Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 595 - @NsimaYinYang & @MarkSmellyBell TikTok Live Q&A

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang answered your questions live on TikTok! Make sure to follow @marksmellybell, @nsimayinyang, and @mbpowerproject on TikTok to catch these live! Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢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 Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast 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

Power Project Familia, how's it going? This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Merrick Health. Now, Merrick Health is owned by somebody you know, Derek, from More Plates, More Dates, but Merrick Health is the premium telehealth TRT and HRT clinic where we have something called the Power Project Panel that has 26 different labs that give you all the things you need for men and women. But also, if you guys are interested in TRT or HRT, you can actually work with a doctor from Merrick Health and they'll go ahead and they'll tell you which tests you need to get along with giving you the treatment that you need. You need to check him out. Andrew, can you tell the people how to get?

Yeah, absolutely. So we have links down in the YouTube description as well as the podcast show notes. But you need to head over to MerrickHealth.com. That's M-A-R-R-E-K-Health.com. And yeah, if you are interested in TRT, you can actually contact them. You'll hop on the phone with them. And when it comes time to actually start paying for some of these panels, just let them know that you've heard it through us and you want to use promo code PowerProject15, and that's going to save you 15% off all the recommended labs

that they give you. Again, links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Highly recommend it. They are the premium telehealth hrt clinic trt clinic uh they're really they're second to none so head over there right now are we just gonna be talking like this it feels natural it does feel nice i'm rolling so all right guys we are currently live on the podcast. Andrew's over here. And we're going to be fielding your questions here from TikTok. Nothing will ever come between us.

Nope, we're just going to be standing like this. Just like this the whole time. But yeah, we're podcasting. So we're going to start answering some questions. You're so hard. Did you say I'm so hard? Did I? I think you said I'm so hard.

But I didn't say it on air, right? You didn't say it on air. I said it on two separate. All right. Our buddy Makai A. Kamperer asks, what supplements are a must? Oh. I personally kind of like vitamins a little bit more than supplements, although I do like my fair share of protein powders.

Okay. Vitamins, protein powders. How about vitamin D? How essential do you think that is? I think vitamin D is pretty useful. Yeah. I take vitamin D. I take vitamin K. Vitamin K is supposed to have some good research behind it for some heart health.

Vitamin D seems to be good for the immune system. Oh, I take magnesium just because I kind of always hear that athletes are deficient in magnesium, which I don't even know if that's true, but I figure it doesn't hurt. Oh, I take magnesium just because I kind of always hear that athletes are deficient in magnesium, which I don't even know if that's true, but I figure it doesn't hurt. Oh, yeah. And then we utilize a product called Element, which is an electrolyte formula, which is fantastic. But you can also accomplish some of this by throwing some salt on your food. So just salt in your food is good to keep those electrolytes in balance, but it is helpful to have a product

like Element that tastes great and also provides you with potassium and magnesium as well. Yeah. One thing I'll say is like a lot of, one of the biggest supplements that's made the biggest difference for me over the past few years is electrolytes. Because the funny thing is like creatine is useful. A lot of people talk about creatine and they're like, it's the most researched supplement on the market and it's the oldest supplement on the market. So if you're a weight training athlete, creatine is useful. Creatine is also in red meat. But the thing is, is like I'm very inconsistent with creatine intake. Like seriously, I think that I take creatine maybe once every two weeks because I remember it once every two weeks, even though I know how useful it is as a weight training athlete.

I got a big old thing of creatine and glutamine in my house and I always forget to take both of them. I've had the same tub of creatine for the last eight months. No, no, seriously. I haven't bought like it's the same tub and it's supposed to be like 60 servings, but because I'm so inconsistent with creatine use, even though it's useful, um, it's lasted a long time. So have you ever used a supplement that you felt really, really worked or had a big impact other than like something like a element? Creatine. Creatine.

When I was like using creatine consistently when I was younger, because when I was younger, I was using five grams of creatine every single day. It does make a difference. It's just nowadays, like I know, like, I guess it doesn't make such a crazy difference. It's just this. It makes a good difference, but it's not so crazy that I feel like I need it because I still feel like I can perform without it. So I don't. Same thing with pre-workout.

You feel the effects of pre-workout. That's why people take it because of the caffeine in pre-workout. Right. But it doesn't make that big of a difference where I'm like, I need to take it. And also, I don't want to be dependent on something like pre-workout over time. Cause I don't know if this happened to you. Um, when I was younger, uh, I started feeling like I'd have, if I didn't have my pre-workout before workout, I would have a bad workout. Yep. I felt similar. And, uh, so that's why I discontinued them. I also kind of discontinued them because when I was power lifting, I was like, I don't want to rely on anything else other than myself.

And so for years, I practiced even doing a lot of lifting like without music on and a bunch of stuff. And then as I got older, I was just like, I just like having certain songs on during certain lifts, so I'll just utilize it. But it wasn't a thing when I went to compete on the platform. And I worry about that for some people because they take so much damn pre-workout that if things don't feel perfect on game day when they go to do a powerlifting meet or something like that, or even just on a day where they're going to test their PR, they're all up in their own head. Like that, you know, caffeine's not hitting them the way that they want it to, you know? Yeah, no. Uh-oh. Oh, God. Oh, hey now.

That's my father. He's in Nigeria right now. Anyway. All right, guys, we's in Nigeria right now. Anyway. All right, guys, we're going to answer some more questions. How's YouTube doing? Does YouTube have any questions from there? Are they doing? Because we're just doing TikTok live right now.

Oh, my gosh. I just lost the connection because I got a call. All right, guys. No, dad. I can't answer the phone right now, dad. OK, let's see. OK, this is OK. Mark, I think you might have some insight into this. You've probably heard the myth that lifting weights stunts growth.

I started lifting when I was like 12, so I don't think it stunts my growth, but maybe I was on track to be 6'3". But you're also taller than both of your parents were, right? Oh, yeah, way taller. Yeah, they're super short. Yeah. My dad was 6'3". He's the one who keeps calling me right now, probably trying to wish me a happy birthday. But I ended up being six foot two and my mom was five foot five, five foot four. My mom was five, three to five, four. Right. And lifting weights didn't stump my growth. And I started at 13 years old. So, no, I got some information for y'all. Let's hear it. for y'all. Let's hear it.

About how much how many times your body weight could you lift when you first started lifting? So how much did you weigh when you first started lifting and about how much could you squat when you first started lifting? Maybe first year. I didn't do barbell squats when I was 13. So I don't know how much I could squat. I think I started lifting when I was like

170 or 170, 180. So it probably took you a few years of lifting before you could even do double your body weight. Oh, hell yeah. In a squat, right? I wasn't even doing that in college. Yeah. I believe the number is, and I could be off, so I'm going to have to kind of look some of this up,

but I think the number is 15 times. I think you have 15 times the amount of body weight on your body when you do something like a sprint. And so when you think about the movements that you do in the gym, because I've had parents ask me that question often. Like, I'm really worried about my kid getting hurt because there's too much force or too much weight on their body. And it's like, well, whatever your body is times about 15 is how much pounds of pressure your body has with every step that you take when you do it. It's doing something like a sprint when you know how

to sprint. So it's like, damn, okay, well that makes a lot of sense. Or something like jumping, you know, think about the impact that has, uh, jumping up onto a box and then coming back down from the box, you know, things like that, playing basketball, playing football. I mean, these things have a lot of impact, so I don't think there's anything to really worry about with weight training. I don't think you can handle enough weight to really do anything damaging to, like, your bone structure in that sense. You could obviously go in the gym and hurt yourself. Yeah, lifting will not stunt your growth, guys. You're going to be perfectly okay.

We both lifted when we were young, and we're not any shorter than we should be. And we know a lot of people that have lifted since they were young too and they're perfectly okay too. And by the way, guys, we are podcasting right now. So we're on YouTube also. The podcast is called Mark Bell's Power Project. And for the people that are listening in right now that have already listened to this podcast,

the reason why we're talking like this is because we're currently answering questions from the Ticka Talk. And so far we've been answering a lot of questions from a lot of young people, which I actually really enjoy because I can think back to the time when I, I mean, I love this shit. I love lifting. I really, really, really do. But nothing will ever compare to the love that I had for it when I was a kid.

I remember driving to the gym. I remember the routes, driving to the gym. I remember growing up in New York and getting behind a snowplow to follow the fucking thing to the gym. I remember the routes driving to the gym. I remember growing up in New York and getting behind a snowplow to follow the fucking thing to the gym because it plowed the streets clear. And I remember the smells of the gym. And I remember some of the individuals taught me how to lift and stuff. And it gets me fired up when I think of all these young people out there now that are getting into fitness. It's super exciting. yeah it same thing here like when i started lifting i was 13 i started lifting because i couldn't play soccer anymore um and it just it changed my life literally like

that's why i can't stop lifting now because it just feels so freaking good to get in the gym and get in a good lift so it's sick to see so many people trying to build the habit right now even when we just did felt really good just some like bullshit like cable workout back and forth freaking good to get in the gym and get in a good lift. So it's sick to see so many people trying to build the habit right now. Even when we just did felt really good. Just some like bullshit, like cable workout back and forth, but it felt amazing. Yeah. All right,

here, check this out. If you stop training, how easy it is to regain that muscle. You can gain it back in just a couple of weeks, really, depending on how long you took a hiatus for. But we just had our buddy,

Jeremy, a villain here. That guy's playing with a lot of different rules than the rest of us because he's an actual mutant superhero, I think. But usually from what I've seen, it takes people about a month. Like if they were out for two, three months or even a little bit longer, it takes them about four weeks to get some of their strength back and some of their muscle mass back. You know, there are some, there literally um not even just reports i know an uh a guy that was a bodybuilder right and he had a traumatic accident that caused him to stop lifting for like a year and a half and he lost 40 pounds of muscle 40 pound four zero pounds of muscle so i think he

went from like actually probably 50 he went from 220 to 170 okay now he got back to when he when he was able to start lifting again, he gained that muscle back in about four months. It's because of something called satellite cells. Because like when you gain muscle tissue, like the, the cells from that muscle tissue, they atrophy, but they don't go away or disappear. So once you stimulate that again, and you're hanging out there waiting, they're hanging out there waiting.

That's why if you've built muscle, number one, if you lose it, you can gain it back quickly. But also if you build muscle guys over the years, it doesn't take that much to maintain that muscle. Oh, that's very true too. Yeah. Yeah. And because I'm, I'm be really like right now, like the amount of training volume that I'm working with since I, I lift three days a week now versus when I used to live six days, but that's less training volume. And I'm still slowly making progress because it's still progressive.

So even though I'm not working with as much training volume as I did when I was younger, I'm still slowly growing. The body is really weird. There's a lot of information and research showing that when you get injured, let's say that you separated your right shoulder. Well, if you go in the gym and still train the rest of your body, you'll still get a great training effect even in that injured arm. If you train the left side, you'll get a training effect on the right side. So anyone that is kind of thinking of reasons on why they shouldn't go to the gym because they have this or that going on, you should always go to the gym. You should always find, you know, in my opinion, it's helpful to find exercises that you can

do rather than really worry or focus on the things that you can't do. Here we go. I was diagnosed with low testosterone. Should I be taking supplements? So, hey, be a, whoa. Okay. I don't want to say your username on air, but geez, wow. Dude, how old are you?

That's my first question. But Mark, what were you suggesting? You know, I'm going to mention this to you guys on TikTok. We work with a company called Merrick Health. And actually, we might as well mention this on this episode. Merrick Health is one of our sponsors. And the cool thing about Merrick Health, if you guys know Derek from More Plates, More Dates, he is the owner of this company. So we have something called a Power Project Panel, where if you go to their website, I think it's merichealth.com slash power project,

right, Andrew? You can actually get the power project panel and get a panel of like testosterone, all this type of stuff. But also they have doctors that you can work with who can tell you what you should actually do. I can't tell you what you should do. Mark, what are your suggestions for this individual? Yeah. You know, testosterone, isn't it really interesting thing? So I would suggest that you get, make sure that you get a full panel done rather than just looking at only your testosterone. And also, you know, like, are you seeking these things out? Like, are you looking for TRT treatment? Because if you are, you should just get it, you know, and don't really worry. I wouldn't worry too much about it. In terms of the safety of it.'s, there's not any, I don't think there's any problems with it. So if you have low T and a doctor is prescribing you testosterone, um, that sounds perfectly normal to me. Um, the, the things, the things to consider are, uh, is there any sort of exit strategy out of this? You know, what, what is the strategy for taking testosterone? You know, to me, it's like, you're just going to take it for how long? Um, let's say that you're 30, you go to the doctor,

you get low T and you're pretty pumped about it because you wanted to try some testosterone because you've heard all the good things. Well, now you've tried some testosterone and now you're in this situation of a now what? Now, what are you? So are you just on testosterone forever because a lot of people end up taking like if they start they end up being on it for the rest of their life yeah right i i know that that's a huge consideration like is it worth it or could you find natural means so the reason why i bring this up the reason why i think it's good to get a full panel done is you can investigate and really ask yourself some really honest questions are you sleeping well uh how's your nutrition i know all these things are boring as fuck and you don't

want to hear them and you just want to take some testosterone, but I really would urge you to, to really think about this a lot further because it is something that you could be taking for a very long time and you have to inject it and you got to do it twice a week. And sometimes once you start doing that, then there's other protocols that you got to follow to counteract a B or C that might happen from taking testosterone. So it's, it's much different than, Hey,

I'm going to get some TRT from my doctor and get jacked. Yeah. It doesn't look like just that. There's a lot more to think about when, when you're going to consider that. And so real quick, I'm going to mention this guys, you guys are in here watching the podcast and we're answering your questions, if you can, just double tap the screen because it does help this live get out to more people

and we can answer more questions. Okay, so double tap that screen and help us out because we're going to keep answering your questions. Number two, to kind of add on to what Mark said there, there are a lot of lifestyle factors that can help you out as far as increasing your testosterone. Okay. And I see those likes coming in now. We appreciate you guys that can increase your testosterone. Mark mentioned sleep, but sleep is the, one of the biggest things that can affect your testosterone. If you're getting three hours, four hours, five hours of sleep a

night and you have low testosterone, it's not a surprise that you have low testosterone. Um, if your nutrition's bad, if you're eating a really low fat diet, right? If you're eating 30, 40 grams of fat a day, that's, I mentioned on this live earlier, back when I was doing a show in the year in 2015, my coach had me at 35 to 40 grams of fat to help me get leaner. But because of that, my libido went down, which means I had no sex drive for a good amount of time and my testosterone tanked. And it took me quite a few months, even after show, after I put back body fat to get my testosterone back.

So if you're not doing things nutritionally, as far as sleep is concerned, and as far as exercise, as far as going outside and getting sun, we're going to have Andrew Hoobman on the podcast. And he talked about that recently, how not even getting enough sun can affect sun on your skin can affect your testosterone levels. If you're not doing these simple things, walking, getting sun, et cetera, and your testosterone is tanked, think about doing things as far as your lifestyle is concerned before you do hop on something like TRT. Lastly, I would say that if you do have clinically low TRT and it turns out that you are thinking about, you know, getting it or whatever the case may be, a lot of times it can make you feel great.

Like just quite honestly, it can assist you in feeling a lot better. And so even though I did have some warnings of some things that you should pay attention to, it can really assist you to feel a lot better in your day to day. Here we go. All right. Another question. This is actually a good one. Andrew. And I think Andrew,

you could, well, yeah, actually you could help us out with this too. 150 pounds. And I have a hard time eating a lot. Do you have advice? So let me switch to that one.

Okay. Sounds good. Let me first plug our buddy, Stan Efferding with the vertical diet. Oh, yeah. And I'd also plug that for just about anything else that we end up talking about, whether it's low testosterone or how to build muscle. Stan has covered a lot of great information, and he recently just published an actual book. So for those of you that don't want to just look at something electronically you can look at his actual book um but the vertical diet is a diet that's based off of basically um red meat and rice things that the body usually

isn't allergic to things that the body can usually digest fairly easy i know that red meat might take a while to digest but it's uh it's usually not something that people have food allergies to. And the whole point of Stan calling it the vertical diet is you can stack one meal on top of the other. As opposed to, you know, sometimes you go to like a certain restaurant, go to like Black Bear Diner and just like smash a bunch of food. You're probably not going to be able to eat for like six hours because most of those foods are not great for us. There's weird oils in them. And who knows what the hell else is in them, right? And so the vertical diet, it's kind of sticking to more natural whole foods.

But check out his work, Stan Efferding. The book's called The Vertical Diet. Yeah, The Vertical Diet's really, really good. And like Mark mentioned, the big thing that Stan focuses on in that book is digestion. So eating foods together. Like, for example, something as simple as having some ground beef and rice but adding bone broth to it. Oh, yeah. Bone broth.

The reason why Stan's big on adding bone broth or chicken broth to those foods is because, number one, it kind of turns into something that he likes to call monster mash. But you're able to just put this food down easily. We got Andrew over here. Yeah. So, Andrew, speak loud. I know. All right food down easily. We got Andrew over here. Yeah. So Andrew speak loud. Cause I know you're yes. I'll step away from the microphone, but one thing that helped me like immensely, um, I'm, I'm a, uh, recovering skinny, um, I guess a slim gym is what I used to call them. Um, is I would kind of periodically throughout the day, pick random

small foods and snack because I'm like no i gotta gain weight so i want to get bigger so let me eat these this bag of chips let me eat this let me eat that and what it would do is it would suppress my actual hunger and then when it became time to eat i wouldn't be really pumped to eat anymore so what would happen is you know i would i would make monster mash and i just i wouldn't be too excited to eat it so i'd under eat everything and then when it comes to monster mash uh what um what stan told me he's just like hey just do I would make Monster Mash, and I wouldn't be too excited to eat it, so I'd under-eat everything. And then when it comes to Monster Mash, what Stan told me, he was just like, hey, just do like a one-to-one.

Do one cup of meat and one cup of rice. Are you gaining weight? No, you're not? Okay, so then add more, like add a cup and a half of rice. Are you gaining weight? Okay, cool. Keep doing that until you plateau, and then maybe add a little bit more rice in. So, yeah, those are my two biggest tips, and those two are the two things that help me out the most. And also lower the fiber.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. Hey guys, you like cereal. I like cereal. Let's not eat the bad stuff though. That's why we've partnered with Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon has number one, amazing macros, zero grams of sugar, four grams of carbs, 14 grams of protein, and 140 calories per serving. You're not getting all the icky sugar that you get from normal cereal. Magic Spoon is the way to go.

That's why we love it and it fits our diet. Andrew, how can people get it? Absolutely. You guys gotta head over to magicspoon.com slash powerproject. You guys will see the variety pack. That's four different flavors and it's really an awesome way

to kind of dip your toe into the cereal bowl. So that way you guys can figure out which flavor you like the most and when you go there you're actually going to receive five dollars off that variety pack again magicspoon.com slash power project links to them down in the description let's get back to the video yeah one thing to think about in terms of fiber intake guys because like andrew was mentioning the rice right one of the reasons why like for example even myself i don't eat a lot of like potatoes. I know potatoes aren't bad for you. Right. But I eat mainly rice because rice has low fiber.

You're able to eat a lot of it. And if you're someone who's trying to gain and let's say that you do want to eat some extra carbohydrates to help you gain. You don't want to eat a lot of carbohydrates that have a lot of fiber because it'll make you full. And if you're someone who's an actual, like you're truly a hard gainer, like this isn't like, Oh, I, you just don't have enough, but you're truly, you need a lot of calories. You want to live at your fiber intake. Cause that can actually take a lot of bulk in your stomach. Anything else you want to add to that? I agree. All right. Let's field some more questions. Camera might fall. So there you go. Good catch. Saved it. Okay, okay, okay. Let's see. Let's see. Oh, Lord.

Okay, this is a... You guys think about John Cena. Oh. Oh, Mark, where'd you get your shorts from? Oh, a lot of my shorts are from a company called Viore. These guys here. V-U-R-I. But I got to be honest with y'all. The key ingredient to how my legs look don't have a lot to do with my shorts.

Oh, God. Oh, okay. I thought something was coming after that. I was like, wait. It has to do with my legs being sexy. You know, you got to train your legs. Don't skip legs day out there. You can wear whatever shorts you want.

You can wear some real nut huggers from the 80s. Oh, God. And you could be looking just fine. It's nice that short shorts have come back into style. It is nice. Because, like, I like to show off my quads and my hammies. I like them getting some air up there. You know what I mean?

So you've been bending over on purpose in front of us. Exactly. Ah. Yeah. Yeah. You guys what I mean? So you've been bending over on purpose in front of us. Exactly. Yeah. You guys haven't noticed? No, we have. We were talking about it. Like, it is on purpose. Okay. When he did it to me in the bathroom, I was like, look at this glute tie-in or whatever you're trying to tell me. I was like, alright. I remember I did bend

over in the bathroom and had you look at my glute tie-in. Yeah. That's what we do around here. I think about it every day. What do you do when you hit plateaus? Want to drive off a cliff is the first thing I want to do. Usually don't get me banned on this at. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Hitting a plateau. Well, I usually try to like think about like what are some things that I can improve upon a bit or, you you know i'm thinking like especially when it comes to lifting uh am i over am i overdoing it because i have a tendency to want to do that um you know or is there something i'm not addressing you know if it's like let's say it's a deadlift and maybe the deadlift um maybe i lose a deadlift at the top because of my grip and it's like well okay you did hit a plateau you didn't hit the top because of my grip. And it's like, well, okay, you did hit a plateau. You didn't hit the lift that you wanted to hit, but it seems pretty obvious that if you

work your grip that you'll be able to improve upon this. So those are the kinds of things I look at. I start to kind of investigate, uh, the actual lift itself and start to break down the lift and say, uh, where's my weakness. No, that, that's a big thing, trying to figure out exactly where you're weak in the lift. But one thing, I think we kind of mentioned it here, but when you get really excited about training and you really love the gym, you will go in a lot and you'll do a lot every single day. And one of the indicators that a lot of people have, and I used to have this indicator of having a good workout, was if I left the gym and I was super sore and I was super tired like soreness used to be for me when I was you know

the indicator that I got a good workout but the thing is is if you're always just chasing being sore and being tired that leads you into doing probably way more than you should and this is like a this is a kind of a fine line that I want like that people should pay attention to because like Cause like, you don't want to get like, honestly, I'm not, I hate to say this. You don't want to get a pussy workout in, like you don't want your workout to be super light and not really progressive. But at the same time, you don't want to do so much that you find it hard or difficult to get into the gym the next day. And if you do that over and over and over again, all your workouts are super hard. You're going to drive yourself into being in a place where you're not making much progress, and you should do something called a deload.

So for some of you, it might be that maybe for maybe a week or two weeks, you should go a little bit easier in the gym and allow yourself to recover and allow yourself to kind of just recover from the training that you put yourself through and then start going hard again. And that could be the thing that allows you to get through the plateau that you're currently in. We have a tendency to forget that the gym should make you feel better and not necessarily make you feel worse. Every once in a while, it's nice to leave the gym and be like, oh, my God, I totally kicked my own ass today. That was unbelievable.

But a lot of times those just happen from like you having good consistency with your workouts and you understanding just how much you actually need versus how much you want to do. Sick. All right, let's see, let's see, let's see. I don't like vegetables. Well, to be perfectly honest, do we like vegetables? No, we don't like vegetables. You know, we had Alan Aragon on the podcast

and Alan Aragon is one of the – he's been researching nutrition. Decades. For decades. He's the man. He's the fucking man. You guys need to go listen to that podcast we had with Alan Aragon because he addressed vegetables. You know, there's nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with fiber, and it doesn't yield any negative benefits or anything negative.

It could actually – most likely it's probably a bit positive to have some vegetables in your diet. So you don't need them. You might be able to find a way to sneak them in though. You should. Because they can – if you're eating like chicken or something like that, it's actually – for me, it's easier to eat chicken when I have like green beans or something with it. If I have a vegetable with it, it makes it a little easier to eat. I wanted to comment again about the plateau thing. I don't personally run into plateaus anymore.

It's because of like kind of a shift in my mindset. I like to learn from myself and from my mistakes you know so if i go in the gym and i was to go to do a certain lift and i wasn't able to improve upon it i wouldn't even really look at that as like a plateau i would just look at that as like this is just information let's say that i was on a diet and i was working on losing weight and it turns out four or five days in a row, I'm about the same weight. To me, that's just like, I don't view that as like a sticking point. I don't view that because it's not a sticking point. It's a point

of reference for me to look at and for me to diagnose and to gain information. I just need new knowledge. That's all I need in order to continue to make the progress. So for me, it's always like an analytical thing. Like how do I beat this? How do I get better at this? Hmm, that's strange. I have made some changes in my diet, but I am still the same weight.

Well, actually, if I really look at it, okay, I need to probably miss a meal here or I need to, whatever it is. And in that sense, because I do so many different things with my training and my eating, like I'm always switching things up a bit, I don't feel like I ever really hit a plateau. I bet you probably feel the same because you're always doing different stuff in the gym too, right? I feel the same nowadays. because you're always doing different stuff in the gym too, right? I feel the same nowadays. And it's really good that you said that because one of the reasons I think why a lot of people are like,

oh, I hit a plateau is because, I mean, when we're trying to make progress and we're singularly focused on one thing, like let's say that our deadlift has been somewhere and we've been training for eight weeks and we can't deadlift any heavier, we say to ourselves, oh, we've hit a plateau, right? But that's not necessarily the case. It could be that maybe you're just a little bit impatient at trying to get that number. What happens is like when you're aiming for a number, you do a lot of things that maybe

you shouldn't do to try to get there and you rush the process. A lot of people like to rush the process of strength. And more often than not, when you try to rush strength, you end up in a worse place because you start doing things that you shouldn't do. You start working with numbers that you shouldn't work with. And that ends up being dangerous for you in the gym. So to be perfectly honest, yeah, I don't look at anything I have as far as plateaus. If, like, I was doing something and I didn't get a certain rep on, like, my Nordic hamstring curls. Let's say I'm trying to go for eight reps. I only managed five today.

That's information. Maybe I looked at the last few days. I'm like, wow, that have been training really hard the last few days or I haven't gotten good sleep the last two nights. And that's probably why I'm not able to do what I need to do today. Or maybe I just need a little bit more time, but typically it's not a true plateau that I've really tapped out.

Right. Yeah. I think this is a good question. Um, let's see. It was. Where is that question? Lots of questions in there.

Yeah. There's a lot of questions. Thanks for the participation. Y'all. Yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. And again,

for the people that are in here in this tick tock room, double tap the screen while we're here. Can't people give you presents too or something? Yeah, they've been giving us some weird stuff. They've been giving us presents and stuff. How about a new TV? Or does it not work that way? We can give them the address

and have them send us a new TV. Oh my God. Do you want me to click this one? Sure. How long? Okay, so guys, if you guys are new to this room, this is Mark Smelly Bell on TikTok. Go follow him on TikTok.

Mark Smelly Bell. Three different words. Very easy to spell. Add them together. It equals Mark Smelly Bell. This podcast, that's what we're doing right here. But the question is, how long has the white dude been on gear? question is how long has the white dude been on gear uh i have been on stuff for uh let's see almost 20 years so you started at 25 yeah about my 20th uh 20th anniversary

thanks for thanks for mentioning this is great you should do something celebration yeah have uh 20 uh syringes in the Thanks for mentioning it. This is great. You should do something. I should. It's a huge celebration. Yeah, have 20 syringes in the cake. Yeah. That would be amazing. That's actually a great idea. But yeah, 20 years. December 10th. But again, we talked about this multiple times.

The white dude's name is Mark. You know, this is the thing I fucking hate. On YouTube, Andrew, you know the amount of times in the comment section that i'm just the black dude right i hate that shit like i have a name i see i see a lot of uh the black michael hearn um yeah a bunch of yeah the black dude the black dude the black dude and the white dude we have names man his name is mark my name is sema treating us like pieces of meat over here. We're not just colors.

All right. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. This is a good question. Actually, do you do cardio and how do you do it? I think this is this would be really interesting for you to answer because like you've done powerlifting. You've done some bodybuilding and you do cardio nowadays, too. I do jujitsu and I love it. I'll talk more about that in a second, but yeah,

cardio, how do you feel? I walk a lot, you know, and especially right now I'm doing 20,000 steps a day for anybody that wants to join in. I'm talking about that quite a bit on my Instagram. So go check that out and on Tik TOK. Um, but, uh, yeah, I walk a lot. That's mainly my main source of cardio, I guess, but I also have been running. Um, and so when I, when I walk, I'll occasionally run, um, but I'm not running like a ton. So I don't really, I barely even consider that much. Although more recently I've started to get a little bit better at running to the point where now I'm starting to get kind of sore from it. And so now I'm like, oh shit.

But actually what I would like to do eventually is I'd like to, uh, pivot and just work my way more into like sprints rather than just like actually running. But, uh, I'll work my way into that at, at some point.

But yeah, that's the only form of cardio that I do. When I did compete in bodybuilding, uh, my coach had me doing quite a bit of cardio training. But what I learned from that was, A, that it's extremely time consuming. And B, it was only sustainable for me personally, just for a short period of time. Other people might find that they can do it often and they really enjoy it.

Luckily for me, I just only had to do it for a couple of weeks. And then once it was done, I was pumped. Yeah. And I think, you know, even if you're trying to gain muscle or you're trying to gain size over time, it is good to do some cardio plainly just for your heart health. Like what I've found is that as I've gotten more fit, as far as cardio is concerned, I have do not disturb on this phone. And for some reason it keeps ringing. Um, as I've gotten more fit, as far as cardio is concerned, I'm able to recover from lifting session, lifting session so much more easier. I'm also able to recover from set to set a lot easier. So what that allows me to do is I can move more training volume because I am more physically fit because of the cardio work I do now. Like I mentioned, I mean,

because I am more physically fit because of the cardio work I do. Now, like I mentioned, I mean, I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but you don't have to do that. You could do something like working on a rowing machine or like doing something on an elliptical or maybe even just going outside, getting some walking and doing some doing a little bit of running. It's not going to destroy your gains. It's funny because I see a lot of lifters like a friend of mine, Ryan Doris. His Instagram name is The Natty Pro. He's gotten himself into some running too.

And he hasn't lost any size. He thought he'd be losing so much size and getting smaller. But he hasn't lost any size adding some running into what he does. And he actually enjoys it. So I think there's kind of this idea that if you want to get big or if you want to have muscle, you shouldn't be doing cardio. But I think that's kind of a myth at this point. I think so, too. I think if you're eating a sufficient amount of food.

And I also think maybe people did that in the past. Maybe we're just switching from one extreme to another. They were lifting, lifting, lifting, and then they just went out and started to run. But, yeah, I think cardio, you don't have to pick something that you hate. I think that's the mistake that people make, um, is they just think they just stand on a treadmill and just slept back and forth until they're done with it. But, uh, like you pointed out, you could pick, there's many, many different types of cardio. You can also just do really simple stuff in your day-to-day life, like hit up some stairs here and there and just be active.

Just move around. Something I'm learning from doing these 20,000 steps is just figure out ways of just moving a lot. If you figure out ways of moving a lot every day, then you can worry just a pinch less about your diet. You're always going to have to have probably some concern over the foods that we eat because there's so many delicious, convenient foods out there. But, yeah, just keep moving. Figure out a way to keep moving. One thing also, guys, like if you see us here, we're over here standing behind a desk, right? It makes a difference.

Like when I work during the day, I don't sit. Like I never sit. a difference. Like when I work during the day, I don't sit like I never said. And the cool thing is like what you mentioned, like when you start walking, walking encourages more movement. So us standing here, usually when we're having a guest on and when we're talking on the podcast, we're fidgeting, our legs are doing things, we're burning calories, extra calories, just because we're standing and moving around more which i mean some people look at that and they're like you can eat more food that way which is cool but you also you know you don't get tight hips your glutes don't fall asleep because most people when they're sitting at desk

their glutes are weak their their back bad pain there's so many things that are negative about sitting around all day so if you can if you have an office or if you if you have a workplace a lot of workplaces will actually, if you ask them to your workplace will maybe pay for a standing desk for you because it's for your health or they'll pay for a desk riser. And this doesn't have to come out of your own wallet. Your, your workplace might pay for it. So that's another thing you could do. Um, but this is a good one because I think we have some opinions here. Do we drink alcohol? I do. Uh, I like alcohol. Uh, I like to have some drinks here and there. Um, luckily for me, I don't feel like I have any sort of addiction to it. Um,

but I do enjoy some alcohol here and there when I do drink. Uh, I usually only have like two or three, maybe four, but, um, I usually just like to get a buzz and then that's it you know so for me i'm not it's not like uh i'm waiting for the weekend to drink and then i'm gonna fucking drink you know i don't i don't i never do that um i've only actually been like really drunk like twice in my whole life and i didn't like i didn't like either either uh situation so uh i do enjoy drinking. And if somebody is trying to figure out how to make progress while drinking, I think you have to drink responsibly and just not drink all that often. Same thing with like a cheat meal.

It's like you can throw them in here and there, but, you know, be a little cautious with them. That's the same thing with me. Like I like drinking is cool, but I don't drink to get drunk. That's why I'm such a lightweight because like if I have a glass of wine, everybody around here knows like I start giggling and laughing like with one glass. I don't need much. I'm cheap. But it's like I think the last time I was drunk, I was 21 years old. So it's enjoyable. But again, it's with like moderation and I don't drink every single day. It's something that I just, I'll do like with a few friends sometimes, but it's never excessive.

And I think that's, if you want to make sure that you're getting fit over time, if you want to make sure that your lifestyle is, is healthy, you can have alcohol, but don't have, don't get super drunk. I think one cool thing to understand, and once you understand this, it'll make you wary of drinking a lot often. Alcohol has a really big effect on sleep, especially if you get drunk, like you'll have bad quality sleep. Now, if you have bad quality sleep, that will also mess with like your hunger hormones. That'll mess with leptin, ghrelin. So you'll have more cravings. You'll feel less full when you actually eat. It has a massive effect on your performance in the gym because you're underslept.

So you have a higher incidence of potentially getting injured. It's supposed to mess with testosterone levels too. It does mess with testosterone levels. So when you drink and get massively drunk, you're fucking yourself for days. Like it can have an effect on you for multiple days. And if that's something that you do often, then you're really shooting yourself in the foot as far as your fitness is concerned. Yeah.

And we're not talking about just having a drink here or there. We're just talking about you getting like shit based basically. Hammered. Yeah. So neither of us get hammered. Both of us enjoy drinking, but the last time, dude, that I had a hangover was on my 21st birthday. That was the last time I had a hangover.

And it was just horrible. It was fucking horrible. I was in the hospital the next morning it was horrible um but i think that taught me quick that taught me real quick okay let's see let's find another there's there's a lot of questions people thank you um uh who would win a fight? Us or Ben Patrick? Us fighting against Ben Patrick? Yeah, like a physical fight. I don't know. I feel like Ben could dodge because he can put his knees down,

and if we try to go for a punch, he'd be able to sway near from the Matrix. Like both of us are trying to beat him up? Okay, so I think that'd be wrong if we were both trying to beat up Ben Patrick. But let's say it was a one-on-one with you and Ben Patrick. And then a one-on-one with me and Ben Patrick. I think Ben could kick my ass. To be perfectly honest, because Ben, he looks, there's a look to him. There's something going on with him.

When he talks, he looks at you and he just has this, like, I feel like Ben Patrick could kick my ass. I'll say it this way. He's already thought about how to kill me, I think. He's like, if this guy gets out of line, I'm going to kill him this way. He already has it mapped out in his head, I think. He's pretty good at planning ahead. I don't think any amount of jiu-jitsu that I do,

and Ben Patrick, if you guys don't know, is a knees over toes guy. So if you guys don't know who Ben Patrick is, you should follow him right now imagine trying to beat up like water you know you can't no he's like that he's all bendy and flexible and he'll just go with the flow yeah early right and so you can't do shit to ben patrick also i don't know if he feels pain no i don't i really don't think ben patrick have you ever heard him talk about like uh like motivational stuff and like how to you ever you ever hear him talk that way no no let's go it's amazing it's amazing like he's uh so he's stretching and he's showing you all these movements and everything right uh-huh and he just stops for a minute and he goes you know he goes some people have questions on uh how i've been able to get so

much attention and i appreciate all the fans he goes but this is what it's been like for me. He's like, in the last three years, he's like, I haven't watched TV. I haven't watched a movie. I haven't cheated on my diet. He went through this whole thing and he just said, like, this is what I want to do. This is what I love to do. And so this is what I chose to do. And this is how I'm doing it. And I was like, holy fuck.

I'm like, this guy's a rock star. Like, holy crap. So that guy has shit going on upstairs that most other people don't have going on. And that's why Ben Patrick could kill me if he ever wanted to. That's right. I guess that answers your question, guys. Ben Patrick, you guys should follow him knees over toes. I don't want to fight him, though.

I would never want to fight him. He's like such a lovely human. I know. Yeah. Gave us great information. Yeah. He changed my life. He changed the life of my knees forever.

I'm eternally grateful. Okay. Um, let's answer one more question. We're going to pick something good and all these questions are good guys. So we thank you guys for hanging out with us during the podcast. Um, you know what?

Yeah, this one. Sure. Okay. We're going to, we're going to call this something else on air. Um, we're going to call this the flu. So for all of you on TikTok, you know what this is called. But on YouTube, we kind of have an issue with saying certain words. So how do you recommend getting back in the gym after the sea flu? The sea flu. I'd say just pay attention to the way your body feels just like with anything you don't want to rush back in too quickly

so if your lungs are feeling inflamed and you're going in and you're getting winded quickly take things easy get in the gym, get a good pump feel good, maybe do a little bit of cardio but don't go and try and do anything excessive that your body isn't used to it's just like if you've taken a long break

from the gym and you try to go back in and move the old numbers you used to move, that's going to be a quick way of getting injured. So go in and feel good. Leave the gym feeling better than when you went in and slowly progress that over time. I agree. I think just keep it simple. Try to find a way to get consistent again.

That's going to be the hardest thing. So do some cheap workout that's really to be the hardest thing. So do, do some like cheap workout. That's a really kind of on the wimpier side, like just be real cautious and go in there and, uh, maybe drag someone else with you. Have some fun. You know,

it doesn't have to be, uh, you know, some dreaded workout where you're jumping back into trying to improve your deadlift or something like that. Like just go in there and mess around, have some fun, bring someone else with you.

And, uh, next time you go in after that, try to improve a little bit and take your time coming back. Yep. That's, that's, that's it guys.

Anyway, bye. Take talk. We want to say thank you guys for hanging out with us on this podcast. Check us out. It's called Mark Bell's power project on all podcast platforms. We're also on YouTube. So come over to the YouTube side and leave us a comment.

Tell us what you got from this podcast or from this Q&A session. Who's the white guy? Yeah. You see how it feels? This is how it feels when people say, who's the black guy? I feel so awkward. Right now. Yeah.

It sucks. It really is. I hate that shit. But hey, guys, it was fun hanging out um we'll talk to y'all later we'll do this again very soon mark smelly bell is right here so follow his tiktok and instagram and the man over here the head you see yeah yeah just the bald head the bald head you see is that is the andrew z the andrew on TikTok. All right. Bye, everybody. Thank you, guys. Yeah. And now we have to do the outro for the YouTube side.

Oh, we're still on YouTube. We're still on YouTube. This episode was sponsored by Merrick Health. Andrew? Yeah, absolutely. So MerrickHealth.com, M-A-R-R-E-K, health.com. Check out the treatment and all the amazing services that they have at Merrick health.

And when it comes time to actually, uh, putting down the, uh, the old wallet, the old credit card, and you got to pay for some of those labs, use promo code power project 15 for 15% off all of your labs.

Uh, follow the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter, my Instagram and Twitter's at I am andrew z and on tiktok at the andrew z and sema that was a lot of fun today huh that was a lot of fun hey at least he's trying no that's not that's not daddy this time that's not daddy it's at and sema in yang on instagram and youtube haven't seen like yin yang on tiktok and twitter mark at mark smelly bell strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch y'all later