Mark Bell's Power Project - How to Build Real Athleticism Again

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

In this episode, Mark & Nsima talk about what it really takes to become athletic again — not just stronger, not just bigger, but more capable. We get into sprinting, hopping, shadow boxing, isometrics, why I’m lifting differently now, and how trying new skills can open up your body, your training, and your mindset.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell

I'm not going to use a regular barbell and do just a regular barbell back squat. I don't feel like that has any purpose for me for right now. You don't need to keep pushing that one button over and over and over for the rest of your life. I think most of us would rather be a little bit more well-balanced. When we're thinking about training, we're also thinking about what it can make us, how it can make us look, how it can make us feel. You're building your ability to have better endurance, but you're not necessarily building other capacities of potential athleticism.

My goal with hopping and bouncing is to try to have it all be effortless. I think the worst thing you can do is to say to yourself that you can't do it. I've been doing some sprints. Yeah. And so I'm like way faster than you. But I wanted to know. So much faster to me, bro. So much faster.

It's unbelievable. I aspire to be as fast as you. I'm just so far ahead. It's going to be tough. Right. You should play some clips of Mark running. That's right. Show that speed.

Shoes smoking and everything. Sonic the Hedgehog looking, man. Remember that movie with Martin Lawrence? Nothing to Lose, I think it's called. I feel ashamed of that. Well, it's an old movie, you know. It's pretty old. But had Martin Lawrence and the guy goes and he walks in the convenience store and his like shoes are like literally on fire.

And the guy behind the convenience store counter, the guy goes, he leans over and he's got this thick accent. He goes, you must be really fast. Because like for whatever reason he like, his shoes were. actually on fire and you're like smoking. I don't know if you can try to find that clock. And if he was Martin Lawrence, he knows hilarious. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's this.

I have seen this movie. This clip is so good. He's like, you got a spider on your head. And he goes, man, I'm not sure about the way that you're talking. He's like, I don't know what that means. He's like, no, you got a motherfucking spider on your head. Oh, there we go. And then see if you can play the audio when he goes into the convenience store.

Look at that dance. Now, I could probably do that dance. Maybe not to the tune of this music. Is this the really blue. You can really play in the blue dance. Isn't that great? Oh, no, this is the scatman. Scatman.

Hey, it worked. So it's right after this. He goes walking in the convenience store. Their cars all beat the shit. Oh, my goodness. That's how fast you are. That's how fast. That's what happens when you run.

Steam forms underneath your feet. That's what's going on. So you've been doing some sprinting though, too, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And are you hitting hills or what, like, what are you doing? Actually, it's kind of cool right by my spot or right in my neighborhood. There's like this loop of houses and it's probably close to like 400 meters. So I haven't been doing as many hills.

Now I've actually just been using and sprinting across that. I kind of have a baseline. So each week, whether it's like three to five days a week, I at least want to hit that once at a decent speed. Like I did that this morning. I'll do warm up a little bit, you know, just get my body kind of warm. I'll hit it at like 70, 80%, and I do that just to make sure that my body can just do this without, you know, without taking anything away. Meaning when I finish that 400 or so it is, I don't really feel beat up. My body feels good.

And then I'll also do, I'll do that with intervals. So like there will be one day of the week, and I did it earlier this week where I'll do like a conditioning interval session with that. And what I like to do is I like to jump rope to get my heart rate up to maybe like 150, 155 beats per minute. Then I'll hit that sprint for maybe four to five reps. And I'll try to like just progressively make it faster. And we talked about this before. But I like to kind of go, I'll do one sprint forward. Then I'll do another sprint across that.

But like some of it will be going forward. Some of it will be going laterally. Some of it will be going laterally. The opposite way and backwards. Just because I, you know, I come from a soccer playing background. So I think it's kind of important to be able to move quickly in different directions of the body. And that builds a level of like different. stimulus on your ankles, knees, et cetera.

So I add that into my sprints. Build your ankles up differently. Your Achilles tendon, everything's getting different, all kinds of different positions. Because I'm not trying to be the best 100 meter runner or whatever, but I want to, I want my body to be able to handle all those different stems, you know? So that's why I do it in the way I do it.

I think, you know, you can get into a category where you can sort of fake some of this stuff. Graham and I this morning, we ran on the track, and we saw a guy that was, like this guy was flying. This guy was like doing great. I don't know what he was doing, but he looked like he was doing like five minute mile intervals and he was running far. And then he would rest a little bit and he would do it again. Excuse me. You said five minute mile intervals. As in was he doing five minute mile pace or he was doing miles at five minutes per mile and doing intervals of that. He was doing like a five minute mile pace and running at least a

lap or two. Oh, okay. You know, and then just resting a little bit and then and then hauling ass again. And then like I don't know what he was doing. He was going nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was putting on different shoes and stuff. And me and grammar, like, this guy's unbelievable. But at the same time, that builds a certain structure. And that can cause, I don't want to preach against fitness. And I don't want to preach against somebody that's moving like that.

I don't want to preach against somebody that has a mentality like that. That guy was, he was awesome. He was incredible. I'd love to train with him someday. But at the same time, when you do that over and over again, it just produces only a certain result. And so what you're talking about, like, running, you know, sideways and some of these different ways, it's not going to get you the same result that that guy has, but that guy obviously has a particular goal.

And then you end up with a particular physique. And then also, too, the guy was kind of locked into like a very particular position. Yeah. Like as he's running, he's kind of like overarched a little bit. All these stupid critiques based off of like just watching this guy for a few minutes on a run. But it's just to say that like I think most of us would rather be a little bit more well. balanced. Maybe not everybody, but I think a lot of people would like to be more well balanced. And when we talk about athleticism, I think we get confused sometimes. Like, oh, athleticism is a

basketball player. And I think sometimes why we think about a basketball player is because a lot of times a basketball player can usually do multiple other things. When they're put in that position to try football or to try, you know, maybe baseball or try some other sports, a lot of times they look coordinated. They look like they can handle it, right? Whereas maybe like a high-level division one swimmer who's, you know, a sprinter who just annihilates everybody, maybe they go to catch a ball and they just don't have the coordination with it because they, you know, they haven't done that before. And so I think a lot of times when we're thinking about training, we're also thinking about like what it can make us,

how it can make us look, how it can make us feel, and how it can make us interact with the particular sports that maybe we're trying to play. It's quite interesting what you mentioned about the swimmer because, It makes me think of people who do triathlons. And note, there's no shades of people who do triathlons because that's extremely, it's hard work to do. But, you know, I think a lot of people, when they think about their fitness, they're like, okay, what is the next thing I can get myself into?

Triathlons might be the thing, but then you think about what's going on. You're running, biking, swimming. So it's quite literally just an endurance-based event with three different modalities. What are you building there? You're building your ability to have better endurance, but you're not necessarily building other capacities of potential athleticism.

You know what I mean? So it's one of those things that like if you, if that's some of the things you do, maybe you can have some other things within what you do outside of that. That can round, if you're interested, round out your athletic coordination, strength type of ability, you know? Kind of like some of the stuff that you're doing right now. Yeah. And this morning, you know, I did a bunch of sprints and stuff,

but I'm also doing some drills. definitely could do more rotational work so it'd probably be a good idea for me to bring like a med ball or something to the track but I was working on the kicks and stuff that you and I were messing around with so I was just doing you know normal sprinter type stuff where they're doing you know

different you know circle fire hydrant type things with the leg I was doing all those basics but then I was also throwing in a little karate kicks here and there and being able to do you know some of those moves from the guy that I can't say his name because I don't know how to pronounce it. A long galani. from Galani.

You know, that guy was able to like, you know, take his hips, get on one foot and then really articulate the hip up. You sometimes see Joe Rogan do that because Joe Rogan has some crazy proficiency with some kicks, but it's like they don't just like throw the leg out there and kick. They like put the leg out there way high and then they kick. And it's still with a lot of force. Like, holy crap. So anyway, I think some of that stuff that you showed me, I think it's going to be really.

really valuable and I was mixing in a bunch of that before I started my sprints today. Yeah, man. It's like, again, you know, we can think about all these different capacities that we can build. You know, interestingly enough, I didn't post it. I took some video. I'm going to post some of it on YouTube soon, but I literally just wanted to do a bounce type workout yesterday or a bounce type movement session. So I was, I literally was just in front of my house, had my jump rope. Matt, I was doing some hopping, right? It wasn't using the jump rope, but then I started hopping a little bit faster, shifting in terms of my footwork, shifting back and forth, started hopping higher, hopping and then facing the other way, hopping and then facing the opposite direction, right?

And it's, it's my goal with hopping and bouncing is to try to have it all be effortless, right? Do it for a period of time, because I think I was doing it for maybe 25, 30 minutes of just like hopping. Kind of fun, right? It's very fun, but like it's tapping into that ability, you know, we just had Keith Barr on to be more elastic. because if you're more elastic and you're not resorting to muscular jumping, then it's not really going to take that much energy to do it, right?

So that was my intent. And that's, again, you don't have to own a jump rope to necessarily practice that. But you can have, like, a governor you can put on yourself is, can I keep hopping and can I maybe even increase the height of my hop? And if I'm turning with my hops, but can I keep that while breathing through my nose? Right. So that means, again, I'm trying to be a little bit more efficient. It does mean you can't ever allow yourself to open your mouth,

but also you're looking for that force you're generating off of the ground to pretty much not feel like it's hitting your joints. You not feel like it's costing you anything, which I think is, again, a very simple input, but can go very far if you're someone who's interested in sprinting or doing any of these things that may require a level of elasticity that we were talking about. I think hopping is such a great activity to get you used to other sports. Somebody who's thinking about wanting to play some pickleball or somebody who's thinking about, oh, I used to play volleyball. when I was young and I'd love to get back into it. I think probably one of the best ways to get back into it is I think a little bit of strength training goes a long way. Like I'll always be a fan of like just go do some leg extensions, some leg curls and do

some biceps. And like I just think that that stuff is valuable, body mind spirit. I think it's going to make you a little bit more robust. But then just a little bit of hopping. And then also just some coordination stuff like go from hopping from one foot to two feet or from two feet to one foot or from two feet to two feet or from two feet to two feet. or one foot to one foot or with what you're saying where you jump and you do like one one one, right? You one one one, then you go to the other side. One one one. Then you try to do a full

rotation. It'll really mess you up and you'll be like, holy shit, I got two left feet. I'm so uncoordinated. But after you do it for a minute, you'll start to get used to it. And Andy Triana is amazing with this stuff. Superbrain. He does a lot of these types of things. He does stuff where he'll like chuck a med ball and then he'll jump. And we've seen some other. strength coaches and stuff that we've had on the show, talk about these things, Corey Schlesinger, Phil DeRue being another one, you see Phil doing it all the time. But where you, you know, take, just do like a two-foot takeoff, just standing completely still, standing on maybe some sort of line or crack in the ground, and you jump forward to another

line or crack on the ground or cone or whatever it might be, and then you land on one foot. And then once you land on one foot, and I'm just making this up, so you can make it up too. from there, just, you know, land on your right foot and jump as far as you can to your left. Then once you land on your right foot again, as far as you can go on your, you know, to your left, then jump straight. Then just repeat the whole thing in the exact opposite fashion for the other side. Just shit like that. And you will be, you'll be surprised in many different ways, but you'll also be excited

because by the time you do that the second or third time, you'll start to kind of get it. And you're like, okay, I'm not as dumb as I thought I was with my coordination. And you'll start to get it and you'll feel better with it. And the very next time in the gym, as Keith Barr pointed out, because your body gets used to stuff pretty quickly, you'll be better at it. Absolutely. You know, one thing that I'm curious for you, Mark, because you used to do some boxing when you were younger. Man, I feel like you bringing shadow boxing into some of your practice might be something that you'd really enjoy. Like, that was one of the things I was doing yesterday along with hopping because,

Shadowboxing allows you to work on a bit of footwork, work on a quick feet. You can work on different foot in front of the other, whether it's orthodox or south paw. But if you know how to like throw some punches, then that's also a way to like, you know, like we were talking about kicking, how kicking allows you to kind of decompress the hips in the lower body because you're putting force into that joint. Same thing with the-throwing all the way through it. Yeah. Throwing your force through it, right?

That's like shadow boxing has been so fun. And it's like it has such a it's such a great input on the body too. So it's one of those things where it's like this is something that anybody can build these skills while improving their coordination, improving their elastic movement ability, improving their footwork, getting a level of ply metric stimulus in. And I really do think that people when they start doing plios, they're too intense with it. Everyone wants to jump high. But that low grade hopping, especially if you can learn to make that somewhat effortless,

you can build on that so that you can be, again, more elastic when you jump. I want to say that it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently is like a lot of times we're like, I don't really feel like doing that. Yeah. Like you're thinking about like, oh, man, I got this workout. I've been working on jumping for a few weeks. I'm supposed to do A, B, and C. And like now you're kind of on the hook to do stuff that's like progressively harder, right?

But don't, I don't think, don't get caught up in that. Get more caught up in like, let me just. actually move and then I'll assess how I feel. I don't think it's a fair assessment to judge how you feel when you haven't felt anything yet. You haven't even like broke a sweat. So once you break a sweat and once you kind of get into something, I know that's that's the hard part is getting the wheels turning. But once you kind of get those wheels turning, if something's off, then it's off. Then you know like, all right, well, it's, I'm not going to really train today. Or I'm going to switch and train and do something slightly different. But almost always.

you go to do something, you move around for a little bit. Like just take, for example, like some sort of running or some sort of sprinting. You're going to sprint in your neighborhood. And you're like, man, my ankles are stiff. My hamstrings are, you know, I had a rough roll and I lifted the other day and I did the sand. It's like so easy to talk yourself out of it, right? Start moving around a little bit.

Maybe you skip a little rope. Maybe you play some music. Maybe you walk your dog a little bit or play with your dog or you just start doing shit. Next thing you know, you've got a sweat going. and you're like, I feel good enough. Absolutely. All right, maybe I won't do those 400s, but I'll do like some 200s.

I'll walk the other 200. You know what I mean? Like you talk yourself into something. Mm-hmm. So I think that's what people really need to try to just get themselves comfortable with is let me just go in there and at least get some of this like warm up stuff done and then judge how I feel. That's why like for me,

that's what the jump rope does for me because the jump rope is like a fun thing that lets me get my heart rate up and let's me build a sweat. And then once I build a sweat, what you were just mentioning there is super. important. That shows you what your body is really going to be capable of on the day because you're warm. You know, everything, your tissues are all warm and you're ready to go. Then you'll be like, okay, no, I can do much more. But a lot of times the, when you judge yourself based off of how you feel without doing anything, that's kind of a lie. Like, that, that's really a lie. Like warming up and getting, getting everything flowing is really important. But I'm actually curious, man. Like right now, are there any new strength inputs? Because you're mentioning like, of course, you're not not, not doing strength training. But you did. But you did. I'm actually, I'm actually curious. You're not, did put out a video recently on your channel, mentioning how, like, you know, you don't necessarily do squats the same anymore, right?

And that video got a lot of views because you're the guy who, like, built up a lot of stuff based off of squatting and benching. So you still lift, but what do the, what does your resistance training look like in assistance of what you're currently doing? Right now, like as we speak,

probably lifting less than I've lifted in a while. Yeah. And that's just because recently I've been at the tributtons like three days a week. And for me to be at the track three days a week is new. And it's different. So there's not nearly as much lifting going on. But two or three days a week.

And for me, two or three days a week is, I think, more than enough. Yeah. And what I'm trying to think about with the gym is like, what can I get from the gym? What can I get from the gym to make me feel better? And feel better could mean a couple different things. Feel better could literally just be a pump. Yeah. Because a pump feels good to me.

Like I still like those. I still enjoy that. I still enjoy having muscle. So like attending to having muscle mass and doing a little bit of hypertrophy, that's not out of balance. That's something that I can still do. But most of the other stuff that I'm doing is like, let me kind of like creep back into some actual real strength training.

Some four sets of six and things like that and like a lower repetition work. Isometrics are starting to become a bigger part. And sometimes it's just like, Like dumbbell, I'll do like dumbbell bench press or dumbbell curls. And in between, I'll hold some dumbbells and do a lunge and just hold a lunge for a little while. Yeah. For me, there's so many different ways that I can lunge to really challenge myself. I can do a lunge and I can hang out there for a long time because I have built up some strong legs.

And so there's positions that I can just cheat and I can hang out there for a while and be like, see, I did a minute. but I can really challenge myself by being a lot more upright. Like my body doesn't, my body has always hated being upright. Yeah. And it's a, if you're trying to become a good athlete, being upright is really important. Being able to stack your body is really important.

You think about the great, you know, football players and all these great athletes, especially basketball players, as Keith Barr was pointing out, how they can play really high and still jump like crazy, right? A lot of that has to do with your eyes, too, being able to see. I mean, if you're, if you're bending forward a lot and you're, now you have to try to keep your head up. And it's just, it's just a greater challenge, right? And so anyway, for me, you know, a lot of these, a lot of those types of movements to get me to be stronger in a more upright position. So it's like, I'll still squat.

You know, I know I did that video of talking about not squatting. But what I meant was I'm not going to use not anytime soon, I don't think. I'm not going to use a regular barbell and do just a regular barbell back squat. don't feel like that has any purpose for me for right now. I could maybe use the Canberd bar. I could maybe use various bars and do some box squats. Definitely belt squats come to mind. Goblet squats, you know, all kinds of other different types of movements.

Like a goblet squat would serve me because it helped open up my groin. It's going to help to, you know, build some of those muscles that are going to get tax when I'm sprinting. Yeah. Those muscles are extremely tight on me for me to sit on the floor. And just to be, you know, crisscross applesauce is like very hard for me. My knees want to be real high up. Broyne muscles are really tight. And so when I think about my strength training now, I'm thinking, how do I address,

how do I address a lot of these different things? Not all at one time because that's overwhelming. It's like I feel like I got too much shit to do. And probably a lot of other people probably feel the same way. Yeah. But if you and I are talking and you're like, man, you seem to be really tight, you know, through here and through the lats. And we talk about like, well, you know, pullover is a great exercise, works your lats, works your triceps. Why wouldn't

I do a movement like that? You know, why wouldn't I do something that's going to like stretch the triceps, work the triceps? Why wouldn't I do something like a lunge? It's going to open up the hip flexor. It's going to allow me to stretch. It's going to open up some of the front lines. Why wouldn't I do some of the exercises that you're doing? So that's kind of the way I'm looking at strength training these days. Nice. No, you know, I think that's one of the interesting things about strength training is that I think when some people look at lifting, it's like a lot of people are like you don't need all this extra stuff. You just need the basics. And yes, the basics in terms of like working on like Loveless machines, doing some SBD, doing some accessory work working your specific like muscles in

isolation. That is great for building certain muscles, building tissues. But when you've done that, you don't need to keep pushing that one button over and over and over for the rest of your life. I think that's like even a lot of people that listen to this show, y'all have been lifting for a while. So, so one thing to ask yourself is, okay, you have this capacity. What are the things are you kind of interested in being able to do? You know what I mean? That that's the question to ask for how you and then broaden your practice. Because, like, you know, I'm interested in improving all of my martial arts movement abilities. I already grapple pretty well, and that's already improving because I do that a lot.

I want to be able to throw good kicks, throw good punches. I want to be able to have access to all these other ways that my body's able to move, and I want to be able to do it efficiently and fluidly. So I don't need to keep over-indexing on hypertrophy. I actually don't need to be focusing on hypertrophy much of at all. I do calisthenics, which gives me a level of hypertrophy, but it also gives me a level of body weight, strength, weight ratio. I want to be able to control my body in a lot of different positions,

which doesn't necessarily mean I need more tissue to do so, but it means I need a level of muscular control and potentially isometric strength in certain positions to do so. So that's why a lot of my training, in my resistance training, has started leaning towards I'm doing a lot of isometrics in certain positions. I do a lot of work on the rings and a lot of calisthenic type movements, whether it's hangs, pulls, movements in a bridge, position, which is an extension of the spine, right? I do a lot of that because I don't necessarily

need to focus on hypertrophy. I still do some dynamic work. So I still use my sandbags. I'll still do the fighting the sandbag thing because what that helps me do is it helps me learn, especially the training sandbag. You should fuck with this. With one of your longer training sandbags, I like to, I've showed you this before because it's longer and I don't have it fully filled, but it's filled enough. you know I can put it on my shoulder walk around bring it down gable grigig have to my other shoulder put it on my knee but breathing while controlling that sandbag for three to five minutes I find that to be a super useful kind of like strength implement like you mean like rolling around the ground and stuff with a little bit too kind of thing you can yeah you can yeah you can go down into a lunge go down on to seza come up with it but the thing is is when I do that

kind of like we were talking about I keep the breath going I never hold my breath when engaging with load so I continue to teach my system how to produce force without having to hold the breath. Because whenever you're fighting, whenever you're grappling, there's never a point in time where you're going to do a Valsalva movement to create force on an opponent or to put someone off of you. And if you do, your heart rate's going to be raising and you're getting yourself that much closer to gassing out. So I still have inputs of strength and resistance to my structure. But there's no longer the need to spam the hypertrophy isolation button because I don't. definitely could get bigger, but I also don't need to get bigger, right? And if that's your goal,

one thing I want you to think about is, do you have to do that five days a week? Do you even have to do that four days a week? You could probably get away with two to three inputs of hypertrophy a week to get what you're looking for while you have other days where you can start building other skills that really interest you. You know what I mean? And I think one aspect of this is like the belief that you can do that. So like the belief that you can throw sick kicks. You know what I mean? I want to be able to move like someone who does capoeira like a like a fucking Michael J. White, right? Well, got to add some of those movements in and do it for a period of time rather than spamming hypertrophy forever, you know. It's weird when you do stuff like that too. You'll notice like new muscle. Yeah. You're like,

wait, what's this? And it might look different. It might not be as bulky or might not be as like maybe cool for a bodybuilding show or something like that, but it's different. You're like, wow, I don't. never even knew that that muscle was there. Like I got a big hip flexor muscle from all the all the sprinting and all the running and shit like that. And I'm sure as I go to like kick and bring my foot to the side and all that stuff, probably more stuff will show up. But yeah, from sprinting, you know, I started to get all kinds of different muscles growing. I think that's the coolest thing, though, about learning to explore different aspects of things you're interested in. Because again, like you always say, it always does come back to if you're interested in it. That's the reason to do it. Just because I'm

saying learning to throw some kicks, if you're not interested in learning to throw kicks, it's not going to serve you. But when you start learning how to do one, some of these things, you're like, oh my gosh, I've never, I'm throwing punches and I've never felt the tendons in my shoulder. They feel like, you know, because now you're throwing something with force and there's pool here. So you know that, okay, well, my body needs to learn how to relax certain areas so that I can do that swiftly. Or the same thing, when you're, when you're picking up your leg to throw a kick, you might realize, oh, this muscle is really tight. So I need to be able to relax this tissue so I could hold this position in an easier fashion.

I got sore from doing that. My stomach. Because you're turning towards it too. My stomach was coming up. I did a bunch more or like later that day and you sent me a message before I did it, which was good because you're like, hey man, you might get carried away with like wanting to do a bunch of it. And I still did more of it, but it wasn't like I didn't do, you know, too much of it. But yeah, I felt like, you know, all the muscles in my side and all that kind of stuff.

And you'll even start to feel muscles in your back because as you turn it. towards this way and you bring this leg up. It's not just your obliques, but it's also your back that's going to be helping you hold this position. But the coolest thing is what these positions teach you about your body or what your body can't do right now. Because then you can be like, okay, well, this is how this looks when somebody good does it. They look like they're pretty relaxed. So my body has to learn how to be that relaxed in this position to be able to do that efficiently. How do I get there? That's really sick. And then once you get that, what can that necessarily then bring you bring you for your sprinting for these other positions of the other stuff you do because

now you're you're building a broader vocabulary of movements that you can do and now when you come to sprinting it's like it's easier because you have more access you know i think the worst thing you can do is is to say to yourself that you can't do it oh yeah like oh i can't do that like like that one's that one's not for me you know swing in the mace club now i saw in seema doing that with the 40 pound mace or whatever well yeah maybe day one you starting out the 40 pound mace maybe that's a terrible idea. But can you start out with five pounds on there or two pounds? Like that's where you started. Oh yeah. I saw you. Saw you starting with like just a little itty bitty weight on there and swinging it around and then getting more used to it. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Not like day one you

couldn't have swung a bigger one but you chose to like learn it. Yeah. Let me ask you this man because I think like this brings me back to that video. I remember seeing from Zach to Lander when he was talking about you and he was calling you a try guy because you like to try all these different things. And when I saw that, I was like, ah, like I don't know if that's that. Because, like, Zach is doing music. And yeah, he's been doing music for a long time. But, like, now he's doing that professionally. And if you never believed he could become a good musician and try it out and look a little

bit wacky, Zach wouldn't be as, like, as sick as he is right now. Because he's a fucking good musician. I don't know if you've been listening to some of his music. Yeah, I've been to his concert before, yeah. Dude, Zach has hits, man. So it makes me wonder, like, why wouldn't you want to broaden your, if you're in this fitness and training space, why wouldn't you want to see all the other things that you're interested in that you could then try to do being someone in fitness and someone who moves.

Why would you just keep doing that same thing because it's tried and true? Like when I see some of these guys talk about resistance trading, I'm like, why are you so married to this? I just can't help myself. Yeah. I can't help myself to try some stuff. You know, I was at San' Strength in Santa Rosa a few years ago. And I think it was a little while after the bodybuilding show.

but I was still in like that kind of shape and there was a guy there and he's like hey you mind if I show you something it was an older guy yeah you know he's probably 65 or 60 I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health all they want to do is put you on pills really well said there by Dana white couldn't agree with them more a lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan a lot of us just want to look good feel good and a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older some of the things that we might have, high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing,

they can look at your cholesterol, they can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects, too, where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shades of doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone.

And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk. But that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because, You can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s.

And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro.

Even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what's like things you can do in terms of your life. lifestyle and if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator.

They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation. Sometimes it's TRT. And sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, heads to Merrickhealth.com and use code Power Project for 10% off any panel of your choice.

Looked like a bodybuilder. It looked like he's in great shape. And he showed me this like set that he did. It was super long, super long set of like biceps and triceps. Like how many, like, whoa, he went from biceps to triceps to something else all in one set? No, it was like just straight up biceps for like, like, maybe three and a half minutes or so. And then it was triceps after that for like three and a half minutes.

And he's like, no one trains this way. He's like, and he's the older guy. So he's like whipping out pictures and showing me like the old days and stuff. But he was in great shape. And he's like, he's like,

people don't know that, you know. And I'm like, you're right. People don't know certain things because they're restricted. They don't want to try or they don't want to believe in this set that is like 150 reps or 200 reps. We think that we know,

but we don't really know because. No one's really done it repeatedly. Yeah. And it takes somebody, it takes someone who's just crazy enough to do it, right? It takes the Dan Dushan's who wrote Body Opus. It takes some of these people, like, man, that guy's pretty nuts. I mean, Dan Dushan's talking about testosterone and testosterone replacement in the 80s, you know? Damn.

He's talking about that a long-ass time ago, not just taking a steroid. It's not just blasting performance-enhancing drugs for sake of doing it. He's also talking about like a, you know, TRT and just bringing people up a little bit of a level. And now you see it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but now you see it practiced more by other people. So it always takes someone who's a little bit, you know, willing to try something that's a little different to give it a go. And I've always been into that. I mean, you think about the different things that I've been interested in.

Westside Barbell is, you know, Westside Barbell was, you know, not a lot of what, Louis did wasn't really, it wasn't accepted. And still today, people are like, yeah, he was kind of nuts. Like a lot of his, some people will say a lot of his stuff didn't work. But he had the magic sauce. I mean, he knew the key ingredient was to get people excited and to get people interested. Yeah. That's the key ingredient. If I get, like, I don't know shit about jujitsu, but if I open up a jujitsu academy and I hire a good coach that's really enthusiastic, and I tell everybody every day, The most important thing is we get a bunch of fucking savages in here. The place is going to be free.

But I don't want anybody in here who's not, I want to create this fucking environment. I want it to be this, you know, we just go over like something that we think is going to like work or whatever. Yeah. Over time, that'll work if people are interested. I don't even need to know much about it for it to be, end up being a good thing. And I'm not, obviously, Donna He knows an insane amount about grappling and jiu-jitsu and fighting, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's essentially what he's done.

And he's been able to kind of like stick it to the Brazilians, right? Who kind of own that space for me. Maybe that's not the way right to put it. But you know what I mean? For many years, they kind of own, they own that space, right? And he was able to come in and say, no, we're doing it this way. And people are like, well, well, doing it every day. You're, you know, I don't know, man.

I don't know about that. I don't think you should do jiu-jitsu every day. They got some people that have been doing it every day. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. And I mean, yeah. I totally get you saying when you're saying that.

You've got to try shit out. You'll never know. I think one thing too is like understanding that going and trying something is actually not going to. There are some things that could take away from what you're currently doing. Like if your goal is being a champion powerlifter, you're like, I want to run a marathon and I want to run marathons. And you still want to be a champion powerlifter. That might that might be a little bit difficult to juggle as. You might have to do them at different times.

Like you might still be able to do it, but they might have to literally be at different times in your life. They might have to be at different times of your life. But, you know, I'll say this. For example, I started jiu jitsu. It'll be the end of 2015. And I started jiu jitsu because I was interested in the art. And I didn't realize what the art would teach me about leverage and producing force with leverage. Because the cool thing is with what I've been doing with not just like the training, but like with isometrics recently.

I showed some of it to Keith Barr yesterday. And I told him some of the things I was tapping into when it comes to creating different ways to transfer force through your body with this device along with using this pole for leverage. And I was showing, I was like, what do you see when you see me doing this? He's like, well, when you're using that pull and pushing and then you're pulling, you're creating maximal force output with your structure. And that makes a lot of sense with what you're trying to achieve when you're doing this. And then the line of force you're creating.

And I was like, the reason I learned this wasn't just because I read anatomy trains because it made sense when he said it, but it's because of what my body knows how to do with force and jiu-jitsu. So jiu-jitsu taught me how to create better force and leverage when doing certain aspects of resistance training. The things you take the time to learn will have a positive effect on the way you see the other things you're doing. The reason why I train the way I do now is because of a culmination of the things that I've managed to learn and it's continuously evolving because I can keep learning new things. So don't think that if you go down a lane of your interest, everything is just going to dissolve. Everything could potentially get better.

because your knowledge improves and you bring that back to the other things that you do. I saw a clip the other day I cannot find it but it was I mean no one really words stuff as well as John Cena does

he's like this ridiculous with the way that he's able to communicate with people. Yeah. He is such a great communication somebody asked him like on the street they asked him

they asked him like who's on his radar They're like, you're no longer in the WWE, and I got a question for you. You know, you wrestled a lot of these guys on your way out. You passed a torch, so to speak, and who's on your radar to be like the next guy? And he pauses for a moment and says, I don't have a radar like that. He goes because I wasn't on anybody's radar. And I remember when you started Jiu-Jitsu, one of the guys told you that, you weren't going to be able to do that and be a bodybuilder.

Yeah. And you're like, well, maybe I should find out. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so a lot of times we're not going to be on someone's radar. Like it's not always, it's not always in the cards that and you might not think that you're on the radar either. But it's important that you learn to believe in yourself. It's important that you, you know, luckily you had a great mom, have a great mom and you have the strength to believe in yourself. Like some of us don't always have that reinforcement. And hopefully from this show, and hopefully from some of the things that you've done, hopefully you try some things,

you do get better at them, you do improve and you say, well, I improved my body a little bit with nutrition, I improved my strength a little bit in the gym. I was able to improve here. I was able to improve there. Maybe I can run a little.

Maybe I don't have to hate running. Maybe there is a hump I can get over with, and I know there's a couple humps. It sounds like with jujitsu. Sounds like people like people get like a blue belt and then it kind of phase out a little. little bit, right? There's like these different, uh, different areas of, uh, jiu-jitsu where it just seems to get to be harder and harder. But if you can just kind of recognize that you will get better,

you will continue to get better. And things, because you're getting better, things will be easier. They'll just get to be a little easier. Even if you go in the gym and you lift like similar weights, the weights will at least, even if, even if you're not necessarily like gaining crazy amounts of strength that you can see, the 135 is going to eventually feel lighter. That's going to feel easier. So I think a lot of these things are things that we have to really identify. And that thing about, you know, John Cena saying like, he doesn't have a radar for that because he's like, I don't know.

You know, there's probably four or five. He thought to himself, if I list three or four guys, I'm going to do an injustice to a bunch of other names, you know. But had he listed three or four guys, he might have made somebody because somebody might have been like why wasn't I on his list you know what I mean that's real that's true right you know two things on that two things on that if you guys have anyone in your life that you you see that they're doing some cool shit um or you you you're like wow that just just if you have friends encourage them you'd be surprised how little certain people

get encouragement from the people around them like just and how much important that can be for someone feeling confident in the things that they do. So if you have people in your life, send them words of encouragement, you know, and it just gave me goosebumps because I'm thinking of this guy that I sent him a lot of encouragement over the last couple of months. Uh-huh. And he's his name, I'll give him a shout out. His name is Beyond the Penn. That's his YouTube channel. Okay. I saw that motherfucker on the Today show. What? Yeah. He was on the Today Show. They reported about his YouTube channel and they shouted him out and stuff like that. And I was like, and then he wrote back to me because I said, hey, I was like, hey, brother, I saw you on,

I said, that was crazy. I saw that you were on. Is it beyond the Penn podcast? Yeah, I said, I saw that you were on the Today Show. And he wrote back. He's like, thank you so much for your encouragement. He's like, you were, he's like, you were right there right when I was starting this channel. So you never know, you don't know who you're talking to. You don't know, you don't where someone's going to end up or how they're going to be. But this guy just, this guy is not a scientist. He's just someone who has struggled with his weight for many years.

And he researches these GLP ones and twos and so on. Kwan the poet. Or is it, is he a, the black guy right there or is he? No. Beyond the Penn podcast. Okay, that one.

Okay, okay, okay. I'm pretty sure he's white. Okay, yeah. I was like, there's a beyond the pen. I'm like, I'm like, am I, there's a quand in the poll that's a black, but I'm like, am I remembering this guy wrong? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but that's, but that's real, man. Like, there's so many, like, there's so many times that, like, some words have encouraged me or like, I just, I just try to

send words of encouragement to people I know because a lot of people don't get that and that makes a difference. That makes a big difference. That was the first thing. The second thing I was going to mention is, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, I really think. that taking the time to, you know, expand the things that you know and try new stuff gives you proof that you can expand. I think that that's really important because it's very easy. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with becoming comfortable with the things that you know how to do or the things that you've become proficient with. That's a great thing because, I mean, many people don't even have something that they're pretty proficient at, right? But when you start to do more

and to teach yourself new things, whether it be things musically, whether it be something with work artistically, physically, et cetera. You continue to prove to yourself that I can learn more and become proficient at more as you continue to get older. And that's really important because I think that I think that's great for your brain, but I think that's just great for your just general well-being. Because if you don't do that, then you're kind of stuck, you know? And I don't know. I don't think that's a...

Personally for me, I will speak for myself. That is not a place I want to be. you know, I want to continue to expand the things that I know how to do and the things that I can potentially share with people. I know that people want to have, you know, a better physique. And I don't think there would be a lot of surprises if they saw what we eat. You know, maybe maybe one of us eats a little bit more food here and there. Maybe one of us eats snacky, junky stuff a little bit more here or there.

I still use fasting, dog. Yeah. That's 10 years, man. Right. So I don't think anyone would be like, man, man, these guys are in pretty good, pretty damn good shape, but they get away with eating like whatever.

You know? And the reason why I bring that up is because it's just gotten easier. Yeah. Like the eating thing has gotten easier. We've gotten better control. You utilized a lot of fasting. I've utilized a lot of fasting, a lot of like low carb.

Sometimes, you know, back in the day, the higher fat, low carb, was something that served me really well, kept me full for longer. So just, you just, you got to, it's, it's not easy, but you have to stick with it in any form of consistency. Even if you're, you know, doing pretty good on your diet for two days and you fall off for one and you get back on for one, you fall off for two, that's actually what consistency kind

of starts. That's how it looks in the beginning. Yeah. That's going to look kind of ugly. You're going to go and run on Monday and then you might not be back for a week or two. because it might hurt. It might be painful. It might suck or you might not enjoy it that much.

But if you can figure out a way to convince yourself to go and to just even do the smallest amount of it, over time, you'll get used to it more and more and more. And it'll just get easier and easier. Just think about if I said, hey, you know what, you got to do some form of cold therapy every day.

And if you took that to mean, like, I'm just going to put my legs in the cold plunge every day, that would still be you getting in the cold plunge. It's not the same as, you know, submerging your whole body. But maybe it starts that way. And then maybe, you know, a week goes by. And I say, what are you really getting in the full way? And you're like, I was just getting my calves.

And then we say, all right, we'll do, you know, a month's worth of now. Now it would be easier since you already titrated that in there. So chip away at it. Chip away at it. Strength is never a week. This week. This is never strength. Catch you guys later.

Bye.