Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 401: Steve DeNovi of PRs Performance & 2WL

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Big Steve DeNovi of PRs Performance & 2WL joins us for this one to talk the wild and whacky world of drug tested USAPL/IPF powerlifting. We also try to trick him into telling us that our podcast is better than theirs. Build Fast Formula Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on your first order! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASS for a free pair of AWEsome wraps! Juggernaut AI Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10%! The Strength Co Get some Go-To Plates! Swiss Link Use code MASS to save 15%! Texas Power Bars Get the Barbell that changed the game!

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

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! Welcome back, everyone. It's been a while. We're excited to get you here for episode 401 of the Massanomics podcast. We're not on an episode 400 hangover.

We're on an episode 400 high so prepare for a banger this is the lifting podcast about nothing and my name is tanner and my name is tommy did you notice what i slipped in there i did i i know what you talk about when the board for us doesn't want to play our sounds good but i didn't catch the i didn't catch the end of that i liked everyone everyone else will uh you know hear that like i we probably talked about it before some things that we play on our boards back and forth because of zoom being weird it doesn't come across awesome all the time to us but the final listener will get that stained that little stained clip you'll hear lima charlie loud and clear get the real treat you'll hear at Lima Charlie loud and clear. Get the real treat.

You'll also hear this. Ladies and gentlemen, Massanomics is in the house! Now that's a classic right there. Massanomics is in the house. Would you say it's been a while since you've heard that? It's been a while. I would say it's been a little while. I put a couple of new sounds.

I can tell. I can tell. I was going to sprinkle them in throughout the episode and I'd like, nah, just going to do them all right. Just get it out of the way. I got, I can't, I can't hold anything back now.

I'm so excited for these sounds. I just am going to use them all immediately. I'm not going to like, let it play out for the perfect moment. I'm just going to force the issue right off the bat. There will be no surprises here. No, I'm just coming with them hot. Also, I'm coming with this hot.

Juggernaut AI is the training that Tommy and I use. Here's what I'd tell you about Juggernaut AI. If you're someone that has only done templates or your own coaching, quote unquote, maybe you've never paid to have a coach, you've never paid for something a little bit more serious, I would seriously recommend giving this a try. It's going to be pretty, very affordable with our discount code MASSANOMICS. It only costs about $30 a month. You can also get a free trial

for a couple of weeks. Go to juggernautai.app. That's where you log in. That's where you can check out the free trial. That's where if you decide to sign up, you can use discount code Mastinomics. What I would say, you try it for like four to six months. So you've got a maybe $100 to $200 investment into this. It's going to be a worthwhile test for you. Would you pay for six months to make progress? Would you pay $100 or $200 to make progress on your lifting? One of your most important, one of your most favorite hobbies. If you could just like for a couple hundred dollars for half a year

and you're going to make better progress than you were before, would it be worth it to you? That's the question i pose to you and i feel like for a lot of you the answer is an easy resounding yes so that's why we want you to check out juggernaut ai.app thanks juggernaut and today's episode is also brought to you by barefoot shoes now tanner you're a fellow midwesterner like me. I might live in eastern and southeast South Dakota, and you might live in western and northeast South Dakota,

but we're not so different, you and me. We're pretty similar. We're barely different at all. You know, you're a white guy in your 30s. I'm also a white guy in my 30s. We have a pretty diverse background and experience worldview um you know coming up on this time of the year the weather gets cold and there's one thing i don't like it's when my feet aren't prepared for that cold weather

and yes i if i'm speaking your language right now i think there's a little something that you might want to know about and that's the Bruin boot from Barefoot Shoes. The Bruin is a rugged, heritage-style boot designed to improve foot strength and movement quality, even in the most demanding conditions. Behind it, it says Western Northeast South Dakota. Its ultra-wide toe blocks and flat outsole provides a substantial barefoot experience while protecting your feet from harsh terrain. Crafted with durable, high-quality U.S. source leather

and designed for maximal comfort and versatility, it's perfect for the everyday adventure exploring off the grid or navigating the concrete jungle. Or, like me, navigating the sidewalks of your residential neighborhood while taking your dog on a walk. It's my footwear of choice in this challenging weather that's approaching us. So if you'd like a pair of Bruin boots of your own

from Barefoot Shoes, make sure to check out barefoot.store. Thank you, Barefoot Shoes. Oh, gee golly willikers. Thank you, Barefoot. We got a banger in store for today. Expect many more soundboard clips to come, whatever relevant here.

We are going to get, later on, we got a big guest, big Steve Dinovi. We're going to talk to him, talk shit about two white lights, see if we can catch him in the, it's going to just be a whole gotcha segment. It's all it is. It's the whole reason for this. We for this like we need to get someone get steve on the line yeah let's get get get some of our arch nemesis do you think nemesis is plural for nemesis it's the first time i've heard it in that way so this is so i get some of our arch nemesis yeah i wonder if you just say nemesis. That just might be the plural and the singular.

Okay, yeah, it's like, what else is like that, moose? Yeah, that sounds right. What's the plural of moose? There's a whole bunch of moose. Okay, now actually you really got me. You really got me wondering. Yeah. It is, what's the plural of moose moose meese mooses

the correct the correct plural of moose is moose okay some people what's the past participle i don't know what that is sorry i really gotta go there gonna make my brain hurt what the hell were they talking about that we say oh kitty corner would you ever suspect that there was alternatives to kitty corner? That kitty corner was not universally accepted? I mean, you're familiar with kitty corner, right? Oh, yes. 100% diagonal.

You know, it's diagonal across the street. Like, you know, you're on one block corner. Kitty corner is the diagonal. Big Daminger says it's caddy corner. Okay. That's what I was going to say. Is that what people are saying? Which is so caddy corner okay that's what i was gonna say is that what people are saying which is so crazy to me that that's a saying have you i've never heard that before ever i have heard that before okay if someone said that i'd be like oh you had like a

slip like you have uh uh something and accidentally yeah yeah i don't know why that must be an East Coast thing, but I have heard that. It is very weird. I suppose Kitty Corner probably sounds really weird too. And the one web article someone found did say that Kitty Corner is widely more accepted. And if I know anything about the internet,

it's if you find one article, and if it shares the same viewpoint as you, you run with it. Confirmed. Say no more. That is all I need to hear. Should we dip into a little... Do you got a beverage over there this week?

I do got a beverage. This is a what's in the can segment, of i you know last week all three beverages of mine just worked so good that i'm gonna start off where i left off which was the raspberry bubbly i actually really had to pee last week by the time we got done three hours in the three beverages i think that was our was that our longest podcast ever we've probably done three hours a couple of times. I think there's been a couple where we just broke three hours, but was that like three 20? Is that what it was? Something like that. It was, it was a while. It was absolutely a while.

This isn't what's in my can. This is what's my can in a new, relatively new segment to the podcast. What's my can in a new relatively new segment to the podcast what's my can in it's in the massonomics drink spotter light y'all think we forgot about the drink spotter light think again and it's better than ever polar seltzer too this polar seltzer i already know it's going to be delicious got that good stuff uh this just in i went to the grocery store the other day and i picked this out myself well did you look and you said you know what it's December I better get there so I can go so I can say I've been there once this year you know what I was honestly thinking like gosh it doesn't seem like I've

been to the grocery store in a while it almost seems like they play that song when you walk in the door yeah every time I walk through the door at the grocery store, it's Shtain plays It's Been A While. All right, guys, he's here. We can go home for six more months. It's like a turd, Shtain. That's what I think about when it's like a race. If you get a smear of poop in your undies, what do you call that?

Shitstain. Yeah, Shitstain. What about a racing stripe? I've never called it a racing stripe. Are you familiar with racing stripe? Would you know if I, if someone said racing stripe, would that, uh. I think I could use the context clues to figure it out, but, uh, I've never used that saying before.

Skidmark. Big Colts on skidmark. Definitely skidmark for sure. Right. Yeah. That's a good one. That's probably the most commonly known one, right? Yeah.

I like, I like racing stripe, but that might not be very common, and I own that, so that it's probably not. But skid mark, I think, is good. Yeah, that's good. I'm going to crack in. This is a tart cherry limeade polar, and it called me from the aisle of, there's so many cells.

Like, what used to go on the shelves where this whole aisle is of sparkling water? Yes, 10 years ago, none of these existed, or there was one shitty little flavor to pick from. So, yeah, what was on these shelves before? Was it just that much more soda to pick from? Oh, my God, this is good. This is a top tier. You say tart cherry limeade, is that the one?

Yeah, polar tart cherry limeade. This is a four limeade. Is that the one? Yeah. That is heart cherry limeade. This is a four and a half. That's really good. This is fricking delicious. Yeah. And polar likes to pump that flavor up just a little bit more too. That's, that's fricking delicious.

That's just, that's just an excellent sparkling water. I can't say enough good about polar in this case. Okay. Oh, what do we want to bounce to next? We should mention Crew Falls. Again, I don't think we've got to talk much about it, but it's coming up in just a few days.

This is the week, right? So Crew Falls is in how many days? Like four. Four days. T-minus three to four days. And we'll be, we'll be doing it, man. I'm excited.

It's going to be, we'll be doing the damn thing. Going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. So if you're listening live, there's still a chance for you to come. If you're listening to this, when the episode comes out,

that means, you know, hopefully we all survived the wild and wacky weekend. I hope so. Got to have something to talk about on the podcast. Yeah. Hopefully we should have a good tree for YouTube videos that come out of that. And we'll,

we'll recap it on the podcast. So everyone will get to hear the zany fun that we come up with in crew falls. It will be more, I think maybe more importantly than that, though we have, you know, we're kind of just wrapping up our giant Black Friday drop, which is huge for us, of course. You know, that's our biggest drop of the year.

It's our biggest sales event of the year. I guess the Arnold is kind of up there close with it. But I still say Black Friday is our biggest sales event of the year. We put a lot into that. But we do have this little kind of mini, you know, relatively speaking, very mini drop in December that's coming. And the main reason we have the mini drop in December like we do in the last few years is if you've been around for a while,

you know, we give out something free in December for everyone that orders while supplies know we give out something free in december for everyone that orders while supplies last a little something special a little something special every year we like to do this to help uh help you keep track if you if you don't know the phases of the moon can be a wild thing if you don't have something to track it with and we like to help all of our lifters uh stay on top of those phases of the moon. That's usually, before Juggernaut, that was how I programmed myself was based on, that's how I programmed my training was based on phases of the moon.

Right, yeah, as any good lifter should. Yeah. So I'm holding some right here. And we also like to give someone a word of encouragement for the coming year. So this year, the free mini dashboard phases of the moon calendar in blue this year. First year, we went red. Second year, we went yellow. We changed the saying each year.

This year, it's can't hold anything back this year. Masonomics. Words to live by. Yeah. And last year I think I circled the Lift Hard, Live Easy Classic Meat Day on as many of those as I could, and I'm going to do the same this year, I think. So that's July 20th.

Yep, it's on the calendar. That's good. I was worried about the access that one date office here yeah so someone wanted to know what the phase of the moon is going to be around that it looks like what's it called when you can't even like see the moon hardly maybe some type of waning crescent yeah it's very very just a small new moon is that the new moon that could be believable too dark side of the moon either one of those yeah it's the new dark side okay so you can get with actually the so here here here i guess i left some important details out. December 12th is the drop.

So when you order on December 12th or after, December 12th is when the floodgates open on this. So if you order then along with that drop that comes out there, you don't have to order something in that new drop, but if you order something there, we'll start shipping these with every order on December 12th while supplies last. So you should have them by the time January comes around. We don't have a big drop there. There is one new

tee. It's a comeback of a prior tee and a new color. Color shirt we've never had before, I think. Is that right? A brand new color. A brand new color altogether. We've never had a shirt this color. Brand new color and I don't color altogether. We've never had a shirt this color. Synthesized in the lab just for this. Yeah. Brand new color.

And, you know, I don't want to give away too much on this, and we're not going to, but there might be a couple of classic items that are available only to supporting members. They will be available only to supporting members. So, asnomix.com slash join. Get the inside scoop on that. Yeah, we won't even be advertising what these items are

to non-supporting members. So if you're not a supporting member, you will never know the answer to these cryptic items that we refer of. I don't even know how you can go about your day after hearing that, not being in the club. Yeah, you will never know but so get your calendar a great piece of uh massonomics paraphernalia every year can't hold anything back this year if that isn't true i don't know what the hell is can't hold anything back this year

it's like my motto it's it's one of the best models right up there with life's a garden dig it that's what i live my life on a quarter mile at a time let's see so we got time we got time for something else here i could what do you want to hear do you or do you want a sack segment i want a sack segment we got a larry puts me in the mood want a sack segment? I want a sack segment. I do have a sack segment. Nothing puts me in the mood like a sack segment. Okay, we got a Larry Legend segment, but maybe we could save that for later too. I do have a sack segment here.

If I could pull something out of my greasy old sack, if you don't mind, I'll dig down deep. I haven't gotten anything out of the sack in a while, so I would guess it's just itching to come out. Yeah, I guess it'll just be popping right out of the sack in a while so i would guess it's just itching to come out yeah yeah i guess it'll just be popping right out of here i barely touched the sack and everything will be coming right out of it i heard recently was i don't know if it was on not unpaid and underrated or what it was people were talking about sack segment uh maybe it's in the discord and just how much more vulgar it used to be oh really it wasn't i don't know i

was like extremely vulgar but maybe i would say just like way more emphasized innuendo yes yeah it was a little more yeah descriptive at the beginning with yes that part i remember so i i'm thinking make what's in tanner sack segment? PG-13 again. Or perverted again. Yeah. So I've got a little sack item here. It's pretty cool. I burst it out of my sack right now. Oh. This is the Barbell Rescue Brush.

And look at this packaging. This is the packaging. Oh, that's the packaging. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is pretty sweet packaging, first of all i don't know some people don't care about that probably but it's like this tube with uh you know uh just one of these form-fitting caps on it that uh works like magic yeah that caught my attention right away yeah so this packaging is pretty sweet right here on this barbell rescue brush so i've heard about these things but i haven't really looked into them yet so i'm well you know how i heard

about this i heard about this on the unpaid and underrated podcast and they have a discount code it's the code is unpaid so you can if anyone's interested in one of these you can support our little baby sister podcast by buying one of these and un paid although i haven't used it yet so i can't give my full testimonial but uh you can get your own and they have color options of this like the inside color option so here's the here's the actual brush and this thing is hefty first of all like much more substantial than the other barbell brushes we have uh but it just pops open like this i got the red one on the inside looks pretty cool and it's got a little does it actually lock close it doesn't really lock but you pull it apart well yeah yeah you just pull it apart it's kind of got like a uh opposite yeah i could just see those tabs. I didn't know if those locked together or not.

No, they don't lock, but I guess you would then have your hand on it when you're doing this. Really giving it the stroke. This is a nice product. I'm not sure what I expected by this, but like I said, I haven't used it yet, but just substantially it feels like you got something here. Sorry, those are just really firm bristles on the inside. Is that what it is?

Yeah, there are nylon. They're not metal bristles, which I know sometimes people like the metal ones because they really dig in there, but also they dig onto your knurling. Yeah, I'm surprised people actually like that. Well, sometimes at powerlifting meets, they have a tendency to use those metal ones

because they really need the... When everyone goes out and takes the chalk block to the bar before they go lift. Right. So I haven't used this yet, but I'm excited to give it a try. Add to the collection of brushes at Massanomics Gym. I would say this.

I could buy a lot of... You can lead a horse to water. You can't make him drink. You can buy all the nicest brushes you want, but sometimes at a gym that isn't your own personal gym, you can't make everyone use them. No, you can't. But this will look nice in the collection of hairbrushes,

toothbrushes, toilet brushes, and barbell brushes right yeah i think we have four now four different varieties of brushes do you really for uh one is the classic nylon brush that's got the rectangular handle with the big it's got a slight curve to a slight arc to it yep i've got the style that uh it's almost kind of like this but it's it's more rubber like it's made to go around but it doesn't go around 360 like this does it just kind of goes around uh-huh like 180 just when you squeeze your hand around it and then i've got a little almost does look more like a toothbrush style do you think everyone's biggest worry about using the brushes is that they're afraid they're going to make a mess on the floor well i think they they're afraid that they're going to get the bars too clean

that's okay i knew it was one of those two they were either concerned about making a mess yeah getting the bars in too good a shape they don't they're going to get the bars too nice and prepared for the next person to use them yeah i could see that like so i can you fault them for that really no they're just thinking of the next guys right i can't really fault them for that so yeah check them out at barbell rescue this is not a paid advertisement i just wanted to try one of these out so check it out i'll i'll i'll come back with a follow-up on if if i think the barbell rescue brush is worth it or not if this could make the gym members use it if that had that feature on it i would buy a bunch of them yeah do you think some people think that maybe they're not supposed to mess with the the chalk on the bars that maybe

that it's supposed to be there right right like like like actually think that well no maybe i'm gonna wreck the bar if i if i do something to this do you think anyone actually think that, well, no, maybe I'm going to wreck the bar if I do something to this. Do you think anyone actually thinks that? Maybe. There might be some people that are pretty noobs off the street that do it. But I usually do a pretty good job of explaining to people that I would like you to clean up the bar. Oh, you do. You do explain.

Yeah, I do that now. I didn't know people. No, that is part of my, that has become part of my orientation now. I mentioned, yeah, put the weights away, put the barbells away, and clean the bar off. Please go ahead. Feel free to use as much chalk as you want. Just clean the bar off when you're done. And I do emphasize that with people.

You don't have to clean anything if you don't use chalk right that's that's also fine like that is also allowed if they would like to not but if you some people use a lot of chalk you know what well it got me thinking i'm like god i couldn't even think of the last time i cleaned a bar off and then i thought about it i couldn't even think the last time i used chalk actually in my life you know granted i haven't used it a year because i moved a year ago and chalk's not allowed here but all right at the one gym I was going to chalk wasn't allowed so it was not it was they said you cannot have chalk here with signs up no chalk allowed but why I've never understood that I mean you kind of get it like how stupid are like a lot

of people going to massonomics gym are above the bottom or most of them are above the bottom tier and they use a lot of chalk so now you get like the dumbest people in there and it's just i can see how it'd be a chalk night i mean some people the idea of dropping a bar four times in a day isn't a weird thing so to let those same people have chalk is well what would be the thing it would just look dirty in there because there's so much chalk around or what would be i can see it already just what i've seen with people they would be chalk everywhere and it'd be to like it be to squat like 185 pounds and it'd be like really we need chalk for this um yeah ideally gym should allow chalk but yeah i think it i can see how it happens for a reason because there's

too many dumb people that yeah don't get it the secret is you don't have a gym that's ever perfectly clean. If everything has just a 5% coating, a 5% dusting of chalk on it all the time, you don't really notice a little minor chalk residue if everything permanently has just a little bit of chalk on it. With that same thought process, you almost don't really need chalk when everything has a 5% chalk dusting on it, because there's just a certain amount of dryness to it already.

I do not use chalk very often anymore. And when I do, I don't have to use that much of it. Well, do you use it on anything besides deadlift? Like 90% of the time, no. The only thing i'll use it on is deadlifts and um the only time i do use it really with deadlifts or if it's maybe bench press i could occasionally use it on bench press but the only reason i use it then is just as a ritual that's like i'm not using it because it's uh because i even think it's doing shit I'm doing it because it's part of like getting myself excited for the lift it's like okay now I'm going

to use chalk like and I even in my mind I think this isn't doing anything for my bench press my hands are fine like I have the bar hasn't been like wanting to roll out of my hands or slide out or anything like that but I just do it because it's like okay now I'll go get chalk and that'll be like the last little level of really getting prepared in my head for this. I totally agree with you. For me, chalk on bench is totally about the ritual. It's this signifying, you know,

the signal to your brain that shit's about to get serious here. And that's about the only time it ever comes out on bench is when we're approaching 95 plus territory otherwise it just feels like it's not worth it at all and then um yeah if you just don't deadlift very much you don't have to worry about really ever using chalk so that makes life a lot easier there yeah or just use straps or uh but most of the time i really i actually don't really care how

much chalk anyone uses but a little bit of chalk does go a long way like in terms of deadlift like you don't actually need very much chalk and especially like you don't got to put it in the palm of your hands you know you get it more right you know like more down towards your fingers the bottom half of your hands is really where it what i kind of like when there's uh the little pieces are you know there's like little pieces left i like taking one of those little pieces and just doing just a little bit of uh painting with that you know too much yeah yeah i like the little pieces you know the dust i can make work but a little piece

is a nice way to just paint it on just a little bit you know rub it in just a little bit you're good to go totally agree a little bit goes a long long ways you know what else goes a long ways supporting our supporting members this is a relatively new segment of the mass dynamics podcast we've probably been only been doing it for i don't know 150 weeks or i'm i'm making that up we haven't been doing that for that long we've maybe been doing it for 100 weeks yeah you, you know, probably not even two years yet. We probably covered in last year's recap episode. If you go back, it's just... Did we find out?

Did we have any factual errors last week that we're aware of? There was something on first Big Jim said that... I saw that, her comment about... That we didn't have the right first contest, but we did have the right first contest. We just had the wrong date. Yeah. That's what it was.

Yeah. Is that the only error we're aware of right now? I think so. Nobody else has pointed anything out. So people, if I found anything about doing this for 401 episodes, people love to point out an error if we make one. So that must mean we didn't make

very many because uh nobody holds back on that stuff so or people just once you make a list of 40 items people quit listening after number three on the list yeah they're like oh i guess i'll just take their word for it so supporting our supporting members is a relatively new segment where we give back to those that support us so first of all just thank you to everyone that is a relatively new segment where we give back to those that support us. So first of all, just thank you to everyone that is a supporting member. We really appreciate it. If you're been on the fence, now would be the perfect time to join up. You get things like access to our Crew Falls meetup. You get early access to our powerlifting meets when we put those on for registration time and Strongman, you get discount codes. You get exclusive merchandise.

We send you free gifts at times. And then sometimes you make it onto supporting our supporting members like Big Jonte did this week. He squatted 584, benched 297, deadlifted 550 for a 1431 total. Converted those to pounds for Jonte. He wouldn't natively speak in pounds. Get the conversion going. Yeah, that's what we do here.

Big Joe set a junior Ohio State records in the total and deadlift and took first place in his class. He did it via a 661 squat. Nice. Or 52 bench and a 716 deadlift. Damn. For a 476 dots. What's that total?

I don't know. I didn't write that down. That's a big total, though. Yeah, that's 18-something. That's 1820 is my rough math. In 1820, he took a little trip. That old song? That's basically what inspired him to lift that much.

And then speaking of big lifts, big performances, big brand. Hit a 617 squat in competition. That was a PR. A 385 bench and a 722 deadlift. And he had a 1725 total which was a pr and a 450 dots so my god what's these guys up to here and then uh big dan with the arm tattoos he said he opened a gym it's uh premeditated health and performance in lafayette indiana wow do you think they give tattoos at the gym health and performance in Lafayette, Indiana. Wow.

Do you think they give tattoos at the gym? I would hope that's the first reason I would go. I'd be like, where do you get these tattoos? Like you, Dan, it's like they're on the arms. Yeah. That's a, that's what I want to know. And then last but not least a big David, big David Hunter was the guest this weekend, unpaid and underrated. So go give that a listen and find out more about one of our supporting members, Big David.

So thank you, supporting members. Tommy, what do you think about, do we got time for an ad or two? Oh, we got time. We will make time. Yeah. Should I do one or do you want to do one? Take it away. All right. No, you know what? You know what? I want to go time. Yeah. Should I do one or do you want to take it away? All right. No, you know what?

You know what? I want to go first. Okay. I just you're not first. You're last. I've just seen if you're paying attention there, Tanner, and you were. So I had to switch it up on you. You passed the test.

Today's show is brought to you by Texas Power Bars. Buddy Caps first started lifting weights in the late 60s and began powerlifting 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. Fast forward to today, and Buddy has revolutionized the bar world, with his newest addition being the 29-millimeter Texas Power Bar. It's strong as a house with the best knurling, and it's maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national, world, and international 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 this episode is also brought to you by our fine, upstanding South Dakotan friends over at Build Fast Formula. Build smart, build strong, build fast. Buildfastformula.com. We're going to be building fast this weekend when we're all trying some drink hack

before our Crew Falls meetup event. We're going to sample drink hack. I have not had it yet, so we'll see how that helps us feel on Sunday. Also on, hey, I got an idea. Maybe on Saturday for the lifting, I'll bring the Veso Blitz. Oh, boy. So we can also, everyone can sample some Veso Blitz that hasn't had it yet. We're going to walk into the bar and they're going to say,

these guys are all hopped up on Veso Blitz and drink hack. Look out, everyone. So we will sample Veso Blitz. You can sample all of these, too, even if you're not coming to Crew Falls. You can sample them. By sample them, I mean you can purchase them. And when you purchase them, use discount code MASSANOMICS at buildfastformula.com. That'll save you 10% off your order.

You can also sign up for a subscription. That'll save you an additional 10%. You add those up together. It's almost free. Thank you, BuildFast. All right, ready to get our guest in here? Yeah, is he ready? He just came on.

All right, did you give the boot to the live listeners too? Thank God. I was getting sick of those guys. There he is. Oh. I understand that for Angelo, but, come on i'm the good looking one of the group yeah well you really are good looking tonight wow dressed to impress thank you sir yeah i i gotta i gotta support it when i'm coming on thank you guys for having me the the lift shirt

for anyone that's just audio only listening big steve rocking the original blue lift shirt looking sharp as ever yes sir congrats on 400 episodes gentlemen that is that is uh as that is something to be proud of as that's awesome and you guys deserve it uh been a staple of the community for a while and appreciate you all having me on so oh thank you a staple of the community whether the community likes it or not damn it some guys just don't know when to quit not we not everyone is brian there are some people who do like you ah you're familiar with brian that uh i followed that very closely that's been one of my favorite stories in powerlifting recently uh you know it that's

just a great testament to how well uh some negative comments can really help just like they i don't think they understand how much help they're being at times when they do that like i can't we haven't had anything come up as of late that as many people in the community that have messaged how they really are enjoying the brian thing as what happened with the brian thing oh yeah and that's the best way to go about it too like i mean i do you guys know how bad journalism came about that's it's the exact same thing i mean like if you if you try and like take shots you just turn it into a joke and it makes it so much better and that's the best way to police it too no one's gonna want to go at you when they know you're just gonna get turned into a viral joke about yourself so that

that is the classic formula uh okay so for anyone listening that's not aware, we've got one of the co-hosts of two white lights on big Steve DeNovi also owns runs coach of PRS. What's PRS stand for? Progressive resistance systems, which probably no one knows. I ended up becoming PRS performance. Yeah. Instagram handle. That's what people know me as. So I roll with it. Okay. And I don't know why I'm saying PRS in my head i say prs also but uh i suppose any any combination but say again what did it what did actually the acronym is what progressive resistance systems okay sounds is it important for people to know that though really no not really at all i would this is like this is bad

like when i first started like actually i think it's a pretty good name because it's an odd one that i got away with that somehow i now and since i'm putting quotes air quotes i own uh because it's so generic yet at the same time like anytime says prs and it's coaching related it's me but no i was just kind of like okay all these it's rts it's tsa it's tsg like i've got to have an acronym like that's just that's just what you do and so i was like all right what acronym works and so progressive resistance that's the foundation of power lifting and you got to throw systems at the end of your coaching name you're not legitimate so prs it is yeah it's the systems that really uh at least that really takes it to another level too yeah Yeah, yeah. You got to have a system.

Okay, we've got a lot of topics to talk to you about. We'll certainly talk to you about coaching. We'll talk to you about Two White Lights. Coincidentally, Two White Lights, you're over 200 episodes now also, aren't you? I mean, it's been that way for a while, but it's quite a few over 200 by now probably, right? Yeah, we'd be at 300 if we still actually recorded podcasts, but that's been a few over 200 by now, probably. Right. Yeah. We'd be at 300 if we

still actually recorded podcasts, but that's been a, that's been a little bit more troublesome lately. But yeah, we're over 200. So we we've done halfway decent too. We haven't gotten canceled yet. So has it been a more troublesome lately just with schedules between the two of you when you say that? Yeah. So Angelo, so if you guys know Angelo's a teacher, correct? Yeah. Yes. So for the majority of his time as a teacher, he worked part time. He's now full time. And so during the school year, it makes it really, really tough because one, he gets off at like six and then two, I don't know if you guys ever been to Houston, but Houston traffic means one mile is one hour. And so I also, you guys are lucky. I usually go to bed at eight 30. So, uh, him getting home

usually at like eight 30 half the time means we don't get to record very often. So yeah, we, it's been a little bit of a struggle, uh, uh, time-wise to get as many, many, uh, podcasts in lately. So what time does he normally train? Like what does his schedule look like for that? I mean, he usually goes, I think his, the gym is pretty close to his school. Uh, cause he's actually, he actually just started a high school team. Um, that's been a big thing lately and they train at that gym in the morning, but he goes straight there afterwards. He's usually training at night. Like I want to say he's training like seven to nine ish. That's my guess. I don't, I don't have confirmation there, but he, he's a late trainer. Yeah. Um, do you guys, do you feel

pressure then? Like, well, you know, like you said, you've been unable to record as frequently as you'd like to. Do you, does that eat at you or like, does it bother you? Are you, do you start to feel like, oh, we really need to get something out there? Like what, or is it just like, well, that's just the, that's just what our schedules allow right now. Probably a little bit of both. I'd like to do more, but at the same time, I have so many other content things I'm putting out that are just not that just

content in general. I look at it as like a whole, like there's two white lights. There's my YouTube, there's power lifting. Now I have so much stuff going out, at least on my end that I don't ever feel like I'm lagging behind because there's every single week, there's something I have coming out. At least that's kind of keeping things relevant, whether it's the coaching side, the Powerlifting Now side or Two White Lights. So when there's an emergency thing, we make sure to hop on. But yeah, I would like to be able to get on a little bit more, but I'm completely fine with the fact that if we're doing one every two weeks, I can live with that.

Yeah, okay. So one of the – as you know, we don't talk about lifting all that much around here. Every once in a while we hit on it a little bit and we're at least always aware of things that are going on. You know, we're not aware of the finer details, but we're aware of the headlines, at least of what's going on throughout the sport and especially in uh you know drug tested powerlifting we're aware of the headlines but we're not deeply deeply entrenched in everything that's going on but luckily we've got you steve to help fill us in and part of it it seems like there's a lot going on right now with the uh with everything going on you know yeah with everything going on with uh powerlifting america usapl and i don't even know like where to first narrowly focus in on the question like what that first question is but uh like my thought is like what is going on yeah and we we are the center of all drama because we end up knowing way too much

because everyone wants to come dm us anything they have yeah uh i mean it's it's a similar drama has been going on is the fact that we had this split from USA getting kicked out and it really just kind of created this divide. And I would say at first, I think the majority stuck with USAPL because it was what they were familiar with. Frankly, they just had more options.

They still, to this day, we're going to have more options. They have 20 something thousand members. I don't know how, I mean, any given weekend, there's 20 meets meets there is more options as a whole for the general local average power lifter but uh after the split happened usapl developed this pro series system that had a lot of appeal and i think a lot of people uh like the idea of what that could bring and it really hasn't panned out because at least within us apl what we kind of see is the leadership they they they can't decide what they want to do

they've got the world cup and then they've got the pro series and then they've got the euro tour they can't really decide what they want to do with their federation. And so I think most of the elite level lifters are kind of just like, this really isn't kind of giving me any type of motivation for like, what is this general route of where I'm supposed to go? And it's supposed to like this tier level of competition where that was the thing, you know what, for all the, the, the issues the IPF has, they have a really good system. You qualify for worlds, you go to worlds, you compete. And then the trump card has been Sheffield. That really became like the mic drop

that more so SBD had than the IPF. That really has been the appealing factor of like, here is this very distinct stepping stone and annual kind of cycle that you can go through in this tier elite competition. That's just really, really appealing. And I can't blame them. I mean, they've just done a really, really good job. And you know exactly what you're getting. You know what you're going to get when you go to Worlds. We know what we're going to get now when you go to Sheffield. It's consistent. So yeah, I think we, I mean, really, other than a couple situations, pretty much everyone who's at the top level and like could be a world level contender, I think, is pretty much making that switch. The only thing holding people back is still Article 14, which are how how how I've heard you reference it before, but I don't really I don't really know.

I have no idea what this is. So now you really got my attention. Got it. Well, I can this can be 45 minutes straight of me ranting because Article 14 is is it's legitimately the the worst rule in all of powerlifting um so this is a powerlifting america rule no it's an ip it is an ipf rule is this the bench is different no the bench rule this is worse than the bench oh my opinion oh it gets worse okay so it's almost hard to explain because it's so vague because they make it in the rule rules incredibly vague because then they can apply it however they deem fit. But basically is you cannot as a coach, an athlete, really even as a volunteer and a ref do participate in any non water sanctioned event. That's the rule. Yeah. A bowling league is a nonADA sanctioned event. That's the rule. A bowling league is a non-WADA sanctioned event.

I don't know if you guys saw my ranting. I held a seminar last year that was deemed a non-WADA sanctioned event and Jesus Olivares was contacted by the IPF saying you cannot attend this event and participate in the tandem deadlift or you'll receive a suspension. and participate in the tandem deadlift or you'll receive a suspension. I, as a coach, cannot currently coach in IPF-affiliated events because I coach also in USAPL, WRPF, or USPA.

I am suspended. I can't coach at Sheffield. That's a whole weird situation as well of the things that I was told that I would need to do if I wanted to coach at Sheffield, that's a whole weird situation as well of the things that I was told that I would need to do if I wanted to coach at Sheffield. But it is just an absolutely horrible rule on all rounds. The coach one is the one that makes no sense. But it's very oddly applied to because there are a lot of people, there's probably hundreds, if not thousands of people who break the Article 14 rule, but they don't suspend them. Do they have actual language around what classifies as a non-WADA event though? Nope. That's purely what it is. I mean, you could make

the argument that going to work is a non-WADA event, you know, it's. Correct. And this is not a WADA based rule. I actually have a screenshot of an email from someone who emailed USADA saying, is this an actual WADA based rule? And they said, no, this, this has nothing to do with, you can, you, WADA does not ban you from competing in other events. Like that's not our rule, but it is under jurisdiction. That's not our rule, but it is under jurisdiction. If one of our affiliates wants to make this rule, they could, but it actually is illegal based off of EU and US law.

Pretty just blatantly illegal. It's such a blanket, vague rule. Okay, so I guess with that, is there any other sports that even have a rule that's even similar to this in any way? So in EU law, I think it was 2021, figure skating had a rule like this. And there was a lawsuit somewhere in the European Union and the figure skating lost. They were not allowed. Everything was dropped. Not only the coaching, but the athlete, every aspect of it was dropped because it was not allowed.

Because it's the same thing like you think about, okay, we're trying be WADA compliant as the IPF because we want to get the Olympics. It doesn't, anyone in the U.S. just can, who's not brain dead can realize, well, NBA players don't only compete in the Olympics. They also compete in the NBA. Like they're not drug tested by WADA. And also lots of like pro players then go help out on their kids, youth league football team and stuff like that, you know, and they're not getting banned from the NFL for that type of stuff. Wouldn't it though. I don't, what I don't understand is I see,

I see how it's directly affecting you. Obviously with you coaching, you coach a lot of lifters, a lot of drug tested power lifters. Some of those, a lot of those are going to be in USAPL, but there'd certainly be high likelihood of some of them competing in Powerlifting America. And people like you, I'm just thinking others like, I don't know, the strength athlete, Mike Deshear,

I could continue to list a bunch. Wouldn't they also have that same crossover a lot of the time? Oh, Flex, Joey Flex, like his group. Wouldn't they be coaching USAPL and Powerlifting America? Some coaches just haven't made the decision. Joey Flex was suspended, and he's made the decision. I've seen him multiple times in crowds this year rather than coaching to not coach at USAPL meets anymore so that he can serve his 12-month suspension

and be able to coach in the IPF again. What does a suspension actually mean? Like what does that entail actually? So in their definition, it's called being ineligible. I'm going to call it a suspension because let's just call it what it is. So once you, it's not coaching in USAPL that gets you suspended. It's once you're under the jurisdiction of the IPF in some way, you then can no longer then go back to the USAPL. So my suspension was incurred because last February,

a week before Powerlifting American Nationals, I finally bought my membership. I purposely waited so that I wasn't under their jurisdiction until the last second. I then coached Natalie Richards and Waskar Carpio at Powerlifting American Nationals. Then the week after, I then coached at the Arnold. And then that's when my suspension started because I was under the jurisdiction. I was a Powerlifting America

member. So therefore, now when I go coach at a USAPL event, I am in violation of Article 14 and I was deemed suspended. Interesting thing though, there is no formal written suspension. There's no list. You're just supposed to know. And also say like what Joey's doing, for example, like coaching, you know, he's, so he's, he doesn't have a coach pass. He's not in the warmup room physically coaching, but if he's at the event, obviously, I mean, like, he can provide his insight to someone that wants... I just think it's a really odd line to be drawn of, like, where are these lines drawn?

But, I mean, do they not allow you into events, or do they just not allow you to be back behind the... You just can't. You cannot be back coaching. You can be a spectator. And they actually made a new rule due to Joey, because Joey would have, like, a walkie- talkie or some type of like right that's what i'm starting to think yeah they've now banned that too so like you can't communicate with athletes while they're

warming up essentially is what they're trying to do he did i believe he did it at ipf worlds because he was not allowed to coach at ipF Worlds and they no longer allow communication devices between handlers in the back room and coaches as spectators. How about a cell phone? Then I'm like, what are you, you know, like. So like it just starts to be ridiculous kind of, I think. Well, okay. And so there's so many levels of this that are comical.

Okay, a couple of quick ones. Who actually enforces this though? Who's on the lookout? Who's handing out these fires essentially so in sense there is no policing of it it is fully tattletailing so someone's someone even better reporting you even better incentive for everyone else to try and like and so go after everyone else yeah the actual in the grand scheme of international competition the main reason it gets enforced is other countries tattletailing on other countries as a competitive advantage to get their people suspended. That's the number one way.

The other way is like myself. One, I'm very open about it. And then two, since I have a decent following on social media, you can see that I'm going to these meets. You can see me on the live streams. It's not being hidden in any way. So it just is kind of known. A lot of coaches who are not as known can kind of do it and never get caught because no one's really caring or watching. So yeah, it's just, it's, it's legitimate. You guys are listening. It's legitimately almost hard to describe this and like comprehend because it's just the dumbest feasible rule you can imagine. Like it makes no sense. And the thought process is for the integrity of drug testing.

Well, because they don't want you going going outside of what a jurisdiction because they are too lazy to spend the money, in my opinion, not my opinion, this is actually kind of the truth. The easy thing that you do is they remain like an athlete or a coach, if you want to do with the coach, they can go do other things, but they remain within an OMT testing pool. And so you can continue to out of meet test them while they go do other things. Well, that costs money. That costs a couple thousand dollars of drug tests. So what's the easier way to do it? Just not allow it in general. Yeah.

Oh man. I feel like that's, to me, that's always the fatal flaw of tested powerlifting is that they just, it's like, you can't, they just get so in their own head and like, you can't be tested. It's like when politicians like frame, everything is is like we're doing it to save the kids. And like tested powerlifting have this well we're doing it to save every to make sure no one's cheating when they're also overlooking like major flaws in the system that do exist that would potentially stop cheating but okay so does that, how long until this is challenged in a court of law in some way? Like that's got to happen, right? We'll see. I've heard some people looking into it, but here's the issue is, I mean, that costs money. Right. That costs a lot of money to take a large scale organization to court and a lot of time too. So it's kind of who's going to do it.

Uh, so it's kind of who's, who's going to do it. Like it's, yeah, that is the problem again, is that there's just so little money in power lifting compared to even something like figure skating where there probably is a lot of money in it and people can do that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like for myself, like it, it, it kind of hurts me, I guess. Like it doesn't necessarily, I mean, it hurts me in the sense that I would like at Sheffield, I would love to coach Natalie at Sheffield, but I can't, that sucks, but it's not hurting

me financially necessarily. Like I'm not suffering because of it. So while I would love the rule to go away and I would love to sue them, I also don't want to spend that amount of time and that amount of money and take away from other things. Like it's just financially, that's not a risk I want to take. That's not a time commitment I want to take because that's going to be time away from work and or my wife. And like, it's just, it's one of those things,

they just kind of know someone's not going to do it. So they're just going to keep enforcing it until, and just until someone finally pulls the trigger or yeah, I don't know. Wow. What do you, what do you think? Um, so we were talking, we talked about the sort of an exodus of the top level tested power lifters from USAPL to Powerlifting America IPF. Will there be any incentive for mid-tier lifters to try and make that switch? Will they make that switch? Does Powerlifting America want them to switch? Like what's the dynamic there with like not the top level guys,

but say the next tier, the next two tiers down or you could go all the way to the bottom like what is the outlook of that i would even say if you're not let's say top 10 in your weight class is there any incentive to be a part of powerlifting america even so i mean powerlifting america would love to have them i'm sure they're not going to turn them down i i think still it would probably be a better option to stay USAPL. I know Powerlifting America is trying to look for avenues of how they can add meets. I mean, for the USAPL, they have the Arnold. That's my favorite meet every year. That is such a cool meet to go to. Right now, Powerlifting America, they have the NAPF championships. I don't even know if you guys know what that is or do you even know what NAPF is?

So, okay. So Powerlifting America is the US affiliate. NAPF is North American Powerlifting Federation. That's all of our region. That's Canada, Mexico, all the region. So they have NAPF meets that you can go to. They're not really that cool. No one really likes them that much.

They do what they have to. So yeah, I really think right now, like if you're kind of that, if you're not really in cool. No one really likes them that much. They do it when they have to. So yeah, I really think right now, like if you're kind of that, if you're not really in that like top five bubble where you feel like you could make a running in the next one, two, three years, it possibly getting a world's team spot. I mean, I have a lot of lifters who are kind of in that spot and they're going to stay USAPL because it just kind of makes more sense because it's USAPL still

is by far the bigger organization. They have a lot more opportunities. I mean, the Arnold finals is going to have a $20,000 payout for first place. And now with everyone leaving, that's pretty nicely open to someone who thought they would probably never even win that. Things like that. So yeah, I mean, I still think USAPL is going to be remained very, very relevant. I do not think that's going away.

USAPL is going to be remained very, very relevant. I do not think that's going away. The only thing I can see them kind of going towards is kind of becoming the new USPA drug tested because USPA drug tested had a ton of members. They're great. They just weren't super competitive, although they had 15,000 something members competing on an annual basis. It could go that direction. But yeah, kind of like you alluded to, I mean, I think a lot of people, at least for now and that like next year will stay because why go over and lose to Ashton by a hundred kilos? Or like I have my lifter, Natalie Richards. I had the closest person to her in America is like 50 kilos behind. Like what, like, is it fun just to go lose to her and not really have a competition afterwards to compete at. Do you know in America, how many powerlifting America meets take place in a year? I do not. I know they have, I was, cause I literally just had a phone call with the

executive committee member recently. They have about 3000 members. So I don't know how many meets, but about 3000 members versus USAPL has about 25,000. And then like USPA, I think has like 15 to 20. I'll be, I, that was the numbers from last year. I have no idea what happened this year with the craziness of what happened on the, the, the USPA side and the cancellation and split there. Right. Uh, so, but I mean, do you know how many, like, I've never even, and not that I've looked that hard into it, but I don't even know. I mean, in our part of the country, if a powerlifting America affiliate or meet even exists, like, I don't know if, if you're in the, if you could get to one within eight hours of you. Probably not. Cause they're very centralized. Cause what happened in the split

is there, there are, there are, there are certain meet directors who kind of do it full time. Like you have some meet directors who kind of, they host one, two meets a year. And then you have some meat directors who host meets every single month. They kind of got territories. So like Florida, Pennsylvania, and then like Nevada are, are three of the territories where they kind of got the full-time meat directors that switched over to them. There's a couple more too, but that was kind of more what happened.

Like if you look at powerlifting America, there's definitely like certain States that are very dominant and have the vast majority of the meats right now. Okay. So there, there are, if you are to look at the map of the country, there would be entire like blackout zones where, where affiliates meets just don't exist at all. Yeah. Like I'm in Missouri. There's never been a power of thing, America meet in Missouri. That doesn't exist okay so when when is usapl raw nationals what month is that september so when september comes around this next time what will it mean to win usapl raw nationals now then because like historically that's a big deal

um is it i'm not gonna i'm not saying there's a ton of lifters in the Federation. So obviously it's not not a big deal, but it's definitely not the same, right? Like it's not. No, you can just straight say it doesn't mean the same thing. It won't. It really won't. And that's unfortunate. It's something that pains me. I I oddly never had.

I've had two world champion IPF world champions. I've never coached a usapl national champion i've had multiple silver medalists multiple bronze medals i do not have a national champion it pains me that during like this era of like high level competition in usapl i can never say i had a national champion because starting this year it's just never going to be the same because pretty much every person that's going to win nationals for USAPL is not going to be able to win powerlifting American nationals. It's just like we always considered USPA drug tested nationals there. If you won that, it doesn't mean you're a national champion. You're just

second tier to whoever won USAPL nationals. Now it's going to be USAPL nationals, second tier to whoever won powerlifting American nationals. And so it will still be competitive because, frankly, just the U.S. is so deep in talent. And we have a lot of people every single year that just come out of nowhere and are just ridiculously strong. But, yeah, it unfortunately just won't mean the same anymore. And I know neither of the organizations would want to look at it like this, but it'd be simpler if probably everyone could embrace it. Pro is a weird word because it insinuates being compensated financially, and I know that's not exactly

explicitly what's going on, but really, it's just going to be like the pro division and everyone else, just like a lot of sports are, where it's like, nope, this is where you go if you are the best in the world. You are in this. Everyone else, which is where you go. If you are the best in the world, you are in this. Everyone else, which is going to be 95% of the population doing this or 99% of the population, you're in this one.

Yep. And that actually works great. That was actually something USAPL proposed before the split and got turned down by the IPF because the IPF was not going to allow it within the same organization. They were going to require two different organizations to do that. But yeah, I don't disagree. Like Power of Thing America, if all of a sudden USA PLC is to exist,

Power of Thing America could not handle it. They do not have the current, nor do I expect them to. It's not like to their fault. Like you can't grow from 3,000 to 25,000 overnight. They don't have the infrastructure to handle it. And like I was was at powerlifting American nationals last year. It was a great meet, but if all of a sudden they had 600 lifters, it would not have been a great meet. Like they couldn't, they couldn't have done it. Like they, they functioned really well being this kind of

just this, this distinct route to go to an international level. And then basically everyone else filtered themselves within us apl it works out well that way what do you think untested power lifting let me know if you can think of it in your opinion what does untested power lifting do better than tested power lifting what what have they gotten more right? I won't like my answer, but I don't think they've really anything. Well, that's why that's the question, because I didn't know if you would have an obvious answer for that or not, if there's anything that comes to mind. I'm not anti-untested powerlifting, but one, they tend to do everything wrong. They constantly fight each other. And the biggest thing right now that I worry the future of untested powerlifting is there's now

more money on tested. That used to be the thing. That was the big thing forever is there was no money on the tested side. So if you wanted to make money and you wanted to do these big money meets, you had to go to untested. That's no longer the case in any way, shape or form. Like by far, tested powerlifting has more money involved, not only for payouts for meets, but also sponsorships like SBD and what they pay their athletes for winning worlds is more than anything that any untested meet pays John Hack to win right now.

I mean, it's like basically everything we're saying is because of SBD, isn't it? Like. I mean, it's like basically everything we're saying is because of SPD, isn't it? Like, I mean, yeah, no, it's just SPD.

It's like to specifically say it it's, it is SPD right now. Right. Like I guess at the Arnold, maybe rogue a little bit too, but you're right. A little bit. Yeah.

Right. So that, I think that's a good, I'm going to get back to untested. Cause I've got one little thing I want to point out with untested, but I think it's a good thing I'm going to get back to untested because I've got one little thing I want to point out with untested. But I think it's a good thing that it's SBD because the IPF cares about getting the Olympics. That's their goal.

The USAPL cares about getting back at the IPF right now. That's kind of their goal. Neither of them has the goal of truly the lifters in mind. And what can we do to make this sport mainstream well that's SPD's goal SPD's goal is how can we actually make this a multi multi multi-million dollar sport and get coverage to it and they actually I think have the vision aligned with what the lifters want and it works out perfect that way and Um, and I think it's a really good, happy medium to have them kind of controlling that Avenue and being that, that, that way to elevate power lifting how they are. So I love it in that sense. I'm, I tell people now I'm not team

USAPL. I'm not team IPF. I'm team SBD, like whatever they're going to do. I'm on board with it. So do they have, do they have plans to do more than one Sheffield type event a year though? Because that, I would also say that's a huge problem is that to have one major like sleek produced meat a year also isn't enough to get people interested either though, is it? I, I, so I don't know how much Alana to say, cause I do know a little bit. I don't think they're going to do another Sheffield cause you can't, you can't have multiple big meets like power. There's aren't going to compete five times. Yeah. Like it works really nicely to have two to three meets a year. And that's always been about the most you want to do. Back before the split, it was you did nationals.

You did world. You did the Arnold. Now it's you do nationals world. And if you get to Sheffield, you do Sheffield. So two to three meets a year. nationals, worlds. And if you get to Sheffield, you do Sheffield. So two to three meets a year. I mentioned Powerlifting America could have more options for meets for higher level lifters if they don't make it to worlds. That's where I kind of know of SBD trying to get more involved there, which they just did. They just helped out a lot with that meet down in Texas that you guys might have saw that a bunch of people did for a qualifier meet with Ashton and Bob and a bunch of others. They sponsored that. They did the payouts there. I know that's something they're looking to expand there. So, okay.

So potentially that almost be almost like a consolation type bracket for the people. Okay. I could see that. So, um, but here I'm going to get, I'm going back to the untested. This is my, my little, this is my little, uh, opinion here, but I think it's a pretty true opinion. This is my little opinion here, but I think it's a pretty true opinion. The best untested lifters in the world were prior the best tested lifters. Because frankly, the best genetic talent pool in the world currently lies in the tested division. That's just, I mean, like if you put Perk and Ashton and those people on steroids,

they're going over just like John Hack and absolutely destroying things on the untested side. Well, what's the incentive now for Perk or Ashton to go over? Like I said, there's not more money. There's not more opportunities. There's not better meats now that we have Sheffield throwing the trump card on everyone. I don't think we're, I don't know if we'll get another John Hack. I don't know if it'll happen because I don't think that elite level of genetic talent is going to have any interest in hopping on steroids anymore since the opportunities are less. It's mainly going to be that kind of like slightly lower tier where they're going to be a fantastic untested lifter, but we're not going to have

the John Hacks anymore. I think that's a big issue that lies ahead for untested lifter but we're not going to have the john hacks anymore i i think that's a big issue that lies ahead for untested is you're not going to see that elite genetic talent pool hop on performance enhancing drugs and see these just insane humans do things i mean it's i this is this is a kind of a contested thing where i know some of the untested lifters don't love that this has been kind of thrown in their face but jesus Jesus Oliveira is breaking the all-time world record in a division that should be dominated by untested lifters was kind of a bit of a slap in the face that the strongest human being on this planet now is natural. Yeah. Okay. So you have, you have a couple of things here. I've actually never thought about it from that angle before. I do think that

is really interesting. I mean, there's no surprise that when you do look that the numbers that the untested are that sorry the numbers that the tested guys have right now like 10 years ago you know only the craziest guys on all the steroids like that seemed like that was the only way to get there now you have just this guy's uh 20 years old and he hasn't done any drugs and now he has like a 2 000 pound total like where's that coming from so that makes that start to look a little more um like yeah you put it you put it good there like what's the point of going there but but do you think though like is there ever a guy that that's just why you're different that okay he is that top top genetic talent and he goes you know what I really do want to see how far I can take that. You don't think that'll come up, come around again. It could, but like, let's use,

I'm going to go back to John half because he's, he's, he's the man. He's the guy that did that. And it's just destroying every record. He did it at the time because at that time, that was where he said it. I that's where I get to go to the big meets and actually start making more money. Like that's how I can make money. But a different question here though. Also though, it's not, it's the same thing with like pro athletes. Yeah, they make a certain money from competing, but they also make a certain amount of money from their persona offline and everything.

Do you think John Hack's legend of who he is changes if he doesn't go on drugs? Like does he have potentially these other revenue streams from other things if he doesn't go on drugs? Like, does he have potentially these other revenue streams from other things if he doesn't do the drug route? I do agree with that because I don't think he does to an extent. We don't see the men on the tested side quite getting the same social media following. The women do. Like you got the Jessica Bittner's, the Leobold Law. Honestly, the women on tested tend to get more social media traction. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. The men, though, I think the crossover happens to the general Jimbrough.

They like saying even because I think the general Jimbrough doesn't know that a lot of the tested lifters are actually setting records right now. They just see the fact that there's these big jack dudes deadlifting a thousand pounds. Yeah. And I think they know they're, they know they're on steroids and the fact that they're on steroids makes it even like cooler kind of because they're like, Oh, they're there. They don't. Yeah. So I do agree with that.

I actually do think at least on the untested side, on the men's side, there's an aspect where there's a persona from the general public as well as a physique aspect that's especially yes i do especially once you get over like that 220 pound mark the physique game is totally different for those guys you know the yeah because like ashton jacked but he's not lean anymore like you see ashton with the shirt off he's he's not lean bob isn't necessarily six pack shredded you get a 242 on the untested side, dude shreds the bones and has veins on his abs. So yeah, so yes, I do agree there.

I think that that could, if someone is long-term thinking enough that they see like the marketing aspect and the potential revenue from sponsors and not just the meet opportunities. I do agree there, but that's also incredibly hard to do too, though. Like that's a lot of stuff has to go perfect for that to play out. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So, but that's just, like I said, I don't, I don't dislike untested lifting. If everyone just hopped on steroids and we had the craziest thing ever,

I'd watch it. It'd be cool. I still think the coolest meet ever to put on television would be a deadlift only meet with like Griggs and Jamal and all the best. Just deadlift only and just thousand pound deadlifts, lift after lift after lift of the untested guys. It's just that I just don't know if we're going to see the same crossover in the future. Because in the era before, all the people you looked up to were untested. We had the Stan Efferdings, the Dan Greens. They were the ones really kind of leading the charge on the raw side. We saw all the money on that side, and it's really taken a big shift. In the tested side of powerlifting amongst the elite male lifters,

I'm really not asking about anyone in particular, not asking you to point out anyone particular, but you being in those conversations in this tight knit community, the community within a community, what, uh, what is the perception? is cheating that they're skirting the system that there are any non-natural but test passing power lifters in tested power lifting right now in the top level of us apl or more relevant power lifting america ipf if we're saying us no i don't believe so i i think every single yeah and i really do mean us like i not uh, I don't know. Well, we already know IPF has its own problems. Right, right, right, right. Well, uh, this goes way back five, six years ago, Chad Wesley Smith and Max Ada did a podcast on steroids and they said, it's not based off of what number someone hits. It's what country are

they from? And I very much believe that. I think that's the best way to determine if someone's awesome no i i fully believe that uh all of the best u.s lifters are natural um i i have very little doubt about that um ashton is a good example because i'm good friends with ashton and it's fun talking to him. Ashton is, is, is very, uh, ignorant to the fact that not everyone is like him. Um, like when I've talked to him and I've kind of said like, I suck at lifting, blah, blah, blah. He's like, dude. Oh yeah. Just, you just got to lift more. Just do more. Yeah. Like just put more on and do that and then put more on and do that. Yeah. Yeah. That's not, that's not how it works for me, man. That's just like, I get that. Like every single time you just added more weight, you just got stronger and then you ate more and you got stronger.

Yeah, that doesn't work for me. I tried it for 15 years. I, yeah, I don't, I still don't look, well, I really don't look like I lift now because I don't try to, but no, I very firmly believe all of the top people are. And I think we've seen some people almost get to the top and then they get caught before.

The, the number one that, that got close. I don't know if you guys remember him, Ogden, Michael bust. Do you remember that name? I don't think so.

I feel like that's a name I would remember if I, this is 2017 or 2018. He beat, he was coached by a TSA strength athlete coach, not Bryce. He was coached by Chris Aiden when he was with him. Broke Bryce's American record total. And that meet, he tested positive. So, I mean, were they going head to head in that meet?

Like, was it a? No, it was just a local meet. Oh, a local, okay. So, now I will say, I mean, the USAPL had the split because of apparently their terrible drug testing. But I frankly think the USAPL's drug testing is great. I do know Power of Think America, if you don't know, they don't drug test at a local level right now in any really in any way, shape or form. They have a plan to do that. to do that. But that's the main reason why I think it's worked well, because almost everyone,

at least it's up until now has tended to get caught before they get to that point. I think it's been very hard to get to that point and not get caught because versus if USAPL disappears and everyone's powerlifting America and the current drug testing stays the same where they only drug tested nationals. Maybe some people kind of wiggle through, but I just it just hasn't happened. I just I think is the system that U.S. has had in place has been a really good one. And I don't think many people have gotten very far. I mean, Jamal Browner got to nationals before he got popped. And that was before he was really even like a top five level lifter.

Yeah, I think most people get caught before they really kind of get going and get to that level. Shifting gears a little bit here. In your opinion, is there any correlation between a coach's, a powerlifting coach's personal strength and their effectiveness at coaching other lifters? Is there any correlation of that? Any? Yes. Which is, might say no, because I'm not strong. No, that's not, no, I'm, and I don't, that's not what, even what I'm getting at, but I think it's a fair question because I think a lot of people think like,

that's like, say you're new into powerlifting and you want to coach, you might search out the strongest person that also says they're coaching. And I think we know a lot of times that might not be the advice you would give someone. Yep. So that's what, that's why I ask, like, is there any correlation? Yes, there is, there is, there is a point to that like there is a correlation so i there are hundreds i we actually just did a podcast on this for power now hundreds of tools in a coach's toolbox that makes them a good coach the more tools you have, the better. One of the tools is being very strong yourself and having that experience. But that is one of 500 tools. And are you going to weight that tool

as the only tool you care about? I would hope not. Is there any correlation that could be beneficial that someone has had that experience? I think so. Like, I mean, that's the tool I don't have. I think that's valid. If you want to say that if someone says they really value that as a tool, I don't have that tool, but I have 499 other tools that I think I'm pretty good at that a lot of people who are really strong and just kind of dumb don't have.

So you can choose that one tool over the 499 others, or you can choose the 499 others and say, eh, if they're not super strong, that's all right. Now I would say to an extent, if a coach has never tried, like they were just kind of always just never really tried to be strong and they had terrible work ethic. I think that's a little bit more of an issue of like not having that tool of like actually putting yourself through the ability of trying to maximize your potential and doing this for years on end and getting that experience, going through setbacks, getting injured, having to come back and PR your total abs, all these little things. But yes, there is a correlation. That is a tool in your toolbox to have that experience, to be in those situations that

high level meets, to lift maximal weights and know what it is, but that's just one of many tools. And so it's, I would never say it doesn't matter, but it matters a very, very small amount in the grand scheme of things. Um, I mean, frankly, I, I, every single lifter I coach is stronger than me. And I don't think any of them are saying that they're held back because I'm weaker. Yeah, that's fair. That's kind of what the input. I was curious that we might get on that. What, what Springfield are the Simpsons from Illinois? Not, not, not mine. Okay. Unfortunately, is that a fact?

That there's Springfield Illinois. I'm pretty sure it is. I think that's, I think that's a, that's a fact that they're Springfield? I'm pretty sure it is. I think that's, I think that's a, that's a fact that they're Springfield at Illinois. I might be wrong. Or do they try to keep it ambiguous? I think it's ambiguous. I think it really is ambiguous. Okay. We can claim it then.

Okay. My, my Springfield is known for Bass Pro. We're the headquarters of Bass Pro Shop. Don't get ahead of us. We got, we got more, we got more on that. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Slow it down. I don't even know what this question is, but I just think, Tommy and I talked about it, it's odd to us that there's little scandals within, say, the tested powerlifting side that seem really trivial.

I also got to say, before Tanner even gets into whatever question you might have here, what's also funny to me, because, you know, you got your finger on the pulse. You know what's going on. I just, I'm on Instagram, and typically what I see is, like, subpar powerlifting memes or something have a meme

that seems very specific to a specific event. And I'm like, it feels like there's a story here I don't understand, and then I'll go read the comments. And half the time I read the comments, I think to myself, that can't be real because that sounds insane. But also there's enough people saying it that maybe it is true. So that's just my perspective on scandals from a distance. But yeah, Tanner, go ahead. Well, yeah. And this is another one of those things. I don't even know what the question is here. More of a comment and see if you have any feedback on it. It seems like, why is it a thing like there was a thing about following?

I think it was the Powerlifting America account. They were and weren't following people and that sort of thing. I'm just like, why is that a thing? Who cares about that? Nobody should care about that. So I don't disagree, but we see it in professional sports too. If a pro athlete unfollows another athlete on their team, boom, within two hours, someone notices and we're going to see some type of article somewhere that some quarterback unfollowed

their wide receiver. It's storylines. I mean, I mean i mean frankly power of things boring and while drama can be annoying it also keeps things interesting but yeah i mean you shouldn't care but it's also that yeah joy joy fitness girl whatever i don't know that was a whole weird thing but yes it it it is so childish at times but it sometimes it's we're so as a culture we're addicted to it right it can be really funny so yeah i i get wrapped on it i i've tried lately to get away from it more uh which has helped not recording two white lights as much and ranting about so many random things that's actually a benefit of not recording as much as i don't have to care about all these silly things but at the same time some of them are kind of funny i'm not gonna lie like i'm not gonna sit here and say my 36 year old self

isn't gonna act like i'm in high school sometimes and and laugh at some drama it gets funny sometimes is angelo banned from corrupted strength he's not banned okay uh no he was never he he was never banned uh necessarily it was just kind of outcasted for whatever for whatever reason that happened i i still don't like i still don't really know fully why i was kind of in that bubble too i got some unfollows in that situation i don't know That was a whole weird situation. I held a seminar there, and then like a month later, I was getting some unfollows. Interesting.

I was going to make this game that I didn't actually follow through with, so I'll just tell everyone what it was going to be and how it would have been fun and funny, and everyone can just imagine what it would have been. But it was just going to be a little quiz for you, and it would be who has more, two white lights or massonomics. And then I was going to have about four or five topics and all just, it was just a trap where the answer would be making massonomics look better in every case. And I did not do that.

So everyone will just have to use their imagination. The crew versus the boys or whatever you want to call it. So I like, so I like is very much the drama podcast and massonomics is like, does lifting even exist? We're just going to talk about things that don't even exist. Like we don't, yeah,

I get it. Like it's, it's, it's, you gotta, you need a little bit of both in your life. You need your, you guys as sanity.

And then you need two white lights as drama. It is funny though, because I, you know, we do say we don't talk about lifting, but I do also think, well, Tanner and I talk about lifting more than 90-some percent of the population. And then we start talking to you, and I realize, like, oh, no, we don't talk about lifting. Right, right. There's levels. Yeah, there's certainly levels of that. Okay. I have a question for you guys.

How much are you guys like sports fans, like football, basketball, baseball? Are you like diehard sports fans or just kind of like generalized sports fans? Tanner, I'll say for me first. Growing up, I liked to play sports. I hated watching sports. I almost never watched sports growing up. That's something that probably for me in my late 20s I hated watching sports. I almost never watched sports growing up. That's something that probably for me, in my late 20s, I've really developed. I've really become way more of a fan of watching sports in general, football specifically. I didn't watch a ton of it

growing up, and now I really do actually enjoy watching football. Yeah, see, I grew up playing every sport, and all I would watch is sports. All I would watch is sports center. And that's all I would do. And then, you know, when I was in my twenties, I was addicted to fantasy football. I love, I'm not in a negative way, but like, I just loved fantasy football. I couldn't stop doing, like I couldn't do enough fantasy football leagues.

And I've always loved watching basketball and football. I mean, baseball, I think is horrifically boring. I've been on record on that many times. I love going, I'll go to a lot of, uh, in-person MLB games because that's just an experience that I think is awesome. But like watching it on TV, I'm, I'm not into it, but the older I get, the less I like following, uh, professional sports. And I don't know why that is. I couldn't really say, but I do still love the in-person experience, but I don't follow like ESPN and stuff like that. Like I used to know, uh, you know, every bench player of, uh, you know, of, of half the teams in the NBA and the NFL. And, uh, I just don't anymore. Uh, but I just, I like in-person events. I still, now I'm more of just like on the sidelines. I

know, I know the, the main storylines, I know what's going on and I know who's relevant. You know, I know if Joe Burrow does something exciting, you know, I hear about that, but like, I just don't, I don't really follow it very much anymore. And I, that same thing, I don't follow the average person. I followed a lot probably still, but like, I don't follow it closely in my opinion. Yeah. And I don't follow like the, you know, the ESPN would like essentially the TMZ coverage of sports. And I don't follow like the, you know, the ESPN, which like essentially the TMZ coverage of sports. Like I don't keep up with that at all, but I am at the point now where if I flip through the channels and I see a game that's close, I'm like, I want to watch this. Like this is interesting and entertaining to me now where I used to never have that before.

I asked that because your answers are spot on with what I'd assume with kind of how our personalities have shaped, how we cover power powerlifting because me and Angelo are obsessed with the TMZ style of watching sports like every little detail of every little thing we know and like within five minutes of something with the Chicago Bears being announced about a assistant coach being fired right right right slept with a co-worker we're DMing each other like we're just obsessed with every single aspect of sports versus I kind of would assume you guys were more of like, we really enjoy playing it and watching it, but like, we don't like follow every little detail religiously. We like more the act of it versus like,

if I stopped powerlifting and coaching altogether, I probably would still actually follow this. Like, I like, I just, I just like this. Like I'm kind of obsessed with following the intricacies of the sport and so that i can see how that like our sports fandom has shaped how we also cover power lifting that's i think that's probably spot on i think so that makes a lot of sense uh that's an interesting take it's more fun when we just do though where we just you know make fun of each other in joking ways.

So then actually like, and then actually breaking down the differences and why it is the way the subtlety. Well, that's, that's also where we can, we can still relate on the sports aspect because you, we all have enough of a sports background to understand how to make fun of each other appropriately, because that's what we're supposed to do as male sports fans.

We speak in making fun of each other. And if you don't make fun of each other, that that's what we're supposed to do as male sports fans we yeah we speak in making fun of each other and if you don't make fun of each other that means you don't like that you don't like them yeah right right yeah that's right term of endearment that's exactly right um so we do have this little game we like to play we play it with every guest that we have on the podcast this one i actually did put together unlike the one hypothetical game I didn't pursue. But this is overrated and underrated. We've got a special Big Steve set of topics handpicked for you. You can elaborate as much or as little on each one if you'd like to,

but you just have to remember that you cannot ride the line. You have to definitively decide if each one is overrated or underrated. Got it. So if you're ready, we'll jump in. Let's do it. Overrated or underrated, getting three white lights. Underrated. While I would love to say overrated no support two white lights no like i don't think

people like people a lot of times are okay with the fact that like you're just going to get two white lights and i still got to lift no i mean as a coach i don't want to leave that up the question because anytime you rely on two white light lifts and that's can becomes a common occurrence you're flirting with disaster because it just takes one of those two other refs so it's underrated to get three white lights to just lift to a stand that is just under not undeniable. Like that's, that's what you should be aiming for. And it's underrated to be a lifter that consistently gets three white lights

on every single lift. That's fair. Overrated or underrated Bass Pro shops as hinted at earlier. Underrated. Cause I don't think people know. Do you know who Johnny Morris is? The founder of Bass Pro? No. That dude is a G. In Springfield, Springfield is underrated. We have the largest decked out indoor aquarium in all of the U.S.

And Johnny Morris built it. It's unreal. He has like seven PGA like caliber golf courses, one designed by Tiger Woods with like 30 minutes of me. And he built an entire resort down in Branson. Like it's insane. Johnny Morris is nuts. And then from what I know that he just generally does, he's just an awesome dude. So yeah, Bass Pro underrated that places, uh, I'm not as much of an outdoorsman as I used to actually before powerlifting fishing was my thing. I've always wanted, I've always, I'm kind of saving that because with where I live, it's literally, it's one of the bass fishing capitals of the world. That's eventually something I want to get back into, but yeah, Bass Pro Shops underrated.

They are, that is a great place. Do you have a Bass Pro Shops hatrated. They are. That is a great place. Do you have a Bass Pro Shops hat? I do not. Yeah, that's something I can't get into. It'd make you more relatable to the younger generation if you had one. That's like a thing. But like in Springfield, that's just normal. I suppose, yeah.

It's just the uniform. That's just the uniform you wear here. Am I completely wrong? Are Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's together now? I think they own Cabela's, don't they? Bass Pro bought Cabela's. And I remember around here, because Cabela's is pretty big around here, when that happened, thinking Cabela's is way too big to be bought by Bass Pro Shops.

Like, I didn't understand that Bass Pro Shops was as big as they are. Oh, yeah. Johnny Morris is, I don't know his net worth, but it's got to be a lot. That dude is rolling. Yeah, he could put up some SBD-style prize money in powerlifting. Overrated or underrated, Levi Jeans.

Underrated, and you have no idea. Did you ask this for a reason do you have any yeah i know i i asked it for a specific reason yeah these are hand-picked topics these are hand-picked big steve topics levi jeans yeah my dad worked for them for 25 years okay wow did you know that well i know that you uh interned at least there at one point in time okay you found that yes so i interned for my dad yeah if you looked at my linkedin it sounds really cool what i did there my dad typed that out all i did was put rebates in envelopes and mail them to people for like three weeks and during a yeah um no underrated they're a great company my dad worked for him for

a long time um i have one of my cool things I got to do, I went to concerts every weekend growing up, every weekend, because my dad was a field marketing manager. That's what his specialty was. So all they did was sponsor concerts. So name an artist, and I probably met them or saw them in concert. My dad has a whole celebrity wall in his house and everything. Creed? No, but I saw Nickel nickelback and three doors down okay

i'm not close enough i'm not i'm not proud of nickelback so uh but uh yeah levi's underrated good company they they uh they made a comeback because i remember my dad when he finally left them they were kind of they weren't cool anymore they were kind of the person brand they really done a good job of making a comeback. So yeah, underrated. What was Brett Favre? Was that Levi's or what was? No, Wrangler. My Wrangler, yeah.

Wrangler, Wrangler. The U-Fit. And the only reason I remember that is, and I don't remember that because of his commercials. I remember that because of the meme one that they, the video of him, you know the meme? Well, the SNL skit or, yeah. I think the, no, no, it wasn't SNL.

It was someone else. Well, I thought, didn't SNL have one too though. And they're like, Ringer, you fit jeans. My cock goes in there and they says that he's like for dick pit. Like, cause when he had the, the, the scandal, for taking pics of your dick, like, and he kept doing that whole thing. Yeah. Uh, Levi jeans seem pretty, pretty of, of, uh, good quality too, I think.

Right. Yeah. They've of of uh good quality too i think right yeah they've always been really good quality because they were meant they were originally uh for miners that's what they were made for for people not under age people but uh people yeah yeah act like people digging for gold in the west coast in like the. You have to just keep saying things to make it more specific to not still be interpreted as miners. People digging fur cold in mines on the west coast. Give me those

over a pair of rascal jants any day of the week. Am I right? But not masonomic jorts. Exactly. That's a different line there. Okay. Overrated or underrated this is the last one and we usually save the best for last everything comes down to this overrated or underrated uh angelo fortino the lifter the lifter underrated 100 the reason why is uh I hate to give him all this credit. So Angelo doesn't have the highest total in his weight class.

There's a lot of people that have higher. So far, you're not giving him any credit. So you're all right. I'm going to. When it comes to head-to-head competition, though, and actually showing up and competing against Angelo on the day, he beats people. I think he's 4-0 against Sean Noriega he's 3-0 against Jamar Royster he's 2-1 against Deuce Gruden the only people he hasn't

beat is Delaney and Russ but people who have totaled higher than him uh Deuce has totaled higher uh Sean's totaled higher Jamar's totaled higher. Jamar's totaled higher. A bunch of people total higher. But when you actually go head to head with him, Angelo doesn't miss lifts. And then he has the trump card because he's going to have the last pull. He's got the most dangerous weapon in powerlifting when you have that big deadlift. And so he hits squats, he hits benches where he doesn't miss lifts. He's not going to give you like this opening of where you're going to be able to like, hope he has a bad day. He's going to hit his lifts. And then if you have an off day, he's going to sneakily come in there and then out, pull you. So no, as a, as a lifter,

I actually think he's underrated because you look at his total and you say all these people are better than him, but they don't beat him when it's head to head. Well, that might be the most thorough answer anyone's ever given us for why a specific lifter they know is or isn't overrated or underrated. Is there anything you could say bad about him we could use as like a soundbite clip? Well, one, thank you for having me on. Where do I start start second time before him

really appreciate that um let's see what i can say uh i mean he he would be overrated in the sense that he has to be the worst bench presser in that weight class for someone who actually totals 800 kilos and it's getting better but it's still somewhat embarrassing for the fact that i think perk who's a weight class below totals like well not only so perk totals 30 kilos more than him and weighs 10 kilos less and also benches like 25 kilos more so yeah so like like i said angelo does great on meat day but like he's also getting out totaled by a guy who's 10 kilos less than him and by 30 kilos so that's kind of embarrassing but to be fair like that guy kind of all totals like most of the

people that way we don't we don't need to We don't need to talk about that at all. You wanted just to have Angelo. No, I'll cut this part out. Just make fun of Angelo. He's totaled by a guy that weighs 10 kilos less than him. Good news, it looks like you passed overrated, underrated, and that's really important. Thank you. The IPF may ban you, but you're good to go around Masonomics still.

Perfect. Perfect. You're always allowed around here. Yeah, that's good stuff. And so if somebody listened to this and they're like, I'd like the Steve guy to coach me, could that happen? No. Actually, coaching-wise, no. I take on a very, very small number of athletes, and I probably actually won't be taking on anyone for a long

time because if you're, if you're looking for like, Steve, what can you plug? Right. I'm coaching less people now because of how much I've been putting into powerlifting now. Are you guys familiar with that platform? Just a little bit from before this podcast, really. I guess I looked a little bit, but yeah, explain that. So me, Marcellus Williams, Sean Noriega, and Matt Cronin, we run Powerlifting now also with a fifth person, Marshall, who's our backend guy who runs the website and social media and all that kind of stuff. We call it the Powerlifters Library.

Our goal was like before, like if someone says, where do you go to learn how to powerlift? There'd be like 18 different YouTube channels and 16 different websites. And here's four eBooks. We just really wanted to create, like, if you want to learn about how to power lift and how to be a coach and how to be a lifter, like here's one place to go. And it's gone. Honestly, it isn't just like even being biased. It's gone really, really well. Like I can't believe how well it's been received the content. I really do believe, I mean, I watch all of it. Like I'm a customer of it, not just for a person who's just making videos

because I watch all of them. So we put that out there and it's not very expensive in my opinion. We priced it pretty darn low for the reason that it's meant to be something that we want to be very accessible for anyone who may not be able to afford a coach or maybe could afford a coach

or maybe you're wanting to be a coach and you're wanting to learn how to program and do all that kind of stuff to be able to get all the information you need. So yeah, I think that's a really, it's just, it's been a really cool thing to be able to do. And we've had, I think that's been a great addition, even if I wasn't involved with it, I would say it's a great addition for power lifting just to have the information overload we have now that's readily available versus five to 10 years ago where we were also running five, three, one, and not knowing what else to do. All right. That's good stuff. Uh, yeah, we do appreciate you having you on. We'll probably, uh, let's see, we did the, we did a draft that

one time when we had you and Angelo on, we did a power lifter draft. Maybe we need to come up with another draft concept, uh, for us to do a little collaboration effort again someday i'd be down i had to go this won't be tough and i i this might not be in your wheelhouse i had a fun one is worst uh power lifting affiliate presidents power rank them that sounds like i wouldn't be able to start with one yeah i i do love the concept though that's really good yeah yes when you say that might not be in our wheelhouse that's very far from our wheelhouse but yes i i'd be i'd definitely be down for some type of uh draft frankly we still haven't done it because we never end up having guests on because it just never happens we need to have you we need to have you guys on and interview you because you deserve to

be interviewed at some point because frankly i don't know a ton about you guys and like you're all of your background and whatnot i'd love to get more about that and and flip flip it backwards and make you guys go through the ringer and see what you overrate and underrate well well uh if you if you got a spare uh 600, you could just listen to our last 400 episodes and you'll if you listen every day, eight hours a day, it'll only take you like five months to get through it.

Alright, perfect. I'll start tomorrow. That's your homework. And if you look, you just sort the wheat from the chaff. You'll find a few interesting tidbits that are actually lifting related in there. Every once in a while, you'll find something you might enjoy. Perfect.

All right. Well, Steve, we did really enjoy having you on. I think people will like this. We appreciate it. Keep everything in line over at Two White Lights, and we'll see you in the Instagram DMs and the ribbing back and forth comments. Will we see you at the Arnold this year or not? Yep, I'll be there.

IPF suspended and everything. I'll be there in person. All right. Do they put like a giant red X on you when you walk around? And I'll be, I will say it this year, I will come visit. Last year, it was insane how busy I was. This year, I should not be as busy. So I shall come by.

Yeah, we saw Angelo several times. We had a little several times with Angelo at the bar one night yeah we ran into him last year in the Arnold yeah yeah well he came by the booth talked to him there and then yeah we saw him across the street when we went to that bar well when we were in the bar and we were looking for people and we were scanning and we were rocking around talking to people and before we knew it he was like right underneath of us it's like we had never saw you down there angelo we didn't well yeah as power lifters you can easily i mean be able to find all the other power up there's because you can look at straight on top of their heads that you guys are actually not five foot four okay well we'll see you in columbus in march then all right sounds good all right thanks see ya all right see ya that was good oh thank god can we finally talk shit about two way lights now it's hard for me to hold it in for that long oh it's like that meme where the guys are gonna explode in class

what's that meme called i know the meme i don't even know what it's called it's probably like ready to explode steve or something you know it's like yeah i'm sure uh no uh steve is good he's got man he knows a lot about i just i mean we do know way more about powerlifting than most people but the second i start talking to those guys, I realize I just know nothing. Oh, we don't know anything about powerlifting. I know nothing about powerlifting. Yeah. I think his, not analogy, but his description of the differences of us

is probably really fair. You know, of like the way we approach it versus the way they approach it. That's pretty much spot on, honestly, I think. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. They live, I mean, you can tell they live a very different life in the way that they consume approach yeah think about power lifting than

what most people ever will but we even talked about it uh i think we talked about it before recording tonight steve for example as a coach he approaches being a powerlifting coach in a very professional manner. Oh, very professional, analytical. From a knowledge standpoint, he's like he wants to know everything that's related to his specific area of expertise. And, you know, like he is a subject matter expert in that area, too. And that kind of shows. Yeah, totally. and you know like he is a subject matter expert in that area too and that kind of shows yeah totally no there's i mean we talked to a ton of people on the show and there's not a lot of people that we talked to were even like unintentionally i get the impression that that person knows

a lot about power lifting yeah there he is one of the few guys that i really do get that impression well and it's it's funny when we say about power lifting like part of it like sometimes a coach is just like i am going to help train you to get your squat bench and deadlift to hopefully go up that's one level and like that's a very important level like maybe the most important part of being a coach i would say but then there's also like all this uh games um not gamesmanship but just like the actually like gaming the sport kind of, or like understanding the sport of like the intricacies. You could just say actually playing the game, honestly. Right, right, right.

Playing the game. You know, that's probably two different levels of coaching. Because he has people that are at the level where they can play the game. Right, right. And I do think it's, if I remember how it goes, it's all about the game and how you play it. It's all about the game and how you play it. What WWE wrestler came out to the...

Triple H. Is that Triple H? Yeah, the game. It makes sense, I guess, doesn't it? Yeah. Actually, that reminds me. I did see a clip on Instagram this week. I don't know.

I don't know if was it was i don't know if it was like from punked back in the day or something but someone's trying to pull up you just got punked yeah they were trying to pull a prank on triple h where he like smashed this girl on her face on her wedding day and he was totally like neutralizing the situation and it was so funny he was being like really professional he was being very professional and he's like yeah the guy's like you broke my camera and he's like listen buddy i being very professional. And he's like, the guy's like, you broke my camera. And he's like, listen, buddy, I will pay for it. Now he's like, now leave. He's like, no, you broke that.

He's like, I'm going to break you pretty soon if you don't leave this room. And he's like being so calm. He's like, man, he's almost just a professional wrestler 24-7. Like I did, because I don't know a ton about Triple H. I always thought, honestly, I mean, he's got a great physique and he was always jacked and everything. But I always thought as a wrestler he was a little bit boring because he didn't have the flashy moves that a lot of the other guys do.

But he also has been a pretty pivotal figure of the WWE for the last, what, 30 years? Yeah, what are Triple H's big moves? Oh, wasn't his one just, was it the pedigree? Is that what he did? The pedigree, that's what it is, right? Yeah, it's the pedigree is that what the pedigree that's what it is right yeah it's the pedigree yeah which is just a lame i don't remember what the pedigree is though uh don't you just kind of do isn't it like just sort of like a face slam okay where you take the guys you put the guy's head between your legs yeah you put his head between your legs and you kind of put him in like a double chicken double chicken wing, and then just basically drop him down. Are we talking sexual things or wrestling here? Basically, yeah.

I love, the thing I love about wrestling is how certain, like, if you were playing a video game, like, the amount of damage that they impact, the health meter they go down, like, moves that essentially look absolutely no different, but this one's someone's special move. It's just, like, damage level 100. Oh, I know. Because this one has a's special move it's just like damage level 100 because this one has a name yeah we loved it we had uh god i don't even know what it's called some

wwe game on gamecube god we would play that so much just load up hell in a cell yeah or tables ladders and chair tlc match and just you just play it forever it was so fun it never got old yes like wasn't going to bill goldberg's the spear i'm like oh he was just tackling them yeah And just, you just play it forever. It was so fun. It never got old. Like, wasn't it Bill Goldberg's The Spear? I'm like, oh, he was just tackling them. Yeah, yeah. It was just a really nice, powerful form tackle. Yeah, that's all it was. It was a devastating move.

I always loved guys like the Hardy Boys or Rob Van Dam because their special move was something off the turnbuckle and it was always like, the game was like, how far away can you be and still get the guy'd pull your special move was something off the turnbuckle and it was always like the game was like how far away can you be and still get the guy to do his special let it like and every once in a while like they'd be on the opposite side of the ring and for some reason you get to activate and your guy's like doing this insane olympic long jump onto the other guy it was that was you know the little things it was yeah that's what makes those games special yes that's uh i used to play that uh mount

rossmore and i when we lived in the dorm i don't know which one it was it was would have been on xbox at the time but we would do it uh it was the funnest thing like we would do this to each other like if you were on the bottom it was it was it was so frustrating and just on not fun but you could actually pick up the steps like the metal steps and like you get them on the ground outside the ring and we would just it would just be a sick game of like i'm gonna beat you to death with these steps for like i'm never gonna get up and let you do anything else like every time i'll like let you your character almost get up and then as soon as you can i'm beating you to death with these steps again and just like uh letting that go on for

as long as humanly possible until someone quits. That's what was fun about those games is there'd be points where your character was like, I don't know, is he dead? I can't get him to do anything. But then every once in a while, you'd get one punch in. It was kind of like a wrestling whisper of hope. You'd get one punch in, and then it would all turn around. You might have gone off the top of a ladder through five chairs or through five tables and

been just pulverized with a chair but that one punch is what stops the other guy yes uh good stuff do you want to hear hear about larry i do i i really want to hear about this uh not a real long story but anyone that's been around massonomics for a while they know the legend that is larry legend you know massonomics gym uh legendary member from an inception till now you know there's so many larry stories you couldn't even tell them all but he uh the other day i got back from the gym over lunch hour and i walked in and someone was like uh larry was looking for you i'm like larry who like you're saying at work right someone at work yeah like this is in my office at work he's like oh you know the guy that you know works for who he works for and uh i'm

like oh larry legend's here and i'm like where is he what are they are they outside working on something they're like no they're inside he's in the maintenance room oh really and i'm like oh that was my thing i'm like oh they called the big guns in inside huh what's going on and he's like oh they're digging a hole to china and i'm like oh i gotta go check this out so i i walked in and i'm there's three guys there one of guys halfway in the hole you know i can see his just upper torso. The other two guys are outside. I don't know, do it outside the hole. This is in our building, in our maintenance room, you know, the concrete floor maintenance room. So they, like, jackhammered through the floor?

Yeah. Well, and I'm like, where's Larry? You know, I'm like, where's that son of a bitch Larry at? And they're like, and nobody said anything. And there was a pause, and he's like, I'm down here. I'm like, and nobody said anything. And there was a pause and he's like, I'm down here. I'm like, down where? And, uh, he was like 10 feet down in, in the hole inside the building and they were working on something. And he was like, uh, he's like, get down here, you lazy bastard. And I was like, uh, and they were very, very busy and like very in the heat of the moment of like

really serious work that like yeah they don't want someone coming to fuck around no time to fool around yeah so i just said oh i'm gonna go get my work boots and i'll be back and then i did not come back and i did not help it was a bit of an irish goodbye you could say yeah i irish goodbyed him but that was the larry story it was just it was just a fun it was a fun day at work though because even uh then i went back to my office and i just knew that Larry was about 10 feet below me, really getting after something. It's just a real comforting feeling, isn't it?

Yeah, like we're in good hands. I actually didn't know he ever had to go inside a building. I would imagine it doesn't come up very often. I don't know. I also didn't know people had to dig. Yeah, it was the fire safety system water main like a i don't know six inch main that comes into the building and was probably been leaking for five years or whatever but yeah i didn't know people had to dig holes that deep through commercial buildings into the floor from

the inside i'm like holy shit because they're like oh he's like i'm down here and i'm like larry someone should help lar. He's way down there. Wow. You know, have you ever seen the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Is that the standoff movie? Or is that 30? Is that? That's.

Yeah. It's Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood. Thank you. I mean, they do end it with a standoff. Yes. Yeah. But Clint Eastwood.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I know it. And they have a saying. I tried to Clint Eastwood, yes, yes. Okay, yeah, I know it. And they have a saying, I tried to Google it quick, but I didn't, I'd be too checked out. But there was something about like, there's three guys, there's the guy with the shovel, or there's the guy that digs the hole,

the guy that swatches and something else. But it's kind of a saying for Larry's life, I'm sure, if I could find that saying. Yeah, he's always the guy that's like doing the work too. He's always the guy with the shovel yeah yes do we have anything else we want to get to this week burning I could I could tell you you know I'm have a bit of a reputation as not being a movie guy but I might be coming a little bit of a movie guy here as the days go by this sounds like we're gonna have to bring back has he seen it to really well you might have to wait like a year or two

before you really bring that back. Okay. Yeah, I've had this. This TV is really inspiring me to watch more movies, and I have managed to watch three movies in the past two weeks, which is three more movies than I've probably watched in the past year.

What three movies did you choose? So, one kid's movie. Actually, I almost can't even count kids movies because they're just sort of always on but this is one of the few that we basically watch it this is one of the few that we actually sat down and watched the whole way through it would be coco from pixar a very very good one okay one where i have the day of the dead the mexican heritage thing yeah it was good it was good i mean all all Pixar movies are good, so I enjoyed that. The other one was

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, I think. Whatever the first one is there, it's sort of like an animated Spider-Man one. Actually, that one was really good, too. I liked it a lot. It did involve knowing a thousand other Marvel things. I could just sit down and watch it,

and the whole movie made sense to me not knowing a thing about anything else uh so that one was a good one and then i wanted to i wanted to sit down one night and watch a movie and the problem with every movie i was going through i was picking was that they were all between two hours and 45 minutes and like three plus hours long i'm like i can't cannot do that at 10 o'clock at night there's no way i mean i'll just pass out so eventually i found a movie that was about an hour and a half and that movie was predator and i have never seen predator in my life and what blew my mind about that movie is the number of tropes one-liners all these things that

that come i assume come from that movie i don't think they're ripping them off from anywhere else but man just the i mean the the meme of and i knew the meme of the you know the handshake right from there i knew that came from there son of a bitch yes but to actually see that in a movie was like okay wow it almost like takes you out of the moment you're like oh they put a meme in this movie uh so that when jesse ventura does the i ain't got time to bleed that whole thing i mean me and my friends have been saying that forever i had no idea what that came from so to see that and then i mean the predator is also a pretty uh historic legendary legacy predator on the orange glaze scale what do you think it's on there he

said no what do you give it on your orange glaze scale see this is also what's weird though is that action movies as crazy as that movie probably was at the time they move at such they're not even the same thing anymore like the pacing is so different um okay does my orange glaze does my orange glaze scale go to 10 i'd probably give it about a seven i think okay seven on the glazometer yeah it has it's just one of those things where you have to you have to kind of wait it you know over time you know you have to give it like a right it's like today the most of the effects suck. You know, the pacing is way, not that the pacing has to be crazy, but just the way the common conventions

for how you shoot and edit something that is supposed to be action has changed so much. But you can see how that was the foundation for a lot of action movies going forward. So, yeah, I can give it a comfortable seven. So would you say you're kind of a movie guy? I'm slowly getting there. That's what we're saying

i'm slowly getting there i did go and i also you know half the battle is knowing what you want to watch because that's always a problem so i know it sucks when you sit down you're like okay now i spend 30 minutes of time trying to pick something by the end of it you're like ah just forget it yep so what i did is i went to my hbo account and for the first time ever, I actually made a list. You know, you have your My List. I actually added about 40 things to the My List, so when I sit down, my list is considerably smaller. I'm not looking through all of HBO.

I'm just looking through a few essentials to pick that movie. Anchorman, Dumb and Dumber, Austin Powers. All the classics I put on there that I want to re-watch again. Just that stuff. and if i get time if i get through those for like the fifth sixth seventh time then i'll think about branching out we'll see right would you ever watch the wire again uh no i would not i don't really watch tv actually i i shouldn't say i would never watch it again it's just not on my list in the next five to ten years um and that's not a knock against the show i don't watch any shows

i've never watched a only show i've ever watched twice would be the first season of true detective but that's also like six episodes so it's pretty easy to watch twice like that's not that big of an investment but yeah the wire maybe in 10 years or so and i probably forgot a lot of it i'd watch it again but i got there's too many before i dump what 70 some hours into something there's too many other things i need to be watching to yeah instead of i also don't i hardly ever watch repeats of movies that's not something that i do often but when i made my list my hbo list i did put all of the lord of the rings on it and i did put all the matrix movies on it again because yeah i for sure have not seen

the Lord of the Rings movies since high school. So I wouldn't have- It would be like watching a new movie. Yeah, I wouldn't have any problem revisiting those. The original Matrix movie, I did watch that probably the last time I watched that. It was actually my first house. So that was now like seven or eight years ago.

And that movie is just too much of a classic to not watch again. So I will watch that one again too. But other than that, there wasn't of a classic to not watch again. So I will watch that one again too. But other than that, there wasn't too many repeats on my, on my watch list. All this talk kind of makes me want to watch band of brothers again. I,

I did actually put that on my, on my watch list too. I think it's, I said, I watched like the first three episodes of that, but I was watching it with my wife and she, she was checked out. So we had to switch,

which we are. We are. And we're also working through the last season of the righteous gemstones we got like one or two episodes left there so really really have solidified my tv watching lately yeah maybe with all this free time i got you know i'm gonna think about the wire one of these days maybe i'm thinking we'll just think about it you don't want to jump into something you're not ready for there has been times when i've gone to the TV and thought about watching, or, you know, planned to watch something

and they actually looked at the wire and I just couldn't do it. It just didn't compel me enough. It's daunting. I know. I get it. I totally get it. I actually talked to a guy at the gym

the other day from Maryland and I go, hey we uh well he knew a little bit about massonomics and i i said we got some massonomics fans from maryland and a recurring point in massonomics is the wire you ever seen the wire yeah he had not seen the wire so he's in my exclusive club i was waiting for i was waiting for him to be like, oh, it's the best show ever. Yeah, of course, I'm from there. I love it. But that wasn't the case. I know absolutely nothing about The Wire.

But I have this mental picture of what The Wire is in my head. And I just feel like it's going to be a downer for me. I feel like it's dark and a downer for me. I don't want it. You're probably going to hate this comparison. I feel like it's dark and a downer for me. I don't want to. You're probably going to hate this comparison. I feel like it's dimly lit. What's the toughest thing for the first season is it looks kind of shitty by modern standards. I can get over that stuff.

But it's just the first season. After that, it looks better too. Is it dimly lit? Not really. Is it dark and overcast all the time? There are dark scenes. Is it evening all the time? there's a fair amount of evening actually even nighttime there's a fair amount of time and then like cops working in like a really shitty uh like run down office there's

a lot of that yeah but there's also uh there's also a surprising amount of daytime drug trade watching and things like that as well okay but you'll probably hate this comparison but if i had to compare the type of show you know the sopranos breaking bad those are the type of shows that are very much about a character right game of thrones is about every about 30 characters it's really like the society you know this world they're in and everyone just pawns in the world the wire is very much more of a show like that and so if you if you take the the drama of the wire are the drama of the game of thrones and take it out of a sci-fi land and put it in late 90s or early 2000s baltimore

police world that's kind of where you're at yeah yeah but they don't quite nail the high drama in the same way that uh yeah game of thrones does but they don't quite nail the high drama in the same way that uh yeah game of thrones does but they don't have problem killing off main characters either though so it's got that part to it too kind of like game of thrones then yeah but also man over the last 20 years people really figured out you watch game of thrones they just they really figured out how to heighten the drama of when stuff happens you're like oh my god this is world ending you know you're like yeah you get done with an episode you have to like catch your breath and though like in the wire a main character can die and it's just kind of like matter of fact like

yeah that guy you love for the last 30 hours it's almost like he's just dead and then like the show just moves on they don't even like dwell on it yeah story you know what i was changed there yeah story you know what i was changed there you know what i was thinking that's kind of odd what's that uh well actually i am i this wasn't going to be an ad but i know that is how i transitioned to ads so i'm gonna do that i really thought you're leading with an ad and then you were stopping i think and i thought maybe your response made me think like oh it reminded me i should be reading an ad here, actually. So, yeah. What was it that I said?

You know what else that made me think about? Yeah, it's basically what you said, yes. And I'm very curious what you. Well, first we'll get to the strength call. Oh, okay. I don't want you to forget, though. Don't you forget that. Forget that.

Speaking of dark things, the strength coat plates are black e-coated but they're not dingy they're shiny actually the that's a finish that pops on them they are smooth and still easy to grip all at the same time uh the finish is made to last we've got several thousand pounds of the strength coat iron plates right in massonomics gym we use them every single time i'm there i use them every single time i go to massonomics gym everyone does they just run they sprint to those plates they go right to them uh check out their plates at the strength.co they also introduced their bumper plates here in 2023 we've got a whole stack of those at massonomics gym uh you can check out the semper fi bar check out their collars we did

a video little youtube video on their strength co collars i think they're pretty cool there's a couple features of those that make those interesting in comparison to some other collars check it all out at the strength.co this episode is also brought to you by swiss link in 1995 maurice big mo huffman founded sw Swiss Link with the mission to bring authentic Swiss Army goods to the United States and into the hands of those yearning for quality gear at uncompromised prices. Now for nearly three decades, Big Mo has been traveling far and wide in search of the best items from military forces around the world. Big Mo doesn't only find authentic military clothing for Swiss Link, he brings in everything you can imagine from Swiss bayonets

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by entering code MASS at checkout. That's M-A-S-S to save 15% at SwissLink.com. Thank you, SwissLink. Spank you, SwissLink. Here's a little teaser. Next week, our guest should be an NFL player. It's not Cole Keefe this time either.

Not the same position, not the same team. A different NFL player. Current active NFL player roster guy. So that should be kind of fun talking about sports like we were talking about earlier. Just made me think of it. This is our sports and books segment.

I was going to say, do we need to revive the sports and books segment for him? I think we might need to. So stay tuned for that. That'll be interesting. But you know what I was thinking about? What's that, Tanner? I was thinking about the strength call recently, Tanner? I was thinking about the strength call recently.

It's the strength call again. We just go on this loop. Smooth and easy to grip. Oh, God, he's broken. Someone reset him. That reminds me. You know what else I really like? Build fast formula. Well, I'll be on our drink hack. Watch out,

Sioux Falls. Just start the whole episode over like this two more hours of this no is steve ready to go yet we already had him on tanner uh i've got uh a few kids that are in school they're in in one that's in what do you say here's another thought junior high or middle school i've always said middle school i never uh for a very long time never really even understood what junior high was yeah we always said junior high really yeah but i don't i think they say you know in western northeast south dakota they say middle school yeah and also a lot of places for a long time ninth grade was middle school or not that's weird with the high school because my my middle school was six through eighth and high school was

ninth through twelfth and i just assumed that's how it was everywhere until i got older and realized that's not actually the case right then that's the that's the correct separation to to me k through five six through eight nine through twelve but a lot of people will go uh 10 through 12 and sometimes six will still get lumped in with the grade school too like the you know it'll go like k through six and then yeah i just the difference between sixth and like six is too old to be in a grade school grade six is too old to be in a grade school and ninth grade is too old to be with like sixth graders i feel like like it's right i i don't know i think that that nine through twelfth seems yeah what you said k through k through five six through eight and nine through twelve that to me makes the most sense that makes the most sense to 9-12 seems, yeah, what you said, K-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

That, to me, makes the most sense. That makes the most sense to me. And then also there's the difference of what you call that 6-8 group, middle school or junior high. Not my point of this, though. It's funny, you even said it there. We're talking about 6th graders. You said grade 6, you know, the 6, the sixth grade. Why is it one through 12?

I mean, I know the scene, the, the high school ones all also have names. You know, you, you could say ninth grade, you could say freshman, you could say 10th grade, you could say sophomore, you could say 11th, junior, 12th, senior. That's also kind of an odd thing. If I think about that a little bit and also that it repeats in college again. True. Yeah. It's like, no, now I'm a freshman again. Oh, yeah.

But why is, well, and I kind of could answer my own question here, but things have changed. But it's odd to me now, like every kid starts not in first grade. You start in kindergarten. Right. Like this is the one. Just one. Right. Why isn't that one? Why isn't that first? No, this isn't first. not in first grade you start in kindergarten right like this is the one just one right why isn't that one why isn't that first to be like no this isn't first this is kindergarten oh and

you're like oh it's like preschool you're like no no there's a different thing that's preschool that's before kindergarten yeah kindergarten that's before you really go to school you go to preschool yeah you're like no this is the one we don't call a number. It's got a ridiculous, I don't know, what is kindergarten? German? Or like, what is it? Well, I feel like so much of our, like the names of that stuff pulls from something Greek or Latin or something, you know, all that higher education does. Like kindergarten seems like something Hitler would yell to me, like kindergarten.

That's actually, I don't know why. why like why is that the way that that is i have no idea um when i do so when you went to kindergarten what uh i went every other day when i was in kindergarten so but did you go for a full day though or not i went every other day i think it was a full day see and i went every other day when i went i believe i went every day for a half day okay but now even uh when my sixth grader was in kindergarten when my current kindergartner is you go every day all the it's no different like it's literally not even different they just go yeah okay you go every day all day like just like all the other grades do so that's, even more why it's kind of silly now,

because there's not even that difference. Like, that's where I could kind of see some of the difference. Like, this is called something different because these kids are only here half the time. You go all the time. Like, there's no half days. You're just in school like everyone's in school. Yeah. I mean, those are all great.

You got good points there. Also, you are correct. Kindergarten is a german word okay so it's kid kind kinder is like kid yeah and garden as in garden it's actually yes i didn't i just read something about this garden or yeah basically right i basically read something about this the other day and they're and it's funny how true it seems to be is like if you're never unsure what a german word is, just like say it like as an angry English version. And that's probably what it is. And you're right.

Like kindergarten. And it's like, well, yeah, it's just like a kid's garden. Like you're just saying it in an angry way and you get there. Um, so I just think it's weird.

I agree. And that was that, uh, and then an unpaid and underrated sort, slightly relevant. Now that I think about it, they were talking about, and I, I've known this for a long time,

but Canadians, they don't say college. They say they go to university. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I know from Trailer Park Boys, they say that phrase like my grade 12, my grade 11, my grade 9. And, like, people here normally don't say it like that. Like it wouldn't be crazy if someone said that, but that's not normal to say I, you know, I, I just,

I made it to my grade 12. Yeah. I get what you're saying there to me. The, the one that my brain had a hard time getting used to forever was university. I'd listen to these podcasts and hear people talk about, Oh, and then I went to university. And I just thought like, that is the most, the most wrong way to say that ever. And now I think I've heard it enough that I just, I just accept it as that is

how other people say it. But yeah, that one was a weird one for a long time for me. Well, here's my other question, I guess, related to that. What is the difference in 2023 between a college and a university? Is there even differences in that?

I think university is maybe considered a slightly more prestigious level. The college is almost more like what junior college would be to university experience or something like that. I don't know, but I don't think that the terms are used synonymously, I think. I feel like today they are used interchangeably, but this says university typically refers to larger institutions offering both undergrad and grad programs. typically refers to larger institutions offering both undergrad and grad programs. Okay.

I think the big thing there is the graduate programs, where college refers to community colleges, technical schools, liberal arts colleges. Yeah, all places that you would not see maybe one, even a four-year option. Or if you do, you probably would not see a graduate program of any kind. But then we all say go to college. Yeah, we do though. We're all talking about going to university. I guess we got that one wrong if you really think about it.

I mean, kind of, yeah. But also though, when you're a freshman though, when you're in... It really is just college. You are going to college. You're not going to college. I mean, you're not...

That's true. You're doing the college portion of it. Yeah, you're doing the undergrad portion of it. True. Usually some people, they're doing the undergrad portion of it. True. Usually some people, they're there for like three freaking years and they're doing the college portion of it before they even have it honed in on taking anything other than generals. Really giving it the college try, you could say.

Giving it the college try. Yeah, giving it the college try. giving it the college try so that's I guess that kindergarten up through university there's a lot of oddities with the naming conventions lots of people go to college for seven years right

they're called doctors they're called doctors but I still out of all those odd things we talk about with uh grades and universities colleges and all that stuff i still think kindergarten's the most weird it is it actually is no we have 1 through 12 plus kindergarten yeah like like that's like i don't know it's just stupid like preschool you could at least say like if you if someone

is completely foreign to the system you say order all of these grades where you think they go most people you would hope would get one through 12 in that order correct and then you're like okay and the leftovers are preschool and kindergarten you'd be like preschool really makes sense to go to the beginning yeah i guess kindergarten like maybe maybe they're like i don't know maybe it goes in the very beginning maybe it goes at the very end maybe it's like a break in the middle of all of, I don't know. Maybe it goes in the very beginning. Maybe it goes at the very end. Maybe it's like a break in the middle of all of it. I don't know. So that's it. Kindergarten.

So you went every day a half day. I believe. I don't remember the best, but I'm pretty sure I was every day half day. Yeah. We went every other day. So you had a desk. You shared your kindergarten desk with someone that came on the other day. Yeah.

So it was odd. It was always like this mysterious person that was sitting in your desk every day that you weren't there. Yeah, pissing their pants in your chair. And then there was a few rare occasions for the year when both classes came on the same day. And it'd be like, oh this you're this guy that we have this odd bond with but yet i've never like that we're not friends yeah right it's like no this is where i sit and like who are you and all your weird friends like sitting in my friend's spots yeah i do remember that even as a you know five or six year old yep i mean there's like a whole

clone of what we have something special here and you need to tell me there's a group doing the exact same thing as us why is my teacher treating you like she would be like you're smart and cool too can't be that many smart and cool kids here i think it was like triangle and circle day too like you were either a triangle kid or a circle yeah i don't think we had that no okay okay did you have in high school block scheduling um did you have traditional schedule they actually changed that was a weird thing for me or for our school that changed because we were on um our school would have been i believe on trimesters and then they switched it to semesters like just a couple years before i got

there okay and then i think that i think that that block scheduling thing was the thing they had too because doesn't that give you a lot more scheduling yeah where you have a little more leeway to just kind of because you're well every class was an hour and a half long yeah and i think you know there's just like four and then you had like we had green and gold days you know school color so it's like one week, Monday, Wednesday. Like we didn't have every class every day. You had classes only every other day because they were an hour and a half long instead of 50 minutes long. And then you had like on Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

you'd have the same classes. And then it was kind of more like college in a way. And then Tuesday, Thursdays you'd have the same classes. Yeah, see ours was not like that at all. We had just like 50-minute periods. Yeah, 50-minute periods and like eight a day or whatever it was the brutal part about that is though when you're a high school kid and you have to sit through if it's a subject you hate oh and you have to be there for an hour and a half i would have really struggled just shoot me yeah not that

i had a hard time paying attention but that same thing right oh this class sucks and now i think 50 minutes i'm like 50 minutes that's not enough time to do anything I know like I barely opened anything of importance in 50 minutes and yeah you remember just staring at the clock some days an hour and a half would have murdered me in some classes yeah there was one

other school thing I just thought about it escaped me that I really wanted to ask you now and I just a sea day like for lunch thing I just thought of but it escaped me that I really wanted to ask you now and I just uh C day like for lunch yeah that's uh oh no no I know what it is this might be odd to some people I don't know if this is a Midwest thing a South Dakota or maybe this is a just a very rural this might be a very rural school thing we never had this but it's become more common for area schools in around western northeast south dakota smaller ones they don't have school on front they

only go to school four days a week four day school week yeah yeah yeah that that never existed i don't i don't really think even when we were in high school that really any schools were doing that but i don't remember that yeah especially yeah those small schools i think they're using it as a marketing tactic to get people into their schools you know a lot of these ones come here we have four yeah a lot of these ones that are on the verge of claw i mean those are the ones you see most commonly doing it yeah that's true schools that are on the verge of closing the you know the ones where their main way that they're keeping alive is because they're pulling students from the biggest next adjacent town yeah and i think that that's it's just a marketing ploy i mean they'll they'll say

i shouldn't i shouldn't say just that no because i don't think parents like it because now they have a day there's a day every single week where they don't know what their kids are doing all day right um i think they say teachers like well teachers and students obviously like it because it's oh yeah teachers would love it like great i work four days a week but it's a longer day like slightly i think yeah i mean it has to be because they're they have a certain number of hours they have to hit by the state right so yeah they'd have to be probably two hours longer all those other ones so do they start do they start 45 minutes earlier go 45 minutes later and then also cut lunch by like 30 minutes or something i was gonna say i think they

cut a little bit of the daily schedule to make up for it so it's not truly going that like at the end of the day you're at school slightly less yeah i they cut a little bit of the daily schedule to make up for it. So it's not truly going that like at the end of the day, you're at school slightly less. Yeah. I've never heard of any of the big schools in the state doing it. I've only heard of schools that are like that very small little school. Yeah. Right. Right.

Right. Which makes you think that maybe there is a reason for it. Did you know that rural schools in South Dakota, it was very common for, you know, this is like, I would say maybe 60s and earlier, that they had dormitories for the high schools in the town where the kids, like, during the school week, they would all come and stay at the dormitory. So it would almost be a boarding school? It was like, yeah, it was like, or like they'd stay in like apartments and boarding because it was like a matter of transportation to even get to school. Well, when you think about it,

how just one much shittier vehicles were then and also how much shittier the roads were too. Right. You know, the highway system was much less developed and i don't know when when did the interstate system come around was that the 50s something like some 40s 50s something like that um but you think about those things if those you don't have good roads to get places and when you're talking south where we're going we don't need roads unless it's to get to school we actually like our buddy Zane like this might blow people's minds to hear this yeah our buddy Zane you know

he grew up grew up West River I believe he said he drove was it 32 miles to get to school every day yeah that's insane crazy that is insane yeah and that's there's a large portion of the state of South Dakota that that's not an unusual statement to drive 30 plus miles to school. You know, I only grew up 30 miles from western northeast South Dakota. So like to a fairly for the relative to the state, a metropolitan area. You know, it's kind of funny to say, but kind of still true. But we would have people that drive that far, you know, to go to school. And like we're not even like Zane, the place he lived is insane.

Like, even for, like, our rural standard here, like, where he lived is crazy. Yeah, there's just no civilization. Right, there is barely civilization. But we even had it like that where it was, like, you had to drive that far. You know, and we're kind of civilization or at least like not too far from it. He really is in like not civilization in that area. Yeah. Like that's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole different world. Yeah. So that's our school segment school. You're welcome. School is for fools. Look at me.

Don't ever leave cherish it those are also our review of Billy Madison an excellent movie starring Adam Sandler Chris Farley as the bus driver what was Chris Farley Miss Veronica Vaughn

Chris Farley was the bus driver that Veronica Vaughn is Yeah, well, was Chris Farley was the bus driver? Yeah, he was the bus driver. That Veronica Vaughn is one hot piece of ace. Okay, should we wrap this one up? I suppose. All right, make sure to check out our drop coming out on Tuesday. Order anything. Once the drop releases, you get the free Massonomics 2024. Commemorative calendar.

Commemorative including now including phases of the moon for 2024 tommy where do they find you at you can find me at tomahawk underscore d you can follow me at tanner underscore bear just make sure to follow massonomics at massonomics We'll see you next time.