The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
We explore thriving as an athlete after 40. Each episode, we’ll dive into tips, hacks, and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes and our personal experience. Whether you’re a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong, and motivated
The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
Strength for a Cause: The Love Like Ben Memorial Strongman Event
Scott Fike shares the inspiring story behind the Love Like Ben Foundation and its annual strongman charity event honoring his son's memory while raising funds to help children afford sports participation. What began as a heartfelt tribute has grown into a thriving community event raising over $17,000 this year to provide equipment, memberships, and tuition assistance to young athletes in need.
• Detailed recap of the four main competition events: Circus Dumbbell, Sandbag Over Bar, Seated Arm Over Arm Sled Pull, and Hummer Tire Deadlift
• The event's accessible approach allowing athletes across nine divisions to participate
• Incredible community support from sponsors like Serious Steel Fitness and Valkyrie Strength
• Beautiful custom metal awards created by Wicked Welding and Fabrication
• Pain Face Photography's professional documentation of the event
• The Benjamin Fike Memorial Award given to individuals embodying Ben's spirit of making people smile
• This year's successful fundraising total of $17,000 gross, with approximately $14,000 going directly to the foundation
Visit lovelikeben9.com to learn more about the foundation, donate, or apply for a grant if you know a young athlete who needs financial assistance to participate in sports.
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New episodes come out every other Thursday!
Welcome to the Master's Athlete Survival Guide, where we explore the secrets to thriving in sports after 40. I'm John Catalinas and, along with Scott Fyke, we'll dive into training tips, nutrition hacks and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes who defy age limits. Whether you're a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong and motivated. Let's get started and we're back. Hi, I'm John. I'm still Scott. Look at that, it's us and we're back. We are back. Where did we?
Speaker 2:go? Where do we go when we say we're back? That's an excellent question. Well, personally, john, for me I go down to the snack bar because they have a new protein bar there. Oh do they, they do, oh do they.
Speaker 1:We should do that in the future. All right, before we get started on whatever topic maybe I actually have to I have a anecdote that sort of ties into our protein drink taste, tell me, oh I know where you're going, god so no, you don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't think I shared this, but it's similar. So after after that, I went to Sam's club and there's a in a can protein drink. I believe it's called like Nutri or something like that. Yep, um, really cheap. It's like 20 bucks a case, which is probably. Well, it's half the dirt, yeah, it's definitely half the quest 45 gram protein ones. So I mean, I, I, those are. Those are great they're great, but they're great, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, so these, these are pretty good. These are half the cost and they're pretty good. Um, so I have developed this morning brew, which is a can of one of those with four, six ounces of cold brew coffee concentrate and that's my morning coffee cold so, in other words, you are already starting your day at six o'clock in the morning with enough caffeine to jolt a horse, yep, and some protein yep, yep, basically it's.
Speaker 1:I should just call it like muscle head coffee, because that's pretty much what it is it does. If I have to, it's prune juice. No, actually it's not, but if I have to, I have to do like some deep breathing to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest.
Speaker 2:I think I told you once I tried those green coffee pills. Oh, yeah, yeah. I took one and my chest started throbbing.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, we're not going to stay on this, yeah, and I don't know enough about the chemistry of caffeine to know if there's different isomers of caffeine, but there are some sources and maybe it's not the caffeine, maybe it's some other weird chemical that some Pakistani bottling plant puts in energy drinks, but every now and then an energy drink tries to kill me.
Speaker 2:Well, dude an energy drink. Well, one out of the six.
Speaker 1:There's that All right, but anyway. So here's my story, with this this morning coffee thing. Yep, so I have this morning coffee. I love it, it's delicious. Uh, maybe four days a week I'll drink that. That, uh, that the one week I had four of those and that friday I went out of town.
Speaker 1:Okay, I went out of town for like three days and I come back and the studio smells like a raccoon died in the walls and um, and I literally I'm like, oh no, a mouse died somewhere in the wall. And and how am I ever going to? How am I going to deal with this? Because I don't know if you've ever, like, had that. I had that 30 years ago. I had a mouse die in an attic, all right, and it's awful, it's awful. And this was 10 times worse. So hence the raccoon. And I'm like where is this coming from? And I'm looking in the sink. I'm looking did it die in a cabinet? Was it the cleaner? Did the cleaner leave something for the lunch table? What it was was because I'm a good person uh, these cans of protein drink. Yep, instead of putting them in my garbage or recycling, I put them in the return for a nickel container that I maintain that I take back cans every three, four weeks yeah so it's sat there with a little bit of dregs of protein in them.
Speaker 1:Oh and uh, anybody listening? If you've ever done a protein shake in a in a shaker bottle and not cleaned it? Most times we just throw the shake yeah, so it was pretty awful, so no no, I didn't know that one, that one, you didn't tell me Nope.
Speaker 1:So there you go, there you go. There's my story. To start this off, that is not today's topic. I would like to talk about something that we I don't know we don't talk about, which is really dumb, since it takes up so much of our energy. So Scott started the charity in honor of his son. Uh, we talk about it with everybody. It's a big part of who we are and it actually sort of morphed into this, uh, this podcast a bit um, but we never directly talk about that. We have a memorial strongman and this is the second year of it. It's the love. Like Ben 9 Memorial Strongman, it's a charity event versus a hyper-competitive event. So the weights are a little lighter and the events are a little cooler looking and a little more accessible.
Speaker 2:A lot more accessible and a lot more photo friendly yeah yeah, because I'm a media whore.
Speaker 1:That's basically, even though I don't compete, I want to give people the chance to come to my level. So, scott, we had it. Yes, because we're dumb, and why would we not talk about it before the event?
Speaker 2:Well, before the event we were a little bit busy, yeah, a little bit. So we've talked about the Love like Ben foundation a few times. Um what? And John is one of our founding board members. One of the things that the foundation stands for is helping families If their children can't afford to play sports. We help them along that trail. We, you know, with equipment, or buying equipment or memberships to things, or their tuition to play, or stuff like that and it's in its infancy.
Speaker 1:So if you haven't heard of us, it's because we're just getting rolling right.
Speaker 2:So I would say cheap plug. But to me, nothing about this is is cheap because of what it is. Go to our website, lovelikeben9.com. Take a look at what we do, take a look at who we are. You'll get to see the mountain trolls that are John and I, and there are ways for you to donate and there are also ways if we can help you or if you know somebody that can benefit from what we do. There's an application on there as well for folks to fill out, to uh, to send to us for a grant or a scholarship.
Speaker 2:So to the event. Yes, sir, this is our second year, like you said, and we sort of pull out all the stops with us. I mean, we are blessed with incredible, incredible sponsors who you know, give us money to get on our t-shirts, give us money to sponsor events. We are incredibly blessed. Last year John said to me he says, scott, you know we do these sponsorships. You know we've got a $200 level. We've got a $500 level. Let's put a big number out there. Let's put a number out there that somebody you know might, but don't count on it. And for two years in a row now, we've had people that have stepped up and given us $2,500 for the overall competition sponsorship. So we bring in a lot of money that way. We day of the event you know the past two years we've averaged people just handing us money and on the day of the event we get somewhere to the tune of what $2,500, $3,000, somewhere in that ballpark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it really comes from the fact I mean ballpark. Yeah, I mean it really comes from the, I mean the. The early success of all this comes from the community that is, gym rats and strong people and family and friends. Um, so, yeah, we we've leveraged that into focusing it on some really good things to happen in the future.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's talk about the actual event this year. Yeah, can we? We can, okay, so I was judgy you are always. I got to be a judge. I love being a judge because it makes me judgy one of the things I absolutely love about john is he pulls no punches. As we're advertising to you know, entice athletes to come and participate in this event. John is putting it out there and he goes come see me be judgy. Yeah, and somebody wrote a comment back why is this different, you know?
Speaker 1:this is you normally, john, I have a. You know I'm a scientist. I have clear opinions on things. That's a polite way of saying you're opinionated. Well, yeah, but my opinion can change, but in the interim I'm judgy.
Speaker 2:All right. So this year's events, we did an old-fashioned strongman favorite called the Circus Dumbbell. What is that? What is that? If you think of the old pt barnum, barnum and bailey circus type of posters where they had the strong man and he's lifting that huge dumbbell, it looks like so it looks like yeah, I was gonna say it looks like two beach balls on a stick, yeah, okay so that was one of our events this year and athletes lifted.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think the lightest some of our very, very petite female athletes were lifting was what like 80 pounds, I think. I think the lightest is maybe 70, but yeah, okay, and it went up to 140 pounds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is a good point. I mean for a smallish event. How many divisions were there?
Speaker 2:12 divisions we had athletes compete in nine divisions. Is it nine? It was nine divisions, okay. Um, we had a couple who had to back out for personal reasons, but you know, they said keep the money, and here's a donation because they're good people because they're good people. So for nine divisions you know you think about, and we had 40 athletes registered this year.
Speaker 1:Divisions are both age and weight class right.
Speaker 2:Age, weight, class, gender.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had masters. We had women, light women. Did we have middleweight? Was it middleweight a thing or was it just? We had middleweight men, we did not have middleweight women this year, and that was just a function of who signed up right, and that was just a function of who signed up right.
Speaker 2:It was just a function who signed up. We had, um, both of our master's classes our master's men and our master's women classes were incredibly populated. I think the women had four athletes, which for a master's division, is pretty large, unless you get into the national level shows. Our men's division had five or six athletes and it was just people out there smiling, laughing, putting on a show, having fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I mean that that was what the the lob9 2 was all about, was getting people there to have fun and people would ask me about it and say this is what it is, this is what we're doing for it, and I would tell them I make no qualms about telling you that this is about us making money for this foundation. Yeah, yeah, because the weights are accessible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like like they're not strong man weights, like if your brain immediately went to, like moving a car. It's nothing like that. Because it because it's sort of a community slash charity event and really want to keep it accessible. So one of the things that and if you know scott, you know that he agonized over every detail I'm just slightly ocd and one of them was the weights for each event and I I think you nailed it. So the first event was this well, not necessarily in order, but the circus dumbbell. Again, the reason we did it it looks great. It's just a cool looking event, because, if you do, I mean other than the uh leopard print one shoulder unitard that, thank you, nice work thank you.
Speaker 1:That classic strongman would would wear. I mean, that's basically what. What's going on? You have one gigantic dumbbell over your head and it's not easy. I mean, it's not an easy event. Um no, you gotta figure out how to do it. There is, definitely there is a technique. I'm terrible at it, I won't lie, I'm terrible at it, but you broke one of our I did deadlift platforms.
Speaker 2:I broke.
Speaker 1:If you can picture that someone could break a piece of plywood.
Speaker 2:Um, I did he did, I did, I didn't really break it.
Speaker 1:I just sort of took a huge chunk out yeah, I basically left a divot and it's hard to replace your divots in wood. Yeah all right.
Speaker 2:So second event yes was our, yes Was our sandbag over bar. So basically, picture a giant. You know it could be anywhere from a hundred pound pill looking, marshmallow shaped type of sandbag up to the heavyweight men did 275 pound sandbag. So imagine a very large person and then somebody would have to pick them up, put them over a bar that's 50 inches off the ground, grab it and do it again continually for a minute. Yeah, I mean it's, it was. It's great to watch the speed with which some of these people can pick up something that heavy and the sandbag.
Speaker 1:I wasn't quite as nice to them, no no, and I think modern strongman has is you know, the needle has moved a little towards athleticism, like it's one thing to be able to pick up a giant floppy bag filled with sand. Uh, it's hard. That that's difficult. It's hard to put it over a bar. That's I don't know what is it? 51 inches, 48 inches, 48 and 50. Okay, so I mean that's hard, like for a six foot person that's probably chest high, just above chest high, doing it for a minute straight, like in a competition. So basically, as fast as you can, as many as you can, um, it's like. It's like I would liken it to burpees, except every time you stand up you have to stand up yourself and your 275 pound friend that you're putting over a bar some of the competitors did double digits oh, I know it was I know I mean you think about it.
Speaker 2:They did. Yep, that's one every six seconds. Ooh math. Pick up a 200 pound anything, put it over a bar and then do that 10, 12, 13 times in a minute. Yep, and try not to pass out when you're done. Yeah, I think our temperature that day was heading towards 90 degrees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were in a stint of 90 degrees with 90% humidity, so the athletes, really kudos to most of them. Not all of them, though, wait. Did you compete?
Speaker 2:I did not. Oh, you didn't, you were athletic director.
Speaker 1:Okay, kudos to all the athletes, then Never mind.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:I will not compete in one of my own events yeah, yeah that I would be against that anyway, because I don't know. Choose the events in the weights well, it's not even that, although that's part of it, because no one really wants an ad that like picks their favorite events, uh, that they're really great at, and then you're competing against them. That that seems kind of lame, but the reality is that I don't know how many times I tried to find you that day, like scott, I have this dude I had on an orange shirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who came up with that idea that all the judges should wear orange shirts?
Speaker 2:oh wait, that was me oh, I didn't think that was you.
Speaker 1:I thought that was ronnie no, that was me, hi ron. It was me all right.
Speaker 2:Third event, yeah, was the seated arm over arm sled pull. So imagine sitting down with your feet braced up against an object that won't move and you're on a piece of. It's called Luan, but basically like a flat, smooth piece of wood that you can slide on and you have a rope attached to a sled that is 40 feet from you and you have a rope attached to a sled that is 40 feet from you. The sled went anywhere from 150 pounds up to 400 pounds and again you have up to a minute to pull it that 40 feet as fast as you can.
Speaker 1:And it's again some of the. I'm going to let you talk about the video. Well, no, the one thing, and I think we should circle back on pain face. But the one thing that stuck with me is one of the people in my group, because judges stuck with their groups. Somebody did in 10 seconds or 10.4 seconds I was gonna talk, that was mike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna talk about 10 seconds people. So to normalize 300 pound sled yeah, 300 pound sled.
Speaker 1:So picture a rowing machine. I think this is if you were on a rowing machine. Instead of like a t-handle, you just had a thick marine rope and you were pulling 300 pounds as fast as you could. So you're rowing, gripping and and the sled on scott's turf, which he purposefully did not glue down, so it's it's kind of like pulling it through sand. Yeah, um, 10 seconds, obscene, obscene. So great.
Speaker 2:So guy's name is mike. He's out of 315 strong in syracuse. Uh, that's jamie henke's place. Shout out out to Jamie Henke. Great, great place out there. And he sat down and Mike is a strong guy. Mike's a really strong guy. He's a young master, he's probably in his early 40s God kids. And I was just walking into the compound from outside because we had some of the events outside. So I'm just walking in and I hear John say go. I literally see the sled jump like four feet and I looked at it. I thought it was like misloaded or something. And then he did it again. Yeah, I walked up to him like holy shit, dude, he goes. Yeah, I do all right with this event. Yeah, all right was an understatement, and that's true.
Speaker 1:I and that's true. I think that's true for all multi-event sports. Everybody's got their favorite, everybody's got their thing that they're just built for, you know, whether it be lever length or brute strength, or it's just something you enjoy speed or hand speed. I clap very well playing a clap steal over I clap.
Speaker 2:Very well, it's probably a purple dot in his chest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like I like that event. That's a good and I don't know we probably had what 70 or 80 like people watching so that was.
Speaker 1:I think that was the second most watched event yeah, that that event is is very attractive to watch because it just makes sense. I mean, the rowing motion is is completely familiar to most people and to know that the sled's got 300 pounds on it and it's moving, that you know. You don't have to be an aficionado of a silly niche sport like strongman to understand, like wow something crazy is going on right now 100, 100, yeah.
Speaker 2:Fourth event my favorite event by far was the hummer tire deadlift yeah, yeah, I'm a big fan.
Speaker 2:I have done that in the past, so we set the deadlift bar up picture and we call it the hummer tire deadlift. They're actually two tractor trailer tires, so we put the barbell through these two tires and just the barbell and the two tires themselves came out to. What was it like? They're four something. Yeah, because the tires are 200 pounds each. The big tires are 200 pounds, so about 450 ish pounds. Sure, some of the heavier weights. For the super heavyweight man, which is 275 and above body weight, they were up above 600.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was pretty heavy it was pretty heavy and you know you were allowed to use deadlift, uh, like straps to help your grip, because I mean 600 pounds, 600 pounds. I don't care if you're pulling it from between your feet doing a bavarian or if you're pulling it like we had it set up at 15 inches. Yeah, see scott scott hates people.
Speaker 1:So the tire diameter was such that, like, if you just were pulling it from the ground it would probably be mid thigh and it would be a very short pull and you you probably could do another third above your typical normal deadlift, maybe even more, um, because it's it'd be a very short pull. So scott, who hates people, um, puts it on a 15 inch box, so basically it normalizes the height to it, almost a typical deadlift.
Speaker 2:So well, there's a reason we use that box is there that, that platform that they're standing on? Yeah, someone gave us that last year and put a diamond plate on the front of it where they cut out the logo?
Speaker 1:yeah, our logo, oh no it's.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's beautiful and it looks cool, it's just, you're a horrible human being, and it was very mean, it was very mean, but I gotta tell you, um, very mean, it was very mean, but I gotta tell you um, that is the event we get the most comments on.
Speaker 1:That might be one of the more stereotypic strong man like, understood, yeah, especially like 70s strong man, like, if you ever like, if you're old enough like us and you watched old school strong man on tv where everything was kind of gimmicky a little. Yeah, it wasn't as calibrated by rogue kind of stuff um truck tire deadlift and the women did it too.
Speaker 2:They just used different tires yeah, the women we had they were. The tires were a little bit shorter so we sort of raised the bar up for them, so to speak, so everybody was pulling from the same height off the ground.
Speaker 1:But they were like heavy duty pickup truck, work truck type of tires they still look so a little bit wider, but they still looked badass yeah, I mean they were phenomenal, it's awesome and everybody fought hard and it was. It was a good.
Speaker 2:So many comments, so many positive comments, about that deadlift.
Speaker 1:So one thing you keep talking about or I mean the way the whole event it was kind of designed was everybody looked cool doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you and I we've been doing holding strongman events for the gym. For what three? Four years oh yeah, I guess we had four. Yeah, so four years, and we always wanted to make sure that everything flowed well and it was accessible to some sense. But for these, for the first two that we've had of the LLB9s it's, it's, it's we wanted to make sure that they were good looking events, that people, when they saw them, they were picturesque.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know why.
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:Because I like putting shit on Instagram, I like to celebrate myself and I respect other athletes that immediately want to post things to their social medias. So there you go. That leads us. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:To. We were out. The foundation was asked about a grant. We gave a grant to a young power lifter who competed out at East Avenue Barbell, which is Tim's place in Rochester. And he introduced us to a photography company. Tom Pados owns it. Tom is a phenomenal guy. The name of his organization is pain face okay, and if you see the pictures, you understand why.
Speaker 1:Because he gets the best pictures he's he's very good at. He's definitely one of the top two people, the other one being melanie. Melanie malali, yeah, shout out to me 100, who just somehow, not only are they just taking pictures of you, but they capture that moment where you're, you're getting after it or it's a cool angle or you've just done something interesting I mean, he's got, he had, and he was the only one that came out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, he had cameras set up at every event, he had video running at every event and then he was flying around between all the events and the baskets and everything we had going on that day, taking if he didn't take thousands, plural of pictures. It took a lot of pictures and then sort of whittled it down. I would have been shocked. Now here was the thing. We went up to Tom and we said, hey, we introduced ourselves. This is who we are. This is you know. We want to talk to you about photographing an event we've got coming up. This is what the event is. It's a charity event. It goes for my son's foundation. This is what the foundation does. And we're talking to him and I said you know, could you, you know, send us or give us some information about cost and stuff like that? He immediately looked at us and said there is no cost. Yeah, yeah, he did not charge us amazing guy for what is unbelievable pictures, video.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you go to pain face on instagram or if you go to the love like ben page or the compound page on instagram, you're gonna see these pictures they are.
Speaker 1:Does he have like if I were an athlete there?
Speaker 2:that day yep.
Speaker 1:Does he have a site that I could go retrieve and pay and buy some photos? He?
Speaker 2:actually does, okay. So if you go to his instagram page, okay, you can see all the pictures.
Speaker 1:There is it pain face one word, pain face one word, okay, okay, so you go to his instagram page.
Speaker 2:Okay, you can see all the pictures there. Is it? Pain face, one word. Pain face, one word. Okay, okay, so you go to instagram, you go to pain face and you can see all the pictures of any of the events that he's done. But for a while we were the premier event that was up there and you know we truly thank him for that. Absolutely, and you can. You have the option of buying pictures. Okay, you can buy pictures, you can buy video, all these things. I'll give you an idea. I bought for myself, for you know, one for the compound I bought. He took a picture of the deadlift tires, the women's deadlift tires, at an angle. It's like the first picture you see when you go to the oh, I've seen it, I've seen this picture.
Speaker 2:I bought that picture for the gym. I bought it 20 by 30.
Speaker 1:Oh, cool it is phenomenal because it's cool, because, again, like we said, some people just seem to capture. I mean, it's just a bar when two tires sitting on it.
Speaker 2:If I took a picture of it, you know what it would look like a bar with two tires on it yeah, the other one I got that he took was when we you know when you start any event, you do um, you know an athlete's meeting and you talk to everybody and you sort of explain again why we're all there and you thank everybody. There's a banner for my son up in the gym and he caught me talking to everybody and he got the banner framed behind me yeah, yeah, no, it's a, it's an epic picture so I mean, you can get these things and his prices are not bad.
Speaker 2:I mean, these are two massive pictures, yeah, and they're on high quality paper and yeah, you know, you know it wasn't bad at all, and you know what we're doing next year.
Speaker 1:Oh, spoiler alert, because he offered to allow us to live stream the event, yes, and because the gym owner lives in middle of nowhere, left of center, way to the moon. Basically, the way the internet works out there is that you tie it to a horse and you slap it on the butt and it takes your request to the local post office you put the carrot dangling in front of the horse. They dial into aol and uh yeah so we'll dial up, just stopped it I, I saw that and that.
Speaker 1:That blows my mind great reference, by the way no, it blows my mind that it still existed until recently. But we're gonna have to run a line out there yeah, that's fine, but the next event will probably be live streamed. And again, go to Painface check them out. If you have an event and you need photography in the greater western New York area. I can't recommend his stuff enough, oh my God, unbelievable, it's not just photos.
Speaker 2:It is outstanding, outstanding epic photos he in just the most personable type of guy. Yep, I mean, you tell him you want a picture of xyz captured. Yeah, you got it, he's gonna do it.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be unbelievable now, xyz, isn't your giant naked butt, is it?
Speaker 2:So the other person that we really need to talk about here, you suck. So, going into some of the things that happened that day, we had, you know, we talked about the four events. We had the four events and they were great. The pictures of them, the video of them that you'll see up there on pain faces Instagram page, you're going to see and sort of feel a little bit of what we are at that point. But there's some other things that sort of made that day special for us. You know we had let's start, as soon as the athletes walked in, okay, everybody got their shirts and their shirts had 12 sponsors on it, so those shirts were more than paid for and, you know, put more money in the foundation they got a bag of swag swag bag from just everything. One of the members of my gym came in and put stuff into the bags that she just donated for every single athlete.
Speaker 2:We had um serious steel fitness justin, yeah, justin, and his crew have just so taken care of us over the years they have, but he's also trying to kill me well, we'll talk about you dying in that in just a second. I mean last year. Between last year and this year, justin has given us almost three thousand dollars worth of stuff that we've given away to the absolutely high quality high quality stuff, some of the best stuff out there.
Speaker 2:and then he also gave us I'm going to talk about two things here he gave us and I'm going to talk about two things here he gave us discount cards to all three of the serious steel brands, serious steel zone, smelling salts and the original stick, a rolling sort of therapeutic stick. Every athlete got a discount card to each one of those stores.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that. Yeah, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, so I'm going to let let he also. They started something new. He gave us six twenty dollar twenty five dollar, I'm sorry gift cards, two to each of the three brands. They were metal gift cards. Yeah, that was cool. That he had laser etched yeah, those are cool. The love like ben logo on yeah, it was I mean those are something that, once they're used, you're not going to throw those out. Yeah, those are phenomenal that was outstanding all right, I'm gonna let john tell a story about how justin tried to kill him.
Speaker 1:No, it's just a it's a quick aside that I don't know zone. Smelling salts are like the my favorite. Do I have a favorite? It's sort of like do you have the favorite way of banging your head against the wall? Um, I do, but go ahead they. They seem to come out in stronger and stronger and more interesting flavors, and the iteration sense.
Speaker 2:Sense, not flavors. Do not eat.
Speaker 1:Zone smelling salt right um, I when we competed at the arnold. Now I have root beer and root beer. Right, that sounds innocuous. Well, picture spilling some root beer on a sledgehammer and slamming it into your nasal cavity, because that's what zone smelling salts, root beer is like. But I and I don't know. You know, usually I look into the data of these things, but I don't want to know, because smelling salts make me 10 better when it comes to performance. I, I just think so.
Speaker 2:Well I thought you're gonna tell a different story. Oh, I'm not telling that story two years ago dead.
Speaker 2:No, it's not okay, two years ago at the arnold, we're walking up and we're talking to Justin Hi, justin. And they usually put the smalts out for everybody to take a whiff and get an idea of what they're buying. What's a smalt? I realized. I said that they usually put the salts out. John had to get a shot. I did so. They're usually in order of strength Truth. So I'm talking to Justin and John picks up this salt and it was. It was called the blood salt, but he didn't look at the name just grabs it and it was in the middle of the row puts it up to his nose. I thought he was going to die I started crying.
Speaker 1:His face was red and justin looks like no, that was.
Speaker 2:Somebody had taken the one that was at the very end and put it in the middle.
Speaker 1:Put it in the middle, it's okay. So it's kind of like if you expect a jalapeno, you end up with a carolina reaper yeah, that's pretty much how that went, all right uh all right, so sponsors, so let's go.
Speaker 2:The next one and the denny is going to be a guest on an upcoming podcast oh yeah, I spoke with him again this week awesome, really looking forward to coming into a war studio and talking to us. Cool denny and I cannot remember his colleague's name and I apologize. It will come to me. Beth is what's sticking in my head, but I I don't remember and I'm sorry. They own run valkyrie strength team out of Canada. Okay, so before the event, probably what two, three weeks out, I was actually coming to the studio.
Speaker 1:We were recording. It was kind of close yeah.
Speaker 2:It was close. He, he had sent me a message. He said, hey, can we talk? I'm like yep, you know, here's the number. We started talking and he said let me give you my two minute elevator speech. So he did. And the valkyrie strength group, they're normally they they work out of canada and they do like sandbags and you know some, some neoprene type of stuff for knees and elbows and stuff like that and they have some.
Speaker 1:They have some t-shirts that I came very close to buying. Yes, yes, continue you will. I know, I know, you will, I know.
Speaker 2:So he said you know, at the end of his elevator speech he said is this some sort of a charity? You know because he saw it. And he said you know what is this? You know, tell me a little about the charity. Is it some sort of a charity? And whenever anybody asks, it's always very hard for me. So I said well, it's a little more than a charity to us, right? So I explained to him who ben was and what ben stood for and what we stand for, and he said that's it I'm. He says I'm part of the family. He said that's it. So normally.
Speaker 2:He said what they do is they would give 25 gift cards to valkyrie, to each class winner. Yeah, yeah. So what he did was so far above and beyond Amen. He gave every athlete that competed a $25 gift card. He gave them a discount code and he said if you want to work with me and do training, he said first month's free. So I mean he did all of that for all them. And then he turned around and he said to us anything that, any profit off of these you know the code they type in the lb9 code any profit that comes off of that over the next six, seven weeks.
Speaker 2:He says I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna give it to you and I'm gonna double it yeah, so this is a guy that didn't know us right, anything just just looked on you know the advertising of iron podium and saw what we were and reached out to us. So that was something else that the athletes got as soon as they walked in the door. Poor athletes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know well, because valkyrie makes really cool sandbags. That get really heavy. And guess what? The compound has already bought A bunch of sandbags.
Speaker 2:Every single possible Hoosier felt sandbag from them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're a difficult shape. They get really heavy and I have a feeling that there's going to be a sandbag carry in everybody's future next year. I would bet on it, I would bet on it, would bet on it all right.
Speaker 2:So, yes, sir, we start the event. Everything's going on. We've got, you know, different raffles and baskets and stuff like that at as we're doing awards at the end. Okay, we, you know, we, we give everybody the update and we'll talk about how how the day went for us as a foundation. But our last year we gave out swords and john said to me this is, I'd like to do something different, I want to make it a little more personal. You know something that people are going to say this came from yeah, yeah, yeah I mean, we've won things in those.
Speaker 1:You know those red, white and blue ribbon track. You know, cheap metals are fine, yeah, and the little bowling trophies are fine. But ocd, scott, what did you do so?
Speaker 2:one of the sponsorships this year was through a sheet metal union that my trainer happens to work for and he said I got an idea. I want you to talk to dan hauser at. Dan apparently lives two miles from my house. Never do it, okay, does he have?
Speaker 1:internet. He has internet. Of course he does shut up john.
Speaker 2:So I showed dan our logo. I said what can you do with this? He said, all right, give me, give me a little time, he calls me back a day later. He took our logo, put it on a six by six piece of metal so it could stand up, put a kickstand sort of behind it. So it's shiny metal. And he welded the LLB9 crest onto each first place award. And the thing was these things take an hour, two hours maybe more to do Because you have to do each dot independently. And remember this is six inches by six inches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he basically made the most beautiful clean welds that he drew with.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, and it was colored. Yeah, I mean, each award was a little bit different than the other ones.
Speaker 1:Each award was unique, yeah, as the metal does its thing at temperature. Yeah no, they're amazing awards and I applaud everybody that worked hard to win one, so, dan and I want to give him a shout out.
Speaker 2:Hi, dan To. His business is Wicked Welding and Fabrication. Oh yeah, you can find him on Facebook. Some of his work is you know, he's a Picasso with a torch.
Speaker 1:I had to fight the urge to bust out Defying Gravity from Wicked right there. I'm really, really glad you really glad I'm an adult. I don't, you know, I don't just dilly dally, I know, that's what no one says. Actually it's fair.
Speaker 2:So that's what first place got, and everybody got a little medal. Okay, first, second, third place. And then, because again of the generosity of justin and the serious steel family, second place got smelling salts and, um, don't eat them sticks, uh, like original sticks. And third place got flags and every award winner, or, I'm sorry, every class winner, first, second or third place. Thank you to our friends who come up to compete from texas, as one does. Yeah, they come up and support us.
Speaker 2:They, you know, shelby, and and I'm brain farting on the husband's name now well it's been a long day for scott it's been a very long day and I'll find the name in just a minute. They came up and they gave us custom wraps for deadlifting. Yeah, so every single winner got those custom wraps. So, john, talk a little bit about that, because you were moving around with groups and whatnot. Yes, what would you like me to talk?
Speaker 1:about I wasn't paying attention. I kid, I kid. No, to scott's credit, I do have to say that the bonus of the community is reflected in I mean, yeah, it's a, it's a fundraiser, and we found a good balance between thank you for your money and making it feel like you know you participated and you get stuff like we. We appreciate your attendance, we appreciate your effort. So the swag bags and the awards were outstanding. Um, and don't forget, there was also a uh, did you, did you remember something I did? What did you?
Speaker 2:remember it took me a hot minute, but it was Dan and Shelby wood, oh, and like you asked them they, they fly out of Texas, they, you know, I think Dan lived up here originally years ago, but this is the second year in a row now that they've come up and they've competed and they've donated, and just to salt of the earth people.
Speaker 1:And this year they actually brought some friends up to compete, yeah, so that was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:Uh, let's not gloss over uh sort of like sponsors and people who like significantly donated, like, I think, a big is why this started. Family is, you know, a lot of what's helped us to grow my mother, my brother, um my aunt and my uncle. The donations from baskets to everything else is unbelievable. For the second year in a row now, my brother and his family does, and my aunt, my uncle and my mom all help with it is he brings a giant smoker. When I say giant smoker, it's a former 500 gallon tank.
Speaker 1:It it's big, it's big. You could smoke a brontosaurus like Fred Flintstone go, hey, there's my smoker, fred probably did use it.
Speaker 2:It's entirely possible. Fred used it. It's possible. And what happens is he donates everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what, during the day you go up and and once all the food's done, you walk up and you just give a donation. We've had people walk up and they'll say, you know, I've only got five dollars, and timmy's like make a plate. Yeah, you know, whatever you want, make a plate. Yeah, you can pile it up as high as you want, make a plate. We've had other people walk up and, you know, hand a hundred dollars and timmy's like let me get you some change. Timmy is my brother, let me get you some change. No, I don't want any change. Make a plate. You know, I mean, that's that's, that's the way that it is yeah, and to tim's credit, I mean the food.
Speaker 2:The food was delicious.
Speaker 1:Second of all, smoked meat.
Speaker 2:Yes, please, thank you 100, 100 you know and it's tough because my brother is a budding strong man as well, I shouldn't say budding timmy took in the master's class at nationals this year. Timmy took third place, yeah so timmy is on the podium. It sounds like he butted, oh, he butted, hard, he butted, uh. Um, we can't forget our two growing superstars, the calish girls yeah every strongman event that we've had since the loss of my son.
Speaker 2:They come and they set up a little table, maddie and avery, and they sell cookies and stuff and stuff and stuff goods. This year it was, I mean, one of the things, and if you've listened you know how incredibly ocd I am about my diet. No, they made cannoli filling with little chips of cannolis to dip into it. Oh yeah, yeah. So I went up and bought one, did you really?
Speaker 2:I didn't take the chips and um, mom karen gave me a little grief about that. I'm like I I'm gonna cheat, but I want to be pretend I'm cheating just a little.
Speaker 1:I was eating this thing and pulling it out with my finger, it was so good, strong men are so refined the callish girls yeah probably in the last, you know, because ben's been gone for almost three years now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they without exaggeration yeah, over those years, between two and three thousand dollars they've raised for the foundation. How old are?
Speaker 1:they roughly. I mean, I don't know, so you could they're teenagers now?
Speaker 2:I think? I think they're in.
Speaker 1:I know they're in middle school my favorite thing, and if you've ever bought anything from a bake sale, you have run the risk that they somehow minimized, because I saw a picture of them preparing these yes and they wore aprons and hairnets and gloves and it looked so professional and I was so impressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I never thought about that before. Like you know, when I go to like the local church and you know, buy some cookie cups, I don't know what the people's kitchen looked like and now I'm freaked out. Now I may only get Buy stuff from the college girls Buy stuff from them. Yeah, exactly, exactly, all right. So that was sort of the food and drink stuff. That was the food and drink stuff. That was awesome we talked about the swag.
Speaker 2:We talked about the awards. We talked about you know, just the incredible pictures and video. We talked about the athletes who you didn't talk about all the awards, though I'm going to get to that.
Speaker 1:Are you yeah?
Speaker 2:You sure I have to say thank you to me, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:I do actually have to say thank you to you. I didn't do that much. Talk about arrogance coming out. Don't break your arm. I literally didn't do that much. I was just judgy. It was very easy.
Speaker 2:My board. Who was there? My wife, my daughter, John, who was on the board. Mark taylor, who was on the board, um ronnie, who unfortunately couldn't make it that day, jamie, uh, aka the quad bunny, who was there helping the board. Just steps above and beyond, you know, the caselli family who came from East Ave to help us out. We had Doug, member of the gym, brought his son and they helped judge Some of my son's teammates. Yep, that was cool. Yep, that was cool. You know, teenagers they're in their 20s now came and volunteered. The volunteers we had made this run like a clock.
Speaker 1:Well, all right, and I, I guess I will stop being judging, give you some credit because again, you did obsess about the layout, the workflow, the timings. I mean, this is, this is an event. This may be the only event I've ever either been a part of or competed in where we have to slow down because things are going too quickly, because things like the smoker is not done yet, but we're already in an event too, because things are going so smoothly and swimmingly. Um, so kudos to you for your weird obsession.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, being OCD does help at times. No, it doesn't. It does shut up. So one of the things that we do is we give out an award in my son's honor. Ben was a little bit of a different kid, you don't really expect. So the foundation I told you what we give money for. John came up with a line At five years old. My son was asked what do you want to do when you grow up? He said I want to make people smile. Weird so is. As I was giving a a keynote one night at a fundraising dinner. I went back to the table after saying that line and john said here it is ben's dream. Is our mission? Yep, that's our mission statement.
Speaker 2:So one of the things. I mean he was funny. He cared If you were having a bad day. He wanted to make you laugh. It almost pissed him off if you were not happy. I mean he would do the goofiest things. There's a picture you'll see on the website when you go to the website. We're out at a dinner with a board for the gym and he's got a piece of cheese on the back of his hat and the waitress says does he know? And he's like yep, I said he's taking it home with him to Long Ride back to Lockport. So it's just those type of goofy, silly things. He once asked a restaurant if they would deliver across the parking lot to where he was working, did they? Yes?
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go, there you go, just innovative.
Speaker 2:You know, it's the goofiest things. So we give out an award every year and we started it. Actually, this is the third year we've given out. We gave it out before. We started the Love Like Men Memorial at a Strongman before that, and it's in his honor. It's in his honor. It's for people who compassion, integrity, respect, humor, you know, just people who do the right things for the right reasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not because they want something. Yeah, I think the spirit of the award definitely comes down to you're just living your life and you're having a positive impact on people, not like you're out there trying to have a positive impact on people, you're just a good person so the first year and we've given it away.
Speaker 2:In the first two years we gave away two awards. You know, the first year was tony callish and my co-host john.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's me which just made that whole good person thing sound like the dog graph. Wow, that was shameless self-promotion.
Speaker 2:It really is. I apologize, folks.
Speaker 1:John Is an ass Plays the fool Every day.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm good at it and often yes, but if you know John, he is truly one of the beautiful people, attractive. Handsome, um attractive handsome, good smelling no, yeah, no, last year we gave it to diane zonetti and ronnie harkins and this year we uh, we really came up with one person. It was the first time we all gave out one and this sort of waffled a little bit. And then, right at the end, john and and I talked about it, and I talked to my wife and we gave it out to Ryan Chee.
Speaker 2:I like Ryan Chee. Shout out to Ryan Chee. Shout out to Ryan Chee. Ryan is an incredible guy. In the few months that we've known him on a different level, we've known him on a different level. He is just his enthusiasm, his passion to make others better.
Speaker 1:His lack of flexibility.
Speaker 2:It is phenomenal. And John you know, we all say John is photogenic. Well, no, John says John is photogenic, John is photogenic people. Okay, you were the.
Speaker 1:Columbus News. Yeah, exactly, I was picture a year. You ever been picture a year?
Speaker 2:Yes, but for the wrong reasons. Yeah, probably it was on a milk carton. So I think some of the best pictures that were taken from Pain Face this year some of John's absolute favorites, oh were of Ryan, are of Ryan, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Ryan just from pain face this year, some of john's absolute favorites. Oh, we're of ryan. Ryan just has a face that shows strain, like you see ryan lift and you understand that he is trying 30 harder than everybody else in the building. And, uh, we now design all of our equipment for the post lift by ryan because it usually takes him a step or two to actually get back into his body, because you can see he's got the looney tunes birds kind of spinning around his head every time he lifts. But excellent, dude. Uh, I'm glad to know him. My life is better for having him as a friend.
Speaker 2:So I found a picture of the award on the website and actually says the Benjamin Flake Memorial Award Love, dedication, compassion, humor, excuse me, coughs, I just want to make everyone smile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I love, I love, I love evaluating people for that award because it really points out like it's like you said, that we were kind of vacillating picking someone and it's because so many people in the community embody a lot of that, I mean we're blessed, dude.
Speaker 1:We are blessed, yeah it's a good charity event and again it's happened and I was. I was hassling, scling Scott a little. I'm apparently an ineffectual podcaster because we probably should have done this before the event to give anybody who's listening who didn't compete a chance to compete. We'll do it next year, august, early August, I think we landed on something.
Speaker 2:Either the 1st or the 8th. We're just going to check a few more events out.
Speaker 1:Early August so start your training.
Speaker 2:Sandbag carry is definitely going to be an event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we're gonna think of uh, three more, super well, two more. And because I know a really cool event, I want to do what the hercules hold oh god yeah come on, so scott goes rogue, as scott will do, and he just tells me, one day hey, I got something I got something made for the gym. No, he didn't actually go rogue, because it's his gym, he can do whatever he wants.
Speaker 2:He could paint it purple.
Speaker 1:I do have a board, but yeah, he went rogue, so he goes, I'm having, I'm having equipment fabricated. I'm like, okay, you have a lot of equipment, but you know everybody applauds new and interesting stuff. He gets a hercules hold built and if you think steve reeves, do I have to? Is steve reeves? Steve reeves was the original hercules holding yeah, so basically think of two giant marble pillars held up with chains and you are standing between them, holding them upright and if you let go, they fall down pulling you apart yeah yeah, it's, uh, it's hundreds of pounds on each side and she'll try to cleft you in twain cleft you in twain.
Speaker 1:I love this. This is for our medieval middle-aged folks, people.
Speaker 2:So, yes, now we've got two more events that we'll we'll come up with the one thing we didn't talk about, john. That fifth event is we have the audience participation event. Oh, the bench press.
Speaker 1:We have a 50-50 bench press every year. Yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 2:And $20 buys you in and it's the most repetitions of all the men and the most repetitions of all the women. The weights vary depending on what body weight you are in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually it's funny I forgot about I worked.
Speaker 2:I spotted most people, yeah it's, it's a great event and you don't have to be. You know one of the competitive athletes at the lb9. This is you know. You're driving down the street, you see it going on, you pull in, you park, you come in, want to compete?
Speaker 1:sure, 20 bucks by jen I actually think didn't one of the classes get won by someone that just came there to watch an athlete? Like someone came out of the crowd? I want it. That was. That was. That was fun and it's. It's interesting, like it's at a strength event. To see someone do 20 something reps with 27 75 is like oh okay, yeah, you're a different. You're a different kind of strong.
Speaker 2:That's cool, different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're a different breed All right.
Speaker 2:So you know, we've said that it's a fundraiser and I want to. I get this guess. This is a little bit of a brag, but it's not a brag on me. It's a brag, but it's not a brag on me. It's a brag on all the people that were there, all the people that helped us, all the people that sort of took part in this and believed in what we stand for. Last year, we ray. My goal was for us to to gross ten thousand dollars, and we blew that out of the water. We had thirteen thousand dollars last year. This year, I was hoping to do the same. We're at a little over $17,000 right now, and we know that there are some more donations that have to come in yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean $17,000. When you take out the expenses for the insurance and the stuff like that, we profited for the foundation. Every penny goes into it. We don't. You know, the gym doesn't make anything. The volunteers are just that. They are volunteers. We're putting well over $14,000 into the foundation that we're looking to give to people who we can help. So again, folks, I really I urge you, love like Benvelikeben9.com, Go there, see a little bit about us and, if you know somebody, or if we can help you out, if you've got children who yeah, let's be a little more specific on help you out.
Speaker 1:So the mission of the charity is really for those mostly young athletes, those young mostly young athletes that can't afford right if, if you want to compete in something and you need a piece of equipment or you need an entry fee, or you, you know, every, every application will be considered. Um, it's not a ton of money per person, but it's money per person. Uh, it definitely helps you get through the hardship of wanting something and being unable to, because that that is our mission statement. So, yeah, if you go to the website, hunt around a little, you'll see two buttons. Uh, you'll see a button to donate. Please feel free.
Speaker 2:Um, we are registered 501 C three. We are All right. Do they get a receipt? Yes, you can get a tax receipt, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:And then there's another button to apply for a grant, and again we as a board will evaluate each grant and there will be communication. It is not just throwing your grant in there.
Speaker 1:Even if we were to say say no, I think we would tell you why or try to steer you towards something that maybe we could accept yeah um, if you need a lamborghini to drive to your event you may probably not you probably want to try a different charity, but uh, you know, if you need a 50 entry fee and that's just not in the cards right now because times is tough, well, that's what we're here for, I mean tuition is some of these sports, you know, I, I go back and we talked about this, I go back to.
Speaker 2:You know, ben's thing was hockey tuition, just for a house league to play hockey, and this is the. The starting level for these kids is a thousand dollars. Yeah, you know. So yeah, like I always just tell people when they would apply for financial aid when I was working in schools, the answer is always no if you don't ask wow, that's deep.
Speaker 1:I love that, you know, I mean you're right, though, send something to us yeah you know, and again, if it's not, you send it someone else's way, right, yeah, yeah if you're listening to this and you know somebody that maybe we can help out, let's start that discussion through the website. I think that's really all this the sponsors, the athletes, the lifting heavy things, the cool pictures, all of it really come down to that. We are on a mission to keep Ben's memory alive, of making people happy through participation in sport. That's what we're trying to do. Come join us on the website. Love like Ben. Ninecom. It's the number nine, not the word nine. It is the number nine.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's the same thing for our.
Speaker 1:Facebook page. Yeah, so look us up. And uh, don't check out the pictures on pain face and uh, definitely, I think even I got a picture they're being judgy, so that doesn't take much.
Speaker 2:I mean, I saw you following tom around, and when he would turn and look at you, you'd pretend you're doing something.
Speaker 1:I would like strike a pose. I'm basically madonna. That's really what I am nice all right, that's enough. Uh folks, check out the website, donate or put in a proposal and we'll reach out to you. Have a blessed day, as my co-host and I are. Should I say something? Bye, is that a thing to say? He's John and I'm still Scott.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right. That's what I'm supposed to say bye, see you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post it on your social media or leave a review. To catch all the latest from us, you can follow us on instagram at masters athlete survival guide. Thanks again. Now get off our lawn, you damn kids.