Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 315: Eric Trexler

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Big Eric Trexler joins us for this one to discuss artificial sweeteners in our favorite sparkling waters, his podcast hosting status, and the differences between himself and Eric Helms. Juggernaut AI: juggernautai.app and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% 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 on 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. Welcome back, everyone, to episode 315 of the Masanomics podcast. Welcome if you're listening on Sunday on YouTube. Welcome if you're listening on Monday on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any of that stuff. Welcome if you're listening live on the Discord right now. We're here for all of you.

And we are, of course, recording this live from western northeast South Dakota. And my name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy. Time to get massive. That seems like a different one. Was that a good one? That's a new one. Was that a good one? What was it that you did the other day?

I can't remember got a hair in your mouth i mean there's always mustache hairs in my mouth it's just a matter if they're if they're still attached to something or not to my face it's okay but it's when they become unattached that it's uh it's kind of hair in general it's like when it's attached to something it's okay but when it's loose in the in the world that's when there's a problem and that's when it's disgusting it is when it's attached to the world, that's when hair is a problem. And that's when it's disgusting. It is. When it's attached to something, it can be very nice. But the second it becomes unattached, that's when it's repulsive. It is.

Why is that? I don't know. These guys are tricking me in the Discord saying the overhead light is on. The overhead light is not on. We're good. Getting paranoid over here. Crafty sons of guns over there. Yeah, we're all good.

I wanted to talk about something for today's episode. First thing I actually was going to talk about is our friends over at Spud Ink Straps. Do you remember our friends over at Spud Ink Straps? How could I ever forget them? Yeah. One of their specific products that I really like are the traveling farmer's walk handles. Training the farmer's walk just got easier. These handles can hold as much weight as you can pick up and probably more these handles can turn any 45 pound plate or hundreds into a farmer's walk handle so no more excuses because you don't want to spend the money on an implement and you sure can't say your gym doesn't have room to store these handles they're small enough to fit

in any gym bag so you can still get your work even if you're training at a crappy commercial gym that doesn't have any cool stuff like that. You bring your spud traveling farmer's walk handles with you, and you can do them anywhere. They're real simple. They're real simple. They're simpler than something that's more complicated than them, but they're real simple.

They're easy. They're small. They travel well. Each sled includes two of the eight inch straps with two handles an industrial size buckle to fasten the weight and adjust for your height the handles have a steel core coated with textured rubber that won't tear up your hands during use if you don't know what i'm what these look like they're real simple, the, the loop basically goes through the center of the hub of the plate and around, and you've got a handle hanging there on each side and allows you to do something like farmer's carry basically anywhere. Pretty inexpensive solution to that, wanting to do that sort of thing too.

So thank you, our friends over at Spud Inc. Straps, and they've also got basically any strap or wrap or belt or damn near anything you can think of they got it they've got it thanks spud ink and they're incorporated and they're in best part of all they're incorporated whatever that means you know what's good yes um next okay so this is the first official read of this ad and oh in this first performance yeah people can say they were there for the first ad if they're listening live right now um so this first sentence i'm going to do an arnold schwarzenegger impersonation i've never done an arnold schwarzenegger impersonation and as a matter of fact i cannot do a good okay uh i think he's like one of the most impersonated voices he's got to be up there right like everyone

can kind of like does an arnold um tries to except like i don't so that's yeah i don't i never try to either i never try to do you do any impersonations no i just realized i'm not good at that so i don't i don't need to do it you know i'm not good at that. So I don't, I don't need to do it. You know, I'm not good at that either. What's the guy from, um, this would be a really massonomics way to say this. He's that guy from those movies where it's like, they're in like a cop,

a police academy, police academy, Michael Winslow. Yeah. Michael Winslow. Yeah. I just, that what I just did there really wasn't a joke.

That was the best way I knew how to describe it I figured you were talking about him Jim Carrey's really good at impersonations but I pretty sure you wouldn't forget his name that's what made me think you're is that right I'm pretty sure it's Michael Winslow yeah okay and he's not related to the Winslows

from Family Matters is he Mr. Winslow I don't know because he was a cop. Yeah, it is funny. Yeah. Kanye has a line. He goes, too many Urkels on your team. That's why you're Winslow.

That's pretty good. That's a pretty good line. Yeah, that is good. You know who I liked? Stefan Urkel. What? Stefan Urkel. It's when he, Stephen, made a uh basically like a presto change-o machine

where he went into it and instead of being ladies man yeah and he was a total ladies man and it was stefan erkel oh see i did not i don't really remember that show that well like i definitely saw some because it was on tv all the time yeah but man, I don't, I would have a very hard time telling you like the plot of an episode. Do you at least know the line? Like the Steven? Yeah, then I do that. You can do impressions.

I'm good, I'm good. You're baiting me that whole time. Which brings me back to this. Come with me for this ad if you want to lift. That was my classic. Yeah. I just said it louder. It was like my regular voice, but louder.

I need your clothes, your boots, and your individual weak points on the major lifts. Juggernaut AI totally individualizes training so it can be used by everyone from beginner to advanced lifters. individualizes training so it can be used by everyone from beginner to advanced lifters. Volume, frequency, exercise for weak points, phase potentiation, and periodization strategy all customized to you. You can pick the date for your meet or testing day, how many days a week you want to train, and several other individual characteristics about you and your lifts. The training is continually adapting to your feedback with changes happening as quickly as your next set. Find out more and get signed up at juggernautai.app.

You can also find it in the, what is it? You can say the IO, what is the Apple? Is it Apple Store? Or what do you go to? Oh, yeah, the App Store. The App Store? Yeah, the App Store. And then what is it on Android? Oh, yeah, the App Store. The App Store? Yeah, the App Store. And then what is it on Android?

Google Play Store. Google Play Store. So you can check it out on both of those, get the app on either one. The future has not been written, but your Juggernaut AI discount code is. It's Mastonomics, and that will save you 10% on the lifetime of that membership.

And we'll be back next week with another juggernaut ai ad yeah so that was the juggernaut ai ad uh in all of its glory yeah that was the because last week we just kind of talked about it we didn't actually read the ad but um i think that segues nicely into talking more about juggernaut ai yeah so i actually you've been running it for a while yeah you kind of and i had heard well you and several other guys in the gym have been running for a while um i've heard you guys you know i've been eavesdropping from afar just i never over in the i never wanted to actually ask i was just always being very secretive spying on your conversations about what you guys are doing but i started it this week i just finished my second training day today and i am loving it so far i really do it's like oh is this the mcdonald's app because i'm loving it man but uh no i really do like it so far i do think the app is very well designed i appreciate

all of the uh just the pure amount of flexibility in it is kind of insane. Yeah. I do feel like being two days, only two training sessions into it, that I have not even scratched the surface of what's going on there because you can tell it's doing a lot of things behind the scenes. But it has me started in a hypertrophy block here, and I am getting smoked on it. And you're doing the power,

because you can choose power lifting or power building you're doing power lifting i'm doing power lifting and i had it set up to three days a week like that is the optimal amount of time that i know i can get in a week for you yep and uh it's just it's been a while since i've done like some straight up hypertrophy type work yeah like like low intensity high volume and, it is really fun actually feeling like you're getting a good pump going on in the gym. Um, it's been a while since I've, since I've been in that working area and I'm, I'm having a great time with it. Yeah. Um, I was just, this reminds me because your brother was talking about doing it. And I, I, my advice to him is I

said, if you're going to set up and start it it like when you go to set it up the first time i would have like an hour of free time like that first time if you really want to sit or like if you're wanting to get it all set up then i mean you can go get signed up and um yeah get registered in a few minutes and ask you a bunch of questions and like just getting i mean that part doesn't take too long right uh going through the questionnaire about you know your body weight activity level experience all that that part doesn't take too long. Right. Going through the questionnaire about, you know, your body weight, activity level, experience, all that stuff. It doesn't take super long. But then I do think there is some value in just even getting familiar with the app because you're going to be in there a lot using it a lot. Right.

So going in through the days, understanding how to navigate through those, look at your exercises, figuring out what it wants you to do how you can switch switch exercises and all that stuff yeah um yeah so you do a three day a week variation i do a four day a week uh ross at the gym does a five day a week variation so you really can kind of that's like the been the most common question the general question is i such and such and such can it do that and for the most part if it's like any sort of like reasonable training requirement the answer is like kind of almost always yes sometimes it's like a very easy yes i can do that very easily or sometimes it's like uh there's a fairly simple work i wouldn't even call it workaround but like there's just ways to manipulate you know ways to customize it. It's not even hardly manipulating.

It's just telling the app what you're thinking, and then it sort of does the work for you. Yeah. And the first day you were doing it, I read it in the ad there about how it, what does it say, changes happen as quickly as your next set. That's actually true, though. And that actually is the other big shift. I never done any rpe based training before so that is definitely taking me some time getting used to um i in my head have a pretty good idea of where i'm at on things but what's throwing a wrench into that for rp is i never do volume work so right that's what makes

it tricky is figuring out rp for volume stuff right uh it's just getting my body used to that that different uh yeah scheme and i think maybe some people are worried about the rp you know some people are concerned like oh i don't really know how to judge uh rpe but i don't really think you have to be perfect with it it just kind of you have to be consistent i think like maybe never like there's some room for interpretation there but i think if you're pretty consistent with I think like, maybe never like there's some room for interpretation there, but I think if you're pretty consistent with it and like you just, after a while,

like it, you just realize what makes sense. Like, like, okay, yes, that was certainly harder than the prior set before this. If the last one was an eight,

this one has to be an eight and a half or a nine at least. And I think it just kind of, it doesn't take long to wrap your head around that. Even if you haven't, if you, even if you're not comfortable with RPE at all, I just don't think it takes very long for people to feel fairly comfortable with that. And when in doubt, you just go conservative, right? And it'll catch up to you eventually. As a submasters lifter, that's almost is always the prerequisite for that is like and and your numbers

that you put in there like in my opinion you can't go wrong you can go wrong i mean granted the way this way juggernaut ai works or some other programs even it'll back you down like it i mean it is made to do that put like rain you back into what's accurate based on your ratings and how things are going but boy i personally like much better things increasing oh yeah way better than like oh yeah i'm a month in and everything's going down like that's never a you know everyone we train with are most of the people that we've trained with a long time they always lean on that side of the fence it's always so much easier to push things up and forward rather than like be like oh that was actually too much i i i should have my max deadlift is really more like 450 not 500 or yeah you know yeah so i'm excited to see what's gonna take me here only the so do you know do

you have uh like one block of hypertrophy or is there two i gotta look again i thought it was one but yeah i think that that's usually what i've seen for a lot of people is that there's uh you know one block of hypertrophy yeah before moving hypertrophy strength strength blocks it's actually two strength blocks it looks like yeah and then peaking at the very end big peak yep giant peak at the end good big big i'm doing the power lifting training also in mind and i'm also in the hypertrophy block of mine so fun stuff so that you know well this is also like the most sets and you know we notoriously don't talk about sets and reps uh-huh so this you know for the people that have been dying for us to talk about sets and reps we're

finally finally doing it. Sets and reps are happening today. After this one, we better close the book on sets and reps for some period of time. We've covered sets and reps. It's all been done. But we were talking about the accessories. And this, to be clear, this isn't a 15-minute long paid ad by Juggernaut. This is just literally us talking about our training.

Our actual training, which happens like once a year right right and um talking about the accessories like part of the value of a program like this or any program that goes into enough detail is just um the accountability of like accessory lifts because it's so easy for um a tricep extension or a bicep curl to do three sets of 10 four sets of 10 with the weight you grab every single week right and like and in your mind you'd be like oh that's that's doing something that's getting something done but like when it's actually recorded week to week and you see what you've done and you've rated it and you can see where you're at and you're like really i should probably do it five more pounds yeah i don't think i'm the only one in the world that that does is guilty of this but you get used to doing accessories a certain way to where if you

go heavier you kind of just know how to get your body into it a little more too yeah and uh sometimes when you just make it lighter and you take all the cheating out of it, it really hits you in a way that you forgot that's how the exercise is supposed to go. Yeah, it just hits different, as the kids would say. It is. It's very different. Are you getting thirsty, Tanner? After that Arnold impersonation, my mouth is very dry.

It's not a tumor. We're going to do a what's in the can. We're going not a tumor we're gonna do a what's in the can we're gonna do it okay an official what's in the can so uh everyone over at the uh what's the massomics wiki uh what's the fandom wiki team take this down live so you don't have to re-record this later this is an official what's in the can segment they're on it okay all right are you ready yes okay can is in hand okay okay let me get the sniff test first oh yeah the sniff test first. Oh, yeah. Tastes pretty good. It is refreshing. Let me take another hit of that.

Seems like an old classic. Like that's my first. it's a sparkling water i feel it's like very lacroix okay and i know the shape of the can is like reminding me of a lacroix but what flavor would i get and it might not be a lacroix but that's just that's just the vibe i'm getting let's see And it might not be a LaCroix, but that's just the vibe I'm getting. It tastes real good. I'm going to say, is it just a lime LaCroix? Is that what even LaCroix flavor it is?

I'm going to say it's a lime lacroix well go ahead and take a look tanner oh it's a lemon lacroix okay yeah i had i hadn't had these in a while and i saw them in the store i had to pick them up and damn these are we've for sure done this oh we've done this one multiple times i think uh that's tasty though isn't it is and even opening it right now and having it i'm not sure i would get this if i was put on the spot um lemon lemon lacroix might almost be underrated it's a for sure for jd powers for me i would give it a four also it is good it's good stuff uh i was thinking lemon lime and i just always guessed lemon lime and it's good stuff all right i was thinking lemon lime and i just always guessed lemon lime and it's not ever you always just think there's a lemon or a lime it's something right it's hard sometimes it's really hard for me to tell the difference in the flavoring of lemon and lime

or lemon and like it's all the same to me yeah it kind of is i mean it kind of is the same but very good though i'll drink to that absolutely tanner a couple weeks ago you told us about a little brush in you had it with the law oh yeah well i've recently had one myself did you bust out that you did they know you from the podcast i they said hey you're that guy from the podcast no i was going over to tax tax fraud i was you're that guy you know the dark iron games guy he's running some tax fraud thing uh i was watching the timberwolves play in game last night at a friend's house they won acted like they just won the world championship that uh that went way too late like that i can't be staying up past 11 o'clock in in my current state so i had to i

had to call it quits we had the lemon lacroix on episode 276 and 249 thank you to uh the mass dynamics wiki geez that's really good live data that we're getting back that's excellent live data um what's timberwolves playing game they won but i had to leave early it was too late i was tired and i took the road on the south side of town at about 10 40 at night that like no one was on except me and a cop car and i was going and immediately i just thought i'm probably going too fast right now i'm probably going too fast and then right at that time i see cop lights come on and i have not been pulled over in a very long time did you get did you feel uh normally you do get that like feeling like oh shit but like i was like so tired and i'm like i know a hundred percent what i'm getting pulled over for i want to be home this is so annoying yeah and uh so the cop comes

over does this thing takes my stuff and i'm like oh god here we go yeah and i'm just sitting waiting and waiting at this point i'm like i just want to get home i don't care just give me the 120 fine whatever like let's go let's get this over with yep and he comes back and he goes i'm just gonna give you a warning tonight and i thought wow that might be the first warning i've ever actually gotten from a cop in my life i don't know if i've ever gotten an actual written warning before. But I don't get pulled over very much either. That never happens when you really need it, though.

No. That time when you're, like, doing something really much worse or whatever, you know, like you don't get the, like, they know. They're like, oh, this guy does just want to get home. Because they're like, you're going, because I was going 41 in a 30. Yeah. You're going 41 in a 30. Any reason you're going so they're like, you're going because I was going 41 and a 30. Yeah. You're going 41 to 30. Any reason you're going so fast?

What did you say? Like, no, I got obviously I wasn't paying attention. That was what I said. Yeah. So I got off with one. I got lucky. Well, I guess that's the mess. So you're telling me it's because you knew about the podcast.

I was actually just waiting for that to come back and be like, oh, you second messonomics guy i pulled over in a month but i didn't get that i was really hoping for it though you guys really break a lot of laws when you drive see a lot of law breakers out there it was matthew mcconaughey all along more impersonations it doesn't matter who we are what matters is our shorts okay do we want to talk about the drop a little I think the big drop should we so we have our discord live

listeners this drop is coming out tomorrow as we're recording this on a Wednesday night the drop is coming out Thursday if you're listening recording this on a Wednesday night, the drop is coming out Thursday. If you're listening to this like a normie, not through the live discord, these items are already all released.

But if you're listening live, you're going to get an early drop on the drop, essentially, except we're going to hold a little bit back, right? We're not going to tell them everything. We're going to keep one surprise in there. Yeah, we're going to, we'll talk about it at the end of this episode. We're not going to spill all the cool beans just yet yeah we're gonna we'll talk about at the end of this episode spill all the all the cool beans just yet so we'll save some out for the end of this episode where we're talking about a little more so they don't get um

they don't get all the cool beans just like what you said yeah little teasers so what do we got coming up in this drop that we are going to tell them about so first one if people have been paying attention there's a lot of uh cyber sleuths out there in the mass economics world. We have hats finally. Yes, the dad hats are finally here. Some new hats. And everyone knows our policy on hats. You don't buy hats.

But just to tease people, we did get more hats. Just to give something more for people not to buy. Those are the dad hats. And today is the first time I actually put one on. And they turned out really good. I've gotten a lot of good feedback from all the people that have a couple of guys at the gym have them. And,

um, I, people are really like these dad hats. So what we did is we took the patch from our beanies, that classic OG patch, and we put it on the front of the dad hats. We have massonomics, the,

the word massonomics embroidered over the back arch of the hat yep and it's available in like a forest green black khaki and what was the last color rose rose so and it's really it's olive olive there you go sorry olive black oak oak okay i'm breaking all the rules. It's oak, although oak is not the color of that hat. No, not at all. It's like a light khaki. Yeah, yes, yes. And then rose. All right.

What color is your favorite? I grabbed an olive one myself. I could be torn on, depending on the mood, I could be torn on just about any of the four colors. And that's what I'll probably grab more as time goes on. But for now, I don't know if you've been paying attention to the weather here recently, Tanner. It's too windy to wear hats. They would literally just blow off your head if you wore a hat in western northeast South Dakota.

It's still beanie weather here. It has been so freaking windy. People don't realize when we launched beanies in February, like, oh, no, we'll still get a good three months out of those things. I think it snowed feet in late. Well, I know I i never checked but yesterday the forecast for minot north dakota was 36 inches of snow yeah that's too much snow in april suckers at least we're not having that right now um i think the hats did really turn out cool that that rose reddish color one is kind of almost like a blaze orange color

i think yeah if we said blaze orange everyone in the discord would be like i totally get it yep and i guess if to describe if anyone's not i've actually talked to a few people i've said dad hat and they didn't know what i meant oh really does does i thought that was kind of like a universal term yeah i did too but it's just a very unstructured cap and it's like relatively shallow. Kind of a lower profile. Yeah, lower profile. And typically the back closure is the metal buckle.

What do you call that? Like a latch? Yeah, or a clasp latch. Yeah, where you actually cinch it to the... So if anyone that does... I thought everyone knew what that was, but I guess not everyone does but now you do yeah you just got it's also a hat you wear on your head if that it is a hat where

you're on your head and it's very comfortable they are very comfortable compared to like a more structured cap uh so yeah you should if you don't have one if you don't have any dad hats get one yeah get with the times man you need to have you need to have a few different styles in your wardrobe there yeah i was just thinking of an audible right here maybe we shouldn't say exactly what the flag is either maybe we should just let the flag be a surprise i'm i'm on board with that okay so there is a new flag and this is something that we've never had on a flag or a banner before um the coloring of it and the size of it it's a really nice size uh for a lot of home gyms it's not quite as big as some of the enormous banners and yeah because that was had yeah we we have we have some banging

big flags yeah like the don't curl in me and the lift flag and but they're big power lifting eight man yep we have an enormous gym and we're running out of wall space right imagine people with home gyms how they're doing so we wanted to get something that would maybe fit in some spots that the massive flags wouldn't quite fit in so this one's slightly smaller what is is it like about 36 inches across yeah so it's about three feet instead of like five like some of our other ones right right um and it's cool i guess you'll have to have to uh check that out to see what that is. And then we were going to spill the beans on one of the shirts, right? Because I almost feel like even a part of me, even now, just doesn't quite want to tell anyone.

I know. I almost feel guilty, but it is such a good story. Yeah, yeah. We should probably talk about it. And if you're on the Discord, you've seen a little bit of a sneak peek of this particular blue shirt. discord or you know you've seen a little bit of a sneak peek of this particular blue shirt um there's been just some hints thrown out here and there about what it is exactly yeah so should we say the name of it yes it is the band t and that's b-a-n-n-D, as in banned, not allowed. The banned T is now live.

Yes, the banned T is live. And in the history of Masonomics, there's only been one T that we've ever had to take down, and that was our Yeah Buddy lightweight T-shirt. Yep. Due to a certain prominent figure in the industry apparently owning that phrase. And it was a fairly well-selling T-shirt,

but we had to get rid of it, which, yeah, if we don't have legal rights to it, sure, okay. So what did we do? We just censored it. We censored it. We got rid of the saying. The saying isn't there anymore.

It's censored, and it's been highly pixelated uh it's i i actually saw him in person for the first time today and it is kind of a trip looking at it yep you can't quite tell what your brain is doing because why am i looking at these pixelated words like some of them i can kind of read other words i can't read at all the smaller words literally the way they're pixelated to the on to the fresh eye that's never seen this shirt before they're not words whatsoever but yet if you're at the right distance away because you know what it does say it feels like you know what it feels like it says it even though there are no words there like it is just like it is like it says it even though there are no words there like it is

just like it is like an optical illusion of pixelation and also like of like uh brain uh you know just your your memory of knowing what it does look like of uh almost twisting it to what you want and when you're far away it kind of just looks like a regular shirt you might just think like oh i have something in my eye yeah and then when you get close it's like i see you and you look regular but your chest is like pixelated to the point where like it does mess with your brain so i think whoever buys the shirt you will get people uh that have no idea what the shirt is that will make comments because it's just it's such a visual trip seeing it we've been excited for this one for a while. It's been in the works for a little while. And I don't know that this one's...

So this one's not marketed as limited edition, but... There's also a limited market for who this shirt is. I don't know that we're not really sure that it's going to reprint. So if you want to get a piece of history, the time is right now. It is. You know, we had,

we had the blue gym tea a few weeks ago and now we have another blue tea. Blue teas are alive and well at massonomics. They are. That's so kind of back to our roots of the blue tea. It is natural for life. Tea has been popping off. Yeah. Uh,

lift and ben is as popular as ever there's been a real big bench resurgence heavy bench heavy tea resurgence so and we think a lot of that is in part to do in part due to the growing popularity nationwide of bush light i think so yeah they've really been on their marketing game the last several years and it's really paying off for them and that drop is uh we said that's thursday if you're listening on monday it's already happened so everything's out there and live hopefully there's still some inventory left but if you're listening live that drop is at uh 4 p.m western northeast south dakota time and there will be one more shirt there is other shirt, but you don't get to know about it yet. People in the discord,

you gotta wait, you gotta have one surprise. So it's, I guess we'll say it's also a pretty wacky shirt. Yeah. Yeah. It's a goofy one. So be on the lookout.

Real quick, supporting our supporters. In a color. We've never had a shirt in before. Right. That is good. That is good point. I'd never. Yeah. That is a good point.

Yeah, no black shirts this drop. Real quick note on supporting our supporting members this week. And this is a relatively new segment to the podcast where we have supporting members that choose to support us through their financial consideration. You can go out to our website and sign up to do that if you want. There's a few different levels for you to sign up. each week we like to give back to them they give us all the support we like to support them in return a little bit uh each week and this week i wanted we wanted to support big nick he actually was promoted from agronomist to location manager so

wow thank congratulations i know there's a lot of people listening right now that are like i know exactly what it takes to do that and that's impressive yeah yeah so congratulations that is our supporting our supporting members hey big nick that's great i love it yeah i love it so our resident agronomist has is not a location manager yeah yeah yep you know what they say you can't stay an agronomist forever no uh tanner i gotta tell you a little story about something here all right Can't stay an agronomist forever. No. Tanner, I got to tell you a little story about something here. All right. In 1995, Maurice Big Mo Huffman founded SwissLink.

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up and while you're doing that spooling i'll touch on a couple things we did give the lemon lacroix fours both of us agreed those are four uh rating on this episode um someone mentioned one more supporting our supporting members thing big ian who's actually been on the mass comics podcast before he is the one with the Lyft tattoo on his leg, is into the Discord now. He got recruited into there. So welcome, Big Ian. Welcome.

Welcome back. Now should we say goodbye to the Discord? Yeah, bye, Discord. See you, suckers. Oh. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are they still there okay good now we can

my computer is switching what app was it okay all right Tanner I'm gonna let you run oh no you have yours so yeah you hear anything yeah I can hello big eric is that you that is me how are you doing great uh you are on the mass dynamics podcast with tanner and tommy how are you doing what's up eric what's going on guys

i'm doing great now first point of clarification are you the eric that hosts the iron culture podcast yeah that's correct okay great that was going to be awkward if it wasn't the case yeah i'd be happy to defend literally anything i've said on iron um can you imagine if we we actually had made that mistake. Obviously this is Eric, uh, Eric Trexler, uh, the host of stronger by science, but, um, uh, you guys do have a pretty funny running joke going there. I think between the Eric's. Absolutely. Yeah. Sometimes it's a joke. Sometimes it isn't. I get, I get a lot of hate mail for Eric Helms. So what do you do with that hate mail? Do you just embrace it or do you forward it on?

Or do you get it going even more? Do you antagonize the people? I take the most antagonistic, inflammatory response I can think of and I immediately send it. That seems like the right thing to do. Yeah. I think it's what you'd want.

Yeah. You did it's what you'd want. Yeah. You did have quite the got us good on the April Fool's joke with you not being on the podcast two weeks ago, I guess, whatever that was. Actually, because on Stronger by Science, you posted that in your story, I think, leading up to that week or maybe it was on April 1st. in your story, I think, leading up to that week, or maybe it was on April 1st. And we have a Massonomics Discord community where we have several listeners that are in there. There were several people that were in a tussle that day. They reposted that story, and several people were very concerned that it was real, that you were not going to be on the podcast anymore, that there was a breakup there. And there was a lot of people concerned about that.

Yeah, I mean, at the heart of the matter, it was really just a coup. As I explained on the podcast, once we righted the ship and got things back to normal, I went on a long weekend, three-day vacation, and all of a sudden I'm seeing all this stuff posted with the other Eric, the inferior Eric, who's trying to step in and be a host of the show. It was a joke in the sense that it was the worst rated episode we've ever had.

It was a joke that I could be replaced, we we got it back to normal and uh you know everyone can breathe a sigh of relief yeah i know that i'm personally very relieved that that guy's not gonna be around anymore yeah yeah you'll you'll you probably won't see much from him anymore i would think is there a change to your and g's each titles than as your hosting titles going forward? Yeah, there were. So the thing about me going on vacation is I lost access to all the accounts. So there was quite a bit of leverage

on Greg's side at the negotiating table. So we did rearrange some titles. I had to give a little more ground than I wanted, but ultimately, you know, the show still operates the way it's supposed to. Yes, that's good. So, like, as we've demonstrated now pretty well up to this point,

you guys have this way of humor that if someone wasn't trained in those arts most people that are listening to this and have not aren't familiar with you guys stuff at all have probably been very confused up to this point right and and you guys have this way of doing it where um those that aren't familiar it might take them a while to to find out the when you guys are being when you guys are joking around being sarcastic or being facetious about things. And has that caused some actual confusion at any points in time on some topics? Oh, of course. Yeah. I think my advice to someone, if you're trying of build like a podcast or some other kind of

You know if you're trying to build up a social media profile where you're interacting with people The way to make a lot of people happy is not by leaning into sarcasm and trying as best you can what will happen is you'll like four people who love you and can't wait for more jokes. And then you'll get like 300 people who go to go to the iTunes reviews and just give you one star and say like, oh, this this guy's a bad person. But, you know, the way that it kind of started, honestly, was, you know, obviously, Greg Knuckles had he started he started with gregknuckles.com I think was, was the first iteration and then strength theory and then stronger by science. He had built this brand, uh, you know, that, that people really liked. And I got involved with stronger by science, I think in 2018 or 2019. And so one of the big challenges was like so the audience

knows Greg the audience loves Greg you know it's Greg's baby how do you bring a second person into that and so when we started the podcast I decided that my official perspective on the podcast was that I was going to be an extremely insecure host who had to insist that I was actually in charge. And yeah, that's just kind of how it started was me just fabricating a tremendous layer of sarcastic security, trying to just take over the audience by force, by insisting this is my show. But yeah, so we get so many negative reviews because of that. And I think for a while there, it would stress my girlfriend out. She would see these negative reviews and think like,

is your company failing now? It seems like everybody hates you. Are you basically unemployed? But yeah, so it's fun though because I don't think that there's a single thing in the world that makes Greg happier than getting a really negative review from someone who takes a sarcastic bit as being serious. I think it's at this point,

what, what really gets them out of bed in the morning is just going and checking the reviews. If anyone else hates us. So what is it that you guys have against marijuana? Um, you know, it's just, I mean, I think we've made it here, you know, it's growing up in Ohio. I'm a big time family values guy, you know, X, the, the moral fabric of our society. And that, you know, very obviously directly, uh, threatens that, you know, certainly is something that, that we're not going to support. It makes sense, I guess, yeah. I do think the podcast, at least as just a listener, it seems like it's gone really well. And you guys have taken some, I know at times, different approaches, almost like a seasonal approach to that. I mean, is that something you continue to do

where you basically essentially take a break from it from a period of time and then come back to it yeah i mean we've done that in the past um you know we've gone through different iterations of the show if you go back through the uh the archives uh at first we did a lot of we had a lot of guests on the show um and at a certain point we just said you know what let's let's not do it today. Like I've got some things I want to discuss and cover. And eventually we just kind of shifted away from that. You know, we would take a bit of a break when we had, you know, put together a long stretch of shows and we just needed, uh, you know, a little time to recharge, put some new ideas

together. Cause you know, I, I will say like the, the podcast, especially in its current form, uh, it does take a reasonable amount of preparation. So like, you know, we, we try to, uh, you know, we'll, we'll include some dumb jokes, you know, for, for certain segments, but we do try to dig into research as much as possible and answer questions that are, that excite us and answer questions that we think are intriguing or are useful. Um, you know, we, so we, we try to dig deep into some of these topics and, uh, yeah, you know, that, that takes some preparation. And after you do like, you know, several months of shows on a regular basis, sometimes you say, okay, maybe it's time for a little break here. I really don't know what the plan is at this point. We're just putting out a show every week. We switched from every other week to doing weekly. So far, it's going well. It's been pretty sustainable and the way we we were able to do that is we cut the shows down from like i mean some of our early shows were ridiculous i mean they're getting to like the

three hour range uh in some cases and it was you know three pretty dense hours of like hey let me walk you through a meta analysis here for about 45 minutes and then we'll do and so uh yeah we kind of have gone through different iterations. Now the show's a little bit shorter, you know, more concise segments. We try to keep it down to like 60 or 90 minutes. And we've been able to do that weekly for, for a while now. And, uh, yeah, I'm sure at some point we'll, we'll say, okay, it's, it's time for a little, a little off season here, but you know, for now it's going pretty smoothly. a little, a little off season here, but you know, for now it's going pretty smoothly.

For sure. Um, so you talked about some, you know, that you guys get into the research on quite a bit and, uh, we don't have a lot. We've got a couple, uh, things we've heard you talk about relatively recently that apply to some of the stuff we talked to you and we want to get your, your, your take on a few things so something i heard you talking about recently was artificial sweeteners i think it was even maybe on your most most recent episode you dug into that a little bit uh some research on that so we on this show have a long history of drinking um sparkling waters you know lacroix what are the most bubbly aha polar polar a whole bunch of them and um probably like all sponsors and you're just trying to make some money right yes one of the bubbly water

we need all of them yes they all sponsor us like that's a yes you can't see what we're wearing right now, but our shirts might have those patches all over them too. Yes. Yeah, do you even need me here or do you want to just? We'll get you back after this sparkling water ad is over. But no, and I mean, actually just looking at the can as we speak, and we were just having a little conversation about this earlier.

And LaCroix, for example, the ingredients list is only carbonated water naturally essenced um where like does that fall into the artificial sweetener sphere when something is naturally essence like that i mean there's something yeah what is the scientific definition of essence right? Right. When I hear naturally essenced, I think of like a shampoo commercial maybe. Yeah, I would assume that that is not an artificial sweetener. Whatever brew is going into the natural essence there, if they were including artificial sweeteners, that would be listed on the ingredients portion of the label. So I don't know what kind of witchcraft goes into making those flavored sparkly waters,

but I would expect that any amount of artificial sweetener being used as an additive would be declared on the ingredient list. So they're officially guilt-free is what you're saying? Well, that implies that you should feel guilty about artificial sweeteners in the first place. Yeah. Should you? True. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I've looked into the artificial sweetener literature a few times. And before I get into that, I should probably mention my approach to nutrition is I try to focus on utility. I try to be helpful and

useful. I genuinely, at my core, do not have an interest in winning arguments or making people believe the things I believe. So if, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who say, you know what, artificial sweetener, not really my thing. I have concerns about them and I'm not going to ingest them. I'm, I'm completely fine with that. Uh, When I get off the call here, I'm probably going to go to bed. It'll be like, you know, 11. And I'll sleep well knowing that there are people out there who don't ingest artificial sweeteners. That's fine with me. But so like my thing is not that I need to convince every person and get them to admit that artificial sweeteners are totally fine in terms of health outcomes.

But my read of the literature is I've tried to look into a bunch of different potential issues that people bring up. People will talk about cancer risk. People will talk about, you know, the gut microbiome. People will talk about, you know, maybe artificial sweeteners increase food cravings because you get this sweet flavor without the calories that we would normally anticipate with that type of sweet flavor coming from, you know, sugar. I've looked into the literature and I really haven't found anything where I would say, wow, this is really alarming and concerning.

And I haven't found anything that has convinced me to go out of my way to avoid artificial sweeteners. Now, I will acknowledge a caveat there. One of the things that's really challenging with something like, you know, someone will ask, are artificial sweeteners bad? And it seems like a straightforward question, but first you have to define artificial sweetener, which usually people are referring to non-nutritive sweeteners. And that is a whole class of different, completely different ingredients that get added to food products. So we can't look at the aspartame research and assume that it applies to sucralose. These are completely different things. So it's difficult to dig through that literature because artificial sweetener or non-nutritive sweetener,

that includes a fairly long list of things. And then when people say, is it bad for you? I mean, you could theoretically put virtually any medical condition or pathophysiological state and say, okay, well, let's explore this. Let's explore that. So, you know, we don't have a comprehensive database of research that looks at every possible health outcome for every possible non-nutritive sweetener. But I do think we have pretty good evidence to suggest that there is no real immediate cause for concern regarding the potential risks that might be associated with intake of artificial sweeteners. We've got a pretty big sample size with a lot of people consuming them on a very regular basis.

And we don't really have any evidence to suggest that these ingredients are inherently deleterious or problematic. That makes sense. deleterious or problematic. That makes sense. Getting back to our hopes at getting LaCroix as a podcast sponsor then, you as a pro natural bodybuilder and as coaching others, would you find a home for something like a sparkling water than in a competition prep setting? Oh, I mean, so when someone's doing contest prep,

are those on the menu? Yes, exactly, yes. Oh, hell yeah. I mean, I would say, you know, if you talk to any natural bodybuilder, and I just say natural because that's just my experience and kind of the little bodybuilding community that I have some window into. Think of a natural bodybuilder.

You're talking about somebody who is not huge in terms of muscularity. I mean, there are limits when you're not using anabolics. And so as a result, caloric intakes get very, very low during contest prep. And a lot of times, a beverage like that, whether it's a sparkling water or just something that's artificially sweetened, that's going to be the best thing that happens to a natural bodybuilder that day. They feel like crap all day. Their food's largely going to be boring because they just don't have any calories to work with. I would never even dream of taking diet sodas

away from a natural bodybuilder in prep or any kind of beverage that is very, very, very low in calories and tastes good. Because honestly, a lot of times, it's all you have to look forward to. I'm not on any type of restriction. Sparkling water is almost the best thing I have to look forward to in my day. This lemon LaCroix is the best thing that's happened to me in months right now.

So that's saying something. I don't know what it's saying, but it's saying something. I'm glad things are going well for you uh no that that makes sense i think that that's uh consistent with what our um hopes and dreams were yeah yeah basically our very uneducated opinion we were hoping you know hoping that that was the case if i could uh if i could take someone to task here i'm not going to mention the company just in case they feel like sponsoring me later but i i had a a protein shake the other day and uh i took a sip of it it was my first time having it and i said nope this nope not good this is not good So I look at the label to figure out

what the hell has gone on here. And I see that they tried to, they tried to use like one of the low ish calorie, like natural sweeteners, uh, in of an artificial sweetener. And I was like, man, I know what you're going for here but i want the good stuff i was pretty disappointed with that and so my my warning to companies is if you're going to deviate from the tried and true artificial sweeteners uh do so at your own risk because some of that stuff just tastes absolutely dreadful yeah you better find the market of people that really don't care about the you know and also want to tell themselves that that tastes good. And all the influencers that will market it will be like, it's just as good as the real thing.

No one actually thinks that. It's just the marketing. Yeah, I mean, if you talk to Greg again, you should get him. He'll do an hour on how much he hates Stevia. I mean, he'll go for as long as you let him.

We will never talk to that guy again yeah that's probably are you still there cut out on us for a minute i'm still here okay yeah we keep getting just a minor cut out but uh no well that that's good we'll keep that in our notes for Greg next time. I had something, you know, you guys, both you and Greg, or as I listen to you talk or read any of the stuff that you've put out here, obviously, you know, it's your education, it's your background, it's what you do. You're very influenced by the research and you guys dig deep into, you know, a lot of different topics. And I would say dig very deep into them and dig deep into, you know, a lot of different topics. And I would say dig very deep into them and dig deep into the research there. What I wondered is you get so far into that

world anecdotally, like in your own experiences through training or nutrition. Do you ever feel like you can, because you're so well-educated and versed in that area and you have a disposition to go that direction, do you ever feel like you can just make conclusions for yourself based on feel or gut instinct or anything like that? Or do you get the feeling that you need to dig into the research? If all of a sudden you're taking a supplement or doing something nutritionally or something training-wise and you just think, I feel like this just kind of works for me. I don't know why.

I don't know that there's anything to support that, but I just think it does work. Is your mind allowed to work that way? I think I still do need the research because I am just as susceptible to the placebo effect as anybody else. I'm just as susceptible to any other form of a biased perspective of my own experience and um it it troubles me when i hear people say i i know how to do science and therefore i am completely unbiased and my perspective is now objective truth well yeah you just google like one thing and click on the top rank thing and you know the answers that's how you that's how you research right but yeah but it does concern me, though, when people say like, well, because I got scientific academic training, now I can trust my observations as objective.

And it's like, then I don't think your program trained you on the philosophy of science and epistemology. if you really got a foundational education in how science works and how we come to know things, then I think, if anything, the more I got academically trained in science, the more I started doubting my own experience, maybe more so than would be productive. But that's not to say that that personal experience has no place. I mean, so the way that I view it is I do need the research to inform what I'm doing. I think that the research is kind of the basis for establishing a lot of that knowledge related to training and nutrition. then I like to supplement that with my experience and anecdotes and things I observe with my clients because it's important to recognize the limitations of your own observations. There's high potential for bias, but it's also important to recognize the limitations of the scientific research because the scientific research is not about finding conclusions that are universally

true for everyone. It's for finding things that generally speaking seem to be true in aggregate, looking at population level trends and averages. And so that's a good starting point. Like if I'm working with a brand new client and I don't know anything about them aside from, you know, maybe a little bit of information on an intake form, but let's pretend I didn't even have that. Like I didn't even have an intake form, which is probably not good coaching practice, but it's a hypothetical. My inclination working with someone new, if I have no prior knowledge is I'm going to have to assume that the averages that we see in the research are going to be a good starting point in terms of what should their training

frequency be? What should their training volume be? What kind of caloric intake is probably going to be suitable for their goal? We kind of start with the averages and then we individualize from there. And we use anecdote and experience and, you know, individual level observations to kind of personalize the approach as we go. That makes sense to me. The, we talked about, we joked about the marijuana that's become, you know, that was a kind of a running gag on Stronger by Science for a while on the podcast. And what I wondered is I see more and more people that train, whether it's maybe bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman, that sort of thing that, you know,

utilize THC or maybe sometimes CBD as a method of increased recovery to supplement their training. Is there scientific research on that as it relates to training that it aids recovery in ways? Is that a thing that exists in science? You know, this is something I've looked into previously. At first, I was really interested in seeing how THC use or just in general cannabis use would impact things like performance, recovery, training adaptations.

And unfortunately, there's really just not a lot of research there. And in the United States, it became very, very difficult to research for several decades there. So it's no surprise why there's a lack of information there. But most of what I could find was studies where back when you could get away with it, they would just have people smoke a joint and go work out. And they're like, hey, you didn't seem to work out very well when you were extremely high.

And I think that's probably one of the things where anecdote, like I probably could have told you that without the control. When it comes to CBD and recovery, there have been a few studies. They're a little bit difficult to sort through because the standardization of the different interventions is just non-existent. It's completely different products with different concentrations of active ingredients. It's a mixture of liquid preparations and creams. At least one of the studies I saw was actually a cream applied to the skin. So there's very minimal research. It's kind of all over the place in terms of study design. And the quality of some of the studies was pretty low.

I have seen one study that, in my opinion, was consistent with a conclusion of enhanced recovery, maybe. with a conclusion of enhanced recovery, maybe. But I've also seen a few studies that really showed nothing to get excited about in terms of recovery. So my assessment based on the handful of studies that I've seen is I think that there is insufficient evidence to make the claim that CBD can help recovery. But if you use, you know, some type of cannabis derived product and you like what it's doing for your recovery, then that's great. You know, go with it if you like it. And I also think it's important to recognize that the cannabinoid system, the endogenous cannabinoid system, is absolutely relevant to a lot of physiological outcomes. We just really aren't certain yet how to leverage that in terms

of over-the-counter interventions. There have been studies looking at various types of cannabis-derived interventions. I think one of the things that comes to mind is a treatment for epilepsy. I think there might be one cannabis derived pharmaceutical that is, uh, approved or at least had been studied for a certain type of, uh, seizure condition, uh, if I'm not mistaken, but in terms of, you know, I remember a few years ago, it seemed like you couldn't, uh, you know, you, you couldn't go to any fitness event without finding a little table set up and they'd say, yeah, we've got CBD oil here. Um, you know, you probably will grow three or four inches taller if you take, you know, it's whatever,

whatever ailment, uh uh you know whatever uh illness you currently have this will probably cure it uh quite quickly and in fact don't take too much because it might cure it too quickly that's the best marketing isn't it yeah like i don't know if i can really sell you this because i don't know that's the classic snake oil really right there. Yeah. So, and like, like I said, uh, there's no question that, uh, endogenous, uh, the endogenous cannabinoid system is very fascinating, very relevant to human physiology. I just don't think we're quite there yet to say, you know, we have the evidence of how to use something like CBD to actually yield a practically meaningful outcome. Okay, that's fair.

So you're a guy that I think it's fair to say probably reads more academic papers than Tanner and I do in our spare time. Hey, you don't know how I'm doing it. I'm making an assumption about what you do in your spare time, Tanner. Don't put yourself down like that. hey you don't know i'm making an assumption about what you do in your spare time as someone that's not super as two guys that aren't super in that world has there been any like research or studies like more recently i don't know five in the last five maybe even 10 years that have had like a after they came out have had like a fundamental change in the way people look at things or approach strength training? Like, does that still exist? Or is like, nah, we figured out most of this like decades ago. You know, one of the reasons that I teamed up with Greg is because

he was like, listen, Eric, I don't want to do nutrition stuff. And I was like, you know what, that's great because I don't really want to do the training stuff for a while. So like I, I focus more on the nutrition, body composition, cardio side of things. And Greg digs in really deep to the resistance training research. Um, but you know, obviously the, the mass research review, we published that with the other Eric and, uh, Dr. Mike Zordos. So every month we're covering a handful of training studies. Looking through the training studies, I mean, there is incremental progress being made in terms of basically fine-tuning our understanding

of how to use different training approaches, how to fine-tune some of these training variables, frequency, intensity, volume, various types of auto-regulation and velocity-based thresholds. I mean, make no mistake, there is incremental progress happening in the strength research, but I can't think of a single, like a particular paper in the last couple of years that has been absolutely paradigm shifting, where it's like, whoa, we need to throw out the book when it comes to training. So I do think it's, you know, it has been very fruitful and informative if you've been staying

up to date with that research. There's a lot of really practical, applicable research being done that continues to make meaningful, have a meaningful impact on the way we might program training. But on my side of things, looking at nutrition and looking at body composition and cardio and things like that, there have been two things that have been really exciting, two areas that have really captured my interest lately. The first is that, you know, for the longest time, there was a pretty clear consensus that animal-based protein sources were head and shoulders above plant-based protein sources in terms of supporting strength and hypertrophy. And it was generally accepted. If you're going on to a vegetarian or even a vegan diet, you are leaving some gains on the

table, but we assume you're doing it for a different reason, right? So maybe you're into some of the ethical arguments or the animal welfare side of things. So you're saying, you know what, because this other thing is important to me, I'm going to leave some gains on the table and I'm okay with that. But there's been some really fascinating research in the last two years or so that has really challenged that

and shown a fairly equivalent response as long as the plant-based protein sources are being dosed effectively. So I think the protein source area has been a pretty lively research area the last couple of years. The other thing that's been really exciting is there's this huge project where they used a method called doubly labeled water, where they could look at total daily energy expenditure with a high degree of accuracy in people who are just going about their day-to-day life at home. So a lot of studies on metabolic rate, you bring them into the lab and you do some measurements.

And there's always the question of like, does this actually apply outside of the lab? You know, they even have, you know, sometimes they'll just say, hey, lay down, we'll measure your breath for 30 minutes and make a bunch of assumptions from there. Sometimes they say, why don't you stay in this weird little, it's like a weird little apartment that actually they do the energy expenditure measurements by collecting a bunch of variables while you're living in this contained apartment that's actually just a big measurement device. It's like you're living in this contained apartment that's actually just a big measurement device. It's like you're living in a fishbowl for a day. But of course, that's going to alter your activity level to a really notable degree. But there's this huge project where they started

putting together all these different data sets with this doubly labeled water method. And they've been putting out some really informative stuff about the regulation of energy expenditure and i think one of the really fascinating areas within that is how our body responds to uh to cardio or to just physical activity in general uh what's really fascinating is we're learning more and more that, you know, when we add maybe 200 calories of physical activity to our daily schedule, to our daily routine, we might expect that our total daily energy expenditure is going to go up by 200 calories because we added 200 calories of exercise or physical activity. And what we're learning with more and more detail is that our body actually does compensate to some degree. So, you know, you might increase your, your, uh, exercise energy expenditure by 200 calories. Um, but your total daily energy expenditure might only increase by maybe 50 to 70% of that amount. And what's really interesting is that

it's not the same for everybody. There are some people who compensate more than others, and it gets even more interesting when you look at the fact that there's evidence suggesting that even for the same individual, the level of compensation that occurs might differ based on whether you were in an energy surplus or energy balance versus if you were in an energy deficit. So there might be even greater compensation happening in people who are dieting and restricting energy. So on my side of things, over the last couple of years, there's been some really exciting research that I can truly say has led to some big strides in our understanding of how to manipulate diet and exercise for, you know, for hypertrophy and body composition. And so, yeah, it's fun to stay plugged into that research because I think we're just kind of getting started in those areas. I'm really excited to see what happens over the next five or 10 years.

That's good. So when we might see somebody deadlifts 1,000 pounds and we see each other next or we text each other and we say, Holy cow, did you see that? A thousand pound deadlift? Do you, do you, like when you and Greg run into each other next, I mean, are you guys talking about the last research, the last bit of research or something that came out? Like do you get excited about things coming out fresh like that? Yeah, I would say that it's tough because research dissemination is uh very decentralized it's not just on instagram like what we're yeah you don't have research ig that pop on anymore well i mean like the thing that's funny is like you will see stuff on Instagram if it is like absolutely directly related to the stuff that people like in fitness.

Like if there's like a huge study on actual bodybuilders or actual powerlifters, that will immediately make the rounds on social media. And in that case, yeah, Greg and I, you know, next time we see each other, we'll, you know, we're bound to chat about it. In most cases, Greg or I will be scrolling through the depths of some, you know, obscure academic journal in the hours of the morning. And we'll find something and we'll just, you know, we'll send it to each other and say, get a load of this. And we'll have some kind of smart ass take that we want, that we want to some, some point that we want to make. But yeah, so it usually takes the, the more cynical snarky form of just like, Hey, look at this shit. I found it too in the morning. I've got a book I'd like to make. That's pretty much it.

Yeah, I can picture that. Okay. Eric, we've got this game we'd like to make that's pretty much it yeah i can picture that okay uh eric we've got this game we play with everyone that we have on um it's called overrated underrated it's relatively simple but there are some rules to the game we've got a uh special set of topics that we handpicked for you and each one it's your job to determine whether it's overrated underrated but you have your druthers to elaborate on that as much or as little as you would like. But the most important thing, there is no riding the line. You do have to ultimately come up with a final either over or underrated. Okay, I'm a little nervous because one thing that we talk about on the show sometimes, which is not a bit, it's very serious. I do not participate in society. And so one, like I don't watch film. I don't watch television.

These are handpicked for you. So you, you just have to put your faith in us that we know we, catchy phrase you just have to put your faith in us that we know we that we did our research okay i just i'm i'm putting that out there just to to let you know that i might not fully understand public perception ah okay that's fair yeah that's actually a good point then too but yeah i don't know if we've encountered someone that's so removed that they actually got that in front of it yeah you're right but hey i'm down to play i'll do my best well yeah okay yeah yeah that's an interesting point that is yeah if you were so i'm already second guessing what i was gonna say yeah right right right yep okay all right so topic number one overrated or underrated um eric helms Eric Helms. Underrated. Very underrated.

I am going to ditch the gag here. So the thing that's funny about Eric Helms, we always joke about his age. We make it seem like he's like 70 years old. He's a few years older than us, but you know, he really is that grandfather figure in my life. Um, because great grandfather, maybe, yeah, maybe great grandfather, but like, it's really interesting because I would see him post about stuff on the internet like five or six years ago. Um, like, you know, getting away from

the physiology and diving more into the psychology research. And I remember when I saw that I was really into physiology and like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But get to the good stuff, you know? And now years later, I'm starting to dig into the psychology stuff and saying, oh shit. Yeah. There's some really good stuff here. Uh, and the same thing is true. Like, you know, I had seen him make some random like comments and posts about like, uh, like Zen Buddhism and things like that. And like Eastern philosophy. Uh, and you know, at the time I wasn't like dismissive of it, but I was like, Oh, you know, to each their own. Uh, but then, you know, several years later I start digging into it and I really it really resonates

with me like the uh on the show we did the road to enlightenment segment where i started digging into buddhism and that wasn't a bit like i actually am really uh really into it so helms is underrated because uh he he is um he has the wisdom to accompany his extremely advanced age. That's a very good answer, I think. Well put. That brings up a good question on the road to enlightenment then. I mean, this actually diverts from our normal script. We're technically not allowed to talk politics or religion is our longstanding, um, statement here.

But like, would you say that like, are, are you Buddhist then? Or like, is that, is that even what you say if you study Buddhism or how does that work? You know,

and I don't even think it really, uh, deviates from, from your rule about politics and religion, because if it makes you uncomfortable, you can just discuss the philosophical, uh philosophical underpinning. So, yeah, I don't know if the label is even of any utility. You know, I enjoy reading the philosophy and exploring some of the concepts, and, you know, as kind of an academic pursuit, I think it's really fascinating. So, yeah, I read about the philosophy. I tried to apply it where it would behoove me to do so. And, you know, that's it. So the label is not really necessary. The Buddhist philosophy can be applied in a variety of different religions.

So I don't think you've broken your rule in this context. Oh, thank God that we didn't break it. Overrated or underrated Chapel Hill? Underrated. Chapel Hill? Underrated. It's actually funny that you asked that because it's kind of an ongoing argument between my girlfriend and I. So my girlfriend and I both went to grad school in Chapel Hill, but she also was there for undergrad. So she lived in Chapel Hill for like, But she also was there for undergrad. So she lived in Chapel Hill for like, I think, 11 years straight.

And Chapel Hill is a tiny town. Like it's kind of the quintessential, like picturesque, beautiful campus town. But there is not a lot to do there. And so like she's like, yeah, I could go several years without returning. And she would be fine with that. But I consistently make comments like, man, I miss Chapel Hill. And we don't live that far away, so it's very easy to just kind of take a stroll down to Chapel Hill. And I'm always pushing for it because it is a really nice town,

so definitely underrated. What is the approximate uh population of chapel hill oh the population i genuinely don't know but it's really simple uh if you go during the academic year so i mean like august and may it is appropriately populated. It doesn't feel crowded, but it doesn't feel empty. It's just a small little town that is at the appropriate capacity. But when school is out of session, it is desolate. It is a wasteland. There is no one there. And that is, as you would probably expect, my favorite time to be there. It's amazing. You feel like, um, you kind of feel like you went, went to an amusement park and kind of special program where they just opened it up

for only you that day. And so like anywhere you want to go, anything you want to do, you're first in line. Uh, it's great. That's good. Sounds magical. Yeah.

Overrated or underrated textbooks. Oh, very underrated. Um, textbooks are a beautiful thing. Greg and I talk about them all the time. Uh, they are without question the best and easiest way to dive into a topic and get caught up to speed. It's not going to get you at the

cutting edge, but it's going to give you the foundation that you need. And we talk about that all the time, but we practice what we preach when it comes to textbooks uh so i mentioned that uh i've been getting more into reading some psychology research the first thing i did though was i borrowed my girlfriend's psychology textbooks and just dove into them so way way way underrated that's fair um over so this is brings us to the last one yeah i was thinking about calling an audible on this versus the planned one as i was thinking so um this is the last one the last one is usually the most important one so overrated or underrated bill nye the science guy um i would say, I would say underrated for two reasons. Um, so first of all,

when I think back to my happiest moments and I make like the top 10 list, at least four of them or when i was in grade school and you would see a substitute teacher walk in pulling a television on a cart um and so they pull in the television on the cart with a vhs player half of your listeners are already lost they don't know what this is right up our alley for sure television used to be shaped like a cube it's extremely heavy yeah you would need wheels on it if you wanted to move it and you would put the vhs in and but that's not the whole happy scenario that where you really became happy was when they said oh by the way there is no worksheet for this. Ah, yes. So it's like completely check out.

Like, all right, this is just. Man, sometimes they would hit you with that worksheet that was like. That's a lot of stress then all of a sudden. That's a lot of looking back and forth between the paper and the video, making sure you're in the right spot. And it would be fill in the blank. And, you know, Bill Nye would be, he'd be riffing, you know, he'd be going and you'd be like, Hey dude, what did he just say? Like, I know I missed

the word I'm supposed to write. And then you're copying over people, uh, you know, say, Hey, did you get number three there? So yeah. Uh, the Bill Nye substitute teacher combo without the worksheet, uh, you really just could not beat that. You know, that was just a 50 minute break, you know, at a very stressful time when you're in fourth grade. And then also, you know, I think, you know, the thing that's really tough with science communication, and like when I was in grad school, we we I got together with some friends and we actually built a course from the ground up that the university let us teach about science communication. One of the things that's really tricky with science communication is you need a unique skill set to try to make things seem fun and interesting and accessible. fun and interesting and accessible. And the problem is when you do that, the people who are really into the nitty gritty science sometimes reject what you're doing because they're like,

no, it's, it's too oversimplified. They're trying, they're trying to get too broad with it, a little too cute. Um, you know, it's not the hard hitting, It's not the, you know, the real nitty gritty stuff that I like. It's like the science hipsters, you could say. Yeah, it's like the science hipsters who are, you know, instead of saying like, oh, I actually liked them back in the 90s. Instead, it's like, oh, I actually like scientists who publish, you know, five and papers a year. And, you know, when's the last time that Bill Nye was ever considered for a Nobel prize. And it's like, it's, you know, it's a different skill set. So I, I kind of empathize with science communicators who try to do it. Uh, you know,

they try to do their best with it. They try to get science, uh, they try to inspire an interest in science in the general population. Sometimes that can be a bit of a thankless job. So I would say underrated. That's good. Great news. It looks like you passed underrated, overrated, too. It is a pass-fail scenario, and you passed, so good news. Awesome. good news awesome i i will also note that um as part of the road to enlightenment i

dedicated myself to to not being a negative cynical bastard anymore as a result like if we did overrated or underrated two years ago i probably would have gone overrated across the board yeah this time underrated for everything uh i appreciate uh the places and the people and the things we discussed but but to be fair can we still agree that the worksheet during the video at school is totally overrated. Man, I keep thinking about, talk about a wet blanket or ants at a picnic. That worksheet during a video at school is the worst thing ever. Teachers don't do that. It was terrible.

And, you know, if there's one thing, you know, that I would, if I could pretend to be knowledge knowledgeable about education and exert some type of influence over educators it would be stop doing that crap uh play the hits play the damn video uh you know try to find as many of you know at the end of those videos they would do kind of the uh the parody song where they would take a hit song that was always from the early 90s and they would make it like a science theme. Get a whole mixtape of those, play it for the class, and then just chill. Yeah, don't put the, nobody needs that added pressure afterwards. Yeah, I mean, you got to let kids relax and enjoy it and discuss it

in an insightful way so get rid of the damn spreadsheets is this so are we just uh old men yelling at the sky right now is this even a thing anymore you know that's actually a good point yeah i i don't know i never thought about that part of it. That is a good point. My brother is a school teacher, but he teaches history. But I will report back and figure out if there's any reason for us to be lamenting the Bill Nye worksheet. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. That's some closure on that. Finally get some closure on that.

That kind of wraps up most of what we wanted to talk to you about, but I would like maybe give us, we haven't talked about it at all, but a quick rundown on MacroFactor, what that is and what makes that good. Yeah, so MacroFactor is a diet app, a nutrition app that we put together, you know, me and Greg, along with a really talented team of developers. And, you know, it's a nice little family business. You know, the developers are local. So we hang out together. You know, it's a nice little family. So we hang out together. It's a nice little family. And the reason that we made the app is when we looked at other nutrition apps on the market, we either do tracking or kind of virtual coaching,

you know, kind of give you updated targets for your calories, you know, carb, fat, protein. You know, there are apps that did this stuff that would help you track your food, that would give you recommendations and update those recommendations based on your goals and your progress. But a lot of them had some pretty major shortcomings. A lot of them, just in the act of logging foods, they either wouldn't have a very good database of foods or it would be really clunky and inefficient trying to actually log things. Or you would log things

and the app would just become like your biggest enemy. Like instead of being a supportive sidekick, it just become like your biggest enemy. Like instead of being a supportive sidekick, it would be like your biggest adversary. So you'd go like five calories over, which no one would actually seriously suggest is a problem. And every number in there turns red. Shame on you. Yeah. It's like, it's like, we're sending the police to your house. Like, and you're just like, dude, why is this app bullying me every time I go two grams over my fat? Because no one actually thinks that truly matters. So we didn't like that part.

And we found even with apps that were giving kind of updated recommendations, a lot of them really struggled to navigate providing insightful updates when you struggled with adherence. So if you still logged all your food, but you just didn't hit the targets perfectly, a lot of the apps on the market just didn't really know how to handle that. And as a result, a lot of times they would just punt. They'd be like, hey, sorry, try again next week. And we felt like that didn't really make sense because if you've coached people in real life, having some inconsistency, having some slip-ups in terms of adherence here and there, going over targets, going under targets, it's not like some unique, rare occasion. I mean, that is part of the process without question. And so we thought it was really counterintuitive that apps had not figured out

an elegant and useful way of navigating that. It seemed really, really counterintuitive. So we set out to make a diet app that would be really convenient and efficient in terms of logging, very non-judgmental in terms of the user interface and the user experience. And we wanted to make sure that it would provide a lot of analytics, a lot of detailed insight, and continue giving informed, updated recommendations, even if you were struggling hitting the exact targets right on the dot. So that was kind of what we set out to do. And we've been on the market, I don't know, over half a year, but less than a year, probably somewhere in like the eight or nine month range now. And we've been really happy with how it's been going, with the feedback that we've gotten.

We've heard a lot of people who have really enjoyed the different approach that we took in terms of how the user interacts with the app and how the app delivers information to the user. So we've been really stoked about that. And of course, we've been really grateful, really thankful for all the support that we've gotten from the users up to this point. So if someone wants to find out more or sign up, they would just go to the app store? find out more or sign up, they would just go to the App Store?

Yeah, it's on the it's available for iPhone and Android. So the Google Store, the Apple App Store. What do the kids call them these days? I don't know what they're called. Wherever you go for that.

Wherever you get apps for your phone, you can find it. It's called Macrofactor. You can go to Macrofactorapp.com, but the easiest way to find it, you just go to StrongerByScience.com, and you can navigate your way to it from there as well. So it's certainly not hard to find. And, you know, it is a paid app because it is, you know,

we really leaned into providing a lot of features with it that are not free to implement. But you don't have to take a leap of faith. If you go and download the app, there is a free trial. And so you can use it, take it for a spin, see if you like the interface, the user experience. And if you like it, stick around. That's great. If not, no big deal. But we were pretty adamant that we wanted to make sure, since it's a paid app, we wanted

to make sure that there was at least a free trial so people would know exactly what they're getting. That's cool. Eric, I think this was really great. You gave us more informed content than we normally experience in months on this show. So we've been known as the pod lifting podcast about nothing. And I think today it was about something. Awesome. Well, I had a great time and I really appreciate the opportunity. All right, coolic send our best to uh uh big greg over

there too absolutely we'll do all right thanks eric you got the cool beans got them the double cool beans there didn't you yeah excellent so we got a couple things to run down quick before we wrap up the show. We got to talk about the rest of our drop. The run down and the wrap up. The wrap up and the run down in a particular order. So the rest of the drop. And then also I thought we should mention that next week

on the podcast that we record, approximately a week from today we will be announcing our upcoming contest we will be announcing the start of our next contest where there will be um prizes to be determined we don't know yet something good i suppose right i gotta come up with something that doesn't have good prizes i'm just hoping you got something planned i bet i bet you got something really fun and cool planned that won't require it like you'll just anywhere you just know yeah i got it yeah i i've got it so you'll have that and then but we do kind of know what the contest is going to be we're going to announce that next

week so stay tuned it's going to be a lot of fun we've had a lot of we and i mean to toot our own horn we've done some really fun, cool contests in the past. This is going to be fun. This is going to, I'm, I'm excited for it. For people that have been really following the story,

the mole will officially be revealed next week. Yes. All will be revealed next week on the mass. I'm going to tell all episode. Yeah. So we've had within our, uh, supporting membership,

um, group within our discord community, the ranks, there's been one bowl inserted, uh, within our supporting membership group, within our Discord community. Within the ranks. There's been one mole inserted with an agenda in mind for the last several months. And there's been a lot of speculation about who that is. And the mole will be revealed. The speculation will go to rest next Wednesday.

I'm excited for that too. Yeah, people can finally relax. We're actually going to bring the mole live on the podcast, aren't we even? Yeah.'re actually going to bring them all live on the podcast aren't we even yeah yeah it's gonna be amazing and that's gonna coincide with us us announcing the uh contest here so pretty fun stuff it could be a pretty groundbreaking day for some people relationships could be burned new ones could be formed it'll just some people's worlds could be really up in the air after that episode that's right so great incentive to tune in next week yeah it could be like a jerry springer episode it's kind of that's kind of what in my mind what it's gonna be tommy tommy tommy

mole mole mole like that's how i picture it just all these people going nuts and screaming and fighting and you are not the mole the test results are in you are not the mole that's how i picture next week going yes we'll have to get a live studio audience to yes to film that one yes then talking about the the rest of the drop that we didn't talk to now we can talk about it freely that we got one of those live listeners yeah so we talked about the rest of the drop that we didn't talk to. Now we can talk about it freely. We got one of those live listeners. So we talked about the band T that came out. The four hats.

The four hats. The four horsemen of the apocalypse hats. I explained what a dad hat even is in case you didn't know. It's a hat that goes in your head. The banner, the flag. We can go into more detail on that now too. It's what we described only. It's the lift lift shit flag and it's in black and yellow new colorway on that lift shit design yellow text yellow border what would you say it certainly does pop it does pop hard we got one up in the massonomics hq and it uh looks great yeah and then the final piece

and we kind of we hit on the subject matter a little bit here with eric today but we have the uh high bar lifting club t and it fits uh you know we have april 20th coming up here yes just 420 doobie brothers blaze it uh but we so we have the high bar lifting club uh it says since 1969 every ounce counts we have a guy squatting high bar on it very high bar very high bar and uh it's a on the bottom it says for a workout that will leave you feeling smoked yeah and the guy's got a very the actual the whole shirt has it's a it's on kelly green with uh some yellow and white uh print on it it's got a very like kind of sort of 70s kind of retro yeah campy feel almost right right and we're excited about that one yeah it's just a fun goofy shirt it is very we like the new fun goofy shirt exactly that is 100 so i think in this drop with these t's we really leaned between the

band t and the high bar lifting you know after so many just years of doing serious stuff we finally do some fun stuff again about time yeah so i think and then it's green yeah we've never done a green like a kelly green shirt we never did a shirt like that before yeah the only thing we've ever had is uh like an olive yeah like i'm wearing the lift shit right now between the dad hats and those two t's the band t especially uh it's gonna be a real head turner so make sure to head over to the website if you haven't yet and um see what's left of the new drop who knows maybe it's all sold out get on it i hope it's all sold out and we can finally run off to north dakota and retire finally just shut the whole thing down and color quits yes um yeah you know it's springs right around the corner so you got to get that spring wardrobe

going so that's right take advantage of those spring colors perfect for easter gatherings be amazing for that you know what else is perfect what plates made by the strength co yes they are i'm going to tell you a little story i recently actually bought on the used facebook marketplace some plates oh yeah yeah okay yeah and i uh i bought the place they were just this actually is almost worth like not even talking about from an ad point of view first before we get into it that i that i just tell about the story yeah i forgot well i'm just saying like that you picked up some more stuff right right right this could be like our kind of our review of the competing plates actually well right right that's true and that's kind of what

i'm thinking about why i'm talking about the strength co is because so what i did is i i i bought some of the rogue deep dish plates that were used i wasn't hard to believe that those things were on the on the facebook market in in aberdeen western northeast south you could say even like two blocks from the gym yeah and um when i saw him i was like oh i have to i i need i'm definitely buying those i have to buy those i want honestly i want to compare them to the strength coat plates because in my mind that's like one of the chief like premier competitors yeah to those plates um and my honest feedback outside of even the strength coat being a sponsor of the podcast is that the strength coat plates are are better than those in almost like every way i think they are like

nothing wrong with the rogue plates if you own those those are and they like every way i think they're like nothing wrong with the rogue plates if you own those those are and they're i mean i think they're good they're definitely better than probably the plates that exist in most gyms you go to that most people have like right they're still good plates but but those are in this basically like the same very similar comparable price point to the straight co plates and kind of a similar look i can't i i would always i i would highly recommend the straight co plates in a compare you know if you're weighing the options on those two i think that number one the deep dish maybe that appeals to people in some ways but they do take up way more space on the uh plate racks plate trees do you know how much wider they actually are are they half an inch wider um i don't know what the measurement is on that but i

i um they look odd almost like i'm i i just the strength co plates are the right thickness of a plate to ask me like that is the correct thickness of a 45 pound plate and okay so yeah the design of the deep dish is like to me they're fine like there's nothing wrong with the design they're fine but it is weird when you grab it and it feels like how hollow that lip is right so even from like an ergonomic standpoint like that's already the first thing but then what really throws the whole thing off is that the 25s are like the exact opposite of a deep dish there's almost no dish to them right like and this is a part of a set so we got some 25s in this these ones that i purchased used and yeah go ahead you know and so like that is what i i do think that the strength coat plates

have a very nice design but it it's also, in my opinion, a very functional design where the lip is like a lip that is sized correctly for a human hand to grab on and feel like, yep, this is made for me to grab on. There's no doubt about like how good of a hole to have on this thing. And that extends through to the 25s too. You know,

I'm not too worried about dropping a 10 or a five. I think that it works good, but the 25s do also have a nice not too worried about dropping a 10 or 5 i think that it works good but the 25s do also have a nice lip yeah and uh they feel good in the hand and you have a good hold on them so it's just weird that the deep dishes have such a deep dish on on the 45s right and then you go to the 25s and it's almost flush like there's like no lip on that one all of a sudden which is a very odd handling yeah it's odd functionally. Also, aesthetically, as a set, it's odd to me. It doesn't work. They don't go together.

It doesn't look like a set. I didn't realize. The Strength Co. from two and a half. Oh, they're uniform. Or one and a quarter to 100. Yes, they have established a consistent visual language that they're going with through this whole thing, and they stuck to it, and it makes sense.

And if you're of the opinion, is weight who cares what are you guys talking about well this doesn't apply to you you're probably not going to buy the any of the you know any of these plates you're just going to have whatever way you can have and i mean that's fine if that's your approach because at the root of it yes weight is weight but if you're in the market for you know i would call it premium made in america plates these are the difference this is like what you actually get down to these as minor as these are these are the things that are the differences right right um and i think like that was apparent right away yeah and i didn't understand that until you actually said that no those 45s and 25s do go together like they seem like mismatched sets right right they absolutely do so grant got the uniform and consistency thing down way better

than them too then yeah uh yeah so all the more reason to go out and buy some strength co plates so yeah with that being said they're still the rogue ones are still nice plates yeah they're still good plates right but um i think you're in the mark that the strength go plates are the right decision even more now after seeing the the competition that's true it really really highlighted some of the positives and also they strength go still does have the more specific fit to a barbell specific isn't the right word but the tighter tolerance on the barbell and you can notice a difference between the two on that also and i do like that so yeah um and again i could i think someone could say oh you're kind of splitting hairs on some of these things but

when making the decision of spending that much money for uh uh sets of plates like i think you should buy the ones that are the best at probably a pretty comparable price and that's the strength co yeah 100 so thank you strength co for sponsoring this episode of the mass dynamics podcast where we just talked about somebody else's plates but we kind of shit on them for you so so go buy the strength yeah yes uh and then did we have did we hear from texas power bars yeah oh we have not okay today's show was also 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. 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 but he 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 nearly 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 learn more about Texas Power Bars and buy one of their legendary bars, visit TexasPowerBars.com. Thank you, Texas Power Bars. Get out there and buy that new stuff. While you're at it, buy a little bit of our old stuff. We'd love to sell you some of that stuff, too. Love to sell you all the stuff.

Also, while you're on the website, make sure to check out the supporting member option yes on the store you can either go to massonomics.com join or look for it in the store there are sign up levels for every budget and once you get in you'll have some awesome perks like knowing you're supporting us uh you get a discount code for some future merch purchases and the real banger that everyone likes is you could be a part of a very active discord community real active that is uh no not line growing every single week and one other little nugget that you're going to catch right at the very end of this episode if you tuned in for the whole thing go become a supportive member now if you haven't

yet because we don't know exactly when this is going to be, but we got a really cool idea in the works for our supporting member. And everyone that is an active supporting member by a near date is going to get to take advantage of it. So if you're on the fence, I would join immediately to make sure you don't miss on this because it's going to be very cool and every supporting member will get something a little special. Yeah, so if you are, that's actually good advice, not just sales pitch.

If you're on the fence about it, you think you're going to do eventually, do it right now. Do it right now would be the time to do it because there's something coming. There's something coming. There's something coming. Tommy, where do they find you at? You can find me at tomahawk underscore d you can follow me at tanner underscore baird but uh nobody cares about that just make sure to follow massonomics at massonomics see ya