Mark Bell's Power Project - Bodybuilding & Powerlifting Are BAD for Your Health? || MBPP Ep. 825

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how much is too much when it comes to training. At what point does it become unhealthy and how do we tip toe the line to make the most gains but have the lowest risk. 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://www.naboso.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 15% off! ➢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 Code: POWERVIVO20 for 20% 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://eatlegendary.com Use 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://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject  ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok  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

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automatically links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Hello? Don't do that. He's just trying to fix his mustache. I saw the funniest comment the other day. Someone said, since when did Sergeant Doakes get on this podcast? You know who Sergeant Doakes is?

I don't know. You don't know who Sergeant Doakes is? From Dexter? No. Hey, motherfucker. That doesn't, nah, you never watched Dexter watched i've never seen it surprise let me just one second one second surprise motherfucker james dokes hey andrew just type in dokes on youtube and see if you could find that video where like he's in the red shirt that shit is hilarious he's got a like uh in that picture he had a pretty hardcore like uh tucked in shirt that's always an interesting look when you tuck it in like that

it's the easiest halloween costume i think i might just do that yeah there you go but yeah i saw that coming i'm like hey man thanks for the idea i'm just seeing the surprise motherfucker just play that it's great it's comedy it's funny and if you guys haven't watched dexter great series i watched it it used to be my comfort show to go to sleep years ago some may think i'm a psychopath for that but it's okay it's like hacking up bones or something right he's a serial killer yeah the second video this one yeah that one yeah i'll have to probably edit this out anyway yeah that's where that meme came from that's his line all right we can find it all right cool now nobody needs to watch dexter it's such a good show it's pretty boring that was the best part yeah that was the best part surprise motherfucker that guy's

kind of jacked he is dokes was jacked he was jacked what He was jacked. What do we got? What's in that cup? What you got in that cup? Aside from mold. It's spores. Okay, I washed it this time. I did wash it before I used it this time. PowerProject.Live, peeps.

Head over there. Get yourself your... Is that the same mug that I was using to wash my toast butters in? Oh, yeah. I think it is. It could be. The I was using to wash my toast butters in? Oh, yeah. I think it is. It could be. The liquid tastes a little bit sour, but it's good for the gut. The gut microbiome.

The gut microbiome needs variety if you want to be able to digest food well. So, info at powerproject.live to get your double pussy mug. It's just powerproject.live. God! I can't even get our website right, guys. It's okay. Powerproject.live, microdose shirt, mug. You have to spell out dot to get there.

And it's cap sensitive. D-O-T. And you have to manually put the H-T-T-P-S dot blah, blah, blah. It's an old website. Yeah. It's a long story. It's on DOS. Go there.

Why do we confuse people so much i don't know we'll tell people like how important it is to be like strict with their food and then we start talking about donuts and cookies because they're good by the way this is this is another side thing i ended up on a weird side of youtube this morning y'all seen django unchained yeah i absolutely love django unchained that's a great movie i have to re-watch it though because i just uh i came across jamie foxx talking about uh the scene where leo like broke his hand open you remember that oh yeah yeah he was like yeah yeah saying ad-libbed and stuff yeah yeah that shit i watched that scene i'm like wow i need to watch this movie again but did he talk about how hard it was for leonardo dicaprio to say that right that's the clip and he

was like no man just like it's it's art right like just go for it and he was like i i don't know and apparently the next day like after jamie foxx and samuel jackson said that to him he saw him the next day he's letting it fly no he was like hey what's up leo and leo didn't even respond to him he just walked by him because he was in character yeah because uh jamie foxx was like we are property all right look at us like property so the next day he comes in and he's methoding it so jamie's like what's up and he doesn't even pay him attention he's like that's mine oh my gosh that's i gotta re-watch it man that movie was and i forgot like i pounded his fist on the table or something and he cut his hand open on something like legitimately cut his hand open on something he just kept going and like the blood i think got him fired up and it's like it's it's an incredible scene unbelievable in that

scene he the woman he has he smeared his bloody hand on her face during that that wasn't part of it he wasn't but he went like this on her and she had his blood all over her face they almost have been like what the fuck yeah yeah it's a crazy scene it's on youtube so y'all can watch that that's where i like i said it's funny so i was watching the um or uh auditions for super bad and it's fucking incredible because like the two main characters so uh seth rogan was like being um the the bigger dude i forgot what his uh jonah hill there you go and then the other guy's name uh something sarah michael sarah michael sarah but he's reading the the the script as the character in super bad but everyone around him

is just fucking laughing but he does not break character and it's so weird because it's like obviously i know that this goes on but seeing it just raw and like a fucking shitty little handheld like a can't like uh like mini dv camera or something from back in the day and it's like i wanted to send it to my daughter because she's like getting ready for this play and stuff and she's like really into it and she like likes acting and stuff i wanted to send it to her but like they started talking about like dick and pussy and all kinds of funny shit in the script so i was like i learned at some point but i couldn't send it okay today's not that point but it just i don't know dude it's so cool because like the like being in that character not breaking when everybody you can hear them howling laughing

and then then when fucking mclovin comes on screen same thing they're all going nuts and it's just like, dude, yeah, these fucking, the art of it is fucking, it's incredible what they do. I think, I think there's shows, you know,

more than one show, but I think Curb Your Enthusiasm is like pretty much like they give you like a topic and they just start going back and forth. That's a great show. I've heard so much about it. It's so good. Isn't it like, they don't have lines, right?

Like, yeah, from what I've heard. Yeah. I got to watch it. It's really good. I don't think it aged well because like the last time i i looked at it like literally like standard definition didn't age well like it it looks like shit so it kind of takes you out of it but it's really good that's the show it's still going yeah yeah it's still his name it's still

going um yeah his name doesn't come to mind at the moment, but it's the guy that did Seinfeld. And then in this show, there's one episode in particular where he's trying to get clout from when he did Seinfeld. Larry David. Larry David. And he's wearing a satin jacket from Seinfeld at a bar. He's trying to get people's attention. Nobody knows who the fuck he is. He's kind of be like, you know that show? I wrote that show.

I know I wasn't old when Seinfeld was on, but I watched it as an adult. I was like, I don't get all the wise- I love shows like that. Like, what about Raymond? Like, I never got it. Everybody Loves Raymond was good. Everybody Loves Raymond. There's shows that I've seen that I like.

That show's good. Yeah, I never, I just, I like Ray Romano. I think he's awesome. Like, he's in Ice Age, age right he's the holy mammoth he makes a badass holy mammoth but i never got that show you watch the nanny with fran drescher no no i guess that's because i was in a house full of women so oh well but uh the the the dad on i mean i also watched The Golden Girls. I've seen every episode maybe twice.

Great show. That's funny and a lot of that too. But Raymond's dad on that show is fucking incredible. That dude's so funny because he's so rude to everybody. I think if you don't like something, there's no turning back. You can't all of a sudden... Because I'm thinking of characters on some of these shows. And yeah, you're, because I'm thinking of like characters on some of these shows. And yeah, like you're mentioning, you know, this particular character and you want to tell your friend, yeah, but this guy's dope.

And then you're like, I can't. He doesn't. It's fine. Like, it's over. He doesn't really like it. It's cool. It's all right. And see, we're talking about Dexter.

They're like off air. I was telling him like, well, do you like I watched this one episode and I predicted the whole thing. It was like not entertaining. I was literally bored. But he's like, dude, it's really good. But you're right. I'm like, I'm already out. Like, I can't. Dexter is formulaic.

It is formulaic. But I guess it's just something about the Miami vibes is so soothing in that show, even though he kills people in every episode. I'm telling you, I used there is a point in my life where I was just like, let Dexter play and I would just fall asleep. I saw something really cool from Christian Bale the other day. It was a clip where he was talking about career suicide and he was talking about the movie that he made where he was like murdering people. And he was just this like psycho. Well, we talked about the other day american psycho american psycho yeah american psycho and he was uh talking

about the role as batman and he was just talking about taking on all these roles and how uh detrimental it was going to be to his career and he was like those are the roles for me he's like i'm going to select those on purpose and you remember he did that other role too where he lost like i don't know. He's already like a lean in shape guy. Lost like 70 pounds or something. It was just, you could see like his spine and all that shit. It was wild.

Yeah. He was dope in Thor also. Yeah. He was the main bad guy. Oh yeah. That movie. Yeah. Yeah.

He was good. I mean, I guess this kind of leads into our conversation in terms of like, you know, how far can somebody take something to where it becomes unhealthy? Because we're in health and fitness where we try to give people habits and we try to implement habits into our lives to become healthier and more fit. But at what stage is it like no longer health and fitness? And is that a problem? Like, you know, it's interesting. There's this guy,

Vitruvian Physique, and Greg obviously made a video about his prep, but Vitruvian Physique. Coach Greg. Coach Greg. Coach Greg made a video about him. And Vitruvian Physique is going through a natural bodybuilding prep. And the interesting thing is every natural bodybuilder who has gotten stage lean has had the point where their testosterone just plummets. That happened to me in my last prep. For the last four or five months of my prep, I had no libido. The girl I was with, I had no desire to have sex with her. I just really wanted to eat food because I was so lean that I know I didn't get it tested.

But because my libido was gone, I knew that my testosterone was in the shitter. And then post-show, it took me about four months to start feeling normal again. But I didn't need to use TRT or anything. And this Vidruvian Vizit guy, he made a video saying, hey, guys, I might actually need to get on TRT, HRT. But I don't know if he realizes

that's actually just something that happens if you get that lean naturally. Your test will hit the shitter. It happens to all of us. Leave that picture up for a little bit. Yeah. It happens to all of us. So it's definitely unhealthy at a certain extent, but implementing aspects of bodybuilding can be very healthy. This is a very interesting before and after picture because I think there would be a lot of people who would be like, I dig the picture on the left way more. Yeah.

To me, it looks healthier. He looks more muscular. He looks like he might be a little bit of a mixed athlete, like being able to be strong and being able to, uh, you know, do other sports and stuff like that. And in the other picture, uh, even though he still is muscular, he looks skinny. He kind of looks skinny. And I think a lot of people would be like, yeah, I'd rather – and it's whatever.

Everyone has different flavors of what they like. But, yeah, it's like you can take this stuff way too far. And also, like, is it even attractive? You know, is it even something that is going to kind of help you get whatever it is that you might be trying to get out of whatever it is the hell that you're trying to do in the particular sport? But you can take these things way too far, and we've seen it in powerlifting. We've seen it in bodybuilding. Powerlifting for me, it was like, well, let me just gain weight and kind of see where it takes me.

And you gain weight, and you reassess, and you're like, well, I work pretty good. Let me gain some more weight. Let me reassess. And then next thing you know, you're in this trap and you're in this area where what you're doing is very unhealthy. I never really got into lifting or any other fitness pursuit as anything healthy from when I was younger. And even kind of now, I don't really care that much. Like I think my health is my health and I'm going to be conscious of it and I want to be aware of it.

That's why I get blood work. That's why we do stuff with AmeriHealth and I start to kind of examine those things. But like when I work out, it's not in the – it's not for health. I'm trying to, I guess, do certain things for performance. If the blood work comes back and something's off, that's when I might have to reevaluate some of the things that I'm doing. But I'm not really trying to like lift to necessarily be healthier. I like to lift kind of more for the aesthetics and more for the performance side of it. So the health side of things is something that is not always front of mind for me. But even when I was powerlifting, it was at least in the back of my head. Like even as I got bigger and bigger and bigger, it was there,

but the voice got less and less and less at a certain point because you end up being able to rationalize anything. Like, oh, I'm just going to do this one more meet. Ah, you know, I'm 300. I'm going to go up a little bit heavier and see what happens when I'm there. And I'm going to do this. Okay bit heavier and see what happens when I'm there and I'm going to do this okay cool I did a 800 pound bench but like it would be sick to do 900 you know

I came like like uh two inches away from locking out 400 kilos 881 pounds you know and I I wanted to do 900 I did 900 in training off some boards and stuff like that on a bench press. And it was something that I was like, you know, I wanted to do more. I squatted over 1,000. Then I wanted 1,050. I squatted 1,050. And then I wanted 1,100. So you just kind of like want more, more, more.

I think the same thing happens with people getting leaner or people wanting to run. Like, oh, I just got this idea. I want to start to run. I want to be able to run two or three miles comfortably. And then the next thing you know, running further and further and further. And you might get into a zone where you end up like a Zach Bitter who does like ultra marathons, hundreds of miles. Um, before I don't want you guys to lose your train of thought, but, uh, what, what did that do to the rest of your life? Like going into training, and I mean in all aspects, like leaning up to that, but then board pressing, you said 400 kilos in training?

Yeah, well, in a meet, I almost benched 400 kilos just flat out, yeah. But just in general, like not even at the meet, like the training though, like what do you think that took away from the rest of your life? Like as far as like family or just like everything in general? I don't really know. I don't know a hundred percent of, uh, what it did, um, in those terms, but I do know that like zooming out and looking at somebody else's perspective, I was able to see hanging out with Jason Kalipa one day and he pointed to the wall at his gym and he was like, man, that was such a great day. And he's pointing to when he won the CrossFit Games championship in like 2008 or whatever that was or 2007. And his wife, Ashley, was there and she's like, no, it wasn't. And I was like, whoa. Wait, what did she say? I was like, there's a, no, it wasn't. And I was like, whoa. Wait, what did she say? I was like, there's a little bit of tension right here.

And I just thought to myself like, okay, that's two total, you know, same household, two people on the same mission. Ashley's supportive of Jason and vice versa. But she was like, that was not a good time. Like that was a rough time. Like for her, it was hard because he was so dedicated to the sport and so dedicated to what he was doing. So even within that household, how much time or how much effort took a toll on the family. And same thing when I did a bodybuilding show. I got like maybe six weeks into the prep and the contest was coming close.

And there was like, people were pretty damn pumped about it on social media. I didn't really expect to have that kind of response. I think people didn't expect for me to get in that good of shape like that. And, uh, my wife like came to me and she was like, I, she's like, I just, I can't take you like doing this again. And so that means there was something previously that, you know what I mean? So, and that I was like not even fully aware of.

And she was crying. She was really upset. And I said, this will be it. I promise you, I will not do another contest. And if I do, we will sit down and we'll have a real conversation about it.

So I'm done. I'm going to do one bodybuilding show and I'm out. That's what I did. And Andrew, I sent you a picture of like 2015 in terms of the show, but actually Mark, I have a question for you. Um, did Andy, uh, kind of go deeper about why she was like, what aspects of you would like was fucked up at the time of the bodybuilding show? Did she say what, or do you know what it was? Um, I, I think, well think well you know at that time we were in malibu uh like la area and

i was it was like supposed to be like a family vacation but because this bodybuilding thing came around i was like this is going to be a sick opportunity to train at gold's gym and michael hearn um and we did family stuff and things like that. But it's just different, you know. We're going out to eat and I'm like sipping on iced tea. Did you still have a sex drive? Yeah, the sex drive was still there. I mean, the last couple weeks or last maybe two weeks or so was off.

But that wasn't really the main, I don't think that was really the main issue. I think the main issue was just not fully being present. You know what I mean? Like, just like my mind being somewhere else kind of thing. Yeah. And I was asking you about that because this was towards, I think, yeah, this was in 2015. Um, it was like the last two months of my prep. But even the months leading to this show in Canada, I had no, I literally had no sex drive.

Like it wasn't there. I could try everything. And I was, I was literally just a mouth. Actually, you know what? Now that I think about it, I think that, so sex drive is a weird term because when you say sex, I'm thinking about sex, but it wasn't sex. It was just like no desire for affection. None. Like none.

Like I don't need it and I don't want to give it. You didn't? Neither way. Yeah. It didn't hit like it was. And I'm a person that like seeks it like i'm all lovey-dovey i'm huggy smoochy kissy snuggle bear you know i i like love that kind of stuff so i think that is probably what tripped her out i never even thought about until you're

kind of putting those terms exactly and those are the that's the thing that happens whether you're on the enhanced side of things i can like i know some people that are prepping right now, or on the natural side of things, like so many guys at the tail end and even women at the tail end of their prep, your hormones will go down. I had a client that he chose to get his levels checked. His testosterone went down to like 250 nanograms per deciliter. And before prep, I think they were around like six something. So he got shredded though. But being that shredded, you're not supposed to be this shredded for a long time. You dip in, you dip out. Right. And it's like for a period of time, it's okay. But again, it's kind of interesting. The Vitruvian guy, it's like, this is part of the process of becoming that

lean. I don't know who can dodge it unless you are taking exogenous testosterone, then that's not a problem. But if you are getting this lean, those are the things that happen. I do think though that the benefit of getting this lean or getting a stage lean like you got is when you come out of it, you tend to have a better body fat distribution. What tends to happen to it, and so many competitors will echo this sentiment, when they get that lean and they lose body fat on all those areas, when they gain body fat back, it tends to gain in a more even fashion. Whereas now, when they are in their off seasons, they tend to be able to, oh, I still have lines in my legs. Oh, I still have lines in my abs,

and I'm 12%, 13%, 15% body fat. That's happened to a lot of competitors. So when you see people have competed for a long time in their off season, but they still look good, it's a byproduct of going to those deep levels of leanness and tapping into that a little bit then coming out. It's crazy. no pump and you put the picture on the right uh next to a picture of you right now yeah people would think that in the picture on the right they'd be like he's on the juice as opposed to just the way you look just right now without like a pump yeah plus i'm 25 pounds have 27 pounds heavier right now than i was there right like they would be people would be convinced for sure they'd be like i was just like no way. Oh, absolutely.

But that's the thing. It's like when I know people say that to you anyway, but yeah. But when any guy, any natural guy to get stage lean, they look so crazy because they're so lean that people just like things pop out more when you have a pump, like every vein comes out of everywhere.

Right. I think for me, you know, you could make an argument like the bodybuilding, a bodybuilding show may have been the healthiest thing I ever did. I don't know. Why? Just because I've been leaner ever since. You know, I weighed 235 when I competed and I haven't, or 230, 235 ish, somewhere in that range.

I haven't, uh, are two 30 to 35 ish somewhere in that range. And I haven't, um, I haven't been more than 10 pounds heavier than that, uh, the entire time. And that was like four years ago. And you have a good point there because like, okay, maybe when you're in that, that, that, when you're that lean, okay, maybe it's not the healthiest, but the people that are able to bounce back from those things well, and they don't rebound crazy, they don't go on binge sessions and gain 50 pounds, but they can have some control over it. I know people, and this is including myself, yourself, I know people who have been able to come out of that and they have a much better outlook upon food and their activity, et cetera, even though they're not holding on to being stage lean. They come out of that and they have better, some of them have better habits, but it depends

on how people go about it because some people will do the craziest stuff to get that lean. And when they're trying to come out of it, they're so fucked with in terms of like how much they eat. They've been depriving themselves so much that they go on binge session after binge session after binge session. And then because they've gained so much weight, now they want to go back and get that body again. So they start to restrict hard and it can fuck some people up, but it can also, it can be a benefit if you know how to handle yourself.

I think if somebody was thinking about, you know, some other sports or different things other than just bodybuilding and, you know, you can get lost in powerlifting, you can get lost in those numbers. But even in something like running, I think once you start to switch, I think anybody that's in like under like a half marathon range, those all sound pretty reasonable. You know, you run like under 13 miles,

like sound like reasonable competitions to jump into. And yes, even 13 miles is pretty far. It's not easy, right? But a marathon and marathon training, that's where you can say, you know what, I would have to kind of think if I'm all things considering, and I'd have to think that that is kind of an unhealthy practice. Because how many people have, you know, a fractured tibialis because of their training for a marathon, tons of lower back pain, shin splints, ankle injuries, and the laundry list of things that can happen to a runner in their preparation for a marathon, uh, can be huge. But what if, what if somebody says, okay, uh, you know, the ball drops in New York city

and it's, uh, it's the next year and I got a New Year's resolution. And you know what? In this year, in this year time, I am going to commit to running a marathon, even though right now I weigh 350 pounds. That training could change that person's life forever. It could be the healthiest thing they ever did. Even if it's like, oh man, like sounds really unhealthy, man. Like what you're doing sounds really unhealthy.

So the healthy thing is a really interesting thing because are you healthier sitting at home ordering DoorDash or are you healthier sticking some trend in your arm? Like, I don't know. You know, I don't know. Why you got to do that?

I thought you're going to be, are you healthier running? But you go to trend. Did I thought you were going to be, are you healthier running? But you go to Trent. Did I say Trent? What the fuck, Mark? That was great. I think I said Trent by accident, I think. It's just a knee jerk.

There you go. Knee jerk reaction. We got to call that like a bellism. Door dash versus trend door dash versus trend you know maybe you i'm not gonna say that shit bro that's all you go ahead keep on with it i would say you know there's testosterone you'd be good yeah yeah there's there's well there's unhealthy practices right that a bodybuilder can get into where people are like that is dangerous uh whether it's their training routine where they are obsessed with going to the gym a lot and doing excessive cardio and just plummeting their testosterone levels or whether they have a habit of jabbing themselves with a bunch of

needles to try to get some sort of crazy response. I mean, they're all for the same thing. They're all in an effort to try to get a particular response of the human body that the body probably doesn't want to do. And you're trying to shove your body and force your body into submitting and saying like, okay, motherfucker, we're going to do this. You're giving me enough signals in this direction for me to be bigger. You're giving me enough signals in this direction for me to burn body fat. giving me enough signals in this direction for me to burn body fat okay i'm gonna fucking do it but i don't want to and as soon as you discontinue any of these activities we're just going to go right

back to homeostasis and we're going to hang out at normal because this shit's fucked you know because somebody's going to bring this up um i will i will first say I know a lot of older natural bodybuilders, and they have decent longevity even though they get lean and come out of it. They have decent longevity. on drugs that tend to die a bit early, that do take things that far. Because a lot of people, when it comes to, you know, when we start talking about health and when we talk about people losing body fat or bigger individuals not being healthy, there will always be the comment of like, well, you see these bodybuilders dying at whatever, 50, 60, whatever. And the thing is, with those types of bodybuilders, there's a lot of compounds that are going into that. And as you get older, it gets harder to keep that stuff safe.

And more recently, a lot more unknown factors. Because people are really just kind of taking stuff that's, I mean, they're called research chemicals. I mean, people are just taking like whatever's new because they heard this about it. And all of them say not for human consumption. That is new. That is new. Steroids have been around for a pretty long time. Steroids have been around since the mid-1900s.

They've been in the Olympic Games since the 1950s. They've been in professional sports for a long time. They've run rampant over the last several decades, right? And we kind of know that. But there's like a lot of other stuff out there that we didn't know the impact of. And it appears like we're starting to kind of see some of the ramifications of some of these other things. We can't pinpoint it. We don't have a thing that we can say like for sure that these particular things

are super dangerous um but we do have uh we do have um a number of people that have died and we and we don't really understand why quite yet i don't think we like truly know um we just know that like taking a lot of stuff and bodybuilding can be dangerous we don't have like evidence of exactly is it this particular drug or is it this particular thing we got some people saying it's high blood pressure and it's thick blood kind of seems like that's the direction we're going but i don't think we know no yet a lot of it's intense to be heart attacks so i mean we talked about this before some way that some people can combat that. And, I mean, you see guys like Kai Greene are doing cardio every day still.

They just have a habit of doing cardio. So if you can, if you're one of the people in this population of bodybuilders, don't skip cardio. Keep that involved in your process. Keeps everything moving smoothly. And ideally it'll maybe help stave off anything that could happen if you weren't involved in doing any type of cardio at all and it looks like a vitruvian physique posted a video yesterday saying that he decided against trt i think he probably saw greg's video roasting the fuck out of him and then he was like okay i'm not gonna do it because

again what's happened to him happens to every single natural bodybuilder that gets stage lean that is not some new occurrence i just don't think he was aware yeah do you oh okay so yeah you really think he wasn't aware or you think he was just making clickbaity video again i have no idea who this guy is so i don't know if that's offensive vitruvian's been making video content and fitness for a while i don't i think this is the first time he's gotten ready for a show. And people who have never gotten ready for a show do not understand what goes on to your body when you get stage lean. Your test tanks, especially when you're not taking exogenous testosterone, your libido will go away if you get stage lean because your body's like, dog, we're not supposed to be 5%. Let's use everything to survive.

And I think that by getting down to 5%, you might be able to teach your body a new set point to get down to. So you may have been 15%, but because you've been bodybuilding and you've competed a couple times now, you showed your body 5%, you showed your body 5%, and maybe over a period of time, you can hang out at 10% more comfortably with less work and less stress. You're talking about what – like that's –

That's like what – Sam. Especially healthy, tested, natural bodybuilding should be, right? Yes. And that's what you'll see a lot of the healthy, natural bodybuilders in their off seasons. Like this physique for me, I used to feel drained. 275, shredded. Yeah, 275.

I'm not 275. 285 fuck y'all uh no shredded but in the past like your your comfort at different body fat set points will change if initially 15 body fat was really lean for you you might do a prep you might come back and you might be like wow i can maintain 13 pretty well and when I start to dip into 10, then I start to feel kind of whatever. And then you might do it again. And then you're like, oh, well, 10% feels pretty normal. Everything's functioning the way it should. That tends to happen. So you're totally right. But that takes time. That's something that takes time. Yeah. It takes a long ass time. I think there's places where we can have agreement.

I would say that somebody training for a bodybuilding show, even somebody – let's put the drug thing aside because that is such a roll of the dice. Let's say somebody that's doing some natural bodybuilding. agree that like somebody going all in on natural bodybuilding and going really hard on a show it probably isn't very uh they have a coach they're doing the best they can but maybe they made a bad call in judgment maybe they're over training maybe they didn't eat enough fat maybe their sex drive goes down but the 20 weeks of them like dieting for the show and getting ripped and getting on stage, probably not going to be all that of a net negative. Probably not, especially if you can come out of it in a healthy way. You'll end up in a better place afterwards. Again, if you can come out, not binging.

So people like going and doing like a bodybuilding show where it can get dangerous is you prepped for the show. You did the best you could. You ended up getting third place. You really want to do better next time. And so next time you just are like, I need to do more work and I need to eat less. Like you make decisions that are like working more against your body as opposed to like, man, I came in third and like, I looked kind of flat up there. I think, I think I really need to take my time. I need to, I probably need a better coach

or a different coach or someone who knows more about this. Maybe I'll go to a couple shows, try to meet some people like that. That's a longer road. Maybe I'll research it online. Maybe I'll do this. Maybe I'll do that. But without the knowledge, the knowledge aspect is a huge thing because I'm of the opinion that knowledge can solve just about everything. And so you're going to have to either know it yourself or have someone in your corner that knows some stuff. But even with all that being said, I would say like you pushing yourself and you over dieting and you over cardioing and stuff like this, I don't think it's going to be that much of a net negative. I think it's going to be

a teacher. Hopefully it's a teacher to you. Hopefully you can be a student and hopefully you can learn from it and grow from it and continue to utilize what you think is going to be best effective moving forward. So, and I think from a mindset perspective, people can get into some really, you know, you can get like an eating disorder. And once we start going down those paths, well, now we're again, we're in a really, really unhealthy spot. So once you start to kind of branch away from the original essence of what any of these sports are, bodybuilding is, it's a trick. It's an illusion. You're trying to look as big as you possibly can while also being as lean as you possibly can. And you're trying to

demonstrate that in so many different ways. And maybe for you, maybe you, maybe there's like, maybe you just got to get more flexible. Maybe you have to figure out a way to show off your body. Maybe you need to just grow as a person because you're like super intimidated when you go on stage and your bicep is like, when you do your double bicep, you're in tight, you're in close because you're embarrassed about being on stage and being in your undies.

And you have to, it's a sport where you are trying to showcase yourself. So there's so much more to work on other than just your muscle mass and other than just how lean you are and so i think you have to have a try to your best to have a rational approach about it and i think it could be very healthy when you have that consideration uh not not really considering the um like a seasoned bodybuilder but like do you guys think that like age comes into play when it comes

to like it still remaining healthy? So I'm just thinking like somebody in their mid-20s, they could probably get down. I mean, yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, like they can get down to, let's say, single-digit body fat and then maybe even have a couple of bumps in the road as they come out of it. But like they'll be – i feel like they'd be okay but if somebody is i don't know we'll say late 30s 40s like do you think that there's like they can still come out of it unscathed on the natty side of things yeah natty yeah yes okay they do

it all the time natty bodybuilders don't get attention because they're not as big as the guys like in the npc so the guys that end up getting way more attention, and I'm not saying it's like undeserved, but like the freak, the really freaky guys in the NPC, the guys that all the eyes are on. And when people look at bodybuilding and say super unhealthy, those are the guys that they look at. They don't pay attention to the guys that are in like the fucking INBA, WNBF that are 60, 70, going in the master's classes,

still looking pretty fucking amazing, great habits getting on stage that that happens all the time it's just it's smaller so like yeah but there are guys that are doing that all the time so but like in regards to just like the average person that's not into bodybuilding like for them to set up a a date or a time and be like whether it be i'm going to jump on stage or i'm going to do a photo shoot do you think they can still kind of get pretty aggressive with it and be okay they can if they when they get the right habits in place with when anybody sets a fitness

goal and i think you've seen this a lot too both y'all have seen this a lot and let's say they've never really been lifting but they see bodybuilding and they're encouraged by it and they're like i want to do a show well you need to uh you gotta put your expectations together well what are you expecting when you do this show you're trying to get first place and this is year one or two of lifting all right maybe not first place you can get lean but you haven't built muscle right so like when i was working with people when a new guy would come and say i want to do a show be like how long you've been lifting a year and a half two years what are you expecting from the show i want to be as lean as i've ever gotten you're expecting to win yeah don't do the show like if you want to if you

want to do this and you want to win you want to win, you want to have a good appearance, you need to lift the volume. Give yourself another year. Let's see how you look after that. No one likes to hear that. That's just the facts. Now, if you're doing it because you want to get your body to a place it's never been before and you don't care about winning, go for it. But have the right person and the right habits in check because you're about to go on a journey of depletion that you've never done before, and it's going to be intense.

But if you have the right expectations set for your first show, go for it. What's up, Paraproject family? It's time to stop dressing like you're a f***ing preschooler and step your game up by checking out Viore clothing. Now, I'm not one to talk. I wear a f***ing pink hat that has a dog on it but at the end of the day at least my shirt and shorts are popping so head to viore because they have great stuff for your top and your bottom andrew how can they get it yes you guys got to head over to viore.com slash power project that's v-u-o-r-i.com slash

power project and you guys will automatically receive 20 off your order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Let's get back to the podcast. I'd say that competition is inherently dangerous, inherently a compromise of your health because now I have to race against you. Now I have to race against somebody else or be competitive against somebody else.

And it's nice just to kind of hang out in your own lane. Bodybuilding in general is like extremely healthy. Like being somebody that enjoys doing bodybuilding in the gym is fucking great. It's amazing. And if you stick to, I mean, there's a lot of bodybuilding principles and ideas. Like just because you decided to do a set of three doesn't mean you're not really bodybuilding any longer. But for the most part, bodybuilding is usually hanging out in like a three to five set range in an eight to 12 repetitions, you end up with weights that are supposed to be, they're supposed to be light enough to where they're not going to, um, they're going to,

they're going to induce a muscle growth, but they're not going to encourage, uh, they're not going to encourage an injury most likely because the weights are light enough. Again, we're using short rest intervals, 90 seconds, you know, maybe two minutes depending on your fitness level. Rest two minutes and have at it and do 10 to 12 reps each time or 8 to 12 reps each time. It keeps you in a zone where if you are to think about the people that are in your life right now, you can't think of probably hardly anybody that can't follow that prescription of exercise. Like anyone can do that, which is amazing. So you can bodybuild from now until the day you die. And the things that it does benefit you with are unbelievable. Like what it can do for your blood sugar, what it can do for your bone density, what it can do for your metabolism. I mean, it can change, like these kinds of things can really,

they can change your life. What I would say is sometimes if there's not like a strong enough challenge, then you might not really do anything. Like somebody that prepares for a photo shoot, that's way different than getting on a bodybuilding stage. There's going to be two different levels of leanness that one person, and people that have prepped for both will tell you like, oh yeah, it's way different when it's prepped for a bodybuilding show.

Like you fucking get shredded, you figure it out and you get shredded. And so I think it might be important to induce or to introduce something that is sometimes a little bit unhealthy as a form of like hormesis, because it's going to be some, a little bit of poison goes a long way. And when you have a little bit of danger in there, just like with powerlifting, like when you roll the dice and you do like a heavy deadlift or some of these movements, sometimes those things that are deemed dangerous or look dangerous, as Louie Simmons once said, like the most dangerous exercises are sometimes the best ones and the ones that make you the strongest. So sometimes you come out the other end from doing something

that's kind of dangerous, you come out the other side feeling amazing. And that's why people are obsessed with people like David Goggins and or people that are doing these like really strenuous, crazy things that are really like testing your will. And the same thing I would say just for your average person, we could share this idea of like, yeah, you should go to the gym and it'd be a good idea if you went like twice a week. That twice a week is not challenging enough for anybody to follow through with doing that. That's too inconsistent. Somebody has to tell themselves right now, somebody that's not consistent with the gym, I'm going to fucking go every day at 7 a.m.

That's what they have to do. And they have to follow that for a while until they can have the freedom at some other point to go, I'm going to go Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I have a question for you, Mark. Because the distinction between natural and enhanced bodybuilding is very – like there is a big difference there not just on the different sport in a way yeah it is it is not just like the physique you see on stage but then like the longevity you see of the of the athlete now when you look at uh uh non-enhanced versus enhanced powerlifting you don't tend to see i maybe i missed but i haven't heard of many like high level powerlifters dying of heart attacks but i can say that when i look at guys like for example

russ will taylor atwood um any of these people on the natty side of powerlifting there can be a there can be an aspect where a person maybe gets to like because weight moves weight, right? So you have to gain a certain amount of weight. But you don't have to be that because there are a lot of lean guys, right? But is there – I guess with powerlifting, anything taken to the elite level can be seen as not healthy. But a lot of those guys on that side, non-enhanced powerlifting, seem very healthy, and they're moving big weights. They have great body compositions. You see Russ right there. But on the enhanced side,

you see some guys that are getting huge, right? Where it's like, God, I can see your blood pressure, right? So what would, because you know way more about that than I do. What's your thoughts on that? Not to take it lightly, but death is just like way too big of a measure to butt things up against.

Like to have that be our only measuring thing of like, well, no one's died. So it's maybe not that bad. That's true. Having your blood pressure really high and doing some of the things that are done in bodybuilding, I mean, or in powerlifting rather. Everything has a price, you know, everything has a price. I paid a price. Like, you know, I don't know what the price is exactly. I don't know how it will work out. I don't know any different. I did what I did and, um, this is me and this is what I got. I don't have any, uh, I don't have any information otherwise since i didn't do anything differently uh but last night i was um doing some like foam rolling i'm like rolling around in this like med ball that i have

that i use for some of that and i was digging into like my groin and i'm like i just kind of started laughing and i'm just like my wife's like what are you doing I'm like on the ground in our bedroom like rolling around and laughing she's like what's going on where they what the hell are you doing my dog's like jumping on my head and I said I don't know I said I'm just kind of laughing because it's like it's so ridiculous. Like I, I did all this to my, like I did this to myself. I mean, I don't have, again, I don't have any other information. Like I may have been the same way. Like maybe I would still be on the ground rolling around if I didn't power lift. Like maybe my tissues would still be tight. I don't know. Um, but there's been a lot of compromises that

have happened over the years that are really like painful and they're hard to like unwind and undo. Like you want some of what I got then, Buck? I don't think you have any idea of like the compromises that have been made with the own movement of my own body and the way that I have had to try to figure this body out. Like, how do I live inside this body now that I did all these things? You mean like powerlifting? Like having to? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Having to have done powerlifting. I mean, just this like ball that I was rolling on, just like inducing so much pain. Yeah, it was like kind of making me almost laugh about it because I'm thinking this is kind of comical because I'm sometimes thinking of like,

a lot of people want to like achieve a lot in life. And I think they do want to achieve a lot in life, but as long as it doesn't have that big of a price to pay. And the price that I paid to do the stuff, I'm not complaining about it. I took it on. Like that's what I did. I chose all that. And it's all stuff that I love.

It's all stuff that I like. But I'm going to spend the next 10 years of my life trying to unwind and unwrap a lot of the things that I've done over the years to myself to keep myself stiff for the sport that I loved and cared about so much. And so it, I have no other choice. I mean, what am I gonna do? Cry about it. I've got no other choice than to laugh about it. Cause I'm just like, this is fucking ridiculous. Like I'm going to be spending a lot of time. Uh, you know, I spent all that time bracing myself and preparing myself. And literally I remember picking up weights and squatting weights and just saying, just, you're not going to fucking move from here. Like this weight, no matter how fucking heavy it is, you're just not going to move. My legs are going to move. I'm going to squat. I'm going to force my knees out. I'm going to sit back. But the rest of me is going to be like fucking stone. You're not going to move. of me is going to be like fucking stone. You're not going to move. And now I'm trying to move. And because I integrated that into my life for so long, uh, I'm like a fucking brick. So there's a lot of stuff to fix, uh, over a long period of time because of what I did was so far one way

that it was unhealthy. I think though, like the really cool thing though, is how far you've come. Like, I wish I got some video of you like running around this morning. Cause like if, if you were running around like a pansy, no, you look good. Like you're, you're moving well, your body's moving. Everything is, everything is starting. Like it seems for you, like things are really clicking as far as your movement's concerned. So you're really being, you're successfully unwinding the stiffness you've built up through powerlifting, right? But yeah, the question does remain, to be great, to get there,

do you have to sacrifice health? And I guess, what do you think? It just matters what you define as healthy because if you love the sport so much, then the healthiest version of you is going to be competing in that sport. And I don't even know how unhealthy it was because like I – again, I'm a one of one. I don't have anything to compare it to.

Maybe I would feel the same, look the same, be the same if I never power lifted because maybe I would have made some other decisions to do something else that would have kept on a certain amount of muscle or something. I don't know. But I agree with you. It does kind of make you kind of think or wonder. I don't think that you have to necessarily – well, again, because you're competing, there's going to be compromises.

Like what Russ Swole does or any of these other guys, no matter how good they look, no matter whether they're natural or not, like it's still to a point where you're like, bro, you're squatting 700 pounds. You know, like it's a lot of weight. And there's a price to pay for that. There's some sort of price to pay for one individual because the way that they prepare for it and the way that they chose to do it, the price could be really minimal. Maybe they just have like a flared up knee the rest of their life. Or maybe they just can't turn their neck one particular way all that well. But there's other guys. I mean I was hearing Rogan talk about it the other day.

He was talking about one of the fighters, how he's kind of like partially blind in one eye. And these are just things that are like, yeah, partially blind in one eye. I can't see that great. You know, there's all kinds of things where you're like, that's normal. And I think what would be healthy in the particular case of powerlifting would be to not accept stuff as being normal. Your pain isn't normal. You bleeding out of your nose shouldn't be, it shouldn't be normal.

It should be abnormal. And it should be something to be heavily considered and to be heavily thought about. I'm not saying quit. I'm not saying like, don't do what you're doing. I'm saying just think about it and start to think about, if I make this better every time I compete, I'm going to be fucking stronger.

So why wouldn't I choose to make it better? There's so many lifters out there that are walking around in tons of pain and they just continue to do the same thing over and over and over again. Stan Efferding was in so much pain, he thought he needed hip surgery. Really? much pain. He thought he needed hip surgery. Really? He went to, he went to the strength coach. He went to Mark Phillippe of, uh, the strength coach of UNLV. Um, Mark Phillippe was a former world's strongest man competitor. And so that guy knew what was up. He had Stan do corrective exercises. Stan discontinued squats. He discontinued deadlifts. He discontinued the things that he loved that hurt him. He discontinued the things that he loved that hurt him. He chose to do a bunch of other stuff that he didn't want to do that was boring, that was annoying, dedicated himself to it for months and months and months. himself to it for months and months and months. And he came back into powerlifting and he broke another all time world record. So that's what I want. That's what I would love to see other

lifters do. And Stan's been somebody that's been meticulous with the blood work. Now he's got no guarantees either. Like no one has any guarantees. We don't know. We don't know what, you know, just make someone not here the next day. Sometimes we don't always get to know that information, but it appears by most accounts in the given way that Stan has chosen to compete in professional bodybuilding and in professional powerlifting that he's pushed it as extreme as someone could under the best circumstances and best ways that he could possibly think in terms of having some sort of health in mind so even when he power lifted and he got really big and he got up to like 300 pounds and stuff which was really fun to watch

uh he knew it short term like Like this is for this. This is short term. And yeah, that blood work does not look great. But we're going to change it as soon as the competition's over. This is not a good idea. Like he knows this is not a good idea. But how bad do you want that record? How bad do you want to have this impact?

He wanted to do it. He wanted to do it he wanted to compete he wanted to be great and so those are the things that he rolled the dice on did you get blood work uh when you were competing in powerlifting i did uh but it was more towards the end you know it was yeah it was later uh the blood work i was just not uh aware of blood work, I was just not aware of blood work, I think, probably until I was around Stan a lot more. That's what I was thinking. And then Stan, yeah, Stan is the one who brought it up to me probably in, like, 2010 or something. But, yeah. Yeah.

And I know, I think, and Seema has asked you this question before, but, like, in regards to, like, you know, the things that you did back then to get then to get you so, you know, like casted really like all over your whole body. Um, was there anything that you think you could have done to where you wouldn't have to unwind so much of the stiffness? I don't know. It might've changed everything too. So I don't, I don't really know. Um, I, you know, I did probably 2012 or something or maybe sooner. I mean, I did meet Kelly Sturette pretty early on and like I did do some mobility-wide stuff. But like I wasn't like, you know, I wasn't spending a lot of time. It just made you lift more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's what it did. I mean, I went from a 942 squat to 1080 with Kelly's help. And some of that was just like, it was more like just like opening stuff up before I lifted. And I didn't really pay much attention to, cause it's just like, it takes fucking hours to be able to squat a thousand pounds. So you do something kind of open up your hips,

you do your squat and you're out. And then the next, you're just thinking of like the next lift the next day and stuff. So I'm sure there could have been, I'm sure there could have been some stuff. I mean, even just, who knows, maybe just some simple stretching. Uh, if I had been doing it from that time till now, I mean, I would say that, yeah, probably would have maybe had some benefit, but I'm not sure. One thing I'm very curious about is the nature of equipped lifting. has you using a suit that you will get in a position and that suit will help you lift more weight out of a odd position, right? Like equipped squatters squat in a different way a raw power lifter moves without a suit?

Yeah, there's some massive differences. And I think that the equipment saved me. The equipment saved you? I think it saved me. I think it really did. And I think it's why you also don't see. There's not a lot of other lifters like going and doing really anything different other than lifting other than

me right I mean who's been around for a long time that just decided yeah I'm going to start fucking running I mean is there any I know there's guys that are running but you know it's not like Lane Norton's out for a run you know he lifted

he lifted like raw and stuff. And he could, like Lane's in great shape. I'm sure he would be, he'd probably be great at running. He's good at everything. But, you know, I think that, I think the powerlifting gear helped. I think it probably helped me. It may have hurt me too because like what you're saying is 100% true. And it makes it super dangerous and uh

like you get into you can get warped into like a weird position really quickly to where you can get hurt like really bad you can get hurt really fast and stuff because like the suit kid like in my mind again i could be totally wrong but i when i look at it it feels as if the suit can help a person compensate bad positioning what what do you think about that in some cases yes in some cases no um yeah i mean it could uh but i was like i was yeah i was pretty meticulous with that that side of things yeah i was pretty meticulous with that part of it so i don't think it was a negative factor for me. Would you say, though, that, like, it might potentially push a lifter to, like, just with the squat, like, maybe because they're going to push into the suit, they'll, like, squat way wider than they typically would without the suit.

And then maybe squatting super wide might have fucked up their hips. Yeah, potentially. Yeah. But, I mean, that's the whole what if if yeah yeah lots of speculation on the oh go ahead i was just gonna say like um like some nice ego stroking but uh ryan was like ryan soper was talking about this like i can't think of anybody that that went so hard in power lifting that was 330 pounds that also turned it around and went super hard and bodybuilding want to show and then now it's fucking running like i i i was joking i was like yeah i don't think anybody in fitness would be willing to pack on that much uh body fat and stuff to go all in on like power lifting but then also kind of like you know i mean and i guess the reason why it's like not

really seen because of what you looked like in your powerlifting days. Right. Like it is a very, very stark contrast compared to the bodybuilding stuff to now the running. Yeah, you got some people that are like, you know, executing in a bunch of different ways at a bunch of different things. And it kind of makes you even think about how healthy that is. You know, how healthy is it to just even be like Joe Rogan? Like, you know, he's proficient at a lot of things. He's really like, but those things are all things he's really interested in.

And there are things that he really enjoys. So maybe it's healthier for him to pursue stuff like and attack stuff the way that he likes to. It seems like he is very focused. He does jujitsu. He's good at hunting. He's good at pool. He's an amazing striker. I mean, for a long time, he was high-level taekwondo.

He's announcing UFC. He perfected his ability to be a communicator, a stand-up comedian. He has the best podcast in the world. Like it's just the list of stuff goes on and on. You're like, oh my God, that's crazy. And also he's very health conscious and very health minded. What if he got a report that said, hey, you know what? This study came out and when you do six different things at one time,

it actually shows that like no one lived past 73 years old. Would somebody discontinue? It's like, no, I love doing all this shit. Fuck that. I'm not going to listen to that study. I'm going to trust my gut. And so the stuff that I did during powerlifting, maybe there were compromises.

And maybe I did realize that some of them weren't a good idea. But I was like, this is what I like. This this is all i like to do there's also the aspect that just no one has done it so the study would probably be like no one's done this yeah you should probably be careful yeah yeah yeah and you're like oh i don't care and then somebody would like i read a study that says no one's done it so be careful so you're gonna die you think about like nick bear has done some pretty impressive stuff. Not pretty impressive. He's done some very impressive stuff. And there's also the weight of like running a big company. You know, Ron Penna is somebody that we talk about quite a bit. You know, he sold Quest Nutrition for a billion dollars. Like no one's done that in the history of supplements. I mean, that guy is unbelievable. I mean, that guy is unbelievable. But there's a guy that really cares a lot about his health, his nutrition, his exercise. And he's not necessarily even competing in bodybuilding or in martial arts or in anything. But I guess he's competing in life and he's winning and doing really well. But how healthy is that? How healthy is it to take on these things? Or does it maybe just depend on how into it somebody is or how they are able to manage it? Because it

seems to me like he's managed it pretty good. It doesn't seem like he's stressed about anything. Seems pretty calm, right? It seems pretty relaxed. Yeah. I was going to mention Nick Bear. He also mentioned going deep within running. I think he made a video about how his testosterone tanked when he got to his leanest, when he got to his best performance in terms of running. His test was like super low. So it's not that necessarily like running isn't healthy, but what's the mileage you're putting on? Right. Yeah.

I want to also say that sometimes when you're just losing like body weight, that you're, why are you looking at me like that? What are you doing? Like what? Like what? Hey, pull up the black young doctor. Just type in black young doctor on Google, his face will pop up, he's wearing glasses.

Sorry, what? Just type in black young doctor on Google, his will pop up he's wearing glasses just type in black young doctor on google his face will pop up I just realized this with glasses young black fake doctor just type young black fake doctor black young fake doctor

just put fake between young and doctor okay it'll pop up all right images that's it that's it remember the story this motherfucker that's why you were looking no what'd this guy do yeah he legit started a whole fucking practice where like the news came in and he took them through his office but it was a scam he wasn't a doctor he was out here treating people for a minute and they're like oh wow he's such a great doctor and he wasn't a fucking doctor how old was he he was a fucking teenager

right okay i'm like it looks like a child wow yes i gotta go re rewatch this interview. This guy was clutch. What were you saying, though, before you lost track of your thoughts? What does that say? Teen accused of posing as a doctor. That's great. Denies taking money from patients. Denies it. Of course he does. Nah, I didn't.

Y'all got to go find this. Go find this YouTube video. It's fucking comedy. It was a fake non-for-profit practice. Oh, my God. That's so good. Oh, God. I think what I was saying is that, I don't even really remember. Nick Bear.

I mentioned Nick Bear. Oh, people losing weight. Yeah, I was going to say, oh, sometimes like even just with something like when somebody loses weight, their blood, uh, their markers of health will be like compromised and somebody will be like, I'm losing weight. Why is this happening? So there's might be things like cholesterol. There might things like, uh, triglycerides. And sometimes people are like, Oh my God, my, my shit's all messed up. And I think it's because of this diet, because I don't eat carbs anymore or because I decided to do carnivore. It's like actually your blood work is kind of messed up right now because you're losing a bunch of weight.

You lost like 30 pounds. It doesn't happen all the time. A lot of times when people lose weight, their markers of health will improve drastically. But sometimes, I've seen this happen before where people are losing weight and their body is just like trying to readjust. where people are losing weight and their body's just like trying to readjust. And so I think if you're running, you're lifting hard, you're doing CrossFit. We've seen this with a lot of women have kind of reported they don't have their period. And there's a lot of other stuff that's going on.

A lot of other hormones are being compromised during particular sports when you're pushing it really hard. And normally these things are really temporary. So as long as it seems like a temporary thing, it'd be advisable to get, you know, more than just one blood sample. But if it's temporary and you're doing what you enjoy doing, I mean, just because you got that blood work back, you know, while you've been logging a lot of miles, are you now going to stop? Or are you going to say, oh, okay, well, that's what's going on in the bedroom. That's why my desire and my sex drive is low.

I have evidence of it's just correlated to this. When I run 100 miles a week, this is the kind of shit that can happen to me. Yeah, fatigue will do that. If you get your blood work in a hard week of training and you are tired, whether're a lifter or like let's say you do every day you've been doing jujitsu for the whole week on sunday if you get your fucking blood work done you're you're because of all the added fatigue you're just going to be swamped but thing is a few days you're right out of there so that's not an issue but this this kind of brings into the video that we did where we were talking about TRT being healthy or – I forgot. But it's a video that's going kind of wild on the channel right now. There were a few comments of – there were some guys who were like, you know, I went on TRT for a little bit.

And actually the video was about never coming off of TRT because why would you? But there were a few comments where people were like, yeah, you know, I got on some TRT. And initially my test was low because I wasn't healthy. I was obese, got on some TRT, got to normal levels and helped push me towards, you know, being able to build the habits of dropping weight. And then I came off later. Right. So that's an interesting thing, you know, where testosterone can be healthy, but the place where it gets unhealthy is like when you're trying to get to 2000 or just some insane level that's crazy superficial or maybe i'm wrong i don't know but that's what i'm assuming oh no there's gonna be a bigger price to pay yeah the more the more that shit you try to like pump

through your system um you know the body's really smart and it's and it's going to always try to get you back to being normal and being balanced. And as soon as you throw it out of balance, it knows. Your body keeps track. It keeps score of all these things. It knows when its testosterone levels are really high. So when your testosterone levels start to go through the roof, your estrogen levels start going up. A bunch of other levels start to uh kind of shadow or mimic um the other hormones that are being shifted like you can't just raise your testosterone yeah

um and it makes you wonder too about like um over-the-counter things that raise your testosterone as well like the frank thomas commercials but you don't have any problems with it it just makes you kind of wonder like what some of those other products might do But you don't have any problems with it. It just makes you kind of wonder like what some of those other products might do. You can grab that so aggressively too. I mean, anything that's going to increase your growth hormone or increase your IGF-1 or your testosterone, it's going to have a cause somewhere else down the road of something else. So it's just, it's good to be mindful of these things.

It's good to know about these things. And if you want to be somebody that is going to be competitive in anything, there probably is going to be some aspects of your health that are going to be compromised. I mean, it's possible doing something like jujitsu that the skin off the top of your feet is going to fucking fall off. There's just so many things that can happen. It sounds so horrible. Even just being a new powerlifter and just having the bar on your back.

This shit hurts to have the barbell on your back. A deadlift bar hurts at first. I forgot about that. The first couple times you use a deadlift bar, at first about that the first yeah the first couple times you use a deadlift bar you're like ow that really hurt i have a picture on my instagram way back like 2014 when i first started like squatting i took a picture of like my back scars because i had a i had open skin here and here on both sides of my back i was like yeah and then it calloused over i remember it like uh it kind of looked like i had just like

a fucking big ass hickey on my back like it just like caused like an insane amount of like i don't know blood pressure or something right there it's got all weird and that kind of stuff's not necessarily unhealthy it's just like part of the sport but when you go and do like a bench press or a squat like could you imagine could you imagine somebody trying to get your blood pressure right then yeah to see what's going on i mean it's got to be fucking like off the rails or set of 20 squats your heart rate's gotta go nuts yeah so that's what i was gonna like kind of just bring up is like the like the duration thing so like uh what you're talking about like oh let's take carbs out of the diet now the person doesn't feel good they almost feel sick it's like okay right

now maybe it's not healthy for you but in the long run and again healthy like you just doesn't feel good. They almost feel sick. It's like, okay, right now maybe it's not healthy for you. But in the long run, and again, healthy, like you just don't feel good right now. But in the long run, you're going to feel better. So kind of just like with the testosterone stuff, like a lot right now feels great. You're healthy right now. But if you keep doing that for a long time or whatever gear usage it is, like, yeah, over time, like then it might become unhealthy, right? So it's right so it's healthy until it's not yeah and and then the flip side is like it might not feel good until it does

and then yeah if somebody were to take my labs right now i'd be fucking shot you know man that that video the comments made me think of so many things and like i want you guys to comment below to your thoughts on this because some interesting conundrums popped off of that video. There were a few guys that mentioned something interesting. What happens if there ends up being supply chain issues as far as your testosterone, like let's say you do it and then for some reason you can't get it for a while.

Like what happens there? Because it's like, what are you going to do? So, so that's, that's something I'm curious maybe what your thoughts were on that. Cause I don't know if that's ever really ever happened. But one thing that people were commenting, I saw a few comments of – and I got a DM about this too, where a young man mentioned – and this was from the DM.

He was like, you know, my test is great. I'm young or whatever. But my brother, he has depression. He doesn't have motivation to do much. He doesn't really exercise right now. He got his blood work done. His test is like two something right so for a young guy i'm usually in the the the side of like young people young men don't need to be on exogenous testosterone but it's like some of the guys

commented there was some guy that was like yeah i was sleeping in my bed for like 16 hours and nothing motivated me and then i got on trt and then boom, I got the motivation to start doing a lot of things. It pushed them out. It got them there, right? So it's like A, either A, you change your habits because your habits can make a big difference. You just going and doing more, eating right, getting sleep. All of these simple things can get you to a good place, but that takes time, that takes motivation and that takes you making a fucking effort yeah or b some testosterone getting you giving you that motivation and then it propels you right and i was just like fuck like i mean i want to tell guys to do the habit thing and i i believe in that but like i don't

blame somebody for choosing to get on a normal dose of test even if they're young, even though I don't like it when young guys do it. I don't know, dude. It's tough. Yeah, I think if I was depressed, I would be okay with a tradeoff of something maybe slightly unhealthy, especially to get me out of that. And hopefully maybe that thing isn't permanent. And if the thing is permanent, maybe it's something that I can just live with. If the thing is permanent, maybe it's something that I can just live with. You know, like if I got to take a little kratom because I'm depressed or if I got to smoke a little weed because I'm stressed or if I got it like I think these are all like reasonable.

Like that sounds that sounds OK. Like, yeah, but what if the weed because you smoke it, you know, once a week and you smoke a decent amount of it and it's going to negatively impact your sleep and it's going to take two years off your life. Let's say there's some research out there that proves that. I don't fucking care. I don't want to be stressed. To me, you can make sense of something. I personally think in my own head that's the way it works. I can make some sense of some of this stuff and say, yeah, you know what?

I don't fucking care about the extra two years that much. I want to live my life as strongly, as powerfully as I can for as long as I can. But I'm not too concerned about a couple extra minutes or a couple extra hours. Yeah, I think I would, again, I don't know shit about anything, but I would say that like testosterone is probably going to be a safer bet than like SSRIs. Because like with that shit, like it's the way that they're prescribed is it's like, oh, you have these symptoms. Take this one. Oh, that made you feel worse.

Take this one. Let's try this one. This one. Because there's like no, they can't research the brain, right? Like, I mean, sorry, that sounded silly. no um they can't research the brain right like the i mean sorry that sounded silly but what i'm saying is like we still have so much to figure out about the way how our brains work that that's why they can't tell you like this is gonna make you feel better it's gonna make you happy they don't know so it's like this is supposed to work so give this a go but it could be something like oh your

testosterone's low your libido's low uh maybe take some exogenous testosterone and go for a walk and you'll probably walk yourself to the gym and start lifting and start feeling better. So I would say that like, yeah, testosterone probably would be a safer bet than some SSRIs that are being prescribed left and right. And as much as I understand that, though, it's like now, but's it seems that testosterone is becoming the answer that ssris are becoming for guys with depression it's like instead of using this antidepressant use some test because like you know a doctor will give a guy an antidepressants and again i'm being very crass in general here right i know this isn't everybody but with the amount of top like the amount of habits we talk about the amount of habits that we're doing getting some sunlight these these things actually make a big difference walking eating enough getting some exercise right not sitting around too much moving getting used

to moving your body that will propel you in that direction and if you don't have these habits but you choose to go the test route some guys will go the test route and they won't build any of the habits just because that that makes the difference it's like um you know it's like some people smoke weed because it makes them feel good but then they get too much into the habit of smoking weed and it goes too far, right? So you do this test, but you don't have your lifestyle stuff in check. Like, what are you really doing here? You know? Yeah, that's why I always say, why not both?

I guess. Yeah, why not both? Which is not like a safe thing to say, but it's like, yeah, get on test, but make sure you are going to still follow these habits like if you are not on anything. Just that way you check all the down boxes. I think it's important to know that like you you shouldn't need anything you know you shouldn't need you shouldn't need caffeine you shouldn't need any of these things and then you make a choice on how you want to proceed from there but like anything that you need that's uh kind of an external that's not like food um or other just like there's certain common conveniences of

like running water and things like that. But the things that we need that are external that can change our mood or give us, you know, energy, those are things that you have to consider. You have to got to think about them. How much coffee am I really going to drink? How much espresso? How many monsters am I going to have? And those are things that we, I think the three of us, we think about them. Whether we know we're logical with them, we don't really know. We're just trying to do the best we can with it. Just like anybody else is. If things put you in a better frame of mind and you feel like you're better for the moment, that's cool and that's good.

But do you always need it for the moment and are you always reaching for it? Like some alcohol can be great. Having a couple drinks can be really fun. But did you do that yesterday? And did you do it the day before? And is it like, you know, are you starting to maybe get in like a bad pattern with it? And same with weed and kratom and any of these things. It's happened to me with weed in the past. I know it's like, I'm starting to smoke a little bit too often each night.

I need to back the fuck off. Like that did happen. Same thing with alcohol. I realized I'm starting to drink wine every night. It happened with mushrooms with me recently. I was just Andrew. I know. I was like, I've been wanting to do this for so long and I never did it.

But then like, I'd be like, Oh, let me just boop. Like, damn, I'm getting so much work done. My back feels good. Like, this is awesome. Fucking feeling great. And then the next day it's like, Oh, ramp it up again. And then the next day I was just like, yeah, yeah no we're not going to do that anymore yeah like so it's been a hot minute and do a little bit today but that's the interesting thing though with testosterone because testosterone

like you get on a schedule and then you just you take it a certain amount of time each week and it is you do you don't just stop i mean we had we the video that's going on the channel is. Yeah, it's titled, Why Most People Who Take Testosterone Never Come Off. Yeah. You know, we talked about it. You feel really good and it boosts you. So most guys are just like, why would I ever come off? Right?

But, I mean, it kind of goes back to that thing of like, do you want to have to need something to have performance benefits forever? Like I mean it's tough because it helps you feel good. It helps you feel good. But it would also like if there ever comes a point where you can't get your test, are you the same guy? Are you like that Snickers commercial? Are you yourself without your Snickers? Not going anywhere for a while. Do you guys think the supply chain issues thing is like valid too?

I don't know. Does someone pose that comment? I'm just like, is that? No, you can make testosterone. It's called like, uh,

it's, uh, what's it called? Like your under underground lab. Yeah. Like you just, you get the stuff and you bake it yourself. You know what's weird is, like, we've asked, I've asked a couple people that have been on the show before, but, like, no one ever really knows where it comes from.

And they're like, yeah, it comes from China. I'm like, yeah, kind of. But, like, where does it come from? Where does it come from? And I'm like, I heard, you know, I would say I heard it was extracted from like a potato or something like that. And then there seems to be some evidence of some of that. But then like no one really like where are these potatoes? Yeah.

Yeah. This is a sweet potato. Like where do I get some of these potatoes? I just remember a gorilla chemist being like, no, Mark, like we just make it. Like out of what? And he's just like, you just put some stuff together and it just poof. The world doesn't work that way. Not the world that I'm in.

Yeah. And then you can't make something out of nothing. Here's your testosterone. Yeah. He's like, I stole three pubic follicles from Encema. I'm going to put it in this beaker. That's some potent stuff right there. Sign me up.

I know. He shaves everything. so he's keeping all that from us you know my peeps are red i didn't know that yeah why are they red because he dyed them that way okay because he's a freak freak show so you dye them and then shave them off that's interesting it's like an arrow pointing down yeah yeah dude i like to look down and see something that's shocking makes me feel a little spicy and then red yeah very eye-catching yeah so strange it's okay i dig it yeah some would say that yeah thankfully they say nice things though wait who says nice things uh people that rate and review the show oh Oh, yeah. Yeah. They do. Thank you, guys.

If you could keep doing that. Help a little podcast out, you know? Do a real quick Spotify, Apple, rate and review. Do it real quick. Takes no time. What accent? I don't know what the fuck this is, dude. He's making it up.

It's something that goes like a little black dish. Yep. I dig it. yeah um i think we we covered everything i think i think we may have yeah might have yeah i don't you know again i think you got to try to you know follow your heart follow your interests follow the things that you really love and do them to the best of your ability. But I do think that there should be like, for me, like I know I said earlier, like I was all in on powerlifting and stuff, but like I did think about the future and there may have been times I may have like paused that and said, like, I'm not too concerned about that. I'm going to dive in on this. But that was for like

weeks at a time and sometimes months at a time. And it could be have been detrimental, but it was like, let me just, let me just like not worry about this side of things for a moment. I know my blood pressure is high. I know I'm really red. I know I'm really fat. I know I'm really bloated, but I can kick some ass lifting some weight. So let me keep going with that. And I would kind of not pay that much attention to my health. But when a competition was over, I'd always go back into dropping some weight and trying to feel better and things like that. So do your best to apply your own rational ideologies around it, your own. You pick your own and you get to choose that. And you can decide, I'm going to go this direction in bodybuilding and I'm going to be the best

bodybuilder I can be under these conditions, under these circumstances. I think Stan Efferding is a good example. There's probably other people that you can look to and look up to in that realm where it appears that they, you know, did something in a intense fashion, but was, they were also smart about it. And so who on the internet, who on Instagram, YouTube, like who are some of these people that you can look at and say, you know, I like the way Russ Swole is doing it. That's the way I'm going to try to, I mean, that's what you did. That's what I did. And like, we, we've all like picked people in the past or like, I like that route. That's a really good route. I'm going to, I'm going to fucking stick with some of that. So I think to mimic, uh, what some of the other people in the past have done, if you feel like

it's, uh, you know, something that's going to be, I guess like the best route for you, then fucking go for it. And to add onto that, um, you're, you're being healthy can be a byproduct of your performance. Cause like the one thing that I really do think about, and I think the reason why I think so much about health is just because that's been something that's been driven into me since I was young. My mom was all about health, health, health, no matter what I was doing. So whenever I'm doing anything athletically with my body or nutrition, et cetera, I try to think about long-term help with it.

And like, I'll, I'll know if it's taking away or if it's bringing benefit. And I think there is a power in any athlete, right? You might have this athletic goal in terms of bodybuilding, powerlifting, jujitsu, whatever it is, running. But you can think about, okay, the miles I'm doing each week, how am I feeling? Is this healthy? Maybe not. But I know that I'm going to be doing this for a period of time. This isn't forever. And there can be a power in that because then it's like, you know

what you're doing and nothing blindsides you. A lot of athletes, because they're not thinking about their health at all when they go towards these things, they're blindsided by something. They're getting ready for something and their heart's going, whatever. They're like, it's just part of the process, bro. It's just part of the process bro just part of the process and then boom you know what i mean like think about these things take take time to get some blood work done get that done often that's why we work with merrick health you know what i mean because you can still head towards there but you can do everything within your power to be as healthy as you can while you drive hard towards your goal. Don't be oblivious to it. Take us out of here, Andrew.

All righty. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Make sure you stay tuned for Smelly's tip. Big old tip. Make sure you guys hit that like button and subscribe. If you guys are not subscribed, drop those comments down below. And for anything podcast related, head over to powerproject.live. Follow the podcast at mbpowerproject on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. podcast related, head over to powerproject.live. Follow the podcast at mbpowerproject on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. My Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter's at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at?

Powerproject.live. Get everything there. Everything. Discord. We're over 2,200 people and they're thriving. I'm Seema Eni on Instagram and YouTube and I'm Seema Yinyan on TikTok and Twitter.

Mark, Mark, Mark. Just want to share with you guys today to be creative. That's the smelly tip of the day is to figure out ways that you can be creative. It seems like in the last couple of years, people put on their Instagram that they're content creators. And that's been a more popular thing where I think maybe in the past, people would not think that they were good at forms of art.

They didn't think they were good at creating what I would consider is like new knowledge, but everybody possessed the ability to do that. If you're, whether you're 15 or you're five or you're a hundred, everyone possesses the ability to have a critical eye and to think about stuff and to be creative. And I think some of the places it started for me was sometimes to think the opposite of anything that I've ever kind of encountered or thought about. So maybe that would be helpful for you the next time that you are, you know, I don't know, you think of like what would be the opposite

of like resistance training, for example. Well, maybe it would be something that is like a little bit more supportive that can assist you through a lift that gives you a little boost because resistance training can hurt. So maybe you think of something like a slingshot, something that alleviates pain or stress or, you know, whatever these things are that you're doing on a daily basis, how can you look at them from a slightly different perspective?

How can you think of them from a different vantage point? A lot of times it's somebody that is doing something new or different, and they're like, why isn't there something for this? And it's because no one else ever thought of it because they don't remember what it was like to be new. Andrew, with his experience with jujitsu, you you just don't know, like you might be able to think of, uh, and on top of that, um, push your creativity. You know, once, like I said, everyone has the ability to be creative, push it.

That thing that you're thinking about that you've been talking about forever, fucking figure out a way to do it. forever fucking figure out a way to do it um creativity without actually producing it is it's kind of shitty so uh it will make you feel absolutely incredible to be able to make something that was in your head at some point and to like turn it into like a product i'm waving this nebosu thing around and these people made these finger extensor things I mean it doesn't matter how weird or how stupid you think it is whatever's in your mind and in your heart figure out a way to try to produce it or make it

strength is never weakness, weakness is never strength I'm at Mark Smiley Bell, catch you guys later, bye