Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 313: Jim Wendler

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Jim Wendler joins us for this one to discuss the oxford comma, the triple option, and Black Sabbath. We also snuck a little 531 history in there too. To save 20% off any of the books on jimwendler.com use code MASS531 The Strength Co: https://www.thestrength.co/ Swiss Link: https://www.swisslink.com and use code MASS to save 15% Fusion Sports Performance: https://www.fusionsp.net/ MASS to save 20% on all FSP supplements Spud Inc: https://www.spud-inc-straps.com/ Texas Power Bars: https://www.texaspowerbars.com/

You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings of how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think.

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! Massanomics! website, everything. Masanomics. Welcome back, everyone, for episode 313 of the Masanomics podcast, the lifting podcast about nothing,

recorded live from western, northeast, south Dakota. My name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy. Oh, long time no see, huh, Tommy? You know, when I podcast now, I like to just do it twice in 24 hours. Yeah, twice in like 12 hours. It's where we're at. Yeah. We're really just taking an aggressive approach to our scheduling.

Yeah, so you're going on vacay next week? I'm going to Miami. Party in the city where the heat is on. That was inspired by Will Smith. That's why you're going where would he go yeah and he's either going to go to bel-air philly or miami i picked miami yeah good choice probably yeah great choice yeah so we're recording a second episode this week but it's going to be a doozy we got a lot of good stuff in store for this one we do

we brought the heat for this one we did bring the heat we're locked and loaded and ready to go we're not fooling around uh but before we get too far i want to tell you a little story tanner all right and that's story time uh today's show is brought to you by texas power bars buddy caps first started lifting weights in the late 60s and began power lifting in the mid 70s at the time he was working for image barbell building gym equipment. Around 1976, a local machine shop started making Olympic bars for them, calling it the Image Bar. In 1977, Image Barbell became champion barbell. It was then that Buddy started looking at the bars

with an intent of changing them for the better. In 1979, Buddy bought his first lathe to begin addressing the known issues. In 1980, his passion, drive, and purpose now had a greater mission. Buddy set out on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he'd ever seen and trained with, and the Texas Power Bar was born. It was strong as a house with the best knurling and was maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national, international, world, and massonomics powerlifting

records have been and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar. To learn more about Texas Power Bars and buy one of their legendary bars, visit TexasPowerBars.com. This episode is also brought to you by Swiss Link. In 1995, Maurice Big Mo Hoffman founded Swiss Link. Maurice? Maurice. He had a partner based in Switzerland,

and their mission was to bring authentic Swiss Army goods to the United States and into the hands of those yearning for quality gear at uncompromised prices. Over the years, that mission has expanded to nations across Europe and beyond. Now, for nearly three decades, Big Mo has been traveling far and wide in search of the best items for military forces around the world. Big Mo doesn't only find authentic military clothing for Swiss Link, he brings in everything you can imagine from Czech army bedpans to Italian champagne glasses. At SwissLink.com, you can find classic military surplus uniforms, a great selection of military issue backpacks, tools, wool blankets, NATO fuel cans, gas masks, emergency food, first aid kits, survival packs, camping gear, and so much more swiss links

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How can you go wrong? No. Their loss is your gain. That's right. And we all like gains around here, don't we? That's what we're all about. Speaking of gains, there's been a new movie showing at uh mass oh they're okay what's old is new again so pumping iron is on at the gym and i haven't watched pumping iron in its entirety did we do an episode like way back where we

kind of reviewed pumping iron am i probably did or did we i mean no we've definitely talked about it multiple times i can't remember if we ever did like an actual uh yeah if we haven't actually we probably should do that but i know we've talked about it multiple times. I can't remember if we ever did more of an actual. Yeah, if we haven't actually, we probably should do that. But I know we've talked about it multiple times. I haven't seen that movie in probably over five years. Yeah. And first I was pleasantly surprised at the gym to see it because I'm just thinking, did we have this before or not? And it was like a weird coincidence, wasn't it?

Yeah, I had actually ordered it finally. I finally caved in and ordered it. It was like $30 to get the dvd off of amazon and i'm like yeah because a bunch of people around have it but nobody could seem to like dig up their disc of it so i just ordered it and then like the next day someone finally brought it and said hey uh i do have this copy of pumping iron right here so i have to send the other one back but um the good news is we have pumping iron at the gym now finally and it plays on repeat it works which is great um watching the clips of it though i just forget that might be one of the best eras of lifting ever because they were doing

some pretty awesome things and they didn't take themselves too seriously right you could make the argument that they were doing crazier things that a lot of people have done yeah especially given where they were at in the history and time of things and they're in the gym like lifting hard but they're also joking around and having fun the entire time doing it you know they're never taking themselves too seriously like almost all of arnold's interviews are jokes on there yeah yeah um i'm just like man these guys got it in what was that like 70 something 70 something these guys got it better in 75 than people still do today even yeah it's and that movie even specifically like we have all the different movies that we play at the gym you know maybe there's a handful of them there now. And as far as lifting movie,

and we've got some of the best lifting, power lifting, you know, this is bodybuilding, of course, but we've got some Generation Iron and some other ones in there that are more bodybuilding focused. Out of all of them, this might still be the, I think it probably is the best lifting movie out of all of them.

It's really funny watching this one because it was right before this, was it Power Unlimited? Was that the one that was playing? Yeah. And the difference in people's attitudes in power unlimited versus this is you do have a lot of people in power unlimited that are just excited to power lift but you also do have a lot of people of like uh you know lift or die this means everything and it's like oh you

have arnold who is like doing the at that time like breaking boundaries and making a huge name for himself and doing all these things and he doesn't have the attitude one bit no actually it's really funny you bring that up and i would have forgot about it otherwise but someone just yesterday sent me um it's actually ross from the gym he sent me a screenshot of big hoss from power unlimited he must follow him on instagram it was like a picture of a home gym or something he said doing some filming for power unlimited too no really yes oh yes and i'm like i don't even know if that guy popped like that guy's not a relevant power lifter of any kind you know i'm like why would they be talking

to he was the bench guy wasn't he is that he was the guy that said uh in the line at the grocery store that he punched or oh that's it okay you him. Okay. You know. Is that Scott? Is that his name? Oh, Scott Mendelsohn. Yeah. No, no. Scott Cartwright. Wasn't that?

Oh, that's right. It's also Scott. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Scott Cartwright is Big Hoffs. That's what I'm talking about. I'm thinking. Okay.

When I first heard you said that, I'm thinking of the guy that has the sunglasses on and the camo shirt. Do you know who I'm talking about? Oh, he died. Oh, he did. That was the guy that started RPS or whatever or something like that. Like that Mendelsohn was going against. Gotcha. I, he did. That was the guy that started RPS or whatever, or something like that. Like that Mendelsohn was going against. Gotcha.

I forget his name. Someone, a bunch of people listening will know. It's just, it's one of those things where you just catch like parts of the movie a hundred times. And so you always forget who people's. Yeah.

Yeah. I can't remember his name. That's, I don't know why it's escaping me right now, but yeah. So maybe there's a power on limited to coming, which is wild that that's oh that would be incredible i want to know who's in yeah that's that's the real question right is

who's all they're going to talk about because if they're just following all the same people before i think it's a lost opportunity at a movie right there but following the same people before to say just spare your time and don't make that yeah but if you uh gosh you could if what they if they would have one of these really big money power lifting meets if you, gosh, you could, if they would have one of these really big money powerlifting meets, if you followed Dan Bell, John Hack, Hunter Henderson, like four or five of these people

like leading up to that, almost like what they did in Pumping Iron for the Olympia, that could be a good movie. That'd be a very cool movie. Yeah. Because now people have the production and everything. Right.

Cool. Right. Uh, yeah. Or even maybe it's on the U S the U S APL side and they're following, um, right. Russell.

That seems less exciting just because it's a little less over the top. Yeah. It's less extreme, you know, honestly, that would be a cool concept though. That would be a fun one. Yeah.

Um, but so pumping iron is playing. Yeah. So pumping. And I still, I love it. They have the music. They have the best attitude. though that would be a fun one yeah um but so pumping iron is playing so yeah so pumping and i still i love it that they have the music they have the best attitude they're having fun the entire time they just they make lifting seem so fun and cool yeah it is which lifting is fun and cool but a lot of people make it seem not fun and cool right right right um we've got this i've got a special game prepared for us because this is actually well this is actually six years plus one episode right now we're on the journey to seven i was i

was uh editing already this morning our episode from last night yeah and you said this is the last night i think you opened it with this is the special commemorative six-year anniversary episode i think you said we had a lot of special stuff planned and we did zero of it. We did none of it. We, we abandoned that instantly. That went out, that went out the door.

We had special stuff planned for this episode, I guess. So this is the special commemorative episode technically then, right? So I, I prepared a special little game for us to play. It's mostly your, you're playing the game today.

You're just hosting me? Yeah, this is a six-year podcast anniversary game because we've been podcasting for six years. It seemed to have made sense. It does. It's a good even number. So what you're going to have to do is I have a series of quotes here, and they are by either you or me oh okay you're gonna say maybe me you or someone else that's

existed no i've that is too open like as i if that's what i was gonna do like it could anyone on the podcast ever but i'm like as i looked at it it was just hard enough even if it's just you or me to to know well repeatonomics has taught me that i don't remember half the thing actually not have i don't remember any of the things i said from old episodes so right so i've got a list of about eight of them and they're we're going to go chronological order through the episodes it starts uh back at about episode six is going to be where our first one we're here for and i'm going to read the quote and it's uh up to you to decide decide who to attribute it if you need to analyze it in any way um but i think you understand the game, correct?

I think I got it. So there's... If I fail, though, the episode ends, right? There's eight of them. You have to get at least 50% correct or else we stop the episode. Or we stop the episode, I guess. Yes.

Left-hanging. Okay, so first quote. This is from episode six. I just need something messed up sounding. Way too loud, way too crazy. I think that was me. I think that was in reference to like yeah like I just like music in the gym that's just kind of all over the place so I believe that is me uh that's correct okay that's correct and that's basically what the conversation was I think we were just talking it was episode six I think we're just

yeah yeah our songs or something I think that's all we were talking about yeah i think that was it i think at the time i was really into death grips so okay people aren't familiar with death grips uh look them up and you'll be like oh yeah that is pretty messed up sounding do you like that still i still do like them it's actually kind of crazy for when did that come out i don't know episode six would have been almost six years ago yeah so what is uh was that 2016 yeah um even at that time the album i was probably referencing would be like the money star which i think was like 2012 or 13 um you could say it set the tone for hip-hop today a lot of a lot of the sounds they made were getting popular now and that was like 10 years ago almost okay next quote this is from episode 26 so

this would have been about uh halfway through about six months into our journey and here's the quote you burn all of your energy in that pick if you have a bad pick then it's just all of that weight and leverage on the top pulling you over do you need to do you understand the quote yes i know we're talking about the highland games and uh i would 100 agree with the statement in every way which makes it really hard for me to decide who said it what what time did you or when was this episode 26 you burn all of your energy part of me wants to say you said it, but also I am the one that really struggled with the pick.

We have a few, I believe we have a video of me like backing it way, way up and bringing it way, way forward and like fighting with that for so long. Right. And that's even almost like a, the slight half step after the pick, even though like you,

you know, like the pick, I would really just consider like, okay. Yeah. The pick, you know, for me, the pick wasn't necessarily the bad part. It was stabilized, but it's also like, depending like that's splitting hairs kind of. And we were talking about the caber in Highland games here. I mean, you were more experienced in this field.

So that makes me think that it's something you would say. And I don't remember in the timeline where the first Highland games I did. So I might not have done one yet at this point you could have done one before me i'm gonna go with i think you said it uh you said that oh i did okay so it must have been just after that first one that you did uh i think we have a video uh when the highland games recaps of me yeah you go back like in the screen out of the like it's a still camera and you're like back and forth oh i was taking that thing back and forth like 20 yards just trying to get it balanced. So that was you. So when you said, I really agree with that,

it was because you said it. Okay. Okay, next one's from episode 55. So this will be just after a year in. The quote is, I guess we will put that on the website. It's great for people and appliances that want to look good. I guess we will put that on the website. It's great for people and appliances that want to look good. I guess we will put that on the website. It's great for people and appliances that want to look good.

I don't know what this would be referencing. I think it'd be, Oh, okay. Okay. I think I might know what this, I feel like this has to, this was five years ago.

Yep. I think I might know what this, I feel like this has to be. This was five years ago. Yep. I do remember talking about 4X lip shirts and we sent one to Blaine Sumner and he held it up. And I believe in the photo,

we're like, whoa, that fits on a fridge. That thing is like a bed sheet. It's an enormous piece of cloth. So that would be my best guess as to what that's in reference to who said it statistically i want to say one of these has to be you so i'm gonna go with you said that tanner first of all you're correct that's exact the exact scenario of what this is from oh i only know because i had a little context i think he laid it on the counter that's the same width as the microwave maybe that's what it was um but you are incorrect

that was you i said that yeah okay so now you're one for three one right two wrong i gotta i gotta get on a heater here yeah next one is episode 83 so we're at about a year and a half in somewhere around there the quote is when you do the drills, you'll get lightheaded. I noticed in my feet and hands, you'll get a tingly sensation. When you do the drills. You'll get lightheaded. I noticed in my feet and hands,

you'll get a tingly sensation. I can't think of what drills we would be talking about. About a year and a half in. Drills. What drills we would be talking about? About a year and a half in drills. I don't think of drills as ever being a part of my workout routine. But I can see myself saying tingly and lightheaded. So I'm going to say I said that, but I have no idea what that's about. I said that.

No, really? Yeah, I said that. And, you know, I'm getting to come from a, like, I know these things. I wouldn't, like, I would probably get none of these right to myself. But, like, since I just listened to it yesterday to find these, I get to act like I'm all high and mighty knowing this.

But it was in reference to the Wim Hof breathing drills. Okay. That's definitely why I don't remember saying it. I do remember us talking about that now, actually. Right. That was back in Tyler's basement, I guess, at that point in time. Yep. I don't know if that was the first time

I'd ever heard of Wim Hof. Yeah. I think we probably mentioned something about taking cold showers or something with it too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. So next one is, so you're one right and three wrong. Yeah, I'm doing terrible.

But we are getting more current as we go. So maybe that's in your advantage. Probably not. Let's be real here. Probably not. Episode 139. So this would be when it was just down to you and I, I think at this point,

we're probably in your original basement. Probably, yeah. By this time, I would guess. I don't know that for sure, but the quote is, you don't want to be putting down six vodka Red Bulls. What's your end game here? I feel like I would have said this too.

So we had to have been talking about going out and doing something and this is uh and i'm always over two years in and i'm always of the of the mentality that two and a half years should be more cautious with their vodka red bulls because that's not a that's not an all-night drinker in my opinion ever i think i'm gonna say that was me i think i'm gonna say it was me that's correct that was you okay and i don't actually actually know the full context of that i just stumbled upon i was just randomly picking things and trying to find spots just like scrubbing through and yeah just wait you know it'd take me a while to back now this is crap this is crap this is crap and be like uh you don't you don't want to be putting down six vodka Red Bulls. I'm like, check.

That's a good one. Okay, so now you're two right and three wrong. This is from episode 178. It comes right back. It comes right back to what do you define as meat? Already, meat comes from the tissue of a living organism. Let me say it again because i kind of struggled up how that reads it comes right back to what do you define as meat already

meat comes from the tissue of a living organism 178 you said yeah 178 over three years in i know at one point three years ago so i think we were recording here probably had to have been close it had been very close i do remember in the other room yeah we were talking about um the impossible whopper or something like that uh-huh so based off of that i'm gonna say i said it that's correct oh you're making a comeback right here are you three and three now yeah so you're right at that 50% with two to go. So it's anybody's ballgame at this point. So do you have any more context on what that one was?

I think that that's kind of right. That's about what we were talking about. Yeah, because I think at the time I saw ads for the Impossible Whopper and I thought it was an imitation meat. I didn't realize that it was just... Impossible is such a... Right. It's a pretty well-known name now that it's just plant

based stuff well we might have been talking about them engineering meat in a lot like well I think that's what the conversation turned into yeah yeah I think that's more more so not we weren't really talking about plant-based meat yeah because I didn't know what it said the impossible whopper actually engineering uh-huh and I thought that's what the impossible whopper was right first right now impossible you know that that just means it's a plant-based right thing right next one from episode 204 how many questions do we have again two left oh we did oh i thought there's only six no there's two left you're 50 50 keep it going all right episode 204 so four years in approximately eight plates on each side of the bar that is just crazy four plates on each side of the bar. That is just crazy. Four plates on each side of the bar.

I would consider a big four plates on each side of the bar. I would consider to be a big milestone. So eight plates on each side of the bar. That is just crazy. Four plates on each side of the bar. I would consider to be a big milestone. I want to say that I probably said that because you had done four plates on each side of the bar and multiple lifts so it would

it's still a milestone no doubt but in your mind it would be much less of a milestone than it was in my head I'm going to say I said that too that was me we were talking about Julius Maddox bench pressing and that was me

that makes sense so there's last one one last one and for you to get that 50 this is from episode 275 so 30 some episodes ago what's the point of rules if you don't enforce them but also it doesn't mean there can't be dumb rules too i almost remember these words what's the point of rules if you don't enforce them but also it doesn't mean there can't be dumb rules too yeah i think we're talking about power lifting meets and i think we're also making the argument of like basketball like you don't just have a basketball game and they're like well the refs in this game are okay with your foot being over the three-point line and calling it.

I think I said that. That's correct. It was you. Saved yourself the 50-50. Just barely got out. I think that's what we were talking about, though, isn't it? That sounds right. I actually don't know that for sure.

Congratulations, though. You passed the six-year podcast anniversary game. We can keep this episode going. We don't have to shut it down right now. The Mastinomics quote me game, which goes to show we have about a 50 50 chance of knowing what each of us said of knowing what was said at any time we were both there for it so i mean that counts for something but yeah knowing who actually said it is the bigger problem uh we've got a little sack segment for this episode too yeah do we want to bust out a sack yeah let's do it okay so if you're looking watching along at home on the youtube channel

you notice this is a doom vault box courtesy of our friends at lift evil we've seen these pop up on this this pop up on the show one time before yes but first there's actually a sack within a sack on this one. This is from... We don't probably have to read this online, but this is from our friends at Obsidian Ammonia, but more specifically, our friend Danielle, not less specifically at Obsidian Ammonia, more specifically with... Pied Piper? Yeah.

Oh, super cool. So we got, yeah, she does dog treats, right? Right, right, right. Yeah, she kind of just mentioned this, or maybe I just overheard when we were at that incredibly loud bar, I think she might have mentioned something, but I didn't get to really ask much on this,

but, oh, I haven't seen these. These are awesome. So those are all yours. There were six bags, so I left them. So those are all yours to keep. And she said, don't worry worry there's no ammonia in them oh my dog and your dog neither one of them would probably care i think they would just eat it yes but which is funny though because uh travis did there was ammonia in the box also we some of the irish car bomb ammonia so we got the

pied piper dog treats carrot pup scotty probably saying that wrong yeah the baconators and the pied piper banana bites so check out uh pied piper co i would just say google them it's pied piper piper co it looks like it's a nice minimal ingredient list you know not chock full of preservatives and chemicals that i don't understand yep so my dog will appreciate that all dogs everywhere will appreciate that and it's food they can eat yes with their mouths it's food that you eat with your mouth so you know that's gonna go over well and then um this is also what's in the box and this is all yours too because oh Oh, you already got yours? Yeah, I've already taken mine out of there.

So this is from Frank at Lift Evil. He's got his 3D printed troll heads in there. Yep. I'm going to put that on the windowsill with my other one back there. Yep. Yep. I love the troll heads. Those are always so cool.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Tommy's got some tees in there. I've already got mine mine at home i didn't figure i needed to bring them yeah i don't know what he calls that does what that i can't remember what the name of this one is but uh you know what's lift evil you know what to expect and this right here this one yep this one the old lift armix collab live evil oh that thing's beautiful it really pops doesn't it it really does pop i think this even shows up on camera pretty good too yep skull for valhalla on the back that's great i'm i'm very excited for the shirt oh and i forgot our little worm yeah our worm heads yes uh yep there i am

god that's great that is awesome it is pretty cool that uh it is uh that's me really makes the shirt special right there doesn't it it adds an extra pop and then you got it in red which does even really black amazing yep i don't know i think maybe frank still has some of that t design for sale i'm not positive oh we've got the stickers too yeah oh this is going to my locker have you noticed how you have a sticker collage my locker looking pretty good isn't it i actually thought about taking an exacto so i could get the stickers over the vent holes and still cut them because you don't someone's done that before have you seen yeah yeah someone down the line did that where they cut it like that yeah so i need i'll get these going too but wow this is uh this is a great great care package here yep i love it

it's good stuff so check out lift evil uh for sure check out the massonomics collab teas and then just check out everything else that he's got going on there big frank never disappoints no it does not and uh also thank you danielle yeah with pied piper dog treats good sack segment huh great sack segment uh where are we sitting on time where we are right now tanner oh we got it just a couple minutes left until we're going to get our guest on the horn here so the last thing other thing on our list was old videos and was that uh we were just talking about uh old massonomics youtube videos that are seven years in the library yeah the discord is pulling up some old ones that were very, very funny.

There's ones of you and I training at the YMCA. Getting ready for our first meet ever. Actually, not pre-Masonomics, but... Masonomics had been around for maybe a few weeks. Yeah, weeks even, and it just wasn't... Shirts didn't exist yet. Did we not have shirts yet then? Well, one of the videos was the unboxing of the first ever shirts. Okay, I didn't exist yet. Do we not have shirts yet then? Well, one of the videos was like

the unboxing of the first ever shirts. Okay. I didn't know. And like, like that video, I think that I shared on there of like, it was you, you know, it's at the beginning, you're doing like front raises

in the mirror at the Y. Oh yeah, I have a tank top on. I do not have a Massanomics shirt on. That was pre-shirts by just a little bit. Oh, but I have a Massanomics. And that was just a little bit later. Oh, that was different. So there's just some, you know,

yeah, there's. So they were, they were, they were for sure in just a little bit later. Oh, that was... So there's just some... Yeah, there's... So they were for sure in the works at that point. They were probably waiting to get printed. Yeah. Okay. And like if you watch that shirts video, like you weren't like officially a part of Mastodonics yet because I go like,

oh, and thanks to Tommy Guns for, you know, putting these shirts together and stuff like that. So it was very much that video is very funny to me watching it now uh i think i'm squatting i think and it's funny i fail i go up to so is that a fail or i think that one is the fail i go up to like 430 on probably something like that yeah something right around there leading up to the first meet that was like a week or two out yeah it's like oh yeah i'll go to one rep max and fail and see and now it's funny because that you're like i don't want to do but also it's 400 pounds so it's like not like right right hopefully taxing but uh and that's i think

the first then i had to go look like how strong was i then and i think for that first meet first meet ever i believe i squat it was in the low fours. I squatted on like 410, 415. Did you bench around 300? Bench 275, whatever. Maybe kilos is 275. And then I think I deadlifted like 465, something like that. Yep. It is funny watching that, though. Yes.

So there is some, if you want to. Oh, I was going to make a comment. You know, in the background, the wise mistake was they had a banner for the official training center of the Aberdeen Wings hockey team. If they would have put a banner up saying the official training center of Masonomics, things could have been a little different. Things would be a lot different now.

The world could be significantly different. If you do want to check some of those out, just go to our YouTube channel and sort by oldest videos. There's probably like 30 vlog vlog style videos in there. Yeah. A lot of it is like the t-shirt video. It's just, someone said like,

ah, this is like a, a high school, a yearbook, a video that are on screen presence has greatly since that time. Yeah. If anything, that's maybe been the one thing that it is funny though.

Like I would never want to take them down because it's just just like this it's a funny little tidbit of masonomics most people would take those down too right yeah i think most people would but i i i think it's fun i think it's fun for people that have just started finding us they go look at this like look at these idiots yeah oh someone post your open powerlifting. I found it here. First one. Wow. Okay. I was way off. Squat 402, bench 275, deadlift 430. Okay. I was thinking more of my second meet. Samsonite. You're way off.

I was way off. Oh, man. So go check those out. And if you do watch them, leave a comment so we know that people are watching them. So it's like, ah, yeah, someone's watching this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think those guys suck now. It just goes way back in time.

But you know what doesn't suck? What? The Strength Co. No, they do not. This podcast is brought to you by the Strength Co., of course. And I want to tell you a little bit about Grant Brogy, the owner of the Strength Co. Grant was born in the late 80s,

nearly two decades after buddy caps began lifting. in the late 80s, nearly two decades after buddy caps began lifting. In the late 90s, Grant's brother Jordan bought him the new Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Grant's love for weightlifting began. In 2001, Grant joined the local YMCA and began training with weights. In 2009, Grant discovered the book Starting Strength and in 2012, as a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, he began teaching Marines this method. In 2017, Grant opened his first gym in Costa Mesa, California, and the Strength Co. was born in 1920.

We're not talking about Buddy Caps here. We're talking about Grant. In 2020, during a major iron shortage, Grant sought to bring back quality manufacturing of Olympic barbell plates to America. His innovation, adaptation, and can-do attitude brought about the greatest plates made in decades. The plates were accurate, anti-fragile,

and instantly became the go-to plates of hundreds of lifters at the Massanomics gym and hundreds of lifters, thousands of lifters around the country. Hundreds of lifters around the Massanomics Discord for sure. All right. By Discord? Yeah, by Discord. See you Discord. century hundreds of lifters around the mass dynamics discord for sure yeah all right one by discord yeah by discord see discord now tommy should we get our guest on the line let's do it if i remember how to run this thing it's been almost a day the telephone if i remember how to run a telephone.

Hello? Hey, this is Jim. There we go. All right. Hello, can you guys hear me? Okay, I had to switch to my headphones here. How are you guys doing? Good, Jim.

This is Tanner and Tommy. How's it going? Good. Very nice to see you guys headphones here. How are you guys doing? Good, Jim. This is Tanner and Tommy. How's it going? Good. Very nice to see you guys. Well, hear from you guys again. Yeah, long time no see, huh? Yeah. You guys get home okay and everything?

Oh, we did. It was a little bit of a trip, but we made it. Yeah, it was pretty brutal, actually, but it was worth it, and I guess we're gluttons for punishment, so we'll be back again next year. Did you guys enjoy the, uh, have you guys been in the Arnold prior to this year? Yeah.

I assume you have. Yeah. This was our second year as a booth, but we've been there a couple, this was our fourth year being there. I think. Okay. Yeah.

Cause, uh, what was the, obviously there was a lot less people. Yeah. I'm sure you guys noticed that. But, uh, was there as many, uh, or was there less freaks or did the freak, obviously there was a lot less people. I'm sure you guys noticed that.

Was there as many or was there less freaks or did the freaks stand out even more? To me, it felt a little less of a circus show. I think so too. It seemed a little more just... Or maybe we're desensitized to it at a certain point too. There was for sure a lot

less crowd, but I don't know if that's completely bad i guess it depends on who you are and what your perspective is but i don't for us i don't think it was bad if you were like 17 or 18 years old that's bad because holy shit uh when you're uh past like 38 maybe even 35 you're like listen if no one shows up, I'd be super happy. That includes everyone, even the booths. If I could just sit in my hotel room, I'd be much happier. It is kind of interesting. I didn't know until we talked to Phil this year that he usually tries to drag you out there for a day.

I'm almost a little surprised that you go out to the Arnold even for a day. Well, we... Phil and I have like a long connection. And how it usually works is I go to the Arnold for one reason, and that's because right across the street is the best wings I've ever eaten in my life.

Literally across the street. And I don't know how I discovered the place. I'm sure it was at the Arnold or something, but, uh, so, uh,

each time, I don't know if we've spent more than an hour at the Arnold. And so it just, and I'm just counting the minutes like, ah, come on, feel you hungry. Come on.

Yeah. But, uh, you know, he goes and, yeah, he does, he does so much work with people there.

Uh, you know, like what you guys do with him and stuff like that. But he goes and he does so much work with people there, like what you guys do with him and stuff like that. So he just shakes a few hands, presses some flesh, like a good politician, and he's like, let's go eat. So yeah, but when I was working at Elite FTS, we had a blast because we would, Arnold Week the entire week was just blast because we would, uh, Arnold week, the entire week was just nuts because people would be flying in, uh,

that were, but we sponsored, you know, from all over the country. And then people from all over the world that we knew would come in. And it was awesome. Like, first of all,

you were not, I wasn't working at all. It was just hanging out with people, which I'm a huge fan of rather than working. Um, anything other than work, but, uh, it was a good time, people which i'm a huge fan of rather than working anything other than work yeah but it was a good time man we had it and so it just became like one long social visit and people training and it was awesome man so uh that was like the best part of one of it was just

it was a great time and so and that was i mean don't know if you, you guys never went to like the old, uh, what was his name? Karen Kidder used to host the big double ply or a double ply meet, I guess you call it. I don't know. I can't remember what it was called, but it was a giant double ply meet. Dude, it was fucking electric. I mean, it was odd. It was one of the best meets i've ever seen and it was like the best in the world you had to get an invite to go yeah was that uh yeah yeah i think that's that that's in like powerlifting unlimited a little he should he's in there for a little bit where he's like got the card girls almost uh yeah it was it was nuts in there like it was exciting people all standing up going crazy you know and there was it was a different time in powerlifting it really was and i don't think people quite understand and what was even funnier was i don't know how long it went on i'm just gonna take a guess five years for a giant chunk of that no one got paid even though there was like 20 000 and people kept on showing up and they were complaining

oh i just don't show up if everyone just just says like, let's not fucking go, he's going to either have to pay you guys or shut it down. But like, nah, screw it. We know it'll be different this year. Yeah. And, uh, it wasn't, but every year. Yeah. And I saw some of the most insane, uh, the strongest person I've ever seen in my life,

like pound for pound kind of thing. Uh, lifter I've ever seen in my life was there. And it was just and i saw goggins steve goggins squatted his not i don't want to say it as prime but it was close i don't know if you ever seen steve goggins squat but he basically good mornings and accordion folds himself down into the squat position it comes out and it is it's one thing to see like a video of him you know it's like seeing dpda on film and then you see it in person like oh you're like holy shit that's a different level to this yeah so uh but it was like uh the guy i

watched uh alexander kuchar he was a 165 or from russia he squatted 900 bench sticks and deadlifted 800 and this was like at a true 165 right and like i watched him pull on you know not like i'm a voyeur fruitcake but i watched him pull on his suit without any help it wasn't a tight suit right and uh i heard he had like uh his back muscles when he turned around were the most obnoxious things i've ever seen in my entire life i'm from erectors all the way up mid to his traps like you could probably leave like a loaf of bread in there and you wouldn't find it it was so thick you know it was something else man i wish i could remember what it was called i don't know it doesn't really matter but yeah things have changed greatly uh and then just, what is that?

Shit, like 15, 20 years. And powerlifting has completely changed. I haven't been to a meet in, I don't know, probably a long, long time. So I don't know. I just hear from people. There used to be an element of danger involved. Not just with what was going to happen on the platform, but some of the people were just nuts. They were just dangerous people. What are they actually gonna do yeah like i remember one guy uh was a couple hell's angels would show up and they were great lifters or guys

would get out on parole well who's the new uh moran or whatever i think he was a patched hell's angel uh you know that's maybe even a little bit before that but Lee Moran he was a patch tails angel it was just a different time man I remember I saw a guy with a hernia popped out and he duct taped it in and it was just alright I guess this is what you do

get that behind the belt oh man so yeah it's just you know it was kind of the height of there was still a ton of mystery about West Side and an allure. It was an awesome time. You can't really plan that or replicate that in any way,

no matter how hard you try. Like it or not, that's one of the bad things about social media. It removes a lot of the mystery involved. Well, we were actually just talking about that on an episode last week, just even saying how like 90s and 2000s bodybuilders, how the magazines like built this whole like character and aura around them. You didn't really, I mean, that was your only peek at to who they were and they were like these larger than life people. And now they kind of have to be like, all right, the guy you see on social media all the time for them to make a yeah go at it right like i don't i don't want it's like i remember one time someone said i want my uh president to be like a guy i could sit down and have a beer with him like i want fucking batman i don't give

a shit i don't want him to like me you know or whatever and uh i don't like i don't and people like well it's better you get to i'm like it's not better like why there's a there's a heavy metal rock band named ghost huge and they were able before this yeah and uh when they're when they when they're elizabeth was the name of their first seven inch when it came out there was a tremendous buzz like within two or three days it just exploded and so no one really knew who was in the band and it was it was probably a fairly good secret for like two years maybe and then it kind of got out and then it was officially revealed uh once some court documents came up but that's neither here nor there but i like not

knowing i thought i'm like just i want to believe it's the black pope the satanic pope and i'm fine with that and people like you know why do you want to know so bad like what's it just like i kiss like when they you know when they were around like in the what mid 70s to i think they unmasked themselves in the mid mid to early 80s i like that man i like watching like oh well that's just how they walk around right you know daily life right just uh high-heeled boots and uh face paint like the kabuki makeup and i don't know but i you know i guess it's cool to look behind the scenes too but i don't really the other thing is and people say well like

documentaries i haven't watched the west side documentary but i was there for two and a half three years and i had been around yeah and like some people tell me stories i'm like that's not how i remember it but you know that's cool if you that's how you want to see it and then every time i watch a documentary like that's probably 80 true maybe so it's disappointing because even the that you're supposed to know you know like it's supposed to reveal behind the screen it's like that's not terribly true yeah so you talked about kind of how powerlifting has changed that much over time and like i think you have this ability where you when you're done with something you put that away and like you go on to the next thing and

you're able it's something you're able to do that's been my entire life i just like that's fucking done yeah just like i and i don't like go ahead right you know i i i think that that's a lot of people want to be able to do that and probably can't because that's not easily done all the time but when it when it comes specifically to power lifting like, and you said how you hadn't been to a meet in a long time, is there anything about powerlifting today that really piques your interest at all, that catches your attention? Or are you just not as interested in that

as you used to be at, say, 15? For me, powerlifting was a fairly selfish pursuit. And I'll give you an example. When I started lifting all the way up until I started powerlifting, it was everything I did for training, even when I wanted a bigger bench or squat or whatever, was 100% about playing football. And so that's where, like, my roots were.

So that's from, I guess, 13 until I was 24, 23. And then, so, like, that's where my roots are. That's from, I guess, 13 until I was 24, 23. That's where my roots are. My roots were never really in powerlifting. It just happened that I had a really good base going into powerlifting. That's where my heart kind of lies. Now, I'm the strength coach at the local high school here. My wife does all the junior high prep for the junior high kids. And then we, so we have like a comprehensive program.

So if you play football in London from 6th, 7th, 8th, all the way up until, you know, whenever your senior year, you have a comprehensive training program. Everyone's part, you know, if you play football, you'll be part of it. And that's where, like, my heart lies. So it's not so much like I don't have any interest. I don't really know. I mean, it's still like the squad bench at Deadlift, right? They didn't, like, weasel in the snatch or something.

It's pretty much the same thing. And so it's not so much that i don't have any interest it's just that part of my life i did it kind of for me and i was happy to you know answer all the questions on efs and do all the seminars and stuff and i love the training part but like to me like football has always been my i't know, that's training for football and football itself, I think, has given me zillions of times more, and that's how I feel I need to give back. That's where my heart is. Whether it be with my kids or the kids I coach or

whatever, that's kind of where everything, for me, lies. That London high school team really lucked into winning the lottery on getting a, you know, the strength coach that is happy with, you know, volunteering his time to this program to make it as good as possible. Like someone that's as well renowned in the industry as, you know, it's like they won the lottery. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's like, I'm, I look at it, like, I'm also very lucky that I don't have a head coach that medals in any way.

Uh, and I don't, I have a community that it's a small town. So everyone's like, well, we really appreciate you helping out. And so that's all I really wanted. I'm wanting the kids do a really good job of responding to challenges and kind of how i coach and stuff like that so i'm just as lucky as everyone else uh in in this community and it's not like i'm i'm like i love when people are like tom brady's so humble i'm like tom brady's not humble like he's humble to the camera tom brady you know gets mad every time his shit stinks i'm better than i'm better than that, I'm better than that. So I'm not like saying like, I understand it.

I have made a difference and I've done some good stuff. But I've heard and I've been part of many situations in the strength coaching where it doesn't matter how good you are or how, you know, it can be an absolute clusterfuck. And that starts really with the head coach and the community. If they're not kind of backing you and they give you some leeway, I have more leeway at a small high school program than any coach has in the NCAA or NFL team. Right. If we don't have a ton of weird restrictions, we don't ask like the kids to do like seven days a week, a hundred hours a week,

but there's no real restrictions is you know like i said we don't take advantage of it but uh having that uh makes a big difference uh so and it's been awesome because like my first year i was here i didn't do any of the strength stuff like i came in early like early in the season so i didn't really do anything and i started working with the jv during the season if this makes sense and uh because i knew how i wanted to train the kids so i just started bare bones we did six weeks of nothing but dumbbell squats and push-ups and just because i needed to prep them for the off season. To make a long story short, that season we went three and seven. And it was horrible. Like, it was bad.

And the next year, so we made the playoffs every single year. We've gone three deep in the playoffs a couple times. But we've always made the playoffs. We always win our conference or come close. There might be some freak team that, you know, we'll lose one game and we'll still whatever yeah but we're still very competitive we don't pass the ball we pass the ball like three times a game and it's like we live on like brute insanity football we run the wing t offense which if anyone doesn't know is uh it's like from like from 1920 yeah and it's very it's it's hard to defend

and it's funny because people will always say well you guys run the ball i'm like you know what kind of pressure that puts on the defense like thought because you know every play you're gonna get you're gonna get run you're gonna get you're just and it's just like a pile driver offense it's not fun to play against we played played against some teams. They might have the ball twice in the first half. Right. We just run the ball. And one year we had a 3,000-yard rusher and a 15 or 14-yard rusher, 1,400-yard rusher on the same offense.

That year, like, we never had a drive over like five plays. It was just breaking massive runs. And it's almost better for the other team because then they can get out on the field if we just got like a bunch of road graders it's four yards eight yards two yards six yards they'll never get the ball like i just score just fucking score let them go boys particularly in the era of uh the spread offense you know it's like even more rare too that you know oh yeah Everyone wants to have four wide receivers. By the time, they don't know how to defend our offense

very well. You don't know really how to prepare because we're so physical. That's what we emphasize all the time is discipline and being physical. Discipline and being physical. I'm talking like every little thing we count where you put your hand on the when you're when you're lifting where your foot is when you're doing a sprint what hand you touch to the line like everything fucking matters because in the game it will matter because we're not gonna i always tell the kids we're not gonna out athlete anyone on this football field you know teams are gonna be better you know we're a small town like

10,000 people and it's like spread out 10,000 people so it's not you know it's pretty small that's that's right up our alley yeah not talking we talk to someone we have the bigger yeah right right that's uh yeah that's like i i actually grew up in high school playing i don't know if this exists in ohio or not but we played nine-man football. Yeah. Yeah. There's eight-man football, seven-man. Yeah.

There's all kinds of variations. Yeah. There's, the one thing is in like Ohio football is pretty, high school football is pretty big. It's not quite Texas or like certain parts of Florida, but it's probably, and then obviously certain parts of Florida, but it's probably, and then obviously certain parts of California are insane, but we're in the top five of states where high school football really means something. It's taken seriously.

And not to the point where it's like bananas here, but the, you know, it's cool to drive through town and like you see, you know, the McDonald's go Red Raiders, you know, good luck and like you see, you know, the McDonald's go red Raiders. No, good, good luck beat, you know, Urbana or whoever we're playing. It's kind of nice to see that kids get that kind of support. So, um, that's cool, but I just, it's, it's an awesome job. It really is. You know, I don't, my wife and I both don't get paid. Um, but it, it, it, there's like an old, uh, remember Chrisris farley he did an interview with uh paul mccartney when he did like the old snl uh you'd have to see it but he's very the whole thing was

he was very uncomfortable during the interview was chris farley and he says hey paul and he's like yes chris is it true that the love you make is equal to the love you take or something like that? And it's like, you know, the more you put in and to help people, the more you get out of it than you think. So I've been very, very blessed to be part of this. So we're holy shit. We wrote great people. Oh, my God. You know, yeah, I think it's always it's always amazing when you have, especially like,

I always tell people the strength training that we do, like the freaks are always going to be the freaks. They're going to be great athletes regardless of what you do. But my, the strength training that, that really helps is the average kid. And I remember we beat some team like 8,000 to nothing one game and we threw one pass our crowd went it was a halfback pass didn't get completed and I remember our crowd went bananas like we threw a pass it's like is the fact that we averaged 500 yards rushing a game not good enough but the other strength coach came up to me he's like hey you know great job and i'm like ah boy sorry dude and he's like what i gotta ask you what do you guys do and i said listen and i i never really

thought about it like this i said my goal is to make my average kid kick your average kid's ass because you the keeping freaks kind of cancel themselves out and there's nothing you can really do to defend that right um and so but i'm like man we can really do to defend that. Right. Um, and so, but I'm like, man, we can really make a difference. You know, if you take an average kid who maybe deadlift 185 or something, if you get him up to a 500 pound trap bar and doing 10 pull-ups, he's going to think he's,

you know, Jesus incarnate. Right. He's going to have tremendous confidence in the kid, you know, right across me. Yeah. It's not so much about taking a 550 pound

high school squatting you know 600 pounds yeah the one that can squat 600 it has a 40 some inch yeah they're yeah yeah and so it's just like you know we have a lot more average to below average kids than we have above average kids and then very few freaks we might get a two or three freaks every four years or five years. You know, hearing that the kids are like, holy shit, dude. But, you know, like that's, you win with the average kids. That's what you win with. And there'll be a lot of our kids won't play until their senior year.

And my job is to obviously get them stronger in better shape but i want them to feel i always put them in positions to win i give them challenging things to do but i'm never going to ask like listen everyone's got to run a four mile mile we're all gonna you know we'll be out here all day i try to put them in positions where they have they can build their self-confidence and self-esteem a little bit and you got to do that with hard things but it can't be so hard that they you know they want to commit suicide after um so i try to put them in good situations and then they start believing and believing and believing and you all of a sudden there's a senior they're like dude i'm fine and then they start pancaking people left and right and they're like holy shit this works i'm like so so yeah and obviously my

goal someone asked me this the other day I'm like listen I just want to develop the most independent killers in the world and I don't mean killers like you know Ted Bundy or something like that just I'm more of a Jeffrey Dahmer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get your facts in. But I just want to have a group of kids that after this, you know, they are physically,

mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially independent because those are dangerous people. If you are independent in any way, shape, or form that you don't rely on,

it doesn't mean you don't like have a family and you don't help your friends out and need your friends. It just that you don't rely on. It doesn't mean you don't like have a family and you don't help your friends out and need your friends. It just means you don't need someone as a crutch, whether it be financially or emotionally or whatever you want to say. I'm like, man, if we can get an army of those kids on this earth, good Lord, things will, will be better for us. So for sure. And yeah, so that's like the overall goal, whether or not it you know who knows

no it seems like you're doing a really good job and i bet uh there's a lot of people leaving that program a lot better off than when they started um yeah yeah i hope so something else we wanted to check with you you're an english english major correct that's what uh, I was in English. I took one sports science or something like that class and the lady outweighed me by 800 pounds. I remember getting all excited to go to this class. And I'm like,

dude, I know more than she does. What the hell is up with this shit? It was like seeing the Wizard of Oz. You're behind the curtain. Gross. Damn, that's like it doesn't really matter what your degree is and just to get a degree that you like and work hard you'll have you make contacts that's how you do it what your life is still about who you know and uh you know starting at the bottom whatever job you do so as long as like you're a good person and work hard like that's gonna get you a long way so i'm like well that's the thing

i've always loved was reading i was always in in like AP English. I love to write. And it just honestly was fairly easy for me. And I was like, you know, school to me was like how I played football. I knew getting a degree was important, but I'm like, man, I'm here really to play football. And this stuff is let's just make this kind of easy and fun. I want to enjoy my time. And I didn't want to be stuck behind a million books. So yeah, it was an English major creative writing minor, which was, it's,

it's funny because what you want to talk about pretentious, go to a creative writing course. Holy cow. And I had one teacher that was really good. She was awesome. And she's the one that kind of inspired me. And so, but yeah yeah it's definitely helped um and plus i you know i enjoyed reading i love reading books i still do to this day and uh i remember like even when i was i kind of want you know i was always interested in obviously training but i remember people saying to me like you'll never get anywhere with just lifting weights and being an english major and i was like piss off kind of used both those things

together and it worked out pretty good actually it seems like i'm doing all right for myself you fucking fat shit so yeah it's it's it was an awesome time though because i was right at the the start of like the real PC movement in college. So you still get got to read some, you know. Unpopular books, but it was just at the start where they started really jamming the the what do you call that? I don't even know what they call it these days, just like the PC bullshit culture yeah where uh you know and it's just like but i you know it's i had some really good teachers really good teachers especially when you got into your major and stuff they were very smart they took typical professors like had no real skill outside of reading uh but they were good guys you know they're good teachers so

yep yeah well you can probably help us settle a couple little debates we've had ongoing for a while. So with your English background, all right. First one, the Oxford comma. So the, the last comma in a series, let's write before the end, do you use it or not use it? Before the end, you never use that. That's sloppy. I think that looks sloppy. Oh my God. It's like. I think that looks sloppy. Oh, my God. It's like wearing suspenders and a belt. Yeah, I think it's just bad.

Because if you look, if you read, to me, you pause when you have a comma. Yep. Okay, is that right? Right. And you don't need to pause after the end. That's kind of like your uh uh and yeah so yeah it drives me nuts when i see it and i sent my books to get uh proofread and stuff and they asked me i'm like no i don't care if you think it's wrong keep it in so i don't want this it did actually come up and come in through the process then even

they specifically talked about that okay and then the other one so you're sitting down at your uh keyboard you're typing stuff out two spaces okay oh okay so you already knew the question okay wow i had that come up too i'm like i just don't like if i had a book of poems and i'm like listen this whole poem nothing's going to be capitalized like they're not well we can't do it it's like, listen, this whole poem, nothing's going to be capitalized. Like they're not, well, we can't do it. It's like, well, that's what the poem is. This is my writing. I want two spaces after the period. Right. That's what you're asking or any kind of anything that ends a sentence. Right. What you're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And I don't like, like, listen, uh, it's like, uh, when I was growing up, everyone called it hypertrophy. Right. Yep. And then it became hypertrophy.'m like no what yeah yeah no you don't get it it's it's it's like an idea like the old way was bad i'm the new guy let's change it you know there's people that don't they don't say creatine it's it's you know oh no what do. What do they say? I haven't heard it in creatine. Yeah. It's, it's a creatine. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's like, it's like Mabia or Clitoris. Yeah. I'm okay with that. I've always wanted to do a game show called Clitoris or Clitoris. That's all we do. Everyone wins. That's right.

We all win on Clit Tours. Are you about 45, like mid-40s or so? Yeah. And I'm 35, and I always grew up learning the two spaces thing, so I actually can't physically train myself out of it anymore. No. I must have spaced out for those classes because I never remember learning it. I've never done it.

It's not a part of who I am at all. So I'm on the opposite side of that. Yeah. That's just when I press return or period. Right. It's bump bump with my thumb and I'm ready to go. That's why I can't not do it either. Yeah.

I look at it as like, and if, like I said, if someone says something like, well, this is my work of art, it can be whatever I want yep like it's my truth it's my favorite thing i love when people say that just dude if i think my left hand is you know right the right side like good luck driving i remember some kid said something one time in time when we were right before train about living the truth. I'm like, you're going to tell that to the IRS? Dude, everyone started lying. Like, dude, the IRS doesn't give a fuck. The truth is the truth.

And don't even get me started on the IRS. We were just talking about the IRS in the last episode. It's extortion. You know the mob that used to be like, hey, welcome to the neighborhood. I see you got a business. I'm like, listen, you're going to have to pay us some protection money. From what?

From us. Who do I pay? Well, us. What? Yeah. So it's like, you need to pay us. What's going to happen? Are you going to get arrested from you?

From us. It doesn't seem like that. You send most of it overseas anyway. Like, why do you need this? You know, one of my, I think, I'm sure everyone's heard this, but when Ron Paul, the great Ron Paul, was running for president during the New Hampshire primaries, Ron Paul was running for president during the New Hampshire primaries. Uh, one of the, uh, fellow, uh,

Republican candidates addressed Ron Paul and said, Hey, Dr. Paul, what do you think about, uh, you know, half the country doesn't pay income tax. What do you think of that? And Ron Paul's like, yeah, we're halfway there. I love that guy. Oh, he makes he makes i heard him i shit you not you chink yuger is yuger he runs he's part of the young turks no i don't know all right it's a very very left-leaning incredible left-leaning and he was doing an interview with ron paul ron paul is always very very professional and stuff and this is the probably for chank was

like a big name that he is today but he's he asked ron paul why ron paul uh and we you and one of you guys and i talked about this why he supports subsidies for farmers or whatever it was he's like they're not subsidies i gave them a tax break. He's like subsidies, tax breaks, same thing. It's not, it's not the same thing. It's like potato, potato.

I'm like, no, it's not that thing, dude. I'll never, like, it was weird, uh, that someone thinks tax,

you know, having a tax break or a subsidy, whatever it's beyond belief, but that's where we are today. So, yep. Uh, uh, anyway, I, i know you probably have answered more 531 questions and yeah than you know you care to but this is a little bit not so much about the programming itself but more about like uh the process of

the books and stuff like that when you when you first started with 531, writing that first book, did you ever imagine that it was going to be, you know, that this one book, this one training program, if you want to boil it down to that, that it was going to be this enormous brand, you know, like essentially brand that it is now? I had zero, even, I hope that I could make like a thousand dollars extra a month. So that is like what your, your thing going into it was like, yeah, I hope I can get a, you know, I hope this can be, I hope somebody buys this and it can turn into a little bit of something. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, and it's funny cause, uh,

someone will hear this or they I've answered something like this before. And I'm like, dude, I had no idea. And Dave, you know, Elite, he's like, trust me, you guys have no idea how bad he is with this stuff. And this is how my brain works. I've always, like since I've been a kid and my dad really pushed this down my throat and not in a bad way, but everything was process oriented with us. So, for example, if you wanted to lose weight, it wasn't just like, listen, I want to weigh, you know, lose 60 pounds. It was what the goals were always, what would you have to do? So my whole thing is like, listen, I'm just going to do a murph a day

and then run up a hill for an hour and that's going to take care of itself and then like just eat meat or whatever i'm just trying you know if i needed to get better at running i'm just going to write for an hour a day it's going to happen let's just keep on could our keep our head down and keep on plowing through so to speak so with this stuff it was more i just wrote the most the best thing i could at the time with the knowledge that i had with what i had been working on for about i think i had uh maybe a year and a half or two years or so prior to releasing the book i had been farting around with this trying to get it right there's what so all i did was did the best I could

with what I couldn't and it's just that's where that's how it's always been with me and like I didn't have a grand plan at all I just wanted like I know this could work I had some you know I had written about it a little bit here and there and so people were asking about I'm like, screw it. Let's see what happens. And it was just, it's been, I'm very lucky. You have no idea. I live the most blessed life. I have a great life. I have great kids. I live in a great community. A lot of it is my own doing, like being smart about stuff. And part of it is, this is just, I got great opportunities and I took advantage of them.

So I live in a very modest house, very modest house. And we live horribly below our means. That's part of our marriage contract. Like, listen, let's just live fucking cheap. So when COVID hit, nothing really changed for us. We were fine. Because we had so much stuff saved up and we were always smart about things. But like, I'm so lucky to be where I am, but I'm also worked very hard.

And one of the things I always tell people is there's an old saying that the master will appear when the apprentice is ready. And when I first met Dave Tate, I don't know how old I was. I was like, it was before 9-11. So maybe around 2000, I met him. And he had EFS was nothing, or Elite FTS was nothing as you know it today,

but it was still big in the power lifting world. And prior to that, I had probably written 50 different training articles because I knew I wanted to do something with train, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't have an outlet for it. So when Dave asked me, when I met him, he's a holy shit, you know how to write, do you want to write some articles? I was fucking ready. I had spent the last couple of years writing. And so it was just just about you have to take

advantage of the situations but man i fucking worked i mean imagine them writing articles and no one's going to read them like that's what i felt like this sucks but i knew i wanted to do it so it's just a matter of putting yourself in great position or you know i always tell the story of uh how i got a scholarship and what led to playing time uh we every thursday at arizona that's where i went to college we have something called the scout bowl and it was a while everyone else who played and traveled had a very light practice at the end of that practice uh the guys who didn't play played in a big scrimmage and it was, you know, under the lights and bananas and stuff like that. And, uh, I had trained just working so hard. I never really got a chance. Well,

everyone that was on scholarship either left or pretended they were hurt. So I was the only running back left and I ran like you wouldn't believe and ran and ran. I had cut my head open. It was like blood everywhere. I looked like I was a black metal musician on stage just you need a coach like this fucking looks awesome give him the ball and uh after that the head coach came up to me he's like you will until you're off the team you're going to travel every every game we'll find a place to put you and that's just a matter of all those years you you know, since I've been a seventh grader, I started training and playing football. That's what I all led up to. I was ready and I could have been easy.

I could have taken it off. I could have had a bad attitude and stuff. And that's a lot of years. I was there for three years before I even got a chance. And I just kept on kind of believing in myself. And when the opportunity arose, I took it. And I guarantee you, I guarantee you i i guarantee you i've uh fucked up a lot of times too by not being ready you know so there's a lot of opportunities out there you just have to kind of be ready for it and the hard part is being ready

for those opportunities sucks because you do a lot of stuff that you you know that there's no that's not rewarding yeah at all, at all. And so it's just, that's kind of what I talk about. Like the, the process is much more important than the goal. And the goals will come. It just may take a little longer or maybe they'll go in a different direction, but you'll get there. So I just, I hate to see so many, and this doesn't happen all the time, but I see a lot of kids just get real down about certain things.

And I'm like, dude, it was one practice. It's fine. Like, this is the way things go. It was one training session or, you know, it sucks when, you know, your dad's kind of a dick, but man, you got a whole group of kids here and coaches that love you. Let's just focus on that. And, but, you know, I just hope hope the i try to have a good attitude when i'm with the kids and i i try to reflect that in how i live you know one of the things i get asked constantly was how did you get the kids to buy in you know like because that's i didn't know who i

was and uh one of the things i tell everyone is you should hold yourself accountable, more accountable with discipline and structure and whatever you want to say. Then you hold your kids because the kids see it. They might not see it like, you know, yourself training every day outside doing crazy shit or whatever you're doing. But the way you walk and the way you handle yourself is huge. shit or whatever you're doing but the way you walk and the way you handle yourself is huge and if you're just a fat slob who doesn't really give a shit about what he eats or how hard he trains or what time he wakes up or whatever you want to say the kids sniff that shit out it may not be the first week but they eventually will and i think that's super important for for me to be a if i'm going to ask the kids to put their foot on the line and run and do whatever i'd

better be able to do the same kind of thing maybe not exactly but i you know kids always like coach which two do they and i'll tell them like holy shit and like i tell them i'll fucking i will run every one of you fuckers in the ground now that's just because i'm old i know how to breathe better let's just be honest but i think that's super important uh and you know it's good for me too keeps me young i feel great 47 i feel fucking phenomenal uh but a lot of it has to do with keeping that attitude just kind of still being i don't want to say an angry young kid but like having massive expectations that you put on yourself i think that's super important uh it's easy to give up you know it's easy to have a bad attitude all that stuff so um yeah

like it's the kids keep me young but i you know i try to try to be an example you know i really do so there you go it's funny because everyone's like what do you the most important thing you know they always want to know what we do with the kids i'm like the most important thing is your own training and how you present yourself that's more important i i liken it to the what do you call that when you're in an airplane and the mask come down you ever hear the lady gives you you have to put it on yourself first before you yes yeah yeah you got to take care of yourself to make sure everything is right with you and that doesn't mean being horribly selfish it means like you're important too right the same thing with the

family like the marriage is more important than the kids you know people don't want to hear that but uh if you're if your relationship is not solid then it's going to bleed over to the kids and it'll it'll kill itself so yeah it just gives me that's how i bribe my wife for sex you don't love your kids i'm taking notes right now my wife is laughing her ass off I'm taking notes right now. Okay. My wife is laughing her ass off right now. When we were getting ready for, we knew we were going to talk to you today,

we were just looking at some old videos and old things like this. And Tommy brought up this. We went back in the research phase and found some old things and uh you find it you guys talking about porn hub what do you guys know we didn't go quite that far yeah yeah uh but there was this video and the content out of it was good but it was more the presentation of it that was just like i can't help but look at it and laugh now especially in 2022 it's uh you do this interview i think you're

down in texas i suppose and you're with mark riptoe doing this interview in front of this blue uh oh yeah it looks like the background when you take grade school pictures yeah yeah and you're sitting really close together on chairs just like with nothing else around you yeah it's like now knowing who both of you guys are now and like looking back through time it's like it's just this odd little time capsule it feels like yeah dude it's crazy because that was that was filmed in like i want to say like kind of a someone's store or something it was like all like there was nothing in there other than like this uh basically a blue background which was kind of done like a i don't know how to like kind of what like a booth display would be like kind of curved on this on the sides and yeah just some dude with a camera and a tripod like all right here we go i was like really like yeah and like there's like

nothing but like broken down shelving and like weird stuff you know like the oven from 1930 in the corner it was just really weird it's like well yeah i think the published it it said like 2010 or something like that but there's something about it time ago but there's something about it that makes it look more like it's from like 1997 than you know or just like it really has that certain character too yeah it was uh man uh that i remember doing that i remember um because my oldest son lives in texas so uh i always go down there and visit him or he now he flies up here but uh i piggybacked that piggybacked i think i that was like on a thursday or something and i drove from dallas to wichita falls and i drove back the same day and picked up my son or something that was that was an awesome time

oh we had good times yeah i spent a lot of weird time in Texas because of my son. It's changed so much. Holy shit. Don't go there. Yeah, okay. I like living in my little part of the world that just no one... The other day, there was three people in front of me in my

subdivision getting out, and I was fucking screaming, what the hell is this shit? We can really relate to that stuff, though. yeah that's absolutely what it's like here and then like when we go to columbus it's like holy crap like like you know yeah right like we we this town just took out i think six stoplights or five stoplights it was the best thing ever and the like i was my dad was here one day and i just blow this the lights if there's no one there i'm like dude what's it's the spirit of the law and my dad's like what are you doing i'm like no one cares you know and he says i can't believe this i'm like i stopped signs i'm like dude it's the spirit who really there's no one here right

right that is that is a weird actual actual mental game you can play yourself. The more you think about that, though, actually, like, this isn't wrong. No. You know who brought that up was the great man Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. He talks about that. Yeah. Yeah. I use that term facetiously.

That's what happens when you go to Berkeley, kids. You go bananas. But,'s uh he talks about that how like you get programs like you'll be out there in the middle of the night and it'll be a red light and that's the government telling you stop you just sit there and uh waiting to get carjacked i see i see you guys got constitutional carry now uh i don't know i just i just passed there yeah it passed here too uh i think last week so we like that ever stopped anyone before honestly i didn't know if i changed it because everyone has a gun right yeah i mean we've talked uh these i can't remember who's we're talking the stories about with though like in high school, our high school just had a separate parking lot just off of school premises where everyone with the gun in the vehicle,

you just park here. So it's funny because it's just a parking lot full of people with guns. It's like, yeah, we'll just put you right here across this road. Yeah, and I love like it doesn't solve issue or like it's just like let's work around the wall like i just like i some guy uh wanted to put a new trigger on my rifle he's like well every time you press it it shoots and every time releasing it shoots and i was like he's like that semi-automatic you know right and i was like god i love american ingenuity like it's just like it's fucking ridiculous like that i don't know if you remember this was probably God, I love American ingenuity. It's just like, you want a van on a man?

It's fucking ridiculous. I don't know if you remember, this was probably 20 years ago or so maybe, that the United States government decided that gas cans, like how you fill up your lawnmower or whatever, they were too dangerous. So they made this weird gas can thing that you actually need three hands to operate that's the government in a nutshell it was such a fucked up product that you didn't you guys realize that no so people on ebay now make stainless steel or whatever it's made of water containers that are just this just the old gas

cans like you know don't put any gas in here, but if you did, it'd be fine. Quote-unquote a water container. Yeah. Right. You know, an ethanol water container or whatever. Yeah, it just makes me happy. Jim, we've got this little game we play with every guest that we've got on.

It's overrated, underrated. It's pretty simple. We just got a special couple topics that we picked for you, and you just got to decide if they're overrated, underrated, and's pretty simple. We just got a special couple topics that we picked for you, and you just got to decide if they're overrated, underrated, and you can't rhyme the line. You've got to. That's all right.

No line. So you've got to have an opinion if you can handle that. Yes. I have no problems having an opinion on something I know nothing about. It's the American way. Yep. Okay, so overrated or underrated, Black Sabbath. Ooh, underrated.

You know, I'll tell you why, because, oh, my God. They're getting their just desserts now. I mean, obviously. But if you look at, even if this is going to sound, okay, I love Black Sabbath. My fucking heart is racing right now. So you have Ozzy Osbourne, who is not the greatest singer, but probably the greatest frontman who ever lived.

I mean, he was amazing. Tony Iommi, the guitarist, first got a really down tune, slowed it down. Basically, every riff ever made in heavy metal is because of him. Geezer Butler, who is probably one of the greatest metal bassists of all times. You might say Steve Harris from Iron Maiden, but Geezer Butler, who is probably one of the greatest metal bassists of all times. If not, you might say Steve Harris from Iron Maiden, but Geezer Butler is up there.

And then Bill Ward, who's an absolute monster on drums. And if you combine him with John Bonham and Keith Moon from The Who, that's a deadly fucking trio of great drummers in the 70s. But somehow all three of those guys grew up in the same area of Birmingham. Oh, really?

Wow. And it's crazy to think like, hey, you guys want to form a band that's going to change everything? Nah, why the fuck not? Like, you good at bass? Like, yeah, I'm okay, I guess. I see. He's like, I can't sing, but I'm great. Fuck yeah, come on in.

Yep. he's like i can't sing but i'm great fuck yeah come on in yep and that and then uh so i mean even you know the with them uh down tuning was because i only chopped off part of his finger okay that's what i thought i was gonna say wasn't he missing like a finger or something yeah his his last day at the steel mill uh he's like i'm just gonna give this music thing a good run so i'm just gonna commit to it and he he had taken another job on the line or whatever you want to say that he wasn't used to doing. He chopped off part of his index finger, no,

his ring finger. I'm sorry. And so, you know, tuning the strings down, giving that heavier, lower sound, it's easier for him to play.

And, uh, that really didn't come into play until their third album, but still like you, you could never give them enough credit ever and uh you know it's like their first album was recorded i think in a day day and a half that thing is so yeah it's insane and then ironically like volume four which i still think it was like one of my favorite albums took like 12 months to record and it's like uh sometimes you

just capture lightning in the bottle there's a million bands like that where you're just like holy shit dude that was it's like yeah we had two microphones you know and i didn't even own a guitar like let's see what we can do about it and then they yeah so i love oh i love black sabbath anyway okay that's good so underrated for sure on black sabbath overrated or underrated the triple option oh that's massively underrated for sure on Black Sabbath. Overrated or underrated, the triple option? Oh, that's massively underrated. And I think it's... I went to the Air Force Academy.

We ran the triple option. I went there for a year and a half. It's very hard to run. But if you run it right with the right guys, you have to have a quarterback who's not just fast. That's important. He's got to make the right reads.

He's got to be smart, and he's got to be quick. And it's hard to defend. Just like our wing T is hard to defend the way we run it, you never know who's got the ball. There's four options, and everyone's crossing. Some guy's in motion. This guy's crossing over here. Good luck. I don't even know what's going on half the time

and all of a sudden it's like the crowd cheers like oh i guess we did a pretty good job there oh there he is i see him over there uh you know it's obviously lost a lot of flavor but like my i grew up a huge nebraska fan because i was a massive tom rathbun and Roger Craig fan when I was a kid. Like that's, you know, during the Montana era, I love those two guys. Roger Craig ran fucking hard and he was the first thousand yard receiving thousand yard rushing back ever. And I don't think he gets enough credit, but you know, knowing that both those guys came from Nebraska, just like Nebraska. And, uh, one of my high school coaches was a gigantic Nebraska fan he'd go to like all their clinics and stuff and so I kind of got all kind of inside

info or you know workout stuff when I was uh pretty early in high school but uh I still watch all the old I might drive my wife bananas but I watch all the old 95 97 games in nebraska they're on youtube like when was tom frazier and when was eric crouch there like eric well tommy frazier was was uh 94 95 okay uh scott frost was 97 that was the last time they won eric crouch was early 2000 and so one thing is my wife was never a massive football fan before she met me like i'm not saying she's a big fan now but it was like never on in her house or you know however you want to say it so i happened to put on an old nebraska game it was on like uh esbn classics or something and she sits down and she's watching the game she's like man who is this team there's

no one's fat everyone's muscular and it was the 95 nebraska team and i was like holy shit you're right if you look at some of those old teams they were fucking huge dudes and like even the fat guys had like a little roll yep you know and this is back when they were the half jerseys the greatest jerseys around tucking your jersey and should it's like more cowboy collars too then a lot more yeah collars that's yeah and like so uh i'm a so like when i watch uh tommy frazier run the option or uh what's his name uh scott frost who was again he was the first thousand thousand quarterback at nebraska they if you run it right it is and it can't be the only thing you run, but you have to run it enough for it for it to, for you to be good at it.

It's hard. It's hard to defend. I mean, it's really hard to defend. So, um, it's just, you know, the problem is is most of the people that run it don't have the most athletic guys like you watch, uh, army and Navy. But if you watch army, I want to say four years ago played Houston in the Armed Forces Bowl. Army, I think, won like 62 to 7 or something. They ran all over Houston. They didn't even know what the fuck was going on.

It was like 600 yards of rushing, you know. And so if you get it right with the right mindset, because it does take a certain mindset, it's unbelievable. So yeah, I just wish I could be there for the first team that really ran it, because the defense was like, what the fuck's going on? I thought this guy had it.

And they're like, they're leaving me on block. Who made the fucking play? But if I knew, he throws it to the other guy. I always think that must have been fucking bananas yeah that's true you're not even doing me so yeah that's good okay overrated or underweighted vests uh oh that's horribly underrated uh i am, uh, believer in the weight vest and I could probably do an entire, uh, podcast with you guys on the weight vest and how it's changed me and,

uh, all this other stuff. And it doesn't have to be terribly heavy. I think that's one thing. Like I, I had a kid contact me. I want a 200 pound weight vest. I'm like, dude, have you had 50 pounds on there? It fucking sucks after a while. Um, but I, as far as like, uh, even if you're not like, I do everything with a weighted vest. Uh, in fact, I'm doing my first 12 mile weight vest walk, uh, Saturday. I'm so excited about that. Let me tell you, I'm waking up everyone I know to talk on the phone. Uh, but the, uh, even if you're not doing like doing what I do or something similar, if you, even if you have, uh, like powerlifting or whatever you want to say, kind of goals, uh, doing some of that stuff as part of your just general physical preparedness. And that doesn't mean dragging a sled, driving the bananas. It's,

uh, doing different things with the weighted vest, just getting like basic calisthenic shape. I, I bet that's kind of a limiting thing to say, but, um, it has done wonders for me and I called it building armor. Uh,

I feel like I'm made of fucking steel right now from all the stuff I've been doing. I feel stronger. I'm not nearly as strong as I was even, you know, 10, 15 years ago. Like, like I couldn't display it, but holy shit, do I feel good. And I feel like I can do anything like any

activity. And it's hard to explain, but I feel like I'm just like made of steel. And I'm like, Jesus, I would have done this when i was like younger because you know like i'm 47 and everything sucks on my body right now yeah but even then you know uh like we my son and i go hiking in all these different places and stuff and i i'm just fucking fly every up everything i feel great um so i don't think it gets enough recognition uh and i think people get i don't want to say intimidated by it but they think they need like a complex workout. And dude, I think for like six months, all I did was squats, pushups and chin-ups, like pull-ups, whatever you want to call them.

That's all I did. And I got to the point where like every once in a while, I'm like, well, do you think you should change? And I'm like, you're not, my self-talk is horrible. You're not good enough, you fucking fat fuck. Let's go. And so I don't think people like they want all these variations and i guess you know people want to keep it uh they're interesting but what makes

me interested is being in great shape and feeling awesome that's what keeps me motivated so yeah do i have i have like three weight vests uh i wore one out completely after years and years and uh uh, I wore one out completely after years and years. And, uh, so I got, I just bought two new ones this year. One that's, uh, goes up to 88, 84 pounds. And like, I have a plate carrier that I use most of the time, but it's been, uh, it has, I'm going to release a book at some point about how much this has changed my life. Uh, and it allows me to train incredibly hard without getting hurt. And I think for me mentally and spirit, like spiritually, I guess, you know, that's like the new age way of saying I need to fucking push myself hard. And, uh, I need to like start, I need to push boundaries. I never thought possible.

Like it's, I think for the past, uh, since i guess the beginning of march i've done at least 600 uh squats a day with that thing in an hour and i usually combine that with their push-ups or chin-ups and my legs like that's a lot of fucking squats yeah that's i feel fun yeah and i just like i feel like like i'm not sore anymore it's it's crazy what you can do and before like i started with like a hundred per day i was like oh yeah you know here i always joke like I'm not sore anymore. It's crazy what you can do. Before, I started with 100 per day. I was like, hell yeah. I always joke, I'm probably going to get my Ranger tab. They'll just mail it to me. That's why I always joke with our friends.

Yeah, I might get my Trident earlier this week. We'll see. Does it start to smell like old football pads after a while? No, no, no. Boy, my old football pads. I spent my entire, no, no. Boy, my old football. I spent my entire senior year. I didn't wash a t-shirt. I wore it every day.

It got so bad that a coach came in and then puked in the huddle. I remember one of my buddies looks over at me like he was a disappointed father. He just shakes his head. I'm like, you're so fucking gross. I'm a fairly clean person. My wife's like, you have the best hygiene of anyone I've ever known. I used to train two or three times a day with the best in the summertime. I have a giant fan in the weight room, and I just stick that thing in front and just air it out every time.

And I just stick that thing in front and just air it out every time. So, yeah. But, yeah, it's – I kind of like – I don't know. I like when things are beat up and, like, just worn in. It just – it feels like it's part of me, you know. That makes sense. And I'm okay. Yeah. But it's nothing like the old pads.

Holy shit, dude. Especially if you're living in a humid – if you're, like, room is, that's just, oh, just like, and then you walk in the locker room. It's like, even today when I go to the weight room to London, like I go past the locker room, that's still like brings back memories. I'm like, oh God, I got to run suicide. Yep. So, all right. What else we got?

Last one. Last one. This is the most important one here too. We always save the best for last. So overrated or underrated Neil pert. Last one. This is the most important one here, too. We always save the best for last. Overrated or underrated? Neil Peart. Oh, boy.

He's dead now, so he won't hear this. That's the only reason why he won't. That is, yep. He was a happy listener. Yes. Oh, yeah. Anything I do, that guy's fucking jerking his knee to it. He loves that old video with Rip. Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah.

I saw you drumming on your thighs. Man, you know, I think Neil Peart, how do I put this? He's probably technically overrated because there's a lot of great drummers out there. But that makes it sound like he's not, he's probably technically overrated because there's a lot of great drummers out there. Uh, but that, that makes it sound like he's not that good, but he gets a ton of press,

but a lot of guys don't. So I'll just say like overrated only because other guys aren't getting as much, um, publicity, but that dude, like, like I,

I know it sounds like everyone knows the song tom sawyer so i always bring this up they asked neil pert one time do you ever get bored of playing tom sawyer he's like hell no it's hard do i have to it's hard to play tom sawyer and i love the fact that he's like still like you can't tell me ac and dc playing that back in black like that guy's like oh my god this oh my god e a and d chords it's all we play but that you know to to write something that's so challenging and uh and him like still excited about doing it uh and you know everyone knows kind of tom sawyer at least like most people do and uh i don't know. I'm a huge fan of triplets.

One of my favorite drummers is Dave Lombardo. Him doing the triplets on like South of Heaven or Seasons in the Abyss, the song and stuff. I mean, he does them all over the place, but it's like Neil Peart does great triplets, and I just love the way that sounds. I'm a huge like music fan in case you hadn't noticed no that's why we made sure to work yeah huge and you've got specifically you've got a drumming background too don't you yeah i played drums when i was in high school and like a

you know like a punk whore it's just you know like four kids who didn't know each other uh just when i like my we played in my parents basement because that's when i was a drummer and that's what happens you just go to the drummer's house and it's not it's easier to move amplifiers than it is the whole drum set right my like i look back now i'm like man you know my parents drove me to you know every practice they went to every game my parents went to every football game i ever played in even in college they flew everywhere but i'm like that's the one thing that they like they sacrificed the most was sitting in that fucking house when a bunch of 13 year olds were banging away on instruments and no one knew

how to play yeah you know uh so i always thank them for that and but yeah like i still play in a band now in fact uh we're having a rehearsal two weeks from now. And I play guitar in the band now. But I still have a couple of drum sets downstairs. And I have like a 12 track. I have an old school fucking recorder. I don't even use a computer to record stuff. So yeah, it's awesome.

I love playing music. And I'm a huge like black metal fan i don't know like everything takes me to like a certain time like i know where i was when i first first heard the samhain or the misfits or mayhem or burzum you know it's like oh yeah uh it's really i can tell you that i don't even know when my wife's birthday is but i'll tell you the date i first heard i hate god who's one of my favorite bands so december 23rd 1993 that's but i don't know when my wife's birthday is so good times well you remember the important stuff yeah right so uh yeah uh good news it looked like looks like you passed overrated underrated so yeah it's it's uh i don't know man neil perk thing's tough it's just because he gets a lot

of love right so you gotta you gotta yeah you gotta punch him in the gut a few times you know it's like yep oh and plus imagine the shit that he had to deal with by music nerds i heard you play live uh on oct October 3rd, 1997. You didn't hit the tom on the third part of the chorus. Why are you bad? I don't know. I was having fun, I guess. Oh, dude. So Rush fans, if you ever want to see a great documentary, I think it's Rush Beyond the Lighted Stage.

It's an awesome documentary. Okay. And Rush, their fans basically propelled that just like Black Sabbath. And the critics hated Sabbath and the critics hated Rush. I mean, Geddy Lee does not have a very good voice and he's not very nice to look at as a front man. But their fans, man, they've got to be a pain in the ass like tool fans like oh the fans are so so pretentious that's the only thing like I don't like it's like tools fine I don't love them or anything but like imagine having to go to a show and uh god what a pain in the ass. It's art. It's all art.

Those are the assholes that are driving up the horrible modern art prices, the paintings and stuff. Anyway, all right. Good times. Awesome, Jim. All right. We really appreciate it. We're pumped to get you on here. We've been wanting to do it for a long time.

And where do, if people want to buy, how many versions are of 531? There's 531, 531 for powerlifting. What is it? Forever? Forever. Is that the most recent? Forever is the most recent.

Then we have Beyond. So we have, and then I, let me think. I'm looking at the books right now those are the main ones so you have the original uh and we came out with the second edition that updates that and then beyond and then there's power lifting in there and uh forever and forever is i always tell everyone if you don't know the program or not don't really know certain things about it, don't buy the Forever book because it's going to confuse you. And I make note of this in the description. That's the first thing we write. So make sure you have a good background because that will help you understand how we program everything, like long-term programming and understanding how to mix and match and stuff.

And my wife set up a discount code. All right. For 20% off all books. And I put my glasses on here. Mass. M-A-S-S-5-3-1. All right. Mass 5-3-1, 20% off. Cultivating mass. Remember that you guys ever watched, what was that show? Always sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Cultivating mass. You're a fat ass. Love that guy. Uh, you want to, okay. I gotta go. I gotta go pick up my kid, but real quick.

Uh, who's the, uh, the Danny DeVito. Yeah. He's on that show. The best Danny DeVito story ever heard was, uh,

as you probably know, Danny DeVito's must've sold his soul to, cause he is not very good looking. He's short. He's overweight. He looks like an actual Hobbit for anything. Yeah. Yeah.

He's got no hair. Like from, he played a perfect penguin in that old Batman movie where he was born for that. They didn't even need makeup or anything. And it's so bad that he's cast in twins as the exact opposite of Arnold Schwartz. Like you couldn't get any more opposite.

Yep. And she was telling a story one time that said he was in acting classes. This is before he was anyone. And the acting teacher, after they did like a little bit in front of the class said something like that you are the worst actor I've ever seen. And he started smiling and she's like, well, what's, why are you laughing? He's like, what's the first time someone ever told me I was an actor?

One of my favorite stories of all time. Oh my God. So keep the faith, man. Yeah. They got the veto wrong. They got rush wrong and they got black Sabbath wrong. They'll probably get everyone else wrong too. Yep. That's the way I look at it.

I appreciate it, you guys. Thank you for having me. It's been an honor. I hope everything goes well in your neck of the woods. Stay positive. Help your community. All that good stuff. Awesome. Thanks, Jim. We appreciate it. You guys take it easy.

You too. See ya. Bye-bye we gave an extra service you got like three cool beans yeah jim did i love the danny devito straight around right that's a perfect close to it uh nobody's ever called me an actor that's like this is the worst podcast we've ever heard it's like nobody's ever called it a podcast before uh big jim yep big jim didn't disappoint did he did not he has plenty to say doesn't he yeah he's got a lot going on still oh man that was fun that was a bucket that's one that's been on the on the list for a that might be the oldest one on the list right you know right and it's funny like that we're still able to it just takes time it literally just takes time there's years there's

almost nobody that's impossible it just literally takes time of like you just grind them down and wear them down and you grind them down and like you get closer and closer into people's fears and like all of a sudden it's like oh yeah the pressure's too much yeah like i guess i'll do it for these poor bastards doesn't have time for an hour phone call yeah eventually what it always comes to you know what else i wanted to tell everyone about what i'm trying to remember oh i remember spud ink straps and you can find them at spud-ink-straps.com and they're a sponsor of this podcast and then specifically i wanted to tell you about a particular product that they've got it's the strongman harness and this is uh literally basically like as good of a harness as you're

going to find for uh you know if you're for sure doing strongman stuff like truck pulls plane pulls i should say it's the gold standard yeah it is and really even for just if you want to do like sled pulls and stuff this is uh it's called the strongman harness but it's really good for for any anything that you're going to do wearing the harness doing pulls of that that sort and uh the strongman harness is built from the toughest material available to pull the heaviest cars trucks and a plane picture it didn't happen with a lower pulling angle than most harnesses. The Strongman harness gives athletes better leverage and easier breathing. And with a crossed brace point at the

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which it is pretty fun, extremely brutal and challenging, but that would be the harness for you at spud-ink-straps.com. This episode is also brought to you by Fusion Sports Performance Supplements. Do you know what's in your supplements? If you use Fusion Sports Performance, you always will. Fusion SP prides itself on being fully transparent, never using proprietary blends, and always providing its customers with top quality products.

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to save a massive 20% on your order. Thank you, Fusion SP. Yeah, thank you. Did we hit most of the highlights for this episode? I think we hit most of the highlights. It's going to be a while before we record again. To you guys listening, it's no different than ever, though, is it? Nope.

We do what we can to keep this train on schedule. Just thinking calendar-wise, when this comes out, so this will come out in April 4th. I don't think there's anything in particular we need to discuss just yet, is there? I don't think there's anything in particular we need to discuss just yet. Is there? Um, I don't think so. No,

we've got some exciting things coming later in the month of April. We have announcements, but the exciting announcements are going to be a week or two after that. Yes. So just stay tuned, keep listening, please sign up to become a supporting member. You know, if you really liked the podcast,

you can leave us a five-star review on Apple podcasts. Leave us a rating on Spotify. Tell your friends about the podcast get them listening share something in your story on instagram that helps us out too make sure to tag us you know screenshot you listening to it anything like that but then also if you're really into it become a supporting member that helps us keep the podcast rolling and doing more cool things and getting cool guests guests like jim wendler and you can do that by going to supporting, or what is it, massanomics.com? Yeah, massanomics.com slash join,

or you can look through the store. It's a product in the store. Yeah, and there's a few different levels there, and you can't really go wrong with any of the levels. They all get you access to our exclusive Discord community. It's a very active community in there. There's hundreds of people in there having conversations, everything that you can imagine in the world of Masonomics and beyond.

You get an inside look at Masonomics. You do find out a lot of stuff that you don't find out otherwise. This inside look maybe makes things even more mysterious than the outside look. That's true. You know? Yeah. So we talked about peeling back the curtain. This curtain only gets more confusing.

Yeah, that's right. Otherwise, Tommy, where do they find you? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. Oh, and also make sure you go take advantage of Jim's discount code there. Oh, yeah. Mass 531. Mass 531, 20% off at JimWendler.com, I think is where you go. Yeah.

That's huge. That is. And his books aren't that expensive. If you've never read 531, even if you're not planning on doing the program, I would buy it to read it. It's not just for, like, you're not buying the book just for a training template. He has a lot of his thoughts on life training and other things.

I think the books are like $30 or a little cheaper even. So if you take 20% off that, you're talking like a $20 some dollar book. And I'm sure there's e-versions on there, but I recommend buying, I actually like having the paperback version. It's way more fun.

Yep. But you can follow me at tomahawk underscore d you can follow me at tanner underscore bear just make sure to follow massonomics at massonomics