Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another installment in the podcast.
Speaker 1: Craig Anthony Happer, Luke. What's your middle name? Mate? What's
Speaker 1: your middle name?
Speaker 2: William Luke, William.
Speaker 1: Reynolds, Craig, Anthony Harp of the You Project. No, Tiffany
Speaker 1: and Cook, just us two alpha males. And it's not
Speaker 1: often I feel like a beta male or the lower,
Speaker 1: the much lower primate. But today I feel like that
Speaker 1: because he's all fucking man. Thanks for coming on the show, mate.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
Speaker 3: No, thanks for having me on, Craigs. It's really good
Speaker 3: to sort of e meet you, I guess, and have
Speaker 3: a bit of a chat Andy, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, now the way that we met is basically through
Speaker 1: social media, which is not uncommon these days. But you
Speaker 1: follow me, I follow you. You have a look at
Speaker 1: my stuff. I have a look at your stuff, and
Speaker 1: I went bibby bobbedy boo. I often jump in profiles
Speaker 1: and have a look at who's commenting or liking or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I had a look at yours. I went, he's
Speaker 1: an interesting cat. So can you just rather than me
Speaker 1: read something that's going to bore people, just give my audience.
Speaker 1: It's kind of about ninety countries too, so a lot
Speaker 1: of mostly Australia, but also quite a lot of international
Speaker 1: listeners as well. So give us a snapshot of what
Speaker 1: you do and who you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, everybody, I'm good to be on here. I'm
Speaker 3: With Reynolds, Australian, thirty nine years old. I'm a professional
Speaker 3: strongman competitor, professional armlifter, professional highland games athlete. I'm also
Speaker 3: an actor and I was a coach. I don't do
Speaker 3: much coaching anymore in the strength side of things, and
Speaker 3: I also have a regular day job as well on
Speaker 3: top of all of that. So I've done a fair
Speaker 3: bit of media stuff over the years as well, a
Speaker 3: lot of commentary, life commentary of strong man events, MC work.
Speaker 3: I quite enjoy the media side now now that I'm
Speaker 3: sort of late in my career. Yeah, I've been in
Speaker 3: the strong man scene for seventeen almost eighteen years now,
Speaker 3: been all around the world with it, and yeah, that's
Speaker 3: pretty much where I'm at.
Speaker 1: A lot of guys, like in a lot of sports
Speaker 1: thirty nine, you know AFL, you'd be out the gate,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of fights ten years out the gate,
Speaker 1: but in strength events mate, that's not always like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of dudes give or take, who are late thirties,
Speaker 1: early forties, and some even beyond that who have been
Speaker 1: very very competitive at a high level well into their forties.
Speaker 4: Right, so it's not even fifties. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So Now if you were a lady, I wouldn't ask this,
Speaker 1: but fuck it, what do you dimension, Sunshine?
Speaker 4: What are you?
Speaker 1: How tall are you? And what are your.
Speaker 2: Weigh These days?
Speaker 3: I'm in my lightweight era, I guess if you like,
Speaker 3: because I'm doing more of the arm lifting stuff, so
Speaker 3: it's more grip strength related. It's not so much full
Speaker 3: blown pro strong man anymore. I don't need to be
Speaker 3: as big, but I'm six or seven and I like
Speaker 3: to sit around one fifty so kg or that's what's
Speaker 3: that about? Three thirty pounds for the.
Speaker 1: Yeah three so yeah for our American listeners, three thirty
Speaker 1: for our British listeners, it's like twenty five stone or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all the people who use normal weight one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty kicks. What were you at your biggest?
Speaker 3: So probably around late twenty nineteen. I was doing a
Speaker 3: lot of the Arnold World Series. I was sitting obviously
Speaker 3: same height six seven. I got up to around one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy three kg. I never quite cracked the
Speaker 3: sort of one eighty four hundred pound thing, but I
Speaker 3: didn't need to either. A there's sort of a happy Meetingum,
Speaker 3: we have to strike with strongmen where depending on your height,
Speaker 3: of course, you don't want to blow out too much.
Speaker 3: You want to the bigger you get, you can potentially
Speaker 3: get stronger of course with more muscle mass, but then
Speaker 3: there's a tradeoff in strongmen where you can with some
Speaker 3: of your athleticism and ability to move which is a
Speaker 3: big part of our sport as well. It's not just powerlifting.
Speaker 3: We've got to do your static lifts. You've also got
Speaker 3: to have the capacity to still move and breathe a bit.
Speaker 3: So getting too big can be a can be a
Speaker 3: hindrance to that. So it depends.
Speaker 1: Yeah. As an ex SISE scientist, I watch you guys
Speaker 1: do the stuff that you do, and I remember years ago, mate,
Speaker 1: when you were fucking not you would have been just around.
Speaker 1: But years ago I used to watch the wide world
Speaker 1: of sports, the strong man right, which is you know,
Speaker 1: but when I was a kid watching like some of
Speaker 1: these Swedish dudes and some of these fucking vikings, right,
Speaker 1: which you probably still compete against. And I just you know,
Speaker 1: as a kid, to me, they were like superheroes. Especially
Speaker 1: picking up the balls. Ye fucking hell, the Atlas stones,
Speaker 1: that just seems that just seems uncomfortable, unnecessary, but also
Speaker 1: awesome at the same time, because like you can't not
Speaker 1: only do you have this ridiculous weight, there's no fucking handle.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be harder to pick up, you know how
Speaker 1: heavy are those Atlas stones.
Speaker 3: It's funny you mentioned the Wide World of Sports stuff
Speaker 3: with the strong Man because the strong Man World Series
Speaker 3: it used to be done here, that was on the
Speaker 3: Wide Water Sports in the nineties. Actually, David Harsley Craig
Speaker 3: read Derek Boyer. Those guys were early strong Men legends
Speaker 3: in Australia. They're actually good friends and mentors of mine.
Speaker 3: So they're the guys that helped me sort of come
Speaker 3: into the sport. They were at the end of their
Speaker 3: careers and I was at the very start of mine,
Speaker 3: and I got my start with a lot of those guys,
Speaker 3: obviously well into the two thousands. I kicked off in
Speaker 3: about two thousand and eight. But yeah, it has a
Speaker 3: long longer history here than I think people realize. When
Speaker 3: it comes to the outlets stones, they're the iconic strongman movement.
Speaker 3: I guess it's very unique to our sport. So back
Speaker 3: when you were watching, they probably topped out about aundred
Speaker 3: and sixty kg starting around ninety two one hundred, and
Speaker 3: then incrementally get heavier, usually sets of five or six stones.
Speaker 2: These days, the sets you'd see it.
Speaker 3: Like a Giant's live event or a World's Strongest Man
Speaker 3: or even Australia Strongest Man. You'll see them go up
Speaker 3: to two hundred kilos in a series or a little
Speaker 3: more when it comes down to max stone lifting. When
Speaker 3: you're just you know you're chasing large singles. I was
Speaker 3: the first in Australia with along with my friend Jordan Stephens,
Speaker 3: we were the first in Australia go over two hundred kilos.
Speaker 3: We held the record for some time, but the world
Speaker 3: record now sits with Tom Staltman at two hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty four kilos for a single stone.
Speaker 1: Which it's that's over six hundred pounds right.
Speaker 3: It is, Yeah, six hundred and two seventy two and
Speaker 3: he's sitting at two eighty four. It actually blows my mind.
Speaker 3: I've been around the sport and I've seen these guys
Speaker 3: come through. I've competed with most of those top guys
Speaker 3: internationally and here, and it even blows my mind to
Speaker 3: think that those are the kinds of numbers we're at
Speaker 3: these days Stonelift, and it's just absolutely astronomical.
Speaker 1: It is. I mean, like I think one of the like,
Speaker 1: I'm loving this conversation and I've selfishly wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to you just because I'm fucking you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: geek with all this stuff. I've spent my life training athletes.
Speaker 1: I've spent my life lifting weights. I'm not genetically gifted
Speaker 1: like you. I'm just an old fucking idiot. But but
Speaker 1: you know, obviously I'm fascinated with strength and power and
Speaker 1: athleticism and speed and agility and high performance. I've been
Speaker 1: around it my whole life, right, But it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: to you know. I even struggle to sometimes when I'm
Speaker 1: talking about a concept as a podcaster, Luke, I'm always
Speaker 1: aware of my audience and explaining not that they're my
Speaker 1: audience are not highly intelligent. They are, but everybody knows
Speaker 1: more or less about different topics, right, So if I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the brain or the mind, or human behavior
Speaker 1: or excise physiology or you go, okay, So there will
Speaker 1: be a percentage of people who understand, you know, the like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck lifting a six hundred and something pound
Speaker 1: round ball off the ground means, But most people won't.
Speaker 1: You can't really get that in perspective, you know.
Speaker 3: But it's a hard thing to quantify for the average
Speaker 3: person if they've not lifted a stone. Like once you
Speaker 3: get to say eighty kilos on a stone, your average
Speaker 3: drops out of the conversation and to lift it and
Speaker 3: then you know, other than the diameter of the stone
Speaker 3: itself will actually increase, but even that stops at around
Speaker 3: twenty three to twenty four inches, even at the biggest stones,
Speaker 3: because they'll be made with the lead core insteads because
Speaker 3: you can't just keep exponentially going wider and it just
Speaker 3: increases signifficultly. It would be impossible you'd be up out
Speaker 3: of thirty inch stone. Then not even Tom Stone we
Speaker 3: can get his arms around. But yeah, it is a
Speaker 3: hard thing to quantify for people because even in a gym,
Speaker 3: people have lifted a bar with weights on it in
Speaker 3: a say deadlift situation, and you can see there's lots
Speaker 3: of plates on there, and you can see what two
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty kilos would look like for those at home.
Speaker 3: If you use in twenty kilo plates had to be
Speaker 3: six plates aside and then a ten on each and
Speaker 3: that's two hundred and eighty kilos and that's probably beyond
Speaker 3: the reach of most people. You know, we're talking one
Speaker 3: percent of the world may ever lift that or less.
Speaker 3: And you think that that's in a concrete in a
Speaker 3: concrete ball is just yeah, like you said, with no handholds,
Speaker 3: a little bit of tacky which is like a pine residence,
Speaker 3: quite sticky on your arms. But even that is fallible
Speaker 3: and you saw it file the other day in the
Speaker 3: Shore Classic. For a lot of the guys, it's not guarantee,
Speaker 3: so you can have equipment failures there. But yeah, to
Speaker 3: quantify that, it's it's really it's insane to think about.
Speaker 3: You know, we've got guys in New so sorry, in
Speaker 3: Australia and New Zealand doing two hundred and fifty kilos stones.
Speaker 3: Now they've left us for dead. Us old guys that
Speaker 3: have sort of that kicked it off, cracked it over
Speaker 3: two hundred set in the records and then they've been
Speaker 3: left for dead, and which is perfect because that's exactly
Speaker 3: what the next gen ration through should do. They stand
Speaker 3: on our shoulders and we stand on the ones before us,
Speaker 3: and then they take it further and they push push
Speaker 3: the limits. But we've even got females in this country
Speaker 3: and around the world that are doing over one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty kilo stones. I mean, the world record is
Speaker 3: held by Nicole Jenrich, which was Austray strongest woman. She
Speaker 3: holds the world record forratless stones at one hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty kilos or thereabouts. Now, so we're talking numbers that
Speaker 3: guys were barely doing twenty five years ago in strong
Speaker 3: men on stones and now being lifted consistently by females.
Speaker 3: It's just crazy. That's grown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing good and so so many questions. All right,
Speaker 1: so just explain to people. They people who have never
Speaker 1: seen this, so they pick pick it up off the ground.
Speaker 1: So the balls on the ground, everybody, or the stone,
Speaker 1: let's just call it a ball because it's easy to
Speaker 1: it's a fucking concrete And what's in the middle of
Speaker 1: the heavy ones? Did you say lead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the original stones were carved from sandstone, right,
Speaker 3: and some of the sets here in Australia, the ones
Speaker 3: to watch on white water sports, they were sandstone carved
Speaker 3: in the here in your South Wales. But the modern
Speaker 3: ones are made generally out of concrete and they'll put
Speaker 3: lead and things inside them to make them denser, of course,
Speaker 3: so that you don't have to go too big for them.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you're talking like a beach ball sized stone
Speaker 3: on the ground.
Speaker 1: Yep, do you know what I'm loving right now? This
Speaker 1: is going to embarrass you and make you feel weird.
Speaker 1: But when you do podcasts, Louke, Hey, everybody, don't listen
Speaker 1: for a moment when you do podcasts with someone you've
Speaker 1: never met and never known, and I really I try
Speaker 1: to do other than I've known a bit about you
Speaker 1: through your like I've never heard you interviewed. I've never
Speaker 1: you know, I watched a quick blurb on the Rock
Speaker 1: and I saw you in that momentarily the Young Rock,
Speaker 1: which will chat about what I love is You're such
Speaker 1: a fucking good communicator. It makes my job so easy
Speaker 1: because sometimes you get people who are really good at something,
Speaker 1: but they're not very good on a podcast, So thank
Speaker 1: you for being good. All right, So when people pick
Speaker 1: those fucking things up off the just explain to my
Speaker 1: listeners where do they put it then, Like, they don't
Speaker 1: just pick it up and drop it back on the ground.
Speaker 1: They've got to put it up on I guess for
Speaker 1: one of a better term like a platform.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what happens the technique you typically would use.
Speaker 3: So there's two main ways you would lift an Atlas stone.
Speaker 3: There's one motion in where you would scoop it from
Speaker 3: the ground. So reach down between your legs, you sort
Speaker 3: of straddle the stone if you like, reach down between
Speaker 3: your legs around the hemisphere, and then you would lift
Speaker 3: it as you come up past your hips. It's against
Speaker 3: your chest and you would sort of extend through almost
Speaker 3: like an Olympic if you do, like a triple extension.
Speaker 3: And then you would load it, say onto a barrel
Speaker 3: or a platform or over a bar. Those are your
Speaker 3: sort of your main load in points. There's also then
Speaker 3: variations where you might have to take it to the
Speaker 3: shoulder and things like that. But in this instance, for
Speaker 3: an average Atlas stone load, that would be your single motion.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't stop on the way out. You would literally
Speaker 3: just pick it up off the ground, continue up and
Speaker 3: load with your two motion, which is probably the more
Speaker 3: common one, the type you would see with super heavy stones,
Speaker 3: because there is a limit to what people can one motion.
Speaker 3: What happens is you would come up between the legs
Speaker 3: same again, but as you as you pass the knees
Speaker 3: and you sort of squat down. What you do is
Speaker 3: you'll shift one of your legs in typically so that
Speaker 3: your legs come together a little bit and you've got
Speaker 3: a bit of a shelf there then, so then you
Speaker 3: can stop at the legs in a squat front squat
Speaker 3: position if you like, and then you've got an opportunity
Speaker 3: then to readjust and you'll put your hands sort of
Speaker 3: over the top of the stone and then continuing that
Speaker 3: on to stand up with that, pull it in against
Speaker 3: your chest, extend your hips through and it kind of
Speaker 3: use the shape of the stone to roll it up
Speaker 3: yourself fully and then load onto whatever you load into.
Speaker 1: So there's can you put those arms back down? Police,
Speaker 1: you just scare the shit out of me. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Hey that is well, you know, I've looked
Speaker 1: at and some of the stuff you do, and just
Speaker 1: in general because I watched it for years. But I
Speaker 1: you know, of course there's strength is power, but there's
Speaker 1: also there's so much technique and biomechanics and leverage. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I look at people in the gym,
Speaker 1: obviously within reasons, pushing movements like bench press, like my
Speaker 1: training partner has actually has kind of middle of the
Speaker 1: road range. But like with guys girls that have shorter levers,
Speaker 1: they tend to do pressing movements easier the longer the
Speaker 1: limbs generally speaking, not always, but in the gym, pulling
Speaker 1: movements better, which is why we don't see many rowers
Speaker 1: with short, stocky arms. Most rowers have long limbs, long legs,
Speaker 1: long arms, long torso, so you've got obviously at six
Speaker 1: seven long limbs. Is that a bio mechanical advantage for
Speaker 1: some things but not for others?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good quest because I've often pondered
Speaker 3: this over the years as I've sort of gone against
Speaker 3: different athletes and then had limitations myself and things like that,
Speaker 3: And I've often pondered and been asked, what's the ideal
Speaker 3: body sort of shape and length for say strong man.
Speaker 3: The problem with strong man is it's such an all
Speaker 3: round of sport. You can't be just great at stonelifting
Speaker 3: and shit at press, and you can't be great at
Speaker 3: truck palls and crab a deadlifting. You have to be
Speaker 3: Typically if you can come second in every event, you'll
Speaker 3: probably win overall, as long as the other person didn't
Speaker 3: win every event. It's the most rounded athlete, and you
Speaker 3: might have as many as eight to ten events. You've
Speaker 3: got to be So if you, you know, come last
Speaker 3: in one event, that may be the whole competition gone
Speaker 3: because you bombed and you had a weakness. So you
Speaker 3: need to then identify that and work on that. Typically,
Speaker 3: someone my sort of dimensions long, I've got long arms
Speaker 3: and long legs and probably a long to also really
Speaker 3: as well. I guess it's been a dreadful body shape
Speaker 3: really for deadlifting over the years, but it's been really
Speaker 3: good for stone lifting because I can get around the
Speaker 3: stones really well. You find the shorter athletes struggling to
Speaker 3: get around the stones and stand wide enough to actually
Speaker 3: pull a large stone through. Whereas long, someone with the
Speaker 3: shorter legs but long arms is typically really good for deadlifting.
Speaker 3: You know, the shorter legs of things like that might
Speaker 3: be better for squad in shorter arms good for pressing typically,
Speaker 3: but I've always been quite a good overhead presser anyway,
Speaker 3: despite the length of my arms. You can overcome those
Speaker 3: biomechanical I guess disadvantages if you like. But yeah, typically
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say there's an ideal body shape for and
Speaker 3: it does change from lift to lift.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I mean you have
Speaker 1: to have, which people wouldn't think about much unless they're
Speaker 1: really kind of observing and studying and thinking about the
Speaker 1: science and the mechanics of the sport is like really
Speaker 1: fucking strong hands and strong grip because some of the
Speaker 1: bars you use, like in a gym, so listeners in
Speaker 1: a gym, most of the bar bells are somewhere between
Speaker 1: nine and mel and twenty five meals so three quarters
Speaker 1: of an inch and an inch, which are pretty easy
Speaker 1: to grip. A lot of the bars that you lift
Speaker 1: are either the one big fucking fat ridiculous look and
Speaker 1: tubes that look like I don't know, like about I
Speaker 1: don't know, not nine a mel like fifty mil or sixty.
Speaker 2: Mil usually fifty mili.
Speaker 3: The axles that we typically would use in armlifting or
Speaker 3: strong man, but you do have even big ones again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I mean that's so that's the limiting
Speaker 1: factor there, all those things that I've seen you deadlifting,
Speaker 1: I think with like a square bar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's very armlifting specific.
Speaker 3: Now, so that's that you wouldn't find that, maybe very
Speaker 3: rarely in a strong in comp but in the sport
Speaker 3: of arm lifting itself, which is concerned with pretty much
Speaker 3: the weirdest objects you can deadlift and the most difficult
Speaker 3: things you can deadlift that will make grip strength really
Speaker 3: really a factor.
Speaker 2: They're called a saxon bar.
Speaker 3: So the ones you'll typically see maya three inches by
Speaker 3: four inches, so seventy five by one hundred, and we
Speaker 3: lift across the short side, and yeah, it's an overhand.
Speaker 3: Anything like that is always an overhand.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when we do axles for grip, double overhand axles,
Speaker 3: the thing that makes it difficult is you've got eight
Speaker 3: fingers against two thumbs now trying to grab that. The
Speaker 3: bar is obviously spinning quite aggressively. What you'll do with
Speaker 3: powerlifting typically is you'll either hook grip and Olympic lifting
Speaker 3: your hook grip, which is where you chuck the thumb
Speaker 3: inside the fingers. There and it locks the bar and
Speaker 3: it stops it spinning out. But we're not allowed to
Speaker 3: do that. We have to come straight over, So that
Speaker 3: makes the grip an enormous factor. Or power lifts, I
Speaker 3: use an alternate grip where you've got one hand over,
Speaker 3: one hand under, and then that locks the bar and.
Speaker 2: Stops it spinning.
Speaker 3: Or as strong man, if it's a regular deadlift, we're
Speaker 3: often allowed to use straps anyway, which sort of takes
Speaker 3: it out because it's not a test for group. In
Speaker 3: that case, our deadlift is purely tested now back and
Speaker 3: hip strength. But when it comes to the grip stuff, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's always overhand and yeah we'll do horrible things like
Speaker 3: big square bars, big rectangle bars, big thick axles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like some massachist has gone, how can we
Speaker 1: make this shit super hard, super uncomfortable and almost fucking
Speaker 1: impossible to train for.
Speaker 2: Let's do that, yep, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And they'd looked back through history and gone, what were
Speaker 3: some of the most awful things that people had to do,
Speaker 3: either living on the land or historically or whatever. Let's
Speaker 3: turn it into an event and make it a race,
Speaker 3: or make it see who can be the means of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, I'm interested in.
Speaker 1: Like, obviously, when people think of strong man, they don't
Speaker 1: really think you know, some people do, but the average person,
Speaker 1: I'm sure doesn't really think about aerobic capacity, cardiovascular and
Speaker 1: you know, just fucking walking around at one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty kilos in a six foot seven body in your
Speaker 1: in your new slim state. I mean, that's just carrying
Speaker 1: that shit around would be exhausting. I mean literally, I'm
Speaker 1: eighty five, you know, so you've got sixty five on me.
Speaker 1: I mean if I if I could, but even if
Speaker 1: we imagine everyone, if I got loaded up with sixty
Speaker 1: five kilos and I was the same weight in inverted
Speaker 1: commas as Luke, yep, and I had to walk a
Speaker 1: hundred meters, i'd In fact, Luke, I've got a I've
Speaker 1: got the heaviest weight vest that well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it is now, but it actually carries seventy kilos,
Speaker 1: so one hundred and fifty four pounds.
Speaker 2: Nice. That's a wicked verse. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's from the States, and I've loaded that
Speaker 1: up a few times with seventy k's and my block
Speaker 1: is eight hundred meters, it nearly kills me to walk,
Speaker 1: so I'm walking with seventy k's so that takes my
Speaker 1: weight up to one fifty five. And I mean you,
Speaker 1: which is essentially your weight. You could go more for
Speaker 1: ten k's if you had to. So anyway, my long
Speaker 1: winded point is how important is cardio? Do you train
Speaker 1: cardio or is it just the by product of the
Speaker 1: strength training.
Speaker 3: It's more important than people give it credit for. In
Speaker 3: strength boards it's actually been a just for general health.
Speaker 3: And when we're not talking, you don't need to have
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy kilo. And I'm
Speaker 3: even down through the weight classes because strong man has
Speaker 3: weight classes, especially these days. So in the meat you've
Speaker 3: got eighty ninety under one oh five, and then you've
Speaker 3: got opens. There is a new division sort of starting
Speaker 3: to pop up under one twenties. I think there is
Speaker 3: a demand for it because you've got those guys middle
Speaker 3: of the road, and then in the ladies you've got
Speaker 3: under sixty four hundred and seventy three under eighty two
Speaker 3: and then open. So there's weight divisions in the ladies
Speaker 3: as well. So not every strong man these days is
Speaker 3: a giant. Generally, everyone in it is obviously very strong,
Speaker 3: but you've got these weight divisions because not everybody can
Speaker 3: take part in the sport and compete against six foot seven,
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty kilo people because you know, anyway,
Speaker 3: So yeah, typically, I think the attitude in strength sports
Speaker 3: over the years has been, oh, you know, the whole joke,
Speaker 3: our five repses cardioh blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 3: That's all great, that's a great joke and all that.
Speaker 3: But I don't know where along the way we got
Speaker 3: lost in the point where being fitter and healthier overall would.
Speaker 2: Make you a worse athlete.
Speaker 3: So it's sort of it's sort of got lost along
Speaker 3: the way, But I think it's in to turn around
Speaker 3: a little bit more these days, and because of the
Speaker 3: sports have become a lot more professional, I think the
Speaker 3: approaches to them have become a lot more professional. You've
Speaker 3: got better coaches and better mentors involved in the sports.
Speaker 3: People are actually starting to wake up and realize that
Speaker 3: at least heart health and some lung capacity goes a
Speaker 3: long way when it comes to well longevity in the sport,
Speaker 3: but also your overall ability. So you're seeing big one
Speaker 3: hundred and six seven, six eighty six nine athletes walking around,
Speaker 3: you know, one hundred and seventy hundred and eighty, but
Speaker 3: they're walking around with almost visible abs these days. They
Speaker 3: are a lot leaner than some of the ones, some
Speaker 3: of your athletes back in yesteryear that were at those
Speaker 3: kinds of body weights. Me personally, I like to do
Speaker 3: a lot of rucking. I'll take the dog out hiking
Speaker 3: in the bush trails. I live in the Blue Mountains,
Speaker 3: so I've access to a lot of trails. But I
Speaker 3: check the dog out there, he goes for a trot,
Speaker 3: and I'll put on a weight vest myself. I might
Speaker 3: chuck twenty kilos on and I'll go do a few miles.
Speaker 3: I'm walking a lot with the dog anyway, So none
Speaker 3: of this is overly specific sort of canitioning work. But
Speaker 3: then when it comes to actual strongman stuff, I'll do
Speaker 3: a lot of sled work because the capacity required for
Speaker 3: strong men is typically sixty seconds to ninety seconds, so
Speaker 3: you need to sort of have your anaerobic capacity quite
Speaker 3: high in those.
Speaker 2: Sort of ranges.
Speaker 3: But yeah, anybody watching this is in strong man and
Speaker 3: isn't doing some sort of general conditioning like some GPP
Speaker 3: some walking, some hiking, things like that. You need to
Speaker 3: get your head red, because it's silly to think that
Speaker 3: that general health benefits wouldn't make you a better athlete.
Speaker 1: I remember not too long ago watching I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a strong man event specifically, or it
Speaker 1: was just an event where these dudes would deadlift. I
Speaker 1: think you'll correct me, but it seems like they started
Speaker 1: at one fifty, then when one seven or eighty, then
Speaker 1: two hundred, and then to twenty two forty, and they
Speaker 1: basically they obviously deadlift weight, then jog fucking three steps
Speaker 1: to the next way.
Speaker 4: And deadlift ladder almost yeah, yeah, yeah, correct, absolutely, And
Speaker 4: it was like a couple of the lads by the
Speaker 4: time they got to the heaviest weight.
Speaker 1: I think it was more they were just aerobically fucked
Speaker 1: than strength, you know. I mean, I'm sure it was both.
Speaker 1: But their heart rate, I mean I was looking at
Speaker 1: one dude. If his heart rate wasn't two hundred, I
Speaker 1: don't know anything.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I mean it depends on their strength
Speaker 3: level as well, because they participating in a say a
Speaker 3: five bar deadlift ladder, and you get into the final
Speaker 3: one and you're talking your fifth rep and it's you know,
Speaker 3: maybe your absolute max and you've been asked to do
Speaker 3: that as your fifth rep. Your blood pressure and your
Speaker 3: heart rate's going to be skyrocketed anyway because you've been
Speaker 3: working in such high percentages back to back to back
Speaker 3: within say a sixty to ninety second time limit.
Speaker 2: The other part of being well.
Speaker 3: Conditioned for strength sports is that we're not like say
Speaker 3: a thrower or something, where you do six throwers and
Speaker 3: the days over in half an hour.
Speaker 2: A strong man event.
Speaker 3: Like competition may be over multiple days or at maybe
Speaker 3: eight to ten events in one day, so everybody's a
Speaker 3: world champion in event.
Speaker 2: One and two.
Speaker 3: So you know, it doesn't matter how well you are
Speaker 3: a those it's who's still conditioned enough to perform well
Speaker 3: at the end of the day when you've done six, seven,
Speaker 3: eight events and a lot of that being able to
Speaker 3: come up and down between events, you know, across an
Speaker 3: eight hour day is a huge thing, and conditioning plays
Speaker 3: a huge part in that.
Speaker 1: So it's so interesting because it's it's like when I
Speaker 1: I hadn't really thought about that, but doing multiple events,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost like the strong man to cathlon
Speaker 1: or heptathlon's.
Speaker 3: Read there was a decathlon of strength before strong Man,
Speaker 3: and I think it's a pretty good way to put it.
Speaker 1: One hundred and I would imagine, like when I think
Speaker 1: from science point of view, I think about the training,
Speaker 1: the specificity of the base, training, nutrition, recovery, rehab, sleep supplements,
Speaker 1: fucking even managing your mind. Like I would think, if
Speaker 1: you get everything physiologically right, sleep, training, recovery, food, but
Speaker 1: you can't perform under pressure mentally and emotionally, you lose
Speaker 1: your shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many variables that impact performance
Speaker 1: in every sport, but I would think that that is
Speaker 1: definitely a sport where if you get one thing significantly wrong,
Speaker 1: you might be fucked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, big time.
Speaker 3: And like I said before, pretty much everyone's strong, Like
Speaker 3: everyone's turning up strong and you see it on social
Speaker 3: media a lot. People are turning out records and prs
Speaker 3: and all kinds of things in the gym all the time.
Speaker 3: But it matters who can actually bring it to the day.
Speaker 3: And it's hard for everybody traveling and competing internationally. But
Speaker 3: once you're on an international level, like traveling across ten
Speaker 3: time zones, and this gase for anybody in any sport
Speaker 3: really traveling across say ten time zones, and then us
Speaker 3: into different food, different times, different everything, and then having
Speaker 3: to perform against hometown athletes. Yeah, it's very hard. So
Speaker 3: that becomes comes down to how well you sort of
Speaker 3: prepare and can manage that. But it also is a
Speaker 3: big part of how you can cope with that mentally,
Speaker 3: especially if things do start to go wrong. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I've seen people crumble often in long events, over long
Speaker 3: days because they mentally just don't have it, and it's
Speaker 3: probably something that everybody needs to work on.
Speaker 1: Do you think that. I mean, you're not a psychologist,
Speaker 1: but you're an elite athlete and you do a lot
Speaker 1: of hard, hard shit voluntarily, so we are questioning your
Speaker 1: mental state right now. But anyway, I think everybody would
Speaker 1: choosing to do that shit. What's wrong with him? Everyone?
Speaker 1: But do you think like it's like I've worked with
Speaker 1: I've worked in and around the elite sport. I'm the
Speaker 1: least a lad athlete on the planet, but I've worked
Speaker 1: in and around a lot of elite athletes and trained
Speaker 1: olympians and work with you know, and blah blah blahlah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I see you know, lots of athletically gifted, physiologically
Speaker 1: genetically gifted people obviously because they're doing what they're doing.
Speaker 1: But it's like sometimes for many people it is that
Speaker 1: thing where they You know, when you think about an
Speaker 1: AFL player who's fucking fifteen meters in front of goal
Speaker 1: and he misses the whole fucking goals which are six
Speaker 1: meters wide.
Speaker 2: Well and he's straight in front.
Speaker 1: You go, well, that's not about biology or genetics or
Speaker 1: fucking training.
Speaker 3: Or the kick he's done ten million times before.
Speaker 1: So how much do you reckon resilience and that ability
Speaker 1: to be calm in the chaos? How much do you
Speaker 1: think that is about genetics? How much do you think
Speaker 1: is about just time under tension, so to speak, just
Speaker 1: fucking repetition and showing up and doing it. And how
Speaker 1: much of it like so one genetics too, just doing
Speaker 1: it a lot or three? You know, perhaps fuck, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Mental training.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, that's that's a great question. Actually, look genetically,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think environmentally probably probably is more important.
Speaker 3: I think exposure to hardship creates toughness over time, the
Speaker 3: capacity to draw back on experiences where like, fuck, I've
Speaker 3: been in this shit before. I've been in harder situations
Speaker 3: than this, or equally as hard situations, and I survived it,
Speaker 3: I performed in it. I can draw down on that
Speaker 3: and do it over again. But yeah, look, I've seen
Speaker 3: some pretty incredible stuff in strong men's sports where people
Speaker 3: have the capacity to put themselves through ridiculous pain, break themselves,
Speaker 3: have horrendous injuries like you know, maybe an achilles rupture
Speaker 3: and still pull a truck and things like that. So
Speaker 3: resilience is everything, and I think the biggest thing is
Speaker 3: choosing to do hard things and choosing to do them
Speaker 3: often just creates a different kind of mindset and understanding
Speaker 3: that it's what you're going to need. And if you
Speaker 3: can draw down on that during the heat of competition
Speaker 3: in front of people, in front of CREATI in front
Speaker 3: of television, when everybody's watching, I think you'll be successful
Speaker 3: over even people who may be way more genetically gifted,
Speaker 3: or you know, their training may have even been going better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's I mean, this is not a
Speaker 1: new kind of insight, but I think there's something to
Speaker 1: be said that it's it's a of course, it's about
Speaker 1: you know, the competition and the result, but it's almost
Speaker 1: like who you become on the journey, right. It's like,
Speaker 1: in the middle of all that adversity and pain and
Speaker 1: bullshit and fucking you know whatever, that chaos and mayhem,
Speaker 1: it's kind of who you're becoming. I reckon. That's the gift.
Speaker 1: I reckon. It's great to get the accolades and the outcome,
Speaker 1: of course, but when you do as you said, when
Speaker 1: you consistently do hard shit, yep, when hardship shows up,
Speaker 1: you're okay, you know.
Speaker 3: And that extrapolates out nicely to your life as well,
Speaker 3: because we all do go through shit our lives and
Speaker 3: things like that. And I think sport is a really
Speaker 3: good thing and very important for adults, but also equally
Speaker 3: important for children to develop that resilience to then cope
Speaker 3: with shit when it happens in your life and be
Speaker 3: able to deal with your emotions.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I lose my control of my emotions a lot as well,
Speaker 3: just like every adult does. But I think the capacity
Speaker 3: to understand that no matter what falls in your way,
Speaker 3: you can actually survive it because you've been through some
Speaker 3: you know, some rugged shit, whether it's psychologically or physically,
Speaker 3: you can do it with pain. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 3: something that goes to transcends sport. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I just said, I want to be around you when
Speaker 1: you lose control of your emotions. Could you just just
Speaker 1: fucking do that somewhere else? Tell me about how's your
Speaker 1: body these days? So you're thirty nine, you're kind of
Speaker 1: sliding towards the finish line, I guess of your professional
Speaker 1: strong man's stuff. I could be wrong there, but like
Speaker 1: you're on the home straight, how's your body?
Speaker 2: Look?
Speaker 3: I've been at it a long time, Like typically you
Speaker 3: wouldn't see somebody like I guess. I started younger than
Speaker 3: quite a few people. People tend to come over to
Speaker 3: this sport in their mid twenties, late twenties.
Speaker 2: Sometimes.
Speaker 3: I sort of entered in my early twenties, which was
Speaker 3: young at the time. I was sort of one of
Speaker 3: the youngest around it then. So but I've been at
Speaker 3: it for seventeen nearly eighteen years now, so I've had
Speaker 3: probably every injury under the sun that you can name.
Speaker 3: And I played rugby league for ten years beforehand, and
Speaker 3: then I also rode dirt bikes when I was young,
Speaker 3: and I also did a little bit of MMA and
Speaker 3: a bit of stuff like that. So I certainly had
Speaker 3: the line's share of injuries over my life, like you know,
Speaker 3: broken ankles, nosejaw, wrist, bone grafts, blown acls, minisculta stairs
Speaker 3: three or four times, hamstring tears, a run of the mill,
Speaker 3: blown peck but detached both biceps like I could just go.
Speaker 2: On and on and on and look.
Speaker 3: I guess when it comes back to the resilience thing,
Speaker 3: most people would have walked away. And I've seen more
Speaker 3: talented athletes than me over the years come and go
Speaker 3: the second they hit a catastrophic injury, they did walk away,
Speaker 3: which in a sport that is as hard as what
Speaker 3: we do, that doesn't necessarily have the financial return that
Speaker 3: you would like for such effort. I guess people have
Speaker 3: walked away and made decisions, probably maybe better life decisions
Speaker 3: than me around that.
Speaker 2: But look at the moment.
Speaker 3: Having brought my body weight down over about the last
Speaker 3: four years, and a lot of that's been to do
Speaker 3: with the acting side of things, I needed to look
Speaker 3: a certain way versus necessarily be able to perform a
Speaker 3: certain way. The grip stuff. Again, I don't need to
Speaker 3: be as heavy, but bringing the body weight down, I
Speaker 3: feel better these days, regardless of the conditioning I ever.
Speaker 2: Did as far as injuries.
Speaker 3: Thy Look, I get the odd, tweak and things like that,
Speaker 3: but I'm not trying to achieve the same numbers I
Speaker 3: used to either, So what isn't Look. I went to
Speaker 3: the Short Classic a couple.
Speaker 2: Of weeks ago.
Speaker 3: I was there for the arm lifting again, but I
Speaker 3: watched the Strongest Man on Earth competition. I was you know,
Speaker 3: I was there with all the guys that I used
Speaker 3: to compete against in the pro strong and scene, and
Speaker 3: it kind of got me hungry. So if you look
Speaker 3: on my feet, I've started long lifting again and doing
Speaker 3: a few strong man movements again with a I don't know,
Speaker 3: a bit of an idea reaching in the back of
Speaker 3: my head that I might come back into a bit
Speaker 3: of strong man. But yeah, look at the moment, my
Speaker 3: body feels good. But yeah, I guess I've been at
Speaker 3: it for so long I don't even know what normal
Speaker 3: is anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, everyone who was just thinking about potentially getting involved,
Speaker 1: they just jumped right the fuck off. So that was
Speaker 1: the worst advertisement ever for strong Man. No, I'm f'm
Speaker 1: fucking with you.
Speaker 2: That was that was run away. There's other options, go
Speaker 2: somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, but think about the glory everyone that's right.
Speaker 1: So who's the who's the goat? Like who's the goat
Speaker 1: in strong man? Who's the greatest of all time?
Speaker 2: I think? Is that on?
Speaker 1: That is that art for the debate.
Speaker 3: Look, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone
Speaker 3: who'd argue that it's that it's Drena Civicus. It's definitely
Speaker 3: big Z from Lithuania.
Speaker 1: Now, ninety eight per cent my audience don't know. I
Speaker 1: have never heard that name. Tell us about him.
Speaker 3: Look Zadrena Civicus from Lithuania. He's in his mid forties now.
Speaker 3: I had the honor of competing against him in my
Speaker 3: first ever pro show at the Arnold in twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: in Australia, which was probably one of his last pro shows.
Speaker 3: It was always a big point of mind that I
Speaker 3: want to do at least stand in a lineup against
Speaker 3: that man before he retired, because he is the greatest
Speaker 3: of my era but also the greatest of all time.
Speaker 3: He's held in probably fifty world records. He's a four
Speaker 3: times World Strongest Man winner, eight times Arnold Strongman winner,
Speaker 3: countless millionaire competitions.
Speaker 2: He basically helped drag.
Speaker 3: The sport into the modernira him and Murray's Pudzanovski and
Speaker 3: a bunch of the other Europeans during the two thousands
Speaker 3: dragged it into the modern era. Other guys in that
Speaker 3: conversation Murrays Pujanowski five times world strongest Man, Brian Shaw,
Speaker 3: you know the namesake of the shore classic that I mentioned,
Speaker 3: Brian Shaws the four times the world's strongest man, win
Speaker 3: three times Arnold strong man.
Speaker 1: See the dude from the UK? Is he the UK dude?
Speaker 3: Or no, No, he's American Eddie. Eddie Hall's probably who
Speaker 3: you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: They did. They have a fucking punch on? Was it
Speaker 1: them two that got in the room?
Speaker 2: That was That was Thor Bejonsen from Iceland. So the mountain,
Speaker 2: the mountain out in the mountain.
Speaker 3: From Game of Thrones, Look, Thor. Thor is definitely there
Speaker 3: and thereabouts he's probably Look, it's a funny way to
Speaker 3: put it, but twenty eighteen Thor was sublime. He won everything.
Speaker 3: He was breaking world records left, front and center. And
Speaker 3: this is just before he then stepped away and took
Speaker 3: a break from strong men. Did the fight thing I'd
Speaker 3: argue that twenty eighteen Thought is actually the strongest strong
Speaker 3: man ever, but Navicus is the greatest strong man ever. However,
Speaker 3: Thor is still competing. He's made his comeback sort of
Speaker 3: late last year early this year. He's he's looking really
Speaker 3: good at the moment. If he continues in his form,
Speaker 3: he could go down as definitely one of the goats.
Speaker 3: He's probably in the top five conversation anyway, Eddie Hall,
Speaker 3: as far as I'm concerned, you know, and strongly and purist,
Speaker 3: he's not in the conversation at all. However, he was
Speaker 3: the first to break that five hundred kilo deadlift barrier.
Speaker 3: He did with the strongest man, so he's definitely up
Speaker 3: there as a great and he was insanely strong, but
Speaker 3: he's not in the in the goat conversation as far
Speaker 3: as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's hands down to Durna Civicus.
Speaker 3: For the career longevity, what he did for the sport
Speaker 3: and continues to do for the sports. Excuse me, and
Speaker 3: just just the records he established, yeah, just just insane.
Speaker 1: Tell me about we're jumping all around a little bit,
Speaker 1: but tell me mate about long term health. Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about gear or anything like that. I'm just
Speaker 1: talking about the stress that you put on your body.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about walking around like some of these guys
Speaker 1: at fucking one hundred and seventy or eighty kilos, even
Speaker 1: if you're super tall, that's a lot of weight to
Speaker 1: carry for a long time. I would imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of them have blood pressure issues or some would you know,
Speaker 1: just a lot of wear and tear. And that's like,
Speaker 1: will you get to a point where, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you're not out of shape anyway, Like you're one fifty
Speaker 1: and in good shape, but like when you're done and dusted,
Speaker 1: will you go fuck it? I'm going to get down
Speaker 1: to one twenty or thirty and be, you know, not
Speaker 1: worry to just walk around at a light relative for you,
Speaker 1: a light weight, and just focus on health.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I haven't thought about retiring yet from from
Speaker 3: full blown strong man, but yeah, it's I'm happier these
Speaker 3: days to be fair walking around at around one fifty
Speaker 3: that I wasn't one seventy five ish one seventy three
Speaker 3: is like I felt horremndous. I was insanely strong, and
Speaker 3: I loved competing at the top level and that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I certainly was uncomfortable a lot of the time. You know,
Speaker 3: guys like your Brian Shaws and your Thor Bjornson's, they're
Speaker 3: walking around they're six foot eight, six foot nine, you know,
Speaker 3: six foot ten. We're walking around at two hundred plus
Speaker 3: kilos in competition form. Like we're talking some of the
Speaker 3: largest humans ever to walk the planet. And like I said,
Speaker 3: walking around with blurry abs like that's that is so
Speaker 3: much mass to carry on a frame that isn't just
Speaker 3: shit mass either. Yeah, look, I think the moves I
Speaker 3: will make once I'm sort of eventually, I guess done
Speaker 3: with full blown strong man. I'd be happy to drift
Speaker 3: down under one forty one point thirty, be you know, lean,
Speaker 3: and probably pushed back towards the throw inside a bit
Speaker 3: more with the Highland Games. I don't have to be
Speaker 3: as big to do that and stick with the grip
Speaker 3: stuff the arm lifting. I don't need to be super
Speaker 3: huge for that. I like being you know, strong at that,
Speaker 3: but I don't have to be one hundred and seventy
Speaker 3: kilos for it. So yeah, yeah, long term, absolutely, guys
Speaker 3: like Sadrena Civicis we're a good example to others out.
Speaker 2: There strongmen who are watching this.
Speaker 3: What he'd do in an off season, if he ever
Speaker 3: got an off season, was because he used to walk
Speaker 3: around Sodurnas is only about sixty two sixty three, but
Speaker 3: he'd walk around in competition shape a one hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty five kilos, a very large man. But in the
Speaker 3: off season he'd be down around one forty one thirty five.
Speaker 3: He'd let his body wait, come down, you know, come
Speaker 3: off everything, and lean up and work on his health
Speaker 3: for a bit, and then blowback up when he needed to.
Speaker 3: It's and that's you know, we're talking a guy that
Speaker 3: was at the top level for the nearly thirty years.
Speaker 3: Longevity like that comes from treating your body intelligently and
Speaker 3: chasing it. So, yeah, I'd like to be leaner and
Speaker 3: sort of smaller, I guess long term, because yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was a kid mate and I
Speaker 1: just like I've been training with Waites for a few years,
Speaker 1: and I went into a big boy gym like I
Speaker 1: was ada, and I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 1: But there was these two bullfas in there. To me,
Speaker 1: they were they were like you. They weren't like you,
Speaker 1: But to me, they were right, Yeah, our powerlifters, and
Speaker 1: there was this one guy squatting and it put his
Speaker 1: it put his put his traps and shoulders and neck
Speaker 1: under the bar, and before he'd lift off the rack,
Speaker 1: the other guy would hit him so fucking hard on
Speaker 1: the shoulders like it would and he like it must
Speaker 1: have bruised him. I mean, he hit him so hard, right,
Speaker 1: and he was smashing the fuck out of him to
Speaker 1: get for the other guy to get whatever adrenaline get
Speaker 1: him in state. And you know, I've been to not
Speaker 1: many but a few. I've been to a million bodybuilding
Speaker 1: shows and quite a few powerlifting e meats. But but
Speaker 1: I would imagine there must be some kind of pre
Speaker 1: event ritual or protocol or some like. You can't just
Speaker 1: fucking go from lying on your back listening to en
Speaker 1: you're in your headphones to just lifting two hundred pound rocks, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have or do the athletes have a process
Speaker 1: of getting themselves in that kind of states.
Speaker 3: That's a great question again, Craig. It depends on the
Speaker 3: person and the personality. So me, when you see me compete,
Speaker 3: I'm actually in between events. I'm actually quite jovial and
Speaker 3: quite relaxed, and then I guess it's an experiencing. Myself
Speaker 3: and Jordan Stefan's who I mentioned earlier, we were both
Speaker 3: always like this. It's probably an experience thing, but we
Speaker 3: were very chilled. We'd be mucking around between events, having
Speaker 3: a bit of a joke, taking what we were doing seriously,
Speaker 3: but then we would be able to flip this switch.
Speaker 3: About thirty seconds before the event came on. We were
Speaker 3: already switched on. We knew what we were doing, we
Speaker 3: were aware, we had all our equipment there, our warm
Speaker 3: ups were good. But then about thirty seconds before we left,
Speaker 3: you go bang straight into game mode and then you
Speaker 3: do the event, apply the correct level of arousal to it,
Speaker 3: I guess, and then once the event's done, calm back down,
Speaker 3: switch it off, and then eat or rest because it
Speaker 3: maybe an hour before your next event, you know, or more.
Speaker 3: The problem is I see with a lot of people
Speaker 3: coming into the sport is they might be very aggressive competitors,
Speaker 3: which is great if that's how you lift, and I
Speaker 3: fire up when I need to. But the problem is
Speaker 3: I see a lot of new people come in the
Speaker 3: head button squad racks and head button the wall and
Speaker 3: going crazy and ape shit before they've even done anything,
Speaker 3: and the amount of anxious energy they burn by staying
Speaker 3: up in this insanely heightened arousal level, smelling salts and
Speaker 3: pre workouts and caffeine enough to kill a fucking rhino
Speaker 3: and all this shit. And then they get to the
Speaker 3: event itself and they're exhausted from all this extracurricular shit
Speaker 3: they've done before they even lift a thing, and they
Speaker 3: either perform poorly and then they get more frustrated so
Speaker 3: they try to get more angry, or they perform okay
Speaker 3: in the first couple of events, but then again they
Speaker 3: don't come back down. Which is what a good game
Speaker 3: day coach is good for in a strength sport is
Speaker 3: they have the capacity to bring their athlete up when
Speaker 3: they need to and then let them come back down
Speaker 3: between events, keep them mildly around. But you've got to have,
Speaker 3: you know, come down to the point where you can
Speaker 3: can come back up, but where you're not just wasting
Speaker 3: energy between events. So yeah, there are there are a
Speaker 3: lot of rituals that people will go through. A lot
Speaker 3: A lot of people obviously like the zone out, chuck
Speaker 3: the music in the years, and things like that I'm
Speaker 3: usually fairly sort of. I don't really do the music thing.
Speaker 3: I just chill, I observe what's going on. I pay attention,
Speaker 3: but I'm usually pretty calm as a competitor, and then
Speaker 3: and then switch it on when I need to. I
Speaker 3: think that's an important skill set, is the capacity to
Speaker 3: turn it up when you need it, but turn it
Speaker 3: off when you don't.
Speaker 1: So yeahah, do you know the story about my training
Speaker 1: partner not going. So my training partner's name is Mark Lampard.
Speaker 1: Shout out to him, who I lovingly refer to as
Speaker 1: the Crab because when he was multiple mister Australia IFBB
Speaker 1: pro fucking unit right yep, kind of looks and walks
Speaker 1: like a crab. Ergo the name. So was it four
Speaker 1: or five years ago? I think it's coming up to
Speaker 1: five years So we were training. It was Friday night
Speaker 1: and he'd been down he's got a property. He'd been
Speaker 1: down to his property. I think it was November. It
Speaker 1: was hot, he'd worked out day outside all day. He
Speaker 1: was dehydrated, I'm sure, and he had about five fucking
Speaker 1: caffeine drinks, which is awesome when you're in your fifties, right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and also dehydrated and so not stressful on
Speaker 1: the cardiovascular system or the old fucking heart.
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: Nah, brilliant and then comes to the him, does a
Speaker 1: set of chins, does twenty chins and holds his breath. Right,
Speaker 1: so does twenty chins, hold his breath, his head turns purple,
Speaker 1: and then he falls on the floor. Then he gets
Speaker 1: on the floor on his hands and knees. I thought
Speaker 1: he was having a seizure. He had a complete cardiac arrest,
Speaker 1: so flat lined seventeen minutes.
Speaker 2: Fuck dead on the floor, actually dead, Ye're dead, dude.
Speaker 1: Dead five five to five twenty two, seventeen minutes. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I when I see guys lifting and doing shit, that's
Speaker 1: right on the edge. I've been around that a few times,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that was when it's the work. Oh dude, Well,
Speaker 1: I literally it's interesting. It ain't about me, but it's
Speaker 1: interesting when that happens you the So I looked at
Speaker 1: him and he was dead, and that's funny because the
Speaker 1: stage was about one oh five or one ten. But
Speaker 1: he's small, like he's short, but I flipped him over
Speaker 1: like he was fucking forty kilos It's funny when in
Speaker 1: the middle in a crisis, right and turning over a big, strong,
Speaker 1: like a heavy bloke when his body's all it is
Speaker 1: not easy. It's fucking hard, right. Anyway, it was effortless
Speaker 1: and I started working on him straight away. But what
Speaker 1: is and this, you know, what is interesting is the
Speaker 1: way that people respond in the middle of that. There
Speaker 1: was probably twenty people in the gym, and not one person,
Speaker 1: not one person said can I help? Can I what
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? So I was doing
Speaker 1: everything right, I was working on him, I was doing
Speaker 1: CPR on him, and yeah, it's like you just if
Speaker 1: you're going to have that happen, you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that it's near somebody who will fucking step in,
Speaker 1: because look, maybe somebody would have stepped in if I
Speaker 1: wasn't there. But on that particular day, I literally I
Speaker 1: ended up screaming at one bloke and to come and
Speaker 1: give me a hand. Yeah, you said, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. I said, I know what to do,
Speaker 1: Just fucking get over here, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So but yeah.
Speaker 3: It's funny those situations, and even the most highly trained
Speaker 3: people can sometimes falter in those situations when the when
Speaker 3: the shit it's a fan and the pressure's on, it's
Speaker 3: I guess none of us know how we'll actually react
Speaker 3: until we're placed into those situations. And like I said,
Speaker 3: even the most highly trained will freeze up sometimes like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's I don't know if it's a modern symptom of
Speaker 3: people do sometimes as well. They just don't want to
Speaker 3: become embroiled in anything because they're trying to avoid drama
Speaker 3: or whatever. They don't want to do the wrong thing.
Speaker 3: But I think I think if somebody's collapsing on the ground,
Speaker 3: you do what you can to bloody will help you,
Speaker 3: just even if you don't know what the fuck you're doing.
Speaker 1: Just while we're talking about it. And again this remember everyone,
Speaker 1: I'm not a dietitian, neither Luke. This is just two
Speaker 1: blokes talking about something. So I don't see it as
Speaker 1: a prescription or a recommendation. What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 1: Like I owned gyms for years, I don't own a
Speaker 1: gym anymore. I just trained a gym. And one of
Speaker 1: my observations is a fucking shitload of sixteen year olds,
Speaker 1: fifteen year olds using pre workout, which is essentially well,
Speaker 1: it's not Essentially, it's a stimulant, right, what's your observation
Speaker 1: or maybe you're not in that environment much like in
Speaker 1: a normal gym, But I tell you what, they give
Speaker 1: that stuff a big nudge. Mate, there's fucking I would
Speaker 1: say eighty percent of the boys, maybe ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the boys, the young teenagers in the gym I go to,
Speaker 1: they just pump this shit in their body. It's a
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system stimulant elevates heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline, cortisol.
Speaker 1: It's like and they drink it like water. Fucking is me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think it's well overdone. I personally done
Speaker 3: them in news pre workout, so I used them over
Speaker 3: the years occasionally and then sort of realized I didn't
Speaker 3: really need it.
Speaker 2: I guess. For me, training is almost second nature.
Speaker 3: I've been doing it for nearly thirty years, you know,
Speaker 3: in some form or more, you know when it comes
Speaker 3: to sports and things like that. So for me, it's
Speaker 3: more about having your structure in place, having your discipline
Speaker 3: in place, and understanding how to get in that.
Speaker 2: State of arousal. Now.
Speaker 3: I love a coffee and that sort of thing as
Speaker 3: much as the next person, and probably consume too much
Speaker 3: of it sometimes, but as far as I'm concerned, something
Speaker 3: to eat and a coffee is probably sufficient for you know,
Speaker 3: a vast ninety ob percent of gym attendees as a
Speaker 3: pre workout. Now having been around strength sports, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to go too deeply into it. I've seen
Speaker 3: some wild shit over the years that people will consume
Speaker 3: pre training and pre contest. I haven't necessarily seen them
Speaker 3: do any better than athletes.
Speaker 2: Who don't do that over the years.
Speaker 3: As far as kids and sixteen year olds and all
Speaker 3: this sort of shit, Like I've been lifted in gym
Speaker 3: since I was twelve, but you know, kids down around
Speaker 3: that age, or anybody really if they're especially if they're
Speaker 3: in the beginner phase of what they're doing, I don't
Speaker 3: see that, you know, overdoing stimulants is necessarily important.
Speaker 2: More what would be important.
Speaker 3: Is getting some structure around your training, some consistency around
Speaker 3: your training, and just continue to.
Speaker 2: Turn up, seek some advice and things like that.
Speaker 3: And I sound like an old man and you know,
Speaker 3: like this sort of thing, but really that's what everybody's lacking.
Speaker 3: There's some bloody direction, some focus, and some consistency in
Speaker 3: the training. That would be way more advantageous than looking
Speaker 3: for a magic pill or a bloody pre workout to
Speaker 3: kick out the ass for a workout one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: All right, So I want to know, if not necessarily
Speaker 1: the day that you performed best in competition, maybe it's
Speaker 1: that day, but I want to know your favorite day,
Speaker 1: the day that you look back on and go, fuck,
Speaker 1: I love that day, or I was awesome more that
Speaker 1: was amazing to tell us about, if not that.
Speaker 2: Day, a day in sporting terms, yeah.
Speaker 1: In terms of your strong man stuff or anything you know,
Speaker 1: in the space of athletic performance.
Speaker 3: That's a hard one because I've done so much over
Speaker 3: so many years. I think for me, standing in pro
Speaker 3: lineups against guys who I'd looked up to my whole career,
Speaker 3: like Sadurna Civicis and liked Thorbiance and things like that
Speaker 3: being counted amongst them, even if I took the hiding
Speaker 3: of a lifetime in some of those competitions, I'm finally
Speaker 3: arriving at that pro level was a big deal for
Speaker 3: me because something I'd wanted for a long time, and
Speaker 3: I've been in the sport for a good eight years
Speaker 3: before I really started to reach that level. So each
Speaker 3: and every time I took the field against those elite
Speaker 3: level guys, and the same with you know, the sports
Speaker 3: I'm in now, it's always a privilege to me and
Speaker 3: I always thoroughly enjoy those. For me, the win that
Speaker 3: mattered the most to me and still does matter the
Speaker 3: most to me, was when I won. Now, there's a
Speaker 3: competition down south at a Scottish gathering called Bandon Brigadoon
Speaker 3: so bund Is in the southern Highlands of New South Wales.
Speaker 3: Those guys that I talked about earlier, David Huxley from
Speaker 3: the Wide World of Sports. He was one of Australia's
Speaker 3: greatest that a strong man back through the nineties and
Speaker 3: a very good hammer thrower.
Speaker 2: He set up a competition down.
Speaker 3: There in the early eighties doing stone lifting demonstrations and
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 2: It ended up turning into the Bundon and Stones of.
Speaker 3: Manhood competition and they would have the top Swedes and
Speaker 3: the top world strongest man guys from around the world
Speaker 3: come out and contest those events. Now, by the time
Speaker 3: I entered the sport, it had been going for about
Speaker 3: twenty five years that event down there, And forgive me
Speaker 3: if some of my timings were a bit out with
Speaker 3: the chronology, but it was a title that I coveted heavily.
Speaker 3: I was against all my heroes, some of the biggest
Speaker 3: names in the sport had won that title. It was
Speaker 3: something that I just wanted and it was one of
Speaker 3: my first earliest opportunities, I guess. So each year in
Speaker 3: April I'd head down the Southern Highlands against the best
Speaker 3: stone lifters in the country and we battled out and
Speaker 3: for eight years straight, I couldn't do any better than second.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I finished fourth, fifth, well down the lineups. Each
Speaker 3: year I said that's the last time. Each year I
Speaker 3: would be invited back because I was still one of
Speaker 3: the best stone lifters in the country, and I would
Speaker 3: go back there and on my ninth attempt against Jordan
Speaker 3: again I mentioned him often because we battled often, even
Speaker 3: though we're good mates. He'd won it three times consecutively
Speaker 3: and on his goal at his fourth one, I came
Speaker 3: out and won my first first bunder Maoon title, and
Speaker 3: that was a huge one because we have crowds of
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty thousand people. It's like a big, big
Speaker 3: sort of colosseum down there. If you like it's mister Montminson.
Speaker 3: That one for me was a really big deal because
Speaker 3: for nine years, nine years, I'd attempted to win this
Speaker 3: one title. Yes, I've done all this other stuff as
Speaker 3: strong man, it was the title I just could not crack.
Speaker 3: It was the one I wanted the most, and it
Speaker 3: was all down to a single stone run five stones
Speaker 3: on barrels. Just be fastest, be the strongest, to be
Speaker 3: the fastest, and for nine years I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3: And then I won three in a row.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so that that first bunder Noon, I think
Speaker 3: is the one that means the most to me.
Speaker 2: Out of all my career things.
Speaker 3: I've done much higher profile things, I think that's still
Speaker 3: the biggest one. I think because for nearly a decade
Speaker 3: I just kept bashing myself up against the best and
Speaker 3: I eventually cracked it.
Speaker 1: And did you did you? Did? I read that you
Speaker 1: competed in the Highland Games and like is it called
Speaker 1: kaber tossing?
Speaker 3: I share, and yeah, I competed at the Australian Highlander
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago. Actually that was I kind
Speaker 3: of jumped in last minute off the plane from America,
Speaker 3: so I didn't perform the.
Speaker 2: Best, but no, it was. Yeah. I've done a lot
Speaker 2: of hiding games over the years as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where the fuck do you sit on a plane?
Speaker 2: Surely sit wherever I can. I wish you could lay
Speaker 2: in the aisle sometimes so I could stretch out.
Speaker 1: You can't. Don't tell me you sit in economy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I said, this is not a rich sport.
Speaker 1: So can you just yeah, I didn't mean that.
Speaker 2: Leaders that's all right.
Speaker 3: I've become very good at somehow landing, you know, an
Speaker 3: empty seat next to me, So I try to aim
Speaker 3: for that each time. If I can get a couple
Speaker 3: of seats i can. I'm okay.
Speaker 1: Maybe if I'm ever flying somewhere economy and I see
Speaker 1: you fucking making you awards me, I'm going to start
Speaker 1: having a fucking convulsion or something.
Speaker 2: I just to enjoy.
Speaker 3: Get on the plane with a couple of the boys,
Speaker 3: a couple of us, you know, six six sixty seven,
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy hundred and eighty k and we're
Speaker 3: walking down the plane together and everybody's like, going off,
Speaker 3: don't sit next to me, and we'be's like staring at
Speaker 3: people trying to freak him out. A bit like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll come for your seat and then walk past them
Speaker 3: and watch them breathe a sigh of relief. Believe me,
Speaker 3: anybody who ends up sitting next to me, the flight
Speaker 3: is worse for me than it is for you. And
Speaker 3: I'm actually a very conscientious flyer. I try to make
Speaker 3: it as as less an impact on those around me
Speaker 3: as I can, so extend the courtesy back.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Are kids scared of you or intrigued by you? Or
Speaker 1: a bit of both, Like i'd imagine little kids would
Speaker 1: be like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I guess it depends how you carry yourself,
Speaker 3: but I think generally kids are sort of more fascinated.
Speaker 3: We got to have, you know, a lot of the
Speaker 3: events we do, we try to the kids are our
Speaker 3: fans sort of things, so they generally love what we're
Speaker 3: doing more than the parents, you know, almost in a
Speaker 3: super sense, I guess. So it's always cool. The kids
Speaker 3: are always a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, they usually.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're scared, they're more fascinated.
Speaker 2: What's your actual job, mate, What are you at the moment?
Speaker 1: What do you do when you're not lifting heavy shit?
Speaker 3: I'm operations manager for a timber company, right, yeah, timber wholesaler.
Speaker 3: Funny enough. So that's the thing with a lot of
Speaker 3: these strength sports. Even the guys at the very top
Speaker 3: often have regular jobs. There's very few as full time pros.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and Ebody for your Life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, come on, come on, there's a lot of territory
Speaker 1: on his body. There's a tuck. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: If he's wearing a T shirt with your brand on it,
Speaker 1: it's going to be seen from bar. And what was
Speaker 1: I going to say? What about? I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a big conversation, I guess, but just quickly, can we
Speaker 1: just quickly talk about food? Just ballpark? What is a
Speaker 1: I know it varies day to day, but like I
Speaker 1: eat fuck all. I eat two meals a day because
Speaker 1: I spend I train every day. But I also spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time doing what I'm doing now, which
Speaker 1: is either studying, researching, interviewing people. So spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on my ass. I'd imagine you'd be Do
Speaker 1: you actually track calories or do you eat in stinctively?
Speaker 1: Is it strategic or is it just fucking how you
Speaker 1: feel on the day.
Speaker 3: To be honest, nutrition has probably been my worst thing
Speaker 3: over the years, which is silly in hindsight, but hindsight's
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. Yeah, it's probably more instinctive eating. I guess
Speaker 3: my coach used to hammer me for it, and she
Speaker 3: always tried to take control of it a lot more.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's something I've struggled with. I guess, even
Speaker 3: at my biggest I've never had a great appetite. So
Speaker 3: eating you know, five, six, seven thousand calories a day
Speaker 3: at those sort of sizes is it became a real chore,
Speaker 3: and I kind of had to force it. And even
Speaker 3: guys like Brian Shaw, who were probably eating closer to
Speaker 3: ten thousand calories a day. You often hear him speak
Speaker 3: about it, saying he got to the point where he
Speaker 3: actually hated food because it became such a chore. Literally
Speaker 3: just hadn't force it into himself to maintain you know,
Speaker 3: say two hundred dolos body weight. When it comes to me, yeah,
Speaker 3: I changed my mind often. So eating the same thing
Speaker 3: repetitively is something that frustrates me. So I got to,
Speaker 3: I guess, lean into discipline a little bit there. These days,
Speaker 3: I lean quite heavily into your musclemeel type things that
Speaker 3: are already prepared and ready to rock and roll and
Speaker 3: very convenience, so I can shot that in the microwave,
Speaker 3: have a quick glance at the macros and make sure
Speaker 3: I'm sort of getting.
Speaker 2: A rough, rough sort of what I would like to consume.
Speaker 3: I can keep an eye on what my body weight's
Speaker 3: doing and that sort of thing, but as far as
Speaker 3: tracking goes, I'm pretty shit at that, to be fair,
Speaker 3: be completely honest.
Speaker 1: Well it's kind of gone. Okay, all right before we
Speaker 1: wind up, mate, Firstly, thank you chatting on fucking This
Speaker 1: is the easiest chat I've had in a long time
Speaker 1: at all. So there's a show on NBC called Young Rock,
Speaker 1: which is correct me if I'm wrong, but it's about
Speaker 1: the rock Dwayne Johnson's kind of youth and early years
Speaker 1: and you play and you're in that, and you play
Speaker 1: a WWE wrestler called Hillbilly Jim. Where's tell us about that?
Speaker 1: That must have been well maybe it wasn't, but it
Speaker 1: seems like it would be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that was Actually that was awesome. I love
Speaker 2: that gig.
Speaker 3: End of twenty twenty, I started doing some acting, picked
Speaker 3: up an agent manager which I still work with. He's
Speaker 3: really good, So I'm on You're tell you a fair
Speaker 3: bit these days, and a lot of TVCs and that
Speaker 3: sort of thing. Done a few shows. I've got another
Speaker 3: show this month. I'm sort of filming and whatever. But yeah,
Speaker 3: Young Rock was really really cool. It was sort of
Speaker 3: during the middle of COVID. It was late twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: I actually had to fly to quains and then lockdown
Speaker 3: for a couple of weeks up there to a hotel
Speaker 3: before I was allowed near the set and all that jazz.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I cast for a couple of rolls, but
Speaker 3: I cast for Hillbilly Jim, so I sent her back
Speaker 3: then and it's sort of continued post COVID. The way
Speaker 3: you audition these days is called a self test audition,
Speaker 3: where you film yourself basically just on your phone or
Speaker 3: with the camera, and they'll send you the scenes and
Speaker 3: you sort of act it out and then fire it off,
Speaker 3: and then after that you might get a call back
Speaker 3: in that week's second audition, and then you might get
Speaker 3: the gig.
Speaker 2: So the cool thing was because it was Dwayne's baby.
Speaker 3: He was the one actually vetting my my audition and
Speaker 3: was the one who sort of rubber stamped me getting
Speaker 3: the gig. So it was really cool to have you know,
Speaker 3: the Rock. I never ever, I never actually made him
Speaker 3: because he couldn't come out here because of COVID unfortunately,
Speaker 3: But yeah, I got the thumbs up to play you know,
Speaker 3: w w F w w w F Hall of Famer Hillbilly,
Speaker 3: Jim Jim Morris and I had a lot of fun
Speaker 3: with it. It was it was really cool. I'm in
Speaker 3: season two in quite a few episodes, and yeah, we
Speaker 3: did some really good scenes in the in the ring
Speaker 3: against you know, obviously actors, but you know guys like
Speaker 3: Rick Flair and Bolkov and the Iron Chic and.
Speaker 2: It was quite a fun show.
Speaker 3: There were there were three seasons. I was in season
Speaker 3: two only, which we filmed on the Gold Coast. They
Speaker 3: filmed the first two seasons here and then season three,
Speaker 3: once COVID lifted, they shot it in the States and
Speaker 3: then it was unfortunately canceled.
Speaker 2: But now I had a ball with that. We worked.
Speaker 3: We worked closely the stunt coordinator and fight scene coordinator
Speaker 3: with Chavo Guerrero of the Fine Guerrero Wwin Family and
Speaker 3: Awesome Guy and yeah, no, I had a ton of
Speaker 3: fun with that man. That was that was one of
Speaker 3: the probably the best gig I've done so far.
Speaker 1: Good for you, brother, that's amazing. Well, hopefully if you
Speaker 1: get more, get more acting work, we can get you
Speaker 1: out of economy into business somebody.
Speaker 3: It doesn't unless you're Chrissworth. It doesn't necessarily pay you
Speaker 3: well either. So anyway, it's all good. It's all good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard of him. He does. Okay, Hey mate,
Speaker 1: where can people find you? Follow you, connect with you?
Speaker 1: If you want to be connected with what's or if
Speaker 1: you want to plug anything, hit us up what's going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, the easiest way is just just give me
Speaker 3: a follow. On Instagram is sort of where I do
Speaker 3: most of my contact with people. Luke, Blue Mountains, Reynolds,
Speaker 3: Luke's so it's Luke Underscore, Blue Mountain, Underscore Reynolds. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's where my biggest presence is. I guess On there,
Speaker 3: I just want to give a shout out. I got
Speaker 3: physically fortified. That's the jail House Strong tea on there.
Speaker 3: That's anybody who follows anyone's strength related. That's Tom Haveln's
Speaker 3: stuff and Jeff Bryant's stuff. There are awesome guys. I
Speaker 3: train out of last round training facility in North Richmond,
Speaker 3: and that's that's probably about it for now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's give him all the ship that Tom Havelyn
Speaker 1: is a fucking unit, isn't he And awesome guy. I
Speaker 1: follow him as well.
Speaker 3: He's if people are following him, they're insane. He's the
Speaker 3: coolest guy on the on the fucking Internet, and he's
Speaker 3: a lovely dude.
Speaker 2: He's a really good guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's an enigma. Ye, hey, mate, we'll say goodbye affair,
Speaker 1: but yep, yeah, it's been awesome. It's been really nice
Speaker 1: to meet you, Luke, and I appreciate your time and
Speaker 1: I'd love to actually get you back because there's so
Speaker 1: many more things we could chat about, and there aren't
Speaker 1: too many Luke Reynold that have been on the show.
Speaker 1: I'll give you the tip where nearly seventeen hundred episodes
Speaker 1: in and you're a unicorn. So thanks, mister unicorn. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it, mate, thanks for having me on