Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 588 - How To Get Big without Getting Fat, Sooooo Fat

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Today we are sharing tips on how you can gain mass, gain size, get HUGE without gaining excess fat. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro Cover! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT15 for 15% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢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 $150 Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb 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 ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

further along than where you want to be or whatever, whatever it is. So in powerlifting, I'm, I'm always like, well, okay, that guy's like five, six. Like, so of course he's going to be really good at that lift or whatever. Yeah. I make up excuses, you know, so I feel better about myself. And then the same thing with people being like lean and jacked and you just try to make sense of it. You're like, okay, that guy says he's natural and he looks amazing.

But if I'm keeping it in perspective, he's 5'7 and he's like 170 if he's lucky so you're like no no big deal that's like my boy chris elkins i don't know if you like chris elkins matt ogis jeff nippard even chris jones yeah you remember chris jones bismo jones yeah right like they're all like five five to five eight five nine but they're jacked like yacked you know what i mean and in pictures they don't look that way but they're yeah or even some of these people you can kind of just be like well the guy just has huge arms you know and the rest of them's not you know i don't know the rest of them's not like up to par or whatever but every once in a while there's a motherfucker like yourself where you're like this don't't make no sense. This guy is 6'1", 6'2", 240 pounds and lean.

It's like, man, that's a combination that's hard for people to wrap their brain around because you usually don't see it. It's a very, very low percentage of the population that is, first of all, single digit body fat, but then also to be walking around with appreciable amount of muscle is another thing that, that is very difficult. And I would say like the amount of people that I know, uh, that have over 200 pounds of muscle on their frame and that are also lean, uh, I know one person. Wait, really? Yep.

Who? And it's you. That's it. Wait. Maybe, maybe i guess like cena i mean cena's always said he was natural too and he got uh o'hearn you know but i mean i i don't know but but anyway regardless of whether someone is or isn't natural it's still a it's still an amazing feat to be single digit body fat and to hold that much muscle mass. You know, what's interesting to me, I think, I think part of the reason is, is bone density.

Cause my buddy, Sam Okunola, who is the W and he's, he was the WNBF world champion in 2017. And I think he was two years, 2017 and 2018. I don't know if you can actually pull them up, Andrew,

since we're Sam Okunola on, on Instagram. He's my height. And when he preps, when you get, first gets first off he looks crazy but when he gets lean he's like i think 205 205 to 210 um pull him up no way dude you're saying this guy's natural pull him up he gets drug tested all the time he's the wmbf world champ yeah but like he's six two if he gets drug tested okay but like i'm just 210 205 i think on stage i think actually 200 to 205 on stage obviously i know internet people that are like this jacked but like i just mean like in my day to day life i know i know i know yeah but what i was saying was like i think part of the reason

that guy i think part of the reason why i hold so much weight it's and that's that's ryan doris aka the natty pro when he gets lean ryan also he looks oh disgusting as he's a natural pro also um but i think the reason why i hold so much weight is my bone density because like me and him are the same height but sam like i think he looks crazier than me when i'm at my leanest and I'm like, whatever, even though I'm heavier than him, he looks crazier as far as his muscle bellies than me. And I'm holding 20 more pounds. I think a big part of that is just my bone density. I think someone like Jeff Nippert is a good example. Yeah, Jeff.

A lot of people can, like, train and they can do a bunch of stuff. Yeah, Jeff. A lot of people can like train and they can do a bunch of stuff. But like there's and I don't know any other way to describe it, but there's something about some of these kind of bodybuilder people that end up with these kind of bubbly shaped muscles to where even when they're like, quote unquote, out of shape, which is still amazing shape for them. They're just higher percentage body fat for a while. They still look amazing. Our buddy, our piece, our piece strength.p strength you know he he uh mike israel he ends up uh kind of falling in that category i remember just like two weeks ago he was like oh i'm gonna start leaning out a little bit and in the face and and in pictures of him in a t-shirt

he didn't really look like he was in great shape but then you would see him like in a squat or something and his legs looked amazing. And now that he's like two weeks into like just cleaning up his diet a pinch, he's already getting like shredded again. It's like, holy fuck, man,

these different people have different capacity, I think, to be able to, you know, respond to the training in a certain, a certain way. And no matter how lean someone gets, they're not going to have,

they're not going to be able to alter their genetics. I guess you can only push it so far. But there are, you know, I've seen some people who, man, when they start lifting, they're very unassuming. You don't think that there's going to be something there. And then they start lifting for a few years and it's just like they transform.

And without taking anything. It's just some people, it's like, some people you can't tell, some people you can tell. Like you can tell there's something there and some people they just need to actually train and figure that out. And there was something there. It's crazy. Like, for example, David Laid. You know David Laid? He's, I guess in terms of fitness, he's like, comparatively, he's like a Christian Guzman type in terms of aesthetics.

But David Lay, people loved him because he's this long, he's like 6'3 or whatever. And he's not super heavy. He actually deadlifts a crazy amount of weight, like 6'40, 6'50 or whatever, sumo. But when you look at his early pictures, he's just this skinny kid, this long skinny kid or whatever. And then he turns into that. Those old pictures of Bradley Martin. Right there. Where he was real skinny.

Yeah. Right. So you don't know what you're going to be able to do, but you can kind of like when you see what he's skinny. On the left, he actually still looks pretty good though, even though he's just like a little kid. You can see the frame there. Yeah, you can.

You can see some shoulders and he's definitely like, you know, he kind of has abs and, uh, that was probably just the way that he was. He probably just maybe just didn't spend a lot of time overeating, you know? Yeah, absolutely. But as far as getting big, it doesn't need to, and that's like, that's what we're going to talk about today. Getting big doesn't need to be uncomfortable because a lot of people like you get messages like this all need to be uncomfortable because a lot of people like you get messages like this all the time too, but a lot of people are like, yeah, like I'm bulking, but I'm getting too fat and it's uncomfortable. And it's just, it's, it's, it's not, it really ends up being just a not fun experience because number one, you're seeing the

scale go up, which is cool in essence, but most people that are focusing on the scale, they end up feeling bad when they're walking around walking up flights of stairs is difficult their joints don't feel that great um they get winded in training right they don't feel like they can do anything else but eat and lift and maybe sleep you know and other things are arduous in life i feel like if you're if you're trying to do this you know know, like train and be in the gym, a big part of that isn't just getting big. A big part of that is feeling good. For some people, it's getting more confidence. And if you want to gain confidence, you obviously want to feel good

about what you're doing. Yeah, I think a good rule of thumb is whether you're trying to lose weight or whether you're trying to gain weight, you should still feel good. And maybe you do have to push things to the point where you're like a little bit uncomfortable where you're like, Hmm, that's, that's quite a bit different than what I'm used to. Uh, and there may be like a little bit of a break in period. And, and I think that if someone is trying to lose like a lot of weight, uh, you're going to have moments where you just don't feel great because it's so different than what you were doing before. And I would say the same is true if you're trying to gain weight, especially if you never really messed around with gaining weight before.

You're going to have moments where it's uncomfortable. But in general, overall, you should feel really fucking good. And especially when you're kind of over nourishing your body, you should feel really awesome. It shouldn't really feel like you're stuffing yourself all the time. really awesome. It shouldn't really feel like you're stuffing yourself all the time. I think Andrew actually pointed out yesterday, uh, on something that we recorded where he was saying that the biggest mistake that's made is, is probably people snacking. And I'm sure that like, you know, while you're in a bulk, you could probably make some room for snacking, but keep in mind, you're taking up valuable real estate for other stuff. And that could be curbing

your appetite. And you could say, man, I only eat like twice real estate for other stuff, and that could be curbing your appetite. And you could say, man, I only eat like twice a day. I'm not even that hungry. But you're not, you know, considering the fact that you have, you know, a frappuccino or all these other things that you ingest during the day that are calorically dense that may fill your stomach up. You know, any sort of like milk products are going to kind of linger in your stomach for a while. These things are kind of heavy. And, you know, there's other things like if you eat like, I don't know, Cheez-Its or chips or whatever. They're highly processed foods.

Those things, they digest pretty quickly. But you'll probably eat like, you're not just going to eat like two or three of them. You're probably going to eat a pretty good amount of them. And they are going to take up real estate for food that otherwise could be going towards your gains. Those kinds of foods in general, I would just kind of view them as like they're, they might add to your calories at the end of the day, which might be the goal at the end of the day.

But I would say get everything in that you're supposed to get in during the day. And if you want to end the night with a little bit of ice cream or something like that, that to me is kind of the fun of bulking. But on the flip side of all of it, I would also say like, you shouldn't really be gaining weight very fast. It should be a very, very slow process and maybe gaining like two pounds a month or something, you know, really, really try to minimize the damage. Because if you're trying to gain, if you gain five, six pounds per month, you're going to

feel sluggish real quick. Yeah. It's not possible to gain five pounds a month of it just being purely muscle. If you're seeing that much scale weight, and I think that's one of the big mistakes. It's like, number one, I understand the necessity of using the scale to see where your progress is because it's like, you know, let's just, let's just say this is in the context of you're someone who's maybe you're skinnier and you're trying to gain weight and gain muscle. If you, if you know that you don't necessarily need to see the scale going down because you

don't have a lot of body fat, you do want to see that scale going up, but you don't want to see it going up too fast because you're shoveling down a lot of food. And initially, especially when you start, it's encouraging to go from like 170 and next month you're 175. You're like, oh, let's go 175. And the next month you're like 180. You're like, oh, I'm 180. But a lot of that weight that you put on because it has just been a lot of body fat and a bit of muscle. And you probably are feeling stronger because you're holding more weight, but that weight isn't going to end up being good in the next three or four months. You're just going to end up having some extra body fat that you won't be happy about. And then you're going

to end up rushing yourself into a cut. You guys want to know something funny? Let's hear it. guys want to know something funny let's hear it i have never ever tried to gain weight or gain muscle okay so what did you do so yeah what was i mean i i guess i guess like i guess uh there would be things that i implemented into my plan that would assist me with gaining muscle such as like you know just eating a good amount of protein and things like that. Right. Um, but I just, from the time I was young, I just lifted heavy, you know, and, and I had an understanding of, uh, I remember, actually, I remember going to a powerlifting meet. I may have told this story before. Um, I didn't know how to get ready for this powerlifting meet cause I was just a kid.

Um, my brother, you know, he knew some stuff, but like, he wasn't always around to kind of like monitor exactly what I was doing. He might've been away at college or so. I can't really remember. Or he's just, you know, he's also four years older. So I think he was just cruising around with his friends rather than hanging out with his dorky little brother. And so I was getting ready for this competition and I was going to compete at 181. I was like, I don't know, 190 pounds at a young age. I was pretty, pretty big, pretty heavy. So I was like, I might as well just, it's like really not that hard to lose just a couple pounds and make that a weight class. Just like every rookie, uh, wants to be in the lower weight class thinking that you're going

to cause more damage there. But you know, looking back on it, it's pretty silly. You should just stay whatever weight you are, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I was like, I like cereal a lot. So I'll just eat a shit ton of that. And I'll just have, instead of having whole milk with it, I'll just have like 2% milk or skim milk. And so I did that like the whole week and I did lose a little bit of weight, you know? And I, I think I told my brother and my brother was like, why are you doing that? He's like, that doesn't make any sense. I was like, well, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not sure. You know? And he's like, oh, you doing that? He's like, that doesn't make any sense. I was like, well, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not sure. You know, and he's like, oh, you probably want to eat like eat like more protein, you know, eat like more meat.

And I was like, what's protein? Like, what's meat? You know, I barely knew. And I did have like a Metrex protein shake or something at the time. So I would drink some of those or whatever. Yeah. But anyway, as the competition came closer, it's like the week of and I'm like, oh, I'm going to need like special nutrition for this like day, you know, this day that I'm going to compete.

It's going to be a big deal. It's going to be, you know, probably really demanding on my body. So I'll make sure I eat like fruits and vegetables and meat and things like that. As I started like reading magazines and stuff like that. And so I'm all paying attention to it and everything. My weight was good. Um, you know, as I, as the contest was getting closer, it looked like my weight was going to line up on the scale for the, uh, contest. And, um, I was like, I kind of overshot, like I was like 177 pounds or something like that. Uh, when I weighed myself myself in in the morning, I get in the car with my brother.

We start driving to the competition and we go and pick up my brother's friend. This guy, Rob Constance, huge black guy, probably about 250, 260, just fucking jacked as all hell. And he's like, what's up, boys? He's like, this is going to be the trip of a lifetime. And it's like we're driving to White Plains, New York, which is like an hour away, maybe a little further from where I live. Yeah. And he just whips out a big thing of sticky buns. Nice.

He's like, this is powerlifting. This is how it's done. He's like, we got to knock these out. And he goes, I got more where these came from. He goes, sitting right here in this bag. So we better get to work. And I was was like what the fuck wait what is what's what exactly are sticky buns i have an idea but what are sticky buns

like uh like cinnabons you know like a cinnabon type thing oh okay okay gotcha gotcha yeah and so i was like fuck okay this is powerlifting this is amazing and so i ate that on my way to my first powerlifting meet and did pretty well still made weight because i was telling him I was like I don't know if I'm gonna make weight he's like I don't worry about any of that shit he's like it won't matter he's like this he's like this is what you need trust me he's like this is kind of fuel you need for powerlifting if you guys were to see what I'm looking at on the screen right now that I remember like the ones that I want to say it's from like Entenmann's like the the packaging ones like they're just like in a tray. Yeah.

Those are amazing. I think I think the name of the company is Entenmann's. No idea how to spell it. But these are too fancy. That's yeah. That's bullshit. That's commercial. It's more like this stuff.

Yeah. This is a problem. You can smell Cinnabon right now. Y'all know Cinnabon? Cinnabon. That's like it. Oh can i can smell cinnabon right now y'all know cinnabon cinnabon that's like it oh i can smell it right now like butter on it right the frosting yeah oh yeah the combination good thing we don't good thing we don't ever mess around with fasting yeah how about for sober october we don't go to cinnabon we don't go there every day or we do go there every day that's actually the challenge is if we can have a cinnabon every day that actually

would be interesting challenge we'd fucking hate after it's been so long cinnabon is so good bro it's been so long is this a tear oh my god when you when you see it at the airport you're like how is that place like how is it open you know everyone at the airport, you're like, how is that place? How is it open? Everyone at the airport is super fat. This should not be a thing. You're like, what the fuck's going on here? But at the same time, you're enthralled by it. You're like, oh my God, I need to get some fucking sticky buns.

Oh my God. It's tough because we all love Cinnabon. We definitely want it. But I don't want to stand in that line. Who's judging me right now? Not even. It's just been so long. It's crazy how...

They weigh like four pounds each. They're so thick. Just dense, man. Since we're talking about it do you if you were to consume what if somebody ate the middle of it so stole it from you i'll beat some ass so quick that'd be hard to have some self-control someone did that shit someone walked by and they're like thank you i don't even think i'd have the ability to stop myself from just going, what?

Yeah, yeah. Just like automatic reflex. Well, I guess that answers the question. But like, Dean, if you were to consume a Cinnabon, do you start with the outside and unwrap it and keep going? Or are you a Satanist and you just start biting through it? You save the middle for last. What about motherfuckers that try to steal the middle of the pretzel from you too? That twisty

part? Yeah, you got to watch out for those people. Those like salt crystals on the outside? Quinn does that to me all the time. She steals that part. Well, that's your daughter. Yeah, that's her. I know, but I'll still break her arm. That's what I was going to ask you. Okay, Andrew and Mark, a Cinnabon, perfect, thick, ready for you, ready to eat.

Your lady is right there. Your lady is there. She says, I want the middle. Oh, my God. I say. By the way, you're fasted. Yeah. You're fasted, and you haven't eaten anything, and you have been looking forward to this Cinnabon.

For some reason, there was one left and they want the middle. What do you do? I'm good. I'm good. I say, babe, you can totally have it. That's 100% all you do not care. That's what's mine is yours. Yours is mine.

Blah, blah, blah. That's yours. However, this isn't gluten free. So if you eat that, it's going to lead to a lot of bad things. Psychological torment. I like it. If I eat it for you, it'll help you in the long run. So I'll take this one for the team so that way, you know.

This is where it's super helpful because I carry around divorce papers with me at all times. So I would just gently slide those across the table. Maybe you can kind of fill that up there's a prenup there too if she assigned some of that stuff y'all were going strong until she took the middle of your fucking cinema that's some evil shit right there you can see that shit in court too and she's like hey she wanted the middle of the cinnabon and the judge would be like oh shit i understand awarded everything in your name oh lord okay that's um anyway that was some of my introduction into power lifting was like

oh yeah you can have some of these foods but when i was at the gym and when i talked to the older guys they talked about eating steak and they talked about eating potatoes and i mean they literally talked about eating meat and potatoes or like, this is like the key to get big. You want meat, potatoes, oatmeal, whole eggs, you know, like they kind of, they at least knew, you know, half of the battle. And they were just kind of explaining like, if you're going to, if you're going to utilize a lot of fuel in here, you're going to need a lot of fuel to get these workouts to go

in the right direction. You're going to need a lot of fuel to get these workouts to go in the right direction. And then the other thing they taught me was that the more that you weigh, the easier it is to get strong fast. However, you know, you don't want to like most of these guys were like they were pretty jacked, like they were in good shape. They weren't. I mean, this is a long time ago, too. mean this is a long time ago too there was less like there was still a lot of shitty food but there was it was uh i don't know there just there was less convenience of shitty food you couldn't just like lay on the couch and just order door dash you know what i mean like so it was a different a different era a different time but yeah they kind of taught me the groundwork of like you're gonna need to be bigger but I never actually consciously really worked

on being bigger. I just happened to be a pretty big kid. I lifted, I went to the gym. I understood that I needed to like fuel myself, but there's never been a time where I'm like, oh, I'm going to bulk up. I've never even tried. I've never even tried to bulk up. My brother and I were talking about it the other day. And my brother's like, I've never, I've never once tried to bulk. I was like, we should just try it sometime. See what would happen because that for us you know it's it's more of a thing of trying to manage our calories and manage our hunger and those kinds of things so but when you say that you never tried to to bulk um the first thing i think about was like when i first started hanging out with you and you were going to go for the 600 pound bench, you were a different looking human.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That mark was different. Yeah. So like when you say that, I'm like, but I mean, you definitely were in a bit of a bulk, right? Yeah, absolutely. But it wasn't like it wasn't the thing that was in the front of my mind. The thing was in the front of my mind was to bend 600 pounds. It's just slightly different language. I do understand it's the

same fucking thing, basically. My entire powerlifting career can be looked at as a bulk, because I did weigh 330 pounds. But I also learned a lot of great lessons in that transition. I mean, some people will look at some of that and they'll be like, holy fuck, he was really fat. But if you see pictures of me, even with my shirt off, like I am fat. I have a lot of body fat on me for sure. But I ain't that fat. Like I'm not like sloppy fat.

My face is fat as fuck. I can agree with that. And I have a belly, you know, I have, I definitely have a belly, but I never got into like, you know, wearing like 4X shirts and like, I never got into like having things be too crazy, especially when I was on my way up. And that's kind of where I was the most optimal was between like 275 and like 290, even around 290 at times, I sometimes had abs so it's really just kind of kind of dependent on where i was at in my career the later part of my career when i when i weighed 330 i i was pretty goddamn big i like that i can just google search fat milk bell you know uh but okay so the

things you're saying there yeah see how like i have a belly there and i'm but like look at my fucking shoulders and my arms yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, you look like my son right now. He's got some pretty good delts. The biceps haven't come in, but the belly is definitely there. Yeah, everything's there. But one thing you said is that you were, and you said a key thing, which we're going to get to without realizing you were performance based right and that's why power things good but we actually let's talk to you guys about something real quick

because as far as performance is concerned we actually partnered with a new company called eight sleep we've been sleeping on their mattresses for a few weeks now now eight sleep is freaking awesome because the mattress has a topper that literally cools down. You can set the temperature to be cool. Um, and we know that when you sleep on, when you sleep in cooler temperatures, you actually get better quality sleep. I think you can fall asleep 32% faster. You get really good quality sleep. And I'm someone who many a time in the past wakes up in a puddle of my own sweat. I think you know about that too. Fuck yeah, I do. I always have to start my sleeping protocol with a fan blowing directly on me and not having the blankets on.

But with this mattress, it's going to get you cool. You want your body temperature to kind of come down as you start to sleep. Andrew Huberman and some other people have been pointing this out. There's a lot of research on this. You're trying to get your body temperature down just a pinch to help you, to soothe you, to help you go to sleep. I think many of the listeners listening to this right now are like, man, I'm hot as fuck. The example or a great thing with the product is that you can utilize it for like one side of the bed

and whoever if you have somebody else sleeping next to you they don't have to be freezing you can kind of set your temperature whatever way you'd like they can set their temperature whatever way they'd like and you can both be happy in the same in the same bed without you know one person putting freezing cold feet on you or something like that. Let me tell you, and you guys probably have experienced this too, but the cool thing about it is that I tell you, I run a hot when I sleep, I run very hot. So a lot of the time I'd wake up and I have to wash the sheets.

But when you're sleeping with another person in your bed, because the mattress is cool, you can actually cuddle without both of you becoming sweaty and then just being like, okay, you know, y'all can cuddle and not of you becoming sweaty and then just be like okay you know here y'all can cuddle and not be sweating legitimately my wife and i noticed that we're like because we don't ever like sleep together like we sleep in the same bed but we don't it's rare i mean we do here and there but it's like we one of us has to be like exhausted or

drunk or something for us to like fall asleep like perfectly together you know it's really really rare uh but it's been happening more frequently with the eight sleep because it helps with temperature control exactly yeah and so like what a lot of people like i remember stan efferding talked about like oh you want the the room temperature to be like somewhere in the 69 68 degrees yeah 68 years so upper 60s But your body doesn't need that the entire night. So what I found was freaking incredible is like with your sleep cycles and the temperature that you need, it will adjust with you. And I'm just like, dude, this is like the technology and this is freaking it's really wild how much stuff they have into these pod pros. And then also waking up for me has always been a challenge.

I've gotten a lot better but now the kiddo it's kind of going back to square one where i'm trying to reprogram all these good habits so it will actually get super hot as at the time that i want to wake up and then the bed will start vibrating around me to wake me up so that way it doesn't wake up my wife it doesn't wake up my my son who still sleeps in our room. And I'm able to get up and I start my workout and I'm like refreshed. And like the app itself has so many different features. Like it has like if you want to wake up to yoga, it can like tell you your sleep score and all this other stuff. And like it really is, like I said, like the amount of technology.

Your heart rate. I don't know if you guys are like it'll tell you like your heart rate during your night, like your sleeping heart rate throughout the night. I think I had a low heart rate of 44 by 515 a.m. That rating on your sexual performance is kind of a downer, though. I was like, wow, only a four? Yeah, I thought I scored really high. They're tough critics. They are really tough critics.

It's just going to make you better. Yeah. Which I appreciate. They're trying to improve everything from your sleep to your sex there you go so yes like in sema said we've partnered up with eight sleep and um it really really cool offer for you guys if you go to eight sleep.com slash power project and that's eight sleep so you spell out eight e i g h t is that how you spell eight? I think you nailed it. EightSleep.com slash PowerPod.

Thank you, dude. That's so hard to spell verbally for somebody who doesn't know how to spell writtenly. Head over there right now or links down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. And you guys will receive $150 off your Pod Pro mattress or your Pod Pro cover. The promo code or promo is automatic. You don't have to do anything. you guys will receive $150 off your pod pro mattress or your pod pro cover. The, um, the promo code or promo is, um, automatic.

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is the cover put on any mattress king whatever you could do that so that's also an option for you absolutely back to our bulking what i want to kind of clarify is like yeah i was training for performance but also because i was training for, for, for performance. And because, uh, I didn't really care about the aesthetic side. I guess that's what I meant by, I haven't really tried a real bulk. I haven't tried like a bulk in a bodybuilding sense. Like there was no, I had no regard for like what I looked like really. I was just like, uh, let me just get as big and strong as I can. And so it was with no regard. So after doing something like that, I think I can now give good advice on like, yeah, don't do it the way that I was doing it.

Because not only did I get fat, but I also had bad habits that are still with me. Like I still have an insatiable appetite. I still want to eat in the middle of the night. Like there's, there's a bunch of different things that I still live with from, from that, along with, you know, just all the weights I lifted. I fucked myself up pretty good, but I'm still able to do a lot of things that I, that I love to do. But in doing that and being kind of careless, you know, looking back, I may not have hit the numbers I wanted. So from a powerlifting perspective and from the perspective of me just trying to lift as much as I possibly could, it worked pretty good for that. But if I'm to think about it in other ways, could I've had it be more optimal? I don't know because I didn't try it that way, but I would love to, I would love

to at some point do a bulk where the main thing is kind of aesthetics. And the main thing is to try to, I guess, transform my body where when I do lean out, I'm leaning out at a bigger body weight. And I think that's most people's goals that are listening today. That's most people's goals. And honestly, man, the big thing that you mentioned, like from when you were a kid, you're focused on performance training to help with your performance and powerlifting. And that's the most important thing, because when you start training and you're you're training and you're focusing on the scale, it'll cause you to take a lot of bad actions in terms of the amount of food you eat, in terms of maybe how hard you're going in the gym, in terms of the speed at which you're trying to see progress that you'll rush and you won't feel good. You, your, your, your cardio will be shitty. You won't be able to walk well, like you'll get so large and you'll feel uncomfortable and you won't actually gain that confidence that you're looking to gain when you started training. You know what I mean?

The thing that I wish we had currently was some type of some type of like performance-based sport that individuals could do because a lot of people get into bodybuilding because they want to achieve the bodybuilding style body or body like physique bikini whatever um they they get into that but then that can also lead them to having certain types of habits that might not be the healthiest for them in the long run in terms of like bulking all too like bulking too fast and cutting too fast. But if you just focus on moving more training volume in the gym, slowly gaining weight, because if you slowly gain weight, you'll get to the body you want. Right. Without all of the unnecessary body fat gain and all the discomfort because you're doing things too quickly. But the performance is what you got to focus on. Cause even nowadays for me, I don't focus on the scale. And for the past few years, I haven't focused on the scale.

I've just been focused on performing better in the gym for what I'm trying to do. And that led me to getting a better and better and better and better body. The scale, I just look at the number. Okay. That's the number. Cool. No big deal. I'm not doing things for that. But because performance is at the forefront and I'm always looking to improve that, that's why I've been able to make slow muscle gains these past few years, even after 16 years of training. I think a big mistake that some people make when they're trying to bulk is they leave their conditioning like behind and they don't consider that at all i know uh our boy sully did an amazing job of getting swole and really strong while he

was here um i think something as simple as pull-up records you know keeping some keeping some information about how you do with a pull-up even if you kind of stink at a pull-up if you gain 10 15 even 20 pounds you should still be able to do a couple of them and so just trying to keep those in i mean you can even look at that as like a way of like progressively overloading because you're gaining weight each week but you should keep a lot of the attributes you shouldn't be losing a lot of attributes um i have a lot of people that ask me, they're always like, man, you must have lost a lot of strength or you must. And I'm just thinking like, man, like that's such a, that's such an interesting question. You know, it's almost like, it's almost like asking somebody that all of a sudden became really wealthy. And you said, man,

think about all the things you left behind and coming becoming rich. You're like that never even crossed my mind because I feel like I've moved on. I feel like I've made progress. And so same thing with with me. I know it's like I'm talking right now about losing weight, but I have gained so much access to other things that I was able to do when I was a kid. Not everything, but I'm still working towards that. Um, I, I gained a lot of athleticism. I gained strength in some areas. So I might've lost strength on say like a bench press or a squat, but now I can proficiently do pull-ups, you know, there's body weight exercises. I can now run. I couldn't do

that before. Um, there's just a lot of shit that I have access to. So to me, that's a form of strength. You know, there's a lot of different forms of strength. So, you know, go, go in that direction and having people ask the question all the time, like, did you lose strength? It's like, well, yeah, like I don't lift the same way. I don't use the same equipment I used to use. I mean, there's a lot of things that I left behind. I, the thing, though. I totally agree with you on that. And, you know, whether you're if you're someone who's focused on powerlifting, you're focused on the big three. Right. I still think that you can do those things and still feel good.

But if you're an individual who just wants to get you want to get strong in the gym, obviously, because you want to get bigger. Instead of only give yourself more variables of performance, because when you have more variables of performance, just because you didn't hit a bench PR, that's not the only thing you're focused on. If you can slowly get better cardiovascular capacity, if you're slowly becoming more mobile because you're doing a little bit of stuff in terms of your mobility, if you're adding in different movements that give you different variables to improve upon, you're not going to be so bummed out that you bailed 225 for 10 reps. Because over here, you're actually getting more mobile in your hips and your body's feeling better and you're moving better.

And maybe the rowing machine or whatever kettlebell thing maybe you did was easier today, or you, you hit a new little PR on that, you know, because you improved there. So you're not too focused on, oh, my deadlift, I missed 500, right? For a lot of lifters, oh, I missed 500. Okay. They're there. It messes with them in terms of their training. Then they start rushing things in terms of strength. But if you give yourself different variables of improvement, mobility is going to help you feel better. It's going to help your body feel better. Flexibility's going to help your body feel better flexibility is going to help your body feel better and over time that will help you be able to continue to gain muscle and strength while feeling good and not feeling like shit yeah i was going to ask because you you mentioned the scale and you know how it's like not the end all be all but

which i agree with but it is a unit of measure is. And if somebody is trying to gain and the scale is not going the right direction, it just can't be ignored. So how can we utilize that unit of measure? Because I understand what you mean. You get on the scale. I feel good. Performance is good, so I don't really care. But I guess how can we still take that input and you know help help the uh the gains i guess we'll say so in terms of the scale it's exactly number one it's

unit of measure number two you shouldn't allow you you shouldn't let yourself get too emotionally attached to what you see on it and that is a very tough thing especially let's say if you're trying to come down let's say if you're trying to come down, let's say if you're trying to, you, you know, you have a good amount of body fat on you and you are trying to, you still want to gain muscle. So over, obviously you need to see that scale weight go down. So yeah, if the scale has been staying in the same place for six months, right. Um, and, and you have a substantial amount of fat to lose, then you need to be in a bit more of a deficit, but you still want to do, be performing well in the gym. But if you're trying to gain, I don't think that because you didn't put on three pounds this month, that's a problem. You should pay attention to it.

So it's the amount that it goes down and up. Like, for example, I want to use you as an example because it's the easiest right now. You are. How much do you weigh? Well, this is actually really good. I actually woke up. So over the past couple of weeks and then maybe my air conditioner being out is part of it. But my diet has not been on point and I have not been eating enough.

So over the past, I want to say two and a half weeks, I've actually lost like about four pounds. Yeah. And I've been trying to put more calories down. Again, how much do you weigh though? So sorry, I was 185 So I went down to like 181. Okay, and then as of today, I'm like 183. Okay, so 183 and change So again, the scale is gives you a little bit of information. There's things going on with water things going on sodium Things may be going on with the way your nutrition looks but the big thing to think about is okay

I have a range of three to four pounds, right am trying to gain muscle how am i doing in the gym that's the bigger thing are you substantially weaker in the gym is your performance continuing to wane are you seeing weak like are you not able to do as much volume as you were multiple weeks before and you're four pounds lighter so i'm just saying like that's something that you need to think about because if your performance is better in the gym and this is for anybody, if your performance is better in the gym and you're within three to four pounds, whether it's heavier or lighter, but you're still doing really well in the gym and feeling good as far as your performance, whether you're three or four pounds lighter, that's something to really worry that much about right now. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Focusing on performance, right, is good because that weight's going to come back easily.

Like you could legit go to some sushi. Like, you know, you'd see a higher scale number. Of course. You could see 185 or 186. Yeah, just drink more the day before. Yeah, I guess. And you're right. So, like, last week I hit, like, a PR on a certain movement.

So I was pretty fired up. And then this week, just, again, sorry to complain about my fucking air conditioner. But, like, it's been really like annoying at home so um the sleep wasn't as perfect as it should have been because it's like you know a lot of a lot of movement going on because it's like hey are you still hot like yep i'm hot so i actually had to put a fan like on like every corner of my bedroom just to try to get the air to flow and then like i said without theleep mattress, I wouldn't have gotten any sleep. And I guess so my question about the scale and all that,

it was just reminding me of, and we actually just saw a picture of him, our boy Tom Thornton, because I remember when he was trying to bulk, he would, like, be putting down everything he could, and then he'd get so upset, like, after a couple of weeks, that, like, oh, I'm still not gaining where I should be. And I think we all kind of talked to him about it, like, well, what about like maybe a little bit of a break, like let your body kind of recoup and stuff. He wasn't very focused on that scale. At least it seemed like it, maybe he really wasn't because it just, it's easy to talk about. But as far as

performance, I don't think he really ever had an issue with that, but that's really who I was thinking about as a person that's like, Nope, I'm all set. I got a meet at the end of the year. I want to gain, I want to get as big as possible, but that scale is not moving. There's just way more to take into whatever account for than just what that number says. There may be some sacrifices that you got to put on pause for a while. You know, like if you're naturally a thinner person, um, you might have to try to figure out a way to naturally move a little bit less. Maybe you're fidgety. Maybe you love to ride your bike. Maybe you, I mean, people that are thin, I mean, they don't just, uh, necessarily under eat. They probably are also, uh, moving around quite a bit and that's their body set point. That's what their body's used to. Um, so you,

what makes it hard is you're trying to be something that you're not, you're literally are trying to be something that you're not. You're trying to be trying to gain weight or you're trying to lose weight. And previously you're, you're recognizing this as like a, uh, an area of like conflict, you know, you're like, yeah, I have a desire to get bigger. I think that this is in my best interest, but because, because you have that thought, like you, I guess it's hard to say it this way, but you wouldn't have that thought if you were already bigger, you know, and you wouldn't have that thought if you have already lost weight, you know, because you would already be there, but it would signify if

you were big, that you already know how to do that. And if you've never done that before, you're doing it now for the first time. I know this is weird, but, but it's, it's the truth. Like if you knew it was best for you, you would have done it already. Like the reason why you're not better is, is the reason why you're stuck. You know, you, you don't just get to want to be better. You can't wish to be better. You have to, you have to really work at it. And what makes it hard is it's a, it's 24 seven, you know, the battle to lose weight or the battle to gain weight is a, uh, constant battle of you, uh, trying to resolve conflict in your head

of what you're supposed to do, when you're supposed to do it, and then you're like, oh, shit, I shouldn't have done that. You keep saying that to yourself. Oh, man, I would have been better off if I did this. And that's just constantly racing around in your head. It's very rare that you go through a whole day, no matter what your goal is or how motivated you are, where you're like,

I kicked the fucking shit out of today. Today was definitely a 10 out of 10. No questions asked. I followed the plan to the exact T. There are people that do that. Um, but it's rare. And I,

I don't even think that you have to do that in order to make progress. That's actually the good news. Um, but you do have to be pretty on point and you have to do so for a while in order to really notice the changes on the scale and in the mirror that you're looking for and one big thing to to realize is that like as you're trying to gain as we're talking about doing this slowly i think that there's going to be some people are like okay cool doing it slowly that means i'm just going to you know as i do I do this, I'm going to just try to hold onto my abs

as I'm doing all of this. You'll, you'll have to look over your abs a little bit at a certain point. You got to realize that like you won't have the most defined six pack the whole time, right? That that's especially because a lot of people aren't used to actually performing there. So the abs might be just, there might be a little sheath over it. You know, not talking about the belly, but you got to be okay with not having abs all the time. Because a lot of people want to have abs. A lot of people want to see them. They want to get leaner so they can see those abs.

Or covering up veins or something like that, yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, but, you know, if you want to really be able to gain, you need to find that body fat percentage of that place where you're able to really perform for a majority of men. It's within the 12 to 16, maybe 17 percent body fat, which is a decently healthy body. Like 15, 16 percent body fat is a healthy range. I know that we're lean here. I get it. So I get what you guys are looking at. But you got to understand when trying to progress and train, that's a great place to be.

You don't want to get, though, into 18, 20, 22 percent range. Then you're being gluttonous. Yeah. Right. So just real quick for everybody on the live chat. Thank you all for joining us. Go ahead and comment and let us know what you struggle with as far as bulking and then if you guys are catching this as like after the live stream is off if you guys can comment on the comment section and let us know what you guys struggle with but what you

just explained is what i struggle with the most um you know having abs was a huge deal for me you know filmed a whole little series about it and then now that i'm trying to maintain 185 like i look in the mirror and it's like ah like damn it like okay i'm not as defined and then now that i'm trying to maintain 185 like i look in the mirror and it's like ah like damn it like okay i'm not as defined and then i still align there there is still a line but then i i step on the scale and i'm just like oh my god and i'm not even at 185 like what am i gonna do now so like i remember uh alberto nunez had mentioned it he was just like yeah you know smaller guys they want to bulk they want to bulk but as soon as the definition goes they freak out and they go the other way and then they say oh i can't bulk like because i yeah, you know, smaller guys, they want to bulk. They want to bulk. But as soon as the definition goes, they freak out and they go the other way. And then they say, oh, I can't bulk because I'm not, you know, whatever.

I'm not capable, whatever the case. But like that is definitely the struggle for me. Like I'm just trying to maintain and I'm like, I'm having a hard time already. Yeah, you might have to wear like a little fat suit for a little while. Yeah, yeah, which I'm not happy about. And yeah, your face might change a little bit, might puff up a bit. And you're going to have people ask questions, you know, like, oh, man, I thought you had abs. Oh, dude, like you normally, you know, some people will say something, not even know that they're totally crushing your spirit. I got touched in the gym in my midsection by a friend.

I had no hard feelings whatsoever, he was like oh what's going on down like huh and i was just like oh you know i'm just trying to maintain 185 and he meant nothing by you know just because like i don't really see the team at the end of the day anymore like i used to but like that i'd be lying if i said that didn't stick with me i'll just like but you know i'm still you're over in the corner doing sit-ups yeah yeah right like like a thousand calories a day but no i'm sticking with it but it's just like little things like that will occur and i'm just like oh am i doing the right thing like maybe i should switch it up but just gonna keep pushing forward you gotta stick to your guns and you gotta recognize like just you know when you're you're in a moment you know you're in a time frame you're

gonna bulk for 12 weeks or you're gonna bulk for eight weeks or whatever know, you're, you're in a moment, you know, you're in a timeframe, you're going to bulk for 12 weeks or you're going to bulk for eight weeks or whatever it is. You're going to be back out of that soon. And you're going to be working on, you got to remember that you have decided that this is a good idea for you. And you got to figure out a way. I see a lot of people that they, they switch, you know, they flip flop back and forth. They're on, um which flip-flopping back and forth is fine if you do it for X amount of weeks. But if you're doing it like every other day, you're like trying, you know, this diet, and you try this diet, and you try, you're not really building any real consistency. I think one of the better diets out there that I see for bulking that has a lot of good information

just on being performance-based, being able to lift heavy and being able to put out good volume every single day, along with staying lean and stand effortings, vertical diet. Yeah. There's a lot of great information in there. Um, but I, again, I see, I see just so many people when they, they make this jump to do a bulk, a lot of times they're, uh, leaving just other things behind like conditioning. They're just kind of, I guess, forgetting about the overall goal. And sometimes you just people just have a hard time sticking it out because, yeah, you are going to gain a little bit of fluff.

But this is the thing, too. You mentioned like bulk eight weeks, 12 weeks. This is the thing you got to get. Like most people shouldn't be thinking about that in such a short period of time. Because if you're thinking, I want to gain this in eight weeks or 12 weeks, you're literally going to put on a lot of weight. And a lot of that weight is going to be body fat. Right. Like if you're really trying to gain muscle over time.

Right. There's not like you're not trying to get ready for a show or whatever. This is going to be something that you should aim like, OK, I'm going to be on this gaining phase for maybe the next year or two. Because if you're really trying to put on muscle, it's going to take you a while. It's going to take you continuing to improve at whatever movements you're doing in the gym. And if you're just focused on eating a lot of food, you should be eating to slowly gain. But if you do it too fast, then the quicker you gain, the quicker you're going to

have to go on a cut because you put on too much body fat. And then you're going to realize, oh, maybe I didn't really put on that much muscle during this bulk because I gained too much weight too quickly. So a good idea is like, you know, for like, for example, Andrew, we're looking at somebody in Andrew's situation. The whole audience knows what Andrew looks like. It's a good idea for him to perform within this weight range. He's been lifting for a few years now, so he has a good base. So for now, it's great if he can stay within the range of 180 to 190 and just stay continuing to perform well in the gym there because his body is going to slowly change within that range, right? If you're someone totally new, the initial aspect of your first few years of training

you're going to see a lot of just new muscle gain but there's going to be a point where you're going to get to a certain weight and that's going to be kind of where your body's going to chill for a little bit and you should just focus on performing whether it's your you you perform really well at 170 to 180 180 to 190 200 to 10 you need to perform there for a little bit and your body will have a recomp. That's like a Brian Boudreau or whatever. He, we've been staying at just like around 200. And when you're bigger, you'll lift bigger. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. And then your body, you know, your body's going to respond to those bigger weights that you're lifting. So if you are 200 versus 180, you're going to be able to lift a little bit more weight. If you stay there for a while, which you should stay there for a while, then that's going to have a training effect that's going to help you build even more mass and help you build even more strength. So even when you go back down to losing some weight, your central nervous system will still be on board

with lifting some of those weights. You might lose some strength, but every time that you, every time you come back down, you should have a little bit more muscle and you should have a little bit more strength. You should be able to carry some of that with you. And then every time you bulk back up, you should be a little bit leaner as well. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and that's the thing. Like if you, let's say that you are a man and you're at 15% body fat at 180 pounds. Okay. What I would tell you to do if you've been lifting for a few years is stay there for eight months.

Stay there for six to eight months. Eight months? Stay there for six to eight months. Stay within that weight range for six to eight months because in about probably six to eight months, you're going to be within that range and you'll probably be 11 to potentially 12% body fat. And then if you want to,

you can move into the next zone. You can literally just like start slowly looking for the scale to purposely go up to 190 195 and you'll probably again be at like 14 15 body fat around like maybe 190 to 200 or something stay there for a few months i'm really glad you mentioned six to eight months because i for myself i am curious like how long do i have to kind of be here in this weird like um, I'll say like cotton limbo. It's like a limbo. Yeah. Where I'm trying to like, I don't know, like, do I keep going this way or do I try to switch it up?

Or how long do I just have to sit here in this weird spot? And I don't think this is an easy idea to market to people either, because it's not. to people either because it's not because when you're not seeing the scale go up and you're not seeing the scale really go down and you're only focused on moving more training volume in the gym and improving there it can get kind of monotonous but after six months you're going to notice you're you're substantially leaner at the same weight and then you can move you can push it up but now instead of being that weight you'll now be with it like 195, 200. But now that's your 15% body fat. And then you stay there for another six months.

I'd also say that it's hard to continue to get in better shape if you don't have a great structure. Like if you already have a great structure, then you might be able to do what Ensema has done where you have an individual who's already big, already has some mass, introduces some more exercise through something like jujitsu, introduces some different practices in the diet, and voila, you know, you're down quite a bit of percentage in body fat. It won't look the same, you know, if somebody doesn't have the muscle mass or the structure. And so you want to go out there and get that muscle mass and get that structure for a bunch of different reasons, but a huge reason being just that you can eat a lot more. You know, if you are, you're going to kind of perpetually drive down the amount of calories your body needs every day. If you are always kind of dieting and if you are, Oh, if you're under eating and you're,

um, just a lot smaller, you're not allowing your body to like gain. I mean, we've seen this with, uh, MMA athletes. Sometimes they go up like a weight class.

They try to just go up one weight class and boom, their body explodes and they go up to weight classes. Everyone's like, what the, what happened to this guy? How did he get so big and so jacked? And a lot of times it's just because they were kind of suppressed in that for a long time. That's happened to me in soccer when I was younger.

Like when I stopped playing soccer and I was able to just focus on lifting, the weight just started coming because I was literally, my weight was staying down because I was doing so much fucking cardio while I was lifting. Yeah, so much running. Yeah. So I feel like we've been kind of advising and talking to men. Is there anything different for the females, all three of them that are listening? No.

I mean, honestly, I would personally not say there is because it's the same idea. You want to get to a certain body fat for women and maybe be around 23% to 25% body fat. And you want to hold that for a little bit and you want to recomp at that. And if you stay at the same weight and you perform there for a while and you continuously, and this is the thing, this is why we're both focusing on increasing your performance, meaning you're increasing your training volume in the gym, you're increasing your work capacity, you're getting stronger. If you can increase your performance at the same weight, your body composition will change positively if you're not eating in a massive surplus of calories. So that's why in this stage, either you're eating at maintenance, caloric intake, or like somewhere very close to your maintenance,

um, because you can still gain muscle there. You can, if you're, if you're focusing on performance in the gym, okay, if you're, if you're getting weaker, that's not a good sign.

That shows that you're not doing something while you're not eating enough. You're not sleeping enough for your performance. It makes a difference. A lot of women kind of think, um, that some of the lifting that they see guys do isn't for them, but we know differently. I mean, we've seen, we've seen some women, especially recently, they're ripping up some crazy, crazy weights and it seems to be empowering and inspiring for a lot of women to, uh, flip tires and to lift kettlebells and to, uh, flip tires and,

uh, lift kettlebells and to do things that you just didn't really see that many women doing that previously. Uh, especially like with, uh, CrossFit coming around a lot of women doing Olympic lifting. Um,

and these girls are really, really fucking strong. So I think, I think you can have a lot of goals surrounding, uh, yeah, I'd love to be able to one day flip that tire that I see in the gym. You know, I know a lot of gyms have access to some of these strongman pieces of equipment.

They got sleds and hammers and all kinds of different things that the gyms didn't have previously. And you can work on just saying, yeah, I'd love to be, or for a woman, it could be as simple as I'd love to be able to do a couple of pull-ups or be able to do a couple of pushups. Cause I know for some women, they sometimes struggle with their strength in their upper body and that could be an amazing goal. And when you're actually able to do that, then you're super pumped and super excited. And so you'll be excited by the fact that your performance has changed so much and you'll be less maybe concerned or worried that there was some weight gain on the scale. excited by the fact that your performance has changed so much and you'll be less uh maybe concerned or worried that there was some weight gain on the scale yeah exactly it's i think for

everyone you should just try to find a sport that that you enjoy but um if you're a new lifter listening to this i don't know mark what's your suggestion because we talked about this before and when new lifters start training you know they want to immediately get into power lifting right but we've talked about building a base before you just jump into that in terms of competition but how do you feel about that because you jumped into comp you jumped into power lifting immediately yeah uh power lifting you know for me was a sport, you know, so it was like it wasn't any different than a young kid, you know, playing soccer or anything else. It's just something that I got introduced to very young at a very young age. think I think that it's probably more productive to start out in bodybuilding and to start out with kind of just messing around kind of training like just like going in the gym and like just messing around the machines and doing kind of what Andre Milanoch have shared with us because the reason why I say that is that the more muscle mass that you have, uh, the better

leverages that you have, and you can get better leverages by also getting kind of fat or getting chubby. Um, those things can be helpful, but, uh, you're better off with it being muscle mass, uh, in the long run, because it's just going to give you, I guess, more strength, give you more longevity. There was many, many years where I didn't really look like I lifted. I mean, I looked, I guess I looked fit. I looked like I was in shape, but my arms were pretty, like I was pretty like thin because powerlifting, while lifting heavier weights can assist you in getting bigger, the main focus of powerlifting is not really hypertrophy.

So I didn't have a ton going on with the legs. I didn't have a ton going on with the arms until later in life, until I was like, you know, and when I say later in life, I mean like 18, 19, but that was five or six years into training already. What I would advise people that are newer to do is to really hone in on the diet, on the nutrition. That, like, the gym stuff, like, hopefully you get inspired and you get your ass in the gym.

You know, I really hope that that is something that you do. But I don't know how much the program matters. I think if you just engage in some of the basics, a lot of the movements that we've known forever, they all work really well. And even if you mess around in the machines, those are all good practices as well. But where I see most people slipping up is most people don't ever really get a hold of their diet. And we know a lot of people that train that still don't have a physique that they're pumped about or proud of simply because they never really got a hold of their nutrition. When it comes to bulking, what can be hard is to try to add in calories. It can be really difficult for people.

They can feel uncomfortable trying to add in more and more and more food. But that's something that you do over time. Again, referring to Stan Efferding, when he talked about training with Flex Wheeler, a lot of his stuff was, you know, the training mattered. He trained like twice a day. Yeah. But so much was reliant upon the food. He'd wake up and he would eat.

Before he'd train, he would have, you know, a smaller meal. Then he would go and train. Then he'd have a post-workout meal. And then he'd go lift again. And then he would eat again. And it got to the point where he started eating five times a day. Then he started eating six times a day. Then he started eating seven times a day. And then he started eating eight times a day.

As that progressed upward, it sounds like a crazy amount of eating, but those, these were small meals that Flex Wheeler got him used to. Stan Efferding is the ectomorph of all ectomorphs yes he's just a naturally very thin guy i think he said he graduated high school like 130 pounds or something like that and he's fairly tall so um he was very very thin but the way that he got bigger was through a lot of these things that he was doing with Flex Wheeler. And Stan started out with four ounces of steak and like a half a cup of rice at each one of these meals. Those are kind of small meals, especially for a guy, you know, at Stan's size at that

point, he was probably 270 or something, you know. And then they added two ounces of steak like every other week. They added a little bit of rice every other week, and by the time he started getting in full swing, he's eating 14 ounces of steak eight times a day with a cup and a half of rice every single time. Jesus. I mean, Stan's just like, yeah, my jaw fucking hurts at the end of the day

chewing on that much steak and stuff like that so well you see how stan everding got how big you got it yeah you want to get big i mean there's going to be some sacrifices most of the people that we hear from that say they can't get big they're people that don't even eat breakfast yeah it's like dude you can't you're out drinking all night you're not getting any sleep you know and you're uh and you're also missing breakfast like get out of here don't even ask me any more questions i know we talk about fasting a lot and i know that's what we do okay so it's funny because like we will we there's a lot of

things we talk about and some people like but hey don't you guys fast eat one meal okay listen if you are trying to get bigger and you're not eating enough food it's probably not the best idea for you to try to condense all the food you're not eating enough food, it's probably not the best idea for you to try to condense all the food you're supposed to eat into a four to five hour window like we do. Because listen, we can eat a lot of food in four to five hours. Okay. And if you find it too difficult to do that, to hit your calories, spread your meals out more so you can get the food you need to get in. Right. That's the big deal here. So if you, if you need to eat throughout the day, there is no problem with eating meals throughout the day. If that's the big deal here so if you if you need to eat throughout the day there is no problem with eating meals throughout the day if that's the

easiest way for you to eat enough food to grow you see like when I eat I'm still eating enough food that I'm making progress I'm still eating a lot of calories so keep that in mind as we talk about all this and as you hear us talk about episodes where we speak on fasting remember that you eat like two pounds of meat every day you think or more i don't even look at it in terms of poundage because like the meals that i have that are packaged there's the cow the the protein on that so like it'll have like 80 or something grams of protein and then it'll usually be like seven eggs or five seven eggs and then maybe one to two steaks and i've definitely had two to three protein things in that day so that's an upwards of 230 240 grams of protein

and then there's the fat that's added to all of that stuff too so i get in that within the four hour period or if it's through the day then it's through the day but it's always enough what fat do you add in anything in particular? Butter? I'll use butter. I'll use butter. Um, I don't really use oil or anything. Um, sometimes if I, if I choose to put my steak on the pan, I might use a little bit

of oil, but I don't do that that often. Um, egg yolks. Uh, I, when I do choose to eat fattier cuts of meat, there's going to be quite a bit of fat in there and I'll sometimes still have pork belly and stuff here and there. So avocado, anything like that? I don't really fuck with avocado. No, no, no fruit, no vegetable diet. Avocado is like, you know, it just, it's cool, but it's like somebody ate it before me.

Yeah, I know. It's weird. So I'm not all mushy biggest fan, but it's healthy for you. Like if, if somebody would put it in front of me, I wouldn't be opposed to eating it. Right. Um, it's not my you. If somebody were to put it in front of me, I wouldn't be opposed to eating it. It's not my first line of action. I wanted to mention something real quick because I saw this quote from Squat University.

And it was cool, but I also kind of disagreed with it slightly. And he put this post up and it says, if you want to look bigger, train muscles. If you want to move bigger weights, train movements. Bodybuilding is different than powerlifting or weightlifting. Purely strengthening a muscle doesn't teach you to move well with it. And I agree with that statement. I really do agree with it. But I feel like it's like, okay, yeah, just because you bodybuild and that's your focus, if you don't train your squat or deadlift or whatever or snatch or whatever, that doesn't mean you'll just go to those movements and you'll be able to move well with the muscle that you have on your frame. But if you do these things concurrently, if you're a weightlifter who has bodybuilder accessory movements, if you're a powerlifter who has bodybuilder accessory movements, while you're doing your main movements while you are now progressing your training volume with these bodybuilder movements and these muscles are getting bigger but then you once again go and you use these muscles to do the movements that you're doing so these bigger muscles

are now being taught how to do these movements same thing with jujitsu if you're a jujitsu athlete who trains in the gym and bodybuilding and then you go back to the mats and you use that new muscle on the mats you will be able to move that muscle better with what you're doing so the only place where i kind of disagree with this slightly is i get it conceptually just because you're a bodybuilder doesn't mean you're automatically going to be good at this because you train those muscles but doing these together you can look like a bodybuilder while doing any of these things when you look at top level weightlifters like a lot of the like the ones and stuff, they look like bodybuilders. They're jacked.

Yeah. And another part I'll disagree with that statement is, I mean, a muscle that starts to develop in size cannot be weaker. If it gets bigger, that muscle is going to be stronger. And if you're going to be stronger, then you are definitely going to be able to move, you to be able to move you know whatever the barbell whatever direction stronger at some capacity doing something yeah yeah no it absolutely isn't but i also do agree that like if you don't put it into practice which more of what you're saying is if you don't do them at the same time then yeah you might kind of forget how to squat correctly because you're not getting the reps in there it's like using everything together that's the big thing not getting the reps in it's like using everything

together that's the big thing about like a power lift it's using your whole like every all your leverages to move this load on your back right um and just because you're really big doesn't mean your body knows how to work together to do that but if you train that with that body you'll have a higher capacity to be able to do more of that. I'm all for movement and everything, but you know, when I was going through power lifting, you know, people weren't applauding people because of the way they moved.

They were applauding people because of the weight they lifted. And when I competed, I recall like, you know, being in the warmup room and having like, you know, lifting like the bar and then lifting like a plate and lifting like two plates looking way worse than

probably almost every single person there with my own form and technique when it came to like going onto the platform and performing it the way that you needed to do it i usually blew people away so it's power lifting you know and sometimes building these strengths in like one capacity can kind of leave you, you know, in a position where you're maybe not as strong in some other areas. But as Nsema pointed out, if you are still paying attention to all these things concurrently, which I wasn't, I didn't even feel like, I didn't feel like I had the time for it. Maybe I did, but I spent a lot of hours lifting really heavy weights. So I wouldn't know, but it probably would have been something that would have probably

assisted me to even be stronger had I had a little bit more flexibility, had I had a little bit of that. But like, that's the way, that's the only way that I knew at that point. So for some people, like, I think, I think it's important for people to, you know, want to be good at multiple things. But if you want to be great at one thing, then you're going to have to kind of sink everything you have into it. And you're going to, in my opinion, I think sometimes you've got to leave some other shit behind. So if you're going to try to bulk and get big, you might look fat.

Your stomach might hurt quite a bit. You might be farting up a storm. There's just things that you might shit three, four times a day. I mean, there's, there's gonna, it's gonna be a change for you and certainly be a change, especially in the beginning. Um, when you're the first couple of days and weeks that you're doing that, but over time, hopefully you can probably, uh, get used to that. And hopefully over time you can kind of feel good inside the, you know, bigger body that you made.

And then you can work back again on cutting up again. I think that's a good place. That's a show. Take us on out of here, Andrew. Alrighty. Again, eight sleep.com slash power project.

A huge thanks to them for sponsoring today's episode. I mean, we talked about performance, all that good stuff. You're not going to perform optimally unless you get optimal sleep. Fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling way more rested to tackle the day. EightSleep.com slash PowerProject. You'll automatically receive $150 off your Pod Pro mattress or mattress cover. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Follow the podcast at MarkBell's Power Project on Instagram, at MBPowerProject on TikTok

and Twitter. And again, if you guys have any more questions in regards to like clean bulking, bulking or re-comping, make sure you leave them down in the description below or down in the comment section below and we'll try to attack those on a future episode or maybe we'll just chat back and forth down in the other comment section uh follow me at i am andrew z on instagram and twitter and at the andrew z on tiktok jean claude van daddy where you at thank you zaddy and sema in yang on instagram and youtube and sema yin yang on tiktok and twitter marquise everybody we got ben patrick's gonna be here i think it's october 24th is the day he's gonna be doing a seminar and i don't think he's ever

even done a seminar before this is gonna be the first one yeah it's gonna be wild it's gonna be crazy it really is gonna be crazy guys y'all y'all y'all ain't ready it's gonna be a rager yeah it's gonna to be sick. We're also working on getting CT Fletcher here. Still working on the exact date of that. But we're going to be having some seminars here at Super Training Gym again. And y'all are invited, but I'll give you more details as we get closer. I don't know how many people we're going to be able to stuff into here.

Yeah, but probably start booking your hotel rooms now because when they find out, oh, fuck, they're having a seminar. All the prices are going to go up. That's going to be crazy. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weak. This week, this never strength. Catch y'all later.