Ep 190 – Breaking Records & Building Strength: Recap Of Our Best Plantbuilt!

Giacomo:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Giacomo.

Dani:

And I’m Dani.

Giacomo:

And this is episode 190.

Dani:

So we said we were going to do these episodes more. We did it once and then the last time we were on a road trip, I think we, we didn’t forget. We were just too busy doing other stuff on the drive down. But now we are road tripping back home from New Jersey for the second time in two weeks.

Giacomo:

It’s been pretty much nonstop. Well, second time in two weeks. We came home on Tuesday from plant build and then we drove back on Friday, which was what? Two days ago? Yeah, a lot of driving the past couple days. It would be ridiculous if we did not take this opportunity to kill some time but also do something really fun where we change it up a little.

Dani:

Bit and share with you what happened at the plant built meetup while it is still fresh in our brains. So that’s, that’s what this episode is going to be about. I know we’ve talked about it all year, how it was leading up to this event and that happened not this past weekend, but the weekend prior in Atlantic City with the bodybuilding kettlebell, strongman and powerlifting team.

And if you guys remember, CrossFit competed in Tampa about a month and a half ago. So it’s the first year we haven’t all been together. But why don’t you start the little recap here.

Giacomo:

Where do we even start? Dani? This year far exceeded my already high expectations. My expectations were high because I knew based on the caliber of athletes that we had, that we were going to most likely dominate and be an out compete more so than we ever have before. And remember, this is twelve years in the making. This is our 7th team that we’ve put together to be able to continue to out compete our previous best year after year like this in a linear fashion.

At some point you’re going to have to eventually accept that, well, maybe your team this year won’t quite be as competitive as previous, previous ones, but nope. I knew this team was going to be good. And not only were we exceptional out there, it was the best experience and the best message that we have ever put out all at once, both in person and then after the fact, we have all been pushing really

hard to bond, have fun competing and also tell the story of what we did and put it out there into the world. I am really, really pleased with what plan build has done this year.

Dani:

Yeah, it’s also interesting to me because I think one of the fears is, like, some of our team members have been on the team since we started in. We recruited in 2012 for the first year. So, you know, some people have been there for a long time, and none of us are any younger than when we started. You know, Joc Mo and I did not compete this year, but some of our athletes that have been with us for a long time still competing. And I feel like when the team started, so many of us were in our

twenties, late twenties, maybe early thirties, and now it’s like a good chunk of our team is 40 or in their forties. And, you know, you just never know how that’s going to stack up against an open class, which means classes of people of all ages. And, you know, it’s just nice to see not just vegan athletes, not just natural athletes, but also athletes that are, you know, we are not all 20 years old. I think we had some of our oldest team members we’ve ever had.

Giacomo:

Well, Jerry Hintenberger is a new athlete on our team, but she’s no stranger to competing. She’s 67 and still getting better in kettlebell.

Dani:

Yeah. So, 67, that’s definitely the oldest athlete we’ve had on the team.

Giacomo:

And she’s part of a mother daughter dynamic duo with Jennifer Hintonberger, who is a seven times over world champion with something like 60 plus, maybe even 70 plus at this point, gold medals. So we have some impressive athletes on this squad.

Dani:

Tammy. Tammy Albanese competed on our bodybuilding team. She’s 58 years old and a grandmother, and she competed in classic figure, which does not have a master’s class. So she did literally compete against 20 year olds and a huge class, too. And while we didn’t get a placing in that class, I mean, she looked like a goddamn princess up there. I thought that was really cool. But maybe we should talk about, like, each of the teams sort of individually. Does that make sense?

Giacomo:

Yeah, why not?

Dani:

Okay, so first, let’s talk about the powerlifting meet. So, our powerlifting team, I want to say, was about ten people this year. And it turned out to be kind of a small meet for a few reasons. One, the federation kept changing to kind of a smaller and smaller federation over the course of the year. And then because of the hurricane down in Florida, Florida, a lot of athletes, like, weren’t able to make it up.

So it did end up being a smaller meet than we had hoped for, but everybody did incredibly well, set state and national records across the country. We did have a world record. That’s right. But even if we had been in a larger meet, we still would have.

Giacomo:

Done very, very well.

Dani:

Some of our athletes would have been super competitive. Like, unlike bodybuilding, which is really subjective, all of the other sports are significantly less objective.

Giacomo:

Part of me has this weird feeling that we scared away the competition. They don’t want to show up anymore because they know the vegans are coming and what’s the point? Obviously, that’s not true, but it kind of feels like, I mean, it could.

Dani:

Be a little bit true.

Giacomo:

Maybe we dominate so hard that we’re like, okay, we’re not bringing our competition. What’s the point? Plan builds there.

Dani:

Yeah, but I mean, Katya and Nick in specific. Katya Gorbacheva, who actually, I don’t think she. Has she been on our podcast? I know I’ve been on her podcast once.

Giacomo:

Remember that podcast you recorded?

Dani:

That’s right, that’s right. Yes. About body image stuff. I remember.

Giacomo:

Okay.

Dani:

I couldn’t remember whose podcast that was, but, yeah, she, her total was over 1000 pounds, and she’s. I actually don’t know her weight class. Off the top of my head, she’s probably like a buck or something. So 160 pound woman squatting, bench pressing, and deadlifting over 1000 pounds. Now, that’s a single rep. For those of you who don’t know.

I don’t remember her exact totals off the top of my head. Man, I wish I could. I should have looked that up before we started recording. But, for example, she bench pressed 210 pounds. Like, consider that a 165 pound woman. Oh, man, I wish I could remember her deadlift. Her final deadlift.

Giacomo:

Put it this way, it’s enough for her to win best lifter at. And this is not the first meet that she’s done that at.

Dani:

I want to say it was like 460 pounds. I think her squat was in the 370 range.

Giacomo:

It’s a lot.

Dani:

It was a lot. It was awesome. Just awesome. Super, super awesome. Nick Squires, aka meaty McSore Lee, if you know, you know, he lifted 1750, 517, 55.

Giacomo:

Is that his new best total?

Dani:

Yes.

Giacomo:

Oh, my gosh.

Dani:

And in a, in a large meet, those numbers would have put us near the top, depending on the means.

Giacomo:

Big number for a powerlifting total.

Dani:

Yeah. And I mean, we had, we had new lifters to the team. We had Vinny, we had Jerry. We had lifters who have been with us for a long time in Dame Sarah Michelle, brittany. I feel like I’m forgetting somebody right now.

Giacomo:

Are you?

Dani:

Obviously, Ryan stills was there, but in a, in a captain capacity. He wasn’t competing, although he did just get his shoulder replaced recently. So for a hot minute, like right now, only I can bench press more than he can, and I’m really enjoying just knowing that fact. I sleep better at night knowing that fact.

Giacomo:

Have you told him that yet?

Dani:

Oh, yes. I said, I want to compete against you today in bench press.

Giacomo:

What’d he say?

Dani:

He said he’s game. Forget about the fact that this man can squat alone more than I can squat bench. And no, I think even with his. Even with his probably 85 pound deadlift, I mean, 85 pound bench at the.

Giacomo:

Moment, sonic, for a bench, I think.

Dani:

He could still squat press. Just squat more than I can squat bench and deadlift together. Okay, that’s a. That’s a sad fact, or a very impressive fact, rather, about Ryan stills. Anyway, so that was awesome. And I, from a personal perspective, I got to watch most of the meet, which was nice. I got to watch my client and good friend Brittany on the team hit, like, all new prs. New prs across the board in all three lifts. That was really exciting.

Giacomo:

And for me, maybe you can shine a and shed a little light on this more than I can. What is it about powerlifters, or moreover, the powerlifting team in specific, that makes them, in my opinion, they have the biggest personalities out of all of the teams. They just, when they get together, the antics, the stuff that goes on, they’re just a very lively bunch. Is it the sport? Is it our particular team? What is your opinion here?

Dani:

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Giacomo:

It’s always been that way, though.

Dani:

It’s always been that way. Even when it was a different powerlifting team.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

You know, maybe this is going to be me being cynical here for a second. So there’s probably two kinds of people that get into powerlifting. One, people who are just naturally, like, really strong, see the sport, and they’re like, I would be good at this.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Then there’s the other group of people who are like, I would like to compete in a sport and do as little as possible in the competition.

Giacomo:

What does that mean?

Dani:

Their competition is nine reps.

Giacomo:

Okay.

Dani:

I don’t know. Like, I think that’s funny. Like, if you’re the type of person to take that approach, you’re probably pretty funny.

Giacomo:

Okay.

Dani:

And I don’t mean this to say they don’t train. They train unbelievably hard, but.

Giacomo:

But they are the biggest jokesters and just all. Full of all kinds of stuff going on that you just. The other athletes just take their sport and how they approach it seriously and a little more makes it sound like.

Dani:

The powerlifters don’t take it seriously.

Giacomo:

Well, they do, but they have fun while they’re doing it. They just seem to have the most fun out of all the sport. Strongman. I think they’re a close second.

Dani:

It depends on who. Some people are very serious about their sport, and some of them have more fun with it, I think.

Giacomo:

Yeah, there’s opportunity for it.

Dani:

Speaking of, let’s move on to the strongman team. So I unfortunately didn’t get to watch any of this.

Giacomo:

I watched a little bit of it.

Dani:

Not because I didn’t have time. I was there because it was so deep with people. You couldn’t get to the area, the area where they were having their competition. I couldn’t get over to it because it was so crowded.

Giacomo:

Yeah, well, they bring a big draw. Cause those of you who have not watched strongman, you’ll see a lot of interesting things happen.

Dani:

Like, there’s a crazy thing.

Giacomo:

Punch buggy. What do you call it? Volkswagen Beetle.

Dani:

Yeah, they. I don’t think. I even think it was a beetle. Maybe it was. There was a car lift. They literally had to, like, hoist it, put on a pair of suspenders that was holding a car, and walk it across the room. Or I think the women just had to stand for as long as they could. But Angeline still walked it across the room.

Giacomo:

The only female out there to even be able to do it at all. Correct.

Dani:

I didn’t get to see it, so I’m not entirely. Oh, if you say so, then I believe you.

Giacomo:

I forgot who told me, but it’s hearsay. But regardless, strongman creates a spectacle. This is very interesting to watch.

Dani:

They’re picking up enormous rocks and, like, hurling them around. I saw at one point them picking up this thing in the videos afterwards. It looked like a coffin, shaped like a coffin. And they had to pick it up and sort of hug it and run it back and forth. I don’t know what these things are called.

And I’m sure if I looked at the scoring on it, it would make sense to me. Like, some of it, I’m sure, is for distance, some of it is for time. And they probably get points for each event. But I think our strongman team was the most competitive team we had this year.

Giacomo:

Really?

Dani:

Absolutely.

Giacomo:

Well, I remember Brady recruiting the team, and he was like, I want every single weight class to feel pressure that there is a vegan that’s going to dominate. And he pretty much delivered.

Dani:

Delivered.

Giacomo:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We took home four tridents, and each trident represents us winning a weight class.

Dani:

We took on four tridents. And Ray also won first place in, I guess they call it amateur. He won first place in amateur and now can never compete as an amateur again. So we won four first places in open and a second place to, like, in a class where a vegan won first place and then a vegan won second place. So we can’t be mad about that. Right.

Giacomo:

And Ray is fairly new, and Ray sport.

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

Only within only a couple of years, he managed to go straight from novice to pro wild.

Dani:

And so Rick Carroll, Melissa Busta, who.

Giacomo:

Was originally an IFP bikini pro, and now I think is. And fact check us here, but she’s.

Dani:

One of the best.

Giacomo:

She may be the very first vegan female strongman athlete to cross over and win nationals and go to compete. And she did that. She qualified.

Dani:

Well, apparently four of our athletes have now, in the strongman team, have now qualified for the Arnold, which, like the Arnold, is not a joke. And, you know, we pride ourselves on having a drug free team. All of our athletes are natural, every single athlete. And we try to compete in drug tested events specifically so we can compete on a nice, level playing field.

Giacomo:

Correct.

Dani:

So the bodybuilding show, powerlifting meet. There are no drug tested strongman competitions.

Giacomo:

Not at this time. That may change. I’ve spoken to different strongman athletes about it, and they say there may be something in the works, but as of now, no, it’s just. And the more, the bigger the platform and the more competitive it gets. Obviously, the people who doped, it’s just gonna be a higher percentage of them out there.

Dani:

But, you know, we could be feeding our athletes to the Lions in sending them out there to compete against enhanced lifters. But thus far, we’re not like they’re holding their own.

Giacomo:

Yes, they are.

Dani:

Which is incredible.

Giacomo:

Yep.

Dani:

And yeah. Excited to see what happens at the Arnold. We had some new team members on the strongman team as well. Melissa Busta being one of them. Colin Farriot. Oh, Andrew Keyes also won a trident, right?

Giacomo:

Yes, he did.

Dani:

And Tom Butts, you said Angelina, right?

Giacomo:

As the fourth, right?

Dani:

Angeline won a fourth. Yeah. That was the four tridents.

Giacomo:

Yep.

Dani:

Which Andrew Keys came over from England, as did Tom Butts.

Giacomo:

Tom butts hurt himself and he still won his weight class. And he was so pissed. He’s like, I forget, do you know what the injury was in specific? That he sustained whatever blow he took. Regardless, he was pissed because he’s like, I think he was a little out of practice because he wasn’t used to whatever they were doing here compared to what they usually set him up to compete in, in the UK.

And he just wasn’t prepared, and he felt like if he didn’t get hurt, he probably could have placed even better. But he still wound up winning his weight class, which is crazy.

Dani:

Yeah, it’s, and I can’t imagine competing with the jet lag of being across the world like it was. The strongman team was fantastic. Our bodybuilding team was, for the first time ever. Ever. It was an all female bodybuilding team, which has. That’s never happened.

Giacomo:

It’s wild.

Dani:

Yeah, it was kind of neat. We had men on the team, and then for various reasons, they had to drop out. So we ended up with six women on the team. And I, I think thus far, it was our most competitive team as a whole.

Giacomo:

Right.

Dani:

Okay. Evelyn Santos flew up from Brazil. She was probably the highlight of the entire team for everybody, I think. Yeah, she flew up from Brazil. She spoke very little English, although her English got better, like every hour, really. She was there.

Giacomo:

It was crazy.

Dani:

And she won the amateur Miss America bikini, which means she is now a.

Giacomo:

Pro, which in six different organizations, which.

Dani:

I mean, I knew what was gonna happen as soon as I saw her. I was like, oh, we got, didn’t.

Giacomo:

Make it any less exciting.

Dani:

So that was really exciting to see that. We also had Maddie McConnell, who won. There’s like three enormous natural bodybuilding shows.

Giacomo:

She just finished a yore in which she took first overall in the pro division in figure. And she came to Mister America with.

Dani:

Us and, and she got second. I think maybe that could, maybe that could have gone the other way.

Giacomo:

Judging is highly subjective in bodybuilding. So you don’t really know how the scoring is gonna go. You can’t, you can’t accurately, properly predict what exactly it is that they’re looking for. It’s one of those things. And I feel like the judging at Mister America is a little on the newer side. They’re not quite established with what they’re looking for yet. I’m not even quite sure if they know.

And I think these are my personal feelings, that each not organization, but each competition, those world class platforms and competitors, they’re up against a different kind of look that the judges are going for. And I think we’re still trying to figure out what that is, Mister America, because I think they are too. In all honesty, that’s my perspective.

Dani:

Yeah, they probably have judges from all these different organizations that are looking for something slightly different. And I think they got to iron the kinks out for that, because Mister America is an unsanctioned bodybuilding show, which is unusual in and of itself. But it’s neat because you get all the best athletes from all of the natural organizations together.

It was super, super tight between first and second place, and they both looked absolutely incredible. I think it could have been like literally a coin toss. Correct as to which one of them.

Giacomo:

And that’s just how it goes. Right? Well, you’ll have an athlete who could theoretically win first again and again and again. But you’ll have two athletes just like that go head to head at different world class events, and they’ll trade off between each other, back and forth, back and forth. You see it in bodybuilding all the time.

Dani:

It’s a body. That’s. I think that’s why bodybuilding is a tough sport for a lot of people to swallow. Because in powerlifting, you lift the weight or you don’t lift the weight. In strongman, you know, you get the time or you don’t get it, kettlebell. You get the reps or you don’t. Bodybuilding, it’s like, it’s so.

It’s like, oh, well, this one maybe had a slightly better shape, or this one had better shoulders, but the other one had better hamstrings. And it gets, it gets really kind of messy. So you can’t, in bodybuilding in particular, you cannot take the placings too, too seriously.

Giacomo:

Of course, it’s hard not to, because it’s human nature to look for reason and to find something to blame. Even though you’re saying, you know, what could I have done differently? You start to, because there’s no clear cut rules, just like there are in other sports. It’s not you versus the amount of weight you lifted. It’s an entirely different thing. Right.

So it can get real tricky. And then you have bodybuilders who are dieted down and the stakes are high, and it’s really hard to, with sportsmanship and class and poise and patience. Even when you think about it to yourself, whether you’re discussing it with your coach or your friends or this or that, it’s hard not to take it personally. It really is.

Dani:

Well, nobody goes out there to not win, exactly. But you could. I mean, I’ve seen many times someone shows up with the best physique and they don’t win.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Or like, you know, some of the placings are kind of messed up, in my opinion. But again, because it’s so subjective.

Giacomo:

It happens.

Dani:

It happens all the time.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

So you just can’t get too hurt by it on paper.

Giacomo:

I am interested in seeing how Maddie places at world because she’s. I think this is her first year doing it where she’s literally going to the three best shows in the world. Back to. Back to back. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a bucket list item for her before she goes to get knee surgery next year.

Then who knows where she’ll be after that? I’m assuming back to competing, but, yeah, we’ll be watching her and seeing how she places at the third. She first and then second. And however she places in a couple.

Dani:

Months from now, not even Di, who is also brazilian. She lives in New Jersey. She competed in pro wellness, and she brought the most insane package I have ever seen her bring.

Giacomo:

She blew last year’s package out of the water, and she was dangerous last year. She popped out there.

Dani:

Yeah, she was still dangerous this year.

Giacomo:

Oh, yeah. Even more so if you go.

Dani:

Just look at her instagram page. It’s pretty jaw dropping, like she has a shape that doesn’t seem like it should be achieved by a mere mortal.

Giacomo:

She keeps improving, too.

Dani:

I don’t understand it. I’m like, she must represent the genetic ceiling of what is possible to build in your lower body.

Giacomo:

Yeah, it’s pretty intense.

Dani:

Wellness is not my favorite class because by definition, it is unbalanced. They have much more developed lower bodies than upper bodies. I know a lot of people love that look, but to me, bodybuilding is about balance and wellness. Being unbalanced, by definition, it’s just not my favorite. But, I mean, her look, in my opinion, is just undeniable for the category.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And she wears it well. She has a very strong stage presence. She poses and just put the way that she looks out there, it’s like you belong at the top of the pack every single time, basically.

Dani:

Then we had Shelley, who competed with us last year as well. She is a goddess. Yeah, I’m pretty convinced.

Giacomo:

Oh, yes.

Dani:

I forget how old Shelley is. I want to say she’s, like, 51. I know. I remember. I think it was last year. She said she was 50, so maybe she’s 51.

Giacomo:

At least 50, because I believe she can compete in Masters 50 plus.

Dani:

And she looks like Jessica Rabbit, who trained Roger Rabbit.

Giacomo:

Yes.

Dani:

In the best way possible. She looked amazing out there. She competed in Masters figure, which is over 35, which don’t get me started on that bullshit. I was thinking about that a lot this weekend. Masters used to be 40 plus and then they changed masters to 35 plus for women only.

Giacomo:

I could understand it in untested divisions and organizations where the enhancement from peds ages everyone. I mean, I still think it’s discriminatory because they don’t do that to men.

Dani:

Exactly. First of all, that’s my beef, first of all.

Giacomo:

But at least they have an, like, I don’t want to give them any excuses. They might have an excuse. I still think, like, you, that’s. That’s B’s.

Dani:

Yeah. But also, I think it’s really just shitty to start pretending 35 years old is, like, old not cool at all. I actually think there should be, like, 40 to 50 category, 50 to 60 category. I understand that at some shows that would mean, like, a class of one person or two people, and that’s a boring show to watch. But anybody can also compete in the open.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

And that’s anybody.

Giacomo:

Yep.

Dani:

And of course, Alice, coach Alice also went up there in women’s pro bikini, and she looked amazing. We peaked, like, beautifully. Yeah, she just. She really brought it. She brought a great look, a look we could be really, really proud of. She’s definitely earned herself the off season that she’s going into right now. And of course, my client Tammy, who competed in classic figure, which is a figure category that’s in a one piece suit.

They’re like these beautiful velvet one pieces with, like, cutouts through the abdomen area. I’m not, like, I’m not into the glitz and the glam of the competitions, but those suits are, like, stunning. And she looked so good. And her goal was, this was her first pro show that she ever competed in, which, you know, she had earned her pro card and we had to.

Her goal was to come back with more muscle, and we did. I want to say that since the. Since we started together, I want to say she put on, like, four pounds of muscle and she’s 5ft flat. So, like, that’s a significant amount for a five foot tall 58 year old woman to put on. And I went to the gym with her for her final workout and I got a bunch of videos of it.

And, I mean, she, like, 5ft tall, she’s like 103 pounds. She’s tiny. And she did, like, eight pull ups. And she was curling a 50 pound barbell and 58 years old, depleted 103 pounds. Good Lord. I was watching her, like, man, I need to up my game a little bit here. It was just awesome. And she left no stone unturned, so pretty cool stuff. And finally, we can talk about kettlebell. So Kettlebell spores. So many people don’t know what Kettlebell sport is. They have no idea. It is a series of

lifts. So, I mean, most people know what a kettlebell swing is. People use kettlebells in the gym on a regular basis to do things like presses and curls and turkish getups. No, no, that’s not what kettlebell sport is. Kettlebell sport is, I think, three lifts. There’s a. A clean and jerk with either one arm or two arms. There’s a jerk, which is just from your chest up over and over. And there’s a snatch, which is from, you know, like a kettlebell cycle.

Giacomo:

It’s called a clean and jerk alongside, correct?

Dani:

Yes. They call it one arm and two arm.

Giacomo:

Long cycle.

Dani:

Long cycle. And they compete in. There’s all these different lengths of time, 510 and 30. I want to say, I think the most classic amount of time is a.

Giacomo:

Ten minute set, and 30 is called a marathon.

Dani:

And they do as they pick the weight that they are going to use, and they do as many reps as they can in that time, in ten minutes. And if it is a two handed thing, they can’t put the weight down, not once. If it’s a one handed event and it’s ten minutes, they can change hands once. If it’s a 30 minutes event, they can change hands as many times as they want. But we are talking about 30 straight minutes of one movement with a kettlebell.

Giacomo:

Well, here’s the other interesting component here. There is a cap on reps. I don’t know if it’s for all.

Dani:

Of their events, it’s not for all of them.

Giacomo:

But certain events have a cap where you are not allowed to go past a certain amount of reps, because at some point, that’s the amount that you should do. And now you should focus on perfect form. So they literally watch them and they want their form to just continue to improve versus just cranking out more reps. And we have more than one athlete that can hit the cap.

And that’s not an easy thing to do, obviously. That’s like the peak. That’s, like, as good as you could possibly be. And now you gotta just. How pristine can you be to achieve technical mastery? And they watch this stuff. It’s pretty. It’s a pretty interesting sport. It’s really intense, actually.

Dani:

It’s kind of. To me, it reminds me of marathon running or distance running, but with weights, like, you need the same mentality that you would need to do distance running, of just like, almost zoning out and putting 1ft in front of the other, no matter what.

Giacomo:

Yes.

Dani:

But it’s with weights, and that is so fascinating to me. You know, it’s sometimes very interesting to watch, like, the final minute or two of each set or even the final five minutes of a 30 minutes set. There was a relay at one point where it was five team members, and they each did a lift for two minutes straight as hard as they could. That was my favorite thing to watch, but it is.

It’s insane. And they do all this weird math to come up with the scores. So that’s. At that point, it then eludes me. I don’t understand how they are scoring things. I know we won a lot of first places. We won 17. I want to say I think we won best lifter. Right. Jennifer Hintenberger was best lifter.

Giacomo:

Yes.

Dani:

And Sara Lee, who’s the captain of the team, was most weight lifted, and she lifted just under 40,000 pounds.

Giacomo:

She’s so humble, too. You would never know what in 55 minutes? How many pounds in under 55 minutes.

Dani:

It was like 39,500 and something in 55 minutes. That’s insane.

Giacomo:

Justin made a comeback. When Justin Karstetter initially joined our team, was it while he was on our team or right before he was on our team, where he had the accident that affected his ability to lift?

Dani:

It was while he was on our team.

Giacomo:

While he was on our team, he got into a really bad accident, and he had to get some artificial stuff put in his body, some metal, essentially, and he. He was no longer able to do Kettlebell, and it put him out of commission. He kept exercising, but he just could not lift regularly. He could not compete.

Dani:

They didn’t even know if he was going to walk again.

Giacomo:

And this man, this athlete of ours, found a way to persevere, and he kept going. And he got to the point where he was able to step on stage with us as a bodybuilder because he couldn’t compete. He knew he couldn’t compete in Kettlebell, but he was able to get himself to a place where he could get lean and somewhat muscular, not enough to, like, compete and win, but enough to go out there and not only not embarrass himself to actually look decent, like, look the part.

Right. I think it’s still a little hard for him to pose because his body sort of limited range of motion wise, but as far as how he looked out there, it was pretty damned impressive, considering he was at a place where he was possibly, like, never going to walk again. That’s what the doctors were telling him. And then I remember getting, putting the feelers out there to see which one of our athletes wanted to compete again before we started scouting for new athletes.

And justin said, hey, guess what? I said, what? He goes, I’m gonna compete in Kettlebell sport again. I was like, are you kidding me? I was like, I thought you were never. He’s like, yeah. He’s like, it turns out my body’s in good enough shape to do it. So to see him have a full come around ten years later to his sport of choice. Oh, my gosh. Like, just. What an incredible athlete. Incredible person.

Dani:

That was cool. And because he wasn’t on prep and all dieted down, we got to have better conversations. Also, because. No brain fog. hmm. We also had several international athletes on the kettlebell team.

Giacomo:

Oh, yes.

Dani:

Jennifer Hintenberger and her mother from Canada. Steven riddles from Canada.

Giacomo:

Yes. Tim Bell from Canada.

Dani:

Tim Bella. No, Tim Bell is from Canada. Are you certain?

Giacomo:

I’m not certain.

Dani:

So he’s from the UK. He’s from UK.

Giacomo:

No, that’s Nicholas Dick.

Dani:

Oh, yeah, he’s right. He’s right. Yeah. Tim Bell’s from Canada. Nicholas Thicke is from the UK.

Giacomo:

Yes. Tim is definitely from Canada, too.

Dani:

And, you know, without understanding all of the scoring, I know we won a lot of first places.

Giacomo:

I am. Particularly, to me, this is the year of Kettlebell, because we have been unsuccessfully trying to find a organization that wants to, wanted to put on a highly competitive kettlebell sport event to go to. And we have been unsuccessful at pooling together a team of vegan Kettlebell sport lifters. And we have been trying desperately to do this for, like, ten plus years straight. And finally, finally, friends, we have had. We now have had our time with, and believe it or not,

we have already been looking into and have connected with vegan Kettlebell Sport lifters for 2025. This team should get even better. So, to me, this was what we’ve been looking for all along in kettlebell. We finally got our due at an event that was highly competitive with some of the most competitive kettlebell sport lifters in the world. To spoiler alert, they’re vegan. No surprise there.

Dani:

So we do this. Well, one, it’s a ton of fun. Like, just to have all these people together and every new person you meet is like, you’ve known them forever. That’s mind blowing. As, like, a crazy introvert. It’s never not true. And also, you know, the real reason we’re there is to show people that you can build muscle, be compet, be a competitive strength athlete as a vegan, as a drug free vegan, it’s, you know, as much as times are changing, it’s still a pervasive message in a lot of

parts of the world that you can’t do it as a vegan. So trying to find these big competitions to go to as a huge group and show, no, no, no. It’s not just one person with great genetics that’s. That’s winning. Like, it’s a lot.

Giacomo:

The funny thing to me is we do this year after year and we continue to dominate, and it’s like, well, what do we have left to prove? We’ve already done it. And it’s almost like part of me is like, this is kind of silly, but then I turn around, I’m like, oh, no, it’s not. Because not only are we dominating, we’re getting even better at it.

And I still don’t have the full medal count here from everything we’ve done as a team, on the whole, I just know what we did at Mister America, which is we took 48 1st place medals, 55 medals in total, 67 records, one being world and one being national, in powerlifting for tridents in strongman.

Dani:

That’s one of the first place medals. Yeah, those count towards the first place medals.

Giacomo:

Right, but we have, like, some extras here.

Dani:

But there were only 36 all over the place. Best of, there were only 36 athletes at this particular event, and we took home 48 1st place medals. Like, that was pretty badass, I think.

Giacomo:

And I think to myself, like, can we do any better than this? Like, is there anything better than this? Is it even possible? The answer is yes.

Dani:

Yes, there is.

Giacomo:

I can’t believe it, but it’s true.

Dani:

Are we gonna be able to find all of those sports at one event? No, probably not. And that is kind of the bittersweet thing, is, we’re debating. We may have to split the team. Like, we split off CrossFit this year to get them to a better competition. We are probably gonna have to do it again if we want to keep making sure that these athletes, you know, like, the powerlifting meet, they kind of showed up and competed against.

No, like, very few people. Correct again. They set national records and stuff, so it’s still very impressive. But we want them to be competing against people. They want to compete against people. So I feel like we’re gonna have to split up the team, so we make sure people get to go to the best competitions they can, which is sad, personally.

Giacomo:

Yes. But on the flip side of the coin here, we will have the capability to compete in the summer and in the fall, which will give us a chance to have the good times rolling year round. And I think it will give us some good momentum and give us a chance to just continue to make noise throughout the year as opposed to like, that one big thing that we do.

Dani:

Because part of the message is not just to the people at the event, which it is. Part of it is re hyping these athletes up so that they go home excited and, you know, continue to talk about this message and what it is we do. But also when we make this big spectacle, we get more media attention, which helps to spread that

message further and wider. I mean, in the last year or so, we’ve had four Business Insider articles written about the team and various team members. And that’s just one example.

Giacomo:

Fox picked us up, some local newspaper and tv outlets picked up several of the athletes on the team already this past week alone. Some vegan media, like plant based news, for example. And we are just getting started. And it’s not what we’re gonna put out there.

Dani:

It’s not an ego thing.

Giacomo:

No.

Dani:

Although, of course, it’s cool to see something that you built in, something like the Huffington Post or whatever, detectivism. You know, hopefully there’s some kid out there or young adult who’s like, thinking about going vegan, but afraid they’re going to lose their gains. And then they see that and they’re like, oh, huh, let me look into this more. Like, that’s what it’s all about. That’s literally what it’s all about.

Giacomo:

We want to cast as wide of a net as possible. We want to reach people from the far reaches of the world in every and any way possible. And so we just continue to spread as opposed to putting that message out there in the most likely spots, like sports alone or vegan media alone, or going all over the place. Like, for example, in just nine days, we’ll be at the New York City marathon being exposed to about 100,000 people.

A large part of those individuals are ones that are running the New York City Marathon, and others are supporters of the marathon or fans of the marathon and the runners. And that’s the first time we’re doing that event. And it’s like, how many people can we reach? And we’ll have this quick little three minute highlight reel of everything that we did playing on loop at our Vegan Strong table.

And with that, we’ll be able to have conversations and make a transactional where we can exchange information, hopefully reach more people in person, too. And this team, our plant built team, gives us the opportunity to do that. They give us something to talk about.

Dani:

I also just want to give a quick shout out to all the volunteers that were, we cannot pull this event off without the volunteers.

Giacomo:

It takes a lot of selflessness to be a part of an experience in that particular way, because you really have to push hard, right? Because you have to make sure that not only the athletes are comfortable and performing well, that they’re. What they’re doing at the moment is captured properly. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of responsibility.

Dani:

So Athena was in charge. Like, she’s the one in charge of all the volunteers, which is amazing. Ben and Sawyer, poor Sawyer.

Giacomo:

We shout out our friend Jimmy over here.

Dani:

Jimmy, our best friend at home where we live. Jimmy and Sawyer came down, and they drove the vans, which is the hardest job of the entire event. Brandon and Bradley came out and helped. Alice’s boyfriend, Carson, was super helpful.

Giacomo:

Alexandra, Jerry’s partner. We had scorekeepers this time around, so that the second everything was done, all the medals were tallied up. When we could instantly capture that, like, on site and talk about it and push it out there.

Dani:

Mike, Tammy’s husband. Ethan, Maddie’s husband.

Giacomo:

Did you say Carson already, too?

Dani:

I did say Carson. Okay. But we just. We had so much help, and I know Dave and Tammy wanted to be there, but they couldn’t make it because of the Florida storm.

Giacomo:

Heartbreaking.

Dani:

It was heartbreaking. But, you know, luckily, the people we had were still able to pull everything off together and very, very grateful for that. And we got to have our awesome meet up the days before plant built as well, sans Christina. Again, the storm in Florida kept her.

Giacomo:

Away, which is also sad.

Dani:

But we did get to sit down and plan a ton of social media content for you guys, like YouTube podcasts for next year, and very pumped about.

Giacomo:

Which now is the time. So if you’re listening or watching right now and you have something in specific, a spark, if you will, and an idea of what you want us to talk about, now is the time before we lay it out for 2025. But that being said, whenever you have an idea, if you throw it out there, there’s a decent chance we’ll be able to talk about, create something around your idea, especially if it’s a good one.

Dani:

I hope you guys can see the beautiful foliage behind us as we’re driving at freaking 20 miles an hour on the highway.

Giacomo:

Don’t start.

Dani:

We’re not even. I just. I just realized we’re not even in Connecticut yet.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I don’t do well in the future.

Dani:

My good lord.

Giacomo:

I gotta get better at that.

Dani:

Oi. Yay. Oi.

Giacomo:

Well, we’re on the subject of thank yous, our sponsors, because without our sponsors, we are also not able to do this. And these are companies that have moral and ethical belief in our compassionate team of athletes, so much so that they’re willing to sponsor us. Some companies, it’s not. It’s not about marketing per se to them. It’s about what we’re doing, and they want to be a part of it.

And to me, that’s huge. And our three main sponsors, maybe I’m losing count here, but we have Plantfusion, who is our longest running sponsor. They were the first ones to back us way back in the day when no other company was willing to or interested in. They were like, yep, yep. What you all are doing? Like, we believe in this. Like, let’s do this thing.

They gave us the ability to donate to farm sanctuaries, for example. They supply the team with protein awesome company Altima, the electrolyte hydrator company. And their stuff is really good, too. And they’ve been sponsoring us for a while. I remember talking to them, like, if there’s one good thing that we do outside of business, it’s like, we’re going to do some put.

We’re going to put something good out there in the world and it’s going to be sponsoring you all and we’re going to stick with it. And they’ve been with us for several years now. And then. Hodo. Hodo? Tofu. And I remember falling in love with their chef, Henry at the expo. I was like, what a sweetheart of a man. And honestly, he’s what really hooked me to the company.

Dani:

And it’s too bad because he doesn’t work there anymore.

Giacomo:

That’s okay. He’s. His spirit is still there and my heart’s with the company, honestly.

Dani:

Largely, they’re tofu. Okay, so this is. I would say this if. I would say this if they weren’t sponsoring us. They make something called an all day scramble, which is tofu, but it tastes like eggs. You don’t even have to cook it. I just mixed it with some veganaise and salt and pepper and made sandwiches, like egg salad sandwiches out of it. So it’s not just egg, it’s literally tofu.

But definitely check that out if you could find it. But they also. Their regular extra firm. I don’t even know if it’s called extra firm. Their regular tofu is so firm. It’s like super duper firm. If you like your tofu firm, that’s the stuff. Hodo’s tofu is firmer than Wildwood. It’s firmer than the trader Joe’s stuff. Hodos tofu. And it’s got better macros too.

Giacomo:

And I also just want to say thank you to all the sponsors over the years in general because it’s hard to continue to support something. But we have had many companies over the years who have helped propel what we do, and I believed in what we do. So thank you for all y’all out there.

Dani:

All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Vegan Proteins muscles by Brussels Radio. If there’s anything you want to hear us talk about in 2025 on the podcast, you better put it in the comments down below or shoot us an email.

Coacheganproteins.com interested in any kind of one on one coaching? Veganproteins.com comma. Fill out a coaching application. You’ll hear from one of us. Once again, my name is Dani. And I’m Giacomo and we will talk to you soon. Bye.