Unpaid And Underrated - 167 : A Cat Themed Gym (ft. Big Anastasia)

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

This week Joey and Steve get to know Big Anastasia. They dive right into great topics like being a young lifter, rocks, training as a family, and exotic cats. 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 @Huk5335 Our Hosts @keithhoneycutt73 or his orange gym, @thenowhinecellar @joey_mleczko Special Guests: Big Anastasia, Big Andy, and Big Steve.

Welcome back, everybody, to episode 167 of the unpaid and underrated podcast, podcast, a prodcast, a podcast by crew for a crew, or by crew for a crew. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Mox by crew, attended by crew, recorded twice a week sometimes for crew. I am your host Big Joey. I am joined by Big Steve. How are we going with, Anastasia, Anastasia, Anna, what are we going by? Oh, Anastasia's good. Got Big Anastasia on the line. Andy has joined us, Big Andy down there. Good morning.

And, yeah, we'll jump right into it. We can't rate last week's episode because it's not out yet. It actually comes out tonight, so we're not going to do any of that business. Well, I think it's also pretty relevant the topic about how training with kids is renting your gains and everything, because, I mean, that's pretty good stuff in the best. Yeah, yeah. We would have talked about that with the episode we recorded on Thursday, but definitely we can talk about some of that. You know, somebody keeps me, everybody brings it up every once in a while about the time that I almost dropped the rock on Saga when she was like two, right?

So that's generally why I don't like training around kids because it's dangerous. And, you know, obviously your kids are different ages than mine. Yeah, I think we started taking it a little bit more serious when I think Anastasia was about, what, 13-ish? Yeah, around 13, I started getting... And so at that point she was smart enough to another. no, you know, please stay out of the way when the heavy-looking company. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry, I have, you know, 100 pounds over my head. Please don't start asking me, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. Like, that is not the time to do that. And that's actually when Saga got kicked out of the gym. I was doing overhead press. And just as I got it up, daddy, daddy, daddy. What? Those go outside.

Go upstairs. Like, that is exactly how that went. Pretty much. Yeah. I love you and I love to keep loving you. So let's, let's not, you know.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, this is not the time to do that. So now essentially, if she says she wants to come down, um, I'll send Morgan a message when I'm done my main lifts.

Nice. When I've moved on to accessory lifts, Saga can come down. But if I'm doing anything overhead squat, anything like heavy, she, she can just can't be down there. Well,

not been a report to. Anytime we've been at your place lately to the train, she's been pretty, She's been a lot better. Absolutely, right? She knows now, because we talked about it, you know, if daddy has something in his hands or over his head, we can't talk to him and you have to stay away.

Because I remember the one time I was benching and then she, like, tried to spin the thing that I was like, the sleeve of the barbell with the bench in my hand. I was like, oh, no, no, no. Like, don't let's do that. The plate might spin, but it's not the school bus carrying wheel. Let's take 10% off.

Yeah. So what, five out of five daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. I mean, I can't really even disagree with that in anyway. In about three hours, Cam will be here. I know you said you guys might not be able to make it up here, but Cam is coming to, he wants to get some tips on lifting a natural stone. because there is a rumor that the mystery event rocks is going to be a natural stone to shoulder.

As you're listening to this, you will already know what it was. I don't know. I got no insider information. I just want to say two things. Apparently, tacky towel is allowed, which tells me it's going to be Atlas, not natural, because tacky is way too hard to clean off of a natural stone. Yeah, that was true.

Yep. And also, it is evil. And I mean evil to sneak a natural stone to shoulder on somebody. It is, I think that. It depends what you like, because natural stone to shoulder is pretty fun. Yeah, but if you've never done it and then you walk into a competition and somebody's like, 200 pound stone, get it on your shoulder or no points, that's pure evil. Right? I feel like the big but new class might be a little bit more forgiving when it comes to the way. But yeah, either way, it's good to be better for anything. I think actually, I mean, Jake has been doing so much in terms of kind of misdirection over the last couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah.

He's posting stuff of him lifting natural stones, but he's also posting him cleaning off Atlas stones. And there's also everything he has in the rules about what you can and can't use. So I still think it could be anything. I'm not leaning one direction at all. No, are you competing in that? Sure am. Yeah. So you can let us know what it was in case I don't catch the live stream because I'll be working on Friday.

But yeah, I just think if you've never done a natural stone to shoulder, and Steve, you can attest because, you know, you've done it before with me. Yeah, we've done it with back from that too. Yeah, and you were saying like, you know, the way that your competition, It's like, yeah, yeah, those are pretty good weights. And then you did it at Lurys and you're like, this was hard. Right? Because like you might be able to do a 200 pound Atlas stone to your shoulder. No problem.

But you try and do a 200 pound natural stone. It is not the same lift. Yeah, there's different variables for sure. Yeah. So it's just one of those. That's why I'm saying it's a little evil. If you walk in and somebody's like, get that up, I, yeah. Good luck.

Good luck, Andy. Luckily for Cam, he's not going to have any trouble getting his arm. around whatever stone I throw at him. No, if it is an Atlas stone, he's got it breezed, right? Because he's got those. He's been able to practice with those, but he is a bit nervous because he's never really done in natural stone. So I'm just going to show him, like, you know, you've got to figure out the handles.

You've got to look where the weight leans and all that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. I don't think I have much to show him because, you know, half of it is just be dumb strong. Yeah. I got the dump part, don't. I'm not stronger. I'm not stronger than anybody. I'm just stupider.

That's what I keep saying. We actually just ordered a couple sandbags from Inclusive fitness so I can practice at least some variation of getting stuff to the shoulder. I saw that and I'm glad you went with Inclusive. Did you use Scantz's code? I did not. I didn't know that was an option, but I didn't use the code. I got the Intel from John from the Ontario Lifts Rocks group.

Okay. He has the code? Yeah, and he basically put us onto them because you ordered a few from us from my rival company, we'll call it, that I was considering ordering. And he said he ripped three of them and said inclusive fitness has been great for him. Yeah, the Nukshuck truck bag I have is from Inclusive. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was saying to them too. It was like, like, okay, yeah, you know what?

Sold. Yep. When you were telling me you were going to order them, I actually looked at Inclusive to price out the jumps that you wanted. And it was like $300 more than I think what you were looking at getting. And I was like, okay, I'm not even going to bring that up. We just got a couple 200 and 100.

Yeah, that's perfectly reasonable. Yeah, my 150 is now completely full of sand. My pea gravel is in my inux shuck bag and my bells of steel is still pea gravel. I think it's closer to 90-something pounds. Okay. Any general stuff you guys want to talk about? Not a whole lot.

That training is going well. I guess I could talk a little bit last week about our trip up to the Ontario Stonelifting Club there with our friends from the States. Great idea. We got to do a little bit of natural stone lifting. And I think Anastasia and I might be doing our first strong band competition together coming up in the later half of the year.

That's the one up north? Yeah. That's going to be hosted by John Fee there. And he said based on what he saw out of us, he said there should be no issues and us taking part of that. Now that's a strong man or is that just a stone party? Kind of a hybrid. Okay.

Yep. I think there's going to be some strong man components and then some stone lifting components and it's just going to be a general just fun strength event. Yeah, I haven't decided if I'm going to make that, but I get a feeling if you're going, I might go. Yeah, it's a couple hours away, but I mean, I don't know. There's enough room in our car if you want to join in us. We can all car pull up and get silly. Yeah, because normally, geez, I just replaced the caliper with.

Shane yesterday. The whole ass caliper on my break. If you don't know anything about cars, I will say not only did I replace the brake pads and the rotors on that wheel a month ago, I had to do it again today. That's how seized up those calipers were. Ouch. Yeah, the front brake pad was gone in a month because the piston on the caliper wasn't moving. It was sealed shut. So like, You drive all the time. That doesn't even make sense. Like, if you were, like, parked for a while, I could see a seizing. We think it was actually already seized.

And what had happened was the pin in the caliper was also seized. So we thought that was the problem. We didn't even look at the main piston. Yeah. And thanks for joining, Andy. Talk to you later. Have good time, guys. Here.

We're talking. He's out. But, yeah, so we did that yesterday. So it's one of those, like, if we can carpool, that'll be better because yeah I don't plus I just don't want to drive alone that's well of course not yeah like that's a three hour drive

but it is go ahead same deal come to so that way if one of us old people gets hurt she can drive home or maybe Anastasia by that point we'll see how her driving goes maybe

um next week I have I signed up to do the volunteer at the provincials yeah down in Hamilton and I I submitted the form probably a week and a half ago and I haven't heard anything.

Funny, because I don't think we're going to be volunteering, but I think we will be kind of showing up just to check it out because I know, again, and bring up his name that John guy is going to be competing and a few other people from the Ontario Stone Lifting Group. Well, Lori will be there volunteering and the guy running it is one of the people

that I lifted with in the Stone Competition and didn't recognize until after. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was funny. We heard about that. Yeah, that was embarrassing. Yeah, I was like, oh, my God. And you know what? He was actually the announcer at the meet at Just Be Strong.

Oh, nice, thanks. So, like, I knew him. I looked right at him at the competition. And then I see him post that he was there. And I was like, I didn't even clue in. But he also had, like, that glasses and the hat and stuff like that. It was pretty. That stuff happens all the time.

Yeah, but he's one of the guys running the show. So I messaged him and then I was like, am I volunteering or what? Like I don't, should I show up ready to volunteer and then just like don't? Like, so either way, we'll figure that out. But by the time you're hearing this, I either will have or will I not have volunteer that provincials. Well, if it comes, if it turns out that they still need somebody, I mean, let us know. Maybe we'll come join. Yeah, I genuinely don't know.

From whatever capacity we're able to. Yeah, I figured I'd have an email or something by now confirming because it's a week away. And, like, you know. Yeah, so I'm just going to set aside the day. And either I'm going to watch or I'm going to help load a trap bar. Worst case, Ontario, come hang out with us and do some lifting. Exactly. All right.

So we have got affiliates that you can use, which is obsidian ammonia. We've got plate snacks and belt fed strength. Use code unpaid at all of those. You're too late to get your stickers for lift, Live Easy. I hope a lot of you are enjoying my new sticker that debuted at the Lift Hard Livese. I only sent 30, so please, I hope you did not flood and bother Cam too much, but he will be the arbiter of my new stickers. I do have a couple that I kept at home for us, Steve. And I really got to get on making arts because Anastasia made a pretty cool logo for our

gym and it's kind of a shame that I haven't done anything with it yet. No, I can get you the people that we use. It was like 50 for 25 bucks or something and they're decent vinyl quality, right? Not those label ones that I got from the company who shall not be named. Obsceny pneumonia, they're running, I think he just finished a two for one, but either way, throw in our code. We don't get anything from it, but it just shows him that you're there from us. And Beltfed Strength, Chris doing great work. He's going to be at home gym con, so swing by him. and that's it. Normally we do a sponsor read for Massonomics,

who is our main sponsor here? I don't know if you guys have anything you want to say, anything you want to talk about as far as Massonomics goes. We don't necessarily have an ad prepared, but Anastasia, why don't you tell us about what it is that you like about massanomics? What I like about Masonomics and something that I've, like, kind of really looked up to

is that it's not all just get angry, at the bar and um like you have to do it this way it's more just messing around i feel like i do lifting for the fun of it and not to be like all super super super serious i just i just like to mess around and you know whatever happens happens and like their model lift hard live easy it's not just a slogan like it's yeah we take their training seriously but you got to remember to enjoy it too yeah yeah remember this is supposed to be fun right if you don't enjoy it then like what do you you even doing like yeah and so it's it's kind of a cool community of people who kind of think similarly yep and uh it's just fun to be a part of yeah i agree with all of that and uh

of course you know um everybody knows steve's story uh so we'll talk about uh we'll talk about that in a second um stasia yeah is that you yes okay you were alive and unpaid and underrated We're going to just jump right into the podcasts. We just had some little chat earlier with some other people, but now you are here. So tell us who you are. Where do we find you? Are you on any social media that we can find you on? You're in the Discord.

Let us know who you are in the Discord. All right. That's a great question. Okay. So I guess the like most like prominent place you can find me. is probably Instagram I do have my own Instagram

which I'm on a spot so I completely forgot the name of but I think that the best place you can find my lifting stuff in general is like my dad's Instagram because I'm not all that active

I think and Steve and that's completely okay. We're going to lead this off by saying Anastasia is 16. So if you're wondering why there are some things that we're dancing around, we mostly need to protect Anastasia, right? So if you want to contact Anastasia, you can contact Steve, which is your Instagram. Yeah, at Huck, Steve. And Anastasia's Instagram, too, is at Huck 5335. For the most part, she doesn't post a whole lot.

There's a lot of stuff that she's been tagged in by myself. And on the Discord is big Canadian anesthesia. Yeah, it is. Okay. What are you drinking? You got something cool over there you told me about earlier. Wow, I've got myself a nice president's choice, sparkling grape soda, water. It's delicious.

Yes. Nice and spicy. The PC ones have always been. I remember I sent some to Tanner and Tommy. I sent that pretty. shows the ginger ale and the root beer. And I think when we went down to lift Harley-Easy too, we brought down a case of the cola water too.

Yeah, yeah, that was quite popular. Yeah, PC delivers high quality. Like, if I had to have a PC versus a bubbly, I'd probably take the PC. Now, I've mentioned it before, but the one caveat being is if you open one of these, they're fantastic for about the first half hour. But you let it sit, it goes flat kind of, you know, kind of quick. Yeah, but I mean, in my world, a sparkling water isn't last. more than half an hour.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not spending all day on it typically. Now, unless, one of the cool things about the PC pop-flavored ones is if you're a person who likes mixed drinks, like a ryan soda or, you know, Ryan Coke or something like that. Not so you're 17. Not yet. You know, if you're listening to this, it is one of those things that actually is a really great no-sugar, no-sugar alcohols, and it still has the same flavor. So that's kind of nice.

So that might be the scenario in which it sits for longer than half an hour, right? Because you're using a half a can at a time. Okay. Stasia, now it's your turn. The three of us are kind of a trifecta of how this happened. How did you get to Massanomics and why did you stick around? Mostly through, well, you and my dad. I don't think I would have found it on my own, to be honest.

but I'm kind of really happy that I did. In my personal experience, it brings together a lot of people, and I've met a lot of people through Masonomics and wearing massonomic stuff when I go to lifting meats and stuff. I feel like I get approached a lot more as, oh, you're a part of the crew. That's nice. Does that ever get weird? Actually, you know what?

Does it ever get less weird? Like, I'm, I'm prominent in crew because of this podcast. But, like, before that, it never got less weird. I still forget, honestly, that I do what I do. And that it's not as common as I think it is. Because to me, it's my everyday life. But then I go to, like, a lifting meet and everyone knows who I am. And I'm not going to lie.

Sometimes I'm like, oh my God, I forgot about this. Hi. Then the first time she realized that she had fans was like a really weird experience for her. What happened to? Well, we're in Blenheim, Ontario, kind of a smaller local meet, but it was our first time we'd ever actually traveled for a meet. And, you know, a mother came up with her little girl. I think she must have been like eight or nine years old at some point, or at that point.

and said, you know, our little character, or she couldn't sit still the entire time, but I think the entire time that you were competing, I don't think she blinked one. She sat still and she would not move. She'd just watch what you were doing. And Anastasia just kind of frozen, like, uh, uh, thanks.

Like, what do you do with that information, right? Like, no, it's kind of cool to be, even as young as she is, to be inspiring, even younger people, right? Yep. And it's just kind of like, as a parent, it's like, wow, that's kind of awesome to see, like, you've already succeeded.

Yeah, now you got nowhere to go but up. But yeah, it does sometimes get easier, but, like, I'm kind of, yeah, I'm really awkward. So, you know, it doesn't get easier, but your social media presence gets stronger. To completely butcher all right from the last time, Massonomics podcast. Yeah, I, you know, so like, I got. got into it through Jonathan Oldham. And then I dragged Steve. Like this is the kind of like the pipeline.

And then I dragged Steve to meet them at the Arnold. I think Steve was going to go to the Arnold anyway. But I was already pretty aware of it through like the memes and everything online. Yeah. We would always share each other stuff. But then you met Tanner and Tommy and you were like and crew. And then you're like, okay, I'm in. These are my people.

Yep. Despite the fact that I'm not super online or super present all the time. It's like, no, these are still my people. Yeah. It's still good to know. know that they're there, right? Yeah. And then, no, wait, I want that still.

Sorry, guys. My creatine sunk to the bottom of my water, so I'm just asking Morgan to bring me water so I can get the last of my creatine. And it's still early here. It was like the earliest I've ever recorded. Yeah. Yeah, and then we got stage into it. So that is the pipeline. She basically didn't have a choice.

Well, it's a good thing. No, she just likes it. What was your famous line? you're going to enjoy this whether you like it or not. Pretty much. That's kind of how my marriage began too. So it's been a lasting slogan. I think some days, you know,

Sadie enjoys it more than others. Yep. That's marriage in general, I think. I'm in a acquire taste. I get it. Seja, where do you live and where are you, well, you live with Steve, so like most people know where he's from.

So we can talk about that as little or as much as you want, based on you being a child. Well, a teenager. Jeez, that's... Yeah. She's getting older. She's a young woman. Yeah, geez.

Like, I've... Everybody does this all the time, but, like, I was around for your birth. Okay, so, I get how you still think of her, uh, saga, basically. Yeah. Yeah, there was, um, yeah, we can talk about stories later. Um, so you're from here, you're in Hamilton. You're part of the Ontario crew. I don't think...

You might be in that. You might be in that group, but you're not very active in it. Yep. And let's go. Does she have a Hall of Fame card? She does. Okay. Like her own?

Yeah. Okay, including today. What are your checks? Ooh. I'd have to get it to reference that I don't have it in front of me. Yeah, I can have it in front of me. Yeah, I can have it in front of me in just a second. See who wins.

Let's see who wins. Ah, it's going to be him because I clicked on. mostly squad videos instead of Keith. Probably going to be here because I have no idea where my name is. It's in the desk somewhere. Mine's full, so I don't have to get it out anymore. I can figure out where my card is, because all I can find right now is this handy-dandy card

that she definitely does not have one of. No, we don't know her supporting member number, do you? Nobody does. We actually... Yeah, you'll have to get that from Tanner when he listens to this episode. You're showing off my supporting member, car like it's a video podcast. Like Sean. Why are you waving?

Some of the Hall of Fame check marks obviously that she does have is posting a picture with crew being on here now for the first time. Attending the Arnold. That should be two check marks. She competed at the Arnold. I had it somewhere.

And I believe those might be the only three to this point. Um, okay. Okay, so. It hasn't been a year yet. Hasn't listened to the first 400. Hasn't made 10 orders, obviously. Yeah.

Or gone to crew falls or lift our live easy. That was one of the things we were hoping to do this year, but we ended up doing the Arnold instead when that came up. I mean, you still have time to schedule crew falls. That is true. Yeah, it's only an 18-hour drive instead of 21 to Aberdeen. We make a weekend of it. Drive there, say hi, drive back.

Yeah, yeah, just dip in. Hi, everybody. Well, see ya. Big Gulp's, huh? How bad do I want that jacket? Get it before me. So we don't know Anastasia's supporting membership number. I think it's three.

Oh, no, sorry, sorry, the Hall of Fame says. Oh, it's three checks. I always say one's better than none. So don't worry about that. We'll get you more. you have a CTF, a certified training facility. I will go ahead and hit you with the code unpaid comment, which you can only get when you have been a guest here,

an unpaid and underrated. Tell us about your gym, Anastasia. I mean, I can see it, but other people can't. Unless they go to gymradar.com, tell us in the name of your gym first. The name of our gym is moving mountains And... It's a cat-themed gym, kind of. Yeah, it's...

I feel like it's very cat-themed. It is. It is. But I feel like the most notable thing about our gym is it's in the dining room, which a lot of people don't really believe

when I tell them at first. But, I don't know. I... So it's basically, it's predominantly a powerlifting theme, Jim. Mm-hmm. And a couple of years ago, during the whole COVID silliness, when the everything shut down here. With everything going on.

You know, with everything going on, of course. Mm-hmm. We decided, you know what, let's take external forces out of it, and we'll just start our own, Jim. And that was kind of what led to Anastasia having her first experiences with actual lifting. And, uh, that's quite frankly, if it would have been, if we would have been, if we would still been on to commercial gym. I mean, four gym memberships is pretty spicy every month.

Yep. And, you know, it's not cheap to obviously have a home gym, but it gives us the options to do a lot of our training together as a family,

and that's pretty important to us. You are going to have to update your, your gym radar. Everybody listening to this should know that Steve and I are closed. We've known each other for pretty much our whole lives at this rate. And so I'm going to tell him,

you can now add outdoor to your gym because you have built and helped me build some awesome farmer's handles. Yeah, we were using those yesterday. One of the things that we don't love about where we live that happens to be really helpful for this is behind our house, we have a nice big, long alley.

And so at the end of our workout yesterday, we added some farmer's handle carries for distance, and that was kind of like our high-intensity interval training for a bit of cardio almost. Yes. I got to use mine the first time last week, and my tendon wanted to pop so bad. I could only do two runs. I loaded 100 pounds on them, so 4-25s. And yeah, geez, my tendon was just ready to pop.

I was saying last week I'm going to have to buy more 25s because pretty much doing, a 25 pound or 50 pound farmer's handle from the gym to outside to put on the farmer's handle and actually I was like this sucks I need to get some weights outside and leave them outside you just need to wait till your kids get a bit older than you can make them do the heavy lifting so that way you can just do the actual lift bring these upstairs for daddy yeah um that was pretty much the intent there you know like why why i why I had, because it's why I could basically have like little attempts to help me get my stuff ready. The reality is, it goes the other way around. Yes, yeah, I was going to say, every time I've lifted with you guys, it's me and you loading.

So your featured brand is Massonomics. You have the most stuff from them. Second is Bells of Steel. And third is the Strength Co. You've got 15 pieces of equipment listed, or listed. and... Probably have a lot more than that, but some of it's unlisted. Yes.

Not sure why. So if we ever want to get on there and update that. Yeah, mostly just like little cheapo things, like some Amazon bans and, like, an adjustable kettlebell and silly stuff like that. Well... Most of our massonomics equipment can be seen right now by you. It's just like plagues and our drink spotters and stuff. Well, if you want to see the gym, head over to gym.

Radar.com on moving mountains. You guys are actually in one of my lists, which are gym animals I've met. I hope to expand that at some point because right now it's only Keith's cats, your cats. I've met Bernie at Tommy's gym. And Cam's Pupper. And Cam's Pupper, yep. I wonder if she'll be here today when he comes.

Oh, I better get the treats ready. Okay. And I have one of her stickers on our gym there. It's hard to really see you from here. Well, I guess it's hard for everyone to see. I keep forgetting that. Yeah. But her main mirror in our gym there is just bordered with stickers from a lot of friends' gyms and stuff.

So that's pretty cool. That is really cool. Okay. So the submissions I got were pretty much three people. How did you explain to Candice what you were doing today? I pretty much just said, hey, we got a podcast coming up this weekend. it would be helpful if you could fill in this little questionnaire because we have just to give the host a little bit of info ahead of time and I suppose it would be as much

of a surprise to us as it is to you. Well, I will say like, because everybody else that filled it out already knows who we are. So it would just be interesting. Did she ask at all? Like what podcast? What is it about? I just say it was a little bit of silly, silly gooseery. So that's why there might be some questions on the questionnaire that might throw you

for a little bit of a loop. It's not just a sets and reps podcast. It's a getting to know the person. I don't think I could do a sets and reps podcast. I mean, I could do one episode, but then it would probably just get real repetitive. Yeah.

And it's just like, I know that they exist out there where like their main focus is to talk about how to train or how to get strong, stay strong, and use your strength. But like, I don't think I could listen to that all the time.

I think that like power lifting motivation or whatever, that kind of stuff. I have no patience for that. I like a nice variety. Kind of why I like the Mastonomics podcast. Every once in a while, they get a little bit serious goose about the lifting,

and that's fairly rare. It's mostly about the fun side of it. Yep. Okay. Anastasia, I have a game that I'm going to move into. This game is called Least Fun Most Fun. Steve, do you, oh, Steve stepping away for a second. So I'm going to give you a topic.

Okay. Okay. And you are going to give me the least fun thing about that topic and the most fun thing about that topic. You have to give me both, okay? All right. Okay. Least fun, most fun. Lifting with exotic cats in the gym.

Oh, okay. So I want to say the most fun thing when it comes to lifting is, honestly I think that when I'm doing my bench press sometimes they'll just come and they'll sit on my lap which I think it's really cute and it's really fun

and it's great for pictures but the least fun I think is when I'm trying to do like a PR on my deadlift or something and then there's just a cat under it

They love to run under the bar for some reason. They're basically a toddlers. Yep. Yeah, that's actually part of why I chose that topic. Can you tell us about the cats? Because I think we might have talked about it on Steve's episode, but those are exotic cats, right? Yeah, we have three savanna cats. And our gym logo, actually, is kind of based on all three of them, blended into one.

that's good advice generally yeah he's gonna hate that so we have moose noelle and there's the one that I never get to see Felix Felix yes yes gorgeous cats Noel likes me moose is indifferent

and Felix I just like I said I never get to see when I'm there which is weird because he's probably the most social but that's definitely on his terms he's a cut So I have a variation of a question Yeah I'll give you this story I didn't want to simply ask people

What their favorite lift is Because I think that that's boring So what I ask people is Do you have a favorite muscle Or favorite muscle group that you like to work out And how do you like to work it out? Um Oh I don't

I say that I like pretty much Everything equally It really just depends on the day, but I feel like most of what I do is kind of like, I don't know. I do a lot of like full body stuff.

Like compound motions? Yeah. Or movements to bring, to harken back to Tanner's episode. Yeah. So you would say that you just, you don't have like a, I like the fact that I have traps. So a lot of my favorite accessories make my

traps and shoulders look bigger, right? So that would be like my answer. But yeah, if you like, I know you like dead lifts. Yeah, I like dead lips. One of my favorite things to do is to like look back and see how much I've progressed on deadlift. Mm-hmm. Because sometimes I just like, I stick for a bit, but then I get, like, those few weeks

where it's just a bunch of progress. And I just, I don't know, I like how heavy I guess. can go some time. Hey, what's that saying you've mentioned before progress isn't linear, right?

We've got to go and like a little jumps and... Yep. Yeah. Yeah. If progress was linear, we'd all be silly strong.

But like... And also, like, you're younger than me, so you have that ability to do linear progression. Um, you know, me and Steve,

there are times where it's like, part of the reason I gave up power lifting was I hated peeking because your body just breaks down. Right? And you're just the strongest years it's supposed to be at that time. But you can't maintain that in your 40s, right?

So that's part of the reason I kind of just said I can't keep doing that. There has to be a couple months where I just go through the motions to stay strong. So one of the things I would say, like even that I've learned, I'm not going to profess to know everything that's right about how to do things. But I've learned over the years a lot of ways to do things wrong. And when I was younger, like I was in this age and just starting to get into stuff myself. you know, if you were even weaker by one pound one day, that was a failure. Like, you know, I was, like when we were younger, what was our references?

Flex magazine, okay, that's not a reference for a regular person, but I thought it was because the internet didn't exist. Yeah. So we'd just be stronger every week and then eventually you just break down. Yep. We kind of like peek for a meet and then we back off and do some silly stuff, do some fun stuff, do what a paid, you know, like we're doing a little bit of strong man now and stuff. instead of like just straight barbell work,

like keeping it different, keeping it fun and making it sustainable. So that way, you know, I don't have a daughter who's like beat to hell by the time she's 20. No, and I understand that completely.

You know, I pulled 425 cold on block poles a couple weeks ago. And yesterday, 365, I actually went to 375. I was only supposed to be 365, but I was feeling good. Um, woke up this morning, my back hurts.

Right? So it's like any day can be a bad day. Just based on the day before. How much you slept? How much you ate? Did you, you know, did you happen? Some days I feel like I'm 43 going on 63. And some days I, uh, mentally am 23.

So, you know, just got to balance it all. Um, I make sense of things. So occupation isn't something we normally, like we, we talk about with everybody, but you're a student. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so.

get good grades? I don't know. Do you want to talk about being a student? Well, it's nothing really new, honestly. But there's some interesting aspects about it, because a lot of times, too, when you have new classmates and people find out what it is that you do for fun. Oh, yeah, no one ever believes me. It can always be a little bit of a weird, weird experience. Yeah, sometimes it's, uh, Like, if I get along with my teachers and stuff, I'll tell them about, like, my lifting and not too long ago.

Like, when I went to do the Arnold's and, you know, the world records is that. I told my English teacher, and then I come back from, like, my competition, and I go back to school on Monday, and she's like, so can I tell the whole class? Can we have a presentation? And I was like, um, sure. So she waited until the end of the class, and I kind of forgot about it. And about five minutes before class was like ended, she said she needed to make an announcement and made it all serious. And then was like, guess what? Anastasia did.

Until the whole class. And I was like, oh, oh, no, what do I say? She got all of the information wrong. Of course. But I mean, they don't know, right? They don't know. She was excited for you. Yeah.

It was in the right place. You know, I was so embarrassed, but also like, yeah, she's so excited and this is so nice. But then there was three minutes left, and everyone just kind of went silent, but stared at me. They were looking for your muscles. That's what they do. I don't have big muscles. They kind of stared at me and I was like, I don't know what you want me to say. I'm built like a deer antler.

I don't know how to prove. Here, load the bar and I'll show you. Yeah, pretty much. You just do that. But you're also a cadet and you won an award for that recently. Yeah. I usually get top of the star level I'm in that year. I got top gold star this year.

Very good. You did get a shout out. supporting members. I don't know if Steve told you. I do remember hearing of that, yeah. Yeah, I think we, between the three of us, I think we were on supporting, your supporting members like four weeks in a row. Okay. That was a pretty good week of that because that was your ABS meet and your cadets week in the same, within a three-day span.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You lifted so much that you shut down, Just Be Strong Jim. Pretty much. Yeah, they did find a new location. Yeah. It's unfortunate the luck that they've had in the place that they were at, but I'm sure for the millions of people listening right now who know who they are, I'm happy to see that they're in a better location and hopefully it has some better

lasting power. Yeah. I mean, I would say that the people that do listen to this probably at least know of Justin. He's not very cool. Yeah, he is, and he's been in the animal. Cage, he's got, you know, I think the third heaviest squat in wraps in the world or something like that. So like, I imagine people would know who Justin is. So they would be kind of familiar with Just Be Strong. We're going to get in your lifting history. And one of the cool parts is

I've been there for all of it. So why don't you two just take us through when you think it started, why you enjoyed it, some of the things you've accomplished and our next steps. because I say our next steps because I know that your dad is probably your biggest trainer but I would say that I have had a part in your training and you know sometimes I'm the yin to his yang

and we can talk about some of that if you'd like as well but go ahead this is the floor is yours let's talk about everything you've accomplished all your records this is probably going to be the meat of your episode because you know you're when I say this to you you're not a nobody.

People should know who you are. So go. And if you don't mind, I'd like to just start off actually taking this. Yeah. And just on how he even got started because there's a certain judge that deserves a little bit of credit. Mm-hmm. And so I used to compete a little bit, like obviously with you. And then the one day I was doing one of my competitions.

And then when I went out for one of my deadlifts, Anastasia, who I believe was only 12 or 13, at the time was sitting on the floor right beside the head judge of the meat yeah it was and she's sitting at apex yeah sitting right at apex and you know what all a lot of credit goes to him because he could have just shoot her away and been like you know i got a job to do and taking his life while serious yep yeah with the seatings back there but instead he took the time to hey come on down come closer here here's what we're looking for here's here's what we're doing and you know what he he had the foresight to recognize you know what if i put a little bit of time in into this kid who's genuinely interested in not being a brat,

then who knows what she could maybe do in the future, right? And after that, she was like, Dad, I want to try this. And so that's when it kind of begins. So I'll let you take it from there. Yeah. So I do remember that day. It was honestly, I didn't know that you could compete like that in weightlifting. I thought it was, it was just, it was so cool.

And I got to watch, like, everyone, everyone just lifting a lot of weight. I honestly didn't think that, you know, without all this, like, super serious stuff I saw online back then. I thought you had to have, like, well, to put it lately, I thought you had to be on steroids to lift that much. But, I don't know. know, I just think seeing that in person and seeing how just cool it was and how nice the people were there. Yeah, just how one thing that's kind of weird is just it's a bit of a misconception that everybody is all like angry and like serious and that. When you go to these things, you see just how overwhelmingly positive the entire community is. People that are competing each other against

each other, right? Yep. Of course you want to win, but you want to beat somebody that you're going against at their best and your best, right? Yeah. It's just, I don't know, I've been involved in a whole lot of different sports and I've never been in a more positive community than the strength community. And it's just kind of goes against some of the things you hurt.

No, there's obviously some people that are at liars and those are the ones that seem to get all the attention and give it a bit of a bad name, but that's just not an experience. And even in those meets, I think. think we know talking about them directly after you're right uh there's always the people that are taking it too seriously right you know the they they got their headphones on and they're jazzed up and they're and they got their camera crew in the the uh warm up room and then there's me and steve you know doing shots of yager before i third deadlift i'm back there dancing like my warm up is like two reps and like i'm just there to have fun i know

I think that's one of the things Anastasia learned from you because she's the, you know, she's the, whatever, the practice room dancer at this point. Yeah, I'm always dancing. I show up. I have like, I wear my dad's massive house coat. Yeah. And like stupid slippers. And I just kind of show up and say, oh, this is happening. And people ask me what my numbers are.

I'm not going to lie. I just pick stuff up. I don't know. A lot of people ask me this question. How much do you lift? What do you do? Like, what's going on? As much as I can and I don't worry about the rest.

Yeah, pretty much. I just pick up the circles and hope for the best. You know, and it is something I've noticed at your meets because the announcers are always a little, a little interested in the fact that you're dancing. When you're in the hole and you're up next waiting for the bar to be ready call, you're back there dancing. And I've heard every announcer go,

she's excited, she's dancing back there, and it's like, yes, you should be. Yeah, I'm dancing and hopping around. If, like, if I sit down, then, you know, I kind of, all my hype is gone. It's kind of funny, because you're a very reserved person in general, but over there, you kind of open up and you just let your crazy self shine through. Yeah. But anyway, so we've talked about a lot of stories, and I've taken over a bit. Why don't you get back to kind of what Joey was asking?

So about your lifting career, how it started, how it's going? Um, well, I feel like the start that most people here is, um, like when I sat next to, um, that judge at my dad's, um, like, lifting me. But to me, I feel like it started a lot younger. Um, I was a weird kid and I would bring little five pound pink weights to the park and, like, try to flex on all the other little kids. Um, or I would like, I don't know, when I was, how old would I have been?

What the push-ups? The push-ups, yeah. You were both three years old. You always had to try to copy me. Yeah, when I was three years old, I always tried to do push-ups and stuff, and I always acted super tough, and, like, I wanted to get strong,

and I've always had this, like, feeling that I wanted to be strong, and, like, now that I'm able to actually do it, and, you know, that day was able to set off my career. I'm very, very happy I didn't give up on it. I don't think we were going to let you. So I have your stats open, but I do want to hear about, you know, your awards, because I think you hold the record in two countries right now.

I have four Canadian national. records for power lifting. In WRPF, Canada. They're Federation records. Let's make that. Yeah, they're Federation records, but that's okay. They're not a small federation. Nope, absolutely.

And what are those records? I'm not going to lie to you. I also don't know those numbers. Okay. For five bench pressed, I looked in total. Yes, yeah. Those ones. You know what I mean.

Your total, your total, your best total is 391. I'm assuming that's pounds, not kilos. Yep. Yep. That is your best, and you compete raw. If you look at your open power lifting, it actually tells the complete story

because you're disqualified from your first meat. Yep. It's just a series of ones. It was, the first meet was actually an interesting one, because, I mean, your first ever left, your spotter was Mitch Hooper. Yeah. So that was a bit of an interesting welcome to the scene. Yep.

And unfortunately, that was a bit of a tough meet because that week, you were away on base for two weeks straight, trading for cadets. Yeah. Just doing drills and marching and all kinds of things that require strength. you then decided that it would be a good idea to try cliff diving a week before the belly flop and were bruised from your ankles to your face earlier your entire body was purple yeah and your father's an idiot and didn't read the rulebook and you had the wrong belt and weren't allowed to use a belt at all in your meat

it was it was an interesting meet well I mean but then your next meet you got a one you got first place, right? Yeah. So, and then you've also competed at the Arnold. Yes. So tell us about that, how that happened, and how cool, and, you know. And that was in the World Professional Power League, where you were the only kid?

That's something that happens a lot. I'm usually, I'm always the youngest there competing. And it's a weird but very cool experience. to be like the only kid there. But I was in the Arnold. It was fun. Honestly, it was super like nerve-wracking and stuff because, you know, it's all this.

It was so big. It was on a big stage and there was a lot of people there. Yeah, there was a lot of people there. The actual place that like happened at, it was a really cool place. It was massive. and there was a lot of people. But, you know, like, I feel like the most

nerve-wracking thing about the whole experience there was the time leading up to it. Because once you're actually there, and once you actually, like, once you get that first squat in, everything melts away, and you're like, oh, this is amazing. I love this. Oh, yeah, this is why I do this. This is why I do this.

Because, like, between competitions, sometimes I kind of, because it's been a while, sometimes I kind of forget, like, everything's going to be fine, and you're not going to bomb out. And even if you do, who cares? Exactly. Everything is fine. But always the most nerve-wracking thing is, let's just get through the first squad. Then after that, everything's fun. Yeah.

So, you know, you kind of mentioned Mitch. Hooper, through your lifting career, and we'll talk about the future of your lifting in a few minutes, you have probably met as many or more famous people than I have. Yeah. So, because I do want to point out the people that you've trained with and kind of the luxuries you've had there. So tell us about, you know, some of that kind of stuff. Steve will probably know more than you might at the moment, but I want to hear from you first.

Um, honestly, I've, I've trained with a lot of people. And I think it's, it's amazing that like, you know, people see me and go, oh, come train with me. Even, even if, like, you, you don't really know me. Laurie. Yeah, Lori. But even, we can start from the beginning, too. Like, even, okay, so Mitch Hooper has had some interesting aspects of his personal life, which we, you know, whatever it is what it is.

None of my business. But when we were, when he met us, like, he was super cool to us. And even though he was at that meet where Anastasia bombed out on, you know, he came up to her and he spent a time. There's no cameras. Nobody cares. Yep. He's doing it just because it was the right thing to do.

You went to talk to her. He said, listen, kiddo, you're 14. At that age, I'd never even seen the inside of a gym. Like, you're doing amazing things. And, like, you've got nowhere to go but up from here. Like, it was a really nice moment. Like, you. It would have been nice of actually I'd even like had a chance to film it, but we weren't even trying to.

It wasn't for anything. It was just him, talk to her. And it was just like, as a parent, I'm like, wow, this is like, in hockey terms, this is like the way in Gretzky of our sport coming and talking to my kids. Like, you're not seeing, you know, Connor McDavid come into my Friday night, you know, beer league hockey game. Like, it's like, yeah. It's kind of a wild experience for all of us.

Because I was there for that too. And I, like, I think he made a point of being. spotter for her. Yeah, yeah. He went out for your deadlift. The funniest thing was when he went to go give her a handoff for bench press and she yelled at him and he just like jumped right back. And this agent does not like a handoff on her bench brush.

She wants to fill a whole friend. It was kind of funny. I really don't like handoffs and I wasn't really thinking of it. Yeah, I wasn't really thinking of it. And I was just like, no, don't touch it. I mean. And then, go ahead, Steve.

Oh, and then, you know, even people like, you kind of take for granted because he's local, but like somebody like Justin Zaudl. Yep. Who comes up every time we see him, he makes a point of coming up to Anastasia and just saying, yeah, like, you can see the progress you've made, but here's a couple of things that might help you. And it's just like, you know, he doesn't know what's that. Like, you know, this guy's got a bunch of his own people and he's also got his own things he's training for. But people, when you see people that are like that strong who are also that good of a person,

it's just pretty awesome. Like, you know, most recently we got to spend some time with, you know, John Hack and Christy Hawkins, like arguably two of the best power lifters of all time. Yep.

And it's just like, they're also super cool people. Like, Christie coming up and talking to Anastasia and just being like, hey, this is awesome what you're doing, like keep it up.

And then even like Big Jess, who's also a crew, Jessica Bittner, commenting on Instagram. Hey, keep chasing those records and like, Yeah. It's just kind of cool to see, like, the top people being encouraging to, like, the next generation. And you've had somebody over to your house to help your bench. Yes.

Yeah, we had actually kind of local to us. We're fairly lucky again. A woman named Shannon Terry, who competes in the IPF and is a Canadian champion bench presser. And she came over and did a workout in our gym, and that was a pretty awesome experience. Yes, it was. it's just just neat to see how normal the people at the top are but also their habits aren't normal right

so we can kind of learn from them and say you know like if we want to be serious this is how they do things and maybe this is things we can learn from right when you were at the Arnold like I said you kind of mentioned you didn't make the eagle which kind of sucks that was tough we were really looking forward to that but unfortunately you know how they're they meet school. Like sometimes, you know, a lot of times they run over.

It's the way she goes, the way she don't go, but it's the way she goes. But luckily at the expo, we got to meet, like, obviously, some pretty cool people. I've met, in Estabstated, met Tanner and Tommy a few times now. And some of the crew. Yeah, some crew, I hope you met. Did you meet Huck Finn? Yes, I did. How was that? Um, you don't...

That's a good way to word it, yeah. I'm not going to lie, I had to go up to him pre-vathom before my my little daughter went and talk to him, just see what MOTU is in? Yeah. Okay, so my daughter's going to come over. Do not lift her up.

I don't know it's dark in here, but she's 15, so just understand. Hey, they'll let's just about anyone in here. So then you've been powerlifting now for three or four years. Yeah. And then you, came over to my house

and we started doing some crazy stuff so tell me about what that did for you and what our next steps are honestly like the first time I started doing strong man stuff I loved it it was like don't get me wrong

I love power lifting but sometimes I just like it's better to have some varieties and just being able to try out a bunch of new stuff and like with things I didn't think I'd be able to lift it was a really great experience I loved it and honestly I love strongman in general like it's a lot less technical and I can just kind of you know try not try not to hurt yourself but you can pretty much get it up in any way it's still typical but it's a little but less rules intensive. Yeah.

That's a good way to word it. Yeah. You still need to be technically sound to be able to not injure yourself. Yeah. Right, but there's less commands, I think is a better way of it. It's a fun kind of almost more practical way

to use your strength that you've gained in the gym, right? Yeah. You know, you came over for Strongman Sunday. I think it was the first one we did. My kids joined us. Evan was there. And it was the first time I put some dinnies in your hand. Yeah.

Yes. And ever since then, I think you have fallen in love with the idea of the Denny's. Oh, yeah. I love Denny's tones. Very much. And I've made Anastasia this, you know, this deal. If you're ever strong enough to be able to lift the real ones, we will arrange for it. Yeah, that's pure, that's pure. And you know what? She has a pretty, she has someone pretty, pretty much there to learn from. so that's not impossible. That is our friend,

our friend Laurie McDougal, who is currently competing at the Faye 4 World Strengths in Norway. We were at her house pretty recently, and Estabh wasn't feeling that great that day, so didn't really, we didn't really, and I was also dead, so I didn't really push myself much that day.

Yeah, that's awesome. But, yeah, like, so a strong man, think is your next pursuit? Yes. That being said, we still have WRP, Canada, Nationals coming up in November, so it's, we're having fun with a bit of everything. Yeah, and, you know, if I, my advice means anything, I've said it before and I'll say it again, every strongman can power lift, but not every power lifter can strongman. So as long as you just maintain your strength, I don't think

you'll have much of a problem with the WRP meet. Oh yeah. Just an opportunity to expand upon your record. Yes, and somebody that was new to crew. Shout out, I think, let me get his name. It is. Adrian is there. And this one is Jake. He's from Windsor.

So he just joined crew, and then he sent me a message. And he's like, he was the one that I said, put your Instagram in your bio so we can stock you. And then so I followed him. And then about half an hour later, he goes, hey, I'm listening unpaid and underrated. You're from Hamilton? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, I grew up in Ancaster.

I live in Windsor. He's like, is there like a strong Ontario crew? And I was like, well, let me tell you something, Jake. The reason I bring that up is I think between me and Steve and Cam, we pretty much have most strongman implements covered. So, you know, as long as we. kind of cycle through those three. He's a bit far in Windsor, but I think he might be interested in

coming to one or two of our things as well. And, yeah, I know it probably isn't much used to you, but that log that Cam has, I think he's bringing that to me today. Ah, nice. So we're going to get to buy a tarp on Tuesday, and we're going to have my outdoor strength gym ready.

Nice. Is that a permanent acquisition or is that a borrowing? Yeah, it's just for the summer. He essentially messaged me and said, I'm not going to use this again. this summer, do you want it? He's like, I'll bring you the circus or the log. And I'm like, obviously, I want the log. Nice.

Right? Like, there's, duh. I was playing with a nice little, like a wooden log that was built by one of the stolen friends there. That was there last time. And I was lifting that. That's only about 90 pounds, though, right? No, this one was 153 empty.

Okay, so that was a bigger one? This was a different one. It was beautiful. So what is your fate besides Denny's? what is your favorite strongman pursuit um that's a great question

I love like in general lifting um you got that you got that bug yeah I love I love lifting stones

I'm not too too good at shouldering them yet but I want to get better at it but no I feel like just And bag over bar, you seem to... Yeah, bag over bar too. That's another good one.

That's a good cardio workout too, bag over bar for reps. Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. Like, it's so fun, but when you're done, you're like, I'd have a nap. I'd have a nap. You know what? We're not the type that it's going to go for, like, run a marathon, but that kind of cardio I can get down with. Yeah, yeah, me too. And, you know, there's...

I told a little bit of the... this story after your meet. I mentioned earlier that sometimes I'm the ying to your dad's yang when it comes to your training. And, you know, I kind of mentioned to you that like your third attempt, like, go to fail. Like, this is the place to do something that you're going to fail. And I think you did something like a 20 pound jump or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in our last meet, which was ABS Canada, that was kind of a fun experience. And after her second, I lift. everything was going great. She'd already tied her own personal best for a total. And I just kind of went up to her and said,

that moved fast. What are you thinking? Little jump or big jump? That's the only thing I told her. I didn't put numbers in her head. And she just immediately looked at me, didn't even blink, didn't hesitate, big jump. Let's go.

Okay, big jump it is. Yeah, I don't, you know, sometimes your dad's a little conservative on what you should do. and then every once in a while I'll just be like, go up a bit. And, uh, and,

and, you know, sure Steve might not like that I do that sometimes. That's fair, but I mean, especially leading up to competitions. Oh, yeah. What I do is get injured, but. Yeah.

And a lot of the times, like, you know, when we were at the stone thing and I lifted up those, um, those, the, the, the, the,

the, the, over 200 per hand. Like, even then I looked right at stage. I said, no, you're not doing this today.

Do I think she should try? Yes. but like that was not the day but it's just it's always been one of those fun things where Steve's like, don't go any higher and then I'll look at him and I'll look at you and I'll be like, you got more.

And, you know, the first time you're at my place and lifted up my rock, I think was that the first time you've ever picked up a rock like that? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to be happy to know, Joey,

that I said for this summer until October, the leash is off. Do go crazy. Let's go. I like saying I have a little bit of credit in your kind of stone journey. Back in the second half of September, then in October, we'll be a little bit more into the serious goose mode when it comes time to training for nationals again.

Of course. You don't want to mess around with nationals. Okay. Is that all we want to talk about your awesome lifting career? I just wanted to mention the one thing. That was kind of exciting for me. was that we got to compete together. Yeah.

Yep. I mean, how awesome is that to be able to do the same competition with your kid? And then last year or two, even at their first Canadian national, she did. My wife, Sandy, also got to compete. And so Stasia and Sandy are basically each other's emotional support people. And so for those two to be able to compete together at a national championships like that, and both to come away with medals was kind of exciting. experience for both of them. And even for me, so I'm basically the only one in the house,

unfortunately, that didn't qualify for that. But I got to be the kind of the coach for both of them, and I was like an extremely proud moment for me to be, you know, at least a small part of it. And then obviously you were the MC of that. So that was just kind of a fun experience for all around. Yeah. It was nice seeing you there, actually. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I had no clue what I was walking into. I got a message saying, hey, can you MC this weekend? And I was like, well, I bought tickets to something in kitchen or like later in the day. But yeah, I can come for some of that. And oh, by the way, it's nationals. I was like, oh, that's fun. Yeah, that was really neat. We met John at that one, right, from Sarnia powerlifting. And then that's where his crew

journey started because he's like, oh, I listen to Massonomics all the time. He's like, I didn't know you were that, Joey, when you were there. next day he's on he's on the discord right and uh actually i really liked his episode too on here yeah yeah john is john's a really cool guy i think it's his truck that has my dulf dungeon sticker oh okay yeah and i don't know maybe i'm maybe i'm biased but i like all of the ontario crew episodes yeah there's something about those that i really enjoy maybe just because i know the people personally but it does at a level yep uh Okay, it says here that you are really into artistry.

I don't know if you know this, but Morgan just did her first art crawl. So, yeah. You guys should, you guys could talk about that until the cows go home. But like, what kind of art do you do? What's your favorite mode, median method? I usually just do like casual, just like pencil and paper, nothing too fancy there.

But no, I mostly just, it's kind of on and off, but I do, I do love to draw and make art a lot. And like, my dad has mentioned that I made the, like, logo for our gym.

Which we can see on Jim Radar, I believe. Yeah. And then a lot of times you just start off doodling and see when it becomes Yeah, I never really start with a set plan. I just kind of doodle and hope for the best. I'm sure if you ever wanted to, you could get more into it like that, because that's what Morgan does. You're literally wearing something she hand drew.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, I put this on today and knowing that. And it's worth mentioning, too, that Morgan's been pretty cool every time they come up there and giving her, like, art books and, like, I don't know. I'm sure you're aware of this, but Morgan's pretty awesome. I'm a bit fan of hers for some reason. Yeah, not a lot of people know that the unpaid and underrated shirt is literally hand-drawn.

Like she did a sketch, and then she moved it to her iPad, and lit every line on that shirt was done by hand. The only thing that wasn't was the names of the cities. Right? So the... Pretty impressive if that was hanging me wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it would be. The front logo, the geese on the back, everything was...

all done by hand, so that's really cool. Geez, where are we at? 12-17. Okay, I'm going to hit you with... We already talked about your cadets. This is interesting. They like art, tattoos, and piercings. I don't think you have any.

Do you have a tattoo that I somehow don't know about? No. No. No, I have an interest in them, and I might get into tattooing, but I don't have any right now. So you mean tattooing other people? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I would definitely be into getting one myself, but I am also 16. Yep. So are we breaking news to your dad right now? At 43, I don't think I'm responsible enough to pick something that would last forever, okay? You get a little bit of time. I mean, but if you look at me, all my tattoos are stupid except for like two. So that's interesting. Are you into birds as much as maybe me and your dad are?

You mean government drums? Birds aren't real. If it flies and spies. Um, I do, I do like birds, but I can't say I'm educated in any way about birds. I just, I just think they're cute and I love to go bird watching. That's where it starts. Yeah. That's where.

And then suddenly you're like me. And you're just like, I know that bird. I know that bird. I know that bird. I know that bird. Last night, yesterday I was driving down Whitechurch here and a barn swallow pretty much tried to kamikaze my windshield. and

Morgan's like that's awful I'm like well it missed but it was close enough I could tell it was a barns solo and that's where it starts

um D&D did you listen to our D&D episode I didn't know no we'll let Steve decide if that's appropriate but how much D&D are you into

um I I'm in two campaigns right now What? Um, and I also help one of the DMs with, he, he runs at least four. I'm in two of them. And I help him, like, with the world building for both the one that I'm in and, um, one of his, he has a vampire campaign. Is that, is that D&D or Vampire the Masquerade?

No, it's it's it's D&D, but it's vampire based Okay He likes to he likes to kind of mix worlds He has like a strict stick to D&D rules And then he has the other three are just like Okay, I'm going to do this And I'm not expecting this to last more than two weeks Kind of campaign

But one of them is two years old Oh my We uh what I don't remember what episode it was might have been episode, might have been the three-year episode. We did a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with me, Keith and Nate, and it was set in Aberdeen, South Dakota,

at the Lift Hard-Livisi, and it was probably one of our funniest episodes, I think. That sounds like my nightmare. You, I, you know, at the end of it, I was like, this was mostly improv. This had very little to do with D&D. It was more on the play rather than the rules. So, yeah, it, there are some,

inappropriate conversations, but, you know, if Steve says it's okay, because you listen to it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so if he says it's okay, you might want to give that one to listen for a good laugh. Okay. I mean, he's in high school. She's probably not heard anything, but there's probably nothing she hasn't heard before. Yeah. I would say if you hear something, you don't know, don't Google it.

Okay. Normally we ask for, like, funny or embarrassing stories. but like you're 16 so I obviously don't want to give away too much tell me about lifting the stone in Lori's barn that was hilarious well on this podcast we always want to talk about poop stories oh no we have one on every episode because you know all adults have have shit themselves at least once I know you didn't but like this was one of the funniest minutes

It was kind of funny. Yeah. You don't need to be embarrassed, but it was very funny. Um, I don't know, there's not, there's not too much to say. I was like, oh, you know, let's just pick up a rock. And then I got it about halfway up. And like, it was like the smallest, most awkward, too. And it's in a barn that echoed.

It was horrible. So the thing is, nobody knew. And I was standing right next to you. And you looked at me with the biggest smile on your face. Steve has a picture of that smile. You're still holding the rock. And you went, I shit myself. And then you dropped the rock and bolted away.

No one to say. It was, I was like, why are you smiling? You're just like, I shit myself. And you just bolted. It was very good. To be clear, I don't think she shot herself. No, no, I don't think she did either. But the smile.

And they just like the whisper to me. I didn't know what to say. I panicked. And it's just, it was the first thing that came to mind. You know what that means? That means you were putting in a hard enough effort. Yep. Sometimes that's just how she goes.

Okay. Let's move into FMK. Steve, do you want to explain FMK? Sure. you can use like tickle, Mary kill or whatever, like it. It's up to you what language we want to use. So, the easiest way is there's three options.

M is Mary. K is kill. So, I mean, marry something obviously like... Long term. Yeah. I could live with this long term. Kill? Yeah, I can do without that.

And F is, it's fun. So we're just going to have fun with the third option. Yeah. Yeah, we'll have fun with it once. Okay. Okay, fun, merry, kill. God damn it. Fun, merry kill.

Ice caps, diet Pepsi, and apple juice. Oh. Oh, that's... I'm going to definitely marry Diet Pepsi. I have one. It's probably a little unhealthy, how much I have. I have one right now. Oh, yeah.

That's how those bottles end up in my gym. Pretty much. Because nobody here drinks pop. We're going to probably kill Apple jeans. And. Ice caps are fun. Yeah, ice caps are fun. But you need to be made with chocolate of milk.

They're really good. with chocolate. So for people who may not have a Tim Horton's, like a majority of our listeners are American, we have some overseas listeners. Do you want to explain what an ice cap is? Um, it's like a slushy version of ice

of, uh, no, what, hello. Um, a slushy version of ice coffee. It's amazing and I love it. Um, but I usually get it made with, um, either milk or chocolate milk because of the cream sucks. Cream is awful.

I don't put cream in anything. Speaking of that, I had Tanner's coffee today. I can let him know. It was delicious. I did it with a poor. I'm exceedingly jealous. I did it with a pour-over method. I might need to contact him because I would like to try some myself.

I have to buy some off of him. I'm 15 minutes away. Like, I can just save you some. All right, well, let's pause this and come on down now. Okay. Okay. Now we have another game that we play with everybody. It's called Mount Rushmore. Steve, can you explain Mount Rushmore? Yeah, he's going to give you a topic and you need to pick what are your four favorite things,

the four best things to kind of that encapsulate that topic. Right. Yeah. You know what the real Mount Rushmore is, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you're essentially picking four things to bury into a mountain forever. Yeah. I am going to go with one that I enjoy talking about all the time. Our listeners get either annoyed or excited.

Mount Rushmore of Metal Band. Oh, hmm. That's a hard one. That's the point. That's why we don't give you these in advance either, because we want to see the wheel spinning. We're going to watch the sausage be made. Considering your playlist and consistent,

of every metal band in history. It's not every metal band in history. It's just... 93% of them? Maybe. Sorry, it's not that deep of the topic. It's that deep. I want to say the first one is...

I'm going to go with typo negative. Yes. Um... Um, yeah. You know, what's funny about typo. negative. Big Gary,

he actually mailed me two DVDs of their live performances. And I got to watch one, but I was thinking of giving them back to Cam to take to Big Gary at the Lift Hard Live Easy. And if I'd known, you probably could have had them to watch. He was at one of those shows.

Nice. Luckily YouTube exists. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But I was like, oh, this is my opportunity to get those back to him. So it's funny you said typo negative the day I was like, oh, I can get those out. Well, now you can remember to give him to Cam. Yep. All right, what do you got next?

I don't know. I like, none of my, I don't know. I, I'm, I love all music. And honestly, I don't know, like, metal bands. It's really hard to choose.

like that's the point that's the point what if we expand it to all genres all genres does that make it harder or easier yeah typo negative

probably going to go with barely human um I have to slip in incubus um and then in their defense they're uh they're honest about who they are they want to be a metal band but it just tells more to not be i've been on an incubus kick lately yeah i've uh the the one album the uh science no the the one that has uh floating down the river song i've been on that album um and then i think my last one is

is garbage. Cool. I was a big garbage fan when I was young. Yep, yep, yep. Big Shirley Manson fan. Yeah, still am. I don't know how familiar I am

with their new music, but those first two to three albums, I definitely... I mostly listened to the first two to three. Yeah, you don't need to go much farther than that. Yeah, love the band, but you don't really need to go much farther. Actually, I heard heard in an interview

once talking about System of a Down. and because she's like really Scottish, she calls them Sastum of a Dund. And now that's what I call them. That's true. Like, yeah, we're going to put on Sastom of Adun. All right. So that is Mount Rushmore. We should probably do the last affiliates, which are Barbell Rescue, Home GymCon.

If you don't have your tickets for Home GymCon by now, I don't know what's going on. They're not listening, not paying attention, or you're not going. Get your tickets. Use code on page 10%. Barbow rescue, code unpaid. I've got one. Steve, I think you have a barbell rescue? Actually, I don't.

Okay, well, I can attest that I have one. I've used one of yours anti-cams and they're pretty sweet. Yep, yeah. Use them for cleaning. I use them for spreading oil on the three and one on the barbells because in a basement things gather patina real quick. And use code unpaid there. And also don't forget to put your gym on home radar, update often, and get on the

leaderboard. Okay. Our final game is unpaid or an underrated. Okay. Okay. Essentially, I'm going to give you three to six topics. Normally, Keith and I would do three each, but because it's just me, people get tired of hearing me ask questions.

And you have to tell me whether this thing is unpaid, which means it sucks because nobody wants to be unpaid, or if it's underrated and more people should be aware of it and like it. Steve, did you actually want to do any? We'll see, you can start. Okay, unpaid or underrated TikTok dances. Unpaid. Yeah, unpaid.

Why is that? I feel like there's way too many and way too many trends. I personally am not really on that side of TikTok all that much, but when they do pop up, I just kind of, cringe a little bit and scroll just feels a little bit too manufactured yeah if you're doing it like a lot of things that I see is

like if you're just dancing in the back and you're doing like um like an outfit of the day kind of thing then like that's nice but if you're just kind of doing it for the dance I don't know well I don't disagree we used to be a proper country where our trends were just for the stupidity

like planking or... Yeah, I like the stupid ones or the fun one. Yeah. Just kind of like, especially with like the dances that are like copy paste of other ones. I don't make them... There's a whole documentary too on how that was exploitative of children and influencers and run by a cult. So, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm with you on that one. unpaid or underrated art crawl Um Have you been to art crawl? I have I've been to a few Um

I was Super crawl too Yeah and the Supercrawl That's a separate beast Um It's underrated Most people Like go to the super crawl

And not the art crawl Um Um Um If there's not as many people going to the art crawl, then there's not as many people signing up to, like, be a vendor at the art crawl. So it's just kind of like a never-ending cycle there.

I feel like it's underrated. The one that we just did on Friday was super crawl busy. Oh, yeah. It was awful. Nice. Okay, never much. Yeah. Well, it was only awful because I don't go to them.

Yeah. You know, for those of them wondering what art crawl is, is in Hamilton, there is a street called James Street that used to be primarily art galleries. And what some of the artists got together and said, well, what if we just opened our doors late on the first Friday of every month to just let people walk up and down James Street and come into our art galleries? And that's how it started. And I started going about that time. Yeah. And then now it's like vendors line up and down the street.

people can go show off their art. It's starting to also turn into a lot of tarot readers and people selling thrift stuff, which is weird. That's not art. It shouldn't be there. But it is, whatever it is. But it was railed. And I had two children to chase, and it was unpleasant.

So that kind of thing is my nightmare, but I know Anastasia and Sandy love it. So a lot of times they'll go down to things like that, and I'll just kind of hang out behind it and just kind of, not beat security, kind of make sure everything's good and just worry about all any potential issues so that way all they have to worry about is having a good time and when i was there like i was kind of the same way i was telling morgan like take the fanny pack never show your cash do not leave your phone on the

table like i was all that but it was a it was a generally safe space yeah yeah no it's always it's always pretty good yeah so i'm just overly cautious type of person me too uh especially when it comes to downtown because i hate it downtown unpaid or underrated Loud people on public transit Unpaid Agreed No druthers needed Yeah

You don't need to Like I take public transit Pretty much everywhere I go I walk a lot And like I go to a lot of places And the worst thing you can You can see Or the worst thing you can be is a loud person on public transit

it's just it's and there's I remember there's two types there's two types of loud people the one blasting music out of their speaker on their phone like an idiot don't do that or the one that's on their speaker phone yelling into their phone

to somebody for the entire like hour long trip nobody likes those either especially like a lot of things that I see is when they're on speaker phone and they have their camera on and you're just kind of like trying not to be in their like back background.

Yeah. That's the worst part. Like, get headphones if you're going to be on FaceTime on the bus. Like, figure it out. Yeah. Okay. Steve, do you have any? Hmm.

Unpaid or underrated. Bulgarian split squads. Ooh. Underrated. Really? Yeah. Why is that? They suck so much, but they work so good.

So they're basically like the bucklies of exercises. Yeah. Yeah. Like, both hate them and loves them so much. But I feel like, I feel like I could never say unpaid for them. They're definitely underrated. I'm that way with good mornings. Now that I have the SSB bar, I'm trying to do those for my posterior.

And it's like, I hate this, but I am not going to stop doing it. That's, I'm actually sorry. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but going back to what you were asking earlier, what's your favorite lift or what's your favorite thing to train? Kind of the opposite of that would be our favorite thing to train is the thing we're the worst that because it's like it kind of sucks having weak links. So while doing stuff that we don't necessarily enjoy in the moment is typically the thing that we're always focusing on the most because like if we're weak at something,

and it's like, okay, well, that's not happy. Yeah. Yeah. I, you, you have a phrase that I use all the time. You actually have a lot of phrases that I use all the time. But it's, I can't get out of it. Might as well get into it. Well, that's actually, I got that from her grandfather.

Very good. I love that. I use it a lot. Use it at work. Use it in the gym. Yeah, it's like one of those. Well, if I got to fix my deadlift lockout, I'm doing block pulls. Do I like doing block pulls?

No. But I'm going to do them. They're not going to do themselves, so they might as well. Yep. Okay, I think you passed unpaid and underrated, which means we can air this episode. Wait. Okay.

This is normally a time where we allow you to ask the hosts anything or play any games with us that you want to do. Do you have any questions for Joey? Um, I was not, I was not prepared for this. That's okay. Um, oh, I'm not sure. I don't, I don't think.

I have any questions. I mean, the entire purpose of this was like we've been hosting this podcast for so long that people that have been listening for a long time probably have questions

about stuff we've said in the past or even the reason I started doing it was because I'm waiting for somebody to ask me something that I know that I'm not supposed to know. Right? Because you can imagine

talking to Tanner as much as I do. I've got sometimes some information for stuff. I got a question for you then. I was just going to finish before he asked the question. But the point is, you talk to me all the time. So any questions you have for me, you can probably just ask. So it's kind of unfair to you to spring that on you.

Go ahead, Steve. Well, having you just competed in the stones of strength or whatever, what's next for Big Joy in terms of competition? I assume it's not a powerlifting meet. It is unlikely to be a powerlifting meet. I can tell you that. I have been keeping my eye out on Strongman Corp. Yeah.

You know, I think I would like to do a genuine strongman meet, but the real problem comes down to my weight class does not exist. Yeah, that's the one thing about Strongman is there's not really weight classes. There is, unless you're... Well, not necessarily as defined as a pound. Yeah, unless you're... Yeah, not as defined, but like, unless I'm signing up to open, but then I'm competing with guys that are three, four hundred pounds.

Yeah, they're not going to have like 40 different stones for, okay, well, for Masters, 65 kilogram, we're going to do this. Masters, 100 kilogram, we're going to do this. So I would end up being Masters under 72 kilograms, which I might as well be competing with the women at that point, to be honest with you, because like, that's what, so that's been my struggle. Right. And also, like, even if you look at the stones of strength, I was the smallest guy. And that obviously meant like I zeroed a bunch of stuff because like, yeah, I'm not going to beat the 300 pound guy. Sorry, it's just never going to happen. Yeah, because I mean, the 300 pound guy could also be like not newer, but they're, you know, the old saying goes there's no replacement for displacement.

Yeah. And that's even one thing too is like I was a little bit hesitant myself about should I even do this? Like, I'm all going to go. And then, you know what? as long as I can do half the events, I think it'll be fun to try one and then kind of go from there. And you already did your one, so that makes sense.

Yeah, and, and, you know, I would like to do, there's things I want to do. I want to do a Conan's week. I have seen people, I've seen people do them and like pass out and I'm like, I want to do that hard thing. I would really like to do the Hercules hold. I just saw Lori was doing that over in Norway.

It looks cool, too. but I bet it sucks because it's like my grip is awful right so yeah yeah there are things I want to do but ultimately like my weight class would just put me under anything possible I'd end up being like novice masters under 72

it's like that doesn't exist yeah so once we well we'll see how November goes if you end up making the trip with us whether it be to kind of help coach or help or even take part of yourself yeah yeah plus that one's unsanctioned so like if something happens where I bomb out, then it doesn't matter.

It's unsanctioned, right? Yeah, yeah, just work for fun. Yeah, and there is probably, I'm, like, more than likely coming with you, coming with you. Knowing that you're going is really the, am I going by myself? Hell no. But if you're going, I'm probably going to go. Yeah, I mean, Anastasia and I really got to compete together in powerlifting. I think it would be fun to compete together in Strongman.

Yeah. Yep, I agree. I've only got a limited amount of time before she's beating me, so I better enjoy that. like them. All right. Yeah, we'll get you up here to try, well,

you've already tried a Viking press now, like a real one, but if you ever, you know, if I had to say, Anastasia, you had any, um,

kind of weak lengths in Strongman, it is your overhead. And, Viking Press will take a lot of the technicality out of working your overhead. So I think, um,

coming to play with mine, or even just out of the barbell, like, um, uh, the barbell just out at shoulder length would really help you as well. Yeah, funny enough today, and about one hour from now,

we're going to be working on some overhead. Yes. Overhead is good. Get those big lats, get those big shoulders. Absolutely. Well, I had fun, and here you guys thought it was going to be the shortest episode. We're actually right about where I wanted to be, about two hours. Nice.

Sweet. Yep. Give me time to have a shower before Cam gets here, because I am awfully smelly. as we lead out, tell us where we can find you guys. Again, on Instagram is the best place for me. It's at Huck Steve. And for Anastasia, it's at Huck 5335.

We're pretty, but once a week we'll post a bit of a training update. Mostly it's just posting stupid stuff. And on the Discord, you are actually at Crazy Cat Lady. If you type in at Big Steve, you will not find Steve. I have memorized that for tagging you. Nice. And you are Big Canadian Anastasia on the Discord. Yeah.

And don't forget moving mounds on Jim Radar. The radar, yeah. Up days to come. You can find me at Joey underscore Mlesco, M-L-E-C-Z-K-O. On Instagram, that's about the only place to find me on the Discord. I'm big Joey. I'm sure if you're listening, you know that by now. And I am the Dilf dungeon in...

Jim Radar. We do have an Instagram, unpaid and underrated podcast. We have our website, Unpaid Internpodcast.com. But most importantly, try and engage with us or the episode

in the unpaid and underrated chat in the Massonomics Discord. It's under the crew chat right under competitions and supporting members. And with that, we'll see you next Tuesday.