Mark Bell's Power Project - Master Functional Training: Your Path to Becoming a Stronger Human

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Discover how to improve the way you train and move with insights from Nsima Inyang on Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast. In this episode, we dive deep into why functional training is the key to becoming stronger, more mobile, and resilient in daily life.Learn how Nsima's transition from bodybuilding to functional training has improved his strength, endurance, and flexibility. We explore the importance of nutrition, the mental and physical benefits of jiu-jitsu, and the value of diverse workouts like rope flow, sandbag training, and bodyweight exercises.If you’ve struggled with injuries, want smarter training strategies, or are searching for sustainable ways to get stronger, this episode is packed with valuable lessons for you. Tune in to transform your approach to fitness!Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz0:00 From Bodybuilding to Natural Movement6:44 Learning from home workouts to gym training10:03 Anime and Dragon Ball Z as fitness inspiration15:28 Soccer injury and choosing a fitness career20:21 Transition from soccer to bodybuilding with guidance24:58 Gaining weight for muscle growth after sports26:43 Tracking progress during bodybuilding prep31:41 Shifting from bodybuilding to functional training36:43 Improving knee pain through smarter training techniques39:38 Jiu-jitsu: Technique over strength and its benefits46:01 Motivation and personal growth through jiu-jitsu49:04 Nutrition’s role in strength and functional training55:18 Balancing weight gain, cutting, and hormonal health1:03:13 One meal a day (OMAD) and other eating strategies1:08:13 Practice, persistence, and mindset for skill mastery1:14:29 Exploring diverse training methods like rope flow1:22:44 Achieving flow state for better performance1:27:22 Overcoming challenges in training for resilience1:31:59 Inspiring others through your fitness journey1:33:28 Combining lifting, running, and martial arts for balance1:41:36 Importance of foot health and functional footwear1:47:56 Unique training tools like sandbags and their benefits1:52:48 Incorporating daily movements for consistent progress1:56:07 Designing a health-focused environment at home

My singular focus at the point in time was to gain as much muscle as possible for bodybuilding. My goal was to win worlds. That was the goal. I ended up meeting you guys here at Super Training, getting into some powerlifting, then I got into some Jiu Jitsu. And when I got into Jiu Jitsu and caught that bug, then the bodybuilding bug just kind of went away. I do wish I knew more of what I know now in terms of training because I was able to gain

a lot of muscle. I wasn't able to do anything else. I could pose, but I had no endurance. Some people still get it twisted that I don't lift at all anymore. You're not going to see me doing a standard deadlift anymore. You can do all of these same movements with other implements. These patterns of hinge, squat, press, pull. You can do all these patterns with different implements. Different implements that can help you feel better, that can maybe help you move better.

If I look at myself back then, there are things that like, I could still achieve the same amount of muscle gain, but I could still maintain the ability to move well. But you don't have to sacrifice your other movement ability as you're gaining muscle. All right, Seema Inyang, welcome to the show. In like eight years,

you can't even say my last name right. I have no idea how to say it. It's like Yin Yang, Yang, same thing. I like that you don't usually correct people. You're just like, no, especially a white person. You're just like, you're like, this person's got to all screw it up. No, it's a difficult name, bro. I don't blame anybody.

Anyway, I got questions over here. You see that? You see that paper? Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. It's a lot, a lot to go over. Oh no. But you know, you've been kicking ass with your YouTube channel and you've been kicking

ass being on the show for a long time. And I think it would just be cool if people knew a little bit more about your background. Because I think people may be confused. They see you twirling around a rope, maybe lifting up a sandbag. That's all I get on my size though. Or flipping around some kettlebells and doing stuff like that. But where'd this all start for you because you're 250 pounds, right?

Yeah, 250, I'm coming. I'm gonna make this really uncomfortable. We're gonna talk about you today. I can see already you're getting a little uncomfortable, but we're gonna make it uncomfortable. 250 pounds, you're a pro bodybuilder and you're a black belt in jujitsu. Where did this journey begin?

Where did this start for you with lifting? Yeah, I think I'm really lucky in the sense that I was able to start being physical super early. Oddly enough, I think also playing a lot of sports has played a role in me being able to do what I do now, because I started soccer at six. When I say I started soccer at six, it was recreational for a little bit. And then, you know, my mom, she was a single parent.

She was like, okay, this kid has a lot of energy. So she put me in like competitive soccer. So I was traveling around and stuff when I was like nine to like 13. When I was 13, I got injured. That's when I started lifting weights because I had Oshkod Slaughter. It means you can't really, you're growing at a pace that like some stuff in your knees doesn't catch up.

So, I'm- Tons of pain in the knees, right? Lots of pain in both knees. I still have a bump in both my knees, but like it's ineffective. Everyone that has Oshkod Slaughter has the Oshkod Slaughter bumps. But that's when I started lifting

because since I didn't have an outlet of being able to run around on a field every day, which is how my mom would keep me busy, she'd either have me doing that or like playing some instruments or whatever. I was able to start lifting and that became like an obsession for me. I had dumbbells in my grandma's room. I had a little gym that I'd go to and lift around there. And then when I started playing soccer again, the lifting never stopped. So when I was around 16, I weighed around 210, 215 pounds. But when I started playing soccer again,

I ended up going down to like 185, 190 because I was kind of husky. When you're lifting and you're eating and you're not playing anything anymore and then you start doing cardio with soccer again, you downsize. So yeah. Where were you in the pack when you guys were running?

I'm sure when you were sprinting, you were probably doing okay, but like when the coach had you run laps in the beginning of practice, you were probably like, oh my God, this is our warmup. Dude, even when I was younger, you know, I think actually I, there would come points when we were doing endurance stuff

where I would be like, but that wasn't actually, I think, because my endurance was bad, I think that was because I had anxiety when it came to endurance work. So when I would start to get a little bit out of breath, I would start to... So when it came to endurance stuff,

I wasn't great, and I think I also had a belief that I wasn't good at that stuff, which is funny now, because in jujitsu, it's hard for me to guess out. But anyway, that's another thing. But when it came to sprinting, I was very fast straight lines. So that's why the positions I played were like positions

where if someone passes you, straight line catch, center back or point striker, that's what I did with soccer. Yeah, soccer is amazing because like tennis and some other sports, you have to be able to move laterally as well. So that probably helped you a ton when you got into other sports as you got older. Yeah, man, let me ask you this, man.

What are your thoughts on high endurance sports and then its relation to lifting. Because I have this, I have, you know, I don't think that if I didn't play soccer, I don't know if I would have been able to build as much muscle. I have this weird theory that like, because of, because that was a lot of running, right?

And when I started lifting weights, I remember that I could almost like, doing long workouts felt easy. Because since I had nothing to do when I was a teenager, other than like playing MapleStory and online video, online games and stuff, one of my workouts would be long. But I think it's weird how I was able to like

do two hour workouts at that point in time. But I think the reason why I was able to do that was because when you're running around a field, you're using a lot of energy. It's a lot. So I don't know. We've had a lot of guests on the show that have endurance backgrounds

and then they end up being huge. Stan Efferding comes to mind and Stan I think graduated high school like 140 pounds or something like that. Bumstead was a soccer player, although you never had him on the show. I think Stan also mentioned that he struggled to bench 135 when he was in college and he was playing soccer.

Steph Cohen is another person. We've had a bunch of people that have gotten like really shredded and or really jacked and they're like, oh yeah, I used to play soccer when I was a kid. So I think that endurance, I think it does make a big difference. How did you learn how to lift? Is this something you sort of like, did you enter the YouTube universe and start to look stuff up or a friend or something?

Yeah, initially it was forums because I didn't have any friends that lifted. It was like bodybuilding.com forums before YouTube. I remember when I was like, I think when I was 17 or 18, that's when YouTube stuff started to pop up. So I'd see some stuff from like Hodge Twins, Elliott Hulse. But before that, it was just stuff I saw online,

and then just kinda like looking at what other people in the gym were doing. So when I would go to the gym, cause initially a lot of the workouts I would do was at home with my dumbbells. But then when I would go to the gym, I would kinda just do the machines, and then there was this guy, there was this black dude that I I still know his name today, but he was a really big black guy

So I realized that when he went to the gym It was around like five or five thirty and I would find a way to get to the gym around that time too Most of those days and I would kind of just like creep Honestly, because he was I remember he had he was was a dark skinned black man. He was bald and he had massive delts. He was just big. And I knew that I wanted to look like that, right? So I kind of just like, kind of did what he did. I didn't shadow immediately.

Like it wouldn't be like he'd be on a bench and then I'd be on the bench or whatever, cause that'd be weird. But I'd like be on the machines on the other side of the gym, kind of doing some stuff, just kind of watching him. And then over time, I kind of understood what he did each day.

He had a five day split. I'm pretty sure it was like an upper push-pull leg type split. And I would kind of just start doing that. And that's kind of how I was like lifting at that point in time. Did you ever talk to him? No, no, no, I never talked to him.

I just realized when he was at the gym, and every time I went to the gym, I would hope I would see him so I could kind of see some of the stuff he was doing. And I I never talked to him. I just realized when he was at the gym, and every time I went to the gym, I would hope I would see him so I could kind of see some of the stuff he was doing. And I just kind of copied him. That is a great way to learn. Mimicking is a great way to start. And I think something I've learned over the years

when I was powerlifting, I would watch people powerlift on YouTube and I'd try to watch the people that had good form. But then it also got to be a little bit more important to me was to find people that had maybe form. But then it also got to be a little bit more important to me was to find people that had maybe almost like a similar body type. Because you might watch someone who's really tall do a particular deadlift or someone who's really super short do a particular style lift.

And then maybe you're not recognizing like, oh, it doesn't apply to me as well. So, you know, I think starting out with imitation, I think is a great place to start, and a great place to learn. One thing though too is like, this isn't a side, but I think it's good to try to pay attention to people that maybe have your same structure, especially in like Jiu-Jitsu, I think that's especially important

because there are certain things within the martial art, like certain positions that like, if you are much shorter, or like let's say your legs are shorter, or you have just a different body type, certain types of things won't work for you. But also, I think that don't let that idea limit you from trying something

just because that person isn't your avatar. It's good to find inspiration, and I think there's so much inspiration on the internet now since there's so many different people doing things in fitness. So you can always find somebody that you relate to more. Yeah, don't let it be a limiting belief, oh, that guy's got longer arms,

so of course he can do that. Yeah, I think that's one thing that messes with a lot of people. They find the differences between themselves and the person that's doing the thing that they want to do, and then that ends up stopping them from trying to do said thing, right? So, yeah, that's something I try to keep in mind for myself.

We have a lot of guests on the show that have mentioned anime over the years. Oh yeah. And your eyes just light up whenever we talk about it. When did you start getting into that and what were some of the shows and what were some things that you feel that you maybe drew from those shows

and is there still stuff today that you kind of draw upon? Ah, dude, absolutely. I think one of the reasons why I actually got into anime so much is just because my dad really wasn't there. And he wasn't there kind of early. I think he was there, actually, he was there from like 7 to 12, but he wasn't there in the earlier part of my life, and I think I started getting into a lot of anime

because of father figures, oddly enough. Like, they were great shows and there was a lot of action, but I didn't have men in my life. Like, I didn't have a lot of present men in my life, other than my coaches, which I was very thankful for. My mom, she had me, spent a lot of time with, other than like my coaches, which I was very thankful for. My mom, like she had me, you know, spent a lot of time with my coaches and stuff. But outside of that, like I think I just really related

to the stuff in anime because it's like, it gave me kind of a distraction and something to seek. And Dragon Ball Z, I think is a funny thing because it was a show that like, once it came to the US and I started watching it, I couldn't stop. I just loved it. But the cool thing about it was a show that like, once it came to the US and I started watching it, I couldn't stop. I just loved it. But the cool thing about it

was that it had all these super jacked dudes fighting in martial arts. And like, it always had a message of this. Like the message was always like, Goku would go into a fight, he would lose the fight initially, he would go and train, he would go and lift,

he would go and like find people to get him better, go back to the fight, and he would win the fight. And there is this idea of something that he had called the Zenkai Boost. It's something that Saiyans have. And the Zenkai Boost is this idea that like, if you lose a fight and survive, you will immediately get stronger.

Ah. If you survive, right? So it's like- Well, that which doesn't kill me makes get stronger. If you survive, right? So it- Like that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Exactly. And I feel like the author Akira Toriyama, like man, the amount of men that are in their 30s now or in their early 20s or late 20s that have just like gotten big and started lifting

and started like working on themselves because that show, it's crazy. Like we had Colton the Limit Breaker on and he themselves because that show, it's crazy. Like we had Colton the Limit Breaker on and he was like, yeah, Dragon Ball Z. Same thing with Jose's, Jesus Olivera, same thing. Dragon Ball Z. Dude, that show has like bred so many people who are just like into whether it's fitness

or martial arts or whatever, just like this physical training as a way to develop yourself. You know, and like, yeah, I, Dragon Ball Z had a big place with all of that. There was a lifter years ago, a bench specialist, his name was Ryan Cannelli, and somebody asked Ryan about like his strength, and you know, he's benching like, I don't know,

800, 900 pounds at the time. Back when the bench shirt thing was a huge thing, maybe he even got to like a thousand, I don't know, he, 900 pounds at the time. Back when the bench shirt thing was a huge thing, maybe he even got to like a thousand, I don't know. He just, he was insane. There's videos of him benching 315 for like 40 or 50 reps, just smoking it raw. Unbelievable lifter. And people asked him about his strength and like,

how do you, and he's like, well, he's like, I just kind of view it almost like a cartoon, almost like anime or something like that. He's like, just whoever's in the room, he's like, I'm sucking all of the energy, all the power, all the strength of as many people that are in that room. And then I harness it on the bench press. He's talking about a spirit bomb. That's what he was talking about.

And everyone's got, everyone's like got their pen out. They're waiting for him to talk about like five by five or the steroids he uses or whatever it is, you know? And he, and he drops that shit on us, you know? Yo, parents, like, if you right now have a kid, a young boy or a girl who, you know, anything, have them watch some Dragon Ball Z. If you're like, if you're struggling,

have them watch one of the current shows that are out right now, have them watch some Dragon Ball Z, right? That show will get your kid training for sure. It's a big deal when you have something that you really love and it doesn't go the way that you want. Was it really hard to kind of realize that it was the end for you with soccer at some point?

Yeah, yeah. Well, the first- It's brutal. That's brutal realization of like, I played football. I ended up with the same thing. Like, ah, shit, you know what? Like, I'm just, I have to admit, I'm not good enough. I gotta bow out of this. The first time it happened when I was 13,

that's when, that's actually when my mom realized, I think that, because up until that point, soccer was just a normal thing for me. And that's where I actually had most of like my friends too. I had friends at school too, but like soccer, those are my teammates, those are people I traveled around with. So when I had to stop playing at 13,

I was kind of a shell of myself until I was able to find the gym, right? Because I didn't have a physical outlet. And I don't think up until that point that I realized how big of a, how important that was for me as a young boy. But again, when I was like, I think 20, was either, yeah, I think I was 20 in college.

My first year in college, I was a redshirt freshman and I trained a lot. It was a D1 soccer at Sac State, but I trained a lot with a private coach because I wanted to play pro soccer. And everyone says that they want to play pro sports and everyone believes that they could have. And I believe that I could have because like, I had the physical attributes that were abnormal

for soccer players and I was using those attributes to my benefit when I was on the field. I was a player that used my body, used my speed, used my attributes and that was very uncommon in the sport. So a lot of people, a lot of coaches around me were saying if you can just, if there's certain things I was working on, if I can get that right, that I could play in the MLS,

and that was my goal, but then I had a foot surgery that I had to get, and I didn't realize, like, over time, like, running around in my cleats was hurting my feet, and I didn't know why, but I just kept playing. And then it got to a point that I couldn't really run because my outside toe was like, my pinky toe was just like, had this massive bunionette. That they had to shave off.

And same as the feet are fat, is what he's trying to say. They're quite fat. They're chubby. I wore wide, you know, the crappy thing though is I also had like wide cleats. Like I had wide cleats. Yeah, dad cleats. Yeah, yeah man. The Adidas Copas, those were like the like wide cleats. Like I had wide cleats. Yeah, dad cleats. Yeah, yeah man.

The Adidas Copas, those were like the best wide cleats at the time. But yeah, when I didn't have that, then I just kind of was, I was a bit aimless because even though I had stuff I was doing in school, I really wanted to do stuff with soccer. So from then, like that's when I just like, I just started lifting only again, you know?

And even there, it's when I just started lifting only again. You know? And even there, it's like, okay, when it came to no more soccer, then the thing in school was I was a biomedical science degree because I wanted to become a doctor. But then when I volunteered at the Davis ER, I realized I didn't want to be a doctor. Like, I was only inside the building for a fraction of time

as all the other physicians in there. I hated being inside for so long. I loved interacting with patients and helping out where I could, but as I was talking to more physicians, because one of the things my mom encouraged me to do was to talk to people there, learn about it. She didn't think I would figure out that I didn't want to do it.

She thought that would be something that would encourage me to want to do it. But as I was talking to a lot of doctors in there, they were just saying, this is a great profession but you need to be sure this is what you want to spend your time doing. Because if you get your degree in this and you continue on, it's going to be very hard for you to turn back. And there are a few people here that don't want to be here, right? And I didn't think about that.

That's one thing I never thought about because like growing up, you have this idea of what your life's going to look like and what you're going to do. And you never think that, oh, I'm not going to do that, right? So when I realized like, I don't want to be a doctor either, then I was just like, what am I going to do?

I'm in school, what am I going to do? So then a semester later, I ended up just kind of leaving for a bit because I was like, I need to figure it out. I just started training people. I actually went to work at 24 hour fitness initially like as a salesman for fitness along with training. And then things just continued going from there.

How did the bodybuilding thing come to be? I mean, I remember seeing some pictures of you when you were like younger, when you're I think maybe 16 or something. And it's clear there's some pretty good development, but I wouldn't say that you looked like a freak by any means, you didn't look crazy. You just had muscle, you looked like a kid that trained

and you looked like a kid that was pretty lean. A bodybuilding is interesting. I mean, same with power lifting, but it's like you lift and you lift and you lift and then one day somebody at the gym or somebody puts it in your head, hey, you ever think about doing a bodybuilding show? Like how long did that take

before someone maybe planted that seed or did you see a video or a magazine or something that got you into it? You know, the interesting thing is like, I think generational influences for fitness are so interesting because your generation was influenced like Arnold and Hulk Hogan, right? What were your influences for lifting?

Yeah, wrestling and Arnold and Stallone and all that stuff, yeah. Okay, so before I got into bodybuilding, I didn't know about bodybuilding. I was lifting and my inspiration was just like, actually, YouTube, one of the first guys that I was really inspired by was Greg Plitt. You remember Greg?

Absolutely, he had such great, I don't understand the depth of the way that guy was able to speak, but it was unbelievable. So motivational. Yeah, y'all need to, like, if you don't know who Greg Plitt is, type in Greg Plitt motivation and just listen to some of his speeches.

Those were some of the things that I was listening to back. And light you on fire. The people listening is going to light you on fire. They will. And he was like, Greg Plitt, when I was like, later in the years too, Greg Plitt, when I was like later in the years too, Greg Plitt was like one of, that was kind of the physique I wanted.

I wasn't like looking at Arnold or anything like that or this bodybuilders. I wanted to kind of look like Greg because he was athletic looking, right? He was doing a lot of like, he was lifting a lot, but like he looked good and he was shredded. So I say that because like, I wasn't thinking about bodybuilding the whole time I was lifting a lot, but he looked good, and he was shredded. So I say that because I wasn't thinking about bodybuilding

the whole time I was lifting. I wasn't ever thinking about doing a bodybuilding show. It was a few years after I stopped playing soccer, I think maybe two, maybe three, yeah, three years after I stopped playing soccer, I started working at a private gym called Forever Fit. And the trainer that actually, his name is Paul Urciaga. And Paul saw me at 24 Hour Fitness one day

before I started training people with him. He's like, you should be training people. You shouldn't be here. I was like, yeah, I know. I was planning on getting a cert and training people here at 24. He's like, no, come train people at my gym. I was like, okay.

So I started training people over at Paul's gym. And then a little bit, few months later, Paul's like, you ever thought of doing a bodybuilding show? Paul's a pro natural bodybuilder. I was like, no, not really. I don't really want to get on, that's not for me. Seems like a weird sport kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

To me, it kind of was a weird sport. But it's different, yeah. It's very different. But Paul's like, you know, if you do that, you could probably a weird sport. It's different, yeah. It's very different, but Paul's like, if you do that, you could probably do very well. I was like, you think so? I was like, yeah. So he helped me prep for my first bodybuilding show.

I did two shows, I think two or three shows in the INBA, PNBA, and then I didn't get a pro card that season. Was that something that was on your radar, PNBA and then I didn't get a pro card that season. But I- Was that something that was on your radar? Like once you sort of found out about you know, competing and stuff, you were like, oh this, oh I can be like a pro? That's kind of neat.

Yeah, that's the thing that like, once he told me about bodybuilding and I started looking some stuff up, looking at like natural bodybuilders, one of the guys who was like the guy at that time in the PNBA, his name was Kyoshi Moody. And I actually traveled out to PNBA Worlds that first season so I could kind of see what the pros looked like on stage. And kind of like how big they were, etc.

And actually that picture right there that Ryan pulled up isn't Paul, that's me with Alberto Nunez. That's I think my second season doing that. But, yeah, like, when I start doing stuff, I try to, like, re- I mean, I think everyone does this. If you start a sport or whatever, you research as much as you can, right? And Kiyoshi Muri at the time was, like, the guy for natural bodybuilding. So, anyway, I did pretty good my first season.

I think I won one of my shows, but then I just started gaining weight again. Because I wanted to compete again the next year, but I wanted to make sure that I came in super peeled, and I wanted to just have a much better season. And that's actually also when I gave Alberto Nunez a call from Team 3DMJ and was like, hey man, this is what my first season looked like,

and these are kind of my goals. And yeah, that's Kyoshi. Kyoshi was a, he doesn't bodybuild anymore. Actually, he has an amazing story because I think everyone also thought he, everyone thinks he's on drugs. Everyone thinks like the top natural bodybuilders are on drugs. And I mean-

He's still in this kind of shape? I mean, if those pictures are current, it's interesting. Because Kyoshi had cancer apparently a few years ago and I didn't even realize that. I looked him up a few months ago and apparently he had cancer a few years ago. So I don't know if all this stuff is recent, but if it is, god dang, Kiyoshi's still going at it.

But yeah, the next season, Alberto coached me. I got two pro cards that season. I went to WNBF Worlds, got fifth in the world as a heavyweight. I lost, you know what,. I went to W and BF World's, got fifth in the world as a heavyweight. I lost, you know what, and I'm really mad about this, but I had a show in Canada that I did that season as a pro, and I lost it.

But I'm pretty sure I lost it because the judges thought I was on drugs. Because when I had the pictures of the other guys that were on stage, and there was nothing. You're quite a bit bigger. I'm much bigger, much leaner. I actually sent it to the guy who owned the organization, and he was like,

I don't know what happened here. But it was the hometown guy from Canada that won that show. Anyway, I'm not going to spend too much time to belabor that point, but that's one of the things that soured me with bodybuilding too, actually. It made me realize that even though, or even if you could be that person that should win, it's not objective. Like soccer is objective, or like jujitsu is objective.

Soccer, you have goals, right? You can have some bad calls here and there, but the team who wins is the teams who wins. Jujitsu, submissions. If you submit the guy, there could be some things that here and there, but the team who wins is the teams who wins. Jiu-Jitsu, submissions. If you submit the guy, there could be some things that happen with points, but usually it's a skill-based thing. When that happened, I was like, shit. That didn't happen with any show I've done so far,

where I was like, even the shows I lost up until that point, I was like, okay, I lost. But this show, I was just like, I paid to come out here to Canada to compete. And I really got snubbed this bad? And I was like, I was still gonna compete. I still have goals to compete the next years, but that really soured me towards the sport.

But yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about when you stopped playing soccer and then you got more serious with bodybuilding. Yeah how much weight gain are we talking about because When you're when you're running around a lot and you're playing a sport That's calorically expensive and that's and also your recovery is gonna be much harder So once you kind of stop some of that activity and focused in a little bit more on strength bodybuilding

Type stuff how much weight did you start to gain? So once you kind of stop some of that activity and focused in a little bit more on strength, bodybuilding type stuff, how much weight did you start to gain? Because this is like still like, you know, you're still a really young man, you're still a teenager. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that one of the things that happened when I stopped playing soccer is like, first, it was very hard for me to get bigger

when I was playing soccer and lifting. Because even when I was playing soccer and lifting, I was still at least lifting four days a week. I would try to get in five, but at least I was getting in four. But when I stopped, the weight gain came fast. Because then I was eating much more than I was able to eat. For some reason, when I was playing soccer, even though I was running around a lot and I was lifting, I found it hard to eat a lot of food.

I don't know why. I mean, I would eat a lot, but when I didn't have soccer and I was only lifting and eating, I was able to eat way more food, lift a lot harder. So within the span of maybe two and a half to maybe three years, I think I went from around, I ended soccer, I was like 210 or 215 on the field. And in my first bodybuilding off-seat,

my first, when I started my first bodybuilding prep, I was around 240 to 245. That's where I started that first prep. I think I was probably more around 240. So my first prep, I went from 240 and I cut all the way down to, I think I was like 220 or 219, my first like bodybuilding season.

So it's pretty safe to say that you put on. 25 pounds. Maybe 30, but 25 pounds. And then definitely 15 pounds of pure muscle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that, the first season too, when I was 240 to 245, I wasn't 240 to 245 looking like this.

I had quite a bit more body fat. So that's an interesting thing now, is now I'm 250 in single digit body fat. But when I was 245 at the time, I was probably around 15%, you know? Maybe 15 or 16% back then. So it's one of those things where it's like, that not having to run around,

that makes waking a lot easier. But again, I think there's a caveat to that. All of that running around that I did also allowed me to like, pretty much train almost every day. I was training like, I had a six day training split at that time, but I was finding that it wasn't difficult for me to recover. And I think that base that I was able to lay down

of all those years of running around, and like soccer is not the type of sport where you just, you sprint, stop, sprint, stop. It's a lot of expenditure. I think that laid a lot of groundwork for me to be able to be pretty successful in a sport that's not as metabolically demanding as bodybuilding.

How did you get big? Because a lot of people watching probably want to know, like, did you do anything unconventional or was it pretty much hypertrophy and eating? This is one of the things that I wish I had more understanding of the way I train now to be able to implement back then. Because back then it was just like, initially when I was in my early years,

I wasn't using much of the barbell. I was using a lot of dumbbells, a lot of machines, and a lot of like calisthenic type stuff. But I wasn't doing calisthenics like the way I do it now where I'm really trying to improve this skill. I would do a lot of like pull-ups and dips, dumbbell work, machine work. I didn't really do a lot of squats.

It wasn't until, actually you could probably see, if one goes to the deepest depths of my Instagram, which would take some time, you'll see when I started squatting. Like those are the years I started actually developing my barbell squat and I think I was maybe 22 or 23. Your legs have been pretty big anyway though,

probably from some of the soccer. Soccer, soccer and like again, I did a lot of leg press, leg extension. pretty big anyway though, probably from some of the soccer. Soccer, soccer and like again, I did a lot of leg press, leg extension. Oddly enough though, I think like partially because I was like spanning leg press and leg expression, that extension, that's probably why I had some knee issues. Right? Because like the lack of things I do in much deeper ranges,

but like, yeah, it was dumbbells, machines, minimal barbell until later, and that like, and like some calisthenic work, weighted calisthenic work, and that stuff like helped me gain a lot of size. Standard hypertrophy workouts where there's maybe like a main movement or two, and you're trying to push the weight on those progressively over time type thing? Yeah, yeah, like I had, what I would do was

I would have different rep ranges for movements that I'd work, so I'd have certain movements that I'd work between a six to eight rep range, I'd have certain movements that I'd work within an eight to 12 rep range, and I'd have certain movements that I'd work within a 12 to 20 rep range. And then I'd pay attention to like the weights

that I did the week before, and it wouldn't always be the weights increasing, standard progression, sometimes I would try to get more reps. Sometimes I would try to add more sets if the weight has stalled. So if weight has stalled in a specific movement I was doing and I can't work with anything heavier, I'd do an extra set or two of that movement and try to really get that out. I did use quite a bit of failure, but not in every single session because it was like it was too taxing.

But I think that like, I don't know, I think it is useful to take yourself close to that point to kind of see what you're able to handle, but it's much safer to do this with bodybuilding movements because they're not as heavy as a heavy barbell squat or deadlift. So you're not gonna, like, I wasn't doing that with that type of work,

but I was doing that on like a leg press, a shoulder press, pull ups, lateral raises, I would go to failure on some of those types of movements, just to see if I could peek out the progression. I think that's one of the strengths of writing down the things that you do, so that you kind of have a reference point for, you know.

I used to have that by the way. I used to love having a journal and keeping everything. I was always like way into it. I was like, what did I do last time? But that's also, when you have a singular focus, because my singular focus at the point in time was to gain as much muscle as possible for bodybuilding. Even on my Instagram, after that season where I got,

like when I got fifth at Worlds for bodybuilding, I had a plan of getting back on stage two years later. And my goal was to win Worlds. That was the goal. And then in between that, after that, I ended up meeting you guys here at Super Training, getting into some powerlifting, then I got into some Jiu-Jitsu. And when I got into Jiu-Jitsu and caught that bug, then the bodybuilding bug just kind of went away. But what I was gonna say was this,

I do wish I knew more of what I know now in terms of training, because even though I was able to, I was able to gain a lot of muscle, I wasn't able to do anything else. Like, I could pose, but I had no endurance. At that point in time, I'm pretty sure I never thought I would be able to sprint again. I didn't have the ability to jump very well. I didn't have the ability to move well at all. And the question that I always get on like the content that I make is like, yeah, you're doing all this functional

stuff now, but this isn't the stuff that got you big like, yeah, you're doing all this functional stuff now but this isn't the stuff that got you big. Or yeah, you're doing all this funny looking stuff now but this stuff isn't going to get you big. And the thing that I wish that I was thinking about more then, which is why I try to share this with more people is, first off, you can do all of these same movements with other implements. These patterns of hinge, squat, press, pull, you can do all these patterns with different implements, different implements

that can help you feel better, that can maybe help you move better, but you don't have to sacrifice your other movement ability as you're gaining muscle. I think, and that's- No reason you can't swing around a mace or some other things. And in addition, do some of your hypertrophy work.

I still do hypertrophy work. I think some people still get it twisted that I like don't lift at all anymore. But you're not gonna see me doing a bar, like I have nothing against the barbell deadlift, but you're not gonna see me doing a standard deadlift anymore. It just, it doesn't serve me in any type of way.

There are just certain movements that like, they're not necessary, right? They're not necessary, I even think, and I even think if I look at myself back then, there are things that like, I could still achieve the same amount of muscle gain, but I could still maintain the ability to move well. That's something that I just,

I hope more people think about because again, the things that were my goals, I looked at like Goku, Greg Plitt, for me it was just about this look. But when I played soccer, who were the guys I would watch? Lionel Messi, Carlos Puyol, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

It's about being quick and smooth. It's about being quick, smooth, and a fluid mover. I wasn't looking at what Messi looked like. I was just looking at his beautiful feet as he did these impossible things with the ball. And it's like that, what I realized, what I kind of lacked and what I trained out of myself

because of the way I was training, my goal from then became, okay, in jujitsu, this martial art, watching the best guys and watching how they move, how can I figure out a way to train, be strong, be resilient, but also be a really good mover? Right? That's what I try to marry now.

Yeah, and I think it's clear, there's a lot of evidence of this and we know this. It is true, you know, so when people are criticizing and they're saying, oh, you're doing this stuff now, it is, you know, we both have a luxury, you know, we built this muscle like we worked for it years and years ago and it was an investment. And to keep the investment well

and to keep the investment healthy, it takes less. We don't have to do as many sets, but we're still doing some curls, we're still doing some lateral raises, we're still doing some shoulder presses, we're still doing a lot of these movements, it's just that now maybe we don't need as much and then also you could argue, maybe when we were younger, we could have gotten away with doing a lot of these movements. It's just that now maybe we don't need as much. And then also you could argue, maybe when we were younger,

we could have gotten away with doing a lot less. That. And you know, that's- Because we just didn't know. And also I don't even know if we cared. Like if someone was like, dude, you could do half the work and be awesome. And we would be like, fuck you.

No, back then I wouldn't have cared, right? But the thing is I wouldn't have cared because the things that I was watching on YouTube, everyone that I was seeing on YouTube was doing the same thing. Everyone's redlining. Everyone's redlining. And everyone had the same splits, doing the same movements. I had no examples of what else could be done, or why it should be done, or why I should even attempt things in another way

So that's one of the reasons why I'm very I'm very grateful that I've been able to you you invited me on to do this Podcast with you and learn from all these people and I was scared as hell. Yeah, I was scared as hell to do the podcast Because if I never did this podcast and I never got Introduced to the well of people that we've been able to have on and all the different insights and information and ideas on doing things. I would still have, I'd still be big, but I would still have all this pain

that I wouldn't be able to deal with. It wasn't until I met Ben Patrick that I had these ideas of getting rid of knee pain that I had for years that I never, that I thought I ideas of getting rid of knee pain that I had for years that I never thought I thought I would never get rid of and bam. He thought it was just normal. I thought it was a train hard I trained hard for many years. The knees been hurting forever. I had Osgood slaughter I had knee pain when I played soccer. Why would my knee pain be able to go away as an adult? That's really what I thought

Meeting Ben Patrick implementing some of this stuff even before he came because we the podcast. Because we weren't like, you weren't specifically, even though you were working the legs, but you weren't specifically trying to target the legs with the thought of like, I'm going to work on making this better. No, no, no. It was just like, you know, size. Yeah, right?

Size, big. That's all I was thinking about. I wasn't thinking about the movement ability. And just avoid stuff that hurts. Exactly. Just don't do it. But that's the thing that you're told too. Yeah.

You know, if you have... But then it starts to really limit you. If you have this shoulder pain here, just don't do that movement anymore, do something else. If you have this knee pain here, okay, there's another movement you could do that you can still get quad hypertrophy. That's the lens that I was thinking about. I can't tell you how many people over the years have told me,

oh man, I can't flat bench anymore. And they're like, but I do incline. And then they're like, I can't incline anymore many people over the years have told me, oh man, I can't flat bench anymore. And they're like, but I do incline. And then they're like, I can't incline anymore. So I just do overhead. Like, yeah. And it's just, you're like, oh my God, like you cut out like so many different exercises

and now you're not getting your body to go through some of those ranges of motion anymore at all. Dude, how about we think about like, okay, you can't do this anymore. Yeah, it's good to have a substitute. That's a good thing. But how can we figure out how to get, how to be think about like, okay, you can't do this anymore. Yeah, it's good to have a substitute That's a good thing But how can we figure out how to get how to be able to do this exercise and not being painful? Can you do it with four pounds? You probably can yeah. Yeah, do it with four pounds. Yeah, it's high

So so that's the thing and that's why like the lens of just looking at the way somebody looks Which is the way I was looking at things, that's that I won't I'm not going to say what the metric should be for anybody. But that is not my metric. And it was my metric when I was younger, but it can't be my metric now. And I think the reason why that is, and the reason why I've been I thought about a lot of these things this way is because for a while I was within a sport sports actually like bodybuilding and powerlifting where you know powerlifting you did pay attention to the way people move things on the barbell but there's also this subtext of powerlifting where you want to be fucking jacked and you don't care

you don't care when someone walks away if they waddle away or not they did the lift perfectly hey he has he has massive shoulders look at how wide his back is he's a brick shithouse like that You don't care when someone walks away if they waddle away or not. They did the lift perfectly. What? He has massive shoulders. Look at how wide his back is. He's a brick shithouse. It's still the lens of like, yeah, good movement ability, but you want to be jacked. And it wasn't until I got back into Jiu-Jitsu

that the lens was like, okay, it's not about being jacked because people that aren't jacked, people that are weak, people that are small are beating up the bigger jacked, people that are weak, people that are small, are beating up the bigger jacked guys, right? I think that's one of the cool, unique things about that martial art specifically, because when you look at, for example,

weight classes in boxing are important, right? But even so, like when you look at other martial arts, it's very rare that the lower weight class person is going to handily win against someone who's bigger and stronger than them. Judo, wrestling, it's rare. But Jiu Jitsu, every martial art has the concept of leverage, but Jiu Jitsu is very, very, very zoned in

on mastering how to leverage yourself against your opponent. I think even Helio Gracie mentioned, like the point of jiu-jitsu is to give the person who's weaker and smaller the skills to beat the stronger, bigger opponent. And the reason that is, is because when you're doing the martial art, it's not just about pushing somebody. It's about, there is a push and a pull of different parts of that person's body

to make them fall, to take their arm, to sweep them. There's always a leverage that's going on between your body and another person's body. So it's your ability to find these points of leverage, but also your ability to move fluidly while finding these points of leverage and not get stuck beneath the strength of somebody else. You need to become very attuned with that concept. And if you know how to leverage somebody well, you're a good mover.

And Jujitsu is also like, you see these crazy positions of flexibility, back bending. Like seeing these positions when I started is one of the reasons why it started to dawn on me. I'd like, okay, you know what? I should train these things where the spine is rounded. I should train these different types of positions because not everything is just...

When you're here, you're like, when you're just stuck, you're fucked. And last point on this, the easiest people I've ever rolled with in Jiu Jitsu are lifters and power lifters. Those are oddly the easiest people for me to personally roll with. Because they're so stiff, their body just moves

as one unit. They don't bend at all. So it's like it's easier to topple them over. Like you're wrestling like a tombstone. You just gotta. It's just like, yeah, the whole piece moves. Yeah. Whereas like you do push hands with Weck,

he's like pushing on like a water bag or something. You're like, I don't know, I can't get any pressure on. So that's why for me, it's like, how can I have the best of both worlds? That's what I think about. It's like, I want the physical resilience of the strength athlete and the bodybuilder. I want to have that aspect, but I want the fluidity

and like the gumbiness of the high level grappler on that side of things. And if I can have both, that's a deadly combination. What do you think is something that like locked you into Jiu-Jitsu? Like what was the, because you know, you go to a couple of classes and people recommend and you find out it's difficult. You hear a lot of people say that and they were kind of, you know, you go to a couple of classes, some people recommend, and you find out it's difficult, you hear a lot of people say that, and they were kind

of, you know, entranced with that, but like, was it just like embarrassed of getting just absolutely destroyed by people that are smaller and stuff like that, or what was the thing that like kind of locked you in to wanting to be awesome at it? Yeah. Hey Ryan, I don't know, on my YouTube channel, there's one of my first videos on jujitsu where I'm like getting beat up by a black belt that was much lighter than me. I don't know if you'd be able to find it, but it's on the channel.

But the thing that got me in, the funny thing is like when I learned about jujitsu, I actually didn't know about jujitsu. It was my ex-girlfriend who, I was talking to her one day. I was like, I want to figure out something else that can, you know, that can get my heart rate up because again, I played soccer for 15 years, 16 years. And it's like, it was, I felt odd, you know, only lifting, even though it was cool that

I was like, yeah, it can get big. But it was like, I sound like I'm snoring while I'm just standing here. I'm freaking, I have my headphones on. Okay, you know what also? Dude, there was one day. I remember you told me about this, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was wanting to add my headphones on. I was working on my computer and she was like,

and Seema, you're breathing through your mouth. I was like, wait, what? I took out my headphones, I was like, what? She's like, nope. She's like, yeah, I'll keep that there. She's like, you're breathing through your mouth. And I have my headphones on, I was breathing like. I didn't realize I was breathing like,

I didn't realize I was breathing like that, you know what I mean? So like, anyway. And you weren't even fat, you were just big. I was just big, I was just big, but the thing is, I was on my way. Yeah. I was on my way. So-

Powerlifting almost got you all the way, almost got the hooks all the way in on you. Almost. But what happened was like, I was thinking, okay, maybe I should do some CrossFit. I was considering CrossFit. I considered boxing and then she mentioned, I don't even know how the hell she knew about it,

but she mentioned Jiu Jitsu. I was like, well, what's Jiu Jitsu? She was like, yeah, I heard there's a Jiu Jitsu school kind of close to us right here. And I don't think she knew exactly what it was too, but she knew it was grappling. So when I went and I saw the first class, I immediately signed up.

I didn't need to wait, I didn't need to sign up because I saw so many big people in there. Getting beat up. Like getting beat up by people who, people who look like they worked in tech. Or just like, what is this? Right? It made me realize like, shit, okay, like...

And that's no shade to anyone who, you know... When I say these things, sometimes it can sound very mean to people who are not as big. And I don't mean for that. So if you're listening, I apologize. I'm not meaning to sound that way But I do find that it is a very impressive thing when somebody who looks very unassuming Has this weapon to just destroy so like I'm a hundred pounds heavier than this guy dog

Just look at how he just knee swiped me took me down landing on top of me I couldn't do anything about it and you're're somebody who has squatted well over 600 pounds, dead lifted 755. You have all these attributes and you have tons of muscle mass on you. So you wouldn't think that a little guy could just do that to you. This round right here, man, he tapped me like,

I think he tapped me six different times. He's having a little too much fun. Yeah. I think this is one of the six different times. He's having a little too much fun. I think this is one of the things that gets a lot of people excited about Jiu Jitsu. When a new athletic person comes in, you can look around just seeing all the... Everyone just looking at their child.

I've had this done to me a bunch of times. Yeah, they're like, I'll roll with you. I'm like, oh, great. Yeah, yeah. And this is what... I think that's what made me stick with it. Just seeing kind of how like the possibilities, right? I knew it was gonna take a very long time for me to get good at it, but seeing the possibilities of like

what I'd be able to get from it was just that hooked me. Immediately hooked me. Yeah. All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how you doing it? I got a secret, man. It's called good life protein. Okay. Tell me about that.

I've been doing some good life protein. You know, we've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef, and you can get that under the umbrella of good life proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of.

Lamb is another one that comes to mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20 grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef, I might get bacon.

And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that. And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why like neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating.

And protein, you talk about protein leverage all the time, it's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal, and I can surf and turf. I can cook up some chicken thighs or something like that, and have some shrimp with it, or I could have some steak. I would say the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorites, so it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bavette steaks.

And I also love the rib eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib eyes. So guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, you can go to GoodLifeProteins.com and use code power for 20% off any purchases made on the website. Or you can use code power project to get an extra 5% off if you subscribe and save to any meats

that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. I kind of forgot to ask you about the food when it came to bodybuilding. So can you kind of give us a little insight as to how you got big, how you got real big, and then you did mention the cut, and it would be great if you can tell people

how many weeks it took you to cut for some of these shows, because I think when we hear, most of the time we just hear for IFBB Pro Bodybuilder, and they are not drug tested or anything, and they might do 12, they might do 16 weeks. It's usually like, it's a long time. It's a couple months, right? But it's not nearly the length of time, yeah,

that you're dealing with. You're drug tested. Yeah, yeah, drug tested, not drug free. I gotta get to it before somebody else does. I can't verify anything. I gotta get to it before somebody else does. I've seen some pills fall out of your pocket before. It was just tests, Mark.

That's a joke, guys. That's a joke. But... But it might not be. It's a joke. But first, man, first, I'm actually, I want to say I'm very thankful to my mom, because growing up, she didn't let me miss a meal. Like, she, like, nah, she really didn't let me.

And grandma. And grandma, like yo. Grandma used to tell you that you're skinny. I always think that's amazing. Even when you were. I was skinny at 250. She really thought I said I was skinny at 250. Just cause I didn't have enough fat on me.

But I come from a household of like, we ate healthy, but like I was eating, first off, things like sardines have been a part of my diet forever. My mom had Oregon meats in certain parts of foods and soups. It's just like culturally, there's certain types of food that I think lended itself to growth. Fufu is this thing called pounded yam. So I'd have that with like a meat soup.

And it's like, these are things that like- Sounds awesome by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This wasn't when I was cooking for myself later in life, I wasn't able to make these things, but I do think that being able to have this type of nutrient rich food when I was younger is something that kind of without me realizing it

made a lot of those things easier for me. I don't think I would potentially have what I have now if I wasn't eating the type of food I was eating then. A lot of food that people would think is like, you know, people don't like eating fish. I'd be eating fish and stuff like that all the time. So there's that. But when I was, first when I was like bulking and eating more, I'd eat a lot of oatmeal.

I mean, I, okay, let me just pat out the macros because I would eat to fill up the macros. When I was bulking and I was trying to gain weight, I think at minimum I'd be having like 350 to 400, maybe grams of carbs a day. My fats, they should have been maybe around 80, but I know I was having a bit more fat than I should and protein was always a lot of protein. So I'd always be eating an upwards

of like 240 grams of protein. I couldn't afford a lot of like steak and things back then, so I ate a lot of, I didn't eat as much ground beef as I do now, but I ate a lot of chicken, some ground beef. Some room for chicken thighs or mainly chicken breast? Chicken thighs, yeah. I'd have chicken thighs too, but I'd also have some chicken breast because I was trying to be a little bit careful about my fat since I was having so many carbs. And some red meat.

But yeah, so that was on the bulking end of things. Now on the cutting end things, for my first show, I think the cut could have been better and it could have been longer. I think we cut for maybe 20 weeks, right? But we definitely needed longer because at the end of that, we did water manipulation and we only did water manipulation because like I wasn't truly lean and I wasn't shredded. I was lean.

I was like maybe, I'll see, I'm like right now, I was probably the body fat. I was probably maybe 8%. 8% body fat on this one show. It's interesting because, I don't know if you agree with this, but like there's like an 8% and then there's an 8%. Like there's different 8% almost,

because someone could be, like if somebody does a show, they, I don't even know why, I don't even know, maybe it has to do with water manipulation or something, but someone could look pretty good on stage at 8%. Usually they're gonna need to be leaner, like if they're trying to actually win and like kick everyone else out.

They probably have to be quite a bit leaner, but sometimes somebody can get to that 8% and be kind of dry looking. Like right now you're not like dried out. So you're ripped and everything, but to be completely shredded, you did mention it might take you 20 weeks or so to get diced up, but I think even like three weeks from now,

you could look way different because you could just make drastic changes. I'll cut it right now. I'm going down to 240. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, yeah, the cool thing that happens after you get super lean is that like your body fat distribution does change. I've worked with a lot of bodybuilders in the back then.

And the amount of people that have done their show, start gaining weight and realize like, I still have lines in certain places that I've never had lines even at a higher body fat. It's pretty crazy because before my first show I didn't have lines in my legs. Almost like a maturity of some sort. A maturity but I think there's also just like a certain, your body fat distribution becomes more even, right? Because again, like I didn't have lines in my legs back then. Now I'm 250, I flex my legs, every single line is there. Because your body fat distribution gets, I believe,

more even after you get very, very lean. I wonder if that has to do with like insulin sensitivity or something, but I've noticed the same thing and I've told you this as well. I'm like, you're just going to get more jacked the older that you get. I don't know how long, it'll happen until you're maybe even into your 50s. You'll just keep getting like leaner looking and leaner looking, even without like much manipulation. You have to

be on your diet. You can't just be haphazard with your nutrition, but that's going to continue to happen for you for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. But into my cut, I think the cut in my second show was more realistic to what a cut should be. So let's talk about this real quick. Between my first and second show, I went up to around 260 before my second cut. So my second- Can you talk about why that makes some sense?

Because someone might be like, well, what are you gaining fat? So my- Can you talk about like why that makes some sense? Like why what? Cause like someone might be like, well, what are you gaining fat? Like you're playing this game of like gaining and losing. I don't think it made the most sense. I think, I don't think I needed to get up to 260. I was uncomfortable. But to some degree, some of it makes some sense.

Okay, actually, you know what? Let's talk about it. Some of it did make sense because it was just much easier to move weight. Like being 260 and lifting feels... It feels so good. A 45 pound plate becomes a frisbee. It feels so good. Yo, but everything else feels very uncomfortable.

Everything else feels very uncomfortable. Wiping your ass. Tying your shoes. You know, the wiping ass and tie shoes. I wasn't that bad. I wasn't that bad. But I just like, I felt so slow and so sluggish outside of everything other than being in the gym, right?

And I just like, my face was super round. Anyway, I did that because in my mind, I was like, okay, I think I was like 218 or 219 in my first show. I was like, if I can get up to 260, I can potentially be in like the 220s when I get back on stage. It was substantially bigger, substantially more muscle.

So I did that. I got up to like 260 and then the cut was 42 weeks. And this is one of the reasons why I don't think that it was necessary to get up to 260, because the cut was 42 weeks. The cut was 42 weeks partially because when cutting, you need to take, especially when you're not using, you're not using PEDs, right?

There are multiple times where you need to take a week diet break or two weeks of a diet break. You can't be in a deficit for that long, but there is quite a bit of body fat to lose. So at the end of the cut, I think I had my fats, Alberto had my fats at like 35 to 40. My carbs were around 250, 250 carbs, 40 fat, and 250 protein.

So what is that, 2,000, what's eight times 4320, 2320 calories. No, nine times, 360, 2360 calories. That was my calories. And I was doing cardio almost every day. I was doing some cardio almost every single day. How much cardio, like 30 minutes? Like an hour, hour and a half, 16, 90 minutes.

I think a few days or 16 minutes. I was just, yeah, I was doing treadmill. I was doing treadmill. I was doing treadmill. But that was, that really, that prep kind of sucked because I'm in the sense of losing my sex drive five months before getting on stage. Like that's one of the things that, you know, bodybuilding in all senses isn't necessarily healthy. I think every bodybuilder can kind of say that as a fact,

because obviously on the PED side of bodybuilding, there's some guys using a lot of stuff that might not be the best for their health, but on the natural side of bodybuilding, no matter, you know, I do wonder, as like the keto guy who you were talking about, Robert Sykes, I wonder how his sex drive was. Yeah, he claims that he still felt really good.

You see, and I believe him. Because he still had, I think he's on stage with like 100 grams of fat still. Exactly. And, you know, within, I don't know how it is now when as coaches prep natural bodybuilding athletes. But the thing is, is like the general idea of getting in a deficit for natural bodybuilding is typically as you get leaner, you want to keep as much carbs for performance.

Obviously your protein needs to stay there so you're muscle sparing. But the fats are going to be that things that go. And we know that when your fats get really low as a man, number one, low fat as a man is not great for hormonal health. Number two, being lean while having no fat as a man is a double whammy to kill your hormonal health.

There's a guy that I prepped. Can only do it sparingly if you're going to do it at all. Yeah, yeah. So like, I didn't even do any blood work then, but I can guarantee, like again, my ex that I was with at the time, I had no sex drive, I couldn't get hard because I was so lean and I had no fats.

But apparently that was just the thing. Now, I had a guy that... It's amazing the stuff that we're like, yeah. It's just part of the process. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Really big deal. It's demoralizing.

And if you're a single guy and if you don't have a significant other, and you're going on dates and stuff, like that would just be, you know what I mean? Like I'm a married guy, so if I have trouble here and there, it ain't no thing, right? It's not a big deal.

You find other ways to get stuff done. But if you're a single guy, and you're trying to like meet somebody, and you're in that stage, that'd be rough. No, no, no. The thing is, is like when you're in that place, you're just so focused on the show that everything else really doesn't matter at that point.

You kind of become numb to other stuff, right? That's a weird feeling. Yeah. You really are numb to everything. Yeah. You literally are like, you turn into like a robot. Yeah, exactly. Gotta go to the gym, gotta go to the gym, gotta go to the gym.

Yeah, yeah. It's a weird place to be, but that's why I'm saying like, you know, it's not healthy. It's really not, because also, along with that, it took me to get my sex drive back and to feel normal. It took me five months after show to feel normal again. Even when the calories were brought back up because I had to gain body fat back,

it took me like five months to feel totally normal again. I had a guy that I prepped a little bit after that and I wanted him to get some blood work just so I could kind of see. And his free test was like 20. But he was like, he looked like he was four or 5% body fat. Like he got peeled, but I wasn't surprised. And he was concerned too. I'm like, dude, yeah, this does suck.

But when you get this lean and you're using minimal fats, it's kind of what happens. When you start eating again, it's going to come back to normal. But that's why I do think I could have done that. And it's good hearing that Robert Sykes did it with FAPIUS. I know how to get lean with fats nowadays. And I know that you can get lean with high fats nowadays. So if I ever did this again,

I would get leaner using high fats. And you'd maybe just lower the carbs a little bit. I'd lower the carbs. And have good activity. Exactly, and I would carb cycle, number one. I would have most of my carbs around my workout. And I would just make sure that as much carbs as I have, it's going to be used to fuel exercise versus anything else.

Carb cycling makes so much sense, because you could have days where you plummet the fat down a little bit. Next day, you can bring it back up. And you can also make sure, like as you start to go through like a bodybuilding phase, I only did one bodybuilding show, but as you start to like try to get yourself really,

really lean or really shredded, you're gonna start to miss out on like, not just macronutrients, but all kinds of nutrients. And you were mentioning like sardines. And if you're trying to eat like sardines or oysters or salmon, all these things are full of fat, but they're incredible. And they also have zinc and copper,

and they got all these other nutrients in them. You're gonna be bypassing all that stuff if you're just eating chicken breast, some rice and some broccoli. Dude, absolutely. And again, this is one of the reasons why I'm so lucky that I've been able to learn from all the different people we've had on this show, because I would have never attempted learning how to fast, would have never attempted these different types of diets. We didn't have conversations with people about these diets. And then I tried them.

I learned about fasting, tried fasting, learned about. And I'm like, wow, I can do well with way minimal carbs. Because I think the paradigm within first off bodybuilding, but also within sport is that if you don't have enough carbs, you're not going to perform. Like, why would you even do that to yourself, right? Even we had Mike Isertel on. He was even like, why would you do that?

It's like, if you could perform a little better with carbs, why not use some carbs? And it's one of those things where it's like, you think it's impossible until you spend some time doing it and you realize you can perform just as well potentially. But now you have a level of flexibility in terms of the way you eat that you can kind of call audibles on each day.

Like I told you, I'm going down to 240 right now, so I'm one meal a day-ing it for quite some time. I'm going to get there pretty fast because of that. And because of that strategy, you don't really have to necessarily cut anything else out. No. It's time restriction and you're eating the one meal and you're going to get 2,000 calories

or however many calories you're eating in that one time. And you're probably gonna get a lot of nutrients from fat, a lot of nutrients from protein, a lot of nutrients from carbohydrates, along with probably just eating some fruit or whatever the hell else you want with your meal, right? Absolutely, absolutely. It's like, it's a very easy thing.

And yeah, it's a very, very easy thing. Here's what I wanna touch upon And, you know, yeah, it's a very, very easy thing. Here's what I want to touch upon, because I want to try to get to just about everything. I know we've been going for a little bit here, but what is something that kind of drives you to just think of going right to the top? You know, when you're a young kid, it makes sense, because we don't know any better.

So I'm going to be a pro football player, like of course I am, like every know any better. So I'm going to be a pro football player. Of course I am, like every other kid, right? I'm going to be a race car driver. But in each sport that you've done, it seems like you start it, and then you're like, I want to figure out a way to get to the top, to get with some of the best coaches, get with some of the best people, and just immerse myself.

And it seems like in Jiu-Jitsu, it seems like Casio that we had on the show, it seemed like he mentioned to me, and I don't know if this was a thought that you had or if he said it first, but he was like, you can be a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion black belt. You know, and I don't know if he gave you like a timeframe on that, but it seems like you do something

and then you're like, I want to be awesome at this. I think it's just, it's like, like a pro bodybuilder is pretty like, you check out the field, right? You check out like who's out there. And I would be, for me personally, in something like bodybuilding, which I'm not super passionate about, so that's a huge factor, right?

But it would be like demoralizing. I'd be like, oh, I don't have, I don't think I have hardly any of the attributes. But maybe for you, you feel like your attributes line up and you feel like it's something maybe, like what makes you think it's like within striking distance of some sort, or achievable rather?

Yeah, I think the things that I've picked have been things that, number one, like I played soccer. So I come from a, I played soccer competitively too. It wasn't, I wasn't just like, okay, it was a hobby. I played it with bigger goals in mind. Right. So for me, when it comes to picking sports and doing these things, I do them because I want to compete in them.

Right. That, that, that's one of the things that's like, if you want to compete, that means you want to be really good. And if, if for me, competing means I want to be one of the best if I can, right? So when picking bodybuilding or when doing bodybuilding, again, it wasn't necessarily me thinking about it. It was a suggestion. But as I saw it and I paid attention to it, I was like, okay, you know what?

I can really take this far. I could do really well with it. And then the next thing was powerlifting because when I started doing powerlifting, I started doing it in congruence with bodybuilding. So I didn't necessarily want to be the best powerlifter in the world, but I knew that I can compete in powerlifting in my off season.

And this is something that's actually going to help my bodybuilding and I can probably do pretty well with it. That was the goal of powerlifting. But when I found Jiu-Jitsu, when I was doing Jiu-Jitsu, it kind of made me realize that even though bodybuilding, I was good at it, I was already a pro in it,

and I got top five in the world at it, when I was doing Jiu-Jitsu, it made me realize that I didn't love bodybuilding as much as I told myself I did. Because Jiu Jitsu when I was doing it, yeah, when I was a white belt and lower belts, etc., it was a very long goal, but just going into training was so and still is so extremely enjoyable.

And I knew something I was going to take a long time, but it's like if I'm going to compete in something, for me, especially being as old as I am, et cetera, or as young as I am, it's like why not try to see you can be one of the best at it? You know what I mean? I think All-Step Leave System has been something that's kind of been stuck with me and my mom. She put me in a lot of things when I was younger that kind of got rid of the, it got rid of the fixed mindset for anything that I do.

Self-doubt. Self-doubt. Because like she put me in so many different things that all I had to do was practice and get better, that I know I have the self-confidence in myself that if I practice something for a long enough time, I can become one of the best and very good at it. Like I told you this before, she put me in college classes when I was in fifth, sixth grade. And by the time I became a freshman in high school,

I was done with calculus because she put me in these programs that would allow me to like do stuff with adults. So I didn't have any like self doubt in terms of what I could learn. She's did the same thing with me in music. She had me do piano classes and all these different things with adults when I was younger.

And by practicing, I got better. She forced me to practice but it's like. Well, you probably thought some of that was normal too. Yeah. Like, oh, this is normal because this is how this guy plays, but you didn't realize that that guy playing is 36 and he's been playing the piano for 20 years. But she, like, it was just the idea of like, you practice something enough, you can get better at it, right?

She never, she never kind of fed me this talent thing, right? She was never me being talented for her in terms of the way she spoke to me. It was always like, you work at it, you get better at it, you will get to your goals. And by not just telling me that, but by putting me in so many different activities where I could prove that to myself.

I think when I got to an adult and I was like, I saw Jiu Jitsu, the immediate thing in my mind was like, how can I become one of the best at this? Because it's not like, for me, why there shouldn't be necessarily a limit on that because if you do it enough, do it for long enough and train long enough and put in that work, then why can't you, right?

She helped me prove that to myself through so many years. I think that's, again, that's something for everybody. It's just a shift in the way you look at things in terms of your mindset. Power Project Family, how's it going? Now, over the years, I've learned a lot from guests that have come onto this podcast, and I've taken the time to learn many different

movement practices. So, for example, if you've wanted to learn rope flow, which is a practice I think is just beneficial for everyone, I have a free rope flow foundations course is a practice I think is just beneficial for everyone, I have a free rope flow foundations course at school.com slash the stronger human. Now the stronger human community actually has over 11,000 members,

so it's a great community there, but you'll also be able to learn rope flow for free, along with many other things I teach in there like kettlebell flow, kettlebell juggling, all that good stuff. So head over there. Along with that, if you're looking for where to get your equipment as far as ropes, maces and clubs, sandbags, all that good stuff. So head over there. Along with that, if you're looking for where to get your equipment as far as ropes,

maces and clubs, sandbags, all that good stuff, you can head over to the strongerhuman.store. And on that site is where I have all of the different functional fitness equipment that I use to become a stronger human. So check those out and let's get back to the episode. Something I think is really interesting and something I've been given some thought to recently.

Sometimes I get on these like little kicks Something I think is really interesting and something I've been given some thought to recently. Sometimes I get on these like little kicks where I am studying and observing certain things for like a period of time. And something I think could be really valuable for everybody listening to this today is to try to find, do your best to try to find your perfect job. Sometimes like if you think about life being a little bit

like a maze, like who knows about the free will thing or not or whatever, whatever you believe is fine. But I think life has a way of closing doors for us sometimes of foot injury, is it God, is it, who knows? Is it some sort of intervention of some sort? I don't know. One door gets shut, but doom, you keep moving and you find, you go, oh, that door seems to be,

looks like it's kind of cracked open a little bit, little lights shining through there, and you just walk through it. And so you start to try to continually find the perfect job. And what sparked this thought process in me recently was, I was talking to John Cena's trainer, a friend of mine has been on the show, Rob McIntyre. And Rob mentioned that John has the perfect job.

Not in a sense of like it's fame and fortune and so on, and it's WWE and he's on TV every week, and like all those things are amazing. But it's a perfect job for him. It just fits him so well. And we've seen that from the rock and we've seen it from some other WWE athletes over the years, but just imagine, you know,

you find your way over a long period of time, whether you're powerlifting, whether you're bodybuilding, John's done powerlifting, bodybuilding, football. He's done all these things and he did the best he could in those things. But eventually he landed on the perfect job. I think the spot that you're in right now with what you're doing with your YouTube channel,

it seems like you're finding like the perfect job. And I know with my son and Owen, you're doing some acting and stuff like that too, which I think is super cool. And I think that that has a lot of potential to become a thing as well. And it seems like what you're doing with a stronger human, it seems like it's gonna continue to grow

because you and Owen, hats off to Owen, by the way. Owen Carr. Dude. Dude, just a little kid that lived right next door to me. He's my son's best friend growing up. He's doing an absolutely great job managing your YouTube videos and editing them and helping you script them and put them together.

But yeah, it just seems like you land on the perfect job. What makes you like, you seem to be really excited to share this information out with a lot of people. I know previously you did a lot of online coaching where you've been hired to coach people and all these different things you've done over the years, but this seems like something you're really passionate about because you can tell how much passion somebody has

by how much time they put into something. And it seems like you're putting a lot of time and energy into this and the videos are fucking awesome. Thank you. And thank you, Owen. I mean, if you guys know Owen Carr, I want to give a shout out to him because- He stole him from me, by the way.

I poached him. I stole his ass. I stole him real quick. Yeah, man. It's one of the magic things about super training, dude. All these things, just like, there's so much opportunity that happens over the years for me here and so many other people here.

Josh Settleidge, Andrew, so many things happen. But when I met Owen, he's a guy that worked with you and then he started working with me. And then he was just like, I can help you edit, right? And shout outs to him because over time, even his skills continue to improve. Yeah, I mean, he went from not editing hardly at all to doing what he's doing now

and he's doing great. Yeah, and he's going to be, he produces movies with your son. It's great. Um, but anyway, yeah, the, the stuff on YouTube, I, I enjoy it because I've been able to learn a lot on the podcast and put things into practice and the things I've been able to learn and put into practice from the people that we've talked to here have totally transformed the way that like I currently train. And it's kind of the content and the ideas I wish I had when I was younger.

That's kind of the thing because like if somebody told me about rope flow and sandbags and kettlebells and even about fasting, if someone that was in my position told me about those things when I was younger, some of the things that I may have, a lot of the pain that I probably had to deal with when I was younger, I probably wouldn't have had to deal with that because there are just certain things that would have been ingrained in my movement practice.

So the whole concept behind these videos is just, I'm not trying to tell people that they need to switch up everything that they do. I'm just showing you some of the things that I do so you're encouraged to try it out for yourself. And that's the goal of the Stronger Human too. The Stronger Human community, it's cool that the community has turned into what it is

because in that community are so many people with so many different goals. I mean, there are people in here that have goals of like just lifting and doing that, but there are also people who just want to move better. There are people who are martial artists. There are people who are playing pickleball. There are people who are rock climbers.

All these people have their different goals of moving better, building more resilience, just becoming a stronger human. And they're all able to share their insights with each other. So there are some people that are doing certain things that I don't have courses on in there, but because it's a community,

they're just sharing these things with each other. And that's what I do with the YouTube channel. Like, there's so much more that I'm working on to put out, but it's just all the things that I've managed to learn. I just want to share that with people so that they can try it out wherever they are. I think that's one of the cool things about YouTube. It's like, you know, when I was younger,

I'd watch videos and I'd go and try things out, right? You don't necessarily need a trainer to be there with you. So one of the things is how can you build your own fitness and movement practice based off of the things that you enjoy. And it's not difficult to do. And I think that the stuff that you're sharing, not like you're going out of your way to be novel

and you're not gimmicky by any means, although some people might think it's gimmicky. Yeah, for sure. The rope and the twirling around the kettlebell, but these are all, so the way I look at it. Yeah, these are where it's swirling. It's swirling. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, which there ain't nothing wrong with. Hey, it might look a little funny if you pick up a hula hoop and haven't used one in a long time, but is that a great act? Hey, that's actually great for the lower back when we think about it, right? It's a fantastic activity.

Yeah. It's awesome to be able to do stuff like that. But I think, you know think you're specifically sharing stuff like, look, there's a lot of great channels to go to for learning the specifics of how to do a lean away lateral raise, right? There's a lot of good channels to go to that might teach you about a Zotman curl and a perfect position to build the brachialis muscle

or something like that. But a lot of these things are discoveries to that might teach you about like a Zotman curl in a perfect position to like build the brachialis muscle or something like that. But a lot of these things are discoveries that you're almost in like a documentary type of way. You're having like an expose on a particular thing of like, oh, I've been working on my grip or I've been, you know, the sand bucket or I've been working on rope flow and you've been the sand bucket or I've been working on rope flow and you've been working on these mobility things. You're already a mobile guy.

You've already been, you've worked on stretching and mobility for a long time. You said Kelly Sturett's book has had a large impact on you over the years. And just watching you do jujitsu and seeing some of the things that you do in practice, you're already very athletic and already very strong, but you're finding a lot

of other things that aren't just the standard leg press or the standard squat and the standard deadlift. But you, I mean, over time, who knows how many different things you'll cover? Who knows how many different videos you'll cover, who knows how many different videos you'll have, and if you'll cover, say, Bench Squat and Deadlift. But I think-

Those videos are there. Oh yeah. Right, right, and you've done them. But my point in just bringing that up is like, that's not necessarily where your channel's at right now. You're bringing some different concepts to people, giving people, I guess, stuff that might be a little eye-opening to them.

And when it comes to some of the things that you're sharing, it's like, you know what, okay, yeah, it might feel weird with the rope, but just pick it up. Just give it a try, you know, and see what it does. For me, it's been huge. Every time I pick the rope up, I feel better. Every single time I wake up and be like, oh, what's that?

Go outside, do a little rope flow, get some sunlight. And it's not magical, but it is doing something pretty awesome for me. And it feels like it's freeing a lot of stuff up. Even with going to functional patterns recently and visiting Nadi Aguilar, the founder of functional patterns, he was like, man, he's like,

you move so much better than you did a few years ago, like at least from the videos that I see. And a lot of it has to do with some of these practices that people think are weird or corny or whatever it might be. So I've been influenced by it as well, seeing you being influenced by some of the people that we bring here, because sometimes I might be like,

that guy's got a lot of great points, that's why I brought him on the show in the first place, or why we collaborated and brought someone on the show. But sometimes I'm also like, I don't know about that. Yeah, you know, one of the things that burst off when it comes with the rope that's like really cool about that is the symmetry on both sides of the body, the rotational symmetry on both sides of the body. I think everyone that listens to the show understands

how important the ability to rotate is. And most of the things that we are fed and the things that we learn to do in the gym are in the sagittal plane and their bilateral movements. So an aspect of that is just like, can we start doing these athletic type things? One thing that a lot of people mention is like, okay, I get it.

So I should still lift, but just do a sport. And the thing that I think is somewhat that makes things a little bit more difficult there is every single sport has its asymmetry. If you do a throwing sport, you throw with one side, you throw with one arm, you're doing a lot of rotations on one side. Joe Rogan was recently talking about how he loves doing the bow.

But there's this pull on one side with this right arm, so then he has this right back pain that he just wasn't able to get rid of. Right? So, one thing about the rope is that now you're getting symmetrical rotation on both sides of the body. You're getting rotation on the left side, which for me is the side I don't rotate as much on. And I'm getting it, I'm feeling, I'm getting the feedback from the rope to get it to be as good as my dominant side. Now I rotate really well on my left side

and that seeps into the way I move as a grappler because I'm now more comfortable rotating to the other side. So I'm now more comfortable sweeping people to my formerly weak side, right? So even if you're not someone who grapples, you can still get in that movement and rotation. But the overarching theme of like a lot of the stuff

that I've gotten into has been the ability to find a flow state with lifting and with moving with weight, because it cannot be denied that resistance is necessary to help your body become more resilient, to become stronger. You need a level of resistance. And we do that when we're training in the gym. But the thing that I've wanted to try to get to

when it comes to lifting is in jujitsu, we've talked about the flow state before, when you become proficient enough in any martial art or in any sport, and some people call it being in the zone, you get to the point where there's movement without conscious thought. And that is an addictive feeling. When you find something that you can get into a physical flow state with, it's something that I can't compare anything to it. Like when I'm grappling with somebody

and I manage to be in a flow state, I'm just like, I'm in. Like my movements are just, everything's clicking. It's like everything feels fluid. It's just, it's crazy. It feels like movie type shit, like some Matrix type shit. It feels like anime. That's what it feels like, right?

And one thing that for me with lifting, not that I don't lift, I don't like lifting, but it would just, it didn't compare to that feeling in Jiu Jitsu. And maybe it doesn't need to for a lot of people. You don't need to have a flow state with lifting. But one thing is like, I don't think many people have a flow state activity.

I like, if you don't have an activity that you get in a physical flow state with, I don't think you realize what you're missing out on. Because it's like the clarity you get, there's so many things that go on in the mind that I just think it's just healthy to have something like that. Maybe some people get into it with creative work, like musicians, right? When you become proficient enough,

there's this level of proficiency you need to reach where like you're just playing something and things just flow out of it. But the only thing that I've been able to have a flow state with before Jiu-Jitsu was soccer. Cause like when you're with a team and you're playing a sport which you build enough skill with and your team is in the zone, it's amazing, right?

So cool thing about what Rope Flow, the kettlebell, the clubs, the cool thing I've been able to have when I work with these tools at home is getting into a flow state while working out. Because there's this continuous rhythmic movement. When you build enough skill with the rope, with the bell, et cetera, you build a movement vocabulary of different movements

that you can flow into from move to move to move. Like you've learned these things, now you link them together. Now you're not thinking and your body's just reacting to what you're doing. You're just doing it and bam, you're in a flow state. And that's one of the things that I've been trying to be able to get into with resistance.

And these are the tools that have allowed me to do that. And there's, you know, speaking of resistance, there's like quite a bit of resistance, learning jujitsu well enough to get into a flow state. Yeah. Right. And there's, but there's not everything's going to be that difficult. Like again, back to the rope and back to, something like pickleball. Or, I always encourage people to,

as carefully as you can, go back to what you used to like to do. If you used to play soccer, baseball, or find some low level way of getting back to it. Cause if you just go to kick a soccer ball full blast out of nowhere, you probably throw your back out or something like that. So, you know, work your way into it.

Same thing with baseball. Maybe just go out and you chuck the ball back and forth. But it's weird that there's such a huge block between like I'm a basketball player and then all of a sudden you don't play the sport anymore. You never pick up a ball ever again. Like basketball is great. Like just shooting some hoops,

just going after the rebound, even if you're literally just out there by yourself, chasing the ball down after you miss a bunch of shots or even after you make a bunch of shots, it's a lot of activity. Do you have a flow state? I'm just curious, do you have something that you feel brings you to that or have you had something, if you feel brings you to that? Or have you had something,

if you don't have something right now, have you had something that gets you there? Yeah, probably what does it the most for me is running. Yeah. Especially like if I've been running for a while. The runner's high. That is a flow state right there. Power lifting, you know, I would say like in general,

like if I was to describe why people feel so good and like a flow state is like, a lot of times you got the upper hand. You know, sometimes you're a couple steps ahead and you're feeling good about that. And I'd imagine in jujitsu, it's like, not that you're just like totally dominating the person and killing them, I'm sure the flow state is actually probably helpful when the other guy

is giving you a lot of problems and any other guy maybe is getting over on you a little bit too, probably. It's probably helpful. But same thing with running. I could be running and yeah, I could be pretty exhausted, pretty out of breath or something like that, but the challenge of that kind of switches me into almost like a different perspective of like,

this is the adaptation I was looking for. When I was lifting with Joe Sullivan recently, this past week, he's a month out from a bodybuilding show. He's shredded right now. Yeah, he's very shredded. And he was doing some lat pull downs and stuff. I mean, it wasn't a hard workout. At this point, it's very difficult

to have hard workouts, you know? Wow. Yeah, he's got- to have hard workouts. You know? Yeah, he's got... He took it there, good for him. He's gotten in some amazing shape. And people had a lot of questions about that picture of why I have an erection right there. Oh, what?

But yeah. It looks like... He's pointing at Joe. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's obvious. I mean, we both have our clothes off, so... Why not? Why wouldn't I have?

I mean, the question would be why doesn't Joe have one? Joe have one is the real question oh no he does it's just uh it's just not showing that great his hands hands in the air we go yeah but anyway he was in the middle of like his you know one of one of our last sets and I said you know just kind of words of encouragement when you feel tired and feel like you don't want to do this anymore, remember you love this shit. This is like, this is what you do I understand like yeah, you you you're Biting off more than you can chew here with this bodybuilding show Like it's it's a big undertaking or running a marathon or any of these things

But those are things that I like to think about when I'm kind of in a flow state like that of kind of flipping the script of It being so challenging or it being so hard just kind of flipping the script of it being so challenging or it being so hard, just kind of flipping it and saying, you know what, this is the adaptation that I need. This is exactly, you know, just like with a workout, you work your way into a particular point in the workout and kind of like we did with Stan, it's like, okay,

well, some of these sets are gonna be a little bit more painful, but let me just dive into them. It's gonna be over in 40 seconds. Just dive into it, make it difficult, and then you're done with it. Absolutely, exactly. You know, just kind of push, realize why you're there and just push yourself

through it a bit. But, you know, to the point real quick, what some of these practices have given me has been kind of an ability to step a little bit away from jujitsu when I need to step away from jujitsu. Because whenever you get, like when you build a skill with anything that you're so proficient that you're able

to kind of get there, it becomes addicting. I think it's one of the reasons why a lot of runners run themselves into injury and they're never able to come out of it. I think it's why a lot of people kind of hurt themselves with that activity because nothing gives them that high. I'm telling you, man, like, yes, as you mentioned, it does take a certain amount of time

to be able to build the level of skills to get into a flow state with that activity. I don't think it's as long as some people expect, but it takes some time when you understand it. But doing that, if you don't have anything else, then you're going to do that over and over and over again. And with Jiu-Jitsu, that's not the safest thing to be doing all the time like that.

So, building proficiency with the rope, building proficiency with kettlebells, these movement practices that are continuous, they have different movements that you can link together, they're healthy for the body, you always feel better afterwards than when you start. Having that allows me to kind of be like, on a day where my body's telling me

you shouldn't go to jujitsu, I have these other things that can give me the input of becoming a better mover, fluidity, resistance, without me having to dig my, this is what's going to give me more longevity within jujitsu, because a lot of guys, I'm not where I want to be. I'm getting better and better,

but I have so much more skill I need to build, and I know I'm going to need some time, but I'm also going to need to stay healthy. And many guys, because they can't stay healthy, end up getting out of the game sooner than they would like because they just, they hammer jujitsu way too much. Yeah, we've had, we have a lot of people on the show and a lot of times, you know, we get done with the show or, and they just tell us like they're in pain and they have this and that going on. And so while it's great that someone can get

to such a high level fast, there's probably other ways of doing it. And some of your experience through bodybuilding and stuff like that, you're probably like, you know what? I'm just gonna take my time with these things. Gonna get to a much better spot. And I think also in having something take a long time, it's much easier to maintain it

after you kind of get to that, after you get to that spot, much like weight loss and all these other things. A couple of things I wanted to mention is, you mentioned like mimicking the guy in the gym, the big black dude in the gym, mentioned like mimicking him, right? And a point on that is like,

you never know who's watching, you know? You never know who's watching, You never know who's watching. You never know, you might not think of yourself as like an inspirational person, but maybe to somebody else you are. And maybe you like, I think people are scared to like use the word mentor or to think that they would ever be a mentor.

But if you're in something and you've been doing it longer than somebody else and you're a little bit more proficient at them, you're gonna kind of be a mentor figure to them. So you never know who's watching. You also never know who you're talking to because you've mentioned the other guy at the gym that mentioned bodybuilding to you.

So why not empower these younger people? Why not empower some people that are, because you might mention something to somebody, it never occurred to them. They could be huge too. And they could be strong. Even thinking of like Eric Spoto, he benched like 670 pounds or something like that.

And he never even really thought about doing a powerlifting meet. I think Stan like drug him into powerlifting. And then he broke the all time world record in the bench press. Holy shit, I did not know that. It's like there's some people, they're just not, they just, I don't know, he just, he thought it was good,

but I don't know if he, you know, I don't know. His brother also like benched that type of stuff too, right? I don't know, I don't know. Okay. Yeah, I don't know, he's a freaking monster. Wow. Another thing I want to bring up before I kind of ask you sort of a final question here

is like you have a mindset of you'll say this often you'll say why not just do both. I think it might be kind of a cool video for you to expand upon that a little bit but that's a great idea actually thank you. Doing both is like or all, like why not just do it all? You know, like, let's say, I don't know, let's say somebody said, oh, you know, punching a heavy bag is really great. It's great rotational, it's great this, great that. And somebody else comes along and says, well, you know, kicking is really good.

And then you would say, oh, I don't know, let's just do both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or lifting is great and so is running. Like I know you don't love running, but I think you're learning to like it, at least a little bit. And you use it as part, some of your conditioning.

You also use lifting, you also use kettlebells, you use dumbbells, you use barbells, you use it all. Yeah. I've never, well not I've never, I've been in the bodybuilding camp in the past, right? Where I know in my 20s I would have, or my early 20s I would have definitely thought this is the best way to get big, right? But again, I think having as many people to talk to on this show, and you know, we both

have realized this. Talking to so many people that are on their specific ends of the spectrum, we have some people that come on and they truly believe that their way is the only way to do said thing. Where we've clearly talked to somebody who's doing things starkly different and is getting amazing results.

So for both of us, we have the ability, I think we have the ability to see how their stuff is good, but how this stuff is actually also really solid. And there's not, there's no reason why one has to abandon said thing, right? So I think that idea of like, why can't we just do both? Or why can't we just do these things

in our specific movement practice? Kind of comes from that. Because, you know, I don't think a lot of people that sometimes we have on this show, they're so... And it's good that they're focused on their process or their system of helping people. But I think what happens is you become just so entrenched within that thought practice, where you start to kind of, you start to drink too much of your own Kool-Aid.

You know what I mean? And then you stop realizing how useful or the benefits of what these other things can bring to somebody, even yourself, right? So by putting so many of these things into practice, I think I've realized that like, you don't, as long as you just have certain things in mind and you're giving your body certain types of stresses

that are potentially leading you towards your specific goals, there are a lot of ways to reach that goal. Even in the specific martial art of jiu-jitsu, there are so many different world champions that have gotten to become a world champion through different practices. There are certain guys who were at a gym filled with killers, and there are certain guys who were like the only killer

and didn't, who only had to train with people that were way worse than them who had gotten there too, right? There are many ways to do that. And the cool thing is there are many ways to do that within fitness too. You just have to have certain concepts, certain ways you can stress yourself. But at the end of the day,

you can do the thing you enjoy and get to your goal. And I think I realized that for myself too. So that's why I'm always open when we have different people on the show, but in the back of my mind, there's just like, there's always a level of skepticism, especially when someone starts to say something is gonna be super bad for you or something,

it is like you should just totally stop doing this, it's useless. And then do my thing. And then do, and then do my thing. Their thing is the only solution. You're like, oh, that does sound skeptical. Yeah, and I mean, like, that video that I made, the live traditional strength training,

I still strength train. I still think strength training is great. There are certain things that I really don't do much in terms of strength training anymore. Like, I'm not really going to do the traditional barbell deadlift, but I still deadlift things just in a different way, right? But that video, a lot of people thought I was telling people not to strength train. No, I'm not telling you not to strength train.

But I'm telling you that if you're someone who does strength train, think about the way you move. And if you do not move up to a level that is... If your movement ability after you watch that video and after you assess yourself isn't where you think it should be, maybe add in some things into your practice that are gonna help you move better. That you'll probably notice over some time, you'll move better too while being able to lift. And maybe potentially edit out a couple of perpetrators.

You know, if there's a couple of things that you think aren't helping your movement pattern any longer, or just, you know, maybe just cut them out for a while, or rethink how you're doing them. You know, that's been something I've been practicing for a while. I never completely gotten rid of squats. I never completely gotten rid of hip hinging

or like a deadlift type of movement. I just rethink how I do them. I pick up a sandbag instead, or if I'm squatting, I still may actually do like some box squats here and there, but you know, for the most part, I just, for me, I found if I do squatting, I still may actually do like some box squats here and there, but for the most part, for me, I found if I do partial range of motion, I'm not as sore. I get great benefit, I get great overload, I get a great stimulus, and it seems like stuff

that's still gonna really serve me really well. I do wanna mention this too. I think that a personal, I think it's something for me that's a personal weakness is my body weight strength, my calisthenic ability. That's something that I'm, it's gonna take me. Is that why you're trying to lose some LBs? Not just that.

Tired of being chubby? Yeah, I want to be a little bit leaner. But one of the reasons why is like, when it comes to calisthenics, for me, I'm not very good. I don't think that's just because I'm heavy. I just think it's because I haven't worked on that specifically through the years. And that's something that I wish that I paid more attention to when I was younger, developing strength.

Because I think that that's something, I feel like that's something that really has a bigger effect on you in terms of your longevity when you're older. The older, the people that I see that are in their 60s, and they're still amazing with calisthenics and that ability, the level of resilience that you can just tell they have because they can control their body is different. I think it's different than the people who can just still lift a lot of weights. Because the people who can still lift a lot of weight do not have the strength to control their body weight like those athletes. So it's gonna take me years

to become extremely proficient with calisthenics, but I think that's something that if you can invest in that now and start, don't underestimate pushups, pull-ups, dips, and progressing those movements since the harder things like handstands, et cetera, don't think that just because a push-up is easy that it's useless. It's... I think people underestimate that because it's not weights. And I think it's more powerful than a lot of us within the gym side of things think it is.

So, I like to find those things that I'm really shitty at. And... And... Highlight them. Yeah. Bring them to the at. And, and, and- Highlight them. Yeah. Bring them to the top. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, again, I think that investment,

five, seven, eight years from now, like when I'm 38, that calisthenic investment's gonna be a very big deal. Body weight exercises are interesting because, you know, I've exposed myself to so many different movements over the years. But if we talk about, if you're like, hey, let's go in the gym

and do some lunges, some pushups, some dips, and some squats or something like that, what goes off in my mind right away is pain. Like there's gonna be a little bit of pain like getting into those sets, which is interesting, right? Because if we said, hey, let's go in the gym and do some bent over rows and some bench press. 225 or something, whatever. Yeah, I wouldn't even...

That wouldn't cross my mind that something's going to hurt or whatever, you know? But I'm thinking like, oh yeah, the second we get down for push-ups, the wrist is going to feel a little bit weird. The second I go to do dips, that kind of old injury in my shoulder is going to act up. It exposes the weak links. It exposes the weak links. It exposes the weak links, but if your mind is there that it's going to hurt, I've done this recently with lunges,

the remedy is to actually just do it. Yeah. You know, put yourself through it in some way. So Mark, you have been loving wearing these paluvas for a long time. Why is it that you like these shoes that look like this? I'm trying to get my feet to be jacked. I think it's funny how sometimes people will,

when I wear these shoes, they're like, oh, those are different. And I'm like, well, maybe you should blame God because this is the human foot. This is the way that it looks. But Paloovas are awesome because it's gonna allow you to train your feet and train your toes and allow for that toe spread

because you got the five finger toe thing going on. It's like a, like put on a glove for your feet. Feels amazing. It's like walking around with toe spacers. You know, we've been working on our feet for a long time now. You always hear the benefit of people talking about like these tribes who have gone without shoes forever and they have this toe space and have these amazing feet and these shoes will allow you to just passively get that back by walking around. You don't realize what a disadvantage you're at when your foot is all clumped together

from the football cleats or soccer cleats or whatever else you were wearing when you were young. And so it's nice to be able to splay your toes. In addition to that though, one thing I love about Paloova is the fact that it's not a regular barefoot shoe. I do love barefoot shoes as well, but it also has appropriate padding.

And when you're stepping on some crazy pebbles and rocks and different things, like when I'm out on a run, some terrain is a little different than others. I don't have to be worried that I'm gonna get some sort of stabbing crazy thing happening to my foot because it has an appropriate amount of cushion underneath the foot. And guys, Paloova has a lot of different styles

on their website. I think one of the newest styles they just came out with, which is a little bit more of a rigorous do is the strand ATR. It's not these. These are the strands, but the ATRs have a little bit more. If you want to go hiking with them, you totally can. Those are amazing. If you go out, you know, throw those on and go sprint on a field and your feet feel so strong, grabbing the grass and being able to actually

grab the ground with your foot feels amazing. I'm more of a chill guy with my Paluva. So I like the Zen slip ons, but that's the thing with Paluva, there's a lot of different options. So if you had to Paluva.com and use code power project, you'll be able to save 15% off your entire purchase. And they also have toe socks. They're five feet. Even your toe socks are no show. So check those out too. So yeah, you're doing a great job on your YouTube channel.

You also have a website. Is it Stronger Human as well? The Stronger Human dot store. That's where like if you want ropes or any type of like, any other fitness equipment and stuff that I use, you can get all that there. And then there's also the Stronger Human community, which is on Skool.

You did a video, one of the videos I saw recently that you did was on bone density. And when you're diving into these things, like was there something that you didn't maybe really know that much about bone density previously, or has there been anything that you sort of uncovered because you're doing a deep dive. I mean, you're talking about studies

and you're showing, it's not just your own thoughts and opinions, you're showing a lot of other things to give what you're saying a little bit more breath, I guess you'd say. Dude, when it comes to the bone density thing, I think it's first off really cool that the multi-directional stress is something that I didn't really think about in the past,

but it's something that just happened for me. There was a study that studied female runners versus female soccer players, and just the micro architecture of those bones were much more dense. So we do know that if you're younger, you have more capacity to develop more bone density. The thing is, is like you can still develop in your 30s and 40s, but doing different things in different motions, not just lifting,

because when people think about building bone density, the main thing that is suggest is like, you know, lifting weights and that is good, but are there different ways you can stress your body in different directions? And that plays a really big role. So one of the reasons why my bone density is so high isn't just because I lifted so much weight,

but it's also because I had 15 years of multi-directional stress. And when I say, like, when you're a soccer player, you're running backwards at high speeds, you're running laterally, shifting at high speeds, you're slide tackling. Making contact, yeah. Making, it's, and that's even higher for guys who play football and hockey, etc. But the thing is, is like that's just the nature of the sport.

And luckily, inherently many things that I did were things that lent themselves to building a very resilient body. Also, the jujitsu stuff, the jujitsu and grappling. Inherently within that martial art, there's a lot of things that will stress the body in those different directions that can be really beneficial for modesty. And there are many other sports that can do this too.

But it just, first off for me, selfishly, it helped me understand that for me in terms of building resilience in my body, all the things that I'm doing are actually good for me. But for everyone else, it made me think of like, what are the different ways that you can really stress yourself without hurting yourself? And I think the best thing for stressing your body in different ways in your bone density is the sled.

You've talked about the sled forever. Luis. You've talked about the sled forever. Luis Simmons has talked about the sled forever. And I love it too. And I just wish that more people would get themselves, find a way, it's hard. It is probably annoying because you get like normal sleds, you have to put weight on it, you have to take it outside. It's a whole thing.

But having anybody can load weight on a sled and stack their structure to push it forward, backward, laterally in many different ways. And that's one implement that's so safe for everybody. It's safe for 80-year-old grandma. It's safe for NFL linebacker, right? And I just hope more gyms and more people that are working with older people

or working with people in general, get a sled for these people. Because I think that's one of the best ways to easily stress the structure while having them move through space and progress it for their whole body. I really think it's powerful. My wife works out with a bunch of people

and I had them this morning, had them just take a rope and put the rope through a part of the sandbag because the sandbags, what's the strength? Freedom strength. Oh, the training sandbag. Yeah, the training sandbag. It has handles on it, you know? And so we just put a rope through there

and I had all of them dragging it. And it was like, you know, it's like a 200, 200. They look at the bag and they were like, oh, I can't do that. I said, yeah, you can actually just lean back and just, you know, and they all did like a lap with it. You know, if you're going to do something like that, you know, just carefully, don't damage your sandbag.

If you're dragging it on asphalt, it might like fall apart or whatever. But they loved it. They were like, this is amazing. And it's something that they didn't even think they could do. Absolutely. There's, yeah, there's that. And I think one thing that, I mean, it makes a lot of sense, but your body is really malleable.

Like, I think everybody who's done a lot of gym lifting or who gets into gym lifting can understand how it feels to, after you get done with the workout, how kind of compressed your body feels. And I think some people think it's a bro science when people talk about, or like even when we talk about undoing compression stress. But when you've gone from a place of like doing that type of work and then you

add something in that like this is why hangs feel so good. But this is also why I think like things like the kettlebell flow swinging movements right play such a big role because when you're able to swing and you learn how to not just use your arms to swing whether it's at the kettlebell or whether it's with a rope, but you learn how to not just use your arms to swing, whether it's at the kettlebell or whether it's with a rope, but you learn how to get your whole body involved. These practices almost, they pull at your structure. That's why when we had Colin Daring on, right? He talked about how like when he gets done, he feels super long.

That's why people that practice these things feel like, oh, I feel light. Because when you're in the gym and you're doing these movements and lifting, you are literally compressing your structure. And then you can have other things. This is why I think having these different things is beneficial, because I have the thing

that compresses my structure in the gym. I'm gonna go get a workout in after this, right? I'm gonna do a bodybuilding workout. But afterwards, I'm gonna do some stuff to decompress so I feel light again. And that pulls at my body. It's crazy how malleable you are if you give yourself those stresses.

I think that that's one of the things that was really interesting about that video, too, that I learned. Your bones aren't just hard. They can really be manipulated. Awesome, man. Well, you have a lot of great products on your website, including some Slingshot products and some within you brand products,

the Steak Shake and so on. What are some of your favorite products? What are some things that you use on a daily basis that are on that site? Well, since we talk about micro-dosing, man, I think the kettlebell is touched every day. The rope is touched every day.

I keep a sandbag in the house so that I do touch it every day. Even if I don't do a full sandbag workout, at least get a few lifts to the shoulder or listen general. The thing about this is like, can you go to, can you go to this guy wellness daddy's channel Ryan real quick? I think this is kind of cool. Ryan Lutz Wellness Daddy. Travis Kotter Yeah. There's this guy who is, he's in, okay, 62 years.

Can you go to that video real quick? Go back. What's that guy's name? Ryan Lutz Oh, yeah. This is a guy that's got like some better markers or whatever than... Travis Kotter His name's in the description, Ryan. I think if you can just let me know his name. He's got like better markers than Brian Johnson or something.

David Pascoe. David Pascoe. Okay. I thought it was really cool. I want to start with this. David Pascoe in this video talked about how he... One of the... He calls it his biggest fitness hack is just having fitness equipment around.

He said that when he did that, that's when like a lot of things became a lot easier for him. That has been why a lot of things are easier for me. And I think that's also one of the reasons why fitness is much easier for you. Huge difference, yeah. Because I also like, I keep so many things around

that like it encourages me to do it. Even on days that I'm not feeling, I wake up not feeling the most energetic, et cetera, I go down, I have my gymnastics rings set up, I'll do some pull-ups, I'll do some pull-ups, even if it's not part of my workout. I have this idea of movement minimums, where each day my goal is to try to get in 50 dips,

50 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, some kettlebell flow, some rope, a little bit of jumping, could be a minimum just 100 jumps, because 100 jumps literally takes like a minute or two, but it could turn into more, right? Those are my minimums. And then, outside of that,

I'll have workouts that I do, but the minimums still get done because these things are just around, right? So I have, like, that's the thing, I touch almost everything each day. But that has been one of the things that I think has helped me to continue to make improvement because its movement has just become part of like, it's just become part of the way I live.

It's, you know, we had Bill Maeda on and he was the first guy who I heard call it a practice. I know that sounds stupid. Or they say it's the first guy, cause you know, we had soccer practice and things. But I think up until a little bit before that point, when I was looking at fitness and my stuff, I was looking at things in terms of training sessions.

I'm not saying you shouldn't train hard, that's not what I'm saying, but I wasn't thinking about all the smaller inputs and how they can add up to development. All I was thinking about mainly was how this session, the sets and reps in this session versus the sets and reps that I get throughout the whole day, right? So I think your question was like,

what are my favorite stuff? Like I love kettlebells, I love sandbags, I love the rope. But these are all things that I have within my movement practice, right? And that's partially why I don't subscribe to just working out only in the gym or doing specific training sessions only in the gym because this movement just helps my body feel better

and I feel, I believe, it's helping me continue to develop and be pain free. You think about the supplement that you stopped taking, you stopped taking it because you probably put it in the pantry or like put it away. Yeah. It has to be like on the counter or for some reason, you won't use it.

And it's also another great hack. This is a great like health hack and stuff like that for people to stay connected to their fitness or stay tethered to it in some way. But also this is a great hack for children with food. If a kid has access to actually some good fruit, some fresh fruit that's either in the fridge or on the counter and you have easy access, string cheese and just whatever the heck the kid likes, they're going to be more likely to enjoy that. They can just grab an apple at any time.

And maybe they're still eating some junk here and there, but who really gives a shit? likely to enjoy that, they can just grab an apple at any time. And maybe they're still eating some junk here and there, but who really gives a shit? If they're getting good nutrition and good nutrients in and they're seeing mom and dad practicing some healthy things, it's going to really rub off on them as well. Recently I had a couple people over my house and they just saw right next to my chair that I sit in a lot when I watch TV is, you know, I had all these different maces and I have, you know, the roller eight thing to roll on my tibia and my calves. And just a bunch of stuff there.

And then a bunch of people were like, man, why don't I do that? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know why you don't do it. It's amazing to have all this stuff here. I mean, I'll get up, you know, out of the chair and start swinging the mace around and start doing different things.

And then next thing I know I'm outside and I'm with the, I'm like, I need to get back outside again. Like the sun's out, it's a beautiful day. So it's great encouragement to have these things around the house. Yeah, you know, I know some people love to like, you know, don't get me wrong, I like a clean place. Some people like nothing around,

but it's your environment. You know, I mean, it's your apartment, it's your environment, it's your apartment, it's your home, it's your place of living. So why don't you set it up so that it serves your health? Right, I think we talked about that all the time. You want it to look nice, you can just chuck it into some sort of bucket and put a little top on it, if you really want it to be more orderly or whatever. Yeah, it was funny, one of Sam's friends came over recently

and she's like, is this a home or a gym? It's like, it's both. It's our home gym. It's our home gym, you know? And, you know, you, you mentioned the child thing, man. I think that's one thing too. The, the, almost trying to treat ourselves like kids. You know what I mean?

There's this study that Andrew referenced in the past. It was where they had a bunch of older people and they put things in their environment that were similar to when they were young. So they put newspapers from like when they were in their, you know, in their young years, et cetera. They just put all these things in their environment that were reflective of when they were in their, you know, in their young years, et cetera. They just put all these things in their environment that were reflective of when they were in their 20s

and 30s and their health started to improve. Their pain started to improve because the things in their environment almost like made them think and feel younger. They put different things that were activities like catch, et cetera, right? So if you're trying to feel better and feel healthier, set up your environment so that it aids the things

that kids do a lot and kids move a lot. So that's why my environment is set up to aid me in moving. Because if my environment wasn't like this, I wouldn't be doing the shit I do right now. I really wouldn't be. That's because it's not my- And we're highly motivated. We love doing this stuff.

Yeah, yeah, but it wouldn't be in my nature to go pull it out. It already has to be there, right? So it's not because I'm super motivated. It's not because I am I'm a go-getter. It's because I'm disciplined and everybody it's because I lack Yeah, lack some discipline. So I want it to be there So I don't have to think about pulling it out and setting it up I just want to be there so I can touch it and use it and you know get this body moving Strength is never weak this week. This is never strength. Thank you so much. Catch you guys later. Bye