Mark Bell's Power Project - Discord Q&A: When Should You Stop Training and Recover? || MBPP Ep. 932

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

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

Recovery is important. I think people do need to pay attention. You hear people kind of say, like, listen to your body. Any tips for overcoming training addiction? The key to stay motivated is to realize that it is a quote-unquote marathon and not a sprint. And if I want progress to happen in the long term, I need to make sure that I am recovered. I need to make sure that I feel okay. The last rep of the last set, I've hurt myself on it before. But I'm wondering what a reasonable endpoint would be without becoming too fixated on the number. Sometimes people are like, oh, I'm just going to eat clean. And then you don't really define what eating clean means. Everybody kind of wants that loss to look like a straight line down. It's more so going to look kind of like this.

Hey, maybe we should give this guy like an eight sleep topper or something like that. Quantum Cloud, if you're here, send us your information on discord we're going to get a pod pro cover from eight sleep center away because that will help you sleep better we're going to get into your q a because we had a discord q a so if you want to get it on the next q a hit up the discord and go into the pp ask pp channel so that we can answer your questions let's get into this video like all right me training seven times a week is too much stress on my body i need to rest and recover i need to take some time off and allow my body to actually recover if i track my hrv and my sleep and everything and i can tell when my stress is too high yeah and

i mean sleep is everything too while i get to that so i started to remove training as much as i did i lowered my volume my frequency in a week resting more All the clients and all the people in the world. The man himself, okay, just said sometimes you have to reduce training. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. I'm like, thank you, Academy. Somebody's validated that. Thank you. Even more so to validate that even more,

this wasn't what I did as a cortisol reset. This is what I did in prep to win an Olympia. I got you. So I actually removed a few days of training and I progressed more. My body wasn't always fighting so hard to recover. You grow when you're resting. That's right. What a pussy.

Yeah, I know. Why can't he just train hardcore seven days a week? Acting like he doesn't recover. 365. We train like eight sessions every week. Look at us. We train multiple times a day. Yeah, we're joking, guys.

That's spitting some fire right there. Yeah, we're joking, guys. That's spitting some fire right there. Yeah, I think recovery is important. I think people do need to pay attention. You hear people kind of say, like, listen to your body. Sometimes maybe a newer guy, though, or a newer girl that's starting lifting, like maybe they don't know how to listen to their body. Maybe they're not quite sure. And then also, like, we know the benefits of benefits of like following the program and following the protocol. And when it says to do three sets of five with, you know, 400 pounds,

you might feel tired, but my results from doing stuff like that in the past have been, when I do get through it, I do end up with better results. However, as you lift for longer, your lifting age increases. It seems like you really need to pay more attention to how you're feeling. And you do need to sometimes say, I don't think I should even go to the gym at all tomorrow. That's kind of been some of my experience. Absolutely. I have a question for you guys.

Have you guys noticed a difference with – well, it's going to be kind of rough too, since we've all kind of gotten into other things too, but have you noticed maybe, have you drawn back on levels of intensity over time or what do you think versus when you started training and now, how do you guys think you guys handle that? Go ahead, Andrew. 100%. Yes. Um, I've mentioned it before. Like when I first started, you know, just going to the gym, I would go on a good run of, I don't know, like three months straight and then I'd get hurt. And I'm like, damn, what happened? And then I'd start feeling like I'd miss a long amount of time in the gym. And then I'm like, I need to get back into it.

Another three months, oh, another injury. It's like, dude, what happened? Like I'm following the program instead of like following the program then also listening to my body and then at this time i was ignoring a lot of other things uh my diet was okay but it wasn't as good as it is now my sleep was horrible because i was i was working while trying to build my photography stuff so i didn't really sleep much at all back then so yeah no I've definitely dialed it down and then to like now you know I wanted to lift this morning but I was kind of shot after jiu-jitsu and running yesterday I was like dude it's not worth it like I really I want it but damn did you do jiu-jitsu this morning or no no no no everything

was just so we talked about yeah. Yeah, I was chill. Save it for Friday, right? Yeah. And then now I'm going to go with Nsema on Friday. So it's like, oh, I made a really good choice now. And then I have training again on Saturday. So, you know, I kind of like I have a lot more work ahead of me this week. So I figured let's let's rejuvenate today and then let's get ready for those two days coming up because those next two days are going to be tough.

Real quick, I want to mention this question from EarlyRiser because this falls into some of the things we're talking about right now, which is a great – a happy coincidence from EarlyRiser. A happy coincidence. I like that. Happy coincidence. Happy. Any tips for overcoming training addiction? I lift, bodybuilding, every day on a rotating five-day split and get excited for each session. I force myself to leave the gym after an hour. I've had good results,

but no, this isn't sustainable. Man. Yeah, I think you got to be careful. I mean, because we hear so many people talking about how they get burnt out from stuff. So many people have questions about how do you guys stay motivated? And the key to stay motivated is to realize that it is a quote unquote marathon and not a sprint. Andrew is recognizing that there's other days in the week, right? Like Thursday practice is important, but I'm going to save up a little bit for Friday because I've been training the whole week and I've been running and lifting and doing everything else. So I think we, I don't think we take into account the other things that are in our life. We just think like that we go and lift, but then there's other things. There's maybe somebody in the family is struggling with their health. Maybe somebody in

the family is struggling financially. Maybe you're struggling financially. Maybe you got a lot of stressful things on your plate and you've got a lot of bills. There's just a lot of shit going on in your life at the time. Maybe you're just working a lot. And so for you to have a 45 or 50 hour work week on top of trying to lift six days a week can be a real stressor. And like, what can you part ways with? Can you miss a training session? Can you maybe change your training a little bit? If you really do love training, maybe you train every day, but you only train like one body part. And you spread fatigue out.

We've seen a lot of lifters have a lot of success with that in powerlifting where they will train nearly every day. But they spread out the fatigue of the percentages of the weights they're using. For myself, to answer your first question about the intensity, I don't try to bring intensity anywhere to anything. I just start moving. I just start exercising. And then I kind of see what can I bring to the day. Pussy. I like the...

I'm joking. I'm joking. Oh, I'd like some pussy. You got some? Bring some in here. Andrew, see what you can cue up over there. I can't find a promo code for it anywhere. Actually, you know, to that point is I actually have told other people, like, be a big pussy, like on purpose.

Be a little wimpy with it. Is this your first time doing a sprint? Is this your first time throwing a med ball? Is this your first time doing a sprint? Is this your first time throwing a med ball? Is this your first time jumping up on a box in a long time? I heard recently, somebody said that like 95% of people will go the rest of their life over the age of 30 without doing any sprints at all. 95%. That's what they said. I don't know where they got the stat, but it seems like a lot of people aren't doing that kind of movement right and so for you just you know out of nowhere uh treat yourself inappropriately at that point to just all of a

sudden dash into a sprint when you haven't done it in a long time doesn't really make a lot of sense so for me um i would say that when i first started running i had to like i had to have a little bit of like a particular mindset of some intensity just because I didn't have a skillset. And so I had to like listen to music when I was running. Yeah. And I was trying to figure it out. I'm like, how do I see people running? They're so happy. And they're, they, they don't have headphones on. Like, I don't understand what are they doing? And then some people would tell me they listen to podcasts and stuff. I'm like, I can't learn anything. I can't even breathe. I'm dying over here.

And, you know, it took me some time. But now I can do that in a more much more relaxed state. And as we know, when you can do stuff in a relaxed state and you have the capacity to push into intensity here and there, I think that's where you want to spend most of your time. The majority of your time is in that zone. I think it's really cool. spend most of your time the majority of your time is in that zone i think it's really cool like that chris bumstead video we watched where there are many more high level athletes talking about the benefits of backing off and resting because i think maybe i don't know a decade ago or whatever if an athlete were to mention that they would think oh like they probably did back off but

they didn't want to tell people they would because it's like, you know, you're soft. You know, you're not training hard enough. But it's like Andrew mentioned. There are days if I know if I've been training a few days in a row and I don't sleep well on a certain night, I will not go train that day. Or if I do go do something like jujitsu, I will keep its drills and I'll keep the role so fucking light because the amount of times in the past that I have injured myself because of a bad night of sleep, feeling fucked in the morning and then still being fucking trained. The amount of times I've pulled something or done something stupid is just like I know it's just not a good idea long term. And if I want progress to happen in the long term, I need to make sure that I am recovered. I need to make sure that I feel OK. Not every day am I going to feel 100%, right?

But I'll still push those days. But there are days where you know, you wake up and you can just feel the fatigue, right? But it's good to back off. And he mentioned training addiction, right? It's a rough thing because I do actually know guys who have gotten into lifting and or i've gotten into bjj and they just go so hard initially and then after a while you're like oh where's where's jake where's he been he's like jake got injured he hasn't been back since or or this person he injured himself and hasn't been back since you need to treat yourself well in

this understand like you said the fucking cliche thing but it is the truth it's like this shit is a marathon you do want to do this for a long time and the only way you're going to get good at it is if you give yourself a long time to get good at it yeah and i mean like there's some people that can't even you know get get into the doors of a gym but this guy's saying he's addicted and he like he gets fired up every day to go do it so should he try to hang on to that like how do you like maybe harness it somehow like how do you think he should just listen to his body but also like keep that momentum going because i i think that's special he actually did say so he said he forces himself out after an hour

he's like it's he does a five-day split, it's a, he does a five day split, but it's a rotating five base, but every single day, but he forces himself out after an hour. Maybe if he's still feeling good, you don't need to stop. If you're truly understand if you're feeling good, don't be like,

Oh yeah, I'm feeling good. And your knees fucking, you know, make sure you're actually feeling good. Yeah. I think as an athlete, you gotta be a little cautious with that too

because especially with people that are having a hard time with losing weight or people that are having any sort of hard time with consistency, it doesn't sound like that's the issue for this guy. But there is consistency issues with a lot of people. And we see it in diet when somebody is too restrictive and we see it in training when someone is too passionate about it sometimes. They want to stay there for an hour and a half or two hours but it's like what's tuesday going to look like like today's only monday what's wednesday going to look like what's thursday going to look like um you know what if you stay like i think you know i'm

guilty of this i've the last rep of the last set i've hurt myself on it before i talked myself into like doing like one more set and you know on this, I'm going to do instead of a set of five, I'm going to do a set of nine or 10 or whatever. Right. And you try to go for it. And the ninth rep or 10th rep, you hurt something. And you're like, I know I shouldn't have done that. But you went ahead and did it anyway. did it anyway. And I think in the case of what Chris Bumstead is talking about, you know, he's talking about backing off to be even better, to be even bigger, to be even in better shape. And those of you that watch Chris Bumstead work out, I mean, his workouts look, they look tough. You know, he does a lot of exercises. He does a lot of reps. The intensity is high. He uses a lot of weight. And it makes sense because he has such proficiency with lifting that he's going to need more. He's going to need more rest than someone that's new. Like if you're going to the gym and you're just handling 15 pound dumbbells and 20

pound dumbbells and you haven't really been able to build up a nervous system that's like that yet, I would say that you don't need nearly as much rest. So in this guy's case, I think what he's doing sounds great and that he's, you know, forcing himself out at a certain time is a good idea. But again, I think along with what he said, the recommendation of like, yeah, sometimes if you're feeling good, you might want to stick with a little bit longer, but you also have to kind of recognize, okay, I train about five hours a week. So if I pull from this day and I train this hard on this day, there might be another space in the week where I might need to pull back a little bit more. All right. I think you crossed that one.

Let's go to the next one, which is a good follow-up from Higdon Aaron. Like most of your listeners, I'm on a weight loss and fitness journey with specific goals for my body composition. I'm aiming to reduce my body fat percentage from its current level of 34% while also considering what an optimal body fat percentage would be for me to achieve. My current target is 25%, but I'm wondering what a reasonable endpoint would be without becoming too fixated on the number. Can you provide any guidance on this? Ooh, I like this. I like this. In depth.

Yeah. In depth question. So he's currently at 34%. Wants to initially get to 25%. Wants to know, what is the end goal? I think you don't know the end goal until you really get started on,

you know, it sounds in this case like you just want to lose body fat, right? So you start to take into account what's your current diet, what's that look like, what's your current training program, and are there some areas where you can step things up a little bit? I'm unaware of like the activity level, but a couple of 10-minute walks a day would be a good idea. Trying to find a particular protocol with your diet would be a good idea. You can check out Stan Efferding's Vertical Diet. So much great information in there. You can check out some information on like a low-carb style diet. But you have to find a particular diet to adhere to.

And the reason why I say that is sometimes, sometimes people are like, oh, I'm just going to eat clean. And then you don't really define what eating clean means. So I think for now, I think the goal should be to do your best to clean up your diet, do your best to kind of just straighten your shit out, you know, get work on getting your sleep better, work on the 10 minute walks every day. You can simply just start to try to eat whole foods as much as possible. So you can eat, you know, meat, fruit, vegetables, some potatoes, some rice, things like that. Start to implement that. And then also make sure you're well fed. Like just because you're trying to lose body fat doesn't mean that you really need to

reduce your calories right away. I think on this show a lot, we talk about maybe let's look at the energy output first and let's have good positive inputs. Let's not just strip you away of calories because you're not going to feel like you have enough energy to really do anything. You can't make something out of nothing. So you need to have the proper amount of calories. So maybe you eat three to five times a day for a little while. Then once you get used to that, that's when you might start to employ some intermittent fasting and some other things. But I don't think your goal is going to be real clear until you start to implement some of these things. As you do that, then you might say, I want to lose 50 pounds or I want to get to this body fat percentage. And a few things

here is like, first off, I'm not necessarily a fan. And what some people like to do is they want to say, I want to get to this percentage. So let's just use your current goal percentage as an endpoint. I want to get to to 25 body fat in the next eight weeks or 12 weeks don't give yourself a time goal on it start moving in that direction but when you start giving yourself a time goal for fat loss you start rushing so if you're not where you think you should be in four weeks you start like doing way more cardio eating way less food and you may actually get there but now you've brought yourself to such a low point you're feeling so fatigued that you're

setting yourself up for a great rebound that's gonna have you gain a lot of that body fat back but if you do as mark said if you start can you take it slow build the good habits give yourself a good amount of time to lose body fat you'll'll get to that 25%. Now, one thing to think about is like it's not going to look like this. I just made this little line down. Everybody kind of wants that loss to look like a straight line down. It's more so going to look kind of like this where, okay, you head down, you stagnate, you head down a little more, you stagnate for a little bit, you head up a little bit, then you start heading down a little bit. And what's going to happen is these new body fat percentages, especially when you go like from 34 to 28%, you're going to feel maybe a little bit tired at 28%. You're going to feel like you want to eat a little bit more. That's why maybe for a little bit, you might eat a little bit more, you might get a little bit more body fat. And then as you start going back into that deficit, you'll start losing even more body fat, right? These different percentages are like a different set point. And you need to give yourself the time to adapt to that new set point rather than just trying to barrel down to

20% body fat. If you give yourself the time to live and be in that new body, that will become your new body fat set point. And then you can start making changes on that again. So let's just say that you get from 34 and five months later you get down to 25. Try to maybe stay at 25 for like two months, a month or two. I know it sounds like a long time, but try to live there.

Try to eat there, try to work out there, try to feel comfortable there and then start going down again because then you might actually get to 20% body fat in the next four to five months after that. Live there. You might live between 20% and 22% body fat for a little bit. And then you can start heading down again.

And then your new set point could be 15% to 18% body fat. Live there for a good six months. And then you could start heading down even more. And you see this from bodybuilding people too. Sometimes someone will get to 10% body fat and they'll feel like hell. And a few years later, they get to 10% body fat again, and they're able to maintain it and live there for some reason. It doesn't feel as stressful because they've gotten used to performing and being and eating in that body. You got to give

yourself the time to do that. Some people do say like everybody has a different set point. I do think that that is true to an extent, but I do think that people can adapt to different body fat set points if they give themselves the time to live in that body fat. We also – I kind of failed to mention that this guy is after some body fat percentage goals. And when we're after body fat percentage goals, a key input is to lift weights. So make sure there's a good lifting protocol in there. You can follow maybe like 5-3-1 from Jim Wendler would be a great program to start out. Or maybe you follow one of your favorite bodybuilders and you find a good program there. Hypertrophy is going to be a key factor.

And as Nseem is pointing out, unfortunately, you know, gaining muscle mass, like it takes a long time. So for somebody to gain, you know, three to four pounds of muscle mass, that could take, that could take maybe even a couple of years, especially if somebody is trying to lose body fat. So if this guy is a little newer to lifting or something like that, he might make progress a lot faster than that. But if you just think about this, if you have, I think a lot of times people will typically lose some muscle as they're

coming down in, in, in body weight, especially those that are heavier, that have a lot of weight to lose. For every 10 pounds that you lose, you might lose like two pounds of muscle or something. Does that sound fairly accurate? If you're, If you're lifting, yeah, potentially. Yeah. But that's, look,

that's not bad. And one thing that you're actually kind of pointing out here is that, especially if you're lifting, which is going to be a really good thing as you're losing body fat, if you're new to lifting too, some of your weight loss might be masked by muscle gain. Yeah, there's a small flip, right? Yeah, especially when you're new though. When you're new, you can gain a good amount of muscle fairly quickly because it's a new stimulus. Right.

And if you're losing body fat at the same time, you might go from 210 pounds to 206 pounds in four months, but your 206 looks like you lost 10 fucking pounds because you lost a good amount of body fat and actually gained a decent amount of muscle. But you mentioned the big thing you want to try to do as you do all this is keep lifting because if you're only like doing cardio and eating less food

and you're not lifting to maintain that muscle, not only are you going to lose a good amount of body fat, you're going to lose a good amount of muscle too. And you don't want to have to work on getting all that muscle back. And your goal will be... Sorry, I was just going to say, because then that will do the opposite of what you're trying to do, which is drop the body fat percentage.

Because I don't know how to do the math and all that stuff, but if you're 200 pounds and you lose 10 pounds of body fat, but you also lost 5 pounds of muscle, your percentage is still almost going to be the same. Again, I don't know how the math works, but if you maintain the muscle, your body fat percentage, you're going to be able to flip that around, even though you weigh the same. Just tell us the math. We know that you know it, bro.

I don't. That's in Seema's world. He's the intellect. Yeah, you're right. It makes a big difference. And then, so you need two major inputs that you need.

You need to lift and you need protein. So you got to break down protein by going to the gym and doing some muscle hypertrophy work, maybe a little bit

of heavy lifting here and there. You need some sort of mechanical tension. A little bit of walking would be good just to kind of burn some calories.

Maybe you get into a little bit of cardio. Not a bad idea, but then make sure you're eating your protein. Andrew, I sent you over a thing of Russell's weight loss, and this is what real progress actually looks like. I don't think people understand that consistency and progress don't look the way that you think they would look. You would think it's just this hockey stick-like chart of success where you just go straight to the moon. But it doesn't work out that way. Let's go. See, but what we're dealing with is the overall body weight at the bottom is still way less than where he started.

And this is probably over the course of, I don't know if it says up there, but it's about over the course of maybe about two years. This is amazing. It's 60 pounds over two years, and somebody might be like, well, why didn't he lose weight faster? It's like because we're working on like permanent changes. We're working on permanent habit changes. He's working on permanent habit changes. He's doing a great job.

You can see he messed up sometimes, even rebounded a couple times, gained some weight. There's some peaks in there, right? Spikes back up, but guess what? He goes right back down again. And now he's starting to get close to an all time low again,

which is amazing. Now, the reason why I busted out the ha ha is because that is what that is. Drew. Yeah. That's what that shit looks like though. That's not bad. People want it to look like that.

It's not going to look like that it's not gonna look like that especially if you want lasting results that is a good graph i like that because it shows that he went down he stabilized a bit he went down he said he came up a little bit who knows what happened but like then he started going down again that come up right there where you see the first graph initially where he comes up with the sharp like good right there that's a good thing because it's like it's like prepared him for the next phase it prepared him for the next phase that is healthy right there you know and he had another spike but now he's gonna start trending down a bit again you know that's fucking beautiful russell good shit yeah that's exciting and we get fired up about this

kind of stuff because we know that when you see the chart working like that that we're not going to have some horror story of him you know going back to where he was he's going to still trend downward and it might be you know it might be slow and steady and it might not be as fast as he likes and it might not be as fast as uh the internet likes or whatever but um he's still making great progress and i and i think that's some of what you went through andrew in jujitsu where like this is really cool this is new this is exciting okay i got past the part where i just feel so beat up that i feel like i'm gonna die every day then you start to learn and you get a couple people in some holds and then you start to kind of look around you're like i think some of

these guys are letting me get in some get them in some holds and then you get fucked up for a while and you have these peaks and these valleys these ups and these downs all the way to the point you're driving home and you're like upset you're like man i don't i'm never gonna get i don't even know if i'm gonna go back again i'm never gonna i'm never gonna get this you know and then you do you calm yourself down and you're like i i can learn this i can yeah i can figure it yeah that's happened in like in the middle of a role you know where i'm like all those thoughts i'm not getting like, come on, man. Um, one thing I just want, everything you guys are pointing out, like, I love it, but like, um, you know, I always say like the, the, the diet didn't fail, the,

the lifting program or training program didn't fail. The habits did. So what you guys were pointing out at the very beginning of this question, which is like, don't cut the calories. Like, let's just get the habits in line first. So it's a really cool opportunity to just become a different person right like you're not gonna be the same person that's whatever that eats pizza on Fridays you're now gonna be the person that's like oh dude that guy actually has his diet together like and that's not like a 30-day challenge it's a lifetime thing you know like you just become a different person. And it's, it's exciting that

when you think about that, like you, Mark, you had mentioned, like you're kind of killing someone or killing a piece of yourself off and yeah. And that's essentially what this person's going to be doing when they get these habits in line. Can we maybe give this guy maybe three to five things to, to chew on? Uh, I'll say, uh, hit the gym, eat your protein. your protein um i'll just let's just say this guy weighs 300 pounds maybe eat like 250 grams of protein or something does that sound anywhere between 250 and 300 can you go that high yeah yeah absolutely it's like even though if he's 300 pounds like that's still a lot of protein like it it's going to make you feel full. So if you can get 250, cool.

If you can get more, that's fine. And eat red meat. Eat like – eat fatty meat so you can get some calories within that meat. Don't try to do this all through chicken because that just fucking sucks. But yeah, that would be solid. That would be solid. And then if you do want to have carbs because carbs aren't necessarily bad, try to keep these things that like have some use apples or use use fruit because fruit isn't necessarily something you're going to go crazy with um maybe it's post-workout maybe it's surrounding a workout before or after exercise yeah yeah absolutely and then other things like you didn't mention potatoes earlier again depends

on how you make the potato but that's something that if you actually make a potato it's hard to overeat you can make it good but it's not something that's going to drive up calories that much. Try to pick like one thing to put on a potato. Like try not to go fully loaded. Butter, salt, bacon? A little bit of bacon? Well, bacon's okay, but then you got cheese and sour cream. Like you really start having a party with the thing.

What if the bacon is cooked in butter, cheese, and sour cream? Just put bacon on afterwards. I like your style. Yeah. Don't snack. There you go. We kind of drill that shit in. But try to have meals at meals.

Try to make sure that when you're eating, you're eating a meal. You're not snacking through your day and grazing. Getting rid of that habit will get rid of a lot of extra calories. And if you have a lot of habits attached to snacking, I think the ultimate killer of snacking is some version of some intermittent fasting. So maybe you fast, maybe you start out by fasting 12 hours a day, and then maybe you morph into 14 hours and maybe 16 hours every other day or something like that. Try to, what I've learned over the years is that it seems like when you make things a little bit more black and white, where there's like a line and like a line and we don't have like a gray area in your diet, then you allow yourself a lot less bullshit talk in your head of like, yeah, this is okay because I'm training pretty hard.

So try to draw some of those hard lines in the sand. Yeah. And then I would just say have a nice delicious within you protein shake before each meal just to get the protein up and also it makes you feel very full. And then after that meal, go on a 10-minute walk. There's a billion benefits there that we can get into if we want to, but those two things are huge. A lot of people do mention, oh, it's hard for me to get in my protein, what you just mentioned right there. in my protein, what you just mentioned right there. It's like, I don't know if a lot of people think about, like protein shakes make it so much easier to get in the amount of protein that you want to be able to get in.

I got one right here. Yeah. And they can be fairly filling. Like it doesn't just go down, like you feel it, right? So have a protein shake before your meal. That's a very good tactic because especially if, because there are days where, you know, you just feel hungry. When you pronounce it that way, that's when you know you're hungry. That door dash app is like really looking at you, dog. Have a protein shake.

She'll help you out. Yeah. You become a completely irrational beast when you're really hungry. You're drunk going through the grocery store. There's just so much crap in your cart. You're like, who put this in there? Yeah. Damn. All right. Next question. All right.

Next question. From Mushroom Soup. Pepper Roger family, shut your fucking mouth. We've been talking about breathing through your nose and nasal breathing during your sleep for the past five years. That's why we've partnered with Hostage Tape. It's the best tape on the market. Sticks to your face even if you have a beard. So head to hostage tape dot com slash power project and you'll be able to get a year supply of tape for fifty five cents a day. That shit saves you one hundred and fifty dollars. It's a no brainer. Links in the description and the podcast show notes. Enjoy the show. Are there any habits you've learned from traditional practices and cultures that seem hacky but is making a resurgence nowadays? For example, tail spreading. I learned it as a child in traditional karate. And although it was normal for me, I never heard much about it elsewhere. I feel a full circle movement nowadays with all the talk about foot health on your podcasts.

This goes for other things like the breath work too. And I've also heard Louie Simmons talk about ancient Chinese workouts where they dig a hole in the ground, fill it up with water to chest height, and they'd box jump out onto the ground. What? Do you know this? Did he talk about this? Louie talks about all kinds of things. Wow. Thanks for that question, Mushroom Soup.

Yeah, there's a lot of good hacks and stuff. I think at this point we've just threw them into our lifestyle that we kind of forget about them. I don't want to talk a ton about a bunch of things that cost a lot of money, but cold plunging has been really helpful. We have a sponsor of the show. The plunging tubs and stuff like that have been really helpful. We have a sponsor of the show. The plunging tubs and stuff like that have been really helpful. In addition to that, we've got the eight sleep mattress. That's been massively helpful and it is

kind of like a hack. Having your body adjust to these cold temperatures. I also have a sauna. I think the cold plunge people are making a sauna as well, right? I have a really cool sauna that's out. I'm going to get my hands on that. It can fit in your fucking back – it can fit in your house.

You can put that shit in your house or apartment. A lot of these things have been really helpful. I've had a hot tub for a long time. Again, these are all things I understand. They cost money. But they've been really, really helpful. They've been things that have – they just helped me scrub off the recovery time. You know, I can come in here and train really, really hard, have a tough session and go home,

cold plunge, hit the hot tub and kind of feel like a new person the next day. If my ankles or knees are banged up, I can go in a cold plunge again and I feel like new. Same thing with the boots that you blow up. I forget the name. The Norma Tech boots. Norma Tech boots. Things like that I found really helpful. And then obviously just other habits

that don't have anything to do with money necessarily, but just abstaining from certain things. Like I don't look at my phone as much. One of the big changes with't look at my phone as much. One of the big changes with not looking at my phone as much is I don't look at stuff that I shouldn't be looking at anyway on my phone as much. So that's been really helpful. We have a standing desk here on the podcast. This is the longest standing podcast in the world. And, you you know we burnt x amount of more calories than other people that have been podcasting sitting down that's true uh facts we we do all kinds of

smashing of our feet and sema is doing a internal rotation stretch of the hip so i have both of these here i do ir on both sides when are you just gonna do the splits oh yeah i should get like a yeah you remember that john van damme commercial when he did this shit on the truck? That was sick. You remember that? John Claude Van Dam. John Claude Van Dam. Damn it.

Whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of things that we've incorporated. And I'm sure as you guys start to, you know, mention the things that we've been doing. Another huge hack, and I still don't hear people talk about this enough, although we've drawn a lot of attention to it here on the Power Project, is protein leveraging. You know, Andrew just mentioned having a protein shake before your meal. That's one way to do it. But just in general, eating more protein, eat a higher percentage of protein will really encourage you to manage your body weight a lot easier because protein is very satiating and it will drive down the overall amount of calories

that you consume. You'll tend to want to eat less fat and carbohydrates and things like that when you keep that protein real high. Yeah, so all of that stuff, yes. We actually talked about this the other day. When I eat at home, I don't sit in a chair normally anymore like kind of like this. Oh, you're on the toilet.

Yeah, I eat on the toilet. That's super convenient. Once I eat and then I have this trigger since I'm on the toilet to just defecate. So it just comes right out. That would help a lot with buffalo wings. Absolutely. Right, right, right. And I also have the squatty potties right on my feet too.

So it helps the digestion. You get white lights absolutely um when i'm at home i generally i'll eat either standing up or i'll eat sitting on the ground um and kador actually talked about this because like he mentioned that when he eats in a certain way he doesn't eat as much food when he's eating on the ground but in general i for some reason i don't like I don't like to eat like this. I like to eat standing up. And that's just something that for some reason, I feel just like helped out a bit. I also don't sit on my couches nearly as much. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'd never use my couches. I will, especially when it gets late at night, me and my girl want to

chill and watch something. Bend her right over the couch oh i'm sorry a few things too far you can you can whatever it takes you guys can sit on our couches they're not that bad but um no like a little creamy a lot of the time at home though like i'll be sitting on the floor when either working or watching something or even playing my ps5 i'll be sitting on the floor when either working or watching something or even playing my PS5, I'll be sitting on the ground. And what that causes though is you just end up moving around in different positions. So a lot of times when like we talk about mobility in these things, people will sometimes be like, okay, I'm going to set this time to do my mobility. I'm going to set this time to stretch. But if you're already on the ground, so you're working on the ground, you're sitting on the ground, you will find yourself moving from position to position because sitting in one position gets uncomfortable. So I know maybe

for people who are working in an office, it's not the most realistic thing to sit on the ground. But maybe when you get home, instead of just lying on the couch, maybe you just do what you can do on the ground. But if you do what you can do on the ground, it will cause an automatic microdose of some of the movements that are going to be good for you, like maybe getting into the pigeon position or sitting in Seiza on your knees. Initially, it might be uncomfortable, but when you sit on your knees a little bit longer, then you can just sit on your knees for like 20 minutes and you don't feel pain, but that can cause you to mobilize the knees and ankles while doing something else. Right. So those are really simple additions to all of this. Yeah. That's what I was

going to say is definitely sitting on the ground, like just, just being a kid again, sitting on the floor. Um, the biggest motivation for that is if I sit on the couch, my son just climbs up and sits on the couch and I'm like, Hmm, but if I sit on the floor, he's like, Oh shit, we're sitting on the floor and he jumps off the couch and then he's on the ground. So, yeah, getting down to the ground has definitely been huge. And then, like I said earlier, walking, you know, trying to any opportunity we have as a family to go on a walk. I'm trying to like as as a kid, I don't remember going on walks. Same.

You know, we didn't really do that. Same here. Yeah. But now it's like it'd be cool if this is what you know my kids remember is like oh yeah we went on walks and so they just keep it a part of their life as well to add into that my girlfriend sam um her and her mom her mom just walked for like all the time and when she was a kid her mom be like come with me on a walk and she'd just be like she just went on a walk so this girl loves to walk that's cool when we first started dating she's like let's she's like

let's go on a walk we fucking would walk for like 40 50 60 minutes just walking and talking and we still walk now but she has that habit because her and her mom did that that's and she doesn't even realize how how like wild that is you know so it's like if you, if you can ingrain that now, then that's just something that it's not like, oh, okay, it's time to go out on my walk. It's just something that person's going to do for life. Greatest thing ever happened to me on a walk. I was walking with my dad and I was walking with my son and my dad and I were chatting it up. My son at the time, he didn't ever say much. He was like 11 or something or 12. And we get done with the walk and my dad went to his house and I'm still walking with Jake and Jake's like, dad, he's like, can we go

to the gym tomorrow? And I was like, I was trying to get ahold of myself. I was like, like the Rocky music just fucking hit. And I was all fun. I'm like, yeah. And then I was like, all right, calm down. And i was like all right calm down i was like yes jake i could take you to the gym tomorrow no problem it begins yeah exactly all right cool next question gents yeah all right i think we covered a lot it's kind of i love how these kind of just like stick together oh one last thing i want to mention about uh like a hack is that just skill sets you know you guys have done jujitsu we have so many people that come in here and they they teach us about like movement and they teach

us about all these things and then you guys sometimes are like well we get a lot of that in jujitsu you know uh somebody might come in and talk about like cardiovascular health or something and i'm like well i'm getting that from running. And these things are skill sets and they suck. They're not fun to – it's not – it can be a lot of fun and it is a lot of fun. The whole journey is a lot of fun. But there's a lot of downs to it too where it doesn't feel great in the beginning. Something as simple as being on your knees on the floor, like it hurts at first or to crawl around on the ground or to do any of these things, kind of uncomfortable.

The myofascial release that we've been doing these things kind of uncomfortable. Um, the, uh, myofascial release that we've been doing, that kind of stuff has been huge. I don't really, some of the stuff I don't even really think of as a hack anymore. I just think it's just like ingrained into us. Um, my friend Brad Kern was in here yesterday and I was showing him some stuff with myofascial release. He knows a lot about it. He's a, he was. He was a former triathlete at a really high level. And I'm telling him about it. And he's like, yeah, I do some of this sometimes. I'm like, no, no, no.

You got to do this a lot. Like you got to intermittently do this throughout the day. This will make you better. This will help because he was having a little trouble with his hamstring. And I was like, this is going to make a big change for you. So some of these things. That's another one. Yeah. Huge. That's another one. Yeah.

Huge. That's another one. Add that in. 100%. These things are huge. And it's a skill set to be able to add all these things to your life because it can kind of be a pain in the neck to keep adding, adding, adding. But I don't know about for you guys, but I got stuff all over the place.

I got stuff here at the gym. I got stuff at my house. I'm sitting here with this fucking thing on that it seemed brought in to train the extension that unbelievable thumb strength hey look I'm happy for you man your finger extensions are so strong you broke it what about the timing of that that was amazing yeah we couldn't have planned that any better anyway next question all right this is from jealous yeah this is from north what do you guys think is the best way to fit in these niche movements slash exercises into my schedule i train kickboxing and jujitsu two hours a day wow and trying to lift three days

a week at a week at the moment. Damn, dude, good for you. But trying to hit the smaller muscles like hip flexors, grip training, tibs, neck work, etc. is tricky. He's trying to get into that tib, neck, calf, forearm hall of fame, I think. Those girls know those tibs, though. When you go like this. Oh, yeah. You dorsiflex. When you go like this. Oh, yeah. You dorsiflex.

They're like, wow. Just flooding everywhere. When you got that neck, she knows you got endurance. Yeah, that's true. You think my neck's big, you should see my tongue. Let's go. Anyway. This guy's a savage.

You know, I think we were just talking about talking about you know how to incorporate some of these things and into your life and these different movements uh that we're doing and but what i would say first of all is for this guy in particular sounds like he's already doing so much you know yeah and so i would maybe just have a day, maybe pull back one traditional day in the gym and have an untraditional day in the gym or untraditional exercise for the day where you're just doing a bunch of other stuff. Like, you know, pull back from your squat, deadlift, your regularly scheduled program and just flip it and say, this is a calf, tib, box jump, mobility day. I found stuff like that to be really, really fun. And sometimes to mix things in in the warmup. That's what Kenny and I have been doing in these like bodybuilding bro sessions we've been doing.

Today we did a lot of neck and forearm stuff before we got into the workout. Then we did some box jumps and then we did like normal bodybuilding stuff for legs leg extensions and hack squats and things like that so that'd be my recommendation yeah and kind of on that line microdose this stuff yo like the reason part of the reason why we have these here on the table is because as we're podcasting like literally i'll just have this in one hand behind my back we've been doing it on multiple, but I'll be squeezing this for at least like maybe 30 seconds to a minute. Then I'll switch hands, right? And this has actually been getting easier over time. I have one in my car too. So literally while I'm driving, I have maybe one in one hand and I'm just squeezing for a period of time. But doing this and

microdosing this shit has made a difference in terms of my grip, right? So you can have these things around without having to, okay, I'm going to go to the gym and then I'm going to work on this. Because you don't want to – it's going to be hard to fit everything you need to do into one training session. But like you just mentioned too, just, hey, like add a neck thing in on one of your days. Add some tibs in on one of your other days. Just sprinkle these things in so that it's not so difficult. And if you're doing boxing or kickboxing and jiu-jitsu two hours a day, every day, you are a monster, my friend. But microdose it. We talk about microdosing all the time.

That's why we have these tools around. And again, it'll make making progress in these things so much easier if you're not just limited to when you're in the gym. And when the dosage is spread out throughout the day, it doesn't feel hard. Yeah, that's exactly. So I used to have dedicated sessions for doing damn near an hour of go-to movements and stuff. Now, just every time I touch the mat, I run through my whole little routine and then I get going. So yeah, i think wouldn't seem just as perfect sprinkle it in as you're kind of already there and then it won't seem like you

have to set any special time away from the things you love to do to do this stuff what do we got next we got anything else this is from sun sun we got a few more yes power project family your normal shoes are making you weak this is why why I partner with Vivo Barefoot Shoes because they have a wide toe box. They're flat and they're flexible. So with every single step you're taking, if you're taking a 10-minute walk outside or when you're working out in the gym, your feet are able to do what they're supposed to do in this shoe. They have tons of options for hiking, running, training in the gym, chilling and relaxing, casual shoes if you're out on a date. You need to check them out. And, Andrew, training in the gym, chilling and relaxing, casual shoes. If you're out on a

date, you need to check them out. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at vivo barefoot.com slash power project. And you guys will receive 15% off your order automatically. Again, vivo barefoot.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Hey, thanks for answering my last question. He asked a question on the last Q a now what in your experience has made you feel younger if anything like any particular supplement or diet or workout that seemed to make you feel more youthful testosterone go in are you are you are you being serious you're joking like you mean a thousand percent serious okay okay yeah i don't

know if you guys want to jump right into that but yeah no like uh libido went through the roof so that was fun felt like i was uh like the first couple nights with my wife was like kind of like so she was my girlfriend back then that's what it felt like with my wife again like it was like holy shit like this is amazing this is the best thing i've ever had in my whole life like so it made everything for her too yeah um and then all like damn also like the the drive and motivation to go after what i wanted um i i just i feel like when i was younger and before like uh life could kick my like i'm not that's a little bit too dramatic but like you know when you're a kid you think you can do anything and then all of a sudden you like oh oh, damn, I got bills to pay. Like my whole paycheck's going to all this other shit that I don't actually want to pay for. You start living in quote reality. After I got on stuff, I was just like, oh my gosh, like I'm going to take over the world. Like I felt like a kid again. Like it was freaking awesome. And then of course, getting in the gym, it felt like whatever I was lifting was actually working, kind of like new gains all over again. Yeah. So I would say that for sure definitely made me feel a lot younger.

You know, I think just staying attached to some sort of fitness or sport, I think, is important. I've never I've never felt old. You know, I know I'm getting older, but I never felt old. I don't feel old. I don't notice, uh, any decline in really anything except for a couple of, uh, things that I don't think I have control over, like my eyes and stuff like that. Um, maybe you can train them differently or something. I'm not sure. I don't know how to do that. I saw something in a book about that recently. Yeah. I've seen some stuff too. I don't know how to do that. I saw something in a book about that recently. Yeah, I've seen some stuff too. I don't know how much control you have over it, but it'd be interesting to even mess around, maybe posture pro, maybe they have some information when they're here. And I've seen some people talk about that, but anyway, staying connected to your training, I think even that's

interesting, right? Like that you could train your eyes. I believe that you can train just about anything. We've seen people even talk a lot about training their jaw to help with their sleep, to open up the airway. There's so many things that are trainable as humans where we are really highly adaptive. And just because somebody is getting older doesn't mean that you have to feel old or feel older. I feel like my movement is better. I'm definitely a lot faster than I used to be. The only thing that I'll feel is just like, does this feel like normal wear and tear from like a workout? So that's the only thing that makes me move a little bit slow and may make me feel like old, but it's not old. It's just soreness from exercise yeah on the i think

you know it was interesting you know that book peak that joey burglars his name yeah yeah yeah he mentioned to us he mentioned that there was a group of people that they they all had declining eyesight and what they had them do to train their eyes was they would have them like look at something far away change the focus they would make they would train them like look at something far away, change the focus. They would make, they would train them on changing focus in the eye. Every single individual after this, the period of days or whatever, it was like 80 people or something. All of them were able to read the newspaper without having to have their glasses on and books without having to have their glasses on. And then they tested their eyes and there wasn't a single change in any of their eyes. The change was in their brains. Oh geez. Yeah their eyes. The change was in their brains. Ah,

Oh geez. Yeah. Yeah. The change was in their brain. So it was because the, like it's supposed to be the case with mobility too. You remember Ron Penna said that he blew your brains out. You'd be able to,

you know, touch your, your head to your, yeah, your, your foot to your head or whatever. Yeah. So yeah,

the brain, the brain controls a lot. Yeah. It's crazy. But you know, Andrew, it's, it's the, the youthful thing and the feeling more like a kid thing. I think it's kind of some of the things that we talked about.

Like right now, we're fucking with these grip things and just standing around and just moving around a bit. And when you see kids that can't focus, they're like – Like they're always doing shit. Right. I think one of the, cause like, I remember, I definitely remember times when I was like only focused on powerlifting that I would get done with a session and I'd just be like, Ooh, my back. Right.

I just go home and sit down and there would, I would wake up in the morning and I feel pretty stiff and I do my mobility work before. I just wouldn't feel loosey goosey. Right. Jiu Jitsu is something that has you rolling around and moving. After a few years of doing that, I felt better, but there were still things where I'd wake up in the morning, I'd feel some shit in my back. And these habits of randomly jump roping during the day, you know, when I can just jumping and hopping, sitting on the ground and allowing my body to move. Cause kids will do that. Kids will just sit on the ground and fuck around, right? And they'll do things with their body. I feel better now being 30 than I felt in my mid-20s. You know what I mean? But it's because there's more just,

and I'm not even thinking about the type of movement I do now. There are just more of these movement-based habits that I have in my life where I'm using my body more. And because of that, my body is like, thank you, feel better. And this isn't just because I've added something into a workout. It's because all of the things that we talk about, the things that we add into our days, right? These are just practices now.

It's not like we're working out more, but it's just little things that we do. That shit has just made it so that it can bend down and pick something out without having to, you know, think about having to bend down. All of them, they add up, right? The stuff from Human Garage that we had on, doing some of those fashion maneuvers during the week or sitting on the ground and mobilizing because I'm sitting on the ground.

These things, over time, will allow you to feel better because now your body is moving through positions that it hasn't been moving in for a very long time. It's like magic, dog. Yeah, I remember as a kid just never wearing shoes. And for a very long time, it's like magic, dog. Yeah. I remember as a kid just never wearing shoes. And so one day I put shoes on and it seems like I never took them off. Yeah.

But since wearing, you know, wide toe box minimalist shoes from Vivo Barefoot, like, yeah, I take my shoes off as much as possible now. And like I'm walking around the house barefoot, like, damn, I got to walk outside. I'm like, I'll just go. Whereas before I'd try to find some sandals or something right and so like that definitely makes me feel like a kid again as well or not like a kid just younger because like when i was a kid i just dude i remember playing baseball outside and like doing everything barefoot and then like i said i put shoes on one day and never took them off yeah but now it's like it feels good to be barefoot all the time yeah and another thing and mark we were talking about this one of those days is try to pay attention to the way you do certain things for example when you pick something off of the ground do you feel that you have to set up hip hinge and pick it up right making all noise and

shit instead maybe can you see like okay as we're talking about some of this stuff, maybe sitting on your knees is difficult. Maybe hopping into a squat is difficult. But can you slowly put yourself into a squat and then pick that thing up? If you can just like maybe get into that position a little bit, guarantee that a month from now or two months from now, you might be able to just get into a squat,

pick something up and come back up without having to think about it. That is being more youthful, right? Being able to use your body with more capacity. So I think playing and having fun, you know, trying to think of things that could be fun. Maybe you, you know, maybe you have a training partner or have somebody that you go do a trail run with or something because the playful side, I don't know if you guys mess with this in jujitsu but if you ever just kind of go off the rails and just start doing weird stuff you know against each other um i think things like

that are actually really good practices i mean you do need to be a little cautious you know you don't hurt each other and shit like that but we did a lot of that when i was wrestling you just make shit up and then someone would be like fuck man that was really cool yeah and you it's because you lost all like inhibition you just kind of like went for something, you know? And a lot of times when I'm running, I'll do stuff like that. I'll just, I'll try to go to like a certain beat or I'll try to jump on something or just, I probably look like a crazy person when someone's probably watching me run. Sometimes I was telling Andrew, I was, I look up in the trees a lot, especially cause in Davis, there's, there's these turkeys up in the trees. And i'm like how those fucking fat little birds get up there it's pretty amazing

to kind of just look around your surroundings and yeah and just to treat the world like a like your playground dog sam i was taking a walk last week i don't know if i mentioned this already but we're walking i look up and i'm like because there's a child in this tree just standing like this high up in a fucking tree kids just like this and watching us as we go by and we're looking at him and he's just staring at us like this and I'm just like this kid's having too much fun

just creeping people out but that's the kid ass thing to do to just go up in a tree and stand there that's fucking awesome that kid was possessed yeah man just So just go up in a tree and stand there, right? That's fucking awesome, man. That kid was possessed. Yeah, man. Just, yeah.

You ever look at your kid and, like, wonder, like, what the hell possessed him to do that? All the time. Just, like, jump off the couch onto his knees and shit, right? Oh, yeah. That's where I'm like, oh. Like, because it just straight solid shot. You're like, I don't think that's a good idea. What are you doing?

Or I'll look, you know, like, his shins will be just all bruised up. And I'm like, the like what happened and she's just like he's just jumping i'm like okay that makes sense but yeah anytime there's a line or a step he's like he loads up and he jumps off and he just fucking lands however he lands it's fucking funny that's so fucking awesome because we're meant to be resilient our bodies aren't meant to like if we if we are a jump and hit the floor we should if we've like been using our body, maybe just handle some of these forces. But when you never do it, that's when you become really fragile, you know? So that's good for you. Let your boy get bruised up. Yeah.

Building strength. Yeah, man. Yeah. So I set up like a little mini obstacle course and I was doing it with him. So like we would like broad jump and then jump two shorter ones and he was getting it pretty good and then it's funny because like sometimes he just won't pay attention he'll totally wipe out and it's like oh fuck is he okay like he's fine yeah cool yeah it's fucking awesome i will say there's this 64 year old guy in my jiu-jitsu class who just moves so well that's he's been grappling for a while now and he just moves

like he's 30 dude it's literally just doing shit that younger people do. That's it. But all right. We good with that one? All right. Next question. Okay. This one should be quick.

How would you schedule a lifting and BJJ schedule weekly? I always hear about the benefits of lifting for injury prevention. My goals are to get jacked tan and strangle people i'll cover the tan part yeah get outside in the sun get some walks out there and take your shirt off that's simple um you know the the really cool thing and this is why i really would discourage people to from stopping lifting if they start jiu-jitsu since a lot of you guys are starting jujitsu is when you start jujitsu your body's gonna get beat up there's so many different ways that you haven't been moving that now you feel soreness in the ribs the hips all these areas

so there's gonna be a want for you to just not lift i would say don't do that because one thing that i've seen and i'm happy i've seen top level jujitsu guys say this is that when I lift or when I keep lifting in part of what I do, my body feels more resilient. I don't get as many injuries. I don't get as many little pulls. And that even happened to me when I was earlier in jujitsu. There was a period where I wasn't lifting nearly as much and I just started pulling little shit here and there. Started lifting, boom, started feeling better again so try to find that minimum effective dose that you can handle in the gym and as far as the lifting schedule this can be whatever you whatever you want to try to progress on because some guys want to like gain some muscle

as they're doing jiu-jitsu so you're going to want to do some stuff that gives you a little bit more training volume you won't want to just do the strength work you want to like gain some muscle as they're doing jujitsu. So you're going to want to do some stuff that gives you a little bit more training volume. You won't want to just do the strength work. You want to do some stuff with some training volume. So it can be a bodybuilding split. That's like a three-day lower push pull with high volume and then jujitsu on the other days. But just make sure that when you're in the gym, do what you can handle. You got to handle all these changes that happen to your body from jujitsu that are causing you fatigue. Now the gym workouts are going to take a little hit, but still go in and get some of that work in because you can still make progress. So it can be something like that. You can do a strength program while doing jujitsu, but again, you just need to make sure that when you're in the gym, especially when you're newer at jujitsu, you're being mindful of the type of loads you're lifting.

You will feel weaker. The fatigue from jujitsu is going're being mindful of the type of loads you're lifting. We are not trying to, you will feel weaker. The fatigue from jujitsu is going to carry over. You're going to feel weaker. So just don't push yourself as hard. Understand that the progress is going to be slower, but over time as the jujitsu fatigue isn't as much, because now over like maybe the next six months or maybe like in a year or so, you'll go to a class and you won't feel like death when you finish. You won't feel like death the next day. You'll feel like I can actually get

a really productive training session in the gym tomorrow. Then you can start really ramping things up in the gym. But even for the period of time at the beginning of when you start jujitsu, when the gym feels like shit, still do something because there are still changes happening there. It is not a good idea to stop, but maybe a good idea to just back off the intensity. Maybe check out some stuff from Josh Settlegate. That's exactly what I was going to say. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. You're all good. Yeah. At Joshua Settleage on Instagram. He's the BJJ Strength and Conditioning Coach or something like that. Gives away a lot of free tips. Tons of good stuff. And he also, I think, does some programming for people. Yeah. Yeah.

We've had him on here a bunch. And yeah, just echoing everything Nsema said, because this is what he told me and this is what I was doing. So initially I was like, no, I want to lift more and then do jujitsu like twice a week. And then I was like, maybe I can do 50-50. And then to now where it's like, we're five days a week in jujitsu.

And then like the rest of the days are either rest recovery or something different. But what he was explaining to me was like, on those days days are either rest recovery or, you know, something different. But what he was explaining to me was like on those days that you do jujitsu, that doesn't necessarily mean like you're off of the gym. Like just go get a pump or something. Go move around a little bit. So microdosing the workouts. If you, I guess for me, because the emphasis is on jujitsu right now. Maybe if I wanted to go, I don't know,

do bodybuilding or do a powerlifting meet, that emphasis wouldn't no longer be on jujitsu. I'd be kind of focused somewhere else. It seems like this guy is trying to kind of do all of it at once. But I think jujitsu has like the biggest bang for your buck as far as like getting jacked in 10. You know, like you get that good lean muscle look. So I think just micro dosing the workouts on the days that you do jujitsu as like getting jacked and tan you know like you get that that good lean muscle look um so i think

just micro dosing the the workouts on the days that you do jujitsu or the you know a workout when you're not doing them but just yeah understanding that you'll find the balance that works right for you um i'm currently trying to rebalance things and figure it out because like i said the jujitsu mat time has gone up but uh when I do figure it out like I'll just make sure that it doesn't take too much away from the mats while I'm still chasing the pump in the gym nothing wrong with probably just doing like a six minute kettlebell swing where you know in between maybe you get on a bike or something like that right I mean you can do just get all kinds of variations of workouts that maybe don't have to take very long. Right. Yeah.

There's one thing I'm going to mention there because like a lot of, some people start in jujitsu or some people getting into jujitsu, some, maybe they just come from a background of not lifting at all. So they want to gain some muscle. So the thing is, is like your conditioning is going to come in jujitsu. Right.

So like if you are going to try to do other stuff, like kettlebell stuff is helpful, but it would be a good idea. Again, so like if you are going to try to do other stuff like kettlebell stuff is helpful but it would be a good idea again if like you're like i want to gain a good amount of muscle muscle and strength maybe a little more focus it's a good idea to use your gym time productively for that right because even though you could even get more conditioned if you're doing stuff on the assault bike and kettlebells and stuff if you don't already have a good amount of muscle, that's going to help you get more conditioned, but it's not going to help you gain muscle. So everyone like, people ask like,

what's the best lifting and jujitsu program? It kind of depends on what your goal is. Is your goal as an athlete just to get super fucking strong with jujitsu? Okay, you might focus on more of a strength type program. Are you a little bit smaller, but you're really trying to gain some muscle while you're doing jujitsu? you may want to do a good amount of

volume in your lifting sessions rather than trying to focus on lifting heavy loads are you already pretty big and you're trying to increase your conditioning okay maybe you can do some pump workouts and then you really can take on some extra conditioning work but understand that like you're still going to get conditioning work by doing more jiu-jitsu you know like when we had katie hogan on the show and she talked a lot about like volleyball. And she was saying like she has a lot of kids just like squat. You know? And yes, they're jumping because she said that they can – in training they can be in very specific positions to learn how to jump.

And hopefully that translates over into a game. But a volleyball player is jumping a lot, so it's not like they need extra reps jumping. So that makes a lot of sense what you're saying. Your conditioning is going to come from the mats, and maybe if you need more conditioning, maybe that is, you know, maybe you do focus on it outside jujitsu, but you probably more than likely need strength and muscle mass.

Yeah. All right. We have two more questions. All right. This one from CJ Crooked. Any life advice for a dude that's about to be 18? Life advice?

Yeah, man. Just what I've been preaching for a long time is like just try to develop skill sets. You know, try to develop, try to become a material expert in something. And expert is a strong word, but try to learn a lot in one

particular subject the best that you can. And eventually you'll be able to monetize that. You could be an auto mechanic. You could be a singer. You could play the piano. You can be an artist. You can be a lifter. I mean, just about anything. And you try to figure out, trying to figure out your niche is going to be a really hard thing. That's going to take time. That might not happen for many years, but what are you interested in? And then figure out ways that you can continue to learn more about that. It could be anything. We live in an amazing world nowadays, especially here in the United States. You can like teach people anything, teach people how to edit. You can teach people how to make YouTube videos. I mean, literally anything that you think of,

there's people that want to learn it. People can, there's even going to be people in the next few years, you'll probably see this be really popular. People that are controlling AI, people that are like communicating with AI to make AI work better for businesses. Like I'd imagine that that's going to be a huge thing. So there's, anyway, if you're ai people that are like communicating with ai to make ai work better for businesses like i'd imagine that that's going to be a huge thing oh yeah um so there's anyway if you're 18 you know there's a lot of things you can learn what are the things you're already interested in that's going to be the thing that kind of pulls you so you don't have to push yourself to do it all the time start to learn that absorb that and become the best that you can at it. Yeah, man. There's a lot of really cool money-making skills out there as far as editing,

copywriting, learning aspects of sales. Because even if you don't get directly into a sales job, there's a lot of benefits in just learning how to communicate with people in that type of way. There's a lot of stuff. But one thing I think is, Mark, specifically, for example, this guy doesn't know your background. It's important to pay attention to the thing that you're interested in and figure out ways to do it while also maybe having some money-making skills because you were a bouncer.

You got into wrestling. You got into powerlifting, which is the thing that you're really interested in. And because you kind of dug your heels in on that interest for a very long time, even though that wasn't the standard doctor, lawyer, engineer, you made something out of it because you were in it for a long time. And you took the time to go to seminars with Louis and all these other things. That's a big deal. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because I remember when I was – when I turned 18, I was like, I'm going to be a doctor. And I was good at science.

And I was good at math. But also culturally, I knew that my family would be very proud of me if I became a doctor. And I even like volunteered in the ER and stuff. Now look at you. Way downhill. Way downhill. But I even volunteered in the ER and stuff. And I think volunteering in the ER, volunteering within that helped me understand that that wasn't the lifestyle I wanted to live. Like I didn't want to be in a hospital for that long. And that's very admirable. But I knew that, oh God, having to be in here for such a long time every single day, I thought of my life in that way. And I was like 20 something at the time. And I was like, damn, I figured this shit out late. Right? So one thing you do want to think about is why do I have the interest I have? Do I have these interests because

it is truly my goal and want to do this? Or do I have this because there's been some subtle programming that's kind of said, this is admirable. This is good. If you do this, This is good. If you do this, this is going to be a good path for you. Right. My girl, like she started, she went to college a little bit later, but she went to job because what they're doing is kind of what their parents wanted them to do and what everyone else thought they'd be good at. And now that they're in it, they're like, shit, even if you're making good money, if you don't like it, it's tough. So really take the time, like you always say, to dig in on your interests, to really find out what is the general thing i'm interested in and see how you can build stuff off of that yeah that's what i was going to say like if you can figure out a way how to kind of silence the noise um just thinking back to when i was you

know at that age um a lot of the dumb shit i did and bad choices i made were not even for me they were trying to like impress someone else or try to satisfy my girlfriend at the time whatever it may be yeah and it's like I like I was trying to impress people that like were pretty quickly after that no longer in my life and at that age it seems like this person's already kind of like way ahead of where I was but at that age you know you kind of do you you pay attention to what's going on around you you you have uh you know you don't you don't want to be like you have more fucks to give at that age versus now I'm at 38 and it's like I have none anymore but you know you kind

of you worry about your image a lot at that age um but like I said a lot of the people that you may or may not be thinking about trying to impress or like, well, shit, that guy's going to that school. Like, you know, you got to worry about his parents bragging to my parents or whatever it is. It's like all that's going to disappear very fast and it's just going to be you like by yourself and you're, you might get stuck with some of these stupid decisions that you made. Um, so understanding that like it is a very, very long game.

And a lot of the stuff you care about right now or that you think is important right now, it's like it's not even really that important. As shitty as that sounds, but it's like, you know, don't do anything too drastic right now because you're trying to impress somebody else. Like just focus on you. Yeah, and probably don't have a girlfriend. Yeah. Some focus on you. Yeah, and probably don't have a girlfriend. Yeah. Some decent life advice.

Or if you do, just know that that might not last, and that's okay. Yeah, yeah. It's okay. The advice from Little Miss Sunshine. You guys ever see the movie? No. The old guy, the grandpa in the back of the car, tells the kid something very amazing.

Maybe we should look it up. Let's see. How could I put it without giving it away? He basically tells him to get a lot of women and he tells this young kid to get a lot of women. He gets in trouble and they start yelling at him. You know what? In a car, you said? Go ahead. I was going to say like at 18, I would also advise, it's a good idea to show your family that you are like heading in a particular direction of some kind. Yeah.

So like get goodish at something or like show some interest in something. Your parents are probably going to put pressure on you if you aren't – if it seems like you're not doing much. like you're not doing much. If you're just kind of playing video games and hanging out, but if you are potentially going to go to a junior college or you are going to, you have plans to like do something. So I think that's important because parents, they get real worried. They're like, what's my kid going to be? What are they going to become? What are they going to do? And you kind of want your parents like off your back. So I'm not saying get a job for no reason just to please your parents, but maybe at least look for one that you could halfway bear so that you could maybe generate a little income. And I think that's a, it's a good learning.

It's a good way to learn a lot of stuff about life is just go get some sort of job, movie theater, In-N-Out Burger, whatever. whatever yeah i remember on the girlfriend thing because like i had my first i had my first girlfriend i think i was like uh 18 18 or 19 i was a late bloomer in that sense i was so focused on academics 18 yo that would have helped no i was a bare-faced kid man um but you know because i was christian and then I also lost my virginity with that girl. I'm like, she is the one. That breakup just fucking destroyed me, bro. But like just like when you're younger, dog, like don't like not take – you can take relationships seriously. You can be a good, good guy.

But also understand like it's good to have different experiences. Also, it's not always the best idea to hop into the relationship with the first girl that gives you a good amount of attention. That's the thing. It's like, ooh, pussy. It's like... That was my mistake. It's kind of like... There's other girls out there and they're going to

give you a better blowjob, so just relax. Billions. And they won't be as naggy. And this is the same thing for y'all ladies like you know just when you're young yeah did you find this little miss sunshine shit yeah i'm not sure what to look up but i dude i've always wondered what movie this was because i have like there's a song from this soundtrack that i love uh-huh and i just see the the the cover of it and i never like looked it up and I'm like, oh my God, like this is the movie. So now I'm going to have to watch it because just because of this damn song.

But while you think about that, Mark, like what I could search maybe for this dude just to understand like the whole like high value man thing. There's going to be a lot of older dudes that have their shit together. Yeah. That you might be like upset at yourself for not having it together, for not having whatever it is, the money, the car, whatever it is, the girl, the look, the physique, all that stuff. Like, again, that's all going to come in time. And this is coming from somebody who is extremely late on all of the above, you know. So, like, that was super, like, depressing and frustrating for me early on because i'm like oh my god this girl left me for this you know 25 year old when i was like 17 like what the fuck why well he has his apartment he has a car he's making a little bit of money huge dick i usually go down that

rabbit hole like oh my god but no you know that i sent you a link and Andrew. I emailed it to you. I mean, you might feel like some of the things that you're doing at 18 are kind of worthless or useless, but something as simple as going to the gym, you're making yourself something. You're turning yourself into something. My son is here often at the gym training, plays the guitar a lot. Probably plays the guitar, lot, probably plays the guitar and he has a couple of different guitars.

Probably plays it like 15 times a day. Oh my God. Just intermittently throughout the day. They're going to be coming at him in waves. And like I'm sitting, you know, I'm a fucking weepy bitch, you know, so I'm like tears coming down my, he's so good. You know, like I got my fucking, uh, Bic, uh, lighter, you lighter. But it feels awesome to have a front row seat, kind of just listening to his progression over the years.

I have no idea how good he is because I don't know anything about music. But it's just fun to know that he's in there working on some stuff. It's just kind of neat. Yeah, here's the clip. Can I give you some advice? Well, I'm going to give it to you anyway. I don't want you making the same mistakes I made when I was young. Dwayne, that's your name, right?

Dwayne, this is the voice of experience talking. Are you listening? Fuck a lot of women, Dwayne. Not just one woman. A lot of women. Are you getting any? You can call, Dwayne. Not just one woman. A lot of women. Are you getting any? You can tell me, Dwayne. Are you getting any?

No? Jesus. You're what? 15? My God, man. You should be getting that young stuff. The best stuff in the whole world. Hey, Dad, that's enough.

Stop it. We're kind of not in the right manager. See, right now, you're jailbait. They're jailbait. jailbait it's perfect it's like one of my favorite scenes in a movie. It's amazing. That is good advice. Fuck a lot of women. A lot of women. It gets all exciting.

I have to watch this movie now. And that doesn't mean you need to be an asshole either. It just means that it's good to have. Even if you replace the F word with date. Yeah. They'll have some experiences with some different chicks and see what it's all about. And if you do fall in love with somebody, you know, make sure it's somebody that's good. Yeah.

That feels good for you and you feel good with them and all that. Don't need to commit to the first girl that gives you a little bit of attention. First girl that gives you a smooch. You're the one. You're coming home with me now. Girls usually get a little sketch about that, too. So you got to be careful with that, too. Yeah, man.

Yeah. That was actually decent. All right. I lied. I said we had one more question. We have two more questions. Okay. But these are two good questions.

Hey, you'll be happy to know I fixed your gripper. You did? Yeah. You're going to sell this on your website as a new invention? Yeah. Yeah. This is the finger extensor. Slingshot extensor.

Oh, my God. All right. Guys, again, if you want to get on the next Q&A, hit up the Discord and ask your questions on the Ask PP channel. Now, this is from Baps. Hi, Project Family. How's it going? Now, we talk about sleep all the time on the podcast because it's one of the biggest things that helps you with your health

and fitness, your recovery, your muscle gain, your fat loss, everything. That's why we've partnered with Eight Sleep for such a long time now because the technology behind the mattress allows you to track your heart rate, the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns, your heart rate variability. It changes its temperature through the night based off how you sleep, but not only yourself, but maybe your partner on the other side of the bed. It is an amazing mattress. Andrew, how can they learn more? Yes, head over to 8sleep.com slash powerproject.

That's 8 spelled out, E-I-G-H-T, sleep.com slash powerproject. Along with more information, you guys will actually save $150 off of your entire order automatically. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Is it silly to train for long distance running while also working on a good foundation for weightlifting slash resistance training? I'm kind of addicted to the runner's grind lately because it almost feels like a game, but I'm also lifting weights with a high intensity for about three to four days a week. Any concerns about this? Also tips or tricks on doing this safely slash successfully. Also love your stuff. You guys inspire me every day.

You'll have to toggle the intensity. So you'll have to maybe go through a little periods of time where you bump up the strength training, you push into that a little bit more, and then you'll have to, while you're doing that, you'll have to decrease the intensity at which you're running. And then you'll have to flip it here and there. So trying to go after both, you can do that by spreading the fatigue out more. And maybe rather than thinking of like a weekly program, you're thinking of like a biweekly program. So rather than jamming everything into just one week, you're jamming things into two weeks. thing into just one week, you're jamming things into two weeks and you're thinking, I want to get four to five good runs over the course of four to five longish runs, five miles plus, maybe eight,

10 miles, you know, four to five times in the next two weeks. That's way different than trying to jam it into one week, right? Same thing with your lifting. Like, I want to increase my deadlift or my squat. Maybe you don't deadlift every week. Maybe you don't squat every week. Maybe you only squat alternate weeks with your deadlift. Um, and maybe do the same thing with like your bench press. So if you can spread things out, that's a great way to go about doing it. Or if you can, uh, do like tiers of, of strength and then tiers of increasing your running four-week blocks at a time or something like that. That's what I would advise. One of the biggest mistakes that people make with running is they run too far, they run too fast, and they do it way too early.

So you can actually move pretty fast in running and make a lot of progress. I don't really know exactly where I'm at right now if I really push myself, but I can pretty easily run for like an hour at like a 10 minute mile pace for mile after mile, which isn't like some amazing feat for like a runner runner, but I think it's pretty good for where I'm at. And I haven't, I haven't trained that way. I don't train that way. I don't run that fast. Normally I normally am at more like a 12-minute mile pace a lot of times. Or sometimes I'll do what Andrew and I did, which was you are occasionally going a little faster. So my main advice would be take your running and only keep that in zone two cardio a good 80 to 90 percent of the time. That's where most of it should live in my opinion.

Occasionally go a little bit faster. But if you do that, you'll feel good and you'll feel fresh for all your workouts. Yeah. And you were talking about this before, Mark, but doesn't it matter, like, how good of a runner you're trying to become? Like, are you trying to be good and how fast you want to get there? How fast? Like, are you trying to aim for like a sub-3, 26.2? It's going to be a bit of training versus, you know,

you're just maybe trying to get to yourself to be able to finish a marathon in four or five hours, right? That still makes you a decent runner, but you're not all in in that way, right? So it's like you can toggle your expectations because for someone like me, I just want the capacity to be able to run a few miles. I don't need to be able to do a 26.2 at a good pace or whatever. I just want the ability to run well. But he looks like he's digging in.

Do you think it would be a good idea for him to track his weekly mileage and then like toggle that every few weeks? Yeah, it's not a bad idea. But there's a lot of ways to kind of keep just like a governor on your training. Zone 2 cardio is a great idea. Nasal breathing is a great idea. If you're doing a lot of running where you have to breathe in and out of your mouth, the intensity is high. But you might be – that might be what you want to do. So for this guy, he also is mentioning that he likes the runner's high.

It's kind of hard to get the runner's high if you're only nasal breathing so he might have to push a little harder here and there but again i think the the in my again in my opinion the fastest way to get the best results in running is to run very slow and uh that that is mainly for people with long distance running obviously if we're talking about someone doing 400, 800 meters, like way different considerations for something like that. But in a longer run, you know, and even kind of even to and Seema's point about like wanting to run like a three hour marathon or something like that or sub three hour marathon. Those guys even run slow in comparison to how fast they are. So they're running at a good pace and a good speed. They might do a lot of their training at like a nine-minute mile pace.

But that's really easy for them because they could very easily run at like a seven-minute mile pace. And just something that you're going to need to be good at is patience with this. Because just like the other guy that asked the question of like lifting split with jiu-jitsu, because you have these two areas that you're getting good at is patience with this because just like the other guy that asked the question of like lifting split with jiu-jitsu because you have these two areas that you're getting good at they will get better but they won't get better as fast as they could if you only focused on that thing right right so you can get better at resistance training and weight lifting along with running but you got to be okay with some weeks your weight training or you might feel just a little bit weaker you might feel a little bit of fatigue and some weeks you might feel really good and the same with your runs some weeks you might feel a bit beat up potentially from your lifting routine and some

weeks you might feel so good and so recovered and you're just fucking up the gym right but also being patient be smart with your recovery like if you're doing all these things there might be a week where you just want to back the volume off from your lifting and lower your running volume a little bit too, just to give yourself that week to be able to recover. Just like everyone talks about deloads, it could be just a deload week in general so that you can have another good few weeks of running and lifting.

And you can run every day if you want, but you have to also kind of just, again, you're going to just understand, okay, I'm going to do something very frequently. So because you're going to do it frequently, then the intensity needs to be lower. Like you can't, I hate the word can't, but it's not a great idea to use high frequency, high intensity, and like be doing this shit all the time and just trying to blast it all every time you do it. I'd recommend, you know, check out a lot of stuff from Ben Greenfield. Just do a search on YouTube, check out a lot of stuff from ben greenfield just do a search

on youtube check out some of his information he's got great information nick bear has great information yeah ben greenfield though the book boundless there's so much information in there i don't even know how the guy did it the guy like you know he he writes this stuff i think he like publishes it by himself and shit and writes i don't know maybe he has someone help him write it or something but it's unbelievable. The information in there, everything from cold plunging to stretching to, you know, heat, heat shock proteins. I mean, he's talking about everything you can think of supplementation, lifting, all of it. I just, I never even really, I haven't really looked into a lot of his books until more recently when we had him on the show.

And I know that he's full of great information, but I don't usually read often. And I've been flipping through some of these books, and I've been just completely blown away. I'm like, how in the fuck did he put this thing together? This is a monster of a book. And he's got a bunch of other books. So I highly recommend you check out some of that stuff. Cool. Next question.

Last question. Truly last question from Quantum Cloud. What can I do to help recover better if sleeping well is an issue? Thinking specifically about folks with young kids, mind is a one and a half year old. Congratulations. Or with sleep problems, I also find it difficult to get to sleep and sleep deeply. What are your, each of you, goals for the next, oh, this is a double whammy. What are your goals for the next 12 months?

Mark going to compete in strongman next haha face also if reducing stress can't easily be done if most stresses are a result of outside influences how can we reduce its effects or more easily get back to a reasonable state of calm sleep obviously but what else

so that's a triple whammy so the first question what can I do to recover better if sleeping well is an issue with one and a half year old? And you already sleep kind of crappy. Got to get your sleep when you can. You might have to train when you can. So you might have to try to figure out a way to exercise and do things when the kid's sleeping. That's something I did. I think Andrew's doing that.

I did that for many years. The house is asleep. No one's awake. I'd go get my training in and get it out of the way. But then that just required me to get to bed a lot earlier. So you're going to have to probably be a little bit strict with yourself and maybe set an alarm for what time you go to bed rather than set an alarm for when you wake up.

I have like a notification on my phone that pops off at like eight o'clock at night. And then it's just, you know, that's, I'm like, okay, well now I need to figure out how am I gonna get myself from whatever it is I'm doing now, you know, into bed. And hopefully I get myself to bed by like nine o'clock, something like that. So maybe you can try something similar.

I realize you might wake up, you know, in the middle of the night cause your kid might be waking up and things like that. But, um, hopefully you're getting your kid to go to sleep, uh, at the same time every day, that would be really helpful. And hopefully you can get them down at like seven 30, then you can go to bed at eight or nine. Andrew, yeah, I know you. Yeah, man, it's, it's, um, it's tricky. Um, so like Mark said, my, you know, I hit the mats at five 30, you know, that's, that's on purpose because yes, five 30 AM before anybody's awake. By the time I get home a little bit after seven 30, uh, that's when sometimes he's awake. Sometimes, you know, he's still in bed and that's, that actually kind of messes things up. Cause I'm like, dude, I need to get into that bathroom for that shower.

But it's always a nice little, like, bonus when he's still asleep just because I just know he's resting and he's going through, like, a growth phase or whatever you might want to call it. But the going to bed thing, I've noticed a huge difference when we front load, like my son's like TV time. So like he gets it in the morning. Uh, he might get it sometime throughout the day, but like after dinner, like the TV's off and that that's helped a lot when it comes to getting him in a sleep sooner.

Um, so we do that. Um, I, I don't wear the, uh, the, the blue blocking glasses anymore because I just changed

over all the lights. So I have a lot of like Amber colored lights throughout the house. So that's, again, another thing to help the whole house get it, get to sleep a lot faster. Um, so those two things right there have been, been very, very big and I'm, I'm super lucky if he does wake up in the middle of the night, my wife takes care of him because she knows I'm kind of on a mission right now. So I'm, like I said, extremely lucky. We try to make sure there's no more eating past 7 o'clock. That's huge.

Because I've noticed for myself I'm just a huge puddle of sweat if I eat pretty close to bed. So that's been like another gigantic thing and then um you know i've been talking to you guys about trying to fix my snoring i'll i'll find some cool hacks and then all of a sudden it's like dude like what happened like it's back again it's sort of like um i'll i'll use the you know the nasal strip and then the the mouth tape and it'll go away. And then all of a sudden it's like it becomes immune to that. It's like, dude, what do I got to do next? So lately I've been just sleeping elevated and that's been helped keeping me asleep longer.

And then also it's getting rid of the snoring. So it keeps my wife and my son asleep longer as well. So it's just like it's an evolving thing. But I think the biggest thing for us right now is just cutting off the electronics fairly early. And that helps the entire house go to bed and stay asleep. Hey, maybe we should give this guy like an eight sleep topper or something like that. Because that helped me a lot. Yeah.

That helps a lot. Can we do that? Can we figure that out? We could do that. Quantum Cloud. If you're here, send us your information on Discord. Address, your bed size, all that shit. We're going to get a Pod Pro cover from 8 Sleep Center away because that will help you sleep better.

If you don't have it already, if you have one already, then ignore this message. You'll be like, nope, actually, I don't have one. Which I wouldn't blame you. I would not blame you. But yeah, QuantumCloud, send your info to us. Yeah, that's actually – so that has been gigantic because I use the silent alarm on the bed. It starts vibrating around your head and it just slowly wakes you up. It's not like a jarring alarm.

But also it doesn't wake up my wife or my son that are in the same bed. Yeah. They stay asleep. It doesn't mess with their sleep at all. That's been gigantic for us. Yeah. And then you also have your temperature and she's got hers, right? Yep.

You don't have to worry about because a lot of times the lady, our lady friends, a lot of times are colder, right? Yeah. And we're all sweating. Oh, my God. It's so hot in here. All right. We're going to get to the part two of his question. What are each of your goals?

I'm going to keep this so short. For the next 12 months, Mark going to compete in Strongman? No. No. All right. So 12 months mark going to compete in strongman no no all right so you're not gonna do that i don't have any particular goals at the moment andrew uh yeah compete and you know win jujitsu tournaments yeah i love it i got the next one so it's june 17th so it's not necessarily 12 months away it's just six and a half weeks away um that's that's the goal right now go in there and do well yeah same here like i got a world's coming up in three or four weeks um just more competing jiu-jitsu really improving so got that coming up and just you know bringing some awesome people on the podcast and just improving in general i don't interesting thing is like there aren't like

probably should have 12 month goals and all that stuff we kind of vaguely do but i think a goal of all of us is just like continued improvement like we're always trying to improve at something so there's nothing stopping there and his third question if reducing stress can't easily but it'd be done if more stressors blah blah uh what else can you do to reduce stress is pretty much the essence of his last question from outside sources that he doesn't have control over? Yeah. Something like that. Let me really – all right.

If reducing stress can't easily be done, if most stressors are a result of outside influence, how can we reduce the effects or more easily get back to a reasonable state of calm? So the effects of stress caused by outside influences? I guess it's easy to like kind of define certain things in life as bad, like somebody killing somebody else, rape, right? Like there's things that are like you're like, no, that's like that's bad, right? And but I mean, most of the time, that's not what we're dealing with. We're dealing with like a text message or a comment from somebody, right? A poor interaction with a friend or something, a bad environment at work. These are all things that are, it's dependent upon your reaction to these things. Most of the time,

our reaction to stuff, our initial reaction to stuff is not great and it makes you kind of feel worse. I think it's, it's like, it's almost like bad food. Like you, you sometimes you had a, like a day that was, that you interpreted as being like rough or difficult. And you're like, man, I just would love to just sit down and just eat some pizza. And even though that kind of sounds like a cool idea and sometimes it is, and sometimes it is nice to just relax and to not have any rules for a moment. Normally, it's a bit of a mirage and it puts you into like a worst spot. And you're like, why did I do that? Like, that's not that's not anything indicative of my goals. Like, that's not what I want to be. This doesn't help me turn into more of who I want to be. This actually sets me backwards more. I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself. Now I'm pissed that I did this. And so your interpretation is something for me

personally that has helped a lot. This person coming at me a particular way, rather than me getting mad and balling up my fist and wanting to throw like a punch back, why don't I maybe just think about some different perspectives? Why don't I just say, well, hey, I don't know what's going on in the scene of his life today. I don't know why he's, you know. Such a dick to me. Yeah, maybe I said something weird. Maybe I offended him.

I don't know. But let's talk about it and let's try to, you know, let's try to figure out what the situation is. Putting yourself in somebody else's shoes your wife's shoes your your friends shoes your mom's shoes your dad's shoes of why they are asking you so many questions or why they're you know I don't know just maybe on you for the day you know you probably did something to make some of that happen in the first place and so what's their perspective? What's the perspective of your child? What's the perspective of your boss? Like, does your boss, does your

boss and yourself, does the opinion of how hard you work, is there a huge gap there? Why is there a huge gap there? Maybe they're not aware, you know, so now you have to, you know, you kind of replace a lot of your feelings with try to go more factual and say, you know what, I'm going to have a conversation with this guy. I'm going to bring into my boss tomorrow. I'm going to bring him a list of things that I do. My responsibilities, the things that I've been knocking out of the park. Maybe he doesn't even know it because maybe the manager is a dick and maybe he's not letting the owner know what's going on. And so you go in and say, I've been responsible for these eight things

the last couple of months. And to be honest with you, I've been pretty stressed about it because I feel like I've been putting in a really good effort and the vibe around here just hasn't been great. I kind of feel underappreciated for the amount of work that I'm doing. And I'm hoping that we can like resolve this

so I can feel better. Those are all really hard things to say. Those are all hard things to do, but it's better than being stressed the fuck out. Yeah. I would say just to piggyback on that, like extreme ownership, if you haven't read it, Jocko Willink, incredible book. Um, but just like the verbiage he said, it's like, oh, it's uncontrollable outside stressors. Um, I would say just like own that. Like, um, I'll just, who knows if this is, has anything to do with his situation, but like own that like um i'll just who knows if this is has anything to do with his situation but like somebody's saying like oh man my rent's really high it stresses me out

it's like well you decided to move there my car payment oh my god like you chose that car like you need to own up like this isn't an outside source this is your friends are a bunch of losers you decided to be friends with them, right? So like, again, it can be a little harsh because like, you know, you do need your job and you can't just, you know, quit out of nowhere. But like what you said, it's like, well, you could be like, damn, I need to own up to like,

like every time I see my boss, it's always like tension in the room. It's like, well, why is there tension? Like really look into it and be like, well, there was that one time X happened and we never even talked about it. And so like own that shit and go fix it. So again, like taking extreme ownership, I think is like huge because especially in a, in a like office environment where things are like never the person's fault, if you can kind of be the person that's like, okay, let me see why that is my fault. And can kind of be the person that's like okay let me see why that is my fault and

then kind of go about fixing it that's huge and then also just okay if it is a stressful thing get into breath work it's been gigantic for myself i don't know how to meditate i can do breath work your breath work is meditating like that's what i mean yeah i i don't know how to meditate but i can do breath work it's like oh but you are meditating that's what i'm saying like i know so what i'm saying is like before i ever like started doing like good intentional breathing yeah it'd be like oh meditate you just think about nothing and then come back to breath and it's like dude i either fall asleep or i think about a million things in that moment uh first it was cold plunging right because you have to be present and then now breath it's like, it fucking sends me into outer space.

So those two things, like just, yeah, consider that. Yeah. Get Jocko Willink's book. Yeah. Yeah.

I think I'll, I think I'll covered it. I mean, for, for me personally, I don't know. I think getting in control of my breathing over the years has been something helpful.

So it might sound stupid, but like just making sure that all your breathing is nasal breathing because then what's going to happen is like you're going to be more parasympathetic like you'll just naturally be a bit more calm you'll because if something gets you you're like you don't even realize sometimes that the way you're breathing is psyching you up a little bit that could be something that passively just makes you a little bit more reactive as a person. So changing your habit of breathing, we just had a video about that recently, could really be something that in the long term just makes you a little bit more calmer of a human because

now something comes at you and you don't necessarily rile up. You're centered. You stay there, right? So that could be a little something that moves you in the right direction. I think it's important to think about how you take someone down, how you tackle somebody. Single leg. Single leg, double leg, right? But how skilled do you have to be to take someone down without taking yourself down too?

So if you're going to go out to somebody, realize you're going to hurt yourself too. We had someone that came here a while back. realize you're going to hurt yourself too. We had someone that came here a while back. They made a video and they just weren't in good shape when they made this video that was disparaging towards another person. And I got to kind of observe that from afar. And I'm like, man, you take somebody else out. Only person you're really taking out and the hardest impact is on yourself. So you have to be kind of conscious and cautious of if you're going to be mean to somebody uh be really careful first of all about how mean you are and also be uh careful and cautious of just doing that in the first place maybe that's not a great place if you're going to fight with somebody in the comment section or you know this is of uh instagram or

fucking youtube or whatever like it's it's not gonna feel even if you burn the person like it's not really gonna feel good it's gonna feel worse and it's gonna drag you down right with them andrew take us on out of here buddy yep everybody thank you so much for checking out today's episode please drop those comments down below let us know what you guys think about today's q a hit that like button and subscribe follow the podcast at mb power project all over the place. Oh, make sure you guys follow on Spotify as well. That's pretty cool. I didn't know you could do that.

Yeah, MBPowerProject all over the place. My Instagram's at IamAndrewZ and Seema, where you at? Quantum Cloud. Don't forget Discord. Hit us with your info or direct message me, alright? And the next Discord Q&A is going to come up, so guys, hit that up and let us know your questions. At Seema Yin Yang on Instagram and YouTube. At Seema Yin Yang on tiktok and twitter mark i'm at mark smelly bell

strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye