Barbell Shrugged - 122- Size, Strength, Steroids and Getting Jacked and Tan w/ Mark Bell and Silent Mike of Super Training

Episode Date: June 11, 2014

Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. There's a show? Now I'm getting nervous. You said there's a show? Where did Dick Lickerson go? That's what I want to know. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Chris Moore. We have CTP behind the camera. We have traveled to Sacramento, California. Hells yeah. Why, you might ask. Well,

the mighty Mark Bell lives here. Yeah, why the fuck are you guys here? Yeah. Quick disclaimer. Quick disclaimer. I have a feeling I have a feeling

the conversation since we've been hanging out with Mark a little bit already today that the conversations might get a little out of control. So if you have small children, you might want to send them to the other room.

Turn your speakers down. Or large, large retarded children too. They might be offended as well. Yeah, maybe turn the volume up. Those little retarded bells. Teach them something. So we're here with Mark Bell. We're also here with Silent Mike.

That's me. All I know is that Silent Mike is really good at making t-shirts. That's all I got right now. Did you time me? How many did I make? You whipped out like 17. 10 in like five minutes-shirts. That's all I got right now. Did you time me? How many did I make? You whipped out like 17. 10 in like five minutes, man.

That's pretty good. Yeah. And you may have noticed that Chris Moore and I are both sporting the Jack and Tan tank tops. The Jack and Tan lifestyle. How much you benched on that? How much you benched on that? Please ignore this giant penis that I have resting on my nose here. Call the microphone.

Mark, can you give the folks at home that might not know who you are just a quick bio of your history here so they can understand why we might have come visit you? Or maybe they'll hear your bio and go, why the fuck are they talking to this guy? They'll probably be pretty interested in it. I don't know. Let's see. It all started when I was two years old i don't even know just sit here and talk about myself well where did your

journey and strength go i guess you you've been power things sounds boring you've been you've been powering since fucking like middle school right i talk about my butthole so yeah i mean what's going on i've had some major butthole problems, and today I'm going to try to really bust it open, wide open on camera today with some good mornings. Define major, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah, major. We're going to train.

All right, so Mark doesn't want to talk about himself, so I'll talk about him a little bit. Power lifter. You've trained all over. I've been at Westside Barbell at one point. Pro wrestler. Some pro wrestling, yep. Pro wrestling. Oiled up.

You jumped off ropes and did did you ever do any flips off the ropes a little bit yeah what was your finisher what was your finisher called the stink bomb the stink bomb

what I don't know you were also once an inline skater yeah that's true I didn't know that shit all true how did you get up

on rollerblades? Some things just fall in line, and I was one of them. Oh, shit. Yeah. How'd you get the nickname? Was it March Smelly? Yeah, Smelly. I just have, well, had two older brothers.

The son of a bitch that gave me the nickname, he's passed. But I just hated to take showers, so that was pretty much it. I hated to take showers, and they're pretty much it. I hated to take showers. And they're like, you smell, you're stinky. And then I'd cry and they thought crying was funny. So that's the nickname. It just stuck. The stench stuck to me.

Stuck from then all the way to here when you asked the question. But I'm Mark Bell. I'm a power lifter, I guess, retired power lifter. I would say now I'm retired from competitive power lifting, but I'm still lifting my face off in the gym, inside Super Training Gym, which we're inside of right now. It's awesome. Super Training Gym started in 2006, and we have been kind of on the front lines of the strength world since that time period. period my boy jim mcd uh started super training dot tv and super training dot tv a lot of people

attached to that because we not only give out information but it's also entertaining at least i think it's entertaining yeah the youtube channel is boss man yeah it's fantastic infotainment we call it talking a lot about buttholes there yeah there's some butthole discussions for sure well we talk a lot about fat guys and we talk a lot about how gay shit gets in this gym because things do get very homosexual and up in here. The other disclaimer is

Mark likes to use the word gay a lot. Don't take offense. It's not disrespectful. It's just the way it is. Hashtag no hetero. No hetero. You got to get everybody

out there, right? Exactly, man. Cover all the bases. But yeah, through Super Training Gym, a lot of uh things have spawned from super training gym such as power magazine uh just something to fill a niche uh in the powerlifting community it's the only strength magazine in the freaking world um also uh the

slingshot was an invention of is an invention of mine uh that has also come from super training gym that motherfuckers try to from Super Training Gym that motherfuckers try to be copying right now. So motherfuckers know who you are. I have some attorneys. I have some attorneys that are fucking strong headed

like a motherfucker and I got some deep pockets and I'll do everything I can to make sure that you motherfuckers burn in hell. So now you know who you are. And you know who you are.

This guy's serious. I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into these products. I mean, they mean a lot to me. It's almost like having another child.

I have two. The slingshot's my third, I guess. Illegitimate child, I guess you'd say. That's something that came out of years and years and years

and years and years of grinding against barbells. Grinding. Grinding, man. I figured out how to keep shit working. Tearing pecks. Did these other guys

tear pecks off to come up with this invention? I don't think so. I tore fucking pecs. Yeah, but these things are designed to keep you in the game. This has been a long journey of hustling in a gym and coming up with tools

that allow you to keep doing what you love, right? This is what shit you just invented off the shelf to fucking make a few bucks or something. Yeah, I've had people come up to me and Mike has seen it firsthand. Jim McDonald's seen it firsthand. I've had people come up to me nearly in Mike has seen it firsthand. Jim McDonald has seen it firsthand. I've had people come up to me nearly in tears because they're able to do something that they still enjoy. You know, I'm sure you run into it all the time.

You probably run into people that are like, oh, man, I used to Olympic lift. Once you're out of Olympic lift, you've got to imagine that you're probably done. It's probably too hard to get back into it. The logistics of it and the mobility that's necessary for it is probably too hard. It's a tough road. Yeah, with the slingshot and with somebody who has trouble benching, maybe they have a rot but it's tough road yeah with the slingshot and uh with somebody who has trouble benching maybe they have a rotator cuff injury they could slap the slingshot on they could still bench press maybe they're not as efficient as they once were

but they could still do some of the things that they enjoyed i've had people just uh come up to me and give me great reviews on it and it's been uh it's been an awesome product to have and it's the way i make my living man i've uh i've had some rotator cuff issues this past year and I just got the slingshot today. I kind of, I hope. I call it the rotary cuff. I'm glad. That dare rotary cuff be blown off. That dare rotary cuff.

I mean, I hope it's really beneficial for me, but I also have this, I'm like, oh man, am I going to wish I would have bought this like six months ago? I'm going to hate myself for not getting it sooner. That's what people say when they take steroids. They take them. They jump right into that shit, man. And they're like, why was I so uptight, man? I should have just got on this shit a long time ago.

Fucking years ago, dude, I was riding in a car with a bunch of, I don't know if I told that story. Dude, he's sweating. He's sweating. This is over. Yeah, we're hot in here. Yeah, yeah. It's hot as shit.

It's kind of sexy. I am sexy. Maybe that's just the glow with the Jack and Tan shirt. Yeah, dude. It's oil, actually. My metabolism. I'm getting so jacked. I had sexy. Maybe that's just the glow with the Jack and Tan shirt. Yeah, dude. It's oil, actually. My metabolism, I'm getting so jacked. I had a group of guys, like, we're having a fucking conversation one time in a

bus going to powder meet, and the shit came up, like, yeah, I'm on this because my joints are this, that, and the other. Hey, what do you take? Oh, nothing. And everybody's fucking silenced across the room. Then one question from the back, why? Why would you try to even do this shit if you weren't on? Dude, what's the point?

Well, I guess that's why. I'm a little bit more beat up, I guess, than I'd like to, because I did give it a go for a very, very long time, man, to fucking stretch it out without the assistance. But, yeah, it's a good point. If you go on, it's going to make things better, I suppose, shit. Well, if you're in a sport where it's not against the rules, it almost seems silly to me not to do it. Yeah, I mean, some sports, it's just become part of the sport.

It's just become part of the game. You know, you look at some sports like baseball, you know, coaches are stealing signs from other coaches on whether the guy is stealing or what the guy is doing. They'll steal pitches. They'll steal all kinds of stuff. There's all kinds of cheating and, I guess, ways of smudging the rules a

little bit and just about every sport. And a lot of times people just kind of let it go. And that's sort of what happened with powerlifting. There is drug tested powerlifting federations, but I always like to point out that those aren't drug free powerlifting federations or drug tested powerlifting federations. It's like it's caught. You don't go, that's the damn dirty cheater who tried to sneak by the room. That's the dude who didn't fucking get his timing right. Yeah, right, right, right. And, you know, there's, you know, it's part of bodybuilding. It's a huge part of bodybuilding.

You cannot be a pro bodybuilder without it. So it's just, it's part of, it's part of the game, I guess. And some people choose not to and some people choose to. Who cares? Those are the two sports I think of when I hear like sports where drugs are pretty much. I think CrossFit. I think about burpees. I'm like, no way can someone do a burpee.

You can't do burpees without steroids. There's no way. A natural burpee? Show me someone doing a fucking burpee naturally. I don't think it exists. Well, we were talking about, man. Overhead squat. What about you?

Overhead squat. That's got to be, you know, come on. He's got to be using a little deca, a little bit of something. Do you think- He's not saying anything. See? Do you think it could be- Fuck, man. He's got to be using a little deck, a little bit. Do you think he's not saying anything? See, do you think he's guilty? Would you, would you, do you think it could be a world class CrossFitter without assistance of some kind? Do you think it's possible to go through that grind without something? I think it's always possible. I don't think you want to rule anything out. Like it's, it is possible that Hussein Bolt doesn't take anything, but I don't really know,

you know, um, with a lot of the crossfitters that I work with, it's my belief that they're clean. Probably not everybody else's belief because they work with me. It's a hot-button topic lately. But they're really, you know, a lot of the guys I work with are really gifted. They're really efficient. A lot of the guys are fucking strong. I work with a guy, Blair Morrison, a lot of you guys are familiar with.

Blair has squatted 440 pounds. He looks very thin. He's like 6'1", maybe 6'2". I don't know. Yeah, Blair Morrison. A lot of you guys are familiar with Blair squatted 440 pounds. He doesn't, he looks very thin. He's like six, one, maybe six, two. I don't know. Yeah. Well, he's around 200, but he's just tall. They get very, very thin legs. I mean, his, his quads are, are probably like the size of my elbow joint or something like that. I mean, it doesn't have big quads, but he's very strong, you know, and I also work with Ben Alderman and a few other guys. And as far as my knowledge, you know and i also work with ben alderman uh and a few other guys and as far as my knowledge you know goes i believe they're clean and they are able to go to a really high level ben was in third pretty much all weekend at norcal regionals and then he

blew one of the uh blew one of the wads is that what that sounds like can i get a hey now sorry ben struggled in one event and that set him back he blew a lot. Yeah, he blew a lot. Can I get a hey now? Sorry. Ben struggled in one event, and that set him back. He still ended up finishing really well. He finished seventh overall. But, yeah, it's possible. It's possible for some of these guys to be clean. Are some guys not doing it the right way, or are they clean? Probably not.

It's almost like if they're not trying to push some boundary, there's got to be something going on. As far as healthy experimentation on some level, I mean, we're trying to find the boundaries with this new sport. I always say that some people need to, and some people don't, you know, there's guys out there that are stronger than me, that it's my belief that they don't take anything, you know? And so, you know, how is that possible?

I don't know, but I do believe that it is possible. Some guys need it. Some guys like it. Some guys don't. Well, some folks like, I mean, the most extreme example, I can think of is a guy like Mark Henry who's just a fucking, guy's just not like all the way human

like you are. I mean, he's like the joint size, the sheer natural talent. I do believe genetics. Genetics is a huge factor. Yeah, the guy's 400 pounds can jump over a bench, you know, effortlessly.

I mean, there's some people out there who just because somebody is world class, I think there have been really high quality, like Shane Heyman, I don't think he was a, you never know for sure, but some guy like that, I would buy if he didn't quite, if he made it to the top on his own, I'd be, I believe it. Mark Henry's power comes from him not wasting any energy. I actually wrestled with Mark Henry back in the day.

And I remember after a long wrestling practice, our wrestling practices were about five hours or so. And we started at around eight o'clock in the morning pro wrestling that sounds terrible i've heard that i've watched like a documentary on like guys that are prepping for pro wrestling it's fucking crazy it's it's brutal it's just extremely demanding and it hurts there's no way of getting around it and uh mark um at the end of a long long ass day we used to always go to we used to always eat lunch and then a lot of times guys would meet up at powerhouse gym just kind of part kind of part of the protocol. We hit up like a Chipotle or something like that. And then about two hours later we hit the gym. And so Mark is like leaning

on his car. His car is about ready to die because he weighs 450 pounds. He's drenched in sweat. We're in Louisville, Kentucky. Monster. We're in the South and he's sweating his balls off. He's just dripping with sweat. And he just looks over at me. He puts his hands south and he's sweating his balls off. He's just dripping with sweat and he just looks over at me. He puts his hands up and he's like powerhouse. He gets in his car and takes off. And people are like, what did he say to you? I was like, I think

what he's trying to say is that like, hey man, after lunch, I'm going to see you motherfuckers at powerhouse. But I'm too tired to say it. So I think that's the way that guy lives his life and that's why he's so fucking strong yeah he's still pretty strong

even like crazy he conserves all that energy not wasting any calories he was a powerhouse 900 pound squatter and puller he's 400 pounds

I guess it helps a lot I don't know what the guy benched but he's a monster yeah I think he benched five something and he made a pretty good run at doing Olympic lifting which is one of those

rare things that a guy from American football background, whatever. Reminds me of myself. He's good at everything. Yeah. And black. Yeah.

That's right. Yeah, that's true. That's true. He is. You mentioned, man, that we'll bring it up. I got one more Mark Henry story. Oh, fucking share it. Do you want to hear it?

Yeah, of course. Do you want to hear it? Absolutely. We could get on Mark Henry stories. Does the fans want to hear it? Can I hear somebody? Yeah. Oh, my God.

Mark Henry. There we go. So I went to uh i went to powerhouse powerhouse and um this is before i even knew mark henry was in louisville kentucky i didn't even know he was uh at the wwe training ground i had no idea he was there and i'm a huge fan of strength huge fan of powerlifting so he walks in and I'm like, holy shit, that's fucking Mark Henry. Meanwhile, there's all these other wrestlers coming around that are very popular on TV all the time. But I don't really care about them as much. I'm all excited that Mark Henry's there.

And I'm like, holy shit, man. I'm going to see if I can work out with him, you know? And so I'm trying to work up the courage to ask him if I could work out with him. And so he starts doing a couple curls. And I'm watching him like, Oh, maybe it's just like a light day or something. So then I finally walk over to him like, Hey man. Um, yeah, it was probably more like that. Mr. Henry, pissing myself a little bit, you know, I went over to him and I'm like, Hey man, um, you know, if you're about ready to to work out I'd love to work out with you if you're going to do

some deadlifts or something like that he's like playa he's like those days are over I was like okay

I was like well whatever you're doing I'll work out with you he's like you want to shoot some hoops and I was like there's no fucking way I'm passing this down

so we started shooting some hoops and he misses every shot. He's like too tired to lift his arms up. I'm a little bit more coordinated than you might expect. I can shoot some hoops. I'm not good,

but I can make some baskets here and there if I'm wide open. And so he's like, he's like, well, fuck this. He's like, I'm going to dunk. And I'm like, oh my God, this is going to be great. It took him about three times,

but I saw him dunk. So he could have dunked? Yes. I also knew Shane was a guy who could dunk too. Just kind of this weird traveling, double hopping, double leg takeoff deal. But it was very awkward. The only way I was ever like Mark was I was probably

at least as fat as he ever got. I got to look like 370. But the most I ever could get towards the rim, I can jump as hard as possible and sort of flick my arm and maybe hit the bottom of the net. If I could see a big guy dunk, it's exceptional. I also, maybe I shouldn't share this story, but I ended up in a

hotel room with Mark Henry. Hey now, the plot thickens. Do you have a taste of the sexual chocolate? Yeah, yeah. Sexual chocolate. I was playing some Madden football with Mark Henry. And I used to whoop his ass every single time that we played. And he would get pissed.

So finally, he gets pissed. He's like, you know what, man? He's like, I can't concentrate on this shit. I'm like, why, man? What's up? He's like, Vince McMahon wants me to weigh 400 pounds. I'm like, Mark, that's ridiculous. You're a big guy.

There's no way you can only weigh 400 pounds. He's like, that's what I'm trying to tell him. He's like, I can't Mark that's ridiculous You're a big guy There's no way You can only weigh 400 pounds He's like That's what I'm trying to tell him He's like I can't weigh that He's like I'm going to put on some porn I'm like what

Where the fuck did that come from I'm like dude I'm going to get out of here then You do what you got to do It's his hotel room You do whatever you need to do He's like no man He's like you got to see this

You got to see this one scene I'm like no I'm not watching porn with you This is too weird You're a 400 pound black man I'm stuck in here You're the world's strongest man If you get is too weird. You're a 400 pound black man. I'm stuck in here. You're the world's strongest man. If you get provoked in some way,

I got no escape here. What am I going to do? Yeah, I'm trying to think of an exit strategy. You look over to see if the chain is on the lock. Oh, shit.

I don't have the speed to get out of here if something goes south. He made me watch some of it. That's weird. So what'd you think? What was the scene? Was it a good scene?

It was good. It was a gagging scene. Oh, shit. Dude, shit. Dude, you mentioned- We just lost half of our audience. Yeah. You mentioned helping out the CrossFitters, right?

The CrossFit scene is amazing because people are engaging of all things. Yeah, weightlifting, but also powerlifting, and there's this weird sort of crossover. There are some things that can definitely help CrossFitters, but you mentioned people might give you shit for maybe your background. Right. I guess a lot of that came out of your pretty, I mean,

there's some amount of notoriety that came out of the documentary, right? Bigger. Right, right. I always get the name backwards because of the old high school training.

I don't know either. Because I did the high school training program and I had like a bigger, faster, stronger, but the opposite, bigger, stronger, faster. No, I think it's bigger,

faster, stronger, faster. Everybody knows the documentary. Chris Bell. Chris Bell probably doesn't know the name though. He probably doesn't fucking know it. But, yeah, I mean, that was the honest portrayal of your move through power thing and what your experience is. But I guess people will probably give you a lot of shit for your honesty in that documentary, right?

I get a little bit here and there. But what I always like to be able to point out is a lot of times I'll post a picture, a selfie or something like that, and someone will be like, steroids! Oh, every fucking time. And, you know, I can always point to that and someone will be like, steroids! Every fucking time. I can always point to that and say, look, I said my piece in a film that was seen worldwide.

It's on Netflix. You can still watch it on Netflix. You can download it on iTunes. I remember when that movie came out. It was coming out and we were like, oh shit, can't wait, can't wait. We went and got it. Yeah, I watched it at school.

You watched it at school? Yeah, a lot of people do that. Oh, really? Yeah, powerlifter Derek Kendall is a teacher, and he shows it to his students. He's a health teacher. Wow. You will shut the fuck up in that guy's class, won't you? He's a mountain man.

Yeah, 350 pounds of, oh, no. Yeah, he just squatted 1,019 here raw, but unfortunately he took a little step at the top and it was no lift, but it was a good call by the judges and stuff. But it was just amazing to see him handle that kind of weight. He successfully squatted 942, which was intense to see. Smashed it.

So I guess the thing that would frustrate the shit out of me is that people will somehow say, oh yeah, we have abs. So that means anything you've got to say about training, all these years of hard work, anything you've got to say about that somehow doesn't mean a fucking thing. And it somehow justifies them not having the abs. Well, that guy, you know what the fuck he's talking about, man. He took steroids. Oh, it's a great excuse. It's a great excuse not to do anything good yourself.

Yeah. People like to talk about the topic a lot. And the thing, the most frustrating thing of all that is that, you know, they'll say, you know, I don't like this guy cause he's on steroids, but meanwhile they like another guy. And it's like, well, that other guy that you like is on him too. He just never talked about it. Yeah. You just never heard him really openly say anything. It's a common thing, friend. Like I said earlier, you know, some people, some people feel that they need it. I got to a point where I feel I needed it. And so I took them, you know, it's a, it's very simple. I think when you're working out, if you feel like something works well for you, you can, you stick with it. You feel like something's not working well for you. You get

rid of it. You feel like something fucking hurts. You stop doing it. You feel like something feels good. You start doing it and you do it more. A lot of it's very simple. You break it down. It's simple as form. All these people are out there taking all these wax supplements because they hope for the same results. Yeah. What makes that okay? What's not so good for you, is it, Mike? Steroid life.

People say, oh, steroids are bad for you. They'll take anything that they hand out for free at the Arnold Classic. Any powder that they have no clue what's in it, they'll take it. That's a really good point. All day long. That's a really good point. When I was younger, I remember going to the shop and I wanted the most extreme thing that was legal.

Yeah, what's going to give me Jack, bro? Ultimate orange. Whatever was behind the glass. I hear amazing things about that. Whatever was behind the glass. It was behind the glass for a reason. I have no idea why because I was 18 and they just handed it to me. But yeah, I remember one time I went to a GNC and I wanted to get something.

I'm trying to get bigger for football. And the guy's like, oh, he's like, I'll be right back. He goes to the back and gets something out of the back, like Anderstein or some shit like that. And I was like, I don't know what this is. And he started telling me about it, raising your testosterone levels or whatever. And he's like, yeah, it's like 80 bucks. I'm like, uh, I don't think I need that. But yeah, it was in the back. 80 bucks. I'm like, uh, I don't think I need that. Oh dude. I,

I, but yeah, like it was in the, it was in the back. I don't know how many supplements I took that got banned like two months later. Right. It's like, uh,

was it, remember mag 10? Oh yeah. Yeah. That shit was effective. Yeah. All those trends. What was that?

All those trend products. Are we allowed to say the, uh, companies? Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. T nation.

I think it's a T nation. It was a test supplement. It's a hydrolyzed hydroxylate protein or some shit. Some shit like that. With a lot of other good things in it.

I just remember being in the gym being like, man, my fucking, I've never had a, this is back when I was in the Navy. I'm like,

I've never had a pump like this. Wake up one day, got a bloodshot eye. I'm like. I thought you were saying boner. What was going on? Oh yeah, my boners were boner. Yeah. We'll get one day ahead of boner.

What's going on? Oh yeah, boners were harder than everything else. To me, it was just something like Eastern European surplus drug.

I went back to get more and they were like, sorry, it's been banned. I was like, oh, oh, that's why it worked.

Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it has something in it. Yeah, they're banning things that are effective. Probably some gnarly

horse stimulator. Yeah, when I was in high school, I bought the Andro. Right. Andro Sting Dion, whatever. Wait, they're banning things that are effective. Or some gnarly horse stimulant or something. When I was in high school, I bought the Andro. Right. Androstenedion, whatever. Mark started banging homers left and right. Yeah, I got some good shit. Yeah, but I felt good about it because it was... You bought it from a show.

But I bought it from a... Yeah, because I bought it from a shop. Well, that's what they say about all those companies too is they'll throw something special in the first batch. Everybody gets results off it. And then they take it out. So you should always just buy first batch. Yeah, the brand new supplement. Go to new first batch don't don't wait around for evidence when something comes out cool just take a bunch of it and this is where it's actually got a double the dose though this is where it might be actually safer just to go for

the stuff that is banned like right if you're if you're competing in sport with illegal obviously you should not do it but if you really are pushing the limits it I consider it safer just to go for the thing that is banned because when you're going after the other stuff, you don't know what you're getting. It's not studied. People have been taking things like testosterone for decades. What, 50 years?

It's like we know what happens when you take it. There's other stuff that's over the counter. It's still kind of like, oh yeah, we just discovered this like five years ago. The whole topic seems very strange to me. It seems like it should be simplified. It seems like if you want to be really strong, you want to be big and strong,

there should be somewhere where you can go to get testosterone, to get things like that. I mean, I don't know why that doesn't exist. I don't know why. Do it the right way. Know what you're taking and how much. I don't know why you can't go to the doctor and say, I want to be the best bodybuilder I can be.

I want to be on testosterone. I want to take advantage of that. I want to have fucking big jacked muscles and I want to be strong. And maybe have that guy help you not blow your body apart. Right. But if you go in and say, you know, I'm thinking about having a sex change, they'll give you hormones. Right. That'll have you start heading in that direction before you ever have the actual surgery. And what about overseas? Things are way different. Yeah. The The UK a lot's legal. A lot of people are taking shit in the UK, I think. You go to Tijuana,

get whatever you want. Yeah, that's true. Mexico, Mexico, it's on. Everybody's jacked in Mexico. I've been overseas since 05. The last time I was overseas in Europe was 05. And yeah,

I remember going out and yeah, you just buy it in the pharmacy. Yeah, I think, especially the UK. La Farmacia. I imagine other places. That's right.

Buy some chiclets and some fucking tests. I guess the most dangerous things are if you're going to find something and you think it's one thing and it's something else, that's dangerous as shit. Or you think it's this thing and it is, but you don't know how much you're taking. Right. Or you're getting it because you think it's okay because it is from a shelf. Or a doctor said, here, here's a prescription drug.

You can take it. And they're thinking, well, I don't do these other nasty street drugs. It's cheater drugs, but I take this shit. Meanwhile, that's what's destructive. Yeah. Pain drugs well I don't do these other nasty street drugs cheater drugs but I take this shit meanwhile that's less destructive pain drugs people don't really realize you can

take a bottle of testosterone you can take fucking 50cc's of testosterone and you can inject it into a bunch that sounds like

a bunch yeah it's a lot we don't know what that means Mark a 50cc bottle looks about like yay okay

and it's about that thick yay and yay right where would you inject that it would be a lot of oil

but people put it in all kinds of things. You do all 50 cc's at once? You could, what I'm trying to say is you could do all 50 cc's at one time and you would be fine. The only problem that you would have is you would have pain from the injections. Yeah.

It's not like drinking a cup of coffee with a couple shots of espresso where you take it and boom, you're going crazy. Your mind's going a mile a minute. Steroids, they take a long time to settle in, but I think people have this mindset that you take them and then all of a sudden they do something crazy for you. You become Ben Affleck in an HBO movie. He was like, ah! You ever see that movie? Take this bag of steroids. He started popping pills. At one point he's shaking. Oh, I got to get more in. Like the no-dos and he's flopping around like

a fish on his living room floor. I'm not suggesting anyone anyone do that but uh there's a lot you can take a lot of it and it's it's not gonna you're not gonna have like you're not gonna feel sick you're not gonna feel much of anything from it what's like a tetanus shot right you take a tetanus shot you just get sore right yeah i don't even know what the fuck is in that needle but they've put it in me before no questions asked because it's the doctor yeah that's the thing like to call yourself drug free or to call you to take some kind of ethical i'm better than you position so i don't take everybody's on some drugs right and even before steroids were a problem like in sports like baseball go back until the very first moment where somebody's like i want to play you in baseball they were fucking taking like crude amphetamines doing whatever

they could do to get edge, putting shit on the ball, batting with whatever the hell they could find. Right. Anytime people are going to compete in anything, they're going to inject, they're going to take, they're going to huff,

they're going to sniff, anything to get an advantage. This is what primates do, man. Like, I'm going to beat you. I'm going to beat you any way I can. I'm going to beat your ass today any way I can. Looking at Mike Bledsoe. Yeah, you guys are lift off today.

That was the first bit of confidence I've seen from you in days. Good morning, you're dead lift off. It's the Jack the Tan lifestyle. It's really good to me. I'm telling you. You see his tank top? I'm going to tell you right now,

I'm drinking this right now, which I never, I am a lightweight when it comes to stimulants. You should probably get a diaper on then. We got him hopped up on steroids. Let's just be honest. And I explode.

Mark Bell gave me loads of steroids this morning. Tons. More than I could probably handle. They were in the steak you ate. Yeah, he said he put it in the food. Grass fed. It was unintentional on my part. I found out after the fact

that he definitely put lots of drugs in my food. It's important to get the non-organic and to find the cows that are given the most hormones. Yeah, I don't get that. I don't get the logic. Hormone free? No, I want to have the most shit in them. Give me those jacked and tanned. I don't get the logic. Rather than grow hormone-free, like, no, I want to have the most shit in them. Give me those jacked and tanned cows on the day of the week.

Would you, speaking of drugs, if you were going to go back, I'm saying the thoughts that come to mind. He's like sticking to the script and shit. There's no script. I'm just having an interesting idea. I get them, I got to hold on to them because they go away quickly.

But would you train any different for a powerlifting if you weren't going to do the stairways? Because it's the one thing I have. People always said, like, I trained like a little west side style, right? And I always get constantly told, like, you can't do that without taking stairways. I go, I don't take anything, man. I do just fun.

In fact, I think it makes more sense to train this way instead of just doing endless sets of 10 or whatever I was doing before. I always thought it was a better way to train. I max out all the time, drug-free, so what? I'm still strong. I think it's a huge key that you believe in whatever system it is that you're doing. If you believe that it's working, that is more magical than somebody trying to pound it into your head that some other system's great. If you think it's working well for you, then it's probably going to work well for you as long as you stick to it.

I've always trained the same. I've always kind of power lifted. I've always lifted heavy. Looking back at it now and just having some different perspectives on it, I wish that I would have normally done more repetitions here and there, at least after the heavy work that I did. And by high reps, I'm talking outside of powerlifting. You know, powerlifters talk high reps and they think three to five. I'm talking like eight to 30, you know, somewhere in that range. Same thing for weightlifting. Really, really, really jacked up.

And a lot of times weightlifters will say that high reps don't work, but who really knows? Who's really destroying themselves with 50 rep sets? You don't really know unless you're doing them. Sounds like it'd be detrimental. There are some weightlifters in certain parts of the world that are doing more bodybuilder-ish type rep schemes with certain exercises. I remember when I went to Reebok, one of my sponsors, by the way, I remember going to Reebok and, you know, they kind of asked me, hey, what do you think we need in this gym?

I was like, well, the gym's got tons of space. That's cool. You can do lots of CrossFit-y stuff in here. Run around and shit in here. Yeah, there's some racks and there's a lot of different stuff. Activities. They put some money into it, you know, whatever.

But they didn't have one cable. They didn't have one cable to speak of of any kind. And I think a huge thing missing, a huge element missing from the weightlifting community, somewhat missing from the powerlifting community, but not so much there, but hugely missed by the CrossFit community is some simple bodybuilding movements. If you look at the CrossFitters that are good right now, it's not like they, there's some that have been CrossFitting for about 10

years now because CrossFit's been around for a little while now, but a lot of these CrossFitters have only been doing it for five or six years and they're reaching these elite levels. They're getting to the CrossFit games. They're performing really well. And their background stems from other stuff. They have some sort of bodybuilding background, maybe some sort of lifting background. The guys like Jason put in their time lifting weights. Yeah, there's no doubt.

They just bodybuild and shit. Jason and Rich Froning. Jason Kalipa for the audience. They both have pecs. It's obvious they spent some time benching. Sexy pecs. And maybe a pec deck here and there. Yeah, maybe some cable crossovers. They wouldn't admit to it, but everybody did a fucking pec deck.

Kelly Sturette was talking about how he loved the pec deck last time I talked to him. Hashtag pec deck. I used to do pec deck negatives, man. He's still doing that shit. His pecs are huge. I can tell, actually, now that you mention it. Yeah, you can tell. And you would go elbows, and then you'd switch it up, and you'd grab, and you'd pinch and

squeeze. Yeah, you got to rotate. Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold. Down, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, down, down, down. But a lot of times, you know, a bigger muscle is going to be a stronger muscle. You got more, you know, when you're doing something like a, and it might not always be beneficial for every lift, but when you're doing something like a bench press, you have the luxury of, if you have a big forearm, your forearm is going to rest on your bicep.

Your tricep is going to rest on your lat when you do a bench press. Anyone who's got a huge bench press is going to have enough muscle to benefit from that people that don't have a huge bench press are probably not big enough i see the bigger muscles i mean obviously so you can get stronger without making the muscle bigger but the muscle size helps with the durability right and if you can if a muscle's more durable it's not going to get injured you can train it longer without taking time off. So yeah, I mean, a bigger muscle

is definitely a stronger muscle. And there's different types of training. You can go for bigger muscles without as much strength and vice versa. Something simple like, you know,

not like it's the greatest movement in the world, but if you do something like a preacher curl, if you can handle like a 70-pound dumbbell, your bicep is probably anchored in to everything else

a little bit better than the next guy. So the odds of you tearing a bicep when you go to do a heavy deadlift are probably less and doing a lot of time under tension more reps or doing say a tempo is going to help increase that tendon strength and so it's going to help

keep you from getting injured not even from a muscular and you can only get so much from the barbell movements you can only get so much from doing a clean, a snatch, a bench, a squat, a deadlift especially as you get older you can only get so much from the barbell movements. You can only get so much from doing a clean, a snatch, a bench, a squat, a deadlift. Especially as you get older. You can only do so many. You can get beat up. Especially as you get older.

Well, not only as you get older, but when you're brand new, too. When you're new to the sport. I've had weaknesses. And you can only lift, let's say, you know, let's say like in a squat, you can only handle 225. Your volume for the day is going to be very poor. It's going to be extremely low compared to that of somebody who's squatting 500 for sets of three. So you've got to find ways of making up that

lack of volume. I had people one time tell me, you know, I used to do a bunch of assistant stuff and I need to go back to doing it because it's going to help me keep in the game. The older you get, the more you need to do a little bit less. You need to be more jacked and tanned is what you're saying. More jacked and tanned and also build up the things that are sort of rotten and falling off. You know, get to work in any way you can. I like that. Rotten and falling off.

I've got some rotten bits that need to be rebuilt. Yeah you can. I like that. Rotten and falling off. Rotten. I've got some rotten bits that need to be rebuilt. Yeah, yeah. But like one thing I always like, I used to have trouble explaining like why a barbell makes you strong

in a certain, you come out of sports science background, certain loads give you certain things and you got to lift heavy to get strong. Yeah, yeah, true.

But you also got to fucking get in shape to sort of buy in to get the right to lift a heavy barbell. If you just jump into squats and start adding load, or if you just try to work form,

you don't do a lot of, you have no time doing back raises or ab work or glute hams or farmer's carries. Like, you're not prepared. You haven't earned the right to lift a barbell, really. You haven't done your fucking work. The most old school strongest guys, you know, Ed Cohn and some of these guys

did fricking leg curls and leg presses. Leg extensions, yeah. When's the last time you saw that in a CrossFit gym or even a powerlifting gym? You know, Mike, we talked about too, like we spent a lot of years just doing, you did your fair share. Leg extensions, yeah. When's the last time you saw that in a CrossFit gym or even a powerlifting gym? You know, Mike, we talked about too, like we spent a lot of years just doing, you did your fair share in knee extensions, didn't you? I sure did.

Every leg day. And it helps. Like religiously for probably a decade. And that's why my quads are amazing. We were just talking to the Lillibridge family, biggest squatter family in probably the world right now as a family for sure. So tell the audience, like Eric Lillibridge.

Eric Lillibridge, 275 lifters, squatted nine, high 900s. Yeah. Deadlift 900. Squats 959, I think. With a belt and knee wraps, which is. Yeah, belt and knee wraps, which is raw, ladies and gentlemen. Raw enough. Raw.

And then. Ernie Jr. 782 at 220. Yeah. And he has the 198 all time squat record and world total record. Total, yeah. And they do leg extensions. Pops.

Squats eight something. Yeah. Eight 26. He's 42 years extensions. Pops squats eight something, 826. He's 42 years old. They all deadlift close to 800 pounds or more. They're freaks. And they all said, we're like, so what do you do after your squats? Well, we're done for that day. And then tomorrow we come in

and do some abs and leg extensions. Well, think about this. You know, there's seven days a week. And how many days do they devote to powerlifting? Two. And the other days are devoted to bodybuilding. Because like I said earlier, you can only get so much out of the power movements

or the weightlifting movements before you start to run into a lot of problems. If you're that strong, if you're squatting 900 pounds, if you try to do that frequently, or if you're not paying really close attention to how you recover, you're going to tear yourself asunder. That's probably why I think we were talking

with Justin Thacker about why- The butthole, it goes back to that butthole. Yeah, everybody loves to watch like Klokoff smash crazy odd lifts, right? And he does them with pauses. He'll pick up like 400 pounds and hold it in mid thigh and then just, you know, or like 300 pounds and just snatch it after like a 10 second pause. Why? He's a beast.

Because he's so strong. If he just snatches, he could probably just tear himself apart because he's got another two years to go before the Olympics. He's pretty jacked and tan. He's jacked and tan. I didn't know they were so tan in Russia. He, you know, when we interviewed him for Power Magazine, I mean, that was the main thing that he promoted was like,

I just got to get stronger, period. And so he finds a lot of different ways to get stronger. He's not always just thinking about the clean and jerk and the snatch. He's thinking about how do I make myself stronger in a bunch of different positions? And you see like some of's like West side of stuff. He's yeah. Some of the stuff he's showing, he's some of the stuff he's showing people now, or,

you know, some of the shit's crazy. Like you said, you did yesterday on that GHD, whatever. What the shit? Snatch grip back raise. So like you had the bar in a snatch position. He had it out in front and I did a back raise. The bar is swinging out and over like he's doing a snatch, which is insane. I want to try that now.

I saw that video. You ever see Mikhail Kokulev, 245 pounds of weight on the bar, I believe he had, something like that. And he just takes it, he's kind of in like a floor press position, and he sits all the way up with it and has it over his head when he sits up. Yeah, I sit up. Like a spread eagle sit up. Try to do that with just a PVC pipe in your hand.

Yeah, you'll fall. Or a bar. Or I heard stories of, who's the, Zedruna Savickas, my favorite strongman of all time. This guy is a vanilla gorilla. This guy's a monster. He's got that belly. He could have an even bigger belly. But he did like, I think there's a thing called a Savickas press, right?

Z-press. Yeah, Z-press. You're sitting down upright, but your feet are out in front of you. You look like a faction. And you're trying to do military press. You try to do it with just a bar. You struggle and flail, but your feet are out in front of you. You look like a faction in Iraq. And you're trying to do military press. You try to do it with just a bar. You struggle and flail and shit your pants. Sitting there is hard.

And he does it with 300 pounds for reps. It's harder than a strict overhead. It's way harder. Oh, yeah. All right, let's take a break real quick. And when we come back, we're going to find out what drugs Mark put in my food. And the workout that Chris is going to try to keep up with me on. Fuck you, dude.

Hell, yeah. Barbell Shrugged is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrugged.com and sign up for the newsletter. Paleo? Getting skinny? No. Let's talk about paleo.

I'll go off. And we're back. I figured he wasn't eating that. Yeah, being a 280-pound monster. Yeah. Not eating paleo over there. Bro we're back. I figured he wasn't eating that. Yeah, being a 280 pound monster. Yeah. Not eating paleo over there. Broccoli all day. That's it. Broccoli farts are the best. Alright, Mike. Mike, what are we

doing for the workout today? We're doing a Mike marathon. The Mike's and Silent Mike marathon. I'm eating pre-workout Skittles for all you paleo people. Yeah. We got Cambered Bar. Good mornings. So, folks him on a cambered bar. Good mornings. So for us at home, that is a bar that weights on your back

but the weight kind of the bark bends down and you grab it low by your hips. It's got a giant in for lack of a better word. Yeah. Or you. Yeah. Depending on how you look at it. Big old band. Yeah. That's great. Look at our perspectives. Yeah. That was awesome. And it's going to be suspended in some chains. So it's bottoms up.

Bottoms up. Good morning. Bottoms up. We're going to go to like maybe a RPE 8. That's a rate of perceived exertion. Nothing like heavy, but not maximal. Almost blowing our assholes up. I thought we weren't going to talk about math.

Fuck. That was off limits. Sorry. Cover your ears, Mark Bell. So we're going to do some heavy shit. Heavy good mornings. Three or five, something like that. Then we're going to do some heavy shit. Heavy good mornings. Three or five, something like that. Then we're going to go do some heavy more pulls,

maybe some block pulls off the super plates. Dead whiffs. Dead whiffs. Dead lifts. Then I got some speedy squats, like five sets of four or something, just trying to be fast. Those at home, speedy squat is a speed squat. Yeah, dynamic.

That's the nomenclature, speedy squat. Yeah, something like that. Hashtag speedy. We're going to blow our faces up. Yeah, yeah, try to be fast, but we're not going to be that fast. Yeah, dynamic. That's the nomenclature, speedy squat. Yeah, it's not much speedy. We're going to blow our faces up. Yeah, yeah, try to be fast, but we're not going

to be that fast. Yeah. And then I forgot we got front squats. Power lifting fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's more just like tired as shit fast.

Okay. Because we can move a little bit, but we'll be tired. Yeah. Then front squats I forgot about, which you guys

will probably kick my ass in. No, dude, I suck more than that than anything. Like I got a couple sets of like maybe 250 for a couple sets of four or something. Oh. Yeah, it's easy for you. Yeah, dude, I suck more than that than anything. Like, I got a couple sets of like maybe 250 for a couple sets of four or something. Oh. Yeah, it's easy for you. Yeah, yeah. I can't wait to get to that.

Yeah, and then we got... If I can get there. Then we're going to go double overhand deadlifts from the floor. No hook grip. No hook grip, yeah, none of that bullshit. So folks in the audience can hear. If you go no hook grip, I'm going to hook those. If you grab...

He just checked it off in his head before we even finish. If you grab a deadlift and you don't hook it and you don't use alternating grip, that's going to work the hell out of your hands. Yeah, you're going to get jacked and tanned in the forearms.

Jacked and tanned in the forearms. Well, what do you see in a t-shirt? Calves and forearms. So that's what we work. That's what we work. Then we got chain weighted planks. Those kill. Oh shit.

Planks? Yeah, just max effort. Dude, the last time I did a plank was Sunday morning when I was doing yoga. Is this going to be the same thing? This will be probably more intense. It'll feel just the same

without the gay music. So weird. I'm an eclectic training man. Oh, yeah? I like it all. So I might be at a yoga studio on Sunday and I might be at super training on Tuesday. Renaissance, man.

That's the barbell shrug life. And I'm planking it everywhere. Shrug life. Hell yeah. Shrug life. No more math. Mark's mad. I'll just take over from here.

Is that all we're doing for the workout? That's all we're doing? Welcome to Mark Bell's Powercast, brought to you by BSN, bodybuilding.com. And then we'll probably run at least least a quarter mile and then be done. Quarter mile. I'm just joking. We don't run. Please don't scare me.

Oh, we got to go get a 40. 40. 40s. Post-workout nutrition. Are we drinking 40s or are we running 40s? We're going to be drinking them. Oh, I'm down.

Pouring them out for our homies. I can do that. What is the, we're living the Jack and Tan lifestyle. We're going to lift the weights. What sort of, for those at home who want to also follow this lifestyle, what nutrition side, how do we get Jack and Tam from a nutrition perspective?

What's your go-to meal plan, Mark? I like to just try to simplify everything when it comes to lifting or when it comes to diet. You know, yeah, just try to make things simple. I mean, you know, at some point you're going to have to get yourself dedicated and motivated enough to have your nutrition intact. You're going to have to try to pre-plan your meals. You don't plan ahead. You plan to fail. It's kind of the saying there. And you're going to have to teach yourself to eat less at some point.

You're going to have to get rid of a bunch of junk. If you're fat and you're not happy with your current physique, current build, you're probably going to have to eat less than what you're fat and you're not happy with your current physique, current build, you're probably going to have to eat less than what you're currently eating or at least make some drastic changes in what you're currently eating. Eat some of the less of the garbage. Yeah, eat less of the garbage. Eat more of the good stuff.

Fewer Skittles. In terms of go-to stuff, I like to just tell people just to cut carbs out just because it helps simplify things. I call it the fat guy diet because it seems like it's an easier plan for guys who are addicted to sugars and addicted to junk. It seems like an easier thing to follow. Once they break the habit after about seven or eight days, then it seems like they can stick to it. It's a fucking addiction, right? Yeah.

Oh, it's yeah. Well, it's a cycle. I mean, once you get the sugars in you, once you get any carb in you, when you're, when you're a carb addicted, like I am, once you get any carbs in you, it just, it signals your brain to eat more carbs. So the easiest thing to do is just completely get rid of them and to try to get rid of them for long periods of time. Why not see if you can go like 14 days without them, trying to see if go, go a month without them. You're not going to die from it. I don't, I don't think. That's actually the one macronutrient the body does not have to have.

I hear people say that, but you know, you could probably go without, you could eat just protein. I'm sure you could eat just fat. You could eat just carbs even and you could probably still be fine. I mean, you're going to probably run into some sort of health issue at some point. They've actually shown people die from a protein only diet. That's awesome.

Rabbit starvation. Rabbit starvation. Yeah. Rabbits only have protein on them. That's motherfucking rabbits. And they died. I ain't no rabbit. Rabbits are dumb, right? People are smart. Our bodies are going to turn shit into whatever we need. These are people

eating rabbits. Oh. That's different. That's different. The rabbit diet. That would be them eating protein and fat. That's different. That's different. The rabbit diet? That's serious, son. Well, that would be them eating protein and fat. Why would they die from that? There's not enough fat on a rabbit.

That was the problem. If the rabbit had enough fat on it, the people would have survived, but they died from eating rabbits. I don't believe this study, first of all.

It wasn't a study, but... Somebody ate a bunch of rabbits and died. This happened way back in the day. We'll have to find it on the internet

if it's on the internet it's true man I feel like the body is too sophisticated and whatever you're trying to do whether you're trying to lose fat or gain weight your body is going to actually start to counteract that I mean you think about even just down to like your taste buds what does your mouth taste like right now

besides dick, skittles aside from cock what does it taste like right now? Besides dick, skittles, aside from cock, what does it taste like right now? InnoExplode residue. Well, I mean, a lot of times it tastes like nothing. Even several minutes after you've eaten something, your body's always trying to get back to normal, right? Your body's always trying to get back to homeostasis, you know? Whoa, big word. That is a pretty big word, Mark. If you're going to cut carbs or you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to, um, if you're trying to lose fat, I mean, it could be very difficult. It'd be a difficult road because your body's going to try to do some things to counteract that. But basically, uh, a lot of people are

super fucking soft when it comes to dieting. They're not training hard enough. They're not dieting hard enough. I hear people all the time saying they're having trouble losing weight. I just think it's fucking bullshit. I think you need to just put in a bigger effort. You know, they say like in business, double your efforts or quit. That's what people need to do with their diet. Either double your efforts or get the fuck out of it and just be fat the rest of your life. It's pretty common to hear people go, well, no, you don't get it, dude. I've tried that.

I tried to eat the gain or I tried to lose or try to get strong. I tried to do what you do. But any excuse in the world to sort of justify why they didn't get to where they got. And you look at what they actually do. Like, you put that shit on paper and you go, well, you sleep five hours a night. You have what you should do. And you duck out on half the work you should be doing. You don't do anything that's hard for you in the gym.

How would you expect to be strong? People talk about a bunch of stuff that they're never going to follow through with. You know, I say cowards talk about what they'll never do. People talk all the time. They talk a big game about these different things they want to do. They come to me for advice. I give them fucking advice and they don't follow it. And I'm guilty of it too.

I'm not, you know, 100% on everything all the time. It's ridiculous. I'm not perfect. It's too hard to achieve that. But if you can be 80%, if you can do 80% of your diet, you're going to be ahead of the game and you're going to be able to achieve a lot of the results that you're looking for. And that goes the same with your lifting. So many people are consistent with their lifting.

If you can achieve 80% of the program, you can follow through with 80% of that. That's actually really difficult to do. And some people want to try to do 100% of it. That's fine. I just don't think that's sustainable for a really long time. It's probably not something you can do for too long. But if you can, then more power to you. But the key is just it's going to be consistency.

It's going to be a long road. It's all the same shit that you hear over and over again. It gets to be boring after a while. But if you're not losing weight, just weigh yourself every day and fucking force yourself to lose weight. Yeah, I think weighing yourself every day is a big key. I know some people are against it, but just weigh yourself every day. Weigh yourself on the line. If I'm trying to go up or down,

if I'm not trying to go up or down, I don't really step on the scale, but if I'm trying to go up or down, step on the scale. That's motivation. Sometimes I step on the scale and I'm like, I'm a pound lighter today than I was yesterday. I must not have eaten enough yesterday or last night after I trained.

Then I double my efforts that day. I step on the scale the next morning and I got the positive result. It's a habit that keeps you from slipping. I think people have really good intentions. They go, I have been training hard. Like one day you didn't quite train the way you should and the next day you kind of repeat, repeat

and then maybe the other day you kind of back off a little bit. Before you know it, three months goes by, you've actually cut a lot of work out and you don't even notice it because you kind of slowly have slipped because you're not doing anything

to sort of check where you're at. You're not getting kind of, you can also, you can also, you know, make yourself more accountable. You know, tell your buddy what your goal is.

You know, tell your friend, dude, I want to lose 10 pounds, you know, over the next six weeks and then he sees you eat a fucking cookie and he's like,

you fat fuck, what are you doing? You said you want to lose, you slapped the cookie out of his mouth. Yeah, you said you want to lose 10 pounds and you're not doing the things that are necessary

to lose those 10 pounds. I think that goes both ways too. I know we're talking about fat fucks, but what about skinny guys? They don't eat enough or work hard enough in nutrition either.

Like everybody, not everybody, you're right. Yeah, a lot of people work hard in the gym because it's fun. It's fun to lift weights. It's not fun to eat good

and it's not fun to eat a lot if you're a skinny guy. It's not fun to push that fifth plate of food across the table. But if you're one of those skinny dudes and you're you know lifting right pretty good sleeping pretty good you know doing all the right things you're not gaining weight and you're blaming it on some supplement or blame it on your program go eat something dude i i tell you what i mean i fall into the hard gainer category and it was like a few years ago that

i recognized the reason i was a hard gainer is because i just had i didn't have a big appetite yeah right and that's the difference. I wasn't eating as much as the guys that were gaining weight. It didn't have anything to do with my metabolism. My metabolism was fast because of the training I did and the type of food I was eating. I just had to let go of some things. Let go of the abs, too. For the guys that are hard gainers. I was just going to mention that.

Part of that is the abs start going away and they freak out. I know that because I used to freak out if my abs started going away. What do I do now? If I'm training hard and I need to go up and wait, dude, I'm eating a pint of ice cream before bed. I was about to say that, you know, the paleo thing and the cutting carbs thing is great for a fat guy. It just clears their mind, I think.

And it clears, you know. It's great for me. Sins out of their way or whatever, you know, ice cream and stuff. But if you're smaller, like, yeah, pound some peanut butter or ice cream now and then. Who cares? You got to get calories up. Dude, I got to, you know, I'll have like a two and a half hour training session at four o'clock in the afternoon.

I get home, I eat a meal. Man, you got to get more calories than that. If you try to be paleo, you're going to fail really quick. A lot of people do. They're skinny fat. Whether you're trying to lose weight or gain weight, you have to have a decent appetite. You have to at least eat frequent meals. You might end up eating less calories overall when you're losing, but the diet is very similar

for gaining or for losing. You're going to have to get in several meals a day. You have to figure out ways of cranking up your metabolism. You know, another thing too, is like, there's always all this controversy over cardio and people talk about, you know, interval training and shit like that. And that, that that's a new wave and that's the new thing. And that's what's great. That's a buzzword or whatever. But, I mean, look at all the bodybuilders that are fucking shredded. I mean, I know those guys are on fucking steroids and everything else.

But look at these guys. These guys are getting, you know, they're obtaining super lean physiques without doing. They're not sprinting. Go to any gym. You're not seeing these guys fucking sprint anywhere. They're going to do slow-paced cardio. Yeah, Ronnie Coleman's ass

running around. A little, basically, cardio can just help you burn some extra calories. So why not throw, if you're fat and you're not happy

with your current build, throw in some fucking cardio. It's that simple. I think the cardio is good to throw in only, yeah, if you've already got your lifting out of the way.

Because the leanest I ever was, I was training. Use it as a tool. I was lifting two hours a day, six days a week. Yeah. And I was doing zero cardio. Right, but you're working your ass off. But I was working my ass off. And you weren't really a big fat guy, though.

No, no, no, no, no. I mean, we know the kind of fat we're talking about is fat. I've been there. I know what I'm saying. It's like it doesn't require cardio. He's talking about fat. There's a couple of those on the roof oh yeah then a little bit

of LSD is good yeah long slow distance what makes the treadmill more fun though oh you're talking about the other thing you're going to need

more discipline you're going to need we can do that later you need to change some of your habits you're going to have to get rid of some of your bad habits

and if you're on the treadmill for 45 minutes instead of at a fucking buffet it's probably a good thing go back to the drug thing. People say, bodybuilders are only lean

because they're taking all that shit. Well, are you getting up at four o'clock in the morning and going to your local gym and getting on the fucking elliptical for an hour and a half? Measuring everything you put in your face? Try doing everything else first.

Come back to that. Until you are prepared to walk the walk somebody's walking experience and kind of see if it would even work to begin with, don't talk shit about what somebody's up to.

I mean, bodybuilding is highly disciplined. There's lots of shit you can learn from it. Same for body, same for powerlifting, same for weightlifting. We're here to fucking find what works and not make excuses for why we're not getting results, right? Something I like to preach to people too is, you know, so there's a low-carb lifestyle.

You can just try to cut carbs out the best you can. People always say, how many? I just say zero. Just try not to eat any. Not even a crouton. Not even a motherfucking crouton. Stay away from those. Just try to cut them out for a while.

And then you can, of course, add some back in if you're happier with where you're at. You can start to go to 50 or 100, somewhere in that range. But the other type of diet that I like is just a bodybuilding style diet where you're eating carbs and protein and you're just on, you're eating less fat. So the key is, you know, if you're on a low carb diet, your fat's going to have to be high. If you're on a bodybuilding style diet, your carbohydrates are going to have to be high and your fat's going to have to be cut back quite a bit. Something you were saying earlier is you, you prefer the lower carb. It's just easier for me. It's more convenient. It's more convenient for me. I don't have to, I don't have to be on top of my diet as much. I feel like with the bodybuilder style diet, it is really important to eat like seven times a day. Uh, when I was doing that,

it was really effective. Uh, but I was also waking up at like six in the morning and starting my, my eating then. Yeah. Which, you know, whatever. It's, it's cool for periods of time. Same with doing cardio and other things like that. Use these different things as weapons and as tools. Use the knowledge that you have and use it to your advantage. You know, if you want to do low carbs for a little while, because you think it's going to be more convenient than do that. If you, if you feel like a body building style diet, it's going to fit your needs a little bit more. You want to look into a flexible dieting from Lane Norton, who basically is, it's somewhat of a modified Weight Watchers thing. You'll probably kill me

for saying that, but that's the basis of it. I mean, you're just accounting for your calories and you're, you're allowed some flexibility. You're allowed to eat whatever you want, as long as you're getting into a certain amount of macros every day. Anything that allows you to get some kind of metric of what's really going on. I just, I don't think I ate too much today. I think I ate enough. Yeah. It goes back to consistency, right? I mean, that was the goal. And so the only reason you track your macros or count seven meals is so you stay consistent every single day. If you're consistent every single day, something good or something bad is going to happen. That's when magical shit happens. Yeah. It's weird. And I know you'll get some people

that will say, Oh, you know, you know, the seven meals a day doesn't matter. There's been science to prove otherwise. Fuck the science. Just go with what's actually working for people. Like bodybuilders have been using that method for a long time and it clearly works really well for them. So why not just follow in their footsteps? It's just easier that way. Yeah. Mark, you talked about a CrossFit powerlifting and Olympic lifting, stealing things from bodybuilders. You know, the discipline in food is huge, right? That's what they need to steal. Yeah. They need to steal like dumbbell rows and some of those stuff, but the discipline bodybuilders go through is crazy. Well, they do need to row a lot more.

That is for sure. The lifestyle discipline of a bodybuilder beats any other sport. I mean, there's definitely guys in CrossFit and weightlifting that have the same level of discipline, but there are no bodybuilders that don't have that discipline. And the top guys have every minute scheduled out. You're not a bodybuilder if you don't have the discipline, I guess. It rules you out.

Yeah, they're a different type of personality. If you've met some of the top guys, they're odd, but they're- Weirdos, man. Yeah, they're into it. I run into a lot of people with- I've got some buddies that are bodybuilders, man, and I grew up with some, and man, they're- Yeah, different level. Man, you can't get them to do a lot of the stuff that you want to do.

Let's go out and do something. I got to go home and sleep and eat my meal in my Tupperware and I'll be in bed. I'm like, shave my asshole and get to bed. I'm going to go have a good time. You got to have it looking pretty. But you want that thing so shiny you can see reflection in it. The difference is that bodybuilding is a sport that doesn't end inside the gym. And the truth of the matter is everyone needs to treat themselves like a professional, whether you're doing CrossFit, strongman, powerlifting, bodybuilding.

You need to treat yourself like a professional just the same way some of those guys are doing, just the same way some of the guys in the NBA. LeBron James is not cutting any corners. A lot of these top guys are not cutting any corners. They're doing anything and everything they can to recover. And your average person who's lifting and wants to get better, people talk about wanting to go to the CrossFit Games. You want to go to the CrossFit Games,

you're going to have to leave no stone unturned in your training. There's no way around it. We talked about that with Jackie. Yeah, we did talk about that with Jackie. Just having realistic goals. If you don't want to live that lifestyle, that's okay. Draw the line, man. But don't tell me you want to go to the Games. Then make excuses why you didn't go. Like, well, there's okay. But don't tell me you want to go to the games. And then make excuses

why you didn't go. Like, well, there's drugs. I feel like... You left every half of your stones you didn't touch, much less turned over. Touching stones? Yeah. Chris touches my stones almost every day. Mark said no stones left unturned. Pick up your stones, bitches.

See? We bring it back. It's about them stones. Yeah, but if you're not willing to go all in, don't pretend. Yeah, I hear people talking about unrealistic goals all the time, and you're better off just having small goals and working on achieving those goals. Small, obtainable goals. Yeah, stuff that you can actually do. You know, if you've done a 405 squat, the next goal should be 425,

or you can be like, you know what? I would love to do that for a double someday. I'd love to a 405 squat, the next goal should be 425. Or you can be like, you know what? I would love to do that for a double someday. I'd love to double 405. I just did it for a single. But hopefully in a few months, if I work hard enough, hopefully I can do it for two. Dude, every year, it seems like this isn't exactly on the number. But I usually, my goal is like to increase my weightlifting total, snatch and clean and jerk, by 15 kilos. That means that my snatch will probably grow up six kilos and my clean and jerk maybe eight or nine kilos. And that's still

outstanding progress. Yeah. And that is right where I need to be. I know I can hit that. It's not unobtainable. I can usually hit it halfway through the year, but I usually, on January 1, what are you going to do? Oh, oh I'm gonna add 15 kilos to my to my total right so it's obtainable but you know a lot of people are going oh I want to add 100 pounds to my squat and they already squat a lot of weight I'm like whoa but then you get pissed at yourself you can't achieve it right I mean it's a motivation hard time too yeah or yeah if I can't achieve 15 kilos something bad happened yeah but you don't go I'm gonna add you know 100 pounds my snatch don't get it,

fuss and quit, and then blame other people for being on steroids and shit. That's what a lot of people essentially do. That does happen a lot. I think a lot of people in their training too, every once in a while you hear people talking about working on their weaknesses so much, which is cool, but how bad does that suck to always work on what you're not good at?

If I had to go out and play tennis every day, I'd be fucking miserable. I can't even hit the ball on the other side of the court in the right spot. So you got to also factor in some of the things that you are good at, some things that make you feel great. Like if you know that you can kick ass in a certain type of clean and jerk movement, maybe it's a modified movement, throw yourself that underhand pitch every once in a while, knock that motherfucker out of the park. Yeah, no doubt about that. I heard some quote, it says like, if you want real success, navigate towards your real

power and your real strength, and then put double the fucking effort behind it. Give yourself over totally to something that, a path that will work for you. I guess in lifting, if somebody says this is the right way to do it, and this feels natural, and both are fine, it's okay to do a different path. I mean, if you've got to do fucking split

snatches because you can't catch a squat snatch, oh, work it in. Do whatever works for you. You know, going back to what you're saying, I find about 50% of my training has to be stuff I'm good at.

Yeah, of course. If I break, if I'm starting to do a majority of the training I'm bad at, I automatically, my motivation just tanks. Yeah, you don't want

to go to the gym anymore. Well, and also stuff that you're bad at, it could start to get too weird like a one-legged clean or something. I mean, who the fuck cares what you also stuff that you're bad at, it could start to get too weird, like a, like a one legged clean or something. I mean, who the fuck cares what you do with that, right?

Hey, that's the movement right there. Yeah. I'm going to do some one leg snatch. I know it's a little bit like trying to get okay at Olympic lifts too. Like where you start trying to learn the pulling mechanics, you change up your deadlift form, you start getting okay at it.

You're at the point where you're not totally embarrassing yourself snatching. If you're like a pilater, but at the same time you let your deadlift strength completely come out from underneath you. Right. What I always like to tell people, too, is, you know, there's only one way to get a PR every single time you walk inside the gym. And that's to try some different things, some things that you've never done before. I was going to say I'm going to show up every six months. Well, I was going to say take steroids.

But, you know, really just but, uh, you know, really, uh, just try, try something different. You know, like if you're, let's say you go to squat and 225 feels like 400 pounds and you know that you're up against it, your buddy's kicking ass and everybody else seems to be having fun and kicking ass, but you're miserable because this hurts and that hurts. Uh, throw yourself, throw yourself, uh, you know, a different, a different style, throw yourself a different rep range. So I'm going to see what I can do for seven today. I'm going to get to four plates, and I'm going to see if I can do it for six or seven reps. And why is that a PR?

Because you never fucking tried it before. It's new. So you can have different rep records. You got to keep in mind, you can do whatever you want inside the gym. People always say, oh, I'm on this program. I got to use bands today. I got to use chains today. Stop being so fucking gay.

Use your imagination. Disclaimer to use bands today. I got to use chains today. Stop being so fucking gay. Use your imagination. Disclaimer. There it is. Boom. Use your imagination and have fun with it. Well, the programming police won't jump out of the corner

and ask you to leave the gym if you don't abide by your strict program. If you feel like shit and you try to go for that max deadlift, you might just blow your spine out your back.

You lose discretion or whatever. You won't lose any strength either. If you're programmed to do 575 on the deadlift and you only do 525 for two, numbers don't matter. But whatever, you get what I'm saying.

You're still going to be fine next week. Two years from now, it's not like you're going to be weaker because of that deadlift. You can leave yourself on a good note too. If you did miss a lift, what do you do from there? You just fold up and head home?

You feel like it, right? I feel like going home and just eating some Ben & Jerry's and watching Biggest Loser and just crying. That sounds like a good Friday night to right? I feel like going home and just eating some Ben and Jerry's and watching biggest loser and just crying. That's something good Friday night to me. I don't know. Not just crying.

Oh geez. All right, let's wrap this up. I think our CTP's battery is about to go dead. Oh shit. Oh no. Bitch, we wore your battery out.

We wear this whole fucking podcast. He's got to film us training next. All right, Mark, what do you got to promote? Plug yourself. Nothing, man. If you like my shit, Mark, what do you got to promote? Plug yourself. Nothing, man. If you like my shit, go check it out,

howmuchyoufinish.net. If you don't, eat a dick. Boom. There you go. Something like anything to add? Yeah, that's about it. You can find us on the interweb somewhere. Yeah, I will say, go to YouTube,

type in Super Training TV. Super Training Dat TV. That's the URLs, right? Yep, yep. Fantastic. Stretching back like six years. You probably don't want to go on there Super Training Dat TV that's the URLs right yep fantastic stretching back like six years you probably don't want to go on there

because there's actually a really great awesome podcast on there which would conflict with this podcast that we're doing but it's really cool

and we talk about powerlifting we talk about no man the powercast is cool yeah go ahead I'm just kidding

anyway check out Super Training Dat TV a lot of great information check it out that's where it's all at and definitely follow Mark on Instagram.

It was at Mark Smelly Belly. That's it. Yep. Something like that. And you'll be entertained on a daily basis, guaranteed. Some awesome selfies on there. Oh, hell yeah. Hashtag selfie.

Gotta get them abs in there. Yeah. And don't forget, go to barbellshrug.com. Sign up for the newsletter so we can send you sweet emails. It was a lot of fun being on the show, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on, Mark. Cheers, everyone.