 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the video. A couple times a week, we're going to be featuring my podcast 50% Facts, some snippets and highlights. Each episode, we dive into one topic, one question, and in the first half of the podcast, me and Jim McD analyze and try to talk about and ask questions on the question. Then in the second half of the podcast, we bring in the world's leading expert to give you everything you want to know on such topics. So I hope you guys enjoy. If you want to find the full episodes, there is the 50% Facts podcast YouTube channel and it's available on all platforms, iTunes, Spotify, et cetera, et cetera. Check it out. Give this thing a thumbs up. Tell your friends and I hope you enjoy. So obviously it depends on the goals, it depends on the budget, et cetera. But I guess in the Allen thralls, Daddy Home Jim, Rack, Plates, Barbell, what's the next step for you if you got a little bit more money laying around? What's the next equipment? I'd probably get a Prowler sled. That'd be my conditioning tool. Push that out in the front. As far as incorporating something like Strongman, I think that sandbags are good. You can do carries with them, which would simulate like keg carrier or something, or you can do loads with them like a stone without having to pick up all the stones in your garage. Make it yourself? Yeah. Yeah, or the Rogue sandbags, I think are the best. I've used the Iron Mine sandbags and the Sebrus sandbags. I've used military duffel bags. They all rip and break. Rogue seems to be the best. So there you go. And you just get the people who are not thinking about the logistics of this. You get the bag and then you buy the sand. They don't ship you a sandbag. So you will not be using it the first day unless you have prepared by going to Home Depot and getting a bag of sand. Yes, exactly. You get the bag and then you fill with sand and you should fill it with, if you're thinking about doing this with washed play sand, not dirt. I've tried to be cheap and just filled sandbags with dirt and the dirt, all the fine dust, every time you drop it is just cloud of dust everywhere. And the sandbag gets filthy. So if you're sweating, you're just covered in mud almost because the dirt just comes through the sandbag. And if there's small rocks in that dirt, it does tear the sandbag up. So you have to use actual clean play sand. Makes sense. It does make sense. So let's ask a programming question. If you're a powerlifter, would you benefit from having that kind of tool in your options, I guess? Yeah, I think so. I think that incorporating some sort of conditioning into your routine just depending on who you are is always a good thing. And carrying a sandbag or doing like sandbag over shoulder or something like that, I think is definitely useful, especially when someone wants to incorporate conditioning. I'm not going to make them buy a treadmill and typically, I don't know, if it's an overweight guy, I'm not going to go tell them to run a couple miles. So maybe just carry some sandbags. So I think so. But certainly you could do well in powerlifting and never touch a sandbag. But I think that for someone who trains in a home gym, yeah, surely it could be useful. You can't hit a squat PR with a heart attack. No, that's true. And just a conditioning issue about powerlifting, as far as I'm concerned, is that when you compete in powerlifting, the day is long. Or incredibly short. If you suck it's over soon. Or even just different. Certain federations now, you're in and out in two hours. Yeah. I've heard Nationals in USAPL. They're on a flight schedule. They're whipping. There's like 2,000 people competing in three days. They're whipping you out. If you started 10, you're done at 12.30. If you started 12.45, you're done at 3. Like you're whipping through. Yeah. I don't think you get to eat. Where like our old school powerlifting meets, I squatted. I was a first flight. I squatted, I believe, at 10 o'clock in the morning. And I didn't pull my last pull until 8.45 at night. I stepped off the platform. Well, that's just poor management. That's right there. Yeah. Yeah. Similar story. Same, pretty much the same thing. I think that a good argument for being conditioned is if you're able to, you know, I might have someone do some conditioning far out from a meet. So that once we start accumulating a lot more volume, you're better able to handle it. You know, your work capacity is higher. For sure. So if you do, I want to get better at powerlifting. And I'm like, well, we need to do five or six sets of five. And that like kills you. Yeah. Then, you know, maybe it's a good idea beforehand to do some conditioning such a work capacity is there when we actually want to start accumulating volume in the right areas. It's real cool in 2019 for all these raw powerlifters to bash or Louis Simmons or West Side or a conjugate, but something Louis Simmons is huge on. Yeah. Maybe a little too huge, but big on is GPP, general physical preparedness. And every sport has a level of GPP you need. Sockers, GPP is pretty big. You need a jog, sprint, turn sideways, all these things. Powerlifting's maybe a little bit lower, but you have to have some kind of recoverability or general fitness. That makes sense. What do you think about flooring that outside of the deadlift platform? I don't think you need anything past that. Yeah, I wouldn't see any reason for as far as for a garage gym. I don't think you need anything past a platform. Why are they so expensive? If you buy one, I feel like they're $600 to $1,200. I know you make them a platform. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, god, no. I would. Yeah, I just make them. But why is that? I've never bought a platform. I just make them with plywood and horse stall mats. And you could just do just two layers of horse stall mats, probably if you wanted, right? Yeah, yeah, you could. Again, just depending on how much you're lifting. If you were deadlifting like four or 500 pounds regularly, I probably wouldn't just stack it on horse stall mats. One, because the floor is not going to be that protected, depending on how fast you drop it. And you start to get this spring effect, right? You set the weight down. Yeah. It'll bounce back up into your hands pretty much. Yeah, exactly. It's just uncomfortable. Yeah. You know what's weird? Alan might have an answer. I don't know if I've asked you this. Both sports, weightlifting and powerlifting, compete in typically standard flooring. A lot of federations in powerlifting do like a short carpet, like an office carpet, like here. Some do all rubber. Weightlifting is also often some type of rubber or short carpet at big meets weightlifting style. Very rarely are either of them on plywood or wood. Why does everybody train on plywood or wood? Well, I can answer the why carpet. The carpet kind of makes sense. The carpets cover up pee, baby powder, and chalk. Yeah. So it's not happening on wood. Yeah. So it's always grippy. I just feel like, I don't know about weightlifting because it's not my expertise, but I feel like all powerlifting should just be done on rubber, competing and training. You could do plywood underneath, like you said, to the shock and protect the floor, but it just seems weird to me. Because you look at every national meet or any even semi well done run meat. I think because carpet will never fail. Even if I hosted a meet at Untamed Strength and I had all rubber platforms, if I had the doors up and it was really wet out, the rubber gets wet. Yeah, I wonder, some carpets, I guess, aren't slippery because I know people, some sumo guys, those guys that don't really deadlift complain about carpets sometimes. Sumo just slides around. Yeah, just like pushing out. Maybe it depends on shoes. Yeah, I could see that. I don't know. That's just a question I've asked many of smart folk and none of us have answers. That's a good question. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I know that like powerlifting specific gyms tend to have platforms with carpet. Yeah, like Aliko makes a platform. Yeah, Barbell has one of those. But I mean, at Untamed Strength, I have four of the platforms have the wood center and the two of them are just all rubber mat. Yeah, I think you're a little deadlift platform. And I could just do all rubber mats. That works perfectly fine. It would make sense for me for a weightlifter because you're moving your feet and so you almost don't want, you want it to be sticky but not. It's kind of like a basketball. Yeah, you don't want to do a split jerk on rubber. Right, because you need to move your feet, but then like they don't really always compete on wood either. I think they do. I think they compete on carpet. Weightlifting? Yeah. No way. Yeah, I think so. It's not always wood. I think it's not always wood. I'm going to look it up right now. You guys continue. I swear because I've had this conversation with Ben too and he's like, oh yeah, I never thought about it because you just, you're, when you're actually competing, you're only, I would not want to do a split jerk on carpet. You're only on the platform for like 10 seconds, you know, you never really think about it to the extent you have to slide your feet. And you, and you have to. Oh, here's wood international in China. Yeah, I don't think there's ever been a meet with carpet. I don't know what it is. I don't think it's wood though. I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think it's wood. That's our nationals. Yeah. There's a Chinese lifter. Is there a sound to it? Oh, probably. Are you going to turn it up on the side? Yeah. We're looking at a, shout out, West Kits, Cal strength. Smashing. We can hear his feet. I think it's at the Pan Ams. Yeah, it's too loud. The music's going wild. I don't know. That's the loudest music I've ever heard in a weightlifting meet by far. We'll listen to his feet. This will pick it up pretty good. Yeah. No, they got the epic Rocky music going on. If you can hear his feet clap, I don't think it's correct. But then look at this though, because then you go international and you could clearly tell it's wood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I hate that. That foot slap is real. But I've noticed and maybe it's just, maybe it's just color wood. Maybe it's just America or it's like this stuff. I don't know what that is. It's like a track. You know like clay track? Really? Kind of. It's like a rubber track looking thing. This is a whole separate episode, I feel like. Yeah, but I don't have the answer. Well, we need to find somebody who has the answer, right? No one's got the answer. Nobody? No one. There's got to be. I think for 99.9% of people listening. They don't matter. Flooring doesn't matter. Yeah, this stuff is cool though, speaking of flooring. Look, if you're trying to go all out, I like this. We're the platform and they use this rubber. It's like somewhere, it's like a wood rubber combo deal. It's like track. It's like probably the nicest Olympic track. You know what I mean? They put that like in the ground. So it's flush with the rest of the garage. If you guys got the budget, do that. It looks fucking sick. It does look pretty good. Oh, climate control, we don't have so much about in California other than it just gets hot. It doesn't get so cold. Excuse me. Bless you. Thank you. So thoughts on that? Is untamed? Do you have any? Untamed is untamed. It's totally untamed. Yeah, it's not climate controlled. And the only time it becomes an issue for me is the barbells. So if it is raining for a good week, the gym gets pretty damp. And so some of the barbells, the bare steel barbells will slightly rust. Get a little rust. But if you only have one bar to take care of in your home gym, just a little three in one oil every once in a while is going to protect it. So that is something to consider is the bars will rust if it's bare steel. If you're like, you know, home gym in Louisiana, I probably would not go with the BNR bar because it is bare steel. I get some stainless steel bar so that you don't have to take care of it. Something with a good coating is not going to break down. Yeah. But as far as being hot and humid or wet in the gym and members training there, I don't care. But as far as the equipment, yeah, sometimes it's a pain in the ass. Fans? Yeah, we have fans. Just no heaters. No heaters, no AC. So and it's not, it's always, every winter, there's people complaining about the cold. Every summer, there's people complaining about the heat. And I get it. I know that it gets hot. I know that it gets cold. And it's not that I'm, I'm just, I just don't like hearing it. I don't like hearing the complaints. And it's not that I'm, you know, suck it up. Don't be a pussy. It's not that at all. I know that it's hot. But it's just, there's not a whole lot I can do about it. I'm not going to, I rent the place. You're going to start to triple your rank. Right. And I'm not going to put, you know, $20,000 AC in there. And even if I could afford it, it would, it would be hard to regulate because everyone would have the doors up. Well, it's almost 24. It's a 24. Yeah, I'm sure. I'd say 70, Alan. You know I did the best when it's 60. Yeah. Yeah, seriously. It's too cold in here. It's a July, you know what I mean. But I feel like the gym's 24 hour access and the, unless I had like, unless I had the thing locked up. Yeah. Like regulated. That thing would be going 24 seven for like four months in the summer. So anyways, Your gym membership is going to double or you're going to deal with the heat buddy. Yeah, exactly. I guess to wrap it up, the last piece that you'd put in the Alan Thrall gym. So we got the rack, the basics. We got a little sled, maybe some sandbags from conditioning. What's the last finishing touch? Snow cone machine. Dessert. You can't go home without no dessert. I wouldn't put honestly anything past that. If you're just, if it's just a general strength training or like Jim said, you can't get to the gym so you can finish, you know, your workout in the gym or I'm sorry, in your garage, bar, plates, a rack with a pull-up bar and a place to deadlift. That's really all you need. Sandbag for conditioning or sled. I don't think dumbbells are necessary. Quick tally of the price then in Alan's head. Or just like under amount, you know, like this will cost under. I think a thousand bucks without shipping. If you got like five or six hundred dollar rack from Rogue. Well, yeah, more than a thousand, probably like 1500. Five, six hundred dollar rack from Rogue, 300 dollar barbell. Let's see if you were buying like 400 pounds, 500 pounds in plates. That's probably going to be at least 500 bucks if it's a dollar a pound. If you're going out and not paying for shipping. Yeah, maybe the Craigslist plates. Yeah. Buy some plywood for a deadlift platform. So probably 1500 bucks. Yeah, that's pretty good. For like the bare minimum, but that would work. I've actually talking about barbells. I think $300 is a good price for a good, good enough barbell. Casey Neistat has actually made a video before about cameras. Yeah, yeah. And he talks about diminishing returns. And it's the exact same thing with barbells. If you go from a $100 barbell to a $300 barbell, huge difference in quality. You go from a $300 bar to a $500 bar, a little bit less difference. You go from a $500 bar to a $1,200 bar, smallest difference. Yeah. And unless you're competing on the world stage and you need to feel the same barbell every day that you're going to the Olympics. You need like a power bar, sure. But yeah, I think that the difference between 100 to 300, that's like the sweet spot of a good barbell and a shit barbell. But even if you're a snob and you want the Eliko either power lifting or weight lifting bar, we're still looking at maybe $2,200 then for a whole gym. That's going to be your home gym double, twice your home gym, if you're going to buy a bar like that. But if that's the case, then you better be lifting like 800 pounds. Yeah, you better not be a 405 deadlift in an Eliko bar. It's the same kind of thing with talking about using kilo plates or calibrated plates that are the thinner plates or whatever versus the just gen pop kind of plates. Yes, it does feel different, but no, it doesn't feel that different. If you're not lifting huge weights, if you go into a meat and it's kilo plates, calibrated kilo plates, it's going to feel a little bit different. You want to unwrap the squat. It'll feel a little bit different when you pull because the bar will react differently. There's also a crowd in front of you. A lot of things are going to feel different. There's a lot of things. Yeah, like you can't bring in a crowd. Like your conditions are not going to always be the same. Even though Shaco told me they did. He says in Russia, they do when they do their gym tests, he'll bring in a little crowd. I like that. Specificity, specificity. Having a bunch of people watch, yeah. But you just do it like a gym day. Like we could do it un-tamed. Hey, this Saturday we're all going to test our lifts. And then everybody's watching. One person's lifting. We'll put a bunch of lawn chairs out. Yeah, you get one guy in a little funny suit judging people. Pour caffeine down on everybody's gullet and go. All right, well, awesome. Working on people will find you, Alan. Untamed strength. If you want to find it on YouTube, just you can type in my name or untamed strength. That's not youtube.com slash untamed strength. It's like a thrall seven or something like that. The website is trainuntamed. Instagram is untamed strength. That's it. In Jim, Sacramento, California. Untamed strength. Jim is Sacramento, California. Yep. Well, I'm selling like 2Ks. Instagram, Twitter. Follow us. I am the Jim McD and the show is 50% facts. Where percent is a word? See you next time.