Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Saturday School EP. 14 - Mark's Hit List

Episode Date: September 12, 2020

During Mark Bell's Powerlifting Career he had a "hit list", a list of other lifters he wanted to be stronger than. We ask him what it was exactly and where did that competitive mindset come from. If you are a powerlifting nerd, this one is for you! Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #MBSaturdaySchool #MarkBell

You hit the old record button? Yep, I did. I hit the button. Oh, my God. It's different when we're remote. There's not so many buttons that I missed. The big red one that says record, I can actually hit that one. This one doesn't have a standby.

This one doesn't have standby, so we're okay. Why are we virtually wearing the same shirt? So that's why I said nice shirt. Mine's red, but yours has all the labels on it we got bodybuilding cows how stupid is that that's amazing it's I don't know it's hilarious it's so funny it's like a piedmontese cow right there yeah what are you doing in bodega hanging out with the fam um it's uh Quinn birthday today. She turns 13. So we're all hyped up about that. Celebrate her birthday today. My parents are coming up here. So that'll be fun. My brother's coming up as well. And we got a kind of sitting around the table just kind of shooting shit and everybody just like everybody was pretty drunk and i've shared this before but i think it's worth mentioning again is that uh you know those of you that are trying to stay tight and hold on

to your nutrition and hold on to your diet you know just remember you don't have to be drunk if everybody else is you know you you can you You can still lower your inhibition because you can just recognize like, hey, man, everybody else is whacked out of their minds. So it doesn't matter really what I say. You can lower your kind of social anxiety a little bit. But everybody just stopped and paused for a minute and just thanked us. They're like, this is so much fun. I went and lifted of course yesterday while everybody else uh hit the beach and boogie boarded and stuff but um yeah

everybody just had an absolute blast and the weather here is crazy uh amazing it's like i think today might get up to like 80 but i think in sacramento it's like 113 or something like that yeah yeah 110 or 111 is it is it still like smoky outside and uh i i don't know about today yesterday like towards the end of the day it started to kind of lay thick a little bit and you know so you can't i like to sleep with the windows open if the fresh air is coming in you can't do that no matter what right now because if you do like your house is terrible and then you like your throat's all scratchy and it's like, dude, I feel like I just got sick last night, but it's because of the smoke. It's just, it's not fun.

Yeah. It was, uh, it'll be fun today to, uh, you know, have Quinn's birthday and stuff. She actually let me take a picture of her yesterday. I was like, I just need to get a picture. I'm just trying to capture like every couple months, you know, at least I love this. I love to snap pictures. And so I was like, let me get a picture of, uh, of you and, uh, your cousin. And she's like, all right, I'll do one, but with the mask on, you know, I was like, all right. So at least I got that. the mask on you know i was like all right so at least i got that that's funny man so well happy birthday q uh it's amazing you're 13 that's yeah that's a little scary but that's awesome too

um today old and shit yeah well everybody welcome to saturday school get your notepads out get your number two pencils ready uh today we have an awesome question from our boy Ryan Soper. Ryan, we did a jacked cameraman video back in, I don't know, like a year or two ago on Ryan. Dude's a monster. He's somebody that I look up to and it's pretty cool because the feeling goes both ways because when I did my photo shoot, it kind of motivated him to lean out and do a photo shoot as well and he was extremely successful. He's been in powerlifting for a long time as well. And he's been working at ST for I don't know how many years now. And he's just a cool dude. And he brings up a really good question. In the past, Mark, you have said that you had a hit list during

your powerlifting career. Can you explain that hit list and basically where that competitive edge or that competitive mindset comes from? You know, I still have a hit list and, you know, opposing companies to slingshot, even when they're friends, I consider them to be kind of on a hit list. And for me, when it comes to, when it comes to the business side of things, um, my goal is to, uh, not really necessarily like, uh, level the playing field and rise above the other companies.

like level the playing field and rise above the other companies. My goal is to level the other companies and kind of just completely dominate. That's, that's what the goal is. And it's all in good fun. I don't wish anybody any harm. I don't wish, you know, any of the other companies, I wish them all the success. And that would help us to continue to push and drive forward. But when it, when it came to powerlifting, to push and drive forward. But when it, when it came to, um, powerlifting, um, I just needed some like, uh, just variations of goals. You know, I needed to figure out ways of trying to beat some of the people that I was lifting against. Um, I needed ways to be

competitive with other lifters. And when I was at West side, there was a lot of that mentality. It was like West side versus the world, just like the documentary. If you guys haven't seen it, you should check it out. And kind of seeing like Louie Simmons and a lot of the other lifters in there, when they went to compete, there was always somebody from like Big Iron Gym or some of these other gyms where they were building up some strong athletes. And it was always like this versus, it was like this battle between these two particular lifters. And I just kind of took on a similar mindset when it came to my own powerlifting. And when it came to,

I lifted at Diablo Barbell a lot in Concord, California, when I first moved to California from Diablo barbell, um, there was, there was probably at least three people that were quite a bit stronger than me and watching them lift and then watching the way they were able to move and the way they were able to do some of the lifts. I was like, uh, I was like, shit, man, I don't know. Like, I don't know if I'll be able to do some of that. But after training with them for a little bit and after, um, you know, after kind of just recognizing like, Hey man, you're the one that trained at Westside, you know, you actually train there and they ask you questions about it all the time.

And I felt like I was very knowledgeable. And so that was an edge that I may have had on some other lifters was being knowledgeable. But Jesse Burdick is also extremely knowledgeable. And so he was always a really tough person to beat because Jesse knew when to go hard, when to pull back a little bit. He also knew how to recover well from the workouts. There was other guys there that were easy to trick and you can kind of say like you're going up in weight and you know that like this particular exercise, this particular thing would wreck them or slow them down or potentially kind of just screw them up basically.

Like they would maybe slightly get injured on, on an exercise or something like that. And you'd be like, all right, well, he's taken care of, you know, and you kind of move on to the next, the next person. But there was a day in particular, there's multiple days, I guess, now that I think back, but there was a day in particular where I kind of squared off against one of the owners of that gym at that time. And it wasn't Ted O'Neill. I don't remember this other guy's name. He was, maybe it will come to me later on, but,

um, we lifted with just a shit ton of bands on there. And I wasn't that strong at that time. And when I say it wasn't that strong, like I squatted like 700 pounds or something like that. Wasn't that strong relative to the thousand 80 squat that I got to a couple of years later. So me and this, the gym owner, one of the gym owners of Diablo Barbell, we're going back and forth on these squats and we have just like tons of band tension on there. And this was kind of a day where I recognized like, oh shit, like I can, I can like slay the dragon right here, like in front of everybody. Like I could, I could, because I can do this because I'm explosive. I can move really well and I can,

I can move fast enough to beat this guy. I'm not as strong as him. I think he might've had a stronger deadlift. He might've had a slightly stronger squat than I did, but I knew that I could, uh, kind of outwork him and be a little faster than him. So we did a dynamic effort workout and then we worked our way up and wait a little bit. And I was able to beat him and just kind of seeing like what that did and kind of what that did to the room. I was like, I'm doing that with everybody.

I'm taking everybody out and I'm going to start a hit list. And so the other people that were in the gym were in the line of fire as well. And that was one of my friends, uh, uh, uh, Andy Zavala.

And then in addition to that, uh, my BFF, Jesse Burdick. And so it just became a battle between anybody that I would lift against. And I, um, Jesse and I, so another occasion, Jesse and I would go against each other and, uh, we'd go back and forth. And usually Jesse would use more weight than me, but my goal was to continue to close that gap of how much weight we were using on these particular workouts. And my goal was to just try to move faster than him because I was explosive.

And so Jesse is like, Jesse doesn't miss anything. He coaches every rep, people that work with him or people he works with rather, they know this about Jesse. And this is why people care so much about him is because he cares so much about them. And he shows them that by correcting or giving instruction on every single repetition that you ever do. And so Jesse would yell at me throughout the whole workout, which is super annoying. And I'm just like, dude, like I'm moving the weight fine. Like, what the fuck? Like, leave me alone. And he would take weight off the bar. Like I sometimes do to you and stuff like that. And I'd be super frustrated, but he's like, well, you got to, you know, do the lift the

right way. So here I am trying to like beat, you know, my friend, but he's like helping me. Right. So it's kind of, kind of a weird, kind of a weird dynamic. But, uh, as we'd go through some of these workouts, as we went through these progressions, I was like, you know what? I just want him to shut the fuck up. I don't want him barking at me the whole time. I don't want him telling me that I'm leaning forward on my squats because that's what would always happen. I'd always look like I was throwing up in a toilet or something like that every single time I did a heavy squat. And so I was like, you know what? Every single time I go, I'm just going to go so fast that no one can say anything.

So that's what I would do. I would just move as fast as I possibly could be as explosive as possible. And I would just think about like breaking shit every single time I did a set. And that started to work well. I started to get stronger, and then I went to the WPO finals in Columbus, Ohio, and I didn't participate, and I got the opportunity to watch a lot of these men and women lift, and there was like Chuck Vogapool and Steve Goggins, a lot of legends of the sport. I think Ed Cohn was sort of out of the sport at that time another great lifter travis mash um matt crock uh at the time was dominant and very

very strong and so when i went there and i watched some of these guys lift i was i was kind of observing their height and i was observing like what weight classes they were in and stuff. And, you know, I'm 230 or something at the time or 240. And I'm like, okay, well, major difference between almost every single person that's on the platform that's within an inch or two of my height, give or take a little bit, uh, is like 60 pounds of body weight, you know, maybe even more. So I was like, I need to gain weight. So I went from two 30 to two 40 to two 50 to two 60 and kind of stayed around two 60 for a bit and, uh, competed at two 42 and two 75. And then just continued. I was like, you know what? I'm doing a good job. I, now I'm a little stronger than Jesse. I'm a little stronger than some of these other

lifters that are in the area. And I was like, I just want to keep beating people. So Scott Cartwright was, uh, one of my training partners for a long time. And, and he was in and a friend, and he squatted 1,160 pounds. I mean, he was a bull. I mean, this guy was – Scott was always crazy strong, but when I think back to those times and I think back to where he was and where I was versus where I ended up and where he ended up, and where I was versus where I ended up and where he ended up. It just, I was able to accelerate past Jesse. I was able to accelerate past Scott Cartwright.

And it was through, it was through the details. Scott was way stronger than me. I was, I was really realistically, I mean, I don't know if I would ever beat him in a squat. I think I could have squatted, you know, over 1,100 pounds at some point. I have handled that weight in training before. But I don't know about an 1,160 squat. You know, he was really, really gifted at the squat.

But when it came to bench and when it came to deadlift, like, he just didn't really ever take the time to really learn how to do them later on. He learned how to deadlift and I think he might've pulled 800 pounds, but, um, at the time, like he did, he wasn't having it, you know, he wasn't, even though we were training partners, I try to give him advice on a bench or this or that. And he would just, I was creeping up on him on the squat, even though I was still far away from his best squat, I was closing the gap on that. And I don't think he was recognizing that and then i was increasing the gap that we had when it came to bench pressing and so i was like i'm i'm gonna fucking beat this guy like i'm gonna get him and we competed against each other a couple times head to head um and i was fortunate enough to beat him i think in like a push pull I mean, I don't even know if he kept track of any of this stuff

because he may not have even given a shit because it wasn't like they were big power lifting meets or anything like that. These were kind of more small local meets type of thing, but I was keeping track of it. And then maybe like a year or two later, there was kind of a movement towards single ply gear. It's actually really weird. People started putting more and more clothes on and powerlifting, and they started taking them all off at some point.

And then it happened in layers, stages for some reason. I wouldn't be surprised to see it swing back the other way. People start putting on single ply gear again and then multiply gear again um but scott uh had the uh the 308 pound uh all-time world record in um uh all-time world record in the uspf which kind of later split off into the USPA. USPA still exists, but they don't run as many meets and stuff like that. So I was able to break Scott's all time record. I think he might still have the squat and the 308 class, 308 weight class. But I have the bench and I also have the all time total. And it's kind of it's kind of cheap now because like, it will probably

never be broken because no one competes in that federation anymore, but Hey man, I'll hold onto it, you know? And, uh, when it came to, when it came to the bench press, the bench press that I did at the time was the biggest, uh, single ply bench press of all time in that, uh, in that weight class for a full power lifter. There was people that only benched, you know, bench specialists that benched more than I did at that time. But that was the biggest bench. And it was also the biggest bench in the history of the USPF as well, including the super heavyweight class. And I did, I think I ended up doing like an 8.32.

I think the official record that I did was like eight 10 or something like that. Um, but yeah, anyway, you know, that kept me fired up. That kept me motivated. Um, it was the stuff that made me do the extra shit that other people maybe didn't want to do. Um, I would get done with a workout, quote unquote, done with a workout where I may have benched, uh, you know, 700 pounds off of some boards or something like that for maybe, maybe two sets of two reps or something like that, which takes an extraordinary amount of time

because of all the warmup sets you got to do. And there's a lot of tweaking of the bench shirt. It's a giant pain in the ass and it hurts. It hurts a lot and it's time consuming. And so what I would do is I would take the shirt off and I'd be like, let me try this other one. I wonder how this other shirt will work. Let me tweak that. Let me, you know, pull this one this way. I'll have Juan help me, you know, with this shirt and we'll tweak it this way. And I'll have big Roy helped me out and Jim Sheffield and Mike Moore and all the guys that were there at the gym at the time. And I just was obsessed. I was completely obsessed. I didn't care how long it took. I

didn't care how bad it hurt. And I would start over. I would, you know, put maybe start at like five plates and try six plates and screwed myself up many times. I was in the gym for three or four hours, you know, continually trying to lift with these different styles of bench shirts on and trying to learn different techniques and trying to figure out, you know, should I start with my elbows out a little bit to stretch the fabric? Anyone who's worn a slingshot before can kind of picture this, you know, do you sometimes want to drive the elbows out a little bit on the slingshot so you can cheat it back up a little bit more because you'll get more stretch or you want to continue to have that good form and really lock the elbows in. And so I would just practice everything. I'm like, oh, well, what's it like if I'm up on my traps or

what's it like if I try this technique I saw this other person do? Or what if my belt is higher? What if my belt is lower? What if I have a skinny belt? What if I, I mean mean i even tried to wear a dress belt rather than like a lifting belt because of just the the width of it and ultimately i ended up kind of using a bodybuilding belt because the bodybuilding belt would secure the shirt enough in the front and then it would give you some support through the back but even sometimes like we would just mess around with every single detail that you can think of we even turn the belt around and try that i was just willing to try i was willing to just uh continually um it wasn't even trying it was doing it was it was just flat out just like hey i wonder what that would look like hey i wonder what that would look like just a ton of um making mistakes you know a ton of failure a ton of screwing up

um many many weights going right over my face where i was you know we always joke in the gym we say take it take it take it because you're like you think you're gonna die the weight just kind of you just lose all power you feel like the most powerful person in the world and then within a tenth of a second that's no longer true and the weight feels like it's going to decapitate you. Or sometimes it'd go the other way. The weight would go towards your wiener and you'd like, you know, um, your, your wee wee, um, you, you know, you would kind of, uh, just all of a sudden get, just lose all power and your shoulders would kind of give out. And luckily you wouldn't get hurt because the spotters would usually grab the weight in time. But anyway, having that list,

what it did for me, and I'll let you interject with a bunch of questions in a second, but just in kind of concluding some of this, what it really did for me was when I went and did assistance exercises, I was thinking about those other people. when I went and did assistance exercises, I was thinking about those other people. When I went and did those assistance exercises, I was thinking about getting better. So it wasn't necessarily just about the other people because I knew the real trick wasn't the other people.

Although that was the, uh, locker room quote that I put up in the locker room. You know, the coach puts in the locker room, you know, these guys said, you can't play any defense, you know, and it's like do new England Patriots do this all the time.

You know, they're Belichick's famous for it. And then like, who would ever say the Patriots can't play defense? Bill Belichick is a mastermind of defense. So, or Brady's getting old and it's like, well, Brady, like, you know, he's always winning. So like, why is this the thing? But whatever the other team says about them, they take that information and they kind of turn that negative into positive energy where the whole team gets behind it. So everything that I did ended up being very much geared towards, uh, you know, I want to be able to beat these guys. I know that I have to get better. And when I did my assistance movements, when I was doing these other exercises,

I would visualize, you know, what it looked like to hit an 800 pound bench. What would it look like? And it wasn't even an 800 pound bench because it's in kilos. So it was an 804 bench. It wasn't a 705 pound bench or 705 pound squat or a 700 pound squat. It was a 705 pound squat or a 700 pound squat was a 705 pound squat. Cause again, it's kilos. Um, everything, you know, got to be calculated at some point. And then I was like, I was obsessed with the numbers. You know, I was like, I want to do a 2,600 pound total. So when it came to that kind of stuff, I'd write stuff, uh, on my mirror every morning, you know, it would say for a long time, 2,500 was the big, was the big

milestone to get to. And, um, you know, I remember putting 2,200 up there too, though I'd put 2,200. Sometimes I'd put the actual lift itself, you know, I'd put 800, 854 bench. You know, I remember all the different numbers that I did, even though they're weird, like kilo numbers and 832 bench and so on. And I'd write those things on the mirror and I'd kind of stare at them. And I would just think about like, it was just real simple. I'm like, Hey, when you're in the gym today, like I would literally say this to myself, I'd go over this, but it wasn't just writing it on the wall. Sometimes it was, or sometimes it was just writing on the mirror. But for the most part, when I did write it, I really stared at it. And then I thought about it more.

It's like, what are you going to do to get there? Because you're here now. You're where you're supposed to be. You did the amount of work that this is what this represents. This is what you're supposed to kind of look like. This is the size and body weight you're supposed to be and so forth. And that's cool. But how do we get to that next thing?

And when I would do the assistance exercises, you know, you put a little extra English into it. You put a little bit, you know what I'm talking about. When you're thinking, all right, well, you know, the team's encouraging me. Everyone's yelling at me. And I'm at seven reps. And you're like, I think I can get to 12. And you're like, all right, well, you know, the team's encouraging me. Everyone's yelling at me. And I'm at seven reps. And you're like, I think I can get to 12. And you're like, fuck this.

I'm doing 20. Right? This is the kind of stuff. I mean, I still have goosebumps thinking about this kind of stuff now because I still train this way. You get in that moment and you're like, this is why I'm here, man. Like, this is the whole reason why I'm here. The whole reason why I got up out of bed today. The whole reason why I kind of, all the kind of little bitching and moaning that you do along the way.

You got in your car. You drove to the gym. You may have taken a pre-workout. You might have been thinking about this workout from the previous week. You know, that was usually the case with me because I was becoming a technician. I was really trying to work and hone in this form and technique. And I would learn from the previous videos that we shot about that form. And the whole while, while heading to the gym, I would think about what I wrote in the mirror.

And then you get in that moment and all of a sudden you're going to be a pussy and walk back, you know, and be like, oh, I'm done. Like there's just no, there's no possible way. I've talked many times in this podcast about getting the fuck it's in the other direction. At that point, you're like, I'm all in, man. I'm going to go all the way. Why not do another set? And that was, I would say, I would say that that is the thing that got me over the hump. That is the thing that helped me beat some of these other individuals. Cause I would still say that, um, even though I was able to, uh, get some better lifts than Scott Cartwright, I don't really think I was stronger. Like he, he was just,

he is just crazy, crazy strong. He was a very, very strong, uh, lifter. And he's probably still, uh, pretty strong to this day, but I would just do the extra sets I would do the extra the extra work and it's not like he wasn't a hard worker he was a very hard worker I'm not saying anything negative in those in those terms but I just didn't care and I got I got taught a really good lesson kind of early on in my lifting career where somebody just kind of mentioned to me my friend James Smith he's been a longtime friend the thinker he said because I asked him I was like you know dude I'm

like you know he helped me with some programming and I was like you know I'm not trying to complain but like how, how long, how long should these workouts take? How long should they be? He's like, well, it's just whatever it takes. And I was like, oh, he's like, yeah, he's like, you're, you're a good lifter, right? And you want to be great. And you want to be kind of mentioned with some of the greats. And it's like, it's just whatever it takes and it's whatever it takes for you. You be kind of mentioned with some of the greats. It's like, it's just whatever it takes. And it's whatever it takes for you. You know, it's not like there might be other people that can train with different

circumstances and train less. What does it take? And then you don't give a fuck at that point. Everyone's fired up right now, Mark. That was incredible. Yeah. Thank you. Earlier in the podcast, you were talking more about business and stuff. And I think this kind of fits in line with it still. You know, Gary Vee just put out a post saying, if you want to build the tallest building, you can either build the building taller than all the other ones, or you can try to knock them all down uh so with this competitive mindset and you know having your hit list how did it not consume you in a negative way

and maybe you know kind of open up some other doors that you don't want to open you know that might push you down a negative path it was more i would say that it may have been more, it may have been more like fantasy than it was reality. I mean, I would be like sweating my ass off in the middle of a set and I would see one of the other guys sit down, you know, and I was like, I'm not, okay, I'm not fucking sitting down. I'd seen somebody else put their hands on their hips or their hands on their knees and kind of bend over. I'm like, I'm not, okay, I'm not fucking sitting down. I'd seen somebody else put their hands on their hips or their hands on their knees and kind of bend over. I'm like, I'm not doing that.

Like I'm going to stand here and pretend that nothing's fucking happening. And we're squatting six plates and we're doing 10 sets of two reps and we're going one person after another. And I'm going to pretend that it doesn't, you know, phase me one bit, but I do hope that this motherfucker breaks his leg right now. And I never really hoped that anybody broke their leg. I wanted the competition. I was hungry for it. But at the same time, I was like, that would just make my shit easier.

You know, it's almost like, it's almost like, I remember this in football practice and this would even happen sometimes with the max earth effort work that we would do when I would get to a certain, when I got to certain strength levels, it was like no longer okay for me to move around six plates. It had to be like eight plates or nine plates. It was just like, you got to a point where you're like, I just want to just, I just want to make up a story and just tell somebody that I'm like sick and

I need to fucking go home. So that they say, dude, what are you doing here? You should go home. And then I can just get out of it. Or like I would even drive, it sounds so crazy, but I'd even drive past the gym sometimes and be like, I don't have the right mindset. Like fucking, you know, you start going in a different direction and maybe like as crazy it is in California to be on a freeway, like just get back on the freeway, play some different music or something because you can't walk into that place this way today. Like what are you doing, you know? And so I'd have to make sure my mind was right for every single workout.

But I never really – I wanted – we all helped each other. You know, we were all – I mean, when you go to a meet and you see other people that you compete against, um, it's, it's very standoffish at first, but as soon as, as soon as, uh, as soon as everybody gets their first attempt squat out of the way, everyone's like, they couldn't be nicer. You know, everyone's super kind and super nice. So like, I never, I never really wished anybody any harm, but I was like, I hope this motherfucker doesn't last. You know, I never, I never really wished anybody, uh, any harm,

but I was like, I hope this motherfucker doesn't last. You know, I hope, I hope this guy. And a lot of it was that a lot of it was just me doing it for a long time. People, um, had to move on with their lives and start to do other things. And I wasn't about to do that. I was just going to keep pushing. And like, I, you know, I don't know what, you know, what would have happened if I never fell with that weight. I mean, maybe I would die underneath you know, I don't know what, you know, what would have happened if I never fell with that weight. I mean, maybe I would die underneath the bar. I don't know. It's like, I just, uh, I was, you know, crazy about it. And I remember, I didn't really realize much of it until I started getting around some other

lifters that, um, were around a lot of other lifters, like, uh, our buddy, Mr. Robot Pants, Mr. Mr. Robot Pants. Um, he helped me write the, uh, Jacked and Tanned book. And he's been a good friend for a long time, a really good power lifter that we had at a super training gym. And, um, Robot was like, he's like, I have never, and Robot trained with everybody. Robot trained at Diablo Barbell for four or five years. He trained with us at Super Training for quite some time. He's seen all the different people come into Super Training and stuff. And he was like, I have never in my life seen anyone train the way that you train.

And I just, I wasn't even, I wasn't even thinking about it. I wasn't thinking about like, that's, I'm going to leave a lasting impression on everybody and I'm going to be the hardest worker in the room or, or, uh, there was no like dialogue like that. I was just, it was just that whatever it takes, you know, what do I need to do? How do I, how do I do this? I don't care how long it takes and I don't have any emotions towards what it will take. You know, if you were to say, Hey, you know, you got to do 10

sets today with a thousand pounds. Um, the only thing I might say is like, well, that doesn't seem smart. Cause I've never tried anything even remotely close to that. So let me, you know, could I work my way into that? You know, that, that would be the only thing, but there would never be like, I can't do that. It'd be like be like well hold on a second you know give me give me a little bit of time to kind of figure it out so in terms of like you know burning other people down and then uh having that burned me down um i think it was just because like i didn't have any hatred uh for anybody andy zavala was you know he was he was a good friend and but like i remember really screwing with him, like at meets, um, we were in the warmup room and, you know, we would do it.

We'd do a couple of one-up sets and stuff. And he squatted like seven plates and he just, he just smashed away, just annihilated it. I was like, Oh man. Like, and he's got huge quads and huge hamstrings. And he's just like an evil looking son of a bitch he's real thick um intimidating looking dude but super nice and then he goes up again and puts like a quarter on there and does another set and smashes it and i said hey man you know um i was like have you been like working on your timing and stuff? Like, uh,

and he's like, he's like, ah, he's like, I don't know, man, I feel pretty good. I'm like, well, I'm like, they just, I don't know. They I've seen you lift before this. They look a little slow. They're like, like, like normally I'm used to seeing you pop, you know, have a little bit better pop, you know, and then he'd go out on the platform and I don't know if had anything to do with anything I said, but it's funny to kind of think that it may have, you know, he, I was like, are you what? He's about two weeks ago. I was pretty sick and I was kind of not sure if I was going to do the me and everything. And then he stands up with his like opening attempt and he's shaking and he had to rack it a couple of times and he couldn't get his opener. And then I think he came back and got his second attempt and stuff like that. you know, trying to play a little mind game, like whatever, wherever you can, wherever you can sneak in an advantage, you know, without, uh, you know, without pushing somebody or punching somebody in the stomach while they're lifting or something, you know,

that's so funny. So like, you know, if it's like you said, um, you know, kind of like a fantasy or you're, you're playing games that you're not really, it's, it's make-believe um is there any uh like detriment to your own self-belief if you're you know kind of going into the gym and being like fuck dude hopefully this guy like rolls his ankle as he's walking you know on the sidewalk or something like is there any danger in in any of that as opposed to like i hope this guy comes in feeling his best ever. So that way I can still smoke them. I think just each person has their own, you know, their own weird way of kind of making up how they're going to defeat this person or how they're going to be better. And really, you know, truthfully, it's not, you know, if you're, if you're consumed with other people,

then you're making a mistake in the first place, you know? And so I kind of always knew it was like a, a fantasy thing just to bring myself up, just to be, just to help myself to be better. Um, you know, you can hone in and focus on somebody else too much, but I would also think that it could probably be pretty dangerous for some people, but you know me well enough to know, like, I, I feel, I feel really good about myself and who I am. And I don't have, I don't know if it's luck or good parenting or whatever, but I don't, I, I, I lack confidence just like every, everybody else in a lot of different ways, but it's never like crippling to me, you know, it never, it never like hurts my feelings or anything like that. Like I'm, I, I feel pretty good about myself. And so that might be why I was able to kind of toe the line on some of this stuff and, and, and do this and do these kinds of things. But,

you know, some of it too, was just like, um, a lot of it was also me painting a picture of myself. So it was a lot of like, uh, self, um, uh, like self-improvement through almost like shaming, which isn't great. But, you know, I would kind of tell myself like I would play that role from when I was a kid, you know, and when I thought that I was dumb, you know, and I anytime that I could use that energy, thinking about a moment that I may have had when I was sad because I couldn't do something some of the other kids could do. moment that I may have had when I was sad because I couldn't do something some of the other kids could do. Or I could think back, you know, to like my dad crying at our dinner table because he wasn't able to figure out how to help me with my math. You know, I could, I could draw upon that and I can turn that into, you know, like a, like a little bit of a poison, I guess, you know,

and then, you know, with like a little bit of poison can go a long way. It can be kind of good for you because it can help build tolerance towards stuff. And so I think maybe that little bit of poison helped build, uh, some power, uh, for a little bit of pain and helped me enjoy it more. Like, like, Hey dude, you got to go through this fucking pain because you got to show people what's up. You need to like, this is what we're going to do. Like this is, you know, and I, I, um, I really liked the, uh, idea of like suffering for the unknown. That's something that, uh, silent Mike at his time at super training shared with me that his basketball coach, uh, taught him. And I always liked that, that phrase suffering for the unknown. suffering for the unknown. And when Mike brought that up to me, I was like, shit, man,

I think I've been doing that my whole, my whole life, you know? Um, and, and look, it's not, I don't want to make it out to be anything that it's not. It's not like real suffering, right? I'm not, uh, I'm not poverty stricken. I'm, you know, I have air conditioning and heat and wifi and water and food. And like, so it's bullshit, right? It's like, it's fake. I'm not really suffering, but I, yes, I am putting myself through something difficult, something that's, uh, something that's challenging. Right. And I'm trying to do it every day and I'm trying to see, you know, what my potential is.

You know, what what can I actually what can I actually do? And so while I I would just, you know, for other people, I guess my concern with that kind of thing would just I think I think you're better off being pro for yourself and you are anti anybody else. better off being pro for yourself than you are anti anybody else. And I wasn't necessarily really anti anybody else, even though I had these weird fucked up things in my head, because they were just, they were just thoughts. They were just, they weren't really, I didn't really wish that someone would break their back or something. I just was like, oh man, I hope this guy really gets dinged up in his, in his prep for the meet, which happens to everybody, you know, hopefully he comes in and his knee is a little tender or something like that. So, you know, he can't, uh, blow me out of the water on the squat or something like that. So he was, it was, um, I may have said horrible stuff in my head, but I didn't really mean it. So are there any, there any like signs that,

you know, kind of like within star Wars, when the other negative, the, the dark force or whatever, that's how much star Wars I watch starts consuming young Anakin. Is there something that somebody can realize and be like, Ooh,

I'm using a little bit too much. I need to dial it back and anchor myself to my goals versus hoping that someone else is hoping to get banged up. Oh, yeah. That's an easy one. Okay. Yeah. Acting like an asshole. I mean, there was a lifter at Diablo Barbell that really struggled with almost every meet that he did.

that really struggled with almost every meet that he did. And I tried to talk to him about it. And I was going to basically tell him, you know, you're really struggling because you have so much hate in your heart. I was having fun. That's the important thing for me to probably point out. I was having a lot of fucking fun. It was like the time of my life to kick everybody else's ass.

It was amazing. Like, that's why I worked so hard. So I could kick everybody's ass. And then once I started doing that, it was amazing. And I talked shit to everybody. I talked shit to everybody on my way up, just like a punk. And then after I beat them, then it was like the worst thing that ever happened to them because now I'm smoking. I'm like, just like, you know, back when you're playing video games against some of your friends and they're smoking you every day, then all of a sudden you start getting the upper hand, playing Madden or something like that, and you start kicking their ass and they're like,

man, how did this happen to me? And you're like, I don't know how it happened to you. It happened to you because you suck. You're just super pumped about being able to, I don't know, I guess kick the crap out of somebody else, dominate somebody else. like uh super pumped about you know being able to uh i don't know i guess like kick you know kick the crap out of somebody else dominate somebody else um but yeah i don't know um i kind of lost track of the actual question i guess uh just you were basically getting at like don't be an asshole oh yeah yeah so this guy yeah he got super frustrated at meets and stuff and i

said oh you know i think one of the, you know, you really struggle in your competitions because you're, you're always going about it. So with so much anger. And I said, I have seen that work for some other people, but you know, it doesn't appear like he would bomb out all the time, bomb out all these meets. And so it was like, it doesn't appear like it's working well for you. So, you know, maybe you should try something else. he didn't want to hear it like even that made him super mad daisy's going crazy over here that's a shame windows but uh yeah i was just like um

that's that would be the first sign it's just that anger level you know of getting like really mad and uh finding yourself really like frustrated all the time. I mean, also too, like if you're really frustrated about your training, you're probably somewhere along the line you're just doing a little too much, you know? You're pushing yourself in a way that you're not ready for at the moment. And I'd imagine if you find yourself without a training partner or you know the groups over there and you're like hey i'm not training with anybody today right like you're nobody wants to hang out with you yeah exactly not yeah that's that would be kind of the first

sign and then also just um you know like i would see a lot of people. So, I mean, I don't, I just don't think there's at all the time we've hung out and all the times we've, I mean, I'm sure you've seen me like not super pumped about certain things. I'm sure you kind of see me flustered or frustrated at least a little bit. Um, but you never seen me like throw anything. You never seen me like punch a wall or you never seen me like throw my fucking hat down because I missed the lift. Or I don't think you've ever seen me do anything like that. Right. I've seen you punch a wall, but you were fired up before a squat. Oh, yeah.

That was pretty good. And I think I've seen you throw a water bottle out of just being silly. But other than that, no, I've never seen you like, you know, curse because something happened. Yeah. Do something out of anger on the, do something. All right. Yeah.

I've never seen you do anything to where like everybody gets quiet and looks at each other. You know, you know that like that dead science, like, Oh, is he okay? No,

that's never happened. Right. And I've given you tons of reasons to do that. Yeah. I think. So I just I personally don't ever act that way anyway. So I think that that's maybe important to note, too, because if you try to implement any strategies, they could they could backfire on you if you are more of an emotional person. So where would stoicism fit in all this? If you can go maybe just pretend that you're back in your powerlifting career on your way up

with some of your thought process and how you handle things in your own head, if you were to implement some know some of these stoic philosophies because you know the you know being positive or like hoping for a better outcome and then you know again playfully uh you know having games in your head where you're thinking someone else is gonna screw up or something um how would you have been able to mesh maybe the two? Yeah, some of these things are probably not very stoic at all. I would say, though, that I think one thing about stoicism, like one of the quotes that I like, and I don't have it, a direct quote, but it's basically, this would have been really helpful to me because I would get stuck and I'd get caught up in certain things because I thought I had these rivalries.

I thought they were important to have these rivalries with other people. And those are, I think they're fairly safe. I think it's safe to, and I think it's human nature to, to measure yourself up next to somebody else. Uh, you see somebody else's wife and you're like, ah, I think I got, I think I'm, I think I got one up on that guy. You know, you see somebody else's car and you're kind of like, ah, you know, like, and you know, you're not thinking that way all the time,

but these are kind of like subliminal things that you kind of recognize, watch, just how you dress, just all these things. Not that you're ever thinking that you're better than anybody necessarily, but these are things that I think that could be hard not to, they're hard not to notice. It's hard not to notice what people have because there's so much value placed upon money and just external things. And so I think that you're always going to kind of compare yourself to people. And I think a little comparison, I think is healthy. And when it comes to, you know, power lifting or strength training or bodybuilding or something, I don't see anything wrong with saying, I could have a better physique than that guy. I just need to, I need to put in a little bit more something. I don't see anything wrong with saying I could have a better physique

than that guy. I just need to, I need to put in a little bit more effort. I think I could smoke that dude. Um, I think I can be a little stronger than that guy. I just, I'm kind of probably going to have to, okay, well, he's got a monster deadlift. I'm going to have to make up ground somewhere else on my bench press, but from a stoic perspective, something that would have helped me a lot because I got slowed down by kind of being, I guess, concerned or worried about where my place was amongst these other people. And that's not good. So one thing that would have helped a lot is one of the quotes in Stoicism is something to the effect of, uh, it's, it's almost like somebody said, somebody says something about you and rather than you, uh, reacting, um, like rather than you overreacting

your, uh, action back is just to say, uh, wow, I'm, I'm sure they actually would have said a lot, a lot of different things about me if they knew about these other bad traits that I have. You know, something where you're like, like, that's kind of all they got sort of thing like that. Even just that even just that one quote would have been helpful because I get in a stupid online fights on threads and things like that of, you know, people saying this guy's better or this or that. And I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't that direct like that, but that's basically what it was. It was me just like arguing with people for no, for really no, no good reason. And if I was less sensitive to the criticism that they may have had of me and just kind of shrugged it off as like,

shit, you don't know what an asshole I really am, you know, and just kind of let them dwell on that. Because, you know, if someone's going to criticize you and point out your flaws, who do we know that doesn't have any flaws? You know, we all have flaws. So I think to kind of leave it at that would be a good way to do it. I think to kind of leave it at that would be, it would be a good way to do it. Awesome. And then, so kind of wrapping things up, you know, this mindset and your thought process and how you, you handled everything during your, your power lifting career. Is there anything that you didn't take from that into your business or you, I mean, just in life in general, like, is there anything where you can't implement that same sort of mindset and determination to accomplish goals outside of the gym?

Yeah, I think, you know, you can use a lot of these principles, you know, one thing, it's really like, just, it's whatever it takes, you know, whatever, whatever you, whatever you need to, whatever it is, it's going to get you out of takes, you know, whatever, whatever you, whatever you need to, whatever it is, it's going to get you out of bed. You know, me trying to beat these other people or me having this hit list wasn't necessarily the thing that got me out of bed. What got me out of bed was I was obsessed with getting stronger. I was obsessed with self-improvement. I wanted to suffer for the unknown. I wanted to figure out what that was going to look like. You know, suffer for the unknown. I wanted to figure out what that was going to look like. You know,

I wanted to figure out, like, I do know that there's like hope. I do know that if I work hard at something, if I put in the effort and I do so for a long time and I develop some consistency, like I have a real belief that, uh, I have a real belief that everything else will kind of fall in line, you know, that, that whatever, whatever, uh, kind of dreams I have or whatever ambitions I have, whatever the things are that I really want to accomplish or do, I think they'll just fall in line. If I'm just a good person, if I'm just, uh, enthusiastic about what I'm doing and if I just fucking do it every day. So I always, I felt that way from probably a pretty young age. And so I always just tried to, I always tried to kind of stick it out and try to stick with that idea or principle. And then I would also say though, so there's a story about,

there's a story about Simon Sinek talking to somebody at Apple and he tells them about what his Samsung does. And they, he's like, Oh, you know, Samsung does this. Samsung does you know, Samsung does this. Samsung does that.

This phone does this. This phone does that. And the Apple executive, he, it just doesn't even register with him. You know, it just, what they're doing at Samsung just doesn't even, it doesn't even register at all. what they're doing at Samsung just doesn't even, it doesn't even register at all. Um, and he just, he just starts talking about something like different that Apple's doing. Um, but he's, he doesn't say anything about like Samsung. I think that that mindset can be really helpful. Um, and, and so I think there's more than one way to play this game. You know, there's more than one way to do it. You can do it that way. And you can kind of like, uh,

you can just continue to work on yourself and continue to make your product better. Like Apple does, they continue to make their product better. They're not focused. Look at Tesla, right? Like they didn't even have anybody to really model themselves after, right? Just keep and make, keep making your own product better, keep refining yourself. And whatever way that needs to get done, if it motivates you to, you know, maybe on Elon Musk's hit list is Henry Ford.

You know, like maybe some of the original car manufacturers are on his hit list because of the innovation that they had. Because before that, we used fucking horses. You know what I mean? So, um, if you, if that gets you inspired and gets you fired up, I don't see any, I know some people may find, may listen to this and think like, Oh man, this is like some really fucked up way of thinking. But I just think it's, um, you know, it, it, it didn't, um, just because it worked doesn't mean it's going to be effective for everybody. But also, just because some of it has some danger to it doesn't mean that it won't work for anybody.

That was incredible, Mark. If you have anything else to add, please do so now-ish. But for everybody that's listening and or watching, please let us know in the comments your thoughts on today's conversation. I think this was incredible. It's got me pretty pumped up and motivated. So if that's the case with you, please let us know. Utilize the YouTube and Facebook comment section. Those have been quiet. So if you guys want to get at us, that's one place you can do it.

If you're currently on your way to the gym, you know, let us know. Screenshot that shit and put it on your IG story. Tag us. And we'd love to share it because, you know, this whole community, like, we just keep growing. And it would just be amazing if everybody, you know, people talk about how, oh oh, I can't find a super training gym. I don't, I can't find anybody around me. It's like, well, Hey, right now, you know, with the internet, like that's kind of been our best communication. We're doing this podcast remotely marks in Bodega Bay. I'm in Sacramento. So, you know, we're, we're all just one, you know, hashtag away or whatever, you know? so at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram, at MB Power Project on Twitter, hashtag MB Saturday School.

That's what we're going with. Use that hashtag. Share everything that you guys, you know, your thoughts on today's episode. I know this shit's got me pretty fired up. And I hate that I have a whole day of errands that I have to do because now I just want to go and lift. I hate that I have a whole day of errands that I have to do because now I just want to go and lift. I would also, I guess, kind of finish this up with saying that, you know, it's really important to get around good people, you know, to figure out a way to just as you were just saying right there with super training. People say there's not a super training around them.

There doesn't need to be. You don't need to have a super training necessarily. I've been training at my buddy Mike's house, the bicep, one of the bicep board creators, bicep board, you guys will find out about it soon enough. We're going to be selling it the fourth quarter this year. We've never sold anybody else's products on our website before, but this is a product that I really enjoy. Explain more about it some other time but just training in mike's garage mike has some weights in there and uh he's got a couple mirrors couple machines and stuff like that and it's just what you make of it like he doesn't have he hasn't he has a good setup he's got some good machines for back he's got a machine that you can do chest and back off of.

He's got a leg extension thing. He's got a nice variety, and he's fortunate enough to have a large enough garage space to where he can put – he even has a thing that has arms on it, so he can do cable crossovers and so on. He's got some dumbbells. He can do cable crossovers and so on. He's got some dumbbells. So he does have a good variety of stuff, but it has absolutely no – it just sits there. Without him going in there and doing the work, it just fucking sits there.

And then in addition to that, he invites people over all the time. He's been inviting me over to work out. I've been popping over there with Angelo, and then there's usually like one or two other people in there. And with that kind of communal response like that, having some community together, everyone's just training their ass off. The guy I trained with yesterday, I think his name was Travis. He's a young up-and-coming bodybuilder. Kid's jacked as shit, you know. I call him a kid. He's like 30. But he kids jacked as shit, you know, I call him a kid, he's like 30.

But he's, he's jacked as hell, you know, and it's like, it's motivating, you know, and it's motivating be around people that want to do great things, motivating to be around Jessica Smith and see all the weight that she's lost, motivating, be around you and see all the progress that you've made, working for our company, getting in better shape, popping out kids, all these different things. And SEMA, I mean, SEMA is just, he's yoked, pops his shirt off. And you're like, I kind of forgot that he's that jacked all the time, you know, and it's motivating, inspiring. And I don't think there's anything wrong with, with saying like, I want to try to do that, you know, or I want to try to beat that. I want to try to be, I want to see if I could be better than that.

That's one of my goals. I'm like, shit, man, he's always really lean. We're about, we're, we're similar body weight. You know, could I, could I figure out a way to be a similar body fat percentage? I think I can. I don't know if I can do it all the time because maybe we just are slightly different or maybe it would just be uh too much of me suffering for the unknown um but shit i'd like to find out you know why not find out why not work on it why not get leaner

i mean that's what motivates and inspires me or seeing uh you know smoky sending me deadlift clips and he's like oh you know is my positioning good you know he Smokey sending me deadlift clips and he's like, oh, you know, is my positioning good? You know, he's still working on it. He's Smokey's already really strong. You know, you mentioned Ryan Soper asking this question. I think Ryan Soper's benched like 440 pounds in competition or something like that. He squats over 600 pounds. Our team is just awesome.

You know, so for people that are listening, then you might say, oh, I don't have anybody like that around me or they don't have to be a monster. They just have to be somebody that is, uh, uh, has some good self motivation, somebody that just, they just want to do it. And that,

that will be good enough to get you started. And that will help create a good environment. And that'll help keep you motivated, inspired and fired up all the time dope sign us off i'm at mark smelly bell thank you guys so much for joining in i'm wearing my steak shirt right here and speaking of steak i'd love for you guys to go check out uh pete montes check out what they got to offer we got 25 off when you use the code uh mark bell there you go and it's uh piedmontese.com did i get that right yep that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com you guys can check the links in the description of the uh on your podcast app and or youtube and facebook

and don't forget to go over to markbellslingshot.com for all your slingshot needs. We cover you head to toe with stuff that makes your workouts more comfortable and a little easier. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later. That was a good punch.

Right in the face.