Barbell Shrugged - The Million Dollar Meathead Mark Bell on the Carnivore Diet, Bodybuilding, What Happened to Westside Barbell, and Why Barbells are the Best Medicine w/ Mark Bell Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #496

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

Mark Bell @marksmellybell CEO, Mark Bell Sling Shot /  Super Training Products Inc.    Mark Bell is a veteran at turning simple ideas into massive enterprises that disrupt the fitness industry. Mark is the brains behind the multi-million dollar brand Mark Bell Sling Shot, the founder of the award-winning gym Super Training, and an unconventional mentor shaping radical change in the way people show up in the gym and in life. Mark hosts The Mark Bell Power Project with an estimated 7.5M downloads in 2020, holds 3 U.S. patents, and is a keynote speaker; devoted husband and dad, and an unaccomplished handyman.    Follow Mark @marksmellybell on IG MarkBellSlingShot.com   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: The “Lift Through It” movement Why the barbell is the best medicine Going carnivore and why it isn’t for everyone. What happened to Westside Barbell? Surrounding yourself with great people is the key to success Being the Million Dollar Meathead Why everyone should walk every day.   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa ———————————————— Please Support Our Sponsors   Shadow Creative Studios - Save $200 + Free Consult to start you podcast using code” “Shrugged” at podcast.shadowstud.io   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Purchase our favorite Supplements here and use code “Shrugged” to save 20% on your order: https://bit.ly/2K2Qlq4    Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, the Million Dollar Meathead, Mark Bell from Slingshot and Super Training Gym HQ all the way out in California. We had him on the show. This conversation's long because the conversation's ripe. Personalities were fire. A lot of people that like talking and have been lifting weights for a long time.

But before we get into the show, I wanna talk about high-intensity hypertrophy. The latest program from EMOM Aesthetics. This EMOM Aesthetics line is crushing because we are getting people strong, lean, and athletic without spending 60 to 90 minutes in the gym. If you are interested in getting bigger muscles,

if you want to get strong, if you want to get lean, lose body fat, and you want to do it efficiently and effectively, EMOM Aesthetics high-intensity hypertrophy is for you. I've been doing this program for the last six plus months since we entered into quarantine. I have less time. I've got to do everything that I can to continue to stay strong on a limited time schedule.

Gyms are closed in a lot of places still, and I need efficient and effective workouts to make sure that I'm hitting my goals. And this fits my lifestyle. But more importantly, it isn't just fit my lifestyle. It meets all of the requirements for what I'm looking for. I get my intensity. I get my Metcon piece. I don't have to worry too much about long gym sessions because I'm able to get in, get out, get everything I need, get strong, stay lean, get athletic, and all of it's done inside 30 minutes. We're putting big lifts together so people are getting strong. We're adding the hypertrophy elements so that people

are getting jacked, the nutrition piece, and we're giving away all of this, or we're putting together over six resources for you with over $1,000 value. So get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash store. Search for high intensity hypertrophy in the EMOM aesthetics section. It's $49 a month. It saves you 50% off of the retail price with over $1,000 in free resources attached to it. So get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash store.

Search for EMOM aesthetics, high intensity hypertrophy. This sale is going through next Friday. We're gonna have a full show on Wednesday for you. dot com forward slash store search for EMOM aesthetics, high intensity hypertrophy. This sale is going through next Friday. We're going to have a full show on Wednesday for you. And I'm incredibly excited because I've been doing this program for a long time now, six months straight, and I can't wait to get it to you. Undulating periodization. So each week, the time, um, the, the volume and intensities adjust to keep you healthy, to keep you strong, keep your joints pain-free as well as just keeping you strong and lean. And if it's my life, perfect.

Um, it brings the results that I'm looking for, uh, which is to get jacked, be lean, be athletic. Who else doesn't want that? Of course, uh, bartallstruck.com forward slash store and use the code muscle at checkout to save 50%. Let's get into the show welcome to barbell shrug i'm andrews varner doug larson coach travis mash and mark bell in the house today he's out on the beach if you've seen the guy on instagram he's got more muscles than you can imagine i don't even know how the dude got so shredded i hope we're gonna find that out out. Steroids. There it is.

That is the answer. All right. Let's kick it off, boys. Podcast is over. Are there any specific kinds you'd recommend or just one category? Steroids. All of them. Steroids, fantastic.

Mix in a little Diana ball and you got yourself a party. There it is. That's so great. It's that kind of party, boys. Send a little Diana ball and you got yourself a party. There it is. That's so great. It's that kind of party, boys. We were going to start off with some really inspiring stories, but now we went straight to the most inspiring. Straight downhill.

Straight to the S-bomb. It's a good thing they can't take you off the air right away, right? Yeah. The lift through it thing that you've been posting about i think has become one of the more kind of inspiring and interesting things um i i don't know i don't know the exact story behind all of it i know a lot of your story um but of all four of us on this podcast right now there's got to be at least 75 to 100 years of weightlifting. And I think that message can probably resonate with all of us that we've all been through. Coming from Travis.

I got jokes. I got jokes. And, you know, through all the stages of life, we're all parents now and we all were athletes. The barbell just continues to be that thread that guides us through all the stages of life. We're all parents now and we all were athletes. The barbell just continues to be that thread that guides us through all of it. Where did the lift through it mantra and story come from? You know, it just came from a realization of so many of us are in the gym and we're striving to get better for so many different reasons. And it's not really just to bench press 500 pounds. It's not really just to clean 300 pounds.

You know, there's always a story involved. And as I've been a coach and a lifter myself, as I started talking to more athletes, I was like, man, this guy over here, you know, he overcame alcoholism. And this guy over here used to be, Jeremy Avila, used to be a crack addict. Now he deadlifts over 900 pounds. You know, this guy over here just went through a divorce and weighed 160 pounds soaking wet. And now here he is, you know, uh, 240 and Jack looking good and feeling good about what he does and, and, you know, lifting some heavy weights. So I started to just kind of recognize this and I probably recognized it a lot earlier than I came up with the slogan, but you know, I watching like the, uh, the old WPO finals and watching guys like Travis and watching Chuck Vogapool and watching these guys smack their heads on the bar and people bleeding.

And, you know, people always ask, like, what's it for? You know, what are you doing? You know, and even now with just some general fitness, you know, sometimes people just say, oh, man, you still doing all that? Like, you still, like, why are you still, they don't get it. They're like, what are you, what are you doing? And I started to recognize, I think that we're all just trying to work through something, you know, we're just trying to like work through, through, um, the problems that we have. And it's very, very simple. Lifting is an interest for us. It makes us feel good. And it's something that we, uh, you know, gravitated towards. And I think that we may have

not recognized that we're probably lifting to solve a bunch of other problems in our lives that we could probably, if we were a little smarter, we could probably just directly touch upon. I mean, you don't have to lift weights to stop drinking alcohol. But it certainly does help to have something that makes you feel good, to have something that you can see some real progress with. And when it comes to actually lifting, I think you can kind of through anything, you know, you can be a rock climber, you can, you know, be a cyclist or anything. But I think one of the beauties of lifting weights is the, just how black and white it is. You know, you can really see

the improvement, like not just in the way your body looks, that sometimes takes actually pretty long time. You know, that, that's unfortunate. It might take five years. It might take a decade, you know, for you to even look like you lift, it might take a long time, but to see that you lifted more weight than last time, that's amazing. And I think if we just boil down what everyone's talking about and what everyone's really just trying to do, just trying to be a little bit better than you were yesterday or a little bit better than you were last week. And could you curl those 20 pound dumbbells, you know, an extra rep or two, you know, could you lift a little bit more weight? And the answer is almost always yes. I've heard Tom Platts, he, he, uh, the big proponent of,

you always have five more reps. People are like, ah, you always have a rep or two left in the tank. If you get after it mentally, he was a big proponent of like, no, I actually think you have a lot more than that. Even you got five more reps, but you know, I think that a lot of us are trying to work through problems. And, you know, as I got around more and more people and started chatting with people about this concept of lift through it like yeah man i never even recognized that before but and and i just have run into people that have kind of outlifted everything it's really been it really been really really cool to bring this topic up and then have people go oh yeah i'm fucked up too yeah as a kid my mom was married three times and like there's the the

last dad i call him the last one he was like really volatile so like sometimes like if you guys met him he'd be he's super he's amazing entrepreneur so he's he was a great you know example for that but you never knew when you're gonna like say the wrong thing and he was going to explode on you because he's very violent and he'd hit us. And like, and you know, so you didn't know you could put in like, you could, you could clean the house, you can mow the yard and still say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. And he beats your ass, you know? And so, so it didn't matter what you put in,

you don't know what you're going to get out. So I did find that, you know, the gym was the one place I know I knew that if I put in X, I would get Y, you know, if I put in the work, I would get the results. It was always there, you know, like, you know, cause my mom, we moved a lot. So I didn't know, sometimes I'd come home from college and we, you know, might not be at our house anymore. It might be an apartment or, or we might be staying with family, but like the gym was there. It was always there. I could go there. I i could train i never had to worry about the doors being shut and it was just a place of like you know of like uh normal you know it was like it was my one place in my childhood that was always there and it was it was normal so yeah i found that i one of the things that i think about a lot when it comes

to the gym and lifting that idea of lifting through it, like I just, I committed to being a professional in this probably at the worst time in my life because I only had the gym to go to in a way that I was like, I didn't have a, it's not like I didn't really have a place to sleep that wasn't my parents' house. And the only way that I was actually going to do something with my life was go to the only place that I enjoyed going to, which was to lift. And then I was like, fuck it. I'm just going to try and be good at this and go and open a gym like a month later. I think that that message though, it just, it always finds me every time you post something about it. And do you, have you ever noticed kind of in looking back that your training regimen at the time or your mentality at the time, or just the, maybe the programs that you're following and the intensity, just all of that resembling kind of, you know, are the programs that you're

going on or like the cycles that you're going on or like the, the cycles that you're going on significantly harder, um, during rough times because it just mimics real life or, um, just any, anything that, you know, comes out in the gym expresses itself in the gym on a consistent basis that matches a lot of where you're at mentally, physically, emotionally, um, in your real life. A hundred percent. I think, you know, when, when I was lifting the heaviest weights was, uh, you know, definitely, definitely a more chaotic time, you know, like everything happened all at once for me. I was, uh, inventing the slingshot, raising kids and, you know, lifting my, lifting my biggest weights, you know, all kind of

simultaneously trying to build up super training and trying to, you know, manage some other, uh, high level lifters, which is really hard in and of itself. You know, it's very, it's very stressful to, to have a room full of people that are pushing in that way, especially when people are on performance enhancing drugs, it really makes things even tougher. And also at that time, you know, I was huge. You know, I just weighed myself right now with this 40 pound weight vest on and I weighed 276. So yeah, with it on, but I used to weigh 330, you know, I used to be 330 pounds, and it was really, really rare for me to be able to sleep. I wake up of the slingshot and stuff but it just it's very indicative of the style of training i was doing was chaotic and kind of crazy and over the

top yeah and uh my lifestyle was uh was similar you know i'm not a guy that's like into um recreational drugs i like my my only drug of choice has always been some performance enhancing drugs and that's pretty much been the extent of it. But, you know, my life wasn't too out of control. Like I know some other guys got into a lot of other things as well. But, you know, lifting always gave me, even though the lifting itself was a little bit chaotic with the type of weights that we're doing and the intensity that was going on, it was still something that was always there for me. And it was something that was super comforting. It was still something that was always there for me. And it was something that was super comforting. It's also the only thing I understood. You know, I, you know, I bought a

story about myself when I was young and it just surrendered to the fact that, okay, I'm dumb. And, you know, that's my life sentence. I'm going to be that, that that's who I am. I'm a dumb kid. I'm pretty good physically when it comes to like football or when it comes to like lifting weights or something like that. I'm pretty good with that. But anything intellectual is kind of off the table for me because I'm just not good at that. And as I started to understand working out more, you know, somebody would ask me a question about like powerlifting or something. And then I would answer them. And then I was like, well, shit, I'm pretty good at some of this stuff. Like I'm good at helping people with these numbers. I'm good at helping people in the

gym. And obviously that made me feel really good. But as I started to communicate with more people, and as you started to get around people that are intelligent, that do other things, maybe they're people that you just hold in high regard because they are somebody in our society. They're a lawyer or they, you know, work at the Capitol building or any of these kinds of things. And you start to communicate with these people and they're asking you about, you know, how to gain some size in their arms and you're telling them all these little tricks. And then they're like, hey man, you're, that's brilliant. That's awesome. Like I didn't know you knew all this stuff, you know, and they're like, hey, man, that's brilliant. That's awesome. Like, I didn't know you knew all this stuff.

And they're talking to you about maybe asking questions about, like, nutrition and all these kinds of things. And it just opened my mind. You know, it just opened my mind. I'm like, oh, maybe, like, okay, maybe I'm not good at math. Maybe I'm not good at learning about some of these things that I don't care about. That's the key word. When it comes to something I'm interested in, I'm actually plenty capable of learning, I would say, just about anything. I mean, you can grasp the concept of something wild and crazy in physics. If I worked at it long enough, if I was interested in it

enough, if I cared about it enough, then I would be able to understand it. So I didn't know that about myself until I was like 30. Look at your ability, what you've done with your business. I mean, there's a lot of smart people that are broke as hell right now. So, you know, I'd rather if you're dumb, call me dumb. I think that's a pretty sorry. Go ahead, Travis. No, I'm done.

I was just making a point. Yeah, go ahead. I feel like that's very common amongst entrepreneurs entrepreneurs a lot of entrepreneurs just hate school and like they thought they were stupid like maybe they're kind of more on the artistic side and not so much like on the math engineering side and so they they got told they were dumb i feel i feel like your your story is very common amongst very successful people there's so many multi-millionaires out there that fucking dropped out of school because they they didn't think that it was for them but they're really good with people and they're, they have a lot of creative

ideas and it ends up working out even better for them than a whole lot of other people that did really well in school. Yeah. And that was the thing that I, that I lifted through and, you know, like, um, just, I don't know, just things when you're a kid, like you just, you know, I think about my own kids. I have a 12 year old daughter and daughter and a 16-year-old son. It's really funny to think about when you're a kid. I mean, a lot of things are similar when you're an adult, but there's some major differences. And I think one difference as an adult, you're kind of excited to stand out and to do something a little different here and there, something that's just a little notch above maybe what some of your friends are doing and stuff.

But when you're a kid, when you're the ages of my children, you really want to kind of fly under the radar a lot. And you really don't want to be, you know, you might get recognized for something here and there. It feels pretty good. But even that, you want to kind of like lay low. My mom used to call the school when I was in middle school and tell them about these powerlifting records that I broke. And I would just sink down in my chair like I died. You know, I was dying with embarrassment. I was turning like purple because they would announce it on the loudspeaker that I like broke a state record in the bench

press or that I broke a national record. And I'm like, power lifting is not cool. Nobody knows about power lifting. Mom, what are you doing calling the school? Tell them I broke the record. No one even knows what you're talking about. Then these kids would ask me, you know, all these questions. So like, even with the lifting, I didn't necessarily feel all that special from the lifting until later on, until I started to recognize, I don't know, I guess how important lifting is to people. And then when it came to the actual topic of lift through it, it came a little bit

more from recognizing what females are getting from lifting. Cause like, I mean, I don't have any like proof or evidence of this, but it just seems like the advancement of females, uh, in, especially in terms of what they've been able to do in the gym. And I believe also, and again, I don't have any proof of this but I believe also it takes social media out of it because social media is pretty devastating but I think that the gym has done more for females in the last maybe decade or so than it has even maybe for men just because you're seeing all these women who are like man I feel great I don't mind wearing short shorts anymore like I used to not wear a pair of shorts. I always had to wear, you know, baggy sweats or just a pair of leggings. And now

they feel great because they really been empowered by what lifting can do for them. And it's, it's been amazing. When I started seeing that, I started hearing more girls. They're like, yeah, I started to exercise more for performance. I stopped being a cardio bunny and I shifted more towards like, let me see what my body can do performance wise. Then when they saw what their body can do performance wise, then they were really fired up and excited by that because they were making some progress. And then kind of by and large, they ended up looking better anyway, because they got

in better shape. They followed a little bit better diet. And you see the girls that are in Olympic lifting, a lot of them are gorgeous. And same with uh crossfit i mean these these girls they look great and they're lifting these like it's not it's not some girl foaming at the mouth who you know is is jacked out of her mind who's dead lifting you know 400 pounds these these are girls that like i just said they're they're gorgeous women lifting some heavy ass weight so that's that's where I first kind of really recognized it was through through the females that transition that transition uh you know you talk about like a decade ago when the CrossFit Games started to blow up the girls were so and still are for the most part like at one through ten the top ten the girls are so much more exciting and so much more engaging

and it just gave females on the whole a platform to stand up and say oh i could do cool stuff too and not just do cool stuff but do it way more engaging and entertaining and like just actually dominate that scene like the the, the guys, everyone knows meathead dudes that lift weight to go fast. Very few people are, you know, no females that just get to the gym and get after it. And if you have a daughter,

who do you want them to look to, to model? I want my daughter to look to Sarah Davies, Hunter Elam, Annie Thor's daughter. You know, I want her to look at that and say, that is empowering. I don't want her to look at the runway models that are crackheads. They're like, they're snorting lines of cocaine before they walk out on the runway.

Travis, I met Annie Thor's daughter. She came into my gym one day and I swear to you, I could not talk to her for the first like eight minutes of her being there because I had just met like the pinnacle of female. Like she was so jacked, so shredded, moved so well, carried herself with the most confidence. And I was just like, I'm going to go up to my office for a minute and regroup. I can't, I am not prepared of how evolutionary, evolutionarily superior you are than I am right now. I'll be back. I got a better way. She and I opened a gym together, like a gym and there's a brand new gym and it was a,

it's called CrossFit Top Tier in Winston-Salem. Paid us both to come and be the, I don't know, you know, the people that people want to come and see. And so I got to hang out with her all day, just the two of us. And like. Wait, Annie? Annie, me and Annie. Oh, you totally know. Yeah, I was like.

God. How great. You're basically speechless when you meet her. Oh, yeah. I was like. Because she's just such a high-level human. But, Mark, you know, this is the stuff. You know, I saw your post about, you know, open back up,

that you're saying the heck with it. Like this is the stuff people don't know. They just don't know. And the people who are arguing with you, like getting mad, unfollowing you, then they don't know what we're talking about. They don't understand how much the gym, bro, if you'd have taken the gym away from me when I was in high school, you know what? I'm going to be honest with you all right now. I would be in prison just like my little brother's in prison. I would be right beside him and like murdering people in prison, I'm sure, because

I did not have that outlet, man. I'm telling you, there was a time in my life something big was going to happen. It was either going to be big, awesome, or big, not so awesome. And so I was either going to help society or I was going to be a menace. And so if you'd have taken the gym away from me, I promise you I would not have survived this quarantine

without going to prison. I know I wouldn't have. I know who I was. I'm very well aware. like they just don't know i think uh i like that you said that because i mean that's really at the base of like who i am and what i'm about it's like i i really just love training i really do i love i love the physicality of it i love what it's done for me i love what it's done for my friends i love what it's done for uh i mean what it does for your mindset, you know, like, um, this, you know, doing these walks and stuff that I talk about all the time, I think especially

younger kids and, and, and rightfully so. I mean, I would have done the same thing. You just like, man, that's some old guy shit, like going for a walk, but man, what, what walking, I don't really walk for like my physique. I'm not trying to like have this crazy physique transformation to go on a walk. It's for my mind. It's for, it's for my, my mindset and to get my mindset right. You know, I keep hearing people continually talk about, you know, how hard these times are and how difficult they are. And I don't view that that way. I'm like, you know, don't, don't try to put your bad thoughts into my head. These, these times are fine. I'm doing great. My business is kicking ass. I feel good. I'm in better shape than ever. I feel really good about the things that I'm doing.

And when I say something like that, people are like, hold on a second. You can't talk that way because people are dying. And I have cognitive empathy. I understand. I have awareness. I know that people are dying. I know that there's a virus going on. I understand what's happening, but I'm in a 100% disagreement of the quarantine and people keep trying to blame COVID for this and blame COVID for that. And the news keeps trying to make you feel like that everything is caused by COVID-19. And this has been induced by our government has shut everything down. Our government has said, this is the way that we're going to move forward. And the public hasn't necessarily really agreed to it per se,

but I have seen a lot of people kind of sitting back, counting their check that they're getting from the government and just thinking like everything's chill. And right off the bat, right off the front from the very beginning, I was saying, this is total bullshit. This is pseudoscience. I don't agree with it. I think this is fake news. And I think that we should try to do something about it. And when I started to try to rally people up, I was texting people, calling people. I didn't have that many people that were like with me. They're like, dude, you're crazy. Like people are getting sick and people are dying. And I'm

like, you don't understand who I communicate with. Like I know a lot of really intelligent, smart people. I know high level scientists. I know high level doctors. I know people that are on the front end of this whole thing because I've been researching nutrition for, for such a long time. And these people that research nutrition, they research all of health. And I took a deep dive into it.

And when you take a deep dive into it, you recognize that about 99% of the people that get this thing are surviving. The death rate matches our age expectancy. So people die at like 80 or whatever it is. That's how old the people are that are dying, mainly from the coronavirus. Obviously, it has a larger impact on people that are over the age of 70, people that are under the age of 17. I think it's like 0.002% chance of death. And so it's like, I think people are like, dude, you're just a meathead. Like, you can't know this information.

It's like, I have heard a lot of this stuff. Like, I have communicated a lot of people. I'm also open to the fact that, hey, maybe it was a good idea that we shut down for a little while to kind of regroup. And that I agree with. I think two weeks or so or a month would have been fine. But we have been shut down for way too long. Out of control. Way too long.

Out of control. It's weird. It's going to be like 16 weeks. But does all of this – I mean, I love coming back to the lift through a piece of like, yo, why aren't people tougher? Oh, yeah. Why – It's only a couple of weeks. How do we develop toughness if we don't have hard things to do or hard situations to face? I also have no interest in a global

pandemic wiping out a billion people. But if it did, you still have an 83% chance of living. And if it wiped out a billion people, there's still going to be 6 billion people on the earth. I know, that's a lot. It's not going to do that. Nobody wants this. It's not like a real joking matter if a billion people die, but it's not going to do that nobody wants this it's it's not like a real joking matter if a billion people die but it's like there is an underlying piece of this where like people are so scared about everything and we live in fear so much and in a way that mentality comes out of not having to go out and do things and putting yourself on the line, which we can over glorify the gym very easily.

But there is a piece to it that you go in every day and at some point you end up failing. I think a lot of people that are just even, I think even just striving for success is dangerous, you know, and I think a lot of people, not to say that if you strive for success that you can't live to be a hundred. But I would say that, I mean, I've never seen any research in this fashion, but it'd be actually really interesting to dive into it. I would take a guess and say that multimillionaires, people that had to really work for their money and entrepreneurs and things of that nature, I'm just going to guess that they die a little younger than, um, maybe the, maybe, maybe the general population, maybe like an NFL player, you know, doesn't get to live to be a hundred years old. You know, it, it seems to be more,

more rare. Right. And I think that that's even a risk, like just trying to strive each and every single day to want to make more than $50,000 or $70,000 a year. Even that, that's a stress. Wanting to have a body fat level that's kind of uncomfortable for your body, that's a stress. You know, these are all stresses and we can try to claim that they're good for us and we can try to claim that they're bad for us, but your body really knows, your body really internalizes it. The amount of stress that we have with with social media and all these different things, I guess what I would propose to somebody that's really concerned about dying or somebody that thinks that, you know, leaving their house

without a mask is going to kill somebody or or leaving their house, period, is going to kill somebody, which is asinine. I think that's 100% ridiculous. But even for some of these people that think this way, you have every right to think whatever way you want. So I'm not going to impose my thought on you. Don't impose your thought on me. And we can kind of go our separate ways. But the question I would ask is, would you rather live to be 75 and to have total financial literacy and to be really well off for maybe, let's say, 30 years of your life. 30 years of your life, you get to make 300K plus for 30 years of your life, but you die at 75. Or would you rather kind of scrape money together each and every week live paycheck to paycheck and live to be 100 75 you know what i mean i i i just i'm it's a legitimate question like i understand that

the covid thing isn't necessarily related to that but but if you think about it in terms of like just kind of uh accepting risk i think there's a lot of risks that we're willing to accept when we do certain things and make certain decisions. I want to live life. Don't you? Like I want to experience things. I want, you know,

I want to go to Sweden with my friends again. I want to go to Peru. Sweden knows where it's at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Next time we went to a Laco, it was rad.

It was great. And so like, I want to experience life. I don't want to be stuck in a cave or my house. You know, I want my kids to experience life. I want to take my, my sons and my daughters to,

you know, other countries and people and cultures and heck with this. Yeah. Yeah. I think also Mark, your, your maybe not everyone's opinion is always equal or maybe everyone's opinion is equal.

I don't know the real answer to that. But your life experiences allow you, in a way, from your brothers and dealing with addiction and death. You do have a different outlook than most people and have lived through experiences that allow you to talk about the way that you would like to live your life from the experiences you've kind of gone through. You know, I think that what you're posing as a question is really important for most people to understand. Like if the average age of something that's killing killing people is 80 84 years old or something like that like what does 84 to 85 look like and you know your your opinion of that may be more valuable uh just because you have you have been through and seen a lot a lot um i guess you know

when when you when you look back on kind of those those experiences and dealing with suicide or addiction, where is the gym or just this mentality? What's helped with those situations? That's as hard as it gets for most people is dealing with that. It's the same thing as it's always been it's always been just focusing on yourself you know like trying to figure out who you are in this world and and how you have any sort of impact on anything is like the hardest thing to figure out um i heard some people recently on your podcast talking about social media and, um, they were kind of talking about like probably the most important thing that you can really explore is behavior modification,

you know, and getting off of social media and some of these things. And, you know, there's some pros and cons to social media, but even aside from that, I think it's everyone's job to really work hard on how they interpret stuff because everything is just an

interpretation. Any news that you get is going, it's going to go through a filtering system that's in your head. So if you guys have somebody on the podcast who you're like, holy crap, man, this guy is so smart. We better really do our research because he uses a lot of big words. You'll notice that when you say something to them, what they spit back is filtered out much differently than when you're talking to somebody just about like weights and you're talking to somebody about common knowledge between the two of you. It's not that hard to absorb, but they're filtering it. They're interpreting it way different.

Take all four of us, for example, if we were to draw a picture of this beach that's behind me here and the golf course, well, it would look very different. All four of us would have a different interpretation of how it looks. Mine would be terrible. Church, for example. Church is an interpretation of a Bible or it's an interpretation of whatever words and whatever faith and whatever things they have devised over the years, the entire thing is based off of, we're going to interpret all the stuff from this book. That's what they do every day. And I think that working on like reframing what has happened, like what has happened, replace your feelings with facts and try to learn more. What's knowable

about the situation? What's knowable about the situation? What's knowable about my childhood hero, my oldest, my oldest brother, Mike Bell, what's knowable about him dying? What's, what, what can be known? You know, what, and obviously like when that happened, you know, my, my dad called me, this is, you know, nearly 10 years ago, my dad called me and, you know, he's like, your brother's dead. And I kind of ran through some of that in my head because my brother always had trouble. He was always in fights. He was addicted to drugs. He was bipolar. So there's a lot of kind of complicated history with him. But hearing my mom screaming in the background saying it's not true and her crying

and stuff, of course, that made me super emotional. But what I want people to understand about emotion is emotion makes you irrational. Emotional is not any different than being drunk. If somebody was hammered and they really pissed you off and it's a friend and they're're like hey man like what's wrong like you're not talking to me you'd be like you know what dude we're going to talk about it in the morning and it's the same thing with feelings people need to get unwound from their feelings your feelings are all balled up and they're all uh they're all surrounded in your thought process. We don't have any control over all of the thoughts that enter our brain, but we have control over how we filter them. We have control over how we interpret what's going on. So you can interpret the time that we're going through right now

as being really tough, but how is that helpful? What is that supporting? It doesn't support anything. Think about this, for example. Think about, you know, my daughter's 12, and think about I walk into her room, and she's crying on her bed, and she's like looking at her phone or something, right? So, imagine if I walk in there, and I hit the floor like a ton of bricks and start pounding on the ground, crying like crazy, like a crazy person. Well, how's that going to be? How's that going to support her? How's that going to help her? That's, that's, that's not helpful, right? So what if I instead, like I have options, right? I can interpret that a different way. Honestly, what I'd probably do if I saw her and recognize that

she didn't see me, I'd probably ease back out and I'd probably say, all right, well, I'll try to tackle whatever the heck's going on maybe a little bit later as long as I saw she wasn't in any sort of real danger, you know. I talked to her when she's, you know, not so emotionally attached to whatever the heck just happened but, you know, if she did see me, I would go in there and I would talk to her about it and I would just say, hey, I, you know, I see that you're upset. I'm really sorry. Um, I know you probably don't want to talk to me about it, but like me and mom, we're always here for you. We love you. And then I peace out of the room, but also think about how unhelpful it would be if I popped in the room and saw her crying. And I said, Hey, did you take out the fucking garbage yet? I asked you to take out the garbage a couple minutes ago. And then she looks at me and I see she really has a lot of tears and said, go take out the fucking garbage. What are you doing? I asked you to take out. And you can see how irrational these thought processes are. And so I think that a lot of times people don't realize you get kind of drunk with feelings. You get drunk with emotion and they're not, they're not helpful. Like feelings, feeling of being like mad or feeling of, of being

pissed off or even feelings of sadness, even feelings of happiness can sway you the wrong way. You have to be really, really careful with how you're interpreting all the things that are going on in today's day and age. I think it's more important than ever with all the social media that we're consuming. We know we're on it, you know, four or five hours, probably pretty much every day.

Yeah. Um, man, we had Lane Norton on yesterday. We talked a lot about nutrition. I got to hear about the carnivore thing with you. Um, you,

you're very dedicated to this. I want to know, uh, just when, when did you make this kick? Obviously your shirt's off a lot more, so there's a lot more social credibility that goes along with carnivore diet right off the top.

Got to get those nipples out. We enjoy seeing male nipples on Instagram, and you are not short of them. I'd be naked, so. I'm in much supply. If I were ripped like that, I'd be naked. Mark, here's the deal. Coach Travis Mass is going to be the strongest man in the world again. He's got a powerlifting meet coming up next year.

I love it. Right after that, we're pushing him hard to go bodybuilding. He's going to need a coach. You're going to be ripped. Yeah. We need Mark Bell. You guys, team up. Hell, yeah.

Get him on stage. You know what, Travis, man? Bodybuilding training is really weird. Like, it's – I don't know if you really – Travis has never done more than a set of three. So keep the reps low. I did a set of four once. He needed oxygen after that, right?

You know, bodybuilding training is really interesting. Like, it actually took me about two or three weeks just to figure out how to, like, really get a pump. And obviously, I've had pumps before from doing drop sets and stuff. But it's different when that's, like, the most important thing. You know, like, if it's just at the end of a workout, you did some squats and stuff. Okay, now you do a couple leg extensions and that's it. But when you're trying to like ride the pump the whole time, it's actually like there's a lot of thought that has to go into it. Each person is going to react differently to different exercises. And especially someone like yourself, I'm sure you've torn a bunch of stuff like I have.

It was really hard to figure out how the hell do I flex a torn bicep? Bring it back. Yeah, right. So it was really hard to figure out how the hell do i flex a torn bicep bring it back yeah right so it was it was uh it was bizarre um i you know i like a lot of uh a lot of the stuff that lane norton has put out there i really think that when you when you if you think about you know all of us being in a uh you know in a boat you know together um then you can like not really worry so much about you know what side of the tracks he comes from and what his actual theories and beliefs are and how they differ from some of the things that i believe um and i think a lot of times too sometimes you start arguing with somebody like elaine norton and you don't even recognize that

you're like arguing about the same thing basically i just want you he didn't say anything bad by any means i'm not trying to start any internet drama by any means we did it yesterday we talked a lot about the carnivore diet that's the only reason his name came out uh and you were the you were the person that was like i want to look like mark bellamy shredded yeah we've we've been we've been friends for a long time. And, you know, there's going to be holes in every diet, you know. And there's going to be – people are going to take exception to nearly everything that anyone says when it comes to nutrition. Because a lot of it is – it's hard to figure out for people. It's hard for people not to be fat, right? And that's all I really ever try to promote is, like, how do we you not to be fat like how do we just how do we just figure this out and

i think when lane talks a lot about calories or if someone's talking about a carnivore diet or someone says hey just cut out carbs somebody else says uh hey man eat a lot of vegetables so they fill you up i think we're all talking about the same shit. And really, it would be wise to arm people with as many different weapons as they could have. Because, you know, what if I tell you, hey, man, this carnivore diet is great. And you get one week into it and you're like, man, I realize I actually don't even like meat that much. Well, now we're screwed, right? And now you don't have a backup to try to fall fall on you know i i personally am a big believer in meat-based diets in general and i think that i've been doing a meat-based diet for

30 years or so whether i was power lifting or even when i was at my fattest like this the core substance of what i utilized was you know for my food was coming from meat. I always ate a lot of meat, but carnivore diet is a really quick and easy way for someone to just, just get away from all the crap. And it gives you, it gives you a rule to follow and there's not a lot of rules. Like what's the rules. The rules are eat meat okay eat hungry you're full eat meat you know and so i think that sometimes simplicity if something is really really simple maybe it'd be easier for somebody to grasp i also have noticed in my own um just helping this

helping other people i've noticed that and this is is just a generalization of a lot of the men that I've helped, but a lot of the men that I've helped, they love like omelets, they love cheese, they love bacon, they love meat. And so like a keto style thing, a lot of dudes are like, man, I love those foods already. And it's like, yeah, you just have to, you're sacrificing some of the other foods that you like, like pizza and ice cream and some of these things but you get to really enjoy a lot of food that's really flavorful yeah and there's there's cookbooks i mean there's all kinds of stuff now a carnivore diet is like the extreme of all extremes and what i would suggest to people when it comes to the carnivore diet is to try what's called a carnivore challenge. And that's, um, was created

by Dr. Sean Baker, um, January, uh, a few years ago. And that is, that's like a deep dive into being full carnivore and all you eat is meat, eggs. There's really not room for much else. I mean, maybe you have a little bit of cheese here and there, but that's, that's really the basis of the diet. But you got, I think people need to understand there's a big difference between a challenge and between like an actual nutritional plan. You know, a challenge is going to be something where you're like, okay, I'm doing for this set amount of time because I want to see how my body reacts to it. And you need to still, no matter what diet you're following or what challenge you're following, there's still healthy parameters that you need to put around that. Like we know how great it is to lift weights,

right? We love lifting weights. How many times a week are we going to lift weights? We're going to either lift three or four times a week, or we're going to lift seven days a week, but there's going to be rules surrounding it. Like if you're going to lift seven days a week, well, you can't go and kill yourself every single day. You know, we have got no problem setting up rules for that but when it comes to other things for some reason we can't extrapolate the rules that we have with lifting imagine if we applied the same rule to social media yeah you know uh three posts a week that's all you get yeah tuesdays and thursdays yeah tuesdays and thursdays i'm not gonna you to be on social media or something like that, right? Yeah, I'd love to set that rule up.

In other spots in our life, you know. So with the carnivore diet, is it like absolutely zero vegetables? So you can't eat broccoli, you can't eat carrots, is that right? Right, and the reason is that vegetables contain anti-nutrients i think there's still a lot of stuff that we don't know so you know some people will really have a kind of a hard sell with the anti-nutrient thing but right i think everything is give and take so i don't think vegetables are bad you know i don't really think that any food is inherently bad again we have to go back to like the dosing

of it. And I would say that I would imagine that you digest carrots and broccoli differently than I do. Like it's just common sense that we probably have different backgrounds. And even though we're very much all similar, uh, we all have, you know, specific things to us that make us different. You know, maybe you had certain vaccinations when you were a kid. Maybe you had certain allergies when you were a kid that I didn't have and vice versa. So it gets to be this kind of giant mess. But the reason to avoid the vegetables is to treat it as an elimination diet and just to see how your body feels with it. For me, I feel like I could eat out of a trash can. Like I could eat anything and like my stomach doesn't really uh get upset or anything so i ditched vegetables for a while to really just

test out the carnivore diet but vegetables are back in for me because sometimes i just want to eat them just to get a little bit more full but then not to have the caloric load that would that would follow that oh that's cool so what like what would you eat if you were to put some vegetables in like what are your vegetables of choice yeah i'd have some like green beans or spinach or really you know i'm not too picky about that kind of stuff again because my actual digestion seems pretty good i don't really have a lot of problems with yeah with any types of foods at the moment right now um it's weird because i'll tell people i eat carbs but it's like i just eat them like periodically i eat them randomly like i don't even eat them every day but there's sometimes like

i don't know like if we make rice and we got you know a good cut of steak or something i'm like ah it'll just be easier just to eat with the family. It'd be easier just to eat that. Like, and I'm not viewing rice as like some negative thing that's going to make me fat. You know, I'm kind of viewing it more like, Hey, that's going to help make me more Jack type of thing. You know, was that specifically the diet you were following to get prepared for the bodybuilding show? No, the bodybuilding show, I did bodybuilding things, you know, and I'm a big believer in that, you know, you want to be- White fish. You're eating white fish every day, four times a day. White rice, white fish. I was doing that kind of stuff.

I really was. I think it's important, you know, like if you want to be an entrepreneur, then do entrepreneur things and hang around with entrepreneurs that, that you think are doing well, you know, that, that represents something that you want to, you know, be good at. Stan Efferding, you know, when he, when I think people think that Stan did powerlifting and bodybuilding at the same time and he didn't, he was smart enough to know that you don't do those things at the same time. You do them separate from each other. Right. So Stan literally went from hanging out with Flex Wheeler, living that bodybuilder lifestyle every single day to come in right to super training gym. And I mean, within weeks, within weeks, he gained like 40 pounds and almost all of it was right in his face.

And, you know, his strength started to go, you know, through, through the roof. And then as soon as he was done, boom, he went right back to Flex Wheeler. And, you know, he went back and forth between the two. But for me, when I did the bodybuilding show, I worked with Hani Rambad. And Hani, you know, he put me on just a straight up bodybuilding style diet with bodybuilding cardio and bodybuilding workouts. And then at the time I started, because that's where my interest was, I started to interview more bodybuilders on the podcast because I was interested. I wanted to learn more, got around guys like Jake Cutler and Michael Hearn. I trained with him for like a month. And I think that's actually a really, really important thing. And I think maybe not everyone has access to,

you know, people that are, you know, semi-famous and things of that nature, but we all have access to people that are better at stuff than us. And I think that's really, truly important for people to do that. Like when you, if you're in real estate and you want to be like the other dude that has a nice car or whatever it is, freaking follow that guy around, take him to lunch, you know, buy the guy a cup of coffee or something, you know, try to figure out the hell it is he's doing but yeah when i did bodybuilding i just flat out did a bodybuilding diet the amount of fat that i'd eat in a day was probably was probably around uh 60 to 80 grams a day um amount of carbs i'd eat in a day was was still

pretty low probably only like 150 on a workout day and maybe like 100 on non-workout day. And then protein is stagnant. I think protein is pretty much similar for just about everybody. I mean, you can go anywhere from one gram all the way up to about two grams per pound of body weight. I love a bodybuilder life I've never really been a part of, but every time I watch documentaries over and over and over and over and over again that start with iron and end with something, it doesn't matter. I'll just watch them. The level of discipline for bodybuilders, specifically when it comes to the nutrition piece, seems like it's even elevated from all of the other strength sports. Like powerlifting,

you kind of want to be bigger. So it's a little bit easier to eat a little sloppier. CrossFit, you kind of want to carry a little bit because you got a lot to do in a weekend. It's hard to walk around at 3% body fat and then in your off season, maintain seven or eight. That's really hard to do. Did you did, did you notice that while you were kind of going deep into that community? You know, bodybuilding is, is, uh, it's different. You know, I would say that I, I, after having the experience of doing bodybuilding, I thought to myself, I was like, man, I'm a real chump. Like, honestly, I really am. I was like, wow, I thought I was in all the way. You know, I really did. I thought I was, I thought I was

fully committed as a power lifter. And, you know, it's also easy to look back and kind of say, oh, I could have done better. But I really did. I looked at everything that I've done in my life and I'm like, man, I did stuff at like around 60%, I think, you know, if I'm really being, if I'm being kind of, because bodybuilding, it's like, they're just different though, too. So it's hard to equate over, but the extra push that you have to do to do the, you know, to do the reps to failure. And then like, what is failure? You know, like, are you really going to failure? Did you really do that? Did you really accomplish that? And then the nutrition side of things. It's like I didn't – I wasn't that meticulous with my nutrition when I was powerlifting.

And I wonder, you know, like I kind of wonder what it would have been like if I would have kind of vertical diet, you know, did a vertical diet style thing when I was powerlifting. How far could I have pushed it? Could I have squatted 1,100 pounds? Could I have benched 900? I'm not sure. But it is interesting and yeah bodybuilding was um for me it was the most challenging thing now you have to also keep in mind i grew up with like sweets in the house my most of my family is kind of fat and so uh for me to like turn my back on you know junk, junk food was, uh, was, and still to this

day is actually very, very difficult for me. Yeah. Was bodybuilding purely a fat loss game for you, given that you were already, you already had a lot of lifting experience. You're already powerlifting. You're already 300 plus pounds. It was just about losing body fat and just showing the muscle that you already had. Or did you, did you ever get on like a bodybuilding specific mass gain cycle?

For me, luckily, it was just about losing body fat. That was going to be kind of the next thing that Hany wanted to work on. But my wife was like, no more bodybuilding. Because, you know, bodybuilding, as I was stating earlier in the show, like it's good to like really kind of get inside yourself and see what you're about and, and, and learn a lot about yourself. But bodybuilding really is very, uh, very selfish. And like, in terms of like sex drive and all these kinds of things, when you're working out that much and you're eating that little, like all that shit's gone. Like I just did, I'll just say it. I mean, flat out, I just didn't care about my wife at that time, which is weird. Like I just wasn't, it wasn't like, No, you scared me away. You had me until you said that. No, it's really, really strange. And people that are listening right now are probably like, what a dick. But I'm just trying to be, I'm just trying to be authentic. I'm just trying to be as honest as I can be here, you know? And she felt it and she was like, what is going on? I said, Hey, look, you know, we're

just, I'm like two weeks out, you know, like I, let me have a little bit more to go. And she's like, I know it means a lot to you. And so we had to talk about it and we've been together for 20 years. So, um, we talked it through and, and, and we made it, we made it through it, but man, it gets to be, it gets to be really, really tough. I have kids as well. So it was just me, me, me all the time. I'd do 90 minutes of cardio, had to work out for an hour. So it was tough.

And so she's asked me, you know, kind of more recently, it's like, you ever think you're gonna do one of those shows again? I was like, I thought I was forbidden, you know? So maybe she's kind of open to me trying one again or something again or something. But I, I just told her, I said, I don't know, maybe when I'm 50 or something, I'll try another one just for motivational purposes. Also keep in mind, I kind of shotgun mine. I was like an eight or nine week prep. It wasn't even that long, but yeah, she just, uh, a lot of that had to do. We were also in, uh, on vacation. So that's what killed it like I the

bodybuilding show was the last second thing that I kind of threw in at her because honey challenged me when he was on my podcast he was like hey man you're already in pretty good shape he's like you owe it to your fans to do a bodybuilding show and I said I don't know anything about bodybuilding but if you'll help me I'm in and so we did it and my wife and I had already planned a trip to Malibu and we were going to be there for like a month. And so in my head, I'm like, this can be perfect. I'll be able to train at Gold's gym every day, you know? And in her mind, like we were going to hang out and like, you know, do family stuff the whole time. So it, uh, didn't work out the way that, the way that she wanted to, uh, but that's where you started training people, right? That's

where you started training people at that's where you started training people at the gold in venice right i used to train people yeah a long time i used to be a personal trainer i trained people in los angeles for uh about six or seven years or so i used to i used to train a lot of um i trained in some like boutique uh type training facilities as well where i mainly trained women um a lot of that when I was trying to train men, I just noticed that I couldn't get them to listen to me as much. And they like, they, they, they kind of knew everything all the time. So I was like, I actually, I told the, I told the owner, I was like,

you know what? I'm like, if you have a choice to send a girl or a guy to me, I was like, send a girl my way. Cause like these guys, man, they already know how to bench. They already know how to do all this stuff. Like, and he was like, he was like, shit, man. He's like, I know the same thing. He's like, but yeah. So anyway, I ended up training

pretty much a lot of housewives. Before we go any further, I want to thank our sponsors over at Organifi, the green, the red and the gold juices. You love them. You need your micros. You need your vitamins. You need your minerals. I know you need them. We all need them. We need them to optimize our health, optimize our performance. And the reason that we do not

get them in our daily diet is because the world is not set up for us to eat all the vegetables that we need. It's just not there. We need to have a supplement because I promise you, you don't need enough salad. You're not roasting enough vegetables. Even your boy, me, had a garden in his backyard this year. And guess what I didn't do? I didn't eat enough vegetables. That's why we have partnered with Organifi for three years running. Three years. That means you love them. That means I love them. That means they love us because you guys love them. So get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. That is where you're going to save 20% on all the green, red, and gold juices. Take the green in the morning to make sure you're

getting all your greens. Then you take the red. It's got a little bit of a boost of energy before your workout or in the middle of the day to avoid the crash. The gold at night helps you sleep. It's got turmeric in it, which is insanely healthy for you. We're reducing stress, reducing inflammation green red and gold the shrug stack sunrise to sunset whatever you want to call it organifi.com forward slash shrug to save 20 also i want to thank our friends over at shadow creative studios taking your podcast from idea to live in two weeks that includes branding logos cover art and and more.

It's an easy process. All you have to do is record and upload your audio. Everything else is done for you for perfectly produced episodes on all the podcast channels. It's a simple payment structure and they can even help with sponsors to make your show profitable on day one.

A $3,000 value, you can save $200 by using the code shrugged at podcast.shadowstude.io podcast.shadowstude.io. I also want to thank our friends over at bioptimizers. Do you know that one phase of sleep that almost everyone fails to get enough of? And this is one phase of sleep is responsible for most of your body's daily rejuvenation, repair, controlling hunger and weight loss, hormones, boosting energy, and so much more. I'm talking about deep sleep. And if you don't get enough, you'll probably always struggle with cravings, slow metabolism, premature aging and even worse conditions. Why don't most people get enough of this one most important phase of sleep?

A big reason is magnesium deficiency, because over 80% of the population is deficient in magnesium. Magnesium increases GABA, which encourages relaxation on a cellular level, which is critical to sleep. Magnesium also plays a key role in regulating your body's stress response system. Those with magnesium deficiency usually have a higher anxiety and stress levels, which negatively impacts as well. Now, before you go out and buy a magnesium supplement, it's important to understand that most magnesium products out there are either synthetic or they have one to two forms of magnesium, when the reality is your body needs all seven forms of this essential sleep mineral. That's why I recommend my product my friends over at by optimizers created called magnesium breakthrough. Taking

this magnesium before bed helps you relax and wake up refreshed and energized. The deep sleep benefits are very noticeable. And I also love that Bioptimizers offers free shipping on select orders. And they offer a 365-day money-back guarantee, plus they have a customer satisfaction rating of 99.3%. It's very impressive. You can get 10% off Magnesium Breakthrough, the best aid I know of for boosting deep sleep at bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. Be sure to use shrugged, the code, for 10% off. That's B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com forward slash shrugged, bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. Use the code shrugged to save 10%.

And let's get back to the show. Yeah, you were responsible for John Cena's entry into WWE. I know that. No one can see me doing it. You can't see me face on Zoom, but I am. Yeah, that was one of the cooler things. I trained with him for like three or four years. And when he told me you were the reason he got in, I was like, damn, Mark Bell.

That guy goes way back, all the way to Venice, Muscle Beach. Dude, what's the future for like slingshot business? You got so much going on, man. One, how do you keep it all straight? And two, where are the big places for growth coming in business? I think the first thing to, how do you spin, you know, a lot of plates at one time and not have a bunch of them crash? I think the key is just to not do that. You know, I think the key is to have people that can help you, have people that can assist you. If you're just starting out, you know, try to go vertical with what you're doing. Try to really kind of hone in and focus in on what you can, the things that you can't do or the things that you aren't that good at.

Maybe down the road you can have people assist with stuff like that. But I'm going to be coming out with supplements within the next year or so. I'm really excited about that. You know, I started up a new website, markbell.com, which has a lot of, like, training information. I'm fired up and excited about that but the truth is is just to have you know you need to have a good team you have good people around you and that was the whole reason you know just in case people don't know they're listening

that my gym is free super training gym is free and when this uh covid thing blows over and we recognize how dumb we were with it um you guys are all, anybody listening to this is invited into Super Training Gym. My gym's free. Just please hit us up on Instagram so we know that you're coming in. But, you know, Super Training was started out of selfish reasons because I wanted to be the best power lifter I could be.

When I went to the WPO finals in Columbus, Ohio, and I saw guys like Travis competing, and I saw the Chuck Vogelpools and stuff like that up there, I was really, really motivated and I saw guys like Travis competing and I saw the Chuck vocal pools and stuff like that up there. I was really, really motivated and really fired up. And I was like, this is, this is what I want to do. I want to take my training to the next level. But every single guy I talked to, every single guy I'd rub elbows with, they weren't doing it by themselves.

They were training with other people. They had like a power lifting gym that they were, that they were at. And I was like, yeah, I was like like there's no power lifting gym where i live so i'm like i'll make my own and so you know i started yeah make my own so started you know super training you know kind of bootstrapped it didn't have any money to really make it work but the whole idea was if i can get around people that are good and i can get around like-minded people like-minded individuals that are savages that want to get better, that's going to help me even on my worst day is going to help me. I'm going to help them and we'll push each other

kind of as, uh, as, as far as I need, you know, need to be pushed and stuff like that. But I think that's a real key factor, you know, in, in life in general is, is try to surround yourself. You hear it all the time. You know, people like get rid of the people that are losers and stuff. Um, I don't know if you have to really get rid of people necessarily, but I do think that it's important that you get around people that are doing the shit that you're interested in and they're doing it well. And so, uh, you know, it's, it's all, I guess I'd say like it's smoke and mirrors. Like I'm pretty good at a couple of things, but my wife helps run the business with me. We at one point

had over 20 employees, but at the moment we have like 12, you know, we're able to run this thing really lean. I'm fortunate that I created some good products and we care a lot about the quality and how the stuff's made. And we care a lot about our customers and having good interactions with them. But it's all been just basics. It's all been the simple stuff. It's been communication. You guys know this, how important it is to have that customer service and to, I mean, there's people still to this day that, that DM me on Instagram and they're like, Hey man, like my, my sleeves don't fit. My elbow sleeves don't fit. And I screen capture it and like send this guy a new pair of sleeves, you know? And then the guy's like so pumped that that happened or somebody

might've had something ripped. We had a major issue with that years ago and I thought it was the end of the world. And my interpretation of that was to get pissed off, which wasn't helpful. But, you know, looking back at it, it was actually great because if I sent Travis knee sleeves and the first time he went to tug them on, they ripped. He would send me an angry message, Mark Bell, you're the worst. And I could get back to him and say, hey, man, how can I make this right? What do you want? You know, you want to you want a T-shirt, you want this, you want the worst. And I could get back to him and say, Hey man, how can I make this right? What do you want? You know, you want to, you want a t-shirt, you want this, you want that. I'd love to make it right in your eyes, whatever way I can. Then I'd send you a product, use the product,

you know, hopefully we corrected the situation. And then you're out touting like, Hey man, like they sent me a pair of sleeves that are kind of jacked up but then they sent me like 200 dollars worth of shit man that place is awesome yeah um i've been wondering this since the west side documentary came out do you still love louis oh everybody loves louis simmons yeah you're i feel like that movie did not do a great job your comment at the end about them being the strongest gym in the country it just something about the way that that was edited. I want to know if you felt the same way. That editing job, I just wanted it to – it didn't feel – I felt like it just – there was more love in there than that comment came out,

and they didn't do a good job with the background music making it feel loving. Well, yeah. Louie is a mentor and, you know, a lot of mentors are going to be loved and hated simultaneously. I'm sure Travis has a lot of lifters, probably a lot of lifters who, who, when they get around, I'm sure they talk really positive about you. I'm sure they also talk really negative. Like, man, when he did that, when I first came into his gym, when I first started doing this program, I don't know why he treated me that way. Like that sucked. But then they're like, they're a better lifter, you know, because of it. And so Louie, um, he used a lot of strategies

that I don't necessarily agree with, but they were effective. You know, they, they, they worked. Um, and I, I have a lot of love for Louie Simmons. I have a lot of love for his wife, Doris. I have a lot of love for Westside Barbell and all the contributions that they've made to powerlifting in general. I mean, I couldn't be more thankful. I mean, I learned so much from Louie Simmons. I learned, I mean, I learned to put other people first, which is like one of the most important things.

I learned that firsthand by seeing him do that, by seeing him, you know, take a phone call when he and I had an appointment to go to the Cleveland Browns where he was selling like 15 reverse hypers to. He took a call from some random person at his house and he talked to this person for like 40 minutes and he made us late to the meeting where he's selling these reverse hypers. And I remember asking him, you know, as we're getting in the car, getting in his truck, I'm like, who's that on the phone? Thinking it's like, must've been the president of the United States or something going on here. Like who was calling in? He was like, Oh, that's some random 15 year old kid in Texas that wants to get his squad up. He's like, so he's like, I told him he

had to do dynamic effort work and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, Louie Simmons is amazing. He's one of a kind. Um, he's, he's a genius. You know, he's kind of also a madman in some ways. Mad scientist. Yeah.

Really what I said in the movie was this. So like in, so Louie's a huge MMA fan and he's, he's a huge fight fan period. And Louie used to watch a lot of, uh, boxing, but when boxing switched over to

mma and they took the gloves off and they started to actually like fight and have a lot of different things going on in the fight other than just boxing you know with these big gloves on power lifting did the same thing it made a shift people had all this stuff on to assist them with the lift and to make it maybe, quote unquote, safer. I don't know if it made it safer. It didn't at all. Yeah, that's fake news. But when powerlifting shifted, he just didn't shift with it. And I thought that was a big mistake because I thought he could have. I thought that he's entitled to it's his gym. It's his stuff. It's like he doesn't need to prove anything to me. He doesn't need to prove anything to the powerlifting world that he like, it doesn't, in my eyes, it doesn't

diminish anything that he's ever done. However, I actually think that that's the kind of major issue with Westside Barbell is I think that it has that cloud around it because powerlifting gear and steroids, I think is what some people, some coaches associate that with Westside Barbell, and they shut down. When they hear that, they shut down. They don't listen to anything anybody has to say any further because they're like, well, you're talking about a squat, you know, in a squat suit with a wide stance, and how does that equate to – It's high. It's not deep. Yeah.

And then, travis how many people do you have that when they start out they're not they don't know how to do a clean very well their stance is getting just as wide as our stance used to be on our squats right when they're oh yeah get underneath the weight right their legs go out real wide and look at baseball players and look at all kinds of different sports you're in like a really wide stance anyway i think you know louis simmons has offered a lot of great things, but that was my comment in the movie. It was like, where the fuck's Westside Barbell?

Power lifting has changed so much. Power lifting has grown so much. How come they're not in this fight with us to kind of prove further that they're the strongest gym ever? I think Louie didn't care. I think we both know why they didn't. I think they get to ask what is what I mean. Oh, yeah.

No, I think so, too. I think you're talking with lay it to them. I think Dan Green, I think they would have to change a lot, a lot. Dynamic effort would be good. But like you got to go heavy and you got to go heavy often, you know, to go against people like Dan Green and Uri Belkin. Uri Belkin will tear your ass up, you know. You know what, Mash? I'd love to hear your take on this.

Like, so, and I don't know your history, like, what you started with, but, you know, for me, what I saw with powerlifting and the huge evolution in powerlifting has been the frequency. That wasn't a thing. When I was young, I did hear about the Bulgarians. I did hear about some of these people lifting three times a day, but that was more Olympic lifting type stuff. Weightlifting, right. Squat every day and some of this other stuff.

When that first came along, I got to admit I was very ignorant to it. I was like, that's stupid. Why would anybody squat more than once a week? And, you know, I was excited because I didn't have any knowledge of it. But, you know, seeing Ray Williams and seeing all these people destroying these numbers, it seems like the frequency has increased a ton. I think so. I think that's probably one of the biggest, you know,

there's a lot of things that have changed, but I think, you know, frequency being one of them. I think now looking at things, though, you take a guy like Ed Cohn and you look at how long he was able to do something, and then you look at guys like even Lane. I would say this if Lane were on the show or like a Greg Knuckles. They're getting hurt a lot quicker. They're getting somewhere faster, but they are not maintaining it,

not even close to someone like Ed Cohn, who over multiple decades ruled. I think somewhere in the middle and realizing that just because Elaine Norton or just because Greg Nichols squatted every day,

maybe you should go from twice a week to three times a week and like, see how that, and then take off seasons like Ed Cohn did. I think the smartest thing Ed Cohn did was that he only competed twice a year and he took a big off season where he would do bodybuilding. I think that was the wisest thing. And I look back and like, uh, I saw that and I just was too like arrogant to do it.

Honestly. Like I saw it. I was like, I know that's wise, but I, you know, I wanted to compete because I wanted people to see that I was the strongest in the world.

I wanted to, I don't know. That was, it goes back to, we're all lifting because we're working out other issues. And so, um, it cone was,

that was the wisest thing he did. So, so yeah, frequency, but is it good? I think it gets you there fast, but we'll keep you there. I'm not certain. I think the verdict's still out. Guys. I got to tell you that, you know, I used to look at Travis's training log on elite every, every day, every time he updated it, I'd check it out.

And I just was always just so blown away. I was like, like, is this guy like, what is, what is this guy like what is what is this guy like riding like what is this like an 800 something pound deadlift off of like a a four inch deficit i'm like no one can do that i'm like there's got to be like we got to find some video of this guy like how do we find you know so there was not as much video back then oh yeah and some of the lifts you were doing yeah it can feel north carolina some of those lifts you were doing were fucking insane i was super inspired by all that, man. That was unbelievable.

Yeah. One thing that, like – It's really – go ahead. I was just going to say that, you know, it was always important to me, you know, Mark, is like if someone would have said, take your equipment off and let's see how strong you are, I would have been like – and I would have whipped your ass worse without the equipment.

It was important to me. Like I started lifting weights because I wanted to be the strongest man in the world. I did not want to be the best technician in the world. You know, I didn't want to be like, you know, I can only squat 400, but I put this suit on and now I'm at 1,000. You know, like that freaked me out. And so I think they've lost that. Somewhere along the line, the way, they lost

the care to truly be strong. And then they don't want to take that shit off because they know they'll be found out as frauds. And I know this is a big word. And look, I love Louis more than anyone. I've written books called Conjugate. I love him. But they're wrong in this. Take that mess

off. Go against Yuri Belkin. See if you are strong. You know good and well you'll get beat. That's the problem. Do you think Louie cares? Or do you think he really likes this MMA thing? And he kind of likes the new vibe.

He doesn't want to get beat, dude. I've never met the guy. That's why we got to go to Columbus. I got to hang out. I want to sit in the room and ignore that human. All he talks about is this world record, that world record. Yeah, that's true. He knows that shit is over. That is very true.

The minute you take it off, that's a wrap, son. You're going to have to change. You're going to have to recruit better people because those dudes are not that good. You know, so, like, you got to actually put up or set up. And, like, I don't think he's willing to do that. I think there's a massive difference too. And I, you know, I've never been afraid to, like, I was fairly strong when it came to bench pressing. I'm not a great squatter.

I'm not a dead lifter. And I, you know, I would get tremendous amount from the power lifting gear. And that era is kind of what messed up powerlifting. Like I think powerlifting got frozen in time and it was, it was maybe like a decade or so where the equipment got really out of hand. Like there's no possible way that I should have a higher total than Ed Cohn, regardless of whether I try to put a rocket up my ass or something, you know, like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in the category

by any means i i developed some decent strength i was able to lift some cool stuff but like my 578 bench that i did raw ed cone did a 585 like close grip bench you know what i mean like i'm not trying to totally discredit everything that i've done lifting wise but there's no scenario where my total should be higher than his you know i did like a 26 36 i think his is like 24 30 something but it's because my bench press was so skewed you know i have an 854 bench press that was like sitting in the middle of of my uh squat and my deadlift and so i think it kind of screwed the thing up. It was regressive in a lot of ways, you know? What is your – Yeah.

He's right. There's nothing bad in that. I think he's totally right. I think I was a part of that too. I look back in regret. But, you know, the WPO is paying us, man. So I'm trying to get paid. Like that was the one that said, hey, we'll pay you a lot of money

if you do really well. And I'm like, all right. So I'll take your money. But, yeah. Mark, what does your training look like now? Is it more on the bodybuilding side or are you back to moving big weights around? I'm just, uh, turned into a total pansy over here. You know, I, I, uh,

I've been running, I've been walking. Um, the first time I got in the gym was yesterday and i got to do some uh i got to do a bro workout i did a chest workout but really i haven't been doing much with weights at all and it's it's been kind of fun it's like how do i keep some size on you know while i'm you know while i'm not lifting and i've been uh the 40 pound yeah 40 pound weight vest has been huge um doing some push-ups, and then I've been doing some sprints, which as you guys know. Yeah, hill sprints. We can talk about those. Yeah, sprints are like – the resistance on a sprint is brutal.

So it's taken me a few weeks. You know what? I think because of my background, because I was labeled as dumb, I was labeled as slow. I actually found out later in life that like that slowness was a huge virtue because I end up having a lot of patience. And so I don't mind if something takes a long time. Like if all four of us were to compete in something and you guys just smoked me, I'm dead last, you know, a hundred, like with no doubt, you guys just slaughter me on something.

I have no problem with being like, you know what I get, I bet I can work on that. And I bet in like three or four years, I bet I could like creep up on those guys a little bit. I have no problem with something taking a while. So when I've been messing around with these hill sprints, you know, when I first, first doing them, like the little short choppy steps, because I don't want to blow out a hamstring. I don't want to hurt my hip flexor or something like that. So it's taken me like just three weeks to even be able to really run well and try to open up my stride. But what's nice here is I can hit the beach too. And it's pretty safe. It's pretty safe for me to sprint on the beach, or it's pretty safe for me to sprint a hill. I wouldn't recommend anyone go out and mess around with any sprints if you haven't run in a while.

But I would suggest some stairs, like some, you know, running some stairs is really good. Yeah. Or trying to run a hill. But if you're new to running and you want to try any of this stuff, I would say, you know, just start out with like jogging. You know, like just, just jog a hill and be totally fine with that for like just two weeks or so you'll make a lot of progress and then you can work on running and then you can work on sprinting. But man, you got to really, the last thing you want to do is get hurt. You tear a hamstring or even worse, blot an Achilles tendon, like you're toast, you know. So just be careful with it.

But I've been enjoying it. I do six to eight hill sprints just about every other day. And I've been feeling good with it. I'm up to being able to do about 85% or so. I still haven't been able to really open up and go full tilt yet because I still think that I would hurt myself. It's the hardest thing. Is that something you wear for your hill sprints as well? Sometimes, sometimes I'll wear the weight vest. Like I usually wear the weight vest on like

stairs. Um, just a tip here too. Like I've been doing some running and when I do like my jogging, I should say when I'm, when I'm jogging, I'll wear the weight vest, but I won't, um, I won't, uh, jog or run any of the flat surfaces or downhill with the weight vest. Cause that's going to be too much, in my opinion, that's too much impact and it really kill your knees. But because you're going up a hill, the force is a lot less cause you're moving a lot slower. And so I think, you know, kind of fat guy, uh, intuition and fat guy, uh, training is to utilize hills, utilize stairs. Um, and just people that are out of practice with any sort of running, you're going to be a little bit better off, uh, you know, doing that kind of stuff,

but yeah, I'll throw in the weight vest here and there. But like I said, I try not to really jog excessively with the weight vest because you could kill yourself. What's your mile time? That's your new challenge. What's your mile time? Yeah, you know what? I don't have a mile time yet, but what I was going to do is we have a loop right here, and this loop is probably around three quarters of a mile. So what I was going to do is we let a lot of people stay at this beach house, a lot

of friends and family. I was going to write down a time and then have some other people when they come here try to try to beat the time i was going to do a walking time and i was going to do a running time and just kind of see uh what it would be but i i don't i don't have any clue on what i could do in that regard but what i've been doing from a goal perspective is i run like certain uh to certain spots and i just, I have like records, I have PR. So it's been fun. I'm like a little kid with it. I'm like all pumped up and excited when I, when I beat a record, but I'm so bad at running

that it's actually been easy to beat the records, especially, uh, in the early going here. The other day I, I did a sprint, not a sprint, I'm sorry, a jog up a hill. And I think this hill has got to be at least a mile. And it's pretty much uphill the entire time. It's brutal. And that took right under 11 minutes. It was like 10.59. So I was going to run that again in a few days and try to beat it.

But that's the kind of stuff I've been doing. I'm like, I'm going to go from that stop sign over there to that, you know, traffic light over there. And I'd been doing that and it's been, it's been awesome. And I actually like, I'm like proud of myself that I was able to step away from lifting because I've been trying to, yeah, I've been trying to tell people, I'm like, I'm not just a lifter. I'm not just a lifter. And, and I was actually kind of nervous about when the gym was taken away. I'm like, all right,

well now we're going to find out, you know, you got more shit going on that you can feel good about. And so I've been really excited that I switched to something else and, uh, have been okay with it for now. I did that for the first, I want to say nine weeks of this whole mess.

I went and I randomly ran a mile and was really upset with my time so i spent eight weeks training for the mile got it down to 6 30 in eight weeks felt like a gangster but going to the track three days a week was so awesome and then anytime i did get in the gym all i had to do was like kind of pick up some weights and just do do some structural things but not focusing on banging weights really shifts the mentality a lot from have having to feel like you have to go in and try and front squat travis mash every day just it's not possible mark i've got you unsolicited like props on your knee sleeves because i am not let me disclaimer i'm not one of his athletes but i've had your knee sleeves eight advertisement 2014 and they're like i'm pretty sure if we got nuclear

bombed everything would be gone but my knee sleeves i'm like i love those things i'm so afraid to get new ones you know when you get something that works that just it's like um they're the they're my they're my go-to for sure i've had yeah that's great 2014 i've had those bad boys so anyways man thank you i love it yo mark i'm curious uh your your kids are a little older than than our kids uh you know anders has uh how old is she now a year and a half something like that two um i got yeah i got a two-, three-, and five-year-old. Travis has similar age kids to me and then a much older kid. He has kids every couple of decades. Yeah.

20. One, three, five, 20. 20. I'm curious, as your kids have grown up, how have you trained them or just made training a part of their life? Are they as into it as you are? Do you push it on them? Do you just kind of let them discover it on their own? Just what's your, what is your general philosophy there? When it comes to kids, man, it's really a tough thing to figure out, you know, like how much do you expose them to certain

things? One thing I did when they were really young is I taught them a lot about nutrition. And I just always kind of had in my head, like, I felt like as a kid that I just didn't know. And, you know, I'd eat like, you know, whatever we had in our pantry, I would just eat. I would just eat cookies and I would eat cereal. And I got fat, you know, and then I spent, you know, a good part of my life, like trying to get rid of that fat. I wasn't like the fat kid, but I was big. I was like 240 at like 16 years old. So I was a big boy. And, uh, so with my children, I was like, well, I just don't want them to have to fight that. I don't really care if they're like shredded or

jacked and tan or anything, but I would love for them to not have to fight having a lot of excess body fat. And so from the time they're young, you know, I would, I'd communicate with them. Like if they were eating a cookie or something, you know, when they're really young, I would ask them, I'd say, Hey, just ask me, you know, when you want to eat something, just kind of ask me, I'll get it for you. Or just cause I want to kind of know what they're doing, you know, when they're five and six years old and stuff like that. And a lot of times they need help anyway. And you know, if they had a cookie, I would say, okay, well you had a cookie. And so like later on, they're trying to drink orange juice or they're trying to have dessert. And I say, oh, you know, you had the cookie

earlier. Let's have ice cream tomorrow. You know, so I'd push it off to the next day. Little things like that. And I wasn't afraid to just flat out tell them, you know, these things are unhealthy for you if you eat too much of them. And it's very easy to get lost in a shuffle. It's very easy to eat too much of them. And I could also point to family members and say, hey, look, you know, your uncle so-and-so, your aunt so-and-so, like the reason why they're heavy and the reason why they got some health

problems is because they don't have good control over their diet. And it's very hard to overeat apples. But as you can see, it's very easy to overeat cookies. And so I would explain this stuff to them when they were really young, almost as if they were adults. And I'd even, you know, I'd even flat out to say, hey, like this stuff can make you fat. Like, and when you're fat, it just, it, unfortunately, it leaves you with less options on who you get to meet, on how people treat you. I mean, these are just. How long you live. Yeah. Yeah. It's just performance wise. You know, if you want to be good at a sport and stuff like that, my kids aren't really very much into sports. My daughter, uh, plays volleyball and she enjoys that. But, um, my son, you know,

it's, it's interesting right now, like being at this house and then also, uh, being in quarantine, he's like just massive on video games he's going been going full blast on uh like world of warcraft and some of these other games he's been playing them a lot and my wife and i talk about it a bunch and we're like well let's just you know let's see how much of it he can play because it's like he's getting his schoolwork done like everything else is good he's a good kid and he does everything that's asked of him so i'm like well let's just see how much video game playing he can do so he tells me the other day he goes dad he's like this has to be impossible he's like there's a

stat on my video game that tells you how much you played of it and i was like yeah and what does it say he's like it's telling me that i played the equivalent of 17 days of of this game like that's how many hours it is oh and he's like he's telling me it's impossible i'm like i'm like jake it's not impossible i'm like you did it buddy even but it's funny because he he uh he's been around a lot more like you know for a while he's just like totally submerged in the game. And now he's like, hey, let's go do something. Let's go out.

Let's go for a walk. Let's do this. Let's do that. So I try not to be too forceful. But at the same time, I think it's your job as a parent to encourage things that you think are going to be good for your kid.

Like what's in the best interest of your child? Like you want to, you know, try to push push them towards it but i just kind of have a theory that if you're trying to force people to do anything doesn't matter what age they are doesn't matter if your kids are not they're not going to want to do it they're just not going to do it they're not going to be resistant to it and there might be more rebound or more like recourse in the other direction so it's like i'm not going to sit here and, uh, you know, if they want to like now that they're older and I see them eating ice cream and something,

I don't say anything. I just let them, let them do it. But they, neither one of them have any food issues. They don't have a control problem. I think this is such an interesting dynamic too, because you are at a beautiful beach house on the coast and you can see the ocean and

there's a lot of very blue water and the sky looks very nice behind you. And my guess is when you were growing up and there was a little bit of like a volatile piece to your life and a little bit of chaos and you found the gym and the gym became your place to go get that emotion and aggression out. And it leads you to become this very driven person because you're fighting, whether you should be fighting it or not, you're fighting some demon inside you that makes you want to be great at something. And a lot of that comes from just the daily challenges of life when you're a kid to either stand out or not stand out. And, you know, just you're in that battle in your own brain when you're a kid and your kids don't face that. I guess, you know, do you see – what is just kind of like your thoughts on seeing both systems in a way and how they're raised compared to where you were when you were younger?

I think it's definitely something to address. You know, my oldest brother, Mike, you know, when he was at like rehab centers and stuff, he would tell me. I'd say, oh, man, how you doing? He'd say, said, I'm doing pretty good. And I'd ask him about the other people that were there and stuff. And he said, he said, man, he's like, you'd be shocked. He's like almost all the kids that I'm in here. He's like, he was in there with a lot of younger kids. He's like, I'm in here with like 17, 18, 19 year old kids. And he's like, they're all some from really wealthy families. He's like, what the fuck do they have to worry about? And, you know, with, so with my brother, you know, when I use that as an example, I grew up with parents that I view as like, they, I couldn't, I can't really think

if they're guilty of anything that it's loved us too much, hugged us too much, you know, gave us too much. Maybe didn't like, you know gave us too much um maybe didn't like you know shove us to do a couple things here and there but i think i'm guilty of the same thing now yeah um and so my brother's interpretation of the house that we grew up in is way different you know and and my brother chris's interpretation of the house that we grew up in is way different let's hear the thing the thing the thing that i want to hear the different interpretations like ah okay um so so with mike um you know if if my mom uh turned the stove on you know and she was about to get to wash a pan or something and then put the pan on the stove or something.

She'd, you know, she'd have it on. She's getting the thing to, like, warm up or whatever. And she'd have to tell Mike, you know, she'd say to Mike, you know, don't touch the stove. Mike would have to touch the stove to find out for himself that it was hot. He would have to burn himself. He'd have to hurt himself to like figure it out. And he had to go, fuck it. He might have to do it like more, more than once.

Even something about him kind of liked that, you know? And then with Chris, my mom said the stove was on. Chris wouldn't touch it, but he put his hand over top of it probably. And he would like feel the heat coming off and go, oh, she's right. It's hot. If she said, Mark, the stove is hot, I'd be in the other room. You know, I would be like, hey, you know, mom knows what's going on. You know, yeah, I hear what she's saying, you know. And so I think,

you know, with my own children, they grew up and this is a burden. You know, they grew up and this is a burden you know they grew up with the burden of being rich you know of being like a wealthy but I grew up in similar circumstances as well my dad did really well but luckily for me I think I think the reason why there are those so many different interpretations and why I haven't had any trouble just like understanding like like, I'm just going to need to work for everything that I get is because my dad lost his job. He was with IBM for like 19 years. And then IBM downsized, we're from Poughkeepsie, New York originally. And that's where IBM headquarters was. And when they decided to downsize, they got rid of all their older people, all their seniors, because they were making a lot of money and they could bring in a lot of kids, you know, at a younger price, you know, than what my dad was doing really well there. I think he's making like close to six figures and this is a long ass time ago.

And so like when they let my dad go as a family, we really downsized and it didn't like hit me in terms of like me being sad about it or anything like that. But I saw it, I saw it all happening. I saw it all going down and I saw how we had the downsize. We had this beautiful house. We had a basement full of weights, like legitimate Olympic plates and a squat rack. And we had all that shit. We had a pool, we had a little basketball court. We had like, we had everything that we needed and then some, and then we had to sell all that stuff off and then we had to downsize. And so I saw that, I saw my dad doing the nine to five thing, the suit and tie and being loyal to the company and being a company guy and doing everything the company says and

kind of following all these rules just to have them boom like that, get fired or get released or however you say it and not be able to get a pension. Like he was one year away from being able to get like a retirement and everything like that but they know that and so that's why they they uh you know they downsize they get rid of them and but my dad he transitioned right into doing income taxes he transitioned right into doing real estate he transitioned right into being an entrepreneur himself so So I saw that, I saw the way that that went down and I saw that like, Hey man, it seems like there's kind of a lot of

uncertainty going on in the world. Like, it seems like, uh, you know, you could like, so I was always like, why, why would I, you know, invest my time in making somebody else money? Why don't I just try to figure out maybe a way to, to go make my own now with my own children, you know, they don't have to really, I mean, if they wanted to, I guess they could just kind of sit around and do nothing. Right. Um, but there's nothing I can, I can't force them to do anything, you know, and, uh, problems are, problems are innate to human beings. I mean, problems are just part of life. So even though, even though we're well off, they have money, they have less, they have less of the crap that maybe I dealt with or less of the things I had to deal with or less of the things

I had to go through, they're still going to go through stuff because there's still going to be stuff to deal with. And, you know, I'm a big believer that, you know, all knowledge comes from error correction, you know, and so they're going to have errors. They're going to have mistakes. They're going to have just crap happen in their life. You know, whether I die or my wife dies or, uh, or my dad dies or like something will happen somewhere along the lines. It doesn't have to be a tragedy, but something will happen where a problem arises. They get into a fight, whatever the hell happens. They mess around with some drugs or something. There'll be an error somewhere, and then they'll continue to gain knowledge through that. At this

point in their lives, they pretty much, most of the stuff that they've learned is either just, you know, from my wife and I or just through like school, but they haven't, you know, they haven't gotten hit in the face by the world quite yet. But I think when that happens, I, I feel that both of them are, are, are pretty prepared for it. And I feel like my wife and I, just by what we do and how we are, I think they have, uh, good examples in front of them on what to do. And I would view both of my children as being kind of lazy. You know, like if I'm just being 100% honest, I would like to see them be more active because of the things that you mentioned. But like we tried having them play baseball. We tried having them do some soccer and just turned out.

They just, they just didn't care about it. And I'm not going to sit there and try to loom over them and be like, you're going to be great at soccer. And this is what you're going to do. That sometimes is effective and sometimes it works, but you know, I'm not that type of parent.

I want to kind of see how it plays out. I guess using my own values, I guess. I'm not sure that i've ever seen that be effective long term yeah and they might be good in the moment but i've yet to see a parent do that to a child and then that child ends up loving that sport or even loving sports at all when it's all said and done tiger woods ruined it his dad made him made him so good everybody thought that was the path.

You know, there's a quote from Mr. Rogers that I really like that I think is really cool. And this isn't, like, this isn't really just for kids. I think this is for everybody. Like, you don't have to do anything extraordinary in this world to be loved. Like, I love that quote because I think all the time we're're trying to get like admiration and love and and attention from other people that's like dude just you're fucking awesome the way you are like this you're you're good you know like just be a good person be nice to people be supportive of people and it's like you don't really have to go make a million i don't give a fuck if you make a million dollars you know i don't even care that i've made it it doesn't make any it's so funny with a five and a three you know i got

a three-year-old who i swear we're going to fist fight someday like we battle and i love him so much because i'm looking in my own eyes when i look at that kid it's me and like but yeah he's he's me times two he is just incredible but boy do we fight and then i got my older rock who's so smart he's much like his mom super athletic but like my three-year-old is mean he's mean he's gonna fight people and like gets in trouble at church on the weekly getting fights rock you were three man you can't get a fist fight. But the positive of all that, did you see the video of Rock doing cleans? Yeah.

I've been waiting. You know, like I never once said, hey, let's go work out. But, like, if he says, daddy, can I work out? I'm like, absolutely. And so, anyway, he figured it out. He's got cleans down pat now. I was like, it was a great moment and uh and bear comes in there already bear's going to be i mean he's my son and i'm bragging but he's going to be quite incredible unless something bad happens he gets you know

he gets his leg cut off but like that boy like he yesterday we battled and I got, my wife got mad at me. Literally the whole family got mad at me because this little boy and I argued. But I love him as much or more than the rest. But I don't want him to go through the same stuff. Right, right. But I feel like he's, I'm more like your older brother, I feel like. If someone said it's hot, I'm going to be like, is it really? Oh, damn it is.

You know, but my three-year-old is going to lick it. He's going to burn his tongue off. My kids, you know, I think, like I was saying earlier, I mean, they understand. They know that, like, if you want to get anywhere in life that you're going to have to work in, you're going to have to put your time in. I mean, they see that every day. We've actually like I've actually have talked to them about a lot of these things. They know all these things that they're not at the moment. They're not super assertive.

They want to play video games and mess around on their, on their phones. You know, one thing I do think that is important is to really try to have some sort of reasonable guidelines or, or, you know, you need to probably set some boundaries when it comes to like social media. So for, for the longest time, both of my kids weren't allowed to have social media. And my, my son, he's, he's, he's older. and so he pops on there here and there but he's very rarely on there and then my daughter i think she messes around on tiktok so her and i need to have some conversation coming up because i just think that i don't know i i kind of use social

media as maybe almost being a little bit like like like pornography in a way, like where it's just, it's just, it's just a little too intense, you know? And, and I can be, and what I've explained to my children too, is that I I've said, um, you know, like I'll say, you know, who can handle social media, like who can handle negative comments on social media? And they're like, I don't know. I, and I said, nobody like not an adult or a kid. And I was like, I don't know. And I said, nobody, like not an adult or a kid. And I was like, I don't want you guys, you guys are still developing your brains. Like, I don't want you guys to have to, to have to deal with that. And so it would be best if you just communicate with people in person. You've got a couple of friends that you text or something. It's like, I guess I'll just have to deal with that. Cause that's just where we're at technology wise. But I think

those are some of the dangers but i've i've taught both of my children that everything is an interpretation you know you can um we have control over our own thoughts we have control over how we filter these thoughts as i was mentioning earlier and um you know having that power and working on that power as you continue to to move on in life i think is like one of the most important things that you can continue to work on being aware does it hurt your i'm curious this is to all all three of you guys like when you get a negative comment um you know we've we both have gone through a lot of this stuff for a long time now but does it still bother you yeah it always it'll always bother me you know i i think um me too yeah i

think that people you know people can say oh man i don't give a f about this or whatever like they can say they don't care but i think we always care you you care about what other people think of you you you totally do i mean um it's just it's just it's a, I think, you know. And so the stuff on social media is actually really interesting. You know, I currently don't run any of my social media anymore. So that has been really helpful. I can't wait to get to that point. Yeah, that's been really helpful. But I still don't have it deleted from my phone, which is the next move.

But this has been a progression. I see it. This has been something I has been a progression. This is, right. This has been something I've been, uh, I've been working on, but here I want everybody to understand how completely insane social media is. So, you know, I've been making content since around 2005. I used to make, I used to put up videos on eliteFTS.com through way of something called Putfile. So before YouTube was ever even around, I've been putting up videos on social media of like lifting and things like that. So I've been doing this for a really, really long time. I invest a lot of time.

I invest a lot of time. I invest a lot of money. I mean, I would just say like with my staff, I would say there's probably like quarter of a million dollars a year that is invested in between podcasting and doing all the different videos that I do and the commercials and all the different shit that we do. Never mind your time. Yeah, yeah. It's just insane, right? Now, here's something that's wild. So if I was to come to you guys and say, Hey man, you know, like I really feel like I'm doing, I feel like I'm really doing bad on social media. Like you guys, can you check out a couple of videos that I posted on YouTube and a couple of Instagram posts, right? Then we get hop back on the phone again. And I say, yeah, man, I, I really feel like I'm doing, you know,

shitty, shitty job on social media. And you just say, okay, well, I, Mark, you posted like five videos in the last two weeks and there's quite a bit of content on there and actually i thought it was pretty good and a couple of other guys are like yeah seemed pretty cool man i saw you bench pressing i saw you talking about 10 minute walks like it was pretty cool like like why why do you think you're doing a bad job and then i would say well because i got a negative comment on on one of the you know there was a negative comment in the comment section. You guys would be like, dude, that's insane.

Like, why would you think that that equates to you doing a bad job? But I think that's how we take it. Like, we get so insulted when we see that bad comment. And as you can see in that example, like, that is a completely irrational thought because again, you're wrapping your feelings up with the thought process, the thoughts that are coming into your head. And we need to, we need to think about how we're feeling and why we're feeling that way. And so what I've been doing, I have a new interpretation of negative comments. First of all, they're not negative. So I don't even allow them to even

enter into that category. But when I recognize that it's not positive, I hit people with some just really funny and some weird stuff. You know, sometimes I'll just, you know, reply back with something that I think is fun and silly or say, I'm in total agreement. Like when they're just like, hey, you're just an ass, you're a rich asshole say oh man i couldn't agree more you know something like that i have seen that i've actually on there yeah you're like yeah i'm a dick thank you yeah i do it a lot or i try to like you know amplify it and make it a bigger deal like somebody said the other day they're like uh they're like dude you're not a bodybuilder. Like you're a power lifter, like stay in your lane. And I said, Oh, so that time I sucked someone's dick. That doesn't make

me, that doesn't make me gay, you know, because I did one bodybuilding show. Right. So I just, I try to like, I try to really mess with people and have fun with it because I want it to be like of my interest. I want it to be fun for me because that's what social media really is in the first place. And I want it to be stuff that I find interesting. And like you guys may have seen the race to zero followers. You know, I got the race to zero followers is about, I'm not going to let people's opinions dictate what I post. If I want to post a picture of me and my best friend, like I did yesterday with Jesse Burdick, I had them post a picture of, of me and my best friend, like, like I did yesterday with Jesse Burdick. I had them post a picture of he and I, and like, Jesse's not famous. So it's, it's not

going to be a post that gets a million likes and a crazy amount of comments or anything like that. But it's just, it's stuff that's interesting to me. It's stuff that I, that i'm into and so i'm not gonna let the audience try to you know steer everything that i'm doing another thing i've been doing that has been this has been the most fun and you guys might want to try this i just copy and paste completely random shit when they say something that doesn't fly with me. So somebody the other day said something, they said something about, oh, but you're hiding the fact that you use steroids to get in shape or something. Something crazy like that.

And that comment comes almost every time there's a post. And so I went in and I copy and pasted how many muscles an elephant uses when they move their trunk and how their brain works and how their brain works in collaboration with their trunk. And I copied and pasted it. It was really long. And I just put that back. And then like when the guy read the comment, he was like even further enraged. He was was like you're so stupid he's like you can't even stay on topic it's like what the f and so it's just like that's my kind of way of of just trying to have fun with it you know light lighten it up a little bit and not even just just try not

to worry about it i pray for the strength to be like that like like one time uh back in my thousand days somebody you know people would say things, and it would bother me like crazy. But I wouldn't let them know that. But one time somebody said something about me as a father. And that was back in the day where IP addresses were there. And so I had a really smart friend of mine track that dude's IP address. Knock it on doors let's just say i got a lot of trouble is what happened i went to that dude and like you know you know it's funny you know it was a guy

who'd literally been like this dude that just was like when he was in the gym with me he was in my he'd been in the gym with me he would literally literally load my bar. He was that guy. He just wanted to be mad on the outside. Yeah. I have no idea. But, like, he did the old anonymous thing that they used to do, like on those GoHeavy forums. But he had an IP address. And so I guarantee to this day he's never done that again.

I'm just saying that right there. But, you know, and then I got in a lot of trouble. And, like, you know, my friend – you i got a lot of trouble and like you know my friend uh you remember chris mason ox yeah yeah he would always be like why are you like that like he would never let any of that get to him and i'm like you know i don't know i don't know like i like this podcast has made me think so much now i'll probably be up all night trying to figure like why am i the way I don't know like why do I still lift heavy like what do I have to prove why do I want to compete again next year

because I can't maybe or is it because I still have something to prove and like why I don't know I think that my my biggest thing comes into it's like what I'm telling you is comes from many many years of like me getting to a place where i feel like i have something to say and that person on the other line when you go to their profile you're like oh no you just don't get it if you got it you would know this and this and this and this and this and then that's why i'm i'm making this statement and there is no time on that on that medium to have an actual and then you write it and then your brain you're like i think i said it right i didn't offend anybody i think i got it and then you hit enter

and then they don't even read it they don't the amount of time that that person spent calling you oh you're lost he's gone that is when well that is that is when i get into all of the trouble on instagram when i try to explain the way through what i'm trying to and then it's just you've hit bottom you've just it's no good i love this has been such a good podcast. They say if you're going to dig a ditch for revenge, you've got to dig two. You've got to dig two of them. So trying to get revenge on somebody just doesn't work the way that you thought it did in your head. You know, like trying to – like, oh, I'm going to get him back with this. Now, I would just say, like, if you think it's fun or funny to get someone back with something and you feel good about, you know, uh,

you know, just whatever it is that you say to the guy, as long as it's not too, uh, too inflammatory, I think then just go for it. But it's, uh, again, it's all just, it's interpretation. I mean, think about the very reason on why you made a particular post. Yeah. I could be in my kitchen. I could have steak and I could say, hey, I found this diet to be really useful for me. This has been super helpful to me. I used to weigh 330 pounds and now I'm 230. I lost 100 pounds. I've also assisted a lot of other people to lose 100 pounds. Now, if somebody makes some crazy comment about how I'm not a good dad, like, oh, I listened to a podcast and said that you think your kids are lazy. Why don't you kick them in the ass and

get them to do something? Well, you know, the person you have to kind of, there's some consideration into what the person posted, right? Like if you really care, if you took the time to read it. So who is this person? Okay, if they don't know me, then there's absolutely no reason to really care about it because it's like, oh, I just heard a little bit of what I said in the podcast, but they don't live inside my house. You know, they don't see my interaction with my kids.

You should be very careful doing that. Yeah, you walk yourself through some of that or you decide like, I'm just not even gonna read it. I think the real truth is and we all know this in our heart we know that this is true we know that we're looking for that shit that and that's i think the biggest problem and so i think that would be the question that would be the thing like if you're gonna especially like youtube comments because youtube you're not really like you know youtube is not like super interactive in that way. You're just, you're like, you're not looking for, I want to see what the comments are when

Mark Bell was on there because I wonder if people had questions about when Mark said this or that and I'd love to help answer them or I'd love to help support some of those questions. You're actually looking for, I wonder what he had to say when he talked about COVID-19. I bet you there's some negative bullshit in there. And I could really get into a good scrape with somebody in there. I think we're seeking it out. And I think the more clouded, the more screwed up our past is,

the more screwed up our past might be or the more screwed up our own interpretations of things are, I think the more that we're looking for that. You know, my mother grew up with two alcoholic parents. She grew up with just, she got abused, a bunch of different stuff happened to her when she was a kid. And she's the most amazing mom. I mean, she's a beautiful woman. She's so supportive. She's so sweet. She's so nice, but she doesn't know how to just kind of like let things be and let things be comfortable. There's got to be a little drama. There's got to be a little bit of a, there's got to be like a fight, you know,

everything's smooth, but there's, you know, she's got to kind of like amplify something just a little bit. Cause that's what she grew up with. That's what she knows. And so she's kind of like, she's in search of she'll say oh did you see this on the news the other day this guy said this about this guy you know or she she'll bring up something like that she needs to like kind of pull that into the conversation kind of stir the pot up you know yeah so this has been so good i appreciate it man anywhere you want to tell people to go, find you. Since you're racing to zero,

we probably don't want to give them the Instagram handle because you don't want more people there. I think I've lost about like 20,000 people. It's been pretty cool. Oh, man. When you first put up the podcast with the anti-COVID people, that really said you even you even really fired up the like strength and conditioning scientists they were like no no no no no this is real please don't please don't give them a platform half did and half didn't yeah you know half the

scientists said i don't think the science is no shit. Like, honestly, I don't know, man. Like, who knows? I'm like, let's just go for it. See what happens. Well, I think it's, I think it's important to some, some. So if we're going to have social media, I think it's important on some form of social media to like let her rip. And my wife was the one who came in with some reasoning and she said,

you know what? She said, I think the truth is, is that you just can't really convey the right message the way that Instagram is set up. Cause Instagram is like, you got to just a couple seconds to get your point across. You kind of seen more recently what they do with IGTV. You got like 10, 15 seconds before it cuts to to like now you have to actually watch the longer format right yeah and it or instagram and some of these other forms of social media they're short form and even if you want to write something long how many people are really going to read that the long format is what we're doing right here and this is where we can really learn about each other yeah this is where we can get gain more knowledge other. Yeah. This is where we can get, gain more knowledge. You know, the,

the root of all evil and all negative BS comes from just not just lack of knowledge. You know, recently I had a guy on, on the podcast, an African American who has converted KKK members, uh, into not being KKK members anymore.

And he actually would, he'd go to like KKK rallies. He would go, he would go to these things. He'd communicate with these people and communicate with people that were, couldn't be any more racist. And he would communicate to them. Like they would say,

black people are dumb, black people. Uh, they don't work hard. They would say all these things. And he'd say, or they'll say they're not educated. And he'd say, or they'll say they're not educated. And he'd say, okay, I have two degrees.

Okay, what's next? You know, and he would communicate with them back and forth. And he'd say, you know, my brother has a degree. I got a friend over here who has a degree. And they'd say, black people are lazy. And he'd say, I work for a living. Here's what I do. I'm a musician.

I make good money. I travel the world. I work very hard. So he could take all their excuses away just by kind of giving them more knowledge. But on Instagram, it's tough. If I was to say a statement, like if I was to say, I think everyone's kind of a little racist. Well, people will flip the hell out and be like, oh, so says you, rich white guy. Of course, you're going to be racist or of course, you're to think that way but if i say it on a format like this then we can talk about oh you

know what i'm actually more comfortable being around people that look a little bit more like me which i think everyone could agree with to some to some degree right or maybe not everyone but most people could agree with right i think you agree that that's where you start out i think and then as we you know different experiences you start out, I think. And then as we, you know, different experiences, you start to, like, change. 100%. Yeah, it's just like, you know, like, I know just to, like, make your point, when I played football in Appalachian State, the first two weeks, you know, it was two days. No, actually, it was three days.

It was miserable. We're all miserable. And, like, in the first, you know, first few days, the black guys sat at this table and the white guys naturally sat at this table and then by the end of training camp before school started next thing you know we sit here we sit there and when it's all said and done we're all together and we realize we're all the exact same and like and so but it it took a minute so at first yeah it was comfortable to sit with people kind of look like me but then i realized it gets it's kind of interesting because now you're not sitting

with somebody just because they're on offense and you're on defense you know like it's that simple like i'm not sitting with the offense offense a bunch of pussies i'm gonna sit over here right that's that's true everything you said is right there it's true but yeah yeah so like and then you know and then i spent my 20th And I'm from the deep woods of North Carolina. So there was only 1% of minorities at all in my whole county. And then I spent my 20th birthday in, like, it was a, I don't know if it's politically correct, but the ghetto of Durham, North Carolina. So I went with two of the African-American, my two linebacker friends,

to their house. And at first, yeah, it was really weird. Everybody's staring at me like, what's this white guy doing here? And then, when it's over, I realize we're absolutely all the exact same. There's some good people here. There's some bad people here. I promise you, you come to the mountains,

I'll show you some good people, and I'll show you some real bad people. I'll show you an old people, and I'll show you some real bad people. I'll show you an old woman that when she died, she had 12 people buried up in her reports. So, I mean, I'll show you all kinds of people. Right, right. Yeah, so anyway, but you're totally right. But people needed to hear the context, you know, instead of just the one statement. Before they assume they know your whole soul, you know.

Yeah. You don't know his soul anyway rather than like directing anybody towards anything in particular i'd just like to take a second to uh encourage people that are listening to this you know if you're if you're someone that has struggled with your weight in the past i just i want to encourage you to just get outside try to get some vitamin d help boost boost that immune system, help to, you know, boost some of your cognitive properties. And just also, let's try to get a little bit of hold of your health. And maybe you can do so through hitting up a couple 10 minute walks a day, you know, try

if you're, if you're real big, and walking is kind of hard for you. Just walk whatever distance you can. And each day that goes by, try to take an extra step and step by step over a period of time, you can get better and better at it. And then, you know, once you get into walking for maybe like a month or so, and you can start to investigate, hey, could I do a little bit better with my nutrition? Yeah, I think I could cut back on some sugar and things like that. I just want to really just encourage people just to, you know, try to get your journey started. Um, I think the worst thing that you can do is just be a weak piece of shit and not move your body and just sit around and get fatter. And I'm not trying to like, you know, make fun of someone that's overweight, but I'm just trying

to say, like, I think that that's the most insulting thing that there is. I think that that is doing our country a disservice. I think it's doing everybody else a disservice. You're costing people a lot. You're wasting a lot of people's time, wasting a lot of people's money, the conditions that you might be in down the road, the things that you're doing to our healthcare system. You could be a burden to all these things, but you could avoid that simply by thinking a little bit more positively and saying, you know what, if I just started now, I could get myself out of this ditch in a few weeks and a few months and a few years. And it just starts, walking is so simple. Maybe you never even stepped foot into a gym. That might be okay for you, but I love the gym and there's so much you can get from lifting weights that it,

it doesn't make any sense not to lift weights as well, but just get yourself walking, get yourself moving and, uh, just try to be active. I actually just listened to a couple of YouTube clips, just kind of in the background. Kevin Hart was talking about how he just wants to do his part.

And that's super resonated of just just you're supposed to get up and do your part contribute to the whole and not not be you know not not be a drain on just the whole system um and yeah walking dude again if you don't have to be you don't have to be overweight to do that that could just be all of us, you might just kind of feel like crap about yourself, but getting out and doing some walks is going to help you feel a little bit more accomplished. It's just going to give you something that you can help. It can help you work through a lot of things, as we were talking in the beginning of the podcast about, like, lift through it.

You can walk through it, too. What's your best round on that golf course behind you? I've never played golf in my life, but my brother-in-law every time he comes up here he plays golf all the time dude i love you so much you're such a brother yeah if i lived on a golf course i would just like be the guy like blowing horns with people trying to drive the ball happy gilmore style yeah absolutely so i would play the three holes connected to my house every night, barefoot, walking the greens, right as the sprinklers are about to come on, but I wouldn't play 18 anymore.

It's too much. I'd drive the golf cart around and wreck it. Mash, if you got a hold of a golf ball one time and it went straight, you would lose your mind. I have played golf. God, with 400 yards. That's fun, but, like, yeah, I'd much rather be banging weights. Yeah.

I'm just a meathead, man. I'm not a millionaire meathead yet, but that's the goal. So I'm trying to be like you. Mash, you're the most grateful person I think I've ever been friends with. And, and that's super real. Yesterday you thanked Galpin at the end of the show for just knowing that a decade ago you were going to go back to school and you had such a rad moment of

just going back and saying thank you yesterday. And I think it inspires me to want to do say thank you more often i try to do a good job of it but every time i hear it um as much as we're friends and we we do this show together like that stuff's really important and it is shit when i'm a decade more deep into this thing i want to be saying thank you to everybody that's you know I didn't know a decade ago that I'd be on the phone with you guys recording conversations um and who knows where 10 years from now is but I sure as hell hope that I get to say thank you to you guys for for all this for a really long time that really got me yesterday man thanks man coach Kenner I talked talk about

Martin Bell almost every we train on Saturdays at 10 a.m. and we talk about you every weekend. So just about what he's done for – you know how we talk about the strength coach at Iowa that's making $800,000. And, like, that's good because, like, that starts to set standards. Yeah. When a guy like Mark, you know, goes out and, like, in our industry and makes a million dollars, you know, instead of hating on him, you should applaud him and makes a million dollars. Instead of hating on him, you should applaud him and say, thank God, because now there's opportunity.

And now you see his path. Go do what he did. And so now if you want something bad enough and you have some talent, you do have to have some talent, you can do it. And so I think a guy like Mark has been a good thing for all of us. I had this dumb kid. I made a product that's recession-proof, apparently. People are buying more slingshots than ever. It's going really good. I'm really grateful and thankful for the fans and for the support that I have.

Again, I'm fortunate to have a really good team. My wife is amazing with the company as well, but, you know, none of this would ever happen if I just, if I sat around and didn't do anything, you know, just, just getting, getting into the gym, getting that momentum as a kid and just finding something that I like, you know, so that's why I'm encouraging people to walk, like maybe walking is a little different for them, but when you try something different, maybe you find out you don't like walking and then you instead ride your bike or something. But, you know, when you, you need to try, you need to try stuff. And, you know, back to my kids again, like I have them try stuff. So like, even though they've been a little

resistant and they've been a little lazy to some stuff in my eyes, they have at least have tried stuff and they know that they know what they like and they know what they don't right that's exactly right it's so important for people just to just just try stuff and and when the gym is locked down like they are now there's a great opportunity to try something you haven't tried i went uh boogie boarding for the first time ever uh shredder two two yeah two days ago i was horrible i kept i kept pushing the uh the board straight down to the bottom of the ocean it wasn't working so well so my wife you're a big boy to be on that little board yeah my wife got me a bigger board so we'll see how that works people hang out on the one that you jump on it and, and you're like riding concrete out there. It just takes you.

I'm going to give our listeners some PR secret. Like I use your – for my athletes, we have a slingshot. We have about three in our gym. And so here's a PR secret. So what we do is we work – and this might not be a secret. You've probably done this. So we work up to like a 1RM with the slingshot on. We try to keep it at 9RPE or 9.5.

We definitely don't try to miss. Take it off. But the key is this. I've got to tell you the whole thing. So you work up to like 90% straight weight to the chest. Put the slingshot on, work up. Then go back, hit a PR right away. It works 99% of the time we use that uh

there's two tricks we use that and then you know after we do that for like six weeks and it starts you know the body starts to accommodate then we'll switch to like a band a mini band we do the same exact thing anyway it's almost like clockwork like we we've got two girls, both drug free in our, in our gym, both benching well over 200. Uh, Sarah, Sarah has done two 20 and that's the way she did it. What I just told you.

And, she's a weightlifter and she's like, she's not like a, she still does mainly super total and is benching two 20. And so anyways, there you go. There's your secret. Everyone listening to try 100%. You'll PR. If not, I love it. Thank's your secret. Everyone listening, go try it. 100% you'll PR.

If not, I love it. Thank you guys so much for having me on the show. It's always a lot of fun. This is awesome, man. Coach Travis Bash. Where can they find you? Mashley.com, but go buy some Mark Bell stuff. Get them.

Yeah. Doug Larson. You bet. Mark, enjoyed having you on. Thanks for going on and hanging out. You can find me on Instagram at Douglas C. Larson larson mark i'm fired up we got to do this we laid down two whole hours that makes my life so happy i've been working doesn't feel like it getting to hang out with all my friends learn the coolest stuff um i appreciate it man i've actually

uh been a huge fan for a long time so this is really really cool next time we just got to get to sacramento i don't know how we're gonna get there but um maybe we'll just go to the beach house forget going to the gym oh man it's so beautiful up here you guys yeah one thing i want to say too is jesse birding he might not be you know famous he should be though yeah coach ken and i were talking about him too he's probably the the most underrated strength coach in the entire world. I mean, he's pretty popular, but, man, he's not near as popular as he should be. There you go, Jesse. I love you.

He's like the nicest guy in all of Barbell. Yeah. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you get over to Barbellshrug.com forward slash store for all of the programs, eBooks, nutrition courses, mobility, barbellshrug.com forward slash store. We will see you guys next week. That's a wrap, friends.

Make sure you get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash store. E-mom aesthetics, high intensity hypertrophy is live right now. Program is crushing. It's so exciting to actually get this out to the people so you guys can reap all the benefits that we have been reaping for the last six months and building to this big launch and creating new programs for you guys. Also want to thank our sponsors Organifi.com forward slash shrugged save 20% podcast.shadowstude.io ask for my boy Yannick and make sure you get hooked up save 200 bucks

using the code shrugged and then biooptimizers.com forward slash shrugged that's where all of the mass signs and magnesium is we will see you guys on monday