Blaine Sumner squatted 1,135 pounds, and the discipline behind that squat is exactly how we invest: live below your means, and never be desperate for a deal. I sat down with my husband, the Vanilla Gorilla, for a raw, unedited conversation. I asked him everything nobody asks him, from the chicken shakes to how we've approached real estate investing for 10 years without a real loss.
Blaine Sumner Squatted 1,135 lbs: How We Invest in Real Estate
The short version
Live below your means, and never be desperate for a deal. That's the whole playbook.
Blaine's squat of 1,135 pounds is an IPF world record, and he was the first lifter in any federation to bench over 1,000 pounds in single-ply gear.
He ranks our investments: triple net commercial first, then flips, storage units, land, and residential rentals last.
With $50,000 and a job you don't love, he'd start with a single-family home or a duplex.
For couples, one chief per decision keeps two strong personalities from fighting.
In Campbell County, there were 16% fewer homes for sale from January through August 2026 than the same months of 2025.
Who is Blaine Sumner?
Blaine Sumner is a three-time IPF World Champion powerlifter known as the Vanilla Gorilla, a petroleum engineer with a master's degree from the Colorado School of Mines, and my husband. We'll be married 10 years this December.
Here's what's on his record, and every lift was done drug tested:
Squat: 1,135 pounds (515 kg) in competition, an IPF world record set in March 2020. In training, he's squatted over 1,200.
Bench: in March 2019, he became the first lifter in any federation to bench over 1,000 pounds in single-ply gear, with 1,003.
World titles: IPF Classic World gold in 2012, and IPF Open World titles in 2016 and 2019.
Football: he started four years at nose tackle for Mines, then put up 225 pounds 52 times at his 2011 pro day, which topped the NFL Combine record.
And he was a 145-pound freshman wrestler. He'll tell you himself he's genetically tall and lanky. Everything he built, he built on purpose.
He's not 400 pounds anymore, by the way. He's sitting across from me in this interview at 285, and he's still benching a little over 600. When he trains in a public gym on the road, people's jaws hit the floor. I'm not kidding.
What does a 1,135-pound squat have to do with real estate?
A 1,135-pound squat and a good real estate portfolio come from the same thing: a willingness to pay the price now for a bigger prize later. Blaine will sacrifice comfort today for a result years out, and that's exactly what investing asks of you. Honestly, it's the thing I admire most about him.
Okay, you want proof? To get up to 400 pounds, he had to eat more than he could physically chew, so he blended it. Chicken shakes. Rice shakes. He'd get about 10,000 calories down in two minutes of chugging a day, and he'd have to psych himself up to keep them down. I've still got texts saved where I'm hyping him up before a shake. Wild. But that's the whole mindset. If it gets you where you're going, you do the uncomfortable thing and you don't complain about it.
He's also got what we call the switch. It's the thing that turns Blaine into the Vanilla Gorilla before a heavy lift, kind of like Banner turning into the Hulk. It takes a few minutes, and it's incredible to watch. I don't think people realize it's the same focus he brings to everything else.
He spent years in the WADA whereabouts system, too. That meant telling the World Anti-Doping Agency where he'd be, every day, three months ahead, with a guaranteed one-hour window for testing. Testers showed up at our door at night, sometimes from across the country. He never once complained about that either. That's the kind of man he is.
Why did he live in the cheapest apartment on six figures?
Blaine lived in the cheapest apartment he could find while making six figures because anything that pulled his attention away from training felt like a distraction. When I met him, he had a mattress in the corner of the bedroom, a cardboard box for a nightstand, and a dresser so crooked I named it the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
I loved it instantly, because I lived way below my means too, and that's rare at our age. Most people move up the second their income does. Blaine said it best: if you don't live below your means, you can't invest at all, ever, whether it's real estate or stocks. That's step one. He'll tell you now he probably should've paid another hundred bucks a month for a nicer place, and he's probably right. The real lesson's that he didn't need stuff, and he didn't let his lifestyle grow just because his paycheck did.
How do we pick real estate deals?
We pick deals by only buying when there's enough room in the numbers for a good profit even if things go sideways. Blaine calls his side science and mine art.
He's an engineer, so on our first few flips he built a spreadsheet: purchase price, detailed contractor quotes, a conservative sale price, time, and scope creep. If a remodel's quoted at 25 grand, what happens when it turns into 30 or 35? After two or three deals, the numbers kept landing where I said they would, and he stopped building the spreadsheet.
In Blaine's words, I've got my thumb on this market tighter than anybody. I know what a property can be bought and sold for here, what buyers want, and what contractors actually cost, and I do that math in my head within a few minutes of seeing a listing.
I'll admit it, I don't put numbers to paper. That's the part that drives most engineers crazy. But it's also why I can move fast when the right one comes up, and in this market, you can't wait around.
How have we never taken a real loss in 10 years?
We've never taken a real loss because we're never desperate for a deal. We only buy when there's a lot of wiggle room, and we stay patient and ready instead of forcing it. Trust me, it's not luck, and it's not magic.
Blaine put it as chess versus checkers, and that's sweet of him. But I'll be honest with you, the way I was honest with him on camera. There'll eventually be one that doesn't work, because that's real estate. The discipline isn't that you never miss. It's that you only swing at deals with enough cushion that a miss doesn't hurt you. And we don't get attached. If a deal doesn't pencil, we don't buy it, and we don't talk ourselves into it. That's harder than it sounds.
How does Blaine rank real estate investments?
Blaine ranks commercial triple net leases as our best investment, then flips, storage units, land, and residential rentals and Airbnbs last. He's ranking on everything together: effort, time, and profit.
1. Triple net commercial: the most hands-off and the highest reward, and also the highest risk.
2. Flips: strong returns when the buy's right.
3. Storage units.
4. Land: less profitable, but it barely takes any time.
5. Residential rentals and Airbnbs: the most calls, the most upkeep, and the widest range of tenants.
That ranking's his, based on what we own, and it's honest. Yours might look totally different depending on your time, your money, and how much of a landlord you want to be.
What is a triple net lease?
A triple net lease is a commercial lease where the tenant pays the property's taxes, insurance, and upkeep on top of rent, so the owner doesn't. The tenant's usually a business, ideally a bigger one, and the leases often run five years or longer.
In a blue-collar town like Gillette, it's a smart fit. Coal and oil field companies need shops, the services that support them need shops, and the services behind those need shops too. Blaine called it its own little micro-economy.
Here's the risk, and he didn't sugarcoat it. The payment on a commercial building is way bigger than a house. His example was a million-dollar building with a payment of 10 or 12 grand a month. That's his illustration, not a quote. If that building sits empty for a few months, you're carrying the whole thing. The contracts usually have more teeth than a residential lease, which helps, but nothing about it is guaranteed.
I'll be honest, that was my biggest worry going in: could we keep it full? What's helped is the kind of tenant these buildings attract. It's usually an established company with a lot to lose by walking away.
Is owning ten rentals different from owning one?
Owning ten rentals is mostly different in how many calls you get. With ten, you get ten times the burned-out lights and busted water heaters, so the real question is whether you'll build systems or hire someone to manage it.
Hiring help's going to cost you part of the monthly profit. So how many doors you want really comes down to how much of your own time you want to spend. Some tenants call about a light bulb. Others rent from you for five years, keep the lawn perfect, and fix the water heater themselves. You'll get both. We've seen every kind.
Where should you start with $50,000 in Gillette, Wyoming?
With $50,000 and a job you don't love, Blaine would start with a single-family home or a duplex in Gillette, because it's a property type you already understand and maintaining it isn't much different from maintaining your own house.
His reasoning is local. In his view, there's more demand for housing here than supply, and our MLS backs that up. In Campbell County, there were 16% fewer homes for sale from January through August 2026 than in the same months of 2025, per Northeast Wyoming MLS data. Fewer homes means more people competing for the ones that are there, whether they're buying or renting.
Then, his words: find the best real estate agent in Gillette and tell her what you're looking for. I'm going to let that one stand. He didn't even blink when he said it.
Should you buy a house instead of renting in Gillette?
Blaine's answer now is buy a house as soon as you can, if you'll be somewhere at least a couple of years. Instead of sending rent to somebody else, you're paying into your own property, and real estate generally appreciates over time.
He'll also tell you he was too scared of a mortgage to buy one himself back in that apartment. What changed his mind was me explaining real estate as a vehicle for his money, and, honestly, him trying to impress a girl. We bought our first little house together in Edmond, Oklahoma.
In a town this size, with this little inventory, renting first to figure it out usually doesn't work. Like I said on camera, you're probably not going to find a good rental anyway, and buying gives you something that can return what you paid in.
Should couples invest in real estate together?
Couples can invest together, but only if they live below their means the same way and agree on who leads each decision. Blaine's rule is "one chief." Whoever's the chief on something runs it, and the other one goes along with a good attitude.
We learned that early, because we're both very alpha. We couldn't hang a curtain rod together without a tiff. On our investments, I'm the chief, and he doesn't question my sale price any more than I'd question his frack job.
We also keep our money separate and split everything 50/50, and it's worked for us. But Blaine's biggest point is bigger than us. It doesn't have to be your spouse. Be careful who you invest with, and pick a partner with the same mindset about money. For us, marrying each other was the best investment either of us ever made. I'm lucky, and I know it. He's never once made me feel bad about working all the time, because he gets the obsession. He's been there.
What's the Gillette market doing right now?
Gillette's market is tight right now. Inventory's low, and good homes move fast in every price range, so you can't just go look and sleep on it. If you sleep on it, you're not going to be sleeping in it.
When we filmed, I said rates had been sitting in the mid-sixes most of the year. They've moved since. Freddie Mac's 30-year average hit 7.03% on September 24, 2026. If you're thinking about buying, run your numbers at today's rate, not the one you remember.
If you'd like to talk through your first rental, your first home, or your next deal, call me at 307-682-7767. And, as Blaine likes to say, do what Jess says.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Blaine Sumner?
Blaine Sumner is a three-time IPF World Champion powerlifter known as the Vanilla Gorilla. He set an IPF world record with a 1,135-pound squat, was the first lifter in any federation to bench over 1,000 pounds in single-ply gear, and works as a petroleum engineer in Gillette, Wyoming.
What is Blaine Sumner's best squat?
Blaine Sumner's best competition squat is 1,135 pounds (515 kg), an IPF world record set in March 2020 at the Arnold Sports Festival.
Is Blaine Sumner drug tested?
Yes. Blaine competed in the IPF and USA Powerlifting, which are drug-tested federations, and he's spent years in the World Anti-Doping Agency's whereabouts program, reporting where he'd be every day so testers could find him.
What is a triple net lease?
A triple net lease is a commercial lease where the tenant pays the property's taxes, insurance, and maintenance in addition to rent. Tenants are usually businesses on longer terms, and the main risk for the owner is carrying the full payment if the building sits empty.
What is a good first investment property in Gillette, Wyoming?
For most people, a single-family home or a duplex. It's a property type you already understand, and the upkeep isn't much different from maintaining your own home.
Is Gillette, Wyoming a good place to own a rental property?
Housing inventory is tight in Gillette. Campbell County had 16% fewer homes for sale from January through August 2026 than in the same months of 2025, per Northeast Wyoming MLS data, which keeps demand strong for the homes that are available.
Should I buy a house or rent in Gillette, Wyoming?
If you'll be in Gillette for at least a couple of years, buying usually makes more sense than renting, because your payment's going toward a home you'll own. Inventory is tight, so a good rental can be hard to find anyway.
Should married couples invest in real estate together?
They can, if they've got the same approach to money and agree on who leads each decision. Blaine and Jess use a "one chief" rule, where one person runs each decision and the other supports it.
**This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Views and personal stories Blaine shares in this interview are his own and don't reflect the views of 411 Properties. 411 Properties is committed to fair housing and serves every client equally under federal and Wyoming fair housing laws. Equal Housing Opportunity.
About the author
Jessica "Jess" LaCour is the Broker/Owner of 411 Properties LLC in Gillette, Wyoming, and she's been in real estate since 2014. RealTrends Verified ranked her #1 in Gillette by sales volume and transaction sides, and #1 in Wyoming by transaction sides, on 2025 sales. RealTrends counts residential transactions only, so her land, commercial, and investment deals aren't in those numbers. She's been the top producer in the Northeast Wyoming REALTOR® Alliance MLS every year since 2019. She holds the CRS, RENE, and New Construction Certified designations, and she serves as President and Chair of the NEWRA Board of Directors for 2025 and 2026. She helps buyers, sellers, and investors in Gillette, Wright, Moorcroft, Pine Haven, Sundance, Newcastle, and across Campbell, Crook, and Weston Counties. Call 411 Properties at 307-682-7767. Wyoming license RE-13305.