Mark Bell's Power Project - Boost Your Athleticism: Maximizing Strength Training for Every Athlete!

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Are you losing power and athleticism as you get older? Learn how to build explosive strength and improve longevity with simple training secrets from legendary coach Josh Bryant.On this episode of Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast, hosts Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang talk with Josh Bryant about his best methods for improving athleticism at any age. Discover how to use hypertrophy for a longer life, why rucking builds total-body strength, and the safest way to start sprinting. They also discuss how to train like a tactical athlete and the truth about coaching the world's strongest people.This episode gives you the tools to get stronger, move better, and feel younger. If you want to boost your athletic ability and build a more durable body, this conversation is for you.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewzChapters:0:00 - Hypertrophy for Strength & Longevity 2:01 - The Genius of Tom Haviland 6:02 - Building Athleticism After 40 7:45 - How to Start Sprinting Safely 11:08 - The #1 Athletic Trait That Declines With Age 13:17 - How to Fall-Proof Your Body for Life 19:15 - Block Periodization for Long-Term Gains 23:26 - How to Coach a World Record Holder 28:04 - The "Hardgainer" Myth Debunked 38:03 - The Legacy of Fred Hatfield (Dr. Squat) 42:06 - Compensatory Acceleration Training (CAT) 52:51 - Rucking: A Beginner's Guide 1:03:55 - Will Rucking Get You Jacked? 1:13:34 - Why the Off-Season Is Most Important 1:22:54 - How Strong Is "Strong Enough" for Life? 1:30:10 - Training for Tactical Athletes 1:36:21 - The "Jailhouse Strong" Philosophy

Nowadays, people are talking so much about strength training and how important hypertrophy training is for longevity. The best way to increase strength potential is through muscle hypertrophy. I think what you're doing is really hitting all the points, doing some hypertrophy work. A fast car needs a big engine. You have to train your hypertrophy, your weak points, all that stuff in the off season. That's going to build your work capacity, your general endurance. So you can handle the load you need.

A lot of the great stuff happens in the offseason. That's where you fix weaknesses. How do you help someone to do some? something that no one's ever done before. I think you have to do stuff that no one's ever done before. My biggest thing where I can be helpful to somebody is I'm not attached to a single method of doing it. You know, I would say I'm a horrible result, not for a way of doing it. Dude, I'm just curious about Tom Havlin. I've never heard his voice. Like, he just, he seems like a mystical. Mystical, like just a superhero or something. What's he like? He's just a hard

workers. So the thing is, I think the personas are out of like, he's not trying to make it about his personality, but I think people find that so fascinating because he's all business. He's all works. So then you want to know the personality sort of thing where if somebody comes out and be like, oh, you know, I do this, this and this. They're not as interesting. I think it's interesting because he's so far ahead of everybody and he's not making a spectacle or a show. He just does the work. As he says, you know, chop wood and carry water. Just do the same. thing and do it right over and over again I mean that's just where he lives

it's not like he's doing this as like to entertain people that's just any idea did so there we fucking go did somebody was somebody like dude you got to record this stuff like and I know that you work with him did you work with him or know of him

before he started putting stuff out we we started working together 2010 and he was just sending some videos to kind of get evaluated and stuff and he came over to Texas and you were like why are you asking me for advice bro yeah I mean you're amazing with how many he's he's one of the smartest people too though for real like I mean we've um you know we just put out a actually a program together on on train heroic and it was like just when we talked together dudes like a genius too he's not just like

some guy that does this and like you know an 80 IQ he's he's absolutely brilliant isn't he like 6-8 and like 350 pounds or something ridiculous? Like I don't know. It's all just like folklore or something. He's about He's definitely higher than 6-6. So say 6-7, 6-8. He's been as high as up to 400.

I think he's in eventually going on at 2-80 and you just get his conditioning way up there. And I mean, yeah, it's just when you look at the ability to move the endurance he has and all that, he's just so far ahead. I mean, it's just. Unbelievable. And he does his work. Like he, I don't know what he does,

but he looks like he does labor. Like he works on land, right? He has land and he has animals. Yeah. I'm curious if you've, you know, something that I've noticed in Jiu-Jitsu is the,

some of the strongest feeling people. It doesn't mean they were the best, but the actual strongest feeling people were people that did some type of labor work. And I'm curious, like what your ideas on that may be because I'm thinking like, someone who is able to efficiently

without, because a lot of laborers get hurt in their jobs, but if they're efficiently able to work with load all day long, and then they're all, they then go do a sport, like it builds a different type of strength. Like, it almost feels like for those people, they are so much more isometrically strong

when we're grappling that. I just don't see that with gym people. I never know. I think that sort of we bridge that gap with if you're not doing that with Strongman training, because strong man is functional training. There's like nothing more functional than picking up heavy shit moving around with it. Yeah.

And that's sort of what labor, you know, laboring would be too. So I think that would be the way to program it and like actually metricly track it and all that kind of stuff. You know, to say you're an OG is like an understatement. Josh has been putting out videos well before I ever started putting out videos, him and his brother, actually some of the first training videos that I think I've ever seen. And I think I remember seeing your brother, Noah, right? Yeah.

I think I've seen him jumping on to. like some sort of table or some sort of thing that was about as high as this podcast table right here. And he's pretty large. And I was like, how the hell did you do that? So I got excited about that kind of training, explosive training,

you know, squatting heavy and all those kinds of things. I was already into some of that. But that other side, having that athleticism, is that something that you guys grew up with? Did you guys challenge each other with that throughout you growing up? Because your brother was a shot putter. You guys, an NCAA champion at

USC and if you look at like he literally got about as high up as you can get most out of his body you know he's like 6 foot 6 1 and most of those guys like 6 1 7 6.8 wow great technique super explosive super strong super good work ethic super focus had a good coach kind of put it all together that way yeah we did um a lot of like jump training together because i've always been of the mind of like for myself my athletes looking at like outside disciplines you know like bruce lee to improve a strike a little close okay microphone, sorry about it. Bruce Lee to improve his striking speed took up fencing.

So I'm saying like if for powerlifting, I know I don't need to be doing as many jumps as like, say, a shot putter, but I can get something for that and get a benefit. And like when I started doing that, randomly talked to Jesse Kellam, it's like 2001. He was doing that too. So I think some people kind of stumbled upon that and we did a good job of kind of doing it with like potentiating the workouts versus like going crazy with it and doing too much. But yeah, we were always jumping on things and like that. And I sort of discovered that one day just sort of jacking around the backyard playing basketball,

like doing like dunks and stuff like that. When a deadlift, I'm like, man, I feel like super explosive today. So you know there's something there and run with it. Yeah, because a lot of athletes have a hard time having that transfer over. Evidence base. There was a damn good to have to work out. That's cool. Well, let me ask this because I think a lot of people that have been listening to the show,

we've been talking a lot of trying to improve levels. of movement, athleticism as you get older. And a lot of people that watch the show are people who are coming from lifting background or they've been lifting for a long time.

So they're wanting to get to a place where you are. You know, we just finished up some hill sprints. You're moving up that hill pretty fucking fast explosively and you're right here talking and your body's fine.

You're not broken, right? So thinking about it, what are the ways that one should start trying to build into some of that if they were going to follow some of your principles? Okay.

So I think there's a lot of different, so you have a lot of options how you can do this. first and foremost, if all you're doing is lifting, I would get doing something where you're moving. Okay, so that can be like, we'll say, you know, strong man training for lack of a better term. But for example, we just did the sled out front.

That's moving. So like if you're not doing any moving by slowly moving the sled and some of those different drills you did, backwards sled drags, whatever, that's actually doing something. So then you get that right there, you're already ahead of where you were. You can start moving that way.

Then to get into like the more explosive, like the sprinting. and stuff like that, you know, what I have done with people is tempo runs. So to define a tempo run as, say, like, 70% or so of, like, your maximum intensity. But you want to do that with how you're actually going to run. So, like, right now, personally, when I was going to have the sprinting longer distances, I know what I need to do. I would need to work on that again because I know I'm pretty tight right now, but I'm moving fast.

So I could get to where doing that, work on the mechanics for, like, the longer distances. So that's a good way to kind of get into it there, too. From there on the actual speed front, you want to start. with really short distances like five yards and slowly go out like a reverse periodization you know instead of think most people think oh start off with 200 meters slow then you know no you want you would start off really short fast and gradually add to that generally if you're not training for actually for like an athletic contest i don't think you need to go much past 20 yards because most bad things happen when you extend out past 20 yards rarely does someone get injured

it inside of 20. I would also recommend if you're not doing like a track meet or something, like with tactical athletes and people I work with, a lot of times it's on hills or sled resisted. So it doesn't have to be like we were doing out there where it's slow. It could be fast, but like if you have like a 45 pound sled attached to your 25 pound sled, it's going to slow you down enough where you're probably not going to get hurt, but you still have a high effort, high output that way. And it will transfer over if you need to go to flat ground, but it's sort of like almost

like not going all out in sparring or something. It's like, you know, wearing a little bit bigger gloves than a headgear versus killing each other kind of thing. So, but it's still high efforts, high output, good transference. I know you help a lot of people and some of the people that you help, you know, Julius Maddox, you know, bench 771 and you've helped like 20 or 30 athletes bench over 600 pounds. So you have this high level athletes, but for some of the people that are a little bit more recreational about it, I would imagine that people would be excited to follow a lot of what you're talking about because. I love to train. I love to train in a gym. I love hypertrophy. I love power lifting. I love all those movements. But as much as I love them, I still find them to be monotonous. I find it to be boring to be in a gym and to only be in a gym. I find, you know, farmers carry, sled pushes,

hill sprints, a lot of these other things you're mentioning to basically just be more fun. And then when I get back into the gym, like maybe the next day or the day after, you know, a session that's mainly outside, I'm excited about that work. And you get to kind of to go back and forth between two or three different modalities rather than just honing in on one thing. I think some people are missing that from their training because nowadays people are talking so much about strength training and how important hypertrophy training is for longevity. But I think the sprints and stuff that's a different, hold on. That's an interesting stopping part right there. Yeah. We're coming from a biased standpoint, though, what we think is jacked is not what

scientists do. It's just like rucking. They say, oh, one of the prerequisites is like a large amount a muscle hypertrophy, they're saying like 6-2-190 with like 12% body fat, where we're thinking like, you know, 6-2-45%, like 5%. It's not the same thing. Oh, yeah, our little bubble of the person. Like muscle longevity, like it's just like everybody wants to hear that, you know. We're thinking like Ronnie Coleman, they're talking about like someone that looks more ordinary. Yeah.

But yeah, we go on. Sorry for that. Well, anyway, I was just saying, I was just saying like I think what you're doing is really, you know, hitting all the points. You know, because, yeah, like, doing some hypertrophy work is smart because it gives your body, you know, you're going to be able to eat more calories, you're going to be able to eat more food and muscle, you know, can help with insulin resistance and all these other things that muscle can help with and just having some, you know, basic strength can help with, right? But on top of that, if you're outside doing sprints or doing agility work and these kinds of things, I actually think that that is the stuff that we see decline the most, is that explosive power. like we can say that mobility declines right but we we know that that's that's part of it too um but for yourself but still even think about just like from real life experience you're more likely to see like an old person at the ymCA say with pretty impressive flexibility than you are with power

explosive power right like i mean right yeah i think there's like such thing as old man strength but there's not necessarily old man power that's definitely that's a true statement right there you know i've heard that on instagram before it's absolutely true there is old man strength but not old man power what do you think the difference would be between those two how do you sort of define that well people that you know people that could say squatter deadlift heavy but they can't sprint fast they can't jump high things like that that's going to decline more um so i mean that's just yeah it's it's i mean studies show it practical experience shows it and i think that's where a lot of people would you know if you're

trying to i totally get it if you're trying to focus on one thing that was me for a long time and I help a lot of people on that. So there's no judgment here. If that's what you want to do, that's what you need to do then. I'm just saying if you want to be holistic, I think a lot of people are going the opposite direction as they age. You know, you think about like a 45-year-old guy or something joins a gym

and only uses machines to kind of pump up and things like that. But that's really probably not what they need. They actually would need to get to more like movement capacity and speed because that's going to diminish faster. There's a lot of people that, you know, still maintain some levels of mobility or flexibility. You know, they maybe can, you know, touch their toes and they can maybe do a couple of things that might look kind of impressive in terms of mobility. But then they go to walk down a, you know, a flight of stairs or go down a really steep hill if they were hiking or something.

And that's where you might see some real glaring weaknesses because it's eccentric of coming down. Like if you're walking down and you were hiking, you might have these like really long steps here and there. and the kind of more banged up the person is, more likely they are to turn sideways or to turn backwards to go down those stairs, almost the way like a two or three-year-old would go down the stairs because they're trying to figure out a safe way

to manage that landing. And I think the key to long, personally I think the key to longevity is to be able to handle that fall. And I don't mean like you trip and fall. I mean like being able to handle coming down from that, being like a little kid, you know, an 11-year-old or 12-year-old kid might just jump down those stairs

because they just think it's fun. Absolutely. especially when you're talking about just walking downhill. I remember I went on a hike in Japan and it was crazy to see how many like old people were having like problems coming down like having to use canes and stuff and I basically just used my body with almost like

skip down. You know, it's just like yeah, you're absolutely right. I want to, I want Ryan to pull this video up because I think it shows like a perfect example. And yes, right here we're looking at Steph Curry one of the greatest athletes on earth. But I think I just sent you the video

or Ryan. You'll see what I mean. I think also it'll be interesting to just watch how he pretty much trots down the fairway after he hits that hole. So let's let's play. So he gets a hole in one at this like celebrity golf tournament, which is insane, right? Now watch this. hands up, just trotting down that hill.

Sprinting right downhill. Yeah, super smooth. The way his body's positioned, he's just handling that ground force downhill, right? I think that is something that, like, you don't go directly into that, but when I'm looking at all of this stuff, it all comes down to the body positioning,

like where your foot is in comparison to the rest of the body, because that looks like it's taking him absolutely no energy. And it's not because he's able to handle the ground reaction force. And it's like, how do you train that? Maybe you start with just learning how to handle the reaction force of hopping off the ground without jumping. Well, just like little skipping drills, like we were talking about earlier, jump-offing and things like that that are not that big of a deal that most people can do. You know, like Mark was saying yesterday, jump on a six-inch box, you know, that kind of stuff. Like a lot of this stuff doesn't require a huge time investment.

Like if you're not trying to be like the absolute best in the world, you're just trying to get something out of it. it could be part of your warm-up. Like you go, okay, after you do dynamic warm-up, what do you do for power? Okay, I do like six medicine ball throws or something. Not that very much time, but you get a hell of a lot out of it. You probably get 70% out of that

than if you spent like a whole day dedicated to do it like in a long time. It's a very short time investment. They can probably be worked in. I work it all the time in a people's current routines. And I'll go say, hey, if you want to be a real high level, yeah, you're going to have to do some extra stuff,

but you want to be pretty good at it. We don't have to add time to it. We can do stuff as a warm-up between sets, things like that, you know? How do you feel about putting it also outside of one's routine? Because I feel like that's how people will be able to develop a lot of different capacities without it potentially taking so much time within a session. You know what I mean? If like, because a lot of people work from home or, you know, they take walks, et cetera.

So what if you sprinkle some of these ideas into some different areas of your day? I think that's a great idea. I think just if you're working with somebody, you have to make sure. that they have an understanding and you have a rapport there so they don't do anything too crazy of like oh well six inch box jump six times becomes like you know

I saw a video you got to be real careful that used to you have some sort of athlete before was jumping on something like this he actually made it but it looked like it was pretty sketch and you know was it a guy that came here no somebody else it's not worth it sometimes yeah so I'm saying like let's say okay let's start

start doing a little bit of jumping or something then all of a sudden you know you get videos with someone hitting their show on this hitting the head so we have to make sure they have an understanding. So I agree with you in a perfect world. It's just not always happening in the real world. You prescribe it to somebody because they might get a little crazy with it. In that video trust is certain. They understand the process, though for sure. We have to replay this video because you have to watch everybody else. Everybody else gives up. Like if we can play this video of Curry running down the hill all excited, a couple people are like, should I run with them?

Yeah. And a couple people kind of start to run with them. They're like, I'm going to run with them. and they just eventually stop. All of them stop. They're like, this kind of hurts. The guy with the flag stops right away. That other guy in a white shirt, it's like, I'm out of here. They all, like, oh. He didn't try.

Yeah, they just got, like, blown up. They're too tired. It can be, you know, it can be kind of strenuous on your knees to do some of those. Downhill stuff, yeah. Do some of the downhill stuff. But I think you can condition yourself to some of these things. And I don't think it has to be that much work, just like you're saying, you know, the six med ball throws.

you know, when I'm working out, a lot of times I'll use the tank. And we'll do, I don't know, I'll do like six or eight tank pushes or pulls before each workout, almost every time. Yeah. And then in between that, I have med balls that are right there. So I'm like, I'll chuck those around too. And I'll do a couple sideways ones. And I start out real slow. I start it real easy.

It's like just barely chuck it, you know, barely twist with it. And as I warm up, I start to try to rotate more and put a little more oomph into it. Yeah. But that's been awesome for me. Like, I've had huge improvement on that. And even with just running today, and it's been a while since I run, it just, it feels so much better than it did. It felt so laborous before.

It felt like it took me so many calories and so much energy just to try to do this, like crazy, tight run. And now it's starting to feel like it's opening up. It's starting to feel like it's at least, you know, maybe it doesn't look super fluid, but it's starting to feel more fluid. It's starting to feel more effortless. And I think that's what people want to try to get to how do you get yourself to do some of these things with more efficiency

and what you're saying front load in some of this stuff with your workout having it maybe on separate days where that's primarily what you do can be amazing and your conditioning. But just front loading a startup is if you're not doing anything, it'd be such a big payoff that you don't even want to have to do it on separate days yet because eventually if you want to keep improving it, you're going to get to that point where you have to do that. So what I was saying yesterday we're talking about a little bit off camera,

but it's sort of like how do you put this all together um like as you get at a higher level i think you have different points of to like block periodization to an extent not fully but different points of emphasis so i'm going to be in more of a conditioning phase coming up so that will be the primary purpose i'll make sure i still touch some kind of sprinting once a week get some jumps and things like that but that wouldn't be the primary focus right now coming up not you know what i mean so that like then i'm not going to really be going through like many strength phases quote quote at this point because I don't think I need to because it maintains at a pretty high level you know because it all depends on your background too if you're coming from a strength

background you're not going to need as much of a strength volume to keep your strength up where if you're a marathon one or want to be more all around you yeah you're going to have to more strength bias you know so I think just different periods of time or say the primary focus is on conditioning but you're still getting a speed workout okay I'm going to go to speed well now the primary primary focus is trying to stay on the microphone the primary foe they're talking to these people are you yeah yeah which way do i like you just move this a little bit okay yeah if you actually take a step yeah there you go there you go all right so

primary focus would be then on the speed you're doing speed but then like for a quote unquote active recovery you maybe doing tempo runs rucking something like that so you still get the aerobic work in it's just not as high of a priority not high of an intensity but it's still there so when you want to go back to it you're not starting from ground zero so like my philosophy for me personally and how like in this genre we're talking about is you want to have the strength or excuse me the conditioning movement capacity speed of somebody 50 pounds lighter the strength of somebody 50 pounds every that's it that's the goal so how do you how do you structure that depends on where you come from if you're totaling 2,200 and you it takes

you 28 minutes to walk a mile so be a hell of a lot different than if you just got fourth place of the Boston marathon you're squat 95 pound I mean that's where the art of this comes in all right mark you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how are you doing it? I got a secret, man. It's called Good Life Protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some Good Life Protein.

You know, we've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef. And you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. the website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of lamb is another one that comes of mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20 grass-fed, grass finish ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that. And then I'll have some

the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why, like, neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating. And protein, you talk about protein leverage it all the time, it's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal and I can surf and turf, you know? I could cook up some, you know, chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it, or I could have some steak.

I would say, you know, the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorite. so it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bovette steaks. Yeah. And then I also love the rib-eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib-eyes. So, guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, pause,

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You have worked with Julius Maddox, irregular strength. Irregular strength. That's some irregular strength for sure. How the hell do you help someone like that? How do you help someone to do something that no one's ever done before? Because that's like a different level, right? Like it's one thing that helps someone go from a 545 bench to a 600 pound bench. Even though a 600 pound bench is amazing, there's many people that have benched 600 pounds in the world over the years.

How do you help somebody to bench press weights that no one's ever. moved before. I think you have to do stuff that no one's ever done before. So I think with Julius in particular, it becomes a lot of, like, optimization for where he is and where he currently is. Because, like, you got to think about somebody, anybody, him, me, you were all, like, biological organisms that kind of like are organic that change over time. So where he's out with his training.

So, like, for example, just different things that might not work for somebody else. Like his bench frequency, he does better on a lower bench frequency. he might bench heavy every 9 to 10 days. But other people have done things like that. Like Glenn Shabbitt, I don't know if it works with him, but I've followed him when he was or remember him,

like late 90s, early 2000s. So then Big Jim Williams every single day. You know, so there's different ways that work. You have to figure out, I think obviously Julius has a mindset. He believes he's got the genetics, mental tough, all that.

Size. Big boy. Everything he needs. So I think my biggest, thing where I can be helpful somebody is I'm not attached to a single method of doing it. I've like 25 books out or something. So it's not like

I'm saying like, oh, we'll do it this way. Like, this is how you do it. And like, I have to sell my methodology. I have books on cluster sets on everything else. So, you know, I would say I'm a horror for results, not for a way of doing it. I remember your training was really, really difficult. Like I've

done a couple of your training blocks. You actually helped me. I think at one point, I think I did like 545. for like a double or $5.50 for a double. Maybe like $5.51 or something. Yeah. And it was and I weighed like two, I weighed like 250. So it was like a double body weight bench that I did for like a double. It's most I ever done. And it was like the leanest that I was. Yeah. A good combination. You could look it up right. It's like, uh, when I did some stuff with BSN, I think they came in and filmed it. But um, I just remember how hard it was. Like I was

already training hard. Like I know hard training or at least I thought I did. And then, you know, doing some of your recommendations. And you and I were going back and forth. And that's what I noticed about you right away is that you were about the result because I was like, dude, my elbows are like crying. And you're like, well, wait a second, you know, how often were you benching before? I was like, usually about once or twice a week because something that you offered up to me was to bench three times a week.

You're like, all right, well, we got to, you know, pull back and let's have you try. Because what you were having me do, I've never done before. Like even within one session, you had me lift heavy. And then you had me do speed work afterwards. And I was shocked at how exhausting that was for me because normally I would do my assistant stuff and I would feel great, you know, after after hitting something heavy. But I never did, you know, speed work and doing like all that amount of volume. So it was new for me. But yeah, you helped me tremendously.

Well, I think that's, Julie says a really high work capacity for somebody that size. Yeah. Yeah, usually big guys who have, I mean, I've noticed this, usually guys. who have more mass, generally, frequency of certain things needs to be a little lower just because their sessions hit them so much harder, right? But with how heavy Julius is, that's actually really surprising. I think, you know, generally the more neurologically efficient you are in a lot of ways, the harder is recover. So, you know, if you're, say, running a 22nd, 100 yards, you recover a lot faster than running a 424. Even though you might be, the people might be trying

their hardest both times. Yeah, you can kind of like just blow yourself out almost, right? Yeah. If you're super powerful. Absolutely, Jan. But that's some good insight for like, because everyone that's listening, there are people who, let's say they are a little bit slower on that end when it comes to the strength side of things and the power side of things.

You probably have an understanding that you can potentially get away with more frequency. 100% more volume and more frequency. Slow gainers, people that are predominantly slow twitch and all that, they can train more often they can train you know harder they can do more so it's not like you're completely like screwed and like you can't do anything about it because if this person that has like the perfect quote unquote genetics did that they burn out quick yeah so that you can do more i think that was sort of like one of the myths and bodybuilding is like remember the hard gainer kind of thing people are acting like you know if you're a hard gainer quote unquote that you train less often less volume less

this, less that. So that doesn't make any sense to me. If you're, if you're stupid, you want to be a doctor, go to medical school. You're going to study less? Of course you're not. You have a disadvantage. You're stupid, huh? You have a disadvantage. You have to hit the books harder. Yeah. You know, and just how if, like, you have a disadvantage, something you usually have to work harder about that. And it would you're, so it's not just me saying, oh, you're going to work hard. No, you're neurologically part of the reason is you're not neurologically efficient. When they said Mark McGuire, you know, all those people didn't get advantage from taking stuff. Of course they did.

It makes you more neurologically efficient. It did make you bat better. It did because you are more neurologically efficient as a machine put together. So, but then you like, oh, you recover better, kind of. Well, you do recover better, but you don't because if example being, you squat 405, five sets of five, you start taking stuff, you don't increase it. Well, yeah, it's going to be nothing. You can hire a conversation, do it every single day and feel nothing.

nothing from it, right? But why would you do that? You're not taking that to, if you're, you know, drive around and coast around town, you want to get the super highway, hit the turbo gas and take off, right? So you're going to go a lot heavier. So then you don't necessarily recover as fast because you're pushing it so much harder. So that's nothing to do with that. It's just like the more efficient the machine is, the harder it is to recover. Yeah, and you're maybe more, more efficient within a workout. Yeah, 100%. Right. So with the one since we're talking about like this recovery aspect of things. What are some things that you think people need to be paying attention to if,

because I know there's different levels of athletes. So let's say that this is someone who they're wanting to get in better shape. They're a good athlete, right? But maybe they're chasing and they're feeling sore all the time. They're not recovering well from session and session, but they want to continue to try to push. What are things people need to be paying attention to when it comes to your body and what your body's telling you to know if they should lower their frequency

or if they can increase their frequency? Right. So I think about, like, if you started, say, for example, a new training routine or something, I kind of call it like the three week rule. It's not a rule, but like a three week kind of way to evaluate. At three weeks, there should be some sort of positive adaptation where like, okay, I can handle this now. So if it's just like, no, the cliff, you're falling further down the cliff, at that point, you probably need to read it. So if I say I start working with you and you're like, hey, I want to have a bench up, like put it in the workout similar to what he did, you're like, dude, this killed me. okay well we're going to do it again okay then by the third time we do it you're like no i'm like it's going down it's horrible then that that's when you do some soul searching

figure out what's causing this problem what do we have to do there so i think you have to if you always claim over training you're probably you're probably also halting the adaptation but if you don't live in reality and think okay well just adapt eventually you're not you know i've done that before too where i've pushed myself too much not nothing serious happened but i remember there's just a period of time where I was getting back into all this stuff, my legs were just always sore. Like, I was doing a lot of conditioning, a lot of that. But as a functional human being, I was kind of worthless. It's like, oh, I don't have to cut up your body. Not bending that. Yeah, I'm not bending that far. It's just, I'm in pain. I'll do that in training as part of a

workout, but not that's a conscious change I made. It's like, I don't want to get to that point where I'm training at a high level, but like useless otherwise. Which if I want to be the best in power for that time, I was totally useless. something on purpose. I didn't care. That was the objective. We're going to switch over to a little bit of a commercial here, but I know that you utilize a slingshot a lot with your athletes. How have you utilized the slingshots, maybe help with plateaus or how have you used it? A lot of different ways. So the obvious way is like to overload, just lift more weight. You get used to handling more weight. So it's like, you know, a part, like the advantages to a partial, but going through a

full range of motion. What I like about it, it's sort of like a second skin, like you throw it on, go like a bench shirt there's going to be some learning curves like you're benching 500 now you don't just put on a high level bench shirt and do 800 you have to learn how to use it with this you don't and like you know i don't want to take the time to have people like if you're a powerlifting competing for your bench why do we want to take the time to learn how to use a bench shirt that's kind of not a good use of time where this you put on and go overload get the benefit of the partial but then you're going to the full range of motion too so you're training very you know pretty much the motor pattern at that point um the other way i've done it

actually used it on inclines have you anybody do that yeah works on that um a lot dominic dagastino uses a lot on inclines and uh he's not he's not a regular like power lifter but he's handling some good weight on there yeah didn't you like deadlift like 585 for reps like fast in 10 days in front of his class or something yeah he's an animal yeah he's he's uh he's got an interesting setup He helped Fred Hatfield. He helped him save his life. Cancer years ago. Cancer years ago.

Basically, as a story goes, I believe, Fred had, like, they had an article that he had, like, you know, more, you know, not days left to live, essentially. Somehow, he saw the article, contacted Fred and said, like, basically, what the hell you got to lose? Try keto. He did. He lived years longer after that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's super, super interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know him, but that was really cool because he helped my mentor get a lot more years. So I got nothing but respect for the dude. But anyways, dips. So I've used it a lot for bodybuilding stuff with like higher, like higher level bodybuilders, too, like dips and things like that too. Why do you think bodybuilders don't really use bands and chains all that often? Do you think they have a place for bodybuilding? Of course I do. I think they can absolutely benefit from it.

And I think the bodybuilders are so smart with a lot of things like supplementation, nutrition, absolute geniuses. But for whatever reason, the training methods don't seem to evolve the same way those areas do. I don't know why. They just don't. So I think there's a lot more like set in your ways where like that's all I can think about. Because I can think of like, you know, attaching a band, say some hammer strength piece or something like that. I see it a little bit. I see them using a high squat and stuff.

branch warren using chains look yeah that's that's a killer movement by the way you're showing a video of branch warren doing some chain flies and that's a beautiful movement because the chains basically zero out when your shoulder might be in the most vulnerable position yeah exactly and then you get to uh link by link it comes off the ground overloads the entire thing so then a lot of times you a peck fly you go the last six inches you you lose some of the tension on the pecks that you can keep on trucking and you still got the tension right there well i think no one One of the reasons why is because, like, it could be helpful, but, like, the benefit would potentially be marginal because the goal in bodybuilding is to put as much tension on any specific tissue to elicit a level of fatigue, which will elicit hypertrophy. And that can be done in a really, really simple way, even if you just had dumbbells, right? Obviously, things like machines can allow you to load more, so those are beneficial. But, like, when we start talking about bands and chains, although they could maybe help the lifter add more tension in certain areas or even maybe increase their strength at a certain point.

It's like, is that going to be necessary for them to gain extra muscle? I think it would be the application. I think there's potential benefit there, but not like it's one more tool in the box. Like, it's all right, if Ronnie Coleman had chains, that would have been 10 Olympias. Yeah. But could that be some tool you could use to push you over the edge? I think we all, you're exactly right. We're all trying to get for bodybuilding maximum tension on that muscle.

right so how are we going to do that i think this is a good movement right here but it's not really what you think of with chains because you're overloading the entire range of motion my thought process is this like but like like say you know squatting with like a ton of chain or something i mean even if so like there is the reality of the element too of like this is sort of a pain in the ass set up i was training branch so i went there ahead of time had all this shit set up so like it wasn't like hey dude let's fine chains. I went in there before we started the session, had it all set up. So, boom, we're to go here. So like, yeah, if you have

somebody training, they're setting it up. But yeah, if you're like lugging around a gym for 30 minutes, is this the right chain, yeah, probably. Yeah, and I don't know what the science and stuff says on it, but my thought process is like, and I do see, again, I do see people in, in gyms. But you said like, machines would be easy though. Like a peck deck or something you want to

make, like, so the 24 hour fitness and I see that sometimes. You throw a band on there, you make it hard as hell. Yeah. I do see it sometimes on like a hack squat and some of the like elite FTS made a bunch of machines where you could easily put the bands on and I think where people can conveniently do it they do it but I'm also thinking in my head of like you know that Ronnie Coleman with an injury on something like a leg press like maybe it would have some utility if that weight was a little lighter at the bottom and and heavier

like it was with the hack squad in the elite FTS video yeah exactly just just so just so there's not maybe as much pressure yeah great point I think then it becomes like sort of the circle jerk of this although is like you're saying the bands like you know i had more mental masturbation it just makes you feel good then make a group feel good so um in all seriousness though like you got to this point where people were doing that just to see how much weight they could lift like this was no longer about maximizing tension on the squad i got 11 plates on there oh i'm using the biggest bit why using the green one instead of the blue one or where well you know it's just yeah it looks cool on instagram don't would you do this if no one would watch it no well

right like it does have a good goal for the intended purpose but you can also make it into like a total circus too you said uh fred hatfield was your mentor yeah i don't think i knew that how did you link up with him so he um i did a i did a bodybuilding actual course for i ssaa and textbook and the company he had and um i didn't really know him i knew saleria the other owner and i just followed fred's work and he's like um i've done a couple other things for him just random like kind of like see yous and things and um fred had read him over and he used to just put like he wouldn't say him like thumbs up meaning like how to prove like no feedback but i guess he was more passionate about the bodybuilding he like like read like every word of that like he's he's like the first

email he sent me is like i've come to a conclusion like i said he didn't say what what he's like this needs to be rewritten great way to meet this guy all right so then i rewrote it and he said oh this is like something like, this is the best effing thing I've ever read in my life. Wow. He's like, how are you not a New York Times bestseller? Like, so he'd be like crazy with feedback. He'd like really like pour it on thick and heavy to do something good, but it wasn't good.

He'd tell you it sucks. And so he's like, we, he, somebody wrote Fred about the ISSA textbook basically saying it had gotten like kind of bizarre. Like it was like just all like not like we're talking about real functional training, like strange stuff of like you know you only do like flies on a bozu ball kind of thing not like i see where it's just functional ball makes yeah it's just functional for the sake of being different versus like an intended purpose yeah and whoever it was i don't recall who emailed him was making fun of him about it and he's like um he wrote me he's like if you seen this he's like yeah

i'm like yeah he's like what do you think it's crazy it's a joke and he's like why don't we rewrite it together i said all right so we talked to sell the owner and we went through and just almost like you know like a government like a committee like no this is wrong we're going to X this out we would rewrite certain sections and we ended up doing like the whole thing and he's like this was great like the whole curriculum well like say it's like something about how the lungs function is true didn't mess with like it's more like we would go through find errors and then rewrite the sections So 500-page book, we probably did, I don't know, a couple hundred pages out of it or something.

Because a lot of it's just like, you know, basically like if you're a personal trainer, like, you know, don't hit on your clients. Like, well, yeah, it's true. So we changed that. And we got all that fixed. And he's like, this was a great experience. He's like, I want to do a power tour with you. So we did six seminars in 2015. And he was like, no, this was too good.

We got to keep going. And so we did like 25 seminars and we were getting ready to go to Denmark on Friday and he like died on Tuesday. And so my wife was the most helpful. She got, his wife was so distraught basically somehow got everything refunded. And like even the guy in Denmark that had reserved the venue got refunded somehow. So we kind of were able to get everything dealt with. But it was it was pretty, it was unexpected. He was old.

but from when he like he had had talked with Dom and all that he was kind of like I would say when I first met him this it almost looked like he had one foot on a grave the other on banana pill he just didn't look good but like by the end he was so vibrant and like he was like he seemed like so full of life and vibrant and like I would have thought he at least 10 years left minimally and he just died so it's pretty like shocking to me because we were literally set to go to um there in europe in three days what's uh what's some of the idea behind compensatory acceleration that was one of his main principles it was like basically speed training to some basically the whole premise behind it is you you compensate by

accelerating the bar so like if like say the squat you come out of the bottom part of the squat that's where you get adaptive overload because it's hard to come out of the bottom but obviously you can coast your way up if you want to once you get past that sticking point this is you hit the gas so you get like you get maximum acceleration full range so we get the maximum adaptive overload so that's where like you're talking about like so that's why like bands and chains say we were talking about earlier for example wouldn't be something you typically use for a beginner but there was one study um like 12 years ago or something 13 years ago about a group of baseball players that didn't really have lifting experience one use like chains one bench press the other bench press

barbell the chains group actually ended up doing better in a lot of metrics because i think it taught them i'm not like saying every beginner should use chains that like kind of taught them to compensatory accelerate the weight because they had no choice you don't if as you push it up link by links come up the ground you have to produce more force as your ability your mechanical advantage increases you're going to have to push harder because link by link is coming to the ground if you don't it's going to smack you right so like that's your choice so taught all these baseball players to do it right without having to cue them or anything it just made them so there's that part of it too but that's the idea is to get maximum adaptive overload by the because he has like he's used to

these examples of okay you have five sets of five squat say it 75 percent he would say if you're just doing it normal you're not really getting the maximum adaptive overload to the last couple reps of the last set where why not just push it hard the whole way and get the most out of it when you think what the day day you know sessions weeks months years how much adaptive of overload, getting stronger, or leaving on the table if you don't do it that way. Shit, he could jump, huh? You'd jump. Did he, like, obviously, he trained heavy as well, right?

He didn't only train light. He wasn't only moving light. He didn't only train light, too, but... He did both, right? He did both, right? Did both. Yeah, you need both. You can't only train light. Can't only train light. On kind of this note, you know, earlier you were mentioning how you don't see many people

maintaining power as they get older, right? we know there's a biological aspect of this but you know whenever i talk about some of this stuff i kind of almost feel like an imposter because i'm 33 but when i see people talk about this but technically according to them you should be going downhill already right yeah man i know but you know when i see people talk about this the thing i wonder is like well was there intent to hold on to it were you doing a few hill sprints every single week and not like crazy fatiguing but Were you doing something that would allow you to do that? And were you maintaining that?

I don't think so. I feel like that's the thing, man. Because I feel like if people were having that intent and build, let's say they don't have it right now, but they build it and then they maintain it. We've seen people that are in their 70s and 80s that are doing track meets that are still pretty fast. There's a guy that has a good, um, I don't, are you guys on X Twitter? I'm not really, but there's a guy in there. I don't think he's on Instagram, though. His name's guru anaerobic.

he's into like sprints or like oh he's like 60 something and he basically was saying that like 50 you should be one second under your top 100 meters like prime so that was kind of with his read on it wow but he's actually doing stuff so it's not just some random dude that's like oh like you know I mean he's he's like really impressive all around and like running like distance and then nice you know like lifts but not like crazy like you know probably a double body weight squat kind of guy. I think there's like some small things that you can just try to keep around forever. I mean, maybe when you were younger, maybe you used to dunk or maybe used to be able to hit

the rim on a basketball who maybe just, you know, for as long as you possibly can, you can you can still jump and touch the net. You know, like just try to keep. Well, you got to think if you're not doing it. Yeah. Like, I mean. But you're not working at it. Then how can you complain that you don't have it anymore?

Oh, I'm just getting old. Like, well, you're not getting old. You just haven't done it. that there's that that and then there's a self-fulfilling prophecy i think misery loves company too so they're gonna want to like if like you see you doing it like what well like you know why why why can't i do it too you're not putting the work so like if you're putting in the work i mean that's a different story but i think most of these studies they're not doing that they're just saying like okay because how many people period are sprinting so they're saying like a 20 year old that doesn't

sprint you know is going to be faster than a 50 year old right but like you know what a hussein bull right like why is he slower than he was when he was in his prime well he probably hasn't sprinted in a long time well there's also with a but he wouldn't be able to maybe maintain that world record pace i don't think anybody would yeah but you think that but maintain something i mean but he might have we were talking earlier about too much volume to his frequency earlier which which obviously helped them get to the top but that may not be the best path for longevity just how if like olympic lifting you look at a lot of the guys are doing working out twice a day seven days a week and they're peeking out early but like

Like if you said, I want to hit my best clean and jerk at 60, that probably wouldn't be the path to take. You know, consistency is going to be king for long-term gains, but it's not necessarily that, you know, just do it three times a week and, you know, in moderation if you want to set a world record. So you have to look at, are you looking to be at a pretty high level and all around high-level generalists like we had talked about earlier? Or are you trying to be like the best in the world at one thing, totally different path? Because that's where the consistency is king. And you have to look at like, if we're talking about this high level generalist, then sustainability becomes huge. Like, okay, like you can't live in a fantasy world where you're saying, I'm going to, you know, I work 60 hours a week minimally. I might have 20 hours of overtime.

I got four kids. I'm going to train twice a day, 60. That's not going to work, you know. You have to look at your, you know, what's going to actually like be sustainable and enjoyable too, because like not being stupid stuff, but if it's enjoyable, it's more likely to be sustainable and the sustainable has to fit your lifestyle. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more.

A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing. They can look at your cholesterol.

They can look at the various markers that you have and they can kind of see where you're at and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects too where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this.

Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that?

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

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

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

Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help

from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, head to Merichhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. A lot of people now talk about like hybrid training and you've been someone that's had people. You have power lifters sprinting.

You know, I don't know how many people recognize that they're listening to the show today. Maybe some of your fans realize that but maybe people that are newer to you, maybe they don't know that. What are some attributes that you try to make sure someone has, even when they're a bodybuilder, even when they're a power lifter?

And they're not necessarily responsible for some of those. right we have to find out what their goals are too because if they if someone's like look I don't care this is all I want that's a different I'm saying like look I think why I don't care how fat I am I just I always say like I'm going to help you with your goals okay so there got to be your goals now if you want to ask me what I think about your goals and what I would do if I was you I'll tell you but like I'm not going to be like no dude like you got to get like you don't want to do that you're like all I care about is being as huge as possible and strong

I'll help you get there but I wouldn't do that but I'm here to help you you not impose my will on you so but i do think that there's like a lot of if someone's like you know i want to be a power after maintain some athleticism or gain a little bit that's where we get like a few jumps and things like that maybe short sprints that kind of thing too and the only thing you know like they can be and i think like you say like the outdoor workouts and stuff so you might you might be only training like three or four days a week but then you you'd be able to get outdoors a couple days, like rucking,

whatever you're going to do, like that kind of thing too. So, but as like a power lifter, absolutely in the off season. Like, I think those, the sprints, really short jumps can like help potential.

They're going to increase your overall strength potential, not just, um, because you can produce higher level force. You're going to increase your general endurance work capacity, all that stuff over time. Plus, potentiate the workout.

So if you have a better workout because you feel more explosive because you jumped, you're able to lift more in that workout. able to produce more force for the submaximal sets if you like kind of catalog those training at applications over time the results can be better in the end too just because each such each individual session over time kind of has a synergistic compounding effect that's just going to pay off as you go really curious about uh rucking because you know i've i have some rucks ex now i do that a few times a week i just i'll just go on walks with it you know so but the reason why i dig it so much is

because it's one of those things that, like, you can make it as heavy as you want to, but it's also something I can get my mom to do, like 20 pounds, right? You're adding some weight to the structure. So what have you found has been... Well, we can walk over how we did today, like that sort of, you know, not slow, but not a workout pace. Throw a little ruck on and do an easy one,

or you can, like, be booking it. So that's actually brings me to this. What are the variations and variables of rucking that you look at from, like, your most intense rucks and what kind of adaptation you're looking for there or even your simplest, easy ones. Well, I think, like, the variables you look at would be like, obviously, the weight, the terrain,

then, like, the trajectory of the, you know, the surface you're on, is it a hill or, like, you know, what kind of hill is it like? Because you could be, like, up these Sierra now I'm at, like, you do like 2.8 miles, 60 pounds in an hour. That's freaking great. You do that in the city street. Like, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.

It's just not you're an elite rock. you know so you have to look at that kind of stuff too so i've had a um i've actually trained a number of people for rucking competitions you know one lady that was actually winning like a lot of the men's ones and then a lot of guys for special forces so i had to like i kind of stumbled on rucking because i first off i didn't really know it was a thing i just always kind of did it even when i was fat powerlifting what i used to do is put on a weighted vest the day after squats and walk up and down stadium stairs for active recovery i didn't really know this was like legitimate thing like 18 years old 19 years old but i knew it helped me feel better so i look at

that um the distance um the weight and then mainly like then you have to look at the actual terrain too like it'd be different in sand than it would on you know because like civilian rucking versus like you know it's like say if it's special forces guy they could also have to worry about i've never done personally done it i know it's a variable that we have to work work around but it's like navigation I wouldn't be a good navigator. I don't do that. You know, so there'd be that part of it, too. And when it comes to weight, what are, what do you suggest in terms of weight?

For someone who's, like, beginning? Because you mentioned 60 pounds. That's like 25% of your body. Yeah. So I did some last year when I was getting the really into rucking. It turned that endurance phase. I was doing by the end with like, I threw another 30 pound plate or a 20 pound place. So it was 80 pounds.

But, I mean, I was in those ones for like, how? It didn't seem to matter. I mean, I'm sure if I would have gone like five hours or something would have happened, but it just didn't seem to matter at that point because I've so dialed in. It was like weird. One day when I was rucking, a friend of mine said, you want to do this 12 half mile a ruck. I'm like, okay. And I didn't know how hard that would be because I hadn't gone past an hour. How much way did you have on you?

On that one was like, it was like 50 pounds. Wasn't that? Hey, for 12 and a half miles, that's a lot. Well, that one we, yeah. So I was doing a lot of those are like 10 miles of. Yeah. and no i take hold on i take that back i have done 12 and i didn't with 12 and a half with that but not at that particular event that was like a lighter one

because they said it'd be like 20 pounds it's like 30 i think it'll be like 30 pounds but i have done some of those in my own training at that far but i was it's just weird one day when i did it i i couldn't believe it's like almost like i felt my lungs open up like it's just like i can just go and go and go and go and i remember thinking like at one point rucking like a 15 minute mile would be like a good rock. Then I remember I got at the point where I could talk to my like my parents called one day and I picked up the phone with headphones on and they didn't know I was rucky. And I was like, okay, I'm under 15 minutes. I can carry out a phone conversation without saying what the hell you're doing. Pretty cool. Yeah. And for reference guys, it's like that's for having weight

on you. That's a good speed. Yeah. Like when I tell people to start, I'm like, aim for maybe maybe 20 minutes If you're over that, 20 minutes of mile, you're a good starting point. And really, I say you didn't have to go below 15 unless you're trying for the military. But I never increased my effort. I just said, again, this is, it was going so well and I was so consistent. I decided not even to like track heart rate or anything. I'm like, okay, I can talk to somebody. I'm okay.

And like someone's, you know, hey, I was going. Like, you know, and I could tell them out of breath. I'm fine. So I just stayed at that pace and just it kept getting faster and faster and faster by how far it was going. And I think that's one of the really cool things about rucking because like let's think about this. A lot of people, they see people running and then they want to start running. But there's so much that comes into your form, how you handle the forces, all these things that it's, it can be unsafe. It can cause a lot of injury if you're not smart with it.

For sure. But with the way that you've progressed rucking, and if people like just do that where they're not like trying to go faster, but they're just trying to make sure that they can keep a speed where they're talking and it's reasonable and they just do that consistently without it's not going to destroy their body it'll just make their structure stronger while keeping them relatively safe and you could have a 60 year old 70 year old absolutely that's sort of that book right there you see rucking gains that's a good starting point oh is that your book yeah it's sick it's on rucking and then um that that's a very good like that's a beginner's guide of like how to get into it let's see over there um

that one um that yeah go up that with that fire the wildland firefighter the right yeah that would be um the one i have tom havelin and i made on um advanced rucking that's people that are already right people that are already rucking so that's like next level so what are some aspects of advanced rucking are you also carrying something with you while you have something on your yeah and you're doing it like daily so it's just like but it's not it's like varying intensities and things like that but a lot of times you're actually carrying things like and stuff like that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's tough, man. You just, you know, here at the gym or at my home where I have a lot of different weights and stuff, you just grab something and you just go on a walk. You know, that's different than like a planned hike slash ruck that you might do on a Saturday where you're going out for miles. But you just grab like a 35 pound dumbbell and go for a walk around the block. You'll be surprised how bad it's like a, you're halfway through.

You're like, I made a big mistake. Why did one with like the rock and then that sledgehammer deal you have? I said I had that one. I just brought that one day. I'm like, I only got an hour today and I wanted more time. I'm sure to bring that with me and see what happened. I just kind of walk with it like this.

He kept switching sides, you know, for, yeah, it gets to be, I think you want to carry something that's heavy enough that's a kind of annoying. Yeah, that's kind of the way I look at it.

Like if you walked and it was kind of a breeze, then maybe next time grab something that's a little heavier that you do have to switch hands or switch putting it on your shoulder. You can bring a med ball. I mean. Ammo, yeah, a Jerry can kind of thing.

Yeah, it could be anything and you can also trade off with somebody else. Like if you have someone you're walking with the only thing I would caution against is like, you know, know your path, like know how long you're going. Make sure your phone

is charged. You know, if you're going on like a hike, you need to be a little careful. Like make sure you have enough liquid with you and all that stuff. Especially if you're not trained. Like if you don't do it very often, if you're used to it then the odds of you need eating like tons of liquid with you is probably low. But if you're not used to it,

You might be sucking some wind, and you might need a lot of, like, hydration with you. I mean, this is dumb, but I used to the 10-mile-on-ones with not any heart duration. But they're always, like, in a certain area where, like, if something happened, someone would see, it wasn't like. Yeah, you can get to something. It was, like, in the backwoods. Yeah, you can get to something or someone to help you, because you don't want to end up compromise. What about shoes? Like, you know, when you're carrying these weights for you, you just kind of, like, wear whatever shoes.

Yeah, and I also did, I was doing a rucking. I don't even know if other people do this or how good this is or not, but I did a, with the 50-pound ruck, I did a mile in 922. I just started running. I never jogged. I'm like, what's going to happen? Like, so first time I did it. You're doing like a little low and slow?

Well, like, first time I did it tried it one other time. And I was on pace for like a seven minute of a month. This is going to be the greatest feet of all time. Then like three minutes into like died. I was going so fast It was like two to three minutes into it I felt pretty good at first I'm like I can just keep going and going

I'm like I'm like this bad But the fact that she did a mile at 922 With 50 pounds that's insane Like that's that's hard I've tried like just getting into a bit of a run With 45 pounds on my back and like I only managed maybe four minutes before I'd start walking I wouldn't do it again because it didn't feel good

it felt rough my ankle. I don't we do it if it was like that's what I'm saying it would be kind of cool to build up to but I wouldn't want to do the work to build up to

because the downside's too down. Yeah. That's why I say like you don't ever run rucking unless it's like military like some of the special forces guy they have to make certain times and they're going to have to do certain things

but like again it's like competing versus recreational training like there are differences and once you go to competitive level of something there is more of a chance of injury. Our buddy, Zach Thalander, he did 100 days running one mile every day. And I thought, like, that's pretty cool, you know, because you hear of this kind of mantra, sometimes people talking about running every day, but sometimes people are running, like,

fairly far a mile. It's like, I don't know, seems reasonable. Yeah. And to give it a try for like 100 days and he just, for him, you know, he felt like it had some good results with like body composition and his speed. What was his time? He's pretty fast. I don't know what his time was,

but maybe you can try to look up the Instagram post that he made. Some of those I would say he runs like six. Yeah, he's like six sub six. He's a very efficient runner. At the end? No,

at the beginning. At the beginning, at the beginning, I think he was running like seven something miles. Like when he really pushed, he was like low sevens. But Zach, like he's tall.

He's long. You look at his running for, like he's very efficient. He's got to be a 200 something because he's like six three or something. That's why I think maybe he's, maybe it's like 210, 215. I think there's a skill aspect of that, too, as you know from the distance running.

It's like you can have a good V-O-2 max and do these things that would theoretically transfer over, but if you don't do it, it's not quite there as you think. Because like I told you that first time I did the Ruck, I'm like, dude, no one's going to believe me.

I'm going to get like a filmer out here to show how great this was on this seven-minute mile. And it's like, no, I didn't know because I hadn't been doing that. Like, it's like, okay, boom, then it just died out. Right.

I was probably a third of a mile into it when it just was like over. What do you think that helps with? So like we're talking about rucking and obviously has some benefits, but, you know, people they want to get jacked or they want to be in better shape. Like what did you think? I think it will help the average person get more jacked though. So if you're not like a serious lifter.

So like, you know, if like Ronnie Coleman had been rucking, he's not like, oh, would have been, no, probably not.

But like the average person, it's not super trained. no for them but like sort of him but like in all seriousness they wouldn't they're going to get something out of it like a normal dude like dad bod kind of guy that just throws on a ruck and starts doing it I guarantee he's going to look more muscular calves and legs and stuff are going to start yeah that's

even people that are more jacked that are like to me that really brings up to calves that I'm trying and the traps you look at a lot of special forces guys and stuff that rock all the time they don't have like necessarily a bodybuilding champion and physique, but they got damn good traps. I think a lot of that comes from Rucking. I think one of the also the real benefits of Rucking comes to that,

what it does to your posture. Yeah, I'm supposed to say that, yep. Because, like, exactly, you're now having to, you have to walk for a long time with load. And a lot of people don't even handle gravity well. But if you're training yourself to, like, let's say you get you start with 10% of your body weight, you're just walking through space.

You have to create the correct structure to do this without pain. That'll transfer into the way you hold your body without any type of weight, you know? Yeah, I mean, the hardest ones I've seen for like if I was going to do like a um you know for the rucking thing too is we're talking about earlier is the one got a good transference with two for some guys that don't have access to mountains and stuff is stairmaster using the ruck on the stairmaster deadly the beauty of it is it's so easy to track because if you're tracking like your mileage or something on your phone you're behind it's like you're hauling ass when you didn't want to be

and it's kind of changing the dynamic of the workout or you start off too fast slow down you know, time it. This is like very like, okay, I go to this level next. You know, I need to hit, I hit a thousand steps here. Now I'm going to get to a thousand 20, but I'm not going to increase the time, that kind of thing. And it's a really, you know, for people that are powerlifting strength minded that like been tracking those metrics, it's a nice kind of way to track it. What are some of the basics of just getting better? Because yesterday you mentioned to me that that's like your obsession. It's like helping people get better. What are kind of some consistent things that you've seen, whether it be sprinting or throwing a med ball or lifting

or business, like what are some of the consistent things that you've seen for someone just to get better? Well, I think a lot of it, we were talking about this yesterday, actually, I thought what I've sort of changed on, I would say like the mindset first, but I think if you're out of shape, getting in shape, going to help you get better in general with your mindset. I think there's been so many studies now on like physical training being better than antidepressants for a lot of people who need antidepressants. Now, I'm not saying there's not people that don't need them or whatever, but definitely in large cohorts, they work as well or better.

So if you're, that's not you, but you want to feel better. One of the best ways to mentally feel better is to physically get better shape. So generally, if you do that and your mindset's not optimal, it's going to get closer to optimal just by doing that. So I think if that's where you're at, I would start there. And I wouldn't have said that before. I would have said, like, you got to start with the mind and all this. And I think if someone's in great shape and they're not right in the mind, you'd start there.

So I think it would depend on the situation. But I think another key besides mindset and attitudes, consistency and what they do, people just nowadays aren't as consistent. The successful people aren't the ones that aren't, you know, aren't successful or not. I mean, I think of how many people can't stick with something nowadays. Right. And I think it's just the way people have been sort of programmed of like you're entertained on your phone or something like, you know, if like, you know, someone's talking about you can't show, you know, you guys talk about the podcast, can't show too much at once and then I don't watch the whole

thing. Well, why? Because they get bored kind of thing. So like, that's reality, though. That's if you didn't factor then, you're not running a business. But like if you want to be the best at something or good at something, it's like what Bruce Lee said, doing the same practice the same kick 10,000 times instead of practice 10,000 kicks one time. Like, I think that would apply to is like consistency. I think some of us have been exposed to like opportunities of consistency that maybe we didn't really think of. I think in Seema's story is your mom was trying to get you to expend energy, right? His mother was trying to get him to, like, you know, do stuff so he didn't probably

annoy her or whatever. And so she took him, took him to a gym. You mentioned that your dad took you to a gym and you saw your dad, he would play racquetball and you could mess around with the racket and stuff like that, but you were kind of left to your own devices to go roam around and mess around on the machines and stuff. to lift. And then I had older brothers that lifted. And my exposure to working out was just like in our garage, like in our, or in our basement, rather. Um, there was just like, I think there was more people that you could learn about at least from like the strength aspect than getting jacked.

I, like, hard perched free to be the correct term. I guess at like those kind of gyms back then, though, because I feel like there wasn't people that were like just like, like you're talking about yesterday like dicking around. There's like guys and come in like paint on their work clothes and like, they're actually pretty strong too not like elite power lifter but like you know bench 315 could do like five plates for reps on deadlifts and like

they're just random dudes that were like that's what the gym was you know and it was pretty crazy to see thinking back on like they were working construction all day and stuff too so those are the kind of people I was around initially so that was kind of like you know that's that's not anything special

that's the standard I think to get to get someone to be consistent I think it's helpful to have almost like a level of like play with it, you know, like play with these exercises, play with these different movements, rather than like, rather than the gym being so serious, like, oh, Monday, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm following this routine. And if you can stick with that, then that's cool. But I think having some sort of relationship to the gym where it's like less of a thing, it's like,

you're just going to go and you heard us talk about putting on a weight vest and going on the stairmaster. Right. buying a gym that has a stairmaster put on a lightweight vest it's like 5% of your body weight go on the uh trip go on the stair master for five minutes take a three minute break do five more minutes and leave well make it like just like a like a little maybe maybe you see something on the way out of the gym and you do like one more set of something people's programs that's what I'll do a lot of times to say okay you're aerobic modality you know you got to keep your heart rate between this and that and do it for 45 to 60 minutes to give them like a lot of freedom of

okay you don't have to ruck today you could do the exercise bike because i remember a couple times my ankle was getting a little jacked up rucking so much so a couple times what i did i just did exercise bike it was actually harder than i thought because i hadn't been doing it at all right just how i wouldn't do the sled today that's kind of easy what we're doing but i haven't done sleds in a long time like i'm starting to sweat from this isn't just a complete joke where you know and and it's just because you haven't been doing it so it actually provides a benefit it gives people some freedom but keeps them on a structure at the same time kind of finding that when it comes just like flat out getting strong what are the consistent things with that

like i know that you're i know that you use so many different methods you mentioned that you wrote like 20 something books and you've talked everything about you know cluster training and uh you know these sets where you breathe in between sets drop sets all these different ways but what's kind of the consistent thing there with with somebody with somebody being able to consistently get strong over time. Yeah, I think so, like just different, like kind of overlying principles and stuff. You know, obviously you got consistency. So we'll use that as like a kind of you have to have it.

That's not debatable. So that doesn't matter what you're doing. You have to be doing consistent. I think one of the other things people don't think about is a lot of the strongest guys, they automatically compensatory accelerate the weight, whether they know it or not. So a lot of people don't have to be told to do that. They just kind of do it. and that's a lot of your stronger guys.

Once they have the form down or technique, they move the weight explosively. Yep. And then like just how they prioritize the workouts. So I think lifestyle is king. That's huge. I mean, so we have examples of people.

Okay, you know, they were out to like the strip club and, you know, doing Coke till 4 in the morning. He came in and like hit a death of PR. But for every person like that, there's like 100 people that do that that aren't PR.

So lifestyle is going to be king. You can always find like, hey, what about so? what about them okay there are those people got the mike o'hearn lifestyle he's been doing it forever that's the he's been he's the most consistent most dedicated and i think the older you get the more that would matter right so lifestyle would be king um are you talking about just in general or training principles or what yeah yeah training principles yeah getting a little bit more into strength

yeah um i think another thing that's um the compensatory acceleration training um the um a lot of the cluster training so like just getting people ready of the vault like how you divide the volume versus like more more sets less reps so like to reset eight eight three so three so you get more first reps you build strength so you get a better motor pattern in that way you're able to produce more force that way all that kind of stuff it's huge another thing i'm just kind of things the people i work with it by training your nervous system to get used to your nervous system so more nervous system stuff rather than an important off season. So I'm going to go with the way,

I'm not going to say in general for everybody. I'll just tell you things that I have done with people, clients that work well. Off season. You know, a fast car needs a big engine. So you have to, you know,

train your hypertrophy, your weak points, all that stuff in the off season. That's going to build your work capacity, your general endurance. So you can handle the load you need. So if you're trying to get strong for a meat, you can handle the meat prep

because you got stronger in the off season. But I mean, excuse me, you develop the work capacity in the off season. So you're able to do the work to get ready because a lot of the great stuff happens in the off season. That's where you fix weaknesses. And it's almost like then it becomes your peaking cycle is where you would like display. You know, that's where it's that's that's that's you build it in the off season and kind of like almost show it during while you're trying. Off season could be prehab rehab rehab stuff. You always run into shoulder injury every time you start benching heavy.

You take care of it in the off season. You're not benching as much, but you're maybe doing exercise. sizes to address the shoulder. The office seems to be different for everybody. So it could be that. It could be like a period of like some strong man training to raise your work capacity. Because a lot of times a lot of the really strong guys, we can do the strong man events. Theoretically, there like a lot of people say, hey, that's too intense on a nervous system.

But it's really not because if you hadn't been training, you're talking about moving forward through space. You haven't been doing that. But you dealt with 900. You're not going to pick up 500 pounds. The farmer's walking chain just run with it. So it's like that the battle could be getting you to do 300 pounds. in each hand because you don't have ever done it before so we're starting off at 200 working up to that so you're improving your grip all your posture all sorts of different things we can talk about the

benefits of but you never if if you kept going you'd get to that elite strongman level where that whoa this is like you know real stress on the cns but if we stop it after like an eight week block or so you got up to 600 you got a lot out of it then we're done with it move on from it so that's when you can improve more of your rogue capacity too during this time and then i think the key is also the hypertrophy training is the best way, you know, to increase, the best way to increase strength potential is through muscle hypertrophy. If you get a bigger muscle, theoretically to be strong, obviously the nervous system matters, but I think that part people are missing out too.

I think another way is like those stuff we did, like the dead movements, concentric only building strength from there would be different. The isometrics, like to address sticking. points i think those would be some like the major differences of what i do yeah but i think a lot of it's the off-season so i go back to a lot of what we aren't accomplished is going to be accomplished in the off-season so if someone said hey i can only work with you for 12 weeks long period so i peak or do off-season i'd rather do the off-season that's set up right the peak in cycle have you found that people need extra calories what do you mean like when they're trying to train for

hypertrophy and they're trying to train to be explosive and strong, can they need extra calories or can they be like almost more like maintenance? I think with explosive and strong, you can definitely get maintenance, but if you want to maximize hypertrophy, you definitely want to be in a little bit, you know, surplus for sure. I first started hearing about transcriptions from Thomas to Lauer. Yeah. And, you know, Thomas is somebody that's an animal with working out.

You got a chance to work out with him. I worked out with him. And he's kind of always on the front lines of like, you know, finding out about these new companies that have cool things. But I didn't really realize that Transcriptions was the first company to put out Methylene Blue. Now look at Methylene Blue. It's so popular. It's everywhere. It's one of those things. If you guys listen to this podcast, you know I'm very iffy with the supplements that I take. Because there's a lot of shady stuff out there. You got to be careful. The great thing about Transcriptions is that when people want to get Methylene Blue, usually they'll go on

Amazon, they're going on with these other sites. It's not third-party testing. It's not, it's not dosed. A lot of people end up with toxicity from the blue that they get because there's no testing of it. Transcriptions, they have third-party testing for their products. It's dose so you know easily what exact dose of methylene blue you're getting in each troki. So you're not making some type of mistake. There's not going to be anything in it. It's safe. You can have it dissolve and you can turn your whole world blue if you want or you can just swallow it. They have two different types of methylene blue. They have one that is, I believe, dosed at 16 milligrams and they have another one that's dosed at 50 milligrams.

So make sure you check the milligrams. I don't recommend anybody start at 50 milligrams, but the 16, I feel, is very safe. You can also score the trokies and you can break them up into smaller bits. Yes, what I do. And in addition to that, on top of the methylene blue, they have a lot of other great products of stuff as well.

They got stuff for sleep. They got stuff for calming down, all kinds of things. I got to say, I use it about two or three times a week. I use it before Jiu-Jitsu. And the cool thing that I've noticed, and I've paid attention to this over the past few months is that after sessions, I don't feel as tired. So it's almost like I've become more efficient

with just the way I use my body in these hard sessions of grappling. And it's like, cool, that means that, I mean, I could go for longer if I wanted to and my recovery's better affected. It's pretty great. I know Dr. Scott, sure, we had him on the podcast and he talked quite a bit about how he recommends

Methylene Blue to a lot of the athletes that he works with. And they're seeing some profound impacts. And one of the things I've heard about it is that it can enhance red light. So those are you doing red light therapy or those of you that have some opportunities to get out into some good sunlight? It might be a good idea to try some methylene blue before you go out on your walk or run outside or whatever activity is that you're going to do outside. And this stuff is great.

But please, like first off, they have stuff for staying calm. They have stuff for sleep. But remember, this stuff isn't a substitute. for sleep. This isn't a substitution for taking care of nutrition. This is supposed to be an add-on to all the things that we already should be doing and it's going to make things so much better if you're doing everything else too. And I think this is just a little different too than just adding some magnesium to your diet. I think this is a little different than, you know, treat these things appropriately. Make sure you do some of your own research, but. Oh, if you're taking

medications. Yeah. SRIs, you better talk to your doctor first. Don't, don't be popping these things. And if you're taking any medications at all, it would be good to double, triple, quadruple check and make sure that you're safe. Transcriptions has a lot of great things that you need. So go and check out their website when you have the opportunity. Strength is never a week. This week, this never strength. Catch you guys later. And let me ask this, Josh.

Now, like, how old are you? I'm 44. 44. So, you know, as you're continuing to train and you're, you know, we just got some health sprints done. I think there are a lot of people within that age group and older where maybe they're not competing in powerlifting. but they want to, again, progress athleticism. So for you specifically, what are things that you are doing with your training that maybe have been different from what you did in your 30s?

Okay. So I think one of the differences I'm focusing on is I've been doing, making that, I guess the biggest difference is making more of that movement stuff, the priority. So before, if something's going to not be optimal, it's going to be that, oh, well, dude, that's going to affect this work. out. So now I'll just push this back or kind of half-ass this where now I'm I'd half-ass the conditioning or the hill sprints and that kind of stuff. So I think the difference is

almost that kind of paradigm shift more than anything. It's like this is now the priority now. So if something's going to, you know, lack, it's going to be more of the strength stuff. Why? Yeah. Because I think I already have a high enough base of that. Because again, like I said, my goal is to move like I'm lighter. That's exactly right. And be strengthened. So like if something's got to give so if we're so say a high level generalist you're like 90 plus percent in all these different capacities yeah i'm gonna i could probably take a year off of binge drinking and be top 90 percent strength you know what i mean like seriously like it's a year off of binge drinking a year off and start excuse me binge drink for a year okay

just start going to alcoholic yeah for a year and i think i'd come back and assuming i'm alive still being the top 10% strength-wise because we're like around like the cream of the crop strength. Like there's a lot of people that can't deadlift like 200 pounds and stuff. So like it would be like that's not going to be hard to maintain. So if I truly want to be this high-level generalist and you're being honest about it, that's different than I'm going to start programming your powerlifting. But we're going to touch jumps. We're going to touch short sprints.

We're going to touch this. So you have that ability. And if you want to pursue it further, we can. But at least we're touching it so it doesn't go away. that's different than what I'm talking about. So that would be the biggest difference is that. Something I told you yesterday, it was like, yeah, the last thing I need is like another regular workout.

Right. You know, I need my workouts. It's more helpful for my workouts to be different. So I like that idea of like if something's going to compromise me, like if my hamstrings are going to be tight or my calves are going to be sore or whatever, it's because I rucked for, you know, a long distance or because I sprinted hard.

It's not because I decided to do like a ton of glute ham raises with a 50 pound yeah exactly you know med ball or whatever you know this is a something i'm curious both of your guys's thoughts because i've been thinking about this a lot as i continue to progress at some things i do um because i think that strength training is super important for keeping the your your structure your body strong as you get older training with weight but then the question comes into how heavy is heavy enough like how like what is a point where it's like unnecessary right Because you see they're guys like Deonté Wilder. There are many different boxers, many different martial artists that don't do almost any gym work.

But they have all this power, et cetera. But if they did some, maybe that would be helpful for keeping the body structurally strong. But then the question is, well, does Deontze Wilder need a deadlift? 400 pounds? Does he need to even bench two plates? Like, what is the point where you have enough strain for life? It would be interested to experiment on him and find out. Yeah, no, no.

But the thing is, you know he would be better if he gets some lifting. Right. But the question is, like, you know, some guys should take it too far. It's like there's, you don't have to. I got a couple. So basically, if you can squat and deadlift, like I found about 2.5 times your body weight, that's a point where you're not getting returned for like speed and explosive power. Because one of the best metrics for speed is your strength of body weight ratio.

Okay. So if once you go beyond that, the carryover to me would start going on more for powerlifting, go way beyond that, I'm more for injury risk. So that would be if you weigh 200, you don't really need to squat and deadlift about 500 to get the most out of it. Like at that point, that's no longer helping. In my mind, if you're squatting 180, anyway, 200, the lowest hanging fruit to become more explosive is to get stronger. Okay. So that would be kind of like there is like a tip, there is a spillover point. And that's kind of like, some people say two times your body weight in a squat and elephant's kind of where you need to be.

And once you can do that, I've just found up into about 2.5 times there is some return on the investment. Yeah. After that none. Okay. I'm not really aware of the way that Dante Wilde or trains, but I would imagine there's like med balls involved in like probably some sort of weight or resistance. There's almost always something.

But there's really nothing checks more boxes than shunuch. striking, especially if you use your legs, but I know he's, you know, a boxer. He's just using more of his hands. But the footwork required, jumping rope, the coordination. But a lot of boxers, especially, they really fall off after they retire. And they, they kind of peek out early. They're pretty young, a lot of them that would have to stop. So, like, would they be going longer if they like, what I was about to mention is like, I think that Dante Wilder needs to lift, but maybe not right now. You know, I think he might need to. to lift in the future to have...

Where he's working out with her? Some other type of exercise going on. Athletes like himself or maybe others. But I think... So this is the thing, he does some, but he's very weak. When, like, if we were going to think about, like, his weight that he pushes on a squat or a bench, it's not much for how heavy he is. So it then makes... That's why I'm thinking, like, is it...

Do you really have to, like, you mean, some is going to be good. But, you know... Yeah, it could be some of his mindset and maybe his trainer's mindset. that maybe they've maybe his uh training is about feeling good and um maybe he likes to feel a certain way i'm sure he's tried maybe to go a little heavier on stuff before maybe and maybe he didn't love the experience he looks like he's doing it easily it's not like you know yeah maxed out here either especially on the squad yeah it looks like his uh strength training is more strength training slash i feel like if he conditioning did more heavy strength training he would benefit for

sure i think like i would say that if he if he did this the rest of his life though he's going to live a really long life and he'll feel amazing yeah without without the deadlift that's what i would think yeah it's it's it just if he stops because he's only doing this for boxing is where you really end up he's like in amazing he looks amazing it looks like a basketball and this is the thing how tall is your way how tall is he yeah i don't know i think maybe like six three or six four i think he's around six four but he's two something for sure he's a beast look at his shoulders But, like, you know, an interesting thing is, like, I've worked with a lot of martial artists. And the trend that I noticed with the jiu-jitsu athletes and martial artists in general is that people who do some form of strain training, there's always a time where you fall off of your strength training as you're doing your sport when it comes to training martial arts.

And they always notice after a few weeks or months, the body just starts to feel less resilient, right? So it lends to believe that, like, yes, this stuff keeps the joint strong, the tendons, the tissues strong. Right. But like the there's also a point because when you're having to balance heavy training with martial arts, there's so much that you have energy to do in terms of the heavy training, right? Because that'll start taking away from your other, your other sport. So it's like finding that balance between enough, exactly, enough weight to give you a good stimulus and give you a good adaptation while still being able to do your sport really well. And I think sometimes when you're seeking heavier and heavier and heavier weight. Sometimes it can take away from how you feel in your sport. For sure. You're balancing. It's all, it's all, yeah, you're always balancing.

That's what everybody's doing, even if it's powerlifting. Like, you're balancing what can be, like the stimulus, the recovery, the adaptation. That's what it is. Yeah, I just think in general, if you were to train a little bit like a boxer just in thinking about it more and even more so a striker, like doing maybe like Muay Thai stuff and throwing some kicks and stuff, I think, man, I think you check almost every single box that you can think of. A lot of these guys run, you know,

the amount of rotation work that you have to get in, the amount of footwork, along with jumping rope, throwing medicine balls, the rotation work they do with the medicine balls. It's like, man, you really end up hitting a lot of points.

That's very true. And I guess if they added grappley in, like a little bit of MMA training, then it's like, I don't want to say you don't have to lift, but yeah, it just seems like, yeah,

maybe lifting doesn't have to be much of a priority. I guess also maybe you know coaches I think are thinking about like what does this guy need you know I don't really know his situation but maybe they're like they should be thinking that at least he throws some of the you know he throws some really incredible bombs right he's known for yeah yeah so maybe like and maybe they've found like maybe they tried to like have him lift heavier and it like made him worse or something or maybe they have a fear of that and they don't have maybe the knowledge that Josh has with you know working with so many different people usually you just kind of like know what you know his body looks like a whip like that's how it works you know what i mean yeah yeah that shit is crazy i mean i don't think tyson lifted a lot you know i think tyson later on in his career when he wasn't nearly as good as when he was young um he lifted more um but he also had different coaching different training and he just was older and there was like a lot of other factors in there but yeah you can see these guys they do a lot of resistance stuff all the next stuff that they do and a lot of calisthenics yeah yeah i'm just

watching. I'm like, fuck, I want to be in shape like that. This guy's amazing. You have worked with such a diverse, a diverse level of people. What are some things that you do with some of the tactical people that you work with? You work with some police, fire, military, and what has been some of your experience there? Yeah, so the tactical population work with some that are like, like Fort Worth Pedia, some of them are power officers actually have won like the law enforcement world shit that's great but we keep like some of that elements in there so it's just like all right you can't get to 300 pounds you can't move and like you know there's there'll be like some like sled drags farmers walks get them into the world's strongest

operator competition to do those things they are moving some but then there's actual like different that's like powerlifting tactical power off we call it like you're doing powerlifting but we're keeping a tactical element to it some people are just strong right tactical and that would depend on a lot of it depends on like what the the occupational demands are for example are you like in fort worth where it's 100 degrees just sitting there all day and have to sprint out of nowhere are you like a swat guy or what are you doing you know like working to prison so that they'd have to look at like all of those different elements but i think the end of the day you know firefighters like wild and firefighters um you know structural firefighters different

that are in the city versus the ones that are fighting up and firefighting up mountains. I think at the end of the day, for the tactical athlete, the objective is, like I said earlier, they want to move like they're lighter and have the speed and endurance of that and have the strength of somebody heavier. That's the whole goal.

And then we have to know, are you trying to beat a test? There's teaching to the test, and there's teaching for what's the occupational demands are. For example, Harry Walker is Green Beret. he could be i could have him doing like are are you trying to get there you got to beat this metric to get here but reality is you're probably a little better off if you're a tad heavier for what you're actually doing but you you know his run times weighing 190 were his best

but like he you know he's just uh he's just he's one always straw man caught us too you get up like two 30 for that so probably you look at pure occupational stuff like 215 you know something that kind of thing would be like the best he could be of ever everything, but you have to look at that sometimes if you're on SWAT and your whole thing could kick down a door or something, it doesn't matter if you can run, you know, five miles and, you know, 30 minutes. That's not going to really help you. You're mainly like what we were doing today, like, okay, you know, charge straight ahead,

like 20 yards, get in there, get it done. So I do have to factor in what they're actually doing. Then are we going to a test? So then had a lot of luck. I feel like the rucking subject hadn't been, you know, researched a lot. So I've had like a good chance kind of experimenting good, good results with people. So I've had a lot of really good results of people doing all the different Army and all the different military fitness tests, stuff.

I've actually, yeah. I mean, I did a thing for the Fort Worth SWAT team here earlier this year. We actually had to work in some like of the actual strongman training. Actually like where they would do shooting drills, pari movement. Oh, like shooting after they did like. a farmer's care here or something like that? That would be tough. It was very tough. Yeah. What's up with Waffle House strong?

Or Raffle House ready? I'm aware. It's like a gas station ready. It's like a gas station. Or is it the next level? Is it the next? Why don't we do it instead of me answer this? Why don't we Google Waffle House?

See what comes up. Is there a lot of violence at Waffle House? Just type in Waffle House fight. See what comes up. Fuck, man. I'm just trying to get a waffle over here. And I didn't expect someone to try to. Waffle us up 24 hours.

So they. They use that as like a metric of like how about a storm is and stuff. It's actually shut down. It's like a meetup spot, huh? It's a meetup spot up in like three in the morning. I mean, yeah, I've seen the jailhouse strong stuff and the gas station ready over the years. Waffle house, right? Kind of means like the same thing.

I think you'd have to be careful about like what you're in the middle of eating, you know, in case shit does go down. So you have to like be careful maybe with what you select. Yeah, I mean... Well, as that's loading, because it's going to be loading, do you pay attention to, like, diet-type stuff much? Like, how do you handle that when it comes to food and all these different things that you do?

Like me personally, so... You personally, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I kind of do... So I'll go through periods of time. Oh, wait, here we go. I mean, we could be... Shit going down at Waffle House? Didn't Kid Rocket arrested for fighting there? Did he really?

Yeah. No, no. Oh, shit. Oh, my God. So Waffle houses are kind of like Walmart. Just trying to get a pancake. I mean, Jesus. A waffle.

Yeah. Damn. Somebody threw a chair. Someone threw a chair. Are you saying about food? Oh. So I basically call like a no, I go like a no bullshit diet. Just a, I eat pretty good.

the time and it's not like super structured but I make sure to hit my protein every day and then like throughout the year what I'll do is if I fill my sleep off or something what always resets it is doing periods of ice cream keto oh yeah yeah if you have to like for that night it would yeah eat a bowl huge bowl ice cream for sure but um he's not joking yes no I'm not joking that really does work if you can't sleep it's like better than whiskey or something just get a huge thing of ice cream and I'll put the right to sleep it solves all your problems yeah so i i eat mostly um i've been eating mostly bison and deer and stuff we hunt so yeah oh you hunt yeah that's cool yeah how often do you do that um a lot okay okay okay um deer pigs

and then um i took my son of bison hunting he got the bison and we just been eating that Wow. Sounds delicious. Alligators one time. With the jailhouse strong, I know we've talked to you before on the podcast about some of that. What was some of the jailhouse strong stuff for maybe some of the people who don't know? Basically, the philosophy is, I think the easiest way to sum it up is like to make the most of what you have. Like to capitalize on the opportunity you have right in front of you.

So a lot of it's bodyweight training. So from a physical and it's building, you know, physical resilience. and you know and then it's almost it's a free it's freeing yourself from whatever is currently self whatever current form of self imprisonment you're suffering through physical frame so like for example if i'm stuck in here i guess you got a couple weights you got a couple weights here and there use that use body weight so that's what it is just making the best of what you have to do the best you have what you got that's as simple as that so my friend and adam and i we wrote that book together because we the gym we grew up at a lot of the people I started working at 16 years old

a lot of the people that come in there had been to jail and those are the people we gravitated to not because they've been to jail because they like their training style it's like for example one guy was the my first introduction to mechanical advantage drop sets it was like he got the dumbbells on a steep incline with the failure had me lower it did it twice more so I did three mechanical advantage drops it went to like flat and then maybe declines something like that exactly so it was like okay like this and he was big and jack it was a bounce at the strip club i don't know if we got a white collar job because he found a prison but like yeah it's a bounce there to strip club named fed and because they call him corn fed from when he was in prison so like being around

people like that that's how we learned it like okay all this cool stuff that we're liking and like it's like you know you hit the barbed left hard but then they hit like they were not like functional training like talking about longevity and health like we are here but they were doing a lot of that stuff like okay like you calisthenic types yeah body weight finisher with calisthenics and stuff so they're doing it by default and that's the influences we had so like what kind of style of training it's in jailhouse training it had nothing to do with actually going to jail it had to like be how can you form yourself whatever just like currently your form of self imprisonment you do that through physical training then making the the you have to make the best you have what you have you know what I mean

of what you have so um what was your best squat you squatted like 800 something right not on nine nine nine and you went to the APF senior nationals i think the same one that i went to and and you didn't lift in any equipment i don't think maybe just knee wraps no i had like some kind of like elementary kind of equipment on hmm so you wore like some sort of cheapy suit yeah and then um single ply suit yeah and had the ends are uh that one oh this is so great this is mountaineer cup did you go to that one i've never been but that that was in uh west virginia west by god virginia that's that's really out there that's that's uh here i was this one's the heaviest era was like 315 this is a brian cider's world remember him yeah how strong he was he went to it

yeah yeah i know he was incredible he was his strength was off the he he had like he was one of the most efficient machines i ever seen like the way he warmed up and stuff every single lift like looked the same like it was like watching a robot lift it's just like boom yeah i mean it was like wasn't it like i was a gary frank like supposedly he would just like deadlift like 135 and 225 in the warm-up room then he'd go out and his opener would be like 875 or something he used to take when i trained with i trained with i train with i didn't know you train them yeah i moved to louisiana for a while and trained with deadlift with him and all the lifts and he would take huge jumps he would go to um this guy just destroyed people in power lifting for like i don't know

a good five, six years. I think it converted him from IHop to Waffle House. He showed him the way. Yeah, showed him the way. But yeah, he would take huge jump. He was a huge. He was an explosive. He was a former football player.

I got a lot of that from him, like a lot of talking about the speed and stuff. Probably one of the first intros was, well, everybody that kind of had taken me out their wing for whatever reason, independent of each other, always emphasize speed, even the people that weren't like aware of Westside and stuff. Yeah. They talked about that. but Gary Frank was huge on speed like he would just be warmed up and stuff he would always really emphasize like maximum speed maximum speed even on like your war it's not just like on your

heaviest work sets he was the first guy to do 26 27 and 2800 pounds I think he was ridiculous yeah like I like how big he is he's not he's not fat either just like massive yeah he started doing these he used to track and he was showing me these drills he did oh that's Brian, you remember Brian Meeks? That's him. That's him spot on. I think Brian just died what? Like a... Oh shit. I didn't know that. It's like six. Good six plates.

Six plates on a 10. 605. Interesting. Interesting the way people like instinctively would do lifts, like on this lift that we just saw this guy do. Harry Frank, he just, uh, he didn't go all the way down. You know, he didn't touch his chest, but it was like part of a warm up or something. This is like the old bench shirt. I don't understand all the old school

guys that would go heavy in the bench shirts though. Why they go so heavy, raw? It's like my last warm up was like a PR. I'm like, why in the hell are you PRing? Yeah. I'm going to wear a shirt I'm going to put it on earlier. Yeah, now what people are doing in a bench shirt is pretty wild. It's like 1300 pounds or something crazy like that.

Yeah, he's doing like 700 pounds. 725 in those little chinty bench shirts back in the day. All right, man. Where can people find you? Where can they find out more stuff? Okay, cool. Yeah, so my website's josh strength.com. Instagram's Jailhouse Strong.

Same with YouTube and Twitter X. What the hell is it called? X. X. Josh strength. Awesome. Strength is never a weakness week this week. This never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye.