Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 445: Greg Nuckols, MacroFactor, & His Crazy Strong Family

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Big Greg Nuckols returns to discuss macrofactor, Cleve Dean, ultramarathon running sheep farmers, and the strongest family that you've never heard of! 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. You make things better than they are in real life, I think. If you don't follow Mastinomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massenomics! Wow, welcome back everyone. Episode 445 of the Massenomics podcast. The Massenomics podcast listened millions of times listened and viewed millions of times all around the globe Recorded right here from the corners of the Dakotas We are back in the saddle again. My name is Tanner and my name is Tommy

It's it has kind of been a while sort of I mean, it's not we've don't know if it's really been a while I'll kind of do it on the way. It's been a while, but that's sort of been a while It's sort sort of been a while. We've had a lot going on We're going to touch on everything in the world of massonomics. We've got a special guest this week big Greg Knuckles is going to be joining us back Return guest last on almost four years ago, so he's he's back from the abyss to join us again But first I want to tell everyone about build fast formula supplements. You can check them out at build fast formula comm We have a discount code there. It saves you 10% on anything you order every order that discount code is massonomics. You can order their pre-workout supplements

We enjoy those you can order their protein powder We enjoy those 80 20 protein take that every day and then they have their caffeinated pre-workout their non caffeinated pre-workout They've got the vasobliss the full blitz check it all out build fast formula dot-com Tanner we have Reports in the discord is your audio super quiet right now. It is for me my audio Is super what do you mean? I can barely hear you.

Oh, well, I can hear me just fine. So what would I just is your number one volume slider on that like that that bolded bar? It was like half a frat half of a bar below that. So now it is on that go like a bar one bar above it. Okay Now it is one bar. Oh, we are in business. Okay. I Just had to look at my perspective. Yeah now so now it's about one bar above normal. Yeah, that's that's good right there I'm usually a touch. I'm usually a touch above normal too. So, okay. Okay now Now much above normal too, so. OK. OK. Now, can you hear me, Ben? Now the show can get going.

Did you still catch the stuff about BuildFast Formula supplements? You know what? We better read it like three more times just in case anyone else missed it. BuildFastFormula.com, Mastodonics discount code 10%. Check them out. This episode is also brought to you by Texas Power Bars.

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but right now, if you go on their website and go to the Blemam bars category in the top navigation They have some major savings taking place on various bars in the Texas Power Bar lineup I mean, I'm seeing things like a blemished deadlift Cerakote bar for $365 that's almost $100 off if you want to be exact It's $84 off that you can also save on the Cerakote version of the original Texas Power Bar and They have some squat bars in there even the 29 millimeter Texas Power Bar is in there for 310

That's the Seracote option actually the regular ones in there for 265 so some pretty significant savings anywhere from $60 up to 85 so So you can take advantage of that if you head on over to texaspowerbars.com, click the Blem bars button and let your wallet go wild. Thank you, Texas Power Bars. For anyone that's been living under a rock for the last week, Tommy and I did a big trip to North and South Carolina, and we did one, we did all of the things,

we did one million things while we were there. We saw all of the people and did all of the possible things. It was a jam-packed trip where we did as much as humanly possible in, let's see, would that have been about a 72-hour span, or is that? I don't even know if it was that long. Like all day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday. I mean, yeah, kind of, yeah.

So it's more like a 48 plus 12. It was more like a 60 hour span, I would call it. And we were, if we were not sleeping, we were doing something directly related to all of those items. Content. And we weren't sleeping all that much. No, no, not at all

We jam packed a lot in so what you're gonna get the what you're gonna get to see out of it. We have like nine Nine YouTube videos coming from that also last week's podcast episode Kind of weird if you're listening live you have actually it hasn't come out yet but as for most of the people listening this as a recording last week's podcast episode with Jujie Mufu that recorded from his gym there and then a whole slew of YouTube videos first one coming out is Jujie's home gym gym home tour that we did is a one hour and four minute long gym tour video it just kept going It is a short movie. It's basically a podcast that happens to be taking place on your feet moving around inside a gym and

Yeah, when we recorded that we're like, you know the last few last few gym tour videos we've done have been About about 30 minutes long. I don't know. Could this go 40 or 45 and The 30 minute mark hit and I'm looking at the camera like oh, we're just getting started and yeah 40 45 50 we hit the hour mark and I was I think it actually is like an hour and three minutes that I remember even at The hour mark I'm like, I think we're getting done. But who knows maybe this will keep going Yeah, and it was but I think about an hour three We're finally finally shut her down Yeah

I think if you're a fan of of course Mastinomics you enjoyed if you also if you're a fan of juji Mufu you get some more in-depth stuff that you haven't seen From him anywhere else and more where we're leading the show and he's following along rather than him Leading the show as is more typical for his YouTube channel I think so a little bit different perspective on the Jujy Mufu experience I think so make sure you're subscribing to our YouTube channel because we got a ton of stuff coming out and We this is maybe like the second trip sort of like this that we've done You know we've done a lot of expo trips and going to the Arnold doing our crew falls that sort of like this that we've done. We've done a lot of expo trips and going to the Arnold, doing our crew falls, that sort of thing.

Last year we did the big trip where we went to see Dr. Mike and Dave Tate and did table talk all in one, and this is kind of like version 2.0 of that. And our thing was, can we take what we learned from that one? Yeah, and do even more. And crank it up to 11, yeah. And so this is kind of our test, so we'll see how it goes because if it goes because uh

if it goes well if it's well received if it you know the content performs uh this is we've got other trips on our mind that we could kind of do similar to this i think right yeah we've uh we've uh identified several regions across the country that we could do the same formula. But if nobody gives a shit, then I guess we'll just save our time and money. Yeah, the trip wouldn't be worth it. But I'm fingers crossed people do enjoy it because it was a lot of fun. It was a blast. Man, you know, I guess of all the people on our trip, we got to tour Freedom Fitness equipment, his facility there in Charlotte.

We did that on about 30 minutes notice, legitimately. I messaged him and said, hey, we got extra time. We lucked out. We do have extra time. We could be there in 30 minutes. And he's like, yep, come on over. Yeah, that was squeezed in. That was one that I, before we even left,

you said I was talking to Ashton. We could swing by his place if we find time. And to me that's like, oh yeah, we'll see what happens over the next couple days. Not like we'll get off the airplane and that's the very first thing we'll do is message him. And that was what happened because we're like, oh, we do actually have like three hours.

And you know. I mean we were literally, I was riding on one of those little people movers people movers in the airport Texting him as we were walking to get our rental car and just like can this be our first stop and it worked out Yeah, and he just said I'm ready to go which were like alright. We're getting right into this thing here. Yep So we got the one video from there and there from there when we finished up we immediately went to Jen Thompson's house and we trained with her did bench tips with her I trained with her and her husband and their son and one of their training partners we went through a bench except bench supplement movement day I guess is

what you would call it doing slingshot three board press and then so we got to of course do some decline bench. And I was on the decline bench talk. Yeah, we knew they were doing some type of bench something for that day. We didn't really know what for sure, though. And yeah, when they got there and like, yeah, we're doing slingshot three board benching,

I'm like, I don't do any of those things. So yeah, let's combine them all together and see how this goes. And it was a lot of fun. I mean, if you're going to do some weird crazy bench variation, that's the place to do it at right it was and We did get to do the gym tour there and they really pack a lot of stuff into that It is not that big of a gym

But it is jam-packed like every inch is utilized with equipment in there. Yeah, I don't know it's It's kind of a room. They converted I don't would you call that, is that about a one car garage if you had to classify it square footage wise? Maybe a little smaller? It almost seemed a little more square unless they're singular. Yeah, I'm just saying like total square footage though.

It's probably pretty comparable, right? Like it's probably like a good sized one car garage. Yeah, because it's probably not long enough, but it is a little wider, I think. Right, right. But yeah, I mean, they have it. I don't know if you could really put anything else in there. They have it about as packed as you yet.

And it's not fancy. It's not what you would consider. You know, it's not fancy equipment, but it's certainly a wall. A big ass wall full of metals. Fancy. Then, yeah. Well, that is that part of it is pretty fancy, actually. Her metal collection is pretty crazy. And then that night we got done there

at maybe like seven or eight p.m. Somewhere around there. Was it that late really? Yeah because I don't think, I mean it was dark when we drove already so. Well it was still daylight a little bit. It was that storm made it a little darker, but yeah But I don't think we ate until eight or nine. Yes. It was late when we finally ate. Yes

And it was an hour drive. So an hour before eight or nine. It must have been seven or eight when we left. Yes and Then so yeah, so we drove to South Carolina We drove to gaffney South Carolina, and met big Grant and big BW tax. And why did we drive to South Carolina because it was in the middle. Yeah. And that was we took a lot of back roads to get there. It was a lot of winding a lot of turning. Yes, it was and a lot of raining it rained. You know, we did get this all did coincide with a hurricane or I mean, we were I don't think we were in the midst of the hurricane per se but it was raining the entire time

What was going on though With the hurricane. Yeah, like in the Carolinas actually. Yeah, I got some of it's pretty bad Yeah, like I was seeing the thing today. It's like what a 150 people have died or something so far in the Carolinas, I think. And we, like, if you were to ask me what we experienced, I would just say it rained pretty steady. It was raining steady. It wasn't even raining that hard. It was just raining steady.

And on Thursday night, it was pretty windy. When we were in eating with Grant and a BW tax, I was looking out and I'm like, Yeah, that looks like, you know, more than your just typical breeze. Like it was looked like the wind was getting a little violent. But yeah, yeah, it was picking up. But nothing, I would say nothing. We definitely didn't get any of that the bad part of it because no, it just felt like, all right, we see this weather all the time in the right here. Right. It just was

we're just I was getting sick of being wet all the time That was that was The not fun part of it. Yeah. Yeah, and Our hotel room was also very wet too like oh my god. Yes Stank damp in there first night we felt the first night we got there. I went and Was offloading some footage onto my computer, and I had my feet on the ground.

I'm like, god, I cannot believe the way my feet sweat. I'm like, my feet have never felt this wet before. And then I realized, no, the carpet is just totally soaked in our room. Don't know why. But it's like someone just dumped a bucket of water, and it was everywhere. And I'm pretty sure it was getting worse.

So I don't know if it was leaking from the window or the air conditioner or what it was But the second night I even thought I even said should we go tell them we need a new room But at that point it's just like yeah I was lay in the bed and ignore it off the smell will go away to me in ten minutes and it did but yeah It in a in a more perfect world. We probably want to switch rooms there does something different Yeah, so we finished up eating at a we found a Mexican restaurant with an awesome burrito In a more perfect world, we probably want to switch rooms there. It's done something different. Yeah. So we finished up eating at a, we found a Mexican restaurant with an awesome burrito.

Yeah, we did. It actually was good. After we first went into a members only club. A members only bar. We don't have those in our part of the country. We didn't get kicked out, but it felt like a very, it felt like a very particular crowd there, I would say that. It definitely felt like we were the outsiders.

Yeah. Like people were like, yeah, you're not from around here, are you? Yes, that's what it, that's what it was like. That is very much what it was like there. So that was Thursday and then we woke up Friday and we were, that was Friday was Jujy Mufu content day and we legitimately spent 12 hours

at Jujy Mufu's house recording. Yeah, and like he told us. Eating all of his ground beef and rice and we ate ground beef and rice three or four times while we were there and recorded videos. Before we left, he basically said, hey, here's three days, just let me know what you want to do. And we're like, well, we don't need three days with someone.

And then we said, here's this day. And he goes, yep, works perfect. And he goes, I have you guys blocked off. He goes, come over any time after 10 o'clock, 10 AM. And so we're like, oh boy, like in my head, I'm thinking, God, if we're, even if we just fool around a little bit, we'll be out of there by two or three,

you know, that's a good four or five, not that we'd have to get out of there, but we'll be done filming stuff, podcasting, you know, after four or five hours. That seems like a lot of time. And yeah, we got there at 10 a.m. and we left at 10 p.m. And we left and 10pm. And we left and I was like, um, we were never messing around the whole time either.

I don't know how that took 12 hours because we were never just like chilling and hanging out. But somehow we were there for 12 straight hours. It was it was like a time warp. It was crazy. Was we did a lot of stuff. We did a lot of talking and we did we did basically two training sessions of sorts in that amount of time and There again, you'll see the YouTube videos as they come out. We had a lot of fun there. His setup is awesome and It was really it was a really cool experience

I'm still just trying to think in my head like where did the time actually like when I think back on it The only downtime we had is we got there and maybe, probably for the first 45 minutes, we just kind of caught up and talked about things. And then it was like, all right, let's get this gym tour started. And about the time we said that, the power went out. And so then-

So then we just did more of a bigger tour of the- Yeah, so then we went into like his little barn and maybe talked for an hour. But then after that, like once the tour happened, it was just go, go, go. It was, it was nonstop. Then every time between videos we would spend, there would be like a 30 minute to an hour where we're just also talking where it's like we're just talking. We're not busy.

Yeah. It's just like talking shop. Finding a couch and like lounging out, hanging around. We were constantly doing something. It was like talking shop, talking strategies, talking other people in the, you know, the industry and all of a sudden there's like you said, just this giant ass bowl of ground beef in front of you and rice. It's like, yeah, I guess we eat now. And like that happened every like two hours.

Yes. Um, yeah, I was, I mean, that was very cool. It was. And in case anyone enjoy the videos. In case anyone is curious, they, Jujie and his wife Sam are even nicer than you could ever imagine. Yeah, they're, they're, they were great. We did a fun grip competition with the three of us. I think that video will be kind of funny, I hope.

I think so. Where we, where we did, we did a typing, typing hope. I think so. Where we where we did we did a typing typing test. That was the ultimate skill. That was the ultimate test of how how fried your grip was, was we did a pre grip training typing test speed word per minute. And then after it was all done of and I've never done a like a forearm grip day. And that is exactly what we did. I mean, we did what was it an hour's worth of form and grip exercises?

It seemed like it. And then when I I was done we we redid the typing test to some interesting results and then we also did a Jujy Mufu workout that was like stretching and handstand and handstand push-ups and stuff like that Which is very out of my comfort zone. I dented his wall with my ass, doing a handstand. He just flipped himself right into that. Yeah. He said he got to commit to the flip, and I committed so hard that I actually smacked. And he posted, I watched something on his Instagram

story today, and he was doing those handstands against the wall again, and I could see my ass print on the wall behind me and I could see my ass Yeah, that's me Yeah, he's like you should sign it Particularly proud of this wrecking your wall here We finished Friday up and then Saturday was another day that was balls to the walls We drove well back down a couple hours of no line again. We started Saturday with a Waffle House visit. Waffle House, in the trip we got Waffle House,

Bojangles, and there was one other, what was the other Southern fast food place that we, wasn't there one more that we checked off the list? Well, we had Chick-fil-A for breakfast in the airport. Yeah. I was thinking there was one more, maybe I'm wrong on that. Maybe it's just waffle house.

That might have are for like chains that might have been it. OK, that probably was then. We did it if you could. We had some good food while we're there. Then Thursday we ate at a local place in Charlotte that was good. Bar pub thing. And, uh, but then Saturday back to South Carolina with Donnie Thompson. Donnie had just come out of a second, uh, knee replacement surgery.

So we sat in his house for like an hour, just chatting with like him. And then some of his training partners came and it was so funny just sitting in this house, just talking away because you just pick up right. I mean, mean we were there for what a total of 30 seconds before he made the first rip joke Yes, and I mean it literally is just like the online stuff only in person What's so funny about it is when was last time we talked to Donnie in person at the Arnold in like? 2017 maybe something like that. Yeah, and we just popped in there I'm like of course we've known each other forever we've talked right we've been talking to each other for years on end now and it's like no this is actually

really only the second time we've talked to you but it does not feel like Donnie too yeah if you would have been a fly in the wall listening to Donnie it was that's just what it was like for him he's just like going right into it and I'm just thinking if if if my wife or anyone I know was with us, they'd be like, Oh, you guys must've been buddies for a really long time. It's like, well, kind of, but also we're not like talking on the phone either. And it just never missed a beat, which was, I mean, we're talking football. We were talking training and we were getting the backstory on everything.

It was who was there then speedy and Kenny. His training partner started showing up. Yeah. They had food with them and yeah, they were. Then we got to look at his the storage shed and go through that and like his man cave section of the storage shed. I mean, the gym tour and all that stuff. And it was it was really cool. We kind of got we had to cut it short. But we did. Donnie, we could have stayed in that. I believe we could have spent like four more hours talking. I mean, we could have just done a 12 hour day at Donnie's

and I think he would have been fine with it too, you know? Especially if he didn't have knee surgery then when he could really go. He showed us and demoed us at least three new inventions of his that we couldn't film. And one of them, I was, I'm genuinely like really, I'm like, I told him too, I'm like, I'm gonna buy this the second that it's,

after using this, I'm like, I actually, I'm like, I wanna take that home with me and just start using it now. So I'll be, it'll be fun to see, you know, those things materialized too. And of course we got to take Legosaurus for a spin, which is- Yes. First time I've had Legosaurus. I mean, if you're into this

Lifting equipment game and you come across legasaurus. I mean, that's a bucket list item to be able to do that, right? Yeah, that was pretty cool. I Mean that was really cool. Yeah, and then once we got done there, I mean we we stayed as long as we could Literally almost to the minute. And then like, yep, we're cut off and we got to drive back up to North Carolina now. It's like they're so hospitable. We almost had to like run away from. Oh, we had to. They were like, no way to get out of there. Yes, they were. They were. They did not want us to leave at all.

And yeah, I mean, it would have been and it would have been amazing to stay like that's maybe the worst part of the entire trip is that we just only had a few hours at Donnie's instead of a whole day and Yeah, we made the the trip back up to North Carolina I think it took about an hour and 45 minutes and Got to the airport got everything dropped off and what did we get to our gate with maybe half hour or so to spare? Yeah, something like that and overall it's kind of crazy with the hurricane and everything going on We never had any flight problems that I could not believe that that was actually

Giving me think I'm just safe enough at home now to just call it. There was no issues I kept I on the when we're getting To go on the flight back. There's about five times when I was just gonna say like, I can't believe to go on the flight back. There was about five times when I was just going to say, like, I can't believe how we haven't had any issues. And I was like, I'm like, nope, I'm not saying it because the second I say it, something's going to happen. That was before the trip, before we even left,

I was feeling pretty good about things. And then I see this hurricane stuff out of nowhere. And I'm just thinking, oh my God. I saw how they were saying Atlanta was supposed to have some issues. I'm like, of course we fly from Charleston to Atlanta on a return flight home. I'm like, yep, we'll just be stuck in Atlanta for four days. I'm calling it right now.

It's going to happen. I know it. And it just gave me a really uneasy feeling, uh, knowing that this, this, what potentially could be a three day trip could turn into, I don't know, a week long trip. Yes. And, uh, yeah, luckily just somehow by some stroke of luck, that did not happen at all.

So I felt pretty good about that. Do you got a can over there, Tommy? I do, I do. This is an interesting one. This is a can that was given to us at the Lift Hard Live Easy Classic this year. Actually, there was just a bunch of these sitting at the gym the weekend of like a six of them or so

Like someone left at the gym on the counter by the sink So I assume someone intended for these to be what's in the can Items I have not had one. Okay, so you don't actually know who this came from I'm not sure who's I'm guessing we'll find out from you know From a listener here. It's not expired. This is like that, like that vegetable grade can, you know, when it's like, yeah, really heavy duty can. This doesn't say to shake anywhere. I don't see shake. So what this does on the bottom chill and shake well for better flavor.

Above the barcode, it says it. Take your word for it. Glad you said that. I would hate to ruin my experience here. Make that because this just felt like something that you might want to. And the can is the one that you can hardly dent because it's so thick. Right. And what this is is a Aqua de Coco coconut water with pulp. And the brand is what Goya Goya got them beans like Goya So should we crack into this thing

Yeah, I you know exactly what it is that we're having here like I'm not exactly sure what coconut Well, actually if you flipped it to their side you read the Spanish side tanner it flipped to their side coconut water with pulp Right. I did just cut my fingernails and this thing is so Hard to get open. Here we go. Number one ingredient is young coconut juice. Not that old stuff. No. Wow. Wow. That's just so, so not a flavor that I enjoy.

I don't really like coconut flavor to begin with. God. That is not. Oh. Squishy. That is not. That somehow makes me thirstier. I actually prepared for this thinking I wouldn't like this

and I brought a glass of water. Now I'm really glad I brought that glass of water. I feel like I gotta go back for just one more time though. Cause yeah, I wish I would have brought a glass of water. Feels like if I take another drink, I'm gonna be even thirstier. Oh, it's like so dense on my tongue. It's, oh, and it just lingers around.

You can't, can't shake it. Do you have to let it linger? And then it kind of has like this milky heaviness to it. Oh, it has actual, when they say pulp, I guess that means chunks. Oh, I'm not a coconut guy either though. About the only thing coconut I'll ever even voluntarily take would be like a coconut shrimp

Wondering how many sugars it has in it all sugar is let's see Total added sugars total sugars per can is 39 grams What oh I see that no that's total carbs. It's weird how the way they have it down lower total added sugars of 26 grams Okay, which is still not how I'd want to use 26 grams of sugar no No, it's not Boy if I had to rate that thing yeah, if you're into coconut No, it's not. Boy, if I had to rate that thing, God, if you're into coconut, I can see how you could like that.

But for me, that's like one territory. One is this as bad as a protocol? Wasn't that a protocol? Wasn't that one of zero? Right? don't I think it might have been a one Was it oh well if that's a one then this is a one and a half I don't know I might actually take a protocol over this to be honest at least I'll get a buzz going Yeah, I'm gonna give this a one and a half okay, that's pretty fair I Really was not expecting to give out that low of a score on anything tonight Yeah, that's that's rough supporting our supporting members, it's a relatively new segment of the podcast that we do Been doing it for a little while. It's a pretty regular segment

I guess at this point but still relatively new where we give back to the supporting members that support us We like to shout them out so each week we Make a little list of things cool things. We see supporting members doing and then we shot them out on the podcast It's just one of the many cool perks you can get by being a supporting member If you want to find out more about being a supporting member you just go to massomics.com slash join That's where you can join up. We have several membership options several levels There's something for any budget any budget at all as long as your budget is not zero dollars anything greater than zero You'll probably find a budget that works perfect for you get things like access to our exclusive online discord community

It's the only way you can get it in our discard community Discount code only for supporting members. A whole bunch of other stuff. So this week, Dan Eager, he competed in strongman competition, getting second overall and hit a 320 pound log in the comp for a big PR for him. Well done, big Dan. for a big PR for him. Well done, Big Dan. And then Big Chris Mark. Was the 300 and some person

to officially get marked in the book in Scotland for successfully lifting the dinnie stones. He got air under both the stones, and that was very recent. I think he just posted that here. So he was what number you said Mark 319th or something like that he said that's pretty cool still let's yeah I did just the video like for this and I mean that is really cool but I'm still surprised that that number is that low that's that's awesome you it turns out they just double-checked he was the

first man to officially get in the record books with two first names for like wait what are we going first first or last first I can't tell what what I'm doing here wait is this two people or one is what's Chris and mark both here or you realize only one person's allowed to lift these right Chris grabbed one stone and mark grab the other doesn't count congratulations though that's really cool. Now that's cool beans. Our guest has arrived, Tanner.

Okay, should we get him on and do ads after? Or should I do an ad? Well, maybe do an ad. Should I do an ad while you kick people off? There you go. I'm gonna let everyone listen to a little something. This is the Strength Company. We've set out to build a better barbell plate on American soil. the to build our weights to our exact specifications. The Strength Company plates are slim but rugged,

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Greg knuckles for a second appearance on the Mastodonics podcast. First one I had to check was January of 2021. And it feels right. Yeah. Yeah. Our technology was so limited at the time that it was audio only from a simple phone call at the time. Yeah. I was, I was trying to remember because I knew I had done massonomics before and I was

thinking like, is that the podcast that I, that I just got a phone call for? Yeah. Okay. That certainly, certainly my, my first experience with that. And, you know, times have changed. Yeah, you know, Zoom was invented in the last three years, so it's crazy how things progress. Yeah, we were well known for that.

I think about the third time that Dr. Mike called us out for just calling him on the phone for a podcast We felt peer pressured enough that we had to actually start doing this over zoom. I'll be honest. I liked it because It meant that I didn't have to put on a shirt But you know I can I can be a bit more professional well There's there's a lot of viewers that wouldn't mind if you still didn't have a shirt on so Well, there's a lot of viewers that wouldn't mind if you still didn't have a shirt on. So we don't have strict policies here. It's not that kind of show. Yeah, no, my, my torso currently looks very, very strange when we were trying to schedule this.

I think I told you guys, um, I had an emergency appendectomy a few weeks back. So I have like very weird like shaved stuff from where they needed to, you know, sanitize everything and whatnot. So I look like a fool with my shirt off currently. Is like the 40 year old version look like you kind of did a half wax thing and you called it quits? Kind of, it more so looks like my, uh,

like my torso has a really sick Fu Manchu. That's cool too. Yeah. So that it was, it was a emergency, a surprise appendectomy. So you were not, you woke up probably not planning on having your appendix removed the day that you did have your appendix removed. Yeah. I woke up, uh, just thinking I was like really gassy. Um,

like I woke up with the sensation that my tummy doesn't feel good, but a big shit will fix everything. So you woke up like what's different than any other day. And, uh, unfortunately it never came and it just kept getting worse throughout the day and so I was like okay there there might actually be a problem here yeah so how's the recovery um extremely chill extremely chill I always assumed abdominal surgery would be a big deal. Like that just sounds like something

that should be serious, but like it hadn't perforated or ruptured. So it was like they were able to just do a laparoscopic surgery. So it was basically just like three, three just like little puncture holes, essentially. And, you know, I had never really stopped to consider it before. But like, like, like, so basically there were like little stab wounds. And like a stab wound that doesn't have complications

like hitting a bone, hitting an artery, hitting a nerve, anything like that. Isn't that dissimilar to just like a muscle strain with a scratch on top of it? Cause you know, they're going through, they're disrupting a group of muscle fibers, much more so than just kind of like, you know, a grade one strain, like more than

just like regular muscle damage, but like a grade two strain, you're getting like full separation of fibers. And so like, it just felt like I had really bad like abdominal domes for a few days, like, but I've had worse abdominal domes before. Like if I haven't done much ab training in a while and I like really, really hit rollouts. I was just going to say, it's like the first time you do rollouts when you haven't been doing rollouts for a while, yes. It was seriously less uncomfortable than doing rollouts

for the first time in a long time. And I was like, oh, yeah, I thought this would be a big deal but it simply wasn't. Took Tylenol for a couple of days. And that was that. Um, couple things. First of all, isn't it just funny how everyone knows that feeling of you haven't done rollouts for a long time and you, then you do roll outs. You're like, Oh my God, my abdomen, abdomen is ripping in half. Uh, that's just, everyone's experienced it. They really are one of the most under discussed,

truly evil exercises. Like people talk about how miserable high rep squats can be and like they're rough. But yeah, if you've never done rollouts before, the first time you do them, they will fuck you up. For like days. More people need to be talking about this. Yeah.

Tommy, weren't you just mentioning you had implemented those? That was me like four or five months ago. I actually thought that I had like done serious damage to my abdominal wall. I'm like, this can't be, this can't actually hurt for six straight days, but yeah, it actually can.

And it was- It doesn't take very many weeks of staying consistent though for that. No, I mean, yeah. And then it's like, am I doing this right? It doesn't hurt anymore. What's happening? But yeah, you adapt that pretty quickly.

Yeah. My other thing, if this would have been a West side barbell story, your appendectomy, you would have came that day after surgery and they would have used knee wraps to tie you to the bench and forced you to do max effort. Press day. They would have beat your abdomen into submission. Yeah. I, I didn't want to take any risks on that. Cause I'm like,

your appendix is coming off of your large intestine. Like if the surgical sutures they put in there, like if they, if they rupture, like you get, you get a poo poo all in your abdominal cavity. And the laparoscopic surgery, no big deal. I hear sepsis is a much bigger deal though. So that is a risk that I wasn't willing to take. But it really, the recovery really was no big deal. As soon as I got home from the hospital, I was just back to my normal schedule. It didn't, I got home from the hospital, I was just like back to my normal

schedule. It didn't really, the thing that was the roughest actually, and this surprised me, is they put like inflatable cuffs on your calves to, I guess like just to keep circulation moving and to make sure you don't have blood pooling in your calves. Apparently that reduces your risk of blood clots while you're under anesthesia. And like I was out for this, so I don't actually know how hard they inflated them, but it felt like they inflated them really fucking hard. Because my calves were so much sore than my abdomen was.

Like I was walking around like I was half crippled. And my wife was like, is, like, you're walking a little funny? Like, is the pain bad? Like, is it still the anesthesia? I'm like, no, like, it's just my calves. They're fucking sore. That was truly the worst part of the entire process. I can believe it.

Yeah, I can't remember. Are you in the Carolinas? Yes. We were just there both time in our first trip. We got North Carolina and South Carolina and we made it basically just in time. We were there exactly over the hurricane, kind of coincidentally. Oh, sure. From this last Thursday through Saturday. Where we're at. We were there from this last Thursday through Saturday. Where we're at? We were in Charlotte area mostly.

And then in South Carolina, we were in Columbia and Gaffney. Nice, hell yeah. So where are you from? Are you from North Carolina or? Yeah, I'm from North Carolina. I'm from like an hour north of Charlotte originally. I'm gonna say uh, I'm from like an hour north of Charlotte originally. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say where and no, no one outside of a 30 minute radius of where I grew up will know where it is.

I'm, I'm from Davie County, Moxville, North Carolina, but I'm, I'm currently in Raleigh. Okay. So what was, uh, your hurricane experience there? How is it? Um, it was, it was minimal. is it? Um, it was it was minimal like it it was like it really like devastated the the western part of the state like Asheville Boone the the highlands more generally but yeah, like we're three and a half four hours east of there and so you know like we we had like a tornado watch.

We had a flash flood warning, but it was like, what we actually got wasn't outside of the range of just a kind of normal late summer thunderstorm. Cause we have pretty gnarly thunderstorms here from time to time. And what we got was, yeah, was, it was heavier rain than normal, but not, yeah, maybe like two standard deviations from the mean,

but not anything crazy. That's pretty much what we experienced there, right, Tommy? I guess. Yeah, just like, yep, just feels like a really rainy day with maybe a little extra wind than normal. Yeah. Yeah, that's about what it was like in Raleigh as well. So the appendix surgery aside, in 2024, what does your training look like now? What are you up to? What would you if you didn't have an emergency, let's pretend you didn't just have an emergency

abdomen surgery? What what has your training been kind of looking like? So, I mean, really I'm just lifting weights. It would be a stretch to call it training. You know, like I get in, I do kind of a front of the body day, back of the body day. So like pressing and quad based lower body stuff one day, pulling posterior chain based lower body stuff one day. And just kind of just pumping it out, man I would I would also feel like a fraud if I called it like bodybuilding training because I got I'm not gonna step on stage but like bodybuilding training basically. So how long have you been doing that now? I've been doing that since it, it's probably been about two years. Like once

once I started going to a gym again after COVID, like once once everything like opened back up and whatnot. Yeah, like I Yeah, like I realized, I realized maybe like three or four years ago that, I wouldn't say powerlifting has like fully passed me by. Like I could hit it and put up some pretty big numbers again but I am. Hmm. I don't know. I'm not that motivated in just like hitting big numbers for the sake of

hitting big numbers, like I want to hit bigger numbers than I've ever hit and chase records and whatnot. And I do get the feeling that I might be a little bit beyond that. Like I my entire lifting career, I had back issues and they just got progressively worse. And I always knew how to manage them, but the amount of management I needed to do relative to the amount of hard training I could do. That ratio gradually

got more and more out of balance to the point where like I think I could and this is this is probably me having excessive confidence in myself but I feel like I really really could like fully get after it again if if I could treat it like a full-time job, like if I could carve out four hours per day, like two for training and two for just getting and keeping my body, right. I, yeah, yeah. I think, I think I could, I could do some damage, but more realistically I have about an hour and a half a day to do stuff and it's, it's just not enough to do like the amount of maintenance stuff that I would need to do to allow me to train as much and as heavy as I would need to.

So you know, I did what I think is probably the right move for just kind of health and longevity I guess. Yeah. That feels like way too honest and realistic. So I think you're supposed to go until the wheels literally fall off and like until there's no hope of of doing anything ever again. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's that's what I always told myself I was going to do, honestly. Like I'll tell you what got me. I'll tell you what got me. So like, if I wasn't staying on top of my prehab work and stretching and rolling and all of that stuff, like I would sometimes like irritate my back pretty bad, like squatting or deadlifting heavy, more often deadlifting.

And every time that happened, I could look back on it and like even in the moment, know like, ah, I'm doing something stupid. Like, it doesn't feel quite right. Today should be an easier day. But like, fuck it, I just want to lift something heavy. And then I heard it. I'm like, God damn it. Like I knew that. And like that that was that was a thing for a while. But that was, you know, like it wouldn't really affect other stuff I wanted to do, basically. And the thing that that finally made me stop and reevaluate is, um, like I, I really love lifting, but also like, I grew up playing sports and I like being able to get out and play some

pickup ball or like if I'm with friends and people want to play soccer, like get a game of soccer and you know, um, and do you play some pickup basketball? I play pickup basketball twice a week. That's one of my favorite, favorite hobbies. Yeah, it's, it's uh, it like it's, it's my favorite thing

to do. Oh, so pickup basketball is a great sport, uh, uh, to play in a pickup setting, honestly, like in that the, there's just enough, enough physicality to it that you get that element but also like a lot of Cardiovascular training at the same time. Yeah, but basketball was my first love like it's um

And honestly, like I don't know if I should say this on a lifting on a lifting path Like I I always liked it more than lifting like I So I'll get back to that in a second. But yeah, so what finally made me realize like, I probably need to just take it a little bit easier on the lifting was when I started like irritating my back, just like landing funny when going up for like rebounds or layups or whatever.

It's like, oh, like at this point, it's not that my back is in a place where sometimes I irritated deadlifting 700. Now it's like, sometimes I irritated by like landing weird when I get a rebound. And at that point, I'm like, okay, like it's either like I felt like I either needed to give up powerlifting or basketball. It's either like I felt like I either needed to give up powerlifting or basketball. And if if I was still competing for records in powerlifting, it would make it a bit tougher. But I was like, yeah, there are some really fucking strong people in the sport now. Like, I don't know about all that.

So, yeah, let's let's just kind of transition into the next phase of my life. But yeah, yeah, let's just kind of transition into the next phase of my life. But yeah, yeah, like I... The thing about powerlifting, the thing about sports, the thing about sports that I like is it's a competition, you know? Like a lot of winning and losing takes place in the phase of preparation. Like, you know, you need to practice your sport, you need to be good at it, you need to have the physical tools necessary to succeed, but there is also like their strategy, you know? Like if you're playing basketball, you could be playing against someone who's like taller and quicker and can jump higher than you, but like

you have nifty little moves and you can fake them out. Or in the case of a team game, like you can just know the game well. Like you know where to cut, you know like when to hit someone, you know when to set a screen. Like there's a lot of other ways to be good. And also like, it's a competition. Like there's two people could be similarly skilled,

but one of them just wants it more. Like they're putting more effort into it. Or you just like have a better game plan than the other team. Like there's a lot of elements there that make it like a very dynamic experience where it is always kind of up in the air. Whereas like with powerlifting,

it really is just truly a hundred percent like preparation. And did you pick the right parents? Like, you kind of know, like if someone squads 800 and the other squat 700 relatively close to those two on the day of there's really no unknown variables outside of like someone getting hurt that day, or in which case horrible attempt selection right right yeah just like really really bad attempts like but there's just there's not much room for like you described in basketball the variance and all that you know all the

nuance and different things people can get be good at it just doesn't really you kind kinda can predict with probably a lot more accuracy the placing of a powerlifting meet before it starts than something like a basketball tournament or something, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I don't know, I do,

as someone who grew up playing sports and really, really loving sports, like I did, I did always just feel like some of that was missing when I was solely focusing on powerlifting. And honestly, like I got, I got most of the joy from training and finding training partners who I think were wired similarly. And like programming, what is that? Like you have something written down on a piece of paper, but the best training sessions are when you just like go in the gym, you and your training partner, you and your crew are just like talking shit and you find something to compete on.

And you know, it's not necessarily just like who can hit the biggest number because that is like a little predetermined beforehand. But you know, it could just be like, hey, we're going to do sets of five with a weight that all of us could do sets of ten with and we're not gonna rest and we're gonna go until someone gives up you know like like stuff like that like just just ways to keep it fun like I I always found that way more engaging than like showing up to a powerlifting meet and knowing like if if I have a bad day I'm gonna total 1780 if I have a good day I'm'm going to total 1780. If I have a good day, I'm going to total 1900.

And it's like, well, I know who else is showing up at the meat and I'm either going to win or get second. Like there's like the variance there is smaller and it's yeah. Like once you're showing up at the meat, like a lot of shit's predetermined already and it's not that competitive. Like it can be, it can be. Like on very rare occasions you'll have two people who are very evenly matched and it might just come down to like who really wants it more on the final deadlift,

but that's extremely uncommon. Like that's not the way needs go most of the time. And so yeah, yeah, like I've, I've always I've always had a love of just being able to play sports. And once once the back issue started impinging on all of that, I was like, it might be it might be time to pull back a bit, you know. Yeah, that's totally understandable. Totally fair. Makes sense. Do you get the itch very often where you're do you just have that feeling Yeah, that's totally understandable. Totally fair.

Makes sense. Do you get the itch very often where you're, do you just have that feeling for like a passing moment though, where you're like, Oh, I'd really like to hit, hit a heavy set of squats today. You know, really do it. Do you, does that come up or do you, or are you kind of past that even having the feeling very often? I do.

I do. I mean, I, yeah, so I, I can't have squats in my program, like, because I can't stop myself. Because I do like, like binge press. That was another thing about powerlifting. I really just liked one lift. Like deadlifts, deadlifts can be fun, but like I never liked the bench press. It's fucking boring. And if there are any bench specialists listening, I apologize. Different strokes for different folks.

I'm not gonna yuck your yum. I'm not saying it's objectively dumb or bad or whatever. I just never liked it. I always found it boring. And like sometimes when you're having a really good deadlift day, it could be fun. But I never loved deadlift all that much, but I did like truly, truly love squatting and still do. And yeah, so I currently like press because like as soon as I get a bar on my back, I'm maxing out. Give it a few more years, I might be able to control myself a little bit better. But I truly can't. And especially if I haven't squatted heavy Ah. Like, it's, you know, it feels a bit like the way, like,

people in AA describe drinking. I just can't do it at all because I can't do it responsibly. I cannot squat responsibly. If I get a bar on my back, I'm going to go until the wheels fall off Like if I get a bar on my back, like I'm going to go until the wheels fall off. Because that's what I like to do, you know? So, yeah. So I definitely, I do get that urge, but I mostly get that urge once the bar is on my back. And then I'm like, okay, you know, I'm like, there's nothing on my calendar where I'm going to need to be on my feet all that much in the next two weeks. What's the worst that could happen?

So yeah. When you were last on in January, 2021, like we talked about, what was macro factor status at that point? When did macro factor first release? Had it released already then? I can't remember. What month was it?

January 21. It launched in September of 2021. Okay, so it hadn't even launched yet at that point in time. We might have I don't know if we are aware of it or if we talked about it at all. But Tommy's been using it now for how long? We started like first week in August, August, September. Yeah, Tommy's been using it now for how long? I started like first week in August, August, September.

Yeah, about two months now. Oh, six. So what, and even when you're on your trip, I mean, have you been, have you missed anything for the most part? I have, you know, with the exception of, okay, you're on vacation, you're eating a burger here. So it's like, oh, I think that was a one third pound patty

and it had cheese, like, you know, when you got to guess, but I have never intentionally left anything out. I've got to complete it all every day. And I've even, I've been pretty, I had a period of being pretty sick in September and I still kept up with it then too. So I feel like at this point it has become a habit in my life.

And we've talked about about actually a lot on the podcast. And I found it, I learned a lot about myself and my eating habits through this. And for me, like eating has never been, I've always been relatively lean, like, when I first started going to the gym, I weighed like 165. And I've gotten all the way up to 230. And then through there, I've gotten back down to like 195 now I'm sitting at like 215 ish and

Like my first month or so in and I'm our first couple weeks I'm like, I'm just gonna do what I do and just see like where does this even stack up and For me and I'm curious you probably hear a lot of people's different stories here for me Well, the the biggest eye- eye opener was just I was so low on carbs, like unknowingly, really, really low on carbs. Like there was a lot of days where I'd be under 120 grams of carbs. There was probably even several days a week where I'd be under like a hundred grams of carbs just because I just wouldn't do that much. And so then I'm making it up in fat, you know, like that's where I was, the extra calories are coming in. But I mean, is that a common thing that people have? I think, I think it is pretty common. I think it's pretty common

with a lot of lifters who are around our age. Cause I do, I do think that, I do think we've been living in a, in a low carb world for a while where I think, God, within like the last 10 to 15 years or so, I would almost guarantee that every lifter has tried a low carb or ketogenic diet at some point. And like, even if you don't like fully buy into the carbohydrate insulin model narrative or whatever. I do think a lot of people at least have the inkling in the back of their minds a little bit. Even if I don't fully buy that, if I am trying to manage my weight, it is easy to just dial back the carbs a little bit. So I think a lot of people do just like find themselves, like I think a lot of lifters find themselves

on like fairly low carbs. And I think a lot of folks, especially who may have had like kind of a low fat, like quote unquote clean eating background for a while, if they try low carb dieting and they're like, well, I do like steak, I do like burgers, I do like cheese, even if they decide like, like really committing to this lifestyle isn't for me, the food choices I do think are just objectively more delicious. And so then if

you're trying to watch total calorie intake, your reference is towards like a high protein diet that consists of a lot of like fatty meats or fatty dairy. Like it just kind of naturally sorts you into a lower carb diet. So yeah, I do think that's pretty common. Okay. And okay, I could ask you before we go too much into the details of the app, because I do have. And okay, I could ask you before we go too much into the details of the app,

because I do have a bunch of questions I could ask you. I guess first, what was the process like of launching the app from idea inception to launch? How long of a timeline are we talking here? Oh, man. I guess that depends a little bit on how you conceptualize it. So what the kind of okay, here's the training toolkit, which was like, I think it was 10 bucks. And it was basically just like a collection of spreadsheets. Like there was a program in there somewhere. There was a spreadsheet where you could just kind of like

fill in stuff and use it to get like analytics on your training. And one of them was called the self correcting macro plan, which was basically like a much worse dumber version of the macro factor algorithm where basically you would plug in your weight every day, you'd plug in your calorie intake every day, and answer some questions about your preferences for fat versus carb ratio and what level of protein you wanted. And it would roughly estimate your total daily energy expenditure from your weight and nutrition

data. And then from there, calculate macro targets based on those kind of like preference based questions. So yeah, like it's that that was like 2015 and it was okay, but it only took data on like a week by week basis. So if for whatever reason, you know, you had like big water weight fluctuations, it might look like you gained two pounds in a week or lost two pounds in a week. So like the recommendations week to week could be a little bit erratic. But yeah, that was the...

This was all spreadsheet you're saying, this first one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a spreadsheet. And so yeah, like we sold that in, I think, through early 2016 or so. And eventually we stopped selling it, mostly just because I was getting more into, like I was getting more into science and I was getting more into like science and science-y based stuff.

And I was trying to learn things and trying to, like, you know, the idea where like, when you only know a little bit of stuff, you feel like you know a lot of bit of stuff. Like that's kind of how I was prior to that. And then like, as I started gaining, like, more expertise in certain areas, I began to realize, like, oh, shit, like, if if I'm going to learn everything that I would need to learn to consider myself like kind of expert level about all of the things that I currently talk about. Like that shit's going to be impossible. So

I need to like figure out what I'm doing, like find my lane. And so I was like, yeah, like I'm really just going to focus on the training side of things. This is a nutrition product. So that's not really what I do anymore. So let's just kind of, you know, let that go by the wayside. But Corey, one of the developers of the app had been one of the people that bought the training toolkit back in the day.

And he'd been using the self-correcting macro plan. And he was like a nutrition app power user. I think he had like over 2000 consecutive days logged in his nutrition tracking app. And he was like, I want to make one of these like there's there's key areas where I think all of these could be improved upon and you know if I think someone should do it why don't I be the one to do it and one of one of the ways that he thought it could be improved is by being

able to give people more like tailored and personalized nutrition recommendations. So, you know, like if you sign up for my fitness pal or something, you give it like height, weight, age, whatever, it'll activity levels, and it'll give you like a very rough estimate of your energy expenditure and therefore how much you need to eat to gain or lose weight at whatever rate you want to. But like, it's a rough estimate and it's very likely to be considerably wrong for a lot of people a lot of the time, but if people are logging their weight and logging their nutrition, you can dial it in considerably better.

So that was one of the things that he wanted. And one of the things inspiring that was the self-correcting macro plan that he'd been using. And so, yeah, he hit me up and was just like, hey, I want to do this app. This seems like something you might be interested in as well. So why don't we go into business? And I was like, okay, that sounds cool.

But also I'm not like an app person. I'm not a tech person. I have no technical background. So, and like he was far from the first person who'd approach me about something similar, like, like plenty of people had reached out about like training apps in the past. And, you know, like, I, I know that if I asked to see someone's CV, it wouldn't mean a goddamn thing to me because you're going to have a computer science degree, you're going to have an employment history working for tech companies. You might be good, you might be terrible. I can't say like, let me see your GitHub account so I can look at your code. Because like,

I don't know what the fuck good code looks like. So what I had always told everyone is like, yeah, I'm interested. Like build an alpha, let me see it and we can go from there. Because like, yeah, I don't know if code's good but like I have a phone, I use apps on my phone. I think I have a decent idea of like if an app is good or not. And previously everyone, like I said that like,

oh yeah, like build an alpha, we can go from there. And I would just never hear back from anyone. And Cory was like, okay, cool. Like, I'll keep you posted. And he did. And, oh, maybe like five or six months later, he and our other developer, Rebecca, had whipped up an alpha and we checked it out and we're like, yeah, this is this is sick. Let's let's do this thing. So even the first version you saw, you're like, yeah, I can totally see the potential like right off the bat. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But yeah, so I think I don't remember the exact timeline, but I think the first time he touched base was maybe like March, April of 2020, thereabouts. I think the alpha was done late 2020, give or take. The beta, like

the beta where we kind of got people outside of ourselves and like family and friends into the app. That was, I believe, June of 2021. And then we launched in September. Trey Lockerbie Okay. So as someone like me that is new to the app and only knows it in its recent state, I mean, has it gone through a lot of changes over the years or was it a pretty, pretty mature app right from the get-go. It's changed a lot. It's changed a lot. It is funny when, like, you know, we still have like screenshots and like Figma files and whatnot of all of the old designs. And like, I still think they look cool. But like they do, they're not as like on trend for how they look more like 2020. Yeah. Yeah. They they look they

look more unique. I guess I would say in a way I like but Corey and Rebecca are are quite hard on themselves looking back. They're like, ah, we should have done so much differently. I'm like, yeah, but we didn't. And it got off the ground and it's good. Like it's fine. So yeah, like it looks a lot different. And there has been a lot of functionality added over the years as well. Like we have a public feature request board where people can submit features they'd like to see and people vote on them. And then, yeah. So generally if something rises far enough to the top,

we add it in the app. And then we add a lot of other things that we're like, yeah, we think you're actually going to like this whether or not you voted on it. Kind of like the Henry Ford thing. Like if you ask people, if you would have asked people what they wanted, they would have just said, I want a faster horse. There is a bit of that as well. Or you can have the app any color you want as long as it's in black.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like all of the micronutrient tracking features and like ways to visualize that. That wasn't in the app from the jump. Like you could track all of the micronutrients, but they weren't like all in the app in a way to be able to like track intake over time. Body measurement tracking, that was added. The expenditure algorithm and coaching features have been revamped several times.

God, there's so much. Well, and then recently now, so you have added, I'm going to get the terminology wrong here, but basically what it... People were really hyped on widgets. Oh, were they? Yeah. I guess, yeah, if you're like super into the whole iOS power user thing and like taking advantage of all those features,

I can see that, but like lately you've had some push about now when you do your weekly check-ins that there's a lot more that goes into those now, correct? So like explain that a little bit, like what is going on there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So from the jump, people would track their weight, they track their nutrition.

From that, you can calculate someone's energy expenditure, which just to back up a little bit, like you guys know this already, I'm sure most people listening to this do as well, but just to make sure everyone's on the same page. The basic concept is fairly straightforward. Like if you're maintaining your weight and eating 3000 calories a day, guess what? You're probably burning about 3000 calories a day. If you're eating 3000 calories a day and losing around a pound a week, guess what? You're probably burning about 3500 calories a day. Like that's that's the concept in a nutshell. And if you were previously eating 3000 calories a day and losing a pound a week, but as the diet progresses, you start losing weight slower than a pound a week,

well, your energy expenditure probably used to be around 3500, but it is gradually decreasing as evidenced by your rate of weight loss slowing down while eating the same amount. That's the basic idea. The whole time the app has been out, you check in every week and based on changes to your calculated energy expenditure, your calorie and macronutrient targets would update for the next week. Which for people who already kind of know how to manage their diet pretty well,

like that was sufficient. But like there's a lot of people who either won't or need more guidance than that. So to the weekly check-in system, we've added coaching modules, which currently, like the ones that are in the app right now, are a little bit just kind of like proof of concept that the coaching module system works on just kind of like a tech-based level, like making sure that we're able to serve them and that the wizards all work and they're surfacing when we want them to and

whatnot. So a coaching module that was added is one to detect and ask people if they may have partially logged a day. So, you know, if like you logged your breakfast but then forgot to add forgot to log lunch and dinner. Previously, it would look like, oh, hey, you, you, you usually eat 3000 calories per day, but like, this day, you only eat 1000 calories. Cool. You only ate 1000 calories. It looks. You only ate a thousand calories, it looks like you ate quite a bit less, and that would therefore lead to the implication that maybe your energy expenditure had decreased a fair bit. But now one of the coaching modules looks to see like, hey, do you have any days where you logged way fewer calories than you typically did. If so, it'll surface that module to say like,

hey, did you maybe partially log this day? And so would you like to maybe go back and estimate your intake for the day or would you like us to overlook it when calculating your numbers for the next week? So yeah, like the early modules are kind of things along those lines, but the system itself is something that is powerful and flexible enough that we should be able to expand on

it considerably. Where for instance, if someone has been trying to lose weight for three or four months and their rate of weight loss has slowed down quite a bit and their calculated energy expenditure has dropped by quite a bit and they're maybe not hitting their targets quite as well as they used to. That might suggest that they're experiencing quite a bit of diet fatigue or just kind of feeling burned out on cutting for so long. And so we might have a module that could ask like, hey, you want to maybe like reduce your target rate of weight loss to get some calories back? Or would you maybe like to take a

break from this weight loss phase for a week or two until you're feeling better? Like that's the directions that we see modules going in the future. So it'll be able to kind of offer more of the type of advice that you would expect to get from working with a coach or just like talking to a buddy who knows more about nutrition instead of like just increasing or decreasing calorie targets week to week. Okay. And so is that, and I know you guys have that public feature request. Modules also are obviously being a big addition. Is there any other, just because I haven't looked at that list, is there any other like big feature requests or changes coming in the near future that you can talk about? Um, hmm. Or is that under wraps? There there's there's things I know. And there's things that the rest of the team is comfortable with us talking about publicly. And I'm not sure what sits at the middle of that entire thing.

Yeah. I guess maybe the key thing for people to know is it is continually being developed. You guys aren't sitting around doing nothing here. You're always doing something, right? Correct, yeah. You know what? I'll just pull up our annual report.

Because that's... At the end of, so we put out an annual report. Because that's at the end of so we put out a an annual report every year with the app just turned three, a couple weeks ago, and we published our annual report. And at the end, we say like, hey, here's the things we're going to be working on in the next year. So that stuff is public already. And so I can share that. But you can ask another question while I'm working on that. Okay. Here's another one. In the world of the apps, the app store, the play store, wherever

you get your apps from, you guys are on Android too, aren't you? Yes. Okay. So wherever you get your apps from, if you go in, and I haven't done this, but I imagine if you typed in nutrition or diet or something, there's thousands and thousands of apps. It's like an unlimited world of anything out there. Has there been challenges marketing and getting yourself

out there, or do you feel like you're enough in, I don't know, the powerlifting performance nutrition world that that word of mouth worked for you? Or was there other marketing avenues or just how did you get the word out on the app? Yeah. So I can go back and answer the what's coming up. Because I have the annual report pulled up. So we have an Apple Watch app coming soon. Much like widgets. People are very hyped on that. As an Android user who does not wear watches,

I'm sure people will like it. And that's cool with me. We're working on a workout app that we're We're working on a workout app that we're tentatively targeting and hoping will launch like Q1 2026. And we are like this, this isn't an app thing, but this is like a macro factor as an organization thing. app thing, but this is like a macro factor as an organization thing, where we're funding like meta-analytic metabolism research. So like there's, we did an article series and yeah, just like a big project on Like resting energy expenditure and BMR and one of the things that I Encountered as I was doing that is like that's an area of research with a shitload of research that has never been meta analyzed

and like current BMR equations are They're okay, but I don't I think people aren't like fully aware of just how kind of sketchy they are. Like they'll get you a decent ballpark estimate of your BMR, but it's like if you do like a bland Altman plot for difference between like measured and predicted BMR, the limits of agreement typically span a range of like 800 calories or so. So like around 5% of people, BMR equations under or overestimate their BMR by like 400 plus calories. So it's like, it's a ballpark guess at best.

But yeah, like there's a lot of research that has been done and I think there's a lot of room for improvement there. So we're funding a big project to meta analyze all of that research and hopefully come up with like considerably better like BMR prediction equations. So that's something we're working on as well. But yeah, so getting the word out about the app, it was, it's gone smoother than we thought it would,

honestly. So when we launched, we launched to the Stronger by Science audience initially, which is like, it's not like huge, but it's not small either. So that got about 10,000 people in the door, give or take. We had an affiliate program where we had a lot of people spreading the word. That helped a lot. And, you know, like we've tried other things. Like we run Apple search ads. We've done some, like, sponsored content. We've sponsored some events. We're sponsoring the Olympia this year.

We're hyped about that. Oh, cool. So yeah, we've done various things to get the word out, but at this point still a majority of our growth does still seem to be just organic word of mouth. Once we got people in the app to begin with, they like it. And like they tell their family, tell their friends. And that's where about two thirds of our new users come from. And so that really has been most of it.

So yeah, just having like a pre-existing audience to launch to, to kind of get the ball rolling was big. And then once the ball got rolling, it's been rolling. And yeah, most of the growth does genuinely just seem to come from people liking the product and telling their friends. Trey Lockerbie Cool. I mean, that does speak to the quality of the product. So that's a job well done there. And speaking of the fit. Ben Fisk It makes my life easier too, because I'm on the, I'm on the content and marketing side of the house and yeah. Yeah. Happy customers. Yeah. It's a lot easier to market that.

Even if I do a terrible job of selling the app, people still buy it. It sell itself. Um, and I would interject, you can use code massonomics when you sign up, it'll, uh, you'll get an additional time on your free trial at the beginning So it's a win for the user because you're getting a pretty sweet Macro tracking app at your fingertips. It's a win for us Because Greg will send us money if enough people do it and he said if enough people do it He's gonna fly us to North Carolina for a pickup basketball game. So everyone, please make sure to sign up, give it a try.

And yeah, that's, that's my, that's my pitch in the middle of it here. Truly. If you guys ever find yourself in Raleigh, we can, we can, we can put some shots up. There's a court, there's a court like four houses down from me like it's it's like less than a quarter mile like comfortable walking distance It's a nice court And yeah, we can we can do the damn thing or talking if you're if you're in the market for a celebrity sighting The Well, I don't go here go here anymore. We used to go to a lifetime fitness in Carrie, North Carolina and I don't go here, go here anymore. We used to go to a lifetime fitness in, uh,

Carrie, North Carolina. And, uh, it's the gym that Jay Cole goes to. Mostly basketball. Um, we were, we were walking in one day like I felt that there were people behind me. So I was going to be polite and hold the door. So held the door, turn around, see who it is. It's fucking Jay Cole. And I was like, and he's pretty good, isn't he? He is so good. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Like he, I don't think he works out there. I think just like him and like his crew go and play in the, in the basketball league that's hosted there. And they run that place. Like they're, I don't, I don't remember what came of this, but during COVID when it, um, like suspended his tour, I think Jay Cole went and tried to play professionally in like Turkey

or something. I think that that's correct. That's what I was trying to think. There was something like that. He is, he is very good. He is extremely good. Like did he ever play at a level past high school in any way, like an organized level, do you know? Or he just got just that much raw talent. I don't remember. I think he played college ball. Okay.

Yeah. I don't remember for sure. Um, yeah. Okay. I'm looking at his Wikipedia page. Once again, I'm sure that doesn't make for the most engaging audio content. I have something I, I wanted to make sure I get to ask you about, uh, you're, uh, at least on some level a bit of a strength, you know, a decent bit of strength history, you know, some of the players of the game,

I've heard you reference some things over the years, correct? Yeah. I've got an interesting one that we've been, we're talking about this week, we had a couple little videos that he was featured in. Do you know about Cleve Dean at all cleave Dean are you familiar that does not ring okay I this is a I would mention this to you and anyone listening you need to check out cleave Dean cleave Dean competed in 1979 world's strongest

man cleave Dean was a farmer from Georgia. He was one of the best arm wrestlers of the time. He arm wrestled both right and left handed. Cleve Dean, there was reports, he was about six foot seven, six foot six, six foot seven, and his weight, I've seen people list from 450 to some people say like 600 pounds. I don't believe he weighed 600 pounds, but I do believe he may have been close to 500 pounds Yeah, I've got eyes on this guy

We posted a funny video a clip from 1979 world's strongest man where the reporter is asking him, you know talking to him between events and he says yeah your your wife told me over there that you are you you To ask you about this hog story and he's like and you can tell he's being very honest, you know He's not making you anything up or embellishing. He's like, yeah I've tackled the six hundred pound hogs before to get him down to the ground and he's like and the reporter goes

Oh, you stopped him dead like that. He's like, well Wouldn't say I stopped him dead. We wrestled around a little bit, but I got him You can just tell he's telling the truth, you know, like it's just so apparent that this is real that's amazing So cleve Dean, I think is what you would consider like the epitome of country strong or like this guy was granted in 1979 world's strongest man isn't the special specialized sport that it is now. But still the fact that it didn't seem like maybe this guy

was really strength training, possibly was, I don't know that, but you know, one of the strongest guys in the world, just because of something about me, you know, what he did in the size of 500 pounds might give you an advantage. There is, yes, got the size. Yeah, that's, that's so sick. Yeah. That, that guy, that guy's awesome. I'm, I'm going, I'm, when we get off this call, I'm going to have to learn everything there is to know about it. I kind of figured if you didn't know you would be, because I didn't know that much about him until

this, like just this week. And I'm like, ah, this is very, this guy's very interesting. He did die relatively young. Not surprisingly, that there's not a lot of 500 pound people that make it to 70 years old, But some interesting stuff. What reminded me, I don't know if we talked about this before, but Chad Wesley Smith was here visiting us a couple. It's been a couple of years now. We were doing some training and talking some juggernaut AI stuff and you came up and he had mentioned some of your family tree, you know, how there was just some people that you're, I don't know if it was like uncles or what the story was in Tommy.

I don't know. I don't remember the specific stories. I don't remember the specifics of the stories, but he was just bringing up how you have some of these people that was just like what we're doing freakishly strong things to me is, and I, I got to use a little context here is I don't know why or how it came up. We were eating breakfast and somehow Chad got to the point of, he's like, you got to hear about Greg's family. It's the craziest thing ever. And I still don't know if it was,

I think it was one of your uncles and he was like, the numbers like Chad was throwing out kind of just seemed made up, but he was like so serious about it that I didn't think he was lying. So I'd love to hear the full story of this now. Oh, it's, it's, it's my mom's whole side of the family. Like, um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a shame that none of them ever got into strength sports because they could have, they could have like severely fuck some shit up, I think. So the thing you need to know about me is, you know, like genetics are a thing. You inherit things from your mom, you inherit things from your dad.

And my dad, love him to death. Not the greatest strength specimen the world has ever seen. Like he decided he wanted to get into lifting and like get stronger when he was, I don't know, maybe 55 or so, like early to mid fifties, like getting a little older. So it was like, I want to lift, make sure I can like be strong and fit as, you know, as I'm like staring down my golden years.

And I was like, okay, cool. Like, let's get you into it. And like he trained pretty consistently. I don't think he ever benched 185. I don't think he ever benched 285. I don't think he ever pulled 315. Don't think he ever squatted 225. And that's after like five or six years of like very consistent, like pretty dedicated training. So yeah, he's like 5'9", 145, like little guy. So that's half of my gene pool. And I wound up fairly strong and that's the other half of the gene pool.

But yeah, the people that got the uncut shit as it were, much bigger, much stronger. So yeah, when I was getting into lifting, there were people in my family who lifted weights before for football. One of my cousins did. So in the South, there of fly by night, WWE-esque organizations like show wrestling. And like one of them had done some of that.

And so he had lifted weights for that. But yeah, so like there are like the markers of strength in my family are like. There are enough people who have been five and pulled eight, but it's just like, oh, if you're like, if you're a forest and you've ever lifted weights, of course you've been five and pulled eight. Like that's those are just kind of like standard rites of passage. And so like when I started getting more serious

about powerlifting, I was still young. I still have never benched five or pulled eight. Like I always wanted to, like those were numbers I wanted to hit just so I could like show my face at family reunions. But yeah. They're like, oh, that's cute what Greg's trying to do over there.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I was like 17 or so. Like I'd been training hard for a few years and like one of my cousins was asking like, oh, like you got into lifting, how's that going? And I was like trying to hype myself up. I was like, yeah, like I've hit these numbers, whatever. And like, he just got this like really confused look

on his face and he's like, oh, like your mom said that you were like really into look on his face and he's like, oh, like, like your your mom said that you were like really into it, but like you're you're just starting out. I'm like, well, I've been at it for like three or four years. And he was like, oh, and then he just started like listing all of the people in the family who had pulled 800 pounds. I was like, well, God, they're all much bigger than me.

Come on. Like I'm still I'm just a little guy. I'm just a little guy. I'm doing the best I can. But yes, so the the other side of the story of of my dad getting into lifting is my mom got into lifting at the same time. And she had just gone into remission from ovarian cancer. So, you know, she'd been in the hospital a lot, had gone through chemo and like,

she was the one who kind of like lit a fire under my dad to start working out as well. Cause mostly she wanted to start working out cause like she'd just been through chemo and she was like much weaker than she had been. So she wanted to build some strength back up. Also, she's a woman, didn't wanna get osteoporosis as she got older, whatever.

So she really wanted to get into lifting. And so she was like, Eddie, you're working out with me. And he was like, okay, that's fine. So yeah, and keep in mind, I'm like 16 here, I would have gone about things a little bit different today, but like I was young and dumb, didn't know what I was doing. So yeah, like the first day that they were working out, like we had a weight set in the basement and I was like, okay, you know, I don't want them to work up to like

true one rep maxes, they don't know what they're doing, but let's, let's just load the bar up a little bit, see when things start getting challenging and just have some numbers to, you know, as like a baseline to work off of to calculate loads and whatnot. And so yeah, my dad, he got a 95 pound squat and it looked fairly comfortable. But I forget if he failed 135 or like barely grinded it out, but it was like, okay, 135, that's where you're at. Mom smokes it. I was like, okay, so what are you thinking? Maybe put some tens on each side.

She was like, what about the 25s? And I was like, okay, fine. Like 135 looked easy enough. I'm like, fuck it. Like we can do 185, I'll spot her club. Smokes it, like an empty bar. And I was like, you wanna try 200? And she was like, put another 45 on.

I was like, okay, let's take the safety pins, move them up a little bit, like, make sure everything. So I was like, you want to try it, fine. Smokes it like an empty bar again. And at that point, I was just amused. I'm like, okay, I clearly don't know the capabilities of my mother. So whatever she says goes at this point.

So I was like, what do you want? And she's like, put another 25 on. Okay, 275 looked like it took a little bit of effort. Like it finally slowed down a little bit. I'm like, you want to try 300 for round out the day? And she was like, well, what would another plate be?

And she's like, ah, let's give it a shot. And she also got that pretty comfortable. Wow. 315. And at that point she racked it. She's like, that's a nice, that's a nice round number to involve. That's crazy. Had she done any weight training in like the previous five years leading up to

this? Um, kind of. So, you know, she's, she was a middle-aged woman in the nineties. So she, she power walked with two pound dumbbells. Um, and that was it. That was the whole extent of her resistance. 90s. So she, she power walked with two pound dumbbells. And that was it. That was the end of her. She squatted three or 15. That's really impressive. Yeah. And I, you know,

you can't go back in time and like test the counterfactual, but like, I truly think that if she would have maxed on squats, completely untrained before chemo, like I bet she could have done like 350 plus. Like, um, yeah, like, like, uh, you know, like a lot of, a lot of boys are like afraid of their dad. It's like, ah, he's, he's, he's the big guy. I'm the little guy. And like, he's my father. He loves me and whatnot, but like if he gets mad, like he's a big guy. In our house, it was always mom. Like I was terrified of my mother.

Not because she was like scary or violent, but it's like even as a kid, I was just like that lady's strong. Like she could throw me across the room if she wanted to. But yeah, so like she was a woman and she had brothers and her brothers were all absurdly strong. So the most like quantifiable story about my strongest uncle, Uncle Jim, that I have is, so my cousin

who had told me about all of the people in the family who benched five or pulled eight, he told me that Uncle Jim benched 500 for the first time when he was 15. I was like, I don't know about that. And then like I saw pictures of him at 15 and I was like, I can buy that. But like, like big guy, like big guy in very. Also, yeah, like help me paint the picture here. When we're talking, are we saying like guys all over six foot weigh in like high two hundreds?

Like how big are these people? Um, the, the, the biggest portion of the family are all between six, three and six, eight. So really big, like and six, eight. Oh, okay. So really big. Like actually big, big. Yeah. And between like 275 and 550. Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That makes a little more sense now. I mean, as much sense as that can make, but.

So yeah. Also like this is, this is when I was, I'd probably been training for powerlifting for about a year and a half at this point. I was down in the basement working out, Uncle Jim came over, he was just like getting coffee and chatting with my mom. And you know, she let him know that I was down in the basement lifting

and he decided like, yeah, I'll come downstairs, like see what Greg's up to see, see what kind of weights he's slinging around. And I was squatting. I was squatting four Oh five doing like sets of five, something like that. And, um, he, and I was between sets when he came down. So he didn't see that I was squatting. He just saw that there was a bar loaded at that height, 405 on it. And he was like, you're lifting this? I was like, yeah.

And he got like a look on his face. Like, I'm impressed. I'm impressed. That's not, and it's first, my chest swelled with pride. I was like, my uncle Jim, who I know is very strong, sees what I'm lifting and he's impressed by it. That, that makes me feel good. And he's like, you mind if I try? And I was like, okay, sure. Sure. Yeah. Like you, you can, you can work in if you want, like do you want to warm up? And he's like, I think I'll be okay. And so he does not get under the bar

and get it across his shoulders. He walks up to the bar and un-racks it as if he's going to shoulder press it. I was like, wait a second, we're on different wavelengths right now. And reps it out for like a pretty comfortable set of five racks it and said, not as easy as it used to be. And, um, like I am,

I have 100% confidence he had not touched a weight for at least 20, 25 years at that point. Like as, as de-trained as a person could be. So yeah, like very strong. That's, yeah, that actually is good. People tell a lot of stories on this show, but that's actually one of the crazier ones.

I feel like we've heard that. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. Like that, that that whole side of the family, like certifiable monsters like like when I say that is half of my gene pool, I mean it like they I am like when when I go to family reunions, I haven't been to one in a while, but like when we would go, like my brother and I and like our little, like we were the little people in the room.

Yeah, like so one of my, I guess like second, third cousins on that side of the family, something like that my my great uncle HB my grandmother's brother he was he was like farmer strong like he he was a farmer but Also, also like pretty big guy. He was like He was like six

He was like six to six three and like wiry strong, but also like, yeah, if you go out like bailing hay with him, he would just like grab a hay bale, toss it however far he wanted to, like just that kind of thing. Like I never saw him pick up anything extremely heavy, but I never saw him try.

And I have a hundred% confidence that he could. His wife, Brenda, was like she was also like 6'1", and that's like 6'1", being born in like the 20s or 30s, which very tall for a woman of that generation. Her father was over seven feet tall as someone born in the 1800s. So like a lot of size in that gene pool. And like all of their sons were between like six, five and like six, eight. And one of them had kids that were around my brother and I's age. And like when we were all little kids, like you're all little kids. And it's like, yeah, we're little kids. It's fine. But then like, you hit puberty, you hit growth spurts. And it was like two

boys and a girl and the two boys both wound up like D1 athletes, the girl wound up like six, two really good volleyball player. And like, yeah, my brother and I five, 10 on a good day. And just not just not the same. Genetic inheritance, but, you know, I've I've done as well for myself as I could. Maximized. Yeah. Um, we've got this game we play with everyone on the show. It's called overrated, underrated. You've actually done it before, but it's been a while.

We've got just a couple hand-picked topics just for you. It's your job to decide if each one's overrated, underrated. Most important thing is you can't ride the line. You have to definitively place each one in a camp. Oh, hot takes. Yeah, hot takes. This is my jam. Let's do it.

Yeah, so Tommy and I were just in the South, your neck of the woods. And everywhere we go, they tried to feed us something that we don't normally get up here. So overrated or underrated grits. I would say, God damn it, now I want to ride the line.

Cause I want to say overrated in the South and underrated everywhere else. But I guess there is more everywhere else than the south so I'm going to go with underrated I think the the concept of grits and honestly the name the name's not doing it any favors like you'd expect it to be gritty but grits are very flexible. Like the savory is the kind of standard, like good cheddar grits, shrimp and grits, like very good food. But you can also go sweet with it, like add a little sugar and cream to it.

And it's absolutely delightful. And my God, like they stick to your ribs. Like if you have a hard day of manual labor ahead of you, either oatmeal or grits is really the play. Like it's gonna keep you full and energized all day. And so yeah, yeah, if someone has never had good grits, they don't know what they're missing out on. So I'm going underrated.

Yeah, and with our part of the country way up here in South Dakota, grits are like unheard of. Like I live in a town of like 230,000 people. I'm not sure you could get grits anywhere in town at a restaurant that that actually might not exist anywhere. That's crazy. Yeah, they're they're good. I mean, you could you could order them from Amazon. They're cheap. Right, right. I'm just saying if you want someone to make like Amazon They're cheap, right, right I'm just saying if you want someone to make like if you're like

Oh, I'm gonna go have someone make me some grits and they're gonna be tasty like yeah, that doesn't that doesn't exist here That's not an option. Yeah, I just I just don't like that. I'm like the hotels that it's the replacement for Oatmeal I like because I like oatmeal and I'm like, oh you're making me have grits instead and I don't think I guess I get That they're kind of like It's one of the other and that sort of things but I'm like, it's not the same thing Obviously, it's not the same thing But I just I don't like it when they take away my oatmeal because they're giving you grits instead

See, I I do I do like that substitution because grits grits are so You can't go savory with oatmeal, I feel like. No, I don't think you can either. And with grits you can. And I don't know, sweet oatmeal versus sweet grits is honestly, that's a tough one in my mind. But I don't know, I'm not looking for sweet breakfast, honestly. Like I do like seeing grits at a hotel

because they usually have like shitty bacon and just like the little like packets of butter and just like cut up some bacon, throw like a pad of butter in it, stir it up, like add some salt. And like that's one of the best breakfasts that you can put together at like a shitty hotel, I think.

All right, see, we were doing it wrong. We didn't know what to do. Yeah. It's a foreign substance to us. That's fair. That's fair. Overrated or underrated, stretch, mediated, hypertrophy. I'm going to go with overrated because what people are talking about when they're talking about stretch mediated hypertrophy is not stretch mediated hypertrophy. And so, like, I'm going to address this in, like, a very pedantic way, but the pedantry

is important. So, if something is mediating an effect, like, you should be able to run a mediation model on it. And the, like, whatever the, in this case, like the stimulus is stimulus leads to a particular response. And then if something else is mediating that response, it's effectively like an additive thing. And so if it were stretch mediated hypertrophy, like let's say you look at a study like a study by Pedroza, for for instance that looked at short muscle length training versus long muscle length training looking at quad growth. And they found that the long muscle length training like lengthen partials versus shortened partials led to like 50 to 100% more muscle growth. So if stretch were mediating that effect, it should be an additive thing such that the actual kind of normal tension

of the long muscle length training was responsible for the same amount of hypertrophy as the short muscle length training. And then the stretch that the people underwent when doing long muscle length training should independently be able to account for that difference in hypertrophy. That's what it would mean for that to be like mediating the additional hypertrophy observed. And in that study, the long muscle length training was like knee flexion up to 100 degrees of knee flexion.

And like, I think I'm probably sitting in about 100 degrees of knee flexion right now. And during each workout, they would have spent about 20, like about like 30 seconds, I think, in that position. So if I'm just sitting in 100 degrees of knee flexion right now, and I have been for like an hour, that should lead to like a third to half as much growth as short muscle length partials.

And guess what? It's not, it's not doing shit, which means that the stretch that people are experiencing there is not mediating the response. And the reason that's important is like, if it were truly stretch mediating the response, that would lead to implications

about like mechanistically what is happening. And quite simply at this point, we do regularly observe more hypertrophy when people train at long muscle links, but we still don't entirely know why. Like the mechanistic rationale for it is not understood. But if someone is staking out a claim that it is stretch mediated, that means that both we know what's causing it, it is the stretch, and stretch is what's mediating the response, which like it know what's causing it, it is the stretch. And stretch is what's mediating the response. Which, like, it quite clearly isn't. So it's like, it's leading people to a mechanistic understanding of. And, oh,

and two, like it is an area where if someone has any reasonable degree of curiosity and you're, you're interested in how and why muscles grow, you, it should, it should be exciting that we don't know why this is occurring because it means like, hey, there's shit we don't know. And if we learn what is actually mediating this this effect, there may be like, downstream implications of that to learn how to grow muscles more effectively. But by kind of like staking out a claim that it is stretch and that's what's mediating the response. You're kind of like closing yourself off from asking those questions and like being open to that inquiry. And I think that's sad. So yeah, I think it's overrated and people shouldn't use the term. Like the

instance where we are observing hypertrophy that is truly mediated by stretch. It's like the studies out of Warnocki's lab where they are just doing intense stretching protocols. Like you're stretching, you observe hypertrophy, that effect is mediated by the stretch. But the amount and intensity of the stretch they're doing is way, way more than what we're seeing in the long muscle length training studies. And so like, I don't think that people are like all that hyped about that. Like no one is looking at putting- Nobody wants to go do that, yeah.

Yeah, no one's looking at putting your foot in a calf orthotic for two hours. I mean like, ah, stretch, median, hypertrophy. I'm super stoked about that. What they're just referring to as like training at longer muscle links, which is not, it's not a stretch mediated effect. So, but that's mostly what people are talking about and they're all wrong. So I'm, I have to go overrated.

Excellent. Here's your chance to take a Stanley steamer on the competition overrated or underrated, my fitness pal? You know, what you want me to say is overrated, and I can't say underrated. This is another one where I do really wanna ride the line. Cause I do think people don't like it, but it's just like the default option. Like I don't think there are people out there saying, I fucking love my fitness pal. Nobody would say that.

But I also, I can't say that it's underrated because like, eh, people don't like it and they're right to not like it. Right, right. No, I guess I'll say overrated just because like it is so much the default option and it shouldn't be. Also, I'm not giving free press to anyone, but if people do just want,

I understand if people don't wanna pay for macro factor, like, yeah, there's free nutrition trackers. And price-wise, you can't compete with free. I do not begrudge anyone that choice. And like I said, I'm not giving free press to anyone. I'm not gonna shout out, hey, here's free apps that are better than MyFitnessPal. But there are several free apps that are better than MyFitnessPal. So, if you're on the free track, yeah, branch out. Try something else. Like, of the popular free apps, I do legitimately think my fitness pal is the worst of them.

So yeah, even, even on that, like plane of competition, yeah, I would, I would have to say overrated. Macro factor is very reasonably priced. I would also say, I mean, I'm sure there's, there's something behind this, but there's the fact of when you do pay something, when you almost pay anything, though, I don't know if it's psychology or whatever it is, but just the more likely a person is to actually use it. Yeah. You know, and there's gotta be something to that.

Yeah. No, I mean, I think, um, yeah, yeah, like we're, what we're competing against is the premium tier of all of the free apps, which is like, which is how they make their money in the first place. Like a common, a common experience people have when, when using the free tier of nutrition tracking apps is at first they're like, oh cool, like I can track my food, I don't have to pay anything. And then like you pretty quickly find out like, oh, it's unpleasant to do this because every time I open the app, I'm getting hit by like a banner saying, ah, you need to upgrade or like your whole dashboard is like, it's like 20% information and like 80% ads. And the reason for that is like,

just in terms of like data costs for storing user data and servicing API hits and whatnot, like it's, you know, I don't wanna make it sound like it's horrendously expensive per user to run a nutrition app. It's not cheap. There is just so much data transfer taking place compared to a lot of other types of apps. And so, theoretically, I think some apps try to break even on their free users by just serving enough ads that they break even.

And others more take the approach of like, we're going to make the free experience technically usable but so unpleasant that people feel like they have to upgrade just to get rid of all of the annoyances. And so yeah, like they're, like they all exist to convert people to premium. Like that is where all of the money is made in the market. And so like, we just decided like,

eh, what everyone else is actually competing on is the premium tier. So like, we're just going to compete against the premium tier, you know? And there is a part of me that would feel like very gross saying like, ah, this is a free app, but we fundamentally have an antagonistic relationship with our free users.

We're purposely making a shittier version of our product that we're just trying to get you out of and get into the good version anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like none of the free apps wants you to be a free user and like the user experience reflects that. So yeah, we just said, nah, fuck it. Like we're doing premium only

so we can actually just like be nice to everyone. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually. OK. All right. Last one, this is sort of fan submitted, but it came from someone I feel like they know what they're talking about. I had to do just a little bit of research on it, but overrated or underrated fat bear week. Are you familiar with fat? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Fat bear week is is definitely underrated. familiar with Fat Bear Week. Absolutely, absolutely. Fat Bear Week is definitely underrated. Like it should be, you know, like people get hyped about March Madness. I think people just like a bracket, you know? Like you enjoy watching the games, but like half the fun is the pick-em. Like you fill out your bracket, you see like, ah, who's right this year.

But that only comes around once a year. And it is, you know, it's not a life or death situation. Like the national sports media tries to present it as if it is, but the kids are going to be fine. Some of them will go to the league, other ones are gonna finish their degree, and next year they're gonna do it all over again. Fat Bear Week scratches the same bracket-based itch. So for people who aren't aware, there's a national park in Alaska that documents the bears that live in the park

throughout the year. They come out of hibernation. They're absolutely shredded, diced, ready for the stage. It's like they don't eat all winter. And then to make it through the next hibernation, they need to get fat. They need to spend the summer and fall really, really bulking hard. And it is like truly a life or death thing. Like the bears have to get fat to make it through hibernation. And so every year they have like before and after pics of the bears to show how successful their box have been. And they put them in a bracket and people vote on who on which which bear

and each head to head pairing did the best job of getting fat. And then at the end, there's there's a grand champion that is crowned. So it scratches the itch of of kind of bracket based stuff. You as the viewing audience have more say over how it goes, because you actually vote. And it is it is a life or death thing for these bears. They need to get fat. And if you're thinking, well, that sounds very serious. We need more levity in this. Not only are there the big bears in the park, you know, you have the classics. You have 480 Otis, always a contender. You have 151 Razor, always a

strong showing, great personality too, very territorial and defensive mother bear with a just beautiful white coat. You have 747, which as the name implies, like the plane, an absolute monster. But there is also a cub bracket where there's little younger bears, which are very cute, and they also get very fat. And the fat cubs, like it's, if you don't look at them and just have like a big dumb grin on your face when you're looking over the bracket, you don't have a soul and you need to get out of here. Like you don't belong in this country. And so yeah, yeah, fat bear week, criminally underrated. It should be the number one spectator sport in America.

Uh, great news. We're just telling things up right now. Ding, ding, ding. You passed overrated, underrated. So that's makes two times in a row that you actually pass failed past the test. So congratulations. I appreciate it. We're proud of you. I think everyone listening is probably proud right now too. We had a lot of stuff on our list. We didn't get to like half of it, but that's okay.

I guess we'll have to save something for three, for 2027. That is the standard, the standard story of my podcast appearances. I ramble. So. That's what podcasting is though. I mean, that's, that is the point. They don't call it long form for no reason.

That is true. That is true. And plus we got to save something for next time anyway. So that's perfect. And we can all, we can talk about, we'll test you next time we have you on and see what you've learned about Cleve Dean. Sounds good. I'm not, actually, the more we talked,

I'm not sure if you're not somewhat related to Cleve Dean. It could be some other side of your family. Should I be so lucky? You know, before we wrap up, would you be interested in hearing another farmer- related athletic feet? Not in string, but are you aware of Cliff Young? I don't think I know that guy.

I know. Okay. This is one of the coolest stories that I like telling to everyone who hasn't heard it before, because he is one of the most revolutionary athletes of the 20th century. People don't know about him, but they should. He revolutionized ultra-distance running in a way that was truly spectacular was truly spectacular. So Cliff Young, he was a sheep farmer in Australia and, um, every year they have a ultra marathon from Sydney to Melbourne, which is, I don't know, I'm not Australian. I'm going to say it's like 450 miles, which is some other number in kilometers. Who knows? It may be more.

It may be less. I don't give a shit. There are two cities that are a long way, a completely unreasonably far distance away to run between the two. And yeah, so they, they host an ultra marathon there every year. And generally like the only people who would compete were just like the most elite of the elite ultra ultra marathon runners, because like marathons hard, 100 mile race is even harder. Once you're talking about like multiple hundreds of miles, it's like, why even try unless you're incredible. And, yeah, like one year,

all of the people who are showing up at the starting line are just the best of the best ultra marathon runners in the world. And one old Australian man, I think he was already in his, I think he was like 58 at this point already. And yeah, he was extremely out of place in the field. And so like, people were looking at him and they're like,

why? What are you? What are you doing here? Like, why do you think you can run this race? And he said, I'm a sheep farmer. Like, I'm, I'm used to chasing my sheep around for her for a few days at a time. Like I think I can do it. Everyone else is also in like running gear. I think he's wearing like overalls and boots. Like he's not even dressed for the event. And people are like, what?

Like this this old guy's insane. Like there he should not be here. What is he doing? So the starting gun goes off. Everyone else takes off running. He takes off just kind of like shuffling. And people people are like, this guy's lost his fucking mind. Like he doesn't even know he doesn't even know how to run.

Like what is even going on here? And like I said, the race is like several hundred miles. And so the way people would run it is they would run for like 19, 20 hours a day and then, you know, sleep. Try to get in as much rest as they could in like three or four hours, get up at the crack of dawn, take off, start running again.

And so, yeah, the whole field just took off running faster than him had left him in the dust by nightfall. And all of them lay down to sleep. And they wake up the next morning, they see a little dot on the horizon. They're like, what's that? And it was Cliff Young. When he said, I'm used to chasing my sheep around for a few days at a time, what he meant was, I'm used to chasing my sheep around for a few days at a time. Meaning-

Without stop. Yes. And so, yeah, that is how he ran the race. He did it without sleeping, without stopping. And he, oh, I want to say he beat the record by like over a day. And just like no one could compete with him. And so now like ultra, ultra distance running like that, like everyone has learned, like,

this is just how you have to, like, like, they thought that it was physically impossible to run for like three or four days without sleeping. And it just took like one random Australian sheep farmer who was not aware that he shouldn't be able to do that, to absolutely smash the shit out of everyone else in the world and say, welcome to the 21st century. Like this is how you have to run now.

And yeah, he, he completely revolutionized that sport just by not being aware that he shouldn't be able to do that. So, I mean, that was literally his thing though, is he just did not stop. Like that was all there was to it. He just kept going. Yep. Wow. I feel like I have to point out it's the classic tortoise in the hair race scenario. That is the tortoise in the hair. It truly is. It truly is. Yeah. He, uh, yeah, yeah. So I, I have it now. It was, uh, it was five days straight and it was 540. But how does, so how, cause like just the achievement of being conscious for five

days straight sounds almost impossible. Like, is it just because he doesn't stop moving that he can, his body will just keep going like that? And it alone seems like such an insane feat. I guess so. I guess so. But yeah, the thing about his like running mechanics as well, I think, I think was also like not quite as revolutionary, but also like quite revealing about like optimal-distance running mechanics. Because everyone else was trying to do weird stuff like bending their knees and whatnot, which is good for running faster. But also, you do have eccentric stress with every footfall.

So you do have eccentric stress with every footfall. And the way he was running was just like, it relied more on kind of the elastic energy that could be stored in your Achilles and hamstring tendons. So one, it caused less cumulative muscular eccentric strain throughout the course of the race. uh like cumulative muscular eccentric strain throughout the course of the race and because it was relying more on like elastic energy generation it was um like i think i don't think it it is like the optimal solution to ultra running mechanics but it was close like it was more biomechanically efficient than the way people were running at the time like there's more biomechanically efficient than the way people were running at the time. There's been more innovation on technique since then, but it was completely bonkers at the time, but

then people realized, oh, this is more efficient than the way we're currently running. So let's kind of take that as a baseline and continue to iterate from there. But yeah, yeah, not doing any research on it. It was just like, yeah, if I'm chasing my sheep for three days at a time, my knees get sore if I, if I bend them too much. So yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna shuffle along and just keep running and leave you guys in the dust. Yeah.

Cliff, Cliff Young and Cleve Dean, the more you know. Yeah. I, I do, you know, this is, the more you know. Yeah, I do. You know, this is, um, this is something that I, uh, yeah, it's like maybe like vaguely utopian or whatever, but like, I, I love sports and I love like human athletic achievement. And I think one of the great, um, I think one of the great, I think one of the great kind of like disasters of, of the world of athletics is that like, it takes, like, it takes resources to do

athletics, you know, like, like on a national level, like most sports, it takes like some sort of like physical infrastructure to do and you need to organize teams and travel different places to play people, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc. And like, more countries often can sustain like one sport like soccer or something, but well, most often soccer. But you know, there's not like the biggest reason the US wins more medals than anyone else is like, yeah, we have a shitload of money. And if someone in the US says I want to be a dressage rider, like there are enough people with like access to money and horses to like do dressage, you know? And like that's that is something so both like the amount

of like athletic opportunities people have available to them and honestly just being able to have like the time and the resources to train to try to be elite in something like that does require typically like some degree of like money and privilege to be able to do. And it's not like it's not something that most people in the world today like it's not a it's not an avenue that's available to them. And when you look at like in improvements in athletic achievement over time, some of it is like, training's gotten better. Some of it's, we found better drugs or we found ways to conceal the drugs people are doing. But a non-trivial amount of it is just like, hey, more people can play sports now.

And you see that both within countries, if you go back and watch the NBA from like the 1960s, they kind of sucked. Plumbers and, you know, Plumbers and firemen, yeah. But like a lot more people play basketball now, a lot more people train harder for billion people are just way better. And you also see that between countries as well.

Like, you know, people were running the marathon and they were pretty good at it. And then eventually like Kenyans and Ethiopians, both their country's economies got good enough that some people could do running instead of just subsistence agriculture. And they found out that like, hey, these sports exist. So let's train for it. And like that made a big fucking difference in terms of marathon records. And like, I do like, you know,

just on the topic of random farmers, just trying something out and being really good at it. I do think that there's just a lot of untapped potential out there just from from people who have like incredible capacities and abilities that just the the stars will never align for them to be able to like get their shot to try a sport, much less invest like time and resources into training for it and focusing on it. And, uh, I think that's a bummer.

I think that's a bummer. And, um, I want, I want more people around the world to become comfortable and prosperous if for no other reason, uh, it'll help us find more of the absolute freaks out there. And that's the world I want to live in. That is the goal to find all the freaks. So we got more to talk about like cliff young. Yeah. Or going back to powerlifting, man, people are lifting way heavier weights than they were 10 years ago.

And I'm sure training is better, but there's also like 20 times more people competing. That's just kind of the name of the game. Get more people into sports and you'll find freakier freaks. Right on. We talked about MacroFactor. We got the Masonomic seal of approval on MacroFactor. We talked about Stronger by science a little bit You can just Google stronger by science to find the website for sure

We didn't really talk about mass What what else anything else that people should know about or be checking out? No Find Greg on Instagram, too Yeah, I'm, I'm around. I'm around. Yeah. Check out MacroFactor. Check out Stronger by Science. Those are, those are the two, the two things. Excellent. Greg, we really appreciate you taking the time and coming on. I'm glad you're recovering after the appendix surgery.

And next time we are in North Carolina, We're gonna take you up on that basketball game Sounds good. Yeah, we we can put some shots up and I'll make you some grits Thanks Greg There were grits and beans right there cool grits savory cool cool savory grits What do you got an ad for us over there? Oh do I I thought you would never ask Tanner Today's episode is also brought to you by barefoot shoes most shoes harm your mobility by over restricting your foots natural movement Barefoot shoes are designed with minimal restrictions so your feet can move the way they're supposed to movement. Barefoot shoes are designed with minimal restrictions so your feet can move the way they're supposed to 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 to check out the best minimalist shoes available. And while you're there, make sure you use code Mastinomics to save 10% on your next order. That's barefoot.store code Mastinomics will save you 10%. Thank you, Barefoot Shoes. Thanks, Barefoot. Also make sure to check out we actually talked about Chad Wesley

Smith here in this article or in this article. What am I talking about? Articles here in this podcast episode, uh, the mastermind behind juggernaut AI. You can check it out at juggernautai.app. It's the training that Tommy and I both use that we've been both using for quite some time here. I think Tommy's up and running on it back up and running on it. After he has started up, baby. Who after being sick for a while, I'm on a hypertrophy deload

week, which I'm not minding after this trip. It kind of worked out decently to be on a deload here. So chipmunks, deload. Since 2009, Juggernaut has been the trusted training source helping tens of thousands of athletes reach their goals. We can attest to that. And also, we've got a discount code there. Its discount code is massonomics. You need to use that when you're signing up. You need to sign up

through the website browser to use it, not the app, and it'll save you 10% for the lifetime of that membership. Juggernautai.app. Instead of going immediately into the next ad, I'll add just one little interesting thing on what Greg was talking about. I cannot remember if I was watching a YouTube video or reading an article, but I was talking about how sports at a professional level, and this one was talking more on the NBA, but it was also saying how you see this in the NFL. The NBA, probably out of all the sports, I always had this is how the N or the NBA probably out of all the

sports, I always had this like story of like the kid from the inner city that was poor and could just ball out harder than anyone. And he rose, he rose from the tough trial, you know, the tough trials of life to make it big and, you know, set himself up for life. And he brought his family and all these people along with him. And it was just like this rags to riches story. And it was like, yeah, that kind of doesn't exist anymore. For the most part, if you're in the NBA, or even let's say for that matter playing high level college basketball, more than likely your parents both have six figure incomes.

They're in like the top 3% of earners in America. You've been going to incredibly expensive basketball camps all across the country since you were five years old. And you've been- You probably play on some team, the high school team that's just like a team of all-star basketball players. You've probably changed your school even to go play at a better school,

which might be moving across the country, all these things. And they're like, yeah, for the most part, just look at who's coming up on these like Top lists of of up-and-comers and it's like nope their dad was a pro their dad was a pro their dad was a pro Their dad was a high level college player. It's like That's basically actually the way Pro sports are moving nowadays and like they say the same thing the NFL just look at how many guys are playing and they're like, yep, their dad played here their dad played here and

the NFL, just look at how many guys are playing and they're like, yep, their dad played here, their dad played here. And yeah, that's the world we're living in. But when you do realize how much money and investment is taken to make these things work, oh, and just the sheer fact of time. If you're poor and your family's working jobs to make ends meet and you're potentially working too, you know what you're not doing? You're not training, you're not practicing, you're not living the life as much. And that is the depending on how you look at it, the unfortunate reality of the world now. Yeah, I'm sure that is true. Part of it to the dads playing

well, you look at genetics, they have they also have the genetics to you know, so it's like that's part of it also. But I'm sure there's all there's no doubt outliers and it can still happen and stuff. But it's like that's part of it also. But I'm sure there's no doubt outliers, and it can still happen and stuff. But it's just the way the system's set up. And also like the specialization in sport at such a young age. It kind of sucks that it's like that. But I don't know, if you're six years old

and your dad thinks you're going to be in the NBA, I guess they're going to do what they can to make it happen. It's kind of lame. You don't have a lot of choices in that equation there. Yeah, you know, it seems sucky, but at the same time you put yourself in the shoes, it's like, oh, it would be nice if this kid was in the NBA. I mean, like, he's gonna want it,

you know, most of the times they're gonna want it, and I don't know. And like you said, the genetic component, for the most part, is taken care of for you, so it's like you just gotta have the desire and the will to take this to the extreme. And if you do, then all the pieces could very easily fall into place for you. Yeah. Mastodonmics Instagram has really been popping off for the last month here, like the most

it has in forever. Who knows? It doesn't really matter. It's from all of our listeners, liking, commenting, and sharing. Subscribing and liking and commenting. You guys finally did what we've been asking for all these years and we can see. You finally liked and commented. The fruits of your labor are paying off. And a lot of activity on YouTube also, so make sure to keep that up please. And then five star podcast reviews. Seen some more of those coming in.

We're going to be on this road to 600 pretty soon. So it's a big road. I've been reading these occasionally and now I can see the podcast. So I have to occasionally read these in order for us to get podcast reviews. It's the only way it happens. So I'm going to read a few more. These are also from two years ago. So you may be listening for completely even forgetting that you left a podcast

review and here they are very relatable from Nate dog five one five. I'm a man born in the late eighties raised in Northwest central Iowa, a consumer of sparkling water, taco, John's and Texas power bars. I can really understand this podcast. Thank you for keying in on my very specific demographic. A man of taste. That guy is our demographic, isn't he? This is from Drice83. It's the podcast for you. If you're looking for a podcast, this is the podcast for you because it's a podcast and that's what you're looking for. It's got a point. This next one is from Soldier of Fortran.

It's an okay podcast. If it was a LaCroix, it would be a lemon lime nowhere near as good as a Pample mousse, but way tastier than a pure. I'd give the show three days, three JD power and associates, except for the fact that I use their special discount code mass at a seven rogue pioneer and even my local grocery store. And I got no discounts at any of them Needless to say I was very disappointed. What do you expect from a couple bankers doing a lifting podcast though? There's another podcast that has a special discount code stupid that works at every local grocery store. I've been to

Must be a let's get stupid fan. Yep,, still gave us five stars though. So that's okay This one's from M dot says way of life I had no idea I didn't already have the five-star review and this podcast is a huge part of my life The lift hard live easy lifestyle all the inside jokes sparkling water Texas power bars in my home gym and so much more join the discord crew and never look back Thank you big Matt. I believe on that one So yes, please leave us a five-star review on Apple podcasts

Leave us a rating on Spotify Leave us a rating on Spotify do it subscribe rating wherever you can ratings. Yeah, leave us so anything and everything you can do Do we have one more? Yes, we do. This episode is also brought to you by Swiss link Since 1995 Swiss like has been importing military issue goods to the United States and into the hands of those yearning for quality gear at uncompromised prices Swiss link is home to the authentic wavy and fuel cans. They're made from the same factor that's been pumping out the Jerry cans for the NATO forces since the 1940s.

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Thank You Swiss link Thanks, was link Tommy anything else we want to hit on this week before we probably good be on the lookout for our YouTube videos go like comment and subscribe Like comment subscribe the classic Please do it But we really do have a lot of you a lot of cool you tell YouTube stuff coming out we put a lot of time into this we I

Mean a lot of time a lot of coordinating efforts a lot of work to be quite honest But also we had a lot of fun, and I think that's gonna transfer over you're gonna see that fun in all these videos So I think it'd be worth it. Yeah, I think so. I think it is Tommy where do they find you out? 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!