Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 333: Danny Grigsby
Episode Date: August 22, 2022Big Danny Grigsby joins us for this one to discuss his 1,074 pound deadlift, life as a Marine, and what his future in the sport of powerlifting holds. This was a lot of fun! Juggernaut AI: juggernau...tai.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% Spud Inc: https://www.spud-inc-straps.com/ Texas Power Bars: https://www.texaspowerbars.com/
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You know, thanks for what you do with your podcast 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 everyone for episode 333.
333.
Halfway to the mark of the devil.
Making progress.
Episode 333 of the Massanomics podcast uh we're locked and loaded recorded live
from western northeast south dakota my name is tanner and my name is tommy you can uh call me
tanner and you go by tommy guns usually tommy guns that's the one that's the one i go by
tommy guns as seen in very early massonomics YouTube videos.
That's right.
When everyone had more creative nicknames other than just big in front of the big insert.
Well,
we had to have something going for us then.
It was about all we had going for us.
Yes.
In as seen in like 2014 massonomics YouTube.
Uh,
episode three 33,
all kinds of good stuff. We're going to um fun guest big danny grigsby gonna
be joining us here and uh before that i want to tell you a little bit about juggernaut ai
it's programming that uh both of us are utilizing actually and just getting freakishly strong over
here by utilizing i just mean use right yeah is there really ever a need
there might be but we're using it yeah yeah uh there we go there's there we go some classic uh
massonomics you're spotting me there too yep it was a red shirt day at the ymca that well
to be fair i think that was the only massonomomics trip that existed at the time so that's true you had to represent
but juggernaut AI
we weren't using it in 2014 because
it didn't exist yet the future wasn't here
yet but the future is now the future
is today the future is juggernaut
AI juggernaut
AI totally individualized training so
it can be used by everyone from beginners 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 a testing day out in the future,
how many days a week you want to train,
and several other individual characteristics like maximum recoverable volume.
All that stuff continues to update as you go.
The training is continually adapting to the feedback that you put into it.
And the changes can happen as quickly and frequently as just your next set.
To find out more and to get signed up, go to Juggernaut AI.
Go to it on your phone or on a laptop.
The actual website.
Yeah, go to it on the web browser.
Go to it on the browser.
Browser on over.
Yes, and go get signed up for the Juggernaut AI app
and remember to use discount code MASSENOMICS,
M-A-S-S-E-N-O-M-I-C-S,
and that'll save you 10% for the lifetime of that membership.
And we'll be back,
even though I haven't done any of the Arnold impersonation
for this entire read,
I'm going to throw it in at the end.
We'll be back next week with another juggernaut AI ad read.
Good stuff.
And I also want to tell you right off the bat here about our good friend at
spud ink.
That's spud dash ink dash straps.com.
They also help make this program possible and I'm kicking it back to an old
school favorite of ours.
They have the elbow and knee sleeves.
Classic.
They've got them in the single ply and double ply variety.
And the cool feature, one of the cool features about their knee sleeves is they have the loops.
Andy loops.
Same for the elbow sleeves.
To be able to size down, you can get a pretty tight sleeve and still be able to pull them on.
And they're not the neoprene style.
What actually are they?
Well, I'm right on it now, so I can probably see what they actually call you.
That's going to be our trivia question.
They do have the pull tabs to make them easier to get on and off.
You can wear them for squatting running with the yoke
working with your clean and jerk made from comfortable but durable materials
that's the best i'm going to be able to tell you they're comfortable but durable i do know that
about the material uh but no but they are good we've used them ourselves several people around
the gym use them
they have single or double ply varieties depending on how much support you want
check those out and many of their other fine products at spud-ink-straps.com order $75
more get free shipping and make sure to tell them in the comments that massonomics sent you
so good stuff right there you had said 3 three three halfway to six six six and that way
it reminded me i am currently uh watching the righteous gemstones oh yeah and shout out to
discord member yeah who who was it because i'm not at that part was it the god squad is that what he
was a part he is a part of the god squad who was someone take him up uh some of you live discord listeners tag us up
I'm
red beard guy
Jacked Ginger
there you go
I'm not at that part yet I have like three episodes left of the first season
but I'm excited
to get there
part of the God Squad
and Righteous Gemstones and also part of the Masonomics Discord crew.
So there are famous people.
Right.
He has two things to his IMDB name.
Yes.
Yes.
Masonomics Discord crew and Righteous Gemstones.
I haven't seen it.
Are you liking it?
Oh, someone said it's episode 332.
We pulled a quick one.
Yes.
No, it actually, this's episode 332. We pulled a quick one. Yes.
No, it actually, this is episode 333.
Do you want to explain what's going on?
We're in a weird, we're in a very,
it's a paradoxical state that we're in right now. So we actually recorded two episodes last week.
My wife will be having a baby sometime in the next six days.
Yeah.
And just out of, well, we wouldn't be able to record if we stuck to our normal schedule.
So last week we had to record two episodes.
So then this week we are now, we have a little, we have a little buffer.
Yeah.
We have some buffer built in.
So now we don't have to worry about things.
So this is actually three, three, and 332 is a mystery.
Yeah, 332.
No one knows what's going on with that one.
For the Discord people that are confused right now,
none of you got to listen to any 332,
so that will all be new to you when it comes out here on Monday.
That was actually a Q&A episode,
so the cues that we got from all of you on Instagram was you'd use for episode 332.
And everyone thought maybe those were just for fun. They just, nothing happened with them.
So it is, we, so next week we probably won't be recording an episode.
I can tell you, I will not be recording an episode. I might just come down here.
I won't stop you if you need to record it on your own channel.
Well, you might, you might be like be like um actually don't come up there's literally a baby here that is one day old so you need to leave
this will mark between the two of us the fourth baby that we have had while uh recording the
podcast oh i actually never thought of that yeah yeah oh this podcast is older than a lot of love than basically all of our kids just about yeah i've
got one uh one child that was is older than this podcast yes and that is it and it which is weird
because um i don't know if you remember this when my oldest daughter was born we were recording down in tyler's basement and i had to leave
the middle of the my baby was born well not actually i had to go to the hospital yeah like
it was time to go to the hospital when uh like there was no more waiting yeah it wasn't like i
was the baby was born and i'm like oh okay i'll show up but i did it was like not an emergency
situation but it was like yeah i think we need to go to the hospital and um I had to leave the podcast early yeah I can't really
remember it but I do remember you telling the story yeah I remember this I remember you telling
the story more than I can remember the way that actually played out you know so we out recording
in the evening much like we do right now usually on Sunday nights I believe I think so yeah and
the way that that played out is it was like we're in the hospital for like god knows how long until our baby was actually you know like
yeah i left the podcast and i was like oh exciting we're going to the hospital and then i was like
oh wait but now we're gonna sit here in like multiple different rooms for like 16 hours
before anything else happens yep and that was when i realized like when people say
in labor i didn't realize like in labor could be like so many hours long like i always pictured
like in labor is like when oh like oh you know like yeah five minutes yeah right oh yeah but
like in labor means like yeah and hours, you know.
The whole experience is just,
we'll probably talk more about this in two weeks,
but the whole experience is one where you're just like,
I have no say in anything that's happening right now.
I'm just a passenger along for the ride.
I did see a funny meme on,
I don't know if it was Rad Dad or something, one of those bigger pages.
And it was a picture of basically,
all hospitals
must have almost the same thing it's like that pull-out chair pull-out couch thing that the dad
gets while you're in there and it's something like all dads get all dads understand this feeling and
it was like that with like a little thin sheet like a crap pillow pillows yeah i say pillows
that are because our discomfort is really the
primary concern when you're in the hospital for that uh experience yeah i'm here to be
comfortable come on that's what this experience is about um the hospital room thing when you're
there for childbirth and stuff is a weird thing though if you haven't experienced it how it's like
you're kind of like living there
for a while oh yeah like but yet there's also like five different random people that will come in
they're like oh make yourself comfortable don't mind us coming in every hour on the hour waking
you up you know it's like your living quarters but also it's like a public room that like and
yes it didn't help when we had our first child it was covid so everyone had everyone had
masks on so it was kind of hard to tell like you're talking to me and is it because we've
talked before or did someone else like do i know who you are have we ever talked right right are
you just like getting the notes and you're just continuing on where the last person left off so
yeah it it's uh it's a one uh one of a kind experience it is a one-of-a-kind experience. It is a one-of-a-kind experience.
Speaking of other one-of-a-kind experiences, we have a new drop coming this week.
We do.
Are we revealing yet anything?
Maybe we'll wait just a few more minutes.
Let the anticipation...
Because we are going to tell the Discord people
what is in this drop.
Yes.
That for them comes out...
Well, for them, this drop actually does release tomorrow it will
be releasing tomorrow but as of this podcast if you're listening it released like a week and a
half two weeks ago um but this is relevant for our people listening live on our discord community on
our supporting members um you all right now need to swear a blood oath to not tell any of the other
discord members that chose not to listen live like this just has to
be a secret between the group of us yeah and nobody can spill the beans keep it low-key yeah
but we'll get to that in a minute we do have we do have some uh other things to talk about oh one
i know what i want to talk about okay tanner there is a there was a news article i ran across
and who the world changes fast.
This was like two weeks ago, a week and a half ago.
So I don't know if something's changed on this already.
But the headline was something along the lines of,
your Instagram feed will be twice as worse as it is now.
And so in Facebook's, Instagram's continued quest to just be a TikTok clone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They said right now about 15% of the content in a person.
And this is Facebook feed.
I think they mean Instagram too.
Right now about 15% of a con of content in a person's Facebook feed.
And, oh, and a little more than that of their instagram feed is recommended by their
ai yeah or uh you know or whatever things um next year they're saying that that rate will double
from what it is right now and god that just to me i get it maybe we have a different perspective
on this because we kind of sort of have a business involved here. And when I say kind of sort of,
we 100% have a business involved here.
That is our main.
But damn, I don't use TikTok.
So maybe you have more perspective,
but I feel like Instagram's AI,
their algorithm sucks so bad.
Like this is how it works.
Oh, here's a picture of a car video.
I click on it.
Boom.
Instagram wants to show me nothing but cars
for like the next week.
Like that is it. It's like, oh, you clicked one thing. Then you're going to get that. video I click on it boom Instagram wants to show me nothing but cars for like the next week like
that is it it's like oh you clicked one thing then you're gonna get that oh you clicked one
lifting video nope you only get lifting videos this week like right it has no and it seems like
it's the same things like I don't even have to click on them I can just see them in my just
like why is this asshole in my discover feed again right I've never clicked your videos I
don't want to see what you're doing but Instagram just wants me to watch it so bad so we got uh a really even shittier
instagram feed to look forward to in the future i'm not in favor of that i'm of the old school
mentality that i would just like to see the people stuff that i choose to follow i know isn't that
like and i'd like to be even more direct I'd like to see it in chronological order.
Well, yeah.
I mean, if we're going to actually make our own choices,
give it to me the way it showed up in the world.
That would be ideal.
Not open Instagram feed and I'm getting the things from three days ago.
So, yeah, that's really annoying.
And I guess everyone in tech companies has decided that there is only one optimal social network yeah format anymore and that's what they talk like that's the only way
a social network can exist is it has to be the tiktok format like images don't work anymore
have you seen on i don't use facebook that much but like when i go to it there's just
reels on it like like it's like you get to a certain part in your feed and then it's just like reels and i'm like i don't that's not even like a part of this platform i don't think
right and it's not like and you click on it it's like instagram reels that they just put on facebook
uh yeah well they don't make and they well and actually it was a tiktok that just went right
i saw a meme it was was, I watch my TikTok videos
just like anyone over the age of 30,
two weeks after they happened on Instagram.
And I'm like, yeah,
they're like, that is what Instagram is.
It's just a repost for TikTok at this point.
Yep.
So that's really annoying.
I'm sure it'll probably change or get worse
or just suck more as time goes on.
But I guess images aren't good to share
anymore which seems weird like really like the internet is such an image heavy format like do
people not care about pictures anymore that's kind of what this tells us isn't it well is it do they
not care about pictures or is it like uh it's easier to monetize videos so that's the direction
it's going right i don't know't know. It's damn capitalism.
It's just screwing us over.
I have a can here, and it's a very special can.
Oh, what's in the can?
And the fun part is this is a fan-submitted can.
Do I have to...
You do need to suit up.
Barney Stinson, suit up.
My favorite part is the how i met your mother references
it's always been my favorite part of how of what's in the can
mine too easily my top 10 favorite parts of it for noon that doesn't know tommy doesn't like
how i met your mother so this can around for a while i opened the package and I saw it was in it like two days ago.
Is it a can?
It is a can.
And I forgot what the flavor was called and I don't remember at all what it was called.
So this is kind of going to be a what's in the can for me, even though I subconsciously
might know what it actually is.
Yeah, it might hit you once it...
And this is a fan submit.
It's like that part from the
rehearsal where he wants to subconsciously let the guy know all the answers and he's like
uh what's going on oh there's a stick up a guy killed everyone sometimes i curse the chinese
for inventing gunpowder yeah are you all caught up through the four episodes? I am. Me too.
It's good.
It's wild, actually.
It's kind of turned into almost experiment in psychology or the human condition.
All right.
It was not that crispy of a crack, to tell you the truth, on that one.
No, not overly.
Okay, I'm getting almost a floral smell right away.
Smells like Jägermeister to me.
Wow.
Wow. Does it taste like Jägermeister?
No, but it's
a...
Ooh.
I understand why it smelled like
Jägermeister. I'm not saying it tastes exactly like
Jägermeister, but... There's almost like a wintergreen flavor in there.
Or spearmint.
Sometimes I forget which one's which here.
What is...
It kind of makes me think of chewing gum in some way,
because there's like a minty freshness thing going on.
Is this what chewing five gum feels like?
I'm just bouncing on a speaker
with balls all around me.
Man, that's intense. This doesn't
taste very good to me.
It almost kind of tastes like I'm
drinking toothpaste, sort of.
It tastes like
black licorice wintergreen to me
it almost leaves a like minty coolness in your mouth doesn't it yeah
boy um i'm gonna take my thing off yeah i gotta see what this is okay okay it makes more sense now um is it penis flavored
peppermint watermelon oh uh the watermelon wow i'm not getting that let's see
boy i it's the peppermint like we were wintergreen spearmint whatever whatever. We were there. So Aurora Bora.
Aurora Bora.
Peppermint watermelon.
This is actually a sparkling water.
There's no other flavors.
And we have a note from frequent can contributor,
Flames to Stardust.
Oh, yes.
Fasten your seatbelts and spike your hair
as we bring your taste buds to 10,000
foot view. We're going to Flavortown.
Good luck guessing this one.
Megan at Flames to Stardust.
Yep. Big Megan.
Wow, this is a flavor trip.
I probably got to go like two and a half
on this though. I don't
like it. I don't particularly care
for it. I don't like the
peppermint. I'd rather drink this than
the wing did we do that one last week uh that was in the second one yeah okay well was that in the
second episode discord not know about so yeah oh yeah that's oh wait don't spoil that i don't want
to spoil what we did so i'll keep that one but uh yeah i think i'd rather drink this than what we had in 332 but
this is too pepperminty for me yeah i'm not a huge peppermint guy actually my wife would
probably love this she loves peppermint stuff i give it a i'm thinking a two i'm gonna give it a two yeah
oof i think it's a two and a half because i think i'll be able to finish it if i don't
finish it then i i guess it defaults to a two but i'll probably finish this yeah
okay should we talk about the drop a little well what are you drinking out of over there
yeah so first up first thing on the drop we have a this drop consists of a variety of goods yeah it's not limited to any single one item
and first up we have the first koozie pack in quite a while and this koozie pack consists of
two koozies one being the raise hell left heavy koozie in red and we got our little uh plate devil and the text
our plate devil on one side the text on the other yep looks great and then we have the midwest
classic we got the camo koozie with the blaze orange massonomics logo on one side and the blaze
orange varsity massonomics on the other yeah i really like that one yeah it's a it's a good luck
that'll go over at any party in this part of the country absolutely absolutely so first item small we got the koozies
second item also smaller in size yeah even smaller than this but it could fit inside the koozie
but pretty exciting still small in st, but still packs a wallop.
It certainly does.
And that is the first ever Massanomics Patch Pack.
Patch Pack.
So we have, these are three by two?
Three by two.
Three by two patches, all woven.
One's a slightly different manufacturing technique.
We'll get to that.
So first up on the list, we have the classic,
the OG forever, the Lyft original patch.
There it is.
Blue.
If you're not watching on YouTube. I'm just looking at it.
Actually, they're so small,
you probably actually can't see them on camera.
I'm just realizing that now.
The Lyft patch is here.
This has been clamored for.
This one's almost like mass economics folklore, but the Lyft patch is now real. The Lyft is here. This has been clamored for. This one's almost like Massanomics folklore,
but the lift patch is now real.
The lift patches exist.
So now you can make lift coveralls, lift kilts.
Like anything that was the plain ones
can now be the lift version.
We're kind of giving you the tools.
We're kind of teaching man how to fish here is what we're doing.
We're going to work ourselves out of business
with this one item right here.
We might be regretting that decision.
So that's the first one in the pack. The second. We might be regretting that decision. So that's,
that's the first one in the pack.
The second one,
we got the massonomics varsity.
So it's a black patch with a white woven massonomics varsity letters.
That's a real classic,
just massonomics one.
That looks great.
Next one.
We got the lift shit patch.
I like that one.
Also will look great on anything.
It's in the,
uh,
OD green with the black lift shit text
again i don't know why i'm holding this up for the camera i look at it and it looks like i'm
holding the potion stamp up there so then we got that one and then finally we have the don't curl
in me patch when you need to make a statement about not curling not curling in places this
one is a slightly different manufacturing technique where the
other ones are like thick woven embroidered letters there's fine detail these ones yeah
use a find it where it's not um like it's not thread piled up it's stitched in there but it's
not piled up high like those other ones yeah so really excited about that about that pack four
patches that's uh i think people are going to be pretty pretty excited
about that too people ask how you attach them and however you see fit to attach them they yeah
you could get maybe some spray adhesive you could stitch it on you could i mean sewing would be the
probably the most permanent but i think a lot of people do like hot gluing of that a lot of
companies also do manufacture this stuff with just putting spray adhesive on and sticking it on.
That is a way people do this stuff.
What spray adhesive you use, that's your choice.
All sold separately.
All sold separately.
Okay.
Should we go to the upper body item next?
All right.
Yeah.
In case people are wondering, we're building.
We're building here.
Yes.
Building anticipation.
So we got two items left. We're going Building anticipation. So we got two items left.
We're going to crescendo.
We got two items left.
So this next one is a new t-shirt, and it is the all-go, no-show performance over everything tee.
And it's something we kind of relate to.
We're mostly in that all-go category.
We can go.
We got a little strength built up, but do we got much to show for it?
Not a ton.
No, because we're all-go.
And you might have seen Big Bobby Thompson wearing this earlier this week.
He's the first to don the all-go, no-show tee.
Yeah, we're not living that bodybuilder life over here.
I mean, everybody want to be a bodybuilder, but let's face it, we ain't.
We're not. We don't have that aesthetic life going on oh so this is for those people that
uh you know you're more concerned about moving the weight lifting the weight than the than the
looking good part doing it i mean we all want to look good and that's where the massonomic side
comes in but let's be face it we don't look that good yeah it's you're just kind of applying something
over the top also says performance over everything fits on and then it also has the massonomics
established 2014 on it and uh there was i did see an important question coming about the lift patch
they asked you know if you were to put lift a lift patch on jorts how would it be worn you know
because be on the right we typically put the lift logo on the thigh on our pants so does the patch go on the right thigh or in more of the
upper belt like a classic levi's patch um and luckily we do have the answer for that as well
yeah we'll get an answer here maybe maybe we'll make like a real diagram though to show people
like a real model a real sample maybe you want to grab that so we do have the answer to that
i don't know if people can hear this i don't know if people can hear this there's a package being like a real model, a real sample. Maybe you want to grab that. So we do have the answer to that very question right here.
I don't know if people can hear this.
There's a package being opened right this moment.
This is history being made right here, though, live on the podcast.
Okay, so Tanner, I'm holding what looks to be a pair of denim shorts.
Also known as jorts.
I would say jorts, but denim shorts, what's going on here?
What's so special about
denim shorts flip these over and boom that's right we got a lift the lift jorts are real
so the answer is the patch goes on the back uh by the waist area yeah back right that's where
the patch goes the lift jorts are, and they can take all your money.
Most expensive shorts we've ever had.
These are.
Yep, most expensive.
So this is a collaboration with Born Primitive. This uses their same great formula for their denim jorts.
We brought them over to the Lyft lifestyle.
Yeah.
We've got a nice hang tag on there.
We've got a beautiful hang tag to commemorate this
collaboration uh we have massonomics born primitive these shorts are brewed to perfection
with equal parts hops iron and style perfect for backyard barbecues a night on the town or crushing
your next pr in the gym it really is a fine lifestyle yep yeah and for anyone that you know
maybe hasn't had a pair of like
these born primitive jorts or seen anyone else they are um incredibly stretchy denim in look
and kind of denim in feel but just like very almost very stretchy yeah in like actual i've
squatted in these uh they are you can do anything in them without fear of like ripping a crotch yeah yep super
super stretchy uh we have the photos to prove it we had a fun little photo shoot today got these
things all going and they're great they're great you got five pockets you know you got your two in
the front the little tiny one in the in the right pocket two good back pockets uh they're a good
length you know you could cut these things shorter if you wanted to.
And some people do do that.
They come pre, like, jaggedy jorts-looking hemmed edge,
but you could cut them shorter if you wanted to.
And sizing recommendation for someone that doesn't know,
what I've found is a lot of people seem to,
whatever you wear of our Lift Shorts 3, if you're a customer of those,
that's my starting point of where i'd at least start for where you think you're going to get size on these shorts yeah so for me all of the massonomic shorts i wear a size large i also wear
a size large in these uh waist is not a problem at all there's you know there's plenty it's just
so stretchy um the legs are tighter but that also is kind of the style.
But then again, these things do stretch so much that after a full day,
like they are bigger.
Yeah.
A day of wearing them, they are bigger than when you put them on.
So keep that in mind too.
And we'll get the size chart posted online.
They asked if you can do karate in them.
Yes.
Actually, Tommy did do karate in them today.
Yeah, we got the pictures to prove it. You can even do karate in them yes actually we did do karate yeah we got the pictures to prove it so you can
even do karate uh yeah i'm just making sure i gotta make a note to myself here
um they we are this one this is what this drop was waiting on we couldn't do it without these we
have been waiting a while there was a uh supply chain issues with everything going on but they
are here now and i would say that some of the larger,
so we're, I don't know, you already said this,
maybe we go from small to 2X on these.
That's the largest size that we could get as of now.
Potentially, if these do well,
we have the opportunity to get like 3X,
maybe even 4X going forward.
But we just had to roll with available sizing now,
and that goes up to two.
We didn't want to wait another six months to and we have a relatively smaller number of particularly 2x
jorts so if you're a 2x it's going to be a race and so yeah so i said did we say what size you
were i so i wear of the champion mesh shorts i wear an xl usually but the lift shorts three three i wear 2x and they fit
me really well and 2x of the jorts also fit me really well and i'm like 6 2 255 and they the 2x
is like the right size for me yeah so yeah we're very excited hopefully everyone else uh loves
these things too they turned out great this patch looks amazing it really does look it is i didn't see this until today so uh this is
literally just came in last or yeah last night yeah so i'm just i'm so pumped for these things
all right anything else about the drop tanner no i i think we'll we'll mention again i i just
don't wait on the jorts i think that the jorts are going to be a hot seller.
XL, we have a decent number of,
but I'd say if you're an XL candidate,
I also wouldn't wait long on those.
If you're a small candidate,
I wouldn't wait long on those either.
I just wouldn't wait long no matter what size of these
that you wear if you want to get them.
Yeah, get after it.
Okay.
Speaking, I know nobody spoke of this,
but speaking of supporting our supporting members.
Wow, what a smooth transition.
This is a relatively newer segment to the podcast
where we like to give a little love back
to those that show us love
through becoming supporting members.
And if you wanted to become a supporting member,
it's really easy to do.
You hop on our website,
go to our supporting membership options in our shop and we have four different
options for you to choose from but all of those options will get you access to our exclusive
discord community you can listen to the podcast live every week as we record it there's also a
discount code in there for you um you get other just mini perks like membership cards uh who knows what we've got up our sleeve
next for all these supporting members and you get to be a part of a very active community of
like-minded individuals yeah for sure so we'd love for you if you're considering ways to be
able to show us support uh to get a supporting membership and And like I said, we like to give back to these people every week.
We do that via supporting our supporting members.
So number one was Big Hayden Lovelady had a meet this weekend.
He had a 452 squat PR, a 336 bench, and a 524 deadlift PR.
His total was 1311, a total PR. It doesn't get
much better than that, does it, for Big Hayden?
That is as good as it gets. Well done.
Then Big Strongman Dan,
world's strongest arm tattoos,
competed in a strongman
competition. He got
first in the log, first in the sandbag
ladder, first in the press medley,
first in the car deadlift,
no surprise, first overall for Strongman Dan. First in the arm medley first in the car deadlift no surprise first overall for strongman
dan first in the arm tattoo division the sweep they call that a yes and then uh last one i had
here was big jordan dickens he competed in charlotte county's strongest and he um that's
not in northeast south dakota no that's definitely that's not spinker brown county is it
um he got second place overall i believe and some of that uh included a 265 for eight on log
for eight reps very strong and he also was uh running around with a 900 pound yoke so hitting
some big events yeah so thank you to our supporting members good stuff yeah and now uh that we thanked them
should we kick them off yep we gotta say peace out discord
if you would like to also join this uh oh come on great we can't we just can't get rid of them can we
okay that took way too long but yeah we we ditched them uh should we get big danny on the horn then let's do it let's do it
hello big danny is that you yeah it is it is. How's it going, man?
Good. We're excited to get you on the podcast.
This is Tanner.
Nice to meet you, Tanner. And I'm Tommy, Danny.
Oh, Tommy.
No, you're right.
Two guys. We got Tanner and Tommy.
We just kind of have the same
South Dakota accent.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
No, we are excited to get
you on and shout out
to Big Grant from the Strength Co.
He kind of
flexed his marine connection there with you.
Yeah, I remember he did
give me a heads up. I was surprised.
I was like, damn, I really made it now.
Yeah, it wasn't
the multiple deadlift records that did it or anything.
It's getting on the podcast.
Yeah, I've been following you guys for years on Instagram and stuff.
So shout out to you guys.
You're doing a great job.
Honestly, we all doing.
We appreciate you lying like that.
That means a lot to us.
No, it's obviously wild.
Are you kind of making,
I assume we're not the only people
that want to talk to you over like the last,
I don't know, six months or however long it's been.
You've been on a big tear here for a few years,
kind of breaking records.
And I imagine you're kind of like in high demand now now like you didn't experience before for podcasts and things like that
yeah i mean i feel bad because uh there's been a few where people have reached out
and i'm still new to this still weird to me but like on certain days especially when i post and
i get a huge influx i'll get like 30 40 50 g and I'll like, I'll see one and I'll respond to it.
And then next thing I know,
it's like,
I can't find it.
I'm like,
fuck dude.
I said,
I would do a podcast or something with them.
And I swear to God,
I can't find it anymore.
And then I,
people probably think I'm a prick and I'm ignoring them.
It's like,
no,
I just,
I need to find a way to like star him or something.
Or that's why I just gave the,
gave the number because
uh yeah at this point that's kind of the best yeah it might get lost it's like a spam folder
like yeah like shit where'd that go fuck like yep yeah it's been it's been cool i mean this is kind
of i guess talking about the beginning but you know in the beginning i never thought i'd be where
i'm at now to be honest i mean there's like, yeah, I knew in the beginning I would make it.
I just started powerlifting for fun
because I had played football up to a year of college.
And at 19 years old, I was at the gym.
It's always the old guy.
This old guy at my gym, he's like, you could be a powerlifter.
I'm like, I don't know, man.
Powerlifting, I didn't know a lot about it at the time.
I didn't really follow it in high school or anything.
And then a year and a half later, I joined the Marines.
So I thought at the time I was like, yeah, I'm probably going to get shipped to Afghanistan, you know.
So I was like, powerlifting is probably over at this point.
And then luckily that didn't happen.
I mean, I was at Camp Pendleton from 2000.
I enlisted in November 15, 2015.
Yeah, that's a pretty – I didn't realize the time I'll catch you.
That was 15, 15.
But, uh, and then I did go on a deployment to Australia in 2018.
That was pretty cool.
I mean, we weren't doing any gung ho shit, but honestly, I, I'm not one of those people
who joined cause I wanted, I mean, I've met a lot of people like, man, I want to go to
war.
I'm like, I don't want to go to war.
Like war is not, war is unforgiving.
Like you don't like, I mean, you hear stories from people who've been in a long time.
Like I've met Marines who've been to Iraq, Afghanistan, desert storm, and they're not
happy when they talk about it.
It's not like this.
It's like, yeah, that was amazing time.
I said, no, I lost people, you know, work long ass days, work through the nights a lot,
you know, for like patrols and stuff.
So, I mean, if I had to do it, I wouldn't shy away from it.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, I'm technically a plumber by trade in the Marines.
But right now, since 2020, I'm on the funeral detail team for the Marine Corps.
So, I go to Arlington National Cemetery.
We do casket and cremation funerals for past and prior Marine veterans, or even just, you know, KIA
suicide, stuff like that. So a lot of them are young too, but majority of people get buried
Arlington or, you know, they die of natural causes or, you know, they're at least 50, 60,
70 years old. Most of the time, there's always exceptions, but I've been lucky because I didn't
think I'd come here either. Like I reenlisted because I didn't do my due diligence planning.
And I was like three,
four months out.
And I was like,
yeah,
the whole world's my oyster because I'm a Marine and everyone's going to
love me.
But no,
it's not.
I mean,
that might've been what it was like 20,
30 years ago.
That's,
that's what they always want to tell you.
But you gotta,
whenever you transition through any career,
you have to be smart.
You have to do your,
you can't wait till right before the moment to think it's going to work
out good. So I was honest with myself and i was like yeah i probably should
just do another four years and then at this point next year i'm already going to be better because
i already know what to expect you know what to like start preparing for like in terms of money
and stuff so i don't regret it i mean the marines has been great you know like a lot of people like
everyone has a different experience so some people will shit on the marines some people like it but my experience
has been pretty cool and i've met a lot of different people from being at camp pendleton
29 palms and palm springs uh i went there for a field op i've been to camp lejeune in north
carolina and i went to australia for seven months so a lot of the people I've met and the relationships I've made,
I'll never forget.
Yeah, I can relate to a lot of that stuff.
I was in the army
and I'm not the most hoorah type of dude necessarily.
Yeah, I'm not the most semper fi Marine either.
Right, but I was just squared away
and did my job
and do the stuff you're supposed to do.
And it's just, every, is kind of a job, you know, even, even that stuff
is a job and it's just like, you do your job. And sometimes that all, that's all it has to be.
Like, it doesn't have to be like, um, a thing with like greater enormous meaning to every part
of it. Some of it just sucks and you just do it. And that's kind of, that's kind of how I've looked at some of that stuff, but that makes sense. I resonate with a
lot of that. Um, so you mentioned though, you are doing something pretty cool right now. Like as a
member of, um, I don't know what you referred to it exactly, but like the term I'm familiar with
is world famous body bearers. Yeah. I always say, I always say funeral detail team. Cause
I don't know. People always get perplexed when I say world, when I say body bearers. Yeah. I always say, I always say funeral detail team. Cause I don't
know. People always get perplexed when I say world, when I say body bear, people are like,
what? I'm like, you know, like, like a Paul bearer there. Oh, like, so I tend this to be vague, but
yeah, the world, world famous body. And I mean, that's what people call it. Right. Is like the,
like, I'm not just saying like your world famous, like that's kind of what people refer to it as
like is the world famous body bears. Right. Yeah we i mean all the branches have a funeral detail team
you know the army the air force uh the navy and now we got the uh space force well technically
they're just a branch they're a they're a sub it's kind of like the marines are under the navy
i think the space force is basically like a sub part of the Air Force now.
It's new in its infancy. It's only a few years old.
But yeah,
we're called world famous just because we do things
a lot different. So everyone else
carries a waist level kind of around the
hip when they carry the caskets
and we carry it shoulder level.
So we do it to carry the casket
above our hearts to honor the fallen.
And that being said, it sucks sometimes because when you get a heavy enough box and it's always the woodenket above our hearts to honor the fallen and uh that being said it
sucks sometimes because when you get a heavy enough box and it's always the wooden ones man
it's like like when i first started doing this i thought the metal caskets would be heavier but
it's always like the mahogany it's like the deep it's like the very that dense wood yeah i mean
wood and it looks better too i love the look of wooden caskets a lot more than metal ones.
But, yeah, like, it's tough sometimes because you have carries.
So, in Arlington, there's a bunch of different numbers, you know, like 12, you know, 20, whatever.
Section 60 is where all the KIAs, all the KIAs and people who died during war are buried.
And that section is one of the most grueling because it's so there's so many graves have already been put so to get to a grave marker you have to go deep within the section
so it's like the amount of 100 like 100 plus yard carries a normal carry for an average grave size
20 to 30 yards but the longest i ever did was 160 yards and we yeah and we didn't so we carried a
shoulder level but if we get tired we hold it up as long as we
can and then we'll we'll like sit we'll nonchalantly kind of lower it slightly we'll keep it as high as
we can given the circumstance yeah so yeah when you're when you're marching that far with a
casket like it's gonna it's gonna come down i don't care how light it is because it just you
start getting smoked in your delts is there always always a weakest man in this scenario, though?
Is there the first person that has to be like...
Yeah, that's been me a few times because even though I'm the biggest...
Well, there's one guy who's the same size as me.
Who?
Who is this guy?
His name's Rob Fowler.
He's 6'4", and he's about 270.
I'm normally 265-ish during meat prep,
and then I'm going to drop weight and go down to like 255.
For me at 5'11", once I get close to 270,
that's when it starts getting hard to breathe,
and I got to be able to breathe for funerals.
Because we only breathe through our nose.
So if you're having – we don't breathe through our mouth during funerals like because we only breathe through our nose so like if you're having what we don't
breathe through our mouth during funerals because we don't we don't fidget we don't lick our lips
we don't do any of that shit and no offense like some of the other branches they're more relaxed
right well that's just that's kind of almost a fact i think right like i mean that's yeah that's
true yeah yeah but uh yeah so there is one guy who's a little bigger than me but the thing about carrying
a casket is it's so when i first started doing it i'm like oh i'm i'm one of the biggest dudes
this will be easy but it's so much it's not about brute strength it's about like lifting it's about
technique because when you you kind of got to open your lat like imagine you're doing like a straight
bar you ever done like a straight bar pull down with the cable where you like yeah you pull it down to you that you open up because to get your elbow and shoulder high enough you
have to be able if you have tight lats you're kind of fucked because a big part of getting
your shoulder high enough towards your ear you have to be able to open up with your lat and
stretch your lap and when i first started i had really tight lats because i'd never done i mean
i had been power lifting but the amount of lap uh flexibility
required in powerlifting compared to carrying something really high is way different but yeah
there's a lot of factors that go into it so it's like you have to be strong but you also have to
be nimble because the best carriers on the team honestly uh are like 230 to 240 because they're
they're big enough but they're also they have good Like I, I'm not shitting on myself, but my mobility and my shoulders is
also kind of not so great. Like it's, it's not horrible, but it could be better. I mean, I do
band pull aparts and a bunch of other things that try to break them, break them open some, but
well, you're just bigger than the average guy. I mean, your mobile, like it's only going to be
at a certain size.
You're only going to have so much mobility.
That's why I'm realistic.
I tell myself, okay, like I'm over 260 now.
Like, and I still, I still do this fine, but like, there's guys who will kick my ass.
If we carry long enough, I'm just like, come on, man.
I'm like, I'm almost in my head.
Like, please, can you, can you bring it down first? So I don't get called out after that. Like, do you get,
do you get competitive in that way with it? You know, it was like, yeah. So yeah. Cause after
funerals, so after every funeral, we critique ourselves. So like during the funeral, like we're
all, there's six guys on the team during a funeral and afterwards we hold ourselves accountable.
So if someone messes up or if someone, like, oh, man, your side was low.
Oh, like there's a bunch of small money details when it comes to folding the flag and like, you know, marching.
So if we do something that's noticeable to the family where you'd be like, wow, that dude looks off or that dude like that dude lost his balance and almost ate shit.
Then it's like, it's like, OK, man, like you fucked up.
You got to pay for it.
And then what we do is we'll go back.
There's certain things we do. I won't say because, you know, certain things man, you fucked up. You got to pay for it. And then what we do is we'll go back. There's certain things we do I won't say because there's certain things
that are better left unsaid.
But we remediate because we hold ourselves to a high standard.
So when we don't perform well, and it happens,
like if you fucked up on a funeral or if you mess up,
it's not like we hold it against you for weeks.
It's like you do what you got to do.
You figure it out.
And then the next day is a new day, you know
But we always strive for perfection like in anything else in life. So that's the coolest part is it's like
We're always trying it like cuz we're doing this for the families and we want to give them the best product possible
In terms of doing a good funeral good bearing will carry we want to carry the casket
Well folding the flag is cool
too there's a lot of small details in terms of like the positions uh but i like it because it's
a very free-thinking job you got to be able to like think on a dime because like anything could
happen like for instance this one time we were carrying we're carrying a casket and for certain
funerals you have the flag on top of the casket when you carry it and it was really windy outside and the flag literally blew off the casket and fell onto a
couple of our heads so we're like marching with a casket and we're blinded because the flag's on
top of us and we can't get it off of us so if you panic if you panic in that situation you can really
fuck up but it's like you got to be able to control it like um in a stressful moment
you have to stay cool and then once we got to the site we found the right moment and we picked the
flag up and we put it back on the casket but we weren't going to drop the fucking like if you if
you drop a flag during a casket that's like the ultimate cardinal sin like you don't for obvious
reasons like a flag is not meant to be dropped or touched on the ground. So it's one day.
It's not all the same.
Like some days is easy.
Some days it's hard,
but it's always something new,
you know,
and nothing against being a plumber,
but when I was,
my first four years as a plumber,
it was kind of a more very consistent schedule.
It's like,
Oh,
we have these pieces of gear.
We got to op check and make sure the washer and dryers or the showers work,
make sure every part is still in the case. You know, that was its own way but i love giving back like we do at arlington and you
know not just like obviously it's great to hear the praise from people but even without that you
know deep down you're doing a greater good for somebody because they're always mourning and
they're in a very emotional state because their loved one died but being able to give back to
them in some way and give them like the proper send-off per se that's always cool that makes up for like when
it's hot outside or when it's super cold and it sucks and you're just like frick this sucks like
you said some things just suck but then at the end of the day at the end of the day you know it's
going to be worth it it's like tough times don't that cliche has called tough times don't last but
tough people do because afterwards you
just laugh like wow that was actually pretty cool but in the moment camaraderie stuff yeah yeah uh
so are these funerals like are you doing one like every day every other day like how often is this
and is it year-round how is this going on yeah so arlington is open 365 days a year because the
at first i was like why don't they have like a closure period
but it's the reasoning is uh like you know you can't let's say a family member can only come
here in december and we're closed all december for the holidays then they could miss out on
you know seeing their prior past uncle grandfather etc so we do funerals year round we have tiny
little we have a few days sometimes where there's no funerals year round. We have tiny little, we have a few days sometimes
where there's no funerals. They'll try to block off a certain amount of days for us. But, uh,
summers are very busy. Summers is the, is our highest tempo of the year right now.
So are you doing one almost every day then? Yeah, we usually do, uh, during the summer
on average, we do three to five funerals a day. And, uh, yeah. Oh yeah.
Like summer. And it sucks. Cause like I'm always doing me preps in the summer. So it just adds on
to the light to be like smoked by the end of the day after like five in a day. Don't you?
Yeah. It's mainly, it mainly fucks me on bench because, uh, you know, delts, delts,
your whole shoulder, uh, basically your whole upper body, like your forearms, all that,
gets worked pretty good during caskets.
But I don't know, in a way it kind of makes me better
because I always take the week off of the meet, you know, for leave.
And I always feel great on meet day
because it's the only time I'm actually really fresh, you know?
So maybe there's a method to that madness.
Now in the future when I get out of the Marines, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to purposely.
Yeah. I'm going to make this work out as hard as possible and then it'll be good in
the end.
But tell us about the,
cause I think it's really cool.
The standards to get in as a world famous body bearer.
Like,
I don't know many other like things in within military where there's barbell lift standards to get accepted.
So tell us about those.
I think a lot of people think that that's pretty interesting.
Yeah.
So the physical.
So obviously, we call it ceremonial drill school.
I think I just got to change another name.
That's still what we refer to it as.
You know, obviously, you have to learn the drill and the marching and the funerals but then the physical aspect we have a it's a we have a strength test and it's comprised of squatting
315 350 pound squat for reps benching 225 for reps we do behind the neck or we have an option
now you could either do front or behind the neck press with uh a 35 135 and then we do bicep curl for reps.
And there's one more.
That's all.
Okay.
I thought I was missing one,
but so yeah,
yeah.
So the past squat and curl 20 reps.
Yeah.
You need 20 reps on all of those to pass to enter the school.
You could have,
it kind of always switches because
depending on if kids are straight out of boot camp they're going to be less strong right but we we
want at least like five to ten reps across the board so even the to get to get here still pretty
hard we're doing 20s even for a guy like me who's as strong as i am in power lifting like i don't
ever do reps over like six or seven so that was really and
it's like building up the work capacity to do that but it's for a reason because people always
consider us like you know bodybuilders and powerlifters as world famous bodybearers but
it's more than that because also because what I told you if we're doing it all day you have to
have good you have to be able to keep doing it so it doesn't matter what your one rep max is honestly to be a body bear it's like we do this we do the strength test for 20s because that's going to
ensure okay this got hit this marine's core his upper body his lower body is strong enough to
withstand fatigue and do you know we just we've always settled with 20s it wasn't it wasn't a
science it's not we got a we didn't get a professional strength coach to come up with this method but that's always it's always been like that for the last 10 20 years so
we just stuck with that but uh there's no joke there like there's a lot of really strong people
that would struggle with yeah 315 for 20 squat or 225 20 for bench like that's that's not messing
around like for the squat sucks oh my god i hate that even to this
day i still hate that i mean i i squatted i squatted 770 it might be you know a few weeks
ago or a month ago and i still dread doing for a few weeks i'll practice doing reps because this is
i mean i i try to breathe every three to four reps because if i breathe every rep it just feels
like it's a lot like i just try to make it go by as fast as possible and the lack of acid you get from that do you
have to do it once a year like a pt test or yeah we do it annually i usually we did it we're gonna
do it in the fall like usually it's like spring or summer but we we just have been so busy with
stuff like we and the thing we do too
is so we have our commitments at arlington whatever funerals we have going on there and then
whenever a prior you know president vice president someone in the senate we've had a lot joint
service funerals so joint service is when you get two marines two two air Force, two Army, one Coast Guard, and one Navy.
So we've had a lot of commitments, and we just had a Medal of Honor recipient.
We buried in Charleston, West Virginia.
His name was Woody Williams.
Yeah, he was a badass.
So we went to West Virginia, did his whole service.
So we travel sometimes.
We do most of our fields are arlington but we travel
when necessary for you know like people with a certain amount of prestige like i said government
capacity um and those are always fun you know because it's an experience what is it is it uh
is it annoying when the air force guys can't hold up their end of it like you
how did you know and it's like so with the marines like our two positions on
the casket when you join purals one of us in the front and one of us is in the direct back so like
when you're in the direct back if someone's slacking in the middle you're picking up that
slack because you're at the end so either i'm gonna look like a either i'm gonna look weak
or i'm gonna have to like i'm gonna have to put out that much more just to make it look level
uh yeah bro i mean yeah being in the middle is where you could slack it's just like pushing Like I'm going to have to put out that much more just to make it look level.
Yeah, bro.
I mean, yeah, being in the middle is where you could slack.
It's just like pushing the five man sled in football. If you're in the center, nobody knows if you're doing everything or nothing.
Like you're on the ends that it's like, oh, yeah, I see what's going on here.
Yeah.
And then the one I did.
So there was a senator read from Nevada.
He died. This was like four or five or six months ago.
I don't know.
Time is a blur around here.
Like I'll wake up and it's Monday.
And then I'll be like, oh, it's Thursday, right?
And the weekends, I don't have a good track of calendar days
because this is a grind every day.
But we did a joint service funeral for the Senator from Nevada.
And I was in the front for this one, the joint service funeral for the senator from nevada and i was in the front for this one
the joint service and it was so it was so nerve-wracking because we went up the cathedral
or we went into uh i think it's called the cathedral there's like a million steps there's
like 40 50 steps and i remember coming out and right it was like a cliff like right before we
started stepping to go down the stairs it just looks like a nosedive like 50 feet and
there's like 10 plus news networks video in it and all i'm thinking about is if i eat shit or i trip
right now like mbc cbs is gonna catch this and it's gonna be on the evening news like oh marine
eats marine eats shit carrying former senator reed's casket like but it was it was still fun
like and then i got to see joe buy like you saw we went inside and when we put the casket like but it was it was still fun like and then i got to see joe by like you saw we went
inside and when we put the casket down on the stand i saw joe biden nancy pelosi basically all
all the uh all of congress was sitting in like rows and rows right so that was a cool experience
yeah yeah and i would never i never imagined i would would be in DC doing stuff like that. So no, really freaking cool.
That is cool.
Um, so you mentioned how you, you just, uh, your squat, I think at the meet was
seven 71 or whatever that was.
I see it at the American pro is where you're talking about.
And you ended up, uh, obviously re-breaking the deadlift record with 1,074.
And I think your second all time, two 75 in sleeves for total too is that right yeah that's honestly
what i'm 23 it's 2302 that right honestly i'm more proud of that like going into the meat so
i'll give you a little backstory i was anticipating i wanted to squat a little more
and bench a little more so i was hoping to squat like 780 to 790 and bench like 472. But I have this, I just got it diagnosed, but I have a hip impingement.
So my right hip doesn't open as much as my left because I shift to my left when I squat.
And I always thought it had to do with my left side.
But then I found this, I found this PT and he took me through some tests.
He's like, no, it's the reason why you feel more activation in your left side and why
your left quad, my left quad would get irritated and tight is because since my right side doesn't open up,
I can't equally distribute force. So because of that, I wasn't confident. I had squatted 770 in
training and I knew, I knew I had 10 to 20 more pounds of me based off that training lift,
but I wanted to play it safe because I didn't want to tweak my quad potentially,
especially going back to work. That's the thing.
When you have a job, if I go back to the Marines,
I'm like, yeah, I had fun at a powerlifting meet,
and I completely fucked up my quad.
They're not going to be happy.
I can't do your job.
When you're in the military, if you get injured doing whatever,
they're not going to be happy because you're on contract.
It's not like, oh, you had fun.
You lifted some crazy weights, but then you really hurt yourself. It's like they're not like oh you had fun you did some you lifted some crazy weights but then you really hurt yourself it's like they're not gonna be happy for you they're gonna be like yeah you fucked up like uh so squat i did 770 and for bench the press commands were very
long to me like i had like one one second press commands a big part of that was like even when i
was warming up, the bar kept
sinking on my chest. I don't know why normally I'm really good at keeping my chest up. So I did
four 57 and that was a 14 pound PR. And I, I foregoed my third bench because I didn't want
to waste energy. And I knew even if I got it, it would be really, really slow. So sometimes you
got to know when to hold back because at a meet meet it's not just the culmination of your three best gym lifts i mean i would love for it to be that simple but you go to a meet and let's say
you know the tempo it could be very fast like oh they're going through the flights fast so you got
to warm up quick or it could be the opposite where i'd rather be fast honestly i hate when
i hate when you go to a meet it takes forever because then i'm just sitting around just fuck
man i just want to like just want to get this going like and i'm in i do a lot of like jeep um what's it called not cardio but my work capacity
yeah right my work capacity is great so honestly within three to four minutes i'm ready for another
rep or set like i don't need to wait 10 plus minutes if i don't have to like in training
i'll purposely rest less just
to train myself so that oh when i'm able to rest more it'll be easier because i'm used to doing
things a lot harder um so then going into deads i was hoping to only pull 1060 because that's
based off of what i just told you i'd only need it i was only going to pull as much as i needed
to break 2300 and uh and then i realized shit it's going to be probably much as I needed to break 2300. And, uh, and then I realized shit,
it's going to be probably a thousand 70.
And I was like,
okay,
we'll see how this goes.
I opened with nine 81.
That was really easy.
Like my last warmup of nine Oh four.
I knew normally I know by the last warmup,
how it's going to go,
because that kind of sets the tone for a workout or in a meet.
I got pulled out of four and it felt so easy.
Like I barely even tried to break the floor and it still came
off fast. Then I was like, okay, I'm
feeling pretty
good right now for being at the end of the meet.
I do the 981.
That was easy. Then my second,
I hear conflict. I thought
it was 1034. I thought
it was 1038, but I think it was 1031
if I'm not mistaken.
Either way, it was at least 1030
i did that now that moved also very well i was almost surprised how fast it moved so after that
point i was like okay and i told my coach i was like just pull whatever i have to do to pull 20
to do 2300 on the bar so i kind of i had an idea around what it was but i didn't know the exact
number and uh i mean the crowd the American Pro their production value was amazing
Like it's the only meet I've been to where I'm like damn
I actually feel because the word being pro is thrown a lot now and powerlifting because obviously it's appealing and people want to get people
Come their beats, but it's like we had it in an event center. It's called the house
Salisbury Center there was like a bar there bar. There was like there was really almost
800 people there at one time. So it was
a huge-ass venue.
You had the lights going off. Behind you
they had a huge display screen.
It had your name, your photo. They made it
as close to professional
as you can get for a power-up to meet that I've ever seen.
Probably similar to like the Arnold.
The equivalent of like the Arnold
Sports Festival, you know?
It's a very, a very big event.
I mean, I think in the future, it's really going to blow up.
But yeah, when I pulled the 1074,
at that point, I was like, man, I was happy.
But then I knew, I went for a fourth anyway,
but my thumbs were already so torn.
Like the Kabuki bar, it eats away at your thumbs so
i went to pull it and i didn't even have a chance to see what it felt like because my thumb it dug
like two inches into my thumb it's the biggest callus tear i've ever had it's it's fine now it's
it's already basically healed but yeah it was it was a great meet overall like i couldn't ask like i pr'd before my pr was 21 15 so it's like you pr yeah massive pr
in my in my defense last year i did this week called the showdown kent city we were we saw you
there yeah yeah we were there actually as a matter of fact i don't know if we knew you that knew that
much about you before that didn't but we saw this guy and we're like, who the hell is that?
We both asked each other,
the hell is that guy?
I don't know,
Blaine Sumner,
he goes by the Vanilla Gorilla.
Both of us were like,
now that guy looks like
a Vanilla Gorilla.
That's awesome.
I'm pretty sure we were probably looking at it on our phones right then
we're like who the hell is this dude and then uh you went on so you didn't have a you don't think
you had a great meet in no so yeah at that meet i squatted 730 when my previous pr was 740
squats were just really weird that prep i was just so inconsistent and then bench i almost
bombed out for bed so like my opener and second attempt my butt came up but it's because i realized
afterwards because i was training like i said you live and you learn but i was training on a higher
i was training on thompson fat pad which is like an inch higher so like yeah of course your butt
your butt's gonna stay down when you have an extra inch of elevation you know right uh because at the meet i just i was like i'm
not doing anything different than what i've done in training but then you know and i'm not gonna
lie i love the pat pad and then my excuse is oh it's it feels great on my shoulders well yeah but
like you get a lot more of a cushion out of it and your butt it's gonna be easier to keep your
butt down so i got my third finally of i think it was like 410 or 412 at that meet.
But I was pissed because that day I wanted to get 440.
And I left a lot on the table of bench.
And then I pulled 970 at that meet.
And that was cool because, so basically from 2020 till April of 2021,
I was in my school for CDS, the Bodybearers.
It took me nine and a half months to graduate.
And I didn't powerlift during that time.
I worked out.
I never went above 315 squat.
I never – I benched up to 315 sometimes.
I didn't deadlift for nine and a half months.
And then I graduated in April.
And then the people from the showdown were like,
you want to do the showdown in September?
And I was like, ah, that's like – that's four months, and I haven't power lifted for a year or really trained that heavy.
But I was like, screw it.
It was my first big-time meet.
That was the first real high-level meet I went to.
So that's why I wanted to do it because I was like, I need to start doing bigger meets if I want to get my name out there.
And I want to say, because at that point I already had two all-time records.
say if I want to because at that point I already had two all-time records I was like if I want to keep breaking records I want to do it at legit venues with great lifters right to show you know
I'm competitive so that was the main reason I did that meet and yeah I went from in April four
months I remember I pulled 700 for the right after I graduated I pulled 700 and it felt so slow I was
like this is depressing like you know a year and a half before I pulled 948 and here I am like 700 feels off.
But then in four months I was able to catch.
And it's almost made me realize, you know, taking time off from a certain lift, you're not going to lose a bunch.
Like you think in your mind you're going to go from ground zero.
But I literally went from not deadlifting for basically a whole year to like going from not dead lifting for a whole year
to then doing 970 four months later so that kind of made me realize wow you know if i ever want to
like right now i'm not gonna i didn't deadlift all last week and i'm just gonna do some very
like conventional the next six weeks just try to or for a few months because i want to build up my
back and then of course everybody's asking me what my conventional PR is.
So I guess I got to like, I got to show them I can actually,
and I'm not going to max out most likely, but people,
and I see it too on after my last meet when I pulled 780 for a double conventional.
That got more views and traction than my 1025.
I was so pissed.
Like I do 300 pounds less conventional
and that's somehow more amazing.
That's how everyone is, man.
The number one thing people say in my DMs
or on the posts is
they either say, oh, Sumo's cheating or
you're a pussy. Do the real stance.
Do the classic stance.
You got to do the classic stance.
It's like I could post,
I bet you this week I'm doing like 500 for reps or conventional.
If I post that, it'll probably get just as much views and likes
as every lift I did during prep.
I was going over 900 every week for 12 weeks.
And I would get decent.
What do people think though?
I mean, sure, it's maybe going to be less than your sumo pull,
but you don't have to be a genius to know that this dude's still going to be able to deadlift a lot conventional.
Sumo isn't this magic lift that you don't need any strength to be able to do.
I was like, what do you think?
It's like people are trying to justify it.
It's like, no, you don't conventional deadlift more than this guy trust me no i mean no one believes
i guess the general people tell me this because i don't whenever pages repost me i'll like it
maybe comment sometimes but i don't read the comments because i'm gonna lose brain cells if
i do that so yes my friends some people have told me like, no one believes I could do over 900 conventional.
That's bullshit.
Because if I trained,
if I actually trained long enough to build up,
if I trained for five,
six months,
I know I could do that.
But like I said,
it's like,
I would even just,
I would bet a lot of money that you could deadlift 900 pounds conventional.
I would bet a lot of money on that.
Yeah.
I mean,
and like I said,
that doing that would bring me clout and traction
but people would still that being said i would do that and the people be like well
but you yeah you pulled 900 conventional but you'll never break a world record conventional
okay okay just keep moving those goalposts well and all that being said you know you're like
right at the world record for your total like we're just talking
about one lift here anyways but like and no one no one even talked like i knew no one would bring
it up because it's like and i've talked to jamal browner before and it's the same way it's like
he's pulled you know 971 and no one ever talks about the fact that he's a lot of people don't
talk about that he's broken the total at least once. So, you know, it's like the single lifts,
it's kind of like that's more appealing.
Totals, people are like, oh, cool, you're second all-time, whatever.
But, you know, you're a deadlifter.
It's like, well, I can't deadlift the whole total.
Like, I at least put out in some way.
And like I said, I'm hoping in the future,
my goal is to break a total record too. I feel like I'm confident. I mean, in my weight class, I'm hoping in the future my goal is to break a total record, too.
I feel like I'm confident.
I mean, in my weight class, I got big Zach Myers.
So that's going to be really – I mean, Zach Myers, he has the potential to total 2,400.
I believe that.
He told me we're friends because I train with him every four to six weeks.
We usually meet up at a gym in Baltimore called Exile Fitness.
But Zach is so well-rounded. Like he gets squat over 900 pounds at the meat.
He did eight 70,
but he had a really off day because his abductor was bothering him,
but he could squat over 900 pounds.
He could bench over 600 and he's dead lifting in the eight.
So like he's the most as a power lifter.
That's what you strive for is you want to now,
obviously I wish I could,
I know I stick to my guns cause I know what I'm good at.
I'm going to get better at squat and bench, but I'll never be completely,
I mean, pulling 1,070, how would that even, like,
what would I have to squat to make 1,070 and those two even, you know?
I don't even know, like, 900, and I don't know, like,
my squat has a lot of room to improve, especially once I get out of the Marines,
but I don't set, like, I set – I don't have overall end goals.
I just have small little goals, and I build up to them.
One meet at a time, I set goals.
And I do see things like a year or two down the road
because that's important to kind of look backwards
and kind of plan out whatever your goals are in a sport.
But, yeah, a 275 would be hard.
I might try to cut to 242.
I haven't done a weight cut in like five years, so I don't know.
I mean, I was 262.
No, I was 263 all prep morning weight,
and I get up to like 267, 268 by the end of the day.
And that's eating like, you know, 4,500 to 5,000 calories so if i just
if i get my shit if i just track macros and i eat a pizza every two to three days so if i just cut
out eating a pizza i could probably lose like like i'm just being honest because i've always
had a fast metabolism i mean people wouldn't think that but i have to eat a lot just to
maintain low to mid 260s.
Like, it's really hard.
So it wouldn't be hard cutting back, but I don't want to come back too much because I really don't want to be below 255 because I want to keep my leverages somewhat the same, you know?
I don't want to get below 250 because then it would kind of, when you start losing, you know, the size in your legs or your lats, it's going to start to feel different and how you set up and do the lifts but i mean i know so many powerlifters who do 15 to 20
pound weight cuts so i'm not saying it's going to be easy but it's definitely feasible and i'll just
it depends on what jamal does at this meet but i still could potentially have a shot like i'm
gonna for six months i'm to do this offseason,
and then I'll do a meet sometime in the spring,
and I'll go 242.
I'll probably
do a localer meet because I don't know any big
time. I mean, there's the Pioneer
Fit meet in
Corpus Christi?
South Padre.
But that already sold
out in less than two hours and it was
it went on sale to like two weeks ago they're like hey we're about to open up for the meat
within two hours it got sold out but uh yeah because i want to do this media 242 and then
i'm gonna i'm honestly i'm dreading my media 308 because to to get to, I got to two 72 earlier this year for my,
for that meat. And then I drink a gallon of water to be two 76. And that was horrible. Like
eating everyone acts like they eat a lot, but at that point to get to two 72 morning weight,
I had to eat like at least 5,500 calories, but any day it was almost like at the end of the day,
if I was still hungry, I just eat more. So sometimes I was over 6,000 calories.
It's almost just like, am I going to throw up? No, I can eat more. Okay. I'm going to eat more.
Like, cause I'm just to a point, man, you can only do so much. Like, and it wasn't,
I'm not saying it wasn't healthy. I ate a lot of clean food. I eat predominantly beef, rice,
I ate a lot of clean food.
I eat predominantly beef, rice, pasta, chicken.
But you can only eat so much pasta, beef.
You can't eat 6,000 calories of lean food. Yeah, you can't have 6,000 calories of rice and lean beef.
Yeah, 6,000 calories of lean beef.
It's just not doable.
Yeah.
So honestly, cutting weight would probably be more pleasant than gaining weight because going from when I was at 263 this prep, for me to gain another 10 pounds, that's going to be more miserable than me cutting back.
So, yeah, I'm going to start kind of tracking my food and making sure I'll probably be around like 256, 258, just so my leverage is still pretty good.
Yeah, we'll see how that goes.
I mean, I'm getting out of the Marines next October,
so that'll be the last meet I do while in the Marines.
Because once I'm like three, four months out,
I really just want to focus on transitioning,
making sure I check out of, you know,
everywhere I need to check out of, get my VA claim set up.
You know, I just got to – I'm waiting for it,
but I just got – I did the sleep study
and I'm, I have CPAP on my VA claim now.
So that's good.
Cause I mean, sleep apnea is 40 or 50% by itself.
So that's, I mean, my buddy told me, cause I snore pretty loud, like really loud.
I feel bad for him.
My roommate, I feel bad for him, but you know, not much I can do.
But then he then i
went to do a sleep study i don't have horrible sleep apnea but they basically said it was just
because of my neck because i have a i have close to a 20 inch neck once i'm like 265 yeah so
people always almost with the neck size like that it's almost a guarantee that you have sleep yeah
the doc the sleep doctor she told me once you're over like
it's either 17 or 18 inches that's when it's you start to get in trouble like that's when
you're basically guaranteed and people always joke they're like oh what's your neck routine
i'm like no you don't you don't want i mean the exception is if you're doing a combat sport like
you know or you're doing a sport like football where i I only had one concussion in eight years of playing football.
And a big part of that was because of my neck, I feel, because it helps brace your head.
So, like, obviously combat sport is different.
But if you're if you're just a bodybuilder power, I don't the bigger your neck is, the worse your sleep is going to get.
And that's probably not what you want.
Like, like, I'm excited once I get to my sleep.
It's really hit and miss.
Like, it's just I can't really sleep on on my back because you know, I literally choke myself.
So I sleep on my side and my spine, sometimes I'll wake up and my spine just feels really
out of whack because I have to sleep on my side and I'm really twisted and I'm more comfortable
sleeping on my back, but I know I'm not going to sleep if I do that because my neck's too
elongated and it's like cutting the air off my uh
in my throat and stuff so do you do you know what you're going to do when you get out job wise and
stuff or what your plan is honestly I'm I want to I'm saving enough money to basically I'm going to
save eight to ten grand this next year which isn't really that hard because I've been pretty frugal
for the most part the last few years I learned early on when I was like a Lance Corporal, I made some dumb decisions.
I didn't max out on credit card.
That's almost like mandatory.
Yeah.
Your first few years in the Marines, you do dumb shit.
This is kind of a back story real fast, but this was in 2017.
So I remember I was really low on money and I went to the subway.
It was on base at Camp Pendleton. And know i got a subway sub steak and cheese and then she went to ring it up and
my car got canceled or declined i was like oh you know sometimes they don't read it right so i kept
doing it two or three more times decline decline decline and i had no money in my account and this
time i didn't have a credit card i only had a debit card and they already made the food and everything and i was like oh my god and i was so embarrassed but then
the lady kind of like she pitied me so she's like you know what you're fine just get the sub yeah
and uh but that ever since that moment like it made me realize damn i need to get my shit together
because you know if i you want a subway sandwich yeah i want a subway sandwich and if i was
anywhere else besides a military base they
probably wouldn't have gave a shit and they would be like hey you need to like you need to do some
dishes or you're gonna owe us extra like i was lucky that that circumstance like you know i felt
really embarrassed but like nothing bad happened out of it but since then i kind of really you
know just keeping track your finances and stuff just not crazily strict but knowing your
limits like hey i probably shouldn't spend money on that i don't need that you know but uh where
was i going with that i kind of forgot your job after or yeah so so i'm gonna save eight to ten
thousand and i want to i want to start trying out either coaching or i'm i'm already starting i'm
about to drop my first template with my coach deadlift program,
a deadlift template.
And I want to do video consulting in the near future too,
where,
you know,
people will pay a fee and they could talk to me.
I'm going to cap it at 20 minutes.
Cause I can talk all day.
Honestly,
it's really,
I don't want to like,
if I'm,
if I'm charging like,
I don't know,
30,
40 bucks and I'm,
and I'm,
I'm not even getting a dollar per minute. Then that's kind of like, it I'm charging like, I don't know, 30, 40 bucks and I'm, and I'm, I'm not even getting a
dollar per minute, then that's like, Oh, $30. And then they talk for like over 30 minutes. I'm like,
wow, that's a huge chunk of my time. And you know, it's, it's got to even out, but yeah,
you know, cause while I'm still the next four or five years, I see myself, you know, still
competing once I'm like 32, i think i'm gonna like probably
call that point because your body can only take so much you could do all the therapy you could
sleep great you could do all the preventative stuff but i've just seen with a lot of great
powerlifters in the past once they hit 34 35 that's when it started going that's when it
starts going downhill because you're i mean i've already been lifting since i was 14 and i'm 28 so by the time i'm 32
that's like uh 6 15 17 somewhere there that's a lot of years getting closer and obviously
yeah when you get close to 20 years of training you're kind of and it's not to say i would never
compete competitively again but at that point my priorities would change you know to like family
and other stuff because you got to kind of be selfish when you're doing anything at a high level. I'm honest with myself. I know like to do this,
I need to dial myself in. You know, I can't, it's just kind of, uh, during a prep, I don't,
I'll hang out with friends and stuff, but then it's always every two to three hours. I'm like,
shit, I gotta eat. Am I close to like, it's like like i'll map out if i go out with with friends i'll like pull up the gps and i'll type within a 0.2 mile radius oh what kind of
food's near me or i'll bring food you know because or make sure i'm drinking enough water all those
little things and uh i guess just because i've been in the marine seven years i'm kind of
meticulous like that because you're so used to habits. You wake up at the same time every day. You just, your day is kind of more or less put in stone, like the times and stuff.
So I tend to be like that during a meat prep too.
So, you know, and especially once, once I have a wife and kids, I'm obviously going
to put them first.
I'm not going to be like, Hey honey, I'm going to go work out and do all this.
I'll see you in six months.
It's probably not going to last long.
So I'm trying to like, I'm trying while i'm still in it i just
want to so just doing coaching templates stuff like that to where i have a more ideal schedule
where i could structure everything good uh that's kind of what i see myself doing and i'm going to
save enough money for like like i said six to eight months so that i have enough time to get
the ground running with that so i'm not just like like said, if I don't save any money and I get out and it doesn't,
I'm not expecting it to really pop off right away.
So like,
you know,
you kind of set yourself up for failure.
Cause I love all these motivational Instagram and YouTube shit.
It's like,
you know,
there is no plan B.
Well,
you kind of got to have some kind of like,
couldn't agree more.
Yeah.
You just fuck it, drop everything and become an artist
well it's like uh kind of have something like a little security blanket you know like or a plan
with some thought that yeah yeah so and and i i can always go back to the government sector
especially with eight years in the marines and stuff but for the next like i said four or five
years i think it'll be i know looking
back on it i would be i'd rather take the risk and try all that yeah and kind of reach my potential
in powerlifting because i know it's a knit sport and a lot of people don't give a shit about it
but i'll always look back and be proud of what i did so for that reason i think i'm going to do
that because originally you know i was i was thinking uh i could always do a trade or something or honestly just work for the city in some capacity like Public Works.
But then the last two years since I've kind of grown and built up a little bit, I mean, there's so many opportunities.
You see a lot of people on social media that make so much money off of templates, off of, like I said, consulting as you call it.
So the opportunities are out there.
You just got to put yourself out there.
So I'm going to break myself in probably in four or six weeks.
I'll start offering and mentioning the consulting thing.
I'm going to start it now so that I don't wait until I get out and then just have to start from ground zero.
And same with the templates.
But because I never saw myself being someone who would do something like that.
I was like, I'm blue collar.
I do this kind of
physical job. But then being in the Marines
now for seven years, I don't want to do a really physical
job ever again because my
body's already... You're good on that for a while.
Yeah.
When I was 19, 20,
I tried being an electrician.
I was going to apply for apprenticeship, but then
I realized, damn, I'm a big
dude with big hands and getting into small crawl spaces and all these, you know, configuring all these
wires when I'm a big dude.
And I can't really, you gotta be nimble enough and have the dexterity in your fingers to
do that, you know?
And, uh, so then I was like, okay, I'll just join the Marines, be a plumber instead.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, plumbing plumbing was more ideal for me anyway like i i mean electrician was
just like it sounded appealing because i worked at home depot for a year and a half before i joined
in the brains so i mean all the electricians i talked to they're always doing really well
financially yep and i hate to say it was just about money but when i was a kid i was like oh
i just want a lot of money so out of all out of all the trades i was like oh electrician seems
like the one where you make the most money but yeah like once you realize what
actually goes into it i was like yeah it's probably not gonna work out yeah yeah uh so how about um
you know people would want to know about 1100 pounds is that on your short list of goals
coming up then or like is that yeah priority like or where does what do you think the possibilities
of 1100 are then i i definitely think it's possible i mean i think i'll get it next year
honestly probably like my first meet the one i'm gonna do a 242 i'm not really gonna worry about
500 because i said i'm gonna do a weight cut and. I don't want to like, I'm just going to get what I need to break.
I basically just want to repeat what I've done the last two meets is break
all time deadlift records on all three of my attempts and then trying.
And now for the total, like depending on where the total is at,
try and go for the total potentially too, which would be cool.
Cause I get, like I said, I'm second all time at 275 and to get a total,
to break a total record would be really cool that'd be derek uh this is wait he has the total record
at 242 in sleeves now doesn't he yeah it's like 2210 or 2215 yep yeah and i know this that being
said i'm realistic a lot of people when they cut a good amount of weight they're not realistic so
by no means um i mean i maybe i
could be maybe i'm undermining myself but i don't think i don't think i could do now if i get strong
enough in the next six months where all the numbers i just hit at 275 i could repeat those i could i
could squat 770 780 but i want to be strong enough where i could squat 820 830 so then doing the
weight cut even if I'm affected slightly,
I'll still be able to hit around the number I want.
Right.
Because I haven't done a cut in so long.
So by no means am I thinking, yeah, you know,
I'm going to cut 15 to 17 pounds and then I'm going to feel great.
And then everything like I'm anticipating,
I'm probably going to take some,
like I'm going to have people help me with the weight cut, whoever it is i mean i haven't done it in so long i don't know you don't know
your body's going to react i mean until you do something like that that being said i'm not just
going to try a water cut for fun to see how my body would react so once i get to that meat prep
i'll figure out how well i respond to like a water cut and you know manipulating sodium and
all these things because everybody's different some people are really good at pulling out water
and some people, anyone can mess it up.
But yeah, we'll see.
And then later in the year,
I'm probably going to do the pro.
The American Pro is going to be in October of next year again
just because, like I said, I love the venue.
I love the biggest production value I've ever seen
in a power-up to me.
And they just want to do so much for the lifters.
And the prize money was slightly less than some of the other meets that are coming out.
But it's because they had to spend so much money to rent the venue to put on the show.
Yeah, I mean, Micah told me he spent upwards of like $40,000, $50,000 to have the venue,
the bar with food and drinks.
You've got to pay beforehand
for the tab for that. So all these different like facets of a big time meet when you're at a venue,
other than like just doing a power up to meet at a gym is pretty easy. It's like, okay, we go to
the gym. Yeah. We have, we have the chair, the 50 inch TV corner and you're good. Yeah. I mean,
but when you want to try to do something different you gotta gotta go above and beyond and unfortunately that costs you a pretty penny sometimes you know
like but uh that i'll do 308 if that mean next year so i'll go for my 242 we could see big
numbers there then as well yeah because because realistically like i said like the 242 me i'm
gonna try to do what i can to possibly break the total.
At least I'm going to break the devil a few times.
So it'll just kind of pad the stats.
And then at 308, it's like I'm really going to push it.
And the total record at 308 is 2370.
And like I said, I won't know until late next year where I'm really at
once I put in all the
work but uh my i pulled 1025 earlier this year at 308 so i definitely confident i can add on to that
so every beat i'm kind of just going to switch away class just to mix it up and like try to
break a record in a different class right and then and hopefully i strike gold and get a total record
you know whenever that is
because then at least even if i do it just once then i could show hey i was well rounded enough
to have a total record so you can't ever say he was only a deadlift dude that's the deadlift dude
i mean yeah and then but then people will be like oh well yeah you broke a total but you your deadlift
is 68 percent of your total i'm like okay, okay. I'm like, okay, bro.
Your apples and oranges at this point.
Yes.
Okay. So we've got this little game
we play with everyone that we have on the show called
Overrated and Underrated, and we've got a special
set of
Big Danny
Overrated and Underrated topics for you,
and we'll fire them off at you,
and it's your job to decide if each one's over or under, topics for you and we'll fire them off at you and uh it's your job to
decide if each one's over or under and the most important thing to remember is you can't ride the
line you have to have to say your name yeah yep so if you're ready we'll get to playing
yeah let's do it okay so overrated or underrated full metal jacket the movie uh i think it's a bit over like what like as a before the
marine corps you think it's all that i think i think it's a little overrated my parents my dad
loves it though he loves that movie because every parent it's like when they find out their kid's
going to be a marine like that's literally the movie they associate with the marine corps either
full metal jacket or jarhead yeah Yeah, I was going to ask,
which one do you like better?
I like
Jarhead better. I haven't seen
the second one. I remember there was a second one
that came out, but the original, I really liked it.
Maybe because it's more
recent, I guess, and it's
maybe a tad bit more relatable because
with Full Metal Jacket, it's from like the seventh.
I think it was depicted in like... Was it Vietnam? Was that's from like the seventh i think it was depicted like vietnam was that i think yeah i think it was vietnam time frame
yeah so it's like i couldn't really because a lot especially man a lot of the stuff in boot camp
that they did back then you get crucified now for it so it's just a whole different and i i don't
want to say woke culture whatever but like right happens, they just have a, you know, they can snitch on you so quick.
So the DI, if you do something even somewhat out of the norm, your ass could be like getting an MJP or some kind of punishment.
Like, so for right reason, like if you're trying to make this career and you're DI, you're not going to lose your career over some stupid recruit.
So if you have to like almost lower your standard of effort
to make them into a Marine, well, that sucks.
But you got no choice because if you want to do 20 plus years.
But yeah, I mean, every time I hear the new,
every few years it just seems like they're changing.
You know, they change things up at boot camp.
But yeah, full metal jacket.
Like it was funny.
There were some corny ass parts like where they're marching with
the rifles and this is my rifle yeah yeah yeah i would say for me jar egg because like i said i
feel like at least i got somewhat relate to it because it was within the last 10-15 years
you know from when i read when i enlisted yep no that's good okay all right overrated or underrated um the kabuki deadlift bar
so when you say overrated underrated is it like like uh that's how it feels moving it or like
it's up for you to decide how you like uh you could look at it like uh a bunch of people don't
like it but i kind of do like it or a bunch of people do like it and I don't really like it.
Or, you know, like just whatever you however you want to explain that, really.
Yeah.
So I would say.
I guess I'll say this is going to be a weird way to say it, but underrated because like, yes, there's a lot of whip in the kabuki bar but it exposes people because
if you if you just kind of muscle the grip it and rip it kind of pullers the people with
obviously everybody's idea of what optimal technique is is different what's optimal for
me may not be optimal for you but like when you don't when you're not very efficient as a dead
lifter because the amount of whip this bar will like pull you forward if you're not like
if the timing of your you know kind of like when you pull the slack out and you pull off the floor
like you almost can't you can't i can't put a hundred percent of my force sometimes especially
with anything under 900 pounds i can't really i can't really go 100 off the floor because
it'll it'll hit me so hard at lockout. The whip will just like,
it'll pull me down.
And sometimes I even lose the bar in front of me.
So there's a lot more like mastery involved.
Whereas like,
but my first three,
four years of powerlifting,
I use a stiff bar.
So I agree.
Everyone should start off with a stiff bar,
but if you're competing in meets where they have a Texas or Kabuki,
like the only thing I was, the only thing people really talk about the Kabuki is the knurling.
The knurling is like a cheese grater.
But, you know, I could deal with that.
At least I'll never drop a weight.
My thumb will just be torn into shreds.
But I'm never going to drop a weight.
Even without chalk, I probably don't even need chalk, honestly.
I still put chalk on because that's what you always do.
probably don't even need chalk honestly i just i still put chalk on because i'm that's what you always do yeah i say the kabuki is underrated because people think it's not gonna add 100
it's not gonna add 100 plus pounds to your deadlift like i mean literally less than a year ago
like i pulled 970 i literally was like i locked out 1003 99 at the showdown so like
i came really really close to a thousand and then four or five
months ago i pulled 1025 a kabuki but honestly that's not that huge of a difference it's not
like oh oh i barely pulled 970 and now i pulled 1050 like i had a 20 pound difference within a
whole year that makes i didn't really get to try the kabuki like they had it at the meet but i
trained on a tex Texas bar the whole prep.
But not everyone just – it's not like you just touch this bar
and it just magically makes you better.
You have to learn how to use it.
And everybody's different.
Like a lot of people I've noticed haven't really benefited from it.
Like I said, if you're a certain kind of –
if you're a very aggressive kind of deadlifter, it's going to expose you
because, like I said,
I don't want to say sloppy technique.
You have to really be on point with like when the bar comes off the floor and
your timing, when you lock out your hips and your knees,
like if you do it too fast, like I said,
it'll just pitch and throw you forward.
So you kind of got to find the perfect time to break the floor.
And then you got to lock your hips and knees out just right at just the right
moment or else a good rep could just turn bad really quick so i'd say the kabuki is underrated
because and i get i get where people are coming from because you can always say back in my day
you know kind of thing right oh yeah right and people do you know pal in the 70s 80s they only
had a stiff bar and then i don't even remember when the texas bar was introduced let's say like maybe early 2000s somewhere in there late 90s yeah yeah
you can make that argument all day like the people from the stiff bar area yeah we only use a stiff
bar right and then the texas bar oh well of course he's a texas now obviously it's up the ante but i
look at it as like in other sports i mean track and
field the surfaces have improved i mean in the 1920s they were running on cinder tracks jesse
owens ran 10.3 seconds now obviously it's hand time so you could argue there's some human error
but like he ran 10.3 seconds on a literal dirt track and they even did a they did like a comparison
if he would have ran on the like a
similar track usain bolt had that had didn't have spikes that were literal nails like he would have
ran he would have ran easily sub 10 seconds so that argument will always be there but sport like
there's always improvements in like technology and equipment um and like i said i don't even know how the i don't know the what like how it started
like i think uh chris duffin i think he partnered with a uspa and maybe some other federations and
then he created the bar because of that partnership or something along those lines like so i don't
really know why it was created like what what was the first thing that caused it to become
to market and created but it's kind of one of those things where it's here and i'm just learning how to use it like
like i said i know people will always there always be an excuse in some people's minds so i don't
care because at the end of the day i just enjoy doing this anyway this is not i don't make money
off this this is not my livelihood so i don't take you got to have fun so i don't take it that
seriously like i said all the people in the comments i i don't take you got to have fun so i don't take it that seriously
like i said all the people in the comments i really don't care because i'm like if these people
are wasting if these people are taking time out of their day to respond to my respond to my posts
and they're basically talking to themselves because i never respond to them i'm like cool bro
you want to be a tough guy and the dude's either private profile or he's a fake profile with some
cat emoji as a insta pic and i'm like i'm like oh you got some huge balls dude oh man you're a badass
well and what are you supposed to do you're you're just going to compete at the big biggest
meets that there are and if that's what the bar that they're using like that's what you use yeah
you're like yeah it's not it's not like i'm doing because you we know a lot of lifters you know they
they go to this backyard fan they stick to the same and that's what i'm trying not to do that's
why since the showdown a year two years ago you're an afco i purposely i did the showdown and then
well i did that meeting uh virginia beach so it was just a random meet but i didn't tell anyone
i was going like no one knew i was going to go there not until i went there so i don't want any kind of home field advantage because i want it to be fair
and i even tell like any judges i'll see i'm going to be like to speak if there's any doubt just give
me a red light because i don't want there to be any doubt like i don't i'm confident enough because
i trained a standard in training all the time i always lock lock shit out. I can hold it long enough.
I don't need to worry about getting...
I don't want any extra...
Oh, let's give him the nod even though it's sketchy
because he's a high-level lifter.
I don't want it to blow up on Instagram.
Oh, that was a borderline. I'd rather you just be
safe than this friend like me because I'm not going to take it
personal.
I'd rather the standard be safe and just for like me, cause I'm not going to take it personal. I'd rather, I'd rather the standard would be better than borderline,
you know?
So no,
that's yeah.
I'll just continue.
Like I said,
I've done USPA.
I'm doing the last one with WRPF.
My next meet will probably be USPA at this point,
probably.
So I'm doing different multiple feds,
high level meets.
The one in the spring will be like a low-key meet.
But like I said, I'm not just lifting within my backyard
where everybody knows me and everyone loves me.
So I'm trying to show, okay, it doesn't matter where I go,
I still do this, and I'm consistently doing this.
For sure. That's good.
Okay, overrated or underrated, the three-mile run.
That's so overrated. Overrated or underrated? The three-mile run. Oh, that's so overrated.
Oh, my God. Especially
in this day and age, think about it.
I mean, obviously, special forces
is one thing, but you try out for that.
But basic Marine Corps,
the warfare nowadays...
That doesn't make any sense.
There's drones. There's like...
Shit's coming out of the sky, man.
If I have to run three
miles to save my life i'm probably not gonna make it because you got your flack your kevlar like
obviously you train for that but i just feel like i think in some way it should be updated maybe
i know the marines we like to one-up everybody so we won't do a mile and a half like we can just
make it two miles i don't know but three miles it's just like i just think it's over like overkill but then the thing about the marines is more than any branch we pride ourselves
on traditions and stuff so like you know we've done things for this long oh this is our trademark
like it's really we're usually we're usually one of the last to kind of let go of certain things so
it'll probably happen in like five to ten years, but I'll be long gone by that point.
But yeah, it's definitely, I definitely, I mean,
and a lot of people agree with that.
Like there's better ways,
there could be better ways to test our endurance of sprinting,
you know, without, I mean, it's a straight three mile run.
It's just not, you're just going to get knee and back issues.
That's what most Marines have from running. I i mean my first four years of pendleton i ran 10 to 12 miles a
week on average and you know and plus you're working your job all day like it's just not
sustainable and it's not fun yeah it's not i mean i used to kind of like running but yeah my
my passion for running is dwindled to where I don't know if –
even when I get out and I lose all the weight after an unparalleled thing,
I don't know if I'll ever run again.
Like, it's been me.
Flashbacks.
Okay, so this next one is the last one,
and we always save the most important one for last.
So, overrated or underratedrated beards with no mustaches
um i i personally like that look so i'd say underrated like i i can't really grow a mustache
to me when i have my coming out party next year and i get to grow a beard again you're probably
not gonna i'll try to grow a stash but it's it's going to be – like I just can't grow it around my lip the same way I can around my chin.
So I'd say underrated on the beard because I – yeah, it's cool if you complete the look, but I don't think it's bad if you can't.
If you can't pull off the full – I mean my dad could grow out like a mustache into a goatee pretty well, but I can't.
So maybe my genetics just suck.
Maybe my hair genetics.
Yeah.
We like it, though, because we have a shirt that's called our 8-bit powerlifting shirt.
So it's the style of 8-bit Nintendo graphics, and it's got a guy squatting on it.
And it looks kind of like anes cartridge for a power lifting game and the dude the artwork he looks like that's he looks like you
when you had that look actually because he's got that same beard oh yeah
that's awesome when we were looking at your old stuff i like i was like huh it's the guy from our
eight-bit power lifting shirt yeah back then people especially i worked at home depot people used to think i
was amish yeah that beard yeah yeah i'll grow it back but i i won't have the full head of hair that
i did before but i'll still i'll still make it work with that beard though yeah your look has
changed pretty significantly yeah i mean i remember
like and i haven't really said this publicly because i don't know it's not that i'm embarrassed
but i remember like a year it's been like a year year and a half so i had a bad haircut the barber
completely bought my fade and i'm like god this looks like i forgot it just looked really horrible
so i was like you know i'm just gonna shave my head and uh i some kind of not balding, but there was towards the back of my head.
It was starting to get a little thin, but not really noticeable only to me.
Cause it's, you know, I'm looking at it for 30 seconds and then I shaved my
head and then, yeah,
just the crown of my head just wasn't really growing back. And I was like,
damn, I guess this is my time now. Uh,
I was like, you know what? what shaving your head is easy anyway so
ever since I've been you know every other day
I'll shave my head and I don't know
I probably could do like some of these hair
procedures but the problem is
when you do these hair procedures
you got to be able to let it grow out for a certain amount of time
and I can't I have to get a haircut
every week so at least like
I couldn't really do it while I'm still in the Marines because I got to
I got to get a haircut at least once a week so but i don't know i like the bald look like honestly
it's just i it's like when you get old enough you really don't care about certain things like
when you're in your early 20s like oh my hair you know but like i don't know at the time i was 27
i was like you know what i had a good run like I never comes back like I'm not
really gonna like I could just photoshop my head on hair on my head if I need to like yeah I got
bigger things to worry about yeah right now yeah like yeah nope that makes sense and good news it
looks like you passed overrated underrated successfully oh yeah that's almost
as good as the 1074 deadlift and 2302 total uh yeah i try all right what were you gonna say oh
i was just gonna say what one of our sponsors of the podcast is uh we mentioned earlier big grant
of the strength co and uh the strength co plates we are big fans big users of the strength co
plates i think you've got some that you've pulled on before too, right?
Yeah, we have some at the Body Bear Gym on base.
The one thing that he posted about the other day, and I kind of understood this,
but he was saying how inside of the plates, they're like two inches of diameter and it really hugs the collar or it
hugs the,
and yeah.
And I always noticed when I put these plates on,
they seem really locked in and I'm like,
damn,
maybe it's just,
I was like,
Oh,
it's the craftsmanship or whatever.
But when he said that,
it makes total sense.
Cause they don't even,
obviously you put a clip on cause you don't want to risk at all.
But,
uh,
even when they see together, they're just tighter.
They don't ever gap.
It's almost hard to count them when you're looking at a video because they just make one solid, seamless look.
Yeah, I like the matte.
I don't know if you call it a black matte finish.
I mean, obviously, the look of the plate doesn't matter too much.
I guess you buy a plate for more than the look.
But I like the color like kind of most plates are are like lighter but i like this the rustic kind of black matte finish and uh yeah from the moment i started lifting on i'm like
and obviously when i deadlift i can't really use them because i mean i don't even know let's see
with a with a kabuki bar yeah you cannot i think i'm at max maybe 850 900 but like
the problem is with a kabuki bar with that much bend if i were to use pound plates it would get
so like it would kind of it would be like a block pull basically because it would just bend that
much more so and i know a lot of people do that for cloud, but I just, I just care about what I do with me. It's like, I, I know.
And people always tell me stuff like that. It's how you gain traction.
Oh, like, cause people love for some reason,
apparently a lot of my pals and friends,
they get more likes and views when you lift,
even doing a deadlift bar with pound plates,
because it's more relatable to most people.
Cause most people don't understand kilos or power lifters.
They just blow up. They're like, Oh my God.
Like you pulled seven65 like because they could see the 845s you know and it's
like an average person like even with all the reds i do an average person's gonna be like oh that's
probably a lot i guess like at my at my last at my last meet this blew my mind like not blew my
mind but at my last meet 2025 i think because it was a kind of a home
meet so there's a lot of parents and just people who aren't really too big into the sport or never
really go to powerlifting meets and i remember after i pulled 1025 the main thing a lot of
people kept telling me was congrats on the state record and i was like i technically since there
wasn't they one of the they told me afterwards because there wasn't a national referee, it only counts as a state Virginia 308 record.
Because, I mean, in my defense, you know, my mom was kind of the same way.
Like, go into your first powerlifting meet, or if you're not knowledgeable, you're not really going to understand, oh, there's five or six six reds they're going to think they're either 45s or maybe even less i don't know
so to most people they love seeing pound plates and videos so for squat and bench i love using
them for squat and bench i mean with squat it doesn't really i'm not really worried about it
over 700 pounds for the whip kicking me off with pound plates. And obviously I don't bench enough to where I have to worry about whip on
bench press. So maybe, maybe one day, one day.
No, that's cool. And you just helped us out. That was a paid,
the strength co-ad. So we'll send you your commission check in the mail.
No, they're awesome, man.
I didn't really even know about him until
until i started talking with uh talking with him but it's cool because he's you know prior
service too i mean i'm not saying automatically oh he's a veteran you know or prior service
military oh he's automatically great but you know to know that it's always cool to know people who were
in the military and they got out and they did something with themselves because so many
like i have so many friends you know no offense people i did my first enlistment with and it's
just like you can just tell they just kind of they're like oh i'm gonna go to college and they
don't even do that and then they're just kind of working at a burger joint or like not even
they're not even doing anything they're just living in their parents basement and i'm just
like bro like you talk all this shit about the military and then you get
out what do you do like you're just back to like where you were before yeah so it's cool seeing
what he's doing with strength co and really building these high quality plates and bars
and such he was an officer though but i don't know if we don't have to hold that against him
hey i mean honestly if i could go back i probably would know if we don't have to hold that against him hey i mean honestly
if i could go back i probably would know it makes a lot of sense yeah like i did a year of college
and i was like yeah this ain't like i didn't really have a plan at that time when i was 18 but
i wasn't about to stick around for three more years like if i didn't have some sort of idea
and like obviously the debt and the tuition i was like man like i don't want to get that much debt just to get a but obviously you know you can argue oh well if you have some kind of degree you
can you can maneuver through different you know job settings proving that you're that you're i
don't want to say smart enough but like even then i was like you know what i don't want to take like
a hundred hundred fifty thousand dollars in loans out who knows i'm going to pay for that so i joined
the military because I was
like, well, originally I was like, I'll just do four years. If it doesn't work out, like I'll get
free college and have the VA home loan. So, you know, four years is a small span of your life.
Honestly. I mean, assuming you, assuming you live a prosperous and hopefully healthy life, but four
years is not, I mean, high school went by fast, really fast. I mean,
my first four years in the Marines, like I said, I've been in seven now.
Oh my God, 2015 to 2019. Like it was a blur. It was, and was it,
you know, there's times where, you know, like I said, the hard days,
but then looking back on it now from a different lens, like, yeah,
four years is such a small blip of time yep so literally like and i'm not
i'm not doing like a i'm not pitching to like yeah join the military because you got four years to
kill you're not getting a recruiting bonus no no i mean i almost thought about being a recruiter
like danny grigsby said i should join up uh does he get his commission is is there is there like if you get someone to sign
up do you get a kickback for that at all like we we had a program like that i know we could get
like a couple thousand bucks or something maybe oh wow i mean yeah and the marines i don't think
it's like that i i have friends who are recruiters but yeah they've never told me i mean i just know
man i guess it could be ruthless because if you're in an area like unless you're in a place like Texas where people are literally knocking at the door at 8 a.m., like, please, I want to serve this country like I'm from Oregon.
So like in Oregon, man, it's really I went on.
We call it recruiting assistance.
It's like I was waiting to pick up in my schoolhouse in Camp Lejeune and they let me go home for a month because I was just
sitting around not doing shit but working parties and uh so for a month I was kind of tagging along
with the RSS I was at and it was kind of an eye-opener you know I was like wow like didn't
really have an idea what went into recruiting but it was like a lot of calls like and it sucks
because they like tap the phone so like you could say yeah i called 50 people today but like in reality they can track
how much i've heard there's either software or like some way they can track how much so you
could be like if you lie and say you called a bunch of people and you didn't they could call
you on your bs and be like get on the fucking phones like you need to like because i mean
to me calling just sucked because i call and you just be like hey this is psc is P.S.C. Grigsby, blah, blah, blah.
I'm with the Marines.
And it's such awkward because you're talking to someone you don't even know
and you're just asking them.
You try to either nonchalantly say it or you try to be like,
oh, you know, what are your son's or daughter's interests?
And then you pull it into that.
But over the phone, it's just so impersonal kind of.
I like going to schools.
Schools was kind of fun because then i could talk
talking to people is more easier for me in person but yeah like over the phone and then like you
always see the jokes like uh like the memes and stuff like when you don't make mission
and then someone comes hounding down your door and you're just like i can imagine that would
be a grind i mean it would be i guess kind of fulfilling but
yeah i'm not gonna be a recruiter so that let's just get that in the phone
yeah all right man well we uh really enjoyed having you on actually we we probably have a
list of questions we didn't even get to probably but that's all right well we'll we will have to
catch you again another time yeah like i said man i, man, I can go on. I kind of, I went on a little too much.
We like that. This is a lot of fun. I think a lot of people will be excited to listen to this. You
know, we've, uh, tipped off a lot of our fans that we're going to have you on and a lot of
people were super pumped about it. So I think it'd be pretty awesome. Yeah, man. I can't wait
to do it again. It was great talking with you guys tonight. Awesome. be pretty awesome. Yeah, man. I can't wait to do it again.
It was great talking with you guys tonight.
Awesome.
We appreciate it. And,
uh,
we'll be on the lookout for some more,
big deadlifts,
big totals,
a little bit of everything coming from you.
Hell yeah,
you guys appreciate it.
Have a good night.
All right.
Thanks.
See you.
Bye.
You got them cool beans. Big Danny, the cool beans didn't you yeah you know he was saying
something there that reminded me of something um when he's talking about how you know the years go
by fast but sometimes the days are long that's actually what he was describing wasn't it sometimes
the days are long but the years go by fast yeah that's the damn truth isn't
it it's a real thing we've we've said that before we have and he recognized the same thing yeah i
still more than ever the years go fast and the days go fast that's true it's insane it's like oh
okay it's wednesday we're in a podcast okay go to bed all right i think it's wednesday again
we're podcasting like and also four weekends
happened in between there somehow that is the god a year goes by so fast and what actually
what maybe changes it more than anything is when you're like 22 and two years go by it's like
yeah at least for me 22 to 24 it's like, I'm still just partying and going to work.
Like, yeah, I go to the gym and maybe I got stronger in here, but life's pretty much the same.
You know, you're still urging your career.
It's not like, oh, I tripled my income in the last two.
Like, it's like, yeah, still kind of have sort of a somewhat entry-level career.
You know, I have friends.
We're kind of trying to figure stuff out, whatever.
Or not.
Or not.
When I say kind of trying to figure stuff out, I mean, like. Or not. When I say kind of trying to figure stuff out,
I mean like you're just bumping through life.
Like that's what figuring out is.
And like two years goes by.
And now, dude, after you have kids, you're like,
oh, in the last two years,
I've had gone from nothing to having this thing
that was the size of this
to now a thing that runs around my house
and tells me what to do.
And like my life has changed in this time. My's changed in this time people that i know have changed drastically
they've gotten married they've moved away they've gotten different jobs like once you get a little
a little older a lot of shit happens in two years that's right life-changing shit that's like the
big stuff yes um danny did talk about the strength co So make sure to head over to the Strength Co.
and get yourself some plates.
He was talking about that beautiful black e-coat finish.
And he was spot on with everything.
Check out the Strength Co. for all your plate needs.
And that tight tolerance.
Yep.
He knows what he's talking about when it comes to plates.
That's a man that has loaded a plate or two in his day.
That's true.
Ain't that an understatement?
He also briefly mentioned the word word texas power bars
and if you're curious about what that was about i am well listen up buddy caps first started
lifting weights in the late 60s and began power lifting in the mid 70s at the time he was working
for image barbell building gym equipment around 1976 a local machine shop started making olympic bars for them calling it the image
bar in 1977 image barbell became champion barbell it was then that buddy started looking at the bars
with an intent of changing them for the better in 1979 buddy bought his first lathe to begin
addressing the known issues in 1980 his passion drive and purpose now had a greater mission
buddy set out on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he'd ever seen and trained with,
and the Texas Power Bar was born.
It was strong as a house with the best knurling and was maintenance-free.
Hundreds of state, national, international, and world powerlifting records have been
and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar.
To learn more about Texas Power Bars and buy one of their legendary bars,
visit TexasPowerBars.com.
And I got to tell you a little bit
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That's SwissLink, S-W-I-S-S-L-i-n-k dot com thank you swisslink and texas power bars
i know we've been recording for quite a while tonight but there is one more thing that we do
have to do this episode i don't want to put a lot we have a sack segment are you familiar uh
traditionally called what's in tanner sack yep and we do have one of my favorite longest running
segments the entire podcast i think it is entire podcast. I think it is the original segment, isn't it?
I think it is the original.
It is the original segment.
So we have a true sack here, and this is your sack.
Is it my sack?
It's my sack of Tanner's sack?
Yes.
Oh!
Yeah.
Woo-hoo!
I don't think this one could.
I couldn't hold these from you for another week here.
I'm glad we didn't wait so we have got
the barefoot versus high top did i get that all correct yeah in black in all black oh and that's
uh i mean it's suede isn't it aren't these yeah i think those ones are suede that is nice
also the lux but these are suede oh have you and you've got to lift in yours, haven't you?
I've used them twice now.
Ooh, baby.
I'm going to deadlift tomorrow in them for the first time,
but I have squatted in them.
So I have the same.
These are from our friends, of course, at Barefoot.
Our neighbors to the north.
Yeah, out of Fargo, North Dakota.
And it's B-E-A-r foot just in case you're any confusion
there um i'm getting most people listening to this i've heard of barefoot shoes i'm gonna have
to assume by now but just in case you haven't it's um i describe it as a bit of a minimalist shoe
and that the soles are very thin and also they have the wide toe box oh
that we both uh oh baby personally said how we prefer the wide toe toe box many times we're both
we're both used to wearing the reebok tr light power shoe if i mean it's got like 15 different
names but one of those probably checked the box of what you would call them but uh so that's both of us have worn the reebok power shoe for like the
better part of the deck i also really like that sizing is dead on yeah um where your size yeah
mine are good yeah we have i wear 11s and pretty much everything i went with 11 here and it's the
right size yep it's perfect damn i am uh so i gotta hold this up for the camera just so people can see
um all black all black everything god this is just a good looking there's several guys in the
gym that have these i don't think anyone has the all black though do they no uh a couple people
have the tan we have the brown one pink yeah there's the pink one is the is there a great
one i think someone's got the gray one too yeah i don't think i've seen anyone in the gym with the black ones i like the black ones i do like the black i
i really like i mean the pink ones are cool i yeah i do like quite pull that off i think the
gray ones are really i do like the gray ones a lot stock and yeah when we were looking yeah the
gray was out of stock but um damn these these look really really good uh construction seems
i'm a bit of a shoe guy myself construction seems very nice
the laces are nice
the laces are
thick and
I don't want to say puffy but yeah
there's meat to them they're not really really thin laces
like a lot of companies use
yeah overall though they just feel
like a high quality product
sweet I'm really excited
and they didn't take long to get here just coming from Fargo.
Would you believe that?
Just send them right down the road.
So key features, extremely thin sole, wide toe box, zero drop,
I think is what they call that also.
And I've worn them once or twice.
I mean, I kind of knew i would like the feel of them because
i already kind of know i like the wide wide uh wide toe box and i think the even thinner thinner
sole is nicer for lifting too i mean it makes sense to me and the sole is pretty grippy on these
two you know the bottom of it.
I'm over here just getting them quickly laced up and just pumped to have these on.
Yep.
And they did come with a little manual,
but I've got,
I actually forgot that I've got that at all.
The instruction manual.
I could be doing this wrong.
No,
it's more like a foot manual.
Okay.
I would call it just kind of an interesting piece of literature that comes with it.
Kind of explaining what the benefits are and why.
Sweet.
Damn.
Well, I'm going to the gym tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited to wear these.
Now, my only thing is, though, I've been such a proponent of the Reebok TR Lite,
and I've always said I'd never.
Well, my Reebok and yours are the same way, I'm sure.
They're just so worn in that they pretty much have a, a similar thickness drop.
Right.
Like,
cause we've had them for what?
Six years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wearing them for almost every workout session in that time.
So yeah,
those things are like beat down,
but what,
what we've both honestly said before,
like they don't really make those anymore anyways,
or at least,
and I mean having
seen these it's like oh yeah this is the option that would fulfill what we need because the
spiritual successor right like i can't go without the white i can't go back to like something without
the wide toe box and yes something that also stays flat across right not like uh vans or
right where it curves up on the end which is super annoying is that what does zero
drop mean is that what that is i always thought when they talked about dropping shoes usually
is that a heel a lot of times yeah the heel is a little thicker and it comes to i believe that
there is a bit of a drop like your foot is maybe just very very slightly downhill i believe that's
what that's in reference i can notice a little bit of different of that difference in that just from
my have that I've been wearing them around in the gym.
The zero drop feels different to me.
Just even like walking around because I think even the ones that I don't,
the shoes I wear that I don't necessarily think have,
I think much of it.
Yeah.
And I like have noticed that like,
it's a different feeling.
Yeah.
Well,
I'm excited for this podcast to be done so I can get up and walk around and really see what i'm working with here yeah so uh
you know no discount code at barefoot shoes or anything but go check them out if you're not
familiar with them already i think chris duffin is a part of yeah he had a cool collaboration yeah
cool uh friend of the podcast chris duffin uh yeah we'll give some follow-up impressions
uh yes next episode but yes uh immediate unboxing impressions
are pretty good over here positive remarks positive oh get it i get it i see what you did
there okay we did you know we had other stuff on our list but uh we had a lot of fun talking with
danny and we talked about a lot of stuff so've got some things that are going to wait until next week.
But what's not going to wait is you need to get on this drop that's come out.
Yeah, it might be too late already.
It might be.
Because we are a week ahead of schedule.
Right.
You might be screwed.
If there is anything there, make sure you take advantage of it
because it might not be around long.
That's true.
We had the jorts.
Especially those jorts.
Yeah, especially the jorts.
And then the all-go-no-show tee, the patches, and then the new koozies.
So check it all out at massanomics.com.
Become a supporting member.
Like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Bump those numbers up.
We're almost at a milestone there, I think.
And then please hit us up with a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
We need to keep that train chugging along.
I think we're working on getting on the road to 500,
and when we eventually hit 500 of those,
we'll have to do something cool.
We've done cool things before,
but for 500, I think we've really got to do something cool.
And we've talked about some bigger and better things.
If you want to see that happen.
Help us get to 500,
and please, for the love of god become a
supporting member would it kill you guys out there to become a supporting member if you're already a
supporting member get a second membership yeah there's no limit you can match those things as
much as you want some of you might already have to get a third yep just stack it stacks it's your
stacks membership stacks um but yeah if you do want to support us, that is a great way.
It's on our website, our shop.
Become a supporting member.
We'd love to have you on the team.
We love each of you equally.
We just love the ones with higher levels more.
He ain't lying.
More equal for those people.
Tommy, where do they find you at?
You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D.
You can check me out at Tanner underscore Baird, but just make sure to follow Mastonomics at Mastonomics. See ya.