David Thomas Tao | Co-founder & CEO of BarBend.com

Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I'm your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable healthy lifestyles. On this episode, my guest is David Thomas Tao, the co-founder and CEO of barben.com, the largest website covering strength sports in the world. And on this episode, we get into his background as a professional voice actor, as well as how barben came to be. A little bit about Kettlebell sport and their recent coverage of Kim Fox and how they plan on covering the sport more in the future. And his ideas on how we could potentially grow the sport in a similar fashion as we see with USA Weightlifting and CrossFit. I also want to take a second to say that I'm incredibly grateful that you listened to this podcast. And if you haven't already, please be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your half of choice and support my work by supporting our sponsors whose links you'll find in the episode notes. And if you want to step onto the platform and competing Kettlebell sport, reach out to me. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at TwinsidysKettlebellClub or email me at TwinsidysKettlebellClub at gmail.com. Now, let's step on to the platform with David Thomas Tao. All right, welcome into this episode of the platform podcast. My guest today is David Thomas Tao. He is the co-founder of barbend.com. David, thank you so much for coming in. Hey, thanks for having me. It's good to be here virtually. I said here, but I'm in the same place I've been for a long time in my home. I think we're all kind of used to that at this point. It's a little weird. Zoom kind of feels like home now, and we travel virtually into other people's backgrounds. Where is home right now? Is it Brooklyn? It's Brooklyn, New York. Yeah, nice, nice. Well, I have you are now I think the third or fourth person on podcast from Brooklyn. So Brooklyn is as well represented on the platform podcast. Brooklyn in the house, Brooklyn in the house. Love it. Love it. So you obviously host the barben podcast, which is up to what like two almost 200 episodes. Now I think in the bank, right? It's somewhere between 150 and 200. If you ask me for a specific number gun to my head, I'd get it wrong. So it's somewhere between I know it's between 150 and 200 because our sound engineer recently reminded me that knows like, OK, on to the next like on to the next thing. We don't we don't focus on we produce so much content at barbend on all the different, you know, podcast articles and et cetera that like it's tough to keep track of numbers. Yeah, I honestly, I honestly started adding episode numbers to my partner, like I just literally went back and did that because I saw somebody else was doing that on another podcast that I follow and I was like, that's a really good idea. That's going to save me a lot of time trying to remember and having to go back and got like wait, what season are we in? What episode number is it and all of that. So I just started like numbering them from from one and and up. I that we might want to redo. There's a reason we didn't do that. I'm trying to remember someone on our team had a reason for us to not do that. So we didn't, but in hindsight, maybe it's something we'll go back and add in. Like I said, I work with a lot of people who are a lot smarter than I am and they have they have good reasons to do things or not to do things and my job these days is being told why something is good or something is bad at deciding whether or not to go along with it. Part of being smart is knowing when other people know more than you and letting and letting them, you know, handle their area of expertise. That is another type of intelligence. That is a leadership intelligence. So kudos to you. So after after 150 to 200ish episodes, somewhere in that in that range, how does it feel being on the other side of a microphone on the other side of the interview, how often are you the guests rather than the host fairly frequently actually about a few times a month, at least. Generally, so I think I counted I've been on around like 40 to 50 podcasts. I keep like a running sheet that I update every few months. And it's a lot of fun. It's always different. And it's a lot of fun to talk to people. Sometimes you talk about barbed and the media company there. Sometimes we'll talk about some of the other media stuff I did before barbed or outside of barbed. I'm a voiceover actor on the side. So I've done like fiction podcasts. I normally play villains, weirdly enough. So those are always like a lot of fun. And I kind of count those. It's more fun being on in my chair than in yours. And I have enough experience to say that very confidently. Nice. Well, you're the first as far as I'm aware of the first professional voiceover actor I've ever had on. So I'm going to put you on the spot and say, give me, give me a villain voice. I want to hear a villain character. Okay, that is very that's that's that's a loaded got that's a loaded question because well, first off, I feel bad. I don't have like my pro audio setup. I have this kind of like casual nighttime, my headphones setup. So I don't sound crystal clear. I'm sorry. But I don't the thing is like no one asked me for crazy voices. I don't do like cookie. I don't do, you know, like in my demo reel, I do like a Yosemite Sam style character, but like everyone hates it. And they're like move it from your just remove it. So normally it's just a very it's like basically my normal voice playing a villain, maybe like a little deeper or something. But most voiceover work, you're just doing some variation of your normal voice because like most of the stuff you record is not cartoons, like unless you are specifically recording for like Pokemon, you are, you are, you're not doing a crazy or like the teletubbies. You're not doing a crazy voice. You're doing like an adult real voice. And that's what they look for. And if you, if you have that voice, they cast you. Nice. Yeah, that's that's something I didn't I only recently learned that like Mark Hamill played the Joker in like the Batman animated series that I grew up as a kid listening to. And I had no idea until just a few years ago. That is in the voiceover community considered that is like he did do a lot of interesting things with his voice there. That is a cartoon. And that is like widely considered some of the best voiceover work like ever. Don't like people will point to who is the best, you know voiceover villain ever done and Mark Hamill's Joker is like way up there. He has someone dissected it. There's like a clip real online. That is like very much illegally ripped from DC property of like he does like 10 different laughs distinct laughs and he'll do them for different situations. So like Mark Hamill actually diagrammed out which laugh the Joker did in these like very specific situations. And he's very consistent. So it's like, this is a laugh when he like comes up with a plot. This is the laugh when Batman for shows up. And it's just it's so good. That's awesome. I'm going to have to I'm going to have to look that up because that's I've always thought it was super impressive when I went back and listened to it. I was like, how good he is with his with his voice over working like Hank is area like obviously a guy that can do like 97 characters. I don't even know what is what his total is now I kind of stopped watching the Simpsons you know a few years ago, but like he's done so many different characters and he can just like the number of voices that he's responsible for on the symptoms. I know we're still talking cartoon voice over actors, but you know, it's it's just impressive to me. It's all in the lead up. By the way, the one thing I'll say about Hank is area. I love his voice over his voice over work. But he is he's a very good like on screen actor. If you go back and watch like I watched mystery men recently. And I also rewatched the bird cage recently. He's just a good actor. If you've never seen time for pretending. If you've never seen the bird cage. Just just watch it. His character is just the funniest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, no, that is that is very yeah, Hank is area is just through and through just a talented human being. He's one of those guys. He's he's more talented than is kind of fair for any one one person to be like. And he makes like a million dollars for Simpsons episode and honestly like to serve at least that like there are certain people who just make so much money for what they do and you're like yeah. Yeah, okay, they deserve that. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, well, and how many like how many hours does he spend doing the do all of the different voices that he's doing on on any given on any given episode. I have no idea. I might not even be a million. It might be like it's like something some ridiculous number per episode. I'm just pulling that out of thin air. Yeah, he's what he's well compensated and you're like yeah, okay, that's fair. You know, he's like, yeah, okay, LeBron James makes X dollars per basketball game. Yeah, probably about right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. He's he's a little he's a little rare at what he does. So well, I know, I know you're a fan of of an origin story. So a lot of my listeners are probably not going to be super familiar with with barbend. And you know, they think some of them will be, but some of them won't because there's not a ton of crossover yet, hopefully, there's going to be more kettlebell sport content coming at some point, but give people the origin story of barbend.com. How did how did that come about? Sure. Well, first off, thanks for, thanks for bringing it up. I love talking about barbend. I'm the co founder and CEO of barbend and we are the world's largest strength sports website. So I don't want to sound too like conceded. My hope is that a lot of listeners have actually heard of it. And if you haven't, it's a really good time to be listening about it. If you're interested in kettlebell sport, because we have started covering it very recently, actually, um, yeah, just got to profile on Kim Fox. Well, you get to that a second. Actually, some cool numbers to share on that. So barbend started in 2016. So my background is in journalism and then fitness journalism. So I've, I was, um, the editorial director for a large health. And wellness site as like one of my first jobs out of college. I don't know how I got the job, but whatever. Um, then I was a freelance editor for a number of years. I worked. I was a contractor for everyone from Sam songs like wearables and fitness and wellness division when they were trying to launch that to, uh, to cross fit HQ and all sorts of stuff. And barbend was something that I founded with my now business partners in early 2016. We actually had four different websites we were running at any given period. We've since exited all the all of those except for barbend barbend is the one we have left right now. We've also absorbed the other ones or were they like in different verticals and they were just completely different verticals and and we've sold those websites. And barbend was it for a long time, the smallest in a lot of ways, but also like our favorite because it's something we're really passionate about. I've always loved strength sports. I've always been really interested in weightlifting, crossfit, I co-owned a crossfit gym for a while. I just, I absolutely love strength training. Not the best athlete, but I love the culture. I love the community. I've made some of my best friends and like that human element is something that I really loved. And I was like, oh, we need to create a resource for people across strength sports, not just crossfitters, not just weightlifters, not just powerlifters, not just strong, but like a place for strength athletes. I caught like the ESPN for strength athletes. That's a bad comparison because like ESPN's a multi multi-billion dollar company. They started somewhere though, right? Like ESPN, ESPN started with just like random things and then started covering the NFL draft when nobody else did and like, you know, they became huge. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. But yeah, so we started in we were just under five years old. We're pretty much the largest in the space. We get millions and millions of readers a month. I can't share exactly those numbers publicly, but it's it's a lot. And kind of a big deal. We produce content. Well, very lucky because it was just me and my co-founders for a while and we since we since have built a great team. We've got about, we're actually going to be in a bit of a hiring phase this year, but right now we've got call it 10 people full time. Or around then that that number seems to change a little bit week to week as we grow. And then we have worked with nearly a hundred different contributors from around the globe from all corners of strength sports. And it's barbend.com. We are we do publish on our website. That's where we published most content. Like we have an Instagram account. We have a YouTube account. We have a podcast. But it's really the site is like is the our baby. And we have just started. We're are the official media partner of USA weightlifting. We're an official media provider for World Paralympic Powerlifting. So we work a lot with the Paralympic Games and weightlifting, which is the Olympic Games strengths for it. We work directly with CrossFit HQ. Yeah, it's it's it's very cool and we're very fortunate. We're very lucky to have kind of made it this far for it to be real company. And we have started covering cut about sport more. And we we actually put up a profile and Kim Fox over the weekend. That was written by Mr. Bobby Hicks. Shout out to Bobby. Shout out to Bobby Hicks. He could connect to us. Yes, exactly. You stole my segue. No, I'm kidding. Bobby is amazing. And it's been super supportive of me as I kind of get into kettlebell sport. And I can't share specific specific numbers because I can only share like those with the author. But I can confidently say. I'll get a very. You get a problem. Yeah, because they've changed because the article is still doing good. Well, I can confidently say it is the most red article on the internet in relation to kettlebell sport so far in 2021. Like I can say that very confidently. And that's a testament to Bobby's amazing work. You had a really engaging profile and also a testament to how amazing Kim is. And once people started reading that article, they couldn't stop because it's like holy cow. Wait, how have we never heard of this person? Yeah, yeah, for real. She is Kim is Kim is something else. And it's I mean, for context for people that aren't for people that aren't aware, I'm six 1 to 60. And Kim is, you know, competing 100 pounds lighter than me. And and she is putting up numbers on the double 24 long cycle that I can't match yet. Right. Like I'm chasing Kim Fox on my on my long on my long cycle numbers. Right. Like I mean, I'm in the men's heavyweight division. Like she's just kicking ass. She is the the all, you know, the all world record holder in in double in double long cycle for women. And it's not even close at this point. Like she is just crushing. It's fantastic. It's a great piece to it's really hard. I mean, Bobby did an amazing job. I mean, he's just such a nice. How can you like not open up to him if he's profiling you. Right. He's just he's such a cool person to talk to. But it's. It is also tough to compare Kim to another strength. I was playing around a lot with headlines. I was going back and forth. I don't edit most of what goes on barbed at this point. We have a great editorial team, but I did work with Bobby directly on this because he's a friend of mine. And I'm passionate about cat about sport. And I kind of want to open up that a vertical on barbed. And we were kind of going back and forth on a title. And I really wanted to like compare her to someone in the title. You know how people are like. Yeah, he the Jerry rice of foosball or you know the title. But there's no there's not like a really good comparison for Kim and strength sports. You can't call her like the Matt Fraser of kettlebell sport because she is just so much more dominant. She's just so dominant. There isn't like a good analog for her right now. Well, and kettlebell sport is in this really exciting but also kind of nascent slash exploding phase like it's it's in this it's in the kind of I would I hope you know that it's in the phase that crossfit went through. You know back in the early in the early 2010s right when it was like it started off as kind of this localized community thing and then you know it got popular and then it just like wildfire exponential growth boxes popped up everywhere. You know that's not the deal with Reebok and suddenly it was everywhere and now it's this you know mammoth thing I hope kettlebell sport goes goes that direction is really huge in Europe but it's not anywhere close to that here in the states yet. I have a theory as to what will and I don't want to like it's your podcast. I want to talk about the things you want to talk about this. You know this is one of the questions on my on my list because you know a thing or two about how how strength sports grow and how we build community and my vision is to bring kettlebell sport to the mainstream in America. We take it away man tell me so I was thinking about this because we we worked very closely with USA weightlifting and they were kind enough to give us access to and this is like not what about to say is not counting like COVID numbers because like gyms sports governing bodies and things like that a lot of people like put memberships on hold and stuff during COVID so right like 2020 numbers for strength sports. They seem super low because they are because like there weren't events and stuff like that so but you actually think most kind of to share with barbend their membership data from the past 15 years. And when I first got interested in weightlifting it was like 2008 2009 I was like looking at YouTube videos talking to people online seeking out coaches where I lived at the time I did find some which was great got into that sport for a while. But like their numbers just exploded and actually I can share I'll share the link with you after this we posted on Instagram just like a chart of USA weightlifting's growth membership growth. Since like 2007 it's insane absolutely insane and it's like 100% not 100% but it's very very heavily influenced by the growth across it you can you can draw a very direct comparison. And that's for a few reasons one crossed it exposed a lot of people to the snatch and clean and jerk and a lot of people who are like I don't really like breathing heavy and doing keeping pull ups but I do like the snatch and clean and jerk and crossed it leaned into that like worked with USA weightlifting on a bunch of stuff which is cool. So you know some some cross sport and organization synergy but it also made the equipment much more available right and it was like okay when I moved to New York in 2011 I want to train and weightlifting I lived in Manhattan at the time I had to go way out into Queens like like an hour and a half like into the deepest reaches of the outer burrows. Now if I want to train and weightlifting I'll go to COVID notwithstanding like there's a cross the gym like every four blocks in New York now and I can train with like decent equipment yeah and people know what weightlifting is and they're like hours to go train and weightlifting it's so available often because of just equipment availability. I think for the same thing to happen to kettlebell sport one the equipment has to become available and I think that the pandemics actually going to increase knowledge of kettlebells and people are buying more kettlebells and I've talked to several kettlebell manufacturers. I won't name names but I've talked to several kettlebell manufacturers and everyone's like we're increasing production demand is through the roof right now. Cool so the equipment availability is like thing number one that's kind of happening thing number two is just visibility and someone to shoot for. In weightlifting it was the early days of like YouTube people were watching Cal strength videos people were watching video rip videos from Olympic games. They're like I want to try and hit those numbers or they saw crossfitters like rich froning snatch 300 pounds well he's just a crossfitter I bet I can do that if I'm just a weightlifter for kettlebell sport you have to have equipment availability okay that's kind of happening right now a lot of different companies are working on it and more people are working at home. Visibility is the other component and I think long ramble to get to this I think what would trigger that more than anything is if David Castro programmed a kettlebell sport long cycle. Or a short cycle or just jerks but I think a kettlebell sport long cycle in like the finals of the crossfit games yeah absolutely like the top 10 men top 10 women get them competition bells. And and be like okay be like go for it and then what they could do because crossfit kind of used to do this stuff they bring in like okay here's a good example like for they you know they point out like a gymnast who's fantastic at this thing when they introduced new gymnastics but this is years ago. Bring in like a top kettlebell sport I like bring in Kim Fox yeah right bring in Kim Fox and be like cool she's going to do the men's weights and she's going to show you how it's done and you're going to watch her do this and then you're going to attempt it in front of hundreds of thousands if not millions of viewers live. And that would explode kettlebell sport more than literally anything else possible right now in my opinion. Yeah yeah I 100% agree and I love that I love that thought like because one of the frustrations i've had with with crossfits application of kettlebell as a kettlebell athlete right one of the things that drives me crazy is when I see people just these phenomenal athletes who are just throwing around these bells in the most inefficient way and i'm like. You guys spend so much time working on your on your on your keeping efficiency your muscle ups your rings your your you know your cleans your snatches and like and you're throwing around these kettlebells in the least efficient movement pattern possible and this is an output driven event like this. This doesn't make any sense to me and i'm just like i want to get my hands on on one of these guys and show them like a good way to do an American swing or like an efficient way to do it without. blowing their shoulders without blowing up their back and i don't mean blowing up like injury i mean like with the the you know getting the hyper or the. The the vasodilation and the pump right you know how do you not how do you not blow up your shoulders pump up so much but. You know i completely agree with you like if they could get a kettlebell sport specific movement into the finals and get that visibility i would i would love to see it i would love to see what you know some of these dominant athletes that are that are in the sport right now. What they would do the kind of numbers that they would that they would put up because it would be really it would be really interesting to see. Well cross it always references how like force production. And how much how much power you're you're putting out is ultimately. Like oftentimes what they're trying to test like they they've said that Castro David Castro programs the games is said in the past like oh i wish i had like a force plate that i could measure everything with and like we could. You know it's obviously not like a perfect comparison but you know which athlete is is producing the most power in in an event will tend to be the winner again an imperfect analogy but something crossfit is reference. You combine that also with the fact that like crossfitters love being good at everything yeah like the i think i think what happened crossfit was suddenly people are like oh crossfitters will never snatch 300 pounds and now like every male game athletes snatches 300 pounds every female games athletes snatches like 200 or 220 pounds. If these used to be like elite weightlifting numbers in the US and now every cross every crossfit games athlete can hit them basically. Like i really want to i really want to see Castro piss people apart my friends piss people off i don't think there's anything it reminds me of this is really nerding out way back in 2010 rich fronning finished second at the crossfit games. He went on to win four times in a row after that reason he finished second because he didn't know how to climb a rope. And they put rope climbs in and he didn't know how to like cook his legs so he was just using his straight arm pulls i've seen. Yeah he's arms flew out and he fell down and he like he like broke his foot basically. And like in gram home bird one gram home bird was super fit and like was fitter that day because he knew how to climb a rope and that was one of the tests. And then fronning came back and like was just so so good everything and including rope climbs like you want to see some you want to piss the people off like have the crossfitters have like kim fox come out and and and and put up an awesome number number or have like. Any other of the top you know athlete didn't get Dennis was still about. Yeah yeah i mean i just really break a bunch of hearts and and like then just see how upset these elite athletes get when they realize they can't come close to matching that. Because it is a sport that like you have to train for it is something specific if you try and just muscle it you're going to get crushed yeah like there's no way you hang on for 10 minutes the bells the bells are very very humbling. They have humbled and broken many a soul there is there is definitely there is definitely some truth for that. And no one there are millions of crossfitters and there's one thing they all have in common is they love destroying themselves and you know what the things cross it hasn't had anything new they they're kind of like running out of new stuff like like rogue will build them new equipment or these like weird contraptions but like there hasn't been a really big new thing and crossfit for a while so like this could be that element. I would love that I would love that I've been like trying to i'm like i'm like barking up some trees about about this actually maybe barbencer sponsor event at the crossfit games we maybe we should we should sell out for that. The sponsor like like the long cycle event that completely demoralizes everyone but then gets everyone really javs to train in this that would be my dream i think people i think people would get really excited about it too i think and the the viewership would be like oh my god what is this like this this new thing there is this completely new thing you know it would. It would blow up the next day from the comments and like it would go viral and i'm quite certain so. Of all of the of all of the things that you've you've seen you know you've been around strength sports for so long and barben does a great job of covering the whole breath and you guys just posted the other day a question what's the most impressive feat of strength so I got to ask you your own question right like what is the most impressive feat of strength that you've seen in your in your strength sports covers like what's the thing that you're like wow. There's more than one what's the if I put you put you to one yeah nothing I've seen live I think the most impressive performance in strength sports history. But he put up a total in like a middleweight category a light middleweight category that would have won in every other category at that championships except for the super heavies and he would have medaled as a super heavy and like those numbers if you were to extrapolate those numbers to that body weight not even close to anything that's been matched today I think it was. I want to say he would like 82 kilos and he was snatching around 190 kilos clean and jerking around 222 kilos or something like that again I should have had these numbers I didn't really see that I would have these numbers up I think I might be underselling his numbers it might have been like 192 kilos and he's asked or something but that performance where he just literally want would have won the every weight class above him of which there were multiple except for super heavy and he would have like easily meddled as a super heavy that to me is just. The craziest standout performance I think I've ever I've ever heard of yeah that's yeah that's that's definitely up there I know you had you had Chris stuff and on on your podcast a while back and he did the the grand goals of he he squatted a thousand pounds for three and then deadlift a thousand pounds for three and I watched the livestream of him do the thousand pound deadlift for three and that was like that you're you know that's the craziest thing I've ever seen live you know that was that was but I've got to look up I've got to look up the you're the one that you're talking about. I said I'll send it to you right after this so you can have it for the show notes because I don't want to like undersell this amazing event Chris is cool Chris definitely is a really cool guy to get to know because he's grand goals like he really he doesn't just he's not like competing against anyone he's just trying to push the boundaries of what is physically possible yeah and yeah we have a great episode with him talking about how he trains for like he trained just the squat for nearly a year to see if he could squat a thousand pounds for a triple like just the squat he trained the squat like that's all he did. That's all like and all and all of the adjunct mobility restorative right right like all the stuff he had to do to just like keep destroying his body and rebuilding it and destroying it and rebuilding it's stronger and destroying it rebuilding it's stronger but all for the purpose of one lift yeah for it for over a year and he did the same for the deadlift you know four years before that so he's it's almost it's up to compare him to anyone else because like he's just doing that he's just doing that to push the envelope of of human performance that's not to like win not to win a medal and he's also doing it to raise a lot of money for charity which he's done which is super super cool yeah yeah yeah Chris yeah he's one of he's one of those guys I definitely I definitely look up to a lot because just because of all of the interesting things about his his backstory and all the things that he's done the ability to take a like a three year training plan and stay focused for that long and that like it's you know it's it's it's it's pretty it's pretty insane to me I will say Eddie Halls deadlift yeah the 500 kilo the 500 kilo which doesn't look that crazy now because like Hawthor did 501 and there are like a lot of people who are kind of chasing 510 right now we've written about some of them on barbed but like at the time literally no one thought he could do that the heaviest that had ever been done before that I think was 462 or 463 it's like the it's like the sub four minute mile right it's like it's like once people realized it could be done suddenly now there's you know a handful of people that are doing it well it so someone realized it could be done and then it's still took four years to do it again it is worth noting that like that is fair we had a 500 kilo gram deadlift so it was proven it could be done and then it took four years before a once in a generation athlete came and said and trained for just that and was like cool I'm going to beat that by one kilogram by by 2.2 pounds yeah yeah I'm going to beat that by like 0.2% you know like it's it is kind of so that is kind of ridiculous and I think it's just because like no one believe no one believed he could do I remember talking to a lot of people before that barbed was still very young like we don't have the network we have now but I remember talking to a lot of people and they're like no there's no like there's no way there's no way there's no way and he proved he proved everywhere these days everyone kind of couches or statements they're like like yeah it'll probably happen if not now then like he'll get it next time or something right but back but back then everyone was like no way and have you seen the behind the scenes like footage of him like the impact on it like his heart rate was like him on the stretcher and everything afterwards like I just saw that like a couple of weeks ago and I was like holy crap it doesn't surprise me but I was still like wow that was that scary like it got scary I want to emphasize that like reaching us that level in in most strength sports is not necessarily the healthiest thing right like I don't like we write about these people because they're impressive and they're inspiring but but they don't inspire you know I think that we can probably do a better job of this you know it's not inspired I don't necessarily think that you inspire you to go out and deadlift trying to live 500 kilos but maybe you should inspire you to like incorporate weight training as part of like a healthy lifestyle or maybe it should inspire you that like you're probably stronger than you think you are in a lot of it's mental right one thing I love about cat about sport is that it's I do I do think that for personally for me it's promoted a bit of a healthier lifestyle because I'm doing something that's a little bit more endurance base and sub maximal loads and I actually feel like my body's taking a little less of a beating so these big major lists are super super impressive but I think a lot of people see them more and more as like cool that convinces me that like maybe I have more potential in me not that like I'm going to go out and try and do something that's going to put me on a stretcher because if you're listening to this and you're going for a deadlift that's going to put you on a stretcher like don't do it yeah he made a lot of money and he got paid a lot of money to do that now you know that's a whole other trade off right that's the like the triangle of awareness right you've got performance aesthetics and longevity and like you can't optimize you have to optimize for one you can't optimize for any of them at the same time and like he chose performance over everything else at the cost of longevity. But you'll notice what there are two humans in the world who have deadlifted 500 kilograms and they both immediately dropped a bunch of weight and changed their lifestyles completely and like started getting on the stationary bike and started jumping rope and now they're fighting each other now they're going to box that's not necessarily the healthiest thing but you'll notice that like like Thor he deadlifted 501 and like he dropped 40 pounds into like two weeks after that he was like cool I'm slimming down and he's ripped. Yeah they're both ripped it's yeah it's ridiculous yeah it's I'm I don't even want to know what their calorie consumption was prior to prior to doing those deadlifts and then once they cut it like once they once they did it they're like okay I don't need those extra 4,000 calories a day that I was force feeding myself I tried to eat there's actually a video on barben that we released I tried back in the thores like when he was training for that deadlift I tried his diet I tried to eat like him for a day and and and failed and it's how many calories was it I'll send you the video it's it's um it was over eight it was between eight and 10,000 so I was thinking 10,000 was in my head like it had to be close to 10 and I I tried eating exactly like to the gram like made all the food followed his follow his days follow his day of eating and just failed just failed that couldn't have been fun I mean that that could not have been fun it was great for like the first two meals because I was just really hungry that day I was like yeah I'm coming to eat and and but like it just uh you'll I would I shouldn't have done it and it was it was a bit reckless um and in hindsight it's not like I'm like oh if I have kids they're going to see that video and be like dad did stupid dangerous stuff to his body and I'm going to be like don't ever do that it was so stupid so don't do that you will fit like I can eat a lot like I've done eating contest before and one and I couldn't do this like you will fail you will not be able to eat what Thor was eating because you're probably not six nine and four hundred forty pounds and just a brick yeah well and even and even for him like he has to do kind of a vertical integration diet where it's like things that are things that are easy to digest and absorb and things that are specific for his body are easy to digest and absorb and want to people don't realize that like that level of attention to detail goes into it because when you're fitting in that many calories like just the strain of the diet on your digestive tract to to break down and absorb that many calories that you have to pick really simple easy to digest foods he eats a supplemental it's a well over it's oh probably around a hundred grams of supplemental dextrose every day that he just puts in his food and I was like we were literally doing that and we were like putting the supplemental dextrose in our food just to trigger more enzyme like digestive enzyme production. It's not for extra calories you realize he's he's not adding this form of sugar for more calories he's adding it so that it'll trigger his body and to produce more digestive enzymes to break down all the food he's putting it to himself. Yeah that's crazy I mean that just make I'm like I had I mean I had to I had to force a lot of calories to keep my weight up when I was playing college football but it was probably a neighborhood of six thousand calories I can't imagine another another four thousand on top of that like oh well the thing is he's eating a very specific he's not eating like big Macs you know what I mean like he's not eating big Macs and ice cream no it's very bland very like that like I'm very calorically dense foods because if I look back to like my college days when I could just like eat a ton of food and I was probably eating you know I there are probably days in college where I cleared like 6,000 calories but it was it was not like my protein consumption was like probably under a hundred grams it was probably below what I needed it to be right because I was drinking beer and eating chalupas you know like and oh I'll get a milkshake you know what I mean and so it's it's not it's not a macro balance that actually lends itself to to like maintaining the kind of lean body mass yeah yeah you're just trying you're just trying to stay big regardless of necessarily what it looks like when you're when you're focused on the performance side of it so you you've now gotten into kettlebell sport you've alluded to that a little bit and I know that I know that you're you're starting to do that so tell us a little bit about your journey how did you how did you get introduced to it and then how has it been going so far what if you like who's coaching you what are you working on when are you one of you stepping on the platform like what you know tell us tell us tell us all the details well I should I should couch this by saying I strive to to be the best drink sports content CEO in the world I don't I and and that's that's like my goal every day I might be the worst strength athlete in the world so I should just I should just get that out of the way I'm like those who can't you've qualified those who can't do right about it no but no I did get into cat I've had interest it's been on my radar for a little while we've actually written about kettlebell sport on barbend in years past not not a ton but we have covered it in in a few different ways like you know kettlebell sport style versus long cycle or sorry versus hard style like an article about that like we've covered and it's been on my radar and as a strength sports nerd nerd I've like known of it you know but when when covid hit honestly when New York went to lockdown it also coincided with a period of time where I just really wanted to lose a bit of weight I'd be keeping my weight up and I had I was pretty happy with my strength like I could you know pick up this you know I could get the 500 pounds cold and do all this stuff and I was just getting a little bit older you know I was I was 30 years old I just turned 30 and I was looking to drop some some weight and just kind of reduce impact and lift and that coincided right with covid shutdowns and I was like wow I this thing might go on for a while I I my GM I didn't know how long gyms are going to be shut down at the time right um like what am I going to do I'm going to go crazy and I had also been lucky to move to pretty recently at a time um recently to that time to a place with the backyard in New York and backyard spaces like outdoor spaces at a premium here yeah I was really lucky I was like well what can I do to occupy my time because like suddenly like calendar was empty no commute no yeah I had all this pent up energy and but I still wanted to like I actually think it's very important if I'm running barbened like I want to be participating in a strength sport I think it's really disingenuous generous if I'm not training and I think it was a difference between working out and training right yeah yeah like if I'm not training then I don't have any idea mentally what the athletes that our team writes about are going through it so I've always been like okay if I'm as long as I'm with barbened I need to be training at some level um and I kind of put two and two together and I was like oh kettlebell sport so I kind of beat the rush and I bought competition bells while they were still available like the very beginning of COVID lockdowns I think if I had been a day later I wouldn't have been able to get them and I uh I uh friend of mine used to be kettlebell sport and she does some coaching games Kekka Skirmher horn she lives in New York she's barben contributor I've known her for a number of years actually uh we worked together uh um covering CrossFit regionals years and years ago for CrossFitQ and so I was like hey um I know we're going to be virtual she was in Manhattan I was in Brooklyn like uh all can you teach can you do you think you can teach me kettlebell sport virtually and she's like let's give it a go um and uh that's how it started so I started in um I was doing some other stuff so I really picked it up like I called it early summer of last year like I got the bells and I got the stuff in but I was also um I was rehabbing an injury so I didn't really like get to training hard uh or get to training like in a dedicated way until early summer of 2020 um but you know started learning it started messing around uh long cycle specifically is what I've been training in um I haven't messed around much with the snatch yet so just long cycle and I guess short cycle the jerks and I just I really love it and I really enjoyed it and um you know the first few months it was kind of like feeling it out and then I really started falling in love with it in the fall and it's like I think this is what I want to do I think this is like the sport that I've found for a while I know so it is worth noting a big um inspiration during this was uh Bill Ash at kettlebell warrior I interviewed him for the barben podcast and I was like man this guy is cool I should like and he mentioned kettlebell sport and he's like yeah most of the stuff I post isn't kettlebell sports kettlebell workouts but like if you're really interested in this he told me look at the kettlebell sport and I was like okay cool cool fine so yeah I've been training for it's you know I guess seven seven eight mine I don't know maybe seven months eight months at this point um and then I was able to connect with Bobby Hicks when he was still in New York which is amazing I was able to connect uh with one and Carter who are two legends of like NYC kettlebells there they are like the NYC kettlebell community in many ways in my experience but because we're not like gathering a bunch of people um then I started buying heavier bells and I started getting more and more into training and now it's like specifically what I'm training for I'm very lucky to have a backyard where I can train it gets cold sometimes I've trained with it being as cold as 15 outside but for year from that's nothing that's like a ball me day um and I've really loved it and I've gotten you know I've I've I've literally only had two sessions where I've trained with other people and uh they have been incredible they've been incredible so I'm really excited as things open back up uh to be able to train more with people in the New York City kettlebell sport community because um I think that's where you really hone in on technique and pick up on things you can do as many zoom sessions and virtual sessions as you want video analysis is great but like where you really learn and this is being around a lot of strength sports it's at in person it's being able to just point something out in real time be like adjust this adjust this or like oh that one look kind of that set looked easier for you what what what did you change uh then it also keeps it entertaining because really we're in this for the people ultimately at least I am not just the performance and the community has been great to meet so far yeah the community the key community is phenomenal and I think uh you know well I mean even just in the episode you guys really sit you know you were talking you were talking with your guys about the importance of community and how that that goes along the evolutionary nature of of human beings right we didn't evolve to work out right we we evolved to to hunt a thing kill it eat it and then and then we you know you dance to celebrate or you know like you know so like that communal nature is is like hardwired into us and I think that's one of the things that make CrossFit so special yeah one of the things that that really makes it the the tribe that it is is it's a group of people getting together in a box going through these oftentimes grueling fucking workouts and then but then they you know you slap each other on the back what what was your time and you know you have that camaraderie and there's actually research that shows that that camaraderie time decreases recovery time like decreases soreness and like increases your your ability to rebound from from a hard training session like that community time is super super important I gotta get you writing for barbend you have such a great way of putting together the verbalizing these concepts um and that was just such a a really succinct but really impactful way of um I can I think summarizing why CrossFit is such a communal thing so I'm absolutely loving listening to how you kind of present these I feel like I'm spitting out a bunch of stuff and you're refining it and actually giving out a version that people would want to listen to so thank you well the synthesis is the hard part the the being able to distill down what you created that's that's easier it's just filtering so how do we replicate you know back in the hunter gatherer days when people have to go out and hunt their own kettlebells and bring them you know I mean back back before kettlebells were domesticated that's really what what we have to get back to yeah I think I think there's I think you're I think you're hitting on something that that's pretty important which um one of the things that I that I love about kettlebell sport and I think you'll find the first time you get a chance to compete in person and at a meet is that one of the things that's so cool is you're not competing against that person that's on the platform next to you like you like you know you know I think Bill I think Bill talked about it at his first competition like he had no idea what the fuck he was doing and somebody came and showed him how to chalk his bells yeah I was like it was like oh here let me let me help you I'll show you what you're doing and then like and then like okay cool good luck man and then was on the platform right next to him and like that in its essence is kind of what the what the community is about and like that's what I love that communal nature of it because it's like we're all in this together but alone because when you step on the platforms it's you and the bells and that's it and what what the person next to you is doing goes away typically at a certain point maybe at the end if you're truly like in you're in the same weight class and you're within a couple of reps like that's a really fun kind of dramatic experience then but that doesn't happen in most in most sets usually it's just you and your judge and the bells and and that is and that is it you know so and then the communal aspect comes in afterwards you know that the shared the shared suffering I know it's also it's something beautiful there's something beautiful out experiencing a sport when it is so young in a place like it's still so young and so small and in New York and even when I was covering crossfit in the early in the earlier days not maybe not the earliest days or as into weightlifting as it was still kind of on its growth trajectory in the United States you know there was still an established community and I would say those communities when I came exposed to them we're at the time bigger than catabell sport is now in the United States right what can we do to grow catabell sport what can a place like barben do more to grow catabell sport because we want to grow all strength sports right we think arising tide lifts all ships that's that's kind of our thesis it is interesting at the communities small enough now to we're like you know I got introduced to Juan and Carter to champion lifters at the international level right and they're like cool we'll drive down and where are you we'll drive down we'll work out outside together I was like oh you'll just do you'll just do that you know you like two of the best in in in this hemisphere right or just like yeah yeah like just let us know so you're out of the Saturday like we'll come down we'll give you some pointers we'll do some training we can grab a grand food after it's fun I was like that's cool and it's something gritty about it too because we're working out outside we're like socially distance wearing masks working out outside it's cold the first time we were I worked out with them twice the first time worked outside the winch was like 10 degrees and we're like like put our hands in our pockets between sets and like trying to put on these extra layers and everyone else's list outside looking at us like what the hell is all these bozos probably not knowing there are two like world champion athletes Carter looks like an extra from the wire with his beard and his and his hat pulled low and you know just like just just chill it just chilling out between sets and then and then he goes in bed and then he goes out and bangs out you know a crazy a crazy number of jerks or crazy you know like it's we did it in front of a we did it in front of a local powerlifting gym actually we did it in front of southbrook and weightlifting club because the owners were like oh we'd like we're we're in talks of potentially trying this is unrelated to barbing just kind of more of a personal project with with one and Carter potentially bringing a kettlebell sport club to an established a shrink training facility in Brooklyn still very much up in the you know we're still working it out at it's kind of impossible to really do a lot right now because of COVID you know there's just not a lot you know there's a lot we just can't do right now but like there is interest and I think that especially with the wave of people working out at home and like getting exposed to kettlebells more due to COVID I think that brick and mortar facility owners are like oh like maybe kettlebell sport is something where we can get people in who you know white train at home two or three days of the week that they'll come in on the weekends and they'll be a member of this club maybe it's a way to kind of expand our reach beyond just you know the dedicated powerlifters and weightlifters and crossfitters and also I do think it's something that if we if I think when a lot of crossfitters see it wouldn't if they'll just have to just have to go for it they'll just like dive in full throught a lot yeah I've struggled to convert any crossfitters like it's it's it's hard to get them away from their their because it's everything's time away from what they're going to be competing in and it's it's kind of hard to get them away from those things but if they see it in the games I know like that's like I know if they see it in the games then it becomes real but until then it's kind of like a distraction that's been that's kind of been the response I've gotten sometimes from at least from people that are that are serious about their crossfit performance I think what I would say is you know I'm not trying to I don't I also don't like want one sport to steal someone from another sport yeah absolutely that's not what I'm trying to but I hear but I do think it is something where and this is something I've talked to some powerlifters about it could be a really cool offseason thing like powerlifters a more and more I've talked to top level powerlifters who do a lot more conditioning in their off seasons yeah these days uh potentiation man it's energy potentiation they're really focusing on just moving in different you know different movement patterns up in their conditioning um just and every strength board has an offseason crossfit has an on crossfit is every level if they're competitive they have an offseason it's different for the different levels but there's an offseason powerlifters have an offseason weightlifters are always like very hesitant to take an offseason but they should probably have but like it probably behooves them and the great thing about weightlifters is like you don't have to say it's a new movement it's like cool you're just doing you're still doing the snatch and cleaning jerk yeah it's what you're used to it's just different um and so I do think kettlebell sport is something that like a lot of these strength athletes can do in an offseason now they're probably not gonna set a world record by training just part of the year in dedicated kettlebell sport right but I do think it's a sport where like you can learn technique and you can build up to you know trying a competition or trying a long cycle or trying probably buy a phone might be a little harder with like a few months of prep you're probably not going to set a world record right coming in rank I mean especially guy especially high level powerlifters or guys that are high level high level Olympic weightlifters like they they've already got the the engine built for the for the most part it's just you know it's just a matter of acquisition of skill and then intensification of that skill right like that's that's really what it comes down to and they have you know the foundation is already there from a physiological perspective it's just a little bit of transition work I think Bill Ash is a perfect example of that you know he's set an American record I think in that with with the 24 kilogram belongs like after like a year of training yeah because well Bill Ash is a freak I mean let's just be clear if you look at if you look at a picture of the man it's like okay something's different he built different um but like he was a weightlifter right and you know kettlebell sport is something where he's like well he's like I do I could lift the bells right I but I knew I could lift two 24 kilo bells overhead that's what he was competing at the time and he was like and I always kind of liked the endurance stuff and never really got to do it so he took to it and then like he made a lot of quick progress right um and then he's also like yeah but the moving from the 24th to the 32s was like a four year process um which is what I'm really excited about yeah there's a very much a non-linear curve there but that's a whole other that's older topic um but yeah so I think it's something that could be complimentary to um I guess I think we're I don't think kettlebell sport has to steal these other athletes away necessarily I think it could be complimentary I think it could be fun and I think it could really create the variety that I know a lot of strength athletes crave yeah yeah I completely agree and I'm very much a rising tide lifts all boats person as well I feel like the I mean we need to get more people moving in this country just in general obviously like my mission is to help people help people build healthy sustainable lifestyles so by any by any means necessary I'm I'm so anti-dogmatic I'm like hey if you're into CrossFit awesome if that's what gets you fired up and out of and out of your house and lifting weights awesome if it's run a marathon it's cool like you know whatever whatever keeps you moving and keeps you happy I think I think that's cool I think one thing that we need to learn from CrossFit and powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting is upping the production value and upping the entertainment value of it because um I mean frankly kettlebell sport can be boring I mean I've told my wife not to come to my competitions because she talked about bringing our two young children to my competitions to watch me and I'm like baby it's it's gonna be three hours of standing around watching people lifting weights and I'm competing in one event and that's gonna be boring for them after two three minutes like they can't watch me work out at home and and stay focused for more than a couple of minutes which is fine like the end is very exciting especially if you've got a couple of high level athletes competing really well but I'm you know I've been been brainstorming with with people about like what can we do to up the production value up the entertainment value of of kettlebell sport how it's presented how it's marketed and and that and that thing I'm curious what your thoughts are on that that's a great question and I appreciate you asking and it's worth noting I'm still relatively new to the sports I'm still learning a lot about the sport I've never been to a competition in person so you know I don't necessarily know that that vibe right um but I do a lot of color commentary on weightlifting and a lot of people would say that is a very boring sport color commentary exists so we can personally make it more exciting um so I think that's one thing I think um color comment like good color commentary in kettlebell sport could be really really fun to play around with that's something I hope to be able to do someday because I've never had that duration to actually like weightlifting you're doing color commentary between the lifts right crossfit most events are fairly short and like people finish at different times right it's who finished fastest finishes fastest but if you have a set time domain of 10 minutes um I guess they have am reps in crossfit right which is basically kettlebell sport um so I think there's a lot of fun that can be a lot of things that can be done there on the color commentary side to keep it um interesting from an audio perspective I also think that you can look at what crossfit has done with some of their events they have really taken to kind of um experimenting with the format of events to make them more spectator friendly for example this is not something you could easily doing kettlebell sport a few years ago at the games they actually introduced a system where you would move down the field of play with every 10 reps so you'd have like you know shoulder to overhead at this heavy weight and every time you like five or six different barbells set up right and you can see who was where based on which bar they were lifting you move down you moved exactly and it kind of made it exciting I think for kettlebell sport exploring more events where you actually change the lift and it's going to be exciting because what is exciting about those vets is when you see the first person to move on right so for kettlebell sport it might be something like a triathlon where you're doing in some combination the long cycle the short cycle and the snatch or something like that because the most exciting part of those events in crossfit are you know when the announcers get really hyped up it's like oh Tao Claire to me is the first to the final 10 her judge has their hand up that's really cool and for kettlebell sport if you're actually able to combine a few different lifts into one you know like a 10 minute triathlon I guess is kind of what they're calling it now that's really exciting well I saw Dennis did one on YouTube or on YouTube on his Instagram and it was super exciting when he switched to just the snatch like through the other bell into like a big tire or something yeah I was watching that whole thing I was like oh snap that's so cool imagine if you're the first person you know if the first person in a line of people makes it to uh makes it to like the snatches in that that's a really exciting moment you don't have to make the full time sorry I'm going on I'm no no I love it you don't have to make the full 10 minutes exciting right um you know people watch marathons people watch the tour to France these are things that are much longer and sometimes much more monotonous than kettlebell sport but you have to have signposts to keep people engaged yeah and you have to have those moments of anticipation so how do you build those moments of anticipation I don't know there are a lot of different ways maybe the platform is lit up and it changes color when someone gets within five reps of a record or it changes color when someone hits 100 reps during their long cycle or maybe when they change to a different lift or in the middle of triathlon like something happens and you know uh even just I mean even just I mean the color commentary I think is it is a great piece you're just because for contextualization like most people don't have the context of what is happening uh like the uninitiated have no idea what the context is like they could watch Kim fox destroy the world record and have no context to be excited about it or even realize how amazing what she just did was other than it's like wow that shoot looks really strong Bobby Bobby Hicks said it really well when I was chatting with him about the Kim fox article and there's a section in the fox article about this he's like look he's like look kettle sport is exciting it's one of the most exciting things you can find it's the last minute that is really exciting it's like the last two minutes of a basketball game right of a close basketball game but it's always close imagine like the last imagine that go time right yeah but it's like always close the last two minutes or the last minute of someone at the end of a 10 minute set we kind of like watching that suffering we kind of like watching the form breakdown yeah you like watching these amazing specimens of humanity struggle you know on the snatches they're having to go real low and they're not yeah they're not able to keep all is that I'm gonna touch is that we're gonna throw it through the TV yeah it's like they're all these moments so what do we do to get people to that last minute and what anticipation points can we build in until we get folks to that last minute yeah that's I think what kettlebell sport at a competitive level should play around with and not be afraid to experiment with I'm one of the things I think I'm I want to see if we can do it my competition by the way we're hosting a competition October 9th I would that you know this is an official invitation to to come to the twin cities for a competition here so come to come to Minneapolis it's beautiful here we have green spaces it's I tell people it's like Chicago with the volume turned to six so that makes it probably about a three on the New York scale but you know it's we have a lot of green spaces we still have the city I've got a park and I've got a lake in my backyard but I'm also like 15 minutes from downtown Minneapolis so it's you know it's it's kind of a nice a nice happy medium but one of the things I want to play with here and I'm you know talking with people about this is I want to do like a team relay where it's you know you get three different lifters so somebody who's a jerk specialist can go bang out two minutes or three minutes of jerk and then they pass the baton to somebody who's doing you know four minutes of snatch and then somebody passes it to somebody who's somebody who's doing three minutes of long cycle and every team is three people and that even translates to the international level because you could have just like you have at the Olympics you could have your eight team for team USA you could have a B team you could have a C team and and all of those lifters instead of having because I've seen relays before where it's like six seven eight people and that that's that's cool as well but like I just kind of liked the idea of like one specialist per lift and then you get to see the best in the world at that particular lift and then like who like I don't know who's going to be the Russian team but you know hopefully you know you get to that point at some point where they're you know the you know there are other there are other athletes that can compete with with the Russian team there are a lot of fun permutations you can experiment with you could do different lifts you could do relays you could you know explore time domains right like I love kettlebell sport because I love the 10 like I love training for they do training for something that's a grueling 10 minutes like I truly love that I don't ever want that to go away from the sport having been exposed to it now but like you know you could experiment with shorter shorter events right I think the the California Open it's coming up as five minute events people can train for right yeah you there are a lot of ways to play around with time domains with lists with combinations with teams with relays there are like 17 permutations you already talked about right yeah it doesn't have to be to test in there right and see yeah David I really want to I really want to be respectful of your time but I thank you so much for for coming on I have I have one last question for you and it's it's going back to going back to your to your podcast now you've gotten to interview as some of the the best and brightest minds in in sports and athletic like in strength sports so of of those people I'm two-part question who was who was the the most intimidating person to interview and then who was the the person that you had the most fun interviewing oh man I'm gonna get in trouble for this one you're gonna give me a trouble for sure well I'm not giving you softballs all right no no no no you're it's it's a hundred percent okay the most um I'd say the most intimidating okay intimidating is not the right word yeah I was supposed to maybe that's not the right one it's it's it's my job to be not intimidating so we're intimidating me I like I wouldn't I just like wouldn't interview them um but I think the the one where I I showed up and I was like wow I really have to have my ducks in a row here on the questions I ask and I somehow still got it wrong sometimes uh it was with uh he's actually a friend uh he's a barbie and contributor Dr. Connor Hefernan um he writes on the history of physical culture and strengths sports he actually works he's a professor at the University of Texas and he works at the Stark Center there which is a whole program on the history of strengths sports it's super cool and he's just such a knowledge well he's just he has so much knowledge about everything I knew when interviewing him I was gonna ask a question and still get a fact wrong because he just knows so much and he's so he's anything I would I would encourage everyone to give him a follow to look up his articles just you know look up Connor Hefernan uh barbed and you'll find a whole list of amazing articles he's written about us he wrote a great um uh he's he's written a ton of really interesting articles about everything strength equipment to different strengths sports anyway that was one where I was like wow no matter what I do no matter how much I prepare I you know I'm just gonna have a drop in the bucket of the knowledge of this person I'm not even gonna have enough knowledge to ask him the good questions and he he ended up saying a few times in the podcast because he's so friendly and accommodating and nice he's like well I think what you're really asking is is this and I was like yes please ask you know answer that question um and the podcast I had the most fun with I've had a lot of I've had a lot of really fun a lot of really really fun recordings um one of the ones I enjoyed most was Cole Sager he's a CrossFit Games athlete um and he's just like this amazingly nice guy and like we just we just like sat down we both had a cup of coffee it turns out he's a really into coffee culture and I was kind of nerding out on coffee at the time and we just had this like fun conversation and the podcast did pretty well but I worry that people listen to it and they're like yeah there wasn't like anything of substance these guys were just kind of growing out but I just remember like getting off that podcast and being like well he made my day better and I just will I just really really remember that very distinctly so Cole Sager I had a Cole if you're listening to this I had an amazing time interviewing you let's do it again sometime awesome well thank you very much well this this was a lot of fun for me I hope I hope you enjoyed it as well I very much enjoy I enjoy barbend a lot I've been a barbend follower for for many years um so like I I love that you guys built a website that helped me when I was getting into you know well I've always been into strength sports but when I was like looking for resources I was like oh somebody made like the central repository of strength resources you know so like I very much appreciate your vision and what you guys have done and it's you know I love the work that you're doing with the with the pair weightlifting team and all of the the charitable work that you guys do so you know I just want to you know tip the cap to you guys for for everything that you've done and it's a you know a testament to your guys' culture I'm glad to see you guys are you are the biggest you know the biggest website for in strength sports and you know I wish you nothing but like continued success and growth like it's it's fantastic so very much appreciate you coming on well thank you for having me can I ask actually ask one thing of your audience and this goes for you as well um we want to write more on kettlebell sport reach out to me on social reach out to barbend on social I'm at David Thomas talent Instagram I'm at D underscore towel on Twitter I'm at yeah I forgot to ask you where should people follow I'm just saying this so David at barbend.com as far as email um if you want to hear more about kettlebell sport on barbend um let us know what you want to hear about let us know what topics you want written about and if you're interested in writing or you know someone who might be uh we're trying to increase our contributor base for people who are really knowledgeable about kettlebell sport passionate about it I can't promise I'll say yes to every pitch in fact my job and my editorial team's job is actually to turn down more pitches than we say yes to so that's a disclaimer and not everyone um you know we have a lot of probably have a dozen people approaches each day about writing for barbend and we turn down the vast majority of them but I am 100% down to get more kettlebell sport content resources available on barbend and I'm not going to pretend like I know the best things to write about now or the best way to do that so if we could hear from the kettlebell sport community about what they want to see and who they want to hear from um I would absolutely love to hear that awesome awesome so you guys got it I'll put I'll put links in the show notes so that you can follow David you can you can hit them up with the topics that you want to hear about and uh if you've got some skill with the quill then uh you know reach out to David and and make your pitch and see if you can get through the get through the process the application process because we definitely want to see more we definitely want to see the the audience grow and see see more content out there that people can tie into so love that thank you so much for that the problem all right thank you so much David I appreciate your time and have a good night brother you too thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast I'm Jordan Kunde-Wright if you have a question please email me at twin cities kettlebell club at gmail.com follow us on instagram and facebook at twin cities kettlebell club on twitter at tckb club online at twin cities kettlebell club.com and please help us grow our reach and give us a review on apple podcast spotify stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts until next time