Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 521 - Are We Ditching Barbells & Compound Movements?

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

We recently had bodybuilder Doug Brignole on the podcast where he explained to us that compound movements, squat, bench and dead, were not optimal for gaining size and strength. He gave us clean and clear information that did open our eyes, but was it enough for us to ditch the compound movements as he suggested? 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: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢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

I don't think you're following it. I think science is bullshit. Do you think maybe science is following you? Should be. Let's figure out what to do. What's the chemistry going on in my blood right now with the injection sites in my butt? It's not. Huh?

What? I don't know what I just said. Oh, we're live? That's not where... Wee-oo, wee-oo, wee-oo, wee-oo. Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah.

Getting busted. I just love... I love it yeah getting busted i just love i love being ambiguous man i love making those drug jokes now because people don't know if i'm joking or if i'm serious i am joking natty or not am i joking who knows but we were find out next week on dragon ball z i mean it's like do you joke about your dick being too big you joke about your dick being too small which way do you play it? It's a tiny little peanut. Yeah, right?

And then hopefully that represents something halfway impressive. You under-promise, over-deliver. Over-deliver. That's what you do. The Natty Professor has been on this whole time. I'm just two inches. Bitch, I'm four. Yeah. I'm at least double that.

Double? Holy shit. And first penis joke within the first 30 seconds go we're in oh we're recording yeah he's like oh shit so we were just talking about the doug brignoli we had a lot of people you know talking about talking about some of the things that Doug presented. And I think people tend to have a, they tend to twist it around a bit. And I think it's because Doug's so passionate about what he does that maybe the wrong impression was like being observed. And I think he's not, he's not is that if you're trying to do something like a squat and the main target is for you to focus in on your quads, you may be making a mistake. There might be, this is all may

and might, right? There may be, there might be some other ideas, other suggestions that might induce more of a reaction from your quads. That's pretty much all he's saying. Now, some of the studies show that when you load your spine with a weight and you do a squat, you might get about 30%, whatever you want to call it, activity in the quads. Now, some people might say, well, that's perfect because I don't really want to just train my quads. I would love for my hamstrings to get hit. I would love for my booty to be a little bit bigger. I'd love for my erectors to get bigger. I'd love for my core to be stronger. I want to also be strong as an athlete. So for me personally, I think it makes sense for me to do a squat. So I think as we talk to him more, I think that is about what he was saying. Now he might be a little bit further along on his beliefs and what he actually

trains people with, because he believes in this so much that he may have now kind of become blind to the fact that there's many different ways of going about doing this. I think that happens to all of us, but I think he just presented us with great ideas and great information. It doesn't mean that you don't squat. It doesn't mean that you don't deadlift and it doesn't mean that you don't do bent over rows.

Also too. I always say this, fuck what you heard. If you are being successful and you are making progress, then anything that we ever say on this show, I wouldn't say that you just eliminate or forget about, but I would just say, take those things with a grain of salt because,

uh, because it's just important that you maybe understand these different ideas, but your idea of what you're doing is probably working, if you're already making progress, it's already working. Yeah, absolutely, and this is the thing, like I was telling you, I was scrolling through the comments and I was getting some DMs about it, and I do really like i bought doug's book so i brought back your copy because i borrowed your copy so i bought i bought my own

copy of the book and i love it like i love what doug put forward in that book i love how he talks about this movement is better for lat activation than a lot of these other movements that you see people doing in the gym but i I find that it is much, if you're not someone who is only competing in bodybuilding, and you're someone who enjoys training, and like you're not competing in those sports, why not try to get better at a few different things in the gym? I think it is necessary to have the knowledge of the movements that he puts forward in the book, and potentially program that those movements to what you do. So you can make sure that in your workout, you're doing this movement that gets you the most lat activation possible. But if you also want to do some fucking pull-ups because you want to get

better at doing pull-ups, do some pull-ups. Like there's, there's, there's no reason not to. Now, if you're a competitive bot, if you're a competing bodybuilder and you're focused on just getting as much muscle activation from those movements, make sure all those are included. And then you can still work on other things because there are so many bodybuilders in the natural realm, right? That are great strength athletes, but they're also huge and have massively developed physiques. And they're not only doing just these optimally biomechanical movements, right? I think there is a massive benefit in having a general knowledge on a lot of things, having the thing that you're really good at and that you're focused on, but then having a lot of skills because those skills can like maybe the hip, the hip hinge and the like the ability that you have in your deadlift helps you a lot with another small isolation movement that you're doing in the gym. Right. These things can have a lot of carryover.

And I think a lot of people are missing it because of the specific, the specificity that Doug puts forward in what he's speaking about. But I still love it. Like, I still think it's amazing and it's great. Yeah. It's funny. Um,

you're talking about going through the comments, comments and stuff and like what stood out to you, like something different stood out to me. And it was, um, like people commenting like oh wow uh doug's crushing all of what mark made his career off of uh in sema and mark are total like not against it but like you know saying like wow like these guys all they do is compound movements and here he is talking about this they don't want to hear it i'm like who thinks all we do is compound movement that's what i'm saying but it's funny like what you get a majority of my training hasn't been yeah but what i was getting at is like you know mark had said like

yeah be open-minded about this sort of thing right you know and it's like dude i like i said i might i did a chest workout this weekend dude i'm still sore from it and i didn't move a lot of weight not that i mean i can't anyways but when I was getting it is like man it dude he knows what he's talking about and if you give it a shot you bet okay that makes sense does that mean I never want to bench press again like fuck no I can't wait before I have but with like you know when he talks about the physics and like where like the resistance is coming from yeah stuff that I just never paid attention to it's like oh i put the pulley right here because that's just where the pulley goes yeah and then putting it to where it's supposed

to well in his opinion where it's supposed to be it's like oh okay that makes sense yeah like the the um the decline press which i always thought was useless like i literally like i had no i had no idea i heard it was useless because of like probably you can use more weight so it seems like easier and like oh we're not about easier it's got to be harder yeah and then like the whole thing with like power lifters like oh you want to arch so that way it becomes a decline because it's easier at that point so i'm like oh well if it's easier then maybe it's not the right move and then after i you know what he says like when you go to flex your your pecs what do you do do you like raise your arms like no you go down and you point oh that's what he's talking about yeah and then so

when i did it i'm just like holy shit like this like dude i'm like a pump of a lifetime right now it feels awesome yeah i didn't pay uh it's funny you said those those comments about like like what what stands out to you right that didn't stand stand out to me because I that like that doesn't bother me because I already know how I train or how I've trained. Right. The main thing is the people that are now there, they're converting. And maybe let's say that they're getting. I hope that they don't get rid of all the movements that they're all the other movements that they are doing in the gym. What I want them to do is I want them to get Doug's book. I want them to pay attention to the Brignoli 20 and the movements that he talks about and that he thinks are really beneficial for each muscle group. I would, I would suggest that they add those in, but don't go taking out a lot of the other movements that you've liked progressing that maybe aren't in

the brignoli 20 because again i do feel just have you ever heard of the book range i think i talked to you about i've heard you talk about it for you by daniel kahneman um that book it's how he he speaks about how like individuals who have good range on and good generalist knowledge, uh, can then end up being the best specialist at a specific subject. He gives the, the, uh, the example of Roger Federer, who played a lot of different sports. He's skateboarding, he played basketball, he played lacrosse, he played, and all of these different sports gave him different movement skills to then be an amazing tennis player. Um, gave another example of a yo-yo ma who's an amazing cellist and yo-Yo Ma played

piano, Yo-Yo Ma played violin and a bunch of other instruments. But the knowledge from those instruments and the dexterity that Yo-Yo Ma gained from playing those instruments then made Yo-Yo Ma an amazing cellist. And Yo-Yo Ma even says that experience made him a great cellist, right? So I even look at it with like the shit I'm doing in jujitsu. I did soccer and bodybuilding and powerlifting. But the strength that I've been able to gain through powerlifting and the the ability of, I guess, like muscle, I don't know, muscle control that I've gotten from bodybuilding and the movement that I've done in soccer. And even the longboarding that I've been doing in terms of helping me be able to balance on one foot and shit i can see the carryover that it's having to me as a jujitsu athlete but if i didn't do those things i just focused on jujitsu you see a lot of jujitsu guys they're weak yeah they they don't have strength like it's not all about strength but

they don't have that and because of that that is where they're lacking massively in the martial art because they don't have this breadth of skill so So I look at it the same here, have a breadth of skill, have like things that you're focused on. But then if you enjoy deadlifting, if you enjoy these things, get better at them. Don't do them unsafely, get better. There's no situation in life where it's helpful to know less, you know, and there's no situation in sport where it helps to be less athletic. Um, I've coached you before. I've shown you stuff in the gym before. I'd say, Hey, you know, and there's no situation in sport where it helps to be less athletic. I've coached you before. I've shown you stuff in the gym before. I'd say, hey, you know, this is, you know, you might want to kind of do these things this way. And then I would look at the way you did it versus what I was showing and what I was visualizing the way I was able to show it.

And I was like, he just did that way better than I could ever do it. And I've been doing this for a really long fucking time. Don't ever make a note. Don't ever show him anything again kind of thing. But the same thing happened when when we had Eric Spoto in the gym. The same thing happened when we had Stan Efferding in the gym. And there's no coincidence. Stan Efferding, the Division One scholarship athlete for soccer. Like, it's no coincidence that he was successful in bodybuilding,

powerlifting, soccer. Uh, it's always helpful to be, to be better, to be a better athlete at any of these things. I think when it comes to strength, for some reason, when it comes to powerlifting, because the end result of the person that we see, like make no mistake, we have Andre Milanochev, uh, in the house. He's here at super training gym Super Training Gym for the next week and a half or so. Make no mistake, that guy is an elite athlete. He's a freestyle wrestler. Yeah, we haven't communicated with him a lot on his past, all the different things that he's done. But I'm sure he's done Olympic lifting.

We know that he was a wrestler. And he seems like he wants to grapple with people because he keeps kind of grabbing a hold of everybody. I'm sure he didn't suck at it and uh if you ever seen that guy power lift i mean one of the greatest feats of strength i've ever seen in my life was uh he did a walked out 990 something pound squat for like a triple or a set of four and it just looked completely effortless he's not at the end range of motion when he's at the bottom of his squat. He could probably go lower. Like his body can move in all sorts of different movements. It's helpful. The more stuff that you explore in training, the better off you're going to be.

So, you know, don't be closed-minded. I would say that the way I think some of this stuff works out in very general terms is that when you do these movements that are compound or barbell exercises, I would say that a way to view them is that there is a price to pay normally when you do some of these lifts because of the amount of weight that you can use. They're like in your favor. You know, a bench squat and deadlift allow you to lift the most weight. When I used to go around the country and teach powerlifting to CrossFitters, I would say, who in here has ever lifted 400 pounds? And a couple of hands would go up. I say 500, I say 600.

What lift is it in? You know, it was always, it was always in like a deadlift, you know, or squat. But it was never in, it was, it was never in like an overhead squat. It was never in some of these other movements that are really, really, uh, that are really challenging and really difficult. It was in the power lifts and the power lifts lend themselves to allow you to lift the most amount of weight. The most amount of weight that you can possibly press, uh, is in bench pressing.

It's not in an overhead press. You know, the all time world record in overhead press would be press would be 500-something. Whether someone's doing it from their shoulders or from the ground, the all-time record in bench pressing is in the 700s for raw lifting. These are all exercises that are set up to allow you to lift the most amount of weight. In regards to their effectiveness on hypertrophy, obviously they have a huge impact on that, but it might be, they might be hitting some of the muscles overall. Like I think a bench

press is like a full body movement, not necessarily just a chest movement. Just like when you were coaching Jason Cleveland and you coached him on the leg drive that is necessary in the bench press, he gets off the bench. He's like, my hips are fucking sore, right? So he's cramping up and stuff. And I think then people take that way too far. Like, oh, it's all about the lats, off the bench he's like my hips are fucking sore right so he's cramping up and stuff and i think then people take that way too far like oh it's all about the lats bench pressing it's like bench pressing isn't all about that like let's but i think just be open-minded to some of the things that that someone like doug is presenting and understand that we need people like doug we need people to say hey that might not even really be true. And the more he started to talk, the more I started recognizing how true a lot of the

stuff he was saying is, or could possibly be because I was like, well, I think you'd still burn more calories from like a squat. But then as we talked further, you know, he's talking like, no, you can kind of get deeper into some of the muscles with some of these other movements, doing them some other ways. And I'm like, I felt like I was burning a pretty good amount of calories when I was doing some of the knees over toes shit. You know what I mean? Like that stuff sends your body into like an inferno. Yeah.

And think about like the way that we were lifting with Jason Kalipa. You guys were doing. I mean, how much how heavy was the kettlebell? You had 56 pounds. 75. Oh, 75. That's it. That's a fucking good weight. uh you guys were doing i mean how much how heavy was the kettlebell you had 56 pounds 75 oh 75 that's it that's a fucking good weight but but it's still 75 pounds just 75 pounds you tore yourself up with 75 pounds i've never seen you uh i've never seen you have a workout like that before yeah with with a barbell yeah it's so so the main aspect the main reason why it was so

fatiguing the the bench press stuff was easy. Let me explain this to you guys real quick because you probably haven't seen the video. It's not out yet. We did an every minute on the minute workout, meaning that literally it wasn't like you do a minute and you rest a minute. You literally do the same thing every minute on the minute. So we did a bench press for 225 for five to seven reps every minute on the minute. Okay, so every single minute. Then we went and we did 20 kettlebell 20 kettlebell swings uh

every minute i lit my butt up man yeah lit my butt up too so like we're using a 75 pound kettlebell for that but then that wasn't even that bad we then moved to doing 20 goblet squats with said kettlebell look at these guys yeah with 75 pounds every minute on the minute right so we'd probably finish the squats 40 seconds and then we'd maybe get 20 seconds to rest and then the next one we'd do like we'd finish the squats in 45 seconds and we only had 15 seconds to rest but that hooked my quads up and it's because of such the lack of rest in between each set and then we did 100 squats so with all that built-up fatigue my quads were feeling burnt even today my quads still

feeling uh and obviously i was sweating a ton but in sema looks like um remember on like rocky three when they're boxing and they're just all lubed up and it's like dude people don't look that way but then here's in sema looking like just on just we we just nailed the baby oil that day just rubbed it all over and took the picture. We got that shit right. But it listens. Yeah. But Andrew, this is what I wanted to ask you, because this is this is a thing that I think a lot of people may notice, like some of the movements in the big Noli 20. I know that individuals do not usually do like the single arm lat pull down.

I've been doing that movement for a very long time. But a lot of people that haven't done that before are going to feel like it's a new stimulus and they're going to be like, Oh, this makes me super sore. But it's just like, you haven't done it before. Like it is, there's a massive amount of muscle activation there. Don't get me wrong. It's an amazing movement. But after a few weeks of progressing any movement, you will feel less sore. You will not like you'll feel less activation, but you're not going to feel that new feeling that you got in the beginning beginning so that's just something to keep in mind because a lot of people are going to be heading into this doing some of these movements but it's just like when you've done anything new in the gym when you've done a movement you've never done before like a lot

of the knees over toe stuff when i first did my jefferson curls because i've never done jefferson curls before my shit was lit up okay and i've been training for a long time but it's because i've never done that and that is a new stimulus on my body so i'm going to be feeling it a lot so it's just something to keep in mind when you're doing this yeah i like that single arm i love it too it's so good i mean i like single arm almost anything but like so so like some of the stuff we were already doing but again like i said it's just making more sense of like the different angles of uh some of the pulleys and whatnot but with that one like um we would do it with two hands all the time holding the um i forgot what that that oh yeah here yeah yeah exactly yeah um but then doing it single arm and then him explaining like oh you want it like from

this direction and then down and then like actually crunch into it a little bit like sorry so like no no so forward be like you know uh whatever degree and then directly from the side just cut that in half that's where the pulley would be coming from um but no i agree with you though like yeah if once you kind of you've you've done this before it eventually you'll be like okay maybe it wasn't quite as like mind blowing, but yeah, no, I, it's great. I'm going to, I'm still going to do that probably like every back day. This is what I love though. You know how we've been telling power lifters for a minute, like get your accessory movements in. I think this, that this was the episode for a lot of the power lifters that have been

listening into the show. This is the episode that's starting to encourage them to start doing that shit. Um, and that's a good thing. Like, that's a really, really good thing because like,

like if you're a power lifter, most power lifters like do their compounds and then they're like, Hmm, it's on 10 or 15 minutes on accessory rooms. Maybe they'll go do some biceps and some triceps or whatever, but they won't really spend time with it. But I think this episode, first off,

there, a bunch of people have gotten Doug's book, which is great, but it's really going to get people excited about doing accessory work. Stand on top of assistance exercises and getting your body to move in different positions can also prevent injuries. And Seema, you were mentioning you had somebody in class recently, they got hurt.

And a lot of times it's because our end ranges of motion aren't great. I avoided injury. Like, I think people think that I had a lot of injuries in powerlifting, and I did end up with a lot of injuries at a certain point. But I went, I partied like a motherfucker in powerlifting for 20 years before I ever ran into anything. So, I mean, I went hard. I was benching 800, squatting 20 years before I ever ran into anything. So, I mean, I, I went hard. I was benching 800 squatting a thousand forever, ran into anything. Then later on, I ended up tearing a bicep and tearing a hamstring and all those things were

all from not doing my due diligence and not staying on top of my, I got rewarded for lifting heavier weights with compound movements. It worked for a while and it worked great. So I used to go, I would probably go about, uh, I might go like 50, 50 in my training, you know,

50% of the workout time was devoted to a main barbell movement. 50% of the workout was devoted to assistance exercises. If, if it wasn't, if I wasn't prepping for a competition, which was kind of hardly never, and that's where this is where I started to get hurt. The amount of barbell movement was emphasized a lot more. It started going like 70,

30, 80, 20. And that's when I started getting myself in trouble because now all I can do is be proficient in these movements. And I didn't have any slack in my system to move any which way at all. Like any deviation I'm done. And so if I got hurt, I was, you know, set back for like a month. And then every time I came back,

if I think back to it now, I did a lot of what Doug's talking about. I did a lot of assistance movements because those movements I think back to it now, I did a lot of what Doug's talking about. I did a lot of assistance movements because those movements I'm able to do for a longer period of time in a much safer fashion. I'm able to kind of like rebuild and then get back into it. And so I think that people sometimes they're thinking these barbell movements are going to be what makes me big and strong and they can be, but you also have to keep in mind, like who are powerlifters? Who are people that love strength? Who are the people that love the bench, the squat, the deadlift, the military press, the bent over row. These are all people. A lot of times that also love to eat.

These are all people that powerlifters fucking love to eat. So the difference between powerlifters and bodybuilders is not the exercises. It's not the workouts, although that is a difference between them. The main difference is their nutrition. The main difference is their diet. Bodybuilders will go on diets where they eat in a caloric surplus for a while. They'll also go on diets where they have to under eat for a while. What is that to a powerlifter?

Do they cut? No. they have to under eat right for a while and what is that so powerlifting right do do they do they cut no like maybe for maybe well maybe a water cut which is still not the same right because they're not gonna if a powerlifter does a cut at all i mean they might lose like 8 to 12 pounds or something yeah getting ready to be in like a different weight class or whatever but they're not shredding up which is a whole different, a whole different ballgame. But I think it gets to be really confusing because if we're too, if we're like, that guy knows a lot, that guy is a fucking doctor. I'm going to take his word for it. He's a biology major.

He also studied kinesiology. Like this guy is super smart, but then he has no muscle. Right. And then you're like, well, I can't take that guy's word for it because he doesn't even really look like he lifts. He looks like a pussy. Right. That's what we say in our heads.

Right. We're like, that guy looks like a bitch. That way in your head. That is what you say. Yeah. Or judgy. Just kidding. Just kidding.

Or the fat personal trainer, you know, the personal trainer that's way out of shape. You're thinking he doesn't know anything. Right. But like, what if, what if we asked the guy in the gym with the biggest arms, how to train our arms? Well, we go about doing it for a while. Then we learned that the guy's on steroids.

Now, now like, what are our thoughts now? Does that guy go to zero in our mind? And we've got to find, man, I got to find someone that doesn't take steroids. Cause I don't think those exercises are effective.

Or maybe you read about steroids. You learn about them a little bit and say, that guy still gave me really good information. I'm going to go on about my business. Now, what if you find out that the guy did synthol? His arms are totally fake, right? So it's a really weird thing because we're dealing with a mirage, whether it's a doctor who knows a lot, whether it's Stan Efferding, who looks fantastic and knows a lot. We put so much value on where this guy trained, who he trained under. The only thing that matters is, is what the guy is saying. Can it possibly get your results?

That's the only thing that matters. Meanwhile, we're sitting here like picking over. You're not at a Gracie Academy or, you know, what they would do years ago. It's not as prevalent anymore, but you're not at a Gracie Academy or you know what they would do years ago it's not as prevalent anymore but you're not at this particular academy so you don't know anything about jiu-jitsu but now there's a lot now the jiu-jitsu is spread so much there's so many great places to go but that's what people would be concerned about or worried about whether someone has a knowledge base or not and that's not knowledge doesn't come from just somebody being a somebody having some sort of letters in front or behind their name that's that that's like okay so that is important like you know certifications uh getting education all of that stuff's important

but um i think that we need to not underplay getting some experience doing something. I'm going to, I'm going to use this example and we, we talked about it quite a bit, but like people that like when I started stretching more because I wanted to get, I wanted to improve my mobility for jujitsu. I had so many people that were like, that's not going to be good for your strength. That's not going to be good for your body. Like stretching is a necessary unnecessary research i love where you're going with this because like who who is saying that that has actually done it and tried

it for a while and had negative feedback right they probably didn't even try it to be perfectly honest i i'm like all i i'm continuously getting this from strength coaches, strength athletes DMing me. The research shows that it's more beneficial if you do that with weight and you don't need to do static stretching for performance. And I'm sitting over here. I'm mobile. I'm flexible. I'm able to get into these crazy positions in jiu-jitsu. I'm walking around feeling fucking amazing.

I'm getting DMs and comments from people saying they're feeling the best that they've ever felt in their entire lives. And you're over here moving around like you're a fucking board. I'm sorry. Am I going to listen to you? I mean, this is the thing. I get the research. I understand that it's valid. I do understand that if one does some static stretching and then they move immediately into a weight training routine after that, they're going to be a little bit weaker in terms of their upper, like in terms of their one rep max strength. I get it. I also don't necessarily,

that's not the goal, right? Right. The goal is feeling better, being more mobile, moving better, having more range in terms of what you're able to do with your body. That's the goal.

Also, that's being achieved. Also, who are we talking about? Who would be weaker? Like for me, if you and I were to stretch before we did a squat workout, I would probably end up being weaker because I'm less familiar with stretching. It probably have less of an impact on you.

Like, so who? It would still have an impact on me. Yeah, right. Right. The impact is. But I'm just saying, like, we don't even know where these studies like, who are the studies on? Like, are these on prolific lifters? these studies, like who are the studies on? Like, are these on prolific lifters? Are these on people that is it, is it done on anybody that's like yourself that lifts, uh, uh, that, that has all

their shit together when it comes to their lifting, when it comes to their stretching, I kind of doubt it. I, you know, I don't, I don't know. I haven't looked at like the literature, but I would go as far to say, like, I don't even believe, I don't believe hardly any of the research that's done on anything when it comes to nutrition or training. What I do believe is that we end up compiling a lot of great information by communicating with one another and by starting to, because a lot of times this stretching stuff and some of these things, we don't know who's doing the study. We don't know who they're doing it on.

We don't know, like there's so many factors. Andrew and I were talking the other day about when's the best time to work out. And I'm like, I don't think there's an answer to that. Like I heard like it's the afternoon, you know, between one and 2 PM or whatever. And there's some information about your spinal fluid and things like that. And certain times of day, first thing in the morning, 4 AM, 5 AM doesn't seem like a great time to train. Also right before sleep might not be the best time either because it might excite you too much. Right, but like what if you just do it for three months? Probably changes everything. What if you stretch for three

months before all your exercises? It might nullify all the research that we ever heard before. Time for a science experiment everybody. I got some element right here. Don't tell me you're about to put that in your energy drink. And I'm going to put it in my energy drink. We have the unflavored version.

And the energy drink's not all the way full but it should. Move that front cup out of the way or is that going in because I can't even see it yep oh there we go yeah i think i i think i drank it down enough to where we're not running any problems uh-oh swirl it up has this ever been done before i made this mistake one day when i tried to mix element with diet ginger ale yeah it didn't it didn't go all the way up because i drank it halfway now so we're all good but I'm getting my electrolytes in. Yeah. You know what you guys should try?

Go home. Grab an energy drink. Take just a small sip. Put some element in there. Oh, God. It'll be fun. Trust me. How did it taste, though?

Tastes awesome. Yeah. It always tastes good to add some salt to everything. I add these things to protein shakes all the time. They're great. Oh. Fucking hell. Almost made it. yeah no i've

never tried an element in like or just the unflavored and energy drink i gotta do that i'm gonna do that throw the unflavored on your food i do that all the time i always keep the uh the unflavored packets with me yeah yeah it sounds silly but i keep them in my fanny pack because if i'm somewhere and there's no salt i just always always have a salt packet. But it's just like an enhanced salt kind of back to our training or training stuff. You know, I think people see people that are big. They see people that are in shape and they just think like I need to gravitate towards, you know, everything this guy says. And a lot of times those people have good information. They have great ideas and i think some of the stuff that like doug has presented some of the stuff we've had from other people

on the podcast before i mean obviously things like squats benches deadlifts all these compound movements obviously are working the whole body but i think it's when we talk about any of these things that you're trying like you're you're you have a specific goal and what we're trying to work towards is how can we optimize you to move along at the quickest and safest fashion to get to your goal? I think, you know, there's a lot of, um, with Gary Vee and some of these entrepreneurs, uh, just the, the whole entrepreneur thing has just been flipped upside down on its head. When I was a kid, or even as I was growing up, and someone said the word entrepreneur, it meant that you didn't have a job. That's what it meant. It meant like you were between jobs and you were trying to make up something that you were doing.

And it kind of meant that you were a bum. And it wasn't only cool until about five or ten years ago uh many times people would just be like oh that guy doesn't work for ibm he's a loser or he's not a cop he's not a fireman or whatever right um all that stuff's been flipped upside down his head but think about this like this this is what this is what it reminds me of like training and the misconceptions that we have about where we get our information from and what we think is the most optimal. Somebody who's an entrepreneur might they might get a notebook, right? They might get a pen.

They might get a watch like they might get all these things that they see other entrepreneurs get. Then they start doing other things that entrepreneurs do. They're like, if I want to be a good entrepreneur, I can't be an entrepreneur in my house. I have to go to a coffee shop because that's what they do. And so people start to kind of compartmentalize. This is the way that you do this thing. And so I'm going to go do this this way. This is just the way that it works.

And it's kind of similar. It reminds me of some of the traps that we fall into when we're trying to get good information on lifting. You going to the coffee shop is not necessarily going to turn you into a multimillionaire. You continuing on your journey to find what's going to work best for you and to follow your interests and to intertwine your interests with what you're good at, what you love to follow your interests and to intertwine your interests with what you're good at, what

you love to do, and what you can potentially maybe do slightly different than some other people. And that's what we're trying to do, trying to like, you know, get the edges of all these things. And it's really hard. It's really hard to, it's hard to get there. It's hard to do that. So even with some of the stuff that do that. So even with some of

the stuff that Doug said, or even with some of the diets that we present, if you're not down with it, if you think something's stupid, you already, unfortunately, you already canceled it out of your head. You know, I think that it's a good idea to do your best. And I'm closed minded, like a motherfucker on some stuff. So I have a lot of work to do, but I think it's best to, rather than making statements and ending stuff with a period and things with a question mark, and maybe you start to ask questions. Why? Like what, like, why am I not flexible?

Well, I haven't spent a lot of time working on that. So it makes sense. Why am I not flexible? Well, I haven't spent a lot of time working on that. So it makes sense. Why am I not in shape? You know, why am I not this? Why is this this way? Well, if I made a little bit better time commitment towards that, maybe I could figure that out. And actually, those suggestions that my friend had the other day when I was getting pissed at him, if I was a little more open-minded to some of those ideas, he actually had a, you know, actually had a handful of decent ideas. I was just being, you know, we tend to get frustrated, right? And we make statements,

we make statements about ourselves. I'll throw one out there. That's true with me. I'm always going to be late, right? I'm always going to be late. I don't have to be late i don't have to be late right i i could i could work on that i can consciously i can consciously put in a stronger effort in that particular area obviously it's not something that interests me so i don't make changes these are i think we tend to get we tend to get closed off to certain things and i think we need to be open-minded and recognize there's so many different areas that we can improve in. Yeah. But you're never going to be able to make any changes in those things.

I mean, I've gotten better. I would be really off the reservation before. I'd really be off the map, not even know if we had something going on sometimes. But now— You're just lightweight African. You're living on African time. You know what I mean? I am. Y'all don't know okay

african time means that you get your i i hope i didn't cut off your train of thought no no it's great all right but african time for all of you guys who don't understand it's a thing within the african community that when a party says it starts at four or three you get there four hours after so if it's at 3 p.m party starts you're there at seven starts at five you're there at nine that's where like like you'll see a few people in there before you get there if it's at 3 PM party starts, you're there at seven starts at five. You're there at nine. That's where like, like you'll see a few people in there before you get there, if it's actually at the time, but that's not the time you get there. So if I just said like, like, if I just said to somebody, you know, Hey, well, it's okay. Cause you're African. I'm not going to get punched in the face. You will. I'm trying to figure all this out out i'm trying to figure out how to navigate today especially today's world but it's so funny because i'm like wedding invitations and actual things

if you need to be there there will be an asterisk like this is not african time they will put that so africans know that hey you actually need to be here at this time but i was also kind of laughing because in the back of my head when you're saying uh i'm trying not to be late who the fuck is gonna tell you like you're gonna say you come in 15 minutes late i'll be over you're like mark what the fuck you doing man you're 15 minutes late where are you at where are you at i ain't gonna do it i think it's it actually ends up working out it actually ends up working out really great that like i think all three of us are are like-minded in that sense we we're not all trying to be late We're not all trying to be late. We're not all trying to be rude with each other's time or anything.

There's nothing like that. We're just pretty casual about it. And we know that 8.30 means we might start at 9.15. If we're lucky. A lot of times we get in here and we bullshit. We just kind of chill. Yeah. Yeah.

I think the only time I ever try to like herd you in is when you're on someone else's podcast. And I'm just like, Mark, like, come on, we got to get going. And then like, I feel like, like, fuck, I can't like, no, I have to get them in here. But other than that, no, it's, it is very chill. Like I hit a shit ton of traffic. I had to switch freeways today. And I was like, for like a whole five seconds, like, ah, fuck, like I'm going to be, I actually, I won't be late. We'll be right on time yeah i'm always getting here like let's say we

got it was 8 30 today i got here at 8 30 and 45 seconds like that and i pulled in a couple seconds after my uh my wrestling coach was always he'd always say if you weren't uh if you're not 15 minutes early then you're 10 minutes late and we're always like uh that's a lot of math can you just tell us when to fucking be here he's like i tried to you assholes and you're not 15 minutes early, then you're 10 minutes late. And we're always like, that's a lot of math. Can you just tell us when to fucking be here? He's like, I tried to, you assholes. And you're still not here on time. I fucking love it. There's off of what you were saying before, though, about.

Well, yeah, about like having being so hard headed about something. There's there's this is not an original and see my phrase. I don't know where I read this, but it really is really resonated i can't you're probably bigger and stronger than whoever said it most likely but i won't do that this is but like a few years ago it's from something i read and it was the saying strong views loosely held so i think it is super beneficial to have very strong views about something that you might believe in, but look for people to poke holes in your shit. You should be actually trying to seek out people to poke holes in terms of what you're doing because either if they try to poke holes, that'll either allow you to strengthen

whatever it is that you're doing and maybe to understand it a little bit more. So like you'll actually really know that what you're doing is correct or it'll allow you to the loosely held part of it course correct change course a little bit add something in different change it because you might actually find something better that's going to allow you to improve more so it's not like you know we're not here thinking that we are absolutely right about everything we're doing but we do have strong views about certain things that we're just like hey hey, if we're wrong, cool. But what we're doing is working pretty damn well.

So we're going to keep it moving. I love this kind of shit because I'm so fascinated by this. I think a lot of times you got to think like what opens your brain up to listen to somebody. And for me, it's been what I've been trying to listen for in people is good explanation. You have good explanations and I can go a couple of questions deep on you on a topic. Now you caught my interest. If I start talking about jujitsu with you, if I know a little bit about it and I'm like, Hey, what do you think about a B, you know? And if you're like, don't seem like, you know, a lot about it. I'm like, OK, I don't know.

I don't think this guy really knows much about it. But if we start getting in conversation, I'm like, oh, shit. Now I want to learn from you, you know, or same thing with lifting. Obviously, the way someone looks has a huge impact all the time on everything, whether you're applying for a job or just literally anything, trying to get picked up by a team, you know, to play a sport. It's like, it's, it's crazy how much your look is dependent upon a lot of these things. One of the reasons why Tom Brady had such trouble, you know, as an athlete early on is like, he just,

he didn't look as good as a couple of these other athletes. And so he got passed up, but that's not where, and I mean, look, race, right? I mean, the color, like it's insane. We're trying to find, you know, who's got the best information, who's the best for the job.

And for me, I try to look for explanations. So when we started talking to Doug, I was like, man, this guy's got us by the nuts because he's got good explanations. Even when you added, even when you started asking questions about like the bent over row, which I know you're a huge fan of, he was doing a great job of explaining why that's not his favorite exercise. And I can, I could see and see him working it through his head. Like, I'm still going to do my bent over rows because they've been really effective for me,

which you should hold on to. Yeah. But you are also interpreting what he was saying and you were taking that in and you were taking that into consideration. It's not like you're going to just go and change everything and be like, okay, I'm going to do the warm pull down the rest of my life and never do a bent over row when it's obviously seemed like it's been working pretty well for

you. But I think, you know, trying to find good explanations from people, I think is the most important thing. I don't care if someone's a doctor and they have great information about, you know, what to do when you have a cold. If they are a doctor or not a doctor, it's, can they have a good explanation that sounds pretty reasonable to me? And then I can say, ah, you know what? I think that might be for me. I think I should give that a shot. Yeah. And there's also, I would say like things get lost in translation. But before I mentioned that, I didn't get a chance to tell people where to get

Element electrolytes. So drinklmnt.com slash power project uh we highly recommend the value bundle and just hit up all of the watermelon salt that they have because it is incredible you know it's really good when uh jesse burdick runs in here last week he was like do you have that watermelon salt like fresh out he's like it's like a drug deal got that one yeah he was like like visually like really he was not in a good way yeah Yeah. He was like really disappointed. It's like, dude, we'll give you what we got, but we don't have the watermelon. I'm sorry. Yeah.

I love Jesse Burdick, by the way. I just gotta, I just gotta say how much I love that, man. He just has such a, just a hefty energy to it. Yeah, totally. So yeah. Drink element.com slash power project head over there right now. But yeah. Um, when Doug was talking about, you know, some of that mind bullet hit oh there you go I love Jesse like wait

that's that's that's a great WWW dot mind bullet calm there you go go check it out you know when we think of like whether it be an accessory movement or just a back movement or whatever we're probably thinking like we're going to probably do what like three to five exercises. Each exercise is going to have X amount of sets. So when Doug comes in and says like, no, the only thing you need to do is this one arm pull. It's like, dude, like that doesn't make sense. But then he says, yeah, I'll probably do that like 12 sets. And it's like, oh, makes sense.

that like 12 sets and it's like oh makes sense okay so we're all like programmed to think like no i'm gonna need to go through maybe some super sets even do like three to five like whatever it may be but then when he's like no no like you you still get in the same amount of like reps and sets we'll say but you're just gonna stick to that one thing because you're getting the most bang for your buck and so that's what i mean like when things get lost in translation, it's like, Oh, okay. So when you mean it that way, then,

okay, now it starts to make a little bit more sense as to why you're saying, don't even mess with the other ones. Cause you're just going to get the most value here. Absolutely. Yeah. Like, and,

and again, it makes like, I, I agree with him. I pretty much agree with Doug on everything. I guess it's just, um, the application aspect of things like every, every individual needs to think of what is my goal. Am I a competing bodybuilder?

Am I someone who is just trying to focus on increasing muscle size of these muscle groups? And that's my only goal. Am I an individual who likes to just focus on doing the same thing all the time? And I don't find any training enjoyment with variability? That's a big deal because I like variability. I like getting good at a lot of things.

I really do. So even though I know something may be optimal, I'd rather take that optimal, that the optimal down a little bit for enjoyment because then going in with more enjoyment and it being going in with more enjoyment is more optimal for me and i will over the long term get more results from that because i'm going to be more consistent with it um and that's just going to be overall better and one thing i think is important to kind of realize is having your having all like a bunch of different muscle groups work together to move a load is a different skill than just working an isolation movement. The ability to do a strong barbell over at press to lock your body in and press a weight over your body or even to do a sumo deadlift or any type of deadlift and use your whole body concordance to move a load, that is a skill.

Yeah. You know? Well, imagine trying to get good. Imagine trying to be a good golfer and you thought that all you had to do was either swing as hard as possible to drive the ball or you thought all you had to do is putt, right? Neither one makes any sense. There's many aspects to the game.

I mean, I've never played a round of golf in my life, but there's many aspects of the game. There's different clubs, there's different situations. There's different things to utilize for different situations. And I think when it comes to lifting, it's the same way. Like if something doesn't match up with your mind and your brain and what you like to do, then it's going to be really difficult to even implement any of it. So what I personally like to do is I like to, I like to utilize some of these exercises. When somebody mentioned something to me, I'll be like, okay, let me, let me give that a shot.

And I'll do it at the end of a workout or on like an off day, I'll just go in and mess with it. And I'll be like, oh, maybe I'll give that a shot next time. Cause that actually felt like it worked. Or I'll be like, nah, I don't think it's for me. Like the setup takes kind of a long time. And if I'm being honest with myself, I probably won't, I probably won't, I probably won't take the time every day to do all that other shit.

And so, you know, but that's, that's a good way to kind of learn. Like, is this for me? Give it a shot and try it out. But if you try it as part of your workout, I think that's a mistake sometimes because it can be frustrating because you're like trying it. And then you might be like trying to watch a video on your phone or you're trying to listen to a podcast and you're, I'd rather do it when, when it it doesn't matter as much i could be a little bit more calm about it it's not i'm not pressed for time i'm just kind of dicking around with it yeah and um damn yeah

absolutely and like i'm not gonna take knees over toes uh sled drags out because it's not the optimal thing for my quads because like i'm gonna do it because it's fun right like what you said but it's sort of like um let's imagine uh the plainest like tilapia and like vegetables like that is that's the most bang for your buck that's exactly where you're gonna grow and you're gonna be lean it's like okay yeah i i can do that but i'm still gonna pour like like G Hughes all over everything. You know, like I want to have some variety,

even if that means that it's going to take a little bit away from it, it's going to be enjoyable and I'll be able to come back and do it again tomorrow. It's the spice of life. Yeah, exactly. You know, um,

what I was thinking about was like the, it's necessary to, you gotta trust yourself. I can understand if you're if you're very new to training you got to find something to do you gotta you gotta find something to do watch some videos learn from a lot of people who know more than you and then there is the challenge of trying to take pieces of information and applying it and seeing what works but after a certain amount of time you then gotta like after a few years you then gotta rely on maybe not rely but trust what you know you know what i mean and and and and go with that because

this is an example that i was just thinking about the bench press that i haven't been doing for a few years because my ac joint when when i would bench before you know there are people people that are like you know you gotta you gotta have you got to have a wider hand or have your hands wider, etc. It always kind of felt uncomfortable for me. It always put pressure, unnecessary pressure here that I just didn't like. And I can never lock it in. I would always end up kind of coming closer. And right now, the only way I can bench without my AC joint flaring up is fairly close, like right here.

Like that's where I can keep everything locked in, make sure that this, because once I come right here, my AC joint is going to flare up and I can't bench. Right. So something like experienced power lifters would probably look at that and be like, oh, that's way too narrow. You're not going to be able to produce a lot of force from there, but I got to trust what I'm doing because like, I know that if I do go wider, it's not going to be good for me in the long run.

This is where I need to be. And I can understand that. So kind of like with what we're saying here is like, when you're doing something, if you really do like it and you're seeing some type of benefit, but someone comes out at you and like, that's not the best, or that's not the right thing to do necessarily. It's good to maybe take it in, understand it, maybe try something. But at the end of the day, you still got to trust your judgment on what you're doing and kind of go forward with it. I think we know a lot more than we give ourselves credit for, you know, I think you hear something new from somebody and you,

you kind of almost panic and you're like, Oh my God, everything I'm doing is wrong. And that's probably not a great way to look at it. It's probably not, um, probably not very helpful. Maybe instead just say, oh, wow. Okay. They, they, they're introducing a really good option. That's a great, that's a great option. I could, I should probably consider that. I should consider, uh, eating a little bit earlier before bed. I should consider, you know, some of these suggestions that I've heard. Why, why not? You know, why not see, because you're never going to be in a position where everything actually is optimal. There'll always be ways that you can kind of figure out to, you know, work towards something

a little bit better. But I think, you know, I think when people are listening to, you know, different lifters or different bodybuilders or powerlifters, I think they have a tendency to kind of hang on to this one principle that someone said, and then they think a bunch of other stuff is wrong. And Doug's not wrong. Doug's not right. He's somewhere in the middle, just like the rest of us. And he's been around for a long time and has great information. So we're going to utilize a lot of the stuff that he said. I already started to incorporate a couple things that he said, and I found it to be super beneficial.

There was a couple things. Actually, there was kind of a lot of things that he said that weren't new at all either. I mean, you know, doing, you know, multiple sets, multiple repetitions, and having a certain amount of rest in between your sets, not resting for too long, not resting too short. I mean, those are all like, they're so simple, but that's really effective. And I think people tend to get caught up in like, I need every set, I need to add weight. Like an example for me would be from the time I was a kid, I would usually do like a set of something. This is like dumbbell work.

I would do a set of something and I'd go light, medium, heavy. Well, that's like kind of forever, like ingrained in my head to do it that way. But I don't have to do it that way. Could I introduce something slightly different? Once I got to the heavy set, could I, could I find a submaximal weight, like a weight, a tweener weight? So instead of going with the hundreds, going with seventies and being like, I'm going to do four sets of 15 with 60 seconds rest.

That is a motherfucker of a workout. Yes. And I'm not saying that the light, medium, heavy method isn't effective. I'm not saying like that's something like that can't work where you kind of do one top set, but there's a lot of effectiveness in doing four sets with minimal rest, not getting maximum recovery. And there's something to be said about having the patience to kind of sit in

there and do that shit because set number one is not that exciting. Like it doesn't hurt. It's not that hard to get through set. Number two might be a little similar well now three and four is where we're kind of making our money but you have to be patient to get there absolutely i freaking i love this i love this so and i love you and sema i love you andrew i love you too much i love you guys i love this podcast i love this room yeah fucking beautiful i can't see the movie i love you man oh yeah yeah

it's a good movie man that's a good movie it is us men who love each other gotta start saying i love you more if we actually love the individual i love you i don't are you trying to tell me i don't say it enough i'm just saying it could work to hear it a little bit more you know it wouldn't be the worst thing to hear it a little bit more from time to time i try to be complimentary i mean you know thank you i gotta work on thank you is it weird if i said i loved you zaddy andrew uh does it feel odd no no with the kind of not anymore the nose breathing at the end i think made it a little bit but yeah i'm all conditioned to it now i'm not used to it but you don't switch anymore not as much i can hide it now you could hide it and he just spreads his legs a little i actually have been back here because i'm trying to pop my hip and it's just like

right there and it just won't go. I can pop that for you. And you broke me. Here we go. All right. But here's another, here's another example of, um, of how like a little bit of like,

I guess variability can work well for somebody in this situation. Right. Um, bodybuilders. We, we, when we were talking about in the break room yesterday, right. Um,

so, so an individual I work with, her name's Carrie. Uh, we were doing some poses the other day. Uh, and when she was like trying to hit some shoulder poses and maybe move her hips into positions for like, um, you know, front poses because of the lack of mobility in those areas, right. The poses did not look as good. Right. So, so that, if you think about that, if you're someone who's stepping on stage, you could have the whole package as a bodybuilder. Um,

but if you're, if you're not even a move your hips back for that front, relax so that your, your, uh, your waist looks smaller. And if you can't move your shoulders, you can't be here while still flaring your lats,

but you're stuck here. You don't look good. And you might lose to the other guy because, just because they're able to move their body and they have that variability of knowledge. But what would what would a strength coach or someone say to the individual who's lifting weights? You shouldn't stretch. Right. So this is the thing.

This is all I'm saying. Get some knowledge in some different areas because those things, those random things that you know might really be the things that spur you in terms of another athletic endeavor. You know what I mean? Like right now, athletically, jujitsu is the main focus, but all these other things that I've been doing have made this stronger. And I think it's as simple as like just identifying, is there some truth to what someone's mentioning? Someone has huge hamstrings and glutes and you're like, man, that'd be great. Like if I could figure out how to get that for myself, you say, Hey, what have you done for that? And they'll say, well, I've done a lot of deadlifting over the years. And I've done, you know, a lot of squats. And then you're like, okay, deadlifts and squats. That

doesn't mean that's the only way to do that. It just means that that was a way that was effective for that particular person. It could possibly be a way that could be effective for you. And what gets to be tough though, again, is like, there's so many different variations and so many different variables that are in there. When we see a bodybuilder or powerlifter or someone that looks good in the gym, that looks strong and you start asking questions, there could be a zillion reasons. Like take calf development, for example, like that one's a weird one, right? Like it's the first of all, it doesn't seem like really anyone really works their calves that much. It seems like people just kind of have calves or they don't. And it seems like when people don't

have calves, it seems like it seems to be very difficult on how to figure out how to get them to be bigger. But a lot of people might look at someone's calves and say, hey, your calves look great. What have you done for them? And they say, I played soccer when I was a kid. And they normally say they played a bunch of sports. Every once in a while, we'll hear that someone was, you know, 400 pounds or something like that. And they lost a bunch of weight. And that's why they have some pretty good calf development.

That's a sport in and of itself. There's so many variables on why a particular person ended up with big jacked forearms or biceps or triceps that it's hard to equate jacked forearms. Jacked forearms. It's hard to equate to any one singular thing. It's not like diet. I mean, diet is a lot simpler

like you figured out a way to not over consume energy and so therefore you are able to maintain a pretty lean physique when it comes to lifting we don't know what the fuck the result you know someone's gonna say i did preacher curls all the time someone else like i did reverse curls and now you're thinking like i gotta i gotta go and do that all the time but what i've noticed when it comes to training is that and just elements of success in general is that it seems like once you start to kind of boil everything down once you calm the fuck down everything seems to be very similar to the old tried and true ways of doing things. Like we can go in the gym right now and we can do stuff with, with zero,

like no rest and we can blow ourselves up really, really easily. But then we're missing out on other elements of why you lift weights in the first place. We can also go as heavy as possible and, and reach a certain amount of stimulus that way. But then we're missing out on some reasons why we're doing some of this stuff in the first place. So it's a, it's a little bit of a balancing act on figuring out what's effective, what feels

good, what's in your best, your best interests, not chasing after somebody else's best interest. And it gets to be, it gets to be really difficult, but the old tried and true, you know, multiple sets of 10, how many exercise you're going to do for a body part? It's anywhere between three and five, probably. How many sets are you going to do? It could be anywhere from one to six. You could do more possibly possibly but that sounds pretty good

what's the rep range the rep range there's a ton of variation with the rep range you can go all way from one let's say you start getting over like 30 reps and things just get weird not that you can't train that way but uh probably not it might might uh be something that you only reserve for occasion yeah i think when you mentioned earlier that uh if you're an individual you know if you're It might be something that you only reserve for occasion. Yeah. I think when you mentioned earlier that if you're an individual, if you're a powerlifter and you're doing a lot of these big compound movements, that there is a price to pay. I think you might have mentioned, but one of the big prices, let's say you're not even a powerlifter, but you're someone who really enjoys the compound movements. And let's say you really enjoy deadlifts. One of the prices to pay is like just general fatigue during your workout like especially if like that's a a big focus in your in your workout if you're doing a compound movement for

45 minutes you're gonna be kind of tired going into these things so maybe you can still do it but just maybe you could lower the intensity of what you're doing it at and then also maybe lower the amount of sets or whatever that you're doing with it so it doesn't cost so much and then you can still it can you can still go and you can kill all these other smaller movements so you're still making progress in these different places um that's just something uh that's something to think about if you're doing that i mean what if you don't want to be moving around sluggishly for the next couple of days, it would probably be a great idea to not skip legs day, but to re-examine, you know,

how you're going to go about doing your training for a particular day. You have a flight or you have something coming up. You have an event you have, you're playing a pickup game of basketball or whatever the hell it is. It just a little consideration for it. You don't have to always train like a maniac. Maybe for that reason, you pick doing something like a hack squat, a leg extension, things where the weight is balanced for you. It doesn't have the same demand.

You're still going to get, you're still going to activate the muscles and still work the muscles, but you're able to not force yourself into moving around. Like you're got the mobility of a trash can. When I was at gold's gym many years ago, I was pulling a sled and I, I put a kind of a lot of weight on there and the rock was at the gym. And me and my brother were pulling the sled and we were like, we're like, Hey, like jump in, you know, and do a set. And he was like, I'd, I'd love to, but I can't afford to do that.

Cause it, it makes me too slow and i was like i kind of thought about it for a minute and i was like oh i get it like he he's fucking on the go all the time and at the time he was still a professional wrestler yeah of course he can like fucking do one set right but But like, that made a lot of sense to me. And I never forgot that because I think about that for myself now. And when I'm doing my workouts, I'm like, I don't want to move around.

It's okay if I move around like I'm in my 30s or 40s, but it's not okay if I'm moving around like I'm 70. You know what I mean? So the risk to reward of how heavy I'm going to go. There's also another side of all this where, you know, you could get yourself to be, you know, super conditioned to where, you know, if you squat 400, 500 pounds, you're not walking around, you know, like, like you just got run over by a tank, right? That's also an important aspect of it too. But how much training do you need to do

to get yourself in that position? It's a little less than if you're trying to push that and do that all the time. You kind of just hit on something. I wanted to ask you and get your thoughts on it. You know how for a lot of people, deadlifts or something where like they do a deadlift workout and they're like, oh, my CNS is fried. I'm feeling like, oh, it's tough. I used to feel that way in the beginning when I was like, when I first started deadlifting. But over time, like deadlifts are something that I could still, if I wanted to deadlift three times a week, I could deadlift three times a week without feeling and a good amount without feeling fried. It doesn't affect me that way.

Like deadlifts out of all those, like deadlifts do not fatigue me. Like, so, so I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Is it, is it because I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Is it, is it because I've just done for so long? Is it like, I think there's a mobility aspect and just the ease of getting my body into that position. Um, because it's like,

you know, when you do anything for a long amount of time, same thing with the jujitsu. It doesn't like when I first started one role, I'd be fried for a week, but after doing it for a while, I'm not right. So I think that like, you know, maybe just taking maybe time and getting better at these

things, it won't hit you as hard. A lot of it's adaptation, you know, um, you know, if we, if all three of us were to sit here and, and, uh, we had someone come in and they gave us a writing assignments and we're sitting here like trying to write and they said, I want you to sit here for the next hour and, you know, write and work on this assignment. Then they come in an hour later and they give you another assignment. I mean, we would all be like, kind of like hurting almost when we were done. If we did three hours, right. We would be like, fuck man. Like, and see how you're doing. Like, I got a fucking headache. Andrew would be like, man, I just need to go to bed. It would be like wiped out. Right. We would be like, fuck man. Like in SEMA, how you doing? Like, I got a fucking headache. Andrew would be like, man, I just need to go to bed.

We'd be like wiped out. Right. Cause we don't, we don't participate in that. We don't do, we don't do that at all. Yeah. The same thing. If we all went and played basketball, if we went and played a pickup game of basketball. Yeah.

That'd be tough. We would be, we would be, we'd be like laughing, you know, because we'd be half dead, but like we'd be messed up for probably like a week, you know, there a bunch of days we're not really used to jumping i can't remember the last time i jumped uh getting into like a decent sprint i mean i don't think any of us really mess around with too much sprinting um and so constant jumping i'm just thinking yeah yeah your ankles one of us could definitely get hurt i mean like, like the back and forth agility-ness of it all. And areas that don't normally bother us that much. Like normally my back is pretty good, but I bet my back would be super tight and messed up and we'd be all screwed up.

So adaptation is a huge part of it. And I think that there's something to be said about getting your fitness level up to a certain par, a so that when you do some sets of deadlifts they don't wreck you for me personally because of all the years of lifting and because of kind of some back and forth with doing some of these main movements not doing some of these main movements what i've learned is it's best for me to keep the main movements in mainly for exactly what you're bringing up so that anytime I want to utilize them, they don't fuck me up. Like they're still effective. They still work really well. Now, I might do them a little differently than the way I used to do them, but you pointed out mobility.

I think mobility is a huge part of it. If you can do the lift efficiently, you can do it more often. Take Ed Cohn, for example. Everyone always wanted to know, what did Ed Cohn do when he was a power lifter? What was his secret? He didn't have a secret. He had videos. He had tons of information out there.

He wrote a book. I mean, his workouts, they were printed. You could see them. So there wasn't any secret to it. What he did do is he, he was super diligent. He stretched all the time. I think after every single workout, I think he'd stretch for like a half an hour or hour. He did all the little things, all the shit that people don't want to do.

He did a lot of ab work. He did a lot of calf work. He did a ton of ab work. He did a lot of calf work. He did a ton of assistance exercises. I would say that Ed Cohn's it throughout his workout, uh, history. I would say that he probably did a lot more assistance exercises when it comes to reps and sets than he did actual main movements,

which is saying a lot. Cause he did a lot of those too. He spent a lot of time in the, he spent a lot of time in the gym. But Ed Cohn, like when years ago, when I got close to Ed and started to know him as a friend and kind of a mentor,

we started talking training and I started to implement some of the stuff that he was talking about. I quickly realized there's a bunch of reasons on why some of the stuff Ed's mentioning is working, and there's a bunch of reasons on why there's some stuff that isn't working. One of the main reasons why some stuff didn't work was due to his mechanics. He could probably deadlift every day and be totally fine. He's got long ass arms. And let's just face it.

Like, we don't know what the hell's going on with that guy's genetics. Right. I mean, it's like, it's just, he was fucking built for this shit. Right.

Yeah. Literally built for it. Yeah. And his, I mean, even now as an older guy who doesn't lift the same weights, he's still a block, you know,

he still has really, really huge muscles in his back and muscles in his obliques and stuff. Stuff that you've never seen before on another person. Let's talk his hands real quick. Like, I've shaken his hand. That is like short, like his hands are bigger than mine. Like, substantially so. It's like a mitt.

It's crazy. It's insanity. Imagine if all three of us were deadlifting, right? And we're, you know, we're, we, we lift the weight and somebody comes over and they measure how far we move the weight, you know? And, and one of us, especially like if you're in a sumo position, you're able to get in a really good sumo position. All three of us can go sumo and we could try to mimic what you're doing, but we don't move the way that you move. Uh, even when someone's shorter, you still might have a small advantage, but like you might

be moving the weight a little bit, a little bit less. That plays into a lot of these things as well. How far you're moving the weight or like for me, when I squat, if I get in any trouble in a squat, I tend to lean forward a lot. So how often can I squat? Not that often. Like I can, I can maybe squat once a week. I actually, when I was training heavy, I had to go heavy pretty much every other week. I had to really plan it out because I didn't have great squat mechanics. And as much as I, I mean, I worked on it nonstop. It was something that was worked on, on every warmup set on every rep and every set. And even on the days when I went lighter, those were like practice days where I would really work on it.

But I just didn't, I just, my body just doesn't move, uh, in an amazing way when it comes to some of those lifts. So for me personally, I could have, I could have probably taken a big step back and probably worked on mobility.

And that would have maybe, uh, kind of moved my squad up even further. If you look at, you know, a big difference between me and Brian Carroll, I did a thousand eighty. Brian Carroll did thirteen hundred. He had to take steps back because he got injured and he was able to kind of reload and go back and go back into it. He ended up with great mechanics and great technique. back into it. He ended up with great mechanics and great technique. And so that, these are all huge factors that play into our recovery, how we train, um, that we don't even really think about that much, but how you move is a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah. How you move is just, it's,

it makes a big difference. And, you know, people, people say that, um um stretching doesn't prevent injury and i agree with that sentiment to an extent the extent that i agree with it is when i like let's i'm going to move to the sport of jujitsu when i see people that are very very tight um and they're they're trying to be they're trying to move in different positions i've seen people's backs get tweaked right and and and just like let's just talk about the back i've seen their back get tweaked when they were like let's say someone was stack passing them and they had too much like their their back wasn't able to like bend right and they weren't able to move in that position so then they tweaked a muscle in their back. But if they were more mobile on their back and their back was able to actually bend well in that position, they could have rolled out of that. Like I've seen that happen, right? So if

they were more flexible within that area, they wouldn't have gotten injured. So then I wonder, well, they say stretching doesn't prevent injury, but if this person was more flexible here, they probably wouldn't have gotten injured because they would have had more range of motion. So what's going on? I don't, I, again, I understand why it is said that it doesn't prevent injury, but I also don't necessarily agree with that sentiment a hundred percent in a lot of situations. Practically, sometimes that statement doesn't make sense.

You ever see Hoist Gracie get armbarred? You know, someone's got his arm. They can't even really tap him. He can fucking, yeah, yeah, because he has so much mobility through here, he can just kind of So to me, that's like preventing an injury. I realize like that's, you know, they're fighting or whatever, but, um,

Andrew, see if you can bring up some clips of like people getting uh the cowboy collar like tackle oh i don't know what this is so they made this illegal um horse collar horse collar tackle like you grab the guy by the back of his shoulder pads and kind of like ride him down and and tons of guys were just getting hurt because they would like run these plays where the running back would run to the outside and the guy had a weird angle on him. He was able just to kind of grab them by the back and pull him down. And like the legs would come underneath them. But there was many guys that were totally fine when they got tackled that way

because probably, you know, due in part to their athleticism, their mobility and, and, and things like that. And so, you know, it's not even just injury prevention. It's long-term and short-term injury prevention. But in addition to that, it would, yeah, here we go. So there's other guys that have been in the exact same position that didn't get hurt. You know, that's what you got to keep in mind, right?

There's been other athletes over the years to get torqued in these exact same positions that we're showing on our monitor that have been, they've been okay. But this is what happens in jujitsu sometimes, right? Like it's, it's a similar, I didn't know the guys like pulling in the same way,

but it's a similar like, yeah, yeah. Self-like that can happen. And it just kind of depends on like, how, how are you able to move through the hip? Yes.

Down. Like if your hip, that's a great example there. You kind of get stuck in your knee because your hip can extend. Yeah. And then what's your knee going to do? Your knee is going to be like, yo,

like we were at the end. Yeah. That's, um, but I, but I also think, so sometimes people will say stretching will aid in recovery. Now, an interesting on that part is that I don't have enough experience with stretching

to know exactly how it feels. But where I, and actually, if you think about like when someone gets really, really sore, like what do we tend to do? Kind of naturally just stretch. Like you ever have your chest really sore and you start putting your arm in the, in the doorway. It's like,

that's, that's like stretching for most people. That's like the only time they ever do it. Yeah. So it will kind of, it will kind of open that area up a little bit. But what I would say is that stretching it's, it's,

uh, it's going to be impacting long-term and short-term injury. But on top of that, it's going to be impacting the short-term like micro tearing that you're doing. If you can move a little bit better, you're not at an end range. So your body's not in like a panic. So just an example would say, let's say I'm doing a bicep curl and I'm doing some full range bicep curl type stuff. I'm doing a bicep curl and I'm doing some full range bicep curl type stuff. If I get to the bottom of that range and my elbows are real stuck,

I'm going to get way more sore. My recovery ability is going to be less. If every time I go to the, do the movement, I'm stretched at the end range. The muscle is completely tense. Maybe a better example would be something like a stiff leg deadlift. Everyone knows how sore your hamstrings get from an exercise like that. If your body's really tight, your hamstrings are going to be sore for eight days, 10 days.

You can't be as good. You can't be as effective as a power lifter, bodybuilder, or athlete if your hamstrings are that much tighter than the next guy. It's just not going to happen. Absolutely. And this is one thing, like when we're talking about stretching here, yeah, there is some static,

but like even better than static stretching is called something called PNF. It's not too like, it's called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. But like all this is, is like when we were doing the cow stretch in the gym, some people just move in the cow stretch and sit there. Some people will, let's say that they're,

they're stretching their left quad. They will flex their left glute to drive their hips into extension. Flexing and relaxing is going to allow your body to understand that you can actually move within this range and get comfortable moving within that range and activating within that range. That's even better. And then if you can figure out a way to add actual weights into stretches that you're

doing, an example is the jefferson curl right now you're using load going all the way down getting your spine into deep flexion and using coming up with that load now your spine is getting strong and it's stretching so there's great benefit in using loads like my buddy um derrick akuna he's someone who totally disagrees with me on stretching like he's like athlete student stretch and derrick akune he's someone who totally disagrees with me on stretching like he's like athlete student stretch and derrick's super smart he's a super smart dude he's super strong i love he's fairly mobile he he's he's he's fairly mobile fairly mobile he likes to use like he was um i posted up the couch stretch and derrick instead he posted up the he he sent

me a um a video of him doing um bulgarian split squats and he's like you could do the same thing or get the same type of stretch uh kind of putting your leg up you know with the bulgarian split squat and kind of driving your hips he's not necessarily completely against the idea of stretching he just doesn't really like to practice stretching by itself he's utilizing uh full range of motion movements maybe through training? Yeah. Through, through training. Like he, he, he doesn't like static stretching.

He's, he's, he told me strip. He just actually doesn't like static stretching. Um, so, but he uses load to try to achieve the same thing I'm doing in a couch stretch.

So he makes me question a few things that I'm doing. I still think that as far as the range of motion that I'm getting into an account stretch and the act to the activation I'm able to get, it is, I'm getting literally more of a stretch than he's getting there but there is massive benefit in figuring out ways to use loads to move into different positions just like you were when you're using the dumbbells to kind of get your back down to the ground right there's benefit there so again

we're not just talking about just like fucking here just like this static stretching there's a lot of the different ways of doing that here but it can be beneficial i think massively yeah yeah when you guys are talking about the um the horse collar that was actually what claimed my cousin's career it was his uh first pre-season game he played for the chargers against the niners he got horse collar exploded his knee career's over but what i was going to ask you and sema um yeah well actually it worked out because on his flight home he ended up meeting stephanie's cousin so that's how he got married it's so crazy yeah he's like i'm gonna change it for the world like holy shit that's amazing plus he was on madden so that's pretty cool but um what so what is the argument against static stretching?

Like, I don't know anything about it. Like why would somebody say not to do it? Many individuals say that it doesn't actually yield. Okay. When we're talking about static stretching, by the way, we are talking of just like, for example, taking my leg here and just standing here like this, having no movement. Or stretching down towards the floor or something like that. Or yeah, just stretching down towards the floor or something like that. Or yeah, just stretching down towards the floor and just staying there, right? There has, like people say there's been research to show that static stretching doesn't actually yield long-term benefit. It's only like within that period and maybe a few hours later where you'll actually be able to achieve those ranges and you don't keep those ranges the second thing is that people say that especially within the strength community there has been some research

to show that if one does stretch like right before a training session their output as far as um the amount of load they're able to move isn't as much the force production is hampered up to 24 hours um so hence it's not great for strength athletes to static stretch um now on the first thing where like you can't maintain those ranges i i would agree with that with just maybe somewhat with maybe just pure static stretching um but like the ranges i'm able to get in now i don't stretch like i used to every day. And I'm still hitting those end ranges that I was before. But the way I do it is I do a lot of PNF. Like there's a lot of flexing and relaxing. There's a lot of that within what I do, which is muscular activation in the end range of motion, which makes a big difference.

Not just like, for example, a pigeon pose. Not just holding that pose. You are coming up. You are flexing your glute. And then you're going deeper into that pose. You are coming up, you are flexing your glute, and then you're going deeper into that position. So your body understands that it can actually work within these positions. So, again, with everything that we talked about, going back to what we were talking about with Doug Brignoli, right? Try these things.

Do these things. Use it. Because it might yield a lot of benefit. And if you do it and you do it for a while, you don't just do it for a day or three days. You're like, ah, right.

Uh, you, you might find it's not for you, but we're, we're very open-minded here. You know what I mean? We're, we're down to try new shit and see what works.

I would also say that lifting weights is stretching. Yes. I mean, you know, uh, doing anything where you start getting some good force. Um, I would say that like walking probably isn't really much of a stretch, right? Uh, jogging isn't really much of a stretch, but if we start to sprint, you know, like sprint uphill and

then, and then tell me that your calves didn't feel like they were stretched. Yeah. Like the next day, your calves are really sore. And even just when you get a little bit of flexion of your foot, you can feel how tight your calves are from, from doing something like that. So I would say that lifting weights is, is a form of stretching. And I think that we could maybe even just like choose some exercises. I don't think it makes sense to choose exercises. Well, I think there's different occasions. There's different things to implement different reasons with different goals

that you have. So when it comes to like, if you want to be more fit, you want to look better and you want to move better and you want to just feel better, then you should start to gravitate towards exercises that there's a good amount of movement in the exercise. Like the exercise isn't only to target the quads. The exercise isn't only to lift as much as possible. The exercise.

Now you could pick that for certain reasons for certain times. Jessica this morning, she was working on doing some hip thrusts. And when she was doing it, she had 275 on the bar. And I noticed, like, from my observation, it looked like she's kind of missing a little bit of range of motion. So I said, you know, I think if I said, why don't you do the exercise with no bar, see how your hips move, and then judge the weight based off of that to make sure that you're able to move in a range of motion that, that you can. And so then she went back down, I think to like one 85.

So she took off 90 pounds and she was like, that worked a lot better. And now Jessica also is somebody that she is prepping for a power lifting contest coming up soon. Nice. But she's also somebody that has dealt with some pain in the past. So that's why I recommended it to her. If she was just obsessed with just lifting the heavy stuff and she didn't

have any prior, you know, uh, injuries with her back or her knees or anything like that, I probably would just let her proceed. Cause maybe getting that little extra piece, maybe it wouldn't matter too much, but I'm just thinking,

well, she could use less weight and probably get more out of it. So I think that would be the best benefit. So I should, should, uh, suggest it to her and it worked really well. So I think when we're doing our training, we've got to kind of think about like, what is it that we're, that we're after, you know, as a power lifter, you're really trying to cheat the system as much as you can. You know, you're trying to get away from muscle tension as quickly as possible. You know, I would lower the weight in a bench press, you know,

so fast it would scare the spotter. Usually I'd like rip the weight out of their hands and just drop it and then throw it back up there and rack it, you know, before anybody kind of knew what was going on sometimes because I didn't want my own body even knowing what was going on. So the goal there wasn't like muscle activation. We're going to stimulate the pecs.

We're going to get, pecs we're going to get uh you know maximum focus in on the chest and this is where you end up with power lifters you know bench pressing with a very specific way to where they're loading their whole body into the lift getting a lot of leg drive in there uh getting an arch uh trying to organize their body in a way that allows them to lift the most weight, the safest, versus sometimes you see bodybuilders in the gym, and I used to make fun of this all the time, like, why are their legs crossed while they're bench pressing? You know, they got their feet up in the air and their legs crossed.

They have a completely different goal. They're trying to actually isolate the chest. So it actually makes a ton of sense. Let's take the legs out of the picture, and we're going to work more on the arms and more on the chest. We're going to work more on the upper body. We're taking the lower body out of the equation. Yeah. Yeah.

Just an example of what you're talking about in terms of stretching with weights. I got that. I think I saw you doing this and then I saw that Ben also has this program, but like the, the slant board back squats, right. Um, I was doing those the other day and I was just like, I was like, I was using like one 95 or something like that, but I was allowing myself, I wasn't allowing my, my, uh, hips to have, I wasn't allowing any butt wink to happen, but I was going down into a full squat. And then at the bottom range, when my hips were still in neutral, I would then push myself forward into my knees with that load you you you get what i'm talking about here right it's like yeah you push you push your like

kind of butt forward because you could sit way back on those which works too but yeah then you get way like the knees get loaded up even more and there's more compression with your hamstrings and calves exactly right and i would pause there and then i'd come up i'd do like sets of four or five and i was like wow like that is stretching with weights but that's also getting strong in that end range that was probably pretty hard right it was it was but it felt amazing it's embarrassing and it like shoot we we should we should make a video of that so people can see what we're actually talking about there but that's the thing like you can get more mobile with load and strong right and you're not putting yourself in danger if you're

using the right load right yeah and it just makes it fun yeah because like static stretching it's not like something you wake up and like i can't wait to get to the gym to stretch yeah well most people i should say i know you're pretty pumped this i used I used to deadlift with 25s a lot, you know, for that reason, just to get more range, just to get like, let me, you know, figure out how to get myself even lower to the ground. Let me figure out a way to lift this weight. And I think there's tons of merit to that. that you're moving because it's in a way that it's in a way that's not the safest way to lift, especially if you've never done it before. But over time, that quote unquote end range of motion won't be an end range of motion anymore. And to add weight to that exercise won't be problematic because you'll be stronger from those positions and also your end range will

improve i think this is what's missing you know that sometimes people missing the message on some of this is that your end range you need a little bit of play with it um i over a period of time i started to lose some internal rotation of my hip well it gets to a point where your internal rotation starts to affect your external rotation, which sounds weird, but it was hard for me to continue to force my knee outward because I started to have a hip impingement from turning the knee inward. I can feel my hip get a little pinchy and there just wasn't any room there. There wasn't any space on that side. So as I went to push out towards that side, it got to a point where that area started to kind of turn into like concrete and it just wouldn't go out any further.

So then I started squatting a little bit crooked. What's the cost of that with 800 pounds, 900 pounds? It's a pretty, it's a pretty uh price to pay when it comes to that stuff yeah um what other because actually i'm curious about this what have you uh added in as far as body work because i saw that you started doing some like you know i don't know what else he did to you but i saw that you added some cupping and stuff like that and this is a thing this this is don't be close-minded because like, I think I saw a video from, um,

Steffi Cohen, which I love Steffi Cohen stuff. She's super smart, but she was like talking about cupping. I don't ever do it, but like she was saying, it's pretty much useless. Uh,

there's really no merit to it. I'm pretty sure that's what the video said. I hope I'm not misquoting her. Cause I don't want to say someone said something at dinner, but I do think like if it helps an athlete feel better and they like it and, uh, there might be something that maybe we're just not seeing there, you know, so what like what other stuff will have you like added in that might be unconventional? We put it that way.

Well, I started to do a little bit more stretching and then I was like, you know, I've been doing some of that for a bit and then I was like, you know, it would be great to get worked on too a little bit, just to get some of these kinks out. I have some stuff that's just been sitting there forever that I've never done anything about because I'm like, I'm not going to change. I still love to lift the way I lift, but now I'm at the point where I lift a little bit differently, and I am stretching, so I'm like, well, now would be a great time to see if I can reorganize these kind of old tissues that aren't moving properly that don't feel great. And so I got, uh, Oscar who's working,

working on me. He's working on my hip and he's working through the quad. And what he found was like, and I knew this was there. This has been there forever. I mean, it's probably, it's probably the size of this,

uh, of this, uh, rain energy drink. I have like this kind of lump that's just sitting in there just a tissue lump okay yeah oh yeah yeah yeah uh not that lump got it okay but i have this uh this tissue in there that's just it's uh it's like beef jerky like the rest of the tissue is really good and then there's this area that's clunky that when he's like working on it i can feel it like sliding

around it's not doesn't feel like a tumor or anything crazy like that, but there's definitely like, there's definitely like something there to where I feel it shifting around as he's kind of working on it. And again, I've known that I've known that that area has been like messed up or tight for a long time. But I just wasn't going to redo everything I was doing until more recently.

I'm like, let me work on this. So he's poking around in there as he's doing that. It's very clear that it's like pretty damn tight. It's painful, but it wasn't too crazy. And he's like, okay, well, let me do this. So then he takes like a Theragun and he messes with it for a minute. It gets a little bit looser. Then he starts working on it, doing a couple other things and it gets a little

looser. And then he's like, has me moving around, moving my leg around as he's kind of digging in, it gets a little looser. He's like, Oh man, it's still pretty, still pretty tight. He's like, so then he tries cupping and he starts messing around with the cupping. And then he goes to go in on the, on the leg again. And then he takes my leg and he's working on some internal rotation, which I don't have much, but I got some play there. So he's kind of working on that and he takes my leg and he's working on some internal rotation, which I don't have much, but I got some play there. So he's kind of working on that. And he keeps going back and forth between

that, the cupping, the massaging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. By the time the session's over that air, that, that, uh, you know, big ass lump that was in there. It's not gone. It's not gone forever, uh, in one session, but he did reduce a lot of the inflammation that was there. And he, and we did get, I did feel better afterwards. So he did the same thing again today. And yeah, I'm totally open-minded to people trying. I've had all kinds of different things done. What the fuck's that called?

They put the needles in you. What's that called? Acupuncture. Acupuncture. I had acupuncture done. Icture. I had acupuncture done. I had a form of acupuncture done where they run electricity through it. I've had all kinds of different things done. And it's like, well, if it's going to help, let's go for it.

Yeah. That's why this is exactly like the reason why when I'm listening to somebody, let's say that they're really good at what they're talking about, or they really know their stuff, or maybe they've gotten people, a lot of results, they've gotten results. When they say the opposing view to them, that's wrong. When they say that, I'm just like, because like, I get it's maybe it's in slight opposition to what you're doing but the fact that you're saying it's wrong is for sometimes it surprises me it surprises me because i'm like you're so damn knowledgeable and you know so much and you're so good at what you do yet you're saying

this is wrong yet i've seen so many people do this and do so well that it's obviously not wrong. So like, can't, can't we just kind of balance this out a little bit? I think most things aren't a hundred percent right. You know, like cupping probably, uh,

is like it might, there might be like research that shows that it doesn't really do much, you know, or it doesn't, people like to use the word work. Like, I don't, I don't think that works. And it's like i don't i don't think that works

and it's like well i don't nothing really ever works unless you make it work for you you know what i mean like it's got to be you got to shove it along a little bit you got to kind of work on it and if you're if you are closed-minded to it then it's the odds of it working are going to be very very slim because you already are kind of put off by it. You're not into it. You don't believe in it. You're not about it. And so I think with something like cupping or dry needling or any of these different

practices that they use for massage therapy or any of the different things that we use in our training, there's different levels of how these different things work. And again, back to Doug's example of the squat, some people might have it in their head that he said, you know, it's only, you know, activating the quads by 30%. But I actually think that's pretty good. Like, you know, that's a pretty good result because a leg extension wouldn't be an example of 100%, you know, it'd probably be like 50% or 60%.

I don't know how high the percentage goes. That should have been maybe a question that we asked them or we can ask them some other time. What does it look like when we start to get maximum activation? Because I don't imagine it would be 100% and it's like 100% of what. It would be interesting to ask all those questions. But looking at some of the stuff from knees over toes and looking at some of these different things, it's very logical to understand that when we, you know, are, when we move in a certain direction, we're going to get a greater response. And I think sometimes we're not, we're not really, we're not really thinking that way. And I think it's just, it's helpful to be a little more open-minded to some

of these concepts yeah and then whenever i see athletes like at the highest of levels that utilize some things i'm just like there's definitely got to be something there and lately i've been seeing a lot of ufc fighters they'll come out like into the octagon and you can see their back it has just like all the cupping circles and it's like oh man would you want to like display that maybe you might have an issue there or whatever but like if it's that good then there's there has to be something there right it's the thing like i i pay attention to a lot of that too because like like for example david goggins is like big on like stretching lebron too um a lot of athletes like really like the sauna because they feel things right. They're like,

oh, I feel amazing with it. But then you'll hear someone who's a coach and they're like, no, that's actually bad for this and that's bad for this. That's bad for this. I feel like it's probably, again, it's great to maybe understand why the coach is saying that, but then talk to the athlete and ask the athlete, what do you actually feel with this? And maybe they can actually give you a really good explanation as to why, and then try it. Right. Cause remember when he had Andy Galpin on, cause I, I, I, I'm so pissed. I don't have access to a sauna right now. Cause the gym I go to that's on is closed, but the sauna is one of the best things that I've had in terms of sleep, in terms of like,

like moving around in the sauna and the way my body feels the next day. And it's just fucking amazing. But you know, Andy was like, you know, for performance and the amount of sodium loss, et cetera, might not be the greatest. So understanding what Andy said, you can make sure that you get an electrolytes post sauna so that you're not dehydrated and depleted. Um, and maybe you don't do it for an hour. Maybe you lower the amount of time so it doesn't hit into your training but figure out a way to meld that in so it works for you not against you yeah and then there's people that will say you know cryotherapy is like so beneficial so

just freezing your ass off but then matt brown so you know he was here but when he was here he didn't talk about it he talked about it right after he's been saying that the same thing. He was just like, sauna is like so much more beneficial. And then he, I like reposted like a study or whatever that showed how much better it was for you then doing like cryo sauna. Yeah.

Oh, but again, it's just like, who, who are you? Like whatever, you know, a station you have your radio on that you're going to listen to.

Yeah. So shock proteins, right? Heat shock proteins. It's kind of like, I mean, if you were to find out that coffee is just not that great for you. I mean, I think we hear all kinds of different information about it, but like, what do you like to do? You know, what do you enjoy? What do you you know, the same thing would be for me. Like, I love protein shakes. I've been drinking them for 30 years. So if someone's like, hey, that's not the best, you know, this new study came out, I'd probably still drink unless they were some sort of danger to them.

I guess maybe I would reconsider. But with coffee, like, I know that I like to drink coffee more than once a day. So usually when I get a cup of coffee, I just get a smaller cup of coffee than i used to um but you know i think it's similar with like alcohol or anything it's like well i don't want to be restricted and not do a bunch of stuff that i want to do uh with your training you know you don't want to we're already pretty damn disciplined we're already getting to the gym you don't want to force yourself to do a bunch of shit that you don't like so if you love doing bent over rows and squats, like fucking have at it, keep going with them, but also just be open to, there could be some other ideas and concepts that

you could utilize at some other time in your life. Maybe for now you're going to, you know, ride out doing squat bench and deadlift for as long as possible, but maybe you get to a point where you're 50, 60 years old and you could utilize something new. It's great to have that knowledge base because now you can introduce some other exercises. Yeah. They're going to kill you a lot less. Kill your whole face.

You've been drinking some wine. Yeah. So mainly just morning, afternoon and Mainly just morning, afternoon, and night? Morning, afternoon, and night. I come into this podcast lit every day. No, I'm joking. But I use the excuse that wine has the. Into accidents.

Resveratrol. Apparently resveratrol helps with sleep. Right. helps with sleep right so you know anybody that knows me like knows that my my like my dirty drink of choice is this i forgot what company is from but it's just like eight dollar bottle of wine um that's like this fucking big it's a it's a pinot um and i'll mix that with a diet ginger ale just a little bit of that wine with a little bit of diet ginger ale. Like every single night. That's just like,

there's some like wine people listening. They're like, there's a trashy human. Yeah. Yeah. There's like, what a piece of shit. Like,

wow. I didn't know he was a piece of shit. It's awesome. Yeah. Like I'll have that like, like almost like, like maybe five nights a week is a little bit, but Hey,

there's resveratrol and I like it. It's this is my dirty drink of choice i fucking love it for some reason i'm picturing you in like a robe like with your feet up fireplace going yeah if i have fire just chilling my diet ginger ale and wine just sipping yeah oh god but um yeah yeah that's my thing man i'll i'll uh i'll bring it in a shaker bottle for both of you guys to try. He said, mm-mm. He said, mm-mm. He said, mm-mm. Yeah, Andrew and I were talking earlier how we don't really care to have a drink at the moment.

That comes and goes for me, though. I'll get into a mode where I'll have drinks here and there, and I get in a mode where I'm just like, eh, I don't really need it. Usually for me, what my issue is that if I do drink, I want to like eat more for some reason. I don't know what, I don't know what triggers that for me, but it's not even that I'm like drunk,

you know, it's not like I'm drunk and I'm like, Hey, I need to eat all this fucking pizza or something like that. You know? Uh, but yeah, it does kind of trigger that response in me. So I'm like, I don't really want to deal like that, you know? Uh, but yeah, it does kind of trigger that response in

me. So I'm like, I don't really want to deal with that, but it feels fucking great to have a glass of wine or two or just some alcohol feels good. It helps relax you quite a bit. Yeah. I like red wine. I don't go crazy with it. Well, I think, you know, there's a lot of research and studies that show like that. It's, it's not great for sleep right is what some people you know some of the but like i i think that you know my my wife drinks often and she fucking sleeps like there's no tomorrow like she wouldn't you know and of course yes somebody could say oh well if we tested her sleep maybe her deep sleep's not the best or whatever but she seems to be plenty efficient you know she's running around doing all kinds of crazy shit all the time yeah that's that's what um i forgot the uh the why we sleep book author yeah michael walker or matthew walker yeah that's what he wrote it's just like you kind of get um uh oh i can't think of the

word but like when you're on medication and they induce you what the fuck is that i can't think of the term you're not getting like real sleep yeah it knocks you out pretty much. Yeah, you're just like... So you're not actually getting restful sleep. I ain't getting white girl wasted out here. Alright? Like, it's a little bit of wine. Well, also, yeah, I wonder the amount that you take, your body size has got to matter a lot.

How far from your bedtime. I mean, there's got to be a ton of factors. Alcohol before bed, if you drink quite a bit of alcohol before bed that is not a good thing for your sleep let's just make that straight i don't want people to hear me say i drink some wine before or at night and be like oh so yeah don't drink a lot it feels good though it's nice it is crazy though like we how we were talking earlier like i have zero interest in wanting to drink anything. Yeah.

I just, that's good. It's great. And I mean, rewind back, you know, a couple of years and it's like, I would have thought that like,

I just, I can't have fun without it. Like I was always going to be a part of me. I wonder what drunk Andrew's like. I don't think I've ever experienced that. Awesome. Yeah. I'm super outgoing. How do you get, yeah, you get like. I don't think I've ever experienced that. Yeah? I'm super outgoing.

How do you get, yeah, you get outgoing. Oh, dude, I get so happy. I get so touchy. Maybe not touchy. I get so touchy and happy. I get like real witty. These are some of the things that I don't like about, like, you know, because I'll be like, oh my God, this shit feels really good. Right?

Dude, Encima punched me a couple of days ago. It felt amazing. It was a light punch. It was a light punch. And that shit hurt. I was like, fuck, I think I might be bruised.

I'm sorry. Gotta get him back. Yeah, go for it, Mark. Hit him where it, I'm not touching him. I don't want to retaliate.

So, so you, you get outgoing and. Oh, I just like make crack jokes all the time just like you know the confidence in a bottle or whatever it is that's definitely what it is like i'm not saying like i'd be like the life of the party but like i remember when i stopped drinking looking around just being like damn like nobody even knows I'm here. Whereas the opposite, I'd be like in front of everybody. Like, wow.

It's a performance enhancer. It really is. How about you? When you, I don't, I've never seen you drunk either. Mark doesn't get drunk. Yeah.

Yeah. When's the last time you got drunk? It's probably been a while, but, uh, yeah, I don't know. I,

I, I just like, how do you get like, what, what happens to you uh i would say that like depending on like the situation that i'm in like if i'm in if i'm in uh i'm really strange socially so like if i'm in a in an environment where i don't know anybody i'm actually a lot better with or without alcohol.

When I'm in an environment where I know everybody, like at family functions and stuff, I'm better off with alcohol. You're better off with alcohol? Yeah, I'm better off with alcohol. I'll be more talkative. I'll be more, otherwise, I don't really say two words. And then people are always like, is he mad? Or like, and I'm not, I'm just hanging, but i'm just i'm pretty quiet it just depends it depends on like who's there and who starts talking about what but uh all i ever think about is is lifting

and the stuff that we talk about on this show so i don't really oh my god i don't have nothing to say to anybody like and you know uh just like nutrition and training and like you know or i just it's weird too and i i feel like i can't i feel like i can't really there's a lot of stuff that i feel like i can't talk about because it just doesn't it doesn't make people feel good so i'm pretty silent i'm like you know i'm not dude hey what's going on with you how's your business like i you know what i mean yeah like if you were to if you were to get like all our like youtube history of videos or whatever it would just be like only fitness with like a couple of family fans my bad no no no at least for for mine personally like if you start a three-way only fans dude we make hell of money i'm in i'm all about that only fitness i was gonna ask you

something man because this is something that like i i, my head always does this when I meet new people or when I, when I, when I meet new people and I watch them. This is why I'm like, I have to be so careful with the way I look at people sometimes, just because when I see people, I always pay attention to like, I'll like, when they're not looking, I'll look at their like body and I'll look at how they look when they're walking and walking away and shit. And I'll just be like, I'll be'll be thinking like hmm you got really tight hips their their their their feet are out when they're walking their shoulders are slumped forward a bit like that's what going on in my head that's what i'm thinking about a lot of the time when i watch people when i look at people like all of the all the bad ways in which they move is that is that does that happen to you or do you do that i think all the same things but they're probably worse

yeah yeah yeah no i i i observe people uh quite a bit and definitely especially in the subconscious i'm very fucking judgy very very judgy uh um you know i i think like uh some of it is like a little bit of human nature but i think some of it has to do with like you know some of our knowledge base you start to learn you start to learn a lot about the human body and something i've been observing like more recently it's just like it's it's an interesting thing like when mark sisson talked about um how our body fat is stored like a fanny pack you know um it's really interesting because if you had like a if you have an alcohol addiction a cocaine addiction uh a porn addiction like you got these addictions and most people don't really know

anything about it um it but if you have an if you're if you have a tendency to overeat you're like wearing it all the time and wow it's just like wow that person like they really they're really struggling with something now they might have a different, they might not care as much, you know, if they're 20 pounds overweight or something, they might not care. Um,

but you know, people that are heavier than that, I think, I think they do care. I think it does hurt. And it's like, everyone gets to see it. It's on display all the time.

There's no way to hide it. There's no way around it. The, the only comfort might be is that other people are that way too and so and and i think that maybe other people can like understand it because there is fucking delicious food everywhere yeah uh but it's a really interesting thing like um just imagine if if when you did meet somebody that's the second that you met them or they had it on like a name tag that they're an alcoholic or that they were an addict. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Or or even just any struggle they've ever had abused as a child. You know, like it's like, whoa, like a holy fuck, you know. But it's it's like it's kind of in your face when someone's 300 pounds, you know, you're like, whoa, like it's a weird thing because face when someone's 300 pounds. You know, you're like, whoa. It's a weird thing because I'm not judging in a negative way at all.

I'm just thinking like, wow, I would love to figure out a way to break the ice with that person and assist them. But maybe they don't want help. Maybe it's the same way you look at a homeless person sometimes. You're like, I'd love to help this guy, but maybe he doesn't fucking want your help. Maybe he's fine living the way. There's a bunch of homeless people in Davis, and there's one guy in particular. I ask him if he wants or needs anything, and he says no almost all the time. I have to just hand him him something just to like just for him to like take something. And even then he's like, yeah, but but it's it's it's it's me imposing my lifestyle choices on him.

Much like I would be imposing my lifestyle choices on someone that's heavy. They could be totally fine with what they're doing and how they're going on about their business. But I also doubt it. You know, I don't think it, I don't think it feels good for anybody to be, uh, too far out of the range of normal, uh, when it comes to your kind of your health or body fat levels or however you want to say it. Man, putting it that way, that really, that really makes you, that makes me think a lot more about that.

Cause like, yeah, everybody has silent struggles. Everybody has things that like, I mean, I've talked about it very openly when I was younger, I had a massive porn addiction. That shit would like really fucked me up.

Like it took me a long time, years to deal with that. But it's like, you know, when you are overweight, when you have a struggle with food, um, that, that is everyone knows you can't hide it. You can't keep that. Like it's not something and you're just living with that. You're just living with it. I think that's one that could be one of the reasons. Well, no, no, no. My, I was going to go somewhere with that, but it's, it's, it's different than like, you know, if you were to see somebody that doesn't have like an arm or something, you

know, like it's, you know, you're thinking like, oh my God, like you, you don't know how to react. You're not sure whether you should look or look away or you don't know what the fuck to do with yourself. Yeah. That's always, uh, uncomfortable, but then you're also thinking, well, maybe they were born that way or maybe they in some sort of accident or, or something like that.

And you're kind of just thinking like, it doesn't have a ton to do with them. Most likely, I guess it could, you know, right. But when someone is heavy, like excessively heavy,

like a hundred pounds overweight, you're just thinking like, man, like that person got behind somewhere along the lines. They, and they, they, they have a struggle every day with their food. Uh, it's not even every day. It's, it's, uh, it's every moment. It's every waking moment of every day. Like it's, it's, it's something that like, for some reason, it's still as much as it's talked about. And as much as there's like a multi-billion dollar business, the health industry and fitness industry.

Yeah. Um, it's still not honed in and focusing in on enough because people are, people are hurting, you know, people really, they're really hurting there. It's,

it's, I mean, when I went to this, uh, function the other day, uh, that, that Sean Provost had, there wasn't like a bunch of people there that were like real heavy or anything, but everyone was asking me questions like, what the fuck do you do? Like, what's your story, man? And I'm like, I don't know.

And they're like, what are you training for? I'm like, I just, they're like, do you compete in something? I'm like, oh, I used to compete in powerlifting and I just want to be fucking jacked, you know? And, but I, you know, I did see some people there that were, you know, heavier and I started talking a little bit about nutrition and then it started turning into like a seminar. Like people do want to know this fucking information. Absolutely. Even some, even there's even people that, to know this fucking information. You know, even some, even there's even people that,

you know, might not seek out this podcast. They might not seek out fitness, but they still, I think they still want to know this information. Yeah. No, what,

what I was thinking of earlier was just like when, when you were talking about this, I was thinking about like, you know, the, the body positivity movement, right? I think there's a lot of good behind the body positivity movement. think that it's absolutely necessary let's say you're heavier you're 300

pounds let's say that you you don't necessarily like where you are i do get that there is some people get motivation by literally hating it so much that they're like i'm making a fucking change but i do understand the mentality of like not being okay, kind of loving who you are in the moment and accepting who you are in the moment. But then where I kind of part ways with that whole thing is that like, they're just, some of those individuals are like,

just stay there. You're okay. The way you are. That's, that's fine. And I think like, okay, that's,

that's not necessarily the best thing. Like if, if you're 300 pounds, love, you should love yourself. You should love who you are, but you should also be aware that, you know, you, you can improve that. You can lose some weight. You can get healthier because that'll give you longevity and that'll allow you to have a better quality of life. Right. Right. So there's, it, there shouldn't be shaming of individuals. You shouldn't. And that's even tough because some people actually get motivation from that in a weird twisted way. But for the most part, yeah, you should not be shaming those individuals.

Uh, but there shouldn't be this whole idea of acting like being 350 pounds or 300 pounds or whatever is, and you're short and you're just like, you're not healthy. That's not okay. Yeah. And then like Mark talks about it, about like being in a good mood. So like, yeah, loving yourself at 300 pounds or whatever, just so that way you're not depressed and you can get out of bed. You know, like that's one thing but then also like you know like for myself like i look in the mirror i'm like oh shit like i can see a you know vein on my left bicep i'm motivated now because like i want

to get even better you know so like it you get in a better mood and it makes you do want to improve yourself even more yeah and i think that's you know kind of what you're getting at right like yeah be be in a good mood but also understand that like you can be even better i think yes also to uh like loving yourself is an interesting thing i don't know how many people have i don't know how many people have really tried to observe that and learn that for themselves. One of my favorite speakers of all time, he kind of referenced that. He talked about his marriage with his wife and he said, I've been married for 30 years. And he's like, man, I love this woman. He's like, I still hold the door open for her. I still kiss her every morning. I still kiss her every night.

hold the door open for her. I still kiss her every morning. I still kiss her every night. He's like, I, he's like, I really do. I really do love her. And he goes,

but the truth is, he's like, I don't always like her. He's like, he's her name. Her name is Angela. And he's like referencing her throughout the, he gives it,

he lists out like a bunch of stuff that she does. That's, that's annoying. And he says, you know, Angela, she's like, he says she doesn't have any sense because she leaves the cap off the toothpaste and the toothpaste is all over the place.

And, you know, he lists out all these other other things that he does. But his point is that they don't have to always like each other. You know, and I think when it comes to yourself, I don't think you have to necessarily always like you do need to love yourself at some base, you know. But you don't always have to love yourself. You don't have to like yourself. You don't always have to be happy with yourself. Like there's going to be aspects of yourself that you're just you're not thrilled about. You're not pumped about like you're like, I could have I shouldn't have said that to

that person. I could have fucking behaved better. Like I know better like God damn it. Why why did I do that? Why did I make that was a shit choice that probably made that person, I could have fucking behaved better. Like I know better, like, God damn it. Why, why did I do that? Why did I make, that was a shit choice that probably made that person feel better. Whatever the thing is. Um, I don't think you have to always, uh, you know, always love everything about yourself, but I do believe that if you don't have anything, then you got nothing to give. And if you, uh, you need to be able to have some sort of belief in yourself, uh, in order to get momentum in order to have progress. So if you don't do

anything, you will probably never be able to get out of your own way. You'll probably never be able to, uh, turn it around. And so for people that are, that are heavy, that struggle with that, it's one thing to love yourself and to be okay with some of the choices that you made. And I don't think it really matters on whose fault it is, whether you feel like it's your fault or whether you feel like it's your parents' fault because there was tons of delicious food at your house all the, or you were abused or sexually abused or any of these. I don't think it's really all that helpful to point a finger at anything, but to know the origin of it actually is really useful. Because once you learn the origin of it, maybe you can work on that. And I think a lot of people that are actually really heavy, there's almost usually like a trauma that happens somewhere along the line that was very difficult for them to deal with, that they never were able to really interpret. And sometimes, you know,

the same thing that happens to like a set of children in one household could have an impact on three or four different kids completely different ways. Like one kid might not seem like they're affected in terms of their level of success or what they're able to do later on in their life. So, uh, I do think that you need to figure out a way to do something with yourself in order, uh, to really be anything. If you don't, if you don't feel like anything, it's going to be really, your road's going to be really, it's going to be really, really tough. That to be really, it's going to be really, really tough. That, that whole thing about, you know, you know,

put your mask on before you help your children on the airplane, your oxygen mask on it's, you do have to be a little selfish. You do need to do shit for yourself because the, the more that you can be like, this is what we need from people. We need, this is my presidential campaign. We need people to be fucking stronger. I need in SEMA to be strong so that I'm stronger.

I need Andrew to be strong. So I'm stronger. If Andrew's fucking weak, he's always goddamn complaining. Then it's going to, it's, it's not going to help me. But if Andrew's getting it every day and he's feeling great complaining, then it's going to, it's, it's not going to help me. But if Andrew's getting it every day and he's feeling great. And when I see him, he's like,

what's up, man? And I'm like, oh man, I'm doing good. How you doing? Hey, I just got a workout done. He's always all fired up. Now I'm fired up now and SEMA pops in and we're like, fuck man, Andrew already trained today. Like we're, we're behind. I know we need to catch up to him. It gets us all fired up and, uh, creates better energy versus kind of the reverse of that, you know, where people are just, they're maybe not, they're not in a position where they feel good enough about themselves to even get, to even get started. And so you got to start with something. Absolutely.

It's, um, that reminded me of it's yeah Jordan Jordan Peterson there's something I think I know if it's his first books for 12 rules for life but it's like treat yourself like somebody that you care about yeah like when you when you think of that conceptually like if you have like a dog if your dog was getting really out of shape and sick right you wouldn't continue feeding it and like overfeeding it you would put that dog on a diet to have a lose some weight so it can feel good like a majority of people like if your kids are getting unhealthy start feeding them healthier right you you start to work on that for them so you got it if you care if you if you really like if you really do care about yourself

you're gonna want to treat yourself and and and give yourself the best i guess food etc and activity to get to your best place you know so and it's it's kind of it's kind of rough because it's like food is enjoyable and you feel good in the moment where you're eating these things so it's like you are treating yourself and you are trying to feel happy. But the end game of that is you feeling worse about yourself. Is you not liking the way you look? It's not really much of a reward as it is a punishment in the long run. Like it's more of a punishment. You know, on the flip side of me saying, hey, like we need people to be stronger.

People are also a lot stronger than they already give themselves credit for. There's a lot of people that are heavy that are high-level performers in a lot of areas of their life. So it's not like they're just struggling every single aspect of their life. They just happen to struggle with food. They made some bad decisions. Our buddy Ethan Supley is a great example of that. He was on Joe Rogan recently. If you haven't listened to that, you need to check it out.

It was really, really good. But Ethan, he was an actor. He was already being successful in some of that. There's other people that maybe not, they might not be famous, they might not be an actor, but they might be a dad, they might be a mom, they might not be famous. They might not be an actor. They, but like, they might be a dad. They might be a mom. They might have a job that they're able to excel at. They're able to do really well with. And then I think just pull some confidence from there and say, hey, I have, clearly I have discipline in some areas.

You got discipline brushing your teeth. You got discipline, like with a, it might be the smallest stuff, but there's some sort of association where you decided that, uh, it's in your best interest to brush your teeth. And so you brush them twice a day, maybe even you floss them, right? You, uh, you figure out a way to, you know, implement some of these habits. Maybe you can start to take some of that into your everyday life and start to implement it into just a pinch of nutrition or training of some aspect. And then once you get a little momentum with that, it's a lot easier to continue to be confident because you believe in yourself more and you do start to love yourself more. But that can also end up being a little bit

of a trap because you can fall in love with yourself a little too much. And so you might. Never mind. Wait, I didn't want to talk about you on the show like that. What? Wait, what's going on? Fuck you. What happened?

Fuck you. That was good. That was good. Oh, man. No? Yeah. No. Yeah. I don't look at, man. Right? No? Yeah. No? Yeah.

I don't look at myself 30 minutes in the mirror every day. I don't do that. Why wouldn't you? I know. I look at you for 30 minutes in the mirror every day. Yeah. Andrew and I are staring at you the whole time. But you don't even know we're there.

Yeah. Like, did I really need to walk into the gym this morning to just watch you stretch? No, you're not Michael. You're not Michael Hearn. It's okay. Thank you. God. Whenever you make those jokes, Andrew, it just makes me laugh, man.

Cracks me up. Cracks me up. That's awesome. Andrew, take us on out of here. We're done. We're out of here. We're out of here. All right.

Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. thank you everybody for the uh the interaction on the live chat it was uh pretty cool um just real quick shout out to energy driver 3001 uh he just said that we've converted him over from uh drinking another salty um beverage to drinking element exclusively so yeah dab on him dab on him i missed it i haven't changed the camera that was double dab on me yeah please one more time there we go and then our boy justin same thing he was the one that did the uh the big cut i'm gonna do something else that the kids do these for turning the camera and go was that injection site so apparently that shit means ice in my veins. I didn't realize that until yesterday.

It's like, we're getting dumber. That's something kids do these days. The accuracy is happening. The accuracy is a prophecy. That's what I should have called it. Anyway, Justin did the cut. Remember, we helped him out. I was going to get a couple of week cuts.

So he did a full carnivore and he's like, yeah, Element's the only thing that saved me. He did fucking great too. Looking at the before and after pictures, that dude crushed it. And so thank you Element for helping out our homies. We appreciate it.

For more information on them, links will be down in the YouTube description as well as the podcast show notes. but this is drink lmnt.com slash power project hit them up asap make sure you're on the podcast at mark bow's power project on instagram at mb power project on tiktok and twitter a newsletter will be coming out very very soon as and if you guys haven't um sign up now and you'll still get the uh the previous But yeah, some really good information about dropping some fat. And we don't want anybody that represents the Power Project podcast to be wearing a shirt inside the pool this summer. That's the main goal.

We want everybody to be confident enough to rip that shirt off so know, be the, uh, showcase of that barbecue party. Don't get jacked people. Yes. We don't get jacked. My Instagram is at, I am Andrew Z as well as my Twitter at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where are you at?

And SEMA in Yang on Instagram, YouTube and clubhouse. I didn't see my yin Yang on Tik TOK and Twitter. Mark at Mark's Millie bell strength is never weak. This week. This never strength. Catch you guys later. Time to go to a taco party.