Massenomics Podcast - Ep.30: Nick Tylutki

Episode Date: October 31, 2016

This week, we took the show on the road again and interviewed 7-time National Champion Nick Tylutki. We sat down with Nick in his no frills garage gym in Minnesota and got his take on training, the state of powerlifting as a sport, red bull, and what it's like to work around his police officer schedule. This week also marks our first fully published video episode on YouTube. Don't worry, we've still got the audio version below as well.   Check out the audio version below... Don't forget to LIKE and SHARE this episode on Facebook... Make sure you LIKE the Massenomics Facebook page... If you don't already have a closet full of Massenomics gear, go to the MASSENOMICS STORE and load up on swag... Also, please CLICK THIS LINK TO GIVE US A 5 STAR RATING ON ITUNES... Click this text to follow Massenomics on Instagram... Vote Massenomics for President in 2016... Have your barber shave our logo into the side of your head.. Maybe get a Massenomics tattoo while you're at it.    Or you could sign up for our email newsletter at the bottom of this page. Stay Strong, M

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. Okay, we're here in Cold Spring, Minnesota. We took the show on the road again, and we are here with Nick Tyluki. I pronounced that right?

That's correct. That's a win. Nick is a seven-time national champion at, what was the weight class again? The 105. 105 kilo weight class. I was in Canada last time. I'm trying to get all this kilo stuff together. We're here with Nick. We're in a pretty sweet garage gym here set up and hopefully you'll

be able to see some of the pictures and videos we put up afterwards. Nick's got a pretty sweet spot and thanks for having us, Nick. Thanks for coming. What do we want to start with, guys? Start picking his brain. We can just fire right into this. Let's dive right in. We've got a lot of questions. I should start by saying I first learned about Nick through a former roommate of mine, Craig Peterson.

I believe you guys trained off and on at Jackal's Gym in Marshall with the legendary Brad Gillingham, you could say. And the first time I heard about you was my roommate saying, yeah, there's this guy. He's like a freak. He just squats so much. And he gets so amped up. He just gets going. We love training with him. And I'm like, I don't really know who he's talking about. And the next thing you know, he's showing me YouTube videos. And I have to say, this is kind of funny for me actually being here because I think for probably a good five years, I've seen your YouTube videos online. And a lot of times you know before like a heavy squat squat day or something I'll be like I need to watch something to get me in the zone and I've seen you know

videos of you squatting in here and at Jackal's like to actually be here it's like oh I've I've watched this I've watched this for years so to be here it is kind of a funny thing but that's kind of creepy actually that's what I was trying to get to is that this is very creepy and it's it's a long you don't want to hear what tommy was saying in the car so i've my secrets out i guess but now that we have that off the table we can just get right to it i guess so you have seven national championships um you were lifting before raw lifting was a thing even so some of that equipped you've done equipped you started equipped then i'm guessing yeah i started equipped back in uh 2000 was my first meet and i did equip for about 10 years before i switched over to raw so a lot of equipped lifting yeah and how did you first get into kind of the power

lifting thing i mean what brings nick to the point of his first meet? Yeah, just kind of fell into it. By chance, there was a gym that opened up close to where I grew up in Melrose, Minnesota, not too far from here. And they hosted a powerlifting meet. I'm like, eh, I'll try it out, whatever. I was playing college football at the time. Where were you playing college at?

St. Cloud State. Oh, you were? Yeah. What did you play in college? I was a tailback. the time. Where were you playing college at? St. Cloud State. Oh, you were? Yeah. What did you play in college? I was a tailback. Tailback, okay. Yeah. I probably wasn't as good as I thought I was.

But they hosted a meet there. I, you know, took part in the meet. Brad Gillingham happened to be there. He grew up in, or he's got family in Sox Center, his in-laws. So he happened to be in town that weekend. So I met him and another, a coach of mine, Gary Grahn, who's been here coaching me for the last, you know, 16 years. So we all met on the same day in some little gym built on a swamp that was really just a shed. So yeah, it was kind of cool, but I just fell

into it like that. From there, I started staying in contact with Brad. Went down to Jackals quite a few times that first year. And did my first meet in February 2000, January 2000. And you said that was equipped, right? That was equipped, yeah. So what was your first, do you remember your numbers from your first meet? I squatted 610. I benched about 285 and deadlifted. I missed 6'33 for, or 6'35,

I guess it was, would have been the win. I actually, I hitched it, locked it out, but I hitched it. So I would have won my first meet if I would have locked out my first, you know, it wouldn't have hitched it. So yeah. Had you had much experience with the, with the gear going into it uh about one training period i had my roommate at the time roommate at the time who also played football he came he was my coach that day and he was wrapping my knees it's such a joke looking back at it like i had wraps hanging off to the floor on my feet you know they were mostly there they're mostly there no i was uh but that's kind of how it started uh that day and a lot of the

jackals crew was there cheering me on giving me advice I was just walking up to Brad Gillingham you know not really knowing much about him other than he's you know huge power lifter or whatever and I'm like hey so you know what do you think I should do for my second attempt and he's you know and everybody else is like who is this guy but brad is really personable and real seems like he's really helpful for everyone that's around him in training though so that would you know i'm sure he is probably still pretty helpful even if he was wondering who the hell he if everyone was absolutely yeah no he's ever since the beginning he kind of was like a big brother to me and just took me in you know so very helpful so now this first gym did i read is there some

connection between was there a wwe guy or yeah the road warriors manager is that what i read no that's right um so the the guy that opened the shed on the swamp was uh his name is paul ellering and he managed the Road Warriors from the WWF. I never got to meet the guys, the Road Warriors. They came out to the gym a few times to train. But, yeah, he was known as Precious Paul Ellering. So, yeah, that's where I started. Nice.

So did he have, like, a ring set up or anything? Did he throw some guys around? No, nothing like that. In fact, he talked very little about wrestling. Oh, of it yeah so crazy yeah so then you've been lifting a raw then now for six years or something like that and what do you have a preference between the two I mean you're doing raw now so you must like it better I love raw yeah I love it um actually well I train you know you guys um follow Brad's program. It's mostly raw. So that's the way I trained my entire career.

And then in 2012, I made the switch over competitively to raw. And I love it. Way much better than geared lifting. It's just so uncomfortable. I don't miss the tight suits and the knee wraps and all that stuff. It seems like a lot of work. I've never messed with any equip lifting at all, and I look at it and it just seems like it looks like everything hurts,

and everything's a whole process that I just don't have the patience for, I don't think. No, and you need like three or four dudes to help you out. Isn't that what they say is you need to have training partners just dedicated to getting people into gear? Right, and they might not even train. They'll just come here to put you in your gear and that's it. I don't even have three or four people that like hanging out with me. That's a no-go there already.

So you've won nationals seven times, so you've been to seven worlds. Is that right? I've been to nine world championships and two world games. So where have you been? Where have worlds mostly been at that you've gone to or um well i've been to uh all over the place man um south africa twice taiwan twice uh germany australia uh bulgaria um denmark um i know i'm missing missing some in there but i should have went by year but yeah all over the

world tons of people and you finished second at worlds one year didn't you yeah what year is last year last summer in um finland i finished second again uh felt i made my last deadlift day that you would have had it if you would have won the world championship did you go eight for nine and i went eight for nine yes I did okay so was your last uh deadlift attempt is that something you pulled before or something you felt like you could have pulled or I felt like I felt like I was good for about 760 um and it was a 744 um but I had made this mistake of just kind of laying around in my hotel room a little too long the day before so it felt like i just didn't feel right you know

going in that last deadlift i had zero energy but uh whatever you know it is what it is so you i mean you still ended the day and you got second place in the world in your weight class so i mean i'm sure it's disappointing to not get first but it's still uh yeah it was you know i felt that was a great opportunity missed you know but yeah But, yeah, second place, not bad. And that's got to kind of pose a whole new set of problems and, like, strategy and thinking when you're traveling overseas and you have different, I mean, different time zones on top of it, but different food, different everything available. Is there a lot of, like, different setup you have to take into account

when you're doing these things? Everything. I mean, you have to restructure your sleep pattern um so you can readjust uh try to figure out at least one good restaurant that you like that has food that you you know like that's not too different at least before you compete um won't end you up in the bathroom exactly exactly um yeah so there's a little bit of strategy you have to do a little research beforehand nowadays it's not that hard just you know on the Internet you can kind of read reviews and things like that. So with like a world's team, are you guys going over as a team

or do you go over on your own? How does that actually work out? No, it's individually. Everybody, for the most part, goes individually. There's groups of people that go. But as far as that goes, unfortunately, you know, everybody pays their own way still. There's not a whole lot of money for the, you know elite athletes i guess i go to the world they don't set you up in the olympic village where you guys just get to live it up for three weeks no not at all not at all um so yeah

whatever you have to you know find your own way there and find your way back do you think do you think you could see that changing ever in the future where they do maybe support it more or pay people's way or some changes there? I think we're starting to go in that direction a little bit with the explosion of the membership in the last three, four years. I think that hopefully that will become what is normal. you know, become what is normal. However, it sounds like with a lot of failed drug tests internationally, there's some fines and things involved and a lot of money that we don't, and I think there was a lawsuit recently and we lost a lot of money. So I don't know, hopefully, but I'm not sure. So a few things you were talking about there, you know, being a member of the USAPL, they send out emails and I guess I remember seeing recently they had an email where they were discussing, you know, the failed drug

tests and things like that. Are you connected or in very tight with, I guess you could say, the organization, the USAPL itself? You know, I probably can be a little bit more connected than I am. I'm kind of that dude that just lays out the weeds. Shows up and lives in his own garage. Right. Kind of freakish. You know, I guess I'm not privy to a whole lot of stuff other than what we get in the newsletter and things like that. Okay. How about the Olympics thing?

Do you think that would ever be a thing? Do you want it to ever be a thing? Or do you think it's – I guess what are your thoughts in general? I've heard a lot of people talking to more and more about that lately yeah I I think it'd be a very cool thing ever since I was a kid I mean I watched the Olympics on TV and I always wanted to be in the Olympics but um I'm just not good at anything else except for powerlifting but you know if it becomes an Olympic sport great you know um if not it's in the world games which is patronized by the International Olympic Committee.

Is this your banner back here? That is one of the banners from 2009, yeah. Then that was also 2005. So what do we got? Do we have, it looks like Frisbee, rugby, wakeboarding, and something else on there? I don't know what that guy's doing. We'll have to get a picture of that.

We're going to take a picture picture he's exercising really hard so maybe one day it'll be in the Olympics but I guess in the short term I don't see it happening the thing is there's so much ridiculous shit in the Olympics like the stuff that you don't see there's like

gun shooting, which is one thing, but there's also pellet gun shooting events in addition to regular gun shooting events. It seems like there could be a place for powerlifting. I feel like something that requires actual physical effort

could have a shot. You know? No, I agree. Not to take away from the... I was going to say, you just alienated all of our pellet shooting fans listening to this. Yeah, like your Instagram followers. Cut in half. No, I mean, I agree. Like at work, friends, things like that, they always ask,

oh, am I going to go to the Olympics? I'm like, well, then I have to explain the whole thing. Like, it's not an Olympic sport. They're like, well, I saw ping pong to the Olympics and like well then I have to explain the whole thing like it's not an Olympic sport they're like well I saw ping pong on the Olympics you know so you have to kind of explain that a little bit but some people if they're not real into powerlifting or lifting in general they might not know the difference between Olympic lifting and powerlifting happens pretty often I think usually the case yeah yeah people see the heavyweights on a bar and just assume that is that's what that is lifting yes that's a great snatch yeah so you said freakish earlier and then your nickname's freak show is that is where'd that come from or who who coined that well brad gillingham did back

in 2000 it all ties back to brad it does yeah A lot of stuff starts with Brad. No, yeah, he just saw this skinny kid, which I was. I was about 190 pounds. And he thought I was lifting heavy weights. And he's like, it doesn't look right. So you're like the freak show, you know. So just looked wrong. That's awesome. I've heard some stories.

It sounds like you have like a tendency to enjoy a few Red Bulls before you lift. And I've heard that it's also maybe had some adverse effects with maybe things coming back up at times. That's happened a few times. Man, yeah. So I think it was 2005 Minnesota State meet. We weighed in, and I'm like, I've got two and a half hours. So we went to Arby's. The classic pre-meat meal, right? Exactly. Sodium loading. Um, so I had a couple, um, the big Arby's sandwiches and got back to the venue, started pounding water, started

drinking Red Bull and went to, uh, my third attempt. attempt actually i think i threw up on all three attempts but um but it was definitely on the third attempt and it was 750ish i was doing gear lifting at the time and started coming out of the hole and and i could i could feel it the whole time i felt this big bubble and i'm like oh my gosh as i'm going down and like this is not going to be good start coming up and i just sprayed everybody in the front including the judge white lights or well initially they red lighted it and like wait a second I and so they turned it over yeah yeah so I've never they were just pissed at first it looks so cool yeah you had to explain there's no like there's no rule against putting your big montana all over

there might be now i don't know so our red bulls is that something you use commonly to kind of get you amped up before a workout i do yeah i do like red bull um you know i drink uh zions have you ever heard of zions yeah like for work um in the middle of the night when you need to stay awake for a few more hours a drink of science but it's like for work um in the middle of the night when you need to stay awake for a few more hours a drink of science but when it comes to power lifting it's always red bull for some reason so yeah sugar-free regular regular straight diesel yeah and then how are we talking the the small cans the big ones oh about a 16 ounce 16 ounce okay that'll get the caffeine levels up for sure. Yeah, I'm addicted.

I was curious, too. You've always lifted USAPL Federation. Have you ever lifted in a meet that's not USAPL or IPF? No, all IPF and USAPL. Brad, again, kind of pointed me in that direction, educated me on the drug-free association and what he believed in. And that's what I believed in, and I still believe in that. So, yeah, always USAPL and IPF, yeah.

So we haven't really talked about numbers here. What are some of your personal, what's maybe equipped NRAL? What are some of your personal records there? In fact, I just looked today because I was— Had to brush up on you. You knew it was going to come up. It's funny because a lot of people know what I've lifted in a meet previous, and I'm like, did I?

I don't know. I don't remember. My best geared squat was 821. Geared bench, 518, and deadlift, I'm sorry, 782. Geared bench, 518 and deadlift, I'm sorry, 782. Raw, 688 squat, 413 bench, and 727 deadlift. So have you done the Arnold before also? How many times have you done that?

It's eight or nine. I think it's eight, yeah. So did you go eight years in a row? I went three years and did the the invitational deadlift meet um took a year or two off and then went like five more years in a row something like that so so were you um you know us apl nationals that's a qualifying total to make it there obviously how does the arnold work you in order for you to go are you is it by invite every year that you've went or how does that work depending on the meet you do you can be invited to the like the deadlift meet or I think the full powerlifting meet geared powerlifting meet the NAPF raw challenge is

you need to go to the world championships the year before the USAPL national championships to qualify for that so and and then on like august 1st when they open up the um registration it's like a free-for-all you have about two seconds to register and then it fills up so yeah so what's it like lifting at the arnold compared to maybe your traditional meet locally or anywhere else you might be well the logistics alone are insane i mean there's a couple people there oh my gosh we're all going this year for the first time oh you're gonna tyler went last year and then yeah he talked the rest of us into going so there's gonna be a group of probably about six of us

going you know yeah we're in for a treat you'll have a great time it you just you have to plan ahead you know um i remember i'm just the old man now, though, so I get crabby thinking about it. Penny, my wife Penny, a couple years ago, going to weigh in, we left like two hours beforehand, before I had to weigh in. Plenty of time. We get there, no parking, drove around in circles. Finally, we're like, guess we're walking, you know, two-mile walk. Uphill both ways, of course. And I missed my lot number to weigh in.

So I went all the way to the end of the line and sat there and I was just ticked off. So, you know, you just have to plan ahead. Did you write a letter to Arnold yourself letting him know how disappointed you were? Slapped him up in the back. No, that's just part of the deal. You just have to be, you know, be ready for it. How did your day turn out then i actually had a really really good day i was i lifted pissed off i think that sucks to be put in that situation before a meet though because you're already you know there's a lot of stress going on that day and everything you just want to get things get done get weighed in and get done and everything and then you got to screw around

and wait for everyone else i'm sure you well then you see how you were yeah you're you know because you don't train for a two mile walk carrying your gear uh you know so i get a trap workout just from farmer's carries on the way there so yeah it was it ended up being a good day so so you nationals went on just this weekend and so you didn't lift at nationals this year correct is that the first year that you haven't in it is the second year in 16 years that I haven't I what's the deal wanted to get someone else a chance to get in there no you know I like I said I'm getting old um it was just a tough year uh I had had some you know minor injuries going on, just kind of nagging stuff I needed to let just heal. Motivationally, it was down a little bit this year.

I was really busy at work, a lot of training, new people coming in. That took a lot out of me. I just didn't have the high motivation that I normally did to come in here and lift four or five days a week. I decided to take the year off for nationals and put together some good training in the next few months and come back next year. Who in your weight class has your weight class lifted? Are they done? Did you follow it?

Did you watch it at all? I didn't watch it. No, they lifted last night. Was it Bryce Lewis? Did he win it? Bryce Lewis won it, yeah it. No, they lifted last night. Was it Bryce Lewis? Did he win it? Bryce Lewis won it, yeah. 19-12, I think. Something like that.

So what would your highest total be? Oh, 18-25. So, yeah. They're getting up there. He's putting up pretty good numbers. Absolutely. He's gotten considerably stronger over the last couple years. Very much so.

There's two or three guys, three guys for sure. And that's what I wanted to ask you is, you know, looking at it now, some of these guys are just really absolute freaks you know you have guys like um and i don't know if you saw any of it but like john hack at the 183 pound class he had like a 661 squat and he's what is he 20 years old i mean he's technically a junior still right there's just insane numbers like what do you think of these these people coming up these days well you know it's a good thing i mean with the explosion of members the competitiveness of all the weight classes has gone through the roof i mean 2012 my first raw nationals i think i won it with 1680 total i mean that's like 20th place now

so still a really respectable total but yeah when you look at the top level guys that's that's not even putting you close no not at all um you know it's a good thing for the association we need i like to think i had something to do with the level of competitiveness in the 105s i hope i did anyways on the flip side you know like i kind of mentioned before there's been a lot of drug failures and things like that so um i think the associate association's taking measures to try to get rid of that um or to you know limit that as much as they can but um yeah you like to think everybody's drug free but you just don't know for sure how will this work i mean guys that does everyone at nationals get drug tested or uh if you win at nationals or no random um yeah it's

supposed to be random um when will you find out like if someone at nationals this year say they won um what when would that come out how long much later usually that you know they they failed or you know um i don't know within a month six weeks something like that i would imagine yeah yeah so i'm not i'm not pointing fingers no i don't think anybody right a month, six weeks, something like that, I would imagine. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not, I'm not pointing fingers. No, no. I don't think anybody's doing that. You sound kind of bitter right now. Exactly.

Bryce Lewis is listening to this. Oh, that mother. Yeah. He's actually a huge fan of ours. Yeah. We're sure of it. TSA. So with that, who are kind of some of your your favorite or do you have any guys that you

like to follow keep an eye on see what they're up to what they're lifting um or you really just locked away in the garage a little bit i'm not gonna lie you don't care that much about what they're doing well that's the thing you know you know um very much i feel like very much a normal guy and i lifting is just something that i happen to do you know there's people that that i've met around the world that you know that they know everything about you. There's a lot of people that like to geek out on the numbers and who did what and when they did it. Like our gym, we've got a lot of guys that power lift and a lot of us that are pretty novice, intermediate. So we follow guys like you that put up big numbers, and it's fun for us to follow that.

But to you, it's weird because it's like, who are these weirdos, 28 year old guys. Why are these people driving to my goddamn house? Losers drove four hours to talk to me in my garage. No, it's nothing like that guys. No, I really, I think it's cool. I mean it's, you know know it's more than I would have expected it would have become um it started off for me as me just lifting heavy stuff wanted to compete started winning and then all of a sudden people started following and and hopefully people got a little inspired by it um so that's really cool that well first of all you guys

reached out but others reach out and you know let me know they ask for advice or whatever they tell send you messages things things like that. It's really cool. Yeah, it's very cool. And with that, I would have to say it's just you have to start posting more because it gets me excited when I see you repping out. I think it was a couple weeks ago you had, again, going back to how creepy it is when I pay attention, it's like working with the Ricori High School students

but still managed to pull 700 for a double. I'm like, oh, yeah yeah just snuck that one out yeah no i well i'll be the first to admit i suck at uh social media people ask me to post more stuff i'm like yeah whatever in fact some people have asked me they're like are you still lifting at all just because i'm not updating social media every 30 seconds you know yeah i'm still lifting i'm still training that's become well if it's not online though it doesn't count right that's what i mean like uh it's not necessary in order to be strong but it's become like such a common hand-in-hand thing that you know so many are posting it almost seems like well you must not be lifting i haven't seen anything on instagram yeah i won't even attempt anything heavy unless it's there's a camera on and if it's too light i if it's light i will

absolutely not record anything so just delete it so nationals uh you know you're talking about how the sport's really grown and usa apl memberships grown huge um would it have been nationals a couple years ago the the minimums to make uh nationals were still considerably lower they just bumped them here a year or two ago so was there a couple years in there where they're all of a sudden there was like thousands of people lifting and it went from a couple hundred guys to all of a sudden oh my god who are all these people that's exactly what happened man i gosh i've been around for so long back in uh you know 2000 well, 2000, well, 2002, my first open nationals, I think there was maybe 120 lifters entered in geared, geared nationals across all

classes, all classes. Yep. Um, so I think it was 2013 or 14, all of a sudden it just blew up. Um, I mean, it was insane. It went from, you know, it started to grow slowly, 200, 300, to 800, to, you know, 1,000. And last year at Nationals, I think there were five platforms going at one time. And it felt, I mean, no offense to the meet director, it felt so watered down, you know. There was nothing highlighted. And I remember, too, you know, we had done our first USAPL meet. It would have been that year. And we kind of got done. We're like qualified for nationals like why that's that some we knew something needed to be changed there that if we we all did our first meet and we all qualified

to compete at nationals and then well and then when you see you know what kind of the people landing on the podium are getting and the gap between that, you know that it's. But I think it's better what they did that they bumped it up. Yeah, I think they needed to adjust it because, you know, I mean, that's great, you know, for people to be able to qualify and lift the nationals. But at the same time, it's a logistical nightmare for the meet director to handle that many people. Oh, that's tough. I don't know how they can. I ran a meet for 30 people like five years ago, and I was so worn out by the end of the meet. I'm like, are you kidding me? I can't imagine a thousand. Plus making it to national should mean something. And it shouldn't mean that you just go there to be one of, you know, 500 people that are in the bottom, you know, that don't even have, have a shot. I mean, well, yeah. And, and i think they're kind of going in that direction

they just have to be careful the association not to alienate everybody that had been qualified and all of a sudden you're telling me i'm not good enough to lift the nationals now you know so they got to be careful with that because because i you know we really want the members we just you know got to be careful it's a fine line to walk because you want more people interested in the sport but you also can't have give everybody a medal either you know right yeah um what about um i was curious about you know you've been training for quite some time what about getting stronger and maintaining kind of a competing in the same weight class you've never have you thought about you know have you had any issues or have you thought about getting bigger gaining weight um or cutting or cutting down or any of those things no i i just

that's that's the thing like i just come here to lift whatever and i go into the weight class where my body kind of naturally goes it's a little bit lazy but um excuse me that's just the way i've always done it i've always had to eat up to my class um i i started off in the, it used to be the one 98, uh, moved up to the, well, it's now the one Oh fives. It was the two 42s, I think at the time, um, uh, several years back, but it had some good gains, but honestly to gain weight for me, it's so, it's so hard, even still at my advanced age, hard to gain some weight. So what do you walk around?

Weight, weight wise, usually about 229 so you're about right there close to the top of your class exactly have you ever had to have you ever came in heavy for a meet ever or one one time in uh my first nationals 2000 or first um raw nationals 2012 i was two pounds over 45 minutes to go so i jumped in my rental car it was down in clean texas uh rolled the windows up turned the air off drove to my hotel by the time I got to the hotel I was soaking wet did the same thing on the way back and I weighed 220 on the nuts so yeah it was the only time I've ever had to do that so you said that clean Texas the thing that I think is kind of funny with the USAPL is or with

these you know nationals is kind of a lot of the spots that have it like Killeen, Texas, Scranton, Pennsylvania. It just seems like the most random spots on the map. Do you know where they come up with these spots? Well, I think it's where the meat directors basically live. I know it would be cool to have it in Dallas or something like that or Philly.

This year it was Atlanta, I guess, which is fairly big. They have an airport. That's about where it comes down to. This year was Atlanta, I guess, which is fairly big. They have an airport. Yeah, that's about where it comes down to. If they have an airport within 10 minutes. But, yeah, I think it's just kind of where the meat director lives and has the ability to set something up. How many meats do you think you've done?

Do you know how many meats you've competed in? In fact, I've done – I just looked at that today too. 15 USAPL Nationals, 18 IPF meets. And then I can't tell you how many state meets and things like that. Probably another 10. So you've probably done 50 meets. Yeah. Would you say probably hundreds of thousands in prize money you've won so far?

Dozens of dollars. Several fake checks. Where do you keep all your medals? I mean, you've probably got a big pile of medals somewhere. Yeah, they're kind of scattered around the house. Going into our basement, we have a shadow box and some displayed, some on a bookshelf, some in my kids' rooms. So just kind of wherever, you know. You know, with that, when you tell people you've been like a national champion or competed on a world level, a lot of times people would probably assume you've won some like decent prizes and things along the way.

Is there anything that I guess not knowing a ton about the prizes, I would assume it's always very small or not much at all. Is there anything that does really stand out as being like a cool prize or trophy even that that was a little more special than the regular one? You can't go wrong with cash every time. Everyone likes that. Yeah, no, I think the most I've won at a single meet is about $1,000. And, you know, that's been maybe four or five times over 16 years. But you're obviously not doing it for the money, so it is a cool bonus. Yeah, I don't think anybody gets into powerlifting

to get rich. They're not the smartest businessmen I don't think. Just waiting for someone to crack the code on that one. Everyone gets into powerlifting so weird dudes can show up at your house. There it is again.

That's what it's all about. Do you have any you sponsored any do you have any sponsorships or anything like that right now um de novo nutrition and uh sbd um honestly i haven't really been in contact with them recently because i've just kind of been out of the competitive loop so uh i don't know exactly where i stand with that right now have you seen the new belt they make? I have, yeah. That red?

It looks pretty beastly. It does look cool, yeah. What kind of, are those Inzer belts, or what do you wear for belts? I believe those are Titan belts. Oh, Titan, okay. I've had those forever. How about, do you wear SBD knee sleeves then? Yeah, I wear the knee sleeves and uh non-supportive singlet i do think the spd i'm a big fan of how their singlet looks though they do got the style

points i feel like on that one it is nice especially the usa one that just that has that whole patriotic thing in there yeah man it's a classy looking singlet shows the man balls oh yeah that's that reminds me of a question someone asked. I don't know if we're to the – we asked some of our followers for some questions. We'll move them along. Let's pepper them in here. Well, as long as you bring up your man bulge. One guy –

Anything you want to add back there? No comment from the wife on this one. Daniel Young said he just wants to know about the basics you know like what drives you how do you stay motivated do you stuff your singlet well naturally i stuff my singlet that's part of the pre-meet prep um you know um how do i stay motivated yeah yeah um you know that's a good question especially after someone like you know you've accomplished a lot in the sport over a long period of time sure and you'd even touched on earlier you

know injuries and things like that yeah um you know i've been pretty lucky been fairly injury free over my career and um when i did get injured man that was a that was a blow i mean i it was devastating to me what what was kind of the worst injury you've had? Sorry. 2010, I had a slipped disc, L5-S1. Is that lower back? Yep, way low. And it was 5 millimeters.

You know, it might not seem like much, but the pressure it puts on the sciatic nerve, man, just going up the stairs. Does the doctor say you lift too heavy of weights and you need to just quit completely? It depends. just going up the stairs does the doctor say you lift two heavier weights and you need to just quit completely it depends you know i found a great chiropractor who's he's all about getting you back to doing what you want to do um so that helped a lot but that um once i realized that this isn't going to be career ending or anything that was huge motivation for me and um i had well that's when i came back i started um uh training extremely hard I won five nationals in a row uh after that um but to get back to the question uh what keeps me motivated um just a belief in that I can keep getting better and uh stay competitive on the world level even you know um with that belief alone I mean that just keeps me coming back in the gym and banging so yeah um i guess jake heinrich asked a couple questions you know i guess we haven't talked about too too much about what you do but you're a police officer here uh and you've mentioned it

a couple times your schedule can be way different or you know you're you're busy uh so he wonders about your training you know if you have a set training schedule or how long your training sessions are or if it just always depends on what? Yeah. As set as it can be, I work overnights from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. So I sleep from about 8 p.m.

So you're always night shift? Always night shift. Really? Always, yeah. Are we screwing up your sleep schedule here then? No, no. I'm actually on vacation, so this is perfect. Oh, okay.

A pretty sweet vacation. I was going to say, could you think of a better vacation than this, really? Some creepy guys from the internet, once again, back in the garage. So I sleep from about 8 to 3. My kids get off the bus, and I eat, and then from all 430 to, you know, 630 ish, something like that. About four days a week, sometimes five, depending on how I'm feeling or what I missed or whatever. So four or five days a week, you know, hour and a half to two hours at a time.

Yeah. So, so being a cop, that's like the easiest job in the world nowadays. There's nothing to it. I mean, that, that's gotta be, job in the world nowadays, right? There's nothing to it. I mean, that's got to be, you know, you hear all the stuff. It's definitely a tough time to be a cop. How long have you been one, I guess? Just under nine years now. Just under nine years.

Do you feel like the world and the view on cops and all that has changed a lot in that time? A lot, yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, people respected police and things like that time? A lot. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, you know, you know, people respected police and things like that when I first started and a lot of people still do, but now you have the social media and the mainstream media, um, showing a different angle. So it's been a little, a little challenging. Yeah. Yeah. And just recently you guys kind of had some excitement here in St. Cloud. Yeah, we, we did. Unfortunately had a, um, uh, an incident at the mall, you know, a lot of people go there every single day and, um, you know, there's an incident,

pretty unfortunate. A lot of people got hurt and one got killed. So, um, but yeah, it was quite the, uh, spectacle that's for sure. So when something like that happens, is it, I mean, are you like kind of on call almost and getting called in or what what exactly is going on when something like that goes down that's what happened um I was on my time off and um I start we started hearing you know bits about what was going on I'm like oh man I'm you know I better start getting ready and sure enough I got called in um so I went in and um I didn't have to respond to them all I was was on a different type of that or a different part of that whole incident. But, um, yeah, it was, it was insane. I, cause I was, I wasn't prepared for it.

I, I, obviously I was up all day long, um, and then ended up being up for like 31 hours, um, in the end when I finally got to come home. So it was insane. Yeah. What about, um, just in general as far as as far as being in law enforcement and and and with the way you train like how does being strong as shit affect your day-to-day life do you ever have any robbers running away and they see you and they're like oh i'm gonna stop or you just grab a hold of somebody and they go, oh, oh, shit. That, you know, yeah, that's the case.

I think I avoid a lot of fights just because of the perceived size. I think I'm just a regular-sized guy, but a lot of people are like, oh, shit, you know, how much you bench, you know. And so I had one guy. Does that question come up fairly commonly on the job? It does, all the time, because I'm wearing a vest, you know. So it actually looks big. Just makes you even that, yeah, yeah. But they don't ask you how much you dead

left ever they just want to know how much you bench yeah exactly how much you bet this one guy so we got into a little pissing match i'm not gonna lie he's like how much you bench i'm like how much do you bench he's like 185 man so so i of course tell him and he's like, whatever, man. So we went back and forth a little bit, but whatever. You say, it's here on Instagram. Yeah, here. Follow me, man. We've actually talked in the past when you talk about people that maybe used to lift,

a lot of times they'll say numbers that don't make any sense. Like, yeah, I benched like 500, 600 pounds or something like that. Tanner encountered some guys at a very exciting banking meeting. The guy was saying he used to be able to squat 700 pounds and it's like well you would be like a world record holder you know so yeah i've met quite a few world record holders oh is that strong 700 yeah i did 900 yeah i did like 10 10 or 12 more than you did whatever that was and since you are a big guy, people feel like they have to tell you, maybe probably even if you're not asking.

You know, build that rapport, talk some shop. Oh, absolutely, yeah. We have something in common already. But going back to the cop thing, though, do you feel like maybe it is kind of the social media thing and people just blowing things, you know, just rallying behind something and kind of this us versus you mentality? Where do you think a lot of this hostility comes from? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, that's where people get a lot of their news from is social media, and they automatically take that as, you know, the Bible. And that's not the case. You know,

I mean, there's, as you guys know, there's two sides to every story. Law enforcement, at least the people that I work with, are very transparent. But, you know, you go through our due diligence. And we can't, especially with an ongoing investigation, just throw everything out there for everybody to see. Because that's not how you do police work, you know. But people become very impatient nowadays. They want to see everything right now. Otherwise, law enforcement, we're just lying about it. I thought I saw somewhere, are you a member of the SWAT force locally then also?

Or you have been or you are? I am, yep. I've been on the SWAT team for about four years. I'm also a sniper. Is it just because, really? Yeah. What rifle do you use? Oh, it's a.308. Okay? Yeah. What rifle do you use? Oh, it's a.308.

Okay. Yeah, gas rifle, though. So you could maybe, after this powerlifting thing, relive a career in the Olympics with this shooting thing. Yeah. I never thought of that. Yeah. You might have the skills after all.

You're so short. Your real talent is waiting. You have to get some skis and run up a mountain or something. Yeah, shooting and skiing together. Right. You know, you guys got uh what's what's your hill at kimball yeah let's get some time in at kimball and that's right go to kimball start training run hills do you have a specific job on the SWAT team does it is it does it work that way or well we're not a we're not a full-time team okay so we do many jobs like you know one now is um sniper for me um i also am a door breacher um yeah i thought i read that too

and i thought that was in i thought that that was fitting that you got put in as door breacher you just run head-on into it just someday in fact one of our last uh operations we had something kind of like that like the k-Aid man going through the wall. But, no, yeah, you know, there's many roles, mostly in the entry team. So, yeah. How long did you say you've been doing the SWAT thing? Just about four years, yeah. You see some crazy stuff.

Is that super, super exciting? Yeah, it's crazy. crazy i mean talk about adrenaline um i remember my my very first operation i you know how you go like to the black zone they say you get so excited you're worth nothing i like my goggles were dripping with condensation i'm like oh my god i don't even remember the ride there but now you know you just kind of get used to that and and you're able to process everything that's going on and work effectively so yeah it's yeah so do you get i'm assuming that's the same thing as a SWAT type um i don't want to say event but the SWAT situation comes up and they just call you guys in and yep exactly so how often do you guys see action like that in this area?

It goes in streaks. It's been a really down year. We usually assist on high-risk warrants and things like that, so maybe once a month, so not all that often. There's times, though, where in a month we'll get called out. We're at home having dinner to screaming into town. There's times, though, where in a month we'll get called out. We're at home having dinner to screaming into town three or four times, doing a couple warrants, and then you have a dry spell of six months.

That's just the way it goes. How about trying to be in some measure of cardiovascular conditioning to be in law enforcement does that jack up your strength training yeah that's uh they go hand in hand that's for sure uh yeah no i don't obviously do much cardio but in fact i was just at one of our sniper schools and i finished first overall like including cardiovascular. Telling the man the Olympics, they're waiting for you. I couldn't believe it.

I'm like, whoa, maybe powerlifting is cardio. If you do anything over three reps, that counts, right? Pretty much. That's where you get your fives and eights in. Is deadlifting your favorite lift of the three? Yeah. I really like to squat too but i'd say deadlifting is probably probably my favorite okay so one of the questions one of the guys asked was and i don't know if you have an answer for this but they just wondered what what you think about before a big deadlift or do you have anything you use for uh motivation in

the moment or do you have any do you listen to crank music out here oh yeah I mean I you know a lot I like it you know a lot of music like a lot of guys like disturbed acdc for whatever reason just gets me going I don't know highway to hell and jack is kind of a thing right we got to listen to it from there and we've taken it kind of as our own too yeah we picked up on that's kind of a... Right, yeah. Highway to Hell comes on loud. Like, you know, someone's getting serious. So along with the music, it's the whole mindset. You know, usually my first attempt deadlifting a meet,

you're thinking about proper setup, you know, firing patterns, things like that. The second, you know, after you make that easily, then you start to get, I start to get cranked up. I usually i'm really emotional uh lifter especially dead lifting started to think about all the time and you know training and the time away from family that you you know spent and the money that you spent to get here and and you know you make your second and then you get into your third now it's like all the people who said you couldn't, the people that, you know, just discredit you or whatever, along with all the other stuff, the kids, the family, and, you know.

Then I'm usually crying by the time I walk up to the platform before I even left. So, yeah, I mean, that's what works for me. Usually I just start thinking about the money and I start crying. That's another really interesting thing that I think is when you see kind of the lifter psychology where you see guys that are so calm. Like, I mean, they could have came straight out of church. It's like there's no emotion.

They're just, like, chipping away at it like it's a regular job. And then you see the other guys that are, you know, banging their head against a chair, running around and screaming. So you do see that full side. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of people have to figure out is what do they need to do to get themselves ready. You obviously know what that is. Everybody's a little different. You just got to be careful of those quiet guys, though.

You never know. One thing I did notice, too, that you have a very distinct kind of grunting that you do in a lot of your heavy squats. I didn't realize this. I didn't know if there was any secret to this, but maybe you don't even, it's just so instinctual. It's basically what throwing up sounds like with an empty stomach. You know what, I guess I never really realized that i um now that you say it though i i do notice the sound coming out and i think it's just um part of the air escaping is all it is and i don't know if i do it on purpose or if it's just being forced out of me whatever

well it's heavy weights yeah i would understand to be forced out too yeah what about uh i think we talked about this a little bit before we started recording too but programming over all the years have you done what this is a question from one of the guys on instagram too uh have you done always the same program programming i know we talked about rpe a little bit and the jackals program and right or what what works best for you that you found over all the years um well with brad gillingham's in jackal's gym percentage based program um use that for many many years i i have tried some of the rpe stuff and like we talked about before um you know i think i probably cheated myself a little bit where um 315 on a certain day squatting it might feel like a nine you know for five it's like oh crap you know um

so i i really like the percent i always fall back to the percentage based training it might feel like a nine, you know, for five, it's like, Oh crap. You know? Um, so I really liked the percent. I always fall back to the percentage based training. Um, that way, especially when I think of five by fives, like we were talking about before you have the whole week or even, you know, six weeks to think about only crap on October, whatever. Um, I got five and a quarter for five by five and so I got to be ready for that you know so that's how I kind of you know learn to train and that's just what I always fall back on I tend to react and adapt the best to that so what about some of the other stuff that's out there have you ever I hear people talking about small of um or then conjugate i guess would i i don't hear a lot of conjugate and us apl lifting going together you know that there's a lot more

percentage-based training i think in us apl but have you ever done stuff like that or not really um i tried some extremely high frequency um like the smolov stuff oh my gosh i mean if you can do that drug free you know kudos to you yeah it's it was so difficult it's been i can't remember it's been years since i've tried it but um yeah i remember feeling like absolute trash you know afterward so the people the people i see do that basically end up, like you said, if you can do it drug-free, more power to you. But so many people, like, just cannot eat enough to keep that up. We had a couple guys in the gym that did just a little bit of a run with it.

And, you know, one of them, every time I came in, the guy was squatting. He was just always squatting, and he looked – he was like – Hated his life. Just enduring it because he started it and he was going to finish it right but god damn that looked like it hurt yeah every day i remember yeah every single day was a struggle uh especially after like week two it was just like oh you know it was bad so i did not like that with the squat um is there a certain footwear preference you have, whether it's flats or raised heel? Yeah, I saw you had some chucks, and you got the Adidas over there. Yeah.

I really like the flat heel, the chucks. For me, it just seems like I'm a posterior chain squatter. I need to get the glutes and the hams in. And with the elevated heel obviously everything's up on the quads a little bit more um you get depth a little easier but I've got enough mobility in my hips I can hit depth with a flat sole um and I'm just stronger with a flat sole especially in the higher percentages so what's your bar positioning on your back and it's pretty pretty low I mean it's just above the scapula. I feel like I'm pulling it

down and it causes the forward lean, but that's, you know, that's part of how I squat. I'm kind of a good morning squatter. Yeah. Have you, we always like to ask this question. We know people have been in the game a long time when they've had these, the old safe power boots or whatever they call those. Have you ever used those things? I didn't know those were out of of fashion i'm not saying they're out of fashion they're just you don't see them a whole lot they're no they're they're one of those things that they've been out long enough now that they're actually kind of cooler to wear yeah they're like it's been full swing yeah no i that's how i started off um in fact that's in 2001 there's a picture up there i'm wearing oh yeah there they are that's the ones were those for the first probably six, seven years of lifting.

We always like to try and spot those out because when we do, we know it's someone that's either been in the game a long time or knows someone that's been around a while. Holy crap, this dude is old. Looking around the gym, I was also wondering, too, if we stole that old old school poster of uh brad deadlifting the tires would you track us down and take us to jail i would probably find you yeah that's uh that was a pretty good score uh buddy of mine had that and like i need to have

it so he gave it to me i'm like all right yeah that's awesome yeah and looking at that picture too brad has the uh he has the knee sleeves on while he's deadlifting. I've noticed that's typically something you usually have on too, don't you? Excuse me. Yeah, it is. I think it's more out of habit, but it just really keeps my knees warm. Just kind of something that I like to do. I don't know that it helps much, but.

It's not some ancient deadlift secret. No, no. In fact, it probably is bad for the bar drag and things like that. Because we always thought it seems like, you know, it kind of drags on the way up, and I didn't know if there was some other hidden reason to it. And you pull conventional, right? I remember Brad saying when we were there,

maybe you're not allowed to pull sumo in his gym or something. Yeah, I wouldn't do it there. Something like that. I did it for a few years, and they thought I was cheating. Do you ever mix in sumo when you're training at all just to get a different kind of stimulus? A little bit, yep. Usually on a heavy bench day, I'll just do some light sumo stuff, some variation of the deadlift. How about this 20-foot USAPL Raw National banner?

Do they give you that if you scared them into giving you that? Or if you win, you get to take that? Or how's that work? I'm not sure how that ended up here, actually. No, Rob Keller down in Florida. I guess he doesn't like to part with money. I didn't know this, but ended up with his poster. My coach, Gary Gran, was able to get in and ended up here.

So yeah, it's kind of cool. And then looking around the gym, you do have some kind of other odds and ends around here like we talked about earlier you have the world's largest what were you say those 55s 55 pound bumper plates and like tyler was saying those things look like tractor tires like these things have to be they're like a good six inches if not more wide that's you know it makes it look way heavier than it is. Let's tell them they're 200-pound plates or something. You also have, is this a big hip sled back here? Yeah, that's from Mankato.

Mankato State, yep. That's where I got that from. My wife, Penny, likes to use it. I use it for calf raises, and that's about it. I see you've got two things that we've got in our gym that I wonder if you use a lot, the reverse hyper and then the glute ham raise over there. Are those a staple in your programming? Yeah, they're huge.

Just for some other activation with the posterior chain. When I got hurt back in 2010, I actually bought both of those, knowing that I had a posterior or my glute inactivation issue. And that's been my lifesaver along with the uh inversion table that's uh brought me back to health so what is your favorite as far as um accessory work goes like what's your do you have anything in particular that really is your kind of your your go-to that maybe I really like heavy heavy partials um both for squat well bench and deadlift but um for squat especially the last few weeks before meet um and the deadlift especially low low uh rack placement

um throughout the program uh that that kind of i'm able to get a pretty good gauge about how you know how strong i am at the time and do you use those to kind of overload or do you closer to what like a one rep max might be on those um to overload uh yeah I like to to push it in there so on like a partial squat will you start at the top and do the negative first or will you will you squat up I've done both yeah we're all we're all actually walking out um if I'm if I feel like in my training I have some sort of issue coming into the competition, like I need to work on whatever, I'll walk it out, squat, you know, parcel squat it and rack it. Otherwise, I'll just do pin squats. I'll start real low, maybe just above the hole and lock it out. So, yeah.

Have you, after all these years of heavy squatting and everything you ever had any knee issues at all knock on wood uh no i had a little thing i think with a meniscus um nothing serious just a lot of clicking and a little bit of pain with it but um other than that no i i've been really lucky i i try to really stress form um you know when i'm squatting and when I'm teaching it. And that seems to do the trick, keep me healthy. Yeah. We had touched on this a little bit before, but you know, as far as injuries go, have you ever had, you know, run into a doctor or anything like that where they're telling you that, oh yeah, you, you just shouldn't, you shouldn't be lifting heavy. What's, what's wrong with you? It seems like we run into that quite a bit. You know, there's not a lot of big,

heavy, heavy lifters around our area. So anytime someone hurts themselves or just is hurt they tell you well just stop stop lifting weights what are you what are you doing dead lifting what's wrong with you yeah that's you know unfortunately that's the way it is um i i know a lot of people that i you know i'm friends with or have worked with that have run into doctors like that and then i always refer them to my guy um who kind of gets them back uh back to health but uh yeah I've been told when I had my MRI done you know years ago um the doctor the tech said what are you doing you know you're gonna you're not gonna be able to walk by the time you're 40 well it's like no that's not the case. Is chiropractic care now, is that a staple in your training now, like preventative,

or do you use it when you need it, or how do you approach that? Just as needed, yeah. In fact, I was just talking about scheduling an appointment with my guy just because I miss him. See what's been happening. Yeah, just kind of a preventative but just as on an as needed basis yeah are you guys doing like anything like really special or is it kind of like your standard chiropractor like cracking you up a little bit yeah just on your way standard stuff yeah nothing nothing special i know people that they go to massage therapists you know regularly and you

know therapy or recovery is kind of the big thing you hear people talking about with you know active recovery and massage and chiropractor and ice baths and like cryo chambers and there's all this stuff out there now and you know maybe i'm missing out i'm not doing any of that stuff but just looking around the gym and everything you're probably the epitome of you don't need a lot of special shit to get pretty strong like i mean you've got iron weights in your garage and you deadlift 740 pounds and squat 700 pounds, you know, like it doesn't take a whole lot of special stuff. Apparently. Yeah, no, I mean, it doesn't, I, I always tell myself I've got everything in here. I need to become a world champion. I just, the one variable is, is me, you know, that's the one

thing. So. Well, uh, Tanner, I don't know if we'll ever be able to get any better, though, without calibrated plates. Yeah, we like to blame it on, you know, if we aren't strong enough, we'll just buy another piece of equipment. It's definitely an equipment issue. Our mental game is so on point that it's external factors at this point. Definitely. That's why we buy new equipment every month.

Did we have any other questions from anybody we needed to get out there? I don't know if there's any other serious questions. Like most stuff we post, there's a lot of BS on there. Well, let's hear them. Let's see if there was anything else good here. Oh, do you know who Kurt Kowalski is? Oh, yeah. Who would win in a fight?

You or Kurt? This is from Derek Gray in Sioux Falls. And for those of you that don't know, I mean, could you explain Kurt Kowalski? Well, yeah, I guess I've only met him a handful of times. It's been many years. I think I last saw him in probably 03 in Rapid City. But when the man walked in the room, everybody just, like, got in the fetal position and started crying. Like, he's got this look of intensity i've like nothing i've ever seen yeah listening to him talk he sounds like

one of the most intense oh my god ever yeah it's crazy but i don't know him well um but in a fight i mean i'd hate to take that look out on his face but if you had to do it. It's not a challenge, Kirk Kowalski. It's my attempt at humor. No, that was most of it, though. The only other last question is someone wanted to know what the hell you're looking at right here in this picture. I don't know. I'm probably crying because of the money again. Is this at IPF Worlds? That's in Finland, yep.

Okay. Yeah, no. I don't know what I was thinking, but I usually, I'm a pretty humble guy, and I guess looking down, that doesn't surprise me. I'm just thinking, you know, please don't trip on this platform or whatever. That one, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, they had a pretty cool venue, the setup at least, it looked pretty cool with the big backdrop

and everything you guys had. Yeah, it was it had an olympic feel to it it was in a um i don't know if it was a hockey arena or something um but yeah it was very cool stadium seating um big platform it was a nice uh staging area in the back and you kind of walked out of the curtains yeah it was pretty cool what are the crowds like overseas like with i've heard people say you know with strength sports they're respected a lot more overseas and yeah they'll have just more do you have any groupies over there um no yeah that's funny i mean you can walk the streets and like uh wherever you know in finland and people know who you are you walk the streets St. Cloud and they're like, who's this guy? It's that cop that keeps bugging me.

Um, what was your question? I'm sorry. I got off track. Oh, just, just, yeah.

Just like people's admiration for strength overseas. Oh yeah. How people receive it. Oh, the crowds are great. Yeah. Just because it's so much more mainstream over there. Um,

in fact there you know they sell beer at a lot of the the venues and the crowds are great it's gonna turn into a party yeah it's i mean especially if you're in that prime time i think it was 03 in denmark it was like you know eight o'clock at night on a friday there's beer in the venue it's full of people it was live tv um it was something else yeah Yeah, it was very cool. So, yeah, some of the best crowds have been overseas. That's awesome. How about the guy on your poster over there, Blaine Sumner? That guy, he's turned into a pretty big freak himself here.

The weights he's moving lately. Yeah. Do you follow his stuff? I do, yeah. He's insane. I don't know how he can do you follow his stuff i do yeah he's uh insane i don't know how he can you know with the volume that he does and uh the weight that he does is unbelievable with the frequency um he's actually a really nice guy um we spent a lot of time together in australia back in 2012 we ate tons of pizza and drank a lot of milk. He's a really nice guy.

He's just like a big teddy bear, but he turns into a different person on the platform, just unbelievably strong. We always like to talk about his videos. This was actually kind of a discussion probably a week or two ago in the gym is talking about Blaine Sumner because, you know, leading up to nationals, he's been posting just some crazy numbers, like things that don't even hardly seem possible.

And Tanner says, do you know how old he is? And I honestly thought he was like borderline getting close to being a master and then we looked it up i think he's 29 i just assumed to get that strong you had to be around forever no yeah he's uh i don't he's not even 30 yet we we uh did a podcast with jonah leo out of sioux falls i don't know if you're and uh blaine had broken jonah's bench record here recently so jonah said he was coming at coming back after it so it'll be be interesting to see if they can battle back and forth a little bit on that too that's good i mean that's what it's all about is the competitive nature you know that's good yeah another guy that i'm thinking about now is ray

williams has been putting up some insane numbers too i mean mean, that's just, he's, he's a massive man. Have you, have you talked to him before, seen him lift or? We've said maybe two words to each other. He's very, very reserved. Um, and I am too. So when you put the two of us in a room, it's like looking at the, you know, but, um, no, he's incredible. I've seen him lift a handful of times. And, um, the last time I think was, um, in Finland, I saw him and it was incredible. I've seen him lift a handful of times. And the last time I think was in Finland I saw him, and it was incredible. Yeah, because, I mean, that year, that World's team, you guys had some pretty well-known people on the team. Was Lane Norton on the team that year too?

Yeah, he was. So, yeah, then you have Ray Williams. And I guess who else did you have from America? I think Sumner was on that team too, wasn't he? Yeah, probably equipped. Yeah, yeah. To share. how about him does he train what i mean he seems just like he's always training by himself too and he's just freak strong might share yeah oh yeah again yeah he's yeah he insane i don't know i think last year um he was flying to and from italy uh in the process

of moving while he was training for worlds or nationals and he was flying to and from italy uh in the process of moving while he was training for worlds or nationals and he was still still able to make the team and i'm just you know incredible so when the guys rested and uh well trained imagine what he can do yeah it's crazy a lot of freaks out there what do we got guys what else do we got we're we're about good on time here is there anything else we want to make sure we get out before we call it a day um do we got guys what else do we got we're we're about good on time here is there anything else we want to make sure we get out before we call it a day um do we got rapid fire questions i think we had them all yeah that's kind of everything that i wanted to talk i would um i would like to give you a chance do you have um do you have any advice you'd like to give to uh or let's let's what do you got tommy i was gonna say one more thing too you know with uh

with you know kind of the the time you got to put into this and obviously the um expense with traveling and all this stuff have you had a good family support system oh definitely this might be a loaded question with your wife being right behind you no that's okay we tell each other everything no it's yeah the kid my wife and kids very supportive parents they they travel a lot to watch and it's been like that in fact they had t-shirts made one year you know it's all we had a group of like 20 or 30 people it used to be the running joke like oh most of minnesota's here to cheer on brad nick and whoever else you know but yeah no very lucky to have that support it's's very good. They don't ever try to say, you know, you've been in this long enough.

Maybe you just hang it up. Yeah, you go to nationals and you talk to some guys. They're like, oh, my wife again. I had to sneak out of the house. She thinks I'm in Vegas or whatever. Yeah, she just thinks I'm out partying and stuff. No, but, yeah, no, it's been good to have that support for me. Have you ever trained?

Now that we're sitting here, I've thought of a couple of them. Yeah, good deal. This will go for hours. Have you ever trained anyone or had anyone locally that's been like, oh, I'd really like to come lift in your gym with you? Do you get much of that? Yeah, actually quite a bit. And then they tend to back out that's one thing we've noticed already is uh a lot of people just right out of the gate yeah to be the greatest and within a week they'd be like oh wait you mean

this is gonna take me like yeah they realize of work uh yeah they realize how much work it's gonna be and i don't know just not for everybody but But, yeah, I'm approached quite a bit, I guess, and people just want to come out and train, which then they realize the drive that's involved and, you know, the work and whatever, the company. They're like, I don't know, this guy's creepy. He's inviting me to his garage to train? What? Do you work with the high school student center? I do, yeah. just kind of some strength and

conditioning type things yep in the summer uh mostly with their summer summer program um all the athletes there's we have three groups of um high school are we talking here high school yeah age uh well nine through twelve um we got about 100 kids or so a little over 100 kids that um come through and work with them. For me, that's a lot of fun to work with kids that are highly motivated and they want to improve and they listen to you. It was good for the strength coach too because, you know, after a while, somebody tells you something, you know, and the kids don't listen anymore,

so they want something new or whatever. And 100 is not a small group either. No, it's a lot of work to get around and talk to all the kids and, you know, get them going. But it's been a lot of fun for me. It sucks with my hours because I work till 7, drive home, work at the high school 7.30 to 11, and then try to sleep and then train after that.

So the summers are are really busy for me but um no it's it's great working with those kids yeah it's fun you got to see some pretty awesome kind of transformations i mean with with kids i feel like summer break you know when you're a kid you can leave school one year and show up the next year and look like a completely different person but yeah add in a training program and you probably see some pretty awesome results heck yeah like summer you know when they develop those neural pathways just you know working with them and doing the right firing patterns and everything um it's incredible how strong they can get in six seven eight weeks you know you probably get jealous and want to be able to get some of those rapid fire gains like that

those are long gone that's what we always talk about it's like if we would have known half the stuff we know now like for the first couple years we were lifting like it'd be a toy and i you know that's hindsight is always 2020 right that's always a common thing i think just about everyone that train would feel that same way yeah yeah at least wants to kick their 16 year old self's ass um what what what advice do you have for you know younger lifters, kids or people just starting out what's the one piece of advice if you could give somebody starting out just to come in with an open mind

and to realize that it's a long process you can't get strong overnight for the most part, like we just talked about you're going to have those large gains initially for the first few months first year after that you know it's all about the motivation level and how strong do you really want to get so it's a long slow process if you really want to become strong you know just be consistent that's not the advice that people want to hear they want no do you have any like really how

about now how about this now one weird one weird trick to put a hundred pounds on my squat can you give me something like we can really sensationalize here we're trying to get numbers up a little bit you just squatted 495 right so yeah i need on a weird trick to bump it up higher. Arby's. Arby's and Red Bull. The consistency thing is taking just way too long. I'm not in this for the long haul. I need results now.

We would like to sit down with Brad sometime. If you could give him a word and tell him we're not complete creeps sometime, that would help us. Even if you think that you could just take out your phone right now and text him just to make sure we're doing it. I'll do that. No, definitely.

No, it's, uh, I will, I will talk to him. It'd be fun to talk with him too. And I, you know,

he's got some, a few years of stories himself. Brad doesn't respond on Facebook as much as I would. I was actually, you know, it's, it's funny. Uh, we I was actually, you know, it's funny. We were talking about, you know, people we could meet up with. It's like, well, I kind of know who this Nick guy is.

And we've met Brad before. And so I sent Brad a post on Facebook one day. And understandably, he's probably a very busy guy. And like a week's gone by, nothing. Two weeks gone by, nothing. I'm like talking to my girlfriend. I'm like, I'm like crushed. Like Brad just blew me off. She's like, he hasn't even read the post.

It doesn't even say read. She's like, you're okay. Brad, that message is out there. Just look for me. I'll text them and let them know. We didn't talk about that either, though. The legendary Jackals gym. That's a pretty awesome training environment heck yeah um what's it like especially on like heavy days i've heard heavy days there can get pretty intense when people are really dialing it up yeah it's it's crazy i mean you just get you feel like you get stronger there's your there's your uh quick fix go to the gym and train

well and that's what we we were there you know um if you were to i think on their website they have a list of their national champs and people that have even got on to world competitors and world champs. And it's insane how many have came out of this small gym. Yes. And when we went there, it was very obvious. It's the atmosphere without a doubt. We literally got, because we had known there were so many strong guys from there. And before we had gone, we were like, my God, what's going on there?

What are they doing for programming or this and that and we literally walked out and got in our car and we're like oh it's just being there like there's no other i remember having a pr i had in summer's past i was always notorious for kind of turning into a late guy and you know getting a little time away from the gym and um so that's kind of how i had been that summer and we went in there and i had had an all time PR squat day and I had been almost not squatting for over three months. And it doesn't even make any sense that me kind of in an untrained state is hitting PRS. But once you have all guys, guys on all sides of you yelling and you feel like failure is not an option. It's all about the guys there. I mean, I've had some of my best

training down there. And, you know, when Wade gillingham is spotting you from behind and he's yelling at you and then you got a dozen other people and then brad is in the chair like judging it's like i don't have an option here i'm gonna make this you know um no it's just great a great place i was lucky to stumble on those guys many years ago and get hooked up with the jackals yeah is that something you try to plan out or if you know you have maybe a really heavy heavy day you try to hook up with them and yep definitely uh this year i haven't been able to get down there much because it's two and a half hour drive or two hour drive one way and but um you know it's just an excuse i have to make time to get down there and train with those guys so yeah it's great time yeah a lot of freaks there a lot of

freaks for sure all right well nick i can't thank you enough for having us oh thanks for coming guys really really appreciate it i think i hope everybody listening really enjoyed it um i have all the official stuff to wrap up on and again when i travel i don't bring my cheat sheet so here it goes uh make sure you go to massonomics.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page and sign up for our newsletter. There you'll also find our store. You can buy all these cool hats, shirts, swiggity swag, swiggity swag. Nick Tyluke signed autographed pictures. We're gonna forge them though. They're gonna be Tommy DeFay signing Nick Tybucki posters. Also, make sure you like our Facebook page.

Go to Facebook, search for Mastanomics there. We can keep you in the loop on all the other cool stuff we're doing. What else? iTunes. Go to iTunes. Make sure you leave us a five-star rating. Other than that, you can find us all on Instagram. I'm Tyler F. N. Stone. That's Tyler E-F-F-I-N Stone. Tanner? you can find us all on Instagram. I'm Tyler F. and Stone. That's Tyler EFFINstone. Tanner?

At Masonomics on Instagram. Tommy? And you can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. And Nick, how do we find your embarrassingly infrequent Instagram posting? Well, comment spelling at N-T-Y-L-U-T-K-I dot com. No, not dot com. We could get that set up for you. Yeah, I should get that set up. If you're going to post regularly.

We'll also link to Nick's Instagram in the show notes. Excellent. I think that covers everything that I had to have covered. Thanks a lot for listening, everybody, and stay strong. Later. You just heard the Masanomics Podcast. With your ears, you're welcome. Check us out on Facebook, find us on Instagram at Masanamics and make sure you visit Masanamics.com and buy some of that sweet Masanamics gear.

From your friends at Masanamics Studio, home of the world's strongest podcast. Stay strong.