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#090 _STORY INSPIRE: Decisions that transforman with Devon Larratt · INSPIRE STORY

0:04
Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast
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by night, all day.
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Speaker 2: Chuck, Chuck, what's happening, my man? I'm so happy. So
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happy to see you.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: What's going on?
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Speaker 1: Joe, thank you so much, first of all. I feel like,
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you know, you are the loudspeaker of the planet, man,
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and I'm so honored to be here.
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Speaker 2: That's a very uncomfortable position to be in, I'll tell
0:28
you that. It's very weird.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet.
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Speaker 2: I bet.
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Speaker 1: But look, I mean, you've talked to everybody on the planet,
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and I think I'm honored to be your first arm wrestler.
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Speaker 2: Well, if I'm going to have an arm wrestler, it
0:40
has to be the GOAT. Oh, highly debated, highly debated,
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but I'll take it. You're in the conversation. Yeah, I'm
0:47
in the conversation.
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Speaker 1: There's a couple of us, I think. John Brzenk. I
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don't know. How close do you follow arm wrestling?
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Speaker 2: Very little. Yeah. I follow you. I'm most fascinated by
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the fact that you can't extend your arm. Yeah. His
1:01
arms don't straighten out.
1:03
Speaker 1: No, they don't, unfortunately.
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Speaker 2: That's crazy. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It didn't work when I was trying to fight Thor either.
1:09
It kind of limited the extension.
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Speaker 2: When did that start happening?
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Speaker 1: So I got into club arm wrestling. I arm wrestled
1:21
when I was a kid, but I got into club
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arm wrestling around like 18. By the time I was
1:26
20 or so, We have this champion called Crazy George.
1:33
He's like a very old, very decorated champion. And he famously,
1:38
at the time for me, he couldn't straighten his elbows.
1:41
And I was like, oh, man, I can't wait till
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my elbows don't straighten. Like a silly wish, right?
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Speaker 2: So it started early.
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Speaker 1: I think I was probably in my late 20s. And
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the range started to shrink.
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Speaker 2: And why is that from?
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Speaker 1: It's just pressure mostly. Like just the constant pressure on
2:04
the elbow joint causes osteophytes potentially. And it doesn't happen
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to all the arm wrestlers.
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Speaker 2: Have you got an MRI on it?
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Speaker 1: I've had three surgeries.
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Speaker 2: To straighten them out? To remove.
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Speaker 1: bone and scar tissue.
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Speaker 2: Just chipped bones and stuff? Chipped bones. Dr.
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Speaker 1: Pollack, bless his soul, at the Ottawa Hospital has extended
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my career till this age. Yeah, that's probably one of
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the worst chronic conditions that arm wrestlers get is You know,
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if the bone growth gets bad enough, it can start
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to constrict your nerves or blood flow. And that's when
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it becomes a problem.
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Speaker 2: Has that happened to you?
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Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So I was what, I was probably, it was like 2013.
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So like 13 years ago is when I had my
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first surgery. And at that point, like trying to move forward,
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trying to move forward.
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Speaker 2: Pull it out as far as you can go. That's it?
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That's it, buddy. That's it. Wow. Yeah. The left is
3:05
a little more than the right.
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Speaker 1: It looks like probably a little bit.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And I've had two surgeries on the right, one on
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the left, but in my mind, you know, it's a
3:14
small price to pay, you know, like I'm, I'm as
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all in, in arm wrestling as you can possibly be.
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And this is our cost of admission for some of us,
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you know, and.
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Speaker 2: Does, does that happen to every arm wrestler?
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Speaker 1: No, no, no. There's lots of arm wrestlers. It's, it's
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a style thing. It's a, It's a genetic predisposition. It's
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I rolled the dice wrong one day and had a
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bad match. You know, I think what happens is it's
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really it's the pressure. It's the bones over time. And
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then it's if you're a dummy and, you know, keep
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on doing it when you should probably rest. That probably
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doesn't help. And I'm guilty, you know.
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Speaker 2: Most of the greats. Anyways. And everything.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't affect me in the sport. I actually, I
4:03
call it weaponized arthritis.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: Because there are ways you can kind of make your
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loss of range work for you at times. Really? Yeah,
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because there's like, right, you know, like if you're doing
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an arm bar, okay, like your body resists with the
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ligaments and the tendons. So that starts higher for me.
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And I think that there's a muscular strength component that
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kicks in as well right at the end of the
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range to protect you. So I just have a higher...
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You know, arm bar, you know.
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Speaker 2: Does it help you in arm bars as well? Oh, God, no,
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it doesn't.
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Speaker 1: A good jujitsu guy is still going to arm bar me.
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Speaker 2: It's also the bones would just snap.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just going to snap higher.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, snap in bad places. Yeah. Did you ever try
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hanging from like a chin-up bar to straighten it out?
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Speaker 1: I've tried a lot of things.
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Speaker 2: I saw a video with you in Juju Mufu. Yeah.
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Is that how you say his name? Yeah, Juju. Juju. Juju. Yeah. Jujimufu.
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Speaker 1: Okay. John call.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: He's great.
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Speaker 2: He's great. He's such a character, but they were rolling.
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They were trying to like do some stuff with like
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these big metal bars to roll out your muscles. And
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you were in fucking agony. I was like, that is
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crazy to watch. Like you really can't straighten your arm.
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And when they were trying, you were screaming.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It's terrible. Uh, I've kind of just accepted it.
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Speaker 2: Did you ever try to hang?
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Speaker 1: I've tried so many things, but I, when I was young,
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when I was 20, I was wishing for the day
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that I could be like crazy George. So it's, it's interesting,
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you know, like I'm not, if I was like all
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about straightening my arm, I could probably still do it
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because the bone is actually removed. Now it's a sheath.
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There's like a capsule that surrounds a joint. That is
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probably the root cause of it.
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Speaker 2: What is the capsule made out of?
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Speaker 1: I believe it was a fascia, just connective structure. I
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think it encapsulates the joint.
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Speaker 2: So everything is just sort of condensed to hold the
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joint together?
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Speaker 1: I think so.
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Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. It's kind of a unique study. If you
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were like a physiologist or you're studying human anatomy, you
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would say, okay, what is possible?
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Do you know about David Goggins' knees?
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Speaker 1: I know David Goggins. I don't know about his knees.
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Speaker 2: His knees are so great. He's bone on bone with
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both knees. And he went to the doctor and the
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doctor said, I don't know how you can walk with
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these knees. Forget about run thousands of miles. So his
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knees had the... What is it called, Jamie? It's like
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wolf something. It's like there's a condition when you're bone
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on bone for so long where the bone actually spreads out.
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And the doctor said... I'd heard about this in theory.
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I've never seen it on an actual human being where
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his knee, the bone had grown out so weird that
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his knees were moving at like odd angles. So they
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had a saw his tibia and move his knee down.
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So he's still bone on bone, but now he has
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a flat surface. And so they cut it and then
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screwed it into place. And then he just rode a
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stationary bike for like fucking five months, like a maniac,
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and then started running again. Bone on bone.
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Speaker 1: Beautiful.
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Speaker 2: Love it.
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Speaker 1: It's crazy. He's wild, man.
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Speaker 2: See if you can find what the condition is. It
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says it's called Wolf's Law, biological principle stating that bones
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adapt and grow thicker and denser under physical stress.
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Speaker 1: Is that?
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Speaker 2: I think that's it. Yeah. And his grew thicker and
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like kind of mushroomed out at the top of the
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knee because there's nothing there. There's no– and it's just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
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So it just kept growing out. And if you see,
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do we have the images of the surgery? I know
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I sent it to you a long ass time ago. Yeah,
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I mean, it's showing a bunch of pictures from when
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he was on here. So see that where he, the
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fingerprints on his shin? That's because he had so much
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edema on his leg that he could squeeze it and
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put his, that's after the surgery.
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Speaker 1: Awesome.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but look at the actual, yeah, look at that,
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the photo of what the knee looks like.
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Speaker 1: That's not him.
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Speaker 2: That's not him. That's like an image of what it
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looked like. Okay, so they saw it, and then they
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screw it down in place. They saw it slightly, you know,
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like a wedge off a piece of wood. You lower it,
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level it out, and then screw it in place.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure I have something similar. I've been bone
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on bone for probably two decades.
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Speaker 2: Really? Yeah. All the cartilage is gone.
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Speaker 1: Nothing. So when I went in and got my surgery,
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doctor told me I have no, like there's nothing there
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but bone. He said, Devin, maybe we can give you
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another couple years on your career.
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Speaker 2: Maybe. How long ago did he say this?
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Speaker 1: That was like 15 years ago. I'm probably, no kidding,
9:00
I probably pulled off my best show ever six weeks ago.
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Speaker 2: Really? How old are you?
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Speaker 1: I'm 51.
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Speaker 2: That's amazing.
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Speaker 1: And I have another shot at the world title. I'm
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still number one in the divisions. So, you know, I'm lucky.
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But I think it's all... it's the doctors will say something,
9:19
but it's just not true. You can, you can do anything.
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Speaker 2: Well, Goggins is a perfect example of that. And I
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guess so are you. It's like the idea that you
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can't do something is based on when most people quit.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, pain is a interesting thing to try and master,
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you know? Um, it's, it's information and you have to
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be able to live with it and work with it,
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but it's, It's good. It's good to have this pain
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because it's kind of a guide on where you need
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to get better. The tendons and the tendinous structures of
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the elbow are super, super taxed in arm wrestling. And
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the process of rehabilitation and... and development of these structures
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under great duress and trauma is difficult. And it requires
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a lot of time and monotony, which a lot of
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people aren't willing to put in.
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Speaker 2: I'm shocked at how much time grip training takes. Yeah.
10:15
It takes forever.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:17
Speaker 2: I've been trying to jack my– those grip strength things.
10:21
The strongest I ever got to is 164 and I'm
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like I want to get to 200. I feel like
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in my lifetime I can get to 200. I can't
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get past 164. And the thing is like I keep
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lifting weights with my arms. I keep– and I'm always tired.
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So like every time I squeeze that thing, my hands
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are always sore. So I'm like, shit, I got to
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take some time off to see if I can get
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it stronger. And so I'm doing all these wrist curls,
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and I've got the forearm finisher from Golden Grip, and
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I've got these big fat things that I use for
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cables to rotate wrists. And my hands got bigger. I'm
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definitely stronger, but it's like I don't know when to
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lay off of it. How many days a week do
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you do grip training? What's your guess? Every day. Of course.
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Every day. Every day. And is that the way to
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do it? Is that the smart way to do it?
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Because I know you talk to a lot of those
11:12
rock climber guys, and they have the craziest grip strength.
11:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things that I'll just say right
11:19
away is a lot of people associate grip with arm wrestling,
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and 100%. It's of massive importance. But the real technical
11:28
nuance of the sport is to try and make the
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other person hold on to you.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: So it's not necessary. Grip is more like defense and
11:38
added offense. But the first step is to try and
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tax the other person's grip.
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Speaker 2: But how do you do that?
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Speaker 1: I think that everything there's we're opening up like technical
11:49
arm wrestling. OK.
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Speaker 2: Open it up. Yeah. OK.
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Speaker 1: So I think from my position, the opening move in
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arm wrestling is a concept called rising. like, you know,
12:01
the movie over the top.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: This is the opening step of the sport and what
12:07
it is basically an attempt to get a better grip.
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And if I can, the concept of making the other
12:13
opponent hold onto you, that's the first step in technical supremacy. Okay.
12:18
If you can make the other person hold onto you,
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if you can touch their fingers, if you can get
12:23
their fingers activated and they're holding onto you, that's, They're
12:29
less efficient. Okay.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So it's about attacking weakness more than it is about
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going where you're strong.
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Speaker 2: So they're the most efficient when it's palm to palm
12:37
and everything's gripped nice and tight. And as soon as
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you get like out here.
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Speaker 1: You want the pressure interaction. to be unfair to your advantage.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: Right. Like if, if we were to arm wrestle, you
12:49
would want to put the pressure in my fingertips, like
12:52
with like almost like a hammer type motion. Right. So
12:55
you're basically, it's almost like a curl. It's, it's more complicated,
12:58
but that's like the first way to start to think
13:01
about it. Like people think about arm wrestling and think
13:03
about pinning each other.
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Speaker 2: Right.
13:05
Speaker 1: And this is, this is a very short sighted way
13:07
to think about the sport. You, you think about pulling
13:10
the match close to you. This, this concept of rising
13:13
is this, upwards, spinning, slipping motion, where the end result
13:19
is you have a better grip. And anything that they
13:22
try and do, it's going to go through the weakest
13:24
system they have, which is their fingertips. So it is
13:28
great to have an awesome grip.
13:29
Speaker 2: But that's not everything.
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Speaker 1: So like proportionally in my workload, if I was doing
13:36
21 sets, 21 or I think I do 21 working
13:39
sets typically in my workouts, one of them is dedicated
13:43
purely to grip.
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Speaker 2: Every day?
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Speaker 1: All day.
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Speaker 2: All day. So you just do them throughout the day?
13:50
Speaker 1: I lead a very simple life at the moment.
13:53
Speaker 2: So structure it. How do you do it?
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Speaker 1: My structure right now, and I think that I'm probably
14:00
one of the most dedicated arm wrestlers in the world
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in time, in terms of what I do with my
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life and how much energy I give the sport, is
14:10
I base it off of a week OK, so I
14:14
train with the club probably twice a week. This changes,
14:17
but typically I'm going twice a week and these are
14:19
my hardest days. And I go in there and I
14:22
just completely red line and max out in the sport. OK,
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all the exactly what I got to do. I'm doing
14:30
it my highest, highest capacity. I have my family. We're
14:35
all my kids. I mean, he's a pro, too.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
14:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's competing this weekend.
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Speaker 2: That's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.
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Speaker 1: So we have our own thing where we'll train together.
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But really two hard sessions a week and then whatever
14:52
I fit in with my kids. And then the rest
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of the days are like mindless. Not just the monotony
15:00
level is extreme. My wife and I, I'm retired, right?
15:04
So I have nothing but time. And I try to make...
15:10
I just try and put everything into it. So, like,
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it's all day, man. It's all day. I wake up
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and I'm training, like, all day.
15:19
Speaker 2: So these machines, like, this is some of the shit
15:21
that you have. Yeah. Now, is this a machine that's
15:24
specifically designed for arm wrestling? Did this exist or did
15:28
you help create this?
15:30
Speaker 1: This actually machine is handed down for me from the
15:34
best female arm wrestler ever to exist, Leanne Dufresne. Uh,
15:39
Johnny Roberts. So this is like a very standard arm
15:42
wrestling equipment. It's basically an arm wrestling table with a
15:45
cable system. And this is super old. Okay. This, this
15:48
table you're looking at here, that's like 40 year old
15:51
table and it's still working, but yeah, you can buy
15:54
pulley system on a table. And that's really like, this
15:56
is basically all I do. I work on off of
15:59
a table, different angles, different pressures that all just replicate
16:03
the pressures in arm wrestling.
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Speaker 2: So you have a fat grip, looks like a PVC tube.
16:08
And then you're using that to work your fingertips and
16:12
roll your wrists and just get to be really strong
16:16
at that position where you're turning someone's wrist over?
16:18
Speaker 1: We call that a multi-spinner. And what's interesting about it
16:22
is you see it's a single point attachment. So it's
16:25
a little bit like Swiss ball for the wrist. Swiss ball?
16:28
You know, like a Swiss ball, like people do like
16:31
squats on them, like the ball in the gym.
16:34
Speaker 2: People do like a BOSU ball. Is that what it's called?
16:37
Speaker 1: Ballsuit is like a half, right?
16:38
Speaker 2: Oh, is that what it is?
16:39
Speaker 1: Swiss ball is like just the big round balls that... Okay.
16:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:43
Speaker 1: And you see people.
16:44
Speaker 2: Like a yoga ball. Yeah. Whatever they call them. Right.
16:47
Speaker 1: You ever jumped on a Swiss ball and done squats
16:49
or anything?
16:49
Speaker 2: No. Okay.
16:50
Speaker 1: Well.
16:51
Speaker 2: I have the half one that I do stuff on. Yeah.
16:53
Speaker 1: Swiss ball is way more unstable. So it's a similar
16:57
concept where it's... Very unstable through the wrist. And there's
17:01
different wraps, but there's like a few base moves in
17:05
arm wrestling. Probably top rolling, hooking, and pressing.
17:09
Speaker 2: And you just do shit like this all day? All day.
17:12
Speaker 1: And this is in my taper, okay? I know.
17:15
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
17:16
Speaker 1: That's the hardest part.
17:18
Speaker 2: This is in your what room?
17:19
Speaker 1: This is in my basement.
17:20
Speaker 2: Oh, your basement. Yeah.
17:22
Speaker 1: And what you see here, this was actually my final workout.
17:26
before I pulled the Russian champion Vitaly Letin like six,
17:30
seven weeks ago. So I've tapered. Normally, all these movements
17:35
you see, I'm doing like a hundred repetitions. So lots
17:39
of blood flow.
17:40
Speaker 2: And when you're doing a hundred repetitions, like what, 50%
17:43
max weight? What do you weigh? Nothing. Nothing, like 20 pounds,
17:48
something like that? Yeah. Really? Is that the key?
17:53
Speaker 1: I experiment a lot, okay? I've done so many different systems.
17:57
But this is what I've come up with that I
17:59
think is best. So basically, it all revolves around these
18:03
arm wrestling practice days where it's 100%. This is what
18:07
I want my body to maximize about. But the off days,
18:12
the Tuesday, the Wednesday, it's all day just doing blood flow.
18:17
Just increasing the amount of blood that flows through the fascia,
18:22
flows through these chains in arm wrestling motions. And the
18:26
100 is all I'm trying to do is increase my circulation,
18:30
especially through my connective structures. And movement is so essential.
18:36
Speaker 2: Why that over? Why is that more beneficial than like
18:39
hard strength training, like small reps, like low numbers of reps,
18:43
but high weight?
18:44
Speaker 1: So super debatable. And I've done all of it. What
18:51
I've found is, in my opinion, you only have so
18:54
much energy. And this is something we've got to really
18:56
weigh in. Because if I could just smash heavy stuff
18:59
all the time and take steps forward, I'd do it.
19:02
But I've found that you don't want to detract from
19:07
the thing that you're really, really trying to do. So
19:09
anything that takes away from your ability to do that,
19:11
I think you should look at cutting. The best part
19:14
of my training is on the table. So anything that
19:16
kind of messes with that, I don't want to do it.
19:18
I've done a lot of systems where I'm lifting heavy.
19:21
But the thing is, is they take energy. They take resources.
19:24
And what I really want to do is prepare my
19:26
body so I can do that specific task as good
19:29
as possible. The high rep training heals me.
19:35
Speaker 2: It heals me.
19:35
Speaker 1: A lot of people are like, oh, that's a lot
19:36
of work. And I'm like, it's really not. It's just
19:40
it's a form of healing almost.
19:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Just the blood flow and the consistent
19:46
movement and high repetitions.
19:49
Speaker 1: Yes. This is highly debated, okay? But I'm proving it
19:56
over and over, over the years. I started doing, because
20:00
arm wrestling is a strength sport. No doubt about it.
20:04
So right away people think, oh, you know, heavy weight. And,
20:08
you know, high reps is dangerous because you're going to
20:11
become an endurance guy and it's going to make you weaker.
20:15
But when you go low, your work volume is tremendous. Okay.
20:21
If you're doing light weight all day long, I mean,
20:24
the amount of total weight that you're lifting becomes astronomical.
20:28
And I think that that adaptation over long periods is wonderful.
20:33
And you can't get the blood flow through the connective
20:36
structures without movement. So this is really why I do it.
20:41
The healing aspects, the overall metabolic conditioning that you get. Yeah,
20:48
and the taper is a big part of it as well.
20:52
But yeah, I'm doing all my heavy lifting specifically in
20:56
the sport. I'm not doing my heavy lifting at this
20:59
time in my career. And also, Joe, I'm 51. And
21:03
I'm plagued with injuries. So I have to be very specific.
21:07
I have to be very precise. Yeah, this is the
21:09
best formula I've come up with.
21:11
Speaker 2: And when you were younger, did you approach it differently?
21:13
Speaker 1: I have made so many mistakes.
21:15
Speaker 2: What was the initial approach? Just lift as heavy as
21:17
you can?
21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, lift as heavy as I can.
21:21
Speaker 2: Well, you're a giant dude already, right? So you already
21:23
naturally have like big bones, big genetics. So did you
21:27
power lift? What did you do initially?
21:30
Speaker 1: I was a judo guy. I was a basketball guy.
21:34
I was a military guy. So I did a lot
21:39
of different stuff. I was very cross-trained. I even did
21:43
Ironman for a bit.
21:44
Speaker 2: That's got to be so hard for you.
21:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:47
Speaker 2: All that weight. Yeah.
21:50
Speaker 1: So when I say Ironman, apologies, not traditional, military Ironman.
21:55
Speaker 2: What's the difference?
21:57
Speaker 1: Military Ironman, you're doing it with a backpack, you're portaging
22:00
a canoe, you're paddling, you're running with a backpack. So
22:04
that race, you know, a winning time is, you know,
22:07
probably anything under six hours, like five and a half
22:10
to six hours. So it's long duration, but it's slightly heavier.
22:13
So I'm still big, even for that. Like most champions,
22:18
most guys who win the Ironman are, you know, average
22:21
size or even smaller. But yeah, I mean, I'm a
22:25
bigger person. But, yeah, I did a lot of different sports,
22:30
but I've always loved arm wrestling. It's always been the
22:33
one I've come back to.
22:34
Speaker 2: It's, you know. What is it about it?
22:37
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of things about it.
22:39
You know, for me personally, it was my first sport. Like,
22:43
I started arm wrestling with my grandmother when I was
22:44
like four years old.
22:46
Speaker 2: With your grandmother? Yeah. Really?
22:48
Speaker 1: Never underestimate the power of a grandmother.
22:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
22:54
Speaker 1: I was a rowdy little kid. And, you know, with
22:58
a German mother who didn't let me do too much
23:00
crazy stuff around the house. And my grandmother used to
23:03
come over and it was a reward system. She'd tell
23:07
me to do chores. And the result was I got
23:10
to arm wrestle with her.
23:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:13
Speaker 1: I never beat her.
23:15
Speaker 2: That's crazy. I never beat her.
23:18
Speaker 1: It's funny. Her name was LaVon. And the current order.
23:24
super heavyweight world champion is Levon. So I've never beat.
23:28
Speaker 2: Either of them. Yeah. It's a bit trippy.
23:31
Speaker 1: Uh, but yeah, so I started, I started young. Um, I,
23:36
I love arm wrestling because it's, uh, it's a very
23:40
safe fight. Okay. Like I, I, I love fighting. Everything
23:44
in my life has been about fighting and, um, arm
23:48
wrestling is one of those fight sports that has super
23:51
low cost. Like we don't punch each other in the head. Uh,
23:54
I'll be able to walk, uh, nothing on my spine. Uh,
23:58
my elbows don't straighten, you know, so it's low cost.
24:02
You can do it your whole life. Like we have,
24:05
we've had world champions in the open division who are
24:07
almost 70. What?
24:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. What? Yeah.
24:11
Speaker 1: That's cool. Right.
24:12
Speaker 2: That's incredible. I love it. How's that possible?
24:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's the hand is weird. Like this thing here
24:19
is designed for volume and it just slowly builds. You know,
24:24
the hand is, the structure is, has so much connective
24:27
tissues in it, so much tendon. And that's just, it
24:31
takes so long to build. You know, age is an
24:34
advantage in a lot of ways because you just have
24:37
more time to get further in arm wrestling. Yeah, I'm 51.
24:41
I'm telling you, I probably competed at the highest level
24:44
and I believe I can still go further. It's non-typical,
24:49
you know, it's non-typical. And the thing that I love
24:52
most about it the very most is, is the family
24:56
and the bonds, uh, arm wrestling clubs are special places. Uh,
25:01
it's very blue collar, open doors, man. There's, there's not
25:05
a lot of money associated with the sport in terms
25:07
of membership fees. I mean, we arm wrestle in each
25:09
other's garages and houses and, um, and it breeds a
25:13
very tight family. Like I consider the club that I
25:17
train with, like they're my family. Like, so, um, that's my,
25:21
I mean, that's what sports all about, you know, Yeah.
25:25
And arm wrestling is very conducive to that.
25:27
Speaker 2: So when you say it's non-typical that you could compete
25:30
at this level, at this age, how old are most
25:35
of the top guys?
25:36
Speaker 1: I'd say that you hit your probably peak typically when
25:41
you are low 30s. So very standard, you know. Oh,
25:45
that's my buddy Porkchop. Oh, there's Crazy George. This is
25:48
the guy, okay? Which one's Crazy George? The dude who's
25:51
down there. Not the guy in the green shirt. So
25:54
these are both my good buddies.
25:55
Speaker 2: And this is the guy who can't straighten his arms out? Oh,
25:57
he can't, no.
25:58
Speaker 1: He's super locked up, okay? But so he's doing this
26:01
move called a king's move or outside top roll. And
26:05
you see Porkchop's wrist is bent back. I love Porky.
26:08
I train with Porky twice a week. But, yeah, Crazy George.
26:13
And Crazy George is like 160 pounds. Really? Yeah, and
26:17
Porky's like 230, completely tremendously jacked and strong. Yeah, and
26:23
Porkchop is like a professional arm wrestler pulling at East
26:25
versus West. Okay, that's our highest league. And Crazy George is, yeah.
26:32
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
26:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's completely incredible.
26:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
26:36
Speaker 1: There's another guy from our club, Matt Smith, against Crazy George.
26:40
I think Matt actually may have beaten him here. This
26:42
is actually the time period of Crazy George's downfall, okay?
26:46
Speaker 2: How old is Crazy George in this film?
26:48
Speaker 1: He'd probably be late 60s here, okay? Wow.
26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:52
Speaker 1: He's an absolute legend to me in the sport. Like, technically,
26:55
so this guy, he spent the first, like, 20 years
26:59
in the sport, two up, two down, okay? Go to tournament,
27:02
double elimination. And that's the Canadian champion. These guys are
27:05
all champions that you see him arm wrestling with. And
27:09
he invented basically... He didn't invent it, but there were
27:12
very few people doing this style of arm wrestling. Okay?
27:16
We call it an outside top roll or a king's move.
27:19
And he really figured it out. And very difficult. Very
27:26
difficult to deal with.
27:27
Speaker 2: And what is he doing? He's dropping down and lowering
27:31
his body weight. Yeah. So.
27:34
Speaker 1: There's many kind of main strengths in arm wrestling, okay?
27:39
There's rising strength. There's pronational strength. There's cupping strength. And
27:46
this pronational, see this, like, this is like my favorite example.
27:50
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, look at that thing. That's so weird. Show that.
27:53
Show that. Who the fuck has that muscle? Arm wrestlers.
27:56
That muscle's so weird.
27:58
Speaker 1: I don't even think I have that.
28:00
Speaker 2: Where is that? That's nuts. Right. Mine is non-existent. I
28:05
was going to interrupt. I saw it on this thumbnail
28:07
and I was going to say, what is that? Yeah.
28:10
That's fucking crazy.
28:12
Speaker 1: It's one of my dreams to have bodybuilders when they're,
28:16
you know, IFBB just to be doing pronator poses one day,
28:20
one day.
28:20
Speaker 2: I don't even have that.
28:21
Speaker 1: You got to first turn your thumb down.
28:24
Speaker 2: Like that? Yeah, and.
28:26
Speaker 1: Pop your wrist back.
28:27
Speaker 2: There it is. See it?
28:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:29
Speaker 2: There you go. That's the one. That's the one. Fucking
28:33
little bitch-ass muscle. God, that's hilarious. That's gigantic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:39
Speaker 1: So, like, different styles in arm wrestling, okay, like, they
28:42
have different roots, okay? And the King's move, top rolling
28:48
in general, outside top rolling is super dependent on pronation.
28:53
Speaker 2: So it's all this.
28:55
Speaker 1: Twisting it. Twisting. It's weaponized, right? We get really strong.
29:02
And there's a relationship between all the angles in the hand.
29:05
The hand is very complex, right? All sorts of stuff
29:08
it can do. And the main two drivers is cupping,
29:13
we call it, flexion, and pronation. And these two interact.
29:17
So when one pronates, it attacks the other one's cup.
29:22
So there's a relationship between them. So Crazy George is
29:26
like the master of pronational styles. King's Move is pronation style. I,
29:34
over the course of my career, changed techniques, changed techniques.
29:38
Probably my best technique. is an open top roll or
29:41
a King's move now. Yeah, and I learned a lot.
29:44
It's like the guy that, one of my first coaches,
29:47
a guy called Troy Eaton, he could never beat George.
29:53
Speaker 2: He couldn't beat George.
29:54
Speaker 1: We tried, we tried, we tried for years to figure
29:57
him out. So, and that was back when I was
29:59
like 20. So I've been studying this style for 30 years. And, yeah,
30:06
it's a combination of locks and giveaways and balancing. Arm
30:11
wrestling things happen really quickly, very, very quickly. But it's
30:14
a balancing act of all these different strengths.
30:17
Speaker 2: So what is it about you that's able to keep
30:20
competing at a very high level into your 50s? I
30:24
think— Is it this approach where you're just doing all
30:26
these reps all day long? Do you think that's a
30:29
big part of it? Huge. Huge. Huge.
30:31
Speaker 1: Huge part of it.
30:32
Speaker 2: Because you're constantly forcing your muscles to work. You're constantly
30:35
getting blood flow and you're not losing any strength. Yeah.
30:38
As you get older.
30:39
Speaker 1: It's a huge part of it.
30:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:42
Speaker 1: My work volume probably exceeds most people in the sport
30:47
with that. So metabolically and from a health perspective, it
30:51
keeps my tendons and ligaments really functional. Um, and you know, I'm,
30:55
I'm just, I'm just a very simple and obsessed person.
30:58
And I just, I arm wrestle at every opportunity.
31:01
Speaker 2: Don't you also have some very freaky genetics? Didn't Ryan? Yeah. Yeah.
31:06
What is his last name?
31:07
Speaker 1: Rossner.
31:07
Speaker 2: He's Rossner.
31:08
Speaker 1: This guy's the best.
31:09
Speaker 2: Very interesting guy.
31:10
Speaker 1: Smartest person I know.
31:11
Speaker 2: Geneticist. And, uh, he was explaining to me how unusual
31:16
your genes are.
31:18
Speaker 1: We all have unusual genes.
31:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. But you have really unusual genes.
31:23
Speaker 1: Uh, Well, that topic is so big, the genetic piece.
31:30
I think that what a massive piece going forward for
31:34
our species. The mastery of genetics, it's right at the top,
31:40
I think, of our highest priorities.
31:43
Speaker 2: There was a thing that they were talking about last
31:45
night in the green room. See if you could find this.
31:47
They think they might have figured out a way to
31:50
end Down syndrome. They think they might have figured out
31:54
a way with genetic engineering, with CRISPR or whatever they're using,
31:58
whatever modalities they're using to end Down syndrome.
32:01
Speaker 1: Sure.
32:02
Speaker 2: Which is wild.
32:03
Speaker 1: I think that there's so many answers with genetics. I
32:07
personally believe that, and this is a big topic with
32:11
freedom and everything like that, but I really believe that
32:14
when you're born, you should be swabbed and it should
32:17
accompany your health card or whatever just as information. You know,
32:23
there's so much.
32:24
Speaker 2: Well, it probably will be in the future as all
32:27
these techniques and all this new stuff comes out. CRISPR
32:30
takes a bold leap toward silencing Down syndrome's extra chromosome. Wow.
32:35
So scientists have taken an important step towards a gene
32:38
therapy that could one day turn off the genetic material
32:41
that causes Down syndrome. Down syndrome is a genetic condition
32:44
caused by an extra chromosome, 21, and consequently hundreds of
32:48
triplicate genes that lead to developmental and neurological issues. According
32:53
to Washington-based National Down Syndrome Society, one in every 640
32:57
babies in the United States is born with Down syndrome.
33:00
That makes it the most common chromosomal condition. So what
33:06
is it doing here? Okay, so Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
33:10
Center and Harvard Medical School found a way to silence
33:14
much of the extra chromosomes activity in the cell at once.
33:17
Details of the research are published in a paper in
33:20
the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Wow.
33:24
So what is weird about your genes, though? Ryan told me,
33:27
but I don't remember. He goes, you've got to talk
33:28
to him about his genes.
33:30
Speaker 1: Well, Ryan's actually got to talk to. I mean, I'm
33:32
a high school educated guy, and I've been down to
33:35
Austin several times to hang out with Ryan. I absorb
33:38
everything I can from this guy. But I think that
33:44
my genetics, I think I'm predisposed to endurance, actually.
33:50
Speaker 2: Endurance, okay.
33:50
Speaker 1: I think so. I think if you take an overall
33:53
look at my genetics, I think I have a lot of,
33:56
you know, favorable mutations that are, you know, predispose me to,
34:01
to good, but it's weird. I don't know, man, listen
34:04
to the genetic side of things. I I'll sound silly
34:07
if I try and talk too much about it. I'll
34:09
just tell you that there are, there are favorable genetics
34:13
for sure. You know, there's favorable mutations and it's amazing,
34:18
you know, if you could capture All of them from everybody.
34:22
Speaker 2: And, you know, put it together and you never know what.
34:27
You'd get Brian Shaw.
34:28
Speaker 1: We've scanned Brian.
34:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
34:31
Speaker 1: That's the thing. So this project that Ryan is doing,
34:34
and I like to help him out a little bit.
34:37
We've been looking at elite performers with the goal to
34:44
find favorable mutations. And, yeah, we scanned Brian.
34:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's in the Bible.
34:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:51
Speaker 2: That guy's in the Bible. He's like, you know, David
34:54
and Goliath. Yeah. They're real people out there like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brian.
34:58
So his genetics are one out of every 500 million people.
35:03
Isn't it something crazy along those lines?
35:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. He's completely a– he's right at the peak of
35:12
human performance right from a genetic standpoint.
35:14
Speaker 2: Just freakish.
35:15
Speaker 1: Freakish.
35:16
Speaker 2: Bone density. Yeah. Everything.
35:18
Speaker 1: Everything. And it's not just his bone density, the dude's mindset.
35:22
Like there's many pieces of Brian's genetics that make him
35:26
a champion. But yeah, he has some stuff in him
35:29
that Ryan's never seen.
35:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, nobody.
35:34
Speaker 1: And I probably shouldn't be speaking about other people's medical stuff,
35:37
but I love Brian and he can sue me if
35:39
he wants. Nobody has his growth hormone. He has a
35:44
different type of growth hormone.
35:46
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
35:47
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the same.
35:48
Speaker 2: What?
35:49
Speaker 1: I don't think he has this. We're opening something so
35:52
cool because you talked about the Down syndrome and there's
35:55
some very interesting stuff with that. But yeah, Brian, I
36:00
don't believe that Brian's growth hormone is the same as
36:03
yours and mine.
36:04
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
36:05
Speaker 1: It might be molecularly different or it might have, you're
36:10
going to have to talk to Ryan.
36:11
Speaker 2: His growth hormone is different. He's a different kind of
36:14
growth hormone?
36:15
Speaker 1: He has a mutation in his growth hormone.
36:18
Speaker 2: Well, that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I mean, he's
36:20
almost seven feet tall and he's 400 pounds.
36:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he doesn't stop. He doesn't stop. But it's weird.
36:27
The whole like Down syndrome thing, they can do stop codes.
36:30
Like some genes, like some mutations that you get, from
36:33
what I understand, there's like a stop code on a gene.
36:35
So whatever your gene is, when the, I guess, mRNA
36:39
lands on it and starts to do its thing, Like
36:42
there can be a stop code or something that just
36:44
stops that gene from expressing. And I think that that's
36:48
likely what they do with that. They'd somehow insert a
36:51
stop code. But I mean, there's people out there who
36:55
have like world records, like for things like deadlift that
37:00
don't have fast twitch muscle according to their genetics. So
37:04
it's really weird.
37:05
Speaker 2: What do you mean they don't have fast twitch muscle?
37:06
Speaker 1: Like they have a stop code on their fast twitch genetics.
37:10
Speaker 2: Just naturally.
37:11
Speaker 1: Doesn't make any sense at all.
37:12
Speaker 2: They're just born weird.
37:13
Speaker 1: Born super weird. Yet they're capable of beating world records
37:16
on the deadlift.
37:18
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you think that deadlift is a fast twitch thing? Yeah.
37:22
So I don't understand.
37:23
Speaker 1: I don't either. It's an amazing field. Genetics is an
37:27
amazing field.
37:28
Speaker 2: Is that a lack of understanding of what fast twitch do?
37:31
Or is it they can compensate with the other muscles
37:35
in some way?
37:36
Speaker 1: I don't think it's. Other muscles, because I think that
37:38
it would probably apply to all the musculature. So there's
37:42
something that we don't understand. There's something weird going on. Eddie,
37:47
you can sue me.
37:48
Speaker 2: Eddie Hall, I love you. I love you.
37:52
Speaker 1: Eddie's got a stop code.
37:54
Speaker 2: In his jeans?
37:55
Speaker 1: On fast-twitch muscle. Makes no sense.
37:57
Speaker 2: Well, that doesn't make any sense.
37:58
Speaker 1: Makes no sense.
37:58
Speaker 2: Because he moves so fast. I know. And he hits
38:00
so fucking hard. That's crazy.
38:02
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
38:04
Speaker 2: How is that possible? I don't know. I've seen that
38:05
guy hit mitts and you're.
38:06
Speaker 1: Like, Jesus Christ. I know.
38:08
Speaker 2: Is this what the Hercules? No. Not that?
38:10
Speaker 1: No.
38:11
Speaker 2: Something else? No. Okay. Oh, that's myostatin. That's myostatin inhibitors. Yeah.
38:15
So it regulates the production of myostatin, a protein that
38:18
stops muscles from growing too large. So with myostatin inhibitors,
38:21
they've done that with, I'm sure you've seen those whippets
38:25
that have it. Yes, of course. So whippets are a
38:27
weird dog. It's a very skinny, fast dog. And some
38:31
whippets are born with this genetic mutation that's a myostatin inhibitor,
38:35
and they look like the Hulk. It's the– show an
38:38
image of that, please. It is the craziest– that doesn't
38:42
look like a real dog. That doesn't look like a
38:44
real dog. That's a crazy bodybuilder dog. Because if you
38:48
see a regular whippet– show me a regular whippet now, please. Yeah.
38:52
Regular whippets– That's a, yeah, look at a regular whippet,
38:56
like a real fast, almost like a greyhound looking dog.
38:59
And then you see the ones with the myostatin inhibitor
39:02
gene and you're like, what the hell is going on?
39:05
They look like the most freakish bodybuilder of all time,
39:09
but in a dog form. And some humans have that.
39:12
Speaker 1: Belgian blues also. The Belgian.
39:14
Speaker 2: The cows. Yes. Yeah.
39:16
Speaker 1: And they have it too.
39:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:17
Speaker 1: So they offer already genetic therapy that gives you folostatin.
39:24
So there's a balance between folostatin and myostatin. From what
39:29
I understand, like the key that turns on the cell for,
39:32
for growth is, um, is full of statin and myostatin
39:38
tells the cell to stop growing. You're big enough. Right.
39:42
Speaker 2: Important.
39:43
Speaker 1: Very important.
39:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:44
Speaker 1: And so if you don't have myostatin, all that that
39:47
turnkey gets is, is folostatin. So the only signal that
39:52
you're ever getting with a myostatin deficiency is folostatin. And so, yeah,
39:56
so they offer a genetic therapy that increases your folostatin.
40:00
Speaker 2: They offer it to who? Hmm.
40:05
Speaker 1: Anybody, anybody, anybody with enough money.
40:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a bunch of genetic therapies that they've already created.
40:13
Folostatin is one of them.
40:14
Speaker 2: And so that would be for power lifters or football
40:17
players or someone who just wanted to get fucking huge?
40:20
Speaker 1: I think initially it was created for longevity because as
40:24
you age, your folostatin drops, and that's why people get smaller,
40:29
they shrink as they get older, and folostatin just helps
40:33
you maintain.
40:34
Speaker 2: Muscle mass. Yes.
40:35
Speaker 1: So I think it's mostly... Promoted as an anti-aging remedy,
40:40
but absolutely. You want to get your performance up? Yeah,
40:44
increase it.
40:45
Speaker 2: They're doing so many wild things now. They've got this
40:48
new therapy now for people with disc degeneration. I'm sure
40:51
you have it. I have it. A lot of people
40:53
have it, especially anybody who does jiu-jitsu has it. Your
40:57
discs just get worn out from getting cranked on. Heavy
41:01
lifters always have it, lower back issues. The disc is
41:05
the soft cushion in between the spinal columns. And those
41:10
big bones push down that disc. And over time and
41:13
all that compression, it squashes. But now they've got stuff
41:16
that they can inject into the disc that inflates the discs.
41:20
And so all these people that have been getting artificial
41:23
discs and fusions and all the problems that come with
41:26
that because there's massive problems, they're going to be able
41:28
to eliminate that, which is amazing.
41:31
Speaker 1: Super cool.
41:32
Speaker 2: Oh, so super cool. And I tell everybody, if you
41:35
could avoid back surgery, please avoid back surgery. Don't fucking
41:38
do it. There's a lot of different– like I always
41:40
tell everybody and I'll tell everybody again. Louis Simmons, his invention,
41:45
that invention, the reverse hyper, fucking incredible. One of the
41:49
greatest invention ever for people with lower back problems. I
41:53
have one here in the studio. I have one at
41:55
my house. I fucking swear by that machine. It's so good.
41:59
It decompresses the spine on the D cell and on
42:02
the uplift when you're lifting up the weights. It strengthens
42:05
the muscles out. It's like a perfect exercise for lower
42:08
back issues. Yeah.
42:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wild when we look at the future in
42:14
terms of performance and how far the age is being pushed.
42:18
Like we see Crazy George, but I think I'm optimistic
42:23
that all the ages are just going to be pushed
42:26
and pushed until you're probably maybe not going to be
42:29
a champion until you're 60. That's crazy.
42:31
Speaker 2: Right? That's crazy. Well, that's for arm wrestling. I wonder
42:35
what's going to happen with– well, the thing with regular sports,
42:38
the stuff that's pushing this stuff is performance-enhancing drugs. You know, peptides,
42:43
stem cells, not really– that's not really performance-enhancing drugs but
42:47
for injuries. But testosterone, all these different steroids, all these
42:51
different things. The thing about like combat sports in particular
42:56
is that you can't use those things. They're not allowed.
42:59
But when you can use them, you see these older
43:02
athletes that have the mind of an older athlete but
43:05
the body that works like a young guy.
43:06
Speaker 1: Right.
43:07
Speaker 2: My favorite example of that is Vitor Belfort when he
43:09
was in his prime.
43:10
Speaker 1: TRT Belfort.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. TRT Vitor was the scariest fucking guy ever. Yeah.
43:16
Because he was jacked up with testosterone, but he was
43:19
also 37 years old with a lifetime of combat sport experience,
43:22
a lifetime of intelligence, but hadn't lost any speed, hadn't
43:25
lost any strength, and in fact had like superhuman speed
43:28
and strength. Because he was juicy, super juicy. But it
43:34
makes you think like, man, what would the sport look
43:37
like if that was open to everybody? Right. Yeah.
43:42
Speaker 1: Interesting.
43:43
Speaker 2: It is interesting because there's a lot of guys that
43:45
want to keep competing, but their body just doesn't respond
43:49
the way it used to to training because they're 37
43:51
or 38 or 39. Yeah. But if you could get
43:54
them on the sauce. Yeah.
43:56
Speaker 1: Right. Where's the limit?
43:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:58
Speaker 1: Right.
43:59
Speaker 2: And why not let them?
44:01
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Why not? You know, I'm a big believer in
44:05
tested sport. You know, I think that that's wonderful. And
44:08
I think that that'll never go away. And I think
44:11
it's important. But I'm also a believer in open up
44:15
the gates and let everybody play.
44:16
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I really love this whole idea of
44:18
doing the enhanced games. It didn't really pan out the
44:21
way everybody hoped. Nobody really won any records other than
44:24
the one guy in the swimming, but he wore a
44:26
prohibited suit that lets you swim quicker apparently. I don't
44:29
understand swimming.
44:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:30
Speaker 2: But I was hoping like you're going to see some
44:33
freakish superhuman performances. But I feel like if that's going
44:37
to happen, that's going to take years. I don't think
44:40
you would get the kind of gains that these people
44:42
are hoping to get to achieve like world record super
44:45
freak human performance unless you're doing that stuff for a
44:49
long– like You know as well as anybody that training
44:52
takes forever. It takes to build strength, to build speed,
44:55
to build endurance. It takes a long-ass time. You think
44:58
you're going to get strength in three months. Like, you
45:01
get a little stronger. For sure. But you're not going
45:03
to get freakish strength for fucking years. It takes years. Years. Decades.
45:10
Like Jujimufu. Like, how long has that guy been lifting weights?
45:12
That guy's a fucking freak. Yeah. Yeah.
45:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. He can't build this stuff overnight.
45:16
Speaker 2: And I bet he would melt a piss cup.
45:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:20
Speaker 2: Listen, I think that... Not a chance.
45:22
Speaker 1: Juji, look at myself included. I care about performance. This
45:29
is what I care about. And so many people fall
45:32
into the same boat.
45:33
Speaker 2: Look at that guy. Damn, chance of hell that dude's natural.
45:35
Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell you.
45:37
Speaker 2: Juji is probably... That's.
45:38
Speaker 1: Amazing, though, that he can do that.
45:40
Speaker 2: That kind of flexibility with that kind of mass is...
45:42
Look at that. While overhead pressing... A full side split.
45:47
That's nuts. On chairs. Jean-Claude Van Damme style.
45:52
Speaker 1: Jiu-Jitsu started out tricking. What does that mean?
45:57
Speaker 2: That sounds like... You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:01
Speaker 1: So he actually started off.
46:02
Speaker 2: Sounds like he's picking up guys. Yeah, no, no. Jiu-Jitsu
46:04
is super cool.
46:06
Speaker 1: It's like flipping... He.
46:08
Speaker 2: Was on America's Got Talent?
46:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like a form of like acrobatics or gymnastics.
46:15
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. Well, I've seen him do acrobatic stuff and
46:18
it's really nuts.
46:19
Speaker 1: Right.
46:19
Speaker 2: Like his physical ability, like it defies what you expect
46:24
from a guy with that kind of mass. Right. Yeah.
46:27
Speaker 1: So he's a combined, like almost gymnast and bodybuilder. And
46:32
he's probably better now than ever. And he's, I mean,
46:36
I think Judy's in his forties.
46:38
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
46:39
Speaker 1: And, yeah, he's massive and healthy and, you know, absolutely
46:43
kicking ass. Probably the most positive human being that I've met.
46:47
Speaker 2: He seems super positive in his YouTube videos. Yeah. And
46:51
we have snorted his fucking smelly shots.
46:53
Speaker 1: It's strong.
46:54
Speaker 2: He's got the best stuff. He does. We've snorted his
46:56
stuff about 100 times on this show. Yeah, actually. Look
47:00
at him doing flips. Yeah. That's crazy that a guy
47:03
with that kind of mass can move like that.
47:06
Speaker 1: Jiu-Jitsu is actually the inspiration for this latest way that
47:13
I'm training.
47:14
Speaker 2: Really?
47:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jiu-Jitsu came up to my place probably
47:18
about a year and a half ago. And we were
47:21
just redlining in our two-hand work.
47:24
Speaker 2: And it was so good. Two-hand work?
47:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I would be considered like the senior guy
47:30
in my club. And we have this kind of rule.
47:34
in the, in the clubs to make things work properly.
47:37
Senior holds, junior works.
47:39
Speaker 2: Okay.
47:40
Speaker 1: So, so the senior is kind of staying with you,
47:44
floating with you. And the junior is able to control
47:47
their intensity. So the guy who would normally win the
47:51
match doesn't win.
47:52
Speaker 2: You just hold him in place. Okay.
47:54
Speaker 1: Right.
47:54
Speaker 2: Like defense work in jujitsu.
47:56
Speaker 1: Exactly. Okay. But just to help out the, that guy typically, um,
48:02
will do two arm work. OK, to kind of flip
48:05
the script for him so somebody can hold like me
48:09
with two arms and kind of let me get to
48:11
red line.
48:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
48:13
Speaker 1: So Juju and I were doing that like a year
48:15
and a half ago and it.
48:17
Speaker 2: Was so good and it was so much fun.
48:18
Speaker 1: I was like, what am I doing? You know, having
48:22
anything kind of cut into this. And that's when I
48:25
stopped doing heavy lifting. It was as a result of
48:29
training with Juju.
48:30
Speaker 2: So this two-arm work of just holding and just work
48:33
on that, you feel is more important than all the
48:35
lifting and all the other stuff?
48:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
48:37
Speaker 2: Because it's sport-specific? Exactly. And does he arm wrestle?
48:41
Speaker 1: He does, a little bit. Juju does everything.
48:43
Speaker 2: But why did working with him make you train differently?
48:48
Speaker 1: Juju's a special guy. I think that just you don't
48:52
have to be the best in your field. If you
48:54
have a certain energy or certain thing with you, Juju
48:58
is a wonderful, creative, hardworking guy. And when you get
49:02
a chance to train with him, it doesn't matter that
49:05
his skill level, it's just his level of energy is
49:07
so good that when we work together, it helps me.
49:11
I don't know. I don't know how it happened, but
49:14
he unlocked this understanding of the priority of that training
49:19
for me. I've always done it.
49:20
Speaker 2: It, but never, how did he unlock it? I'm not,
49:23
I'm not getting it.
49:24
Speaker 1: I think that our training session, uh, I, okay. So
49:27
what happened was Juju came over and I normally on
49:32
days that I do table work, I do not hit
49:36
the gym. Because I don't want anything to kind of
49:39
impact my table work. And because I only had a
49:44
day with Juju, I wanted to show him how I
49:46
was training. And at the time, I was training very heavy.
49:49
I was training very heavy, so we did this circuit.
49:51
I showed him all my latest exercises that I was prioritizing.
49:55
And then we went to the club that night. And
49:57
we had this awesome two-arm work, but I felt as
49:59
though the singles and everything that I'd done earlier in
50:02
the day had a slight effect. And I was like,
50:04
I can't ever let that happen again. I need to
50:07
make sure I put all my energy into this table training.
50:10
And it's funny, you know, being 51 and having over
50:14
30 years competitively in the sport, I still feel like
50:16
I learn. I still feel like I change things from
50:20
event to event.
50:22
Speaker 2: Well, that's a sign you're doing something fun. Yeah, that's
50:25
the key. You continue to get better at it and
50:27
continue to grow at it.
50:28
Speaker 1: Key to life.
50:29
Speaker 2: So just the one training session with him? changed your
50:33
perspective on that because you just weren't performing as well?
50:36
Speaker 1: That was a tipping point. That was a tipping point
50:38
for me. So I generally have a protocol, like a
50:43
training kind of balance, a recipe that I'm going to
50:46
follow pretty much from event to event.
50:49
Speaker 2: And this is all made by you?
50:50
Speaker 1: It's made by me. And I watch everything, you know,
50:55
I love arm wrestling, but I'm looking at sports. I'm
50:57
always trying to get better. So yeah, it's my protocol
51:01
that I come up with. And then I'll tweak it
51:04
based off of my results. Okay, so if I'm doing good,
51:08
not much changes. If I don't do as good as
51:11
I think I should do or there's like something, I'll
51:14
tweak it from event to event. And yeah, and that
51:17
night was the night that I decided I need to
51:21
get rid of heavy weights because this is so good.
51:23
This training is so good when done properly. And that's
51:26
the key when done properly. Like two-arm work can suck.
51:30
Like if you do two-arm work wrong, it can hurt you.
51:33
It can set you back. But when done properly, it's
51:36
the best training that there can be.
51:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Specifically for arm wrestling.
51:39
Speaker 1: Super specific.
51:41
Speaker 2: And do you do stuff that's not specific for arm wrestling,
51:43
just for overall body strength? Like do you feel like
51:46
there's a balance to be achieved?
51:48
Speaker 1: This is the greatest criticism that I always receive as
51:54
an athlete because I don't really.
51:57
Speaker 2: Just arm wrestling stuff.
51:58
Speaker 1: I go for walks. That's it? Oh, terrible. Really?
52:02
Speaker 2: No lunges? No leg curls?
52:03
Speaker 1: I'm trying a little bit to work it back in
52:07
in some minimal way. But it's interesting, you know, cross-training
52:13
versus specialization. I have a long background in very broad training. Okay? Like,
52:20
I once upon a time was a fit human being
52:22
in many aspects. But I really care about being a champ,
52:27
you know? And I could probably be a healthier guy
52:30
and be able to run and squat and deadlift. Or
52:36
I can be a little bit of a cripple and
52:39
be pulling for world title shots is the way I
52:41
kind of look at it. And I chose that. Wow.
52:44
I should do more squats.
52:46
Speaker 2: Well, my only thought would be that if you conditioned
52:49
and strengthened your overall body, it would just help your
52:52
overall strength.
52:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
52:54
Speaker 2: I mean, that is the thought about deadlifting and squatting
52:57
is that it helps everything. Because your whole body just
53:00
becomes stronger. And it would just naturally, like your base, everything,
53:05
your core, everything would just be much more, your foundation
53:11
would be stronger.
53:13
Speaker 1: I hear you.
53:13
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
53:14
Speaker 1: Obviously, I'm not.
53:15
Speaker 2: An arm wrestler.
53:16
Speaker 1: I don't know either. Okay. Everything. I'm playing with everything.
53:21
This is constantly what pretty much every reasonable person tells me.
53:26
And I just am like, I get to a point
53:28
where I do my arm wrestling work, and I'm like, okay,
53:29
here I am. If I want to beat LeVon, what
53:34
do I do from here? And I just am like,
53:36
more wrist curls. You know? What does he do? He's
53:41
a bit more balanced than me. LeVon lifts super heavy weights,
53:46
like stupid.
53:47
Speaker 2: What does this dude look like? Show me LeVon. What
53:51
is his last name? Saganashvili. Whoa.
53:53
Speaker 1: This is the pinnacle of our sport.
53:55
Speaker 2: Okay, this is the guy. How big is this dude?
53:59
Speaker 1: He gets about 420. Yeah.
54:02
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. I love this guy. Look at the
54:04
size of this motherfucker.
54:06
Speaker 1: Holy shit.
54:08
Speaker 2: That can't be real. Is that AI? Is that picture AI? No.
54:11
That one right there. Okay, that's real. Oh, my God.
54:14
This is real. I don't know, Jamie. That might be real.
54:17
He might just be pumped.
54:18
Speaker 1: LaVon is the pinnacle, okay? We scanned him, too. And surprise,
54:24
he's a weirdo also.
54:25
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Duh. Yeah, yeah. Look at the size of
54:29
that motherfucker.
54:30
Speaker 1: He's in Little Rock in two days.
54:31
Speaker 2: In Little Rock, Arkansas? Yeah. Where does he live right now? Georgia.
54:35
Georgia the country.
54:36
Speaker 1: There's so many weirdos that come from Georgia.
54:39
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah.
54:40
Speaker 1: Proportionately, their strength is not normal. LeVon, nobody has beat
54:47
this guy since 2017. He has absolutely flattened the field, okay?
54:53
Speaker 2: He's so hairy, too. He looks like a primitive man.
54:57
He looks like a science project. Look at the fucking
55:00
size of that guy. Oh, my God. Smart guy. I bet.
55:05
Speaker 1: Very cool guy. I absolutely love LeVon. Um, he has
55:11
beaten the piss out of me at every opportunity.
55:14
Speaker 2: He's so big. Yeah, he is.
55:15
Speaker 1: He is so big and, uh, and he's so good.
55:19
He's like, he grew up in the trenches arm wrestling. Okay.
55:22
He didn't, he's not one of these guys who came in, uh,
55:26
you know, he, he made his way through the world championships. Yeah.
55:29
He hasn't lost in 10 years.
55:32
Speaker 2: And so he, does he do different stuff than you do?
55:35
Speaker 1: He does. A lot of the guys have different formulas, okay?
55:39
LeVon does a lot of pull-ups, really heavy ones, and
55:43
he does a lot of really heavy curls. This is
55:46
the base. But he does all the same. Like, we
55:49
do all the same exercises, just different formulas.
55:53
Speaker 2: Now, when you hear the best guy is doing things
55:56
different than you, what keeps you from doing what he does?
56:03
Speaker 1: So we are all different.
56:04
Speaker 2: Right. That's what he used to look like. That's crazy.
56:08
Shout out to steroids. Shout out. Shout out to all
56:13
the scientists out there.
56:14
Speaker 1: He's very young in that first photo.
56:16
Speaker 2: Of course.
56:17
Speaker 1: You know, he he slowly evolved through the world championships
56:21
to what he is today. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting when
56:27
you see different champions, and I try and learn from everybody.
56:30
I watch what everybody does. I see what they're doing.
56:34
You have to also consider where your body's at, okay?
56:38
I can't do the things I did when I was 25.
56:40
Speaker 2: Physically.
56:41
Speaker 1: I just can't. I have, like I said, I've had surgeries.
56:46
Speaker 2: But yet you can still arm wrestle. Yeah. So— So
56:50
obviously you're very strong in these particular areas and it's
56:53
not holding you back at all. So what is holding
56:55
you back? Let me say injuries.
57:00
Speaker 1: Well, arm wrestling is a big thing, okay? There's several
57:05
things that you can kind of choose to focus on.
57:08
Probably my biggest limiting factor is my elbow because I've
57:12
had multiple surgeries on it.
57:14
Speaker 2: I burn it out.
57:15
Speaker 1: Like at the beginning of my career, I was more
57:17
of a hook style arm wrestler. That's where like the
57:20
primary kind of drive in the sport is, is the
57:23
flexion of the wrist. And you're moving forward with your
57:25
shoulder and you're kind of trying to attack the person's
57:28
arm more. Uh, but over time, my elbows got broke
57:32
down to the point where, you know, I just don't
57:34
have a lot of stability. Now I continue to work
57:37
on it. And, and quite honestly, my hooking now, my,
57:40
this stability is probably pretty good. Um, I think that
57:47
we all as athletes do the best thing we think
57:50
we can. And I think that the work that I
57:55
do is very precise. Like the way that LeVon trains,
58:00
and please, I don't like to criticize LeVon. He's the best.
58:06
But egotistically and arrogantly, I'm going to say that my
58:10
training is more precise than his. So I'm working on
58:13
very precise angles. where he's a sledgehammer at times. I'm
58:20
working on very fine angles through my wrist, a lot
58:23
of pronation in my style, a lot of hand control,
58:26
a lot of table time. I'm doing a lot of
58:28
skill-based training. LeVon's base movements, his row, he's doing a
58:34
180-kilo curl. Two hands or one hand? too but that's
58:44
a that's crazy but he's the amount of weight that
58:48
he's wrist curling i'm never i'm never gonna get there
58:52
okay i'm never gonna catch him there okay i need
58:56
to catch him through something smaller like i need to
58:59
be able to like a pit bull like somehow nip
59:01
onto like his fingertip and.
59:03
Speaker 2: Not let it go Because you're never going to be
59:06
as big as him.
59:07
Speaker 1: Probably not.
59:09
Speaker 2: But do you think that it would benefit you at
59:12
all to add size to get?
59:16
Speaker 1: I try it for every single prep that I do.
59:19
I'm trying in the super heavyweight division. I'm trying to
59:22
get as big as strong as I can.
59:23
Speaker 2: What do you weigh now?
59:24
Speaker 1: Today, I'm probably 265.
59:26
Speaker 2: And so you're giving up. A considerable amount of weight.
59:30
Speaker 1: When I compete, I can get up to 300, okay,
59:34
when I'm competing. And hopefully by the time I face
59:37
him again, I'll be my biggest ever. I hope when
59:39
I pull him I'll be 310 or 320, you know.
59:43
Speaker 2: And when you do that, what would you do to
59:44
get that big? Would you add a bunch of weightlifting stuff? No. No.
59:49
What would you do, just eat? Eat.
59:52
Speaker 1: Stay in my basement, you know.
59:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But he's doing all this other stuff. This
59:58
is why I'm confused. Like, have you tried adding all
1:00:01
those chin-ups and all the different things that he does?
1:00:03
Speaker 1: I am very far down the road. I'm very, very
1:00:07
far down the road. I've been doing this for like
1:00:10
32 years competitively. I've gone through so many systems. While
1:00:16
it is incredible to have a great row, while it
1:00:19
is incredible to have a great wrist flexion, wow, it's
1:00:25
incredible to have great legs. Like I go to tournaments,
1:00:27
sometimes my legs are sore, but typically the reason why
1:00:31
you win and lose the match is very small things
1:00:33
in the hand and the wrist. Like this is typically
1:00:36
the failure point. So I just try and put everything
1:00:40
into the most valuable pieces that I think is actually
1:00:44
going to determine my victory. And look at apart from LeVon,
1:00:47
it's working, you know, this guy has raised, he's raised
1:00:52
the sport, you know, and, I continue to chase him.
1:00:56
I continue to try and beat this dude. Have you
1:00:59
gotten close? The first time, he tore my bicep. Oh, whoa.
1:01:10
See that tattoo? See, it's a cat with 415. I
1:01:13
used to call him a 415-pound pussy. In the workup
1:01:17
to the match, I was teasing him. In Georgian, it says,
1:01:20
LeVon was here. Because he ripped it second round. So
1:01:24
that was the first time was a wash. The second
1:01:27
time I pulled him, I stopped him. I stopped him
1:01:32
round one.
1:01:34
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
1:01:35
Speaker 1: So a lot of times in arm wrestling, get everything straight,
1:01:38
don't move, go. And to stop a match means there's
1:01:45
no movement.
1:01:46
Speaker 2: So no one's winning.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: Nobody's winning.
1:01:48
Speaker 2: And you don't just keep going to the death? Oh, yeah.
1:01:51
You do?
1:01:51
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah, but I got, like, if you
1:01:54
look up the second time that I arm wrestled for
1:01:56
round one, yeah, okay. So this is the last time
1:02:00
I pulled him, which is 2024.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: And when you say pulled him, it means you had
1:02:04
a match with him.
1:02:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: So everything goes to the straps.
1:02:11
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, like. So is that what happens
1:02:14
when the match doesn't work out and the hands slip
1:02:16
away from each other?
1:02:17
Speaker 1: Straps.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: Straps. Do you guys put powder in your hands or anything? Yeah.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: You use chalk.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: But... Yeah.
1:02:25
Speaker 1: This sport is a strap-based sport at this point. Like,
1:02:28
rules are evolving in arm wrestling. It used to be... Well,
1:02:31
in some leagues, still, you get a foul. If there's
1:02:34
a slip, somebody intentionally did it. Or it's a neutral slip,
1:02:37
and then they go to the straps. But, yeah, so
1:02:41
we get to the straps. And this first round is
1:02:43
the closest I've gotten to them. And in this match...
1:02:48
I think he, I think he might've ripped my spine apart. Like, yeah,
1:02:54
I couldn't walk properly for like four months.
1:02:57
Speaker 2: Really?
1:02:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:02:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:02:59
Speaker 1: Okay. So I'm top rolling. I get into his wrist and, uh,
1:03:04
and I'm just like, I'm in shock. I'm like, I
1:03:06
can't believe. So I kinda, I think I had the
1:03:09
opportunity here to do a little bit more, like to
1:03:11
seize the initiative, but I was in such shock that
1:03:13
I got him to this point. Um, you know, I'm just,
1:03:17
and then here we go. his wrist is starting to go.
1:03:21
And so that's a floppers press and I get a foul. Okay.
1:03:25
First see my shoulder goes below the table. This is
1:03:28
called decline humorous. And it's, and it's a foul. You can't,
1:03:32
you can't do that.
1:03:32
Speaker 2: So you start from scratch.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: Well, I'm actually on my second foul. So that's a
1:03:36
loss because I was being too much of an idiot
1:03:39
in the setup and they, and they gave me a foul.
1:03:42
And then from here on, he just runs me over.
1:03:44
Speaker 2: So it's a loss? What do you mean?
1:03:46
Speaker 1: So in arm wrestling, if you get two fouls, it's
1:03:49
a loss.
1:03:50
Speaker 2: So the match is over.
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Match is over. But see, this is best of seven.
1:03:53
So from here, he runs me over. But this is
1:03:57
the closest I've gotten. We've practiced since then. I'll probably
1:04:03
practice with him this weekend. But I'm slated to pull
1:04:07
this monster again. It's going to happen one more time
1:04:10
for sure.
1:04:11
Speaker 2: It's, uh, it's what keeps me in my basement.
1:04:15
Speaker 1: It's one guy, this guy, the size of that motherfucker.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: He's awesome.
1:04:19
Speaker 1: Oh, he's a, he's a beautiful human.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: I love, I love this guy.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: He's, he's the, he's lifting the sport in terms of performance,
1:04:28
you know, like he's so hard.
1:04:30
Speaker 2: To deal with. Yeah. And that's it, man. It just
1:04:34
gets worse. It just gets worse.
1:04:37
Speaker 1: But, uh, Yeah, so I can still win in like
1:04:41
the 115 kilo division, in the 105 kilo division. I
1:04:45
think I've got those ones pretty much wrapped up. But
1:04:49
it's the open, man, to be the best.
1:04:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:04:51
Speaker 1: Regardless of weight.
1:04:53
Speaker 2: That's so much weight to give up.
1:04:55
Speaker 1: I know.
1:04:55
Speaker 2: You're giving up, what, 135 pounds? Yeah.
1:04:59
Speaker 1: But it's so cool to try. You know, it's so
1:05:03
cool to try. And what he does is he cleans
1:05:06
my life up. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't
1:05:08
do all this.
1:05:09
Speaker 2: Really? No.
1:05:10
Speaker 1: No, I'd be happy being the champ. But when you're
1:05:14
not the champ, you're not happy, and you're going to
1:05:16
do everything you can.
1:05:17
Speaker 2: So even though you're a champ at your weight class,
1:05:20
it's the Open that haunts you.
1:05:22
Speaker 1: Haunts me.
1:05:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:05:24
Speaker 1: I've been there before. So in 2008, I won against
1:05:29
this legendary figure of the sport, John Brzezink. He's considered
1:05:33
the greatest of all time. John Brzenk basically for 40 years,
1:05:39
40 years from the time he was like 18 to
1:05:42
like almost 60.
1:05:44
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: He went undefeated for basically undefeated for like 25 years.
1:05:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: In American. This guy, this guy, super cool.
1:05:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:05:56
Speaker 1: Different era. And you'll see the difference. Okay. So you'll
1:05:58
see that this sport has changed.
1:06:00
Speaker 2: Can we pull him up?
1:06:01
Speaker 1: John Brzenk. John Brzenk's the GOAT.
1:06:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:06:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, he'll be there this weekend too.
1:06:07
Speaker 2: And is he still competing?
1:06:09
Speaker 1: John is not really competing, but he's just so tied
1:06:13
into the sport. I think it's inevitable that he comes back.
1:06:16
Speaker 2: How old is he?
1:06:17
Speaker 1: He's like 60, 61. Wow. Yeah, he's the man. This
1:06:21
guy's the man. So you know the movie Over the Top?
1:06:24
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: So Sylvester, that's actually John. The tournament was real.
1:06:31
Speaker 2: Really?
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a real, the movie followed the tournament.
1:06:35
And John is actually the guy who won it.
1:06:38
Speaker 2: And John's not that big. No, he's not. How much
1:06:41
does John weigh?
1:06:42
Speaker 1: On a good day, on a great day, John's like 230.
1:06:45
But when he was young and healthy, probably 195.
1:06:50
Speaker 2: So when he was winning?
1:06:51
Speaker 1: When he, like he went like, he went like 25
1:06:55
years around 210 pounds beating every single person.
1:06:59
Speaker 2: On the planet.
1:07:01
Speaker 1: He's awesome. He's awesome. John Brzenk. So John started arm
1:07:05
wrestling when he was a kid with his dad. And
1:07:07
he's one of the first guys. John's one of the
1:07:11
first guys who arm wrestling has kind of evolved in
1:07:16
its respectedness, okay, as a sport. I think if you
1:07:19
went back like 40 years and you talk about arm wrestling,
1:07:23
people would be like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, let's go
1:07:26
arm wrestle. And I'm going to get better by arm
1:07:28
wrestling by doing pecs and glutes and, you know, getting
1:07:31
my whole body strong. And John was kind of one
1:07:33
of the first guys who was like, I'm an arm wrestler.
1:07:36
I practice arm wrestling. I go to tournaments. I don't
1:07:39
need to lift weights.
1:07:40
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:07:41
Speaker 1: So he started young. The dude's thumb is probably like
1:07:44
bigger than mine. And he's like, you know, six foot one,
1:07:48
six foot two. So he's to a certain degree built
1:07:50
for it. But masterful technician.
1:07:55
Speaker 2: So he doesn't lift weights? No. So all he did
1:07:59
was arm wrestle to train for arm wrestling?
1:08:00
Speaker 1: Isn't that wild?
1:08:01
Speaker 2: That's crazy. He's not a big guy.
1:08:04
Speaker 1: No, he's not. That's a former Russian champion, Zaur. Actually, no,
1:08:09
Zaur might be Georgian. He might have been Russian at
1:08:11
this time, but he's a Georgian.
1:08:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:08:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, John's technique was way above everybody's. Way, way above.
1:08:23
I remember coming up. Like, I had heard about John Brzenk.
1:08:27
for years before I ever saw him because, you know,
1:08:30
it's pre-internet, right? John Brzenk like silently ruled the arm
1:08:34
wrestling world for decades, you know, pre-internet, pre, pre, uh,
1:08:39
pre all this stuff. And yeah, and he went around
1:08:42
the world beating all the monsters, all the, and this
1:08:46
is who I actually got the world title from. So
1:08:49
I beat John in 2008 for the world title and
1:08:53
it looks very different now, you know, Like, so before,
1:08:57
so I was probably the last of the small supervisors.
1:09:00
Speaker 2: Heavyweights.
1:09:01
Speaker 1: If you call, if you call me small, like I'm
1:09:03
bigger than John, but not by a lot, not by
1:09:05
a lot. Um, Dennis, the plank off on the left,
1:09:08
that guy's a really famous arm wrestler. He was one
1:09:11
of the guys who really raised the level. So that
1:09:13
guy had a strength level, Dennis, he came in and
1:09:16
he won the world title without really doing anything.
1:09:20
Speaker 2: I can't believe he doesn't lift weights.
1:09:22
Speaker 1: He doesn't lift weights.
1:09:24
Speaker 2: All he does is arm wrestle.
1:09:25
Speaker 1: All he does is arm wrestle.
1:09:27
Speaker 2: No other kind of physical training at all?
1:09:29
Speaker 1: He's a mechanic. He's a special guy. Listen, listen.
1:09:36
Speaker 2: That's incredible, man.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: The arm wrestling world loves and worships John Brzenk. He's
1:09:42
the GOAT. He's like the forefather. I remember when I
1:09:45
was coming up, I read everything this dude wrote.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: He is.
1:09:50
Speaker 1: The, one of the reasons why we all kind of
1:09:52
respect table time, don't need weight so much. Specialization. John
1:09:57
is kind of poster boy for, for specialization.
1:10:01
Speaker 2: And what kind of training did he do?
1:10:04
Speaker 1: He arm wrestled.
1:10:04
Speaker 2: Just arm wrestled. He would do specific things when he
1:10:07
was arm wrestling?
1:10:09
Speaker 1: We keep asking the same questions about John. Like we
1:10:12
think like some people think he had like a secret
1:10:15
setup in his basement and stuff like But everything kind
1:10:18
of points towards, even if he's kind of kidding us
1:10:22
and tricking us, it's certainly not a lot. He arm
1:10:26
wrestled with his dad as a kid.
1:10:28
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:10:29
Speaker 1: And, you know, they're practicing all the time. So this Iceman, okay,
1:10:33
that's the guy who John beat to become kind of
1:10:35
the best.
1:10:37
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:10:37
Speaker 1: This guy is like the guy before John.
1:10:41
Speaker 2: So he was the original king of arm wrestling. He is.
1:10:44
Johnny Walker.
1:10:45
Speaker 1: Johnny Walker. Yeah.
1:10:46
Speaker 2: Iceman.
1:10:48
Speaker 1: And he was the best for a long time. But
1:10:51
John eventually beat him. You know, you see that's John
1:10:54
is like a kid. Right. John's probably like 17 there.
1:10:58
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
1:11:00
Speaker 1: But no, John arm wrestled all. Like arm wrestling is
1:11:03
going to make you strong.
1:11:04
Speaker 2: Oh, imagine. Oh, you will get.
1:11:07
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of reason why we get guys
1:11:10
into the sport who are in the strength field. Like
1:11:12
if you're a strong man, if you're powerlifting, you try
1:11:14
arm wrestling, you will be so sore. You'll be like, oh,
1:11:17
my God, because people look for that, right?
1:11:19
Speaker 2: Something that can get you really sore.
1:11:21
Speaker 1: Arm wrestling will get you so sore that you can
1:11:24
barely move. I've been so sore from arm wrestling matches
1:11:27
I can't even walk. I can't even get up for days.
1:11:32
For days. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:11:34
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
1:11:35
Speaker 1: Because it's something about the way the body's designed. Like,
1:11:39
we are actually probably designed to resist things from happening
1:11:44
more than we are to make things happen. So we're very,
1:11:47
very strong to stop things from happening. And arm wrestling
1:11:51
is what, that's the strength we really hone in on, right?
1:11:54
Because we're locking, we get into these locked positions, and
1:11:57
then we're trying to open the other person up. And
1:12:00
this process of being ripped open is super taxing, super,
1:12:06
super taxing. So, yes, John ruled the arm wrestling world
1:12:11
for like 25 years. He's still around. Yeah, I'll get
1:12:16
to talk to him tomorrow.
1:12:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so do you think he thinks about competing again?
1:12:21
Speaker 1: Of course he does.
1:12:23
Speaker 2: Of course he does. But when was the last time
1:12:26
he did it?
1:12:27
Speaker 1: Last time he competed was in Dallas. He competed against
1:12:29
a guy called Yoshi Kanai, who's the number one guy
1:12:33
from Japan. John is way past his prime. When John
1:12:40
was in his 30s, he was like the Levon, but
1:12:46
210 pounds. Nobody could beat him. It took a while,
1:12:50
but the thing is arm wrestling got cool to a
1:12:53
degree where we were on ESPN and governments started to
1:12:58
recognize it. So if you were from the right country,
1:13:01
you know, you could be a pro-arm wrestler. Like if
1:13:03
you're from Georgia or Turkey or Kazakhstan, you know, so
1:13:07
the level started rising.
1:13:09
Speaker 2: When did this start happening?
1:13:11
Speaker 1: I think that governments started to recognize it. I'm going
1:13:14
to guess here that a lot of them started to
1:13:17
do it around the turn of the millennia. Okay. Probably
1:13:20
they started around then, but it takes a long time
1:13:23
for it all to like, And some countries are still
1:13:26
switching over. I think Sweden just got recognized, like, I
1:13:30
think within the last year or so. But once a
1:13:32
country recognizes it as a sport, it's a massive influx
1:13:36
of cash and support. So that'll raise the level. But
1:13:43
what happened was we got, there was all these leagues,
1:13:47
like there was the PAL in Europe, there was the
1:13:51
WAL in North America. And it And it got the
1:13:54
sport to a point where if you were the best,
1:13:58
you could probably quit your job. Okay? And that was
1:14:02
a huge step forward because, you know, yeah, that's a
1:14:07
big step, right? And that happened around 2015.
1:14:11
Speaker 2: And do you think that's because of the internet, like
1:14:14
YouTube videos, like popularity increases, TikTok, Instagram, that kind of shit?
1:14:20
Speaker 1: That was massive, but that happened a bit later. Um,
1:14:23
first what happened, a lot of small little steps, uh,
1:14:28
you know, there was a documentary pulling John that came out. Uh,
1:14:32
there was a couple of rich guys who thought arm
1:14:35
wrestling was cool and they just started to run leagues. Uh,
1:14:39
Robert drank with the UAL, uh, ultimate arm wrestling league
1:14:42
out of California. I mean, it went from like when
1:14:45
I first started the sport, Mike Gould classic, if we
1:14:47
won 500 bucks, it was the greatest day of our life,
1:14:50
you know? It was so cool. We won 500 bucks. Like,
1:14:53
you know, um, that was it. Uh, and then with, by, by,
1:14:59
by 2010 or so to even before that, the PAL,
1:15:03
we were talking about thousands of dollars, $ 10, 000. WAL came
1:15:08
along and we got a massive influx of money. You're
1:15:10
talking about $ 20, 000. Okay. And then we were on ESPNs,
1:15:14
the sponsors. Okay. So you could get some sponsor money
1:15:17
if you were the best. You could barely make it.
1:15:20
You could barely make it. And then COVID happened. And
1:15:25
COVID burnt down everything, burnt down all the leagues, which
1:15:29
were kind of fractioning the sport, right? We had the
1:15:32
best guys from Europe competing together, best guys from North America.
1:15:37
When all the leagues burnt down from the ashes and
1:15:40
a lot of people, and that's when TikTok and YouTube
1:15:42
really started kicking because everybody was locked in their house
1:15:45
and somehow arm wrestling got found. And our views went
1:15:48
through the roof. People started to follow. Arm wrestling is
1:15:51
good for TikTok attention span.
1:15:53
Speaker 2: You know, you can see a hole.
1:15:56
Speaker 1: And then, yeah, so East versus West came along. And
1:16:00
now we're everything. UFC, we're like the UFC of arm
1:16:05
wrestling now, East versus West. All the best guys in
1:16:07
the world all pull at East versus West. And there's
1:16:10
an event every seven weeks international.
1:16:13
Speaker 2: So what does a top guy make to win a
1:16:15
tournament now?
1:16:17
Speaker 1: Um, you know, it's, it's tricky when we talk about money,
1:16:20
but you will make like, if you're a, if, if
1:16:23
you're a top arm wrestler now, you're, you're definitely, you
1:16:26
definitely don't need a side job. You definitely don't. Um,
1:16:30
and you're, and you're, you're probably definitely making a healthy,
1:16:34
a healthy six figures, you know, definitely.
1:16:37
Speaker 2: Um, so yeah.
1:16:39
Speaker 1: So East versus West kind of raised the level after
1:16:43
COVID it's not the same sport. It's not like the
1:16:47
champions now, like it's tough. It's tough to win a world,
1:16:52
way harder to win a world title now than it
1:16:53
was 10 or 15, 20 years ago. Yeah.
1:16:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:16:57
Speaker 1: Now we have LeVon.
1:16:58
Speaker 2: Right. Is there any drug testing?
1:17:01
Speaker 1: At East versus West? There's not. Okay. So it's, it's F1,
1:17:04
you know, everything, everything goes, but.
1:17:06
Speaker 2: What does F1 mean?
1:17:08
Speaker 1: You know, like IndyCar, everybody's got the same car.
1:17:11
Speaker 2: Right.
1:17:11
Speaker 1: F1, like innovation.
1:17:14
Speaker 2: Right.
1:17:14
Speaker 1: Innovation. Um, WAF, government funded. That has testing.
1:17:21
Speaker 2: What is WAF?
1:17:22
Speaker 1: Sorry, World Arm Wrestling Federation. So World Arm Wrestling Federation
1:17:26
is kind of like the base of the sport. Okay.
1:17:29
It's a world level. So every country kind of plugs
1:17:33
into it. They have state or provincial. Then they have national.
1:17:39
They have like Europeans or North Americans. And then they
1:17:42
have a world championships.
1:17:44
Speaker 2: Annually.
1:17:45
Speaker 1: Different part of the world every year that's.
1:17:48
Speaker 2: Tested it's such a universal thing like I remember arm
1:17:54
wrestling kids in high school you know everybody knows how
1:17:56
to arm wrestle it's always been around it's always been
1:17:59
a thing so it's really interesting to think that it's
1:18:02
becoming more popular now than ever it.
1:18:05
Speaker 1: Is it's wonderful I love the sport I think that
1:18:11
it's a great sport because of its safety its longevity
1:18:17
It's simplicity.
1:18:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: Beautiful sport.
1:18:20
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of aspects to it. It's simple,
1:18:22
but you're still learning. It is. So it can't be
1:18:24
that simple.
1:18:25
Speaker 1: Like anything, you know, the more you dive into something,
1:18:29
the more it opens. Yeah. Yeah. At the level that
1:18:32
I'm at now, you know, I continue to learn subtleties
1:18:37
on a technical level, but it overflows more now into
1:18:41
more vague and kind of like lifestyle principles. Uh, and
1:18:44
I feel like that's how I get my big gains
1:18:46
now is, uh, you know, is, is the way I
1:18:49
live my life. Like the sport, you know, kind of
1:18:51
cleans up my whole life.
1:18:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. Because you want to perform well. That's it. And
1:18:57
so you're just so dedicated that like you're on top
1:18:59
of your nutrition, your sleep, everything, everything.
1:19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:19:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:19:04
Speaker 1: Somewhere between a balance between chaos and order. Perfect performance
1:19:09
is found.
1:19:12
Speaker 2: The balance between chaos and order is interesting because you
1:19:14
kind of, to become great, you kind of have to
1:19:17
have some chaos.
1:19:18
Speaker 1: It's so essential. Chaos is a huge part.
1:19:22
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that.
1:19:22
Speaker 1: What is that? I love this one.
1:19:26
Speaker 2: This is so good.
1:19:29
Speaker 1: This is one of my latest learning points that I've
1:19:32
taken into account. And it's massively affected my planning, the
1:19:38
way I plan events. So I have met many people
1:19:43
in my life, and I've met probably in my entire
1:19:47
life probably like two people who I would consider completely pure,
1:19:52
you know, like basically like a Jesus Christ kind of person,
1:19:56
like no sin, okay? And on the other side, I've
1:20:00
met only like a couple people who I thought were
1:20:02
generally pure evil. But I think most people are somewhere
1:20:07
in the middle. And they need that balance in their life.
1:20:13
And I think that you need to, if you're talking
1:20:15
about performance on a single date, this balance of what
1:20:19
you are needs to be structured. So I think that
1:20:23
actually in the fight, like when you're actually fighting, a
1:20:27
lot of people, I think, perform best in chaos. So
1:20:30
when you get into the stage, you have to be
1:20:32
completely wild. uh, no rules, like you need to be
1:20:36
completely unhinged. Um, but leading up to it, you need
1:20:40
to structure, you need to really become very ordered. And
1:20:45
the more you can bring order into your life, the better. Um,
1:20:49
I went to a, um, kind of a, a presentation, uh,
1:20:55
by this, by this guy, Mac.
1:20:56
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:20:57
Speaker 1: He's a geneticist as well. And he was talking about
1:20:59
how life only exists in this balance between chaos and
1:21:02
order and, And from that, I brought that into my
1:21:06
training by making sticker charts. So when I was young,
1:21:12
my mom used to motivate me through sticker charts. So
1:21:16
when I did a good job, she'd give me a sticker.
1:21:19
And I loved it. So I have brought this concept
1:21:23
into my training where there's only two stickers. There's a
1:21:27
blue sticker, which is you didn't quite make it. It's
1:21:31
representative of chaos. And a white sticker, which is representative
1:21:37
of order. And after I compete, I purposefully move into chaos.
1:21:44
And it's not as though like, oh, I'm in chaos
1:21:46
and I let everything catch on fire. I just, I
1:21:49
don't need structure. I can go wherever. I can learn
1:21:52
new things. I can try new things. I can open
1:21:55
up my mind to whatever I want. Nothing's required. But
1:21:59
really I'm trying to gather data, put together a plan
1:22:02
so that when I move into structure, I have a
1:22:04
new kind of plan.
1:22:08
Speaker 2: So how do you structure that?
1:22:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:22:11
Speaker 2: When you say you move into chaos, like you allow
1:22:13
yourself to not have a plan. Yeah. So this is
1:22:17
obviously very planned. Yes. Yeah.
1:22:20
Speaker 1: So I will move from major. My life is structured
1:22:24
that I'm move. It's in blocks. Okay. So I move.
1:22:28
from major event to major event. I am now at
1:22:33
the very beginning of probably the longest block that I've
1:22:38
ever had in my life. I'm going to face that guy, LeVon,
1:22:42
in like 16 months. It's forever. It's an eternity. So
1:22:48
I am now in this period when I can travel.
1:22:51
I can be more open. Um, in a way it,
1:22:57
it helps get me there. You know, I am trying
1:23:00
to come up with what I think is the perfect blend.
1:23:02
So that when I lock into my basement, I'm being
1:23:05
super accurate. But I do believe that if you just
1:23:09
try and be good every day, if you try and
1:23:11
live a certain way every day, it creeps into your life.
1:23:14
I need like a finish line. Okay. Like if I
1:23:17
know I only have to be like this for four
1:23:20
months or five months, I can make it. You know,
1:23:24
if I'm like, I have to be like this for
1:23:25
my whole life, everything creeps in, it falls apart. But
1:23:29
it's an aid for me psychologically to remain disciplined. And
1:23:34
it's a way for me to fit chaos into my
1:23:37
life where it satisfies me as a human being and
1:23:40
I get to have fun and I get to go
1:23:43
outside of my box. But that's the hardest thing to
1:23:48
be a world champion at 51 is to put all
1:23:51
your energy into something so simple. This is the most
1:23:55
difficult piece is the psychological dedication to do 10 hours
1:24:00
of wrist curls in a day. You know, this is
1:24:03
the difficult.
1:24:03
Speaker 2: You do 10 hours of wrist curls a day.
1:24:05
Speaker 1: I do. I'll go. I'll get up in the morning
1:24:10
and my wife, Jody, will help me. OK, we'll have food.
1:24:15
And I'm doing like and that's the thing. So right
1:24:19
now I'm coming up with the formula for the next one.
1:24:22
But I was doing 14, 7 times 2 because I
1:24:26
was doing right and left. I'm going back to pumpkin training,
1:24:30
which is right hand only.
1:24:31
Speaker 2: Why do you call that pumpkin training?
1:24:33
Speaker 1: You know about growing giant pumpkins? No. You know, you
1:24:37
ever seen those fairs where they have like 800 pounds, right?
1:24:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: So what that teaches is if you want to have
1:24:47
a giant pumpkin, you pinch off all the flowers on
1:24:50
the vine except for one. Yeah, my giant pumpkin. Yeah,
1:24:56
so I've tried and put everything into the right. I've
1:24:59
tried and put all– and this is– so this is specialization.
1:25:03
So I've done this project for like– I did it
1:25:05
for like six years before.
1:25:07
Speaker 2: So when you're saying you put everything in the right,
1:25:09
you mean you don't do wrist curls or anything with
1:25:11
your left hand? Nothing. Nothing? Nothing.
1:25:14
Speaker 1: Really?
1:25:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
1:25:17
Speaker 1: Now– Is this an.
1:25:18
Speaker 2: Energy resource allocation thing? Yes.
1:25:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's interesting.
1:25:24
Speaker 2: Interesting.
1:25:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:25:25
Speaker 2: Is there a difference between your right and your left? Yeah.
1:25:27
Jesus Christ. Yeah.
1:25:29
Speaker 1: So you see, and I came up with this theory,
1:25:32
you know, a little bit because of just nature.
1:25:34
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:25:35
Speaker 1: And I see how nature works. But.
1:25:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have one giant. Is this one bit bigger?
1:25:41
Look at the size of the difference. Split those up.
1:25:44
Speaker 1: It's a bit bigger.
1:25:45
Speaker 2: It's twice as big.
1:25:46
Speaker 1: Okay. And I was balanced. I was left-hand world champion also.
1:25:54
But as I've aged, I'm like, how can I remain
1:25:57
at the top of the sport? I'm going to have
1:25:59
to cut things.
1:26:01
Speaker 2: But why does training your left arm take away from
1:26:04
your right arm?
1:26:06
Speaker 1: I think we only have so much energy. I think
1:26:09
there's like a finite amount of energy that we have.
1:26:12
And if I tell my body that my energy goes here,
1:26:15
more of it will go there and more development will happen.
1:26:19
I don't think it's like I have this limitless amount
1:26:22
of energy where I can be like a proportionate bodybuilder
1:26:26
and be a world champion. I think that to be
1:26:28
at the very top, you need to be very specialized
1:26:30
and very focused. That's what I believe. This comes– a
1:26:34
lot of people criticize me for this. I get heaps
1:26:38
of criticism and I'm very well aware of it. And
1:26:42
I think that if you were to.
1:26:43
Speaker 2: Can I stop you there? Yeah, yeah. When you say
1:26:45
heaps of criticism by who and is it valid?
1:26:49
Speaker 1: I don't think it's valid.
1:26:51
Speaker 2: So who's criticizing you?
1:26:52
Speaker 1: I think that most of the criticism comes from more
1:26:56
junior players. I think that most senior arm wrestlers, most
1:27:01
guys who are on my level, they understand it. And
1:27:04
to a certain degree, we all do it. I'm just
1:27:07
an extreme example.
1:27:09
Speaker 2: But a lot of.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: Guys do it. A lot of guys do this in
1:27:12
the sport. there's a couple of things that lead me
1:27:16
to this.
1:27:17
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:27:17
Speaker 1: The, the, the pumpkin is just a fun metaphor.
1:27:19
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:27:20
Speaker 1: But, um, when you get hurt in the one side,
1:27:25
I think that a lot of people notice that somehow
1:27:27
there's this amazing compensation that happens. Um, another thing is
1:27:32
we have freaks in the sport. We have, we attract
1:27:37
some real weirdos. Okay. Guy called Oleg Zok or, uh,
1:27:42
or Matthias Schlitte. Okay. And these are hell boys, real
1:27:47
life hell boys. Okay. So they have like one arm
1:27:50
that is crazy jacked.
1:27:52
Speaker 2: I've seen this one cat. He's a small dude. Yeah.
1:27:56
And he has one arm. That's like a leg. Yeah.
1:27:59
What is his name?
1:27:59
Speaker 1: Probably Oleg. It's Oleg or Matthias. They're our best examples.
1:28:03
Oleg is, is better. Like Oleg, Oleg's a world champion.
1:28:06
Speaker 2: What's his last name?
1:28:07
Speaker 1: Zock.
1:28:09
Speaker 2: What a great name. Oh, he's so cool. What a
1:28:11
great name. Oh, that's the dude. Yeah, yeah. That's the dude.
1:28:13
Speaker 1: And I've fought him.
1:28:14
Speaker 2: Look at the size of his fucking left arm. That
1:28:18
is insanity. Yeah, yeah.
1:28:20
Speaker 1: Okay, I actually pulled this guy at the UAL many
1:28:22
years ago, and he was like 165 pounds. And I
1:28:25
was the current world champion, and the kid almost beat me.
1:28:29
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:28:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:28:30
Speaker 2: Left-handed.
1:28:31
Speaker 1: Left-handed.
1:28:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Jesus Christ, his arm is insane. Isn't that awesome?
1:28:36
That is so crazy. Yeah. He has the arm of
1:28:39
a 300. man.
1:28:42
Speaker 1: Dude, at 170 pounds, he was almost not even the
1:28:46
world champion in his division. He was almost the world
1:28:50
champion in the open. God, look at.
1:28:53
Speaker 2: His left arm, and it's crazy.
1:28:56
Speaker 1: And what's extra crazy about it is the insertion points.
1:29:00
It's not just that he's hypertrophied and blown up. Like,
1:29:03
the insertion points are different. He's, like, the angles of
1:29:07
his musculature, the development, like, it's wild.
1:29:11
Speaker 2: And how, is that genetic? Is that built?
1:29:14
Speaker 1: He was born like that to a certain degree.
1:29:16
Speaker 2: But his right arm looks normal. Normal. So how is
1:29:19
it so different on his left arm?
1:29:21
Speaker 1: So, it's my theory, okay, that he has a bit
1:29:25
of a blood flow disorder. Okay, I believe that So
1:29:30
the arterial spread in the body, for most of us,
1:29:34
is all the same. We have like an even distribution
1:29:37
across our body. But I believe that his arterial spread
1:29:41
is different. I think he's got a heavy arterial flow
1:29:45
to one side.
1:29:46
Speaker 2: This is just your own personal theory?
1:29:48
Speaker 1: I've heard... I talked to Matthias. Matthias is another guy
1:29:52
with this disorder. He was the one who kind of
1:29:56
led me to believe that this is what was going
1:29:57
on with him.
1:29:59
Speaker 2: And.
1:30:00
Speaker 1: Um, so this made me believe that there was so
1:30:05
much value in blood flow alone when it comes to
1:30:09
the expression of what you are. Like, I think anything
1:30:13
that just gets more blood flow enhances.
1:30:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:30:17
Speaker 1: The expression of the human being, uh, is largely determined
1:30:22
by the circulation of that, the genetic, you know, piece receives. Um,
1:30:27
and I think with guys like this, It happened like
1:30:31
in utero.
1:30:32
Speaker 2: That is, that left arm is fucking crazy. Yeah.
1:30:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he got in a vicious car crash, a
1:30:40
horrible one, almost killed him. Um, and he's, he rehabbed
1:30:44
and he's, and once again, he's, he's the world champ
1:30:47
again in the 85 kilo division completely. And he like,
1:30:50
he should be dead. Like he broke everything like super
1:30:55
trauma and he's still the best.
1:30:57
Speaker 2: He just pieced it back together again?
1:30:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, pieced them back together. And he's still the man.
1:31:02
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:31:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what he taught me and what other people
1:31:06
taught me is the value. And I believe it's all theories, okay?
1:31:09
I could be wrong on everything. But I think that
1:31:12
it's the blood flow that really, it heals, it strengthens.
1:31:19
And a lot of the thing is the heart isn't
1:31:22
strong enough to feed all the structures. And that's where
1:31:26
movement comes in. So that's why I train this way,
1:31:31
increased circulation.
1:31:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. So, but I still don't understand, like, clearly
1:31:39
he's working that one arm more than he's working the
1:31:41
left arm. Excuse me, the right arm.
1:31:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to a certain degree. But because of
1:31:48
the way he was, yeah, this is Matthias, right?
1:31:50
Speaker 2: Same deal.
1:31:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he's like German national champion kind of level.
1:31:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:31:56
Speaker 1: And like, it's just, it's hard to compete with.
1:31:59
Speaker 2: Right. But how much of that is just work with
1:32:01
the right side over and over and over again? And
1:32:03
how much of it is you think a genetic component?
1:32:06
Speaker 1: With these guys, it's a lot of genetic. Really?
1:32:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:32:10
Speaker 1: With them. But I believe the reason why it's expressing
1:32:13
that way is because of an arterial spread.
1:32:16
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:32:16
Speaker 1: And talking to Matthias, he's the one that led me
1:32:18
to believe that initially.
1:32:20
Speaker 2: Is that arterial spread influenced by work? Like, does it
1:32:23
change the expression of the arteries in the muscles?
1:32:27
Speaker 1: I think you can influence blood flow for sure. Like,
1:32:31
I think if you are repeatedly working one region very heavily,
1:32:34
your circulatory system is going to adapt. Like my endurance
1:32:39
capabilities on my right and my left are completely different.
1:32:43
And that's from years of doing this. And so I
1:32:45
have to think that You know, it's not just a
1:32:48
cellular thing. It's got to be the blood flow. It's
1:32:51
got to be everything that has adapted over years. Yeah.
1:32:54
And look, I really care about being the best and
1:32:59
all the information that I have makes me, I'm doing
1:33:02
it again. Like I laid off it for a couple
1:33:04
of years, but I've started to do it again as
1:33:06
I do my final prep one more time.
1:33:09
Speaker 2: When you say do it again, what are you doing differently?
1:33:10
Speaker 1: I'll go back to, so my work capacity, work, work,
1:33:16
amount that I'm doing between my right and left arm,
1:33:21
sometimes it's equal. Sometimes what I do with the right
1:33:24
is what I do with the left. Sometimes when I
1:33:26
go to the club, I'll do right arm, I'll do
1:33:28
left arm. And now I've just swung it back. So
1:33:32
I go to the club and I'm basically arm wrestling
1:33:34
everybody I can right hand until people are kind of
1:33:36
bored and then I'll do some left hand work. But
1:33:38
the right is the priority. And the same thing when
1:33:40
I do my homework in the basement is I'm doing
1:33:43
like 85 to 90% work on the right and maybe
1:33:47
like just 10%, like just, you know, just for timing
1:33:50
and whatever on the left.
1:33:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
1:33:53
Speaker 1: Super specialized.
1:33:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
1:33:56
Speaker 1: It's insane. I, I was, I'm sorry. Uh, I was
1:33:59
so worried like that I was going to develop like
1:34:02
back issues, imbalance issues.
1:34:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:34:06
Speaker 1: None of that ever happened.
1:34:07
Speaker 2: Huh? Yeah. Guys do that from archery. They develop imbalance
1:34:11
issues just from pulling a bow one-sided. Like my friend Evan,
1:34:15
he got a left-handed bow just so he could practice
1:34:17
left-handed as well because he felt like it would balance
1:34:20
him out. Right.
1:34:22
Speaker 1: I think balance is overrated.
1:34:24
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah.
1:34:25
Speaker 1: I think balance is a nice concept for like some
1:34:31
imaginary world that you live in. But if I live
1:34:33
in a world where I'm trying to win a world
1:34:36
title right-handed and then I need to let my body
1:34:39
know that this is what I'm getting ready for and
1:34:41
not confuse it.
1:34:41
Speaker 2: There's an interesting comparison in jiu-jitsu because there's a lot
1:34:44
of guys that have like a very strong right side attack.
1:34:47
Like Eddie Bravo, for instance. Eddie Bravo's attack is almost
1:34:50
always on the right side of the body. Obviously, he
1:34:52
has a black belt level attack on the left, but
1:34:54
his right side attack is where he puts all his
1:34:57
energy to and his philosophy was along those same lines.
1:35:01
If you just develop this one side, like so lethal. Yeah.
1:35:06
Speaker 1: I think that so much is about you know being
1:35:10
able to have an icebreaker you know something that stops
1:35:13
a match or wins you the match and at a
1:35:16
world level it's everything like if you can bring something
1:35:21
from a 99 to a 100 you know but it
1:35:23
takes 15 points off your left that's a trade that
1:35:27
a lot of people are willing to make you know
1:35:28
if I can do anything to push my right a
1:35:31
level up if it makes me you know wither away
1:35:34
in my left good trade One of the.
1:35:38
Speaker 2: Things that I watched that I thought was really interesting,
1:35:40
I've been watching a lot of these rock climbers and
1:35:43
their ridiculous grip strength. Yeah. A lot of these guys.
1:35:46
There's that cat that has a YouTube channel. I know
1:35:49
you've been on it. Magnus. Magnus. Magnus. How do you
1:35:51
say his last name? Mitbo. Mitbo. And he had that
1:35:54
one dude who's just a super freak. Yves Gravel. Yes.
1:35:58
Speaker 1: He trains with me. Okay.
1:36:00
Speaker 2: That guy went right into arm wrestling and was fucking
1:36:03
people up. Right away. Which is crazy. Which makes me
1:36:06
think that maybe that kind of specialized training is like
1:36:10
a cheat code.
1:36:11
Speaker 1: It's close. It's close. Yeah.
1:36:14
Speaker 2: Because that guy also has like enormous leg-sized forearms.
1:36:18
Speaker 1: Eve Gravel.
1:36:19
Speaker 2: So you're going to find him training with Magnus because
1:36:22
they're in Eve's basement where he does all of his training.
1:36:26
And he's doing these– like how many millimeters is the hold?
1:36:28
Like two. Okay. So he's doing two-millimeter holds with his
1:36:31
fingers where.
1:36:32
Speaker 1: He's hanging– I'm telling you, it makes no sense.
1:36:36
Speaker 2: He's such a freak.
1:36:37
Speaker 1: It makes zero sense. Like Magnus is, is super stud.
1:36:42
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:36:42
Speaker 1: Magnus is like world level climber. Eve, when it comes
1:36:46
to the strength component of climbing, it's, it doesn't even
1:36:50
make sense. I don't even understand how it's, how anybody
1:36:53
could even do it. Like it's like credit card. He
1:36:56
can do pull-ups off of a credit card.
1:36:59
Speaker 2: That's insane. Yeah. How?
1:37:01
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how he does it.
1:37:03
Speaker 2: It doesn't.
1:37:04
Speaker 1: And like, he has like rounded surfaces where there is
1:37:07
nothing to bite right there. There's nothing.
1:37:11
Speaker 2: So he's just chalking up his fingers and he hangs
1:37:13
off of those. I want to see that.
1:37:14
Speaker 1: There's nothing there. I don't know how he does it. Um,
1:37:18
there's nothing to bite.
1:37:20
Speaker 2: There's nothing.
1:37:21
Speaker 1: And he's pulling up off.
1:37:22
Speaker 2: I did it.
1:37:22
Speaker 1: I can't even understand how he does it. So he
1:37:25
came into arm wrestling, and he's like 150 pounds.
1:37:30
Speaker 2: But it's 40 pounds of his forearms.
1:37:33
Speaker 1: So we have a tournament in Ottawa where we both live.
1:37:37
It's called the Ottawa Open, and it attracts the strongest
1:37:40
dudes in the region. To win the Ottawa Open is
1:37:43
really tough. He won it his first year after arm
1:37:45
wrestling six weeks.
1:37:47
Speaker 2: What? Yeah.
1:37:49
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
1:37:50
Speaker 2: And he weighs what? 160?
1:37:52
Speaker 1: Like 150 pounds.
1:37:53
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
1:37:54
Speaker 1: No, Yves Gravel is a complete weirdo. I've never in
1:37:59
my life met somebody who can do the stuff with
1:38:01
grip that he can do.
1:38:03
Speaker 2: And it's all that training that he's doing. He's doing
1:38:05
all this insane grip training. Yeah. Which makes me think, like,
1:38:09
what if you did that stuff? Yeah. Yes.
1:38:13
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, as good as Yves is now,
1:38:15
he's going to get even better.
1:38:16
Speaker 2: Okay. I can only imagine.
1:38:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nobody is touching Eve's fingers. But like I talked
1:38:24
about earlier, so if you kind of relate it to climbing, okay.
1:38:29
Speaker 2: Can you show me? some stuff with that guy doing things? Well,
1:38:31
I was trying to find that one. But just show
1:38:33
me some of the other freakish things he does because
1:38:35
he could pick up things from the ground that nobody
1:38:37
could pick up.
1:38:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, he does grip competition too. So that's another world
1:38:41
that's closely tied to arm wrestling is the grip championships, right,
1:38:45
where they're just, it's like power lifting for grip. Right. Yeah.
1:38:48
And he's the best at that too.
1:38:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just nuts. Yeah. It's really nuts. Yeah.
1:38:53
Speaker 1: So there is a high degree of crossover.
1:38:56
Speaker 2: Right.
1:38:57
Speaker 1: There is. But there are slight intricacies. Like a kind
1:39:01
of way to think about it in climbing, if you
1:39:03
have a great grip, you are able to climb the wall. Okay.
1:39:07
But in actual arm wrestling, you actually don't want to
1:39:12
be the climber. You want to be the wall. Right.
1:39:17
You want to make it hard for the other person's grip.
1:39:20
You don't necessarily. He's capable of climbing any wall. Okay.
1:39:24
But once he figures out how to be the wall instead,
1:39:27
he's going to be so, so difficult. It's fun to
1:39:31
work with him. Our club in Ottawa, we have like
1:39:33
super freaks now. We have all these new guys with
1:39:36
ridiculous potential. We got a guy come in who's bigger
1:39:38
than Brian Shaw.
1:39:39
Speaker 2: Did you ask this? Can you show me some video
1:39:41
of this guy? He wasn't doing anything. There's a bunch.
1:39:44
Speaker 1: Right.
1:39:45
Speaker 2: And I'm on not his channel, too. I'm like, it's
1:39:47
bouncing back in between. So here he's doing fat grip,
1:39:51
arm chin-ups.
1:39:51
Speaker 1: Did you see the Thomas Inch? You know, see the
1:39:56
Thomas Inch on the left?
1:39:57
Speaker 2: Yes. Right?
1:39:57
Speaker 1: Nobody picks up the Thomas Inch when they're 150.
1:39:59
Speaker 2: You know? That's nuts. That's crazy. Like, this kind of
1:40:05
grip is just insane. Oh, my God. That's crazy. He's
1:40:08
pinch gripping. Yeah. And that guy, Magnus, is strong as shit, too. Like,
1:40:11
I saw a video of him. training with Eddie Hall.
1:40:14
Speaker 1: Crazy strong.
1:40:15
Speaker 2: And he's doing these one-armed rows with like 180 pounds
1:40:18
on each side. And I'm like, that is bananas because
1:40:21
he's not a big guy.
1:40:22
Speaker 1: No, but he's ridiculously strong as well.
1:40:24
Speaker 2: And even him, he's dwarfed by this guy's strength, which
1:40:29
is crazy. Yeah.
1:40:30
Speaker 1: Eve is considered the strongest climber in the world.
1:40:34
Speaker 2: And did you ask him when he started this and
1:40:36
how he got that strong?
1:40:38
Speaker 1: I've talked to Eve a lot about his training. He's
1:40:42
So detailed. Like the way he trains is very interesting,
1:40:46
very progressive, very science-based.
1:40:49
Speaker 2: Look at those forearms. That's bonkers. Yeah. Yeah.
1:40:53
Speaker 1: Eve is a– and he's an artist too. He makes masks.
1:40:58
Speaker 2: Masks?
1:40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, like movie masks.
1:41:01
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
1:41:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's his main job. He makes masks and he
1:41:05
can climb anything.
1:41:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's a super cool guy. Wow. So seeing that, though,
1:41:13
makes me think if a guy is that small and
1:41:15
he has that kind of grip strength, that that has
1:41:18
to be a massive factor. It is. In your ability
1:41:21
to arm wrestle. So why wouldn't everybody do that? If
1:41:23
a guy is 150 pounds and he could do that shit,
1:41:27
and he's doing it with two arms. I mean, both
1:41:29
of his arms are super jacked.
1:41:32
Speaker 1: There are levels of specialization. Right.
1:41:35
Speaker 2: Do you think it's maybe... too late for you to
1:41:38
do what he's doing because he's been doing this for
1:41:40
decades and decades?
1:41:43
Speaker 1: I believe that he is so good at all his
1:41:48
grip work and his grip work is so high and
1:41:51
it does have a lot of crossover.
1:41:53
Speaker 2: It does.
1:41:53
Speaker 1: Would I want that strength?
1:41:55
Speaker 2: Yes, of course.
1:41:56
Speaker 1: I just think that the motions that I'm doing are
1:41:59
actually even more dangerous for the sport of arm wrestling. Like,
1:42:03
if I was to advise, even I do, I talk
1:42:05
to Eve like, every week. Um, I tell Eve, you know,
1:42:08
the way he's going to progress his game is by
1:42:11
probably doing these more precise movements to become the wall,
1:42:14
you know, to become the thing that's hard to hold onto.
1:42:16
Speaker 2: Right.
1:42:17
Speaker 1: He has an amazing ability to hold on to anybody. Okay.
1:42:20
And that's going to take them really, really far in
1:42:22
the sport. Uh, but I think that as he's Eve,
1:42:27
I've told him he, he's older in terms of entry,
1:42:31
but he has world championship potential, you know, He's less
1:42:35
than a year in the sport.
1:42:37
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:42:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's been arm wrestling since, like, last November.
1:42:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:42:43
Speaker 1: Give him, like, a year or two or three, and
1:42:47
he's going to be knocking on the North American, like,
1:42:50
you know, top pro level.
1:42:52
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:42:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it won't take him long. Yeah, he's a freak,
1:42:55
for one, and he's super smart. And arm wrestling is
1:42:58
a very nice crossover for climbers because so many of
1:43:01
the strengths are similar, really similar.
1:43:04
Speaker 2: And when you say, so he's very scientific about his training,
1:43:07
like what does he do?
1:43:09
Speaker 1: The thing that struck me when I spoke to him
1:43:11
about his training is he kind of does testing. I
1:43:14
found that very, very different from the way I train.
1:43:18
So before he does his workout, he does these tests
1:43:21
like with his grip and he like says how easy
1:43:24
or hard they are. And if he's not feeling right,
1:43:27
he won't do the training. So he'll continue to rest.
1:43:30
He'll abort a training session because it doesn't feel right.
1:43:33
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:43:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm doing it. Right, right. Interesting. Yeah, look
1:43:39
at whatever. I've seen it. It's very detailed.
1:43:43
Speaker 2: Where did he learn this from?
1:43:45
Speaker 1: I think he's crazy. He loves climbing, and I think
1:43:51
he's just obsessed, and I think he probably digests everything.
1:43:56
I think he probably studies everything about climbing and strength,
1:43:59
and he just put it all together.
1:44:01
Speaker 2: So what is he doing here?
1:44:02
Speaker 1: It looks like a static wrist test. Looks like he's
1:44:06
measuring it through a way to see how much in
1:44:09
a static capacity he can generate.
1:44:13
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. Isometrics. Pushing isometrics for arm wrestling.
1:44:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:44:17
Speaker 2: So all just wrist curling ability.
1:44:20
Speaker 1: Isometric.
1:44:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
1:44:22
Speaker 1: Maximum output, which is really the main strength that arm
1:44:26
wrestlers need. That locked isometric or even negative strength.
1:44:31
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
1:44:32
Speaker 1: Um, and all his squeezing.
1:44:35
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
1:44:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:44:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:44:38
Speaker 1: He's very special.
1:44:39
Speaker 2: That is crazy. Yeah.
1:44:43
Speaker 1: So that's the thing. He's got all these charts.
1:44:46
Speaker 2: And so he's doing this all himself because there's probably
1:44:49
no one that could teach him this stuff. Cause he's
1:44:52
probably at the top of the food chain when this. Yeah.
1:44:56
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:44:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
1:44:59
Speaker 1: He's a gift to have come around with. We love
1:45:03
that we've kind of got him.
1:45:06
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure, because when you get a freak like that,
1:45:09
like out of nowhere, what is he doing here?
1:45:13
Speaker 1: Right, so he's working his curls, and he's adding resistance
1:45:16
through the elastic. So you can see, this is not
1:45:19
a climber exercise, I don't think, anymore. He's really switching,
1:45:22
you know. I think he's got the bug. Yeah, yeah.
1:45:29
Speaker 2: Wow. It won't be long.
1:45:31
Speaker 1: It won't be long. He'll be at East versus West
1:45:33
for a 70-kilo world title.
1:45:35
Speaker 2: Well, it's such an enormous advantage to have these fucking
1:45:39
gigantic forearms and insane strength.
1:45:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:45:42
Speaker 2: And it's just so weird that you could get these
1:45:45
guys that are so physically small that are so damn strong.
1:45:49
Like when Magnus was doing rows, you're like, where's the
1:45:52
force coming from? You have a 150-pound, 160-pound body, and
1:45:55
you're doing these 180-pound single-arm rows. Yeah. Like where's the
1:46:03
force coming from? Like where's the– is it a tendon strength?
1:46:06
Is it– where's the tissue, right? Like you look at
1:46:09
Eddie Hall. You're like, OK, that makes sense that that
1:46:11
guy could lift that much weight. He's massive. This guy
1:46:14
is not massive. If you saw him in a t-shirt,
1:46:16
you wouldn't even– unless you looked at his forearms, you
1:46:19
wouldn't even think he was strong. You would say, well,
1:46:21
he probably runs or something. Looks like a normal guy
1:46:24
that's fit. He doesn't look like a guy who can
1:46:26
do 180-pound one-arm rows. So what is that? How do
1:46:31
you do that? Where's it coming from?
1:46:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that arm wrestlers, climbers, a lot of athletes,
1:46:39
fighters too, they start to recognize the value of the hand.
1:46:44
A lot of guys in the communities like strongman, powerlifting,
1:46:50
other strength disciplines, They get immense strength through their body
1:46:55
and through their shoulders and different parts that by the
1:46:58
time it goes through the chain, through the elbow, through
1:47:01
the wrist, into the fingers, only a small portion of
1:47:04
that is able to get managed.
1:47:06
Speaker 2: Right. I see that with guys when they work out
1:47:09
with straps. I've never used straps.
1:47:11
Speaker 1: Right.
1:47:11
Speaker 2: Because to me with jujitsu, grip is so important. I
1:47:15
never wanted to rely only on my muscles and not
1:47:17
have a strong grip. It didn't make any sense to me.
1:47:20
Speaker 1: In so many functional things, the hand is the shortcoming.
1:47:24
Speaker 2: Or the feet.
1:47:25
Speaker 1: Or the feet.
1:47:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. I talked to Nick Curson once, who's a strength
1:47:29
and conditioning trainer. And I said, what do you think
1:47:31
is like the number one thing that fighters lack on?
1:47:35
He said, foot strength. Yeah. I said, foot strength. He goes, yeah,
1:47:38
foot strength. He goes, once your foot strength breaks down,
1:47:41
everything breaks down. Your movement breaks down. Your power breaks down.
1:47:44
Your ability to get out of the way of things.
1:47:46
The ability to close the distance. Yeah. Yeah. What did
1:47:50
he get?
1:47:51
Speaker 1: 160.
1:47:51
Speaker 2: Oh, that's crazy. I got more than him.
1:47:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just did it really hard, too.
1:47:56
Speaker 2: That's crazy. But that makes sense. I'm 200 pounds, right?
1:48:00
Speaker 1: But it's a chain, and grip is a part of
1:48:05
the functional hand chain.
1:48:06
Speaker 2: Right.
1:48:07
Speaker 1: You know?
1:48:07
Speaker 2: Well, it's clearly he's way stronger than me with rows.
1:48:11
Speaker 1: The interesting thing with grip is grip is only a
1:48:15
small part of control. Oh, this guy. What's that guy's name?
1:48:20
He's actually the best. Andra, right?
1:48:23
Speaker 2: What did he get?
1:48:23
Speaker 1: He's actually the best climber in the world right now.
1:48:26
Speaker 2: 161. Same thing. Yeah, I saw it. Okay, that's crazy. Yeah.
1:48:30
Derek Lewis got 218. Derek Lewis, the guy who fights
1:48:34
in the UFC, and he did it casually. Derek's got
1:48:38
giant paws, like catcher's mitt paws. And he pulled 218.
1:48:42
He got higher than anybody. And it didn't even look
1:48:44
like he was trying.
1:48:45
Speaker 1: The guy I just arm wrestled I think had the
1:48:47
world record for some time, Vitaly Leletin.
1:48:50
Speaker 2: What was that?
1:48:51
Speaker 1: I don't know what the number is, but I know
1:48:53
he had the world record. Vitaly Leletin. So I'm actually
1:48:58
not big on grip. I'm not.
1:49:00
Speaker 2: Really?
1:49:00
Speaker 1: I'm not, but most people are.
1:49:02
Speaker 2: There's a guy that I follow on Instagram. Jamie, pull
1:49:05
him up. His name is Michael Eckert and 351. Boom.
1:49:10
Speaker 1: Is that Vitaly?
1:49:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, my God. So listen.
1:49:14
Speaker 1: So listen. So mine is probably like 70 pounds, but
1:49:18
I beat him.
1:49:19
Speaker 2: Wait a minute. No, no, no.
1:49:20
Speaker 1: It's terrible.
1:49:21
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
1:49:22
Speaker 1: I'm crippled. Shut the fuck up. I'm telling you.
1:49:24
Speaker 2: There's no way. I'm such a disappointment. I squeeze stronger
1:49:26
than you.
1:49:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do.
1:49:27
Speaker 2: That's not possible. No, you probably do. That is literally
1:49:29
not possible.
1:49:29
Speaker 1: I'm telling you.
1:49:30
Speaker 2: Look at the size of this guy.
1:49:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like 6'9. Like, he's about 3. Yeah.
1:49:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:49:35
Speaker 1: That is so crazy.
1:49:38
Speaker 2: 154 kilograms is so bananas. Yeah. That's so strong. You
1:49:43
can only do 70. That doesn't make any sense.
1:49:45
Speaker 1: When I was younger, I could do, like, Eight or
1:49:48
nine reps of the number three captains of crush.
1:49:51
Speaker 2: Wow. I have this sucker here on the table. What
1:49:54
is that? I don't know what this is. You tell me.
1:49:59
Speaker 1: Oh, God. 200 pounds. So this isn't a captain of crush.
1:50:01
I think it is.
1:50:03
Speaker 2: It's not? I bought this.
1:50:05
Speaker 1: They just have a number on the bottom.
1:50:06
Speaker 2: Can't do it, Joe. I can't do it. You can't
1:50:08
do that?
1:50:09
Speaker 1: Come on.
1:50:11
Speaker 2: I do that all day long.
1:50:12
Speaker 1: You should come and arm wrestle with us.
1:50:14
Speaker 2: No. I could beat people who suck.
1:50:17
Speaker 1: Grip is interesting, okay? Grip is a part of control.
1:50:21
But so much of the control through your hand has
1:50:23
to do with the ability to control the angles. You know,
1:50:26
can you control this way, this way, this way, this way?
1:50:28
You know, can you spin? You know, the grip is
1:50:31
like the final inflection point. It's the final piece to add. Right.
1:50:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I understand that it's not everything. It's a
1:50:39
thing that I've been obsessed with lately because I'm not
1:50:41
strong at it. Grip's beautiful. So this 162 kilograms. Yeah.
1:50:45
Speaker 1: Jeez.
1:50:46
Speaker 2: So find this guy, Michael Eckert, on Instagram. He's a
1:50:51
guy that I follow, and he has all these grip
1:50:53
strength tutorials. He's a Marine, and I guess that's him.
1:50:58
And he can do 220, and he doesn't look like
1:51:01
a very big guy either, but he does, like, crazy
1:51:03
one-arm pull-ups, and he has massive forearms. But, like, look
1:51:06
at his thing right there. There's a thing below it.
1:51:11
You see numbers.
1:51:12
Speaker 1: There it is.
1:51:14
Speaker 2: Oh, so this is what he's lifting. This is he's
1:51:17
doing for chin-ups. But he has the grip strength thing.
1:51:23
The really good one is the one that has knurled metal.
1:51:26
It has very little play in it. And so you
1:51:28
get a real accurate. He said it's the most accurate
1:51:31
one of all of them. That one right there. See
1:51:34
what says 119? So I think that's 119 kilograms.
1:51:44
Speaker 1: Hand is beautiful.
1:51:46
Speaker 2: So what'd he get? Yeah. What is that? 262. So
1:51:49
he could do 262. And he's not a very big guy.
1:51:53
So he does 100 pounds more than me. And he's
1:51:56
not a big guy. Yeah. I mean, when you're looking
1:51:58
at him. But he does crazy, like, chin-up stuff. 256.
1:52:03
That's fucking nuts.
1:52:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:52:06
Speaker 2: So his, it's Michael Eckert, L- Ellicart. No, Eckert. E-C-K-E-R-T. E-C-K-E-R-T.
1:52:19
So it's Michael Eckert underscore fit on Instagram. And this
1:52:24
guy's turned me on to a bunch of stuff, told
1:52:26
me stuff to get and what to work out with.
1:52:30
But I'm just blown away because I look at him
1:52:32
and I go, well, you're not that big. That's what's crazy.
1:52:36
Like you look at his– Forearms are obviously very big
1:52:39
and very strong, but he's not like this massive guy.
1:52:42
Who's that giant Russian cat?
1:52:43
Speaker 1: Smaev. Yeah.
1:52:45
Speaker 2: Boy. That fella. He's something real special. If that guy
1:52:50
pulled 262, I go, okay, that makes sense. But I
1:52:53
look at Michael and I'm like, he's not the biggest
1:52:55
guy in the world, but he does so much grip stuff. Yeah.
1:53:00
Speaker 1: We're praying for Smaev to come into the sport.
1:53:03
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
1:53:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:53:04
Speaker 2: That guy's a fucking freak.
1:53:07
Speaker 1: Freakiest. Not just freak, freakiest. Yeah.
1:53:10
Speaker 2: How is he alive? Like, you got to think, there's
1:53:13
not a lot of time on that hourglass. Live hard,
1:53:17
die fast. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's pushing. There he is.
1:53:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, all these strengths for our sport,
1:53:27
they all add together.
1:53:28
Speaker 2: It's like his hands. Look at his fucking hands. They
1:53:32
don't even look real.
1:53:35
Speaker 1: Oh.
1:53:36
Speaker 2: And he's open about all the sauce that he's on.
1:53:38
He's on everything. I mean, someone– who was in here
1:53:41
that was explaining how much growth hormone he takes?
1:53:45
Speaker 1: I heard he debunked that.
1:53:47
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
1:53:48
Speaker 1: I saw a video where he said it wasn't true.
1:53:50
But I have no idea.
1:53:52
Speaker 2: That he wasn't taking that much. Yeah. Someone was saying
1:53:54
he was taking over 100 or something. Some crazy thing,
1:53:57
like 10 units of growth a day.
1:53:59
Speaker 1: No, I heard it was 100.
1:54:00
Speaker 2: 100 units?
1:54:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard it was like.
1:54:02
Speaker 2: Well, that doesn't even make sense. That seems like you
1:54:04
would just grow. You would just become a giant. That's
1:54:07
like a pituitary disorder, right?
1:54:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, more than.
1:54:10
Speaker 2: Right, because that's what you're getting.
1:54:12
Speaker 1: It's a lot.
1:54:14
Speaker 2: Clearly, he's done a bunch of stuff, though. I mean,
1:54:16
if you see him when he was younger, he looked
1:54:18
like a normal athlete.
1:54:19
Speaker 1: I never saw him normal. I mean, I've been following
1:54:21
him for probably like six or seven years.
1:54:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:54:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the first time I saw him,
1:54:25
he was doing chin-ups with, like, 250 pounds strapped to him.
1:54:29
You know? I think that's the first time I saw him.
1:54:33
He's not normal.
1:54:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look at his fucking size. So it's the left size?
1:54:37
What's the left? When he's 17? Yeah.
1:54:38
Speaker 1: I mean, look, that's not a normal 17-year-old.
1:54:43
Speaker 2: No, clearly. He's pretty jacked. But that makes sense. Like
1:54:47
that guy on the left makes sense. Like I've seen
1:54:49
guys like that before.
1:54:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, but not at 17.
1:54:51
Speaker 2: No, but go to that photo again. But the guy
1:54:54
on the right, he looks like the Incredible Hulk. Like
1:54:57
he looks like a superhero. Like it doesn't look like
1:54:59
a real human being. Like the size of his forearms,
1:55:03
the size of his biceps, that doesn't look like a
1:55:06
regular human being. It looks like a complete freak of
1:55:08
nature or science.
1:55:10
Speaker 1: And he's training for arm wrestling.
1:55:12
Speaker 2: I could only imagine.
1:55:13
Speaker 1: So he's, like, if you follow his Insta or whatever,
1:55:16
he's doing the arm wrestling lifts, like the pronation. And
1:55:20
his lifting is already at a level of, like, world champion.
1:55:24
Speaker 2: Go to his Instagram, please.
1:55:26
Speaker 1: His Instagram got taken down, so it's like some new. Yeah.
1:55:30
Speaker 2: That's right. He didn't have it. Why did it get
1:55:31
taken down? I don't know.
1:55:33
Speaker 1: I don't know. But I heard it was taken down.
1:55:35
But he does have a new one, whether it's his
1:55:37
or it's a fan one. I know. I just saw
1:55:39
it yesterday.
1:55:39
Speaker 2: Why would they take down his Instagram?
1:55:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only one I could find is this.
1:55:44
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's like Smythe Official, and it's 27
1:55:47
weeks ago.
1:55:47
Speaker 1: There's a tag, and that's all there. But, no, there is.
1:55:50
I know because I saw it like yesterday.
1:55:53
Speaker 2: Oh, so it's gone. The page is gone.
1:55:54
Speaker 1: There's some fan page where he's doing pronation lifts.
1:55:59
Speaker 2: What the fuck? What is wrong? Why would they take
1:56:02
this guy's Instagram down?
1:56:04
Speaker 1: Because he's inspiring people to turn into monsters?
1:56:08
Speaker 2: Do you think that's what it is?
1:56:09
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. There, this is what
1:56:11
I'm talking about. See, now this is a much more normal,
1:56:15
like for arm wrestling, this is actually more functional than
1:56:19
anything through the grip, I think.
1:56:21
Speaker 2: So this is all pronation.
1:56:22
Speaker 1: That's pronation.
1:56:23
Speaker 2: Turning the wrist, lifting in same weight. Yeah.
1:56:27
Speaker 1: And just based off of that information that I see there,
1:56:30
I already know.
1:56:31
Speaker 2: Click on that one that you got your, yeah. Look
1:56:34
at the size of this guy. Yeah. That is so crazy.
1:56:37
Explosive jumps.
1:56:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the crazy thing about him is he's not
1:56:43
competing in anything. Right. But I think that this is
1:56:48
a guy who's just going to show up whether it's
1:56:50
in anything. He gets to pick. And he's probably going
1:56:55
to show up at like a world level.
1:56:58
Speaker 2: Like anything like what?
1:57:00
Speaker 1: I'd say anything, whether powerlifting, strongman. I'd be terrified if
1:57:06
he even got to like blue belt.
1:57:08
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
1:57:09
Speaker 1: Like what are you going to do?
1:57:10
Speaker 2: What are you going to do?
1:57:11
Speaker 1: How much does he weigh?
1:57:13
Speaker 2: I think like 340. 340 and preposterous strength. Like strength,
1:57:17
you know, Mark Coleman always used to say that strength
1:57:19
is a skill. And there's something to that because if
1:57:22
you are that strong, there's only so much you could
1:57:25
do with that guy's body.
1:57:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:57:26
Speaker 2: Especially if he developed actual skills and understanding of leverage, positions.
1:57:31
Speaker 1: Even just the base movement patterns that are really applicable.
1:57:34
Speaker 2: 352 lean. Yeah. Jesus.
1:57:37
Speaker 1: He was supposed to pull. There was a proposal for
1:57:41
him to pull one of our guys called Leonidas Arcona.
1:57:44
Speaker 2: What a great name. Yeah.
1:57:46
Speaker 1: It's a German guy. He just competed against Brian Schott
1:57:49
like six weeks ago.
1:57:50
Speaker 2: He beat Brian. What? Yeah. Someone beat Brian Schott in
1:57:53
an arm wrestling match?
1:57:55
Speaker 1: Leonidas, young German champion. They competed in Germany. It was
1:58:00
a great fight.
1:58:01
Speaker 2: How big is Leonidas?
1:58:01
Speaker 1: Leonidas is pretty awesome.
1:58:03
Speaker 2: This is Leonidas and Brian Shaw. Yeah. Oh my goodness.
1:58:10
That is crazy.
1:58:13
Speaker 1: And nobody's got a star grip than Brian either. Brian's
1:58:15
grip is completely wild.
1:58:16
Speaker 2: Seeing someone beat Brian Shaw in anything physical seems ridiculous.
1:58:21
It doesn't even make sense. How much does this guy weigh?
1:58:25
Speaker 1: He's like 285 when he's in good shape. But Again,
1:58:28
stupid strength. He's like a bodybuilder slash arm wrestler. He's not.
1:58:34
Picture me reacting.
1:58:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:58:38
Speaker 1: He's been in the sport like.
1:58:40
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. He's going to curl a dude. Yeah.
1:58:45
Speaker 1: Crazy strength.
1:58:46
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. He's massive.
1:58:47
Speaker 1: Massive.
1:58:49
Speaker 2: I just can't believe that he beat Brian Shaw. That
1:58:51
is nuts.
1:58:52
Speaker 1: And that's where skill comes in.
1:58:53
Speaker 2: Because Brian Shaw is 100 pounds heavier than him.
1:58:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's levels, you know? And that's the thing.
1:58:59
Arm wrestling has enough technique to it. It's not just
1:59:02
how strong you are. You can look at me, okay?
1:59:05
I'm not on any of these guys' levels. They're all
1:59:07
stronger than me. But I'm the number two in the
1:59:10
world in the open division. Everybody in the top 50
1:59:13
is stronger than me, you know? But there's a high degree...
1:59:17
That's a great picture.
1:59:18
Speaker 2: Wow. That is crazy. The size difference is so massive.
1:59:23
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you, Brian probably... has a higher potential
1:59:27
than Leonidas. Brian's been arm wrestling less than two years.
1:59:30
Speaker 2: Right. And Leonidas has been arm wrestling four.
1:59:32
Speaker 1: About five.
1:59:33
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. So there's a lot of technique to it.
1:59:35
Speaker 1: There's a ton of technique.
1:59:36
Speaker 2: And a lot of just repetition, understanding the positions, where
1:59:40
to go, what to do, how to hold. Yeah.
1:59:43
Speaker 1: Miniature martial art.
1:59:45
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Because there's some people that
1:59:48
are not that, like Marcelo Garcia, for instance, not a
1:59:51
physically imposing guy, has the craziest squeeze ever. Like there's
1:59:55
something about a squeeze, like learning a position over and
1:59:59
over and over again, fine tuning it. That's what's interesting
2:00:04
about power in general is like the repetition of movement
2:00:07
creates more power.
2:00:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:00:09
Speaker 2: And some of it is genetic, but some of it
2:00:12
is also just fine tuning that motion to just this
2:00:16
like perfect chain of energy from the floor to the strike.
2:00:21
Speaker 1: And it's two of us. You know, and it's that interaction.
2:00:25
It's what you're doing, what I'm doing.
2:00:27
Speaker 2: And the more you're doing it, the more you understand
2:00:29
what to do and when to do it and what's
2:00:31
happening and how to counter it and when to push,
2:00:34
when to pull, when to hit the gas.
2:00:37
Speaker 1: And somebody's leading the dance and someone's following. And the
2:00:41
efficiency just changes very quickly. And before you know it,
2:00:44
you're gassed out.
2:00:45
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're aware of that guy in Australia, Tom Havilland.
2:00:48
Tom Havilland.
2:00:50
Speaker 1: That's another one.
2:00:51
Speaker 2: He's another one. That's another one. Right. Who's doing this
2:00:53
stuff in his backyard with a fucking shirt on and
2:00:56
jeans and work boots. Yeah. And all the images, most
2:00:59
of them, are just his back.
2:01:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Awesome.
2:01:03
Speaker 2: He's another one.
2:01:04
Speaker 1: He's another one of these strength giants that lives out
2:01:06
there that everybody kind of wants to pull in. I
2:01:09
message Tom every once in a while.
2:01:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at this guy.
2:01:12
Speaker 1: Like, dude, when are you coming in arm wrestling?
2:01:14
Speaker 2: When are you coming in? And what did he say?
2:01:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic.
2:01:19
Speaker 2: Is he interested? I think so. Well, he's also crazy
2:01:22
lean too, which is really weird.
2:01:24
Speaker 1: He's a strange character.
2:01:25
Speaker 2: Oh, the strangest. Because like this is most of his
2:01:28
images are his back. Yeah. Which I don't understand why
2:01:32
he's doing that.
2:01:33
Speaker 1: Well, I had the theory that he was an SF guy.
2:01:37
I had the theory that he belongs to some organization
2:01:39
that requires him to be discreet.
2:01:42
Speaker 2: But there are photos of him.
2:01:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, not many.
2:01:45
Speaker 2: But there's plenty where you could see his face.
2:01:47
Speaker 1: Yes, but he doesn't go around broadcasting it too much,
2:01:50
does he? I don't know. Look, I don't know what
2:01:52
he is. I've asked and guys say he's not. I
2:01:55
don't know what the deal is. But for whatever reason,
2:01:58
and he could, right? This is a guy who could probably, again,
2:02:01
go to any one of the strength disciplines and compete.
2:02:03
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. Because he's almost 400 pounds. He's 6'8. Yeah. Yeah.
2:02:09
And fucking shredded. See if you can find some of
2:02:13
the images. There are images on this page of him
2:02:15
with his shirt off doing stuff where he's like walking with,
2:02:19
you know, doing like farmer carries. So there's some images
2:02:22
of him with his shirt off. Yeah. Like there he is. Yeah. Yeah.
2:02:28
Speaker 1: He's a Brian Shaw type. He's a Smythe type, you know,
2:02:32
just where the baseline level of strength.
2:02:34
Speaker 2: But looks more athletic than those guys. Do you know
2:02:38
what I'm saying? Like, he's not as massive. He's massive,
2:02:43
but he looks massive in a more mobile way. Do
2:02:47
you know what I'm saying?
2:02:48
Speaker 1: I do, but, you know, Brian Shaw won Strongman, and, like,
2:02:52
there's a lot of athleticism in Strongman.
2:02:54
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. I'm not saying there's not. I mean,
2:02:56
but Brian Shaw looks like an ape. He looks like
2:02:59
a giant ape, whereas this guy looks like a super athlete.
2:03:03
He does. He looks like that image of him with
2:03:05
his shirt off on the far right. Like he's shredded. Yeah.
2:03:09
He looks different. Yeah.
2:03:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:03:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it seems like he's just working on his strength.
2:03:17
He's just like constantly. Yeah. Look at his fucking forearm muscles. Yeah.
2:03:21
What the fuck is going on with that? The top
2:03:24
of the forum where it meets the bicep. What the
2:03:26
fuck is that?
2:03:27
Speaker 1: Tom, if you're watching this, come to East vs.
2:03:29
Speaker 2: West, buddy. We love you. We love you. Has he
2:03:31
ever done anything? Yeah. Any arm wrestling stuff?
2:03:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know he has. So down in Australia, the
2:03:37
president there, Phil Rasmussen, he's good friends with him. And
2:03:42
I know that they're arm wrestling a little bit. But yeah,
2:03:44
there's something with him where he doesn't want to kind
2:03:48
of show up. I don't know what it is with
2:03:49
some of these people where they have This amazing ability,
2:03:54
but they don't really pop. Do you know who Eric
2:03:57
Spado is?
2:03:58
Speaker 2: No.
2:03:59
Speaker 1: Eric Spado is a guy out of Vegas, former number
2:04:03
one in the world bench guy. He broke the world
2:04:06
record for bench. But he didn't go to a powerlifting
2:04:10
meet until he could break the record. He didn't even
2:04:12
show up. He just showed up and he beat the
2:04:14
world record. He was doing the world record in his basement. Wow.
2:04:18
And everybody's like, Eric, why don't you go and make
2:04:21
it legit? You know, but these guys exist out there,
2:04:24
these guys in their basements or wherever they're living. And they,
2:04:28
and they, for whatever reason, they don't show up until
2:04:32
they're the best.
2:04:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:04:34
Speaker 1: Eric, this guy.
2:04:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:04:37
Speaker 1: And he's an amazing arm wrestler too. Same theory though.
2:04:40
Like it was hard to get him into competition, but
2:04:43
I personally know that he's like one of the strongest
2:04:45
arm wrestlers. Um, but he doesn't compete. Doesn't compete.
2:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
2:04:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, strength's amazing, man. It's fun to chase strength.
2:04:56
Speaker 2: It's not everything in your sport, though, which is interesting. Yeah.
2:05:00
Speaker 1: Strength, combat. So we're a combat sport that relies heavily
2:05:04
on strength.
2:05:06
Speaker 2: It's interesting you consider it a combat sport.
2:05:08
Speaker 1: It's 100% a combat sport.
2:05:10
Speaker 2: Why so? Because it's not applicable to real fighting. So
2:05:13
why do you call it a combat sport?
2:05:14
Speaker 1: I mean, real fighting is hard to define anyways. Is it? Well,
2:05:18
there's levels. There's levels of real fighting. I mean, Look,
2:05:22
I love UFC. It's cool, but we invented guns long ago.
2:05:26
Speaker 2: Of course, but that's not a sport. I mean, it
2:05:29
is a sport in terms of being able to shoot
2:05:32
accurately and stuff like that, but you're using an external device.
2:05:35
You're using a weapon.
2:05:36
Speaker 1: Right.
2:05:37
Speaker 2: With your physical body, combat sports, why would you consider
2:05:41
arm wrestling to be a combat sport?
2:05:44
Speaker 1: Well, because it's between two people and there's so much
2:05:49
interplay and There's not the rigidity of a lot of
2:05:55
sports that measure strength. It's very much adjustment, adaption, decision-making,
2:06:03
a lot of games, a lot of technique, a lot
2:06:07
of adaptation. You can be super strong, but if you
2:06:11
can't adapt, if you can't think, if you can't speak,
2:06:14
if you can't play.
2:06:16
Speaker 2: But in that sense, do you consider football a combat sport? Yeah. Okay.
2:06:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. there's two sides and you're fighting.
2:06:23
Speaker 2: It's metaphor. Okay.
2:06:24
Speaker 1: Look at all this stuff.
2:06:26
Speaker 2: Uh, I, I love the.
2:06:28
Speaker 1: UFC, but I consider it a combat sport, you know?
2:06:31
Speaker 2: Well, it definitely is a combat sport.
2:06:33
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. Probably one of the best examples of,
2:06:35
but the primary example, if I was going to put
2:06:38
together like, you know, the ultimate, like, you know, we
2:06:42
were going to take out like, like if we were
2:06:44
going to go to war against another nation or whatever,
2:06:47
you know? Yeah, for sure. I'm looking at UFC guys
2:06:49
for sure. I'm looking at football guys, you know? looking
2:06:52
at whoever can get the job done. And there's a lot.
2:06:55
Speaker 2: Of pieces to that. Well, that's different. I mean, look,
2:06:58
if they're going to war with just bodies, only using
2:07:01
your body, that's one thing. But, you know, obviously with war,
2:07:04
weapons rule above all.
2:07:07
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
2:07:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:07:08
Speaker 1: I think that that's where we're at these days.
2:07:11
Speaker 2: Well, now we're with thumbs because now it's basically drones.
2:07:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:07:15
Speaker 2: You know? Yeah. I mean, you're going to get to
2:07:17
a point soon where human beings are going to be irrelevant.
2:07:21
Speaker 1: So when it comes to sport, arm wrestling is, for me,
2:07:26
it falls into that combat sector, you know, where two
2:07:30
people are engaging in a fight, a metaphorical fight.
2:07:34
Speaker 2: Against each other. I get it. Yeah. Yeah.
2:07:38
Speaker 1: I mean, if it wasn't a combat sport, then the
2:07:43
stronger guy would normally win. And he normally does. But
2:07:46
as soon as you, I can get like, if I
2:07:48
could get like a guy who's been practicing arm wrestling
2:07:51
for like four or five years. They'll beat anybody, anybody
2:07:54
that's not practicing. It's the same thing as like a
2:07:57
jujitsu guy. If you if you give a jujitsu guy
2:08:00
like four or five years on the mat and you
2:08:02
get Brian Shaw or like some giant come in, who's
2:08:06
going to win?
2:08:08
Speaker 2: It really depends. I could teach Brian Shaw a few
2:08:11
things real quick. Of course you could. He could strangle
2:08:13
pretty much anybody.
2:08:14
Speaker 1: And Brian Shaw is an extreme example.
2:08:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. Someone your size. Yeah. It's like size aside. The
2:08:21
size is commensurate.
2:08:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:08:22
Speaker 2: The person who's training.
2:08:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:08:23
Speaker 2: They're going to win every time. And small people dominate
2:08:26
big people all the time. Right.
2:08:28
Speaker 1: Because it's that technical.
2:08:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:08:31
Speaker 1: Skill based.
2:08:32
Speaker 2: It's just it's also repetition under understanding the positions, understanding mistakes, understand,
2:08:37
you know, knowing where to be and what to do,
2:08:39
how to flow, how to move with someone. So you're
2:08:41
not just going strength for strength against them. You're flowing
2:08:45
with them.
2:08:47
Speaker 1: I think I think of it as a combat sport
2:08:48
as well because I try and make it that way.
2:08:51
Speaker 2: Right. Well, you definitely do. And you definitely make it
2:08:53
like psychologically.
2:08:55
Speaker 1: I try. Yeah. I try and pull all that stuff in.
2:08:58
Speaker 2: But you have an extensive military experience too. Like you
2:09:01
started off, like when, what, what is the Canadian version
2:09:04
of what you, what, what branch of the military you
2:09:07
were in?
2:09:08
Speaker 1: I was with a unit called JTF2 for 16 out
2:09:10
of my 20 years. Yeah. Hmm.
2:09:14
Speaker 2: It was great.
2:09:15
Speaker 1: I'd still be there if I could, really. But it
2:09:18
got too complicated and I had to leave. How so?
2:09:22
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
2:09:25
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to say it was entirely
2:09:27
one thing or another, but it really probably had a
2:09:29
lot to do with arm wrestling and the visibility of
2:09:32
arm wrestling. Like, I've been arm wrestling my whole life. But, geez,
2:09:36
it was 19, I think. Oh, sorry, not 19. It
2:09:39
was 2014. 2014. and we were on ESPN at the time.
2:09:45
And up to that point, I was not declared military
2:09:49
in the public eye. Like I was a farmer as
2:09:51
far as everybody was concerned. You know, I tried to
2:09:54
play the operational security as, as well as I could. And, uh,
2:09:58
you know, um, I was an active, active JTF two member. Um,
2:10:03
but there were a lot of concerns about the growth
2:10:06
of arm wrestling for me and my, you know, exposure. And,
2:10:11
you know, part of being an operator is, you have
2:10:15
to be anonymous. You get on an airplane, you can't
2:10:17
have people taking pictures of you.
2:10:19
Speaker 2: Oh, right. Right.
2:10:20
Speaker 1: So arm wrestling, because of where I was, and it
2:10:23
was on ESPN, and going further, they're like, Devin, you
2:10:25
have to choose. And I'm like, oh, my God, I've
2:10:27
been arm wrestling since I was a kid. So the
2:10:29
long and short of that is they offered me a
2:10:31
year off.
2:10:33
Speaker 2: No pay.
2:10:34
Speaker 1: I took it.
2:10:35
Speaker 2: I took it.
2:10:35
Speaker 1: I took the year off.
2:10:36
Speaker 2: And we were.
2:10:39
Speaker 1: I was gathering apples and eating sardines and sending my
2:10:42
kids to school with dried apples. And me and my
2:10:45
wife were like, oh, my God, are we crazy? Like,
2:10:47
are we crazy?
2:10:48
Speaker 2: Just so you try to make it in arm wrestling.
2:10:51
Speaker 1: It was complicated. It was complicated. Yeah, I'd done like
2:10:55
seven tours. And it's weird when you do a lot
2:11:00
of tours, you know, things start to gray out a
2:11:03
little bit.
2:11:04
Speaker 2: I hope so.
2:11:06
Speaker 1: Everything is about mission in life, right? like everything. Like
2:11:11
if you don't have a good mission, your life is
2:11:13
going to fall to shit. And as soon as you
2:11:17
start to question any kind of that, and you know,
2:11:23
you play in that realm long enough, most guys start to,
2:11:27
at the beginning, I mean, you're just either so patriotic or,
2:11:32
you know, just so down to, you know, help your
2:11:35
country or whatever, or the people around you that you
2:11:37
don't really you're undeterred. And I think that probably sometime
2:11:43
around that point in my career, um, maybe I was
2:11:47
struggling slightly and that combined with the, uh, them telling
2:11:51
me that I wasn't able to do something that was
2:11:55
like the only thing I did, you know, when I
2:11:57
left work, uh, was kind of the thing that kind
2:12:01
of make me take kind of a stand in my
2:12:04
life that I was gonna, you know, follow sport, instead
2:12:09
of war. Um, sports, beautiful sports, very clearly building civilization
2:12:17
and war, you know, the further you go and it
2:12:20
just gets to a level of Merck where you're not sure. So, yeah.
2:12:23
Speaker 2: So when you say you're not sure, you're not sure
2:12:26
if you should be doing what you're doing. You're not
2:12:27
sure if the mission should be happening.
2:12:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. Because I think most people join the military and
2:12:33
stay in the military because they genuinely believe that they're
2:12:37
benefiting mankind or civilization to some degree. It's a big
2:12:40
part of it. Not, nobody's there for the money, you know,
2:12:43
somebody at the beginning, some people are cause we're broke. Right.
2:12:46
But I mean, once you spend like 10 years, I mean, uh, you're,
2:12:49
you're probably okay. And, um, yeah, so it started, I mean, you, you, you,
2:12:54
you play enough in that world and it starts to
2:12:56
get confusing that you're, maybe you're not doing the right thing. So, uh,
2:13:01
and look at, I, I loved my work. I thought
2:13:05
it was great. I loved all the people I worked with,
2:13:06
some of the best people in the world. Um, but yeah,
2:13:10
it came to a point where there was some issues,
2:13:14
you know, with OPSEC, not even in my career, but
2:13:17
in others. And it kind of trickled down into unit
2:13:19
policy and they shut down everybody's extracurricular. And yeah, they're like, Devin,
2:13:24
you can't arm wrestle anymore. And I'm like, oh my God,
2:13:26
I'm a current world champion. Like I am currently the
2:13:29
open world champion and you're telling me I can't do it.
2:13:33
So I was like, yeah, we're going to have to
2:13:35
come up with some other solution. They're like, yeah. Okay.
2:13:37
Speaker 2: Years leave without pay.
2:13:38
Speaker 1: Here's your final offer. So we took it. And my
2:13:41
wife and I were like, oh, my God. So, yeah,
2:13:43
so I went from making money. And I didn't come.
2:13:47
We didn't have money, you know.
2:13:50
Speaker 2: But you were getting by.
2:13:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, getting by. But it meant that on that year, I, like,
2:13:55
had to win. It was no longer, like, my hobby.
2:13:59
It was like if I don't win, like, my kids are, like,
2:14:02
not I'm going to have to sell a house or, like,
2:14:04
I'm going to have to do this gamble.
2:14:08
Speaker 2: It worked out. What was that stress like? Dude, it
2:14:11
was so wild. How old were you at the time? Okay,
2:14:15
that was 2014, so I'd be 39.
2:14:17
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah.
2:14:19
Speaker 2: So you're already older as an athlete.
2:14:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:14:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow.
2:14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was totally trippy. I remember being so stressed out.
2:14:27
So it was a WAL finals, okay? I was in
2:14:30
the 225-pound division. $ 20, 000 for first place. Right hand, left hand.
2:14:39
And I had a great sponsor, okay? They were matching
2:14:42
my pay. So anything I won, they doubled it, and
2:14:45
they were doing some other stuff too. But if I lost,
2:14:48
I got nothing, right? So I'm in the back. I'm
2:14:52
in the back in the warm-up area, and I'm breathing.
2:14:55
I'm getting ready. I'm going against this guy Ron Bath
2:14:57
in the finals. And a longtime mentor of mine, guys
2:15:02
like my older brother, this guy Mike Gould, comes over
2:15:05
to me. He's like, Devin, he's like, You used to
2:15:08
run the practice when you were 18. He's like, you're
2:15:11
just here because you love it. Don't worry about it.
2:15:13
Just go and have fun. And I'm like, okay, you're right.
2:15:15
Speaker 2: You're right.
2:15:15
Speaker 1: And I went out and I just had fun and
2:15:17
worked out. But, yeah, so I ended up doing my
2:15:23
year's leave without pay. As soon as I was taking
2:15:26
my leave, they're like, we want you to declare. Like,
2:15:29
we want you to tell people that you're Special Forces now.
2:15:32
Speaker 2: Why?
2:15:32
Speaker 1: Why did they want you to do that? Because they
2:15:34
pushed me into recruiting.
2:15:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:15:37
Speaker 1: So when I got back, I tried again, I think
2:15:39
they'd already made up their mind. Uh, when I got back,
2:15:43
I'm like, yeah, can I have my old job back?
2:15:44
And they're like, you're going to keep arm wrestling. And
2:15:46
I'm like, well, you know, and they're like, okay, you're
2:15:50
going to recruiting. And I was on, so at that
2:15:52
point I was on my 19th year. Okay. And you
2:15:59
only in the Canadian forces at that time, now I
2:16:02
think you need 25, but it, 20 years continuous service
2:16:05
and you get like a base pension. So I did
2:16:09
my 19th to 20th year. I went around Canada and
2:16:12
I told people how great the JTF was. And that
2:16:15
was it. That was my career.
2:16:16
Speaker 2: Done. Yeah. Wow.
2:16:17
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now full-time armrest for the last 10 years.
2:16:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. What a jump at 39. Yeah. That had to
2:16:24
be so fucking nerve wracking.
2:16:26
Speaker 1: It was, I, I just, you know, I thought it
2:16:30
was very selfish of me. you know, um, I, I
2:16:34
thought that I was being very irresponsible. I thought, you know,
2:16:39
because I really believed in soldiering, I did. And, you know,
2:16:43
to leave it, you know, made me question very much
2:16:47
whether I was doing the right thing with my life. And,
2:16:50
and then on a family level, I was like, I'm being,
2:16:54
am I being irresponsible chasing this, you know, thing that
2:16:58
I love to do and it's costing my, my kids,
2:17:01
you know, their, their university education, it's costing my kids,
2:17:04
you know, um, but yeah, we, we, we believed in it.
2:17:09
We went for it and, uh, it's all worked out.
2:17:13
It's all worked out. I mean, um, it's been a
2:17:16
second life for me. Um, I still love all the
2:17:21
guys I work with. Some of them are still working.
2:17:23
My God, guys do like 30 year careers in the
2:17:26
special forces. It's crazy. It's crazy. A lot of the
2:17:29
guys that I went through with, they're now in senior positions,
2:17:32
and I bump into them every once in a while.
2:17:35
I just tell them how much I love them and
2:17:37
how great they are. I live a simple life now.
2:17:43
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
2:17:44
Speaker 1: Before, life was very complicated, going on tours, you know,
2:17:49
Special Forces life is super complex. You know, it's difficult
2:17:53
to balance. How my wife and I made it through that,
2:17:55
I have no idea. I have no idea, but we did. But, yeah,
2:18:00
now I'm at home every day. I wake up unless I'm,
2:18:03
you know, going to some arm wrestling tournament.
2:18:05
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. Well, I got to think that the discipline
2:18:08
that came from that life transferred over to the discipline
2:18:12
of becoming a great arm wrestler.
2:18:14
Speaker 1: I think I'm still learning today from my career. I'm
2:18:18
still digesting some of the greatest days and some of
2:18:22
the stuff that I did. I'm still integrating it into
2:18:25
my life. Yeah.
2:18:26
Speaker 2: It's a great teacher. Well, you can't fail.
2:18:31
Speaker 1: No, you can't.
2:18:31
Speaker 2: It's just like the ultimate consequences, the ultimate stakes. Yeah.
2:18:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:18:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:18:37
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. I love the concept of soldiering. I think
2:18:41
I have it as one of the highest things that
2:18:45
you can do. Like there's being a mother and there's
2:18:47
being a fighter, you know, and I, I personally have
2:18:51
always believed that one of the highest orders of fighters
2:18:54
are the guys in the military, you know, the SF guys,
2:18:56
like it's, it's, it's, it's pretty awesome. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's,
2:19:04
I try and take all those lessons and bring them
2:19:06
into the sport. And I try to, um, well, I
2:19:11
try and let that chapter of my life, you know,
2:19:15
feed and inspire me today.
2:19:17
Speaker 2: Do you talk much about your tours?
2:19:20
Speaker 1: I don't a lot. Um, I, it's not that, uh,
2:19:26
you know, anything matters at this point. I mean, it's
2:19:28
all like, it's all in the past and, you know,
2:19:31
there's nothing that I could really say now that influences
2:19:33
too much, but, Um, yeah, I don't make it part
2:19:37
of my general promotion too much, but everybody knows that
2:19:41
I was, you know, uh, it's a, it's a, it's
2:19:44
a wild time in my life. You know, uh, it's
2:19:47
a huge chapter, you know, the military stuff, the tours
2:19:50
that I did, you know, we, we did a lot
2:19:53
of work in Afghanistan. So, you know, the highlight of
2:19:56
my career is working in Kandahar, um, you know, working
2:20:00
with the American forces, working with the Indige forces, you know, we,
2:20:04
JTF does like counterterrorism. So we're doing hits, doing hits
2:20:08
at night, you know, going out and various kinds. But yeah,
2:20:13
it was always funny to me. People would, because people
2:20:15
didn't know I was, you know, widely. Oh, Devin's scared
2:20:19
to come to this tournament, you know? And I was like, motherfucker,
2:20:23
I am in a goddamn war right now. I am
2:20:26
not scared to go to Nemerov Cup, you know? But yeah.
2:20:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, it was good. That must have
2:20:33
been hilarious. It was so funny for me.
2:20:35
Speaker 1: I'm like, you have no idea how scared I am
2:20:38
right now, what I'm doing. War is a wild thing,
2:20:43
you know. The degree that it psychologically affected me, it's
2:20:50
been neat, you know. I think that a lot of
2:20:54
who I am was shaped by combat, you know. by
2:20:59
the fear, um, and, um, and the lacking that I had,
2:21:05
like the, the, the, the not being enough to, to
2:21:09
be everything I could be in combat, uh, shaped me
2:21:13
so much, you know, um, you know, when you go
2:21:19
on a tour and there's different people, there's different dudes. Okay.
2:21:23
I know some dudes who really don't get scared. They
2:21:27
really don't like, they're like, so down for it. Like,
2:21:30
they can't wait to go on the next mission, you know?
2:21:33
And I was kind of the guy who was, like,
2:21:35
completely scared shitless, but I'd go anyways, you know? And
2:21:41
what I kind of learned to do, which I have
2:21:45
a great value in, is kind of the separation of myself,
2:21:50
you know? I am a very different person day to
2:21:53
day than when I compete or when I, for example,
2:21:57
went and actually did the job You know, I would
2:22:00
completely transform my character. And this is something that I learned.
2:22:03
The first tour was hard. You know, you're a regular
2:22:05
dude with a regular brain and a regular mindset doing
2:22:08
this terrifying thing. And then, you know, you come back and,
2:22:13
you know, you've seen a lot of shit and you
2:22:15
got PTSD. You wake up and your heart's going and
2:22:19
it's like an injury. And you can let an injury
2:22:23
kill you or you can heal and develop some kind
2:22:27
of resilience to it. And I think that I, to
2:22:30
some degree, did that by learning how to become a
2:22:35
different person. People call it a switch, you know, where
2:22:40
you like all your values, the person that you are
2:22:43
is different. You're not the same person when you're out
2:22:46
in the field than you are when you're back on base.
2:22:51
And I created a persona that loved it, that looked
2:22:56
forward to it, that lusted for it. Because that's what
2:22:59
you need to be to actually perform properly.
2:23:02
Speaker 2: When you say you created a persona, what was the steps? Like,
2:23:05
how did you do that?
2:23:07
Speaker 1: Well, I think that one of the things is to
2:23:11
really wrap your mind. I think the first step is
2:23:14
to wrap your mind about the worst possible outcomes with
2:23:18
any fear. And I don't know if a psychologist is
2:23:21
going to tell you to do this. But, like, for example, like,
2:23:25
I'll take it a step back and we'll talk about jumping, okay?
2:23:29
I don't like to jump at airplanes. Okay. Didn't really,
2:23:32
you know, it's kind of scary. So I had a
2:23:35
certain fear there. Okay. Now I got over it. I've got,
2:23:38
you know, I've got hundreds of jumps. But what I
2:23:43
did was I used to watch parachute fails over and
2:23:47
over and over and over and over. And I just
2:23:49
kind of desensitized myself to it and kind of became
2:23:51
okay with it. And I think to a certain degree,
2:23:55
I did the same thing with the overall concept of
2:23:58
worst case scenario with the war. You know, kind of
2:24:01
accepted that I'm going to die. It's okay. I believe
2:24:06
in the cause, believe in the mission. It's okay. So
2:24:08
now I have to solve how to actually, how do
2:24:11
I get to the best performance state to do that?
2:24:14
And you have to love what you do. You got
2:24:17
to love what you do. So you have to find
2:24:19
a way to love the violence. You have to find
2:24:21
a way to love the aggression. You have to find
2:24:25
a way to, and I think it's inside all of us.
2:24:29
I think that the person that you are is, you know,
2:24:32
who you've kind of created for a certain circumstance. But
2:24:35
the truth is, is you might act a little bit
2:24:37
different when you're sitting at the table with your mother
2:24:39
than when you're sitting at the table with your best
2:24:41
friend to when you're going out and doing a hit
2:24:44
on the front lines, you know. And it's a different
2:24:46
psychology that's going to perform best, you know, in each
2:24:49
of those. And it's learning that you are not necessarily
2:24:53
one thing. You are whatever you want to be, you know,
2:24:58
and you can change that. And you can become that.
2:25:01
And the more time that you spend as that role,
2:25:05
the more you roll it out, the more you build
2:25:07
it out, the more you're comfortable with it, the more
2:25:10
you might even look forward to doing it again, you know.
2:25:14
I certainly rolled that psychology into my arm wrestling.
2:25:19
Speaker 2: What's interesting you say, I don't know if a psychologist
2:25:21
would tell you to do that. I don't think a
2:25:23
psychologist would have the ability to understand what that experience
2:25:27
even is. There's one thing about theory and about books
2:25:31
and about learning in school. There's a giant difference between
2:25:34
that and application in a real world scenario where you
2:25:38
might lose your life and you have to take a life.
2:25:41
I don't think there's a psychologist in the world that
2:25:43
could explain that. That's why I'm always very hesitant about
2:25:48
even sports psychologists or fight psychologists that like teach people
2:25:52
how to prepare for fight. I'm like, you could probably
2:25:55
give a fighter some tools, but for you to actually
2:25:58
tell them what needs to be done and you, if
2:26:01
you're not doing that, how can you, what you're, it's
2:26:05
just theory theory. Yeah. And there's a giant difference between
2:26:09
theory and application where you are trying to keep your
2:26:12
fucking brain together in the craziest thing a human being
2:26:16
can do.
2:26:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:26:17
Speaker 2: Parachute down and gun people down. Like what, what is
2:26:22
fucking crazier on earth than that? I say nothing.
2:26:26
Speaker 1: Well, look, I used to have that attitude as well. Um,
2:26:29
but I I've, I've changed my attitude when it comes
2:26:32
to that. I think that it's about, um, excellence and mastery.
2:26:38
I think that that's what life is about. And if
2:26:40
you're in the soldiering realm, yeah, That's, that's excellence and
2:26:44
mastery in that field. But I think wherever you are,
2:26:47
if you're a businessman, if you're an artist, if, if
2:26:50
you're a farmer, um, there's levels, you know, you can be,
2:26:53
you can be a farmer that, you know, has weeds and,
2:26:56
you know, kind of, you know, doesn't get up at
2:26:58
the crack of dawn or whatever. And then you can
2:27:00
be a completely psychotic farmer that does. And I think
2:27:03
that you're on that level.
2:27:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:27:05
Speaker 1: You're just, you're on that level of mastery. And I
2:27:08
think that that is what life is really about, is
2:27:11
finding that thing that you're comfortable doing and becoming a
2:27:15
master at it.
2:27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:27:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. And now I am the Bonnie Blue of arm wrestling.
2:27:23
Come one, come all.
2:27:26
Speaker 2: I get the first base with everybody. I got to
2:27:28
ask you about this, and this is a silly thing
2:27:30
to ask you, because you said Kandahar. Have you heard
2:27:34
of the legend of the Kandahar giant?
2:27:35
Speaker 1: Of course.
2:27:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. What did you hear? When did you hear?
2:27:39
Speaker 1: Well, I've seen.
2:27:39
Speaker 2: Okay. There's some freaks out there, man. There's some freaks.
2:27:44
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean, I've seen the YouTube video. I've
2:27:48
heard about it from other people, but legit, legit, okay?
2:27:54
Hard for me because I was far away, okay? I
2:27:58
was probably about 200 meters away. We were doing a
2:28:03
mobility exercise, okay? Mobility, I hate mobility. Okay, mobility was
2:28:08
my least favorite op. Mobility, basically, you get in a
2:28:11
bunch of trucks and you kind of roll out and
2:28:13
you kind of look for a fight, okay? So we
2:28:16
were doing like a two-week mobility in this region, kind
2:28:21
of north of the Panjwe. I don't remember exactly what
2:28:25
it was called. It was surrounded by mountains, this big valley.
2:28:29
And we were rolling around. And so there was a
2:28:35
village that we were going to check out. And I'm
2:28:40
like a gunner, okay? So I don't know everything that's
2:28:43
going on. I'm a dude on a machine gun, okay?
2:28:46
But I can see everything that's happening. I kind of
2:28:48
know what we're doing. But I know that there's a meeting.
2:28:52
And what they have is they have these warlords. It's
2:28:55
not the same kind of political system or anything that
2:28:58
we have in North America, kind of the baddest dude
2:29:03
in the region becomes in charge.
2:29:06
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:29:07
Speaker 1: So we were meeting with one of the local warlords.
2:29:12
And so the town was like 500 meters away. They
2:29:17
drove out from the town about 500 meters. And we
2:29:19
had our trucks about 200 meters from the meeting point.
2:29:24
Our officer and a couple of dudes went forward and
2:29:27
we're looking. This guy, I mean, he was maybe twice
2:29:32
as big. He was huge.
2:29:34
Speaker 2: He was a massive dude. Like how big?
2:29:38
Speaker 1: I think he was eight feet. I think he was
2:29:40
eight foot something. And it's embarrassing. It's like, Devin, you're crazy.
2:29:44
He's big.
2:29:45
Speaker 2: And he was 200 meters away.
2:29:47
Speaker 1: He was about 200 meters away. But I can see
2:29:48
the guys. We've got optics. He was, our officer was
2:29:54
probably somewhere at the bottom of his chest. Great big
2:29:59
Afghan dude.
2:30:00
Speaker 2: Big beard, big dude, big dude.
2:30:03
Speaker 1: And his lackeys around him were normal size. Great big warlord.
2:30:07
So they're out there. There's big people.
2:30:09
Speaker 2: Eight feet is nuts.
2:30:11
Speaker 1: I have personally seen people who were probably over eight feet. What?
2:30:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. In Afghanistan? No, no.
2:30:19
Speaker 1: I saw these guys up north, northern Canada, Cree. I
2:30:24
was up in Ojibwemo. This Cree village. I remember walking up.
2:30:30
I'm there for arm wrestling. We're having an arm wrestling tournament.
2:30:33
And I'm looking up. We're walking up the stairs in
2:30:36
this hockey arena. And this dude, I'm like, that's a
2:30:37
really big dude. And by the time I got there,
2:30:39
I was about me, and I'm like 6'5. I was
2:30:42
about at his nipple. What? Yeah, big, big, big hands.
2:30:47
Speaker 2: Big, long hands.
2:30:49
Speaker 1: Like out of the goonies, like misshapen face. I'm like,
2:30:52
my God. I'm like, how big are you? He's like
2:30:55
just laughed at me. And he's like, my dad's 8'11.
2:31:00
Speaker 2: What? Yeah, big. My dad's 8'11. I'm telling you, there's
2:31:05
big people.
2:31:06
Speaker 1: And people don't know about them. Guinness doesn't know about them.
2:31:08
They live up in the woods.
2:31:09
Speaker 2: There's big people out there.
2:31:11
Speaker 1: What is that guy, Jamie?
2:31:12
Speaker 2: He's from that region, apparently.
2:31:14
Speaker 1: I don't know how to say that. Edouard.
2:31:18
Speaker 2: So there's just giants that live in that region? The
2:31:21
Cree are very big people.
2:31:23
Speaker 1: And the thing is, when they get to eat what
2:31:25
they're supposed to eat, The problem is so many of
2:31:27
them eat junk now, right? Because they, you know, they grow.
2:31:31
Speaker 2: Up on their.
2:31:31
Speaker 1: 367 pounds, maybe? Or 367, sorry.
2:31:32
Speaker 2: They grow up... Eight foot two and a half, 367 pounds.
2:31:37
Age 33. Whoa.
2:31:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forget the name of these brothers, but there's
2:31:43
a bunch of them.
2:31:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:31:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some weird genetics out there, you know?
2:31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
2:31:49
Speaker 1: And we're going to try and swab them. I'll give
2:31:51
it to Ryan before you know it.
2:31:54
Speaker 2: But so this guy in Afghanistan was just one isolated incident?
2:31:59
I saw one.
2:32:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just saw the one.
2:32:02
Speaker 2: And he had to be eight feet tall.
2:32:03
Speaker 1: He is big.
2:32:05
Speaker 2: He's big. Yeah.
2:32:06
Speaker 1: He's a big, big human being. Far out of the standard.
2:32:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:32:10
Speaker 1: And he was a warlord. Wow. Yeah.
2:32:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:32:14
Speaker 1: They're big people out there.
2:32:16
Speaker 2: And so the Kandahar giant story, the guy is supposed
2:32:18
to be even bigger than that. Yeah.
2:32:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:32:21
Speaker 2: I heard it. Do you believe it? I do.
2:32:23
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, I do. There's freaks out there. There are.
2:32:26
Speaker 2: But this guy supposedly had like six fingers and six toes.
2:32:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I believe that stuff. I just, I mean,
2:32:37
I think that we get so used to normal people
2:32:39
and every once in a while there's a weirdo.
2:32:41
Speaker 2: And these people are not being studied. There's no one there.
2:32:44
Like that region of the country is extremely remote. Extremely. Extremely.
2:32:51
Speaker 1: It's like going back to the 15th century. There's motorcycles
2:32:56
and some people have gas, but they don't have electricity.
2:33:02
There's not even really roads.
2:33:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there was this one guy who was a
2:33:06
warlord that was eight feet tall.
2:33:08
Speaker 1: I saw him.
2:33:09
Speaker 2: You saw him? I saw him.
2:33:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. From a distance. But, I mean, there's no way
2:33:14
he was any shorter.
2:33:14
Speaker 2: Like, he was huge.
2:33:16
Speaker 1: He was a massive, and he was broad across his shoulders, too.
2:33:19
He was probably twice as broad. Massive, massive human.
2:33:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. What was that like, just seeing something like that?
2:33:27
Speaker 1: It was wild, man. Yeah, you know, it's neat. Yeah, yeah.
2:33:36
It was shocking, but, you know, it's neat how they
2:33:40
structure their leadership. That's the guy in charge.
2:33:43
Speaker 2: The most massive.
2:33:44
Speaker 1: I hope he was a nice guy.
2:33:46
Speaker 2: Probably wasn't. I don't know. I don't know.
2:33:49
Speaker 1: I mean, he seemed reasonable. Like we didn't get in
2:33:51
the fight. Like we didn't, there was no fight there.
2:33:54
So we worked it out, whatever it was. But yeah, there's,
2:33:59
there are anomalies and, and it's, it's neat. It's kind
2:34:01
of cool that he made it to a leadership position.
2:34:04
So he must've been a smart guy too. And he
2:34:06
must've been a good guy because I don't think a
2:34:09
dick could have been in charge.
2:34:11
Speaker 2: So did you hear of that story, the Kandahar giant story?
2:34:14
So supposedly what happened is it's American military guys encountered
2:34:19
this guy in the mountains that was just absolutely enormous.
2:34:23
They said he was like 12 feet tall. Yeah.
2:34:26
Speaker 1: Well, what happened with the Nephilim?
2:34:28
Speaker 2: Right. That's the thing. The thing is like supposedly they
2:34:33
had six fingers and six toes as well.
2:34:36
Speaker 1: Look, I believe that things come to visit. And sometimes
2:34:41
things get left behind, and who knows? Who knows? There's
2:34:45
a good chance that he's maybe just a little bit
2:34:48
closer to all that, or somehow a recessive and a
2:34:51
recessive somehow found their ways together, and there you go.
2:34:56
Speaker 2: And somehow there's a surviving population of these people still
2:35:00
in the world that are undiscovered.
2:35:02
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful part of the world, that region. Perfect climate.
2:35:07
Super fertile. Like if you were going to, like if
2:35:09
there was nothing, what a beautiful place to start life.
2:35:14
Afghanistan is a beautiful country. So rich for agriculture. The
2:35:18
climate is perfect. You know, with the mountains and the rivers,
2:35:22
the seasons, it's tough to beat. You know, I would
2:35:25
understand why people would fight so hard to have that territory. And,
2:35:30
you know, if you were a giant, 12 feet tall
2:35:33
and you could live anywhere you wanted. You know, in
2:35:36
a valley where the rivers fed your land. I could
2:35:39
pick there.
2:35:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did you hear that story when you were over there?
2:35:43
Speaker 1: That story is famous.
2:35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:35:46
Speaker 1: And I asked around. I've never met anybody who was
2:35:48
involved in that op. I haven't.
2:35:51
Speaker 2: But it seems like a story that has something to it.
2:35:56
Because there's too many people telling that story. There's only
2:36:00
one story like that.
2:36:02
Speaker 1: There are a lot of stories.
2:36:03
Speaker 2: There's more stories like that? I mean, I should say
2:36:06
there's only one story like that online that people repeat
2:36:09
over and over again, this one encounter.
2:36:12
Speaker 1: There are fascinating stories out there, some that I'm closer to.
2:36:17
Speaker 2: Like what?
2:36:18
Speaker 1: Probably the most interesting story that I'm in any way
2:36:21
kind of close to is from that region of the world,
2:36:25
and this is a whole other can of worms, but
2:36:28
it's so weird. It's demonic possession, you know. We had
2:36:34
a guy, a guy, he was my, I worked with
2:36:37
him very closely for, super smart guy. Great guy.
2:36:40
Speaker 2: Awesome dude.
2:36:41
Speaker 1: Awesome soldier. And yeah, I mean, he got possessed by
2:36:45
a demon. He started speaking in tongues. He knew everything
2:36:48
about everybody. He could speak different languages. He knew everything
2:36:56
about everybody's life. He knew all their sins. What? Yeah,
2:36:59
he knew all the sins people did even from their childhood.
2:37:02
Speaker 2: What?
2:37:04
Speaker 1: That he got taken to, uh, he got taken to
2:37:07
the medical, through the medical system before they knew it.
2:37:11
He was out of the medical system and he was with, uh,
2:37:13
the Padre, the, like the priest that comes along on
2:37:16
some military missions. They, uh, they did a, what do you,
2:37:20
what do you call that? When you cleanse the demon
2:37:22
from— what do you call that?
2:37:23
Speaker 2: Exorcism.
2:37:24
Speaker 1: They did an exorcism. They sent him back to Canada.
2:37:30
He's now watched by the church. He has to go
2:37:32
and check in with the church every week. I don't
2:37:37
know what to tell you, Joe. There's a lot I
2:37:38
don't know. But, yeah, and the crazy thing was is
2:37:42
the priest who did the exorcism said he knew the demon.
2:37:47
He'd already done the exorcism like three or four times.
2:37:51
Speaker 2: On different people.
2:37:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. That demon was like popping in and out of guys. Joe,
2:37:57
I don't know what's going on in the world. I'm
2:37:59
an arm wrestler.
2:38:00
Speaker 2: But this guy knew things about you? No.
2:38:03
Speaker 1: I wasn't on the tour. But the unit's very small.
2:38:07
All the guys who were there I have very close
2:38:09
personal relationships with. And there's no reason for me not
2:38:12
to trust him. And this is the, all the, and
2:38:15
the guy who had it done to him, I'm very
2:38:18
close with. Like he comes over to my, he was
2:38:19
my stall partner. Okay. And I see him all the time.
2:38:23
Speaker 2: When you say had it done to the guy who
2:38:24
was possessed. Yes. You knew him.
2:38:26
Speaker 1: I know him very well.
2:38:27
Speaker 2: And what did he say about it? Yeah.
2:38:29
Speaker 1: He doesn't like it very much.
2:38:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:38:32
Speaker 1: He's, it scared him a lot.
2:38:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:38:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:38:36
Speaker 2: Does he recall being able to speak different languages? Yeah.
2:38:39
Speaker 1: He can remember it.
2:38:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:38:41
Speaker 1: He can remember.
2:38:41
Speaker 2: But he can't speak those languages anymore. He can't speak
2:38:43
those languages.
2:38:44
Speaker 1: No, it was like, he was aware of everything happening,
2:38:46
but he was like, he was a visitor. He was
2:38:49
like there for the ride. Whoa.
2:38:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
2:38:52
Speaker 1: Apparently he, when it started, it started to like, it started,
2:38:56
he was freezing. He was locking up and then he
2:38:59
was locking and then he started speaking in tongues and
2:39:01
then he was like fully Joe. It's, it's, it's, it's
2:39:06
weird stuff out there, man. There's a lot of things
2:39:08
that we don't understand. Right. And, um, yeah. Uh, I
2:39:14
don't know what to tell you. It wasn't me, but
2:39:18
I trust the story because I know the people. I
2:39:22
know them. I could hook you up with them. You
2:39:25
want to talk to them? Tell you.
2:39:26
Speaker 2: I'm nervous. Tell you all about it. I don't think
2:39:28
I would.
2:39:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:39:30
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And how long was he possessed for?
2:39:34
Speaker 1: He was possessed, I think, for a couple of weeks,
2:39:37
maybe like a week or 10 days, something like that.
2:39:41
It wasn't super long, but he was all messed up afterwards.
2:39:45
Like he was done working after that.
2:39:47
Speaker 2: Really? Mm-hmm. He retired.
2:39:49
Speaker 1: Medical.
2:39:50
Speaker 2: Wow. Yep. But psychologically, like it wasn't like he had
2:39:56
a schizophrenic break. Whatever it was, he came back from.
2:40:00
Speaker 1: I don't know that schizophrenia can explain the languages. I
2:40:04
don't know that.
2:40:05
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it can. But what I'm saying
2:40:07
is they didn't diagnose him as having.
2:40:09
Speaker 1: No, the diagnosis was he had to go to church.
2:40:12
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
2:40:15
Speaker 1: Isn't that wild?
2:40:16
Speaker 2: That's so crazy.
2:40:17
Speaker 1: That's one of the craziest ones that I've seen personally.
2:40:21
Speaker 2: Have you heard of other experiences like that where people
2:40:23
have been possessed?
2:40:25
Speaker 1: That's it.
2:40:25
Speaker 2: Well, you would think that if a demon was going
2:40:27
to visit someone, war would be the place to visit them.
2:40:30
Speaker 1: And that's ancient. That was in Iraq. That was in Erbil. Wow. Okay. And,
2:40:36
I mean, that's an ancient, ancient part of the world.
2:40:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:40:39
Speaker 1: So whatever's, like, history is long.
2:40:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:40:44
Speaker 1: And something's going on. Something's going on. I can't explain it.
2:40:53
And I've kind of just been like, I'm kind of like,
2:40:55
at this point in my life, I'm like, whatever. I
2:40:57
know I don't know everything. I'm just going to do
2:40:59
wrist curls in my basement.
2:41:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's awesome.
2:41:05
Speaker 1: Martin, if you're watching, come over. Let's party.
2:41:08
Speaker 2: I love this guy. Does he talk about it?
2:41:11
Speaker 1: A little bit. A little bit. I'm so curious about it.
2:41:14
Speaker 2: Do you think he would come on here and tell
2:41:15
the story? Yep.
2:41:17
Speaker 1: Really?
2:41:18
Speaker 2: Sure.
2:41:19
Speaker 1: Of course he would.
2:41:22
Speaker 2: I'm nervous. Are you nervous, Jamie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
2:41:29
he's a cool dude.
2:41:30
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I love him. I love him. Yeah, great soldier.
2:41:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. Brother, you've had a pretty wild life.
2:41:38
Speaker 1: It's been great.
2:41:39
Speaker 2: Really.
2:41:40
Speaker 1: Um, kind of fun. Happy, happy to be here. Um, yeah,
2:41:45
it's been good. It's been good.
2:41:47
Speaker 2: Well, I really enjoyed this conversation, man. I'm glad we
2:41:49
did it.
2:41:50
Speaker 1: Joe, thank you so much. And, uh, really like, I
2:41:53
feel like it's kind of closing the loop for something
2:41:55
with my brother.
2:41:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you should, we should tell everybody, uh, I
2:41:58
knew your brother, uh, before I met you online. And
2:42:02
this is from your brother. Your brother made this candle
2:42:04
and this candle now sit here. He, uh, He's no
2:42:08
longer with us, but the candle will remain.
2:42:11
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time, Joe.
2:42:13
Speaker 2: My pleasure, brother.
2:42:14
Speaker 1: Anytime you want to get into arm wrestling, come on over.
2:42:18
We'll get your grip strength working for you.
2:42:21
Speaker 2: No, no, I'm good, but thank you. I appreciate it. Wonderful.
2:42:24
And good luck. Yeah. Good luck beating that fucking giant dude.
2:42:28
I'm going to need it. 16 months?
2:42:29
Speaker 1: 16 months, man.
2:42:30
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll talk to you before then.
2:42:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do it again.
2:42:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, cool. Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks, brother. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye.