Mark Bell's Power Project - How Losing My Business Taught Me the Real Meaning of Strength – Chris Duffin || MBPP Ep. 1115

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

In Episode 1115, Chris Duffin, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about what Chris has learned from building up Kabuki Strength to getting fired from his own company and how it has taught him the true meaning of strength. Follow Chris on IG: https://www.instagram.com/mad_scientist_duffin/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🥜 Protect Your Nuts With Organic Underwear 🥜 ➢https://nadsunder.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your order!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code 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!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Become a Stronger Human - https://thestrongerhuman.store ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/JoinUNTAPPED ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/ ➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

You built up kabuki strength. It's gotta be sort of gut wrenching to build something and then have it no longer. I'm really proud of what I accomplished there. Nothing can take what I did there. What makes you maybe not fearful? I have fear. Is there a level of shame that I may experience

from going, hey, I'm a failure? I think you learned some of that through powerlifting. I've been trained to deal with this. Shit happens, life is hard. I'm in that moment right now in life, in the pit. I'm here, I've got some stuff to deal with. It's gonna be brutal and it's gonna be brutal for a while. If you guys have been enjoying the content

we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz, who roasted us on air, but we did that for you, to bring you some of the best information in fitness, we're learning along with you, and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast

is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can, leave us a review there, and enjoy the rest of the show. My electrician at my house, he like... Every once in a while, he'll zap himself. He's like, it ain't that bad. Yeah, it is.

It's not, it's not bad. No, it is that bad. No, it's not. I can't even do a 10 unit. See, it's people like you. It's people like you that just do wild shit like, ah, shock yourself here and there. Feels kind of good sometimes. I watched my dad do it like a thousand times and he's like, ah, ah, as he's working on

something, I'm like, dude, just, we can, we can go shut this off. The breakers are way over there. I see him all the time. Like he got shocked again. He's like, yeah, I was like, he seems like he kind of liked it. He's like, eh, maybe it's like a little bit of caffeine for you guys. You know, crazy Chris Duffin, world record holder in a squat at one point, and a 220 pound weight class.

What did you do, a thousand pound squat for a triple? Yes, I did, yeah, I did do it. And then you did a thousand pound deadlift for two? I like to call it a triple just cause it's like easy, like, I did a thousand pounds for both for a triple, you know? But no, it wasn't a triple. Like 2.75 reps. 2.75, you nail right on the money.

Like that was exactly it. Like if you measured it, 2.75. Wow. You did all that stuff, invented tons of products. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you've been a friend for a long time and we've been kind of on this journey, you know, you've been a friend for a long time and we've been kind of on this journey, I think together in some ways, because I think both of us, I think sort of recognized there

was so much more strength than we originally thought. You know, we thought, we thought strength was bench squat deadlift. And then we started learning weird stuff about the feet and biomechanics and all these different things. And I was mentioning in the gym that you did the hand foot glove thing to me forever ago. And I know you nowadays, you have your own shoe. Yep, I do.

And boot. Shoe and boot. And- You see these babies? Yep. This is the first, very first American made. So leathers from America. Handcrafted American made minimalist boot, very first one ever made.

Damn. Well, not that boot itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the product line. And then I think you like built your own home and stuff too, or like, and you're always tinkering on your trucks and your cars and your, have you always been like kind of mechanically inclined

like that? Well, I do have a couple of engineering degrees. But that doesn't always mean that someone knows how to build shit. No, it doesn't. I'm actually not really an engineer as much as pre-primary, I think is more of a creative. It took me a long time to realize that.

I remember, what was it? God, not 20 years ago, but a long time ago, I made these things, the Superlifts. And they were fairly intricate. You had one. And I remember I had some friends, engineers, like, hey, I make four of these, can you come give me a hand help making them?

And they're like, where are the plans? I'm like, let's say it's right here in my head. I always just go out and I gotta build it. And then you do what I do. And they're like, where are the plans? I'm like, let's say it's right here in my head. I always just go out and I gotta build it and then you do what I do. And they're like, where are the plans? How can you do this with no print? And I'm like, it's right here. I like to do the same thing with vehicles and whatnot.

Yeah, when I first visited your gym in, what was it, Oregon? Is that where you were at the time? Yes. Yeah, when I first visited your gym, you had like, he had hydraulics on the back of the bench press and then you had like, he had hydraulics on the back of the bench press and then you push like a button, I think, or you push something with your foot,

there was a pedal and it would move the uprights up and down for like when each individual person would go and do their lift. That way it was like set up perfectly. The super lift was something that it was a model lift that you could adjust to all different kinds of heights and you could bench press out of it and you could do other exercises out of it rather than just a squat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, back in the geared benching days, like, you know, people were doing, you know, thousand pounds, 800 pounds, you know, you did it. And changing between, you know, the guys would be over there and somebody like blow their bicep, you know, like. Oh my God.

Try to get set up. So yeah, I made the auto bench, which you just press a button and it goes up and down no matter what the weight was. So, but yeah, I'd consider myself more of an artist, I guess. So yeah, the house project was a fun one. They told me I couldn't do it.

I had my excavator been on the job for 30 years, my contractor 30 years. I'm like, this is what we're gonna build. Cause there's no room on my. All three of us have to turn in our man cards while Chris Duffin's in the house, I think. I just like creating things. Like I can't, it's a compulsion.

I can't not create around me. But I live kind of on a, almost on a cliff. Like it's like big hill. And I wanted to have a shop and my wife says, we're not moving so you can have a shop. Like this is plain and simple. I moved to the United States for you. I'm not moving to bumfuck, you know, Oregon so that, you know, this is a nice neighborhood. I like it. You figure it out. And I'm like, but I can't. She's like, yeah, you can. I'm like, fine, yes, I can. And so I ended up digging under my house. Because I had to put the footings in under it. It was so close to the edge.

I removed 50 dump trucks of dirt, like beside and under my house, and then poured basically an entire underground shop so that I could put my car lift in there and it's down below the house as you pull up. And then to make, because it was such a big presence, I had to build this big deck coming off the front of the house. By the way, it's Oregon.

It's pouring down rain as I'm doing this. Gravel driveway, but I welded up this 40 foot long, 30 foot high steel structure and then erected the whole thing up into place and then got up there, welded it up. I think there's like 40 million views on the Instagram video of me doing that. Where you're like throwing a piece of wood or something,

like throwing something, right? I think so. So, but it came out, it looks gorgeous. It's a piece of art, you know? Like that's why I like creating stuff, yes. Yeah, you've been doing that for a long time and then you've built up a business, you've built up Kabuki Strength.

And I think it'd be great for you to let our audience know sort of what happened with that because I think people are confused. Even though they heard you talk about it a little bit on your Instagram and people have been hearing different things, I think it's important to kind of maybe lay out some of what happened.

You built up Kabuki Strength, which has unique barbells that no one's ever seen before, the Cadillac bar, and if maybe you can rattle off some of the names of some of the other bars, but you guys, you specifically created this intellectual property. These were your ideas, these were your inventions, these were your things, these were your things. And you said you're compulsive about like wanting to create

and make things. And so I think it's a really interesting sort of what happened with Kabuki strength. And it's gotta be, I know that you've worked on your philosophy and you worked on the way that you internalize these various stresses that might come at you. on the way that you internalize these various stresses that might come at you. And it seems like you've done a great job in keeping your composure because it's got

to be sort of gut wrenching to build something, but not only build it, to have it be your intellectual property and then have it no longer. So if you comment on some of that, it'd be cool. Yeah. You know, there was a number of years ago, I had this goal for having the best by number powerlifting total. And I chased that for like eight years, just never quite get it. That's why I was always doing the aggressive weight cuts,

which I shouldn't have done, and probably held me back at the end of the day. I'm gonna answer your question, don't worry. But the last one, I told my wife at the time, she was pushing me, you can't be doing this. You can't be pushing yourself this hard. You're taking time away from the family. The choices that you're making,

pharmacology and stuff like that, this is detrimental to your health. What are you gonna do? And I said, I'm gonna retire. Give me one last shot. So I spent a year trying to set up for this one competition a year out. Worked entirely.

Again, I've been chasing this for eight years, four years, very aggressively. And I was there. I was ready to do it. I got the squat, wasn't the squat that I wanted. Got my bench in and all I had to do was get the deadlift in. And I walked out, warmups were just a breeze. Weights felt light.

I'm like, all right, today's the day. And then it jumped up to my opening weight. I walked out, barf ripped out of my hands. My hands had swollen up and they were like mitts. And I'm like, oh my God, what do I do? Because of the weight loss and the regain. By that time it just hit. Missed my openers.

Just, I mean, ridiculous weight. I could sit there and like do for five reps, but I just couldn't. I had these giant hands on. And I tell this story because cause I had a good friend that was with me at the gym that entire time. And he was telling me afterwards, he's like, I was upset to my stomach. I felt like I was gonna throw up.

I was so anxious knowing how much this meant to you. And I was walking up to you to give you condolences, I guess. It's like you turned around and you were just so excited telling me about everything that you're working on next. Like what your goals are. I didn't even know what to do. But yeah, Kabuki, I'm really proud of what I accomplished there. And at the end of the day, nothing can take what I did there. I created a company that created a market,

an entire new market category really around biomechanically sound barbells and implements, getting joints in the right position to be able to change the neurological inputs into the body and actually change what's happening in the body to improve patterns as well as sensations of pain, stiffness, so on. Penetrated sports performance faster than any other company that I know in history. Worked with every single major league baseball team, 70% of the NFL, 80% of the NBA, 900 ish colleges, every big name school that you can think of, except for UC Berkeley that I spoke at for three hours yesterday. But like everywhere, I mean, it was like, if it's a go-to clinic, rehab training facility, you have to have Kabuki. And so... Yeah, everyone has that, your deadlift bar.

What's that one called? I'm sorry. There's the open trap bar and then the PR deadlift bar, which I was, it's time I didn't go into it because there was a lawsuit, but there was another company that said that I copied their design when actually I had the product on the market and in customer's hands before anybody else.

It's not copied. Yeah, trap bar's great, you just push it forward and it's easy to load the weights and everything. So, yeah, long and short is I created a company that I tried to manage and run in an ethical manner, paying livable wages in the area that I tried to manage and run in an ethical manner, paying livable wages in the area that I live, which is in the Pacific Northwest, which is a really great place.

It's a little expensive. Taxes are a little high, labor's high, all that sort of stuff. And I created amazing products that I'm proud of and nobody can take that from me. But I ran and created an ethical company and did that until it worked, until it didn't work anymore. And at that point in time, I had to go out for money to be able to try to support and make the next steps of the business.

And the person that then ended up taking ownership and control of the business wanted to go a different direction than myself. And I understand that changes need to happen with the business and that's, you know, that's his business at this point in time to be able to make those decisions and do what he feels is best for that. So at that point, you know, I was let go. They are moving on to do their thing and I'm moving on to do my thing.

And honestly, I thought it was great news because, you know, I didn't have control. I didn't have the ability to really run that and do it the way that I want. And it was no longer the ability to create and have an entity that was operated under the values and principles that I really wanted to have anymore. So not being part of that is the best possible thing that could happen. Just a clean break of ties to go, you know what, it's time for me to go chase what I want to do next.

And I really think that what I have on my plate right now, I can impact the fitness community, the strength and development community more so than I have with anything that I've done to date. And so I'm really excited about that. I was showing you guys a little bit of some of that earlier. It's really fascinating stuff. It's wild. And yeah, I want to do things the way that I wanna do them

under the values. Like to me, you have to look at like internally, like spending a lot of time looking at what you want and why you want it and understanding like your guiding principles and your values. And when you have that, that becomes your lens for the world. Not those rose colored lenses you've got on, but you know, it's your intentions.

It's like, and you've got to use that as your filter for your choices. And so, yeah, I need to, I'm excited to go pursue that with the next pieces right now. So does that answer those questions for you? Absolutely. What do you think allows you to not have fear? Because I think, you know, I would imagine owning

the business, you must've had some sort of income from the business and then you're fired basically, right? And then, so what makes you maybe not like fearful? Cause sometimes people would be scared to have to kind of make that change. You just feel like you have so much more inside you to offer. I have fear. We all have fear.

Anybody that says they don't have fear is just a liar or- Bad shit crazy. And having no fear is really stupid. You need, fear is a signal, and it's a very important signal. It's there for a reason. And you need to respect fear. The problem with fear is that it shuts down these, it creates these blinders. You're so focused on this scarcity approach, like trying to save and not lose. So that would have been me trying to do everything that I could to

try to save and stay in position and secure the job. Is there some like, it creates this limitations. So you have to respect fear for what it is. And I tell this story a lot of times around when I was six years old, it's the opening for my book. And it's really a lot of lessons that I did. Can you name drop the book? Yes, The Eagle and the Dragon. Really amazing autobiography, check it out, best seller. It's been a while since I did it, but six years old, I was taught how to capture and handle live rattlesnakes.

And you might wonder why it's in the book, but I grew up homeless in the wilderness dealing with all sorts of stuff. So I have this rattlesnake in my hand and it's wrapping around my arm. This head is right between my fingers. And you can just feel that the coldness on you know, on your arm and looking into that eye, its intentions at that time is like the only thing is to strike and kill you. And if I had no fear, I would be dead.

If I didn't respect the fact that the slightest mistake and I'm gonna be dead. But at the same time, if I let fear overpower me, I'm gonna be dead, because I'm gonna lock up, I'm gonna freeze. I'm not gonna go through all the steps and things that I know that I've learned to be able to control and manage that situation and also see

what the opportunities and where I can move from with that. So I really hate the no fear mentality. I love Tony Blowers, no fear, KNO fear, no fear. You need to know fear. So you need to get in this practice of turning into it. And I know that sounds so cliche, right? Like lean into it, you know, everybody says that.

But it's with purpose. Like when you feel those signals, it means it's about something that you care about when you get this mixture of like anxiety, fear, and excitement. And those are your opportunities. And it could be any number of things from a hard conversation with a business partner

that I didn't have because I chose not to. It could be same thing with your life partner, a family member, whoever, right? And those are all gonna create these opportunities or micro moments to get a little stronger. They're a way to put another rep in the things that you need to develop to flex that muscle to grow stronger.

And that's how you grow that muscle of resilience on the mental aspect. I call this moment the precipice moment. You know, you're on the edge of unknown and there's uncertainty in front of you. And guess what? It's gonna be uncertain. It's gonna be fearful every time.

Like, yeah, I've got to figure out how to take care of, like all of a sudden I have no income. Like six weeks ago, boom, hit me. Kim, I was surprised. Yeah, you and I were going back and forth with some like messages and stuff and you were kind kinda laughing about it. You're like, I don't know what I'm doing, but okay.

Here it comes. Well, I've been there before. So many times I've been in this point of, I know what that feels like, and I know there's gonna be unpleasant moments of it, but the only way that I'm gonna get to the other side of where I want to go, and this is something I used in my corporate career But the only way that I'm going to get to the other side of where I want to go, and

this is something like I used in my corporate career when I was doing company turnarounds, was painting this picture of where you want to go. Really helping people one on one understand and connect with this. You got to paint this visceral thing that they're going to have a reaction to and know how they fit into. And that's how you create organizational change is to get into the buy into that and realize the pain is greater than the gain. So we're gonna take this step

and it's gonna be a little scary. And then when you do that, that's your opportunity to learn because when you take that step, you're going to be, Oh, what am I doing? Oh my God. I call that the plunge. And that is, you know, in the free fall, but while you're figuring that out,

and when you have that, you're going to have a lot of emotions, like as a whirlwind running around you. And that's your time for that introspection. You know, before this, we were out in the gym and you're asking me, hey, what have you learned? You know, that's the time to look inward and challenge yourself. Like, hey, I'm depressed, why am I depressed?

Just like, no fear, like know those reasons. Don't blunt it, don't shut it down. Like, go into it, like feel it. Don't try to cover it up with alcohol or training or like what if like spend your time in that and like experience that emotion and then peel back the layers. Learn what is it?

Is there an insecurity? Is there a shame? Is there like for me, like I grew up, I said homeless, dealing with up, as I said, homeless, dealing with all sorts of crazy stuff, autobiography, just pitch it, like murderers and serial killers and human trafficking and you name it, every type of trauma that had that.

So, is there a level of shame that I may experience from going, hey, I'm a failure. I'm not gonna be able to take care of my family. They're gonna be in a position that I'm gonna put them in an environment similar to maybe what I grew up in. Like those are, like like if I understand those, it helps me understand myself so much better in realizing, you know, how unfounded maybe those things are

or my reaction to those. I don't have an emotional reaction that I can actually step back to this logical thing with this snake in my hand and go, I've been trained to deal with this. If I hold the snake right here, it can't strike. And if I set them down, we're gonna cut it right at this spot.

And I captured it with this fork stick that I carried so that I could pin it right behind the head and pick it up. And now I'm gonna cut it in a spot right behind the venom sack so that it can't bite itself and inject venom into the meat because we're going to eat the meat later and we're going to separate that and make sure the venom doesn't get into the meat by cutting the sack as well. Now we're going to be able to skin it and sell that skin for some money that we need

because I'm living in a tree fort right now. So, you know, money's good. And we're gonna have dinner tonight. These are all great things. I need to be able to logically take those steps and get to that point. And so we have to separate that out. So you have to spend the time.

And the biggest thing from that, I said earlier, was understanding your values. As you're meditating into it and experiencing those things, those uncomfortable feelings and learning about yourself and what those drivers are, this is your greatest opportunity every single time that you take that precipice, that step off into the unknown and you're in that plunge moment. It's one of the best times to really challenge yourself and challenge your values. Challenge who you are to better understand what those values are so you can create a life

that expresses those values, that lives those values. I'd much rather have a life like that than one where I don't know myself, that I don't challenge myself. That I don't, I mean, this is, it's the essence of, this is physiological adaptation, right? So we're just talking about it in a mental, emotional aspect, but it's the exact same thing that we have done and learned in, as in your opening, right? Learning about strength. You know, you were, you have the ability right now

and you've already pivoted, but when a lot of people think about owning a business, some people mention that you need to have all your eggs in that basket, you need to like, that needs to be your focus. And Kabuki was your focus, but it seems like you also had other things that now that you're not with Kabuki,

you're able to delve into those other things too. So what would your advice be to someone who, let's say they're in business and they're trying to figure things out, should they just keep focusing? Should they have other ideas? Should they always be, because you're a creative, so you're always proliferating ideas, right?

What's your advice there? Good question. I might not be the best one to ask on that because that is one of my detriments, is that I do too many things, I believe. And so being able to consolidate those downs, and that's what I'm trying to focus on and learn in this moment.

Would it maybe be fair to say that, maybe that's how you ended up in the position that you're in, because of other interests and because of the, that kind of mindset of wanting to always create and just having like tons of ideas kind of overwhelming, not overwhelming, but tons of ideas that you get super excited about?

I think that that's a good question and a good place to maybe arrive at logically, but I would say that that's not the case in this. I think that that's one of the things that hurt us was the fact that we were a company known for innovation and it was a company, so it's understanding in a business, it's understanding what your flywheel is. And so Kabuki's flywheel was to create amazing products that did really cool things, science-based, that then we would get really key people in

the industry excited about talking about. And I would get tons of free publicity from magazines to the key, like influential people, not the influencers, but the people, the authority figures that then feed to the influencers. Now they're talking about it now. And that's just this flywheel. Now people will be have traffic to your website and then you get conversions. And so that was one of the things where I took a step back from the business about three years ago because I was told that we were not going to be able to, that we're putting no more new products out.

And I said, this is a major failing point that it's going to kill us as an organization if we have a big dead spot, because it's going to kill our flywheel. So my issue in that was not dealing with that challenging conversation with my partners, my team at that time. I've been silenced too, by the way. You just have too many ideas, you know? And eventually people are like, whoa, well, logistically, you know, we can't ship that.

We can't do that. we can't make that. And you're like, what the fuck? I don't care. You really do need to pare that down. I just wanna make it, goddammit. Yes. And so good question, it just happens to be not what drove that situation.

It was almost a little bit of the opposite. Now, if I'd done too much, it would have been, and that's where, right, but really things need to be done to make the company successful from an operations standpoint that need to be done to support that because that was the company's flywheel. So then there was a three-year period, four-year period of no new products, no new hype, nobody's talking about it. Like that was what created the momentum.

And so I actually redesigned almost all the portfolio before leaving, so created new patents, got the patents filed, loaded all the drawings. I just happened to be, I finished that up the day before I was let go. So yeah, now back to your question. Can you repeat it? Because I forgot it already.

You know, a lot of some business owners tell you that you need to focus on your business. Have all your eggs in that basket, right? Now, with where you are now, if you didn't have barefoot shoes, if you didn't have all this other stuff that you've done, you'd be left hanging around trying to figure out what's due next. But you have these, including the app

you just showed us in the gym, like you have these things that are innovations, that are going to be things that are gonna continue to be successful. So it makes me wonder just like, should you always have your eggs in just the big basket? Should you be trying to do other things? Like, well, what's your advice to someone there?

Yeah. I really think focusing on doubling down and until you have done something and made that a success and really pushed that, diversifying is not a good idea. So because you're spreading yourself too thin, but once you get that grown and stable, okay, now you can take a step and start moving into some other avenues to, you know, if it's for

me that creative expression, but too early on, a lot of people are taking where they see these big figures that have, you know, these, you know, multiple brands and entities and they're trying to mimic that upfront, not realizing like Jeff Bezos like did X and made it go. And like people before moving and broadening that and you know, just diluting their efforts. So those other things that I am working on now, they were very minor, like side projects that was kicking along with, so they weren't

big distractions, but I've been able to now ramp that up. And a key thing with that, with understanding your values and lenses is seeing how those all fit together. So I have right now, everything does fit together. So I've got this school community. My community, which I believe is, I'm super excited about. Like being able to, like, I love social media and the ability, people love to trash social media. But we reach people around the globe

and make change, like it's an incredible thing. Yes, there's a lot of negatives that come with it, but like, there's so much positives. When we started this 20 years ago, like you didn't have the ability to do that. You were an early person to YouTube and podcasts and so on. But you know, it was blogs and emails and so on. And you, that was the only way to reach. Before that, it was, you know, written literature.

Like, there was, and so it's really opened up and I love that, but you also start losing a connection. So I wanted to have a smaller community and hub for education because education is the core central thing for me that everything feeds off of. So this education around adaptation and human physiology, like that's my core. Kabuki was a way of being able to do that through providing implements that take away the need for coaching to get people in better technique and alleviate that, right?

But that's where like the app is. The app is gonna be able to manage people's fatigue, coach them, get them in better positions. We've got so much use of technology there that no one else is doing that to me is way more scalable that somebody doesn't have to go buy $5,000 worth of bars. They can get an app for $30 a month. I can reach so many more people with that. So like in my community, it's still like the same education is still there around human movement. The principles of loaded movement. And I've added education on peptides.

A lot of people may not know it, but I've been in peptide space actually almost 20 years. I did it long before I got into, so when we talk about me being a natty back in the day, well, I wasn't, I was using peptides back then because I'm like, it's not gear. So there wasn't a lot of them back, you know, in the early 2000s, mind you.

But I've been in that. I've been dealing, you know, and you know, that's how like ramping up the physiological adaptations. And interestingly enough, like my thought process around a lot of that equipment design, the supplementation, all of that fit into the same pathways. They're different ways, like using a flywheel and the cue bells and stuff like that was

all about being able to provide a certain stimulus that would upregulate receptors that would then fit with like high levels of nitrates, which would then fit with peptides. And like when I did rehab protocols, like let's say, well, one of the people I can speak about is Travis Rogers, detached both his quads. And he was in a wheelchair, had to learn to walk again. In 12 weeks, he was deadlifting 700 pounds

and totaling 21, I think 2136. So that's impossible, if you ask anyone. Standard of care is 50% of people never return to, return to play without stiffness, without limited mobility, returning to walking at six months as normal, like getting to a point of, you know, back to normal at two years is considered good. Yeah. 12 weeks at like what, 0.001% of the population for strength. That was, and he used all of those, he used, you know, my products and supplementation and peptide protocols all in this realm of how it all fits together.

So everything that I've been working follows these same principles, but now I'm taking it from that point and the peptide side. So for me, it's all about this physiological amplification. How can I ramp up those effects? And so those are a couple of things that I'm working on. Those are my big projects as the app, as well as making peptides more accessible. So peptides are mostly like the good ones are injectable. And so I'm formulating an oral and transdermal peptide line right now.

And so that is something that will be coming out. But the hub for all that is the education, is the school platform. So this is, I'm trying to be way better about this, getting everything distilled and so that people can see the connection because I think that's an area is not seeing how the different entities actually worked together

and how it was part of a similar system. Gotcha. I think you learned some of that through powerlifting worked together and how it was part of a similar system. I think you learned some of that through powerlifting, because especially like geared powerlifting, where you're wearing like knee wraps and stuff, there's like a particular knee wrap for a particular set. There's a particular pair of briefs for a particular set. There's like all these little things,

like your certain shoes for certain lifts. There's just a lot of particulars to lift in heavy weights that maybe people don't always understand. And also powerlifting, I think one of the huge values of powerlifting is how much time it takes. It requires a lot of time. That's why a lot of people don't like to do it.

I think that's why a lot of people fall off with it because it's like, you just kind of sit around and rest for six, eight, 10 minutes in between your sets a lot of times. And I think people are more anxious and they want to get after it. They don't feel like that's a workout. But powerlifting, it takes a tremendous amount of time,

not only within the workout, but within the weeks and months and years and decades it takes to build strength. So in some of your story, I can't help but kind of think like there's a lot of parallels to powerlifting. Well, let's get back to Ensema's question again about the advice for the business owners as well. I said like, you've got to go all in and create something.

The big lesson there, so there's lessons you got to learn. I call that one the precipice, being able to recognize those moments, even the micro moments. So think about it in micro cycles and macro cycles, you've got the big cycles in life and then you've got these smaller cycles, right? And you've got the plunge and you've got this moment I call the pit. That is when you're in the shit. Like it's, I'm assuming we're not a clean podcast. So you're,, you've gone through the plunge and you're like in the shit. Like I'm fucking, I got to get through this.

Like it's a brutal moment in life. I'm going to get to the question, but I think this is really relevant that I really want to hit home because when we're dealing with those moments in life and we all go there, like it doesn't like life comes at you. Life comes at you. Like if you don't purposely take those steps, they're gonna happen to you. Loved ones are gonna die.

People are gonna get sick. Jobs are gonna get lost. Shit fucking happens. Life is hard. And when you're in one of those moments, just recognizing, acknowledging, it's a three step process, like acknowledge. I am in that moment right now in life.

I'm in the pit. That is incredibly powerful. Just giving yourself the space to go, I'm here, I've got some stuff to deal with. It's gonna be brutal and it's gonna be brutal for a while. And then the second piece of that is to celebrate it. Yes, nice, I'm glad you're smiling. You need to celebrate it, cause it's like, life is,

for me, I view life as like an action book in front of you. And you wanna be able able to paint some amazing stories in that book. You want to be able to tell your grandkids about the things that you did and overcame. And you want to go, right now I'm in the pit, but when I get on the other side of this, when I get out of this having the shit ripped out from under me right now, I'm going to be so fucking out of this, having the shit ripped out from under me right now, I'm gonna be so fucking proud of this. This is gonna be one of those moments in life.

And I'm like, hell yeah. I did that. I didn't even know that I was capable. I fucking did it. And celebrating the fact that I'm in one of those moments that I'm gonna be able to propel myself forward and be able to fucking have this amazing chapter in my life and go, I got that done, baby.

And then the last step of that is like now leveraging it because you want to shorten your period in the pit. You don't want to spend a lot of time down there. So using the fact that like I care because it bothers me, like I'm in the pit. There's a reason that I'm having this reaction. It's something important that I resolve this and get out of this.

So it's going to bring about the absolute best in my performance. It's gonna bring my A game. So ACL, not an ACL injury, but I just say that to make it stick. Acknowledge, celebrate, leverage, and minimize that time. But the big thing is where we spend most of our life is in the pole, is in that climb to the peak,

where we're now using the tools of prior experiences through this, the skills that we've developed, and just putting in the freaking time. And that time is when you're going to discover the things. Like if you don't have, if you get instant, you win the lottery or things just happen to go your way and you get this sudden success, you don't have the opportunity of all the things that you could trip over, all the obstacles and how you're going to react. Like, like you, you want to just like focus on the prize. Like, oh, there's that peak, like that's the wind shiny object.

And then you trip on this rock. Like what you need to do is not look at the prize. Every now and again, glance up, make sure you're heading. Is that aligned with where I want to be? My values, my North star? But sure your head, is that aligned with where I wanna be, my values, my North Star? But put your head down. Put your head down. Look at the next step in front of you, one step at a time.

And make sure that you're finding those things, doing the hard work, learning those micro-lessons along the way. Because you can also think about it as rowing a boat. You've got to have both oars like moving at the same time. One side is those strengths, that power that you develop, that power, that background. And the other is those values, right?

If any one of those are either one of these, you're not strength, you're not aligned with your values, you're gonna end up off course. So just one at a time, putting in the time and learning the lessons, learning the lessons along the way. Because like I said, if it was instant success, life's still gonna come at you and hit you

some point in time. You're gonna get pushed. Not everything is a choice to step off that precipice. Sometimes you're pushed. And if you're not ready, it's just a downward decline, just like not flexing that muscle. If you don't train, what happens?

What happens the moment we stop training? Atrophy. And I drive it home. I'm not talking like ethereal and out there, like this is not just the human condition, this is the essence of life itself. Jay Shetty covers it really well in the story about trees in the biodome.

You guys heard that? No. Eddie covers it really well in the story about trees in the biodome. You guys heard that? No. So, I can't remember when they started doing the biodomes. I was like 70s or 80s. And the trees they put in there after 10 years, they just fall over, dead. And scientists are trying to figure it out.

Is it the fertilizer we're using? Is it something going on with the air filtration? Is it the soil? Like what is the problem? They keep changing variables. What's happening? Trees falling down. Well, what it was, there was no wind hammering against the tree going, build those roots strong and deep, grab it into the ground. There's no rain. There's no sleet hitting it going, let's stiffen up that outer surface, make strong bark and resilient and build it like. I fucking love it.

So it's the essence of fucking life. I'm not like, this isn't Duffin theory. When I'm talking about physiological adaptation, I basically, by the way, I painted this. What is it? It's the precipice and then the plunge and then the pit and then the pull. Then you got the peak and then a little bit of plateau to take your time and recover and do the self care.

And then you need to step into it again. It's nice, beautiful little square roots. It's the same thing that we do for training. It took me 25 damn years of leadership training and working with teams and personal like to come up with that. I call it the six piece. So Dude that trees in the biodome thing is actually quite beautiful. Is it not? It's tree gets large It looks big but it's faced literally no resistance and it's just actually weak. It's weak and it dies early

Jesus. It's the essence of life. If we don't have struggle, if we don't have something to push against I know there's messages striking home with you Mark. Like this is a lot of what you say all the time, right? But you know, it's where you're going to find that little tree growing out the crack, you know, in the ground. Actually, the old gym at Kabuki, we had this little tree. I think they, it got named by the gym, but it was the crack in the concrete wall. It just like, they got cut a bunch of times, kept growing back. And finally it like was the pet tree. After we moved out, one of the members went back

and took it and now it's growing in the new gym. So nice. That tree got a little bit of the peptides that were floating around. I need a little amplification, man. For years on this podcast, we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use I'm just blowing my nose. I'm just gonna let that run. I need a little amplification, man. That's right. For years on this podcast, we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes.

And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons. They are flat, but they're not very wide and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with and we've been using Vivo barefoot shoes. These are the Modus Strength shoe because not only are they wide, I have wide ass feet

and so do we here on the podcast, especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping or you're doing split squats, or you're doing movements where your toes need to flex and move, your feet are able to do that

and perform in the shoe, allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger, improving your ability to move. Andrew, how can they get the hands on these? Yes, head to vivobarefoot.com slash power project

and enter the code that you see on screen to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's at vivobarefoot.com slash power project. Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. What you got over there, Andrew? So I mean, is it as blatantly obvious as, all right, this path over here is kind of the one that people are recommending you take, you know, this starts from like, you know, elementary school, right?

Yep. You know, get the job, do the college, or go college, get the job. Over here, that path, it's a little rocky over here. Not many people go this way. As I've moved through life, and again, even in the gym too, doing the slightly harder thing usually has the better outcome. But with what you've gone through and everything you've experienced, has that ever backfired where you're like, oh shit, I bit off way more than I could chew.

What the heck was I thinking in doing that? Yes, and yes. So both, these are both, there's two points here, Andrew, that are just really great. So one is, if you choose with intent to make those choices to walk that path, you're probably not always gonna work out. I'm gonna go, I've just felt that stern in my gut,

that mixture, that anxiety, and it was about like going back to school. And it was about starting a job job It was about starting a company. It was about Whatever whatever that was about for you Not all those are gonna work out But in the end making those choices So you don't get to say fucking Duffin told me and I took this leap and I started this and the economy took a shit My company like fuck you, man.

You ruined my life. But being intentful with those choices is going to work out in the long run because you're going to know what that failure feels like. You're going to know like, oh, I'm not a failure. So like, this is a good point with like Kabuki and that happening. Like that wasn't me failing. Nothing has changed what I did, what I accomplished, the skills that I have, the abilities, the future that I have. Like none of that changes. So that's how taking those, those fear blinders

off, what are the insecurities? Like people are going to think this or think that like I'm totally open. I'm not spinning the picture to something that it's not. Like, you know, I did some great things. I failed at some things. Here I am. That's fine. I have no problem saying that. And unfortunately, that is a problem

when we talk about social media. I'm gonna get back to this, but in this world of like, hey, we're going to put up the highlight reels and fake it till you make it and show all the winners pose and do all that is like, that just permeates the world today. And it permeates social media, it permanates entrepreneurs. That's the message that you're supposed to, so many people put forward. And that's not reality as I've talked about.

Life is fucking hard. That's real. But if you're putting that forward, people can't connect with you. And you're not showing like what it's like to be in those moments, to handle it yourself and that level of vulnerability. And I'm not talking about, you know, victimhoodization culture. I butchered that word.

I like a new one, victimhoodization. Victimhoodization culture. I'm not talking about like, oh, I've had it worse than anybody else. That's not what I'm up here saying by any means or even in my book. Like it's all about the lessons that I can share with the things that I've gone through. But showing that it's, it's okay to go through that. You're going to come out, you're going to be okay. You can figure out a path and being able to, to, to showcase that and connect. And people will, when you say, you know what, I'm going here, they're going to believe you because you've been open know what? I'm going here. They're gonna believe you because you've been open and honest

about all those other things. And this is, that is one of the negative things that I hate with social media is this showing this, everything's gotta be this beautiful, perfect, and not showing the hardship with life, the things that we all can actually connect on, the things that we can all actually grow on. And so back to what you said though, around the other course. So this is,

and I've said it a few times, being intentional with the choices to pursue this because so much, in my opinion, those things are driven by biological mechanisms early in our life. When you're those precipice moments. So the, you're getting out of high school, you're ready to go out on your own, like getting, you know, establishing yourself and making that move. Like that is certainly something that is mixed with anxiety and excitement, but our drivers like get us to do that To finding a partner Making the choice to have kids to like all these things. There's like these primal Biological drivers that really force people to get through those moments as a natural entity, as a human being.

But that is when we see after that, after those biological drivers, so many people just stagnate, like nothing changes. The next 30 years, it's mediocrity. It's putting on weight, sitting in front of the TV. How many people, like now we live in a world that that's a lot less people because of the environment and the people that we surround ourselves with,

but that is the majority of the populace that lives those lives of quiet desperation and never pushing themselves and getting to this point where they're on their deathbed going, God, I wish I woulda, coulda. And that is scary to me. That's way more scary than failing at a business proposition or making the wrong shift in a career or diving into a relationship. And you know what? It wasn't the one that didn't work out. I've been through a divorce too during the course of our time together. And I would much rather live a life of passion and chasing and pushing that edge of my limitations

so that I can peek over that edge and see what I'm made of, see who I really am. I can peek over that edge and see what I'm made of, see who I really am. I remember pretty vividly having a conversation with you. We were driving to super training, I think. And we were talking about the job that you had at that time. And I was kind of trying to encourage you to basically tell them to shove it.

And I just kind of remember like. And literally the CEO of the company called me while we were on that call too. Yeah. On that drive. Right, right. And I remember saying to you, I was like, you just broke the all time world record in the squat

in the 220 weight class. Like you squatted more weight than anybody in the history of the world. I think you could figure out the next steps. And you're just like, man, I think maybe you're right. Maybe it's better than getting yelled at for whatever the fuck you did. It was taking the days off to come down and see you.

There you go. You know, Chris, you also mentioned something that's in the gym since we're talking about business. Like when it comes to the people you do business with, right, because there's a lot of people like, I mean, I have friends that were they're interested in starting something, right? And people don't want to go it alone. What is the advice for the people that you put yourself in business with? What do you need to pay attention to?

Because you want things to go on forever, right? You want things to be successful, but pitfalls. Yeah, yeah, I've definitely experienced those. The conversation was around recognizing personality traits. And I know for myself as someone that has the experiences of growing up in trauma bonded situations. So this is me doing a lot of reflection and work on myself that I am as such often drawn to narcissistic people,

narcissistic personalities, which is not what a lot of people think. A narcissist isn't someone with a lot of ego. It's actually someone with a large lack of an ego. And with that comes a lot of insecurities. And so that has really been a big learning experience for myself is being able to identify those people that seem to gravitate towards me based on my background. It's really easy to kind of latch on and get as much out of you as possible. But things that you do, just being yourself,

at least for me, because of, you know, we all have insecurities, every single one of us. We all have insecurities, we all have a level of narcissism, we all have a level of self-doubt, we all have a level of, like, we're all on some spectrum of this, right? But I'm pretty comfortable in who I am and what I do. And just that seems to bring

out the worst in those individuals where it triggers those insecurities in those folks. And that can end up being very toxic and damaging in the long run. So those have been really something I've had to really identify this last year, or the last couple years in learning that and being able to see those traits in people around me and really and people around me and really being honest with myself. And it's been really rough in last year because in the course of like losing my business, I also lost my mother and I lost five other family members in five months following that. It's been really, really challenging.

I mean, I literally was in the hospital for a panic attack while I'd spent the last two months trying to, you know, salvage Kabuki. I was back and forth driving five hours over the mountain in care with my mother, between my sisters, end of life care. And then I drive over, this is in the end of March, beginning of April. So I'd gotten the new investor to restart Kabuki as Kabuki Power, reinvest in and buy into the plan of me into the plan of me reinvigorating the brand with all the new products and patents.

And I drove out to see my mom and she died 45 minutes later in my arms. And then I drove back the next day and let go of 50 employees at Kabuki. And then was able to rehire them, for the time for the rest of the year, up until September. So in that, in experiences, those emotions and losses, but also realizing that a lot of my life and the trauma that I experienced was also part of being raised

in an environment with some of that and why I'm drawn to that. And that's, it's really hard to kind of deal with and process and it's taken me a long time, but that reflection has given me a great ability to see. And that's why I said it's such an important thing to do that meditative work and, you know, whether it's with a therapist, with yourself, so on, but spending that time to really understand yourself

versus just shunting and blunting a lot of these emotions that we're often taught to. I went on a little bit of a tangent there and overshared, but whatever. There's so much there, and I know we're probably gonna shift, but when you mentioned the lack of an ego, what did you mean by that specifically when you were talking about the narcissism?

So a lot of times narcissists are associated with having a big ego when in fact they have a very small ego. And so that they're constantly looking for fulfillment by others. And that is, yeah. So it's, they may be projecting. Cause they don't have it in themselves. They have a lack of other people. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Okay. So it's the opposite of what you see projected. Gotcha. I think something important for people to think about anyone that's looking to start a business. So insecurities, be aware of people and they're not gonna show it to you. They're gonna show the opposite.

I think anybody that's looking to start a business, starting it is one thing, getting it going is another, but there will be an end to it at some point. Everything, your family pet, you know, unfortunately family members, like nothing and no one is forever. And I'm not saying don't get yourself attached to it because like loving stuff and loving things and loving people is a wonderful thing.

But I think it's a good understanding of that. Anything that's going on right now, anything that's going good, anything that's going bad, it could all be done tomorrow, like that just happens. And specifically when you're starting a business, when you're gonna start a business with another person, that just brings in a whole other level of complication, basically no matter who it is.

They say like the number one way for an entrepreneur to lose half his money is to get married. Because that marriage can end in divorce. And how many people have been in positions where, you know, you see this with a lot of gym owners, a lot of gym owners are married and then the couple runs the gym together, and then the gym is good for six, eight years,

and then, you know, the marriage is over, and then somebody's taking all the equipment out of the gym is good for six, eight years. And then, you know, the marriage is over and then somebody's taking all the equipment out of the gym and moving it to some other location. So whenever you're gonna start a business, it's a good idea to start a little backwards. Like, how does this thing end? Like, do I wanna sell this business? Cause that's a whole different business model.

What kind of business do I want? How do I wanna build this thing up? And definitely, you know, start to just kind of business do I want? How do I want to build this thing up? And definitely, start to just kind of think about how is this thing gonna end? Is this something that I wanna try to keep in my family? Or just think about that. It's not something that is commonly, I don't think anybody ever thinks about it, honestly.

It's not thought about a lot. Yeah, you need to think about an exit strategy. What does that look like? And it doesn't mean exit, well, it may be selling the business, but what does that look like? What do you do and how do you go about doing that? And that should be spelled out in your operating agreement.

Given x situation happens, given a partner gets a divorce, what happens? All of that does need to be spelled out. And then from the point that I was going on was around the personalities is just really doing the diligence of understanding, well, you're never gonna understand someone else, but going beyond the superficial side of

what a person is projecting and getting a better idea of who a person really projecting and getting a better idea of who a person really is and how they respond in challenging moments. It seems like it's also really valuable with back to kind of in Seema's question, which I think is we could do a whole show on just that question alone, because he did mention that you had other things going on.

So it's easier transition, you know, that you, and I think, but I also think that- And I've got some amazing partners with my other ventures and I've been with them for a long time. And I think it's important though, for people to understand you built yourself into somebody, you built yourself into somebody that is a person with incredible amount of knowledge.

And you have knowledge in a bunch of different areas, but you were known for your knowledge of strength, strength training, equipment, movement, those types of things. Had you not gone all in on powerlifting the way that you did, you would have never really learned all these things. You wouldn't have been tinkering around and same with myself, coming up with a slingshot and different things. We enjoy the stuff so much. We love it so much that we think about

all these different angles and all these different movements and all these different ways to train. And so while somebody, they might be confused on sort of how to start a business or how to do some of these things, I think there's many ways to start one, but I think in my opinion, one of the best ways to do it is to become a material expert in something. Yes. And then it allows you to monetize from there.

So that gets back to Encima's question, right? Like how do you, like, there's a million things. Like, you've just gotta learn what it's like to go all in and just like do the work and go through the experience and develop that expertise. And just, like I said, spend the time with your head down. Like, as you were chasing that stuff early on, like you weren't chasing it to be where you're standing.

You had no idea that you would be doing what you're doing right here, right now. That would probably look really crazy looking back 20 years from now to where you're staying, you had no idea that you would be doing what you're doing right here, right now. That would probably look really crazy looking back 20 years from now to where you are. But you walk that process and learn along the way. And I said, most of life is, you know, on that pole perspective of just putting in the time, one step in front of the next.

All you need to do is make sure that every step is aligned with where, with your values, right? Because you don't know exactly where that, that's what it's going to look like when you get there. But you do know that if I'm taking a step, I'm going somewhere. And as long as it's aligned with those values, it's, it's right. Because if you focus on how fast you're running, or you could be going, you know, left, right. Because if you focus on how fast you're running or you could be going, you know, left, right.

If you're someone that's taking supplements or vitamins or anything to help move the needle in terms of your health, how do you know you really need them? And the reason why I'm asking you how do you know is because many people don't know their levels of their testosterone, their vitamin D, all these other labs like their thyroid, and they're taking these supplements to help them function at peak performance.

But that's why we've partnered with Merrick Health for such a long time now, because you can get yourself different lab panels like the Power Project Panel, which is a comprehensive set of labs to help you figure out what your different levels are. And when you do figure out what your levels are, you'll be able to work with a patient care coordinator that will give you suggestions as far as nutrition optimization, supplementation, or if you're someone who's a candidate and it's necessary, hormonal optimization to help move you in the right direction so you're not playing guesswork with your body. Also, if you've already gotten your lab work done but you just want to get a checkup, we also have a checkup panel that's made so that you can check up and make sure that everything is moving in the right direction

if you've already gotten comprehensive lab work done. This is something super important that I've done for myself. I've had my mom work with Merrick. We've all worked with Merrick just to make sure that we're all moving in the right direction and we're not playing Just to make sure that we're all moving in the right direction and we're not playing guesswork with our body. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash Power Project. And check out enter promo code Power Project to save 10% off any one of these panels or any lab on the entire website. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Just making sure and that's like one step in front of the next.

If you're focused on like, Hey, I want to create this giant venture and, you know, be somebody, I want to be an NFL star. I want to be whatever, like you're so focused on that in the moment, it's going to look overwhelming. And that's going to, that overwhelming, same thing, is gonna start putting those blinders down and shutting down the opportunities of like, you gotta spend 20 years just fucking busting your ass and working your ass to get like,

working hard every single day. Just gotta make sure one step in front of the next, and those are aligned with your values as you're moving that. You're gonna move in the right direction. And yeah, that's the advice I'd give. And is this the next book that you're moving that, you're gonna move in the right direction. And yeah, that's the advice I'd give. And is this the next book that you're working on? Is it along the lines of teaching people

about these philosophies and the seminar? I think you just did a seminar, is it all in line with this? So yes, I originally was gonna do a book that was all just on this, but that really is kind of outside of the scope of my, you know, when we talk about too many things, what does that do if I spend an entirety of the book?

But I think that this framework fits very well within the coaching process and helping people deal with challenging situations and coaching people through that. So I am working on another book, but it's more on the adaptation processes. So what is a K value? What's a jerk metric? What is like just fundamental, amazing next generation strength training techniques kind of stuff that's in this really amazing app. I hope we talk about at some point, but then there's the mental side of that and the resilience. And then, so it's, I'm distilling it down into more of a chapter within that book so that I'm not going too many different directions.

If someone does want to learn more about your philosophical thoughts, how do they find more information on that? Is that in your teachings on the school app and stuff like that? Yep, that would be in the school app. Sick. So in like today in business, like it's literally

like we could all start like three different businesses right now, right before the end of the podcast. It's really easy to kind of get distracted. I know I'm super guilty of that. With Kabuki, it seems like the thing that got you to the dance, you know, like kind of being innovative, creating bars that nobody else has ever made How long can you continue to do that thing because it seemed like once

Someone else got involved it kind of slowed that that down a little bit Maybe I misunderstood that but it seems like I mean, I don't know you can't do the same thing forever But it was working right you're kind of getting out of the the pit something worked Can you just keep doing the same thing forever, but it was working, right? You're kind of getting out of the pit, something worked. Can you just keep doing the same thing over and over? Or do you need to like pivot here and there to maybe times change or whatever it is, but can you just continue doing the thing that got you to the dance to keep pushing you forward?

I think that you always need to continually evolve in some fashion or another, right? That doesn't mean moving on from that thing. They can continue to move on. The power project is something that is evolved from through the years as well, but it's still at its base similar, but everything evolves in some fashion.

So that could have continued to move on, yes. Like I said, I covered some missteps that I had made in the years prior. You know, for me, a lot of that was not having the money and to invest in the patents and protecting the IPs. So there became very competitive and the market changes. And as the market changes, there's things that I would have done,

that, you know, could be done with different with the business, you know, making metal products in America and doing so in the Northwest. Those are challenging things, but those are all things that can be worked around. But staying exactly the same, getting stagnated, I think has never worked in history in any manner. Every civilization evolves, worked in history in any manner. Every civilization evolves. Every company evolves. Everything has to, so you do need to be changing with the times. Adaptability is important. And that's a big piece of that framework that I'm talking about is how to be adaptable because you can't just stay. It's the same biodome principle again, right? Like we have to be

able to be flexible and adaptable to change and that adaptability is resilience. Yeah. Yeah. Cause my biggest concern with like any, any path that I do choose to go down, like I want to become the best at that thing, whatever it is, teaching people how to podcast. I want to be the authority figure. I want to be the subject expert. I do have concern though, if like, oh, you're still doing that thing, right? Like you're still doing the podcasting. It's only been, you know, a handful of years, but again, I just, because you get- But there's so many avenues of where that could be. And don't get so caught up in what it's going gonna be, because you can't imagine what the environment around you is gonna be, what the customer needs are gonna be,

but doing just what you're doing. Like my value is being the best. Like I want to be a bastion of excellence. All right, that's one value. What are some of the other ones? Now, is the work that I'm doing aligned with that? Okay, and just keep pushing that, keep pushing it. And you're gonna find that as long as you adapt to that,

but your values will shift a bit over time as well. So being aware of that. But don't try to plan some strategy too far out there. Honestly, like yeah, you need to strategize and strategize in the moment and the coming months and have an idea of some different paths in the future. But you don't know which branch of that of the future that you're going to end up on. But you know who you are and that path is the one that you want to walk. Yeah. And you keep using terms that I've been using a lot lately.

You keep mentioning the North Star and that's kind of like my thing too is like, okay, I know what that end goal kind of looks like. I don't know, it's like a little foggy, right? Because I can't see through the fog right now, through the clouds. But I see what that can be. But I don't know what the heck it's gonna look like actually until I, you know, again, take off.

So good practice that I like to have is just people walking through, identifying the words that they have affinity with. John Berardi's got a really great book, Changemaker, in that right in the middle, there's this big, I like to use chart of words. But for me, competition, being able to,

and I use that, it doesn't have to be like in an actual competition, competition with myself, to be able to challenge myself is a core value. Being able to have creative expression is a core value. Having meaningful connections, community, community could be my family, it could be a lot of things that I define, right? That is a core value.

You should have somewhere in the neighbor of five to seven. And if you can distill that down to this trifecta of three, it could be even more powerful. And having that as your lens, these are your intentions. This is what you think about your values as... Let's talk about being an entrepreneur for a minute. So in my opinion, being an entrepreneur or business owner is the ultimate artistic expression

there is in the world today. Because it is your ability to take your values, your lens and the things that you want to, see those values in the future and what that future looks like and bring that into the reality of today and bring that change into the world. Like that is the ultimate expression of art.

And that's fucking beautiful that we have the ability to do that. And that's why I love entrepreneurship and business because I'm an artist and that is the ultimate ability to express your art by actually bringing that picture and vision from the future into reality today. Isn't that freaking cool? It's the greatest thing ever.

Yeah. I think Andrew was bringing up a clip of whiskey and deadlifts. Is that what that was? From a while back. And, you know, as fun and as funny as some of these things can be that we're sort of messing around with at times,

you know, someone might think like, oh, whiskey and deadlifts, like you're just having like a good time drinking some whiskey. And you kind of are. But alcohol does lower your inhibitions a little bit. And I remember on this day, having a great day deadlifting.

No, I still stand by that methodology and the, I don't drink anymore. However, there's too many negativity things associated with it. But the impact that it can have on performance with small amounts and the right timing can actually enhance movement. I mean, it was the first, yeah, I don't dive into it too much.

I don't wanna support alcohol use much, but yeah, that does work. It changes your brain chemistry right there on the spot. It changes pain sensation, changes, yeah. There's a number of things. It enhances whatever mood and state that you're in. So even though it's an interesting thing, even though it's a depressant, it can be a stimulant.

Slightly increases the blood pressure, which is gonna create the sensation of the weight feeling less. There's a whole lot of things. Something just came to mind. I remember editing out your affirmations. Yes, yes. Leave that out.

Leave that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I could probably assume that the affirmations, just from the mouthing, are maybe a bit angry. Do you still, you know? No, no. No? No.

They're just not a good look. Oh, no. It was powerful for him to say. It's just powerful for me to say to myself. Okay, so let me ask you this. Do you still feel yourself in that way? Like in that fashion, when it comes to whether it's lifting, whether it's psyching yourself up or anything,

is that still your style of getting yourself amped up? No, it's not. Okay. Now, if I was going to come do a big lift, the same mental exercise would come into play, but I just don't chase things like that anymore. Okay, so it's because of the nature of what you were chasing, not just...

Yeah, I mean, so there's a mental state that I'm achieving right there that's causing a release of adrenal into the system. And I could basically add about 150 pounds onto my lift by stimulating that. Now it does leave me very, very depleted and you'll often see me like crying after I do a big lift and you can't do it that often as well.

Fuck man, I've had that happen before. It's hard to recover from that. It is. You're like, oh, I did that on bench and I still have the deadlift. You're like, half dead. Yeah, yeah. And so through meditation, I learned how to cue that reaction,

which is those things you hear about with a mother lifting a car or so on. It's not quite that dramatic, but it's pretty intense and you can feel it just like course through your whole body, hair stands on end, like it's a very short thing. And so that's what I used during the course of like my grand goals, training for the thousand pound squat deadlift

and a shot of alcohol would also, you know, help me get into that mental state. But I didn't use a lot of like other stuff that people used. I've never used ammonia, you know, things like that. I just, I never needed to because I was able to access that state. And there's just a matter of like different ways to cue yourself and it would change over time. Yeah, right there you're explaining about like bracing the core and a lot of the things

like that, which, which I think, you know, at that time there wasn't really a lot of people talking about how to brace yourself for a lift in a particular way. There was you, there was Staret, myself, we were talking about like, screwing your feet into the floor, I think you called it rooting maybe, right? Yeah. And kind of connecting yourself to the floor

as strongly as you can. And there was a lot of cool ideas and concepts, I think at that time that you were exploring and sharing with people. Yeah, yeah. Being able to handle the stresses of your day, the stress of exercise, and being able to stick to your nutrition plan

takes good rest and good quality sleep the night before. And if your mouth is opening during sleep or if you're snoring while your sleep quality is compromised, that's why we partner with the best mouth tape in the game, hostage tape. If you have a beard, it's going to stay on. If you have a CPAP, it's gonna stay on. This tape is not gonna fall off your mouth

like most other tapes do when you're asleep. And to enhance the way you breathe through your nose, they also have no strips. Head over to hostagetape.com slash power project where you can get a three month supply of hostage tape for only 65 cents a night. On top of that, you're gonna receive a free pack of no strips as well as a bedside tin.

Again, that's at hostagetape.com slash power project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Tell us a little bit more about your app. Yeah, I'm super, if you, I'm super excited about it. Like this is a project that goes way back, almost as early as like us getting to know each other where I started using velocity to understand readiness.

So instead of, and I think it's more common people do that now they have the tools, but at the time, you know, 15 plus years ago, speed training was done to be faster. It was just measuring speed, trying to be faster instead of actually knowing what our readiness is and being able to map faster. It was just measuring speed, trying to be faster instead of actually knowing what our readiness is and being able to map that. And so I really pioneered that and then ended up consulting most of the VBT companies over the last 10 years. And then one of those VB key companies had a really, really unique IP, which was the ability to use your camera to provide lab grade measurements. So it was really cheap to put a small puck on a plate instead of having to invest in this product.

And they saw the potential of like, Hey, this is really great, but it's just telling people velocity, what do you actually do with it? And that was my expertise. And so those principles extended way beyond that. I mean, I could fill the wall behind you with the algorithms on capturing the K value. Actually, the jerk metric is really cool. I'm gonna get to the app in a minute,

but let's talk about the jerk metric. So it's not what you think, Mark. I'm like, I might've done that this morning. So the jerk metric is a physics calculation. It's the change in rate of acceleration. So not acceleration, but the change in rate of acceleration, or more simply put, the smoothness of movement. So let's just not get fancy.

It's jerky or it's smooth. If it's jerky, you're having a lot of change in rate of acceleration. So if we go back to injury mechanisms, injuries are potentiated by hypoxic conditions in the muscle. So where we're not able to clear the acids as fast, the turnover and that hypoxic conditions

then causes some things to happen at a cellular level of release of some enzymes that then create, tension around the myelin sheath of the nerves that move. Sometimes it used to get called as trigger points and some people probably still call them trigger points, but that is in essence, what that is is there's been a release in that area. We've got some restriction and particularly if the nerve is then restricted, it has the

potential body protects nerves over muscle and we may end up with a tear or things like that. If not, you've still got inhibited movement. So managing hypoxic conditions and I would credit Dr. Charlie Weingroff with educating me on the hypoxia conditions, but that's one of the reasons like when I was chasing grant goals, I had really long rest periods. Because if you wait like 20 minutes, a lot of that will clear out naturally if that's not the case.

And so that would limit me, not a great way to train for somebody that's got a job or that you're trying to develop hypertrophy or any level of endurance or something like that. But when I was chasing those really heavy numbers every week, I had long rest periods just to minimize that. Because then that's the leading thing leading to an injury. Well, if we take this back further, and the jerk metric tells us as soon as a particular small muscle, stabilizer, prime mover, whatever it is,

starts fatiguing out and you start having a compensatory pattern kick in, which is then going to be, you've got fatigue of a particular muscle that then is potential for creating hypoxic conditions. So we have the lead, so like real time instead of measuring velocity in viewing the jerk metric we have an immediate know that we're past the point and we need to move

into another you know another area of training. So being able to use all of this information and algorithms on the science of sports training on loading, minimum. Yeah, it's so the app gets the app. So the app is freaking wild. So the app, we're doing two things. So one is real time velocity. So you're 500 pounds of water, we'll say, right? That means you might be 493 one day, 505 the next, so on. And we want to be able to modify that every day to where you're at and then also see,

are you improving or not based on the training pram? So the app is literally a coach in your pocket with bionic vision. You open it up, it watches you, and it's looking. It's doing pose estimation and velocity tracking. It's not telling you the velocity. Well, it does tell you the velocity, but it tells you the weight to load on the bar next. Hey, Mark, it looks like you got five more pounds on you today. Let's put that on there. It's seeing your joint positions and going, oh, here's a fault pattern. Here's the movement prep that you're going to do the next time. Or,

hey, we're gonna change your program and put in more split squats to develop this weakness that you've got in a certain area. So it's a one of one programming. So unlike all the other apps out there that are following specific templates, if there's 100 people on there, there's 100 programs. It's iterative.

So it's fine tuning just just like a coach would, based on how you personally are adapting. And Seema's probably gonna adapt better than you are. Even if you are on TRT. It's a bunch of bullshit. But it's true. It's probably true. So, and Seema would probably end up having more volume,

more frequency in his programming than you would. There may be differences in the approaches as they're having, because it's gonna see what's working for you and what's not. Then we're using AI to insert variables as well, and then seeing what the response is to those variables to continually refine it. It's freaking, it's amazing.

So this is 15 years of work from principals, 10 years work of work developing. So the, developing all the algorithms and statistical models for the coaching process. So essentially the process that I use to manage coaching through our system through the years, like that's all built out into this. And then the last year of taking this,

so there's no longer a puck that you have to do. It is looking and identifying the plate. So it sees where the plate's at, how far away it is, and then it's measuring velocity, literally takes no tools. You just open your phone and you point it at you. And it's capturing all of that and then refining the program based on also your inputs as far as, you know, you want more hypertrophy,

more strength, more endurance, like what is the balance of goals that you want? So for me, when I talk about like having an impact, like this is an amazing impact that we can have by actually making high quality, like methodology available for the masses. Like everybody else in like you know the data management is doing wearable tech that is more endurance and cardiovascular

focus which is fantastic. Or you know it's like you know the oar ring which I love but those are lagging indicators. They're telling you hey I did that but and it's also not tied to your program. Like, you know, these are training blocks that are moving forward with time, progressing you with goals in it. Like it's gonna show you what the goals are and where you're at and on track to with those.

So it's freaking amazing. LythLab is the app and I'm super, super stoked for it. We haven't, we don't have all the fault patterns Lyft Lab is the app, and I'm super, super stoked for it. We don't have all the fault patterns broken out yet. So looking at the joint positions and the analysis and plans, so we're building all those still. But it's just a tremendous app. I'm just thinking about how like a

It's the integration of like the newest next level sports science integrated with technology, like the technology that's available today. I mean, nobody's used, like that, the technology has developed that we've got this tool, this powerful computer right there with access to cloud AI that we can do the work with this. And we're harnessing that for like, it's incredible.

Yeah, I'm just thinking that like, I'll have my phone out, the app will be looking at me and it's just like mad at me and frustrated, my forms all off. Looks at and see when it's like super complimented and it's just like hecka nice. Like, do you look good today? Yeah.

But as far as like the movements, is it all just like barbell and dumbbell movements? Is there any plans for like, because functional movements and that sort of thing is really, really popular right now. Is there any plans for stuff like that? I mean, can it do that? You can use, so the programming will use machines. You can identify, do I have access to a full gym?

Or here's what I do have available. You can input either of those options and it'll work around those parameters. There's not a lot of like pure function, I mean like you just gobblet squats and things like that in there. But it's anything that there's a plate on, it'll also do the velocity. Otherwise it's, we're using subjective. So you're putting in an RPE in there. Now we do have a lot of functional movements on the movement preparatory within that. So it'll have a preparatory plan for the day

based on your unique needs. And that's gonna be in there. And all the videos that I've done through the years, I've got 1800 movement videos that are in there. Well, not all 1800 are in there yet, but so yeah, it does have a functional movement plan portion of that and that will be self-modified. Yeah. And cool.

But it's cool because like I do curls and it's doing if I put a, if I put a plate on there now because I'm weak, I have to put a bumper plate so that I can get a full-size plate on there. Now in the future as we get better and better, the accuracy isn't there yet for the joint positions where I could do that with a tricep press down on a cable machine. It's not gonna capture that,

so it's gonna go off of the subjective number for calculating your stress index. So everything's based around adaptive modulators. So we're calculating all these different, so the jerk metric, K values, all these are different adaptive modulators that we're using in the background. But if I do a trice, if I do a skull crusher with a plate,

that'll also do the objective measures with a velocity and tell you specifically what to load on the bar next. And it's amazingly accurate. Actually, I did it with, I was over at Tom DeLowers a couple of weeks ago and we were doing overhead pressing, which I suck at. He crushed me. But he's like, oh my God.

Cause it was like, he's like, this is perfect. Tell him exactly what to put on the bar in his next set. He is natural. Anyway. How'd he say it like that? He's on keto. Peptides. You mentioned peptides earlier. Peptides are amazing.

You've been studying it for a long time and what are some of your thoughts? Like, is there any new or cool peptides or have you utilized the peptide that you really felt moved the needle for you in some particular way? God, there's, so I do have the most comprehensive healing protocol out there.

So my website, christophan.com, I have the whole thing published. This does include like the exercises, supplementation, topicals, peptides. One of the ones in there that a lot of people don't use on the recovery standpoint is GHK-KU copper. Amazing when it comes to the injection or to the healing process.

So a lot of people just stick to the TB 500 and BPC. Again, using IGF in there can be really valuable or you could use pept you know, you know, peptides that do increase the natural, but reduce IGF systematically. If I was going to use like CJC and IPAM amaryllin, you're going to bump growth hormone, like those all good things. What does the copper do? So copper is actually, do you do any red light therapy? Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with the red light and I understand the copper.

You need to have a Dr. Desayon, he is amazing. What's his name? DESAI, so he is leading, he's releasing a book on, he's got a very unique PRP approach where he, it's patented, where he's taking, creating scaffolding based on doing liposuction, so he's spinning out, getting the stem cells and then injecting that into theuction. So he's spinning out, getting the stem cells and then injecting that into the joints.

And he's literally having things regenerate and grow back to the point. Like it's things that- How cool, he's stealing your fat and then using it for something else. Yeah, I know. Anyway, you've gotta have him on. So red light therapy.

Copper. He's really, copper, yes. So are you familiar with people using methylene blue? Yes. So methylene blue, one familiar with people using methylene blue? Yes. So methylene blue, one of the negatives with methylene blue is the down regulation of nitric oxide, which is, and GHK doesn't do that. GHK is also blue by the way. And why that works the same, but I have noticed with using GHK and also some doctors that I know that are into light therapy have noticed that

using GHK with red light does the same thing with bumping your HRV values like methylene bluewood. So right now I'm playing around with using GHK because we don't have that down regulation of NO and actually it upregulates them as well as causes, you know, cell biogenesis. So like that's one of the reasons I really like doing it for the healing is it's going to create new capillaries, going to help with turnover. We've got it's a vasodilator. So it's actually increasing nitric oxide versus down regulating.

So and what I've seen is it's doing maybe some of the similar effects that methylene blue would particularly on the cellulite or mitochondria. So mitochondrial peptides, those are really fascinating. There's a number of new ones. I call it SLU, SLU. Gosh darn it. 3-3, no, 3-3-2. I might get that wrong. Yeah. Gosh darn it, three three, no, three three two.

I might get that wrong. I think that's right. Yeah, really, really fascinating. Anything on the mitochondria improving is gonna have a positive impact on our aging, our wellbeing, just so much. Another one coming that I don't know that a lot of people have access to would be BAM15.

BAM15's really interesting. I love these names. Yeah, aren't they crazy? SluKK2, BAM15. I like to say that. Yeah. But I have, so that portion of my group is entirely free. I've got all my articles on the different peptides protocols.

That's one of the things I'll actually call out like, here's my experience and my experience with clients that I've worked with through the years. Cause a lot of like the Wolverine protocol stuff like that, those are ones that actually I was putting out like behind the scenes 15 years ago that people were then using sharing. I was sharing with clinicians or different folks in the athletic realm. I can't share a lot of those like because of just who they were and it was a taboo thing at the time.

But that's where like I can use things like more recent couple of years ago, Travis Rogers let me put his case study on there so I've got actual case studies of what I've done on there. But I, peptides are freaking fascinating. So, have you had a Adil Khan on as well? Yeah, we have. Oh yeah. Yeah, he was great.

Yeah, so I'm doing some, we're working right now with Enhanced Games over in Dubai. They're doing a clinical trial on peptides for performance. And so Adil and I put together the protocol we're doing a clinical trial on peptides for performance. And so Adeel and I put together the protocol that's going into the clinical trial. Cool. Wow. Yeah, we had the guy who's starting the whole thing. We had him on the show.

The guy who started the games. Oh, nice. Yeah, we had him on like maybe, probably like a year and a half ago, right? So yeah, I'm pretty excited to be, actually have a clinical trial for this stuff. That's really cool. I showed, I met Ade excited to actually have a clinical trial for this stuff. That's really cool. I met Adele a couple of years ago and I showed him what I was doing on the peptide front and he's like, oh my God, you know more than all these people.

I'm like, well, actually I've been doing it for like 20 years, 19. I've got a little bit. He's like, this is insane. He's like, you can't do this without like regenerative stem cells. He's like, I'm like, I know. I'm like, it's pretty crazy what you can accomplish. So I've developed a really great relationship with him around that, so we talk about stuff.

So we're gonna be working with some different case studies, I think with integrating some of his mu cells, which I need to get more educated on. That's why I was asking if you've done one. Did you guys talk about the mu cells? We didn't, I don't believe we talked about that. Okay, yeah, I need to learn more about the mu cell. So, the stem cells.

You're switching over to messing around with some running. And how's that some of that feeling? And do you have particular plans on like, I guess how you're gonna kind of unwind what you did from powerlifting or do you even need to unwind any of that? So I would say running in the way that you're thinking about, I'm probably not doing. Like I'm not running. I did do a two mile run with my daughter the other day for a parent, yeah, parent student

cross country run andaking hated it. I was no... You're sprinting. I'm sprinting. I'm sprinting. Couple hundred yards. I'm good. We're out.

So I... 400 yards is a lot. 400 is. It's brutal. And that's actually, yeah, that's what I'm hoping to train for. My time is nowhere close to what I would like it to be at this point in time. But I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it.

I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to be yeah, that's what I'm hoping to train for. My time is nowhere close to what I would like it to be at this point in time. But I try to get out and do sprints once or twice a week. I've got a hill by my house and I just go, it's 150 yards.

I do some sprints, do a couple of 75 yard starters. And actually the barefoot sprinter came recently and I ran him on the hill. I ran over him. He didn't post that one. He posted the other one. Coming out of the bushes. He's like, oh shit. He's like, I wasn't expecting that.

It was the one before that. Yeah, I did one before that. And then I literally like, we had to. He's running backwards. I'm not like trying to like brag. I'm like, I'm not that fast. I'm not that fast. I'm not very fast.

But I was faster than he thought I would be. It was pretty funny. But do you think you need to do anything in particular because you want to improve your time, right? I do. And what are some things that you think you'll need to do in order to get there? I haven't really thought about it too much because I just go out and do it, and as long as I'm getting better, I just keep doing what I'm doing, which is pretty minimal.

Why go super aggressive until I quit making improvements? You know, I'm just, I'm not trying, I don't, I'm not, I've learned enough to like, at this point, I don't, it's a process, it takes time. And I know that sounds cliche, it's a process. No, I agree. When you're new at something, any dosage is gonna be a lot. Yeah. Right?

Yeah, when I started doing it, I had a hamstring kinda tighten up the first, you know, a couple of weeks in, and I took it easy, quit doing it for a few weeks. I used to back into it. I'm like, it's just, I'm just keeping it really simple. And then when I quit making progress, I'll put some more into it.

David Weck did come up and show me a few things. That was fun. And yeah, I was faster with his pulsars and faster with his vest going up a hill. I think it was less so on flat space for me, but I'm 240 pounds going up a seven to 10 degree grade. Pretty impressive that I can put on a 12 pound vest and actually be faster.

Yeah, we're going sideways on the hill, I think. Oh, there we go. The hill is great. Hill running is awesome. What do you feel you felt when you had the vest and the pulsars on? What did it help you tap into? I don't know.

I don't think I'm that intuitive with the vest. The pulsars I can feel, and I can feel it without, like when I'm on that hill and I'm going, as soon as I just, I open up my hands and I'm just like, poof, poom, even without the pulsars. Like I can, every swing, I can just feel my whole body just go, boom. Like just move forward.

That's it, yeah. And that's why when Dave, you know, I've been talking to him for years, but he texted me, he's like, oh, I saw this, you gotta come up. And I was like, oh yeah, cause I'd already, like I was feeling that just doing the sprints. I'm like, come up, show me some more.

So we saw a few things with my foot position. So he wants my feet more under me. So he didn't have me doing like moving my head around so much as like keeping one of my feet was going out to the side, which you can probably see in this. It's hard all those years of squatting and externally rotating the knees. So your knees are like, if you watch, you know,

a high level sprinter, which is, you know, hard for anybody to do, you watch like Olympic level sprinters, they're the best of the best, but their knees come way in, you know, as they as, as they're in acceleration, their knees come flying way in all the way to the point where it's like across the midline of their body, which you wouldn't even really think.

Yeah. Yeah. Cal Deets. I just, I don't know if it went up. I just posted a video on his, uh, I guess standing hip drill, but he's using the different phases of the drive, the push, the pull. I'm not sure exactly if I got the terminology right with a band across your hip. On that post, I've really, I've used that with my kids. They're both really fast, unlike me. And that's really interesting. But you're, you know, when you're, when you've got that, the three different positions, you're, you know, one's internally rotated, you know, one's straight forward, one's externally rotated and they're just different distances in front of the band. So how far you're, you're driving

into it or lagging behind. Pretty interesting drill. I can feel that one as well. But yeah, the pulsars really kind of bring that out. So I like to use those during my warmups. And then I do one hill sprint without them because I have a timer in my hand and I haven't got the time to set anything up.

So I'm like, I set that down and I do, I have the timer in my hand. But I think it's teaching some of the right things and making sure it's reinforcing those patterns. Yeah. And I know you're taking it slow, which is good. It's smart. But have you noticed anything about your body changing

as you've been implementing more sprinting and running versus like, you know, what you were doing before? Yeah. My HRV values have come up, My resting heart rate, so post, so I had COVID a bunch of times. And since that, my resting heart rate went up and my HRV went down and they just hadn't recovered since that time.

So I really was not happy with that. But post sprinting, as soon as I started implementing that, like I started implementing that, I started getting back to normal. So now I'm back closer to a 15 resting heart rate. My HRV has been climbing back up. So I've been really, really pleased with that. I'm sure there's probably some fans

and some people listening where they're like, they're not gonna talk about powerlifting. So I think we should just touch upon it at least a little bit. Let's just take the example of the squat. How'd you end up becoming so proficient at the squat? What were some key pillars, what were some key things that you did over the course of 10, 12 years to get that,

what'd you do, like a nine something squat at like 220? Yeah, yeah. 80, my best competition was was 881 at 220, which was the heaviest four times bodyweight total at the time. In training, I did a lot more because I was cutting too much weight, but I was training in the mid-900s when I was competing. And then when I quit competing, I did stop use, I started using significantly less gear, surprisingly, that when I hit the thousand squat and deadlift, I was using way

like a tenth of what I was using during those periods. But I was only doing one lift at a time like it during those seasons. So it allowed me to be able to do that and still continue to improve my performance. Now I'm just down to HRT and peptides. And to get to that 881 squat, what were some things that you did and went through in your training? Yeah.

Technique was for me like a big, big driver. I was stuck around a mid 700 squat for, you know, a number of years. And I started implementing these principles that I learned from the Prague School of Medicine, dynamic neuromuscular stabilization. And so at that time, you know, the lot of the methodology or approach was to push your hips way back and to arch way up.

And essentially I started doing the opposite of that. So I started stacking my rib cage over the top of my pelvis and breathing out and expanding 360 degrees around and sitting between my hips. And at the time, everybody said I was crazy because nobody was doing that. And- Can I ask you a quick question?

Yeah. Was nobody doing that because of the nature of the suit? Did the suit make you have to squat or did the suit make people want to squat in the first way you were mentioning? I think the suit did accentuate that, but I think it was just, it was just the mode of operation.

It was, hey, if you're caving, or if you're rolling over and losing position, arch harder. So it was all about stiffening those erectors, arching up, and then pushing that butt back. Not to interrupt, but that's a super lift right there. That is a super lift, yes. And so that's when the paradigm started changing for me is doing that.

And the big thing was I was able to recover better. I, you know, my back just wasn't beat up like everything. Like I just wasn't hurting as bad and I would be able to train more and more. And that's when I started getting those results. And you can see that. That was perfect. That stacked position.

Yeah, you actually kind of missed it on the first one, but you nailed it right there. The 881 squat you did was just in knee wraps, right? Yes. Yeah. Is that the? It's this one right here. Yeah. Okay. 400, 400 kilos. I had a big jump after that one. That's Sean Doyle behind there. He was at Big Dogs a number of years. He lifted with you, right? Yeah. And that guy, what, he was dead lifting like 900 something pounds, wasn't he? Yep. He's never been like, it takes him about two years to reply to a text message and he's on social media, but trust me, it's not him.

If you can even find a post but it's like a training partner or something he's a he's a recluse he's a I love him no here's a 400 kilo squat that we're watching from Chris Duffin here so you can see that my torso position just nothing moves like I'm just staying right over the top of those hips. And boom. And I don't think there's any question around the depth on that one. So, that was nice.

That's Rudy there. Pure joy. And then, so yeah, it was implementing and that ended up becoming kind of a paradigm shift in the industry. So this is for me, just the sequence of how I did those things, which was, you know, making sure that I've got that locked in.

Because if I, you do that first, you're going to, you know, create some rigidity in that torso. And then I would root into the floor, really activate those glutes. And then I would draw the bar down to really activate those glutes, and then I would draw the bar down to create the stabilization of the lat-last. Cause if you draw that first, it's gonna throw you into extension. And just putting everything,

taking out all those energy leaks so that all the power would just be in the squatting. Like just super, super efficient. And yeah, that was, that was for me a big. How did you- So I ended up putting like 120 pounds on my squat in the next year. And I really didn't get any stronger.

Like it was just more efficient. I was able to just like push all that power. And that's was a lot of the driver to some of the thought processes is around the equipment and things as well, because changing, driver, some of the thought processes is around the equipment and things as well, because changing, oh, this is the animal cage. I did a 900 pound squat.

600 pound row, 885 pull, all under five minutes. Yeah, I should have repped the 885. I didn't know what I was thinking about there. I actually tore my quad four weeks before, couldn't even lift up my, couldn't do a bodyweight squat. And then I healed myself up with some peptides. And then,

cause I suck at bench, I figured I'd row. And then here's the 885 pull to get 2,400 pounds. And it was just stupid easy. I don't know what I, I should have just wrapped that. God damn. The other thing I did was, that's a lot fatter. Look at all that fucking face.

Look at that face, baby. That's gotta be fun having that many people watch it. That was a huge, there's Grant Higa on the side there. Watch those feet though, watch those feet grab that ground. I was like, oh, but they're flat, but they're not. They're active.

When you were saying you were able to start to incorporate this form, what type of weights did you start with to bring that form alive? Well, that's the thing. You can't practice technique without challenging the system and seeing where your faults are. Everybody wants to just chase perfection sometimes and they lose the sight. You don't know what you're not doing. It's the same thing as we were talking about with the six Ps.

You got to be pushing the edges to know where to get better at. You can't perfect your squat without pushing the limits of your load. You can't push the limits of your load if you don't take out all the energy leaks and perfect your squat. You don't fucking get there by creating perfect technique with a bar or a broom, and you don't get there by throwing everything

out the window going, it's just fucking guts and glory, and it don't matter what it looked like. Like neither of those is gonna, like you chase these two things and you find a beautiful thing in the middle. I call it the balance through the extremes approach. Because for me personally,

I could feel what was right and I could feel what was wrong. Very, very distinctly. I could do a set of three and be like, okay, I can add 15 pounds, maybe 30 pound jump, for the next set, but that's probably gonna be about it. I would do the next set and I would be like, all three of those reps still felt clean, but I should stay here because the next time I go up,

my form's gonna break down. Did you kinda, was that a little bit your experience? So this time, so like I was talking about the velocity, I was managing all of my training with the velocity. So I would know, even on the warmups, I would know exactly what I could train with that day. I could, down to like two pounds, I could know what my max was by measuring the velocity.

I had that mapped. And then, yeah, I mean, that's, I use that as my objective guide, you know, very science based approach. But- The numbers are wrong. The numbers are bad. The numbers are bad. But if you didn't put in the effort, that's the thing though.

Like if you don't try, like I think about it as effort-based training. Like if you don't try, it doesn't, you know, like just trying harder, you know, if we simplify it, you know, so yeah, I just like putting those numbers to it so I could see exactly where I was and take an objective look because I'm known to be a very ego-based lifter. And I needed to do that to actually control myself because I would go, before that I had a propensity to injure myself, to push too hard. Even though I would know it, I'd walk away.

The joke with the coaching team was like, Chris just did a five rep, bleeding out the nose, fell down, just wobbling around, barely finished. And he's like, RPE seven. I couldn't use that objective with myself. I just remember that bar flying at your gym from all that weight sliding off the one side. Oh yeah, that's a good one.

And luckily no one died, but that was insanity. That was a doil in that one too. Yeah, I reposted that one recently. That's one of my most watched videos is just happens to be that epic bar failure. It's kind of terrifying. It's hilarious though. You think it's all done and then it's just like more.

So you're going to do more of these corporate seminar type things that you've been doing? I'm not sure. I mean, I do them intermittently. So last year I did one. It was kind of fun because I took my kids with me. It was at Washington DC and I did it at the Naval Museum right there on the main street in DC and I had the Washington DC police and fire department that I was giving it to deal in response to PTSD from the January 6th.

So that was really cool, like giving that there and having my kids there. And then we went and had private tours of the Capitol and the White House. And that was just like, it was pretty freaking cool. And that, like our person given the tour had to run away because they, like somebody went and pulled one of the, it was on the news like all over afterwards, like one of the house representatives pulled the fire extinguisher to, cause they were going into session and the government was going to shut down. Oh, you were there. Yeah, because we were getting the private behind the scenes tour.

And then, yeah, whoever was the speaker of the house, like we were in his room while he was like getting fired. Like on his deck, I've got pictures of my family out on the deck. And then for the next day we're like, Oh, that's what was happening. That's great. Oh yeah. Here's the, Oh my gosh. I don't think I've seen this. Oh, it goes from really bad to really worse. Yeah. I don't even remember exactly what happened. I just remember the bar goes flying.

Missed cue on how many reps, maybe? Yes. OK. I was supposed to do two, and he brought the rack in. I got caught on one side. And then, oh, oh, oh, wait. But wait. Whoa!

How did, like, no one got hurt? You walked in with your help fist. I did. Yeah. Fuck. Oh, god. Oh, God. Shit, man. So basically you got 120 pounds stronger

on your squat from knowledge. Yes. From just learning more. You learned about racing the core, you learned about your form and technique and being patient and dialing it in. Yep, that was it. That's amazing.

Yeah, education. Thank you for coming in, I appreciate it. No, thanks for having me, man. It's been too long. You're a good friend. Is this the fourth time? I think so. Wow.

Two since I've been around. I get a frequent flight discount. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? It's pretty easy. You type in Chris Duffin. It's like muffin. Duffin on a muffin. A D instead of an M. You put that in your social media browser, I will pop up, or you type it in the internet and it's chrisduffin.com, I will pop up.

So go to the start here tab on my webpage and you will see the link to the free community. So go check that out. Just tons of educational resources. We're doing beta testing on the app right now. And you can go check that out on Lyft lab is the app. It's the absolute best. It's the pinnacle of technology today's interface with next generation training science, doing some podcasts on those topics and Peptides as well. So physical logical amplification. It's on my youtube. But again everything you can find christophant.com and

Always check out barefoot boots barefoot shoes for the absolute best and for the health and strength of your feet Strength is never a weakness weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye That was great that was good, thank you