Massenomics Podcast - Ep.135: We Got a Booth at the Arnold

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

It might be crazy, but we just dropped a boat load of Massenomics cash on a booth for the 2019 Arnold.  Do we know what we are doing? Nope.. but we might figure it out.  We also discuss the passing of KK, and Mark Bell dropping a quarter of a million on IPF fees.

M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Massanomics Welcome to Massanomics, the world's strongest podcast. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Massanomics. Make sure you go visit massanomics.com. There you'll find the rest of our powerful content. While you're there, check out our store and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics gear. store and buy yourself some of that sweet mass. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 135 of the mass economics podcast. I'm here Tanner along with Tommy. What's up? I've been like, I think we need to talk about, uh, are you finally walking and moving again?

I'm walking, I'm walking and moving enough that i could make it to the the episode 135 of the mass economics podcast really all that does matter i've been sick for going on like two and a half weeks would you say just like a small head cold i'd say it's like the worst sickness i've ever had in my life but that's probably not an exaggeration it's it's like definitely the the longest i've i've been sick and at the heart of it at its worst it was probably like some of the worst that I've ever been sick at one point in time in my life either so do you have a new appreciation for just feeling not totally terrible that's I really want to feel not sick at all like that's really my goal right now yeah that's what I wanted to get to is to not feel sick at all but yeah there was many times when I was you know there's two or three days in there where

I was really like bad this is the end yes where I was like could not you know all day long I didn't eat a piece of food and like the most I ever got up to go to was to go to the bathroom and every time I did that like I thought that I would never get up again and in at at those point in times those days I was really like I would just sit there and think about like man I took for granted for so long what it felt like to just not not feel terrible easiest thing to do too though is it just be like well this is just how I should feel all the time uh but I still I don't know if it's because I was was so sick at its worst that it's just taking a long time to get better but like it is just taking a really long time even now even though now I'm like 80 90 better just the last little bit of feeling normal has taken a really long time I tried lifting today

for the first time and how did that feel? Not very good. I just feel really weak still. But it's also I've just not been in the gym for so long that it just... You just felt like a stranger? Yeah. Everyone was just checking out what this guy's doing over here. It's definitely the longest I've ever not lifted because of just being sick. Yeah.

I can't ever remember taking more than a week off because of just being sick yeah like i don't i can't ever remember taking like more than a week off because of sickness before yeah basically because of sickness like it's got to be intense to be missing more than a week for sickness yeah so you also hit a weight pr during this time too didn't you yeah i wait low i mean not in my life but probably in like the last seven or eight years and what was that uh like 247 was my light yeah i'm gonna have sickness abs over here i got i didn't even feel like getting on the scale but i just pure pure curiosity what's going on here what's going on after like the second day of not eating and the out to in ratio maybe it made you a little curious i uh had a bout of one day i didn't eat anything

and i was still puking yeah so if you can usually not the ideal situation uh so after that i was like god i gotta see what i weigh because i was just sitting there thinking man i'm never gonna be able to lift anything again i'm gonna be so weak and uh yeah i got down to 247 and i can't remember being that light probably in seven or eight years under 250 like yes yeah that's pretty good but now i'm on the way back but i still don't have an act like i still don't uh have my normal appetite for wanting to eat things mostly most things just don't sound very appetizing still yep i think that yeah it's just gonna be a time thing give it two more weeks you know after a month we'll see where you're at that's just this is a ridiculously long amount of time but it's just just about will be a month by the time maybe you're just getting old tanner

maybe that's i guess i wondered that myself like why this is just how life is now i have kids, a regular full-time job, and now I get sick for way too long. So I wasn't on the podcast. I got to listen to the podcast. Yeah. It didn't go up in flames. No. The studio's still here. I heard you guys talk about the calendar.

Yeah. Did we leave out any details? No, no. You guys talked about it and you're like I'd like to hear you know you said I don't know that much about it you knew the minimal details

and that's basically all I knew about it that's kind of what I assumed no one in the group was really much for like I need to know all everyone's pretty like okay tell us what to do and we'll go with it it was really weird, though. Yeah. I don't even know how else to say it.

Yeah, it's really weird. And there's a good point you brought up of who's going to be purchasing that. To me, that is the most important question in that whole equation. But I just usually would – the idea even sounded weird when it got brought up, but I just didn't feel like it was something I should just say no to. You want to assume the best and be like, it's for a fundraiser. They have everything else in line, and we're the missing piece to make them really like,

we're going to really support this cause. And that's what I hope is the case, but you never know. I'll sure be curious to see it. That will be good. So there was some sad news or tragic news in the lifting world here this week. It was KK Konstantinov. How do you say his last name? I mean, usually we'd say KK.

KK Konstantinov, I believe.K, Konstantin Konstantinovs, I believe. Okay. Konstantin Konstantinovs. So he kind of, he suddenly or tragically passed away. I don't think we necessarily know exactly what happened. Yeah, we haven't seen an official... The rumors that we've heard is that either he maybe had heart issues or he possibly got stabbed, and those are two very different things.

Yeah, pretty wide range right there, so I don't know if i would trust either one of those yet right um but he he did pass away and he was 40 years old and for anyone that doesn't know kk um i'd say he's when you get first get into lifting or you get serious about kind of power lifting and that sort of thing he's the guy in all like the deadlift motivation videos that you would ever watch when i think of like when i was first like getting like when i was first youtubing power lifting like yeah what's out there like you would run across mark bell stuff just because he has so many videos you would run across pete rubish videos eric lillybridge videos and I feel like KK videos were like the other one. And it was at the time it was like that guy's like physique is like a comic book thing.

Like he's not like some trim shredded guy. He's this massive bulky guy, but still like defined and jacked. Yeah. Like he has abdominal muscles. Oh, yeah. Like he is one of the guys that like really looks like, yeah, that guy looks scary. Yeah. And there's not a lot of people that even, I mean, you can be ripped and they still don't have that look of, like, just the size that he did.

But, yeah, he had so many crazy videos. Like, probably one of my favorite ones was there was one, I think it was a meet. It had to have been, like, a meet in Russia. And I'm trying to think what it was. It could have been Lithuania or something too. But it had like the Ramstein song playing in the background. Yeah. And just the whole thing was so awesome.

He had like this orange singlet on. I remember like that was like the first time I remember ever seeing like someone hold ammonia for someone and just be like, oh, what is going on? Like what's that about? What's going on there? And just the whole thing. It was so crazy. And then, you know, all of his deadlift videos. Like I don't even know if you can pick a best of. and just the whole thing it was it was so crazy and then you know all of his deadlift videos like

i don't i mean i don't even know if you can pick a best of like they're all so good to watch and i feel like he is he was deadlifting 900 plus at a time before it was cool yeah like i don't i don't think there are people you know very few people are doing no i like not that there's a ton of people doing it now no but more common yeah it is more common now but, I like it. Not that there's a ton of people doing it now. No, but more common. Yeah, it is more common now. But even then, like, it's just like it grip never seemed to be an issue. Usually when you get them, he'd hold them for an additional several seconds, you know, to either say something or just to make the point. Yeah. And no one can really even make a like no one does that.

But his other thing, too, is like never, never really wearing a belt. It was never had a belt on his deadlift his uh world record 939 deadlift he wasn't wearing a belt for that i think his he's got kind of a famous quote or something that he says like yeah like this is my belt yeah yeah something like that he's just pointing to his ridiculous midsection yeah and then he had well just his training videos. Like, he'd be in the gym, and he'd do, like, these pretty crazy deadlift workouts. And the one he had, I had forgot about this

until I saw Stan Efferding posted it, was he had the video where he did, like, was it 50 or 55? Strict pull-ups, just doing his thing. Like, it's not kipping pull-ups. It's not like he's doing 20 and taking a break. It's just know him weighing what's he weighed 280 290 300 right in there yeah just pull up pull up pull up and he does 50 of them without stopping like that is i want to know how many like 300 pound guys right now could do that it would be pretty like even four even 30 like i don't know i just don't you don't't ever really think of those two as going together.

It's like guys weighing close to 300, repping out more than 20 pull-ups. Yeah. There's been a lot of pictures getting posted about him and stuff. And one that I really like that's awesome is when Zaheer is chalking up his back. Yeah, his back. And he's about ready to slap him. And the chalk is just like – It's like a cloud.

It's like taking over him, yeah. So much chalk. Yeah, that one was a cool one, too. There'd be a lot of intensity there with Zaheer and KK getting ready. Oh, for sure, for sure. But, yeah, I mean, that sucks to hear. It was, you know, I don't think he was doing as much lifting now. Like, he was still, like, you'd still see him, like, around other people

and when these bigger meets would be going on like he hangs out with uh you know he'd hang out with uh andre and kareel yeah yeah you got the impression he was kind of in that crew and i mean he kind of is like lifting royalty but yeah um from what i could tell he was still massive yeah and i would imagine on any given notice he's gonna deadlift 700 plus no problem yeah i would sure think so too but um yeah it sucks yeah and and pretty young for i'm really young obviously 40 years old i wouldn't wouldn't have realized that he was that one did surprise me was because like thinking back you know some of his videos i think seven eight years ago maybe even and uh i remember at the time thinking oh man this guy's, he looks kind of old.

Like just, I don't know. You just assume that someone's older and it's like, well at the time, seven, eight years ago, he would have been like 32 or three. Like,

yeah. So yeah, it's just, it's kind of hard to put the whole thing into perspective for what he was doing at the time. Like what he did do, who he was, all that. Yeah.

So sad to hear that. Yeah. Should we move on to something more light-hearted and fun let's no let's stick to really serious um oh politics is that yeah it is midterm elections well okay rock the vote so who are you voting for nah we wouldn't put anyone through that that sounds i don't want to put myself myself just that intro sounded terrible i don't uh my official record is i'm not i'm not i'm not in favor of most things political yeah but do you feel like when people bring it up in public events it's a really fun thing though i hate it it's not my thing i hear you yeah i hear you i'm right there with you so uh not political not sad maybe something actually this is exciting we'll tell we'll

go exciting here this is we're gonna flip the script here we're gonna flip it on you guys uh we are very excited to announce that we massonomics will be having a booth at the 2019 Arnold in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. Yes. And, man, it's going to be fun. Yeah, that is big. As far as the world of Masonomics goes, that's as big a news as anything we've ever done, I would say. It is. It's as big of news as us going to the Arnold the first time.

Yeah, I mean, that was the only bigger thing we've ever done, really, is us go to it. Yeah. And we haven't announced this yet. At one point in time, we put a post out on Instagram that we were thinking about the idea. Seeing if we could get at least five people to be excited about it. And we did.

I think we got six. Yeah, we got six. So then we knew. Six people on Instagram were pretty interested in that. Our idea has been validated. We are good. None of them are probably going to go to the Arnold. No, but they're at least going to support us from afar.

So we will be in booth 529. Not that that means anything to anyone, probably, but I just want to say it because it really makes it sound true. People might be pulling over in their car to take notes right now. 529, you say so we'll be in the same uh same aisle as a few of our uh few of our buddies who who are in the our industry colleagues our colleagues uh nick from uh live large yep will be just just kind of down from us uh jb boss will be just down for the from us and huck finn but uh huck finn barbell is just kitty corner from our booth and then just

kind of around the corner is lift evil so we're in good company over there i like that yeah i'm excited about our spot and our location and yeah did check just today, and someone just rented the booth right next to us. It's a protein bar. So maybe they'll be passing us protein bars over the edge. I mean, if they know what's good for them, all the free advertising we can get. They'd be thinking ahead on that. But, yeah, it should be. I mean, this is going to be logistically.

There's a lot of moving pieces to this for us being that uh what was it 16 hour drive yeah so that's the biggest thing we've never driven to the arnold before we've always flown because it's a long drive yeah yeah and i think google maps shows about a 16 hour drive and it's march so i'm assuming the weather is going to be perfect and it'll be 16 16, you know, no problem, right? Last year, I'm pretty sure it was a blizzard on our flight home. Yeah, it was like we somehow caught the eye of the storm to land. But, you know, I really don't care how long it takes to get home as long as we get there. That's really all that matters.

So we have to drive there. We have to figure out how to get. We have to figure out how many shirts to bring. Oh, yeah, bring, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pieces of inventory with us. I don't know how that's going to happen yet. And then I don't even know things as simple as where you go. I mean, we've been to the Arnold a couple years and stuff, but when you're driving your vehicle, I don't know where you pull up to.

Do we just drive our vehicle right in there? And be like, Arnold, where did you want us, Arnold? Just back up over here is that cool so yeah there's a it's going to be a major learning experience for uh for everyone involved that's for sure we've already paid for the down payment so there's basically no turning back and out at this time it's it's safe to announce because they already have a large amount of our money. And we need that money back. Booze are not cheap at the Arnold. No. It actually really opens your eyes to seeing the companies that have the massive ones.

Like, do you now know that their marketing budgets on the weekends could be well over $100,000? If you're not. And people say, we mark stuff up. Yeah. Yeah. You should see what they're doing then. Yeah. a hundred thousand dollars if you're not and people say we mark stuff up yeah yeah you should see what they're doing then yeah um if and if you're not in the business of renting booze or whatever i'll just tell you this it costs more than what it costs much more than what you would guess it costs yeah like i like if you haven't seen anyone else any else's numbers at large convention center before what they what they typically charge to me it was it it's i understand it and it is realistic

and everything considering the number of people that show up yeah and it is a very it's very specific to your audience you know yep but uh they do charge a lot of money for 100 square foot space. If you guys aren't good with math, 100 square feet is 10 feet by 10 feet. So about where we're podcasting right now. Basically, yeah. This is about the amount of space that we're renting. I mean, just like the idea of storing goods to sell here seems not possible. Yeah.

It will be exciting, though. So that's one of the challenges will be just purely getting there. And I think even just having any idea of how much inventory to bring. Yeah. Because you don't want to go and run out on the first day. No. I mean, that's a good problem. It would be a good problem, but it would also be,

wow, we prepared very poorly for this. Yeah, right, right, right. Basically just like watching money disappear. And that's the thing. We really have no idea how much we're going to sell. No. Yeah, we are not equipped for this at all. But I don't think without doing it, I don't think you really know until you do it the first time. Yeah, there's no other way.

Like if we do it once, then next year we'll be like, well, we we did this much last year and i feel like we've grown a little bit since then we could probably expect to sell uh spell a little more yeah but this year we really it's purely just kind of guessing and uh coping yeah i guess like a best case scenario would be we start to run out of stuff on the last day yeah like that probably best case or if you don't then i mean i guess you have inventory to keep selling yeah for the rest of the year right um a worst case scenario would be kind of like not selling anything at all like really worst case like man we really read that wrong like five shirts like boy this is not what we know that industry we thought we kind of understood we have no idea what we're doing yeah it will be really interesting because there is about 250 000 people that go

to the arnold and that's what if we just get all of them to give us ten dollars we should be good right we? We will be rich. We'll start the massonomic stimulus plan where we start to give money back to people. I'll be curious to see how many just random people that have never seen it before. Oh, yeah. There'll be a lot of that. Yeah. I would walk by and be like, oh. Because, I mean, we'd get stopped.

He's just wearing our gear. We'd get stopped all the time last year and the year before. But we're such a known commodity now. We've taken the world by storm. At first we thought we'd be like Mark Bell. We don't want two heavyweights of the fitness industry being right by each other. So we had to go to the other side. It's just kind of how these things work.

It is interesting to pick where you do get the option of picking where you go. And to look around and see. And also be like, hmm, never heard of any of these businesses. It's a lot. But I'm like, man, why are you spending the money on a booth there? Who is purchasing your products? Yeah. The best one, probably my favorite booth at the Arnold

is the people that are trying to sell steroids or the things to protect your body against like steroid abuse yeah like like liver enzymes and things like that when we're standing over by like the rogue the left side rogue that a huge one that huge one would say pop anadrol like it's candy or something like your liver will love you yeah it's like hey I mean that's straight to the point marketing, I guess. You're not beating around the bush at all with that one. Since we are going to have a booth, though,

our interviewing could be a little bit different. That's what I'm excited to see. First of all, we have had, last year especially, people stop us and be like, hey, what's up, guys, which is super cool. This year especially, people stop us and be like, hey, what's up, guys, which is super cool. This year actually gives people a chance to, if they want to find us, come find us. We can talk, hang out, whatever.

So that's going to be pretty cool. And then hopefully we can get some of these other guys to swing by too. I think we'll be able to get some of them. The row we're in, that's kind of an alley. There's going to be some heat going on there between everyone. I would think we'll get a few people to stop by. I'm hoping that Huck Finn doesn't ruin our stand or smash someone through our table. I was going to say the table could be a real issue.

Cover our shirts and beer. Because I could see any and all of that happening. Yeah, it wouldn't completely surprise me. Because we're real close to his spot. We'll be kind of in the splash damage area there or it'll just be he'll make such a scene that it'll somehow cross over into our area uh you know that saturday afternoon what it's like you know the saturday afternoon feeling in there a log jam to the max what's that gonna be like having a booth like nobody buys anything at that that's what i've always been really curious is does anyone buy anything when that happens?

Yeah. I mean, statistically one or two people should. Right. But also you can't really buy stuff because you're almost trying to just fend for your life and not get trampled. It is like being hurt, you know, if you're in a herd of cattle and just trying to like get through. Yep. It would be such a huge inconvenience to stop in that traffic and try to buy something or to be to the turn to

the like 12 people that are on your right hip oh sorry i need to get my wallet and buy something here can you can you just move over a little bit yeah i don't i just don't see that as a peak selling time i feel like it's when it's a little bit calmer. I think like the morning and the night, like that might be, that'll probably be a better time. Yeah. So do you think we could miss out on some of the activities that we've got to watch in the past? You know, some of them we might not get. That is the trade-off we're going on here is we might lose out on some of that. We're going to see if we can maybe manage some of that in there yeah you know we might be like we have uh we might be able to

peel off for for a minute depending on our situation uh to maybe capture a few highlights here but we probably won't be sitting uh watching the the strongman club i don't think we'll be just like hours yeah i don't think we'll be hanging out front row that for a few hours like we used to, but that's one of those times where, yeah, maybe, maybe if we're lucky, we can get in there for,

you know, 20, 30 minutes really quick. Right. But that's probably about as good as it'll get. Yep. So that's, uh,

end of February, beginning of March. It's over that week. Oh, it is actually. Oh, okay. I thought it was like March 3rd or something.

I think it's like February 28th to March 3rd. Okay. That's the weekend that we're looking at. So if you are planning on going to the Arnold Classic this year, do make sure to stop by booth 529 and say hello and tell us that you're fans of the Mastanomics podcast, even if you're not really fans. You can still say hello and say you're fans of the podcast. Or you can be fans of the apparel or fans of the website or fans of the Instagram page even.

That's true. March 1st through the 3rd, 2019, for the exact dates, in case you guys are putting it into your calendar right now. Features more than 1,000 booths, and one of those is the Massanomics booth. We're factored in there. Just a drop in the bucket. Yeah. But, yeah, we'll have more details as the time comes.

This is still, what are we, still four months out? Yeah, so pretty much we don't have to worry about, like. So we have four months out. We have three and a half months before we really even have to think about anything, right? That's how I figure it. And then that last couple weeks we'll be like, oh, shit, how are we actually? Oh, we forgot to order any apparel, man. Figure out how we're getting there.

We'll just have a table for autographs instead, I guess. That'll be the backup plan. A really, really expensive autograph table. So that's the Arnold. That is the Arnold. That will be the Arnold. So that was the Arnold. That was the Arnold.

Oh, I actually just thought of this. I'm not done with the Arnold yet. Okay. I did. This is really weird. So we always like to hype up the Polish restaurant inside that one place. What's the name of it again? Do you remember? I don't remember yeah uh i don't even i'm sure i could google it but it'll be a few minutes of me

clicking around yeah um for some reason like a month ago i had a dream we went to that place to go eat and the restaurant was closed and i was like we were like genuinely like pissed off and disappointed and they're like oh yeah no one ever went to that restaurant so we had to close it we're like every time we went there wasn't like we were getting in arguments with whoever these people were and that was my dream and i woke up in the morning and thought wow i actually had a dream about a polish restaurant in columbus ohio so already getting hyped for that one i am excited to eat some pierogies and yeah yeah it's it's good food it is good food and fairly cheap too for the amount of food you're getting yeah a wonderful we'll we'll have to find some time to sneak away to eat there oh yeah

without a doubt yeah yeah it's like the closest place to go eat. Yeah. Do we have a stat of the week? Yeah, we do have a stat of the week. Let's see. Because we did, you know, you diehard stat of the week fans out there, we're probably very disappointed that we didn't have one last week. We apologize for that. But Tanner is the stat of the week gatekeeper. So let's see.

He's had two weeks to prepare. Let's see what he's got for us this time. Well, I'm going to do it to him okay this is the open power lifting stat of the week on the massonomics podcast presented by the massonomics podcast via open power lifting stats uh we're gonna look at the percentage of men who can bench press over X amount of weight. Raw, of course. So 200 plus pounds, that's 89.6% of men in the database. Sounds about right. Yeah.

250 plus, that's 72% of the men in the database. Okay. 300 plus, getting a little heavier now, that's 47 percent of the men in the database so slightly less dropping in a hurry yeah slightly less than half can bench uh over 300 pounds then 350 we go to 25 percent well so 350 gets us down to a quarter yeah uh 400 plus is 11.5 percent 450 plus is 4.4 percent 500 plus is one and a half percent 550 plus is 305 guys at 0.4 percent then 600 plus is 86 guys at 0.1 percent 650 plus is 18 at less than a tenth of a percent. And 700 plus is three people.

Three people. Who is it? Yeah, it's Eric Spoto, Sergeyev, and it is this guy. I can't tell you. I can you remember what his name is right now he's big yeah he's the he was the first one to do it it's uh i'm just struggling to remember his name right now maybe if you said his name it's uh hollywood is his nickname oh and i i just can't remember his name right now. Oh, Henderson, James Henderson. Okay. James Hollywood Henderson is the first one to do it.

I would think Larry would be in that club sometime soon. It seems like he's on track for it. He's on track for it. Yep. He's in the – has he benched over 650 in competition? Ooh. But even that 650 plus is only 18. Yeah. And that's including those three

guys so there's only 15 more what do you think about that that 300 plus is less than half does that seem that surprised me a little bit but uh i don't know like that's believable that's believable to me um the one that did surprise me was 350 plus is that 25 yes that already like a quarter of people that ever compete in lifting will ever bench 350 more like that's kind of surprising yeah and then um i mean there it just drops off drastically which which kind of does make sense but right yeah the the 500 plus is where it starts to really get. Yeah, it's basically nobody. I mean, 500-plus, you get down to 1,200 guys that have ever done that in competition.

1.5%. 150-plus, I didn't start with that, is 97%. So there is some out there. There are a few guys that are competing under that. Wow. Yeah. And I'm assuming that would be taking bench-only meets into consideration too, though, right? I think so.

I might have that, actually. Because I feel like if it, assuming it does, that's even got to skew that statistic a little bit. Yeah. I bet it does. I'm not sure, though. I don't i don't i don't have the answer to that for sure yeah because i would assume a few of those 600 pluses are bench only uh yeah yes it does this is does include bench only because i know like spodos uh

oh yeah yeah yeah that's right only meet so and i'm sure that he's one of the three you know yeah so that is kind of the one variable in there too is that like bench has that, and I guess deadlift kind of does too, is it has that thing of being the single lift. Yeah, you could get guys in there that aren't really. Like the squat doesn't have that. There's no single lift squat. Yeah, so there's not just squat guys.

And deadlift kind of does. Yeah. I don't think it's as popular. No. They don't have a deadlift only nationals or anything like that. I think there's some. Like the Arnold has, I think, like some deadlift raw competitions. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a few of those, but it's not like any other meet where you can enter deadlift only. No. Or where you can enter bench only. Right. Yeah, there's not deadlift nationals or anything like that. No. So that's the open powerlifting stat of the week on the Massanomics podcast presented by the Massanomics guys.

Via openpowerlifting.org. Well, thank you, open powerlifting, for that stat. Keep them coming, fellas. People got to keep lifting so stats can keep being made. That's the name of the game here. Do we want to go into a little bit of what Mark Bell's been up to lately? Yeah. Of course we do.

Always, right? Got to keep an eye on Mark Bell here. Do you ever listen to his podcast you know i never do yeah never ever um that's not to say i've talked about this before i was there was a spot where uh the power cast was to me the greatest yeah the greatest audio experience around like they were like a while they're bringing in like every guest of anybody you've ever watched on youtube or that's ever done anything cool lifting wise like they were on there and it's like man it's really cool to hear all these stories

these people got all the stuff they've done or how boring some people are that you think would be cool uh so yeah they were like on fire for a while and they were making awesome videos for it yeah and it was just like that's what really got me into podcasts. It was so fun. And then, uh, you know, obviously there's only so many people setting world records and after a while, like they've kind of used up that entire talent pool and, uh, then it was, you know, things changed and Mark Bell was kind of on his own all of a sudden and I just kind of lost interest in it.

Yeah. Do you ever keep up with them? bell was kind of on his own all of a sudden and I just kind of lost interest in it. Yeah. Do you ever keep up with them? I listen to it occasionally, but it's not, I mean, by design, I'm sure it's not at all the same. It's just the format of the podcast is just him. It's more like self-help motivation guru type guy that talks into the microphone and has like a helper that uh

yeah you know you gotta want it more than everyone else you gotta get up early you can't be lazy and i'm not into that like yeah and there's so many people that do that already yeah yeah i get it you just got to keep doing stuff and never give up well yeah that's like the most generic advice and you know some it probably does help someone like some people just need to hear it from someone else for it to click but uh yeah i think for a lot of people it just kind of gets lost i don't i don't i don't enjoy him as that person i enjoyed him as what they did but like the non-serious yeah yeah like if yeah if i want to listen to someone really give me the hoorah inspirational speech i think there's people that

do it way better and are way more exciting behind the bike and have a way better way with words than you know that he will ever be right well i mean if we were trying to do that oh yeah it's like if we tried to do it it would seem like the biggest joke exactly it would probably catch on as like a joke podcast at that point like it actually probably would work out for us because we'd be so bad at it so that brings me to what i wanted to say next you know when you get up tomorrow you gotta carpe diem dream believe achieve that's our yeah that's our step program. Printed on the wall back here so we never forget it.

Yeah. So, okay. But back to what Mark Bell's doing. So the thing that kind of really, I guess, got people like almost, like it got some people fired up. almost like it got some people fired up like it it got a response out of a lot of people is that he decided to go all in on ipf approval for his his wraps all of his products yeah so wraps singlets knee sleeves wrist wraps belts uh is there anything we're forgetting there that's kind of all of it i think that's it's it. So, yeah, which, I mean, is really, you know, he has a few different knee sleeves, a few different wrist wraps. Yeah.

But it's really not a ton of products. And he had to, for the cool price of $253,000. Is that the exact number? Yeah, I think that's what it was, $253,000. Which any normal person would say, yeah that's insane yeah quarter of a million dollars to say your stuff is ipf approved and the the craziest thing about it is ipf approved only matters if you're doing regional national or ipf meets which isn't a large which a group of people and if you're doing an i an actual ipf likeF world meet, if you're in the top 10, it's kind of almost like, if you're not even in the top 10, it's kind of almost like, why are you even wasting your time?

That's so much money. Maybe if it's in your country, it's not as big of a deal. But if you're going to Belarus to place 20th oh I don't know about that one um regional meets like yeah they're probably cool I don't know if there's any point to doing one unless you really do plan on going on to like a national or world stage though yeah and even that you don't have to go through a regional meet to compete at nationals no you don't yeah so even then it's just yeah it's just kind of a bigger meet i guess yeah i guess so um where you got to deal with more people i'm sure and

more chaos but so yeah i mean really it's just the the people at the top level that wanted to wear his stuff now can um which sounds so it's, it's just it's so hard to comprehend, like the the amount of money he's putting out there. And, you know, it's Mark Bell. He can do what he wants with this money. Yeah. You know, and it is, I think, over four. You know, it's a four year. But that is also the thing is like that's only for four years.

Like right. Like in four years, he's going to have to have this conversation again. Decide if he wants to put it up again. And I'm sure Mark Bell will have a few more products then, so it's probably only going to be more. And their prices probably aren't going to go down either. I would assume they account for inflation and then some. The IPF, International Powerlifting Federation,

it is a political thing. They have different people at – it is a political thing you know they have different people at you know it's a political body they got people at all it's just like the olympics they got people at all these state levels national levels world levels like country like there's a lot of levels to it with people getting elected and i'm sure at that level you know it's like any political organization kind of your number one goal is to just get elected again. Right. And once you're elected, it's also kind of a thing to just, I think, see how much money you can make. They've got to have some interest in the sport, but they also have to have some interest in making money,

or I don't think people are going to want them around either. And so when they get people like Mark Bell coughing up a quarter of a million dollars, I think it counts as a huge win for them. Like, look what we did. And I think it looks really good for those people to be like, we need to be elected again because look at all the money we're raising here. So it kind of feeds back into the machine of the whole thing. And I think that is where it brings up the argument that a lot of people have of,

was this best for the lifters? And, you know, like someone that's been very public about having a different stance on it is mad at pioneer yeah and he's gone as far as to i mean he's taken some really positive action to do the tribute meet to make it all about the lifters and make it so see put out how much he actually threw down yeah what did he say about 40 000 yeah which is i mean that's huge yeah i couldn't imagine having a business that could donate $40,000 to an event. That's huge. Yeah, that's awesome that there's people that are willing to do stuff like that.

But that is what people are kind of in the debate about is, you know, of that $250,000 that Mark Bell spent, how much of that is actually going to the lifters? Any? I don't really think. Is there any? I mean, someone might make the argument that, oh, well, we're able to offer some people a per diem for meals, you know, something like that. But because I think last year it was an SBD was actually paying for people,

like plane tickets for some athletes. So, I mean, that's not the IPF isn't paying for that. Right. I don't know. It just seems like he paid the money so that more, so that the IPF can – it just doesn't seem like it's really in it for the lifters at all. No. That's what it comes down to.

But, you know, it's not necessarily his responsibility. Yeah, and for him, I think it's, I mean, it's, I think, purely marketing and advertising for him. You know, he got to make a big thing about it, you know, for the first week or two. You know, we're talking about it right now, so he's getting free advertising out of this. I don't think anyone that's interested in powerlifting doesn't know who Mark Bell is, though. Like, I really do feel like he kind of has the market almost saturated with his name. Like can you Google anything, can you YouTube anything powerlifting

and not have him come up? Like that's kind of hard to do even. Right. You know, he's had every lifter, every like Instagram personality of a powerlifter on his page. So if you're someone out there that's a fan of powerlifting,

you don't know who Mark Bell is at this point. Like you're a weird person. Like you're a strange person. So that's kind of the other thing is like i don't even know i don't know i guess it's a publicity move yeah and like we were trying to do the rough math on it like you know if he if he makes let's just say on average mark bell makes profit 30 30 dollars a piece on his products you know some things like the wrist wraps that are selling for between 30 and 40 he's probably not quite making that much but then things like knee sleeves where he's selling them for 80 bucks i would imagine he's

making way more than 30 dollars but if you just assumed across his product categories he was making 30 a product he would need to sell over 6,000 items. Over 6,000 units to make back that quarter of a million dollars, which probably for someone like him isn't totally impossible. But what we're saying, what you have to consider looking at too is does he need to sell those units all to IPF lifters that wouldn't have bought his products? Well, yeah, yeah. And so, yes, that's also a suit, yeah.

That wouldn't have bought his products otherwise because they weren't approved for the IPF. Yeah. So you're going to sell 6,000 more than what he would normally be with this deal. And, I mean, there's not even like 6,000. I mean, there's not 6 like 6 000 i mean there's not 6 000 world competitors no and even if there was 6 000 world competitors they're not all going to buy his stuff either like it's just there's regional things where it's going to be it's never going to make sense to buy stuff from america all the time you know something an advantage for him i hadn't thought about too

much though is he'll be able to sponsor um like any of these athletes uh say Bryce Lewis or or some of these people before you know I just but that before it wouldn't have made sense you know he can't uh I guess he could have sponsored them on apparel yeah not equipment or something which he probably even does do that on some of those people but now he can really like he could deck them out in you know slingshot stuff yeah so maybe there's some opportunity that for him there maybe i think what it does come down to those mark bell's really rich and he could have bought like more escalades yeah and no one would have really even cared it's been like oh he's doing what he wants with his

money and he did in his way invest it kind of back into power lifting you know into a power lifting governing body with the idea that maybe somehow that'll do something i i don't know but um yeah it's such an odd move like yeah that that's where power lifting is at now it's like you got to spend a quarter of a million dollars to be a part of it. One of the criticisms that I saw that I did think was really, really interesting and I'm surprised that it's – well, the IPF has their money, so they're not going to like coaching clinics or even any in any way being affiliated with someone that's a drug user yeah steroid steroid user but has failed the drug test or anything with that they have a very big stigma around yeah around steroid users and um mark obviously mark is about as open of a person on social media about it as you could. He's been in a movie about it.

Been in a movie about it. I mean, he has tens and tens, if not hundreds of hours of him literally talking about it. There's a lot of stuff out there regarding Mark Bell and steroid usage and his views on it. And I mean, even sometimes stuff that he's taken and things like that. That is kind of an interesting point. So it is, like, really kind of hypocritical that they have such a hardline stance against steroid users but are willing to, like, sign these massive deals with them. With the owner of a company who… Who is a self-proclaimed, like, steroid user for kind of life.

Yeah. like steroid user for kind of life. Yeah. You can feel however you want about that, but it's just the fact that the IPF has made it clear what their stance is, but is willing to brush that aside once the check comes out. But if you really want to give us a quarter million dollars. Who are we to judge? Just don't compete because then if you do

and like were to fail a drug test for whatever reason, we'd have to have big issues with you. So it'd be really cool to see if he did that. I'd actually like to see him kind of do like the Elon Musk CEO thing where it's like he just starts to do really crazy things that it's like people in higher positions don't know how to handle this. So just go see Mark Bell, do like a USAPL meet, intentionally get busted,

get on the blacklist for them, and then somehow let the IPF figure out how they're supposed to handle it. That would be pretty interesting to see that one. Yeah. And I don't know what the answer would be there. It would be a crazy world. We'll never know. Mark Bell versus the ipf so did we leave anything else or we completely discussed that in its entirety i think we pretty

much we hit it up hit it up hard hit it hard and fast do uh was there any big lifts this week, Tanner? There was. Have you heard about Larry Wheels before? Well, this has kind of officially turned into what's Larry this week. Yeah. And it's another week. So, again, we have another thing to report. This is a little different than a normal report, though. That's true. The question is, does this lift qualify for big lifts?

Well, it is big lifts, and we are talking about it. But should we be, by definition? I think we should be talking about it. You've seen the video, right? Yeah, I've seen the video. If anyone else did this, I think we'd be talking about it. So I'm cool talking about it. But was it a lift i mean it was a lift i don't know if it was a good lift yeah if we're gonna really split the

hair yeah so the lift was uh that the 922 deadlift that larry attempted and when he when he posted it he didn't say like barely missed it or something like that. He just said, like, 922. Yeah, 922 deadlift or another, like, PR attempt or something. It was ambiguous. He didn't say it was a good lift. He also didn't say it was a bad lift. Yeah. Which, but anyways, he does take 922 deadlift, gets it past his knees.

I mean, he's getting to the point where, for Larry, I mean, the issue is always lockout. That's where it slows down the most for him. And it's a real fight. It kind of almost starts to turn into a hitch, and then I think it's a grip thing at that point. Yep. But that's the first time I've seen Larry fail a lift in quite a while. Yeah, that's the first time i've seen larry fail lift in quite a while yeah that's true i can't recall the last one that i i think he tried a 675 bench a little while ago that he didn't quite get

oh that would probably be the last one but maybe he has to do that to humble himself for a while to realize that he does have limits yeah i think he does yeah yeah um and you don't know about this one probably i just someone tagged me in it just on the way over here. This was a fresh Big Lifts. And someone tagged me and they said, oh, my God, you guys nailed it. So can you guess what the Big Lifts was, what we predicted a while ago? Oh, is it a Larry Wheels 315 max? Yeah.

Oh, really? He did the 315 max max reps okay and what did we say like 40 ish yeah we said i think we came to like 45 or something like that and so someone someone just on the way over here tagged and said oh my god you guys predicted it exactly he did the 315 max reps, and I think he got 44. Wow. Yeah. So we were just about spot on that he was going to do that and the number. We know Larry's mind and body fairly well at this point.

Yeah. Years of study. So 44 reps at 315 for big lifts. Just barely making it into big lifts this week. Just in the nick of time. I'm glad he did that. So he's got 225, 315 for big lifts. Just barely making it into big lifts this week. Just in the nick of time. I'm glad he did that. So he's got 225, 315, 405. Did he do a five-plate one the other day?

I think he did. I think he's done the 500 because I think he did it for 11. And then he did 605 for three this last week. I think soon he's going to retry the 675 for a single. Yeah, I think that'll be. That has to be, yeah. That'll be really soon. I think he'll get the 675 for a single. Yeah, that has to be, yeah. That'll be really soon. I think he'll get that in the gym relatively soon. Yeah.

The big one will be in a competition. That's still probably a ways out. Yeah, I think so too. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit 675 in the gym or maybe even more within the next six months, you know. What do you think he'll be in with big lifts next a heavier squat you know an 800 he's not 800 larry so at this point it seems like he's exhausted most bench most relevant bench prs i mean he could do a 455 bench pr but at that point it's like well

put another plate on keeping track of this for you so i feel like he's gonna start to go for deadlift prs yeah because he's never a big squat he did have that squat pr a couple weeks ago but i think he uh i don't think i've seen a ton of deadlift stuff out of him besides this like 922 and he's had a few singles here and there but i don't know maybe he'll maybe he'll do some rep deadlift prs well he did do the 855 for three deadlift. Oh, yeah, that's right, yeah. You know, maybe he'll do a little bit higher rep deadlift PR. I'd be fine with that.

You know, you've got to build that volume up so you can get that 922 on the next time. 922, how did he even... I'm not sure what that was. Was there like kilo clips on the i don't even remember i don't i don't know i was kind of curious where that number came from old larry he's always got a way to make it into big lifts and with that is there even was there anything even noteworthy to talk about

um don't know i mean those lifts are so big that it just like just overshadows everything else yeah i think you got a point there yeah uh do we want to cover uh some of the best comments yeah i think we got to do that and these these i i saw both of these um and man these people they were they were in a league of their own the uh uh our what do we call it the best instagram slash youtube comments of the week and i threw we threw a league of their own. What do we call it? The best Instagram slash YouTube comments of the week. And we threw a couple of them in there this time. So what was the first one? So this was on, we had an Instagram post.

It was pretty funny. And helpful, really helpful. Yeah, very helpful. It was a deadlifting tip. And the key word there is helpful and tip, which it may or may not have been either one of those. But it did have, was it the lift shirt in it? Yes.

Yeah, so it had the lift shirt. It may have been slightly advertising the lift shirt. And someone commented, alcohol brand shirts in the gym are common, and for the wrong reasons. It's a subliminal message saying i could be better in shape oh i could be in better shape but i'm a degenerate slob on the weekends so this guy clearly believes that if you wear a shirt of something you live and die by that shirt i wonder if he's ever seen a nascar shirt in the gym because

or if anyone's ever shown up with a football jersey on in the gym because that would blow this guy's mind that's uh I wear uh lift shirts all the time and I'd you know I'm not a degenerate slob a drunken slob on the weekends like it I I mean I would assume you probably have a more a better off professional crew than this guy that's probably true uh i i like this comment though like a lot of people i like whenever there's ridiculous comments and other of our followers come in and people police them yeah the best is when people to clean it up without us having to respond to anything i may have responded to this one i can't remember sometimes i like to yeah so did anyone say anything on it yeah i think some people some people commented back on that one yeah i know that they did basically saying that same thing like oh that means i'm a slob like just because i have

a shirt that's loose that's somewhat based off of a uh a drinking. And I just thought of it now. I didn't – this could have made a good comment in here. It was on that same post, and someone said, that looks just like – Oh, yeah. How is it worded? They said, that looks like a knockoff lifting – or a knockoff beer shirt. And I go like, huh, never really thought of it like that before. I guess if you squint and cock your head just to the side, it does kind of look like a knockoff beer shirt. Yeah, it's like some people, they literally somehow are able to think exactly while they're typing.

And then not think back on it at all. It's like their mind to keyboard connection is so in sync that it just goes where most people would, a lot of people probably do like, oh, that kind of does look like that. And then they go, oh, that's probably what they're going for. Right. But yeah, some people just got to let you know that they're one step ahead of you and just getting it out there. Yep.

The other comment was on the deadlifting or building the deadlift platform. So if you guys haven't seen that, we have an article on the website where we walk you through how to build a deadlift platform, power rack platform, just, you know, a platform for the gym.

Yeah. Really helpful video. A lot of people have watched it, read the article. I think a lot of people have built platforms based off of those plans that we have on there. You know, it's a whole do itit-yourself thing.

So every once in a while, we'll repost the video on the Instagram page to just show some more people. And people always like it. It always goes over really well. It is a fun. It's a time lapse of you guys actually building the platform. And once you guys are done with the platform, you move the power rack onto the platform.

And this comment says, Not bolted in the ground. If someone fails with a high weight, the rack will fly forward or backwards. But if you knew anything about it, you would know the rack is bolted in. We just didn't include the last two seconds of someone bolting a rack down because at that point, you probably know how to bolt something in. If you've done the rest of it, you probably don't need us to show you that part too so a most importantly it is bolted in and b even if it wasn't what they what they're saying right there you've been in that squat rack many times well if someone fails yeah if you fail in a power rack like this thing is like seven feet long like if it's not like

tipping over you know it's not like yeah i mean one side is literally holding probably a thousand pounds of the weight and so i like if you fail a lift you fail it in the middle yeah yeah so i don't know how the rack would move you know when you fail maybe if you fail with a thousand pounds and go flying forward, maybe then it would do something. But since that's.00001% of lifters, I don't think that's an issue. No, it's not. This guy's on to some elite level lifting that we just have not reached yet.

Yeah. There's a comment like that. It just makes me laugh when it comes up, you know. And that's why they make... That's why we have the comments. And that's why we always keep our eye on that comment section. Just to know what you guys are up to. Tanner, do we have any reviews this week?

No good reviews to review. Well, no good reviews or no reviews? No reviews. reviews oh okay or good ones okay no bad ones either i mean it kind of is an oxymoron because we only get good reviews that's true that is true up to the you know we've only ever gotten a five-star review is that there's not even a single four-star in there not a not a four-star our average rating is 5.0 so that's high marks that's some guys that know what they're doing right there that's right well uh do we want to give them the rundown i think so though got the rundown ready

the rut where is that rundown and just to make sure what what were you kind of looking for in this rundown then that's the office it's an office reference uh it's uh who's the guy that the temporary i cannot even think of his name um isn't it uh i can't even think of the actor is it idris elbar or is that his name that could be right i cannot think of his actual name and he asked jim to do our rundown and jim has no idea what it what the rundown is but then he plays on too long but and then he's he's really nervous the entire time. What comes of that? I honestly don't remember.

Is that the same episode where he says that he plays soccer? That could be. And then he actually doesn't play soccer, and then they want to play it. That might be the same episode, but maybe it's a soccer game is what comes of it. I don't know. That could be. All right, so hit them with the rundown. This rundown.

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We will look into doing the paperwork part of it. We can't commit to anything yet. We'll talk to the IPF, at least about the lift shorts. We're going to have some new merch coming for these fall. And Tanner's really downplaying the excitement of that. Yeah. We're going to have some really awesome stuff coming. And probably our biggest, our largest release.

Without a doubt, it will be our largest release. Yeah. So a little something for everyone in there. Yeah. And it's going to be for those fall,intry months that we've got coming right around the corner even summer months when you're snuggled around that bonfire you know burning tires or gasoline or whatever you'd like to do with your friends cozy with pumpkin the smell of fire do you like the smelling like a bonfire when you get done at a bonfire i don't mind the smell i

just don't like going back into my bed and introducing that smell into my bed that's where my issues are those are just completely like like drenched in bonfire smell yep it doesn't come out of there so we've got some new clothes for you to wear after you sit around the bonfire for a little too long. Otherwise, I think that's about it. I'm probably missing some things, but that's all right. We'll hit them next time. Give us some podcast reviews to read next time.

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