Mark Bell's Power Project - 505 Kilos: What It REALLY Takes to Break Deadlift Records

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

What does it take to pull the 505-kilo deadlift? World’s Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper explains what it REALLY demands, inside and outside the gym.In episode 1144 of Mark Bell’s Power Project Podcast, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza chat with Mitchell Hooper about the grit, preparation, and mindset behind attempting lifts no human has accomplished. Mitchell doesn’t just talk numbers; he breaks down the discipline and confidence needed to carry the world’s heaviest weights.But this episode is about way more than just lifting. Mitchell shares how growing up playing hockey  shaped his athletic abilities and how small steps can yield massive fitness returns. The crew dives into topics like balancing health and strength, "pharmaceuticals", the mental side of training, and Mitchell’s future goals like competing in Ironman races after strongman.Follow Mitchell on IG: https://www.instagram.com/mitchellhooper/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mitchellhooperstrongmanSpecial perks for our listeners below!🚨 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!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps 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/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewzChapters:0:00 Introduction and Mitchell’s Goal to Break the 505-Kilo Deadlift Record6:30 Strength for Everyone: Physical and Mental Resilience12:00 Fitness Tips: Mobility, Aerobic Fitness, and Small Efforts that Add Up18:00 The Importance of Focusing on Process Over Outcome24:00 Mental Health: Mitchell’s Struggles and the Role of Therapy31:00 Training Philosophy: Simplicity and Avoiding Overcomplication38:00 Balancing Strength Goals with Long-Term Health46:00 Growing Strongman and Inspiring Others52:00 Planning Life After Strongman: Ironman Goals and Giving Back1:00:00 How Mitchell Handles Pressure and Builds Confidence for Big Lifts1:08:00 Thoughts on Pharmaceutical Use and Maintaining Health in Strongman1:15:00 Simplifying Training: Why Less Is Often More1:22:00 Building Confidence Through Exposure and Accepting Failure1:28:00 Writing a Book and Creating a Documentary About His Journey1:34:00 Navigating Social Media and Balancing Work With Personal Life1:41:00 Tips for Trying New Things and Breaking Comfort Zones1:48:00 Final Reflections and Mitchell’s Vision for the Future

You're dominating the sport from where I can see. You're going after that deadlift record. In September, I'll be going for 505 kilos, which is just shy of 1200 pounds. It's heavy, but I can do that. And sure, it feels kind of heavy in your hands, but it doesn't feel outside my capacity. But I want to show that you can be genetically gifted to be a great strong man.

But if you put time, commitment, dedication, consistency towards any physical quality, you're going to achieve something pretty good. With what you do with strong man, you have to have a high level of stiffness. You've built up to do these things well, but you still know what it feels like to move well. I think the largest reason that strength athletes don't do these things is the worry that they're gonna fall apart. And if you're concerned about falling apart because you're gonna play pickleball, you're just a terrible athlete. This is where I went on the rant.

Do you see that side of the pharmaceutical side of things as being a part of what you do for future endeavors? There are things and substances that I will not touch. And that's in the category of things that I just choose not to do. For mental health reasons, for physical health reasons, you just know. If you guys have been enjoying the content

we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz, who roasted us on air, but we did that for you, to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you, and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast

is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can leave us a review there and enjoy the rest of the show. You, you somehow make time for skits. I'm not sure how you do that. Mitchell Hooper, after being the world's strongest man and after winning the Arnold, like it seems like you're on point with your, the sport that you're in, you're dominating the sport from where I could see, but you still have time to have fun and do these like skits on Instagram.

Yeah, well, it's never been a more profitable time or more beneficial time to have a brain that thinks of stuff like that. But I just do, I mean, we'll brainstorm sometimes. Sometimes I'll just be driving and I've got a team of eight young people who will just share memes across to each other and stupid stuff across. And one thing I learned from my grandpa, who was very successful in the lumber industry through observation, he did really well, but he had so much fun when he was doing it.

And thinking about that has really guided me to not take anything too seriously. And the benefit of being in the social media age is if you don't take things too seriously, it tends to not take anything too seriously. And the benefit of being in the social media age is if you don't take things too seriously, it tends to go better for you anyway. With your grandpa lugging around in the lumber, do you have some sort of, is that some of your strongman origin

is like working with grandpa or no? No, no, no, no. He was very much a business person. My mom, she ran marathons since I was young. My dad, he was a college basketball player. But in terms of where I got my strength genetics from, I think we had a really strong mailman or something. I don't know.

No one can take full credit for it, but I've been really, really fortunate, obviously. Well, how about your background of sport? Because I think some people listening might know your background, but many don't. And it's very weird. So can you kind of just give us a rundown on that? Yeah, yeah. So the first thing I did like every Canadian boy, I played hockey for the better part of 10 years.

I was never that good. They structured from house league up to triple A. And I stuck in A for most of my career, led the team in points and penalty minutes every year. That serious hockey ambition faded away as I went to high school. And towards the end of hockey, I started playing golf and I played golf at quite a high level. I ended up going down to, I was invited to Orlando to a guy named Sean Foley's, like he ran a little high school.

Sean Foley worked with Tiger Woods for quite a long time as his coach. I was invited to go down there and potentially go to high school down there to golf, and I just didn't want to move away from family. I didn't understand the opportunity, so I kind of gave that up. I played American football in high school, took that into college. But during high school, it was football season, and as soon as football season was over, I wanted to play basketball, and then I played rugby, and then I did track, and then I was on the swim team.

And then every North American sport that was possible to play, I wanted to play basketball and then I played rugby and then I did track and I was on the swim team and then Every North American sport that was possible to play I wanted to play at all And that was just who I was I don't understand people's upbringing who never went and played sport because every time there was something on Off and I always wanted to do it then in university. I played football for a short period and as we were talking off mic Culturally, it just wasn't something that was fun for me and bashing my head constantly wasn't enjoyable. I quit that and at that time I wanted to be a strength conditioning coach. I took that career for one season and thought there's more to life than just teaching people how to be more athletically inclined. I just didn't feel like it would make a positive difference in the world, whether my team won or another team won. So I wanted to go exercise as medicine route. And when I did that, I started by losing

about 120 pounds in 18 months. Went from what to what? I went from about 310 to 190. Damn. How long ago were you 190? How many years ago was this? It would have been about nine years ago. Okay, wow.

Yeah. And I stepped on stage to body build because I knew that I would have to ask people to lose a lot of weight. And so that's what weight loss feels like and now I can relate to that feeling. Then I did marathon running because I needed to know what it's like to be aerobically fit.

So I ran three marathons. My goal was to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which we took a three hour, five minute cutoff. My best time was three hours, 24 minutes, which is great for a recreational runner not great for a serious runner. I gave that up after my knees just were not cooperating. I was running at about 230 and then after that the next physical quality was to get strong and I started in powerlifting. I did that for

about nine months won the Australian title was coaxed into trying strongman and strongman absolutely took off. So that's that's the of my athletic background, but basically you can guarantee that if it's a North American sport that boys play, I've played it. You mentioned lead in the league and points and penalty minutes. Yeah. Yeah. You have a little streak of anger in you. What's going on there?

Well, my mom actually boycotted coming to my games for a while because it was too upsetting. The other parents yelling at me, But no, looking at me, you would think that it was a big angry streak, but most of the penalties were like tripping and hooking. And I was just, I just didn't want to skate. I just wanted to score goals. I thought for a second you were a goon and someone I can score.

Well, I had an angry streak that I keep under wraps now, but no, it was mostly being lazy. Yeah, because hockey, I always think it's so funny that it's got the guys that are just there to fight. It's actually the best sport. The hockey playoffs are on right now, and anyone who watches hockey for the first time always loves it, because there's these little fights after every single play.

They're always punching each other, and nobody really understands. This here is me and a girl named Taylor Woods. She's a strong woman, but we were playing hockey with each other. We had some races. She plays professional hockey. But yeah, it's kind of like riding a bike.

If you've learned how to skate before, you'll always be able to do it. Is a slap shot related to a golf swing at all? Or not really? In a way, in a way. But if you see a hockey player swing a golf club, you know that it's a hockey player. So it's a little bit different.

The principles remain the same. I can still have a pretty decent slap shot, but a hockey stick is about 300 bucks. So I don't want to do too many of them. Have you thought about maybe, you know, I know you're 29 years old and you're in the prime of your life here with what you're doing with Strongman, but have you thought about your life here with what you're doing with Strongman, but have you thought about, you know,

after you're done with Strongman, maybe you'll try like long ball or something like that with golf, smash the shit out of the ball? I've done some of those contests. I've done that. So on like flat ground, no wind, I've hit the ball 405 yards inside the grid, which is the most impressive part.

It's like a three quarter swing at this stage because I can't get full range of motions. I think it's on the cards, but to be honest, my post Strongman career plan is to try to do an Ironman. Oh, nice. That's on my bucket list. I think it'd be a great way to drop a lot of weight. And I'd love to document that journey

because one of the big things that I want to inspire people is to get moving, get out there and get healthy. And everyone in Strongman knows that I've run marathons before, but it's very easy just to see a person in a moment in time and say, you're genetically gifted to be a great Strongman. And that's true, but I want to show that you can be genetically gifted to be a great Strongman. But if you put time, commitment, dedication, consistency towards any physical quality, you're going to achieve something pretty good, whatever that happens to be. So I'd love to document that journey and show that I can do Ironmans as well.

But even with like this, like your mobility to do a muscle-up, it's very impressive. You look like you don't weigh anything, like with how strong you are. Like, you know, if I saw that video and didn't know you, I'd think maybe he's 250 or something, because I'd have to make sense of it some other way. I wouldn't know that you're 325. I don't feel heavy on my feet.

I really don't. And maybe that's a relation to strength. Maybe that's just that I haven't been this heavy for that long. Or maybe it's just that I do everything I can to live an absolutely normal life. And you know powerlifting culture is, if it's a 100 meter walk and you can drive it,

then drive it. So I'll do little things to just keep myself fit in the powerlifting culture is if it's a 100 meter walk and you can drive it, then drive it. So I'll do little things to just keep myself fit and healthy on top of being strong. So last year, for example, I just did a challenge like could I run a kilometer a day for 30 days at 330 pounds? And I did, and it was fine.

The only thing that wasn't fine is if I went too fast, I would tear my calves and they would cramp up and seize up. But something that small, we put a lot of consideration to law of diminishing returns on the high ends, of how much is too much, but we give little consideration to law of diminishing returns on the early end. And if you go from no aerobic activity or no stretching or no strength training, and all you do is put in

one small effort a week, you're gonna get the biggest return you'll ever get from any unit of effort. And so I try to operate that way when it comes to ancillary things to strong men like my aerobic fitness. I was just saying, I think this is something that's kind of cool about Mitchell, listen to him breathe. And I don't want to put any athletes down when I say this, but typically when you have like a large athlete

that comes onto the show, this is what you hear. Like you hear their blood pressure and Mitchell, like you can tell like you're still aerobically fit. And I'm curious man, would you say, because I think Eddie Hall has done swimming competitively as a strongman before, but would you say that's that might be an X factor? Because every strong man's strong. You're not the biggest, but you do have that base that I don't know that any other strong man has. Yeah, it's absolutely a component of it. And I think the overarching principle here is that

if you are healthier, your body will tend to perform better. And so you might be larger, you might have more muscle mass, you might have more fat on you, your systemic inflammation might be much higher. All of these things, you look at Eddie when he lifted 500, that is like the prototypical, that's what you need to do to be strong, which is kind of true if we're talking for a one rep max and an absolute single,

but then Mark and I were talking about a guy like Colton Engelbrecht, who just blows up that whole principle and actually maybe you don't have to be obese to be strong. And so I think, I know, shame. Greg, clip that. But I think making sure that your body is put in a position where it wants to perform,

so to speak, not to get too hippy about it, but I think that's really important. And so if I feel heavy or sluggish, or I look too fat, or I take all those things into consideration Of this might not affect my performance today, but it'll certainly affect my performance down the track And you're going after that you're going after that deadlift record. Yeah What is the record right now? It's by Thor, right? Well contentious It's either 500 or 501 depending on what you want to count regardless in September

I'll be going for 505 kilos, which is just shy of 1200 pounds. And I believe the odds are relatively high. So this year is me training for 18 inch deadlift, which is an event at Worlds this year. The world record in this is 530-ish kilos. This is 505 for a double. And I need to pull that from the floor which as

you know it's a different world it's you can't compare the two but when I pulled 475 kilos my max 18 inch was 485 kilos so for me those two are relatively close because I get so much leg power off the ground of course with the suit as well so I think it's it's certainly more likely than not that in September the whole deadlift debate will be over and I'll hold the all-time deadlift world record, which I think is pretty uncontested as the most important record in strength sports.

It's awesome, it's awesome to watch. It's fun to watch people, and to see Eddie Hall crack that 1,100 pound barrier was amazing. Well, the most amazing thing was he broke that record by 37 kilos in one night. Could you imagine, like 80 pounds on a very well established world record in the first place.

People talk about how his record in 2016 hasn't been broken since, or Thor broke it in 2020, but it hasn't been broken since then. But it jumped so much in such a short period of time that everyone's still sort of catching up to that. And now we have more 1,000 pound pullers than ever. If you don't deadlift 1,000 pounds and you want to be the best strongman in the world,

good luck. Yeah, where'd that come from? Honestly, it's the four minute mile type thing. You see Eddie deadlift 500, you think, well I have to deadlift at least 455, I have to deadlift at least 1, I have to deadlift at least a thousand. I got to be within a hundred pounds of the world record. And psychologically, I think it plays such a big role in strength sports.

If you believe that you can do something, and that's why the momentum that I'm on, it feels like it just won't stop. Because I don't walk up to a bar ever and go, ah, it's probably too much. But no, I just have so much experience in it not being too much that I have general faith that it's going to be liftable on a good day. Do you have to for that, do you think you're going to have to weigh anymore? Is this just purely strength that you think you'll be able to gain at your body composition? I think I'll be fine.

I think 325, 330, 335, somewhere in there. You can get into an issue where you get into this weight and your deadlift suit doesn't fit properly. You can't get down to the bar. get too much weight and your deadlift suit doesn't fit properly You can't get down to the bar you blood pressure feels like your head's gonna pop off last year in Vegas was the deadlift world champs and I got 505 closer than anyone ever has I got it to my knee, but I got it to my knee after One session in my suit and no peeking or prepping for the deadlift championship at all And so I think if I just peek and prep into that

as though I'm going to lift a one rep max, I think that's all I need to be honest. It was a matter of two inches from being able to hitch it and lock it out. And I've said for most of my life that two inches is a really big deal, but in this circumstance, I actually think it's not. You, you know, along with these heavy ass lifts

and along with your background, I found it to be really impressive that you randomly, cause I don't think you've been training for it, you randomly ran like a five flat 40 yard dash. Yeah, it was totally random. Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, at your size, that's really flying.

Have you always had that explosiveness from the time you were playing sports as a kid? I mean, I imagine maybe that you just carried some of that into Strongman. Yeah, I've certainly carried some of it. Now there's a proprioceptive element where I know how to move my body, generally speaking, from that background.

But then there's also your power to weight ratio is gonna be how long your stride length is and then your turnover time, that's now gonna determine how fast you run. And if I can be more powerful and take longer strides, naturally I'm gonna be faster. And it's almost one of the universal truths in sport, isn't it?

And in physical capacity, if you are stronger, you are healthy and you are capable, you're going to just be able to do more in any facet. So I think, you know, it's a lot of different things, but it's maintaining the athleticism while building that big power base. And that day, I was probably at 90% effort, because I'm so worried about tearing a hamstring

or a calf or something, but that whole day was actually at the University of Texas. They brought me down to do studies on me, because Jan Todd, who organizes The Arnold and started The Arnold with Terry Todd, she works at the University of Texas and some of her colleagues were kind of like, what's going on with this guy?

You look at me and walking down the street, you say, that's probably the strongest person I passed today. That's not the strongest person I've ever passed in my life, but I probably am. And so trying to figure out exactly what were the things that led me to be as I am today, they were trying to figure that out.

And I don't know if they're gonna come up with a full answer to that. What were they studying? We did a vertical jump, we did body composition, 40 yard dash, we did a tendon stiffness test, we did a max power output on a bike, and we did a tendon stiffness test. We did a max power output on a bike and we did a VO2 max. And the only metric, which is sort of contested,

but it was on this particular bike that this researcher had that measured max instantaneous power on a cycle. And the highest he'd ever seen on the bike was 2,400 watts. I produced 6,000. And I did 6,000. And I did 6,000, I did 5,800, I did 5,200, 5,400. It wasn't like a one-off, strange, random reading. And it's hard for people to digest because they treat it as though this is a well-established world record,

but they've never had strongmen on the bike before, large powerlifters on the bike before. So that's the biggest outlier that I had. And for anyone watching, there is very few bikes that can actually show you instantaneous power. They generally average it over a second where you can't maintain it for, you can't even maintain it for a millisecond. It's just, it's a split moment in time. But anyway, that's what they tested. They're doing a full research paper on it and I'll be a co-author on it, which I'm quite excited about.

But yeah, that's the closest thing to an explanation. Your VO2 max was 45. Is that right? I don't know, I just guessed. Do you know what it is? I think it was 40. I think it was 40, or just higher than 40. But the problem is that my body weight,

since it's relative to body weight, it's near impossible to be aerobically fit at all. If you took my... Was it on a bike? Is that how they tested you? I did it on a bike, yeah. So maybe we're talking 10% it was 44-ish. But if you take the absolute amounts of oxygen

that I was consuming, it's very difficult to find anyone who consumed more oxygen than me. Because if you took my body weight at say a 44 VO2 max, if I was half my body weight, which of course we're saying if I had wings I could fly, but I was half my body weight, that's like an 80 VO2 max. It's impossible to touch for anyone. I'm really curious about this, but you talked a little bit prior that, you know,

there are things that you do, you mentioned doing a kilometer a day for 30 days is maybe just a challenge for yourself, right? But for strength athletes who want to maintain a level of mobility, a level of maybe some aerobic capacity, what are the things that maybe you'd suggest that they add into their practice? Because I think every athlete is scared of doing these things because they're scared of losing muscle, they're scared of losing strength, right? So what would you suggest? The first thing I would suggest is don't identify with the current culture.

To be honest, that is the major thing. Because if you can modify your lifestyle to be consistent with how you want your physical outcome to become, that becomes very easy. So if you're a powerlifter and you think in your head, I can't go for walks, I can't do too much activity, I can't do this, this, this, this, or else I might lose one ounce of muscle. If you just take my advice and say, well, forget that for a second, I can walk the dogs, I can go for a walk with my family after dinner, I can ride the bike for five minutes to get myself warmed up. You don't really have to add in that much if you just change, generally speaking, your behavior patterns. And

it's almost a conversation that mirrors how do we get sedentary people moving? Well, we could give you this structured regime, or we could just say behave like an active person. What do you think an active person, what do you think someone who eats healthy would eat? We all know. Nobody needs to tell, like,

you should eat a salad and chicken breast, is that healthy? Yes. If you say, well, I got Chick-fil-A, like I got Chick-fil-A with fries, I think that's healthy. You're lying to yourself and we know that. And so as a power lift, if you're saying, I really want to improve my aerobic fitness,

but I'm concerned about losing muscle, so I've done absolutely nothing. Well, I can't help you, I'm sorry. But if you were very particular, if we want to go to science route instead of like practical route, well, you could do the lower volume HIIT style training. Tabata is great, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, maximal output, you repeat that 8 times and according to Izumi Tabata, that is the

best possible way to improve your aerobic fitness. Well great, you could do that. Or that's an absolute nightmare for people who aren't particularly fit and you could just go for a walk and we're back to what I was saying before. So it's the law of diminishing returns. If you don't do anything and you just commit to starting to doing something, you're going to get a return and it doesn't matter what it is. You just do something and it will be better.

But just stop identifying with someone who behaves like a piece of shit. Is that one of your goals to help people that are overweight? Yeah, I mean, help people, generally speaking, who are sedentary, and I don't think there's a person in the world who would like to be helpful, who shouldn't have that as something on their mind. Because from a health perspective,

things are only getting worse. From a economic perspective, things are only getting worse, and healthy people tend to be more economically productive. If those two problems start getting solved, well, we're going to get to a really good spot, aren't we? So you take all of these people in the world and in the developed world, over the past 25 years, we've added three years to lifespan and we've added zero years to health adjusted lifespan. And so all we're doing is we're living longer years that no one wants to live in the first place. So for me, if we could get some more useful years

to people, that would be awesome. And I have a clinic back in my hometown that does exactly this, is exercises medicine. And that was my educational background. And that's still where my true passion lies. How can we make the gym a more welcoming place? How can we reduce the barriers and drop the idea that you have to do the perfect thing?

Or you should be intimidated by people like, that look like me or like you guys. How can we just the barriers and drop the idea that you have to do the perfect thing? You should be intimidated by people that look like me or like you guys. How can we just get as many people moving and active as possible? Because from a mental health, from a physical health perspective, there's no way that we shouldn't be aiming to do that. You might be able to kind of like,

George Foreman, your way in there. He had the Foreman Grill, he was a big guy. So people relating to someone who's big, maybe that would help get people moving. Well, that's, so I started a clothing brand called Lift Heavy Be Kinds and it's done really, really well. It's become quite popular and fortunate for that. But to me, if I could just have as many people possible just displaying that message and behaving in that way, well, you see me slamming weights and then you see the shirt and you're like, okay, right. And the biggest

compliment that I've ever got that I hope starts to become more common is I'll be deadlifting at my gym, which is just a commercial gym. Someone will come over who's middle-aged, maybe female, and it's, oh, I heard big weight slamming, but I saw it was just you, thankfully. I'm like, yeah, well, like most people who are slamming weights, they just want to do their own thing and be by themselves.

So if we can reduce that barrier, the difficult thing I think about the gym for people who don't generally go is the people who go all the time are the people who you'd be most scared of. And it's impossible to get away from that. So we can say those are the people to go to for help and it's actually pretty relaxed environment. It becomes the only place in the world that you talk to other people on a regular basis. Like you flip off people when you're in the car and you speak to people at the gym. Otherwise you generally don't interact with any strangers. You know, Mitchell, I know that like you're training, obviously with what you do as a strong man, these things have to be done in a gym, you know, but one thing that I wonder

is how would you or what kind of suggestions would you give to people in terms of training outside of the gym? Cause I think there's one thing about training is people think that if they want to lift it, it has to be in the gym. And I've been doing a lot more training outside with like, I take a sandbag to the park and some shit to the park, and I've been enjoying that because it's outdoors. And it's made me realize, fuck, this is, I mean, I go to a gym still, but this is really nice just coming out here. I know that people would probably want to maybe just figure out a way to do something outside, right? Yeah, yeah. So what are your thoughts there?

I think it's great and we often I come from a place of speaking about being a professional athlete in my sport words and on negotiable I have to do X Y and Z But if you do anything, right if you're someone who wants to be health forward and be active and generally move More and more research is coming out that actually doesn't really matter how you do it If you're doing it on a hike, or you're doing it lifting weight, or you're doing, it's cardiovascular protective. It's gonna protect against diabetes.

They'll pull up a guy named Discovery Deadlift on Instagram. I don't know if you guys have seen this guy before, but he blends those two worlds together. It's so fun. Yeah, he deadlifts all over the place, right? Yeah, he just rucksacks plates and a barbell and takes it somewhere and then deadlifts on a mountain or in a river And he works with blender bottle who's like a company that I work with right now, but this dude

He's gonna be so chuffed that we mentioned him And this is just his thing a big mental health thing of wanting to be outside loving to lift weight. That is a lot of weight No, like that's no joke like how is Like how much weight is he taking with him? Is that generally like 315 or 405? I wonder if he just like plants it all over the world and just walks up to it. No. It's wicked though. Yeah, that's amazing.

So my advice is to do that. Also, did you say chuffed? What is chuffed? What is chuffed? Like happy? I've never heard the word chuffed. Oh, assuming. I don't know.

Yeah, chuffed is like, it's Canadian. Excited, good vibes. Australian. Australian. Yeah. I did my masters over there. I was there for four and a half years and just certain things I picked up. Certain words can't be replaced, like chuffed is great.

Wrecking is great. Mate is awesome. I think, say wrecking, if you say you think something, it seems, ah, I regret it too strongly. Yeah, I wreck it. Did you get into like a lot of in it as well? Like a lot of people saying in it? No, no, no, that's more British.

It's more chavvy than Australian. What's chavvy? Chavvy. We're learning all kinds of new words. Chavvy, chav is like a British guy who's kind of, like probably grew up in the suburbs, but wants to be a bit gangster. Okay.

Do you know? Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah. It's great there's a word for that. And once you discover the word, what are the word are you gonna use it's just good Alright mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how you doing it? I got a secret man. It's called good life protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some good life protein You know, we've been talking on this show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef,

and you can get that under the umbrella of good life proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of. Lamb is another one that comes to mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using

some different strategy, kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20 grass-fed grass-finished ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do

a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that. And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why like neither of us find it hard to stay in shape

because we're always enjoying the food we're eating and protein, you talk about protein leverage all the time. It's satiating, helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal and I can surf and turf. You know? I could cook up some chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it. Or I could have some steak.

I would say the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorites. So it's hard for me to lock one down. But I really love the bavette steaks. And then I also love the rib eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib eyes. So guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat You can add some good life proteins calm and use code power for 20% off any purchases made on the website

Or you can use code power project to get an extra 5% off if you subscribe and save To any meats that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. It seems like you don't want to be boxed in. Like you love strongman, it is what you do, it's your occupation now, but it seems like you don't want to be confined to that one thing. I'd be happy to be confined to things that I actually am, but I just happen to be doing strongman right now.

I just happen to be trying to get strong right now. And of course that's exploded into how everyone knows me, and that's fine, but the reason I got into it was not to be the world's strongest man or to feel awesome about being able to look around and everyone and say I'm strong. It's just I wanted to feel what it's like to get strong. And so, if you wanna say that.

Like when you won the world's strongest man, you didn't walk around telling everybody that you're strong. You know what? For the first time ever. You should have done it at least for a day or something just to celebrate. It was maybe a month ago for the first time ever. I sat there and I was like, there's seven billion people in the world and somehow I

am stronger than every single person. It takes a long time to sink in. Like everyone I've ever met or heard of or spoke to or when we're talking about strength stronger than every single person. It takes a long time to sink in. Like everyone I've ever met or heard of or spoke to, or when we're talking about strength in the way that I'm talking about it, I am better than literally everyone else in the world at this sport.

It takes a long time to actually think like this is a true thing. In fact, when I look at myself, I look at myself in the lineups, I think about the history of where the sport's been and what I've done. I got hit by a train a few years ago and I'm in a coma or something. It's just all so bizarre to me because I just went on this journey of trying to feel what

it's like to get strong, to help people at my clinic. And that was it. And so I won't be in a box of being a strongman, but if you want to put me in the box of someone who's particularly interested in helping people to be physically and mentally well, like, absolutely. But I think it's so unrelatable for me to start talking about the technique of an actual clean and press, because whoever's watching who's not a strongman does not care. It's such a niche sport. World's Strongest Man is happening this weekend. How many people know? You guys know, because I'm here. If I wasn't here, you'd have no idea. And it's half an hour down the street.

So it's not that big of a deal. So if I want my impact to be something more than that, I can't identify as just that. I'll just use that as leverage to continue to expand. And I think it's a great way to get fit. Like we were talking, it's exactly what you're doing right now to keep yourself fit. You know, almost high volume Strongman.

It's fundamental movement patterns. But yeah, the goal is to get the message out to more people than just strongman, and so if I box myself in, it wouldn't accomplish that goal as well. Earlier in the conversation, we got a little away from it, but you're talking about the 505 kilo deadlift. It was a really cool moment, because you literally, you just said like, there's no doubt

I'm going to lift that weight I know obviously being the strongest man in the world You're gonna build a lot of confidence from that, but it is an extremely heavy world record Where do you get the confidence to say something like that and just know that it's just kind of like a formality It just like it hasn't happened yet, but it will happen. I Don't think anyone who's broken a world record goes into it and thinks, oh, maybe. You know, I think you do have to have that confidence.

But for me, confidence is built on the evidence of what's happened in the past. And for me to just look at that deadlift of 505 kilos when I was not prepping for it, I was not supplementing into it. I wasn't doing anything. I didn't even train for it. And on the day, the cue was not prepping for it. I was not supplementing into it. I wasn't doing anything. I didn't even train for it. And on the day, the cue was not to lift the weight

because I spoke to my coach after lifting 470 kilos. I said, can I try? Is there a 1% chance that I'll get it? And he said, maybe 10, but let's just maintain your position and see how it feels off the ground. Don't worry about actually lifting it. So the goal wasn't even to lock it out there. We just wanted to see, can I maintain position?

Can I get the feeling in my hands? And when you feel a bar in your hands, and it's very, very heavy, there's times when you feel it heavy and you go, that is beyond my capacity. And there's times when you feel it's heavy, but I can do that. And every person who's lifted 505 off the ground,

I said that that is just different. It's just different and that's it feels impossible. Didn't feel that way. It felt like every other time I've worked up to a max attempt and sure it feels kind of heavy in your hands but it doesn't feel outside my capacity. So you take all of these things and say is it going to happen? Well probably. And I could give you more and more evidence. For example I said if I could deadlift a thousand pounds raw, then I know I could pull 505, because I get quite a bit out of a suit. At the Arnold this year, I pulled 996 raw,

and I probably had 30 pounds left in the tank. So now I said a thousand, and I could probably pull 505. Well, I probably could have pulled a thousand 20, a thousand 30, and okay, even more evidence. When my deadlift was 475, my max 18 inch was 485 right now I've pulled 525 from 18 inches and I'm good for probably 540 from 18 inches It's all of these things stacked on top of each other. You're like, well, how could I not do it? And I could not do it if I'm hurt

Ben that's about it. That's that's all I have to say because of all of the evidence. And of course, it's not a formality. Of course, it's entirely possible that I have to come back on the podcast in six months and say, hey, I'm not as smart as I think I am, or I'm not as strong as I think I am. But I think that's also beautiful as well, to come in front of a whole bunch of people and say,

I think I'm capable of this. And then you go for your job interview and you fall on your face in front of everyone and you put your hand up and say, I think I'm capable of this. And then you go for your job interview and you fall on your face in front of everyone and you put your hand up and say, I'll try harder next time. And then everything in life becomes so much easier when you can do that and you can accept that. There's no doubt in my mind that it's going to happen, but life is life. What about maybe getting Colton out there with you and having him go head to head with you,

have him do his sumo deadlift and... I'm not playing sumo deadlift games. Maybe someone could also come out and do a back lift with it. I think it's a different lift. Yeah, it is a different lift. I just think it's... I don't think you should be outlawed in powerlifting, but in strongman, it's impossible because in strongman, we do 18 inch deadlift, we do 18 inch deadlift. We do elephant bar deadlift We do hammer tire deadlift. So some of these variations the weight wouldn't even get off the ground if you were to see my stance So I think it has to be out of strongman Is Colton the only person that can lift that kind of weight off the ground right now currently other than yourself? I know he's doing a different way, but yeah, you get into a nuanced kind of dumb conversation where there's a guy

I want to say his Instagram's dr. Delphi, there's a few guys who have sumo deadlifted 500. I think Kayla might have been that's who it It wasn't him. It wasn't him. I'm saying Taylor's like in the 900s or something. Yeah There's another guy who's done it, but he did it on a kabuki bar sumo It's now we're on a whippier bar There are people who have done it from elevation and there's so the only one who I think has done it an actual deadlift bar I believe is Colton But sumo but to me the conventional lift is where the credence is given

For good reason because you if you ask any lay person to step up to a bar But say lift that off the ground as much weight as you can You are not going to see a single person start wiggling their toes getting their feet out at the head is if you ask any lay person to step up to a barbell, say lift that off the ground as much weight as you can, you are not gonna see a single person start wiggling their toes, getting their feet out at the end. They're just gonna walk up and grab it like you'd grab anything else.

It's just primal test of strength. And I think that's the beautiful thing about the deadlift, it is the most primal thing. How much weight can you pick up off the floor and stand up with? It's simple. How do you build up a deadlift? And like, do you think some of the strongman movements,

do you think they help? Like does the stone and a lot of the other things that you do in strongman, are they productive in assisting you to pull the kind of weights you're pulling? Massive, massive. First thing is, if your nervous system is generally ready for a certain poundage, then it's going to be better for you. So let's say you can yoke 1200 pounds.

Well, then holding 600 in your hands, it's totally different, sure, but your body understands better what that's like. If you farmers walk 400 pounds a hand, you're farmers walking 800 pounds, the core stability that you're gonna gain from that is massive. These weights that you're saying

are just absolutely astronomical. I know they're common. They're reasonable. I know, I know, I know how normal saying are just absolutely astronomical. I know they're common. They're reasonable. I know they're common. I know. I know. I know how normal they are in your sport. And then you talk about the number of ways that we train our core and train our spinal

erectors from lifting atlas stones with a rounded back to explosively pulling an axle off the ground for a clean and press or on and on. All of these things, building a general preparedness, I think is extremely useful, but there's also an injury risk that comes with each of them. So if I was trying to build someone's deadlift, I wouldn't take him to a full strongman program, but would I find elements of strongman that I could include in there

to build the core stiffness and strength? Absolutely. Anything that you do to keep your athleticism, because I think that's one thing that might separate you out from some of the other strong men or strong man athletes we've seen in the past. Is there, I know you mentioned a little bit like conditioning stuff, is there particular attention

to like mobility or rotation? Is there like some small amounts of that in your training? No particular attention unless I feel like I can't. And so I just think I have a general higher bar of acceptance for what I'm capable of. Like I said, if I feel heavy on my feet, I start't. And so I just think I have a general higher bar of acceptance for what I'm capable of. Like I said, if I feel heavy on my feet, I start running. If I feel like I can't get into a position that I need to be in, I will start mobility immediately.

It just, I don't accept myself becoming the general ordinary strong man who becomes out of shape. And in that behavior and in that pattern of behaviors, you can stem that off forever. And I think that's a much more sustainable way to approach things of just a general lack of acceptance for not being at your best, rather than trying to implement all of these hundred things that you have to get done in a day,

because I've tried that before and it sucks. It makes it a job, it's not fun, and it doesn't benefit me. So will it be included at points in the year? For sure, but it's not something that I go, I need to be athletic. I just say, well something that I go, I need to be athletic. I just say, well, I don't say I need to be athletic. I say, I like playing basketball, and I like running around with the basketball,

and I like going and skating around the rink, and I like, so I continue to do all these things that I like to do that other athletes might look at and say, it's too risky or too dangerous. And it might be if you're a terrible athlete, but if you're a good athlete and you go run and play basketball, the odds that you roll your ankle is very small.

So I think it's just a general attitude to who I want to be and how I want to behave, generally speaking, and that tends towards a productive physical outcome. I think the cool thing about this is, first off, you do have a very large athletic background in the many sports that you've done, moving in many different ways,

skating, running marathons, football, golf, master mountain rotations, so you know what the body feels like doing these things at a fairly high level. And you've only been doing Strongman since 2020. So I think a cool thing about what you've done is that you do have the idea of what what it feels like to move in these ways and you can feel it when it really slips away when it's too far away. Like of course with what you do with Strongman you have to have a high level of stiffness

you built up to do these things well but you still know what it feels like to move well and you don't let yourself get too far away from that. So I think a cool thing is that if an athlete is getting into power lifting, or bodybuilding, or strongman, maybe they don't have that type of athletic background, but we just had Stan Efforting on the show and he was like, I'm doing pickleball now. Now he didn't do that while he was doing his career of lifting, but pickleball, I feel like,

is a sport that involves some rotations, some lateral movement, it's kind of fun, and you could probably do that along with a sport without it taking too much away. Probably, probably. And I think the largest reason that strength athletes don't do these things is the worry that they're going to fall apart.

Ah, yeah. And if you're concerned about falling apart because you're going to play pickleball, you're just a terrible athlete. So this is where I went on the rant of, it blew off, but when I went on the rant about powerlifters. Yeah, what are you making fun of powerlifters? There's a lot of material.

Easy target. But I said they're like, they call themselves athletes, but they find a way to call themselves athletes by doing the least total amount of work of any athlete in history, probably less than a generally sedentary person. Definitely way less than your average gym goer even. Oh, beyond, beyond. Especially when you, then you like get to the top ranks of powerlifting

and then you got someone to actually just like load your plates as well. What are we doing? But if you add on top of that, I can powerlift, but I also can do X, Y, and Z. And it sounds like minutiae, but it's not. Let's say you play pickleball and you're a powerlifter. You play pickleball, you go for a swim, you throw around a basketball, whatever it is.

If you get yourself into a position that you're not 100% used to being in during a lift, the likelihood that you're going to be able to pull yourself out of that in a safe way is so much higher. So is there injury risk to doing it? Sure. Is there an injury risk to not doing it? Yes. Are you going to be able to recover better if you do things outside of strength sports and lifting to be generally fit and be a generally healthy person? You're going to be able to do more work. That higher work capacity is going to mean you're a better athlete. We were talking about this. It's just, there's so many things on top of,

there are probably one, you can count on one hand, the number of people who make a full-time income from strength sports full stop. Meaning that if you're listening to this, you're probably not doing this to support your family. So let's not die in the process of trying to hit your first 700 pound squat. What does it matter?

And I still think the same way. There are things that I will not do. I will not be 360 pounds. I refuse to be. If you told me that makes me a better strong man, I don't care. I don't want to die trying to be a better strong man. I'm happy to be very good.

But it's going to be- And you are the best. Right now I am. But it's going to be under the parameters of, I still have to take care of myself to a reasonable degree. I'm not the picture of health at the best. Right now I am. But it's gonna be under the parameters of, I still have to take care of myself to a reasonable degree. I'm not the picture of health at the moment, and I understand that, and I'm not happy about that. But for a short-term thing, fine.

And I'm saying that as a guy who can make a full-time income from strongman alone, but it's still not gonna be enough for me to sacrifice all of the things that are gonna impact me in the long run. I wanna go back to something you were mentioning about strength. And you were talking about the deadlift. Strength is very neurological.

And there's some through lines in terms of even the way you were talking about training. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't sound like you've done or you purposefully do many lifts that you'll fail. And we talked to someone else on the show who's mentioned it, Ed Kohn. I don't know if it was Ed or if it was Stu McGill mentioning that he didn't do many failed

lists so he doesn't set up a negative engram of what it feels like, right? And he was able to reach a high level of strength. When we talked to Colton, Colton had this through line of like a level of, I believe I can lift that weight. He mentioned that many times. And he mentioned how like he has this mindset of continuing to break limits, this mindset, right? And you talked about that too. So I'm curious your thoughts on your mindset

when it comes to lifting, because you kept saying that you believe you can lift it. There's nothing in your mind that tells you you can't. And I think that people underestimate that. Yeah, we get the stories of mothers lifting their van off a child. Yeah, just because they had to. lifting their van off a child. Yeah. Just because they had to.

But yeah, I generally believe I can lift things, but I think neurologically, the most important thing is that, and take it with a grain of salt, but like it doesn't matter that much to me. It certainly, I put a lot of time and effort into it, but am I going to pin what kind of day I'm going to have of if I can lift this barbell or not lift this barbell? No. But am I gonna pin what kind of day I'm gonna have of if I can lift this barbell or not lift this barbell? No. And so then I don't tie a whole personal identity

to a single lift. And so then I also can have the comfort if I miss this or it doesn't move as well. Or I will be frustrated for 10 seconds and then I will move on and be able to have a good day. And if I never win a world title again, I will be able to have a good life. And so I can take every training session

and digest it pretty well. I can take everything that happens in my day to day life. And I'm not someone who gets too concerned or too fussed over many things. I think that general lower state of sympathetic arousal, that is massively underrated. Because if you've coached anyone in strength sports, you know the person who would message you and say,

365 for five, it should have felt like an RPE eight, but it felt like an RPE 7.8, so I think I'm on a pretty good track, and my calories were 200 calories higher yesterday, and you're like, all of this is killing you. All of this is going to impede all of your goals. It's a, I've already won more in Strongman than I ever thought I was going to. I never thought I'd win any sort of time.

I never thought I'd be at World's Strongest Man. It's all of this is just this incredible cherry on top like I've got this cake that is now just covered in fucking cherries You can't even see the cake anymore. So like right How am I gonna get myself to worked up in a sympathetic way about anything other than the singular task that I have to perform? Otherwise, okay, it goes. Well, okay, great. It doesn't go well, okay, fine, moving on. Next thing. Quick question about what you mentioned there about the sympathetic arousal thing. So I'm curious, if you fail a lift, you don't get too angry about it for a long period of time, which is amazing.

Are you someone who finds that you have to amp yourself up sympathetically before a big lift, or do you do you feel fairly also calm before a big lift or do you feel fairly also calm before a big lift too? Quite calm. Very, very calm. Until it's the moment itself. And so I don't need warm up music and I don't need a perfect like beat drop to then start lifting.

And I used to be that way. I wanted like I wanted that and I would. But over time I've just gotten away from it because I don't feel like I need it. And I have this gift and a curse where historically, socially, I've struggled a lot. And I would have panic attacks, literally just speaking one-on-one to people. And I think that same bit where it just that something can flip in me, I can do that with lifting as well. And so I don't, I can walk up to the 505 and if you play the clip, you can see that I look at it into the crowd, I give it a bit of a smile because I'm like, what is going on?

This is so crazy. And I can go from that into maximal effort, fully locked in, in less than a second. Have you always been that way? Do you think that this is, I think that that's a skill that's some, that's first off a massive skill. Super power. It is, it is. To be able to just flip that switch,

you don't need all this buildup. That's amazing. Do you think one can build that skill? I think so, I think so. Because there's a lot of research around state learning and relative to your arousal. And every high school kid who hears this, they're like, so I should be high in class every day.

And I'll be high during the test and I'll be brilliant. So you see, I'm just looking at the crowd. Like, this is crazy. But I believe it can be trained. But it has to be trained intentionally. And you have to get to a place where during your training sessions, you're not listening to heavy metal 24 seven.

You're not listening to your favorite rap song before every big lift because you start to ingrain, I need this set of parameters in order to perform well. For me, there are no parameters for me to perform well other than I have to be there. And for me, I'll listen to country. Sometimes I'll listen to rap, sometimes I'll listen to nothing,

sometimes, most times I'm listening to nothing, sometimes I'll be on camera and the camera people determine my rest times and I don't even determine it. So I take all of these circumstances and it doesn't change my performance. And when I have that level of confidence that I can be in any state and get myself to lift a big weight because in a moment I can flip it on, well, great, then I can, I know that I don't need that. And since I don't need that, I can have such a level of confidence when I go to any show at World's Strongest Man this weekend. There will be a time when I'm about to go and something happens with the camera,

then they stop you and you're stopped for five minutes. Some people that totally throws them. I could not care less, I don't care. If you ask me to go start warming up right now for World's Strongest Man, I'm ready. And it's not because I'm gassed up all the time, it's because I know, I know that I'll't care. If you ask me to go start warming up right now for World's Strongest Man, I'm ready. And it's not because I'm gassed up all the time. It's because I know. I know that I'll get there.

And since I know that, then also I don't stress about it. And if you stress less about your outcome and stress more about committing to the process, that's how you get to a good spot. Where does this philosophy come from? Doesn't it seem like you're in a rush and it seems like almost a little bit like you're, I know you're putting in the work, so that's gotta be reassuring, right? When you put the work in, you can kind of be nonchalant

because the work is there, you're already very good at what you do. But like, where did this philosophy come from? It's sort of what I said at the end there. It's the process more than it is the result. And so when you ask me about the results, it's sort of like, it's fine. Whatever the result is, the result is.

The process I'm much more anal about. I have my training days, I have my training times. If I don't go to the gym when I'm supposed to be going to the gym, I don't miss a session, I don't miss a lift. If I'm anal about the process, and I don't need to be so concerned about the result, because the result comes, and I also love the process, and that would't need to be so concerned about the result because the result comes. And I also love the process and that would be my biggest advantage over a lot of people.

I love the process of getting strong and training and improving physically. And that didn't change from running to bodybuilding to strength training to Ironmans when it comes because the process of physically changing yourself, whilst it's painful and requires a lot of commitment and dedication, it's uncomfortable, the natural result of that is so rewarding that if you have any physiological understanding at all, you know if you commit to that process, you will get the outcome.

However large or small it might be, you're gonna get an outcome. I just think it's so powerful and so special to be working towards that outcome, regardless of how big it is. Because ultimately, you don't know what it is, right? And this is why I don't care about results. Let's say this weekend, some guy comes from Greenland

who I've never heard of before, who's eight feet tall, 450 pounds, smashes absolutely everything. Am I gonna feel worse about myself and my training and my process because of this guy that I've never heard of who did something that is completely unrelated to me? If I hit PBs across the board, if I was concerned about the result, I'd be so sad. And what a ridiculous way to live your life.

I'm concerned about me and what I can do. And that also then tends towards, well, I'm the best in the world right now, how do you stay motivated? Well, because I just don't care about what anyone else is doing. I care about myself getting better. Do I care about winning another world suddenly?

To a degree degree I do. Of course it'd make me really happy. It would make life easier and smoother. But if you told me you're going to continue to progress yourself for the next three years, or you're going to go 10% backwards and win every title, like I'd rather progress myself. Absolutely.

Even if it meant no more titles. That's my objective. And so I stick to the process more than the results. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with him more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tanned. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have,

high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing, they can look at your cholesterol, they can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that.

And there's a few aspects too, where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coordinators are going to also look at the way you're living

your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is gonna all of a sudden

kind of turn them into the Hulk, but that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital,

they're just looking at these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas, if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what type of things you can do in terms of your lifestyle,

and if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to, to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things.

Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, head to MerrickHealth.com and use code PowerProject for 10% off any panel of your choice.

What do you got going on over there, Andrew? Man, that was a... Again, I just keep going back to the confidence and then also just what you said there, but like it doesn't matter Like, again, it's like no big deal. Where the hell did you become such a good speaker? From the moment you walked in, you kind of like bum rushed Mark, cameras rolling, let's go. No edits, no, just one take all the way through everything you've said today. And I do have some more questions about your YouTube channel and stuff. But like, where does that come from? Because that's a whole different type of confidence to be able to just hit record and we're good. Just keep rolling, we're good.

Where does that come from? A huge amount of practice. So I'll give a little bit more background to me moving. And that's a much bigger compliment than anything I could get in the strength world, because this is not generally my personality to be able to speak to people confidently. When I was doing my undergrad, I thought,

if I could come up with ideas good enough, I can help people, I can become rich, I can run business, and not have to deal with a single person. And as I got towards the end of my undergrad and thought about the reality of the world, like somebody has to help you, somebody has to buy your product,

somebody has to relate to you in some way to then go, okay, I'm going to commit to this person to help me do this. When I came up with that conclusion, it was at the same time that a long-term relationship was ending and I made no effort to make friends in university. I had a really strange high school experience where I was the valedictorian, which is basically a popularity contest and I won the vote.

Well, I was friendly with everyone, but I didn't go to a single party in high school because I just wasn't comfortable. I wasn't confident. I would speak one-on-one to people. I would have panic attacks. If I got up in front of a classroom, I would be sweating like I was in the middle of a basketball game. It was petrifying. And so I took that weakness and it really pissed me off. And I thought, there was no need for me to go to Australia and go that far away from home, other than can I move away from everyone I've ever met and ever known to socially try to improve?

And I just threw myself into the deep end. All I had was an address and I went to the address and went, okay, you've been terrible at this for the last 10 years, let's see how you go. And it was hard, it was really, really hard. And slowly but surely, made some friends, put myself out there, because you have absolutely no choice.

And then, in terms of the camera, being a strong man, it's very obvious that that's not gonna be a way to make a living in any sort of sustainable way. So I started recording YouTube videos, and I started going on every podcast I did. And when I went on those podcasts, I would go back and I would listen to myself. And I would hear this annoying upward inflection

at the end of every sentence. Okay, I have to improve that. I would hear me using all of these link words, ums and ahs, and recognize that there was no comfort with any level of silence. And whilst many people look at themselves and think about themselves speaking on camera and on mic and their worst fear is hearing themselves talk and that's who you're gonna be putting out to the rest of the

world and you never vet yourself and you never want to be concerned about how you're heard. To me that proposition was too scary not to improve. You then compound that with we put out a YouTube video every single day and if you do and you're not good at it you're gonna spend your entire life recording and re-recording audio and so it's been a skill that's been built over a really long period of time and one that needs to always continue to be honed but one that's become really important in my life and it's probably the most proud thing I've ever ever developed in myself in my whole life I'm more proud of that than I am of my strength.

And along those lines, so I mean, Brian Shaw is crushing it on YouTube now, but I mean, he's been competing in Strongman for a very long time, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago when he started taking YouTube serious. Obviously, there's been tons of other Strongman competitors. You were still able to break through. Um, obviously you're putting out a video every single day. So you've gotten a lot of reps in there and you put the bad videos behind you. Now you've got the good stuff going. But what I'm getting at is there's tons of athletes all over the world that are

thinking about what am I going to do next? Or how do I break into that thing? Or maybe they do some dumb shit on Tik Tok and it's like, Oh, this is stupid. This ain't for me. So what advice do you have for maybe that, I'll say pro athlete, because you are a pro athlete, that's like, holy shit, like how do I even do this? Because we have people that contact us all the time too.

They're like, hey, I wanna start a podcast, how do I not suck at it or whatever. So for yourself though, coming from the athlete side, how does an athlete crush it on YouTube? Yeah, it's a great question. And the biggest lesson that I've learned is that you've got a very small number of people who want to listen to what you say because you're an athlete, because they're a fan of yours. And too many people rely on that being the content by which they're going to rely on. Here's my food. Here's my house. Here's my dog. Here's my blah, blah, blah. Here's my training.

But very few people actually care about you and care about what you have to say and care about what content you put out there Aside from what values this content is going to give me is it educational is it entertaining is it is it inspiring is it going to inform something or is it incredibly relevant say deadlift training session Well, that those are the things that need to be focused on. Because as soon as I do a video, let's say my top 10 lifts ever, I think it's a cool concept. Like, on the surface, I'm like, that video should do well.

But all it comes across is you care so much about yourself that you're gonna talk about yourself in the next 15 minutes. I don't wanna hear a guy talk about himself. But if you talked about, here are five ways that you can improve your deadlift, and here is a free PDF accompanying that, now you're actually giving something to people so they want to watch it, they want to see what you put out next.

So I would say put yourself last, put yourself in the eyes of the person who's going to watch the video. What beneficial reason would they get for watching that video itself? And once you start thinking in that way, it tends to go much better. And then selfishly, so I know you said that you want to help people. And with what you just said there, you want to educate people, or you want to entertain people. But on the business side of things, like on the back end,

what are you truly hoping to get out of a YouTube channel? Because some people will start a podcast because, oh, I just want to learn from, you know, so many different people. But in the back end, it's like, but I also have this like free lead magnet that I'm trying to get people in my funnel and whatnot. So for you, what is that thing that you're hoping to really get out of the YouTube channel?

Yeah, well, look, it gets to a bit of a deeper question, to be honest. And I have this scorecard in my head of how much has life given to you and how much have you given back to other people through your life. And to me, if you can't give back to more people than has been given to you, you are just a drain on the world. And to my chagrin, I've had a lot given to me. I had a really nice upbringing.

I've had a lot of cool experiences, even starting Strongman. I've benefited more than anyone in history ever. So I feel this massive obligation to try to give back as much as I can. And Mark said it really well when we were touring the gym, whether your goal is to get richer to help people, it actually doesn't matter

because nobody is pinning anyone down and forcing anyone to buy anything. So if anyone buys anything from you, well, they are perceiving or receiving more value for the product than they paid for it itself. And so do I want to run business on the back end? Of course. And the bigger the business becomes,

the more people that you're inevitably helping because they're wanting to put their dollars behind the things that you are putting out there. And so the goal, is it to build business? Sure. Is it to impact people? Sure. Is it to build careers for the people who work for me? Absolutely. And all of those things to me can be accomplished together. I don't see anything dirty about running the business on the backside of the social media channel.

And the goal of the YouTube in general is right now I have 430,000 people who I could speak to, who otherwise I would have no opportunity whatsoever. And ultimately my overarching goal is to help those people become healthier in body and in mind. Because that equation to me, and I have a book coming out about this, a documentary coming out about this as well, that equation to me, I have such a hard time thinking that I'm ever making that up, that I struggle with mental health and self harm and suicidal ideation because I do feel like a drain on the world sometimes because I receive so much from people and happenstance and circumstance that it just feels like this never ending mountain.

And so I continue trying to climb that meaningful mountain. I have my own work to do on the back end, but that's certainly what drives me. That's amazing. You made a video about eight months ago that you were getting therapy. Now, I don't know how long you've been getting therapy, but when you hear a lot of men who talk like, especially in the men's mental health space, becoming a better man, et cetera,

when they speak about therapy, it's generally one of those things where it's like, you know, use your physical asthweics, go to the gym, get exercise, get some sunlight. You don't need to go talk to another person and whine about your problems. There are many men who hold that, but then you on this other end, you are the world, get exercise, get some sunlight. You don't need to go talk to another person and whine about your problems. There are many men who hold that, but then you on this other end,

you are the world's strongest man, you're talking about getting therapy for yourself, and my curiosity is, how's it benefited you and what are your thoughts on the, I guess, the popular viewpoint that therapy isn't necessary for most men? Yeah, well, I had something really interesting brought to me there, because I feel like

I'm a very open person. If you ask me anything, I'm happy to tell you about it, but one of really interesting brought to me there, because I feel like I'm a very open person. If you ask me anything, I'm happy to tell you about it. But one of the people closest to me said, talk to me about how private I am. And I thought, that's a strange thing to say. What do you mean that I'm private? I say pretty much everything. I think, well, all of these private aspects of your life, you actually tell nobody about. Where even my family doesn't know, my best friends don't know, nobody knows.

And so I would consider myself an advocate for mental health in a way. nobody about where even my family doesn't know, my best friends don't know, nobody knows. I would consider myself an advocate for mental health in a way. I would consider myself someone who's generally open about it and likes to speak about it and likes to put the word out there. But even me myself, I wouldn't put it out there to anyone, even the people close to me if I need help. So do you need therapy? No.

But I think, do you need to get things off of your chest? Absolutely. And self harm has been a part of my life for 16 years. And it's strange to me to think that other people never want to kill themselves. I've never understood that at all. And it's useful to speak to someone who's an expert in the field to be able to go like, these feelings are normal, these feelings are not normal. And there are also things where I come at it from two sides. One side where there's this very real problem in the world right now, which I believe is tied to people getting further and further away from food, water, shelter as their problems. And I think the further away we get from that, the more mental health problems we have.

We also have the side where people want to self identify with a diagnosis of whatever, of depression or anxiety, where they live a very depressing life. They live in their parents basement trying to figure things out. And that feeling of being depressed is actually a good thing. Because that means that you are rejecting this lifestyle that you're having. And if you go to a professional, they can tell you, here are normal things to feel. Here are not normal things to feel. So for example, this equation that I have of like I'm a drain on the world, that person can then go, well, objectively,

you do this, this, this, this, this, why? Do you do that for yourself? Do you donate money back to the strength community because it helps you? And I'll say, well, no, it doesn't help me, but it helps community because it helps you. And I'll say, well, no, it doesn't help me, but it helps business because you say you give back. And then she goes, well, it doesn't matter why, you've done a good thing.

And the fact that it benefits you, that you've done a good thing is fine. That's how the world works, it's okay. So that outside perspective has been really useful for me. But I think stopping the notion that, yes, I've acknowledged that mental health is a problem and say, this is the general advice to men. Acknowledging, yeah, my mental health is, it's kind of a problem.

It's a different thing than saying, or saying for that's been a problem for me, but it's different than saying, I abuse substances on a daily basis to be able to exist, or I struggle with alcohol or I self harm or I this this all of these negative coping mechanisms that I feel like people would say I've ticked the box by saying I struggle but not necessarily actually acknowledge what's going on and for me I want to be someone out there saying right virtually everybody in this space will tell you about here are the things to get better and here are the ways that I got better and there's a light at the end of the tunnel and there's a day where you just everything is perfect and it's bullshit it's total bullshit it's it's in and out it's up and down it's difficult times

it's good times and learning how to manage that and deal with that is so much more important and productive than feeling like there's gonna be some cure it's not diabetes you're not gonna take metformin and feel better you're not gonna start an exercise program and go like, now I'm 100%. And that's been one of the most difficult things for me to accept over time. Because you look at my life, you're like, well what in your life at 29 years old doesn't make you feel like a fucking rock star? Objectively, not sure. But it's still the feeling. And look, there's a negative side to it, of course,

but the positive side is it makes me want to get up in the morning and do things and accomplish things and try to help people and try to make the world better and try to mean something to other people. And I don't think I'd be near as far as I am today if not for those quote unquote problems. It's just how to manage them. You know, if you were to go and get physical therapy,

you know, they would say, all right, where do you hurt? And you'd be like, oh, right here. You just like point to the spot, right? When you're getting this kind of therapy, it's kind of hard to figure out where you hurt, why you hurt. It's hard to identify where any of it really stems from. But what I'm kind of picking up from you,

which you may not have heard before, it may be a different perspective is, I just think you're really fast. I think like your brain works pretty fucking fast. I mean, you're able to do all these sports. Like there's something in your brain that is able to have a mastery of many different sports and your brain seems to be like wanting to be occupied

with a lot of stuff that you find enjoyable. So I think that if people were to really sit around and to really actually truly investigate and think about life, they would probably become depressed as well. And they probably would feel like they would wanna kill themselves because we don't know why we're here.

We don't know what our point is. Like whether you have kids or you don't have kids, when you have children, it feels like it gives you more of a purpose, but you still don't know like what all this is for. And I think that that doesn't have to necessarily be depressing since even the smartest people that ever walked the face of the earth

have never figured out why we're here. We don't have any idea of like, we're here to service the earth. Are we here just to be kind to each other or to share stuff with each other or help each other? And like, we don't have any clue on like what, on why we're here. And so it's a really, it's just a really interesting,

it's a really interesting thing. And I think for some people, if they sit around and think about that and they don't have faith and they don't, they don't have some other things that help, because that's why we have faith. We have faith so that there's hope. Like we need it, we need something like cling onto,

because the fact that we may be here for no fucking reason at all, doesn't, in another way it's liberating. And I suppose it depends how you approach it. In terms of how I operate, I think I am the strongest man in the world and I also have the most thoughts in the world because there's just constantly, constantly, constantly things happening. And if you sit around with me for more than 10 minutes, you'll ask the question, where did that come from? I don't know.

I just thought of it and it just came. And you're right, it probably is a product of overanalyzing, but in it's chicken or the egg, because I believe that came from negative mental health space then made the need for a constant justification of why you're here. And it's hard to come to an exact conclusion because the likely conclusion is not much reason to laugh and make people happy and enjoy your time here, whatever that means.

So anyway, I think it gets back to how are you so relaxed about your PR deadlift? Well, I'm thinking about that shit. Like in PR deadlift, in the grand scheme of things, how much does that actually matter? You're like, literally zero. If I can't figure out why we're here in the grand scheme of things, how much does that actually matter? You're like, literally zero. If I can't figure out why we're here in the first place, why I need to lift the bar

with a random amount of weight on it, it matters even less. And what's your purpose? Your purpose is to be the world's strongest man. It's like weird, right? Like, I don't know. It's also not. Do you know?

It's not. If it's a thing, it's a thing, great. But it's really strange, extremely strange, but it's not the underpinning. So I think, you know what? The best conclusion I've come up with of what is the actual purpose. Well, okay, well, if I'm here and I can help people feel better about themselves and be more physically healthy and have more productive years in the world, that's a good excuse for a reason.

And it's not a reason, it's an excuse for a reason, because ultimately you still don't know. But I think it's good. You get to make it up. You make it up, yeah. I think so. Do you have, so you have, you know, you've had some people help you with like therapy and stuff,

but do you have coaches? Do you have someone that helps you with your nutrition? Do you have someone that helps you with planning your training and so forth? Yeah, so you talked about Stan. Stan helps me with my nutrition. Although this is a really funny thing in strength sports. We're not bodybuilders.

So I work with Stan, yes, and people are like, how often do you talk to him? Well, when I want to, for one, and for two, I need to be told once what I'm supposed to eat, and then you just choose to eat that or choose not to eat that. What more information could Stan give me? So I work with Stan on my diet, but he's just giving me what I'm supposed to eat and then you just choose to eat that or choose not to eat that what more information could Stan give me So it would stand on my diet

But he's just giving me what I should do and I choose to do that or not do that And if I want to be good I choose to do that then Lauren Chalet is my coach for strongman. He's 13 time world's competitor, I believe Europe's strongest man in 2016 And that's the extent of my team. I have a physiotherapist who I'll go see if I'm hurt, but I don't really believe in a preventative physiotherapy. I'll see a massage therapist if I have time,

but generally I don't. And that's it, I like to keep things pretty simple. Simple on the personal and complicated on the business side to try to accomplish as much as possible. With your training, is there a lot of attention to warm up and stuff? I know when you're going heavy, obviously it takes steps and steps and steps

to get to those max weights, but is there other stuff you're doing in preparation for a particular lift? Do you foam roll? Do you do, you know? How does that look for you? No. My body used to be generally warm Which is for me a light sweat which is three quarters of the year walking into the gym is enough

And then it's you know a handful of sets up to working weight But to think that let's say you're gonna deadlift say it's a it's a day where I'm doing a big set of ten I'm doing 800 for 10 Well, you gotta put on eight plates a side. So 16 times, you're grabbing 45 plates, and every time you put on a plate, you're gonna do a couple of reps. So you've already done eight warm-up sets

and moved 800 pounds worth of plates. Do you think, like, no, you should also ride a bike for a minute before you do that? It just doesn't sync up with me at all. And then the research around mobility and foam rolling and strength outcomes, it always tends towards the less you do before you try a max attempt, the better off you're going to be. So I don't feel the need. If I start to lift and I feel all my backs feel strange, my right hip isn't feeling

right, I'll do something to try to rectify. But it's very much less is more. And that's why I tell you, I trained for two and a half hours for a training session. That's pretty much it. These five hour training sessions that people claim they do, I believe is a whole bunch of mucking around and rolling on the floor and things that are going to accomplish nothing towards your goal. Let's say, you're going to go log press 400 pounds and you're doing a three pound kettlebell bottoms up in preparation, stop it.

It's total nonsense. It's not going to translate in any way. So I reduced the minutia because I don't identify as a full-time strongman. I have other things I have to do, just like every other busy person who has their things that they have to do. And so I just simplify.

How can I get it done the fastest? And what are the few most important things I need to do to get it done? Power Project Family, how's it going? Now over the years, I've learned a lot from guests that have come onto this podcast. And I've taken the time to learn many different movement practices.

So for example, if you've wanted to learn rope flow, which is a practice I think is just beneficial for everyone, I have a free rope flow foundations course at school.com slash the stronger human. Now the stronger human community actually has over 11,000 members so it's a great community there but you'll also be able to learn rope flow for free along with many other things I teach in there like kettlebell flow, kettlebell juggling, all that good stuff. So head over there. Along with that, if you're looking for where to get your equipment as far as ropes, maces and clubs, sandbags, all that good stuff, you can head over to the strongerhuman.store.

And on that site is where I have all of the different functional fitness equipment that I use to become a stronger human. So check those out. Let's get back to the episode. I'm curious about this Mitch and, or Mitchell, I don't know if you, do people call you Mitch? Either way.

Either way, what do you prefer? You can go with Mitchell. Okay, I'll go with Mitchell. I'll spare you the story, but it's funny. I'm actually curious about the story. What's the story? Now you have to tell us the story. The only person in my life who consistently calls me Mitch is my dad.

And one time I was with a girl who didn't know me real well and she said Mitch in my ear and I'm like, it was over. I was thinking about my dad. That's great. All right, Mitchell. Okay, so you've been doing Strongman for five years and you've become World's Strongest Man. Ideally, that's going to be something that you get another title coming up.

There are most, I think probably all World's Strongest Man use pharmaceuticals, right? That's part of the process to get that big and that strong. What? Okay. Allegedly. Allegedly, allegedly. But my curiosity is,

your focus is also staying extremely healthy. You even said, if it takes me getting to 360 to have to do something, I'm not gonna do it, right? Now, nowadays, a lot of younger guys are getting on TRT and just hopping on these bandwagons because they're like, oh, I just have low testosterone. TRT is the new SARMS. It's totally seen as normal.

I've done both. You know. Can't tell. But. I know. That's why it's funny though. It's all good. My straight ankle lock you, but we're good. Yeah, I don't want to fight.

But you did say that, you know, after whatever you do in World's Strongest Man, you want to go on to Ironman's, et cetera. So my curiosity is, as you go on to do more athletic things, do you see that side of the pharmaceutical side of things as being a part of what you do for future endeavors, or only if it's required? How does that chime in? Because you are someone

who keeps health at the top of everything, even though you just mentioned earlier that right now you're not the healthiest, you're still extremely healthy for what you're doing. You are, right? So how do you think about these things? Yeah, well, first of all, I'll go above and beyond to monitor my health.

For example, at World's Strongest Man, they recommend, or they require a resting ECG for us to just be able to compete. I went down to Mexico and did a full stress test and echo and everything to make sure my heart's all fine. So I'm doing things to make sure on top of blood work to make sure that I'm not doing a permanent damage to my body. Uh, also in the world of pharmaceuticals, I've gained such an appreciation that I never had

of this is not a black and white world. There are things and substances that I will not touch, and that's in the category of things that I just choose not to do. For mental health reasons, for physical health reasons, you just know, and we all know what I'm talking about, just won't touch those things. There are quantities that are useful, but there's a diminishing return and actually a negative return after a certain

point where you take so much stuff that your body is not in a healthy place to perform. And if you're not in a healthy place to perform, it's great that your test level is 6,000, but you're no better for it. Also half of it's turning to estrogen and looking at your chest turns me on. So if you take these reasonable dosages and You can stay relatively healthy, you can walk the line a little bit. You need to be able to feel good to perform good. And if you don't feel good, it's going to have a negative effect regardless of what you believe you're taking And I think this is a big error of people who are in strength sports just on the cusp of the elite level They assume that we're at the elite level because of the quantity of things that we're taking

But you can just I test people and you look at my face. Look at my neck Look at my body. Am I 5% body fat looking like Ronnie Coleman? No, that does does my face balloon out like crazy? Not really. So you can start to deduce these things and go, okay, I don't see any obvious major side effects. Clearly this person is not abusing this to an extreme. And that's the difference of the use versus the abuse.

And I think there's a great rationale for TRT to be used for any man over 40. But this whole conservative notion, which I identify as conservative, but I believe it's very stupid, this new conservative notion of like, okay, your testosterone is normal, but we're shifting the goalposts.

You're in the dead center of normal, but like you should be on the high, absolute high end of normal, like stop, stop. Like if you wanna take gear to get stronger, get bigger, whatever, add a small detriment to your health, just be honest with yourself and that's fine. And if your test is actually low, absolutely get on something. And if you're over 40 and you're a man, it probably is low,

so go get it checked and get on something with a doctor. But I think, let's start a movement, the three of us right now, you are forbade from saying you're on TRT if it is not prescribed by a doctor. I hold. Hardly agree with that. I agree too.

The number of people that go, yeah, I'm on TRT, what are you on? 600 tests a week. You're like, no, no, you're just juicing. And that's fine, but just call it what it is. And same with your peptides, same with your salms. People call it TRT sport now. That's what some people are saying.

Are you serious? Yeah, TRT sport. It just means like, and then some. Oh! Yes. That's amazing. Yeah, you're like, what does that mean? You're like, oh, I just think that means

you're just on like a cycle. You're just using something. Lots of gray area. To round out the question, will it always be a part of my life? Not if it doesn't have to be okay. No, like a lot of people talk to me like After strong man if you go down in your 220 and you're not as musky anymore Like does that hurt like your that hurt your identity? No, because isn't my identity in the first place when I was running marathons

I didn't feel like a manlet running at 225. I felt like I'm above average size, dude. But I think I would pride myself more on the masculinity of being able to walk in any room and have a conversation with anyone. And those types of things to me are much more about being a man than how much can you bench press. It doesn't make a difference to me.

So I really look forward to the day that I don't have a CPAP and I can breathe normally and I can all of these things. But if I need to, because natural production is not where it should be, fine. But am I gonna look at doing an Ironman and going on EPO? No, because I'm not gonna be good at Ironmans. I just wanna do one and finish one. Okay.

Yeah, you know, I left a lot of those things in the rear of your mirror and people are confused on like, why, like, they're confused on why, but they're more confused on like, does it bum you out that you don't still do that? I'm like, no, because I never really cared about that much anyway. I loved it.

I had a great time doing it. I have no regrets. powerlifting for 30 years. It was amazing. It meant a lot to me, but it didn't mean everything to me. Didn't mean so much to me that I need to like hang on by a thread and be shitty at it until I'm 55 or something like that, or to a detriment of more of my health.

Like I have compromised some things I talked about in the gym, compromised some mobility and some things like that. But those are all things that I was like willing to part ways with. And those are all things that I was pretty aware of. I'm sure there's things that maybe like I can look at it now and like I have so much more information about health

and so much more information about how to like get your blood work done and get it interpreted. And there's all these different tests that you can get done for your heart and a lot of these things. So there's things that I didn't know that were sort of blind spots, where maybe if I did some of the testing that you're doing, maybe I would have been a little bit more reserved

in what I was doing, but it was never hard for me to shift because I just thought like, I'm just shifting to something else that I enjoy. You know, and it's not that I need, I don't need running necessarily. I don't need, like I have a lot of other stuff in my life that I really love and care about more so than just like my training or competing at anything.

Yeah, look, you squatted over a thousand and if you continued on all the pharmaceuticals and all the work you do right now, you could be squatting in the high eight hundreds. I don't care. I used to be stronger. And I think it's important to recognize different elements of life.

It's back to more philosophical fundamental things. I personally don't believe anything happens when you die. I think you just turn to dust and that's it. And if we accept that that's the case, well, when you're a child, that's where you should be having the most fun in your life. And in the early adulthood for me and for you at the time, we can be as physically capable as possible right now,

but then you're gonna get to a stage where now you've acquired all this information, so you could pass on all this information. You could benefit people more than ever in that way. And then when you're elderly, you can become a great role model of what's happened in the past. You got to kind of go through these phases in life. And if you, if you stick on that child phase and just want to have fun up until you're 35, we know those people, they suck. If you then go, I want to be as physically capable as possible until I'm 70, you're like, well, it's great to maintain your independence,

but stop trying to be a professional athlete because it's just not going to happen anymore. So I very much see it that way. And yeah, it makes me happy seeing people like you who have successfully transitioned out because it's less common than not to be able to actually go and move on to the next thing. What's it like being part of this traveling circus

of strong men, and especially with the popularity of Eddie Hall and Brian Shaw, I'm sure you guys are going through airports and stuff like that, is it kind of madness, like those guys getting hit up by a lot of people? It really depends where you are. In the UK, it's much more popular than it is say in Canada, but in my hometown, I only go to a few places and they all know who I am.

So, it's my clinic and the local coffee shop and the gym and it's not too big of a deal. But then very particular times, very particular scenarios, it's insane. So for example, at the Arnold's or at World's Strongest Man or at the Rogue Invitational, you got to walk around like literally with security to stop people from swarming you, which is a really, really strange thing for me to wrap my head around. Extremely humbling, but very, very strange. So yeah, we do get swarms, but not to the extent where we can't live normal lives, you know? You've got Eddie chasing people off his front lawn. That's not common.

Yeah, what do you think of his technique there with the sprint? Yeah, I think it's- He was in some slides, I think. You think you can beat him in a 40 yard? Oh, horrible. I ran five flat. I think Eddie ran like a 6.8 when he did it a few years ago.

Is that even a question? I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, I think you could agree that his sprint work needs, his sprinting needs a lot of work. Probably could use some help, yeah. For sure.

I'm curious, man. What are more of your goals with Strongmen? Are you just seeing where it takes you? Do you have a certain amount of shows you're trying to win? Because you already done some historic stuff as far as the Arnold as we were talking about beforehand. But what do you want to do? I'm the only person, I've won every single title

I've ever competed for. And I haven't won every show, but every title I have, every title in Strongman I have. I'm the only person in history to be able to say that. And so now I'm just manufacturing these goals in Strongman, where can I break the Dental of the World Record? Last year was can I break the Axel world record? Last year was can I break the actual clean and press world record, which I did. And so my goals aren't really tied to outcomes anymore.

Now, do I enjoy doing the thing? And I do, I really enjoy it. Going to the gym is the best part of my day. Am I enjoying the knock-on effects of business and impacting people and social media? Absolutely, that's all very, very useful. But since I've gained so much from the sport, I feel a sense of obligation to then give back and try to grow it in a way.

Because the most special thing in Strongman is not when I break the Deadlift World record in September. It's the weekend after, where there's a local show and there's some guy who's 21 years old who has never played a sport in his life, never really been active in his life before, and he has 15 people cheering him on to deadlift 300 pounds. Like that gives me goosebumps,

thinking about the local level of strongman, and being able to grow that side of things, have people in the communities, have people in the communities that promote being active, promote being strong, and there's no strongman ego or stigma because we're all strange. Like we all chose to lift weird objects

by ourselves in the corner. And now we just get together in this strange little collective. To be able to grow that base is really my objective. And I think people can get fit in so many ways. But since I've gained so much from strongman, I do want to continue feeding back and being able to do that. And also get outside of the sport

so more people learn about it and know about it. You said Eddie Hall, he is such a reason that the sport has grown to where it has. So if I could be another version of that to continue to help grow the sport, that would mean a lot to me. But to be able to grow the sport, you have to get out of the sport.

And in trying to do that, in writing a book and doing the documentary and going and doing lots of different new things and doing as many podcasts as I can, all of these things are trying to of course benefit me and the people who work for me and my family, but also benefit the sport as well so more people become aware. What's the deal with the book and the documentary? So the book is covering the year into winning World's Strongest Man. So starting with invited to World's Strongest Man where I came eighth in 2022 and then hitting every podium afterwards, winning a couple of shows and then ultimately winning World's

Strongest Man. There's that storyline, but there's the parallel storyline of mental health and self-harm and things that no one would know. So say for example at the Arnold, during the deadlift we were allowed to wear deadlift briefs that year. But no one would know that when I was deadlifting the most difficult part was getting into position because I had cut my legs a week before and there were open wounds on them and trying to get down to the bar was just so fucking uncomfortable. And so taking these stories and trying to build advice in a way

of like how I deal with these things, giving some perspective on like, you can be in these places and still accomplish great things. And also, I'm not gonna sit here and be this beacon of hope that everything always gets better because I've found that message extremely harmful when I have bad days I have to deal with the bad day on top of the notion that oh fuck I'm not better that well maybe it's not that

maybe it's just dealing with the place that you're in and dealing with the down sometimes so taking those stories drawing those two together and and giving some useful takeaways to people where if it's clinical if if it's a big deal, if it's not, just how do you deal with things in everyday life? How do you plot ahead? How do you go one step at a time and accomplish great things regardless of where you're at? And then the documentary is going to be a similar tone,

but covering up to the deadlift this year. And so, like I said, I'm not sitting here saying, I am healed and I am perfect and my mental health is great and here's my instructions for you. And so it's going to cover all the trials and tribulations up to that lift. And then if the lift goes well, lots of people see the documentary and if it doesn't go well, it'll be on my YouTube. You know, I am curious about this.

You said that your exercise is medicine. What is that for you? Is that a foundation? It's just one of the models of the clinic that I've opened. It's on the homepage. It's just the idea that, like I said, Western medicine in the past 25 years has added three years of useless life to us and zero years of useful life and exercise is really the only quote-unquote medication that behaves like medication should in terms of making your quality of life better over time. It's a catch-all for everything and it should be the prescription to any chronic disease because if you get diabetes, let's say let's say the incorrect notion that it's irreversible. Well your risk for heart disease if you get diabetes, let's say the incorrect notion that it's irreversible,

well your risk for heart disease if you get diabetes skyrockets. Well, how do we prevent heart disease? Through movements and lifestyle interventions. And on top of that, strength training is as good as aerobic training. So all these guys who say, I don't want to go for a run, good news that you don't have to, you can just get strong and you're going to be prevented against all of these things. And so when I say I went exercise medicine space, I'm talking about exercising people with injuries,

chronic conditions, unique circumstance, complications, anything like that, and helping them to live a healthier, more productive life. So my question was going to be from there, because like, you know, the times where, like I've actually had for me, true levels of depression were times where like my physical capacity was taken, for me, true levels of depression were times where my physical capacity was taken away from me, whether it was from surgery, whether

it was from just something happening. And I've known and I know that physical activity, along with other healthy habits, is just necessary for my mental health. My question for you is, what else, maybe outside of exercise, do you feel are non-negotiables for your mental health? To me, I think of the brain like the least intuitive thing that you could possibly imagine. Where you have to send the clearest message to yourself about how you should feel about yourself. Now, to explain that, first with a lifting example, you can convince yourself of some wild things, but you can't convince yourself that you didn't get stronger if you got stronger.

The number went up, so the number went up. Taking these measurable things and being able to have that as the underpinning of, you know what, this is my backstop. I might feel this way about myself in XXX category, but I've helped six people pay their bills this week. But I've provided a home for X number of people. But I volunteered at this place and helped these people. So I think whatever it is objectively,

that's going to make you feel as though you're making a contribution to the world that's more of a benefit to the world than to yourself, double down on that. But make it measurable and objective. Because how you feel is so all over the shop, but what you can measure can never be negotiated. I volunteered X number of hours.

I helped feed X number of people. I employed X number of people. I've invested X amount, which means my family will likely have this type of future moving forward. All of those things to me are non-negotiables. Now, in terms of self-care, there's certainly meat left on the bone for me. Like, I don't do anything but work, and that's about it. And it's great.

You enjoy that. I love it. But I've also turned every single element of my life into work. Like, my training was my reprieve, now my training is my work. My social media stuff was just fun and stupid way to connect with friends, now that's my work. And so every single time I scroll Instagram, not really as a casual person anymore, but as a medium of work. What's going on? And it'll be anytime during the day. Interesting, he uses this technique to get some people hooked anytime during the day. Like, oh, interesting, he uses techniques

to get some people hooked in, right? Like you watch different, right? Yeah, yeah, or you see a lifting technique, or you see another guy doing some lifts that's in a show that's coming up for you, or you see a funny, like a funny video that now I'm sending off to the team to say we should make a version of this,

it's just absolute nonstop. So I need to find better ways to switch off, and I think a lot of people could probably resonate with this And probably you know I have people doing my social media for me. So what do I even need it for? I probably don't even need it. I probably don't even need to look at it so yeah, I have areas to improve and I'm still working on that because in Chasing these super hyper meaningful large picture things

I think I do miss a lot of the day to day, go on a hike and get in nature and breathe air and lie in the sun like you. Seriously, I was lying there, that shit helps me out. I do that every day, I need it. I have actually never until today considered that a black person might want to be more tanned. I never thought of that. No,anned. I've never thought of that.

No, no, we're made to absorb vitamin D. I just never thought of it. I got you. It makes sense, but I've just never thought of it. I learned so much having him here. Me and Andrew go back and forth asking him questions everyone's asking. My favorite segments of the show. So Mark, you have been loving wearing these

Paloovas for a long time. Why is it that you like these shoes that look like this? I'm trying to get my feet to be jacked. I think it's funny how sometimes people will, when I wear these shoes, they're like, oh, those are different. And I'm like, well, maybe you should blame God because this is the human foot.

This is the way that it looks. But Paloovas are awesome because it's gonna allow you to train your feet and train your toes and allow for that toe spread because you got the five finger toe thing going on. It's like a, like put on a glove for your feet. Feels amazing. It's like walking around with toe spacers.

You know, we've been working on our feet for a long time now. You always hear the benefit of people talking about like these tribes who have gone without shoes forever and they have this toe space and have these amazing feet. And these shoes will allow you to just passively get that back by walking around. You don't realize what a disadvantage you're at when your foot is all clumped together

from the football cleats or soccer cleats or whatever else you were wearing when you were young. And so it's nice to be able to splay your toes. In addition to that though, one thing I love about Paloova is the fact that it's not a regular barefoot shoe. I do love barefoot shoes as well, but it also has appropriate padding. And when you're stepping on some crazy pebbles and rocks and different things, like when

I'm out on a run, some terrain is a little different than others. I don't have to be worried that I'm going to get some sort of stabbing crazy thing happening to my foot because it has an appropriate amount of cushion underneath the foot. And guys, Paloova has a lot of different styles on their website. I think one of the newest styles they just came out with, which is a little bit more of a rigorous do is the Strand ATR. It's not these, these are the Strands, but the ATRs have a little bit more. If you want to go hiking with them, you totally can. Those are amazing. If you go out, you out, throw those on and go sprint on a field

and your feet feel so strong grabbing the grass and being able to actually grab the ground with your foot feels amazing. I'm more of a chill guy with my Paloova so I like the Zen slip ons, but that's the thing. With Paloova, there's a lot of different options. So if you head to Paloova.com and use code powerproject, you'll be able to save 15% off your entire purchase.

And they also have toe socks. Their five feet of your toe socks are no show. So check those out too. Real quick, in regards to what you're saying about, like you kind of convert everything to work. Like I resonate with that very well. Do you get stuck in that thought of like, I'm just gonna sprint right now because it's just the time

where I need to grind and eventually it's gonna slow down, I'm just gonna sprint right now because it's just the time where I need to grind, and eventually it's gonna slow down, I promise. We all understand that's crap, but we still tell ourselves that exact same thing. At least I should say this, I do say that for myself. Yeah, do you kind of find yourself thinking like, ah, just for a little bit right now? Right, well, hear me out. Because yes.

But right now it is that for me. And don't give me like, oh, it's like that for, I could tear a hamstring off the bone tomorrow. And now my strongman career is over and I need to pivot to something else. So yes, it is the time for me to sprint right now. It is the time for me to do that. But at the same time, do I make time to hang out

with friends and play with my daughter? Absolutely, for sure. I'm not working 12 hour, 14 hour days. It's always running in the background. How have you, or have you, gotten away from having panic attacks and how have you managed them? Exposure. Exposure. I, he's now my business partner, but I remember working early on, one-on-one with people in Australia and exercising them.

And the example that sticks out to me the most, the sweetest old lady had the most uncomplicated problem. She could not have been nicer. And I needed my students who was shadowing me to like take the session. I went to the bathroom, my heart was pounding, and I was sweating like mad. I had no explanation.

I went back, I finished what we had to do, and I sat with my boss at the time, now I'm a business partner, and he said, maybe it's just not for you. What do you mean? He said, well, maybe you would just be more comfortable sitting and doing like insurance claims, just sitting behind a desk,

and I was like, fuck you. And to me, any weakness, and this applies to strong men, to life, to social aspects, if I identify something that I suck at, it bothers me so much more to suck at it than to not work at it. And so the more times you're exposed to something that makes you uncomfortable,

the more comfortable you're going to be naturally. And so that's when I would go on podcasts and listen back to myself and go, I'm going to feel less anxious. I'm going to feel less concerned if I know that when I'm talking to you, I don't sound like an idiot. And over and over and over, you sound less like an idiot, and you get more exposed to doing it. And that doesn't stop. I'll listen back to this.

Okay, well, you sounded this way here and this way here and you could have articulated this better. You didn't make sense here. And that exposure therapy is 100%. If you're afraid of anything, just continue to do that thing in the way that you can tolerate the most and you'll be good. Now, one of my superpowers is I can handle a lot of discomfort and I don't mind. If I'm up and I'm having a panic attack right now,

okay, I guess I'll just deal with it and hopefully next time I don't. And still when I go on stage in front of people, I'm not thinking about what I said, I'm thinking about how I looked because my panic attack is sweating and very visual and I can still talk okay, but I look like a mess. And so now when I go on stage in front of people,

no matter how many, no matter for how long, I think if I don't turn into a sweaty mess, this is a successful venture. And eventually I'll have to take that to, all right, well, what's the actual content of what you're saying and the tone? And did you move around? Did you make an impact?

And did they listen to you? But right now that's just where I'm at, is I take a massive win if I can physically hold it together and I know that all of the things afterwards will be Will be carry-on effects of building the confidence from doing that first You have some sort of cue that you think of like where you try to calm yourself down in some way Or is it just like it's just gonna pass and it's just a matter of time It's just a matter of time for me and it's just gonna pass

I found any time I think of a cue something to make make me more comfortable, some strategy to use, it just makes it worse. I started to now thinking about the strategy and using the strategy more and on and on. I think for me, if I can just be myself and behave like myself and act like myself, that is the underpinning to being fine. So if I would make a joke, if I would curse, if I would walk around, if I would use hand gestures,

if I just continue to do that, generally I'm pretty good. If the slideshow messes up, then my nature would be to make a self-deprecating joke. And so you have to have the confidence to do that. Because if you don't, now you're not being yourself and now you're panicking about not being perfect. And you go like, instead why don't you just go like, ah, for 29 years I was perfect and now I'm not. And you're like, cool, everyone kind of chuckles moving on, no worries. And yeah, but the more times you do something you're uncomfortable with, the more comfortable

you're gonna be doing the thing. It's just the most basic principle of life. And don't be too up yourself to do things that you're not comfortable doing. I like what you said earlier when you said about keeping score. Keeping score, are you giving back more than you're receiving?

And I think that that has a lot of value and that could be something that, and you mentioned also like tracking that, just like you would track your training. Like I did this weight on this day. So that means I'm in line, just like you're saying about the 505 deadlift. Like, oh, I'm in line with that.

Like my training is lining up. And if the things you're doing are lining up with being a good person, having a good heart and all those things, it's something that you could say, I am bummed today, I am more depressed today than I was yesterday. And maybe it's a slump,

maybe a couple days go by, but you can rest your hat on the fact that you have done a handful of things to your best ability to help other people or to invest time in other places other than things that are literally just for yourself. Absolutely, and I think that the first question is you feel depressed, should you?

And the answer is not always no. Should you feel depressed? Well, have you deeply hurt someone? Well, then you should be upset with yourself, for sure. That's a great thought to have about yourself. Shouldn't go to terrible places, but sure. So yeah, I do like that scorecard. I kind of have a two part question here.

So first thing, when you started Strongman in 2020, did you have the goal of becoming the world's strongest man? Did anything give you that indication that that was a possibility? No, not in any way. No. Not whatsoever. So just as you got stronger, as you built,

you realized, I'm getting stronger, this can happen for me. Yeah, I did a local show and I won it. And then I did another local show and I won that. Then I did states. And when I did states and I won states, I looked at my numbers in relation to the guys at World's Strongest Man and I thought,

I'm pharmaceuticals away from being very competitive. And I spoke to everyone in my family, I said, here's what I'm thinking of doing, and what do you think? And I got opinions from everyone, and I made the leap. And when I did, everything exploded. I just responded really well, not much. And my deadlift went from 400 kilos to 475 kilos in the span of... So you got to 400 kilos without anything.

Yeah. That's... 881 pounds everybody. I love you, but be quick, but still, I love how you managed to do so much already before pulling that trigger. Well that's extremely important. Extremely important.

If you haven't trained, and now, I've done strongman for five years. I was in the gym consistently for 10 years before that. I loved it. I would always try and lift heavy. I loved lifting heavy. Even when I was running marathons, I wanted to run a marathon and be able

to squat four plates at the same time. Which, for context of how the body is conditioned to do what you put into it, when I ran marathons, I couldn't squat 400 pounds. And I was a 230 pound, like large man, I couldn't squat 400 pounds. And now I can squat, I can probably squat a thousand if I wrapped up. And yeah, so, no, I didn't have ambition to be world's strongest man when I started. I just wanted to feel what it's like to get strong,

and I'm not going to hold myself back from it. And then when I thought that that could be a realistic avenue, it was after a lot of obvious justification. And back to the confidence thing. I'm only confident about things that I know that I can do. I can also confidently tell you, I will never bench press 550.

That's just not on the cards. I'm not good at bench pressing like that. And so I think that's also really important is if you're going to be confident, you also have to be confident in saying the things that you can't do or won't do. And that adds more credence when you say you believe you can do something.

And that kind of brings me into the second part of what I wanted to know, because I think one of the reasons why, like for example, Mark was really good at powerlifting. Now he goes into running where he has continued to improve, but it's not like he's an amazing runner, but he's showing that to people and he has the courage to do that. But I think a lot of people don't necessarily feel comfortable stepping into something that they may find enjoyable, but they're not necessarily extremely talented at. They don't necessarily show a high level of initial good response to, right?

But it seems that you've done a lot of things that you weren't the absolute best at, but you found enjoyment from them. And even when you go into Ironman, who knows, maybe you might actually just crush. We'll see. But if you don't, it seems like that's something you'll enjoy. So my curiosity is like, wow, where do you find the courage to kind of go into these things that you suck at? Because most people just avoid those things.

Yeah, I think it comes down to ego more than anything. And people perceive me to have a large ego, because I'll tell you, I believe I'll break the Dendafrude record, but I don't that in because I am Mitch Hooper and I am shit hot And so of course I do I say well objectively this this and this means that I think I could do it Yeah, and I can't imagine the feeling that you're going to be confronted with not being good at something being a reason that you're not going to try to do it and If you are so into yourself that you need to be good at everything you're trying to do,

you are just a terrible human being. Like, then do you cook the same thing for yourself every day? Because you know you're good at cooking that. And do you, you know, like then you only speak to the people who like you. And then if I say, Mark, I think you're a great dude. I heard you on a podcast say this, I thought that was off that if Mark had an ego to I need to be good at everything Mark's never speaking to me again He says you have now alerted me to the fact that I might not be the best person in the world at everything

I can't talk to you and it's a real it's a real problem. I believe it's a real epidemic of The self-esteem movements of you should feel good about everything, you should feel good about yourself despite what you do. It's like, no, you should feel good about yourself because of what you do and because you tried to do things and because you're good at this and because you committed to a process. And Mark is not a good, I don't know, but let's say he's not a good runner in relation to the best in the world, which I assume is true. Well, he still improved himself quite a bit.

And you respect the process of someone improving themselves. Just the same in strength sports. I think it is incredible someone who's grafted for 10 years to deadlift 500 pounds. Is it absolutely impressive? Not in an absolute sense, but in a relative sense to what that person's capable of. Absolutely. And so I actually, when I started something, I would love to have a very low bar, but you're actually one of the worst in the world for this. Well, it's only up from here. Yeah.

It's the same thing as IQ, right? If I was to get my IQ tested, everyone goes, I want a high IQ. Like for some reason, I think if I got my IQ tested, I would love it to be like a 75. And people are like, how do you live with it? People don't believe you can increase your IQ though. No, no, no, you can't. But I'm saying just it's relative to what you're capable of. So if you started something you're not comfortable with

and you're bad at it, well the bar is really low. Just the same as if you got your IQ test, and my IQ was 75, people go like, you shouldn't be able to live on your own. Nevermind, like accomplish anything, that's incredible. Where if you started something and you are absolutely, you're top notch, or your IQ is 160, you're like, ah man, I should be doing a lot more. A lot more.

And so it really doesn't f*** me where I start, it matters how much progress can I make on that starting point. We could talk to you forever. This has been a great conversation. Where can people find you? Instagram, Mitchell Hooper, YouTube, Mitchell Hooper as well. Really search my name, you'll find me anywhere.

My largest following is on YouTube at the moment, so if you guys wanna head over there, lots of training content, information, education, hopefully some inspiration, and that's where you can follow along the road to 505. I do not care about the results. That's something you said earlier on, and it's like super fascinating to have someone who's,

you know, world's strongest man champion, and somebody who's got some world records in that. I know that you do care about them to some degree. It's gotta be kind of locked in there somewhere. But I understand what you're saying. You're putting forth the best effort in your training. You're doing the training. You're doing everything you're supposed to do.

So why would you really care that much about whether it went one way or another? Yeah, look, I think to put it succinctly, I'm proud of the process. I'm not proud of the result. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.