Mark Bell's Power Project - Forgotten Old School Lifts For Muscle Gain - Atlas Power Shrugged || MBPP Ep. 1063

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

In episode 1063, Atlas Power Shrugged, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk answer your questions about old school lifts, LIVE! Follow Atlas on IG: https://www.instagram.com/atlaspowershrugged/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢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 & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

The main benefits of these lifts, they train ranges of motion effectively that are not often trained. You check out some of the old videos from Arnold. He was doing pullovers. He was doing stiff leg deadlifts in large ranges of motion. When we think about the previous eras, you know, like the 50s and before, by golly, they just worked hard and were tough and they got good results, even though they didn't know what was going on. The reality is they were extremely sophisticated.

The Jefferson Curl was invented in the 1800s. By Thomas Jefferson. The silver era guys just called it stiff leg deadlift. The conventional deadlift was more for strength athletes who wanted to build more power, and they felt like the stiff leg deadlift was better for the muscles. Any unilateral lifts that you could recommend? One hand snatches, which I think are a very underrated lift. What are his key training methods to perform one arm deadlifts? With any of these new exercises you're unfamiliar with, I really recommend incorporating it into the end of your workout,

just kind of as a cool down, playing around after your serious work is done. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz who roasted us on air, but we did that for you to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can leave us a review there and enjoy the rest of the show.

All right, man, give it to us straight. What's some of the benefit of some of these weird lifts that you're always doing on Instagram? Okay. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. I'm stoked to be here. I mean, this is crazy, you know, because I'm a guy who lifts weights in the parking lot, or at least that's how I thought of myself until recently. This was just a hobby. I lifted weights and gradually got in a little bit deeper than I thought I would be. So, I mean, in answer to what's the benefit of it, well, just some random guy who used to be just, you know, a lifter like many other lifters is now here. But let's get a little more specific. The main benefits of these lifts, they train ranges of motion effectively that are not often trained. Okay. So we, obviously we have

a lot of people that are into, you know, various forms of flexibility, mobility training, you know, various stretching, you know, yoga, things of that nature, and that's all well and good. But as far as actual like weightlifting, you know, loaded resistance training, um, there's not as much of it in these deep ranges that some of these lifts like, you know, the Jefferson curl, certain pullover variations offer. And so that's, that's something that, you know, was at one time a big component of weightlifting. I want to interrupt just for a half second here is that you, you check out some of the old videos from Arnold. He was doing pullovers. He was doing a stiff leg deadlifts in large range of motion.

And Arnold was not known for, even though he's known for being one of the best bodybuilders of all time, he wasn't known for being stiff. It actually looked like his body moved quite well. And it looked like a lot of those guys, even in those years, maybe the 70s, 80s, they were still practicing maybe more ranges or deeper ranges of motion than maybe we got into in like the 90s and the 2000s and stuff like that. Absolutely. I mean, when we're looking at the golden era guys i mean they were trained by the silver era lifters so they you know they had all the um they were using the same practices in a lot of cases maybe adapting them certainly obviously pioneering

new practices but a lot of what they were doing was you know silver bodybuilding i mean especially you look at guys like tom platts just demonstrating you know that extraordinary mobility you've seen the pictures of him stretching and arnold yeah i mean arnold loved you know, that extraordinary mobility. You've seen the pictures of him stretching. And Arnold, yeah, I mean, Arnold loved, you know, spinal flexion. Yeah, yeah, so much range. And that was kind of a big component of Silver Era bodybuilding that I think a lot of people have maybe forgotten. When we think about the previous eras, you know, like the 50s and before, I mean, I think a lot of how it often gets presented is, you know, these guys didn't

know much, they didn't have much equipment, but by golly, they just worked hard and were tough, and they got good results, even though they didn't know what was going on. But I mean, the reality is they were extremely sophisticated. They, there was a lot more complexity than we often give them credit for. And yeah, those guys were, I mean, those guys were athletes in all dimensions. Obviously, they were very physically strong. Obviously, they built, I mean, those guys were athletes in all dimensions. Obviously they were very physically strong. Obviously they built, you know, huge muscles, but they were also extremely flexible. I mean, you'll see, you'll see, uh, their, um, pictures of John Grimmick, you know, one of the, one of the all-time greats at both weightlifting and bodybuilding, you know, doing a full front split while, you know, holding weights overhead. Um, you know, and, and that,

I think that was the, the norm rather than the exception um one of the movements that i'm known for uh pushing the envelope on is the jefferson curl i i demonstrated that earlier haven't you done like the most weight ever in one of these lifts i saw you one well one of your videos uh you had like a world record at the time i don't know if it's official world record or that's what i'm going to get into because i don't think so um as far as the modern era i would say yes now some people have done heavier weights like with bent legs i don't know if that necessarily counts i mean it's not a competitive lift who knows what the technique is right legs were bent cheater so you know i um so as far as what we know in the modern era yes um yeah because the jefferson curl it's let me just tell the story

of it it's it's kind of interesting because we just want to mention real quick that we're live and people you know keep pouring in the questions for us uh we're going to get to you guys in a moment go ahead yeah now that this one you have up on screen i'm not even sure i i like to count it because i was a little bit sloppy i shifted my foot early on i didn't keep my legs straight throughout but yeah andrew was not a fan of that lift. He was pretty pissed. Yeah, I could see the angle and the degree of everything. I mean, we'll let it slide this one time.

I'm pretty happy with my 355. Unbelievable, man. Unbelievable. But I don't know that that's the heaviest ever because what I found out recently, I didn't know this, but apparently the Jefferson curl was actually one of the more popular back exercises for silvery or bodybuilders. The reason I didn't know this was it wasn't called that apparently, um, apparently it got, there was some confusion over the name. Um, the way we've traced this back. So, you know, the, the Jefferson curl was invented in the 1800. And it's funny, I'm actually playing Thomas Jefferson. I wish. No, because I say that because I'm blanking on the name right now. A guy who on Instagram, Shane Green, Shane Green, strong man, really cool

account to follow. He's he gets really into the history of this stuff. He finally dug up the secret origin of the Jefferson curl. And I can Charles Ramsey. That's the guy's name. I believe I could be wrong. And I should forget it because apparently the reason we don't know about him is because he asked him as well not to be mentioned. So maybe I shouldn't have said that. So that that's why,

that's why it, in most of the old texts, you won't see it listed with any name and some bronzer texts. It's just like presented as an exercise. It was, you can tell it was commonly done but it didn't really have a specific name um i think at some point in possibly the 70s someone got it confused with charles jefferson i guess charles ramsey charles jefferson they got

that confused um yeah and that's what comes up first on google actually is charles jefferson yeah but i don't think he ever had anything to do with it. I think some, there was just a confusion about which bronze era guy originated it. Um, so I think that was somewhere in power lifting in the seventies. That's all I know. I got that from, um, uh, us Olympic gymnastics coach, uh, Christopher summer, who basically is the reason why we know that exercise at all. Uh, he, he found it in, in a old power lifting text and started using it with his athletes and then share it with the broader fitness community. If it weren't for that, we'd have, we would have no idea about it. So that's where, um, that's where we know it from, but it

was never called that back in the day. So what I found out is the, the, the silver era guys just called it stiff leg deadlift. Now they were not doing it like our modern stiff leg deadlift, which is kind of a lot more like an RDL. They were doing just like what I showed earlier on the platform. They're up on a platform, full spinal flexion, fully straight legs, hamstring stretch. And according to some articles I found by John Grimack, apparently a lot of, I think, bodybuilders, it was considered preferable to bodybuilders over the conventional deadlift at that time. Like the conventional deadlift was more for strength athletes who wanted to build more

power and they felt like the stiff leg deadlift was better for the muscles, which it's a full range of motion, you know, exercise for those muscles. You know, you're taking the spinal erectors, the hamstrings through a huge range of motion. And in those articles, they were also mentioning that it seemed to be beneficial for health. They mentioned that, you know, a lot of people complain about having bad backs and that this exercise, you know, helps with that. So it has a, you know, it has a rich history of usage and all that to say, I am sure that I haven't lifted the heaviest ever. I mean, I'm sure John Grimmick, he had to have done, you know, crazy weights that, you know, can't even be imagined. That guy was just an absolute phenomenon.

And so many of these silver guys were just strong beyond belief. So no, I, I definitely haven't done the heaviest ever. We just, uh, we just don't know what the heaviest ever is because there are some, you know, some issues with history, but curious real quick, just about your progress with the Jefferson. Did you, when you started the Jefferson curl, um, did you, was your spine locked up? Like, did you have struggle actually doing the movement or were you always able to move into that range of motion oh no yeah my i had i had um issues getting my spine to do that um like a lot of people um oh yeah tasha nice um i like a lot of people you know i could round the um the upper thoracic spine yeah i could round the upper portion just fine but there's like a flat a flat portion in in you know in the low back and that's what i see with a lot of people i mean some

people you try to teach the jefferson curl too they'll be like and then do a hip hinge right yeah um yeah i'm i'm getting away from the mic trying to demonstrate but yeah i mean some people it's funny it tends to be people are either mobile in their spine or they're mobile in their hamstrings so a lot of people that have really good hamstring mobility will use that to just never bend their spine at all and then when you ask them to deliberately around their spine or they're mobile in their hamstrings. So a lot of people that have really good hamstring mobility will use that to just never bend their spine at all. And then when you ask them to deliberately around their spine, they can't do it. Yeah. Um, and then other people are more, you know, locked up in the hamstrings, but they can move their spine a little bit better. And that, that was me starting out. So I had to work more on hamstring mobility, but yeah, my, especially, um, in earlier videos, you can definitely see that I had, I had a lot of, um,

But yeah, my, especially, um, in earlier videos, you can definitely see that I had, I had a lot of, um, you know, kind of lock up in that lower area. Mentioning that, um, with the double kind of Zurcher position, uh, that you couldn't really get into position for that early on, but you could get into kind of more like the single arm, right? Right. I mean, my background, I was just, I was just, you know, what, what you might call a power builder. I mean, I wasn't a serious power lifter. Um, but you know, I, I did just a lot of squat bench and deadlift and, you know, some bodybuilding accessories and I just didn't do any mobility exercises. So yeah, um, I couldn't do a full search or deadlift from the floor and that's where you just hook your elbows under the bar on the floor. I couldn't do that at the start because I just wasn't that mobile. And yeah, I had to build a lot of mobility, both in the hamstrings, you know, and the, the hips, but also the, um, the low back and,

you know, not the Jefferson curl is it, it covers a lot of bases. It does a ton of stuff well, but it's not, it's not a one-stop shop for all that. I had to get into some more specialized variations to both increase my hamstring mobility, increase that, that really low, um, low back mobility. And there's some actual specialized, um, Jefferson curl variations, um, that, that help with that. Um, I was able doing the Jefferson curls just by themselves. I was able to work up to pretty good weight, but my range wasn't nearly as good as it is now. Yeah. I had to work with, uh, with Lucas Hardy of range of strength. Um, Yeah, I mean, he's kind of the expert at, well, it's plenty of mobility experts,

but he's really good about combining it with actual strength. What do you think about kind of shifting the mechanics of the body around a little bit with weight? So I did see you outside, you pick the weight up off the ground and then put it on your legs as you got into a squat position and then you zurchered it from there. So let's just say that, you know, somebody has a mobility

issue. Could they, you know, hypothetically do a zurcher squat with the weight propped up or they prop it up on their knees? And do you think that the downward motion and getting some repetitions could help kind of get their body to adjust over time as they sort of like gently go through these positions that they otherwise wouldn't be able to reach, except for when they have a counterbalance of weight to sort of, you know, I don't want to say force because I don't want people to think that you want to do this really aggressively. But what are your thoughts on that? I mean, just like you said, kind of that nuance of just being really clear about what we're talking about.

So we're not getting people to just try to force into something that they're not ready for. That's so important to bring because you can absolutely do too much of this, but I mean, yeah, load weighted stretching is, it's, it's extremely effective. Obviously you don't want to do too much. You don't want to rush into it too quickly. But I mean, I think especially for people like me who have more of a background in strength and no mobility, um, using weight to help assist pull to pull us into deeper ranges

can be very, very beneficial. You can definitely do too much, but I mean, this is a little secret, little, uh, behind the scenes, um, little, little behind the scenes um little little behind the scenes the reality of you know instagram and the reality you know candid thing i can't actually do a jefferson curl the way i do where i can actually get the plates down to touch the floor with less than 300 pounds on the bar i i you know i i need i need that much weight to be able to get down that far so you know obviously the weight you know the weight the weight, you know, the weight can be, you know, extremely beneficial in unlocking those ranges.

But I mean, it does, you know, those gains that I've made do translate to unweighted. You know, it's much easier for me now to do, you know, palms to floor pikes and all that stuff. So it does translate back and forth. And please don't anyone think that I'm saying, just go pull yourself down with 315. I am not saying that.

I started off with the empty bar and that might be too much for many people. I recommend starting with less of that. I recommend starting with your body weight, just feeling out the movement with body weight and then slowly, slowly adding just tiny, tiny increments. People are scared of low deflection, but what if you just picked up one of the 2.5-pound plates? Would that be so scary? You can do that. There's no rule against it. You can use a 5-pound dumbbell, a 15-pound dumbbell. In Alan Calvert's 1923, I believe, Super Strength, which did include the Jefferson Curl, not by that name, but just listed as an exercise, his recommendation, I believe, was that healthy young men would start with 15 pounds and work up to maybe 100 or so.

So, I mean, throughout history, recommendations have been fairly similar. I found John Grimack saying something like 25 to 35 pounds. I say either an empty bar or less. So the recommendations have stayed very consistent throughout time. You've got to start with lightweight. Please do not get in there and start throwing plates on. That is not what anyone is saying. You have to be patient with this.

You have to work in so slowly. But yes, if you do it correctly, loaded stretching can absolutely help you. Additionally, where the weight is matters a lot too. So if you hold like 25 pounds in your hands, that's one way to load it. If you had a sandbag that it was 30 pounds, that's another way to load it. And you had it like in the crooks of your elbows. If you had a sandbag that was 30 pounds, that's another way to load it. And you had it like in the crooks of your elbows. If you had a weighted vest on, you know, for some of these things, like a weighted vest, that's pretty light. That's maybe only like 10% of your body weight. It might be a pretty good place to start because it's going to be real gentle. And the loading pattern is going to be real gentle.

It's not going to be anything that's going to overly force you into a position where you could potentially get hurt. Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, the name of the game is a general introduction. We're not trying to be hardcore, tough guys, anything like that. We're trying to get people healthy without getting them hurt. That's the goal. All right, let's get to these questions real quick. James Gallegos asks, based on his style of training, what are his key training methods to perform one-arm deadlifts and Turkish get-ups?

Knowing my shoulders, I'd hesitate to do something like that to get up. So what are those beginner-level steps to take? Okay, so with the one-arm deadlift, I mean, again, it's all about loading. If you have access to, say, the 10-pound bumper plates at your gym, that's an excellent way to just get a feel for the movement. Just work on the technique at first, seeing how you feel with that different stance. Feel out the balance of it. A lot of people try to treat it just like a conventional deadlift where they're setting up completely with their feet completely centered on the bar. conventional deadlift where they're setting up completely with their feet completely completely centered on the bar um with the one hand lifts you need to actually set it up offset so that the

center of the bar is a little bit closer to the lifting side foot so that you're in balance just play around with the balance um with with any of these new exercises you're unfamiliar with i really recommend um either incorporating it into the end of your workout just kind of as a cool down playing around after your serious work is done. Or, you know, in some cases, you might want to just use it as a warmup. I think Turkish get-ups work fairly well as a warmup. You don't have to use any heavy weight,

just use a light weight. They're good for warming up your shoulder, your back. If you get familiarity with the movement, if it feels good, you can push the weight. But if not, it's just something that you can get your body warm with. Right. So with all, with all of these, I wouldn't recommend, you know, pushing the weight until you've just played around with them, either in your warmup or your cool down for a while, um, just to get familiarity. And when something starts, you know,

it's good to budget some time for, um, experimentation into your training. I consider it like research and development just to have, have a little bit of time in your training where you're playing around with stuff. It doesn't always have to end up being something that's going to be your key movement that you're going to get a ton of gains out of. But, you know, out of, you know, you try 10 movements, you might find one that surprises you. And if it isn't that movement, like let's say Turkish get-ups, for whatever reason, there's a lot going on there. You could have shoulder issues in either shoulder since you're, you know, both, both shoulders are active that make it something that you probably don't want to go heavy on. Um, if it doesn't work, you don't do it. If you know, one hand deadlift is stressing something,

it's, it's fairly, it's actually a fairly, um, uh, gentle movement on the low back actually, because number one, the weight is just lighter than you'd be using on a conventional or sumo um and number two you're a little bit um you're a little bit more upright because you're you actually you're actually bending one shoulder down but your stance is a little bit more upright it's a little bit more the bounce is a little bit more like that of a trap bar deadlift or a jefferson deadlift so you're not bending over quite as far so that can be a little bit more gentle and on top of that you're getting a little bit of like that of a trap bar deadlift or a Jefferson deadlift. So you're not bending over quite as far. So that can be a little bit more gentle. And on top of that, you're getting a little bit of off center action for the QLs, which

are the cause of a lot of people's back pain. So you're, you know, not only using something that can be a little bit gentler on the low back, you're also doing something that can potentially benefit that, like, you know, a little bit of stabilization for the QL and that, you know, and that side to side action, because mostly we just, you know, we just hinge forward and back. We're not doing any kind of side to side training. It's obviously not as, it's not going to be as effective for that particular thing.

It's like a suitcase deadlift or something, but you're still getting a little bit of side to side action there. So, you know, if you play around with that, you might be pleasantly surprised that it actually feels good and you can push it. But if it doesn't, no reason for that. You're probably wondering why am I wearing these glasses? Well, it's because I'm being bathed in blue light. And blue light isn't necessarily bad. There's blue light in the sun. But if you're in your office, if you're indoors, if you're in front of a screen during the daytime, it's not a great idea to have

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you will actually feel how much stronger the output of the red light is on those devices versus any of the competitors. They also have some of their smaller red light devices like their Fire Wave, Fire Dragon, and Fire Storm. And then if you want to get some of their bigger panels, they have their Fire Hawk, which is their biggest panel, and the Inferno panel.

These are literally the best red light therapy devices on the market. And if you want to save on them, Andrew, how can they do that? Yes, you got to head over to emrtech.com. That's emr-tech.com. And check out InterPromoCode Power Project to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's emrtech.com, promo code POWERPROJECT. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Turkish getup is such a great exercise, and it really just entails getting off the floor.

And there's many ways to do it. If you're more skilled, then maybe you need less touch points to try to figure out how to maneuver off the ground. If you're more skilled, then maybe you use various amounts of weight or different implements. And then that makes it more challenging to get off the floor. But just what a great exercise to do in between another exercise. So I think for myself, I've been doing explosive movements, been doing some jumps, been doing some mobility stuff. Turkish getup is one that I should incorporate. I could just kind of envision doing that in the middle of a workout. It could be a back workout, chest workout.

It could still be a meathead style workout. But I could still utilize some movements like that in between. And when you do stuff like that, you kind of forget how challenging it is. You're like, shit, this is just getting down and off the ground. Yeah, it's a hard one. Repeatedly. And yeah, if you're doing it with weight and you're doing it executing it properly it's a difficult movement i've seen it get bashed a lot recently on social media so i i do want to kind of address what i see the use

for because i mean yeah people are bashing it maybe from a bodybuilding perspective or just like kind of asking what is it good for like what does it do i mean there are a bunch of answers to that obviously it makes sense to ask that question if you're 20 years old you know what i mean 25 you know and you're you're like man i'm you know i'm fit like and we talked about this with walking before when you're young you're like i don't really see what the point of a walk is like i mean i don't hate the question because i mean at a certain point you know you should ask well okay what muscle is that training and not not that that's the only goal you can have in bodybuilding i mean you know in fitness obviously there are tons of other goals, but

you know, it's good. It's good to, it's good to kind of address that. Um, so I mean, I do think that, you know, there's a ton of just, there's a ton of benefit to just, you know, moving your body through space. Obviously I, I do feel, I, I do feel a lot better. I found that it, you know, if I have back injuries, that can be a really helpful way to get back into movement. Just something about that unilateral load combined with some ab action. I've always found ab work to be helpful recovering from low back injuries. So that can be very helpful. But as far as a top-end training stimulus, I think it's underrated as an actual shoulder developer.

Now, you have to load it up to make that happen. training stimulus, I think it's underrated as an actual shoulder developer. Now you would, you have to load it up to make that happen. But if you do load it up, it can be a way to get your shoulders exposed to pretty heavy weights for some pretty good time under tension. And it's not completely static. You're moving through a variety of ranges of motion. Obviously you're not using, you're not actively, you know, pressing the weight, but you're still stabilizing. Uh, You're not actively, you know, pressing the weight, but you're still stabilizing. It can be a fairly heavy weight, you know, for a lot of time under tension with a lot of little micro contractions in there. And I think that can actually be an under underrated even muscle builder. I know my side delts are always very sore once I push the weights.

You hear this, you hear all the time these days. Oh, like, you know, Nadis can't build big. I don't want to bring that up if you guys don't want me to, but it's just a dumb myth that you hear in social media. Nadis can't build big delts, right? Well, that was never an issue back in the day. The guys before steroids were ever invented had massive delts. They look great, you know, and what do they do? They spend a ton of time putting really, really heavy weights overhead. Um, and I think, I think

there's something to that, especially for that, you know, that, that, you know, that side delt that, you know, people, Oh, all we can do is lateral raises. Okay. Maybe that's why you're struggling. You know, uh, maybe just lifting some heavy weights overhead has an effect that people aren't realizing. Now, am I saying theish get up is necessary for big shoulders no but it is one way to achieve that objective there are plenty of others but i i'm not going to just write it off as something with no um with that with no training value obviously it's you know it's a lot to get some weight overhead it's it's going to be niche i'm not saying i take a b-ender and say okay you want to build big shoulders your first exercise is the turkish get up but i do think for you know serious lifters there's actually a use case for it even you know even outside of this

like functional ability to get up off the ground which you know it's a good thing to be able to do all right quick super chats uh hayden pratt asks what's the best way to incorporate conditioning have a dedicated day or just work it in so how's it that you do that do you do any conditioning right now no i don't um yeah i it's not that i am against it uh you know i'm not saying you can't do conditioning but it's just not it hasn't uh it hasn't reached the high high enough level to get training priority i mean it doesn't seem like you rest a whole lot in between sets because when you were out there you were kind of i mean i don't know if that's cause we were filming and you were trying to, you know, get to the top sets quickly, but it looked like you don't really take

a long rest in between. I'm used to working out between nap times. I mean, I'm usually I'm working out with my kids. My kids are, uh, are two and four. I'm usually trying to get my workout done while they're napping. So I, I, I try to push through it. So that's probably what I'm used to. while they're napping. So I, I, I try to push through it. So that's probably what I'm used to. Um, I, I've got too much else that I'm trying to train. I mean, if I'm, if I'm bulking up, I'm in hypertrophy mode, I've got, I've got my, I'm booked, you know, I've got too much time taken, taken up. And if I'm cutting and I'm more focused on mobility, oh, that's, there's a ton there. And it's just not a training priority for me. That said, you know, I incorporate a lot of exercises that probably do a little bit of that. You know, if you do high rep sets of search or

deadlifts, you'll build a little bit. Um, so I don't do any dedicated conditioning. And now that being said, I do, I do like hike all the time with my kids. So, you know, I might be going, going up a small mountain with a toddler in the carrier, maybe even a toddler on my back if she won't walk even though she's really good at walking but it's just to lean out honestly just getting a lot of steps can make a big difference i'm not sure hayden if you like your goal is increasing your conditioning level or just like dropping some body fat but like if you make it a goal to get 10 15 18 000 steps a day you'd be surprised in terms of like what that does to your body composition over time

if you keep your food where it is. Yeah, you stay consistent with those steps and you don't have like one day where you do 15, the next day you do 15 and then 10 and then eight. You try to hammer out that same amount every day. So whatever amount someone can kind of achieve, I think is a really good place to start that extra output. Yeah. And Seema, you said like keeping your like your diet where

where it is currently and then adding a little bit more steps um is steps in that range that you said so like somewhere between 10 000 and 15 000 um is that enough to kind of cause that cascade of effects where like you're moving more and all of a sudden now you're hungrier like so is that enough to kind of push someone over the edge where they're now looking at their plate? Like they just can't wait to eat and they might potentially overeat. A lot of people will feel hungrier if they start getting more steps. Most people are usually getting around like 5,000 to 7,000 steps a day, especially if they're working a desk job. And you know, the only time that they get some steps in is either at lunch or in the morning, or maybe a little bit in the evening if they go to the gym. So they're not ending up with many steps.

And if they make a diligent effort to go out and double or triple their step count, getting 10,000 to 15,000 steps a day, you'll feel that. You'll feel that in your feet. You'll feel that in how hungry you feel. But the thing is, you don't necessarily want to eat more food as you're getting more steps. You want to kind of be diligent about that in the beginning. That can help move the needle in terms of your body composition. Also, I mean, real simple Google search of like how many miles, you know, or,

you know, how many steps in a mile or how many calories do you burn when you walk a mile or two? And you can just start out by saying, you know, I'm just going to walk an extra mile, like whatever amount of steps that is. And that's probably only a few thousand steps. So you don't have to all of a sudden double or triple out of nowhere. But it does need to be significant enough to where you're actually burning a decent amount of calories. And someone, Rock Humper, mentioned 15,000 plus steps a day. We got jobs, people. Man, I know people that have jobs that get 15,000 to 20,000 steps a day. It's just like walking isn't something you have to do in solitude. You can walk with your spouse. You

can walk with a friend. Walking is just a good habit to have. Can you be on a call? You can be on a work call. You can walk for lunch. You can walk in the middle, you know, walk with your kids. Yeah. Like I said, like I'm not too far removed from that, but I know for sure, at least in California, like you get two hours and you get a 15 minute break. I was walking during my 15 minute break. Two hours after that, you get an hour or half an hour lunch break. I would eat and I would walk the rest of that. Two hours from then, I would get another 15 minute break. So there's definitely some windows. And I know there's times where you're like, dude, fuck this. I just want to play on my phone or something, but like, you'd feel so much better after that walk. And it's just a matter of making that decision to get those extra steps in. And if you're like a, if you're somebody that typically gets in a lot of steps already, then you could say, fuck what we're saying, because it might not, it might not really be feasible. You know, like Kenny gets 30,000 steps a day just from working and he works in a warehouse, so he's moving around all the time.

It might be a little more difficult for those people to get the extra steps. And at that point, maybe the time commitment to go out and walk even further just isn't really worth it. And maybe you have to think of some other type of exercise. Weighted vest maybe? There you go. All right. Next super chat from Kenny G. This is a general question.

But Atlas, you do wear Vibram five fingers. He asks, what are the benefits of barefoot training? So, I mean, how long have you been wearing those shoes anyway? It's probably about four or five years now. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I got into them kind of by accident. I took a vacation to Hawaii and I was just wearing the water shoes just because, you know, you're going to go in water. But I ended up hiking in them and it's like, oh, wow, this is a lot more fun. I feel the ground. This is cool.

Yeah. So then I bought some vibrams and I've been hooked. As far as I mean, as far as training, it's kind of like, you know, for your deadlifts, you want to have a, you know, low drop shoe. Just you want to be as low to the ground as possible. So that, you know, low drop shoe, just, you want to be as low to the ground as possible. So that, you know, that's beneficial, but, um, it's kind of, it's kind of hit or miss whether they're, they're more beneficial or less for certain exercises. Cause something, you know, like trying to put a plate under your heels for squats, that's going to be a little more uncomfortable, but then a lot of other lifts, you're going to feel more planted in the ground. So it really depends, but I mean, we talked about walking, getting your steps in. I mean, you're going to definitely build up the muscles of your foot.

When I started wearing them, I was sore in places I did not know I had. My toes are more splayed out. But really, I just noticed such a practical benefit in traction. Like when I'm going up a steep, muddy hill or something, I can feel my toes searching for traction. It feels like I have traction control on a car, you know, like I'm starting to slip and I catch that slip just a moment before, before, um, you know, before I actually lose it. And, you know, sometimes I'll have a toddler on my back. So it's kind of important that I'd be able to do that. And, you know, I, it, it kind of builds a little bit of a bond with the shoes when you,

you know, you should have slept slip with your, with, you know, with your toddler on your back, but you didn't, you're like, okay, I'll, I'm going to keep with the shoes when you you know you should have slept slipped with your with you know with your toddler on your back but you didn't you're like okay i'm gonna keep wearing the shoes you know let me ask you this man has the way you've lifted changed because i noticed that um you know when i do things with lifting now i root my feet into the ground whereas before when i didn't have that type of control over my feet i would just kind of like plant my feet and lift do you get what i mean by rooting your feet into the ground? Like I never used to do that before I started actually paying attention to the strength of my feet. You know, I haven't paid attention to that. I should check to see if I do that.

I know when I'm doing calf raises, I know I'm much more aware of what my feet are doing. Yeah. You know, really squeezing in with my toes. So definitely when I'm doing calf training, I notice the difference there. But I need to pay attention to that. That's something I should look into. Okay. All right.

Now, Gunpowder asks, what temperature and how long do you each cold plunge at? 45 for three minutes. Not every single day. It might be twice a week, certain weeks, or four times a week on some weeks. But, yeah. Mine's at 50 right now. But I did turn it down the other day so next time i get it it's going to be brutal how cold i just turned it down all the way so it's

just like whatever eight or some shit yeah whatever that number is i just heard rogan talking about it again and i was like i don't really want to do that so maybe i should try it i've done it before um but i i just found like tremendous benefit of just cold plunging period i i think that uh i think people get caught up a little too much in the nuances of everything and um the details are probably more important as you've been doing it longer but uh yeah i dig it how about you do any cold plunging um well in the summer when i go when i go swimming the uh the ocean feels pretty cold It takes me a second to get into it. So that's about as cold as I get.

Yeah, I haven't really – yeah, I don't want to go get into cold water particularly much. I know some people find benefit in it, but, like, I mean, you guys – I feel like that is something for people that are at the point, like you are, where you're doing the side quests. You've done everything. You're, I mean, power guys, I feel like that is something for people that are at the point like you are, where you're doing the side quests. You've done everything. I mean, powerlifting, running. You can take a cold shower. I mean, okay, now we're doing side quests.

Okay, so you need something hardcore to get the endorphins going and have fun once you've done everything. It's a side quest. But that being said, I do see people on social media. It's like, but that's all you do. Like, that's okay. Come on. Is there anything we should do first? I'm not bashing it, but I do think with some people, it's like, maybe there's some other things you should be focusing on first.

How does your body feel every day? Like, because of movements and the lifts that you do, like, I'm thinking like, man, that would twist me up pretty good. I mean, whatever I worked out, i'm usually pretty sore um i mean definitely after a back day i'm feeling pretty beat up but you know not not necessarily in a bad way if it's if i'm having specific joint pain it's like okay i shouldn't have done that let me figure out what i did wrong i i used to be you know young and stupid i would just oh yeah let me just be tougher next time but now it's like oh wait i have have joint pain. Okay, let me address that. I need to make sure that doesn't develop into something more.

But usually it's muscular and we want that. That's fine. You don't feel like you need a lot of recovery modalities to recover from your training because of the way that you're training and maybe what you've learned over the years. You learned how to navigate and traverse that territory. I mean, to be honest, the only thing that I really use is time. I mean, I, I'm not super high on frequency. I usually try to work out every day, but it's, it's going to be different stuff. I'm, I'm training every day to get the variety and not necessarily because I think I have to train the same muscles every day. So I, I try to, I just try to give it time. Like with a lot of diet, sleep, hydration, right? Right. And I mean, with a lot of stuff I

do, um, I find that I need to use an exercise rotation, you know, kind of like the whole conjugate thing. You're not doing the same thing every time, you know, cause you can, you know, you can train the same muscle groups all the time. But if you try to go really hard on the exact same exercise, there are certain stress points you'll overdo. But if you, if you put a little bit of rotation two or three weeks, then, you know, you can, you can recover, you know, everything, you'll be perfectly fine. So that's, that's,

that's more what I do. I haven't found anything that like, I would say, okay, if I, if I do this recovery modality, now I can do the repeat the same workout in like five days instead of seven. I haven't found anything that lets me do that personally. Gotcha. And by the way, guys, at the end of this, we will be giving away some kicks from Vivo, who actually has 25% off this month of April. So we'll be giving away some barefoot shoes from Vivo, some Joy Mode, which, I mean,

if there's any guys in the audience you want to harden up your dick, that's some good stuff. And there's nothing in it. It's literally just citrulline, mallet, arginine. It's all stuff that's not going to affect you negatively. Put the do-yo-yo-ing noise in there, Andrew.

You can bleep the heart and whatever I said. And then some hostage jade. So you can breathe better while you sleep so that you'll wake up with an erection rather than waking up flaccid. And that way no one can stick their... never mind. Exactly. No one can stick their... while you're sleeping we don't

want that either okay um next question from kevin kim best exercises for tight hamstrings i've been incorporating elephant walks but i wanted to hear about more well i mean elephant walks are honestly a great choice um it's funny i've actually loaded them i've actually loaded them in the search position that works very nicely do you stand on top of something and like load it in a bent position or how are you loading um sometimes yeah uh that it's probably more than i can get into with just this question but yeah sometimes i sometimes i would do that so yeah elephant walks um you can also just use a load and not i guess not not, um, what do we call it? What do we call these?

Just like in range, in range extensions where you're not bending each, each leg separately. You're just bending both of them with a weight. I'll do this. I'll do this in the Zercher position sometimes where I'll, um, just be kind of in what you might see is the, I guess the bottom of a Jefferson curl and bend the legs and extend down a little bit further and just come up trying to um trying to keep the uh as much extension or yeah keep the weight as low as possible get as much range out of the hamstrings as possible that's really helpful but yeah i mean elephant walks are obviously

well known for a reason um also you know i mean romanian deadlifts are great for hamstrings you can you know you can do You can do single leg variations. You can do variations with one foot, like kind of a one foot elevated. Like I said, now we're getting out of Romanian deadlift territory, but whatever. You can do like a loaded stretch on them with one foot elevated. That's brutal, very effective. You can stagger. Did you mention staggered stance?

I haven't yet, but that's a good one too. Yeah. Do you mess around like when you're trying to think of like uh you know i want better mobility to be able to get down into position for some of these other lifts and you're maybe targeting the hamstrings are you thinking about where your back is because like on like an rdl or something like that uh maybe people want to kind of push their butt up push their hips hips back. Right. And, uh, you know, your back and your hamstrings seem to be super connected. Like if you're extended pretty hard, then the

hamstrings seem to fire much earlier. Uh, you know, as an example, like if you, if you do an RDL real hard and try to keep your back real flat, um, you might only be able to go down to like mid shin as opposed to if you let your back go the way that you might do it. Do kind of think about the spine a little bit in terms of the hamstrings oh yeah definitely i mean i'm i'm a stickler for that back extension to put all the stress in the hamstrings with romania deadlifts i mean my my rdls are very light i don't go heavy on them i just really focus on putting all the stress in the hamstrings you know mind muscle connection you know some people say it's it's pointless and i think in some exercises, you can make yourself feel like you're doing something

and you're not. But when you're dealing with something like a Romanian deadlift, where you're trying to, you know, lengthen the... I mean, you want to pay attention to what your muscles are doing on that one too. You definitely do. Did you have your kids help you set this one up?

No, no, it's self-loaded. Wow, that's wild yeah it was a little show off for um for uh rascal apparel i was wearing their performance enhancing denim there so i wanted to show off good uh capabilities could cut the pants out and then sun the butthole you know this could be a whole practice that you kind of hit all in one thing at one time you know do you sun your butth butthole? If that's what I need to do to be healthy, I believe I may just stay unhealthy. Dude, the fucking test increase. You won't be welcome in the parking lot anymore. You do have a blanket down, which is helpful.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Otherwise, I'd go in looking like I just climbed out of a chimney. This is from Connor Chodrell's Quick Super Chat Atlas. Any unilateral lifts that you could recommend? Oh, tons. I mean, where do you want me to start? I mean, if you're looking at something more for the back, I mean, a one-hand deadlift is a really great way to start.

The one-hand deadlift is just a good way to understand picking something up off the ground one-handed. You can progress from that into one-hand snatches, which I think are a very underrated lift, because it's a it's got a very low skill ceiling in terms of like kind of your minimum viable technique level, you don't need to be that good to just lift a heavy bar up, you know, or dumbbell or what have you, you know, up one handed real fast. Like it's got a fairly minimal skill level. You can get some very useful training on the one hand snatch, you know, without being a full on Olympic lifter. On the other hand, it goes all the way to possibly the highest skill level lift ever, perhaps. You're absorbing a lot of force. Like even some of the

lifts I saw you do today, I was like, wow, he's really absorbing and then transferring that, that weight. Yeah. I mean, when you get into some of the old time, you do today, I was like, wow, he's really absorbing and then transferring that weight. Yeah, I mean, when you get into some of the old time, what the old timers were doing, it's incredible what they were absorbing. I mean, Charles Rigolo, I'm probably butchering that. French lifter, set the world record on the one hand snatch with like, I believe it was 263, I believe. 263, yeah. And there's actually video of him performing it i don't think it's the world record but there's video of his technique and it's just incredible how quick he is

because he's you know he's obviously doing he's snatching it up high but then he's just dipping super low he's combining a squat and kind of a side bend so he's his torso has been off to the side and he's squatting just get super low and just lightning quickness. So, I mean, oh, perfect. That's it. Dude, you need to get one of these outfits. These are bitching. Look at that. Yeah.

Now, he's doing the jerk there. That one's hard. The one-hand jerk, I have yet to figure out. But, yeah, that one-hand snatch, I mean, it's so cool to watch just how quick he is. Get the shorts up that high you'll be way stronger oh god yeah oh he had a roll yeah he had a robe dude that robe he had somebody that was sick he had like a butler i wonder why he's so strong yeah look how jacked he is yeah that's that i mean it looks sick i mean if that is uh so impressive how mobile like jesus he's

squatting way down it's just that that combination of super jacked oh yeah he's i mean he's jacked he's got tendon strength and he's got mobility um each each by each of those abilities by themselves is helpful but when you combine them all together you get things that are just crazy i believe uh a big a big russian strongman tried to um tried to beat that record recently he didn't quite get it he got very close actually. He didn't quite get it. He got very close, actually, but didn't quite get it. So, you know, that's a record that's lasted, you know, I think over 100 years now. It's just incredible when you have that total development,

not just muscle, not just strength, but also mobility, all of it blended together with a ton of skill. I mean, you can just do incredible things. You know, later you just had an awesome night. You got dinner or you just came back from the gym and it's time for that fun time. But you look down at your willy and well, it's not working the way it should.

Where's that blood flow? Well, that's where Joy Mode comes in. And I can read you these ingredients right off the bat because they're all natural ingredients. L-citrulline, arginine nitrate, panox ginseng root, and vitamin C. The thing about Joy Mode is you just slip this baby into a little bit of water, drink it,

and 45 minutes later, when you're getting ready to go to the pound town, you will be ready to rock. And you know what I mean by rock. Joy Mode's really awesome because there's a lot of things that people promote as far as sexual wellness tools, but there's a lot of weird ingredients in there. These are all natural ingredients that's going to help your own production of blood flow. Stick it in some water. 60 minutes later, you're going to be able to stick it into something else. Joy mode's your way to go. Andrew, how can they

get it? Yes, that's over at usejoymode.com slash powerproject. And at checkout, enter promo code powerproject to save 20% off your entire order. Again, use joymode.com slash powerproject. Promo code powerproject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. How long have you been lifting like this for? In this style, with most of it, I would say four years. That's when I started doing most of this. I'd gotten into some of the more meathead stuff, uh,

before I, you know, I did some one hand deadlifts. I did some, um, some searcher squats, but not, not,

I, you know, I wasn't, I would just occasionally go Eagle lift with them. I just go max out on the searcher squad. And do you think, uh, before that is what maybe built like a foundation for you?

Cause you're a big guy, you have a big upper body and like, you know, I know the exercises that you're doing. I know that they work everything. Like you have a big upper body, got wide shoulders shoulders did you used to do like a lot of bodybuilding stuff for like years well i mean basically yeah this is kind of the same stuff everyone does i'm not i'm not trying to say i built my whole physique off this stuff i um i mean i did the

same stuff everyone does bench press squats deadlifts although i feel like deadlifts were of those were my best lifts still nothing very, but actually I didn't even start doing them until later in my, until I think four years in, I actually started with power cleans. Cause I was just, I was in a, um, my,

my college was small enough that the football team worked out with everybody else. So I just kind of copied what the football players were doing. They were doing power clean. So I did too. And I got a lot of good, good, you know,

training out of them. My, my technique is terrible. I'm, I'm awful at them, but that didn't stop it from working. Did it, you know, it, it did what I need to do. good training out of them. My technique is terrible. I'm awful at them, but that didn't stop it from working, did it? It did what I needed to do. So, yeah, I did all that.

I did some bodybuilding, not well. I was not as attentive to form at that time. I didn't understand what it was for. I tried some mind-muscle connection stuff like they teach you. I just got nothing out of it. So I thought, so then I decided it was stupid. What do you mean? Well, you know, I would try to do like curls and tricep extensions and stuff, just like really focusing on like I'm trying to squeeze as much as possible. And even, you know, resist with the opposing muscle just to try to get a really good sensation out of it.

I never, you know, with light, with light weights to facilitate that, I didn't get much out of that. Now, as I got older, I've learned, I've, I've learned kind of the importance of mind muscle connection, but it's, you know, I use it more to, especially on like, like I talked about with RDLs, I'm very big on that, but now I have a goal, like I'm using it to get that straight, that stretch in my hamstrings, like, or get the stretch.

Like I want to make sure I'm feeling pullovers in my lats, or I want to make sure that I'm, you know, that I in my hamstrings, like, or get the stretch. Like I want to make sure I'm feeling pullovers in my lats, or I want to make sure that I'm, you know, that I'm getting the, you know, the, the, um, you know, the, the incline curl, you know, I'm getting the stretch. And by the way, this is a long time ago. I asked a question. I forget where it was on Instagram somewhere. I asked, I asked you a question about, um, bicep tendonitis and you said do incline curls. And I don't think you knew who I was at that time. It was just a random question, but that was good advice. Incline curls became a staple because I had been dealing with bicep tendonitis issues. That just brought it up. I just wanted to say that. But anyway, yeah. So I've

learned the importance of it, but it isn't just like, just take any exercise and just squeeze really hard instead of focusing on progression. I think a lot of times people give up on stuff a little too early, you know, especially when we're younger. You know, you might read something or hear something and you're like, oh, I got to, okay, let me just, rather than like go up and wait, let me just try to do the same weight for multiple sets with the absolute correct form. You know, maybe a three or four second descent and just kind of a, uh, just controlling the weight, you know, like kind of owning the weight and then you try it and it just doesn't like play to your psyche that well. And you're like, Oh, I'll try it one more time.

You know? And then you just kind of stop not realizing like, man, there's so much benefit in that. I also think there's some benefit too, to, uh, training a little differently and, and saying F it here and there and just sort of going for it. I don't, I don't think there's anything wrong with that here and there but i think that uh when we're younger if we could just stick to a couple things a little bit longer it would really pay off right not not think you know everything right off the start like okay i have i have the i know the great all the secrets of how to work out you gotta experiment try new thing you know try different

stuff but yeah definitely also stick with things or maybe figure out what they're for before you say, oh, like I did. Maybe I should have figured out what it's actually useful for before I just threw it away and said, I'll never do this again. But, you know, you live, you learn. 5am asks, how to exercise intra post hangover? Well, first off, get some electrolytes in your system. That should help you out a bit but

intra hangover i think you're asking the wrong group yeah uh well i can i mean i can speak to that you just have to go out i mean you chose to drink it time to get in and do it anyway i mean now it's just not going to be as nice but you're you better do it this guy's very jacked too so i wonder why he would spread it to ask this specific question. Oh, okay. So you made that decision. Now you got to sleep and work out. The only cure I'm aware of for hangover is to drink more.

What's that called? Hair of the dog. There we go. There we go. I don't recommend working out drunk, but you can try it. Let me know how it works. Oh, man. Amanda Serrano has cool info.

Any other loaded exercises that are beneficial for the lower back? I mean, tons of them. Loaded lower back exercises. I mean, we've got anything from, you know, if you have the mobility

to make it work, you can do Zurcher deadlifts. That's just simply a deadlift with the elbows hooked under the bar at the floor that's a you know lots of range motion for the uh for the low back but also it's just you know it's just a basic exercise that you can just you know rep out on it's not super technical it's it's just a deadlift with a short arms basically i have a quick question for you um and don't lose your train of thought you started started with the Zurcher deadlift, but do you have a, cause I know some people when they bend down to do that, right? They're not sure how should I brace? How should

I breathe? Cause you know, when you're doing a squat, you brace, squat down, come up. But when you're in a bent position, what does your breathing look like? What do you do? I mean, that's an interesting question. And it's okay no but um uh yeah i have thought about how to explain it i mean the best way i can explain it is just do the best you can you're you're in a different position it is going to be you're not going to get the same kind of brace you would under a squat so you just kind of have to take your breath and brace as best you can in that position it's not going to be, but it doesn't have to be. Like if we're talking about, I mean, with Zurcher deadlift,

you definitely want a brace, but yeah, it's not, you're not going to get as good of a brace as you would if you were in a squad, but at the same time, you don't need one. And you don't, you want one, but you don't, you're not trying to keep your torso completely rigid because your torso, it's not going to stay rigid. So you kind of do the best you can. It's not going to be, it's not going to be at that level that it would be if you were able to keep your torso locked the whole time but it doesn't need to be because the the loading is lighter you're in a deeper position you're you're not going to be unless you're an

absolute freak a couple guys have got up to over 500 pounds but that's not that's not going to be the case for most of us most of us are going to be using fairly light loads. I mean, relative to what we might be able to do in a back squat or a conventional deadlift. So that's kind of the thing that needs to be, you know, balanced out. I mean, yes, some of these movements look scary, but like, like look how much weight, I mean, I mean, y'all have done weight I can't even think about on the conventional deadlift and squat. It's like, you know, humans were not, I mean, you know, it's crazy.

I mean, humans weren't designed to ever lift that kind of weight because there weren't barbells. You know, no one would ever lift that much weight unless someone had invented the barbell. So it's like, you know, the weight that you guys, and I'm not saying you guys shouldn't do that. It's great to do powerlifting, but, you know, there's risk with some of the, you know, shorter range motion too. And, you know, like 300 pounds is not, And like 300 pounds is not like 700 pounds or whatever. I hope that answers the question. But yeah, you can't brace quite as much. I think when you're trying to do something like a deadlift or some sort of exercise where you're having to bend over like that, what I found to work to be able to get uh air into my stomach is is to straighten the

legs out so if i just straighten my legs out i i'm able to breathe through my stomach a little easier as opposed to like if i'm already like super squatted down i might have an opportunity to breathe so maybe you know in this case where someone's doing something like a zurch or deadlift they when they're uh they can have their legs uh kind of straight up and down at first, breathe, and then maybe kind of squat into it and pick it up. That actually makes sense. See, that's actually something I should probably try to incorporate. That's actually a good idea. I think that would actually help.

All right. So Valerie Page, should I drop the weight if I'm having to take a lot of mid-set breaks or lower the volume looking to get stronger and more defined so looks like she's doing sets of movements and she has to like pause because she's not strong enough for the weight she's working with during the set um i'd say drop the weight so you can get through the set unless you want to do sets of lower repetitions. That would be my suggestion. Yeah.

I'd say that's a good rule of thumb for bodybuilding or powerlifting. If you're doing sets of 12 and you're trying to get through three to four sets of 12 reps and you get to your third set and you're starting to miss some repetitions where you need a longer break. Yeah, definitely dropping the weight would be a good idea. But also if you're doing a five by five and you start to miss your reps, you're starting to miss out on the intent of what you were originally trying to do. And whenever you start to miss out on the intent that you're trying to execute, then you need to kind of like change your plans a little bit. Yeah, Atlas, do you ever like just bro out with any movements period? Like just get high reps and you're just like, I'm going to chase the pump today. Oh yeah. I mean, I do that a lot actually. I mean, sometimes I do it with exercises that people wouldn't think to do that on like

Zercher deadlifts. I mean, I'll, I'll do, you know, 20 rep sets of that. I'm just trying to take, take it to to take it to failure with high reps. That's got to be tough. It's not as bad as you might think. It's a little tough, but the thing is with something like that, you're a lot less likely to get an injury than if you were

just going to max out on it, and you're going to get a better muscle size response i mean i you know there's all sorts of debate over what rep range is best for muscle but you know just my practical take on it i think a lot of people would probably agree with is it's a lot easier to get that progress that you need for good you know for you know good hypertrophy training when you're at a little bit of a higher rep range because you can you can squeeze out that extra rep you can maybe add five pounds without it killing it,

whereas if you're doing really low reps, you might have your plan. You go to lift the weight, and it doesn't even come off the ground. Now your progress is all messed up. So, yeah, I do like to use the high reps. This is a good promotion of your program. Look at that back. Yeah, I i mean that's what a difference a spray tan makes wow i mean i definitely had i definitely had better lighting

in the second picture although i had one i had one that i did like two parking lot pictures and still looked like a crazy um transformation but it's definitely more muscled though absolutely for sure it's yeah i mean that the thing was i was i mean yeah i'm i'm the i like by far the lowest deadlift here, but so I was pulling a decent amount of weight as far as conventional deadlifts and my back did not look anything like it did just because, you know, I wasn't doing that same kind of range of motion. So it, you know, it's not just like, okay, these lifts look cool. I want to show people like for what they do, like they, they put on some muscle. They're, they're, they're effective in multiple domains. Um, yeah. Have you, um, found anything like interesting about some of these lifts that you're doing? Have you, in the last several years, since you've adopted some of these movements, have you like ran or sprinted or jumped or did something where you're like,

oh, well, I'm a little faster or stronger. Or maybe even like you went back and did a conventional lift, like a deadlift, bench, or squat, and you found that you were quite a bit stronger than maybe you thought because you weren't actually training for that. So the only case, as far as movement, I mean, I never measured my – it's a mistake, but you never find out. I never measured any sprint times beforehand, so I wouldn't be able to give myself before and after. But one thing that I have found, I noticed this on rough terrain.

We already talked about it a little bit with the Vibrance, especially like slipping on ice and stuff, you know, getting into some, um, some kind of impromptu, uh, impromptu sissy squats and little impromptu Cossack squats and little emergency pistols and all like, that's nice because I'm, you know, my knees aren't getting beat up the way they used to. I even had one situation where, um, you know, that, that kind of iconic, uh, uh, little shot that, that Ben Patrick did where he like jumps off some high platform and just like goes down into a sissy squat into a reverse Nordic, just demonstrate his knees. Well, I actually did that completely on accident. I missed the step with my – I had my kid in the carrier. I think she was about one at the time.

So good little bit of weight. I think she was close to the 99th percentile for weight at that time. And so I missed a step on on coming down the stairs and you know i can't i can't bend forward to catch myself or anything because i've got my kid i've got to protect her so i ended up just kind of like missing the step and having to just kind of like eat a sissy squat into a nordic at the bottom of the steps just like slammed down down on my knees. And that was rough. But like the next day, my knees didn't even hurt. So like that, I will say there's some, you're not going to be bulletproof.

I don't want to get shot in the knee, but you can definitely benefit from some of this stuff. So that was, I wish I had it on video because it would have been like a perfect advertisement for, yeah, you to do your do your knee stuff um as far as the conventional lifts that i've that i've come back and checked i haven't really tried to max out on on uh any of them i mean i don't i just haven't tried to max but as far as um conventional dead lift i have set some rep prs with zero practice not not huge rep prs but i it'd just be interesting if you tried something like punching a heavy bag for a handful of weeks and once you bring up that skill level, I'm just

imagining that you have to be stronger through the torso and probably more explosive and stuff. I see carryover all the time. I'll hit PRs on lifts that I haven't trained all the time just from other stuff. I know just out of nowhere, we talked about Turkish get-ups earlier.

I'd been stuck a couple of years ago. I'd been stuck on like, I think I was stuck on 165 for a long time. I kept wanting to hit 170, just never quite got it. Then I just completely took off from it for a while, but I was doing a lot of freestanding ring pushups where you're just balancing on the rings.

Ooh, nice. It looks like a little stunt, but I've actually found it fairly beneficial. It's, it's easy on the shoulders. If that's something you need, I was doing the incline variation. You can even get a nice little stretch,

kind of like an, you know, incline bench press, but you're also having to stabilize a little bit. And then I found that was also building my wrist strength. So I just came back and just randomly smoked one 75 on the Turkish get up zero practice because, you know,

this other modality was training the exact capability I need. So it's because you know, this other modality was training the exact capability I need. So it's, you know, I, I see stuff like that happen all the time and it's really cool. And I think that's, I've actually gotten to the point where I almost, I almost prefer that to peaking because you can, you can practice something up to a high peak. I mean, any strength sport, you're, you know, the, a part of the skill of that sport is just peaking up the lift so that it's at the best possible place on that day. But then obviously you're going to fall off that peak. So if you can just see progress without even practicing, it's like, okay, general capabilities

are being built up. And I really like that. Gotcha. All right. Two more questions. This one's quick from Nick. What's your denim of choice? Denim of choice.

Rascal Performance denim. Okay. Rascal Performance. I'm guessing it stretches a bit. It stretches quite a bit. Anything that I can do, the jeans can do. And I'll mention this. I mean, I don't really wear jeans much anymore, but I got a big ass and big quads.

And the normal jeans that fit for me were like Levi 541s. But Rascal's probably better. Yeah. They fit very well. You can't see it in these because these are a little darker but if i wear the light wash i mean i actually you actually see quad definition through them yeah which is yeah and maybe i should get a bigger size but i mean they fit they fit at the waist so that's you know it's good yeah no they're they're very good and then this question from jonas doll and mark do you wear jeans andrew do you wear jeans i don't see

i'll wear jeans really yeah it's pretty rare for me it's like sandpaper i don't just yeah if i have to wear jeans i'm like kind of upset yeah yeah all right at least these would change your mind they're they're comfortable i wear them for everything i don't have anything cool like that i'm just like i just have regular like store-bought jeans you know nothing fancy that would that would upset me too jonas all asked do you guys find as your training age increases, you fall into more daily undulating periodization, DUP, or are you still very periodized and specific? So DUP pretty much is like, you know, you have a strength day, then you have a volume day, and then maybe you have a speed day, then back to a strength day. You undulate, you're the type of volume you're doing on a specific day of training that's all dup kind of means i'll just start i'll

say uh i really just make stuff up i'm not competing in anything and um even when i was competing i sort of made stuff up too but i um i literally go by how i feel I go by like time and stuff like that. You know, today we were doing some stuff out in the gym. I was like, well, I'm going to lift some sandbags for a little bit. But it wasn't like – I wouldn't even call it like a workout. It wasn't like a full workout. I would say, you know, lift with weights probably legitimately like an intense workout two or three times a week. And then there's probably one or two extra times a week where it's sort of

just like messing around like I did today. But yeah, it's not real like scheduled. It's just literally by how I feel in accordance to running. And then I run about four or five days a week. Right. I mean, for me,

same thing. I'm not competing in anything. So, I mean, I think a lot of that does come more into play when you're trying to prepare specific lifts for a competition you have thoughtful you have to get that you have to get that practice but you can't always be you know training them at the same intensity so you have to find ways to you know train them you know different ways so

not to burn yourself out it's a lot less necessary for me because i'm not training for anything specific either um and really with i'm just using a lot more exercise variety not that i'm just doing random stuff i'm keeping consistent trying to progress them but i mean the way i train any given lift or exercise is far more determined but just by the specifics of that exercise and you know what that what i what that exercise needs and what it's good for so i'm not i'm not looking at like general okay i want to train this one i want to just train high volume or i just want to train fast i kind of give each exercise what it what that specific exercise requires if that makes sense at this point for me i still do isolation work but i'm not getting ready for a bodybuilding show in the next few years.

I'm not doing any type of powerlifting meet, so I'm not aiming for specific numbers on a squat bench or deadlift. But what I am doing is I'm competing in jiu-jitsu. So everything that I do in the gym is to help increase my ability to move better and be stronger through all ranges of motion. Because in jiu-jitsu, you're moving in a lot of weird ranges, and you need to be strong and resilient in those ranges so the lifting i do like isolation work helps with that but like you know the sandbag work the kettlebell work all these things help me become overall stronger so i can become a better grappler that's how it's kind of changed adjusted is it sort of dictated by how you feel like if you come in and you're jumping rope and you're like i feel awesome i'm gonna keep you know doing bunch of, or do you have stuff like more scheduled?

No, I have certain things I'm going to be working on on each day. But, you know, since we're here, I get to kind of touch these things at home. I get to touch those things. I have a sandbag at home too. So it depends on, yeah, how much energy I have to see how much I want to push it in the gym. but i'll still manage to get through all the types of movements i need to get through throughout a week somebody had asked me recently about like if i'm still doing the brig 20 and so i will still do that but just like you mark like i started the workout sunday morning and then i had to get stuff done and i finished it this morning you know know, two, three days. I don't even know what today is, but yesterday was jujitsu. So that's like the thing is like that's the cardio or that's the harder training. And then the lifting is just to make me feel better. I like that. And I love the fact that I think a lot of people sometimes feel bad about stuff like that.

And I don't think you should. I think it's just like, just get like whatever way you can get to it. And if you get to bits and pieces of it, it not like the perfect workout you still worked out yeah the cool thing was that like you know i had like two-thirds of the workout left so that left me with time to work on like some back and shoulder mobility right so like it just gave me more opportunity to do more cool stuff in the gym right um would you be willing to give away a couple books? Absolutely. To some of these people we got in the pot? I don't know, how many winners

do we have? Three. Three? Willing to give away three books? Absolutely. So just give them to each person so they'll win this and something else? Alright, so you want to give away three things, but each person will win Vivo and a book? Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

It's a hell of a day to be on the live stream, guys. Okay. Tell us a little bit more about your book. Okay. So the goal for this book, so like I said, a lot of this stuff that I've gotten into has come from the older traditions of the bronze era, which I think is defined as like the 1800s through, I guess, what, the 40s maybe. And then the Silver Era, I think usually would be defined as like what the 40s to – usually it's considered to end in 58, which is when Diana Ball hit.

So I guess that's kind of a – it's kind of a good end point. Now, a lot of people say, oh, the Silver guys were all on steroids because, you know, testosterone had been synthesized. And there's always been conspiracy theories. I mean, you know, you'll see some guys who were lifting before they'd even invented it in the 30s. Or, you know, they'll say, oh, well, they must have been early test subjects for it. It's crazy out there. There's conspiracies. So, you know, there were some early products.

It's very unclear how well they were known about. And it certainly doesn't seem like anyone was experimenting with them early on. And if they had, all evidence would point to them immediately discontinuing because, you know, from what I understand, the product is absolute trash. It's going to give you very little results and tons of side effects um let's not say these guys were you know you know morally pure or anything it's just there was not an effective product for them to use the product they had was trash and it would have just if anyone did try it they would have been like this is horrible i'm immediately gonna stop this the only people that were using it that you know earlier and this was only in the early 50s was was, um, um, the Soviet weightlifters. And

obviously, um, the Soviet union was not Russians. They were not, they were not, yeah, they were not known for their, um, you know, deep concern for human life and wellbeing at that time. So, uh, you know, like anyway, well, that's, I think that's usually when the boundaries are, I went on too long with that, but that's usually when the boundaries are drawn. So I'm exploring the older weightlifting traditions from the bronze and silver eras. And rather than just write a history book, because there are plenty of good history books out there, I wanted to just look at them from the perspective of a modern lifter, just trying to practically find what's most valuable. So, um, I, I put in, you know, detailed descriptions of all the lifts and, you know, I wanted to put out the, you know, the best detail, the most, um, you know, the most detail that I possibly could on

not just, you know, how to perform them, but why you might want to. But then more importantly, I tried to put in a section comparing them to modern lifts and seeing where they fit in. So I tried to rank them, like which ones fill holes that, you know, more popular modern training methods are not addressing. And which ones, you know, maybe there are modern methods that are better. You know, I don't want to hype everything up that's old. It's not about whether it's old or new. It's about whether it's effective. And I think some of these lifts absolutely do fill holes in modern training. Some of them,

you know, we probably have more effective methods now. So that's, that's what I want to communicate and just like help people to, you know, put the best parts into their training and find what's more applicable to you. You know, I think there are some that maybe some people who are more into athleticism might want, like I mentioned the, you know, the one hand power snatch. That's something that I think, you know, probably a lot of people who are like, eh, do I, do I really want to have my athletes learn, you know, the full snatch? That's a big investment. Should I do that? Should I not? Should I just do, um, you know, some easier variation? Well, that, that is an easier variation, right? So, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to basically direct people to what's

going to be of most interest to you. If you're a bodybuilder, uh, you know, I'll let you know, this is good for developing this muscle. If you're into something else, et cetera. But that's, that's basically what the book is about. Did your IG handle come from the famous book? You know, it did. Or you're not aware of that. You know, it's funny. I didn't even think I'd be doing, you know, it seriously. It's funny. My wife, I used to just, I used to like scroll on my wife's Instagram because I didn't have one.

I just like stuff. And she said, you can't like stuff on my profile. I didn't like it. Stop looking at all those asses on my profile. Yeah. And so I was like, fine, I'll make one of my own. He's going to try to talk his way out of it. It was more political, but I don't want to say that because I don't want to get you guys.

Yeah, I don't want to say politics in an election year. God knows what they'll – anyway, I'm going to stop talking now. But, yeah, so I just – yeah, I was like, okay, well, I think – I knew I was going to post some lifting stuff because I lift. One of my favorite exercises is the power shrug, which is probably the most controversial exercise I do. So I was just like, okay, well, what's a little pun on a power shrug? And it's like Atlas power shrug, which is probably the most controversial exercise I do. So I was just like, okay, well, what's a little pun on a power shrug? And it's like, Atlas power shrug. It was a bad choice because now everybody thinks I'm like an Ayn Rand person, and I'm not. But, yeah, I like power shrugs because they're, you know, I like them.

They're good at making. I was trying to look up the book, and I'm like, they don't even – they don't have any correlation to each other. No, it's like if you want to get big traps, lift heavy weight with shrugs. That's why I – but maybe I could have – yeah, obviously, I didn't know that a bunch of people were going to be seeing me. That was going to be their first impression of me. It's like, oh, this guy likes Ayn Rand. I'm not completely bashing or saying there's no merit there, but you know how people do.

There's not a connection, yeah. You know how people do, yeah. Do you have any videos of him doing the shrugs? Oh, God. Because I think when you do your shrugs, it looks kind of crazy, right? People are going to get so mad if you show those. People are going to get so mad. By the way, I want to add in real quick before you guys leave,

because I know some of the winners, somebody wins, they're going to leave before they get the intro. Please, if you win, add me on Discord. Send your email address, your mailing address, and your name. Because he's going to have to send you the book, and I'm going to have to send you the product. And Jesus Christ, what is going on here? That's a lot of weight. Yeah, it's a power shrug.

That is a power shrug. You had long hair. Yeah, that was an old shrug. That is a power shrug. You had long hair. Yeah, that was an old video. It was probably like 25 at that time. Oh, wow. Your hair is amazing. It's still in jeans, too. The captions actually, I feel like I did a really good job with the caption, but nobody read it because I tried to trick everybody.

You are a long caption writer. You are a storyteller on your Instagram, bro. Good for you. That's great. This one, it didn't work with because I tried to clickbait people by saying I hurt myself and then read the caption. And like the little story, what I actually hurt myself with was that this exercise, you know, performing power shrugs in this cheat way was really effective. It actually made my traps big. So I thought, okay, that's how, like, let me look for, look for um okay so you know so the secret is just finding ways to move lots of weight right so then i tried to apply that to a bunch of other stuff and wasted a ton of time so that's how it hurt me right um but the reality is like the cheat reps

for whatever reason work really really really well when it comes to power shrugs i'm not the only one who says this a bunch of people agree with me with big traps. How much weight is that? I don't know, like eight plates, I think. That's more than eight. I think it was like eight or nine. It's whatever. Nine plates. Eight and nine. Eight fifty-five.

The thing is, people who want to have grand unifying theories of lifting like i know how lifting is supposed to be done this is the principle like you must do everything with good technique no technique is stupid you must do you just lift heavy weight you know none of you can't do grand unifying principles like the reality is these work but if you try that principle on virtually anything else you're going to get no results you know you're not going to get your problem cheat curls some people like cheat curls but most people, you're going to get no results. You know, you're not going to get your problem. Cheat curls. Some people like cheat curls, but most people are probably not going to get huge biceps

off cheat curls. But it's just, it works for this exercise because there's a lot more specificity than people think. It's just, it works with traps. I think maybe because you're, yeah, I'm just making stuff up. But yeah, that's what people say. There's a big weighted stretch, weight stretch, mediate hypertrophy. You're getting a big weighted stretch.

But you know, the reality is it just seems like weight works for traps. Some people build them with farmer's walks, you know, micro contractions with heavy weight. Some people are strong enough to deadlift heavy enough to build big traps. I'm not. So I have to lift weight heavy other ways. But it worked for me. You know, my traps got big specifically from that exercise. I'm not saying that's how you should do every exercise.

It's just it works on that particular one, but people are going to get mad about it because it, it doesn't conform with what they think exercise should look like. I love the time commitment of an exercise like that. It takes forever to put that amount of weight on. And it looked like you had knee wraps on and the knee wraps are over top of the jeans. That is the greatest video I've ever played. I was young and stupid. My knees are better now.

I pretty much, I pretty much stopped training traps because I'd have to load up. It's just not worth the time commitment to load up all that weight. But they're hanging in there. They're sticking around now that I built them. All right, let's pick out some of these winners here. See if you can pick the first.

All right. Mm-hmm. All right, winner one. You win a pair of Vivos and a book. Say... You can hand it back to him if you want. Yeah. Go figure it out. I think Kenny G.

I think he's saying Kenny G. Yeah, Kenny G. All right, Kenny G. Make sure you're part of the Discord. Max and me, Trend Sima. Email address, name, and mailing address. Oh, God, are we still doing that? Mm-hmm.

Amanda Carano. Amanda Serrano. Amanda Carano. Amanda Serrano. Okay. Same deal, Amanda. Message. And we'll get you a book and some... Wait. We need to give her hostage tape, not joy mode. Amanda

Serrano will send you some hostage tape and lastly gunpowder it's gonna be gunpowder message me on message me so you can get some joy mode in your yeah you'll get some joy mode and a book

gunpowder tea there we go is there anything that guy hasn't won man i don't know i don't think he's won joy mode i think this is the first oh amanda said she'll well i think gunpowder is also one hostage amanda do you want hostage shape or do you want joy mode come below and let us know. Might be kind of private. She said she'll give it to the husband. Oh, there you go.

Thanks for coming on the show today. Where can people find you? My primary platform is Instagram, Atlas Power Shrugged on Instagram. I'm also trying to build up my YouTube. I'm actually investing in actually making better videos because they were, I mean, I'm not saying the quality is great,

but they're getting better. And that's Atlas Power Shrugged on Instagram as well. Or sorry, YouTube as well, my bad. And then where can people buy your book? They can buy my book at atlaspowershrugged.com. And that's just the website. And hopefully it's pretty easy to access. I, you know, my wife's a software engineer, so she was able to help me set it up. I mean, it's Shopify, but like, you know, I'm not, I'm not very tech savvy. So I was like, oh my God, I even looked at Leo Shopify thing where they're trying to make it easy for you. I'm like, oh my God, a sweetheart. Can you help me with this? And she set it up for me. So big shout out to my wife for taking care of that. Great. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.