YouSaid · the spoken record
Devon Larratt
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- 131
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- 2022-02-16
- most recent
- 2022-02-16
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- 1
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“There's definitely strategies that you can do depending on who it is you're facing. It's very good to know who it is you're fighting and choose the correct strategy mentally. Always follow a process when it comes to my mental preparation. When I'm far away from an event, I just always build up my opponent, build them, I build them, I respect them, to a point where I almost start to fear them and start to believe that they'll beat me. And this is a very vital part of my preparation. And that's where I am right now with Levon. I just build him up, build them up into this thing that scares me. And it forces me to be responsible, you know, because I don't want to lose. I want to win. So the greater my opponent, the greater I can build their worth in my mind, the more motivation it gives me. Then there comes a point when it changes.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably we'll get into that, but I only train my right arm. That's it. Yeah, with homework. But back to full body, it is full body. My good friend Matt Mask Wenny arm-wrestled me. He actually blew his internal abductor in his leg. So, yeah, people walk away from tournament, their calves can be sore sometimes. It happens. But no, oh, there he is right there. Yeah. Oh, like he is a real life hellboy. He's like 170 pounds there. Look at his arm. Look at his arm.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's all about the forearm and the actions of the hand. That's always the limiting factor. You look at a guy like Oleg Zock. Okay, do you know this guy? Oleg Zoc. Marvelous. He's at total hellboy. He's my inspiration to what I call pumpkin training.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a whole body, the whole body, it's definitely the whole body. Like everything is working. You're connected to the table at times as far as your base. Sometimes your base is your feet, but a lot of times you can base off the table. So you can base off your hips. But I'll tell you. No arm wrestler cares about doing squats. No arm wrestlers doing planks.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Up, up, up into your center, right? You think, what can you control out here? You bring everything close. You want every just that's it. Don't worry about pinning. Pinning happens once it's close to you. Yeah, pinning is people always think about pinning. Don't think about pinning.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This morning, you know, I try to really focus on what's administratively easy. That's a big part of it for me is everything I do. So I just travel with bands. Yeah, I got bands with me. And it's rehabilitative in nature. So I'm really focusing on blood flow, feeling good, doing proper movements. But yeah, just band workout in the hotel.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The climb for me, what I have to change in my life always. People talk about being a professional. I've always loved the sport. I've loved it like crazy. But to me, the path is about simplicity and removal of distractions. I do better and better the more I get rid of everything, nothing else, so that my life is just the goal, just the target. And everything else is off the table. Where there's nothing. There's nothing between me and him”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Commitment is so important in anything that you do, right? Like I always kind of try and bring things to a level of commitment that's uncommon. I think that that's a lot of reasons why I do well is because I just get so committed in the whole process. By the time that I actually show up to fight, I sometimes just wish that they would kill me, you know, I wish that they would because that's what That's how far I want to go like people talk about like how committed are you to the match? Like if you're committed to the match and you lose, you should be hurt. I'm often unhappy when I lose a match and I don't have an injury. I'm like, damn, I'm like, what the fuck? Like I should have didn't commit, you know?”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like to make the sport bigger. And a lot of things that most arm wrestlers Believe the sport is I always try and push those boundaries. So there is definitely a mental aspect to it when you're faced with something that you've never seen before. That's when things like experience comes in, he can become surprised. Where's a surprise for him is routine for me. So my adjustments will be more precise, more accurate. That's how I get in. That's how I get in. Yeah, I play a 30 game.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's the full package. Lavon is, he represents the pinnacle. There's Dennis in the background. He's like, I want to be back in there. Yeah. Lavon has a lot of bases covered. He's, I mean, he's curling 300 pounds with one arm. I mean, the strength that he shows for arm wrestling is so far ahead of the field. It's very, very strong. It's absolutely possible. It's absolutely possible. The one thing that I'm confident about, well, I'd say there's two things. Two things I'm confident about is that I have more experience than he does And experience counts for a lot. The other thing is My ability to breathe and recover. So if ever there's an opportunity for the tide to turn, that's, I think, where you'll never get it back. So I think if I can somehow find a hole in his game, then, yeah.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody's beatable. Everybody's beatable. Levon is incredible. He is what this modern peak of arm wrestling represents.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's perfect. That's perfect. But I'm lucky because I'm in a place that I can handle it. You know, if I was losing or failing, this would not be optimal. But because I'm strong enough, I've been doing it long enough that I can kind of absorb it without damaging me, this is perfect. This is perfect. I typically, when I'm training up for a very serious match, I'll try and do that three or four times a week. And then the days in between, I will just do blood flow rehab. Blood flow rehab. I will never hit a PR, a record. I'll never do it anymore. Don't do it. I used to. A lot of things changed. That's why I say there's a lot of ways to do it. This is currently a system that's working very well for me.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It must have been hundreds of matches. The bar was full. Yeah. And that for me is a perfect training scenario. Yeah. So if I go in and just kind of be, I'm like a lightning rod and I just absorb everything that I can get from people, you know, all their effort.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, again, it's going to depend on what level you're at. The answer at the beginning might not be the same. For me, a guy who's been doing it almost 30 years. I have to harvest. I have to harvest energy from clubs. I call it cosmic punch. Sorry to”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do them so that when you add them all together, you get the biggest number. So many easy workouts a day that are specific as possible, in my opinion, is the best way to lay the foundation for an extreme peak. And precision, right? Like there's no more precise way to get strong at arm wrestling than arm wrestle”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that a blended strategy is probably the best. I'd say kind of a rule is whatever you do, you get better at, right? So you want to be kind of as precise as possible. You don't want to get hurt. And it's just about investment. The answer is not always the same. Things are going to change. I am currently a big believer in what I call tower building, right? You have to do a lot of volume to build a great tower. You need to have a ton of volume. So when you look at how to best build volume, you want to do workouts that aren't particularly challenging, that make you feel good.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're all important. You can use everything and you can adjust your strategy based off of the tools that you have. I would say if I could pick ever just one thing to have more of, I would say that it would be strength, gain while fighting.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're making me very hungry, Lex. I've caused more diabetes than probably going to get in trouble karmically for making the world obese.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of camaraderie But we fight like brothers, you know, like so we let each other really fight hard against each other. But so I was, I knew, I mean, strength and mass, they go hand in hand. And I committed to just getting as big and as strong as I could. And literally, I was eating pancakes every day. Bacon, pancakes, every sloppy bit of garbage food I could eat. I was trying to eat healthy also, but if there was garbage food, I'd eat it.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was really sick at the time. I had DVT, I had pulmonary embolism, I was mentally in a terrible place, and I got offered the match and I just totally turned my life around. I committed Really hard. Yeah. And, uh,”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very recent. Yeah. So I got really sick. Yeah, this is the match, right? Awesome match. So this match is for the legacy hammer. So we invented this thing called the Legacy Hammer and Michael took it from me in I think 2018. And then COVID shut everything down. And Michael went overseas to try and set up, because at that time, Michael was a North American champion. He beat me and he went to Dubai and he organized this great big match with Levon. And the whole thing fell apart. Organizers, leagues wouldn't let it happen, but there was still an ability to have a match of significance happen. So Michael's like, who do you want? And like, let's give Devin a rematch. And I'm like,”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's it. Just win and don't talk to me about anything else. If you can win with style, win with style. But don't talk to me about anything but winning. That's the priority.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, I get so passionate about it. I get so angry, you know, because there's this saying like, oh, can you beat him at a hook? Can you beat, man, win?”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the King's move brings him a lot of hate, not from me, not from a lot of people, but a lot of observers have a big problem with the king's move.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The meme. So I think what happened was, so I had a match with Michael Todd. Big match. Michael, great champion. He's another guy who's, you know, he's never going to get off the horse. His elbow is a complete disaster. Probably one of the most loved and hated guys in the sport right now.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. North America is very prized. You know, the North American champion is always highly sought after because they're typically the most famous. Even still when, you know, quite arguably, there's always somebody in Eastern Europe who's just monstrous. It's typically the North American athlete who's more recognized.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The transfer of knowledge became so much faster. People became technically invested. People started to train ideas by, I'd say, Well, probably around the turn of the millennia, I'd say that professional leagues started to slowly pick up, more organized, bigger productions started to attract more athletes. More people took it seriously. By 2010, I'd say there was another jump more serious leagues. A little bit more money. By 2015, more major media, like people were investing a lot of money, like millionaires, billionaires type of people were organizing events, setting up leagues. And yeah, I mean, the past five years, it's just blown up. The techniques, I mean, if I was to go back to when I started. What took me 10 or 15 years to learn? I mean, new guys are showing up and they've got it down in like a year.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So It's hard for me to comment prior to when I came to the sport was kind of mid-90s. Like I've been armresting my whole life, but I wasn't really involved in the sport to a major degree until probably mid-90s. But I'll say that before the mid-90s, it was really hard to get good at arm wrestling, very difficult. Everybody was doing it wrong, really. Like it was really rare to find people who were technically good arm wrestlers. It was very underground. When I got into sport, it was a flyer that came in the mail. You had to know somebody who knew somebody, who knew somebody. And then you go to a club and you can't do anything with these people. And they knew how to arm wrestle. They did. But real masters were rare. And, you know, then internet helped everybody. Communication”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, when you talk about the... The evolution of the sport, he's responsible for so much of it. Like when you talk about, like, a lot of times when you go back like 20 years, 30 years, a lot of us looked at arm wrestling, I think it's, I mean, as something you could kind of do. And he's the first guy who's like, if you want to get better at arm wrestling, you got arm wrestling. And it seems so simple, but he answered so many questions that all of us had about techniques in the sport. Back, you know, pre-video internet. He's been everybody's target for like 40 years.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“John Berzinck is Every arm wrestler's father to a certain degree, all of us. The entire sport looks up to him. It's incredible what he's done. I mean, at 18, he won over the top at 57. He just competed with me a couple months ago, still at the world level, that's 40 years of being at the top of a sport. It's incredible. He's hailed as the greatest of all time in the sport arm wrestling. Yeah.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was actually based off of a real story. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah, the over the top movie, I mean, to a certain degree, that's actually real life. Like that tournament over the top was real. It was literally named over the top. Yes, yes. There was a trucker division. And the guy actually won a truck for reals. His name's John Berzinc. You know who that is, right? So the actual over-the-top tournament, the trucker division was won by John.”
2022-02-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #265 – Devon Larratt: Arm Wrestling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source