Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me in studio.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Brian Shaw four times the world's strongest man four times,
four times the world's strongest man, and born and bred Colorado,
still lives in Colorado, and we're gonna have an immense
amount of stuff to talk about. And if we got
a little time, Brian might bench press me here in
the studio.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
And by the way before if we get to that,
I have to say.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
That's Mandy's idea, but in any case, we might have
a little fun with that. I've got an immense number
of things to talk to you about, but I just
want to make sure I get at least a couple
of times to the Shaw Classic upcoming because it's just
such a cool event.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's upcoming really soon.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Tell us what people need to know about the Shaw Classic,
and I'll just tell people before Brian gives a description
Theshawclassic dot com for the website. It's up on my blog.
If you forget any of that, you can go to
my website and find it. But tell us about it.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Number one, I really appreciate having me on. This is
really really cool to be able to come on and
promote and you know, do that type of thing and
connect with a different fan base hopefully through the event.
And the event is something we actually started in twenty twenty,
so it's just we flew in the guys, I put
up the prize money, We ran it out of my
actual home gym space, and then it just kind of
(01:13):
has grown from there. So now we're at the Blue
Arena in Loveland, Colorado, and it's grown into an entire
fitness weekend. So we have an expo that's free to
the public. We have a Strongman which is the strongest manager,
so the top sixteen strongman in the world come in
battle it out over two days. Eight events, crazy crazy
weights in that. And then we've brought in this year
(01:34):
arm wrestling, so we have what's called the Strongest arm
on Earth and we're doing a collaborative event with East
versus West, which is the top arm wrestling.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Promotion in the world.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
And then we've got powerlifting, We've got a grip contest,
We've got expo. Like I said, with all the boots,
so a really really cool positive weekend of fitness.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, so dates and how you get tickets.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
So it starts on Friday, August fifteenth, so next Friday,
and that is the expo will go down. All the
arm wrestling happens on the Friday, so the super Match event,
you can get tickets to that, and then on Saturday
and Sunday is the Strongest Man on Earth and then
again tickets for that. But the expo runs Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday, so any of the days are great. But man,
(02:18):
most people come in. We have people fly in from
all the world to watch this, and it's a really
really cool, just positive energy environment for people, and most
people come in and leave super motivated, super inspired. And
I mean that's seeing some of this in person, the
strong Man events in person, there's I've had people come
(02:39):
that didn't know anything about strong Man and they were like, Wow,
I can't believe what I just watched and what just
happened right in front of me.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I'm tempted to bring one of my kids up. I've
never seen one of these competitions. Bring one of my
kids up. Plus I can introduce him to you, yes,
which would be pretty cool. Theshaw Classic dot com to
learn more. I had a question I was going to
ask you later, but you touched on it, so I
wanted to ask you about it now. You actually started
(03:07):
this intentionally during COVID when everybody else was.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Just shutting stuff down. Yes, tell me a little about that.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So I became friends with a number of the guys
that I competed with, and you know, when everything was
shut down, a lot of these guys depend on contest
prize money to make a living and also from sponsorship money,
and all of that was going away. So everybody was
kind of down and depressed, and I, you know, one night,
was just like, all right, I got to try to
(03:34):
do something. I want to do something to help, right,
And so I came in. I woke my wife up,
she was sleeping, and I was like, hey, I got
this crazy idea. Let's just clear I'm going to clear
out all of the equipment out of the gym, my
gym space, and we're going to fly the guys in
all put up the initial prize money, and we'll just
do it. We'll film it, and we'll try to put
it out to people. You know, it's this crazy idea,
(03:55):
and you know, she typically I say crazy things to her,
but she was like, all right, just let me sit
on it for a bit. We'll figure out how we
can get them in. And we just fought through every
obstacle there flew him in. It was just a closed
door event that we had and it was awesome. It
was so so cool that everybody got to watch it
and it was just trying to give back mainly to
(04:17):
the athletes, but then to the fans as well. They
got something to watch and it was such a cool environment,
like you know, it's like this lifting with your friends,
but putting out to the world. And in that time
and then in twenty one we were able to go
more public fans could come in twenty one and it
just grew and it was like the energy was big.
(04:37):
We did that in Esseys Park actually, so the first
one was held in in Brighton at my home gym
and then we actually we have a place up in
SS Part two, so I did the second day in
that gym space. It was just very very cool and
so it's just grown from there. Man, it's like one
of those things to try to get back. And you know,
I said from the start, it's buy the athletes for
(04:58):
the athletes. I competed in strongmen for a very long
time and I saw a lot of the promoters taking
advantage of the athletes. I mean, in strongman there is
no athlete union. There's nobody representing the athletes, and so
I said, hey, there's a lot of things that could
be done better. And eventually you kind of have to
take the bull by the horns and say I'm going
to do it. If somebody's going to do it, I
have to do it. And that's exactly what's happened. So
(05:20):
by the athletes and for the athletes, and you know,
I mean we've grown to the point that actually last
year we gave away the biggest prize money ever in
the sport A Strongmen. Well this is you know, this
is compared to World's Strongest Man that has ran since
the late seventies, and you know has the TV deals
and all that, you know, But for us, it's just
about being generous, giving back and we grow the prize
(05:43):
money by people coming and buying tickets but also watching
the live stream as well.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Love it all, right, It's just just so we get
through a lot of stuff. Give me some shorter.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Answers because this is going to go really fast, beautiful.
Just so people know who I'm talking to, Like physically
i'm looking at you, I'm guessing you're sick ten or
I'm a little bit under six eight yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Okay, And how much do you weigh right right now?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I'm like three eighty five.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay, and is that normal? Fight and wait for you,
is that your kind of target weight?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
So the this is I've actually cut down quite a bit,
so I'm in better shape, which is awesome. But yeah,
a strong man like kind of in the peak of
my crew is like four forty range normally for the
up end would have been like four sixty.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Wow heavy, Yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You don't you don't look you look incredibly fit and
you're almost four hundred pounds almost.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I mean that's kind of how big is your wife?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
She is five to seven okay, so very normal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
One more one more thing, just to sit a context.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So when you do the World's Strongest Man stuff, you're
doing all kinds of things that normal people never do
and can't compare it to something but just with some
kind of weather squat bench clean just give us a
couple numbers that ordinary weightlifters might no be able to
compare with what you do.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Sure, so we've actually tried to make it relatable in
a lot of ways because with strong men, that's what
you need is you.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Need that wow factor, you need that to happen.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And so one of the events, for example, we'll do
this year is a standing chest press. And this is
a lot of people have called it kind of like
a keg garaider. So it's this massive like if you
see it in person. The kegs are all loaded in
this loading mechanism and one keg drops at a time
and then the guys actually stand and press just like
(07:35):
you would bench press. Yeah, so they work up the
top weight there. So the last keg once it's loaded,
will be five hundred and seventy five pounds they have
to finish with.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So it's loaded with liquid.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Then no, no, it's the kegs are the kegs are shells,
so it's you know, they're thirty five pounds. Yeah, but
then it's eight reps, so eight kegs have to fall
down and then you're then you're loading up that way.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
But I mean we've done one.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
You're pushing straight out correct, they're way from your body,
but you're standing in this machine. So that's a cool
one because a lot of people are like, okay, well
bench press, I can bench press havewver much.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Weight in the gym, but you know, the guys getting
up to and we'll have some guys finish that.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
And potentially do reps at five hundred and seventy five pounds.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So that is equivalent to somebody who is lying on
their back in the standard bench press trying to press five.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Understanding, Yeah, it's all weighed exactly, but I means we
do a leg press in the past, not this year,
but we put a car on top of the leg press,
so like we gutted the car out, but it's two
thousand pounds roughly. So I mean some of the weights
this year, we've got the Atlas stones, the round stones,
a lot of people know those, and the strong Man.
(08:42):
The top weight in that is six hundred pounds. So
the guys will be able to lift this year. So
you know, we'll have a super yoke carry we get
built with gun safes on it and they'll they'll pick
that up and carry it. I think the top weight
therroribly about fourteen hundred pounds that they'll have to carry.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
So a lot of big weights. But this is this
is hands down.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I mean, my my biggest goal with this is to
prove who is the strongest man on earth. So the weights,
the weights are real. This is the heaviest strong man
contest in the world. Again, it's the top athletes in
the world sow whoever wins this contest, there's very little
debate that they are. They're they're the top dog.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
First, we're talking with Brian Shaw, four times the World's
Strongest Man and proprietor and host of The Shaw Classic
coming up next week Vshawclassic dot Com.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
So do you do you?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I mean, you've been doing this for a long time
now and you're not like the young gun on the
block anymore. So you might you still be the world's
strongest man? Or do you think is that still possible
for you?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I actually I retired from Strongmen in twenty twenty three,
So I won. I won this contest, the strongest win
on Earth in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Three, not that long ago.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
No, And that was my shot, man, I called it.
I retired.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I competed almost twenty years in Strongmen and it was great.
I wanted to be able to call my own shot
and walk away. So yeah, I'm not when the super
Bowl is a.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Man, that's not bad? Yeah, that's not bad.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So bad? Did you ever invent an event?
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Several of these several of these. One yeah, well, I
mean the car leg press for sure. Yeah, that was
and this this keg chest press that we brought up,
that's another one. You know, there's different twists on some
of the strong men events that I've.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Tried to do. But again, it's like the stones.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
There's four of the stones that it's weight, Trump's reps,
so you get rewarded if you're stronger. So somebody walks out,
for example, loads that six hundred pounds stone, they beat
any competitor that did any reps on the other stones.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So it's it's kind of a strategy type.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Of thing, but uh, you would try to make the
events very fun, very interactive for the athletes but also
for the fans. So it's you know, some of the
strength feeds man with this weekend are going to be ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
When you are competing, how and how much are you eating?
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So that my top end calories were ten to twelve
thousand calories a day and that was typically spread over
six or seven meals throughout. So eating the best way
to say it. When you're when you're eating for strong
minutes a job. It is for sure a job. Every
two to three hours you're sitting down, whether you're hungry
or not, and you're getting that food in. So it's
(11:18):
just fuel. You have to constantly be eating. Uh, and
to get down that much food. The eating for me
was the worst part by far.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Training, everybody's like all the training had to be so hard.
I enjoyed the training, it was fine. It was just
you never got away from the eating. So you wake up,
you eat, Yeah, this thing and then you eat all
the way until you go to bad.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Eating three eggs a day is it exhibit part of it?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Or I would say that the top end eggs, I
was probably close twenty five to thirty a day.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
On the upper end I tried to at certain points.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
I would put him in, but I would say it
kind of a minimum would be like twelve, like a
dozen a day.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Any do you ever get a serious injury?
Speaker 4 (11:57):
The worst the worst that I got was I detached
my my left bicep and that was back in Gosh
twenty twelve around that time. And you know, I mean,
of course I had different injuries. I was pulling a
truck and attached my plan of fascists on the bottom
of my foot. Yeah, that wasn't super fun fun, No,
but I was, I mean, knock on wood. I was
(12:19):
able to stay away from getting big injuries, which I
think really extended my career and allowed me to walk
away now where I'm still healthy and I feel good.
I don't have any shoulder or back problem that's good,
like anything like that, which is great. But I tried
to train spart I tried to recover well, you know,
and listen to my body as I was training.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
So you know, it's it's a brutal sport though.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Man, it's like big bullet weights, and you know, it's
easy to kind of have a little injury lead to
a bigger injury and that type of thing. So you
really need to be on top of taking care of
your body.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We're talking with Brian Shaw.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
His Shaw Classic Weekend is coming up from next Friday,
Saturday Sunday to fifteen, sixteenth, and seventeenth. What's the arena
called in Loveland?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
So it's the Blue Arena, Blue FCU, the Blue FCU
Arena and you can go to Vshawclassic dot com uh
to get tickets.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I think I really may have to go now.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
We got about five or six minutes and I know
I'm this is just like you can probably do this
with your freaking pointer finger, but I think you need
to bench press me.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
And your buddy here.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Your buddy here can get a picture of you bench
pressing me. And we'll go over in front of the
koa wall. And since it's semi professional radio, what we'll
do is we'll have producer Dragon take over the voice
part of the radio, since most of you can't see
me right now except those people in the apartments right
out there.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
So Dragon, you're gonna have to describe what's going what's
going on, and then we'll come back and talk some
more for the next few minutes.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
All right, all right, all.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Right, So it Row steps away from the minad, they
gotta turn on the lights, make sure they get a
good camera image over here.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You're trying to.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Leaving this microphone on so you guys hear everything going
on in the studio.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
But Dragon will do.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
Most of the talking, yep, trying to make sure Okay,
Shaw gets on the ground, trying to find out the
best spot for them to beams're coordinating exactly how Ross
is supposed to position himself so this doesn't injure himself.
Ross is a little bit concerned about his hair that
he had just gotten done. All right, so Ross is
(14:23):
on top of Shaw right now, and sure enough Shaw
with ease cross up again and again, counting four, five, six, seven, eight.
Sean's just having the time of his life here and
Ross is just pay per.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Weight to Shaw. This is that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, I was not not expecting that yet.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
We've got a little bit of a view from the glass.
So that's.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's one hundred and seventy pounds, which is probably lighter
than what you even warm up with when you're doing
your own stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I mean, it wasn't yeah, it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
It's awkward with a human being, right right, You're you're
moving a little bit, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Okay, we got about four minutes left.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Brian, how much of winning this kind of competition.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Is about strategy and not just strength.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
There's definitely a lot of strategy with it, because if
you make make the wrong call, for example, and pick
a weight that you can't lift, you might zero an event,
and with sixteen competitors you drop sixteen points that may
put you out of contention of winning. So strategy, with
how much energy do you put out in each event?
(15:41):
You know what you have to pick up points in
what can you maybe you know, fall down a little bit,
But the rule is really if you want to win,
you need to try to shoot for you know, top
three on every single event. That's kind of a good
place to be because you never drop down. And I'll
tell you what, you can top three in every one
of these events. It's going to be very, very hard
(16:04):
for somebody to beat that performance.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We've got a few listener questions, Yes, do you have
interest in MMA?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I enjoy MMA, and we don't need to necessarily go
into this too much. But I did get like a
wild opportunity to do a fight and I was training
for it and then it all fell apart. So I
was able to learn a lot. I have a lot
of respect for it for sure. How do you protect
your spine? Spine, So what you want to do is
(16:34):
the form needs to be spot on. So this is
something I say to younger kids getting into it, is
don't worry so much about the way that you're lifting.
Make sure that your form is rock solid, so your
foundation is good, and then follow that as well. So
when your form starts to break down, that's when you're done.
Don't push it further than that, and that's a really
good rule of thumb.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
But you learn how to brace, you learn how to.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Stay safe with lifting, and you'll really starts with having
good form.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
A listener wants me to ask a question about you,
but I think it would be an inappropriate question to
ask you about you, So I'm gonna word it differently.
Is their use of and performance enhancing drugs or steroids.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
In this sport?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And and and if you think there is, do you
try to root it out like baseball? Or do you
just assume this is part of it and we're never
gonna catch it, and so we're just gonna whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
It is. Yeah, it's I mean, each each guy.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
It's it's very hard to say one of those things,
like because we we fly the guys in, so we
don't have we don't have the ability to necessarily go
to their home and test them, like you know some
of the protocols with maybe the UFC and that type
of thing, where you would be going to their home
to test them. So we're bringing them in for one weekend.
We do one contest a year, so that's not something
we really have have the ability to do.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And also the like financially guess as to whether it's
prevalent in man, it's I mean, it's one of those
things that it could be.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
It could be for sure, you know, and and it's
it's one of those things like the guys don't really
we don't necessarily ask them about it, and it's not.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Really and you don't worry about it either particularly. I mean,
do you think it's as much an advantage in your
sport as they think it might be in Tour de
France and baseball hitting home runs?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
It's certainly I think could be, could be an advantage.
It's one of those things that, like you know, it
depends on where where the competitor individually lies. I think
that's what comes down to. I think I think in
an ideal world, what what you know, everybody wants, athletes, fans,
et cetera, would be for it to be a level
playing field across the board.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
And so you know, I think when you see guys,
and you'll see a lot of them that perform well
consistently well, they're they're training hard, they're working hard, and
if they're consistently performing over a number of years, that's
a pretty good indicator that that you know, they're probably
not relying on that to help them, you know, so
(19:08):
you know, it's it's it's one of those things that
I think, you know, I think again, at the end
of the day, you want it to be a level
playing field, right, and and that's that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Because the fans won't like it as much if they
think it's corrupted as well.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
All right, we're out of time, so.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I would like to just give you the last few
seconds to remind people about the show a classic.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah, well, look, this is an event that we brought
to Colorado, and you know, local support is huge, and
it's one of those things like with me being from Colorado,
born and raised here, it's neat to have the community
support and that for them to come out and to
have an event like this.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
For for people to come out.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
In experience and again even if they only come to
the expo for free and just check it out kind
of see what it's all about. You know, obviously being
it there's nothing like being an arena for that contest
and seeing these things happen in person. It's unreal and
and you know, even people that don't follows Strongman, maybe
super close. It's a great way to come out and
have a good, good time. And there's so many people
(20:06):
that have said, hey, I've been to a super Bowl,
I've been to a football game, and it's like the
energy in that arena.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
They said, it's not even comparable. It's so cool.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So someone's gonna pick one day, and they don't know
anything about this sport, which day should.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Be a man of life? Well, if you like arm wrestling,
it's Friday. If you like Strongman, Saturday or Sunday or Sunday.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, all right, folks.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Theshaw Classic dot com. The event is at the Blue
FCU Arena in Loveland, next not this next Friday, Saturday
and Sunday, August fifteenth to seventeenth. The Shawclassic dot Com.
I'm gonna try to get up there. Great to meet
you in person, Thanks for doing this, coming to the studio,
(20:48):
Thanks for bench pressing me with one finger.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Great to meet you.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Thank you. I really really appreciate it.
Joining me in studio.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Brian Shaw four times the world's strongest man four times,
four times the world's strongest man, and born and bred Colorado,
still lives in Colorado, and we're gonna have an immense
amount of stuff to talk about. And if we got
a little time, Brian might bench press me here in
the studio.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
And by the way before if we get to that,
I have to say.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
That's Mandy's idea, but in any case, we might have
a little fun with that. I've got an immense number
of things to talk to you about, but I just
want to make sure I get at least a couple
of times to the Shaw Classic upcoming because it's just
such a cool event.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's upcoming really soon.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Tell us what people need to know about the Shaw Classic,
and I'll just tell people before Brian gives a description
Theshawclassic dot com for the website. It's up on my blog.
If you forget any of that, you can go to
my website and find it. But tell us about it.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Number one, I really appreciate having me on. This is
really really cool to be able to come on and
promote and you know, do that type of thing and
connect with a different fan base hopefully through the event.
And the event is something we actually started in twenty twenty,
so it's just we flew in the guys, I put
up the prize money, We ran it out of my
actual home gym space, and then it just kind of
(01:13):
has grown from there. So now we're at the Blue
Arena in Loveland, Colorado, and it's grown into an entire
fitness weekend. So we have an expo that's free to
the public. We have a Strongman which is the strongest manager,
so the top sixteen strongman in the world come in
battle it out over two days. Eight events, crazy crazy
weights in that. And then we've brought in this year
(01:34):
arm wrestling, so we have what's called the Strongest arm
on Earth and we're doing a collaborative event with East
versus West, which is the top arm wrestling.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Promotion in the world.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
And then we've got powerlifting, We've got a grip contest,
We've got expo. Like I said, with all the boots,
so a really really cool positive weekend of fitness.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Okay, so dates and how you get tickets.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
So it starts on Friday, August fifteenth, so next Friday,
and that is the expo will go down. All the
arm wrestling happens on the Friday, so the super Match event,
you can get tickets to that, and then on Saturday
and Sunday is the Strongest Man on Earth and then
again tickets for that. But the expo runs Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday, so any of the days are great. But man,
(02:18):
most people come in. We have people fly in from
all the world to watch this, and it's a really
really cool, just positive energy environment for people, and most
people come in and leave super motivated, super inspired. And
I mean that's seeing some of this in person, the
strong Man events in person, there's I've had people come
(02:39):
that didn't know anything about strong Man and they were like, Wow,
I can't believe what I just watched and what just
happened right in front of me.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I'm tempted to bring one of my kids up. I've
never seen one of these competitions. Bring one of my
kids up. Plus I can introduce him to you, yes,
which would be pretty cool. Theshaw Classic dot com to
learn more. I had a question I was going to
ask you later, but you touched on it, so I
wanted to ask you about it now. You actually started
(03:07):
this intentionally during COVID when everybody else was.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Just shutting stuff down. Yes, tell me a little about that.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So I became friends with a number of the guys
that I competed with, and you know, when everything was
shut down, a lot of these guys depend on contest
prize money to make a living and also from sponsorship money,
and all of that was going away. So everybody was
kind of down and depressed, and I, you know, one night,
was just like, all right, I got to try to
(03:34):
do something. I want to do something to help, right,
And so I came in. I woke my wife up,
she was sleeping, and I was like, hey, I got
this crazy idea. Let's just clear I'm going to clear
out all of the equipment out of the gym, my
gym space, and we're going to fly the guys in
all put up the initial prize money, and we'll just
do it. We'll film it, and we'll try to put
it out to people. You know, it's this crazy idea,
(03:55):
and you know, she typically I say crazy things to her,
but she was like, all right, just let me sit
on it for a bit. We'll figure out how we
can get them in. And we just fought through every
obstacle there flew him in. It was just a closed
door event that we had and it was awesome. It
was so so cool that everybody got to watch it
and it was just trying to give back mainly to
(04:17):
the athletes, but then to the fans as well. They
got something to watch and it was such a cool environment,
like you know, it's like this lifting with your friends,
but putting out to the world. And in that time
and then in twenty one we were able to go
more public fans could come in twenty one and it
just grew and it was like the energy was big.
(04:37):
We did that in Esseys Park actually, so the first
one was held in in Brighton at my home gym
and then we actually we have a place up in
SS Part two, so I did the second day in
that gym space. It was just very very cool and
so it's just grown from there. Man, it's like one
of those things to try to get back. And you know,
I said from the start, it's buy the athletes for
(04:58):
the athletes. I competed in strongmen for a very long
time and I saw a lot of the promoters taking
advantage of the athletes. I mean, in strongman there is
no athlete union. There's nobody representing the athletes, and so
I said, hey, there's a lot of things that could
be done better. And eventually you kind of have to
take the bull by the horns and say I'm going
to do it. If somebody's going to do it, I
have to do it. And that's exactly what's happened. So
(05:20):
by the athletes and for the athletes, and you know,
I mean we've grown to the point that actually last
year we gave away the biggest prize money ever in
the sport A Strongmen. Well this is you know, this
is compared to World's Strongest Man that has ran since
the late seventies, and you know has the TV deals
and all that, you know, But for us, it's just
about being generous, giving back and we grow the prize
(05:43):
money by people coming and buying tickets but also watching
the live stream as well.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Love it all, right, It's just just so we get
through a lot of stuff. Give me some shorter.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Answers because this is going to go really fast, beautiful.
Just so people know who I'm talking to, Like physically
i'm looking at you, I'm guessing you're sick ten or
I'm a little bit under six eight yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Okay, And how much do you weigh right right now?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I'm like three eighty five.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Okay, and is that normal? Fight and wait for you,
is that your kind of target weight?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
So the this is I've actually cut down quite a bit,
so I'm in better shape, which is awesome. But yeah,
a strong man like kind of in the peak of
my crew is like four forty range normally for the
up end would have been like four sixty.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Wow heavy, Yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
You don't you don't look you look incredibly fit and
you're almost four hundred pounds almost.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I mean that's kind of how big is your wife?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
She is five to seven okay, so very normal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
One more one more thing, just to sit a context.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So when you do the World's Strongest Man stuff, you're
doing all kinds of things that normal people never do
and can't compare it to something but just with some
kind of weather squat bench clean just give us a
couple numbers that ordinary weightlifters might no be able to
compare with what you do.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Sure, so we've actually tried to make it relatable in
a lot of ways because with strong men, that's what
you need is you.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Need that wow factor, you need that to happen.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And so one of the events, for example, we'll do
this year is a standing chest press. And this is
a lot of people have called it kind of like
a keg garaider. So it's this massive like if you
see it in person. The kegs are all loaded in
this loading mechanism and one keg drops at a time
and then the guys actually stand and press just like
(07:35):
you would bench press. Yeah, so they work up the
top weight there. So the last keg once it's loaded,
will be five hundred and seventy five pounds they have
to finish with.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So it's loaded with liquid.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Then no, no, it's the kegs are the kegs are shells,
so it's you know, they're thirty five pounds. Yeah, but
then it's eight reps, so eight kegs have to fall
down and then you're then you're loading up that way.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
But I mean we've done one.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
You're pushing straight out correct, they're way from your body,
but you're standing in this machine. So that's a cool
one because a lot of people are like, okay, well
bench press, I can bench press havewver much.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Weight in the gym, but you know, the guys getting
up to and we'll have some guys finish that.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
And potentially do reps at five hundred and seventy five pounds.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So that is equivalent to somebody who is lying on
their back in the standard bench press trying to press five.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Understanding, Yeah, it's all weighed exactly, but I means we
do a leg press in the past, not this year,
but we put a car on top of the leg press,
so like we gutted the car out, but it's two
thousand pounds roughly. So I mean some of the weights
this year, we've got the Atlas stones, the round stones,
a lot of people know those, and the strong Man.
(08:42):
The top weight in that is six hundred pounds. So
the guys will be able to lift this year. So
you know, we'll have a super yoke carry we get
built with gun safes on it and they'll they'll pick
that up and carry it. I think the top weight
therroribly about fourteen hundred pounds that they'll have to carry.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
So a lot of big weights. But this is this
is hands down.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I mean, my my biggest goal with this is to
prove who is the strongest man on earth. So the weights,
the weights are real. This is the heaviest strong man
contest in the world. Again, it's the top athletes in
the world sow whoever wins this contest, there's very little
debate that they are. They're they're the top dog.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
First, we're talking with Brian Shaw, four times the World's
Strongest Man and proprietor and host of The Shaw Classic
coming up next week Vshawclassic dot Com.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
So do you do you?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I mean, you've been doing this for a long time
now and you're not like the young gun on the
block anymore. So you might you still be the world's
strongest man? Or do you think is that still possible
for you?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So?
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I actually I retired from Strongmen in twenty twenty three,
So I won. I won this contest, the strongest win
on Earth in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Three, not that long ago.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
No, And that was my shot, man, I called it.
I retired.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I competed almost twenty years in Strongmen and it was great.
I wanted to be able to call my own shot
and walk away. So yeah, I'm not when the super
Bowl is a.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Man, that's not bad? Yeah, that's not bad.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So bad? Did you ever invent an event?
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Several of these several of these. One yeah, well, I
mean the car leg press for sure. Yeah, that was
and this this keg chest press that we brought up,
that's another one. You know, there's different twists on some
of the strong men events that I've.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Tried to do. But again, it's like the stones.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
There's four of the stones that it's weight, Trump's reps,
so you get rewarded if you're stronger. So somebody walks out,
for example, loads that six hundred pounds stone, they beat
any competitor that did any reps on the other stones.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So it's it's kind of a strategy type.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Of thing, but uh, you would try to make the
events very fun, very interactive for the athletes but also
for the fans. So it's you know, some of the
strength feeds man with this weekend are going to be ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
When you are competing, how and how much are you eating?
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So that my top end calories were ten to twelve
thousand calories a day and that was typically spread over
six or seven meals throughout. So eating the best way
to say it. When you're when you're eating for strong
minutes a job. It is for sure a job. Every
two to three hours you're sitting down, whether you're hungry
or not, and you're getting that food in. So it's
(11:18):
just fuel. You have to constantly be eating. Uh, and
to get down that much food. The eating for me
was the worst part by far.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Training, everybody's like all the training had to be so hard.
I enjoyed the training, it was fine. It was just
you never got away from the eating. So you wake up,
you eat, Yeah, this thing and then you eat all
the way until you go to bad.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Eating three eggs a day is it exhibit part of it?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Or I would say that the top end eggs, I
was probably close twenty five to thirty a day.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
On the upper end I tried to at certain points.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
I would put him in, but I would say it
kind of a minimum would be like twelve, like a
dozen a day.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Any do you ever get a serious injury?
Speaker 4 (11:57):
The worst the worst that I got was I detached
my my left bicep and that was back in Gosh
twenty twelve around that time. And you know, I mean,
of course I had different injuries. I was pulling a
truck and attached my plan of fascists on the bottom
of my foot. Yeah, that wasn't super fun fun, No,
but I was, I mean, knock on wood. I was
(12:19):
able to stay away from getting big injuries, which I
think really extended my career and allowed me to walk
away now where I'm still healthy and I feel good.
I don't have any shoulder or back problem that's good,
like anything like that, which is great. But I tried
to train spart I tried to recover well, you know,
and listen to my body as I was training.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
So you know, it's it's a brutal sport though.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Man, it's like big bullet weights, and you know, it's
easy to kind of have a little injury lead to
a bigger injury and that type of thing. So you
really need to be on top of taking care of
your body.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We're talking with Brian Shaw.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
His Shaw Classic Weekend is coming up from next Friday,
Saturday Sunday to fifteen, sixteenth, and seventeenth. What's the arena
called in Loveland?
Speaker 4 (13:03):
So it's the Blue Arena, Blue FCU, the Blue FCU
Arena and you can go to Vshawclassic dot com uh
to get tickets.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I think I really may have to go now.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
We got about five or six minutes and I know
I'm this is just like you can probably do this
with your freaking pointer finger, but I think you need
to bench press me.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
And your buddy here.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Your buddy here can get a picture of you bench
pressing me. And we'll go over in front of the
koa wall. And since it's semi professional radio, what we'll
do is we'll have producer Dragon take over the voice
part of the radio, since most of you can't see
me right now except those people in the apartments right
out there.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
So Dragon, you're gonna have to describe what's going what's
going on, and then we'll come back and talk some
more for the next few minutes.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
All right, all right, all.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Right, So it Row steps away from the minad, they
gotta turn on the lights, make sure they get a
good camera image over here.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You're trying to.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Leaving this microphone on so you guys hear everything going
on in the studio.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
But Dragon will do.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
Most of the talking, yep, trying to make sure Okay,
Shaw gets on the ground, trying to find out the
best spot for them to beams're coordinating exactly how Ross
is supposed to position himself so this doesn't injure himself.
Ross is a little bit concerned about his hair that
he had just gotten done. All right, so Ross is
(14:23):
on top of Shaw right now, and sure enough Shaw
with ease cross up again and again, counting four, five, six, seven, eight.
Sean's just having the time of his life here and
Ross is just pay per.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Weight to Shaw. This is that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, I was not not expecting that yet.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
We've got a little bit of a view from the glass.
So that's.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's one hundred and seventy pounds, which is probably lighter
than what you even warm up with when you're doing
your own stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I mean, it wasn't yeah, it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
It's awkward with a human being, right right, You're you're
moving a little bit, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Okay, we got about four minutes left.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Brian, how much of winning this kind of competition.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Is about strategy and not just strength.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
There's definitely a lot of strategy with it, because if
you make make the wrong call, for example, and pick
a weight that you can't lift, you might zero an event,
and with sixteen competitors you drop sixteen points that may
put you out of contention of winning. So strategy, with
how much energy do you put out in each event?
(15:41):
You know what you have to pick up points in
what can you maybe you know, fall down a little bit,
But the rule is really if you want to win,
you need to try to shoot for you know, top
three on every single event. That's kind of a good
place to be because you never drop down. And I'll
tell you what, you can top three in every one
of these events. It's going to be very, very hard
(16:04):
for somebody to beat that performance.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We've got a few listener questions, Yes, do you have
interest in MMA?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I enjoy MMA, and we don't need to necessarily go
into this too much. But I did get like a
wild opportunity to do a fight and I was training
for it and then it all fell apart. So I
was able to learn a lot. I have a lot
of respect for it for sure. How do you protect
your spine? Spine, So what you want to do is
(16:34):
the form needs to be spot on. So this is
something I say to younger kids getting into it, is
don't worry so much about the way that you're lifting.
Make sure that your form is rock solid, so your
foundation is good, and then follow that as well. So
when your form starts to break down, that's when you're done.
Don't push it further than that, and that's a really
good rule of thumb.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
But you learn how to brace, you learn how to.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Stay safe with lifting, and you'll really starts with having
good form.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
A listener wants me to ask a question about you,
but I think it would be an inappropriate question to
ask you about you, So I'm gonna word it differently.
Is their use of and performance enhancing drugs or steroids.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
In this sport?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And and and if you think there is, do you
try to root it out like baseball? Or do you
just assume this is part of it and we're never
gonna catch it, and so we're just gonna whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
It is. Yeah, it's I mean, each each guy.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
It's it's very hard to say one of those things,
like because we we fly the guys in, so we
don't have we don't have the ability to necessarily go
to their home and test them, like you know some
of the protocols with maybe the UFC and that type
of thing, where you would be going to their home
to test them. So we're bringing them in for one weekend.
We do one contest a year, so that's not something
we really have have the ability to do.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And also the like financially guess as to whether it's
prevalent in man, it's I mean, it's one of those
things that it could be.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
It could be for sure, you know, and and it's
it's one of those things like the guys don't really
we don't necessarily ask them about it, and it's not.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Really and you don't worry about it either particularly. I mean,
do you think it's as much an advantage in your
sport as they think it might be in Tour de
France and baseball hitting home runs?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
It's certainly I think could be, could be an advantage.
It's one of those things that, like you know, it
depends on where where the competitor individually lies. I think
that's what comes down to. I think I think in
an ideal world, what what you know, everybody wants, athletes, fans,
et cetera, would be for it to be a level
playing field across the board.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
And so you know, I think when you see guys,
and you'll see a lot of them that perform well
consistently well, they're they're training hard, they're working hard, and
if they're consistently performing over a number of years, that's
a pretty good indicator that that you know, they're probably
not relying on that to help them, you know, so
(19:08):
you know, it's it's it's one of those things that
I think, you know, I think again, at the end
of the day, you want it to be a level
playing field, right, and and that's that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Because the fans won't like it as much if they
think it's corrupted as well.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
All right, we're out of time, so.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I would like to just give you the last few
seconds to remind people about the show a classic.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah, well, look, this is an event that we brought
to Colorado, and you know, local support is huge, and
it's one of those things like with me being from Colorado,
born and raised here, it's neat to have the community
support and that for them to come out and to
have an event like this.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
For for people to come out.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
In experience and again even if they only come to
the expo for free and just check it out kind
of see what it's all about. You know, obviously being
it there's nothing like being an arena for that contest
and seeing these things happen in person. It's unreal and
and you know, even people that don't follows Strongman, maybe
super close. It's a great way to come out and
have a good, good time. And there's so many people
(20:06):
that have said, hey, I've been to a super Bowl,
I've been to a football game, and it's like the
energy in that arena.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
They said, it's not even comparable. It's so cool.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
So someone's gonna pick one day, and they don't know
anything about this sport, which day should.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Be a man of life? Well, if you like arm wrestling,
it's Friday. If you like Strongman, Saturday or Sunday or Sunday.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, all right, folks.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Theshaw Classic dot com. The event is at the Blue
FCU Arena in Loveland, next not this next Friday, Saturday
and Sunday, August fifteenth to seventeenth. The Shawclassic dot Com.
I'm gonna try to get up there. Great to meet
you in person, Thanks for doing this, coming to the studio,
(20:48):
Thanks for bench pressing me with one finger.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Great to meet you.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Thank you. I really really appreciate it.
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