February 20, 2024 • 48 mins
We Got Daivd from Stix and Stones, a master craftsman of strongman equipment. He is also a Certified strength coach. Learn more about him and what he does in the episode.
Stix and Stones
@stixandstone
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https://www.instagram.com/stix_and_stone_/
Websites
https://linktr.ee/stixandstone/
Nick Best
https://linktr.ee/nickbeststrongman
Evolution Athletics
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Producer/Co-Host
Ben Bulman Of Angry Dad Podcast
Instagram @angry_dad_podcast_
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Website https://lnk.bio/angrydadpodcast
#strongman #nickbest #thebestexperience
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Stix and Stones
@stixandstone
https://www.instagram.com/stix_and_stone_/
Websites
https://linktr.ee/stixandstone/
Nick Best
https://linktr.ee/nickbeststrongman
Evolution Athletics
https://shawstrength.com/pages/evolution-athletics/?rstr=10
Barbell Apparel
http://barbellapparel.com/best
Ice Up Industries
https://iceupindustries.com (Best) Podcast
Producer/Co-Host
Ben Bulman Of Angry Dad Podcast
Instagram @angry_dad_podcast_
https://www.instagram.com/angry_dad_podcast_/
Website https://lnk.bio/angrydadpodcast
#strongman #nickbest #thebestexperience
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-best-experience--5779077/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:19):
You're listening to the best experience withthe Nick Best. All right, this
(00:41):
is the best experience with your host, Nick Best and the Angry Dad.
And before we get into today's podcast, I'd like to thank our podcast sponsors.
Barbell Apparel, Premium Athletic where engineeredfor a performance with a tailored athletic
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gear company owned by Brian Shaw,four time World Strongest Man and strongest man
(01:02):
on Earth. We believe in allathletes and supporting their journey towards greatness.
Iced Up Industries some of the bestcold punches cold baths you can get,
and you can get fifty and thatis fifty dollars off with code best at
check out at iced Up Industries.Please use these links. It really helps
us out. We appreciate it andthank you guys. All Right, Nick,
(01:26):
all right, Well we got Davidfrom Sticks and Stones. This is
god man who created the amazing framesthat came in two pieces that were like
amazing at OSG last year. Solet's let's talk about what you did and
how you came up with this ideabecause they go inside one another. I
(01:48):
don't think people realized that was fun. That was a birth child of randomly
running into Lynn from OSG. Andwe were both at the World Strongest Man
in Myrtle Beach and I saw hehad his OSG T shirt on. I
have my Sticks and Stone T shirt. We both point each other, Hey
you run OSG's like, hey,you make weird stuff. Let's talk and
(02:09):
uh. And he was like,as we were just chatting as the events
are going on at the World StrongestMan, he was like, man,
it'd be really cool to like becauseI've seen this stuff you've made, and
over the past two years, I'veI've kind of built up a, I
guess a somewhat a reputation of beingable to build really strong, really weird
things and uh. And he hadnoticed and we had talked about how we
(02:29):
could kind of collaborate and work together, and he said, I love the
name of your your company, sticksand stuff like wood and rocks. Like,
what if we could do like akind of a medley with that kind
of thing. What do you think. I'm like, well, I mean
a timber frame. And he waslike, well, if we get like
like a husif hell stone, becauseI've made I've I've also made the record
crusive hell stones as well. AndI was like, but the thing is
having four hundred people drop a rockon how that that's that's a big test
(02:53):
of anything. And still remember whateverit is, that's a big test on
the concrete against the a hockey floor. So that that makes me a little
bit nervous. And he said,well, what if we could do like
a like a Dinny stone walk.I was like, well, it have
to be a loadable situation. That'skind of the steel pins that Cerberus makes.
And we we kind of chatted throughthat a little bit, and I
(03:14):
had the idea because I make Igot my start in the strength I guess
equipment industry by making concrete molds thatyou could make your own plates, dumbells,
and kettlebells out of. And mymy plate mold is a seventeen point
seven to seven inch diameter plate thatyou put in as much concrete as want
for twenty five to one hundred poundplates, but as a center in the
(03:35):
middle that could go onto a bar. So that kind of pops in my
head. It's like, what ifwe could make a stone with that same
center hole that slides onto the weightpencer Cerberus, and then that grew into
well that sounds good, figure itout. So I had to then,
as as a guy that's already replicateda few historic stones, I reached out
to and I go around the worldlike Scotland, Iceland, Faroe Islands.
(03:59):
I love lifting historic stones, asyou've picked up a lot of the ones
that I have as well. Nickand I reached out to to Brett Nichol.
I was like, hey, I'mdoing this thing. I'm thinking the
dinies are gonna be way too bigfor our sixty four women because they'd do
like a snatch grip holding the ringsout way out wide, and they'd banged
up under their ankles. It's like, what if we use yours, like
(04:20):
a smaller base like your nickelstones.Would you be okay with me putting your
family name as a replica of yourstones? He was like, you know,
he's a high energy guys, like, yeah, let's do it.
So he sent me like five hundredpictures of a of a ruler around every
this is a crack, and thisis a crevice, and this is a
lean here. And I did thebest I could making a replica from two
(04:41):
thousand miles away and had it feeljust like the Nickels deal up against your
shins. The shape was because Ididn't have an the right hype on them
because I had to take the topoff for the weight pen and the bottom
off for all the place so Ihad like the middle third section feeling where
it hits your shins. So theyweren't exactly looking like the nick but they
felt like the Nichols. And onthe frame side, as we were chatting
(05:05):
through how to make that loadable inmy head, I mean the weight with
tim would have had to been likeeighteen twenty inches long for all those places
to stack up from the sixty weightthat he wanted to do all up to
the super heavies, which I thinkwe ended up at like eight hundred and
eight fifties like that. So Iwas like, what if we had a
lighter frame and we stacked the topon top of it and have it kind
(05:27):
of puzzle piece in so that thefirst half the competitors had a smaller,
still formidable looking frame, but thenit gets really big like the Giants Live
one that they have that has thebig eight like eight by eight timbers on
it. It would make it talland it wouldn't then happen. What's that,
I've used that one a few times. That one's fun by the way,
it looks crazy, it's just hardgetting out of it. Yeah,
(05:49):
well that was also the thing,like if we had it too tall.
We had some super heavyweights that wereabout five foot three, so having then
a car wheeler a front flop outon the side of it. So I
made the cut out to where it'llbe just high enough, almost like a
hurdle hop for most people. Andobviously with our sixty four is if it
was the same high for everybody,it'd have to do like almost a cartwheel
out to get out of it.So to mitigate that situation with that many
(06:15):
wide ranging body sizes, having thatbase frame being only eighteen inches high,
and then the second half bringing upto I think it was up to twenty
eight or twenty nine inches tall onthat little step side, so it wasn't
high and very high for anybody,but after it was only some innovation designs
on that thing were the handles.You could either actually lower them so if
(06:36):
they were too tall, like ifthe competitor was shorter and couldn't clear the
ground, they could lower the handlesdown an inch or two as well,
so it was cool. They wereadjustable from fourteen up to twenty inches high,
and then I had set a Ithink it was thirty two inches wide
and thirty four inches wide, andI'm a large human already. Four felt
(07:00):
really good to me, so Ifigured, if I go two more inches
in, that's good for some shorterpeople. But obviously that was my biggest
downfall, was that the handles werestill too wide for the smaller stature females.
And I promise I'll never make thatmistake again. I'll make sure that's
a little bit better for the future. I've ever do something like that again.
But yeah, I was really proudof the fully adjustable frames handles on
(07:21):
those that had never been done before. Yeah, but you got to figure,
there's four hundred people doing it.There's going to be so many different
you know, sizes and shapes andstuff like that. To get it right.
About ninety nine point eight percent ofthe time, out of all the
people were there was only like twoto three. Right, There was like
(07:43):
thirty two people that decided to golower than twenty inches, but everyone else
kept the most inside handle in thehighest handle, right, so so about
ten percent de side of the change. Yeah, So that's like I said,
that's a really good job. That'sawesome. I appreciate it. So
what's the weirdest thing you've built sofar that that's interesting, the weirdest and
(08:05):
then then the most challenging. SoI guess I would say the weirdest thing
that I've ever made was for theArnold last year. I sponsored the loading
race for the amateurs and then theloading race for the world Shongest firefighter,
and both in both of them,I made plate looadable fire hydrants. So
(08:26):
the so the base had a screwin all the way in that had a
threaded rod that fit into between plates, so it gets stacked twenty fives and
tens underneath it. So it justmade it a little bit longer, but
it would add a lot of weightto each each weight category. And so
I had two two hundred and twentyfive pound matching the hydrants to one hundred
and fifty and then two one hundredpound matching hydrants, and then all of
(08:48):
them are plate looadable to get themas heavi or as lad as we needed
them to. Damn. Wow,that's that's a trip. And that was
that might have been the most difficultto modify because obviously I try across Texas
I think three different times finding matchingsets, because that was the problem,
finding ones that are exact same shape. Because if you're on two lanes and
one has a one ninety and onehas it one seventy, that's that's a
(09:09):
little sketch. So yeah, findingthe exact same like years and shapes and
designs in Texas because there's like twentydifferent types of hydrants in our state and
it's a big state. So findingthe ones that kind of were around that
right way, and then modifying themto make them safe they wouldn't roll and
crush anybody, wouldn't cut anybody,and then being able to put the base
(09:30):
on it and make it plate loadable. That was probably the weirdest thing I've
ever had to make. And itwas off of a conversation with Dion and
James Definbaal when they're like, hey, we want to do this, like
what kind of weird stuff could weload? I'm like, well, as
a stone maker and a stone lifter, I want to do Atlas stones,
natural stones, bass stones, rectangularq sphericle like like put them all up
(09:50):
there, and they're like, well, let's not just do stones. They
what about sandbags and press blocks?Like, yeah, we'll just some normal
stuff, but I really want tomake some other things too, So I
made a bask q of different weightsfor each of the categories to go in
for there, so they loaded basscubes instead of going to shoulder like the
bass clippers, they put a ballon the blocks, and then I brought
a people husa fallstones as well forthat that race as well. So yeah,
(10:11):
I kind of like it to whereyou can't shoulder this stuff. There's
a front carry. Should be afront carry if you're loading the medley,
you shouldn't. I kind of shouldn'tbe carrying stuff on your shoulders. The
whole idea is to carry it outhere. It's it's a test of strength,
not a test of cleaning, forsure, because once you get it
up there, it's piece k.But yeah, that's that's cool. I
(10:35):
like that. I like that alot. It was the weirdest thing I've
had to load those as a caraxle. At Worlds they did that one
year where we had the uh monstertire hubs, which was just kind of
awkward. But the transmissions and everythingtoo. Right, Yeah, we had
(10:56):
we had the trade. The otherparts of the car weren't too bad,
but the axle was really weird becauseyou had to grab it one way and
carry it in another. So topick it up because it would rotate as
you picked it up if you didn'tdo it right. Did it have that
had the differential in the center?Still, Yeah, that's so cool,
That's what I mean. It was. It was a little, it was
(11:16):
a little it was a little uhquestionable, a little dicey. But I
mean it's kind of like especially thatwas the the one I didn't expect to
do, and no, I didn'tget the train for it, just show
up and go. So I wasjust like, okay, I'm just gonna
the goal is to go as fastas I can, but I'm gonna get
(11:37):
through this one and not get hurt. So it's it's interesting. It makes
twice about it. That's how Iused to be when I when I used
to compete way back, I'm myold hasband. Uh. It was before
strong Man corp and and and USSsplit. It was still nas at the
time. I remember that half thetime it would show you, they'd show
(11:58):
you three events and there'd be twosurprise events when you showed up, So
you show up strong to see whathappens, you know, correct, I
like it better that way. It'slike it long enough, anything should be
a good competition instead of I've I'vetrained on the exact object of the same
height and the same size and thesame diameter of what you're about to play
with. It seems like that wasa great era, but the weights weren't
(12:24):
as crazy, yeah, for sure. So if we're going to take the
weights up that crazy, then theguys need to be training for him ahead
of time. It's the same here'sthe events, because the weights now are
so much heavier than they were,you know back in the early two thousands,
for sure. For sure, Iheavy yoake back there was eight hundred
(12:45):
pounds, you know, heavy yoaknow is like a normal normal yoke now
is between eleven hundred and one thousand. It's crazy pretty much at all the
top level shows. You know,then you get a couple of freaky ones
that'll get up thirteen to fifteen,but for the most part that's calmed down
and it's between one thousand and elevenhundred usually, So you're gonna want to
(13:07):
train on stuff like that. Youcan going out and pick just picking it
up. I could see a strongguy going out and just picking up eight
hundred pound YO can survive it.You're not gonna do a thousand, for
sure. So it's stuff like thatwhere it's really cool to show up and
just have a mystery event. Butthen maybe it's just not as absolutely nuts
heavy for sure. You know whenyou go and then nobody gets a nobody
(13:31):
gets any idea, and then everybodyjust has to come actually figure out how
to lift it, and the onesthat can think the most and figure it
out, we'll win the event usually. Well, that was what was so
fun about the hydrants when I whenI first then we announced what they were
going to be. I guess FacebookMarketplace became just the destitute of all fire
hydrants. Everyone that had anyone theywere spiking the prices and they were still
(13:54):
getting sold by a bunch of athletesaround the nation. And the people that
never touched a hydrot before they weregonna he can sneak over to that palate
and and pick one up real quick. I was like, yeah, good
player, that you're not gonna breakit. It's solid, solid cast iron.
You're you're not gonna hurt the samething, you know, so uh
or though yeah, you just worrythey could chuck the concrete up. And
(14:18):
that's been my goal this coming yearis to do a lot more steel eye
objects, because no matter how strongyou make concrete, it's there's always that.
I mean, a strongman or havethe ability to mess up a metal
ball with a rubber hammer, andconcrete is not as strong anything. I
mean, wood will bend, Concreteis gonna shatter. So I have the
(14:39):
highest of anxieties every time I goto one of these events that I've made
something out of concrete, and I'mjust watching all the people run or move
or lift it, like if theyfail this thing, it's gonna either hurt
them or this thing's gonna shatter andlike a chunk gonna fall off or But
luckily, so far, it's onlyhappened once in three years so and that
was because of a loader and resettererror, not an athlete error. So
(15:00):
oh wow. I did a contestin Romania in two thousand and nine and
one of the events was a Hussefeldcarry, which it wasn't whoso it wasn't
the Hussefeld. It was just,you know, kind of coffin shaped and
it was concrete and there were fourhundred pounds and there was no rebar in
(15:20):
him. They had four of themand I was next to last to go,
and I was on the last onebecause they'd have all broken. Oh
gosh, that makes my heart hurtmany. Yeah. I remember Marshall White
was in the lead in that event, and I was going and I was
(15:41):
getting tired, and they could tellI was getting tired, but I wasn't
that far from catching Marshall. Andthe promoter's like, put it down,
put it down, Do not drop, do drop it. Just put it
down, you know, because heknows I'm just going to go till I
collapse, and if I collapse,that thing's going to drop and break.
And I stopped a little bit short, got second in that event, but
(16:02):
yeah, it was the last oneand then the last guy. It doesn't
matter if he goes and breaks itbecause he's the last guy. There was
like one after me. I thinkthat storre Chet was after me, and
you know, it didn't matter ifhe dropped it or not. But yeah,
it was. It's a little it'sa little funny watching the promoter just
kind of sit there and squirm first, especially if it's a distance or a
(16:26):
fatigue to failure event. Man,that you don't know what's going to happen
those last ten seconds on any oneof those people carrying your object. So
I mean I had one guy,So I made some concrete tombstones that were
one hundred pound, two fifty andthree fifty for a Husafel like walk for
distance, and uh it was thatTexas Iron Republic in North Houston for for
(16:49):
static monsters, and that was inone of their dynamic movements after the press
and the and the deadlift. Anduh, these people are carrying a very
large tombstone as tech signed Republic andthe weight of it on the front,
and they're going as far as theycan and one person fell backward. I've
never seen someone fail backwards and itjust barely got off from under it,
and the spotted it a great joband put the bag in between them and
(17:11):
the tombstone. But uh, yeah, the the failure to distance and failure
ones are always the scariest, forhow is this person going to pass out
and how they're gonna fold and whichgonna go you know, so yeah,
no kidding, which leads me toa question on the concrete. When you
build them like that, what doyou put in the concrete to make them
eating from breaking or cracking anything.So uh, A mixture of the strengthening
(17:37):
fibers, a really strong rebarb cageto take that brunt of the first of
the first impacts, and then themixture of concrete making sure it's it's it's
really on point with the amount ofwater, because you go too much water,
it'll it'll be too soft and it'llstart to sand out. And if
it's not enough water, it'll bereally brittle. So make sure that my
mixtures and my densities are correct.And then as i've I've probably made one
(18:00):
and a half times as many objectstrying to make sure they're perfect instead of
putting one out there that subpark islike, what I will not have is
my thing failed because I made itwrong for the person who paid money to
fly, hotel registration fees, tshirt clothing, all the equipment to train
for six months for this competition,and the thing that I make was failing
(18:21):
on them instead of them failing withthe objects. So as far as the
actually I have them right here,like I have these strengthening fibers that I
put inside with my molds. Theyreally they look like three quarter inch fiberglass.
Oh that's just about to ask ifthey were fiberglass suit to this what
it looked like. Yeah. Sowith the steel rebar and the fibers,
(18:41):
it does a great, great jobof strengthening across the entire body of the
objects. So there's there's no realweak point in the in the mixture.
So you mix that all in atonce or like, yeah, you mix
it in with the concrete. Yeah, I have not because I was for
the past three years I've been sellingthese molds and the packages of fibers I
(19:03):
bought this in. So I haveabout six hundred pounds of fibers. So
oh, not ever having to buya rope or anything outside of that.
So the I mean, I haveI think a fifty pound box of it
right here for I pack on mymold shipments. Oh okay, well,
because like when I first made minehere, the first couple I made cracked.
(19:26):
So I took a you know,the the nylon rope, just cut
it in links and then freight itall open so that my pieces were about
that long, and then just mixedthem in there with the concrete. Sure,
that's that's a great way to doit. Yeah, so it was
just kind of kind of neat howthey figured out to use fiber instead of
cutting up a nice expensive rope thatyou used to use for truck pull.
(19:53):
That's awesome though. Yeah, that'snot too bad. That's cool right on.
Oh yeah, so you have anonline business actually selling just like what
we're talking about, like molds andkits. Can you like just let the
listeners actually know, like what youwhat are you selling that they can actually
purchase to help them in their pursuitas strong man. So I in twenty
(20:18):
twenty. So I'm a certified strengthcoach. I've worked at pro, college
and high school level with a wholebunch of different athletes over the past couple
decade and a half. Twenty twenty, when shutdowns and quarantines all started happening,
my job at the school I wasat was going to be very much
changed. I'd be pretty much itwould be like this where I'd have twenty
five kids on a zoom chat tryingto get push ups and sit ups done.
(20:41):
And it wasn't It wasn't the samejob for me. Anymore, and
the restrictions were going to change howwe had to do things. So I
was talking with my wife. Iwas like, this isn't the job that
I signed up for anymore. She'slike, well, let's figure it out
something else. So I resigned,helped them find the next next coach to
fill my spot. And then Irealized, by the time I got out
of the beautiful weight room that Ihad the organization I was at, I
now have nothing at home. SoI went to go buy online and it
(21:04):
was all sold out. So Irogue Hammer Strength. Everybody has sold out
everything. So UH being the diy guy I am, I went to
home depot and I built my entiregym, my power rack, my bench,
my jammers, my pull, mypulley system, everything out of lumber,
steel, pipe, and concrete,and UH I went. I ended
up going viral on Instagram. UHup a couple of garage gym websites and
(21:30):
UH like garage gym Reviews and garagegym Labs and a couple other ones like
that. And I then made platesto lift because I didn't have any of
those either, and those went doubleviral. I ended up ha like a
thousand new messages of how'd you doit? Can you ship me someone?
I'm not going to ship people concreteand hopefully survive. So I've been making
Atlas stones with Steve Slater's Atlas stonemolds for years, and uh, I
(21:52):
was like, well, if Icould figure out a way to make a
plastic mold like this, Well,Luckily, one of the athletes I used
to coach, his dad has avacuum for company right near my house,
and I reached out to him andI was like, I have this idea.
He's like, I have no ideawhat you're doing, but let's talk
about it, and he ended upmaking helping me. I created the form
the exact size and shape of theplate that I needed, and then he
(22:14):
would form the plastic around them forme. So I'm like the only person
in the world that can do it. Very like a really thick industrial strength
plastic mold for plates, dumbbells,and kettlebells. I started out with large
plates, like so the full sizeOlympic seventeen point seven inch plates, and
there was there was a big rollingneed for change plates because people had forty
fives they bought on Facebook, butthey didn't have twenty fives, files and
(22:37):
tens. So I made a smallsmaller mold for smaller plates for five pounds
up to about thirty five pounds.Now it is this to make the weight
and then uh take it out andmake another weight or is this the hole?
So just make the weight and thenslide the weight on. You just
use It's not like something you justfeel full and leave it that way.
(22:57):
No, sir, so I Iyou can make a hundred if if you
do it, you treat it rightand you clean it out every time.
So then I have one guy thatwas in Dallas. He ended up making
I think close to one hundred setsof forty fives and sold them to people
around his area in Dallas. Damnlike, there were lots of little kind
(23:17):
of umbrella small businesses around the UnitedStates and people that lost their jobs in
COVID and then started selling plates andweights from my stuff to help them make
ends meet. And that it grewfrom there. But then I went into
dumbells, because people have a setof five to fifty pound dumbells as close
to two thousand and three thousand dollarsfrom any help. At that time,
COVID prices spiked it, so Imade a single little cup mold actually,
(23:48):
so with this guy right here,you're just filled with five pounds. Put
the pipe in it and pop itout, flip it over, make it
make the other side. You havea ten pound dumbell and that could be
re use all the way up tofifty pounds. So a five to fifty
pounds set of dumbbells for like threehundred bucks of concrete and two ten foot
pipes, so for a tenth ofthe cost you have an entire set of
(24:10):
help So I finding ways to notreally undercut the industry, but to help
fill those voids of the people thatwere willing to spend time not money on
their gyms at the time. Andthen kettlebell. One I'm most proud of
is my kettlebell mold, which islike an atlastoe wall. It's a sphere
that goes together, but there's ahandle that you set inside and you go
twenty to seventy pounds, So youcan make an entire set of kettlebells twenty
(24:36):
to seventy pounds in one mold aswell. Holy god, that's bad hoss.
That's freaking awesome. But again itis a little selfish because it was
things that I wanted to lift andwork out with. So I figure out
a way for me to make it, and if I liked it it felt
good, then I would sell itand tell other people that could try it.
Yeah, but what more could youwant? I mean, here you
(24:56):
are doing what you love and thenthe process of that find a whole new
way of helping other people going throughthe pandemic and everything else, still be
able to train and do stuff that'sfreaking awesome. It was an absolute insane
about nine ten months where it wasthe highest need where people were still shut
(25:17):
in and closer with the restrictions.Sales have slowed down because it's no longer
a need, it's a want.So it's just just the DIY weekend warriors
that are looking at my website now. So I never keep up with the
numbers. I was doing like inAugust twenty twenty. But now it's more
of like I said, it's moreof a want, not a need.
We do have an election coming up. I don't want to make money because
(25:41):
of that. Oh, I didn'tsay that anyway. I actually came up
with I was speaking with Donnie Thompson. He has body tempering rollers of the
steel ones. Yeah, yeah,but Road makes them, and I mean
they're beautiful made and they work.I love body tempering. I do it
(26:03):
to myself all the time. Butbuying a steel roller costs three to four
hundred. You know, it's expensiveto get it there. And he's trying
to get with a lot of highschools and like young youth athletes to help
them start early so they know howto take care of themselves later. So
I reached out to him that Ihave an idea about making a mold to
make a tempering roller that matches thesame size and shape as your patented design.
(26:25):
But I'm not going to do itunless you are okay with me using
your design. He was like,you're telling me we can make them for
cheap. I was like, I'mtelling you we can make him for like
twenty bucks apiece. He's like,do it. There. You go with
a mold design and got it madeand figured out and brought it to him.
He had a summit for body temperingand massage therapy in Dallas, So
(26:45):
I drove to Dallas and showed himthe design that the prototype mold and how
would look when one came out He'slike, this is beautiful, let's let's
move it. So he reached outto Rogue and because it was obviously he's
contracted through Rogue with his rollers.So my rollers are where my roller mold
is now sold on their website asan option for body tempering. Nice cool,
(27:07):
that's really cool. So now youtake that when you pull it out
of the mold, do you sendit at all and then see that how
do you make it super smooth andstuff or so? Concrete will take on
the feel and texture whatever it's upagainst you. If you put concrete on
grass and then you let it hardand you pop it up, it's gonna
feel like grass on the bottom whereit was touching the grass. It really
(27:30):
is good at forming to whatever it'stouching. You just have to vibrate the
side to make all the air bubblescome up off the edges. I purposely
did one really bad and didn't vibrateit at all for the body tempering,
and then just filled it in withfor like a how to video, filled
it in one with a filler andsanded it. And it still felt great
because you're not you're not rubbing itagainst your body, you're rolling it and
(27:51):
letting it set. It's not trulyan abrasion, it's it's setting against you.
So as long as no sharp edges, it feels great. Okay,
yeah, you know, it's justthings that pop up my head. Well,
that was the biggest nays about thatone was like, I'm not going
to put concrete up against my skin. It's gonna be like road rash.
I'm like, well, first ofall, like this is smoother than glass.
The mold is very smooth as ifit's if it's rough as concrete on
(28:12):
the street, you did something wrong. Yeah, but yeah, that was
the That was the biggest naisse controlto the tempering rollers so far, is
that no one's going to want toput concrete up against their skin for massage.
I'm like, well, you tryit first before you knock it.
Yeah. Well that was my favoritething always about getting a brand new,
fresh set of stones is they're alljust perfect and they're smooth, and it's
(28:37):
it's like being on the polished concreteon a polish concrete floor and you just
stick. You put just a smidgeattacking on, you just stick to it
like glue sucking cuts. Yeah,it's just awesome. There's nothing better than
doing like a brand new set ofstones. Once you get attacked, right,
you know, it's oh, it'snice. It's just plus you can
(29:00):
grab the stones only like a halfwaydown. You don't even have to get
underneath them. You just you almostpulling the side of them. Yep,
which is kind of all I haveto do them though you can't reach it
all the way down like I usedto. But hey, whatever works for
sure. So you know, withwith making all the equipment and doing all
(29:21):
these things, you know, yeah, I'm pretty sure you've been invited everywhere.
Yeah, so far, so farI have. I had no real
this entire three year process has beensuch a weird accident dream almost that I
started off just trying to help abackyard Warriors, and then a couple of
(29:44):
the I started, I realized thatI had a much extra time on my
hands because I'm not coaching eighteen hoursa day with eight hundred kids a week,
so I can I can see sunshineand go do things on random days.
And I reached a couple of promotershere in Texas that were making some
strong mad events, say hey,I'll come help load, unload, set
up, and we can talk aboutlike how I could help otherwise to do
that, I'm able to build things. So I got to talk with Robert
(30:08):
Spence and John Lester out of theywere in USS at the time, and
they had a bunch of stuff inthe Dallas and the kind of central Texas
area. So I drive up forthe day, help them build or move
their stuff and reload and and yournext competition, what kind of what are
your events looking like? And wedo a handshake deal. I'll build it
for you and we'll see what itlooks like. And started. That's how
(30:29):
kind of got rolling moving moving equipmentfor people that was customed kind of cool
looking at much more safe then thebackyard duct tape and super cool stuff that
some points of the smaller events mighthave to use because they're not sure how
to make it correctly. And thenwith my background the strong mat, I
know how it should feel, soI practice and use it here and test
it so if it feels weird,I can make it better while I'm here.
(30:51):
So I mean I made I'm makingawards for them for their for their
the competitors and like wooden plaques andand things like that, and then like
the the from from there, asI go to these competitions. I'm I'm
six and a half feet tall,so I'm a large human, so I
can't hide, and then I havethen I have my logo on. Hey,
(31:14):
that's the guy that made that weirdthing I saw six months ago.
He made that thing. Like Isaid, Hey, I have an idea.
Do you think you could make thisand begin this organic almost rolling stone
of handshake and then build it andthen bring it over and then handshake someone
else, build it and bring itto them. And I ended up meeting
game Penya for the first time atStatic Monsters on one of our mutual friends
and one of his his friends andguy he used to train. He had
(31:36):
had died of a of a heartissue and we were doing like a memorial
service at Static Monsters and he Ithink he broke the axle record that day
at some ungodly number because he's he'ssick at deadlift and we were kind of
talking, and that's when Spence hadtold him that I was making the replica
of the Hussefel Stone, and hewas like, Hey, I'm about to
(31:59):
do Beerstone as program he did whereBobby Thompson a couple of other guys went
down to South Texas to do.So that was when I met him and
handshook and brought some stones down therefor his event. And then I met
Brian and Carey Shaw there when hewas doing a meet and greet at the
beer Stone and that became a handshakeand it ended up in Denver. So
like it just it just keeps poppingaround me to end up at the Arnold
(32:19):
because because Gabe had me meet Dionfor for the wagon wheel squat two years
ago for the amateurs that made bigstone wagon wheels that were I think twenty
six inches in diameter and one hundredpounds each. They looked like Marvel,
Yeah those are cool. So Imade those for that. And then while
I'm there kind of chatting with andwith a couple of people, and it
just keeps, it keeps happening towhere I'm saying hi to folks and they're
(32:43):
like, hey, let's let's dosome business. And I'm not going there
for business. I'm there to watchmy stuff not get broken, you know,
but yeah, make sure everything.That's that's the that's the beauty of
doing things that you love to do, you love the sport. It's it's
just and it just comes off andeverything that you do, I mean,
and we're walking up and talking toyou and stuff like that, how excited
(33:05):
you get, your enthusiasm about it, all of it. So it's just
it's neat when you finally get todo what you love to do and you
can make enough money to survive andenjoy life while doing it. For sure,
there's nothing better than doing that.Nothing. That's my main goal is
that of the five events, ifI sponsor one and there's five events,
I want people twenty years from nowshowing their grandkids my event on a picture
(33:28):
like Grandma used to pick up thiscrazy, cool looking thing like that.
That's what I want many years downthe road that my event was one they'll
always remember that they got to do. So that's that's my biggest goal.
Every time I go to a competitionwith with a sponsored event like that's the
cool one is the sticks and stoneone? So yeah, no, absolutely
absolutely, Well right on, thenyou got anything. Well, you know,
(33:51):
hey, we've covered quite a bitin this podcast, and you know,
the one thing I love is thestrong man community because, like I
said, me work getting into thisindustry is more because I come from a
bodybuilding background of like that's what I'mmy first love is and now that I
start to grow into the strong Manlove because like I said, I remember
growing up watching strong Man. Iremember seeing it on Christmas. I remember
(34:14):
watching these crazy events and seeing thesecrazy things. But like the pride that
you must feel from seeing your equipmenthit some of the biggest stages and being
used is like I can only imaginethe feeling that you get of satisfaction out
of the world, like like comingfull circle, because like I said,
(34:35):
you've been doing strength and conditioning,you've been you've been watching your been doing
The strong Man for years, andnow that you see this, it's like
it's just so inspiring because like seeingpeople actually thriving and surviving off of what
they love and what they want todo is just like I said, it
holds a lot of truth that whenyou love, when you love something,
(34:58):
you can actually keep doing it forthe rest of your life, you know.
And sir, like I said,I I love just hearing these scenes,
singing these things. And we've metin person. We were all at
OSG. We had to talk,you know, like, uh, Nick,
there we were. There's so muchback and forth and so much going
on, but like just to seeyou there volunteering, helping, going back
(35:21):
and forth, and a few timesfrom where I was sitting, I could
see you poke your head around thecorner making sure is my equipment? Okay,
they got slammed close to one ofthe guys. Did the math my
My frames got dropped close to onethousand times each over the three day span
from from fitting and testing to measureyour hands and dropping and then the actual
(35:45):
events. It was close to onethousand drops for all four frames. So
that was a nerve wracking for sure. Yeah, and they which is which
is a testament because I mean,if you're turning straw man with your guys,
you probably gonna do that, whatfive to ten times a week?
Yeah, So here here you are, you're looking at that. There's fifty
(36:08):
fifty weeks a year, so that'sfive hundred times in a year. I
mean you're you're looking at years worthof drops, you know, in a
day. Yeah, So that's prettyfive hours it took that event to get
through. I think, yeah,yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah.
I was really excited because I meanthe the Masters Men's OSG was pretty much
(36:34):
going to be a nineteen nineties twothousand's World Strongest Man again, because like
Big C was signed up, Low'swas there, Felix was there, there
gonna be like it was gonna belike real, I mean, Pritchritt was
was signed up early. I'm notsure what happened with his his coming out,
but there was a bunch of namesthat I used to grow up watching
Lyfts. So like I was like, dude, my equipments about to get
touched by all the guys that Igrew up just idolizing. But and and
(36:58):
getting to see Felix carrying my framethat I am again, like you said,
like, I was full of prideto get to see that man,
that the the the immortal mark.Felix carrying my frame that day was was
a big step in my business.So I know that broke my heart.
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
it's like four or something. I'mlike boop. I'm like, oh that
feels nice. Also, your youryour review of my frame made my heart
flutter as well, sir, SoI appreciate the kind words hey well deserved.
I mean it's it's a really reallygood frame, and it's I hope
people look you up and when theyneed one, get one from me.
(37:44):
Because the fact that it's so versatile. I mean, I have a metal
frame here. It's five hundred pounds. So we got to get two people
to get it out, and thenI got to pick it up by myself
and run it through the rocks andthen get it out into the street before
we go train with it. Andit's it's it's not a lot of fun
(38:04):
to move around other than when you'retraining with it, so that you can
move you can move yours around andit's actually you can you know, it's
it's it's movable. It's and otherpeople can do it besides me, you
know, lifting it and putting itaway. I mean, so like me
and a couple of the other guystraining together, we're the only ones that
can put it away. So wehad anybody else with us, they might
(38:28):
be able to pick it up andget a little ways with it, but
not not when we're loading it orunloading it up out of the side of
the house. So it's I likethe design, it's pretty neat. It
breciates it to where you can youhave more ability for more people to train
on it and put it away?That was the whole deal. I got
quoted in a podcast about a yearand a half ago my good buddy Panda,
(38:52):
Christine Matthews got he's got a littlemad at me for saying that the
weight class system and Stroo Man makesit tough on builders and sponsors to have
cool events at the smaller shows.So you have thirteen weight classes and it
needs to be loadable for all thirteen, including novice which has to be light
up to the super heavies, whichcould be a guy that's about to be
like breakout and be the dude.Right. So having that big gamut of
(39:16):
humans and having things have to beloadable, you can't do a lot of
the crazy cool looking World Strongest Manevents on TV like Clash did a great
job with their single sixty four orseventy two like that single weight projects.
That's the way to get those coolobjects that don't have to be loadable.
But having a full gamut of likea USS Nationals with I think sixteen different
(39:38):
weight classes over two full competitions andtwelve lanes, having loadable objects like that
makes it difficult to have a wholebunch of really cool looking and so loaable,
loadable and movable to reset back up. Yeah, because when you're in
a big contest like that, youhave to pick events that not only are
touched to strength, but that areeasy to reset and run again as well.
(40:01):
So this year there's an event thisyear here I think in Georgia.
It's an all sandbag competition. Yeah. Like, if you hate your friends
and volunteers, if you pick fivestraight sandbag events like throws, carries,
pushes, presses, you hate youryour volunteers to do a full day of
(40:22):
sandbag reloads, man, like,good, good for them for doing it.
I would now not I'm not helpingit that competition, you know,
I don't. There's one thing don'tever want to talk about again, and
that's rucksacks. Great piece of equipment, great piece of equipment, good for
training your cellf on, but forfour hundred competitors holding up those chats and
(40:46):
putting on people's backs. M Igladly reset the sleds every time instead of
helping them with those bags. Thatwas a job in itself, Like those
guys were you you and those guyswere sweating your butts off. I remember
that my my hands and my Ihad a like an arm pump and a
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
like what one hundred and thirty hundredand forty pounds one hundred and forty pound
bag. Yeah, yeah, thereis the big I think you get a
guy who's like four hundred pounds thatkicking his arm through, you're just like
trying to get them on. TheThe theory was great that. I think
(41:28):
the buckles and the strap length madeit a little more difficult if they were
long, longer straps to be ableto get out. Even the smaller girls
had trouble getting the buckles up becausethey were so small to get like there
were wider straps and wider and biggerand longer straps and bigger buckles. It
would have made a lot easier forthe d load and the and the reset
and then getting on and strapping itdown. But it will say nothing broke,
(41:51):
Yeah, I think the un setsmade it through. Well. I
think one or two clips kind ofbroke off and were sharp. But I
mean, besides that, they heldup great. There were great pieces of
equipment. It's just those little littletweaks that could happen for future events that
would make them really legitimate for Stromia. No, yeah, it'd be freaking
awesome. It was. It wasfun to watch. I was like,
that's going to make that's going tobe brutal on the carries because now you're
(42:15):
picking up an extra one hundred andforty pounds because it's on your back and
you got to lift it anyway.So when you're lifting a three hundred pounds
sad bag, it's now a fourhundred pounds. I got the nickname bag
Ninja because I was at the theymy lane. I had a Cerberus dropsack
bag that I had to throw underanybody 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
get up, but it was themore when it fell back in their head
snapped. That bag had to bethere justin ka. That was the only
thing we were worried about, isthat one hundred and fifty pounds a weight
pulling them backwards as they're dragging backwards, and if they fell almost no one
could have gotten back up on theirown. So yeah, yeah, there
was a few that turtled, soyeah, I remember. But it does.
(43:00):
But when you get to the dragpart of it, that that bag,
oh man, does it make thedrag nice? Oh? Yeah,
drags leverage for sure. It's Ialmost want to do a truck pull event
one day where you weigh the heaviestguy in the competition and then everybody puts
a vest a weighted vest on thatmakes everybody the exact same body weight as
(43:24):
the heaviest man. No, I'mtall and I'm top heavy. You can't
take that for me. That's myadvantage, right, I think that would
be cool. I got I gotshort arms, I gotta pull dead lift
from the floor just like you.You can't take my advantage. Yeah,
but it's easier for stone the stonesfire. But I just want to see
(43:49):
one truck pull event like that,just to see what would happen. I
think it would be kind of interesting. Actually, even in the body weight
or the leverage structure would be aninteresting way to figure that out. You
can really do the leverage that muchbecause the height of the people, so
I mean just just the evening outfactor of the body weight difference. I
think would be kind of interesting justto see. You're not gonna be able
(44:10):
to change the leverages that much.It's but it would be really kind of
neat to see, you know,if Brian's weighing four fifty that day,
everybody gets to weigh four fifty.But he's not going to step on the
scale, let you know. Anywaysthough, No, but no, not
most of the time. But hehas a few times, and I a
(44:32):
couple of times, you're like fourfifty four. He's like, that's a
big man. But you know,for the rest of the time, I
mean his I think he's done likethree eighty five right now. He trimmed
down a lot for that fight Iheard recently. Didn't did he get canceled?
I believe it's been postponed from whateverman at that stag. You know,
(44:53):
it is what it is. Yeah, stuff is like that's going to
pop up, you know what I'msaying. People are going to get hurt,
strains, and like I said,it's it's all, but I'm pretty
sure it's still not It's still goingto happen. Well, I'm hoping it's
not a hurt or a strain becausethat means that it's one of the four
straw Ma combeditors. Right, well, three there's three straw men and one
(45:15):
that's not a star man. That'sright. But they are an actor and
maybe they're committed to a film,you know, saying well, we're only
speculating here. Oh yeah, Igot or everybody just decided they didn't want
to die when Brian drops an elbowin their head. That's how you get
coloring books for Christmas, that's forsure. Yeah. Oh my god.
I just watching him train, Iwas like I getting kicked by a horse.
(45:38):
Oh. I used to feel prettypretty okay because I, you know,
knowing Frank mir and getting to rollaround with him a little bit and
stuff like that, and knowing somebasic level of jiu jitsu, not great
at it at all, but knowingenough to I was it was like,
He's like, man, if youguys just threw off one of these,
(45:59):
I'll just come roll him up alittle bit. Yeah no, that's out.
That's out now. Watching Brian,I'm just like, yeah, no,
there's dangerous and skilled for fighting.Brian as a scary Brian. Yeah,
I'm just gonna have to stay fasterat running than he is that's it
or you know, yeah, I'mnot gonna shoot him, so I'm just
(46:22):
gonna run from problem is is Cardiois really good, so I might be
able to help sprint him for alittle while. And he's just gonna keep
trucking as I'm catching my breath andI'm post anyway, so tired. I
think the best idea is just needto him, have him not be mad,
most likely, yeah for sure,Yeah, oh yeah, anyway,
(46:45):
Oh yeah, Well, David,promote your website where people can actually reach
you to get your materials. Mywebsite is www dot stix, underscore and
underscore stone dot com. And I'malso and Stone on Instagram as well,
and I'll put all the information andlinks in the notes. I will put
(47:05):
it in the notes. I knowpeople complain, but you know sometimes I
forget too. You forgot sometimes.Well. Nick has a saying, and
it's a saying we all believe inhere. Nick, can you exit us
out with that saying? I can. Well, if you enjoyed this,
please like, share, subscribe,go check out David and subscribe and check
(47:28):
out everything on his website. Andit's always train hard, train smart,
and be the best you can bethank you, thank you, all yours
(47:54):
is the best experience, would best
You're listening to the best experience withthe Nick Best. All right, this
(00:41):
is the best experience with your host, Nick Best and the Angry Dad.
And before we get into today's podcast, I'd like to thank our podcast sponsors.
Barbell Apparel, Premium Athletic where engineeredfor a performance with a tailored athletic
fit, Refine Clothing for an athleticbody type. Evolution Athletics, a supportive
gear company owned by Brian Shaw,four time World Strongest Man and strongest man
(01:02):
on Earth. We believe in allathletes and supporting their journey towards greatness.
Iced Up Industries some of the bestcold punches cold baths you can get,
and you can get fifty and thatis fifty dollars off with code best at
check out at iced Up Industries.Please use these links. It really helps
us out. We appreciate it andthank you guys. All Right, Nick,
(01:26):
all right, Well we got Davidfrom Sticks and Stones. This is
god man who created the amazing framesthat came in two pieces that were like
amazing at OSG last year. Solet's let's talk about what you did and
how you came up with this ideabecause they go inside one another. I
(01:48):
don't think people realized that was fun. That was a birth child of randomly
running into Lynn from OSG. Andwe were both at the World Strongest Man
in Myrtle Beach and I saw hehad his OSG T shirt on. I
have my Sticks and Stone T shirt. We both point each other, Hey
you run OSG's like, hey,you make weird stuff. Let's talk and
(02:09):
uh. And he was like,as we were just chatting as the events
are going on at the World StrongestMan, he was like, man,
it'd be really cool to like becauseI've seen this stuff you've made, and
over the past two years, I'veI've kind of built up a, I
guess a somewhat a reputation of beingable to build really strong, really weird
things and uh. And he hadnoticed and we had talked about how we
(02:29):
could kind of collaborate and work together, and he said, I love the
name of your your company, sticksand stuff like wood and rocks. Like,
what if we could do like akind of a medley with that kind
of thing. What do you think. I'm like, well, I mean
a timber frame. And he waslike, well, if we get like
like a husif hell stone, becauseI've made I've I've also made the record
crusive hell stones as well. AndI was like, but the thing is
having four hundred people drop a rockon how that that's that's a big test
(02:53):
of anything. And still remember whateverit is, that's a big test on
the concrete against the a hockey floor. So that that makes me a little
bit nervous. And he said,well, what if we could do like
a like a Dinny stone walk.I was like, well, it have
to be a loadable situation. That'skind of the steel pins that Cerberus makes.
And we we kind of chatted throughthat a little bit, and I
(03:14):
had the idea because I make Igot my start in the strength I guess
equipment industry by making concrete molds thatyou could make your own plates, dumbells,
and kettlebells out of. And mymy plate mold is a seventeen point
seven to seven inch diameter plate thatyou put in as much concrete as want
for twenty five to one hundred poundplates, but as a center in the
(03:35):
middle that could go onto a bar. So that kind of pops in my
head. It's like, what ifwe could make a stone with that same
center hole that slides onto the weightpencer Cerberus, and then that grew into
well that sounds good, figure itout. So I had to then,
as as a guy that's already replicateda few historic stones, I reached out
to and I go around the worldlike Scotland, Iceland, Faroe Islands.
(03:59):
I love lifting historic stones, asyou've picked up a lot of the ones
that I have as well. Nickand I reached out to to Brett Nichol.
I was like, hey, I'mdoing this thing. I'm thinking the
dinies are gonna be way too bigfor our sixty four women because they'd do
like a snatch grip holding the ringsout way out wide, and they'd banged
up under their ankles. It's like, what if we use yours, like
(04:20):
a smaller base like your nickelstones.Would you be okay with me putting your
family name as a replica of yourstones? He was like, you know,
he's a high energy guys, like, yeah, let's do it.
So he sent me like five hundredpictures of a of a ruler around every
this is a crack, and thisis a crevice, and this is a
lean here. And I did thebest I could making a replica from two
(04:41):
thousand miles away and had it feeljust like the Nickels deal up against your
shins. The shape was because Ididn't have an the right hype on them
because I had to take the topoff for the weight pen and the bottom
off for all the place so Ihad like the middle third section feeling where
it hits your shins. So theyweren't exactly looking like the nick but they
felt like the Nichols. And onthe frame side, as we were chatting
(05:05):
through how to make that loadable inmy head, I mean the weight with
tim would have had to been likeeighteen twenty inches long for all those places
to stack up from the sixty weightthat he wanted to do all up to
the super heavies, which I thinkwe ended up at like eight hundred and
eight fifties like that. So Iwas like, what if we had a
lighter frame and we stacked the topon top of it and have it kind
(05:27):
of puzzle piece in so that thefirst half the competitors had a smaller,
still formidable looking frame, but thenit gets really big like the Giants Live
one that they have that has thebig eight like eight by eight timbers on
it. It would make it talland it wouldn't then happen. What's that,
I've used that one a few times. That one's fun by the way,
it looks crazy, it's just hardgetting out of it. Yeah,
(05:49):
well that was also the thing,like if we had it too tall.
We had some super heavyweights that wereabout five foot three, so having then
a car wheeler a front flop outon the side of it. So I
made the cut out to where it'llbe just high enough, almost like a
hurdle hop for most people. Andobviously with our sixty four is if it
was the same high for everybody,it'd have to do like almost a cartwheel
out to get out of it.So to mitigate that situation with that many
(06:15):
wide ranging body sizes, having thatbase frame being only eighteen inches high,
and then the second half bringing upto I think it was up to twenty
eight or twenty nine inches tall onthat little step side, so it wasn't
high and very high for anybody,but after it was only some innovation designs
on that thing were the handles.You could either actually lower them so if
(06:36):
they were too tall, like ifthe competitor was shorter and couldn't clear the
ground, they could lower the handlesdown an inch or two as well,
so it was cool. They wereadjustable from fourteen up to twenty inches high,
and then I had set a Ithink it was thirty two inches wide
and thirty four inches wide, andI'm a large human already. Four felt
(07:00):
really good to me, so Ifigured, if I go two more inches
in, that's good for some shorterpeople. But obviously that was my biggest
downfall, was that the handles werestill too wide for the smaller stature females.
And I promise I'll never make thatmistake again. I'll make sure that's
a little bit better for the future. I've ever do something like that again.
But yeah, I was really proudof the fully adjustable frames handles on
(07:21):
those that had never been done before. Yeah, but you got to figure,
there's four hundred people doing it.There's going to be so many different
you know, sizes and shapes andstuff like that. To get it right.
About ninety nine point eight percent ofthe time, out of all the
people were there was only like twoto three. Right, There was like
(07:43):
thirty two people that decided to golower than twenty inches, but everyone else
kept the most inside handle in thehighest handle, right, so so about
ten percent de side of the change. Yeah, So that's like I said,
that's a really good job. That'sawesome. I appreciate it. So
what's the weirdest thing you've built sofar that that's interesting, the weirdest and
(08:05):
then then the most challenging. SoI guess I would say the weirdest thing
that I've ever made was for theArnold last year. I sponsored the loading
race for the amateurs and then theloading race for the world Shongest firefighter,
and both in both of them,I made plate looadable fire hydrants. So
(08:26):
the so the base had a screwin all the way in that had a
threaded rod that fit into between plates, so it gets stacked twenty fives and
tens underneath it. So it justmade it a little bit longer, but
it would add a lot of weightto each each weight category. And so
I had two two hundred and twentyfive pound matching the hydrants to one hundred
and fifty and then two one hundredpound matching hydrants, and then all of
(08:48):
them are plate looadable to get themas heavi or as lad as we needed
them to. Damn. Wow,that's that's a trip. And that was
that might have been the most difficultto modify because obviously I try across Texas
I think three different times finding matchingsets, because that was the problem,
finding ones that are exact same shape. Because if you're on two lanes and
one has a one ninety and onehas it one seventy, that's that's a
(09:09):
little sketch. So yeah, findingthe exact same like years and shapes and
designs in Texas because there's like twentydifferent types of hydrants in our state and
it's a big state. So findingthe ones that kind of were around that
right way, and then modifying themto make them safe they wouldn't roll and
crush anybody, wouldn't cut anybody,and then being able to put the base
(09:30):
on it and make it plate loadable. That was probably the weirdest thing I've
ever had to make. And itwas off of a conversation with Dion and
James Definbaal when they're like, hey, we want to do this, like
what kind of weird stuff could weload? I'm like, well, as
a stone maker and a stone lifter, I want to do Atlas stones,
natural stones, bass stones, rectangularq sphericle like like put them all up
(09:50):
there, and they're like, well, let's not just do stones. They
what about sandbags and press blocks?Like, yeah, we'll just some normal
stuff, but I really want tomake some other things too, So I
made a bask q of different weightsfor each of the categories to go in
for there, so they loaded basscubes instead of going to shoulder like the
bass clippers, they put a ballon the blocks, and then I brought
a people husa fallstones as well forthat that race as well. So yeah,
(10:11):
I kind of like it to whereyou can't shoulder this stuff. There's
a front carry. Should be afront carry if you're loading the medley,
you shouldn't. I kind of shouldn'tbe carrying stuff on your shoulders. The
whole idea is to carry it outhere. It's it's a test of strength,
not a test of cleaning, forsure, because once you get it
up there, it's piece k.But yeah, that's that's cool. I
(10:35):
like that. I like that alot. It was the weirdest thing I've
had to load those as a caraxle. At Worlds they did that one
year where we had the uh monstertire hubs, which was just kind of
awkward. But the transmissions and everythingtoo. Right, Yeah, we had
(10:56):
we had the trade. The otherparts of the car weren't too bad,
but the axle was really weird becauseyou had to grab it one way and
carry it in another. So topick it up because it would rotate as
you picked it up if you didn'tdo it right. Did it have that
had the differential in the center?Still, Yeah, that's so cool,
That's what I mean. It was. It was a little, it was
(11:16):
a little it was a little uhquestionable, a little dicey. But I
mean it's kind of like especially thatwas the the one I didn't expect to
do, and no, I didn'tget the train for it, just show
up and go. So I wasjust like, okay, I'm just gonna
the goal is to go as fastas I can, but I'm gonna get
(11:37):
through this one and not get hurt. So it's it's interesting. It makes
twice about it. That's how Iused to be when I when I used
to compete way back, I'm myold hasband. Uh. It was before
strong Man corp and and and USSsplit. It was still nas at the
time. I remember that half thetime it would show you, they'd show
(11:58):
you three events and there'd be twosurprise events when you showed up, So
you show up strong to see whathappens, you know, correct, I
like it better that way. It'slike it long enough, anything should be
a good competition instead of I've I'vetrained on the exact object of the same
height and the same size and thesame diameter of what you're about to play
with. It seems like that wasa great era, but the weights weren't
(12:24):
as crazy, yeah, for sure. So if we're going to take the
weights up that crazy, then theguys need to be training for him ahead
of time. It's the same here'sthe events, because the weights now are
so much heavier than they were,you know back in the early two thousands,
for sure. For sure, Iheavy yoake back there was eight hundred
(12:45):
pounds, you know, heavy yoaknow is like a normal normal yoke now
is between eleven hundred and one thousand. It's crazy pretty much at all the
top level shows. You know,then you get a couple of freaky ones
that'll get up thirteen to fifteen,but for the most part that's calmed down
and it's between one thousand and elevenhundred usually, So you're gonna want to
(13:07):
train on stuff like that. Youcan going out and pick just picking it
up. I could see a strongguy going out and just picking up eight
hundred pound YO can survive it.You're not gonna do a thousand, for
sure. So it's stuff like thatwhere it's really cool to show up and
just have a mystery event. Butthen maybe it's just not as absolutely nuts
heavy for sure. You know whenyou go and then nobody gets a nobody
(13:31):
gets any idea, and then everybodyjust has to come actually figure out how
to lift it, and the onesthat can think the most and figure it
out, we'll win the event usually. Well, that was what was so
fun about the hydrants when I whenI first then we announced what they were
going to be. I guess FacebookMarketplace became just the destitute of all fire
hydrants. Everyone that had anyone theywere spiking the prices and they were still
(13:54):
getting sold by a bunch of athletesaround the nation. And the people that
never touched a hydrot before they weregonna he can sneak over to that palate
and and pick one up real quick. I was like, yeah, good
player, that you're not gonna breakit. It's solid, solid cast iron.
You're you're not gonna hurt the samething, you know, so uh
or though yeah, you just worrythey could chuck the concrete up. And
(14:18):
that's been my goal this coming yearis to do a lot more steel eye
objects, because no matter how strongyou make concrete, it's there's always that.
I mean, a strongman or havethe ability to mess up a metal
ball with a rubber hammer, andconcrete is not as strong anything. I
mean, wood will bend, Concreteis gonna shatter. So I have the
(14:39):
highest of anxieties every time I goto one of these events that I've made
something out of concrete, and I'mjust watching all the people run or move
or lift it, like if theyfail this thing, it's gonna either hurt
them or this thing's gonna shatter andlike a chunk gonna fall off or But
luckily, so far, it's onlyhappened once in three years so and that
was because of a loader and resettererror, not an athlete error. So
(15:00):
oh wow. I did a contestin Romania in two thousand and nine and
one of the events was a Hussefeldcarry, which it wasn't whoso it wasn't
the Hussefeld. It was just,you know, kind of coffin shaped and
it was concrete and there were fourhundred pounds and there was no rebar in
(15:20):
him. They had four of themand I was next to last to go,
and I was on the last onebecause they'd have all broken. Oh
gosh, that makes my heart hurtmany. Yeah. I remember Marshall White
was in the lead in that event, and I was going and I was
(15:41):
getting tired, and they could tellI was getting tired, but I wasn't
that far from catching Marshall. Andthe promoter's like, put it down,
put it down, Do not drop, do drop it. Just put it
down, you know, because heknows I'm just going to go till I
collapse, and if I collapse,that thing's going to drop and break.
And I stopped a little bit short, got second in that event, but
(16:02):
yeah, it was the last oneand then the last guy. It doesn't
matter if he goes and breaks itbecause he's the last guy. There was
like one after me. I thinkthat storre Chet was after me, and
you know, it didn't matter ifhe dropped it or not. But yeah,
it was. It's a little it'sa little funny watching the promoter just
kind of sit there and squirm first, especially if it's a distance or a
(16:26):
fatigue to failure event. Man,that you don't know what's going to happen
those last ten seconds on any oneof those people carrying your object. So
I mean I had one guy,So I made some concrete tombstones that were
one hundred pound, two fifty andthree fifty for a Husafel like walk for
distance, and uh it was thatTexas Iron Republic in North Houston for for
(16:49):
static monsters, and that was inone of their dynamic movements after the press
and the and the deadlift. Anduh, these people are carrying a very
large tombstone as tech signed Republic andthe weight of it on the front,
and they're going as far as theycan and one person fell backward. I've
never seen someone fail backwards and itjust barely got off from under it,
and the spotted it a great joband put the bag in between them and
(17:11):
the tombstone. But uh, yeah, the the failure to distance and failure
ones are always the scariest, forhow is this person going to pass out
and how they're gonna fold and whichgonna go you know, so yeah,
no kidding, which leads me toa question on the concrete. When you
build them like that, what doyou put in the concrete to make them
eating from breaking or cracking anything.So uh, A mixture of the strengthening
(17:37):
fibers, a really strong rebarb cageto take that brunt of the first of
the first impacts, and then themixture of concrete making sure it's it's it's
really on point with the amount ofwater, because you go too much water,
it'll it'll be too soft and it'llstart to sand out. And if
it's not enough water, it'll bereally brittle. So make sure that my
mixtures and my densities are correct.And then as i've I've probably made one
(18:00):
and a half times as many objectstrying to make sure they're perfect instead of
putting one out there that subpark islike, what I will not have is
my thing failed because I made itwrong for the person who paid money to
fly, hotel registration fees, tshirt clothing, all the equipment to train
for six months for this competition,and the thing that I make was failing
(18:21):
on them instead of them failing withthe objects. So as far as the
actually I have them right here,like I have these strengthening fibers that I
put inside with my molds. Theyreally they look like three quarter inch fiberglass.
Oh that's just about to ask ifthey were fiberglass suit to this what
it looked like. Yeah. Sowith the steel rebar and the fibers,
(18:41):
it does a great, great jobof strengthening across the entire body of the
objects. So there's there's no realweak point in the in the mixture.
So you mix that all in atonce or like, yeah, you mix
it in with the concrete. Yeah, I have not because I was for
the past three years I've been sellingthese molds and the packages of fibers I
(19:03):
bought this in. So I haveabout six hundred pounds of fibers. So
oh, not ever having to buya rope or anything outside of that.
So the I mean, I haveI think a fifty pound box of it
right here for I pack on mymold shipments. Oh okay, well,
because like when I first made minehere, the first couple I made cracked.
(19:26):
So I took a you know,the the nylon rope, just cut
it in links and then freight itall open so that my pieces were about
that long, and then just mixedthem in there with the concrete. Sure,
that's that's a great way to doit. Yeah, so it was
just kind of kind of neat howthey figured out to use fiber instead of
cutting up a nice expensive rope thatyou used to use for truck pull.
(19:53):
That's awesome though. Yeah, that'snot too bad. That's cool right on.
Oh yeah, so you have anonline business actually selling just like what
we're talking about, like molds andkits. Can you like just let the
listeners actually know, like what youwhat are you selling that they can actually
purchase to help them in their pursuitas strong man. So I in twenty
(20:18):
twenty. So I'm a certified strengthcoach. I've worked at pro, college
and high school level with a wholebunch of different athletes over the past couple
decade and a half. Twenty twenty, when shutdowns and quarantines all started happening,
my job at the school I wasat was going to be very much
changed. I'd be pretty much itwould be like this where I'd have twenty
five kids on a zoom chat tryingto get push ups and sit ups done.
(20:41):
And it wasn't It wasn't the samejob for me. Anymore, and
the restrictions were going to change howwe had to do things. So I
was talking with my wife. Iwas like, this isn't the job that
I signed up for anymore. She'slike, well, let's figure it out
something else. So I resigned,helped them find the next next coach to
fill my spot. And then Irealized, by the time I got out
of the beautiful weight room that Ihad the organization I was at, I
now have nothing at home. SoI went to go buy online and it
(21:04):
was all sold out. So Irogue Hammer Strength. Everybody has sold out
everything. So UH being the diy guy I am, I went to
home depot and I built my entiregym, my power rack, my bench,
my jammers, my pull, mypulley system, everything out of lumber,
steel, pipe, and concrete,and UH I went. I ended
up going viral on Instagram. UHup a couple of garage gym websites and
(21:30):
UH like garage gym Reviews and garagegym Labs and a couple other ones like
that. And I then made platesto lift because I didn't have any of
those either, and those went doubleviral. I ended up ha like a
thousand new messages of how'd you doit? Can you ship me someone?
I'm not going to ship people concreteand hopefully survive. So I've been making
Atlas stones with Steve Slater's Atlas stonemolds for years, and uh, I
(21:52):
was like, well, if Icould figure out a way to make a
plastic mold like this, Well,Luckily, one of the athletes I used
to coach, his dad has avacuum for company right near my house,
and I reached out to him andI was like, I have this idea.
He's like, I have no ideawhat you're doing, but let's talk
about it, and he ended upmaking helping me. I created the form
the exact size and shape of theplate that I needed, and then he
(22:14):
would form the plastic around them forme. So I'm like the only person
in the world that can do it. Very like a really thick industrial strength
plastic mold for plates, dumbbells,and kettlebells. I started out with large
plates, like so the full sizeOlympic seventeen point seven inch plates, and
there was there was a big rollingneed for change plates because people had forty
fives they bought on Facebook, butthey didn't have twenty fives, files and
(22:37):
tens. So I made a smallsmaller mold for smaller plates for five pounds
up to about thirty five pounds.Now it is this to make the weight
and then uh take it out andmake another weight or is this the hole?
So just make the weight and thenslide the weight on. You just
use It's not like something you justfeel full and leave it that way.
(22:57):
No, sir, so I Iyou can make a hundred if if you
do it, you treat it rightand you clean it out every time.
So then I have one guy thatwas in Dallas. He ended up making
I think close to one hundred setsof forty fives and sold them to people
around his area in Dallas. Damnlike, there were lots of little kind
(23:17):
of umbrella small businesses around the UnitedStates and people that lost their jobs in
COVID and then started selling plates andweights from my stuff to help them make
ends meet. And that it grewfrom there. But then I went into
dumbells, because people have a setof five to fifty pound dumbells as close
to two thousand and three thousand dollarsfrom any help. At that time,
COVID prices spiked it, so Imade a single little cup mold actually,
(23:48):
so with this guy right here,you're just filled with five pounds. Put
the pipe in it and pop itout, flip it over, make it
make the other side. You havea ten pound dumbell and that could be
re use all the way up tofifty pounds. So a five to fifty
pounds set of dumbbells for like threehundred bucks of concrete and two ten foot
pipes, so for a tenth ofthe cost you have an entire set of
(24:10):
help So I finding ways to notreally undercut the industry, but to help
fill those voids of the people thatwere willing to spend time not money on
their gyms at the time. Andthen kettlebell. One I'm most proud of
is my kettlebell mold, which islike an atlastoe wall. It's a sphere
that goes together, but there's ahandle that you set inside and you go
twenty to seventy pounds, So youcan make an entire set of kettlebells twenty
(24:36):
to seventy pounds in one mold aswell. Holy god, that's bad hoss.
That's freaking awesome. But again itis a little selfish because it was
things that I wanted to lift andwork out with. So I figure out
a way for me to make it, and if I liked it it felt
good, then I would sell itand tell other people that could try it.
Yeah, but what more could youwant? I mean, here you
(24:56):
are doing what you love and thenthe process of that find a whole new
way of helping other people going throughthe pandemic and everything else, still be
able to train and do stuff that'sfreaking awesome. It was an absolute insane
about nine ten months where it wasthe highest need where people were still shut
(25:17):
in and closer with the restrictions.Sales have slowed down because it's no longer
a need, it's a want.So it's just just the DIY weekend warriors
that are looking at my website now. So I never keep up with the
numbers. I was doing like inAugust twenty twenty. But now it's more
of like I said, it's moreof a want, not a need.
We do have an election coming up. I don't want to make money because
(25:41):
of that. Oh, I didn'tsay that anyway. I actually came up
with I was speaking with Donnie Thompson. He has body tempering rollers of the
steel ones. Yeah, yeah,but Road makes them, and I mean
they're beautiful made and they work.I love body tempering. I do it
(26:03):
to myself all the time. Butbuying a steel roller costs three to four
hundred. You know, it's expensiveto get it there. And he's trying
to get with a lot of highschools and like young youth athletes to help
them start early so they know howto take care of themselves later. So
I reached out to him that Ihave an idea about making a mold to
make a tempering roller that matches thesame size and shape as your patented design.
(26:25):
But I'm not going to do itunless you are okay with me using
your design. He was like,you're telling me we can make them for
cheap. I was like, I'mtelling you we can make him for like
twenty bucks apiece. He's like,do it. There. You go with
a mold design and got it madeand figured out and brought it to him.
He had a summit for body temperingand massage therapy in Dallas, So
(26:45):
I drove to Dallas and showed himthe design that the prototype mold and how
would look when one came out He'slike, this is beautiful, let's let's
move it. So he reached outto Rogue and because it was obviously he's
contracted through Rogue with his rollers.So my rollers are where my roller mold
is now sold on their website asan option for body tempering. Nice cool,
(27:07):
that's really cool. So now youtake that when you pull it out
of the mold, do you sendit at all and then see that how
do you make it super smooth andstuff or so? Concrete will take on
the feel and texture whatever it's upagainst you. If you put concrete on
grass and then you let it hardand you pop it up, it's gonna
feel like grass on the bottom whereit was touching the grass. It really
(27:30):
is good at forming to whatever it'stouching. You just have to vibrate the
side to make all the air bubblescome up off the edges. I purposely
did one really bad and didn't vibrateit at all for the body tempering,
and then just filled it in withfor like a how to video, filled
it in one with a filler andsanded it. And it still felt great
because you're not you're not rubbing itagainst your body, you're rolling it and
(27:51):
letting it set. It's not trulyan abrasion, it's it's setting against you.
So as long as no sharp edges, it feels great. Okay,
yeah, you know, it's justthings that pop up my head. Well,
that was the biggest nays about thatone was like, I'm not going
to put concrete up against my skin. It's gonna be like road rash.
I'm like, well, first ofall, like this is smoother than glass.
The mold is very smooth as ifit's if it's rough as concrete on
(28:12):
the street, you did something wrong. Yeah, but yeah, that was
the That was the biggest naisse controlto the tempering rollers so far, is
that no one's going to want toput concrete up against their skin for massage.
I'm like, well, you tryit first before you knock it.
Yeah. Well that was my favoritething always about getting a brand new,
fresh set of stones is they're alljust perfect and they're smooth, and it's
(28:37):
it's like being on the polished concreteon a polish concrete floor and you just
stick. You put just a smidgeattacking on, you just stick to it
like glue sucking cuts. Yeah,it's just awesome. There's nothing better than
doing like a brand new set ofstones. Once you get attacked, right,
you know, it's oh, it'snice. It's just plus you can
(29:00):
grab the stones only like a halfwaydown. You don't even have to get
underneath them. You just you almostpulling the side of them. Yep,
which is kind of all I haveto do them though you can't reach it
all the way down like I usedto. But hey, whatever works for
sure. So you know, withwith making all the equipment and doing all
(29:21):
these things, you know, yeah, I'm pretty sure you've been invited everywhere.
Yeah, so far, so farI have. I had no real
this entire three year process has beensuch a weird accident dream almost that I
started off just trying to help abackyard Warriors, and then a couple of
(29:44):
the I started, I realized thatI had a much extra time on my
hands because I'm not coaching eighteen hoursa day with eight hundred kids a week,
so I can I can see sunshineand go do things on random days.
And I reached a couple of promotershere in Texas that were making some
strong mad events, say hey,I'll come help load, unload, set
up, and we can talk aboutlike how I could help otherwise to do
that, I'm able to build things. So I got to talk with Robert
(30:08):
Spence and John Lester out of theywere in USS at the time, and
they had a bunch of stuff inthe Dallas and the kind of central Texas
area. So I drive up forthe day, help them build or move
their stuff and reload and and yournext competition, what kind of what are
your events looking like? And wedo a handshake deal. I'll build it
for you and we'll see what itlooks like. And started. That's how
(30:29):
kind of got rolling moving moving equipmentfor people that was customed kind of cool
looking at much more safe then thebackyard duct tape and super cool stuff that
some points of the smaller events mighthave to use because they're not sure how
to make it correctly. And thenwith my background the strong mat, I
know how it should feel, soI practice and use it here and test
it so if it feels weird,I can make it better while I'm here.
(30:51):
So I mean I made I'm makingawards for them for their for their
the competitors and like wooden plaques andand things like that, and then like
the the from from there, asI go to these competitions. I'm I'm
six and a half feet tall,so I'm a large human, so I
can't hide, and then I havethen I have my logo on. Hey,
(31:14):
that's the guy that made that weirdthing I saw six months ago.
He made that thing. Like Isaid, Hey, I have an idea.
Do you think you could make thisand begin this organic almost rolling stone
of handshake and then build it andthen bring it over and then handshake someone
else, build it and bring itto them. And I ended up meeting
game Penya for the first time atStatic Monsters on one of our mutual friends
and one of his his friends andguy he used to train. He had
(31:36):
had died of a of a heartissue and we were doing like a memorial
service at Static Monsters and he Ithink he broke the axle record that day
at some ungodly number because he's he'ssick at deadlift and we were kind of
talking, and that's when Spence hadtold him that I was making the replica
of the Hussefel Stone, and hewas like, Hey, I'm about to
(31:59):
do Beerstone as program he did whereBobby Thompson a couple of other guys went
down to South Texas to do.So that was when I met him and
handshook and brought some stones down therefor his event. And then I met
Brian and Carey Shaw there when hewas doing a meet and greet at the
beer Stone and that became a handshakeand it ended up in Denver. So
like it just it just keeps poppingaround me to end up at the Arnold
(32:19):
because because Gabe had me meet Dionfor for the wagon wheel squat two years
ago for the amateurs that made bigstone wagon wheels that were I think twenty
six inches in diameter and one hundredpounds each. They looked like Marvel,
Yeah those are cool. So Imade those for that. And then while
I'm there kind of chatting with andwith a couple of people, and it
just keeps, it keeps happening towhere I'm saying hi to folks and they're
(32:43):
like, hey, let's let's dosome business. And I'm not going there
for business. I'm there to watchmy stuff not get broken, you know,
but yeah, make sure everything.That's that's the that's the beauty of
doing things that you love to do, you love the sport. It's it's
just and it just comes off andeverything that you do, I mean,
and we're walking up and talking toyou and stuff like that, how excited
(33:05):
you get, your enthusiasm about it, all of it. So it's just
it's neat when you finally get todo what you love to do and you
can make enough money to survive andenjoy life while doing it. For sure,
there's nothing better than doing that.Nothing. That's my main goal is
that of the five events, ifI sponsor one and there's five events,
I want people twenty years from nowshowing their grandkids my event on a picture
(33:28):
like Grandma used to pick up thiscrazy, cool looking thing like that.
That's what I want many years downthe road that my event was one they'll
always remember that they got to do. So that's that's my biggest goal.
Every time I go to a competitionwith with a sponsored event like that's the
cool one is the sticks and stoneone? So yeah, no, absolutely
absolutely, Well right on, thenyou got anything. Well, you know,
(33:51):
hey, we've covered quite a bitin this podcast, and you know,
the one thing I love is thestrong man community because, like I
said, me work getting into thisindustry is more because I come from a
bodybuilding background of like that's what I'mmy first love is and now that I
start to grow into the strong Manlove because like I said, I remember
growing up watching strong Man. Iremember seeing it on Christmas. I remember
(34:14):
watching these crazy events and seeing thesecrazy things. But like the pride that
you must feel from seeing your equipmenthit some of the biggest stages and being
used is like I can only imaginethe feeling that you get of satisfaction out
of the world, like like comingfull circle, because like I said,
(34:35):
you've been doing strength and conditioning,you've been you've been watching your been doing
The strong Man for years, andnow that you see this, it's like
it's just so inspiring because like seeingpeople actually thriving and surviving off of what
they love and what they want todo is just like I said, it
holds a lot of truth that whenyou love, when you love something,
(34:58):
you can actually keep doing it forthe rest of your life, you know.
And sir, like I said,I I love just hearing these scenes,
singing these things. And we've metin person. We were all at
OSG. We had to talk,you know, like, uh, Nick,
there we were. There's so muchback and forth and so much going
on, but like just to seeyou there volunteering, helping, going back
(35:21):
and forth, and a few timesfrom where I was sitting, I could
see you poke your head around thecorner making sure is my equipment? Okay,
they got slammed close to one ofthe guys. Did the math my
My frames got dropped close to onethousand times each over the three day span
from from fitting and testing to measureyour hands and dropping and then the actual
(35:45):
events. It was close to onethousand drops for all four frames. So
that was a nerve wracking for sure. Yeah, and they which is which
is a testament because I mean,if you're turning straw man with your guys,
you probably gonna do that, whatfive to ten times a week?
Yeah, So here here you are, you're looking at that. There's fifty
(36:08):
fifty weeks a year, so that'sfive hundred times in a year. I
mean you're you're looking at years worthof drops, you know, in a
day. Yeah, So that's prettyfive hours it took that event to get
through. I think, yeah,yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah.
I was really excited because I meanthe the Masters Men's OSG was pretty much
(36:34):
going to be a nineteen nineties twothousand's World Strongest Man again, because like
Big C was signed up, Low'swas there, Felix was there, there
gonna be like it was gonna belike real, I mean, Pritchritt was
was signed up early. I'm notsure what happened with his his coming out,
but there was a bunch of namesthat I used to grow up watching
Lyfts. So like I was like, dude, my equipments about to get
touched by all the guys that Igrew up just idolizing. But and and
(36:58):
getting to see Felix carrying my framethat I am again, like you said,
like, I was full of prideto get to see that man,
that the the the immortal mark.Felix carrying my frame that day was was
a big step in my business.So I know that broke my heart.
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
it's like four or something. I'mlike boop. I'm like, oh that
feels nice. Also, your youryour review of my frame made my heart
flutter as well, sir, SoI appreciate the kind words hey well deserved.
I mean it's it's a really reallygood frame, and it's I hope
people look you up and when theyneed one, get one from me.
(37:44):
Because the fact that it's so versatile. I mean, I have a metal
frame here. It's five hundred pounds. So we got to get two people
to get it out, and thenI got to pick it up by myself
and run it through the rocks andthen get it out into the street before
we go train with it. Andit's it's it's not a lot of fun
(38:04):
to move around other than when you'retraining with it, so that you can
move you can move yours around andit's actually you can you know, it's
it's it's movable. It's and otherpeople can do it besides me, you
know, lifting it and putting itaway. I mean, so like me
and a couple of the other guystraining together, we're the only ones that
can put it away. So wehad anybody else with us, they might
(38:28):
be able to pick it up andget a little ways with it, but
not not when we're loading it orunloading it up out of the side of
the house. So it's I likethe design, it's pretty neat. It
breciates it to where you can youhave more ability for more people to train
on it and put it away?That was the whole deal. I got
quoted in a podcast about a yearand a half ago my good buddy Panda,
(38:52):
Christine Matthews got he's got a littlemad at me for saying that the
weight class system and Stroo Man makesit tough on builders and sponsors to have
cool events at the smaller shows.So you have thirteen weight classes and it
needs to be loadable for all thirteen, including novice which has to be light
up to the super heavies, whichcould be a guy that's about to be
like breakout and be the dude.Right. So having that big gamut of
(39:16):
humans and having things have to beloadable, you can't do a lot of
the crazy cool looking World Strongest Manevents on TV like Clash did a great
job with their single sixty four orseventy two like that single weight projects.
That's the way to get those coolobjects that don't have to be loadable.
But having a full gamut of likea USS Nationals with I think sixteen different
(39:38):
weight classes over two full competitions andtwelve lanes, having loadable objects like that
makes it difficult to have a wholebunch of really cool looking and so loaable,
loadable and movable to reset back up. Yeah, because when you're in
a big contest like that, youhave to pick events that not only are
touched to strength, but that areeasy to reset and run again as well.
(40:01):
So this year there's an event thisyear here I think in Georgia.
It's an all sandbag competition. Yeah. Like, if you hate your friends
and volunteers, if you pick fivestraight sandbag events like throws, carries,
pushes, presses, you hate youryour volunteers to do a full day of
(40:22):
sandbag reloads, man, like,good, good for them for doing it.
I would now not I'm not helpingit that competition, you know,
I don't. There's one thing don'tever want to talk about again, and
that's rucksacks. Great piece of equipment, great piece of equipment, good for
training your cellf on, but forfour hundred competitors holding up those chats and
(40:46):
putting on people's backs. M Igladly reset the sleds every time instead of
helping them with those bags. Thatwas a job in itself, Like those
guys were you you and those guyswere sweating your butts off. I remember
that my my hands and my Ihad a like an arm pump and a
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
like what one hundred and thirty hundredand forty pounds one hundred and forty pound
bag. Yeah, yeah, thereis the big I think you get a
guy who's like four hundred pounds thatkicking his arm through, you're just like
trying to get them on. TheThe theory was great that. I think
(41:28):
the buckles and the strap length madeit a little more difficult if they were
long, longer straps to be ableto get out. Even the smaller girls
had trouble getting the buckles up becausethey were so small to get like there
were wider straps and wider and biggerand longer straps and bigger buckles. It
would have made a lot easier forthe d load and the and the reset
and then getting on and strapping itdown. But it will say nothing broke,
(41:51):
Yeah, I think the un setsmade it through. Well. I
think one or two clips kind ofbroke off and were sharp. But I
mean, besides that, they heldup great. There were great pieces of
equipment. It's just those little littletweaks that could happen for future events that
would make them really legitimate for Stromia. No, yeah, it'd be freaking
awesome. It was. It wasfun to watch. I was like,
that's going to make that's going tobe brutal on the carries because now you're
(42:15):
picking up an extra one hundred andforty pounds because it's on your back and
you got to lift it anyway.So when you're lifting a three hundred pounds
sad bag, it's now a fourhundred pounds. I got the nickname bag
Ninja because I was at the theymy lane. I had a Cerberus dropsack
bag that I had to throw underanybody 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
get up, but it was themore when it fell back in their head
snapped. That bag had to bethere justin ka. That was the only
thing we were worried about, isthat one hundred and fifty pounds a weight
pulling them backwards as they're dragging backwards, and if they fell almost no one
could have gotten back up on theirown. So yeah, yeah, there
was a few that turtled, soyeah, I remember. But it does.
(43:00):
But when you get to the dragpart of it, that that bag,
oh man, does it make thedrag nice? Oh? Yeah,
drags leverage for sure. It's Ialmost want to do a truck pull event
one day where you weigh the heaviestguy in the competition and then everybody puts
a vest a weighted vest on thatmakes everybody the exact same body weight as
(43:24):
the heaviest man. No, I'mtall and I'm top heavy. You can't
take that for me. That's myadvantage, right, I think that would
be cool. I got I gotshort arms, I gotta pull dead lift
from the floor just like you.You can't take my advantage. Yeah,
but it's easier for stone the stonesfire. But I just want to see
(43:49):
one truck pull event like that,just to see what would happen. I
think it would be kind of interesting. Actually, even in the body weight
or the leverage structure would be aninteresting way to figure that out. You
can really do the leverage that muchbecause the height of the people, so
I mean just just the evening outfactor of the body weight difference. I
think would be kind of interesting justto see. You're not gonna be able
(44:10):
to change the leverages that much.It's but it would be really kind of
neat to see, you know,if Brian's weighing four fifty that day,
everybody gets to weigh four fifty.But he's not going to step on the
scale, let you know. Anywaysthough, No, but no, not
most of the time. But hehas a few times, and I a
(44:32):
couple of times, you're like fourfifty four. He's like, that's a
big man. But you know,for the rest of the time, I
mean his I think he's done likethree eighty five right now. He trimmed
down a lot for that fight Iheard recently. Didn't did he get canceled?
I believe it's been postponed from whateverman at that stag. You know,
(44:53):
it is what it is. Yeah, stuff is like that's going to
pop up, you know what I'msaying. People are going to get hurt,
strains, and like I said,it's it's all, but I'm pretty
sure it's still not It's still goingto happen. Well, I'm hoping it's
not a hurt or a strain becausethat means that it's one of the four
straw Ma combeditors. Right, well, three there's three straw men and one
(45:15):
that's not a star man. That'sright. But they are an actor and
maybe they're committed to a film,you know, saying well, we're only
speculating here. Oh yeah, Igot or everybody just decided they didn't want
to die when Brian drops an elbowin their head. That's how you get
coloring books for Christmas, that's forsure. Yeah. Oh my god.
I just watching him train, Iwas like I getting kicked by a horse.
(45:38):
Oh. I used to feel prettypretty okay because I, you know,
knowing Frank mir and getting to rollaround with him a little bit and
stuff like that, and knowing somebasic level of jiu jitsu, not great
at it at all, but knowingenough to I was it was like,
He's like, man, if youguys just threw off one of these,
(45:59):
I'll just come roll him up alittle bit. Yeah no, that's out.
That's out now. Watching Brian,I'm just like, yeah, no,
there's dangerous and skilled for fighting.Brian as a scary Brian. Yeah,
I'm just gonna have to stay fasterat running than he is that's it
or you know, yeah, I'mnot gonna shoot him, so I'm just
(46:22):
gonna run from problem is is Cardiois really good, so I might be
able to help sprint him for alittle while. And he's just gonna keep
trucking as I'm catching my breath andI'm post anyway, so tired. I
think the best idea is just needto him, have him not be mad,
most likely, yeah for sure,Yeah, oh yeah, anyway,
(46:45):
Oh yeah, Well, David,promote your website where people can actually reach
you to get your materials. Mywebsite is www dot stix, underscore and
underscore stone dot com. And I'malso and Stone on Instagram as well,
and I'll put all the information andlinks in the notes. I will put
(47:05):
it in the notes. I knowpeople complain, but you know sometimes I
forget too. You forgot sometimes.Well. Nick has a saying, and
it's a saying we all believe inhere. Nick, can you exit us
out with that saying? I can. Well, if you enjoyed this,
please like, share, subscribe,go check out David and subscribe and check
(47:28):
out everything on his website. Andit's always train hard, train smart,
and be the best you can bethank you, thank you, all yours
(47:54):
is the best experience, would best
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