Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 456 - Do Supplements Work?

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Today we are talking all about fitness supplements. Do they work? Well yes, and we'll tell you which ones do and why. Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://drinklmnt.com/powerproject Purchase 3 boxes and receive one free, plus free shipping! No code required! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢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 ➢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 #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Element Electrolytes. And Seema, can you do me a favor? Can you tell these beautiful people why electrolytes are so important? All right. What's up, beautiful people of the Power Project? Let's talk for a second, okay? So we know that we need adequate nutrition for our performance. We also hear the buzzword adequate hydration. And when we think of hydration and when I used to think of hydration, I was like, drink a lot of water. Always have your gallon and a half of water a day. That's how you do it.

So I drink a lot of water and I'd cramp up during workouts. I'd be like, well, maybe I didn't eat enough food. What's going on here? This is not OK. But what was happening to me is I wasn't adequately hydrated in terms of my electrolytes. So I drink a lot of water, but that water just goes through your system. You sweat a lot. You get rid of a lot of sodium. You cramp up. That's how it goes. But Element,

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You need this stuff. He does sweat a lot. You guys can order your Element Electrolytes today by heading over to drinklmnt.com slash powerproject. Make sure you guys check out the value bundles because that's like getting four boxes for the price of three. On top of that, you get free shipping. Again, that's drinklmnt.com slash power project oh my god what are we talking about today sarms yeah sarms trend debo all the stuff your last cycle my last cycle i thought you said debo that was a joke oh debo debo before we get Debo, that was a joke. Okay. Got to clarify. So anyways. Debo.

I was just trying to roll right over it. Fuck you. Hey, did you guys see the clip that CT Fletcher posted? He posted a clip. I saw it on Twitter. I don't know if he posted it anywhere else. He posted a clip of a movie that he's in with Debo and CT is Mind Bullet Shot. Mind Bullet Shot.

Right to the dome. I already did mine, but salute. Yeah, CT was in a movie with, with Debo and he was Mr. T. And it was amazing. He comes like, CT Fletcher,

like as an actor is like the, the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. He comes busting through the door and he is like, talking about this, like profit and all this stuff and he's doing can you play some of it i can't you gotta see you gotta fucking watch this is amazing is this the one wait that's ct yeah yeah he's all jacked oh my god let me turn wow but he he was awesome like whatever the hell this is like i want to watch the whole thing

we're working on getting some of that audio going you know that's crazy though because when ct he's doing his fucking ct shit he kind of looks like mr t when he walks through the door it's crazy yeah he does right A bad motherfucker would appear upon the land. The sun would refuse to shine. And a darkness would fall upon the land. Today is the day. Prepare thyself. The Superfly is here. What's up?

My name is Superfly. With three 8-tracks, no chance. But everybody will make a donation this is unbelievable you guys got to see the uh video of this oh my god yeah you're good we're good that. I almost thought that was Sylvester Stallone real quick, but it wasn't. Oh, God. That next guy after Deebo. What movie? Like, this looks like

an old 80s parody. It looks incredible. I'll have to ask CT what the hell's going on with that. Oh, my gosh. I just thought this was pretty interesting. The guy wearing strong sleeves. Oh, nice. On a CT video? Mm-hmm.

Anyway. Yeah. Anyway, that was hilarious. But what happened to Devo? Anybody know? I don't know. Just heart attack or something? Maybe.

I mean, he can't be that old. I don't think so. I don't know. I didn't see what got him. Anyway. Too bad. Yeah. That sucks. Anyway, we're talking about in sema cycle shut the

hell up because people are gonna think you're being real you know i just got a i got a message the other day and uh a guy was like glad you took natty out of your name now i can uh watch your stuff without you being a fucking clown i was like god so aggressive just because i take it out of my name doesn't mean i'm not yeah let's read hateful quotes this morning yeah oh you got something yeah i've had a lot of people hating on me the last couple days was it because of your your birthday photo that you posted with the the undies did you get an influx that was so good it's my birthday fuck y'all so this is uh actually this is actually uh this was actually on my birthday too um but uh dick i actually think this is funny so uh rick bowman is the guy's name he

he posted this smoky sent me this oh this is good so rick good job because i i like when somebody when somebody you know throws some shit at you it's good when it's funny you know yeah uh he this sent me this. This is good. So Rick, good job. When somebody throws some shit at you, it's good when it's funny. Yeah. This is in reference to the bicep board. Oh, Lord. And he said, I hope you're not using the sales to make your house payment.

Otherwise, you'll be living in a box. I thought that was pretty good. It's witty. I was going to take a picture outside my house and be like, hey, here's my box. Sold a couple. Yeah, right.

But the internet always wins. Five boxes, I guess I got. Yeah. The internet always wins, though. I love the interaction we can get on a daily basis. It's awesome. Yeah, for the most part everybody that tunes into this show they're super awesome really but every once in a while yeah i'll get called an

egghead an egghead yeah this is why i wear hats this is why i wear hats because once y'all see the back of this head you don't you don't unsee it but no i was just like well but isn't like an egghead somebody who's smart, like did good in school? Like Andrew definitely didn't do that. And he's like, exactly. I'm like, well, then your first, you know, mess, whatever comment doesn't make sense. Yeah. So I guess I'm an egghead because I corrected his English.

I like eggs. I like eggs too. Our source of protein, right? Yeah. Great. I eat one every single day. Formally rated number one. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I eat you every day and go down on cereal then go down on cereal that's a reference to our last episode guys if you missed it it was great that was interesting choice of words i think you probably meant get down on no i meant go down on cereal you Oh, you literally meant... For me, cereal is a sexual thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. That's why I don't eat it anymore. It causes problems in the relationship. Can you picture him? He's like licking the

outside of the bowl. What in the hell's going on over there? I thought we talked about this. You said you weren't going to do it anymore. He's all like poking at it and stuff with his finger Hey now I guess the mind bullet kicked in anyway

It's been kicked in not it's good. Yeah, like that. Okay. Anyway, all right. Let's talk about some supplements today Yes, do they really do anything do they do they you tell us i don't know do they do anything like do they work that's like when something when you ask if something works is like a really it's a very interesting question because then you got to define like what does that mean for like work? You know, so like, I guess it does a pre-workout. Does pre-workout work? Yeah, I think it I think like does a cup of coffee in the morning work? Mm hmm.

I think it kind of works. It does. Yeah, definitely. Even even eating foods that are unhealthy, but extremely tasty like that. The problem is, is that it works and it works really well it satisfies the craving and it hits the dopamine receptors and you're like yeah that's what i was looking for um so i would say like pre-workout like a pre-workout works pretty good i personally don't i personally don't use pre-workout that often, although I will have like an energy drink here and there, which I guess is kind of the same thing.

Oh, yeah, caffeine. Yeah, it's caffeine. I never really got into, not too much anyway, some of the kind of crazier pre-workout type things like Redline and some of the powders. And I know some of my friends would, you know, scoop those up a bunch, but I mean, look, I guess if it's, if you're working out a little bit better because you had a pre-workout,

I think that that, I think that has some value. I also don't really love the reliance on stuff all the time. Yeah. And so like, if you forgot your pre-workout, you shouldn't feel like you have to fucking drive back home. Like that's ridiculous. You know, don't be such a't feel like you have to fucking drive back home. Like, that's ridiculous.

You know, don't be such a pussy, like, man up and get your shit done. And it shouldn't matter if there's music on. It shouldn't matter. You shouldn't need all these bunch of factors to go in and have a good training session, you know? Yeah. But I think pre-workout works pretty good. What do you think? I think it does.

So the big thing about pre-workout is the caffeine. But, like, when you mentioned pre-workoutout there's the way that i think about supplements now and then there's a way i was thinking about supplements when i was 16 17 18 um and i i was thinking back to that shit because i like this evolution is is funny because like i i talked about this with uh somebody when i was at a trade show one time and they were like do you find that you're starting to like take supplements for like your heart and your eyes and shit i'm like yeah dude i was like it's i'm like it's really depressing you know before i wanted to take shit for like i'm sitting there thinking about oh yeah my pancreas or whatever my fucking liver could use some support or whatever you know when i was younger i'm like i want this vein bursting

pumps or whatever the hell they're trying to sell you on. Yeah. No, but the thing is, like when I was younger, man, you'd hear about like whey protein. And I use that voice is because whey protein had that effect. Like you'd you think that when you start drinking more protein, you're going to grow. And same thing with pre-workout pre-workout supposed to help you work out longer and have vein bursting Pumps and all that type of stuff. I used to take a lot of pre-workout when I was younger And because again, it would get you all stimulated and shit. You think it's doing its job, right? Every single workout

It's doing its job higher doses of that pre-workout. It's doing its job. I just remember something really funny my buddy Brian When I started, you know taking protein I got I got it from Costco. job i just remember something really funny my buddy brian when i started you know taking protein i got i got it from costco i think it was something gold do you guys remember gold standard when i got my first optimum nutrition optimum nutrition gold standard with the red and gold label or whatever when i got my first tub of that stuff i was taking like dude i think the dosage was the whatever is 30 grams per scoop. I took like four scoops of that a day. Right.

And that was a time in my life when I wasn't paying much attention to my diet. Like I was just eating a lot. And then when you add in like 150 more grams of protein from whey protein, you're going to get like you're going to continue. Yeah. It just puts you in that in that surplus of calories. But I wasn't thinking in that way. OK, so I was like, yeah, I'm getting bigger. I'm getting stronger because of protein. And my buddy started using the same thing, gold standard. And he started getting

bigger too over time because he took like six or seven scoops along with making oatmeal and his shake and everything. And he was gaining weight. And I went to his house one day and his mom's like, and see, you need to tell brian to stop taking this he's getting big and mad because as he started like getting bigger he started like his aggression started building up so he's like yeah man i'm feeling all aggressive probably also because you guys are young you were young right it was just like it's so funny but all that we were doing was just eating more protein eating like an extra 600 calories from powder yeah and and shakes like yeah that that's all it was but like you attribute all of like all of that since you don't know what's going

on nutritionally you think it's the whey protein it's the badger milk you guys remember that from uh the animal rob schneider yeah oh man that's funny well i mean we'll get to creatine but i i remember hearing a lot about creatine and like the the side effects from that like oh just gonna add water to your muscles and well that was the most common one but i know somebody that said that it made them aggressive as well and i just thought it was i I'm like, no, it doesn't. Okay. But that's cool. But just, but yeah, that's the thing.

Just being on even pre-workout made me feel like more aggression. Cause like I go into the gym with aggression. Right. So when you take that pre-workout and it's like, you know, you shot it down because you're, you're, you're, you know, you're too hardcore to mix it with water, which is what I did. Right. I just take the pure scoop to the mouth with a little bit of water. I'd feel like, oh yeah, that's how this great workout.

But no, I'm just I'm caffeinated. Let's just first of all, make a blanket statement of nothing can replace good sleep. Good rest, trying to figure out ways of managing your stress levels. We talked about this a million times on the show, but like a great way to manage your stress levels is not to fall behind on stuff, you know, try to be prepared for stuff. And that alone will help you grow.

If you look at a lot of bodybuilders, not, it's not every bodybuilder across the board, but a lot of them are like mellow as fuck. And they're huge. They're super, they're super jacked. And a lot of it's probably because

they manage their stress uh getting good sleep and your food is is huge you know so even though we are talking today a lot about supplements um we're not saying that your supplement's going to replace your food they're in addition to your food it's supplemental it's something extra that you're going to take exactly but that's that's the thing with subs like when you're when you're starting out you put more weight on what you're going to get from that supplement than the amount of food you intake the amount of protein intake each day the amount of sleep that you get each night to be able to fuel your consistent workouts that you should be doing consistently over a long period of time. Get four hours of sleep, but then you take a pre-workout.

Pre-workout, bro. Like take that pre-workout, get in the gym, go hard, maybe get a double day in, sleep four hours the next night. But, but yeah, um, I think though, like as I, as I got older, I started understanding more about first off nutrition. I started continuing to be consistent in what I was doing. And then I realized that the pre-workout really wasn't doing much of anything. Personally,

the BCAAs weren't doing much of anything. Every like all of those things, I gave them a lot of importance because I needed to, I needed something kind of to give me some, uh, motivation. If anything, taking that protein motivated me to continue on my habits to continue to work out over time. Um, but the real thing that protein did, and I think whey protein is great if we're going to talk about a supplement, but the thing that it does is it allows you to easily get

in the amount of protein you need to be able to gain muscle over time because it doesn't fill you up really like like you could still eat a meal if you're trying to get in 250 grams of protein each day through purely meat you can do it but you're going to be feeling kind of full each day and you're gonna have a little bit of gastric distress right i love i love protein shakes i've been drinking protein shakes for probably 25 years or whatever. You've been drinking two. Yeah. Two a day,

two a day, every day, forever. As long as I can remember, sometimes I have more. Yeah. Um, yeah,

I always enjoyed, uh, protein shakes. I think, um, having thing, having things that make staying on plan and on point easier is really important.

So like, what do I like about a protein shake? Well, one it's, it's towards my goals. It has usually has hardly any fat in it. Usually doesn't have any carbohydrates in it. It's mainly just protein.

Sometimes I'll mix it with stuff that has other things in it or whatever. But yeah, for the most part, it's a low calorie, high protein. And I like the taste of it like i and i enjoy them i like even i'm so weird about i've been doing it for so long that i'm i'll make all different kinds of shakes like i make different flavored ones and different types and put different combinations in

like i got like collagen i got casein i'm you know, mixing shit up and it's just, it gives me something to do. You know, I don't, I don't drink alcohol. I don't smoke weed. I don't do like a bunch of other extracurricular activities. I don't really care to be at like a party. Like I love to lift, you know, I love fitness. I that's, I'm kind of boring, you know, I'm pretty straight when it comes to that, a lot

of that stuff. And, uh, for me, it's like's like, it's part of a hobby. The whole thing is part of a hobby, like, you know, going into my pantry and like, you know, grabbing the supplements or whatever. I, I usually have some sort of supplement with almost every meal, whether it's fish oil or vitamin D or whatever the hell it is that I'm kind of reaching for. But back to the protein shakes for a minute, I have found that protein shakes have been, I feel that they've worked for me.

I feel that they've helped me to manage my muscle mass over a long period of time. I don't know that for a fact. Like if I was, if you're like, hey man, no protein shakes for a couple of weeks, I'd probably just be like mad that I can't drink them. But everybody in here wouldn't be like, dude, man, like you look like shit. You're not having any. So do they do anything? They they help me stay on point, as you mentioned.

They help me get my protein requirements. If you actually go and like go and do some some research you know go ahead and google whey protein and start to look it up and when you look it up you'll be actually shocked and surprised at how much research there is behind whey protein they oftentimes say that creatine is like the number one most researched one and that's the supplement that you need and i disagree i'd put whey protein above that any day of the week and because because I think protein is just that essential and most, almost everybody can use more of it. So,

you know, do a little research and check out some of the information on protein, but whey protein back in the day, they used to have like a rating to protein and they had whey protein as was like 110 eggs were like 90 something. And beef came in behind that in terms of your ability, your body's ability to assimilate this whey protein or proteins, period. And I think that a lot of times when people think about whey protein, they're like, oh, well, it's just in a drink, and there's no way it can be even close to being nearly as effective as food.

And again, we said in the beginning, we're not trying to replace your food. This is in addition to your food. I think it has its place. Lastly, I'll finish with this statement is that people make such a big deal about what protein does what, like the casein does this and this one does this. I don't have casein protein because it digests slower. I just it has a different texture and a slightly different flavor. And I mix the two together sometimes. So sometimes I mix the hydrolyzed slingshot protein with a I think it's dimetized is the one I use.

Casein protein just has a different flavor profile. So I mix them together a little bit. Yeah. But I just, you know, I enjoy it. has a different flavor profile so i mix them together a little bit yeah um but i just you know i i enjoy it and i think when people are talking about like whether the whey protein spikes your your glucose levels and or your insulin levels and all this stuff it might but also i would say when you have your protein shake i don't think it's a great idea to just down the damn thing um i you know i don't think it's a good

idea just to like drink it within five seconds like take your time with it because it does digest quickly and i don't think the human body is really designed great to take in like large amounts of liquid sugar or large amounts of liquid protein and stuff like that so just enjoy the drink take your time with it i actually a lot of times will take like 15, 20 minutes, almost like a big old thing of coffee. Like you got there. You've been working on this coffee for like two hours, basically. Dude, I'm jittery as hell.

This is a French freaking cold brew. I am shaking a little bit. Yeah. So I'm, I'm a huge fan. I love whey protein. Yeah. One thing I'll say is it's funny when I was younger, um, casein thing too. Like I used to take some casein protein and I think,

um, what is it? There's, um, a yogurt that naturally has more casein. What was it again? You, it's,

uh, I know yogurt and cottage cheese, cottage cheese, cottage cheese, cottage cheese. Actually, like I would have my casein protein shake and cottage cheese before bed because of the slower digestion these are all the things and but but again it comes back to the

idea that when you spend the money to buy a protein shake or to buy casein protein in your head you have this feeling that it's doing all these things that naturally what happens is that it you helps you stay in line with the big things that matter, which is making sure that you get enough sleep, making sure that you're getting in your workouts consistently over days, weeks, years, that gets you bigger. It's not the protein shake that got you bigger getting in the protein help. Yeah. But it's not mainly because you drank that protein shake right again all of these things can be done with food but these things will help you stay in line with your goals pre-workout

is like it's like pre-workout's like a trigger you have your pre-workout i'm gonna go fucking work out right now get this pump right it's it's a trigger like with any type of habit you have this thing that you do before you start something else. And you bought something that you're going to take before you work out. So that implies that you're going to be training, right? I mean, it implies that you're going to be doing something. Just a little thing on any of these things. First of all, whey protein.

Don't go ingesting tons of it when you haven't tried it. You know what I mean? That's going to mess with your stomach and everything else, right? Find ones that work for you. I hear people a lot of times like, I tried protein and it just made me fart or whatever. Find ones that maybe are low in lactose or gluten-free. Like there's so many options. And then with your pre-workout, be careful that it's not negatively impacting your sleep.

And then with your pre-workout, be careful that it's not negatively impacting your sleep. Because again, we have to always go back to, we have sleep and food at the top of this food chain, and we want to make sure that we keep that that way. So don't do shit that interrupts your sleep. Don't do a bunch of, don't take so many supplements, they hurt your stomach or whatever, and they prevent you from eating food. Just start to get into some territory that gets to be a little ridiculous. I have a question for you. How has your, your, your supplement use?

Cause like my supplement use has really transformed over the years in terms of like the things that I used to think are important. Like I used to have a jug of BCAAs or gallon BCAAs with some water. And I'd carry that around with me all the time. I'd always have my pre-workout before working out I'd have my protein I'd have my creatine and now I still take some of those things but the reason why I take them has totally changed and my amount of importance I put behind those changed so what is something that like because I used to think BCAs were like the huge what is something that you used to take that maybe you don't take anymore and

you found something else that actually does what that job is. Yeah. I'm kind of forever, you know, dropping stuff and then bringing new stuff in. And then I've, as I bring new stuff in, I have to,

you know, drop out. I mean, I don't want to take like a thousand pills a day or, or anything like that. I don't want it to be too crazy or over the top. I would say one of the biggest changes over the last couple of years is electrolytes. I just didn't really know a ton about them. I didn't know.

I remember my mom telling me about them actually, cause she was like, you know, if you're going to exercise and you'd be doing this stuff, you're going to need electrolytes. Yeah. So Gatorade. And then she was always like, she'd always just say the word electrolytes. I don't know if she got it from the Gatorade commercials or what, but she would always, instead of saying Gatorade, she'd say electrolytes. So she was always onto something, but I didn't know much about them. I didn't know really the connection. I didn't know even what electrolytes were um but they're

they are so effective i mean these there are certain things that we could sit here and say oh you know you know andrew you should add a b vitamin complex uh to your to your daily routine because you don't really love eating beef that much and if you added vitamin b it might give you an energy boost. Vitamin B is in every single energy drink that you can think of pretty much. And vitamin B also doesn't really have a lot of negative side effects. You can take like large, large amounts of it without any like real negative impact. So there's a bunch of reasons to take it.

But yeah, electrolytes have been something that was a real game changer, adding in some salt and potassium, like trying to figure out like where do you even get potassium from? Like, how do I get some of that into my diet? Because taking so sometimes taking a supplement, this is really important to know. A lot of times taking a supplement doesn't do what you want it to do as if you got it from food. So like I think it's like vitamin K comes from can come from like kale. Well, if you take like vitamin D and vitamin K in a supplement and vitamin D comes from the sun. It's more impactful to do those things naturally as much as possible.

However, I think that a mixture of the two, which then there's not a lot of great research on that, I think would make a lot of sense as well. So like I could take a bunch of vitamin D and I can go and get a test done and my vitamin D levels will be high because I've been supplementing a lot of vitamin D, but it's not the same in your system. Like the human body is a real bastard and it's really smart. It's really hard to trick it.

And so even though I'll record a high vitamin D level, I didn't go on that journey myself to get the vitamin D from the sun the way I needed to. And I don't think they currently know what the major difference is there. Cause it's like, it does show up in your blood. Anyway, the point is is any opportunity you have to get any of this stuff through food, you want to always try to take that opportunity first and just realize the supplements are the supplements.

But yeah, I think the electrolytes have been probably the biggest, the biggest change. And I look at supplements way differently. I'm, you know, I've taken, you know know everything you can think of pretty much over the years creatine you know back when it was first created and then they started throwing creatine in with sugar like carbohydrates you know for like intra workout post-workout uh or maybe even yeah intra workout type stuff cell uh, made that product. And then, uh, that dear cell tech. Yeah. Right. And then,

and then there was, uh, uh, let's see. EAS had, um, had creatine. Bill Phillips was one of the first,

we're going to have Michael Zampano on the show coming up. And he is actually the first person to ever have creatine in, in any product. Um, and he'll be on the show to ever have creatine in any product. Um, and he'll be on the show pretty soon. I think sometime in January. So that'll be really cool to hear his story. But yeah,

I've tried all these different things. There was something called phosphagen, which was like a protein powder that had creatine in it. It was like a meal replacement type of thing. Yeah. And then like, and then the shit got weird. They just started making all these kinds of weird things.

They made phospho gems, phospho gems were like candy that had creatine coated with like, you know, you know, the like vitamin D and some of the gummies that you can get, right. That tastes amazing. And you eat them.

You don't know anything about it. You eat the whole entire thing. It's like, it's like charcuterie. It's the charcuterie of vitamins but yeah I've tried so many I've you know played around with all these different things and over the years you just learn like okay well that

doesn't seem to really do much for me I'm going to stop wasting my money yeah but there are staples that have been around forever like fish oil I haven, like fish oil. I haven't taken fish oil consistently forever, but I seem to always buy it again at some point and bring it back into the diet. Amino acids have been a huge part. I take essential amino acids.

I used to take branch chain amino acids. acids. I used to take branch chain amino acids. Essential amino acids just have more of a few different amino acids other than just the three or four that are from branch chain amino acids. That's like essential amino acids. Do you like, if someone wants to go look that up, do they just type in essential amino acids and just get a complex supplement? Absolutely. Yeah. It's just EAAsa's you know essential amino acids and uh yeah you can tony huge sells them uh that's that's the product that i use i think it's called anabolic iv um advanced athlete uh enhanced oh enhanced enhanced athlete there you go oh bunny it doesn't come with any ladyboys or anything like that. Oh, we went there. Not yet.

Well, maybe if you buy it in Thailand, it comes with a side of lady. Can you finish it? But some of these things that have, have, uh, kind of stood the test of time with me are just things that I think are

valuable to my workouts. But again, like, do I really think they do anything like nothing drastic? Like if I, if I had the essential amino acids in my plan for a while and then I just dropped it, you wouldn't be like, man, like your shoulders are disappearing, bro. What's going on with your arms? Look, I'm looking all flabby and scrawny. I mean, so, you know, they they they make me feel better about what i'm doing exactly you know and it's

an it's an investment you put that money in there you and you invest in it and you're like this is what i'm doing that's that that's generally what they do you know you know like you were mentioning something really cool about vitamin d and by the way guys i know we're hopping all over the place, but vitamin D is super useful to take. It's really good for your overall health. But this is the thing, like when you think of getting into the sun and getting your vitamin D from the sun, like, yeah, you get vitamin D. But it also has the effects of, you know, after you wake up in the morning, you get some sun, your melatonin naturally starts going down. And it affects your circadian rhythm, right? Which is your sleep and waking cycles. If you're sitting in all day and you don't get that sun, not getting that sun is going to have an effect on your sleep and your quality sleep, which helps your recovery in terms of working

out, right? So you could be supplementing all this vitamin D, but if you're not going outside, your sleep is still going to be messed up, which means your recovery isn't going to be ideal which means you're not going to be whether you're trying to lose fat or gain muscle over time that is going to be drastically affected also what's going to be affected your your your hunger levels all of that just because partially you didn't go out and maybe get some sun even though you have these high vitamin d levels right so that's like a great example of how you could be supplementing something so much, but if you're not doing the thing that allows you to get it from nature, being vitamin D or going out into the sun, it could actually,

it doesn't do the same thing. I think they believe that people of color need more vitamin D because, because your skin is already kind of like, uh, it makes it harder to absorb vitamin. Right. Right. Right. Like the,

the melanin, the skin makes vitamin D absorption harder, which is why, um, when people talk about, but when like you see the upticks of coronavirus in certain areas, in terms of people of color, it's partially because being locked down doesn't allow you to get a lot of sun.

You're not even supplementing vitamin D at that point, which messes with your immunity, which increases your chances of contracting that. Like it's, it's a, it's a nasty effect, but going back to what you're saying there. Um,

yeah, like that's why it is super useful to try to get these things also from food, but supplementing them too. Um, I think one thing that, you know, you mentioned electrolytes, um, and electrolytes is one of them too. I think one thing that, you know, you mentioned electrolytes. Electrolytes is one of those supplements that I think a lot of people don't take them because

they're not like a pre-workout. That's why pre-workout is so effective, man. I got to stop you just for a second. I like what you said right there. You have to understand almost every single supplement that you take, I can't even think of any. Well,'t even think of any, well, I just knocked the one over,

I guess. Almost all supplements you'll never feel right. Like unless it has like a tingly thing or whatever, like that makes your skin red or whatever, before you, before you work, there are some things like that that do that. Right.

And there's, um, there's caffeine and there's things that can get you like, you know, wired and fight alanine that makes you itch. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

You'll feel, feel that kratom is another one. You'll, you'll like feel it, but you're not going to really feel vitamin C. Yeah. There's no field of creatine. You may over time when you take creatine,

you might feel a pump when you work out, but you're not going to really be like, I took my creatine, like, and you're not going to really feel anything. So that's important to know. Yeah. And that's that's the big thing.

It's like I think that a lot of these supplements that end up actually being the most useful for your performance over time are the supplements that I always find people say, yeah, I'm not taking that anymore. Or I forgot to take it because you don't necessarily feel your skin itch or you don't like after I drink this coffee, I'm so uncomfortably wired. You know, you don't feel that. So you don't think it's doing much. You don't take it over time. But like electrolytes, the main thing that I felt when I started taking them and I don't think I didn't notice this as much when I was only lifting. But when I started taking electrolytes along with doing ju jujitsu which is a high cardiovascular intensive workout um and you sweat a lot i sweat a fuck ton my gi is drenched uh but often i would get cramps or my calf would cramp a little bit or it starts if my endurance wouldn't

be as good when i started taking electrolytes um i don't cramp at all. Like literally I don't cramp at all. The main reason I was cramping before was partial dehydration, but I also wasn't getting enough potassium in prior to working out. Right. Sodium also helps with hydration massively. And I felt that effect immediately where I was like, fuck, this actually is a literal performance enhancing supplement like caffeine is super useful for performance um but like uh electrolytes are extremely useful in

that realm too but the thing is is like again you don't feel it necessarily you only feel the things that don't happen so i noticed i don't cramp, but why am I like that? That is pretty huge. Especially if you're lifting in the gym, you'll be able to get in, get out more reps, more sets, et cetera, before fatiguing because of that. So that's why like nowadays that is one of my staple supplements. Um, I think another thing that also lies within that realm of actually being really performance enhancing, but being boring is creatine. And I know like you said, you don't I don't know. You didn't say you don't take it much or anything, but you don't. I just said you might not feel it.

Yeah, exactly. You won't feel it. But creatine has been it's one of those one of the most researched supplements on the market. And I think it's something that every single athlete that does training in the gym should take, um, because it really does, especially if you're an athlete in the gym, it really does increase your performance. You'll be able to get out more reps, et cetera, because you're more hydrated too. Uh, but it's not one of those, it's not, it's not sexy. You don't feel it. So that's why like, I always hear lifters be like, oh yeah, I forgot my creatine or I haven't taken that in a few months just because it's not sexy. You don't feel it. So that's why like, I always hear lifters be like, oh yeah, I forgot my creatine or I haven't taken that in a few months just because it's like not one of those things that you immediately feel, but it's super effective. I like, I forget to

take my creatine sometimes, but I know, like, I know the effect that does have on my performance. So, and it's cheap too. It's not like, like whey protein is kind of expensive, but creatine, you can get like a barrel of that stuff. That'll last you two months for 30 bucks on amazon i think that might also be a reason i think that's also a reason why people forget about it it's cheap right when you don't put in 70 into a bottle of something you'll forget to take it right right yeah yeah it's just sitting there i think what you brought up about the cramping is, is really important because like you're already a high level athlete. You've done bodybuilding, you've done powerlifting and then you,

you know, more recently over the last four or five years have taken up to Jitsu. You already eat very healthy, especially over the last two years, even aside from just the flat out bodybuilding stuff. I think when you're powerlifting, you had more wiggle room with your food. Yeah. To say the least.

I mean, all your, all your like boxes are checked, you know, and for you to have cramps, it just goes to show you that sometimes you kind of quote unquote, like need a supplement. Yeah. You definitely don't lack the ability to to eat. I've seen you eat before. You can pound some food.

And so, like, you know, here's a guy who's doing all the right stuff and still ended up with cramps here and there. And then you take a supplement and it kind of pulls you out of that. I think that's huge. And I know a lot of people that suffer from when they get on kind of a ketogenic style diet or lower carb or they start implementing intermittent fasting, they run into cramping, they run into feeling like lightheaded. These are all things that can be solved by just simply taking in some electrolytes. And we have our product that sponsors the podcast element.

Shout out to them. They, they make a great product. It tastes good. It provides you with the vitamin or the minerals that you need to, to be able to still kick ass in your workout. And you'll be shocked. I think a lot of people, they, they take them for granted, you know, and the same thing could be true with creatine where it's just like, oh, that's an old supplement.

It's not fancy or sexy anymore. No one's talking about it. So, you know, why bother? But I think, you know, creatine can can kind of help get some volume, get some water kind of like into the muscles and help kind of pump you up. And some of the research suggests that it can help you contract a little bit harder so you can potentially be a little stronger. I think there's actually more information now about creatine being like a nootropic as well.

So there's a lot of great information about creatine. Again, you know, don't just take our word for it. I think it's a good idea for you guys to, you know, research some of this stuff, look some of this stuff up that you hear from us today. Yeah. And be wary of like some of the marketing tactics. So like if it's a, it's creatine,

this is the creatine you feel because they will put the beta alanine or whatever that makes your skin feel like it's on fire, which I really don't like that feeling. Me neither. I never did. I don't get it. Like some people say it makes, it's kind of just like that,

that trigger that you said, it's like, Oh, now it's, it's go time. Like that tingly, you know, like, I don't get it. Like some people say it makes, it's kind of just like that, that trigger that you said, it's like, oh, now it's, it's go time. Like that tingly, you know, like, I don't know. Yeah. I don't dig it, but yeah, I've heard of people say like, oh, this didn't work for me. I didn't feel anything, but this one did. It's like, well, yeah, it's full of, you know, like 200 milligrams of caffeine.

Of course you're going to fill that one. Yeah. You know? But yeah, I love everything about this conversation because dude, like supplements are so much fun. You know what you were talking about? Like, oh, I would have casein that night. That's a key word right there. They're fun. Yeah. You know, but yeah, I love everything about this conversation because dude, like supplements are so much fun. You know what you were talking about? Like, oh, I would have casing that night. That's a key word right there. Fun.

Yeah. They're kind of fun. It's fun to get into them. Cause you're kind of like, uh, if you're building a car, like I want to see what happens if I put a, you know, intake and exhaust on it. You know, it's like, okay, it sounds cool, but it's maybe not that much faster. Let me see if I do this to it. And you start adding things.

That's kind of how I feel like with supplements. You can kind of manipulate, not manipulate, but you know, like you said, with the casing, good timing. Okay. I'm going to have this before I go to bed. And then when I wake up, I'm going to have electrolytes. See how that feels. Okay, dude, I feel awesome.

I'm going to try that again. I'm going to try that pre-workout now. And it's like, okay, should that pre-workout was a little bit too rough. But if I try this, you know, it's, it's just a lot of fun. And like you guys said, you invest a little bit of money into something and you're investing in yourself you'll take it that much more serious it's just like you know when you're when you you uh let's say you start power lifting or you uh get into bodybuilding or whatever bodybuilders have these shoes that i never really understood by the way um but if you're a bodybuilder there's these flat shoes and their shoes, they have, they're these high shoes, whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought you said issues. And I'm like, yeah, issues. Sorry. Weird shoes. Yeah. Atomics.

I think they are. But like when you're a bodybuilder that gets yourself a pair of atomics, I'm about to get some atomic, you're a fucking bodybuilder. When you're, when you're tying your atomics up, you're getting ready to go into the gym. You're like, yeah, right. I feel like high green. Yeah. Yeah. Like I need this shit exactly and that's what i feel like supplements are like to an extent but like i said electrolytes actually effective creatine monohydrate actually effective protein whey protein these shoes actually yeah there we are yeah honestly i never get that and get like a boat neck shirt and you're good to go right

fanny pack some baggy uh oh god and that's omics i'm sorry like man i don't i never like the way those look i've been trying to figure out where i could find these shoes for the past year they automatically make you a bodybuilder they really do they really do these are sick oh god yeah we gotta get tom a pair now that he competed in his first show can you wear these is that a pump is that a pump on it no way i think it's just it's just a big tongue yeah yeah it's got just like a nice little like uh patch on there i love how they call those things tongue right and weird right it is weird very odd but um yeah come on website yeah so i think what we're you know for me personally over the years how my the way i look at supplements has changed is uh like they helped me in the beginning to to stay harder with like everything that I was doing in terms of lifting. But now when I look at supplements, I look at them in the way that like, I, even if I

didn't have these or I wasn't taking these, I'd still be working out every single, I'd still be doing jujitsu or lifting every single day. Like no matter what, because that habit's ingrained. I don't need those things. I think that one thing that people should get out of this conversation is that no matter what you're trying to do, understand that you can do them without. Like everything, like you mentioned, is within you. All of these, all of those goals are within you. You can do all those things without them.

their supplements they then lose their like their vitality and their their willingness to want to go to the gym or to want to work out or to want to work out hard because i didn't take my pre-workout today or i'm out of it or all this type of stuff and it takes them out of that whereas that shit doesn't really matter it's all the work you're about to do that's what's going to have the big effect and that's what you got to fall in love with yeah uh what about supplements that actually don't do shit there's a big old long ass yeah well i would say that a lot of the so you mentioned marketing you know and and something that was that i learned over the years is usually the more something is marketed to you usually the worse off the product is like the worst off it is for you type of thing like McDonald's.

And it's not always the case. But a lot of times it is the case is that the things that are marketed to you a lot. So when you start to see these supplements that are marketed to you real heavily for like bodybuilding, you know, you know, fat burners and stuff like that. I'm not going to say that they do. They do zero, but the only reason why they really work is what in SEMA already mentioned is that you take the fat burner in the morning and then you go do fasted cardio.

You know, like you have this cascade of disciplines that are surrounding you spending 40 bucks on this fat burner or whatever it is. And those are the things that are getting you in shape. And yes, it might suppress the appetite a little bit. It might have a couple of things in there that give you a little bit of assistance,

but the supplements are just to kind of like, just, just give you a little bump, just push you along. We mentioned the electrolytes. I think are a great example, even though they're those electrolytes are just like extremely powerful and effective it kind of just uh fits in like a missing piece of the puzzle that sometimes you otherwise you know you you might have a piece of the puzzle but doesn't fit in there exactly the

way that it should you know you just jam them you jam them in there and kind of get over with what it fits yeah yeah we're good right and and you you need all the pieces of the puzzle to be together if you want to have the highest and best performance possible right and so for us that's kind of what we're talking about it's like how do we you know how do we really push forward the best but you're not going to get that only from a supplement you have to have so many other pieces of the puzzle. This is just going to be one small piece that might assist you a little bit. Yeah. And then probably if something's saying like, get the same amount of shredded in like half

the time. Like that's kind of like the marketing thing you're talking about, right, Mark? Like if they're just like way over the top. Yeah. Shredded or getting big. You know, I remember seeing ads where it would say like a product would help you like get stronger by like 400 i think even i think even on it which i'm a huge fan of on it i have a lot of respect for that company and i have friends in that company and stuff but they had

like maybe it was like the shroom tech or whatever just some crazy percentage associated with what it was going to do for you i'm like man like, man, like who did that study? Like the only part, the only people that did that study was obviously them, you know, and no one else has ever reported. They increased their, their strength on something by 300% from taking a supplement. I mean, you don't even get that from steroids. Yeah. It's, it's very easy to fall into that trap i like it's because i fell into those

traps when i was younger too like those marketing traps you really start to uh you really start to um now the one thing that i was going to say the one thing that's super important is creatine monohydrate like when you're in a supplement shop sometimes that they try to tell you like oh you need to take this creatine nitrate or something or whatever, creatine, et cetera. I don't know, like other forms of creatine. But really, the only creatine that you need to take is creatine monohydrate powder. Like literally, you don't need any other additives. If you get a creatine and something else is on the bottle you need to make sure that it says purely just

creatine monohydrate and seem is going through all those poses but like yeah like seriously um you could get on like on amazon super cheap creatine monohydrate powder nothing else in it we're in a video on posing have i done a video on posing like instructional no with people i work with like yeah we're gonna do one. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We're going to do one.

Cool. I know all the mandatories are very easy. Yeah. You're just going right through it. You're going right through it in sleep. Yeah. Well, yeah. Really in-depth explanation of monohydrate or creatine monohydrate.

Yeah. And then as far as like, we've been hearing BCAs don't do anything. Like, oh, they're nothing. But what if that helps you drink a gallon of water a day or whatever? Yeah. Like, does it work then? Like, it seems like it would make sense to me. Okay.

So this is the thing, man. BCAs don't do nothing. They are, they do, they do stuff. They're useful. Flavor. Why? Um, no, no, no. Like the branch chains do have a beneficial effect for people

trying to gain muscle they do but i don't take them just because i find that that effect is so minimal and i'm already eating and i'm getting enough food and my nutrition is good enough i don't it doesn't have the effect that i'm looking for you know so it's not like these do nothing it's just they don't do as much as people say they do well you eat a lot of protein yeah and you eat a lot of variations of protein yeah you eat i believe you eat like meat and dairy and vegetables and a bunch of i mean you're getting protein from every which way so like if you didn't get so if you were going to do a bodybuilding show and you were start to really reduce your calories and really reduce the overall amount of food, you might

be like, Hey, it would probably be smart for me to get some branch chains. Cause I had to lower my calories and like, I don't know what's going on. Like I'm fairly quote unquote, like catabolic and maybe this will assist. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's worth it just to see like like, if it's going to, you know, have much of a positive impact, but it's so hard to know if any of this stuff is working. Yeah. And even research and, and studies and tests and stuff that they do, it's just so hard to, how is that? How does that apply to you?

You know, when they test, you know, college kids who eat like shit, because these are the people that do these tests a lot of times because they can make money on it. Yeah. How does that apply to you, you know, in your life? I mean, maybe you eat way worse than them or maybe you eat way better than them. Maybe you have seven kids and you have a nine to five. I mean, it's like there's so many other factors that, that come up. And I,

and I agree, like I've been taking amino acids for, you know, Charles Poliquin talked about branch chain amino acids, probably in like maybe like the late nineties or early two thousands. Yeah. Early two thousands. And they were on the map for me.

I was like, all right, well, I'm going to take them. And back then they didn't have, they didn't have powdered form. So I was just taking capsules and i was i would take it like during my workout and i drank water with it it was just horrible yeah it was not a not a smart not just not my smartest move but uh you know it's supposed to help with uh you know protein

synthesis and supposed to help you to recover from your workout a little bit. So I just have pretty much always kept them in. I don't think I've taken them straight through since that time. But anytime I have an opportunity to grab some, I pick some up and I utilize it. And I don't one thing I'll say is that I I know that they work for me in this sense is that. It is drinking water during a workout. It does have electrolytes in it.

Almost all, almost most, almost the brands do. And the anabolic IV, like I mentioned earlier, that has electrolytes in it. That's going to get that, that feels like, I don't know if it's the essential amino acids or if it's the drinking of

water, I don't know what it is, but I literally feel like I'm getting a little extra push and I feel it could be, uh, it could be a placebo effect, but it doesn't really matter what the effect is. There isn't, there's an effect and it helps me to push through that second half of the workout when you're kind of just like, ah, I'd rather go home, eat some food. Yeah, man. You know, that's, you mentioned something there though. Like we've, we've mentioned this a few times throughout this episode, but the feeling you get, right. Fat burners. I think those fat burners are there. They're really not that beneficial. They don't really do much of anything. Uh, you eat less food and being a caloric deficit do that over a long period of time and you know make the right food choices you're gonna lose

body fat you don't need fat burners for that but what what is the ingredient guys that they put in most fat burners that makes you feel like it's working is it that yo ham bean or yo something or is that just another sometimes that's in there sometimes that's in there's usually caffeine in there it's usually caffeine you feel caffeine and when you feel that caffeine a few maybe 15 minutes after you take your fat burner you're gonna feel like the fat burning is going on and you're hungry right you have caffeine in your system and you're hungry like yeah fuck yeah i'm burning tons of fat right now yeah so i feel it i think here we go another supplement that i think we've talked about we haven't mentioned caffeine is super beneficial.

Yeah. Like caffeine actually does research on it. Caffeine actually does have a real effect on fat loss over time. Not an effect that can outmaneuver a bad diet. You can't take caffeine, be eating like shit and still expect to burn fat but if you take caffeine along with you know doing the things you need to do in terms of your diet training and sleep over time that it can aid you because number one caffeine is an appetite suppressant so if it helps you eat a little bit less food and have less cravings for bad food what's that going to do over time you're

going to burn more fat um it's appetite suppressant it actually like you feel like you can do more it actually increases like you increases your ability to do more and have more energy in a segmented amount of time so if you have a little bit of caffeine before you go have a workout you have a little bit more energy maybe you'll do more and train harder in that session and multiple sessions which helps fat loss over time. Right. So do I have something in my left nostril, man? I feel really good. You know, for, for myself, I think, uh, you know, some supplements that I feel like they have been beneficial.

Um, we talked about whey protein earlier. Um, I take collagen, although I don't know't know like i don't i haven't noticed a difference uh in anything but i do think it has helped me a little bit with like digestion and things like that really that's just uh some speculation of mine i guess okay um and uh some other things i've taken that i like, we mentioned vitamin D earlier. So yeah, whey protein, collagen, vitamin D, and then if I was to have, I guess, a top five and had

two more in there, I guess I would say I'd take magnesium and I'd take zinc and then I guess there would be one more vitamin B. I'd take a vitamin B complex. And if you're looking for a good brand, like there's,

there's a lot of good brands out there and you can spend all kinds of crazy money and get some from some really like high end supplement companies. And they're most of the, most of the ones that are like high ends are, they're more like vitamin and mineral based than they are like supplement based even though these are supplements because they're things that you're taking to supplement your diet these are things that could be found in food um but one company i like a lot is it's called jero j-a-r-r-o-w they've been around forever oh wow okay i don't think they do any marketing or anything they just they've been around for 10,000 years or whatever. And they, they make, uh, they just been known for quality products.

And, uh, so I, I usually, I usually use stuff from them, but, um, oh, also too, I forgot to mention that my vitamin D it has vitamin K in it as well. So I take the combo cause they're supposed to absorb better. Vitamin D is fat soluble. So they're supposed to absorb better. Vitamin D is fat soluble. So you're supposed to take it. You know, it helps if I guess it's supposed to help the absorption if you take it with a fatty meal. I don't know how much of a difference that makes. But vitamin A, D, E and K are all kind of fat soluble.

And sometimes some people even say that taking all of them together makes it more effective. Yeah. No, like taking vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 helps with your vitamin D absorption. So it's super beneficial to take that with vitamin D. And I think with calcium absorption even. Yep. Yep.

So, yeah, that's super beneficial to take. In terms of my top supplements, right, that I currently take, protein, electrolytes uh creatine monohydrate i think the biggest ones in terms of my performance are the electrolytes and creatine monohydrate um i take vitamin d and k2 i'm putting that as like one supplement on its own i take another supplement calcium magnesium zinc but i just take that because I'm in the habit of taking it, not because I feel anything. I have some fish oil that I take along with that. And I think that's those are the things I had to take. Right.

But yeah. So in essence, I think the biggest things in terms of performance, like I said, are the electrolytes and the creatine. And that's it if you're disgusted by fish oil because fish oil even when you take it like capsule form can make you burp and then there's like cod liver oil and some other weird oils and they're all kind of they're all kind of gross they try to mask with like lemon flavor and stuff the option number one is if you have capsules you could put them in the freezer and for me that has helped get rid of like the fish burps or whatever. Some people say it has to do with the quality.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the I'm not sure if the quality or the price tag makes any difference on whether you're going to burp them up or not. But there is a company and I forget it might be like Barleen's or something. It's called they make like a they make like a sounds disgusting, but they make like a smoothie type of thing. And they have like an orange creamsicle flavored one fucking tastes awesome. You don't notice any there's no fish flavor in there whatsoever. So people that are like, oh, like that shit's gross.

That might be a good option for you. Just probably look it up on, you probably Google it or look it up on Amazon. Yeah. I would say the only supplement that I take on a regular basis that you guys haven't already mentioned is a boron or yeah, that's how you pronounce it. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And I actually only take it because Mark said somebody told him to take it. And so yeah, it can increase your, uh, your, your, uh,

testosterone. Yeah. Yeah. Does it really do that in a substantial amount? It's not in some sort of huge way, but it supposedly increases your free testosterone. And it's really, really cheap. Yeah, it's super cheap. I got a two-pack from Amazon, and it's going to last me forever. Yeah, I think you only need to take

like five ten milligrams a day or something yeah because the majority of it comes from like if you have a healthy diet where you eat a lot of steak you're gonna get a lot of it from like your your diet but if you can add a little bit more to get up to like where mark said like 10 to 12 milligrams a day like it's super easy with one tiny little capsule and so yeah i've been I've been taking it for, I don't know, a couple months now. Okay. It's definitely going to be one of those things where you don't feel right off the bat, but a pretty good, uh, an interesting supplement is glycine. That's, I guess, mainly what's in collagen.

And if you, and if you get glycine, like if you, you can buy a lot of these things and like bulk and stuff like that and i got glycine off of amazon and it's um it's really weird because it actually tastes like a sweetener and i mean it's not as it's not as good as like monk fruit or whatever but like you can put it into shakes you can put it into all kinds of stuff it's just an amino acid um it's supposed to help with sleep a little bit as well um so that might be another one that you might want to try out and you could you know mix it into like iced tea and stuff like that and it gives it a little bit of flavor yeah yeah since we're going to get into the sleep a little bit i think that one thing that you may want to try if you're someone who has trouble trying to fall

asleep at night um and the reason why i'm mentioning this is because sleep is like if you're not getting good sleep um you are i think what does stan efforting say i think is it's like stepping over hundred dollar bills in search for pennies right if you're not getting good sleep especially as a performance athlete you're not gonna make nearly the gains you could get as if you were getting quality sleep. I think one of the biggest supplements that is great for that is valerian root. I use that every now and then if it's a night that I'm like, I really need to try to get some deep sleep tonight, or I'm having trouble falling asleep. Valerian root, it's not something that you're going to end up building a dependence on. It won't have effect on your hormones like

melatonin would um it's totally natural and it'll help you fall asleep well i don't take it every single night i don't even take it every single week but the times that i have found it hard to fall asleep take valerian root 20 to 25 minutes later i'm knocked out it helps you relax maybe a little bit helps you relax a little bit yeah it's it's it's really beneficial it's also one of those supplements that's it's talked in about in multiple sleep books why we sleep by matthew walker and then um the one that it's that guy that you did the podcast his name's sean not not sean he's a black white he's black oh yeah oh yeah sean the model sean model yeah sean model he talked about

that in his sleep book too and it's it's actually a very useful sleep supplement i would be careful if you're someone who depends on melatonin for sleep yo backtrack because that can mess up your actual production of melatonin right and you don't want that to happen that's tough it's tough to get back and didn't we have somebody on that said that that could actually help or it could potentially suppress even your like testosterone or something like that i don't remember how dangerous it would have been, but yeah. That sounds scary. Yeah. As soon as they said that, I'm sorry, I can't remember who it was, but I'm like, oh, no,

I'm messing with that again. I just want to point out, I've never taken a supplement that really had a major impact. You know, I've never, they've had a nice impact. I've never, they've had a nice impact. It's, they have, many of them have helped or assisted over a period of time. But there's nothing I can think of that is not like a SARM or a steroid or whatever that I've taken where I've been like, I gotta, I gotta go and tell everybody about this. You know, otherwise you'd hear me talking about it here on the show all the time that like these things are a hundred percent necessary. Like you have like, Hey, I know you've been struggling gaining muscle.

You got to take this product. Cause it's going to, you know, it's going to add five, 10 pounds. It's I have never experienced anything. And you know, being someone who has used PEDs and does use PEDs, I know the difference. Like I can, you know, you can feel it, you can see it when you take PEDs or you simply just even add in more or take something new. You can like immediately, not immediately, but within a few weeks, you can see how it's working. It shows up on the weights that you move in the gym. It shows up on the scale. It shows up in the

mirror. I can't think of a supplement that I've ever taken where I'm like, Hey, this one has done this. So just know when you see that marketing that Andrew was talking about earlier, Hey, this is going to put 10 pounds on you, or this is going to help you shred 10 pounds of body fat in six weeks. It's, it's just, it's fake. Like there's not, there's no truth to it. There's, there's currently nothing on the market that does any of that stuff. So it's just, um, you know, you don't want to be a sucker, you know, to be on the lookout for that kind of stuff and just recognize that what we're talking about and what we always promote here on the show is we would love to see you have a comprehensive plan that you do over a long period of time. So if any of these supplements assist in that, let's say that you take vitamin C and

you just feel like, you know, that you're, it helps you not get sick. Well, that's, that has a huge impact on your training. That has a huge impact on the way that you look and being able to augment your body. So these are things that we would like to see you do for a period of time, whatever the things are that you choose. Give them a good shot and put the discipline in.

The work is really going to be the major factor. There's not a, you know, I'm sorry if this is disappointing people, but there's not a supplement work is really going to be the major factor. There's not a, you know, I'm sorry if this is disappointing people, but there's not a supplement that's really gonna push you that extra bit that you're really looking for. They can assist a little bit and give you a little, a little bit of a kick, but nothing much.

Lastly, I'll say that vitamin D, I think for me personally, being somebody that I wouldn't get sick a lot, but I would get sick like twice a year, almost without fail. And, uh,

I would say that I get sick maybe every like two or three years now, it seems like. And, and, and I, and it could just be, I'm older, like my immune system is strong.

I don't know. It could be a combination of things, but vitamin D was implemented about five years ago for me. And it's, it's made it, It could just be I'm older, like my immune system is strong. I don't know. It could be a combination of things. But vitamin D was implemented about five years ago for me. And I think it's made a big difference. That's just my own opinion of it. I'll agree to that. Like, yo, the last time I got sick was the flu. Or it could have actually been coronavirus.

Oh, my God. November of last year. Yeah. But since then, I haven't been sick. All the way to now. And before that, yeah, I haven't been sick. In regards to what you were talking about,

Mark, because we did kind of tease a little bit with saying which supplements I still missed, which supplements work legal or or not even if you take something here we go nailed it oh that's no that's fucked up that was a rim job it was it was it was but even if you take all of it all of the trend but if you don't work your ass off not gonna do much right yeah you gotta you gotta put that work in yeah that's just what everyone points to right is like oh i was gonna say a bad joke about in sema but i'm what i'm not gonna do that say the joke and no i'm just gonna no i'm not gonna say the joke i don't want to okay no and sema stays in great shape because

he's always on something i'm'm cruising. Yeah. On life. I'm cruising on life. Yeah. But ignoring jiu-jitsu, the lifting, all that good stuff. He's not on anything other than 500 milligrams of tests. Yeah. That's a super low dose. That's why I use a growth hormone.

It's low dose, man. Doctor recommended. Low dose. Doctor Tony Huch recommended. What's it really doing for him anyway? Nothing. I love when you guys did the photo, you guys did the photo shoot.

And I asked people, I was like, how did it go? And they're like fucking in SEMA. Well, yeah, they're like in SEMA looked amazing. I'm like,

in SEMA is a fucking bodybuilder. He's a professional, but I'm like fucking guy has stepped on stage. A lot of times he's fucking Jack. Yeah. But they were like, it's SEMA was Jack. I'm like, I'm aware of times he's fucking jacked yeah but they were like it seemed it was jacked I'm like I'm aware of this he fucking looks phenomenal I tell him every

day yeah looks great meanwhile we were we were all like you know like oh it's getting shape for this shoot and then it's like oh and seem with this shoots happening I'll jump in not prepared but just because you are always working you ended up destroying everyone even though it

wasn't a competition but you know what i mean not very nice of you we had a great episode coming up yeah i can't wait for that yeah go ahead and tease that a little bit do you want to give a preview so i think one thing that's really dope online i think it's kind of the funniest thing on on these channels that always do these natty or not videos one of their things that is like one of the telltale signs that somebody's on drugs is if they're lean year-round like that's that's that's something people say and back in the day i used to kind of be like oh it's so hard to stay lean year-round but then when i started doing it i was just like huh what's allowing this and okay now that's bullshit.

Like being linear around isn't a telltale sign. But I think that's something we can really kind of dig into because when people see that online, yeah, they think someone's on stuff. Also, some people just take a lot of photos and post photos in December from, you know, a middle of the year. But I mean, other than that no i think we can dig into that i think that that'd be interesting to talk about another stupid thing that we might not even talk about in that episode though is delts people say that somebody with a ran delts is on drugs capped delt capped shoulders i've always thought that that was kind of stupid too but i don't know that might be it. I might be one of those people,

but yeah, I'll, I'll post pictures from last year when I was on stuff. So yeah. But yeah, that's going to be, that'll be coming up. We'll tell you guys about when we're going to do it.

And you guys need to tune in for that because I think it's going to be a good one. I think again, the key is to, you have to to you have to like build muscle. You know, if you build muscle at some point, it will be fairly easy to stay in whatever shape that you would like to stay in. weigh 150 and you have a little bit of a belly and you're always worried about that belly, I think your best bet is to work on getting bigger, not necessarily like bulk, not being some like, not eat pizza and like power lift or anything. That's only going to make you fatter.

And I don't think getting fatter is a great answer to building muscle. You do need maybe a little extra calories, but how much extra? When somebody is looking to get a little bit bigger, they're not telling you, hey, man, I want to weigh 290. When somebody says, hey, man, I want to get a little bit bigger, where do you start them at from a calorie perspective? How many extra calories? It's usually like 200, 300, 200 over maintenance. Yeah, right. Depending on where their maintenance is.

If their maintenance is like 1800 calories, maybe it's 1950. If their maintenance is like 2500 calories, maybe it's 300 calories above that. But yeah, it's not, it's not much more than that because when you start doing too high, you're going to start gaining a little bit too much too fast. And sometimes that's more body fat too, too fast. Right. a little bit too much too fast and sometimes that's more body fat too too fast right and so if you i mean the focus i always think should be on uh on building that muscle mass and then some of the stuff we mentioned here today can potentially assist you with some of that but again

we also said that you don't need it if you can stick with the food and you can nail down your food every day and you're comfortable with that and you don't care about supplements, that's fine. Then you don't have to worry about the whey protein shakes and all these different things. You can save a lot of money, save a lot of dough. But for us, we personally like supplements. It kind of adds another level to this boring hobby of ours of going in the gym and lifting weights. Uh, does it help you recover? Or it's, it's just hard to say. I mean,

people even say with, with, uh, PEDs, they say like how much they help you with recovery, but even on PEDs, they still get sore as fuck. So like,

I don't know how much more they, I don't know. I don't know what the research says on stuff like that, but, uh, my body still always sore, you know from good workouts yeah and what's impossible to ever really understand what that what that feeling is is you can't have somebody take or not take them feel how sore they are then take them and then feel how slow they're like it just right you'll never it'll never equate to like an actual like answer for that but that still brings up people who don't take anything it's like oh you're

you're not as sore because you're on stuff you know there's always going to be that person that's going to say you can do x y and z because you're on something well the thing is like real talk like there are there are there are certain drugs that like yeah you're still going to be sore but those people are able to work out with work out longer i mean they can yeah they can they can push harder they can handle more volume more weight over time so absolutely they do like absolutely they do um but at the same time it's like the amount of work an individual puts in whether they're on or whether they're not. It's like you still have to put in a lot of fucking work. Yeah, it's it's the the supplements aren't keeping them at the gym longer.

You know, they're still deciding. Yeah, right. So stuff. Anything else? That's all I got over here. Shout out to everybody. We missed anything supplement-wise? I think we talked about all of them.

I'm trying to think. Yeah. Looking through some comments. Placebo effect, blah, blah, blah. No, yeah. I will say that we didn't really talk about it. It's not something you have to take, but MindBullet, K i'm gonna run to jujitsu after this yeah i get like before you know doing anything like that i get very creative it helps me kind of just like tune things out so

before like a martial art like that i do things that i really don't typically do um because just i guess the creative side of my mind might be doing something it's weird this is one of those supplements that again i can kind of say like yeah a lot of this stuff okay but this is something you your mind literally feels different it's almost like a mind shift like it like shifts your mind from whatever it was you were before and uh i don't know it to me it feels it because it makes you feel good or because it makes i'll just speak from my own personal experience because it makes me feel good it makes me motivated and hopefully people that try it find the same uh result you can go to mindbullet.com and check it out yeah and i'll add to that it because you feel good and you feel motivated. I find that I will go like the extra step on something.

So like, um, we have this power bite that's coming out tomorrow from our, uh, Blake McKernan episode. I exported it a bunch of times. One, because I made like a mistake and then another one,

cause like, ah, that doesn't look as exactly how I wanted it. But then I kept doing it more and more and I kept adding more to it because the mind bullet kept kicking in. And then now it's like this, I think it's going to be a pretty cool, uh,

boxing motivation video, like added music to it, B roll. And it started out a very simple, like Q and a quick video. And it's like, I just kept adding more and more. And then at the end I'm like,

yeah, this is a really good video. And it's, I mean, I'm not going to say give it all the credit to MindBullet, but man, it just, it makes you feel good. It makes you want to like, you know, like I said, add a little bit more to your work. Yeah.

But yeah, that's all I got. Take us out of here, Andrew. I will. Thank you again, everybody for checking out today's episode. Everyone on the live stream, you guys are freaking awesome. While you guys are here, make sure you guys check out the uh the description of this video or if you're on itunes check out the show notes and uh check the link for the new power project newsletter we got some really cool stuff coming out uh we just shot some stuff stuff with mark the other day that's going to be an

exclusive video that you can only gain access to via the newsletter so that's something really cool that i'm excited for and i think you guys are going to dig it. So again, check the show notes and the description in the video. Please make sure you're following the podcast at MarkBell'sPowerProject on Instagram, at MBPowerProject on Twitter. My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ or my Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. Also, I've been

going off about video games like crazy on there. So yeah, follow me there. And see me on Instagram and YouTube and see me on Twitter, Mark. You guys want to do a show on wednesday live oh shit let's do it we can say the time right now maybe uh let's see i have i know we have that photo shoot and then that day and then we have the super friend series i believe at nine so it would have to be an afternoon one yeah what about uh when you get done with jujitsu be here by 145 145 so let's say two o'clock wednesday 2 p.m wednesday damn so this episode actually time this episode drops on itunes

on wednesday i think does my math correct yep so if you're listening to this before 2 p.m pacific standard time hit pause on December 16th. Head over to YouTube to check out that. We're not calling it Natty or not video, but about people staying lean year round. People staying lean year round are cruising on drugs, man. They are. That's it. They're on drugs.

I knew it. Who's up? Is it you? Oh, it's me. It's you. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength.

Catch y'all later.