Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 139 - Garrett Fear & Michael Baxter

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

Garrett Fear is an International Elite Powerlifter from South Bend, Indiana, totaling 1851 lbs at 211 lb bodyweight with a 520 wilks. At just 21 years old, he was able to pull himself out of drug addiction and find purpose through lifting. Michael had a similar upbringing to Garrett, and was able to start 4 businesses since he’s turned his life around, get his first mortgage at 19 years old, and open up East Race Muscle, a gym based out in South Bend, Indiana. Michael and Garrett saved each other’s lives through lifting. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

I remember when I was lactating for the first time. I remember it. I remember my first lactation. Did you force it out? Yeah, I did. I was playing with it and squeezing it, and liquid came out, and I got real scared and told my dad. How in the hell are you supposed to bench 600 pounds when your titties are lactating? I don't ever expect to bench 600 pounds.

Oh. Yeah. I'd be cool with consistently benching over 400. 350. Did you know that everybody benches 350? Everybody in high school benched 350. Everybody claims to bench 350. Oh, yeah.

Like when we go to trade shows, we go to the Arnold and we go to these different shows and we'll ask somebody, we'll size them up for a slingshot and try to see what slingshot's appropriate for them. And every guy is 350. And then I'm like, well, what is 350 on the bar? And they're like, well, it's, I'm like, you never did 350. Because 350 is actually very complicated to get on the bar. I did high school. You gotta do a lot of math.

Oh yeah. 350 pounds on the bar. 350 is a lot of plates. A kid in high school one time told me he benched 326. I was like, oh, like competitively powerlift? He's like, yeah. 350 pounds. 350 is a lot of plates. A kid in high school one time told me he benched 326. I was like, oh, like, competitively powerlift? He's like, nah. I'm like, where the fuck are the 11 pounds? I'm like, oh.

Yeah, how'd you get this weird mix of weights? Good for you. 315 or 325, not 326. Not 326. Eclipse. Oh, where'd you compete? So, what, you know, we've had a lot of people on here you know in the past of we've had like scientists doctors and all kinds of different people uh that have come

through and we've had some experts on like digestion and nutrition and and i heard you guys talking in the break room and it sounds like you guys are experts when it comes to poop and so i have a i have a very serious poop question. And I think Andrew is going to have some follow-up as well. Cause he's got, he's got worse problems than I do. Oh, wow. Yeah. I have the answer.

I'm glad to hear that. I think that you guys will be able to help me quite a bit. So I, I do my business in the morning. Like I wake up pretty early and, um, it's probably about an hour after I awake, but it doesn't really matter if I eat food or not. It's just an hour after I'm awake, I have to poop. So I know this. So I wake up in preparation for this and I try not to, uh, have to, uh, shit when I come here. So I try to take care of business at home and I poop and my whole body include my brain. Everybody's involved. And we have this

discussion. Okay. Like we're done, right? Like everybody's good. Like we agreed. We sat down, we took the time to take a dump. Um, and we'll take extra time to try to force anything extra out in case there's extra there. And it's like, Nope, it seems like everything's sealed up. You're good to go, buddy. Stand up, clean everything up, get out of there. Maybe I cook or maybe I, you know, uh, start prepping to, to leave the house. I'll get some, uh, food, uh, prepared for the day, load it into my car. And I'm like, yep. All right. Time to go. And I'll start my car and I'm like yep all right time to go and I'll start my car and I'll be like oh my god I have to shit again yep so the second wave comes in and Andrew and I just been uh made aware that that's what it's called it's called the second wave and and I don't know what to do about this second wave how to handle it how to deal with it but it slows down my day and it makes

me late all the time for stuff. So you, you, you perform the second wave when you get to work then, or do you go back into the driveway, get out of the car? It's an emergency. Yeah. I gotta go. I'm like holding. Stop at the gas station, 7-Eleven. I don't think holding your butt cheeks helps, but I hold my butt cheeks as I'm running to

the door. Yeah. It's holding your butt cheeks. I feel like it's more like a, it's a butthole flexing. Like you have to figure out. There's a lot more to it than just physically with your hands squeezing your cheeks together.

Yeah. Okay. I've never done that one. I've never tried to do that. Andrew had some like a technique. You got to keep the knees bent a little bit, you said, right? Yeah.

And then you can't like, if it hits you, if you run in the house, as soon as it hits you, you're just asking for it. So you kind of wait. So you can't go into a full sprint you wait for the pressure to kind of relieve itself and then you take off yeah that's because usually if you time it right by time it starts to build up again that's when you're sitting down and just fucking squirting everywhere and see the second wave is annoying to me because when i'm preparing, to take my normal timed poops, you know, I pull golf clash out,

log in, make sure all my rewards are up to date, you know, pick the proper, you know, golf course that I want to golf on, get everything nice situated, get my dude wipes off to the side.

And, and yeah, I use wipes, man. I have like five years of powerlifting hemorrhoids i just can't do i can't do tp like we said on the podcast yeah oh yeah i do have to do baby wipes actually i had so after the bodybuilding show that i did everyone told me of like the catastrophic like shits that i'm gonna take and they were right it was crazy because you go from not eating to

you know eating whatever you want. And it was, it was pretty bad, but I couldn't believe what a bitch I was. I was so sensitive to like a regular toilet paper. Yeah. I was like, we gotta, we gotta stop off and we gotta get. So I used my wife's like stuff that she uses to remove makeup. She's like, I think this will work. And I was like, are you sure? I'm like, I don't want to put weird stuff up there. And she's like, yeah, go for it. And she's a genius. think this will work. And I was like, are you sure? I'm like, I don't want to put weird stuff up there.

And she's like, yeah, go for it. And she's a genius. It saved my life. That's a good, that's a good. I was in a bind. I was in a tough spot. Like it was bad. I'm probably just going to switch.

Now I travel with that. Cause you can get like, you can't always get baby wipes at the airport, which I had to find out the hard way too, but you can get those makeup things just about anywhere. On my life. I shouldn't have gave that away for free.

I should not have given that away for free. That should have been a... Yeah, on my life, I brought my little gym bag here to train and I made sure that the only accessory I brought with me was the travel size of wipes, just in case I... Not just in case. Let's be honest. I'm going to poop twice while I'm here.

Because the water's turned back on, right? I'm going to switch twice because I'm sick of my finger breaking through the toilet paper. That can happen. Yeah. It's happened to me a lot. And powerlifting, too. I mean, before you really start eating and meal prepping and eating all the extra food because you're lifting all the weights. You're used to maybe one, maybe two poops a day. I've always been like a six

time a day shitter. That's what I'm saying. My whole life. And they're never the ghost poops. High frequency. Yeah, they're never the ghost poops. They're the ones that you wipe and wipe and wipe. It's a color crayon. Yeah, you're wiping a marker. Wiping an Expo marker. That's what I would say. It's Expo marker shit.

Yeah, exactly. How much more could possibly be in there? you're wiping a marker wiping an expo marker that's what I would say it's expo marker shit yeah exactly so how much more could possibly be in there what's happening so wipe PR wipe wipe

well I guess we learned so far the more you eat the more you poop the more you poop yep so we're getting we're getting somewhere

I think people have known that for a couple hundred years but we can say we came out of that the old beans the old beans song when you were a kid.

Beans, beans. The more you eat, the more you toot. What is it? What is something like that? Yeah, but it's the more you- Beans means the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. Yeah, but it's the more you eat,

the more you poop. The more you poop, the better you feel. Yeah. More food. More poop. Well, let's, I think people listening are probably getting confused because we're getting too scientific.

Yeah. You know, we're getting too scientific. Yeah. You know, we're getting too far into the weeds. So what happened with the water here? I get a call from Smokey. His voice is all shaky and he's like, the water got knocked out. And I'm like, what the hell is he talking about? I'll start the story as we walked in and Jessica wanted to give us our little tour. And she's just like, you guys want to throw axes or shoot bows?

And I was like fucking dumb are we men are we men yeah and so um i had my fiancee kaylee shoot first and then i shot and then mike shoots and so mike his first one hit the target pretty good and the second one um he pulls back and shoots it hits the wood. And then you hear behind somehow behind the board that's there behind the targets. It went through that board and hit the one inch copper pipe. Oh, that's not even an inch. That copper pipe is not. There was a perfect amount of space above and below the arrow in the pipe.

And we hit that wood multiple other times. and none of the arrows went that far. So we think he probably also hit an old hole. And then... I felt terrible. I felt absolutely terrible. Hey, good thing it wasn't a gas line. I was saying... Oh, place blow up.

We broke super tree. It's a good thing the water line was on the outside of the drywall. That was what I was thinking, too, afterwards. If we would have had to bust through the drywall and figure out how to stop that. I mean, I didn't help at all. I'm saying we figure out. I didn't do anything. I tried.

But everybody's so hospitable here. I was like, let me help. Let me pay for it. No, no, it's okay. And then I walk away. That's because it's my money. Yeah, see? That's what I mean. No, it's because everybody's fucking high here i don't want to be i don't want to be that guy mark will pay for it i don't want to be that guy you know i was like they don't know me and

then everybody's like i can't believe this asshole just i'm like i'm sorry you know yeah my wife was like what a terrible shot i was like what an amazing shot that's what i said really i was like about it like we tried we sat there for like four hours We would never hit it. No, that's why I was like Mark probably will think this is badass And it was it was still within like three or four inches of the target It wasn't like it was like I thought it was great It's like I hear this morning and I couldn't the second wave hit me on my drive wave and I was like wow Okay, I got a squat and this is happening. How's this gonna work?

So I had just stay clenched up the whole time wave and i was like wow okay i got a squat and this is happening like how's this gonna work so i had to stay clenched up the whole time that was the hardest leg day that we've had since we started it was because i couldn't shit and honestly it was really bad like now i feel the worst ever like when i said i felt bad yesterday it's happening and the two of you had to hold both of your second wave shits in i honestly i can't live with myself i think every shit i have is like a second wave from the previous shit you could is like a second wave from the previous show you could send us a nice card or letter okay just a nice letter would be nice that'd be yeah that'd be a good place to start okay that's right a letter yeah

uh how'd you guys get into powerlifting he was in it before me so I'll let him go first honestly um I've always been into lifting and and I genetically was not, am not built like a powerlifter. And I was always a good bencher, even when I was quite a bit smaller. Like, I weigh just at 200 pounds now, like 201, 202. And when I started lifting, I weighed about 149 pounds. I was still kind of, like, benching like the 300, the 300 range and stuff, just always a decent bencher. And then I started looking up, you know, powerlifting videos on, on YouTube and, and checking out, you know, all these guys that were, you know, benching all these

enormous amounts of weight. And I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to try to do this just with bench. My very first powerlifting meet I did was a bench only um i think i benched like 323 at like 171 pounds or something like that um and then as like as i evolved i at that meet i saw you know a couple guys dead lifting i thought that's pretty cool you know i want to do that too and uh you know so it evolved from there but honestly, the main thing that got me into it was watching. I had lived at a lot of commercial gyms. And if you go around our area where we live, where the gym that I own is, I was kicked out. What area is that?

In South Bend, Indiana. Yep. Gym's called East Race Muscle. The gym we got kicked out? Are you talking that? In South Bend, Indiana. Yep. Gym's called East Race Muscle. The gym we got kicked out. Are you talking about Charter? All of them. I mean, we were kicked out of every commercial gym. For deadlifting, for yelling, for chalk.

We'd bring our own music. We actually, funny story, when we first met and we were powerlifting at this gym, someone left a note. At the time, before East Race Muscle, we were like Team Huff Fitness. And someone just left a note on the counter that said, Team Huff Fitness, no shirts, loud noises. Then people would leave notes that we were stealing bars because I'd bring my own deadlift bar in.

And so they'd see us walk out with it. And they're like, hey, these guys are stealing bars. Like every night. You just count the bars. At some point, you realize that there's no bars left in the gym, as many bars as we take out. At some point, you realize that there's no bars left in the gym, as many bars as we take out. But I wanted to, like, at that point, there was the powerlifting scene, I guess, in our area.

In the Midwest in general was nonexistent. Outside of Columbus. Yeah. There was nothing there. And, you know, we started off with just a few guys, more or less as a club, getting together. And it was more on the motivation side because we were able to lift together, build each other up, and, you know. It was a good way of, like, you know, checks and balances among five dudes too. It was a good way just to make sure that, like,

all of us were together in the same place, you know, doing our thing. Right. So we, you know, at one point we were tired of being kind of kicked out or, like, handcuffed at the commercial gyms that we were at. And so I own a couple other businesses in one of our warehouses. Um, we threw up a old shitty deadlift platform, a squat rack and a bench that we built. We built the bench. Yes, that is true story. And, uh, we started lifting in the corner of the warehouse while we, you know, started throwing things up on social media. People

would hit, hit me up and say, Hey, I, you know, I want to come lift lift with you guys is that cool so i moved to the other corner yeah warehouse which is like a big old back storage room and so five people turn into 10 people turn into 15 people and at this point you know i was kind of thinking maybe i have something here you know and shit or get off the pot and so i pulled the trigger on a building and uh we opened up i would say a little over two years ago now um pretty pretty september yeah pretty small group of people that were really into the strength strength training the powerlifting olympic lifting uh side of it and uh it's grown exponentially and to be honest with you um we're the only we're the only powerlifting strength training facility in our area and pretty much the only thing outside of Chicago within a tri-state area. So we get a lot of people that travel just to come train at our facility.

And there ain't shit else to do around there, right? There's not. There's not shit else to do. Drugs? Yeah. Go to the University Park Mall. Yeah. That's about it.

I think they call it fuck all out there. There ain't fuck all to do. There ain't fuck all to do. No, there ain't fuck all to do. But to kind of go back to how me and this little guy got into it together. He was. I can tell that part. I can tell that part.

All right, go ahead. I want to tell that part. So at the time I was like, I was working three jobs and I was fresh out of high school and I wanted to go into physique. And so I was working at a world gym, and I fucking hated it. It was a horrible fucking job. But I also did personal training out of a gym called... Michigan Workout?

Michigan Workout. And so one day I'm in there, and there's guys, two bearded guys. One's fucking fat and bald, and the other one's got tattoos down his arm. And, they're just like fucking, I don't know what they're doing, but they're being fucking loud. And like at the time,

like I thought it was cool. And so I didn't say anything to him, but then there was like a girl in the group at the time. Who's the fat and bald one? Is that Evan? And so, Sorry Evan. He's,

I know he's listening too. He's still fat and bald. He is still fat and bald he is still fat and bald and so um fat bald evan um basically i i lifted with one of the other people in the group and then they invited me to come to like the quote-unquote team training and just kind of been one of those things where ever since like i haven't even though i've moved i live in indianapolis now and he lives in south bend um i've still like East Race Muscle and like that group and like that camaraderie we built. Like, that's my life.

But the path, like Garrett's path has always been the two of us. Yeah. I mean, we, from the second that, the second I met him and, you know, he kind of started putting his trust into me and I learned his background, his story, his life. It definitely reminded me a lot of my own. And so I kind of like took him more under my wing. And I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about with powerlifting. Everything I'd learned was. What's the age difference between you two?

He's 34 and I'm 21. Okay, there we go. Yeah. And so everything that I was learning was just absorbing everything I possibly could. So I was trying to teach him based off of limited knowledge of just lifting and powerlifting. Teenage forums and shit. Yeah.

And I mean, it worked. It really did. At the time, it did. Yeah, definitely. It was... Our bench workouts were purely built off of a bench matrix that we found online. It was in an old muscle and fitness magazine

from like 1983. The first push- push pull i did with them like two days out i like hit a deadlift pr like we didn't know fucking shit that we didn't know anything yeah it was it was fun being from indiana you know that's a hotbed uh for wrestling professional wrestling you either one of you guys into professional wrestling oh i grew up very depressed i think that you can't live in that area without being, uh, into it. Uh, one of my favorite wrestlers of all time is from their ultimate warrior.

Yeah. That's, that's where he, uh, that's where he grew up, but he talked a lot about, you know, living in that area and how he never realized, um, you know, how much depression was a huge part of his life and his family's life. And he didn't know until he got older, until he moved to like Arizona,

he didn't really understand it was strictly just the weather. It's the weather. It's mainly just the weather. It wasn't really necessarily like all these people in this area suck. It was the weather. And it pisses off everybody in the area. It pisses everybody off. And then literally you're not getting the same amount of sunlight.

So there's a physiological things going on inside your body and there's things that are causing, um, this real world, these real world problems, you know, and then, um, on top of that, a lot of times in those kinds of areas, people aren't maybe eating the best that they should. Maybe health is not, uh, That's part of the countries in the Midwest. Yeah. Maybe.

Yeah. Right. Right. There's a lot of, a lot of obesity, a lot of disease. Well, it's hibernation theory. And it's all just piles up on itself. You're staying indoors, you know, five months out of the year. You're not going out and doing things.

Well, and that's the problem too is our winters. But the value also too in the area is placed on a lot of different things. Yeah. Right. Like it's not, it, of course, like everywhere you live, your looks are always, they're always a thing. Right. But it's not like you have to have your shirt off nine months out of the year or whatever.

Yep. You know, it's not, you're not a pool party nine months out of the year. Yeah. So the value of what you can do and what you're able to do is different. I remember I lived in Louisville, Kentucky for a while. And I remember I went to go to a, uh, like a sports bar. I just wanted to get some like wings. I was just, uh, just felt like going to get some

Buffalo wings. And I went to pull in and I could barely even get my car into the parking lot. I'm like, what the fuck's going on here? And it was car racing. It was like the Indianapolis 500 was going on that day. Yeah. And every bar, every sports bar was absolutely insanely packed. Fucking boring that is to watch. I was like, whoa. I was like, this is crazy. And you know, you don't see that out here. I mean, people love car racing all over the world, but like I said, the value is on some different things in the middle of the country. Even the car racing side of it, it's interesting. I'm not into it at all, but even my business partner, they literally

own a fleet of race cars and circle tracks, dirt tracks, stuff like that. That's all the way up in South Bend. It's insane. It's a different culture. I feel like the Midwest is purely built on professional sports teams. It's very diehard in that aspect. Are you a this fan or a that fan?

That's the depiction of your entire personality. It's a political, it's like the political standpoint. Right. And maybe even college, you got Notre Dame, right? Yeah, we had Notre Dame. Notre Dame's literally probably a mile and a half from our gym. Yeah. Yep.

Right. So. And then how has, have you guys been affected by that in your lives? Have you guys been affected by the weather? Have you guys been affected by depression and some of those things? And me, like, I handled things pretty well well depression was never really a problem for me for me it was always more anxiety dwelling on like the future and where i'm gonna be in five ten years so the weather um i was a fucking psycho as a kid i was like i was barefoot all fucking time in the winter

i would bring a trash bag outside on the fucking concrete when the sun was out tan you know tan in the fucking sun that was crazy i don't think i i guess i don't think i don't overanalyze it i guess i mean i was born and raised there so i still live in the same area now i've been i've been able to travel everywhere in in in my life which has been nice and i've got to see a lot of places got to go to a lot of different places, experience a lot of different cultures. And to be honest with you, I'm always excited to go back home. So, um, I think it's where I live. I think it's where I live though, being, you know, an hour and 15 minutes from downtown Chicago, 25 minutes from Lake Michigan, like where I'm at is a little different. There's things around that allow me to kind of

do different things also maybe you have good perspective you know sometimes you got you know you can look at any area that you live in and be frustrated with it yeah indianapolis is the top golf now so that's that's pretty much what it's about and and and living in uh i've seen the growth of where i live to it just exponentially and And that's the same with Indianapolis too. Actually, Indianapolis and Columbus right now are two of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. Yeah, Columbus was, when I lived in Columbus, it was crazy. Yeah, it's just getting crazier. The traffic is.

Yeah, there was traffic everywhere because the city wasn't really prepared to grow with the amount of people that were coming into it. It was wild. Have you guys ever ventured out to Westside Barbell? I've been to Westside Barbell. I have not uh i got invited twice i've not been there yeah it's a little it's a little it's a little scary you know it's a it's a it's definitely a thing to go there what was your experience there i honestly i when i go down to columbus um matt winning has always been kind of the the guy that lets me and my crew come in and and train and stuff i i visited west side and it was more or less, hey, I got to go and wanted to check it out as a powerlifting fan and everything else. Now when you're in the area, you go to Matt's gym.

Oh, yeah. Even this last time, I mean, I actually didn't even – we've gone to the Arnold every year for the past 11 years. And last year was my first time being at the Arnold. And this is the – I didn't even walk into the expo this time. I trained at Ludus Magnus a couple times while I was down there, went to a couple other gyms, did a bunch of different things. At that point, I was more excited to do that than to go walk around elbow to asshole with 300,000 people.

I just stayed in the cage the whole time. I was in the cage the whole time. It's an insane amount of people there. Oh, yeah. It's hard to get around. Did you see Ben Pollack post the Arnold Classic bingo board? No. Oh, dude, it was fucking nice.

It was like nipple guy, like Mark 1 for instance, like nipple guy, like fake tits, like mullet, like stringer all day. And that's the thing. It's changed for me. 11 years ago when we went to the Arnold, we were like, let's get as many free things as we can get. It was a race to see who could have the most shit. Yeah, the most free stuff.

Yeah, the most free stuff. And then as you evolve into this sport and, you know, you realize you don't need all those supplements, you just need to take Tren. That's it. I mean, you don't. Tren and steak. Yeah, Tren and steak.

You don't, I mean, none of that stuff. You're not into that stuff. Actually, to be honest with you, kudos to the Arnold. It's actually evolved quite a bit to where it's definitely focusing more on the sports. Yeah, strength sports are in the obstacle course sports. Oh, the Arnold's huge there. Yeah, the obstacle course sports. But I mean, adding more stages, like Rogue adding a couple stages and stuff like that.

The tandem deadlift event. Yeah, all that kind of stuff, they're starting to space out more of the vendor stuff to like get rid of some of the you know most depressing day in my life was going to the arnold classic and being so hyped up over the years i went there every year before i was ever a vendor and i'd walk into that first room and the wpo finals would be going on and uh ste uh, Steve Goggins squatted 1100 pounds. Yeah. First 1100 pounds squat in the history of powerlifting. Some just massive lifts there.

I remember watching Chuck Vogapool lift there. It's my favorite powerlift. Uh, Matt Krokleski, um, and, and so a list of names goes on and on of, of these giants. Andy Bolton was lifting at the time. Gary Frank was dominant and i go to walk in and i'm like okay there's no monoliths and there's no like there's a lot less seats and then there's like these ropes hanging from the ceiling um and it looks like there's kind of like these hurdles set up and there's a place that do like there there's people like jumping rope. And I'm like,

what in the fuck is this? And somebody is like, this is CrossFit. Oh. And I was like, what happened to the powerlifting? They stopped paying people. Yeah.

I was like, oh my, I was like, oh my God. And I was just like, man, this is a really sad day. This is the end of an era. Not that I,

I could, I don't care. One way or the other necessarily. But I was just like, man, that's the end of an era. Not that I could, I don't care, cross it one way or the other necessarily, but I was just like, man, that's the end of the WPL, of the multi-ply lifting. Yeah, they'll never be back the way they used to be. Yeah, I don't think so.

I don't know. I would, I mean, it would be cool. It'd be cool to see more people get back into powerlifting gear and stuff. I think. Single ply is definitely growing. Single ply is starting to grow. My personal opinion on it is I think that the

bench shirt kind of ruined things because the bench shirt was that kind of curve ball. It was that variable. Like if you didn't have that dialed in, if you couldn't figure it out, then you couldn't really compete. Yeah. You could get on the platform with everybody

else, but you might lift a hundred, 200 pounds less than everybody. Whereas the squat suit was definitely assisting you by hundreds of pounds, just whereas the squat suit was definitely assisting you by hundreds of pounds, just like the bench shirt does, but you had to have a lot of strength in order to be able to handle those squats, and the deadlift suit didn't really do much for you.

Whereas the bench shirt, there was guys that commonly benched under 400 pounds, and they would be able to bench over 700 pounds. Yeah, you can see the ratio. I mean, same with the deadlift suit. I mean, the deadlift suit gave you very, very little bit. And you see it in these guys that still do, you know. We just talked about this.

Yeah, we just talked about this yesterday. But yeah, that's definitely, and it's weird because in raw powerlifting, you talk about how, you know, a lot of these guys don't even really focus too much on. On the deadlift at all. No, worrying about their bench because it doesn't really, from your first attempt to your third attempt, you're not adding a ton onto your total. Where in equipped lifting, I mean, it can make or break you. Well, somebody in their career could very easily

go from a 500 pound squat to probably around a seven or 800 pound squat. Yeah. But on the bench, how much ground are they really going to gain? 30 pounds, 50 pounds? Yeah. Like might go from 315 to 365.

Like they're not going to probably go from 315 to five plates. I had a pec muscle belly tear on 365. Then I realized I'm probably not ever going to bench 600 pounds. So. Yeah. The bench is a, is a tough one, but I think that that's a preventative thing, uh, into the geared power lifting. And that would have to be the one thing that would, I don't even really know, you know,

a slingshot certainly makes it a lot easier because it makes it easier to go full range of motion um it's interesting that all the powerlifting gear is so stiff yeah denim and poly inzer you know they make a stretchier material but you still need like a lot of weight in order to get the weight to go full range of motion and it just makes it really challenging i benched single ply one time and i could not touch 275 to my chest yeah so i hear i hear a lot of people like especially they're like the younger crowd during like the quote-unquote raw revolution you know you're a lot of people talking shit like oh it's fucking gear lifting like put on a pair of briefs and try to squat

100 pounds under your max and tell me what happens yeah yeah it's uh it's well it's just a whole different uh type of balance and everything that you have to have it's your entirely different lift in my opinion i mean like the bench press like you're touching much lower you're tucking way harder and you're driving back way harder yeah well the appreciation for it though is is i think kind of falling back or faltered because powerlifting is kind of a fad right now. And the fad is only a year or so old. And so if you weren't a fan of powerlifting before this last 24 months or something like that, you didn't see it a lot.

You're not seeing it a lot in meets, especially USPA meets. Honestly, I can't even tell you the last time. I've been to 20 meets this year. I mean, and I don't think I've seen any. I don't think I've seen any equipped lifters. One single ply, full power, two multiply full powers, and like five or six multiply. It just throws a huge monkey wrench into even the training process. You know, the training process takes a lot longer.

And like if one of you guys walked inside super training, let's say that you guys trained here locally and you guys were raw lifters and you walked in and you saw us like all in these bench shirts, helping each other in these bench shirts and stuff. You might be like, man, that's cool. They kind of do some of the same stuff that we do, but I don't know if like, you know, I got work and I got other things to do. I can't really be at the gym helping these other guys out. Cause if they're going to help me, then I got to help them. I don't know if I can devote, you know, these three or four hour long training sessions to benching you know and i'm i'm no grandfather powerlifting by by any means i mean i'm still pretty much i'm a baby in the

sport as well even though i've been doing it quite a bit longer than you know even the athletes i program but when i first was started competing i mean it was almost half and half and when you're in the warm up room I remember being very irritated very irritated like waiting and it's a hell of a setup for one lift for one rep and they're very very precise

in how they have to set everything up you can literally get killed if you're not what's great to me than the diminishment of equipped powerlifting is like how strong like in raw powerlifting now like women's presence is. Oh, geez. I remember like when I first started powerlifting, my first powerlifting meet, my first full power sanctioned powerlifting meet, I remember there was like a total. It was 120 lifter meet. There was a total of like 15 women lifters.

Yeah. And now you go to a meet and nine times out of 10, there's going to be more women than there are men. Right. It's awesome. We talk about that all the time. My very first meet, there was one. There was one woman, APF meet. There was one woman and, you know, I had an athlete at Nationals in Vegas, USBA Nationals, and that whole day was women.

It was just one day of women lifters. At a national level competition. Yeah. It's awesome. It's very distracting. Well, some singlets

are distracting. That and the perception of what a powerlifting woman looks like too. I mean, it's completely different. And in powerlifting,

we see each other as strong. You know what I'm saying? That's, like we appreciate just being strong. You know what I'm saying? We appreciate just being strong. And I tell that to a lot of people that will walk into our gym, too, that are looking for some sort of body composition change. It's like, we don't really focus on that. I mean, we just try to be strong here.

We're being the strongest you possibly can be. Maybe the general public might look at Eddie Hall when he competed, and they might say, oh, the guy's overweight. But none of us would because we look up to him. We're like, that dude is strong as shit. I would fucking love to be Eddie Hall when he competed and they might say, oh, the guy's overweight. Yeah. But none of us would because we look up to him and we're like, that dude is strong as shit. That's all we care about.

I would fucking love to be Eddie Hall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's an ass kicker. Yeah. That's all I see. I don't see that he's fat,

you know? Well, definitely not now. He's fucking shredded now. Yeah, I know. He's fucking 340 pound bodybuilder. Yeah. That's what he said.

He's still pretty heavy, but he leaned out a lot. Yeah, he looks good. Shitload. Yeah. His love handles are yeah love handles are gone which you don't know how to me um you know i i noticed early on i recognized that the the crossfit thing was was uh was changing a lot of what was going on and um we've had women in our gym before that like they always train in uh like leggings they always train with or like sweats or something they always train with, or like sweats or something. They just, you're not going to ever see them in shorts. Well, when they started coming to super training, they started training for powerlifting and

they started to get stronger. I think they got empowered because then they didn't care. Then he also realized like, we're all just like hanging out. Like we're not trying to, you know, maybe there's some single people and maybe there's some, something going on, a there's some single people and maybe there's some, something going on, a little energy going on here and there. But for the most part, it's like, no, like we're everyone's goal here is try to get stronger.

This isn't a nightclub. It's not, not a bunch of weird shit going on. And, you know, lo and behold, a lot of these girls would start wearing like the CrossFit, you know, the shorts, the CrossFit girls were wearing. And that was really cool for me to see. Cause I'm like, that's. Cause you like butts. Yeah. Well, I love, yeah, I love butts. Who doesn cool for me to see. Because I'm like, that's. Because you like butts.

Yeah. Well, I love, yeah, I love butts. Who doesn't? But at the same time, I was like, that is awesome that that person feels that good about themselves to rock that. Like, to me, that was a huge, that was a huge step. So one of the, I talk about this all the time. Like, I'll get people to ask me all the time, like, why I continue. My gym makes me no money.

It makes me absolutely no money. Most people's gy gym makes me no money it makes me absolutely most people's gyms don't make no it's definitely a passion meanwhile he's sitting back counting his money yeah uh and it makes me nothing it making it rain making it rain making it rain with bows and arrows uh and uh so like they asked me why do you why do you do this like why why do you continue to do this i mean it is a passion project. I love the sport. And I tell people this, and I mean it. If no one else came,

no one else walked through my doors, I would still be there. I would still be there training. But the one thing that I've observed over the years, especially with programming athletes as well, or people have reached out to me for help, I feel like strength athletes just have something a little loose. I mean it.

I mean anxiety issues, social disorders. Growing up in the system. Yeah, not viewing themselves in the best light. And I don't mean just a few. I'm talking every person that's walked through that door. Once you get to know them, you realize that this is where they feel comfortable. Do you know who Callis Hans Power is where they feel comfortable. You know who Calistant's power is? Lones Green.

He made this post like powerlifting was not for the popular kids. No, yeah. It was for the outcast kids. It's changing more and more now. It's becoming definitely more of an open availability sport where you're kind of the same people from all walks of life.

I still believe it though. Every new athlete i i i become more vested in and and learn about them learn about their background and and why they're here why they so it's almost like before you introduce somebody you need to warn them first and say hey he's a power lifter just so you know like like warning someone that they're bipolar or something like hey man like just so you know girl she's a power lifter like you want to be careful yeah you know and like, like warning someone that they're bipolar or something like, Hey man, like this girl, she's a power lifter. Like you want to be careful. Yeah.

You know, and a lot of these people too, they, they didn't feel comfortable going to a commercial gym or they were strong and they weren't supposed to be. The women, a lot of times they're like, I, you know, they don't feel comfortable being as strong as they, they actually are. And it's something that we, we celebrate, you know, and we built, we build each other up. And I feel like every, every powerlifting gym or strength training facility, like niche style facility I've been to has the same feel. It has the exact same feel. Yeah. Well, it's power. You can't get the same pressure anywhere else. Like I don't, I, I've tried to think about it before. Like, uh, you can get, um, you know, a rush from like jumping out of a plane and like, there's a lot of things you can do for like adrenaline. Um, but powerlifting

doesn't really cause that. It doesn't feel like you're on like a roller coaster or anything like that. Um, but the pressure it's like, I don't really know where else you'd get that pressure. The only thing I could think of is like, if you were like a, like a diver, like a scuba diver, and you went down real deep and your head got like because that pressure that you get when you try to hit a big squat and your form's jacked up and you lean forward and you feel like the weight's gonna you know roll over the back of your head you know that pressure that you get or a heavy deadlift it's like where else in life can you find and overcome that pressure that doesn't really exist in many spots i mean there would be you'd be um you know you'd be just you'd be hard to find 10 things that did that or five things that did that

you know yeah i'm hard to find one right now yeah i'm trying to make a comparison like i really can't i could think of like maybe like jujitsu like uh because like if someone's someone's about to choke you out or you know some of those different things And I've heard people talk about how deep and how crazy of a thing that is to have someone defeat you that way. Like, oh, it's just like, just demoralizing, but there's some sort of a system. There's some sort of energy system with the person where they want to do it again. They want to improve. And even though they know that that might happen again, that might still be the end

result because this guy's a black belt and you're a blue belt. You still won't like have this urge to want to figure it out. Like for some reason you're seeking out that pressure. I mean, it's, it's psychotic. You walk into a powerlifting gym and you're seeing people do abnormal things. These aren't the weights that we're lifting in all levels are the normal public. It cannot comprehend. They cannot comprehend.

A great example of that is when you're at powerlifting meets and there's, you know, non-powerlifters like they're watching and you hear this question all the time. What's that he's sniffing? Yeah. What's that he's sniffing? What is he sniffing? Why is he sniffing that before he goes? I'm just talking about the pure aspect of what we're doing. No, yeah, I know.

Like just the ability as humans to kind of break that threshold of what the rest of society just can't comprehend. I mean, they're seeing us bleed from our noses or pass out or... Shit your pants. Shit your pants. Yeah. All these different things to hit a max effort lift. Like, that's, I mean, that's psychotic. That's psychotic. Not even max

effort sometimes. Yeah. Just like I said, a five. Yeah, and then it's not really necessarily for anything. No. You's like a set of five. Yeah. And then it's not really necessarily for anything. No. You want to be fucking strong. You, you're, I tell people this all the time.

You're constantly in a battle to defeat your former self. That's, that's what you're doing. You're, you're, you're defeating your, I mean, I guess like at least with jujitsu,

you can make the excuse of it's self-defense. Yeah. You know, I feel comfortable in any situation because if anybody came at me or my family, I feel like I can protect them. Yeah. But with lifting, it's like kind of hard offense. Yeah. It's kind of hard. Yeah. Maybe because you're stronger, maybe you can defend yourself a little bit better and stand up for yourself a little bit more, but, um, it it's, it's, uh,

it's deeper than that. It's like, uh, it's more about like your confidence and how you feel just about yourself and, uh, not necessarily about being able to like uh have this superpower when you're out in the normal world i agree i meant more on the world on i meant when i said self-offense i meant more like um just just like destructive on the body yeah yeah it really is i mean it's uh oh it is i mean i love hearing people who say who are like they talk about being fit and healthy and they want to get in a powerlifting. I'm like... You're hurt all the time. It's not really... I can't move.

Yeah. Like, some days. Like, I can't get out of bed some days. Like, right now, my rib is all fucked up. I have some sort of, like... Something's wrong with it. I barely deadlifted yesterday.

It's, like, the torn... My adductor. I've torn my glute. I've torn my hamstring. I've torn muscle bellies in my pec. Like... Putting my daughter to sleep

and I have to get up off the floor and it takes me five and a half minutes to get up off the floor, but then I'm still rapping and squatting. You know what I mean? It's unbelievable. You get addicted to the pain. You get addicted to I guess... There has to be some sort of sadism as a power lifter.

I said, it's a screw loose. In all of us, I mean it. Honestly, it feels like when you have a facility like this or like ours, it's a, it's a screw loose in all of us. I mean, it it's in, honestly, it's the, it's, it feels like when you have a facility like this or, you know, like ours, it's a sanctuary for those people to go. It really is. I always liked the challenge of it. You know, the challenge is to see how hard you can push yourself. And it never really mattered to me, the level of strength that I'm at. I've never been, uh, ultra competitive with the people that are lifting with me. Um, you know, I, I, you know, I still might talk trash to like the people I'm lifting with and they might talk trash to me, but I don't really, I don't really obsess over

that. Like, I'm just trying to be better than I was yesterday. And I also have, have the understanding of, I've been doing this for a really long time. So, uh, every workout won't always be better. Like it just, that doesn't make any sense. You can't always like, I can't lift two 25 one day and then two 35 and two,

like it doesn't, it doesn't just, you can't just ramp up. Strength isn't linear. Yeah. You can't just ramp up forever, you know? And progression slows significantly the longer you do this.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It does. A lot of, a lot of people like see a lot of newer lifters like i've actually seen posts like this like you know pr squat 430 pounds hashtag road to 700 what like you're going to multiply like next month or something yeah it's um it's it's a it's a tough

sport and you know people when they first come here like we have a training system where we work out four days a week and a lot of times people will say hey can i train more can i come in on like other days i'm like once you get into it you won't be asking you won't be asking that question anymore you know it it gets to be tough i remember i used to train i used to until two years ago, I trained six days a week. So about a year ago, I trained five days a week. And now I'm like, three's fine. Four tops.

Whoa. Getting a little warm in here. Boner patrol. Boner patrol. Hey, now. So you are, Garrett, you're one of 17 kids. How the hell does that work out? People have sex.

Don't you get don't get mixed up in the uh in the bunch there uh yeah it's a pretty it's a crazy story so i have um i have five older brothers and two older sisters and then seven younger sisters and two younger brothers and so i'm gonna do this because everybody asked me to do this at some point i'll just list all the names really fast so it's um and i'll give you the real names because we have a lot of boys with girls names my oldest brother is jack his name is jackie and then philip savannah wendy michael mckenzie who's a boy shelby who's a boy and then me glenda grace stella emma kendall who's a boy kennedy who's his twin sister, Isabella, Amelia, and Gus. And so,

and then, actually, there was technically 18. There was a stillborn child in between me and my brother right above me. So, and me and my brother right above me, we have the biggest gap, which is two years and nine months. My mom had her first, she had my oldest brother, Jack, the day

before her 17th birthday. And so, and she had our last kid when she was 41. It's impressive that he can remember all that. I know all their birthdays, too. I remember watching Hard Knocks. You know the show Hard Knocks? Yeah. It was a few years ago when they, I think it was the Jets, and they asked Antonio Camardi.

They're all the same name, right? He was struggling man to name all of his children I know all their birthdays I know all their middle names I know all my siblings I think he had like six kids but it was like three different women or something so um like you know my mom's 49 now and so you know she'll be 50 in March. And she has 17 kids and going on 18 grandkids. And she had her first grandkid when she was like 34. She's still open to more. She's, you know, she's not done yet.

You shut your whore mouth. I don't want any more. She died on the last one. But, yeah, so I'm like, I'm pretty close to the middle. I'm the eighth kid, so nine would be the technical middle. How old is the oldest kid? Jack is 31, 32. My brother Mike was only, I think, I want to say a year or two younger than our uncle,

which was my dad's brother. He was the last in the chain of like, they had nine kids, but they had two stillborn children somewhere in the mix there too. They're cranking out babies like every other year for like 20 plus years. My dad, he's one of like 11

and my mom is only one of three. My dad grew up like he grew up like farm boy like very simple living um and my mom actually she grew up and they actually had i mean they had money growing up it was a very weird it was very weird to find out that my grandparents were at one point very very wealthy and so you know because my you know my dad only has a 10th grade education and my mom has technically my dad or dad has an anti-education and mom has a high school ged and so it was always working non-stop to you know food in the food in our mouths pay rent

i can't tell you how often we were behind on rent i mean that was like a normal thing and there was i can't tell you how many landlords my mom lied to about how many kids she had. Like sneaking dogs in, you know? Yeah. What was the living situation like? Um,

like on top of each other. The big, I mean, the biggest house we ever lived in was a, probably a four bedroom house. And that was only one time for one year. Uh, typically we had two or three bedroom houses.

There was actually one point when we first moved to ohio um my dad got the first and only place that he could rent in this area of ohio where he got this job and um there was my mom my dad and 12 of the kids in a upstairs one bedroom apartment and so we just literally had mattresses across the floor in the back and my parents had to pull out in the living room and uh there was little like long cubby holes in the wall that like some of us slept in like we didn't care most time it was all we always just the way you grew up yeah i didn't realize how fucking weird it was until like i started to tell people some stuff like like yeah man like we lived in a motel once like three weeks like shit like that but i'd imagine too with that many children, there's some that are older that are like moving on to being out of the house. And like, so not all are piled up in the same house all the time.

Most, a lot of my older siblings are high school dropouts. So I'm the eighth one. I was the third one to graduate high school. And so, um, you know, they were always out and working cause they, they didn't want to be in the fucking house anymore. There's fucking babies screaming for literally fucking 10 years in a row. So, you know, they were always out and working because they didn't want to be in the fucking house anymore. There's fucking babies screaming for literally fucking 10 years in a row. So, you know, nobody wants to be there. And so, you know, there's like we all kind of raised each other, you know, which you see a lot in big families.

You know, every sibling raises every sibling. And so, like, I have so many of like my older brother's tendencies. Those are the ones who I looked up to. I didn't want to see my fucking sisters ever growing up. Because my older brothers who were like, we were always running the streets, being little hoodlums, like doing crazy shit.

I mean, ding dong ditching was like the most fun thing we did growing up. I mean, I still have fun doing that now. Yeah. What about eating? What was eating like? I mean, food stamps. Lots and lots of food stamps. I mean, um, like there, there was, but there were also points in times where like, for

some reason, my parents were too proud to get food stamps for some reason. And so, um, it was a lot of like, I like to call them wholesale meals. Cause it's like eight boxes of macaroni with two packages of hot dogs or you know just um chili like a big fucking pot of chili we didn't like there's like no other way to do it almost there is no other way and then like we always made enough to have leftovers for a couple days and so um i mean there were points and times where we were so broke we lived on bologna sandwiches for weeks at a time and shit like that um for the most part they did a pretty good job keeping us fed was the house like stressful with that many kids and like both parents trying to work and very

stressful very busy in a constant lack of supervision and guidance and so you know the guidance you have in a family like mine growing up is from your older brother who's been to jail four times and has, you know, neck tattoos and, you know, you know, we're not the greatest people then. Right. And so, um. Is that, uh, maybe a by-product of the area you grew up in a little bit as well? Yeah. So we lived in a, in a really ghetto area of South Bend at the time.

Um. Cause you're kind of a by-product of like what you see, what you're around and, you know, other people are dealing like that's your normal thing like it's not even bad it's just that's the way things are we were always fighting

like always fighting other kids and each other for that matter I mean there was one time where like these kids tried to like I was like in kindergarten

and like these kids like a couple grades older than me like tried to jump me at the end of our block and I just screamed on my brother's names and it wasn't five seconds before they were all

at the end of the block just beating the shit out my brother's names and it wasn't five seconds before they were all at the end of the block, just beating the shit out of these kids laughing. Cause that's fun fucking fighting people. Yeah. It was weird. Yeah. That's pretty wild having that many, uh, that many, uh, siblings. Yeah. And, uh, was your mom trying to work too?

Your dad was working and is your mom? My mom. Like, or she had to be at home or. No, I mean, that's the thing is, um, mom my mom like or she had to be at home or no i mean that's the thing is um like my mom pretty much worked um all my life i mean she pretty much went sort of my dad obviously and um she maybe would take a couple weeks off after she had a kid but she didn't take any time off before she had a kid i mean she was she was i mean i think one time she started like going to labor at work like it probably happened twice yeah and so um you ever ask your parents

like why do you have so many fucking kids i guess my mom tells a story that when she was younger she like played with a ouija board and it told her she was gonna have 18 kids like she fucking knew that my mom's a head case in that way and so it's like okay but really i just think i liked it to fuck i don't know like just classic fertile myrtle yeah fertile myrtle was her nickname for like by by 20 but like by by 30 years old she had 10 kids like by 30 years old my mom had 10 kids like she was 28 when she had me and so you know me and my my sister below me my sister below that my sister below that we're all one year apart immediately. And so, yeah, I mean, they worked.

Like I said earlier, a lack of supervision. Right. Yeah. How about your upbringing? I mean, I was one of, I was pretty much on my own for the majority of my life. Nowadays, it's not uncommon to hear of broken families and stuff. But I essentially was adopted when I was about four years old. you know, was adopted when I was about four years old. And, um, it was kind of a classic case of,

I don't think there was really anybody wanted to have an older son. I had two younger sisters and it was just kind of left behind. And, you know, it was literally on my own pretty much from high school on. Um, and it's, it's weird because the, the, the guy that raised me, I think was, was so strong nosed and did, uh, the way that he did it was definitely unconventional. And put it in my head that the reason I have kids now is probably because that's what I was made to do, was be a dad and kind of do all the things that I never got to do, you know. So honestly, it helped me become to where I'm at now and, and be able to figure out how to survive on my own. Um, the person that adopted you is maybe a little bit more than just a father figure,

maybe almost more like a mentor too, in a way. Not really. I mean, I don't, I don't know how it's unconventional means unconventional. Yeah. So it just, it was one of those things where I, I, I knew I had to pave my own path pretty, pretty quickly.

Um, yeah. And honestly, that's what attracted me to Garrett in the first place. But I did, I mean, by the time I just graduated high school, you know,

I tried to go to school on my own, um, and just couldn't afford it. And I had my first mortgage by the time I was 19 years old. I mean, I was... This is why the housing market's fucked, by the way. Thanks, America. Yeah, I mean, it was literally like finding a way to survive on my own with no help.

And I mean, I did. And even to this day, like, I always knew I worked really hard to work up and get a job that required, you know, a master's degree. And I don't have a college education or anything like that. And eventually figured out that there was no way that I could work for anybody anymore. And so, you know, started to do my own thing and got to the point where I was able to open up East Race Muscle, which is, I mean, honestly, if it could be my everyday. Just love child. Yeah. If it could be my everyday child, yeah.

If it could be my everyday, that would be my everyday. That would be my, my way of kind of making, making, uh, my living and stuff. But yeah,

it's tough because it's one of those things where I don't, I don't want it to be sound like it was like, if, if I didn't have the upbringing I did, there's, I wouldn't be in the situation i'm in now no so people with who like grew up like like anything any similar facet that we did there's typically like one of two paths is the path the common or constant improvement of the

path of constant destruction yeah in terms of like self and so like um like some of my siblings like um so um including myself um one two three four five at least i'm actually all five of my older brothers and myself we all have like substance issues and so at very very young ages and um a long time, all of us were on a very self-destructive path. It was it's weird how moving farther along in life, how like you just kind of it's kind of clicks one day. Like, like I'm a shitty fucking person. Like, I need to stop being a shitty person. We talked about this last night, too. I feel like I feel like going down these different paths and realizing all these different things and being self-aware is sometimes worse than being naive and pretending you don't know that you have an issue or pretending you don't have a problem.

I think it's sometimes worse being self-aware and knowing that you're a piece of shit or that you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. You're going down the wrong path. Yeah, it's probably the only way to turn anything around, though, right? Yeah. No, I remember having the thinking habit, like, you know, I was on heroin by 14 years old. And I remember having the thinking habit, like, yeah, I mean, I'll probably get out of this at some point. Like, now, I had to, like, almost die a couple times, but, I mean, I was right, but like in a very roundabout way. Yeah.

I, I think, uh, you know, it's important for people. It's important for people to work on developing themselves. And the only way to really do that is to, uh, take like inventory. Yeah. There's no other way to do it. Like you have to spend time with yourself. You have to, you have to ask yourself questions. You have to ask like, what, what, what do you way to do it. Like you have to spend time with yourself. You have to, you have to ask yourself questions. You have to ask like,

what, what, what do you want to do? Um, when you're a kid, you know, when you're 14 and 16 and, and those ages in school,

they ask you that question. It's like super annoying. And like, well, how do I, how am I supposed to know? I want to be a plastic surgeon. Yeah.

Cause I want to see boobs. And at the time, at the time, like you don't, you know, you don't care about school and you're not doing your homework and like you just you don't want to be you're like i don't like everybody wants you to go to college they have this uh thing built into their head of what you should be doing and so because of that because you never actually really

sat around and thought about it for yourself you don't have any idea of what you want to do but a lot of people go around through their whole life they just keep working and they just keep lifting and they keep doing a couple of things that they're doing every day. And they don't ever really sit down and like, try to reflect. I'm like, what, what is it? I, what would I like to do? Like three years from right now, what would I like to be doing? Like, if you're pissed off at your current situation, just ask yourself that question. Like maybe, maybe you just, maybe it's literally the fact that you don't want to do what you're currently doing anymore. And that's a good place to start. Yeah. Like this life that I'm living right now of doing drugs and lying to my friends and lying to

my wife or girlfriend or whatever, whatever the situation is, if that's the situation you're in, then ask yourself that question, you know, and then start to put a plan in place. How do I, do I need to get help? Do I need to tell my buddy? Do I need to tell a friend? Do I need to, I need to go to a psychiatrist? Like what, what do I need to get out of this weird slump? And then how am I going to, you know, progress? But it's not, it's not a, um, at that point, it's not like a dream. It's not like, you know, I w I want to be a millionaire and live in Hawaii. You know, it's,'s got to be something more realistic. Like, I just want to stop in my experience, I mean, when I was going through from the age of, you know, like I said, being out on my own at 18 years old to 30 was probably the

easiest part of my life. I didn't think at 30 years old was going to be the toughest part of my life. And, uh, you know, trying to figure out why now everything is changing. Like, why, why am I thinking this way or why is it and getting tougher and tougher and tougher and thinking that you know i've been doing this fine this whole time but now it's now it's not fine anymore why is that and you know it's taken a few years even to kind of take a step back and realize a few years and a punk 19 year old telling him to yeah i tell you like people always ask me all the time. They're like, I don't understand.

I don't understand your and Garrett's relationship, why you guys are so close. When Garrett told you about his family and the way he was brought up, I just met him, and I told you I kind of took him under my wing. He was an asshole when I first met him. He was an asshole and knocked first met him. He was an asshole. And knocked him around quite a bit. And then I remember the day he told me he had to move back to Ohio.

Like, his family's moving him back to Ohio. And he did. He moved back to Ohio. And honestly, I was just like, I got to get him back here. That was a fucked story. That was fucked, too. I had to move back to Ohio. And I was like, I can't.

It was, I felt like I knew where this was headed at that time. And so I called him. I was like, if I give you a job, will you come back? And he's like, are you serious? And you were working at GNC or something. Yeah, I just, I just started GNC. And I was only there for like two weeks and already got promoted to do like, like territorial management, essentially. And I was only 18. And I was like, I want you to move. I want you to move back to be like territorial management, essentially. And I was only 18.

And I was like, I want you to move back to be closer to me. And he was like, if you're serious. And I did. I hired him. He came back. And to be honest with you, the script flipped at that point. Like we kind of started looking after each other. And my life had hit an all-time low.

I mean, when I say all-time low. I mean, when I say all-time low is, is about as rock bottom as it possibly could be for me. And I was sitting on my front porch thinking that there really wasn't much else I could do to fuck up the rest of my life. And he, I mean, it was,

it was a matter of an hour conversation of him essentially telling me he was going to eliminate himself from my life. And he's like, if you don't, if you don't stop and uh at the time like mike was being self-destructive in every aspect of his life his home life his work life training everything yeah he has very self-destructive habits what were you doing just it just everything was making all the bad wrong decisions and i had had two shoulder surgeries and from lifting. And so like I had a very inept doctor that was willing to give me pain pills anytime I wanted, whether I needed them or not. And got to the point where that was what I was using to cover up everything else that was going on. All the time.

It was a mask. And then that made my decision making abilities go down even more further south. Yeah. And it literally. It affected his home life. It affected his family. Yeah. And it literally, I remember, and I've only told this story to a few people, so this is pretty emotional for me.

But I remember, I looked this up too. I remember one night taking more pain pills than what killed Heath Ledger. Tramadol. No, it wasn't. Yeah, it was like a mixture of tramadol and oxycodone. Yeah. And I remember kind of fading in and out of sleep and thinking to myself, like I was in the back of my head, I was like, to be honest with you,

I'm really okay if I don't wake up from this. Like not so much, I've never had like suicidal thoughts or like wanted to kill myself. But at that point I was like, if I don't wake up from this. Like, not so much. I've never had, like, suicidal thoughts or, like, wanted to kill myself. But at that point, I was like, if I don't wake up from this. No big deal. No big deal. And I remember, like, getting up and running to the bathroom and puking everything up and stuff like that. It was literally the next day that Garrett stopped by my house.

And at this point, like, I'd given Garrett a car. Like, I had gave him a car. He sold me a car super, super cheap. That's basically how it worked. I was paying for it weekly. You stopped paying for it a long time ago. And he was like, you know, I'm quitting. I'm going to quit the job you gave me.

I'm giving you your car back. I don't, you know, I'm going to be out of your life and stuff, this and that, if this doesn't stop now. And it doesn't, like, I'm not trying to pat my own my own back or anything literally that second it everything stopped oh yeah at the time Mike was he was lying to everybody including me and every time he's ever tried to lie to me I'm saying motherfucker like I know all your tells like I know you're lying to me and so he was 19 at the time by the way 19 years old and it was so it was like every time he the situation that's happening at time was like every time he tried to lie to me, I was like, come on. And like he kind of dropped his head.

And so by the end of it, that's when I was like. And you're talking to somebody too that was a former addict. Yeah. Who knows. Yeah. All of, you know, all the tells. And so it was just like, I just laid it out on the table. I've always been, I've always felt it's better to be truthful and forward and hated than to lie and be loved.

And so I was like, listen, this is what you're fucking doing. And this is how it's affecting me. It's how it's affecting the gyms. It's how it's affecting work. It's how it's affecting your wife. It's how it's affecting your kids. And I was like, and everybody hates you right now. Everybody fucking hates you.

I was like, you're not being honest with me you're not being honest with you and it was a it was a it was like a it was everybody hates you because they love you like it's because the people and at the time i mean i still own the gym like i brought all these people together right and it's it stopped then and i and like those people i i i told them like, I told them. Actually, I just had this conversation with a friend of ours, John, that one day Mike essentially went to every person in his life who was close in any capacity and just told him this is what he was doing. And this is the person I was.

And this is who I'm trying to be. just told him like this is what he was doing yeah and this is the person i was and this is who i'm trying to be and like to to make that step to make that step as a as a grown-ass man is not easy to do you get stuck in your ways you get stuck in your mentality and so it was it was fucking cool well i think i would imagine that almost everybody's probably pretty receptive to i mean i'm sure maybe a couple people like still had some animosity, still frustrated with the way that you were acting, but for the most part, it probably just gave you a hug, right? Well, that's the thing.

Like the people, the people that didn't understand it are no longer around. They really, they really aren't like, I mean, truly are not gone. Yeah. Gone, gone. And, uh, the people that, that did, that did care about me, they're even closer than they were before you know it is it's one of those things but it it's weird to say these things and people say it sounds kind of cliche but it needed to happen it did i mean you you you learn from some of the worst things that could possibly happen to you you know and uh it's still one of those things this is it's been

over it's been over two years or almost two years exactly yeah and it's one of those things. It's been over two years or almost two years exactly. Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's still eye-opening and it's still evolving relationships with me and the people closest to me in my life. I think most of us are in constant search of resistance. Yeah. And the resistance that you found was in painkillers. Yeah. Some of us, the resistance is in the gym and you had that as well. But like for some reason like we're we're looking for the opportunity to fuck up our own life like we're waiting that's

like it's a human condition man yeah it's like every time you get into a good situation how can i fuck with myself a little bit well and mine was just mine was just not not believing or really loving myself at all so like finding all these different ways that made me feel good about myself that were not real. They just weren't real. And, and, and masking it.

What was that like working, making money, that kind of stuff? Just everything. There was just numerous amounts of stuff that it's, it's a hard thing to specify. Yeah. And,

and really realizing what type of person I am and hoping that the people that are closest to me are going to accept that. And learning to honestly is learning to love myself as really what it is. It is. But like, think about, I do, I do a lot for a lot of people.

I mean, he does. And that's, that's actually a very truthful thing. And sometimes it gets lost in like wondering sometimes I'm like, well, I mean, does really anybody,

it's really anybody care about me? Like do anything for me? No, I don't even care. Sometimes I'm like, does really anybody care about me? Does anybody do anything for me? No, I don't want anything in return. But sometimes it just seems like it's a lost thing. Do you think at the time that you were trying to get something, you kind of had these things that were unfulfilling. Were you trying to... You said you you know you didn't feel good about yourself but like you know i i always think that um what i see from a lot of

people is they're they're uh so worried about like receiving like they're so worried about like getting shit um and so they think if i if i work towards this then i'll get that but they're not really like like giving themselves which is what you should really focus on. I don't think so at all, actually. I think it's because I still am that way. I will give absolutely anything I possibly can to everyone, even if it's not even that close to me. And I'm used to being taken advantage of at this point, especially in my position. He's that kid that always had the pizza rolls at his

house. I will, too. Like, it'll always be that way. And I believe that East Race Muscle, that's my beacon of being able to do that. I mean, I have a lot of athletes that come in. They either can't afford the gym, or they don't have a place to go. It cuts fucking people's deals all the time, and he

wonders why his gym doesn't make money. Or they've wronged me in the past. And I have, it does not mean anything to wonders why his gym doesn't make money or they or they've wronged me in the past and i have it does not mean anything to me it really doesn't is finding out what is truly like maybe the first 30 years of my life i wasn't being real with myself and what i really was or what i needed to to be happy um and know, in the past four years, I'm figuring those things out. And it's not easy. You know, it's hard. But I feel like I have a solid grasp of, like, the things that make me feel free

and things that keep me from, you know, going back down that path. And I'll be honest with you. I mean, I'm not saying this because we're sitting here behind this table but it's definitely powerlifting it's definitely the gym i mean i found so many athletes that can relate to me across the country that asked me just to i don't even know anything about their lifting abilities or how they lift and they asked me just to handle them at meets you know like it's just just to be there with them michael's always like um in a similar way to you like um like the motivator like he's always been the motivator he's always been the guy sitting right there like in your fucking ear to me saying like the corny shit that everybody talks about but

like actually like putting it into your life like it's a very cool thing well it means something more to you when it's coming from someone who's substantial exactly and I have a legacy to leave I have two kids that mean the world to me too and I'll look at them every day shout out to Cam and Mia and I look at them

still every day seriously every day and I'm like what would have happened if I would have continued down or if I'm not here what would have happened what kind of legacy do I want to leave for them? And I love seeing them at meets. I love seeing them at the gym.

They're at the gym a lot. They're at our gym all the time. And all our athletes love them. They're not scared of weights. No. They're not scared of weights. weights and so it's it's one of those things where um you know it's like the peter pan theory i guess like your happy thoughts and and how those drive you and make your life kind of continue to go on and i don't think i if i would have not found powerlifting i'm not a good powerlifter by any

means i'm not i'm not good i'm not good at all and if i had not found this sport though i think things would be a lot worse I agree yeah I don't think you have to be good at it to get out of it what you know what you're looking for because it's again it's the resistance you know the external resistance and it uh plays out in so many different aspects you know in our in our lives we think the biggest difference was from like uh you know obviously him coming to you and saying hey this is a problem and you going around and telling people but like how did you you know how'd you really change because it's uh it's one thing to be like fired up and you've got this

rocky montage going of you like training and shaping up and everything right but it's another thing to like do it day in and day out minute by minute i think for him it's been like self-talk yeah yeah it's you know i just some people call it tou. I think for him it's been like self-talk. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, I've always... Some people call it Tourette's Syndrome. Yeah, yeah, Tourette's Syndrome. But I said it earlier in the conversation, being self-aware is a son of a bitch. And I know, I think Garrett said this at one point too,

and he said he was, you know, he was doing heroin or whatever. I knew that I could i could turn it off if i wanted to i really i really did and yeah it and it's just there was there was nothing that i felt like i was doing to to prevent that and now like i said it's it sounds stupid and i and i tried to go see somebody and i always feel like I'm smarter than the person that's sitting on the couch across from me and I just think to myself like the happy thoughts like these are the things that drive me why in the world would I and I it's not just my kids it's it's this guy here it's the it's you know the the Brandons and the Evans and the and the beefs and even these guys, Adrian and Dustin and TD, like these guys that wanted nothing to do with me

and now like want me in their lives to help them. Regularly. Regularly. Not just in terms of powerlifting. And I need to continue to soak those things in because it makes me feel like there's something worthwhile to be around for. So is it hard to like,

just be idle? Like, is it hard for you to, Oh no, you're okay with, cause like, it sounds like you, you,

you know, it sounds like you want to give a lot of yourself. So is it hard for you just to kind of like balance was a big problem for me during that time too. And it's something that I, and I've, I've upset people too, because I don't give them that time anymore that i was taking away from my family and even this trip uh you know we were supposed to like i was supposed to go to record breakers you know and and i was like i'm not missing my son's last football game i'm not

like i fly out early tomorrow morning and i the way, his son is four. Yeah. He's five. But, yeah, like, and he'll never remember that. But I'm telling you, I haven't missed one of his football games. I've never missed a baseball game. I never will. Same with my daughter. Whatever she decides to do, she's a pain in the ass

and kind of marches to the beat of her own drum. So I don't know what she'll ever do. But I changed this whole weekend so that I could be back for his flag football game. I wasn't going to miss it. It is what it is, you know. And even leaving here, I FaceTimed him last night in the gym so I could show him the gym and stuff like that because he knows who you are too. And he was like, he thought it was the coolest thing ever. But the first thing he said was he goes

did you did you talk to the pilot and tell him to go faster so that you could get home quicker and i was like i mean that that tells me you know this this is my priority you know at the end of the day and the people going back to when everything was happening the people that know me and care about me the most they they understand that you know because i get so many people that so many people that'll be like, Hey, can you do this for me? Can you do this for me? I need you here. I need you here. No, it's not going to happen. I got it. You know, I, I gotta have that time. I gotta have that time with the people that are my happy thoughts. Well, and when you, uh, you know, when it's, when those requests are met with resistance for a period of time, people will stop, you know, they'll stop asking. Like I, you know, when those requests are met with resistance for a period of time, people will stop.

You know, they'll stop asking. Like, you know, I used to get a crazy amount of, like, emails and stuff, and it just doesn't happen. You know, people just know. Like, I'm not going. If I am doing a seminar or something, it's just because I'm, like, on my way to somewhere else. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to go to some speaking engagement or whatever, you know, so. And I'll still, those sacrifices are still being made.

There's days that I don't get any of my training in. And when I'm at the gym and people will say stuff about, they'll be like, why don't you just tell everybody, you know. To go eat shit. Yeah. And it's like, you know what? I have to wrap five athletes a day. And that's where I followed that too. So the gym I train at now is basically a commercial gym with a small area in the back.

Now that I have my own little crew at this gym, kind of building the same thing that we built at East Race Muscle. I told you that that one day too. I texted you that that one day. I go in there sometimes to bench. I'm there for four hours lifting people off, watching their deadlifts, wrapping their knees, spotting them on squats. They're constantly asking stuff, and it's just a cool thing.

And it still makes you realize, too, where you are in everybody else's eyes. Because I'll say, like, my training's not that important. Because, like I said, I'm not a good powerlifter. And they're like, well, yeah, your training is important. And to be honest with you, Dustin said this to me the other day. He's like, it drives me to watch you train. And you're talking about a top 15, 148-pounder. Top 10 now, I think.

Yeah, in the world. And he's like, it pushes me to see you training with all of us. I'm like, why? You know what I mean? Your training is a lot more important than you think it is. It's actually probably behind you handling a couple major things in your life. It's probably like, it's probably top five. Like it's definitely up there and it definitely comes before wrapping somebody else's knees. And a huge reason why is because it's a, it's a representation

of, of you as a person. And it's important for those people to always see that no matter what is going on, no matter how much shit is flying around and how many people you have to help that you're still there getting the job done. You know, I think it's important, uh, for the lifters and the people that have come here to see me still lifting. Like maybe I lift an off hours and I, you know, might not always lift with the team or lift with the crew but they they still know like on their best day on their hardest day when they've pushed the absolute max to what they could do that i'm still right there with them no matter how old i am or how long i've been doing this for yeah i might not be lifting the same weights i used to lift but the effort is still there oh yeah still

pushing as hard as i fucking can you know yeah that fire doesn't go away it doesn't and whenever i hit a big lift in here, a lot of times the other guys hit huge PRs too. They get fired up. They're like, shit, man, that was fun watching you do that. Or I got in briefs a few weeks ago and everybody got all fired up

or I hit a pretty good bench and then Marcus ended up doing a 500 pound bench for a double that same day. And, you know, he got all nutty and all fired up. And so, yeah, Filipino thunder. Yeah. And it's still like and all fired up. Me too. Yeah. Filipino thunder. Yeah. And it's still, like, the best part for me too, and I mean this when I say this, at one point I was the strongest guy in our gym, the strongest person, you know,

that we're trained with. Now I'm, like, the 15th, you know, whatever. That is important to me. I remember being the weakest guy when we started. And now I'm the highest total out of anybody well that's what i said to my point this last the this last meet that garrett did um to be honest with you one of the one of the better moments for me is watching him and having a guy come up to him and be like hey man i'm so and so and like shook his hand and was like i'm such a

big fan it was a guy lifting in the meat and the same meat as garrett and shook his hand and was like, I'm such a big fan. And it was a guy lifting in the meet and the same meet as Garrett and shook his hand and told him it was great to meet him. You know, it's like, he was like one of his heroes, this and that. And I was, I heard the whole thing and Garrett like turned around and he had his like weird shit eating, awkward, like embarrassed grin on his face. And I was like, man, you have no idea what that means to me. Like, and he goes, it's just, it's just so weird. It is weird.

It is weird. Cause you know, I did the same meet two years in a row. idea what that means to me like he goes it's just it's just so weird it is weird it is weird because you know i did the same meet two years in a row and so like the first year i did that meet there was like 10 people that came up to me who knew me like via instagram and like one kid actually even this is the fucking probably most pissed off i've ever been in my life i just missed my second squat on depth and so i'm sitting there and i wrap my own knees at the time getting ready to wrap my knees for my third squat i got my headphones in i'm ready to go i'm like four out this kid fucking walks up to me pulls out my headphone and goes hey man i see your instagram

stories i'm like hey motherfucker like get away from me like i'm i i'm just about to squat like i'll talk to you later but um and then comparing like that that me two years ago to the meet i just did it's like like, like I could walk and like hear people like whispering as I walked by. Like it was really weird. And people like

who were scared to come up to me and people who were at the meet messaging me on Instagram but like would not come up to me and talk to me.

Like this is so weird. It's not used to it. DM you while you're right there. Yeah. It's weird. I'm right, I'm standing right here. It's like,

it's the funniest thing to hear. Like, yeah man, I follow you on Instagram. People listing off like lifts that I did like months ago that I don't even remember. Like, I just loved it for some reason. And it's really, it's fucking awesome, but it's weird. You guys get a chance to train together still?

Yeah. Yeah. We still do. We still, we'll get chances to train together. He's, like I said, he works for me. So we have a location down in Indianapolis. It's quite a few months ago. We shipped him down there.

Quite a few months. It's been a year and five months. Yeah, and I asked him if you would go down there, kind of run our indie location and stuff like that. And he's like, yeah, we'll do that. In seven months. It ended up being a great situation because he met Kaylee. And it's interesting to see.

I watch him evolve. There's been just a few people that have stuck with me this whole time since the very, very beginning. But I texted him, just like we were talking about. I texted him. It was a couple weeks ago. I was like, I'll be honest with you, man. It's emotional for me to watch these people.

When you started going to the gym that you go to it was just you two and now you have a group of people that lift the same time you do to be there when you are that you're handling yeah the majority of the time yep that that you're programming or that you know want to be there to lift the same time you do and is very reflective of how i got started what's that, though, is when kids hit me up on Instagram and they're like, hey, man, are you going to be training on Thursday? And it's like,

probably. He's like, okay, cool. I'm going to drive down four hours to come deadlift with you. I'm like, what? Like,

are you coming to town for something? Like, no, man. I just, I've heard that like, you'll like kind of help anybody. And so I'll just, I'll just, I'm just going to come and lift with you. Okay. And that's happened to me. Like one no, man, I just, I've heard that, like, you'll, like, kind of help anybody. And so I'll just, I'll just, I'm just going to come and live with you. Okay. And that's happened to me.

Like, one time a whole group of kids came from Chicago. It's like a four-hour drive. Like, five or six kids all came from Chicago. They were, like, 19 to 23. Like, some of them were older than me. And so it was, it's been humbling. Like, to just see how many. That's something that has kept you on point from the time that you,

uh, you know, overcame some of these, uh, mess ups that you had in your life with, with drugs and some run-ins you had. So like the only constant, like nonstop,

constant motivator I've had my entire life is thinking about my future kids and knowing that I had to create something that would be like in terms of self, like create something that would be able to support my kids and not just support them like be at every football game you know be at every basketball game be at every dance recital it's like that was always so you're not stuck at work all the time exactly and so like that was always like that's that's really like the the biggest what the driving force has been in my life because like if i'm being honest like my family has never been a motivator for me you know nobody in my family has really done anything super like i

have one brother who um um was in like the corungal valley in afghanistan who's uh he's an army he's a teacher now like like he's probably the only one who's done anything like cool like that like like i have one brother who like raced semi pro uh like bikes like pretty much and so like like motorcycles and like no one's ever done anything so nobody in my family really is is a motivator for me in life you see a lot of like on the deeper issues a lot of comparisons and where you know like where we are like that's that's of comparisons and where you know like where we are like that's that's that's always been like my my connection to Garrett and why I constantly keep him around and make sure that we're keeping each other you know that was one that was like one thing that kind of like

kept me on like got me out of that and like kept me on track and all that and so now it's like I have two dogs who are they're both Malamutes. One is Gus. He's three. He's 120 pounds. The other one's Plo. He is six months old and he's like over 60 pounds. And so like now I'm like always thinking about my dogs and my fiance and him.

That's pretty much it. It's kind of all I do really do anything for is just the people, the people, my dogs, the two people, my dogs. And in this sport, too, the sport is still very much a baby. It is. I mean, there's no money in it. You know, there's no. Money's coming. Hold on.

It's coming. So when you look at some of these personalities, a lot of times when you meet them, they're not what their Instagram is or they're not what their social media is. And there are very few people that you could look at and you're like, this person is good for the sport because they have all of these things. There, I mean, there's some guys out there that have some monster totals that have 900

followers on Instagram. I mean, I'm, you're talking like, you know, like the strength is not correlative to Instagram followers. Yeah. Cause,

cause they have the personality of a potato, you know what I mean? Fucking wet blanket. And Garrett is one of those guys that has never changed like his his brash attitude motivation yelling and being excited and just being friends with everybody that's never changed and so i think that's what attracts people to him that's why people want him at their meets that's you know and that plus being on the other end of the bell curve and totaling almost 1,900 pounds at 21 years old, barely 200 pounds, that's a total package. There are very few of those people.

I always talk about this because people have different opinions about him, but Larry Wheels is that guy. Larry Wheels is a decent-looking dude. He's kind of fun to be around, and he's doing things that nobody else is doing. He's always, he's always pretty like honest. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's, I mean, those, those are the people that are going to really springboard this, this sport. And I really believe that Garrett is one of those people. I really do. I mean,

there are always going to be people that have higher totals, you know, I, not for long, but they, like I said, they can't talk to people. They can't, they, if somebody asks him something and they're like, Oh, you know, like it long but they like i said they can't talk to people they can't they if somebody asks them something they're like you know like it's just they they have no there are some like

and there are it's funny like i started going to bigger meets like i did the u.s open last year and so you know and then i went to the tribute meet and um going to bigger meets you meet some people who it's like they're instagram famous or whatever and it's like you are a wet paper bag over a pile of dog shit like you're not a fun person to talk to like you're kind of a dick um and so like i always social media baffles me i mean it baffles me how many people are like purely depend like like they're dependent on their, their like star, like their idols, like social media presence and who they are on social media. And it's like, when you meet a lot of people in person or even beyond that, like find out who they really are, like you're going to be disappointed just because somebody's strong doesn't mean they're not a shit person. Right.

Well, that's where people have to decipher like what they like somebody for. Yeah. right well that's where people have to decipher like what they like somebody for yeah um if you like somebody because they lift heavy weights then there's a high there's a possibility that when you meet them maybe you don't like them yeah but that's fine doesn't mean you still can't still like that they lift heavy yeah you know uh you might like that bradley martin can like jump over a car or something but but but maybe you're not like best friends with them or whatever. Right. I mean, there's these different people that you meet that, uh, you know, you, you like them for a totally separate reason. You don't like them because they're.

Cause Instagram never gives you a real snapshot of who anybody really is. Never. Um, it, you know, people are kind of showing you their highlights and, and, and us, you know, in the fitness community, we're just showing you lifts. So you have really no insight into. Now it would make more sense to be disappointed with a YouTuber. Yeah. Because a YouTuber. Where you're seeing them interacting.

Yeah. You see them interact a lot, you know, and especially if it's somebody that enters interacting live and they share a lot of their life with you and you meet them and you find out it's all like fake or something you'd be like what the hell like i wasn't expecting that but but for the most part with instagram it's like you know people might be uh you know kind of i don't know misleading you you know but at the same time i think you know who isn't adjusting their photo who isn't like trying to get the best selfie they can who isn't trying to you know people are just trying to get the best representation they can, who isn't trying to, you know, people are just trying to get the best representation of themselves out there as much as they can. My social media for me, like in my brain,

like I post the occasional like picture of me and my fiance. I'm not a selfie person or like a, or a here's my body person. It's kind of always just been like a training log. Like this is what I did today. Like this was my top set. This was this, this was that. But I will say this this even the fact that you think anybody cares is arrogant yeah you

know like social media has there's there's no possible way to be on social media without being like uh without without having like an arrogant side like you're literally trying to get people to push a like button yeah right that's arrogant right yeah it really is there's no there's no way of like sugarcoating it you know so it's it's still no matter how you slice it like hey let's check out what i did you know what i mean even if it's not the best representation of the heaviest lift that you did exactly you know it's it just uh is always going to be that way and that's why i get so frustrated when people talk about somebody being humble or whatever. Humble's a shitty term for a social media star.

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit in with what's kind of truly going on. Because when you have social media and like, I never expected my following to blow up. And so when it started to, it's like

you kind of start to interact with other people who have when it started to it's like you kind of start to interact with other people who have like bigger followings and it's like for most of these guys like humble is the is the furthest adjective to describe their personality like there are some people who manage to make everything about them like on their social media

offer social media but there are on the flip side of that some of the people I was talking about earlier that have these monster totals and nobody followed them that are posting their big lifts all the time and then you meet them. I truly am confused

as to why they even have any sort of social media. It's like you meet them and you're like, I think we're thinking of the same person. I think we are. But you meet them

and you're like, yeah, you're exactly what I expected. And you've like, I, you're still one of my favorite power lifters. That is the one thing that makes me pretty like one reason I like social media because that's typically the response I get from people is you are exactly how you are on social media. See, if I was an outsider, I would think it was the opposite because you post mostly just your training videos.

Well, like what I tell out, story posts. Oh, yeah, yeah, your story, yeah. it because you post mostly just your training videos well like story posts like oh yeah yeah yeah like i'm a uspa referee and uh like the u.s opened last year um like the really inconsistent judging i literally like on my instagram it's like yeah i'm cool with strict judging but like shitty inconsistent judging it's like and i'm technically not even allowed to say anything like that but it was just like I'm not gonna not voice my opinion

it was shitty judging at one meet it wasn't just you it was judging on everybody I was there I got a lot of shit for those posts

I got a lot of shit for saying that I think everybody can understand I think we just put too much weight into social media we're on there too much

yeah you know we're all guilty of scrolling, scrolling, mindless scrolling. Yeah. Shit scrolling. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you find yourself at some point you realize that you've just been, you know, I fucking leave the bathroom with a red mark on my face and my knees. I sat like this shitting in fucking 25 minutes. I realized, ah, my shits went from five minutes to 33. What are some of the goals you have coming up,

Garrett? Uh, in terms of lifting. Um, so I Garrett? In terms of? Lifting. So I want to do Boss of Bosses next year. Dan told me I could go this year, but I ended up handling some of the tribute meet.

And so I want to obviously improvement, but I want to deadlift 800 pounds. I want to bench over 400 to meet finally and um like 2 000 pound total is my like my short-term eminent goal i'll pretty much probably only compete in reps i'm out of i don't i just don't like sleep squatting fucking suck at it like i'm better with more shit i wear what you're good at yeah and so um you know i want to i want

to squat 350 kg it It's like 771. It's not a normal squat to see in 220. 800-pound deadlift is not normal to see in 220. So those are like the big two in terms of single lifts. And disclaimer, Garrett's not a true 220. He weighed 211 at the Midwest Open. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon after eating all fucking day. Yeah.

You got to eat up, buddy. That's what I'm going to do now. I'm too fucking lean. I got fucking dick veins all the time. I need to go... I got butthole veins. Those might be hemorrhoids, but... How can you see them?

Butthole veins? Come on. Everybody in the fucking world... Reverse camera. Exactly. No, everybody in the world has gone to a mirror or stood on their counter in the bathroom and just... Oh, yeah, at some point, but not every day.

You don't do it every day? Yeah, you don't do it every day yeah you don't do that well weirdo got really awkward i've never done that by the way just so you know okay so have you never had someone else take a picture of your butthole so you can get a better look i think so has your wife ever shaved your butthole no okay she get a better look? I don't think so. Has your wife ever shaved your butthole? No. Okay. She's shaved other parts, though. Like, for my bodybuilding show, like, things were getting weird. Yeah.

Fat Evan. His wife always shaves his butthole. Oh, yeah. Our friend Fat Bald Evan. Fat Bald Evan. It is... I mean, this is off subject, but there are hairy people out there. There are hairy people out there, and there are hairy people out there there are hairy people

out there and there are some people that have anomalies and this guy's asshole is an anomaly he loves to show it it's a very furry it is a furry is not a furry is like used like a massive thing it's like the weirdest like all the hairs collectively travel moving towards his ass moving towards his asshole like it why do they bother to eat there so they try to trim this thing up but the thing is it's not like earlier it's all nice and like it's weird it looks like like what's like a Fabio's chest hair like if you know Fabio is he's always like the romantic erotica yeah like his chest hair but it is a collective like black

hole right they try to manscape this yeah yeah they fucking like shave it, they fucking, like, shave it, like, with an electric razor. Oh. Because it gets to the point where, I mean, at some point, like... He can't shit anymore. Yeah, he can't. I mean, what are you wiping? It catches it. Yeah.

I was going to say, like, what are they doing back there that, like, this is so important? You never know. There might be some pegging going on. We have to investigate this a little bit. I'm so glad we talked about Evan's asshole. That's what we came here for. We always end up talking about buttholes. I think there are quite a bit

on this podcast. We talked about buttholes for like 15 minutes in there and we weren't even on air. We were just talking about buttholes. Yeah, well it's important to keep it clean. Yeah, it is. That's part of the reason why we have baby wipes. I saw that and I thought I was in the wrong bathroom. I can't believe that you're so lost about this baby wipe. It's fucking weird. It's a baby wipe. Yeah. I saw that and I thought I was in the wrong bathroom. I can't believe that you're so like lost about this baby wipe.

It's fucking weird. It's a baby wipe. Okay, here's why I don't think I'd like a baby wipe. I don't think I'd like a baby wipe. You never even tried it. For the same reason that I don't, I wouldn't like,

what are those, what are those spray things? A bidet. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. For the same reason I wouldn't like that because I don't want my butthole to be wet.

So I'm going to walk around and at some point, I dry off. Come on, you don't take a towel and like to be wet. So I'm going to walk around and at some point, I dry off. What about a detachable showerhead? Do you not get swamp ass? I get horrible, horrible swamp ass. That's what this is for. And I fucking hate it.

That's what this is for. There's no way a baby wife is going to help my swamp ass. Yes. No way. That's what this is for. Detachable showerhead. You know about that? You have a detachable showerhead.

You can take it off and you can clean everywhere. I just clean everywhere with my hands. I don't even use the loofah. That's not sanitary. Well, so your butthole gets wet, though. You won't use a baby wipe, but you'll scrape the inside of your asshole in the shower with your hands? Yeah, like I'm covered in soap. Like, what?

What's wrong? What? You don't do that? Come on. I don't know. It seems. I also, like, when I wash my hair, like, I take that shampoo. You use the same butthole hand?

No. Yeah. But like I always like wash my hair and I always like also wash my armpits and my pubes like everywhere in my chest. Like everywhere I have hair, I use the same shampoo. Like, is that weird? Am I the only person that does that? I don't know.

I don't really have hair. He'll go through these like, he'll ask these things. One time we were. Then he pauses. Yeah. To try to see if it's okay with everybody else when he used to work for me up in South Bend

we have a warehouse and there's a bunch of guys in there and we were all sitting around and there was nobody talking and Garrett goes does anybody else does anybody else

wipe their pee pee after they're done peeing and it was dead silence I mean you're talking about you just send them home're talking about 11 grown men and he said it just like that too. He said pee pee.

I said wiener. No, you said pee pee. Does anybody else wipe their pee pee when they're done peeing? And no one answered and his face was beet red and he was like, yeah, me neither. I should have probably just sent him home. I don't know if my prostate's fucked up

but like nobody it's like nobody else in the world dribbles for like 10 minutes after they pee I always do a lot of caffeine will do that to you 90 year old men I mean I already look 30 I'm like a third of the way there a fedrin back in the day would make you like totally pee yourself a fedrin is insane

you thought you were done and you were like yep I went to the bathroom and you like walk out and you're like, I just pissed myself. You're like, what happened? What just happened here? You're like, whoops. And then you have a heart attack. Yeah, that too. But it got you fired up for a workout. Oh, yeah.

So what do you do for a living? Because you said the gym doesn't really make money. Sell drugs? Or what are we doing here? Yeah, sell drugs. No, it's not really interesting at all. He basically does sales for our company. We do...

We'll open new companies all the time just to do it. We start new. We have this joke where we go like that. It's just a new company. Right now, the big thing that we do is we actually, where we live is like the RV and boat manufacturer of the whole world. The whole world.

Yeah. And we pretty much invented a repair process that like repairs these RVs and these boats on the line, like on the manufacturing line. And the interior of the RV. Yeah. And I mean, right now the RV industry is kind of taking a decline and New York times did a huge article on it specifically on our area. It scared a whole bunch of people.

So we started another company where we actually, we manufacture OEM boat furniture that goes into the boats at the manufacturer. So, um, and so we also do upholstery. Yeah. That's mainly what he does.

I do like, um, I do actual like servicing. I do upholstery. Um, the majority of what i do like um i do actual like servicing i do upholstery um the majority of what i do a little bit of everything actually down there oh yeah you do invoicing that's just payroll that's just in terms of um just like the actual service i do like um clean shitters i don't clean shitters i typically like it's we work with a lot of casinos and restaurants so that's typically i'm in those two realms most of the time. I do a little bit of like home furniture. And then I also do like invoicing.

I do like I'm trying to automate our entire inventory right now. So I do like inventory management, operational management. I do sales calls, service calls. A little bit of everything. Yeah. It's a small company. So like kind of have a everything type job. Cool.

Got anything, Andrew? Hi, Andrew. What's up, dude? Sorry. You guys have, dude? Sorry. You guys have been chatting it up, so I haven't been able to get a single word in.

You said that really like asshole-ish. Speaking of. You're going to be upset over there. Yeah, I know. Yeah, speaking of asshole-ish, you guys were saying

about your first hemorrhoid. How did that happen? My first hemorrhoid? Yeah, that was a good one. Okay, so my first hemorrhoid was if I had squat. I was there for it. Yeah, he was there. So my butthole started to rip on the way down my first rap squat i was like 435

weighed like 170 pounds at the time and my butthole i felt like it was ripping on the way down and i shit my pants and so i go to the bathroom and i like clean up and i go sit down to get the rest of the shit out and it looked like somebody got fucking murdered inside of my butthole i mean it looked like somebody got murdered in there of my butthole. I mean, it looked like somebody got murdered in there. It burst in it the whole night. I didn't know I had a hemorrhoid. I obviously already had a hemorrhoid before that. That was the first time it burst. And so I've had

four since. So you've had hemorrhoids, but you still never used baby wipes. Baby wipes are a lifesaver in hemorrhoid situations. I just let it leak out. I've had so many hemorrhoids at this point. I'm so open with it, too. Actually, the last Arnold...

I have gyno, too. I let the guys see what it looked like. I just remember how appalled Beef was, but he wouldn't stop staring at my asshole. Do you take pictures of your shits and send it to your guy friends? No. Yeah, me neither.

Me neither. I definitely do. I do that all the time. That was weird. I needed somebody else to say something. Usually on my brother's birthday, I'll just send him just a massive lunker. Just bam. Mine has to be something.

I can't do stuff like that because these guys are so sick in here that I'll get bombarded with. Oh, like the grossest. Yeah. It'll just get worse and worse and worse. Can't play get bombarded with. Oh, like the grossest. Yeah. Yeah. It'll just get worse and worse and worse. Yeah. Can't play chicken with these guys. Oh yeah. We'll, we'll definitely one up for sure. This will be all over the wall. But, uh, how did you meet your fiance? Uh, so we, we, uh, me and Kaylee met at the gym. Um, at the time when we first met, we were actually in long-term relationships. She was

in like a four, four and a half year relationship and I was in a two-year relationship going like a little over that and so we met there and then Kaylee is five years older than me so she's 26. A little bit of Kaylee's background kaylee was a golden glove boxer she was uh undefeated in jujitsu and won the arnold she's undefeated in taekwondo and she was two and one in the cage it's a pretty badass pretty badass woman and a good power lifter she's really good so at the time she'd like kind of have a little stint with bodybuilding and she didn't really like it she didn't have have a great coach. She met me and instantly impressed by me.

She got on stage once, right? Yeah. At the time, I wasn't charging for coaching. I worked my way in unprofessionally and started coaching her. Then it just developed from there. I proposed May 4th i don't anybody knows what that day is

yeah may the force be with you jessica is that jessica yeah and so it was may 4th yeah huge star wars his dog's name's plo did you yeah catch that? Plo Koon is a Jedi. Yeah. And so, yeah. So we met at the gym, and it was just fucking awesome. She's awesome. She's my driving force now. There's another one, Force. Mm-hmm. Just keep going.

What else you got for me, Andrew? No, I was just going to ask you, what do you guys think about Half-Thor saying he's going to do powerlifting now? Oh, we were just talking about that. Okay. 1003, 540, and like 904, 903. We talked about this once we got off the flight and we were taking the car over here yesterday. We were just talking about how we were both super excited about that and how he probably will have top.

I think he'll do like top five or top six total all the time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. have top he'll get i think he'll do like top five top top six total all the time yeah oh yeah and like the thing is he's never done like so so many people like i fucking love to see like all these people like like thor and eddie and like robert oberth like posting these badass lifts and then someone commenting like yeah this was this the 970 i have no idea no but um like, and then you see on these comments, like, click the comments on this. Does he squat raw, though? He squats in knee reps.

If you click the comments, look at how many people tag Larry Wheels and go, like, Larry Wheels did 900 in sleeves. And it's like, why the, comment good job and go the fuck home. And I love how Thor will post his 750 for four sets of four or something. You know what I mean? Or whatever. He's just not... I think this is that. And he fucking dunks

it too. He buries it all the time. And he's six foot eight or nine? Like, for a man like that to be able to squat close to a thousand in just knee wraps, like... I don't give a fuck what he weighs. He's fucking 6'8". He's absolutely massive.

It's going to be hard for anybody to catch up to what Milanochev has done. It will be impressive to see him, to see what he can do. I think if Eddie Hall competed in powerlifting. I don't think anybody's seen it. Milanochev's. Yeah. I mean, yeah. The thing is, Milanochev won't catch what Milanochev did before.

So somebody has to break that. Not anymore. Yeah. Well, you know, Milanochev's squats were always pretty easy too. That's the thing that pisses me off. Because I bet he could have squatted 1,100 raw. But I mean, he's always good for around a 900 pound deadlift. 600 pound bench.

He benches around 600 pounds. Him and JP Price. And he squats mid-thousand pounds. Him and JP Price are the only people to ever... Shout out to JP. I love you, JP. Only two people to ever squat a grand and bench 600 in the same meet. Yeah, it's amazing.

Only two. Look at the mobility. Well, and the fucking range of motion of a giraffe. Yeah, the mobility for Thor is crazy. And Brian Shaw. Brian Shaw's able to get down to the deadlift bar so well. He gets in such good position.

There's like 700 pounds of bar. It looks tiny next to him. Yeah. That's his girlfriend. Have you guys seen the meme? That was... That's his wife? They're married?

Have you seen the meme of a little rat eating a giant banana? That's hilarious. That is definitely the source of a lot of jokes when he posts a picture with his wife. We are always... Every powerlifting page after that

posts nine memes in a row. Things like that could really help the sport quite a bit. Oh, he's so popular. I mean, yeah, that's huge. He's so known, uh, internationally, you know, and he's so known by people that, that don't lift. Yeah. And that's, you know, that those kinds of things will be important.

And I think what Larry wheels is doing, like if Larry wheels was just competing, I would say, no, I would say it's not going to do anything for powerlifting. Cause we've had a lot of great power lifters, but the fact that he just does it on the internet and just does it for fun, that actually will have a bigger impact on our sport because people, that's, people want the lowest, uh, barrier of entry. Anyone can go to the gym and anyone can do exactly what Larry wheels does. They'll just use less weight. Yeah. They can go in a lot less weight.

Yeah. They'll go in and perform a one rep max squat and they can kind of see where they stand. They can perform the exact same exercise. And that goes back to what we said in the beginning about powerlifting gear. It's too high of a barrier of entry. So while, you know, some of us who've been around for a while might be like, oh, I want to try out some squat gear and some bench shirts and stuff and might do a few meets and that side of the sport might grow a little bit. It won't be anything that like makes it the sport you know explode

who's your favorite powerlifter uh i got a lot of them but uh i did one overall excluding ed cone um i would say stan efforting i don't think stan ever got like i i mean people understand how strong he is and stuff i don't think he ever got enough credit for like i mean he came into the sport he was predominantly a bodybuilder and he was old and he was yeah he was like i mean he was breaking world records at 46 years old he was old but i loved how meticulous he was with everything the other thing he didn't get credit for was his form and technique you know people would be like beautiful squat he goes so slow on the way down and this and that and like if you watch stan like stands in a lot better like shape and condition nowadays but when he first came to us like he he just he could barely walk the right way i mean he

was just he was his body's just tight he's muscle bound he's he's a mutant you know he's an exceptional athlete um but you know if you watch the way that he used to squat, that really wide stance, the way he's able to force his, uh, yeah, the way he's able to force his, uh, screaming all the time, the way he's able to force his knees out, uh, so well and keep a good, uh, upright posture. God, this fucking meat was awesome. Was this the backyard meat too?

I don't know. Was this too? This is probably not going to be a great representation of the way that he squats because you know as as we got further into it he was just trying to really cheat the system as much as he could and he would get the bar lower and lower on his back and things like that but still a beautiful fucking squat man that's like a classic multi-ply squat i was always i was always bummed that we don't get stand like stand efforting now like you think about what he did in bodybuilding what he did in powerlifting and then also how

articulate he is how how smart he is just the way he talks he having him now like in his prime now would be huge i made this is fucking awesome this is my favorite part of this meet i made some comments on his instagram the other day because he's doing doing a seminar, um, at, uh, Jesse Burdick's gym. And I said, you know, don't let Stan get away from you without asking him questions about lifting. Oh yeah. Because he's going to stand up there and talk to you about diet forever, which is great. And that's fantastic. And people do need to be healthier, but Stan knows so much about lifting

and, you know, being able to coach him was, was a huge honor. And I remember like little things, like he'd go up and he, he missed a six, I think it was six 11 bench. And, uh, and I was like, dude, I'm like the same thing we talked about in training. You didn't tuck your elbows, went back out there and he nailed it. And he was like, oh, I think I got it that time. And he ended up crushing a world record total that day. Who's your favorite powerlifter, Mike? Mine?

Yeah, if you could pick one. You are. Oh. Aw. So nice. I always say that. Garrett's my favorite powerlifter. Matt Barlow's my favorite powerlifter.

The close guy. Yep. My two favorite powerlifters are Chuck Vog's my favorite powerlifter. Close, guys. Yep. My two favorite powerlifters are Chuck Vogelpoel and Jeremy... Is that a Villa? Yeah, Jeremy Avila. We had this conversation. If it's a Villa or a Villa. I don't think he cares. He is my favorite powerlifter now by...

Have you guys met Ed Cohn before? Oh, yeah. Ed talks shit to me all the time. Well, Ed Cohn, he comes to so many meets, too. He is the biggest fan of the time. Well, Ed comes, he comes to so many meets too. That's the best. He is the biggest fan of the sport. Yeah. That's what it is.

Like, I remember he like, he messaged, he messaged me on Instagram before my last meet. He's like, he's like, you know,

go kill it. He always calls me fucking little guy. And I was like, he never stops flipping me off. Every time I've seen him, he'd flip me off. I'd be like, he was at the U.S. Open

and I competed on Sunday and he like, he like walked up to me. We never even spoken before. He's like, he called me by my last name. He, like, walked up to me. We'd never even spoken before. He's like, he called me by my last name. He's like, you better pull 800 tomorrow. I was like, oh, fuck. I didn't, by the way.

I did not. And I have not. Sorry. You gave it a ride. I gave it a ride twice. Yeah. I gave it a ride twice. This last meet, you gave it a good ride.

That was the third time. I attempted 800, 804 three times. All three times, got to my knee fast as fuck. Yeah. Just can't finish. Ed Cohn was an absolute mutant. He's still a mutant. A 901 sumo deadlift, an 887 conventional deadlift.

I don't know if you know this, but that 901 he did, he thought he was deadlifting 881. I'd heard that somewhere. At the time they what they used to do is um i'm sure you know this you do your lift if it was a world record after they'd roll your weight onto a scale yeah and weigh it to confirm the world record and it was he thought it was 881 and it's uh yeah it was 901 he actually had another attempt in that meet too and i think he tried like 927 or something i I love these videos of how big-

He was fucking jacked. And how jacked the guys are that are in the background. Oh, yeah. You know what's funny too is you see these- They all had trend palettes from Tractor Supply Co. These old Ed Cohen videos and stuff, the spotters are more fucking jacked than any powerlifters now. The spotters now are fucking danky. That's what I was just going to say. The spotters now I don't think have worked out before. You see the spotters are more fucking jacked than any powerlifters now. That's what I was just going to say. The spotters now, I don't think, have worked out before. You see the spotters at Big Dogs?

You see them catch that 1140 squat or whatever it was? They caught it. It fell off its back and they caught it two inches. Two inches after it fell. They all caught it. It's fucking insane. There's been some amazing lifters over the years. I was inspired a lot by Ted Arcidi, who was also a professional wrestler.

He's the first guy to bench over 700 pounds. That's kind of like one of the first big lifts I've ever seen. It was on during a WWF show, and they just showed a clip of it. Yeah, he's crushing mine. That's why I always I love when people say their favorite squatter was Kurt Kowalski. But it's like Ed Cohn did what he was doing

like in a shitty power suit. I think the Mountaineer Cup where he takes a tumble right here. But Ed squatted 900 for a double I think in just knee wraps. Oh shit! I've never seen that. Well back then too the knee wraps were not like the fucking knee

wraps those are ace bandages like fucking and they really were like you can see it sometimes this is the last beat he ever did i had to see that again yeah we need to see that again nope please don't play that again the next clip is the last meet that he ever did when his body is just uh broken but he's still i think this is like still at 800 something and this was single play yeah but he still figures it out he'll just like lean into it you know he just he squatted with his back and he still figured he's never been afraid to like the problem is like some people are afraid to admit that they squat the way they do like i meet so many people who like are just convinced they don't like because i dealt with a rounded

upper back and i meet some people who are just convinced they don't, because I deadlift with a rounded upper back. And I meet some people who are just so convinced that like, oh no, my form is perfect. My form is perfect. And it's like, if you're finding a way to optimize your strength in this position, shut the fuck up and do it. Well, if you've ever seen Ed Cohn lift in person,

then you would quickly realize that his lifting technique is very weird. Yeah, it's only him. But it's 100% the best thing for him. No two people have the same leverages. No two people should have the same bench press, the same squat, the same deadlift. This is when he's injured and he passes out

in this video. I remember this one too. He falls over. Couldn't get his belt off all the way. He falls over. This is 1003. God, this is 2003, I remember this too. Yeah.

This meet is actually where he breaks the all-time world record. But what makes Ed Cohn the best, you know, a huge factor with making him the best is that he

broke, he broke the all-time world record for the total, regardless of weight class. Yeah. Yep. As a 220-pound

person, he, you know, he was able to was able to surpass, I don't know if it was Kazmaier at the time, but it was somebody huge like that. I thought it was Kazmaier. Yeah. And he did it right there with that 887 pull. The thing, he always calls me skinny, because I am. Top trash. The first thing, I just do one motion to him every time I see him.

I just go like this. I just go like this. I just look right at him. Right at him. He's short. His fucking hands, though, scare the shit out of me. If I had those hands, I would be very self-conscious about my penis size. He's got big feet, too.

Mike Bridges was a badass, too. And Mike Bridges used to knock the shit out of the super heavyweights as well and he was only 181 and I think that maybe they didn't compete against each other I was going to say I think he beat Ed Cohn but I don't think they ended up

on the same platform but Mike Bridges was an absolute savage multi-time world champion and then he went into CrossFit and did like CrossFit and was good at that, too. Mike Bridges did? Yeah. He did CrossFit?

Yeah. I wish I could have seen the old WPO, the Arnold, man. That's like the big fucking giant stage, fucking big behemoth of men. That's the cool thing about powerlifting now. It's like back then, you knew when someone was a powerlifter. You could tell they had a look. A lot of the geared powerlifters, yeah, there's Mike Bridges. A lot of the geared power lifters yeah there's mike bridges a lot of the geared power lifters you know they won't really get the credit you know especially the kind of more modern day isn't his

son i'm not sure isn't josh bridges his son no no i don't believe so i don't think they're related um but uh a lot of the geared lifters won't get credit because there was also gary frank gary frank was the first guy to do like 24 25 26 27 and 2800 pounds i mean he he absolutely annihilated or yeah 2500 to 2800 pound totals he absolutely dominated he crushed everybody but bridges was squatting like i want to say mid-eighths weighing 181 jeez i mean it's just ridiculous but these squat suits and stuff too like you know people say they didn't do anything they did they did quite a bit I mean they they were in they were insanely tight and uh yeah very painful like I like the cool thing for me is like I I started lifting at such a young age I was around for that so while that looks like it's nine million years ago I started

lifting at like 12 yeah so I was in my first pilot when you were 12 uh you know when i competed yeah for the first time i was probably about 12 years old yeah so i've only been around for a long time was it a bench only meet bench only would you bench i don't remember i wish i could remember my first ever like competition was that push pull we did at kentucky muscle and I weighed in at 173. I benched 265 and deadlifted 500 pounds. That was your first 500-pound pull, though. That was my first 500-pound pull. Yeah.

I went fucking apeshit there. Yeah, it's amazing when you do that. Yeah, you benched how much? 260 or 265. I think he did about 10 pounds more than that at his last meet. My first sanctioned full-power meet, I squatted 435 in sleeves, and I benched 270 and deadlifted 529.

And that was April of 2016. And so by October of 2018, I squatted 711, benched 385, and deadlifted 755. Nice. 40 pounds heavier, 211.1 mike you're gonna compete anytime soon and if i had a dollar for every time people ask me that i i give myself a hard time and i truly am my worst critic but i i'm not terrible i'm not a terrible power lifter he's a good push pull

power lifter yeah but i I the platform is for somebody that is a mental midget like myself and the platform is a very sacred place for me and I respect it a lot and it scares the fuck out of me it really does I have to be very very prepared for the platform it'll be

two years this February since the last time I competed but I'm probably the strongest I've ever been right now at, you know, my normal weight too. So I don't know. It's, it's a question I get a lot.

So I have, sometimes you have to coach yourself the way you coach other people and just say, you know what, just do a meet and that's why I coach him. Yeah, it does. Cause he,

he, if he programmed himself, he'd be pulling max effort every time. I would never program myself anyways. And I'm so busy right now with other athletes. I have more fun doing that. I go into the gym and train myself like I'm getting ready to compete. Oh, yeah.

I mean, Garrett will tell you I'm very intense with my own training, and I take it very seriously. But I program a lot of people. I travel a lot for meets and right now that's, that's what I enjoy. I get, I get pretty, I get pretty juiced up to watch.

What about you? You're going to compete again. I know you've like came in out of retirement. I don't have any, I don't have any plans to compete in anything at the moment. No, no plans. We do battle shits later.

Yeah. I'm going to compete in that. I think I already got my second wave out. I think I'm good. Oh, okay. All right, guys. That's it. Strength is never weakness.

Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.