Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 280 - Training for Strength, Aesthetics and Deloads

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

The guys are talking about training today. How deloads can help break through plateaus in the strength game and when striving for aesthetics. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 15% off your order! ➢Quest Nutrition: https://www.questnutrition.com/ Use code "MARKSQUEST" at checkout for 20% of your order! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

We are, should be live. Yep, we're live-ish now. And we're live. Sorry. Snuck that one in on you guys. Yes, you did. Anyway, I'll text you guys later. Okay.

Maybe not. Fair enough. Hopefully. Maybe I won't. Aw. Hope you do. Had a good shoulder workout this morning. Nice.

Yeah, got some, you know, people don't get the rear delts in enough, I feel like. Yeah, yeah, you're right. So we actually started with the rear delt just to make sure it was there. We did some overhead presses mixed with some pull-ups, and in between the pull-ups did some bent over, like, lateral raises, you know, just to get those suckers firing. It's amazing how much a difference of just a couple LBs makes when you're doing pull-ups. Because I was rocking on some pull-ups maybe last week. And this week, I'm up a little bit in poundage because I've been eating some food.

And it makes them more difficult. It makes them harder. But got a good workout in. And, um, I feel like shoulders, let me see shoulders. I think shoulders and like specifically like leg extension are like the two things that like burn the worst in the gym. You can get the pecs going pretty good and get them popping. You can get like a lat pump, a trap pump, calves. You can get kind of pumped up. Hamstrings are hard to feel. It's hard to get, you know, other things really like blown up.

Your lower back, abs, I guess, abs. You can burn your abs really good. How about your arms? Like I feel like I get the worst arm pumps as in they're the best but they just burn yeah you can get your arms burning but i feel like the shoulder i feel like the shoulder and the quad pump that you get from like a leg extension is like painful and like you you like wish that you weren't you for a few minutes i agree and the shoulders for me maybe it's just because my shoulders like maybe a little messed up or something but like it makes me like cringe and like want to like hug myself like my arms i fucking hurt so bad i'm just like

it feels it just feels uh excruciating and then you're just using like the lightest fucking weights too especially for like you know lateral raise or something like that you're just like man it's starting to get embarrassing yeah i can agree with that i still think the arms above like for me it's the biceps are like i can get a pump there like nothing and then that pump will just be like when we did the chef rush thing yeah oh my god great for a week i felt the same thing in my arms like for a week they were stimulated a lot of tension in the arms a lot of tension in the arms and the chest god chef rush yeah he killed us he did how about the leg extension though like what it why the leg extension feels like somebody's ripping your quads apart yeah those are good i

don't do leg extensions anymore. Oh, yeah, your knee. Yeah, your knee. My knee is not allowed me to extend that. But when I did do leg extensions, they were quite a burner. I think for me, lunges are the equivalent. Like dumbbell walking lunges or barbell lunges. Like those, I honestly think they were even above leg extensions when I was doing a lot of leg extensions.

You could. It's kind of hard from a squat, you know, like unless you just know how to squat really well, kind of hard to just get your legs blown out just from squats. Although the next day your legs are sore no matter what from squats. So I don't know how that works. The, uh, the leg extension death for, for me, it's the most, um, like i'm gonna feel that later like like if i if i'm not i don't know what it is when i when i do any kind of leg extension or if it's incorporated in the workout i my legs cramp up really bad i know that that there's more involved than just the workout

like you know obviously hydration and stuff but it just seems like no matter what i do like i like will podcast and i'll stand up and it's like i dude my quad will just start going crazy and it's like that only happens with the leg extension yeah um other than that like it's been a long time since i've like had a calf workout but calves for me are remain the most sorest sorest oh they can yeah if your calves get sore like and then you can't even like you can't stand up straight like shit like yeah you literally like will just fall forward or backwards because you can't balance yourself for me that's a very satisfying feeling for the calves like i like that when it comes to the calves yeah yes i mean yeah i think we all kind of like we appreciate the soreness but like man a calf fuck dude that shit hurts calves too i forgot about how bad you can get a crazy pump in your calf

like yeah yeah that's a smoker right there that thing's just like it feel like they're on fire what about when you're working your abs and you you get like that spasm oh yeah and you think you're just done yeah yeah like you you get like you need to get in that yoga stretch flip over it's almost like you're cramping like i guess it is does feel like a cramp because it's a spasm but it's like you just you feel like i like i just pulled something or this one's permanent. I fucked it. I messed it up for reals. But then, yeah, you breathe a little bit and you're good to go. You guys ever play a sport where they just take you through ab stuff?

I used to do that with boxing and then also with football. The only thing was Muay Thai. At the end of every session, we would just fuck like this. So why is it you never make any progress? You never make any progress with your stomach? Never, never, never. You do like those bicycle things, like where you go one side, back and forth with the elbow deal. And instantly, like eight seconds goes by and your stomach's on fire.

Yep. That reminds me of eight-minute abs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did that as a teenager like every single day. Did you guys ever do that? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely i used to i used to do crunches all the time and stuff i used to do like a thousand crunches like i just sit there and you know count like hundreds of them at a time i did eight minute abs and uh ab ripper x p90x yes i did that too dude i had the p90x videos and the ones from sha T. Insanity.

I used to do Insanity in my garage. You guys used to hit push-ups during commercials and stuff when you were a kid? I used to do that a lot. No, I was lazy. A little bit. Not nearly as much as you did probably. That's good. In the previous podcast, we were just talking about LimeWire. I downloaded AbRipperX from probably LimeWire.

Actually, I think I did the same. That's where I got it. AbRipperX. Yeah. from i probably limewire actually i think i did the same that's where that's where i got it yeah yeah you know that guy from p90x i wonder if he still makes those videos same thing with sean sean t yeah no sean t is definitely around uh my fiance she does all the beach body stuff she's like a beach body coach and yeah like they yeah he's he's around yeah yeah he's still killing it amen i think he like yeah doing his videos when i was younger i like i got really lean you know i gotta say shanti taught me a lot about i guess just movement cardio cardio you can do in your garage they were really like that that's really valuable

stuff for some people it's you know yeah i mean my fiance like i said she does it every morning yeah like she just did she just completed a hundred days in a row. Like it was part of one of the programs. It was like, it's called a B100 or something like that. Yeah. Where like she had like a whole calendar and like every day she would like, you know, go check it off. And she did a hundred of them in a row.

Yeah. Like you realize like you're almost one third through the year and you did not miss one day. Like I understand their, their home workouts so people can say what they want. Yeah. I can't, I looked at it and I'm like, I wouldn't do that shit. That looks hard. Insanity was hard.

Have you ever done anything like that or just not? You've just been in the gym. No, I feel it, man. I feel it. I was mostly in the gym too, but i will say when i did those like insanity workouts and i think he had insanity 2.0 at a certain point i think i was like 18 19 or something like that that shit was tough like you'd be in a puddle of sweat afterwards it's not a joke brutal huh they really were yeah anyway um do you feel like you need to be sore to make progress like my leg

my legs by the way are like sore to the touch, and they're sore like. To the touch? Ooh. Are they really? Yeah, like if you just went like that, like they hurt. Oh, wow. I want a touch.

But also like my legs are just like giving out because we did, like yesterday, we did leg extensions, and then we went right into leg press, and we used kind of short rest intervals, like a surefire way to make sure that you're really fucking sore is just not rest you know if you just have a really low rest period and you just keep going at it um you're gonna get really sore what are some of your thoughts on that i think that okay so there maybe i should break this into two things i think

number one it depends on your goal So if lifting is the main thing that you do in terms of fitness, right? You're not doing anything on the outside or anything else that you need to be prepared for. I think you can be sore after your workout, but you can't be so sore that you can't hit the gym the next day or even the day after that and potentially do the same body part. So like maybe two days later. You shouldn't be dysfunctional. You shouldn't be dysfunctional. Like you should be able to hit your arms two days after doing an arm workout and still be able to do something with it or it shouldn't be something where you can only do a few reps you're like fuck my arms are like hurting right that means you've you've you've overdone it if you

can't hit it until six or seven days later right but i feel like a level of soreness is good and is necessary um but then there's also like if you're doing lifting and then you're doing another sport along with lifting, like maybe you're doing a martial art or you're doing something else. You need to make sure that whatever you're doing in the gym doesn't wreck you so much that you can't perform in your other sport, whether you're a football player, a basketball player or a martial artist. Like your lifting shouldn't be so rough that you can't go perform in your sport. So that's too, or, but you can still feel kind of sore. Yeah. How do you, how do you find that level though? Like, uh, uh, you know, somebody who's not as experienced like myself, I'm just like, Oh, okay. I, I'm, I want my abs. So I'm going to, I'm going to crush this workout. And it's like, I'm tired right now. Like, no, I'm going to push even further. Like, and I i i've been told by mark many times like hey you you you go so much today you're pulling from

tomorrow's workout so but like how do we know like well you know you first of all you need rest intervals you know so like if you if you're going to use a low amount of rest intervals then you need to do a low amount of sets probably. And you need to be cautious with what the intensity looks like. Like if you're going to go to failure and have, let's say, 30 seconds rest or even like a minute rest, and you're going to go to failure, then like two sets. That third set, that's going to be the one that gets you really sore. And if you do three sets like that on three different things, now you're going to be really sore.

So that's where you have to just pay attention to the overall amount of work that you're doing. And then also you could just simply make things a little easier on yourself and have a little bit more rest. If you're trying to get real lean, it might be advantageous to have a short rest period. And then now from there, you'll have to just be like, Hey, you know, I don't really need to achieve failure, uh, on these sets, but I do need to work hard. And so maybe you use a kind of old school training method, which is light, medium, heavy. Let's say you're doing, um, let's say you're doing some dumbbell presses, uh, some like seated dumbbell presses. I'll maybe go with the forties on set number one, maybe go to 55 on set number two, and maybe go to 65, 70 on set number three. But set number three is the, is the set then move on

to something else. And you did three sets, but you only did one set that was really hard. You're not going to get sore from that. Even if you did a few extra exercises or even if you decided you wanted to superset that first set, you should feel some level of soreness, but not debilitated. Yeah. And as far as failure is concerned, I think that a good concept for people to think about is putting that more towards the end of a workout. And the reason why I say that is because if you're doing, let's say you're doing an arm day, right? And maybe you do some bicep curls first and your next set is like a cable bicep curl, but you, you know, you do a set to failure. What failure does is it, it, it activates so much of that muscle that it's just so fatiguing that your next set, you will automatically do less amount of reps because you fatigue that muscle so much during this specific set. And then your volume will just continue to trail down during your workout. But if instead you didn't go to failure and you still did a good amount of reps where maybe you were one or two reps shy and you save that failure for the end of your workout, overall, in terms of

the whole workout, you'll have more training volume that you've been able to accumulate while still being able to use the benefits of failure towards the end. I think that's one good thing to think about. And then the second thing that I think a lot of people can do that will allow them to find their volume, I guess, that you were talking about, Andrew, is to write down your workout and write down maybe the loads that you were using. Because I think one reason why a lot of people don't make progress and then they start making progress when they work with somebody is because when they work with somebody, everything's now written down and there's a plan. That's the only thing like that's, that's legit it. You're now writing things down, you're writing down your weights and you have a plan of progression. But the only reason it

doesn't work for you right now is because you're not writing it down. You're going with the flow. You're not writing down what weights you're using. And you're just going by how you're feeling every day, not by how you did last week or a few days ago on the same workout. But if you now wrote everything down, you know where you can progress. You know that, oh, God, I did this this day. And today I'm feeling like crap. Maybe I need to reduce my sets a little bit so that I can do this workout and still progress in my next few days. Simply writing things down will probably help you to get to that next level. Can you, uh, can you break down? Cause like the, uh, the workout I showed you, I did on Monday, you were explaining about like progressive overload,

like, cause like over time, can you, can you break that one down for me one more time? Okay. Progressive overload is it's a really, really simple concept. Think about just all you're trying to do is let's say you're working with some amount of training volume and training volume is, let's use a squat sets times reps, light sets. Let's say you did five by five at one 35. Let's say that the next week you want to do five by five at one 45. That's progressive overload. You have now increased the amount of overall training volume you're working with next week. Okay. It can get more complex than that, but that's the gist.

Over time of your training life or whatever, you want to be able to work with more training volume than you were last year, last month, last week. Now, if you're not writing those things down or if you're not tracking that, most people will go by how they feel on that day. So you'll see a lot in powerlifting. I feel strong today. I'm going to go for two rep max the next two days later. I'm feeling kind of weak today. I'm going to do this. I'm feeling kind of weak today. I'm going to do this. I feel strong today. I'm going to do this but there's no like actual progression they're aiming for and they beat themselves so much one day that they can't progress the next day so it gets tough you know what i mean so so that's all it is when i was telling what i was talking about with you is you told me about your workout and i was like just make sure that like you write the amount of weight you did on these movements down the amount of sets you did so that if you want to come back to this workout you can try to improve on what you did on the workout before and you're not potentially doing less than what you did in that workout. Got it.

You know, that's all. Yeah, because the workout that I had did was like a, what do they call it, pyramid sets or whatever. So like high reps at lightweight and then I ended up doing less reps. I just progressed a little bit heavier each time. It was fun because like, yeah, that was a good shoulder workout and getting to that, like i just progressed a little bit heavier each time it was fun because like yeah that was a good shoulder workout and getting to that like you mentioned it mark out there was nowhere to hide after a little bit you know the burn just wouldn't go away

and then i was like you know showing showing in simo what it was what i was doing and then he explained the progressive overload and i was like oh okay now it makes sense it's super it's not complex just make sure that again just write things down a bit. Just make sure that you can progress off of that later on so that you're getting pretty much, you're just trying to get better. Yeah, and then things like a pyramid or any of those things, they're really hard to make any sense of. They are the opposite of what he just described.

They are using higher reps earlier in the workout. And it's like if we wanted just to kill in SEMA, we'd say let's have you squat and we'd start with 405 and just say as many reps as you can. And then we're going to 315, as many reps as you can. Then we're going to 225, as many reps as you can. And then 135. And then it's like from there, it like, could you even have a workout?

It's like, no, there's definitely no reason to progress to any other exercise. It's like, you're done. So if you're going to do something really awful and you're going to have it in the beginning, then you might need to kind of rethink, like, what's the point of your workout? If the point of your workout is to kind of improve some mental toughness, then that's okay. You know, maybe you do some really harsh sprints that just crush your lungs. And then now you're trying to, you know, uh, do walking lunges and squats and these kinds of things. And if you're

trying just to see how like tough you are for, you know, how you're going to feel the next couple days and you want to just to, you know, level the shit out of yourself, then that's kind of different. But if you have a goal to be like bigger or stronger, then you might want to lift it a more systematic way. And usually from what I've seen, usually the answer is, as in SEMA was saying, you're going to lift heavier earlier in your workout. Obviously you're going to warm up, do whatever you need to do to warm up, get yourself warmed up, get yourself ready for the weight. You're probably going to be doing one to five reps on exercise. Number one, if you're training for strength, if you are more into bodybuilding, you might be more in like a six to 10 range. But after you get done with the

first, uh, you should always have an intent of every workout that you ever do. The intent could be that you're trying to be in better shape, trying to move faster, trying to move better. I mean, there's a lot of things you could do trying just to get hypertrophy, whatever the goal is, you should have an intent and a goal in mind. And then from there, you can kind of break down how many reps, how many sets of different things you're going to do. But as the workout progresses, you're going to do higher and higher reps because the amount of fatigue and the amount of central nervous system stimulation is now kind of running its course. You're sort of at the end. And really all you have to rely on is your muscular strength. Your nervous system is getting demolished at that point.

And you probably already did a few sets of five, a few sets of six to eight, and now it'd be a great time to yeah. Throw in a set of, uh, lap pull downs for 12 to 15 reps, mix supersetted with a seated row. That's a great, that's a great way to leave the gym. Great way to get a good pump going and a great way to get in some, you know, more time under tension. But to start a workout that way, you can start workouts that way. But just understand it's going to make you weaker for the stuff that you're about to do. And our intention isn't always to lift the most amount of weight, not all the time, but most of the time that is the intention

because that's going to give us a great stimulus. Yeah. And I think there is honestly, there's some merit to just destroying yourself. Like I really do actually like that sometimes. Like when I've, and that's what we did with legs the other day. We're just like,

Hey, let's just fuck ourselves up. Let's just, yeah, let's, let's fuck ourselves up. Yeah. I like in those workouts that I've done with you guys,

just like the cardio ones and the, like after that, I'm just like, I'm kind of fucked for a day or two. But this was awesome. Sometimes you want to do that. You know, can't have everything be boring all the time. Yeah.

And sometimes the progressive overload stuff can be can be kind of boring. You can get monotonous. It really can. But like to make progress over a long period of time, you want to you know, you want to plan things out. You want to write it down. You want to have an idea of where you can progress next week based off where you were the week before. And I think one thing that I found of a trend that most people, a lot of people still don't do is they still don't have like a deload weeks.

Like they really don't like, I've, I've, I've asked lifters like, how long has it been since you've how long don't you take a deload oh what's a deload uh just a week where you go a little bit lighter than you usually do i've never done that and and then they're like but i but the the premise is that they say that they've plateaued right right you haven't plateaued you just never had a break yeah you never yeah you never you never rested and And again, it depends on what kind, what style of training you're doing. Like if you have been doing bodybuilding for a long time, maybe it's just time for a switch. Maybe you train four days a week and maybe it

would be good for you to take a couple of days off. You know, uh, maybe it'd be good for you to switch to three days a week, just to, just for like two weeks. You can go right back to it. You don't need to get too worried or concerned that you're going to like deflate. You'll actually probably get bigger. Take that little bit of time off. It'll probably, you know, spend some time doing something else. You know, walk more, ride your bike more, find some other activity. We just saw a picture of Mark Sisson and he looks jacked as fuck.

And I was like thinking like, what has he been doing? And actually he said that he's been lifting a lot less and has a lot less time for regular exercise. And he said that he was playing a ultimate Frisbee a little bit more. He's been fat biking, which is just a big fat bike on the beach, the fat bike tires. I think that's what he wrote something about that. You ever see the bikes with the big, big wide tires that you ride on the beach? They're impossible. There's like so hard to ride. big wide tires that you ride on the beaches? They're impossible. It's so hard to ride. It kills you. Really? Yeah, they're tough. Damn. It looks like it would be a lot of fun.

Can we just acknowledge that this man's body looks like he's 25? Yeah, 66 years old and he's fucking jacked. This is possible, people. You can do it. Primal Kitchen. He sold Primal Kitchen for big time dough. He wrote the Primal Blueprint,

a big part of the paleo movement as well, along with Rob Wolf. Just a brilliant guy. Just the sheer definition of Jacked in Tan, right? Jacked in Tan, Meathead Millionaire. Yeah, because Jacked in Tan means everything. This guy has it all. Fuck.

And he writes paddle boards just like me, so I'm on my way. Here we go. Yeah, he's in great shape. He's a good example. But like we're saying, just fucking take a break. Get some time away. And I think sometimes people see someone like myself training like a madman, but my training is so different all the time.

see someone like myself training like a madman, but my training is so different all the time. Like I don't necessarily need like a, a D load because there may be, uh, a week where I'm traveling and doing something. And maybe all, maybe all I'll do during that week is, is pretty much walk, you know, uh, or do some, some sort of cardiovascular training or just some pushups or something. So I end up having, uh, some like automatic D loads in there, but you know, anybody who's trying to figure some of this out, um, there's a lot of great places to go, but, um, I think a great book for everyone to check out is five, three, one from Jim Wendler, which is not traditional. Uh, you know, it might, might confuse matters even more cause it's not what we're talking about here it's not periodization but what jim wendler really does a good job is

he sets you up for success and he tells you like you know you're going to do these these reps of five but they're not at 108 you know they're they're going to be at like 85 like make them a technical limit is a good rule for people to understand and to learn. And so, you know, should you take your reps to failure? You should probably take most of your reps in the gym to like about a technical limit. Meaning like you start to sway, you start to. Now, if you're going to do that on your way out of the gym, the last couple reps and you're curling, who really

cares? But if, if the majority of your workout is made up of poor technique, uh, maybe that's not in your best interest to lift that way. So think, think about technical limit, allow your muscles to do the lift correctly the right way. Yeah. I think, um, that's a big strength of conjugate too, though. Uh, because you're not always increasing, like from what I've heard from like Jesse, it's not always a constant high, you know, intensity, intensity being like, you're not always working with heavy loads. It's not always high volume. There's a quite a bit of variability. And that idea of variability is something that I think is really cool about it because what I've found is that when a lifter has been doing a squat bench

and deadlift for multiple months on end, even if you've been structuring it and you've been taking deload weeks, etc., there's just a point where things just really start to stall. And that's a really good place to switch things up, maybe do some front squats or do an opposite deadlift, conventional, or do something. And when you take time off of those movements, when the lifter back to it boom it's like it's revitalizing there's new uh like levels of strength that are reached because they took time off of it but the cool thing about conjugate is that you guys are there or conjugate

people that follow that are always doing different things on a week-to-week basis you know they're always like what's his name jeremy avia isn't always sumo deadlifting he does a lot of conventional he does a lot of banded conventional he does deficit pulls he's always doing that and some people would be like oh it's not specific enough but when he comes back to his sumo deadlift he's now filled in all these little holes that the deficit the banded all these things have filled now that he now that he's a stronger sumo deadlift so there's straight to that too it it makes a lot of sense i think a lot of people um shit on conjugate because of that for some reason but it like no it's just it works you know you're also not always going to

be like you don't just automatically get better at stuff like if you want to be better at something then you're going to have to be more meticulous about it. You have to pay more attention to it. And also, I really think it just depends on some goals. Like you don't have to really lift better or lift. Well, you certainly don't have to lift more just to be better. You can still be better off by like, let's say you said, you know, you should be able to handle more work over a period of time. So let's say that you, you know, you should be able to handle more work over a period of time. So let's say that you, um, you know, squat 500 pounds and, uh, you squat 500, you do some assistance work, yada, yada, and then you move on and then you want to do some other type of training. Well, now maybe you do

three sets of five with four or five. That's what you did for the day. Then you did some leg presses, then you did some leg curls, and then maybe you walked with the sled. And in between walking with the sled, you did some like lunges. Those are just two very different workouts and you could still be making a lot of progress. And maybe those, maybe your, uh, top set squat isn't as high as it was, but now you have a different work capacity because you're trying something new. And if we're talking about your aesthetics and the way that you look, it really, you know, and I hate to say it too, but I believe this for sport. I believe the only place where this is not relevant is to an in-season power lifter who's like ready to compete. Otherwise, I don't think you need to have your brain

wrapped around lifting more all the time. You're going to want to work on that for periods of time for specific reasons. I just had a great conversation with Josh Setlich about this. You know, he built up his strength for a little while. Now he's doing some more conjugate type stuff. He's doing some speed squats. He's doing some max effort work.

But is it really going to matter that much when he goes for a double leg takedown on someone or when he tries something specific in jujitsu, whether he did a safety squat bar box squat or if he did a regular squat with his feet in close together in olympic lifting shoes it's not really going to matter what matters is that he's working from different angles he's working on stuff in different ways so one week he works with a wide stance next week he works

with a closed stance um i'm not going to say that i i just my point is is that neither way is going to really matter that much when it comes to the transfer over into his sport. What's going to matter is that he's trying to work on making himself a better athlete. He's working on his conditioning. He's working on his strength. But he's not specifically sitting there super concerned about, like, if I squat 538 pounds, that's going to allow me to tap out in SEMA because that's not, it doesn't work that way, right? Yeah, it doesn't work that way. There's and like what I feel like when it comes to, I guess that and sport,

possibilities are like honestly limitless. They really are. Like there are, I guess, big concepts that you want to have in line. One big concept is that like maybe you just want to get strong with each body part. You want to maybe move through larger ranges of motion so you don't really have an area where you're weak in terms of pushing or pulling or whatever. But outside of that, like the gym is the playground. Like and also maybe you just want to get stronger with these movements over time. OK, big concept. Also, maybe you just want to get stronger with these movements over time.

Okay, big concept. But yeah, again, other than that, it's not going to make a difference you doing a lot of maybe back squats versus doing some front squats. Like you're still going to be squatting. You're still going to build a quadricep hamstring strength. Maybe the only difference is you're stronger with one than the other, but then you can build the weaker one. And we're also referring to people that are already trained. So just so people don't get it twisted up, like we're not talking about you shaking and looking like you're going to crumble and fall through the ground with 135 pounds. Because if that's the case,

then you, you better work on getting fucking stronger. You're going to get crushed in whatever sport you're in. And if you simply just work on your squats, and again, I don't know how much it would matter what style you chose. You just need to spend a lot more time in the gym so you can get used to some of these weights. So hopefully

you can start to progress to 185 and 225 and at least be like, you know, another point here is that where Josh Settledge strength is compared to other people at jujitsu, it doesn't matter when you're talking about in SEMA strength versus the weakest guy there. What, what matters is that the people that are like in between that they try to somehow close the gap a little bit. They don't have to pull 755. They don't have to squat 600 pounds, but if they only squat 135, they're going to get killed. Hopefully everyone's understanding what I'm talking about. It's just like you need some substance of strength. And with your instructor, I'm sure he's more advanced than you in jujitsu, but he doesn't have your strength background. And so now if he gets stronger your eyes just lit up if he gets

stronger right like now shit man like what let's just say he let's just say he started training really hard let's say he he walked out of jiu-jitsu and he's like i'm gonna go train and he trained for a while kept his mobility and gained like six or eight pounds well now you really got a lot of problems right yeah yeah yeah now you're got a lot of problems, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, now you're really going to get jacked up because he knows the game so well. And so, you know, you don't want to have this huge gap between you and everybody else that you're trying to, you know, the sport that you're trying to play. You don't want to be, you know, only lifting like, you know, 135 pounds.

You're going to have to work on your strength. Um, but what I'm saying is like, what you do isn't going to matter as much as you finding something and being consistent with it, sticking to it and just working on getting stronger. Whether you do a box squat or safety squat bar squat or regular squat or good mornings or front squats, it's not really going to make that big a difference, at least from things I've seen over the years. You guys keep going down the strength road if you guys want, but does all of this change if you're going specifically for aesthetics? Well, so like aesthetics, I think aesthetics, the main thing is food yeah that i mean there's

some stuff to your training but so like what we did with you for example like you a long time ago you're like i should get some abs and i was like you should you should actually work on being more jacked like you should be bigger like because there's nothing to really cut from yet you know i wish you weighed more like let's get you to weigh more because if you don't start with about a 200 pound frame, you're going to look like a wet noodle at the end of this whole thing. Right. So it's like, let's start with a little bit of a base. And Andrew is around six foot or so.

Right. So it would depend on your height and stuff. But like when you're talking about aesthetics, your, your training could be, if you wanted to have like a more powerful look, you would want to do some power lifting. If, uh, you wanted to, um, there's actually like, it's, it's kind of like a meme, I guess. There's like, uh, it shows like a power lifter, you know, train squat bench and deadlift. Right. And then it shows a bodybuilder does like specific movements. they have like a bro split for every single muscle group yeah for every single muscle group and then there's one for

like physique athletes and that one's that they train every they train full body every day or full body three times a week or something like that right something like that it's a meme right yeah yeah and then like there's one for crossfitters right right right yeah yeah i know what you're talking about and it shows the different body types, but it's actually very accurate. It's like kind of supposed to be fun and funny, but it's actually also very accurate. It shows you, you know, the bro split where you spend a lot of time on the aesthetics and trying to bring out the lats and the biceps and shoulders. It's probably going to be your best bet when you're trying to have an aesthetic look.

However, if you don't really have much of a, you don't really have much muscle mass on you and you don't really have any strength, you may want to start in. I mean, most of these bodybuilders too, a lot of times they're like, oh yeah, I used to power lift. Yeah, that, that does happen. But you know, the thing is that you also see is a lot of power lifters start as bodybuilders. A lot of really good powerlifters start as bodybuilders. Bryce Lewis, Russell Orhe. I could probably go on Instagram and find a bunch that started off with bodybuilding. I mean, they had that base of muscle to get stronger with.

I think that, yes, it does matter for aesthetics, everything we've talked about, because if you want to look good aesthetically, yeah, you want to be lean, but you don't want to be a lean noodle. I think like you just mentioned, you don't want to be lean and small. So if you want to build muscle, the concept of progressive overload still reigns true. You got to get stronger with the loads you're working with.

You got to work with those over time. And actually having structure makes that happen even faster. But you've seen this before. The guys that look the same in the gym every single year, and they're just kind of doing the same things all the time. You don't see them getting any stronger. And because you don't see them getting as stronger, they're not really getting any bigger. So a lot of like really good bodybuilders, a lot of really good power lifters that look really good, have structure. Like that's honestly one of the big things,

just having structure to what you do and you'll get bigger and stronger. One weird thing I think that happened, I'll make this short, but when I was focusing on bodybuilding for a long time, I got pretty big. But when I added a lot of strength training into the mix, like really doing big compound movements and focusing on progressing those two along with progressing my smaller movements, me it's like i saw a spike in my weight gain and it's like i saw a spike in everything it's like i just got so much bigger and it was it was it was really different i think that that can make a big difference in your true i think it's huge because that set you up for everything like the fact that you have more weight andrew and i were talking about this the other day we were talking about you behind your back

oh but like just the fact that you, just your body weight alone, you know, is what makes people tease you about being natty. You're like 250 pounds. It's rare to see someone's single digit body fat that's like 250 pounds. Yeah.

But had you not explored powerlifting, you know, maybe you, I mean, I know you've been bigger for a long time, but for some of these other people that are listening, you know, maybe they, maybe they're not going to really ever get their true potential for growth unless they find what exercises and what stimulus is going to get them there, what stimulus is going to help take them from 160 to 180 to 190. Maybe they're not going to ever find it if they only bodybuild. Maybe they're not going to find it if they they only bodybuild. Maybe they're not going

to find it if they only do like CrossFit. Maybe they need, you know, powerlifting. An interesting thing that if you get around, like bodybuilding is a weird thing because everyone is just like not in a category. They're like, I bodybuild. And that's actually not true. Like you're not bodybuilding, you know? I don't even really think that I've experienced that much of bodybuilding. Like I've only experienced what I know of bodybuilding, but to have like a coach or have someone who is really into bodybuilding to do bodybuilding with like the few times I worked out with honey or the times I've worked out with like Michael Hearn, that is like,

you're saying, like write stuff down and really pay attention to it. That is like getting coached on every rep of every set. That's kind of the way I, well, I kind of, that was the way I used to power lift. Everything mattered.

Every set mattered. All the weights mattered. The warmup mattered. Like everything was important. And that's the reason why I don't train that way anymore, because it would make, it's like maddening, you know, makes you crazy. But rather than you just doing an exercise now, I'm like poking you on the chest. Like, no, no, squeeze here, squeeze here. No, no, dude, stop. Like, what are you doing? Hold on. Let's lower the weight. Okay. Contract here. No, no. All right. You know what, dude? Flex in a mirror.

We're going to, yeah, like that. Okay. Hold that for a minute. Okay a mirror we're gonna yeah like that okay hold that for for a minute okay now we're going back to this cable crossover all right right there yep okay it's that specific and it drives you fucking crazy yeah and so i think you know a lot of these people that are kind of like in between they haven't really experienced bodybuilding that much because bodybuilding real bodybuilding is hard it is it's like enough i mean you have to you got to really go in deep upstairs to be able to make it happen so i guess this would be the would go back to the diet thing but is there a deload week for bodybuilders or yes so what does that look like it's just literally if think about the way i program it for people it's

literally if there's every exercise that you're doing, you do one less set. And then you take a look at the weights that you did the week before and you do lower load. So that means pretty much if you're doing, let's say you're doing three sets usually, you now do two. Now, if you did 50 pounds last week, you'll do like 40 or 35 pounds. Two sets of 40 pounds with that that whatever you're doing is super easy that's what it looks like the whole week looks like that and they're deload weeks for power lifters too like like the weeks where you go easier on everything a deload week is just going a little bit easier for the week so that you feel refreshed for multiple more weeks of progress

and then yeah i remember mark hearing about like uh how he would hear somebody else say that like oh it's like i need a refeed day and he would get so frustrated because he actually experienced a true refeed day when honey was coaching him right yeah yeah like really truly getting like depleted to where you're like i can't really like concentrate or see so good or like i can't sleep well i can't you know you can't do anything well you get to like these weird you know you get to these really weird things in bodybuilding um then you had to refeed and felt like a million bucks yeah well not only did you feel like a million bucks but your dick works like you wake up fucking har's a rock you're like holy shit all right hey andy where are you at because i mean your shit gets so suppressed i mean like but that's how hard you're training

you're training to the point like dudes that are listening to this right now you're training so hard that you don't that's the last thing on your mind that's the last thing on your body's mind yeah your body just your dick doesn't matter yeah your girl's like hey and you're like nah not not into it no need to go to i need to go to sleep because i got a train in the morning like you turn into such a pussy hey man it's it's real it's real that's why like my wife was like okay all right you know we're done with this fucking body right i was like yeah man she's like you're not gonna do another show right are you

gonna do that you're pretty lean right now you're 227 when you said 227 I was like what damn no plans on doing another but how much did you weigh on stage 235 but you know I

I'm on more shit then, and it's a little bit more calculated, and SEMA knows how it is as you're going into a show. It's like what we're talking about. It's very specific. So it's like you're going to always look your best on stage. I mean, there's not going to be a lot of times in your life where you're going to be able to really compare.

As good a shape as you're in you still looked more amazing when you were competing yeah but the cool thing is i think either one of us can you know flip around and go and compete now and you know in a couple of weeks and look better than we have previously yeah no i definitely agree with that and i definitely think like also i mean in my case when i was on stage i was like 228 you look a lot leaner now than you do right there and that's like what a year i mean that's how long ago is that well i am leaner than that it's about a year ago yeah a year ago yeah i'm definitely but you're fucking jack there you know i mean like we're looking at it and being like oh yeah

he's thicker there but like you were lean then yeah i mean it's fucking cool yeah it really is look at your back though damn that's why i paused it that's damn yeah he must work he must work out do you miss that look um yeah i mean i know i know the amount of time it took you know so nah what if you could detach like i like i like right now i'm like i don't know 238 or 240 because i i i chubbed back up after i was down really low yeah and so i have a little bit of a little bit of fluff back on me just a water weight probably pretty much um i think i can get that lean pretty quickly yeah you know four weeks six weeks something like that yeah i think yeah it's it's it's nice knowing like where we where we are now like it wouldn't take long to get that lead you probably could get that lean in six weeks

or shorter like seriously if you took it seriously you could get that lean in six weeks i could probably get back to my stage weight probably take me like 10 or 12 weeks, right? And I would also use some different strategy too. I really liked what Hani set me up with and everything, but I would definitely use some intermittent fasting. Yeah, I would love to do it that way. way. And I think maybe like, maybe if I was to try it again, maybe it would just be less, uh, intrusive because I wouldn't, I wouldn't eat, you know, six or seven times a day. Like that was the hard part. You know, my wife helped not help, but she cooked a lot of those meals, you know? And so that was a pain in the ass. And like, I don't know, it was just, I could do it in a way where

it wouldn't be, it wouldn't impact as negatively because i certainly wouldn't bother with trying to do 90 minutes of cardio um but that that's what we that's just what we were up against yeah at that time yeah it would be interesting you did you did some cardio for your shows right i did um i think that if i prepped again, I probably would be able to maintain doing jujitsu for quite some time. And yeah, I was on the elliptical almost every single day. I chose the elliptical

because it wasn't like taxing on my joints or whatever. And I'd be, I mean, I have the sheets still. I think I was doing like 600 or 700 calories a day cardio, which would take me like maybe an hour, a little bit less. And that was along with lifting too. Have you ever messed around with a intra workout carbs or anything like that? Yeah, I used to. Um, I used to have like, like, yeah, I've had like either a shake or something with me that I have in the middle of my workout. Um, and I mean, nowadays I really don't think it was that beneficial.

Like, well, it's an extra thing. It's yeah. It's an extra thing. Like it's an extra thing. And if it was, if it rewarded you that much, you would still continue to do it regardless of whether you're bodybuilding or not. But the payoff isn't strong enough. But when you're bodybuilding, you're like, I need everything.

You're right. You know, you're like, I everything you're right you know you're like i need every advantage and everything possible and it's like i always felt with those like intra-workout shakes i didn't know if it was the carbs the aminos i didn't know what it was it definitely felt like just the fact that was drinking something that had salt and potassium you know sodium and potassium in it i think that was hugely beneficial whether it was a certain mixture of other things, you know, the carbs or the protein or whatever. I don't really have an idea. I mean, I know that there's some science that shows that these things are supposed to be effective, but who studies it?

Yeah. People that sell supplements. Yeah, that's the thing. I think that, again, in the situation of PrEP, Anything that just touched my lips was amazing. Keep your minds clean, people. All right. Food. Food.

Any type of food that just like gave me something was just it was a godsend because I was so damn depleted and I was so hungry. These tastes so good. And other people are like, what? Right. I'd make these nasty as homemade pizzas on tortillas and be like, this is a treat. The gift from the gods. Like it's it's fucking cheese and some menu microwaved it. No fat cheese.

Low fat cheese. And like just like these lame ass pepperonis. I'm not three pepperonis because I couldn't have more than that. That's funny. I'm not even allowed to have that kind of cheese. You made a choice. Yeah. I'm living with that choice and I'm liking it.

Yeah. For now. Yeah. I think I could have done it in a more sustainable manner. Honestly, if I did pick up fasting while doing that, I think my cravings would have been in line. I would have been able to handle that much better than I did because I had a lot of binge sessions because I was craving all these foods. Nowadays, if I did a prep, I feel like I could handle it without binging once you have better food habits. Back to the kind of aesthetics deal, you know, like when you're doing,

there might be certain movements in the gym. Like if you've been training for a little while that you may not really need to worry about too much, like, you know, a preacher curl on a machine or a shoulder press. But if these are exercises or if there's a body part that you want to try to bring up, then that's where you're going to want to pay more attention. So let's say you want to bring up your back. Well, then it would be good to write down the weights that you're using for your bent over rows. Start out week one, maybe doing, you know, four or five sets of 10 reps just to kind of get some work in. Maybe you use a plate and then maybe the next week, maybe you drop the reps down just a little bit and maybe you add whatever appropriate amount of weight for you would be. You go to 155 or 145.

Add a little bit of weight each week. Bring the reps down a little bit. And the idea behind it is that because you're going to be handling more weight, you're going to be challenging yourself a little bit more each and every week. Because you're challenging yourself, you're recruiting more muscle fibers. Over time, that will help make you bigger. And over time, that will help make you bigger and over time that will help make you stronger. So that's kind of the idea behind it. It's pretty simple. You just try to do a little bit more weight. A lot of times with the more weight that you do, a lot of times we're

dropping the reps down, but that doesn't always have to be the case. You can even do like a five by five and you can try to keep that amount of reps with, with a given weight. I've done that before where you do, it's called a flat wave. You just keep the wave the same. It's just that it starts light enough. So you have room to move. Hopefully it's making sense. So let's say, let's say you used one 35 in, uh, in week one and did, you know, did, uh, five sets of five, you just bump the weight up to 140 the next week, do another five sets of five, like these small incremental jumps in weight, trying to leave the sets and reps the same. You can even just go up a rep. So you can even say, I'm going

to do 300 pounds on squats and, you know, week one'm gonna do uh you know i'm gonna do a hard set of five the next week you can say i'm gonna see if i can do six you can do it that way or you can go in the other direction and go heavier and go with a slightly lower amount of reps all depends on where the goals are at honestly if everybody just did like that just structured it a little bit everybody who's listening would get bigger that's just a fact because I know a majority of people don't write down their workouts. So you'll just grow there. But I think another thing that everyone who's listening to this podcast, like maybe they like bodybuilding more and they like doing, you know, your bro splits. if you just increase your frequency from one to two times a week of doing each body part, my God, you will grow. I've seen that happen with people like that for most of their lives. We're just doing one body part a week. Boom. Do two. Oh my gosh. I'm seeing new stuff. Right. That it's, it's so wild. Like, and then for individuals that like, for me,

my triceps were weaker body part for me to grow for, for a very long time. My triceps, were a weaker body part for me to grow. For a very long time, my triceps, they would be rough. I went from twice a week to doing triceps four times a week. Now, granted, on those four sessions, maybe I wouldn't do, I would, overall, the volume would be more than me doing two sessions of triceps, but not every single session was torching them. So I could recover from session to session and my triceps grew. So if you have a body part that you've been working out for years, you're like this body part just chooses to be stubborn. My arms just won't grow.

Do them more frequently, but really try and control what you're doing in terms of volume. And if you trust me, if you do that, they will grow more than you'd expect them to. Yeah. And if you're doing 12 or 15 sets of workout and you're really just demolishing it and you're doing it once a week, you might want to back off a little bit on the amount of sets so that you can increase the

frequency. Also like maybe your arms aren't growing and you train them three or four times a week. Maybe try to train them a little heavier, try to train them with some different, a different style of protocol. Look at, look at some different, different styles of training and maybe cut the amount of times that you train in half. Cause sometimes you just simply, you know,

and also to like, if you're trying to be like thick, you're trying to be, you know, gain some size, you know, are you spending time on the elliptical? Are you running?

Like a lot of times when you're new, you just don't know. You you're like i need to burn up i need to burn up some calories and burn some fat so i'm gonna like run and some people go to the gym every day and they'll they'll run for 20 minutes before they start their training and it's like dude you're 19 years old and you're trying to you're you're training like an animal every day your nutrition's not supporting anything and you're trying to like run away from or run off your fat and it doesn't work. You know, these things are not, these things are all going to accumulate on your body and that doesn't work

that way. Yeah. No, that this, this is where we get some weeds here, but that's, that's true. That's true.

And then obviously the nutrition is going to help with everything in terms of growing. But yeah. What do you think was the biggest difference with your arms? You know, you said you increased to four days a week. Did you try to train your arms heavier? Did you try to, you know, bodybuild with them, do sets of 12? Or what did you do?

At days, two of the days days i was working much heavier loads and i would have more compound movements on those days like a close grip bench press along with heavier tricep movements which the max amount of reps i would do for any of those movements on those days would probably be 10 um and then two of the days and it would be it would kind of switch around so it'd be heavy tricep day very light tricep day heavy kind of heavy tricep day, heavy, kind of heavy tricep day, not as heavy as day one. And then a lighter day, but with a lot of reps where some of my, my reps would go up to 20 at the very end of the workout. Some of them would go up to 25. Um, and that was set up that way so that I could be able to recover from session to session.

Because if I did a heavy day and then I did another heavy day after that, that you can't do a heavy day heavy day light day light day and your elbows are gonna fall apart my elbows would fall apart too so it was heavy light moderate then the load was light but the volume was a lot and i was doing a lot of reps back to a heavy day on day one and that helped me out a lot because like my biceps were fine like my biceps never had a problem progressing or growing but my triceps like would just be these these stagnant annoying pieces of meat on the back of my arms sometimes people just don't um think of training their arms the way they train everything else and so sometimes

just lowering the rep range you know having it's okay to do a barbell curl for a set of three or even like a single rep max i mean it's not it's okay to do them that way the problem the problem with those exercises they don't lend themselves to be done that way very well so then you have to like just use a lot of body english and it starts to get really weird but you know having it in a lower rep range uh somewhere between four and eight reps is totally fine do some dumbbell hammer curls or do some incline curls. Um, you know, do, do some movements that are gonna, you know, if you do like something like an incline curl, you're going to automatically use a lot less weight, incline dumbbell curls. It's like,

you know, good luck using the 35 pound dumbbells. Those things are a bitch. But if you take a, you know, like a one arm preacher curl where you have it like, you know, with your thumb facing you like a hammer, hammer curl style. Those aren't as hard and you can use a little bit more weight. Or if you just do a regular easy curl bar, you can handle some good weight. So start your exercise, start your workout off with things that lend themselves to you, you being able to use a good amount of weight. And then you can also, as the workout progresses, sets of 15 and sets of 20 are really perfect for something like a tricep push down where you have your body weight kind of over top of it. You're able to cheat. It's really low impact on the elbows. Um, but sets of 15 or 20 might not be great for skull crushers and things like that.

You might want a lower rep range, a little heavier weight. And by the way, if you have pain on any of these things, find other exercises. There's too many things to do in the gym. There's so many options, and so you might want to try to move into just utilizing some different exercises. What about tips for making the better connection for the mind-muscle connection? The mind-muscle. Yeah, yeah, because I know if the weight's light, I can really flex and I can feel it, and it just is way better.

But is there anything else other than just going a little bit lighter and practicing a better form? I mean, obviously, better form is always going to be the goal. But did you guys find anything else when you were doing the bodybuilding stuff? You can pre-exhaust. That works great. You know, you can find a movement. Let's say you have trouble tapping into, like, your biceps. So you can do some standing like reverse curls,

and then you can maybe do like a hammer curl. And then maybe the third movement could be like a regular curl. By the time you get to the regular curl with your palms facing up, your biceps are going to be pretty, pretty damn activated and it should be really easy to get a pump after that. So some, you know, some sort of activation through another exercise can work really well. Let's say you have a hard time, you know, tapping into, uh, the old pecs. Maybe you do a couple sets, maybe you do a couple reps

of pushups, 10, 15, 20 reps of pushups. And then you're like, you know what? Whenever I do a fly, I don't feel shit when I do a fly. Well do pushups beforehand and then try're like, you know what, whenever I do a fly, I don't feel shit when I do a fly. Well, do push-ups beforehand and then try the fly. Sometimes exercises like flies don't ever feel great to people. So maybe you try a cable fly or maybe you try the pec deck. You try different pieces. Sometimes just your body type just doesn't work great with certain things. But pre-exhausting the muscle will work really really well you know maybe it's a side lateral before you go ahead and do a overhead press then i want

to ask you about uh flexing also in between sets and whatnot but uh real quick in regards to the fly you know i i whenever i do the cable crossovers and stuff you even said like you're there's no wrong way to do it except for how you're doing it. And I'm like, I can't. Yeah, I can never get it. Whatever reason, I'll get it eventually. But Insima told me to do single arm, whatever those are called. Yeah, those work pretty good.

Holy shit. Those feel amazing. I love them. Those feel way better for me than doing both cables, whatever you want to call them. But I was blown away. Well, so you can actually cross over. Like, it's a cable crossover. way better for me than doing both you know cables whatever you want to call them but yeah i was actually well so you can actually cross over like it's a cable crossover right yeah you can't really cross yeah you can't really cross over but like i was just like feeling and jessica will attest to this you can feel the back of my spine through my chest like there's nothing there that's disgusting

but when doing the single arm crossover i was like hey there's a little something going on right there yeah and you can like you can yes yeah yeah yeah but i did i have heard you talk about flexing in between sets too like yeah yeah flexing in between sets is great i think the first thing that people need to learn if they're trying to develop like some sort of mind muscle connection is how to flex. I actually think that anyone that's lifting weights needs to learn how to flex and pose at least a little bit. Because think about it doesn't make any sense. You're trying to train your left bicep, but you have no idea how to flex it.

That doesn't really make a lot of sense. And same thing with like your rear delts and your triceps and all that. Like you should know how to flex these things. The more that you know how to flex them, the easier it will be to kind of turn them on when you're actually doing the exercise. You'll be able to like almost like take your mind and to like dive into the muscle and to be able to have that mind muscle connection. Yeah. I've heard O'Hearn talk about like he actually imagines the fibers like being torn down. And so like he actually like closes

eyes and he sees it happening like damn that's that's sick that's deep yeah so like no you you were right and once you said lighten the load like when we were with mike what was he saying a lot of the time when we were doing some of these weird movements uh let's lower that a little bit for you because you can feel it better so that's one big thing but then um not just flexing but for example with a cable bicep girl squeezing at the very top for oh shit squeezing at the very time i'm serious i just have squeezing at the that just happened squeezing at the top of the movement for like two or three seconds to allow yourself to actually feel what's going on at the top then bringing it back down a lot of people when they're going

through the motions in the gym they're just bringing it up and down and you don't feel shit even i don't but if i were to squeeze right here like i feel that hold right so having like two second holds or three second holds at the top of each movement and then controlling the eccentric of like a cable curl or something or a tricep push down or whatever bring it up and then controlling the motion back can help you a lot to be able to see and feel what's going on that can make a big difference then one weird one and it requires a training partner sometimes you can do it on your own but mostly it works well with the partner is touching yes so for example if um you were doing some you know you're doing some cable rows and i just come up behind you and i just tap your lats a little bit. I just tap them. Tap them.

A little tap a room. A little tap. Just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap your lat a little bit so that when you bring it back, you can feel what we're actually trying to work.

Or maybe you're doing some, uh, some weird out fails, face pulls with the rope. I just tap behind your shoulder. Like Mike does. Exactly. I'll learn.

Just if we had some smooth jazz music, this would be perfect. I just stand here. I just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And like tap and like and like being real okay real talk back to it you'll be able to actually activate that muscle group better especially during like face pulls or something where most people have problems feeling their rear delts you will be able to activate that muscle group better if someone's actually touching it because you're more aware of where it actually is like that's legit so if you

have a workout partner you guys got to start touching each other really really really you guys need to start touching each other start touching those chests start touching those legs just touch each other it'll help you it'll help your bro yeah it makes a big difference it does i'm not even joking there he goes oh he's trying to get the nip nip slip the way he touches those a little bit different than i've yeah mike likes to kind of caress the muscle he does the middle finger and he kind of like he'll lazily throw it up maybe he's not trying to take away from like whatever he's touching almost like he has like a wooden hand or something it does it's like half like break broken or something you go

yeah it's all stuck for some reason why can't he move his fingers but he's jack so whatever yeah yeah delete him off there we talk about him too much anyways nobody needs to see that what about drop sets yeah yeah fucking drop sets are great drop sets are awesome um you know you could do those with free weight you can do those on the machines they're a little easier on the machine um going from an exercise going from an exercise that like stretches um to an exercise that doesn't works really good. So an example would be maybe you do like a seated row supersetted with like a pull-up, you know, something like that. Or the other way around, you know, you do the pull-up first and then you do the seated row.

I'm not sure why that kind of shit works really well, but you could also do something like a squat or like a leg curl mixed with like a lunge you know again you have a movement or even better maybe is uh like a leg curl mixed with like a stiff leg deadlift you just be careful man those things will that kind of stuff will make you really really sore when you go back and forth because you got one thing that's pushing blood in and you got another thing that's stretching you at an, at another angle. And it's like, Ooh, it's on fire really quick. Just like what you had us doing the other day with the leg press, like we were leg pressing going crazy.

And then Mark's like here, kneel down and, you know, stretch your everything out, your quads and whatever. It was hard glutes. And it, it felt really cool because like, I don't really experience like a leg pump per se but like when you stretch like that you just you feel like your skin is like at max capacity like it feels amazing have you ever tried doing bicep curls and then stretching your biceps between each set in your rest periods it's hell that shit hurts it's great though i mean the way you're looking at me it worries me but like i'm down to do that. That sounds like fun.

Who's that guy? I think on YouTube he goes by Mad Dog something, but he's a famous bodybuilder. He's all about that stuff. He is. Mountain Dog. Mountain Dog. Mountain Dog. Mountain Dog.

He talks about that stuff a lot. He loves that. He loves that. He has a really good explanation on like all the good stuff about it but i've honestly forgotten but it it's great i think uh oh man the name the name just uh eluded me i got him in my head um tom platts no tom platts was big on that oh yeah back in the day he would squat and then he would just fucking, like he'd get down on his knees and just like lay all the way back after a really hard set of like squats or leg extensions.

Like how is he able to do that right after he just blew his legs up? But he, I mean, that guy squatted 500 for like 20 something reps. Yeah. Tom Platz is like the definition or like, I guess, you know, he was fucking crazy. He was a pure bodybuilder. He did,

he did strength training, but he wasn't very good. Like just because Tom Platz could squat 500 for that many reps doesn't necessarily mean that he could have squatted 600 pounds,

but he was really good at banging out reps. Like he had that endurance. Yeah. So it's like the nature of the way you train, like just because you're a power lifter who can squat 800 you know you might not be able to get to 20 reps his legs

yeah what the hell why do the bodybuilders always have their pants down around their ankles can't they just wear shorts to show off their legs well you know you can't wear shorts that cover the knees i think you know that's one thing that no bodybuilding really got me into wearing like i became very comfortable wearing shorter shorts because in high school i like i would be the guy who's wearing basketball shorts like past the knees but once my quads grew i was like i need to show these things off yeah that's barely hitting me now like i always wear baggy shorts all the time. Look at how efficient he is at squatting. Yeah.

Ridiculous. And good hair. He trained like an absolute lunatic. I don't know if you guys have ever seen videos of him, like, working with other people, training them. He just kills everybody. It looks brutal. Yeah, he's really into just really really just digging in deep you know and

and going deep into your mind and being able to get those extra reps you know a lot of people are like oh you know you always have one left you know you could always pump out another rep he'd say five reps yeah because you probably can't pump out those five he's like there's always room to do five more reps i think you know that's another thing though you know um after training for some time like you'll really be able to figure out like where your your actual limits lie um because when you and it's not like you want to test this all the time but what do you think you have one rep left in a set you probably have like maybe five and you're just thinking like you're not thinking like you're,

you're not, I guess you're not comfortable with that fatigue level, you know? So that's, that's one huge thing. I guess there's six time to develop figuring out where your end range is. Yeah. And thinking about like somebody else just went and,

and did that for a set of 10, you know, and then set yourself up to, to really believe that you're going to get a set of 10 to just pretend that you just saw somebody just do that. Yeah. Um, or somebody just did like, let's say you're, you're like, all right, I'm going to do, I'm gonna do like five reps. This just pretend that you just saw someone do six and now maybe you'll get

seven. You know, it's a, I mean, it's a big deal when you have someone that encourages you or someone that spots you, but we see it happen in here quite a bit. Someone like Ryan Spencer might be in here on a Friday morning squatting, and as I'm walking in, he's already got some good weight on there. It's 5 a.m. He's got like 455 on there, and he's squatting for some reps. He doesn't have a spotter. But if I'm like, hey, Ryan, let's go, and the second he starts going,

it's like, okay, now he's moving a little faster and that kind of gives you an idea like yeah there's always there's always a little more there if you place like if you've played any type of sport you kind of know this and you know like it's it's funny when you know let's say your coach has you doing something for three minutes at the last 30 seconds of those three minutes you start feeling like crap but then your coach again says let's go for one more two more minutes then for some reason you find another battery like it's just like you keep you can go for another two minutes and at the last 10 seconds or 15 seconds that two minutes you start to just peter out and it's happened before that then another another set happens but then you you managed to for some reason get through it again so why couldn't you

just get through that whole first three minutes you know don't know but yeah i wanted i was i really wanted to mess with uh chris bell because no matter what we were doing on the bench the last rep because he's he's got you know torn up triceps everything pecs and all that so he always the last rep is always like ah take it you know whatever it is yeah and like hey let's go for four rep because we're doing sets of three let's just go for four but i don't think he heard me but still because it was like no matter what the last rep was that was going to be the rep where he couldn't lock it out same yeah man so like yeah it's wild yeah but i feel it shit's hard man you got it's like when you're doing it you think that you can't do anymore and if you watch like a video you're like that sucked i could videos are really bad because even not even if it even if you shake a lot and like barely get through the rep

you don't see that that well on video for some reason doesn't show up the same and so you look at it you're like i could have done way more than that you're like why did i put it back in the rack get exposed but you know also mean, I don't like, I do enough work in my workouts to where it's really rare that I'm really pushing myself to like extreme failure. It just depends. It depends on the movement. But like in a squat, it's really rare for me to push myself in a squat to like total failure. I might do it on a leg press where I'm like not sure if I can push the weight back up again. We did a little bit of that also with the belt squat the other day.

Like where you're like, my legs are like really fatigued. I don't know if I'm going to be a stand up again. And then I don't know how everyone's going to help me out of this position. If I get stuck, I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, that hit me really hard. My right quad for something like it just i'm like do you like come on like i try to shake it out it wouldn't wouldn't go i'm like nope let's go and then jess actually pulled like some weight off so i keep

going all right cool we're good we're good and then like fuck i can't stand up i get up just luckily i you know being a little bit taller like i was able to like not fully lock it out and still push the uh whatever the bar back in so i didn't have to but dude that was really scary i think that's one super sketchy yeah i think that's one big concept of why like of course we can see that athletes they're athletes in every sport that are in really good shape but i think that's why a lot of crossfitters are in ultra good shape because if you look at the nature of almost all of the kind of workouts they do it's like you are at death's door in almost every single workout you don't do that much in

bodybuilding you don't do that much in powerlifting you know but in crossfit you're there and you get used to being there that's one thing that's crazy you get used to being in that just disgusting state just that's sitting right here she knows what that's like because she did rowing like that. Yeah. Yeah. She she she's going to that place right now. It's hell. So I think that's why they just end up in such ridiculous shape.

They're just used to Jess was showing us pictures of her hands back in the day. Oh. Grisled. She she went through some work man. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways Smokey walked in so we can stop talking about him all right we should talk about him more uh he's a handsome man i actually like what he's wearing today his um his coat's nice his watch is nice

and his beard is always nice oily oily, straight, and not nappy. Not nappy. Yeah, he doesn't have naps in there. He brushes it all out. You can tell. You could run your fingers through his beard and not catch a single hair. Have you tried? I want to, but he just won't let me.

You'll catch probably some rice or something, though. I've seen that. Maybe a rice or a piece of ground beef here and there, but it's still clean. Get a little bit of food out of there anyway I think we're fucking done here I think so anything else to say just appreciate the sponsors

of course like always yep those quest donut bars all the proteins and the sprinkles I think remember guys i still need to do this myself but mark talked about cutting up the or warming the quest bar up then cutting up or cutting it up then warming it up cutting it up and snorting it that's where i'm at with these quest bars right now all right so i think well so you can you cut them up and you stick them in the microwave you can you can do it either way and you stick them in the microwave. You can do it either way.

You can put them in the microwave first or cut them up afterwards, but they're amazing. But you can't do it with this. With the Hero Bar? No, you can't do it with any of the ones that have a coating on them. You can do it with the cookie dough one. But yeah, you throw it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so. How did you come to finding this out? Ron Penna. Really? Oh, well? Like, cause that's Ron Penna.

Really? Oh, well, nevermind. Yeah. Ron Penna. Who knows how he figured it out. He, uh, he told me to like wrap it in like a wet napkin and then, you know, stick it in the microwave. Got it.

Okay. Well, if you guys don't know how he discovered it. Yeah. If you guys want to give it a go, head over to questnutrition.com at checkout enter promo code mark's quest for 20 off your order um i eventually mark will let me have another quest bar right now because i'm really trying to be uh drastic with my changes in my body so i'm not having any kind of sweet or any kind of a lot of changes and lots of changes but the second i am allowed a quest bar i'm'm going to give that a go.

But it's funny how, so Quest bar gets heated, but the perfect keto bar gets cooled. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It has to be put in the fridge. Yeah. It doesn't, I mean, it tastes better. You don't have to put it in the fridge.

But it is way more enjoyable. Yes, it is. I wonder what that's all about. How'd you learn that? You just did it one day? I'm just fat. Well, I mean any fat science you don't want a skinny cook yeah and a fat trainer all the bars just have fat in them so i figured if i stick them in the fridge maybe it will all come together and yeah be really good so use those fat habits for good

yeah i use I like that anyway yeah it was delicious the cookie dough was my favorite I know you guys like that cinnamon roll yeah I'm back on cinnamon roll again I think it's just because again this is nostalgia though I can't touch them right now

but the vanilla was it the keto ketone base or no MCT oil powder. Yeah. That was my shit. That's really good. Yeah. I love it.

I like it better than the chocolate. I have yet to try the salted caramel, but I will try that tomorrow in the AM. Yeah. We got to try that one. Yeah, I know. I've had the salted caramel collagen, but not the MCT powder yet. I'm with you, though, and see my i'm on team vanilla wait when it comes to the for the powder powder mct oil powder yes anyone who's messing around

with some fasting sometimes it's tough to make it through a fast so you might want to throw some mct oil powder in your coffee i blend it up with that little little blender thingy that i have that i showed you guys some videos of. The tantalizer. The tantalizer. It makes it a little easier, but you could just throw it in like a shaker cup or you can blend it with a spoon. It'll mix up pretty good that way as well. And then also they have ketones, actual ketones.

For those of you looking for like a little energy boost or looking to be less hungry during your fast, you can give that a shot. Yeah. If you guys want to give that a go, head over to perfectketo.com slash power project. You'll see our favorites like talk about the nootropic all the time. Cause I love it. Um, enter promo code power project at checkout for 15% off your entire order. We talked a lot about getting strong. We talked a lot about getting jacked and tan. And, uh, the only way you're going to do it is to be, is to have a good diet in place, you know, and these products help you help you do that. And certainly Piedmontese will help you do that as well. They got some really tender meat that is really lean. And I suggest you all give it a shot. I like the flat iron steak. I like the ribeyes. I like the, uh, filet as filet as well and uh recently they've been sending uh what's that stuff called again a dynasty package right yeah that shit was really good they uh also have

a lot of grass-fed beef you're gonna want to check that out what is uh grass finished yeah what is grass i'm still actually very curious about that i know it's delicious supposedly all cows are grass-fed but uh grass-fed and continue continuing being grass-fed is uh not a practice that people use traditionally that's they they use grass and then they switch to grain and then a lot of cows are grass-fed and then they are grain finished and that's usually what gives the marbling and still has a good flavor. Because a lot of times grass-fed beef doesn't really taste that good. Or it just tastes different to you.

It might almost taste like gamey for some people. But I haven't noticed a difference with the Piedmontese. It tastes really fucking good. Oh, it's just as tender. I only notice it after I look at the label. I'm like, oh, this is a grass-fed one. Yeah. I'm a fan of the Flatiron, but I think the New York Strip is going to take over, especially because it is leaner.

New York Steak of mine? Something like that? Come on, Andrew. Andrew, did you just not? You're a Nas fan, bro. You're kidding, right? He's looking at us like a dog. Like he did the side head tilt.

Like he didn't even react to that. He did that. You get it, right? It legit took me longer than it took you. Oh my God, how? It's the diet. Is it already happening? Is that why it didn't work last night

or is that different that's something else yeah i guess that's something else use the tantalizer just use that not the one not the one from work is that heavy cream on there all right i took it too far. I took it too far. I took it too far. Oh my gosh, we're idiots. We need a machine.

We need that. Soundboard? Yeah, soundboard. We need a soundboard. I can't afford that. All right. If you guys are older than 12 and more mature head over to piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com enter promo code power project at checkout for 25 off your order

if your order is 99 and above you get free two-day shipping highly recommend the ribeye grass-fed grass finish that shit's insane it is yeah i'm at mark smelly bell where can people find you in sema oh at in sema eang nsima and yng on instagram and youtube where can people find you andrew instagram at i am andrew z strength is never a weakness weakness never strength catch y'all later