Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 197 - Kara Lazauskas

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Kara Lazauskas is an MMA fighter, powerlifter, and Titan Games athlete. She is a Muscle Research Coordinator and graduated with her Masters degree in Kinesiology at Cal State Fullerton. She conducted many studies including the changes that happen to a competitive weightlifter’s muscles with Dr. Andy Galpin. Despite having 75% lung capacity, she starts her day with 100 push-ups and sit-ups. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

So you were a rebel right from the get? Yeah, I think my entire life I was just always a rebel. I was always up to no good, always never listening. I mean, you know, I'm sure if anyone has seen the NBC Titan games, you heard the, there go be the dead horse with one lung. So since I was three and a half, had one lung and ever since that point i think subconsciously i always knew i was the different one i was always gonna be you know chip on my shoulder prove people wrong prove everyone's siblings as well yep a brother and sister

my brother you know wrestled his entire life i grew up in a wrestling family so you know wrestling man in the basement dad Dad wrestled, coached Division I, All-American. So I kind of always grew up in a household where it was very strict on academics, athletics, and you just, you know, work hard, play harder. And it's just been my entire life is just that go, go, go mentality. You know, do it right the first time. Don't fuck up. And just keep on it on and stay forward

east coast right east coast new jersey yeah jersey strong upstate new york myself yeah and uh new jersey is a real piece of shit everyone loves to hate on new jersey everyone i mean it's i even call it dirty jersey so who am i to say anything i mean mean, I grew up with the GTL life, like Jim Tan Laundry. Yeah. You know, forget about the damn Jersey Shore MTV show back in the day. People used to force me to watch that. And I was like, no, I know the real Jersey. You don't understand.

We're very prideful people, even though it's funny because it's like, well, I left for a reason. I don't live in New Jersey anymore for a reason but still very prideful you know in the sense of you know from like a city area or uh right in the middle actually the town i grew up in technically called the shanak station there was a house down the block down the street from where i grew up that was called the centerville house really old shitty house like broken down but it was the center point for George Washington back in the 17th, when he was alive, for him between New York City and Philadelphia. So he used to stop at this house

because it was exactly in the middle. So I'm exactly in the middle of New Jersey from New York City to Philadelphia. Okay, so you mentioned already having one lung. What do you mean by that? Yeah. So explain, explain. I think we're supposed to have two, right? Yeah. I hope so. Maybe some people have three. That's a whole different story. But when I was three and a half, I had essentially what they like to call it is a post-inflammatory pseudotumor,

which really what it means is, oh, we messed up. We thought it was cancer. It wasn't cancer. Oh, my gosh, it's going to live. So for two months, my mom tells a story and gets all emotional and all this jazz. But for two months, I had a dry dry cough and the doctors kept sending me home saying yeah there's nothing wrong with you she's just bronchitis it will go away and eventually over time like you know what it's been going on this dry cough so let's go get an x-ray you know i'm

three and a half i don't know any better you know my parents were making these decisions and and the doctors do that right they see this huge mass on my left lung and they're like shit she's gonna die so i went right into emergency surgery they took out x-ray and they see this huge mass on my left lung. And they're like, shit, she's going to die. So I went right into emergency surgery. They took out my whole lung and they, you know, branched everything else off and biopsied it, which is ironic because muscle biopsies. And they realized it wasn't cancer. It was benign. So, you know, I just grew up my whole life, three and a half with one lung.

You know, I couldn't play sports until I was eight. my whole life, three and a half with one lung. You know, I couldn't play sports until I was eight. So I think that played a big role in just kind of my aggressiveness, not only being from New Jersey, but just always having, you know, that chip just rolled against me, proved me wrong. And once I was cleared, you know, went through a lot of respiratory testing. You know, I just went full into the game and started with soccer and basketball. And I was, you know, I never, it was my normal.

I never thought, you know, it was my normal I never thought you know it was abnormal until I got older and people started you know I kind of forgot about it and then people started saying to me wait you have one lung or I still have the scar on the you know I still have a scar across my rib cage because it was such a tremendous surgery and every time I like slightly mention it and of course because of the you know tiny caves more uh you know oh my god i would never know and to me it's my normal though yeah um what i mean what is it like what what does it do uh to have one lung i mean it must make some things more difficult right but it sounds like you were very capable of playing a lot of

different sports and it seems like you're very physical. Yeah, I've always been very physical. I've always not cared who you were, male, female, big, strong. I want to just compete. And one big thing I always say is, you know, don't compare, compete. Don't compare yourself to anyone else.

Do what you need to do and compete. And if you lost, guess what? You lost. You you're a loser i hate when people say participation trophies and all that you lost but yeah for me it's working a lot of my breath work you know working a lot on you know even underwater swims you know try to build up that capacity my i'm at 75 right now my goal is to get to 80 in the next you know a couple years i'm giving myself now. My goal is to get to 80% in the next couple years. I'm giving myself a three-year window to get to 80% because I just want to see how much I can push it. 80% like what? Lung capacity.

Two lungs, non-smoker, you have 100%. For me, one lung because my heart shifted. It's actually two pounds bigger than a normal athlete's heart. My right lung is actually bigger than a normal athlete's heart. And my right lung is actually one and a half times the size of a normal lung.

So it's pretty big. Everything shifted. So, you know, for me, I want to continue to grow that capacity and see how much I can stretch, you know. I find that to be really interesting because, you know, oftentimes in life when we're dealt a bad hand it causes other things to be kind of enhanced so you know maybe uh you know you end up with this tumor and you end up with getting your lung removed but maybe it's just you know if nothing else maybe it just makes you like a little bit tougher than the next person and it allows you to kind of push beyond which it sounds like you're already doing yeah i just i love the fight you know i like to say i'm a fighter and a lover and you know but you got to love the fight as well it can't just be one or you know causes other things but for me it was

it was always you know everyone's got their normal you know you know people with born with one leg that everyone's like oh my god they're like don't feel sorry for me. Like this is my normal. I think everyone has a piece of that and there's this matter of how did it manifest? How did you grow through that? You know, how do you, you know, what is normal anyway? I don't think there is such a thing as real normal. I mean, everyone's a little bit fucked up. Oh yeah, for sure. What type of like specific breath work do you do to like help your capacity? Cause I feel like everybody can

do that type of stuff can be beneficial right oh yeah of course for me the big thing again xpt life with larry hamilton and you know pj nelser and you know the art of breath with brian mckenzie and those guys who i'm sure you'll have down here soon enough because they do wonderful work uh you know i do a lot of their techniques, but a lot for me is working on, I do a lot of a test called the Bolt Test, which is seeing how much I can stretch that time. And I finally have gotten to 40 seconds. So that's a big thing for me.

And the other big thing, again, these underwater swims, which I learned through SealFit and worked with U.s navy seals and special operators uh mark divine and being able to stretch when i first started doing under our swim holds i couldn't get like 10 feet without gasping for air and getting up now i can go all the way down the pool and almost all the way back in one single breath in one hold. And it's just challenging that diaphragm. I do a lot of the Wim Hof styles as well. I like to dabble in a lot of them.

I wake up in the morning and I'll do fire breathing. I'll do the breath holds just to charge my system up and say, look, it's time to work. Yeah. You start each day with a bunch of pushups and sit-ups? Yeah, that as well. I like to do that. I do like to do the push-ups with, I'll do the fire breathing.

And then on that last breath, I'll hold it. And I'll do as many push-ups as I can and see if I can increase that number. Right now, I can do about 50 with that hold without needing to take another breath. After that, I'll go through you know sometimes i'll do 100 and 100 when it comes to pull-ups and push-ups sometimes i'll mix it up and i'll do sit-ups sometimes i'll do you know how five minute plank you know i have barbell i set up my living room as a gym so i have horse mats squat you know freestand barbells everything i need to go i don't think people realize how crazy it is

that you have a 40-bolt score because it's really difficult to get that high. Where did it start for you? Let's back up a second and just explain it first. Yeah, we should explain that. We talked about it on the show. If you haven't

listened to the show, make sure. You got 40 points in one quarter. I got 40 points. Yeah. And one quarter. Probably figure that out. Bolt, it started back in 1975. Researchers started, you know, formulating this Bolt test, which is a blood oxygen level test. Essentially what it is, is you sit down in a comfortable position, you know, seated in a chair and you take a, you know, three easy breaths.

And then on that fourth breath, you're just going to hold and you're going to hold until you start to feel an involuntary reaction in your body. So say I'm holding my breath and I'm relaxed. All of a sudden I feel either a twitch in my body or a weird involuntary reaction to try to breathe, time stops. So the time starts when you've had that, you've started holding your breath. It stops when any involuntary reaction begins. A lot of people think, oh, I held it for a minute. I'm like, no, you didn't. You see that little twitch in your diaphragm rib cage? That's when the time should have stopped. So a lot of people are like, oh yeah, do 40 no problem i was like no you can't like you really gotta practice for the record it's hard to do like 15 seconds yeah and it's it's on your last breath out right so you

you let the last breath out you're not doing anything fancy you're not breathing abnormally just normal breaths on the last breath out you hold it and then you try to hold it see how long you can go for and then that's your score yeah yeah i mean anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds i mean there are people that get five there's people that maybe can get more than 40 i haven't reached that point yet you know some days i know it might be a shitty day because i'll get 25 i'm like okay all right you know it's not every day you get 40 but you continually try to work and improve that and go ahead you got there like so okay where did you when you first did your bold score i don't know if you remember where you started what things do you think uh

allowed you to get to that capacity of being able to do 40 because again that's really really high like that's amazing yeah so the it's gonna be a lot of people are gonna freak out because they don't like ice baths but for me one of the big game changers, it wasn't just, you know, the different arts of breathing, the different techniques. For me, the big game changer is when I started holding my breath under ice water. So when I started going in an ice bath, going, taking a cold shower and working on involuntary relaxing, as Wim Hof calls it, vascular fitness. I started utilizing the cold to relax my body and help get that involuntary response to increase. So I wasn't freaking out in the first 10 seconds. So I was starting to build that capacity and then holding my breath in ice water itself helped me. And that's when I i started that was the real game changer for me when i started doing that and that actually came to me when i was doing uh mark divine seal fit i

did kakoro which is a 50 hour no sleep you know simulation of hell week event which actually completed with ben greenfield uh the nerd we all love and you know i realized that's when they first started doing it to me and they realized the hell with sign up for like navy seal like simulator like and i think mark divine i think he does really well the business that he does really well you know seal fit it's it sounds asinine like we're just gonna beat the shit out of you you mentioned being sleep deprived i mean it sounds terrible it makes not sleeping for 24 hours easy. It makes it so easy now. After doing that, I was jumping in our water. You got this really crap.

They purposely give you really crappy rucksacks. I had no skin on my feet. Well, I came back from Vietnam or something. My mom picked me up from the airport and said, she was almost in shock crying. She's like, what happened? I thought I was bringing you to this. And you were probably so excited oh i loved it uh that's my heaven like for me physical training physical hell like that mental push to me that's i'm at

peace like i'm comfortable uh there's one yeah i was just chilling that was at uh seal fit headquarters when they were officially moving sectors and going almost primarily online besides the Kokoro camps themselves and the academies. But back when I did it, when I did Kokoro 34, there was a lot of people getting ready for special ops too. It wasn't just civilians, so it was pretty intense. I mean, within the first three hours, they found your weakness. For me was that

was the big wake-up call was like i need to get used to breathing underwater in an ice bath and that really changed my like my involuntary response to holding my breath and staying calm and increasing my my own work capacity do a lot of people break yeah yeah you see that probably a lot right yeah we started i mean i think even in ours we had like 45 to start i think we ended with 20 some some of that nature but i just a lot of people you know quote unquote ring that bell or quit and yeah it has nothing to do with their physical fitness a lot of times it's they just don't want it they don't have a strong enough why you know they're too external about it at all like did it get so hard where you're like maybe not even thinking about like quitting necessarily but just thinking like i don't want it. They don't have a strong enough why. You know, they're too external. Did you think about it at all? Like, did it get so hard where you're like, maybe not even thinking about, like, quitting necessarily, but just thinking, like, I don't, I'm not sure. Like, I don't know if I can push through this any further.

No. I don't think, I think I'm just wired differently where, you know, you're always going to have that demon or that, you know, darkness that comes upon you. demon or that you know darkness that comes upon you but the option to quit was never something that fate or went through my mind because i know the darkness come i know the demons are going to pop up i know they're gonna the point is trying to break you so as long as you have you know that they're trying to break you and you know that the point is to have a breakthrough then you know quitting is an option so it doesn't dawn on you like i oh i'm done i gotta quit was there moments that just sucked and you're just i mean there was a point where literally no skin on my feet and they're trying to you know spray

them down so don't get staff or bursar or anything you know and they didn't know that anything was wrong with me they didn't know i didn't have any skin on my feet you know after the second day but you know i just didn't care i was like well it's you know yeah u.s navy seals as coaches i can't show weakness that's my environment you know and i've been called crazy more than once so you know it's my type of crazy do you think you have you always been that way? Or was there a certain point where you, because you said you're wired differently.

So was there a certain point where things kind of shifted for you in your athletic career where you just became more badass? Or have you just always? I think I've always been that way. I think anyone has those moments where they question, am I wired in the wrong way or in the right way? Yeah. Is this good or bad for me? But I think I'm – I think based on not only life experience but just how I've lived my life, I just think I've always had that nature.

I mean I've had short hair my whole life. Since I was five, I've had my life. I just think I've always had that nature. I mean, I've had short hair my whole life. Like since I was five, I've had short hair. And people seem to love to ask the question like, oh, did you just think like you were in, you thought pink was cool. So you cut your hair short. No, like my hair has been short my whole life. Like it wasn't a business decision. It was, it's just who I've always been. I've always been.

And does that cause sometimes demons to creep up? Because you always have been kind of the different one, quote unquote. Yeah, of course. But you learn to know that your weaknesses actually make you stronger and who you are actually makes you better. You just need to figure out exactly who you are and what's your purpose. you know that's you know i find it fascinating that you have you know put yourself through some of these things and you're you were talking about the uh you know depriving yourself of sleep you know going through some of these uh camps and stuff like that you know after uh learning so much you know uh learning from andy galpin and uh you've conducted many studies with him and so forth um you mentioned how easy it is for you to not, you know, to go through a period of time where you don't sleep for 24 hours. How does that kind of conflict with some of the, you know, tests and studies and things that you've seen come across where people are

like, no, you need eight hours. You know, do, do we, do we really need eight hours? I mean, you need eight hours all the time for maximum health. Like what are some of your opinions on some of this stuff? I think it's very dependent on the person themselves. I think some people, depending on your chronotype and, you know, which is a whole nother whole nother story, the chronotype. What's a chronotype? Chronotype.

So some people are, you know, lions where they can go to bed late at night, wake up early, and they're fine. Celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, they're bears where they have to go to bed at 9, 10 o'clock at night, and they need their eight hours. Other people are dolphins where most people who are dolphin chronotype have insomnia, and they have very erratic sleep, and they can't always get to sleep. They're all over the place with their sleep patterns itself. And then there's also the wolf. So there's four chronotypes.

So wolf, dolphin, lion, bear. And so all of them basically tell you what your best cycle of sleep is or what your sleep pattern fits yourself best individually. And I've always, for years, I thought I was like you know oh like i'm a i'm a lion i'm born in august i'm a leo anyway i'm probably a lion probably like 12 to 6 i only need six hours i realized as i got older like i that probably just me fighting my actual self like i probably do need more than six so i think it's independent like yes i think just if you want to be successful you're going to have nights where you don't sleep seven we don't live in a perfect world you're not gonna always sleep

seven nine hours every night would i love to sure but will i probably be successful especially in love andy but especially in the lab work and what we do probably not you know there's sometimes i gotta run gels at 12 12 a.m just gotta get done yeah you say my email you at like four in the morning yeah you know i was up at 3 30 this morning why because i got things we need to do you know i got that's why you work under a phd such as andy because he lets you you know be an adult be responsible take ownership and just get the work done what what is uh you know doing you're mentioning these breathing drills, but also like the 100 push-ups and sit-ups and stuff like that first thing in the morning. How does that compare to like a cup of coffee?

I think it's, I still drink coffee, but it hyper-drives my system before I even need the coffee. I would imagine. I mean, you probably get up some days and you're probably like pretty tired, but I'm supposed to do my pushups. And I'd imagine that after you do the pushups, you probably feel pretty good most of the time. I feel pretty pumped. And to me, it's my reset.

To me, it sets the intention for the day that this is going to happen. You're going to be a savage. You're not going to let things get to you. You're not going to let things get to you. You're not going to always... Jason Redman, who is a dear friend of mine, he always says, I don't have bad days. I just have good days and great days. And that's the mentality that I learned from him that it doesn't... If I get 100 pushes in, no matter what happens today, it's going to be a good day. I ate the frog in the morning. I did did the hard thing first which if you're groggy in

the morning you're not gonna like last thing you want to do is meditate do 100 push-ups take a cold shot that's the last thing you want to do but you know if you don't do it you don't win the morning you're not gonna win the day and that's something that you know a lot of the steel team guys a lot of special operators have instilled in me that I still use to this day. It's really easy to let a lot of negative self-talk creep in because if you got these pushups and breathing and different things that you're supposed to do, it's easy to say, oh, well, I'm, you know, I only have 30 minutes to get to where I'm supposed to go. And just tend to talk yourself out of it. How do you avoid negative self-talk? I think the biggest thing is that not, there's always negative self-talk,

right? It's, it's just a part of life as a part of human nature. But for me, you know, I had a time period in my life where I let it affect me and dug up around life. My life hasn't been nothing close to perfect. You know, I've, I've had my, my shit. And to me now, it's just the feeling doesn't last. And you know, that's not your thoughts that's some self-conscious that's some insecurity that you're letting have power and just don't let it have power so i just it doesn't last the moment i hear the negative self-talk like for me it's what we're thinking for me when i wake up really tired in the morning it'd be like yeah i'll just go to sleep turn the alarm off go to sleep You can take 10 more minutes. But moment that bubbles up, I've trained myself to then say right to that thought is, no, I'll actually say it out loud.

I look like a crazy person. I'll say it out loud. No, you're fucking savage. Let's go. Like, stop being, you know, stop bullshitting, Cara. And saying it out loud, for some reason reason the out loud part you know because i hear a lot of people say well just say it to yourself no express it outside yourself then it kind of feels like someone else saying to you and then you just kind of go do your shit and you

forget what whatever you're thinking about and you just go get what you need to get and do what you need to do that's a great cue you know i teach people all the time about these 10 minute walks and i usually say you know and same thing thing with just teaching people to stay hydrated. People love coffee and they love energy drinks. So rather than just tell them, you know, don't drink that shit and only drink water. Like I love my share of coffee myself. I just say every time that you have coffee, that's your cue to drink some water. And then same thing with like you get home from something and you have a tendency to want to just like relax. That's your cue to go some water, you know? And then same thing with like, you get home from something and you have a tendency to want to just like

relax. That's your cue to go do a 10 minute walk. Second that you just are going to indulge in, uh, you know, whatever it is that you normally do, that's not getting you the results that you want. You kind of use it, use it as a cue. Maybe even, uh, you have a tendency to, um, want to have a snack, you know, and it's not, it's not a healthy snack for you. Maybe you can change the conversation in your head and say, all right, every time I want to reach in the cabinet for a granola bar or a cookie or whatever it is, instead I'll have a protein shake.

And it's just small changes and you kind of use those things to kind of navigate through the day. I haven't heard anybody talk about saying it out loud, but that's pretty good. Yeah, it's one trick that I think I just developed over time because, again, I'm a little bit crazy. It's a good crazy, though. But one day I was super just frustrated. And I felt it. And all of those days I just felt it in my soul. I was just like, I'm going to break a window in like three seconds. And I just screamed out loud. And I was like I'm gonna break a window in like three seconds about and I just screamed out loud and I was like oh I feel a little better and then just from there I was like maybe I

should just start instead of saying to my inside my mind like hey get over it say it out loud who gives a shit who's around me say it out loud then all of a sudden I started to realize like oh my god like these thoughts do not bother me at all anymore once I do this I started some of my athletes doing it, you know, especially some of the professional skateboarders that I work with. You know, I'm getting ready for 2020 Japan. And I started implementing with them just that small cue. And they're like, oh, I feel better now.

I'm like, yeah, see. Great. We're going to see people all over the place yelling at themselves. You're a savage. Popping pushups in the park and stuff. Don't do that in Huntington Beach. Yeah. I mean, okay. great popping push-ups in the park and stuff uh don't do that in huntington beach yeah i mean okay so you it seems like you've always been kind of like a doer but have you ever dealt with like

because you see a lot of people are battling depression and things like that um have you ever battled with anything like that and this type of like positive self-talk is it something that you tell people who you probably have clients that have, you know, these types of problems? How do you help them deal with that? It's all interdependent on who the client or who the athlete is about what works best for them. And again, I'm very, I'm very truth over harmony person. The truth is I'm not a psychologist. I'm not Andy. I'm not, you know, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. I'm not certified in those capacities. So I always refer out if I, you know, need to, because again, I facilitate what I can and then refer out when I need to. For me, I've had a lot of dark days.

And what I mean by that is the dark horse that no one ever wants to talk about but I give no – I will talk about it to the day I die because no one does is I developed after my fourth ACL surgery and losing my college basketball career. I wouldn't say developed. That's the wrong term. I always had issues with addiction and I come from a very addicted family. I ended up going through a whole identity crisis where I was like, I don't know if I don't have basketball, if I don't have sports, you know, I had this mask on, who am I? So in basketball, I realized was the bandit to the problem ended up in a hospital 95 pounds you know same height i am now with very bad depression very much suicidal i was a week in a psych ward which was probably the lowest moment of my life anorexia bulimia all that fun eating disorder jazz. And, you know, couldn't find myself, couldn't figure out who I was.

And still was dealing with recovering from, you know, especially bulimia. I realized after a lot of deep thought that I had anorexia probably in high school as well. You know, that no one ever said anything about it. So I used to just lie and say I was eating when I would just have an apple a day and then train six hours because that's normal. But it came to a head after I lost my basketball career. And then I just went full-blown batshit crazy. And through that, through all those demons,

it took me a good three years to be fully recovered and realize who I really was. And that came with having a good support team around me, having the right people around me that knew me and knew how to change my perspective on what life was actually about. What were you addicted to? I think I was addicted to needing the need to have to be labeled as a legit elite athlete. to have to be labeled as a like a legit elite athlete i was addicted to the need to if i'm not playing overseas basketball if i'm not making money as a professional athlete then i am absolutely nothing because that was my entire life's goal was to play overseas basketball was to be this you know wmba i wasn't good enough for wmbBA but you know that was the goal

and when that didn't happen I still was trying to fill that need I don't think I, it took me so long to figure out a lot of my younger athletes I love when they say ball is life or skate is life, I'm like no

life is life, no don't no, please don't say that. Like I was thought that way too. And look, you know, let me show you what happened to me. Let me tell you what happened to me. But it was that I was addicted to the need to have to be this highly recognized professional athlete on all the magazine covers or getting this contract. That's what I was addicted to until I realized that you need to switch that addiction to something healthier. I think we all have our little obsessions. We all have our little addictions, but realizing that we could flip the script and make it into a healthy manner where

it's not this evil that I have to then go control other things like my food or, you know, get in this deep, dark depression about just switch the behavior to something that's a more positive light and that you're of service to others instead of, you know, trying to live this role that you clearly, you're not supposed to be a part of. So you weren't addicted to drugs necessarily? No, I wasn't addicted to drugs. Was after my fourth knee surgery, was I need a lot, take a lot of painkillers? Yep. I definitely had those

moments where you know like i have some family members well you know one family member particular who came out of you know rehab for heroin i have a lot of alcohol as my family so i knew was always in me i was very aware of that and you know my dad is as much as he is i'm just like him he's also my darkest teacher because he deals with alcoholism so for me it was you know, my dad is as much as he is. I'm just like him. He's also my darkest teacher because he deals with alcoholism. So for me, it was, you know, realizing the truth of what's going on and stop denying that you don't have an issue when you have one. But, yeah, opioids. I mean, I dealt with that. Would I say I was addicted?

No, because I only had so much of a prescription. And I would say if I had access to bigger things, who's to say? I probably would have. You mentioned going to the psychiatric ward being a real low point. Did it turn out to be a positive or was it just purely shitty? I think...

Did it give you something to reflect upon and to shift gears on, almost maybe like a pivot point in your life? Yeah, I think it was really shitty. I don't think I thought of it as a positive until years later, and I'm 27 now. This happened when I was 20,

so then I didn't think of it as anything but negative. I mean, I was a rebel in the bad way. You can't tell me what to do. I don't have a freaking issue. I'm fine. I'm still going to go out and do this. You can't tell me what to do like i don't i don't freaking issue like i'm fine like i'm still gonna do go out and do this you can't tell me what to do like it was very much like i mean you didn't show up at the psychiatric ward on your on your own either right no it was because of a actually i guess long story short i had tried to essentially induce myself into at the time like it seems like it's a dream now like

when I look at it this is when you I say to a lot of people because I do mentor for you know individuals coming out of eating disorder units with and I always tell them I said you don't you're not recovered until when I ask you to look back on a moment or say like a really bad moment, like you had a really bad episode or you acted on behaviors, if you look at that moment, you still feel like you're in that moment, you're not recovered. But if you can look at that moment, like me in the psych ward, like before I went into the psych ward that night where I took 80 laxatives and downed a bottle of vodka and locked my door and just hoped to die. and locked my door and just hoped to die, when I look at that moment, just like when I ask others, I feel like it's a dream, like I'm separated from it. That's when you know you're recovered.

And if it wasn't for a teammate walking into my apartment, if it wasn't for my teammate knocking on the door and slamming down the door and calling the ER and getting me to where I needed to be, I would not be alive. Because I was trying hard, very irresponsibly. Like, you know, if you look back at my life, like, why the, like, why would you do that to yourself? But I just, I lost all hope.

I lost all dreams. I was like, I can't be an athlete. I can't be anything like that is all. That was my life's work was to be a full-time athlete. Is that like self-induced pressure, you think? Or is that like, you know, you wanted to make your parents proud or like, what do you think that came from? I think it was a little bit of both.

I think anyone who also loves powerlifting, also loved MMA, jiu-jitsu, people who love running, you know, let's not forget about the cardio people. They're out there. They're out there. When people say they won't run ultras, I'm like, God bless your soul. No. I think we always

put that self-pressure on us, but I think we also come to love it because of the self-pressure, but we also come to hate it because of the self-pressure. But someone also, whether it was a mentor or parents, brought us into that realm. So I think there's always a little pressure there

because you want to make them proud. So I definitely had both ends of the spectrum because, again, my father was, you know, all-American. Like, he's just, he was always the stud, wrestling man in my basement. So I think I always had that. I grew up in New Jersey. Like, we're a state that just doesn't give a shit.

Like, we're as straight as they can be we're you know not to get the religion but Roman Catholic stays like you know it's very don't ask don't tell type state in any regard you know regardless of you know sexuality religion sports preference whatever you want to call it I'm not very political like that you know that's just how i grew up is you can't don't play sports do well in school that's how jersey rolls what's your athletic progression look like because you came from a wrestling home and you also played basketball you also did power lifting so were you lifting along with basketball to help that out like how'd that look like for you yeah so it started i think i mean my dad always had me doing push-up stuff when i was little but

when i was 12 i asked for p90x for christmas because i saw an infomercial i did it too oh you see me look at it's just part of the culture everyone's done beach body at some point that's why they're billionaires yep everyone's done it 12 got it for christmas i remember seeing if more asked for it and i became obsessed like i had the dumbbells in the basement i just like always wanted to lift so i used to like no shit before heist you know before school started in high school even in middle school after you know six to eight hours a day i just then i'd practice then i'd go and get shots up it lifting was always a part of my daily routine always and I was you know always in the gym with the football kids in high school and I always get made fun of because I was always the only girl in there you know bench pressing and probably power cleaning like god knows what probably never

still to this day I wonder why I thought that was a good idea, but the football kids are doing it and I wanted to be strong. So I did it. And yeah, I learned the hard way years later, you know, when not lifting correctly, what actually happens and not having the right coaches, but it was always a part of my life because I just freaking loved it. Did you care to get, uh, like with, with doing a lot of these things that would be considered masculine, did you care at all? Like going down that path that you said you got made fun of? I mean, you must be very brave to kind of continue down that path. But was there like a side of you that wanted to maybe be girly at all as well? Yeah, that's something.

Great question, Mark. That's something that throughout my life has been one of my demons and again truth over harmony like the truth is is I battled with that a lot is that my I love sports I loved lifting I love all these masculine things but why I even I think why I had such a hard time dealing with, you know, recovering from, you know, sort of dealing with depression is because I never dealt with my feminine side and how much I actually enjoyed that as well. And for years, I just thought I had to be the jock because that's what Kara has to be. And then I realized, oh, wait, I like I feel great wearing heels. I feel great going out and wearing you know lipstick and like not that

you have to do that but for me it was a huge you know point in my life when I realized you can emulate the masculine side as much as feminine side it doesn't need to be this you know blank slate you have to be one way because I battled that my whole life of I didn't go to my own proms because I had even teammates of mine say you know in high school well we just didn't even go to my own proms because I had even teammates of mine say, you know, in high school, well, we just didn't think you'd want to wear a dress. We didn't think you want to go. I think internally that always hurt me because I was like, what the hell? What do you mean? I don't want to do that.

Like, so I was always placed in this box that I had to be just this masculine energy. Yeah. They thought you were training. Yeah, that's it. Well, I was actually ended up did that. Like, I think I, on my senior prom, I actually think I did like, just say, problem i actually think i did like just say fucking go in and do some german volume training squats yeah 10 sets of 10 yeah yeah it's just one thing where the moment and this is maybe i would say it was four years ago i started like when i was having a day where i was just like what the hell's wrong with

you i would literally put on like tight ass pants, put some like, put more, you know, put girly stuff on, wear just your sports bra, whatever, wear, you know, heels, whatever you need to do and just go out, just walk around. And it was so funny when I started doing that, I was like, I felt a hundred percent like myself. I was like, what the hell?

Like, that's all it takes for me to feel like myself is. And I just realized, you know, that no matter what your appearance is you're worth it and there's two sides to everybody could be good good and bad for me it was like finding out that no I like wearing you know being having a feminine side I am a female I don't have to be this jock all the time and it actually was funny because the therapist years ago looked at my tattoos and within 10 seconds goes you know in spirituality she said this is like woo stuff and i was like all right lady like fuck off and she's like all these tattoos and said you know they're all on your sleeve because you're covering up your feminine energy. I was like, what? All right, stop talking. I'm like, fuck you, I'm out of here. All right, feminine energy. Like, come on, are you telling me my cheese off now?

Like, come on. But she's like, no, I'm serious. Like, you know, you have no tattoos on your masculine side, energy speaking, and all on your feminine side. So her point was like your whole life you've been trying to cover up your feminine side. So her point was like, your whole life you've been trying to cover up your feminine side. How about you just let it go and be who you actually are and you probably won't be depressed.

And she said that to me like so like confidently. And that's when I realized, oh my shit, she might be right. Like this sounds really weird that she, you know, it's all energy thing. Like, you know, I'm big on energy, but sometimes when people talk really- It can sound kind of weird, yeah i sound kind of like okay um i'm gonna try it but you know let's like i went to a chi class once it was really it's like i don't know if i'm wasting

energy you're feeling energy but okay i'm gonna pretend like i'm breaking you know air what did you guys do in like what did you guys do in that class uh it's like the whole Reiki Chi, and I'm probably butchering the name, but Reiki is you're kind of breezing air over people, and it's supposed to be like emotionally cleansing. I've done a few of them, and everyone's different. It depends on who you're around and their energy. For me, again, everyone's different. For me, I don't feel like I just get more drained.

I actually realize afterwards I'm tired. I feel really drained energetically. And I put two together and I realized that I love service and I love serving others. So I end up not taking the time to take care of myself. So then when I do that type of stuff, I end up wasting more energy instead of helping myself. Because I just like to serve and help people get better. And at the same time, though, I need that time to myself. I've had somebody do some of that to like my shoulder, and all they did was like put their hands like next to you and like rub but not touch you.

Yeah, that's what basically it is. And you're kind of like – you know i i don't i don't mind being accepting of like all things i don't mind you know but at the same time i was like i don't really think that did anything but i maybe you have to kind of like really buy into the concept otherwise maybe it's not going to really work well for you i i mean yeah there's a placebo again a placebo effect to everything for me i don't think it works for me i mean every i think i guess in the seven years i've done it three times every time i walk down they're like no it didn't help me at all but at the same time then i've had people be like well you didn't like really you know adhere to you

gotta drink this tea and take this pill before you go in yeah make sure you take the diet tea super diet super dynasty and then you'll really of course i'll really feel it and you'll really understand everything yeah exactly but yeah for me it was it was just realizing that i need to express myself as a female because i spent so many years thinking i had to be this jock when no you know no care it's like sounds so strange when you think about it like saying outside like yeah but you are a female but for me it was so difficult to like understand that no you don't have to be a jock all the time and that's something that i really appreciate other females that are super strong and i see them you know they're super feminine at the same time i think uh you know the stuff that you're talking about it's uh it's funny because you keep saying that you're weird but the more that you talk the 100 100% more normal that you're sounding,

at least to me. Because I think that you identified something really important and you're still really young. You're like 27, you said? You recognize that there's two sides to every person, right? And because you feel a certain way towards your masculinity as,

you know, the stuff you did as a child, the many women that you see on instagram nowadays uh you know posting you know selfies and things like that they struggle the exact same thing that you're talking about right now these girls that we see dead lifting now uh some may uh be more girly than others and some you know some uh may enjoy either their feminine side more right they might have their boobs kind of hanging out or they might have a lot of god did not bless me in that a lot of a lot of makeup going on they might be showing off their uh their butt or whatever it is they're doing but uh i we've we've talked to many women i've they they talk a lot about like it's a big

decision on you know are they going to like wear a bunch of makeup to the gym for the day or are they going to not do that or and it they're constantly judging themselves and they're constantly being judged. And then when we have this kind of day and age of social media, it complicates things even more because, you know, who wants an image of themselves out there in the world that isn't the best portrayal or is not representing them in the best possible way, right? The lighting and everything, you know, we're all, we're all sort of guilty of some of it, but I think you touched upon some really cool things because there's duplicity in all of us. There's good and evil in all of us. And you're recognizing the opposite ends of the spectrum where when people are really weird and people are really, and people are really freaky or when someone is holy, when they're,

when they're like a complete, when they're complete, because, uh, those people will come off to be so weird because they're so overly happy that you just can't, you know, you're like, you're like,

ah, this person's gross. They're so happy all the time and you don't get it. Those are the people where I, I'm running the other fucking way. I'm like, I don't know about this guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, when people are, oh, I haven't met them.

They just always smile. I'm like, Jesus, like. If you're smiling and doing like, I'm sorry, but I got to be away from you because my energy is going to ruin your day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, you know. And I love being happy and I love being around people that are happy. But it's those, you know, occasionally you run into that, you know, a couple people where they're just, it's almost like they think they have it all figured out. And you're like, you ain't better than anybody.

You don't have it all figured out. That's actually, I'm glad you touched upon that, because that's the big thing I think in my head when I see someone that's that happy. Usually it means they got some real bad chick going on in their life. No, there's something horrible going on here. But they just got that mask on. They just got that mask on. happy usually means they got some real bad shit going on there's something horrible going on but they're just got that mask on they just got that mask on and everyone's got a mask it just matters when do you take it off and around who and if you people you take your mask off around are the people you probably should stay with and keeping your support team and because those people that are

going to be you know no bs they're you know not going to place a bias and they're going to tell you the truth and i just think a lot of people that are super happy like that they just they have this mask that's like this thick right and they just pretend again like they know they might have more to hide yeah and normally the moment someone's that happy real q is run the other way because probably shouldn't be around them or they're you know it's just not it's not reality in reality there's you're gonna fail you're gonna you're gonna be a loser sometimes other times you're gonna be a winner but are you learning from it you know you know how many corny instagram quotes we see about it you know like it could be a quote book at this point with the amount of stuff on social media

about it if i see one more booty pic with the freaking buddha quote after the great it's great it's like no no susan like there's one meme that just made me crack up it was like kermit sipping tea oh yeah no susan you're not buddha you just you know have a nice butt like it's not right right right yeah i just get this perception that you know as My favorite one is when some of these girls will post up a picture and they're like, I'm OK with being thick. I'm OK with being heavy. And they have a picture and you're like, this girl's flawless. What is she talking about? She's half my size.

I don't care having a little extra fat on my butt or whatever. And you're like, what? What are you talking about? You weigh 140 pounds. Yeah, you're not. like what are you talking about you weigh 140 pounds yeah you're not i'll show you fat yeah we know plenty of people that are fat you're not eating fat yeah no it's just the oh my god people get so offended easily too and i just don't care anymore at this point in my life i'm like look if you get offended by me then you don't be around me that's it like i don't care if it increases or decreases my followers.

I'm just going to give you the truth. And I think just even with – especially with females and the social dynamic that goes on now, it's like I love what's going on in the community just in sports and just with how many powerfully and strong women who don't give a crap what you think about their appearance all they care about is you know getting people in shape getting people with the barbell in their hands getting people you know in a gear not on the mats you know hitting stuff and just realizing how powerful they can be and that they don't need to withhold to these whatever we consider norm standards nowadays which they change every day i think it's based on what the hashtag is well it's attractive when people are comfortable in their own skin and if they're kind of letting loose and they're they're uh ripping up some 400 pound deadlifts and then it's a chick and then you're just like goddamn that's awesome oh of course you love it super cool and the more that you're that you're

the more that you're yourself and the more comfortable you are with you the more comfortable other people will be with you as well. It took me years. It's funny how many years it took me to like that one easy thing. Yeah. To reckon and actually fully understand. It's a weird like click moment where you also have this clarity of like, oh, shit. Like what the hell was wrong with you before? OK, we're good.

And then from then on, I just never look back, never saw that other person. And seems like a dream to me now. I don't resonate with anything from that, being in the hospital, dealing with bulimia, just all the demons. I don't even know who that was. Now, it was a clicking moment. Like I can be, you know, a powerful female and work with, you know, Andy, work, you know, be best friends, be family with Dr. Gabriel Lyon, you know, who's one of the best DOs in the world. And we can be both female, you know, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, you know, humans and challenge and care for each other other but also be feminine at the same time you don't have to be this oh one way or one way street yeah gabrielle is awesome she uh helped

me out with a friend of mine who uh it was really struggling he's having uh these like seizures and throwing up i don't know 60 times a day or something insane and uh i was trying to find some friends i'm like who the hell would know anything about this situation and i i fired her a text message and she was like she just wrote back in caps your friend has worms and i was like fuck okay you know so uh you know i kind of researched a little bit what she was talking about and relayed the message to my buddy and uh she was kind enough to direct him to the right spot and long story short they uh stuck a bunch of stuff up his ass they found out he does have parasites and uh they're working on treatment for it so hopefully but you know it's it's just things like that i met her one time yeah you know

she came here one time was on the podcast and uh it's just cool to develop uh friendships like that oh yeah i mean we if we never met if i never went to seal fit so i've never this is what's funny talking about like weird connections or universal things if i never had the 4acl surgery lost my basketball career i would have never probably had the low point as low as i did with dealing with bulimia if i never went to the hospital had bulimia and didn't take so long to recover and find myself, I would have never found SealFit. If I've never went to SealFit and did Cora, I would have never met Dr. Gabrielle Lyon.

If I would have never met her, I would have never met Andy. And if I never met Andy, I wouldn't have been on the Titan Games. If I'd never been with Andy, Titan Games, I would never be on this podcast. How was the Titan Games for you, by never be on this podcast how was the titan games for you by the way like how was that whole experience lovely i mean i had my moments i had my you know as your great good friends with uh charity yeah yeah and uh you know we became really close out of it so it was all you know all good things i mean the you know the episode that i was on the valentine's day episode you know it was i had a really great time there was a lot of human connection and a lot it

was cool how we're all lifting together we're gonna know each other there was no bs because i went into it like this is hollywood there's gonna be some people that are like they're trying to you know get their brand out to the world and i just don't care i just want to compete and i loved it because a lot of people were getting anxiety like walking that arena and i was like oh no this is great like i'm loving this this is the opportunity of a lifetime and by the end of the day it's entertainment and i learned a lot about hollywood especially the semifinals and i learned a lot about hollywood and just how it operates and you know how I react to certain you know and not respond sometimes to situations so writers grew stronger from it and I mean I could vouch for that show all day long because it you know made you a better person.

When you say you learned a lot about Hollywood what do you mean exactly because I feel like there's something there I'm curious. When you're getting you know shoved around in 10 different outfits all night long when you're about to compete and you never had to all the other challenges, it definitely makes you realize where you're at mentally with dealing with competition when you don't have your routine. And, you know, my friends were funny, like, you know, but when you at the end of the day, though, that's what I'm a competitor at the end of the day. When you lose, you lose. Like you've you lost. you lose, you lose. You lost. You lose, you lose. But in the Hollywood side of things, I learned how much they actually do not care about any of that.

They do not. I was shuffled around all these different uniforms. They're like, all right, two minutes. I'm like, I'm not even in the. I remember I'd be like, I'm not going to be a Titan in a second if you don't let me change and get warm. I'm like, what's going on? but it was just a really cool experience i'll also see the other side of things how much i just love being in arena with everyone watching you like how much how laser focused i am yeah and how much fun i have with it like i just if i could be in that

environment every day i could wake up to that yeah i don't think you don't wake up to that i i just loved it. And it was good to have other grad students around me and, you know, feel that out. And honestly, it was a cool dynamic since you saw who the athletes were and you saw who not athletes were. That's the whole show. Yeah. In what sense? Like who, what type of athletes didn't end up doing like too well in that sense?

Just in the sense of how we handled pressure. Ah, okay. In the sense of when the arena got on you saw who got you saw the best and worst everyone you saw who got anxiety and who was just loving it you know and yeah there's always i think it's safe to say everyone had a little bit of that nervousness going on or a little bit of that anxiety but who was loving it and who like who made it a positive and then who turns it into like this negative where it was like a bad thing but overall it was just one of those you know times where i was so thankful for it and i'm glad you know duane put that up because he's just an awesome person like you can't say anything bad about that guy all right it's just it's like talking to your uncle it looked uh you know it looks to me to me that, you know, you're telling him is talking about like they're kind of like shuffling everybody around, you know, when they're in those environments, you know, they don't have time for it's it's a TV production.

Correct. So they don't have they don't have time for, you know, worrying about, you know, whether you're worried if you're warmed up or whatever. So they're just going to keep firing through people. But I imagine being in that environment, you kind of get to see how other people are acting. And they're probably like, you know, I don't know, trying to like look a certain way on camera or get Dwayne's attention or, right? And that was really the big thing for me. And you sit there and watch that and it's probably like, you're probably kind of halfway disgusted by some of it, right?

Because you're just thinking like, I just want to kick some ass. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was what was funny is that a lot of people i'll never forget after the show like after it was like starting air and i saw people off like when we you know i was fortunate to be there for the whole you know filming process because i made it far enough but then like afterwards when we reconnected like outside of the set a lot of people say to me they're like wow like you're actually really cool we thought you were like a bitch on the set a lot of people say to me they're like wow like you're actually

really cool we thought you were like a bitch on the set i was like what do you mean competitive i was like it's just because like we're about to compete i'm not exactly gonna be like hey like let's go have a let's go have a beer like i'm gonna be like no we're going like i get really locked in so apparently but so that was really funny to me, like, you know, just seeing how other people saw you versus how you saw them. And then, you know, coming across the board again, like in Hollywood, like when I say I learned a lot about Hollywood, that's what I meant is like the shove me around and like that, you, you know, again, I lost. And like, I'll say this once, I'll say it a hundred times. Again, I lost. I'll say this once.

I'll say it a hundred times. I lost because I couldn't get through. I still had that mental barrier I have to get through where I let that affect me more than competing itself. Where I think that's a lesson in any facet of life is that it doesn't matter what is going on. It doesn't matter if you're warmed up or not. It doesn't matter. No one gives a shit. You're the one or you lost.

You either did well or you didn't. You either fucked up or you didn't. Yeah,, it doesn't matter. No one gives a shit. You're the one or you lost. You either did well, you didn't. You either fucked up or you didn't. Like it's. Yeah, the conditions weren't different for. Exactly. Right. They were the same for everybody. Pretty much.

Yeah. No matter what, this is me. No matter what, just know at the end of the day that this is me and this is how I'm going to show up as. And I'm going to let you know that I, you know, I care that I compete. And no matter win or lose that I'm not going to be an asshole. And that's what I loved about the show is it taught me that lesson again where I think I needed it in life is to see like how do I compete no matter what happens? How do I set up myself no matter what happens? Yeah, those situations are cool because you can get to – you get to locked in with with uh how you react you know in

such a intense environment you know are are you still like a good person or or are you being you know mean or rude to other people just that at the um at the cost of like you trying to reach for greatness you know that kind of stuff yeah yeah get to see how you act you know yeah and that was a great thing i mean i'd be you know like me and charity being good how you act, you know? Yeah. And that was a great thing. I mean, I would, you know, like me and Charity being good friends out of it. And I got a lot of other friends out of it. And it was just, it was an awesome environment. Everyone really cared, you know, generally cared about each other. Any idea they're doing another show or something?

Are they? Yeah, they're doing a season two. Who knows if they're going to bring back, you know, the eight males and eight female. I mean, I kind of got an inkling of what're going to bring back the eight males and eight females I mean I kind of got an inkling of what's going to happen which you know who time will tell I don't even know if I can even say anything who knows what I can say

out of how difficult it was compared to other things that you've done was it really hard? it was really fun if there was anything I was angry about is not having another chat like you know because to me i just love competing so it it was just fun to me off the rails to me the first one that we're watching right now wasn't particularly hard yeah it doesn't look like it was hard for you geez even though apparently i mean it was 60 cement blocks but what what was

really funny and i hope if i'm on a season two or whatever, I hope they don't hear this. But the one thing in my entire life that I left out was that I grew up throwing anchors at the Jersey Shore on boats. Like, they didn't know that part at all. So when I got that challenge first and I saw that I was against, you know, Bree, who's super, super fit. Like, she's really, she'll crush me in a day in a CrossFit workout. And she's, but she doesn't, she didn't go around boats or anything. So we both threw the anchor and I was like, ha, oh, there's no way. They don't know this about my life.

There's no way she's going to win. So I was just couldn't. Yeah, damn. She's pretty jacked. Yeah, no, she's jacked. And we went to the training yard. And look at her back. Oh, yeah. Oh, and she's pretty jacked yeah no she's jacked and we went to the training yard and look at her back oh and she's a former gymnast like she's

no joke that's crazy because you went there and you got back and she was still heading in that direction I actually helped her finish I jumped on the platform but obviously you know Valentine's Day she got you know engaged to which I turned to a little child afterwards because it was a joke that she he was going to or not and then we did it i like freaked out i was like i knew it was

gonna happen like i knew it but yeah it was a really fun experience i mean mount olympus the obstacle course you know like challenge to become a titan that was hard uh because obviously i'm kind of in the middle ground i have have conditioning, but I'm not – and I'm strong, but I'm not out-of-the-box strong. I'm not – I'm average strong in my opinion. So to me, Mount Olympus was challenging hard in the way that there were so many different dynamics. Like that ball, like I thought I was going to be able to drag that a lot faster than I really did. And then you're so tired, you got to the bottom. I was like, oh, okay, well, it's not as easy as some people other people made it look yeah charity looked like she could smoke a

cigarette while she's yeah yeah i couldn't stop laughing when i saw that because i was behind the set and i like turned to like mother i was like no no i gotta no i did not try to do that but it was weird when she when she you know was dragging it versus the other girl you're like is am i missing something like does she have a different weighted thing? Even some of the guys, they were dragging it like me too. And I was like, there's something to this. I don't know what's going on. But I wasn't dragging it like that.

I saw the chain. I was like, no, no, no. And the size or the weight of everything was the same for men and women, I think Charity was saying, right? Same for the men and women, which made it even more impressive. I mean, I'll never forget that because i was watching i was like uh screwed i am so screwed if i go up against her and then like what i did i was like oh shit yeah oh god this is like ptsd

ptsd all over again because i made a very vital mistake of thinking my hands are big enough to wrap around that pole. It's funny. There you go. Not using my shoulder. So you do get pretty tired going through some of these events? Yeah, this one I wasn't tired at all. I just was stupid. I watched that like game film.

So there's a certain way. That's what she was supposed to do. And I try to use my baby hands. And you don't get practice runs on this stuff? No. Do you get to at least see it before you do it? Yeah, we got to see it. I mean, other people had done it beforehand. So, I mean, again, I'm not someone to make excuses.

Like, I fucked up. I lost. She annihilated me. And that's the mistake i made and at least i have good friends and they sent me that night to make me not be so hypercritical because i was i was watching it like game five i was like what are you doing why did you think that was okay like what the hell like i was it crazy. And they sent me, most people won't know this reference, but if you ever watch SNL, they've watched Kristen Wiig's Baby Hands. She's got the little baby hands.

I can remember that, yeah. Well, my friends send me a lot of memes of that picture of me with the pole in the face. Baby hands. And Kristen Wiig's baby hands. And just like, when you think your heart, your thinking's strong enough to pull out the stripper pole, but you can't because you've got baby baby hands just maybe feel a little bit better but you know again you gotta make fun of yourself sometimes just to kind of get out of your own shit yeah for sure what's it like working with andy galpin what is it like it's like working with see a pain in the ass no i i mean i like them because i think i'm a little bit of a pain in the ass? No. I mean, I like him because I think I'm a little bit of a pain in the ass.

So I think we get along in that capacity that I understand where he's coming from, where you're in your master's. You're in the master's program, in a very hard master's program. It is not time. Oh, there we go. It is not time to be an undergrad anymore. Like it's time to be an adult, take ownership, have responsibility. So a lot of people. There you go.

There you go. Sorry. Sorry. So I got. So those are the memes I got of me with the big Herculean pole of my hands. And I couldn't stop laughing because that's legit what I looked like because

why I thought it was okay to switch to that grip, I don't know, but I did. And that's what happens. It didn't work. You get crushed and you deserve it. Yeah, it was working with him is very good for what my personality type is like.

And like Andy always says, he he changes how he talks and how he conversates and works with different graduate students based on their personality. But I think when it comes to personality, mine's as close as you can get to kind of that type A. Like, I don't give me one word answers and you know give me a task i'm just gonna get it done he doesn't have to say like please and thank you and yeah he can just ask you for stuff yeah just get it done we're like there's a lot of other students and it's a big joke in their strength lab out there is like you know can you do anything wrong like you know oh you and andy are you know this bffs i guess i'm like no i just think i understand that don't you know don't be soft don't be this you know soft personality where like you need help with

everything like come on we're most of us are in our higher 20s figure it out figure it out like if you got something to do get it done because he loves to send like the one sentence emails or like just a package slip well that means pick up the package like it's not that difficult and even with you know running gels like just get the work done and i like working that way and i think it pairs you for actual life and i think that's what makes andy a good mentor and a good you know good at what he does is that he makes sure you learn it's not him you know yeah he teaches you but you need to learn in your own way as well you can't just be you can't be baby because you won't make it especially in the fitness industry you won't make it in this world

yeah he wants you to you know come to him with uh you know not just what he's asking for he wants you to read into it probably a little bit and come up with your own kind of polished answer probably. Yeah, because I mean, you know, another one of my mentors, James Smith, he always says there's no new knowledge without criticism. So he wants you to ask why and wants you to- The thinker? Yeah, the thinker, James the thinker.

Nobody likes James Smith except for you. You got one person. Why does no one like James Smith? I like James Smith, but I've had him on the podcast before and everybody hated him unfortunately that's unfortunate but he's one of the smartest people i've ever met in my life he's he's a genius he's unbelievable he's i mean i could see why people kind of get because he loves the physics it's hard yeah it's it's just hard to like draw out the right information from him sometimes and then um because he consults uh it's hard for him to really get real deep into it without kind of referencing that he consults people you know so

yeah it's kind of a kind of a tough balance but i like him yeah i mean i was with him on uh over the holidays and i know exactly what you're saying because like it's just you got to be really and he has very big words and you got to make sure you understand those big words he has a massive vocabulary yeah and it's just i mean i have a half a notebook of just being with them for i think i was three hours with him and i have like 100 pages of notes because i was like okay okay oh i need to like reference this later because i don't understand what you're saying people talk a lot about uh like the juggernaut training system. They talk a lot about, you know, the work of Chad Wesley Smith, the work of Chad Wesley Smith. A lot of it comes from James Smith and Chad's not going to

hide that. Chad didn't try to hijack that. It's just the two work together for a long time. Yeah. And I think I think he's a very smart man. I mean, the governing dynamics of coaching is a book I have on my shelf and I always reference because I think it's very like very geniusly put together and I think more people should have that book but that's just me I think if more of us like branched out instead of just our typical you know human movement strength conditioning you know let's all talk about myofascial therapy I definitely need to have him on the podcast again it's confusing because because he is a strength coach, but he doesn't think strength coaches should exist. Yeah.

So you're like, okay, well, what's the solution? Yeah. He doesn't think there is a such thing. He doesn't like to be called strength conditioning. Right. He doesn't like to, you know, he's James. He's a consultant. Right.

And I agree where he comes from. I agree with what he says. You know, because it does make a lot of sense. We always try to put ourselves into one category when really we just work with humans and we just help humans connect around the way and get healthier. Right. So why are we just going to debunk it to one thing? What's something that you've learned from Andy that, you know, it's something that you carry outside of uh of school outside of academics yeah i think the big thing with any that i carry outside of especially the

academic front is the willingness to not just talk to people or talk to me not just to talk through people but to talk to people and to understand where they're coming from so that you can now change and develop the plan accordingly. So I think a lot of times people just, you know, in life, they just see people for who they are or see an athlete for who they are and they develop this whole plan based on just their body type or just what they've done in the past and not based on who they are as a person

to build adherence and build connection and get buy-in and trust. And for me, I think that's a huge thing, not just in academics, but in life and how you're dealing with other humans is, you know, how do you create that connection and how do you talk to them, not through them to get that lifelong goal or whatever. If it's an athlete, get, you know, to that competition, have them perform well. If it's a human, get them to, you know, actually give a shit about you and know that you care about them. I think that's great. And I think that, you know, sums up a lot of what he was saying on the previous podcast that we just did with him, where he was just kind of saying like, you know, how he coaches people, his style, you know, his style

of mentoring and the way that he's able to kind of interpret what somebody's telling him, you know, and talking through somebody that's not, you're not really going to, if I just give you a bunch of information, yeah, maybe you'll do something with it. But if I give you some information, but I actually listen to some of your responses to what I'm saying, now we have a really great conversation and you got something you can actually utilize. Yeah, how you do anything is how you do everything. Right. And he is very consistent in doing everything

and anything and doing it the right way or the way he knows he needs it to be. And you gotta be the same way in academics in the lab because I already have had several conversations, new grad students with, you know, just kind of getting out of what needs to be consistent is just having that constant communication conversation. Luckily, I've created that buy-in trust with them where I can say certain things like, look, like this needs to be here. This needs to go here. This is why we, this is why we do things this way is because this is the result we're looking for. And I'm a very results oriented person. And so

was Andy, you know, at the end of the day, we're, what are we going to do for him? Cause he's technically our boss. He's not, you know, as much as, you know, I call him Andy and, you know, we're out here and we're doing this other thing like he's still my superior and I still need to make sure I'm continually growing and learning from him and serving him because he's the reason I'm here what do you have coming up a lot said you're working with a bunch of athletes uh on the upcoming olympic games right yeah so uh I'm getting to my you know street skaters ready for 2020 japan so that's pretty awesome you know first time street skating so is in the olympics that's gonna be it's i love it's a whole new challenge how are you how are you working with them like in what regard mainly consulting or actually uh like strength coach or yeah strength uh both so

i physically with them or more like online okay it's really it's definitely in the physical more than anything i do have to consult sometimes because actually they both just left for china so they're in china right now so i do have to do a little bit of the the phone calls and make me sure they're on you know every the regimens and everything we've put into place but it's very exciting time. Does that kind of encompass everything from food to stretching to morning routine, kind of almost everything? Yeah, we're looking to like for me. Yeah, I have the nutritional side of things, but I also know where I need to refer out. So I have a sports nutritionist who I allow to start foreseeing what they need.

So he's just started working with them and kind of get in their game plan to the nutrition side of things so i primarily work with them just that makes sense i mean this is about winning right so you want the absolute best oh yeah you want the most attention on every category make sure it's taken care of yeah especially because they're not getting the money they they deserve or need right now and it's really sad but it's an unfortunate truth when you're not basketball or soccer in the Olympics. You're street skating. Like no one gives a shit about them yet. So we need to make certain things happen. Like I'm going to have Dr. Gabriel on board with some of their medical stuff.

I have a sports nutrition side of things covered. I'm going to stick to – I know how to stay in my lane. I'm going to stick to the human movement, the strength and aspect, because that's what I know I can do best for them. And I'm not going to waste my time with stuff I'm not an expert in. So let's get the actual experts in to help them out. Because it's not what I super love anyway. What else you got coming up? I'm working with a couple of SEAL team guys as well.

So I do a lot of consulting in that regard. team, you know, SEAL team guys as well. So I do a lot of consulting in that regard. My biggest point in my life right now is not only building my brand, but building upon what I've already built in getting a full-time job as well as all this online stuff. You know, whether that's, you know, continuing to work with just these athletes, that kind of depends on, you know, a couple of X, Y, and Z things that happen or going down to Coronado and working on base with the military. Those are kind of my two big keys is I want to serve people that serve this country. And I used to be all about if I'm not going to be a professional athlete, I need to work with professional athletes or I need to work with celebrities.

And I realized that that's just not my you know that's just not where my heart is leading or really my mind now I want to work with special operators and if I end up working with professional athletes I end up with professional athletes but now I'm in that weird you know as everyone experienced I'm in that weird spot right now where it's like all right I need to make money but I want to do what's best but I want you know and I've had a lot of people come up to me and say they want you know why don't you just blow up the online business why don't you just

I could do the templates all day long if I wanted to but to me I don't think that's coming from a place of integrity for myself and if I'm going to work with people I'm going to work with people you know one on one that's just how I feel about it everyone's different and hey if you could do it that way go but you know i like to work with people physically

that's i'm big about interpersonal connection yeah do you still fight like do you have any fights coming up yeah that's another thing i have a lot of avenue i'm about oh god this is i got about five different directions i'm at right now, which always makes it interesting. I'm still fight training. I'm still in that realm. Yeah, I think that's my first ever fight. Zero technique. Not too bad, though.

It's a flat-out brawl. You're just smashing her face. I think I slam her at some point. You're definitely comfortable with somebody throwing punches at you. That's usually the first thing you see when somebody is new is that they flip out and someone throws a punch. I get excited. I get excited.

And Antonio McKee is one of my coaches, and I'm fortunate to work with all these Bellator pros and be in their support and mentorship. And they put me in the cage. That fight was within a month of actually training. And Antonio, he's a very smart man. He did it on purpose. He's like, because the problem with most females is they train for all these years,

never having a fight. And they're so technically sound. But there's an intangible here. These same women that get in the cage, they get hit once and it's like who are they yeah so he does it on purpose to a lot of the female fighters like put you in the cage right away to see if you have that intangible can you take a hit you know he's like is it always a safe decision no but he said for me just what he saw that you know you'll be good and part of part of that is it's not so much separation of male and female it's i think that sometimes uh

men get exposed to contact sports maybe younger yeah and so you know might be more um more used to that contact whereas maybe a girl might get in there and get clocked and be like oh shit i'm kind of disoriented now you know yeah that just goes out our you know how we develop you know i think just a lot of guys are just used to it and you know it i didn't at the moment everyone was like what are you doing like but i've like just loved it and you know i think the hardest part for me was having to have no gel in my hair i know the whole thing like i loved everything except in fact you can't have gel in your hair so my hair just got to be like crazy but i want to you know i am still

training and i do still love it and probably will take a you know a fight on soon yeah but i just love it as a hobby right now because i know i've being that athlete still always that athlete mindset well that competitive side is important too because you're because you're a coach and people are looking to you and it makes a big difference when you're when you've actually put up some points on the scoreboard yourself they're like okay i yeah i see this person's done you know andy has his uh olympic lifting background he's got some mixed martial arts background and and that to me that's every like to me that helps a lot oh yeah oh yeah i'm gonna put more faith in someone that's doing it both ways the way both of you guys are yeah no for me it's a huge thing like

i always say actually competing fitness whatever your fitness is like lifting mma for me basketball as it was and as it still is if i'm not doing it if i'm not competing in it on a daily basis i literally have an alter ego. I am not myself. It is literally my heartbeat. My heart will stop if I can't train. It will. I don't know if it actually will, but it feels like it will. I'm not a carrot.

I need to come up with a name for the alter ego. You know what's bad? It's true when your mom can call you and just knows off the tone of your voice because she won't say anything she's like i'm gonna hang up you need to go train and hang up the phone i'm like oh shit okay she's right the snickers ad yeah yeah should be a new snickers ad but that's the really what happens to me so it's just and you're you're right mark it's just i think

athletes respect you more when they know you've gone through the grind yourself. I mean, I know I do. In other coaches, if I have a coach that didn't go through it, I kind of have that moment of like, well, do you really know what you're talking about then? Or do you just read books? Like, you know, it's kind of that. Can you do a pull-up? Why are you teaching me pull-ups if you can't do a pull-up? I think you need to be, especially, I feel very strongly of,

if you're going to show an athlete an exercise, you better damn well know how to do it right and know how to put some weight on that bar or know how to do at least a couple reps of that exercise. Or then why are you showing it to them? That always grinds my gears when I see coaches showing people things that they can't even do themselves. Where can people find you?

They can find me on Instagram at Killer ko uh with one l in the killer uh k0 facebook caracalinozowskis and then i have my website caracalino.com and you know i'm starting to put up some research and blog myself you know for free kind of cool yeah that path awesome that's all the time we got strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later boom