And I have a gym that has, we have, I think we have about almost 3,000 pounds and 15 barbells. So it's like, okay, well, that was a lie. I'm sorry. But yeah, so we were in Toronto and then we moved to Sarnia. And I, you know, I didn't plan on opening a gym. I just, I kept going to different gyms in Sarnia that weren't the most powerlifting friendly.

So I would get like yell that for loading the weights. Like iron plates just sliding them on to the on and they're hitting against each other. Like I'm not being a jerk. And they would, you know, they would come over and they're like, no, you need to do that quieter. And I'm like in the middle of about to do a set. Like someone like some douchebag staffer. Staff, yeah. Yeah.

Because they were just catering to a different gym. That'd be my last day at that gym probably. It was. It was. And then we did another gym. And this guy signs. I can talk bad because it doesn't exist anymore. Signs my wife and I up for an annual membership.

Closed two days later. Like did it on purpose. Like took our money on purpose. Oh, yeah. I'll cut you a great deal if you buy a year in advance. And you knew he was he wanted your grand up front. So that's a lot of money to, well, I mean, maybe it was only 500. Regardless, it was some substantial amount of money.

It's ridiculous. And then, but luckily, you know, it was so soon to, I was able to just like challenge it on the credit card. Oh, okay. chargeback. Yeah, exactly. We're big fan of chargebacks here. Yeah. But so, yeah, that gym closed.

So then I start building a gym in my basement. So, and then in my garage. So to start building up, I got a combo rock, a couple bars. You know, I don't plan on opening a gym. And then at one point, we needed the basement as my kid was getting older. So I moved into what would be like the utility room. And like I'll have to find the pictures and put them in the discosal. because, you know, all the gym talk is just home gym stuff.

It was literally six feet by 12 feet. I had the combo rack on an angle so that the bar would fit. And that's all I had in there. Combo rack and I like a cheap combo rack, not a real one. And then my plate. So I'm like literally, you know, squatting in this box. So, yeah, so I'm living that life. I'm on my conference calls doing that at the same time.

And then I said to my wife one day, I'm like, everything's telling me that I need to open a gym. And she's like, didn't do it. So, and then it just happened that the company was, you know, looking for some people to take a buyout. And that helped its first like, like, like the investment. Yeah, it was a good time. And I'd imagine. Yeah.

So it was like a couple months. Like it was no. It probably took you at least 20 grand to kind of open the door to the gym to begin with. So it's like, not everyone's just going to pull that out of their ass. And we don't really want to take a huge debt to open a gym where you might not be profitable for a couple years anyway. Yeah, exactly. And I think you did look at my income theme. So you're like, I know how much a gym costs. Yeah, yeah. But that's cool. It sounds like you

kind of have the gym that kind of fits the lifestyle of like you should a lot of people that maybe listen to Mathonomics and they came for the guest. And, you know, obviously what you said earlier, they stayed for the, I can remember how you would you how did you put it? They stayed for the what came for the power lifting where you could say guess. This would be our new slogan and stayed for the jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as far as that, like, the whole, so like the big pivot into home gym talk lately, a lot of people might not, maybe not a lot, but there's definitely some people that are probably like, like, why do I care about a home gym? I'm just a meathead that likes to live weight. Like, I don't care about your barbell. But like, you're kind of nerding out with like the bars and everything. And having a, the way you described your gym, it's roughly just like a, it's a boogey, awesome home gym. But, you know, obviously open to the public. So like you are, do you get a lot out of the home gym talk since you, as you know, it's kind of in your wheelhouse, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, as they started releasing the home gym tours, like, before they, like, went all in, right?

On this, I was like, this is amazing because, like, I was literally watching these. I'd be like, hmm, this is some nice equipment. Or, oh, I like this. Or even, like, things that I was going to buy, I'm, I'm interested. Like, this is, this is what I like. So I, yeah, I got so much out of it. And then, like, we, you're totally right. Like, I don't own a commercial gym here.

Like this is not like it's 1,300 square feet. We have four combo racks, you know, lots of power lifting stuff to deadlift platforms. Um, this back room is the only one with like an actual like power rack. Um, GHD, cable machine, dumbbells. Like it's basically a home gym that just happens to have a couple extra combo racks. And yeah, like Jose, he probably, he had multiple combo racks and it just his gym alone downstairs. stuff. But they, yeah, so it really is just a glorified home gym. Oh, I love to hear that. What brand, do you have all matching combo racks or do you kind of something you piecemeal

together with different brands? That's where I, you know, like I said before, like sometimes I would try to buy use. When it came to the combo racks, it's hard in Canada. Like in the States, you have so many options. In Canada, there's basically three, three suppliers, unless you're going to, you know, get a shipped over a leco. And then, like a shipped over a leco is like $10,000 Canadian. Yeah, it's not worth. So, like, it wasn't going to happen. So I have a bunch of, I don't know how much you're familiar with it, but like,

you've obviously seen like a strongman combo before, like a strong arm combo. Yeah. Like, it's a very common thing. But we have a bunch of competition strong arm combos. They're really, really good. Yeah, I think I've seen those in the past. their, because their initial one was kind of like not, it was the one that had the,

the weight horns off the back, the weight horns, tipping over. And I'm like, that's not a good combo racket. No, no, no.

But I've seen the other ones, which would be like, you know, their knock off Texas, or, you know, you are kind of, you know, so,

but it, but something that you could probably get to your Canadian door for a couple grand as opposed to eight grand from getting something from America, I'd imagine. Yeah, exactly.

Like in a deal after tax, you can get them for two, ship like 2000. Yeah. And like you said, they are TSS, like that, like very, very similar. So and the guy that created them, Mike at Strongarm, like he, he used to be the supplier for ER. So like it's, it's somewhere in between those, those two. But so I have a couple of those.

I'm also sponsored by Strong Arm. So that also helps. So you see like a flag. But that's a very just fortunate thing that occurred afterwards, actually. But, but I also have a Hansu combo rack. I have the same one that Tanner has with the stupid, the earlier shitting ones that's the, the bench is like,

way over there. Seven inches in the wrong spot. But I actually did what he said in the video. Like he said, I could see you could just flip these around. I did flip them around. It works. So you just don't use the four,

the four screws anymore. You just use the two, but it did move it back like three inches, which is quite helpful. I think Brandon, your content holds value, Tainer. See? I'm watching the gym tours. I'm learning from. So I have one of those as well. And then, yeah, so those are my combos. But and then bars, we have a giant range. We have a bunch of, uh, uh, uh, hands-view bars, which are

actually fantastic. We have rogue. We have Texas. Um, I love, honestly, I'm like, like, mathonomics jokes aside, like, I'm a big Texas power bar and deadlift bar fan. Like, they're, they're amazing. Um, so they're, there's some of my favorite. And we have like some reels on it. on the Texas and then, yeah, and we have some like the bells of steel bars and stuff like that for the backroom. So our backroom has like all of our like less powerlifting specifics like this guy. Yeah. So they have those.

Something you said to kind of brought up a thought in me as talking about Texas bars. So you're the type you had mentioned RWRPF earlier, which I know is like uses a deadlift bar, but then you also mentioned power living America or paladin room. So are you, you know, do you coach athletes, in in wippy deadlift bars and stiff bars? Are you kind of like, what do you compete in? I guess like, where's your thought on the deadlift bar versus power bar for all three kind of as a powerlifting coach who might have a more insight and more nuanced answer than like just your gym bro?

Yeah. So that's a fantastic question. So yeah, I have a mix of lifters. So not to get overly political. There's extremely dumb rules with respect to coaching lifters in both sides. So like I so like for example, like in the W. RPF, I have to, like now, I have to, like, coach from the audience. I'm not allowed to be in the back because I live in Campiel.

So they'll ban you from competing in your own federation. Yeah. So you don't want it all via text or like I, who was it? Joey, what's his face? Like was holding up like a whiteboard. I think at Nationals. Yeah, exactly. At the, whatever the big overseas fed me.

The chef. Yeah, yeah, the Sheffield. Didn't he? Was he had like a, yeah, he had like a dry erase board or something for attempts. So we have something better. So, you know, like auction paddles that have like the numbers. So we have one that's two and a half five and on the back of seven and a half and ten. So we just hold them up.

That is frustrating that power that has to be so fucking political. You can't just like go and coach your athletes that it's got to be so stick up your ass about shit like that. Yeah. So I see that a lot of here. I'll say based on this podcast, like I know the IPF brass are watching this. So like if I'm going to get banned, you have to ban Johnny Joey Flex. Okay. So don't.

I'll cover me. But yeah, so I have lifters. So a little bit of a cheat. Like when I have somebody come their first day for like a power lifting intro, I'll put them on a deadlift bar so that they'll get like that additional easier to handle, like easier to grip, a little bit more like bend in it. And I can get them into PR on the deadlift bar, which is great. But once you get going.

Bait and switch on the new clients. Yeah, exactly. Once you get going and you know how to deadlift. Um, like, I don't want anybody coming from me and saying, like, there's no difference. There is a difference when you're in like the seven, eight, a hundred pound range. But like, if you're in like the four to five range, it's just a bar man. Just pick it up. Like, like, yes, I understand there's a slightly more, uh, like slack you can pull out.

But like, you know, you can figure it out. It's not a big deal. So, uh, but what I, uh, we also have squat bar, right? So in WRP, they'll have a squat bar versus Kampiel will have a power bar. So we have a couple of squat bars too. But there's a couple of gyms that are a little bit powerlifting gyms that only cater to one side. But I just like powerlifting. And that probably helps with you having a more diverse clientele too.

Because if you were one or the other, I would assume your clientele would kind of skew. You know, you wouldn't have this large diversity between gender, age, sex, you know, weeks, etc. So good, good stuff. I nerd out and get in the weeds. Powerlifting for almost a decade straight. And this, I don't know. This year might be the first year in nine years.

I don't do it me, but we'll see. The year's still young. It's got to do it. I'll be, I'll poking you off this part over and over again. I do. Part of me is like I want to stubbornly be able to say like, you know, when I was a kid, I did a decade straight on open power. I'm at eight years right now.

So I have until, you know, the end of 2026 to get one more in and then to hit nine. And then it'll all be timing. I really want to focus on Strongman this year. But then it's easy enough to run. I can do like a nice, I could literally do an eight week block and like, you know, match match my numbers. Probably, you know, it might not get much stronger, but I could like prep for a meat pretty quickly. And, you know, maybe, maybe have some gains. But it's just all a matter of timing.

And I don't want to be like, come off the Lift Hardly, Be easy in July. And I think there is a September local Strongman, or, uh, uh, powerlifting meat, but it's like, can you guys have anything in like November, October, you know, December for me? Like, make it easier. Because it's like, I want to do, I want to do powerlifting in the winter, but it seems like there's like never anything that, like, lines up great for that. Yeah, though, the winter ones are always like, um, that's where like, where like the championships land. Yeah. So, yeah, no, I, I, I, I'm strongly saying you should do it. You're like, this guy I just met told me I need to do it.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah. your lifting history. So the gym aside, coaching aside, how'd you find the barbell? How'd you, how'd you find competing? You know, what kept you in the sport? Uh, I want to, you know, did you do anything lifting related prior to the barbell? Like, what, what's that story? Yeah. Yeah. So I, um, so, uh, you know, growing up I, I didn't play, I still don't play any conventional, conventional sports, if you will, like hockey. I'll start with hockey as a Canadian, uh, football and like that, but I was a swimmer. So, so like a high school, what we would say like a, what would be equivalent as like a state swimmer.

Like I was, I was, I was like ranked one of the best swimmers in Ontario at the time. And honestly, low key underrated sport for like your like strength. So like that's a sport that you can build strength and have zero injuries. So, you know, like later in life when you're like, oh my God, I can't do this because of my knee and all that. stuff. Swimming is so low impact that like you're good to go. So I actually credit that to like my longer lifting career. So when I was swimming, I, we would do like just one day a week in the, in the, in the, like in the gym. And then in the summer, we would try to do a little bit more than that. But I swam twice a day. And now I won't touch a pool because of that. Like it was like five in Canada. Just way too

cold to do it. Trauma. You don't want to relive. Exactly. I'm done. So, but yeah, then I sat in front of a computer for the longest time, like in that office job. And I gained a bunch of weight. And then I was very uncomfortable traveling. And so I, that's when my like fitness with Barbell journey started. So, but I lost way too much weight. I did. I did it wrong. I wasn't healthy. I like, I just, I essentially would do the incorrect thing where it's like anything that said it had fat in it. I just. wouldn't eat. You can't do that. Your brain will shut off. Like it's so like I, I wouldn't have like peanut butter, for example, or like anything like that. So I wasn't even taking good fats in. So I lost tons and tons and tons of weight. And then I like I started going to the gym and I started putting it on putting on like actual weight. And so I meet my wife. This was 10 years ago. She, she managed to chain of gyms. And that that's that will get you fit. When you're trying to show off for a moment, that's managing and changing a gym.

So then I, um, um, she put me in touch with my first power lifting coach. And I was with trainers before, but they didn't get it. Like I'm like, I want to get big and like lift heavy. And I'm a short guy. So I have that like complex where I can't get any taller. So I want to be bigger. And, uh, I, how short is short? Because I, I hear some people consider like five three short.

Some people are like five nine and say they're short. So for the demographics, what is your age and height? Okay. So, yeah, you're right. I probably shouldn't have said that to offend even short people that are less vertically. He's 5.11, everybody. I'm actually what you would consider tall for a power lifter. I am five, six and a half.

So my wife swears that I was 5'7 to 58 when I met her. But we say that every year I add 100 pounds or like, sorry, every time I add 100 more pounds to the deadlift, I get shorter. Sorry, I'm five, six and a half. My coach is much shorter. So you've added 50 pounds to your squats and you've met her. Well, I guess 100, 150 if you were five, five, five, five, eight. I've added a hundred, yeah, about a hundred and a hundred and a change.

Well, those doctors are pretty smart. You're that, right? It's like she knows something. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then, so the, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, have this powerlifting coach.

That's my trainer at the time. And he's like a Canadian national champion as a junior. And he got it. He got that's what I wanted. And, you know, so I kind of would watch powerlifting. I went to go see him at nationals a few times.

And I was like, I'm just this little guy that I wasn't doing great. And now I'm that. And I think that's really cool. Like I, I'm at the national level. And I just made like Team Canada to compete at North America. And yeah,

So it's like 10 years later. Powerlifting, as you all know, is a sport in time, right? Like you get better if you just do it for 10 years. So, but obviously younger people are different. Oh, you said on that too. I'm, I just turned 40. Well, I didn't just turn. I am 41.

Gotcha. I figured I was trying to do the, I was a corporate job 20 years. Yeah. Been out of it for a little bit. Yeah, he's got to be early 40s. So that's, I feel like that's our, that is our bread. and butter demographic is all our guest are not all because we've had some out liars but a lot of 35 to 45 year olds are come hang out with us on here once a week we get each other

yeah for sure yeah what you got for him joey i kind of i could talk parallel to know i don't want to bore everybody else it might not be into that but i think we covered about 80% of what we need to cover on lifting and gym owning probably now you can keep going my friend um uh what else NWRPA. So, okay, well,

let's just, you know, we are a, you know, big, uh, sets and reps guys. What are your,

uh, your best lifts? Um, yeah. So I, when you said best lists, I was like, well,

what are you best that? Oh, no, no, yeah, like so, so body weight total and your, body weight and your total,

give or take. Yeah. So I compete at, uh, 74 kilos, which is, you know, IPF weird number that we chose.

I have, competed at 75. And I. So times 2.2. Oh, so 163. That's what I was trying to figure it was somewhere in that. I'll do it all in pounds. Yeah.

So I'm 163 under, like a two hour way in. So I walk around at about 165. And I, I, I, I, my PRs are, I have a, a 460 squat. I have a 315 bench. And then on the platform, it's 309. so yeah but uh i have done the 315 so i can i can say that so i always said that i never bench 315 in in high school but i did at 40 so yeah and then uh oh sorry well how no no no i no you're good i was

just saying i've been chased i was chasing 300 for the longest time and i still haven't got it yet but someday maybe it's it's we can do this come on yeah and then i um so that those would be be considered my like my better lifts like I I and then my deadlift is about a five eight so pretty strong pretty strong fella yeah I just kind of switch back and forth all the time um between sumo and conventional based on how I feeling so I feel like if I would have just like stayed at it maybe I'd be better yeah so would you was it a do you don't consider yourself kind of perfully proficient it either or is it more like my back hurts but I know I can pull like is it I are you just kind of fighting between what hurts worse, your back or your groin kind of thing.

And like, no, like, when I've done blocks of sumo and conventional, it's solely on like, I can't do any more sumo. My dick feels like it's going to explode. My friend Pete would say that that means you're doing it right. But I have to stand on a ladder for a living. I can't have like shit hurting that much. No, no, no. Yeah. When it changes your life, that's the problem.

So, yeah. But I was one of those, like I'm a, because I'm a lighter weight lifter that like, you know, like most lightweight elite power lifters kind of lift sumo. So then it's always been like, oh, can I do more? And then I've had enough success with sumo that it like keeps me like thinking I can do it. But at the end of the day, my PR is actually unconventional. Like my best lifts are unconventional. So I like I'll all I'll do like a year like a year literally like a year a year of conventional and I'll sorry like a year of sumo and then I'd be like miss my third and be like now we're going to do conventional this is not a good thing. Don't don't do as I do do as I say. But yeah. So it's actually not really an injury based thing. Just based on I don't know. I think I should be better. So you'd mentioned your wife wanting to get some more equipment at the gym. Is that something that, uh,

You said you mentioned you're looking at the leg extension leg curl machine. What other than is Temple of Gaines on the list? Or is it going to be more of what you can get to Canada that's not a piece of shit and not be more than three grand kind of thing? Yeah, unfortunately, it's probably that. I love the idea of like a road trip down and go buy some stuff. Because like when I wanted to buy some combos like TSS ones, it was like rent a truck. Let's go.

But they, I don't even, I don't even know how to approach the Temple of Games. Like maybe people know and hit the Discord if there's like a, thing for Canada. I don't know if it's necessarily worth it. If you have to pay double for it, like there's got to be like just get a plate loaded one from Bells of Steel just to get something probably.

Exactly. I, you know, sometimes people say the Bells of Steel has like a weird curve. So that's, yeah. Check out V-O-3. Okay,

yeah. So that's like a like a, like a less known commercial brand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then that's what we basically have been, we keep her eye open for.

it's just like commercial pieces. Like my GHD over here is like a York. So like a like a gym just kind of closed down and start. It didn't kind of. It did. It closed down and started. And I tried to buy some of the equipment, but it's always too late.

So I'm, so I'm always monitoring that. Yeah, I was at a V-O-3 showroom pretty recently. And I got to play with some of their stuff. So they have like like localish to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I think they, you can go to a place called Spartan Fitness and they are the distributor of V-O-3. Okay. The one that I go to used to be a Fitness Depot. Oh, okay. So I'm very familiar at Fitness Depot. That's where some of my first,

all these plates, all my pound plates are all from Fitness Depot. Yeah, the Northern Lights, right? Yeah, exactly, yeah. And yeah, so I was at V-O-3 and that was the first time I ever got to pull on a two-to-one ratio pulley system. and it's like, she goes,

okay, I'm going to do one to one on this hand, on your left hand, I'm going to do two to one in the right hand, and I'm going to put the same stack on, and you're just like,

oh my gosh, like, it's so different, and I'd never experienced that before. Okay. Should we hit him with a game, do you think? I just want to ask him one more thing,

and then I'll go games. How hard is it getting any equipment in that 1990 Toyota Carolla? Yeah. Is that a, is that a car by choice? Is that a rebuilt car? Like, like, your, your 90, car was mentioned like five times, I think. So I imagine it's like a third of your personality. I'm just, is it, is it a beater that's just still around or is something you've restored or what? Yeah. So, so, so first of all, it does fit like some equipment. We have a real with like barbells coming out of it. But, but it was actually my, my dad's. He, he didn't, he didn't have a new. Like he got it from like a good gentleman down in Windsor. And it had 90,000 kilometers on it when he bought it. And it's in mint condition. Like nothing wrong with it.

So I was like, I want that when you don't want it anymore. And yeah, he gifted it to me. And so that's actually my daily driver. So yeah. But it like it's pretty, pretty wild to see. Like everyone stops and everybody asked me about it. It's pretty like everybody says that they had one. And everyone stops me.

They're like, oh, I had a 90 Corolla. I thought I drive an old Toyota, but my drive at 2008, and I've had it for like 15 years. So that's a wild to even consider like a 19. Like, I mean, I haven't driven in 1990 since I was in high school. Like my first, like I had like an 87 and an 89 like my, yeah, I had some late 80s trucks when I was in high school in the early 2000s. I don't think anything was needed afterwards. Honestly, like when you drive it. That is made it worse.

Everything is like, everything just has shit that breaks now. And they only last 10 years Whereas like I everything's automatic everything's like manual in my car and I'm going to keep milking life out of it so we don't have to have a car payment Yeah, it definitely yeah and it's like baseline well first of all it's a Toyota Corolla But second it's also the baseline version of the Toyota Corolla it's like now you get like a 2026 Toyota Corolla That thing's going to have more options than a Mercedes used to have but uh this is like manual windows manual locks like the reach I got all that yeah all that good stuff all right well there there is one story, I think.

Yeah, do it. And I kind of get the feeling this might be fake. And if it's not, I, I want to know. Tell us about the time your friend picked you up at the airport with a very special banner. Yeah. Yeah. So it was not in the Toyota Girl, but yeah, my, that's my coach, too. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. So my, so my friend and I, my friend Pete and I, we were joking that, so I was flying to nationals. It was in, like, in the prairies. I was around Saskatoon or something like that. And it was, it's actually like a pretty far drive from where the venue is. And he was already there. And he's like, oh, I'll come pick you up. Again, he's a coach. He should support me. But I thought that was extremely nice. But Pete and I thought it was funnier to make fun of him. Like, you better show up with a like

chauffeur hat on and stuff like that. Like, I want all the treatment. But then I didn't know that Pete was telling him behind the scenes, you should show up with like, you know, hold the sign up. And so I got there. And this is my first national. No, it was my second nationals. But I, I'm like, you know, I'm still kind of like the new guy on the block. And I get off the plane and all these lifters in the plane and I'm coming down the escalator. And he's holding a sign.

And it's for like, it's for like a male porn's site audition. So. And he's so excited to be holding it. And yeah, it's a real story. It really happens. There's a video. He's like, why didn't you post the video? I was like, I don't know.

Not to get political. Yeah, but from what we're reading, it's a, it's a website that is a very, very straight man. Tanner would never go to as a street man. Yes, of course. I'm really, I'm really sorry, guys, that I should have started that conversation with I'm the straight as a company. Yeah. But they, uh, uh, you know what's actually.

I would say more embarrassing than the airport piece because people did think it was funny. I don't think anybody was like really offended or anything. But we had to bring that back to the hotel, which I was staying in the room with him. And he had it like and he put it behind the bed. And I was just thinking of like the housekeeping. You know, they came in. They're like, what is happening in here? Like, you know, we got to call the cops.

You know, we can't have this. But yeah. I didn't bring the sign. home. I think I threw this up. That's really funny. You don't want to fly with that. He's a jokester though. So like, and again, it kind of rolls into all this.

Like, we can still be at the top of our game at the national level and still have a good time. Of course. Yeah. So. What about the time you decided to cross a river? Oh, that was my wife. Yeah. So we were, uh, she thinks it's literally the funniest video she's ever

taking. So like, well, we have to see that. We were crossing this river and it was like there was like a broken down tree and I'm like I got this. I'm walking and I'm balancing and nearly I'm a power lifter. I got this. I got this. I got this. I'm a deadlift. This log's got nothing on me.

That was the problem is the simple. But then when I got like I started like kind of losing my bounce. I was like, oh, no problem. I'll just jump to the end. But apparently I can't jump that far. All the squads didn't help. And I literally jumped into the river. in jail. That's fucking great.

And just slide. There's video evidence. Like, she was recorded the whole thing and there's Yeah. Yeah. More discord content, I guess. Yeah. Send that rate to me. Send that rate to me. I'll get that up to Keith. That'll be funny. We'll enjoy that. One thing before I get, it's kind of a, let's see how to word it. So as someone that's really into Masconomics,

do you, have you got any of your clients, your friends, your gym members to kind of like check them out? Like, do they, any of them follow Masonomics because of you? wouldn't even dabble with the podcast or anything? Or are they just kind of like, what the fuck is coach talking about? Like, I don't know what he's talking about. Why is he talking about? We used to be a proper country. This is Canada.

Like, I'm so confused. Yeah. They just think that. How many times you're like, you're going for a cue and you're just like, now I'm as straight as they come, but I'm going to show you how this key works. We have a lot of rules on that too, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I can think of like one person that I, like, definitely I was like, you need to like, this is you. like you'll get it you know so but they're but I think more and more like are starting to like you know I kind of want them to like organically like oh yeah he said this he's involved uh all these people that wanted to like hear this you know the so hopefully we can get some more people based on some of that yeah I always always like it when guests actually I know there's a fact that like some guests are just like they're not embarrassed they came on the podcast or just

embarrassed about how they maybe felt they performed so then they'll be like nervously not share it with anyone. And I'm like, well, kind of like, why'd you even come on then? Like, I mean, I get it. Like, I've, so, but it's like, I know for a fact, people, like, I'm not even going to share, share this with my wife. And it's just like, then why did you, like, if, like, it's okay. You're allowed to show people that you can be a human and have fun and giggle.

Like, I don't know. So anyone listening, like, it's okay to share this. Yeah, I think I threw away all of that, like, those feelings, like, when we started making, like, reals. Yeah. And again, like, you guys have leaned pretty heavy. and two, it looks like, I get a chance to look at it. Is that, um, or is that shit just come to you?

Or are you kind of like, you know, where are you getting all this energy to make content? Or is like a lot of it just like hand your phone to your younger generation to make content for Jim? No, like I think I'm like I'm involved in most of them, right? But it is like I do have. So my social media team is like two of my lifters. Um, and me. So it's like all, all three of us. So a shout out to Kira and Theo.

So they did. they did the questionnaire as well. So like between the three of us, which we all have the same sense of humor, we're always like, find a real, and we're like, we've got to remake this.

But the cool part about being in powerlifting is that, you know, all of the like trends and content that is funny, like the, that you, you would find interesting.

Nobody's done it in power lifting yet. So we always try to get to it first. Gotcha. So we're like before the power lifters find it. Yeah. And it works. Like, but, and like we said, it's just to have fun. Like, we're just like, like, like, and literally between sets or like, while we're warming up or something like that just so that they can like, you know, so that we can kind of get loosened up, if you will.

And like, I, I say it all the time when it comes to powerlifting. Like, I've even had like some issues with people that like no longer live for us where it's like, this isn't about overcoming obstacles. This is supposed to be fun. Don't get me wrong. Powerly things hard. And it can be very rewarding if you can push past some of that hard stuff. But at the end of the day, like, this should be fun. Like that's where the reals kind of come in.

But yeah. So, but then there's like a bunch of like, you know, same kind of content providers that were like, they're doing trends. We're doing trends. And we're just trying to, you know, steal through each other, if you will.

How long has the gym been open? Or how long you've been into coaching and like the whole thing? Like, what's like a timeline on that? So almost two years. So it's 20, 24. It opened. So in that two years, if you had, like, without name and names, you're going on specifics. I'm just curious.

Like, you've had to have kicks some people out. You've had to have some guys, like, blow up and have drama in the team and stuff. Like, you just yes or no, I guess. Or maybe I'm off face. But I just, there's never a shortage of fucking drama in owning a gym and being a power lifter. Yeah. And there's so much drama and powerlifting, too. So, like, you know, I'm making this sound light, but like, there's drama, man.

so yeah so yeah yeah that's something you just kind of got to persevere through so enough of the seriousness let's get to some silly goose stuff so we have a game we like to play here called FMK so we're going to give Jonathan here a handful of John John

I think I think it's John it's everything don't worry I called someone some iteration you called him Matthew for the entire time no I thought he wanted to be Matthew I believe yes yes yes you you asked him near the end Oh, yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, that's a good guy.

All right, so FMK, we're going to give you three things, and you have to just rank them between fuck Mary and kill. So a good one I think was submitted I'm going to run with was energy drinks. So I got three flavors of energy drinks. You got a FMK, white monster, pink monster, cherry alani. So white monster, pink monster, cherry alani, FMK. Oh, yes, I already know who. Use your druthers. That's my energy drink cookup.

Kira, she literally brings them on Saturdays. Oh, nice. That's it. Thank you, that's a good friend because she's not cheap. That's a right. Yeah. Yeah.

So I, yeah, I think that I, I'll go with a different answer than I like, like my initial thought would be. So I probably would kill off the pink one and she's going to kill me for that. But, but yeah,

I kill the pink one off. I, I kind of go back and forth on this because I think I could like I think I could fuck the white one or the white monster all day. But I, but I'll marry that one because it's like the consistent one and I'll go with the charylani, which is like it's for the girls and it's, it's delicious. It's like a newer like I've, I think I only, I saw something on a clip about it or something. It was only because some girl like supposedly drank too many and died or some shit. I was like, I've never heard of this drink in my life.

But I also like don't if I'm looking for a. energy drink. I just find the white monster or I don't buy anything. I don't, I don't even like, I just have blinders on. I don't look at other energy drinks, period. Now you're going to see it. Maybe I don't. Probably. Now that's all I'm going to see. I would say it's like a Canadian thing, but it's not because like just like a lot of things, the U.S. gets better flavors. So you have to like, and this is, this is Kure and Theo is one of their skills. You have to find the sketchy, like, um, Canadian stores that will sell the American ones, uh, to find certain flavors. Um, no, like not like breaking sanctions and stuff.

Yeah, definitely. I'm definitely not doing that. That is not how I get all of the flavors of ghosts before. Yeah, that's right. You get some pretty unique ones. Yes, I do. Now, have you tried the ones that I've been posting about the batch 27? I haven't.

I'm, I'm willing. So they're hard to get. They're by TC nutrition. They are Canadian. Okay. So they're 100% Canadian, which means they only go to one. 180 milligrams whereas if you get like the illegal ghosts and stuff like that it's like 200 or or something like that but if you can get your hands on the arctic frost it is the best

flavored energy drink i've ever had and then they did the freezy flavors they did the white freezy the purple freezy and they call them white and purple and blue and red they don't call them their flavor flavors because it's not what we called them as kids no no and they have the snowman mr freeze on them like they're they're the ghost of canada but are somehow like that Arctic frost is better than any ghost I've ever had. Okay. So, Kuro, you're listening. Find these, please.

Yeah. I get mine from Supplement King. I don't know if you have one in Sarnia. You might have one. No, we don't. Chatham does. Chatham just got one, though. So in Chatham is like 40 minutes away.

Oh, yeah. I don't know if it's worth the drive, but they're definitely, they're the best flavored energy drinks I have ever had. I was exhausted on my drive home today. I almost paid like $5.50 for a single energy drink. And I just said, nope. And I had a little bit of tea left from the morning. I was like, I'm just going to power through that tea.

Like, I'm not spending nearly $6 on a fucking white monster that I have like 30 of them at home. I'm just not doing it. Welcome, welcome to Canada. Yes. Our energy drinks up here are four bucks on tax at least. Well, so, I mean, so like a regular gas station, it would have been 279. But it was, I guess I should have led with it. It was on the through way and anything on the through on the paid.

throughway is double basically. And I'm like, I'm not, like, I can't do it. I'm not spending $6 on a goddamn drink. I'm not doing it. Yeah, and I meet some, we obviously are like high on energy drinks and like, so I always have to check my hand to see like how much am I. Yeah. Okay, Mount Rushmore. And this is a probably a very Canadian specific one. I was given. Yeah, I was given a lot of choices here. And I think this is my favorite one. The Mount Don't rush more of things you can add to craft dinner mac and cheese. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So I, you know, 40, 41 year old child in front of being here. So I do have two kids, 10 and three, but I would just eat the macaroni and cheese by myself. So it's not even like a big deal. I still get the microwavable bulls. It's like a half serving for somebody my size. But that's fine for between breakfast and lunch. lunch. Yeah, but I'll say sidebar, first of all, like jokes aside on KD, like from a powerlifting

perspective, it's actually pretty good because it will, one, the cheese is just weigh, it's just protein powder. And then two, like, it kind of rides a line between complex and simple carbs. So like, it's digestible, it's fast digestible enough that you can like actually turn it into energy pretty quick, but it's still like a pasta. So it gives you like a little bit of what a light term to pass on that. So yeah, so still so I, I'm a big fan, Katie's sponsor me, but so if I had to add things. So yeah,

I think number one on the is just going to be on the Mount Rushmore. It's got to be ground beef. Like you just do the ground beef with it. It's fantastic. Number two, cottage cheese is pretty good. Somebody told me about that one. So then Masanamo is past as well. with this. No, you don't like it?

But that one's pretty good. So I'm okay with that one. That will go on there. What else do we usually put in it? Those are the two that I go back and forth to the most. But I would say maybe this is like a cop-out answer because it's kind of ground beef. But the taco seasoning from the day before. So like we'll like we'll do the taco like I'll make like taco meat and I make like a big one on purpose. And then that's going to turn into other pasta sauce the next day or put it in my mac and cheese.

So that's probably even better than ground beef. Yeah. And then like I'll put like a can of tuna in. Like what's the worst president? That'll be that one. I'm not going to say which one. I don't need any American. I know hot dogs was a big one growing up

You know not too affluent Crapped around hot dogs I thought you were gonna go ketchup Yeah we would have butted heads on that Ketchup is the worst I can't do that And when they came up with the ketchup I wouldn't support that one

So yeah Saracha I'll put hot dogs over tuna The tuna's not great But like from like a macro standpoint Of course Yeah protein and low fat But

All right. There go. You passed. I hope all of the American listeners are like, what the hell are they talking about? Right. All right. I got some affiliates for you guys. So Barbell Rescue, Big Kim's over there, is doing all kinds of good stuff. Speaking of content creating, I love that he can make a good,

looking like he's jerking off a barbell reel, and it stands a test of time. And so Barbell Rescue Brush, though, you know, I think it's one of the highest owned miscellaneous items on Jim Radar, if not the highest owned. So check that out. Home JimCon.

If you want to try all this stuff that we've talked about, at least a good bit of, it, you know, and they're different equipment. Go ahead and head the home gymcon, help support Jake and that huge endeavor he's been doing. And he's come, I honestly, I think I've said it before. I think there's going to be a hundred crew there this year, which is probably going to double what we had last year. So it's, you know, it is a Hall of Fame checkmark now, code unpaid, uh, get your tickets for home gymcon.

And apparel from the Strenco, go buy a t-shirt from Grant and help them, uh, support those kids. He's got big, John, are you familiar with unpaid or underrated? It's a relatively new game we came up with. similar to overrated or underrated just vastly improved because we like to play it our way here. As previously played on Massonomics. Thanks to Nate.

Unpaid bad. I'm pretty sure I, yes, exactly. I believe I hit him with unpaid or underrated a couple years ago myself. But yes, Nate continued the trend. So anyone listening, he's going to get six to nine handpicked things just for him. He's got to use his druthers and decide which one's unpaid

and which one's underrated. And contrary to how Tanner and Tommy play, I don't necessarily need to them to consider how it is viewed, is already viewed, as rated, you know, if it's underrated or however they play it, their weird way. It's just to me, it's just hot or cold, yes or no. Simple.

That's how we like to play it here. That's all, that's my interpretation of the game. And that's how we're going to play. So unpaid or underrated, people watching at Tim Hortons. And any funny story that correlates. Yeah, yeah. So that's underrated. Like it's, it's where it's at. So the, my coach and I were, were chilling and just watching a bunch of stories that Tim Horton's unfold. And, uh, yeah,

there was like, you know that meme with that guy that has the tattoo that says no regrets that it's spelled wrong? I swear that guy was that back to Horns. And, uh, so yeah, there was a, we saw a lot of things. And we saw like, uh, you know, like, there was like a school across the street and they like got out. and they were like definitely like there was there befriending like an old guy so that they could get cigarettes and he would come and sit at the table and it was like really felt really really wrong but yeah the no regrets guy though he was like he was something else he was smoking a giant cigar at tim hortons just outside i know you're a cigar guy joey but like have you ever just smoked at tim hortons like

shirt open and like you know pants down his ass and shit so yeah yeah yeah so yeah so Definitely. You got to really send off the vibes when you're standing outside of a Tim Horns across from a high school. I need this cigar so they know I'm legit. Yeah. Random Canadian question, since I'm outnumbered here. So obviously you have Tim Hortons and we have Tim Hortons. Do you have Duncan Donuts at all?

We did. I think we did. I don't know if it didn't exist anymore. So potentially not. We had one here for a while, but I think they changed over to something else. I think they tried to come up here. It's almost like 50-50 here, give or take. Maybe Duncan's 60-40, but that's like New York specific, which I'm like,

Yeah, it's because you're close to the border. So every time I've traveled. Every time I've traveled across the border, we have found a Tim Hortons. Yeah. But the further south or west you go, you start to lose them. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, when I worked in Detroit, what I didn't say was that there was lots of us. Like, they were farming Canadians to work over there.

actuaries were like that that's how like the TN visa works like it has to be something that there is a low supply of in the United States in order to do it so there was a lot of us and they got the first Tim Horton's right next door to our place like in Michigan and uh so I thought that was like we did this yeah I remember going to Buffalo and going to a Tim Hortons and it's nothing like the Canadian Tim Hortons like at all what is yours like I sit down like a real sit-down restaurant kind of thing because ours are just like shitty fast food no it is it's even worse fast food than yours yours are actually a little higher end and better than ours but i do remember walking in and ordering uh and looking at the girl with being like oh we're from canada and she's like i don't care huh i mean ours don't have no regrets guys outside pedaling you know drugs so i guess yeah we're a little bit better yeah you need a little bit more of that all right uh uh un cater was that was that oh he said underrated right yeah yeah Did you give an answer?

Okay. Yeah, yeah, right off the bat. He led with the answer and then used the druthers, which is nicer. Because when people do their druthers and then they forget to answer, it's like, wait, you never answered. Or if they like counter it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm a big proponent of contradicting myself and answering twice. That's a big Tommy thing too.

Yeah, going through the backlog, he would do that. He'd be like, oh, it's underrated. Then he would spend 10 minutes talking about how it's overrated. With all these stipulations, you know, unpaid or underrated crux. Oh, definitely underrated. Like, honestly, like, I think that's like a powerlifting specific thing. Like, I, like, a lot of power lifters wear crocs. Like, but like, some days our whole, like, you know, take your shoes off at the door is just crocs.

You know, personally for myself, like, I think there's like an element too with, like, like, power lifters I've been doing for a long time. Like, you guys will obviously have that same kind of problem. Like, your feet kind of like spread out a little bit, eh? Like they, I don't know if that's an age thing, but mostly like you learn to like plant your feet like across more. And they fit in crocs better that way. I don't know. So for me, like I do my recovery steps and crocs, very comfortable. Like I'm wearing them in the winter.

I'm that guy. So, but just newly that guy like in the last like two years. That's actually how I ended up in barefoot shoes. So like, yeah, the same idea like that, you know, wider. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's too crushed otherwise. When I was first starting to compete, I used to lift barefoot because I had a home gym. And then I found out you had to wear shoes to compete.

And I was like, but these suck. They hurt. I can't like lift in them. And that's, you know, that's where barefoot started. Whereas like,

no, I need the spread. Yeah. Unpaid or underrated, Citrus, the cat. The fast cat, I hear.

I also hear it's a fast fat cat. So there's a, yeah, there's a bit of fat. And fast and fat going on there. So is this a faster fat cat? I should, I mean, it was just my way of shoehorning your cat into the topic of conversation. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, it's my cat and I love my cat, but I'm going to go with unpaid. Cats can be such assholes. And the reason why is like, okay, this is what we kind of, this is, this is like a recent feeling that we have. It was funny until it was no longer funny. So he is extremely overweight. And he,

so like I have another large cat named Callie. And he is like a mancun. And so he's a large cat breed. I love Maine Coons. And just beautiful. Absolutely. And so he's 17 pounds. And you're like,

okay, that's a big cat, decent. We've seen bigger cats. And the other one is 31 pounds. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.

Like that's that's insane. Like he weighs more than my toddler. And he, he's long too. So he's not like, he's a big cat to begin with. He's not bulbous. He's just big.

Yeah. You got it. He's, that's, that's, that's, yeah. Hit the treadmill citrus.

I know. Our cat gets yelled at when they go to the vet and they're like under 15 pounds. So that's not. That's, that's like diet. Your cat's diabetic. Yeah.

And that's why it's no longer funny. Like, We're like, we, we didn't make him that way, obviously. But like, we like, you know, with two cats, it's hard to, like, monitor their, like, eating. So he'll eat both of them. I've seen, um, have you seen the ads though? Like, you got to, I mean, it sucks. He also wear collars, but you can get the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, that literally registers the collar per cat.

So, I mean, it'll, I mean, it's, it'd be a huge upfront investment and you got to piss the cats off by wearing collars. But, dude, your cat's going to fucking die. Like, that's so, that's so fat. We recently, my wife, we just spent a shit ton of money to buy lower calorie fucking wet food because my wife gets yelled at every time she goes to the vet. And our cats aren't even that fat. I weighed my four-year-old on Tuesday and she's 36 pounds. That poor cat. When, like 24 hours out from one of the kids.

my meats like uh, two our wayans in Campiel. I did like take, um, like a video of like the scale first. And I said like, you know, we're cooked, right? Like, because I was like over 200 pounds. And, uh, and then I like the next day I posted like it panning up and like you can just imagine what a 31 pound cat like. That's a big cat. Yeah. Yeah. I'm assuming as an orange cat based on the name. Yep. Yeah. He's an orange cat. And, uh, I would have said that based on the weight. Yeah. Yeah.

So. Well, we'll have to do a check in next year. Is your cat still? He is. So we're actively working on it. Do you have the tref? Like my wife,

my wife's like we are, we were like looking at reviews for like the cat treadmill. But I'm like, that's a big piece. And I don't think our, I feel like our skinny hyper one would use it and not the fat, lazy one. So it's like,

why am I going to, I don't want to spend $300 dollars in a goddamn cat wheel. Do you, do you remember when I had, Steve, Big Steve from Ontario crew on, and he has the wheel for his cats. Those are just not fit cats if you use those wheels. Well, he's got those, he's got like special kind of cats. Like they're dumb, like, they're dumb hunter.

I know the name, but like he's got specialty cats. But yeah, they have these wheels and they jump in and they spin. But then as we were driving home from the Liptard Livese, one of them jumped in and then threw up while it was spinning. So it just shot throw up all over that. But I mean, hey, that's a thing that's not three. $300. Yeah.

Yeah, we're just trying to do like a little bit of activity like with with some toys. And then there's a limiting of the food. Yeah. Like now it's getting less. And the other one seems to be okay. Like that was what our biggest concern was that like the one would just starve to that. Yeah.

My wife was Googling or I don't know. Looking up resources of like how much food a cat needs each day. And she was like, wait. And she was like comparing that to the macro like the literal macros of our dry food. And we're like, we have to buy different food. like this is going to like we can't hit that like daily number it's going to be like less than a palm full of food you're used to like three of those and chewies or uh churros and fucking wet food it's like uh yeah i don't know that's it's hard though because it's also like how much of your life can you dedicate to fucking

feeding a cat and like walking a cat there's your idea you've got it there's your million dollar idea keith macrophactor for cats Code unpaid Get your first few weeks The numbers are easy You think a fat person's stubborn And we'll cheat in their food A goddamn cat

I get done feeding my cats And I look at me like I haven't fucking fed him In six months Yeah We're afraid that he's gonna start eating The human food When we limit it So much

Like to start eating like Nathan's food My kid But Yeah Sorry it's a big I guess one last thing though. Did someone have a typo when they said fast?

Yeah, that's what I think. I thought that was a tank. There is a fat cat. It's got to be typo. That cat's not fast. And the other, and the main coons not fast either. That one, he was fast. He's like an older cat,

but like I saw, like we used to like let them outside and then that turned into a whole thing and we don't do that anymore. Like not like, not like roaming like just in the backyard with us. And then, and I saw him chase a,

squirrel up a tree and like, yeah, that cat was fast. Cally, man, Mouns are they should be killers. Like, he's like a wild animal, but he Oh, I've, I had an indoor, outdoor cat and he killed, he, he, brutalized the

fucking, uh, animal population in the neighborhood. So, okay, he, he killed a lot of things. So, just indoor cats from now. Yeah. What you got, Jerry? I'm actually trying to find what type of cat

Keith has. Savannah he's got Savannah. Yeah they're big runners. Yes. Yeah, he's got three of them. Yeah, they are gorgeous jerks. I love his cats, but one of them's a bit of a, like a suck and then not a suck. Like it's like that cat is both at the same time. Like I'll walk in and the cat will be like, hi, and like walk up and nudge me and then I'll go to pet it and it'll be like, get out of here and bolt. Okay, unpaid or underrated. I got to hear it. Booty shorts. That's got to be from my coach, Chris. He's a booty short guy, man.

He's like, my 315 video of me benching, he's like handing off and people are like, I don't even see the bench. I only see it. But my shorts are pretty short, but like not booty. I wouldn't say booty shorts.

So, but yeah, you know what? going to just go with underrated, you know, like, you know, you live your life. Like, where what you want to live? Where, what you want to wear? Skies out, thighs out. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, mine are pretty, mine are pretty short. My wife thinks they're short, but it's like, you're lifting them, you know, I'm not like walking down the street. So that's the problem is sometimes I do. Yeah. I've got like, I've got the silkies. Those are only for lifting. You don't wear those in public, obviously. Yeah. But then I've got like the massonomics jorts.

Yeah. And like every once in a while, she's like, you can't wear those. We're going out with the kids. The new Masonomic shorts are almost perfect length. Yeah, I would say like the minute it came out of my mouth and then you said that you're right where you're saying, oh, but sometimes I do. I'm like, you know what? Actually, me too. Like I'm wearing them out too.

This one came up a lot and I'm not sure what it means. Oh, God. Unpaid or underrated, being chelon. I know what the phrase means, but what does it mean to you? Like, why is it in here? Nonchalant is it? Yeah, yeah. It's the opposite of nonchalant.

So, and like that's like a big thing. And, you know, like a lot of people in powerlifting think it's really cool to be nonchalant. Like, you know, you're very quiet. I have to be a luff. I have to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so we, we say that we're shalant. Like we're like, you know, like we're screaming and we're yelling.

Gotcha. And then we're back slapping and everything. So like, you know, just allowing your vibes to come out, if you will. So like that's that's under underrated for sure. Like, you know, just be. Just be. I think that I don't think you were at my first apex meet. You might have been and we just never crossed past.

But like I distinctly remember it was my first. sanctioned power lifting meat and I'm dancing. Yeah, yeah. So like just, yeah. Right? Like I'm having fun. That's my warm up. Yeah. Right? Like I could lift cold for most of my lifts. So I'm dancing in the back room. I'm just having fun, moving stuff around. Like just moving myself and like you're getting looks from people and they're like influencing over there. They've got like their full up, like I said before, camera crew and shit like that. And I'm like, go away.

you're gonna go out here and deadlift 200 pounds and you've got a full camera crew relax um this one i do like i do have two more if that's okay keith you're good brother um positive posts i'm off tomorrow oh yeah i've got to be up for 4 30 uh unpaid or underrated positive posts that negative people post and then boast about it i like that one i kind of might know who you're talking about here. That's the thing about Canadian powerlifting. I might know who you're talking about, but I want to hear if that's unpaid or underrated you.

Yeah, no, I, um, I, that unpaid, like, uh, just in general, like, it comes across as like, dramatic, I guess. Maybe that's the term. Um, yeah, I, I know a lot of them. I know,

some of the ones that you're thinking about too. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, like I like to, I don't, don't get me wrong. Like, there's nothing wrong with motivation, but like I don't like using motivation, like, like our like our platform to like, you know, look at all these things that we've overcome and use that as motivational. Like it's it's like, you know, we're all going through things. I think I think we can all just assume that everybody's got a lot.

going on and you know life is hard and stuff like that so i like to just like kind of focus more on like what's motivating is just you know lifting and having fun you know it's like it's like an ad read here but but but so like i i i i actually do have a problem with that like i don't i don't like when it's like everything has to come from this like you know you you start all of this negative like you start with all of this and you think it's being very positive just because you've overcome it all and don't give wrong. overcoming things is great. I just...

It definitely is not worth three, four posts a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I do it like twice a year. I'll do something like that. Like two or three things that I've overcome that I'm proud of. Yeah, that's different.

Yeah. It's like, here's my lifting in your face every single day and then it's like, oh, serious goose time twice a year. Yeah. But I don't think that's what we're talking about. I don't want to put anything

in John's mouth, but I do think that there's a... His buddy did when his fucking... Whoa. there is an element of it and I think I've talked about it before. It's this war with the bar element. It's this the gym is my therapy element. It's those things where it's like you can just lift and shut up. Like you don't have to go in there and constantly talk about how like lifting is life saving and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like it doesn't have to be that serious. And, you know, I'm not going to, like I said, I'm not going to name names, but there are certain people where it's like they have all these positive posts. And me, I was like, well, the last meet I was at, I watched you argue with the judges to try and get your lifter more points. Like, I watched you do that. You pulled them aside and you tried to get another lifter in trouble. And like, you're arguing with the judges. You're not the positive guy here. The judges called that lift.

It was a good lift. You pulled them aside and tried to use whoever you think you are as a status to try. to try and get that overturned. That's not a positive thing to do at a meet. I'm sorry. I'll argue that that is literally the coach's job in certain. Like that is the gamesmanship of you when it's allowed. Like the bigger meets, you're literally allowed to,

when it's a two to one lift, if someone, what's the terminology of they can basically ask for it to be reviewed again, but someone has to go to them. And I think it's even, there's like, what is it, the chef, like you have to throw $100 down or something. If you lose, you lose your money. Isn't that a thing, John? Yeah, not anymore, though, actually. Oh, okay, okay.

Now it's automatic. The jury can, like the one direction. Sorry, I, let me correct that. So, yeah, please. If I'm wrong, I do it against people. And now, and you used to be able to be like, so like, Keith, if you get like one red, I can be like, no, man, as a coach, I can go and be like, that was a bad lift. And you can't do that anymore.

You can only, you can only, like, for your own. And I think, like, originally Keith, what you were saying about, like, you know, the things that you were overcoming and stuff like that, that comes across as genuine, which what you're talking about. When you're sharing personal stories, it's one thing. Yeah.

But if it's like, you know, like, you know, all the, all, all the time, like, if that's part of your, like identity,

then it's like, it's almost like the, like, like, it's less serious at that point. It's like not, not genuine. No,

I agree. I have, I have someone in my life like that and everything on Facebook, it's like, oh, I did something harder and I'm more important than you. On every fucking thing you post. And I'm like, I overcame this and it makes me stronger than you. And I'm like,

oh my God, you're the most annoying person in the world. You lived heavy circles. Relax. Like, okay, last one. And I'm sure we're going to get shit for that in the discord for everything we just said for the past three minutes. Last one, unpaid or underrated beard oil. for the people who aren't watching, which is everybody, John also has a large beard. Yeah, yeah. And no tips will be given about how nice our beards are. So.

No tips. Exactly. It's like the straightest guy. Yeah. Man, I go through these phases of like I'll use it and then I won't use it for like a while. So I don't, and I know you can't ride the line. I don't know if that's the same rule you guys have.

Yes, you do have to come up with an answer. It is one or the other definitively. Yeah. Honestly, like I, like from like the itching standpoint and stuff like that, like,

you know, the softening of the beard like, oh, we'll say underrated. But like, you know, dowsing and all that. If you put too much,

like it actually worsens your beer. Like it's like, it will, it will stay less clean. Less. They'll stay. Too many. It's dirty.

It'll get dirty quicker. There. There you go. There you go. Just go the opposite direction. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

What I've noticed recently is I'll put it in in the morning and by like 12, I'm just pulling knots. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. It will not faster. Yeah. But then if I don't have it in,

it's almost worse. Right? But that just might be the conditions of my job where I'm, I'm walking 10,000 steps a day. Yeah. So you have that like a forklift. I'm getting sawdust in my beard and shit like that. So.

Yeah, we had like 70 degrees the other day for the first time. so I took like two inches off my beard and I went down to like I just have like a very manageable not it doesn't make me sweat more now beard Beard just don't make you sweat Yeah okay Don't make us come after you

Yeah I was good like no they're actually a better cooling system It's it's science I don't know but I'm a get hotter Or I know actually my beard like also Mine just fucking is curls up on itself and I could have, you know, mine, I don't know, I don't, I don't, I'll just agree. I'll just agree that the beard does make you hotter. And that's coming out.

As straight as they come. From a very straight perspective. Yeah, it's a lot of a big sure. What is the Odie in here? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay. I actually, it was so hot the other day that I was considering not wearing sleeves to work, but I'm very concerned about what people will think of me. And I don't know why. Double check that you're even allowed to do that.

I am allowed, right? Because it's just a warehouse, right? They might not let like tank tops, but like a muscle shirt. Nope. I can't imagine. I could technically work shirtless because really all I need are safety towed boots unless I'm using power tools.

So I did ask and I checked, but at the same time nobody else does. Like some of these guys wear hoodies. And I'm like, but again, I'm the one running around the work. house while these guys work kind of static stationary jobs. So I was like, I'm hot as fuck. How are you surviving right now?

So I think there's going to be time soon where the guns come out at work. Yeah, I got a couple like lifters that like it'll be like hot as can be in here and they have what he's on still. And I'm like, I don't know how you're doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Is that for the vibes? I think some people are just like used to, you know, having more clothes on maybe I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. Wild. Okay. You passed unpaid and underrated. Great work. We will air this episode. Now it's your turn. Do you have anything for us? I think you told me you did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was, you know, it's funny. Like it will, we'll start with you, Joey, because it's just segues right in because of the beard. But, uh, okay, so do you have like a stone, like goals that you're like that's your big goals right now, right? It's like lift, you like lifting stones. Like instead of like a lift or anything. So like, is there like one that's like out of your reach you don't think you're going to be able to do in like the next three years? Like, what's like a weight like that you need to be able to. because that's part one of the question. There's a part two.

Okay. I would love to hit near the Denny Stone reality. That's what I, I figured there was going to be something along. Yeah. Yeah. Now there's also, knock on wood,

there is a stones of strength happening in Port Hope, Ontario in June. I'm trying to get on the waitlet. Okay. Now I've looked at the men's weight class. I can't do any of the men's weight class, but there's a novel.

this weight class that they're only allowing five people in and it's full. So I might get on the wait list and keep training for that. You know how wait lists work really. You need to already be on it. Like you can't like wait to get on the wait list. So the thing is the guy has to follow me back on Instagram so I can message him. Gotcha. Well comment comment on a list isn't going so well. Hey, hey check check your DMs. Yeah. Yeah. So Rebecca who runs the the the stones of strength. she's handling the women's so I messaged her and she was like okay follow this guy get him send him a DM

and get on the wait list so when I say him we didn't get in the wait list I had okay that I understand sometimes you you yeah when you talk about a certain sport that you're not 100% like like as far as like I'm like does he not know what that means so just need the guy to get back to me what you said actually holds water

yeah so that that's essentially it I would love to press a 200 pound stone, but after getting, what was it, 245 up to my chest, I think I could. I think I could easily press a 200 pound stone. I don't think that's actually out of my range, but I've never done it. So would you shave your beard for it? No.

What about like just like even more than that? Like if you're like, if it was like an easy trade, you're like, I shave my beard, I get this. No. That's what I want to do. I wanted to get a commitment to the beard. Nope. You can say the same thing with me. Like, it's like, okay, well, what if you like, you know, would you, would you for like 20 more keys on like a squad or something?

I don't know if it would be worth it. I think my wife would kill me. Well, and also, it's heavy circles. Like, what? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because like this is existed for 10 years. It's never like been less.

Yeah. Okay. My beard is 12 years old. It has been trimmed enough to like keep it. sane. But no, I wouldn't make a completely image-altering change. Yeah, it would be crazy, right? Like, imagine what you would look?

Oh, buddy, I would look like a child. Like, it would be ridiculous. I posted a picture of me from 13 years ago right before I started my beard. And all the DMs were like, who the hell is that? And I'm like, don't worry who that guy is. He's gone. Yeah. I have like a really crazy, like from,

you know, that weight loss journey. Like I have like a before and after and both of them don't have a beard. And it's like that's the part that people stick on to. Nobody's like, oh, you're big or you're small. They're like, well, your face. Yeah. What hell is that? Is that a chin?

What is that? Are you smiling? Your client's progress because we don't have these guys. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. And then, you know, Keith, I saw like like really recently in the discord. like, you know, you said about the dates, but like all the talk about figs.

And do you know how figs are made? Like, have somebody, like, told you yet or like you've seen a video or something like that? Like the, like the fruit itself where it looks like it's artificial inside. It looked like all, it looks like, it looks like a rock, like, you know when you get the orange that like it ends up being all the little like pills almost? Like it's like a shitty orange. And instead of it being like a nice like fruitful orange, it's just like, I'm not going to eat this. It's just like a million little like capsules of shitty, unripe orange.

Like that's what it kind of looked like to me. And I don't, but I don't know. I don't have. I'm, there's a lot of shit that I don't pay attention to in life. And it's just like random foods I've never had or never knew that I had. And I get roasted all the time. But no, when someone posted a video of it cut in half, I was like, that looks artificial. I don't understand what that is.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you use all the like, you know, filled with millions of random capsules. Those are all dead insects. Oh. So, like, I didn't know this either, but it, like, you know, came on social media at one point. My wife ruined my life by sending it to me. It's like, it's a very, like, like, they're like, it has to do with bugs fucking and then dying inside there. So, like, that, that's literally a fig.

So, like, and, you know, Discord, feel free to challenge me on that one. But you can, you can look that up. And, you know, that's really like. The figs of life. Yeah. Well, it's hard for me. for me because like my like growing up my my my grandpa had a fig tree so like when i when i and he didn't speak english so that like i would go downstairs and he would just bring down a fig for me and i ate

it and i was like it was the greatest thing in the world and then i was like you're feeding me bugs that's fucking died but uh yeah oh well i will there i do need to be better because i think it would just be good content too it's just like i'm gonna go well i'm probably won't but like i'll buy a date i'll buy a fig we'll see i don't know these are the influencer things you could be doing, Keith. Yeah. The only influence I like to do is my podcast because I feel like I'm torn too. I don't put hardly any energy into my Instagram from my gym anymore. And I feel like that's just been stagnant. But it's like, I can't find energy to like good, do gym content and then like still stay up on my own personal one. And then make sure I'm always doing shit on you and you. It's just like, that'd be so nice to have one Instagram.

Like yeah. Yeah. It's hate. Tysy life. Trying to keep up on three is brutal. Yeah. I sometimes help on on page. I didn't say it didn't. I'm just saying I'd like still like even if I only contributed half of my time on there it's still like a lot of it is a lot of it is just the managing the DMs I'm like where did this fucking person DM me was it on like I literally like it doesn't help that you go in Discord and you're like send me a personal DM well I just send it to you and you and you no because then like you or Nate look at it and then it disappears because then I don't know it's there so I try to do any scheduling through my personal now because when it goes to the you and you when like I might not look at the DMs there for several days and then there's like a bunch and I'm like oh yeah okay that's fair I I often don't look at those I did when when when when even even if you when Megan finally posted that it was Chris I shared it and hoped that you wouldn't see the notification and that you would come across your stories naturally I was like all this I'll get them yeah she was so happy about that like I think her response was like oh Joey and I were just talking about this he's not going to see this notification I hope he

sees this naturally. But now, no, that is, that is a timely fig story for sure. There we go. Love it. I don't. That sounds awful. No, it's horrible. Wait to the point now that you don't eat figs or you just.

I've never eaten things. No, no, well, John, it sounds like you were a fig lover. I have not since. Oh. I'm wondering if I would. I think it's time. It's been enough time. I probably have to look up the video again and then see what I feel like

thoroughly fact check it on something that wasn't just a viral Instagram video. Did you actually go to Wikipedia or anything? Or a trusted source because someone's going to say, Wikipedia is stupid. Like, did you anything other than like the Instagram real to confirm this story? Yeah, we did at the time. But, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just great content. And then people are going to look it up and figure out it's wrong.

They're going to hit it wrong again, John. Just remember, that has zero standing in my ability to coach power. thing. Just reminds me of the John Grisham book that the 13th Warriors made of called Eaters of the Dead.

So wait, fig Newton's just bug mash rolled and dough. They might not even be real figs at that point. Yeah, I was gonna say it's fig Newton just like,

is that just like fucking gelatin flavored like a fig that like gets, but it does have the little fucking like seeds and shit in it. It does no way.

Which are bug skulls. Those are bug skulls. Oh yeah. I mean it's a bug I died about the pre-your-post Newton. I'm good. I literally don't think I've eaten a fig Newton in over 20 years because I don't think I bought one.

They're good. When they're bad. I don't think I bought one as an adult. I just think my mom liked them and I just would eat them because there was like a sweet thing in the house. Okay. Ready? Yeah.

Yeah. So they rely on this specified symbolic relationship, symbiotic relationship. Sorry. Yeah. With tiny fig. wasp for pollination. The wasp enters through a small hall, pollinates the flowers, and then lays eggs, a process crucial for the figs development and maturation. So it's the, like, I knew that there was like, the bugs are fucking and then making eggs and then they turn into

other ones. And that's what you're eating. Enjoy your figs, everyone. You psychos. Funny. I love where our podcast takes us. Oh my God, there's actually like an image that says, I am dead inside and it's a fig. Anyway, that's really funny. That's probably a good enough fig talk. Yeah, we can bring it in for a landing. Was there, John, did you have anything else for us? Or was it just those things?

Awesome. Was there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to hit on for we start closing out? No, I think, uh, you know, I guess, thanks guys. Like, enjoyed the conversation. It's been fun. My only question for you, I think I didn't really cover on is, um, what are you going to do to, start knocking off those Hall of Fame check marks. Columbus isn't,

Columbus isn't that far. I mean, I'm talking more like, Columbus is far for him. Okay. Oh, he's far. Because he's two and a half,

three hours away from me, and I'm six hours from Columbus. So then basically, you have to get on an, you have to get, realistically, you have to get on an airplane to come to home,

Jim Con or lift hard to live easier, anything like that is, any of those actually on your radar, or are you just going to be a lurker up up there? I, you know, I, uh,

it's funny, I thought about it the one time. I was like, I, like, if I ever, like, had to, like, retire from, like, the national team and stuff like that. It's like, that'd be sick to lift there, you know? Like, just, but I, uh, if, oh, yeah, because you probably couldn't, you actually couldn't, I mean, it's not sanctioned now, so it wouldn't, might not be. That's actually the problem. That's what Article 14 says.

It's things that are non-sanctioned. Article 14 is always the problem. Before it might have been worse, though, because it's like, it's a non-tested fed. Yeah, yeah. But, uh, but I could see like that. like kind of like a like a really cool bucket list thing. Could you do strong man at the lift hard live easy? I don't think you could.

I think because I think they changed the rule to say like sanctioned, unsanctioned by Wada powerlifting. Yeah. So you could probably pull off strong man and still get away with it. I'm just trying to say, can I strong man? That's the question. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, I've said it before. Every strong man can power lift, but not every power lifter can strong man. but yeah I like I I I like I like to I always like to warn people of uh you know someday I'll make it here someday I'll do that and I'm like man nothing's guaranteed massonomics might this well might dry up in a couple years or not even that like the podcast should theoretically be around for a long time they just hit 10 years like theoretically could get 20 but like putting on this big ass weekend and Tanner opened up in his house like we're extremely lucky that we're going on four years there was extremely high chances of this not happening ever ever you know It's like, it, nothing's guaranteed. So I hate when people, I don't want people to be butt hurt in two years if this doesn't happen again kind of thing and be like, oh, I missed it. But that's all.

I just like, that's my way to cut how to help motivate people. It's not like fear mongering, but like all good things do come to an end. So don't miss your opportunity to come hang out with a hundred homies. Yeah. Don't be on the wrong side of history. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Really horsey's ass to do that. Horses ass. Definitely really, really. I mean, there's probably a chance. we'll meet up soon. Yeah. You're two hours from me, but also, like, I tend to be at meets that you're at.

I'm sure we'll get a picture or even do one of your famous reels. I can, I can just walk on like a weirdo. Yeah, yeah. Just like, try equipment in the background without saying anything. Like, who would do that? That would be. Fuck you. I picked up what you were putting down.

I also think that the backlogs are really doable for me because I, like, God. Like, I know that seems insane. I know that's- I'm doing it now. And I was like, I'm only 20 episodes away from being caught up. I'm going to get there.

And then I went, hold on. Yeah, I went and looked at my first order. And then when I started listening, and I was like, fuck, I'm like 50 episodes off.

I'm like two months out from hitting the backlog. Yeah, it's harder than you think. Yeah, I just, I, you know, I put it on.

Like, that's my like, you know, all of cleaning the gym. I put it on. I, you know, go pick up my son, you know, put it on.

So it's like, maybe that's possible. But now I got two. Like, that's the other problem, too. Because, like, now I'm, like, circulating you guys too. So, you know. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best thing you can do is do the massanomics backlog until we start. Then you alternate between the two.

So you do. Wow, that it was three years. Yeah. Just check the math on that because they didn't really talk about us for the longest time, I don't think. And I think we, did we predate supporting your supporting members? I think we did it. No, no, no.

No, I remember because it was my birthday. It's a relatively new segment, though. Yes. It doesn't that mean it's new? It was my birthday. And I think I had messaged Tanner and been like, or Morgan did or somebody message Tanner. I got a happy birthday from Tanner. And then the following week they started supporting members and wished somebody else a happy birthday.

I distinctly remember that because I was like, damn it, missed it by a week. and I think that was 2018. No, not 22. Fuck me. It definitely wasn't 2018. Okay. I was going to say 18. We were dead.

I'm never going to make it. I just couldn't remember because I know, I know supporting your support members, supporting your supporting members, like in the grand scheme, it is a relatively new segment, but it is also for sure three years old, but so are we.

So I was like, it's somewhere really close. I do think Tanner talked about us getting ready to start. And he was saying that the crew cast is coming, is what we were first originally called was the crew cast. And then he started the thread in the Discord. So I do think we got mentioned,

but I don't think we were a weekly mention like we are now at the time. But that's the smart thing to do is line up the dates. So do the massonomics backlog, find the date that we start, and then alternate between the two, because everything makes the most sense. Yeah. I can see that making sense.

Yeah, yeah. Their episode, and then it's more entertaining when you understand what playing on. Exactly. a lot of stuff where we talk about their episode and then like, you know, you can listen to the same week of like their recap of the Arnold and our recap at the Arnold, their Lipsy experience, our Lift Hard Live Easy Roundtable. Like, I don't know. I think actually that's a really good idea to, for anyone that is in the backlog journey. And then put this out there, not maybe for you, John. I know you, you're very busy, but somebody that's doing that right now. Name all, try and find all the things that we say on here and then they do on the following podcast or two, weeks later.

Oh, the other way, yeah. Yeah, like it'll be one of those things that we say on here, like crew falls, where I was like,

oh, some people are calling it crew falls. Or I said like, or is it crew falls? And then the next week, Tanner was like, I think people are calling Sue Falls,

crew falls. And I'm like, we did that. Like, I remember that. Yeah. That would be a really fun journey to take too.

Or as they say, influencing the influencers. Oh, yeah. Big Jonathan, where are they going to find you at? Hit them with all those socials. You want,

your new massonomics friends to come find you at. Yeah, follow the gym, you know, starting your powerlifting. Like, it's not just like, oh, if you want to come to a powerlifting gym, like, well, it's entertaining. And then, yeah, and I think that's probably our best bet. Sounds good. Big Joy, where you at? Joey underscore Mlesco, M-L-E-C-Z-K-O on the Instagrams, and that's about it.

All right. We have the Instagram, unpaid and underrated podcast. We've got the website, Unpaid Internpodcast.com. go chalk to the Discord, the U&U channel on the Masonomics Discord. You know, Hogan's been going through his

Masonomics. Nope, sorry, he's been going through the UNU backlog so he can, he has a rule that he will not make a crew card if he hasn't listened to their episode. So he actually has to like, he's burning the midnight oils to get ready

for the next batch to catch up. And then, what did you have there, Joey? Don't forget to find me on Jim Radar at the DILF dungeon. There you go. Here in Ontario.

Good, good, good. I am Keith Honeycutt 73 on Instagram. More importantly, go follow my orange gym than a wine cellar. Until then, see you next Tuesday.