 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Dude, I can't believe that I beat Robert at the lifting contest we did earlier. Right, right after I beat him in armor, so that was amazing. I out-squatted him, like what? Yeah, you know, world's strongest man. Robert Oberst, a professional strong man, our good buddy. A good friend of ours. What a great, he's a very nice, jovial, happy, awesome, massive dude. He's in the inner circle. We let him in the forum just the other day, man. He's part of the inner circle now. He's a badass. He's our tribe. He's gonna be competing in the 2018 world's strongest man competition, which is gonna be held in Manila, in the Philippines. The qualifiers are April 28th through May 1st, and the finals are May 5th through 6th. He's representing the US of A. You gotta see him, man. He's entertaining as hell. Last time I saw him compete, he was in, I don't remember where he was. It might've been in the UK. Yeah. And he came out and all decked out, American flag, and just talking shit and got booed. Like an American badass. Oh, it was so awesome. Well, he's gotta kill our Instagram, so you can go to his Instagram at Robert Oberst. So it's Robert and then Oberst's O-B-E-R-S-T. So he's gotta go to Instagram and go there, check that out. What was his deadlift and bench press again? How much was it at? 600 million. I think it was like 650 was his top bench. His overhead press was close to 500 pounds, I mean. He was telling us the log, he does the log like 400 something. Yeah, pay close attention to the log press when he does that event. Yeah, he's competing in like the world championship for that, right? Yeah. Crazy strong. He's gonna do really well. He's as strong as four dugs. So it's a lot of strength there. Oh, also, isn't this the final day? It is the final day. This is the final day for MAPS HIT Promotional Sale Price. So HIT is High Intensity Interval Training. It's a MAPS program, we programmed it. This is the best fat burning program we have. Six weeks long will blow your mind. If you enter the code HIT with two I's launch, so it's H-I-I-T-L-A-U-N-C-H, you will get $20 off the sale price plus a free t-shirt. And this is the last opportunity to get that promotion. Go to mindpumpmedia.com. And without any further ado, here we are talking to the gentle giant, Robert Oberst. You know what, I just happened right now? What? I handed Robert his coffee. And for a split second our hands touched. He engulfed your hand. Our hands touched a little. And I have, I legit have compared to most people, like decently sized hands. In fact, I've been complimented on the masculinity and size of my hands. Your big hands. But I put my hand next to his. You complimented on that? Oh yeah. I've gotten complimented on my hands many times. I put my hand next to his and I felt like a child. Like little baby hands. Yeah, like little baby hands. So that's not, so I'm never going to hold my hand. I had, I had. We're not going to church together. I had Briana order the only triple XL shirts that we'll probably ever carry. Cause we were like, okay, we don't sell enough triple XL shirts for us to keep them in stock. But I'm like, I know Robert's coming to town. Make sure you order a couple triple X's for him. I'll wear them on my skinny days for sure. I was going to say, is that even big enough? This I'm wearing is a 4x. Yeah, I'll go with that. I was going to tell you, do you think I have big hands? You guys know who Mark Felix is? He's out of England. He's 50 years old. Went to the finals last year in the world. I shook his hand the first time I met him and his fingers wrapped completely around my entire hand. Like touched his other fingers. For a guy to make you feel small, it's got to feel fucking weird. Just his hands. Just his hands, come on. He could never have a career as a proctologist. No, my god. Oh, that's a horrible thought. I mean, some places he'd be popular. Yeah, me. I'm here to check your prostate. Oh, he's a handsome man. That's my line. So what's going on, man? I saw you and Justin hung out last night. Where'd you guys get dinner or something? Yeah, we had intimate dinner. Did the company pay for that dinner? Was that expensive, Justin? Definitely. You guys will get the bill. I'm drinking Patron. Oh, man. Strippers. $400 pounds. Five course meal, you know. I was inviting people over. We were getting, we were raging. Don't worry, we got this. We bought everybody shots at the bar. It's the first time we ever had a meeting when we had a guest and we're like, all right, can we maybe just pay half the dinner because this guy eats a lot. I was actually a little worried, but yeah, he was pretty conservative with his orders. Really? He was expecting. He was being nice. I'll have a whole menu, you know what I mean? I'm not as crazy as most people expect. I eat frequently with not large meals. How many times a day do you eat? Six to seven. Really? Do you get like more strict as you get closer to comp or do you stay pretty consistent through prep? It's actually the opposite. See, if I was a static competitor, then I would get more strict, obviously. And you've done that, I'm sure you know. So for me, it's the opposite. The closer I get to a show, the more I'm like, yeah, I can have a little bit more. I can do this because it's strength-based. So when I feel like I want more food, I just take it in. I try and stay as strict as possible until, it depends, about two months out. Two months out, then I start to let it go a little bit because I still, my goal this year is to kill these two shows that I'm about to do. I'm sure we'll talk about them, kill these shows and be jacked enough still that I could take my shirt off on the podium. That's my fucking goal. As stupid as that sounds, I know. That's actually a very cool strongman goal, bro. Because of the, I think, because most people, when they think of a strongman, they think this big, fat, massive dude. And so to be able to shake your shirt off and look jacked and still aesthetic, I think it's pretty fucking sick. Well, what's his name? Well, who was that guy? Was it Puginowski? Puginowski, yeah. That guy was, yeah, six-pack. He was 280, 280, and he was shredded. The thing is, though, is we've developed so much. Like, we've all grown and we've gotten stronger as people, we just tend to do that with everything. So in my sport, the weights have gone up so much. Have they really since then? Oh my God, yeah. So what it was... His maxes are like kind of a joke to us now. Are you serious? Not being disrespectful, it's just... It's just accelerated. It's just, we've grown, we've matured, we've gotten stronger and faster. I think the world record, I don't even want to say numbers. I'll be way off. I love every time we talk to you, like, all the stuff in the school is so vague. Something like that. I lift it somewhere around there. Yeah. Something. I'll say one of the things they did was they pulled Max Deadlift one year and their Max Deadlift, and I don't remember the number, but is less than 400 kilos, which is what we repped out in England for, I think the winner got like eight reps. Wow. So I mean, we've grown. We've definitely grown. And it's no insult to them, that's just how people are. That's how all you've got. Football players are faster, basketball players are better. We've got smarter with the type of athlete that belongs in that sport, the way they eat leading up to it, the way they train leading up to it. I mean, we just know so much. Well, there's a couple of things too. With sports, you have, there's a, of course, a component of how hard you work. There's training technology. There's food and all that stuff. But then there's also a genetic component, which is massive, and when a sport is growing, as it gets bigger, the pool of people that you can pull from becomes larger and larger. And when you have more people competing or interested, you now have more potentially genetically gifted individuals. This is why, I mean, if you took Mr. Olympia from, I mean, even if you took the drugs out, you know, you took Mr. Olympia from 1970, even if they took the same amount of drugs, I don't think they'd be able to stand on a, you know, Mr. California stage even. There's just the genetics have just gotten so great. And so you're saying that's happening in Strongman too. Are you guys just bigger too, just bigger people? I'd say the average size is bigger, definitely. It's, the gap between that isn't as huge as you would think. I mean, you go back into, let's just say the 90s, and those guys, they were decent size. I'm sure they were averaging about 350, 360. And average right now is about four. So, you know, I mean, 410. So it's a big difference. Yeah, I mean, percentage-wise, that's a big difference. Yeah, it's just, I think, like you're saying, the genetics and more people being interested has really attracted bigger guys than more people, it's almost to where now, like, if you want to be a professional in this sport, you actually have to be dedicated at an early age. It's not like, you can just find out what it is, jump in and then try and figure it out. Like I power lifted for years now, I'm just gonna throw in some shame, man. Well, it reminds me of when we talked to Matt Vincent, right, who did the Highland games. And he says, like, you know, the sport, even though it's been around forever, there's just wasn't that popular. So a guy like him who's a really good shop putter could walk right in and kick ass to Highland games or it's like, strong man, man, it's not like that anymore. It's been popular for quite some time now. He's also being very humble, Matt is an athlete. If there's ever an athlete, Matt's one. For sure. That's what I liked about him, though. He is a fucking humble ass, too. Even the way he talked about his fucking records and shit, he's just like, yeah, he's like, it's not even a real sport. Yeah, he's like, I'll just miss it a little bit. Do the countries like Iceland, do they still dominate in Strongman like they did back? When I was a kid, I used to watch, I remember seeing these guys from Iceland and it was like they were all like the best. Is it like that still? Do those countries still dominate or is it changing now? Iceland is huge with it. It's crazy when you think about the population of that island and how many people come out. Are they just all Vikings or what? I don't know what the fuck's going on. People come out of Iceland, they're shredded. I mean, look at CrossFit. Look at how many people came out of there and killed CrossFit. Oh, that's a good point. It's crazy and it's such a small population. They're just, depending on who you talk to, like I've talked to a couple of guys who train out there. I was talking to, it wasn't Thor. It was, I can't remember his training partner. Smoother Zeus. Some kind of God, man. And he was saying how like they still believe in breeding specifically for size and strength out there. Like that's an actual goal for them. Like men and women don't want to find someone with money. She's got real good birthing genes. Exactly, exactly. That shit matters. I was just sharing with the boys the other day that I just watched this Bryant Gumbel special and they did it on these three boys, the St. Brown kids. And there's three athletes. All three of them are wide receivers. But the dad talks to the story, like he actually sought after this like German woman, athletic woman that had this build and frame. And he was a athlete his life growing up and was really good. And so he's like, he totally bred intentionally hoping to have these kids. And they're super athletes. They really are. And he's trained them since they were kids. You start, you breed for those purposes and then you also add in training. I mean, you've got a serious advantage on the average person. And the rest of us are just waiting to win the Lotto on genetics, right? Well, I'm reading right here that the average height for a man in Iceland is 180.6 centimeters. I don't know how many feet that is. I think that's... Let's figure that out. It's like six, four? Yeah, let's figure that out. Let me see what that. No, that's five foot 11. What? That's the average. It's still higher than us. Well, here it's, I think, five, 10 or five, nine. I know in Denmark, I think it's six, one or six, two. Wow. But I'm wondering if it's because you have, you probably have a lot of like smaller people and then you have just disproportionate. Yeah, just massive individuals. But the other thing too is doesn't Iceland have like a long history of competing in these sports? Yeah, a lot of the sport actually was invented out there. The stones and stuff like that. They don't have like a dominant, they're not established right now as they have been. I mean, they have one person who's really good and who knows what he's gonna do with the sport. He's very popular, but really right now, it's mostly Americans and then there's several guys from England. It's always one of the things I tell guys who wanna go pro in America. If you lived anywhere else, it'd be so much easier to go pro and to compete, I mean, I could right now, I could be in South Africa, I could be in Australia, I could be in anywhere, not train and still be the strongest man in that country. Oh wow. It's just, in America, a lot of guys grow up, they play football, they're athletic and they're big and we have so many more athletic men to pick from. So it's- And there's more opportunity to have the time and the money and the resources to train because in a lot of countries, like you may not have the opportunity just because it's like, fuck, I don't got the time, I don't have a gym, I don't have the money to be able to do this. And in America, you have the opportunity to make more money being sponsored doing different sports. For example, like you're sponsored, are you still sponsored by your company? Actually, no, I recently just part of ways with Supplement Company. So you're a free agent right now. Oh, you're single and on the market, ladies, you guys hear that? It's on the market. You're a hot commodity, I'll be honest. Yeah, I don't even know what's that single app that everyone uses, Tender. Tender? There we go. I'm swiping, he does use Grinder. So what happened? You just parted ways and now you're doing your own? Yeah, they were going through some changes and I was growing myself. So contract came up at the beginning of January and we talked about it and we just felt it was time for us to move on. I was with them for five years. I've got nothing bad to say about them, man. It was a lot of fun. They treated me well. So now I'm just looking to grow and find something that fits me a little bit better and something I can kind of grow into and be a part of and feel more like at home. I wanna feel like I'm actually invested in the company and part of a family. What are you looking for in a sponsor? What are important things for you? I have to believe in the product. I mean, you can't, there's so much... Crap? Yeah, there's so much crap out there and with today, people, there's so much transparency and there's so much connectiveness. Is that the word I wanna say? Yeah. Connectiveness. You can make up whatever you wanna do all the time in the show. That sounds like an atom word. Connectivity. Yeah. It's like electronical. Electronical. I think that is the word, electronical. See, it's not a word. It's not a word. It's from the future also. Oh, man. Adam says words that aren't words yet but are gonna be words. They're gonna be, yeah. It's working its way into Wikipedia. There you go. Yeah. So you gotta believe in the product first off and then you gotta feel good around the people. I want someone who's gonna believe in me and someone who's gonna actually, like... It's kind of cheesy, but I saw this thing Will Smith put up the other day and it really, really hit me because I've been thinking about it a lot lately with this. The flame feature flame. Exactly. Find people who feed your flame. And then as cheesy as that may sound, I mean, it's coming from some billionaire who has a private jetway in his own parking lot. Like it's, I understand why some people might not take it for what it is, but it's true. There's wisdom in those words. You need to be around people who feed your flame, who make you feel like you can be successful in your chosen, your goals, you know? I think that was one of the biggest transitions that I went from being a young adult to a grown ass man was real life. I just did a post yesterday about, you know, surrounding yourself around real people versus just more people. And I think as a young kid, especially one kid that grew, you know, the high school popularity thing and chasing after more friends and being that way versus ones that add a lot of value to your life. And I remember, you know, very vividly having a circle of buddies that were very close to me and we grew up in sports together. We were very competitive. And that pushed us through our early years in school of this competitiveness. But then as I got older and we all kind of went our different directions, that same competitiveness actually ended up hurting all of us because then you started to see this like, almost I wanted you to be successful, but I didn't want you to be more successful than me. And that's not the type of people that you want to surround yourself with is people that are competitive with you like that. That's not a good, healthy relationship. That's not feeding your flame. You want somebody who's always encouraging and excited and happy for your success. And it's actually harder to find than you think. It's very hard. It is, it is. Everyone kind of feels like there's only so much piece of the pie out there. So much piece, geez, my English is amazing. There's only so much pie out there and if you're getting a big piece, then it's taking away from me and that's not how it works, man. This is really not how it works. It actually is the opposite of how it works. The reality is that the more things grow rather than you taking from, unless you're stealing directly from someone, opportunity grows. I'll give you an example. We're in the podcasting world and there's a lot of people entering into the podcasting world. Now for us, that's a great thing because it brings more eyes to podcasts. It brings more listeners, more opportunities to hear our show as well. And so it's just a good thing. Now I could look at it the opposite. I could look at it like with the scarcity complex. Like it's competition. Yeah, like, oh shit, they're gonna take people from us. But that is number one for me personally. It's my own personal opinion. If that's how you think you're a pussy, it's just gonna be, I'm gonna be straight up about that. Like for me, if someone comes into my space and they're doing a good job, I either, A, need to bring up my game or B, learn from this new person or C, just be a coward and a pussy and try to do things kind of underhanded, which that's not part of kind of who I am. It doesn't feel good to do that. So it's just, the reason why I think humans are such social creatures is because we elevate each other. It's important for our survival. And it's also important to note, to be able to pay attention to when that relationship that you have is no longer benefiting your life. It's not benefiting thing. I don't mean by taking things from people because that's not benefiting your spirit either. That's just making you a taker, you know. But I mean just in general, like people who will challenge you, people who will support you, like I wanna tell people good news. I want people around me who I know will be happy with my good news and who will be helpful during the bad news. Not the other way around. I don't wanna tell bad news to someone and then see them smile a little bit because now they feel better about themselves because Sal failed, therefore, that means everybody else can fail too or whatever. You know, it's kind of bad. Did you feel, was there a certain time in your life, Robert, where you that started to become more important to you or is that something you're going through right now? How do you feel about that? It's something I constantly have to re-firm. I constantly have to remind myself, what I need to be, where my, not, I'm blanking right now, but my standards, where my standards need to lay when I'm around people and stuff. There's so many people who wanna be around athletes, so many people, I mean, you've got a couple of followers on the internet so you gotta be cool, right? So it's like, there's so- A lot of superficial shit, right? Super, super, super superficial. It's something you gotta watch out for and you gotta just constantly remind yourself that just because this person is saying nice things to you or this person might, in the moment when someone asks you, like, oh, let me get a picture or whatever, like that can feel good, but that doesn't mean that that person deserves to be attached to you. It doesn't mean that that person should be around you. Most of the time, those people really aren't quality people in the first place. It's just, in my experience, most of the time when somebody wants to cling on to you, it's because they're trying to suck something out of you. Right, right. Most of the time. I remember the first time that, and I don't remember when or where I read it, but I remember the first time that this really hit home for me, too, was when I read that you're an average of the five people that you spend the most time with and that was like a big thing that hit home with me when I started to look at like, okay, who do I really spend the most amount of time with? Maybe if you're in a relationship, you're probably your partners and hopefully that person's somebody who elevates you and feeds your flame. But then when I started to look at all my other, the tight circle that I had, there always seemed to be one or two in there that weren't really feeding that flame. And it's a very hard transition for people to get rid of that. And it's a hard conversation. I just did an interview with Mike Matthews and this question came up and he was asking me, what were those conversations like for you, Adam? And I'm like, you know, I'm not gonna lie, the first few were really fucking hard. I remember even getting drunk before to try and have this like breakup conversation with another man. It's just a weird fucking conversation. Hey, Robert, I know you and I go all the way back in high school, 15 years hanging out together. We had a great run, man. Yeah, we're gonna have to go separate ways, man. Like that's just a- It's like a Seinfeld episode, really. Right, right, no, totally. You could just ghost him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's how a lot of people handle it. I think I even tried that at the beginning and that's just, it's not as healthy as being okay. And you're not really healthy. And if you truly love them as a friend or love the time you have, you wanna be honest because you think, because I have seen this. I've had the conversation, broke different ways from friends and they've continued on their path and continue mine and we don't aren't hanging out anymore but still respect each other because of how it went and we broke up, however you wanna look at. But then I've had some friends where I've had that conversation and it literally impacted them and changed them. Like they had never really reflected and the fact that they lost a friendship that they had for a really long time actually forced them into actual reflecting on what am I doing as a friend that I lost a buddy of mine that I've been with for 10 to 15 years? Well, there's another side to this too and identified this. So I had similar stories to yours Adam but I had a little bit of a different understanding for me personally in, I had some friends in high school that I started to kind of separate from and I started to realize that because I asked myself like, well, why am I around this person if this is the case? And I started to realize that I started to derive my own self worth by how much I could help them. So in other words, I kept them around because it made me feel important because I could help them a lot. And oh, because I'm helping them now I'm important. And I realized that that was a very self-serving kind of defeatist type of thing and it wasn't benefiting anybody. And it was almost selfish. It was almost like I was feeding my own ego. Stifling for both. Stifling, like I'm gonna hang around on these people because it makes me feel smart and important because I can help them out. And that was a tough one. That was a tough one because I put it back on myself. It wasn't necessarily about the other person. It was about me just trying to make myself feel better because here I am, you know, trying to fix this person or whatever. That was a really difficult one. Now, Robert, I'm sure that you have a million goals surrounding your sport and stuff. But what about outside of that? Like, do you get a chance? Do you give yourself enough opportunity to kind of think about like, what are my life goals and some of the things I think about? Oh, definitely. I think about that. See, I'm one of the few guys that I know the level that I'm at that actually thinks about that more often than the sport in itself. It took me a long time to realize that my value wasn't based on how good I was at competing. I grew up, I was on my own really early in life. I was about 16 and I was taking care of myself and everything kind of kind of revolved around competition. I played football and football fed me and it took care of me. It got me into college. It did everything. So it was all I had. And then when you go straight from football into a strong man, you become a professional and you're traveling around the world. You kind of base your value around that. Your identity. Exactly. That's the only thing I knew. That's the idea of getting a job scared the fuck out of me. Like, have a job. What are you talking about? I don't know how to work. I play sports. So... That's tough. And then to not identify with it, right? Because then it becomes you if you would allow to do that. Well, at some point, even if you stay healthy, you don't get injured. I mean, cause the reality is you do compete in a dangerous sport. You're lifting weights that are... I know you're a big, strong guy, but these are weights that if you move the wrong way, I mean, you can have not just a pulled muscle, but an injury that can take away your career, like an incident. Well, there's guys who don't walk anymore. It's a serious sport. I mean, everything is. Right, so that could happen. Boom, now you gotta figure something out. Or even if you're super healthy, at some point you get older and you can't do it anymore. Exactly. You know what I mean? You're not gonna be able to do it forever. So, I mean, what does that look like for you? For me, it took getting... I got hurt. I tore my bicep in Africa. And I came into the show feeling the best I'd ever felt. I was shredded, felt great. I was super excited. I was just really ready to go. First event, I'm carrying these big barrels through sand, loading them up, and bicep just pops, gone. And I broke down. I couldn't fucking believe it. I prepared perfectly. I did everything. How could my bicep give up on me when I worked so hard? And I remember I went and was seated down by the river, watching all the leaves float away. And I was watching my career float away in this river. Oh, shit. My boy was a year old at the time, and I was just trying to figure out how the fuck am I gonna pay for my son? I've got responsibilities now. I'm not 17 anymore. In that moment, I was like, you know what, I need to be better. I need to be better than the sport. I need to be more important than athletics, more important than strength, more important than all this. I have to be better than that. So I turned around, and it wasn't even that moment. What happened? Super cheesy story. I turn around and I'm walking back to the bus. We're all leaving. And there's all these little kids, these little African kids in there fucking starving to death. Like they've got the distended stomachs and they're obviously having a hard time. But they surrounded me and they all had these big smiles on their face, just looking at this giant man. And in my head, I was like, dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? Look at how happy they are just in this moment right now. And you have all these great things, you're gonna go back to America and you're gonna actually have choices and be who you wanna be. These kids are finding joy out of nothing. And you're feeling sorry for yourself. And I dropped my bag. So, sorry. I dropped my bag and I dropped down to my knees and I just stayed there for like 45 minutes. I took photos with all these kids and I didn't even wanna go. They were like honking the bus horn, trying to get me to leave. Now I just wanna stay there forever. What a powerful moment. Wow, what a powerful moment for that. I have a photo too for it and it always reminds me of that. Oh, that's dope. That's great. Those moments are the ones that are, we talk all the time about paradigm-shattering moments, but it's those moments that change you in an instant where you're not the same anymore after that. And many times, or usually it's always, it's the most challenging times. If you just kind of enter them with an open mind, open heart. It also speaks to your character, man. What a great man you are that in that situation, because let's be honest. That could have just blown up your ego. You're just like, fuck it, I'm just gonna train harder. Right, or been angry. Fuck, I wouldn't wanna hang around some kids right after. I mean, I just trained my ass off for months leading up to this competition. Like you said, did everything right? Something goes wrong. Shit that sometimes we just can't control. And that's a hard moment to actually self-reflect and go, there's more to life or look deeper into it. So what a powerful moment to have that shift and it's also a testament to your character that you even have that ability to do that in a moment like that. How long ago was that? That was three years ago. Okay, that was three years ago. So after that, were there some things that you started to put into place to kind of set yourself up? Yeah, I started working more towards education and teaching other people and working towards that. I do a lot more coaching and just trying to help people. Yeah, exactly. And most of the time I like working with young athletic kids and stuff. There's just so much misinformation and I got it as well growing up where it's, you know, beat yourself against the iron and sooner or later you'll be strong and you need to max deadlift all this and like there's so much bullshit, man. There's no other word for it. There's just so much bullshit out there and it's just nice to be able to like work with a kid who's trying and you see them get that little bit of confidence, especially like big kids. I was a big kid in high school and I had no confidence until football. Football was the first thing that made me feel like it was okay to be big. And I love working with these kids that you see like they're just, they're down on themselves. They don't really know what to do. They're, you know, gangly or big or weird or whatever. They don't feel like- Normal. Exactly, normal. That's a perfect word for it. They don't feel like that. Then you get them to where they're sweating and they maybe suck at everything and then they find something where they're just even a little bit better than shitty at and then boom, their eyes light up. And it's like, wow, like I can actually be good at this. I can do something. I love that, man. My favorite job I ever had and I've not had many. My favorite job I've ever had was coaching high school football. It was the greatest thing I've ever done. Yeah, I get toys at you doing that for sure. Isn't it crazy how the things that made us insecure or we got bullied over or we hated about ourselves in high school are many times the things that made us excel later on in life, right? Or what make us special. It's like the pressure factor. Think about it. Think all the way from the nerd, right? The super nerd in school who gets picked on all the time because he's a fucking nerd. Now he owns that board. Right. All those fucking kids end up working for that mother fucker now, right? At one point or the ugly ducking kid that just was not good looking through high school because he was going through all these gross parts. Develop an amazing charismatic personality. Right, exactly. It ends up being a super charismatic person because of that, right? And they end up being this this amazing human. It's so funny to me that or in your case just being this probably in high school you were ashamed of your size and probably felt insecure about where it's now what part of what you're famous for. It's crazy that I always try and tell kids when they reach out and they're talking about all the stuff that they're depressed or they're insecure about. It's like, man, if you just understood that the things that you're so scared or sad about or insecure you don't like about yourself are probably some of the things that are gonna make you so special and unique later in life. Dude, there was this kid I went to school with who we were at some party. It must have been either junior high or early high school like freshman year. And we were at a house and they had a classic piano there, the parents of the owners of the house or whatever. And this kid, he was kind of awkward, kind of a nerd sits down and starts playing the piano beautifully and everybody made fun of him because when you're an eighth grade or ninth grade that's kind of dorky. That kid in college could have picked any girl at that party. Bro, exactly. That's what I'm saying. For sure. As a 25 year old or 30 year old man you play the piano anywhere and you just have all of a sudden yeah, you're just the man. It's so funny. You just wanna fit in so bad when you're growing up. Nobody to get older. Fitting in is just boring. Fitting in is like a bird. How big were you in high school? I graduated high school at 375 pounds. Holy shit, man. Holy shit. I think that's the size of the two biggest kids that graduated in my school combined. Yeah. I think the two biggest kids at my school, I think, we had some big motherfuckers. Did you say like so at an aptos you had like some of the biggest linemen in the school? We averaged 330 across the line. What the hell was in the water? I'm so glad I graduated before you guys. We were huge that year. You're quarterback. But I loved you guys. Yeah, no shit. I still talk to him the best. He's one of the only guys in high school that I still talk to. Yeah, right? I would have been feeding you guys all the time, taking great care of you because I bet he didn't get touched in high school. We were all poor, so but he was nice. Were you guys good or what? We were really good. The only people that beat us was SOV. Seven to six, man. Seven to six was a brutal game. It was a powerhouse. We're the best. They had two of those guys end up playing professional. Right now, Andy LaVitre, who's healing up from a tricep injury, Go Falcons. Go Falcons, man. What's the age gap between us? What are we, how close were you guys going to, how? I graduated in 03. 03, I was 98, so. Oh yeah, you're a baby. I'm a baby. Tell that to my fucking ears. Well, I'm not squatting a million pounds either. Well, actually, speaking of that, I've actually started feeling so much better in the last year I've adapted my training. I went back to a lot of the same stuff I would do in football, like ladder drills, tight, tight, close stance. I say tight stance, whatever. Tight stance, high rep squats for your hips, and stuff like that. I'm telling you, I feel so good. I'm coming into World Strongest Man this year. I'm lighter. I'm a skinny 365 right now. I'm lighter than I was in high school. Come on. How many of you guys are lighter than you were in high school? Oh, that's a lot. See, exactly. Come on, that's good. And doing a lot of speed footwork, I just don't see that with Strongman. It's definitely working out well. Well, this was part of what we were all originally drawing. We later on found out what a great guy you were. But originally, we were drawn to your training and your philosophy for Strongman that we really felt that you were a much more forward thinker in comparison to the average Strongman. And so that was originally what drew us to you was this guy really is getting it and understands that it's not just about hammering the bar all the time. I learned that the hard way, too. I came in and the people who were teaching me were all about, you know, don't warm up. Warming up is for pussies. That was something they would say. Dude, why would you waste your energy warming up? My coach in college said, dear, don't stretch. Yeah. Was that even me? Exactly. Exactly. Did you ever see a lion stretch before? It catches the hyenas. The lions don't catch hyenas, asshole. I was like, they're prey. Exactly. Why am I going to compare myself to them? Exactly. Those are those funny old say that we should make like a series of stuff that your old coach has said to you that you should. I love it. I love it when people. They wouldn't let you drink water. Yeah. Stupid shit. Waters for pussies. What are you talking about? Oh, you gotta hold. You see people die without water all the time. Don't drink too much water because you'll get a side stink cramp. Like, no, that's for dehydration. Actually, it's limiting my performance. Shut up, pussies. It's funny that we, you know, you can definitely learn stuff from animals, but I hate it when people try to make it like a direct comparison. Like, I had a vegan once. I was debating a vegan about food intake and I was telling them how, you know, you could definitely eat a vegan, well-planned vegan diet and get stronger than that. But for most people, they might need to eat, you know, meat in order to maximize the performance. It's at least with the literature shows. Did he pull out the gorilla on you? Yeah, I did that. He did. They always go gorilla. Gorillas only eat bananas and fuck me. I'm not a gorilla, dude. I don't have gorilla genes. If I had gorilla genes, that'd be cool. And who's to say if we put the fucking gorilla on the ketogenic diet, he wouldn't do better. Exactly. Exactly. That's a good point. Hold on to that one. Yeah, exactly. Yikes. Well, so when you were in high school, when you were a big kid and you said you felt insecure, did you get, did people try to mess with you? Because I know a lot of times people think that if you're big, nobody messes with you. But my experience is the big guys get fucked with the most because people want to test themselves. A lot of times, yeah. Especially at that age group, you know, it was about sophomore year when that all stopped. I was too big of myself. You were too big. It wasn't the too big thing. I'm fucking with you around sixth and seventh grade when you got like 30 pounds on me, but you got like 150. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm trying to outrun you. When you're big and you smile, like I'm always smiling. I'm very happy. I'd like to carry myself that way. I don't feel like I need to be this quintessential man. Like I don't have to be this fucking asshole to prove that I'm a man. I don't feel I have to do that. So in that, in that. Were you that way in sophomore year even? Yeah, dude, I mean, I also, like my mom was amazing. So growing up, I'd always had like a ton of confidence even though I was just, I was, I was super, super chubby, but I had a ton of confidence. Like my mom was always like, you could be anything. You could do whatever you want. So like I'd go to school like floating, you know? My arms barely fit out of my backpack. I just picture you like, you look so cute. You look so cute. I remember the kid for Christmas. That guy Little Code. Yeah. Christmas story. You were fucking. Exactly. All the time. You were adorable. That's why you give me piggyback rides. You know what I mean? Yeah. But it was sophomore year I got really good at football. And I just, I mean, I'd never really changed my personality, but all of a sudden people stopped fucking with me. Cause I mean, I was in the paper every week and like doing all these different interviews, going out to Stanford for the Nike football camp, stuff like that. And all of a sudden it just wasn't cool to fuck with me. Right. And sports rules in high school. That's it. I mean, if you're one of the top athletes, I mean. Does anybody ever try to fuck with you now? I mean. No. They used to, I'm sorry to cut you off. When I was, when I was bouncing the first, I started bouncing at 16 and I bounced a lot. I did a lot of 16. A bouncer? A lot of heads bouncing. At the catalyst, man. Bouncing at the catalyst. That is hilarious. And that was when I got in the most fights. Between like 16 and 20. I would feel, dude, I don't know, man. If I got drunk and out of control and I'm 22 years old and I got fucked up by some 16 year olds, cause I got mouthy, I would just, I would just want to curl up in a whole not a normal size 16 year old. But nobody knew I was 16 too, like obviously. I was standing in line to go to some like fucking, I don't know, some Jal rule concert or something like that. You're not allowed to wear sports stuff. Like I had like a sports team on my shirt. I can't remember what. And he was the guy in line told me to turn it inside out. So I took my shirt off, flipped it inside out. And while I was doing that, he was like, do you want a job? Yeah, yeah, I want a fucking job. So boom, started working. And at first, a lot of people used to test, a lot of people used to test me, but then. Was it always the Hell's Angels? I remember you telling me the story about that. I don't want to talk about that a lot on the air, man. Oh man, yeah, we don't want to bring the heat on. Well, we had some rough nights with Hell's Angels there. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, I've always had a, as weird as the sounds, they've always been extremely respectful. They've, I mean, even after that one night, like they came back in and talked to us and everything. And so I've got nothing, nothing bad to say. Please don't come stab me. No, no, no, nobody murdered me. I'm in that. Now those Mongols, those are the ones. Yeah, those are the ones. Now you're going to get fucking stabbed. Whoa. Just kidding, it's the only other name I knew. So looking forward now at these competitions, are you one of the favorites? Who are the people that they're looking at to, like who are the ones that everybody's like, okay, these are the guys that are probably going to be in the top three or top five? On the log press championships coming up, I'm definitely one of the favorites. There's a big rivalry between Eddie Hall and I, and Eddie Hall is the English competitor, and I'm the American representing. You're going to show them why we won the revolution? Yeah, exactly. Fuck tea. We drink coffee. You and your horrible teeth. So him and I are definitely, everyone understands that we're the ones to watch. There's a couple other guys who are going to come out and bang. I think it'll be him and I at the top. I love watching you and him talk shit to each other. Yeah, it's so funny. It's so fucking awesome. He gets to say way more shit than I do. That's the fucked up thing. Like if I lived in England, I could say contact. I could say all kinds of fucked up shit. He said that I was going to fuck the queen in her ass, and I was like, man, I can't say that shit. I can't go that far. Like I got to censor myself and make sure it's all cool. Did he really? He did. Oh, that's amazing. He said, he's hilarious. He's a fucking tool bag, but he's hilarious. I said I was going to beat him or something like that. Something along the line. Yo, I'm going to win. And he's like, fuck you and your asshole. Exactly. He was like, you've got a better chance of fucking the queen, raw dogging the queen in her ass. And he said, arse, obviously arse. Oh, wow. I was like, man, I wish I had the liberties you guys have. God damn it. Are you guys cool with each other when you meet, or is it like animosity? No, it's definitely not cool anymore. Yeah. We built it up, and then it just kind of took off on its own momentum. Now, do you guys tend to go back and forth on certain lifts? So like, is there things that he's better than you are? He's a better deadlifter for sure. OK. I've got no problem admitting that. He's the best deadlifter in the world, but that's the only thing he's got. Then you kick his ass on everything else. Everything else. He's four feet tall and five feet wide. He's not really good at moving. So, and he has a heart attack just looking at how far he's got to walk. So I smoke him in any moving stuff. Him and I are close on overhead, but I'm going to take him. I've competed head to head with him three times, and I've won all three. Oh, that's got to get him. That's got to get him. It doesn't, though. It doesn't. At least he doesn't act like he doesn't. I would hashtag scoreboard every time. I would. Hashtag scoreboard. What sucks is everybody, like, he's got so many crazy rabbit fans that like, none of that, nothing that I say actually feels like it's hitting him. Like, I need to just like go hang out in England and like get a picture sitting down at a table with his mom or something like that. Like, I'll be nice. I'll be like, Mrs. Hall, let's just have a photo. And then I'll like two-park him. Time to be a player, but I fucked your wife. I should totally do that. Do his fans fuck with you? Oh, yeah, for sure. I get death threats regularly. No way. They're fucking English though, so it's not scary. Oh, I loved your troll post that you did the other day. That's, I was going to steal it. Dude, I thought that was epic, man. I don't know where you got that one. I stole it from somebody. Yeah, I know. That was an epic one for sure. So what is the record that you guys are chasing in the log press? Right now, the log press, it's, I can't remember the kilos. It's in 502.6 pounds. Holy. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Explain the log press real quick. You got to lift the log off the ground. You just like roll it up your body, right? Right. So you can rack it on your chest. It's almost, it's like a constant contact power clean. Yeah. Like, it's an okay way to explain it. It's, I mean, people who don't know, it's a 12-inch cylinder steel log replica. Sometimes we have wooden ones, but it's from the ground to the lap is one of the motions. And I separate them in training. It's something that I learned in other sports is the more you break down lifts, you can separate it into separate movements and then put it all together, the better you are. Thank you, football, for teaching me that. Yeah. So I'm like burping all over the second place. Does it have a neutral grip? Like it's wider kind of a grip, right? Depending on how big the log is, is how wide they are. Normally, they're about 24 inches, I believe. I try not to think about that, because once you get into that, then you get in the show and you're like, oh my God, they're 23 and a half inches. You just got to roll with whatever it is. I don't even, yeah, I don't even, I don't even think about it. I'll use different logs all the time. I'll, I'll switch my grips. I'll, I'll fuck with myself as much as possible. I'll press outside. Some guys go and they press without a roof over their head and they get all like distorted. They get fucked up. Oh, yeah. I don't believe in any of that shit. I think it's all a mind, it's a mind fucker. So you, you train for the worst, prepare for the, to be the best. And I, I fuck with myself as much as possible. So you got to get the log off the ground in your lap, bring it up to your upper chest, and then just extend it above your head. Overhead, yep. And 500. 502.6, I believe it is. I mean, I, I deadlift 500 pounds and I know how insanely heavy that feels just to pull off the ground. I can't even imagine what that feels like to roll it up your body and then press over your head. Well, imagine, imagine deadlifting it, but having to keep it six inches away from you. Because it's half the log. Yeah. It's like an extended. You can't have it close to your shins. Like you can't. I didn't think about that. Yeah, it's brutal. It's brutal. So that's not the hardest part though, right? The press is the hardest part. It depends. Yeah, for me, the, the, once you get up to, oh, like 480, 490, it's all hard for me. Like, but up before that, the clean is the easier part. And the, actually the clean is the hard part and the press. My shoulders are just stupid strong. Through years and years of work, I've earned solid shoulders. So a lot of guys, they can, they can press anything that they can clean. And then I mean, I say a lot and a lot. Some guys can press anything they can clean and some guys can clean the world and can't press anything, you know? So how, now, how close are you? Like, so if you were to just do like a, like a barbell overhead press, how much heavier of a weight can you do than with the log? Oh, fuck, I don't even know. I mean, just straight bar, like out of a rack or like clean it. Yeah, not even no clean involved, just pressing over your head. I'm a lot closer with that. I can, if we were doing hand cleans, I can hit like 455, but that's with straps, obviously. I've got, don't listen to sound, my hands are like an 11 year old girl. But I think with a regular bar, it's because I don't train it as much. It actually helps you a lot better because the whip of the bar, there's no whip in a log. Right, I would, I'm assuming the bar would be much, other than the fact that you're not probably training it as much as you are with tools. Exactly. It's the skill, right? You've gotten good at that particular skill. And that's what I need to be good at. So I don't train with a bar that much, but I would say I can pretty consistently hit like four and a quarter, like for one or two out of the rack. But with a log, I can consistently hit more. I'm not going to say how much more. Oh, that's so true. You got to fight your tuning to find out. Now, is that the only thing that's going on in this, this first comp, or are you doing other things besides the log press? Yeah. Well, for me, it's Europe's strongest man. So everyone else is doing a whole full show and I'll show up and I'll log press and talk a whole bunch of shit and then I'll go. I'm thinking I'm going to, I'm debating on like what, what I want to wear. Like I'm, I'm going to be, last time I was American flag decked out, like head to toe, red, white and blue, everything. Yes. And a fucking attitude dude. I had, like, I came out there. There was 15,000 people in Manchester and they fucking booed me so hard. I came out to American badass, good rock. And I waited. I stood there and let the smokes around me and I was just looking at everybody while they're booing and I waited for him to scream, I am American badass. And then I put up the flag and walked out. Yes. I'm telling you, I get goosebumps right now. When people hate you, when 15,000 people hate you. Isn't that the best? They don't understand. You're making me stronger. You make me stronger. Is that the image that we posted of you on the page? Yes. That's it. That's it right there. That's me waiting. That's waiting and looking at these people hate me. And oh man, there'll be, there'll be another like five to 10,000 people at this one. So I'm debating, I'm debating like, wearing like a Eddie Suck shirt or like Fuck the Queen or something. Something I just as much hate as possible. I'm healing it up. Last time they had a guy, this is so fucked up. They had a guy who got the Lifetime Achievement Award out there. He's this English, he was a judge for a long time. And he got the Lifetime Achievement Award. He's an older guy. He was sent in front row. So I went out there in Manchester. Everyone's booing me obviously. And I do the log press and I smash it. I hit seven reps at 340 pounds in 60 seconds, smashed it. It was really good through it down. And the English competitor across from me had already tapped out at like five or something like that. And he was, he was gone. And I was just so jacked up. I looked around and that the English guy who got the Lifetime Achievement Award had a beer in his hand. I walked over and took it from him. And I threw it up like up in the air and stand in the crowd. Oh man, it was awesome. I feel like Stone Cold, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's some WWE shit right there. It was great. You know what though? It's also, I mean, it's obviously part of your character and your personality because it's a lot of fun. But it's also brilliant, dude. It makes you marketable. It works. It's brilliant. And honestly, everyone's having fun at the end of the show. We all sit at tables and people line up and meet us. Yeah, great time. My line was longer than anybody's. Oh yeah. Everyone fucking hated me, but everyone wanted to meet me because I put on a show. People love villains. Yeah, of course. Everyone loves Stone Cold. But the other thing is, is I think people can understand and respect. When you put yourself out there like that, any fucking slip, man. Everybody wanted me to fail. Everybody wanted it. And I put it all on the line. Like I could have gone out there and slipped, fucked up the log and had a terrible show. I could have done that. Any one of us can do that on any day. I put all that pressure on myself and I still went out and performed. And I think that was at least earned some respect. Well, yeah, you probably feed off of that, too. You've probably learned that about yourself. And personally, myself, I like that. I have this chip on my shoulder of tell me I can't. Tell me you're better. Tell me those things because that drives me for sure. So you probably have that. What's the hardest thing about being a strongman for you? It's the lifestyle, right? Fitting in airplane seats? That's definitely one of the hardest things. You imagine, because we fly a lot, right? We travel quite a bit for the show. I couldn't not imagine sitting on a plane, having one seat next to me, and then you fucking choose. All that's left is the middle seat, like in between Robert and some old lady. I'm leaning on that old lady. This one, I got some bad advice. This is the first time I flew Southwest. And I was actually really impressed with it. I liked it. First time I'd flown it, though. And I got some bad advice from a buddy in Houston. He was like, what you do? Because I'm big, so I can get pre-board. So I went to the front desk. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Just because you're big? That's fucking right. I was like, look at me. All right, what do you tell them? Look, I said, I'm big. Give me pre-board. But they were like, yeah. If you say it like that, too. I'm big. I think it works great. Works great. So I got pre-boarding. You got to really sound like you need it, like with a little dribble in your belly. Can we please have Doug do that the next time we go to the airport? Have Doug walk up and say some shit like that? So the advice was, get on early, go to the back, and sit in the last row in the aisle. Nobody likes to sit in the last row, so you'll have the seat next to you. It'll be the last seat to fill up. And it sounded good enough. It was like. It sounds logical. It sounds logical, right? But what I didn't think about was there were two empty seats next to me when all the other spots started to fill up. Tons of middle seats were open, tons of them. But there was a woman and a child who wanted to sit together, and there were no two seaters together. So this woman, the sick woman and her sick child came and sat next to me. And I was like, fuck, I fucked up. Like I could have picked any other seat. Like I think what I'm going to do from now on is go like window towards the front. That's the way to go. That's the way to go. Yeah, because then they'll look down and then they're not going to want to walk all the way back and fill your seats. Obviously I'm not big compared to you whatsoever, but I am a lanky guy, right? I'm six foot three and long legs. And so sitting on a plane is awkward even for me. So that is the best seat in the house is to go get the two seats next to the wing, right? Right where the wing is. If you can get that, then you're the best seat. So yeah, what is the hardest thing for you in being a strong man? Paying the dues, my body has been beaten up pretty good. I've actually found a nice way to handle that stuff, like I said, with the new style and training. I've been doing it for about a year and a half and I feel great. So honestly, there's not much to complain about. I get to travel the world. I get a lot of time to myself. I get to work for myself. I get to spend a lot of time with my son. What about working up to where you're at now? Because I would imagine that it's probably not a very lucrative sport trying to get to the top. Definitely. Maybe when you get to the top and you're sponsored and everybody wants you, it's one thing. But I would think that you probably represent a very small percentage of guys that make decent money. Most definitely. And those guys are stronger than me that still can't market themselves and don't make any money. It's not enough to be strong now. It's not enough to have cool guys on a podcast. You've got to have people fucking listen to you. If they don't like what you're saying, it doesn't matter how cool you are in real life. You've got to be able to relate to people. And it's the same thing with us. Coming up, I remember when I first decided to try this, I didn't know what strongman was. I grew up a football fan. So I had no idea. And I tried it out and it did well. I did well. So I went home and I had to Google it. And I remember telling my fiance and she wasn't pregnant at the time, but we were trying. Telling her like, I know this is crazy. I know this is weird. But I can make money at this. I can make this work. Like I can feed our family. Oh, that's a trick. The first day you Googled, you saw I could do this. Yeah. Well, I know how to market myself. I know how to entertain. I grew up a huge fan of entertainers just all around. I mean, all of us grew up with our sports fans, with our sports heroes and all that stuff. For me, it wasn't about who was the best. It was about who had that fire. Like who could you see that was like just ready to eat world? The Torelloans, the Dion Sanders, those type of guys. More Dion than Torello. I'm definitely a Dion fan. So do you still follow football? Are you still into watching it? Not really anymore, man. I'm not even like sports at all. I don't even watch TV. I was thinking about this this morning. I was like, I can't remember the last time I sat down and turned on the TV. Like I just don't have fucking time. Well, how do you like to read? Like what do you do? I do. I like to read. I spend a lot of time working with athletes and stuff like that. And for me, it's whatever free time I get. I mean, though, it's weird. I know strong men don't do this, but I like to hike and I like to just be out in the woods and just sit. I'm not necessarily meditating. I can't imagine you're going for a hike in the middle of the woods. Can you see this fucking dude sitting in the middle of the woods? Oh, he's naked too. I'm like, what naked? Like Sasquatch is real. So like if I have free time, that's what I do, you know? And I don't even get to do that as often as I'd like. I'm assuming you're probably answering my question already by me asking this with what you just said. When Robert gets stressed out, whether it be family, finances, work, and you just feel like you're ready to pull your hair out, you know, what do you go do? Like what would you go do? Dude, I'd go smoke a bowling hike. That's basically it. I'm definitely not, like I grew up in Santa Cruz, so like smoking weed was like a huge thing. But now I do it when I need to relax and when I need to chill out. I also, CBD, I wanted to talk about that too. There's so many athletes out there who will be stuck on Vicodin and opiates. I'm telling you, I've seen so many guys go down that path and it just, it's a rough road. So if you're out there and you're having pains and stuff, think about CBD. If you don't want to feel high or any of that kind of stuff, CBD is completely legal. It has no psychoactive properties. It doesn't make you feel weird or anything. It's basically smoking an ibuprofen and without fucking your body up. Yeah, we're all big proponents of the science behind cannabinoids and what they do. And it's legal now, in California. Have you been into it? CBD is legal everywhere. I mean, I don't know if it's legal in Texas, which probably means everywhere. If it's legal in Texas, it's cool. Yeah, no, Texas actually now legalized medical marijuana too. If you have seizures. It's a small step, but they're on their way. Because Texas used to execute you for smoking weed for fuck's sake. Yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm joking, but kind of strict. Yeah, no, they're very strict over there. Okay. So we got, we got the log comp coming up first. That's in how many weeks? It's April 17th. Okay. So it's about 10 weeks. And then, then, then the big world is after that. Well, strongest man in the Philippines two weeks after. Two weeks right after that. I cannot wait. Now, is that part of the reason why you're not competing in all the other events? You're just going to go do the fucking log thing, walk out is because you want to save yourself Well, actually, this show is I don't have the opportunity to compete. I don't think I would anyways, because of what you're saying, but it's Europe's strongest man. And we're better than Europe. We're American. So you didn't want you to compete. Well, explain that. How come you, if you did want to, although it would make sense, but why we're not a European country. So like, it's like, if it was America's strongest man, you can't have someone from Iceland to compete. So you can become the European strongest man, America's strongest man. And then the world. Yeah, there's world. It's, it's, it's literally, it's one of the few actual worldwide sports, because you know, there's a lot of sports that like, like the NFL or whatever, it's not necessarily worldwide, you know, soccer is worldwide. And strongman is one of those, those, those competitions where you look at the world's strongest man, you see people from all over the world. Right. Every single. Now you said it right now, America kicks the shit out of everybody right now. Was it always like that? Or was it, did it change? No, for a long time, like I was saying, it was Iceland. But for that, it was Poland for a little bit. There were two guys from Lithuania for, for a while. Is it, what's his name? Zavikas? Yep. Where's he from? Zavikas from Lithuania. He's like the fucking mayor there. Like the mayor of Lithuania. Jesus Christ. He's like the president. Do they have presidents in Lithuania? I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea. But he's like a national treasure. Yeah. Like he's got billboards of him just, like no advertisement. It's just him. It's just him. Wow. It's crazy. And so on a lot of those Eastern European nations, if you are a very decorated athlete, they treat you like you're, like you're a leader, like you need to be one of their leaders or whatever. Like what's his name? The Russian Bear, the wrestler from Russia. And I can't remember his name. I talk about it all the time. Well, like Pacquiao. Yeah. He was undefeated for years. And then he went back to, and he just became the mayor of his town. Right. You're basically a government official already. Yeah. That's how it works in those countries. It's the same way in Asia. It's very, very common. If you're an athletic, prominent feature. Oh, yeah, for sure. What country do you get? Like obviously you're a big dude. So you kind of stand out. When you go to these different countries, people, I'm sure they want to point at you. They want to take pictures. What country is like the most where you get most fanatical? Yeah. Where people are like, oh my God. This got to be easily China. Really? I mean, the last few times I wouldn't even go unless we had security. I think it's so crazy, man. And it's not, it's not even like they know who I am. Most, most of the time it's just a giant white dude with a beard. Big and physical. Right, yeah. And they're really, like really are physical, man, though. Like grab a hold of you and pull on you and all this stuff. There was, I think he was homeless. I don't know. It's hard to tell in China. The line there is really blurry. But in China, not last time, but the time before, we were there. There was this guy, I'll never forget his fucking face. He reminded me, you guys seen Princess Bride? Yes. You know, when she's having the dream and the girl's like, bow to the queen of slime. Like this dude reminded me of her. He like creeped up on me out of the fucking mist and he kept trying to touch me. He had black teeth and he was saying weird shit in that same voice in Chinese. And I was like, oh my God, this is a nightmare. And he kept trying to like start pulling at my shirt. And finally I just like freaked out. I was like, I put my hands up towards his face. I was like, get away from me. I don't want to yell on the mic. But I was like, no. You said it in your lowest voice possible. Yeah, as scary as I could be. And he looked at me and smiled with his black teeth and just kept like fucking with me. Now, Robert, when you go to worlds, do you guys know every event that will be there or is it still, is it random they don't know? We used to, that's a good question. Before, we'd never know. Before, like we'd get information like on the way there. Wouldn't know anything. This time, we know. We know the possible events and we know exactly where we're going. This is the first time in like, I mean, I've been doing it for five years now. It's never been though. Oh, that'll be it. So you know the events right now or you're allowed to say what they are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got them all. And I know we're going to be in Manila, Philippines. Awesome to know. Like I can actually prepare and get my shots on time and all that. So we have like humidity and all that kind of stuff as a factor. That's why I went to Houston. That's what I'm saying. I see. Oh, interesting. That's exactly why. Oh, that's smart. So it's always got to carry in a load. This year, the carry event actually has two options afterwards. It's either carry with drag or it's carry with farmers, which I'm telling you, the events this year, I am so excited to see that suits you well. All right. It does. It's athletic and strength. It's strong and athletic, which is my wheel well. Like I the static strength, I'm I'm okay, especially with overhead. I'm really good, but like I like to be able to move. I like to be able to take weight and move. Well, that's what really separates you, because very few guys are as agile as you are, you know, and have endurance, right? Yeah. And my endurance has gone up and my speed has gone up like insane. So then we have the overhead press, which is either going to be a dumbbell or a log for reps. I'm hoping I get the log, obviously, but I'll be fine with the dumbbell. We have the squat this year and either you're going to your groups, you're going to have squat or deadlift. And this year, they're doing where they drop the barrels in it. So it progressively gets heavier and it's it's cool. It's it's like it's if I had to choose what it would be for a squat or deadlift, that's exactly what I would have done. That's cool. Then we have the toss. We're going to, we haven't they haven't determined the equipment, but we have a toss for height and then Atlas stones going into the finals. And oh man, I'm telling you, like perfect events. I was going to say, yeah. So who's right up your alley? Who are the guys to beat this year? Depends on who goes, man. Z Z is I'm not trying to be offensive, but Z's gotten a little bit older and he's lost a little bit. Happens when you've been competing for 22 years. They're just damaged. You're going for 22. 22 years strong. Too dominant. Dominating. Dominant. Like I have nothing but respect for them, man. And he's going to be, he's always one that you got to watch. Like, I mean, I don't care if he's 130 years old, he's still got to watch. So Brian Shaw will be good. I don't really like listing the names of the other guys. It makes it's like promoting fucking competition. Hey, watch out for this guy. There's a few guys that'll look good. He's okay. We'll see. Is that right? We'll see. Well, do you know, like so now that you know the events, do you know, like do you have like a guy that you know that he will probably be right with you or potentially in front of you in one of these events? Like that's who I'm, when we get to this, I know he's strong with that. I'm going to be watching him, making sure I stay ahead of him. Like do you have For sure. The wheels have been turning just like that. As soon as I got these events, I started thinking about who's good at what and how it's going to break down you never know who's going to be in your group, your pre your qualifier group. You never know. So I'm just, I'm just going to show up for the qualifiers and I'm going to do my thing and I'm going to get into the finals and then the finals, those, those events, I know who's going to do what and really comes down to is how, how well prepared can you be? I can't really, I can't change what someone else does. I can't, I can't go in and hope this guy's going to slip up. I know, I know some guys who tend to slip, some guys who tend to get all crazy and, you know, like the adrenaline gets in their throats and they can't taste it, you know, like they get a little too crazy. I know there's some guys like that and they'll probably have those issues. They always do. But all I can do is come in and be my best. Now, do you prefer to go first and demoralize the competition or watch them kind of go through it so you know how to smash them? I like, I like to go as late as possible for sure. It's always good because somebody will have a unique take on how to do something because that's the other thing is, is none of this stuff is like blueprint, like you have to do it this way. It's not, it's not Olympic lifting. It's not, it's not powerlifting. It's something that everyone has their own take and what I feel mine is the best and I, I, man, I put a lot of fucking work into how I prepare. There's still, there's the things you can learn no matter what. Anyone who thinks they can't learn something, they're a fucking idiot. That's just the way it is. So I like to do that, but I also like to see a benchmark. There's something like, like we were saying, that fuel you get when someone says you can't. That's the same thing when, when I know, like say we're going to deadlift something for reps and I know six is going to be fucking brutal, but I see somebody pull seven and if I can pull seven or I can pull eight, then I know that there's, there's a chance I could win this. Man, there's just something in you that comes out and it's like, I have to do the gear. You just find that little, that little competitive part of you that's like, I can fucking do it. What about when you're like doing things for like the deadlift or something that you, you have the ability to stack on as much as you want? Is there a strategy for you as far as like going, do you go right for your heaviest possible load or a record for you? Or do you ease your way to see how your body's feeling? That's something that I've developed and what I do, you're talking about training specifically, right? Right, right. In my training I've done, I've done that. I've done, I've gone down that road and you know, where you like can't stand up straight for two days and you're like trying to hammer yourself down. I don't believe in that anymore. I, what I like to do is I like to find a nice range. I like to go even 60th percent, 60 percentile when you start training, finishing in a couple of weeks towards 80, 85, 90. And I like to hit, you know, four sets of three, five sets of four. I like to hit my reps and then I like to switch positions. I'll either go to stiff or I'll go to a rack and I like to move from that. But then what people don't do, what nobody that I've worked with and been around does is the accessories to deadlift. Everybody likes to do the accessories to upper body. We all want to look pretty, right? Like we want to take our shirts off and be like, damn, that looks good. But nobody wants to do like little booty exercises. Nobody wants to do stretch, no stretching their hips and open things up. Nobody wants to practice jumping up on a plyo box because that's where you're supposed to deadlift from. You're supposed to be explosive. Nobody wants to do calf shit. If you have strong calves, your deadlift goes skyrocketing. And the stronger your upper back is in your ass, the more you pull the weight off of your low back. We know these things and if you were to read and study, you would figure it out. But still watching people work, it's like, you're not doing that. You're not. Because that shit ain't fun. That, you know, it's funny you say that because it reminds me what I went through when I was competing. And there's this weird stigma in men's physique that, you know, deadlifting and squatting really heavy and deep builds these big wide waist. And you don't want that for, you know, being on a stage. So none of these fucking guys fucking squat or deadlift. And it like blows my mind because I'm like, you can't pick an exercise that's going to build your physique more than anything else than those two movements. And you just neglect them. They're over there doing fucking machines all day long. I think it's hilarious. And it's crazy. Everyone knows. Everyone knows. Anyone who's educated knows. Squat and deadlift make you bigger. Right. They just, they just build the other upper testosterone and they make you bigger. Right. That's what they do. Hilarious, man. Yeah, it's build your, get your lats, you know, four inches wider from deadlifts and your waist might get like a quarter inch wider. But guess what? You still got crater de-taper. Right. Exactly. Makes zero sense. Makes zero sense. No. Well, shit, man. Good luck, brother. Thanks, man. We're fucking room for you, dude. Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time. Thanks for coming on. It'll be on SportsCenter? Where will it be at? We have inlaid commercials and the buildup. They have time on SportsCenter. It's actually going to be on CBS. Oh, OK. So we've filmed some nice rivalry buildup. We've got some really cool shit going. I'm really, really excited about the buildup for this and everything else will be on CBS. Do you guys do like a press conference before? Do they do anything like that? We do a meet and greet. Last time I had to be ushered out of the meet and greet. Oh, man. The new rule at this show, the rule is they can't have fucking glass. They need to have plastic cups because if they have glass and I get hit with glass. Throwing them at you? Oh, my God. They were doing way worse than that. Whoa. Crazy. Whoa. They get crazy out there. They're really into the sport. It's not as crazy as soccer, but it's a lot of that same energy. Yeah. Oh, shit. Well, that's cool. No, that's really cool. Well, good luck, man. Thanks, guys. Yeah, we had a percent. We'll be watching. You're gonna dominate, man. It's right for you. Excellent. Hell yeah. Check this out. Go to your app store. Download the free Mind Pump app so you can listen to our podcast in our own custom app and it allows you to search the episodes for different topics. So it makes things a lot easier. Go check it out. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. 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