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