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Stix & Stones Strongman · The Best Experience

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You're listening to the best experience with the Nick Best. All right, this
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is the best experience with your host, Nick Best and the Angry Dad.
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And before we get into today's podcast, I'd like to thank our podcast sponsors.
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us out. We appreciate it and thank you guys. All Right, Nick,
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all right, Well we got David from Sticks and Stones. This is
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god man who created the amazing frames that came in two pieces that were like
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amazing at OSG last year. So let's let's talk about what you did and
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how you came up with this idea because they go inside one another. I
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don't think people realized that was fun. That was a birth child of randomly
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running into Lynn from OSG. And we were both at the World Strongest Man
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in Myrtle Beach and I saw he had his OSG T shirt on. I
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have my Sticks and Stone T shirt. We both point each other, Hey
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you run OSG's like, hey, you make weird stuff. Let's talk and
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uh. And he was like, as we were just chatting as the events
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are going on at the World Strongest Man, he was like, man,
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it'd be really cool to like because I've seen this stuff you've made, and
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over the past two years, I've I've kind of built up a, I
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guess a somewhat a reputation of being able to build really strong, really weird
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things and uh. And he had noticed and we had talked about how we
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could kind of collaborate and work together, and he said, I love the
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name of your your company, sticks and stuff like wood and rocks. Like,
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what if we could do like a kind of a medley with that kind
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of thing. What do you think. I'm like, well, I mean
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a timber frame. And he was like, well, if we get like
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like a husif hell stone, because I've made I've I've also made the record
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crusive hell stones as well. And I was like, but the thing is
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having four hundred people drop a rock on how that that's that's a big test
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of anything. And still remember whatever it is, that's a big test on
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the concrete against the a hockey floor. So that that makes me a little
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bit nervous. And he said, well, what if we could do like
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a like a Dinny stone walk. I was like, well, it have
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to be a loadable situation. That's kind of the steel pins that Cerberus makes.
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And we we kind of chatted through that a little bit, and I
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had the idea because I make I got my start in the strength I guess
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equipment industry by making concrete molds that you could make your own plates, dumbells,
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and kettlebells out of. And my my plate mold is a seventeen point
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seven to seven inch diameter plate that you put in as much concrete as want
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for twenty five to one hundred pound plates, but as a center in the
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middle that could go onto a bar. So that kind of pops in my
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head. It's like, what if we could make a stone with that same
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center hole that slides onto the weight pencer Cerberus, and then that grew into
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well that sounds good, figure it out. So I had to then,
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as as a guy that's already replicated a few historic stones, I reached out
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to and I go around the world like Scotland, Iceland, Faroe Islands.
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I love lifting historic stones, as you've picked up a lot of the ones
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that I have as well. Nick and I reached out to to Brett Nichol.
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I was like, hey, I'm doing this thing. I'm thinking the
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dinies are gonna be way too big for our sixty four women because they'd do
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like a snatch grip holding the rings out way out wide, and they'd banged
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up under their ankles. It's like, what if we use yours, like
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a smaller base like your nickelstones. Would you be okay with me putting your
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family name as a replica of your stones? He was like, you know,
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he's a high energy guys, like, yeah, let's do it.
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So he sent me like five hundred pictures of a of a ruler around every
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this is a crack, and this is a crevice, and this is a
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lean here. And I did the best I could making a replica from two
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thousand miles away and had it feel just like the Nickels deal up against your
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shins. The shape was because I didn't have an the right hype on them
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because I had to take the top off for the weight pen and the bottom
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off for all the place so I had like the middle third section feeling where
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it hits your shins. So they weren't exactly looking like the nick but they
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felt like the Nichols. And on the frame side, as we were chatting
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through how to make that loadable in my head, I mean the weight with
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tim would have had to been like eighteen twenty inches long for all those places
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to stack up from the sixty weight that he wanted to do all up to
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the super heavies, which I think we ended up at like eight hundred and
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eight fifties like that. So I was like, what if we had a
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lighter frame and we stacked the top on top of it and have it kind
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of puzzle piece in so that the first half the competitors had a smaller,
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still formidable looking frame, but then it gets really big like the Giants Live
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one that they have that has the big eight like eight by eight timbers on
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it. It would make it tall and it wouldn't then happen. What's that,
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I've used that one a few times. That one's fun by the way,
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it looks crazy, it's just hard getting out of it. Yeah,
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well that was also the thing, like if we had it too tall.
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We had some super heavyweights that were about five foot three, so having then
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a car wheeler a front flop out on the side of it. So I
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made the cut out to where it'll be just high enough, almost like a
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hurdle hop for most people. And obviously with our sixty four is if it
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was the same high for everybody, it'd have to do like almost a cartwheel
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out to get out of it. So to mitigate that situation with that many
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wide ranging body sizes, having that base frame being only eighteen inches high,
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and then the second half bringing up to I think it was up to twenty
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eight or twenty nine inches tall on that little step side, so it wasn't
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high and very high for anybody, but after it was only some innovation designs
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on that thing were the handles. You could either actually lower them so if
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they were too tall, like if the competitor was shorter and couldn't clear the
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ground, they could lower the handles down an inch or two as well,
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so it was cool. They were adjustable from fourteen up to twenty inches high,
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and then I had set a I think it was thirty two inches wide
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and thirty four inches wide, and I'm a large human already. Four felt
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really good to me, so I figured, if I go two more inches
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in, that's good for some shorter people. But obviously that was my biggest
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downfall, was that the handles were still too wide for the smaller stature females.
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And I promise I'll never make that mistake again. I'll make sure that's
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a little bit better for the future. I've ever do something like that again.
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But yeah, I was really proud of the fully adjustable frames handles on
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those that had never been done before. Yeah, but you got to figure,
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there's four hundred people doing it. There's going to be so many different
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you know, sizes and shapes and stuff like that. To get it right.
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About ninety nine point eight percent of the time, out of all the
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people were there was only like two to three. Right, There was like
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thirty two people that decided to go lower than twenty inches, but everyone else
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kept the most inside handle in the highest handle, right, so so about
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ten percent de side of the change. Yeah, So that's like I said,
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that's a really good job. That's awesome. I appreciate it. So
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what's the weirdest thing you've built so far that that's interesting, the weirdest and
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then then the most challenging. So I guess I would say the weirdest thing
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that I've ever made was for the Arnold last year. I sponsored the loading
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race for the amateurs and then the loading race for the world Shongest firefighter,
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and both in both of them, I made plate looadable fire hydrants. So
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the so the base had a screw in all the way in that had a
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threaded rod that fit into between plates, so it gets stacked twenty fives and
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tens underneath it. So it just made it a little bit longer, but
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it would add a lot of weight to each each weight category. And so
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I had two two hundred and twenty five pound matching the hydrants to one hundred
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and fifty and then two one hundred pound matching hydrants, and then all of
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them are plate looadable to get them as heavi or as lad as we needed
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them to. Damn. Wow, that's that's a trip. And that was
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that might have been the most difficult to modify because obviously I try across Texas
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I think three different times finding matching sets, because that was the problem,
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finding ones that are exact same shape. Because if you're on two lanes and
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one has a one ninety and one has it one seventy, that's that's a
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little sketch. So yeah, finding the exact same like years and shapes and
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designs in Texas because there's like twenty different types of hydrants in our state and
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it's a big state. So finding the ones that kind of were around that
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right way, and then modifying them to make them safe they wouldn't roll and
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crush anybody, wouldn't cut anybody, and then being able to put the base
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on it and make it plate loadable. That was probably the weirdest thing I've
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ever had to make. And it was off of a conversation with Dion and
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James Definbaal when they're like, hey, we want to do this, like
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what kind of weird stuff could we load? I'm like, well, as
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a stone maker and a stone lifter, I want to do Atlas stones,
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natural stones, bass stones, rectangular q sphericle like like put them all up
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there, and they're like, well, let's not just do stones. They
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what about sandbags and press blocks? Like, yeah, we'll just some normal
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stuff, but I really want to make some other things too, So I
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made a bask q of different weights for each of the categories to go in
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for there, so they loaded bass cubes instead of going to shoulder like the
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bass clippers, they put a ball on the blocks, and then I brought
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a people husa fallstones as well for that that race as well. So yeah,
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I kind of like it to where you can't shoulder this stuff. There's
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a front carry. Should be a front carry if you're loading the medley,
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you shouldn't. I kind of shouldn't be carrying stuff on your shoulders. The
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whole idea is to carry it out here. It's it's a test of strength,
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not a test of cleaning, for sure, because once you get it
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up there, it's piece k. But yeah, that's that's cool. I
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like that. I like that a lot. It was the weirdest thing I've
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had to load those as a car axle. At Worlds they did that one
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year where we had the uh monster tire hubs, which was just kind of
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awkward. But the transmissions and everything too. Right, Yeah, we had
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we had the trade. The other parts of the car weren't too bad,
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but the axle was really weird because you had to grab it one way and
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carry it in another. So to pick it up because it would rotate as
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you picked it up if you didn't do it right. Did it have that
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had the differential in the center? Still, Yeah, that's so cool,
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That's what I mean. It was. It was a little, it was
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a little it was a little uh questionable, a little dicey. But I
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mean it's kind of like especially that was the the one I didn't expect to
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do, and no, I didn't get the train for it, just show
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up and go. So I was just like, okay, I'm just gonna
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the goal is to go as fast as I can, but I'm gonna get
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through this one and not get hurt. So it's it's interesting. It makes
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twice about it. That's how I used to be when I when I used
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to compete way back, I'm my old hasband. Uh. It was before
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strong Man corp and and and USS split. It was still nas at the
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time. I remember that half the time it would show you, they'd show
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you three events and there'd be two surprise events when you showed up, So
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you show up strong to see what happens, you know, correct, I
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like it better that way. It's like it long enough, anything should be
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a good competition instead of I've I've trained on the exact object of the same
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height and the same size and the same diameter of what you're about to play
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with. It seems like that was a great era, but the weights weren't
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as crazy, yeah, for sure. So if we're going to take the
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weights up that crazy, then the guys need to be training for him ahead
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of time. It's the same here's the events, because the weights now are
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so much heavier than they were, you know back in the early two thousands,
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for sure. For sure, I heavy yoake back there was eight hundred
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pounds, you know, heavy yoak now is like a normal normal yoke now
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is between eleven hundred and one thousand. It's crazy pretty much at all the
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top level shows. You know, then you get a couple of freaky ones
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that'll get up thirteen to fifteen, but for the most part that's calmed down
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and it's between one thousand and eleven hundred usually, So you're gonna want to
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train on stuff like that. You can going out and pick just picking it
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up. I could see a strong guy going out and just picking up eight
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hundred pound YO can survive it. You're not gonna do a thousand, for
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sure. So it's stuff like that where it's really cool to show up and
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just have a mystery event. But then maybe it's just not as absolutely nuts
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heavy for sure. You know when you go and then nobody gets a nobody
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gets any idea, and then everybody just has to come actually figure out how
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to lift it, and the ones that can think the most and figure it
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out, we'll win the event usually. Well, that was what was so
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fun about the hydrants when I when I first then we announced what they were
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going to be. I guess Facebook Marketplace became just the destitute of all fire
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hydrants. Everyone that had anyone they were spiking the prices and they were still
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getting sold by a bunch of athletes around the nation. And the people that
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never touched a hydrot before they were gonna he can sneak over to that palate
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and and pick one up real quick. I was like, yeah, good
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player, that you're not gonna break it. It's solid, solid cast iron.
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You're you're not gonna hurt the same thing, you know, so uh
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or though yeah, you just worry they could chuck the concrete up. And
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that's been my goal this coming year is to do a lot more steel eye
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objects, because no matter how strong you make concrete, it's there's always that.
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I mean, a strongman or have the ability to mess up a metal
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ball with a rubber hammer, and concrete is not as strong anything. I
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mean, wood will bend, Concrete is gonna shatter. So I have the
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highest of anxieties every time I go to one of these events that I've made
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something out of concrete, and I'm just watching all the people run or move
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or lift it, like if they fail this thing, it's gonna either hurt
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them or this thing's gonna shatter and like a chunk gonna fall off or But
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luckily, so far, it's only happened once in three years so and that
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was because of a loader and resetter error, not an athlete error. So
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oh wow. I did a contest in Romania in two thousand and nine and
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one of the events was a Hussefeld carry, which it wasn't whoso it wasn't
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the Hussefeld. It was just, you know, kind of coffin shaped and
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it was concrete and there were four hundred pounds and there was no rebar in
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him. They had four of them and I was next to last to go,
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and I was on the last one because they'd have all broken. Oh
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gosh, that makes my heart hurt many. Yeah. I remember Marshall White
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was in the lead in that event, and I was going and I was
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getting tired, and they could tell I was getting tired, but I wasn't
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that far from catching Marshall. And the promoter's like, put it down,
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put it down, Do not drop, do drop it. Just put it
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down, you know, because he knows I'm just going to go till I
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collapse, and if I collapse, that thing's going to drop and break.
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And I stopped a little bit short, got second in that event, but
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yeah, it was the last one and then the last guy. It doesn't
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matter if he goes and breaks it because he's the last guy. There was
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like one after me. I think that storre Chet was after me, and
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you know, it didn't matter if he dropped it or not. But yeah,
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it was. It's a little it's a little funny watching the promoter just
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kind of sit there and squirm first, especially if it's a distance or a
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fatigue to failure event. Man, that you don't know what's going to happen
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those last ten seconds on any one of those people carrying your object. So
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I mean I had one guy, So I made some concrete tombstones that were
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one hundred pound, two fifty and three fifty for a Husafel like walk for
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distance, and uh it was that Texas Iron Republic in North Houston for for
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static monsters, and that was in one of their dynamic movements after the press
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and the and the deadlift. And uh, these people are carrying a very
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large tombstone as tech signed Republic and the weight of it on the front,
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and they're going as far as they can and one person fell backward. I've
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never seen someone fail backwards and it just barely got off from under it,
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and the spotted it a great job and put the bag in between them and
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the tombstone. But uh, yeah, the the failure to distance and failure
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ones are always the scariest, for how is this person going to pass out
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and how they're gonna fold and which gonna go you know, so yeah,
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no kidding, which leads me to a question on the concrete. When you
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build them like that, what do you put in the concrete to make them
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eating from breaking or cracking anything. So uh, A mixture of the strengthening
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fibers, a really strong rebarb cage to take that brunt of the first of
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the first impacts, and then the mixture of concrete making sure it's it's it's
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really on point with the amount of water, because you go too much water,
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it'll it'll be too soft and it'll start to sand out. And if
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it's not enough water, it'll be really brittle. So make sure that my
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mixtures and my densities are correct. And then as i've I've probably made one
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and a half times as many objects trying to make sure they're perfect instead of
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putting one out there that subpark is like, what I will not have is
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my thing failed because I made it wrong for the person who paid money to
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fly, hotel registration fees, t shirt clothing, all the equipment to train
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for six months for this competition, and the thing that I make was failing
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on them instead of them failing with the objects. So as far as the
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actually I have them right here, like I have these strengthening fibers that I
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put inside with my molds. They really they look like three quarter inch fiberglass.
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Oh that's just about to ask if they were fiberglass suit to this what
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it looked like. Yeah. So with the steel rebar and the fibers,
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it does a great, great job of strengthening across the entire body of the
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objects. So there's there's no real weak point in the in the mixture.
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So you mix that all in at once or like, yeah, you mix
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it in with the concrete. Yeah, I have not because I was for
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the past three years I've been selling these molds and the packages of fibers I
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bought this in. So I have about six hundred pounds of fibers. So
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oh, not ever having to buy a rope or anything outside of that.
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So the I mean, I have I think a fifty pound box of it
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right here for I pack on my mold shipments. Oh okay, well,
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because like when I first made mine here, the first couple I made cracked.
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So I took a you know, the the nylon rope, just cut
19:30
it in links and then freight it all open so that my pieces were about
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that long, and then just mixed them in there with the concrete. Sure,
19:38
that's that's a great way to do it. Yeah, so it was
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just kind of kind of neat how they figured out to use fiber instead of
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cutting up a nice expensive rope that you used to use for truck pull.
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That's awesome though. Yeah, that's not too bad. That's cool right on.
20:00
Oh yeah, so you have an online business actually selling just like what
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we're talking about, like molds and kits. Can you like just let the
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listeners actually know, like what you what are you selling that they can actually
20:12
purchase to help them in their pursuit as strong man. So I in twenty
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twenty. So I'm a certified strength coach. I've worked at pro, college
20:22
and high school level with a whole bunch of different athletes over the past couple
20:26
decade and a half. Twenty twenty, when shutdowns and quarantines all started happening,
20:32
my job at the school I was at was going to be very much
20:34
changed. I'd be pretty much it would be like this where I'd have twenty
20:37
five kids on a zoom chat trying to get push ups and sit ups done.
20:41
And it wasn't It wasn't the same job for me. Anymore, and
20:44
the restrictions were going to change how we had to do things. So I
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was talking with my wife. I was like, this isn't the job that
20:48
I signed up for anymore. She's like, well, let's figure it out
20:51
something else. So I resigned, helped them find the next next coach to
20:55
fill my spot. And then I realized, by the time I got out
20:57
of the beautiful weight room that I had the organization I was at, I
21:00
now have nothing at home. So I went to go buy online and it
21:04
was all sold out. So I rogue Hammer Strength. Everybody has sold out
21:08
everything. So UH being the di y guy I am, I went to
21:12
home depot and I built my entire gym, my power rack, my bench,
21:17
my jammers, my pull, my pulley system, everything out of lumber,
21:22
steel, pipe, and concrete, and UH I went. I ended
21:23
up going viral on Instagram. UH up a couple of garage gym websites and
21:30
UH like garage gym Reviews and garage gym Labs and a couple other ones like
21:33
that. And I then made plates to lift because I didn't have any of
21:37
those either, and those went double viral. I ended up ha like a
21:40
thousand new messages of how'd you do it? Can you ship me someone?
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I'm not going to ship people concrete and hopefully survive. So I've been making
21:48
Atlas stones with Steve Slater's Atlas stone molds for years, and uh, I
21:52
was like, well, if I could figure out a way to make a
21:53
plastic mold like this, Well, Luckily, one of the athletes I used
21:56
to coach, his dad has a vacuum for company right near my house,
22:02
and I reached out to him and I was like, I have this idea.
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He's like, I have no idea what you're doing, but let's talk
22:07
about it, and he ended up making helping me. I created the form
22:11
the exact size and shape of the plate that I needed, and then he
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would form the plastic around them for me. So I'm like the only person
22:17
in the world that can do it. Very like a really thick industrial strength
22:19
plastic mold for plates, dumbbells, and kettlebells. I started out with large
22:25
plates, like so the full size Olympic seventeen point seven inch plates, and
22:30
there was there was a big rolling need for change plates because people had forty
22:33
fives they bought on Facebook, but they didn't have twenty fives, files and
22:37
tens. So I made a small smaller mold for smaller plates for five pounds
22:41
up to about thirty five pounds. Now it is this to make the weight
22:45
and then uh take it out and make another weight or is this the hole?
22:51
So just make the weight and then slide the weight on. You just
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use It's not like something you just feel full and leave it that way.
22:57
No, sir, so I I you can make a hundred if if you
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do it, you treat it right and you clean it out every time.
23:03
So then I have one guy that was in Dallas. He ended up making
23:08
I think close to one hundred sets of forty fives and sold them to people
23:11
around his area in Dallas. Damn like, there were lots of little kind
23:17
of umbrella small businesses around the United States and people that lost their jobs in
23:21
COVID and then started selling plates and weights from my stuff to help them make
23:25
ends meet. And that it grew from there. But then I went into
23:30
dumbells, because people have a set of five to fifty pound dumbells as close
23:33
to two thousand and three thousand dollars from any help. At that time,
23:37
COVID prices spiked it, so I made a single little cup mold actually,
23:48
so with this guy right here, you're just filled with five pounds. Put
23:52
the pipe in it and pop it out, flip it over, make it
23:55
make the other side. You have a ten pound dumbell and that could be
23:59
re use all the way up to fifty pounds. So a five to fifty
24:02
pounds set of dumbbells for like three hundred bucks of concrete and two ten foot
24:06
pipes, so for a tenth of the cost you have an entire set of
24:10
help So I finding ways to not really undercut the industry, but to help
24:15
fill those voids of the people that were willing to spend time not money on
24:19
their gyms at the time. And then kettlebell. One I'm most proud of
24:25
is my kettlebell mold, which is like an atlastoe wall. It's a sphere
24:27
that goes together, but there's a handle that you set inside and you go
24:30
twenty to seventy pounds, So you can make an entire set of kettlebells twenty
24:36
to seventy pounds in one mold as well. Holy god, that's bad hoss.
24:40
That's freaking awesome. But again it is a little selfish because it was
24:44
things that I wanted to lift and work out with. So I figure out
24:47
a way for me to make it, and if I liked it it felt
24:49
good, then I would sell it and tell other people that could try it.
24:52
Yeah, but what more could you want? I mean, here you
24:56
are doing what you love and then the process of that find a whole new
25:00
way of helping other people going through the pandemic and everything else, still be
25:07
able to train and do stuff that's freaking awesome. It was an absolute insane
25:11
about nine ten months where it was the highest need where people were still shut
25:17
in and closer with the restrictions. Sales have slowed down because it's no longer
25:22
a need, it's a want. So it's just just the DIY weekend warriors
25:25
that are looking at my website now. So I never keep up with the
25:29
numbers. I was doing like in August twenty twenty. But now it's more
25:33
of like I said, it's more of a want, not a need.
25:36
We do have an election coming up. I don't want to make money because
25:41
of that. Oh, I didn't say that anyway. I actually came up
25:49
with I was speaking with Donnie Thompson. He has body tempering rollers of the
25:55
steel ones. Yeah, yeah, but Road makes them, and I mean
25:59
they're beautiful made and they work. I love body tempering. I do it
26:03
to myself all the time. But buying a steel roller costs three to four
26:07
hundred. You know, it's expensive to get it there. And he's trying
26:11
to get with a lot of high schools and like young youth athletes to help
26:14
them start early so they know how to take care of themselves later. So
26:17
I reached out to him that I have an idea about making a mold to
26:19
make a tempering roller that matches the same size and shape as your patented design.
26:25
But I'm not going to do it unless you are okay with me using
26:26
your design. He was like, you're telling me we can make them for
26:30
cheap. I was like, I'm telling you we can make him for like
26:30
twenty bucks apiece. He's like, do it. There. You go with
26:37
a mold design and got it made and figured out and brought it to him.
26:41
He had a summit for body tempering and massage therapy in Dallas, So
26:45
I drove to Dallas and showed him the design that the prototype mold and how
26:49
would look when one came out He's like, this is beautiful, let's let's
26:52
move it. So he reached out to Rogue and because it was obviously he's
26:56
contracted through Rogue with his rollers. So my rollers are where my roller mold
27:02
is now sold on their website as an option for body tempering. Nice cool,
27:07
that's really cool. So now you take that when you pull it out
27:12
of the mold, do you send it at all and then see that how
27:15
do you make it super smooth and stuff or so? Concrete will take on
27:19
the feel and texture whatever it's up against you. If you put concrete on
27:25
grass and then you let it hard and you pop it up, it's gonna
27:26
feel like grass on the bottom where it was touching the grass. It really
27:30
is good at forming to whatever it's touching. You just have to vibrate the
27:33
side to make all the air bubbles come up off the edges. I purposely
27:38
did one really bad and didn't vibrate it at all for the body tempering,
27:41
and then just filled it in with for like a how to video, filled
27:45
it in one with a filler and sanded it. And it still felt great
27:48
because you're not you're not rubbing it against your body, you're rolling it and
27:51
letting it set. It's not truly an abrasion, it's it's setting against you.
27:53
So as long as no sharp edges, it feels great. Okay,
27:56
yeah, you know, it's just things that pop up my head. Well,
28:00
that was the biggest nays about that one was like, I'm not going
28:03
to put concrete up against my skin. It's gonna be like road rash.
28:06
I'm like, well, first of all, like this is smoother than glass.
28:08
The mold is very smooth as if it's if it's rough as concrete on
28:12
the street, you did something wrong. Yeah, but yeah, that was
28:17
the That was the biggest naisse control to the tempering rollers so far, is
28:22
that no one's going to want to put concrete up against their skin for massage.
28:25
I'm like, well, you try it first before you knock it.
28:27
Yeah. Well that was my favorite thing always about getting a brand new,
28:30
fresh set of stones is they're all just perfect and they're smooth, and it's
28:37
it's like being on the polished concrete on a polish concrete floor and you just
28:41
stick. You put just a smidge attacking on, you just stick to it
28:45
like glue sucking cuts. Yeah, it's just awesome. There's nothing better than
28:49
doing like a brand new set of stones. Once you get attacked, right,
28:53
you know, it's oh, it's nice. It's just plus you can
29:00
grab the stones only like a halfway down. You don't even have to get
29:03
underneath them. You just you almost pulling the side of them. Yep,
29:07
which is kind of all I have to do them though you can't reach it
29:11
all the way down like I used to. But hey, whatever works for
29:15
sure. So you know, with with making all the equipment and doing all
29:21
these things, you know, yeah, I'm pretty sure you've been invited everywhere.
29:27
Yeah, so far, so far I have. I had no real
29:33
this entire three year process has been such a weird accident dream almost that I
29:40
started off just trying to help a backyard Warriors, and then a couple of
29:44
the I started, I realized that I had a much extra time on my
29:47
hands because I'm not coaching eighteen hours a day with eight hundred kids a week,
29:49
so I can I can see sunshine and go do things on random days.
29:53
And I reached a couple of promoters here in Texas that were making some
29:57
strong mad events, say hey, I'll come help load, unload, set
30:00
up, and we can talk about like how I could help otherwise to do
30:04
that, I'm able to build things. So I got to talk with Robert
30:08
Spence and John Lester out of they were in USS at the time, and
30:12
they had a bunch of stuff in the Dallas and the kind of central Texas
30:15
area. So I drive up for the day, help them build or move
30:18
their stuff and reload and and your next competition, what kind of what are
30:22
your events looking like? And we do a handshake deal. I'll build it
30:26
for you and we'll see what it looks like. And started. That's how
30:29
kind of got rolling moving moving equipment for people that was customed kind of cool
30:33
looking at much more safe then the backyard duct tape and super cool stuff that
30:38
some points of the smaller events might have to use because they're not sure how
30:41
to make it correctly. And then with my background the strong mat, I
30:45
know how it should feel, so I practice and use it here and test
30:48
it so if it feels weird, I can make it better while I'm here.
30:51
So I mean I made I'm making awards for them for their for their
30:56
the competitors and like wooden plaques and and things like that, and then like
31:02
the the from from there, as I go to these competitions. I'm I'm
31:07
six and a half feet tall, so I'm a large human, so I
31:11
can't hide, and then I have then I have my logo on. Hey,
31:14
that's the guy that made that weird thing I saw six months ago.
31:17
He made that thing. Like I said, Hey, I have an idea.
31:18
Do you think you could make this and begin this organic almost rolling stone
31:22
of handshake and then build it and then bring it over and then handshake someone
31:26
else, build it and bring it to them. And I ended up meeting
31:30
game Penya for the first time at Static Monsters on one of our mutual friends
31:33
and one of his his friends and guy he used to train. He had
31:36
had died of a of a heart issue and we were doing like a memorial
31:40
service at Static Monsters and he I think he broke the axle record that day
31:45
at some ungodly number because he's he's sick at deadlift and we were kind of
31:49
talking, and that's when Spence had told him that I was making the replica
31:56
of the Hussefel Stone, and he was like, Hey, I'm about to
31:59
do Beerstone as program he did where Bobby Thompson a couple of other guys went
32:01
down to South Texas to do. So that was when I met him and
32:05
handshook and brought some stones down there for his event. And then I met
32:08
Brian and Carey Shaw there when he was doing a meet and greet at the
32:13
beer Stone and that became a handshake and it ended up in Denver. So
32:15
like it just it just keeps popping around me to end up at the Arnold
32:19
because because Gabe had me meet Dion for for the wagon wheel squat two years
32:24
ago for the amateurs that made big stone wagon wheels that were I think twenty
32:29
six inches in diameter and one hundred pounds each. They looked like Marvel,
32:32
Yeah those are cool. So I made those for that. And then while
32:37
I'm there kind of chatting with and with a couple of people, and it
32:39
just keeps, it keeps happening to where I'm saying hi to folks and they're
32:43
like, hey, let's let's do some business. And I'm not going there
32:45
for business. I'm there to watch my stuff not get broken, you know,
32:49
but yeah, make sure everything. That's that's the that's the beauty of
32:54
doing things that you love to do, you love the sport. It's it's
32:59
just and it just comes off and everything that you do, I mean,
33:01
and we're walking up and talking to you and stuff like that, how excited
33:05
you get, your enthusiasm about it, all of it. So it's just
33:07
it's neat when you finally get to do what you love to do and you
33:12
can make enough money to survive and enjoy life while doing it. For sure,
33:16
there's nothing better than doing that. Nothing. That's my main goal is
33:20
that of the five events, if I sponsor one and there's five events,
33:22
I want people twenty years from now showing their grandkids my event on a picture
33:28
like Grandma used to pick up this crazy, cool looking thing like that.
33:30
That's what I want many years down the road that my event was one they'll
33:34
always remember that they got to do. So that's that's my biggest goal.
33:37
Every time I go to a competition with with a sponsored event like that's the
33:40
cool one is the sticks and stone one? So yeah, no, absolutely
33:45
absolutely, Well right on, then you got anything. Well, you know,
33:51
hey, we've covered quite a bit in this podcast, and you know,
33:54
the one thing I love is the strong man community because, like I
33:58
said, me work getting into this industry is more because I come from a
34:02
bodybuilding background of like that's what I'm my first love is and now that I
34:07
start to grow into the strong Man love because like I said, I remember
34:09
growing up watching strong Man. I remember seeing it on Christmas. I remember
34:14
watching these crazy events and seeing these crazy things. But like the pride that
34:20
you must feel from seeing your equipment hit some of the biggest stages and being
34:27
used is like I can only imagine the feeling that you get of satisfaction out
34:31
of the world, like like coming full circle, because like I said,
34:35
you've been doing strength and conditioning, you've been you've been watching your been doing
34:39
The strong Man for years, and now that you see this, it's like
34:45
it's just so inspiring because like seeing people actually thriving and surviving off of what
34:51
they love and what they want to do is just like I said, it
34:54
holds a lot of truth that when you love, when you love something,
34:58
you can actually keep doing it for the rest of your life, you know.
35:00
And sir, like I said, I I love just hearing these scenes,
35:06
singing these things. And we've met in person. We were all at
35:07
OSG. We had to talk, you know, like, uh, Nick,
35:13
there we were. There's so much back and forth and so much going
35:15
on, but like just to see you there volunteering, helping, going back
35:21
and forth, and a few times from where I was sitting, I could
35:23
see you poke your head around the corner making sure is my equipment? Okay,
35:31
they got slammed close to one of the guys. Did the math my
35:36
My frames got dropped close to one thousand times each over the three day span
35:39
from from fitting and testing to measure your hands and dropping and then the actual
35:45
events. It was close to one thousand drops for all four frames. So
35:49
that was a nerve wracking for sure. Yeah, and they which is which
35:53
is a testament because I mean, if you're turning straw man with your guys,
35:59
you probably gonna do that, what five to ten times a week?
36:02
Yeah, So here here you are, you're looking at that. There's fifty
36:08
fifty weeks a year, so that's five hundred times in a year. I
36:13
mean you're you're looking at years worth of drops, you know, in a
36:17
day. Yeah, So that's pretty five hours it took that event to get
36:22
through. I think, yeah, yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah.
36:27
I was really excited because I mean the the Masters Men's OSG was pretty much
36:34
going to be a nineteen nineties two thousand's World Strongest Man again, because like
36:37
Big C was signed up, Low's was there, Felix was there, there
36:43
gonna be like it was gonna be like real, I mean, Pritchritt was
36:45
was signed up early. I'm not sure what happened with his his coming out,
36:47
but there was a bunch of names that I used to grow up watching
36:52
Lyfts. So like I was like, dude, my equipments about to get
36:54
touched by all the guys that I grew up just idolizing. But and and
36:58
getting to see Felix carrying my frame that I am again, like you said,
37:01
like, I was full of pride to get to see that man,
37:05
that the the the immortal mark. Felix carrying my frame that day was was
37:09
a big step in my business. So I know that broke my heart.
37:16
I wanted to think so bad. When we are in the back and I
37:20
picked that up, I'm like, how much is this ending? You're like
37:22
it's like four or something. I'm like boop. I'm like, oh that
37:25
feels nice. Also, your your your review of my frame made my heart
37:30
flutter as well, sir, So I appreciate the kind words hey well deserved.
37:36
I mean it's it's a really really good frame, and it's I hope
37:39
people look you up and when they need one, get one from me.
37:44
Because the fact that it's so versatile. I mean, I have a metal
37:49
frame here. It's five hundred pounds. So we got to get two people
37:53
to get it out, and then I got to pick it up by myself
37:57
and run it through the rocks and then get it out into the street before
38:00
we go train with it. And it's it's it's not a lot of fun
38:04
to move around other than when you're training with it, so that you can
38:08
move you can move yours around and it's actually you can you know, it's
38:13
it's it's movable. It's and other people can do it besides me, you
38:17
know, lifting it and putting it away. I mean, so like me
38:22
and a couple of the other guys training together, we're the only ones that
38:23
can put it away. So we had anybody else with us, they might
38:28
be able to pick it up and get a little ways with it, but
38:30
not not when we're loading it or unloading it up out of the side of
38:35
the house. So it's I like the design, it's pretty neat. It
38:37
breciates it to where you can you have more ability for more people to train
38:43
on it and put it away? That was the whole deal. I got
38:46
quoted in a podcast about a year and a half ago my good buddy Panda,
38:52
Christine Matthews got he's got a little mad at me for saying that the
38:55
weight class system and Stroo Man makes it tough on builders and sponsors to have
39:00
cool events at the smaller shows. So you have thirteen weight classes and it
39:04
needs to be loadable for all thirteen, including novice which has to be light
39:07
up to the super heavies, which could be a guy that's about to be
39:10
like breakout and be the dude. Right. So having that big gamut of
39:16
humans and having things have to be loadable, you can't do a lot of
39:20
the crazy cool looking World Strongest Man events on TV like Clash did a great
39:25
job with their single sixty four or seventy two like that single weight projects.
39:30
That's the way to get those cool objects that don't have to be loadable.
39:34
But having a full gamut of like a USS Nationals with I think sixteen different
39:38
weight classes over two full competitions and twelve lanes, having loadable objects like that
39:45
makes it difficult to have a whole bunch of really cool looking and so loaable,
39:49
loadable and movable to reset back up. Yeah, because when you're in
39:53
a big contest like that, you have to pick events that not only are
39:58
touched to strength, but that are easy to reset and run again as well.
40:01
So this year there's an event this year here I think in Georgia.
40:07
It's an all sandbag competition. Yeah. Like, if you hate your friends
40:15
and volunteers, if you pick five straight sandbag events like throws, carries,
40:19
pushes, presses, you hate your your volunteers to do a full day of
40:22
sandbag reloads, man, like, good, good for them for doing it.
40:25
I would now not I'm not helping it that competition, you know,
40:28
I don't. There's one thing don't ever want to talk about again, and
40:31
that's rucksacks. Great piece of equipment, great piece of equipment, good for
40:39
training your cellf on, but for four hundred competitors holding up those chats and
40:46
putting on people's backs. M I gladly reset the sleds every time instead of
40:52
helping them with those bags. That was a job in itself, Like those
40:54
guys were you you and those guys were sweating your butts off. I remember
40:59
that my my hands and my I had a like an arm pump and a
41:05
shoulder pump that would not go away. I'm sure because the weight kept getting
41:07
heavier through the hours. Man. Yeah. Yeah, the last ones were
41:10
like what one hundred and thirty hundred and forty pounds one hundred and forty pound
41:14
bag. Yeah, yeah, there is the big I think you get a
41:20
guy who's like four hundred pounds that kicking his arm through, you're just like
41:24
trying to get them on. The The theory was great that. I think
41:28
the buckles and the strap length made it a little more difficult if they were
41:31
long, longer straps to be able to get out. Even the smaller girls
41:35
had trouble getting the buckles up because they were so small to get like there
41:38
were wider straps and wider and bigger and longer straps and bigger buckles. It
41:42
would have made a lot easier for the d load and the and the reset
41:45
and then getting on and strapping it down. But it will say nothing broke,
41:51
Yeah, I think the un sets made it through. Well. I
41:53
think one or two clips kind of broke off and were sharp. But I
41:57
mean, besides that, they held up great. There were great pieces of
41:59
equipment. It's just those little little tweaks that could happen for future events that
42:02
would make them really legitimate for Stromia. No, yeah, it'd be freaking
42:07
awesome. It was. It was fun to watch. I was like,
42:10
that's going to make that's going to be brutal on the carries because now you're
42:15
picking up an extra one hundred and forty pounds because it's on your back and
42:19
you got to lift it anyway. So when you're lifting a three hundred pounds
42:22
sad bag, it's now a four hundred pounds. I got the nickname bag
42:27
Ninja because I was at the they my lane. I had a Cerberus dropsack
42:31
bag that I had to throw under anybody that fell backwards so they wouldn't snap
42:36
their head on a concrete so turtle. They've fallen their back and they couldn't
42:39
get up, but it was the more when it fell back in their head
42:42
snapped. That bag had to be there justin ka. That was the only
42:45
thing we were worried about, is that one hundred and fifty pounds a weight
42:46
pulling them backwards as they're dragging backwards, and if they fell almost no one
42:52
could have gotten back up on their own. So yeah, yeah, there
42:54
was a few that turtled, so yeah, I remember. But it does.
43:00
But when you get to the drag part of it, that that bag,
43:04
oh man, does it make the drag nice? Oh? Yeah,
43:07
drags leverage for sure. It's I almost want to do a truck pull event
43:13
one day where you weigh the heaviest guy in the competition and then everybody puts
43:20
a vest a weighted vest on that makes everybody the exact same body weight as
43:24
the heaviest man. No, I'm tall and I'm top heavy. You can't
43:31
take that for me. That's my advantage, right, I think that would
43:36
be cool. I got I got short arms, I gotta pull dead lift
43:37
from the floor just like you. You can't take my advantage. Yeah,
43:43
but it's easier for stone the stones fire. But I just want to see
43:49
one truck pull event like that, just to see what would happen. I
43:52
think it would be kind of interesting. Actually, even in the body weight
43:55
or the leverage structure would be an interesting way to figure that out. You
43:59
can really do the leverage that much because the height of the people, so
44:02
I mean just just the evening out factor of the body weight difference. I
44:07
think would be kind of interesting just to see. You're not gonna be able
44:10
to change the leverages that much. It's but it would be really kind of
44:15
neat to see, you know, if Brian's weighing four fifty that day,
44:20
everybody gets to weigh four fifty. But he's not going to step on the
44:22
scale, let you know. Anyways though, No, but no, not
44:28
most of the time. But he has a few times, and I a
44:32
couple of times, you're like four fifty four. He's like, that's a
44:37
big man. But you know, for the rest of the time, I
44:40
mean his I think he's done like three eighty five right now. He trimmed
44:44
down a lot for that fight I heard recently. Didn't did he get canceled?
44:49
I believe it's been postponed from whatever man at that stag. You know,
44:53
it is what it is. Yeah, stuff is like that's going to
44:58
pop up, you know what I'm saying. People are going to get hurt,
45:00
strains, and like I said, it's it's all, but I'm pretty
45:04
sure it's still not It's still going to happen. Well, I'm hoping it's
45:07
not a hurt or a strain because that means that it's one of the four
45:10
straw Ma combeditors. Right, well, three there's three straw men and one
45:15
that's not a star man. That's right. But they are an actor and
45:19
maybe they're committed to a film, you know, saying well, we're only
45:21
speculating here. Oh yeah, I got or everybody just decided they didn't want
45:24
to die when Brian drops an elbow in their head. That's how you get
45:30
coloring books for Christmas, that's for sure. Yeah. Oh my god.
45:35
I just watching him train, I was like I getting kicked by a horse.
45:38
Oh. I used to feel pretty pretty okay because I, you know,
45:45
knowing Frank mir and getting to roll around with him a little bit and
45:47
stuff like that, and knowing some basic level of jiu jitsu, not great
45:52
at it at all, but knowing enough to I was it was like,
45:55
He's like, man, if you guys just threw off one of these,
45:59
I'll just come roll him up a little bit. Yeah no, that's out.
46:01
That's out now. Watching Brian, I'm just like, yeah, no,
46:07
there's dangerous and skilled for fighting. Brian as a scary Brian. Yeah,
46:12
I'm just gonna have to stay faster at running than he is that's it
46:17
or you know, yeah, I'm not gonna shoot him, so I'm just
46:22
gonna run from problem is is Cardio is really good, so I might be
46:28
able to help sprint him for a little while. And he's just gonna keep
46:30
trucking as I'm catching my breath and I'm post anyway, so tired. I
46:37
think the best idea is just need to him, have him not be mad,
46:40
most likely, yeah for sure, Yeah, oh yeah, anyway,
46:45
Oh yeah, Well, David, promote your website where people can actually reach
46:50
you to get your materials. My website is www dot stix, underscore and
46:57
underscore stone dot com. And I'm also and Stone on Instagram as well,
47:01
and I'll put all the information and links in the notes. I will put
47:05
it in the notes. I know people complain, but you know sometimes I
47:07
forget too. You forgot sometimes. Well. Nick has a saying, and
47:17
it's a saying we all believe in here. Nick, can you exit us
47:21
out with that saying? I can. Well, if you enjoyed this,
47:23
please like, share, subscribe, go check out David and subscribe and check
47:28
out everything on his website. And it's always train hard, train smart,
47:31
and be the best you can be thank you, thank you, all yours
47:54
is the best experience, would best