Mark Bell's Power Project - 10x World's Strongest Man Competitor Reveals The TRUTH About Functional Strength Training - Nick Best || MBPP Ep. 1118

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

In Episode 1118, World's Strongest Man Competitor Nick Best, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the true meaning of functional strength, how Strongman competitors might be the most functional athletes in the world and advice for athletes as they age. Follow Nick Best on IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbeststrongman/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🥜 Protect Your Nuts With Organic Underwear 🥜 ➢https://nadsunder.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your order!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Become a Stronger Human - https://thestrongerhuman.store ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/JoinUNTAPPED ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/ ➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

And I always thought that strongman would be great for even your average person. People just go out and train it to the best of their ability. They're going to be better all around it. No matter what they do. I want to be able to do everything a 20 year old can do when I'm 80. It can just people just think about just using the lighter loads and all of these things are going to develop the levels of functionality that you guys have. If you do this sport, you're going to be able to pretty much do anything.

I think strong men are like some of the most functional strength athletes. You're still moving through space with the weight. You're not static. What are general concepts that you think older athletes can start thinking about so they can kind of be like you? Write your training cycle with an extra rest day. So if you're on a seven day cycle, write an eight day cycle. That's going to help you more than you could ever imagine.

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All right. Don't rub it too much. Don't rub it too much. We'll get to your penis in a little bit. Oh no. With hands like that, I mean, we might as well start the podcast out right now. I don't know.

Nick Best, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming out. Thanks guys. I've been a long time fan and excited to try to figure out how in the hell you're still doing strong man when you are 39 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I did my first World's Strongest Man

and that was 41 years, 10 months. Damn. So I did 10 of them, so not too bad. And you're how old now? 56. 56. Beginning of this month I was 56. The first one was 41.

So, and before that, you were probably already lifting for what, 20 years or something like that. 56. 56. Beginning of this month, I was 56. The first one was 41. And before that, you were probably already lifting for what? 20 years or something like that. Yeah. I did my first power lift to meet in 1985. That's kind of old. But yeah. And then I won the state championships in Nevada in 86.

And that was my senior year of high school. What are some maybe, I guess like, I guess we're totally being honest, there's gotta be some factor of luck in here. Oh, there's luck everywhere. No matter what you do, there's always gonna be some luck, but you create your own luck too. I mean, the hard work and dedication and never stopping

and taking your dream and following it, it provides its own luck. You're gonna get an opportunity in there somewhere. Sometimes it comes fast and sometimes it takes really long, but either way it comes. The TV show was my luck, the strongest man in history. That was my luck because that made it to where I didn't have to do a regular job anymore.

I'd done Stormin all those years, but Stormin didn't have the prize money it has now, that's for sure. So, I mean, the middle guys in Stormin' now make a decent living just from the prize money. And then social media has just really changed the game for all the athletes, almost very few of them have to work like regular 40, 50 hour a week jobs.

Yeah, Rogue Fitness came in and became a big sponsor and a lot of other people followed as well. Brian's drastically changing the sport as far as that goes. I remember talking to him about that. So I'm so proud of him to see him doing that now because I remember he was like, I want to be like an ambassador. I want to really help the sport.

I'd love to be like a commentator or something. He was talking about that years ago. Yeah, and now he's a promoter. And The Strongest Man on Earth is one of the biggest shows on Earth now. So they're easily paying out the most prize money. And his show doesn't lose money, so it's good. He's got the right combination.

What made you go to Strongman at 41? Because a lot of people at 41 years old, they're not thinking that they want to compete at a high level a lot of people at 41 years old, they're not thinking that they want to compete at a high level in any sport. At 41 years old, they're like, I'm not competing in anything anymore. I'm just going to be a casual. Right, well, so I got to World's Strongest Man at 41,

but I had done IFSA Worlds in 2006 and 2007. When that folded in 2007, I had to find my way into World's Strongest Man and it took a couple of years to do that. And when that folded in 2007, I had to find my way into World's Strongest Man and it took a couple of years to do that. But I did my first Strongman Contest right kind of like in the middle of 2004. I had went to a contest at UNLV

that Mark Philippi put on in 2003 and my two year old son looks at this and goes, dad, you're pretty strong, you should do this. This is cool. And this is the rest of his history. So that's kind of how I saw it. But I saw like Grant Higa and Phil Pfister and John Anderson they were all there competing that day.

And I'm like, oh, I can do this. I just got to figure it out. It was fun. Yeah, it's amazing to start it so late. What do you think, you know, over the years are some things that maybe you did right or maybe slightly different to be able to hang around and stay in the game and still be competitive today? Well, I kind of knew blowing up really fast and just pushing the all out limits, I wasn't going to be able to be there very long. So I had to be slow and methodical

with everything that I did. So I slowly gained the weight. I slowly kept trying to get better and better and better. And then I was a pretty good athlete. So the speed that I had always really helped a lot because I was very good at the moving events. And then I just tried to work my weaknesses in the in-between, but I took longer rest periods. I already kind of figured out that the rest periods were more important

to me in my gaining strength than anything else. If I tried to work out before my body was ready, I would go backwards. Rest from one session to the next type thing? Yeah. So basically I'd figured out that if I train everything once a week, but train it to where it was trained, there is no, I would do a speed week and a heavy week. There wasn't, but when I was done, I was done. I wasn't doing anything on that body part for at least three to four days.

And then I'd move around and start working the mobility of it in the interim till I was ready to train again. And so in some weird way, maybe it's almost like a blessing that you started it later. Because you had to do everything a little slower. You couldn't treat your body like you were 25 years old. No, no, I was already recovering slower, which you learn from that and you move forwards.

But having won the ADFPA Nationals and stuff like that, you learn a lot about how your body really works. And then as you get older and you find HRT, you learn how to keep that level going without going overboard on. For the youngsters out there, the ADFPA turned into the USAPL. Oh, shit.

It's part of the IPF, American Drug Free Powerlifting Association. I won the last ADFPA Nationals and the first USAPL Nationals in the 275s. You told us something absolutely devastating earlier. You just kind of breezed past it. We didn't really touch upon it, but the last powerlifting meet that you did, I think you said you lost to who?

Oh, the- This is embarrassing. All right. So in 1993, in 1993, it was the last time I lost in powerlifting in the state of California, that was to Michael Hearn. So, by five pounds. Hey, you're better looking. No, thank you.

I appreciate that, because I'm not. But okay. I'm trying to get you to win somewhere. He's about as pretty as you can get. He does pretty good in strongman too, from what I've heard, right? Have you ever seen him do it before? Or ever had, yeah, I heard that he went to

out Hogan's place in Santa Monica, I guess. Yeah, I went and trained out there. Messed around with some stuff. I don't know how well he did, but I heard he did pretty good. Yeah, no, it's, Ode's a good teacher. I learned a lot from Ode when I first got started. I remember the Fit Expo when it was the Fit Expo,

when it was literally the second heaviest contest in the United States. I mean, it was, yeah, it was pretty crazy. I mean, it was a three day event, you'd have like 12 events in three days and you were just wrecked by the time. But it was also a qualifier for the Arnold. So the top, either the first place guy

or the first and second place guy would get an invite to the Arnold for Terry Todd's contest. So it was pretty serious. But you only had six weeks to recover to get there after that, so you were still really beat up when you got to the Arnold. What kind of numbers were you hitting when you were powerlifting?

When I came back to her before I left, I did 2105 in the USAPL ADFPA. And then coming back, my best total has been 22, 26. So I total, I was the only oldest person to total over a thousand kilos, raw. Wow. That's crazy. I did that at 48.

And the 2100 pound total probably was equipped just because that's what everybody did back then. Yeah, it was back when the bench press shirt. It's such a weird story. The squat suits were nowhere near what they are now. I mean, if you got 30 or 40 pounds on the bench, you were doing great. And the squat suits would probably give you 40 to 60 pounds.

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize, they maybe don't understand that there was no raw powerlifting. No. There was just like, everyone just wore squat suits and bench shirts and some people chose not to wear it. Except for the bench shirt. That had to, the lawsuit had to get settled

in a bunch of stuff and then they brought that finally back. They finally brought it in. Well, what happened with the lawsuit? There was a lawsuit with one of the female competitors that was trying to compete in the WPC or something like that, and still do like the ADFPA and USPF. And she was world champion in like all three. Whoa.

And because she did that, the IPF kicked her out. And so she sued and won the lawsuit. And there was a judgment against that. Somehow John Enzer got a hold of that and that's he kind of used that to tweak his way into getting the bench press shirt legalized into USA powerlifting and the IPF back in the day, back in the day from what I can remember of it. The IPF has been causing problems since the beginning. Yeah. Shit. The IPF never really fulfilled its promise to the USAPL. I'm going to say that now.

I was part of the NGB that voted to get into the IPF. I lost my worlds in 97 because of that. What happened? The WDFPF kicked us out. So we couldn't compete that year. So I was a national champion and didn't get to go to Worlds. Oh, that sucks. But everybody else from that point on got to go to IPF Worlds. But their goal was to get it into the Olympics and move it forwards as a sport.

And they've absolutely failed at that. Which doesn't make sense because powerlifting as a sport, if there was any lifting sport that is so standardized that could reach the Olympics with great rules, it should be powerlifting. Right, but if it gets in, well, with CrossFit now, Olympic lifting's probably stronger and doing better in the United States than it's ever done with CrossFit.

But if power lifting gets in, who's going to want to do the snatch and blow out your shoulders? The clean and jerk's great, but who's going to want to do the snatch when you can go squat, bench press, and deadlift? It's just, it's easier, it's better to do. I mean, you can go heavier and it's a safer movement. Strongman has absolutely exploded. What is it like going to some of these,

going to the Arnold Classic and going to some of these things? It must be a lot of fun. You're hanging out with Brian Shaw and Thor and all you guys are like super popular. Probably people want to take pictures and probably just a madhouse. Well, I appreciate taking pictures with people. I mean, it just reaffirms all the things I did over the years.

I appreciate it. I really do it. So it doesn't bother me in the slightest. As long as I have time and don't have to be somewhere, I'll stop and take a picture with them. If not, I'm like, hey, love you guys, really sorry, but I got to get over here. I have an obligation I have to get to. But other than that, I'll stay and take pictures with him.

Brian's really good at that too. Brian will take a picture for hours after contests are over. That's fucked up, honestly, when he takes a picture with anybody. Remember the one picture I have with him in my phone, I look like a baby. I look like a little black baby. It's like, what the fuck?

It's not okay. He's probably been getting that his whole life just because of how huge he is, regardless of his fame. Yeah, oh yeah. No, he can't hide. I can still blend. And so some people see me and they won't see, you know, stuff like that.

I can blend. I can sit in an airline seat and blend. They're, Eddie, Brian, there is no blending for them. Does Eddie fit in the airline seat? Is he, is this too wide? They both are super wide. I just think there's gotta be like a ton of heat come on. I wouldn't want to sit next to him.

I'd probably end up sweating. It's the gas you gotta watch out for. Especially with Eddie. Yeah, you guys all travel together. Oh God, yeah. Brian almost killed Eddie one of the days. We were sitting in a, we were in the van waiting to do filming in Nova Scotia.

We were filming the pilot and Eddie just lit the van on fire all day long and Brian had had enough. Brian's like, you do that again, we're fighting. I'm just gonna hit you right in the head and I'm gonna knock you out. He goes, when I wake up, I'm gonna kick your ass. It's like, no, that again, we're fighting. I'm just gonna hit you right in the head and I'm gonna knock you out. He goes, when I wake up, I'm gonna kick your ass. It's like, no, you're probably not gonna do it. They're just going at it.

But he kept hot-boxing us. He kept shutting off the controller so he couldn't open the window. It's not okay, dude. We're stuck in there. It's just like, I'm in the very back because I'm the only one who can fit in the back. And I'm like, dude, I can't get away from this.

Knock it off. You know, but yeah, it was pretty bad. But there were things where, I mean, I know they're still in a restaurant for Eddie in North Scotia. So, I mean, he dropped trial. They were, Brian and I were squatting and Eddie and Robert didn't want any part of that, they were in the leg press.

And Eddie's up on top of the leg press and Robert's doing it and they're talking smack back to each other and Eddie drops trowel, you know, moods him. But Eddie doesn't drop trowel like with his ass is sticking out. The thing came all the way down to his knees so everything's out. And this dude gets so offended and he he's like just running out of there.

He's going up there, we're like right out looking at each other, we're like, we gotta get out of here. And so the cool part is we had wrapped, all the filming was done, everything was gone. When we got back, you know, those two were getting ready to fly out. Robert and I were staying with the crew for one more day.

And then, so we went out that night, they both went back, got changed, went to the hotel. Well, we came down the next morning and there's the Mounties looking for him. Like, where's Eddie Hall? We're like, I'm like, I don't know. He's like, well, he's in decent exposure. And then you're just like, he's not here.

He's like, well, where is he? I'm like, right now? He probably just landed in Heathrow. He's on a plane. He's gone. So yeah where is he? I'm like, right now? He probably just landed in Heathrow. He's on a plane. He's gone. So yeah, it was pretty funny. That's just wild. When you guys train together,

does it get pretty competitive or do you kind of train a little bit more like messing around kind of thing? Yes, both. Both, it gets competitive. I mean, Brian's competitive on every single thing he does, which is awesome. But I mean, so's Eddie's, so's, I mean, Brian's competitive on every single thing he does, which is awesome, but I mean, so's Eddie's, so's, I mean, we all are, that's who we are.

So we get around each other and everything's competitive. We always try to beat each other at everything. And sometimes it's successful and sometimes you get your back waxed. I've never heard that one before. I've never heard that before. It's a good one. Oh, you lose a bet and they wax your back. Which is extremely unpleasant.

There must be so much to learn getting into the sport of Strongman. Yeah. Because there's so many different events. Seems like on the amateur side, that's my understanding, like some of these stones and some of these things, they're more standardized now.

I think things are pretty nice nowadays compared to maybe the way they were. But like you'd have like a stone or a rock, right? That had like 90 pounds all on one side because people used to literally throw like weights inside the cement and stuff like that, right? Oh yeah, the stones would be lopsided. And so nowadays though, so nowadays, you got Rogue

and they're making these kind of, and all these other companies. Slater. Slater, yeah, making the stones. They're making these beautiful, perfect rocks. But back in the day, it wasn't quite like that. Oh no, I mean, they'd either put, excuse me, weights in the stone or you go to the tire place

and you get a whole bunch of tire weights and then you or you go to the tire place and you get a whole bunch of tire weights and then you dump a whole bunch of tire lead into a sock and then drop it down into the middle and hopefully it was semi well balanced. So you drop like 75 pounds of tire weight, tire lead into the stone when you're making it. It must have been really hard to prepare because you didn't know what the hell,

who has what at what competition almost. Right, exactly. And then, but you learn things like, how do you test that the stone's balanced? Roll it around a little bit. And you'll immediately know if it starts rolling this way or rolling that way. So you roll it to where the weight's on the bottom

and you pick straight up. Now the weight's gonna be out in front of you when you pick it up. So you just gotta prepare for that when you come out of your lap. So it's kind of knowing how to deal with it that I don't think the kids learn these days. Now the weight's gonna be out in front of you when you pick it up, so you just gotta prepare for that when you come out of your lap. So it's kind of knowing how to deal with it that I don't think the kids learn these days anymore.

Do you tell some of the other competitors, do you go, hey, or do you just kind of leave it at that? You pick it up and go around yourself and let them figure it out. If they're not in your weight class, you kind of tell people. After you already competed, maybe. Yeah. You class, you kind of tell people. After you already competed maybe. Yeah. You say, hey, check this out.

Yeah, so, but nobody wants to see anybody get hurt. So a lot of times if something was dangerous, we would all go over and be like, hey dude, look out for this. This is gonna do that. Go out and take some towels out with you that are soaked in water and put them on the handles to cool those things off because those things are blazing hot

and they're not doing anything to cool them off. And just ignore them when they start yelling at you for doing that. How do they come up with some of these things? Some of the things they do at the Arnold Classic and at some of these shows. And also what's like the most dangerous thing where you were like,

I don't even know if anyone should be doing this at all. That one was the Thor's hammer at World's Strongest Man. Oh, hey, look, there's the Card Deadlift. That was fun. What's the Thor hammer? The Thor's hammer was a finger finger with a hammerhead on the back of it, and you couldn't get from the back of it to pick it up. You had to like pick it up from the side, get it up to your shoulders, extend out, and then try to walk it over. And it was just ungodly horrible. I don't know if we could find that. Yeah, the finger fingers is like you're pushing over

giant telephone poles. You pick them up and then you get them to a certain position and you walk with your hands. Yeah, they're like 700 pounds and you're putting all the weight in one hand. And it's almost like you're doing the monkey bars, how you swing from monkey bar to monkey bar. It's that same type of thing,

except for your feet have to go in the right sequence. So that- Who thinks of this shit? Just like promoters or something? Yeah, yeah, promoters. A lot of this stuff was, some of this stuff was already there and invented, and some of this stuff wasn't, but yeah.

What's the one that you hold out here, and like an iron cross type thing? If you're holding it out, there's two things. If it's pulling on you, that's the Hercules hold. The Hercules hold, that looks insane. You ever seen that? I love that. I've seen it.

Yeah, it looks like it hurts. It's fun. It's a nice stretch. Does it halfway hurt and halfway feel good, or does it hurt? Yes, it halfway hurts and halfway feels good. Do you guys get to really prep for these things? Because you don't have that sped, like the Thor's hammer thing you mentioned, right?

No one fucking has that at home. Nobody knew what that was. So you're just expected to have the strength to be able to perform this on the day? Yeah, or and the mental ability to figure out how to get it up and figure out what to do with it. So the person going first is generally screwed? Uh, yeah. Yeah, unless they figure it out really fast. Unless they figure it out. Because those are the fingers right there. So, unless unless they figured out really fast. Cause those are the fingers right there. So unless they figured out really fast.

Wow. If you get gassed in one of these things, you're just toast kind of, right? It's hard to come back. I think that you're with the Thor's hammer, two guys tore their biceps, one guy tore his tricep, and the other one got, Grant Hicks got a hematoma in his thigh when he dropped it and it landed on his thigh.

Oh my God. He was stuck in Malaysia, I think like an extra week or two, because he couldn't fly. You guys end up going to the promoters and, you know, do you have the ability to talk to them, communicate with them and say, hey, like six guys got hurt? No? Okay.

You're still competing. So he's like, We voice our opinion, but sometimes they, Six guys got hurt, no? You're still competing. We voice our opinion, but sometimes they, well, the Thor's Hammers were never back after that. So that was one where, yeah. But some of the other stuff, sometimes they'll make, alter the equipment in a way that makes it a little safer. They move forwards if they really like the event. Do you think they could do a better job of that?

Just curious, like being an athlete. It's gotten so much better. It's gotten better, okay. It's taken probably 10 or 20 steps forwards from the way it used to be. That's good. As far as the equipment goes and safety. Has Strongman changed a lot in the last few years?

Cause it seems like a lot of guys are in better shape. Is that just byproduct of people wanting to be in better shape or is that like the events that are selected or something like that? I think it's a little of both to be quite honest with you. I think it's the event selections have changed a little bit and the weights have come down a little bit. They figured out that they were beating the daylights

out of the guys and guys would be hurt more than they would be competing. And so they had to back off a little bit on the weights. I mean, so instead of doing a 1500 pound yoke, you're doing another 1000 or 1100 pound yoke, which is, it's still super obnoxiously heavy, but it's doable. And so they've changed a few of the events like that

and guys are still able to like last longer and you don't have as many bad injuries as they did in the past. I remember going to a few of these and seeing, you know, at the Arnold Classic, you guys all set up to do an event and like someone goes to do something and they're not able to like, they're not able to like figure it out. Like they try to pick it up a couple of times, it's unbalanced, crowds getting into it, but the guy can't figure it out. Next guy goes, screws up, next guy goes. And it's just like a couple of times, it's unbalanced, crowds getting into it, but the guy can't figure it out. Next guy goes, screws up. Next guy goes.

And it's just like a couple of people in a row having a rough go of it. But every once in a while, somebody comes out of nowhere and just like runs with the guy. And you're like, Whoa, I thought like no one could do this. And I think I remember seeing maybe Benedict Magnuson doing that at one of the, one of the competitions, one of the Arnold classics. He seemed like he was absolutely amazing. Seemed like he was incredible,

but maybe just never quite put it together with maybe being as consistent as he needed to or something like that. Yeah, plus he was, I mean, Benny was still more of a powerlifter than a strongman anyway, but- Seemed like he had a lot of fun with it. But he did, he did.

And the crazy thing is, my first international contest was IFSA Worlds in 2006, and the first event was the Farmers' Walk, and that's who I was competing against. You know, I'm going against head to head with Benedict Magnuson with the IFSA cylinders, and I broke the world record by three seconds. Oh, shit. Yeah, it was crazy. I had no idea. I mean, we went down, ran 25 meters, made the turn, came 25 meters, made the turn,

because if you dropped him, you still had to pick him up. So the turns, got through the turn, I heard him drop as he made the second turn. I kept going, dropped right before the finish line, picked it up across the line, turned around and cheering him, and everybody's going nuts because I broke the world record. So it was a really neat experience,

but yeah, Benny's a heck of a competitor. He was a lot of fun. All the different stuff that you guys do, you have like static strength, you have like amazing feats of strength, then there's like a lot of explosiveness to it. If anyone's ever tried a farmer's carry or ever tried, you know, a farmer's carry or anything like that, not just a farmer's carry

with, you know, 40 pound dumbbells, but pick up something really heavy that you can barely walk for, you know, 20 yards with, and you'll be really out of breath. So you guys are in like amazing shape, amazing condition. I always thought that strongman would be great for even your average person. I mean, people talking about longevity

and people talking about wanting to live longer and be stronger and all these different things we're hearing nowadays. The problem is, is the stuff that there is for Strongman is just so damn heavy that it makes it a little difficult to kind of get into some of it. If you line up the weights a little bit, and people just go out and train it

to the best of their ability, they're gonna be better all around it no matter what they do. In pretty much any sport. I mean, kind of like CrossFit, it's just, it's a little bit different. It's not as many reps. It's not as much stuff that's actually just

destroying your joints over time. But a lot of the stuff, the stability, the core, your back, all the things that it makes it work, you're gonna be a lot better for your longevity and the way you are gonna be as you get older in your life. You're gonna be able to do the same things. I wanna be able to do everything a 20-year-old can do when I'm 80, and be as strong as a normal 20-year-old

when I'm 80, because my quality of life is just gonna be that much better than somebody who's normally 80. Which only got 24 years to go, so yeah. I wanted to ask you, so it seems like, so my experience watching Strongman has been at the Arnold Classic, the entire expo shuts down to watch it.

The lines at the expo are the longest when a strong man is making an appearance. But yet, I don't know what it's like nowadays, I just remember they would like delay all of the recordings, it wouldn't be live, and it was such a bummer because everybody would know the results before it actually aired on like ESPN and that sort of thing.

Yeah, well, with World's Strongest Man, it's a TV show. Got it, okay. It's different. They're the ones paying all the money for the TV show. So those are always gonna be, everyone's gonna know all the results to that before it comes out on television because it's a television show.

They gotta go through production, they gotta do this. They have a certain contracts with England, you know, with the TV in England, where they release it during Christmas every year, going into that, whereas in the United States, they show it in July. But even then, it's a TV show. So it's not like a live stream.

All the new stuff though is all live streams. So you can watch it and do everything. Either you can go in person or watch it on the computer. That was kind of the question then, because it seems like the hype has never left or it was never low, but now it does seem that like strongman is getting way more popular. And so you would equate it to the fact

that it is kind of being live stream now. Yeah, that's helped a lot. I mean, there's several things that helped the popularity of strongman go through the roof. And a lot of it's like some of the guys get out there their personalities show through, the people actually still get promoted, like the UFC in the beginning.

When a lot of those guys, you got to see their character, you got to see who they were, you fell in love with them and the sport. And now it's kind of more, the UFC is more important than everything else. And the athletes aren't quite as brought forward as they are. The athletes and strongmen are still very much brought forward.

So if you've got a good personality, and you can talk in front of something and not get afraid of being in front of the camera, you'll be fine. Why is it a Christmas thing in England, by the way? Like what's still there? It's just a tradition where it's been on, and now it's been so successful

they're not gonna get rid of it. It wins the night in England when it shows there. That's amazing. Like that's actually crazy. No, crazy is when you go through, oh, the TV show. When you go through, when you go through, like back 10 years ago, I go through Heathrow and I couldn't get through the airport

but here I could go everywhere. And somebody recognized you here and there, but Heathrow, I get stopped 20 times because it's so massive in England, especially after Eddie did that. The first one he pulled a thousand down in Australia, it exploded. And then when he pulled 1,100, it just went nuts.

That was so much fun. I do want to quickly just rewind to what you were mentioning about anybody doing strongman. The thing is, people just think about using the lighter loads. Instead of grabbing the 200 sandbag, grab yourself a 50, because they make 50s. And all these things are going to develop the levels of functionality that you guys have, because I think strongmen

are some of the most functional strength athletes. Yeah. Out of every other strength athletes, strong men are probably. You guys are throwing around kegs and everything else. I mean. Yeah. If you do this sport, you're going to be able to pretty much do anything

that you decide you want to do. If you want to go play football, if you want to do whatever else the sport is, you're going to be able to do it. Yeah. You're still moving through space with the weight. You're not static. Right.

I mean, for a lot of the stuff, you're not static. Right. It's not just linear strength. It's athletic strength. It's moving. It's doing stuff. I mean, the farmer's walk, you carry in the milk jugs, the stone, this thing, the Hussfeld is by the show. You're picking up a rock and carrying it. I mean, you carry in the milk jugs, the stone, this thing, the who's felt by the show. You're picking up a rock and carrying it. I mean, you're doing things that you-

I love some of the tradition of some of it. The Conan wheel, all the different things you guys have been picking up for forever. God, that was funny. So what was it like being part of this TV show? Oh, it was a blast. We had so much fun. I mean, we really did.

It was just incredible. I just- Some of it like invasive, intrusive, or not really? No, I mean- Bothersome here, I mean, you know. Bothersome was like sometimes we needed to eat and they didn't realize that. And so Brian and Eddie kind of set people straight.

I mean, when I say we had nothing, we had a great time though. I mean, we really did. And then once they figured out that we don't want to just sit and waste our time, if you guys are going to sit for three hours at the beginning of the day and get everything ready, we're going to train and then we'll come back

and we'll cut the scenes and do the stuff you wanna do. So I mean, once we got that stuff figured out, it was a lot of fun. It really was. This was nuts. I mean, where we get in and we try to pick up the Oram Stroloff's and log, that was pretty. Were they like, what was it like like being on the set?

Would they kind of tell you guys, hey, we're gonna have you guys try this tomorrow. And you guys are like, I think we can do that. Or was it like, holy shit, I don't know if we can do that. Well, the thing is, is we come out and look at it and be like, okay, you guys need to fix this, this and this. And they just look at us and they're like, we're like, we told you this two weeks ago

when you were looking at doing this. Now we mean it. So you either do that or we're not lifting it. So, yeah. Yeah, you don't want to get hurt. Right. So a lot of that stuff was pretty interesting. How much did it that way?

Yeah. 1450 pounds? I just feel like it's gonna snap your back now. Yeah, that was a little weird. I actually played with that like a long time before we even really got started. They were warming up at the Yoke and I'm like, we're not walking with this thing very far at all.

I'm just gonna try to figure out how to balance it, the balance on that thing. That log is like way thicker than the other one. And the one in Norway has like a big flat spot on it and stuff like that, because it's way longer and a lot thinner. So with it being that big around, it was hard to find a balance point on it to pick it up.

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And that checkout enter promo code Power Project to save 10% off any one of these panels or any lab on the entire website. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What is going on with Mitchell Hooper? He's killing everybody. He's unbelievable.

He's probably the most talented person I think I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of very talented strongman competitors and athletes. What separates him out, you think? Some of it's, well, his intelligence level is like off the charts. I mean, the guy's like ungodly smart, which some people don't understand is he's talking. He's not cocky. He's just very intelligent as he's talking. He's not saying things to make people mad

or act like he knows more or whatever, but he's just that smart. People don't understand. But he's got the ability to suffer and yet still figure out how to lift things. He can look at something and if he'll ask somebody a question and then he'll reevaluate and then he's just, he figures it out faster than anybody.

And he's just unhumanly strong. My gosh, look at that jump. It's wild. It's so wild that he's so much lighter than the other guys too, right? Yeah, but he's got muscle where he need to have the muscle. So when you say that- He's still 330 pounds though. Yeah, I mean, he's 330.

So basically he's a 380 pound guy with no body fat on him. Okay, so when you say he has a muscle where he needs to have it, what do you mean when you say that? Well, look at his shoulders. They're like this thick. So his pressing power is incredible, which is huge in strongman.

And then his legs, which you don't really see, his quads, you can see him now because he'll wear shorts and stuff, and his quads are like just massive. And so he's got so much power in his legs and his glutes are huge. I mean, he's a big dude, but it's just, he hides it so well.

He also comes from like, I mean, I'm probably mistaken here, but I swear I've seen that he comes from like a running background too. He used to run marathons, yeah. The fuck? Yeah. Like- And my understanding is, is he's like from a running background too. Yeah, he used to run marathons, yeah. The fuck? Yeah. Like.

And my understanding is, is he's like a scratch golfer too. Like he could be. What's a scratch golfer? He could be pro. Oh. Oh. Wow. It seems like he's just tremendously athletic

and very well-rounded. Yeah, he's one of the best athletes you could just, I've ever just walked into and seen. I don't think there's any sport he could play where he's not successful, none. Wow. What are- But he's also coachable.

He'll ask you a question and you answer it, he'll look at it, he'll figure it out. And if he thinks it'll work, he goes with it. He can just adapt, huh? Yes, he's one of the best people I've ever seen besides Magnus Ver at adapting. Because Magnus Ver and Brian were probably the two strongest of the, smartest of the strongmen

at adapting to things that I had ever seen till Mitchell. Yeah, it's interesting. I remember Brian being so tactical. Yeah. You know, he would find out about a particular event or something and he would say, oh, I wonder if it's gonna be this way or that way, he was very particular in making sure that he knew exactly what needed to be done.

And very well prepared for it. He was always the most prepared. He would always ask the most questions. He would come in there and you could see it. Sometimes it would drive the promoters crazy because he's like, another question, Brian? Okay, go ahead. He's like, they're like, another question, Brian, okay, go ahead. He's like, now if this goes on,

but that's why when you go to his rules briefing, there's nothing that's missed. I mean, he goes through everything. Without getting anyone in any hot water, has anything changed as far as when strong men know what events are coming up and that sort of thing. (*both laugh*) Depends on which contest.

This happens in CrossFit too, by the way. It's like they always claim like Matt Frazier knew all the stuff. Or you know, the poster board. Whoever dominates, yeah. They're always like, oh, he knew what, you know, he earned advance or whatever. Right. The good thing is with social media,

everybody has to put up content. And so if you watch certain guys who are in certain areas and you watch what they're training and preparing for, not only that, the assistance exercises that they're doing, you can kind of figure out what some of the things are going to be if they know. What are they faking people out? What are they training some, posting some shit?

Well, fake plates and all. Very rarely does that happen. Okay, okay. And I don't see anybody putting fake plates on anything you ask for. No way. You'll be ostracized so fast, your head will spin. Wow, what's going on with the food?

You guys must have to eat a crazy amount of food. I actually don't miss that at all. I hated eating. I mean, it was a necessary thing. I mean, you were a powerlifter. I mean, you squatted over a thousand pounds. You know what it's like. All you're doing is shoving food in your mouth.

It doesn't really, after a certain calorie count, it doesn't matter what it is. You're just trying to get calories in. I mean, I was up eating about 9,000 calories a day back then. And some of it just out of convenience, some of it kind of needs to be a little bit on the junkie side, right? Just to get the calories in, right? Yeah, I know. Like, for instance, Brian makes up his extra calories with cheesecake.

You know, so you pick, Brian makes up his extra calories with cheesecake. So you pick up some dessert or whatever. He's been doing that forever. I know for a little while, he's done some other diets and stuff like that. And he's like, I'm going back to the cheesecake. Yeah, but at the end of the day, he would still come back and eat a lot of cheesecake. Just, there's so many calories in it.

It's important for you guys though too, when the contest is over to like take care of yourselves again, because some of the guys are getting to be 350, 400, 450, and you don't wanna, you don't wanna stay at that body weight for, for longer than you need to. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of very old 400 pound men. Right.

There's just not. And I mean, I always told the guys, they're like, come on, you need to eat more. I go, no, no, guys, they're like, come on, you need to eat more. I go, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's gonna come a limit to how long I'm gonna be able to do this. And I wanna be able to bring my weight down as I get older and be healthy

because you don't see a whole lot of 400 pound guys that are over 60. You just don't, a few, but not too many. So I was there when we were filming this video and I don't remember the name of his coach or whatever at the time, but it called for, let's just say like two slices of cheesecake. But there was only three left and he just looks at it

and he's like, I'm not gonna leave a third, I'm just gonna eat all three. It's like, it's like. No, no, I mean, why? It's same as thinking about this. He's like, cheesecake diet.. Oh yeah, no, no. I mean, what? It's the same as thinking about this. He's like, cheesecake diet. Yeah. It was good cheesecake too.

I think in Botswana, we had just finished eating our meal that day at the hotel. And I'm like stuffed to the brim. I can't move. And Eddie and Brian are already talking about, they're gonna have to eat in an hour. And hey, let's go get some Flamin' Yons. There's a place that you could drive to

that was like, I think 20 minutes away and they had $10 Flamin' Yons. Talk about eating disorder. Yeah, and so they go there and they get like five or six of them and just, and you're just like, holy cow. That's how you know like this is also kind of a skill. Like we can say, oh, you have to eat a lot, but like the ability to put that much food down, then go perform, because a lot of people, they can't.

They put that down, they feel like shit. It's something. To do it every day too. Well, to digest and then dispose of the waste. You're an expert in that too. You can make a program on that, man. A lot of time spent in the bathroom, right? Yeah, I think Alex, Eddie's wife, is an absolute angel.

At one point when he was like 4'40", and he was... Eddie's like an inch taller than me at 4'40". His ass was so wide. Oh my God. I'm telling his story by the way, so sorry Eddie. Cause this is a story Eddie told me. His ass was so wide, he didn't quite fit on the toilet all the way.

Eddie had taken a shit and he had missed and it went down the side of the toilet. Oh my God. He just gets up and leaves it. He comes back about an hour later and it's cleaned up perfectly, everything's nice. And she didn't say anything to him. That is an angel.

That is- That's love, man. That's a good wife right there. And it's just like, wow. So I'm like- The ass is so big, you miss the toilet. It's so big. It's so big.

You all think about the logistics of that, man. It's not like there's a small hole there. Like you got a whole thing, but your butt still landed on the side. That's a huge miss. That's what I'm thinking about is like, so I'm thinking about this way too deep, especially considering I know Eddie Hall.

But I'm thinking about the size of his ass, right? Like your ass can get as big as it wants to, right? But the butthole, the butthole's only so big, right? I mean. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. I don't know if he's got a stiff, so. We'll have to have him on the podcast.

He probably had to like stretch open, move, right? Because there had to be space for the book. Right? So yeah, now you see. But a balance thing, I'm just... Well, it's crazy. I mean, like, no, like in 2010, when we were in South Africa, the bathrooms were kind of small

and the toilet was in between the shower and the sink. And half, literally half the competitors could not take a shit on the toilet. That makes sense now. They all had to go down to the bathroom by the pool. Oh God. That had bigger stalls to go take a shit. It's getting murdered, right?

No. No. You didn't want to be the person at the bar, at the pool bar that went into the bathroom there. You just didn't want to go in there. Dude, you need prep. You know didn't want to go in there. Dude, you need prep. You know, I'm really curious about this.

This is done right in the shirt. We were talking about, you know, you're mentioning like no one's like going to be 60 years old, 400 pounds, right? So you thought and you've put into practice things to maintain your athleticism, maintain strength as you're getting older and you're still doing a lot of amazing things. Thank you. And there are a lot of athletes that want to do the athleticism, maintain strength as you're getting older, and you're still doing a lot of amazing things.

Thank you. And there are a lot of athletes that want to do the same thing, but when they start getting into their 40s, et cetera, they're just like, I gotta slow everything down, right? So what, tactically, on the training side, on the recovery side, what are general concepts that you think older athletes can start thinking about

so they can kind of be like you when they get older? Sure, sure. I mean, as you're getting older from 35 on, write your training cycle with an extra rest day in it. So if you're on a seven day cycle, write an eight day cycle. That's going to help you more than you could ever imagine. And then your diet, whether you like it or not, you got to start cleaning it up. I mean, you need to eat better, you need to eat more disciplined,

you need to get the nutrients in your body at regular times and intervals, so that your body has everything it needs to keep repairing itself throughout the day. Whereas you go to bed, you need your protein before you go to bed, so that your body can put itself together at night. So carbs in the first half of the day,

if you're gonna do that, I stick to mostly rice. I eat fairly clean, like not quite carnivore, but not too far off. I mean, I eat more meat than probably anything else. And then carbohydrates are my rice. You know, have a latte or something, or mocha or something like that here and there, but I don't eat a lot of sugar on a regular basis. So it's stuff like that. You have to get your diet straight as well and be disciplined with it.

And then that means drinking alcohol has to be the same way. Anything that's gonna slow your kidneys and your liver down becomes, it just goes away. If you're gonna do that, you're gonna be able to survive a whole heck of a lot longer. And when it comes to like exercises, you know, what are your thoughts?

People just, you know, exercise that hurt, they go to the gym and this exercise hurts. What do you think to just don't do those exercises? There's plenty of other exercise to do, or do you think, you know, maybe address the issue too? There's that and address the issue. Why does it hurt? What's causing it to hurt?

And then start improving that to where then you can get back to the exercise. I mean, my squats were really starting to hurt and getting painful and stuff like that. Well, I was having a mobility problem and I started working on it. Now I'm just getting to where I can get back to a regular squat depth with very little pain and I'm starting to get explosive coming out

of the hole again. I also just got 10 weeks off because I broke my thumb. So that also helped, but I was doing a lot in the in-between. I was doing a lot of things to get that mobility fixed. And I addressed the issue that was causing it to be painful. And I cut that pain by two thirds. And just really reducing the weight a lot, right? A lot of times people are like,

oh, I go to do a skull crusher and it kills my elbows. I was like, well, did you ever try it with five pound dumbbells? And like, well, I don't wanna do it with fives. It's like, we'll just start with whatever. You go to the side and pick up the fives and do it. It's a good exercise. So don't worry about what people think it looks like,

just go do it the way you need to do it to get it done, to get the benefit from it. Throw your ego away. Cause the only place your ego comes out is on competition day, that's it. The rest of it is, okay, well, you know what? These don't feel that good. I'm gonna do zirch or squats today

and I'm only gonna go to like 275 on zirch or squats. I'm gonna do sets of 20, you know, and I'm gonna get one to two sets of 20, and then I'm done. And the work's in, the work's done, you still gotta get great benefit out of it. It doesn't look good on camera, doesn't have to. It just has to be functional and work and be effective for you.

So there's a master strongman, right? Mm-hmm. But are you still competing in open pro strong man or? I'm gonna probably now mostly stick to masters. If I feel like I can get to that level and be in that level again, I will get there. I'm still having fun at it. So if I can get to that level, I'll go do it again.

If I stay in the master's level, then I stay in the master's level. I'm just gonna fun at it. So if I can get to that level, I'll go do it again. If I stay in the master's level, then I stay in the master's level. I'm just gonna compete and have fun. Either way, I'm doing it because I like to do it and it's fun. My points have been proven. And then what's the mindset going into some of these competitions? Because I would imagine that some of your strength

has probably diminished a little bit over the years. Yeah, some of it has, but some of it I'm also like, well, I can still get back and do this, this and this. So I might do something with a faster time and stuff like that, right? Correct. Like before this happened, I was just getting my 700 pound yoke for the 50 feet

down to seven seconds. Shit. So I was like, yeah, this is like, and at that thinking I'm like, yeah, I could probably still do a thousand pound yoke for 50 feet in like 10 or 11 seconds, which is still pretty solid as far as everybody else goes. So, I mean, there's always gonna be things,

you're gonna get older, it's just, you just try to keep it at the highest level possible as long as possible. So I'm just gonna go have fun. In the gym, you were mentioning quite a few things about like tendon strength and ligaments and recovery. And then, you know, I think it was the Thor's hammer where they were, was that what they were holding out, right?

Well, the Thor's hammer's the one where they flip it over. It's the finger finger with the head on it, but it's a hammer hold, yeah. Hammer hold. The amount of tendon strength you need in your shoulders and biceps is immense to be able to hold something like that in front of you, right? Right.

So I think a lot of people, when they train, they're just mainly thinking about building muscle. Correct, that's all they're thinking about. Right, so when it comes to strengthening tendons, how can we think about applying that into what we do? Well, you apply that kind of by knowing it takes longer for them to heal. Okay.

The workload's still there, the capacity is still there, but it takes longer for them to heal. There's not as much blood that flows to them. When you get a tendon surgically reattached, it takes six months for it to heal all the way completely to where there's no worries about it. Whereas a muscle takes like two months. So that ratio of one to three,

it still applies to everything. It's just, so if you're healing two days, it's gonna take six days for the tendons to kind of be ready to go completely. This is what I've come up with. And so I adjust my training that way. And it's been very successful. I do get hurt from time to time,

but it's because I'm pushing the limits of what I think is humanly possible for somebody my age. If I was just to do regular everyday training, I'd almost never get hurt. Do you think also that, do you do any type of movements like a hammer hold or movements that put your tendons at, not risk, but in vulnerable positions?

Do you do any of that on purpose or do you just do a lot of the classic stuff and the tendons get stronger in tandem? Well, the tendons are gonna get stronger in tandem, but it's what you're training for. It's what your purpose is. If my purpose is I have to do a front hold, then I'm gonna start doing a front hold.

And I'll work light and then just keep trying to work my way up to the contest weight and then increase the contest weight time as things go. So, but I'm not gonna start right at the contest weight and get out there and do that. No, I'm gonna build into it over, depending on how much time I have, if I have 10 weeks, I have 10 weeks.

If I have 16 weeks, I have 16 weeks. So it'll be a slower build in, it'll be much more successful if I have a longer amount of time. Got it. What are some like accessory exercises that you've done over the years to help your deadlift? A lot of people listen and love trying to improve

some of the key lifts. Right. And so what are some of the, you know, not just deadlifting, but exercises you've done to kind of bring up the deadlift? Minor zircher squats. Those have helped a lot. They really do. People hate them. But they work so well at your core stability strength and keeping your back tight. So when you're pulling off the ground and you get in that position where you're ready to, ready to like really pull, it stays tight the whole entire way.

There's no getting around it. Block pulls. So most, or block pulls or rack pulls, most people don't understand, not only does it help the top part of your deadlift, it also helps the bottom part of your deadlift because your traps are so well overloaded help the top part of your deadlift. It also helps the bottom part of your deadlift because your traps are so well overloaded at the top. You're doing rack pulls with two to 300 pounds

more than you can do. Your traps get so strong when you're in a bad position pulling it off the floor, they can hold the weight and you don't get that far out of position anymore. So that also helps as well. And then side bends. Side bends for the obliques. Yeah.

And there's a lot of different ways you can do searches. You could do them. I think that's like 635. You could do them where you walk back with it, like you're doing right there, or you could do it where you are also just picking up off of pins. Yeah.

You know, different heights and so on. And you could utilize, sometimes, you know, you could utilize a sometimes you could utilize a different bar if you're really worried about the bar like really cutting into you. I've used like a fat bar before and that has a different feel. So just.

And there's even a harness too. Yeah. There's like a harness you can wear. The thing I've noticed is the thinner the bar is, it takes about four weeks to get used to, but if you use like a regular squat bar that's smaller, it's easier to hold on to. And it's easier to keep in a good position.

When you use the heavier bars, that's when they have- Yeah, because it starts to really get on your forearm. Slide down your forearms. The thinner bar will stay in there locked. It just takes about four weeks for it not to hurt. Okay, okay. So does it just kind of go numb for you? I wouldn't say it goes numb.

It just doesn't hurt anymore. Okay, there we go. So, and then the side bends, I was doing like side bends with 150 pound dumbbell for like sets of 15. Just standing. Yeah, just one arm, one arm at a time, just going down. Those really helped my deadlift a lot too, because I was able to brace with my obliques even tighter.

And when I did that, everything stayed tight and then it just comes leg drive. And you shared a lot of great stuff with us in the gym that we filmed for grip and a couple other tips that you gave us, but what are some main things that you do to help your grip as it pertains to a deadlift? One is deadlift without the straps. That's gonna be a big one.

Then the other one, Andy Bolton does this a lot as well. He'll get in a rack and double overhand grip stuff and then he'll regular grip stuff, just pulling it off an inch or two off the pins and trying to hold onto it. He'll also do it with a towel as well. He'll put the towel in there and try to do that. Those, all those work really well.

Those are things I picked over. Just by watching. You mean using a towel, like he wraps two towels around the bar and then uses that? And it's inexpensive. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, I mean, if you had other hand stuff, cool,

but you also mentioned the towel for the neck in the gym. That's something I never thought about. So I mean, if you could explain that to people. They're good for moving Atlas stones too. You take two towels, lay them down, roll the stone in the middle of it, and everybody picks up a corner of the towel. Oh, nice. Wisdom.

Yeah. Yo. See, there's Andy doing it right there. Yeah. So he's doing it with shrugs there, but yeah. And the towel for the neck, he was just applying pressure. Yeah, so the towel, you just hold it here, you do this, and then you can hold it over here

with your hand and do your head this way and hold it over here. Just want to show you guys real quick, he blew my mind. This isn't a towel, it's a tank, but he was telling me how like, you know, I use a harness and stuff, which is great, but if you have a towel at home,

or you're wearing a fucking shirt, you can get a great neck workout in, right? Yeah, and you can do a band around your forehead, like the rubber band around your forehead, and then another one here in your chin where you can pull it down. Yep, yep, yep, okay. What's the worst injury that you had to come back from?

Ooh. I don't know, there's been a lot. I don't know. Tearing my lat off was pretty rough. My doctor now has done probably 40 or 50 of these surgeries because apparently I became the person to contact when you tear your lat off because it was so successful. I mean, I can do pull-ups and everything else,

but I pulled my latissimus dorsi off my humerus. And then he reattached it, put two, what you would call it? Like rods or something there? Not rods, but anchors. Anchors, I can't brain. Put two anchors in it and then put the tendon back to it and then he also put a cadaver tendon on it as well.

So it's. How'd you tear that? Trying to deadlift 821, break the world record again, break my own record in the deadlift for over 50. Are you able to talk about the other injury that you were talking about in the gym that you discovered after dropping the barbell on your- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So another injury that I managed to come back from was I was benching 425 for a speed rep. I was just getting back to where I could hit 500 pounds again. And it, for what, I've never had this happen. It rolled out of my hands, right past both my thumbs. My thumbs were around the bar and it dropped down onto my chest from way up there. And I needed to, my wife wanted me to go to the hospital to get an

x-ray to make sure I didn't have internal bleeding and they had a incidental find where they found a tumor inside my kidney. The tumor was in the blood filtering side of my kidney and it was a third of the size of the kidney. It was just under a stage three. So it was pretty big and I didn't have it in the bladder, which I don't, the test they do, where they go in with the scope on that,

I don't wish that on my worst enemy. They don't tell you when you go to the bathroom that it's gonna feel like fire. So that was just not a fun experience, but they found that in there, it was renal cell carcinoma, so they took the kidney January 3rd, 2023. So I had to figure out how to re-stabilize my whole core

after that and heal from that, stuff like that. And I was moving along pretty good. Mitchell came out and I had hit an 800 squat with him and everything else. And then I went and pulled like a 675 deadlift, but I was kept turning on it. And that kind of set me off. I strained my back a little bit.

So I backed way back down and then started working on getting my core even again before I went and started pulling heavy again. It's kind of, it's actually quite miraculous that something you've never done before, you've never dropped a bar before is the thing that saved your life. Saved my life, yeah.

Because one of two things, it would have been in stage four before we caught it because I had no symptoms, nothing was in my blood work. We had no idea. Yeah. And it would have either burst the kidney and I probably would have bled out in about a minute or it would have just spread to stage four

and been all over the place and there was nothing we could do about it. Have you ever had a hernia before? Yep. I'm assuming just because I think it happens a lot of strongman athletes, right? 2001. And then that usually requires a surgery.

Yep. And then how'd you recover from that? Cause my understanding is like after someone has a surgery, they can't pick up any weight for a handful of weeks and stuff like that. Yeah, so the doctor explained to me that the nerves that run down, because it was way down at the bottom, the nerves that are through that area

and the scar tissue are kind of the same color. And so he goes, so if I have to come and fix this surgery, you could lose half the feeling to your unit. And I was like, oh, he goes, so don't mess it up. I'm like, okay. So that petrified me. And I wasn't allowed to touch a weight for four months. And so after that four months,

I was able to go back into the gym, who he just happened to be there that day. And I squatted 500 for 10. And he was like, this is not what I was saying. I go, it was light. He's just like, you said don't strain. I didn't feel anything. It didn't bother me.

So I was going through the rest of my workout. I went over the leg press, started throwing a bunch of weight on there. And like my second set in, I started pushing. I felt pressure. I dropped it. I went home. That was it, done.

And every time I felt pressure on it, for the next probably six months, I would turn around and go home. So 10 months in, it was in about 18 months where I could do anything and not feel it anymore, and that's when I just like really dropped the hammer down and got back to training. 10 months.

One thing that I- After that, so it was like 18 months total. The really amazing thing about what you mentioned there is first off, you were much younger, so usually when we're younger, we do more stupid shit. But you paid attention to your body every time, because a lot of people would be like, oh, that's a little bit of pressure.

Why not? Yeah. It pushed you a little bit. Yeah, your body's going to tell you everything you need to know if you just listen to it. The problem is, is people let their ego talk instead of their body, and you can't listen to your body so much to the point where you don't push,

but you gotta realize after you step over that edge a few times, you gotta learn where your edge is. And once you learn where your edge is and listen to your body, you stop getting hurt as much. For years on this podcast, we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons, they are flat,

but they're not very wide and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with and we've been using Vivo barefoot shoes. These are the Modus Strength shoe, because not only are they wide, I have wide ass feet, and so do we here on the podcast,

especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping, or you're doing split squats, or you're doing movements where your toes need to flex and move, your feet are able to do that and perform in the shoe,

allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger, improving your ability to move. Andrew, how can they get the hands on these? Yes, head to vivobarefoot.com slash power project and enter the code that you see on screen

to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's at vivobarefoot.com slash power project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. That that point right there is actually, that's a really, that's a really important thing. And I think that's something that scares a lot of people though, because like that edge is where people like you, Mark and you Nick, you guys have, that's why you guys look the way you do and have the strength that you've had and have developed. Because- He's squatted more than me.

Right? But the thing is, is people are scared of that edge for a good reason because sometimes it can lead to injury if you're not smart with it, you know what I mean? So a question I have for both of you guys is like, how does one find that safely without, you know? Like- Do you want to go? Yeah, sure. and find that safely without, you know, like, do you want to go? Yeah, sure.

I think when it comes to this kind of stuff, it's helpful when you have already done something. It's helpful when you're already established. It's easier. I'd imagine you played sports from the time you were young. You're probably always pretty good. Like you're a big guy. So it's harder when you haven't like built yourself yet.

You haven't made yourself, you haven't proved yourself or you haven't proved yourself in a way that you feel as like adequate to other people. For me personally, I haven't been too worried about other people. I don't wanna say I'd never worry about other people because that's not true, but I try to hone in and focus on my workout for that day and how I feel.

And then I also, I like to think about, well, if I do let my ego get in the way and I do push past that edge, then this is more harmful than it is helpful. So why in the hell would I do that? Does it make any sense? Right. And the thing is those, in all honesty, you got to push it over the edge a few times

to learn where that is. And if you've never pushed it to the edge, you're never really going to understand. So you have to get to that edge, go over it a few times, and then you literally have to sit back and think about what you did and how you did it and what happened. Not just get mad, not just get anything. You have to have like a conversation in your head or even write it down or whatever about what you think caused these things and how you're going to fix it.

And you start to learn. And you don't have to do it a whole bunch of times, but if you're really gonna learn that level, you gotta push that hard. If you're not willing to push it over that level, you're never gonna learn that level, you gotta push that hard. If you're not willing to push it over that level, you're never gonna get to that level. So you gotta be willing to go over the level to learn where the level's at.

Do you guys think it's important to find that edge if you're not a competitor? If you wanna see, if you wanna be the best you can be at whatever it is that you're doing, there's always a level that you gotta, there's always an edge you're gonna have to push yourself to whether it's business or anything else. Business, some people end up working 18, 19, 20 hours a day

and they lose everything that's important in their lives during that process. They find the ledge where they work their asses off but they know they need to have this much of time to keep the rest of their life together so that they have a happy life. It's like that with everything that you do. I think sometimes too, it's helpful

just to not know anything about what it is you're doing or to not, to totally not have a good understanding of what it is. So as an example, like I'm pretty new to like sprinting and doing 400s and 200s. I haven't really done them before. So I went to the track the other day. I did a handful of 200s and like, what's my time?

It's like, well, who cares? You know, just like run, like run fast-ish. And then on the next one, maybe run a little faster. Try to run almost as fast as I can and then see what the time is. But the time's kind of like irrelevant. It's just like where I'm at for now. I don't have anything else to really compare it to.

And that's where the conjugate system comes in to be really handy because, hey, what's your best bench with three chains per side for five reps? You're like, I don't know. But you kind of have an idea. You would say, oh, I could probably do this amount of weight for that. If it's a floor press, if it's a board press,

if you're doing some variation of a deadlift, a block pull, you're like, well, okay, yeah, I've done a lot of block pulls, but I haven't done a block pull against a band and it hasn't been set up in that particular way in this particular gym. And then also in the conjugate system, one of the key ingredients to the whole thing is that it's your max for that day. It's you going as hard as you can for that day. And it doesn't really mean like just blow everything out and just totally destroy yourself. It just means like there's gonna be some days

where you're gonna be super strong and you can kind of go for it. And there's gonna be other days where it's pretty obvious. It's like not there. And then that's when you call an audible and you do something where you can still get a PR. And the way to get a PR is just to do something you've never done before.

So like, what's your max set of seven against these bands, you know, in this deadlift, like you don't have no idea. So you can still push yourself, but it's maybe you push yourself with reps rather than weight or maybe it's with sets or maybe it's just you're trying to hone in your form or technique. No, absolutely, absolutely. 100%.

And then when you had cancer, you know, you get the tumor removed and everything like that. Like, were you just, were you like, okay, afterwards or were you ill or like? No, I was very blessed. Like with the whole thing, I just can't believe how fortunate I was with the whole thing, because the whole thing was completely contained inside that kidney.

So they had to take the kidney out in one piece, so the scar is a little bigger, because they couldn't cut it into pieces and take it out. But when they took it out, they got everything with it. So there wasn't any more cells left. So I didn't have to go through chemo, I didn't have to go through all the other stuff. They just took it out and I was good.

So I was very lucky with that. I didn't get sick. I didn't get ill. It was interesting to learn how to train with one kidney though. That did not go rabdo. Ah, so what did you have to adjust in terms of training then?

My volume. My volume. My volume, like I'll probably never run a marathon. That type of stuff. Things that where you're just gonna go and go and go. I have to be very efficient with how I train things and I go and work it done. You know, with the volume, I can't do like four sets of five different exercises for quads anymore.

I just, I'll end up, you know, having to go get IVs and stuff like that. So you learn how to back off on your volume. You can still take the weight up super high. It's just, you're not gonna do a ton of sets with it. Mobility work, stretching. Do you do any myofascial release? Do you get body work done? I do get ton of sets with it. Mobility work, stretching, do you do any myofascial release? Do you get body work done?

I do get body work done. I have a very good massage therapist, Ashley, just like, it's good to find somebody who can get in there and break things up, but not cause so much damage that you're screwed for like the next week. And she just hits that on the head. She's perfect with it.

So she does a great job on me. So I get a massage once a week. I got an ice bath at home because I can't take any, any inflammatory. I can't take aspirin. Because the kidney? Because the kidney. So I will take an ice bath to reduce the inflammation.

Did you ever used to use that more in the past? I used a combination of ice baths and ibuprofen and stuff like that. But hindsight looking back, if there was one thing I would change, I would never take ibuprofen. Never. I would have probably done more ice baths

and stuff like that. And then I found a company, Iced Up Industries, they sell an unbelievable unit, and it's like 2300, 2400 bucks. You know, it's inflatable. It's a good piece. You liking that for recovery and maybe for the mental benefits as well?

Both, both, yeah. When I'm going for the mental stuff, I do it when I wake up in the morning, kind of like Brian does. When I'm doing it for the anti-inflammatory spot, it's about three hours after I get done training on leg day and stuff like that, I'll go in there and take the ice bath that way.

How long you been doing that? Geez, I don't know. The ice bath stuff, probably at least 14 years. Whoa, whoa, okay. But I hated them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would do them when necessary. But I mean, I started doing stuff with ice

when I was playing college football. Yeah. I mean, you're always getting beat up. And the trainer's such, I'm making you well. And he'd shove you into the ice and you're just like, ugh, you know, but yeah. Strongman is a hell of a sport, man. I mean, it's brutal. I know Brian Shaw has been doing the ice bath

for a really, really long time too. And my brother, I remember, went to his house and he hopped in the cold plunge with Brian. He just about dies. Yeah, it's kind of shocking because Brian keeps his cold. Brian's in the cold plunge with Brian. He just about dies. Yeah, it's kind of shocking because Brian keeps his cold. Brian's in the- Polar bear.

Yeah, he's in the high 30s, low 40s where he keeps his temperature. I keep mine at 50. Yeah. But he keeps his really cold and you get in there, but he goes back and forth between the jacuzzi. And that's the other thing. He also uses heat. Yeah.

And most people don't talk about doing the ice and the heat. They just talk about the ice. Well, the ice is not so bad. Yeah, but we're still doing heat too. So it's a combination of the two that are beneficial. Yeah, and when it comes to all these studies and stuff, I mean, it's cool to learn the information. It's great to have this information out there,

but they're not studying guys like you guys. Well, no, the last time I checked, you's cool to learn the information. It's great to have this information out there, but they're not studying guys like you guys. Well, no, the last time I checked, you have Brian Shaw, Sardinia Savickis, Eddie Hall, Thor, Martins Lisiks, and a whole host of the other guys that use this thing. They're the strongest humans walking in the face of the planet. But it'll make you smaller.

Yeah, it restricts muscle. It's gonna restrict your injury. So yeah, no. You can't get gains with it, bro. Yeah, you can't get, well, you get stuck at like 440, 450. So scientifically proven. Yeah, so I mean, it's what I, things go by what you observe and how you perform.

And at the end of the day, if you're a bodybuilder, is it gonna help you that much? Probably not. Unless you're John Anderson. Well, unless you're John Anderson, that's true. Very true. But if you're a strong man, a power lifter or whatever, and you're lifting things that are heavy

and you need the inflammation to be down a little bit so that you can move and not walk around in agony or have to take a bunch of IV profan. Yeah, it works great. Or Marius Pujanowski. Oh yeah, Marius. God, he looked insane, didn't he? Oh God.

Was it ridiculous? Shredded. Was that around the time you started getting into Strongman? Yup. His last year was the year before my first year. So his last year at World's Strongest Man was 2009. My first one was 2010.

I missed him by a year. I wanted to compete against him bad. What a mutant. Yeah, oh no, total mutant. Just unbelievable guy. And he fights. He fights? He does MMA.

Oh God. That's fucked up. And what is he weighing here like in some of these pictures, any idea? In these probably 320, 310. That's a up. And what is he weighing here, like in some of these pictures? Any idea? And these probably 320, 310. That's a big guy. So he was that lean at that type of a body weight. I mean, and he would eat like Snickers and stuff.

He looked like that, eat your Snickers, bro. He'd eat them. Yeah, he could do whatever he wants. That's on competition day to get his blood sugar up. When it comes to the deadlift, we were talking a little bit in the gym about some of the different bars and how some of that has changed some of the stuff.

But I would say even aside from that, I saw the deadlift really making some big changes, especially in strongman, maybe like as early as maybe six to eight years ago, somewhere in that range, the deadlift just started like, I don't know, it seemed like a lot of strongman guys, it was important for, it seemed like it was important for strongman guys to be able to handle 800 pound deadlifts,

maybe for some reps. But then that just all of a sudden went from 800 to 900. And then now there's guys pulling 1,000, now there's guys starting to get closer to like 1,100. There's two that have pulled 1,100, yeah. Like yeah, what in the hell's going on? Well, like with Strongman, that bar that they were getting up in there,

like 2011 to 2013, that bar doesn't move. The bar's like an inch and a half. The ones that they pulled on in China and the one that they pulled on in Charlotte, North Carolina, it winged it. Those bars are super thick and they were getting up like a thousand pounds with them.

Brian and Sidurnus really picked it up that far. So strong men, not only do you have to be, use a regular deadlift bar, And Brian and Sideronis really picked it up that far. So strong men, not only do you have to be, use a regular deadlift bar, you have to be able to use stiff bars and stuff like that. When you get used to pulling a stiff bar off the floor that low, when you grab ahold of one of these other bars,

it makes it a lot easier. And they kind of figured that out. So you switch back and forth between the training of an axle deadlift and a regular deadlift, it's gonna help a lot. And for some people that don't know, these deadlift bars, they have extra flex in them. Oh, like four or five inches.

They'll bend quite a bit in the middle before the weights come off the ground. Then the weight will start to come off the ground after you got some flex, and then you'll get like a whip and oscillation of the weights to kind of help with a little momentum. It's changed the game quite a bit. Yeah, you'll learn how to pull on a bar like that

and when to explode into the bar. And so like you're pulling it, the moment it starts popping off the ground, you really start accelerating. You see right there, you see how Thor got about an inch off the ground and just accelerated? That's when the bar popped up. And it's a little harder for you guys

because in Strongman you can't even pull sumo, right? No, sumo's illegal in strongman. Yeah, well there you have it everybody. It's official. You heard it from Nick Best, sumo is illegal. If you want to be a strongman. That's why I had to switch. I was in my first part of my powerlifting career,

I pulled sumo. Hey, let's go. Well, let's go. My best pull was like 705 sumo. Hey, let's go. Well, my best pull was like 705 sumo. My best pull in a powerlifting meet is 843 conventional. Nice. But, but. And then 903. Could it have been higher if it was sumo?

No. Okay, shit. No. I pulled better conventional than I did sumo. It's not even close. Fair enough. Okay, shit. No. I pulled better conventional than I did sumo. It's not even close. Fair enough. Fair enough.

And the crazy thing is my hands are pretty wide when I pull for the most part. Yeah, and so when someone pulls with a more narrow grip, that's gonna make the bar flex more, and then when their feet are out wide, it can reduce the range of motion. But as you're pointing out, sumo isn't always stronger for everybody. and then when their feet are out wide, it can reduce the range of motion. But as you're pointing out,

Sumo isn't always stronger for everybody. Correct. It's just like certain people can really get tremendous leverage. And I think it's gonna be soon that we'll see, somebody just do probably a hook grip, 1100 pound, I don't think there's been an official one. I think Jamal Browner. Yeah.

The Jamal Browner, I'm pretty sure he was either very close or he's pulled a little bit above that. And it may have been in training too, right? Cause I know he smashed some giant weight in training, but we're not far off from seeing that happen a couple of times maybe. I think there's one of the guys that pulled like 11, or no, it was, yeah, maybe he hasn't pulled 11 yet.

I know he's in the high thousands. It's just getting crazy though. You see all the different lifts and I think social media plays into it as well. And you're seeing like these young kids are like deadlifting eight, 900 pounds. There's one kid that popped up on my feed recently and he's squatting 900, benching close to six

and pulling like 970, he weighs 240, this is from South Africa. It's like, well, I don't pretend to know what's going on anymore. Yeah, well, it's the evolution of humans as well. I mean, the thing is, is more people getting into these strength sports, you have a larger percentage of the population doing them and your freaks will come out. Your billionth percentile people, the more people get into these strength sports, you have a larger percentage of the population doing them

and your freaks will come out. You're billionth percentile people like Mitchell Hooper. He's a billionth percentile type of person. And there's some kid right now watching him, right? That's getting fired up. That's gonna come out of nowhere and beat everything he's done or come real close to it or maybe what he's doing is once in you know, once in two or three generations,

you just, you don't know until we look back over the next 10, 15 years, but. I think that's the thing though, it's like that four minute mile, man. Like once somebody broke it, once people saw it was possible, everyone's just fucking breaking it, right? Now you got kids saying,

oh, you can be 19 and deadlift 900, I'ma try it. No one was fucking trying it back in the day, right? So that's something. Well, it's interesting to see what's gonna happen with the clean and jerk. You got people that are right at that 600 pound barrier that still haven't gone over it. But I think once they do,

you're gonna see like four or five guys go over it. Yeah, there's a 23 year old kid I saw the other day, an American do 500. So it's like, yeah, there's some 23 year old kid I saw the other day an American do 500 mm-hmm so it's like yeah, there's some people that are you know gonna be the 600 pound mark I do think there was like one guy who like unofficially I've ever seen that the guy and unofficially did a 600 But he was like so big he couldn't rack the weight officially so he did he did press it overhead But it was like an unofficial front rack. I think. He's like the only guy that ever put 600 pounds over his head. Which is just nuts.

I mean, it really is. I have a question about your conditioning real quick. Because one thing I noticed is that, there's no shade to any strength athletes who we've talked to, but some people, you're like behind the mic, they're, so you know their heart rate's at like 90 while they're talking, right?

Right. You're breathing calm, your heart rate seems like it's probably pretty low because of the way you speak. So, yeah, so like, do you do- His chest isn't. It's not, right? So do you do anything for your conditioning along with the strongman?

Yeah, what do you do? Well, there's a couple things I'll do. Sometimes I jump rope. Okay. And then I just try to get to like 500. Yo. So it'll just, it keeps your just try to get to like 500. Yo. So it'll just, it keeps your speed, your feet where it keeps you athletic.

How long you been doing that? Decades. I'm so happy to hear this. I'm so happy to hear this. Yes, okay. And then the other thing I'll do is I'll do my medleys. I mean, I will pick up a sandbag and go 20 meters and drop it on a 100 pound tire and then drag it backwards because the tire sticks

to the road. It's not like a metal sled. It is god awful. And I'll pull that back and you're pushing into an exertion that's 80, 90% of what you have for over a minute, like a minute, minute 20 seconds. You go into oxygen debt so bad, it's like running a half a mile.

When you say you grab the tire, like do you just like literally put it inside of the tire? I have a chain. Okay. It's on a chain and a handle. I'll set it, I'll drop the sandbag on top of the tire. Okay. So now the tire and the sandbag,

it's 400 pounds with rubber straight on the road and you're dragging it up the road. That will make you breathe. You do two or three of those. Well, I'll also do that for drags. Get out of here. Two or three of those. Yeah, see here you go.

I was thinking like one. I mean, maybe one. But yeah, I mean, a minute of work, that's a 400 meter. That puts you into 50% aerobic and 50% anaerobic. It's like the sledgehammer of endurance training. Right. So like here, I'm getting ready for OSG. This is before I had my thumb incident.

And I'm just getting back to carrying sandbags and I'm just getting back to doing this. Oh my dog, oh homie. Yeah, chasing you down. So I dropped out there, then I grabbed this and I start dragging it backwards. Wow. And it's just, yeah, it just blows your legs up. It blows your lungs up. It blows everything up

you know Frank Mears been out to the house and used to carry a 250 pound sandbag drop it on there and drag it back and he would Go throw up sometimes. Mm-hmm seems like some of the best conditioning is like, find something that like wears you the hell out and then do something else after that. Almost like a pre-fatigue, right? Right. But this is at the end of training. Oh God.

This is the last thing I'm doing guys. This is a training. I've already squatted, I've already leg pressed, I've already dead lifted. So like this day I already pulled 500 for 20. So, wow. Do strong men athletes still do breathing squats? Is that still a thing? So like this day I already pulled 500 for 20. Show. Wow. Do strong men athletes still do breathing squats? Is that still a thing?

Not that I've seen. Cause I know like for years, a lot of guys would do those breathing squats. It's brutal. Yeah, they're not fun. You have to do like a set of 10 and then you just hold the weight on your back, breathe another set of 10 or however you had to

kind of break it up to get to like 30 reps or something like that, right? Yeah, I don't know anybody who's still training that way, but yeah, it's awful. What was the intention for doing it? Just be able to keep performing when you're tired and work your cardiovascular system without running and burning off all your muscle tissue. Gotcha, okay.

John Anderson seemed like he did a lot of crazy shit when he was training for Strongman. He still does a lot of crazy shit when he was when he was training for strongman. He still does a lot of crazy shit. He's still doing it. I remember there's those where he used to live Stinson Beach. There's these like famous stairs over there. And then I've heard stories from like people that did CrossFit that lived in the area. They're like, there's some freak out there that runs the stairs every once in a while.

He's like, he's running up and down the stairs. He's got this blonde hair and this like blonde goatee. I'm like, that has to be John Anderson. Yeah, he looks like a human action figure and he's still doing all that. He's still had like crazy conditioning. Well, he's still doing like, if he can't get to weights, I mean, we were just doing a podcast the other day

on Elite Ageless Mindset, because we do a podcast or- Yeah, what's your podcast? It's, well, there's two, there's Elite Ageless, three, there's Legends of Iron, there's Elite Ageless Mindset that we do every Sunday at seven o'clock. It's a live stream in the morning. And then there's the best experience, which is me. I just get on there and talk with Ben over there and we just kind of bullshit about stuff we have guests on from time to time.

That gives you an opportunity to talk because I know when I was on with you and John, he doesn't let you talk. He was like, yeah. You were like. So I just, okay, I'll wait my turn. And then John's like, that's all the time we got. I'm like, I didn't hear anything from Nick.

He's like, well since you don't have anything to say, we're just gonna end it here. Well, it got me all today. Or whenever you want. For sure. This is a lot of fun. So I'll do this whenever you want. Yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you. So this is a blast. But yeah, I mean, it's, there's just so much to that type of training that will really increase your aerobic volume without burning off your muscle tissue. And you're fricking lifting 100 pound bags and pulling weight like-

300, the bag's 300 pounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the thing, it's like- You don't wanna, 100 pound bags. But guys, don't start with 300. Use 100 if you need 100. Start at 100, then go to 150, go 200. Progress your way up.

Don't just, because the thing is, the one thing you looked at sandbags, if you pick them up wrong and you don't keep your arms straight, you can pull your biceps off, just like you can with Atlas stones. So you have to be careful with the way you pull those off the ground. You want your arms straight before you pull.

So when your arms are bent under like this and your arms are bent, you want to do that with them. Not this, that. That'll save you a $10,000 surgery. One thing we didn't mention honestly is like, there's a bit of like hat tricks in Strongman. Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. You talked to us about the sandbag trick in there.

I think a lot of people who are interested in Strongman don't realize it. Can you explain that? In which way? How to run around with a sandbag so it doesn't take any type of energy. Okay, so basically when you do the sandbag, if you wear a hard belt, like a lever belt,

or just a regular belt, if you leave it loose, you're not using the belt for support, you're using the belt, because you don't have that like, so during this belly, when you're like 400 pounds to set the thing on top of, you need, you don't have a shelf there. So you leave the belt there, it works as a shelf, and it attaches the weight to your hips, and gets it off to where you can breathe

and run and function. And then you can lean slightly forwards with it, which takes all the pressure off your hamstring and glutes and you don't blow those out. And you can go probably 20 to 40% further using that. And it makes a big difference. I'm gonna move shit at my house that way. Yeah, that's on.

Yeah. We'll have some footage on this guys, but like literally I put a 200 pound bag and I was literally just running through not feeling any type of fatigue. Started sprinting around the gym. That video we just watched where they did the carry and the drag.

Did you see the belt time? Oh, okay. That's what I was doing. Okay, yeah. It was my first time back really kind of getting after it. So I was leaning back a little too far, which I watched the video and I'm like, I'm leaning back too far.

I think some people have some misconceptions about- See, it's right on the belt. But I'm leaning back too far. So I just got to fix that by getting my me back forwards a little bit. I think people have some misconceptions about wearing equipment, you know, and in strongman, even just for an exercise like this,

it's the end of the day. I realize it's like an, it's a conditioning exercise for you guys, but you're still taking the time. You know, you're taking the time to put the belt on. Sometimes people are like, I don't want to put on the knee sleeves. I don't want to put on the elbow sleeves. But most of the time when you see really high level

strongman guys, and when you even see a lot of top tier bodybuilders when they start going heavier Maybe sometimes when they're getting ready for competition you see them, you know wrapping their knees Ronnie Coleman wrapping his knees wearing a squat suit It's pretty common. Yeah, why do you wear like, you know elbow sleeves knee sleeves? What's all this stuff for you got one body? Beat it up less. You know, the more wear and tear you put on it, there's always gonna be a limit to how much you're gonna be able to beat it up. Anything that's gonna protect it, save it,

and make things easier for you that are within the rules of what you're doing, use it, you're a fool if you don't. You're doing it, and especially in strongman, I mean, you're making money at this. You don't wanna make things harder on yourself. You wanna make things as easy as possible so that you have the most energy left for the last event

because your payday depends on that. Is there a little bit of an argument for training purposes to not wear the equipment? Yes. To build up the raw strength. You can say that. Right, right. The raw strength. All right, To build up the raw strength of it. You can suck. Right, right. Yeah.

The raw strength. All right, you gotta be a raw strength. Well, I'm just thinking like an elbow sleeve doesn't really do much, you know? No, no, you're right, you're right. It's kind of like, people, I've wrapped my knees my whole entire career for squats. Yeah.

And I will never not, not wrap my knees. Knee sleeves, no. They don't protect your knees as much as a knee wrap does. Plus I can put it where I need it tighter and I can put it where I can leave it looser to get through things. I can adjust it as I'm doing that. And I'd squat, like officially in a contest,

I think it's been 27 years, I've officially squatted over 800 pounds in a contest and totaled over 2,000. So if I could do it again this year, which I want to do that next year in 2025, that'll be 29 years that I've squatted over 800 and totaled over 2,000. That is my biggest goal for next year.

So I just came back and squatted 573 last week, my first time squatting with the thumb. And I was very happy with that. So I'm just gonna start slowly ramping that up. My goal next year is to do a powerlifting meet first sometime between April and July, and then do OSG next year, because I wanted to do it this year.

But yeah, so I've always wrapped my knees. Always. Wrapping your knees, throwing on briefs, throwing on kind of whatever you need for, whatever the exercise or event calls for. Right. Well, world's strongest man will let you wear a squat suit. So I was wearing a squat suit.

So at that contest, what we just saw, the actual weight of that bar is like 727. But they always try to say it's 320 kilos and it's actually, it's not, it's 330. Why don't they say it's heavier? That always looks true. I don't know. I wish I could tell you, but it's always been that way.

But before this, I did the US Open and had squatted 870 in the US Open and that was five weeks before that. in the US Open, and that was five weeks before that. So I got back, I figured out a cheat for that squat, and then came in and was able to hold it on my back, because that's a two inch axle. That thing just wants to go down your back, and it doesn't rotate. So you know how if the bar doesn't rotate,

you get real shaky on it. So I figured out a cheat for that and did it and it worked. What's the cheat? So I put tape in my hands, the length down this way, because you can't hold it in a rack position, it'll slide down your back. So I need more pressure here not to mess up my wrists. So I put like five pieces of tape going down this way,

a piece here, a piece, I taped the shit out of my wrist and then I taped around here so the tape wouldn't move. And then I put my wrist straps on and I was able to make that shelf to hold it and keep it on my back without it going down my back. Wow. I remember when Brian- You can see the tape.

And you came over down on the spot or it was like, you thought of this before the comp? I found it, the first week I started, I started really going over my head what would help me because we did this event in 11, or not 11, in 13 at Universal Studios. And by the time I finished, my wrists were so jacked.

At the end of that, I was like, I gotta fix this. I know I can hold the bar there in a rack position, but it's gonna hurt like hell. That was my fix for it when I started thinking about it. And if they don't put it in the rules, you can't do it. You can do it. I wanna say something real quick that's actually really cool about this in real life.

Cause like sometimes you might come across an object, let's say, and you just, there's, you don't know how to figure out a way to lift it. So there's true like really sick problem solving that's going on here because humans are great at using tools. And you literally just used a tool to be able

to lift this object through space that some people would just raw dog and hurt themselves. But you tooled up and you managed it. And it's not against the rules. That's cool. That's very human. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah. You always want to think out of the box while staying within the limits of your parameters. And as long as you can do that, you know, it's all good. I mean, that's how innovation comes along. Yeah. So, I mean, I told that to Martins, I think what the year after that or two years after that

is when he squatted like the nine or 10 reps with it. I remember Brian Shaw when he was here one time, he was talking about how he took this like kangaroo skin and like he had very specific, like it couldn't be this other type of leather. It had to be this specific. I was like, man, sport is wild. Like things get very, very specific,

but you're lifting such heavy weight. You almost don't have a choice. You're just going to get hurt otherwise. Yeah. And like some of the stuff that's Ryan's come up with, some of the stuff you came up with, I mean, the slingshots unreal. I mean, it really, it saves a lot.

You can still train the areas you need to train without damaging anything. And it just gives you that little boost that you need to get past sticking points, especially like as you're benching heavier, you get used to handling that weight. Okay, so you're now 60, 70 pounds over what you can normally bench.

You get used to training with it. You come back and you're gonna bench 20 pounds pounds over what you can normally bench. You get used to training with it. You come back and you get a bench 20 pounds more than you did without it. So the end result is what you're after. It's nice to do exercises too with a piece of equipment that takes pain away. The elbow cuffs, those are unbelievable. It's weird that no one ever made them before I did.

There's a couple things like that. I don't know. It's strange. I don't know why me, but whatever. The only thing they need to change on the elbow cuffs or get it to where you can have a thing where you can pull them on yourself. Oh, really?

Oh, to pull, yeah. It is, they are hard to get on yourself. Yeah. If someone can get that worked out, because I'd rather weld the elbow cuffs than the elbow sleeves. Yeah, because it's more direct, more direct pressure. And you can put it right where it hurts.

I'll think on that a little bit more. But you know, the wraps that we have, you can kind of wrap on your elbows, but then it's too much. Because then you wrap too many times around. Well, plus you can't use anything that wraps around. Oh, you're not allowed to in Strongman. Those bastards.

But you can put the cuff on. I like Strongman though. It's not tested or anything. They're just like, hey, you come with whatever you got. Right. But I'll put either 12s or 13s on and my comfortable size is like 14 or 15. Damn.

It'd be interesting to kind of dive into this because I'm pretty sure a lot of strongman guys get like Dexa scans, body fat. I know that they did one with Shaw. They did like a body fat percentage test and he had some like ridiculous amount of muscle, but maybe you can give us the lowdown on some of the Dexa scans and body fat levels

of some of these absolutely mutant freak strongman athletes. Yeah, so I have had a Dexa scan and that was done by Dr. JJ Pierce in Las Vegas. And he had just gotten the machine and it was really funny cause he had Jay Cutler in there. That time his wife had worked there. And so we brought Jay in and did a DEXA scan on him.

And apparently at that time, Jay had 245 pounds of lean muscle on him and his- Wow. And his bone density was twice that of a normal human. And then he's like, I gotta get you on there. I'm like, ugh. And he's like, it's not gonna cost anything. Get your ass on there.

I'm like, okay. So I lay down, we get through it. And he goes, okay, your bone density is twice what Jay's was. And you have 249 pounds of lean muscle mass on you. And I guess his wife was like, went home and teased him that he was the second most muscular man in Australia. That's great. But yeah, so it was kind of neat to find out

my bone density is like four times normal. But that's what the sport does. I mean, you gotta pick up things and run with them on your back. Bones, you get pretty darn dense. Yeah, I think I remember Brian telling me, like some of you guys got body fat tests done kind of around the time of the Arnold and stuff.

Do you have any idea like what some of the other guys were that were real heavy? Any idea like what's the most amount of muscle mass you ever heard on anybody? The most amount of muscle mass I ever heard on anybody was probably either Eddie or Brian because they were both well over 300 pounds of lean body mass, like 330, 340 pounds.

Even Thor, Thor's, they're both, wow. Like that, yeah. Okay, wow. When they were at their biggest, their lean body mass was over 330 pounds. It's crazy, especially for Eddie Hall, because he's not 6'8". No, he's 6'3".

You know, those guys are 6'8", to 6'10", ish, right? In that range. Yeah, but I mean. He's 6'3". Yeah, but he deadlifted 1,100 pounds. I mean, muscles was gonna move that weight. I'm curious about this, man. Are you just gonna keep competing forever?

Are you gonna find a way to just compete as long as you can? When I'm not having fun is when I'll stop. I'm to the point now where I don't have a point to prove whether I win or not. I just like doing it. I feel better doing it. I like the camaraderie, I like the training, I like the process, I like it all. So when I'm hurting so bad that it's not fun,

that's when I'll stop. And then I'll just keep coaching and keep teaching. And I don't mind coaching, I don't mind teaching. I mean, Elite Ageless Mindset, we're gonna go to another gear where we're adding diet and some bunch of other stuff, and then we'll have other coaching opportunities come off that.

So I'll be moving into that phase as well, but I still wanna compete. I still have the desire. I like doing it. And there's a whole bunch of world records that you can just keep breaking every five years anyway. Oh yeah. Do you train sometimes?

Like just go in and just train? Like do like bodybuilding type stuff. Oh yeah. Do you train sometimes? Like just go in and just train? Like do like bodybuilding type stuff? Oh yeah. I throw all kinds of stuff like that in there. Like biceps, I'll do alternating curls. Might do some machines and different things. Yeah. No, I'll do machines.

Yeah. Make everybody mad, but I'll go do the machines. All the other strong man guys get mad at you? Well the strong man and the bodybuilders, but they get mad because you put weights into the weight stacks and do stuff. Yeah. So.

Just go in and get a pump, just kind of like a normal bro workout here and there. Your head is a different color from your body. Yeah, that's normal. That's normal. As long as it's not purple. Red is okay, purple bad. Red okay. Purple is bad, gray means you're, yeah. You, that's normal. That's normal. As long as it's not purple. Red is okay. Purple bad.

Red okay. Purple's bad, gray means you're, yeah. You're about to die. Gray is you're one step away from the coffin. Or you're super close to a competition. Oh, yeah. Right. Where should people find you?

Nick Best straw man, I'm pretty much everything. So Nick's on Instagram, on Twitter, on YouTube, on Facebook, it's all Nick Best Strongman. Awesome. Strength is never weakness, weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.