Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 411: Marshall Johnson 1,108 Pound Squat

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Big Marshall Johnson joins us for this one to discuss "old school" multiply powerlifitng, his 5-year plan recovering from injury, and why VHS tapes are an underrated way to watch movies. Build Fast Formula Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! 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! Massanomics! everything massonomics guess who's back back again tell some friends massonomics podcast back for episode 411 we are the lifting podcast about nothing recorded live from western northeast South Dakota and eastern southeast South Dakota. My name is, as usual, Tanner. And my name, as usual, also is Tommy.

And as usual, we're also joined by... Hit the button, Tanner! Oh, not that one, the other one. Oh, not stained. Ah, right there. With the twins. There we go, We got the twins. And I got a special announcement for this episode also, if you're ready for this one.

Here we go. I don't know if that came across to you. It did not come through at all. Well, the listeners will know that I am, in fact, down with the sickness, as disturbed was alluding to right there. with the sickness as disturbed was alluding to right there. So this is the flu episode where Michael Jordan, game five, I think, of like the 97 finals. I was going to say six, but I also don't keep track of that stuff.

Yeah, I think it's game five against the Jazz. You're alluding to you're going to have the performance of your life tonight. Yeah, you're going to have to carry me off the podcast like Scottie Pippen at the end of this one. I'll be like so drained. I don't know how you could play a basketball game when you're sick with the flu. Hey, you got to be Michael Jordan. Yeah, being sick is one of those things that you really don't appreciate how crappy it is. The day after you're done with it, you're like, ah,

I'm always, I'll be fine forever. Glad that's done. Never have to deal with that again. Right. Right. And then when you're in it, you're like,

this is the worst thing that's ever happened. This is it. I had a good run. It's over. Yeah. But the show must go on no matter what. So this isn't going to be the thing that stops us at four, stops a shy of 411. Hell weeks with a new episode and also i want to tell everyone about uh juggernaut ai

it's the training that tommy and i have both used and um it's what you can use to get stronger if you check them out at juggernaut ai.app that's the website that's where you can go find out more information if you're thinking about signing up, that's where we would want you to sign up because that's where you can use discount code MASSANOMICS. That'll save you 10% for the lifetime of your membership. So if you're a little bit stuck in your training or gotten stagnant, I would encourage you to go check it out.

It's very affordable. It costs like 30 bucks per month. And it might be the thing to put you over the hump to take you to that next step. So check them out at juggernautai.app. And today's episode is also brought to you by Barefoot Shoes, our favorite barefoot shoes on the market today. And I'll get this, get the little discount code right out front.

You can use code MASSANOMICS to save 10% on your next order at barefoot.store. But Barefoot Shoes are designed with minimal restrictions so your feet can move the way they're supposed to. Move with more strength and confidence in every step. Barefoot Shoes was founded by Chris Duffin, who attributes proper foot biomechanics as foundational to his success in squatting and deadlifting over 1,000 pounds for reps. He helped create the company to provide a minimalist shoe that can be worn for anything from deadlifts to walking your dog. Go to www.barefoot.store, and while you're there, make sure to use code MASSANOMICS to save 10% on your next order. Thank you, Barefoot Shoes.

Well, thanks, Barefoot. I haven't been outside the house once today, but I did notice it snowed a little bit here. Well, I thought we were supposed to get a bunch of snow and didn't have anything all day, and then all of a sudden about 6 o'clock it really started coming down, and then I had to go pick up something at the store right before the podcast, and it was really coming down.

It was really slippery. There was an accident in the road. Things were getting nasty. I would not want to be making a road trip in the current state of things. Just as long as it gets that out of its system before the Arnold trip. God, I know, right? We can't be risking this. Yeah, right now we're only like 10 days out from leaving for the Arnold,

probably something like that. Well, two weeks from today, isn't it? Yeah. Wednesday? No, two weeks. Two weeks from today, right around the corner. We can't hold anything back now, can we? We cannot hold anything back right now.

So is it safe to say, Tanner, you're not having a romantic Valentine's Day tonight? No. No. I'm barely alive right now. So, like, there's no room for romance. I'm just in pure survival mode. It's like whatever I can to just hang. I'm just hanging on by a thread.

And pure survival mode means podcast, right? Yes. Yes. Priorities, obviously. Actually, all my family is gone, so it's not a bad time for them to not have to deal with my sickness right now. Right. So they don't have to worry about horrific dad sickness.

They can stay clear. You're basically in quarantine at this point. I know. That is what today felt like. What a waste of a day when you're sick, though. I just sit here thinking of the things I should be doing. I'm like, I don't have the energy to do any of those things. It is the worst.

It is the worst. We snuck away while the kids were at daycare. Before we picked them up, we made our way to a local watering hole and had a couple beverages and a little bit of food. And I might have a new favorite mixed drink, Tanner. That's probably the first thing that's at the top of your mind right now. An old-fashioned? No, not quite an old-fashioned.

Gin and tonic? No, not a gin and tonic either. Do you want to just keep guessing for a while? Blackberry brandy and 7-Up? No, not, not a gin and tonic either. Do you want to just keep guessing for a while? Blackberry brandy and 7-Up? No, not that either. Okay, that was my best guess. I don't know why I ordered this. It's typically not what I order,

but this past weekend we actually went to a place to eat in town, and then there's like this cocktail bar right next to it. And we stopped in there, and I don't even know if the place had beer i think they only make fancy drinks and for whatever reason the one that jumped out at me it was called the horse's neck and it was some type of bourbon ginger beer something fruit of some kind mixed in and it was so damn good i'm not even much of a bourbon mixed drink type of guy. I don't have a problem with it.

So is it something you'd know how to order at other places? Like, could you order that, or would they be like, um, what? Yeah, I don't know. I think that's their fancy name. And also this place, you can tell they put a little extra tender love and care into the drink. It was all done right. But tonight we went to a place, and I'm like,

that basically is a Moscow. I mean, it's like a place and i'm like that basically is a moscow i mean it's like a mule of sorts and they had they had a mule it was like a i can't remember what they called it a mule of some kind and it was very similar you could tell it was not quite made with the same love and tender care and the the thing that really made the other one just go crazy for me is it had just the right level of carbonation it had that sparkliness to it this one was more of a flatter one but um that's like that's my new beverage man that thing is things money it's so good so was it served in a normal glass on the rocks it was served in a tall skinny glass okay uh i don't know what he calls the moscow mules usually in like a well so yeah the

one i had tonight was under the mule section, so it wasn't a copper mug. The one I had the other night was in a highball glass. Okay. Also, just so happened to be that the bar I got it at was called Highball, so I guess it works out, you know. No small coincidence there. No, not there. So that's your new sip and drink? Dude, that does it, man.

The right level of sparkliness. You get that mix of flavor in there. It was good stuff. What's the show with the guys in the 60s where they... Oh, Mad Men? Yeah. Would that be your Mad Men drink? That probably fits in there somewhere,

I'd think. Yeah. Did you ever watch that show? That was before I would watch any TV shows. To me, that show i that was before i would watch any tv shows to me that that show makes me think of one of the first shows that was on netflix you know as far as a tv series and i remember it all but it's been a long time and i remember everyone hyping it up saying this is the show you gotta watch and i tried i tried to start watching it and that was probably 21 at the time and realized nah i don't have it in me to watch a six season show or something and i think i got through four episodes five episodes and i

said i'll just tap out i'm good for now yeah that's all the farther i've made it oh that's probably fair uh the super bowl went on the chiefs won in overtime they did overtime of the super bowl it wasn't the best game. You know, it was. The finish was interesting. The finish was interesting. There was a while there where it was just, it was a lot of just back and forth, nothing crazy going on.

But I don't know. It built up to be something interesting at the end. But, you know, you just know the Chiefs are going to pull this off at the end. You just have that feeling. Oops, they did it again. They did. They did do it again i actually just with over the course of last week i had picked that i want the chiefs to win less

than the 49ers and i had changed my mind that i do actually want the chiefs to win oh you did well and here's here's the only reason why not not so much about the super bowl the football game itself but what i because everyone hates thes, so you had to flip sides? Well, that's actually part of it. Dude, that was actually starting to change my opinion too. Right, because I don't like everyone whining about- Right. The NFL being rigged, Taylor Swift.

Right. Like all the Taylor Swift stuff. And I'm like, no, now I actually kind of want them to win since everyone else- I was of the same mentality. Like when I was going into it at a certain point, I'm like, everyone's whining so much about the chiefs i would just love to see them just make people whine more that's kind of where i flipped the script on mine and then the other

thing in addition to that is i realized i really like the new heights podcast which is uh travis and jason kelsey it is so you still have been listening to that i just started listening to it in like the last couple weeks yep and uh it's really good i it's very entertaining a list the other day was it they're like the number seven podcast on itunes right now i think and and i can see why it's actually really cool when you're like these guys are dudes in the nfl like the guy played in the super bowl and. And then like a day later, they record their podcast about just, just them shooting the shit. It's like just a couple of brothers shooting the shit, except it just happens to be like two of the best in the world at what they do.

Right. Right. Right. Just like us on the mass podcast. So just like all podcasts nowadays, I'll just full of it is, it is good. And I just think they're both pretty entertaining,

so that made me be more like, no, actually, in addition to the points you brought up, that made me be more interested in them winning. I could see that. How did you feel about the halftime show? I am on record that I don't like everyone always complaining about the halftime show because that's another thing where I'm like, no matter what, everyone always complains about the halftime show. So I try to not complain about the halftime show because that's another thing where I'm like, no matter what, everyone always complains about the halftime show. So I try to not complain about

the halftime show. That being said, I do think it sucked, but I would never like post that on Facebook and stuff like that. But I enjoyed some of the cameos was like the only part of the halftime show I actually liked. I like, I like Alicia Keys and Ludacris being on there and stuff like that. But I'm, I'm not an Usher and Ludacris being on there and stuff like that but I'm I'm not an Usher fan by any means I totally get why people like him just not typically that's I never he's right in my era yeah where I should like it but I just to me when we were growing up he was always a thing of like oh no he writes the music girls like like that was the thing it's like yeah he's writing the love songs to girls you know right uh but uh my objective opinion of the halftime show

is that's exactly what you want it to be it was pretty inoffensive it was yes i i will be the first to admit i thought it was entertaining as far as halftime shows go i didn't find anything wrong with it there's definitely been worse ones so to me it was it did its job that was its thing i semi fell asleep during it also so i can like so it really did its job yeah yeah so it's like hard hard for me to rate it because i just if they seem so long but i'm like this just goes on are they even 10 minutes though is it uh probably not yeah like eight to ten minutes something like that i did get done with it though and i'm just thinking about other halftime shows because they're always just like it's the halftime show it's whatever and uh i don't know why in my head the the prince

halftime show crossed my mind and i thought yeah you know what i have not seen that thing in probably close to 10 years so after the super bowl i had to pull up the prince halftime show and man if that thing doesn't make you feel that doesn't make you feel something i don't know if you're alive man that was yeah uh not only is entertaining, but yeah, that's a show. That's good. So if you haven't watched that one ever or if it's been a while, I recommend people pull that one out. It's been a while.

Stained. They should get stained for the halftime show. They just come out and just sing that song four times in a row and then it's done. What was last year's? Last year was Rihanna, right? Oh, okay. Yeah, that's good.

I liked the Dr. Dre Snoop Dogg M&M 50 Cent one. Yeah, that one was pretty good, too. I think it's weird, like, the contact that, like, I know people are making me everything's a meme from the Super Bowl, but, like, the Usher and Alicia Keys thing seems a little, like even at the time, I'm like, this seems like slightly uncomfortable for me,

like what's going on here. It does, but then at the same time, you say, ah, they're performers, and then also, I don't know, people.

And that's kind of like Usher's thing. Like I guess Usher's thing is being like overly sexual towards women in his songs. Yeah. Which is like, that's a weird thing to be your thing, kind of to me, and that's probably why I just Which is like, that's a weird thing to be your thing kind of to me. And that's probably why I just don't like music that much.

People also have jobs of being actors and actresses and they actually have, and they do way more than that. Fake sex with each other in movies. That's true too. If you look at it in the, in terms of it just being a performance like, like an actor would be, then it's not,

not that it's not actually that offensive. But I remember at the time watching it before there was even memes and just thinking, this seems odd. I'm right there with you. I thought the exact same thing. And then the Sheffield went on too, right? Just a monumental weekend for sporting events. Right, the Sheffield and the Super Bowl.

And Sheffield results, like the biggest biggest thing we even talked about this before my biggest takeaway on that is last year with jesus winning it seemed like a really big deal and this year with him not winning at least from our corner of the world it's almost like oh that happened oh okay that's nice dude it does the shit as far as you know we'll be the first to admit we don't pay super close attention to competitions. Yeah. But, man, that took, for me, the care out of it. That's not to discredit any of the achievements anyone else did.

I have no idea actually what people even placed. I don't even know. Here, let me tell you the winner. Have you heard of this name? Gustav Hedlund. No, I don't even know what weight class and numbers, anything. Do you have those numbers pulled up? Yeah, I don't know.

He's in the 93-kilogram class, and he lifted 895 kilograms. But Jesus got 11th out of 12th, actually. Yeah, because didn't he have to he got behind well it's just yeah his squat his squat went good didn't it yeah I think he broke a new world record squat yeah his squat went good and then I think bench kind of put him behind a little bit and then with deadlift he's really falling behind so then you have to just go for a all or nothing pull at the end wasn't that how it worked out yeah but when i look at this list of 12 names of this international list of uh drug tested power lifting i'm like i actually know like three of the names and jesus jesus is the only one that's at really sticks out to me

jesus and then isn't there the 83 guy from america the uh yeah delaney wallace nope not that one okay he got third or oh yeah keiko is the 93 kilogram he got second okay yeah and i do recognize him and then in the women's side agatha one yeah and i do know her until natalie richards oh yeah got ninth and amanda lawrence got 11th really also if it's not an american winning oh god just, like if Jessica was there and winning it, that would be equally interesting. But if it's not like a North American, then I'm also like far less interested too. Like this have to have been,

they had to have seen far less publicity out of it this year than when Jesus won last year, right? You would think. I mean, maybe at the moment, it's still getting the same numbers but then the right the the splash afterwards has to just be I mean the life of it afterwards has to just die so fast yeah I'd say the die core hardcore IPF fans they probably love it either way and they just love the competition like if you're Steve DiNovi you're like oh it was awesome i could just picture him but for us as people that are uh pretty into power lifting but like not super into that it's kind of like

like my point is if we are almost like yeah i don't really know like it didn't seem that crazy or all that exciting like if we think that it's probably not doing a ton for, Oh, just you get slightly outside of our circle then. And you're already in the room with people not caring at all. Right. Right. So that is the problem is it just,

again, it's a very small group of people that it. Yeah. The big splash needs to be Jesus, the biggest guy setting the biggest numbers of all time. And that's, that's a win for everyone and that's anything short of that is kind of disappointing, honestly.

Anti-climactic. Yeah. That's our takeaway on it, right? I think a lot of people would feel that same way. Again, that's not to discredit what the other guys did. Clearly some phenomenal lifters, but it's just the most exciting thing is to see the biggest guy set the biggest total.

Right, right, right. Okay. Uh, do you have a can? Oh, I do.

I do. What do you got? I got myself a fresh Waterloo blackberry lemonade. Ooh, those are good. What do you got? I, because I'm a hot rehydraterated because i'm down with the sickness i

today right now i'm having a powerade zero grape i've also had a uh today i've had a diesel red powerade all the calories this is a zero and then i also had a yellow diesel And then I also had a yellow diesel Gatorade. So I've had, I think I've now had four of these. And I've also had quite a bit of orange juice. That's mostly the calories I've gotten today. Yeah, you got to get them any way you can. That's, my weight cut probably just got like, I'm scared to get on the scale. Next week Tanner is 225 pounds.

I might be like, I could be into the 230s by the end of this. Just withering away. Yeah, because I was like down to 244 as it was. And I'm probably going to lose at least five pounds based on the way that this has been feeling. So it's very possible I could be to like 238. 230s, here we come. It's like we. Yeah, I don't even actually want to be that light.

It's like we said in our... You might not remember this, Tanner, and people will hear this in about a week or so, but like we said in our training vlog, that is to come out, Build Back Better 2024, Mathsonomics Gym. We're going to build back into that weight class.

Yes. I'm going to have some building back to do after this one because i i'm you do feel like i'm withering away into nothing now i'm the lightest i've been in uh well over a decade i think since probably 2009 that's the last time i but i think even before the sickness i think 2009 was the last time i weighed when i got down to 244 the last time i weighed that little is 2009 do you feel like you can jump higher than you could or you get is jumping come around or do you not push that much at um the only normally i would say i wouldn't even know but since i still since i play basketball yeah there's been like not like

me messing around just jumping but there's been a couple specific plays that I've jumped up. The other day I did just a baby hook shot, but the guy was going to get someone tall and he had a good shot of blocking me. I jumped just way higher than I normally do. Actively in the moment I thought, holy crap, that's the highest I've jumped in a long like it actually felt weird because there was this moment when I was still up in the air like an actual jump you know not just like down yet what am I the next play you took off from the free throw line just to see it no and like if it wouldn't have even you wouldn't even notice if you're watching but just in me in my head because I so infrequently try to jump high like that anymore. And then there's been a couple of those when I

actually catch myself where I'm like, wow, that felt really weird. Like I was actually up in the air. Uh, so I have noticed that probably, yeah, it's probably as a little, little easier to jump. So is there any fear of, of, of hurting yourself on jumps or do you feel like, no, I can, I can, I can put it all. No, that was actually part of it. There is a fear of that because then I'm always like, oh my God, if I'm up that, you know, I'm saying that high, but like if I'm jumping up like that, that is a great opportunity for someone else to get underneath of my feet.

And I worry about that. I mean, could you comfortably like right now though, can you comfortably jump and touch the rim? I can touch the rim. I can't, I definitely can't dunk it. I used to be able to dunk it. Like in 2009, I could uh uh i was never a one-footed jumper i could never one-foot jump but i could take a two-foot drop step yep or a three-foot and jump off both feet and dunk the ball with

two hands i also could never palm the ball very well. So I could, you know, when most people start to be able to stretch out a little more and I could never do that because a, I can't jump off of one foot and B I couldn't palm the ball very well. So when I could dunk it, it's when I weighed about two 35, two 40, it's when I had started to lift or not started to lift, but started to really like squat and deadlift, but I hadn't got that heavy yet. started to lift but started to really like squat and deadlift but i hadn't got that heavy yet and then i could uh do a dunk off of two feet and um i can't do that now but i i could touch the rim but even that feels like really like i'm like that feels really high to me yes yes i'm like i don't actually i normally don't wouldn't jump that much while we're playing because i'm worried about that like it just seems like a great opportunity to get hurt.

But yes, the being lighter does, that actually does, that probably makes more of a difference than anything, I think. It makes sense. You just think, okay, go jump and put this 25-pound weight on a backpack. You'd say, well, it's going to throw me all off. It's too heavy. Right, right. Let's see here so how is what do

you what do you rate that waterloo oh this is probably a three and a half yeah yeah okay let's see should i do supporting our supporting members or do we want to talk about one of these other topics first maybe we got do we have time for something? Click on this Reddit one. Click on Reddit. There's a link in there. And it's funny. I could not find this at first. I don't know if you noticed this. Someone put this in the Discord the first time. Our chicken bake shirt had appeared on the Reddit

Costco thread. Okay, it's in the Costco thread. Yeah, it's on the Costco Reddit. But what's funny now is I was having trouble finding this. The moderators of our Costco had removed the post. Why did they remove it?

I don't know why. They removed it, but the comments are all still there. And, oh, let's see. Moderator announcement. Oh, okay. That's just a bot. Yeah, it's saying that maybe they didn't use a descriptive post and title. So a couple things. It was funny because it's just a bot yeah it's saying that maybe they use a descriptive post and title

so a couple things it was funny because just a picture of our shirt had no credit where it was from or anything it was just a picture of the shirt which would have been nice right if we could have directed people the right way to go but what is hilarious is the number of comments that are just saying oh the chicken bake all that sodium oh you're concerned about protein just get the rotisserie chicken it's loaded with fat and carbs and so that's everything isn't it 900 calories everything is complaining about i think really oh salty pile of crap uh just the number of comments i see in there and think do you take everything in life that seriously like you're on a reddit thread for, do you take everything in life that seriously?

You're on a Reddit thread for Costco. You can't take life that seriously because you're in the Reddit for Costco. That is not a place you go if you actually have serious business to do. But man, in there, it was a tough crowd. Almost, I would say of the, I don't know, hundred and some comments in there, maybe four got it and were having fun with it. Right.

It's interesting that they took it down someone did right and the twins so they must get it well i think luke big luke was in there uh he was the one who shared that 88 yeah uh he might be uh and the twins uh but yep everyone's everyone's a h. You just, unless you're negative and sensationalizing things, I guess people don't approve of it anymore. Yeah. We've got supporting our supporting members, and are we making the line in the sand yet, or what's the...

I mean, it's kind of... I mean, we could set the line right now. All the wheels are in motion. All the pieces have been set. We just need to formally announce the line, so do we want to set the line right now. All the wheels are in motion. All the pieces have been set. We just need to formally announce the line. So do we want to announce the line right now? Yeah, so this episode will come out when? Actually, you know what?

The line has to get set because I'm going to be gone for basically two weeks. So the line has to be set. This is coming out on Sunday. The 19th. The very last possible day would be Tuesday, and that's probably pushing it. So Monday the 19th might be the line in the sand. So if you're listening to this now,

when it's coming out like the day or two it's coming out, the line in the sand is now. If you're listening to this late, you probably missed the line in the sand. And what we're talking about is becoming a supporting member for our next crew mailing that we have coming out that we're pulling out all the stops for. So if you're not signed up now and you're listening to this on Monday,

the line's been drawn, but you could still end up on the right side of history, correct? You still could. Like Monday, Monday, by the end of the day, you have to have your name in, and even then you might be cutting it a little too close. Right, right. So the line has at least been somewhat drawn right like it's been projected out yeah we kind of know when we have like the the laser level is out and we can see the laser we just the lines there with the laser we just got to draw it in now so it's right right

it's getting very official so final warning we have had a lot of people join up to get in uh before the line in the sand so thank you to all of our new supporting members i think you're going to be very happy that you got in before the line in the sand uh so if anyone's on the fence now's now's your time like now is the time to do it and uh also want to give a shout out to some supporting members specifically here. Happy birthday to Big Nick Rolfe, our resident sales agronomist. Happy birthday, Big Nick. Big Catfish was him and his friend were hosting the Southern USA Natural Strongman World Qualifier. That's coming up in January 2025, it looks like.

So great job, Big Cat catfish then we've got big ryan recent uh joined supporting member he finished first placed in the middleweight division at strongman atp classic in arizona and now he can officially say he's one of the ryans the growing number of ryans uh a few too many if you ask me and then big jordy got engaged so his impending funeral is coming up now the old ball and chain yeah congratulations big jordy and then also a big swim hack was uh this week's guest on unpaid and underrated so make sure to check that out thank you to our supporting members you can become a supporting member before the line in the sand like we talked about you also get access to our exclusive discord community you can um get a free disc or not a free there's a

discount code for supporting members technically it is a free discount code yeah like once you pay to become a supporting member you don't have to pay anything else for it. We give it to you for free once you give us money. Once you pay. What else do you get? You can listen live to the podcast each week. We have some people listening live now. You get the inside look at the going-ons. Yeah, the peak behind the Masonomics meat curtain, if you will.

So thank you, supporting members. And then I want to have you all hear a little bit from, we're talking about the Arnold coming up soon, and some of our good friends will be there. I want you to hear a little message from them. This is the Strength Company. We've set out to build a better barbell plate on American soil. We ended up here at Wisconsin's legendary

WAPACA foundry with over 60 years of ironworking experience. The foundry had the knowledge, technology and processes to build our weights to our exact specifications. The Strength Company plates are slim but rugged, smooth but easy to grip, and electro-coated for durability and to look great in your gym. This is the next generation of American Iron, only available from the Strength Company. Yeah, the Strength strength co made in america iron and this episode is also brought to you by swiss link since 1995 swiss link has been importing

military issue goods to the united states and into the hands of those yearning for quality gear at uncompromised prices swisslink.com carries all you can imagine from British tactical vests to Italian Navy deck shoes and everything in between. Swisslink is also home to the authentic Wavian fuel cans. They're from the same factory that has been making the so-called Jerry cans for the NATO forces since the 1940s. Made from 0.9 millimeter of cold rolled steel, Wavians are the highest quality gas cans

on the market. Big Mo has since decided that a high quality water can was needed as well, so SwissLink developed a stainless steel water can to match. It fits all your Wavyans, jerry can holders, and is made from food grade 304 stainless steel so you can trust it to carry your drinking water. This is another addition to SwissLynx's exceptional collection and dedication to quality customer service. Enjoy a 15% discount on your next purchase at SwissLynx.com by entering code MASS at checkout. That's M-A-S-S to save 15% at SwissLynx.com.

Thank you, SwissLynx. Well, thanks, SwissLynx. is our guest here yet or do we need to talk about one more topic our guest is not here yet so we could uh we could sneak in a little more if we wanted i but i would like to mention some uh yeah i was gonna say all the all the topics i have are not quick quick topics so maybe there's one i'd like to mention i so much would like to mention it that maybe it's okay to mention before and after the copycats that we've seen lately. Dude, it's an epidemic right now. If you have small children listening, I would probably would, when we talk about this, it's very possible I would use foul language.

So maybe shut this off if you have children present but i want to specifically call out this tango charlie company that uh did a uh copy of our lift or you know a classic lift design like probably our most classic massonomics design of all time and they communicated with us at first and then have since ghosted it and all they've been doing is blocking everyone that deleting comments and blocking turning comments off yeah and fuck those guys like don't give it don't do any business to tango like they're the worst not only did they get caught okay maybe maybe we'll give them the biggest benefit of the doubt and say they accidentally

arrived at the exact same t-shirt that we did and we've been known for forever. And somehow they've never known it. Maybe there's a lot of maybes there, but you would think that at the end you'd be like, oh fuck man. Okay. Yep. Sorry. Totally didn't realize that. I guess we're sort of in the same space. Like, yeah, let's talk this through. We'll, we'll take the shirts down. Yep. Yep. We don't want to, we don't want to stomp on your whole thing and no it's been radio silence uh block silence turn off comment it's doing everything they can which makes you think they know what they're doing they're just trying to fuck over other businesses and for sure are which is don't make sure to never do business my recommendation would be never do any business with tango charlie

no they're the worst and then it's also funny we've had some people looking and it looks like they have a pretty long history of just ripping off other companies in our space yeah they've done yeah it doesn't i also think they have original ideas have a lot of paid followers on instagram look at their engagement and shit for what their account size is yeah and um i don't like they initially responded to us saying like what i believe is lying saying oh we've never we didn't know you've ever had anything like this and i don't believe that and then like okay even if that's true like you said then after you do know that we've had something like this for like a decade then uh what would be the next move and

their next move was just like nope we nope, we don't give a shit. Just to double down and then to block and make things even worse. Okay, so we haven't talked about this for a couple days now, so you haven't heard anything else from them? No, I get the feeling they are not going to say anything else about it. And from my point of view, it's not like a legal issue or anything like that. It's just a don't be a piece of shit issue. Right, exactly, exactly. That seems to be the road they wanted to take. legal issue or anything like that it's just don't be a piece of shit issue right exactly exactly so

that seems to be the road they wanted to take yep yep uh being pieces of shit yeah it's uh it's really annoying that there's just people like that that think they're but everyone is everyone's just like scheming no one comes up with ideas on their own anymore they're just everyone's ripping everyone off um and this just leads into another one did you see because there's several levels of getting copied we've been copied many times by people and uh we've been the first to say that yeah we do a lot of parody stuff people can do parody stuff too but just don't do the exact same parody we did like we already did that come up with a different one right but there's levels to this stuff so you have companies like this that supposedly have real people at them it looks like they're taking photos and trying to do

something but then you also have these i'm assuming ai drop ship companies that are just scraping the web for stuff and did you see in the copies one those three links i put in there was it the uh was one of them the ouch everything hurts hurts? No. Well, that was another one we got ripped off on. But click on that copies one. There's three links in there. What's amazing here is somehow something on the internet was scraping things and found the Chicken Bake shirt. Right.

It straight up has the Chicken Bake shirt with our logo and name underneath it. It says Masanomics on it. Yeah. So there's three different websites right here that sell the Chicken Bake 52 grams of protein shirt and also have the Masanomics name underneath them too. We actually do have intellectual property on the Masanomics, so you can't.

I mean, there it is. They have our actual logo on it. Like you can't print our logo on shit. But these companies are all just like made up out. They're not even real things. If you read the description, it's just like a total it's just totally trying to uh just hit seo yeah traffic you know it's just trying to scrape and do whatever it can and uh yeah somehow this latched onto our t-shirt so there's so many things so we've had here's three websites right here that

took the chicken big shirt tango charlie steals the lift shirt we saw another company last week steal the out shirt and the week before that we saw another company steal the lift banner we had six companies in the past 10 days steal our designs is that insane or what it's like getting really fucking annoying because everyone is ripping our shit yes Yes. That's, it is really annoying. And like those fake ones, like the chicken bake one, I'm like, well, there's probably nobody buying that. I don't think there is. Like Google, I don't even think Google really recommends those sites

because they look so scammy. But these ones where you have this actual company where they're saying they're veteran owned and trying to do all this positive stuff, but then at the same time ripping us off. And then at the same time when they're getting called out, doing everything they can to cover their butts to not look like bad guys because they actually are bad guys those are shitty people they suck yeah i love them leaning

on the veteran owned and then in the dms they left it on red when i said hey you know i'm also a veteran in this you know veteran owned company and i think what you're doing sucks and then they look at that and then don't respond yeah all of a sudden being a veteran doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, right. What are we, chopped liver? I don't know. I guess we're only half veteran-owned. Maybe that's our problem. Yeah, they're like, oh, we would respect you.

Maybe that's our problem is we don't lead with that. We need our marketing to be more focused saying that we're veteran-owned. That's the problem. That's definitely the problem. So do not ever do any business with Tango Charlie. Yeah, and if you want to, you can tell them that they suck too. We don't have a problem with that. They probably need someone to set them straight.

Bring a little honor and honesty into their life. Right, absolutely. Our guest has arrived, Tanner. Okay. Should we kick everyone off? Yeah, I'm booting them as we speak. I forgot, supporting our supporting member, I forgot to mention that Big Toby also competed at that ATP Classic.

And he was the Masters winner. And he had a 620-pound deadlift PR. That's one for the resume. Yeah, and he must have recruited Big Ryan there to become a supporting member. So that's like a triple win. It's a win-win. Win-win-win-win.win yeah everyone wins all right we're excited uh big marshall johnson the freak show is joining us for this one all the way from fargo north dakota and we always like to talk about

what we're drinking and i just saw you had a bottle of something there so what is that what what are you drinking there for the podcast ginger ale oh i'm i'm 40 so that's a classy choice yeah yeah it uh settles the stomach what brand schweps okay okay all right is ginger ale a common go-to for you yeah yeah i uh i like pop too much so usually uh i usually like mountain dew too much so i've cut it cut back a lot on that and usually something like a ginger ale is just enough to fight that urge that carbonation you know what about uh like a la croix or a sparkling water have you ever uh gotten into those at all wasn't a fan wasn't a fan no not your cup of tea it's a long road to get used to having no flavor and somehow trying especially when you go from

mountain dew to yeah yeah like two ends of the spectrum uh so we'll talk about your your lifting stuff uh you know your lifting numbers and stuff over the years. But what I wanted to start with is, uh, you probably wouldn't remember this, but in 2016 in Chamberlain, that's when I, uh, would have first met, saw you or saw you for the first time where you did an APF powerlifting meet there in Chamberlain, uh, in February of 2016. And I was doing that meet also. And I remember seeing you for the first time and being like, Oh my God, this is like, um, you know, we had maybe been powerlifting for a year or two at the time. And I just thinking like, wow, this is one of those like really big, scary powerlifter

guys that I see I've seen on the internet before, you know, and like, not that you were, you're actually scary, but, um, at the time, like, I just was like, ah, this is like one of those guys that I've seen before in real life. Yeah. I, um, I like those, those meets down there in South Dakota. Uh, they're usually run pretty well. Um, it's close enough, close enough to home. So it's driving distance. Um, I got a lot of kind of friends in that area and I think either Jr. friends in that area and i think either jr bouldery ran it or john lenz john lenz ran it yeah uh either way they always put on a good meet uh friends with jr good friends with uh john lenz and his family they uh they all um participate heavily in relentless that's i think that's where i met the lenses and jr boulder to be honest was through Relentless but um yeah good meets ran good

good people so uh explain Relentless what that is for anyone listen that maybe doesn't know because I know you've been like I don't do you is that something that you've run or are you just very involved in it I know you're involved with it but uh just very involved with it. A very good friend of mine, Scott Nutter and Mike Hamilton, they needed it. They wanted to find a way to raise money for their pastor who had cancer. And Scott Nutter had always run powerlifting meets and he thought it would be a cool idea to have a powerlifting meet, a sanctioned powerlifting meet that was also a fundraiser. a powerlifting meet, a sanctioned powerlifting meet that was also a fundraiser. So you had your entry fee was waived in lieu of you had to raise X amount of dollars. Like, I don't remember. I don't remember the first year when they raised the money for the pastor, what the minimum was,

but it was, you just had to raise a minimum amount of money. And that was your entry fee. And then when it was all you know said and done it was it was a sanctioned full sanctioned power lifting meet and at the end you know we get this grant told i think it was like 20 grand that we we all raised for the their local pastor and scott said he knew he was on to something and he tried to figure out a way like how can we do this every year and not just for this like, how can we do this every year? And not just for this person, but how can we do this every year? And Scott's very involved with the church and religion and charities and stuff like that. And he was looking for a charity that we could,

so to speak, use this for every year. And he happened across a charity called Hope Kids, every year and he happened across a charity called hope kids which is out of minneapolis minnesota and the second year of relentless and then every year i believe we're at year 10 um but every year since the second year has been for relentless i mean for hope kids hope kids is in a non-profit organization based out of the cities. And they provide calendar events for the families of kids who have either a life-threatening or life-altering condition, whether it be they have cancer, muscular dystrophy, or some sort of physical, physical, not deformity, but some sort of physical ailment to where it has a massive effect on their daily lives to where they might not be able to live without the assistance of someone their whole life. Basically, it provides calendar

events for these families who spend a lot of their time completely focusing on their child's problem because it's always in their face. They look at their calendar. It's Monday, it's blood draw. Tuesday, it's chemo. Thursday, it's monday it's blood draw tuesday it's chemo you know thursday it's another test like their whole calendar revolves around what their child is facing and what hope kids does it provides these calendar events free events to where they'll they'll get a box for you know a pro sports game or they'll rent out a movie theater for the day or they'll have like an outdoor carnival. They just provide calendar events for these families to go and just kind of get away from it for, you know, a couple hours, whatever that may be.

And what was really cool is Scott and Mike were able to meld the two together so well. They wanted the kids to be a huge part of it so before we had their first year which was the second year of relentless they had something called the hope kids kickoff which was about three months before the meet actually took place and it was a place for all the families to families and the children to come in and they we spent like a whole day like doing kind of like a feet of strength thing. There was a couple, there was a couple of people doing exhibition lifts and power lifting.

There was people doing exhibition lifts and strong man, like old time circus strong man stuff, like tearing cards, you know, blowing up water, you know, blowing up the, the water bags and stuff like that and the kids were all like heavily involved with it and that went on amazing and when the meat came along if you've ever seen pictures of relentless you'll see that we have this big stage where it's a full sanctioned power lifting meet and the whole stage is just filled with kids like there's there's probably 50 to 100 kids on stage the whole time.

And every time, you know, the lifter completes a lift, they go up and give the kids high fives. And people develop really strong bonds with these families. And one of the cool things about being in Relentless is you can just be someone who raises funds and then competes. But you can also go a step further and be a part of something called Team Hope, which is where you actually get paired up with a family. And it is your goal to start a relationship with that family more than just, you know,

just seeing them on meet day. So on top of raising extra money, you also start a relationship with the family. So that just made all the ties so much stronger and made the meat mean so much more yeah that's awesome that's really cool so that's still that that's still an annual event then each year uh yeah yeah uh and unfortunately because of the thing that shall not be named in 2020 uh that that uh of course you can't have um a building full of you know very sick kids right right confined in a space so uh i believe 2020 we didn't have anything and 2021 um i think we had, but it was very small turnout and we're just now starting to kind

of get the ball rolling. Like last year was a really good turnout once again, and we're kind of starting to get that momentum back, but we got to, and I don't mean like, you know, myself, but like we, we, as in everybody involved with Relentless, I believe the most amount we raised in a year was i want to say two hundred thousand dollars you know just in just that's like three to four months of fundraising you know um just people people had all these creative ways to raise funds there's people that had connections with bigger businesses or you know know, people who worked for corporations, you know, they just, people would put on fundraising events and people were able to raise a crazy amount of money.

Like there was single people who were raising, you know, like 20 grand, just them. And I want to say because of, because of Relentless specifically, Hope Kids was able to open four to five different states just because of Relentless. So now Hope Kids is, I believe in at least five different states now. That's really cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. And speaking of states, you're just a Dakota man, just up the road from us in Fargo. So are you a Fargo native? I mean, did you grow up there or did you wind up there at some point in time? I was actually born in Minot, North Dakota, and then I lived in Garrison, North Dakota until I was in the sixth grade and then moved to Iowa. And I lived in Iowa until I graduated. I graduated high school in Iowa, but I really, even though I was in the sixth grade, I still remembered North Dakota and

I liked it a lot. And I, uh, I went to NDSU for a semester, uh, and it didn't go well. I went to NDSU, uh, failed, failed out for all the reasons you could imagine a freshman fails out for their first year. Went back home, thought I'd try it again, did not learn my lesson. I failed again for my second semester. And then I just stayed. And I've been in Fargo since 2002. So I've been, I've been in Fargo for a long time. I love it here. It, all the, anything you could need that a big city presents,

and then it still has a small town feel at the same time. Yeah. And you, you talked about, you must've just recently turned 40, not too long ago. You're so you're officially, you're officially masters now,

right? I, I, i can be a master yes but i won't i won't i never never will no that's such a such a taboo thing with us uh i came up i came up with a lot of old school lifters and you didn't do masters. You didn't do, you lifted open. Even if you were 75 years old, you lifted open. And that's just kind of stuck with me and the people that train at my gym or the people like coach and train. It's always just like you lift in the open. And whether that's necessary or not, I feel like it keeps a sense of what are you doing this for? Are you doing this to get a participation award because you did a submasters or this whatever that had seven asterisks behind it. So you can tell everybody you're a state champion, or are you going there for the purpose of getting better, which is why you should be going to a meet. You should be going to the meet to get better. And I, that's just kind

of something that stuck with me since I started powerlifting. And it's kind of a running joke that we don't, not nobody in my gym, nobody i train like you live in the open yeah so although you may technically be able to be a masters you're not gonna you're not gonna go into that without a fight no and it was like funny like uh louis simmons never he never competed in any of the masters he always competed in open but had he competed in masters he would be an umpteen time all-time world record holder but he you he never he never was because he's always competed in the open you know what i mean right um so we know in terms of power lifting then you know you know you're not going to be considered a masters but i did see an interesting post you had where uh

like you had a stylistic change at least least in, in, at least in one post where you, uh, you were embracing the Midwestern Midwestern dad, 40 year old dad look where you're wearing a jean shorts and, uh, a polo and clicking the tongs at the grill. Yeah. My wife, my wife made that video. She thought she was pretty funny. Um, it started like, I was just joking on myself it was my 40th birthday party so I was just a joke on myself trying to dress like what I remember my dad dressing like when he was 40 and then she she actually I didn't know it she kept taking small videos of me and she kept telling me to do this stuff and I didn't know what the hell she was asking me to do it for and then all of a sudden the next day she's got this video i'm like good job you got me

yeah um do you feel like you're because if someone's watching this on youtube they'll they looking at you and you look like a look like a normal dude on here but has your look actually changed a little bit because what i remember is you know know, a colored, maybe I'm exaggerating this in my head, but like a colored Mohawk with a bull nose ring. And, you know, like your name, your name of the freak show, like, you know, you had a very like a wild look to you and you don't really necessarily have that look today as we're talking here. Yeah, there's a, you know, there there's there's a lot more to it um i've been you know battling a back injury since uh december of 2019 and i have not been able to i've not been able to compete since 20 november of 2020 just because of this ongoing back injury and I I haven't it might it might sound dumb but like that was like the nose ring and the mohawk like that was that was like that was like my armor

and I haven't been that person since I got hurt so until until I'm strong enough again until I'm strong enough again, until I'm back to where I was, it's not going to come back. As soon as I'm back to what I was and capable of doing the things I was used to be doing, then the armor comes back on. But until then, I can't. I can't wear it. You know what I mean? It might sound dumb, but that's just how I think of it. You know what I mean? That kind of makes sense to me.

I can see that for sure. It's a whole other persona. Yeah, it's like a thing of the race. think of it. You know what I mean? That kind of makes sense to me. I can see that for sure. It's a whole other persona. Yeah, it's like a thing about race. I get it. Yeah. And talking about your numbers that you've put up. So we looked, Tommy looked, what was the number of meets and the number of years? Did you have, was it like 32 meets in 10 years?

Something like that? My first competition was in 2007. okay and i don't think that has you back to 2010 i think right right yep i started competing in uh nasa meets in in my not those are the first meets i went to that was uh nasa was like uh it was like a usa pl it was like a drug tested federation i don't think it was in many States. I think it was kind of a Midwest thing. So I've never even heard of that. I remember hearing of it, but yeah, not, it's not a common thing.

Yep. Yep. So my first probably three or four meets were in NASA. And then I did a few meets in the USAPL and it didn't take me very long to realize that's not where I wanted to be. Um, just rules for the sake, I'll never understand rules for the sake of rules. Um, it's, it's cool. It's cool to be a part of a federation. That's that strict. I guess if you're someone who thinks someday that powerlifting is going to be in the Olympics, which it's not, but it's, you can, you can have all the legitimacy, amazing lifts, quality people without so much of the stupid rules. Like there's, there's two people in my gym that are diehard USA PLers and just going to their meets. It's,

it's awful. It's just quiet. It's people, people get upset if you cheer um and you can't um i remember um micah couldn't use his belt because there was a tear in it like it was unfit to use because a piece of the leather had a tear in it and he had to find a different belt just stupid shit like that i'm like what does that have to do with anything right where you know it's not affecting the lifts on the platform at all yeah yeah not even a little bit yeah um i guess i never paid attention to how many meets how many meets i've done i just know i've been competing since 2007 and then for the longest time it was probably three meets a year for a little

while yeah and that's what that's what we looked at like about three months three meets a year which over the course of 10 years that is a lot of competing very few people you see competing with that frequency yeah and then you kind of realize once your numbers get bigger that it's not that advantageous to be doing three months a year to two meets a year is it's pretty much golden because that gives you some downtime it gives you a little bit of an off season to fix some weaknesses and then that gives you some time to um really ramp up for the meat all while you have to just accept the fact that shit's gonna happen injuries are gonna happen so you you're giving yourself you're building in kind of a cushion um and if you don't need it you don't

need it it's money but if you do need it you're happy it's there right and um correct if us if correct me if i'm wrong on this but your best total of all time was like 27, 45. That is, uh, last I checked that seventh all time in my weight class. Yep. That's what we saw too. Regardless of federation, uh, seventh all time in my weight class and number 14, all time, regardless of weight of any weight class, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I think that used to be, I think that used to be, uh, 11 or 12 at one time, but the past couple of years, it's kind of been knocked down. But still, yeah, very, very happy with those. Super happy with that. And the part that's frustrating, that's hard to let it go is I think I was 30 pounds away from top five, uh, 30 to 50 pounds away from top five

all time in my weight class. So that's just like, that's 10 pounds, you know, per lift, you know, I can, I'm so close to being top five all time and so close to 2,800 that, uh, there's a lot of, I can't leave that unfinished. Right. I mean, do you see yourself making a run at things again here? That's my plan. I started a five-year plan last year. And the first year of that five-year plan was to not power lift. And that was, that was honestly probably one of the hardest

years of my life. Uh, because I am a power lifter. When you say not power lifting, is that not competition or actually not doing the movements, not doing the movements? Okay. Um, like I, I was trying for so many years to, to figure out a way to heal my back. And I would make some progress and then I would hurt it worse, make some progress and then hurt it worse. It was like two steps back and seven steps, two steps forward and seven steps back. And it was just getting, I felt like a prisoner in my own body. I, I literally lost 10 years, 10 years. I literally lost 10 months of my life to it because there was a 10 month span to where almost any way I moved, I triggered my injury.

My back was so, I had re-aggravated it and re-hurt it so many times that my back was so sensitive and so unstable sitting adjusting your leg when you're sitting it would flare up you know standing from sitting rolling in bed you know like putting your leg over your knee in bed like reaching over to like any any movement would would trigger it because um like my pt described it when you have chronic injury your body develops um a lot more nerve endings in that area to put up more flares because it's like we don't want to be hurt anymore so anything that even resembles the movement it's like having a smoke alarm that goes off when you when you turn on the toaster you know i mean it's like it's like you put toast in the toaster and it's like four alarm fire you know if there's

no like it treats it as as if you know it's a full-blown emergency and for for about 10 months of my life like i was scared to move because anything and it was an extremely depressing extremely depressing time in my life because not only did I lose my identity because for the last 14 years or however long it's been like I've been a power lifter that's been my identity everything else has been until I met my wife everything else was backseat. And then since then, it was my wife and powerlifting. And then it was my wife and my daughter and like, everything else took a backseat. My life revolved around powerlifting. And to have that taken away was, it was extremely frustrating. So, you know, you get to a point where you're, you're just fucking sick of it and it's something has to change.

And I remember my PT had said something along the lines of, it takes nine, nine to 12 months for a herniated disc to heal itself. And that might be, I might be inaccurate or wrong. Somebody knows more than I do might be like you're full of shit but I specifically remember him saying like nine to ten months is when you know a herniated disc will heal so then I was like if I sacrifice a year right now that still gives me time at the back end because there's plenty of power lifters who hit their peak in their mid 40s you know they're they're 43 44 45 46 um there's a power lifter in fargo right now jason ellert he's he's in his mid 40s and he's the strongest he's

ever been like he's getting he's just getting, um, stuff like that kind of gives me hope. So I had to sacrifice a year and I tried to do some benching off and on, but I had just found in that year when I took a year off of powerlifting, I tried to do some benching and stuff like that off and on, but it always caused more problems than anything else. And I try, I had to relearn how to squat. I had to relearn how to deadlift. I had to relearn how to brace and power lifting movements, um, aside from sometimes trying to do bench for a year, all that time was spent on solidifying my core, doing single leg stuff to get rid of imbalances, um, working on my cardio, my, my conditioning. I lost 52 pounds in that time because I saw no reason to be, um, I, there was no reason to be 308 pounds if I wasn't powerlifting. So, and that kind of, that kind of gave me a goal to get my

mind off things to where I had something to work for in that year. Um, and now that that year is up, that year was up in, you know, January 1st. So now this year I started basically from the ground up. Like I'm, I'm building my raw squat bench and deadlift basically from scratch. It's like tonight I deadlifted 185. And, you know, my loose goals is to be able to squat and deadlift 500 pounds at the end of this year raw. Um, and then that'll give me three more years to throw out this five-year plan. It just, it's just this gradual build to it at the fifth year, being able to take a run at my old numbers.

Yeah. Is it hard for you to go in and deadlift 185 like is it uh hard for you to stick to the plan like it being that that long of a progression or are you able to look at the plan and say no i get that that's what i need to do now where i'm at with things now it's not uh before it was extremely difficult um but you recognize that you're going through a pattern, you're going through a pattern. It was like, it was, it's insanity doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different result. And that's what I was doing. And I was never addressing the problem. I was just casting it long enough until something, something happened. So I was never fixing it I was just masking it um and now I understand that there's a process and this has to go slow and um some days it is extremely

frustrating to um you don't only squat 185 like I think last week I squatted 205 and i don't remember in my life 205 ever being so heavy like i did like four four triples with 205 and i don't remember in my life it ever being that heavy and actually i thought that 500 and 500 was was modest and i didn't i didn't think i would be able to last now now i'm just like is that long enough am i I'd be able to last now. Now I'm just like, is that long enough? Am I going to be able to get back to that? So, uh, so reference I've seen you put 1100 pounds on your back before, just so people understand like the, you know, the difference that we're talking here. Yeah. 1107 is my best in competition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, that's crazy that makes that seems like you're on like that seems like it makes a lot of sense to me from the outside looking in though it does and also the

fact that i mean it's crazy impressive that you've managed to step back and put together a five-year plan too because a five-year plan takes an enormous amount of discipline and self-control one to even admit that something could possibly take that long. And then to, you know, like you said, set these roadblocks, you know, these, these marks out a year out, like, Nope, 500 is the, is the market year from now when, you know, even if you're feeling great, you maybe push it, but no, having that self-control is, is really impressive. Yeah. Uh, I, this is, you know, this is all i've ever known this is all i've ever done and um it's it's it's it's too uh say it's my to say it's my legacy is the wrong it's not that epic but it's like that this is my life like i've i've wasted not wasteful. You can make the argument. You know, my life has been powerlifting. I don't have a career. I've worked the same job for 17 years only because it didn't get in the way of powerlifting. It paid the bills. If I needed if I needed time off to go to a meet, I got time off.

Uh, if I needed, if I needed time off to go to a meet, I got time off, uh, my hours never changed. So it's, it paid the, it pays the bills, but I don't have a career. You know, this, my, my eggs are in the power lifting basket. And I understand that if I'm going to do the things that I want to do, the things I know I can do, I know it will take that long because I've tried pushing the envelope for too many years and just getting hurt worse every time. Right. And the, the career thing, that's, it's actually interesting. We were just last week talking with Shane Haller on the podcast and him having similar comments, honestly, where it's just like, you know, my job might not

sound that cool, but it allows me to do the stuff that I actually am passionate about doing it about doing. And I think there's something to that of just like, you know, I don't know if it's discipline or whatever the word is, but just like understanding that and being like, no, I get it. I get that. This is just what I do because it allows me to do what I actually want to do. You know, like allows my my passion to be a thing that I can go after. It's a means to an end, and I understand that. I have not wanted anything in my life but this. I never knew what I wanted to be when I was going to grow up. I had no clue, and I still don't know what I want to be when I was going to grow up. I had no clue.

And I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, which is sad hearing a 40-year-old say that. But this is what I've dedicated my life to. And I've got tunnel vision. Nothing gets in the way of this. And if it does, it's gone. You know what I mean? And I, I was extremely, extremely fortunate to, to meet my wife, Kathy, who 100% gets it. She, she gets it 100%. I've never had, but you could also make the argument. If I did have, if you, if I did have issues with it, we wouldn't be together, but she, she gets it and her family gets it. And it's, it's always hard for me to comprehend with people I've trained with in the

past or people at the gym who say they want something. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to total this. I want to be a great power lifter. But when it comes time to train, they'll be like, my family's going to be in town this weekend. I can't train. And I will would be like my family knows my training days but like my in-laws know that if they come into town on friday they're not going to see me till nine o'clock at night and if they come into town on saturday they know that they're not going to see me until after you know one in the afternoon or whatever like everybody in my family knows that my life revolves around this and i've been super fortunate to be blessed with those

people around me so yeah that's cool do you also coach power lifting I think and you coach coach lifters like you talked about and uh one of them of interest for us is we put on our lift hard live easy classic power lifting meet last year and we're doing it again here in 2024 and big dave uh stensland runs that meet for us and i think you're coaching him now right yeah i just started with dave um i'm very excited for that opportunity um i i always love the opportunity to take on somebody who has done it themselves um their whole time have not had a coach um they've done it their own way for so long and they kind of realize that it's time to change and when you give them something that they've never done before um not only do you kind of open their eyes to like there's other things you could be doing, but there's so much low hanging fruit that you can, it's just, it's, it's fun to, to,

to make these changes for them. And to me, these things are obvious. But those lifters or even me, like myself, before I got to coach myself, you just get set in your ways and you do things not necessarily because they help, but you just do them because that's what you've always done. And there's a lot of things that I think are extremely important, non-negotiable as far as training goes. And a lot of people don't even have them in their training to begin with and I think that they're like you need to have these things in there or you're not going to get better so it's I like getting somebody who because the just the changes you can make right away and then

long term and it's it's always kind of curious to see, too, like, do they really want this? Like, why are you actually training? Because if we go for a while and you decide it's not for you and you go back to doing your old shit, then you're not really doing it to get better. You're just doing it because you like doing your shit. But if you are someone who is actually doing this and you want to get better, you will do the things necessary to get better. It just kind of proves what you're in it for. And that's not either way that there's nothing wrong with that. But if you say that you are someone who wants to get better, then follow through actions, not words. So is Dave listening to you so far as he's going on script? so is dave listening to you so far as he's going on script as far as far as i know we're in week we're in week two and i hit him i hit him right away with uh um he told me there was some not

non-barbell lifting that he was having to get used to or something like that yes yes um i don't always start out people that way but i I know Dave is kind of dinged up, you know, his shoulders kind of dinged up his, he just looks like he has back pain all the time. And it just, he just, he looks like your stereotypical or stereotypical bound up power lifter, you know, just like bad mobility, you know, like shit hurts all the time. like shit hurts all the time and he needed a break and i don't do this with everybody when we start but dave needed a break so it was like we're doing a six-week hypertrophy phase no bar on your back no bar in your hand you need to let all that shit calm down and add in a lot more hypertrophy a lot more muscle give your body a chance to just calm the fuck down. And you can still train really hard hypertrophy and still get a lot of enjoyment. If you like going to the gym and busting your ass, you can still do that without the wear and tear. And being as Dave as a raw lifter, I've learned over the past year or so that raw lifters need more muscle, raw, raw lifters

need muscle, muscle, muscle, because more muscle means more strength. And if you lift equipped, you know, the gear is what you're using for rebound and hold and all that stuff. When you're a raw lifter, your body is what is used for compression and, and, and spring and all that stuff. So raw lifters just need raw lifters need more muscle. And also if you are a muscle bound, you know, hard bodied person, you don't do as well in gear because if you try to fit into that, if you try to fit into a tight squat suit and you wear rock solid, it just doesn't work.

Usually you need a little bit of squish to get into a squat. You know what I mean? So Dave really going to benefit. I believe from this because he wasn't doing a lot of cardio and conditioning and cardio and conditioning is one thing there's, it's no negotiating with me. There's going to be cardio and conditioning and core work, core work. There's no negotiating. there's going to be core work every single day because i didn't train core uh i just didn't train my core probably the until i got hurt probably the first 14 years like we just didn't do it i trained my back ridiculously hard like to me uh a strong back meant you're a strong power lifter so i my back was bulletproof until it wasn't you know i

mean like uh i just trained my lower back all the time i'd never maybe i might do some sit-ups or some standing some standing uh cable crunches and stuff like that or like kind of the typical power lifter go-to's for core and stuff like that but i never did did any of the McGill stuff. I never, never did like planks or anything that resembled knee raises or leg raises, or I never worked on core. And I got hurt pretty bad because of that. So because I went through all those years and I'm still going through stuff with back issues, that is something that there's just no negotiating you have to have core work in there uh louis simmons has a quote that i have up on my page it says lifters with a strong back and a weak core inevitably hurt their back because your back is not what's supposed to be stabilizing your core is what's supposed to be stabilizing your back is supposed to be rigid your core is what is

supposed to be doing the stabilizing work you know your back is there for structure uh it's structure you know it's not meant to be bearing and handling loads you know i mean it's supposed to be locked down your cord is supposed to be doing all that stuff you know what i mean and right uh to, it's so important. Flip in the page a little bit. Are you kind of an 80s action movie guy at all? 100%. I love 80s action movies. I love VHSs. So you have a VHS collection. I do. And my room, half the time when I'm writing programs, I don't even watch it. I'll just have my TV going. I have probably 30 vhs's in here and i just there's always something playing in the background

whether it's aliens or predator or commando or is that a tube style tv behind you like a curve like a yeah yeah it's a tv tv vcr combo oh nice yeah we always had one of those growing up like that was always in one of the bedrooms. You'd be playing video games on there with your friends. You don't want that to break. That's, like, not replaceable at this point in time. Yeah, or you never want to move it because those things weigh, like, freaking 50 pounds. I'm always trying to find, you remember those top-loading VCRs where it popped up?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want one of those. I'm always on the lookout for those. I actually was converting some home videos this year to digital, and I had a really hard time finding a VCR, and the ones I could find were expensive. So that's kind of crazy. I think it looks better.

I think the framing and the grittiness and the color and the picture, I just think it looks better in the 80s. It just looks better. Okay, so being South Dakota guys, we play this Mount Rushmore game with people that we have on here. So we want to know, what's your Mount Rushmore, your four on the Mount Rushmore of Stallone movies? Your Mount Rushmore of Stallone movies.

Okay. Cobra. Cobra is in there. Obviously, Rocky. Rocky 1. I'm a Rocky 4 guy. Okay. That's the russian that's the russian uh yeah rocky i'm a rocky three and four guy okay uh so it's uh rocky cobra uh tango and cash and uh probably demolition man okay so uh over the top didn't make it then oh

that's i i knew i was missing one because i watch i watch over the top before that's one of my i have probably like i have like five to six movies that i that i always watch and over the top is is one of them over the top rocky four those are two that i always always watch before i train and my daughter it's it's awesome that my daughter loves over that my daughter loves 80s movies she loves over the top she always she always asks if we can watch it before we go train stuff like that and i can't believe i i'm i was sitting here trying to think of obscure stallone movies that you might not have seen and i just left out like yeah the most obvious one well and uh um the other obvious snub there i think would be rambo right like that would be uh

i don't yeah i'm not saying rambo does even deserves to be on the list but i i was just thinking of other stallone ones yeah wasn't a huge like they were good rambo was good but it wasn't yeah take it or leave it it's not on the mount rushmore yeah yeah okay we're we're uh we're headed to the arnold in a few weeks we've been there every year. Oh, are you going? Yep, yep. My client is competing there, Megan. She trains at our gym too, but, yeah, Megan will be competing there. Is she doing the XPC then? Yes.

Okay, that's in the main convention hall, I think, again this year, right, like it was last year. So if you get a chance, stop by, stop, stop by our booth and we'd love to say hi to you. And the thing I was going to ask about, I think you competed in the animal cage at least one year, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I squatted in the animal cage. The animal cage is one of those things where from a really, a really young age, like as a trait, really young training age. Like when I started powerlifting, um, I come from a bodybuilding background. Like I did bodybuilding beforehand and animal was always the animal ads were, they're so awesome. Like I, my room was full of them.

Every time a new animal ad came out, I would tear it out and hang it up in my room um animal was just it was just gritty and hardcore and it was in my opinion it was kind of back before everything was kind of mainstream and now everything's hardcore now and gritty but kind of back then it was like they were kind of like the pioneers of that and it resonated so much with me like I would do this I would go I would go train in dirty dirty boots and sweatpants that looked like you took them out of a trash can like trying to look homeless and like I just I remember I remember doing that and um the very first time I saw like the animal cage and ads and stuff like that like I immediately knew that someday I wanted to lift in the animal cage and lifting in the animal cage and being sponsored by Elite FTS were my two

main goals and I accomplished both of those in a pretty pretty fair amount of amount of time but I distinctly remember there was there was two people that I really looked up to in the area that I was training with. And one of them had told me, you know, you're never going to be in the animal cage. And the other one was, you're never going to be on Elite FTS. And that was so much fuel. Like, I wanted every day, every rep in the gym was spent trying to prove them wrong um and it was so amazing to just get the opportunity to be in it was surreal to be in the animal cage i was um um i was sponsored by animal at the time so um i didn't just

live in the animal cage i was actually sponsored by animal for um probably a year i was there i was on there with for one a one-year contract with them and they had they had power lifters but they hadn't really broke out into the power lifting scene yet like you know there was that time for probably three or four years but they were all about power lifting like right the little the little bridges brandon lily like it was yeah yeah um i kind of i kind of got on before all of that and you can tell because i was a gear lifter like all of those guys that were all were all raw lifters so i was i was probably the last one that i can remember that was still lifting in gear in the cage and um i squatted a thousand pounds in the cage and it was so at at the time uh it was the most it was the most amount of weight lifted it was the most

amount of weight lifted in the cage at the time it's since been surpassed by people who've probably done it fucking raw but um but we're talking like 2013 here about wasn't it right in there yeah yeah yeah it was it was you know it was back in the times where equipped lifting was king and squatting a thousand pounds was was a very yeah but it was it was it was a feat you know i mean like not a whole lot of people were doing it and just being in that cage like when you just you just look 360 around or just people everywhere like you're right in the middle of the, you know, you've seen it, you know, you're right in the middle of the expo.

You just got hundreds of people like that was some of the coolest, that was some of the coolest shit that I've been a part of. And, um, yeah, it was, it was crazy. Yeah, that's cool. The look you were talking about, uh know the we have this classic uh poster in mass dynamics gym it's uh evan centipani uh who we've had on the podcast and talk we've talked about this poster before it's him and then it's like uh uh is it mcgrath yeah frank is that his name those think him and frank mcgrath are two of the yeah yeah and then there's a third and there's

a third guy and the outfits that those guys are wearing are just insane they're it's awesome but it's just like what you're talking about it's like i don't these sweatpants had to have been from like 1960 i think evan told us the story on that one i think he said whoever the photographer was was like just grab with the oldest work boots you got and i think he said the guy like went and found like some old ripped up flannels and things for me and said, put these on, you guys are going to wear these and I'm taking pictures. And like that did that turned into some of the most iconic ads of all time in that space.

They're, they're really cool looking back on those. Did it like started an era? Like there was so many, there was like, like animal still has a good following, but they used to have this huge right subculture there's this huge subculture that animal had like when they like like fans would would travel just to help help out like there was so many people that just volunteered to set up the animal cage like they like they had this massive subculture of people where they would

do anything for animal and anybody you saw lifting in ratty clothes who looked like they were trying to be homeless you know that's it's all because of animal yeah yeah it's uh it's weird too you know you talk about the following that you used to have and stuff and it's like i almost don't even associate animal with supplements because i don't really like see people that have like purchased i mean not that i would run into a lot of that anyways but i just don't like i don't hardly see it near as much anymore it's kind of weird a weird thing no um and i think another well another thing that the the market now is so saturated um there's you an endless number of companies to sell you that's it and and influencers like i mean the number of supplement lines that exist now is just

crazy yeah and the only the only way that you are gonna see like animal in a local retail retail store is if that person likes animal you you're gonna find like there's no animal products and you know h and i nutrition is a locally owned supplement store here they also own metroflex the gym that i train at part-time they they don't have animal in there i don't think they have i don't really think they have any mainstream supplements because it's all the same shit and this next there's always going to be another company that's going to give you a better deal for the same shit you know like there's no i mean unless like i said less than you are a huge fan of animal like you're not going to have you know animal in your in your stock because nobody you know nobody cares it's not trending right right right okay we've got uh

we've got another game that we play this one with every guest. It's a pretty simple, it's overrated underrated. So we have a special Marshall Johnson set of topics that are handpicked for you. And it's just your job to decide if each one is overrated or underrated, but the most important, are you trying to get me in trouble? No,

you'll find out that as we play these, you'll say, Oh, okay. I get it here. Yeah. So you'll, you'll get a good laugh out of some of them probably and uh you just have to remember though you can't ride the line you do

have to decide if each one is overrated or underrated so first yeah okay okay first one overrated or underrated janko jeans underrated i uh i I still have two pairs of JNCO shorts that I wear from time to time just to piss my wife off because she thinks they're the most atrocious things in the world, but underrated. I wore, I wore JNCOs in high school. Uh, yeah, good stuff. I really do think you are now closer than ever to that trend coming all the way back. Like baggy baggy is getting more back every month. Now it's going to be just a matter of time for Jinko is right there. Do you have a closet full then it just waiting for the day? Nope.

Just two pairs. There's two pairs. That's all. Two pairs of shorts is all I got. So what are the shorts look like? How long are the shorts? A calf down your calf. Oh yeah.

Right, right, right. Okay. So about what I would picture as JNCO. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Stereotypical. So your wife's not a fan, though? Not even a little bit. Do the shorts have the pockets that go all the way down to the calf, too? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Massive pockets.

So super functional. Lose your shit. You lose your shit and the pockets are so big. Okay. All right. Overrated or underrated fargo the movie never seen it oh boy never never seen it uh i i never saw it before i moved to fargo and then it's just something that i never i never saw is it worth watching does that have anything to do

with fargo um actually not it has something to do with fargo watching does that have anything to do with Fargo um actually not it has something to do with Fargo it's probably has more to do with the cities actually but uh yeah I actually do think it is a culturally real it's a good story it's pretty good it's a good crime story um I think it's culturally relevant and and a good movie I would recommend it I couldn't even tell you that the genre I don't know it's i don't it's an odd movie you know it's definitely like a cult following sort of movie i would say it's like a cult classic it's it's not like is it action like no crime mystery like it's kind of like kind of like a dark comedy sort of yeah it's like but comedy elements yeah where it's just

it kind of really plays into the Fargo and Minnesota accent, and it takes place over the winter, and it's just like, I think you would enjoy it. If you like 80s action movies, I think you would enjoy it. To give it a go then. Yeah, especially if you can find it on VHS. Yes. I feel like Fargo is a movie you could find on VHS. There's got to be.

I bet you'd think in Fargo there's got to be thrift stores that just have copies laying around somewhere. There's a pawn shop in Fargo that has a VHS, a Fargo VHS. Yep, they got it. Yep, for sure. Okay. So, well, to be continued for an answer on that one. Overrated or underrated pump covers?

one uh overrated or underrated pump covers i man i i rant about pump covers so much um i can't say i can't say that they're i can't say that they're overrated because i've been doing that for years, but I never said pump cover. I will wear a hoodie for probably like my first three or four exercises to get warm, to get a sweat going. And then once I get warm and get a sweat going, then I will take it off. But there's, oh my god uh i because i i lift sometimes at a public gym i see a lot of the things that you don't see because i own my own gym right um but there will be there will be girls at the gym wearing shorts that are way up in their ass and they'll be they'll be lifting legs and they'll have a hoodie on and they'll hashtag it pump cover i'm like are you that fucking stupid you realize you're

lifting legs you're not covering your pump you dumbass like you think just what you think because you're wearing a hoodie that's pump cover like you don't even understand the basics of what you're fucking doing like you're not covering your leg there's not you're not covering anything and then they'll like take it off to their sports bra and they'll like pump cover and they'll do more of their you know lunges or whatever the fuck it was they were doing and uh pump cover as a hashtag overrated uh overrated uh pump cover you know, as, as like just wearing something warm when you're starting your work, like an extra layer during the beginning of your workout.

Like that's, I agree with you. Like we, we have massonomics gym and it's just a basement. It's a basement gym. And, uh, and it's usually cold, you know, especially during the winter. It's kind of, it's not, it's not warm. And like, that's what everyone does is like starts their workout with like wearing a sweatshirt because it's actually like a little chilly and you like don't want to go into your workout like is that term pretty new though i don't remember hearing that until like in the last year or so but then the last couple

i would say within like the last year or two okay generally anything that you were going to ask me that has a hashtag or has ever or has ever been trending i will forever say overrated okay that's fair all right last one and this one's worth all the marbles uh overrated or underrated cobra kai i love it. I love it up to the third season. I love the Karate Kid movies that just the nostalgia alone. The Karate Kid is the all the callbacks all the nostalgia all the easter eggs like I'd be I'd be watching it with my wife and my daughter and they would say something or a song would be on like they would never catch it like that was from the karate kid or that saying was from the karate kid or they wore their hat like that and like like everything was like a callback to the karate kid and all the all the easter eggs where they would have sound bites from it like i fucking loved it second season awesome uh third season was a white all right and then it just took a hard hard fucking crash like

they they tried way way too hard with the callbacks and the Easter eggs and everything. It's too much callback. Too many things just worked out. Like he goes, he goes to, he just happens to go to Okinawa to save his company. And it just so happens that the person he saved, who was a kid now runs the company that holds his company's life in balance. Like Jesus fucking Christ. now runs the company that holds his company's life in balance like jesus fucking christ or or miguel miguel goes to mexico to find his dad he just knows he lives in mexico so he goes to mexico and finds him on the first fucking day like come on yeah make a story of this at least

everything everything just worked out way too easy but the first two or three seasons i thought were awesome in the movie uh karate kid do you think uh is johnny a bad guy or is he just is he misunderstood you know looking looking back on it there is a lot to be said about daniel being the bad guy right um uh i think when you watched it as a kid you were just it's kid who gets bullied overcomes adversity that's all you see as a kid but as an adult you're like daniel was always a cocky douchebag he was always putting his nose where it didn't belong and he was always starting shit and you know he he he fucked around and found out so many times you know what i mean and uh looking back on it's like yeah you there's a strong argument for you know you know daniel

being the bad guy if not 50 responsible for everything you know what i mean yeah i think so i think that makes a lot of sense uh good news. You passed overrated underrated. So I add that up there with the 2745 total as, you know, your highest achievements. So congratulations. Do I get a plaque? Do I get a plaque or like a artistic? Do I get like a do I get a medal? Yeah, that should be in the mail. So I signed up for that division.

This is a master's division. It will say master's on it whether you want it to or not. You passed overrated, underrated, but it was in the master's class, unfortunately. Failed twice. Yeah, we really appreciate you coming on. I think this is a lot of fun and uh well i hope hope we get to see you at the yeah yes for sure swing by our booth yeah we'd love to love to get to chat again absolutely and i think it's like i think it's crazy you guys

you got a booth like in the actual expo yeah yep oh like i was you know i was sponsored by animal and then i was also sponsored by new breed both Both companies always had booths at the Arnold and I would get to talk to like the high ups in animal or the owner of new breed and to hear what they charge for booths there. It's ridiculous. The fact that you guys spent that money to be there. I hope, I honestly hope it's worth your investment because i know i know firsthand like how ridiculous like some of those booths are like hundreds of thousands of dollars like like the bigger ones yeah and we've done this will be our fourth year doing it so like we know it's worth our time and

effort like it's it and we don't have a huge booth you know we have like a couple spots so we're not quite on that level but to us it's a lot a lot of money still. And it's a lot of work, but, uh, it is worth it. And the, you know, part of it's selling stuff, which is cool, but also we just get to meet and, you know, talk to so many people like that. It's, it's, uh, it's a, it's a fun experience. It's a lot of work and I'm really tired by the time it's over, but it's cool. It's really cool that it works out for you guys because nobody like the expo scene now as opposed to 10 years ago like nobody it's just crazy whatever is whatever's trending is what's popular

you know it's not it used to be the the athletes were the draw like he went there to go see the pro athletes and now big draws are people who just have a giant following or have haven't even accomplished that's for sure haven't accomplished anything in the sport but they've got it's just influencers yeah it's yeah the whole dynamic has changed and the fact that you guys can go there and be successful that that says a lot for your following so that's really cool yeah so hopefully we'll get to talk to you we can give you your master's award when you're there yeah i will uh yeah we'll uh megan competes on friday and then we're there till uh i leave on sunday i specifically wanted to be there on on

saturday because i love i love giant expos um they're not as fun not being a sponsored athlete. When you're a sponsored athlete, you go anywhere. The access is unlimited, but you're there as a spectator. It's cool, but it's not as cool as you going in the back room and you're seeing all the celebrities. You're rubbing elbows with all the celebrities and stuff like that. But, yeah, I'll absolutely come look for you guys. Do you know where you're set up yet?

Yeah, we're – I don't know, how do you describe it, Tommy? It's when you walk. Are you on the outside or are you on the inside? We're on the inside. I think the XPC meet is in the back kind of right. Like you walk through, I don't know if you've seen the map. Actually, if you walk in where the animal cage is at, we'll be to the right, down the hall,

down to the right. Five aisles or something. It's just an easy point of trying to figure out where you guys are at. If you're around the animal cage, you guys are kind of around that area. We're in the front where you walk in. We're just to the right-hand side,

and we're almost on the far right end is where you'll find us. Yeah. We're in the front where you walk in. We're just to the right-hand side and we're almost on the far right end is where you'll find us. Yeah. The last Arnold I was at was 2020. And that was when they didn't even know if they were going to, they didn't even know, but we were already, we were already there. And I think probably five or six times from when we got there to when the Arnold, they had closed it, opened it, closed it only open athletes. So when we actually went there, I got to watch the pro strong man with like a crowd full of people. Like there were, there was more athletes there than there were people. So that was really freaking cool because, uh, we just had first access to everything. So,

so yeah, I'm excited. We had a booth that year and we had our trailer access to everything. So, yeah, I'm excited. We had a booth that year, and we had our trailer loaded, and we were, like, hours away from leaving when we found out, like, the Expo was going to be canceled. And we're like, oh, my. Was that your first year? No, we had a year before. Our first year was 2019.

Yeah. Oh, so you went from. 2019 was awesome. Oh, that was insane. It was. It was craziness. So you went from you went from like the pinnacle to the shitter yeah and we actually we still talk about 2017 yeah we went 27 and 2018

as like media spectators so we got to experience that side of it a little bit more too but yeah it's a different show now than it was in those days 17 18 and especially 19 it's just the number of people there is just like was staggering. And I'm hoping it's a building closer to, you know, it's building back up in that direction. I think this year will be more people than last and more people than the year before that. Yeah. I would like to think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So awesome. We appreciate you coming on. And we got the, got the Fargo man on finally. Cool. Thank you. And I saw that you guys are getting involved more with the local meets. Like you, not only with, not only with Dave, but I know like Jason Ellard and Anthony Carlquist, you guys are getting a part of their meets too. So that's also really cool. Will you guys come down for that? The Fargo meet? We have one with, no, no, no it was strong yeah we did something yeah we did the uh that one already happened was it the winter classic or i i get a little confused but we two or three weeks it was like three weeks ago

yeah yeah yeah we have come up before for uh fargo powerlifting meet where um where dave ran it in like uh it wasn't the y what was it at it was like he said him at quartz plus and i think it was quartz plus yeah i think it was quartz yeah it wasn't at metro flex so yeah so we have come up there for that before and um it's definitely something on our radar it just always depends on if we can make it work out but we like yeah whenever we can i think it's it's cool to get up there are you gonna try now because dave's meet in at the end of the year is now nationals it's now it's a national he he sent me the venue and stuff it looked really cool i don't know if you've seen that where uh nationals is going to be at but he sent me a picture he's like ah your booth could be right here you know it looked it looked like a

really cool setup there that it's going to be. And Ed Cohn there, that's, that's enough alone right there. That's enough right there. You know, Dave does a really good job of, uh, bringing, uh, bringing people in that, that people want to see and what, you know, like he does a good job. Uh, he's, you know, at least regionally done a lot of cool stuff for powerlifting i think and you can tell he invests back into his meats like into making them as big and as good as they can possibly be yeah he brought he he brought powerlifting in in the the fargo uh minnesota south dakota

montana area he brought it back to life like he he's doing amazing things like he's people don't understand what he's done he's he's brought back things. Like he's, people don't understand what he's done. He's, he's brought back power. He brought it back to life. So like hundreds of people are benefiting from it. You went from maybe one meet a year to two or three meets a year now. So he's done an amazing, amazing job, you know, bringing power lifting back to life in this area. Yeah. With a big part of his help, you know, we're involved in it too, but our, our meat that we run in Aberdeen, and this will be the second year there hadn't been a meet in Aberdeen and, uh, as you know, 30, 40 years.

Right. And, uh, now, now this year it's going to, it's a 90 lifter to platform meet. And Dave does an awesome job with his, uh, you know, his flame, the flamethrowers and just the spectacle of it that, uh, he he's on the ball. He knows that he's, he knows what he's doing. Well, with, with your guys, with your guys' following in the sport, it's a no brainer that you, it's an absolute no brainer that you guys put on a meet because just your following alone dictates that you're going to have a lot of people there. You know what I mean? So that's, that's just a no-brainer like you guys could do that forever and always have a good turnout yeah but dave is definitely a part

of that because we don't necessarily want to be the people running the you know we don't want to be worry about the federation or the judges and uh all that stuff and that's where he comes in that he's a great asset for us to be able to lean on and like do some of that stuff that we're not qualified to do honestly but also he leans on your name your name right yeah it has been a great team yeah right right and he's just good to work with so we just got to get him to make sure he's following your coaching and not going you know i don't i don't see him train because we're not the same gym but i'll i'll find out one way or the other. He's complying so far.

Okay. Awesome. Well, we appreciate it, Marshall. This is good stuff. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Marshall. See you.

Later, fellas. Cool beans. Cool beans. Cool beans. Cool beans. Those are Fargo cool beans, so you know they're cool beans. Yeah. Fargo, like one of the few places that's actually colder than western northeast South Dakota.

Yes, it is. I didn't ask. Did you tell us, did you guys actually get snow there? Yeah, it was snowing today. I don't know if there's, there might have been like an inch or something like that, but the ground was all white. The snow was completely gone, so it's back baby it's back yeah the damn snow yeah that was cool talking to marshall um yeah excited get to see him at the arnold meet him in

person yeah absolutely i had to take some ibuprofen just now so i can be ready to try and go to bed i was assuming it wasn't caffeine pills because if it was that, I was going to say your timing's all off there, Tanner. I just run on caffeine. I have to take a little no-no's here. Even when I'm asleep, I want a really fast heart rate. Have you ever taken any melatonin before? I never have.

I don't have problems sleeping, so I don't. That's true. You can fall asleep in a moment's notice. You wouldn't have time for the melatonin to uh kick in even once in a while you told me that uh you know how you're impressed about how i can fall asleep within seconds i went that's a i swear to god that's a superpower like there's people that would kill to have that power i mean i would like if i could just sometimes that happens on occasion i'm like that but i feel like you can just do that all the time like when i'm really tired when i'm really tired you might as well tell me someone drugged me because i i'm just i can't even like

hang on to consciousness it doesn't matter what i do i it's it's a just absolutely and i guess every time we're in that situation we are doing things that we are really tired. But I just can't shut my motor down. Like sometimes I just have this racing going on inside that I can't get to quit. When I can't sleep, that's because that's what's doing it. We've talked about it on here. The moment I start doing, my brain decides it's time to start doing math at night. Oh, God, I'm really in trouble then.

It's like, let's start punching some numbers here. i'll have to mentally tell myself like no stop stop i can't even say i know i'm doing actually that happened to me this past weekend i told lee i'm like yep i started trying to crunch some numbers in my head at night where there's no reason for me to do this it makes no sense and you're getting anxiety about something and that's what it is you're gonna be like why was i even worried about that spiral starts and all of a sudden two and a half hours later you're thinking why am i still awake and that just every so often that happens i can actually feel my heart rate not not coming down when i'm like that then too like i just don't feel that like i can't feel that action you'd be laying there motionless but you're not actually like relaxed and i've i've uh

i'm very against checking my phone in the middle of the night. You know, once I go to bed for the night, my phone, outside of tapping it to see what time it is, it does not get looked at until I'm up for the morning. But there was a point the other night, I'm just like, nope, looking at my phone would be significantly better

than playing this math game I'm doing in my head. So I guess I'll read my phone until I get tired. When I run into that issue, I will pull up like a YouTube video. Like this is actually helping me relax more, even though I know that the screen time isn't like ideal, but I'm like, this is actually shutting my mind off at least.

It's a distraction. Like I can, I can actually fall asleep watching YouTube videos or reading somewhat boring articles. It can be really tough to fall asleep. Yeah. Once reading somewhat boring articles yeah it can be really tough to fall asleep yeah once you start getting into this weird anxiety spiral but yeah yeah so i don't even know why oh yeah it's just talking about falling asleep that's yeah yeah i still do superhuman so most nights do fall asleep incredibly fast and

yeah in case you're wondering where i'm at with that it yeah it's still so you've never taken a melatonin thing no no never taken it so yeah that, I just, I get very, out of all the things you could take, that's one that really makes me overly cautious of things that could affect your sleep in some way, because, you know, a lot of those things are habit forming. And then just, I always remember Ryan telling me one time he was having, going through a little spell of having trouble sleeping and telling it, he was taking melatonin a few times. And he he said it was the worst night of sleep because i was having the craziest worst nightmares every single night and he goes so yeah i guess i'm sleeping but at what cost so then he's like right i'm never taking melatonin again right right every once in a while if i am doing that

thing where my no i can't get like my i can't just do shut it down i will go take one do you think it makes a difference? Yeah, I think it helps me probably get to sleep. But I would agree with what he's saying. I don't know if it's always the best sleep, but sometimes I just, it doesn't matter if it's the best sleep because if the alternative is like. Just the unconsciousness is all you need.

Right, right. Yeah, I just like literally need my mind to have a break. You know, so that's. NyQuil also works for that too. Yeah, I haven't taken that for a long time, but that used to be... I used to like that. That's always...

You know, when I'm in a situation like what you're in right now, that's when I start the DayQuil, NyQuil regimen. Then you know you're doing everything you can to fight this. I'm wondering if just podcasting has even kind of broke my fever a little bit. I'm feeling like a loose fever.

I still have the aches and stuff. Nothing little Masonomics talk can't cure, right? That's... Get my mind off little bit. I'm feeling like a leased fever. I still have the aches and stuff. Nothing little Masonomics talk can't cure, right? That's get my mind off of it. Yeah. All right. I started watching some television since I literally had nothing to do today. So I watched television for the first time in a long time. And I watched, I know some people are really big fans of Yellowstone.

And I watched like the first season of that and have never come back to it. Yep. But what I, maybe the first or second season, something like that. But what I watched is 1883. Is that a prequel? Yeah, it is a prequel. Because Yellowstone is modern day. And 1883 would be like the ancestors of them.

Does it actually take place in 1883? Yes. It's Tim McGraw is one of the main actors in there. And he actually does a pretty good, like he's pretty good in that. And it's basically about like them going on the Oregon Trail in 1883. And I found it far more interesting than Yellowstone itself. Like I thought it was considerably better just because the subject matter far more interesting than yellowstone itself like i thought it was considerably better just because the subject matter was more interesting to me than

like the yellowstone is like all these modern day like i don't know all this legal politics fighting they're playing a whole different a little and like some of it's a little unbelievable to me like all the murdering that's going on yeah like in bozeman or whatever these crimes are just totally unsolved no one can get to the bottom of this that's why i'm like there's people getting murdered here like daily yeah if this was a real place you're you're uh per capita murderer you'd be the most dangerous city in america yes whereas when i watch 18 1883, there's definitely elements of that, like it being dramatized and over. I assume there was a little less murdering going on

on the Oregon Trail, but probably these elements existed. I can believe this stuff. But it was pretty good. I liked it actually considerably better than Yellowstone. Interesting. See, I've never seen an episode of either one of them i know there's another one then too there's like one called 1923 which i think is like so it's the sequel to the prequel yeah yeah so i mean this is a cash cow i think yeah this guy is taylor sheridan is the one that writes these i don't know if you know him at all.

Not sure that I like him. Is he known for something outside of this even? No, I think it's just these. Okay, and now he realizes he's hit gold. Yeah, he's hit gold and he's mining it like crazy. I'm not sure what my opinion of Taylor Sheridan is, though I guess my jury is still out on would you say you have a lot of strong opinions on various Hollywood writers or is well he has the only

reason I have an opinion is because he was on the Joe Rogan oh was he cast recently like yeah okay yeah he was recently and I just don't know if I liked what he liked the way he was saying the things he was saying. Like, I'm just kind of like, I don't know about this guy. I could see that. I could totally, but 1883,

I thought was good. He was onto something with 1883 though. And it's the first thing I've watched in a long time. So I don't even know how I came to it. I did it in. You got to watch the, when you're sick, you got to watch something.

You can't just stare at the wall. That's what I needed. I was in like a feverish stupor and I just stumbled into Paramount. I either got to do math in my head or go to Paramount. I found out we have Paramount for some reason so then I was just seeing what's in there.

It's hiding in this chest. I decided to also start watching a TV show again and I am into the, I think I'm on the fourth episode of the final season of Succession. Finally wrapping that one up. See, I liked that show, but I just never, I just haven't gotten back to it. It's good, man.

So it's the final season. Yeah, I think it got done last year. I just never got around to it. And also knowing that a show is only four seasons long makes it a little more digestible than right jumping into sopranos or game of thrones or something but yeah still good still after four seasons i'm still liking it so far really wondering where they're going to take this thing so if you found the first season enjoyable at all the fourth keeps the formula going but well did they ever finalize the succession plan

like did it all get sorted out let's just say things are getting more interesting by the episode here so i don't want to spoil anything so you got that i assume they've i assume they've gotten everything resolved by now and they all everyone gets along yep they uh finally realized that they're just multi-billionaires and this whole thing is kind of pointless and so the show is done yeah that that's the end is the old man still alive well i can't make any comments on that either he'll just have to watch the show all right and then also there was the new season of true detective that came out and again yeah i always know what that show really is yeah always did you watch the first season or not no i've never oh my god if you're sick tomorrow that's what you need to do. It's like seven episodes. That's it. It's just every,

every season, it's something that is in my, that's on HBO shows. That's in my Mount Rushmore of HBO shows. True detective season one. They make new, new, new.

Yep. It's own, it's own. What do you call it? A mini series, anthology, whatever it is each season, but you can,

that's the beauty of it. True detective. You just watch the first season. You don't even got to worry about watching any of the other ones. Cause they're not worth it. I just, uh, didn't really like the beauty of it true detective you just watch the first season you don't got to worry about watching any of the other ones because they're not worth it i just uh didn't really like the name of it that well dude true detective made me think of too much that it's like csi no it's i can't i can't watch a single episode of this first season is so good it it will change that was the show that changed my entire perception of matthew mcconaughey it he is that him and woody harrelson are the stars of the first season.

And it is that damn good. It is so good. It is. Well, that's a good cast. It is as good of scripted crime thriller drama that exists. Oh man. With former,

it just, it hits all the boxes and they don't drag it out. It's just seven episodes of just pure, amazing storytelling. It is one of the best hbo shows you could watch how does it compare to the wire um i can see how the wire is i'll put it this way the wire is more like a sparkling pamplemousse you know it's the all-time classic but it's an acquired taste that might take you some time to warm up to. Whereas True Detective is like getting your first hit of Mountain Dew

and you're like, whoa, this is different. This is just instantaneous. This is awesome. Yeah, if you watch one episode, if you watch the first episode of the first season of True Detective and you say, this doesn't do it for me, I mean, that would blow my mind if you said that. And also, if you watch that first episode there's

no I just cannot picture a person watch that being like yeah that's not my style of show I just I I can't picture that if you assuming you like crime and thriller type stuff but who doesn't like that that's what every show is no yeah that's true but none of the other ones have held up to their this newest season uh I've only got two episodes in and it doesn't seem to uh have the hook that the first one did the first one you're hooked instantly it's like so it's just all different people on the other ones it's different cast a different crime it's a whole different story it has they have nothing to do with each other at all okay but that first one it's magic man, man. It is magic. I'm going to add it to the list of the wire. Dude.

Oh, no. Put it ahead of the wire. It's like this is one that you could sit down in a day and be like, after you watch an episode, say, no, I'm just going to finish this. This needs to happen. It is. It is up there with the most. Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure it's seven episodes. That is so it's so good.

It's so good. It's amazing. It's the only it's the only see it's the only tv series i've ever watched twice in my in my life never watched any tv show twice the wire art true detective season one is one is the only one so you would i should put it ahead of the wire i i i think you should put it ahead of everything on your list. I think that should be. I would actually even. You were hyping up 18 whatever it is.

I'd say, nope, put that to the side. The true detective goes ahead of that. It's more important than that one, I'd even say. It's that good. So I'll consider putting it ahead of the wire. Okay, baby steps, yeah. Just at least put it even with the wire, and if something you can go slightly above it yeah okay also everyone make sure to check out build fast formula more of our friends from the dakotas this time from watertown south south dakota they partnered

with uh multiple time podcast guest chris duffin to create Build Fast Formula supplements. Check them out at buildfastformula.com. You can see all their products there. Vaso Blitz, of course, the nitric oxide pump support supplement that we've all come to know and love. Then they've got the Full Blitz, which throws the caffeine into the equation. And then probably my personal favorite is their 80-20 protein, which I take every day. Check out their full line of supplements at buildfastformula.com

and then make sure to use discount code MASSANOMICS. That'll save you 10% on every order that you make there. And if you like any of the products and just want to sign up to have them delivered at whatever your schedule is of a normal subscription subscription then you'll save an additional 10 so along with our code you can get 20 off thank you build fast and today's episode is also brought to you by texas power bars if you're a long-time listener of this show you know the history you know the timeline you know they're the real deal and we're going to tell you a little bit about something we have coming up with Texas Power Bars.

We've got a fun little video that I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say Tanner has amassed quite the collection of Texas Power Bars. And we have a great video coming up where Tanner does a little show and tell and a little story time with all the videos. And it takes us from the from the beginning to present day ending with the 29 millimeter power bar which i just got to squat on that bad boy the

other day my first time actually getting to use it and that is a nice bar i knurl the knurling on there will jump up and bite you if you're not careful it's like a rattler snake that actually that i'm so not used i'm so not used to real knurling, everything's so passive that I actually had to look. And yeah, it's been a long time since a barbell has knurling marks on my back. And once I got done lifting that night, by the time I got my three-hour car ride,

got home, took a shower, yeah, I still had barbell marks on my back. So it's the real deal. It's a real deal. We love Texas Power Bars, and if you want to see a piece of their legendary bars and get one for yourself, make sure to go to TexasPowerBars.com. Excellent.

Oh, should we wrap this one up? I think so. You're sick. We better bring it on home bring it on home johnny uh make sure to like massonomics everywhere talked about our youtube that'd be the number one thing i direct you to is go subscribe to our youtube channel if you're not already and please leave us a five-star review on apple podcasts we need to uh pump those numbers up because right now we're at rookie numbers and we've got to pump those up.

And then most importantly, we talked about the line of the sand for supporting members. So if you're listening to this on Monday the 19th or Sunday the 18th, you can still get signed up to get in on this next free crew gift that's going out to everyone. And this one will change the game. This one will be one of those things that you're gonna want to be in the right side of history yeah later on you will ask were you joined before that or after that that'll be a line of demarcation what is demarcation does that make sense i don't know it sounded believable

okay i just let's see i think that's. The action of fixing the boundary or limits of something. That sounds about right then. Yeah. We'll go with that. The line of demarcation is almost in the sand. We're demarking the line. So please join up. I think, though, that demarcation is kind of a line.

So you're sort of saying line twice. Just saying it over twice. Yeah, because the example they use here is a horizontal band produces a distinct demarcation two inches from the top so like saying a distinct line of demarcation is kind of saying a line twice yeah right right right so the demarcation in the sand is probably what the better thing to say right okay that's good to know for future reference whenever we have more lines in the sand for future demarcations yeah

okay I think that's it 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 see ya at Masanomics. See ya.