Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 217 - Matt Vincent

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Matt Vincent is a 2x former World Champion Highland Games athlete. He has over 15 years of training experience including throwing, powerlifting, and strongman. He has also competed in the Highland Games for 3 full years. He is the founder of HVIII Brand Goods, a clothing brand, and is the host of UMSO Podcast. ➢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

Well, you know, that was a big difference with, like, track and field athletes, you know, like at LSU, was that it's an individual sport. Like, you can't hide behind someone else. Right. And so, I mean, our coaching, it's a weird sport because, like, we travel. Like, we didn't have a curfew. We traveled co-ed. And it was like, well, if you fuck up, we're just going to stop bringing you to things. Like, so you're left to be dumb.

Like, don't do good in class? Cool. off the team you're off the team that's real easy get your get your uh pack and slip and you're out of there right yeah you know i i find it uh you know interesting like how long you and i've been around each other you know and we go back to some of those fat owl days. Dude. I think the fat owl is like dead. I got to be honest with you, man. You made such improvements over the years.

Listen, I know what's going on here. I know what's going on with Slingshot. We're going to start making briefs soon, and then it's going to be a Slingshot that you can wear as a shirt. I get it. And then we both balloon back up and get back into geared lifting. I do have lawyers. This is all proprietary information. You're not supposed to be releasing this information quite yet.

It's the slingshot with the back. What's this owl thing about? Fat owl. I think we'd met years before. I'd come out here and actually trained. Champion, question mark? At the original super training champion question mark at the original super training right oh not the original but um when you were still at midtown and i came out and

trained and like uh we ended up doing some shirted stuff and working together and then ran into each other at the arnold and i had glasses and i was fat and like no facial hair and i remember like we chatted for a while and then you'd like said something to burdick you were like who is that like like you knew you knew me and like you know it's one of those like i know who that is but i can't ask yeah he's like in person or something yeah and uh and he's like that's matt vincent he's a world champion in the highland games and you're like world champion looks like a fat owl Not wrong. Yeah, the fat owl. I was thinking about this, too, like on the way here.

I was like, I bet your team could find, like the first time I was on your podcast, because we were at the old gym, right? The difference that we both look. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Since then. Like, I'm 70 pounds down. Yeah, you were on the original podcast. I mean, a lot of people aren't aware of the greatness that they're in the presence of right now.

In fact, yes. Because you've set records on our podcast. That's true. Yeah, I've been a good guest. Most waste of people's time. I mean, you're definitely on top of the list. That's not ideal. Worse? No, no.

But, like, we've had you on the podcast a shitload of times yeah one with kelly stirret where we went like three and a half hours or something like that and uh yeah we've been breaking all kinds of records doing this stuff man but yeah we both made a lot of progress we both made uh a shit ton of changes yeah yeah a lot well i mean but i think you get that sometimes if people say people say you change so much, almost like in a negative way, do you get that sometimes? Yeah, of course, right? I've definitely got people now, especially with the YouTube.

Wow. Oh my gosh. He looks like he's been stung by bees. We are both off the team. He looks like Macaulay Culkin at the end of My Girl when he's dead from bee stings. I think he's dead from bee stings. I think you still wear that sweater. Is that your brother?

It is, Andy, yeah. Oh, my God. Also no beard. I think we were also pretty lit by the time we got there. We went to Burger Saloon and drank too much. You're like a different color.

Like, how did you get that pale? It's winter. I don't know. Yeah, that's peak performance, though, man. Oof. Well, that is not wrong. Yeah. That is peak performance, though, man. That is not wrong. That is the strongest and most athletic I have ever been is there. I now look like an athlete.

Well, so that's a thing that you tend to kind of undersell. LSU, that's not chump change going to LSU. That's a big deal. Yeah, track and field there was fun. They rock in track and field. Yeah, they're very, very good. They're good in baseball. They're good in football.

They're good in a lot of sports. Yeah, big D1 SEC school. And track and field was cool. Like, I wasn't okay. I think my best finish during college track and field was I took a second at an SECs in shot put. That's huge. Yeah. Never went to nationals or anything like that.

And as shot putters go, I mean, even though you were chubbier, you weren't huge. Shot putters are normally huge. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely some big boys. I mean, you guys have had Reese in and stuff like that. And, like, Reese is a big boy. He is. And he's easy to underestimate looking at the guy.

Like, you wouldn't think a ton. But the guy hasn't done anything over three reps his entire life. Like why would you? He's got to be super fast and explosive for a half second and then hang out for 10 minutes. Yeah, we did some higher rep stuff when he was here and he was dying. You mean like fours? We were doing sets of eight in the warm-up.

He's like, I'm not used to this. No, terrible. He's like, my legs feel weird. I was like, that's a pump blood flow. No, he's done nothing but build super dense muscles since he was 10. He's a mutant.

Yeah. He's a mutant back to the changes. You get people kind of, yeah, of course. Right. Because I mean, I kind of,

the YouTube stuff went that way a long time where I was doing like vlogging and I had done like a daily video essentially for a couple over a year, you know, over a year. And for the following I've built there, it's one of these days something's going to catch. And but it's going to change, man. Like I'm not competing anymore. And like then I'm injured. Like I can't throw. I can't even lift the way that I wanted to lift and like I did a bunch of videos you know documenting recovery and coming back from knee surgery and

like I had eight surgeries in three years like how many times I gonna document that surgery again like I don't want to tell that story anymore it's been told and so it needed to change and people are like you know I originally I got on the channel because you were throwing and doing this. I'm like, cool, man. There's other channels. Find one that you're into. Like this one's changing. Deal with it.

Yeah, I don't do that anymore. And also, where were you guys when I was doing it? Because like maybe it didn't have that many views or something. Right, right, right. I'm thinking the same thing about teaching the bench. Like can you do a video talking about the lockout? You mean the other 10? Yeah, we've done a million of them.

There's a search function right here on YouTube. Well, I looked at, like, I went back the other day and looked at, like, old videos, right? Like, my first ones. And there's some really good stuff that I need to revisit and do throwback to. Because, like, I have a video where I go carry the Husserfell stone in Iceland and the guy with me cheering me on is Magnus for Magnuson. This video has got like 380 views.

It's like no one gives a shit. Holy crap. And like, yeah, that's what I was doing. And things have changed. How have you been able to make a permanent change? Um, let's just kind of say like, uh, we can talk about mindset and other things later, and things have changed. How have you been able to make a permanent change?

Let's just kind of say like we can talk about mindset and other things later, but just from a physique standpoint because that's a huge thing for people. I was just talking to Andrew earlier today, and I was like, we could get you abs probably in like six or eight weeks. We can buckle you down, and we can really focus on it. And Seema's got a lot of great information. I got a lot of good information, and we can get you there. If And SEMA's got a lot of great information. I got a lot of good information and we can get you there. If you follow it. If that's what you want.

Right. You'd have abs. But at the same time, it's like, what's next? You know, what's next? And so for you, this process has taken many, many, many years. This hasn't not been a 12-week program. Three years is essentially when I first started losing weight from 285 to where I'm at now at 230.

Lose, gain, lose, gain. Yeah, it's a little bit up and down, right? Because sometimes you know that you've lost weight too fast and it's not sustainable. And so if you maintain that, at some point it's going to crash and then like, well, if I'm only eating 1,200 calories a day right now, how do I cut more calories? What, am I going to go to 800?

You can't do that. And then your body's just like, cool, we're starving. We're not getting rid of shit anymore. And so, I mean, ideally it's eat the most you can and still lose weight or, you know, make, make those changes. And for me, it was, I can't be fat and weak. If I was going to be fat and, and able to compete and be strong and be the best in the world and the thing that i gave a shit about then like we're building this for a purpose this is the machine that we're building and it's built to perform and it does its job well i don't need it to do that job anymore and too like i can't train the way that i really love to train which was how i was to compete you know really explosive stuff and being fast so i can't train the way that I really love to train, which was how I was to compete, you know, really explosive stuff and being fast.

So I can't train that way anymore. So I've got to make changes. And I operate much better with a carrot out in front of me to chase. And so like, OK, cool. The new goal is weight loss, which means fuck strength. Fuck this. We're going to lose weight. The scale needs to move. And just the same way you attack strength. Fuck this. We're going to lose weight. The scale needs to move.

And just the same way you attack strength, maybe you took it to an extreme sometimes and you're like, well, I better pump the brakes. Of course. I lost weight too fast. This doesn't really look good, right? Yeah, yeah. It just, you know, you end up losing too much and you lose that full feeling of actually having some muscle. And one of the hard parts of doing keto as long as I did was it's really tough to get a pump on keto. If you're really deep in it, like you just don't

ever feel it. And so, I mean, you can do a ton of volume, but it's not going to build muscle the same way because you're in a deficit. And there's people right now complaining, you know, that are listening to this. They're like, you can build muscle on keto, but of course you can build muscle on keto, but it's really hard to build muscle on a caloric deficit. Right. And at the end of the day, whether that three years, whether it's the eight plus months, I did carnivore very strict or the two and a half years that I maintained keto or, you know, the vertical stuff I'm doing right now and still dropping weight.

It doesn't matter which of those you choose weight loss and weight gain are independent of the type of diet you want to run. If you want to run a diet to lose weight, you have to be in a core deficit. Also independent of your training. Yes. They don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. They can.

I mean, you can, you know, you can do a workout that you could dense the workout and you work out a little faster and maybe you burn more calories. Maybe. Maybe somebody can make an argument that it burns a little bit more fat. What percentage are we talking about, right? Like 100 extra calories during your workout?

We're talking about a Hershey's Kisses. Yeah, it's not a huge difference whether you're doing sets of five or sets of 12. No. I mean, the training is a must, just mostly for me for sanity. Like I need it. You know, I need that to keep to keep things moving because for training for me allows. It's like I can make the body do a thing that I don't really have to think about a ton. And so it's that mindfulness bit that the brain can start to be free and think about other stuff and solve problems that I've got with my life or day or work or problem solve because the body's busy and like dietary wise it just was something that like i need rules that are very very simple that i can't build myself a loophole around i'm too fat inside like emotionally done uh like i'm too fat internally to do

a fit-fits-your-macros type thing. I will completely cheat and be like, well, this is fine. It's not this bowl of cereal that's the real problem. No one got fat off a bowl of cereal, as I say that for the hundredth time that week.

But the other stuff was really simple. It was okay cool i'm gonna eat meat how long can we do that i don't know let's find out tastes pretty good tastes pretty good and honestly like man i i'm stoked eating a ribeye and an avocado or a salad yeah i can eat that three times a day and be pumped i like the intermittent fasting i've never been a breakfast person anyway and i really like coffee. How dumb did you think it was when you first started to hear people talk about it?

When I started hearing people talk about it and acting like this was the magic thing to drop fat, I'm like, oh, come on, man. Like, nothing's the magic thing. Right. It's still a deficit. And what this does was shorten the window up that I'm eating food,

so I eat less food. Like cutting out carbs. No, all the diets work. Eat less food. All the diets work. That's the thing. Like you can gain size doing carnivore and keto. Just eat a surplus of calories.

I don't like what you're saying right now. I think this is all lies. But you said right now you're doing the vertical diet and you're dropping weight pretty fast. Cause I'm still in a deficit. Cause you're still exactly still in the deficit. I'm curious if you go back, like would you have just wanted to do vertical rather than doing keto for so

long or no, no, no, no. So what was keto for them? So keto essentially for me was I needed a change and I needed some really strict rules to, to figure out how many calories I'm eating,

what portion size looked like, because these were things that were just fucking out of control. And so being able to do that for as long as I did gave me some real insight to what food was. Also, I think keto gives you a chance to clear your gut of, of trash and of bad, uh, microbiotics and stuff like that. I think, I think that plays a really big part in it. Like one of the easiest ways I kind of describe it to people is like, you know, that the first two weeks of getting rid of sugar, like that craving you get for sugar. Your body has yeast in it and in the gut. And so yeast, in the same way they make beer, shits out alcohol, which makes you fat, and converts the body that way. So the same way you make beer, the yeast dies when it runs out of sugar and stops making alcohol in the beer. Well, the yeast in your stomach and gut dies when it stops getting sugar. And so that's what the craving is is the yeast actually

telling you i'm fucking dying get a sugar well it's a good analogy because it it helps explain you know why can't we just have a snickers bar and be totally fine for a month i think at a 75 of them because your stuff your stomach is like wanting it. Well, it's because it's sick. They're used to it, yeah. Yeah, you've taught the machine that this is what we eat. And so it learns to digest garbage, kind of. And it'll digest that bullshit better than the regular foods at first, right?

Right, at first. And so, man, your gut health is a big part of it. And so learning that bit and then saying like, okay, so let's get through this two week period. And then those cravings do go away. Now your shit changes, your poop changes a little bit. And it has this weird streak where you kind of smell bread and like beer and your shit, but then it's gone. you fucked this up by adding that back into your diet. So you just stay strict. And I handle food and diet like an addict. It is. I just have to eat good this meal. I'll deal with the next meal when I get to it, but let's just make good decisions. This meal right now. Well, I don't know what dinner is going to be. I'm not saying like, you don't ever get, you know, I don't ever get that Snickers bar again, or I don't ever get a piece of cake. Let's just eat this meal, right? And then we'll eat the next one, right? And then build that momentum. And then at some point,

like you feel good. And I mean, people with keto, it, to me, it just got crazy with, with people wanting to follow the rules. And so I still get questions with that. Like, are you following keto? And I've answered now for the last year, despite that being, I am doing a higher fat diet. I'm not tracking ketosis. So I'm not going to tell you I'm doing keto. I'm doing a high fat diet. My main fuel source is going to be fat.

But if I'm not tracking ketosis then i'm not doing keto and doing carnivore isn't necessarily a keto diet you know what i did think both of those really helped that don't get talked about is both of them are gluten-free for the most part and i don't really have a ton of food allergies, but gluten still causes a ton of inflammation. That was another really big benefit for me that got me changed and sorted was whatever I can do to steal a couple points of pain away from my knee. And for the last three years of being in chronic pain, if I can do an anti-inflammatory diet and I don't have to take medicine that fucks up my stomach, cool. Let's try that. Let's try it.

What's the harm in that? And then you have an opinion. People get so worried, too, about not eating any carbs. If you're doing a carnivore diet and it's like, well, there's going to be days where you kind of mess up you know so it'll like auto regulate anyway you're going to eat some carbs here and there and you'll have some glucose you'll have some carbohydrates back in your system and we know that you don't necessarily need them you know to like sustain life but correct they can be crucial in terms of like your performance and that's probably why you shifted into something more like the vertical diet

but something really important to point out is that your metabolism changes a lot. A lot of people talk about the metabolism, but basically you had a certain energy requirement when you were heavier. Yep. And your sleep probably wasn't as good. You were probably a little bit more lethargic.

Even though you got a lot of work done and you were still productive and you were a world champion multiple times, you were still able to produce. a world champion, uh, multiple times you were still, you know, still able to produce your caloric requirements were probably lower at that time because you were fat or your body fat, your body fat percentage was much higher. Yeah.

My metabolism was garbage. And so now you have your metabolism kind of working in your favor and now you can feed it things that will allow your performance to be better, which will, uh, also alter the metabolism. You know, people always kind of forget about the training. The training is a huge element. There's so much that can be done through the training once you get kind of over the hump.

But the way that a lot of people should be looking at this, and we talk about like the white belt mentality a lot here is you should kind of think about it as progressing from one belt to another sure when you're dropping weight when you go from being 270 to 260 you should be like i now have the knowledge to be in the 260 to 250 range and i'm not going to go back the other way they don't take a black belt and make them a white belt ever again they your black belt forever is my understanding of how it works. So you want to try to progress and kind of kiss all that shit goodbye that happened in the past. Man, it's really tough that once you know a thing to purposely ignore it. Like that one's always been really hard for me because like then it's a choice.

Like it's one thing that you can say like, look, they don't know better. But once you know and people are educated, like it's really hard to be like, fuck it. I'm going to plow through this anyway and then complain. And there's so much of that. It's that white belt mentality. Like take time to learn. It's amazing when I first started saying like, okay, I'm injured. Now the goal is I'm going to drop weight.

And people are like, okay, cool. So you're going to drop weight and people are like okay cool so you're going to do keto uh what are you thinking about cheat meals and i'm just like what the fuck are you talking about i've had 34 years of cheating like let's let's hit the brakes a little bit and accomplish some shit before we start giving ourselves this pat on the back like do the work and suffer a little man like we've been on easy street and man the diet is so much more a part of it than the training the training for guys like us is it's gonna happen it's not a thing that's like well i have to go to the gym it's like i'm going to the gym this needs to happen, so I keep my shit together.

And, yeah, there's tons you can do, right? Like whether you want to do fasted cardio. There's a bunch of little tweaks and things like that, but you're not going to eat like trash and still do fasted cardio in the morning and think that that's the answer. Like those 45 minutes didn't undo the 3,000-calorie Saturday you had. Or the 3, or the 3000 calorie Saturday afternoon.

Yeah. You know, people that ask those questions like, man, I'm doing keto, uh, you know, Monday through Friday. And on Saturdays, I like to have a couple of beers and hang out with my friends. I'm like, Oh, cool. You're blowing it. Cause what, I mean, what's weight loss. Ideally one to two pounds a week is super sustainable and you can kind of do it.

And it's real weight loss instead of your body freaking out and needing to put it back on. So just people want that if it's one to two pounds a week, like weight loss is still like what? 3,600 calories equals a pound. So you have to be in a 3,600 calorie deficit during the week to lose a pound. You can fuck that up on a weekend and gain a pound. Especially if your weekend starts on like a Thursday. As I like them. Yeah, Thursday night football and then they're eating and doing all kinds of other shit and getting way off track.

I've always given my friends a hard time because essentially I don't have a job, like a real job. A real job. Yeah, we'll call it a real job. I've had real jobs, and what I currently do is not one of them. Yeah. And so I'll just all of a sudden be like, well, it's a freaking weekend, man. And they're like, it is Tuesday.

I'm like, exactly. Don't have weekends anymore? Yeah. So, I mean, you handle it from meal to meal. Do you still eat any of that trash you eat like ever? Yeah, I'm a human do you yeah i'm a human every once in a while like uh every once in a while future me has to deal with today's decisions okay and so like every once in a while man like yeah like if i'm gonna go to a celebration and

someone's gonna have something that's awesome i'm gonna eat good you know or the rare times that i've decided to go to the movie theater. Like I'm going to eat a bucket of popcorn. Isn't the end of the world like sorted out the next meal or whenever I do that, that's when it's really easy for me to switch back and be like, okay, the next three meals are going to be carnivore. And it, and it rebalances, but it's got to be less than less than 5% of your meals get to be a fuck up because that's still a 95% average. You're still in the A range. You don't get to make C's all day and hope it's good to go. Like you can, you can just backtrack so fast making poor decisions with it.

And I just want to keep playing with it. And it's still deficit versus surplus, whatever it is you want to do. And so now that I've reached 230, I want to get a little leaner, but stay here and see what I need to stay here and live at 230 for probably the next 90 days so that this has now become a new set. And my body's like, okay, we can do 230. This really isn't an issue. And when I say 230, I mean 230 to 240. Like, as long as it is 23, I am claiming 230. That thing could be 239.8. We are 230, my friend. I think it's important to have a range.

You know, everybody, like, if you're a lot lighter, then, you know, 10 pounds would represent a larger percentage of your body weight. And it might not be wise to have a 10 pound range. Not a bad idea. But for guys that are, you know, 220 plus, it probably makes some sense. But I always thought that was important. A three to 5%. Yeah. You should have a little, a little cushion, you know, think about, you know, just it's

okay to gain a little bit of weight. Well, stress, water, salt, like all these types of things. I don't track sodium in my diet. And so. Yeah. Hopefully nobody does. does oh i live in the south man everything's covered in salt deliciousness so like i'm gonna get the bloat and that's fine what's the simplest way to tell someone about you know a nutrition plan like what is what what's the way that you could sum it up the easiest to somebody that is uh you know, 290 pounds right now and they haven't, they just haven't figured it out. The easiest thing, I always try to equate this, like, how do I answer that? And it is like, I need to have a conversation with my mom who's

never trained, has never educated herself on any of this. Right. And I'm like, okay, here's your diet. You get to eat these three things. And these are the only three rules that you have to follow all the time. Did it have a face? Cool. You get to eat that. Is it a green vegetable? The other thing, if it's not one of those two, it has to be identified as a single ingredient. That's it. In fact, for the next six weeks, eat as much of those as you want. Like, it's hard to fuck that up. Like, man, and people with keto get weird on fruit because it's got sugar in it. And look, I've seen a bunch of episodes of my 600-pound life, and they have never carved someone out of a house surrounded by banana peels.

It's the apples, man. man like that's never been the instance you know what i mean i promise it ain't the fucking bananas keeping you fat it's the egg rolls not the ecstasy i'm sick like no man like big picture items like let's do these three and do them correctly for a long time and then we can adjust and like if we're doing that and we feel better but we're not losing weight let's figure it out in fact if you haven't ever dieted or given a shit about your your food intake if you follow those three you'll lose weight because your body's going to dump a ton of inflammation out of your gut and fuck just cut alcohol out you'll probably end up eating less you'll probably end up

eating less you'll probably get more nutrients right you're eating better food obesity is a nutrient deficient disease and i think people always think they're getting a surplus you know something to think about with the ingredients is like take some eggs right i think everyone like digs eggs for the most part you take some eggs right and then you add in like cheese okay now we're at now we have two ingredients we just made the eggs taste better now what if we wrap it in a tortilla and what if we throw in sausage and what if we throw in a little bit of potato now we can have a fucking party with that thing and eat those damn things all day long because it tastes so good it tastes great like you don't know how to stop yourself from eating it. Man, some meals, like you get celebrations and you get time in your life that it's time to party.

Like enjoy those parts of your life too. But there's plenty of meals that are just fuel. And treat those that way. Those are the ones that like we track and I don't fuck up. So that the once a month I'm going to be at a thing or if I'm in Miami on a trip, like I want a Cuban sandwich, I'm eating it, you know, because if I got hit by a bus that afternoon and the last meal I had was just a bowl of chopped up old microwave steak, I'm super bummed. You got to live too too. And so find that balance.

But it ain't a 50-50 balance. It's like a 95-5. And you've just got to hold it. It's got to matter to you. If it doesn't matter to you, then it isn't going to work. And any of your friends and family who don't understand your diet and this, fuck them. They don't have to understand. Same way they don't have to understand your goals. They don't have to understand same way they don't understand they don't have to understand your goals they don't have to go to the gym give the shit if they

understand what you're what you're trying to accomplish in the gym find people that do stick around them get rid of those losers it has to uh it has to matter enough to you like you know you can't can't let shit like slide downhill you know because it starts to slide downhill fast. You're like, okay, well, that wasn't that big a deal, and this isn't that big a deal, and that's not a big – it's like, oh, man, okay, well, now you're really messing with fire. You can really quick be like, it's not the one meal that made you fat. Well, you say that enough. It's not the two – yeah. Yeah.

It isn't the week of shitty meals. Yeah. It isn't the week of shitty meals. Like, and the big one for me is like, as much as I travel, it takes a long time to change your head to, I travel. Like I, this isn't a vacation. Like I travel. So I don't eat like I'm on vacation. I eat the way I'm supposed to eat. I've also got to a point that it's very, very rarely to me of a meal or a trip that I've been on that the food remembers to be a highlight. Like I remember going to restaurants and conversations and being with the people I'm at, but I can't tell you what the food was on my plate, you know, but man, I needed that cake. Like I don't even have a thing to tell you about it. So if it's not going to register, gives a shit. Yeah. Eat the steak. Does the diet still feel like a diet for you at this point? Like you could, no, it is life. This is a permanent change. I feel better. I am going to operate this way. Impossible to think about that when you were heavier though, right? Yeah, of course. Like if I was like, Hey man, here's what you're going to do. And you're gonna do this forever you'd be like oh my god i'd rather yeah i'd rather

just blow my brains out right like oh man yeah god and i think about the stuff that i was trying to convince myself was healthy years ago when i was eating because i was big trying to do strong man and different shit like that just the surplus of calories i remember like oh cool chicken breast we'll eat a ton of chicken breast because that's what you do your meathead and so it'd be like chicken breast that i would put in a wrap and then cover the wrap with hummus and sriracha but i would eat it five times a day it sounds pretty damn good they're delicious yeah but i would panini press it too man but no like, of course that's not working for me. And I'm also drinking a ton at that point.

You know, not a ton, but I drink. I never really drank every day, but when I drank, I drank. And now I just don't. At all? Not really, man. Like one drink a month, maybe. Wow. Yeah, I remember you and I went somewhere in davis and you're like let's have a drink and i was like i don't really do that but sure yeah right right right we just had a beer or two whatever but yeah i i've uh i've been able to

avoid that yeah you know and the people that are lucky enough to be able to avoid that one i think that's huge because that's a that that's huge on your diet because you have a couple drinks and lowers your defenses and then you're like oh screw it i'll have some cake and i'll have this i'll have next thing you know and look and people i did outside sales for 10 years in the petrochemical field and so cement cement yes and uh so many times like it's really easy to because of your job like you'll convince yourself that like well i entertain and so it's weird to not have a drink if your client's having a drink or your boss is having a drink like order a soda water with a lime you have a thing in your hand it looks like a gin and tonic but it doesn't have any calories in it so just drink now if personality wise you feel you need to drink like sort your shit out you don't like man don't you don't have to be that dude i always thought it was kind of a cool thing

to you know uh just hold yourself to like a higher standard not that you're above anybody or anything else but just like just they're worse yeah yeah yeah you don't you don't need that like you don't you know that people uh you see people getting served bread and before the bread's even put down the table they're already like clearing it out pretty much and you can kind of just at a mexican restaurant it's the real hard one i know it is hard and with that one don't touch them either send them back yeah or don't touch a single one because if you touch one that gate has been opened yeah you're not turning back. But I always thought, you know,

like, why not just think of yourself as like, I don't want to, like the other people in the booth that are hammering the garlic bread

or whatever, I don't want to be like them. I don't want to look like them. I don't want anything to do with those fuckers. Yeah, it's not Jay Cutler. You know what I mean?

Like, I don't want to look like Jay Cutler but I want to look like him more than I want to look like Grimace. Right. They have different – They clearly have different goals, right? Right.

Slightly different body goals. So maybe there's something to learn from one side more than the other. And like whether it's been keto, carnivore, any of this, like there's still a lot that can be taken from – look what bodybuilders do. These are the most muscular, leanest people on earth and they are eating carbohydrates. Now, most of them, I really believe start from a much smaller size and it's taken a lot of work to get big. Whereas like I know myself and I know you, you want us to get big and strong. This is very, very easy, but it's going to be ugly. It isn't

gonna be pretty but we can put on size i think what you're down 100 pounds yeah i'm down 70 since my biggest i think we could probably put that 170 back on in 30 days if we had to it sounds like a challenge that's exactly right yep some big boys god damn i mean i graduated high school at like 265. I'm 30 pounds, 35 pounds less than I graduated high school. Like most people, the day you meet them, that's the lightest they'll ever be for the rest of their life. Yeah. They will just gain weight.

They'll just get fatter. Right. Like I am in, I don't, I don't know what happens. Like, well, you gain less than one pound a month for the last decade. It's because i'm getting older oh you're older it just doesn't work the same you've just been eating garbage for 10 fucking years that's always a good one it's because i'm getting older yep uh you know i actually don't even really know the science behind i don't even know how how much truth there is that i guess

maybe you can make an argument that uh when you're, you move less when you're 59 as opposed to nine years old. Oh, sure. And nine-year-olds sprint everywhere. Can you imagine living your life that way? It'd be so jammed. Yeah. They like run around and jump randomly. What a crazy person you would be if you just sprinted everywhere around the office from room to room.

Isn't that amazing? Put a foot tracker on one of those kids. Why do they do that? My daughter will still do that. She's like 11. She'll still hustle around the house. Because nothing hurts yet. They don't have bones.

Truth is, your bones are made of the stuff your muscles don't want. Everyone knows that. I guess maybe they're not thinking about it. No, they're not. And also, nothing hurts yet. Yeah. I mean, I think all at this point you'd have to do to really torture me is be like, we need you to sit cross-legged for five minutes. I'm like, whatever you need to know.

I'll tell you everything about it. You're like, that should hurt. How's this knee replacement thing going? Should have done it a year ago. Yeah. I've always heard that said from people who do it and it's it's just true it's different and so you were in a wrestling match and rick flair came out and he put you in the figure four leg lock couldn't get to that was it uh yeah you know it was eight knee surgeries

that didn't go well and that's really the weird spot about mine is there wasn't this fall like there wasn't a catastrophic injury that really caused anything that i had going on it was just wear and tear so i mean i did the whole highland game career i did without an acl then and that's really nothing magic people do shit without acls all the time now he's talking tough guy talk i like this i like where this is going uh i tore a meniscus and so i went in and got that fixed and when i talked to my doctor he's like well your knee's not in great shape or we don't have a ton of cartilage over here and this is looking this way like um you're on your way to knee replacement I'm like sick and so he's like so I was like cool we're gonna finish this season 2016 let's do the ACL replacement let's do a cleanup and do the

meniscectomy so I went in and did those things and the ACL didn't take. And so when I went back in for my checkup, like 10 days after the surgery, they're like, well, the ACL didn't hold. So let's do it again. So now I've had a second ACL replacement in four months. Went in and got an MRI done and it's gone. My body's just rejecting cadaver tissue for whatever reason. Another ACL. So now the knee's trashed. So we did this Oates procedure, which I really believe that one's the one that gave me the most trouble. And that's these, they cut these holes into the bottom of the femur and replace it with cartilage.

Like so cadaver cartilage. And so of the three holes – and we're talking about something 30 millimeter. It's like a quarter. They cut this hole in the bottom and they plug it. And one of them on the inside of my knee, the medial side just never healed. And so there's always this void behind it. And so the bone never quite got blood flow back. And so for the two and a half years after that, like every time I'd step or do something, it flexes.

And so there was this stabbing pain. And to the point of like you can't gut through it. It was just like a switch getting turned off of like, nope, we can't be in that position. So anything single leg support like I just couldn't do. So chronic pain changes goals really quickly from like I'd like to get back into competing like, nope, I want to not hurt. And chronic pain is tough, man. It make a coward out of anyone brings up some bad days and it just, it's, it's like having someone tap you on the shoulder the whole day while you're trying to be busy and get shit done and like pulling at your shirt

and asking you like, Hey, Hey, I need your attention. Hey, Hey. And as soon as you stop to give it attention, it doesn't give a shit. It just keeps saying, Hey, and you don't ever get to turn it off. And like, I see people that can freak out going through it, man, because I mean, like I've never really battled with depression stuff, but I bet it's the same way that it's, it's always this thing. And I think people just get so desperate with pain or whatever it is that it gets to this point of like I just need 10 fucking minutes man if you can give me this time that this doesn't hurt I can I can recharge and I can deal with it again but you don't ever get a break it's it's Chinese water torture and it it'll break you and it does depression never never uh settled in during all these

surgeries and stuff um i get weird post-surgery because of pain meds but i'd get off of them as soon as i could um i believe pain meds serve a purpose like if my pain gets above like an eight i need another option and that's what they're for but if you're taking them because your pain's at a three they don't work at an eight oh a big issue with taking them too is you're probably going to be less uh motivated to move around and stuff even though they can help you move around they can help you get up and down some stairs and stuff like that but the second that you start to not move i think is when people really run into trouble was that your situation you were you were still you know you're probably thinking okay i got the surgery.

This sucks that I had 97 surgeries, but I got to keep pushing forward. You have to. Well, because the business doesn't run. I still have responsibilities. I can't just sit. Like, hell, I don't, if I'm not working and creating and doing, like, I don't have a paycheck. And so it's got to get done. and doing like, I don't have a paycheck. And so it's got to get done. Now, how much can you compartmentalize and get the job done? But at some point during the day, like that cost is paid.

Yeah. And so like, you have to give it attention and there's, there's definitely dark times that came from it, man. It, it, it changed a lot and it changed a lot of my perspective. It changed a lot of what, what became important to me. And it, for me really got to this point of like, okay, so if this is how it is at 34, well then I can't do these things that I've been planning on doing. And that was really the first kind of moment I got of that of like tick tock because you don't know what tomorrow has like i don't have a guarantee that i get back to my hotel today and i i'm okay with that because i'm gonna do what i feel i'm supposed to be doing and living now and now that i've gotten to a point where I can do that, like it's different getting out of pain. Like there's a lot of great lessons that came from those years, but you got to get out of the woods to apply them.

And what if we just apply different words, you know, rather than saying I'm depressed, which is like, you know, I hope if somebody is depressed, they can admit it and talk to somebody else about it. But at the same time, for some of us that it just kind of feels sad on a given day. Why don't we just kind of understand that that's okay? It's totally okay to not be okay. Like, I'm fucking bummed. Like, this sucks. I can't move around the way that I once did. But applying the word sadness to it

just makes it seem like it's going to pass. Whereas depression, you're like, oh, man, I'm not sure how I'm going to get out of this, which're like oh man i'm i might not i'm not sure how i'm going to get out of this which is different when people are scared to ask for help i mean i've i've gone to therapy and sat and talked to people and have an unbiased party and i'm lucky to have the greatest network of people and friends to bounce things off thank you i appreciate it and there's there's still rough days you know because as much as the people around you and your friends who get it, they don't have the pain. It ain't their thing to deal with.

Yeah, so they're there when you want to call upon them, but they're not like randomly there just because you're like, you know what I mean? Like it might check in on you here and there, but for how long? How many years? How, you know, After how many surgeries? Because people still got their own shit. Right. Everyone does. And it isn't – they didn't bail on you.

You guys are on a different path. Right. And those paths diverge. And so I think about that with my old man getting sick with cancer and passing away. It's like while my mom was there and we had hospice and all these type of things, that's his fight. Like, you're not, you don't have someone else in there with you. That's your fight.

You're the sick one. And like, I can't, I can't go and understand it. And so pain, pain's a tough one. And like, I'll always have some, like, I don't know what a zero is. Something I learned from pro wrestling, which I learned a lot of amazing things from which is kind of weird but one of them was to check on people that get hurt like that's the thing that you all do as as a wrestler somebody breaks it breaks an ankle in a show and you find out they went to the hospital we all call we check in maybe it's not the same day maybe it's within a you know five day time frame or hey man how you doing checking in and i always try to do that

with you and then me and burdick would actually be like quite concerned about you and he and i would talk about you just be like why don't we call him i think he's on uh you know surgery number three or something man i don't know like you know how's he doing do you have you seen him lately like is he doing okay oh yeah he's looking pretty good and spirits seemed. Okay, cool. All right, well let's give,

let's make sure we give him a call. Like make sure we say what's up. Yeah, dude. And, and all of that goes a long way. Right. And I always think about that,

right? Like, cause I'll even do it myself with friends who've, who are in a bad place or whatever they're going through. And you're like, man, I don't want to bother and bring up, bring up the bad thing.

Right. But as someone who went through it i never felt hassled by by my friend checking in so like take that advice that like you're not hassling a man now you don't have to check in and need to hear their whole life story it may just be like hey i was just thinking about you wanted to make sure things are cool like anything you need how how are you and most of the time the answer is, wanted to make sure things are cool, like anything you need. How are you? And most of the time the answer is going to be like, yeah, man, things are okay, I'm fine, blah, blah, blah. But it's enough.

Like those little things, they make a big difference to people. And it's important to give value to that bad time, right? it's important to give value to that bad time. Right? Like another one that I've thought about through this and I get it a lot now is so many people will say a thing to me and they want to compare pain of like, well, you know, you're doing all this on this knee.

And like, like I, all I had was an ACL and I'm like, that doesn't make your thing not suck. Like we're not in competition on pain. Like there's an unlimited amount of it and yours isn't lessened because I've had more, you know, in the same, well, the same way of like, how many guys do we know that? Like I felt that way for a long time, like friends with Derek Carver, you know, a guy

missing a leg at the hip who's had 90 surgeries, you know, blown up and his other legs in bad shape. Like, fuck, am I going to complain about? Right. Like I have a leg. Well, you know, he and I are going back and forth and he's like, dude, I just want to say how motivating it is seeing you go through what you've gone through and like mind space. I'm like, what are you talking about? Right. And he's like, my leg doesn't hurt. It's a hassle, but I'm not not in pain and like that perspective changed a lot that like it's easy to think like i don't want to complain about the shit i got to complain about because someone's got it worse like it ain't a competition like everyone's dealing with shit and everyone's

dealing with a max amount of shit that they can probably handle right now. You think there's a specific reason why you kind of needed to go through those pains? I realize this is not like the knee was hurt from recreational stuff that you chose to do, right? Of course, right. So it's like an occupational hazard, I guess you'd say, right? There's a risk inherent with yeah the things we want to accomplish but at the same time do you do you feel like uh you need to kind of go through that for a specific reason or anything like that i guess you're still going through it too still going through it right um do i think everything happens for a reason no i don't um no there's

that sucks in this world that you can't look some someone's kid didn't drown while they were at work for a reason. Right. Shit happens. Right. Kids don't die of malaria because of a greater plan. Right. So, like, no, I don't believe that. But I believe you make the most of the cards that you're dealt.

And whether I want to piss and moan about it or not, this is the path I'm on. And I chose that path. I also wouldn't trade a healthy knee for the life experience I got competing for 10 years. And I'm aware of that. And I own that. This is the risk that comes with doing what we do. Like there isn't any safety. It's, it's, it's fuck your elbow.

You know what i mean like man chances are at and like for me i'll take the life lessons that i've got that have come with it and it's the life lesson of like make today count because you don't know how long you got and if i'm 36 turn 36 april 6th got knee replacement april 9th cool birthday uh like if that's the case and i'm halfway through my life to 72 which is relatively realistic for the way i've treated my body plus genetics and family history like that's 1860 weeks left to live. Right. And as of today of eight weeks post-surgery, I'm now 1,852 weeks and that clock's ticking. And whether I'm safe and I play it easy and don't take any risk, or I spend all my time compromising the same number of weeks, like both of those, both of those paths are always going to end in the same place.

And you can live the rest of your life as a dick or you can be nice or you could help change people's lives or you can, you could get got your choices, right? Right. And everyone's got their choices. And I think everyone gets to make a decision on what risk they're willing to tolerate.

And for me, it's, it's life experiences really on the thing I care about. I don't give a shit about a big house and cars or any of this type of stuff. It's life experience, man. It's conversations with amazing people and getting that perspective shift. And then it's putting stuff out there, whether it's the podcast or sharing my perspective on pain or any of this that maybe helps someone else do. That's the ripples that you get to leave in the pond after you leave and that's your best chance of immortality is the ripples left behind

and like how do you get to affect the boats left on the water and so i'm glad i went through what i went through but i'm glad i'm out of the woods to apply it and i'm not still stuck there apply it and I'm not still stuck there. And it's, it's a tough one because it's coming, going to get older. I'm going to hurt. I'm going to die. I just don't know when. And that's cool too. But I sure as shit, ain't going to wake up at 65 and say i could have done this or i wish i would have tried that or i always wanted to go to the grand canyon or i always wish i could have seen this like no man go you went to the grand canyon with kelly stirrett and tim ferris yeah that was a weird weird trip last year that's two weeks have you ever given up on yourself even if it's just for a day no no um because it doesn't do any good like i mean i guess a weird spot is is like uh you know with with my dad right like i mean dad

fought cancer and did all that and at the end finally uh finally committed suicide um i mean would have most likely starved to death that week, but had the chance and made his decision and hit the off button. I'm aware an off button exists. If I'm going to get to a point and give up and it's sitting there, I choose today not to. And it's always a choice. Like I have the right to make those choices every day and i don't i know a way out and i don't like that any better than i like the opportunity of what tomorrow is or could bring and i'm glad that i'm not in a spot that just thinks every day is worse than the day before and i really feel that for people that are that that situation, man, that depression's fucking ugly and it's

tough. And like having your ability and stuff stolen from you is tough. But one way that I think combats that is make sure that what you're not doing is focusing on comparison. Cause what is it? Thoreau has a quote that's not comparisons, a thief of joy. comparison, because is it Thoreau has a quote that's comparisons, a thief of joy. And there's a lot of truth to that, that it's easy for me to be like, well, fuck, man, you know, a guy that I talked to a lot through the knee stuffs, Brandon Lilly.

And what's easy for me to look at him and be like, I didn't even have a major injury. And he went and ran a fucking marathon on two of the shittiest knees that have existed in the last decade i'm like fuck that's not fair well there's a ton of shit that ain't fair what the fuck is fair mean like you dig your you dig your own grave you also weren't seven born seven foot two right or with the ability to play the piano when you were five or whatever you know exactly it'd be like it's equally stupid as if i was mad at haapthor for looking the way he does and I'm not a good strong man. If it wasn't for that high school coach,

I would have played in the NFL. Like, no, you wouldn't have. If I was 6'5". Yeah, right.

Congrats, you're not. You're not, dickhead. Well, if you were 5'2". Like, I mean,

your mom is still around? Yeah. Yeah, mom's still around, doing well. Has recently started keto or at least following dietary approach, trying to sort some things out. It becomes harder to ignore when the people around you – because Andy's healthy, you know? And so both of us are – like she sees the change that we've had in our bodies and how we feel and all this.

I'm like, you don't have to eat that way. And for her, it isn't the choice of eating bad they don't know that generation doesn't know right i mean look at us growing up like how many times did you go to a restaurant with your parents and probably suck down a three liter of soda oh yeah every time you know and never think about like oh my god i just put 2 000 calories of sugar in my kid. Like weird.

He has behavioral issues. This doesn't make any sense. Old people eat like they're in a hospital 24 seven. Right. Like they eat like shit. Yeah. They, uh, they eat like sweets and they eat like salad and they, they, this eat like really weird and they never eat like a steak or something.

Right. Old people we have to define as like our parents' generation now. Right. And they just eat like really weird and they never eat like a steak or something. Old people we have to define as like our parents' generation now, right? Because the generation of their parents did not eat that way. Right. My grandparents didn't. They lived to be millions of years old. My grandmother died at like 95 and smoked packs of cigarettes every day in her kitchen. Cigarettes are great. But the biggest thing for me is if I look at what she ate,

she really never ate processed food. She's from a generation that cooked and ate food. She didn't have that bullshit, yeah. I think the dietary shit we do is way worse than anything else going on. Yeah, old people eat wheat thins and these little snacks all day, and then they're not hungry enough to get to. And younger people are guilty of this too. But just observations, traveling and seeing people choose food in like a hotel or something like that.

And you watch them and they're passing by like the cottage cheese and the hard-boiled eggs. And it's like, can't we just make a little pit stop there? Can't we just grab a little bit of cheese? Just cover some of your plate. Get some protein. They're going for the granola. Like they think that that's healthy. Because we've been live to that.

That's been marketed to them. And so it's like, how many grams of protein did these people get in a meal? Ten? Right. It's like saying that Marathon Snicker bar is any different than the actual Snicker bar. What? That's all I've eaten for the last week it's sweet and then also ignoring sleep too right just sleep's a big one it just seems

like every like uh you know the previous generation they're kind of reaching for the medications whereas before them it was not really a thing right it didn't exist even my mom right so she came and stayed with me post-surgery like we're talking about diet stuff, and it's funny to hear what they'll latch on to and decide that that's the focus. So I'm explaining three simple rules of diet and then explaining some keto things to her. And then she asked me, you know, what supplements am I taking? And I was like, well, I've taken some collagen support stuff. And then apparently that's the only thing that she's missing. I'm like, no, you're not listening.

I saw them talk about this on Ellen DeGeneres. You said collagen. I'm like, stop. You don't need any supplements. You need actual food. Eat real food. And that's the big one. And I don't think it's a conspiracy or any of this shit to make people sick or the healthcare industry. Like it's – my grandparents' generation that are people that survived like the Great Depression,

they didn't have food and they didn't have the option of McDonald's or any of this until they were adults and already set into the pattern of food that they ate. Now, some made the move. But my parents' generation ate that shit – like from the time that they got free to start the move but my parents generation ate that shit like from the time that they got free to start making their own food decisions that they ate trash and then my generation we were just given trash from jump because because it's available we just didn't know any better like i just don't think we honestly knew and so it was like okay cool so we'll do less fat like if you want people to be less fat let's eat less fat that makes sense like that adds up

don't want fat have less fat perfect meanwhile let's get rid of anything in there that has any nutritional value and just put track like just filler of shit and of course your gut health dies and of course your body can't process it and like all these things whereas like you just have to be smarter with it like there's only two fat things on this entire planet it's people and animals that we feed that's it there's the only thing that's fat on this you're never like oh my god like how fat that zebra is it's only shit we feed right otherwise they die like that's how it works and like you gotta take some some stock in that that like it's your choice and the food's there just find a way to get some kind of control dude whatever single ingredient whatever method you got single ingredients pretty solid you know because like eat a cashew.

Have some macadamia nuts. Have like a pistachio. I don't even care what nut it is, but don't eat the honey roasted chocolate covered almonds. Come on, bro. Those are the best. You've ruined my whole life. You're so good. Chocolate covered fire ants, right?

Yeah. What's your favorite fat snack you miss? Oh. I love a lot of stuff. That's my problem, I think. Taco Bell. Ew. I love Taco Bell.

You know what? I haven't been to Taco Bell in a long time. I've been craving Taco Bell lately, too. It's killing me. You're trying to put on size. Go. Treat yourself. I don't want to get gross size, though.

Whatever, man. You got to get size first. We'll figure out how to shave that monster down once we get there. I guess I'm pretty boring. I like pizza and ice cream and stuff like that. All the regulars, but I love peanut butter cups. I'm a sucker for that. During your cuts, did you do any ice cream replacements of Halo Top?

No, no. When it was time to cheat, I was allowed to cheat. That real ice cream. Yeah, I was able to get after it a couple times, which nice oh my god is that me oh no manatees are the best but you were saying like you know things that are fat are just us and our pets basically right well let's take this guy well but manatees aren't fat right like it's the same thing as calling a hippo fat like that's what they're built to do because they need protection and buoyancy. That's their performance right there. They're just big bones.

That guy's fat, man. That guy's pretty fat. He's so fat he can't even get his arms down to his sides. Think about the bench stroke, though. He's got the... Oh, he's got a great bench. Yeah, easily. He's got the fat powerlifter bent elbow thing going on.

Oh, God, where they're just constantly stuck? Yeah, they're just stuck in this fat state. How much do you miss the glory days of powerlifting? Oh, my God. Well, I watched West Side versus the world, and it brought me back. It does, right? It was pretty cool. Did you get to see it?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved it. I thought they did a great job. I thought they did a good job, too. It's a complicated story to try to tackle anything at West Side, and Louie Simmons, and the whole thing. They did the absolute best job that I think you could possibly imagine, and I thought it was great.

You know, I think there's a couple things to look at, you know, that I think you could possibly imagine. And I thought it was great. You know, I think, I think there's a couple of things to look at, you know, that I look at strength, right? Like there's a couple of really important pieces. And for me, it was like realizing that some places have a gravity that you can't put your finger on. And like, whether that's the Husserl stone in in Iceland or Westside or another one to me was Dr. Douglas Edmonds house in Scotland. One of the places I stayed whenever I was over there. Dougie Edmonds like helped get World's Strongest Man going. His son Gregor makes all the implements for World's Strongest Man. And so like I was in his living room one day and there was a contest that I happened to be there for.

But like in the course of that afternoon, like asadrunas came in and picked up some things and left. And like Kaz has lived at that house and John Paul Sigmarus and lived at that house for a period of time. And then like Mark Felix came in and Benedict Magnuson came in and like these people came in and left. And it was just one of these things that like whether it's his house or it's Westside or it's the Husserfell Stone, there's a couple spots on Earth that if you stay there long enough, the strongest people come to you. You don't have to chase them. If you want to sit long enough at the Husserfell Stone, the strongest humans on the planet will eventually show up. And that's weird. It's a fucking rock it doesn't

care right it doesn't have a single feeling about it no and it's it's because they're just so driven by that one thing they just they literally just they want to get stronger they want to figure out a way you know how do we get stronger i do think i do think there was a couple things absent of the movie like obviously these guys are on performance-enhancing drugs, but I just thought it should have been something that was at least grazed over, you know, somewhere in it. You know, they did talk about, like, Matt Dimmel, and I realize that's not the direction of the movie,

and maybe some of these guys were kind of fearful that something would happen or whatever, but I just thought it should have just been mentioned. Even just saying that they compete in non-tested federations, like they choose to not be tested, that would at least give you an idea of like that was kind of one thing. And another thing I thought they missed out on, which I think is really important, is that myself and Dave Tate and Matt Wenning and some other guys ended up going on to be very successful. And it's because we were stamped by Louie Simmons and we were stamped by Westside Barbell.

Right. And I think that that's something that. How'd you get out of there without a Westside tattoo? Yeah, I know. I know. Right. I think that's, I think it's kind of cool. Like it's, it's different, right?

It's Louie is a mentor and he's also a madman in a lot of cool like it's it's different right it's um louis is a mentor and he's also a madman in a lot of ways and he's going to break a lot of people but some people that can kind of hang in there and uh yeah but you don't want a mentor that's balanced and lives no comfortably in the right headspace it's not going to change not going to change your life no you need you need to get close enough to that fucking fire to at least see it. Right. Right? And then people like Louis, like, people don't get it, man.

Like, he don't give a fuck. Right. Like, none of this shit, like the business or any of those type of things, it doesn't matter to him at fucking all. It is that gym. Bury me in it. Right. And most people don't have that.

And that's something that's not really mentioned in there at all, which I don't know how they would mention it, but, like, how successful of a businessman he is. I don't have that and that's something that's not really mentioned in there at all which i don't know how they would mention it but like how successful of a businessman he is i don't know if anyone knows you know what i mean yeah yeah i i think i mean first of all he lives in columbus ohio which is just different right but he's he's very very well off you know he's very comfortable yeah and which i think which i think is great because it's the American dream. Right. His wealth is a side effect of doing the thing that he loves and he's passionate about and only giving a shit about that passion. Like, I mean, that gym's moved and it's had rough fucking stretches.

And then, look, I mean, I bet CrossFit saved Westside. Yeah. You know, people want to get stronger. I mean, what amount of equipment has Louis moved through Rogue? Oh, yeah. Huge amount. Stuff like this, right? That's the marketing power.

Why did that movie get made? Why is the other stuff that's got made? Like, barbells are in more people's hands today because of CrossFit. Yeah. And, I mean, sure, shit ain't because of fat dudes in bench shirts. No, CrossFit went to Louis and bench shirts no crossfit went to louis you know crossfit went to louis simmons and he he ran their powerlifting certification course it's huge yeah it's huge massive and dude you need you need unbalanced people like that to

to drive for a while to see to push limits see what, what humans are capable of. And I mean, that's another thing too, whether we're going to talk about the drugs or, or any of those types of shit, right? Like, like powerlifting, CrossFit, whatever sports it is, all of these things can be healthy if you want to participate in them. Weight training is healthy. If you want to participate, build muscle helps your metabolism can get you stronger, support your skeleton. If you want to see the absolute

strongest that you can become as a human, this isn't healthy anymore. We've waved bye-bye to a thing. We are on a burn. Now, how long you get to burn before you get to get out safely? I don't know, but it's on a burn burn like i had a conversation on my podcast with uh stephy cohen and she was talking about the program that she ran to uh get her deadlift and she was like look it's brutal and this and that and i think i think dan green wrote it and she was like it was really really tough and that when i finished it like it took me six or seven months to to get my back to chill out again to start training heavy again she's like so you know that program and i was like well it worked and she was like well i'm like you wanted to be the strongest woman that's

ever existed and the program worked there are, but a program like that or pushing hard or any of those type of things. And we've all been in that moment that like, dude, you got to treat it like chemotherapy, that this will work as long as you can survive long enough to let it work. But on a long enough timeline, it wins and you die. Get out before then. And that's how it's got to be treated, whether it's the insanity of business or whatever it is like there's, and you get stretches of like, I can go, go,

go, go, go, go. Okay. Breathe. But eventually you'll lose. Are you frustrated at all that you got kind of shoved out because of the knee

injury? I don't know, man. Um, that, that's a weird, what if, right?

Like I would have loved to keep throwing, but you were like in the middle of it kind of, yeah well last time i competed i took second in the world yeah uh and then never competed again and i was still with the knee issue oh yeah yeah that was i got done to fix it like there wasn't it was just it was getting worse and so when i got out in 2016 the plan was take the year off, recover, and then get back to throwing. Is there something in your head about possibly being able to compete? Fuck no. Even just Masters or for fun or something? It's not just for fun.

What do you mean? What's just for fun? You don't think you could do that? No. I was too good at it for it to be just for fun. I know what the training requires. I know the cost for me to be as good and committed to it as I was. I know the other things in my life that'll suffer and I'm not willing to do that anymore.

And if that's the case, well then own that you're not willing to do it. And I'm not. And so, yeah, I'm in the same spot. I, you know, I remember watching videos of you and something that always stuck out was, you know, you would post up like your warmup or whatever, and your, your, these different stretch progressions you'd go through and stuff. And I was like, he just did like, I don't know, 15 or 20 different like stretches. He did all this warming up. He did all this stuff. And you're, you're following this program very specifically. And then I'd see,

you know, the next video you'd be out in a field throwing and you got like specific shoes on with fucking spikes on. And like, I'm just thinking to my head, this takes a tremendous amount of work. You know, here he is in his garage.

That's cool. Like a lot of people can go in their garage and train the people that have weights, but then to like load up your car with stuff and to go and put these boots on and do all these different things. Throw in a field by yourself. And yeah, completely. Yeah. Always by, always by yourself.

Always by myself. In the garage by yourself. I trained by myself and I trained and I threw by myself for 10 years. And I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, I can't do that. Like I can't, like that's. I can't do it anymore. That's not for me. Like I, I admire it. I think it's awesome. I'm like't like that's, I can't do it anymore. That's not for me. Like I, I admire it.

I think it's awesome. I'm like, shit, man, this guy is driven. This guy is going to be able to figure out anything he wants. There's, there's a lot that comes from that,

that you learn from, from that, that alone time. And, and for me, one of those lessons that I learned from it was I don't need anyone else to give a shit about this. I care. I'm going to do a shit about this I care I'm gonna

do this because I care and like I'm the guys that I competed with right like I'm six foot and was 285 at my my best throwing weight and the guys I competed against were they look like my brother they're they're six foot five and 310 the average size of the highland games pro have we ever figured that out what's this gotta be some weird milkman fucking deal brother looks like he could have played in the end did play shit fuck he did play he's also still throwing and not hurt like a different bag of genetics right like different skeleton different ability you should have kicked them off at. Maybe you can't kick them off the team too big. Is he doing as well as you were? No,

no, no, no, no. Um, but I mean, he did pro strong man for a while, played in the NFL.

He's big in Jack though. Yep. That's the point. And you know, moderately successful, still Olympic lifting. Yeah. And still trains hard and still doing Highland games.

He's 40 and hasn't had any significant injuries. Oh, man. It's got to be addressed. Oh, no. Yeah, Matt was trying to help. You can actually hear me in the video go, oh, no. I realize I'm in trouble. Matt was trying to make the slingshot go viral,

and this was his version of how to do it. It's on his Instagram. I'm sad that this is the most popular thing I've ever posted. That's awesome. How many views does this thing have? Three look good. 32,000. Oh, no.

Oh, whoops. Wait. The old triceps gave out. Okay, yeah, don't have a collar on the side so you can throw the bar off. I've got elbow sleeves on. I have a slingshot on. I got a belt.

I'm done up like the goddamn Michelin Man. There we go. Oh, it gets worse. Oh, oh. Watch my stupid legs flail around. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, God.

Oh, no. Matt, how did you make up that weighted side plank? Oh, God. You're such a fat kid right there. I was getting ready for the classic. It was like one of the last workouts I had before coming. It looked like a polished workout to make you feel really... Put that last little finishing touch on your training.

Yeah. Don't put collars on your bench. Tell us about hate. I know we've talked a lot about it in the past, but's just been a while since you we've had you on the show yeah um main thing i want to know to start out is how did you like and we would have talked about this on the podcast as well but what was the you know how did you make the make the decision to like dive all in you know i know i know with your pre you had a previous job for a while and you were contemplating and going back and forth and lost the job and said we're gonna give it hell yeah and so tell us about like kind of the progression of that and maybe

some advice to someone that has a job because we hear people all the time you gotta follow your passion and it's like hold on we need to slow down a little bit because uh passion is not going to pay the rent pay the mortgage or anything so i mean also just because you're passionate about a thing and you're willing to work hard does not mean you get to be successful at it like there are some other intangibles that just like you also have to want to make a thing people want right and so you know i had the opportunity, you know, I had developed a message over a couple of years and enough people were interested in it through the training manuals I wrote for the Highland Games and kind of talked about the mentality I had was the hate. And that

was really the thing that got me in the field by myself and training by myself was because I was a little undersized and I did have like I don't have the genetics of some of the guys I competed against. And so, but that's, it's not something to be pissy about. Like I can't do anything about it. I may as well be mad. The sky's blue.

And then maybe you just make a decision like, uh, okay, like I'm undersized, but I'm not going to let other people win because I'm not prepared. Right. Being outworked is a fucking choice. And then like being outworked is one thing and the

other thing that you can polish as an athlete that i don't think enough people do is be a competitor and for me like that's that's the other part like it's a spread hate and it's always party and they always party bit man was like i mean the big one it comes down to was i remember like world championship 2014 i'm in scotland my main competition uh the guy i'm throwing with and like we always went back and forth on on worlds um like we we are a half point away from each other going into the last event it's a heavyweight for distance which is a 56 pound you throw as far as you can and like this was a good event for me it's a good event for him and by this point like there's 12 people competing, but with a half point difference,

I just got to beat him and I win. And I remember feeling it and like getting ready for that event. And like, all I could think in my head was like, you haven't worked hard enough. Like for him, like you haven't out-trained me. You'll bleed to beat me today. See if you got it. Because I'm going to fucking throw far. Now, if you can out-throw what I'm going to throw, which is far, then you've earned it.

But I'm going to perform. And that's the part that I mean is like a competitor, right? That like, whether that or like getting a chance to turn it on at the Classic. I mean, I went into that with a bench pr of like 412 and benched 440 like i'm a gamer like now's the time to perform i am confident in that environment i've done it enough i spent 10 years doing 20 20 plus competitions a year and so like i'm real good at being able to flip that switch and have that confidence in myself of like when it's time to do a thing, I will perform and I'll get it done because I do. And I don't back down and I don't let the anxiety and butterflies take over.

Like those things are fire, man. We also have a lot of experience like in, you know, in, in your work, like when you were doing sales, which is like, you're, you're trying to sell something to somebody who probably doesn't want it. Or even want to see you. Yeah. They don't want it. Yeah. You're coming back around again this year to see if, you know, and they already know

they don't want to, and they already got their budget set and you got to figure out, I mean, all those things, they play into all this. And, um, I think it's a huge factor for people to figure out ways to to kind of fight through some of these things fight through some of that anxiety lean into it well i think so people are failure avoidant that it like well i mean how many people do you hear that ask that question of like well i don't want to do a meet and until i can hit these numbers or like what what numbers do you think i need like motherfucker i think you need to compete because if you don't know how this works and how I'm three out or what the feeling is and what seeing other people move around and like

being in that environment, you're not going to be okay if you got the numbers in training. It isn't the same. So you got to build that repetition too as being a competitor. isn't the same. So you got to build that repetition too, as being a competitor, know what it's like that morning when your guts are a little weird and not panic about it. It's like, well, it's cool. I shit three times this morning. I mean, I'm probably ready to go. Like that's a good sign, you know? And then being used to that or like, okay, I know my shoulder is a little stiff, but I know that if I spend a little bit more time doing that this morning before the adrenaline kicks in,'re fine and that comes with that

experience like you've got to be experienced and get those 10 000 hours as a competitor too to have that confidence because man when when it's good and when you know that you can perform there is no better feeling than on game day when things line up and all you have to think about is just pour the fucking coals to it and step on the gas pedal. There's nothing better than when it's all working. And it's just like, we're untouchable today. Let's go. But that only comes from having that time under the bar and having that time performing when it counts.

And so, I mean, whether that is cold calling people for a bunch of years as an outside sales rep. Like, give a shit about hearing no. Fuck it, Karis, move on. Like, cool. I had the exact same thing going for me before I heard no as I did hearing no. But I got to get so many no's to get to a yes. And it's a numbers game. And so, man, failure is a better teacher than success is. And so, man, failure is a better teacher than success is.

So Sarah Blakely, who I saw recently at a speaking engagement, she is the woman that owns Spanx. And like, you know, it's cool to see all these speakers get up at the summit that I went to. And, you know, she just knocked the shit out of all of them just because of like, you know, what Spanx is and what it got to and stuff like that. But it was amazing that her upbringing, she said that her dad told, he'd go around the table every week and he'd say, okay, what'd you fail at this week, Sarah? And if she didn't have anything, he'd be mad. He'd be like, no, every week we got to find something.

And then he would make a joke of it. So the kids would be like, well, they called somebody up, they asked somebody in the class if they wanted to be called up to draw a picture of a tree. And I really screwed it up and it was ugly. And a dad would be like, oh, that's great. Okay, cool. You know, and then they go to the next kid and whatever it was, try and volleyball or whatever. Well, I mean, this slingshot stuff is never going to work.

It's still not working. No, it's a terrible, terrible idea. I can't figure out a way to get it to go. You know, it just amazes me how many people are a failure.

I could use a sales rep. Perfect. You mean travel around to gyms? With a bum leg. I'd like to talk to you about the power of slingshot. I'm sure I'll dress like a Mormon. This is brilliant.

Hey, you already got it down. I'll get a little name tag that says Elder Matt. Pull it out of a briefcase with a web on it. Oh, man. I like this a lot. This is brilliant I get a little name tag says Elder Matt pull it out of a briefcase with the web on it oh man I like this a lot this is brilliant I'm into it where's that like competitive fire go now though work you know like whether

that's the podcast right like for me like I still get that kind of charge pre-podcasting because there's that moment of like um fuck man what are we gonna talk about what you were talking about right now yeah yeah right like that feeling of like okay and i'm nervous going in but i mean i've done 80 episodes now and it's never failed but i'm still nervous going in right like at what point do i just accept it like this is probably

gonna go okay like yeah but i think it's good for you to have that feeling to have that little bit of that that that anxiety the butterflies like that's why i do it and you still get that with like the other things that you're doing yeah yeah like whether it's a big release that we're doing for hate or something like that or business wise or making decisions or deciding to go do a bench only meet. Like it's just the ability to flip that switch and perform when I say fucking perform right. To tell the body that like backseat today, we're driving and we're going to perform because we said so. And that's podcast because you're tired, right? Like, you know, I have one of those. I spoke like I've been doing seminars up in Canada for this company, Good Life Fitness.

They bunch of gyms and stuff like that. And so I'm teaching their trainers. So we talk about submaximal training. And so I went and did one and flight got screwed up. I was supposed to get in at like 930 the night before. And the seminar starts at 11. I ended up because of flights and weather. I got in at like 5.00 AM and then hour and a half ride. Like I got to my hotel at 7.00 AM without any sleep and was at a seminar to teach at 11.

So I got up at nine and went to the gym and did an hour of training to, to, you know, get that reset. And then I did the five hours of seminar and talked. And at the very end of it, I was like, you know, I didn't sleep last night, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, but we're going to fucking perform today because this is what we do. Yeah. This is the job. And no one gives a shit about your excuses man everyone's got them and so like i get to pour that kind of fire into that and i'm trying to figure out how do you point that fire on other people so they feel it and they and they feel that bit of like fuck man we can do more it's ripples in the pond now it's it's trying to make that effect and it's you know the business and trying to figure

out what bits and pieces and figuring out that puzzle you know what grows it because i'm running a different business than say mark's running yeah i don't i don't want a home base to build a team out of because i want to travel constantly and go and do and so i've got people and then i've got people that are all remote whether that's my marketing people or any of these but i don't see them i mean most of the people that work for me i've never met in person wow and so i mean look there's cost that comes with that too right like advantages and disadvantages that sounds easy there's no there's no free, no, easy money out there.

There's no easy money out there. Um, and then it's now I'm starting to pivot and there's been a handful of companies that have reached out that want to work with me because, well, I've got a big network of people and I'm not full of shit and I can create content. And so I'm back doing outside sales again, essentially, which is cool. This is a skill I have.

I'm at a point where I'm not arguing that I'm a salesman. I know that this is what. And originally when you kind of started this, you probably thought, oh, this is going to be cool. I'm going to work for myself someday. And like, you're just totally not. Well, right, right. I did that, you know know when i had the bike shop

you know years and years ago and that failed and then i was like i will not work for me again sure enough here we are it's weird though because like i think the perception is like i'm going to do this thing i'm going to work for myself but you really there's really not such a thing you know it's just uh no you're just part of a team yeah you're always part of something the best thing that you're always selling to somebody yeah always and the big part of like you deciding that it's your name on the front of it where that really comes into play is when someone has a problem with what you do is you own it whether that's a fuck up with customer service a bad product or we designed a thing and then got in 200 of them or a thousand of them and they're shit. I eat that.

That's not this other guy's fault. I'm not going to tell my customers like, well, the people that we had made it didn't do a great job. No, it's my fucking fault. And that's where you get to be as the owner. And that's where you get to be as the owner. You're that guy that takes that hit instead of me saying, well, the lady who's sewing tags on that, you know, pay that it's her fault. Like, why would I throw her under bus, man? That's my name on it.

Like own it and apologize and don't lie to people. Make it right. How can we fix this? Some people just want to be pissed and that's fine. Yeah. But I mean, for the most part, like even just reaching out and being a human, people are into it. And amazing what that gives them because they think because of popularity or whatever else that you're not really a person. And it's easy that you'll never see this comment. So I'll just leave it.

Fuck, man. You know, it's you got to do it all. And I love getting to do what I do for a living now. I absolutely love it. And I want to continue to do it as long as I can. But I also don't have a problem if, if this fails, like I'll get a job, I can work like hard work's not a problem, which is great. Cause most of the people in my generation are fucking terrible at it. Makes it easy. Makes it easy to look good. Yeah, this is great. If I got to compete with you assholes for work the rest of my life, this is good.

I never had participation trophies, man. I don't mind failing. I don't need a pat on the back. You want to get more into like public speaking type stuff, you think? I like it. Yeah, I do. And especially when you hear someone do it who's good at it. I like it. Yeah, I do. And especially when you hear someone do it who's good at it.

Like a buddy of mine, Derek Woodsky, is one of my favorite guys to listen to talk, and he's so fucking good at it. And then hear him say, well, I started looking at public speaking stuff when I was 10. I'm like, fuck, of course you did. It isn't just an innate gift. He's like, well, I've got a speech impediment and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I've learned how to use alliteration and things to get around it and not say words that trigger it. And so it's always fascinating to see people's journey. And, man, chances are if they're on that stage and you're there listening to them, they've had it. Like they didn't get there free either. It's always been a fight.

at it like they didn't get there free either it's always been a fight it's it's those type of things and realizing like there isn't there isn't one day of business that makes her that makes your business there can be a day of business that breaks it you can fuck everything up all in one day but you can't build it all at once and so it's just got to be this steady hill climb. And there's always going to be a weird peak. But understand that spike that happens today isn't sustainable. And figure out how to hold on because when it slows back down, we still got to keep climbing. And that just comes with the experience too. I mean, do you have a moment in any of this that you would say, like, that was the day it changed?

No. Right. Whereas because I show up once a year or, you know, a few times a year and I'm just like, Jesus Christ, dude, what's happened since last time I was here? Oh, well, I guess, you know, because you're too close to it. Yeah. I guess it just added up eventually. We just kept reinvesting in us. Right.

And also on that point for people that are trying to like quote unquote make it, you can be in search of it, you know, by just working hard. But if you're really trying to look for it, you're actually never going to find it. But if you're really trying to look for it, you're actually never going to find it. Well, it's a weird thing to say out loud, but you're not going to find that one big boom. And you're better off just not even looking for it. No. And anything that we've ever seen that way, right? Like whether that's a musical artist that has a thing go weird and viral, well, then cool.

You're a person that never got heard from again. And I've never wanted that. I've always wanted sustainability. And, you know, for me, that's curbed a lot of the content that I want to create. Like I didn't want to do any of the trendy videos or any of this that could have maybe sparked. And maybe that would have changed things, maybe not. I mean, I also wasn't sitting on a ton of viral ideas i tried not to do so you know there's talent in that you know look at something like what bradley martin's done like there's a ton

of talent being able to do what he's done now i'm not that guy's target demographic he's not trying to sell a bunch of shit the 36 year old guy and so like realize that just because it isn't your cup of tea doesn't mean it's not valuable. And you got to be willing to risk it and you got to be willing to listen to the failure. Like that's a big part of it. You just keep making progress, right? Because I mean you can just quit and stop and that will be the end of it. That's a fail. that's a stop but you gotta you gotta just keep moving forward and whether that's the rehab or any of that like what's the other option I'm gonna sit on the fucking couch and quit be bored to tears how was

uh this was it summer smash that's summer strong summer strong yeah summer strong sore necks man that is of of the events that i attend every year it's it's in the top two and it's so good and it's so re-motivating and the one that makes summer strong different than a lot of stuff like whether it's the arnold or any of these things like the speakers at summer strong or the guest attending, like this is a professional strength and conditioning thing. These are NFL NCAA coaches. These are professional, you know, strength and conditioning coaches and no one there gives a shit about your

following. That is not the place. and a lot of these guys don't have hardly any following. They don't care about it, yeah. But they're insanely knowledgeable. Insanely knowledgeable, right? Because they've carved out their own niche and they don't have to play that game.

Or don't want to. Because, like a guy like Cal Dietz, right? Like, he's incredibly intelligent. A strength coach from Minnesota. A wildly talented guy with his training system, like triphasic and then the RPR stuff that he does with tissue work that, you know, kind of Paula Quinn did a lot of. Cal doesn't run his Instagram.

He doesn't give a fuck because he's making athletes better that he actually gets to put a hand on. And he's probably doing, he's doing just fine. Right. And so guys like that, like it's, it's a different thing. And so going to that type of event and feeling part of it. And for me, it's still a really big deal to me to feel respected by that crowd of coaches as an athlete and someone putting out content and not being a clown. Like, I don't want to be that looked at that way. And even if that meant my brand makes more money, I guess, okay, I'm, I'm doing fine. I'm not willing to pay that cost. And so it's like, everyone's got their own deal of success, but you don't get to, I don't get to bitch that the following's not bigger if i don't want to play the game and there's a bit of the game that you got to play if that's the goal

but if it if following isn't translating to more dollars and better target demographic then like i don't i don't want a bunch of trolls because they showed up for my 10,000 calorie challenge video. And now five videos past that are confused. Like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Like, why is he talking about rehabbing his knee all the time? Like, I'd rather have people who give a shit, you know. Are you still vlogging? You still filming a lot of these things?

Yeah, I still travel and film quite a bit. And it's slower than it was. And part of that just I switched to giving more of a shit about the podcast because the vlog got weird, man, because my group of friends got weird. And so, like, we've known each other a long time, and it's one thing that if I'm going to go and travel and be around someone who also does that for a living, you know, Meg or any of these other people I'm friends with or Bart and Gio like they're not weirded out by a camera but becoming friends with like Kyle Kingsbury and Aubrey and those guys that

on it like I'm not bringing a camera into Aubrey's house around those people while I know this would be content people want to see. Well, then I'm a fucking outsider and I'm not invited. I want to be there. So that's my time. Or I didn't post anything of two weeks of that Grand Canyon trip with Tim Ferriss. I'd rather Tim be a friend than me exploit him for a bunch of fucking strangers that I don't know to be stoked that I was near him. Well, it's also like just respectful. I mean, you know, Aubrey Marcus, Kyle Kingsbury, Tim Ferriss, some of these people, they might be like, wait, what are you filming for?

Right. You know, like they're. Like, man, this isn't why I came on this trip. Yeah, they're not. Yeah, they're not. You might be kind of like ruining their trip. Exactly. And be aware of that you know and so for me it got to a point where the vlog i felt a bit disingenuine not sharing my life because my life was doing weird things and but i didn't feel so

connected that like i have to share this like it wasn't worth the payoff like i'd rather the long term of like build relationships with people i really like that are that are interesting you know i'd rather be able to see those people when i come to town and be treated as a friend and not okay cool he's gonna be here we gotta film and then fucking turn on like i don't want i don't want it to have to be on because i'm around like i'm okay with us cooking some food and sitting on the couch it's because i want the relationship it's easier and more fun yeah yeah like the time and the place to work and then figuring out the separation of those two yeah helps you know like i tell people all the time like i've known you a really long time.

And it took a while for me to understand like the difference in Mark being on for work. And then the guy that I've known a long time sitting on the couch shooting the shit. Right. And so I was like, okay, this is what we got. Right. And realized that my ongoing to lunch with customers for the petrochemical job is not the same dude that's sitting here talking about this. Right. And this isn't the same guy that's sitting at my desk editing. Right.

Like there's, everyone's got different, different gears to put in. And so it just felt a little weird to keep vlogging and choosing not to share stuff, but then talk about like, well, I did blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, you didn't show any of it. I just rather not mention it. Yeah, it's not as exciting and stuff. No, I know what you mean. I mean, you don't want to film every aspect of your life and have so much out there all the time.

I mean, sometimes you just don't even want to film or be filmed yeah you just want to be present yeah you just want to be doing your thing there's also nothing worse than spending today editing yesterday takes a toll why don't you like hire someone for that stuff or is there just you like you want because i'm so on the road right so then i've got a like then it becomes weird too right like of some of these situations i'm in like i don't want to bring a third on the grand canyon for two weeks with me to film i don't want to bring this third you know this third party who isn't friends with the guys that i'm hanging well yeah to bring a camera also maybe that's different if I've got 10 million subscribers in the group, but I'm not that dude. Yeah.

Right? Look, if Tarantino wants to show up for lunch and bring a camera guy, like, no one's going to piss and moan about it. Meanwhile, I show up. I'm a dick. Eight weeks past your surgery. Yeah, total knee. Eight weeks eight weeks man you got a new knee got a whole new knee and uh is there any pain not in the joint i still have some surgical pain like it's stiff and so i'm still working on range of motion and my hip's a little jacked from walking

around on the limp for a couple years and i've only got one good butt cheek using any like uh anything to help with the pain uh as far as supplements go mind bullet cbd oil any of those things anything like that yeah you know mind bullet kratom have been good um i've been using kratom chris put me in touch with that a long time ago and uh it's been a really great change um i knew a long time ago that opiates are a thing i have to stay away from um now with that said like they serve a purpose like i said if your pain threshold hits that eight like you need a thing and that's why they exist but the medical industry doesn't operate with like but i'm always in a two they're like well ibuprofen i'm like cool kill my liver like that's the option like destroy my

insides and ruin my gut health and do all these other type of things whereas you know uh cbd uh whether i really really like smoking cbd so um a couple companies like blue ridge hemp and um cured nutrition both make a bunch of great c options. Um, so I like smoking it. Uh, the tinctures are great too, just really easy. Um, and then topically it's been really great. So I'll actually use a CBD oil or rub and then do like fascial and scraping and stuff over the injury. And I get a lot of relief from that. Um, and then marijuana has been really big for me, especially with down regulation, being able to sleep, those types of things. And then turning off the insanity that is going on in my head constantly of go and do

and this and I need the hamster to get off the wheel for a bit. You mess around with any like mushrooms or anything like that? Mindsets wise or just for whatever reasons? Yeah. Yeah. Of, uh, what are those things do for you? I like it a lot. I think I'd recommend it and I think if people are ready for that journey.

The big one for that one that most people aren't ready for is that if you're going to go down that route of psilocybin is you're handing the keys over. You don't get to unring that bell. Once you've decided to start, you don't get to get out. You're on the ride and just listen. And there's place, you know, set and setting is the big one.

So I've had good trips and I've had bad trips, uh, you know, good trips, like easy one, like man, go for a hike. Things are great.

You're outside. And like, there's so much input that the mushrooms get to deal with. And so like it's like the vibrance has just been turned up like on what you're saying. So everything's just better. And I end up walking around and like breathe really heavy. And I just like giggle like some stupid thought kick in and like plants get a little geometric and uh stuff like that but then i've also took some getting ready to go on a hike you know a pretty big dose and the hike we were on

was really bad like it was this paved quarter mile thing instead of the five or six mile thing that i'd planned and so like i was back at my truck like when things got back into me and so uh ashley drove at the time and like we'd end up going to like this brewery and we were gonna hang out there and like i remember like i'm gonna need a minute in the car to get my shit together before we go into this place and so like finally felt like i had it together and i walk in and it's just oh man worst environment imaginable. It is super loud. There is a shit ton of people. There's a bunch of kids.

Why is it so loud? You're like, they're not even playing any music. I remember like just walking in and I was like, whew, like looking around. I see the group that I'm with and like got over to the table and sat down and just basically got in the corner and like sunglasses hat down and in a in a bad place like i am very anxious and i'm miserable being there and like i see some kid playing skeeball and he's probably 10 and like at some point he's playing skeeball and then i see

him like take it and like look around like no one's paying attention so he starts overhanding him in there so at this point like i'm just drilling eyes through him like i see that you're fucking being a piece of shit like i know that you're being like i'm ready to fight this 10 year old fight his dad like because you're not parenting like it they've taken a weird turn and so like i'm still not vocalizing anything to anyone and so i kept just picturing this anxiety that i had as a snake eating its own tail. And so as long as I wasn't going to give it something else to feed on, it'll eventually eat itself and die. So just shut the fuck up.

Not every environment is supposed to be good for you. And that's what I got out of it. Like today's lesson was things aren't always great. Shut the fuck up sometimes. Like don't ruin the other seven people you're with good time because you chose to do a thing that made you feel weird. Yeah. You chose to be angry. Yeah. You chose. And this was the lesson today. Right. So listen to the medicine. I think they're great. Also, there is, that's one of the few times I can say that during the last couple of years that I, that I am completely pain-free.

It's like if I'm microdosing or something like that, nothing hurts. Why does everybody say microdosing as opposed to? Heroic dose. What's that? So a heroic dose with mushrooms, and forgive anyone if I'm not the smartest on this, with psilocybin would be something like around or over five grams. And that's considered like a big dose. Like don't make plans uh be in a good place now microdose would be like a half a gram it's enough to know something's

in your system and it's just enough of a perspective shift in your head that you just see things a little different um is it anything like Kratom? No. No, even big dose of Kratom doesn't go the same way. Yeah. I get Kratom to me at a big dose can feel more like an edible marijuana. I thought you were going to say edible panties. Can't be good.

Who's the last person you'd want to eat some off of? I know. It's too bad. That's the next competition in the gym someone loses. I think all panties are edible, just for the record. If you believe. You try hard enough. I can do it.

They're going to come out bad. It's going to be bad. But, dude, I recommend trying stuff, right? I wouldn't give an opinion on those things without knowing about it and i'm definitely interested in especially friends i've made that i'd say dabble more in that realm right like i look at those people and i think well fuck man they're not bitter and they're not angry and they definitely handle problems a different way than i'm used to handling problems i think i spent a lot of time similar to what I grew up with of like immediate response to stress in a

situation is anger and no, and then I'll backtrack and figure it out. Whereas now that's not, not the thing. I don't harbor a lot of animosity and I don't feel scarcity about a lot of things, a lot of animosity and I don't feel scarcity about a lot of things, whether that's pain or love or fear or any of those things. Like those, those are all things that like we all have our own shit to deal with. And like, you don't know everyone's path and you don't know what they got to deal with today before they got to you. And so give people that buffer and look, people are assholes they exist too like not everyone's inherently good and people people as a whole probably aren't but there's enough of us

that are that you can find them and you don't have to deal with the ones who aren't and it's it's that feeling of just like you got the opportunity with most people you meet to either be a positive thing they think about after that interaction or a shitty thing. So just choose to be the good one. You know, whether that's people that reach out to you and like, hey, man, I was thinking about trying to do this weight loss and like immediately shoot themselves in the foot with. But blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, why not cheer him on? It doesn't cost you anything. going to do this weight loss and like immediately shoot themselves in the foot with but blah blah blah blah like why not cheer them on it doesn't cost you anything but you know maybe you feel like you're sending my thumbs up right fist bump yeah you know like come on man like i want you to do better but i can't do it for you like it's got to be your journey, but I got your back. If you've got questions, ask.

So it's good, and I'm definitely interested in trying other stuff. I'd really like to do ayahuasca. I'd like to do some DMT stuff and see those things. I think that shift in perspective, especially with mushrooms, the biggest one that happens with a big dose of mushrooms is you realize other things exist and now you have a doorway to them what do you mean it everything feels connected like i'm far from total hippie and like want to hug a tree and i'm not vegan but on a pretty good dose of mushrooms like steak would probably bum me out because like it's you definitely feel the difference of like it's a life form like i'm definitely bummed out it would bother me to like cut down a tree like on mushrooms because because it's a life and

like maybe think about you ever see like a time-lapse video of a plant growing and you actually get to see it chase the sun and do all this i think we'd feel really differently about plants if they operated at the same pace that we operate we'd be like oh that thing's fucking alive right yeah you don't see it yeah but because it's so slow it's easy to write off as not a thing i mean there's a reason that grass puts off the smell when we cut it it's to warn the other grass that something's going wrong and so it changes its chemical structure like these are alive things that are part of an organism and so i definitely feel more part of the whole when that's happening and then maybe it's just allowing you to get

somewhere that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get to yep much like the feeling of working out much like having a cup of coffee yeah much like having alcohol right i mean these are all things that that's the whole point in taking them is they they perhaps take you to sometimes good sometimes not good in your your case of wanting to kill that kid yeah right um right. But it takes you to a different spot. Music. Music, right. And the biggest changes I would say between, say, alcohol or THC or cannabis or pot or mushrooms is alcohol, cocaine are anti-psychedelic. They only play to your own ego.

And you're the most important person on earth. Pot, people get a little paranoid, right? Fucking maybe you should. Maybe there's some things that you're not addressing. Listen, you know, what are you nervous about and what are you feeling anxious about? Maybe this is the thing that you need to think about. And same, same goes for those. Like no one's ever smoked enough pot to go to the bar that they need to take their shirt off and fight a guy. That's not how that situation works. Whereas alcohol changes that side and the ego gets really boosted.

the shit that comes out of your mouth and think maybe want to be a little bit quieter like i'd rather go to that place than a group full of drunks or a bunch of dudes that are coked up you know people that are considering more of what they thought about and how they're part of the bigger picture or any of that right and you know about as close as i can get to big picture stuff is like i think we're all part of something bigger which is just like the universe and we all get to be part of that and there's amazing things that we get to experience in our limited time here on the planet plus the limited bit of the universe we even get to go look at like it's all here on earth whereas there's this infinite everything elsewhere but there's awesome shit here and amazing people yeah and that's rad be part of it don't be part of the problem and maybe status quo for a lot of it's the problem so shake it up but have a smart enough

vessel and message that the shake-up doesn't scare off. Because they aren't those people too. Did you ever feel any, not necessarily like a withdrawal, but like kind of bummed out after you come down from like mushrooms or something like that? For sure. Like there's definitely, so the bad trip I had, the fuck up there, was I tried to do two big doses on two days in a row, which is rule number one you're not supposed to do. Like you should have like a four, four or five day time between so that thing,

your levels can reset. Again, new, new dangling those new navigating those waters. I didn't know. And bad trips happen, man. And with that said,

the bad trip I had is still probably the most informative growth I've had from any of those that I've taken. The other ones have been fun. I mean, it's cool walking around the woods and everything's nice and shiny and you're giggly, but I didn't learn a ton. I mean,

another one is, is like, take it and find like isolation, find a dark room that doesn't have a bunch of sound and just whatever they want to do is what shows up. Sounds like a scary roller coaster. Be willing to do that work. That's the hand the keys over, right?

That like this was the choice today. Now, with that said, like I haven't done any in a year and a half. And it just hasn't felt like the right time. Do you see things that aren't there? No, not all the time. Like he says, no,

not all the time. You mean in general? Like, I mean like, you know, when you're on mushrooms, um, he can't even say it.

He's like, you definitely, you definitely like there's visuals for sure. Right? Like the best way I can describe it is like it's altered. Like one of the hikes we were on had this big overlook. And so what I saw from that, like it wasn't like trees were talking to me or any of this fairy tale bullshit. Like I didn't have cartoon animals show up.

Gotta do more. Probably not wrong. It was this overlook of mountains and trees and stuff like that. And there was a point where like all the trees looked like the end of peacock feathers. And so they were all just super colorful and swaying with the wind. That's about the biggest shift in visuals. Or I was in Sedona and like looking at a mountain and when things had kicked in, like the mountain that I was looking at turned, looked like it was made in Minecraft. It got really geometric. Pixelated. Yep. And you're like, all right, probably time to head in.

Like, no, we're there. You get any like ideas for like the company when you're taking anything? No, more just personal stuff, stuff right like and listen to it like you know so sitting in Sedona I was in a backyard and like looking at that mountain and in the backyard I was in there were like four or five rabbits cruising around like eating grass and so I was into watching that but I wanted to go inside and find a dark room and let that work happen. But I couldn't bring myself to get out of the chair because I thought it was going to scare the rabbits away.

Oh, so that type of stuff kicks in like, like something special is happening in the moment right now. Don't fuck with it. So that type of stuff changes inside your head. You try some shrooms. I've been, yeah.

Since Mark and I went to Austin, we've been trying to convince him, but hopefully we get a shaman in here and do some ayahuasca. Oh shit. Well, we had a, let me know. I'm down.

Let's do it. We had somebody, we had somebody on the podcast. I got my photo shoot done. We can, my schedule's clear. We had somebody on a podcast recently that gave me some mushrooms, and I actually tried them. Oh.

One day, just kind of like, yeah, just walking around. I didn't feel a ton of impact from it because I just took like one. Okay, so probably like a half. Really small amount. But I took some on a flight as well, which was. Interesting move. Yeah. Bold strategy.

Well, because I was like, I'm going to like just close my eyes and listen to music. Okay. Well, then that's not the worst. I closed my eyes and listened to music and I was just seeing all these crazy colors and stuff. Yeah. And I was probably halfway like falling asleep. And, you know, the flight attendant like, you know, bumped me to like wake me up for food or whatever. And the guy was like,

you were probably having the coolest dream ever. He's like, you had this big-ass smile on your face. I was like, yeah. And he's like, I just need you to select your food or whatever. Oh, man. It was enjoyable. That's great to hear. You know, but what they talk about

with my interest in it stemmed from what they talk about and what they talk about with my interest in it stemmed from what they talk about changes brain with a neurologically. That's the word. That sounds great. Someone dub in a better word there. We don't have the machine for that yet. We're getting technology. Is that kind of throughout time, like the way that you problem solve kind of cuts these patterns into your brain.

Right. So like if this is the route that we always solve this problem, that's the one that gets more cut in. And so your synapses fire in that order. And that's the way this works. And so the other options over time, think about them growing dusty. They don't get used. They kind of fall apart and break down the way like a road would if you're never using it. get used they kind of fall apart and break down the way like a road would if you're never using it and so what mushrooms or lsd do at a microdosing level start repairing and clearing off those other pathways giving you more options to problem solve and more options to address problems and maybe go to understanding and compassion and empathy instead of anger and the ego. And I would say empathy is probably a trait that I was able to get through the last couple years of surgery

and the psychedelic use is one I probably wouldn't have said was real strong prior to that would be empathy. Yeah, that's tight. I mean, it's, I don't know know for sure but i think it's decriminalized now in denver it is yeah criminalized so you can't buy it right but and it's still illegal federally there's a bunch of bullshit but look man we're getting one step right we're getting there and then missouri does something like weird abortion laws so like our country is very strange but i think it's gonna go on the ballot i just wish at some point for california white men would leave women and their bodies alone whatever they want

to do it's not your fucking business just just go leave them a b man maybe let them vote on it right maybe let them vote on it right like what do you guys think old white guy we're here like let me get this right abortion absolutely against the law criminal punishment same for the doctors what about like um like even birth control like no we can't make that something you just have that goes against this what about maybe mandate men wearing condoms it's uncomfortable no it doesn't feel That is uncomfortable. Come on. Pick a fucking route. Just let people make decisions, dude.

That's what I want. It's like I don't like adults being told what they should or shouldn't do. That's really where I fall on most political topics is you're an adult. You pay your taxes. Cool. Do whatever it is the fuck you want. You want to tattoo your face? Sounds great.

Want to smoke pot all day? I don't give a shit. to take heroin i don't care either does that affect me nope sounds good but you get the consequences of those actions you know in the same way that like you know makes sense i i have smoked a lot of pot with the last couple years of surgery and i live in a state that it ain't legal consequences for that well that's better than me being addicted to opiates as far as i'm concerned and i'll deal with the consequences if i have to face it i pick your poison right right what have you been up to lately travel man yeah traveling around traveling around that's kind of what i want to do more of is hit the road and you're in norcal what are you doing in norcal really just wanted to come out for a week oh my god to come out and train super training for a week and be here and exist

in a place right instead of it just be go go go work work work bail and so if go home for two days and then leave for six and go home for a day and leave for five. Like I got a job that allows it. So like why can't I go live in Reykjavik for three months? I don't have an answer. So I'm just going to go and do as I want to. Cool. That's kind of the plan. You visiting anybody else? I'll go see Kelly tomorrow and go hang out with him a little bit.

And then down to L.A. for the anaheim fit expo with monster and then home and then out to pennsylvania for the val event that rob and dana are putting on at their gym for the veterans outreach workout it's going to be really awesome we've got i'm not even sure i should be on the list of people because it's like rob and dana and jay cutler and like uh casey mitchell and then brook intz and charity wit and bonnie schroeder and like this great group of people and it's like matt vincent i'm like what's he there for what does he even do you're a world champ bro that's a big freaking deal i know um i threw rocks in a few you know uh that's cool man it is cool and i'm stoked on it yeah you know i want to those are

that's uh some people that you've been stalking for a long time yeah yeah i was stalking them for a long time it's just that feeling of like well so really weird like first interaction with rob it was i was in la he was in la and we had been exchanging messages for a bit. And so finally he's there. I was like, dude, let's go get lunch. And we go have lunch. And, um, he gets a call, I guess, like a little bit through lunch and, uh, it's his brother. And essentially that call was set up as like, I don't know this guy. So give me a call halfway through lunch in case I need a reason to leave.

You know, like get stuck with people you don't know. Just give me a call halfway through lunch in case I need a reason to leave. You know, like get stuck with people you don't know. And I mean, dude, you know how it is, especially like at your point, right? Like how many people want to pitch you the greatest business idea and they need your pocketbook and heart horsepower to make this thing successful. And so you never know what my intentions are with lunch. And so I fully get it. And so like we finished up lunch and then podcasted and said his brother called him later. And like his brother's like, all right. So what did he want?

What do you want from us? He's like nothing. He just like, how do you say like, hey, man, you're a 35 year old guy and I'm 35. I think we'd be friends. Do you want to hang out hey that's a sick bike yeah right right like i'd like to hang out more with you if you think that would be cool like we're both busy so it's weird but but yeah like like him or windler or any of these people right like i like i want i got rad friends and i want to be valuable to that friendship as, as just a dude you can count on that isn't,

I don't fucking need a thing from you, man. You know, I got my own thing and I'll forge my own path. I just want the raddest people around that I can learn from too. Makes sense to me. Where can people find some of your stuff and you? Um,

I hate Matt Vincent on Instagram. You could say that again. Yeah, you're right. He's the worst. where can people find some of your stuff and you um i hate matt vincent on instagram you could say that again yeah you're right he's the worst uh youtube is matthew vincent i think if you search it at this point matthew vincent pops up everything and then um the hate.com is where uh the apparel is and uh you got any any plans uh for the next couple months traveling anywhere else? You mentioned the PA thing. Where are we going? Because you travel a lot.

I mean, you travel overseas and stuff too. I don't have any overseas travel planned. I'd like to head to Iceland and spend some time there again, maybe October, November. But it's starting to get cold there by that point and dark. Cold, cold. It's not crazy cold there. Look, Minnesota's worse than iceland as far as cold goes iceland's an island so it's still pretty temperate it's surrounded by water

so it like it doesn't iso it ain't fargo right um it's the four hours of daylight that get rough you know that like oh cool we got sunlight from we got gray from 11 a.m until 2 p.m and then it's dark again yikes that gets really tough to adjust to um but i want to go see half he's new gym like i want to go train and spend some time over there and just be in that place again how cool was it when he was on that uh espn special and he talked openly about just being honest dude that rocked i thought that was amazing and he's he's reallyEDs. Just being honest, dude. That rocked. I thought that was amazing. He's really an amazing guy and I've always felt nothing but really welcomed

in his house and being a friend and those type of things. I'm stoked for the guy. I love seeing what they're doing. Has he ever bashed you over the head with his dick? I'm glad he hasn't. It's gotta be terrifying, right? It's just something that popped in my head. I don't know why. It might have been the mushrooms. It's got to be terrifying, right? It's just something that popped in my head. I don't know why.

It might have been the mushrooms. It's very, very strange because he and Kelsey are friends. Right. And I don't really have any interest in watching my friends fuck. But I'd watch like a trailer of that to figure out the mechanics of it. Yeah. How's this working? How's this even happening?

That's what Joe Rogan was talking about. He's 450 fucking pounds. Yeah. He weighs four times what his chick weighs. That doesn't exist. Hold it back. Oof. What's the dynamic?

I think she just climbs on like a spider monkey just attaches like a flying squirrel. Yeah. You know what I'm more concerned about with someone like him? Is for her. How much heat does he have to produce in bed? Like I know what being in bed with me is like is the worst. Like I'm a son. Much less if I weighed twice as much what I currently weigh.

He's twice our size. The sheets are just wet. Thank God he lives there. it's just constantly air conditioning he's blaring those guys go through like four or five shirts in a workout you just have to keep changing them all the time biggest shirts of all time i just can't imagine stepping on the scale and seeing the first numbers of four and then being like sick yeah well and that's like his job it has to be has to be well that was talking to stan about their diet like like what did you know everyone wanted to hear this big weird drug thing about what they changed you know for the arnold and he's like we didn't change

anything it was we added 36 eggs a day to their diet, to what they were currently eating. We added 36 extra eggs a day. That cholesterol. Woof. Yeah. Big boys. And you're doing vertical diet now. Playing with it. So on training days, I will do vertical diet in the pre and post training meal.

And if I'm feeling really gassed at night, I'll probably add some rice in. But if I'm not training, I'll stick to carnivore. Keep it simple. Keep it simple, man. It's just three rules. Right. It's hard to fuck those up. Do you make like monster mash and stuff like that too?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was, you know, being on the road for the last 10 days in the truck, I was really trying to see, like, what can I maintain basically eating out of gas stations, my own food and not doing restaurants. So, like, you can swing by any Chinese takeout place on the planet and buy white rice. That sounds racist. I didn't say Oriental. You can get white rice. you can get white rice.

And so like I had that and then I had pre-cooked a bunch of ribeye and chopped it to pieces. And it's like, you're good for two or three days. And I was out of an ice chest. I would just go into a gas station and mix the two and heat it up. And I put mustard and sriracha on it, which are both zero calories and hit the road. Feel great. Simple, right? Yeah. Body digest it well. Like I think that's another, man, you just don't get that bloated feeling because your body can use it

and it eats it well. I mean, Stan says that, right? Like I eat the foods that my body likes, not the foods I like. Right. It's a shame he wasn't ever big enough to be, to be a bodybuilder. He probably needed to get 40 more pounds. Oh, my God. You traveled everywhere. Where are some spots that are like a must-see before people kick the bucket? Iceland's one of them. I can't seem to stop going. I go at least once a year.

It's just, for whatever reason, for me, just the frequency there lines up with mine. And like, I immediately feel home the second I'm off the airplane. Uh, Victoria, Canada is a really cool, cool spot. That's somewhere no one goes, but we competed there every year. Is that East or West? West coast. Okay. So it's near Vancouver with a little smaller town

victoria uh really really cool um i like canada man canada's really cool people are nice um a little bit less bullshit maybe and i wonder if that comes from this right because they still have hockey as part of their culture and people fight, like Canadians will, we'll have a go and then go have a beer. Like we can have an issue and sort it out. And I don't have to call assault charges. Like they're like, you're also not safe.

Like it's also a small enough place that like, if you run your mouth, there's a good chance you get hit. I mean, in hockey, they just, they'll, they'll tap each other and then they fight. Let's go. Like, it's also a small enough place that, like, if you run your mouth, there's a good chance you get hit. I mean, in hockey, they just, they'll tap each other. Just like that. And then they fight.

Yeah, let's go. Like, it's like a known thing. Like, you didn't even do anything illegal. Just bump the guy and like, you're a goon on your team. I'm a goon on my team. We're going to fight. They also possibly can talk shit better than anyone except for the UK folks. Really?

Man, they're good. They can chirp. They're usually pretty funny too very a lot of canadians i've met or they have a good sense of humor last uh i was up in toronto and i was at a anchor bar which is a the original buffalo wing place out of buffalo and now we've got one now in toronto so sitting there and there's like 20 screens in the bar like sports on and it's hockey night in canada so like everything's hockey um they're the leafs are playing and like montreal's playing and so like all the tvs are on the shit and like the bar is empty except for this table of like nine canadian dudes behind me

really into hockey myself at the bar and this old white guy from the states like probably 65 comes up to the bar and he's like, excuse me, ma'am. Can we can we turn one of the TVs on to March Madness for the NCAA tournament? And she just looks at him and goes like, it's hockey night. And he's like, oh, I know, I know. I was just wondering if one TV we could watch basketball. And I hear from the table behind me. They're like, hey, bud, she fucking said it's hockey night.

Better fuck figure it out. And then you hear them for the next 30 minutes like, fucking like, we're going to change the channel to basketball. I think we're going to fucking stop watching hockey.

You got to come over here to the bar. Better fuck figure it out. Y'all just chirping to themselves under their voice and I'm like, Jesus. Get it together.

Things are getting a little heated, huh? Yeah, the lady said it's fucking hockey night. What are you still going on about? She's not changing the channel. Fucking the lady said it's fucking hockey night. What are you still going on about? She's not changing the channel. Fucking inflection.

It's fucking hockey night. Oh, it makes me so happy. This is all a boob. Fucking guys are great. All right, man, always great to have you on the show. Always fun. Super proud of you. Great to see that the knee replacement's going well.

It's going well, man. I saw you squatting 225 in there. I farted. I farted during that one. It got real loud. Yeah. Well, it in there i won't fart it i farted on during that one it got real loud yeah it well it's different when you fart when it's pressurized like that it's totally just snaps out of there yeah that's a good way to describe through a tunnel like hadron collider everybody knows it was a fart but like no one's really a hundred percent sure so sometimes it doesn't even go like no one even says anything sometimes right you're like maybe

it was just your knee popping or the back or the bar. Yeah, those bars, they make a lot of. A ton of popping bars you got in there, Mark. Weird noises. But yeah, it feels good being able to lift again. It's awesome. So it's been a hell of a road, so I'm happy to. And that felt fine?

225? Fine. Cheating like an old fat guy on a box squat? Damn right. It'll be box squats and leg curls, leg extensions for me here on out. I don't give a shit. As long as I can like make my legs sore again.

Success. Yeah. Awesome. Fuck. Yeah. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later.