Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 370 - Swimming Around Great Britain ft. Ross Edgley

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

Ross Edgley is a former professional water polo player from Great Britain, author, scientist, sociologist, nutrition expert, competitive strongman, and fitness stuntman who successfully swam around the entire island of Great Britain. He has lost 24lbs in 24 hours followed by breaking a British powerlifting world record and a 5k, and competed at The World’s Strongest Man. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support us by visiting our sponsors! ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/power25 Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 25% off and free shipping on orders of $99! ➢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 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Power Project crew, welcome to today's show. This episode was recorded on April 14th, and before I go any further, please make sure you get your notebooks out. You're gonna wanna take some notes down because we had an incredible conversation with Ross Edgley. Ross Edgley, he's done some amazing things, some crazy feats.

The main one we spoke about on this episode was he swam around Great Britain. So that took him 157 days, which I mean, I just, again, it's just hard to wrap your head around, but, uh, this guy's amazing. He had a smile on, uh, the entire time he has such positive energy. And, um, you know, again, like I said, there's going to be a lot of quotes that you're going to need to write down and implement these things in your life right now, because we a lot about how, you know, the situation, you know, a lot of people's identity almost is being taken away from them. You know, whether you're a power lifter, a strong man, bodybuilder, you can't train the way you used to.

gives us amazing advice on how to, uh, you know, take some of that energy and adapt it into somewhere else to become a better athlete in another aspect of your training and whatnot. So really, I mean, that's just barely scratching the surface. Um, I had a blast on this. I think you guys are going to find a ton of value in everything that Ross has to say. And on top of that, the dude is super jacked. He's, uh, I mean, one of the craziest freakish, freakishly looking athletes that we've had on this episode. And he's mainly a swimmer. So, you know, it's a, it's a little bit rare that we have somebody like him on. So, I mean, just, just like I said, incredible stuff. I know it sounds like I'm gushing and that's because I think I might have found my, my next, uh, or my newest, you know, obsession,

my newest boy toy obsession. Um, anyways, as fast as humanly possible. If you guys haven't already, please make sure you guys have signed up over at markbell.com. Mark is giving away a free 30 day trial to his website where he posts up a new workout every single day. And right now he understands that all the gyms have been shut down. So there's a huge emphasis on body weight movements, slingshot movements, hip circle movements, that sort of thing. So that way everybody can get some

guidance during these weird times right now without a gym. Again, that's at markbell.com register and you'll gain access to the entire website for free for 30 days. Also, we are still giving away 20% off every slingshot and hip circle combo. That's over at markbellslingshot.com. Head over to markbellslingshot.com at a slingshot of your choice, at a hip circle of your choice,

and you'll receive 20% off at checkout. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by Perfect Keto. Pretty much every episode that we've been doing since we've started doing this remote thing, I've been really indulging and enjoying a cup of coffee. And in that cup of coffee, I've been putting the salted caramel MCT oil powder from Perfect Keto. And you guys know my history with my stomach issues. A lot of things upset me, a lot of poop stories. However, A lot of things upset me, a lot of poop stories. However, traditional MCT oil will destroy me.

That's like an instant rush to the bathroom. Perfect Keto's MCT oil powder, I do not experience that at all. I only experience the benefits, which is I feel fuller longer, I have a little bit more energy, and on top of that, it makes my coffee taste incredible. Seriously, if you guys want to try like a low carb or a low sugar diet, but you know, the first thing you start every day is with a cup of coffee and you know, some creamer or some sweeteners or whatever. And you're like, no, I can't do like, I can't survive without my coffee. Trust me, try this and you will love it. This is not one of those things where you need to be, you know, fat adapted or you need to be, you know, you need to abstain from sugar for X amount of days for

this to taste good. That is not it at all. Anybody that can hear me right now, you guys will love the flavor of this MCT oil powder in with your coffee. Please head over to perfectketo.com slash power 25 at checkout, enter promo code powerECT for 25% off your order of $99 or more. And on top of that, you're going to receive free shipping on all of that. But that's it for me. Seriously, get your notepads out. This is going to be an amazing episode for you. Please enjoy the show with Ross Edgley, and I'll catch you later.

What's up? I said you and I probably already got the coronavirus from going to that 49ers playoff game. Could very well be. Yeah, absolutely. That was a giant smorgasbord of germs. It was pretty dirty. Yeah. And then you think about it, everything there is like finger food.

Well, at least up in my parts, it was all like, you know, just hot dogs, hamburgers, fries. Like nobody had a fork out there. dogs hamburgers fries like nobody had a fork out there so everyone's just like grabbing everything handrails other people high-fiving and then you're just you know eating food and then everyone there was stuffing their face with beer so and what like uh what do you do like with stairs and stuff you just don't have handrails you know you just get rid of them yeah well because if you if you just don't have them then no one's got to touch them and maybe make like don't make the stairs so fucking steep i wonder what the statistics will show about like uh death rates from stairs once they take the handrails off but how much healthier

people will be from not getting sick i love all the statistics that are flying around. They're great. Statistically. Ross Edgley is going to be awesome, man. I'm excited to have him on the show today. And, you know, we've been talking a little bit about getting some other types of conditioning. I know. And Seema's been messing around with the kettlebells. And he went for a run the other day.

I've been messing around with running. I know you've been running on the treadmill. Well, now we can ask this person we have a reliable source that we can ask hey man how the hell do you run yeah but yeah ross was a beast yeah and swim yeah he's and like i saw bart this morning posted uh where he was like treading water or something and he was talking about how hard it is he was saying that's like just like walking down the street for a water polo player and that's what ross did for a long time he's a water polo player so that's his main form of like that was his main sport before all this crazy stuff that he's been doing i believe so but i would imagine that he's a multi-sport athlete for a long time

he's so jacked i know he's got to be like african-american right i mean if you if you look at his 23 and me there's probably like a cool 30 35 in there so like it probably nigerian specifically probably like most definitely he really is uh insanely jacked and that's an amazing thing to talk about as we were talking yesterday about trying to hold onto that muscle mass while you're doing all this stuff. I mean, I would imagine that he came from, I would be, I would be shocked if he was ever fat in his life. He probably came from a thinner side. So it'd be interesting to learn about that,

how he's able to keep on the muscle or even how is he able to even build muscle in the first place? Oh yeah. That's, that'd be interesting to know if like before he started doing all of this stuff, he was already like maybe bigger than he was now, you know?

Cause I think he's like two 20 at five 11. Oh my gosh. I might be wrong. We'll have to ask him. Yeah. But Andrew's cue up, cue up the boing noise seriously i mean a quick egg plant yeah yeah make sure your significant other is not in the room when you google search

his name because holy crap dude is insane who's that yeah exactly don't worry about who it is all right like i was just looking at eddie hall and and Hapthor Bjornsson and he didn't say anything. Now all of a sudden you're interested. You haven't watched one, you haven't watched one podcast. No one cares. And then all of a sudden Ross Edgley shows up on the screen. Yeah. April's like, I'm listening to that one. I'm like, I'm like, why? I don't, why do you have to say it like that? I mean, yeah, but I don't get it.

I'm so curious. Like what goes on through his head when he does a lot of these feats, because he's done a lot of wild stuff, just, just a lot of stuff that takes massive endurance and he's moving this big old body around. Like, I'm just wondering what is his, what's going on up here.

And does like, how does he, if does he even train that somehow, or it's insane. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah, I'd like to get into asking him about some motivation. I think people are really starving for some motivation and some inspiration. And I think something that's real powerful right now is just hopping on somebody else's like

instagram or checking out their youtube and just seeing them doing something you know or a picture of somebody like just somebody's out for a run or somebody went for a swim or and then and you're sitting there because we have a lot of idle time you know you're just sitting there going up i better get up i better go do something oh there's so-and-so hitting up their workout. And it's like a good reminder of like, hey, asshole, you should probably get up and do something too. It is. Yeah.

Andrew, nice old school 49ers hoodie. Yeah, I know. I've told you guys I've been a lifelong fan for the last season. No, this one's dope. It's Star Wars, like, there we go. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it's sick. I love this.

Ryan Soper was like, dude, that's like my two favorite things combined. I was like, I know, it's legit. Kind of a nerd explosion. Yeah. That's actually been, I've been following a lot of Niner stuff to keep me a little bit more grounded. Because like they're like signing players and whatnot and then talking about predictions for next year. And surprisingly, everyone says that Garoppolo's trash, but they're giving us like best odds to win the Super Bowl, which I hate. I don't like when people are for.

Yeah, I wonder what's going to happen with all that. I think, you know, by the time the football season rolls around i think we should be normalish but like can we can they have the stadiums packed the way they had them before and stuff like that i don't know i yeah yeah who knows i i know i mean owners like money so to tell them like hey you're gonna have to take like a whole third of the uh ticket sales off the books i do know a lot less people uh not that it makes it any better but i do know the projected numbers that they had for you know the the death toll is a lot lower than they anticipated so um i don't know i think i think again the main fear i think is that this thing mutates and turns into something different.

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's like my only, that's my only concern. Like if I have any concern at all, I'm not really too worried about what's going on right now. And I, I, I am, um, you know, cautious with my older family members and stuff like that. And I obviously don't want anyone to get sick from it, but that, that's the kind of mate, like what if this thing, if it some, at some point turns into something else and that's what they, that's a lot of people are speculating that it will at some point turn into

something a little different. Yeah. It would suck to, you know, have to deal with the seasonal COVID flu, whatever they're going to call it, you know? Yeah. That would fucking

suck. It looks like Ross is in the building. Oh my God. My motivation is to stay healthy though. Yeah. I'm really liking a lot of the stuff that's coming from

our buddy Paul Saladino. He's got a lot of the stuff that's coming from our buddy, Paul Saladino. He's got a lot of great information. And he's the first guy to tell you that he's not a doctor in that specific field. But I think he's taking a lot of the information and taking his own information and mixing the two together and coming up with some good, good, good, uh, good, solid info. Hey, there he is. Oh, am I in now? Yeah, there you go. Yes. Oh, amazing. Guys, how you doing?

Good, man. Good, man. We're doing great. How are you doing? Oh, this is, I'm good. I'm good. This feels surreal. Like I said, I've been a massive fan for so long. So, I just can't talk to you guys now. It feels a little bit weird. I'm just sitting here chilling on my sofa. No, really good. How are okay. And we're still, you know, going about our business, still training and still all, you know, doing all that stuff. How has your, I feel a lot of people could utilize a boost, they could use some motivation. And I realized that you do a lot of different stuff. You're lifting, you're doing these intense feats of strength, and you're out there doing all kinds of different stuff. How are you staying motivated? strength and you're out there doing all kinds of different stuff how are you staying motivated yeah i think do you know what we talked about this recently just because mark you'll get this but i think what what's slightly strange from when i was swimming around great britain so those who don't know it was 157 days of just staring at the bottom of a seabed so left alone

with your own thoughts you know there's not really much to do. You kind of have to just find yourself quite funny, tell yourself jokes. And one thing that I learned while swimming was this idea in Stoic philosophy. So for those who don't know about Stoic philosophy, founded in ancient Greeks, Zeno of Citium founded it. And a central theme of it was to control the controllables and accept the uncontrollables. And what they meant by that was just this idea of really making peace with the fact that sometimes you can't do much. Unless we're medical professionals, which we're not,

we can't do anything about the coronavirus. Unless we are politicians, we can't do anything about government legislation. So they're accepting the uncontrollables. But what is within our control right now is your training. What can you drill down on? And I think certainly speaking to you guys as foremost experts in strength training, it's looking at things like mobility, things that you probably neglected outside. Overhead mobility, that's one thing that I'm working on at the moment. Anaerobic threshold, things that I perhaps neglected but are now within my control so

sorry that was a long-winded answer i've had a lot of coffee this morning already but that's essentially how i'm coping i'm looking at what i can control and judging by the size of your biceps mark you're probably doing the same as well while in isolation yeah i've been, I've been training hard and doing exactly what you're talking about, trying to focus on something a little bit different than what I'm used to, trying to find something new. And what I like to share with a lot of people is that motivation is really pretty simple. It's where your level of interest lies. So where your level of interest is, it'll be easy to be motivated for that. If you have a level of interest to be really super lean, then you'll probably have the level of interest that follows that,

meaning that you're going to eat really well and train hard and things like that. That's exactly it. For me, it's been a bit of a blessing so like at the moment for instance i'm doing a lot of brachiating for those who don't know um there's a theory that we share the same shoulder joint as the great apes but when you look at the great apes they're doing a lot of passive hanging active hanging their scapula is their intention um everything from like rotator cuff internal external rotation so for me right, I'm sitting in a squat rack and doing hours of internal and external rotation and hanging from the bar. If I did that in a normal gym outside,

people would be like, what are you doing, dude? Like, get out the squat rack. I need to use it. You're just hanging from it. So I think one thing that's quite nice is, you know, that is something now that I can drill down on. And I think if, you know,

and when we come out of isolation, I want these bulletproof rotator cuffs. And I think that's one thing that's nice. Again, you know, far more about this than me, but in powerlifting, if you suffer from like,

um, you know, poor ankle mobility and you're constantly lifting in Olympic shoes, Olympic lifting shoes, that might be something to address. And never are we going to be offered the chance to drill down on that, like we're being given now. So I love what you said about motivation, Mark. Use that.

When you come out of isolation, you might not be just some beast who's, you know, throwing around, benching 200 kilos. No, but you might have incredible, you know, bulletproof shoulders. And I think that's one thing that I'm using at the moment. You know, on the topic of your shoulders, I'm really curious about this because you had to swim for 157 days. And that's, I'm guessing, I don't know exactly what form you're using, but that's a lot of that for hours on end every single day. Did you prepare your shoulders for that? Were your shoulders ready for that?

And when you came out of that, like, how are your shoulders different from the rest of us? Because I anticipate that they are. You know, I'm so glad you asked that. Just because I think when you look at conventional swimmers, you know, Michael Phelps great example like incredible and you know he uh you know is six foot whatever it is he's huge he's poetic through the water he's fast through the water um whereas since coming back on land we did a lot of studies at loughborough university and one thing that we found and again you guys will

understand this but this idea of strength training during pre-season, just to put stress and stimuli through the ligaments, tendons, the joints, one of the most common injuries is just overuse injuries. So within that kinetic chain, looking at how the joints, muscle, everything work cohesively together, it will be something that that tendon, that ligament isn't strong enough. be something that that tendon, that ligament isn't strong enough. And I think for me, because I used to swim sort of internationally, but I'm built like a hobbit. I never got my growth spurt. I'm still waiting for my growth spurt. I'm five foot eight on a good day in some big shoes.

So my coach was like, look, Ross, you're never going to make the Olympic squad. I was like, okay, fair enough. I understand. But I then went into to strength training i was fortunate enough to train with andy bolton um for instance and you know seeing how andy trained was just incredible and to use those principles um to then come back into swimming later it's almost like I accidentally did a few years of general physical preparedness, putting stress and stimuli through the joints. So my shoulders, when I came to swim around Great Britain, I didn't have the shoulders of a conventional swimmer,

but that was a good thing. And I think it's amazing now where we're at with strength and conditioning that we're seeing these hybrid athletes that I think if you took, and friends of mine who are great swimmers, Adam Peaty is a great example, the best breaststroke the world has ever produced. He's incredible. Ten of the fastest times of all time, all owned by him. But what's really interesting is he's poetic through the water.

He's fast. He looks like a dolphin. I'm almost like a chubby whale in that it's not nice to watch me swim, but I'll just keep going at a steady pace and just keep going. And then I think what's also interesting is when you start looking at strength athletes going into endurance sports,

and again, you guys will understand, but you can eat. And that's like, I was putting around 15,000 calories a day. So for me, a lot of endurance athletes were saying, oh, how do you eat so much? And then in swim, I'm like, it was the best somewhere I've ever had. I was just eating like everything.

Like you can think of my favorite. So I didn't have like a huge baguette or a Subway 12-inch pizza wrapped in a Domino's pizza. So you'd get a baguette, wrap it in a pizza and then polish that off and then go swim. But strength athletes would understand because, and we're only understanding it now at Loughborough University, there were studies done at competitive eaters looking at how they almost train their digestive system. And the number of people who won't finish an ultramarathon, it's because of gastrointestinal distress. But for strength, I'm realizing I've gone off on a tangent to the shoulder question.

I'm sorry. But it's interesting how coming from that strength background, thank you, coming from a strength background, there were certain things that you developed that helped me swim around Great Britain where swimming technique was no longer the limiting factor. So that's why I loved why you asked about shoulder strength. But is it the same with you guys? Are you finding now because of your powerlifting background, when you go into other sports, are you finding it's a nice crossover like MMA for instance or anything like that are you finding there's nice crossovers yeah it feels great to uh to try some different stuff uh and SEMA does uh some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu um you know I I transitioned pretty well and from powerlifting to bodybuilding and then in addition to that more more recently i've been running and it feels great you know it's it's uh i don't have a great uh aerobic capacity and that's what i'm working on but

all throughout my powerlifting career i always did gpp type stuff i stayed in shape enough so i could recover from the workouts recover from one set to the next recover from one rep to the next and and things like that but what i find really fascinating about some of the stuff that you're doing right now is you have that you have that water polo background you have that base was that kind of your main base like growing up or did you play a lot of other sports what what's where'd you start out yeah it was a little bit yeah so I kind of jumped around quite a lot. And you're so right.

I think a lot of athletes, when you look at them, so Eddie Hall, I know you just had Eddie on the podcast as well. I need to catch up on that one. But Eddie's a great example, a phenomenal swimmer, and still is. I truly believe he's the fastest, heaviest swimmer in the world. Like, he's incredible. But he basically accounts that for a lot of his, you know, he was still swimming three sessions a week when he won World's Strongest Man

and he definitely lifted his 500 kilos. So I think swimming as a base and certainly water polo, because I was just getting beaten up. I was 13 playing against fully grown men. And that's when my coach was like, Ross, you have to start strength training. And I just think so often we compartmentalize things that are never compartmentalized in nature. So people always like to say, oh, you know, Mark Bell, he's a strength athlete. He shouldn't run. You know, or, you know,

they should get our cortisol goes through the roof, catabolic, it eats into your gains. Whereas when you look back through history, even in strongman, and I love strongman, but you look at Jeff Capes, again, two-time world's strongest man, fortunate enough to train with him in Stanford. Jeff was an incredible

fell runner. He was running marathons at 26 Stone. Mariusz Pudzianowski, karate background, Brian Shaw, again, you know, good friend of yours, Mark, but people forget a phenomenal basketball player. You know, so he had that capillary density, that aerobic threshold, like all before he built this immense strength on top, he had that, that base. So I do think that water polo gave me that and then like

I said coming back into strength training and then back into long distance swimming it almost makes no sense but it but it works and there is some sound scientific theory around it so yeah I think looking back through history a lot of the best athletes in the world will have been cross training at some point. What's a problem that arose for you, you know, as you started to try these different crazy feats? Like what's something that you're like, Like what's something that you're like, that's an issue for me. I need to freaking solve that. Yeah.

I love it. Yes. I think so often with any athletic adventure, when it's kind of just a little bit out there, you basically have to, I call it limit limitations, because I think when an athletic adventure, like the great British swim went on for 157 days, it's not about swimming anymore. There was times when my tongue was falling apart. So you get like what's called salt tongue. So I woke up and it was so bad. But I woke up and we

were having in the galley of the ship we were having soup it was an amazing vegetable soup and the team were all sitting around and we're drinking our soup and i looked into my bowl and then i looked into the captain's mouth and i said what what why has mine got meat in it is this pork or chicken and that looked over and said that's not it was falling off because basically the salt water makes your tongue dry and you can it erodes basically so my point was is that throughout that you end up limiting rotations and i think what would be great is is right now for instance let's take mark of it as an example if you were like ross i want to go and run my first ultra marathon i want to go and do 100k okay but looking at you if we went and did 10k it would be nice to go what is stopping you guys you're laughing but we're gonna but is this idea of saying like mark like what is stopping you

from continuing is it are you completely depleted of muscle glycogen do we need to look at your two energy yielding macronutrients fats and carbs is it um your power to weight ratio i mean because for instance what what are you weighing right now mark about 240 pounds okay that would be a big ultramarathon runner. So this is what I mean. People don't understand that running is just, it's a bodyweight exercise. It's a series of successive small jumps. That's all it is. And you start adding one kg of additional weight. It's effect on pulmonary ventilation, time to fatigue, lactic threshold.

So looking at you, it'd be like, right, one of the things that we can do is it's not fitness it's not cardiorespiratory endurance you're just massive like so let's look at improving your power to weight ratio then we can look at biomechanics anaerobic threshold running biomechanics and everything else like that so so to answer your question mark it's always deconstructing and reverse engineering any athletic adventure to see what's going to stop you continuing. Is your tongue falling apart? Do you need to lose weight? What is that?

In any given swim or athletic adventure, it would constantly change, basically. So you'd have to find that limiting factor and address it. What was the main thing for you specifically? Did you have a thing that you needed to fix? I think on the swim, surprisingly not. Because I think on the swim, for instance, it was once your tongue was fixed. So if you find yourself in a similar situation, coconut oil actually works. So you swill

coconut oil around and it lubes up the tongue and it acts as a barrier so that that was like okay cool done and then i started getting sea ulcers so a sea ulcer is where you a wound on your neck where it's rubbing from the wetsuit but then it never heals because you're constantly getting in the waters it's deeper and deeper and there was times where you do six hours on working swimming with the tide and then six hours rest six hours on six hours off but there was times when i fell asleep in my cabinet and i woke up and the bed sheets had to my neck so i had to basically rip it off before i could get in so that was a limiting factor so i learned to sleep up you know like basically just sitting like that so the wounds would dry and heal

so i would say wounds probably because i think if they went septic the the the safety team would have said ross like you're done. We're pulling you. And so you can be so mentally resilient and physically fine, but ultimately if they called it, that's what would have been. So I ended up having duct tape. We were just using industrial duct tape

in the end and just trying to put, because plasters wouldn't work. So we just ended up doing it's bad uh so thinking about the uh as well what was that oh sorry andrew i was just gonna say jellyfish as well so just just because I think, you know, being stung by so many jelly, it makes me most fat. So yeah, the jellyfish.

I'll tell a very quick story if you haven't heard it. There's the Coria Vecan in Scotland, which is a giant whirlpool. And in Scotland, it's kind of cemented in folklore.

So they believe that it's haunted by a hag goddess. And basically sailors say you don't go through there. Like, you know, the ships have been pulled down and people have lost their lives. Like, you know, you don't, you don't go there. And Matt, the captain turned to me and was like, Ross, you need to swim through the Corrie of Echon. So you've got to swim through a whirlpool. And I was like, okay, fine.

Let's go. So I swam for six hours um as fast as i could um but they have in scotland the giant jellyfish so they're about five meters long and i ended up swimming into a group of those as an army of jellyfish and this one in particular it just it's hard for me to explain but it's like someone's got a hot poker and they're pressing it onto your face so my eyes were watering my face went numb and i started dribbling and i was trying to swim and then all of a sudden i turned to matt and i just said matt the captain i said i'm so sorry i need to stop this was in the middle of the curry of echin and matt said you know why i said i've

been stung by a jellyfish but the pain it won't go away and matt looked at me and he said yes i know because the tentacle's still wrapped around your face so i've been wearing this tentacle through the curry making but it's not just the sting it will then attack your central nervous system so it's strange but you basically you just start like itching and it gets you there and you're there and your beard and it just like the toxins seep into your body so for the next six hours you're you're not sleeping basically you're just it's like your skin's on fire as well so that was sorry andrew but that that was another limitation if it wasn't your tongue or the cls's it was probably the jellyfish so my question is

is very very simple um ross why the hell do you want to put yourself through all this is a good question are you mad again i think you guys will get it because since the great British swim, there's been a lot of, certainly like a lot of men get it. Some females get it as well, but a lot of men are walking through London and people will come over to me and they'll say like,

what's the great British swim and, and just something inside of me that I want to do something like a pilgrimage. And I think if you look back through history we've always been doing something as as meant like a rite of passage whether it's the yamabushi monks i live with the yamabushi monks in japan and we went on an akugaki which is a pilgrimage where you do a marathon a day in the mountains meditate under ice cold waterfalls and you're basically doing the whole thing fasted on green tea. And they do it because it's this idea of self-discovery through self-discipline. So I'm going to sign you up for it, Mark. You'll love it.

Yeah, does it work? This idea of... But there's just this idea that Einstein said, adversity introduces you to you. And I think whether you look at the Yambushy monks, you look at Aborigines going walkabout, you look at certain practices in Kenyan tribes, ritualistic circumcision, really painful circumcision.

There's one, and I talk about it in my new book, where they talk about why are Kenyan runners so fast? And there's obviously lots, you know, from sort of, you know, the background, the high altitude, all of these theories. But there was one theory that they produce more marathon runners in this particular tribe than anywhere else in the world. And they tracked back and they said, why is that? And they've got this ritualistic circumcision where they basically have mud

painted on their face. The mud dries and then they're circumcised with basically just a sharpened twig. You know, it's not a knife and it's just a sharpened twig. And as they're circumcised, they have to just stay stoic. They can't flinch. They can't show anything. So they're just sitting there like that. Because if they flinch and the mud cracks, they'll be considered

a coward and they won't necessarily be held in high esteem within the tribe. And there's a theory that those who obviously can stand and tolerate the pain are considered attractive in their tribe. They obviously then find, you know find a nice girlfriend or wife. They have kids. So constantly this idea of that ability to suppress pain is genetically passed down and has been for generations. Now, I'm not advocating people have ritualistic circumcision or go and do mountain marathons,

but to answer your question, Andrew, sorry, that's a long-winded answer but to answer your question i think we've always been looking for something this this rite of passage so for me it was the great british swim and what's been nice ever since is you see people going on their own pilgrimage i think that's why when me and Eddie first met, we immediately bonded over his 500 kilo deadlift. Because when people were like, why? You went blind. You couldn't see afterwards.

Nose was coming out of your, blood was coming out of your nose, your ears. But Eddie was like, it was my pilgrimage. It was my calling. It was my reason for being. That's why I was put on this earth, to lift more weight than any other human. And I think in a similar way, I was just like, I'm quite good at floating and eating very far. So for me to swim around Great Britain was my rite of passage,

reason for being that kind of okugaki, a pilgrimage. That was a long answer. What's your lifting looking like nowadays, now that we're in quarantine? You still able to lift? Yeah. Yeah. So I've got a squat rack. So I'm doing pretty basic lifts, but I'm also very aware.

I'm chatting to you, but my decent lifts are not very good in relation to what you're doing but i i think power lifting for me has always given me that that foundation i think so often strength training and endurance is so often overlooked so you know right now you know i'm doing the best i can the slingshot actually by the way i'm using a lot of that just because with weight and i'll talk to you actually separate on this, but looking at rate of force development. So because I'm limiting the amount of work I can use, I'm actually using the slingshot just to try and generate more force with the weight that I do have. So just moving it faster, basically velocity training. And I think that's kind of helping me with the shoulder mobility

and rotator cuff work that I mentioned earlier. So it's kind of like power lifting centric with a lot of specific land training for swimming added on. So it's a bit of a weird hybrid program at the moment, but it seems to be working. Yeah. What about you guys?

What, how, how are you, are you affected? Oh yeah. So for, for me, um,

I've been just doing a lot of walking and a lot of running. I have a 40-pound vest. I'm here at this beach, and it's beautiful out every day. So I get outside, I run, I walk, I throw on that 40-pound vest. A little bit less lifting. All I have is like 10, 20, 30-pound dumbbells and some med balls. 10, 20, 30 pound dumbbells and some med balls. But I've been squatting every day. I've been sitting in the bottom of a squat every day for 10 minutes. Try to, as you mentioned, like, why not work on some mobility? I've been trying to stretch a little bit more, stretching my hips. And I was actually doing some shoulder presses yesterday. And I was just like, man, my shoulder mobility is just crap, which I thought it would, you know,

I've had a little bit of a layoff from like benching and some of that stuff. So I thought like my shoulders would feel better, but of course they feel, they feel a lot worse. So I'm going to have to probably stretch a little bit and, and work on some of that stuff. Somebody asked me a question yesterday, and I think that you'll be able to relate to this really well. Somebody asked me a question on like, you know, how is able to continually, you know, up my squat, you know, like this, this certain problem kept kind of rearing its ugly head. Obviously the mental side of it is huge. And from a physical standpoint,

your body needs to be prepared for what you're doing. So it can be confusing sometimes because you could say, Hey, well, it's, you know, a lot of it's mental. Well, some of it's mental. But if you don't have the physical capacity, you're going to fall apart mentally, right? Like if you don't have the physical capacity to do it, then expressing your ultimate strength is going to be the hardest thing. But for me, what happened to me in the squat, i went to a powerlifting meet and my first my first attempt squat was horrible second attempt squat was horrible and my third attempt i made

them i got uh white lights my third attempt was 843 pounds and right before i went out and did it my coach he yelled at me and he said if you can do a good morning with 843 pounds, because I kept rounding over so much, he's like, I'd like to fucking see it. And so I go out there, I do my squat and I come to the back and he goes, hey, that was a great good morning. It's like, good job. Because I still rounded way over. Then what I figured out in my training was to, and it sounds, it's unconventional. It sounds kind of dumb. So I actually trained in those positions and I, I specifically called it lifting like shit. Like this is not something that you're going to find in a book or something somewhere, but like I would intentionally train

rounded over and I would kind of train through that. And I did, uh, Anderson squats and Anderson good morning. So I would suspend the cambered bar in some chains, and I would lift the weight out of the bottom. And I, I went after the problem where it existed. And then I was able to kind of break through that. And I went from an 843 pound squat to eventually 1080 squat. What's something like unconventional that you've had to kind of like pull out of your ass that maybe because i know that you studied strength and conditioning your strength and conditioning coach and you have a really uh wide array of uh knowledge but like what's something that you had to kind of that was unconventional that you had to do to build up some of these just wild capacities

that you have i love i love that i do you know i'm so glad i love that story i'm going to use that in some of my lectures i'm quite you in it but the what i love about what you just said there is i think when you look back through history someone's always done something like that just to shift what we thought we were possible um the high jump was my favourite example with Dick Frosby. So the Frosby flop for those people, like long before people were high jumping and they were just scissor kicking it like a hurdle. And then this guy turns up and all of a

sudden, basically just like, everyone thought he was a lunatic. But he was like, this is it, exactly. Yeah, everyone was like, what is he doing? And he won gold. I think one thing that I've always took inspiration from was Emil Zatopek. So my granddad was a marathon runner. And growing up, he used to tell me stories about Emil Zatopek.

So for those who don't know, one of the greatest endurance runners to ever exist, won three gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics. And what was amazing is he decided to run the marathon the day before. as to ever exist, won three gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics. And what was amazing is he decided to run the marathon the day before, and he'd never run a marathon before in his life. But he had this insane work capacity, insane work ethic. One of my favourites is, he used to run 100 400-metre sprints. So next time people are listening, go to an athletics track, look at that 400 metres

and think, do 100 of those of individuals. And people at the time were like, but the human body can't do that. That's your break. That's over-training. It makes no sense. But Emil Zatopek was just incredible. I think

to some extent, I've always tried to use that. So sometimes I'll be doing, you know, similar sort of intervals, but in the pool, you know, I'll be doing 40K in intervals and people look at me and I'll turn up at the swimming pool and I put like all my food out on the side. I've got a picnic and they're like, what are you doing? And then I'll just be there for 12 hours you know until we've done you know 40k in sprints and people are like that makes no sense so i think

there's that idea that the human body is far more powerful than we're often allowed to believe i think right now people oh that's over training oh you shouldn't do that you know or the i only do 45 minutes of strength training no like the body can tolerate a lot more and i think from good friends of mine in the royal marines over here in england they have stories that would just just crazy stories of endurance of people cross-country skiing for seven days on no sleep no food and it just makes you think that sport is quite often quite controlled with all the variables and parameters. But if you can think outside of that, exactly like you've done, Mark,

I think there's real potential. That's where the next frontier lies with somebody being crazy enough to go, like you just said, I'm going to try a good morning. I'm just going to drill down into that. And I think that's even the same with, and I love sprinting, but Michael Johnson, you know, for those who can remember, 200 and 400 meter gold medalist, and he used to run so upright. And conventional sports biomechanics will say,

but that shortens your stride. But who's going to argue with a guy as fast as Michael Johnson? It worked for him. So I think that's one thing that I've tried to take from Emile Zatopek, that if people looked at my swimming training, they'd say that makes no sense. But how else are you going to swim for 157 days, 12 hours a day, 1,780 miles? You need to do something to shift that work capacity. So I think that's probably one thing

that I've done thinking outside the box. Can you kind of, because yeah, you did the 157 day swim and I think that's like one of your biggest feats or your biggest feat, but you've also done a lot of other stuff, I don't know, before that too. Can you kind of help the listeners,

just give the listeners a rundown of some of the other things you've done yeah let's see so yeah there was kind of like that idea of general physical preparedness and and before I was doing athletic adventures quite often to raise money for charity but my first one for instance um my friend who's absolutely fine now, but he was diagnosed with cancer at the time, and the Teenage Cancer Trust were amazing. For those who don't know, if you're diagnosed with cancer over in the UK and you're a teenager, you're basically treated in the elderly ward

or children's ward, so there was nowhere for you in between. So that's why the Teenage Cancer Trust was amazing. I wanted to do something for them, so I was nowhere for you in between so that's why the teenage cancer trust was amazing um i wanted to do something for them so i was sitting with my friends at loughborough university and i said you know i want to raise lots of money i said like why don't we run a marathon and everyone's like it's been done and i was like i'll run two marathons people like that's been done and then someone said run a marathon in a car like right done so before i knew it i'm at silverstone race circuit which is a mile long stowe circuit the one in the middle and um it was one o'clock in the morning because that's when we were allowed to use it with a car on my back and it took me 19 hours uh it was terrible it was an awful idea but we we did it i I raised lots of money for charity.

Building upon that, I then ended up climbing a rope, a sort of 20-meter rope, the height of Everest. So I went up and down, again, for 19 hours. That took most of the skin off my hands. That was such a bad idea. Again, raised lots of money, which is amazing. And then it was from that that nevis which is an island in the caribbean um the tourism board got in contact with a very very small island but they want to become completely carbon neutral by 2025 and they

wanted to do something to raise awareness for this and they have an amazing triathlon so they just said ross like why don't you come out here and do something to raise awareness and I said like like what and then somebody said oh you could do it a triathlon pulling a tree because it represents you know green eco-friendly energy and then someone said a triathlon and I was like that's amazing that's amazing. Right, done. So I convinced my girlfriend to come to the Caribbean for a romantic holiday. And then I'm tying a tree to my trunk. And we started to swim. Because obviously the tree, it floats.

You're just pulling it behind you. I ended up getting like, Nassima, I get so competitive. So I ended up overtaking a few people and then i thought right i'm on here i'm gonna get a podium finish so i just started swimming and overtaking people with the tree uh i didn't i didn't win but we ended up completing the uh the first triathlon um and it just and it just went from there and i think that was the thing that was why with the Great British Swim, that was again,

it was basically just a sportsman's bet that went right or wrong, depending on how you look at it. I was with the Royal Marines down in Limston in Devon. I did a 48-hour swim non-stop. And I got out and I had trench foot. So in my hands and my feet,

so it's just basically where you've got so much moisture. They're starting to go moldy basically. And I was treating my hands with ointment and powder. And this guy comes over to me in the office's mess. So in England, the office's mess is where all the officers, you know,

go and it's, it's quite, you know, sort of grand and iconic. And, and I'm in there putting talcum powder on my hands and this officer comes over with an amazing mustache and uh he says he goes you boy uh what are you doing and i said oh i'm i'm training um and i was going to train for the world's longest current

neutral swim which just basically was going to be around bermuda which was going to be really warm it's going to be nice um and that was it the world record for the world's longest current swim so this guy comes over his mustache and he says with his cup of tea and he said what are you doing young man I said oh I'm I'm training um for the world's longest current neutral swim and he looks me up and down and he sipped his tea and he said um can I be honest with you young man yeah please please do and he just said that just sounds a bit shit i said what do you what do you want me to do then he said you just need to man up you need to man up and swim around great britain well i said okay fine and that's how the idea came about how do you end up uh you know training for so many different things at a time and and have

you noticed a huge drop off in something as you're going for something else so let's say that you're going for a big run does your um i'd imagine your swimming would probably be okay but like your your lifting may go down you go to squat and you're like, Oh my God, you know, the two plates feels like a million pounds. How do you kind of keep everything? It seems like you keep everything pretty high all the time. Yeah. I mean, you, you would certainly know. I know I do. I think when, you know, when I'm training with someone like Eddie, you know, or Andy Bolton, like it's noticeable just how poor I am in comparison.

So it's very nice when people go, oh, you're quite strong. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I think last time I deadlifted with Eddie, he was doing exactly twice as much as me. He's twice as strong as me, which is really demoralizing. So I'm okay but i think i'm always like when i'm speaking to certainly people like yourself who've been doing this year you know i'm if i went to a powerlifting meet i would be like the runt of the litter basically and i'm okay with that but i i try i try to make sure that it's almost like a litmus test. So I know if I go and I'm squatting bench and it's woefully bad, I'll go, okay, we need to do something about this.

But that goes back to Robert Hickson and his work in molecular biology where he just talks about with any given training stimulus, if you train for too many things at once, idea of concurrent training you dilute the potency of the stimuli so it's it's an unavoidable truth that's just how human biology and physiology works if i'm swimming lots i cannot expect to go into the gym my best ever bench press was 190 and that was when i was like really training for it i'm no way near that now. And that's fine. You have to make peace with that. And I think that's one thing that a lot of people struggle with, that their ego, it's like, oh God, I used to be strong.

It's like, no, no, no, you just can't. You can't swim around Great Britain. I mean, I never forget, my legs were so bad. You've got to think for 157 days, I skipped leg day for 157 days. And I never forget, legs were so bad you've got to think for 157 days i skipped leg day for 157 days and i never forget i i came back i was it was the second day i was back on land and i was in london and i was going up the to the train and i had all of my bags with me and i had to stop at the halfway up because my legs were so fatigued i couldn't squat i couldn't even walk up steps my calves were on fire and i stopped and I put my bags down for a break.

And I felt a hand on my back. And I looked up and God bless her. It was the sweetest lady. She must have been about 70. And she said, are you okay, dear? Do you want a hand with your bags? And I was like, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'm going to keep going.

No, no, no, I'm fine. I'm going to keep going. So it's knowing that, yeah, fitness is this broad term. And I think what was nice is my ego. When I walked back on land, everyone was like, oh, wow, you know, Ross is so fit. It's like, yeah, fit for that specific purpose, you know, said principle, specific adaptation to impose demands just means you get really good at what you repeatedly practice. And I was so good at swimming for 12 hours a day, but I would have embarrassed myself if I came to train with you guys. Like you would have been like, what, what is that? So, and you've got to make peace with that. I mean, have you found that as well? I know when you're, you're a bit of a hybrid.

So when you've gone from bodybuilding-centric work, for instance, and you started looking at mechanical tension, would you find like mechanical tension when you were powerlifting, going to metabolic stress, more reps, would you find that sometimes, Mark, you'd be like, oh, I just want to go and shift some weight. But you were like, oh, no, you're bodybuilding now. Yeah, definitely ran into that and uh everything gets screwed up um even just the way like your belt fits and the

way that you the way that you brace yourself and uh just it feels like everything changes it gets to be it gets to be really uh difficult and you're you know like what gets to be really hard is to figure out like what kind of weights you're going to use because you're like okay i need to be really difficult and you're, you know, like, what it gets to be really hard is to figure out like what kind of weights you're going to use. Cause you're like, okay, I need to be a little bit more reasonable with the weights and you're trying to be reasonable, but then you're like starting to realize, okay, this is not only going to be, do I have to be reasonable, but this is going to be really pathetic. What's going to, what's going to transpire here today is going to suck.

And so the way that you feel and the way that your leverages completely change, especially if you lose a little bit of weight. You know, you mentioned losing a little bit of weight from running. You know, if you lose a couple of pounds for lifting, it really doesn't make that huge of a difference. You lose just a small amount of weight. I'm sure it probably matters percentage-wise. But if you lose a small amount of weight, it's not a huge problem. But if you start to lose, you know, more than like 10 pounds or something, it really starts to change the feel, the timing, all that stuff. And I remember, you know, when I, as I was like building up strength and when I was at my strongest, I

always felt the best at the bottom of all the lifts, you know, the, especially the squat and the bench press, I'd get to the bottom of the lift and I was like, Oh my God, this feels, I feel so good. I know that I'm just going to rock it out of the bottom and squat this weight up really easy. And then the same thing would happen to the bench press. I felt so strong at the bottom. I'm like, Oh, this weight's gonna, it felt like I could like launch it through the roof. And then you feel the complete opposite way when you're, uh, when you're training for other things but like you said you have to you have to be comfortable with it and i and i'm comfortable with and what you said in the beginning of the show this is very relatable to what you said in

the very beginning of the show is you you end up with your own you end up being like uh with your own thoughts you end up being alone with your own thoughts and ultimately that's what you end up being alone with is your own thoughts. You're with the way that you look. You're with the way that you feel. And so for me, sometimes I've gone through periods of time where I've gotten bigger for powerlifting and then I'm not as lean and stuff like that. And then people are like, hey, you got fat. Are you upset that you got fat?

And I'm like, no, this is part of the training like this is this is i'm embracing all of it and i actually i'm not worried about that like having a set of abs or something's not you know on the front of my mind all the time you know i love what you said there mark so so that was exactly the same i remember when i left um for the Great British Swim and I set off, I was pretty lean. I was doing a lot of swimming. It was the summer, you know, so, you know, the water temperature over here, even in the lakes, you know,

and the sea, you know, 18 degrees. It was kind of okay. I was lean. I even had a tan. I was cleanly shaven. And I remember, you know, I got in the water and I was like, oh, God, I look awesome. You know, and I remember I got in the water and I was like oh god I look awesome. By the time I got to Scotland I started 90 kilos. You could see my abs.

By the time I got to Scotland I was chubby, I was hairy, I pissed myself in my wetsuit, I started urine, my tongue was falling off you know it was I was disgusting my girlfriend bless her I mean she she was coming to the boat just like what is that I was just feral but I love what you said though but me it was just this idea of like I have a purpose and you know what like will I look back on 2018 as the summer that I had great abs or when I'm old and sitting there you know with my grandkids will I be able to say you know what I swam around Great Britain you know it's an intrinsic form of motivation where you can go anywhere you know I love it sounds weird I can't

wait to be old and I'm gonna go to any beach in Great Britain and just be like I swam around there to little kids running around. And it's just this idea that that was cool with me and I was kind of okay. I love this idea of making your body an instrument, not an ornament. You know, absolutely. Who doesn't want to have like good abs and a tan? It would be, you know, I'd be lying if I said, you know, I don't like it when I'm in shape like that. I'm sure my girlfriend likes it when I'm in shape like that. She probably doesn't like it when I've got a big tentacle hanging off me and things. But that was the body I needed to swim around Great Britain. Certainly when you got caught in an Arctic storm up near Scotland, coming from Iceland,

you know, you need body fat. You need to be insulated. You need to be buoyant. Even the beard stopped the jellyfish from hitting my face. So I love what you said there, Mark, just that there's this idea of people come over and i think it's worse now with social media sometimes as well you know i remember when i did the great britain some people were like posting going oh my god he looks awful what's happened to him and i'm like i'm trying to swim around britain i'm sorry i don't have abs right now.

And I think that's one thing that we need to start celebrating, that idea of making your body an instrument, you know, not an ornament. And you see it certainly in Strongman. I always loved Brian Shaw's transformation when he, I mean, he's always been a beast. But when he went from basketball truly into strongman, he just, it looked like he'd eaten another human. He looked immense, you know, and I think it needs to be celebrated more.

And I love what you just said there that, yeah, when people come over and go, oh, you're putting a bit of weight there, you know, you know, Mark, you're like, yeah, I'm going for some big PBs. That is my goal. That's my focus. That's my pilgrimage. That's my okugaki. And my body's an instrument right now. So, you know, that's where I'm at. And I love that.

You know, I'm curious about this. Back in 2018, you said that I think you were swimming six on, six off, six on, six off. So you were training 12 hours a day for 157 days. Now, it's been two years since then and you you kind of alluded to still having really really long training sessions do you still like do you still train for hours and hours on end and how often is that something that you do yeah let's see mate yeah you're right so i think i've been left with quite a high work capacity now just just from the swim it was such a unique experience even when i look at swimming as well so

you're able to put in a lot of work a lot of volume but equally there's no stress on your joints it's not the same as running you know where you're just pounding the pavement where you know your knees might give up it's not the same as um you know, where you're just pounding the pavement where, you know, your knees might give up. It's not the same as, you know, doing German volume training for 12 hours a day or the Bulgarian training system, to use a strength training example, you know, that that broke more champions than it made, you know, that you need a certain genetic, you know, makeup. Nassima, looking at you and your pictures, you'd probably be fine in the Bulgarian training system, but I'd probably break, you know? So there's this idea of like with swimming, it allowed me to do that and increase my work capacity.

So now it is quite strange. And it was that when I came back on land, I wanted, my body was used to working for 12 hours a day. I then went and tried to start running because I love fell running. It's a mountain running up in the Lake District. And my Achilles tendon just felt like it was going, we're not happy. We're about to snap. You've not been using us for 157 days. So you might have this work capacity when you consider your body in its entirety, but you can't put 12 hours of work through your achilles tendon that's

that's not going to work same um my first leg session back as well was and and what what mark saying there i think because my body had changed you know people don't understand with strength training you know yes it's your body's ability to generate force but that's through coordinated movement and and i hadn't had a bar on my back so i kind of like unwrapped it honestly it was probably only like 60 kilos and i was like whoa i am not safe like someone take this off me same with bench as well i unwrapped the bench my shoulders again were so strong from swimming 12 hours a day but no not when it comes about i unwrapped it and i was like whoa what is right put that back and i had to build from the ground up um so i think that was really interesting that i had the work capacity of a bulgarian weightlifter but none

of the skill acquisition to do anything other than swim so it was it was very weird yeah ross have you ever um seen a sports psychologist or maybe even practice as one because a lot of the stuff you're saying right now is extremely powerful the uh you know treat your body like an instrument not an ornament i think is very impactful in a time right like like this when people can't hit the gym and you know they kind of don't even have their own identity all of a sudden, cause they were the power lifter or they were the bodybuilder and now they're the yoga master or whatever it may be. But where does like, um, you know, some of this, uh, some of this knowledge or some of this, um, I guess, uh, intellectual property that you have come from.

Oh, thank you, mate. No, that means, that means a lot. I think a lot of it though was just, I had a lot of time with my own thoughts. So I swam for 12 hours a day for 157 days. So it worked out for two months. I was literally just left alone thinking, how do you continually keep going? So it's strange that a lot of the principles i i mentioned before that i read a lot of stoicism but i think one thing that that really got me through was um for those who don't know there's uh a term the stockdale paradox so admiral stockdale uh incredible story was a prisoner of war and tortured um in vietnam um was was basically i believe it was seven years that he was a prisoner of war um but don't don't necessarily quote me on that but the the one

thing that he spoke about was watching other people come into the concentration camps they they lived in hope so they would be saying like this is going to be over in a week it's going to be over in a week a week would come a week over in a week. A week would come, a week would go, and they'd still be there. They'd crumble mentally. But it's going to be over by Christmas. We'll be out by Christmas. Christmas comes, Christmas goes. They would crumble again.

And it's this idea, they call it the Stockdale paradox, because he spoke about this idea of, one, never losing sight of hope. So on the Great British Swim, I was like, this will be over. If I keep putting one arm in front of the other, this will be over. I will eventually swim around Great Britain if I just keep doing that. It will be over, all of it. But equally, at the same time, you cannot, and you absolutely cannot not face up to your current reality. So it's this, they call it the Stockdale Paradox, because this idea, don't lose sight of hope, but also face up to your current reality. It's like, hang on, how do you do that at the same time?

And I think a lot of people can probably take inspiration from that right now with your training. It's this idea of saying, well, hang on, how long do I need to drill shoulder mobility? You know, using Mark as an example, Mark was like, how long do I have to keep doing shoulder mobility before I can go out and just start throwing around big weights again and it's just like mark like this is your current reality now so face up to it but also at some point it will be over and it's to stop their practice it's very hard it's a very strange mindset to be in but for

me um people when they came to the boat friends and family family, they'll be like, oh, how's Ross doing? And those close to me were like, he's absolutely fine because he's made peace with the fact that life now is swimming for 12 hours a day in a wet seat that smells of urine with jellyfish tentacles hanging off your face. That was life. It was fine. It will be over but it's also okay it's it's not so bad sorry and so sorry to answer your question i think that's one thing that right now hopefully can can can help people because i love what you said andrew there about some people feeling that their identity's been removed you know i was a powerlifter i was a crossfit i was a swimmer and and right now i'm certainly not a swimmer, but I know that that time will come again when I will be swimming. So I can't lose sight of hope. But right now my current reality is building bulletproof rotator cuffs.

Ballables can think like that. There's everybody watching this. There'll be something that you can do now from isolation and lockdown that will make you a better athlete when you get out that you've neglected. You know, I couldn't, I can't sit in a squat rack and I never have done doing hours of rotator cuff work. Like I just,

I just haven't done it, but now I actually, you know, can, and I think identifying that everyone will have something. Sorry. That was a long answer. I think, actually, you know, can. And I think identifying that everyone will have something. Sorry, that was a long answer. I think, you know, to touch upon what you're saying, you know, I'm a big believer in, you know, trying to be rational, you know, try to be rational about things. So you face up to, you know, what's in front of you, face up to the situation that you're

in. I think it's great to be hopeful. But I also think that another paradox in there, which might kind of fit in there somewhere is, is just to live a life with not a lot of expectations. You know, I think we expect certain things to be a certain way. And something I've been trying to share on social media, but I'm not sure if everyone's understanding it, is that really, you know, this virus is around us and this virus is, it is killing people. But really nothing has changed in the sense that all you can control is your thoughts. And this goes back to something you said earlier. The only thing you can control is the way that you interpret things, the way that you interpret what you see, the way that you interpret what you hear. And you could have every little thing trigger you and set you off, you know, going down the wrong path.

And you can act irrational or act irresponsible towards the different things that you hear. But I think it's really, really important that people, it's been helpful to me, I'll just say that, you know, living a life with low expectations, living a life with next to no expectations, it doesn't mean that I think every day is going to be bad. That's not what I'm saying at all. But it's more about, and you hear this often, but I believe that this is what this actually means. I don't think anybody knows what it means. You're trying just to live in the present moment, because that is literally what this actually means. I don't think anybody knows what it means. You're trying just to live in the present moment because that is literally all that we have. And it is the only thing that you have control over. The movie theater wasn't always there. You thought the movie theater was always there, but it wasn't. It could shut down. It could burn down your car.

You think it's a reliable vehicle, the could pop you know the transmission can blow out or you know all these things that we probably really just took for granted you know they can be taken away at any time and look what look what's happened they have gotten taken away and then i think a lot of people are ending up depressed and they're they're saddened by it and i think the reason why they're so saddened by it is because they had expectations that it was going to be there. I think in addition to that, they're left with their own thoughts and they're left kind of twiddling their thumbs trying to figure out what to do next.

And there's a lot of other people that have said, hey, look, this is actually a cool opportunity. That's what I'm seeing more of, which is really, really cool, especially in the fitness community. I see people lifting with paint buckets and trying to figure out whatever way they can to do the best they can with each and every day that we have. You're so right. And that's what I think a lot of people are missing is this idea.

Seneca, so again, one of the famous Stoics, lot of people are missing is this idea, Seneca. So again, one of the famous Stoics, and I love this. Hopefully this will help people listening. But he talks about fate and he used this metaphor, which I love. And he said, imagine a cart going along and there's a lead and there's a dog being pulled along. Basically, the cart is fate and you're the dog. Now there's two carts and he said one dog is going along and it's chasing the cart, it's barking, it's having a great time, it's running around, it's brilliant. And then the other dog is being dragged along by its lead and it's grumbling

and it's not having a good time. And Seneca used to just say, ultimately, fate is the cart. It's going to move. It's going to to go but which dog do you want to be you know he one of his famous quotes was um fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant and that's why he uses this idea of this dog like you want to be the dog that you're going to be dragged along the car you're inevitable but you have a choice you can do it while you know running around you know looking at the sunshine and the flowers and everything, or you can just grumble. And I love what you just said there. Some people I found real creativity. There's people training like Shaolin monks doing crazy

calisthenic workouts and stuff. And I think we're seeing a lot of innovation and creativity in the fitness industry. I think podcasts are being listened to now. I think there's a real sharing of ideas, exactly what we're doing now, this cross-pollination of ideas. That's one thing that's coming out of this whole crisis. And I think more people – I love what you said, Mark. The only difference is mindset. Some people go, this is an amazing opportunity to learn. Some people dwell

on the negatives it's which dog do you want to be you know again fate leads the willing fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant make sure you're one of the willing have you uh sometimes felt that maybe you're not practicing some of these things that we're talking about because uh you do seem very stoic and you seem seem like especially when it comes to the athletics it seems like you got that nailed down but when it comes to like writing your books that you've been writing when it comes to the business side of things when it comes to you know outside the athletic field do you kind of have to pump the brakes every once in a while and kind of be like hey i'm not really acting correctly or i'm not acting very stoic at the moment do you have to kind of pause here and

there yeah and that's only because a hundred percent like so i think some sometimes and again like maybe because of social media but a lot of people will see or the great british swim was an example when people saw me arrive at the end of the Great British Swim and they saw people applauding and walking in and they were like, oh, wow, that's incredible. But there were so many dark moments during the swim where I wasn't stoic. There were moments where I sort of completely lost my way couldn't think rationally i love what you said in any moment you're trying to think completely rationally and remove um this like

illogical thought but um there was there was one example just just and i talk about this in the new book actually the only reason being and i wasn't going to put it in but my dad was um thought that the story might help you know some people basically, when I arrived around the top of Scotland, so I still had half the country to swim, basically. And my dad was diagnosed with cancer. It's terminal as well. So my dad basically said, well, it was my brother who broke the news to me. So I then basically had to swim the entire half the country, knowing that my dad was back on land, you know, suffering from this diagnosis.

And I wasn't thinking straight at all. We had a storm over the east side of Scotland, and I turned to Matt, the captain, and I said, it's fine, I'll swim through the storm. It's absolutely fine. And thankfully Matt was actually thinking for me, you know, common sense. He was like, Ross, you're not thinking straight. You don't swim in a storm, you know? So I almost had to outsource common sense to him.

Everything for me, I was like, that's it. I'm done. I'm going to go on land. I want to go and give my dad a hug. I want to be with the family. I'm done. I'm going to go on land. I want to go and give my dad a hug. I want to be with the family. I'm done. I'm done. It was actually my dad who said like, no, no, no, no, no, you're not thinking straight. Stop. Take a breath. He said like, you can come home and you can come and give me a hug and you can be with the family. He said that you have to do it via the beach at Margate and you finish what you started.

It was my dad who was still thinking stoically despite everything that he was going through. And then I think that's one thing that I've been quite vocal about in the book, because I think a lot of people are like, oh yeah, Ross, you know, you swim through jellyfish and you know, your tongue's falling off. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Like, you know, I had demons to wrestle as well. It was only because my dad was as stoic as he was that I actually continued swimming. And so, so I'm glad you asked that question because it's, it's something I've only spoke about recently and only because my dad said, look, I think a lot of people would probably learn from this, but yeah, there was times on the swim

where I, I completely, you know, lost it and was just like, no, no, no. I'm going to swim through a storm and I was fortunate enough to have my team going, Ross, you're not thinking straight. We're not taking you out there. So, yeah. Did your parents, um, were they super supportive of, uh, you know, what you've been doing throughout your life? It seems like, um, it seems like they must've been, it seems like, it seems like you have a very, um, I don't know what the right word is, maybe like carefree way. Like, it seems like you're just doing what you love to do. And it seems like you're doing kind of whatever the fuck you want. And so your, of your parents kind of that come from grandpa that

come from your parents, where'd that come from? No, I think you're right. You know, I think you're absolutely right. And that's one thing I think as well, that you need a support network around you. You guys will know it's not an individual sport. Like, Paolo, long before you get out on that platform, you've had wives, you know, family, everyone is supporting you through, you know, injuries, like just everything. like just like everything and so yeah my mum and dad like just incredible that when I mean my mum she was a sprinter um my dad a tennis coach um my older brother football my younger brother capoeira so Brazilian martial arts so we and then my two granddads as well one was in the military the other one a marathon runner so that's all we ever did sport so when i come up with an idea like i'm gonna uh climb a rope the height of everest um my family just go like yeah cool like you know when is it we'll come i talk about on the uh the the marathon where i ran and pulling a car the rain it because it was in january so it started to rain and snow and i was

just basically just eating like just wind and rain i was having an awful time and so my older brother um pulled out an umbrella and walked in front of me for about 10 miles just shielding me from the wind while i had this car on my back so i'm glad you asked that because you have to have a support network. You need to surround yourself with the right people. And again, especially in powerlifting and strength sport, I've never experienced anything like it. Like when it's your turn to lift, when you get on the platform, if you're going for a PB, everyone is just there for you.

And it's like if you surround yourself with the right people you know that that's how you achieve what what you actually do and it's so often overlooked i think with the great british swim a lot of people are like oh wow you you did amazing i was like whoa but there was the team were looking out for like sharks like killer whales like when i was swimming swimming across shipping lanes they was like stopping ships so i could get across so there was a whole support network around that that is sometimes overlooked so i'm glad you asked that actually you know ross i want to kind of go back to the question that andrew asked or an idea of that question and i know that you you mentioned the idea of like stoic philosophy being a way of thinking that helps you in terms of the things that you're doing currently. And you also mentioned the rituals that a lot of these tribes do in terms of helping individuals with, I guess, mental fortitude.

But, and I know I'm assuming your book probably goes into ways to actually maybe train this, but mental fortitude and having just the mentality to be able to go through things like that. It doesn't have to be, maybe someone doesn't have to swim Great Britain, but let's say they're doing something really, really tough and they just don't have it there. Because I feel like you've probably delved into ways that individuals can train that aspect. I feel like you've probably delved into ways that individuals can train that aspect. How can you help somebody in modern society where there might not be that many problems or that much true adversity to be able to train themselves to be able to deal with stuff like that? Yeah, I love that just because I think so often it just comes from actually understanding the wiring of your brain. So a great example is Tim Notes came up with the central governor theory.

Central governor theory just says that fatigue is an emotionally driven state that we use to pull the physiological handbrake. It's almost like a self-preservation mechanism. Best way I can describe it to you, and Tim Note's example was, if we were running a marathon right now and we got 18 miles in and you start hitting the wall, you're depleted of muscle glycogen, you're overheating, all of this biofeedback from your body goes to your brain and it basically just says, what are you doing? Like you're running close to exhaustion. This is terrible. This is a terrible idea.

You need to shut down or slow down because you're going to do damage to yourself. It's an inbuilt self-preservation mechanism that basically, either consciously or subconsciously, you're going to slow down, even though you've actually got more in the locker. So Tim knows cause it's central governor theory. But what's interesting is when you start looking back through the Navy SEALs, when they called it the 40% rule. So when you think you're absolutely done, you know, you're actually only at 40%. That's the central governor theory. When you start looking at the Royal Marines over here in England, you know,

cheerfulness in the face of adversity, this idea that, you know, when you are absolutely on your knees, you smile, go through it, you've still got more in the locker. So it doesn't necessarily matter which one resonates with you. Understand we've been sort of collectively understanding this for a while now. So when you are 18 miles in and you're thinking, I can't go on, my lungs are on fire, my legs are burning, I cannot go on, it's impossible. All of a sudden sudden 25 miles into a

marathon 26.2 miles you see your family and friends and they start clapping on this email oh yeah he's gonna finish he's gonna do it he's gonna do it and what happens you see the end and you start sprinting we've all seen it it's like hang on what at 18 miles you said you were dead but now you're sprinting what's happened it's like because you because that physiological handbrake central governor theory has been lifted you know that the end's in sight now so all of a sudden you can start sprinting and i think so often we see that in everything i and i and it's actually a question i want to pose to you because the central governor theory talks a lot about endurance i'd certainly experienced that a lot and I almost had to learn to switch that off. So when my brain was going, Ross, oh God, that CL is getting pretty

deep. Oh, Ross, you know, you haven't slept in four days, you know, and all of these things going on, self-preservation, pulling that basic saying, stop, Ross, stop, pull the handbrake. I was going, no, no, no, no, no, keep going, keep going, keep going keep going keep going so I was trying to switch that off um there's an idea in uh science where they talk about stress-induced analgesia so the way that an injured animal will just fight to the death even like with his paw like hanging off a lion will just fight to the death because stress-induced analgesia suppresses pain that they just get this incredible strength. They will go feral. Sometimes that's what I did.

So my tongue's falling off. People were like, whoa, Ross, what are you doing? I'm like, no, I'm just foaming at the mouth, swimming, going, it's fine, it's fine. And that was a coping mechanism. The Royal Marines, again, cheerfulness in the face of adversity. So one thing, and I believe, don't get me wrong, it was the journal Frontiers of Neuroscience, where they had cyclists cycle to complete exhaustion. And they showed them very small subliminal cues, so split second, barely registered on a conscious level, of people either smiling or frowning. And what they found at the end was those people cycling to exhaustion actually cycled further when they were showing these pictures of people either smiling or frowning. And what they found at the end was those people cycling to exhaustion

actually cycled further when they were shown these pictures of people smiling. So it's interesting now in sports psychology that we're understanding this idea of, hang on, the next frontier might actually be in your head. Again, speaking to Eddie, when he lifted the half a ton and he was actually seeing hypnotherapists. So he was looking at any aggregation of marginal gains, anywhere that he could find a slight advantage. I was doing the same.

It's this idea with raw Marines, cheerfulness in the face of adversity. So when I'm swimming, tentacles hanging off my face, I was just there like, you know, it could be worse. You know, try and smile through it. If that didn't work, stress induced analgesia. So think like an injured lion and just grit your teeth and get through it. If that didn't work, stress induced analgesia. So think like an injured lion and just grit your teeth and get through it. Or sometimes central governor theory, you know, just go logically, remove all emotion.

Actually, Ross, this is that physiological handbrake. You've still got more. But what I wanted to ask you guys was I've seen in powerlifting and in my limited experience not like you guys but for instance um when you see Andy Bolton with the thousand pound deadlift and certainly with Eddie's 500 they were like they were just ripping it off the floor they'd already convinced themselves it was you know it was so they'd already won that mind game I think what's interesting when you look at the bench press for instance sometimes and i i speak for experiencing that like i i'll unwrap 180 and as soon as i've unwrapped it i'll go oh i've already talked myself out of it because

i think well that feels pretty heavy i'm already not doing that lift because i've gone that's too heavy but on smelling salts or you know friends of mine hit me on the back of the head you know you could almost override that is that fair to say say? But I wanted to ask you guys, cause you've got far more experience. When is there a time that you've walked out a Scott rack and gone that like, and you've just, you've not bottled it. Like what, like what, what have you told yourself? Even though every fiber of your being says that's a silly amount of weight, you shouldn't have that on your back. What will you use?

These things, they all fascinate me. When I train with people, when they work out with me, when we start to warm up, when we start to do the bar and we start to do the smaller weights and stuff, sometimes I'll see them making these kind of weird faces because it's the warm-up. I mean, you're just getting started, And sometimes we're in there super early. And I'll say, don't make that face. Don't make that face. Like, let's, let's try it. Let's try our best to not make any faces unless we need a face. Because sometimes, you know, like Rocky, you know, Mickey's teaching him like he's got to have a snarl when he's punching the bag and stuff like that. Sometimes you need a little snarl. Sometimes you need to say like, fuck, or sometimes you don't need to, but these things, they come out of you when you're trying to endure something really,

really difficult. And so I think that we utilize a lot of that stuff a little too early and we start to send bad signals. I mean, if you've had bad experiences in the past with squatting, maybe you've injured your knee or maybe you hurt your back or maybe you just don't excel. You know, I've seen people not excel on a particular lift and they come in, shoulders are slumped and they just kind of, they just, they look like they're going to have a rough day. And you might experience it with somebody that you swim with versus someone that you lift with. Maybe they love swimming and maybe they hate lifting, stuff like that. And we see that a lot.

And so your mindset is so huge. If you talk, I used to think about dynamic effort work, you know, two days beforehand, you know, or it would usually be after the last dynamic effort session. I'm starting to think about the next one already. And by the time I would get in there for like a Saturday squat session, I would be flying. I would be moving a million miles an hour, be squatting with a lot of, so I think you can kind of almost, you can, you can kind of switch your mindset to it. It's almost as if, and this is why I more recently have been talking about, I, I, I'm a believer that hard work is a myth because I think that you can turn your mindset up to it where it's not that hard. You know, if you're to look back at that 157 days or whatever, now looking back at it, you can be like, yeah, you know what?

It wasn't that hard. Could you have gone 160 days? Of course you could. You know, could you have gone 365 days? Probably yes. You know, you probably could. So in terms of like talking yourself out of a weight, you know, I've, what I've noticed is the more theatrics that you have and the more extracurricular activity that you have leading to the, this big lift. Um, a lot of times that is a signal that, that you don't think you can do it. It's like

you need a bunch of external stuff. Let's turn the music up really, really loud. Let's snort a bunch of smelling salts. Those are all things that have nothing to do with your body's adaptation. So I like what you're saying a lot because when you start to remove emotion, I like what you're saying a lot because when you start to, when you start to remove emotion, then what do you end up with? You end up with the facts. Okay. There's a thousand pounds on the bar. And it doesn't matter who's cheering for you. It doesn't matter who's here. Those things can have a small difference, you know, but they're not going to, it's not going to help you go from a 900 pound squat to a thousand pound squat.

Having a coach say, Hey, you've done this before. You know how to do it. Show these people what's up and fucking go squat a thousand pounds. Like those things can be, they can be helpful a little bit. They can help you say, yeah, you know what? He's right. I've been training for this. I squatted nine 50 really easy in training. I know that, I know that this strength is there. I know that this reserve is there. I do think when you unrack a weight and it feels heavy, sometimes you're in a really good position for your body to learn to adapt to that. So I've had a lot of training sessions in the past where a weight felt really heavy. I knew I was supposed to do a double or triple with it. And I knew I had to do maybe even multiple sets for it.

But I also knew that that level of like, um, of aggravation and that level of stimulus is, is probably what my body really needed for the day. So it's okay that it, it's okay that it felt difficult. You know, it's okay that it's okay that the and sometimes you have to take weight off. I've talked about that many times in my gym. I think that some of the strongest things I've ever seen anybody do in my gym is just take weight off the bar. You know, take off a pair of 10s or take off, you know, 20, 30 pounds, whatever you have to do so you can do the lift correctly because doing it the right way is is massively important but a lot of times when those weights feel too heavy they they are too heavy they're they're a little they're a little bit on the heavy-ish side in terms of the way that you execute it because as you were talking earlier talking about lifting a weight faster well it's

my belief that if you learn how to lift weights better, that you'll be stronger. And not enough people practice that. You want to try it. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to police every little nuanced thing of your knee caving in on a squat and stuff like that. But you do want your form to be a priority. That's just so often overlooked. It's exactly the same with swimming. I know when I leave isolation and I start swimming, the feel

of the water, hydrodynamics on an intuitive level. I know I'll be looking at my watch going, my split times will be terrible because I'm not unfit. My cardiorespiratory endurance hasn't just plummeted, but it's just,

it's hydrodynamics, you know, biomechanics in the water. That's, that's what it is. And that's so often overlooked. I think in strength training that I think you're absolutely right, Mark,

from what I've seen. And this, this is a great example. I remember when I was deadlifting with Eddiedie and uh i consider myself an okay lifter and i deadlifted and he looked at me and was like what was that i was like it was a deadlift and he was like it looked like it was kind of a deadlift and i was like well i'm not gonna say it's not because it's eddie hall but it's Eddie Hall. But for him, when he does it, he's drilled that motor pattern so many times. It's just the greasing the groove, Pavel, that it's just poetic.

And you're right. Some people are probably locked up right now going, oh, but I've only got 100 kg of weight. And it's just like a Bulgarian training system. They would be drilling, you know, cleaner jerks, snatch with a broom, you know, just so those movement patterns are just like second nature. It's automatic.

And I think that's one thing. I love what you said there that we're overlooking, that too often I think it's, you know, in the gym, smelling salts, pre-workout, whereas it's that almost one uh one technique but also i love what you just said there as well which is almost the the habituation of stress which is what the bulgarian training method is is based on but that idea also like the boston track club as well in one single amateur club don't quote me on this but they had something like 10 guys running a 220

marathon because as a team as a club they'd run a marathon in the morning and then they'd ring each other up in the evening and go like oh hey like what you up to and they'll be like oh nothing i'm a bit bored do you want to run another marathon yeah okay you know so they were just like over training but also habituating stress like meals at a peck as well um and i think that's one thing that that's overlooked as well that like what you just said there when you get out onto that platform and you're about to peak as a coach just sometimes going this is no different you have it you have the physical potential your strength your body's ability to generate force there it's

just going to be in your head now so just go do it just go lift the weight and for real sort of seasoned lifters they can do that time and time again uh jeff capes almost called it that farmer's strength you know that you just almost don't think anything of it you've just been drilling those pants um in strongman and he i think he made the finals but mark westerby was a guy and his story was incredibly he was a farmer and i think he got into strongman very late on he might have been 45 but but don't quote me on that and the story was that a local strongman event came to his town and he was watching it with his wife and they did the atlas stones and at the end no one was able to do the final uh final atlas stone and he turned to his wife and he just said um you know that doesn't doesn't look too heavy

and she was like no no dear you know they're they're really heavy you know these are professionals and he turned to her and he went no no he goes that's about the same as a cow and i lift the cows on our farm because i think i can do that and then everybody went home and he turned to her and he went, no, no, no. He goes, that's about the same as a cow. And I lift the cows on our farm. He goes, I think I can do that. And then everybody went home and he climbed over the railing, went over, put the final stone on the barrel, turned around to his wife and was like, I told you I could do it. And it's that idea of just raw farmer strength

that I think sometimes we're missing now, probably because there isn't that agricultural you know community of people like that but that's where jeff cape uh came from his work ethic was was just obscene yeah i think you just never forget to uh you know ronnie coleman's quote lightweight you know you you want to try to just think i mean that's a really simple thing you know you've got 800 pounds on the bar and he's saying lightweight, lightweight. I think it's important that you tell yourself that I'm capable of this.

Like otherwise, why would you put it on the bar? I mean, you shouldn't be throwing on weights that are going to be, you know, a hundred percent unsafe for you that you just have no, you have no chance or no, no business even trying. And so with that, yeah, I think that's a great mindset is just to say lightweight baby yeah 100 i mean also as well i wanted to ask you guys because this is something that's come around uh quite recently but um with everything that's happening with lockdown have you been keeping up to date with um the deadlift record as well i just wanted to ask

your opinion on that because i think it's amazing for the sport you've seen everything on social media brian shaw gives such an eloquent breakdown you know for someone like me who doesn't fully understand it it's been great to see brian um oberst to the video uh zavikas even uh did a video as well but i'm interested to know you know what you guys think from the strength community um and how it's kind of like building up on social media which i think is great for the sport yeah i think you know that it's um my understanding is thor hasn't done it yet but he was going to do like a 501 kg deadlift or something like that right he's setting up to do one in his gym or something like that.

Yeah. I just think that that's probably something that him and his team probably thought was a good idea. They probably thought it'd be something fun. They probably thought it'd be really cool for the sport and get people hyped up. Maybe they didn't think it all the way through.

As influencers and get people hyped up. And maybe they didn't think it all the way through, you know, as, as influencers and as you know, people with some pull and being on Instagram and social media, you start to learn after a while, Hey, it's really important that you don't give a fuck what people think. But at the same time, you know, not, not giving a fuck what people think a hundred percent isn't necessarily the best idea either. And so I think that's probably what happened here is that, you know,

Thor is in an echo chamber and him and his team probably came up with this idea and they thought it'd be great. That's, this is what everybody wants to see. And so they're only thinking of the good side of it, but maybe they didn't think of it all the way through. And maybe they didn't think, Hey, like this isn't the official way of doing it this isn't now if you go back to benedict magnuson's 1015 deadlift which is still the biggest power lifting deadlift of all time a deadlift done without lifting straps his lift was done in an unconventional competition as well and like if you if you go back and watch

the video he's not like in a singlet he's in like he's in like shorts or something now that doesn't discredit the lift i mean he's he's one of the greatest deadlifters of all time there's no question he still has that record and um benedict magnuson will go down in history as you know an amazing athlete but it wasn't in a normal sanctioned like powerlifting meet you know and and. And when Andy Bolton did his first 1003 deadlift, I was actually at that competition. And it was in New York. And he actually did it in a full powerlifting meet. And he did take some token lifts just to make sure he was in the meet.

And then he lifted a little bit more. But I think think and my understanding too is that eddie hall's deadlift i think it was just in a deadlift competition and it wasn't necessarily a a full-on strongman event do you know the details on that i'm not really sure i think it was the world powerlifting sorry the world deadlift champs so yeah all right again i'm i'm not particularly up on everything but yeah and i think that was one of the and i don't i don't fully understand this that's why i wanted to ask you but there was the um one thing that a lot of people are saying is just when you're in competition there's so many more variables you know that you're

you're lifting you know you're waiting your time you don't dictate when you go lift someone might just come over and say like okay cool mark we need you on the platform and you're like oh what now you know so there was all these variables which i think is fascinating because for me it's like yeah people need to understand it's not just you're not just going up and lifting it there's so much that goes into that the prep the rehab the prehab you know everything to just go and say go deadlift that so that that's what i find interesting at the moment and i think it's opened a little bit of a can of worms but a good can of worms as well because it allows the sports psychologists and sports scientists to ask what is conducive to a big lift and what is that lift looking like i think the other side of it too is just look man just do the lift and and and have the highest deadlift of all time and who

cares about it whether whether somebody wants to classify it as a fucking record or not hey dick hey dickhead i lifted more than you you know you did 11 you did 1101 1102 i did 1103 you know or whatever it is like i think I think that that has enough spice to it. Who cares about it being like put in some sort of record book? If you did it on the internet and if it's official as you can make it. Also, too, I think that Thor, his career is not going to end with him just doing this 501 kg deadlift, if he's able to actually do it, I think that he'll probably at some point legitimize it and probably do it in a full strongman competition or something as well. I think it's fascinating where we're at now with strength sports as a whole.

I think with things that we're seeing, I loved it, and it's still yet to properly come over to the UK, but I know with Brian and Eddie, and they did the World's Strongest Men, or the Strongest Men in History. And I just love this idea of like old, like the Dinny Stones, for instance, you know, things like that coming back to the forefront. I think it was lost for a while,

but I think we're at an exciting period now in strength sports and equally where coaches are because exactly what you just said, Mark, I think some of the next frontiers come from psychology. It's not just now just going, oh, I know a really big, strong guy. It's like, no, there are a lot of big, strong guys now. How do you take someone with that genetic potential and nurture that? They say that training is the realization of one's genetic potential. So if you get someone like Michael Phelps, yeah, he was always destined to be one of the greatest filmers to ever exist,

but how do you harness that? And I think it's the same now that we're going to see some freaks coming out in the next few years, but how do you actually train them? That's where I get really excited. Yeah. No, when it comes to that deadlift, though,

you know when people hit in-gym PRs and they don't hit it on the platform? I think this is going to be a very similar type deal. I don't know if it can really end up being official, nor should it. But if he does it, just like Mark said, he did it. People will know he did it and

they're going to people be people in thor's camp and then still people in eddie's camp so it's going to be interesting to see what happens i think larry wheels is a great representation of that like larry wheels um he was already breaking all-time records and stuff but he stopped power lifting he got out of power thing a little bit and he was just basically doing a bunch of weird crazy freakish lifts uh on instagram and then you know people were people were there was some stuff swirling about he was doing stuff in the gym and he would like incline press like 550 or something he was benching over 600 pounds and even though he was already a proven powerlifter there's still people talking some shit about him. So he came back into powerlifting just as of at the Arnold and put up just some ridiculous total, like twenty three hundred pounds or something.

He just he just went out there and absolutely killed it. And no one even the funny thing is, is that no one even cared. and uh what i mean by cared is like you see so much more hype about the stuff that he does via just like some instagram clips where he's got the elbows wrapped up and he benches 600 pounds and people like oh he would never bench that you know without wrapping up his elbows like that and he goes to a meet and benches 630 right in everyone's face and then he pulled like 880 or 870 and he squatted it like 850 or so i mean it's just an absolute fucking monster but again my point is is like we don't necessarily need the legitimate we don't need these uh legitimate competitions the same way that we used to need them we used to need them to get sponsorship we used to need them. We used to need them to get sponsorship.

We used to need them to acquire some fans and things like that. You don't need them anymore. You can just do it on social media. That is such a good point. I think also as well, what I like is sometimes just seeing this idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. So, you know, extrinsic motivation being you're motivated by, you know, trophies, money, sponsorship. You know, it might be fear of failure as well.

You know, but there are a lot of people that I've seen who are so intrinsically motivated. One of my favorites is probably Dorian Yates, to use a bodybuilding example. You know, Dorian Yates was sort of post-Lee Haney, you know, and there was this idea of, you know, like, oh, my God, guys just with sunglasses on like, and that was bodybuilding. It was, you know, you were an eccentric. You went on stage, you're an extrovert. And then I remember Dorian Yates came along and, you know,

was famously called The Shadow because he would turn up in a big baggy track suit walk on stage unzip it go cool i've won and then walk off and i think for for dorian in his day it was the idea that he just loved the process know, that was its own reward. And that's intrinsic motivation when the process is its own reward. And I find that really interesting. Certainly, I mean, I don't know, you know, Thor, so I can't speak for him. But for Eddie, it came from this place where it was just, I want to be the strongest person in the world, the strongest human. At one point in the world, I was the strongest human in the world with the strongest human at one point in in the world i

was the strongest human and it was intrinsic granted absolutely the money and everything there was extra it's always a mix you know of extrinsic and intrinsic but intrinsic motivation can be such a powerful tool and i love what you were just saying there where um sometimes is anyone watching you know does it matter if you go in the gym and you go and put up your PB, would you like people there or does it not actually matter? And I know there are a lot of people who I train with, it's purely intrinsic and it just when you wake up on a sunday your joints are aching you know your girlfriend's probably like oh you know let's just stay in bed and order pizza you know if you're extrinsically motivated you might think is anyone care that i'm gonna miss this session do you know am i gonna do anything for instagram you know go and get some likes? Do you know, am I going to do anything for Instagram? You know, go and get some likes. No.

You know, so then why do I do it? But speaking to you guys, I know you get that intrinsic motivation where you're just like, I have to go to the gym. Why? Because the process is its own reward. You know, just there, that kind of just brotherhood, just be camaraderie, just bonding, like just lift the weight. It's just, you can't really explain it it's just intrinsic it's um so that's why i loved what you said i mean

i was gonna say it's uh some super fascinating stuff because like you think about how much anger or how much complaining how much anger and how much bitching and complaining do you do to yourself like you probably probably not a lot is the answer because anger is something that like i want to like ross said something to me that that really bugged me i want to show you that i'm i'm frustrated by it so i can't believe you said you know i might act irrationally i might you know uh knock a cup off a table or something or do something do something uh do something weird right and i but you wouldn't do stuff like that if other people weren't around you know like if you stub your toe and you're by yourself and and maybe you stubbed your toe

pretty bad to the point where you know you messed up your toenail or something and it's like bloody or something maybe you jacked yourself up pretty good i mean you might say fuck or something like that but you're not going to really have a fit about it but if somebody else is there to complain to now you're like oh my god i did this again i stubbed my toe in the same goddamn spot every time look at my foot it's all fucking bloody you know and you're you're really like venting you know and i i find a lot of that so fascinating because most of that you wouldn't do. It's kind of like when somebody celebrates something, you know, they did something and they celebrate and it's like, well, they're, you know, they're probably kind of there's other people watching, you know, so they're they're celebrating and they're emotional and they're kind of over the top because they recognize that other people are there, you know, watching them. And they probably wouldn't

do there's really no reason to do that if no one else is around so it's it's some fascinating stuff i think it's true and and that's the thing there's nothing wrong with it identifying when people around and there's an element of extrinsically being motivated for a behavior, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think certainly for me going back to the swim, I remember when I found out news of my dad, for instance, and I was swimming down the east coast of England, I remember just thinking like, you know, this is really crappy. I could just go back to land and just be with the family.

But with that said, you you know if i finish this and that was what was weird as well actually um that when you say you know i'm gonna go and swim around great britain or i'm gonna deadlift 500 kilos you're either gonna be a hero or an idiot like there's no way in between you know you know that if you say i'm gonna deadlift five kilos and you get it to your knees but you drop it and you'd everyone will be like oh what an idiot he said he was gonna do it you know no one's gonna go oh fair one good effort so i knew that coming down that east coast i thought you know i could go back to land and everything but i i finished this either you know i go out on my sword and everyone's like oh you know what i go out on my shield and everyone's like what an idiot or you finish it but but the one question that i ask

myself and it goes back to what everyone listening can can really sort of ask themselves it's just are you intrinsically or extrinsically motivated what is the ratio of the two and i remember i thought to myself if i finish this swim and my mum and dad are there and I can give them a big hug and my girlfriend's there and we can eat pizza and my two brothers and no one else cares like there's no media like there's no one to say oh here's a you set the world record Ross oh yeah is that still enough and for me I was like yes that is and I thought about that for a month coming down the east coast I was like that will still be enough that I can grow old as this weird guy who swung around Great Britain and that's okay for me um other people might say oh I need I need the cameras I need a

medal I need like am I getting paid for this you know will I get followers from this are people how many likes will I get for this? You know, some people will ask that and there's nothing wrong with that. But you just got to identify which one you are. And I think when you are truly intrinsically, I always love Kipchoge when he ran the sub two hour marathon. There was a reporter who was saying,

are you going to do it? Are you going to run sub two hours? You know, are you going to break the record? Are you going to do it? And K going to run sub two hours? You know, are you going to break the record? Are you going to do it? And Kipchoge looked at him and he said, my goal is to run a beautiful race. If that is under two hours, then I'll be happy. But if not, I will still be happy because it will be a beautiful race.

So it was this idea that he just wanted to run a beautiful race. He was intrinsically motivated that he could have walked away and gone. That was, that was, I was good with that. I was happy with that. I was happy with how I ran. That was beautiful. Void of medals and records and everything.

Obviously the record came as a result and I'm sure he's very happy about that, but it's just identifying sometimes. And I think everyone listening, if you're going to go to the gym this Sunday and you're going to go and bench squat deadlift and put a PB up, and nobody says well done and you get zero likes on social media, is that still okay with you? And if the answer is yes, I'm so happy for you because you're intrinsically motivated.

You're a meal zatter pet, you're Kipchoge, you're a Yamabushi warrior monk where you're doing it because it's an okugaki, a pilgrimage, and the process is its own reward. So, it's very obvious that you love the process of everything. You've heard, I've seen and heard a lot of people, once they obtain the goal, they kind of feel like it's a bit of a letdown. How have you been able to avoid feeling that? Because it just seems like, I mean, you have a smile on, like you just keep going, right? Like, what is it about like, you know, what is it about you that you're able to kind of

accomplish something and be like, all right, that was awesome. What's next? Yeah, Andrew, because I think it's when you are intrinsically motivated and the process is its own reward, you can just shift to another process. But when you're extrinsically, there's no amount of likes, money, trophies, records, because they're infinite. So you can't chase those. I think it was Bob Marley who said that money is infinite. So if your happiness is based on money, then you're never going to be truly happy because it's infinite. You're always chasing something that you could always want more of.

Whereas when the process is its own reward, you can kind of, you know, that's, I'm just happy in the moment. I'm just doing, I'm just doing what I love. And I think that's exactly the same.

I think, you know, certainly having followed Mark as an example I know that Mark's gonna be this crazy old 80 year old you know just benching everyone's like who's the weird dude in the corner he's just happy people might come over and say is that all your benching and Mark will be like I don't even care anymore I'm just like I'm happy to be here and that's one thing that i strive to be that this idea of of ego as well whereas if it's extrinsically motivated and i've seen it i've seen a lot of friends of mine who get in incredible shape for bodybuilding competitions and fitness modeling they look incredible but they were doing it for for that they were doing it to get on olympia stage they were doing

it for you know likes for records for money and when that's removed they kind of exactly what you just Andrew you kind of go oh what's next I think we'd have all experienced this there's been times where you know I've done some fitness shoots i remember looking in the mirror just thinking i'm never gonna be this lean or look this aesthetic ever again and it's just like so what do you do from here because if this was all it was about i'd just be like well everything else is downhill i'm just kind of like this is i'm never gonna look better than this. But one of the things that I used to do, I remember thinking, get in shape. I'm lean. I'm like, you know, absolute and I'm tanned.

I look great. And I just think, cool. As soon as I take that picture and it's done, I think, right, how can I now use this power to weight ratio? Because I'm never going to be this lean and strong and muscular again. So my running, to go back to what we were talking about at the very start, my running was amazing because all of a sudden, I mean, I sit around 93 kilos. If I do, you know, back in the day when I was a lot younger, when I was doing fitness, I could get down

to like 86, you know, so that's almost 10 kilos. So I felt like a gazelle. But what I'm sort of talking about there, Andrew, is this idea of just shifting from the process of getting ready for a photo shoot, aesthetic, and once that's done, tick, I just literally change the process. And then when I wonder what my 5K time is right now running, because I bet it's pretty quick, and I just shift it straight away. So to answer your question, there's always something that you can change around. Probably exactly the same if you're powerlifting and you're big and you're strong,

but you're probably carrying a little bit of body fat as well and you've got a little bit of a belly. But know that once that is done, you could go into bodybuilding and your ability to generate mechanical tension, to lift heavy weight will be through the roof compared to someone over here who's just really lean. And I love what Mark was saying, that when he did have a little bit of extra weight, he just felt so powerful to shift the process. So yeah, focus on the process, but always shift it as well. Tell us about your book. I haven't received anything just yet, I don't believe.

I know you sent out a couple books. Oh, no. So, yeah, basically, it's The Art of Resilience. So my first book, which was called The World's Fittest Book, I always have to defend the title because it's very much a testament to the people that I worked with in it. So I mentioned Andy Bolton, but I learnt speed training from Linford Christie, Olympic 100-meter gold medalist,

training with the Cambridge rowing team. So it was really trying to combine all of their teachings Olympic 100 meter gold medalist, training with the Cambridge rowing team. So it was really trying to combine all of their teachings into one comprehensive book. One thing I want to add real quick is just that I had an opportunity to listen to that first book of yours. And I loved it because you had a lot of, you had a lot of training information there, but you had a lot of stories in there, which I, which I thought were, it really tied everything together.

It made the learning process a lot better. Oh, Mark, thank you. That means a lot coming from you. No, thank you so much. I think,

but what I love what you said at the start as well is those stories. Cause I think, you know, with evidence-based training, I could have written a book that just talks about, quote, this study, that study. And that's the sports scientist in me who studied that as a degree. But equally, there's just no substitute sometimes for saying, this is what I learned when I ran a marathon with a car on my back you know it's exactly the same that I could read a lot of studies but I would probably much rather go and do a session with Mark Bell so I can actually learn about strength training for someone who's done it

for years you know so I think stories are often overlooked that's used it used to be how we learn when you sit with Jeff Capes he's just got stories and stories. He's talking about the Highland Games and when he was competing back in the day. You sit there and you're like, wow. So that's why I love the stories because it gives the evidence, you know, an actual substance, a base. And then with the new book, I wanted to basically think outside of the realms of conventional sport, because I think with swimming around Great Britain, you learn all the principles of sports science and everything that I learned was just no longer applicable. Because, you know, how do you cope with sleep deprivation, you know, central governor theory, stoicism.

So that's why I ended up learning all of that on top even caring for my immune system so with the art of resilience uh the world is great and for variables that are controlled within sport and the art of resilience starts to touch upon psychology mental resilience physical fortitude as well um when you start doing things that are just completely outside of the realms of conventional sport and when the variables can't be controlled, which is, I think where we're at right now. So it's kind of, it's coming quite a timely, um, you know, moment. And I never really thought there'd be such a parallel between the swim and everything, these uncontrollables and, and, and now, but hopefully, um, fingers crossed, some people

can draw some sort of lessons from it I think cool you guys have any other questions yeah I'm just curious man like because your training is still pretty crazy right now are you do you are you gearing up for anything coming up or are you just training because you love to train that's a good question so yeah the process is its own reward so even my downtime i'm still always just training because that's just kind of like what i do like when me and my brothers catch up we just we train you know sometimes we're one of our favorite sessions is we just get a sled and it's just death by prowler you know so we basically keep putting

five kilos on the prowler until someone gives up or we run out of weight and none of us want to give up you can imagine brothers we're just like no one's giving up so we're there for hours um uh but also as well we were i was i was coaching quite a quite a lot as well so we were gearing up to a few things um i can't say too much but we posted on social media but um training chris hemsworth um at the moment and uh like i can't really say too much, but we posted on social media, but training Chris Hemsworth at the moment. And like I said, I can't really say too much, but to see his training and applying a lot of the principles that I've learned with him has been fascinating because I think he's a specimen.

He's a genetic phenom. And I think for so long he trained for aesthetics because that was his job. You know, he was paid lots of money to be one of the biggest actors in Hollywood. So he was trained to look like that. But to apply some of the principles of sports science and actually now train him like an athlete, it's been unbelievable to see that transition. So I don't know when that airs.

It might be later this year, but now everything's been sort of thrown up in the air. But to see his transition to what in into becoming an athlete and also again i'm not i'm not sure i'm allowed to say too much but we did a little bit of ice swimming as well um it's just been it's been incredible to work with someone like him so i'm still training the seam of but also training sometimes to keep up with the people that I'm coaching. Does that make sense? I got you. Awesome, man. Hey, Ross, thank you so much for your time today.

We really appreciate it. Where can people get that new book? Thank you so much. Yeah, new book. It will still be on Amazon US and UK and Australia. Yeah, pretty much all over the world so this i think it's on my instagram bio there's a big pre-order link so that comes out i think we're a month away now so i'm pretty excited for that cool awesome where else can people find you if they want more information

on you yeah so all the usual so yeah instagram facebook and Twitter. But yeah, with whatever we're doing next, we'll be documenting a lot of the stuff on there. So like I said, although I'm training sort of at the moment, keeping it quite general, there are rumors if somebody says that they need a country swimming around, I might get my goggles again. So I'll be documenting that on social media. And kind of

in finishing up here you know i've been messing around with some running you got any running for big guys like anything uh you know form or technique wise i should watch out for so i don't kill myself out there yes i think one of the ones that we're talking about we mentioned it before with lifting but just in terms of biomechanics and technique, like people don't understand that like running, it's a series of successive small jumps, like I said before. And I think one thing that I really learned was, and although there's no scientific consensus on this about forefoot striking and heel striking, one thing that I found is when you look at bigger guys certainly when we're talking your sort of size mark if you start heel striking in big shoes as well those forces have got to go somewhere it's

just physics you know so that those forces are going to manifest themselves in bad knees bad back so I advocate and I do a lot of barefoot running just because you've got you know a thousand biosensors in your feet. And when we barefoot run, that's going to give all this biofeedback that, Mark, whoa, hang on, you're running a bit too slow, a bit too fast, the gradient's doing this. I guarantee if you go and run right now on the beach, you might be okay. But if you, certainly your size, went running on the concrete barefoot, this is a great example. When I say to people, do you forefoot strike or heel strike? Because people wear these big shoes, sometimes they can't answer me. They're like, I don't know.

And so one of my favorite exercises, I take people running on the concrete, and I guarantee they'll tell me very quickly if they're heel striking or forefoot striking. Because if you're heel striking and you're 240 pounds like you that is you're not gonna fall you're not gonna heel strike for long i mean that's gonna be pretty painful so you start higher cadence you start forefoot striking you start managing forces just almost just intuitively you start to manage forces that biofeedback and it's like that higher cadence and you become instantly a better runner because you're getting biofeedback from barefoot running. So that's one thing that I would say for a lot of bigger guys.

Please don't be put off by running. Just understand that you probably have to manage physics a little bit more than a lighter runner who can get away with it because they might be heel striking and those forces aren't as profound and there's studies that show when you're running you're putting four to five times your own body weight through each foot if you're sprinting or running downhill that's even more so i mean i don't want to put five times 244 pounds for each foot so i don't know how you feel so it's this idea of like yeah if you're a bigger guy just understand that running you just need to manage physics a little bit

better and barefoot running is a good way of doing that and using your biosensors in your feet if you're too much of a pussy to go barefoot you got any suggestions on some shoes yeah i mean so i do a lot of work with vivo barefoot some minimalist shoes where you just start feeling like no heel and again you will start feeling that almost instantly that in in minimalist shoes um you would you'll just know if your heel's striking because it would just be like thud thud every. Every step, it will be so uncomfortable. So, yeah, minimalist shoes, but I think a lot of shoes right now. And I think certainly when you saw Kipchoge with the sub-two-hour marathon, it's very trendy now to get those big cushion shoes, kinetic energy as well,

just basically just not running on springs, but you know what I mean? It's taking away that biofeedback. But certainly on the beach as well, you know, just running barefoot on there, you'll feel it. But equally, you'll be awakening that Achilles tendon ligament. Your feet will start working like mother nature intended. So one thing I always advise is please don't just go barefoot or minimalist shoes and then go and run a 10K and then certainly at your weight

mark, because that is a lot of stress on, on your ligaments that you're waiting. It's basically like picking me and trying to squat what you do. You know, the next day I wouldn't be walking and it's the same, you know, it's the same applies to your feet. Awesome, man. Hey, have a great rest of your day and keep loading up on that coffee. Guys. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you guys.

Thank you. See you later. See you later, man. Cheers guys. Ooh, just got them in there, man.

That guy's awesome. Holy. He really is. He's all fired up yeah he's all excited super cool man yeah he went over a lot of stuff and that that's what his uh you know i haven't had an opportunity to see that his second book but his first book even though there was a lot of training information in there there's a lot of stories in there and he actually like he actually actually is the one narrating it. So it's really cool.

That's awesome. I liked it a lot. I'm going to have to check that out. And was that on a audio book too? Yep. Okay. Yep. Yeah.

That's, that's, that's the way, that's the way I heard it. Yeah. It was, it was like an audible or something like that. Cool.

Yeah. I just finished my first book that wasn't like a full on like a self-help or, you know, business book. It was called The Impossible First. And he shared a bunch of stories and I was surprised how locked in I was on that. He was the first guy to cross the self-propelled walk across the Atlantic. Is that a continent? Sounds good to me.

Um, yeah, sorry. Everyone's just like yelling at me right now. They can't believe how dumb I am, but whatever it is, uh, he crossed this big old gigantic piece of ice at the bottom of the planet. And, um, it was called the impossible first. Can't remember who wrote it, but it was amazing. And, um, I, again, I had no idea that I would be into stories. So when you were saying that about Ross's book, I'm like, ooh, I got to pick this thing up because that sounds really good. And I mean, I was blown away by a bunch of the things that he said. And then looking at his pictures, I think I'm probably now like 12% gay. Whereas before we started the podcast, I was around 10.

But I think I just fell in love. You don't lie you're at least 35 percent i think that's a little bit too high i'm still engaged i'm still engaged i think over 30 it starts to get in question i think it's reasonable to have feelings about other men when they look that good he looks great yeah i mean i think it's just i mean it's normal to think about you know like if you had an opportunity to like work out with him that maybe like

after the workout maybe you'd have an opportunity to like rub him down massage him you know stuff like I mean just so he can recover you know from the workout then maybe he rubs you down and maybe you spend some time in the hot tub and sauna maybe you know

maybe you just wrestle each other around a little bit. Just to see how strong each other is. This is normal stuff. Yeah, just to take them in. That's all. That's it. Just to really see exactly what that type of athleticism can convert. Yeah, you get to feel it.

Get to feel it, touch it, smell it, use all your senses, taste it. You guys notice that energy though on that guy? Yeah. Yeah. He's yeah, man. That's that. That's what happens when you can swim like that.

Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Hey, how funny was it when he said, so he swam for 157 days straight, but the greatest thing that he said during the entire podcast is that he skipped leg day for 157 days. Man, you think about that.

Like he must have not gotten much walking in at all. Really think about that. He just got on the boat, sat down and ate and then goes back in the water. Jeez. And by the way, for everybody listening, when he said 190, just some people might not realize that's kilos so like he's benching 190 kilos he's strong he's he's very he was like he was underselling his strength he's very strong i mean when he's talking about deadlifting half of what eddie hall you know keep in mind eddie hall's best deadlift 1100 pounds so you know if you're

deadlifting half of what eddie hall is it's probably at least you know 450 550 pounds somewhere in there probably yeah i love what he was saying about you know but uh the process and you know moving on after that i think you know everybody right now can really look at that and understand like that's why he's smiling so damn much. And kind of implement that right now and just start smiling a lot more with the situation that we're in. He's content. And not content in a bad way. I think sometimes people think that word means that you're

satisfied and that you're not still hungry for stuff but you can tell he's very content with who he is and i'm sure it's probably taken him a long time to get there but i think we see this a lot with a with a lot of our friends that are it's it's weird because there's some people that are fairly high level performers but they're still kind of fucked because they're still like in the, in this middle transition period. I saw that a lot in pro wrestling. There was the guys at the bottom that no one really cared about. They weren't talented enough to really do anything anyway.

Then there was the guys like in the middle and all those guys in the middle, they all fought with each other and they all were trying to get after each other's position. They're all trying to get with each other's girlfriends. like it was just weird like everyone was like you know a lot of turmoil you know it was just like ugly right and then there was the top guys you know and the top guys they already kind of had it figured out they were content um they weren't going to give up their position to somebody they weren't going to sleep on you know the next up-and-coming guy that that's gonna you know maybe maybe take their spot or whatever they're still going to sleep on, you know, the next up and coming guy that that's going to, you know, maybe maybe take their spot or whatever.

They're still going to work really hard. But they were they were they were different. It was a completely different person. They were like just super happy, almost the way that like Jay Cutler is happy, you know, because he's retired. He's a retired bodybuilder that put everything he had into it. And he knows that he did. And he knows he was great. He knows he's one of the best bodybuilders of all time. So of course he walks around with a big smile. Ed Cohn comes to mind.

You know, I've met people that told me they thought Ed Cohn was a dick. And I was like, wait, what am I? Ed Cohn? I'm like, Ed Cohn? No. And they're like, well, I knew him when he competed. And it's like, oh, okay. So you knew him when he competed and it's like oh okay so you knew him when he still had a little bit of a of a chip on his shoulder you know

um and maybe they maybe they're maybe they're referencing that they trained with him or or saw him at a power thing meet or something i'm not sure but anyway you know it's the people that are the people that are active the people that are really putting in great efforts, a lot of times they end up coming to some of these realizations. But you don't come to these realizations by accident. Look at all the different stuff the guy was studying. I mean, he could have just rested and been like, yeah, I'm good, you know, because I'm an ass kicker because I swam around this country and I did this and I did that. He's still reading book after book. He's still trying to find answers for himself.

And that's all in an effort to be more at peace with himself, ultimately. You know, I think that's a great mission. Yeah. No, the idea of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, I think is something that is really good to take away. And if you find that, you know, your, your main motivation is from the outside or people noticing, or that you, you want to, it'd be a good idea to try and figure out if you could flip that. Cause I feel, I feel like if you're more intrinsically motivated, you can get yourself to do the hard things that you want to do when no one's

watching. You know, it doesn't matter if someone's breathing down your neck, you can get yourself to do those things. I don't know how you would transfer. I don't know how you would switch. I mean, maybe you guys have an idea, but I think it's good to figure that out. I saw a really cool post. I'm going to try to pull it up here by Gary V. figure that out i saw a really cool post i'm going to try to pull it up here by gary v um he posted a picture he posted a picture um he posted a picture of like somebody getting like likes on social media and um and it says it's it's not fun when you're stuck living for the likes. And the top picture is a girl who's got 5,000 likes. She's looking at her phone and she's like super sad.

And then it's the same girl, but she's got this big old smile on her face. And she's looking at her phone. She has 42 likes. And so you can see like one is content, happy and excited about just even pay. Hey, 42 people. You know, think about think about 42 people. Think about if you filled whatever room you're in right now with 42 people. That's a lot of people.

42 people liked your post versus, you know, 5000 people like your post, but you're still not happy with it. You got to be careful with the things that you're seeking and the things that you're admiring, the things that you think are of value. Because when you go to look at it and it doesn't have... I mean, what's the number? What's the acceptable number that you want the post to have? Have you ever even walked yourself through that? know as ross was saying um you know these are all good things to think about these are all good things to to know like uh is winning the race enough is um you know you won the race uh you came in first but you didn't get a personal best is that is that what you wanted or are you more of a person where you'd rather come in third but have a personal best you know and then same thing with uh you know your social media posts

and how many likes how many comments i mean those are all things it would be reasonable to kind of walk yourself through um if you care about that stuff if you don't care about that stuff then maybe you would retrain maybe maybe you would reinterpret it in a different way and say I'm not really that worried about the likes I'm actually more excited to hear some feedback from people I'm more excited to hear comments I'm more excited to I'm more excited'm more excited to, I'm more excited just to share. And if I share it and it helps some people, then that's cool. You know, I think these are all things that, that could really be really useful to people because mental health is a, mental health is a tough thing to really, to really figure out. And it's sometimes

hard to identify, like you post something up and it has a lot less likes it's maybe you don't realize that those things maybe are chipping away at you, but if you analyze them a little bit more and you start to think about them a little bit more, maybe you can end up with, uh, some better ideas of how you should be handling those kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah. No, that, especially like, no, that post that you talked about, like the other aspect of it is that girl, you know, she's, she's getting less likes, but she's, she's putting forward the things that she likes to do. You know what I mean? Like it was cooking versus being in a, in a, in a bikini, you know,

those butt pics are going to get a lot of likes, but when you're doing something you like to do, people don't seem as interested, you know? So I think it's a really honing in on what what like you always talk about the things that actually interest you not the things that other people think you really should be doing you know so it's figuring that out it's a pit man it's a pit it's a trap you gotta watch out out there yeah i i love the uh the the post you you put up this post like a long time ago but it was the uh that sad frog like with his butt hanging out and just being like me trying to get my followers back is that the way you feel andrew a little bit like that

yeah that's why i keep posting up shirtless pictures from last year. Well, actually, you know, legitimately, I've been wanting to post that picture of me from Thanksgiving. I've been wanting to post it on a flex Friday, and I wake up Saturday always forgetting to post it. And I'm like, ah, like, okay, well, I'll get it next week. I wait the whole week to, like, punish myself for forgetting. And then the next week comes around, like, mother, like, again. So I finally remembered, and I went ahead it next week. I wait the whole week to like punish myself for forgetting. And then the next week comes around like mother, like again. So I finally remembered and I went ahead and posted it. I think you should post,

you should post it every week. Every Friday. Every flex Friday. Yeah. Or just post it, post it every day, but think of a different, um,

like name for it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, sexual Saturday, muscle, muscle Monday,

tricep Tuesday. Hmm. Tricep Tuesday. Bicep Wednesday. That's not bad. I like that one. People will be like, wait a second. Now you're just posting it to post it. Yeah, post it every day for a while. See what happens.

That'll work. Maybe just use a different filter. You know, you can hashtag the filter. You're going to get yourself some barefoot shoes. Um, I, you know,

I've never, I've never tried them before. I, I have my shoes that I have. I mean, you know, Nike probably makes shitty shoes. As funny as that sounds,

unless you, unless you know exactly what the, what they get, they probably make some decent like track shoes or something like that. But I have these like air Pegasus, but they do have a lot of, they have, they have definitely have a, I don't know, looking for them, but I don't see them. They definitely have a pretty squishy heel on them, but I stay on my toes pretty good. Um, but yeah, I probably need to find something. Uh, I probably need to find something.

I probably need to find something a little bit better. I don't know about it. I think those other kind of shoes would, I think they would fucking kill my feet. But I do think it would be productive for me to work on that because I don't think my feet are very strong. My feet are like real sensitive too. I'm like a baby. Like I walking outside barefoot is like pretty uncomfortable for me. Yeah.

I could barely walk inside the house barefoot, like on like laminate floors. I'm just like, like, man, I gotta go throw on some slippers or something. Cause it's just uncomfortable. I used to be barefoot all the time.

As a kid, I used to never throw my shoes on. I'd run around outside all the time. And then I just one day turned into a puss. Remember when Chris Duffin was here and he was talking about, and he had those like really wide foot shoes, but they were really minimal because he wanted to strengthen his feet. Seems like the same type of concept.

I have some like Altas. I think they are. Yeah. Ultras. Those are amazing. Altas from Zach Bitter. Yeah. But the ones I have are just a little bit too small.

So I just, I need to, I probably need to get another pair of those. Those don't have a lot of stuff on them. But yeah, I thought he gave us some good advice there at the end. And what I've been doing when I've been running is just, is some some of what he was saying because i know about the heel striking and stuff like that so i've been trying to keep the stride real real short like i i ran yesterday i ran probably i i don't think i've ever done this before i ran i ran for i ran for 10 minutes straight yesterday and i ran, I guess I never even thought about it. Yeah. I've never, I don't recall ever doing that. Like not, not since I was like a teenager,

maybe, but, uh, I, and the whole time it was a hill. It was like a nine minute hill basically. Um, but I was, you know, like the hill gets to be pretty, uh, the hill gets to be pretty steep. And I mean, I'm going like super slow, you know, like if I was to guess how fast it was going, um, I, I would definitely be probably between like four miles an hour and like 4.5, like it's not fast. Um, but it, it, it just felt right. felt right i was like i'm just gonna go by like what what is feeling okay because every once in a while like my hamstring will be weird or my groin will be weird or or i'll start to feel it a lot in my calves or i'll kind of feel my ankle

or achilles tendon or any of that kind of stuff so So again, I just really just, he's talking about these hops, it's all individual hops. And when I was on a straightaway, I was able to open up and that felt really good. And I was able to get my stride going, bring my knees up a little bit and get a nice healthy pace. But as I was going uphill and as I was running for that long, I was just like, just don't stop running, you know, just, just keep, just keep it going. And actually my heart rate was pretty moderate the whole time. I think it got up to about one 50 and it stayed between one 40 and one 50 the whole time. So I haven't been able to do anything like that ever before that I, that I remember, um, in my life and it just, it feels good. Um, but yeah, with running it's it's like um you know learning the form and the technique of it i think matters a lot more if you're going to start to try to

sprint um if you're going to start to do stuff timed you know i'm just not i'm not to that point at the moment to where i need to really worry a ton about it but i probably should look into some different kicks yeah yeah the the ultra running shoes that i have are super cushioning but man like those on a treadmill i'm just like floating on a cloud the whole time it feels so good like it's just my feet do not get fatigued or anything it's pretty awesome but after this conversation i i don't know i'm gonna probably try to just do it barefoot just to see how that goes. Because, I mean, it's only a treadmill. But even that will be uncomfortable.

You guys want to hit up a podcast tomorrow? I don't think we have anything scheduled at the moment. Yeah, sure. I can check. But, yeah, no, I'm down. No, wait. Tomorrow we have Mike Mutzel. Oh, yeah, we do. Oh, yeah. What time is that at? 12. Noon.utzel. Oh, yeah, we do.

Oh, yeah. What time is that at? 12. Noon. Oh, okay. I killed something on the wall during this podcast. I don't know if you guys saw. I was seeing this thing crawling down the wall and I was just like

tracking it. Cause it was like, you know, those big, those like fucking large things with long legs. It's like, I, I can't describe it, but it fucking, it fucked me up cause I was just like, God, do I just put my screen on just pause and kill this thing? Or do I just let it reappear somewhere? Then it reappeared. How about when people are like, don't kill that thing. It's a mosquito eater or whatever.

You ever hear someone, I know. I'm always like, no, that thing's gross. It's a spawn from hell. It's not. Yeah. No. Alrighty. Well, I guess I'll just close this thing out really quick before we go any further.

Thank you to Perfect Keto for sponsoring this episode. Please see the YouTube description and iTunes show notes for links. Whoa. Head over to perfectketo.com slash power25 at checkout. Enter promo code powerproject for 25% off your order of $99 or more. And on top of that, you'll receive free shipping. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter.

If you want to reach out to me, it's at, I am Andrew Z on Instagram and SEMA, where you be. And then SEMA in Yang on Instagram and YouTube and SEMA in Yang on Tik TOK and Twitter. Mark. What's up everybody.

I'm at Mark smelly bell and uh i posted up a video i think it went up today anyway there's a video up on my youtube channel uh discussing uh some new diet details basically it's uh kind of my old school war on carbs carbs with just a little bit of carbohydrates each day between like 75 and 100 grams through some fruit, potatoes, rice, things like that. But it's still kind of a meat based diet. So if you want to follow along and check that out, you can check out my Instagram, which is at Mark Smelly Bell, or you can check out my YouTube channel, which is at Mark Smelly Bell as well, or Mark Smelly Bell rather. And that's it. And don't forget to follow along with markbell.com as well. We got a lot of body weight workouts in there.

And we also have some home gym equipment workouts in there as well that you guys might find interesting and it is free. So go check all that stuff out. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch y'all later. Power Project. How do you not love Ross Edgley? That is definitely my newest man crush. Not even ashamed to admit it. But also, I'm in love with everybody that's been rating and reviewing the

podcast on iTunes. It helps us out a ton. Right now, we wanted to give a huge shout out to, this is a tough one, HHGGF356677, aka Kevin Pirri. We'll just go with Kevin P. Kevin says, see, I got to make another correction. Powercast is the best. Powerproject is the best. No hard feelings, though. Quote, what's up, MarkingCast? Just wanted to thank you for everything. All the amazing facts and discussion pieces you put out are great. No hard feelings, though. incredible content. I one day would love to have a podcast or even be able to reach my audience

like you guys do. As a teacher, coach, and father, thank you. That's from Kevin. And Kevin, yeah, you should be starting a podcast, especially right now. Everyone's listening or watching something at home. Reach out to me at IamAndrewZ on Instagram or at Andrew at MarkWellSlingshot.com. That's my email. And I will teach you how to start a podcast right now. Now's the best time as, as, as ever. And now is also a great time.

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