Mark Bell's Power Project - Biggest TESTOSTERONE Bust? || MBPP Ep. 905

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the five IBJJF athletes who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.    New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements!   ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off!   ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order!   ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Hi Project Family, welcome to the podcast. We are 900 plus episodes deep, bringing tons of different experts in fitness, health, nutrition, and business. And we thank you all for your support. And we're also glad to be bringing these individuals to you. Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast and it's brought benefits to your life, we'd really appreciate it if you left a five-star review on Spotify or Apple, as that helps the podcast grow and thrive, and we can continue bringing you amazing content. Thank you for your support and enjoy the episode. My mom got me gold standard protein from Costco one day and I was drinking like three of those a day and it was helping me get bigger pretty fast.

And she was like, are you sure that's good for you? Like, is this what those bodybuilders do? Like she thought protein was steroidal. Steroids. Oh, man. It's kind of anabolic, right? Especially as a kid, man. You overeat protein, lift, eat, you're going to grow.

Loving protein right now. So I did the, after we had Dan Gardner here. You did a whole block of fat-free cheese. No, but I started just having protein shakes. I know we talk about doing this all the time with food or just load up on more protein, but I will literally sit down and then I'll drink a protein shake and then I'll start eating. Man, it really, it makes me feel so much fuller. So I've taken the 10 eggs down to eight which

i know is like okay two eggs but like i feel full and like i don't know the the scale's been going down a little bit so everything's that uh good did you take it down a notch for social pressure what do you oh because too many eggs or what i don't know yeah people are people are up your ass about the 10 eggs whatever be yourself man man. Whenever I post a picture of my fridge, people are like, dang, because y'all have like two racks of just fucking a bunch of eggs. You got to have them. You got to lean into that, man.

You got to keep the 10 eggs. It's like your thing. Well, I can answer all those things again, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate that. And yeah, I was like, I guess once I like try to like gain weight, I just have 12 and just do that. Well,, I was like, well, I guess once I like try to like gain weight, I just have 12 and just do that.

Well, now that you brought it up, why don't you tell people where they can go to get the 10 egg omelet scramble? Well, it's at 10egg.com. Use promo code PowerProject and save 99%. Oh, nice. Yeah. It's just very expensive. It's $3 million. Three guys, 10 eggs.

Eggs are expensive. Yeah. Once inflation goes down, then they'll go back to the normal price of two million. Hey, you got like a match coming up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pan Ams, man. It's coming up next week.

That's exciting. Or when we post this this week. Yeah. That is fucking cool. Training going good and stuff? Training's going great. That's awesome. Training's going really good.

Yeah. Been working on a lot of new stuff with the guard. Casio's been helping out. I've been going over to Kyle Tara in San Jose and been doing competitions over competition classes over there with Mason, Mason Fowler and Jason Kalipa and Kyle. And it's really been pushing me forward. It's really pushing me.

So I'm excited. I'm really excited. It's been a long time since I've competed. It's been like since 2020 late 2019 was my last competition. Lifting feeling good? Body feeling good? Diet feeling good? Everything's feeling really good.

Dropped a couple LBs? 246, baby. Was that anything with the diet or was that just like because you're probably training pretty frequently and maybe training even a little harder than normal?

I'm training more, but I was just kind of cleaning things up as far as like the amount of carbohydrates I was eating and stuff. So yeah, everything's, I'm feeling very sharp feeling very sharp and no sex right for nah i'm a nut before i leave i think that's a myth now is it i feel like it's a myth i'm gonna not boost my test and then go into that competition increase testosterone i don't know man what if you're all frustrated i don't know dog oh god i

feel sharper when sex is on my mind yeah you're not completely yeah completely thinking about that post nut with like you know actual sex not not feeling you know sad because i have this nut on my hand now oh it's different it's? It's different. I heard you making some noises in there in the gym today for the first time in a long time. Oh, yeah, man. You were like actually moving around some weight. No way. He was working out? Well, I've seen him work out a bunch, but

I don't know. I just haven't seen... I've seen him a handful of times, but yeah, a little bit. There's a little extra on it. I'm happy for it. I'm excited. Me too, dude. little bit there's a little extra on it there's a little extra on it yeah i'm happy for i'm excited me too dude i think there's something to uh even though like the way that we lift has changed i think there's still something beneficial to the body feeling like it can handle heavy loads um and i've felt a difference to adding in some box squats back in right how much easier those are feeling on a day-to-day basis. And then transferring that to when I roll, I just feel a little bit more pop.

So I think bringing that back conservatively is going to help out a lot. Enough lifting to where you feel it when you are going against other opponents, but it's not like sitting in your joints and stuff like that. Yeah, because it hasn't been. I mean, I've been doing box squats on a daily basis. Back feel, everything feels really good. And I feel really like it might be placebo, but I've even noticed like weird density changes in the way I look each morning.

There's something nice about walking around and just feeling strong. There's something that feels really good about that. Or just getting the input of lifting with a little bit more intensity. I've been lifting a bunch with Kenny lately, and we did like seated military press. I haven't done that in so long. And, you know, the weight I was using wasn't very good. Like I'm just not proficient at overhead presses and never really have been.

But it feels good to do sets sometimes of like six to eight reps and to get that effort in there. never really have been but it feels good to do sets sometimes of like six to eight reps and and to get that uh effort in there and we're just the intensity of the workouts is just high there's a lot of volume a lot of reps a lot of sets and activities yeah kenny's just crushing it so we're having some really good workouts together and just i just feel so much better it's only been like five workouts together his nickname is the peeker but he really should just be the fridge because he's just so wide but like when he takes off his shirt he has an amazing shape he has a small waist wide quads wide shoulders but when he has that shirt on man he fills out a 4x shirt

at 5 foot 10 yeah yeah i i always tell him like dude get those fucking shoulder pads off they're ridiculous looks like he has shoulder pads underneath his uh truly does underneath their shirt look at that it's comical but he's a superhero man wild so what do we got corn feds baby we got some fucking brazilian corn feds andrew do you want to explain corn feds or just pull up the meme real quick i'll find it and then as i'm looking for it though like so basically what was it somebody had mentioned like being a purple belt that you can kind of hold your own against anybody or something along those lines and then somebody in the comments was like well if he's if if he ain't at least 180 he's gonna have a hard time going up against these

corn fed white belts or something like that corn fed meaning on steroids yeah so now corn fed has now become a thing and i don't know if you're gonna find the uh the the acronym because jjj yeah because underscore jitsu a corn fed is yes i'm corn fed crazy overroided corn fueled redneck destroyer um and they used eddie hall in the picture i don't know if angie's gonna be able to pull it up but that's a great picture of Eddie Hall, by the way. It is. But the big thing that happened is that recently five top black belts in jiu-jitsu got banned from, got three-year bans because they popped for testosterone.

One of them had even Tren in his system at Nogi Worlds. It was the first and second plate. First off, IBJJF does test, but they don't test as often. But it seems like they chose to really test at this competition. And a lot of the guys even ran from the podium because they didn't want to get shit found. But USADA chased some of them even a few weeks later, and they still had shit in their system. So they've been given two to three-yearans and it's been huge yeah there's a picture cyborg was supposed to be on the first podium and uh in this video right here victor hugo who's one

of the top black belts um was commenting how like yeah the first and second place kind of just left you know if if some of the top guys are getting popped, it kind of makes you wonder like, what's the rest of the field look like? They're mainly only testing the top, the guys that are placing, right? It seems that they're testing the guys that are placing.

And that's actually, it makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. Cause yeah. I mean, if you're going to, you know,

you're, if, if you're going to utilize it and, uh, utilize it as an unfair advantage, um, you're going to be able you're going to be able to maybe get yourself up on the podium. But I'm still sure there's probably plenty of people that are losing to people that are on shit that would love to get them tested as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Cyborg, it is interesting because, for example, there's ADCC, right, which is like the Nogi Jiu-jitsu Olympics where they're clear that we will not test any jiu-jitsu athletes. That's where you see Gordon Ryan and those guys and they're jacked as fuck, right? And Gordon is open about being on PEDs because he says, well, it's legal within our sport but within our sport on the side of ADCC. Right. Because the IBJJF, which does – they have no no gi worlds and they have gi worlds in all their competitions. They're the biggest jiu-jitsu federation. They do have banned substances.

They do have USADA testing. So the thing is if an athlete goes and they compete in ADCC where it's okay for them to take tests and trend and all these things, but then they come and they compete in the IBJJF, well, if you're on shit, you can't be competing in the IBJJF. That's just the rules. But everybody has like a, when it comes to jujitsu, people look at it as being a very drug-riddled sport. Yeah. If you get the Olympic Committee involved, I believe, which I don't even know if it's the Olympic Committee.

I'm not sure if I'm saying that right. But if you get like USADA involved, that's the governing body that tests people for performance enhancing drugs that's associated with the Olympics. What they do is they won't allow you to participate in non-drug tested things. So that's like with the IPF slash USAPL. I don't know if they still have the same rules and stuff like that, but sometimes you can even get, in that particular case in that but um sometimes you can even get um

in that particular case in powerlifting sometimes you can get banished from the ipf and usapl which usapl is the american governing body for powerlifting ipf is the international you can get banned from uh just having a coach i, that is somebody that is competing in non-tested federated. Something crazy like that where you're like, wait, now you're checking in on my friends, my coaches.

This is getting to be kind of weird. Yeah. But that's the thing. It's kind of odd. Cyborg had this post, and Andrew, you'll be able to pull it up because there's two really interesting posts about this.

Cyborg mentioned how, I'm going to just summarize what he said he's very big in the jujitsu community he's probably the biggest bust out of all of them he's won a world championship like 15 times or 12 times or something like that yeah he's won worlds quite a few times andrew did cyborg do any type of mma is that also how he grew because people know cyborg outside of jujitsu yeah yeah right i believe so i think so yeah um but the big thing he was saying in his post was that like we train really hard we don't get paid like professional athletes um we make our living with this training we should be able to take

things that allow us to recover and train as hard as we do that was his big point um but the thing is it's like it's still a banned substance. So even though you have to train hard as an athlete and this stuff, like whatever test probably does help you recover well, right, it doesn't really excuse it. It's still a banned substance within that federation, and that's not something that's new. It's like that's been how it's been for over a decade. And this isn't like hard to know. you you you know you do jujitsu andrew you know like you hear guys talk about it this is known that this league and this federation they will test people right and it's you're not supposed to be on performance enhancing drugs yeah but the thing

is known right it is very well known but i think they like this crackdown has been something that hasn't happened like this before um you guys remember felipe pena who was supposed to fight gordon ryan he was popped twice in 2015 he was popped in the ibjjf and given like i think a two or three year suspension then he was popped again in like 2020 in the ibjj who just never came off like but but that's the thing. I love the commitment and consistency. And the jiu-jitsu community, he's a really technical guy. He's Brazilian.

He's a great show of the sport, but even he was popped twice. They popped Keenan Duarte, who's a really good competitor, back in 2019. It's not like they haven't been able to pop big competitors. It's just that it doesn't seem that the testing has been as consistent as it's not like they haven't been able to pop big competitors it's just that they don't doesn't seem that the testing has been as consistent as it's been now so now people are

going to be careful yeah that's really surprising because like you know whenever i would hear about professional athletes getting popped it was never the dudes on the championship teams it was never you know it was always just like some random dude on the bench somewhere. And it's like, oh, look, let's make an example out of him. Oh, careful. So the fact that it's these five dudes and all of them won. All of them were first and second. First and second place. So like to me, that's making a really big statement.

But from what you're saying, it's not the first time that they've actually cracked down and popped people, especially those at like the top of the top level but it's been the first time that it's been so many at once got it okay because it's like when they pop canaan duarte i don't know if they tested any of the other guys and canaan's jacked right so every time people have been popped it's been like one competitor here one competitor here not five guys at the same time that's a lot yeah power project family how's it going? Now, we've talked about blood work and getting your labs done on this podcast with many different guests,

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In track and field, I remember there was a case where they, I think they, they're like, all right, the first guy tested positive. So we're going to give the gold to the second place guy and then the second place guy tested and it was like i think that was lance armstrong it's like where do we oh it might have been cycling yeah it was like they're like where do we give the okay the last place guy won you know i could again something i could be butchering it but i believe it was the second to last place uh cyclist was the first one that came up non, you know, an actual natty athlete. That's how far down they had to go.

There was also a famous American shot putter that won a gold medal at the airport because he won his medal like, I don't know, a couple years prior or a year at least prior. his medal like, I don't know, a couple years prior or a year at least prior. But he actually finished second at the actual event because he lost to somebody that later on got popped. So could you imagine like that's just like. That would suck. Yeah. I don't know. Like that doesn't, I wonder, I wonder what that feels like.

Like maybe he still celebrated the same way. Maybe he still cried. Maybe he was pumped like but kind of doesn't sound doesn't sound like what you picture in your head you know i'm going to the olympics like it's something happens only four years uh for a track athlete track and field athlete that's such a huge thing like there's no no uh greater honor than to you know go and uh compete for your country and he did, and he did it to the best of his ability, threw the fucking shot, put as far as he could. Somebody else beat him. He thought it was under the same conditions that he's,

same standards that he's held to. And it turns out, like, three years later or whatever it was, that that's not the case. That's weird. Like, that's a real mind fuck. It is because you lost the moment, right? Like the moment that you – In front of people and so on and then all the people that you communicate with when you come back from that trip.

I don't know if it was in Tokyo or where the Olympics were that year, but you come back from this trip. Oh, how did it go? Or people saw it like, hey, congratulations. You won a silver. Yeah, I wish I got the gold. There's all that shit. I'm going to train harder. Like his his whole life think about all that right the life trajectory of that guy could have been altered so much like who knows maybe he was still training like a

savage because he's like i'm gonna go back again and win that motherfucking gold medal yeah now he gets it handed to him at some ceremony at the airport and you know is he like i got two more years of training fuck it i'm the guy won my gold on it yeah i'm retired yeah i don't know weird no absolutely like potential sponsorships and opportunities because at that time that's when it is kind of a big deal a few years later he's thinking about the, right? And imagine in like a fight or in jujitsu, people saw you, you got beat. Another guy choked you out. Another guy made you tap or beat you on points. Yeah, we talked about this previously, but like my thing with like drug testing and all that stuff,

I just feel like if they tested everyone that podiumed, I think it would scare off a lot of people from actually doing it or from doing PEDs because it's like, okay, I'm going to take this stuff and I want it to make me better than everybody. But if I accomplish that, then I have to somehow figure out and prove that I didn't take anything. And I just find it curious. Like I was curious, like why don't, why don't they do that for everything as far as always tested stuff yeah like if the the people that got that that win put it that way yeah top three they all get drug tested automatically super bowl nba championship all that right yeah wow yeah i mean the mv mvp

you're the first one congratulations you won the first drug test yeah it would be interesting it would be they do that in natural bodybuilding like the wnbf at least like they will test the winners of the shows that's awesome but in jujitsu i feel like maybe they're going to be doing this more often which will be good but the mind fuck is is kind of rough um andrew you have tom de blas's post over there and i'm gonna read it real quick. Tom DeBlas is like a staple in the jujitsu community. He's a legend as far as no gi and just jujitsu is concerned. He's doing a lot of cool stuff,

but he has this picture and he said, this is the last picture you will see of me without exogenous testosterone. I won my first Pan Ams, my first nationals, my first ADC trials, completely steroid free. I was 27 when I started supplementing low dose testosterone. Why am I telling you? Because I feel it's irresponsible if I don't. You also heard me say that everyone takes something. That's a bit

irresponsible for me to say, because if you are under the age of 25 years old, I'm totally and utterly against you taking steroids. Your body is still developing at high levels. Yes. 98% of people, in my opinion, take something. The guy you see me competing against here, I'd be willing to bet, is on a ton of stuff, and I didn't care. So this is where it gets weird because Tom said he won big tournaments without taking anything. And at a certain point, he felt he had to start taking exogenous testosterone because he felt well for me to be at the next level all the other guys are doing it so i need to do it too if i want to be able to compete against the other guys but it's still against the rules right so it's it's a tough thing because like i'm gonna be real even myself i know a bunch a bunch of people do think i'm taking shit

but sometimes when i see stuff like this i'm like, being able to recover like a madman would be amazing. Because like workouts are fatiguing. Jiu-jitsu is fatiguing. But if you could wake up every day and just session after session, you're feeling like a beast. I get why that's – what's the word I'm looking for? Appetizing. I get why that's appetizing. Enticing.

Enticing. But also appetizing for. Appetizing. I get why that's appetizing. Enticing. Enticing. But also appetizing. And also appetizing. It looks like it might taste good. Yeah. You know, and also too, I think it's easy to be like, oh, well, I'll just, you know, I'm going to take like a little bit of this other stuff that's like kind of just, you know what I mean? Like there's gray area shit.

Hey, what if I just took a little bit of Anivar? Like maybe that will give me the recovery I'm looking for. But am I going to get really, you know, popped? And nowadays there's so much access to so many different people. Like that would be a pretty easy search on the internet to kind of find out, hey, if I took 25 to 50 milligrams of Anabar for six weeks, would I test positive? You know, and having a, like whatever it is they test, usually they test your estroidal, your estrogen, I think,

to your testosterone or something like that. And there's so many great coaches. There's so many people on the internet that talk about this stuff. Like I know behind the scenes people that know stuff that just would blow people's minds. It's crazy what's available. It's crazy what's available. It's crazy what's out there. Talking about Mr. Triana? I'm not talking about anybody in particular.

No one. But there's just a lot of options in terms of performance-enhancing drugs. So even now, so these guys are going to test and like, oh, we're going to, I don't think these leagues and federations and stuff, I think they want to make money. You know, I think they want good competition. They want some good battles, you know. You know, a lot in some of these competitions, people are in a gi, so you can't see the body. It's different than what you see Gordon Ryan doing with no gi and stuff like that. But I still think it's helpful to have fit athletes that look good.

And I think that there's so many different things that people can take that they're not testing for. And the athletes are aware of what they test for. The coaches are even more aware of what's tested for. And they know plenty of ways around that. So if this sport, if Jiu Jitsu's already been pretty infiltrated with some performance enhancing drugs, those guys and many other people now, they're just not going to take testosterone. They're just going to take other stuff. There's so many ways around it. We should have

jeff novitsky on the podcast again uh he does the uh testing for the ufc um you know are there people that are that have are there people in the ufc right now that have the belt that are using performance enhancing drugs or someone say yeah that's kind of an unfair advantage um yeah i would say so i would say that you know i don't know for sure but again i think these tests aren't too hard to beat you know what though like the unfair advantage thing and i know we've had this conversation a ton of times but like okay testosterone and steroids are unfair advantages but i mean you look at i think guys in the nba are great examples like lebron james uh Giannis Antetokounmpo or whatever.

These individuals had certain parents that allowed them. Giannis has an Achilles tendon that's longer than, I think, anybody, right? LeBron James is— I want to see that guy play live. Oh, God. Right? He's a fucking great bully. I saw this clip of him bullying the sons and like Chris Paul was there and

he was just like this thinking of who to pass to. Wouldn't that be awesome to see him live? Yeah. They were just here I think. Really? Like last night they just beat the Kings. It went down to the fourth. Anyways,

go ahead. But like, um, being, genetics parents. Yeah. Like you can't pick your parents and there are certain athletes right where people already assume lebron takes a bunch of shit or lebron is on test or whatever but i mean

you see what he was doing when he was 19 18 years old in the nba he was still scoring like 20 22 points per game he was a he was a boy that was bullying young men and he's been averaging like 25 through 30 his whole career. No amount of drugs is going to allow anybody to be able to compete with that guy. It's an unfair advantage. His mom showed like a basketball hoop that he dunked on when he was like six or something or five. It was some age where you can't really jump very high. You see little kids, they jump a lot. And it wasn't,

we're not talking about an eight-foot rim or anything like that, but it was pretty high and I was like, that's wild. I've never seen a little kid be able to really jump very high. I mean, they can jump, they jump around, they hop around, but they don't really jump very high. Yeah, and it's odd because

for example, I don't think it's good that there are drugs in the sport. And the goal for drug testing is to even the playing field. But if you do manage to even the playing field, with jiu-jitsu, technique is what matters, not purely physicality. But the guys who have the genetic gifts and that are also very technical, it's unfair me let me take some stuff okay my dad's five foot two you know and then it brings you help me out over here it brings you to the gordon ryan thing because when when nikki was on the show and he said well the reason why gordon ryan's so good steroids right and even gordon's game his jujitsu game isn't super

explosive he uses amazing technique but if you see the way he looks and his transformation drugs were a part of it and he's been open about that it makes you wonder would he be Gordon Ryan without steroids I mean that that that's a legitimate question. I'm not trying to take away from the guy's skill because he is the best, but he's the best plus a little something, right? He's still the best though. Yeah, I think a lot of our decisions really guide and kind of put us in a certain direction.

And I would just say for myself, like I'm not the same without steroids. I don't know if I would have been able to build some of the things that I built. The slingshot probably wouldn't have even been created because I tore my pec partially because I was on steroids. I was on performance enhancing drugs that allowed me to handle more weight than I otherwise could do naturally. It allowed me to be at a higher body weight than I otherwise could achieve naturally. It allowed me to have more muscle mass than I could achieve naturally. And maybe even on the negative side, maybe it made my body tighter than normal.

Steroids plus Mark Bell equals slingshot. Yeah, it's the path to the riches, right? I think if you think about great musicians and great people over the years, people use – I think Jimi Hendrix was pretty famous for using LSD. And there's a long list of the Beatles and just all these people using psychedelics. It's been around forever. People have been utilizing drugs and alcohol to put them in a different frame or different state of mind to be able to achieve something different. And would they achieve the same thing without?

I don't think so. I think maybe they would still be unique people, most likely. They still are probably driven in a lot of ways. But I think Arnold Schwarzenegger, maybe he never even comes to America unique people most likely they they still are probably driven in a lot of ways but i think you know arnold schwarzenegger maybe he never even comes to america without steroids because he the attraction armed was how jacked he was at such a young age i think joe weeder saw him he you know and so forth and the rest is history he's in fucking movies and winning olympias and um you

know it's ronnie coleman ronnie coleman is jay cutler jay cutler is joe rogan joe rogan without in movies and winning Olympias. And, you know, it was Ronnie Coleman. Ronnie Coleman is Jay Cutler. Jay Cutler is Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan without marijuana, things like, I'm not saying, I'm not trying to discredit anything that anyone's done. I have the most respect for Joe Rogan and what he's done. But again, I think these things, the psychedelics and some of these things, they shape kind of part of who you are. And steroids have been a huge part of my life for like over the last 20 years.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I was going to say just, you know, when we're talking about, you know, advantages and disadvantages, Mark, you've said, you know, something along the lines of like how successful you'll be could be dependent on like your zip code or your area code. And my son, he was, he was doing some tricep pushdowns today on our dope-ass free motion cable machine. Wait a second, Andrew.

Your son's only like two, right? Exactly. So here's my point. We got to call Child Protective Services. BCPS. Too much tricep work? Too much. He's getting jacked already.

But I don't know if he's going to compete in anything. Let's just just for the sake of this argument say he does he's at an advantage because he has a garage gym you know like he was born into that like you know maybe somebody else doesn't have access to a gym at all and so like the first time they compete together is the first time that this other kid might start working out or this other athlete whatever it may be and so like that got me thinking like oh shit he's in at it in an advantage that's tough to say yeah um and then in regards to like you know the steroids and stuff um yeah okay let's just say that some governing body said you know what all right open the floodgates we're gonna just no more testing you

guys can do whatever you want because we're not going to stop you anyways there would still be an advantage because we have some better responders to certain things the the top guy could share everything that he takes and so now everyone's like oh that's the blueprint it's you know a gram of test and it's x and y and z and so now when the next person takes it damn i still lost well now i'm just going to take a little bit more and it's still not going to work like the top guys will still be the top guys but it's just funny because then people will be upset like oh he's just a better responder yeah to the gear so it's like i don't you can't really fix that by assuming or by opening up the floodgates and assuming that it's going to be even at that point yeah let me at the top of the things though like we, it's against the rules in the IBJJF. And everybody knows that.

It's not a surprise. Not a surprise. But the thing is, the unfortunate aspect is that some of these things kind of help these athletes recover. It helps these athletes not wear themselves into the ground. It lets them have longer careers. And that's a good thing. But it's still against the rules. Even though that's what Cyborg was saying.

This allows us to do this at a high level for a long time and bring attention to the sport. And that's great, but it's still against the rules. Yeah, maybe you got to like have – get a petition going and get a bunch of people to sit out and say, let's not participate here any longer and let's make a big deal of it and let's see if they'll change the rules. One of the things to think about is what's the root reason why steroids are banned in a lot of sports? Is there a real reason? Does someone have medical evidence on why they're illegal? Or is it simply because people think it's an unfair advantage and they don't want like, okay, you're taking that and I chose not to take it.

So now, like what is at the root of why it's illegal? Some people will try to say it's dangerous. Okay, it's dangerous. Do you have medical proof that it's dangerous? Do you have medical proof that it's dangerous? Do you have medical proof that it's not dangerous? It's an interesting thing to examine. And what if people could be on stuff, but they got tested for their health?

Like if health was a concern. Or what if there was... I mean, you start to get into crazy stuff because now you're talking about this guy took a little extra. You're only supposed to take this much. That could get really weird really fast. But what if you took the safety part out of it and said, we're just going to make sure the athletes are safe and we're going to test and make sure their blood markers are like reasonable. I think one thing is like, well, okay, this is the thing.

NBA, NFL, MLB, big sports that people look at as like, this is legitimate. Even though everyone like guys can get away with doing certain things at the professional level, those things are still banned.

Like when kids look at a high level basketball player, a kid's not like, okay, well I got this skill and I got to take some tests. It's like I need skill. And those are respected sports. And jiu-jitsu, I don't think – if it starts being okay to do that, you'll see a lot of guys or you already see guys who are young 1920 21 22 who are black belts who are destroying but now those guys are like huh this is just part of the process cyborg who's been

in this game for a long time all these guys who've been in this game for a long time it seems that test is just part of the formula to being great or this is just part of the formula of being great and then you're going to be seeing younger guys probably start hopping on stuff. There's a competitor right now who they've mentioned is going through arbitration and arbitration process. And it's apparently a young kid who's doing really well, but he's going through an arbitration process because he got popped for something. so they haven't released the name yet because it's not finalized but that's kind of just an example of how like if this stuff is so normal younger people are just going to start doing it just like you see in the fit bodybuilding side of fitness you see these young 16 17 18 year old tiktok kids who like oh i guess it's time to start my cycle of tests and so i've lifted for two years or i guess i'm going to start some trend because you see these 21-year-olds doing trend and they're open about it. That's the type of shit you'll see.

And that's not good. We know that's not good. It's also not good to put too much stock into any of these athletes. I mean, do you want your kids participating or doing anything that these athletes do recreationally? Probably not. recreationally like probably not you know um yeah it the um i do i do think that there needs to be like rules right like there's got to be because you're trying to have a competition uh that's somewhat equal for everybody and we know and we can talk about like oh well it's not fair because i grew up down the street from you know hodger gracie or whatever right like you can we can make up as many excuses as we yeah as we want like fuck that guy had

access to the gracies like from when the time he was three like that's crazy um but for in general you're trying to set the rules a very particular way so uh we all agree like this is the way we're going to fight this is the way that we're going to play football this is the way we're going to fight. This is the way that we're going to play football. This is the way we're going to play soccer. And then within that agreement, we're hoping that we all kind of stay within that. And it's disappointing when somebody does something outside of that. In football, you had some accusations against like the New England Patriots for like slightly deflating the football and and things like that and there's it's you would think to yourself why in the fuck does it need to be in the rule book how much the football is blown up to well because people will fucking cheat they're gonna find a way um why is there so many checks with the uniform you know they check your uniform

over and over again in football and there's you get fined if you're not wearing particular things or you're wearing something it's because people are going to do whatever the fuck they want they're going to try to advertise their own whatever during the super bowl and they're going to put it on their arm or something like that so there has to be like repercussions there has to be a rule and there's got to be a rule for everything if you ever try to explain soccer to somebody you ever try to play explain football to somebody you're explaining these rules to people and you're like these rules are so fucking dumb but you're like yeah there was this one time where this fucking team did this there was this one time where this other thing happened the new england

patriots before bill belichick and before tom brady they had and they play it up a lot. So to make it sound even crazier, but an ex-convict came onto the field with a snowplow and plowed a spot dry for the kicker to kick his field goal. There was no rule about it then. So they got to put a rule in there. You can't drive a fucking snow plow on a game when it's snowing to try to gain an advantage i mean you got you got to make a rule for just about everything the the uh the south park skit do you remember that where you know they were talking about like the the patriots they they cheated and then they're like no we're gonna clean it up we're gonna be honest this year we're not gonna cheat we're. We're just going to do our best. He's like, and then they lost.

And then they cheated again, but they won, so nobody cared. It's like, well, yeah, they keep winning. People forgot about how they filmed other teams' practices. And they could call the plays before they could. It's like, hey, Pat family, shut your mouth.

Not really, but kind of. You should keep your mouth shut when you're asleep. Now, on the podcast, we've been talking about the importance of nasal breathing for years. And we've been talking about using mouth tape during your sleep for years as it's going to help your sleep quality because you're going to be breathing through your nose. We had James Nestor, author of Why We Sleep. Actually, that was Matthew Walker. But James Nestor, author of Breathe. We had Patch McEwen.

But James Nath, author of Breathe. We have Patch McEwen. We've had so many people talk about the importance of taping your mouth and breathing through your nose when you sleep for your sleep quality, which helps your recovery, which helps every aspect of your health and fitness. So hostage tape. If you want to get some of this to help you sleep better and it also stays on your face if you're a bearded man, which is one of the big problems with mouth tape, head to hostage tape dot com slash power project. there you can actually get the power project annual deal which will give you a year supply of hostage tape 55 cents a day for tape pretty much and you'll be able to save 150 along with getting two tins a year supply of tape and a blindfold that is going to be something that you want to get your hands on links in the description along with the podcast show notes. Shut your f***ing mouth.

Every athlete wants an edge. We're doing all this shit. We focus on getting good sleep. We have f***ing cold plunges. We have a bed that regulates temperature. That bed is an edge. We know that better sleep leads to better recovery.

That's a big performance enhancer so but you know the drug side of things it is different it is exogenous i don't know but it's good that i think it's good that the sport hopefully is going to be a bit more stringent on that um but i don't know how you could possibly make it fair for everybody because once you open those floodgates man it's like there's some people who are like well i'm doing this but if i do more and then if i do more and then if i do more and it's just like some people like someone's gonna fuck themselves up yeah someone will oh yeah you know what i mean because there's ways to do that

shit safely but someone will take it too far in jujjitsu, there's, you know, in bodybuilding, I guess the three of us would agree that it would be, I mean, I guess impossible is not always a great word, but like it's next to impossible. It's like 99% not probable that someone could currently be an IFBB professional bodybuilder and compete on the Olympia stage without taking steroids? On the Olympia stage? On the Olympia stage?

Highly unlikely. I know a guy, Kendall Richmond, he just got his pro card as a classic physique pro, and he's natural. Now, it'd be dope if he could make it to the Olympia stage because he has an amazing physique. Now, it'd be dope if he could make it to the Olympia stage because he has an amazing physique. But currently, there are no natural bodybuilders or classic physique competitors on the Olympia level stage. And the likelihood of somebody winning is even – right? I mean it's just – The amount of size that those guys have, it's just – it's kind of insane. Right. But in jujitsu,

there's a lot more at play than just your aesthetics and just your muscle mass. So maybe in jujitsu, there's a lot more things at play than just your, than just things that are going to get really enhanced from performance enhancing. Now I do recognize that, uh, performance enhancing drugs are going to amplify all of your training. So that's a big advantage. But I'm sure there are probably plenty of people right now winning big tournaments that aren't taking anything. Absolutely. Right?

Absolutely. There's a ton of guys that are winning tournaments that aren't on anything, right? That's the difference though. Like bodybuilding kind of is a game of mom and dad and muscle insertions. Because a lot of the way you look and the way you build muscle is going to be based off your genetics and your parents. The top level of bodybuilding, natural or not, is a game of good mom and dad, good genetics, on the IFBB side, plus some drugs, the guys who still have the greatest genetics are going to end up on top. Look at Phil Heath, right?

Like, you can take as much. Yeah, that's Kendall right there. He looks fucking amazing. And he's natty. He's natty. Looks big, too. Yeah. And he's somebody that I've seen in person.

And it's not one of those things where it's like, oh, when you see him in person, then you can be like, okay, maybe they aren't. Like't like he was somebody i was like there's no fucking way like i remember i came and talked to you right away and i'm like in sema there's no way and you were like he is and i'm like golly like he is big he's a big dude that's crazy but like you know you compare him to a lot of the other guys that were on that stage. First off, he looks the best, but hopefully it'd be sick to see if he could get to the Olympia stage without taking anything. I wonder what he's going to do there. But again, that is a game of bodybuilding, and physique sports are a game of genetics.

Because on the IFBB side, it doesn't even matter the drugs you take. The guys with the best genetics and the best drugs are going to beat everybody out that's that's just facts right but jujitsu fucking sports baseball soccer basketball all of these you can have great genetics but they're still very skill based if you're someone who has who can build a lot of skill you can get to the top of those sports without having to take stuff. You know, that's, that's dope. Yeah.

Mark, really quick. I'm just trying to clarify. Um, cause one of the competitors got popped for trend. Um, I could be wrong, but it wasn't as far as I understood.

I thought it like destroyed your cardio and like you would get like trend cough and it just made you like wheeze just like walking to the dumbbell rack and stuff like that yeah it certainly seems to bring its fair share of anxiety with it oh um but I I think that that's like dose related so you know and I don't know what any of these jujitsu guys know about anabolics and stuff like that. I'm assuming they probably don't know much. So a guy probably took it to be like lean and in good shape. Yeah, it's probably not a smart move to utilize that drug.

And if you were to utilize that drug for some particular reason, you'd probably use low dosage of it. But a low dosage of Trenbolone goes a really long way. It's very strong. It's very powerful. You hear about us talking about it all the time. I mean, it's like a super steroid in a way. It's way stronger than like testosterone and stuff like that. But I also think that we're not too far away,

and it might already be out there already, but we're not too far away from things being way better than steroids. Steroids don't even, steroids don't work nearly like good enough. They work pretty well. They can do some pretty good stuff. But it's more of a cascade of a bunch of different things. When you have your like a pharmacology tackle box, you know, full of many different things that would be something that could replicate somebody's genes a little bit. You know, so if somebody could get an infusion of like IGF-1 growth hormone, testosterone and all these different things on a daily basis, those kinds of things would move people in directions that like we've never seen before but i also just think in general there's going to be things that are way more powerful than steroids uh probably coming pretty soon and what happens when you stop taking a quote

low dose of trend like do you keep it all do you do you keep some of it it just depends on how long you've been off of something for but you know you you know, you can't take something for like six months and then think that, you know, you're off now for six months that it's going to really help you or assist you at all. It's probably not going to do anything. I just wanted to clarify because the way it was phrased, it was like, oh, I could just take a little bit and it'll go a long way, but it's like, no, but if you stop then so does the benefits. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, and it comes in and out of your system pretty quickly.

Trent's a good place to end this. What do you guys think? What do you guys think about this? This whole jujitsu drug bust? Is it good for the sport? Is it bad for the sport? Let us know in the comments. I was just going to say, I think it's good because like the UFC when it got sold for i don't know how many billions of dollars or whatever it was um they wanted to

clean it up to legitimize it you know it wasn't it wasn't considered a real sport right espn wouldn't even cover it and now it's on their fucking app they couldn't compete in new york and now that's like one of their biggest you know venues so I think it's a great thing so I'm curious to know what yeah what everyone else thinks yeah no uh field goal soccer kicks uh while the guy's on all fours yeah you know no steroids like let's clean it up and not have it be so barbaric and I think they did a great job of having people recognize that it's a sport and Joe Rogan I think was a huge part of that the way that it's a sport and joe rogan i think was a huge part of that the way that he announces and the way that he comments and the way that he's explaining what's

going on because people used to boo and be like boo you know when we just want to see the haymakers yeah when people were wrestling but now if someone's grappling and someone does a counter you hear the crowds like excited by it because now people are recognizing like, oh, that was, you know, that's probably really fucking hard and really athletic to do. In terms of performance enhancement, I just want to say that, you know, again, the amplifier is what it does with your training. You know, it's not something that like you would take for like three weeks and notice some crazy surge of strength or anything, although you could have a little bit of increase, it's something that if someone was to utilize it for a while, along with

training, it could be a major amplifier of your training. So you could just say like, it maybe makes your training like maybe like 2% less difficult, but it's 2% less difficult each day. So you know how you kind of wear it from life and from girlfriend, wife, business, all these different things, doing your sport, lifting. You just kind of wear it from one day to the next sometimes. Well, steroids allow you to not feel that same way. It's like you're not dragging around that backpack all the time.

So that's what they do for you, and I think that's what the big deal is. Andrew, take us on out of here. Sorry, caught me in mid-cough. All right, CornFeds, drop those comments down below. Let us know what you guys think about today's conversation. Hit that Like button and subscribe to the podcast. And head over to PowerProject.live for all things podcast-related. Follow the podcast at MBPowerproject all over the place.

My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ and Seema, where are you at? Discord's down below guys. At and Seema Inning on Instagram and YouTube. At and Seema Inning on TikTok and Twitter. Mark? I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.