Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #15 How To Get Strong, Be Balanced, and When To Diet with Mark Bell

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

Powerlifter, Owner of Slingshot Powerlifting Gear and Host of The Powercast Podcast Mark Bell stops in to talk about training, ketogenic diet and what greatness means to him. Connect with mark on Instagram Facebook and Twitter and Youtube Check out the Sling Shot and Super Training Gym on Instagram Watch Bigger, Stronger, Faster and Prescription Thugs Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on Twitter and on Instagram Get 10% off at Onnit by going to Onnit.com/Podcast         Onnit Twitter        Onnit Instagram  

Welcome to the Onnit Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Kingsbury, Director of Human Optimization, and I'm joined by the most jacked and tanned, the smelliest of the smells, Mark Smelly Bell. Hear it, Onnit. He is a fantastic dude. I got to meet this guy at my old strength coach, Jesse Burdick's wedding, where he was the best man. And we'll dive into that a little bit more on the podcast. But if you're familiar with Mark, he's a powerlifter. He's squatted over a thousand pounds. He's dropped a ton of body fat using the ketogenic diet. He's quite inspirational and really dives into the nonsense and the dogma that is attached to all forms of weightlifting and things like that. and just how to get the most out of exercise, training, what are those best practices.

And he's also the host of Mark Bell's PowerCast, which he's had a number of great guests on, including myself. I think you guys are going to dig this guy, and then you can dive in a little deeper later on into Mark Bell's PowerCast, if you're not familiar with it already. Thanks for listening. On it fucking podcast. My man, Mark Smelly Bell. I can't believe I'm here in person. How did you get the nickname Smelly? Oh, my God.

Two mean older brothers growing up. And I hated taking showers. And my other nicknames were worse than Smelly. Vinegar Butt was my original nickname. And thank God that didn't stick run that back i know i know uh and i yeah a bunch of terrible nicknames they they just always beat the shit out of me made fun of me and so uh they realized that smelly made me sad and made me cry and so that name stuck yeah here i am so i'm smelly and i'm sticking to it like that'll never

stick i hate that fucking i hate you guys like guys. I'm like, oh, okay. That's the one. I'm going to go bury your Star Wars figures in the front lawn, you bastards. That's what I did. They couldn't find them. And then a big plow came and redid our front lawn or whatever, and they could never find their Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and whatever else they had at the time.

Back to the Earth they go. Well, I don't think that breaks down. So if they really wanted it, they could go fishing for it earth they go. Mm-hmm. Well, I don't think that breaks down. So if they really wanted it, they could go fishing for it somehow. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, yeah. Dig up that brand new lawn. It's still there in Grangeville, New York somewhere.

Poughkeepsie. Shout out Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie. I got one of my boys from growing up. Mike Katz is from Poughkeepsie. Not the Mike Katz in Pumping Iron. Oh, you got me all excited there for a minute. Where's my crusher and my t-shirt?

Yeah, they white cats. So we got you here in Austin. Yeah, I love this area. It's fucking nice. It's fucking beautiful, right? It's really cool, yeah. Hell yeah. Well, I got to meet you at,

been a fan of yours for a long time. Got to meet you at Jesse Burdick's wedding. Oh, yeah. Our good friend. Yeah. My old strength coach. That was a crazy wedding. We were talking about it the other day.

We were like, was that real? Did they really roll out a taco truck after we ate? And they really rolled out a dessert truck after we ate? I think they knew the clientele they were serving. Like, hey, we'll have dinner, but all you fuckers are going to be starving once we start dancing and moving. So we'll have round two. We'll have our late night course.

You said Sturette was talking trash, right? He was like, I'm going to eat four pounds of ice cream. Kelly Sturette was like, we're going off diet. We're going to do this. We're going to high carb it up. I'm like, carb night, motherfucker. Let's get down. Yeah, and then I had four scoops of ice cream.

Couldn't even move. And he's still working on his first. And he's like, oh, you beat me. There were so many kids there. All the desserts got scavenged i didn't get much so i was i was kind of sad i need a do-over yeah i don't think you would have eaten much though nah i probably wouldn't have well it was so hot and you know the thing that's true everyone up there including kelly and jesse were just beating sweat off their face oh yeah and i

am too watching everybody but you had no sweat on your head. So I thought something was wrong with you. Like maybe he has heat stroke or something's going on or his body's in shock. Buddy, never let him see you sweat. Never let him see you cry, I think is what it is. But never let him see you sweat. Is that interchangeable?

You want people to think that it's easy. You want people to think that you don't actually have a job or work for a living. That's what a lot of people in my family, they still don't know what the fuck I do. It's so easy. I don't even sweat when I work out. That's right. Yeah, last time I was here, I jumped in a class with Isik messing around with those mace things, steel maces. And he was like, I was trying to break you but he's like you just

had a smile on your face the whole time i was like i'm too dumb to realize how bad it hurts well i'm sure the heaviest weight we had was still a pecker weight to use so even though it was a nod yeah well it wasn't that he actually thought i was smart because i i grabbed like a 10 or something he was like i was like hey man i've been training for a long time and i know that anything different is different and you got to be careful first one i bought was a seven pounder i didn't realize the length was shorter so that kind of messed with the mechanics a little bit but you like it longer seven pack do you like it longer there we go let's go right right right to the dick jokes i was talking i had dr annie gulpin out here after oh no he was on your podcast that guy

doesn't know shit yeah he knows nothing you know nothing john snow he's a doctor of what but i told him i was like man the pot i loved him on rogan's but the podcast he did on your power cast with you and jim mcdonald yeah was fucking fire and i felt like i was sitting in the locker room just listening in on a bunch of guys dropping dick jokes to each other and it made me miss you i wanted to be in that action for sure that's uh the environment that we have at the gym it's always like that super training is like that uh you know donald trump ish matt lauer ish yeah yeah with all the sexual harassment kevin spacey ish oh my god but not bill cosby we're not going that far no one's getting drugged yeah yeah but uh yeah with all the stuff we have going on at super training and at Slingshot, that is the environment.

It's definitely a locker room environment. We try to just let everybody know, like, there's going to be profanity. There's going to be all kinds of rude, lewd, whatever stuff going on. Anybody has a problem with it, just say it, and we'll get it out in the open, and then we'll move on, you know? So it just has that. You've been around it your whole life, being involved in sports. It's just the way it is, the way it goes.

Yeah. Tons of farts, tons of dick jokes. There's beauty in that, though. And I think that's, you know, obviously there's a line, you know, and there's quite a bit of banter going back and forth on Twitter on where that line should be and what we should or should not be able to say. And I think a lot of people that have experienced the beauty in being able to speak freely and fucking around with your friends and make fun of one another appropriately where nobody's getting hurt and all these little snowflakes are up in arms about it. I think dicking around is a crucial thing.

You have to have the ability just to be kind of messing around and throw shit on the wall and see what sticks yeah there's a something that i've gotten quite a bit over the years is just that it's not that serious everyone takes life so fucking serious yeah they take their workout so seriously like not now you know like i mean don't get me wrong yeah i don't want somebody fucking with me when i'm trying to pr on a deadlift or something like that right but you know there's a time and a place to just loosen up and laugh and have a good time. And yeah, and that shouldn't be taken from us because life's serious enough.

I think that's what people have enjoyed about super training. And that's what they've enjoyed about following along on the YouTube channel is that the gym is that way. It is. It's meant to be fun. We don't have to do it. We it's something that we got obsessed about. So now you feel like you have to do it. But it's something that we got obsessed about so now you feel like you

have to do it um but it's something that we have an opportunity to do and it's it's a lot of fun and if you go in there with the mindset you got your butthole all clenched and your your fists all clenched and you're you're trying to make it happen today it doesn't work that way things take a long time and if you're only you know 20 years old and you're listening to this podcast right now, five years seems like a really long time. But if you're 55 years old, five years isn't shit, right? So it's all about perspective. And I like to have a good time because that's how I'm able to have consistency.

That's really what we're talking about. So if my squat is way off and I can only squat three 15 for, for some reps or something like that, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm not going to worry about it. I'm not going to get upset about it and mad about it because it's just where I'm at for that period of time. And I'm doing this for, for, I've been doing this for 25 plus years. I'm just going to keep doing it. And there'll be times where I lift more and there'll be times where I lift less, you know? So why not have fun while you're doing it? Uh, we're all going to be in pain from it. We're all going to get fucked up from it. And why not just enjoy it while you can.

Yeah. People have this idea in their head that working out or busting your ass has to just beat you to shreds and that it's not an enjoyable experience. But if you shift that, that culture into something where it's something you appreciate and you're like man i can't fucking wait to get to the gym and see all the guys or all the girls and just have a good time and get strong and feel good right like that shifts how how you approach it it's not now i'm dragging my heels getting there it's like fuck dude this is gonna be sick we're doing deadlifts today or we're we're doing kettlebells today or whatever we're working on that day it's it's awesome right yeah i think you know um i think people will view stuff as being difficult or view stuff as being hard and they won't understand that. That's where, that's where all the beautiful things come from is when things are

hard and when things are tough, things are designed to be hard for a reason. Um, and people want to try to take shortcuts a lot of times because that is the easier path. That is the path of least resistance. And it is what keeps you kind of doing the same thing day in and day out. I'll have people all the time. They'll say, hey, man, I'm really inspired by you. I really appreciate all the information that you put out. And they end it with this, which makes me want to just fucking punch them right in the face. They'll say, keep doing what you're doing.

It's like, fuck, no, man. I'm not going to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm going to keep doing more than what i'm doing i'm going to keep trying different things i'm going to keep trying new things because if i just keep doing what i'm doing then i'm just going to keep getting to the same spot i've always been to missionary style the rest of your life like you gotta explore you gotta change it up that's right you need a new stimulus right it's got to be something different and so that's what that's what i'm always looking at but again you know back to things being difficult things do need to be difficult for you to be great at something but they don't need to start out being difficult when you first start something it can be easy

exercise doesn't always have to be a war it doesn't always have to be a battle it can be that way and when you develop some skill and you develop some strength and conditioning, then you can start to really get after it. But exercise doesn't have to be this difficult thing that has this huge barrier of entry. You can go for a walk. I mean, there's all kinds of different things you can do. You can do bodyweight exercises. A lot of times at my gym, when we're super training and slingshot is all under

one roof. And so when people are working, sometimes I'll pop in a couple of different people's office and say, Hey, let's train. We get three or three of us together, five of us together, six, seven, however many people want to join in for the day. And we'll start, we'll start working out. It could be that we're doing lateral raises and biceps and just getting a bro pump going and we'll finish off with some sled stuff, but it's 15 minutes or 30 minutes, or sometimes it might turn into a longer session than that. Uh, I just tell people, don't even bother changing. We're not going to like, we're not going to go nuts. So just stay in what you're in and, and let's just go have some fun for a little bit. No one ever regrets it. No one ever regret. No one's ever like, Oh fuck man, I shouldn't have done that workout.

I mean, occasionally, like if you go too hard maybe. But the point is exercise does not have to be that difficult. You have to try to find something that you can consistently do. Don't view it as such a big barrier that you just put your hands up and fucking give up. People don't start out with diet and exercise right away. They kind of go for one thing or the other. And then the two things start to melt together as you progress, as you move forward. So you don't have to be like, oh man, I keto diet and I'm going to start training and I'm going to be in a caloric deficit. It's like, no, no, no, don't really, let's keto diet. Start with one thing.

Don't eat any fucking carbs. Cut them out for a little while. See how you respond to it. See how you feel from it. As you're doing that, research it. Try to learn more about it. As you go along, two weeks or a month, sometimes it takes two months just to even get into ketosis, just to get the hang of the diet. For some people, it might take longer or shorter. Then from there, if you want to make more progress, then maybe you start looking at some different exercises you can do, some sort of routine that you can do, some sort of strength training. But you don't have to out of nowhere just be like, oh yeah, I've been thinking about powerlifting. Oh, I've been thinking about the keto diet. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, you try both. And of course, it's going to be super hard for you to do. It's going to be super hard for you to adapt to multiple things at one time.

I think as human beings, we adapt to stuff really quickly. You know, something new happens on your phone. There's a new app. There's a new device. And we're like, oh, cool. And we take it for granted. And it comes and it goes. And then there's another new thing.

But it's when you introduce a lot of new stuff at one time, that's when you get fucked up. And so you need to just kind of think about one thing at a time. In your career in MMA, it's really hard to mix jiu-jitsu with striking and with all these different things. It's like, let's focus in on kind of one thing at a time. Let's get this one skill down.

Okay, we're going to work on striking. That's a specific time period. Okay, we're going to work on jiu-jitsu. You're going to work on drills.'s a specific time period okay we're going to work on jiu-jitsu you're going to work on drills after a certain period of time goes by when your brain's not so retarded about what it's supposed to be doing you start to mesh everything together yeah you can always circle back and try to add in different tools you know you don't throw intermittent fasting in with an hour long sauna session mixed with the max effort PR or 20 rep squat day. Yeah. There's probably 12 or 15 together, you know, probably 12 or 15 things you do every day, uh, for your health and fitness, maybe even more. And, uh, for somebody starting out, that's,

it's great to know some of that stuff, but you don't need to do it all right away. Just pick, pick, pick a thing. You can think in like a week long standpoint rather than a daily standpoint, you know, and if you're getting two or three heavyweight training workouts in or, or even bodyweight workouts and you're getting outdoors walking or hiking for a couple of days a week, and then maybe you have some yoga practice or some type of stretching mobility work that you're using to, to retune and heal the body, you that's that's going to cover a lot of bases that's your 80 20 rule yeah for most people right something you said when i was on your podcast that was great was how many people always ask you like mark what's the best way to

train should i lift like a bodybuilder should i do crossfit should i power lift and you said the one that you'll fucking stick to yeah it's all good it's all good and there's what would we say in the car yeah what's the best the best training yeah the best training is is the training you're currently not doing yeah if you're training for endurance and you go ham on all that then your strength is probably going to be compromised if you uh have a plan to lose a lot of weight there's going to be other losses that are happening simultaneously possibly a loss in strength possibly a loss in overall energy there's there's a lot of every time you go to do something something else has to give it's just that's just the way the world the world works that way yeah cycling through different training

protocols and things like that it's been been excellent for me working with you know jesse burdick and guys like you. Our boy, Jesse Burdick. Yeah, man. Just really getting to dive deep and see, like, how does this all intermesh together? Right. You know, like, how can we have a program that can tackle things from all sides so we're really leaving, like, little gaps, little weak areas.

Right. The blind spot gets shrunken down. Yeah, it's difficult, and it's difficult and it's a it's a full time it ends up being kind of a full-time job and that is on the other side of hey it doesn't have to be hard it doesn't have to be difficult at some point it will have to get harder for you to continue to make progress if you're currently a 500 pound bencher and you want to bench 525 gaining those 25 pounds of strength is going to be harder than when you went from 405 to 425. The things that get you to a certain destination aren't going to be the same things that get you

to the next destination. Said by Albert Einstein, by the way. He said it differently than that because he's a lot smarter than me, I think. But it's true. You have to do different stuff. You can't just always be doing the exact same thing. And even when it comes to strength training, people will think that they have to lift maximally all the time. Well, that's one way to get really great results. It's also a great way to get hurt. Or burned out.

Burned out. For some people, it could last a long time where that's effective. And you see this true with with any sport where you're like oh my god i can't believe that's working for that guy but sure enough it might work for somebody for their entire career there's anomalies there's different people that are have different gifts for whatever reason but uh continuously lifting heavy week in and week out with no regard uh to what's coming next is foolish, and it will paint you into a corner at some point. And so there does have to be some sort of method to the madness,

and some people are smart about it where they'll just, maybe one week they go heavy, and the next week they do rep work. It could be that simple. Like one week they do a max single, the next week they're like, okay, I'm going to do something for a heavy set of eight. It's still heavy. It's still taxinging it's still a lot on your body but the stimulus is a lot different when you're lifting 405 for eight versus trying to lift 500 for one it's way different yeah you're talking about you know different pathways as well one's going to be slamming

the central nervous system on a max effort day and then maybe taking a little heat off the central nervous system but working more on the muscle a lot of a lot more soreness and breakdown absolutely rep day right but all all of it's fucking important yeah and there's a lot of people right now that are you know the way it was explained to me a long time ago is that if you think about um i think about recovery being a giant sink right and water that is coming from the faucet kind of representing your workload. A lot of times that faucet and that water is coming in faster than we can get rid of it. The drain isn't big enough. But I think a lot of people don't understand that you can make that drain a lot bigger by introducing different things,

different rest protocols, higher frequency. And so what you're seeing now and the reason why power lifters have gotten so strong in the last, it's been about, it's only been about three years or so, last four years, where the records have really gone fucking bonkers. They've gone absolutely insane. People are going from, people that are in drug tested federations are beating the records of, uh, people that are non drug tested federations. And really, uh, you know, who knows what the fuck that really truly means. Cause it's hard to say whether someone's, uh, actually natural or not. I don't, I don't really know. Uh, but I would imagine all the

people that broke the records, uh, at least some of them are probably, uh, natural or at least more natural than the guys that broke the records previously. Uh, anyway least some of them are probably, uh, natural or at least more natural than the guys that broke the records previously. Uh, anyway, my point is, is that you can increase your ability to recover. And one way to increase your ability to recover is to do stuff more often because your body will adapt to it. Again, going back to what I said originally, you can't introduce a bunch of shit at the same time. It's got to be kind of one thing at a time. So what's happening is some people are getting these tremendous gains from increasing their frequency. They'll squat three times a week or they'll squat four times a week. Meanwhile, a lot of the people that are chasing after these great lifters, they will

increase the weight that they're using. They'll increase their frequency and they're trying to do any and everything they can a few people are getting through and a few people are are gaining you know tremendous amounts of strength but for the most part people are getting hurt because they're they're meshing too many things together everything can't be high all the time i know you want to be high all the time but you can't be high all the time there's going to be a time where you're going to have to function in a normal in a normal fashion there kyle that's right but uh you know if you if you're um if the intensity is high and the volume is high and the frequency is high shit's gonna get shit's gonna get nasty real quick because then the whole point of increasing the frequency uh and increasing um and maybe even having less uh rest

intervals and things like that the whole point of that is to increase your ability to recover from those workouts and we know your the workout is only as good as your recovery from it yeah when paul check was in here uh last week he was talking about uh a famous quote from charlie francis that i'd heard ben johnson's coach. Yeah. He said, if you're not improving one to 3% every time you step in the gym, you got no fucking business being there. That's great. So that, that just goes into, it's different for everyone. Some guys, and you can see this on genetic reports like DNA fit from the UK. They'll tell you like, if you're a shitty at recovery, you might need three or four days between heavy lifts.

Right. Whereas if you're a fast recoverer and you produce a lot of glutathione and things like that you might be able to get in there every day or every other day and and go full go right you know so but but paying attention to that listening to your body and figuring that out that's free right you don't have to fucking you know spend 400 bucks on a genetic test to figure that out if you just pay attention no that's that's uh that's crucial and then just you know if you if you are shitty in those areas then you're gonna have to figure out how do i you're gonna get the most bang for your buck out of figuring out how to get a little bit better in some of those areas even if it's not what's going to work best for you going into a competition uh it is something that you'll have to figure out because if you, if you're not fit and you're not in shape, uh, that will be a hole in your game somewhere. Um, nobody wants to have to stop

prematurely. Nobody wants to have to, um, have their career ended by something other than they're just like, Hey, I, I did the best I could. And I think that's the end of the road. But for most of us, it doesn't end that way. Usually ends with something horrific happening, right? Yeah. Yeah. That brings up a great point. I remember you talking with Dr. Andy Galpin on the power cast about that, how a base level of cardio is necessary just for recovery. And not only for that, but because oxygen helps shuttle metabolic waste out of the body. It's what's going to help us improve our workout. One of the things they talk about in, you know, high level training is post-exercise oxygen consumption yeah and that's what's necessary to bring you back to baseline how

much oxygen are you do you need to consume to shuttle all that waste out of the body right well if you improve respiratory and cardio function then your body's going to be better at shuttling that waste out you're going to be better at recovering right and it doesn't take a lot you know from a powerlifting standpoint how much mobility do you really need um you need a little bit just like any other sport you need a little bit more than what's required of you uh how much more i mean it's highly debatable but if i was just if i was just after uh injury prevention i would say five or ten percent more range of motion than what you're called upon to do in the competition would suffice for a very long period of time.

There might be periods of time where you've got to focus in on it a little bit more if an injury does arise or something like that. But I think that would be enough. And then how much cardio would you need? I think you can do one HIIT training session a week, and you can do one long-duration training session a week, and can do one uh long duration training session a week and some super setting during your normal workouts and stuff i think you're good to go so it's not like it's not like it has to be some crazy uh high demand it's not mma it's not crossfit or anything like that it's just it's power lifting and you need to have some sort of baseline to be able to recover from those workouts but which you'll recognize just in life

in general, this is like, you know, just take the shit outside the gym. You know, the more that you can handle, the more that you can handle, the more that you do, the more that you can do, the more that you do, the more that you can become. And so if you are, you mentioned this yesterday, I thought it was really intuitive and really smart, especially because your son's only two years old. This is a really good thing to notice as a dad dad you're like you know the amount of time the amount of energy i put into work uh i have to make sure i'm rested and stuff and i have to make sure you know i'm trying to get home at a certain time so that when i come home i'm not like just a piece of shit for my family i need to be there for them and my son's too and he's got a an engine that

won't quit right yeah and uh you need to be uh you need to be able to be a dad you can't just be like oh man you know and just on your phone or whatever he's he's he that's all he's going to understand is that you're too busy for him you know that you're too tired that's that's all he's gonna that's all he's gonna see and so those things are really important to recognize in the gym it's the same thing you shouldn't the gym shouldn't um same thing you shouldn't the gym shouldn't um be crushing you so bad they have nothing left for anything else it doesn't really make any sense uh because again you're probably not recovery from your workouts the way that you

should i hear so many people talking about all these different aspects of of strength training all the time and they kind of just i don't know you just uh nix all the little basics you know food you know food sleep yeah and then also your actual your actual program is crucial like if we're if we're talking about 75 different things for recovery but we're not talking about what you're actually doing then then we're being stupid what you're actually doing is is responsible for fucking you up in the first place, and we're ignoring that, and then we're trying to tell you to go put ice on it or go in an ice bath or whatever. Those things are highly effective, and they do work.

But how about you just stop training like an asshole? Let's start with that. It works great, but it's not going to mitigate inflammation if you're cramming down fucking donuts and nasty... Absolutely. But it's not going to mitigate inflammation if you're cramming down fucking donuts and nasty. Absolutely. Constantly throughout the day. You got systemic inflammation at an 11 out of 10.

Are you talking to me? I feel like you're really. I'm looking right at you. Yeah, I feel like you're really. I'm looking through into your soul right now. Yeah. No, you've shifted. Let's talk about that.

Because, you know, our boy Jesse Burdick sent me this glorious picture of your face that looked like it looked like was it the off the team face let me fucking pull it up i'll see if i can show it to the camera here oh my god but um yeah by the way when i was super fat like that i was still i still kept in strong as fuck well i was strong but i still kept in some level we can get that on the camera there's our boy there's our boy yeah that's a glorious pic oh you're off that's the you're off the team face legendary so there's a story to that picture so uh i'm glad jesse sent that um i'm traveled with jesse burdick he and i did a lot of seminars around the country we started doing seminars for crossfit and we were doing powerlifting uh certification courses for them um jesse and i would always be always fuck around the entire time you know we were we were traveling always messing with each other and stuff so dick dabbling a lot of dick dabbling we get to the hotel room

and he just like sprawls out on the like he just takes everything off second he walks in he did this every time he just take everything off sprawls out on the on the bed he's like uh you know just totally laid out in like a star position hands and legs just going everywhere i'm like this most disgusting thing i've ever seen it's like scratching his nuts and everything else just in his just in his boxers that's that's and a pair of socks of course one ball hanging out of the bottom of the boxers yeah to add to the sexiness and i'm like this is the most disgusting fucking thing i've ever seen and i'm on the other bed and i'm like on my elbows like um you know uh face down right and i have my phone with me and i'm like i'm gonna get this motherfucker i'm gonna

take a picture i'm just gonna post it right away without even saying anything. So I go to take a picture. And I'm like lining it up. And just as I go to take a picture, it's in selfie mode. And I snap that beautiful picture right there. And then I started laughing. He's like, oh, my God, what are you laughing about? And then so I sent him the picture while he's laying in the other bed.

And he fucking fell off the bed. He was like, holy shit. He's like, that is the fattest fucking face i've ever seen in my life so that's that's uh that's where that fat face picture came from i love it so one of the things that people you know in in powerlifting or or other sports you know like we had matt venton out here talking about the highland games and things like that is strength at all costs yeah as big as i fucking can strong as i can and i won't worry about longevity health or kind of how i feel when i sleep at night how i feel when i'm walking or picking up my kid and so they kind of leave they can this isn't everybody you know guys like jeremy jeremy avila or fucking just shredded jack to the gills yeah um but there's this other piece

you know and as you turn the corner and you fucking lifted crazy weight 1080 pound squat right yep shit like that you know and you get to a point where you're like maybe i don't need to weigh this much anymore right so you've kind of gone switch direction i mean you're fucking shredded jacked and tanned looking great brother. And what really got you into going into ketosis and really trying to shift that? So to back the whole story up a little bit, when I was a kid, I was probably about maybe about 16 or so. And I was playing football. And I remember, you know, when I was about 15 or so or 14, in that age i was around 200 pounds i was a pretty big kid and i wanted to be bigger for football so i started eating cereal and pasta and i started

doing all this stuff well i got up to 240 pounds and at one point i was like oh this is cool i'm like wrecking people on the football field but i'm fucking fat like this is how am i supposed to get any chicks this way this isn't gonna this is gonna pan out so well you know and i was strong and stuff and i was already into training and all that stuff but i just wasn't eating properly so i was gaining a lot of fat and so um i decided i wanted to go into a powerlifting meet and when i went into powerlifting meet i wanted to try to drop weight and i wanted to try to like get into the 220 pound weight class. And so I was reading up about bodybuilding diets and I was like, okay, I'll just cut out all the fat and I'll keep the carbs high. I'll eat chicken breasts and rice and all these things. Right. That's what I thought would work. And I was losing a little bit of weight

because it was just a pure calorie deficit. And I was exercising quite a bit. But my performance in the gym was not great. And I talked to my brother about it. My brother was in California at the time. And he said, hey, you know, I'm training out here in Gold's Gym. And my powerlifting coach out here, he said, he's got me on this diet where, you know, I don't really eat a lot of carbs and stuff. And, uh, he was like, get a pen, you know, and, and, and write this down. I was like, okay. And so I get a pen and he's like, here's your diet. He goes, red meat and water.

And he's like, and if you're really dying, you can have an apple. And I was like, okay. So that was kind of the start of start of the ketogenic diet for me. I lost a bunch of weight, went to the competition, performed really well. I carved back up, of course, for the contest itself. I did really well and then used the ketogenic diet on and off from that time period, which was probably like the mid 90s. Okay.

And I used it several times, even just in high school just to like be in better shape i used it um used it a bunch of times to um just to get leaner or to fit into a certain weight class with powerlifting as i got older i would use it here and there uh again to fit into certain weight classes and stuff like that but um, um, I was, uh, in a competition and I was, uh, trying for like, I think a 2,700 pound total. And I was hoping to, you know, bench over 800 pounds. I was hoping to squat about 1100 and then deadlift, whatever the hell I had to deadlift to get to that 2,700 pound mark. Uh, so I, I, uh, start the contest out with 1036 squat, smashed it. It felt lighter than ever.

My squat felt really good. And, uh, the next weight was 1085. And then the next one after that was going to be like 1115 or something like that. And, uh, as I was getting ready for this 1085 squat, I gained some weight going into this competition and this is in powerlifting gear, the squat suit and briefs and all these different things. And tremendous amounts of compression are going on. These things are tight and I'm fucking fat and super, super bloated, you know. And my leg starts kind of my legs getting pretty numb.

And I'm like, oh, man, like that's weird. My leg is like almost falling asleep, you know. But, hey, we're in competition, right? And I got some fucking goals to go after. So I'm trying to ignore it. I'm trying to shake it off, get in different positions. There's really nowhere to hide when you're in these suits. It's hard to explain, but they're incredibly uncomfortable.

And I couldn't really shake that feeling in my leg out. It wasn't like it was totally asleep, but it was it was fucked up. And I was like, all right, well, here comes my attempt. So then we put knee wraps on, which makes it 10 times worse. The right leg's just not not feeling right. I go up to the platform and on rack 1085 still doesn't feel right. Had an opportunity to put it back in the rack. Still didn't do it. Still trying to get after it. I start going down the squat and because I don't have control of that right leg, it just pivots inward and it shoots inward. And my other leg kind of shoots outward. Nothing broke or snapped, or at least I don't think it did. But I, I hit the model lift,

uh, with my knee. I, uh, the weight went flying off my back. Luckily for me, the 1085 weight that was on my back, it, I got unloaded from it really quickly because I got compressed. I got shrunk down and I'm in like a squat position. And then in a blink of an eye, boom, I'm on, I'm on the ground. I'm just like on all fours. And the weight went behind me and didn't, luckily it didn't land on anybody and luckily nobody uh nobody got really fucked up except for me um and there was you know six or seven spotters platforms loaded with spotters but nobody's stopping that freight train that weight's coming down fast there's nothing anybody can do about it and uh that's kind of the famous video that's

online it's uh if you look up the powerlifting mentality that's the fuck you and fuck your elbow video where i talk about how my training partner came over to like help me up off the ground and i said fuck you get away from me i'm gonna walk off on my own on my own power and i i did but i was fucking dying and i fuck you for trying to help yeah yeah exactly Yeah, exactly. I got too much damn pride. And so my legs immediately start swelling up. I've had all kinds of problems and shit like that for months, really. It took me 45 minutes to go from my recliner to my pull-out bed that we had in the other room because I couldn't go up the stairs to our bedroom just because I was in so much pain. Ankles were super, super swollen.

Knees were swollen. I never did end up going to a doctor because I was like, what are they going to tell me that I don't already know I'm fucked up? I was probably fucked up before I ever tried that squat. And intentionally, you know, sometimes when you do go to a doctor, you do go for some help. You go to somebody that you feel is going to give you the answer you're looking for. And so I went to a buddy of mine who does like acupuncture and stuff. And he was like, you know what? I think I think you'd be OK.

I think you're fine. He's like, you know, and he's like, if you were to get an MRI, he's like, what would they compare it to? You have a previous MRI? I was like, no. So there's going to tell you you're fucked up. I was like no he's like they're just gonna tell you you're fucked up i was like that's what i was thinking he's like uh if you know if it doesn't improve every day then there's a problem but if the swelling continues to go down and you and um that's when i'm kind of learning about a lot of this uh compression type stuff from sturette i'm using the voodoo floss band from him and um and jesse burdick they're teaching me about all

this stuff and i remember my daughter coming over and she's like looking at my ankle and she's like oh my god it's less swollen than it was before like just you know she's how old at times seven or something but she's able to identify like oh that bandy wrapped around your foot's probably working and so i kept doing stuff like that on and off and i did end up eventually recovering from all this but what happened was is that it ended up giving me a lot of perspective and perspective, in my opinion, is really crucial towards empathy, towards understanding what other people are trying to do to understanding where people are in their lives.

And for me, I was like, you know what? I love powerlifting. I love being strong, but I got to more. I gotta have more to me than just that. You know, like I'm kind of almost like, uh, almost like a question to myself. Like, do you, do you have more to offer than just that? And I was like, fuck yeah, there's a lot of, I have a lot of good qualities that I could offer the world. And I don't, I don't need to just, uh, lift fucking heavy ass weight all the time and and compromise myself compromise my own health um because you know as you go down as you go down this uh rabbit hole of competition that's kind of

all you think about day and night you're so passionate about it that you block out everything else and um it's it's sometimes hard for other people to understand like fuck man that's kind of dumb oh yeah looking back on it man, that's kind of dumb. Well, yeah, looking back on it, some of it was kind of. I don't regret any of it because it was great. But it's just part of your identity. And for me, it was too much a part of my identity. I got lost, and I was just lost in many different ways, not just with the training, but other shit was fucked up too.

Just my mindset in general so i it was a good pivot point it was a good time to pivot it was a good like low you know having uh lifting taken away from you for a while fucking sucks and in this case you know it wasn't like i go to the gym and like bench and stuff i i couldn't move i I was immobile. Basically I could get around, you know, whatever way I, whatever way I could. And it was a pretty tough time. Anyway, uh, from that point I was like, okay, well you can't be big and strong, so might as well shrink down. And so that's when I started messing around with the ketogenic style diet a little bit more. Um, the first thing that I did is I looked at Rob Wolf's paleo solution because I knew

I didn't want to try to just jump into something and fail. I knew, I remembered the ketogenic diet from when I was younger and I knew it was always effective and it always worked for me. But I was like, I don't want to just like not eat carbs out of nowhere. That's probably not going to be great going from eating like shit to just all of a sudden pulling all my carbs away. Uh, I thought I'd probably fail. So I was like, this looks like a pretty good solution, the paleo solution by Rob Wolf.

That's why I started to mess around with that diet. And I started to get some of that down. And basically, it was just meat, some potatoes here and there, rice, vegetables, stuff like that, real simple. And as I was going through that process, I was like, okay, you know, I lost, I don't know, 30 pounds. Um, I was three 30. I got down to about 300. I was like, I could probably make a commitment now, you know, to going, uh, back on a keto diet, learning more about that. Uh, started investigating some of the information from John Kiefer the whole time. Burdick is helping me

because he's super knowledgeable and I continued to lose weight, got down to about 260. And then I started training again. My strength started to come back up. And what happens again, I kind of fall into a similar pitfall, but this time around it was a little different. My goal was to bench 600 pounds. I went into a competition and benched 578, which was like a 40-pound contest PR for me. And I did get hurt on the last lift, but it was just a slight pec strain with 600. So I didn't get to 600. But an important note there is that a lot of times the goals that we set for ourselves are myths. I think we think that we're going to set this goal and

then we're going to, I'm going to, I'm going to get this goal. And then, and then after that, then I'm going to switch gears and I'm going to go after a different goal. But what happens is it's never enough. I never set out to be a millionaire. I never set out to, uh, to bench press eight 54, but when I benched eight Oh four, it wasn't enough. When I squatted a thousand, I set out to squat a thousand pounds. I squatted a thousand, I set out to squat a thousand pounds. I squatted a thousand pounds. I thought I checked it off the list, but I didn't. And I wanted 1100 pounds. And so that's what happens with your goals. I think people need to, it's still important to set goals here and there. And I think that it's even more important that

your goals are like, your goals are much less than, uh less than they are like this great, big, huge thing that you're going after. I think your goal could be, for me, I make my goals really simple. So that way I can accomplish them and I can check them off the list. It's almost like a to-do list rather than a goal. It could be something like getting a haircut. It could be something like getting a haircut. It could be something so simple, you know, just some low hanging fruit that can give you momentum and make you feel better than you did the day before or general stuff like, okay, I'm going to get a cardio session in today.

I'm going to get a lifting session into just some to something easy, something that you can do something that's not like this monumental feat of strength. But I think more importantly than goals, I think people need to understand that they need to dick around because it takes a long time to be good at anything. And on top of that, if you're trying to be great at something, that's something that can't be forced,

that can't be bought, and that takes not only an enormous amount of time, but it also takes all of your energy. And while you're focusing in on being great in one area what's happening with the other shit in your life there's shit in your life the wheels might be falling off so it's really it's a difficult balance it's a difficult battle but just understand that anybody who's ever been good at anything they spent the first couple years around just dabbling in it just messing around with it for a while well we called it dick dabbling yesterday dick dabbling is what we ended up a couple years of just dabbling in it, just messing around with it for a while. Well, we called it dick dabbling yesterday. Dick dabbling.

Is what we ended up. A couple years of dick dabbling. That's how you get to the top. Yeah. It's important to kind of have those time periods. But even with the ketogenic diet, it took me a long time to learn the diet. You don't just learn it from a book. You can learn it from a book. There's great information out there from many different people, Mark Siss and Rob Wolf. There's a lot of great books on a ketogenic style diet, but you're only going to learn what you're going to learn from the book and that's it. And what trumps all that is experience, having experience, having actually done it, having actually gone through it. Then you start to learn the pitfalls as, as you have done with, with the ketogenic diet as well.

Yeah, it definitely takes trial and error. You know, a lot of people get into that and they're like, fuck, I've been doing this for three weeks and I don't feel different. You know, my energy's tanked. I hear people say stuff like that all the time. It's like, well, that's the fine tuning. Now maybe let's look at, you know, where the carbs are at. Have you really paid attention to getting them underneath 50 grams a day?

Have you, you know, are you eating fucking a slab of meat at night? Is that going to kick you out of ketosis? And just like I said, with you and with guys like Burdick and people that carry a lot of muscle and they're lifting weights frequently, you probably don't need to eat under 80 grams of protein, right? You can still, because your body's going to be using carbs. Carbs, right? No, I'm saying protein.

Oh, protein. Protein for that. Oh, you can still eat a lot of protein. Yeah. Too high of protein will kick you out of ketosis as well right but but a fucking big dude who's lifting often he's gonna utilize that more you know or if somebody's really just focusing on this diet first and going for walks and doing some body weight exercise they probably need to get that protein down right if they're looking at all if everything else is good that may be the one missing piece but but that just takes fucking fine tuning. It takes some time to learn it. And I

think, what are we talking about too? You know, like, uh, if we're just talking about weight loss, how important is, is actual nutritional ketosis? Um, it does factor in there, but I don't think it's the most important thing. I think the most important thing is, is that you have sustainable energy and that you feel okay. And that you continue to lose weight. And the way that you do that is you weigh yourself every day and you should, over a course of time, you should, you should weigh less. And I think that's where people get caught up with this, these kind of finer points. And it can be very effective where you do measure your ketones often and you do try to keep yourself in nutritional ketosis because it is kind of keeping yourself in check. And that can be important, but it's not the most

important thing all the time. If we're talking about getting other benefits of the ketogenic diet, then I think that that's when we're, that's when we need to try to make sure that everything's lined up so that we are in ketosis. Or if you have a disease or you're diabetic or some of these other things, that's when it becomes more important. But like for me, if I'm losing weight and I'm getting leaner and I'm starting to see abs, I don't really give a fuck how many ketones I'm producing. I don't really care. And if again, if I feel good, like do I legitimately feel good or am I feeling like shit? Like, you know know trying to measure

some of that out is is important so i think people get really caught up with the the keto thing and they get really caught up and then some people don't even know much about it they just think all low carb diets are a keto diet yeah and that's not necessarily true um i do think what i've learned from doing a ketogenic diet and it's different when you've been doing it for a while i should say that uh just as kind of a blanket statement because when you've been doing it for a while there's more things you can get away with yeah your body's well adapted to using fats metabolically shifted before yeah first it's not its first rodeo yeah fucking not using carbs for fuel yeah your body starts to kind of get used to some of the tricks that you're throwing at it, you know, but with a, with the diet, I think that people kind of, they get so caught up in, in what is it, you know, how much protein, how much fat, just do yourself a favor and simplify it,

cut out, you know, cut out your carbohydrates and just start, just start from there. Just try to keep them under 30, under 50, somewhere in that range per day. The other thing that I noticed a lot of people do is they get caught up with a calorie deficit and they get caught up with intermittent fasting. They try to implement too many things at one time. Again, just focus in on the foods first. Maybe skipping breakfast isn't a great idea in the beginning because maybe just getting used to the food is the most important thing. And trying to tackle the hunger thing is something that you should be probably looking into later down, later down the road, two, three weeks down the road when you're like, ah, shit, you know, my progress has stopped. Yeah. It's more, much easier to fast as well. Once you're in a state of nutritional

ketosis, right? You're like, I don't, I'm not a fucking slave to food i don't need to eat every three hours right i feel good skipping breakfast or just having a little coffee you're right now then i'll eat like a high fat lunch and a shake and then i'll have a big meal at night you know with a load of greens some meat and a lot of fat i think that's a huge advantage of a ketogenic style diet is that it it's the only diet that helps with that it's the only diet that helps with that. It's the only diet that really helps with your, your cravings, uh, for people listening right now that really, you know, have a sweet tooth and stuff, a ketogenic style diet will annihilate a sweet tooth. And it really, really beneficial for people that, that like snacks in general, it could be salty, crunchy stuff, or, or it could be a candy or ice cream or any of that kind of stuff. It just helps

eliminate the junk that you're, that you're getting so addicted to all the time. One of the few diets that really helps manage that. And then also the fasting side of it. Like I thought fasting was bullshit. How about you? I mean, when you first started to hear about fasting, did you feel like? Yeah, I was like, I'm going to fucking lose muscle. All this shit's going to happen.

And then the more science that came out, I was like, I'm going to fucking lose muscle. All this shit's going to happen. And then the more science that came out, I was like, oh shit. Like there's a direct response from the body to counter that. There's an anti-catabolic response from the body to shift into far higher growth hormone levels at night, far higher testosterone in the morning to prevent muscle loss. And I think about our ancestors who didn't have grocery stores and didn't have refrigeration. Like we went without food frequently and in that period if we lost fucking muscle yeah you're not going to finish off a two-week fast and be successful on a hunt yeah we're pretty fragile yeah but when we when we act in ways that are similar to our ancestors and you don't have to

call that paleo or fucking neanderthal or any shit All you got to say is we do it in a way where we live in harmony with the earth, where we try to implement some things we might have done that our predecessors did. Maybe we expose ourselves to extreme temperatures, like hot in the summer and cold in the winter. And maybe we spend a period in winter where we don't have as many carbs because they just weren't available then. We didn't have shipping containers bringing in shit from Panama, right yeah you just grab a whole giant thing of uh almonds you ever try to get you ever try to get an almond out of a shell it's fucking impossible yeah fucking walnuts they're

a total pain in the ass yeah just to get one walnut right yeah how many you're gonna eat you know back then when you had to figure out a way to get it out of its fucking shell you're gonna eat like five of them a lot of work and you're gonna be fucking pissed you know just throw it all up in the air after a while fuck this i'll find a different food source exactly something easier something i could peel instead of crack but the ketogenic diet's been something that's always worked for me and so that's why i talk about it often i have a book coming out about it um the war on carbs you guys heard me talk about it many times over i'm passionate about it because it's helped me and then i'm passionate about it. Um, the war on carbs, you guys heard me talk about it many times over. I'm passionate about it cause it's helped me. And then I'm passionate about it because the information that I've shared has helped a lot of other people. I have people that tell me all the time,

they've lost 30 pounds and 50 pounds and a hundred pounds. And it's just, it's crazy. But the information that what people's beliefs are so much different than what reality is. People think that you have to have carbohydrates, and they think these certain things, these things that they think are concrete. But their beliefs can change. Your beliefs can change. The things that you're thinking,

I was just telling you I thought intermittent fasting was bullshit. Then I tried it, and I'm like, oh, fuck, it works. Your beliefs can change. Seeing is believing. When you actually start to try something, it's going to be something that's a key factor for you. So you've got to give stuff a shot, but give it an honest try, you know. If you try a supplement from Onnit, you can't try it for a day and be like, give me a break, man.

What are these guys selling? You've got to give it a chance. You've got to give it some time. Maybe you have to mess around with the dosing. Maybe you have to take more than one capsule. Maybe you've got to take two. Maybe you have to gotta give it a chance you gotta give it some time maybe you have to mess around with the dosing maybe you have to take more than one capsule maybe you gotta take two maybe you have to take it for a month these things they're they're always gonna it's it's the worst message ever but everything's just gonna take time yeah everyone wants it now right now forgive it to me fucking now and i i get it i understand it you know part of running a business is under is the understanding of that. It takes me,

you know, I'll see something and I'll be like, okay, I'm going to work on making that. I'm like, I'll be talking about this for the next year, you know, maybe longer depending on what it is. And,

uh, true creativity takes a long time. Um, people that are creative, they don't, they don't wear a watch. They don't run on a schedule. I'm, uh, consistently late to everything all the time. And it's, it's, it's not, uh, because I want to be, um, I could

do a better job of it, but if something hits me that I want to get to, I'm fucking getting to it because it's important to me. And I know that it will help. Um, it'll help in some other areas at some point. So i need to fucking like write it down i need to work on it at that very moment uh creativity is not going to just hit me like when i sit down i'm like okay time to think of something cool you know it doesn't really it doesn't work that way i'll see something or i'll you know be taking a shit or i'll be on one of my walks and again back to the dicking around theory sometimes it's joking around your friends and you're like oh shit like that would be you know like what you

know all these uh rappers and stuff their most creative lines have to come from when they're just fucking around with their buddies ass so fat let's make a baby that can only come from you fucking around one of your buddies when you see a chick's butt right and so i think that uh creativity is something that that takes a long period of time greatness is something that takes a long period of time and also even within all that stuff greatness is not like it's not a real thing it's made up by everybody else somebody puts a ball on a hoop and everybody gets all excited why is that guy greater than my dad my My dad's the greatest person I ever met. He's the most inspirational person to me. He provides a lot of value to me. So to me, he's

great. So what are you trying to be great for? Who are you trying to be great to? If you're not great to the people that are in your household, then you're a fucking asshole, in my opinion. And so I think that, you know, with everything moving so fast and all the social media and stuff that we see all the time, it's easy to get caught up in that. How many likes he got and who said this. And we always focus on the negative comment. The one guy who was like, Hey, you know, you're always focused on that. Meanwhile, there was a hundred other people that were super excited about whatever it is you did. Yeah. I think you touched on a great thing there that we both talked about with Dr. Andy Galpin was how you create that space.

You know, it's important to have a little time each day to unplug. And a lot of that wonderful muse for creativity and the insight and inspiration doesn't happen when you're digesting and processing this podcast or, you know, the TV screen or a movie or you're listening to your favorite song. It happens in the in-between moments. It happens between the beat when you're taking a shit, when you're driving with no music on, when you're just farting around,

shooting the shit with your friends. That's when you get inspired. That's when you get that aha moment and you think, oh, fuck, this is something cool we can create and do. You know what's interesting about listening to a podcast or even sometimes music, sometimes you, at some point, I don't know how it how it happens why it happens but you just completely shut it off even though it's it's still playing and it's still just as loud as it was before

you just start thinking something that you say spawns a thought or something that you know you're listening to joe rogan something he says spawns a different thought and next thing you know your brain's way the fuck over here thinking about that but even those moments it's a good time to pause whatever the fuck it is you're doing stop listening to it and start listening to whatever's going on in your head and follow that some some of the intuition we all have creativity um you know a lot of people feel that uh you know every everyone kind of has their place at the top, and I don't believe so. I don't think it works that way. I think that some people enjoy being lazy, and some people enjoy spinning their tires and being in the same.

It's like being complacent. But I do feel that everyone does possess at least some similarities when it comes to being creative or being a quote-unquote genius. I think a lot of us have that inside of us, but a lot of us don't ever tap into it. There's been some research to show that Olympic gold medalists use something crazy like 30% of their brain, whereas everybody else only uses like 5% or 10% of their brain. And so being able to tap into that other side obviously has a lot of value for us. How do we do it? It's by paying attention, by being mindful,

by understanding what your body is trying to do rather than just being in this rat race every single day. People are living with anxiety. People are living with depression. People are living with this stuff, and they just think it's normal. But they're not feeding themselves properly. They're not sleeping properly. They're not treating themselves properly.

Everyone, regardless of how athletic or how unathletic you are, everyone should be treating themselves like they're a professional athlete in some way. Everybody should be kind of pampering themselves with figuring out ways of recovering, maybe not from some treacherous workout, but just recovering from their life, recovering from everyday work, being unplugged, being unplugged a little bit. Meditate. You know, I don't meditate often, but i try to do it here and there it's effective just even even meditation aside even if you think that's weird just how about you just slow the

fuck down for a second yeah just slow down just fucking get in a hot tub or something or just wherever you can go and be by yourself for a little bit just slow the fuck down it could be three minutes it doesn't have to be it's not asking for like this uh really long period of time that you need to like be in this crazy deep thought and uh some people like to take that further than others some people uh like to do mushrooms and run around the woods naked and chase after bears and i think if we all had the opportunity to do it we would we would do it? But everyone's going to take those kind of things to different levels. But the point is it doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be hard.

It's something that everybody can do, and it's something that will help you tap into just being more mindful, using your mind a little bit more, using your body a little bit more, using your spirit a little bit more. How do we tap into any of this if we're just going so fast and going so hard every single day yeah we got to listen you know right we got to pay we got to pay more attention of what's going on inside just how we it's not just a physical attention you know like it's it's it's fairly easy to teach an athlete how to pay attention to his body like where are we at today you know without using you know an aura ring or or any of these

activity trackers and sleep monitors and all this shit like if you're really paying attention you can figure out like hey i slept great last night my body feels good like i can push it hard today in the gym or man i fucking went to bed and was tossing and turning the whole night i feel like shit my heart was racing when i woke up maybe it's a better day to fucking go to the beach or just go for a walk in nature you know those kind of things but that same physical aspect of of mindfulness and paying attention to what's going on inside can be extrapolated to our emotional state our mental state like hey do i have a fucking scatterbrain right now let's slow down let's get quiet let's let's draw that in

let's kind of shift that consciousness away from the high beta state fucking go, go, go to. Yeah, let's relax. It's not all that serious. I think I think if you were to take, you know, if you were talking to a bunch of, you know, first or second grade kids and you asked them, you said, hey, you know, who in here feels they're original? You know, who in here feels they have originality, original ideas? I bet you a lot of, you'd see a lot of hands go up. If you ask that to a bunch of adults, there'd be probably a couple of people just barely, you know, it'd be a little bit more scarce. And I think that something happens along the way. You know, when you're a little kid and people tell you that you can't do this, you can't do that.

Hey, Kyle, you can't punch another kid in the face. You're like, fuck you. I'm going to do it for a living. Of course I can punch him in the face. I'm going to get paid for it one day and it's going to be awesome. Everybody's going to love it. But I think, you know, people are going to tell you what's right and what's wrong over and over again. And there's some people that have the ability to kind of tune some of that out.

There's some people that hang on for long enough. Maybe they have enough for myself. It's always been I had enough love in my life. I have two great parents. There's a lot of love in our household, and I met a great woman. My wife, Andy, is amazing. She is amazing. Children are fucking awesome.

I have it really good and so for me it allows me uh to not get caught up and not get bogged down with a bunch of bullshit but i think that people's creativity gets sucked out of them at some point they're they're at a low they start to listen to everything that people say the slingshot was a bad idea. Power magazine was a bad idea. The podcast was a bad idea. A free gym was a bad idea. I'm like, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Until I knew, you know, until I knew that it was the right thing to do. I heard enough people that I thought were like, um, to me after a while, I was like, the fuck do these people know? But it took me a long time to get there. It took me a long time to be strong enough to question what these people were saying.

I shopped a slingshot around to other companies. Other companies had an opportunity to be part of, you know, I've sold probably 750,000 slingshots. Slanging. Slanging, you know. So I think we're approaching about a million slingshots sold since the infancy of the company. But when I shopped the idea around, people were like, I don't know what you're talking about. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm like, well, it's supportive. It would be like for bench press. And I said, well, bench press is kind of similar to push-ups, so maybe it would help with that too maybe it helps with kind of a bunch of pressing motions maybe even helps with like dips or something I was like I don't know inclined dumbbell bench so I'm just kind of like you know I didn't have a concept down yet you know so I played around with a lot of different ideas but before I ever played around with these ideas my my idea was shot down over and over again.

And at a certain point, it kind of just depends on where you are in your life. But again, back to me being fortunate, having a lot of love in my family, and also, aside from being fortunate, just me recognizing that I have that. Some people don't recognize how good they have it. Some people have some great things in their life, and they're focused in on all this other bullshit that's going on. Be good to those people that are good to you and do nothing else is a motto I live by that I learned from Ed Cohn, the greatest power lifter of all time. That's, I mean, that's some fucking wisdom for you because if you think about that,

that's really hard to do. Think about just, okay, who's good to me? Okay. My wife's really good to me. All right. My dad's, but you know, and then you think about all these people that try to pull you in different directions and tell you that you suck at something. And your first thing is like, okay, they threw a punch at me. I'm fucking throwing a combo at them and I'm knocking them the fuck out. You know, that's what you're thinking. But you're like, that's a complete waste of time. That's a complete waste of energy. Why don't I put those combos into something else? Why don't I put that energy, focus that energy into something different?

Focus that energy into something positive, something that can move me forward. And so for me, I was strong enough to kind of hang on for long enough to where I was like, fuck that, man. This is a good idea. And then a lot of times for people, a tragedy will happen. Something will happen, uh, that sparks or spawns an idea or just spawns them to fucking get off their ass and go. And for me, that was the death of my brother. My brother passed away. Uh, I got a phone call. I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was kind of weird how vividly I remember it. But,

um, I got, just got home from the gym. It was a training day. It was on a Sunday and my dad called me and like, I don't know. I've seen my dad cry twice. I think, you know, I think most people, a lot of people have that story. They haven't really seen the, their pops cry that much. I haven't seen an emotional, but his voice was so, was just so stressed. It was insane. I is not even the not even not even the right word he's like Mark and I was like yeah yeah you know I'm here and he's like your brother he's gone and I I knew what he meant because my brother struggled with addiction his whole life and stuff and so uh and my mom's yelling in the background and that was brutal my mom's yelling no no it didn't

happen I'm like oh my, this is crushing me. And, um, you know, that was, that was a, that really shook our family up really, really badly, as you can imagine. And I just remember like, I'm like, okay, where the fuck do I go? You know, my wife's here and I can cry all day in front of her, but like, I, I'm not prepared to have a conversation with the kids right now about my brother dying from an overdose or whatever the fuck it is he died from, you know? It's like, I'm just going to go into the bathroom by myself for a little bit. And so I went in there for a little bit, tried to collect my thoughts and tried to pull everything together the best I could. And so I did right away.

I tried to tell my kids, you know, what happened because I always feel that it's really important to be inclusive. And it's really important that your family understands what's going on. My family knows where I'm at right now. They know I'm with you. They know the audit Academy. I've explained as much as they can handle of me explaining what the fucking audit Academy is to a 10 and 13 year old kid, right? They get it. They at least have a basis and understanding of what's happening. And so, you know, I told him, I said, yeah, your, your uncle, he passed away. He's, uh, been addicted to drugs his whole life. And, uh, we can have a deeper conversation about it some other time, but, uh, that's why dad's

real sad. And that's why, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm out of here. I'm going to take off for a little bit and go hang out with my friends. So I did that. And again, I I'm fortunate to have some strong people around me that I can go to. I went to my friend's house, hung out with him. His dad died like just a few weeks earlier. And the same thing happened. All the guys from the gym, they all huddled around him. When my brother died, all the guys from the gym, boom, they all huddled around me. So it's great to have that network of friends. It's great to have people that care that much, but it was probably just maybe a week or so later I went to bed and, uh, you know, I, I, I'm not like aliens and fucking ghosts and like all these different things. I, I, I believe in them, you

know, but I'm not like a crazy, you know, crazy into it or anything like that, or into these weird conspiracies of different things. But, um, I went to bed that night and I had this whisper in my ear and it just said, it was like, I was dreaming about my brother and he was there and he like whispered in my ear and it just said, think I woke up I was I was covered in chills I was fucking sweating I was like I felt sick I don't know what the fuck happened you know and so from that moment on is when I was like whatever the fuck happened I do need to think I do need to be more mindful I do need to uh pay attention and what the fuck's going on you know I have this impulse to make this fucking tool that I think can really help people that I think can really mindful. I do need to pay attention on what the fuck's going on. You know, I have this impulse

to make this fucking tool that I think can really help people that I think can really, you know, save a lot of people. A lot of people are super passionate about lifting and they get a chunk of it taken away from them. They can't bench press anymore because their shoulder hurt. And in a lot of ways, some of the tools and some of the devices that I make are not just helping people lift more weight. They're helping them with their life. That's inspiring them. They're excited if, if they're wearing the strong sleeve and it's helping them because they have a bum knee, that's a huge lift for them. That's a huge, um, emotional victory for them that they're able to

go back and still do some of these things that they, that they love doing. And so I started putting my time and energy into the slingshot. And as I was doing that, I started thinking about all the people that have told me over the years, yeah, yeah, I used to be able to do that. And I'm always like, oh, shit, why do they always say they used to be able to do it? They get hurt and then they can't do it anymore. It's like, that fucking sucks. And so, you know know started thinking of some

ideas messed around with a bunch of bad inventions and bad ideas that didn't work um i bought a bunch of super tight under armor shirts and uh tried to bench with those i but one day i was putting on a t-shirt and i put it up over my bicep and then put the other side up over the other bicep. And then, you know, before you stick your head in the hole to pull the shirt down, I kind of just pulled my elbows back a little bit. And I was like, I was like, Oh, okay. Like maybe this thing that I'm thinking about would work like this. Cause when you spot people on a inclined dumbbell bench or dumbbell bench press you spot their elbows I'm like now the shirt's on my elbows and it's going

across my chest I'm like okay well it can't be made of like cotton you know and so I tried these under armor shirts that I got were a couple sizes too small and I had my arms all forward and it probably made me help me lift an extra like five pounds, but it hurt and like marked me up. And I'm like, shit, if I do that to the general public, they'll eat me alive. They'll be fucking pissed for me. I'm like, Hey, five pounds is five pounds. I'll take it. You know, that's fucking great. But I knew that wouldn't be accepted. And plus the thing wore out right away. Cause once you stretch this under armor shirt, when one direction, it was kind of toast, you know? So I played around with a bunch of other ideas,

and then my dad and I, we were, I was like Rain Man for a long time, I had all this equipment all over my fucking house, I had this one room that was like an R&D room back in the day, it was just a spare bedroom that we had, and I had knee wraps, and wrist wraps, and squat suits, and bench shirts, and all these different things. And I'd go in there and I'd fuck around with all this stuff all the time. I don't know why, but I was just into it. Even before I had the idea of the slingshot, I just, I liked the fabrics and the materials. And I was always trying to think of how do we make a better knee wrap?

How do we make a better this or better that? That was before I ever had my own production line. I was just thinking, how do I fucking lift more? How can I cheat more? How can I cheat more? Yeah. How can I cheat more so I lift more fucking weight on the platform, you know? And I was playing around with this wrist wrap that I had in the trunk of my car. And I'm messing around with my dad with this thing.

And my dad, you know, takes the one end and he loops it around my arm. And I take the other side, loop it around the other arm. And my dad holds the Velcro in the middle and I pull my arms back and when I pull my arms back thing snaps and it hits him in the face he's like well shit that ain't gonna work I was like no that's it that's it that was the that's exactly what I'm looking for I was like now I just need to figure out how to you know make it so it doesn't fucking tear apart or whatever and so my wife um you know people that are listening to this right now use stop for a second and think use the resources that are around you you know more people than you think you do

and there's uh they used to say there's what seven degrees of separation well now there's only one because you have the fucking internet so you can find anything or write the president right now yeah right right you can tweet him and he might get you back like he did with uh one of our guys in the gym uh ryan spencer who's a um who works for the uh he works at the capitol building he made some comment to trump some smart ass comment and trump responded back pretty fucking cool but anyway i started playing around with this idea and i i told my wife about it and uh my wife's like oh my friend my friend, you know, she makes swimsuits for our entire swim team. My wife's been a swimmer all her life. And I was like, maybe she could sew

something together for you. So I met with her outside of a Starbucks in Woodland, California. And I had all these like wraps and knee wraps and stuff. And I said, hey, you think you can help me with this? You know, you can sew something like this together she said yeah I think so um you know I'll meet you here next week and I'll have it have the thing sewn up for you I was like cool so I met her there again and right that right um within like a maybe 100 yards or so of that Starbucks is a fitness 19 so I uh I'm super excited I'm she shows me this this thing she sewed together out of elastic and uh i'm like oh stay right here i'll be right back and i run into this gym just run in like you own the place that's how you always get past the front desk you know you just pretend that you're

there every day somebody yeah and you'll have a membership or whatever i was a fugitive at many gyms and never paid for any membership so I was used to I know the game you know hey is Bob here oh yeah he'll be he'll be in here tomorrow huh sorry cool when you just go right past the uh the person at the front door but so then I go I go to the bench press loaded to 135 pounds to throw on this uh you know preliminary version of a slingshot and bench 135 for like 10 reps and it feels like empty bar and i get up off the bench and just covered head to toe in goosebumps like this is fucking awesome like this is like uh this is my ticket i don't know what you know what's gonna really come of

this fucking thing but this is this is awesome i need to get a bunch of these made i need to test them and so i went back to this woman her name's Marilyn, went back to her and said, Hey, I need like four or five of these for my gym. So we can test them, make sure no one dies, make sure nobody gets fucked up from it. And, uh, from that point after we tested them and stuff, it was just a matter of finding a manufacturer. And the complicated thing I did, um, which makes me a fucking genius is I sat at Starbucks on my iPhone and I typed in knee wrap manufacturer. And I hit up one of the knee wrap manufacturers and the first guy didn't work. And we got a bunch of shitty slingshots from him. I typed it in again a few weeks later went to a second guy

and the rest is history so it doesn't have to be that hard doesn't have to be that difficult hopefully you don't have to go through a tragedy the way that i did but use your phones use your resources that you have around you hell yeah brother the origins of the slingshot there you go i love it well where uh i mean you the PowerCast is one of my favorite podcasts. Oh, awesome. It's absolutely phenomenal. You had an excellent guest named Kyle Kingsbrown not too long ago.

That guy was really handsome. I was shocked. Not bad, right? Jesse Burdick was also there. So we had a good conversation together. Gary Vee was one of my fucking favorites. I've been a fan of Gary Vee's, and you guys crushed it.

You went up to New York and podcasted with him. I still say that your episode with Dr. Andy Galpin was not only better than Rogan's, but better than mine, and just fucking out of this world. And you have so many great podcasts. You also have a YouTube channel. You're fucking crushing it on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. Trying to pump out information. Yeah.

Where can people find you on all this stuff? At Mark Smelly Bell on Instagram and Twitter. And then the YouTube handle is SuperTraining06. And then anybody that wants to come to SuperTraining Gym, the gym's free. The gym's free, and it used to be kind of like an open type thing on Sunday. But now we're just opening up the whole weekend,

Saturday and Sunday. Anybody that wants to come. All you have to do is send us a message ahead of time. Make sure that we're there. Make sure we're prepared because, you know, now we're starting to get a lot of people flowing in there. And it's, anyway, just make sure you hit us up. Make sure we're aware that you're coming in. And the place to hit us up is on the Super Training Gym Instagram.

So just slide into the DM. Slide into the DM. That's right. you're coming in and the place to hit us up is uh on the super training gym instagram so just slide into the dm slide it in the dm that's right fuck it's been excellent having you you're going to jump on a podcast later with aubrey marcus our uh commander in chief the ceo and uh that's going to be excellent you get to dive into some cool shit um your brother and you have put together some amazing documentaries. I taught, I speak often about prescription drugs, bigger, stronger, faster, and you got another one coming out soon, right? Yeah. You know, my brother is, uh, you know, back to that creativity stuff. My brother is insanely creative. You know, that's a real gift

that he has. He's really powerful when it comes to that. And, uh, in fact, he's come up with a lot of the quotes and stuff that you see on the shirts. And strength is never a weakness. A lot of the stuff that we use, he's come up with a lot of that dialogue just because he's just his mind just works that way. Really smart. But he and I are working on a nutrition movie. We're not really sure the exact name of it, but the name will shape as we go.

War on carbs, land of confusion. We're kind of going back and forth between a couple different things because people are really confused on what to do. And you'll have one guy one week say, hey, you know, a low-carb diet is the way to go. And you'll have another guy on the extreme and say, you know, says it's unhealthy. Somebody will say eggs are healthy. Somebody will say eggs are bad for you. Some people think meat's bad for you in general and you shouldn't eat it. There's all kinds of stuff to get into. And even when it

comes to digestion, you know, you would think, okay, well, digestion has to do with like your stomach. And it's like, well, no, you can back it up a little bit. Okay. Let digestion starts with like your tongue and your teeth and chewing and all that stuff. right? It's like, well, no, it actually starts before any of that happens. It happens in the cooking process. Well, no, hold on. It doesn't necessarily happen in the cooking process. How is the meat prepared before it's cooked? How is the meat treated before it's cooked?

Is it grass-fed? Is it organic? So the list of things goes you know, goes on and on and on. And so far what we've learned from just several people that we've interviewed is that it seems like the answer kind of keeps kind of going back to the middle. And Andy Gelpin said something to us that I thought made a lot of sense. He said with most people that at least understand fitness, at least understand health in some fashion,

they have just a little preliminary education on a bodybuilding diet and a low-carb diet and stuff like that. He said, all I have to do is stare at them, and they know the answer. So if you were to say right now, is milk bad, then I'd just fucking stare at you like, what do you think? And what that does is it kind of puts you on the spot, and it makes you think, and you're like, well,

bad is probably not the right word. Maybe some people don't digest milk as well as others. Milk has some good properties to it, and maybe it has some bad. Then it gets you thinking and again the answer kind of always lies down the middle so that's what he and I are trying to tackle I'm really excited about it we're going to see Rob Wolf in just a couple days we interviewed Stan Efferding, Andy Galpin we have so many we have so many people to get to I'm sure we'll end up back down here at the audit academy to

talk to you guys and to talk to aubrey and stuff because i think that this is a this is a bigger thing to tackle than just nutrition i think uh it ends up being for some people it ends up being religious some people ends up being a spiritual thing there's there's a lot that goes into into all this and so uh that's what the movie's about and that's what we're working on. Hell yeah, brother. I'm absolutely pumped. Cool. Thanks for coming.

Thanks for jumping on the On It podcast. I can't wait to listen to you on the Aubrey Marcus podcast. Awesome. And fuck yeah. Thank you, brother. All right, man. Thank you. Thank you guys for listening

to the On It podcast with our guest, Mark Bell. If you got more questions, make sure you tune in to Facebook Live Wednesday, 6 p.m. Central Time. You can write them in ahead of time If you got more questions, make sure you tune into Facebook Live Wednesday, 6 p.m. Central Time. You can write them in ahead of time if you're not going to make it for the actual live

and I'll still answer your questions. And be sure to check out Mark Bell's PowerCast. It's an amazing podcast with amazing guests. I think you guys will dig it. Thanks for listening. One of the challenging things anybody has to deal with with supplementation is just figuring out what to take.

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