The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2510 - Devon Larratt

00:00:02.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:00:09.000 Check, check.

00:00:13.000 What's happening, my man?

00:00:14.000 I'm so happy.

00:00:15.000 So happy to see you.

00:00:16.000 Wow.

00:00:17.000 What's going on?

00:00:17.000 Joe, thank you so much, first of all.

00:00:19.000 I feel like, you know, you are the loudspeaker of the planet, man.

00:00:19.000 My pleasure.

00:00:24.000 And I'm so honored to be here.

00:00:26.000 That's a very uncomfortable position to be in, I'll tell you that.

00:00:29.000 It's very weird.

00:00:29.000 Yeah, I bet.

00:00:31.000 I bet.

00:00:32.000 But look, I mean, you've talked to everybody on the planet, and.

00:00:36.000 I think I'm honored to be your first arm wrestler.

00:00:38.000 Well, if I'm going to have an arm wrestler, it has to be the GOAT.

00:00:41.000 Oh, highly debated.

00:00:43.000 Highly debated, but I'll take it.

00:00:45.000 You're in the conversation.

00:00:46.000 Yeah, I'm in the conversation.

00:00:47.000 There's a couple of us, I think.

00:00:50.000 John Brzink.

00:00:51.000 How close do you follow arm wrestling?

00:00:51.000 I don't know.

00:00:53.000 Very little.

00:00:54.000 Yeah.

00:00:54.000 I follow you.

00:00:55.000 Well, I'm most fascinated by the fact that you can't extend your arm.

00:01:00.000 Yeah.

00:01:01.000 His arms don't straighten out.

00:01:03.000 No, they don't, unfortunately.

00:01:05.000 That didn't work.

00:01:06.000 Yeah.

00:01:07.000 It didn't work when I was trying to fight Thor either.

00:01:09.000 It kind of limited the extension.

00:01:13.000 When did that start happening?

00:01:16.000 So I got into club arm wrestling.

00:01:20.000 I arm wrestled when I was a kid, but I got into club arm wrestling around 18.

00:01:26.000 By the time I was 20 or so, we have this champion called Crazy George.

00:01:33.000 He's like a very old, very decorated champion.

00:01:36.000 And he famously, at the time for me, he couldn't straighten his elbows.

00:01:41.000 And I was like, oh man, I can't wait till my elbows don't straighten.

00:01:47.000 Like a silly wish, right?

00:01:48.000 So it started early.

00:01:50.000 Like, I think I was probably in my late 20s.

00:01:55.000 And it just, the range started to shrink.

00:01:58.000 And what is that from?

00:02:00.000 It's just pressure mostly.

00:02:02.000 Like, just the constant pressure on the elbow joint causes osteophytes potentially.

00:02:09.000 And it doesn't happen to all the arm wrestlers.

00:02:11.000 Have you got an MRI on it?

00:02:12.000 I've had three surgeries.

00:02:14.000 To straighten them out?

00:02:15.000 To remove bone and scar tissue.

00:02:19.000 Just chip bones and stuff?

00:02:20.000 Chip bones.

00:02:22.000 Dr. Pollock, bless his soul, at the Ottawa Hospital has extended my career till this age.

00:02:29.000 You know, yeah, that's probably one of the worst chronic conditions that arm wrestlers get.

00:02:36.000 Is, you know, if the bone growth gets bad enough, it can start to constrict your nerves or blood flow, and that's when it becomes a problem.

00:02:44.000 Has that happened to you?

00:02:45.000 100%.

00:02:46.000 Yeah.

00:02:47.000 So I was what I was probably, it was like 2013.

00:02:52.000 So like 13 years ago is when I had my first surgery.

00:02:56.000 And at that point, like trying to move forward, trying to move forward.

00:02:59.000 Pull it out as far as you can go.

00:03:01.000 That's it.

00:03:02.000 That's it, buddy.

00:03:03.000 Wow.

00:03:03.000 That's it.

00:03:04.000 Yeah.

00:03:04.000 The left is a little more than the right, it looks like.

00:03:07.000 Probably a little bit.

00:03:08.000 Yeah.

00:03:09.000 Yeah.

00:03:09.000 And I've had two surgeries on the right, one on the left.

00:03:12.000 But in my mind, you know, it's a small price to pay.

00:03:15.000 You know, like I'm as all in in arm wrestling as you can possibly be.

00:03:21.000 And this is our cost of admission for some of us.

00:03:25.000 You know, and does that happen to every arm wrestler?

00:03:27.000 No?

00:03:27.000 No.

00:03:28.000 There's lots of arm wrestlers. 1.00

00:03:28.000 No. 1.00

00:03:30.000 It's a style thing, it's a genetic predisposition.

00:03:34.000 It's, I rolled the dice wrong one day and had a bad match.

00:03:38.000 You know, I think what happens is it's really the pressure, it's the bones over time.

00:03:47.000 If you're a dummy and keep on doing it when you should probably rest, that probably doesn't help. 0.67

00:03:53.000 And I'm guilty. 0.99

00:03:56.000 Most of the greats.

00:03:58.000 Anyways, it doesn't affect me in the sport.

00:04:02.000 I actually call it weaponized arthritis.

00:04:06.000 Okay.

00:04:07.000 Because there are ways you can kind of make your loss of range work for you at times.

00:04:13.000 Yeah.

00:04:13.000 Really?

00:04:14.000 Because there's like, right, you know, like if you're doing an arm bar, okay, like your body resists with the ligaments and the tendons.

00:04:22.000 So that starts higher for me.

00:04:24.000 And I think that there's a muscular strength component that kicks in as well right at the end of the range to protect you.

00:04:29.000 So, I just have a higher arm bar.

00:04:35.000 Did it help you in arm bars as well?

00:04:37.000 Oh, God.

00:04:38.000 No, it doesn't.

00:04:39.000 A good jujitsu guy is still going to arm bar me.

00:04:42.000 It's also the bones would just snap.

00:04:44.000 Yeah, it's just going to snap higher.

00:04:45.000 Yeah, it's going to snap in bad places.

00:04:48.000 Did you ever try hanging from a chin up bar to straighten it out?

00:04:53.000 I've tried a lot of things.

00:04:54.000 I saw a video with you in Juju Mufu.

00:04:57.000 Is that how you say his name?

00:04:58.000 Yeah, Juju.

00:04:59.000 Juju Mufu. 0.99

00:04:59.000 Juju. 0.99

00:05:00.000 Yeah, Juju Mufu.

00:05:01.000 John Call.

00:05:03.000 He's great.

00:05:03.000 Yeah, he's great.

00:05:04.000 He's such a character.

00:05:06.000 But they were rolling, they were trying to do some stuff with these big metal bars to roll out your muscles. 0.99

00:05:12.000 And you were in fucking agony. 0.99

00:05:14.000 I was like, that is crazy to watch. 0.99

00:05:17.000 You really can't straighten your arm.

00:05:19.000 And when they were trying, you were screaming.

00:05:21.000 Yeah.

00:05:22.000 Yeah, it's terrible.

00:05:24.000 I've kind of just accepted it.

00:05:26.000 Did you ever try to hang?

00:05:27.000 I've tried so many things.

00:05:30.000 But when I was young, when I was 20, I was wishing for the day.

00:05:36.000 That I could be like crazy George.

00:05:38.000 Wait, your arm doesn't straighten out.

00:05:40.000 It's interesting, you know.

00:05:41.000 Like, I'm not, if I was all about straightening my arm, I could probably still do it because the bone is actually removed.

00:05:48.000 Now it's a sheath.

00:05:50.000 There's like a capsule that surrounds a joint that is probably the root cause of it.

00:05:57.000 What is the capsule made out of?

00:05:58.000 I believe it was a fascia, just connective structure.

00:06:03.000 I think it encapsulates the joint.

00:06:05.000 So everything is just sort of condensed to hold the joint together?

00:06:08.000 I think so.

00:06:09.000 Wow.

00:06:10.000 Yeah.

00:06:10.000 It's kind of a unique study.

00:06:12.000 If you were like a physiologist or you're studying human anatomy, you would say, okay, like what is possible?

00:06:19.000 Yeah.

00:06:19.000 You know, like do you know about David Goggins' knees?

00:06:23.000 I know David Goggins.

00:06:24.000 I don't know about his knees.

00:06:26.000 His knees are so crazy.

00:06:27.000 He's bone on bone with both knees.

00:06:30.000 And he went to the doctor, and the doctor said, I don't know how you can walk with these knees.

00:06:34.000 Forget about running thousands of miles.

00:06:37.000 So his knees had the, it's, what is it called, Jamie?

00:06:41.000 It's like wolf something.

00:06:42.000 It's like there's a condition when you're bone on bone for so long where the bone actually spreads out.

00:06:49.000 And the doctor said, I'd heard about this in theory.

00:06:52.000 I've never seen it on an actual human being where his knee, the bone had grown out so weird that his knees were moving at like odd angles.

00:07:01.000 So they had to saw his tibia and move his knee down.

00:07:06.000 So he's still bone on bone, but now he has a flat surface.

00:07:11.000 And so they cut it and then screwed it into place. 0.97

00:07:15.000 And then he just rode a stationary bike for like fucking five months like a maniac and then started running again. 0.99

00:07:20.000 Bone on bone. 0.99

00:07:22.000 Beautiful.

00:07:23.000 It's crazy.

00:07:23.000 Love it.

00:07:24.000 He's wild.

00:07:25.000 See if you can find what the condition is.

00:07:29.000 It says it's called Wolf's Law, biological principle stating that bones adapt and grow thicker and denser under physical stress.

00:07:35.000 Is that?

00:07:36.000 I think that's it.

00:07:37.000 Yeah.

00:07:37.000 And his grew thicker and like kind of mushroomed out at the top of the knee because there's nothing there.

00:07:44.000 There's no.

00:07:45.000 And it's just bang, So it just kept growing out.

00:07:49.000 And if you see, do we have the images of the surgery?

00:07:54.000 I know I sent it to you a long ass time ago.

00:07:56.000 It's showing a bunch of pictures from when he was on here.

00:07:58.000 So, see that where he, the fingerprints on his shin?

00:08:02.000 That's because he had so much edema on his leg that he could squeeze it and put his, that's after the surgery.

00:08:07.000 Awesome.

00:08:08.000 Yeah, but look at the actual, yeah, look at that, the photo of what the knee looks like.

00:08:12.000 That's not him.

00:08:13.000 That's not him.

00:08:15.000 That's like an image of what it looked like.

00:08:17.000 Okay, so they saw it and then they screw it down in place.

00:08:22.000 They saw it slightly, you know, like a wedge off a piece of wood.

00:08:26.000 You lower it.

00:08:27.000 Level it out and then screw it in place.

00:08:31.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:08:31.000 I have something similar.

00:08:32.000 I've been bone on bone for probably two decades.

00:08:36.000 Yeah.

00:08:36.000 Really?

00:08:37.000 All the cartilage is gone.

00:08:38.000 Nothing.

00:08:39.000 So when I went and got my surgery, the doctor told me I have no, like, there's nothing there but bone.

00:08:46.000 He said, Devin, maybe we can extend, maybe we can give you another couple years on your career.

00:08:53.000 Maybe.

00:08:53.000 How long ago did he say this?

00:08:55.000 That was like 15 years ago.

00:08:59.000 I'm probably no kidding.

00:09:00.000 I probably pulled off my best show ever six weeks ago.

00:09:03.000 Really?

00:09:04.000 How old are you?

00:09:05.000 I'm 51.

00:09:06.000 That's amazing.

00:09:07.000 And I have another shot at the world title.

00:09:10.000 I'm still number one in the divisions.

00:09:13.000 So, you know, I'm lucky, but I think it's all the doctors will say something, but it's just not true.

00:09:21.000 You can do anything.

00:09:22.000 Well, Goggins is a perfect example of that.

00:09:24.000 And I guess so are you.

00:09:25.000 It's like the idea that you can't do something is based on when most people quit.

00:09:32.000 Yeah.

00:09:34.000 Pain is an interesting thing to try and master.

00:09:38.000 It's information and you have to be able to live with it and work with it.

00:09:42.000 But it's good.

00:09:44.000 It's good to have this pain because it's kind of a guide on where you need to get better.

00:09:50.000 The tendons and the tendinous structures of the elbow are super, super taxed in arm wrestling.

00:09:56.000 And the process of rehabilitation and development of these structures under great duress and trauma.

00:10:05.000 It is difficult and it requires a lot of time and monotony, which a lot of people aren't willing to put in.

00:10:11.000 I'm shocked at how much time grip training takes.

00:10:15.000 Yeah.

00:10:15.000 It takes forever.

00:10:17.000 I've been trying to jack my grip strength things.

00:10:21.000 The strongest I ever got to is 164.

00:10:24.000 And I'm like, I want to get to 200.

00:10:26.000 I feel like in my lifetime I can get to 200.

00:10:28.000 I can't get past 164.

00:10:31.000 And the thing is, I keep lifting weights with my arms.

00:10:34.000 And I've always tired.

00:10:35.000 So every time I squeeze that thing, My hands are always sore. 0.97

00:10:39.000 So I'm like, shit, I got to take some time off to see if I can get it stronger. 0.96

00:10:43.000 And so I'm doing all these wrist curls, and I've got the forearm finisher from Golden Grip. 0.99

00:10:48.000 And I've got these big fat things that I use for cables to rotate wrists.

00:10:53.000 And my hands got bigger.

00:10:55.000 I'm definitely stronger, but it's like, I don't know when to lay off of it.

00:11:01.000 How many days a week do you do grip training?

00:11:04.000 What's your guess?

00:11:05.000 Of course.

00:11:05.000 Every day.

00:11:06.000 Every day.

00:11:07.000 Every day.

00:11:08.000 And.

00:11:08.000 Is that the way to do it?

00:11:09.000 Is that the smart way to do it?

00:11:11.000 Because I know you talk to a lot of those rock climber guys, and they have the craziest grip strength.

00:11:15.000 Yeah.

00:11:17.000 One of the things that I'll just say right away is a lot of people associate grip with arm wrestling, and 100% it's of massive importance.

00:11:26.000 But the real technical nuance of the sport is to try and make the other person hold on to you.

00:11:33.000 Right?

00:11:34.000 So it's not necessarily grip, it's more like defense and added offense.

00:11:39.000 But the first step is to try and tax the other person's grip.

00:11:43.000 How do you do that?

00:11:45.000 I think that everything, we're opening up like technical arm wrestling.

00:11:50.000 Open it up.

00:11:51.000 Let's go.

00:11:52.000 Okay, so I think from my position, the opening move in arm wrestling is a concept called rising.

00:12:00.000 Like, you know the movie Over the Top?

00:12:02.000 Okay, this is the opening step of the sport.

00:12:02.000 Mm-hmm.

00:12:06.000 And what it is, is basically an attempt to get a better grip.

00:12:10.000 And if I can, the concept of making the other opponent hold on to you, that's the first step in technical supremacy.

00:12:18.000 Okay, if you can make the other person hold on to you, if you can touch their fingers, if you can get their fingers activated.

00:12:25.000 And they're holding on to you, that's, they're less efficient.

00:12:30.000 Okay.

00:12:30.000 Yeah.

00:12:31.000 So it's about attacking weakness more than it is about going where you're strong.

00:12:35.000 So they're the most efficient when it's palm to palm and everything's gripped nice and tight.

00:12:39.000 And as soon as you get like out here.

00:12:41.000 You want the pressure interaction to be unfair to your advantage.

00:12:46.000 Right.

00:12:47.000 Right.

00:12:47.000 Like if we were to arm wrestle, you would want to put the pressure in my fingertips, like with almost like a hammer type motion.

00:12:54.000 Right.

00:12:55.000 So you're basically, it's almost like a curl.

00:12:57.000 It's, it's, More complicated, but that's like the first way to start to think about it.

00:13:01.000 Like, people think about arm wrestling and think about pinning each other, right?

00:13:05.000 And this is a very short sighted way to think about the sport.

00:13:09.000 You think about pulling the match close to you.

00:13:11.000 This concept of rising is this upwards, spinning, slipping motion where the end result is you have a better grip, and anything that they try and do is going to go through the weakest system they have, which is their fingertips.

00:13:27.000 Yeah, so it is great to have an awesome grip.

00:13:30.000 Really?

00:13:30.000 It's not everything.

00:13:31.000 I, I, so like proportionally in my workload, if I was doing 21 sets, 21, or I think I do 21 working sets typically in my workouts, one of them is dedicated purely to grip.

00:13:44.000 Every day?

00:13:46.000 All day.

00:13:47.000 All day.

00:13:47.000 So you just do them throughout the day.

00:13:50.000 I, I lead a very simple life at the moment.

00:13:53.000 So structure it.

00:13:54.000 Like how do you do it?

00:13:56.000 My structure right now, and I think that I'm probably, One of the most dedicated armresters in the world in time, in terms of like what I do with my life and how much energy I give the sport, is I base it off of a week.

00:14:12.000 Okay.

00:14:13.000 So I train with the club probably twice a week.

00:14:17.000 This changes, but typically I'm going twice a week and these are my hardest days.

00:14:21.000 And I go in there and I just completely redline and max out in the sport.

00:14:26.000 Okay.

00:14:26.000 All the exactly what I got to do, I'm doing at my highest, highest capacity.

00:14:33.000 I have my family, we're all wrestlers.

00:14:36.000 So, my kid, I mean, he's a pro too.

00:14:39.000 Yeah, he's competing this weekend.

00:14:39.000 Wow.

00:14:41.000 That's crazy.

00:14:42.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

00:14:43.000 So, we have our own thing where we'll train together.

00:14:49.000 But, really, two hard sessions a week, and then whatever I fit in with my kids.

00:14:54.000 And then the rest of the days are like mindless, not just the monotony level is extreme.

00:15:02.000 My wife and I, I'm retired, right?

00:15:04.000 So, I have nothing but time.

00:15:07.000 And, I try to make, I just try and put everything into it.

00:15:11.000 So, like, it's all day, man.

00:15:14.000 It's all day.

00:15:15.000 I wake up and I'm training, like, all day. 0.99

00:15:19.000 So, these machines, like, this is some of the shit that you have. 0.99

00:15:22.000 Now, is this a machine that's specifically designed for arm wrestling? 0.99

00:15:22.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:15:26.000 Did this exist or did you help create this?

00:15:30.000 This actually machine is handed down for me from the best female arm wrestler ever to exist, Leanne Dufresne, Johnny Roberts.

00:15:40.000 So, this is like a very standard arm wrestler.

00:15:42.000 Arm wrestling equipment.

00:15:42.000 It's basically an arm wrestling table with a cable system.

00:15:46.000 And this is super old, okay?

00:15:47.000 This table you're looking at here, that's like a 40 year old table and it's still working.

00:15:53.000 But yeah, you can buy a pulley system on a table.

00:15:55.000 And that's really like this is basically all I do.

00:15:58.000 I work off of a table, different angles, different pressures that all just replicate the pressures in arm wrestling.

00:16:04.000 So you have a fat grip, looks like a PVC tube, and then you're using that to work your fingertips and roll your wrists and just get to be really strong at that position where you're turning someone's wrist over.

00:16:18.000 We call that a multi spinner.

00:16:20.000 And what's interesting about it is you see it's a single point attachment.

00:16:24.000 So it's a little bit like Swiss ball for the wrist.

00:16:27.000 Swiss ball?

00:16:27.000 So it's.

00:16:28.000 What's that?

00:16:28.000 You know, like a Swiss ball, like people do like squats on them, like the ball in the gym.

00:16:34.000 People do like.

00:16:35.000 Oh, like a Bosu ball?

00:16:36.000 Is that what it's called? 0.55

00:16:37.000 Bosu is like a half, right?

00:16:38.000 Oh, is that what it is?

00:16:39.000 Swiss ball is like just the big round balls that.

00:16:42.000 Okay.

00:16:43.000 Yeah.

00:16:43.000 And you see people.

00:16:44.000 Like a yoga ball, whatever they call them.

00:16:46.000 Right.

00:16:47.000 You ever jumped on a Swiss ball and done squats or anything?

00:16:49.000 No.

00:16:50.000 Well.

00:16:50.000 Okay.

00:16:51.000 I have the half one that I do stuff on.

00:16:53.000 Yeah.

00:16:53.000 Swiss ball is.

00:16:55.000 Way more unstable.

00:16:56.000 So it's a similar concept where it's very unstable through the wrist.

00:17:01.000 And there's different wraps, but there's like a few base moves in arm wrestling probably top rolling, hooking, and pressing. 0.99

00:17:09.000 And you just do shit like this all day. 0.99

00:17:11.000 All day. 0.99

00:17:12.000 And this is in my taper, okay?

00:17:14.000 I know, it's crazy.

00:17:16.000 That's the hardest part.

00:17:18.000 This is in your what room?

00:17:19.000 This is in my basement.

00:17:20.000 Oh, your bass room.

00:17:21.000 Yeah.

00:17:22.000 And what you see here, this was actually my final workout.

00:17:26.000 Before I pulled the Russian champion Vitaly Letton like six, seven weeks ago.

00:17:32.000 So I've tapered.

00:17:33.000 Normally, all these movements you see, I'm doing like a hundred repetitions.

00:17:38.000 So lots of blood flow.

00:17:40.000 And when you're doing a hundred repetitions, like what, 50% max weight?

00:17:44.000 Like what do you weigh?

00:17:44.000 No.

00:17:46.000 Nothing.

00:17:47.000 Nothing.

00:17:47.000 Like 20 pounds, something like that?

00:17:49.000 Yeah.

00:17:50.000 Really?

00:17:50.000 Is that the key?

00:17:53.000 I experiment a lot.

00:17:55.000 I've done so many different systems, but this is what I've come up with.

00:17:55.000 Okay.

00:17:59.000 That I think is best.

00:18:01.000 So basically, it all revolves around these arm wrestling practice days where it's 100%, this is what I want my body to maximize about.

00:18:11.000 But the off days, the Tuesday, the Wednesday, it's all day just doing blood flow, just increasing the amount of blood that flows through the fascia, flows through these chains in arm wrestling motions.

00:18:25.000 And the 100 is all I'm trying to do is increase my circulation, especially through my connective structures and movement.

00:18:34.000 Is so essential.

00:18:37.000 Why is that more beneficial than hard strength training, like small reps, like low numbers of reps, but high weight?

00:18:44.000 So, super debatable, okay?

00:18:47.000 And I've done all of it.

00:18:51.000 What I've found is, in my opinion, you only have so much energy.

00:18:55.000 And this is something we've got to really weigh in because if I could just smash heavy stuff all the time and take steps forward, I'd do it.

00:19:02.000 But, I've found that you don't want to detract from the thing that you're really, really trying to do.

00:19:09.000 So anything that takes away from your ability to do that, I think you should look at cutting.

00:19:13.000 The best part of my training is on the table.

00:19:15.000 So anything that kind of messes with that, I don't want to do it.

00:19:19.000 I've done a lot of systems where I'm lifting heavy, but the thing is, they take energy, they take resources.

00:19:24.000 And what I really want to do is prepare my body so I can do that specific task as good as possible.

00:19:31.000 The high rep training heals me.

00:19:35.000 A lot of people are like, oh, that's a lot of work.

00:19:35.000 It heals me.

00:19:37.000 And I'm like, it's really not.

00:19:40.000 It's just, it's a form of healing almost.

00:19:43.000 Yeah.

00:19:43.000 Interesting.

00:19:44.000 Just the blood flow and the consistent movement and high repetitions.

00:19:44.000 Yeah.

00:19:49.000 Yes.

00:19:53.000 This is highly debated, okay?

00:19:55.000 But I'm proving it over and over over the years.

00:19:59.000 I started doing, because arm wrestling is a strength sport, no doubt about it.

00:20:04.000 So right away, people think, oh, you know, heavy weight and high reps is dangerous because you're going to become an endurance guy and it's going to make you weaker.

00:20:15.000 But when you go low, your work volume is tremendous.

00:20:20.000 Okay.

00:20:21.000 If you're doing light weight all day long, I mean, the amount of total weight that you're lifting becomes astronomical.

00:20:28.000 And I think that that adaptation over long periods is wonderful.

00:20:33.000 And you can't get the blood flow through the connective structures without movement.

00:20:38.000 So this is really why I do it the healing aspects, the overall metabolic conditioning that you get.

00:20:47.000 Yeah, and the taper is a big part of it as well.

00:20:52.000 But yeah, I'm doing all my heavy lifting specifically in the sport.

00:20:58.000 I'm not doing my heavy lifting at this time in my career.

00:21:01.000 And also, I'm 51 and I'm plagued with injuries, so I have to be very specific.

00:21:06.000 I have to be very precise.

00:21:09.000 Yeah, this is the best formula I've come up with.

00:21:11.000 And when you were younger, did you approach it differently?

00:21:14.000 I have made so many mistakes.

00:21:15.000 What was the initial approach?

00:21:16.000 Just lift as heavy as you can?

00:21:19.000 Yeah, lift as heavy as I can.

00:21:21.000 Well, you're a giant dude already, right?

00:21:22.000 So you already naturally have like big bones, big genetics.

00:21:26.000 So did you power lift?

00:21:28.000 Like, what did you do initially?

00:21:30.000 I was a judo guy, I was a basketball guy, I was a military guy.

00:21:37.000 So I did a lot of different stuff.

00:21:40.000 I was very cross trained.

00:21:41.000 I even did Ironman for a bit.

00:21:45.000 God, it's got to be so hard for you.

00:21:47.000 Yeah.

00:21:47.000 Through all that weight?

00:21:49.000 Yeah.

00:21:50.000 So when I say Ironman, apologies, not traditional, military Ironman.

00:21:55.000 What's the difference?

00:21:57.000 Military Ironman, you're doing it with a backpack, you're portaging a canoe, you're paddling, you're running with a backpack.

00:22:03.000 So that race, a winning time is probably anything under six hours, like five and a half to six hours.

00:22:10.000 So it's long duration, but it's slightly heavier.

00:22:13.000 So I'm still big, even for that.

00:22:17.000 Most champions, most guys who win the Ironman are average size or even smaller.

00:22:23.000 But, yeah, I mean, I'm a bigger person.

00:22:28.000 But, yeah, I did a lot of different sports, but I've always loved arm wrestling.

00:22:32.000 It's always been the one I've come back to.

00:22:35.000 What is it about it?

00:22:37.000 I think that there's a lot of things about it.

00:22:40.000 For me personally, it was my first sport.

00:22:43.000 I started arm wrestling with my grandmother when I was like four years old.

00:22:46.000 With your grandmother?

00:22:47.000 Really?

00:22:47.000 Yeah.

00:22:48.000 Never underestimate the power of a grandmother.

00:22:52.000 Yeah.

00:22:54.000 I was a rowdy little kid.

00:22:56.000 And, you know, with a German mother who didn't let me do too much crazy stuff around the house.

00:23:01.000 And my grandmother used to come over, and it was a reward system. 1.00

00:23:06.000 She'd tell me to do chores, and the result was I got to arm wrestle with her.

00:23:13.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:23:13.000 I never beat her. 1.00

00:23:15.000 I never beat her.

00:23:15.000 That's crazy.

00:23:18.000 It's funny.

00:23:20.000 Her name was LaVonne.

00:23:23.000 And the current super heavyweight world champion is LaVonne.

00:23:27.000 So, I've never beat either of them.

00:23:29.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:30.000 It's a bit trippy.

00:23:33.000 Yeah, so I started young.

00:23:36.000 I love arm wrestling because it's a very safe fight.

00:23:41.000 Okay, like I I love fighting everything in my life has been about fighting and Arm wrestling is one of those fight sports that has super low cost like we don't punch each other in the head I'll be able to walk nothing on my spine My elbows don't straighten, you know, so it's low cost.

00:24:02.000 You can do it your whole life like we have we've had world champions in the open division who are almost 70 what yeah, what yeah, that's cool, right?

00:24:12.000 That's incredible.

00:24:13.000 I love it How is that possible?

00:24:14.000 Yeah, the hand is weird.

00:24:16.000 Like, this thing here is designed for volume and it just slowly builds.

00:24:23.000 You know, the hand is the structure, it has so much connective tissues in it, so much tendon, and that's just it takes so long to build.

00:24:33.000 You know, age is an advantage in a lot of ways because you just have more time to get further in arm wrestling.

00:24:40.000 Yeah, I'm 51.

00:24:41.000 I'm telling you, I probably competed at the highest level and.

00:24:45.000 I believe I can still go further.

00:24:47.000 It's non-typical, you know, it's non-typical.

00:24:51.000 And the thing that I love most about it, the very most, is the family and the bonds.

00:24:58.000 Arm wrestling clubs are special places.

00:25:01.000 It's very blue collar, open doors, man.

00:25:04.000 There's not a lot of money associated with the sport in terms of membership fees.

00:25:08.000 We arm wrestle in each other's garages and houses, and it breeds a very tight family.

00:25:15.000 I consider the club that I train with, like they're my family.

00:25:19.000 So that's my, I mean, that's what sport's all about, you know?

00:25:24.000 Yeah.

00:25:25.000 Yeah. 0.95

00:25:25.000 And arm wrestling is very conducive to that. 0.95

00:25:27.000 So when you say it's non-typical that you could compete at this level, at this age, how old are like most of the top guys?

00:25:36.000 I'd say that you hit your probably peak typically when you are low 30s.

00:25:43.000 So very standard, you know?

00:25:45.000 Oh, that's my buddy Porkchop.

00:25:46.000 Oh, there's Crazy George.

00:25:48.000 This is the guy, okay?

00:25:49.000 So, this guy, the dude who's down there, not the guy in the green shirt.

00:25:54.000 So, these are both my good buddies.

00:25:55.000 And this is the guy who can't straighten his arms out?

00:25:57.000 He can't.

00:25:58.000 No, he's super locked up.

00:25:59.000 Okay.

00:26:00.000 But so he's doing this move called a king's move or outside top rule.

00:26:05.000 And you see Porkchop's wrist is bent back.

00:26:08.000 I train with Porky twice a week.

00:26:08.000 I love Porky.

00:26:12.000 But yeah, Crazy George.

00:26:13.000 And Crazy George is like 160 pounds.

00:26:17.000 And Porky's like 230, completely tremendously jacked and strong.

00:26:17.000 Yeah.

00:26:17.000 Really?

00:26:22.000 Yeah, and Porkchop is like a professional arm wrestler pulling at East versus West.

00:26:26.000 Okay, that's our highest league.

00:26:28.000 And Crazy George is, yeah, he's that's incredible.

00:26:33.000 Yeah, it's completely incredible.

00:26:35.000 Um, yeah, there's another guy from our club, Matt Smith, against Crazy George.

00:26:40.000 I think Matt actually may have beaten him here.

00:26:42.000 This is actually the time period of Crazy George's downfall.

00:26:45.000 Okay, so how old is Crazy George in this film?

00:26:48.000 He'd probably be late 60s here.

00:26:50.000 Okay, wow, yeah, he's an absolute legend to me in sport.

00:26:54.000 Technically, so this guy, he spent the first like 20 years in the sport, two up, two down.

00:27:01.000 Okay, you go to tournament, double elimination.

00:27:03.000 He's, and that's the Canadian champ.

00:27:05.000 These guys are all champions that you see him arm wrestling with.

00:27:08.000 And he invented basically, he didn't invent it, but there were very few people doing this style of arm wrestling.

00:27:16.000 Okay, we call it an outside top roll or a king's move.

00:27:19.000 And he really figured it out and very difficult, very difficult to deal with.

00:27:27.000 And what is he doing?

00:27:28.000 He's dropping down and lowering his body weight.

00:27:33.000 Yeah.

00:27:33.000 So there are many kinds of main strengths in arm wrestling.

00:27:38.000 Okay.

00:27:39.000 There's rising strength.

00:27:42.000 There's pronational strength.

00:27:44.000 There's cupping strength.

00:27:46.000 And this pronational, see this, like, this is like my favorite example.

00:27:50.000 Jesus Christ, look at that thing.

00:27:51.000 That's so weird.

00:27:52.000 Yeah, show that.

00:27:53.000 Show that.

00:27:53.000 Look at that.

00:27:54.000 Who the fuck has that muscle? 0.99

00:27:55.000 Right. 0.99

00:27:56.000 Arm rests.

00:27:56.000 That muscle's so weird.

00:27:58.000 So that turns.

00:27:58.000 Right.

00:27:59.000 I don't even think I have that.

00:28:00.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:00.000 Where is that?

00:28:01.000 It's right there.

00:28:02.000 That's nuts.

00:28:03.000 Right.

00:28:04.000 Mine is non existent.

00:28:05.000 I was going to interrupt.

00:28:06.000 I saw it on this thumbnail and I was going to say, what is that?

00:28:10.000 Yeah.

00:28:11.000 That's crazy.

00:28:12.000 It's one of my dreams to have bodybuilders when they're, you know, IFBB just to be doing pronator poses one day.

00:28:20.000 One day.

00:28:20.000 I don't even have that.

00:28:21.000 You got to first turn your thumb down.

00:28:24.000 Like that?

00:28:25.000 Yeah, and pop your wrist back.

00:28:27.000 There it is.

00:28:28.000 See it?

00:28:28.000 There it is.

00:28:29.000 There you go.

00:28:29.000 There it is.

00:28:30.000 That's the one. 1.00

00:28:32.000 Fucking little bitch ass muscle. 1.00

00:28:32.000 That's the one. 1.00

00:28:36.000 That's hilarious.

00:28:37.000 That's gigantic.

00:28:38.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:39.000 So, like, different styles in arm wrestling, okay?

00:28:42.000 Like, They have different roots.

00:28:44.000 Okay.

00:28:46.000 And the king's move, top rolling in general, outside top rolling is super dependent on pronation.

00:28:53.000 So it's all this.

00:28:55.000 Twisting.

00:28:55.000 Yeah.

00:28:56.000 Twisting.

00:28:56.000 Yeah.

00:28:58.000 It's weaponized, right?

00:28:59.000 We get really strong.

00:29:02.000 And there's a relationship between all the angles in the hand.

00:29:05.000 The hand is very complex, right?

00:29:07.000 All sorts of stuff it can do.

00:29:09.000 And the main two drivers, cupping, we call it.

00:29:14.000 Flexion and pronation.

00:29:16.000 And these two interact.

00:29:17.000 So when one pronates, it attacks the other one's cup.

00:29:22.000 So there's a relationship between them.

00:29:24.000 So Crazy George is like the master of pronational styles.

00:29:31.000 King's move is pronation style.

00:29:33.000 I, over the course of my career, changed techniques, changed techniques.

00:29:38.000 Probably my best technique is an open top roll or a King's move now.

00:29:43.000 Yeah.

00:29:43.000 And I learned a lot.

00:29:44.000 It's like the guy that.

00:29:46.000 One of my first coaches, a guy called Troy Eden, he could never be George.

00:29:53.000 He couldn't be George.

00:29:54.000 We tried, we tried, we tried for years to figure him out.

00:29:58.000 And that was back when I was like 20, right?

00:30:00.000 So I've been studying this style for 30 years.

00:30:05.000 And yeah, it's a combination of locks and giveaways and balancing.

00:30:11.000 Arm wrestling things happen really quickly, very, very quickly.

00:30:13.000 But it's a balancing act of all these different strengths.

00:30:17.000 So, what is it about you that's able to keep.

00:30:20.000 Competing at a very high level into your 50s?

00:30:23.000 I think.

00:30:25.000 Is it this approach where you're just doing all these reps all day long?

00:30:28.000 Do you think that's a big part of it?

00:30:29.000 Huge.

00:30:30.000 Huge.

00:30:31.000 Huge part of it.

00:30:32.000 Because you're constantly forcing your muscles to work, you're constantly getting blood flow, and you're not losing any strength.

00:30:38.000 As you get older.

00:30:38.000 Yeah.

00:30:39.000 It's a huge part of it.

00:30:40.000 Yeah.

00:30:42.000 My work volume probably exceeds most people in the sport with that.

00:30:48.000 So, metabolically and from a health perspective, it keeps my tendons and ligaments really functional.

00:30:54.000 And, you know, I'm just a very simple and obsessed person, and I arm wrestle at every opportunity.

00:31:01.000 Don't you also have some very freaky genetics?

00:31:03.000 Like, didn't Ryan.

00:31:04.000 Yeah.

00:31:05.000 Yeah.

00:31:06.000 What is his last name?

00:31:07.000 Rossner.

00:31:08.000 This guy's the best.

00:31:09.000 Very interesting guy.

00:31:10.000 Smartest person I know.

00:31:11.000 Geneticist, and he was explaining to me how unusual your genes are.

00:31:18.000 We all have unusual genes.

00:31:20.000 Yeah, but you have really unusual genes.

00:31:24.000 Well,.

00:31:25.000 That topic is so big, you know, the genetic piece.

00:31:30.000 I think that what a massive piece going forward for our species.

00:31:36.000 The mastery of genetics, it's right at the top, I think, of our highest priorities.

00:31:43.000 There was a thing that they were talking about last night in the green room.

00:31:46.000 See if you could find this.

00:31:47.000 They think they might have figured out a way to end Down syndrome.

00:31:53.000 They think they might have figured out a way with genetic engineering, with CRISPR or whatever they're using, whatever modalities they're using, to end Down syndrome.

00:32:01.000 Sure.

00:32:02.000 Which is wild.

00:32:03.000 I think that there's.

00:32:04.000 So many answers with genetics.

00:32:07.000 I personally believe that, and this is a big topic with freedom and everything like that, but I really believe that when you're born, you should be swabbed and it should accompany your health card or whatever, and just as information.

00:32:23.000 There's so much.

00:32:24.000 Well, it probably will be in the future as all these techniques and all this new stuff comes out.

00:32:30.000 CRISPR takes a bold leap towards silencing Down syndrome's extra chromosome.

00:32:34.000 Wow.

00:32:35.000 So, scientists have taken an important step towards a gene therapy that could one day turn off the genetic material that causes Down syndrome.

00:32:42.000 Down syndrome is a genetic condition caused by an extra chromosome, 21, and consequently hundreds of triplicate genes that lead to developmental and neurological issues.

00:32:53.000 According to Washington based National Down Syndrome Society, one in every 640 babies in the United States is born with Down syndrome.

00:33:00.000 That makes it the most common chromosomal condition.

00:33:04.000 So, what is it doing here?

00:33:07.000 Okay, so Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School found a way to silence much of the extra chromosomes' activity in the cell at once.

00:33:17.000 Details of their research are published in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

00:33:23.000 Wow.

00:33:24.000 So, what is weird about your genes, though?

00:33:26.000 Ryan told me, but I don't remember.

00:33:27.000 He goes, You've got to talk to him about your genes.

00:33:30.000 Well, Ryan's actually got to talk to him.

00:33:32.000 I mean, I'm a high school educated guy, and I've been down to Austin several times.

00:33:37.000 To hang out with Ryan, I absorb everything I can from this guy.

00:33:40.000 But I think that my genetics, I think I'm predisposed to endurance, actually.

00:33:50.000 I think so.

00:33:50.000 Endurance?

00:33:51.000 I think if you take an overall look at my genetics, I think I have a lot of favorable mutations that are predisposed to good.

00:34:02.000 But it's weird.

00:34:03.000 I don't know, man.

00:34:03.000 Listen, the genetic side of things, I'll sound silly if I try and talk too much about it.

00:34:09.000 I'll just tell you that.

00:34:12.000 There are favorable genetics for sure.

00:34:14.000 You know, there's favorable mutations.

00:34:16.000 And it's amazing, you know, if you could capture all of them from everybody and, you know, put it together and you never know what.

00:34:27.000 You'd get Brian Shaw.

00:34:29.000 We've scanned Brian.

00:34:30.000 Yeah.

00:34:31.000 That's the thing.

00:34:32.000 So this project that Ryan is doing, and I like to help him out a little bit, we've been looking at elite performers and.

00:34:43.000 With the goal to find favorable mutations.

00:34:46.000 And yeah, we scanned Brian.

00:34:50.000 He's in the Bible.

00:34:51.000 That guy's in the Bible.

00:34:51.000 Yeah.

00:34:52.000 He's like, you know, David and Goliath.

00:34:55.000 Yeah.

00:34:55.000 They're real people out there like that.

00:34:57.000 Yeah.

00:34:58.000 Brian's.

00:34:58.000 So his genetics are one out of every 500 million people.

00:35:03.000 Isn't it something crazy along those lines?

00:35:05.000 Yeah.

00:35:07.000 He's completely a.

00:35:10.000 He's right at the peak of human performance.

00:35:13.000 Right from a genetic standpoint.

00:35:14.000 Just freakish.

00:35:15.000 Freakish.

00:35:16.000 Bone density.

00:35:17.000 Yeah.

00:35:17.000 Everything.

00:35:18.000 Everything.

00:35:18.000 And it's not just his bone density, the dude's mindset.

00:35:22.000 Like, there are many pieces of Brian's genetics that make him a champion.

00:35:27.000 But yeah, he has some stuff in him that Ryan's never seen.

00:35:32.000 Yeah, no, nobody.

00:35:33.000 He has.

00:35:34.000 And I probably shouldn't be speaking about other people's medical stuff, but I love Brian and he can sue me if he wants.

00:35:41.000 Nobody has his growth hormone.

00:35:44.000 He has a different type of growth hormone.

00:35:46.000 What do you mean?

00:35:47.000 I don't think it's the same.

00:35:48.000 What?

00:35:49.000 I don't think he has this.

00:35:51.000 We're opening something so cool because.

00:35:53.000 You talked about the Down syndrome, and there's some very interesting stuff with that.

00:35:56.000 But yeah, Brian, I don't believe that Brian's growth hormone is the same as yours and mine.

00:36:04.000 What does that mean?

00:36:05.000 It might be molecularly different, or it might have.

00:36:09.000 You're going to have to talk to Ryan.

00:36:12.000 His growth hormone is different.

00:36:13.000 He's a different kind of growth hormone?

00:36:15.000 He has a mutation in his growth hormone.

00:36:18.000 Well, that makes sense.

00:36:19.000 Yeah, it does.

00:36:19.000 I mean, he's almost seven feet tall and he's 400 pounds.

00:36:22.000 Yeah, and he doesn't stop.

00:36:25.000 He doesn't stop.

00:36:26.000 But it's weird the the whole like Down syndrome thing.

00:36:29.000 They can do stop codes like some genes, like some mutations that you get.

00:36:33.000 From what I understand, There's like a stop code on a gene.

00:36:35.000 So whatever your gene is, When the I guess mRNA lands on it and starts to do its thing, like there can be a stop code or something that just stops that gene from expressing.

00:36:47.000 And I think that that's likely what they do with that.

00:36:50.000 They'd somehow insert a stop code.

00:36:52.000 But I mean, there's people out there who have like world records, like for things like deadlift, That don't Have fast twitch muscle according to their genetics.

00:37:04.000 So it's really weird.

00:37:05.000 What do you mean they don't have fast twitch muscle?

00:37:06.000 Like they have a stop code on their fast twitch genetics.

00:37:10.000 Just natural.

00:37:11.000 Doesn't make any sense at all.

00:37:12.000 They're just born weird.

00:37:13.000 Born super weird, yet they're capable of beating world records on the deadlift.

00:37:18.000 So.

00:37:18.000 Wouldn't you think that deadlift is a fast twitch thing?

00:37:21.000 Yeah.

00:37:22.000 So I don't understand.

00:37:23.000 I don't either.

00:37:24.000 It's an amazing field.

00:37:26.000 Genetics is an amazing field.

00:37:28.000 Is that a lack of understanding of what fast twitch do?

00:37:31.000 Or is it they can compensate with the other muscles in some way?

00:37:36.000 I don't think it's other muscles because I think that it would probably apply to all the musculature.

00:37:41.000 So there's something that we don't understand.

00:37:44.000 There's something weird going on.

00:37:47.000 Eddie, you can sue me.

00:37:48.000 Eddie, all I love you.

00:37:50.000 I love you.

00:37:52.000 Eddie's got a stop code in his genes on fast switch muscle.

00:37:56.000 Makes no sense.

00:37:57.000 Well, that doesn't make any sense.

00:37:59.000 He moves so fast.

00:38:00.000 I know. 0.99

00:38:00.000 And he hits so fucking hard. 0.99

00:38:02.000 It's crazy. 0.99

00:38:02.000 That's crazy. 0.99

00:38:04.000 How is that possible?

00:38:04.000 I don't know.

00:38:05.000 I've seen that guy hit Mitz and you're like, Jesus Christ. 0.66

00:38:07.000 I know.

00:38:08.000 Is this what the Hercules did?

00:38:09.000 No.

00:38:10.000 Not that?

00:38:11.000 No.

00:38:11.000 Something else?

00:38:11.000 Oh, that's myostatin.

00:38:13.000 That's myostatin inhibitors.

00:38:15.000 Yeah.

00:38:15.000 So it regulates the production of myostatin, a protein that stops muscles from growing too large.

00:38:20.000 So with myostatin inhibitors, they've done that with, I'm sure you've seen those whippets that have it.

00:38:25.000 Yes, of course.

00:38:26.000 So whippets are a weird dog.

00:38:28.000 It's a very skinny, fast dog.

00:38:30.000 And some whippets are born with this genetic mutation that's a myostatin inhibitor and they look like the Hulk.

00:38:37.000 It's the craziest. 0.78

00:38:38.000 Show an image of that, please.

00:38:40.000 It is the craziest.

00:38:41.000 That doesn't look like a real dog.

00:38:43.000 That doesn't look like a real dog.

00:38:43.000 Right.

00:38:45.000 That's a crazy bodybuilder dog. 1.00

00:38:47.000 Because if you see a regular Whippet, show me a regular Whippet now, please. 0.99

00:38:52.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:38:52.000 Regular Whippets, that's a, yeah, look at a regular Whippet. 1.00

00:38:56.000 Like a real fast, almost like a greyhound looking dog.

00:38:59.000 And then you see the ones with the myostatin inhibitor gene, and you're like, what the hell is going on?

00:39:05.000 They look like the most freakish bodybuilder of all time, but in a dog form.

00:39:11.000 And some humans have that.

00:39:12.000 Belgian blues also.

00:39:13.000 The Belgian.

00:39:14.000 The cows.

00:39:15.000 Yes.

00:39:15.000 Yeah.

00:39:16.000 And they have it too.

00:39:17.000 Yeah.

00:39:17.000 So they offer already genetic therapy that gives you folostatin.

00:39:24.000 So there's a balance between folostatin and myostatin.

00:39:28.000 From what I understand, like the key that turns on the cell for growth is folostatin.

00:39:37.000 And myostatin tells the cell to stop growing.

00:39:41.000 Right.

00:39:41.000 You're big enough.

00:39:42.000 Important.

00:39:43.000 Yeah.

00:39:43.000 Very important.

00:39:44.000 And so if you don't have myostatin, all that that turnkey gets.

00:39:49.000 Is full of statin.

00:39:51.000 So the only signal that you're ever getting with a myostatin deficiency is full of statin.

00:39:55.000 And so, yeah, so they offer a genetic therapy that increases your full of statin.

00:40:00.000 They offer it to who?

00:40:03.000 Hmm.

00:40:05.000 Anybody, anybody.

00:40:07.000 Anybody with enough money.

00:40:08.000 Rhymes with peptide.

00:40:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:40:11.000 There's a bunch of genetic therapies that they've already created.

00:40:13.000 Full of statin is one of them. 0.70

00:40:14.000 And so that would be for power lifters or football players or someone who just wanted to get fucking huge?

00:40:20.000 I think initially it was created for longevity because as you age, your full statin drops.

00:40:27.000 And that's why people get smaller.

00:40:29.000 They shrink as they get older.

00:40:31.000 And full statin just helps you maintain muscle mass.

00:40:31.000 Right.

00:40:35.000 So I think it's mostly promoted as an anti aging remedy, but absolutely.

00:40:35.000 Yes.

00:40:42.000 Like you want to get your performance up.

00:40:44.000 Yeah, increase it.

00:40:45.000 They're doing so many wild things now.

00:40:47.000 They've got this new therapy now for people with disc degeneration.

00:40:51.000 I'm sure you have it.

00:40:52.000 A lot of people have it.

00:40:52.000 I have it.

00:40:54.000 Especially anybody who does jiu jitsu has it.

00:40:56.000 Your discs just get worn out from getting cranked on, and like heavy lifters always have it, lower back issues.

00:41:04.000 The disc is the soft cushion in between the spinal columns, and those big bones push down that disc, and over time, and all that compression, it squashes.

00:41:14.000 But now they've got stuff that they can inject into the disc that inflates the discs.

00:41:20.000 And so, all these people that have been getting artificial discs and fusions and all the problems that come with that, because there's massive problems.

00:41:28.000 They're going to be able to eliminate that, which is amazing.

00:41:31.000 Super cool.

00:41:32.000 Oh, so super cool.

00:41:33.000 And I tell everybody if you could avoid back surgery, please avoid back surgery. 0.99

00:41:37.000 Don't fucking do it. 0.99

00:41:38.000 There's a lot of different ways. 0.99

00:41:39.000 Like, I always tell everybody, and I'll tell everybody again Louis Simmons, his invention, that invention, the reverse hyper, fucking incredible.

00:41:49.000 One of the greatest inventions ever for people with lower back problems.

00:41:52.000 I have one here in the studio, I have one at my house. 0.97

00:41:56.000 I fucking swear by that machine. 0.97

00:41:58.000 It's so good. 0.99

00:41:59.000 It decompresses the spine on the D cell.

00:42:02.000 And on the uplift, when you're lifting up the weights, it strengthens the muscles out.

00:42:06.000 It's like a perfect exercise for lower back issues.

00:42:09.000 Yeah.

00:42:10.000 Yeah, it's wild when we look at the future in terms of performance and how far the age is being pushed.

00:42:18.000 Like we see Crazy George, but I think I'm optimistic that all the ages are just going to be pushed and pushed until you're probably maybe not going to be a champion until you're 60.

00:42:30.000 That's crazy.

00:42:31.000 Right?

00:42:32.000 That's crazy.

00:42:32.000 I see.

00:42:33.000 Well, that's for arm wrestling.

00:42:34.000 I wonder what's going to happen with regular sports.

00:42:38.000 The stuff that's pushing this stuff is performance enhancing drugs.

00:42:42.000 Peptides, stem cells, not really, that's not really a performance enhancing drug, but for injuries.

00:42:48.000 But testosterone, all these different steroids, all these different things.

00:42:53.000 The thing about combat sports in particular is that you can't use those things, they're not allowed.

00:42:59.000 But when you can use them, you see these older athletes that have the mind of an older athlete, but the body that works like a young guy.

00:43:07.000 My favorite example of that is Vitor Belfort when he was in his prime.

00:43:10.000 TRT Belfort. 0.99

00:43:12.000 TRT Vitor was the scariest fucking guy ever. 0.99

00:43:12.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:43:15.000 Yeah.

00:43:16.000 Because he was jacked up with testosterone, but he was also 37 years old with a lifetime of combat sport experience, a lifetime of intelligence, but hadn't lost any speed, hadn't lost any strength.

00:43:26.000 In fact, he had like superhuman speed and strength because he was juicy, super juicy.

00:43:34.000 But it makes you think, like, man, what would the sport look like if that was open to everybody?

00:43:40.000 Right.

00:43:41.000 Yeah.

00:43:42.000 Interesting.

00:43:43.000 It is interesting because there's a lot of guys that want to keep competing, but their body just doesn't respond.

00:43:49.000 The way it used to to training because they're 37 or 38 or 39.

00:43:54.000 But if you could get them on the sauce.

00:43:56.000 Yeah, right.

00:43:57.000 Where's the limit?

00:43:58.000 Right.

00:43:58.000 Yeah.

00:43:59.000 And why not let them?

00:44:01.000 Absolutely.

00:44:02.000 Why not?

00:44:03.000 I'm a big believer in tested sport.

00:44:06.000 I think that that's wonderful.

00:44:08.000 And I think that that'll never go away.

00:44:10.000 And I think it's important.

00:44:12.000 But I'm also a believer in open up the gates and let everybody play.

00:44:16.000 Well, that's why I really love this whole idea of doing the enhanced games.

00:44:20.000 It didn't really pan out the way everybody hoped.

00:44:23.000 Nobody really won any records other than the one guy in the swimming, but he wore a prohibited suit that lets you swim quicker, apparently.

00:44:29.000 I don't understand swimming.

00:44:30.000 Yeah.

00:44:30.000 But I was hoping like you're going to see some freakish superhuman performances.

00:44:36.000 But I feel like if that's going to happen, that's going to take years.

00:44:40.000 I don't think you would get the kind of gains that these people are hoping to get to achieve like world records, super freak human performance unless you're doing that stuff for a long time.

00:44:49.000 Like you know, as well as anybody, that training takes forever.

00:44:53.000 It takes to build strength, to build speed, to build endurance.

00:44:56.000 It takes a long ass time.

00:44:58.000 You think you're going to get strength in three months? 0.69

00:45:00.000 Like, you get a little stronger.

00:45:02.000 For sure. 0.99

00:45:02.000 But you're not going to get freakish strength for fucking years. 0.99

00:45:07.000 It takes years. 0.99

00:45:08.000 Years.

00:45:09.000 Decades. 0.99

00:45:10.000 Like Juju Mufu.

00:45:11.000 Like, how long has that guy been lifting weights? 1.00

00:45:12.000 That guy's a fucking freak. 1.00

00:45:13.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:45:15.000 Yeah.

00:45:15.000 You can't build this stuff overnight.

00:45:16.000 And I bet he would melt a piss cup.

00:45:19.000 Whoo.

00:45:20.000 Listen, I think that.

00:45:21.000 Not a chance.

00:45:23.000 Juju, Juju, look at myself included.

00:45:25.000 You know, I care about.

00:45:27.000 Performance.

00:45:29.000 This is what I care about.

00:45:31.000 And so many people fall into the same boat.

00:45:33.000 Hey, Chance of Hell, that dude's natural.

00:45:33.000 Look at that guy.

00:45:35.000 You know, I'll tell you, Juju is probably amazing, though, that he can do that.

00:45:40.000 That kind of flexibility with that kind of mass is.

00:45:42.000 Look at that.

00:45:43.000 While overhead pressing, a full side squat or side split.

00:45:48.000 That's nuts.

00:45:49.000 On chairs.

00:45:50.000 Jean Claude Van Damme style.

00:45:52.000 Juju started out tricking.

00:45:54.000 What does that mean?

00:45:54.000 Okay.

00:45:55.000 Like, it's a formula.

00:45:57.000 That sounds like.

00:45:58.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:45:59.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:01.000 So he actually started off.

00:46:02.000 Sounds like he's picking up guys.

00:46:03.000 Yeah, no, no.

00:46:04.000 Juju is super cool.

00:46:06.000 It's like flipping.

00:46:08.000 He was on America's Got Talent?

00:46:09.000 Yeah.

00:46:10.000 It's like a form of acrobatics or gymnastics.

00:46:10.000 Oh, wow.

00:46:15.000 Right.

00:46:16.000 Well, I've seen him do acrobatic stuff and it's really nuts.

00:46:16.000 Yeah.

00:46:19.000 Like his physical ability, it defies what you expect from a guy with that kind of mass.

00:46:19.000 Right.

00:46:25.000 Right.

00:46:26.000 Yeah.

00:46:27.000 So he's a comp.

00:46:28.000 Combined like almost gymnast and bodybuilder, and he's probably better now than ever.

00:46:35.000 And he's, I mean, I think Juju's in his 40s. 0.99

00:46:38.000 Wow, yeah, and uh, yeah, he's massive and healthy and you know, absolutely kicking ass. 0.96

00:46:44.000 Probably the most positive human being that I've met. 0.60

00:46:48.000 Well, he seems super positive, he is on his YouTube videos, yeah. 0.99

00:46:51.000 And we have snorted his fucking smell, yeah, it's strong. 0.98

00:46:54.000 He's got the best stuff, he does. 0.99

00:46:56.000 We've snorted his stuff about a hundred times on this show.

00:46:59.000 Yeah, actually.

00:47:00.000 Look at him doing flips.

00:47:01.000 Yeah.

00:47:02.000 That's crazy that a guy with that kind of mask can move like that.

00:47:06.000 Juju is actually the inspiration for this modern, this latest way that I'm training.

00:47:13.000 It was actually.

00:47:14.000 Really?

00:47:15.000 Juju came up to my place probably about a year and a half ago, and we were just redlining in our two hand work, okay?

00:47:15.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:24.000 And it was so good.

00:47:25.000 Two hand work?

00:47:26.000 Yeah, so, okay, so I would be considered like the senior guy in my club, okay?

00:47:32.000 So, and we have this kind of rule in the club just to make things work properly.

00:47:37.000 Senior holds, junior works, okay?

00:47:41.000 So the senior is kind of staying with you, floating with you, and the junior is able to control their intensity.

00:47:49.000 So the guy who would normally win the match doesn't win.

00:47:52.000 You just hold him in place.

00:47:53.000 Yeah.

00:47:53.000 Okay.

00:47:54.000 Right.

00:47:54.000 Like defense work in jujitsu.

00:47:56.000 Okay.

00:47:56.000 Exactly.

00:47:56.000 Okay.

00:47:57.000 But just to help out that guy, typically we'll do two-arm work.

00:48:04.000 Okay.

00:48:04.000 To kind of flip the script for him.

00:48:06.000 So somebody can hold like me with two arms and kind of let me get to redline.

00:48:12.000 Yeah.

00:48:13.000 So Juju and I were doing that like a year and a half ago.

00:48:16.000 And it was so good and it was so much fun.

00:48:19.000 I was like, what am I doing, you know, having anything kind of.

00:48:23.000 Cut into this, and that's when I stopped doing heavy lifting.

00:48:28.000 It was as a result of training with Juju.

00:48:30.000 So, this two arm work of just holding and just work on that you feel is more important than all the lifting and all the other stuff, yeah, because it's sport specific, exactly.

00:48:40.000 And does he arm wrestle?

00:48:41.000 He does a little bit, Juju does everything, but why did it you working with him make you train differently?

00:48:48.000 Juju is a special guy.

00:48:50.000 Um, I think that just you don't have to be the best in your field if you have a certain energy or certain. thing with you.

00:48:58.000 Juju is a wonderful, creative, hardworking guy.

00:49:02.000 And when you get a chance to train with him, it doesn't matter that his skill level, it's just his level of energy is so good that when we work together, it helps me.

00:49:12.000 I don't know.

00:49:13.000 I don't know how it happened, but he unlocked this understanding of the priority of that training for me.

00:49:19.000 I've always done it, but never.

00:49:21.000 How did he unlock it?

00:49:22.000 I'm not getting it.

00:49:24.000 I think that our training session, okay, so what happened was Juju came over.

00:49:30.000 And I normally, on days that I do table work, I do not hit the gym.

00:49:37.000 Okay.

00:49:38.000 Because I don't want anything to kind of impact my table work.

00:49:42.000 And because I only had a day with Juju, I wanted to show him how I was training.

00:49:47.000 And at the time, I was training very heavy.

00:49:49.000 I was training very heavy.

00:49:50.000 So we did this circuit.

00:49:51.000 I showed him all my latest exercises that I was prioritizing.

00:49:55.000 And then we went to the club that night.

00:49:57.000 And we had this awesome two arm work.

00:49:59.000 But I felt as though, you know, the singles and everything that I'd done earlier in the day had a slight effect.

00:50:03.000 And I was like, I can't ever let that happen again.

00:50:06.000 I need to make sure I put all my energy into this table training.

00:50:10.000 And it's funny, you know, being 51 and having over 30 years competitively in the sport, I still feel like I learn.

00:50:17.000 You know, I still feel like I change things from event to event.

00:50:22.000 Well, that's a sign you're doing something fun.

00:50:22.000 Yeah.

00:50:24.000 Yeah.

00:50:25.000 That's the key.

00:50:25.000 Right?

00:50:25.000 Continue to get better at it and continue to grow at it.

00:50:28.000 Key to life.

00:50:29.000 So just the one training session with him changed your perspective on that because you just weren't performing as well?

00:50:36.000 That was the tipping point.

00:50:37.000 That was a tipping point for me.

00:50:39.000 So, I generally have a protocol, like a training kind of balance, a recipe that I'm going to follow pretty much from event to event.

00:50:49.000 And this is all made by you?

00:50:51.000 It's made by me.

00:50:53.000 And I watch everything.

00:50:55.000 I love arm wrestling, but I'm looking at sports.

00:50:57.000 I'm always trying to get better.

00:50:59.000 So, yeah, it's my protocol that I come up with.

00:51:02.000 And then I'll tweak it based off of my results.

00:51:06.000 Okay.

00:51:06.000 So, if I'm doing good, Not much changes.

00:51:10.000 If I don't do as good as I think I should do, or there's like something, I'll tweak it from event to event.

00:51:16.000 And yeah, and that night was the night that I decided I need to get rid of heavy weights because this is so good.

00:51:23.000 This training is so good when done properly.

00:51:26.000 And that's the key when done properly.

00:51:28.000 Like, two arm work can suck.

00:51:30.000 Like, if you do two arm work wrong, it can hurt you, it can set you back.

00:51:34.000 But when done properly, it's the best training that there can be.

00:51:38.000 Specifically, super specific.

00:51:38.000 Yeah.

00:51:41.000 And do you do stuff that's not specific for arm wrestling, just for overall body strength?

00:51:45.000 Like, do you feel like there's a balance to be achieved?

00:51:48.000 This is the greatest criticism that I always receive as an athlete, is because I don't really.

00:51:57.000 Just arm wrestling stuff.

00:51:58.000 I go for walks.

00:52:00.000 That's it?

00:52:01.000 I'm terrible.

00:52:01.000 Really?

00:52:02.000 No lunges?

00:52:03.000 No leg lifts?

00:52:04.000 I'm trying a little bit to work it back in in some minimal way.

00:52:11.000 It's interesting, you know, cross training versus specialization.

00:52:16.000 I have a long background in very broad training.

00:52:19.000 Okay.

00:52:20.000 Like I once upon a time was a fit human being in many aspects, but I really care about being a champ, you know.

00:52:28.000 And I could probably be a healthier guy and be able to run and squat and deadlift. 0.59

00:52:36.000 Or I can be a little bit of a cripple and be pulling for world title shots, is the way I kind of look at it. 0.97

00:52:41.000 And I chose that.

00:52:44.000 I should do more squats.

00:52:44.000 Wow.

00:52:46.000 Well, my only thought would be that if you conditioned and strengthened your overall body, it would just help your overall strength.

00:52:54.000 Yeah.

00:52:54.000 I mean, that is the thought about deadlifting and squatting it helps everything because your whole body just becomes stronger and it would just naturally, like your base, everything, your core, everything would just be much more, your foundation would be stronger.

00:53:13.000 I hear you.

00:53:13.000 But I don't know.

00:53:14.000 I hear you.

00:53:14.000 I'm not, obviously, I'm not an arm wrestler.

00:53:16.000 I don't know either.

00:53:17.000 Okay, everything.

00:53:18.000 I'm playing with everything.

00:53:21.000 This is constantly what pretty much every reasonable person tells me.

00:53:26.000 And I just am like, I get to a point where I do my arm wrestling work and I'm like, okay, here I am.

00:53:30.000 If I want to beat Levon, what do I do from here?

00:53:35.000 And I just am like, more wrist curls.

00:53:38.000 You know?

00:53:39.000 Look at my.

00:53:40.000 What does he do?

00:53:41.000 He's a bit more bouncing me. 1.00

00:53:44.000 Levon lifts super heavy weights like stupid. 1.00

00:53:47.000 What does this dude look like? 1.00

00:53:49.000 Show me Levon.

00:53:50.000 What is his last name?

00:53:52.000 Saganashvili.

00:53:53.000 Whoa.

00:53:54.000 This is the pinnacle of our sport.

00:53:56.000 Okay.

00:53:56.000 This is the guy.

00:53:57.000 How big is this dude?

00:53:59.000 He gets about 420.

00:54:01.000 Yeah.

00:54:02.000 Oh, my God.

00:54:03.000 I love this guy. 1.00

00:54:04.000 Look at the size of this motherfucker. 1.00

00:54:06.000 This is. 1.00

00:54:06.000 Holy shit. 1.00

00:54:08.000 That can't be real. 1.00

00:54:09.000 Is that AI?

00:54:10.000 Is that picture AI?

00:54:11.000 No.

00:54:11.000 That one right there.

00:54:12.000 That's real.

00:54:12.000 Okay.

00:54:13.000 Oh, my God.

00:54:14.000 This is real.

00:54:15.000 I don't know, Jamie.

00:54:16.000 That might be real.

00:54:17.000 He might just be pumped.

00:54:18.000 Levon is the pinnacle.

00:54:21.000 Okay.

00:54:22.000 We scanned him, too.

00:54:23.000 And surprised.

00:54:24.000 He's a weirdo, also. 0.66

00:54:25.000 Oh, yeah. 0.93

00:54:26.000 Duh. 1.00

00:54:27.000 Look at the size of that motherfucker. 1.00

00:54:27.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:54:30.000 He's in Little Rock in two days.

00:54:32.000 In Little Rock, Arkansas?

00:54:33.000 Where does he live right now?

00:54:33.000 Yeah.

00:54:34.000 Georgia.

00:54:35.000 Georgia, the country. 1.00

00:54:36.000 There's so many weirdos that come from Georgia. 1.00

00:54:39.000 Really? 1.00

00:54:39.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:54:40.000 Proportionately, their strength is not normal.

00:54:44.000 LeVon is, he hasn't, nobody has beat this guy since 2017.

00:54:49.000 He has absolutely flattened the field, okay?

00:54:53.000 He's so hairy, too.

00:54:55.000 He looks like a primitive man.

00:54:55.000 Oh.

00:54:57.000 He looks like a science project. 1.00

00:54:59.000 Look at the fucking size of that guy. 1.00

00:55:02.000 Oh my God. 1.00

00:55:04.000 Smart guy.

00:55:05.000 I bet.

00:55:05.000 Cool.

00:55:05.000 Very cool guy.

00:55:07.000 I absolutely love LeVon.

00:55:10.000 He has beaten the piss out of me at every opportunity.

00:55:13.000 But he's so big. 0.87

00:55:15.000 Yeah, he is.

00:55:15.000 He is so big and he's so good.

00:55:20.000 He grew up in the trenches arm wrestling.

00:55:23.000 He's not one of these guys who came in.

00:55:26.000 He made his way through the world championships.

00:55:29.000 Yeah, he hasn't lost in 10 years, man.

00:55:32.000 And so does he do different stuff than you do?

00:55:34.000 He does.

00:55:36.000 A lot of the guys have different formulas.

00:55:39.000 Okay.

00:55:39.000 Levon does a lot of pull ups, really heavy ones, and he does a lot of really heavy curls.

00:55:46.000 This is the base, but he does all the same.

00:55:48.000 Like we do all the same exercises, just different formulas.

00:55:53.000 Now, when you hear the best guy is doing things different than you, what keeps you from doing what he does?

00:56:03.000 So we are all different.

00:56:04.000 Right.

00:56:05.000 That's what he used to look like?

00:56:06.000 That's crazy.

00:56:08.000 Shout out to steroids. 0.94

00:56:11.000 Shout out.

00:56:12.000 Shout out to all the scientists out there.

00:56:14.000 He's very young in that first photo.

00:56:16.000 Of course.

00:56:17.000 You know, he slowly evolved through the world championships to what he is today.

00:56:25.000 Yeah, it's interesting when you see different champions, and I try and learn from everybody.

00:56:30.000 I watch what everybody does, I see what they're doing.

00:56:34.000 You have to also consider where your body's at.

00:56:37.000 Okay.

00:56:38.000 I can't do the things I did when I was 25.

00:56:41.000 I just can't.

00:56:43.000 I have, like I said, I've had surgeries.

00:56:47.000 But yet you can still arm wrestle.

00:56:48.000 Yeah.

00:56:50.000 So obviously you're very strong in these particular areas and it's not holding you back at all.

00:56:54.000 So what is holding you back?

00:56:57.000 Let me say injuries.

00:57:00.000 Well, arm wrestling is a big thing, okay?

00:57:04.000 There are several things that you can kind of choose to focus on.

00:57:08.000 Probably my biggest limiting factor is my elbow.

00:57:12.000 Because I've had multiple surgeries on it, I burn it out.

00:57:15.000 Like at the beginning of my career, I was more of a hook style arm wrestler.

00:57:19.000 That's where, like, the primary kind of drive in the sport is the flexion of the wrist, and you're moving forward with your shoulder and you're kind of trying to attack the person's arm more.

00:57:30.000 But over time, my elbow just got broke down to the point where, you know, I just don't have a lot of stability.

00:57:35.000 Now, I continue to work on it, and quite honestly, my hooking now, this stability is probably pretty good.

00:57:46.000 I think that we all as athletes do the best thing we think we can.

00:57:52.000 And I think that the work that I do is very precise.

00:57:58.000 Like the way that LeVon trains, and please, I don't like to criticize LeVon.

00:58:03.000 He's the best, okay?

00:58:06.000 But egotistically and arrogantly, I'm going to say that my training is more precise than his, okay?

00:58:12.000 So I'm working on very precise angles where he's a sledgehammer at times.

00:58:18.000 You know, like I'm working on very fine angles through my wrist, you know, a lot of pronation in my style, a lot of hand control, a lot of table time.

00:58:27.000 Like I'm doing a lot of skill-based training.

00:58:31.000 LeVon's base movements, his row, his, I mean, he's doing, he's doing a 180 kilo curl.

00:58:41.000 You know?

00:58:42.000 Two hands or one hand?

00:58:44.000 Two, but that's a, you know, but he's, the amount of weight that he's wrist curling.

00:58:49.000 I'm never, I, I'm never gonna get there, okay?

00:58:52.000 I'm never gonna catch him there, okay?

00:58:56.000 I need to catch him through something smaller.

00:58:58.000 Like, I need to be able to, like, a pit bull, like, somehow nip onto his fingertip and not let it go.

00:59:05.000 Because you're never going to be as big as him.

00:59:07.000 Probably not.

00:59:09.000 But do you think that it would benefit you at all to add size?

00:59:13.000 To get.

00:59:16.000 I try it for every single prep that I do.

00:59:20.000 In the super heavyweight division, I'm trying to get as big as I can.

00:59:23.000 What do you weigh now?

00:59:24.000 Today, I'm probably 265.

00:59:26.000 And so you're giving up a considerable amount of weight.

00:59:30.000 Yeah, when I compete, I can get up to 300, okay, when I'm competing.

00:59:35.000 And hopefully, by the time I face him again, I'll be my biggest ever.

00:59:39.000 I hope when I pull him, I'll be 310 or 320, you know.

00:59:43.000 And when you do that, what would you do to get that big?

00:59:45.000 Would you add a bunch of weightlifting stuff?

00:59:48.000 No.

00:59:49.000 What would you do?

00:59:49.000 No.

00:59:50.000 Just eat?

00:59:51.000 Eat.

00:59:52.000 Stay in my basement, you know?

00:59:54.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:59:56.000 But he's doing all this other stuff.

00:59:57.000 This is why I'm confused.

00:59:59.000 Like, have you tried adding all those chin ups and all the different things that he does?

01:00:04.000 I am very far down the road.

01:00:06.000 I'm very, very far down the road.

01:00:08.000 I've been doing this for like.

01:00:10.000 32 years competitively.

01:00:12.000 I've gone through so many systems.

01:00:15.000 While it is incredible to have a great row, while it is incredible to have a great wrist flexion, while it's incredible to have great legs.

01:00:26.000 Like I go to tournaments sometimes and my legs are sore.

01:00:29.000 But typically, the reason why you win and lose the match is very small things in the hand and the wrist.

01:00:35.000 Like this is typically the failure point.

01:00:37.000 So I just try and put everything into the most valuable pieces.

01:00:42.000 That I think is actually going to determine my victory.

01:00:45.000 And look at apart from Levon, it's working.

01:00:48.000 You know, this guy has raised the sport, you know, and I continue to chase him.

01:00:56.000 I continue to try and beat this dude.

01:00:58.000 You know, my wife.

01:00:59.000 Have you gotten close?

01:01:05.000 The first time, the first time, he tore my bicep.

01:01:08.000 Oh, whoa.

01:01:09.000 You know, see that tattoo?

01:01:11.000 See, it's a cat.

01:01:11.000 Uh huh.

01:01:12.000 With 415, I used to call him a 415 pound pussy. 1.00

01:01:16.000 You know, in the workup to the match, I was teasing him. 0.99

01:01:19.000 And in Georgian, it says Levon was here because he ripped it second round.

01:01:23.000 So that was the first time was a wash. 0.61

01:01:26.000 The second time I pulled him, I stopped him.

01:01:31.000 I stopped him round one.

01:01:34.000 What does that mean?

01:01:35.000 So, a lot of times in arm wrestling, get everything straight, don't move, go.

01:01:41.000 And to stop a match means there's no movement.

01:01:46.000 So, no one's winning.

01:01:47.000 Nobody's winning.

01:01:48.000 And you don't just keep going to the death?

01:01:50.000 Oh, yeah.

01:01:51.000 Oh, yeah, 100%.

01:01:51.000 You do?

01:01:52.000 Yeah, but I got, like, if you look up the second time that I arm wrestled for round one, yeah, okay.

01:01:59.000 So, this is the last time I pulled them, which is 2024.

01:02:02.000 And when you say pulled them, it means you have a match with them.

01:02:05.000 Okay.

01:02:05.000 Yeah, that's right.

01:02:06.000 So, everything goes to the straps.

01:02:11.000 And I'm telling you, like.

01:02:12.000 So, is that what happens when the match doesn't work out and the hands slip away from each other?

01:02:17.000 Straps.

01:02:18.000 Do you guys put.

01:02:19.000 Powder in your hands or anything?

01:02:20.000 Yeah, use chalk.

01:02:22.000 But yeah, this sport is a strap based sport at this point.

01:02:27.000 Like rules are evolving in arm wrestling.

01:02:30.000 It used to be, well, in some leagues, still you get a foul.

01:02:34.000 If there's a slip, somebody's intentionally did it, or it's a neutral slip and then they go to the straps.

01:02:40.000 But yeah, so we get to the straps, and this first round is the closest I've gotten to them.

01:02:47.000 And in this match, I think he might have ripped my spine apart.

01:02:52.000 Like, yeah.

01:02:54.000 I couldn't walk properly for like four months.

01:02:57.000 Really?

01:02:57.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:59.000 Okay, so I'm top rolling.

01:03:01.000 I get into his wrist and I'm just like, I'm in shock.

01:03:05.000 I'm like, I can't believe it.

01:03:07.000 So I kind of, I think I had the opportunity here to do a little bit more, like to seize the initiative, but I was in such shock that I got him to this point.

01:03:16.000 You know, I'm just, and then here we go.

01:03:19.000 His wrist is starting to go.

01:03:21.000 And so that's a flop wrist press.

01:03:22.000 And I get a foul, okay, for see, my shoulder goes below the table.

01:03:28.000 This is called decline humorous.

01:03:30.000 And it's a foul.

01:03:31.000 You can't do that.

01:03:32.000 So you start from scratch?

01:03:34.000 Well, I'm actually on my second foul. 0.98

01:03:36.000 So that's a loss because I was being too much of an idiot in the setup and they gave me a foul. 0.97

01:03:42.000 And then from here on, he just runs me over. 0.99

01:03:44.000 So it's a loss?

01:03:45.000 What do you mean?

01:03:46.000 So in arm wrestling, if you get two fouls, it's a loss.

01:03:50.000 So the match is over.

01:03:51.000 But see, this is best of seven.

01:03:51.000 Match is over.

01:03:53.000 So from here, he runs me over.

01:03:57.000 But this is the closest I've gotten.

01:03:59.000 We've practiced since then.

01:03:59.000 Okay.

01:04:02.000 We've gone on to, I'll probably practice with him this weekend.

01:04:06.000 But I'm slated to pull this monster again.

01:04:09.000 It's going to happen one more time for sure.

01:04:12.000 It's what keeps me in my basement.

01:04:15.000 I love one guy.

01:04:16.000 This guy. 1.00

01:04:17.000 The size of that motherfucker. 1.00

01:04:18.000 He's awesome. 1.00

01:04:20.000 He's a beautiful human.

01:04:22.000 I love this guy.

01:04:24.000 He's lifting the sport in terms of performance.

01:04:29.000 He's so hard to deal with.

01:04:31.000 Yeah.

01:04:33.000 And that's it, man.

01:04:34.000 It just gets worse.

01:04:35.000 It just gets worse.

01:04:37.000 But, yeah.

01:04:39.000 So I can still win in like the 115 kilo division and the 105 kilo division.

01:04:45.000 I think I've got those ones pretty much wrapped up.

01:04:48.000 But it's the open, man, to be the best.

01:04:51.000 Yeah.

01:04:51.000 Regardless of weight.

01:04:53.000 That's so much weight to give up.

01:04:55.000 I know.

01:04:55.000 You're giving up, what, 135 pounds?

01:04:59.000 Yeah.

01:04:59.000 But it's so cool to try.

01:05:02.000 You know, it's so cool to try.

01:05:03.000 And,.

01:05:05.000 What he does is he cleans my life up.

01:05:07.000 If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't do all this.

01:05:09.000 Really?

01:05:11.000 No, I'd be happy being the champ.

01:05:13.000 But when you're not the champ, you're not happy and you're going to do everything you can.

01:05:17.000 So even though you're a champ at your weight class, it's the open that haunts you.

01:05:22.000 Haunts me.

01:05:24.000 Yeah.

01:05:24.000 I've been there before.

01:05:26.000 So in 2008, I was actually, I won against this legendary figure of the sport, John Brzink.

01:05:32.000 He's considered the greatest of all time.

01:05:35.000 John Brzink, basically, for 40 years, 40 years from the time he was like 18 to like almost 60.

01:05:45.000 Okay, he went undefeated for like basically undefeated for like 25 years.

01:05:51.000 Yeah, in American, this guy, this guy, super cool.

01:05:55.000 Okay, different era, and you'll see the difference.

01:05:58.000 Okay, so you'll see that this sport has changed.

01:06:00.000 Can we pull him up?

01:06:01.000 John Brzink, John Brzink's the GOAT.

01:06:04.000 Yeah, yeah, he'll be there this weekend too.

01:06:07.000 And is he still competing?

01:06:09.000 John is not.

01:06:10.000 Really competing, but he's just so tied into the sport.

01:06:14.000 I think it's inevitable that he comes back.

01:06:16.000 But how old is he?

01:06:17.000 He's like 60, 61.

01:06:18.000 Or yeah, wow, yeah, he's the man.

01:06:21.000 This guy's the man.

01:06:22.000 So, you know, the movie Over the Top.

01:06:26.000 So, Sylvester, that's actually John.

01:06:29.000 The tournament was real.

01:06:31.000 Over the yeah, that was a real movie.

01:06:33.000 The movie followed the tournament, and John is actually the guy who won it.

01:06:38.000 And John's not that big.

01:06:39.000 No, he's not.

01:06:40.000 How much does John weigh?

01:06:42.000 On a good day, on a great day, John's like 230.

01:06:45.000 But when he was young and healthy, probably 195.

01:06:50.000 So when he was winning?

01:06:52.000 He went like 25 years around 210 pounds beating every single person on the planet.

01:07:00.000 How?

01:07:01.000 He's awesome.

01:07:02.000 John Brzink.

01:07:02.000 He's awesome.

01:07:03.000 So, John started arm wrestling when he was a kid with his dad.

01:07:07.000 And he's one of the first guys.

01:07:10.000 John's one of the first guys who.

01:07:13.000 Arm wrestling has kind of evolved in its respectedness, okay, as a sport.

01:07:19.000 I think if you went back like 40 years and you talk about arm wrestling, People would be like, oh, that's cool.

01:07:25.000 Yeah, let's go arm wrestle.

01:07:27.000 And I'm going to get better by arm wrestling by doing pecs and glutes and getting my whole body strong.

01:07:32.000 And John was kind of one of the first guys who was like, I'm an arm wrestler.

01:07:37.000 I practice arm wrestling.

01:07:37.000 I go to tournaments.

01:07:38.000 I don't need to lift weights.

01:07:41.000 So he started young.

01:07:43.000 The dude's thumb is probably bigger than mine.

01:07:46.000 And he's like, six foot one, six foot two.

01:07:48.000 So he's to a certain degree built for it.

01:07:52.000 But masterful technician.

01:07:55.000 So he doesn't lift weights?

01:07:57.000 No.

01:07:58.000 So all he did was arm wrestle to train for arm wrestling?

01:08:01.000 That's crazy.

01:08:01.000 Isn't that wild?

01:08:03.000 Because he's not a big guy.

01:08:04.000 No, he's not.

01:08:06.000 That's a former Russian champion, Zaur.

01:08:08.000 Actually, no, Zaur might be Georgian.

01:08:10.000 He might have been Russian at this time, but he's a Georgian.

01:08:14.000 Yeah.

01:08:15.000 Yeah, John's technique was way above everybody's.

01:08:20.000 Way, way above.

01:08:23.000 I remember coming up, like, I had heard about John Brzink for years before I ever saw him.

01:08:30.000 Because it's pre internet, right?

01:08:32.000 John Brzink silently ruled the arm wrestling world for decades, pre internet, pre all this stuff.

01:08:41.000 And yeah, and he went around the world beating all the monsters, all the.

01:08:46.000 And this is who I actually got the world title from.

01:08:49.000 So I beat John in 2008 for the world title.

01:08:53.000 And it looks very different now, you know?

01:08:56.000 Like, so before, so I was probably the last of the small super heavyweights.

01:09:01.000 If you call me small, like I'm bigger than John, but not by a lot.

01:09:05.000 Not by a lot.

01:09:06.000 See, Dennis Soplankoff on the left, that guy's a really famous arm wrestler.

01:09:10.000 He was one of the guys who really raised the level.

01:09:13.000 So that guy had a strength level, Dennis.

01:09:15.000 He came in and he won the world title without really doing anything.

01:09:20.000 I can't believe he doesn't lift weights.

01:09:22.000 He doesn't lift weights.

01:09:24.000 All he does is arm wrestle.

01:09:25.000 All he does is arm wrestle.

01:09:27.000 No other kind of physical training at all?

01:09:29.000 He's a mechanic.

01:09:35.000 He's a special guy.

01:09:36.000 Listen, listen.

01:09:37.000 That's incredible, man.

01:09:38.000 The arm wrestling world loves and worships John Brzink.

01:09:42.000 He's the GOAT.

01:09:43.000 He's like the forefather.

01:09:45.000 I remember when I was coming up, I read everything this dude wrote.

01:09:48.000 He is one of the reasons why we all kind of respect table time, don't need weight so much.

01:09:56.000 Specialization.

01:09:57.000 John is kind of poster boy for specialization.

01:10:01.000 And what kind of training did he do?

01:10:03.000 Dude, he arm wrestled.

01:10:04.000 Just arm wrestled.

01:10:05.000 He would do specific things when he was arm wrestling.

01:10:08.000 And we keep asking the same questions about John.

01:10:12.000 Like, we think, like, some people think he had, like, a secret setup in his basement and stuff like that.

01:10:17.000 But everything kind of points towards, even if he's kind of kidding us and tricking us, it's certainly not a lot.

01:10:25.000 He arm wrestled with his dad as a kid, okay?

01:10:29.000 And, you know, they're practicing all the time.

01:10:31.000 So, this Iceman, okay, that's the guy who John beat to become kind of the best.

01:10:37.000 Okay, this guy is like the guy before John.

01:10:41.000 So he was the original king of arm wrestling?

01:10:44.000 He is, yeah.

01:10:45.000 Johnny Walker.

01:10:46.000 Yeah, Iceman.

01:10:48.000 And he was the best for a long time, but John eventually beat him.

01:10:53.000 You know, you see, that's John is like a kid, right?

01:10:56.000 John's probably like 17 there.

01:10:58.000 Yeah.

01:10:58.000 Wow.

01:10:59.000 Yeah.

01:11:00.000 But no, John arm wrestled all.

01:11:02.000 Like arm wrestling is going to make you strong.

01:11:04.000 Oh, imagine.

01:11:05.000 Oh, you will get that.

01:11:07.000 And that's a lot of reason why we get guys into the sport who are in the strength field.

01:11:12.000 Like if you're a strong man, if you're a powerlifter, you try arm wrestling, you'll be so sore.

01:11:16.000 You'll be like, oh my God.

01:11:17.000 Because people look for that, right?

01:11:19.000 Like people want.

01:11:19.000 It's something that can get you really sore.

01:11:21.000 Arm wrestling will get you so sore that you can barely move.

01:11:25.000 I've been so sore from arm wrestling matches, I can't even walk.

01:11:28.000 I can't even get up for days.

01:11:31.000 Wow.

01:11:32.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:11:34.000 Unbelievable.

01:11:35.000 Because it's something about the way the body's designed.

01:11:39.000 We are actually probably designed to resist things from happening more than we are to make things happen.

01:11:46.000 So we're very, very strong to stop things from happening.

01:11:49.000 And arm wrestling is what that's the strength we really hone in on.

01:11:53.000 Right?

01:11:54.000 Because we're locking, we get into these locked positions, and then we're trying to open the other person up.

01:12:00.000 And this process of being ripped open is super taxing.

01:12:06.000 Super, super taxing.

01:12:07.000 So, yes, John ruled the arm wrestling world for like 25 years.

01:12:13.000 He's still around.

01:12:14.000 Yeah, I'll get to talk to him tomorrow.

01:12:18.000 Yeah.

01:12:19.000 And so, do you think he thinks about competing again?

01:12:22.000 Of course he does.

01:12:23.000 Of course he does.

01:12:25.000 When was the last time he did it?

01:12:25.000 But he doesn't.

01:12:27.000 Last time he competed was in Dallas.

01:12:29.000 He competed against a guy called Yoshi Kanai, who's the number one guy from Japan.

01:12:35.000 John is way past his prime, okay?

01:12:37.000 Like, John, when John was like in his 30s, he was like the Levon, but 210 pounds.

01:12:47.000 Nobody could beat him.

01:12:49.000 It took a while, but the thing is, arm wrestling got cool, you know, to a degree where we were on ESPN.

01:12:57.000 Governments started to recognize it.

01:12:59.000 So, if you were from the right country, you could be a pro arm wrestler, like if you're from Georgia or Turkey or Kazakhstan.

01:13:06.000 So, the level started rising.

01:13:09.000 When did this start happening?

01:13:11.000 I think that governments started to recognize it.

01:13:14.000 I'm going to guess here that a lot of them started to do it around the turn of the millennia.

01:13:19.000 Probably they started around then.

01:13:22.000 But it takes a long time for it all to get in.

01:13:25.000 And some countries are still switching over.

01:13:27.000 I think Sweden.

01:13:28.000 Just got recognized, like I think within the last year or so.

01:13:32.000 But once a country recognizes it as a sport, it's a massive influx of cash and support.

01:13:38.000 So that'll raise the level.

01:13:42.000 But what happened was we got there was all these leagues, like there was the PAL in Europe, there was the WAL in North America.

01:13:53.000 And it got the sport to a point where if you were the best, you could probably quit your job.

01:14:00.000 Okay.

01:14:01.000 And that was a huge step forward because, you know, yeah, that's a big step, right?

01:14:08.000 And that happened around 2015. 0.93

01:14:12.000 And do you think that's because of the internet, like YouTube videos, like popularity increases, TikTok, Instagram, that kind of shit? 0.86

01:14:20.000 That was massive, but it happened a bit later. 0.97

01:14:23.000 First, what happened, a lot of small little steps.

01:14:28.000 You know, there was a documentary, Pulling John, that came out.

01:14:32.000 There was.

01:14:33.000 A couple rich guys who thought arm wrestling was cool and they just started to run leagues.

01:14:39.000 Robert Drenck with the UAL, Ultimate Arm Wrestling League out of California.

01:14:43.000 I mean, it went from like when I first started the sport, Mike Gould Classic.

01:14:47.000 If we won 500 bucks, it was the greatest day of our life.

01:14:50.000 You know, it was so cool.

01:14:52.000 We won 500 bucks.

01:14:53.000 Like, you know, that was it.

01:14:57.000 And then, by 2010 or so, even before that, the PAL, we were talking about thousands of dollars, $10,000.

01:15:07.000 WAL came along and we got a massive influx of money.

01:15:10.000 You were talking about $20,000.

01:15:12.000 Okay.

01:15:12.000 And then we were on ESPN, so the responsors.

01:15:15.000 Okay, so you could get some sponsor money.

01:15:17.000 If you were the best, you could barely make it.

01:15:20.000 You could barely make it.

01:15:23.000 And then COVID happened.

01:15:25.000 And COVID burnt down everything, burnt down all the leagues, which were kind of fractioning the sport, right?

01:15:31.000 We had the best guys from Europe competing together, best guys from North America.

01:15:37.000 When all the leagues burnt down from the ashes and a lot of people, and that's when TikTok and YouTube really started kicking because everybody was locked in their house and somehow arm wrestling got found.

01:15:47.000 And our views went through the roof.

01:15:49.000 People started to follow. 1.00

01:15:51.000 Arm wrestling is good for TikTok attention span. 1.00

01:15:53.000 You know, you can see a whole. 0.99

01:15:55.000 Yeah.

01:15:56.000 And then, yeah, so East versus West came along.

01:15:59.000 And now we're everything.

01:16:02.000 UFC, we're like the UFC of arm wrestling now, East versus West.

01:16:07.000 All the best guys in the world all pull at East versus West.

01:16:09.000 And there's an event every seven weeks, international.

01:16:13.000 So, like, what does a top guy make to win a tournament now?

01:16:18.000 You know, it's tricky when we talk about money, but you will make, like, if you're a top arm wrestler now, you definitely don't need a side job.

01:16:28.000 You definitely don't.

01:16:31.000 And you're probably definitely making a healthy six figures, you know, definitely.

01:16:38.000 So, yeah, so East versus West kind of raised the level.

01:16:43.000 After COVID, it's not the same sport.

01:16:46.000 Like, the champions now, like, It's tough.

01:16:46.000 It's not.

01:16:50.000 It's tough to win a world title.

01:16:52.000 Way harder to win a world title now than it was 10 or 15, 20 years ago.

01:16:56.000 Yeah.

01:16:57.000 Yeah.

01:16:57.000 Now we have LeVon.

01:16:58.000 Right.

01:16:59.000 Is there any drug testing?

01:17:01.000 At East versus West, there's not.

01:17:02.000 So it's F1.

01:17:02.000 Okay.

01:17:04.000 You know, everything goes.

01:17:06.000 But what does F1 mean?

01:17:08.000 You know, like IndyCar?

01:17:09.000 Everybody's got the same car.

01:17:11.000 Right.

01:17:11.000 F1, like innovation.

01:17:14.000 Innovation.

01:17:14.000 Right.

01:17:17.000 WAF, government funded.

01:17:19.000 That has testing?

01:17:21.000 What is WAF?

01:17:22.000 Sorry, World Arm Wrestling Federation.

01:17:24.000 So, World Arm Wrestling Federation is kind of like the base of the sport.

01:17:28.000 Okay, it's a world level, so every country kind of plugs into it.

01:17:34.000 They have state or provincial, then they have national, they have like Europeans or North Americans, and then they have a world championship annually, different part of the world every year that's tested.

01:17:50.000 It's such a universal thing.

01:17:52.000 Like, I remember arm wrestling kids in high school.

01:17:55.000 You know, everybody knows how to arm wrestle.

01:17:57.000 It's always been around, it's always been a thing.

01:18:00.000 So it's really interesting to think that it's becoming more popular now than ever.

01:18:05.000 It's wonderful.

01:18:05.000 It is.

01:18:07.000 I love the sport.

01:18:10.000 I think that it's a great sport because of its safety, its longevity, its simplicity.

01:18:18.000 Yeah, beautiful sport.

01:18:20.000 But there's a lot of aspects to it.

01:18:21.000 It's simple, but you're still learning.

01:18:23.000 It is.

01:18:24.000 So it can't be that simple.

01:18:25.000 Like anything, you know, the more you dive into something, the more it opens.

01:18:30.000 Yeah.

01:18:31.000 Yeah.

01:18:32.000 At the level that I'm at now, I continue to learn subtleties on a technical level, but it overflows more now into more vague and kind of like lifestyle principles.

01:18:44.000 And I feel like that's how I get my big gains now is the way I live my life.

01:18:50.000 Like the sport kind of cleans up my whole life.

01:18:53.000 Yeah.

01:18:55.000 Because you want to perform well.

01:18:56.000 That's it.

01:18:57.000 And so you're just so dedicated that you're on top of your nutrition, your sleep, everything.

01:19:02.000 Everything.

01:19:03.000 Yeah.

01:19:04.000 Yeah, somewhere between a balance between chaos and order, perfect performance is found.

01:19:11.000 Yeah.

01:19:12.000 The balance between chaos and order is interesting because you kind of, to become great, you kind of have to have some chaos.

01:19:18.000 It's so essential.

01:19:20.000 Yeah.

01:19:20.000 Chaos is a huge problem.

01:19:21.000 Talk to me about that.

01:19:23.000 What is that?

01:19:24.000 This is, I love this one.

01:19:26.000 This is so good.

01:19:29.000 This is one of my latest learning points that I've taken into account, and it's massively affected my planning.

01:19:38.000 The way I plan events.

01:19:41.000 So I have met many people in my life, and I've met probably in my entire life, probably like two people who I would consider completely pure, you know, like basically like a Jesus Christ kind of person, like no sin, okay?

01:19:58.000 But, and on the other side, I've met only like a couple people who I thought were generally pure evil, or, you know, but I think most people are somewhere in the middle, okay?

01:20:08.000 And they need that balance in their life.

01:20:11.000 You know um, and I think that you need to, if you're talking about performance on a single date, this balance of what you are needs to be structured, um.

01:20:21.000 So I think that actually in the fight, like when you're actually fighting a lot of people, I think perform best in chaos okay, so when you get into the stage, you have to be completely wild.

01:20:34.000 Uh, no rules like you need to be completely unhinged um, but leading up to it, you need to structure, you need to really become very ordered, And the more you can bring order into your life, the better.

01:20:49.000 I went to a kind of a presentation by this guy, Mack.

01:20:56.000 Okay, he's a geneticist as well.

01:20:58.000 And he was talking about how life only exists in this balance between chaos and order.

01:21:03.000 And from that, I brought that into my training by making sticker charts.

01:21:10.000 So when I was young, my mom used to motivate me through sticker charts.

01:21:16.000 So when I did a good job, she'd give me a sticker.

01:21:19.000 And I loved it.

01:21:21.000 So I have brought this concept into my training where there's only two stickers.

01:21:27.000 There's a blue sticker, which is, you didn't quite make it.

01:21:31.000 It's representative of chaos.

01:21:34.000 And a white sticker, which is representative of order.

01:21:38.000 And after I compete, I purposefully move into chaos.

01:21:44.000 And it's not as though, like, oh, I'm in chaos and I let everything catch on fire.

01:21:48.000 I just don't need structure.

01:21:50.000 I can go wherever.

01:21:52.000 I can learn new things.

01:21:53.000 I can try new things.

01:21:54.000 I can open up my mind to whatever I want.

01:21:57.000 Nothing's required.

01:21:59.000 But really, I'm trying to gather data, put together a plan so that when I move into structure, I have a new kind of plan.

01:22:08.000 So, how do you structure that?

01:22:11.000 When you say you move into chaos, like you allow yourself to not have a plan.

01:22:15.000 So, this is obviously very planned.

01:22:18.000 Yes.

01:22:19.000 Yeah.

01:22:20.000 So, I will move from major.

01:22:23.000 My life is structured that I'm move.

01:22:25.000 It's in blocks.

01:22:27.000 Okay.

01:22:27.000 So I move from major event to major event.

01:22:32.000 I am now at the very beginning of probably the longest block that I've ever had in my life.

01:22:40.000 I'm going to face that guy, LeVon, in like 16 months.

01:22:44.000 It's forever.

01:22:45.000 It's an eternity.

01:22:47.000 So I am now in this period when I can travel.

01:22:53.000 I can be more open.

01:22:55.000 In a way, it helps get me there.

01:22:59.000 I am trying to come up with what I think is the perfect blend so that when I lock into my basement, I'm being super accurate.

01:23:06.000 But I do believe that if you just try and be good every day, if you try and live a certain way every day, it creeps into your life.

01:23:14.000 I need like a finish line.

01:23:16.000 Okay.

01:23:17.000 Like if I know I only have to be like this for four months or five months, I can make it.

01:23:23.000 You know, if I'm like, I have to be like this for my whole life, everything creeps in.

01:23:27.000 It falls apart.

01:23:28.000 But it's a, it's an aid for me psychologically to remain disciplined.

01:23:33.000 And it's, and it's a way for me to fit.

01:23:36.000 Chaos into my life where it satisfies me as a human being and I get to have fun and I get to go outside of my box.

01:23:44.000 But that's the hardest thing to be a world champion at 51 is to put all your energy into something so simple.

01:23:54.000 This is the most difficult piece the psychological dedication to do 10 hours of wrist curls in a day.

01:24:02.000 You know, this is the difficult thing.

01:24:03.000 You do 10 hours of wrist curls in a day.

01:24:07.000 I do.

01:24:07.000 I'll get up in the morning and.

01:24:11.000 My wife, Jody, will help me.

01:24:13.000 Okay.

01:24:13.000 We'll have food.

01:24:15.000 And I'm doing like, and that's the thing.

01:24:19.000 So, right now, I'm coming up with the formula for the next one.

01:24:22.000 But I was doing 14, seven times two because I was doing right and left.

01:24:28.000 I'm going back to pumpkin training, which is right hand only.

01:24:32.000 Why do you call that pumpkin training?

01:24:33.000 You know about growing giant pumpkins?

01:24:35.000 No.

01:24:36.000 You know, you ever seen those fairs where they have like a, right?

01:24:41.000 Yeah.

01:24:42.000 So, What that tells, what that teaches is if you want to have a giant pumpkin, you pinch off all the flowers on the vine except for one.

01:24:52.000 Yeah.

01:24:52.000 Oh.

01:24:53.000 My giant pumpkin.

01:24:56.000 So I've tried and put everything into the right.

01:24:56.000 Yeah.

01:24:59.000 I try and put all, and this is specialization.

01:25:03.000 So I've done this project for like, I did it for like six years before.

01:25:07.000 So when you're saying you put everything into the right, you mean you don't do wrist curls or anything with your left hand?

01:25:12.000 Nothing.

01:25:13.000 Nothing really, yeah, yeah, now is this an energy and resource allocation thing?

01:25:21.000 Yes, yeah, it's interesting, interesting, yeah.

01:25:25.000 Is there a difference in your right and your left?

01:25:27.000 Yeah, Jesus Christ.

01:25:29.000 So, you see, and I came up with this theory, you know, a little bit because of just nature, okay, and I see how nature works.

01:25:37.000 Um, but, um, yeah, you have one giant, is this one big?

01:25:41.000 Look at the size of the difference, put those up, it's a bit bigger, it's twice as big, okay, and and I was.

01:25:48.000 Balance.

01:25:49.000 Okay.

01:25:50.000 I was equal.

01:25:51.000 I was left hand world champion also.

01:25:53.000 Okay.

01:25:54.000 I've, but as I've aged, I'm like, how can I remain at the top of the sport?

01:25:58.000 I'm going to have to cut things, you know?

01:26:01.000 But why does training your left arm take away from your right arm?

01:26:06.000 I think we only have so much energy.

01:26:08.000 I think there's like a finite amount of energy that we have.

01:26:12.000 And if I tell my body that my energy goes here, more of it will go there and more development will happen.

01:26:19.000 I don't think it's like I have this limitless amount of energy where I can be like a proportionate bodybuilder and be a world champion.

01:26:27.000 I think that to be at the very top, you need to be very specialized and very focused.

01:26:32.000 That's what I believe.

01:26:34.000 A lot of people criticize me for this.

01:26:37.000 I get heaps of criticism, and I'm very well aware of it.

01:26:42.000 And I think that if you were to.

01:26:43.000 Can I stop you there?

01:26:45.000 When you say heaps of criticism, by who, and is it valid?

01:26:45.000 Yeah, yes.

01:26:49.000 I don't think it's valid.

01:26:51.000 So who's criticizing you?

01:26:52.000 I think that most of the criticism comes from more junior players.

01:26:58.000 Okay, I think that most senior arm wrestlers, most guys who are like on my level, they understand it.

01:27:04.000 And to a certain degree, we all do it.

01:27:07.000 Okay, I'm just an extreme example, but a lot of guys do it.

01:27:10.000 Okay, a lot of guys do this in the sport.

01:27:14.000 There's a couple things that lead me to this.

01:27:17.000 Okay, the pumpkin is just a fun metaphor.

01:27:19.000 Okay, but when you get hurt in the one side, I think that a lot of people notice that somehow there's this amazing compensation.

01:27:29.000 That happens.

01:27:31.000 Another thing is, we have freaks in the sport.

01:27:34.000 We have, we attract some real weirdos.

01:27:38.000 A guy called Oleg Zock or Matthias Schlitty.

01:27:38.000 Okay.

01:27:43.000 Okay.

01:27:44.000 And these are hellboys, real life hellboys.

01:27:48.000 Okay. 0.50

01:27:48.000 So they have like one arm that is crazy jacked. 0.50

01:27:52.000 I've seen this one cat.

01:27:54.000 He's a small dude.

01:27:55.000 Yeah.

01:27:56.000 And he has one arm that's like a leg.

01:27:58.000 Yeah.

01:27:59.000 What is his name?

01:27:59.000 Probably Oleg.

01:28:00.000 It's Oleg or Matthias. 1.00

01:28:01.000 They're our best examples. 0.99

01:28:03.000 Oleg is, Is better like Oleg.

01:28:05.000 Oleg's a world champion.

01:28:06.000 What's his last name? 0.86

01:28:07.000 Zock.

01:28:09.000 Oh, he's so cool.

01:28:09.000 What a great name!

01:28:10.000 What a great name.

01:28:11.000 Yeah, and that's the dude.

01:28:12.000 Yeah, yeah, that's the dude.

01:28:13.000 And I've fought him. 0.99

01:28:14.000 Look at the size of his fucking left arm. 1.00

01:28:17.000 That is insanity. 1.00

01:28:19.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:28:20.000 Okay, I actually pulled this guy at the UAL many years ago, and he was like 165 pounds.

01:28:25.000 And I was the current world champion, and the kid almost beat me.

01:28:29.000 Okay, yeah, yeah, left handed, left handed.

01:28:31.000 Yeah, um, Jesus Christ, his arm is insane.

01:28:35.000 Isn't that awesome?

01:28:36.000 That is so crazy.

01:28:38.000 Yeah.

01:28:38.000 He has the arm of a 300 pound man.

01:28:40.000 Dude, at 170 pounds, he was almost not even the world champion in his division.

01:28:48.000 He was almost the world champion in the open.

01:28:52.000 Okay.

01:28:53.000 Look at his left arm, and it's crazy.

01:28:56.000 And what's extra crazy about it is the insertion points.

01:29:00.000 It's not just that he's hypertrophied and blown up, the insertion points are different.

01:29:05.000 He's like the angles of his musculature.

01:29:08.000 The development, like it's wild.

01:29:11.000 And how is that genetic?

01:29:13.000 Is that built?

01:29:14.000 He was born like that to a certain degree.

01:29:17.000 But his right arm looks normal.

01:29:18.000 Normal.

01:29:19.000 So, how is it so different on his left arm?

01:29:21.000 So, it's my theory, okay, that he has a bit of a blood flow disorder.

01:29:27.000 Okay, I believe that.

01:29:30.000 So, the arterial spread in the body for most of us is all the same.

01:29:35.000 We have like an even distribution across our body.

01:29:39.000 But I believe that his arterial spread is different.

01:29:43.000 I think he's got a heavy, heavy arterial flow to one side.

01:29:46.000 This is just your own personal theory?

01:29:48.000 I've heard, I talked to Matthias.

01:29:51.000 Matthias is another guy with this disorder.

01:29:54.000 He was the one who kind of led me to believe that this is what was going on with him.

01:29:59.000 And so this made me believe that there was so much value in blood flow alone when it comes to the expression of what you are.

01:30:12.000 Like, I think anything that just gets more blood flow.

01:30:16.000 enhances.

01:30:17.000 Yeah, the expression of the human being is largely determined by the circulation that the genetic piece receives.

01:30:27.000 And I think with guys like this, it happened like in utero. 0.98

01:30:33.000 That left arm is fucking crazy. 0.99

01:30:35.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:30:36.000 Yeah.

01:30:37.000 And he got in a vicious car crash, a horrible one, almost killed him.

01:30:43.000 And he rehabbed, and once again, he's the world champ again in the 85 kilo division.

01:30:49.000 Completely. 0.97

01:30:49.000 And he, like, he should be dead. 0.97

01:30:51.000 Like, he broke everything, like, super trauma, and he's still the best. 0.86

01:30:57.000 He just pieced it back together again.

01:30:58.000 Yeah, pieced them back together.

01:31:00.000 And he's still the man.

01:31:02.000 But, yeah, but what he taught me and what other people taught me is the value.

01:31:08.000 And I believe it's all theories, okay?

01:31:09.000 I could be wrong on everything, but I think that it's the blood flow that really heals, it strengthens.

01:31:19.000 And a lot of the thing is, is the heart.

01:31:22.000 Isn't strong enough to feed all the structures, and that's where movement comes in.

01:31:28.000 So that's why I train this way, increase circulation.

01:31:33.000 Yeah, wow.

01:31:35.000 So, but I still don't understand.

01:31:38.000 Like, clearly, he's working that one arm more than he's working the left arm, excuse me, the right arm.

01:31:43.000 Yeah, I think to a certain degree.

01:31:46.000 Um, but because of the way he was, yeah, this is Matthias, right?

01:31:50.000 Same deal, yeah, and he's and he's like German, German national champion kind of level.

01:31:56.000 Yeah, and like it's just, it's hard to compete with.

01:31:59.000 Right, but how much of that is just work with the right side over and over and over again, and how much of it is you think a genetic component?

01:32:06.000 With these guys, it's a lot of genetic.

01:32:09.000 Yeah, with them.

01:32:09.000 Really?

01:32:10.000 But I believe the reason why it's expressing that way is because of an arterial spread.

01:32:16.000 Okay, and talking to Matthias, he's the one that led me to believe that initially.

01:32:20.000 Is that arterial spread influenced by work?

01:32:23.000 Like, does it change the expression of the arteries in the muscles?

01:32:27.000 I think you can influence blood flow.

01:32:29.000 For sure.

01:32:30.000 Like, I think if you are repeatedly working one region very heavily, your circulatory system is going to adapt.

01:32:38.000 Like, my endurance capabilities on my right and my left are completely different.

01:32:43.000 And that's from years of doing this.

01:32:45.000 And so I have to think that, you know, it's not just a cellular thing.

01:32:49.000 It's got to be the blood flow, it's got to be everything that is adapted over years.

01:32:54.000 And look, I really care about being the best.

01:32:54.000 Yeah.

01:32:57.000 And all the information that I have, Makes me, I'm doing it again.

01:33:02.000 Like I laid off it for a couple of years, but I've started to do it again as I do my final prep one more time.

01:33:09.000 When you say do it again, what are you doing differently?

01:33:11.000 I'll go back to, so my work capacity, work amount that I'm doing between my right and left arm, it's sometimes equal.

01:33:22.000 Sometimes what I do with the right is what I do with the left.

01:33:26.000 Sometimes when I go to the club, I'll do right arm, I'll do left arm.

01:33:29.000 And now I've just, Swung it back.

01:33:31.000 So I go to the club and I'm basically arm wrestling everybody I can right hand until people are kind of bored and then I'll do some left hand work.

01:33:37.000 But the right is the priority.

01:33:39.000 And the same thing when I do my homework in the basement, I'm doing like 85 to 90% work on the right and maybe like just 10%, like just, you know, just for timing and whatever on the left.

01:33:51.000 Yeah.

01:33:52.000 Wow.

01:33:53.000 Yeah.

01:33:53.000 Super specialized.

01:33:53.000 Yeah.

01:33:55.000 Yeah.

01:33:56.000 It's insane.

01:33:58.000 I was, I'm sorry.

01:33:59.000 I was so worried that I was going to develop like back issues.

01:34:04.000 Imbalance issues.

01:34:05.000 Yeah.

01:34:06.000 None of that ever happened.

01:34:07.000 Huh.

01:34:08.000 Guys do that from archery.

01:34:08.000 Yeah.

01:34:10.000 They develop imbalance issues just from pulling a bow one sided.

01:34:14.000 Like my friend Evan, he got a left handed bow just so he could practice left handed as well because he felt like it would balance him out.

01:34:21.000 Right.

01:34:22.000 I think balance is overrated.

01:34:24.000 Really?

01:34:24.000 Yeah.

01:34:26.000 I think balance is a nice concept for like some imaginary world that you live in.

01:34:33.000 But if I live in a world where I'm trying to win a world title right handed, then I need to let my body know that this is what I'm getting ready for and not confuse it.

01:34:41.000 There's an interesting comparison in jiu jitsu because there's a lot of guys that have like a very strong right side attack.

01:34:47.000 Like Eddie Bravo, for instance.

01:34:48.000 Eddie Bravo's attack is almost always on the right side of the body.

01:34:52.000 Obviously, he has a black belt level attack on the left, but his right side attack is where he puts all his energy to.

01:34:58.000 And his philosophy was along those same lines.

01:35:01.000 If you just develop this one side, like so lethal.

01:35:05.000 Yeah.

01:35:06.000 I think that so much is about, you know, being able to have an icebreaker, you know, something that stops a match or wins you the match.

01:35:15.000 And at a world level, it's everything.

01:35:18.000 Like, you.

01:35:19.000 If you can bring something from a 99 to 100, but it takes 15 points off your left, that's a trade that a lot of people are willing to make.

01:35:28.000 If I can do anything to push my right a level up, if it makes me wither away in my left, good trade.

01:35:37.000 One of the things that I watched that I thought was really interesting, I've been watching a lot of these rock climbers and their ridiculous grip strength.

01:35:46.000 A lot of these guys.

01:35:47.000 There's that cat that has a YouTube channel.

01:35:49.000 I know you've been on it, Magnus.

01:35:50.000 Magnus.

01:35:51.000 How do you say his last name?

01:35:52.000 Midbow.

01:35:52.000 Midpo.

01:35:53.000 And he had that one dude who's just a super freak. 0.99

01:35:56.000 Eve Gravel. 0.52

01:35:57.000 Yes.

01:35:58.000 He trains with me.

01:35:59.000 Okay. 0.98

01:36:01.000 That guy went right into arm wrestling and was fucking people up. 0.97

01:36:04.000 Which is crazy. 0.98

01:36:04.000 Right away. 0.98

01:36:06.000 Which makes me think that maybe that kind of specialized training is like a cheat code.

01:36:11.000 It's close.

01:36:13.000 Right.

01:36:13.000 Yeah.

01:36:13.000 It's close.

01:36:14.000 Because that guy also has like enormous leg sized forearms. 1.00

01:36:18.000 Eve Gravel.

01:36:19.000 See if you can find him training with Magnus because they're in Eve's basement.

01:36:24.000 Where he does all of his training.

01:36:26.000 And he's doing these, like, how many millimeters is the hold?

01:36:28.000 Two.

01:36:29.000 Okay.

01:36:29.000 So he's doing two millimeter holds with his fingers where he's hanging.

01:36:33.000 Yeah.

01:36:34.000 I'm telling you, it makes no sense. 0.95

01:36:36.000 He's such a freak. 0.97

01:36:37.000 It makes zero sense. 0.88

01:36:40.000 Like, Magnus is super stud, okay?

01:36:42.000 Magnus is like a world level climber.

01:36:44.000 Eve, when it comes to the strength component of climbing, it doesn't even make sense.

01:36:51.000 I don't even understand how anybody could even do it.

01:36:54.000 Like, it's like a credit card.

01:36:56.000 He can do pull ups off of a credit card.

01:36:59.000 That's insane.

01:37:00.000 Yeah.

01:37:00.000 How?

01:37:01.000 I don't know.

01:37:02.000 I don't know how he does it.

01:37:03.000 It doesn't, and like he has like rounded surfaces where there is nothing to bite right there.

01:37:10.000 There's nothing.

01:37:11.000 So he's just chalking up his fingers and he hangs off of those?

01:37:14.000 I want to see that.

01:37:14.000 There's nothing there.

01:37:16.000 I don't know how he does it.

01:37:18.000 There's nothing to bite.

01:37:20.000 There's nothing.

01:37:21.000 And he's pulling up off.

01:37:22.000 I can't even understand how he does it.

01:37:25.000 So he came into arm wrestling.

01:37:27.000 Um, and he's like 150 pounds, and but it's 40 pounds of his forearms.

01:37:33.000 So, we have a tournament in Ottawa where we both live, it's called the Ottawa Open, and it attracts the strongest dudes in the region.

01:37:41.000 To win the Ottawa Open is really tough.

01:37:43.000 He won it his first year after our wrestling six weeks.

01:37:47.000 Yeah, it's complete.

01:37:47.000 What?

01:37:50.000 No, no, he's he weighs what one guy 650 pounds. 1.00

01:37:53.000 Oh my god, no, Eve Gravel is a complete weirdo. 0.90

01:37:58.000 I've never in my life met somebody who can do the stuff with grip that he can do.

01:38:03.000 And it's all that training that he's doing.

01:38:05.000 He's doing all this insane grip training.

01:38:07.000 Yeah.

01:38:07.000 Which makes me think like, what if you did that stuff?

01:38:10.000 Yeah.

01:38:12.000 Yes.

01:38:13.000 Let me tell you, as good as Eve is now, he's going to get even better.

01:38:16.000 Okay.

01:38:17.000 I can only imagine.

01:38:18.000 Yeah.

01:38:19.000 Nobody is touching Eve's fingers.

01:38:22.000 But like I talked about earlier, so if you kind of relate it to climbing, okay.

01:38:29.000 Can you show me some stuff with that guy doing things?

01:38:31.000 Well, I was trying to find that one.

01:38:33.000 But just show me some of the other freakish things he does because he could pick up things from the ground that nobody could pick up.

01:38:38.000 Yeah.

01:38:38.000 He does grip competition too.

01:38:40.000 So that's another world that's closely tied to arm wrestling the grip championships.

01:38:45.000 Right where they're just it's like powerlifting for grip right.

01:38:48.000 Yeah, and he's the best at that too Yeah, it's just nuts.

01:38:52.000 Yeah, it's really nuts.

01:38:53.000 Yeah, so there is a high degree of crossover right there there is but there are slight intricacies like a kind of way to think about it in climbing if you have a great grip you are able to climb the wall Okay, but in actual arm wrestling you actually don't want to be the climber You want to be the wall Right.

01:39:17.000 You want to make it hard for the other person's grip.

01:39:20.000 You don't necessarily.

01:39:21.000 He's capable of climbing any wall.

01:39:23.000 Okay.

01:39:24.000 But once he figures out how to be the wall instead, he's going to be so, so difficult.

01:39:30.000 It's fun to work with him.

01:39:31.000 Our club in Ottawa, we have like super freaks now. 0.72

01:39:34.000 We have all these new guys with ridiculous potential. 0.66

01:39:37.000 We got a guy come in who's bigger than Brian Shaw. 0.87

01:39:39.000 Did you ask this?

01:39:40.000 Can you show me some video of this guy?

01:39:41.000 He's not doing anything there.

01:39:42.000 He's just like exploring.

01:39:44.000 Right.

01:39:45.000 And I'm on not his channel too.

01:39:46.000 I'm like, it's bouncing back in between.

01:39:48.000 So here he's doing fat grip, one arm chin ups.

01:39:51.000 Did you see the Thomas Inch?

01:39:55.000 You know, see a Thomas Inch on the left?

01:39:57.000 Yes.

01:39:57.000 Nobody picks up the Thomas Inch when they're 150.

01:39:57.000 Right?

01:39:59.000 You know?

01:40:01.000 That's nuts.

01:40:02.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

01:40:04.000 Like, this kind of grip is just insane.

01:40:06.000 Oh my God, that's crazy.

01:40:07.000 He's pinch gripping.

01:40:09.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:40:09.000 And that guy Magnus is strong as shit, too. 0.99

01:40:11.000 Like, I saw a video of him training with Eddie Hall. 0.99

01:40:14.000 Crazy strong.

01:40:15.000 And he's doing these one arm rows with like 180 pounds on each side.

01:40:19.000 And I'm like, That is bananas because he's not a big guy.

01:40:22.000 No, but he's ridiculously strong as well.

01:40:24.000 And that, when I even him, he's dwarfed by this guy's strength, yeah, which is crazy.

01:40:29.000 Yeah, Eve is considered the strongest climber in the world.

01:40:34.000 And did you ask him when he started this and how he got that strong?

01:40:38.000 I've talked to Eve a lot about his training.

01:40:41.000 He's so detailed, like the way he trains is very interesting, very progressive, very science based.

01:40:49.000 Look at those forearms. 0.57

01:40:50.000 That's bonkers.

01:40:51.000 Yeah.

01:40:53.000 Yeah.

01:40:53.000 Eve is a.

01:40:55.000 And he's an artist too.

01:40:56.000 He makes masks.

01:40:58.000 Masks?

01:40:58.000 Yeah.

01:40:59.000 You know, like movie masks.

01:41:01.000 Yeah.

01:41:01.000 Oh, wow.

01:41:02.000 That's his main job.

01:41:03.000 He makes masks and he can climb anything.

01:41:07.000 Yeah.

01:41:08.000 He's a super cool guy.

01:41:10.000 Yeah.

01:41:11.000 Wow.

01:41:11.000 So seeing that though makes me think if a guy is that small and he has that kind of grip strength, that that has to be a massive factor.

01:41:20.000 It is.

01:41:20.000 In your ability to arm wrestle.

01:41:21.000 So why wouldn't everybody do that?

01:41:23.000 If a guy. 1.00

01:41:24.000 Is 150 pounds that he could do that shit. 1.00

01:41:27.000 And he's doing it with two arms. 1.00

01:41:28.000 I mean, both of his arms are super jacked.

01:41:32.000 There are levels of specialization.

01:41:34.000 Right.

01:41:35.000 Do you think it's maybe too late for you to do what he's doing because he's been doing this for decades and decades?

01:41:43.000 I believe that he is so good at all his grip work and his grip work is so high and it does have a lot of crossover.

01:41:53.000 It does.

01:41:54.000 Would I want that strength?

01:41:55.000 Yes, of course.

01:41:56.000 I just think that.

01:41:57.000 The motions that I'm doing are actually even more dangerous for the sport of arm wrestling.

01:42:02.000 Like, if I was to advise, even I do, I talk to Eve like every week.

01:42:07.000 I tell Eve, you know, the way he's going to progress his game is by probably doing these more precise movements to become the wall, you know, to become the thing that's hard to hold on to.

01:42:16.000 Right.

01:42:17.000 He has an amazing ability to hold on to anybody.

01:42:20.000 Okay.

01:42:20.000 And that's going to take him really, really far in the sport.

01:42:24.000 But I think that as he's, Eve, I've told him, he's older in terms of entry, but he has world championship potential.

01:42:34.000 You know, he's less than a year in the sport.

01:42:37.000 Wow.

01:42:38.000 Yeah, he's been arm wrestling since like last November.

01:42:42.000 Yeah.

01:42:43.000 Give him like a year or two or three, and he's going to be knocking on the North American, like, you know, top pro level.

01:42:51.000 Wow.

01:42:52.000 Yeah, it won't take him long.

01:42:53.000 Yeah, he's a freak for one, and he's super smart.

01:42:57.000 And arm wrestling is a very nice crossover for climbers because so many of the strengths are similar, really similar.

01:43:04.000 And when you say so, he's very scientific about his training, like, what does he do?

01:43:09.000 The thing that struck me when I spoke to him about his training.

01:43:12.000 Is he kind of does testing.

01:43:14.000 I found that very, very different from the way I train.

01:43:18.000 So before he does his workout, he does these tests like with his grip and he like says how easy or hard they are.

01:43:25.000 And if he's not feeling right, he won't do the training.

01:43:29.000 So he'll continue to rest.

01:43:30.000 He'll abort a training session because it doesn't feel right.

01:43:33.000 Well, yeah, and I'm like, I'm doing it no matter what.

01:43:37.000 Right, right.

01:43:37.000 Interesting.

01:43:38.000 Yeah, look at whatever.

01:43:39.000 I've seen it.

01:43:40.000 It's very detailed.

01:43:42.000 And where did he learn this from?

01:43:45.000 I think he's. 1.00

01:43:47.000 He's crazy. 0.88

01:43:48.000 He loves armor.

01:43:49.000 Sorry, he loves climbing.

01:43:51.000 And I think he's just obsessed.

01:43:53.000 And I think he probably digests everything.

01:43:56.000 I think he probably studies everything about climbing and strength.

01:43:59.000 And he just put it all together.

01:44:01.000 So, what is he doing here?

01:44:02.000 It looks like a static wrist test.

01:44:05.000 Looks like he's measuring it through a weight to see how much in a static capacity he can generate.

01:44:13.000 Wow.

01:44:14.000 Pushing isometrics for arm wrestling.

01:44:14.000 Yeah.

01:44:16.000 Yeah.

01:44:17.000 So, all just wrist pulling.

01:44:20.000 Curling isometric, yeah, maximum output, which is really the main strength that arm wrestlers need that locked, isometric, or even negative strength.

01:44:31.000 Um, and all his squeezing that's crazy, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's very special.

01:44:39.000 That is crazy, yeah.

01:44:43.000 So that's the thing, he's got all these charts, and so he's doing this all himself because there's probably no one that could teach him this stuff.

01:44:52.000 Because he's probably at the top of the food chain when this.

01:44:55.000 Yeah.

01:44:56.000 Wow.

01:44:57.000 Yeah.

01:44:59.000 Yeah.

01:44:59.000 He's a gift to have come around.

01:45:03.000 We love that we've kind of got him.

01:45:06.000 Oh, I'm sure.

01:45:07.000 Because when you get a freak like that, like out of nowhere, what is he doing here?

01:45:13.000 So he's working his curls and he's adding resistance through the elastic.

01:45:13.000 Right.

01:45:17.000 So you can see he's, this is not a climber exercise, I don't think, anymore.

01:45:21.000 He's really switching.

01:45:22.000 You know, arm wrestling.

01:45:24.000 I think he's got the bug.

01:45:26.000 Yeah.

01:45:27.000 Yeah.

01:45:29.000 Wow.

01:45:30.000 It won't be long.

01:45:31.000 It won't be long.

01:45:32.000 He'll be at East versus West for a 70 kilo world title. 0.99

01:45:35.000 Well, it's such an enormous advantage to have these fucking gigantic forearms and insane strength. 0.99

01:45:42.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:45:42.000 And it's just so weird that you could get these guys that are so physically small that are so damn strong. 0.99

01:45:49.000 Like when Magnus was doing Rose, you're like, where's the force coming from?

01:45:54.000 You have a 150 pound, 160 pound body, and you're doing these 180 pound single arm rows.

01:46:01.000 Like, where's the force coming from?

01:46:01.000 Yeah.

01:46:03.000 Like, where's the.

01:46:04.000 Is it a tendon strength?

01:46:06.000 Is it where's the tissue, right?

01:46:08.000 Like, you look at Eddie Hall, you're like, okay, that makes sense that that guy could lift that much weight.

01:46:12.000 He's massive.

01:46:13.000 Yeah.

01:46:13.000 This guy's not massive.

01:46:15.000 If you saw him in a t shirt, you wouldn't even, unless you looked at his forearms, you wouldn't even think he was strong.

01:46:20.000 You'd say, well, it probably runs or something.

01:46:23.000 Looks like a normal guy that's fit.

01:46:25.000 He doesn't look like a guy who can do 180 pound one arm rows.

01:46:29.000 So, what is that?

01:46:31.000 How do you do that?

01:46:33.000 Where's it coming from?

01:46:34.000 Yeah.

01:46:35.000 I think that arm wrestlers, Climbers, a lot of athletes, fighters too, they start to recognize the value of the hand.

01:46:43.000 You know, a lot of guys, you know, in the communities like strongman, powerlifting, other strength disciplines, they get immense strength through their body and through their shoulders and different parts.

01:46:57.000 That by the time it goes through the chain, through the elbow, through the wrist, into the fingers, only a small portion of that is able to get managed.

01:47:06.000 Right.

01:47:07.000 I see that with guys when they work out with straps.

01:47:09.000 I've never used straps.

01:47:11.000 Right.

01:47:11.000 Because to me, with jujitsu, grip is so important.

01:47:15.000 I never wanted to rely only on my muscles and not have a strong grip.

01:47:18.000 It didn't make any sense to me.

01:47:20.000 In so many functional things, the hand is the shortcoming.

01:47:24.000 Or the feet.

01:47:25.000 Or the feet.

01:47:26.000 I talked to Nick Kerson once, who's a strength and conditioning trainer, and I said, What do you think is the number one thing that fighters lack on?

01:47:26.000 Yeah.

01:47:35.000 Yeah.

01:47:35.000 He said, Foot strength.

01:47:36.000 I said, Foot strength.

01:47:37.000 He goes, Yeah, foot strength.

01:47:38.000 He goes, Once foot strength breaks down, everything breaks down.

01:47:42.000 Your movement breaks down, your power breaks down, your ability to get out of the way of things, the ability to close the distance.

01:47:48.000 Yeah.

01:47:49.000 Yeah.

01:47:50.000 What did he get?

01:47:51.000 160.

01:47:51.000 Oh, that's crazy.

01:47:53.000 I got more than him.

01:47:54.000 Yeah, he just did it really hard, too.

01:47:56.000 That's crazy.

01:47:57.000 But that makes sense.

01:47:58.000 I'm 200 pounds, right?

01:48:00.000 But it's a chain, and grip is a part of the functional hand chain.

01:48:06.000 Right.

01:48:07.000 Well, it's clearly he's way stronger than me with Rose.

01:48:07.000 You know?

01:48:11.000 The interesting thing with grip.

01:48:13.000 Is grip is only a small part of control.

01:48:18.000 Oh, this guy, what's that guy's name?

01:48:20.000 He's actually the best.

01:48:22.000 Andra, right?

01:48:23.000 What did he get?

01:48:23.000 He's actually the best climber in the world right now.

01:48:25.000 161.

01:48:27.000 Same thing.

01:48:28.000 Yeah, I saw that.

01:48:28.000 Okay, that's crazy.

01:48:30.000 Derek Lewis got 218.

01:48:30.000 Yeah.

01:48:33.000 Derek Lewis, the guy who fights in the UFC, and he did it casually.

01:48:36.000 He just, I mean, Derek's got giant paws, like catcher's mitt paws.

01:48:36.000 Yeah.

01:48:41.000 And he pulled 218.

01:48:41.000 Yeah.

01:48:43.000 He got higher than anybody.

01:48:44.000 And it didn't even look like he was trying.

01:48:45.000 The guy I just arm wrestled, I think, had the world record for some time.

01:48:49.000 Vitaly Lilletten.

01:48:50.000 What was that?

01:48:51.000 I don't know what the number is, but I know you had the world record.

01:48:54.000 Vitaly Lilletten.

01:48:56.000 So I'm actually not big on grip.

01:48:59.000 I'm not.

01:49:00.000 I'm not.

01:49:00.000 Really?

01:49:01.000 But most people are.

01:49:02.000 There's a guy that I follow on Instagram.

01:49:04.000 Jamie, pull him up.

01:49:06.000 His name is Michael Eckert and 351.

01:49:09.000 Boom!

01:49:10.000 Is that Vitaly?

01:49:11.000 Yeah.

01:49:12.000 Oh, my God.

01:49:13.000 So listen, so listen.

01:49:15.000 So mine is probably like 70 pounds, but I beat him.

01:49:19.000 Wait a minute.

01:49:20.000 No, no, no.

01:49:20.000 You don't.

01:49:20.000 It's terrible.

01:49:21.000 No, no.

01:49:22.000 I'm crippled. 1.00

01:49:23.000 Shut the fuck up. 1.00

01:49:23.000 I'm telling you. 1.00

01:49:24.000 There's no way.

01:49:25.000 I squeeze stronger than you.

01:49:25.000 I'm such a disappointment.

01:49:27.000 That's not possible.

01:49:27.000 Yeah, you do.

01:49:28.000 No, you probably do.

01:49:28.000 That is literally not possible.

01:49:29.000 I'm telling you.

01:49:30.000 Look at the size of this guy.

01:49:31.000 Yeah, he's like 6'9.

01:49:33.000 Like, he's about three.

01:49:35.000 Yeah.

01:49:36.000 Yeah.

01:49:36.000 That is so crazy.

01:49:38.000 154 kilograms is so bananas.

01:49:41.000 Yeah.

01:49:41.000 That's so strong.

01:49:43.000 You can only do 70.

01:49:44.000 That doesn't make any sense.

01:49:45.000 When I was younger, I could do like eight or nine reps of the number three Captain's of Crush. 0.93

01:49:52.000 I have this sucker here on the table. 0.80

01:49:53.000 What is it? 0.98

01:49:54.000 I don't know what this is.

01:49:55.000 You tell me.

01:49:56.000 Tell me what this is.

01:49:57.000 Oh, God.

01:49:59.000 So this isn't a Captain the Crush.

01:49:59.000 200 pounds.

01:50:01.000 This is a.

01:50:02.000 I think it is.

01:50:03.000 It's not?

01:50:04.000 I bought those.

01:50:05.000 They just have a number on them.

01:50:06.000 Can't do it, Joe.

01:50:07.000 I can't do it.

01:50:09.000 I can't do it.

01:50:11.000 I do that all day long.

01:50:12.000 You should come and arm wrestle with us. 1.00

01:50:14.000 No, I could beat people who suck. 1.00

01:50:17.000 Grip is interesting. 0.99

01:50:19.000 Grip is a part of control.

01:50:21.000 But so much of the control through your hand has to do with the ability to control the angles.

01:50:26.000 Can you control this way, this way, this way, this way?

01:50:29.000 Can you spin?

01:50:31.000 The grip is like the final inflection point, it's the final piece to add.

01:50:36.000 Yeah.

01:50:36.000 Right.

01:50:37.000 Well, I understand that it's not everything.

01:50:38.000 It's a thing that I've been obsessed with lately because I'm not strong at it.

01:50:42.000 Grip's beautiful.

01:50:43.000 So, this 162 kilograms.

01:50:45.000 Jeez.

01:50:47.000 I find this guy, Michael Eckert, on Instagram.

01:50:51.000 He's a guy that I follow, and he has all these grip strength tutorials.

01:50:54.000 He's a Marine, and I guess that's him.

01:50:58.000 And he can do 220.

01:51:00.000 And he doesn't look like a very big guy either, but he does like crazy one arm pull ups and he has massive forearms.

01:51:06.000 But, look at his thing right there.

01:51:08.000 What's this thing?

01:51:10.000 There's a thing below it.

01:51:11.000 You see numbers.

01:51:12.000 There it is.

01:51:14.000 Oh, so this is what he's lifting.

01:51:16.000 This is he's doing this for chin ups.

01:51:19.000 But he has the grip strength thing.

01:51:23.000 The really good one is the one that has knurled metal, it has very little play in it.

01:51:28.000 And so you get a real accurate one.

01:51:30.000 He said it's the most accurate one of all of them.

01:51:33.000 That one right there.

01:51:34.000 See what says 119?

01:51:36.000 So I think that's 119 kilograms.

01:51:44.000 Hand is beautiful.

01:51:46.000 Yeah.

01:51:47.000 What is that?

01:51:48.000 262.

01:51:49.000 So he could do 262, and he's not a very big guy.

01:51:53.000 So he does 100 pounds more than me, and he's not a big guy.

01:51:57.000 Yeah.

01:51:57.000 I mean, when you're looking at him, but he does crazy, like chin up stuff 256.

01:52:04.000 That's fucking nuts. 0.99

01:52:06.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:52:06.000 So his, it's Michael Eckert, L. Elicard. 0.99

01:52:14.000 No, Eckert. 0.91

01:52:15.000 E-C-K-E-R-T.

01:52:18.000 E-C-K-E-R-T.

01:52:19.000 So it's Michael Eckert underscore fit on Instagram.

01:52:23.000 And this guy's turned me on to a bunch of stuff, told me stuff to get and what to work out with.

01:52:30.000 But I just, I'm blown away because I look at him and I go, well, you're not that big.

01:52:35.000 That's what's crazy.

01:52:36.000 Like, you look at his forearms are obviously very big, very strong, but he's not like this massive guy.

01:52:41.000 Like, who's that giant Russian cat? 0.59

01:52:43.000 Smaev. 0.90

01:52:44.000 Yeah.

01:52:45.000 Boy.

01:52:47.000 Yeah.

01:52:47.000 He's something real special.

01:52:49.000 If that guy pulled 262, I go, okay, that makes sense.

01:52:52.000 But I look at Michael and I'm like, he's not the biggest guy in the world, but he does so much grip stuff. 1.00

01:53:00.000 Yeah, we're praying for Smyev to come into the sport. 0.99

01:53:03.000 Oh my God.

01:53:03.000 Yeah.

01:53:04.000 That guy's a fucking freak. 1.00

01:53:07.000 Freakiest. 1.00

01:53:08.000 Not just freak, freakiest.

01:53:10.000 Yeah.

01:53:10.000 How is he alive?

01:53:11.000 Like, you got to think, there's not a lot of time on that hourglass.

01:53:16.000 Live hard, die fast.

01:53:17.000 Yeah.

01:53:18.000 Yeah.

01:53:18.000 I mean, he's pushing.

01:53:20.000 There he is.

01:53:21.000 Yeah.

01:53:22.000 But, yeah, I mean, all these strengths for our sport, they all add together.

01:53:28.000 Look at his hands. 1.00

01:53:29.000 Look at his fucking hands. 1.00

01:53:32.000 They don't even look real. 1.00

01:53:35.000 Oh, he's.

01:53:36.000 And he's open about all the sauce that he's on.

01:53:38.000 He's on everything.

01:53:40.000 I mean, someone who was in here that was explaining how much growth hormone he takes?

01:53:45.000 I heard he debunked that.

01:53:47.000 Oh, really?

01:53:48.000 I saw a video where he said it wasn't true.

01:53:50.000 But I have no idea that he wasn't taking that much.

01:53:53.000 I mean, someone was saying he was taking like 100 or something.

01:53:56.000 Some crazy thing, like 10 units of growth a day.

01:53:59.000 No, I heard it was 100.

01:54:00.000 100 units?

01:54:01.000 Yeah, I heard it was like.

01:54:02.000 Well, that doesn't even make sense.

01:54:03.000 That seems like you would just grow.

01:54:05.000 You would just become a giant.

01:54:07.000 Like, that's like a pituitary disorder, right?

01:54:09.000 Yeah, more than.

01:54:10.000 Right, because that's what you're getting.

01:54:12.000 It's a lot.

01:54:14.000 Clearly, he's done a bunch of stuff, though.

01:54:16.000 I mean, if you see him when he was younger, he looked like a normal athlete.

01:54:19.000 I never saw him normal.

01:54:20.000 I mean, I've been following him for probably like six or seven years.

01:54:24.000 Yeah.

01:54:24.000 I mean, I think the first time I saw him, he was doing chin ups with like 250 pounds strapped to him.

01:54:29.000 You know, I think that's the first time I saw him.

01:54:32.000 Uh, He's not normal. 1.00

01:54:33.000 Yeah, look at his fucking size. 0.99

01:54:35.000 So it's a left size. 1.00

01:54:37.000 What's the left when he's 17?

01:54:39.000 Yeah, I mean, he was.

01:54:40.000 Look, that's not a normal 17 year old.

01:54:43.000 No, clearly.

01:54:44.000 Yeah.

01:54:44.000 He's pretty jacked, but that makes sense.

01:54:47.000 Like, that guy on the left makes sense.

01:54:49.000 Like, I've seen guys like that before.

01:54:50.000 Yeah, but not at 17.

01:54:51.000 No, but go to that photo again.

01:54:53.000 But the guy on the right, he looks like the Incredible Hulk.

01:54:57.000 Like, he looks like a superhero.

01:54:58.000 Like, it doesn't look like a real human being.

01:55:01.000 Like, the size of his forearms, the size of his biceps, That doesn't look like a regular human being.

01:55:07.000 It looks like a complete freak of nature or science.

01:55:10.000 And he's training for arm wrestling.

01:55:12.000 I could only imagine.

01:55:13.000 So he's like, if you follow his Insta or whatever, he's doing the arm wrestling lifts, like the pronation.

01:55:20.000 And his lifting is already at a level of like world training.

01:55:24.000 Go to his Instagram, please.

01:55:26.000 His Instagram got taken down, so it's like some nuance.

01:55:29.000 Yeah.

01:55:30.000 That's right.

01:55:30.000 He didn't have it.

01:55:31.000 Why'd it get taken down?

01:55:32.000 I don't know.

01:55:33.000 I don't know.

01:55:34.000 But I heard it was taken down.

01:55:35.000 But he does have a new one, whether it's his or it's a fan one.

01:55:38.000 I know I just saw it yesterday.

01:55:39.000 Why would they take down his Instagram?

01:55:43.000 Yeah, the only one I could find is like Smyev Official, and it's 27 weeks ago.

01:55:47.000 There was a tag, and that's all there is.

01:55:49.000 But no, there is.

01:55:50.000 I know because I saw it like yesterday.

01:55:52.000 Oh, so it's gone.

01:55:54.000 There's some fan page where he's doing pronation lifts.

01:55:54.000 The page is gone.

01:55:59.000 What the fuck? 0.99

01:56:00.000 What is wrong? 1.00

01:56:01.000 Why would they take this guy's Instagram down?

01:56:04.000 Because he's inspiring people to turn into monsters?

01:56:08.000 Do you think that's what it is?

01:56:09.000 I don't know.

01:56:10.000 I don't know.

01:56:11.000 There, this is what I'm talking about.

01:56:12.000 See, now this is a much more normal, like for arm wrestling, this is actually more functional than anything through the grip, I think.

01:56:21.000 So, this is all pronation.

01:56:22.000 That's pronation.

01:56:23.000 Turning the wrist, lifting insane weight.

01:56:26.000 Yeah.

01:56:27.000 And just based off of that information that I see there, I already know.

01:56:31.000 Click on that one that you got your.

01:56:32.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:56:34.000 Fucking size of this guy. 1.00

01:56:35.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:56:36.000 That is so crazy.

01:56:37.000 Explosive jumps.

01:56:39.000 Yeah.

01:56:41.000 And the crazy thing about him is he's not competing in anything.

01:56:46.000 Right.

01:56:46.000 But I think that this is a guy who's just going to show up, whether it's in anything.

01:56:53.000 He gets to pick, and he's probably going to show up at like a world level.

01:56:58.000 Like anything, like what besides?

01:57:00.000 I'd say anything, whether powerlifting, strongman.

01:57:05.000 I'd be terrified if he even got to like blue belt in Japan.

01:57:08.000 Like, what are you going to do?

01:57:08.000 Oh my God.

01:57:09.000 What are you going to do?

01:57:10.000 How much does he weigh?

01:57:11.000 I think like 340, 350.

01:57:12.000 340, and preposterous strength.

01:57:15.000 Like, strength, you know, Mark Coleman always used to say that strength is a skill.

01:57:20.000 And there's something to that, because if you are that strong, there's only so much you could do with that guy's body.

01:57:26.000 Especially if he developed actual skills and understanding of leverage, positions, even just the base movement patterns that are really important.

01:57:26.000 Yeah.

01:57:34.000 352 lead.

01:57:36.000 Jesus.

01:57:38.000 He was supposed to pull, there was a proposal for him to pull one of our guys called Leonidas Arcona.

01:57:44.000 What a great name.

01:57:45.000 Yeah.

01:57:46.000 It's a German guy.

01:57:47.000 He just competed against Brian Shaw like six weeks ago.

01:57:50.000 He beat Brian.

01:57:51.000 What?

01:57:51.000 Someone beat Brian Shaw in an arm wrestling match?

01:57:51.000 Yeah.

01:57:55.000 Leonidas, young German champion.

01:57:58.000 They competed in Germany.

01:57:59.000 It was a great fight.

01:58:01.000 Leonidas is pretty awesome.

01:58:01.000 How big is Leonidas?

01:58:03.000 Okay.

01:58:04.000 Leonidas.

01:58:04.000 This is Leonidas and Brian Shaw.

01:58:06.000 Yeah.

01:58:08.000 Oh, my goodness.

01:58:10.000 That is crazy.

01:58:11.000 Yeah.

01:58:12.000 Right.

01:58:13.000 And nobody's got a starter grip than Brian either.

01:58:15.000 Brian's grip is completely wild. 0.79

01:58:16.000 Seeing someone beat Brian Shaw in anything physical seems ridiculous.

01:58:21.000 It doesn't even make sense.

01:58:22.000 How much does this guy weigh?

01:58:24.000 He's like 285 when he's in good shape. 1.00

01:58:27.000 But again, stupid strength. 1.00

01:58:29.000 He's like a bodybuilder slash arm wrestler. 1.00

01:58:33.000 It's a picture of me reacting.

01:58:33.000 He's not.

01:58:36.000 Yeah.

01:58:38.000 He's been in this sport like.

01:58:40.000 Oh my God, he's going to curl a dude.

01:58:41.000 Yeah.

01:58:44.000 Yeah.

01:58:45.000 Crazy strength.

01:58:46.000 He's massive.

01:58:46.000 Oh my God.

01:58:47.000 Massive.

01:58:49.000 I just can't believe that he beat Brian Shaw.

01:58:50.000 That is nuts.

01:58:52.000 And that's where skill comes in.

01:58:53.000 Well, because Brian Shaw is 100 pounds heavier than him.

01:58:55.000 Yeah.

01:58:56.000 But it's levels, you know?

01:58:58.000 And that's the thing.

01:58:59.000 Arm wrestling has enough technique to it.

01:59:01.000 It's not just how strong you are.

01:59:02.000 Look at me.

01:59:03.000 You can look at me, okay?

01:59:05.000 I'm not on any of these guys' levels.

01:59:07.000 They're all stronger than me, but I'm the number two in the world in the open division.

01:59:12.000 Everybody in the top 50 is stronger than me, you know?

01:59:16.000 But there's a high degree.

01:59:17.000 That's a great picture.

01:59:18.000 Wow.

01:59:19.000 That is crazy.

01:59:21.000 The size difference is so massive.

01:59:23.000 But I'll tell you, Brian probably has a higher potential than Leonidas.

01:59:28.000 Brian's been armresting less than two years.

01:59:30.000 Right.

01:59:31.000 And Leonidas has been armresting less than two years.

01:59:33.000 About five.

01:59:34.000 So there's a lot of technique to it.

01:59:34.000 Yeah.

01:59:34.000 Okay.

01:59:35.000 There's a ton of technique.

01:59:36.000 And a lot of just repetition.

01:59:38.000 Understanding the positions, where to go, what to do, how to hold.

01:59:42.000 Yeah.

01:59:43.000 Miniature martial art.

01:59:45.000 Interesting.

01:59:46.000 Makes sense.

01:59:46.000 Yeah.

01:59:47.000 Yeah.

01:59:47.000 Because there's some people that are not that, like Marcelo Garcia, for instance, not a physically imposing guy, has the craziest squeeze.

01:59:54.000 Right.

01:59:55.000 Like there's something about a squeeze, like learning a position over and over and over again, fine tuning it.

02:00:03.000 That's what's interesting about power in general.

02:00:05.000 It's like the repetition of movement creates more power.

02:00:09.000 And, Some of it is genetic, but some of it is also just fine tuning that motion to just this like perfect chain of energy from the floor to the strike.

02:00:09.000 Yeah.

02:00:22.000 And it's two of us, you know, and it's that interaction.

02:00:25.000 It's what you're doing, what I'm doing.

02:00:27.000 And the more you're doing it, the more you understand what to do and when to do it and what's happening and how to counter it and when to push and when to pull, when to hit the gas.

02:00:37.000 And somebody's leading the dance and someone's following.

02:00:40.000 Right.

02:00:41.000 And the efficiency just, Changes very quickly, and before you know it, you're gassed out.

02:00:45.000 I'm sure you're aware of that guy in Australia, Tom Havilland.

02:00:48.000 Tom Havilland.

02:00:49.000 Yeah, that's another one.

02:00:51.000 That's another one.

02:00:51.000 He's another one.

02:00:52.000 Who's doing this stuff in his backyard with a fucking shirt on and jeans and work boots. 1.00

02:00:52.000 Right. 1.00

02:00:57.000 Yeah.

02:00:57.000 And all the images, most of them, are just his back.

02:01:00.000 Yeah.

02:01:02.000 Awesome.

02:01:03.000 He's another one.

02:01:03.000 Yeah.

02:01:04.000 He's another one of these strength giants that lives out there that everybody kind of wants to pull in.

02:01:09.000 I message Tom every once in a while.

02:01:11.000 I love this guy.

02:01:12.000 Like, dude, when are you coming in, arm wrestling?

02:01:14.000 And what did he say?

02:01:14.000 When are you coming in?

02:01:15.000 Yeah, I'm up.

02:01:17.000 I'm optimistic.

02:01:19.000 Is he interested?

02:01:20.000 I think so.

02:01:21.000 Well, he's also crazy lean, too, which is really weird.

02:01:24.000 He's a strange character.

02:01:25.000 Oh, the strangest, because most of his images are his back.

02:01:30.000 Yeah.

02:01:31.000 Which I don't understand why he's doing that.

02:01:33.000 Well, I had the theory that he was an SF guy.

02:01:37.000 I had the theory that he belongs to some organization that requires him to be discreet.

02:01:42.000 But there are photos of him.

02:01:44.000 Yeah, not many.

02:01:45.000 But there's plenty where you could see his face.

02:01:47.000 Yes.

02:01:48.000 But he doesn't go around broadcasting it too much, does he?

02:01:51.000 Look, I don't know what he is.

02:01:51.000 I don't know.

02:01:53.000 I've asked, and guys say he's not.

02:01:55.000 I don't know what the deal is.

02:01:56.000 But for whatever reason, and he could, right?

02:01:59.000 This is a guy who could probably, again, go to any one of the strength disciplines and compete.

02:02:03.000 Yeah.

02:02:04.000 Because he's almost 400 pounds.

02:02:06.000 He's six foot eight.

02:02:08.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:02:09.000 And fucking shredded. 0.98

02:02:12.000 See if you could find some of the images. 0.98

02:02:13.000 There are images on this page of him with his shirt off doing stuff where he's like walking with, you know, doing like farmer carries.

02:02:21.000 So there's some images of him with his shirt off.

02:02:23.000 Yeah.

02:02:24.000 Like there he is.

02:02:26.000 Yeah.

02:02:27.000 Yeah, yeah, he's a Brian Shaw type.

02:02:30.000 He's a Smaev type, you know, just where the baseline level of strength.

02:02:34.000 But looks more athletic than those guys.

02:02:38.000 Do you know what I'm saying?

02:02:39.000 Like, he's not as massive.

02:02:42.000 He's massive, but he looks massive in a more mobile way.

02:02:47.000 Do you know what I'm saying?

02:02:48.000 I do, but, you know, Brian Shaw, one strongman, and like, there's a lot of athleticism in strongman.

02:02:54.000 I'm not saying there's not.

02:02:54.000 Oh, for sure.

02:02:55.000 I mean, but Brian Shaw looks like an ape.

02:02:59.000 He looks like a giant ape, whereas this guy looks like a super athlete.

02:03:03.000 He does.

02:03:04.000 He looks like that image of him with his shirt off on the far right.

02:03:07.000 Like he's shredded.

02:03:08.000 Yeah.

02:03:09.000 He looks different.

02:03:10.000 Yeah.

02:03:12.000 And it seems like he's just working on his strength.

02:03:17.000 He's just like constantly.

02:03:18.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:03:19.000 Look at his fucking forearm muscles. 1.00

02:03:21.000 What the fuck is going on with the top of the forearm where it meets the bicep? 1.00

02:03:21.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:03:26.000 What the fuck is that? 1.00

02:03:27.000 Tom, if you're watching this, come to East versus West, buddy. 1.00

02:03:30.000 We love you.

02:03:31.000 Has he ever done anything?

02:03:33.000 Yeah.

02:03:33.000 Any arm wrestling stuff?

02:03:34.000 Yeah, I know he has.

02:03:35.000 Because so down in Australia, the president there, Phil Rasmussen, he's good friends with him.

02:03:42.000 And I know that they're arm wrestling a little bit.

02:03:44.000 But yeah, there's something with him where he doesn't kind of, he doesn't want to kind of show up.

02:03:48.000 I think, I don't know what it is with some of these people where they have this amazing ability, but they don't really pop.

02:03:56.000 You know who Eric Spotto is?

02:03:58.000 No.

02:03:59.000 Eric Spotto's a guy out of Vegas, former number one in the world bench guy.

02:04:05.000 Okay, like he broke the world record for bench.

02:04:08.000 Okay, but he didn't go to a powerlifting meet until he could break the record.

02:04:12.000 He didn't even show up.

02:04:13.000 He just showed up and he beat the world record.

02:04:15.000 He was doing the world record in his basement.

02:04:17.000 Wow.

02:04:18.000 And everybody's like, yo, Eric, why don't you go and make it legit?

02:04:22.000 You know, but these guys exist out there, these guys in their basements or wherever they're living, and they, for whatever reason, they don't show up until they're the best.

02:04:33.000 Yeah, Eric, this guy.

02:04:36.000 Yeah, and he's an amazing arm wrestler too.

02:04:39.000 Same theory though, like it was hard to get him into competition, but I personally know that he's like one of the strongest arm wrestlers, but he doesn't compete.

02:04:49.000 Doesn't compete, yeah, yeah.

02:04:52.000 Yeah, strength's amazing, man.

02:04:54.000 It's fun to chase strength.

02:04:57.000 It's not everything in your sport though, which is interesting.

02:05:00.000 Yeah, strength, combat.

02:05:01.000 So we're a combat sport that relies heavily on strength.

02:05:05.000 Yeah.

02:05:06.000 It's interesting you consider it a combat sport, it's 100% a combat sport.

02:05:10.000 Why so?

02:05:11.000 Because it's not applicable to real fighting.

02:05:13.000 So, why do you call it a combat sport?

02:05:14.000 I mean, real fighting is hard to define, anyways.

02:05:17.000 Is it?

02:05:17.000 Well, there's levels.

02:05:19.000 There's levels of real fighting.

02:05:21.000 I mean, what we look at, I love UFC.

02:05:23.000 It's cool, but we invented guns long ago.

02:05:26.000 Of course, but that's not a sport.

02:05:29.000 I mean, it is a sport in terms of being able to shoot accurately and stuff like that, but you're using an external device, you're using a weapon.

02:05:36.000 Right.

02:05:37.000 With your physical body, combat sports.

02:05:40.000 Why would you consider arm wrestling to be a combat sport?

02:05:44.000 Well, because it's between two people and there's so much interplay.

02:05:51.000 And, you know, there's not the rigidity of a lot of sports that measure strength.

02:05:57.000 Okay.

02:05:57.000 It's very much adjustment, adaption, decision making, a lot of games, a lot of technique, a lot of adaptation.

02:06:09.000 You can be super strong, but if you can't adapt, if you can't think, if you can't speak, if you can't play.

02:06:16.000 Yeah.

02:06:16.000 Right.

02:06:17.000 But in that sense, do you consider football a combat sport?

02:06:19.000 Yeah.

02:06:20.000 Yeah.

02:06:20.000 Okay.

02:06:22.000 There's two sides and you're fighting.

02:06:23.000 It's a metaphor.

02:06:24.000 Okay, look at all this stuff.

02:06:27.000 I love the UFC, but I consider it a combat sport.

02:06:31.000 Well, it definitely is a combat sport.

02:06:33.000 100%. 1.00

02:06:33.000 Probably one of the best examples of. 1.00

02:06:36.000 The primary example.

02:06:37.000 If I was going to put together the ultimate, we were going to take out, if we were going to go to war against another nation or whatever, yeah, for sure I'm looking at UFC guys.

02:06:49.000 For sure I'm looking at football guys.

02:06:51.000 Looking at whoever can get the job done.

02:06:55.000 There's a lot of pieces to that.

02:06:56.000 Well, that's different.

02:06:57.000 I mean, look, if they're going to war with just bodies, only using your body, that's one thing.

02:07:02.000 But, you know, obviously with war, weapons rule above all.

02:07:07.000 Absolutely.

02:07:07.000 Yeah.

02:07:08.000 I think that that's where we're at these days.

02:07:10.000 So, well, now we're with thumbs because now it's basically drones.

02:07:14.000 Yeah.

02:07:15.000 You know?

02:07:15.000 Yeah.

02:07:15.000 I mean, that's the.

02:07:17.000 You're going to get to a point soon where human beings are going to be irrelevant.

02:07:21.000 So when it comes to sport, arm wrestling is.

02:07:26.000 For me, it falls into that combat sector.

02:07:28.000 you know, where two people are engaging in a fight, a metaphorical fight against each other.

02:07:35.000 I get it.

02:07:35.000 Yeah.

02:07:37.000 You'll, you'll, I mean, if, if it wasn't a combat sport, then the stronger guy would normally win.

02:07:44.000 And, and they normally does.

02:07:46.000 But as soon as you, I can get like, if I could get like a guy who's been practicing arm wrestling for like four or five years, they'll beat anybody, anybody that's not practicing.

02:07:56.000 It's the same thing as like a jujitsu guy.

02:07:58.000 If you, if you give a jujitsu guy like four or five years on the mat and you get Brian Shaw.

02:08:03.000 Or, like, some giant come in, who's going to win?

02:08:07.000 It really depends.

02:08:09.000 I could teach Brian Shaw a few things real quick.

02:08:11.000 Of course, he could.

02:08:12.000 He could strangle pretty much anybody.

02:08:14.000 And Brian Shaw is an extreme example.

02:08:16.000 Someone your size, yeah.

02:08:16.000 Okay.

02:08:16.000 Yeah.

02:08:20.000 It's like size aside, the size is commensurate.

02:08:22.000 The person who's training, yeah.

02:08:22.000 Yeah.

02:08:23.000 They're going to win every time. 0.97

02:08:25.000 And small people dominate big people all the time.

02:08:28.000 Because it's that technical, it's that skill based.

02:08:28.000 Right.

02:08:32.000 It's just, it's also repetition under.

02:08:34.000 Understanding the positions, understanding mistakes, understanding, you know, knowing where to be and what to do, how to flow, how to move with someone so you're not just going strength for strength against them.

02:08:44.000 You're flowing with them.

02:08:47.000 I think I think of it as a combat sport as well because I try and make it that way.

02:08:51.000 Right.

02:08:52.000 Well, you definitely do.

02:08:53.000 And you definitely make it like psychologically.

02:08:55.000 I try.

02:08:56.000 I try and pull all that stuff in.

02:08:56.000 Yeah.

02:08:58.000 But you have an extensive military experience too.

02:09:00.000 Like you started off, like when, what is the Canadian version of what you, what branch of the military you were in?

02:09:08.000 I was with a unit called JTF2 for 16 out of my 20 years.

02:09:13.000 It was great.

02:09:13.000 Yeah.

02:09:15.000 I'd still be there if I could, really.

02:09:17.000 But it got too complicated and I had to leave.

02:09:21.000 But how so?

02:09:23.000 What do you mean?

02:09:25.000 You know, I don't want to say it was entirely one thing or another, but it really probably had a lot to do with arm wrestling and the visibility of arm wrestling.

02:09:33.000 Like I've been arm wrestling my whole life.

02:09:35.000 But Jisa was 19, I think.

02:09:38.000 Oh, sorry, not 19.

02:09:39.000 It was 2014.

02:09:43.000 And we were on ESPN at the time.

02:09:45.000 And up till that point, I was not declared military in the public eye.

02:09:50.000 Like I was a farmer as far as everybody was concerned.

02:09:53.000 You know, I tried to play the operational security as well as I could.

02:09:58.000 And, you know, I was an active JTF-2 member.

02:10:03.000 But there were a lot of concerns about the growth of arm wrestling for me and my exposure.

02:10:10.000 And, you know, part of being an operator is, you know, you have to be anonymous.

02:10:15.000 You get on an airplane.

02:10:16.000 You can't have people taking pictures of you.

02:10:19.000 Right.

02:10:19.000 Oh, right.

02:10:20.000 So, arm wrestling, because of where I was, and it was on ESPN and going further, they're like, Devin, you have to choose.

02:10:26.000 And I'm like, oh, my God, I've been arming since I was a kid.

02:10:29.000 So, the long and short of that is they offered me a year off, no pay.

02:10:34.000 I took it.

02:10:35.000 I took the year off.

02:10:35.000 I took it.

02:10:36.000 And we were gathering apples and eating sardines and sending my kids to school with dried apples.

02:10:44.000 And me and my wife were like, oh, my God, are we crazy?

02:10:47.000 Like, are we crazy?

02:10:48.000 Just so you try to make it in arm wrestling.

02:10:51.000 It was complicated.

02:10:52.000 It was complicated.

02:10:53.000 Yeah, I'd done like seven tours.

02:10:59.000 It's weird when you do a lot of tours, you know.

02:11:02.000 Things start to gray out a little bit.

02:11:05.000 How so?

02:11:06.000 Everything is about mission in life, right?

02:11:09.000 Like everything. 0.99

02:11:10.000 Like if you don't have a good mission, your life is going to fall to shit. 0.98

02:11:15.000 And as soon as you start to question any kind of that, And, you know, you play in that realm long enough. 0.95

02:11:26.000 Most guys start to, at the beginning, I mean, you're just either so patriotic or, you know, just so down to, you know, help your country or whatever or the people around you that you don't really, you're undeterred.

02:11:40.000 And I think that probably sometime around that point in my career, maybe I was struggling slightly.

02:11:48.000 And that combined with them telling me that I wasn't able to do.

02:11:54.000 Something that was like the only thing I did, you know, when I left work was kind of the thing that kind of made me take kind of a stand in my life that I was going to, you know, follow sport instead of war.

02:12:12.000 Sports beautiful, sports very clearly building civilization.

02:12:17.000 And war, you know, the further you go in it just gets to a level of murk where you're not sure.

02:12:23.000 So, yeah.

02:12:24.000 So, when you say you're not sure, you're not sure if you should be doing what you're doing, you're not sure if the mission should.

02:12:28.000 Be happening, yeah, because I think most people join the military and stay in the military because they genuinely believe that they're benefiting mankind or civilization to some degree.

02:12:40.000 It's a big part of it.

02:12:40.000 Not nobody's there for the money, you know.

02:12:43.000 I mean, somebody at the beginning, some people are because we're broke, right?

02:12:46.000 But I mean, once you spend like 10 years, I mean, you're probably okay, and yeah, so it starts.

02:12:53.000 I mean, you play enough in that world, and it starts to get confusing that you're maybe you're not doing the right thing.

02:12:59.000 So, uh, and look at.

02:13:03.000 I loved my work.

02:13:04.000 I thought it was great.

02:13:05.000 I loved all the people I worked with, some of the best people in the world.

02:13:09.000 But yeah, it came to a point where there were some issues, you know, with OPSEC, not even in my career, but in others.

02:13:17.000 And it kind of trickled down into unit policy and they shut down everybody's extracurricular.

02:13:22.000 And yeah, they're like, Devin, you can't arm wrestle anymore.

02:13:25.000 And I'm like, oh my God, I'm a current world champion.

02:13:27.000 Like, I am currently the open world champion.

02:13:31.000 And you're telling me I can't do it.

02:13:33.000 So I was like, yeah, we're going to have to come up with some other solution.

02:13:36.000 They're like, yeah, okay, years leave without pay.

02:13:38.000 Here's your final offer.

02:13:40.000 And my wife and I were like, oh, my God.

02:13:40.000 So we took it.

02:13:43.000 So, yeah, so I went from making money and I had and I didn't come we didn't have money, you know But you were getting by yeah, getting by But it meant that on that year I like had to win it was no longer like my hobby It was like if I don't win like my kids are like not I'm gonna have to sell a house or like I'm gonna have to do the gamble It worked out Yeah, what was that stress like dude?

02:14:11.000 It was so much how old were you at the time?

02:14:15.000 Okay, that was 2014, so I'd be 39.

02:14:17.000 Oh, wow.

02:14:18.000 Yeah.

02:14:19.000 So you're already older as an athlete.

02:14:21.000 Yeah.

02:14:22.000 Wow.

02:14:22.000 Yeah.

02:14:23.000 Yeah, it was totally trippy.

02:14:24.000 I remember being so stressed out.

02:14:28.000 I was, so it was a WAL finals.

02:14:32.000 Okay.

02:14:32.000 I was in the 225 pound division.

02:14:34.000 20,000 bucks for first place.

02:14:37.000 Right hand, left hand.

02:14:39.000 And I had a great sponsor.

02:14:41.000 Okay.

02:14:41.000 They were matching my pay.

02:14:43.000 So anything I won.

02:14:44.000 They doubled it and they were doing some other stuff too.

02:14:47.000 But if I lost, I got nothing.

02:14:49.000 Right?

02:14:50.000 So I'm in the back.

02:14:52.000 I'm in the back in the warm up area and I'm breathing.

02:14:55.000 I'm getting ready.

02:14:56.000 I'm going against this guy, Ron Bath, in the finals.

02:14:59.000 And a longtime mentor of mine, guys like my older brother, this guy, Mike Gould, comes over to me.

02:15:06.000 He's like, Devin, he's like, you used to run the practice when you were 18.

02:15:10.000 He's like, you're just here because you love it.

02:15:12.000 Don't worry about it.

02:15:13.000 Just go and have fun.

02:15:14.000 And I'm like, okay, you're right.

02:15:15.000 You're right.

02:15:15.000 And I went out and I just.

02:15:16.000 Had fun and worked out.

02:15:20.000 But yeah, so I ended up doing my year's leave without pay.

02:15:24.000 As soon as I was taking my leave, they're like, We want you to declare.

02:15:29.000 Like, we want you to tell people that you're special forces now.

02:15:32.000 Why did they want you to do that?

02:15:32.000 So I went from.

02:15:34.000 Because they pushed me into recruiting.

02:15:37.000 Yeah.

02:15:37.000 So when I got back, I tried again.

02:15:39.000 I think they'd already made up their mind.

02:15:42.000 When I got back, I'm like, Yeah, can I have my old job back?

02:15:44.000 And they're like, You're going to keep arm wrestling?

02:15:46.000 And I'm like, Well, you know, and they're like, okay, you're going to recruiting.

02:15:51.000 And I was on, so at that point, I was on my 19th year.

02:15:56.000 Okay.

02:15:57.000 And you only in the Canadian forces at that time, now I think you need 25, but 20 years continuous service and you get like a base pension.

02:16:08.000 So I did my 19th to 20th year.

02:16:10.000 I went around Canada and I told people how great the JTF was.

02:16:14.000 And that was it.

02:16:15.000 That was my career done.

02:16:17.000 Yeah.

02:16:17.000 Wow.

02:16:18.000 Now full-time armorist for the last 10 years.

02:16:21.000 What a jump at 39.

02:16:23.000 Yeah. 0.98

02:16:24.000 That had to be so fucking nerve wracking. 0.91

02:16:26.000 It was, I just, you know, I thought it was very selfish of me, you know. 0.98

02:16:34.000 I thought that I was being very irresponsible.

02:16:37.000 I thought, you know, because I really believed in soldiering, I did.

02:16:42.000 And, you know, to leave it, you know, made me question very much whether I was doing the right thing with my life.

02:16:50.000 And then on a, Family level, I was like, I'm being, am I being irresponsible chasing this, you know, thing that I love to do and it's costing my kids, you know, their university education, it's costing my kids, you know.

02:17:07.000 But yeah, we believed in it, we went for it, and it's all worked out.

02:17:13.000 It's all worked out.

02:17:14.000 I mean, it's been a second life for me.

02:17:20.000 I still love all the guys I work with, some of them are still working, my God.

02:17:24.000 Guys do like 30 year careers in the special forces.

02:17:27.000 It's crazy.

02:17:29.000 Yeah.

02:17:29.000 A lot of the guys that I went through with are now in senior positions, and I bump into them every once in a while.

02:17:35.000 I just tell them how much I love them and how great they are.

02:17:38.000 And yeah, I live a simple life now.

02:17:43.000 It's beautiful, you know.

02:17:44.000 Like before, life was very complicated.

02:17:47.000 Going on tours, you know, Special Forces life is super complex.

02:17:51.000 You know, it's difficult to balance.

02:17:54.000 How my wife and I made it through that, I have no idea.

02:17:57.000 I have no idea, but we did.

02:17:58.000 But yeah, now I'm at home every day.

02:18:01.000 I wake up unless I'm going to some arm wrestling tournament.

02:18:05.000 It's beautiful.

02:18:06.000 Well, I got to think that the discipline that came from that life.

02:18:09.000 Transferred over to the discipline of becoming a great arm wrestler?

02:18:14.000 I think I'm still learning today from my career.

02:18:18.000 I'm still digesting some of the greatest days and some of the stuff that I did.

02:18:23.000 I'm still integrating it into my life.

02:18:26.000 It's a great teacher.

02:18:26.000 Yeah.

02:18:29.000 Well, you can't fail.

02:18:31.000 No, you can't.

02:18:31.000 It's just like the ultimate consequences, the ultimate stakes.

02:18:35.000 Yeah.

02:18:37.000 It's beautiful.

02:18:39.000 I love the concept of soldiering.

02:18:41.000 I think I have it as one of the.

02:18:43.000 Highest things that you can do.

02:18:46.000 Like there's being a mother and there's being a fighter, you know.

02:18:50.000 And I personally have always believed that one of the highest orders of fighters are the guys in the military, you know, the SF guys.

02:18:57.000 Like it's pretty awesome.

02:19:00.000 But yeah, it's, I try and take all those lessons and bring them into the sport.

02:19:08.000 And I try to, well, I try and let that chapter of my life, you know, feed and inspire me today.

02:19:17.000 Do you talk much about your tours?

02:19:20.000 I don't a lot.

02:19:24.000 It's not that anything matters at this point.

02:19:28.000 I mean, it's all in the past, and there's nothing that I could really say now that influences too much.

02:19:33.000 But yeah, I don't make it part of my general promotion too much, but everybody knows that I was.

02:19:44.000 It's a wild time in my life.

02:19:47.000 It's a huge chapter.

02:19:48.000 You know, the military stuff, the tours that I did.

02:19:51.000 You know, we did a lot of work in Afghanistan. 0.96

02:19:55.000 So, you know, the highlight of my career is working in Kandahar, you know, working with the American forces, working with the Indige forces. 0.96

02:20:03.000 You know, we, JTF does like counterterrorism. 1.00

02:20:06.000 So we're doing hits, we're doing hits at night, you know, going out and various kinds.

02:20:11.000 But yeah, it was always funny to me.

02:20:14.000 People would, because people didn't know I was, you know, widely.

02:20:17.000 I mean, oh, Devin's scared to come to this tournament, you know. 1.00

02:20:22.000 And I was like, motherfucker. 1.00

02:20:23.000 I am in a goddamn war right now. 1.00

02:20:26.000 I am not scared to go to Nemerov Cup, you know? 0.99

02:20:30.000 But, yeah.

02:20:31.000 That's funny.

02:20:33.000 Yeah, it was so funny for me.

02:20:35.000 I'm like, you have no idea how scared I am right now, what I'm doing, you know?

02:20:42.000 War is a wild thing, you know?

02:20:45.000 The degree that it's psychologically affected me is it's been neat, you know?

02:20:54.000 Who I am was shaped by combat, you know, by the fear and the lacking that I had.

02:21:05.000 Like the not being enough to be everything I could be in combat shaped me so much, you know.

02:21:17.000 You know, when you go on a tour, and there's different people, there's different dudes, okay?

02:21:23.000 I know some dudes who really don't get scared.

02:21:26.000 They really don't.

02:21:27.000 Like, they're like so down for it.

02:21:29.000 Like, they can't wait to go on the next mission, you know?

02:21:33.000 And I was kind of the guy who was like completely scared shitless, but I'd go anyways, you know.

02:21:40.000 And what I kind of learned to do, which I have a great value in, is kind of the separation of myself.

02:21:50.000 You know, I am a very different person day to day than when I compete or when I, for example, went and actually did the job.

02:21:59.000 You know, I would completely transform my character.

02:22:02.000 And this is something that I learned.

02:22:03.000 The first tour was hard.

02:22:04.000 You know, you're a regular dude with a regular brain and a regular mindset doing this terrifying thing. 0.98

02:22:11.000 And then, you know, you come back and you, you know, you've seen a lot of shit and you got PTSD. 0.98

02:22:16.000 You wake up and your heart's going and it's like an injury. 0.99

02:22:20.000 And you can let an injury kill you or you can heal and develop some kind of resilience to it.

02:22:29.000 And I think that I, to some degree, did that by learning how to become a different person.

02:22:38.000 People call it a switch, you know, where you like all your values, the person that you are is different.

02:22:45.000 You're not the same person when you're out in the field than you are when you're back on base.

02:22:51.000 And I created a persona that loved it, that looked forward to it, that lusted for it, because that's what you need to be to actually perform properly.

02:23:02.000 When you say you created a persona, what were the steps?

02:23:05.000 How did you do that?

02:23:07.000 Well, I think that.

02:23:10.000 One of the things is to really wrap your mind.

02:23:12.000 I think the first step is to wrap your mind about the worst possible outcomes with any fear.

02:23:19.000 And I don't know if a psychologist is going to tell you to do this, but like, for example, like I'll take it a step back and we'll talk about jumping.

02:23:28.000 Okay.

02:23:29.000 I don't like to jump in airplanes.

02:23:30.000 Okay.

02:23:31.000 Didn't really, you know, it's kind of scary.

02:23:34.000 So I had a certain fear there.

02:23:36.000 Okay.

02:23:37.000 Now I got over it.

02:23:38.000 I've got, you know, I've got hundreds of jumps.

02:23:41.000 But What I did was I used to watch parachute fails over and I just kind of desensitized myself to it and kind of became okay with it. 0.73

02:23:53.000 And I think to a certain degree I did the same thing with the overall concept of worst case scenario with the war.

02:24:01.000 You know, kind of accepted that I'm going to die. 0.96

02:24:04.000 It's okay.

02:24:05.000 I believe in the cause, believe in the mission.

02:24:07.000 It's okay.

02:24:08.000 So now I have to solve how to actually, how do I get to the best performance state to do that?

02:24:14.000 And you have to love what you do.

02:24:17.000 You got to love what you do.

02:24:18.000 So you have to find a way to love the violence.

02:24:21.000 You have to find a way to love the aggression.

02:24:24.000 You have to find a way to.

02:24:27.000 And I think it's inside all of us.

02:24:29.000 I think that the person that you are is, you know, who you've kind of created for a certain circumstance.

02:24:35.000 But the truth is, you might act a little bit different when you're sitting at the table with your mother than when you're sitting at the table with your best friend, to when you're going out and doing a hit on the front lines, you know?

02:24:45.000 And it's a different psychology that's going to perform best, you know, in each of those.

02:24:50.000 And it's learning that you are not necessarily one thing.

02:24:54.000 You are whatever you want to be, you know, and you can change that.

02:25:01.000 You can become that.

02:25:01.000 And the more time that you spend as that role, the more you roll it out, the more you build it out, the more you're comfortable with it, the more you might even look forward to doing it again, you know.

02:25:14.000 I certainly rolled that psychology.

02:25:17.000 Into my arm wrestling.

02:25:19.000 What's interesting you say, I don't know if a psychologist would tell you to do that.

02:25:22.000 I don't think a psychologist would have the ability to understand what that experience even is.

02:25:28.000 There's one thing about theory and about books and about learning in school, there's a giant difference between that and application in a real world scenario where you might lose your life and you have to take a life.

02:25:41.000 I don't think there's a psychologist in the world that could explain that.

02:25:44.000 That's why I'm always very hesitant about even sports psychologists or fight psychologists that teach people how to prepare for fighting.

02:25:54.000 You could probably give a fighter some tools, but for you to actually tell them what needs to be done, if you're not doing that, how can you?

02:26:05.000 It's just theory.

02:26:06.000 Theory.

02:26:07.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:26:07.000 And there's a giant difference between theory and application where you are trying to keep your fucking brain together in the craziest thing a human being can do. 0.99

02:26:17.000 Parachute down and gun people down. 1.00

02:26:17.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:26:20.000 Like, what is fucking crazier on earth than that? 0.99

02:26:25.000 I'd say nothing. 0.97

02:26:26.000 Well, look, I used to have that attitude as well, but I've changed my attitude when it comes to that.

02:26:32.000 I think that it's about excellence and mastery.

02:26:38.000 I think that that's what life is about.

02:26:39.000 And if you're in the soldiering realm, yeah, that's excellence and mastery in that field.

02:26:45.000 But I think wherever you are, if you're a businessman, if you're an artist, if you're a farmer, there's levels.

02:26:53.000 You can be a farmer that has weeds and, you know, It kind of, you know, doesn't get up at the crack of dawn or whatever.

02:27:00.000 And then you can be a completely psychotic farmer that does.

02:27:03.000 And I think that you're on that level. 0.82

02:27:05.000 You're on that level of mastery.

02:27:05.000 Yeah.

02:27:08.000 And I think that that is what life is really about is finding that thing that you're comfortable doing and becoming a master at it.

02:27:16.000 Yeah.

02:27:17.000 And now I am the Bonnie Blue of arm wrestling.

02:27:23.000 Come one, come all.

02:27:26.000 I got the first base with everybody.

02:27:28.000 I got to ask you about this, and this is a silly thing to ask you because you said Kandahar.

02:27:32.000 Have you heard of the legend of the Kandahar giant?

02:27:35.000 Of course.

02:27:36.000 Yeah.

02:27:37.000 What did you hear?

02:27:38.000 When did you hear?

02:27:39.000 Oh, I've seen.

02:27:40.000 Okay.

02:27:41.000 There's some freaks out there, man.

02:27:43.000 There's some freaks.

02:27:44.000 So, yeah, I mean, I've seen the YouTube video.

02:27:48.000 I've heard about it from other people, but legit, legit.

02:27:53.000 Okay.

02:27:54.000 Hard for me because I was far away.

02:27:57.000 Okay.

02:27:58.000 I was probably about.

02:28:00.000 200 meters away.

02:28:02.000 We were doing a mobility exercise.

02:28:05.000 Okay, mobility, I hate mobility.

02:28:07.000 Okay, mobility was my least favorite op.

02:28:10.000 Mobility basically, you get in a bunch of trucks and you kind of roll out and you kind of look for a fight.

02:28:15.000 Okay, so we were doing like a two week mobility in this region, kind of north of the Panjue.

02:28:23.000 I don't remember exactly what it was called.

02:28:25.000 It was surrounded by mountains, this big valley.

02:28:29.000 And we were rolling around.

02:28:34.000 And so there was a village that we were going to check out.

02:28:38.000 And I'm like a gunner, okay?

02:28:42.000 So I don't know everything that's going on.

02:28:44.000 I'm a dude on a machine gun, okay?

02:28:46.000 But I can see everything that's happening.

02:28:48.000 I kind of know what we're doing.

02:28:50.000 But I know that there's a meeting.

02:28:52.000 And what they have is they have these warlords.

02:28:55.000 It's not the same kind of political system or anything that we have in like North America.

02:29:00.000 Kind of the baddest dude.

02:29:03.000 In the region, it becomes in charge.

02:29:06.000 Okay, so we were meeting with one of the local warlords.

02:29:12.000 And so the town was like 500 meters away.

02:29:16.000 They drove out from the town about 500 meters, and we had our trucks about 200 meters from the meeting point.

02:29:24.000 Our officer and a couple dudes went forward, and we're looking.

02:29:29.000 This guy, I mean, he was maybe twice as big.

02:29:33.000 He was huge.

02:29:34.000 He was a massive dude.

02:29:36.000 Like how big?

02:29:38.000 I think he was eight feet.

02:29:39.000 I think he was eight foot something.

02:29:41.000 It's embarrassing. 0.99

02:29:42.000 It's like Devin, you're crazy. 0.98

02:29:44.000 He's big. 0.98

02:29:45.000 And he was 200 meters away.

02:29:47.000 He's about 200 meters away, but I can see the guys.

02:29:50.000 We've got optics.

02:29:51.000 He was, our officer was probably somewhere at the bottom of his chest. 1.00

02:29:58.000 Great big Afghan dude. 1.00

02:30:00.000 Big beard, big dude, big dude. 1.00

02:30:03.000 And his lackeys around him were normal size.

02:30:05.000 Great big warlord.

02:30:07.000 So they're out there.

02:30:08.000 Big people.

02:30:10.000 Eight feet is nuts.

02:30:11.000 I have personally seen people who were probably over eight feet.

02:30:16.000 What?

02:30:17.000 Yeah.

02:30:17.000 In Afghanistan?

02:30:18.000 No.

02:30:19.000 I saw these guys up north, northern Canada, Cree.

02:30:24.000 I was up in Ojibugamo, okay, this Cree village.

02:30:28.000 I remember walking up.

02:30:30.000 I'm there for arm wrestling.

02:30:32.000 We're having an arm wrestling tournament.

02:30:33.000 And I'm looking up.

02:30:35.000 We're walking up the stairs in this hockey arena.

02:30:36.000 And this dude, I'm like, that's a really big dude.

02:30:38.000 And by the time I got there, I was about Me and I'm like 6'5. 0.99

02:30:42.000 I was about at his nipple. 0.98

02:30:44.000 What? 1.00

02:30:44.000 Yeah, big, big, big hands. 1.00

02:30:47.000 Big, long hands. 0.99

02:30:49.000 Like out of the goonies, like misshapen face. 0.99

02:30:52.000 I'm like, my God. 0.97

02:30:53.000 I'm like, how big are you?

02:30:55.000 He's like, just laughed at me.

02:30:56.000 And he's like, my brother.

02:30:57.000 He's like, my dad's 8'11.

02:30:59.000 He's like, like.

02:31:00.000 What?

02:31:01.000 Yeah, big.

02:31:03.000 My dad's 8'11.

02:31:04.000 I'm telling you, there's big people.

02:31:06.000 And people don't know about him.

02:31:07.000 Guinness doesn't know about him.

02:31:08.000 They live up in the woods.

02:31:09.000 There's big people out there.

02:31:11.000 And not all.

02:31:12.000 He's from that region, apparently.

02:31:12.000 Who's that guy, Jamie?

02:31:14.000 I don't know how to say that.

02:31:15.000 Edouard Wapri.

02:31:18.000 So there's just giants that live in that region?

02:31:20.000 Eight foot three. 0.99

02:31:21.000 The Cree are very big people. 1.00

02:31:23.000 And the thing is, when they get to eat what they're supposed to eat, the problem is so many of them eat junk now, right? 1.00

02:31:29.000 Because they grow up on the.

02:31:32.000 367, sorry.

02:31:33.000 Eight foot two and a half, 367 pounds, age 33.

02:31:39.000 Whoa.

02:31:40.000 Yeah, I forget the name of these brothers, but there's a bunch of them.

02:31:44.000 Yeah.

02:31:45.000 Yeah, there's some weird genetics out there, you know?

02:31:47.000 Yeah.

02:31:48.000 Yeah. 0.97

02:31:49.000 And we're going to try and swab them.

02:31:50.000 I'll give it to Ryan before you know it. 0.97

02:31:54.000 But so this guy in Afghanistan was this one isolated incident?

02:31:59.000 I saw one.

02:32:01.000 Yeah, I just saw the one.

02:32:02.000 And he had to be eight feet tall.

02:32:03.000 He is big.

02:32:05.000 He's big.

02:32:05.000 Yeah, he's a big, big human being.

02:32:07.000 Far out of the standard.

02:32:09.000 Yeah.

02:32:10.000 And he was a warlord.

02:32:11.000 Wow.

02:32:12.000 Yeah.

02:32:13.000 Yeah, they're big people out there.

02:32:16.000 And so the Kandahar giant story, the guy is supposed to be even bigger than that.

02:32:19.000 Yeah.

02:32:21.000 Yeah, I heard.

02:32:21.000 Do you believe it?

02:32:23.000 I do.

02:32:24.000 Yeah, I do.

02:32:25.000 There's freaks out there.

02:32:26.000 There are.

02:32:27.000 But this guy supposedly had like six fingers and six toes.

02:32:30.000 Yeah.

02:32:32.000 Yeah.

02:32:33.000 Yeah, I believe that stuff.

02:32:35.000 I just, I mean, I think that we get so used to normal people, and every once in a while there's a weirdo.

02:32:41.000 And these people are not being studied.

02:32:43.000 There's no one there.

02:32:44.000 Like that region of the country is extremely remote.

02:32:48.000 Extremely.

02:32:50.000 Extremely.

02:32:51.000 Like, they don't, it's like going back to like the 15th century.

02:32:55.000 Like, there's motorcycles and some people have gas.

02:32:58.000 I mean, but they don't have electricity.

02:33:02.000 Yeah, there's not even really roads.

02:33:04.000 Yeah.

02:33:05.000 And there was this one guy who was a warlord that was eight feet tall.

02:33:08.000 I saw him.

02:33:09.000 I saw him.

02:33:09.000 You saw him.

02:33:11.000 Yeah.

02:33:11.000 From a distance.

02:33:12.000 But, I mean, there's no way he was any shorter.

02:33:14.000 Like, he was huge.

02:33:16.000 He was a massive, and he was broad across his shoulders, too.

02:33:19.000 He was probably twice as broad.

02:33:22.000 Massive, massive human.

02:33:23.000 Yeah.

02:33:25.000 What was that like, just seeing something like that?

02:33:27.000 It's wild, man.

02:33:28.000 Yeah.

02:33:29.000 You know, it's neat.

02:33:33.000 Yeah.

02:33:34.000 Yeah.

02:33:36.000 It was shocking, but it's neat how they structure their leadership.

02:33:42.000 That's the guy in charge.

02:33:43.000 The most massive.

02:33:44.000 I hope he was a nice guy.

02:33:46.000 Probably wasn't.

02:33:47.000 I don't know.

02:33:48.000 I don't know.

02:33:49.000 I mean, he seemed reasonable.

02:33:50.000 Like, we didn't get in the fight.

02:33:52.000 Like, we didn't, there was no fight there.

02:33:54.000 So we worked it out, whatever it was.

02:33:57.000 But yeah, there are anomalies, and it's neat.

02:34:01.000 It's kind of cool that he made it to a leadership position.

02:34:04.000 So he must have been a smart guy, too. 0.99

02:34:05.000 And he must have been a good guy because I don't think a dick could have been in charge. 0.98

02:34:11.000 So, did you hear of that story, the Kandahar Giant story? 0.98

02:34:14.000 So, supposedly, what happened is it's American military guys encountered this guy in the mountains that was just absolutely enormous.

02:34:23.000 They said he was like 12 feet tall.

02:34:25.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:34:26.000 Well, what happened with a Nephilim? 0.97

02:34:29.000 Right. 1.00

02:34:30.000 That's the thing.

02:34:31.000 The thing is, supposedly, they had six fingers and six toes as well.

02:34:36.000 Look, I believe that.

02:34:39.000 Things come to visit, and sometimes things get left behind, and who knows?

02:34:44.000 Who knows?

02:34:45.000 You know, there's a good chance that he's maybe just a little bit closer to all that, or somehow a recessive and a recessive somehow found their ways together, and there you go.

02:34:56.000 And somehow there's a surviving population of these people still in the world that are undiscovered.

02:35:02.000 It's a beautiful part of the world, that region.

02:35:05.000 Perfect climate, super fertile.

02:35:08.000 Like, if you were going to, like, if there was nothing, what a beautiful place to start life.

02:35:14.000 Afghanistan is a beautiful country, so rich for agriculture.

02:35:17.000 The climate is perfect.

02:35:19.000 With the mountains and the rivers, the seasons, it's tough to beat.

02:35:25.000 I would understand why people would fight so hard to have that territory.

02:35:31.000 If you were a giant, 12 feet tall, and you could live anywhere you wanted, in a valley where the rivers fed your land, I could pick there.

02:35:41.000 Did you hear that story when you were over there?

02:35:43.000 That story is famous.

02:35:45.000 Yeah.

02:35:46.000 And I asked around.

02:35:47.000 I've never met anybody who was involved in that op.

02:35:50.000 I haven't.

02:35:51.000 But it seems like a story that has something to it because there's too many people telling that story.

02:35:59.000 There's only one story like that.

02:36:02.000 There are a lot of stories.

02:36:03.000 There's more stories like that?

02:36:05.000 There are.

02:36:06.000 I mean, I should say there's only one story like that online that people repeat over and over again.

02:36:10.000 This one encounter.

02:36:12.000 There are fascinating stories out there, some that I'm closer to.

02:36:17.000 Like what?

02:36:18.000 Probably the most interesting story that I'm in any way kind of close to is from that region of the world.

02:36:25.000 And this is a whole other can of worms, but it's so weird.

02:36:31.000 It's demonic possession.

02:36:33.000 We had a guy, a guy, he was my, I worked with him very closely for a super smart guy.

02:36:40.000 Great guy.

02:36:40.000 Awesome dude.

02:36:41.000 Awesome soldier.

02:36:43.000 And yeah, I mean, he got possessed by a demon. 0.75

02:36:46.000 He started speaking in tongues.

02:36:47.000 He knew everything about everybody.

02:36:49.000 He could speak different languages.

02:36:55.000 He knew everything about everybody's life.

02:36:56.000 He knew all their sins.

02:36:58.000 What?

02:36:59.000 Yeah, he knew all the sins people did, even from their childhood.

02:37:02.000 What?

02:37:04.000 He got taken to the medical, through the medical system before they knew it.

02:37:11.000 He was out of the medical system and he was with the padre, the priest that comes along on some military missions.

02:37:19.000 They did a, what do you call that when you cleanse a demon from, what do they call it?

02:37:23.000 Exorcism.

02:37:24.000 They did an exorcism.

02:37:26.000 They sent him back to Canada.

02:37:30.000 He's now watched by the church.

02:37:32.000 He has to go and check in with the church every week.

02:37:34.000 I don't know what to tell you, Joe.

02:37:38.000 There's a lot I don't know.

02:37:39.000 But yeah, and the crazy thing was, the priest who did the exorcism said he knew the demon.

02:37:47.000 He'd already done the exorcism like three or four times on different people.

02:37:52.000 Yeah, that demon was like popping in at other guys.

02:37:56.000 Yeah, so I look, Joe, I don't know what's going on in the world.

02:37:59.000 I'm an arm wrestler.

02:38:00.000 But this guy knew things about you?

02:38:03.000 No, I wasn't on the tour.

02:38:04.000 But the unit's very small.

02:38:06.000 Okay.

02:38:07.000 All the guys who were there, I have very close personal relationships with.

02:38:11.000 And there's no reason for me not to trust them.

02:38:13.000 And this is the guy who had it done to him, I'm very close with.

02:38:18.000 Like he comes over to my stall partner.

02:38:21.000 Okay.

02:38:21.000 And I see him all the time.

02:38:23.000 When you say had it done to the guy who was possessed, you knew him.

02:38:26.000 I know him very well.

02:38:27.000 And what did he say about it?

02:38:29.000 He doesn't like it very much.

02:38:29.000 Yeah.

02:38:31.000 Yeah.

02:38:33.000 It scared him a lot.

02:38:35.000 Yeah.

02:38:36.000 Does he recall being able to speak different languages?

02:38:39.000 Yeah.

02:38:39.000 He can remember it.

02:38:40.000 Yeah, he can remember.

02:38:41.000 But he can't speak those languages anymore.

02:38:44.000 No, it was like he was aware of everything happening, but he was like he was a visitor.

02:38:49.000 He was like there for the ride.

02:38:51.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:38:51.000 Whoa.

02:38:52.000 Apparently, when it started, it started to like, it started, he was freezing.

02:38:57.000 He was locking up.

02:38:58.000 And then he was locking.

02:39:00.000 And then he started speaking in tongues.

02:39:01.000 And then he was like fully.

02:39:04.000 Joe, it's weird stuff out there, man.

02:39:07.000 There's a lot of things that we don't understand, right?

02:39:10.000 And.

02:39:12.000 Yeah.

02:39:14.000 Yeah.

02:39:14.000 I don't know what to tell you.

02:39:15.000 I don't know.

02:39:16.000 It wasn't me, but I trust the story because I know the people.

02:39:22.000 I know them.

02:39:22.000 I know them very well.

02:39:23.000 I could hook you up with them.

02:39:25.000 You want to talk to them?

02:39:26.000 Tell you.

02:39:27.000 Tell you all about it.

02:39:27.000 I'm nervous.

02:39:28.000 I don't think I would.

02:39:30.000 Wow.

02:39:30.000 Yeah.

02:39:31.000 Yeah.

02:39:32.000 And how long was he possessed for?

02:39:34.000 He was possessed, I think, for a couple of weeks, maybe like a week or 10 days, something like that.

02:39:41.000 It wasn't super long, but he was all messed up afterwards.

02:39:45.000 Like he got, like he was done working after that.

02:39:47.000 Really?

02:39:48.000 He retired.

02:39:49.000 Medical.

02:39:50.000 Wow.

02:39:51.000 Yep.

02:39:53.000 But psychologically, like it wasn't like he had a schizophrenic break.

02:39:58.000 So he's, whatever it was he came back from.

02:40:01.000 I don't know that schizophrenia can explain the language.

02:40:03.000 No.

02:40:04.000 I don't know that it's.

02:40:05.000 No, I don't think it can.

02:40:06.000 But what I'm saying is they didn't diagnose him as having.

02:40:09.000 No, the diagnosis was he had to go to church.

02:40:12.000 Jesus Christ.

02:40:13.000 Yeah.

02:40:13.000 Literally.

02:40:14.000 Yeah.

02:40:15.000 Right?

02:40:15.000 Isn't that wild?

02:40:16.000 That's so crazy.

02:40:17.000 That's one of the craziest ones that I've seen personally.

02:40:21.000 Have you heard of other experiences like that where people have been possessed?

02:40:25.000 That's it.

02:40:26.000 We would think that if a demon was going to visit someone, war would be the place to visit them.

02:40:30.000 And that's an ancient. 0.96

02:40:32.000 That was in Iraq.

02:40:33.000 That was in Erbil.

02:40:35.000 And I mean, that's an ancient, ancient part of the world.

02:40:35.000 Okay.

02:40:35.000 Wow.

02:40:38.000 Yeah.

02:40:39.000 So, whatever's like, history is long and misunderstood, and something's going on.

02:40:49.000 Something's going on.

02:40:51.000 I can't explain it.

02:40:53.000 And I've kind of just been like, I'm kind of like, at this point in my life, I'm like, whatever.

02:40:57.000 I know I don't know everything.

02:40:58.000 I'm just going to do wrist curls in my basement for the next one.

02:41:04.000 Yeah, he's awesome.

02:41:05.000 Martin, if you're watching, come over.

02:41:07.000 Let's party.

02:41:08.000 I love this guy.

02:41:09.000 Does he talk about it?

02:41:11.000 A little bit.

02:41:12.000 A little bit.

02:41:13.000 I'm so curious about it.

02:41:14.000 Do you think he would come on here and tell a story?

02:41:16.000 Yep.

02:41:17.000 Really?

02:41:18.000 Sure.

02:41:19.000 Of course he would.

02:41:22.000 I'm nervous.

02:41:23.000 Are you nervous, Jamie?

02:41:26.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:41:28.000 Martin, yeah, he's a cool dude.

02:41:30.000 Yeah, I love him.

02:41:30.000 Wow.

02:41:31.000 I love him.

02:41:32.000 Yeah, great soldier.

02:41:34.000 Yeah.

02:41:36.000 Brother, you've had a pretty wild life.

02:41:38.000 It's been great, really.

02:41:41.000 Ton of fun.

02:41:42.000 Happy to be here.

02:41:44.000 Yeah, it's been good.

02:41:45.000 It's been good.

02:41:47.000 Well, I really enjoyed this conversation, man.

02:41:48.000 I'm glad we did it.

02:41:50.000 Joe, thank you so much.

02:41:51.000 And really, I feel like it's kind of closing the loop for something with my brother.

02:41:55.000 Yeah, well, we should tell everybody.

02:41:58.000 I knew your brother before I met you online, and this is from your brother.

02:42:03.000 Your brother made this candle, and this candle will now sit here.

02:42:06.000 He is no longer with us, but the candle will remain.

02:42:11.000 Thank you so much for your time, Joe.

02:42:13.000 My pleasure, brother.

02:42:14.000 Anytime you want to get into arm wrestling, come on over.

02:42:18.000 We'll get your grip strength working for you.

02:42:21.000 No, no, I'm good, but thank you.

02:42:22.000 I appreciate it.

02:42:24.000 And good luck.

02:42:24.000 Wonderful.

02:42:25.000 Yeah, I'm going to need it.

02:42:28.000 I'm going to need it.

02:42:29.000 16 months?

02:42:29.000 16 months, man.

02:42:30.000 Maybe we'll talk to you before then.

02:42:31.000 Yeah.

02:42:32.000 Yeah, cool.

02:42:32.000 Do it again.

02:42:33.000 Okay.

02:42:33.000 Thank you so much.

02:42:34.000 Thanks, brother.

02:42:34.000 All right.

02:42:35.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - June 05, 2026

Joe Rogan Experience #2510 - Devon Larratt

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript