Mark Bell's Power Project - Grip Strength Secrets: Why Most Are Training It Wrong!

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

You’ve been training your grip strength all wrong, and it’s holding you back! In this episode of Mark Bell’s Power Project Podcast, Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang hang chat with Daniel “Raspberry Ape” Strauss to uncover the secrets to grip strength that most people miss. From the different types of grip strength like crush and support to why forearm training is key for preventing injuries, this episode dives deep into what it really takes to build hands of steel.You’ll hear why lifting natural stones feels so different from barbells, how sandbag training can improve your overall strength, and the surprising connection between ancient tools like clubs and modern fitness. Whether you’re into grappling, lifting, or just staying pain-free, this conversation is packed with tips for stronger, healthier hands. Don’t miss it!Follow Raspberry Ape on IG: https://www.instagram.com/raspberry_ape/Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 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!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 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!➢ 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/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz0:00 Understanding different types of grip strength5:10 Grip training beyond competition and injury prevention11:45 Tips for avoiding arm, wrist, and elbow pain15:10 Recovering from a back injury using stone lifting19:50 The revival and culture of stone lifting24:40 Natural objects vs barbells in strength training31:00 Techniques for lifting sandbags and heavy weights safely35:50 Making fitness fun and engaging with others40:40 Sandbag training for strength and versatility45:35 Staying lean with quality proteins48:40 The story of the Husafel stone and other strength tools53:30 Grappling strength and sandbag workouts59:40 Rethinking strength beyond traditional powerlifting1:03:00 Strength training and its role in jiu-jitsu1:07:30 The benefits of hammers, clubs, and custom tools1:18:10 Historical training tools like Iranian-style clubs1:21:10 Barefoot-feel shoes for diverse terrains1:22:40 Lessons from myths and their connection to fitness1:25:50 The importance of community in training1:27:30 Heavy tools like swords for strength and masculinity1:30:40 Strength is about abilities, not just tools1:35:30 Lessons from Daniel’s training journey1:37:00 Fixing elbow and wrist pain with proper techniques

Grip is not just squeezing something in your hands. That is one aspect of grip, what I refer to as crush. Then you have support strength, like do you have the ability to hold onto something while it's not moving? Then you have open hand support, thick rope climbing, thick bar training, grabbing onto someone's wrist, grabbing onto someone's ankle, stuff like that. Pinch, which a lot of people do know about,

you have vertical gripping. Imagine if you're climbing a rope. Look at, think of the position of your wrist when you're climbing a rope. It's not sort of horizontal, it's vertical. Then you have finger strength, like gi ju jitsu stuff. And then you have all of the wrist stuff. For me, that's actually more interesting.

What's a workout look like to progress and get stronger? Most of the time, I am training with sandbags. And just look at sandbags as a tool. So do you want to do a hinge pattern? It's a pickup. Do you want to do an explosive pattern? It's a pickup. Do you want to do a explosive pattern? It's a shoulder ring. I believe that everyone should have some sort

of movement practice where they're getting stronger. Part of what I'm doing on the earth is to try and just get a few more people exercising. And more importantly, it doesn't have to be in a gym. It doesn't have to be with a barbell. Yeah, so you were saying, you know, you don't think that crush is like, I'm sure it's not a bad tool to mess around

with some of that, but what are your thoughts on it? Yeah, so torsion spring grip is sort of like the most common grip training tool that you have. I'm gonna keep one in my car and I'm gonna get jacked. Do you know what, this is the funny thing, when it comes to grip, people think that you can just do it sort of as something you do whilst you're sitting at work or whilst you're in the car.

You don't go, oh yeah, I'm going to get stronger legs. I'm just going to squat whilst I'm at work. You don't really do that, do you? There are some benefits to doing some grip training, low intensity grip training. I do keep a hammer in my car and if I have a long journey, I'll train the wrist a little bit because they have a really good capacity for recovery and they do pretty well with high volume stuff. So there's some benefit to having a gripper in the car for like recovery stuff and stuff like that but in general they're not they're not the best tool I think. I have a massive wall

of these but I think the only use for them really is if you're training to get better at doing these. I've always kind of felt that like the guy that has the neck harness in his gym bag and the guy that's like focused on the grip is the guy that just jumped the shark. You know, he left the reservation, he no longer does conventional training anymore, and I used to think that was like nuts, you know, I used to think that that was like the crazy guy. But now I kind of recognize its utility and how cool it is. And I think more people are kind of recognizing this as well. How, like, where did some of this start for you? So the grip stuff, it's very, very simple. I mean, my story in strength training in general is pretty simple. Juggling a freaking anvil around your hands.

So I'm a grappler. I've been grappling since I was 14 15 years old and when I started training jujitsu, I was 110 pounds so I was a superskipper. I'd never excelled in any other sport growing up. I was never athletic in any capacity and So when I saw jujitsu, I just started getting the the hell beating out of me by everyone You know, I was in adult classes hell beaten out of me by everyone. You know, I was in adult classes back then, you know, 20 years ago. Sounds familiar. Sounds like everyone's story that does Jiu Jitsu.

Yeah, but even like 20 years ago, they won kids classes, they won kids tournaments. So I was just getting my ass kicked by everyone. And was this Hodges Gracie school? No, this was a gym called Mill Hill BJJ, which was in a small gym that was under Roger. So my instructor, Nick Brooks, was under Roger Gracia. Yeah. I got my black belt in the end from Roger. But, you know, that sort of frustration in being beaten because I was weaker, not because

they were better, started me to, okay, let me do something about it. And when you're training Jiu Jitsu, one of the most obvious things that you'll realize, you don't have to be told this, you just know it from the first session you do, is the ability to hold on to someone is very important. So the, so training the grip became a big thing for me. The Bible was, for me, was Dinosaur Training by Brooks Kubik. And I read that when I was 16 and that really, I would say changed my life. I don't know if you've, if you've read it, Mark.

But that's the book. You know, the whole idea of it was a lot of it was based on the old school strongmen. A lot of the old school strongmen were also wrestlers. So a lot of it resonated to me and it was about strength training, neck training, grip training. These are all big facts. See if you can find it, Ryan. Dinosaur training.

It's a cool looking book. It's like old school. It's old school. yeah. And for me it's the Bible. It put me on the path to where I am now. So let me ask you this. Over the time, how did your grip training and the ways you did this, how did it evolve? Yeah, so look, I started doing grip training sort of the same way as everyone else did. I got a load of grippers and I start playing around with stuff and I guess I'm just... I go deep on things, okay? So for me it wasn't good enough just to grab a couple of grippers and squeeze those a few

times. I just... I got to be careful what I pick because I get obsessed with it. So I got obsessed with training grip and it fascinated me and, you know, for the last 16, 17, 18 years, I'm not a grip... I don't compete in grip sports. I don't consider myself a grip guy, which is funny because a lot of people do consider me a grip guy.

There are people out there who are much, have much, much stronger grips than mine. If I went to a grip competition, I would not place probably. There are some really great guys. You've got some great guys in the US like Jed Johnson and Lucas Raymond. We've got a really, you know, one of the top guys in the world, David Horne, who is almost like a little bit of a mentor for me in the grip world. These are proper grip guys, you know, they know their stuff when it comes to grip. For me, it's more that intersection between grappling, grip, and sort of the other...

I'm not going to use the term functional strength because it's like the most hated word in all of sports, in everything, but just thinking about health and fitness and strength training with the practical application of trying to wrestle a bear or something. So let me ask you this then. What are people missing when it comes to training their grip

outside of just using the crush? Like what are some other tools that people can impulsively start using? Or just ways they can to like training their grip outside of just using the crush like what are some other tools that people can Implicably start using or just ways they can think about training their hands and grip so they can start making some progress Yeah, so I'm glad you asked that and Seema. I mean I have written a book about it. I don't want to plug it anymore So I'll just mention I once but I have written a book and sort of all of the content that I originally put out about grip training what's the answer that question like When I told people that I was writing a book on grip training, they were like, there's enough for a book.

You know? And then I said, it's a grip training, it's a book about grip training for grapplers. And they were like, there's enough for a book? They're like, that's a pamphlet, isn't it? And it turns out that there is enough for a book, if you talk as much as I do. But the main premise of all of the information that I put out when it comes to the grip is understanding that grip is not just squeezing something in your hands. That is one aspect of grip. What I refer to as crush. So I'll give you examples of other ones and as I talk it through, you'll start to think

of the applications of them. So crush for me is the ability, you know, the strength that you have concentrically as that hand closes, right? So squeezing a torsion sprint gripper, very, very common. You know, very obvious application of crush. Then you have support strength, like do you have the ability to hold on to something while it's not moving? Right, so that would be doing pull-ups, doing deadlifts, holding on to stuff like that. Then you have open hand support, that same idea, but with the hands in a more open position.

So thick rope climbing, thick bar training, grabbing onto someone's wrist, grabbing onto someone's ankle, stuff like that. Then you get the more interesting ones, pinch, which a lot of people do know about. They train when they grab onto plates and stuff like that. That's when the fingers are opposing the thumb. So you have pinch. Now this could, this helps. A lot of these grip strengths cross over with each other. It's not to say that if you have an incredible crush strength, you're going to have a pathetic open hand support, but they're just different aspects. I think, I'll continue to go on. So you have pinch, you have vertical gripping. So most of the time people are gripping like the barbell or a dumbbell or a kettlebell

where there's two anchor points. But a lot of the time in some scenarios, especially grappling, there's only one anchor point. So imagine if you're climbing a rope. Look at, think of the position of your wrist when you're climbing a rope. It's not sort of horizontal, it's vertical. That's a different position. You can train to get stronger in that position. So when you're wrestling someone, you go to grab onto their wrist. That's a vertical grip and position.

So you can train that with lifting vertical bars or loading pins with rope climbing and stuff like that. Then you have sort of finger strength, like gi ju jitsu stuff, which is sort of the tendon and ligament strength of those fingers and developing that. Yeah. And then you have all the wrist stuff. For me, that's actually more interesting. I think so many people train the end of the hand.

This happens a lot with... I can't wait for you to get into this. A lot of people train a lot with like power lifters. A lot of people's grip strength just comes from lifting, you know, they're holding on to machines and barbells and dumbbells and stuff like that. And that means the hand, the ability to hold on to things, they're crushed, they're close hand support, maybe even the open hand support is strong, but they're never doing anything to train the wrist. If you don't train the wrist, you have that weak link in that connection. Like an arm wrestle spends a lot of time working on that.

Because they have to, right? And I was talking to the guys on Saturday about this in quite a lot of detail, I'm not sure if you were there, but as soon as you bring your wrist out of a neutral position, weakness is found. So, for me, training the wrist allows you one, to make it harder for people to take you out of that neutral position, and two, to still have more strength than the normal person in those weakened positions. So I break down these wrist positions as, obviously, flexion is a big one, everyone sort of trains that. Extension, which doesn't really have practical application, that's the hand going backwards,

and the extensor muscles of the forearm. Maybe a sport like rugby or football, you're trying to tackle somebody and they break away from you. And you're maybe some small application. Well, even if you were in extension, it's flexion that's going to bring you back around. So there's a few occasions in Jiu Jitsu where you might actually... So let's say I thread my arm for a Komora grip and I'm actually pulling backwards to hold on to an arm. That's one of the very few applications you'll ever get for strengthening the extensors functionally, but what they do do is they balance out all of that work of the flexors. So loads of what

I talk about, and I talk about this again, and most of the content that I put out is not about getting stronger, it's about mitigating a lot of the elbow issues, wrist issues, arm issues that people have when they neglect the full musculature of the forearm. This is a massive thing. If you just, if you train gi ju jitsu and you're grabbing a gi all day every day, those flexors are going to become strong, the extensors are going to be weak, you're going to get elbow pain. This is a really cool conversation because there might be a lot of people who are like,

I don't really care that much. I don't really care that much to increase my grip strength, right? However, everyone has experienced some sort of pain or trying to open a jar. Even people that don't lift experience this. They go to pick up something that's wider, like a pickle jar or something like that,

and you get that kind of irritating pain through some of that. So, while some people might not care to close a particular gripper or whatever it might be, it is important that we develop some good strength and we have some good training protocols with our fingers, our forearms and so on. Yeah, I don't think it's just a little bit important. I think it's absolutely vital for everyone. I mean, it was George Hackensmith who said,

health cannot be divorced from strength, okay? It doesn't matter how strong you are. If the body isn't functioning well, you can't express that strength. And when it comes to the hands and arms, that is how we interact with the world. Okay, in sport, maybe in grappling or in lifting or in climbing more so, but actually the rest, you know, just the day

to day stuff, everything we're doing is with our arms. And if you have pain and weakness there, it can really affect you. So, you know, I put out, like I said, all of the stuff I make, I make sure to include a lot of information about sort of avoiding elbow problems and wrist problems and hand problems. And then also what to do if you already have them. I put out a couple of months ago, I put out a... because people would keep on asking me like every other video I would put on Instagram is about dealing with tendonitis and then the one video that wasn't that they go, I've got a bad elbow, how do I deal with this? So you know what? I'm not gonna make any more videos. I'm gonna make a guide that's just gonna say

all the stuff I've been saying and everything else, and I'm going to give it away for free so people stop asking me this question and I can just forward them the link, they can download it. And I put this out and I had four thousand, four and a half thousand people message me, you know, comment to get this sent to them. And it just blew me away how many people it was. You know, there's like more comments than likes on this post. And it just goes to show you that people are way more interested in being pain free and healthy than they are actually about function. I think it would be super rare for someone to not have experienced some like wrist pain or forearm pain in their life at some point, regardless of sport.

Yeah, exactly. Because we're using our hands all the time. Even if you're just, you know, manual laborers are a really good example. People whose jobs rely on it. The number of messages that I get from people is, I'm a welder, I'm a bricklayer, I'm a tattoo artist, I'm a painter. All of these things and they've got these really bad injuries because they've just been doing the same thing over and over again. In the same way that people have back injuries.

Because they're doing movements that are the same all the time. You come to the gym, you work the opposite muscles and then that's going to help sort that out. You also end up with a lot of neglect, right? Like if something starts to hurt and you can no longer do, you know, said thing anymore, then you have someone else do it for you. Or you start trying to do stuff with your other hand, you know, if you're, you know, if you're someone with a manual labor job, you know, if you're, you know, if you're someone with a manual labor job, you start doing things on the left side now. And then that one goes.

And then that one gets screwed up. And then you're really fucked. Yeah. And this is it. And the funny thing about all of this stuff is it goes against the conventional wisdom. Generally, the instinct for most people is when something hurts, avoid doing anything to it. Okay?

So when your wrist hurts or your elbow hurts because you're grabbing things, you stop grabbing things. And that's the question that I get on all these videos is, how much tendonitis do you have in your elbows? Because you do all of this crazy grip stuff. And I say, I have none. And that's not in spite of the grip training. It's because of the grip training. If I didn't do this training, I would have issues.

But because I do this training and because I focus holistically on the entire arm, indeed the entire body, but specifically for the grip, the entire arm, I'm making sure that nothing's getting neglected, everything's coming up and I'm avoiding that pain. And it's the same for back. Like I had a really bad back injury about, what was it, maybe 12, 13 years ago. Hurt my back lifting and I was kind of crippled by it. Do you remember the lift? I was doing bent over rows.

And it's always like with the injuries, it's always the last rep. I was feeling real strong and I was doing like 12 reps. I was meant to do 10, but I just felt so damn strong in the 13th rep. Something goes and long story short, I had it looked into and I'd had a back injury when I was in my mid teens from training Jiu Jitsu and I recovered from it because I was in my mid teens like Wolverine. I woke up the next day and my back had recovered, but it hadn't recovered properly. And at some point, whatever happened, I cracked my back.

So they did a CAT scan. I've got like a line going through one of my vertebrae. And you know, the first doctor that I said basically said, you know, we're probably going to have to fuse your spine. And you know, I was distraught. I was 21. I was, you know, had all of these goals to go and compete in Jiu Jitsu and do things. And if you fuse your spine, you don't roll at a high level.

That's just not going to happen. So I refused to do that. And for many years I was working at sort of a limited capacity. And the crazy thing, I mean, what is the one thing if someone has a bad lower back injury, what's the one thing you would think they can't do? What would you say? Don't deadlift and don't pick up stones and so forth. That's the one.

That's the one. Stone lifting fixed my back. And the way that happened, it was the the Dini Stones originally. So I'll tell you a quick story on this, which is David Horn, I've already mentioned him. He's, you know, the grip master David Horn. He's like the most knowledgeable guy in the world. I mean, a literal encyclopedia, this guy. And he makes equipment as well. And I'm a big fan of buying different tools, as you'll probably see in the background of all these videos, you know, there's a lot of tools up there. So one day David Horne, who I bought all of his stuff, he releases these dinnie stone

handles. Do you know the dinnie stones? Yeah, I forget which country they're in, but I've seen them before. They're in Scotland, they're these two stones, they're not traditional lifting stones, because they have handles, traditional lifting stones don't, but they have handles and they're like £700 something and you pick them up. And I saw that he made these and I went, well, I'll never be able to lift these stones because my back is screwed. I can't do anything where I'm hinging, but David Horne made it, I've got to buy it.

So anyway, I buy these things and I start training. And the interesting thing about this was that I could sort of work the strengthening of the lower back without the hinge because you sort of stand over the top of it. So I start doing this. I'm like, I'm not in any pain. So I start to go heavier and heavier and I'm not in any pain and my back's not flaring up as much as it used to, used to flare up. And then I start to get up towards dinny stone white and I'm thinking, can I actually lift, can I do this? Because I, you know, years beforehand, I just thought I'd never be able to pick up a stone. I'd never even be able to think about going and doing the Dini Stones. And by doing this training, it strengthened my back to a point where I

was like, I'm not in pain, I'm rolling better. I start playing with sandbags. The sandbags aren't hurting me. At this point, you're able to bend down. Whereas before, you're neutral. Oh man, I used to say, yeah, exactly. Okay. I got a question about the Denny stone. So like, one hand is in front of the body, one hand is behind the body, correct?

And then the weight is in between your legs? So you can lift it side by side if you want to, but it's much harder. Because they're two big stones and they're awkward shapes, the standard way is to sort of straddle over the top of it and to have one stone kind of in front, one stone behind arm-wise and then you sort of... It's like a partial lift. And so would someone training for that, would they switch or would you just stay standing staggered one way?

Yeah, I trained both sides, but I always had a dominant side. As you generally will, this is Chloe Brennan, a friend of mine, also from the UK, doing a replica at the Rogue event. I mean, one of the most incredible lifts of any stone lift. That's so cool. It's, you know, looks like a very much like kind of a partial range of motion, almost like you, I guess you would say like a high rack deadlift of some sort. Yeah, that's exactly.

In a much different configuration. Yeah. But, whoo, it looks deadly. It looks dangerous. This is such a cool video though. I mean, Chloe was trying to get these dinnie stones. I mean, the whole story of the rogue and the dinnie stones is crazy. Do you know about this?

I do not. They basically created perfect the rogue and the dinnie stones is crazy. Do you know about this? I do not. They basically created perfect replicas of the dinnie stones. They flew over, they scanned the stones, they did the same with the Husafell stone. Maybe you can give us a little story on a dinnie stone. What is the history of this thing? Okay, so the history of the dinnie stones, I mean, like I said, the dinnie stones aren't traditional manhood stones or lifting stones. And look, I'm going to big long stories about sort of stone lifting history and stuff like

that. And, and it's one of the things that I'm most, most passionate about. And there's a small community out there who just die for this stuff. It's incredible. But every culture in the world at one point lifted stones. Every culture, because that's what we have. We didn't have barbells. We've always wanted to get stronger. So what do you lift? You lift the heaviest thing you can find. What's the heaviest thing that you can find? You lift stones.

And in most places around the world, the stone lifting culture has died out for the most part, or it's very hidden. And in some few locations around the world, such as Scotland, such as Iceland, such as Sweden and Norway and a few other places, the culture is still alive a little bit. And it's starting to come a little bit more alive every year now. It's starting to get a lot more popular because of, I mean, Rogue did an incredible documentary called Stone Land where they did an episode in Iceland, they did an episode in Scotland and they did an episode in Basque Country that has a crazy, they create these weird shaped cylinder stones.

And all these different places had different reasons for lifting the stones. So in Scotland, for example, you had a lot of clans, so a lot of it would be testing stones for the clans. In Iceland, for example, there's a lot more myth wound up with the stone lifting. Some of the stones, you have the sailor stones, the druvik stones, where you basically would lift the stone to see what job you'd get on the raiding ship, okay? Because they need strong people, right? So if you can only lift up the smallest stone, okay, well you're not even rowing, you're not strong enough. You're going to be in the kitchen, you're going to be cooking,

and you're not going to get much of the loot. But if you can lift the big stone, you're rowing in the middle of the ship, but you're getting a lot of the gold, you know? So they sort of, they would use stones as tests of strength to see how valuable you were as a, you know, whatever job that you were doing. Power Project Family, how's it going? Now, over the years, I've learned a lot from guests that have come onto this podcast and I've taken the time to learn many different movement practices.

So for example, if you wanted to learn rope flow, which is a practice I think is just beneficial for everyone, I have a free rope flow foundations course at school.com slash the stronger human. Now the stronger human community actually has over 11,000 members. So it's a great community there, but you'll also be able to learn rope flow for free, along with many other things I teach in there like kettlebell flow, kettlebell juggling, all that good stuff. So head over there. Along with that, if you're looking for where to get your equipment as far as ropes, maces and clubs, sandbags, all that good stuff, you can head over to the strongerhuman.store

and on that site is where I have all of the different functional fitness equipment that I use to become a StrongerHuman.store and on that site is where I have all of the different functional fitness equipment that I use to become a Stronger Human. So check those out, let's get back to the episode. There's some really fun ones in Scandinavia, they have bachelor stones. So you know basically a farmer has a stone, if you want to marry his daughter you better be able to lift the stone, right? So I actually have, if you watch any videos of me lifting what I call the Strouse Stone, I've got a big 112, so what would that be like? 240, 50 pound stone?

Is that your last name stone? Strouse Stone? Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. I call it the Strouse Stone. Okay. And my brother-in-law, he trains with me. He's like one of my main training partners. And when he was engaged to my sister, I said, listen, before this goes down, before this

goes down, you better lift the Strauss stone. And of course he lifted it. And I gave him the nod to allow him to marry my sister. But yeah, there's just an incredibly rich history. Like no rep. There's an incredibly rich history around lifting stones in different parts of the world. And I mean, that's one of the, you know, they're being rediscovered as well. That's the beautiful thing. There's a guy, a stone enthusiast in Ireland, he goes by Indiana Stones, which

is a great name. And he is rediscovering dozens and dozens of Irish lifting stones. And these aren't just, when I say rediscovering, he's not finding a stone on the beach and saying, oh, this is, he is looking through old manuals, old books. There he is. And he is finding details, you know, in this farm, 30 paces to the west, you'll find this stone and he's uncovering these old stones and he's, he's bringing back an essentially an ancient culture in his country, which is incredible. I want to say, you know, sometimes when you go to pick up some of this stuff, if you're unfamiliar, if you've never really tried it, first of all, I recommend that you try it, give it a shot, but when you go to pick up something heavy from a stone standpoint, or from some of these odd objects like a bag or something like that. There's just like, there's kind of nowhere to hide.

You go to pick it up and it just takes your breath away. It's very difficult. You find yourself breathing hard and grunting. Like you're just getting into something that's very challenging right away. And it has a different feel. And then also I wanna say that the positions of your body are quite different than when you're going to pick up a barbell. and then also I wanna say that the positions of your body

are quite different than when you're going to pick up a barbell. All the conjecture over the years about deadlifting and deadlifting being dangerous, I can understand, like I understand now a lot better where that comes from. Because even though a barbell is kind of like made to lift, it may be made to lift, but it's not necessarily designed for us to pick up.

Like our body seems like it's designed to be able to pick up something like a rock or pick up something like a stone. It seems, there's something about it that seems natural and there's something about it that elicits some sort of, like, I don't want to say like testosterone, but it seems like it elicits some sort of like, I don't want to say like testosterone, but it seems like it elicits some sort of aggression within your body. You don't really get from like just lying down with some dumbbells and incline bench

pressing them. No, a hundred percent. And that is, you're right, a barbell is designed to be lift, but when you look at it, it doesn't look like it was created for a human. It looks like it was created for a machine, right? There's no organic nature to the barbell. It's a straight stick with weight put on the end. And I agree. I agree. Look, the barbell is a fantastic tool. Don't get me wrong. But there's something very different about odd objects and sandbags and stones. I mean, stones are different because sandbags for the most part, even though

they are quote unquote, they are made to be lifted, but they're also made to not be ergonomic. They're made to be hard to lift, right? They're just lumps. They're just bags of sand. Stones, you get next level, especially if you go outside and you start looking for the historical stones because you go to Scotland, it's probably going to be raining. If you go to Iceland, it might be snowing, you know? There might be ice, there might be humidity and these stones really aren't made to be lifted. They're awkward. Some of them are incredibly slick and slippery. Some of them will tear your forearms to pieces. But I agree. I mean, I'd be so interested. They say like chopping wood increases testosterone more than any other physical activity.

And I... Have you heard anything about the stones? Like in terms of like them having some sort of grounding utility or anything like that? Have you, has that been anything that you've come across in your research at all? As in like scientific grounding, you know, touching that man, not in particular. For me, the thing with the historic stones especially, this is the Inverstone. Like just look at the face you got to make to pick that thing up. I mean, like I was

saying, there's really no faking it. I mean, it's very, very difficult. It's a battle. It's a battle. I mean, look, the Inverstone that you see me here is quite round. It's a pretty even stone. But a lot of the stones aren't like this, they're very awkward shaped and sort of the most fun part of any stone lift, the first time you approach the stone, is moving it around. It's like a puzzle. It's a physical puzzle that you gotta, sometimes you ask it, you know, how do I lift you?

Which part do I put my hand? This is the thing with the historic stones is there is a very palpable energy and power in these stones. And you can get as woo woo about it as you want, but anything that has history, some of these stones are hundreds of years old, but like that Inverstone there that you just saw me lifting, that's been lifted by some of the greats, you know, Bill Kazmaier, you know, this is, you know, all of the modern day strongmen have been out there.

So that one definitely has a grounding element to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got a little extra testosterone on it. Exactly. And that's the beauty. That's why I love it. You know, not only is it the physical nature of lifting a stone, the historical relevance, you are not just, you know, I would be happy to go and visit these stones and take a picture

You know because the journey to get to them is incredible I mean Scotland is one of those gorgeous countries in the world Then you hear the history about it you think about the number of people have put their hands on it what it means This is a stone of strength. I mean this stone here. You've got Martin's Martin Jancic here who is just abnormally strong He's gonna lift a stone like it's made of paper. Oh my God. I mean, just a stone man, two, six, five years, I think. And I went and met with him in this old abandoned graveyard in church and graveyard up in really the top of Scotland. And probably

the most beautiful place to lift stones. And this stone's an interesting one. It was a punishment stone. Okay. So next to where we're lifting, you might see it in this video, there is a above ground concrete grave. I mean, he puts this on his shoulder like it's absolutely nothing. You wait to see me try and his whole thing, he does it and he takes a picture whilst he's doing it. I mean, this guy's just insanely strong. How much is this stone? That's like 250 pounds or something. How much is this stone? That's like two hundred and fifteen pounds or something. Okay. But it's super slick.

So you see this, the concrete just in the right hand side of the image here? Yeah. That's an above ground grave, okay? It's a concrete grave and the punishment would be they would lie the criminal down in it. As I'm trying to get the shoulder unsuccessfully. They'll lie the criminal down in it and they'll place a slab over the body, so there's like a gap for the head, and then they would place the braven stone on top of the slab so they couldn't get out. So you're basically stuck in this above ground grave for as long as

your punishment is, and they would leave you there for days or weeks or whatever and, you know, whoever you've pissed off will come and sort of throw rotten food at you or spit on you or piss on you or whatever like that so you know and you get to see it you can see the grave there you can see the stone and you can feel all of that history it's yeah I mean historical stone lifting is really a unique there's a better angle of the whole thing it's a very unique experience so let me ask you this man why is it that you that this helped heal your back? Well, what is the nature of the way these movements are done?

Yeah, great question. Because when people look at the way you have to bend to do it, they'd be like that Like even when I people see me lift these things, they're like you're gonna hurt your back in a few years. Yeah. So why? Why do you train your grip to fix your grip? It's the same thing, right? Okay, if it it's sort of a knees over toes So why? Why do you train your grip to fix your grip? It's the same thing, right? It's sort of a knees over toes philosophy, which is that forward, the knees over the toes, if you avoid it, if there's a position in the body that's weak and you avoid that

position, it will just get weaker. If there's a position in the body that's weak and you strengthen that position intelligently, always stand within your means, then you're going to be stronger. And it's the same for that round back lifting. The rounded back position, for me, my philosophy on the rounded back is very simple. If you are rounding your back on purpose and it's rounded, that's good. If you were trying to keep it straight and it rounds. That's when it's a problem. So I've never had any problems lifting stones or lifting sandbags or anything like that. And I put out an instruction on sandbag lifting and a lot of people mess me and said my back

pain's fixing up. I had one guy message me and he said, I hurt my back lifting a sandbag. And I mess him back, I go, tell me everything. This is the first time I've heard about it. What's going on? And what he did was, he tried to lift the sandbag like a barbell, right? These are two different things. If you stand in front... People are wondering like, well, what's the difference?

Why do you have to round your back on that? Because you stand in front of a barbell to deadlift. You stand over a stone or sandbag to deadlift. You stand over a stone or sandbag to lift it. You have to. You have to be over the top of it. So you have to round your back as you go to pick it up. So if you stand around something, lower down into position and then sort of get into the upright deadlift position and go to lift, the mechanics of the position is entirely off. So it's like if you try and lift a barbell like you're lifting a stone, you probably hurt yourself.

You try and lift the stone like you're lifting a barbell, you probably hurt yourself. Lift a barbell like it's a barbell, lift a stone like it's a stone and everyone's happy. I think a barbell is like approximately like 12 to 14 inches off the ground or something like that. And so if you can just kind of envision this in your head, you go to bend down to grab a barbell and it's going gonna meet your hands a full foot or maybe even a little higher before you would have your hands underneath a sandbag. So you're only, I mean, there are other options.

I mean, if you're mobile, you can kind of squat right down to that sandbag or that stone. But what you'll find out is maybe you can lift a couple of weights that way, but it's gonna be highly unlikely that you're gonna be able to lift the most significant amount of weight with your hips low in some sort of squatty position. More than likely, you're gonna have to actually round over

and your hips are gonna actually have to be high, which if we think about that in the gym, when do we preach or teach anyone to ever lift that way? Very rare. I mean, I maybe, the only thing I can think of is like maybe a stiff leg deadlift. You might say, hey, you know, do it, but then your back is totally straight. Yep. Yeah. I mean, zurcher deadlifts or good mornings, or some of the other ideas.

But I mean, going back to the barbell, the funniest thing about the barbell is the height in which the standard height that a barbell starts at, this sacred height, it's arbitrary. It's completely made up. Okay? And the only reason, you know why the barbell is set at that height, right? It's so if you drop a barbell on your head, it won't crush your head, right? So if you put the standard, you know, Olympic plates on a barbell and you roll it over your head, it's not going to crush it. Unless you have a fat ass head.

Unless you have a big head, in which case it maybe needs to be, you know, reduced a little bit. But that's the only reason. So it's so funny to me. People put these... People are so dogmatic and strict when it comes to strength training. And I think, man, that it's such a shame for you to have such a closed minded view where if you were to lift a, do a deadlift three inches above where it usually would be, that's a partial. And if it's three inches below it's a deficit. It's a deadlift. Don't talk about squatting to 90 degrees because that's not a squat.

Well that's it. It's not a squat. Well, that's it. It's not a squat, isn't it? And it's just the most, everything is, you know, half the exercise that I see, that I do, people comment, you know, what are you doing this? Why are you doing this? And, and That one with the shoe. The shoe, yeah.

There's a little bit of mobility work here. I think Alon Galani came here and did that. I don't know if he's this fighter. He also has some amazing mobility and he came in here and did this. I wasn't able to do it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough one. Sheesh. I'm sure mobility and things like that are things you worked on

and I'm sure that through many years of practice of jiu-jitsu and so on. But have you always had some mobility or is that just strictly been something you had to really hone in on and work on? I've got good hips. Naturally good hips through Jiu-Jitsu. Like really bad hamstrings, not great shoulders. Hamstrings kind of tight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the suspicion is that's to do with the lower back injury, that that tightens up the hamstrings a little bit. So yeah, my mobility, this is me just... That looks cool.

It's fun, right? And people see stuff like this and they just go, what the hell are you doing? I'm like, I'm having fun. And that's the thing that people miss out on when they train. Seems to really open up the butthole. I mean, this post blew up and it blew up in a very specific community. Oh, holy crap. Yeah. I'm not going to tell you what community it was,

but this blew up in a very specific community. But yeah, we're just having fun with it. And this is it. If you're not having fun with it. Got a bunch of tops in your comments. And bottoms. Oh man. Well, let me ask you this, man. So, I mean, obviously you have a lot of equipment in your garage, but I think the fun aspect of things is huge. What do you do in your mind to keep your training fun? Do you enjoy your training every single day that you train? Are there days that you just like, how do you feel?

Look, if I'm physically tired, I'm very extroverted. So I, and not in the way that like, you can be very outgoing, but it'd be introverted. When it comes to introversion, introversion, it's about like, do you get energy or do you use energy with people? And I get energy when I'm with people. So I almost need someone training with me, just to, I'm just like a vampire, I'm just absorbing that energy, you know? I need it, I need it. I really struggle to train alone. I've got to go to some dark places if I'm going to get a good workout by myself, but you chuck me in a room with loads of people and the energy go to some dark places if I'm going to get a good workout by myself.

But you chuck me in a room with loads of people and the energy is high, you know, I'm having a good time. So I'm always having fun. And look, I've gone through periods where I couldn't do things and, you know, injuries can be really set you back a lot and people can get very upset about injuries. I've had surgery on both my shoulders for various injuries through Jiu Jitsu. And you got surgeries on both shoulders? Yes. Yeah, I had a labyrinth hair on my right shoulder and then I tore my pec in a tournament actually on my left hand side.

So I've been out a couple of times and for me they're almost blessings in disguise because when you can no longer do something, it makes you appreciate the ability to do something. And both the times that I came out of, you know, once I'd recovered through the process of whatever, three or four or five months till I could go back to doing what I wanted to do, I could never... I don't think I could ever be bored of moving. And it doesn't even matter what it is. Because you don't have that ability forever, you know? Use it whilst you have it.

When I see people who don't do something, and that doesn't, you know? Use it whilst you have it. When I see people who don't do something and that doesn't mean you got to go to a gym and do a bro split or squat bench deadlift, find something that your body likes to do and go do it. And that's why, you know, I do these crazy, you know, what people would consider unorthodox. I always joke about it. I find it's funny because what people call an unorthodox exercise is normal for me. And for me, like a machine, Peck fly is a really unorthodox exercise, right? But like messing around and throwing sandbags or stones around is pretty standard. But people see this stuff and they go, a lot of people go, you know, just squat, just bench, just

deadlift. But do you know what? There's so many people out there who have tried that and they just don't enjoy doing it. Some people don't enjoy going to the gym. That's a 70 pound sword. This is by my friend Raw Form Strength and he just creates a, Sean, he creates these absolutely insane He's like made half of my tools a custom. It's like a sword from Final Fantasy when it comes to like a sandbag or stone

What does the what does the workout? What's a workout look like to progress and get stronger? You know someone go in there and they they pick up, you know and get stronger, you know? Does someone go in there and they pick up, you know, 120 pound stone, like 10 times or a couple sets of three? You're like, how does some of that work? Yeah, it's a really good question. So like progression on stones or sandbags,

look, I don't lift stones super often. I have one stone in my gym and I'll lift that every once in a while to get the feel, especially if I'm going to do a stone tour or something. But most of the time I am training with sandbags. And just look at sandbags as a tool. So like, do you want to do a hinge pattern? It's a pickup.

Do you want to do an explosive pattern? It's a shoulder in. Do you want to do a squat pattern? It's a sandbag squat. Sandbag squat is one of my, like, by far my favorite squat variation. I mean, when I, you've got to be in the right place to do it because that shit's hard. It feels completely different with a squat. The top position is a rest position on a back squat or front squat.

You know, if you need to do breathing squats, for example, where you're resting and you're recovering, the top position is where you rest. Sandbag squats, the opposite. The top position is the hardest position. The bottom position is the easiest one because it's sort of resting on your lower body a little bit. So I love sandbag squats. And then you can, I I mean those are the main exercises, but you can do stuff like pressing and stuff like that. But for me, I just go, okay, I'm, cause I don't just

do crazy exercise. Most of the stuff you see on my Instagram, most of it is accessory work. I'm still doing squat patterns. I'm still doing hinge patterns. I'm still doing vertical and horizontal push and pull, but I might just do my hinge pattern with a sandbag, my squat pattern with a sandbag, my you know, using different equipment for those different movements. It kind of almost intuitively to me feels like you just kind of know when you're done. You know, you do a couple sets of three, a couple sets of five and you're like, oh, I think I'm good or maybe I'm going to go a little heavier for today. Yes and no. I think that you can do that with any tool. For the sandbags, I would use the

sandbags like I use a barbell. So, if I'm training, let's say I'm doing a two or three months cycle on sandbags, I'm going to do my sets to five or six or whatever. You know, you can take a program, a three month squat program, and you can just change barbell for sandbag. And if you're thinking like, how do you change the weight of the sandbags? Well, what I would do is I've got a lot of sandbags, and then if I'm doing sandbag squats, because it doesn't really move that much, I would just put plates on top and duct tape them onto the top. So you'll see videos sort of earlier on my page of me doing sort of, because I had a big jump, I've got a hundred and, I had 140 kilo bag and a 200 kilo bag. So what's that like?

A 200 kilo bag? Oh yeah. Damn. I've squatted it once and it's hard. Cause I mean the big difference between stones and sandbags and barbells and dumbbells is that with barbells and dumbbells, the implement gets heavier not bigger. There's a big difference there. The implement gets heavier but not bigger.

A sandbag gets heavier and bigger. A stone gets heavier and bigger. A stone gets heavier and bigger. So if you were to pack a 400 pound sandbag into a 200 pound sandbag size, it's a lot easier than when you're grabbing a humongous can't reach your arms all around arm span to lift it insanely size bag. But yeah, I would just stack plates on top and duct tape them on there. This is doing some swinging with my shield. That's one of my favorite things that I have. That shield there. That giant shield, what's that thing weigh?

That weighs 45 pounds. There's a cool story. You might be able to see it. There's a Medusa head on that shield. So I saw my, again, same guy, raw form strength, Sean. There's a cool picture of it. And he had a shield and I saw it and I went, I'm going to need me one of those. And I'm a big fan of mythology.

So I've got loads of equipment that's based around mythology. And obviously when I think specifically Greek mythology and when I think shield, I think Athena's shield always has the Gorgon head, the Medusa on it and through the story of Perseus. So that's the shield that I had made. What a bad idea for a soldier to run around with a 45 pound shield. Yeah, well that's definitely not what they would do, but the whole point, you know, Perseus kills Medusa, he cuts off the head, gives it to Athena who's sort of been looking out

for him, she puts it on a shield and then that strikes terror into the enemy as they go into battle. But yeah, they wouldn't use shields that were 45 pounds. I tell you what, I reckon I could, I reckon that's probably bulletproof, that shield. That thing is thick. It is thick. Matthew Asprey When you're doing some of the stones, like some of the stuff that you looked like you were doing in some other countries and stuff, it looks a little different than strongman stuff. It looks a little different than strongman stuff. I don't really see any like chalk and

tacky and are you still, do you still utilize that stuff or... Great question. Do you train it a little differently? That's an important question actually, you know, because when we talk about, you know, I've talked about lifting historical stones and going and lifting stones in the world and you know, I love to try and spread the word of that and spread the culture and stuff like that. But these are artifacts. Make no mistake about it. You know, there are some rules that you have when it comes to lifting historical stones.

If you've got an Atlas stone in your gym, do whatever the hell you want with it. Chuck it up, throw it on the floor, cover it in tacky, have a good time. Do not go to Scotland, to Iceland, to anywhere and go and do that to historical stones. Tacky is a big no-no. Chalk's absolutely fine. You can chalk up no problem because that's just going to wash away. Tacky on a stone is like shoes on the map for jiu-jitsu. It's a big no-no and do not drop them. This is a big thing. People get excited. You know, one of the nice things to see when people lift stones, it's not actually about... For me, the lifting of the stone is not a physical feat. It's a journey. It's a pilgrimage to go to the stone. If you're going to visit a historical stone, learn about

it, you know, because without that, what's the point? You might as well just lift a stone at home. Get the context of it, get the history, understand it, visit the stone, show respect to the stone. It's not about how you lift it, it's about how you put it down. Put it down gently. When you see people, especially if they try and press it, or if they try to shoulder it and then they just drop it to the floor. There's nothing worse. Has anyone ever like broke a wall? Oh yeah, yeah. We've got broken stones.

The Wallace Putten stone was broken a few years back and there's other stones that have been chipped apart. And you know, you're talking about hundreds of years of history gone in a second if someone mistreats a stone. So, you know, even with me, I try to put them down very gentle. But every time your butthole just squeezes just a little bit when you're worried that it might break and you're happy that it doesn't. All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So, how are you doing it?

I got a secret, man. It's called good life protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some good life protein. You know, we've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef, and you can get that under the umbrella some good life protein. We've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef. And you can get that under the umbrella of good life proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops,

all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of. Lamb is another one that comes to mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy, kind. Lamb is another one that comes to mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat.

And that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20 grass-fed grass-finished ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that.

And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why like neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating and protein, you talk about protein leverage all the time. It's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal and I can surf and turf.

You know, I could cook up some, you know, chicken thighs or every meal, and I can surf and turf. I could cook up some chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it, or I could have some steak. I would say the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorites, so it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bavette steaks, and I also love the rib eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib eyes.

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This is the best meat in the world. Yeah. What are some stones that like you have yet to go, like you're really excited to go try to check it out. Head up. Yeah. So the Icelandic stones. I haven't been to Iceland.

People keep on asking me, you know, I travel around a lot and they're like, you know, you'd love Iceland, go to Iceland. And I answer with one of the strangest responses you can when someone says you should go to a country. They go, you should go to Iceland, it's a beautiful country. And I go, I'm not strong enough yet. You know, I'm not, they go, what are you talking about? I go, I'm not strong enough to go to Iceland yet because the Icelandic stones are heavy. They're super heavy.

So they've got some really cool stones out there that the Husafell stone is the most famous lifting stone in the world. How heavy is that? The Husserfeld stone is the most famous lifting stone in the world. That's a hundred and sixty, a hundred eighty six kilos, which would be three hundred and no maybe four hundred pounds. I think it's four hundred pounds, just over like four hundred and five pounds or something. And and and it's an interesting shape. It doesn't look like it's four hundred and something pounds. It looks way, way smaller. And the test to be full

sturka to really dominate the Husserfell is to... The story of the Husserfell is that it was a gate for a goat pen. Okay? So if you go to Husserfell and you visit it, you will see it sitting by this low walled stone structure. And the story was that they needed a gate for the goat pen and the farmer sends out his kids and his daughter comes back with the Husser fell on her shoulder and is like, Dad, does this one work? And he goes, Yeah, I think that one works and she tops it down in front. So some giant super strong woman, you know, they don't build them like that anymore. Proper Viking woman. And so yeah, so when you go to do the Husafell, you lift it, and to be full-stuck, you carry it around the pen. That's the real... So I could probably lift, I have a stone trainer.

I've lifted the 400 pounds, but walking, you know, you don't know what the weather's going to be like, you don't know how slippery it's going to be. Walking that stone around the pen is a very different story. Stone trainer as in like an adjustable type of... That's right. A metal one, yeah. I've got a metal one, yeah. They make them so you just...

The Husafel is like a coffin shape. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So if you ever see like a sandbag Cerberus Strength does a Husafel sandbag. If you ever see anything that's like a flat coffin shape, that's training for the Husafel that you see here. Okay.

That makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah, it has an interesting shape to it. It's like a... Well, it's less of a coffin, it's like a heart shape. And then I've seen some like replicas of it that are just made out of like metal, for people can train in it, and then they train with it, and then it also I think they're like hollowed out and you can put like weight in it and stuff like that, right? Yeah, that's what mine was like. Unless you're like Rogue, who went to Hussuf El when 3D scanned it and then had a master

mason recreate an exact replica they use in tournaments, which is just like the coolest thing in the world. It's so interesting the way that when you pick up these heavy implements, the way that it makes you, excuse me, the way that it makes you walk. Yes. You know, you have to take these kind of wide, kind of waddily steps. Oh yeah, yeah. And the back, you know, the engagement that you need to not have that slip away from you

is just insane. And there's a load of stones like that in Iceland. There's a cool one. There's a story of this stone where this farmer, he wasn't doing so well and he wished for success and he wished for prosperity and the devil comes up and he says, oh, I'll give you all of this if you can lift that stone. And if you can't lift that stone, your soul is mine. And the farmer is a big strong guy and he sees the stone, he goes, I'm pretty strong, I can do that. So he goes to lift the stone. But of course the devil is the devil. So he's secretly holding it from underneath. He can't lift the stone and then the soul

is gone in hell forever. And the priest hears about this and thinks this is completely out of order from the devil as always. And he goes to talk to him and they make a deal. If the stone gets carried around his grave a hundred times, then he'll release him up to heaven. So people fly over there in Iceland to carry the stone around the grave to help free the farmer from hell, which is a pretty cool story. It is.

I want to ask you this. Yeah. I know we're going to probably move on to some other stuff, but when it comes to stone and sandbag lifting, outside of it being super helpful for your back, because some people might be like, okay, well helpful for the back. What else? Why is this different from me lifting a barbell of the same weight or a little bit heavier? What else is good for you?

Oh, you know, the back thing is something that was specific for me. That, you know, it held my back. I don't know if it's going to help everyone's back. I've heard other stories of it helping their back, but it held my back. But in terms of the strength that you build with a sandbag, now I'm a grappler, right? But that is a different kind of strength. And there's a lot of people out there who listen, they'll go, there's no such thing as different kinds of strength. I'm like, okay, lift a sandbag for a couple of months.

Just trust me, just like you've been lifting a barbell for 15 years, just do some sandbag squats, carries, pickups, come to me in a few months, tell me there's not different types of strength. And for Jiu Jitsu, it's even for grappling, general wrestling, MMA, anything, it's this full body compression around something. There are so few implements that train that, you know? And that is why, if you have someone who has been grappling a long time, they have a unique strength about them. And it's not just the timing and the precision and all of the technical stuff. There is a physical strength for this internal compressive strength,

which you just, yes, you can do flies, you can do pulls, like you're going to get strong in all of the right muscles, but sort of when you lift a sandbag, they work together. So like the strength that you build from doing sandbag stuff, you know, big, I like the heavy sandbag squats and pickups and stuff like that. And, but really the main one is big, big, I mean, this is just a sort of montage of me screwing around with all the different exercises you can do. In your underpants. Sometimes in my underpants, yeah.

Sometimes it's hot. Sometimes it's hot. The jorts, yeah. Yeah, my faux denim hot pads. No, man. I actually just want to just echo your statement to a fuller degree. Like progressing with sandbags, when I started with them, I was surprised at how weak I was. Because I was like, I've deadlifted and squatted so much weight,

I've lifted heavy objects in a sandbag. A 100-pound, 150-pound sandbag is this heavy? But you don't expect it to be, right? But developing that strength, it's just totally changed how confident I feel, moving rapidly with another person's weight. Like there's less inhibition. 100%. That makes sense. Yeah. And you can lose it fast.

If I don't lift the sandbag for a while, they humble me every time, you know? You train with a sandbag for a year and you take six months off, you don't pick up where you left off. I'm never going to take that time off. You know? Because sometimes I won't, or even for me, like I focus a lot on, let's say I do two or three months on sandbag squats and then I take and then I move on to Zurcher squats or front squats or back squats or something for a little while and

Then the sandbags are looking at me and they're saying, you know, it's my time again The first time you put your hands in them, it feels a little different Has anybody Like when you grapple with people they kind of notice something different about your particular strength maybe over another individual? Look, it's hard to say. There's many variables. You know, people think that I'm strong when I grapple, but you know... A lot of it's technique too.

And lots of people are strong when they grapple. You know, this isn't to say that you can't get strong for grappling without sandbags. I just think that it's such easy... It's low hanging fruit for me, you know? It's cheap. You know, how much does a 200 pound of metal plates cost? You know, a lot of money. You buy a bag for like 60, 70 bucks and then you fill it with sand from the beach if you

have to. And you got a weight there. And you don't have to do squats and pickups and shoulder and just carry it hold it like Interact with the sandbag and it will start to work your body in just a unique way You know carries is a is another thing that a lot of people don't do but loaded carries be that farmers walks or search It carries or or sandbag carries or whatever you want to do wheelbarrow anything It is a really good exercise Do you ever do it for time?

Do you try to pick it up in as many reps as you can in 30 seconds or something like that? Yep, absolutely. Yeah, you can do it, you know, pick ups or shoulder in. I mean, one of the, every once in a while we do, maybe you guys do it, every once in a while you do something stupid in the gym. Okay? And like on purpose stupid. You know, like recently, last month, after Christmas, we had a load of people around

to do some training and my brother-in-law had a really great idea that after we'd done some heavy zurcher squats and we're all fueled by mince pies and you know, chocolate and cake and stuff, so we're all feeling pretty strong. You said choc-foot? What's that? You said choc-foot? Choc-foot? What? You said, foot? Chalk foot? What you said? Okay, I missed a word.

The accent, I'm sorry. Chocolate. Chocolate. You're so close. You're so close and similar. But you're fueled with all of this horrible Christmas food. So we're all feeling strong. And we do this big zuchwa workout.

And then my brother-in-law has this brilliant idea of doing, let's get in a circle and do as many squats, body weight squats we can, last man standing. And me and my brother-in-law has this brilliant idea of doing, let's get in a circle and do as many squats, bodyweight squats we can, last man standing. And me and my brother-in-law, he's an ex-professional rugby player, he's a bit of a beast and he's always trying to beat me in the gym, you know? He keeps me on my toes, he's always trying to beat me. And he does a lot of cycling, a lot of running, I don't do any of that. So he's got the leg endurance, so I think he thinks that he's found something. And we all get in a circle and we just all at the same time, down, up, down, up, till

last man standing. Nine and a half minutes later, I couldn't walk for like five days, it took me a week to recover. So every once in a while we do something really stupid. I digress. The stupid thing that we like to do about once every six months or so with the sandbags is that we will, there'll be three or four of us and we set up a bar in the rack and we lift the sandbag over the bar to the other side and then the other person lifts it back and we're in a conveyor belt.

So like you lift and then you walk around and then you and they lift and you keep going until last man standing. Okay. So basically when I say do a stupid thing, it's be really competitive for a really long time until you're the last man standing. And the bag that we usually use is the 60, I think we've done it with the 90, which would be like 200 pounds, but I think we do it with the 90, which is like 200 pounds. We might do it with the slightly lower one.

And we go nonstop for like 30-40 minutes. So we're doing like 150-200 reps lifting the sandbag over. And that sort of workout is sort of... You don't do that every week. That's not fun. That's not something that's sustainable. But every once in a while, you just got to get into the fire. Do you do any traditional lifts or have you gone back to some traditional lifts and noticed

like you said you tweak something doing like a bent over row with the grip training and some of the lower back training that you've been doing with the sandbags and so forth. Have you noticed quite a big increase in strength? Do you know what? Strength is such an interesting quality to try and quantify, right? Ten years ago, I've been a massive fan of yours for a long time. I've followed you through the powerlifting days. I watched Bigger, Stronger, Faster when it came out.

My training looked like a powerlifter for a little while and then a like sort of a traditional strongman, you know, like a competition strongman. My back was fucked so I couldn't do any tournaments, but I was pretty good at other stuff. I could do decent, half decent log for my weight. I could do okay stones for my weight. I just couldn't, I could add a decent squat. I just couldn't deadlift. And during that time, if you ask me what is strength? I would tell you very simple.

What do you bench? What do you squat? What do you deadlift? I believed that for a really long time. And that changed massively over the last 10 years. And that would be strength for a powerlifter. And period. You know?

Right. And a really good example, and a lot of people will say, no, a bench press or a squat or a deadlift is a good, is like the, these are the three perfect examples of how you test strength. But then you say, and Seema's got a wicked deadlift and the first time he picks up a sandbag, he can't do the 200 pounds. And you go, okay, well, is he strong or not? So like the question that there is no, do you feel stronger? I felt stronger back then doing bench squat and deadlift, well, not deadlift, but I felt

really strong doing bench and squat. I can't do that like I used to. Because your skill and proficiency at that, at the time was higher because you did it more often. Exactly. I was stronger at those lifts. I was more skilled in those lifts. I was more, I had the feeling of those lifts.

Whereas now I can't do those lifts like I used to, but would I say that I'm stronger today? Yes. Because my perception of strength is different from yours, from yours, from everyone's. It's really down to the individual. What do you feel is strength? Yeah. And then in terms of competition, like when you're, I guess, when you're doing jiu-jitsu

or when you're doing things maybe outside the gym, have you noticed like improvements in the strength of your hamstrings when you're sprinting or maybe less injury prone when you're doing jiu-jitsu and stuff like that? Well, I can't run, Marc. So I don't know about the sprinting thing. The mats, the jiu-jitsu mats aren't that long. You don't need to, you know, but scooting across them doesn't take too much time. No, yeah, in terms of sort of just doing general things, look, injuries are a big part of jujitsu. And I think statistically, the best thing you can do to mitigate injuries is to do some form of strength training. The mistake that people make is they are not smart about their strength training.

I mean, there's like one rule for me when it comes to strength training for a sport. Don't get hurt doing the thing you're doing to not get hurt in the sport. Would you say that you like lifting more than you like jiu-jitsu though for you? Or is it about the same? If you asked me a little while ago, I would tell you if I stopped training jujitsu, I'd have no reason to lift weights. That's not the case anymore. And for me, this was like even getting into strength training was a calculated decision

beyond just getting stronger for the sport. I'm like, you can't... Some people can just love jujitsu. Okay? Some people, the Miao brothers, they asked them one time, what do you do when you're not doing jujitsu? They just went, we don't. Like, that's all we do. And I respect them. I do. That's not my personality. I get super interested in other stuff. I'm like, that's why I've got to be careful what I take an interest in because I'll just dive down that hole. And you've got to be careful about getting too generalist. Like, I know a little bit about everything, but you spend no time, you know.

Monday's the dance class and Tuesday's capoeira and Wednesday I go sprinting and Thursday I do jiu-jitsu. Like, you know, there's some merit to that. But I love jujitsu and ultimately that's the lens in which I look at strength training through. But when I was like in my late teens, I thought I need a hobby outside of jujitsu where I can sort of take my mind off jujitsu. And if the hobby is related to jujitsu, that's a bonus, right? So for me, strength training was a hobby that I could... This is what ZAMAC trained, it allows you to pick people up, right? For me, strength training was a hobby that I could do alongside Jiu-Jitsu that helped my Jiu-Jitsu. But in terms of which one I

like more, if you told me you could never roll or you could never lift, I'm going to... I want to roll. I want to roll. You said you want to roll. I do want to roll. Yeah. If you had to try and take one from me. But that kind of doesn't work because if you can roll, you can definitely do some form of lifting. What about some other types of training that you've gotten into? So we talked a lot about the grip, we talked a lot about the sandbags and stuff like that.

What about like training the feet, training the neck, training the teeth? Have you gotten into some of those things too? I've got a collection of Macy's. Yeah, yeah. I've been into Macy's for a while. We've been playing with some Maces earlier. I like it. There you go, some teeth training. I just bought that thing, by the way. That'll be in the mail soon. So I was like the second person to get that. What is it?

Yeah, it's a tooth... A bite training, you know, to lift with your teeth. The gold grill. We should shout him out. What's his page name? Death grip... Death grip strength, I want to say. It's like, almost like a mouthpiece, huh? It's a mouthpiece. So it comes actually from... There was an ad and then... Why'd you put goggles on? This is just me... So basically, I did it and then people would comment.

So, if you go down a little bit, the first video of me lifting with my teeth, which is... Probably a little bit further up. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, good now. That one. Isn't that one there? This one's the first one of me lifting with my teeth, I think. And, you know, I put this thing in my mouth, I've got a kettlebell on, I'm like, screw it, get a weight around the head harness and do some pull ups. Especially the weights on the forearms are the big ones.

And people started commenting stuff like, okay, but you're not training your ears. So then the next video, I put some weights on my ears. And then they go, you're not training your eyes. So I put some weights on my eyes. And then the best one, if you go up a little bit, someone said something really specific. They said, because I was tearing cards, they said, can you do it hanging upside down in a crunch with your hands behind your back. And I just thought, well, I've got to try.

I've got to try, right? So if you go up a little bit more, where is it? Oh, no, maybe down a little bit. I don't know. It's there somewhere. It's around there. That one's me. There you go.

The ears. There's some plates hanging from the ears. That one's me. There you go. The ears. There's some plates hanging from the ears. That was as painful as it looks, by the way. Some ear training. Some ear training, yeah. And you're ripping a deck of cards. Ripping a deck of cards, yeah. Death grip strength. Yes.

That's the page, guys. Yeah, so the first guy, so Matt Jones, who's a really, really strong stone lifter in the UK, and a very strong lifter in general, there's an ad in an old, like an old Strongman magazine for a tooth, you know, a bite trainer. And he basically took it to Deathgrip and said, can you make a replica of this? And he made the replica, I saw it and I've wanted one of these for ages and I had him make it straight away.

And then I posted a load of it and it kind of blew up and he's making dozens of them now. So I mean David Weck's walking around with it in his pocket. You just, you know, you'll be sitting and he's just pulling on this, on this bike trainer. So it's really, really cool to see. And what do you feel when you train, when you do some of that? I just do it for fun, you know, but, but bike training is not a new thing. It's very, very common. There is supposedly a connection between bite strength and neck strength,

and like your jaw strength has a potential connection to being able to take a punch. Now, I don't do any striking, but like I used to train strength conditioning with Dillion White, who's like a high level professional boxer, and when we would do our neck work, I would have my head harness on and he would just have a towel in the mouth. I'm like, Dylan, what are you doing? He's like, got a shrimp from the jaw. So you know, it's been around for a while and I usually just chuck a towel in there,

but when I saw this beautiful leather thing, I was like, I have to get me one of those. Yeah. So how about maces? Like what got you into that? Because you have a hell of a collection of bat hammers, etc. Well, hammers and maces are kind of different things a little bit, but I counted 32 hammers in my garage the last time I counted, and I've got a lot of maces and clubs and stuff. And by the way, cool question about the hammers, you don't use them all as tools.

Some of those are just for working out, or do you actually use them to actually... Well, if I ever need to hit something with a hammer, I'm well, you know, I'm ready. I'm prepared if I do need to hit something with a hammer, but most, but they are all in there for training. Like I was saying, you know, we were chatting earlier about clubs and stuff. I'm just very, I go too deep into it. So I'm like, this hammer is too, the handle is this thickness and therefore it's only good for this thing I need another one that's thinner. I need a hammer. That's a little bit shorter I need a hammer. That's a little bit longer. I need a hammer that has marks on it

I need a hammer that you know I just need a I just a very high maintenance essentially this this mace is super cool. So I got a message from a guy Glyn forge, Glyn Forge in, Glyn Forge, I think, down in the south of England, and he messaged me and he said, can I make you a hammer? Can I forge you a hammer? And I said, that's the best message anyone's ever sent me. Yes, can you forge me a hammer? He messaged me like a week later, he says, your hammer's ready, where should I send it to? And I said, don't send it to me. I want to come down, I'd love to see the forge. He's got like an old style forge. There's been a forge in this place for like 500 years or something. So anyway, we end up going there and I say, you

know, can I hit some metal with it? And he goes, and I was just expecting to come in and hit up a piece of metal and me hit it in a little bit. And he goes, no, I think we can make a club. And I'm like, well, that's the coolest thing I've ever heard. And we spend the day in the forge, me messing it up and him fixing it until we come out with this, with this club. And when he, when he had the idea, I just thought it's probably not going to feel great to train with, but it's just going to be a cool tool to own. And the gods were with us. Hephaestus himself was guiding his hand, it seems, because when we finished this piece and I held it, it was just the nicest feeling club I've ever felt.

If I had to run into battle with any tool, that's the one, because that will hurt if you hit someone with it as well. What do you do with the hammers? Are the hammers more of like a shorter device versus the mace? I've got short hammers, I've got long hammers, and I've got pretty much everything in between. A big inspiration of mine when it comes to... This is a video of me forging this club. This is like one of the best days I ever had. It was so cool.

Yeah, when it comes to the hammers, I mean, you ever heard of Slim the Hammer Man? He passed away a couple of years ago, but he was like a legendary figure in the strength training world. And he would do lots of leverage stuff. We're talking about wrist training, you know, grip training. He'd do lots of leverage stuff and he was a big inspiration and there's so much that you can do with him. This is the hammer that was forged for me, which is super cool. I call this the test of the blacksmith. Just an exercise that I came out with is training resistance to deviation and is surprisingly difficult.

And funnily enough, actually, I've been calling it Tester the Blacksmith for like five years and finally I met a blacksmith, so I tested and won it, obviously, I finally got round to it. But yeah, the hammers, you train for different things. Mainly it's all wrist and leverage stuff and I have some short ones, I do some movements here, I do long ones and pretty much everything in between.

Let me ask, so as you started doing a lot of that because I started working on that with that club out there, what are you noticing when you're doing that leveraged work? What type of progress have you made with that? From doing maces? The maces and doing leverage work with that. Or do you only do leverage work with hammers? You can do leverage work with Maces, but I tend to do it with hammers. I just love hammers. I mean, I'm just a weird person who loves...

But it's built on something. Well, I just like holding them. I just like them in my hand. I don't know. They're hammers. They're cool. For me, it's the whole symbol of the hammer is like a beautiful thing, right? Because a hammer, you can kill someone with it, you know?

They're weapons. And you can build stuff, right? You can do both things. That's like life, right? That's jujitsu. You can hurt someone. You can hurt someone. You got me talking about hammers, I'm going to get excited, right? Don't got me talking about hammers. I'm gonna get excited, right? Don't

talk to me about hammers. No, but that's jujitsu, isn't it? That's life. You can do good or you can do bad and the hammer is that. And a little bit of me thinks about that every time I hold it. But you know, anything, like when you gave me that club out there, there's a tactile, there's a feel to it that feels good or feels bad. And I just like to have it in the hand. I mean, the wrist strength from the leverage work I've done with hammers is massive. I don't think that clubs build wrist strength in the same way, if that's your question.

There's different ways that you can use clubs and maces. There's different types of clubs and maces. So for example, this is a... this is, can they always see this? Is this on the video? This is a flame. This is a skull with three points of fire on a mace that we were swinging, which is, I mean you can get sort of out of hand with these. Makes it more fun.

Yeah, it makes it terrifying. Because the sound, have you ever done any, I know this isn't probably the most bizarre question You've ever been asked you ever done any fire mace stuff That's not actually oddly not a bizarre question because I've seen more people do it, but no I have not Okay. Well, well what you don't sort of get from this is Fire when it's burning like that and you swing it it makes a sound it makes a sound like a lightsaber. It's like And you feel the heat when you're swinging it. So like, it's not just the... There's like a real experience when you're doing that.

Which is a lot of fun. But yeah, so to go back to your question, so I try to talk and then I'm just like, oh, that's me doing something strange. More fire clubs. So to go back to your question of wrist strength and maces and clubs. You can train with maces and clubs in a way where it's very efficient, right? So you'll do club swinging where you're holding with two fingers and it's just very flowing and it's very gentle if you're doing normal, you know, mace stuff. People grip onto it too much.

So that stuff isn't going to build much forearm strength. It's going to build a little bit, especially if it's heavy. If you do heavy, you know, you can get big forearms from, you know, you can get very strong grip from training with maces and clubs. But then you get a mace or club designed for that. So for example, one of the tools that I had made was, do you know the Great Gamma? He's a very famous wrestler. If you see him, he's got, you know, big jacked Indian guy with this really cool mustache.

And he was like this legend. He's one of the humans in real life that blurs the gap. There he is. You probably see in this image. He blurs the gap between myth and reality because he is like a mythical creature, but he was a real person and he's big and jacked and they say stories about what he ate. They list it and I could calculate it's like 30,000 calories a day and his exercise routine would have taken you like 43 hours to do, but he does it every day. I mean, I don't believe any of that stuff to be frank with you, but what is for sure, super strong and an incredible wrestler. And that image, they would give out these gutters, these maces, these huge maces as prizes for winning these tournaments.

But I saw that mace in particular that we're on now and I sent it to my guy, I sent it to Sean, a raw form and I said, make me this. I want this. Just the thickness of that handle is so insane. So he made me this mace. And now when you train with that, that's a 60 mil, that's like a two and a half inch handle. You're training your grip and your wrist every time you do anything with it because you have to. The club that I had made recently, which is another one that I had custom made and it is my favorite tool. You'll see a video, a few videos of

me posting about this bronze club that I had made. I think I was telling you about the other day in SEMA, but there's a, like I said, Marc, a lot of my tools are based off of mythology and there's a few club wielders in Greek mythology. One of them is Heracles and I have a wooden olive wood club modeled off of sort of statues and paintings after that. And there's another club, which is a club that Theseus has. And the story is that Theseus, who's a great hero, sort of his first start of his journey, he runs into this giant called Periphetes, the club bearer. He was a lame, you know, disabled son of Hephaestus and he carried this big bronze club that he sort of used as a walking

stick that he would also rob and beat to death travelers. And Theseus meets him, you know, Periphetes tries to rob him and he basically tricks him into giving him his club. He says, that doesn't look like bronze to me, that looks like it's, you know, light, you're not strong enough to wield a bronze club. And he goes, want a bet? And he gives it to him and of course, Theseus kills him with it and decides to keep the club just like his cousin Heracles and I just loved the story so much and I thought, can

I get a solid bronze club made? And this was like a dream I had a long, long time ago and at some point last year, I thought, you know what, I'm going to go for it. So I found a company that casts, it's called Killer Strength Kettlebells, I want to say, or something like that, but they make the funky looking like the predator and the shaped kettlebells. And I messaged them, I said, can you cast me a custom club? And they said yes. So I had a wooden blank made, this is me telling

the story, had the wooden blank made, I sent it to them and they said they can make it out of steel, it would be a lot cheaper, or they can make it out of bronze and I said it's got to be bronze, it's got to be in line with the source material and they made me this club and honestly it's 45 pounds that bronze club and it's thick and it tapers out. And when I first got it, I felt it and I thought, this might just go on the shelf, you know, this might go on the mantelpiece and I might not be able to do anything with it, but this has become within days, this is now my favorite item that I own. And I feel like I've already said too much because people comment on all

of these posts, where do I get one? And I am really open with all of the equipment that I have. I link the stuff. I want these other companies to do well out of, you know, people seeing my stuff. Apart from this one, just let me keep, just let me be the guy who has this thing. Don't try and... I went through all of this effort of like sourcing the guy to make the wooden one and I sending it to this company and all of this stuff and then you're going to swoop in and... It's so cool. Yeah, I know, but I don't want anyone else to have it, you know, just take anything else. I see it and I want it. I want one.

If you felt that you would, I almost, I looked and I thought, I mean, there's no weight limit on hand luggage. So technically I could bring this to America, I could just carry it on the plane with me and I thought that would probably not be a very smart idea, but part of me wishes I did. The Iron Shake, you know, back in the day, he used to swing around those clubs all the time. And I remember like he would have challenges where like, you know, you'd have some other wrestler like try to do it and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly.

It's a couple of images of him. Oh, but the Iranian style of... People have been utilizing this stuff for a long time to build strength, right? Very long time. And it's all based around, especially the Iranian style with the mills, it's based around being able to wield your sword. You know? It's strengthening up. And I think I was talking to you again the other day about them throwing them, you know? You have guys who will throw 20-30 pound clubs in the air and I don't mean they're tossing

them turning once and catching them. I mean they are launching these things 10 meters in the air and catching them. Because like that was the ultimate display of control over your weapon. It's the same way that your military guys in the US, you do your gun, you know, you fling it in the air, they catch it. Why are they doing that? They're not doing, you know, you don't learn all of that, you know, the gun throwing and catching stuff because it looks cool.

It means if you do that, you are ready to use that weapon whenever you need to. You are in complete sort of harmony with that weapon. So they would throw, that's why I like throwing the RMT club. I like throwing, because it's plastic, I don't mind. I don't want to throw any of my wooden or metal clubs, especially my little garage. But yeah, throwing that plastic one, I like plastic one I like to, it brings another element of it. So Mark, you have been loving wearing these Paloovas for a long time. Why is it that you

like these shoes that look like this? I'm trying to get my feet to be jacked. I think it's funny how sometimes people will, when I wear these shoes, they're like, oh, those are different. And I'm like, well, maybe you should blame God because this is the human foot. This is the way that it looks. But Paluvas are awesome because it's gonna allow you to train your feet and train your toes and allow for that toe spread because you got the five finger toe thing going on.

It's like a, like put on a glove for your feet. It feels amazing. It's like walking around with toe spacers. You know, we've been working on our feet for a long time now. You always hear the benefit of people talking about like these tribes who have gone without shoes forever and they have this toe space and have these amazing feet and these shoes will allow you to just passively get that back by walking around. You don't realize what a disadvantage you're at when your foot is

all clumped together from the football cleats or soccer cleats or whatever else you were wearing when you were young and so it's nice to be able to splay your toes. In addition to that though, one thing I love about Paloova is the fact that it's not a regular barefoot shoe. I do love barefoot shoes as well, but it also has appropriate padding. And when you're stepping on some crazy pebbles and rocks and different things, like when I'm out on a run,

some terrain is a little different than others. I don't have to be worried that I'm gonna get some sort of stabbing, crazy thing happening to my foot because it has an appropriate amount of cushion underneath the foot. And guys, Paloova has a lot of different styles on their website. I think one of the newest styles they just came out with, which is a little bit more of a rigorous do is the strand ATR. It's not these. These are the strands, but the ATRs have a little bit more. If you wanna go hiking with them, you totally can. Those are amazing. If you go out, throw those on and go sprint on a field and your feet feel so strong, grabbing the grass and being able to actually grab the ground

with your foot feels amazing. I'm more of a chill guy with my Paloova, so I like the Zen slip ons, but that's the thing. With Paloova, there's a lot of different options. So if you head to paloova.com and use code powerproject, you'll be able to save 15% off your entire purchase. And they also have toe socks. They're five feet of toe socks are no show. So check those out too.

Yeah. And if you like, uh, like mythological stuff, you would definitely love Iceland. Yes. Um, they just, I'm not strong enough yet, Mark. The way that they tell stories there, there's iron shake waving those things around. But the way that they tell stories there is super interesting because like they, I think they want to believe it's true. Like I don't think that they believe it's true. I think they want to believe it's true and they make it fun for you when they explain

some of these stories and they talk about the different stones that are lifted and everything. So you, I mean, you would just... Yeah, but the thing is, it doesn't have to be true to be true, right? Right. Because like there's the reason for a story isn't... There's a lot more depth to a story than what they're trying to say in the story. You know, why do we still know about Heracles and Theseus or Gilgamesh? Some of these stories just give you hope. That's all it's about.

It's deep. I'm not going to go into, I mean, that's an even bigger conversation than Hammers, believe it or not, but like, you know, myth is something that interests me a lot, but there's far more depth on that. You know, myth is a way of connecting humans to nature and to our consciousness. There's like, you can read a story from 2000 years ago and you can see the lessons, you can see the allegories, you can see the human condition hasn't changed

throughout culture, throughout time, throughout before smartphones and TVs and corporations. There's still a connection there, you know? Anyway, I don't care. Do you think some of this stuff like swinging around a hammer and swinging around a mace and so forth, do you think some of this stuff like swinging around a hammer and swinging around a mace and so forth, do you think some of these things are just ways of exhibiting primal instincts of a human body,

like a way to almost like, I guess you'd say, like prepare for war in some way, or because you're really, if you look at it and you kind of break it all down, you're just, you're trying to exercise and move your body around in as many different ways as you can kind of think of. And then these tools sort of allow us to maybe mimic some of that. Yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean, there's so much about this. One, like I was saying earlier, so many people, they just, I believe that everyone should have some sort of movement practice where they're getting stronger. I really do believe that. I think like part of my, you know, not to get cheesy with it, but like part of what I'm doing on the earth is to try and just get a few more people exercising and it, and more importantly, it doesn't have to be in a gym. It doesn't have to be with a barbell. It doesn't have to be with a rope or a sandbag or like anything I've ever done. They've just got to fight. It doesn't have to be with a rope or a sandbag or like anything I've ever done. They've just got to fight. It doesn't even have to be strength training. Like just move

your body, do something because not only is it, why wouldn't you? Like we can do it. It's beautiful. Like the ability for the body to adapt to the stimulus you put it through is the most incredible thing about the human body. And the most incredible thing about the human mind is its ability to adapt to information you give it. You can learn things, you can learn languages, you can learn how to get better at chess, you can learn how to be awesome at whatever, right? Like why wouldn't you do that? And a lot of people don't because there's people going around that's like, if you want

to exercise, it looks like this. And what I try to tell the people, it doesn't have to. It can be anything you want it to be. You know, from walking to dance to juggling to doing crazy kettlebells or lifting stones or grappling or whatever you want to do, just do something. So yeah, when it comes to clubs, maybe it's swinging clubs. You see people who are like, there's a club swinging community. Most of these people are people who got completely disenfranchised with the idea of exercise. It's like a dirty word for them, but someone showed them a club and they were just like,

well, this is fun. I can do it outside. Community. Like what's one of the most important things? Like I said, I'm extroverted. I can't do jiu-jitsu by myself and I can't really lift by myself. So like for me, all of these movement practices are part of a community as well. You know, road flow. Like what David's done with the road flow internationally,

where you've got people who are creating big meetups and communities and be there online, be there in person. That's really important. It's why I love Jiu-Jitsu, because you can't do it by yourself. You know, even when it comes to going to the gym, if you don't like going to the gym, I can pretty much guarantee if you find two if you don't like going to the gym, I can pretty much guarantee if you find two or three friends that like going with you, you're going to like going to the gym. So that's a big aspect of it as well. But yeah, I mean there's other stuff when you're talking about sort of primal reasons for swinging clubs around. I made a video a little while ago. I was talking about, there was like some science that came out that holding a gun increases

your testosterone, right? Which is super interesting. And so for a while in my gym, I had like a little pistol, like a little toy pistol, that would just lay around. And we'd just go and like hang it or stick it in your pants and hold it to increase our testosterone. I mean, not very seriously, but sort of as a joke. There you go. And my question with this was the reason why guns increase testosterone. I mean, the theory anyway is like they're weapons, you know? So does training with weapon-like tools have a similar effect?

So I said in this video, if anyone wants to fund a study by me, do Macy's or like, I've got big metal swords. The Americans were so upset with me because I had my finger on the trigger in a room where no one was there and there was nothing in the gun. But anyways, trigger discipline is important people. We don't have guns in the gum, but anyways, trigger discipline is important people. We don't have guns in the UK. But yeah, so my question is like just training with big metal swords or, you know, you've got Ashman Athletics with his big... He's building a community about swinging giant wooden swords around, like I love to see that shit. Does that increase testosterone as well? I don't know.

It's probably good for you either way. Why not? They're doing nothing, right? And that's the alternative for a lot of people. They're not doing something, they're doing nothing. They're like doom scrolling or they're watching the temp season of some reality TV show. Yeah. I got a suggestion for you. Hit me. You ever thought of going into some schools and teaching some of these things? What sort of things? Like as in... Some of what you're doing with these

sort of things, like as in some of what you're doing with these maces and hammers and like I think that this would be like really cool for young kids to see these options and then I don't even, maybe they wouldn't even like, might not even register with them that it's like training or exercise. Yeah, I mean, this was something that... You got a lot of charisma. I can picture like, imagine if he came into your school when you're like 10 years old and he's like, hey, let's swing these things around. This one's eight pounds or whatever. I'd be like, this is awesome. This is cool. Yeah. Start hammering everybody

in class. He said we can kill people with it. No, you know what? I'd love to eventually. For me, I'm a Jiu-Jitsu guy. That's what I do. I teach Jiu-Jitsu. I'm only... Enoch- Choking people. Jason- Yeah, I'm choking people. And I think that's like an important movement practice as well. And that is what I love. I'm super passionate about teaching. But I've just started, I taught the first grip training sort of seminar, a camp in Jiu-Jitsu and yoga camp I did in Majorca. And I was like, you know what? This is kind of fun. So I'm thinking about maybe branching out and teaching some other stuff, but there

are great people out there. There are people who are way better at Maces than I am. Like I'm not an awesome Mace guy. There are people who are much more skilled, but you know, you've got the flowing Dutchman. He's sort of one of the main guys out there. Harbert, who's a big proponent and he travels to India and he trains with the guys, it's super cool. But I mean, talking about the club stuff in schools, it was a common practice in the early 20th century, you know, in the 1900s, especially in Britain, because, you know, we colonized India, we took pretty much all their stuff, including the tea and also the culture of Indian clubs. And we changed them a little bit. They're a lot lighter than most of the stuff that you'll see in India these days. But we took influence from the Indian clubs and the army

were using them. A lot of schools were using them. You'll find pictures from like the early 1900s where you've got like the whole school are doing all of these movements. And they're essentially, with the clubs that light, they're essentially calisthenics, but they get people moving and they get items, you know, tools to focus on. Again, David Weck talks about this all the time, which is the tool, like people get too bogged down in what the tool is. The tool is just helping you explore other concepts and movements, right? So like with the stone lifting, don't get too, you know, dogmatic about what the tool is. It's about this rounded position, it's about this internal strength and all of that stuff.

Same with the clubs, don't get too crazy about what the tool is. Different clubs do different things, but you're training this rotational strength, you're training the shoulders in different ways. Yeah. I think it was recently there was a... I wish I could remember what it was, but maybe you can help me remember. There was someone who did some crazy extraordinary lift with some sort of stone and it's like

done in a... Yes. What, what do you, Kenny, do you remember this? The big square stone? It's like overhead or something too, or maybe I can't even remember, but it was... So there's a guy who blew up on Instagram recently. I want to say his Instagram is lift stones and travel or something. Or lift travel stones, something like that. And he is an American guy, a really, really good stone lifter.

And he went out to Ireland relatively recently last year and he lifted some incredible stones. And he doesn't look like a massive guy, so it kind of makes it even more impressive. relatively recently last year and he lifted some incredible stones and he doesn't look like a massive guy so it's kind of makes it even more impressive hopefully you can find him. Yeah there's some like just incredible things that I see sometimes where I'm like that might be the strongest thing I've ever seen you know. That's what I'm talking about. What is strength? Right, right.

Because that guy could not squat what you squat. And that guy couldn't swing what Flowing Dutchman can swing. And that guy doesn't feel like I do when I grab, you know? Like what is strength? Strength is for the individual. And then sometimes there's even like the way that someone does something. I saw like Dave Man, Caveman the other day. Yeah, he's a super strong stone lifter. Yeah, he like rolled the stone like onto his like jeans and then he like got up from the ground.

Yeah, this guy. Oh, he found it. Holy. Travel lift stones repeat. That's it. Travel lift stones repeat. And he's got some great lifts of some incredible stones. That thing looks awkward as hell. Yeah. Rectangle. Yeah. So yeah, there's and that's the beauty of it. There's people out there. I mean, look, I find incredible strength fascinating regardless of how it's expressed. But a 500 kilo deadlift doesn't look that much different from a 495 kilo deadlift. So after a while, it does get impressive for them to push the numbers, but these sort of

things, who's the first person to lift this stone? Who can pull the sword out of the stone? That's the interesting one, the different ones. That's why I like the old school Strongman a lot more. Strongman today, all of the events in Strongman Today are kind of the same. There's like a big overhead, there's a big carry medley. You know, back in the day, they were doing sumo, they were bending metal bars, they were like pulling boats out of the water.

They were, I mean, it was a really bad idea, but they did do arm wrestling and someone got their arm. I think Nathan Jones it was against Magnus. Yeah, Nathan Jones, an old friend of mine from pro wrestling. He's the guy that... He's got his arm broken, right? Yeah, he got his arm broken. Because he went to get us a professional arm wrestler. He also got killed by Brad Pitt in Troy. Yep, he did. And he was in Pride. I mean, that guy's had a journey. That guy was like

a strong man, an actor, a professional MMA fighter, a crazy story. Near seven feet tall. Yeah, just a giant. He was Boagrius in Troy. He used to call me little buddy. I was like, I lift every day. Like don't call me little buddy. Boagrius? Boagrius. The character was the character in Troy.

Yeah, Nathan Jones. He's the one right at the beginning where he does the jump in the iconic Achilles in Troy stabbing to the neck. Matthew Kassar He just gets killed right away. You've never seen anybody like that big in your life. Neil Milliken Almost looks CGI doesn't it? Matthew Kassar Yeah, he had a good time. He said they filmed in Mexico. He's like, I could do whatever I want. Where can people find you?

Neil Milliken They can find me. The best place is Instagram Where can people find you? They can find me. The best place is Instagram at the moment. Rosbury underscore ape. I do have a YouTube channel. There's not much on that. Where did the name come from? It's the one question you can't ask.

One question you can't ask. Just because it's mysterious. I just like Rosbury's and kind of a bit ape-ish. I thought it was because of your hair color. The hair color. Someone said that I had red hair the other day. I mean, the beard is red, but the head is not red. I mean, it's like a reddish. That's, but... I'm going to let the person who said that I had red hair know that they have a supporter.

I'm not saying you have red hair, I'm saying red-ish, you know what I mean? You know what it was as well was, you know Cockney rhyme in slang? You probably don't. In the UK, we have a type of slang where everything rhymes. And there's... Raspberry basically means someone who's crippled. Raspberry ripple is cripple. And when I was in my early 20s, I was pretty much crippled the whole time before I changed the way that I was training. So the raspberry ape, there's many reasons and I do like raspberries. I do love them. They're good for you. This kind of a little bit reminds me of we were having dinner and Bill Maied and his wife were

right there. He was having, he was talking a lot, right? And they were looking at it for like 20 minutes and then I think Bill's wife was like, you know, whatever he's saying sounds great, but we don't understand a word of it. Bill said that. He was laughing at me for 20 minutes and then Bill was just like in hysterics. He stops laughing. He goes over and goes, does anyone know what he's saying? And just killed everyone because he was a man. Bill's just the nicest guy I've ever met.

Isn't he the nicest guy? So cool. Yeah. So yeah. Best place to find me is on Instagram at raspberry underscore ape. That's pretty much it. I've got a book. It's called The Grappler's Guide to Grip Training. If you're not a grappler, just don't read the bits,

just specify exactly. It's the same stuff for everyone. It really is. And you can find that on Amazon and then my website is Ape Academy online. I've got some courses and programs, free resource for people with tendonitis. If you just go to my Instagram bio and you click on the link. Do you cover some stuff in there about like tennis elbow, golfers elbow? That's what it's all about. And it's, there's no secret in there. Like I said, I'm giving it away for free. So I can say it right now if you wanted me to. It's the, basically the inside elbow pain in my experience, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an expert, I just have experience.

So when someone asks me about an injury I've never had, I just go, no idea. But if they ask me about an injury I do have, and I've had a lot of them, because I've been doing jiu-jitsu for 20 years, then I can give them a lot of, you know, I can give some answers. And most people have the elbow pain on the inside of the elbow, so medial epicondylitis, and I believe in most cases this is due to an imbalance of the flexor to extensor muscles. So any work on the extensors is going to balance that out. And I just give a list of exercises so you can do, you know, supported wrist curls, you can do, you know, band extensions, you can do... One of my favorite ones where you put a, I call it extensor rows, it's

something I came up to when I was after my surgery and I was just messing around with stuff on one arm, but you put a really light band around the knuckles and then just row backwards and, you know, because the problem that I found was if you're trying to train your extensors, okay, so you want that wrist going backwards, every exercise you do, you have to hold on to something. So even though you're training your extensors, you're working your flexors as well. So I'm like, is there a way of not doing that? So for example, the guy who would made most of my equipment, he has this tool where it's like a boxing mitt that you can put weight on. So that allows you to have your hand in

a neutral position and train extension. Easier way to do that, if you don't have the equipment, everyone's got a really light band, you just put a band around the back knuckles here and that forces you to use extension to hold the band, which is already going to light up the forearms, and then you just row a little bit or hold that position, that's really going to work it. So for the Medio-Apicondylitis, training the extensors. And when I first look, I can't test it on myself. I don't have the pain, right? So I can come up with ideas that work the extensors, but then I've got to just go try it, let me know what you think.

And I put it out there saying, you know, do this for three sets of 10 or 15 every day for a couple of weeks, let me know. And people were messaging me and replying and they said, I had elbow pain. I saw your post. I went to my shed where I work out, I did one set of 20, the elbow pain's gone. And you go like, how does that even work? Like you haven't changed the musculature.

Go, but your extensors didn't have any tension or tone to them. And just hitting them once just engages and takes that tension off of there. So anyway, for me, the inside elbow pain, train the extensors. For the outside elbow pain, it's the opposite. For me, that's generally caused from tightness in the extensors. So what do I do with that? And I put a video out about that recently. My favorite way to work it, like get massaging on it. And actually the way that I like to do it the most at the moment, and I know that you do the body tempering stuff and you've got the big weights, but I just use a barbell and find that spot.

Barbell works great. Barbell works great. Thick barbells are even better. And you put the weight on the elbow. This is me just giving that information about the guide. But if you get that barbell, you'll see another video. I just link the video in the guide because I'm like, just do this. Put the barbell in that spot, find the tension where it's just bearable,

but not painful. It'll hurt quite a bit. It will hurt. And then passively, if you can, bring your wrist through ranges, like try and keep it relaxed, bring it through ranges of motion and sort of stretch out that. And it's same with wrist pain, you know? So many people have wrist pain, I'm like, give me your arm for five minutes and it's gone.

Because they don't have wrist pain, they have tightness in the extensors. And the funny thing about Jiu-Jitsu, and this is why Jiu-Jitsu injuries, especially the arm, are so interesting because someone will tell you my elbow hurts or my wrist hurt, and they'll tell you when it happened. They say, it hurts because I got arm barred. It hurts because I based on my hand. So it has to be damaged on the wrist. And I go, not necessarily.

Maybe when you based on your hand, a muscle went a little bit up here as you did that. And once you relax this, because if you imagine there's tightness along the forearm, you bring your wrist in the flexion, that's going to hurt. If you manage to relax this, then you imagine there's tightness along the forearm you bring your wrist in the flexion that's gonna hurt If you manage to relax this then you can take away that pain So that I did a guy just so I don't have to go through that every time someone else. Mm-hmm Yeah, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure to be on here

We enjoyed it guys. Strength is never weak this week does never strength catch you guys later. Bye