Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 522 - You WON'T Be A Great Lifter Without Doing THIS!

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

We've been hanging out with and learning a lot from Andrey Malanichev over the past week and today we are sharing one of the best golden nuggets we learned from one of the greatest powerlifters of all time. 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

nice hard and ready to go so yesterday i had some piedmontese um i had some of the hop dotty patties but this is the first time that i did it without seasoning it at all i just use a little bit of seasoning on it and i put it on the pan it was really good so i literally just put on the pan no salt or anything i just felt really lazy yesterday put it on the pan cooked it up put some cheese on top of it delectable so i'm just so surprised how good it was without anything. I should have put salt on it to be real. Like I should have used some salt, but I didn't.

I think it's a good, that's a good challenge for people is to like, just try stuff without, without any, anything on it. Just to learn what it's, what the hell it's supposed to taste like. Yeah.

I mentioned that before with like almonds and vegetables and fruit and try it with some meat just to get a couple bites of it, just to see what the hell the thing's supposed to taste like. Try grass fed versus non grass fed and start to learn what you like. And, and then you can add in a little bit of stuff here and there, a little salt, pepper or whatever it is you want. And paprika. I don't really use pepper much.

Do you guys? Never. Sometimes. What about, um, what about like a seasoning? You you guys mess around like you guys get a fancy at all so i usually get those blended seasonings it's like they have like a barbecue blend and a meat blend yeah pete montes has a quebec oh something or other that was really cool yeah yeah i say it in canada i don't know how they say it in canada you should have kept with stay say it in Canada. I heard that shit before. You should have kept with,

say it with it. Like I heard George St. Pierre, he pronounced it that way. I've heard a Frenchman say it that way before. I know that. there's legit. I thought Canadians speak English.

French Canadian. Oh, okay. They do speak some French, but they mostly do speak English. You are correct. George St. Pierre has an amazing accent,

by the way. Yeah, he does. And speaking of GSP, that's actually the only thing i will put on like um like a stir fry vegetables is garlic salt and pepper that's actually like you can look that up like well what's the gsp blend on that i think how you did that every yeah it just it just happened right now on accident that was smooth yeah and that was such a smooth transition but i won't put that on anything with piedmontese i just put salt and one of my favorite things is like i have somebody over

and they're just like well what'd you season this with and actually you know my father-in-law he's just like no you put something on here like dude it's just salt like that's just a flat iron like there's nothing you like you can't mess that thing up you're gonna be feeding that man don't you dude he loves piedmontese whenever he's over he's just like oh you guys cooking that piedmontese huh it's like the neighbor that comes over what's up guys you got some food oh it's 6 p.m oh wow oh you guys eat dinner this time oh whoops no i don't want to impose i really can't eat anything at all, guys. I'll leave. Meanwhile, they're grabbing a fork out of the... No, man, I don't want to put you guys out.

I was getting like a fork and a knife and like a cutting board. Oh, no. Dad, don't listen to these guys. Keep going over there. Yeah. We could keep destroying the piedmontese steak but actually yesterday i did have uh the hot daddy patties on on accident i will say yeah so uh texting stephanie like hey like what do you want it for dinner i'm down for steak hamburgers

whatever she's like okay i'll pull out some hamburger patties i get home and i'm like oh those patties. Okay. So, yeah, I put those on the grill and they're just, they're special. There's just something extra special about those ones. I know it's the fat, but, you know, it was definitely worth it to eat way over my macros yesterday. I wonder if we can get some information from them about what grocery stores are in. That way we can shout some of that out too. I know like nugget has it, but I don't know.

Like if you guys seen, I've seen them anywhere else. No, I would imagine somewhere like sprouts would probably have something like that or like, I don't know, insert fancy grocery store. But no,

I personally have not seen them anywhere except for nugget, unfortunately. them anywhere except for Nugget, unfortunately. But if you guys aren't aware of having these steaks and beefs and hamburger patties anywhere at a local grocery store, Piedmontese will ship it to you for free. To your front door. To your front door. Yeah. Within two days, if your order is $99 or more, like I said, it's absolutely free.

But head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com. At checkout, enter promo code PowerProject for 25% off your order. And like I said, if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Can't recommend it enough. It is mind-blowing. What about this giant Russian bear that we have with us? Yeah, dude.

What's the – who? Andre Malanicha. Yes. It's been, so like. Big boy. Went to see my parents for Mother's Day. Went to see my mom. Dad happened to be around.

He's like, anything new? I'm like, yeah, we got this huge Russian just kind of hanging out for the next couple of weeks. And then trying to explain i'm like all right imagine lebron james wants to come hang out but he doesn't speak english like you'll find a way to make it work right and he's like oh it was pretty funny to try to explain what is an andre milanichev yeah asking uh andre in our seminar i asked asked him whether he's ever missed a weight in training or whether he's ever, you know, missed a weight in competition or anything like that. And he said he doesn't. He always underestimates what he's capable of doing in almost all cases.

Obviously, in competitions, he's missed lifts for various reasons. Uh, in almost all cases, obviously in competitions, he's missed lifts for various reasons. Um, but even, even with some of those lifts, he's come back and like made them, uh, very easily sometimes as a technical issue or something like that. Um, but in, especially in his training, um, he said never, I don't know, you know, I don't know how true that is, but it makes a lot of sense for a lot of these guys that have reached a really high level where they're not always just testing their strength. They're building, building,

building, building a lot of confidence. And I mean, just watch any of Andre's lifts. I think I've seen him squat 900 for five reps in the animal cage. Jeez. Um, I've seen him,

you know, squat well over a thousand pounds a couple of times and it just never, it just never looked hard. hard you know it looked like there was going to be this big setup they played crazy music everyone got all fired up everyone's all really worried and then he would just walk it out very casual and he would uh get in squat position and he would just dunk it and squat it to proper depth and come flying back up with it like it was nothing and it was over with and everyone would go, everyone would go crazy. So I think there is something to that, you know, being patient in your training and not, uh, you know, not forcing a

bunch of things that just aren't there. Absolutely. I think one big thing that I like about the way that, and there are a lot of American lifters who take this on too, but Russian lifters really care about beautiful movement. It doesn't matter if they're Olympic lifters, doesn't matter if they're power lifters, doesn't matter what athlete it is it is they it's like the quality of movement for some reason seems better maybe it's in the back of our heads because we're thinking like russia hard perfect right maybe that's maybe that's why but i did notice like for example yuri belkin whenever i'd watch him lift and i just look at his mechanics that they were the same all the time you're right just the same all the time that's the same thing with andre it's like they yeah they focus on trying to gain strength but they don't sacrifice the the legitimacy of

their movement to try to move a load it's like everything is the same no matter how heavy it is no matter how light it is and that's something that should like that's something that i'm i'm trying to do with all the lifts that i do. I try to keep everything fluid, keep everything progressing, but good movement. Yeah. I have everything from one 35 to two 25, three 15 and so on all look pretty similar. And you probably see that in jujitsu,

right? Where, uh, the guy that's really straining and struggling and shaking, I'm sure that guy can do well, but it's the other guy that can like kind of just fluidly roll into something then he all of a sudden has a guy in a submission you're like how does that work and then eventually with enough practice you might get yourself there too

yeah absolutely um i think the one the thing that was so surprising well it wasn't surprising to me but i was just like first off duh but second off I don't know how possible that is for a lot of people nowadays is when he mentioned and we were just talking about this, how before a lifter should get into strength or strength training or power lifting, they should have built a foundation of volume or muscle. Like I think he mentioned like lifters shouldn't be doing anything under three reps for their first three years of training, right? Three years. Like I made sure to put that a little bit later. He said the first three years of training should be building up volume, should be building up muscle. Okay. Should be building a foundation off of which you can then work and start building strength. And you do notice when you look at a lot of really good strength athletes, think about someone like Andrew Herbert, think about someone like Russell Orhe, think about these just really, really strong strength athletes that they're just jacked, right? But they have this

base of potential athletics when they were younger, or they were doing a lot of bodybuilding before they moved into the strength world. And now they have this body that's just ready to move heavy loads. Compare that to the person that's fresh and they're like, I want a power lift and they've never done anything before. And then they start going in and working on heavy squats and deadlifts, but they don't have that foundation. It's like, do you now have the patience to build that foundation before you enter the sport?

That's tough. It's really hard. I mean, Andrew Herbert's a great example the guy is really really jacked has a huge back and he squats and deadlifts with great proficiency and so you're thinking like i need a big back in order to lift heavy and power lifting and it seems like there's some decent evidence of that. Like a lot of power lifters have a thick back. And then how do you build that? If you're, if you're only squatting, benching and deadlifting, I'm not sure if you can build it the same way as if you had a more

systematic approach, especially from the beginning. Cause I don't know if it makes the most sense to go in and like test your nervous system out all the time, as opposed to like training your muscular system. And then also there's a component of fitness. You know, I would imagine that someone like Andrew Herbert, if you're to train with them, I would imagine you'd get pretty taxed, right? I mean, I would imagine that that guy has a pretty good condensed style of training.

And even when he's training for a powerlifting meet, the amount of volume that he's doing would probably thrash any of us. Even if we were trying just to keep up with like lighter weights or something, I'm sure he gets through it pretty, pretty easily, you know? Yeah. Like another example of stuffy Cohen though,

like she did a lot of weights, she did a lot of soccer, a lot of sports before she entered that realm and look at her. Right. It's like her capacity is insane. Yeah. The fitness level is high. And then therefore what they're getting themselves into later on is a

little easier. It's, it's not nearly as, as difficult. And I think that gets to be really hard because like we're talking about here, having the patience, you know, and, and Andre, you know, putting a timeframe on it, I think is actually pretty smart because people are looking for numbers and three years, I'm sure it can matter if you're starting at 16 versus starting at

30, like there could be some differences, but I think that's a good general rule. Yeah. And I think also to like play around on some machines and mess around with some dumbbells and some barbells and try some different things and experiment with sets of 10 and sets of 15 and sets of 20, like do all that shit for a while. And then you'll start to learn what feels a little bit better for you.

What feels more right for you because you might be somebody that splits things down the middle what does that does a little bit of uh power lifting in the beginning of their workout in the second half of their workout you use a little bit of bodybuilding you know you go power lifting bodybuilding and then maybe if you're off season maybe you flip those things around or something like i mean this this is a this is something that you could totally do because right he said he mentioned i i do actually totally agree with the concept of what he's putting forward but if you're someone who like you i still want to squat so bad you want to deadlift you want to do all that stuff so maybe at the beginning of your workout you do it but

you make sure that every single set you have like three reps in the tank and you do sets of like six seven or eight but you always have like three to four reps in the tank. Because remember, if you do it with too much intensity, so let's say you do eight reps and you can't do any more reps. Right. Remember, I said three in the take, meaning you could have done 11, but you did eight. But instead you do eight and all that's all you have there. The rest of your workout where you're trying to really build this training volume and a lot of these isolation movements, it's going to be tax in your career is more important that that part of your workout is now suffering because you did too much for your big three.

I agree. And I think, you know, in my powerlifting career, a lot of times before I would do a big lift, I would do ab work and I would do hamstring work. These are things that I know is just going to leave the gym. You know, once I was done with the main movement, I was going to be like, all right, that took a long time. I'm out of here. And so I would do, you know, I'd go back and forth between like a glute ham raise and maybe just flip the other way around and do sit-ups right off the glute ham raise. I don't know, do five sets or so. And then I would start my workout.

I would be a little bit, and sometimes even pull the sled, I would be maybe just a tiny bit weaker or just not have, I could feel my stomach working as I was getting to the heavier sets. It's like there was a little bit of pre-fatigue going on, but it wasn't anything crazy. It wasn't like I did three sets of 30 reps on a leg extension and then tried to squat. It was nothing like that. on like a leg extension and then tried to squat. It was nothing like that. Just a little bit of pre-fatigue to allow me to get more out of using a little bit less weight and then more specifically, just kind of keeping me under control. You know, I'd hit the big weight and I was always like, that felt really good.

We should keep it that way. You know, like, let's not roll the dice any further for today. That felt really good. That moved as fast as I wanted to. It moved with the correct form. That was a pretty good weight. And if I'm looking for heavier weights, I can wait, you know, a week or two. Donnie Thompson did some similar things when he came out here to train.

And, you know, he squatted like 1,250 pounds or whatever it was. Yeah, something monstrous like that and what he would do on his a lot of people that did the west side barbell method they would do the dynamic effort squats the box squats and they would use bands and he'd use chains and that day always turned into like sub maximal weights because the weight at the top was pretty heavy yeah uh donnie thompson he would use bands and chains and things like that, but he wouldn't wear a belt. Instead of doing sets of two, he'd do sets of three just to make it a little harder, just to add a little bit more volume and to lower the amount of weight. And then another interesting thing, and you got a picture, this is a nearly 400-pound guy.

He would do kettlebell swings in between his sets. And so it was a fitness workout. It was a, now he used 500 pounds, which is crazy. Cause he's like, you know, he's so strong, but 500 pounds, no bell, no nothing again, trying to get more out of less, but I, it's important to point out the work capacity that some of these individuals have, you're going to have to figure out a way to work your work yourself into having a tremendous amount of work capacity. It's not really about being strong in the beginning.

It's about building a really powerful foundation to then build the ultimate construction on top of that. But that's there. Therein lies like the the difficulty, because if you're someone who doesn't have a base, let's say that you didn't really mean even some people that played some sports growing up um they might have never hit the weight room so you might be a basketball player or soccer player that never lifted weights and now you're just starting lifting weights um it's like i i was really thinking about this after i heard that from alanachev three years i was like if, if I knew about power lifting when I was like,

you know, when I was, when I started lifting and kind of later, like would I have had the patience to like leave those movements for later? Cause I didn't start squatting, benching or dead lifting like seriously until I was maybe 20. One 22. Like I did some squatting in college right for college soccer they'd have us in the weight room squatting but my form was shit and like i was squatting 225 it was it didn't look

great my form wasn't that awesome right um but i was doing a lot of isolation work i was doing a lot of like machine work i was doing a lot of movements that helped me put on muscle. Um, but it's like, what I have had the patience to do that. I don't know. Um, but I, I just like, luckily I was able to do it now. I think it's even more difficult because a lot of people get super interested in powerlifting and then they see videos everywhere of like just people doing crazy dope stuff. It's like, what can you do to motivate yourself in those three years of training how can training be enjoyable when you know that like what do you think um should an individual even step on the platform in those three first three years i think there's yeah i think there's a lot

of different ways to go about doing it i mean you know can't forget that how the importance of your interest level uh because if you're not interested you you're not going to even listen to what we're saying. And also, too, following a plan where you're lifting a lot less weight when you're obsessed with lifting heavy weight is going to really annoy you or bug you. So we're not saying that you can't power lift at all. However, it probably makes sense to go out and learn, like just really learn. That's what we're talking about here. Like learn, go to different gyms, go to different people, work out with different people, listen to different podcasts, watch different things on YouTube, become a become a real student of the game. If you listen to anybody that really advances very quickly in something. A lot of times they will investigate, they will study something very, very, they will

study something, you know, all day, every day. And I think that that's a good, if you're trying to be good at powerlifting, it's okay to jump into powerlifting. But I think to Andre's point, if it turns out that you feel like you're just not doing that well, you're not like placing well, you're not super strong, you don't have much of a structure coming into it. That's where you really have to really look into saying, you know what, I'm going to really take my time. I have to build a foundation. I can't, I can't just jump into this. Maybe that other guy can, and maybe that

other girl can figure it out, but I need to back away. I need to get big. I need to take my time. And when I come back, I can focus in on, uh, you know, doing singles and triples and things like that. But I think you have to have, I mean, just like we were talking about, you still need a structure. We know a lot of guys that started really young, Larry wheels, and there's a bunch of other guys now that started really young. They started squatting three times a week and benching three times a week and deadlifting twice a week. And they end up with amazing results.

They end up breaking world records and I'm doing all kinds of stuff. But again, if you look at these guys, they have pretty good structure and it seems like they came out of nowhere. But that guy that squatted 800 pounds, it always in almost every single case, I have not seen exceptions to this rule. If someone squats 800 pounds it takes like a decade so they were lifting it's that iceberg thing that we hear about all the time right they've been lifting for a long ass time already probably messing around

with lunges and uh leg presses and shit like that i think it's like you especially if you if you're interested in powerlifting you have to to ask yourself, uh, first off, what is my big goal here? Am I powerlifting? Because I find the training fun and I find the idea of the sport fun, but I don't really plan on being that competitive. I think if that is what you're thinking, maybe you don't have to do the whole three-year thing. I mean, it would be better. You would have better results if you did, but you know, maybe you don't have to, but like, if you're really seriously trying to compete and do well, that's, that's where you kind of have to really, really think about your personal development within that sphere. Because I compare it to when I see guys and girls bodybuilding, I think bodybuilding is a sport that for a lot of people or getting on a bikini stage is a sport for a lot of people that, uh, is, has maybe a less

physical barrier to entry kind of. Cause I see a lot of people like they go to a show, they're like, I want to cut and I want to do a show, even if they really never lifted that much before. And that's like, it gives them motivation to lose a lot of weight. They're coming from being heavy, which is cool. Um, but once they do their first show, it's like they fall in love with the competition. They fall in love with just competing, not necessarily how well they do, but just the whole process and the preparation. And then you see them prepping every single year. They're not giving themselves the time they need to actually take the time in bulk and develop before cutting again. And they just get in this constant cycle of doing the same thing, getting the same results

and not making progress. See this with some people who power lift, they compete too often. They don't give themselves an off season to really build some strength. And they're perpetually in this mode of competing, not putting much numbers on their total, not developing much as far as their physique is concerned and getting the same results year after year after year because they haven't taken the time to develop. For a power lifter, it should be pretty easy to not necessarily just build strength. Sometimes that can get complicated, but to transform your body over a long period of time.

Even if you're a heavier person and you're lifting for many years and you got some extra, you got a little extra chub on you, got some extra fluff, many years and you got some extra, you got a little extra chub on you, got some extra fluff, you should still be able to three years from now, five years from now, have more muscle and less body fat and lift more efficiently. And I think it would be really wise to figure out, especially if you don't currently feel like you move really well or do a certain lift with great proficiency to become a master of that lift and take a lot of pride in that and that means taking a step back because you can't think with a hundred percent of your max on your back there's not really a lot of thinking you know uh you think about um you know combat

sports or like mma or you know some of these even like football, like go ahead and try to do a drill at a hundred percent without a lot of knowledge. And you can't, you can't think you don't even, you have no idea. Like football is a great example. You have no idea where the fucking ball even is. And then you'd, someone just whacks you and you're like, what the fuck? You're like, I thought the ball was going that way. And then somebody, uh, you know, ear holes you and just knocks you on your fucking ass. A lot of things like that in sports where the coach will say, all right, let's slow everything down.

This is the way that this works. This is how you're able to follow the play. This is how you're able to get to the ball without even actually ever seeing the ball. Like there's ways of like reading it. Same thing with any sort of combat sport or same thing with any sport. There's a particular way to do it. There's a particular way to slow it down and to practice it and to feel it.

When you're squatting, it's really helpful for you to say, how does it feel when I drive my knees forward first? Okay. I'm trying that. You do like three reps. Like that feels pretty good. Let me try my stance a little wider. Let me try my stance a little closer. Let me try to, uh, see if I could

tighten up my stomach a little bit more. Let me see what it's like to lift with a belt. Let me see what it's like to lift without a belt. You just keep practicing these different things. High bar, low bar, hands in close, hands out wide. It's hard to practice that on the fly when you got 405 on there and 405 represents 105% of your max. You're probably, you're probably going to get hurt if you tried something new or different. So there has to be a point where you're really just practicing and building a base even with that. Yeah.

You know, there's the whole, especially like in, in, in lifting, like we all want to push it. You know what I mean? Like as far as you're, you know, when you're, when you're working on your squat and your things are starting to get that groove, you're like, okay, what can I do here? How heavy can I take it? Um, but I, I like when you were talking about how Andre was saying, you know, if I don't feel too good that day, I just lower the weight. You know, if it's not there, I lower the weight. If it's there, I'll go a little heavier, but I won't go too heavy. Like it's, it's super simple.

Right. And, and this, this is my thought process here. Like, I think that there, like that want to push it. Right. Keep that away from your big three. Like don't, don't do that with your big three, but maybe let's find something that we can push it and push it safely. If you really are someone who needs that level of exertion, cause I believe that we all do. It's hard to always leave the gym feeling really good. Like you, where you feel like,

Oh, I left a lot in the tank today. That typically doesn't feel that great. Right? So then, then what are some things that we can safely really push well and maybe make some progress on? So maybe towards the end of a workout, you're doing those accessory movements that should be the things you're focusing on, right? Because you're trying to build that base. So maybe we take a few sets of that dumbbell bench to failure. Maybe we take a few sets of that bicep curl tricep, or even maybe we do like a cool little kettlebell complex where you're doing some kettlebell swings some bicep curls some pull-ups and you kill that shit right and then you're like i pushed it today i made some progress because we all need that

sensation of pushing it in the gym but you don't want to do that with your squat bench or deadlift because that can lead to some very very bad out yeah just very bad things yeah you can you know feel the gasp from everybody when andre was asked about like missing you know in in training or whatever yeah and he's just like i actually don't well through the interpreter but this is what he said it was like i actually don't know what my max is he's like because i never tried he's like a power lifter lifted for 30 years yeah yeah i love it and so it's like you know if you were to take someone like me and transport me into his body i'd be like let's fucking go let's see well let's see what this thing can do meanwhile one of the greatest ever was like yeah i never even i didn't want to bother with actually there's a lot of people with like great physiques

and have made great progress and you ask them like if you ever ask them like what they think their max is they're like well you know they're like i've deadlifted like 495 for like a set of six like they don't really know either you know and i right makes a lot of sense people with great physiques a lot of muscle mass a lot of times they don't know but they they can give you like some sort of reference point but they they're like, I don't really play around with that. And maybe as a power lifter, maybe that's a good idea as well to not really tap into. You still need to be able to tap into it. I guess when you get on the platform, you have to be able to turn it on and to have your nervous system stimulated enough.

But I think what we're seeing time and time again is that it doesn't need to be stimulated like we kind of thought that it did. again, is that it doesn't need to be stimulated like we kind of thought that it did. I think we thought that like if we don't quote unquote try our hardest that we won't get the best results. But I think that the human body is so sensitive that the cost, the risk to reward of getting too close and going a little bit overboard is too much. I like what Nseema said about like, hey, maybe we do that on some other exercises because you could still do drop sets. You could still superset. You can work an opposite muscle group in between sets or you can work the same muscle group.

You can do a giant set and do three things for biceps in a row, really pushing your body, mind, and spirit. And a lot of times we end up, I think that those sets are really, really important. And I think it's a lot of times we end up though. I think that those sets are really, really important. And I think it's a lot of times why we're in the gym in the first place, those, those mindsets where you really have to hone in and focus in on the set and, uh, push yourself a little bit further than ever before. I think those sets, um,

I think those sets kind of like cauterize the brain they like they write on the brain like hey you're good you're good at pushing yourself you know you're you're pretty when it when it comes down to it and it's time to quit on something you actually do a pretty good job of it and it's like a little thumbs up or like a little mini pat on the back and it makes you feel like a fucking stud it makes you feel like a champion it makes you feel back. And it makes you feel like a fucking stud. It makes you feel like a champion. It makes you feel like you're, it makes you feel like you're really accomplishing something, whether, whether it does or not, like the actual, you know, mechanics of it. Like, are you building muscle mass? I think that part of it is like the least of your concern.

The fact that you showed yourself that you can go in there and do something that you thought maybe you weren't able to do, or you fought through the pain on those last three reps of the leg extension or whatever it might be. I think you're really proving yourself to yourself. And when you do that, you improve a lot. I mean, let's think about this. Like, Mark, when you think back when you played football or when you did some hard wrestling workouts and by the end you were just fucking gassed at whatever the coach had you doing. Right. That felt kind of good.

Right. But you were using your own body most of the time. So in soccer, they were having us fucking run back and forth. And we were like, at the end, we were fainting. But we went back to the locker room. We're like, it was fucking good work. Like, it was good work. Right.

Like it was good work. Right. But we can't do that with some heavy ass load on our back or picking up a heavy load from the ground or trying to push a heavy load off of our chest. That's not that's not a good idea. We can't go to that place. Like you have to push yourself just enough, obviously, in terms of strength to make progress, but not so far where you're hurting yourself or injuring yourself, but everyone is still trying to find a way to get that feeling, right? So the big thing is now with load being in the gym, how can we still achieve said feeling? How can we still achieve that idea of progression and that idea of pushing it or taking something to another level while staying super safe? And that's exactly what we just talked about. But there has to also be a sense of not doing that all the time. Because I feel like, yeah, we're talking about this and this is great. But when you do that too often, you can still fatigue yourself. You can still overdo it from session to session where now you're not making progress because you're pushing your accessories. You're going to failure too much.

You might just get these things like maybe once a month. You know, if you're newer and you're maybe not lifting that heavy yet, maybe you could do it a little bit more often. I mean, just I think these are kind of things where I would say use common sense. But the sense isn't always very common if you haven't never really done it before. sense isn't always very common if you haven't never really done it before. And I do think it is important sometimes to push a little above and beyond what you think you're capable of. And then you can feel the effects of that the next day. And you're like, yeah, it wasn't my smartest, wasn't my best move ever.

But again, I think trying to really tap into what the mind is capable of and and doing things that are encouraging to show yourself uh that you're just not gonna quit like i i kind of i think about that pretty often like um not so much anymore but years ago when we had a lot of people coming to the gym uh i think people thought it was like an opportunity to like try to knock the shit out of me. And I never, I just don't, I don't care that I don't compete that way necessarily. Especially when it comes to powerlifting, because I did my numbers on the platform. I'm not like going to try to get into me throwing an extra quarter on the bar because you did it whatever way. I just, I don't operate that way. But I think sometimes what was lost is like that I'm in here every day doing

this. Like I, you're on camera with me for today, but I'm on camera tomorrow with somebody else and I'll be on camera with somebody else the next day and the next day and the next day. And so for me, I'm always, I've always been like, Hey, this is a long process and I don't really care that much about what I lift today. I don't need to be in football. We always called it like a practice all American because a lot of times the guys would, the guys that try to give you a good look on defense, they like line up right where they know the

play is going. Well, it's like, of course, you know where the fucking play is going. You're on the same fucking team as us. Yeah. Quit being an asshole. Pretend like you don't know where the fucking ball's going every once in a while, you know where the fucking play is going you're on the same fucking team as us yeah quit being an asshole pretend like you don't know where the fucking ball's going every once in a while you know and they're like they're like i had 11 tackles today you're like fuck off it's practice and you know where the fucking play is going every time because you actually are normally on offense running the same goddamn play you're like what are you doing

that's that's playing yourself in chess being like i did good today yeah it's the worst dude this reminds me okay um this kind of oh this was so cool uh you know you know john donahue right you've heard of him absolutely yeah so john donahue is this is an amazing jujitsu coach uh beyond amazing from what i hear and and just like uh studies the shit all day long and knows all these obscure like wrestlers and grapplers and just knows the shit in a way that maybe no one else in the world ever has. You ask the man a question, he'll pull up a random judo match from 1980 Olympics and tell you exactly why that worked and why it's applicable right now. Like, it's insane. OK. But he was mentioning how I think he this was the Lex Friedman podcast. exactly why that worked and why it's applicable right now. Like it's insane. Okay.

Um, but he was mentioning how he, I think he, this was the Lex Friedman podcast. He, he talked about one of the athletes he, he coaches called Gary Tonin. Gary Tonin is an amazing grappler. And he talked about how like people would come and train with Gary.

Right. And, and people would like, they'd roll with Gary and sometimes they tap Gary and, and like, it'd be a blue belt that leaves you like, I tapped Gary Tonin. I tapped Gary Tonin. That must mean I'm as good as Gary Tonin, right? What Gary does is he has literally no ego when it comes to training.

So what he does is he will purposely put himself in the worst positions possible with anybody he's rolling with to see if he can get out of it. He doesn't care if you tap him. He's just trying to see if I let this guy take my back and maybe put his hands into this choking position. Can I get out when his hands are in that choking position or is he going to, is he going to, ah, he tapped me. Okay. let's try that again. Right? So I'm saying that because it's like a lot of people, when they go into a training session, the training session is a show. Let's say you're training at a gym or you're training with other people. You're trying to show out.

You're trying to show that what you can do. So you're doing your best shit all the time because you think the eyes are on you, but you're not training the things you actually need to train to get better because right now it's a show, right? Or it's for social media. So you're not doing the shit that you need to do to actually improve. You're doing the stuff that you're already really good at. So everyone can see how good you are.

It's gotta be really hard when everyone's like, Oh shit, here's the two best guys in the gym going at it, right? Like it's gotta be tough because you, you have to be fully aware of that. I'm not going to look like a dummy. So I'm going to stick to all the stuff that i'm normally pretty good at and i'm not gonna i mean i don't know a ton about jujitsu but i've heard before they're like they just talk about how people pitter patter and they kind of hold on to each other's collars

and the fucking event is over and you're like oh i hung with that guy or i was able to outscore him and that happens a lot and that's where someone like john donahue came in and was like no we're It's over. Done. And you're like, oh, I hung with that guy, or I was able to outscore him. And that happens a lot. And that's where someone like John Donahue came in and was like, no, we're not fucking rolling like that. We're going to actually go for victories all the time. We're going to learn leg locks and different holds and different things. And they'll actually try to go for it. But it's got to be tough. I was listening to Gordon Ryan, and he was talking about the way that they train.

I was listening to Gordon Ryan, and he was talking about the way that they train. And so this is a good question for you as it pertains to patients, because I know that you train about four or five days a week. Gordon Ryan and that whole Donahue crew, they train every day, kind of no matter what. And sometimes multiple times a day. It doesn't matter if you're half dead. Did you hear that or have you heard that before? And you're like, oh, I need to do something different with myself. I didn't.

I don't feel that I need to do anything different at this point in time because when I first started jujitsu, I was getting my body was had to get used to the fatigue. So I could only manage training like two or three times a week and still feel good while still lifting. Now I can train four to five times a week and I can still lift and everything's good. But I know that once I take it to seven days, cause I've done everyday training before my gym sessions suck. I don't. And I also feel like my personal, like my progress, as far as my mind is concerned with my jujitsu, I into like a just this stagnant zone because that's all i'm doing so i i don't feel like i feel like i need those days off to be able to like kind of think and then go back on another day so it i found it like i i thought in my head like okay maybe this is something that i could potentially do in the future or what i would do is i would

like periodize that shit. So on a certain week, I would train seven days on another week. I trained four or five days, another week, four or five days, another week, seven days.

That's the best way that I think that I could do that while still being able to do well in the gym and keep everything that I'm doing here. Cause the gym keeps me out of being injured. Right. Um, but yeah, that like, I know that that's not something that would be the best for me because

I've tried that before. I think that's pretty awesome of you to be able to do that because when we hear someone who's the best in the world, and this is the problem, when we see Instagram, we see someone who's in great shape or we see someone who's incredibly strong. We think, Oh, I need to go and do, man, that guy said he trains every day. Yeah. Or CT Fletcher said he does his arms every day. You know, I, I need to go and do, man, that guy said he trains every day. Yeah. Or CT Fletcher said he does his arms every day. You know, I need to go and do that.

But then I guess there's like a lot of other factors that you're not even considering. You know, did Gordon Ryan always train that way? Is that potentially the best way for him to train? And maybe not everybody else. Is it the most optimal way for that whole school to train could be but we don't really know because they don't train a different way so it's you know the miami hurricanes years ago when they used to just destroy everybody they went like full contact uh all the time they like just they just scrimmaged all the time they

didn't do as many drills and and things that. But then you also have to consider, there's a huge thing when you can start to consider who is there, like who are these people? You know, who are the people that are training with Donahue? I would imagine they're the best of the best, right? And so with the Miami Hurricanes, it was the same situation. You have to think about the people that they recruit. I mean, they are specifically picking a certain type of person that fits that particular mold. So then they can train them to death. Whereas if they worked with

other individuals that were maybe, uh, I don't know, that just preferred to play football a different way. And they tried to force them to do that all the time it probably wouldn't have worked as well absolutely absolutely and that's the that's honestly the kind of the crazy thing about the donna or death squad man got a lot of like top 15 in the world guys on the same mat every single day and are the top 15 guys in the world are they the top 15 guys in the world only because of how hard they work it's probably a probably a big combination of a lot of things i'd imagine that of course they've worked of course they work their faces off that's i mean that's an element to being good at anything but on top of that i would imagine there's a little bit of a genetic component to it and

probably a massive base and massive history of being fit being physical all those kinds of things yeah you look at some of those guys something like nick nick ryan or nicky rod nicky rodriguez he um he did wrestling since he was super young a lot of those guys have been grappling for a minute um but even so when when when a bunch of good people it's just like when i came into super training a bunch of strong people, it's just like when I came into super training, a bunch of strong people, you get around strong people, you become fucking strong. You become stronger. Right. Right.

So like that, that's the wild thing about it. But they are, man, those some beasts. But this is this is one thing I wanted to mention before it leaves. There's this intersection between what we are talking about as far as jujitsu and as far as lifting progress. And it's this when I was talking about Gary Tonin, I mentioned how he put himself in these bad positions, right? And people would fuck him up or people will tap him. Like even a blue belt would be able to tap him because he purposely put himself there. Um, but in jujitsu training, it's like, if you go against another black belt, like if, uh, if I go against another black belt, initially I want to go towards the game.

I'm good at the game. I'm used to, because it's like, I have to have my a game to, to, to, to roll with this guy. But the better thing that I try to do is I try to just roll with that black belt. Like I would roll with a blue belt out and let me, this is what I'm saying. Like, I'm going to do things that I, I don't,

it's not my a game, just a bunch of other stuff. I want to see risks. I'll take risks because it's the training room. See the thing about being in the, in the training room is a lot of people are scared to take risk because they're scared of getting tapped. Right.

But this is the place where you want to get tapped. If you're going to get tapped so you can figure out what's wrong. And in competition, you can now go fuck some people up. It's the same thing with the gym. With the gym, you tend to always just do the things that you're really good at and comfortable with. But you know that if you were to do some of these accessories that you don't enjoy, these are going to be the things that are going to allow you to make progress. But you don't like doing them that much because they're hard for you right now. Dragging the sled, doing backwards sled walks, maybe doing some bottom-up kettlebell carries so that you can stabilize your back. It's just these obscure

things that you've heard of that you know you should do, but you don't do because you don't like it. That's what we need to get used to adding into our training those are the sacrifices we need to make for long-term progress the three years right of doing things and and maybe putting off that goal of power lifting that's the shit you need to do so you can be the good power lifter you want to be and it's not just me right so what i'm what i'm getting at is like um i would my shoulders are weak i'm working on them like often um i wouldn't do some of these movements because i'm like oh shit like and sema just does he's like nothing he's just better at them not obviously you are but what i'm saying is like oh, oh, it's just, it's just me. Like, that's why my shoulders, I just, I'm not doing them right.

When in actuality, we all hate the fucking hack squat. We all hate sissy squats. It's not just you. It's they're, they're harder. And like we were talking about on that Doug Brignoli episode, you know, some of these equip the machines, you know, they, they might be designed to help you feel better to make you look better in front of you know other other gym members when i kind of like had that realization unfortunately fairly recently it was like oh okay i'm not gonna fuck with the 10 pound dumbbells anymore i'm gonna actually go back down to the five pound and then work my way

back up but i'm not gonna. I literally had that feeling of like, oh, like maybe it's just my body. Like I just don't move very well in that direction. So instead of doing that, I'm going to do this. And, but no, it's just because no, it's a hard movement. You know, it's silly to like say that out loud, but that's really what happened. I think an interesting thing about when somebody is better than you at a particular thing, just imagine if you did the same amount, if you did shoulder presses the same number of times that Nsema did or Jay

Cutler or whoever it is. Now that doesn't mean you're going to be as good as them, but you'd probably be a lot better than you are current. You know? So it's like a lot of times people just have, they might have a leg up on you because they started something earlier. They started something, uh, sooner. And then obviously there's like, sometimes people, uh, due to just their life history

due to a bunch of other components, they might just, you know, somebody who's trying to get like really, really ripped ripped but they come from being you know 400 pounds that's going to be harder but if they put a similar amount of time into getting ripped as somebody else they could still be way better off than they currently are i was listening to joe rogan a couple days ago um he said something really interesting and so and this is a weird thing to say but he said you would be able to do what I do if you were me. It would actually be fairly easy. And the point there is like sometimes people marvel at like what Elon Musk does or some of these really high level performers.

But those people, they've evolved into that person. They turned into that person. but those people, they've evolved into that person. They turned into that person. So maybe Joe Rogan would come in here and not have any idea on how to run any of the stuff that you're doing over there, Andrew, or really have much of an idea of how to take a photo or what program to use or how to do it or how to, but if he was you, it'd be easy. Like if he, if he did it as much as you did,

and if he fell in love with photography 15 years ago, it wouldn't be hard. And so it's a really, it's a weird perspective, but that sort of stuff has always allowed me, my dad always saying part of knowing who you are is knowing who you're not. That's always been really helpful for me because I'm like, well, I need to be more fair to myself. I haven't really done that that much, or I'm not practicing that the same way that guy is practicing it, so why would I expect to be better or as good as? Even sometimes you have to say,

I'm coming from a different spot than that person, and I'm going to have to put in probably maybe double. I mean, it always feels that way when it's you, right? It always feels like I've got to put in double the amount of work than everybody else to get anywhere. But I think it's a good perspective to have to just kind of understand that guy got there that way because he's him, because he's himself. because he's himself. And if I would like to aspire to do something similar, I'm going to have to either put in the same amount of work hours for the same amount of years,

or I'm going to have to maybe work harder just because I'm not as quote-unquote gifted as this other person. Yeah, that's why you can't, like, whenever I hear anybody and they're trying to do something or they start doing something and they've maybe done it for a few months or whatever, a few weeks, and like, ah, shit, I'm bad at this. I'm not, I'm not good at this. And like, of course we're fucking not good at that. Like you've done it for a few months. You've done it for a few weeks. Like that is okay. That should be fine. Like you

need to put in more time. You need to have more practice because there's going to come a point where you're going to become fairly proficient and then proficient and then good and then very good and then great. Like it's, it's, it's a progression. You don't just start something. You're like, I'm great at this. Right. Um, so it's like, like, it's okay to be bad. Like I was really bad at jujitsu for a few years. Then I, you know, then I'm not. Think about if you're to try to sing and you don't have any experience singing, you're going to sound bad. You know, that is one thing that a majority of the population really believes, oh, they're just a natural.

Like, they really. Oh, yeah, yeah. Everyone, like, when they hear people sing they're like oh wow like yeah i could never sing because all they do is they sing in the shower with no fucking coaching and they think their voice sucks they don't go to a coach like other people do because there are people who have gone to voice coaches who've taught them things that's what american idol is based off of right people think they were really good good singers and get in front of people and people were like, what?

I don't know. Did mommy and daddy tell you you're good or something? Like, how'd you get here? But singing is just like anything else. Everyone has a different starting point. There are really some people out there who like five years old, they're like fucking hitting shit and doing some crazy stuff. but everybody can probably have a good voice. They just need a coach to actually show them what to do. That's why voice coaches exist.

That's why you see these crazy voice transformations. You have to like find your voice. You know, there's a, there's some, there's some, uh, musicians over the years that just have kind of interesting,

uh, vocals, not necessarily great. Like the, like the dude from ACDC, like he's just,'s just different you know and it's like is he a great singer yeah i'm sure he he's he's able to like hit all these different notes and things like that but uh he's awesome for that band and for that group he like found his voice uh james hepfield like his transformation he made over the years

and any of these great singers they continually get better and i think the main point here on any of this stuff is you possess the ability to get better too it's just you're gonna have to put in the work you have to work at it yeah and there's only there's only like you know there's only one uh there's only one of some of these people every once in a while that you see. Freddie Mercury? Yeah. Jesus Christ. When you have some of these individuals, they're going to just start out. I think art is an interesting example of some of this. If we're all to try to draw a person sitting under a tree

eating an apple, I don't have the ability at the moment to draw anything to where you guys would be like that's a person under a tree eating an apple you know what i mean uh but if somebody if i worked on it for probably even just five days it would probably look it would probably at least represent that it still probably wouldn't look good. There's other people that for whatever reason, some history they have, or who the hell knows where it comes from. They don't, they might not have, uh, they might have the same amount of art practice as I do, and they can draw it a lot better. So their starting point, uh, might be a little bit further ahead. And I think, again, that's what makes this whole patience thing really tough because you're like, how long have you been doing that for? Someone's like, I don't know.

I've been doing it for like six months. You're like, fuck. You're like, how'd they get that far along in six months? Sometimes people say that with powerlifting. Like, I've been powerlifting for like a year and they're like deadlifting 800 pounds. And you're like, what the fuck? It doesn't make any sense. But again, you have to keep in mind that person is a different person than you they started

out doing something different and maybe they did some other torturous workouts and some other sport for a bunch of years uh that you don't know anything about yeah that's why like if if ever like an athlete comes to me and i see that they've been an athlete in the past like i know this is pretty good this is gonna be pretty easy it's pretty straightforward because they have that base but when someone doesn't have like that base it's like okay i i always need to explain to the person like we need to have it we need to build something here first you're not going to step in a platform in six months you got to build something here first and then from there if you can be patient enough then you can do that like later on um so and i think it it is

always interesting tom and i were having this conversation yesterday kind of this conversation yesterday it's gonna be good it's gonna be interesting when you look at, uh, individuals like top level bodybuilders or natural bodybuilders, top level power lifters, top level basketball players, top level at any sport. Um, and the, the,

the odd thing is that like, you might not actually see this much in jujitsu, but any sport that requires some type of maybe high level under like, uh, underlying physicality. i say that i mean like basketball players generally they're pretty tall powerlifters generally they're pretty big and fairly muscled bodybuilders muscled right usually the individuals that end up being the top of something first off they had an interest in it but then as they did it for a while, they noticed that they had some talent for it.

So they're like, I like this. I have some talent for this. Let's go. And then that gave them the ability to get towards the top of said sport, right? I'm not saying that you have to be talented at strength or powerlifting or anything to pursue it. You can pursue it. But when you see people that are doing it at a really high level, not just a high level,

a really high level, there is like, there was something there before, like there was a talent there before that gave them the ability to stay with that for a long time. Cause like, I'm pretty good at this. So I like it. And, and I'm going to keep going towards that. Right.

So we can't always like, you can't compare yourself to top level strength athletes. You can't like you can, you can aspire for some of the things that they're doing, but I feel like a lot of people try to take things away from those top level strength athletes like you look at people in the usa pl that are always getting drug tested people like oh they're definitely on drugs they're definitely on drugs no they had a talent for this shit and they fucking took that there and they have really

good genetics for it too right like so so it's it's kind of it's kind of weird and the reason why i said you don't necessarily see that with jujitsu not as much is because jujitsu you'll see on the on the podium a bunch of different body types you'll see a guy that's really small really skinny lanky looks weak you'll see a guy that looks pretty strong you'll see a guy that might look kind of fat. Like that's the cool thing about that martial art. It's because like there's so much underlying technique involved and it's physicality is important, but it's not the most important thing that you will see even the most unathletic, unassuming individual do extremely well. That's one of those sports that anybody can go in, I learn it learn the technique and do really well but other

sports there's a specificity to it there's like crossfit i think crossfit's the funniest one because on the platform you'll see a three guys that are all five six all stocky yeah and they're standing like this there is an archetype of a great crossfitter because there's a body type needed to do all of these things and do them at a high level yeah and i think uh with some sports you kind of get recruited for them you know if you're 15 and you're pretty big they're going to be like hey you'd probably be great at football and it makes you feel good because you're like i don't know and maybe you're not great at football maybe you just have a a decent body to start out with for it uh same thing with basketball i see it a lot with females when females are really tall, people are like, what do you play volleyball? You know, automatically think that you

are a basketball player. And sometimes people are like, no, if I went to dribble a ball, just go right off my foot and end up, end up rolling, you know, into the stands or whatever. I think, you know, you touched on a lot of good stuff there and I, it's kind of interesting to think about, is it like kind of what happens first, you know, do you on a lot of good stuff there. And it's kind of interesting to think about, is it like kind of what happens first? You know, do you have a talent for it? You know, or is it something that you were just drawn towards? And because you were drawn towards it, you thought about it more. And because you thought about it more, you maybe became slightly more talented than some other people.

Or is there something innate, something, you know, inside you that makes you a little different? Obviously the physicality of it is huge. You know, if you have certain body structure, certain body type, that'll be a huge part of it. I mean, imagine somebody that just starts going to the gym, they just start lifting and, you know, six months later, they're in tremendous shape somebody at the gym is probably going to see that and say hey you ever think of doing a bodybuilding show or a physique competition or something you know it and they i mean we've seen that with power lifting a lot like eric spoto was probably the greatest example i mean the guy was bench pressing world record weights and we're like you're gonna maybe think about doing a powerlifting meet? He's like, should I? We're like,

uh, well, you can break the all time world record if you, you know, if you wanted to. And so I think a lot of times people have these, uh, they're kind of set up to do pretty well.

I mean, that happened with me with lifting. I wasn't like a complete like mutant or anything, but I was a big kid. And so when I went to lift with my friends i mean i remember they couldn't they had a hard time benching the bar uh this is like 14 years old or so um 13 years old and and then i remember we put like tens on the side and they were kind of getting like crushed and it was like one other friend that could do it but he did it all squirrely

and just weird and i remember pressing like 95 pounds. Now at that point, I probably was, I probably messed around with the weights cause we had them in our garage for maybe a month or so. So I had a little bit of a, a little bit of a jump, but when I did the 95 pounds, it was fairly easy. I did, did a couple reps. So that made me feel good. I was like, Oh shit. I didn't even, I never even really lifted with anybody else. So I had no idea, uh, where I stood and I didn oh shit i didn't even i never even really lifted with anybody else so i had no idea uh where i stood and i didn't i didn't know like that the body weight was a huge factor i was just happened to be like 50 pounds heavier than all these kids i didn't i didn't really know much about any of that at that time but that allowed me to kind of lean into that further and say like hey you're pretty good at this maybe this is something that you should do more often and see how good you can get at it that sounds kind of like a movie man

like like it reminds me a little bit of a bruce willis oh yeah uh invincible or whatever it is not invincible unbreakable reminds me that the garage scene where the kid just keeps popping on weight he's put on the paint cans and everything but it's like i just think it's so funny that like you know you start off with this bench press thing and then you you're the the transformation when you're older is a bench press device it's just like that's some that's a movie shit right there like that's legit some movie shit right there that's dope um but but that what you said before like what comes first is it like being talented or the interest level because you can look at a lot of athletes like kobe talked kobe's dad played basketball so to be perfectly honest

he was going to end up playing basketball that's a huge factor i didn't think about either yeah dad plays baseball or football and so uh because they're so excited about a lot of times we as kids you want to make them happy and so you're going to go and do that sport exactly so it's like but but even when he was talking about when he was younger and it's it's it's all like you know what he says but he we know that he was a super hard worker right but he was talking about how like he wasn't necessarily the most explosive which he wasn't when you watch him he wasn't and when he was a kid he was like i wasn't the most physically talented this or that but he worked on all of those weaknesses and he became one of the greatest players ever.

But when you do really look at Kobe, he is one of the greatest players ever, but he wasn't like as tall as a Tim Duncan. He couldn't jump like a Jordan. He wasn't as physically gifted as a LeBron, but he just had this level of pure skill that was unmatched. This fluidity and mastery of movement that wasn't matched. Because there are a lot of other guys in the NBA that are so much more physically gifted than Kobe. A bunch of others that can jump higher than Kobe, that are faster than Kobe.

But they don't have nearly the skill level and just beauty of game that he did. Because he put in the work on all of those small things. skill level and, and just, just beauty of game that he did because he, he, he put in the work on all of those small things. So I, that's, that's like, yeah, I was mentioning that with strength sport,

like, yeah, a certain individual that's inclined for that will like, we'll do it and we'll take that to the level because they have an inclination for it and they're interested, but that shouldn't discount an individual who let's say that they don't feel that they haven't as much innate talent at it that shouldn't stop you from still potentially striving for it if you have a high interest level for it you should still try for that because

there are a lot of people in different types of sports that have gotten to that top even though like you wouldn't tell that they could i think an example of this physically when you look at him as john hack when i when i like when you look at john hack he he didn't he didn't used to look like just some freak of nature right you can't always tell with people he didn't look like it but you see him putting up these ridiculous loads it's kind of crazy right so it's like, you know, if you're interested in it,

fucking go for it. Oh yeah. After the fact, you're going to look at the guy and go, Oh yeah. You're like, well, of course.

Yeah. But, but it is an interesting thing to, uh, you know, how much are you going to like things that you're not that good at, you know, Kobe,

you know, he did end up being 6'6", and he ended up with an amazing talent, amazing skill level, and amazing work ethic and everything. And I'm sure there's components of basketball that he didn't like. There's probably things when he was young, maybe he didn't like shooting from certain positions, maybe he didn't like playing certain positions and things like that.

But he liked stuff good enough, he got good enough positive feedback to where he felt good i mean imagine you know his first practice ever you know he goes and uh sprains his wrist you know and then he's like i fucking love basketball and he goes back again and he hurts his ankle and he goes back again and he he's kind of falling behind because he's not hitting as many practices. The other guys, they're swatting the ball into the stands.

Every time he goes to do a shot, it's a different, it's a, it's a totally different, uh, feel, you know, but I would imagine that he practiced and he got a little bit better.

He'd get his ass kicked, especially cause it always seemed like, cause he was fairly tall. He played with people that were better than him. So he got his ass kicked a lot, but he got positive reinforcement when he worked harder. And then that led him to being what he ended up turning into, which was just like an absolute killer on the,

on the court where he just, it was unacceptable to him for him to not be as proficient as possible in whatever it was, whatever he was doing. But I think sometimes if there's like a ton of resistance there, it's going to make you want to shift, you know, towards something else. So it's an interesting thing on whether you, you know, like something and you're good at it.

There are sometimes I've seen people be really good at certain things. And for some reason, their interest level isn't there. And that's kind of a strange thing. I know some people that can like uh that can uh draw really well or play music really well or do certain things really well and i'm never really uh they never really done much with it never even really kept it as a hobby even and that kind of surprises me because i'm like how could how would you have something that you're just amazing at seem like but and I imagine at some

point they worked hard at it but maybe they just lost interested in at some point yeah that was like that was me with the instruments when I got into high school mom gave me the decision to stop I was like I don't like this shit I regret that decision so much you're like I'm done but that's like I think you're took like that that's um I think a lot of the time is that happens when an individual is, maybe they were put into it and they didn't start out of their own want to start it. My buddy, Jake Stone over at jujitsu or a Casio school, he works over with Josh Settle at Josh does his programming and he trains here in the morning with Josh.

Jake is a brilliant wrestler, really good guy's gonna take down sully i think maybe maybe they were talking about that maybe they were talking about jake maybe they were talking about jake but jake is an amazing wrestler but he was like uh i want to do jujitsu because like that's my thing right he like he would like that it's his like it's his thing he chose to do jujitsu um and i think that's a very interesting thing like i like it's it's it makes sense it's like when you're when you are like put into something and you don't really like it that much even if you have a talent in it it doesn't bring you joy right like you're going to practice every single day and you're like

fuck you're killing everybody but you're like i don't like it right so it makes a lot of sense that that's why the interesting you said is so important because it doesn't matter how much somebody's interested in something if i mean it doesn't matter how much yeah somebody's good at something but if you don't have a true like for it you don't have a true interest for it then it's just sooner or later you're just going to drop it off unless it makes you a hell of money but i think a lot of nba players actually you see that in a lot of nba players they're they're good at basketball but they don't care about going to practice every single day they collect their check they stay

on the bench and then after a few years they retire with millions well they at that point they're they have other interests right their interest in basketball has probably uh maybe worn off quite a bit they don't have an interest in getting better yeah that was i was explaining this a similar thing to uh your brother-in-law andy because we were hitting the uh the wiffle golf balls oh yeah and i was just like you know it was weird to me when we all went for that team outing that people didn't know how to use a golf. Like, I'm like, well, like, so that was the thing that came the most natural to me. Like the first time I picked up a golf club, I hit the shadow ball, went straight and like I was really good. And I'm not.

OK, so really good for somebody who had never done this before. And then I told I was like the second I cared was the second that I lost all interest because then it was hard. It was weird. But like, if there's anything that I would have, I had was had any natural talent would have been that. But like I said,

the second I actually was like, Oh, let me actually try. And then like, I was like, Oh, that's how you keep score. Like I actually fucking suck.

Yeah. There's a, there's a hump uh-huh there's a hump to get past and i didn't have enough interest to keep to stick with it because golf is uh it's a very time consuming uh sport and it's it is like impossible like it's very difficult but yeah it was it was pretty i mean cool. Like, I was pretty good at it naturally. Like, I mean, like I said, it's for somebody who had never ever touched a golf club before. This first day I picked it up, people were asking me like, wait, how long have you been playing?

I'm like, this is actually like my first time. Like, huh, okay. And then after that, it all went downhill. But yeah, it was weird. I had zero interest in getting better at it, which is kind of a bummer because who knows what could have happened with it. It's never too late, bro. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the back would stop me right now. You were mentioning getting tapped in jujitsu and learning a lot from that. And I think in the gym, there's situations where you have to get yourself to a point where you think that you can't take anymore. I do think that's important. But the gym, unlike jiu-jitsu, you're not really competing against anybody else. No matter how you want to slice it, no matter if you're bodybuilding or powerlifting, I realize there's competitors. But your competition is yourself. Your competition is to improve yourself. Your competition is physically against the actual weight that you're utilizing.

And so you don't need to get yourself to a breaking point to learn how to error correct in the gym. What you would rather do, what I would rather see people work on is get themselves more to technical limits where they go to do a lift and they were like, that felt a little, you know, that felt a little bit off. I rounded a little bit on that exercise and then make a decision on whether you're going to try that same exercise, that same weight again, if it wasn't, you know, wasn't that bad of a deviation of form and technique. Because sometimes you can correct it. You can say, I can see if I can stay sturdier. You can reduce the weight a little bit and you can kind of learn to, you know, get, get through that, get through that technical limit.

But normally what I've seen from most people is you get more proficient at the lift by using like sub-maximal weights and not necessarily maximal weights. You'll have to use those occasionally. You'll have to occasionally go above 85%, but probably a huge percentage of your training should be done with less than that for sets of six and set to three and things like that. And when you feel on set number three of, of a set of six,

that rep number five and six is a little bit off, those are great learning tools. You know, now you kind of know, okay, well, I was able to handle that weight a few weeks or a few months from that period of time. You'll be able to handle a little bit more weight or you'll be able to do the same weight for more reps or for an extra set without that form breakdown. Because if the limitation is your technique, the limitation is always going to be, it's a strength,

obviously it's obviously a strength thing, but your technique is breaking down because your form is starting to go south because you're, you're getting into a bad position and the amount of weight on the bar is now too much because you're out of position. You can't get through that. The only way to get through that is to get your body to go through it multiple times and to teach your body. This is okay for us to do it this way, but it has to be done the right way.

It can't be done. You don't want to continually show yourself the wrong way to do it because remember what what's actually kind of happening and is that you're you're you can kind of you can kind of think of your central nervous system as like tattooing your muscles it's tattooing your body saying and it's like a big stamp it's like boom approved like you're fucking good you're stronger you know you pass the test, but you won't get the approval stamp on you if you don't lift properly because you're throwing the central nervous system off. I would use the word retard, but it doesn't seem like it. It doesn't seem very appropriate. You'll throw off your central nervous system and it will be too much.

And your body will have a tough time really learning how to do the lift the right way. I wonder if mechanics can still say your timing is your what is it you're uh yeah it's your timing you're running you're retarded like don't let youtube put us in the shadow definition too i'm just saying that's like so as a mechanic when your timing on your car is off i mean hopefully cars still come with timing belts but yeah you would say that the car is like your timing is retarded retuned we need to we need to retuned retuned yes that is that is the word we're going to be using so we are not putting back in youtube help thank you but i wonder if they can't say that they probably do. Because that's what it's called. Like litter?

That's what it's called? Yeah. Yeah. I remember the first time I heard it, I'm like, excuse me, sir. Would you call me? Not really. I was just like, bitch, my car ain't... Okay.

Ratoon did. Does anybody have a napkin in here? The reason why I was on my phone is because I realized, I was like, going like this, there's this massive booger in my right nostril. Oh, that's great. And it's just really just... It's not a rocket. It's all right. I'm just going to Oh, that's great. And it's just really just not rocket. It's all right.

I'm just going to, no one's watching. Comes flying out at some point. You can stare at it though. Looks great. I know. What I was going to say though was the tattooing your muscles thing was that you will build proficiency, but you will build bad proficiency. Like your body will continue to get better at doing it the wrong way over and over and over again until you get injured. The tattoo, I like the tattooing the muscles, but it goes back to what Stuart McGill said also. I think he said,

you're building bad engrams, right? Especially when you're going to failure too often, your body's like, huh? Or your mind is like, this is kind of okay. It's okay for me to do this. So, Oh, I can do this more often. Or if you have bad movement mechanics, your mechanics, your body's like, okay, we can get into this bad position. It's okay for us to feel this way. Um, so you, you, you need to, you have to back off, you know, you have to back off, use lighter load, work on things looking good, work on things looking perfect, even if the load isn't that great or that crazy. And then, and then as far as progression, this is why I think like, I'm a big believer in people just like recording some of their workouts, recording their loads, because when you do that,

and when you have an idea of what you did last week, what you did in your last session with the same movement, you can figure out ways to progress. I think a lot of like a lot of people, they'll just go into the gym and work out or whatever. They won't record their loads and they won't be sure what's going on as far as their progress is concerned because they've never really taken track of it. We're mentioning Andrew Herbert again because he's just great at this. He has this old, he probably has more than one, but he has this tattered notebook of all his training sessions and all the loads he's been using over the past years because it allows him to see where can I make some progress? What did I do last session? What did I do two months ago?

What did I do four months ago? And he can see where he's actually making progress. And as lifters, if you want to do this for a long time, that is a necessary thing. That is a very necessary and useful thing. But the odd thing, and I don't know how to say this, but it's like, as I got more used to the gym, at this point, I don't necessarily track my workouts as stringently as I used to. This isn't something you want to do in the beginning, but I go into the gym and I kind of have an idea of what I've done and the weights I'm using in certain movements. And I do what's good in that session and I'm still able to progress. Right. So I feel like you do some

of this, you do some of the same things right now too. Yeah. For me, it's more about like, like you do some of this you do some of the same things right now too yeah for me it's more about like yeah just uh what i feel i can lift for the day if i go to do uh some shoulder presses and shoulders are feeling really good and i feel like i can handle some weight i'll keep going up uh if they don't feel great i will start to try to figure out ways of getting good stimulus uh without having to use much weight so i might do three exercises in a row for shoulders, you know, things like that, just little ways of, of kind of, you know, cheating the system, but still getting great stimulus to the area. I think if you were to think of strength as a language,

what you're trying to do as much as often as possible is use the correct words for the correct situations because it's you're trying like if you think about when you go to deadlift 315 pounds it's a form of communication to your body you're trying to communicate to your body this is what we're going to work on this is how we're going to work on it and i would like to i would like for you to have a response to it uh that equals me stronger, that equals 315 to feel like less weight. And I think oftentimes if we're lifting with bad form and bad cues and we're not recording

the workouts, we're not really dissecting the lift, then we're using the wrong words at the wrong time. We're communicating all the wrong shit to our body and the body's like, it will get stronger. It will get better. Like your body will grow and it will do a lot of cool things for you. Kind of, despite maybe your efforts, aren't the greatest because of the words that you used, they still mean something. It's not like it means nothing. You still put work in and that will be a factor. over time the the rate of uh injury is going to increase over time you're going to stall out in the same spots i mean we see this a lot with bodybuilding where somebody's like hey this is what i looked like three years ago and

this is what and then this is what i look like now and you're like which picture is which, you know, you're like, I don't, I'm sorry, but I don't really see a difference. Am I supposed to see a difference? And that happens a lot with powerlifting too, where, you know, we're just with powerlifting, it's a little different because you know that you're at the same weights. I mean, there's, it's not, uh, it's not, you know, subjective to like lighting and a bunch of other factors and how lean you were and different things like that. But with lifting, we really know.

We really know if we're in a shit position and not getting stronger or not. I like that language thing you mentioned, man, because it's like you can picture somebody or a child speaking to you, a five-year-old, four-year-old. You know what they're saying and you can communicate. But the way of communication is broken. They're using really weird words. Some words don't really make sense, just like it is with a lot of people when it comes to the gym.

They're doing certain things as far as their deadlift that are questionable, but they're still getting stronger and it's still working. It's just, it could be a lot better in terms of the way it works. Could have much better outcome. If you spoke better English, if you spoke better movement in the gym. So I like that.

That's sick. Yeah. Just pay attention to somebody else that's doing it. Right. Interpret that way. Yeah. I think a lot of what andre molachev shared with us uh at the seminar and and his time here at super training has been great

and one of the things that he said i don't think we got to it quite yet but he mentioned think less and uh i think it's a great philosophy even though we're talking right now about thinking quite a bit about your workout. Think less would be after, think less would be after you check off some boxes. Like you still want to have good form. You still always want to work towards getting better. There's still a certain amount of like sets and reps that you're going to need, especially in the beginning to get yourself to be better.

But real simple rules, like just when you're training, you know, work yourself towards a technical limit. Once you start to feel a breakdown in that exercise, in that lift, it's probably time to move on and do another and do another exercise. Maybe you can do one more set if you feel like you're still safe,

but you want to try to play the long game. And in general, you want to, you want to try to stick to the basics, stick to the things that you feel are really going to work, the things that have tried and true, the things that have been around for a really long time. And don't go overthinking everything. Don't think that you need to hit 87.5% of your max before you do 92.5% of your max. It's great to be detailed. It's great to have some information.

It's great to keep track of what you feel is working best for you. But man, I really thought that that think less thing was great. Like he was, people are asking about the squat, how to increase the squat. And he was mainly just kind of referencing, like, put the bar on your back and squat. And people are like well where do i have it how wide do i you know my hands my his point was like if you spend a lot of time doing this you'll have all the answers so he's not saying like be a blatant idiot and just go and do whatever the hell you want he's saying learn it study it get underneath the bar a lot of

times squat often and you're going to learn for yourself what you need to do. And you won't even have to think about it. It will actually just come to you because you're like, Oh, well that kind of hurts my knees or that kind of hurts my back or wow. I feel way stronger doing that. Once you feel way stronger in a certain position, you're like, that's my position for my feet for the deadlift. And then you're going to go with it from there.

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