Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 198 - Mark Benched 501 in Competition!

Episode Date: April 10, 2019

Today we are recapping Mark Bell's Performance at the American Iron Meet this past weekend in Reno, NV. Mark Successfully benched 501lbs at 240lbs body weight. Today we'll dive into the entire experience and how he was able to come back from a rough start to the meet. ➢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

Hey, while I was away, you guys did a podcast without me and her. Oh, yeah. No, you were here. You were standing right there. At least I thought he was. Yeah, you were just really quiet. Probably wasn't feeling so good. Yeah.

Somebody said it was... Explosive diarrhea. Chalk it up to that. Not bad. Let's not talk about diarrhea. Don't need any more of that. What do you mean, any more? Something happened?

Yeah, man. Yeah, man. It was bad. So I went to the dry sauna last night and I'm standing at the locker changing, you know, not so dry anymore. Not so dry anymore. And it's, you know what? You know, it's been a long time since this has happened to me.

It hasn't happened in a few months. So I was sitting in front of there and I was like, okay, time to fart real quick. And I did, but I didn't. Cause then some poop came drooping down my leg and it just slid down my thigh ever so slowly. So then I had to turn and shimmy to the bathroom, clenching my butt cheeks together, trying to keep my hamstring up. So like it didn't go all the way down to my calf. I get to the stall, I had to to clean my shorts off played a video by the rock while i was going on just for some entertainment and then i i hoped that when i got into the sauna the the heat wouldn't make the poop on the shorts smell too bad was it working i don't know was there anybody else in there there are other people in there but like two people left about 10 minutes

in it so i don't know if i did a great job they're like wow this guy really smells like shit if you want to clear out the room does that happen to girls yes do girls like pooping or shit themselves i think they do more than they'd like to admit yeah i don't know i feel that we're gross i think we're more willing to risk it than they are because i mean maybe that maybe the the they go to the bathroom in groups because maybe they're in there farting the whole time rather than just like letting her rip wherever you know it's safe it's safer bet smarter on their part maybe they're pulling each other's fingers for all we know i always wonder that's always been a, girls going to the restroom together.

It's like, I can't go to the restroom with you and like, hey, let's go to the bathroom real quick, Mark. Can't do it. Well, we can, but we can't. But women can do that all the time. Why is that? Why is that such a trend? Once we moved to this location and we have the dual stalls or whatever, I remember sitting down to go take a dump and then smoky smoky being like oh heck yeah what's up man and we just like open conversation while we're both taking a dump

and i remember like i was like really like not comfortable with that at first but then eventually you know you just get used to it now you guys hold hands while you're on the toilet yeah and then not too long ago i'm in there. I'm leaving the bathroom. Some funny guy named Nsema just opens the door as he's on the toilet. And I'm trying my hardest to ignore him. Hopefully, he'll close it and just be like, oh, that was a stupid attempt at a joke. And you're like, Andrew, no, look at me. And he's just there on the toilet. He's in the squatty potty and everything. That's one thing. You got to get Chris Griffin more comfortable with that because I always,

whenever I go to the restroom, he doesn't use the squatty potty. No, not the squatty potty. He doesn't like having conversation on the toilet. Like I was talking to him when I was taking one. He was like, yeah,

he's like, stop talking to me. Cause I can't poop when you talk. I can't poop on someone's talking to me. Poop shy. Yeah. We got to get him a little bit more comfortable with that. Yeah.

I don't really like the squatty potty though. I love it. I can't get into position. Like you can't poop on someone's sock. Poop shy. Yeah. We got to get them a little bit more comfortable with that. Yeah. I don't really like the squatty potty though. I love it. I can't get into position. Like you can't get your legs up on? Yeah. Like, and if I'm wearing pants, like the pants are like,

they touch the toilet bowl and I don't like it. We need to, uh, make something that like you sit down and then you push a button and then it pushes your feet up. That'd be sick. Yeah. That would be, and you can like it,

you can, you know, have it like push, push them up, like whatever angle you want. It could be sick. Yeah. That would be a good idea. And you can like, you can, you know, have it like push, push them up like whatever angle you want. And it can be super loud so everyone knows. And then maybe the, maybe the toilet seat like spreads your butt cheeks apart for you too a little bit. Now we're onto something.

It really just comes flying out of there, you know, just blast it on out. It just has a picture of a butterfly. It was going to do like a when you butterfly cut meat you know yeah if there was anybody listening they're not they're like yeah nice try guys i'm not listening to this sucks to be them i know we were talking a little bit about sleep and we're talking about trying to get uh consistent with the sleep and um you know

preparing for this meat, you know, the sleep is part of it. The food's part of it. Everything becomes part of the equation. And I think what we're seeing nowadays is a lot of people work for themselves. And so kind of like, what's it matter if you wake up at seven or seven 30, or if you go to bed at 11 or 1130, you know, you, you don't, some people might have a job where they got to be there at 6am every day and they might even have a physical job. Um, maybe they have a job where like, you know, if they're not, if they're not physically prepared and physically, uh, alert, maybe somebody could get hurt. Maybe they could get hurt or maybe they could hurt somebody else

if they have a construction job. And so for those kind of people, it's like, well, shit, they better get to bed at the right time every night so they can wake up and perform every day. But for a lot of other people, a lot of us in the fitness industry, we have these cakewalk jobs over here. And we don't have this that same like responsibility of like being a certain place at a certain time we have the luxury of making money basically through the internet and through uh you know online clients and through people purchasing products and so it kind of leaves you to think like well what's the difference on kind of like when i wake up and i had that kind of attitude for a while when i first owned when i first started this company but kind of recently, I've kind of took the mindset of like, you know what? Fuck that. Everything matters. Everything makes a difference. And so, um, and before it was like, it started getting harder and harder to get my workouts in, uh, as the group was here. Not, not necessarily because of the group, just because

there's a lot of new people in here all the time. And if somebody comes from Sweden, I don't want to be like worried about doing a super set of curls. I want to spend some time with those people. I want to talk to them. I want to see what they're all about. I want to see why they spent their vacation coming to a super training gym. And I also want to have fun with the team. And so if I work out with the team,

I can't always get the same style of workout. Every once in a while I can. It depends on the day and stuff like that. The weekend is certainly when we have a lot of guests in here. But anyway, I just decided, you know what? Like, it's great for me to work out early. I've been kind of leaning into that resistance and I'm trying to get to bed at the same time. I have an alarm that goes off at 7 p.m. every night.

And that alarm doesn't mean that I have to be in bed. It's just kind of a signal of like, all right, well, you know, maybe you can finish up your last 10 minute walk of the day or or bed. And then I try to wake up a similar time almost every single day. And if I don't wake up the same time each and every day, then it's still scheduled like Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, I usually wake up around 3.30 or 4 o'clock. And then on Wednesdays when I sleep in a little bit and the weekends I sleep in a little bit. And by a little bit, it's like an extra two hours or something, which makes a huge difference. So I might pick up a little extra sleep on those days.

But do you have trouble with like kind of getting like on a schedule with your sleep? Yeah. For me, it's like I usually get enough sleep, but it's that that rhythm aspect of things of going to sleep at the going to sleep at the same time every single night. I've for some reason I've found that like I do work during the day. And I mean, I kind of going to sleep at the going to sleep at the same time every single night. I've for some reason I've found that like I do work during the day and I mean I kind of have to but at the same time it's like when night comes around and when like late night comes around like maybe 8 9 10 it's like my mind starts feeling like so much better and it's like I feel like I need to start getting some other things done at that time and I'm so much sharper at night. So I end up actually getting a little bit of work done at night or maybe during the day if I, if I just can't focus

for some reason, I'll wait till late at night, like 10 or 11 to get those last bits of work done. And I don't know why it is that I feel like I think better then, but then I'll end up being up a little bit later at maybe 1130, 12, 1230 and then I'll go to sleep and then I'll still make sure I get all my hours, but I'll end up waking up later in the day. But I, I, 12 30. And then I'll go to sleep and then I'll still make sure I get all my hours, but I'll end up waking up later in the day. But I, I, I think is it's like, it's like, I like waking up early, but then I like working at night. So I it's, it's having to consolidate those two and I'm figuring that out, but I really do want to get a better rhythm going, like going to the sleep at the same time or close to the same time every night. Cause I know it's going to be so beneficial. You ever have an opportunity to get a nap? Uh, some it's, it's the, the days I get

naps or days that like, let's say I got like five hours or, or really short amount of sleep. I'll find some time to get like 30 or 45 minutes in during the day. That seems to work, seems to work really well, but yeah, it's hard to like make time for it. And like, I don't know, a lot of times you're like, I'm just going to keep power through the day. Screw it. Yeah. Unless you're really dead, then maybe you might automatically fall asleep somewhere. Yeah. It's, it's, it's only, it's only if I get a lack of sleep and also on days that I know I'm going to have like a lot of physical activity, like I've got to do two a day or something. I'll make sure to drive one in just because of like all of the different activity that's going to be going on. And, you know, people see me talking about, you know,

waking up at three or four and at these different times. And I'm never trying to be like a tough guy with that. It's not, you still have to get sleep. Your Instagram comments were gold on that one. I know people saw that post. Oh, every once in a while I just smash people. Cause I, you know, I'm just, I'm at a point now where I just, I literally don't care.

You know, like when somebody, where I literally don't care. Not that I don't care what people think. I do care what people think. That's why I comment back in the first place. But what I mean is I don't care what you think about it because I think a lot of times people are trying to read into it too much or look at it the wrong way. I'm not promoting that you should walk around in a sleep-deprived state. I'm a fitness professional. I've been in this game for a long time and I know that you need

proper sleep. You need a certain amount of sleep. I think for each person, there's a little wiggle room with that. Some people really love to sleep eight, nine hours every night and other people seem to perform just fine and be really successful and end up getting ahead with six and seven hours of sleep. It really just depends on the person, but if you're not getting somewhere between six to eight hours of sleep, uh, then you're really making a big mistake. And so I never want to try to say like, you know, you, you have to wake up at these times. Uh, but to me, most people, if most people, if they were to wake up a little earlier than they're used to, they can probably get ahead. They can probably get out in front of their day and they can maybe plan a little bit more, maybe prep a little bit more. And I just, I hear so many people talking

about anxiety and it's like, well, anxiety and, and some other things that come along with it. It's a very serious condition. I don't want to undermine that. However, maybe if you're prepared for each day, and maybe if you were, if you plan things ahead a little bit, you'd have less, less anxiety. So maybe if you, uh, knew that you were flying somewhere on Friday and you packed Wednesday night, did most of your packing Wednesday night, finished up some of it on Thursday, Friday comes around. All you gotta do is grab your bag bag and go and you're all set, you know? So these, these little, these little things of, of being prepared, being ahead, maybe you wake up a little bit earlier, um, check your day, plan your day, plan your schedule. Um, I usually try

to plan my day the night before. And that's why I'll sometimes text you guys. We'll try to figure out like, Hey, should we, you know, do this at this time? And then I can kind of look at the rest of the day, but I don't ever really start a day until it's written out. You know, it's like it's written out and it's ready to go. And then the first thing I do every morning is kind of check that plan again and see like, okay, where I'm not crazy meticulous about it. You guys see like I'll end up late sometimes here and then I'm a hundred percent on everything all the time, but I try to be, I try to be the

best I possibly can be. Try to be as prepared for these podcasts as, as much as I can and as prepared for my workouts as much as I can. Yeah, no, it's really easy. Like I used to fall into the, for me it was the email trap cause I'm stuck on my computer all day. So if I didn't plan out the stuff I needed to do or the client work I needed to, I would just be like keeping busy by checking emails. You know what I mean? I feel like it's that's what I read. A four hour work week. Yeah.

Yeah. I read that. I read that book a long time. That's what he talks about is like you. People say that they're busy and he's like, you're just making yourself busy. Yeah, exactly. You're making yourself busier. You're you're acting like you're doing work. You know, you're just making yourself busy. Yeah, exactly. You're making yourself busier. You're, you're acting like you're doing work.

You know, you're not, I'm really not doing shit. I'm just, I'm acting like it. So that's why planning made it so, so big for me and clearing out, like, just like clearing out dumb subscriptions in the inbox just to make sure I could get better things done. But one thing that I, that I found kind of a interesting still is that now it seems that a lot of people now are taking sleep more seriously in terms of athletes. But it's still that thing that people are like, you know, I don't get much sleep because of this or this. I can, but I'm just so busy. You know what I mean?

I can only get five hours a night. And I believe that some people don't really know what it might feel like to actually, let's just say, operate at a level where you did get enough rest every single day. You're so used to operating at this lower level that it's become normal for you and you really don't know what it's like to, I guess, get more rest and actually go through your day with more rest. I mean, you'll probably be able to get more work done because you're going to be able to concentrate on things you need to do. Your workouts will be better because you have more energy. It's just it makes such a big difference. But it's the thing that we're willing to just like staying hydrated and getting enough water. It's that thing that we're willing to say, I can't get enough sleep, have too much work. I have to do this.

But it's such a big, such a big deal. It's huge. And like some things I've done, I've tried a sleep apnea machine in the past. And that was pretty much, that was kind of around the time where I just said, you know what, like, I'm just going to lose weight. I couldn't make the sleep apnea machine work for me. I just, it just didn't work for me. I tried different variations of it and it just didn't work very well. Plus it's just awkward. You got this like mask on and you can't really turn and it's just kind

of weird. But then, you know, I didn't stop. I was like, well, what else can I try? And when I went to my one of my doctor friends, he recommended he was like, oh, he's like, well, you know, a sleep apnea machine is like only that's just one way that you can help your sleep. He goes, another one. Another way is to keep your mouth shut. And I was like, I was was like i never heard of that before and i was like what do you mean by that he's like well he's like they make you know they make like things you can put like on your head that keep your jaw shut you know he goes or you

can tape your mouth uh he goes or he goes even if you just want to try it just to kind of see what it's like he's like just sleep with a pillow underneath your chin he's like that'll that'll help keep your mouth shut he's like it's not guaranteed to keep your mouth shut. You still might open your mouth. But he goes, I would bet that you're probably opening your mouth. He's like, do you drool? I'm like, all the time. I was like, I'm a damn dog.

And so he suggested, he was one of the people that suggested the mouth tape. So I tried that. And then I always thought it was stupid that people wear those eye eye masks. I'm like, it's, it's dark enough in your room, but dude, like that makes a huge difference. I couldn't even believe what, and then if you want to take a nap or if you want to sleep on a plane, those eye masks are legit. Those things work, man. It's pitch black. And if you, if you, um, if you put them on and you keep your eyes open for a little bit, your body starts kind of adjusting to the darkness of it. And you can kind of relax, put on some music and you'll, you'll be, you'll be out cold. So I got a whole setup. Now I got,

I got the eye mask on, I got the mouth tape shut and I have, um, uh, like a, you know, a breathe easy strip or whatever on my nose and so like i i always think like if somebody was to come in and like rob this place i would get my ass kicked because i can't see yeah i can't yell i have a really like well it's not horrible but it's pretty frightening i i did use um one of those eye masks one night uh because i do have one and I also had my mouth tape, but I don't know if it was like 4am I was having a nightmare, like a horrible nightmare. I think I was being like, I was being stabbed or some shit. Right. So I opened my eyes. I'm like, I tried to scream and I opened my eyes and I couldn't see shit. I was just like,

and you freaked out. I freaked the fuck out because my mouth wouldn't move and I was still half asleep. So I was like, what's going on here? Oh my God, I thought I was going to die. And then I finally got everything off and I was just fucked for the next few hours. Jump out of the bed. Yeah. I decided not to use the eye thing from then on. But it is pretty good when, you know, if that doesn't happen, it's great.

You do get good sleep. Yeah, it definitely does add like a dynamic to like you know living with others when you do the mouth tape because it's like well it's bedtime and you know mouth tape is on it's like you know well like you know whatever question about something it's like so like i'll text stephanie like while i'm standing next to that's great you know but and it's also a bummer like if i forget to I don't know, just do something and it's like, well, my mouth tape's already on, so I got to do it tomorrow. Yeah, that's another thing too. But luckily it does help with that though.

I don't know how you guys feel, but I don't wake up feeling like I was in a desert because I have the mouth tape on now. Yeah, your mouth is nice and moist. Hey now. It is. Your mouth is moist in the morning it's not dry pretty excited about that what is it about the word moist though i know moisture moist yeah it's a it's a damp weird word makes everything seem nasty moist cake yeah so anyway shifting gears i had to fatten up for this power lifting me and uh so you know i came came back from Italy and I was a little bit heavy, but I mean, I gained like four or five pounds, but I was already going to do like a 20 pound weight cut.

So any extra weight, you know, kind of makes it makes it just that much more difficult. I quickly lost that weight like within a day, you know, it's just like bloat from excess amounts of wine and excess amounts of carbohydrates. And that that flushed out of me pretty, pretty easy on kind of a side note while I was there. I did utilize intermittent fasting and I did just just because I knew I wanted to like go hog wild. I wanted to eat everything they have. I want to enjoy this experience with my family and I want to enjoy the fresh pasta and all the different things that Italy has to offer. And I did. But the main thing I did is I did intermittent fasting. And then I also tried to order protein with every meal. So I had lamb, I had steak. I would, so I basically ordered two dinners every,

every single time I ate. Um, but I was filling myself up with protein. And then when I came to like eating like lasagna or calzone or some pizza or something like that, I had a slice of pizza. I had, you know, half a calzone. I had some lasagna, you know, stuff like that. So it's still, it allowed me a lot of freedom with with the food choices because i limited the time in which i ate and i still had like gelato and everything else it was it was awesome um but anyway yeah when i came back i was like you know it's going to be kind of stressful the contest is in reno at american iron gym and uh i was like it'll be kind of stressful to try to you know i got to drive out there and then, you know, try to lose the weight like in the hotel.

And it would just be kind of a pain in the ass. So I said, screw it. I'm just going to stay big. And so body weight was between like 235, 240. And I was like, I'll just try to keep my body weight closer to 240. The problem was is the hotel didn't have a scale. I forgot to bring mine, which is a rookie mistake. And, uh, so I didn't really know how much I weighed. So like when we went,

when I went to eat with Emilio, I was like, I just had, uh, uh, I had like a bunch of burgers, just a bunch of hamburger meat basically. And, uh, he's like, that's all you're going to eat. I was like, I don't know what I weigh. I was like, I can't say that I'm not doing 220 and then being the 275 class. And so I did that. And then the next day weighed in and I weighed in at 240. And then from there, from that point, it was time to really blow it up. And I had a lot of salt. I had a lot of Gatorade, coconut water.

Coconut water just has tons of potassium in it. So that's a great resource. And just ate a lot of food. You know, I just kept packing it in and packing it in. And the first thing we did is Emilio and I went to Black Bear Diner, which is a great place for gains, by the way. Had a big old orange juice to get that potassium in there. And then had a steak, eggs, hash browns and pancakes. And then when I came back to the meat, I was like, man, like that was a crazy meal. My veins are like going crazy and I'm sweating.

I mean, I was like, you know i mean i was like you know i just really uh you know really bloated me up really well and then um zach is there zach's like here's a breakfast burrito he's like you got to eat up and i'm like what i'm like i just ate you know and of course it's not a normal breakfast it's from zach it's massive yeah sack's 300 plus pounds and uh so i ate that and then i think it couldn't have been more than like a half an hour later zach walks by again i'm like he just has food everywhere he walks by again he's like we're going to in and out i was like ah he goes don't give me that he's like don't be a quitter he's like come on we're going in and out i was like all right there's always room for in and out, right?

Yeah, always. So I threw down two double doubles, but Zach was impressive. I think he threw down three, like four by fours. Nice. He was just running through it. And then when I came back from that, I still had another meal. The plan was to try to get in three meals. And I'm leaving some stuff out i

forgot it's a 24 hour weigh-in so i i uh you know the the the uh let's see the night oh so the night the night before you know after i weighed into stuff i had like two meals in the hotel room and stuff too so i was just really packing it in because i was like you know it's so close with that 500 last time i'm'm like, maybe just this. I'm not thinking in terms of energy because it doesn't take a lot of energy to do a powerlifting meet. And it doesn't take a lot of energy to do like a one rep max, you know, and I was only benching. So energy wise, it's like we're talking about a drop in the bucket in terms of caloric requirement for the meet. Right.

But I'm thinking just in terms of overall like body weight and body mass, it's like, who knows by drinking this extra water, by eating some of this extra food, maybe my forearm is a, you know, eighth of an inch bigger and maybe my belly is a little bigger and these different things.

And so I really wanted to try to fill myself up with as much food, as much water as possible. And even trying to get in enough water was kind of funny because when I sat on the bench in the warm-up room, I could hear my stomach like sloshing around. It was crazy. I was like, oh, my God, I am bloated. But it made a huge difference. When I was in the warm-up room, I just was throwing the weight around. I was like, okay, today will be a good day.

And now we're watching a little footage of the 500 pound bench here i just uh you know the other thing i did was you know during training i was trying some different things with my bench and i was like you know what like i'm not a fucking bench you get in your own head you know you get in your own head and you have a tendency to, uh, talk yourself out of like, you may have a certain style with jujitsu and maybe it's not, maybe it's not the same style as everybody else, but it works. It works great for you. And you're able to get away with it and you're able to do it. And so for me on the bench, I tend to drop the weights, you know, like it scares the spotter. Sometimes they, they give me a handoff and then I dropped the weight, and they're like, oh, shit. I think they think I got hurt or something.

But I've always done that. I always bring the weight down a million miles an hour, and then I just try to press with everything I have. I kind of sit up on the bench a little bit. I curl my upper body up, which you don't see. I mean, some people do it, but it kind of pulls your chest down a little bit. So some people are against it. They'll say you got to arch up and you have to do this and you have to do that. What you have to do is you have to do what's going to work well for you,

what's going to serve you the best and what's going to feel right to you. Because if you don't, then you're doing yourself a disservice. And so if I would have went to that meet and said, okay, well, I got to change things up. I missed it last time. Everything has to change my training has to change the way i eat has to change i mean we have a tendency to do that we rip ourselves apart uh like in your last jujitsu tournament i know you wanted to be first you come in second and you come back and you're like i got okay everything's got to change no no no no, no, no, no. Not everything has to change. Probably a couple small tweaks.

Maybe even taking some stuff out sometimes, right? Because sometimes we do way too much. Sometimes you can look back and say, well, shit, I was spending way too much time doing that and that and that. And like something I mentioned to you is like, maybe just play into your strength, like because you're strong,

maybe even just play into that strength more and beat and just when people go against you they don't say anything else other than like that guy is so strong you can't do shit to him you know and that's you know when he comes to like hoist gracie or comes to bones jones or comes to some of these really exceptional extraordinary athletes, Michael Jordan. Obviously, they have a lot of intangibles, but Jordan was good on offense and good on defense, and he was just a savage, right? But you also knew that the main thing that Michael Jordan would do is he would take command of the game.

At the end of the game, he would be the guy with the ball, and you just couldn't stop the damn guy, right? You knew where it was going, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. There's nothing you could do to stop it. And you think back to Ronda Rousey when she was real dominant. She did an armbar to everybody. Everybody. To every person.

And then, I mean, there was even videos of her going against guys that weighed 200 pounds, 220 pounds. And they couldn't do anything because she was so good at that kind of like one thing. And so I think you can do yourself a disservice if you start getting in your own head and start thinking, man, I got to really change everything. It's like, well, you probably just you probably need to make a small change here or there. You should listen to other people because a lot of times your friends are going to give you the criticism that you need to kind of get you to that next level. But at the same time, trust yourself and trust, you know, trust what you're currently doing because it got you to where you are now. Yeah. Your, uh, your, your performance at the meet, um, it was a really, really amazing

comeback victory, I'll say. Um, do you want to get into what happened on your opener? Yeah. So, you know, there's always, uh, there's always all these kind of things you know going into the meat like what am i going to open with right and something i learned from west side barbell and from louis simmons was who gives a shit about your opener that's not what you're there to do and so the opener has always been a throwaway lift for me um and this one was a literal literal throwaway yep my warm-ups have always been uh i'm sorry my first attempt has always been my last warm-up where you know if you look at how i did that 473 it moves so it moves super fast right it's like well why even open with that didn't even really look

that all that challenging right um but again the point, is you're getting on the platform. You're, you have to prove to yourself and to the judges and to the crowd and everybody there that you know how to go by the rules. You know how to do the lift properly. And it doesn't matter if you've been in, you know, a few hundred meets like I've been, or if it's your first time, you still have to prove yourself. That's why those judges are there. It's not like I walk up and I automatically have three white lights because I've lifted for a long period of time. And so, you know, I was fired up. I was excited. I was crushing weights in the warmup room. Pausing the weight like is something I don't ever train. I never even think about it because the way that I bench, I bring the weight

down fast and I kind of do a very minimal pause. Anyway, I do rest the weight on my body and then I press the weight back up. So I don't really sit around thinking about this is something I need to work on. When I was younger, going into powerlifting meets, I didn't lift the same way. And so I always prepped the last probably about three, four weeks. I would always work on pause and the weight. And sometimes even sporadically in training, we would work on like long pauses and stuff, which can make you really strong. Chad Wesley Smith used it with a lot of success.

Pause and the weights for three, four, five seconds can make you brutally strong on the bench press. Anyway, I was so fired up and excited for the first one and just to kind of get that lift out of the way i just went up to the platform grabbed the bar dropped the weight and just did not even listen to the press command at all i don't even think they had an opportunity to even say it that's how fast i went and then i was like oh shit like i missed missed the press call i was was like, I jacked that up. Yeah, there was like an eerie silence throughout the whole gym where everyone's kind of looking around at each other.

Like, did that just happen? Yo, you walked off fast. You got a badge. I'm like, I'm out of here. Yeah, I was kind of pissed at myself. I was like, why did I do that? Yeah. Was the jump to 590 planned or was that because of the first?

Yeah, it was 490. Thank you for asking. Sorry, my bad. It's still early for me. Yeah. So, yeah, well, so I got a text from our buddy Tom File, Crazy Tom, the night before. And Tom has been around. He's been around for a long time he's been around powerlifting he's been around bodybuilding and he sends me a text and he goes take a he just says take a tweener and i was like okay tom and then he writes back

and he's like here's your lifts he's like 473 and then uh 490 and then 501 like he like wrote it out okay and i was actually like in my head previously i was kind of thinking 501 would be a second attempt but i also knew that it made the most sense to judge how the first one felt well if i was to judge how the first one felt the first one really felt like nothing so i would would have went right to 501 had Tom not mentioned that. And also Zach mentioned it as well. Zach was like, yeah, he's like, you should probably have an in-between lift. I noticed that you get stronger as the workout goes on. He goes, and so he's like, you got, he's like, you could do five attempts or eight attempts

and you'd probably get stronger on every one. And I was like, okay. So I was kind of halfway considering it already. And when I messed it up, I mean, normally, under normal conditions, if it was a newer lifter and I was coaching them, I'd say, no, you're doing the same weight again, no matter how you miss it. You know, I just, I really believe in making lifts in your meet. You know, you should, you know, with the exception of missing a technicality here and there,

you should make a lot of your lifts in a powerlifting meet. And the only lifts you should maybe at the most have three hard lifts in a powerlifting meet. And I always think it's better on your drive home to be kicking yourself and saying like, man, I should have gone a little heavier. I think that's a good feeling to have. And you know, you know, for a fact there's reserve there, but you also, you didn't risk injury. Um, you, you still probably performed really well, but you probably feel amazing about how you did. It's not like, it's not like you have a 700 pound deadlift and your third attempt to 600, you're still going to maybe do 690, right?

And I think that we get lost in the shuffle when we're powerlifting. For me, I was just benching. And so it's a little easier to just want to roll the dice. But that 490 selection was perfect because 490 wasn't that easy for me. It gave me a strain. It gave me a little struggle. And that will wake up your central nervous system. It gave me a little struggle and that will wake up your central nervous system. And there's a lot of science behind all this stuff. And there's a

lot of data. If you look at some of the USAPL lifters, they've actually collected a lot of data on, on the lifters and by precisely picking their attempts, they end up further ahead. So for example, if I would have done 473 and tried to 501, there's a big chance I would have missed it because my central nervous system might not have been prepared to lift that weight. I don't know if anyone's ever tried this before, but if you stand in a doorway and you push the back of your fist against the doorway for like 20 seconds or so, when you walk forward from the doorway, your arms will start to kind of float away from your body. And so there's stuff that's wired inside of our system, inside of our body, that when we get resistance, it causes a certain amount of responses in our body. And so, you know, you can even kind of think of, you know, if you do like an isometric contraction, there's a lot of research on this stuff,

do isometric contraction, push on something as hard as you can. And you push and you push and you push for like 10 seconds in a rack and then go and bench press technically from from a from a like research standpoint they have shown you can push a little bit more weight how practical is that does that make sense for one rep maxes in a meet like people don't really do it so it probably is not great right yeah however there's also like if you've ever if you've ever taken a weight in the gym like you work up on squats you want to see how strong you are and see where you're at, and you squat 600, and you're like, oh, that felt really good. Well, what do you usually do after you squat 600? You normally do some pause squats or something like that, go back down to 405, do a couple sets of eight.

How easy does 405 feel? That's because you're nervous. As you're warming up and you squat 405, it feels okay. It feels pretty good. But it certainly feels a lot up and you squat 405 it feels okay feels pretty good but it certainly feels a lot better after you squatted 600 pounds and a lot of people have used a lot of stuff like this ben johnson was actually famous for it um with charlie francis charlie francis have ben johnson squat before he sprinted which is extremely unconventional but ben johnson i think squatted like i want to, I don't know, 575 or something like that, weighing 185.

Wow. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen that guy's waist. It's like he doesn't have one. It's just unbelievable. But anyway, the point is, is like, you know, by handling something kind of heavy or handling something in between, you'll end up further ahead. And Zach had an outstanding meet. Zach Jensen, who's been training here at Super Training for the last few months, he almost got a 2,000 pound total. His last attempt deadlift, I think, was 766. But in my experience and with working for people,

with working with a lot of people for a long period of time, in this gym, we have not had a lot of natural deadlifters. We haven't really had guys that, that I know, all right, well, that guy's got an 800 pound pole in his back pocket. And so we can rely on that for the end of the meet. Uh, most of the people are like in the sevens and, uh, you know, some people have creeped a little further past the sevens, but you know, for the most part, so having already known that right just just knowing like that you're not going to blow up some crazy deadlift now zach is strong all around he's got a strong squat it's a strong bench he's got a strong deadlift yeah um but i think what you want to try to do and i think most people are like this i think most lifters aren't really just crazy gifted in the

deadlift if you're not gifted in the deadlift then you want to chip away at your total with the other lifts and so in my opinion like zach could have went about 15 pounds lighter on his openers and he could have ended up further ahead with a bigger total and it's something that we he and i talked about he you know we're we disagree in some spots but we agreed you know mainly on like look to get a 2 000 pound total let's have the deadlift be just a cakewalk and we you know he agreed on that so basically like if he just would have opened up 10 to 15 pounds lighter on the squat he may have ended up a little bit further ahead he could have picked uh different attempt selections and it's easy to look back.

And when you compete, you're trying to go for it. He wanted an 800-pound squat and he wanted a 500-pound bench. And sometimes when you go for those individual numbers, that's when you start to leave a lot on the table. So if you're listening to this and you're a lifter and you're trying to go for that 300-pound mark or that 400-pound mark, don't. Don't worry about it.

Like, worry about that some other time. Get the 290 in, the 292. Look at the Russian lifters. They do it all the time because they don't care because they lift in kilos and it doesn't mean the same thing. I think the only thing they care about is 400 kilos. It's a lot of weight. And they care more like, you know, when it comes to the, you know, 100 kilos, 200 kilos

and so on. But anyway, you know, when you have those opportunities and you're, especially when you're not sure, always choose the lower weight and do the same thing in your training. You know, hey, in SEMA, should I add a 25 or a 10? The answer is a 10, dude. Put the 10 on there. Do the 10 first. let's see what that looks like let's make sure you don't get hurt let's make sure you do the lift cleanly let's

make sure you do the lift the right way and then you're going to earn the right to lift the 25 you got to like win it and i did i did that to andrew to the point where i think i was driving him fucking crazy i think i really was at some point he's like jesus christ can i just put 205 on there no you need to do 195 first yeah it was so much to the point where like it was the driving factor like after i got i kind of started getting the hang of things you know somebody would ask me like hey what weight like if we're training with somebody like what weight do you want like i i just know i have to earn that quarter like i can I can't just jump right to it. You sure? Like, yeah, trust me.

I know. And yeah, sure enough, Mark would always be like, nope, drop, take the weight off. You know, and yeah, it did kind of drive me nuts. Zach hit 500 in the gym though, right? He did. Yeah, he had a really good paused 500 pound bench in training. But sometimes it's hard to follow that squat up with a big lift. in training, but sometimes it's hard to follow that squat up with a big, with a big lift. Yeah. When, when you lifted, uh, in your last meet, were you like, uh, fatigued at all from,

from the other lifts? Do you think it, uh, impacted your, uh, ability to bench or, or deadlift? No, it didn't. I stayed, first off, I stayed off my feet. I was really well hydrated, but, um, those lifts can play a big role. I, you know, but I honestly think it's, it's because I, and it's not like you need to do this, but we've talked about this. I stay really calm before my lifts and like generally like that's a big factor for, for me it is because I noticed like, I don't get really that like physically fatigued even after doing a really, really heavy lift because I'm like super just like I'm super chill before it.

I hit it done and I'm super chill afterwards. There's not a lot of like stimulation going on. So like not wiped out. I'm not wiped out at all. Yeah. So in the meet, like I did my squats on my bench and it was a long meet. I didn't really feel that time when I went towards my deadlift. Yeah.

Guys, think about this. So it's time to squat, right? First of all, the night before and even the week before, like you have these moments where you get hit by like butterflies, right? And you're like, oh, I got to fucking squat this weekend. I got to do a meet this weekend. And the numbers are driving you. You already have, look, it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this for. You already have tons of stress going on, right?

So now it's game day, right? And you're in the warmup room and boom, there goes the butterflies again. Cause you're kind of seeing everybody else starting to warm up. You're like, when do I warm up? When's our flight? You know? And you're just like, am I going to be ready in time? And I got a lot of attempts to do back here and I got to really be warmed up and you're driving yourself insane. You're driving yourself crazy. And so now it's actually time to squat. You warmed up already and now you're going to get yourself hyped up for a lift that you should be able to do for like three or four reps. So there's really doesn't have to be much hype going into, especially the first one. But anyway, the point is, is you're going to get yourself all fired up for these three attempts. And then now it's time to

like eat it's time to chill you're done with your squats then you get yourself all hyped up again and you're probably taking in caffeine and doing a bunch of you know pre-workout and you keep you're going to feel like shit when that deadlift comes around you are going to feel like crap and so you want to try to figure out like what's something that's going to be maybe a little bit uh just give you a little bit more natural rhythm and if you do need to get fired up for lifts think about what that looks like how many times can you really get fired up can you really get up are you going to be able to do it nine times in a meet i doubt it yeah you know like we don't see people in here that are benching 315 we don't see them get them all all fired up for 185 only smoky yeah smoky gets fired up for all those lifts but it can leave you exhausted right it's it's

just too much it's too much uh too much up and down i think another huge factor and this is a reason why it's important to your it's gonna ridiculous, but your lifts in a meet should be like a little bit light. If you can push it anywhere, it might be like on the bench, just because of the dynamics of the bench, and it shouldn't really interfere with the deadlift. But if you squat and you do your squats on broken, what's that going to mean for your deadlift? It's probably going to allow you more room to deadlift more weight.

If you get pitched forward and you use your lower back and you do like a segmented broken squat, you're going to really struggle to deadlift. Your opening attempt is probably going to feel 20, 30 pounds heavier than normal. And now you're really behind it because your opener felt heavy. Uh, and it's just, it just sends a cascade of, uh, of problems. Another suggestion I would make too, is as you're going through the meat, think of everything, everything, everything can be changed, you know? So as you're going through the meat,

you know, pick the attempts based on previous attempts. Don't pick the attempts based on what you did in the gym. Don't pick your attempts based off of what you want to do. Base your attempts off of what you should do and what you can do. And then when it comes down to the final, when it comes down to deadlifting, I have, for so many of our lifters i've taken their openers and lowered their deadlifts probably in every almost every meet i've ever coached anybody who said hey just take my numbers and you know just pick them for me some lifters like that they don't like to know you know yeah um and so there's been many times where somebody has like a 633 opener and i'll take it right down to 600. And the reason,

the reason for that is I'm trying to piece together what they did mathematically with like a PR total. So if they did well on the squat, which they should have done well on the squat, they should have done well on the bench. Now we're just trying to piece together this third, this third lift, the deadlift into a PR total. Because that's what matters in Power Feet Meats is your total, not necessarily the individual lift. And so we're going to piece that together with, okay, let's knock out a PR total, which if you haven't competed in a while, should happen on your opening attempt deadlift, if not the second attempt. And then the third attempt deadlift, that is an opportunity for you to kind of roll the dice and just go for it.

And if you do want to have that individual lift, but again, you got to earn it. You got to really work for it. It's really, it's super easy to get wrapped up in those like, ah, this is going to be a PR squat or it's going to be a PR deadlift if I hit this. And I've seen a lot of lifters. They're like, no matter what, I want this to be my third attempt. Like this is it. But your total is the biggest deal. Like first off, the platform is always there.

So every single meet that you do, you're trying to get a bigger total, not just a bigger single lift, although that'd be great. You want a bigger total every single meet because it doesn't matter if you got a bench P or if you got a squat PR, right? But it was super hard. And then your deadlift ended up being absolute crap. So your total was a little bit less than it was before. That doesn't matter. It's hard. And then the amping up thing that you were talking about,

if lifters could save that for their third attempt, like you mentioned, using it strategically for like just your third attempts or maybe your second or third attempts of your harder lifts. And if you know that your bench is typically a cakewalk for you, then just save it. Because like this past weekend, I was seeing lifters screaming on every attempt.

And think about how tiring a scream is, right? Like screaming at full capacity. You're a little bit out of breath. You got to do that nine times. That is insane. It's a lot to ask your body to do. Yeah. When did the slapping of the back start?

Where did that come from? I've seen it a lot this weekend. Yeah, you know, like, well, so that might be a byproduct of that gym. You know, that gym, American Iron Gym, they have, obviously, you'll see it at other powerlifting gyms too. But I'm saying that American Iron Gym, Chad Ikes has been a big part of that. Chad Ikes was one of the strongest lifters in the world for a while, squatted over 1,200 pounds back in the day, high sevens in the bench, high sevens in the deadlift, I think, as well.

Very strong guy. Chad, one of the guys was telling me a story. The first time he came into the gym uh chad was there and he just had the guy was like i couldn't even count how many plates were on the bar the bar is just bending because i walk in chad's screaming we got the music cranked and he has uh the ammonia caps he's got one in each nostril just sitting there like shoved up his nose and he breaks both of them and he like head butts the bar and like does his squat you know so chad is is he used to be one of the more intense uh lifters uh it was a it was a really

cool thing to like witness when he lifted he would let out this huge like i mean he's a big guy he at the time he was 450 or 440 he let out this huge like be, I mean, he's a big guy. He was at the time he was four 50 or four 40. He let out this huge, like bellow that would just like rock the rock, the building, you know? And so everyone was like, uh, hyped up to watch him lift. And I think that it's kind of a by-product of, of that facility where they like, they like to get after it. They like to be fired up. Um, I've seen people, you know, since I can remember, I've seen people you know since i can remember i've seen people you know smack each other and hit each other uh at powerlifting meets but the smacking on the back is a little bit of a of a newish of a newer thing that i'm seeing more and more lifters utilize

there's actually a little bit of research on some of this stuff but like i don't know if like whacking somebody on the back particularly fits into that. But there's they did a study on a UFC fighter where they like yelled at him. They played music. And then they talked about his kids. They like yelled shit about his kids. And when they yelled shit about his kids, he went fucking off. Like his kicks and punches and

shit were like they were like holy i can't remember the name of the guy that they they did this on i don't know if they did it on multiple people um in a lot of russian lifters if you watch olympic lifting you'll see the coach pulling on the lifters ears very hard too and you're like what are they like that That would hurt. So I do think that some of these things that like elicit some pain, I do think they can wake up your body. I know, you know, Charles Poliquin, uh, was really big on some of these things where you can make someone stronger or more mobile by doing this weird shit. Like he stuck a pen cap into the bed of my fingernail

and he and i laid on the ground he pulled my ears down towards the ground for like eight seconds trying to think what else he did i can't remember anything else he did i think it was just those two things and you've seen me get underneath the squat bar before i can never you know pull my arms in close yeah i could pull my arms in close because what he was doing was like overriding this motor pattern that's ingrained in my body to limit my mobility. So you said he was pulling your earlobes. So you're lying flat on the ground and he was pulling your earlobes. He pulled my ears like this way towards the floor.

Very hard too. And so there's like, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. You can look this stuff up. Yeah, here we go. You can look a lot of these things up. And this, we're watching a YouTube clip of him pulling on my ears. But there's also something called the warrior point, which I believe is somewhere in your like chest. You're supposed to be able to like rub this shit and like make yourself

stronger. I just, I think that there's some weird stuff that people look how fat I am. And it's awesome. There's some weird stuff that, um, you know, people just don't know enough about and that's why they don't really

practice it with some of this stuff that Charles was doing. Um, you know, he's one of the few in the world that knows a lot of these different, uh, methods and techniques. He also said, look, this is not a permanent fix. He's like, you're not going to be able to do this tomorrow. He said, so what you would do is you'd have a coach that's smart and he could, you know, administer some of this stuff to you on a daily basis and over a period of time,

your performance and your mobility would, would increase. I think also just it's people want to be so and it's good to be science-based but they when they see things like this or hear things like this they automatically call bs without without even wanting to give it a shot but the body is so damn complex that you don't you don't know like what weird things can actually or they sound weird can actually end up making a pretty big difference in yeah in that in that period of time because like pulling down on your ears is odd man right but it worked right and so see here like my arms like they're they're under the bar but they're still out really wide and you're gonna see i'm gonna be able to kind of jam them in closer and i part of the reason why i can't really have the bar um like low on my back

is because of how wide my arms are so my arms are way out so if i had if i had the bar low on my back then it just feels like it's going to fall off my back but yeah over over a period of him like messing with me for a minute here he he uh increases my range of motion oh here he is with the pen cap that hurt yeah um there's there's other methods too like a friend of mine jl holsworth i can't remember the name of and we can get we can get one of these guys on the podcast but i've heard really weird stuff at these seminars that goes on where they'll they'll work on somebody and like the i don't know they're working on say they're working on uh the person person's like, um, stomach, right? They're like digging in on something.

I heard that like with some people where they've had injuries before will like turn red, which is crazy. So like I, I've heard from a bunch of people that said they went to the seminar and just this huge streak of red came across the guy. seminar and just this huge streak of red came across the guy and the guy was in some weird accident when he was a kid and he like got that area all jacked up and he had stitches and all this stuff and um just by them like working on like his psoas and doing all this other stuff it caused this uh kind of reaction so there's so many weird so many weird things to the body that that are just kind of still, still unknown. I'm actually curious about something. You know how we were talking about Reiki the other day? Yeah.

Okay. What situation was it that you, you decided that I'm going to give this a shot? Cause you mentioned that you did it once before too. So why? Well, so that was, uh, like, uh, that was just something like where I was at Kelly's gym and like one of his people like knew how to do it. And she just she just wanted to like do it to me. So that's kind of how that happened. It wasn't something I was like really like seeking or whatever. OK. And so that's part of the reason why I probably didn't work either.

Like if I was seeking it out and I believed in it, then it would probably, it'd probably, you know, it'd probably work because you believe in it a little bit more. I really wish we could like, well, people do placebo research and stuff like that. But I really wish like we could see more about how like this stuff could work. Because I mean, even though it sounds weird, there's something to it. If so many people are saying, oh, it made such a big difference. There is something to it. You can't discount it no and i think that's you know andy galpin you know when having him on the podcast the other day and he was telling you about the um the sauna right he was like he was like nah you

know but then he kind of finished by saying look you know if that's something that's you feel is really working yeah then fuck it keep going with it you know do it for a while and that makes sense to me you don't you don't want to deprive people of things that first of all you you know it's a huge mistake to try to talk it's a huge mistake to try to talk people out of um like their irrational thought process like like they might truly believe in something yeah and you can't really convince them like these flat earth people and stuff. I mean, it's not your, it's just, you're not going to be able to convince them unless you were able to physically somehow show them that it's not flat. You know, you'd have to really, you'd have, and then they'd go, oh, okay.

But most of the time people are going to kind of like, they really believe that they have to have these amino acids when they work out. Otherwise they're going to lose all their strength and not be big. Right. And so you can't really. It's I think it's and that's that's the line he was talking about. Like crossing was like you got to kind of take what the with the these fighters that he works with, take these old beliefs that they have. And then you got to kind of figure out, OK, which ones can i like change for them and which ones do i have to kind of like leave because they got these weird rituals going into these fights and stuff yeah you got to mesh them

with the new because like you don't want to mess especially with like a fighter you can't mess with their mind right you can't say everything you've been doing up until now that's gotten you here is wrong you can't you can't do that you're to mess that fighter up, you know? So it makes total sense. My friend, uh, Daniel, what he'll do a lot, he's really, really smart, but let's say, let's say that you just came to me and you have a terrible idea. What he, what he'll say a lot of times is, you know what, you're not wrong, but what about this? So like, he'll, he'll give you some validation towards what you said, but maybe it's like a little add on, you know? And it, because if I just come in and be like, no, we're not doing that. And then I talk about what I want to do. Well, now he's kind of pissed and he just doesn't even want to be part of the rest of the

conversation anymore. Right. That's kind of an interesting tactic. He'll say, you're not wrong. And the other one he says is, uh, I like your line of thinking. And then he interesting uh tactic he'll say you're not wrong and the other one he says is uh i like your line of thinking and then he'll then he'll say his line of thinking i'm pretty sure i've heard that from him oh yeah directly he does it all the time he does it all the time it means he thinks you're a fucking idiot yeah now that you point it out well um speaking of rituals do you have any rituals going into the meat that you kind of went back to? Um, other than just stuffing your face with food? Yeah, not too many things, you know?

Um, no, I just, I just, um, I just like to try to do everything the same, you know? Uh, the same ritual I have here in the gym is the same, uh, that I have in the meat. I try not to really change anything. You know, when you go to a contest of any kind, whether it's football or jujitsu or powerlifting, it doesn't matter what it is, you have to be very accepting of the fact that when you show up, it may look a lot different than what you anticipated and the way that things are going to be might be quite different than what you're expecting. So I always recommend you should always check out the facility if you have the opportunity. If you, you know, are, you can look a lot of the stuff up on YouTube.

So how great is that? That way you can get a little bit better visual because like you might try to practice some visual visualization, which is great great but the visual might be wrong and then when you get there you're kind of like uh oh this is different this feels different this looks different for example when i benched the bench was on this weird angle which is just so different to me i've never benched like that before i mean usually, usually I kind of line up like, you know, with the posts on the ceiling and stuff. I kind of look at some of that stuff and I, I just kind of get my, uh, get myself together that way, I guess you'd say. And it was just a little different, but I saw that the day before and I actually was like, okay, that's a little

different. And I, I kind of looked up at the ceiling and i was like all right well the lines are gonna run diagonal not a big deal all right cool and it just kind of like sized it up and i kind of envisioned i was like okay the crowd's there and i'm gonna walk out from here and it just gave me a little bit better uh uh perspective but you know you know getting the chalk and i only usually do that for my biggest lift and you know, you know, getting the chalk and I only usually do that for my biggest lift, you know, smashing the chalk bowl. And, uh, just the way I lay down on the bench, it's all this, it's all exactly the same. I always do like a little squat before I lay down to actually bench. I don't know why I do that, but I've been doing it forever. Um, I line up on the bench the same way, grab the bar the same way. Everything's, you know, those are all things that I can control. I can't control, you know, whether the lights are really bright. I can't control, you know, where the

judges sit or the crowd or can't control any of those things. But that's kind of why you have routines. That's kind of why you have rituals. And that's what will make you feel at home. And if you're, you know, something that helped me when I used to box is I remember, you know, boxing with some, once you start, once you learn how to box and you start going against like other opponents, well, shit, now like this is pretty scary. You're in like a fight, you know, and I was doing it at a very young age and the guys I was going against, they were were some of them were professionals um and they were like you know 25 30 years old stuff like that these were grown grown ass men and so i got

scared and i'd flinch and i'd like do stuff that i was not doing in training and then i remember i was like you know in between in between rounds one time and my trainer was just like you know, in between, in between rounds one time. And my trainer was just like, you know, just, he goes, try it. I know it's hard to relax. He goes, but just think about when we're doing the glove work and when we're doing, and when we're doing drills and when you're hitting the bag, he's like, you tear the bag apart. He's like, you got some powerful punches. He's like, but you're not going to be able to ever get these off if you're, if you're too tight and if you're too like nervous about what the other guy's going to do. So pay get these off if you're, if you're too tight and if you're too like nervous about what the other guy's going to do. So pay attention to what the other guy's doing. Um, but just, you know, do your thing. He's like, just picture the other guy being a heavy bag.

And that just, that made me relax a ton. I was able to get some shots in and of course it got killed me cause he's a pro that we used to do these drills where the pros would they were only allowed to jab you know and i i fought this one guy his name jeremy williams he he was a journeyman boxer heavyweight boxer and uh they were only allowed to jab and so that's how they were getting their work in and we were allowed to do whatever we wanted because we were just so green we didn't we couldn't do anything anyway i mean it was hard to even hit these guys at all yeah um i started kind of moving out of the way of his jab and i started getting some good shots in and i was a strong kid i was at that age at 15 or so i was 225 230 something like that i'm throwing some pretty good shots and he's like he's like you sure you want to do that

and i was just like you know i didn't know how to throw a punch any other way then i just i just i didn't know how to box really you know so i'm just throwing bombs when i can you know and so i catch him with a couple other ones and he just lights me up with straight right just you know he's only supposed to throw jabs right but he's like fuck this kid those are straight right and just boom like the just it just drilled me in the nose my nose i mean i felt my nose even till this day when i blow my nose it's like it's a little like crooked in there it's not broken but it's uh he definitely that he definitely rattled rattled my cage pretty good and i was like okay i should back off a little bit wow he just drilled me how many years ago was this oh it's like i don't know

i was i was like 15 or so 16 he left a permanent oh yeah with one shot mark on you with one shot i mean this guy he was a good he was a good boxer i mean he he probably had like shit i don't know 30 or 40 professional fights i mean he was on like espn and stuff he was a good he wasn't i don't think he ever won like a world title or anything but he was a legitimate guy and yeah it's just you know it's crazy to have you know that's a professional just touches you one time yeah and it's like i'm sure i'm sure he just threw some bullshit punch too you know i mean that's the funny part it's like he could have you know could knock my ass clear out of the ring probably yeah and somebody who like wasn't at the absolute top of the hill was just but because they had so much experience and it's like okay kid and whack and she's like oh that's what it's like to be a

real fighter yeah yeah could you imagine like mike tyson or something back in the day when he's throwing those terrifying throwing those bombs yeah that is just scary to think anyway it felt great to knock out that 500-pound bench, and we'll set up some new goals soon. I think I'll probably compete in September, September 7th. That's my birthday. Oh, happy birthday. Yeah.

Happy early birthday. Thank you. Future birthday, yeah. How old are you going to be, 27? 27. Damn, 27 spankings. It's almost all over. Yeah, 27. It's three for meankings. It's almost all over. Yeah.

27. It's three from 30. It's wild. Man, you only have three years left to get your whole life together. Pretty much. That's what. Yeah. You got to grow up.

Yeah. Got to be an adult, actually. Things are going to be changing. But what was really cool was to have all you guys there. That was awesome. You know, a bunch of you came out to the meet. meet my dad came out to the meet and my brother came out to the meet and it's like it's kind of interesting because that's cool but at the same time i'm like oh fuck right you know what i mean like it gives you that little extra now i now you know i don't

want to make these guys drive all the way out here for nothing. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it was great to have the team out there. And it's important, you know, it's important to try to support people. It's not always easy, you know. It's not always easy to make the time and put the effort into doing it. But, man, people are grateful for it, you know. It makes a big difference. Yeah, I can imagine not going to the meet like i was it was already a done deal you were going even if

you weren't invited essentially yeah yeah um it was funny well because stephanie wanted to go too but we had jasmine so i'm like i was like babe like i know you want to go but dude a powerlifting meet's probably not the yeah jasmine, Jasmine will be bored to death. Yeah, I'm like, after the first, I don't know, five hours of the same thing happening over and over, she might get a little distracted. She might want to hang herself. Yeah, because we were going to drive ourselves, but I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to hop in the car. How cool was that gym? Oh, it was sick.

Wasn't that cool? Yeah. It was massive. And I kept getting lost in it. How cool was that gym? Oh, sick. Wasn't that cool? Yeah. It was massive. I kept getting lost in it. The woman that ran it too, I mean, she was so passionate about it. So the gym's 44 bucks a month. Wow.

It's crazy. That's a steal. For all that. That's a steal. Well, they try to run it so that they're, I don't think they, I don't think they make an actual profit from the gym, but I think they make profit from people training people there and the classes that they have. So the actual gym membership model is not set up for them to really kill it or whatever. And they just said that they started in the 80s and they kept the price pretty much the same from the beginning. They just never changed it. Yeah, they have CrossFit in there and powerlifting and bodybuilding.

And they have actual bodybuilders there. They have actual world-class powerlifters. I mean, they got some strong people there. They got two guys that squat over 900 pounds. They got one guy that pulls eight. That kid, Jeremy, he was the guy that i saw he um his opening attempt deadlift at record breakers he uh his hand ripped open and it was disgusting because i was on the platform and he just looked at his hand and he took this huge chunk and he just ripped it off and threw it on the ground it was so savage i was like that is disgusting and that's amazing

at the same time yeah but that gym was crazy i mean every room you walked into was an entirely new gym it really was you know it's like and it was all i mean technically under one roof but you know uh when i walked to the front i'm like hey how do i get to the uh to the warm-up room like oh just keep walking that way just keep going and i'd walk into a room like no this isn't it and oh wait there's another room like dude no this is still not it and then i look up and i'm like no that's the platform over there but then you know it ended up you were back there behind the platform yeah but i just kept getting lost this is this is too much yeah they had they had uh they even had like an area for the event yeah which i think is kind of uh a little bit set up that way all the time.

I don't know what else they do in there, but they had Strongman stuff in there too. Yeah. That was crazy. That was really cool. It really, you competing and you essentially kind of having like a rough start and then eventually hitting 501. start and then eventually you know hitting 501 but watching you see uh face some adversity you know with someone with so much experience it made me love powerlifting even more yeah because i'm like that's some shit that i would do you know like i i just forgot sorry but you know seeing you do it and then overcome it i'm just like man this this sport is amazing

because you know yeah like i said it's something that I would probably end up doing at some point. Powerlifting is way harder than it gets credit for. Yeah. You know, and I think to dabble in some powerlifting here and there is, like, probably not that hard. But to, like, really be in it and to sit in it for a while and to do it for a while, it gets to be really difficult. It gets to be really hard to improve. You know, we're always talking about, like, how do you improve? And the truth is you can't always improve.

Like, that's just the facts. Like, you can do everything right, and you can really work really hard, and it's just not always going to really work out. I heard somebody say this, and I think this is an amazing quote, but they said a predictable past, or I messed it up, A predictable future, a totally predictable future is the past. And that's kind of like why things don't just happen for you because you lined them up that way. Because that's not life. Life is full of like surprises.

They're full of like little mysteries like how do I figure this out? How do I figure out how to be successful at this? How do I figure out getting another kilo or getting another pound on there? And it's difficult. It's fricking hard. Yeah. And I think that one of the biggest things that mentally makes this power lifters a little bit stronger is the,

uh, how often you're going to actually be on the platform. Like most power lifters aren't going to be on the platform eight times per year, right? Whereas basketball or jujitsu, you can do a bunch of tournaments, but powerlifting, you maybe three, three, three meets throughout your year.

And that's it. And the rest of the time you're just training hard, preparing for those meets. You know, it takes a lot of discipline to at least keep yourself disciplined to get on the platform and perform. Yeah. It's almost like a fighter. That's what Zach was saying. Zach was saying he'll probably, he probably won't compete, you know, for about a year. It's like, man, that's what uh zach was saying he zach was saying he'll probably he probably won't compete you know for about a year it's like man that's so that's so hard because you know then you're kind of you'll like kind of like reload and put all your eggs in one basket again and like it's just it's it's difficult so if you did i do advise for younger lifters i do

think they should try to compete a little bit more it It's, it's hard to make the, it's hard to kind of stay on that grind like that, but I would treat it like the way that bodybuilders treat their photo shoots where they they'll, they'll do the Olympia and then they, then they kind of like go on tour from there. They do photo shoots, they do appearances because they're in their best shape and they'll, you know, they'll kind of around that competition is where they'll quote unquote make their money. And I think a lot of power lifters could benefit from doing something similar. Maybe, maybe you do a bench only meet, maybe you do a push pull meet just to stay active, just to feel the platform. And then maybe you do a full power meet because a full power meet, it's just, it really does

take a lot out of you. It's, it's not physically so much, but just physically and mentally, it just kind of costs you a lot. Yeah. It does kind of carve out 12 weeks out of your life pretty much. And that's not always easy to fit in. But if you kind of randomly hit up a bench meet here or there randomly, I mean, most of us can improve, you know, on a bench or a deadlift. So kind of forcing yourself to do those things. I mean, you don can improve you know on a bench or a deadlift so kind of forcing yourself to do those things and you don't want to look foolish you don't want to lift less than you've lifted before so it just kind of puts your butt on the line and so I I see more and more people like

spreading out you know their their their competitions but I do think you know getting up there a little bit more and you know how it is with jujitsu, right? I mean, shit, you're now you're, you're really, you're really forced into this, uh, like these tournaments, right? And it's like, shit, man, well, I better get better. Yeah. Got to work your ass off for it. Yeah. Same with bodybuilding though. Like if you, if a bodybuilder really wants to improve, especially if they're not at the highest level they can't it's different from powerlifting they can't compete three times a year or four times a year like you got to do your competition then you have to give yourself three or four months to get some body weight back so that you can actually start progressing for another eight months then maybe in 12 months you do another show it takes

discipline especially trying to keep that drive all year long, it's, it's hard for a lot of people to do. It's yeah. Body, bodybuilding was brutal. It was pretty damn hard. Um, anyway, yeah, felt great to knock out that bench and get that, uh, kind of monkey off my back and we'll see, we'll see what kind of comes next. Um, right now I'm kind of hop back on the carnivore diet, shed a couple LBs and then kind of just see where my weight ends up. Carnivore week, right? What's that? Carnivore week, right?

Yeah, carnivore week. Yeah, I announced it, proclaimed it, World Carnivore Week. And getting ready for this meat, I used a vertical diet, you know, so I was primarily eating like meat and eggs, but I also mixed in some rice and mixed in some sweet potatoes. And I really like that diet a lot. And I think for a lot of people that are trying to get a better performance, and we've talked about this a lot on this podcast, people are always underselling the performance. They're always talking about their diet and they always talk about dieting.

They're always talking about like being smaller and being skinnier. And as Dan Green says, there's no skinny champions, right? You don't want to always be in this caloric restriction. It's not going to allow any real growth. And so I love what Stan's preaching. He's one of the few people out there that's preaching for people to eat more. And some of the vertical diet meals that he has are like 1100 calories, like the ones that they they ship out to you. It's like who else would think to do that besides Rhino? It's because he's actually thinking about athletes performance. He's not thinking about like helping people.

Well, he does want to help people diet and get in better shape. But he also wants to help them to expend more energy while they're in the gym. So they're not feeling like crap. Right. You know, just talking about how like nowadays i can feel when i need carbs you know i i more so don't crave carbs it's like oh like i'm gonna have some carbs more so as a fuel source i feel like okay today i need to have some extra carbs so it's good that he's doing that because a lot of athletes don't or a lot of athletes overeat

and then a lot of athletes don't eat enough in terms of carbs because they're doing like you know maybe they're strict carnivore or keto or something but it's uh it's good what he's doing with that do you uh eat any junk nowadays barely like it's been some here or there let me think when was the last time uh i'm not lying smoky so he's already told me not to lie like like seriously like, like, first off, I don't buy any stuff for the home in terms of junk. It's really been a long time. Because, like, I don't really crave that stuff now. Like, if I do want it, it doesn't, it's not often.

But you used to eat it pretty often, right? Yeah, yeah, because I could fit it in. I could make it fit. And it wouldn't affect the way my body looked. It still wouldn't affect my body. Like, once a day? you used to eat it pretty often right yeah yeah because i could fit it in i can make it fit and it wouldn't affect the way my body looked and it still wouldn't like once like once a day uh not once a day but multiple times a week like four or five times a week in terms of like maybe a an ice cream or or maybe i'd go out and just now that we're talking about it yeah yeah right but um yeah no it's it's like i really don't it it doesn't make me feel good anymore. I guess when I, when I think about it, I don't feel like I have to go get it, which is great.

Do you, if you eat, if you just like eat whatever, like, I don't, not eat whatever, but like, if you just eat a lot, do you like notice a difference the next day? Like you eat, eat a bunch of carbs. You said sometimes you feel like having more carbs. eat a bunch of carbs you said sometimes you feel like having more carbs yeah yeah so it'll usually be like maybe every two or three days i'll be like okay i need to have maybe 200 or 300 grams extra carbs on this day typically nowadays i'm having like anywhere between 50 and 50 to 100 grams on on most days that i like i even that i perform but like then it's like every third day it's like okay i need a i need a bolus i need extra and i can feel that like that's the thing i never i never really felt that awareness of okay i do actually like my body's like it gets some carbs in and i don't even know what that signal is i just know like i need i need carbs today it's just my body's telling me that i I've never felt that signal before. And I think it's really good if you can get to that point where you can feel what you actually need to eat. As long as you're getting consistent protein in and whatever fuel source you use, because I do eat a lot of fat, right? It'd be good to get yourself to a point where, okay, I know I need to eat now because I know I feel hungry or I'm actually hungry. And I know that I need this type of food. I've never felt that before. And that's, that's huge. Another weird thing is like, I know it's

starting to get sunny now, but it's like, I'm, I went out the other day and it's like, I need to be outside right now. It's like, like your body knows you need sun. I don't know. It's like, I'm getting more sensitive to shit, but maybe it's just in here and it's not actually real. Who knows? I think fasting, you know, makes you, well, at least for me, it's helped me to crave like nutrient dense foods. You know, it's helped me crave like more, I guess, healthier foods basically. And I know like in the past I've had,

you know, chicken breast or steak or something. I had stuff go bad in the fridge because, you know, maybe I was snacking or, you know, maybe I had, I don't know, like a bowl of cereal or something like that. And it's like, that ends up being so negative in so many different ways. Obviously it's positive because it tastes really good, but it ends up being a kind of a double negative because you're having something that you shouldn't be having. That's causing a response that you don't really want it to have. It's pulling you away from your goal.

It's also taking up real estate in your stomach for otherwise more nutrient-dense foods that would get you closer to your goal. So you're really setting yourself backwards by doing this stuff here and there, you know? I think it makes a lot of sense from like an adaptation standpoint, though, at least for us, because if you're fasting for a period of time and on most days you have this small window of time which you're going to eat, right? It kind of makes sense that you're going to start to crave more nutrient dense foods because you're like, your body's like, okay, you have five hours or four hours to eat

and you need to get a lot in. So you're generally going to go towards foods that your body typically gets a lot from rather than going to like a milkshake or going somewhere and just getting something that will do you absolutely no good. Because I feel the same way. Like I crave certain foods that are super dense. I don't crave anything that's like, you know, just a snack anymore.

In the war on carbs front, carbs, they have loaded up something new. It's cinnamon toast crunch churros wow they are insane and i couldn't wait to tell you guys about them because you had them yeah uh we got some for jasmine cereal and it's cereal so it's basically cinnamon toast crunch but really thick chunks like that oh that looks beautiful thankfully we didn't have any almond milk or else i probably would have ate the whole box but like i you know i poured some in a cup and i'm like i gotta give these a go and i'm like oh i'm gonna lose this war on carbs today it's so good but exactly what mark was saying they're like i was filling my body with something i was just taking two steps

back when i should have been filling it with something better. Can I ask you a favor? Yeah. Do you still have those at home? I mean, as of right now, I think there might be some left. Well, if you do buy a little bit more, bring me a little bag. I don't trust myself to go to the store and buy a box. No, no, no. I feel like I'm going to eat that whole box. They're so good.

Yeah. Bring me a Ziploc bag of those. Man, if they make it here, I might bring you some and I might eat them on the way here. You know, from a powerlifting perspective, you know, I mean, it always makes sense to eat, you know, as healthy as possible. Right. But there's something about some like, I mean, the way that I ate for this competition after I weighed in, you know, it was, I didn't go like off the rails and eat like crazy amounts of junk, but I do think that there's something with like processed foods or something with like some of

these foods you get at like a diner that just, they're so loaded with like salt. There's something that it's hard for me to put into words. And I've been trying to explain it and describe it for quite some time, but there's something there that makes, makes you feel really freaking strong. And I don't know if it's just like an abundance of calories, uh, or if it's the salt or if there's something like inherently good, uh, about some foods that are processed, you know, like, um, like cereal and some of these things. I mean, we just, we have a tendency to just think, oh, that's bad. You know, that's it.

That's all we know about it is it's bad. But maybe there's some advantages to it. I have not been able to really put my finger on it, but I do know there's some people that say there's like this theory, or it's not even really a theory. It's just, I don't even know what you call it but there's hormesis which is like this idea of like a little poison does you a little good you know there's like a like a little bit uh a little bit of something bad is good and that's why uh every human being has is dosed with a little we

all have things and you know that we do and that we say, and the ways that we act that are just a little bit off. They're not always, not everything's not always going to be clean. Not everything's not always gonna be perfect. Yeah. And I, I think that there's, there's something to it when it comes to slamming down some like a Doritos or

something like that before a power of the meat. It's just, it's easy to take down. You barely even need to like your, there's no fiber. Your body doesn't have to work to digest it it just goes where it needs to go just like before your show or your before your bodybuilding show did he have you like load up on carbs yeah yeah like i think before my show i had to eat like uh 800 grams of carbs the day before like 800 to 850 grams of carbs and i was just eating like cereal and just easy to digest

carbohydrates and just filling up you know what i mean so it made you jacked made me yeah exactly it made me super jacked um but it makes it makes total sense but that's the thing you don't do that every day you know you had me have a cheeseburger and fries too like between the shows you know like the morning and night show or whatever yeah keep you full. It just made the veins go nuts too. Anyway, it was a great meet. Great to have you guys there. Appreciate the extra support. Had a lot of fun. Met a lot of great people

at American Iron Gym in Reno, Nevada. If you're ever near the area, you got to check that gym out. That place is awesome. It's got everything. Anyway, strength is never weak. This week, this is never strength. Catch you guys later.