Mark Bell's Power Project - It's NOT Tried and True, Lifting is Still NEW || MBPP Ep. 815

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how people say, "don't overcomplicate lifting. Don't reinvent the wheel. Go with what's tried and true", but what lifting is still very new and is not tried and true. New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live/ Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.naboso.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 15% off! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code: POWERVIVO20 for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject  ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

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These are my absolute favorite shoes. And we could talk and brag about them, but you really just got to get your awesome feet into these amazing shoes. You guys got to head over to vivo barefoot.com slash power project. When you guys go there, you'll see a backstory on why we love these shoes so much. But when you're ready to purchase, make sure you guys use promo code power project 20 to save 20% off. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What would we do differently? Who, uh, are we recording? Who, uh, yeah.

Who, uh. Who won the flex-off, too? Like, between O-Tran and... Well... Mike won. Natty Professor. Mike won. I think...

Really? Like a bodybuilding eye? He just is ahead right now at the moment? He's much leaner than me. Much leaner than me. You could see in person how dry the dude was. He does look very lean. But is there any argument for you?

Like are you a little bigger in certain areas or something? There are areas where I think I may potentially have Mike if we were the same level of leanness. The primary area, oddly enough, would be the back. Because do you remember when we were the same level of leanness the primary area oddly enough would be the back because do you remember when we were doing we were flexing in la oh yeah yeah i did have a bit of the angle there but my back is wider everything else though i'm pretty sure he has me like everything else i'm pretty sure he has me he has a bigger chest he has bigger arms the only thing the only two things i may be able to get him on if i were the same level of leanness would be a back double by and a back lat spread outside of that though mike's got me you did get

quite a bit of uh like compliments though in the comments from people being like this is what oh o'hearn has been focusing on you know uh for the most part i know he does like uh power body building so he doesn't go heavy and and whatnot but that that helps his size but yeah okay so yeah and then but for you um jiu-jitsu while still i guess kind of similar right like some power body building stuff but not your main focus right your main focus is not um not losing size and it's definitely not losing size yeah but when you guys were doing the little face off it was just like fuck dude you are right there and so a lot of people are like holy shit like that's pretty cool yeah that was cool yeah that was cool it's funny uh because when i was telling mark when we were looking at Mike like I'm like this dude's fucking huge which he is but I didn't realize

like where I'm not too far off which is kind of surprising yeah it's pretty cool it would be really cool see you guys battle it out go head to head like knives and stuff get shredded diced

at some point before he gets too old I would like to I would like to uh i would like to step on stage with him because like it would like it wouldn't be cool about that well actually by the time he's 60 who knows he might even be you can't you don't know what that fucker you know what i mean he might even be in better shape i think it's either now or never dude he might get like it might be too good to where he can't catch up yeah man redefine aging guys i do think that it's a really wonderful thing though to like be uh to feel good around some of the people that we have that come in and do the show you know to feel like any any

resemblance of being comparable at all yeah i mean michael hearn is uh he's not just a bodybuilder he's like one of the greatest of all time like he really is and i know like you know bodybuilders uh that are thinking about like who's won what shows and stuff that's not really what i'm talking about but he influential. He's been around for a really long time, and he's always been in shape. He's always been strong. You're not going to catch Mike not being able to deadlift 600 pounds. You're not going to catch him not being able to squat 600 pounds. You're not going to be able to catch him benching under 400.

He's always going to be strong, and he's never going to. He might be bigger at certain times, but he's never going to be fat. I mean, you're just not going to catch strong and he's never going to he might be bigger at certain times but he's never going to be fat i mean you're just not going to catch the guy sleeping and he's been doing that for a long time so texted me at four four this morning because i sent him a text yesterday he's like all right gotcha and you knew that he's texting at four so he's gonna go work out like fucking machine he's really he's really a machine oh man what's what's the boys titan well there's titan but who's uh who's the anti here from the boys that he kept getting oh the boys um home homelander there you go that was and people kept calling you have you ever did you ever watch the

boys i never i don't i haven't seen it enough to know who that is yeah homelander is uh the he's like the superman of that universe but he's heelander is the, he's like the Superman of that universe, but he's also evil. Dickhead. He's evil. Yeah. People kept calling him Homelander. But, yo, I know y'all hate it when we talk about Mike. Some of you guys hate when we talk about Mike O'Hearn, but the guy's just done it.

He's been doing it. He's jacked. There ain't nothing, you can't say shit about him. He's consistent as fuck. Yeah. And it's good to have, you to have different people coming through the doors. And you, as a man, I mean you kind of always are – it's always like a dick measuring contest. You're always trying to see how you stack up against someone else.

And hey, sometimes I got a bigger dick. But as all bodybuilders, we all have small penises. We're trying to make up for him who's the biggest of the smallest that's right uh we had bedros coolian recently uh we also had um we just we have matt winning here right now guys go to that bedros podcast i'm sorry mark yeah it was insane guys you if you haven't listened to the podcast with bedros god damn there was so much good in there even if you have heard it go back again that shit is so good did you you start out winning the devil right i i have and like i

you know had mentioned earlier like i'm just i'm having a fucking really difficult time paying attention to anything so like i'll hit play i'll listen for like i don't know maybe i gotta get you some drugs like 35 35, 40 minutes. And I'll look down and like, fuck, I completely have no clue what this book's about. So I have to start it over again. And then it's like, imagine getting at the end of your workout and being like, oh, shit, I've been at the gym for 40 minutes and actually haven't touched one weight. Like, I got to go now.

It's like, I got shit to do now. So I can't. You better start paying better attention. I'm trying. I don't know what's going on i literally can't like movies suck like i just i can't pay attention to anything right now all right fair well you see i think part of the reason why you can't is because you're fucking vocabulary vocabulary what you're saying bro oh uh yeah okay i can't pay any attention there ain't no cancer it's not my fault that there's no good movies or shows right now okay okay anyway guys the point is we've heard it there hasn't

been a good movie since braveheart exactly yeah and i haven't laughed hard since like the 80s so fuck you i haven't laughed in four years yeah either way that book outwitting the devil it's it's uh Bedros mentioned it. After I listened to it, I'm like, whoa, dude. This was written in 1930. And the weird thing is like, for example, when he talks about schooling in the book, right, and the way kids should like probably deal with school, it's exactly what Acton Academy is doing. It's like to the T. So it's just a must listen or read.

Anyway, you were mentioning guys like Bedros, Mike, and Matt Wenning. Yeah, it's cool to have these guys come through and just rubbing elbows with people that are better than you at certain things. I mean Matt is a guy that I admired for a long time. When I went to Westside, he was like the main guy at Westside. And he, you know, squatted 1197. I forget what his shirted bench was, but he deadlifted 800 pounds raw. He did really well. Also, he squatted like 840 or something like that.

He broke an all time world record record in the squat which is kind of interesting because the squat has changed so much since that time i think it's like in the 900s now um and that wasn't that many years ago that he did that so the numbers are just they've gone bonkers in powerlifting um you know obviously he's he's a really an amazing bench presser and he i think he wanted he did like 611 which is a massive massive bench presser. And he, I think he wanted, I think he did like six 11, which is a massive, massive bench press, especially for a guy that's sometimes when someone concentrates on something specific, sometimes it's a little easier. They don't, they're not required to have a huge deadlift and a huge squat,

but kind of as we're talking about here, we have these different people coming in and it feels good to be fit. It feels good to be in shape and to be able to stand next to these people, not feel either like a shrimp or not feel out of shape. Yes. You know, having someone like Mike here, it's like, OK, like we could go on a run. You know what I mean? Like and it's going to kind of even the score. And then, you know, like with jujitsu, it's an amazing equalizer for just about anything.

Somebody wants to get really dumb. You know, you know, you have a kind of the ultimate weapon in your, in your back pocket. But I'm not saying that you have to have those things, but they're, it's a nice thing to have, uh, to help build confidence, to, to feel, uh, significant around other people. And maybe there's something within myself that, um, maybe I've have felt insignificant. So maybe that's why I leaned into so much of this for so many years. But some of what we're going to talk about today is like getting big and kind of some of the ways we did it years ago versus how we might do it now with some of the information that we have now. There's been some comments on my Instagram where people are like, I think this is disingenuous and this is this and this and that.

And I think you're doing stuff for the clicks, which is really weird. Because if I was doing stuff for the clicks, I would just get big and bench heavy again. Like that, that works great. Yeah. And I don't even really like,

there's so much of my life that I don't record. I think in SEMA is actually fairly private too. Like there's so much of my life that I don't record. I think in SEMA is actually fairly private too. Like there's so many things that I think would be fun and cool to record, but I'm like, no, this is for me, especially when I'm running. Like I know I'm recording a lot of running. People are seeing a lot of running, but there's a lot of moments in my run where I'm like, oh, this would be really cool to share. And I'm like, no man, like just fucking, just hold onto this for yourself. Like this is, this is great. Like this is a good cool to share. And I'm like, no man, like just fucking, let's hold onto this for yourself. Like this is, this is great. Like this is a good place to be. This is where I need to be training wise.

And I did a lot of training many, many years before the internet came around and same with Michael Hearn and same with, same with all of us really that are here right now. We did a lot of training that we didn't have any idea what it was going to do for us. We didn't know that we were going to turn into these three superheroes that are on the Power Project now, giving out tremendous information, talking about our dicks and penis pumps and so on. We had no idea what it was going to turn into, but it was what we were into when we were younger.

It was what we were obsessed with with and we're still into it. It's just we are gravitating towards different things because I think the three of us have learned it has paid off to lean in towards the things that we're interested in. And it like we may have stumbled or it may have taken us a minute to get our footing leaning in that direction. Maybe we knocked on some doors and then opened the door, walked through the door and said, whoops, that's the wrong way. And then had to turn around and knock on another door to find not only what we're interested in, but what works for us.

And you keep doing that and you get hurt. You make poor financial decisions. You make poor choices and poor decisions. You mistreat people. People mistreat you. Like along the way, you keep fucking up. And over a period of time, you start to learn, I want to lean towards this more. I want to lean towards this more. And before you know it, you turn into like a maniac a little bit where first thing in the morning you're cold plunging you know and then you're getting in a sauna and then you're like doing your red light therapy your red light therapy and then you're like god forbid

i take two steps without having uh correct toes on or some sort of toe splay device to yoga toes and all these different things that you're, you're constantly thinking of. But I think where we're at now, we're just trying to think of like, how can we optimize, I guess, what we got? How can we make the most of what we have? And if I think back, that's all I was ever trying to do in the first place was optimize whatever it was I had at that time. And what I had at that time was like knowledge to crank a

bunch of music, get intense, go and throw down and do a typical powerlifting workout that you've seen from anybody else. I had some different ways of doing it, but not much different than what you saw. People headbutting the bar and bleeding and bleeding out of your nose and training until you puke and like all those things were, I've seen them a lot of times people tearing muscles it's this that's like what i knew that's that's what i was attracted to that i was attracted to that intensity and i wanted to be around that i wanted to find other people that knew how to navigate that game even though it was dangerous how do you navigate that game that's so dangerous but but not get hurt and come out the other side stronger? And that was what I was obsessed with at the time. But now I've kind of

moved on to doing some other things. I'm still obsessed with getting better, but it's just in some different stuff. Yeah, dude. The cool thing, you know, when we look back to even when I, when I started training, there was just the internet, bodybuilding.com, there was no social media. So what I was interested was when I started lifting was getting bigger because number one, I couldn't play soccer at that time. But all I understood was, well, I want to be huge. I want to get big. Bodybuilding made the most sense. But after Instagram came into the equation, I got into powerlifting and stuff like that. But after, you know, you see all these people doing a lot of really cool different things. And after I got into jujitsu, that opened up jujitsu and stuff to me.

And then I see these people moving in all these different ways with these high levels of mobility and balance and movement. And when you see all of that, then you kind of realize, well, not only can I be big or stay big, but I can also move really well. Oh shit, there are these people over here. Why are their feet different than mine? Okay, that's what I need. I can fix that too while still doing these things. So yeah, we started with a narrow scope. I'm going to speak for myself. I started with a narrow scope because I only saw so much. But as I was introduced and exposed to all these really, really awesome modalities of

becoming better and moving better and just becoming a more optimized human, I knew that I can add these things in without taking away from the things that I already like and the things I'm already good at. So as we bring all these things to the table, because like comments that, Andrew mentioned this in the beginning, comments that we see are like, you guys don't need to reinvent the wheel. You know, if you want to build muscle, it's not, it's not this complex. You guys, like you said, you guys are doing this just for the clicks or you guys are doing this because it's just the new flavor of the month.

We're not doing it for that reason. We're just doing that because now there's much more we can add to our plate to increase our capacities in terms of running while staying big, doing jujitsu while staying big and increasing range of motion, all these things. while staying big and increasing range of motion, all these things. And we know that if we can do these things, we can absolutely just give you the information so you can do it too, if you're interested in that. Yeah, if you look at the career of Stan Efferding, predominantly did a lot of bodybuilding.

And he was trying to get big and he was training too often, training a little too heavy. He ran into a guy who told him, look, man, it's not about your training. It's about your recovery. We had Matt Wennings, the same thing. It's about what you can recover from. Like, what a beautiful message that is. I don't give a fuck what you can do. But if you're all torn up tomorrow and you can't do anything tomorrow, like, that's not great, right?

So what if you had a 40- inch vertical but you tore your calf you know like what can you recover from what's repeatable for you and that's always more impressive right you look at uh like what made michael jordan great or what made ed cone great what made some of these guys great it's not just that they did the big lift the big uh made the big three-pointer at the end of the game is that it's that they did it over a long period of time yeah year in and year out like you know steph curry is going to keep showing up and keep kicking your fucking ass and any shit you can do about it and when you start to guard the three is going to start to drive the lane he's going to start to throw the ball fucking 30 feet up in the air and knock it off the backboard and in.

And then when you start to guard the three-pointer and you start to guard that, he's going to fucking dish the ball to somebody else. By the way. And it's just a fucking nightmare. And he does it every year. When it comes to Steph Curry, because you brought up a very interesting player there, people thought basketball could only be played one way. And then here comes this guy that's just shooting threes.

And everyone who watches basketball or is a big fan of it is like – Took a giant shit on everybody. He literally changed the way the game is played. Now you got all these young players coming up focusing on three. These big men coming up. People aren't covering from half court. They shoot from here. Right?

You got these seven-footers that know how to shoot a three. Why? Because Steph Curry changed the game. he showed you it could be done differently i'm not saying we're steph curry either i'm not saying that but i'm just saying but stan showed people something different too like um i think people have known this in powerlifting for a long time if you go back to the beginning more to the beginning of powerlifter back when powerlifting when ed cohen was prevalent there was a lot of people that were jacked like jacked as fuck and not fat bill casmeyer like bill casmeyer looked like he was gonna fucking rip the tires off of a bus like that guy was fucking just he was an animal he looked incredible but there was a lot of guys that looked like that back then because the guys knew it was about being big and having a lot of a lot of guys that looked like that back then because the guys knew it was about being big

and having a lot of, a lot of muscle mass, you know, the muscle mass was going to help move. But everything, when he came into powerlifting, he helped change the game because I think a lot of people at that time just thought you just keep getting bigger and fatter and bigger and fatter and you wear powerlifting equipment, take a bunch of steroids and lift some heavy ass weight. But when Stan came in, he showed us a different way. And it's like, well, shit, if I can bodybuild, if I can work on the peaks of my biceps a

little bit, and it's not detrimental, it's not negatively impacting my recovery for my deadlift workouts. And not only is it not negatively impacting me, if I do it strategically, it will be of benefit if I'm more fit. Remember, uh, winning the other day saying, uh, he came to the conclusion that no other power lifter ever came to was that he wasn't fit enough to be able to hit a 600 pound bench because of the squat that he did, because he was not used to walking out squats and he had to walk out three squats before he did his bench. And then therefore he hit like a 570 bench instead of a um instead of a 600 pound bench and then efforting coming in with his

background training with flex wheeler people people thought that stan i know this is gross how fucking jack this is just comical we're showing some photos of the rhino let's check it out yeah um you know people thought that stan uh Stan power lifted and did bodybuilding at the same time, and he didn't. And the same is true with our buddy, Mike O'Hearn. O'Hearn does his power bodybuilding. He'll blend the two. And when he gets ready for competition, he's still kind of lifting heavy. But it's a reduced amount of weight that he's pushing in the gym because the body's just not in a good position to be as strong as possible.

So when Mike, when Mike is getting, when Mike is getting bigger, he'll take more risks in the gym. He'll lift a little heavier. He'll do some more reps, more sets. He'll do more overall volume.

And when he starts to lose a lot of body fat, he still might do some singles and stuff like that to hold on to the hypertrophy. But the weights that he's using are, as he put it, which is really interesting, those are weights that he could normally do for 10 reps. So if he does 405 for a single on an incline bench, that's something that he could quite easily do for a set of 10 when he's a big boy. Oh, yeah. When he's fluffed up a bit.

So these guys, a lot of people aren't doing things simultaneously. They're moving through different things at different times. And I guess part of my point in bringing this up is I have zero doubt that at 30 years old that Encima is going to circle back to the deadlift at some point and like want to start ripping up some bigger deadlifts maybe he accomplishes some of the things that he wanted to do in jujitsu and he's like you know what i want to see if i can pull seven plates for five reps or so you know something something you know something uh to give him a goal in in powerlifting and there's no doubt i, you know, cycle back through some benches and squats and deadlifts. Like they're always going to be part of what we're doing,

but we're moving into some other things because we're following our interest in those things. And in order to really properly test some stuff out, sometimes you have to do an elimination workout, almost like you would do an elimination diet. How do I know that this particular work is going to be effective for my back if I'm still fucking deadlifting every week like an idiot? Maybe I need to cut the fucking deadlifts out just for a little bit. I'm not

saying they're the cause of the back pain, but they could be, right? Let's try to narrow it down and find out what's bothering me so that I can continue to make progress and continue to learn and grow. I actually have a question for you because you recently just like – you benched 315 without having any pain in your shoulder, which during your career, if you did bench 315, even though that shit would have been light as a feather for you when you were focused on powerlifting, you would have felt something to your shoulder. Am I wrong in that assumption or am I correct? Normally, like my shoulder – normally for bench press, I was pretty good. Like usually shit didn't hurt. Usually shit didn't hurt ever. Okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Every once in a while, my elbows would flare up. Yeah. I was curious because your movement ability is so much better now. My assumption, and again, could be totally wrong, is that if you chose to be like, you know what, I'm going to go back into powerlifting, non-equipped powerlifting. I want to push some numbers again. I think that because you move better now, your progression through that, you'd give yourself time, but you'd probably end up with some really good lifts looking better and probably feeling better if you did that now versus when you're deep in it.

Am I wrong or am I right? No, you're right. I mean, in terms of some of the other lifts, like those would take longer. Yeah. The deadlift and the squat would take longer. I'm a little further regressed on those just because I have not practiced much of that in a while. So those would take a while to like build back up. But I could bench 500 pounds in just a couple months. Oh shit. I mean, it wouldn't, I've been doing it for a long time. I know that

the strength is there. Even when I benched 315 the other day, even though that's a far cry from 500, I know that like at least 400 is in there somewhere. And then it would just be a matter of building, building out like a hundred pounds. But I got to keep in mind, I don't have much practice right now on bench pressing. So as soon as I started to practice it, I would have a combination of, uh, some muscle memory. And then I'm also down 20 pounds from where I was like just normally. Forget about like the powerlifting career stuff. I was hovering around 240 all the time. And I guess I'm not 20 pounds down.

I'm more like 10 pounds down. But I'm working on still getting lighter. So as you're getting lighter, it's harder to, you know, maintain and keep that strength. That's why I was pretty surprised with the 315 for three, which is something I've been doing since I was a kid, basically. Uh, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't like, holy shit, that's super strong. I was just thinking like, that's pretty interesting. Cause I have not really bench pressed in months, any significant amount of bench pressing that would lead to me holding onto strength or me, but I have been doing other things. I've been doing like pushups, been doing shoulder work. I've been doing a lot of other exercises. And I actually think that

I think that any, any strength training can be a contributor to other types of strength training. Like we know that a deadlift can help with a squat. We know that a squat can help with a deadlift, but I think sometimes we don't that a squat can help with a deadlift. But I think sometimes we don't really even realize something like a lat pulldown or some pull-ups or something like that could have huge benefit on your bench press. It's not really going to move the needle for you on your bench if that's the only thing you're doing. But in combination with some push-ups and some other things, I think you'd be shocked. and some other things, I think you'd be shocked. I think like in SEMA has been, I know you got like a little bit of an injury when the CT came in,

but you were able to move some pretty good weight in a deadlift without, I mean, you basically had been just tossing around kettlebells, right? Yeah, up until that point, I pulled 675 when CT came. And up until that point, the week before, I just moved myself to pull like 500 just so I could see how that weight feels. So I could understand what I'd be able to pull on that day. And the 500 for whatever,

how many reps I did was very easy. So I was like, there's a 700 there. Um, and then when CT came, I did pull 675. I didn't, I pulled a little something in my back, but it healed up after a week and it was fast. Like there was, there there was it wasn't like that was my max it wasn't my max because of how it moved um so yeah i i and the the cool thing is that's after not dead lifting for a very long time but i did maintain resistance training for strength for my body so you know it's it's also very similar to dre who we've had in here every goddamn dre we talk about him all the time too but he primarily works with kettlebells then when he decides to pull the barbell out he's single leg lunging 365 bulgarians but like he's

he's doing crazy shit with the barbell yeah he's strong and he hasn't lost that strength so if he decided to push the barbell he'd he'd be able to get a very strong lift. His legs are fucking huge too. That's why I think if you've been listening in to the show and you've been seeing some of the things that Mark, Andrew and myself have been doing, you shouldn't be afraid if you're not competing in powerlifting. You shouldn't be afraid of trying different modalities of training as far as kettlebells or maybe some calisthenics and maybe reduce a bit of your barbell volume, you should be afraid of losing muscle because you won't lose muscle. You won't lose a great amount of strength, especially if you push another modality

for a small period of time because it's not like you're going to be sitting on the couch. If you just stop training and you weren't doing anything, okay, you'd lose some muscle and strength. But as long as you keep something, right're gonna be fine and what's it look like when you pick up a kettlebell and you do 10 reps on one side and 10 reps on the other it's like maybe you picked up uh you know 50 something pounds right well just start to multiply that out you do 10 you know you do 10 reps on one side 10 reps on the other maybe you did three sets while you're doing something else in between i think we undersell the value and the volume that you just did obviously if you were to go in and squat 500 for a couple sets of three or something you would be getting more work in for your legs specifically but uh that kettlebell

work especially like single leg like we're just talking about a totally different animal um and matt winning kept mentioning some people uh that we should have on the show eric cressy being one of them i've heard of mike mike boyle i think is the other guy that comes to mind these are people that long ago decided look man let's go single arm single leg like they decided along not and they're they're not against they're not against doing a deadlift by any means they're not against at least from what i remember they may have changed some of their things but eric cressy is like one of the leading guys uh he's the go-to guy for baseball people always go to him for baseball and even our buddy jesse burdick uh

works with a lot of pitchers and a lot of high-level baseball players. And what does Burdick show us every time he comes around? It's usually like some sort of single-leg squat torture thing. And we're like, oh, man. And we just don't do it because it hurts too bad because we're pussies. But he's been pretty good with that. And that's also why he's got a good reputation as a good powerlifting coach. Because the whole time that we're talking about all these different things,

Jesse Burdick has been implementing these things for his powerlifters. He calls at the end of the workout, he calls it fat shaming. And it's basically a bunch of exercises to keep everybody fit, to keep them in shape. And so he'll have them drag the sled. He'll have them do, you know, Bulgarian split squats, walking lunges, like just stuff that you don't want to do you might superset a single leg calf raise with a step up or something like that it's all stuff that like a power lifter's like i ain't doing that shit but keeping some of that stuff in can help keep some athleticism some mobility um just with fucking getting out of your car. If you're 40 pounds heavier because you're powerlifting, trying to figure out some things that are going to allow you to feel better when you're just walking around is brilliant. The other thing that Burdick is a big fan of is just going for a walk with a weighted

vest or a weight. Grab 10 pounds and go walk a mile. just going for a walk with like a weighted vest or a weight, you know, grab it, grab a 10 pound, grab, grab 10 pounds and go walk a mile just a 10 pound plate or a 10 pound dumbbell. It's a, it's annoying after you walk in for a little while. Like, fuck, I shouldn't have brought this with me, but, but it is really beneficial. I mean, it's just a nice notch above just a regular walk. And if you take it a step further and throw on like a 20-pound weighted vest, you just changed a little stroll, which is still really beneficial and healthy, into a workout.

That kind of brings in something. And Andrew, I'm curious, you too. If you guys were to go back and maybe change the way your progression looked, I know that, all right, if you did, you might not be doing what you are now. But you probably have in your mind a better idea of getting to the same place in a more optimal way, right? Because a lot of the things we're doing right now are to deal with inefficiencies that we didn't address when we were going towards our current goals, when we were trying to get bigger or trying to get stronger. There are probably things that could have been included within all of that, that where you are now, everything that you're doing now would be easier, right? So what would some of those additions be when you were trying to get as strong as possible? What would you be also doing so that you'd be in a better place right now? And badly, my athleticism deteriorated. And so I would have probably tried to leave some more room in for some sort of play, like a swing of a bat or throwing around a ball or just something in there, even something in the gym, like med ball twists and med just didn't have the knowledge on that stuff. There was a little bit of stuff like that. Paul Cech talked a lot about that and Paul Cech talked a lot about the inverse abdominal area, like a ton, which Matt Wenning was talking about on our show.

Great, Paul Cech. Paul Cech, where are you? Yeah, Paul Cech, he's fantastic. There were other guys at the time, Ian King and some other guys talking about unilateral stuff. And I just didn't really listen much to it. Dave Tate would talk about stuff and I would listen to some of that because I was like, yeah, I think he's got a point. And Louie would hammer home like general physical preparedness and GPP. Like don't be a slob. I know you like powerlifting and we're trying to get big. Same thing with bodybuilding. Like it's cool to get big, but like you shouldn't

be out of breath all the time. You shouldn't be turning red and getting all sweaty all the time. Did you have any assumptions about certain things that like now, you know, wouldn't have taken away from you getting stronger, but you just didn't do it back then because you maybe believe that's not going to help me or that's actually going to be detrimental to my strength? Yeah, I think there's definitely that kind of stuff settles into your head of like, you don't want to do like cardio and stuff. But like looking back at it, I mean, it's easy to say it's hard to like have done it, you know, but like something as simple as going on an elliptical a little bit, like after a workout or something would have been a really wise move.

And I know people make fun of the elliptical all the time, but what a great piece of equipment to save the joints. Yeah. Like if you're a big boy, you got something that's helping you mimic some running. It's really, really a wonderful tool, you know? And I messed around with some stuff, but I just, I honestly didn't do enough and I didn't, uh, I didn't put enough into it. I also, I, I, I under, I didn't understand, I didn't understand what a miraculous system that we have in our body.

And I thought things worked a little bit more isolated than they do. And your ideas change a lot, but I just no longer think that. Some of the stuff I've done to lead up to my shoulder healing has zero to do with an external rotation, a rotator cuff exercise. There was not one rotator cuff exercise that I did. one rotator cuff exercise that I did. However, I would say that like, that doesn't mean that what I did is the most effective way and that no one should ever do a rotator cuff exercise. But when you go to do something like your, your left shoulder's messed up, you go to raise your left shoulder up overhead, you'll notice that if somebody's watching you and you don't have your shirt on, you're going to notice that all kinds of stuff happens in your neck. All kinds of stuff happens on the other side.

All kinds of things happen in your hips. Like if your shoulders really damage, you'll get what's called like a hip hike. Like you'll hike up a hip or you'll lower a hip. So that way you're like you barely raise your arm up because your body is really fucking intelligent your your spine your nervous system something your brain will be like we're not good with that arm being too far away from the body so let's shut down the abs and let's kind of just put the arm here like you're barely raising your arm to answer a question rather than being able to you know to fully express putting your arm up. And even now my shoulder is still tight.

So I got to make some compromises through. And Sturette's been talking about this for a million years too. It's not like the information wasn't there. I just sometimes was pretty resistant to it because I had my own things that I was doing. But also I was implementing some new stuff here and there. But you only have so much power to kind of like let those influences hit you. And you're just like, you know what? I just need to fucking go work out.

I can't sit here and think about this all the time. I have to go and train. And so I took what I could take and I utilized some of Sturette's methods and did some distraction work with bands and some things like that. But one thing I would really advise people to do with no matter what sport they choose,

Matt Wenning nailed it by talking about the time domain. Be really careful with time domains and be careful with how long and can I get a hey now hard. Hey, you want to do something for. That was a good one. Because it was good.

It's good for all of us. Be careful with like, you know, like it's a really interesting thing when it comes. And I know everyone hates me now because I just talk about running all the time. But like running, if you run like a fucking pussy, like you go out and you run really slow, that's one of the best ways to get good at running. It's been proven like time and time and time again. They actually think that Roger Bannister, the first guy to break the four-minute mile, they think he could have done like a 345 or 348 minute mile if he had some of the modern technology that we have today that gives you a little bit of feedback to track your heart rate and stuff he was just he was like fuck it man i'm just gonna run as fast as i can and he did and he fucking you know he proved that his method worked and we don't have any way to know

that a different method would have worked better for him. But we can speculate because there are guys that run a lot faster than that now. The four-minute mile is done by a lot of high school kids. So it's pretty crazy. But one way to get faster at running, obviously, you can't only run slow. That's not going to work forever. But the majority of your training, as we were talking about lifting too, is in like the 75 to 85 percent range, which is not – it's not really asking a ton of you. If you can run – I don't know what the equation would be, but just hypothetically, I'm just going to throw this out there, and it might be a little bit off mathematically. But if you can run like an eight-minute mile, you probably want another minute to 90 seconds more would represent the way that you would train.

So that's really manageable. Yeah. Fuck, a 930 mile. And if you run nine minutes and it's a percentage. So what I'm saying with the 90 seconds is not going to apply to everybody. But probably a minute to 90 seconds in addition to whatever you would normally run is probably a decent place to start for a lot of people. You want that heart rate only between, and again, there's heart rate equations you can find, calculators you can find on the internet. But your heart rate would be around 140.

Once your heart rate starts to get into 150, 160, it's not bad, but you're just doing a different type of training and you're doing a style of training that unless you put it into a different category, it might not be the most optimal thing for you. Because you need to run slow and you need to run fast. But as Nick Bear put it, if you run just a little bit above easy, that's not a good spot to be in. You need something more specific than that. You know, you need something to aim at. You need a goal.

How about you, Andrew? Just like if I could kind of go back type of thing. Yeah, what would you adjust? Oh, man. Well, I mean, I was just like super lost, like on all fronts. You know, I didn't have anybody close to me that I could – I mean, I did have like my cousins that were interested in like lifting and stuff. But, yeah, I mean, the obvious one is like the patience you know like trying to get myself to understand like this is like a lifelong journey you know it's not going to happen where

you're going to you know be like some of these transformations you see on like YouTube because like I got into the game very late I was 27 when I joined a gym. So social media was a plenty at that point. But I know you've been kind of clowning on the, oh, it's not optimal or whatever. But I didn't know anything. So I wish I did know what was technically optimal. Not because so-and-so said it, but because of the shit that I've learned. Let me ask this. because so-and-so said it but because of the shit that i've learned you know like what would you let me ask this so what would what would you think is more optimal oh yeah now like yeah absolutely

what is that so like um again so like let's just talk about like the the bro split that i would do was push pull legs on a on a back day i would just be like i gotta do bent over rows they hurt really bad but i have to do them because that's what you're supposed to do. And then after that, I'm going to do deadlifts. And then after that, I'm going to do RDLs. And then after that,

I'll probably do some 90 degree back bends and shit. When in actuality, all I really wanted was just like, Hey, can I get some lats? Like I don't fucking have any. And so now it's like, okay,

maybe I could do some single arm stuff and I could work on the cable machine. And that's the other thing I would's like, okay, maybe I could do some single arm stuff and I could work on the cable machine. And that's the other thing. I would be like, I have to lift a certain number in order to get big as opposed to like, I just have to get the right stimulus for where I'm at right now. Yeah. And I wish I could go back and be like, don't fucking even care. Like, don't look at the numbers. So stuff like that where it's like, again, we can argue all day about what's optimal and what's not. But like if you have no fucking clue and also that's just leading to more injury, like, yeah, maybe you should have looked at what's more optimal for you in that moment.

So stuff like that where I was just very uneducated on everything, like overall, even like nutrition and stuff. I would be like, I got to eat like boiled chicken and like brown rice. Like, fuck, man, I'm just not cut out for this stuff because I can't do that. Like that makes me gag. Yeah. And it's like now I was like, well, shit, dude, maybe you could have just had steak and you would have been fine. And I would have been totally fine. But I didn't know that that was what you could do.

Again, would have maybe gotten leaner if i did try to do like the the like chicken broccoli and rice thing but also i was already 165 pounds or whatever so it's like okay why am i still gonna just start eating chicken and rice when you know maybe i should probably add a little bit more calories but it's like no you got to be on a shredded diet or whatever but then it's like i'd watch a generation iron video or you know um what uh kai green like fucking making like 10 like egg kai green videos maybe there was one where he's making like a uh it was like just a whole fucking tray thing full of egg whites with like two eggs cracked in the middle as his breakfast i'm like well fuck i guess that's what i gotta do and it's like oh my god so many egg whites like this is disgusting yeah and like

so like i would just i would set myself up so hard to fail like it would just i would build up this fucking crazy mountain here we go and i'd try to run up it like barefoot or something you know like it just it wouldn't it wouldn't work and so like i would just sit there and be like oh it's just it's my fault like it's me it's like i'm not cut out to actually be anything special in this like fitness realm when in actuality i was just very uneducated on all of it so again so going back to like what i would implement is just like hey motherfucker like actually do some research don't um and no disrespect to the hodge twins but like i would just go to youtube for stuff and like they were one of the channels i would follow that's what i

did yeah and i remember i remember chris jones too and i would remember they would be like they would answer questions and somebody was like oh i'm already pretty thin like what should i be doing or should i still be doing cardio and they're just like like you're already skinny motherfucker like why are you gonna do cardio like Don't bother with that stuff. And I would find stuff that would fit my narrative. Like, I fucking hate cardio. I'm not going to do that right now. But then that was my life.

I've never touched a fucking cardio machine. And it's like, well, maybe that would have helped you with some of that belly fat that you fucking hated. Just things like that where it's like i i searched the answers that i wanted not the answers that i needed so uh if i can sum it all up uh just like i probably finding a really good coach um because i was always like very timid so i wasn't going to reach out to anybody yeah so i would always try to find like some online program when really i probably should have just asked like the dude that had a slingshot in the gym like hey what the fuck is that because I do remember somebody they actually they had a full

bore and I was like well that's weird but you know like maybe there was somebody in my gym that could have been like very very helpful but instead I was like I just went to the internet and found answers that I was hoping to find I think a lot of people have bad experiences with fitness like their first experience. Sometimes their first experience is just like really, really hard and humiliating in a lot of ways. Their first experience with, you know, maybe a powerlifting gym is somebody like fucking yelled at them or, but I mean, a lot of people do get nice people that will help them. fucking yelled at them or but i mean a lot of people do get nice people that will help them but i've found in my own experience in helping a lot of people that really haven't been to the gym before helping like my wife's friends and even helping someone like andrew who already came in you know with some gym experience i mean i remember telling andrew and other people specifically if you're working out with me and i'm, and I'm with you and I'm

watching you, like make sure I'm fucking watching you because I might fucking drift off for a second. But if I'm watching you, you will not get hurt. Like I won't allow you to get fucking hurt because I know, I mean, I don't know everything, so I can't prevent everything from happening, but I've been around enough to where I could say, Hey, you know, that's not a good idea to lift that weight today or that exercise, uh exercise isn't working for today. Let's try something different. I think a lot of people haven't had their hand held through a nice, comfortable workout. And I think they don't really realize how many options there are.

It's like, think of all the people that you know, and then let's think about people that can't do the following workout. Go in the gym, do some seated rows with appropriate weight in accordance to whatever the person's lower back issue may or may not be. Tricep pushdowns, some lat pulldowns with the palms facing so you get a little bit of bicep activation in there. Walk over to the dumbbell rack, Do some lateral raises in between that. Bend forward. Do some rear delts while you're resting in between those. Do some squats onto a bench. If you're strong enough, maybe hold a dumbbell out in front of you and then finish out the workout with a one mile walk. You know what I mean? Like, who do you know? Like, do you know anybody,

like anybody in my family that I can think of from my dad, who's had many, many surgeries to anybody else in my family can handle that workout and, or some version of that workout and feel good. Like I, Oh shit. I did like three, three sets of 15 reps was prescribed on all the things that were on this paper. And I checked all the boxes and I did all of it. And then maybe you tell them, hey, you know, do this for two, three weeks and then maybe increase some weight. They come back to you and they're like, hey, you won't believe it, but I handled a 25-pound dumbbell on the squats today. I held a 25-pound dumbbell in front of me. And then that 25 turns into a 30 and so on.

You mentioning that you didn't think you were someone special. What an amazing thing to teach somebody that you don't need to think of yourself as someone special. You don't necessarily need to be someone special. But if you can build some consistency in this game, you're going to be extraordinary. You're going to be viewed by other people as being amazing, whether that's of value to you or not. Doesn't matter. It is like a thing in our society for someone to be fucking jacked.

It's a thing, right? And it can help make you feel better. So I think a lot of times people haven't been like led through a really nice, comfortable workout. I think the other thing that's happened too is sometimes people haven't been shown that it's okay for some of this to be uncomfortable. And it's okay to be a maniac a little bit here and there it's okay to like i know you know i know outside the gym you know we're not supposed to make a lot of noise and we're supposed to be a little calm unless we're playing a sport like in the classroom you know you're not supposed to like there's no effort in the classroom where you're going you

know you're going crazy or anything, right? Dancer C. But if you're punching a heavy bag, you go ahead and make that rocky face, that snarl, right? And have some intensity to it. I know that you guys have seen this before, especially with soccer and jujitsu. You ever have a coach, they'll show the drill, they'll tell the team the drill, and then you see the coach kind of getting frustrated. And the coach is like, no, it's done like this. And you're like, what the fuck?

I had no idea that 5'4", 250-pound fat little fucker could move like that. Holy shit. I'm surprised he didn't fucking tear his kneecap off, right? Yeah. But they show you the way. They show you like, fuck, okay okay that was the way that guy headed the ball into the goal that was different than the way i had it planned out i was just gonna barely tap it in and hope i got through the drill okay um when i used to do seminars for crossfit

one of the main things that we did people what people said was of the best value is Jesse and I would work out in front of people. We would invite them to work out with us too if they wanted to. But we would do box squats. We'd do our eight sets of two. And they were like, oh, they're like, that's speed work. Like we didn't know.

We didn't know you're supposed to go fucking crazy. And me and Burdick would be like, yeah, like break shit. Like fucking just go a little nuts in there. You know, drive into the bar with everything you got, be as explosive as you can be. That's how you get the most out of it. You're trying to produce as much force as possible, that compensatory acceleration. Once you have the movement down and you feel like you have the fundamentals of the movement down, put as much into it as you possibly can. It's going to make you stronger by pushing into the weights with more force, even though the weights aren't necessarily heavier. And so now people see that and they go, oh shit, now they're able to get the results. Now someone sees for the first time, oh, that's how you do a drop. I didn't know. I didn't know that's how you do a drop set. I didn't know you go like deep into your own soul. I didn't know it's supposed to burn like that.

Okay, cool. And maybe their first go of it, maybe they don't go that deep into your own soul i didn't know it's supposed to burn like that okay cool and maybe their first go of it maybe they don't go that deep but maybe they maybe they touch upon something that is uh a little bit it's just more difficult than what they're used to right what's up pat project family it's time to stop dressing like you're a fucking preschooler and step your game up by checking out viore clothing now i'm not one to talk i wear a fucking pink hat that has a dog on it but at the end of the day at least my shirt and shorts are popping so head to viore because they have great stuff for your top and your bottom andrew how can they get it yes you guys got to head over to viore.com slash power project that's v-u-o-r-i.com slash power project

and you guys will automatically receive 20 off your order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes let's get back to the podcast yeah another thing i wanted to add on there like where i would fuck things up is like um i i again going back to like the youtube shit it's like you got to do it when you don't want to and blah blah like that led to a lot of injuries too um because like i would wake up exhausted like nope i gotta go i gotta go and then you know i would like i don't know load weight tired or something like oh that fucking hurt my back or whatever or like i just wouldn't take days off i would just like i can't miss a day because if i miss a day i'm gonna go back to being shriveled and weak and you know skinny and i'm like well you kind of

already still are you know um so like again like what you were saying earlier mark about like having somebody hold your hand and be like okay it doesn't have to hurt all the time, you know, but if it does hurt, like it is okay too. But like, just understand that maybe tomorrow, asshole, you're not going to also get a PR. I didn't understand that either. I just thought it's like, oh, you got to just PR every day. And it's like, I say that now and I'm laughing because I'm like, that sounds so stupid. But that's what i thought and again i'm talking i'm not talking i wish i could say like oh this was when i was 14 15 i was 27 yeah so it's like not that long ago right well 10 years but still like these are the this is what was going through my head when i was just like fucking spinning my

wheels so like although i was in the gym i wasn't making amazing progress until I got to ST and that's when shit really took off. Yeah. No, no, man. There's a lot there. The whole no pain, no gain mentality in terms of like, you know, going into the gym, even when your body's not necessarily feeling it. And even if your body's not feeling it, you don't make the adjustment during that workout because you can still go in and train. Just lighten the shit up. It's not a big deal. But when you're younger, when I was younger, I still had the tendency of like, fuck it.

I was going to do 500 for deadlifts or 400 for deadlifts. Today, I'm going to fucking do that. Yeah, or maybe you were going to do less, but then the other guy shows up and he's doing 405. And you're like, fuck that. I'm going to do more. Yeah, man. Commercial gyms had a lot of dick measuring, so I had to show people up. No, but I get and you're like fuck that i'm gonna do more yeah man commercial gyms had a lot of dick measuring so i had to show people up no but i go just saying um you know this is the kind of the way i mean i i look at it because when i was focused on bodybuilding i wasn't focused on

just bodybuilding so i could get bigger at least when i when i left soccer i was focused on bodybuilding because i wanted to compete. So everything was focused on that. But even so, I think that if I were to go back and make certain adjustments, I would do something like maybe running once or twice a week just so I could keep that ability while focusing on building muscle. Because the only thing that would need to be adjusted is just eat more. Eat more and give myself a few weeks to adjust the fatigue of doing a little bit of running. And again, nothing at like super crazy miles, but just to be able to keep the ability of running

because years later when I tried to pick up running, shit's tough. I can't run like I used to. I will be able to, but it's going to take me a long time to regain that. And if I kept that after I kept playing soccer, after I stopped playing soccer, if I just kept a little bit twice a week,

a few miles along with the lifting, I would have still been able to get the same amount of muscle or potentially more. So, I mean, I think a concept that anybody could take away there is I think that if you're trying to either get as strong as possible or gain as much muscle as possible, an assumption that we probably all had when we were younger is that cardio is going to take away from it, right? So, Mark, you mentioned doing something like the elliptical.

I would have done at least two different modes of training where I had a mode where it's, it's focusing on strength. And then I had another thing where I have some kind of cardio focus. I discovered that when I was 23, when I started jujitsu, um, cause I was still doing powerlifting and bodybuilding style training when I started doing jujitsu. And for a little bit,

jujitsu took away from what I was able to do in the gym. But after I was able to adapt to the stress of jujitsu and it, like we've talked about, Matt Wenning talked about all these people talk about, it takes time. And some of what you did in the gym may have taken away from your jujitsu in the beginning until your body got mobile, flexible enough. You had to do more mobility work on top of jujitsu, not just jujitsu. You were stretching a lot, I think, when you first got into jujitsu, right? Yeah. Yeah. I started doing a lot of mobility work because I was like, you know, to be able to move like those, to be

able to move like the little guys that have really good technique. You got to unwind your bodybuilding career in some way. Exactly, exactly. But also, if when I was focusing on training for building muscle when I was younger, if I did everything at a pretty big range of motion and kind of like you also mentioned, try to make, try to figure out ways where the whole body can work together. So I still do those isolation movements. I still do my shoulder presses. I still do some of that, but I also do movements that put me into a long range. Like some of the stuff that you've seen in cable in terms of the chest flies out here,

deep knee flexion in terms of certain types of squats, bending in the spine when doing certain types of movements so my spine has that capacity, if I did those things, there would be less trying to adjust when getting better at jujitsu. I wouldn't need as much mobility training and all the things that I've been doing to unwind all that training. And these could have been, I truly think that these could have been involved at the time, right? I would have gotten to the same amount of muscle and the same amount of strength. It's just a few additions.

Another thing that any fucking buddy can do right now is working on your feet. Like we're doing all this stuff for our feet now to adjust years of wearing the wrong shoes, not working barefoot all these things but if you just fucking mark has like toe the the toe splay thing here he has the neuro ball from neboso right here if you guys want to grab that the links in the description i have the neuro ball underneath my feet and fucking toe spreaders i don't know if they can see this uh yeah a little

bit right i have my correcto toe spreaders on right here to help bring spread back to my feet. And I notice, I was talking to Matt Wenning about this, but I notice how well I move now during jujitsu just because my feet are more aware of what my body is doing in space. I'm doing a lot of wild shit. And this is something that you can do passively while you're at work. You know what I mean? These aren't crazy adjustments. These are just small little additions that can play big dividends in the long run. So a lot of these things don't need to take away from your muscle building.

Running doesn't have to take away from your muscle building. Jiu-jitsu does need to be taken away from your muscle building if it's something you're interested in. And lastly, I don't want to ramble on for too long, but I think one big concept is really thinking about what your long-term goal is. Because a lot of people train with bodybuilding in mind to build muscle. A lot of people train with strength in mind as far as powerlifting is concerned. But truly ask yourself, are you trying to become one of the best of the best in the sport? Really, really trying to compete against the best of the best? Or are you doing it because you enjoy it and it's your hobby hobby if you're doing it because most of us are doing this because we

enjoy it and it's our hobby then how about adding in some things that are going to help you live better live more comfortable move better that that won't you know maybe you won't get to your direct goals in that hobby as quickly but in the the long run, you're going to move better. You're going to feel better. Unless you're trying to become one of the best in the world where maybe running is really going to take away from your 800, 900 pound squat. Maybe it's worth it to do a little bit of running or something else that allows you to move better. I always think it's a good idea to like, you know, look at stuff like, uh, knowing that it would be a good idea to include some sort of cardiovascular training. How can you incorporate some sort of cardiovascular training with it having a net negative or net zero, uh, negative impact on your body. So when you start to kind of think about it that way, you might be able to use like an Aerodyne bike of some sort.

Like you have a cyclical thing where your legs are moving. 10, 20 minutes isn't going to kill you. If, you know, sitting on the seat for too long bugs you you you can stand up and pump your legs a little differently i was just messing around with the one we have in the gym and i did one minute at over 500 watts and it's like i've just been messing with that and it fucking kills it's a killer it feels different to me than running but the the impact of some things there, they're just, uh, it's going to be less detrimental to you. Um, if you're somebody that is, you know, working on, you're working on bodybuilding and you're trying to build big shoulders and you try the old school

behind the neck press and it bothers your neck and your shoulders, find another exercise. How can you get a similar result? Are there people that have big shoulders that don't do that movement? Are there people that have big shoulders that maybe don't do a barbell shoulder press at all? Maybe they use a machine. Maybe you could be the person to kind of set the new standard. And maybe you find that you're able to get away with just doing front raises and lateral raises. Find things that are going to make sense. Like when you talk to older guys in the gym, my buddy Lenny at Saiyan Strength, who showed me the tricep and bicep death where you're lifting for like six minutes straight.

I love that. Doing bicep, tricep stuff. That's all the guy uses. That's all the guy does. he looks like uh looks like ryan spencer he's fucking shredded he's probably 65 jacked and tan at 65 and he just uses cables he he's not i think when he was younger he broke his body down and doing a lot of heavy leg presses and deadlifts and things like that and he had the whole bodybuilder physique where he was super jacked. Now he's more on just like the leaner side.

But he still looks good and he just primarily is chilling on those cables. So don't feel like you have to go and do everything that everybody else does. At the same time, if there's things that you have to chop out of your workouts and you're 30 or you're in your 30s or you're in your 40s, I would investigate that. That's something to look into. You're like, I can't do lunges. Kills my knee. It's like, okay, well, let's just figure out. I don't think you should force lunges because there's probably no reason to force them. But should you have a capacity to be able to do some lunges?

I mean, a lunge is like just a simple act of like getting up and down from the ground to go to the floor, right? So that's a pretty big deal to have that fucking attribute taken away from you. What I've seen over the years is sometimes people are like, I can't flat bench, kills my shoulder. And sometimes people are like, I can't flat bench,

kills my shoulder. And then they're like, I can't incline bench, kills my shoulder. And then they're like, I can't, and then they can't do dumbbells and like all kinds of stuff starts to happen. So if there is an issue, it's not a good idea just to, you know, simply just attack that and have that be the biggest concern, you know, do the things that you can do currently and work on those things, but also have a little investigation into that. Why does your elbow hurt so bad every time you do that exercise? Is it okay to completely chop that exercise out forever?

I think so. I think it's fine to do that. But I'd also wonder, what's the root cause of that elbow? Like what is bugging it? How do you get to that so that you can kind of alleviate some of that pain and some of that stress? Because it is bugging it how do you get to that so that you can kind of alleviate some of that pain and some of that stress because it's going to show up at

some point anyway yeah something that i dealt with for years was elbow pain when doing tricep press downs stepped away from tricep press downs for a bit did some other tricep type of stuff for a while now tricep press downs and dips don't hurt dips were my nemesis for a long time they don't hurt anymore um because i stepped back from doing certain movements and then i came back and slowly progressed dips and now my my my elbow's fine with those types of movements there's a big thing here where it's like this is really a long game you know when matt came on the podcast he talked about how everyone wants the size and the strength now and you'll do everything possible to get it as fast as possible.

But the thing is you end up doing a lot of stupid shit to attain that, and you end up beating yourself up too much to try to get there as quickly as you can. Building the skill of running takes you backing off of a few things a little bit to be able to get better at that skill. When I started jujitsu almost seven years ago, I still did training. I mean, I did my powerlifting meet where I pulled 755 and that was a year after I already started jujitsu and I was doing jujitsu during that, right? But I did have to back off of a few things so my body could get used to the stimulus of jujitsu. And when people start doing these things, they're like, oh God, my gym stuff's taking a hit so I can't do jujitsu. And when people start doing these things, they're like, oh God, my gym stuff's taking a hit, so I can't do jujitsu. But you got to be okay with giving yourself the

time to get used to whatever new thing you're doing. Because over time, the running is not going to burn as many calories, nor is it going to fatigue you as much. And for me, the jujitsu isn't going to fatigue me nearly as much where I could do jujitsu and lifting in the same day, but it takes time. Now, are you willing to give yourself the time to improve at that skill? You should be. And if you're not, then you just won't build the skill. But I think most people want to be able to have those capacities. And if you want those capacities and you want those skills, give yourself the time to build the skill.

Yeah, I would say, I mean, I'm going gonna ask like is time just the the answer um again if we go back to my younger self who didn't want to do cardio because i don't want to lose any gains i mean is it just like hey like you're gonna still get those you might get you're gonna get more but it just means it's gonna take a little bit longer so is time like the overall like answer or I guess, yeah, solution? Yeah, I think like giving stuff time or just understanding that things can take a while. Like just as a quick example, let's say you really want to build up your chest. You're like, man, my chest doesn't look very good and I want to build that up. Well, it would be advantageous to work on your back as well.

I mean, having a good back does so much for your chest because when you have like wide lats, it pushes your shoulders out too. You end up with almost like a capped shoulder from having a wide back. And people don't realize that. They think they're just going to do lateral raises all day long and build up a nice shoulder. And that helps a ton and overhead presses and stuff. But you'll notice when people have good shoulders like our boy and Seema over here. Yeah. Look at that. A lot of that has to, those lats are pushing those arms out and it's pushing that shoulder out and look at that thing. It's like a fucking big ass rock on the side of his body. So anyway, my point is that when you are, if you're trying to build a chest,

yes, you can go in the gym and just hammer chest. But imagine if you do back exercises for every one chest movement that you do. Your chest is going to look bigger. If you are to flex your chest, you're going to see your lats at the same time. You're going to see the serratus muscles and some of the muscles that are structured around the lats. And you're going to have a

better V taper too, which is kind of the point in building the chest, right? Like you want to build the chest so that your body kind of comes in in this kind of V shape. And then also you're going to have better stability through the shoulders and you're just going to look better because you have better posture. So if you just build the chest and have the shoulders real rolled forward, people won't even really be able to tell. They'll just be like, man, that guy's physique is kind of odd. Like they won't be like,

they won't be sweating you. Like Smokey's got great pecs, right? Oh, he has some titties. Big old bitties. Yeah. Got a motorboat with those bitches, right? He's got the big salami nipples, too. Just big old targets.

The salami nipples. Wow. Gotta love those salami nipples. Smokey. It's great when you just look at him and you're like, that's a pepperoni pizza, baby. It's just like, arr,, argh, argh. Talk about a nice shoulder to cry on. Wow.

So about his boobies, you were saying? What were we talking about? I don't know. Smokey's a gorgeous man. We need to get him on the show. Yeah, we need to talk to him. Maybe do it shirtless. Yeah, actually, if we do a podcast with him, it must be shirtless. Can we interview just his nipples?

He's got the mic. Hello? We can have one for each. Yeah, if you're going to try to build anything, build strength, build your chest, build your arms, it's going to take time, and you're better off having it take time. It's going to take time because you it's good to build the surrounding area and that takes a lot of time like you might be able to build your chest up real fast by doing a bunch of shit and but your posture is going to be weird and if same thing with the arms

it's like if you're going to build up good arms a big part of that is your tricep it's not just the bicep despite what terrell might say who was all bicep i think yeah i think honestly though like he might have broke the record he definitely like fucked it all up because like his by his bicep is bigger than his trice like yeah i think if your biceps are that big i think you could just be like oh what who cares about triceps look at these and you're like you're fucking you're right he's a mom it's so funny because you know terrell was a high level sprinter in college uh at mizzou and i asked him i was like man what do you think built your arms up like that i think do you think it had anything to do with like the sprinting he's like man i don't

know like i you know i've done a lot of curls my arms are strong and stuff and i was like well what is the position of your arm when you're running and he just kind of like you know everything he did was like spectacular so he showed me just in half a second the way he moved his arm and he moved his arm you know super fast but his whole arm just went crazy like the brachialis popped out fucking bicep peak uh popped out i was just when he was showing me that i love his fucking captions man i do not miss go to just go to another caption i just want to just see i want to see the consistency i want i Just when he was showing me that. I love his fucking captions, man. I do not miss. Just go to another caption. I just want to see the consistency.

I want to show a point here. Super athletic. All right, what's this? A challenge. All right. I just wanted to see the athleticism. Yeah, Terrell be doing some wild shit. What does he do at the top, though?

A single leg squat. Double bicep. Yep. Got to. T just sometimes has these one- liners where i'm just like hey i dig it t it's huge didn't we measure them they're like over 19 right yeah they might even been closer to 50 pull-ups daily how many after muay thai class 50 50 why is he doing muay thai now he's gonna be able to beat everybody up too yeah man I was shot by Per Bernal I got my own back that's right he's always talking trash he's got that athlete chip chip on his shoulder where it's like hey bro like we're all good right I'm coming for you like

we're friends like don't don't do that you're the homie man come on bro that's a really good picture and it kind of shows you like how like if you just look at just his arms, you know, and you start to compare it to, like, his waist. Like, the arm's not far behind how small his waist is. Like, that's just fucking craziness. Yeah. Yeah. But another guy that's doing multiple things. You know, he's a track athlete.

He does some bodybuilding training. He does some strength training. He does Muay Thai, and he's maintaining size and someone in the comments is gonna be like it's genetics but you know what i think they'll say steroids before they say oh they'll say steroids before genetics and then they'll say genetics but yeah it's those bbc genetics it's because he's black well so, so, yeah, he was what? Like, I don't know. A D1 sprinter?

Yeah. He's a fucking freak athlete, right? He is, yeah. And then his dad forced him to fucking do curls when he wanted to watch cartoons. You're right. He had a curl bar in the corner of his room or whatever. So, I don't know, man. That's pretty awesome.

Some people are just freak athletes too though man anyway I say fuck it man keep leaning towards the things that you're interested in and when it comes to working out don't think that you just have to be stuck in the same old pattern or doing the same old lifts

there's a lot of people that have injuries and they still are continuing to do the same movements and it's like man I'd like to see you develop another skill set so you don't have to be stuck in this. I know you like doing it. I understand you like doing it. But yeah, just even seeing some friends online sometimes, you know, just lifting so heavy. I'm just like, man, I just like, didn't they get that out of them, out of their system

yet? And I guess, you know, to each their own, like if that's what they're interested in and that's what they like to do and they feel like they're doing so in a safe fashion, then, uh, then I guess go for it. But it's like, it's also at a certain point, it's like, is that really building much of anything anymore? Like, I don't really know, like, you know, in business they kind of say you get your business to a certain point and they'll say like double your, you know, when you're backed into a corner, they'll say double your efforts or quit. You got to make a decision and double your efforts or quit. If I was to double my efforts with lifting, yeah, I can make some changes, but how much

of a change could I make? Like my efforts good. It's pretty good. But with everything I have in my life at this time, if I was to double my efforts, there'd be compromises in other areas, which I'm not willing to give up. So to me, it's like, I'd rather just hold onto this. I just said, like when we've had Michael Hearn and other people come in, I still feel comfortable even popping my shirt off next to a great bodybuilder. Not that I look like a bodybuilder, but I feel, I feel good for me. I feel good. And I think that's saying something that I, you know, also to be able to do that year round and to stay in shape all the time, there's not a time where I'm like, oh man, give me three weeks and I'm going to,

yes, of course we can all get leaner in three weeks, but I don't feel like I need that. No shade to anyone, but like none of us have been like, all right, we got to lose 30 pounds or 40 pounds or other than the last time you went from 330 down, you've had habits over the past few years that have allowed you to stay in shape. There's no moving between weights and getting out of shape or getting fat because of bad habits. Like you got habits in check so you can stay healthy and in shape. And I know, you know, if you're trying to get bigger right now, you're going to put on some size. You're going to put on some fat.

But we have good habits to allow us to be healthy. Right. Right? So. Yeah, and I think you can also, if you are somebody that likes to lift heavy, you can start to maybe redefine some of the things that you lift heavy with or some of the ways that you gauge your strength. Again, this is for somebody that might be banged up.

If you're not banged up and you're young and you're still having fun and you're still lifting, it's all good. But I think even in off-season for a high-level or for somebody in powerlifting, it would be a good idea to like, yeah, man, I wonder if I could start swinging those heavier kettlebells. I wonder what it would look like if I did some of those kettlebell presses or just do something different just to see if you can handle it. It's a different challenge. It's a new challenge, right? Man, there's this heavyweight

kettlebell dude. What were you about to say, Andrew? I was going to ask. No, no worries. Because like in thinking of like regular training days here at ST, it's like the big main lift. And then when it comes to the accessories, people start to fade. I don't blame them because sometimes accessories are harder than like, you know, than the three, you know, the big sets of three, I should say. Would somebody be able to get the same benefit from doing like one of the main lifts, let's say this afternoon and then tomorrow morning doing accessories or doing accessories this morning and then doing the main lift towards the end of the day i think you bring up a great point you can do it whatever the fuck way you want and if it was just a little bit more than what you're previously used to you're going to make a lot of progress

that's what's so awesome about this is that you don't have to go to the beat of anybody else's drum, but your own. And, and you, you know, like, you know, when you're fucking around, like, you know, when you're not putting in the right effort. So that's going to be the thing that, that's going to be the thing that sometimes is difficult to rein in on. And you might have to pick certain people to work out with so that that increases a little bit here and there but that is actually a really wonderful reason why to occasionally call up your crazy friends hey bro can we work out tomorrow like just maybe you just do that once a month you know i mean just to like check in with your lunatic friend like smoky likes to go nuts when he lifts yeah like i haven't lifted with him in a while, but I should.

It would probably make me super sore. He does every exercise. Every exercise. I mean, he does, like, eight exercises in a workout, which I don't think I've ever even done before, except for when I worked out with him. You got to pack a lunch when you're in a train with smoke. I do, like, five exercises, and I'm fucking shot. That's because when you get...

Squats take you a fucking hour. Yeah. Like, I'm out of here. I'm tired. Yeah. I see dudes set up like sleeping bags and like tents and shit when they're going to train with Smokey because it's like you're going to be committed and you're going to be here for a while. Yeah. But like, you know, splitting certain movements up, there's no reason why you can't. Like if you're creating setup that you have like some heavy squats or whatever, but you have a bunch of other accessories, dude, go and do your squats.

And then at another part of the day or maybe the next day, do those accessories when you have the time to do them. You know, because some people skip those accessory movements, even the way we call them accessory movements. They're extremely fucking important. Like those movements, whatever they are, are important for building muscle in different areas building potential mobility and all that but some people just only focus on the squat or the deadlift or the bench it's like these accessory movements are things that are going to be keeping you healthy you better get that shit in somehow makes sense i think as long as you as long as you do the work i think you're good yeah um so even if you were just to have some kind of uh

shit shoulder workout like you just went in the gym and you did two or three shoulder movements and that was the workout for the day there's still some benefit to that um there's you know mentally there's a lot of benefit to that like once you get yourself moving it feels good you at least feel like you did something even if it wasn't at the greatest intensity. But if it's been a little while since you've done some of those movements, technically you should get some result from it. But we kind of constantly are hearing about these intensity zones and these studies and all this stuff. Um, it's been my experience to where, again, if I, I, I know some, and Seema had some people take an exception to him talking about feel, but like, I think that's all we know, you know, in this world, all we know is like our experiences.

And I know from experience, like what makes me feel good. Like it, it literally puts me in a good mood to have accomplished a workout and it doesn't matter the workout. Like the workout I did yesterday was really weird. I did a bunch of weird stuff in the gym. None of it was like anything that I would say is like massively productive, but I was like, that felt fucking awesome. That made me feel great. Uh, it made me feel like I completed some of the mission for the day. It wasn't like a typical like bro pump workout or anything like that. I wasn't even really working on anything specific. I just started taking that weird red pole thing in the gym and started

swinging it sideways, hooking it up to some cables. I got to try that. Yeah. I saw you doing that yesterday. Yeah, it was weird. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, but I could feel my stomach working. It was hard. I was sweating. And I was like, yeah, I'll do some pull-ups in between. I did some push-ups in between.

And I just kind of did like a circuit. I did like, I don't know, three or four different movements. I went through it a couple times and I was like, I'm out. Does that build muscle the most optimal way? I don't really know. But I know it feels good. I know I feel good about myself, which I think is what most people are trying to do when they're exercising, right?

Yeah, the whole field thing was funny. What happened? I didn't hear or see what happened. Yeah, I showed some rowing movement on Instagram and TikTok. Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And at the end of it, I said, try moving out and just see how you feel.

And a bunch of people started tagging some of their favorite fitness TikTokers and influencers. And I understand that because some people want to see if something makes sense. So they ask this guy,

is this makes sense? You got to go by your aura ring and what that says. Yeah. You can't go by how you feel because you don't really know. Yeah. And, you know, there are some kind of valid things.

I think this is honestly a whole other podcast. But there are some people mentioning, you know, some people are beginners, so they can't really judge how something is based off of how it feels. But I remember when I was a beginner, like I was trying a few things out. I did a few things that were a bit unorthodox because I felt a good pump in certain areas. And I was like, Ooh, I kind of like this. So I it's, it's odd because there are a lot of things that we're doing where we're like, Ooh, that's, I don't have an ability to move there. Or, oh, that's kind of tight. Why is that tight? Should it be tight? Should I not be able to do this?

Right? And then we go down that rabbit hole and we gain new ability. And I think some people are just kind of shooting themselves in the foot because they're unwilling to try things unless they get the okay from someone that they believe, someone that knows more than them. Because a lot of these coaches who they tag do know more than them. But on the other side, a lot of the coaches that they tag are only focused on very specific realms of movement, fitness, muscle, etc. So unknowingly, I think some people kind of just, let's say, they stifle themselves because they're not willing to give certain things a try.

And truthfully, it might not be their interest. But on the other side of things, you never know. If you try something, it might open up a whole new world. Lane Norton, what do you think about this? That's what they do, right? They want this other guy to judge it so then they can make a judgment from there but they can't make their own judgment yet because they need to wait till their favorite person talks about it yeah and it's tough because it's like yeah you know if you if you get if you really trust the what someone is putting out then you're

going to trust them to say that's valid or it's not but then you also like again most if you talk to some of your high level power lift friends, you're like, Hey Stan, you think I should try this running shit? You didn't, I mean, some people would. Yeah, I asked him, he was a hundred percent negative. If I told certain people when I started jujitsu, like, like I, I learned coaching a lot of, a lot of what I learned initially was from Alberto Nunez and I was like, actually, Jeff Alberts, when I started Jiu-Jitsu,

I remember going to one of their seminars and I told you about this. Jeff was like, okay, well, your focus should be bodybuilding because, I mean, you're not going to be a world champion in Jiu-Jitsu, but you're going to be a world champion in bodybuilding. And I took that personally. But,

that was perfect. if if i if i really heated that i was like you know what fuck this jujitsu shit uh then i wouldn't be doing what i am now i had to try shit out that some people didn't think would be ideal and he probably wasn't even trying to be negative he wasn't his main point was probably just that you are a great in my opinion you're a great bodybuilder that was probably his main thing like probably just that you are a great, in my opinion, a great bodybuilder. That was probably his main thing. Like, kid, what are you doing, man? Don't fucking leave us. Don't leave bodybuilding.

Stay with it. Yeah, like if Kenny was like, oh, Mark, I'm going to be a long distance runner now. I'd be like, come on, man. No, don't do that to me. Step on stage for us. Yeah. I think, again, it all just falls in line to, hey, if you find an interest in something, try it. Try it!

Damn it! Yeah, and then if you do find something, like, so, like, for me, I remember, like, low close grip cable pulley rows felt really good. I'm like, I think I can feel it in my back. This feels awesome. But then, like, I watch a YouTube video and it was like, oh, for optimal or whatever. Or if you want a wide back back use a wide grip or something i'm just making shit up because i can't remember what it was but then i was like oh i gotta have a oh okay i gotta use a wide grip i'll do that like damn i don't feel a fucking thing it's like but this is what i'm supposed to do so i gotta get good at this yeah and it's like wide back i love that one yeah i mean it's

funny because it would anyways man we gotta talk about this at length though yeah yeah yeah whole new episode but you know so like when you do find the thing then don't go and find somebody that explains why that's not the thing you know like if you feel it fucking go for it you know we're learning we are learning so much right now from different people that are coming in and like Matt, all these fascia people. We're learning so many things. And I know how people say this fitness thing. It's like there are tried and true methods of doing things.

But as we do more things, we're just like, wow, these are a lot of capacities that could help me get bigger. It's not that tried. It's not that true. It's fucking new. It's still that tried. It's not that true. It's fucking new. It's still really new. Or maybe there is like, lifting weights is still new. Like we haven't been doing it for that long.

Yeah. Or maybe there, there's probably somebody who was doing some, some, some of the stuff we're doing right now, but maybe just, it's not popular or it hasn't been popularized. Cause you know,

Matt referenced all those Russian books and how they were doing some wild shit. Right. So maybe people were doing some of this shit, but it's not what's popping on social. It's not what's popping in what all these people are making programs about. So people just think it doesn't make sense or it hasn't been researched. Well, the Internet is interesting because you get someone like John Hack out there who's just crushing these weights all the time. There's some other young kid watching that right now who's like 11 or 12 who's like hey he's gonna take it to that level i'm gonna take it to another level because from

what i've heard there's a couple guys that are even nipping at john hack's heels which i know matt was like i think he's got to be better for a little longer to be the greatest so i'm like i'm thinking no i don't think so like he i think's, I think he's the greatest lifter of all time. I think he is like, it's just fucking crazy. I know there's guys that won like 20 championships and stuff like that. And that's sick. But if we're just going by the measure of power lifting, which is like being the strongest, I have never seen anything quite like it before.

Yeah. And again, people have their favorite guys and I love Ed Cohn and stuff. And I think Ed is one of the all-time great, too. But I've never seen anyone do what John Hack has been doing right now. And I will say I wasn't around for some of the early guys, so I didn't see that. But watching what he's doing right now and having the eyes on him that he does from having social media like I am unaware of how many times ed cone deadlifted 870 pounds plus but i'm fairly aware of how many times john hack does it and seems like he does it every fucking tuesday and when we were right yeah when we were having this conversation with matt winning you know like how people will point to him for uh whatever it is like oh he does it so i'm gonna do it too it's like okay well there's just the one John Hack but also like I think when he was talking about like competing like don't do it so often like look at how other people are doing it and like if you are following John Hack like

oh he competes all the time but it's like he'll go into a meet and be like man I did okay like I like it wasn't like a PR type of event for him, but he still smokes everybody. So like, that's different. It's almost like a, um, like a tune up meet for him. It's not like, you know,

cause what do we say or what do we hear is like, I'm going to leave it all out on the platform. He doesn't, it's just, no, he doesn't. And he still wins. So it's like,

he just competed again. He went like eight for nine, which is also, which is also really rare. The high level guys very rarely make their lifts like that a lot of times something happens or they pass on an attempt and stuff but like he basically was perfect in the meet and he fucking killed everybody and he broke some moral all-time i mean it's just i don't know it's disgusting he's different you know i don't know if

uh it doesn't seem like john's rushing though i could be wrong could be totally wrong right but it just doesn't seem that like he he forces things when it comes to training. Like, he'll go for shit. Looks like he doesn't care. Like, when he came in here, man, he was so chill. Like, he just does what he does every day. And then it's like, was there, wasn't there, moves on. You know?

He's not like, did it, did it, did it, did it, all the time. That's the only way I can describe it, because that's what comes to mind. Too bad he's not a little, like, Conor McGregor-ish, right? Powerlifting would blow up. He'd be like yelling and screaming at everybody, right? Yeah. Would you call like Ed like – I don't know. This is a good comparison.

Ed's like the Jordan and Hack's like the LeBron. Yeah. That's a great comparison. Because like people look at like LeBron's capacities and like his disability as a basketball player. He can do everything. But he doesn't have those rings. Right. I don't know.

Does Hack have the rings? Is that a stupid comparison? No. Well, powerlifting is just different now. There's no unified championship that anyone really cares that much about. You can go the IPF route, but the ipf stuff uh there's it's it's difficult because it's like there's not any like money behind it or anything like i'm sure john's probably doing pretty well with the way that he he does things because he's um not that you can't not that you can't uh program for people if you're in the ipf but but it's like, I don't know why you would go through such, there's

so many rules to all that, and you travel with a team, and I don't know, it's just like, if you're a young kid, like, it would probably be a ton of fun. Yeah, you know what we never talked about? I wanted to bring this up with Matt, but you know how they change the bench rules in the IPF? They, like, minimize the arch. I haven't read deeply into it,

but yeah, you cannot arch. There's something about the shoulders and whatever where you cannot, you will not see these rainbow arches anymore. Yeah, because they had some of the lifters were reaching way out wide. There is a limit on how wide you can go. You can't go past the power ring that's on the bar. And then you'd have a huge arch and then you barely move the weight. And so, yeah, they were trying to have some sort of like restrictions on that. It's like weird stuff.

It's like, I don't know what you do. So what does that mean for the records that may have been broken using those types of arches, right? Are they going to, they're probably not going to fuck with those records. And then what do you do with like our girl, Jen Thompson, who just like gets up there flat back and fucking handles like 330 pounds? She's another mutant that doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, she's fucking strong. Do you ever see her do the bench press holds with 500 plus pounds? Yeah, we saw that.

See if we can bring up a clip, man. That shit's impressive. She came in here and did that shit. Yeah. She's a monster. Yeah, she just did one not too long ago. John Hack, yeah, he just competed too. Maybe we should bring up a clip of that.

He's a fucking savage. John Hackintosh? Mm-hmm. Hackenschmidt. Oh, we were talking about our boy Kenny. So Kenny, just because she's in a slingshot. Oh, nice. What's your bench area, like 520?

Conjug, 340. 340. Just because she's in a slingshot. Oh, nice. What'd you bet, Jay? Like 520? Unjuck. 340. 340. 340. Got the reactive slingshot on. This was not done on purpose, but maybe it was. Find your slingshots at markbellslingshot.com. Use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off your entire order.

Links down in the description. I actually don't even know if that's the code. I'm pretty sure it is. I think it's like power no code power project 10 Oh power project 10? 10% off. She just did like crazy amount of reps right there. Yeah. During the whole promo. That's great how she did that. So

our boy Kenny you know he did the typical bodybuilder posing you know with the clothes around his pants around his ankles. Hey Andrew you should pull this out. I'm gonna. Which is always a great thing. And then look at our girl, Susan.

Oh, no. That's a Susan Bratton. Oh. Susan Bratton. She said, I love the drop trowel. Of course she did. I'm not going to find it. Our residence expert. That's what Andy said right

away too. She's like, what's going on? Why are her pants down? And we're all just like, look at you just staring at them. I'm so hungry. I like this picture. Mark's like, ah! Look at this young man. Wow. Look at that meat. If you guys are listening, we're very sorry for all the sounds that we're making, but

we're just admiring our boy, Kenny underscore Williams underscore underscore dog. God, use names. I know. We got to fix that. How stupid is it? This is his first bodybuilding show. It's his first show. He looks incredible.

The boy has incredible shape. And it's just, I get jealous about how well he rocks 4x shirts it doesn't make any sense to me because like i don't know he weighs like 200 he weighs 200 pounds something about the broadness of his shoulders he'll wear a 4x shirt and look big in a 4x shirt and it's just like dog and handsome too and handsome just and i don't like the guy he makes everybody feel fat and insecure. Fuck him. Fuck him. And he's an athlete, too.

Have you all seen what some of the shit he could do with a baseball? And like a fucking, like that boy. Oh, he can jump like crazy. I remember that. See, he's a guy who's like, he's not going to lose. Yeah, baseball player. Just look at his shirt, though. But he's, you know, epitome of kind of what we're talking about. Like, we've talked to him before.

Like, dude, don't lose some of your athleticism, you know? And he'll, I think he's been doing a good job listening so far. He might end up, you know, going down the rabbit hole so hard that like, you know,

one day he's 275 and he's like, oh man, I can't, I can barely wipe my ass today, you know? But hopefully, hopefully he sticks, sticks with listening to some of our stuff just because like you said,

it just, if you get too far away from any one thing, it's going to take you that much longer to rebuild any of it and you're just more prone to a lot of pain and or injury. Yeah, no, I've been looking at, like, I've been seeing him train, though. Everything he does, like, he does really good range of motion when he does his squats, his movements, and he's doing things. Like, he does bop jumps here and there.

He does things to maintain that ability. So Dog is,'s gonna he's gonna wreck i can't wait for his show yeah he's got like maybe like five weeks five weeks five weeks nice i gotta get in there and get some photos of him take us on out of here andrew all righty thank you everybody for checking out today's episode uh please drop us some comments down below on some of the stuff that you did early on in your fitness journey that I don't know, maybe you wish you changed

or if you can go back, what would you adjust? And yeah, let us know because we want to hear that. And make sure you guys like and subscribe. If you guys are not subscribed already, please follow the podcast at MB Power Project

on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. My Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ in SEMA. Where are you at? Discord is at discord so check it out um but anyway at and sema ending on instagram youtube and sema yin yang on tiktok and twitter mark i'm at mark smelly bell strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye