Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 607 - The Man Who Crushed David Goggins and Wim Hof, Mike McCastle

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Mike McCastle is a speaker, endurance athlete and philanthropist. He is the current world record holder for the number of pull-ups completed in 24 hours (5,804) while wearing a 30 lb pack. Mike also broke the world record . He is the founder of the Twelve Labors Project, a philanthropic organization in which McCastle performs feats of strength and endurance to raise awareness for causes. McCastle is also a petty officer in the United States Navy. Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vuori Performance Apparel: Visit https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: Visit https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT15 for 15% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Hello? Yep. Well, Andrew did something great. Oh, hold on. Sorry. That's how he starts the show. Just shut out. My bad.

Well, remember what happened last time your mic was live? Oh, yeah. That's not good. Dude, I've never seen you that mad before. I was like, holy shit, man. I'm looking at that camera. I'm looking at people, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right there, yeah. That's the one? Okay. I don't know. Make it weird and look at like the wrong one okay the whole time we're not supposed to break through the fourth wall every time he speaks he just looks directly at everybody for those of you watching believe you mean brother hey weren't we supposed to read ads yeah yeah what happened to that i don't know what are you wearing right now oh it's comfy isn't it hey uh well i'm wearing some really short shorts they are short put your foot on the table

i don't know if i can get there i mean i think i think you can i think i'm gonna hurt myself but mike uh prep me with this like ice training or something maybe don't fart too loud want us to do it at the same time let's go go. Yes. It's up there. Oh, but I still can't show my shorts. Yes. Shorts on from the Ori. And I have these nice ripstop joggers from the Ori and they're super comfortable. Yeah.

They feel great. Yeah. Yeah. These, uh, these have the built in undies. I kind of like those. Keep your junk all compact and, but not too compact. Not too compact. You don't want it like, you know, jammed down there too much.

Just the right amount of compression. Yeah. Yeah. Feel good. I like all the clothes they have. I got some pants that I was wearing the other night. I went to a place in Davis, went out to eat,

looked like a civilized person. Wasn't just wearing gym clothes, rocking some Viore pants. Got some compliments from our boy, Carl Lenore. He's like, what are those pants? I was like,

these are Viore pants, buddy. He's like, I never heard of it. He's like,, what are those pants? I was like, these are Viore pants, buddy. He's like, I never heard of it. He's like, how do you spell it? I was like, I don't know. Yeah, it is impossible to spell, but let me pull up some notes right here. Or actually, Nsema, can you tell me exactly how to spell it? The cool thing, real quick, is that I almost feel wrong wearing the stuff in the gym because it's so nice, but you can work out in it, too. It's like, it's so good. But you spell it v-u-o-r-i okay so but and also what insima just

said like i haven't even i've only trained in shorts that are pretty short for me i'm not used to wearing short shorts but insima has convinced me to get even shorter but yeah no they're super nice i wear those like like on the weekends when it's like, you know, I'm going to see people. I'm like, I got to wear my nice clothes today. So I reach for that Viore performance apparel. But yeah, really, though, this stuff is second to none. You can put them up against any other apparel company in the world and they are going to beat them. And for you guys, we are offering a or actually they're offering you guys a 20 percent off your first purchase deal. Just go to Viore.com slash power project.

No code needed. You guys will see like a banner that shows discount applied at checkout again. And see how do you spell it? So I'm going to mess it up. V.U.O.R.I. Hey, dot com slash power project. Nice high five. There you go. Nice high five. There you go. Double high five.

Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Can't recommend it enough. Head over there ASAP. The shirts, do they come with capped shoulders? What's going on over here? Mike, what's going on with this guy? I don't know what's going on. Are you upset?

My mom dressed me this morning. I need't know what's going on. Are you upset? I'm not. My mom dressed me this morning. I need to get some Viori clothes here. But yeah. Why isn't Seamus so jacked like this over here? What do you think? What's your opinion?

Professional opinion. My professional opinion? You've been around. You've been in the military. You've been playing sports. You've been doing all kinds. Why is he so jacked, this guy? He claims it's from playing soccer.

The soccer hypothesis runs true. I'm not even joking about it it's real yeah i mean i'm trying to pull holes in it he's lean so yeah i mean could be could be anyway you had me sticking my hands in some ice today and it got me all fired up uh i'm messing around with this stupid sober october thing but i did have a drink we'll talk about that a little bit later. But I've been reframing from coffee and a couple other things. But sticking my hand in these ice buckets got me fired up, got me wired, and kind of felt similar. So maybe I got a new thing I can do in the morning. Yeah, yeah.

We did some pretty new stuff for you, right? Yeah. Putting the hands in the ice. What did you think about that? Making knots and making bows. Like I was making a bow as I was like doing a wall sit with a 25 pound plate on my legs.

And then he was having me catching these, the, what the hell, the earthquake bars, catching the bars as he was kind of tossing them towards me. And I was trying to, but that was not working out so well for me because he was, I had three of them. I only got two hands.

And so I couldn't figure out how to take my one hand and come off of the one stick and then grab the other stick and then figure out how to go back and forth. But I was doing the best I could. But after doing the ice, it does kind of help you to, um, it, it actually, it makes it a little more difficult, but then it gets you to think more about your breath, gets you to think more about concentration as opposed to just like jumping right into it. So I liked it. I liked all the stuff we did. I thought it was really, uh, pretty awesome. Yeah. And to add, I mean, your heart rate was up and you're, you're, you're again,

your breath, you had to focus on your breath. And yeah, it's good stuff. I remember you were telling him in the beginning, you were saying that you were trying to get him to control his breath while his hands were in the ice. So you're going to see how long it took him to bring his heart rate down. Yeah, yeah. Why was that? And how are you supposed to breathe to do that? So basically, the type of training we were doing was we introduced a little bit of cold exposure and you know the research is you know research is out that localized cold exposure

does a couple things has a lot of benefits on on the body as far as your immune system and generating thermogenesis making your body warmer but the number one thing it does, it elicits a, what's called a cold shock response. The cold shock response is a natural response to cold exposure. And it's two primary functions is to decrease the amount of heat that your body loses and to limit the amount of heat that your body, so it limits the amount of heat that your body loses and it causes your body to produce more heat that's what i meant to say and the other thing it does it it releases norepinephrine in your body so your heart rate goes up it elicits that stress response activates the sympathetic nervous system so you're in a in a semi fight or flight like response and the

breathing you want to bring that you want to bring that response down as soon as possible so that's what we're training for is to delay the onset of the cold shock response and to mitigate the effects that high stress has on the body during times where you need to perform or when it matters the most and we did a drill with with mark today which you did really well surprisingly very well today at and what i had him was, you know, I had him at the most basic level get his heart rate up. So we did push-ups and kettlebell swings. Ideally, you want to get your heart rate up to, is near to about 80% of your heart rate

max as possible, a little bit more. And then you want to introduce the cold. So I had him put his hands in a bucket of ice to about mid forearm I think we're picking up your my bad I want to put his hands in ice to about mid forearm elicit that cold shock response

that fight or flight response and then have him use his breath use intentional breathing to bring his heart rate back down go through that recovery period to get it as close to baseline as possible and then have him use his breath, use intentional breathing to bring his heart rate back down, go through that recovery period to get it as close to baseline as possible. And then I had him perform a series of movements that targeted grip strength, dexterity, so fine motor skills, and quick reaction time. We focused a little bit on that.

And, yeah, I'll give you about a B plus, A, b plus the across the board there yeah thank you it was it was interesting um what i like about the just breath stuff in general i've been working on it for a little while with things like dragging the sled and just um even just in training just trying any sort of training anything physical uh whether i'm running or it doesn't matter what i'm doing uh i work on trying to do some nasal breathing, which just in general makes me conscious of my breathing. And one could argue that maybe nasal breathing can, you know, somehow be superior or can help you maybe, I don't know, gain maybe better cardio in a shorter period of time or whatever. But the whole point is that when you focus on like your breath, it gives you a focus. It gets you out of being like worried or concerned.

You know, if you're trying to do a five by five with 500 pounds, you know, for like a deadlift or something like that, like that's a tremendous workout. That's a, that's a lot to think about. But if you just think the entire time about one cue, like, oh, I need to get my body back behind the bar. Like you think about that one cue the entire time before, you know, you did 25 reps total. You did your five to five with 500 pounds. So returning back to your breath, even during those exercises, even though I forgot a bunch of times because I was going, you know, I kind of like balled up and I, you know, I can feel my neck tense. And then you were like your breath. As soon as I go to breathe, I can kind of feel my whole body relax a little bit, even just like around my eyes, my face. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm kind of like gritting my teeth.

Like, I don't know why I'm doing that, because that's what you learn is you're going to these default settings because your body is probably trying to protect itself. settings because your body is probably trying to protect itself and you're real clenched and it's not it's not the most useful thing you can do it seems like there's other things you can do more that are way more useful especially when it comes to training and that's look like looks like a lot of the stuff that you are incorporating absolutely and that was that was exactly what we were trying to do today is there's a saying by the stoics know, the closer a man is to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. So the calmer you can get your mind, the key to calming your mind is in your breath. But here, tight up here in the chest, that sympathetic nervous system, that fight or flight is going to remain activated. It is through the breath, through breathing in through the nose, getting that nice diaphragm breath through the nose and out your mouth like a straw where we activate the parasympathetic

nervous system and tell the body that, hey, we're okay. We're not going to die here. We can start to recover. Heart rate starts to come down. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're giving an artificial stimulus, an artificial stressor, which your brain can't differentiate between a real threat or an emotional threat or a stressor like a high intensity workout like we did.

It reacts in the same way. Heart rate goes up. Sympathetic nervous system gets activated. And the tightness, the short breaths, the throat closing up, the tunnel vision, the things that we, the athletes experience in combat and collision sports or tactical athletes, law enforcement, military that might experience in a high stress, high pressure situation. We can mitigate that through the techniques that you just described is that box breathing, bringing that heart rate down.

You know, I'm, I'm, it's, it's stoked that we're talking about this right now because there's a few ways that I have been trying to, I guess, control my breath in stressful situations. One, I don't have an ice bath or a plunge system or anything like that yet. But what I do in the morning is I take a cold shower and immediately when I get in there, I try to like take really long, short breaths immediately when the water hits me. Not really long, short breaths. Really long. Are you successful? Yeah, really? No.

Yeah. When I can. At first, maybe not. No. Like we mean at first, when I first did it. When you first started doing it. When I first started doing it, I was still keeping things through my nose, but I think the first two times my mouth did open, my mouth did open, but now I can walk in there

and my whole thing is just keep it all through the nose and keep the breaths long. And that's what I try to do, at least with cold showers. And then I also in the sauna, I just try to keep the it all through the nose and keep the breaths long. And that's what I try to do, at least with cold showers. And then I also in the sauna, I just try to keep the breath all through the nose, keep it long and just try to control my breath in those situations. Now, I'm curious from what you've seen, because you've applied this stuff to your clients. What are the long term benefits that you've seen them been them able to have in terms of athletics or in terms of life, et cetera? Because I think that it can. I'll stop there. But what are the benefits you've seen in the longterm with those individuals? Right.

So before I can answer that, I'll say what the research says about as cold exposure and the effects that it has on the body short and longterm. So we know that when exposed to cold locally, whether you just put your hands in ice or you submerge your full body a full body immersion in ice we have that cold shock response with that comes benefits like you improved immunity we get that mitochondrial biogenesis which you produce more mitochondrial cells which has direct impact on muscular endurance we see a short-term increase in strength immediately post-exposure. So grip strength primarily, they've done studies where they expose people to localized cold and then have them do maximal contractile grip tests,

and they've shown an 8% to 9% increase in strength. But then that starts to decline over time as the longer the exposure, but that initial onset is an increase. decline over time as the longer the exposure, but that initial onset is an increase. We see a lot of benefits in terms of your body's ability to recover. So you can adapt and habituate to cold exposure. And at the end of the day, cold exposure is a stressor. And again, the body doesn't differentiate between cold and a fight and a stressor at home, finance, whatever it is, family, it doesn't differentiate between any of that. So if you can delay the onset of a if you can adapt to cold exposure which elicits the same responses then it'll make you better able to handle a more resilient to other stressors in life

and so with my athletes i've used this uh this type of training where I incorporate, I introduce the cold after a bout of high intensity effort. So again, get those responses going. And then I incorporate, I have them do the breathing to bring their heart rate back down. And then I have them do tasks that are specific to their goal. So I trained Colin O'Brady, which is a gentleman I trained to, a 160 pound guy I trained to pull a sled twice his body weight solo and unsupported across Antarctica. We use this training to simulate the stress and pressure and necessity for quick decision making in Antarctica alone. And a lot of that as a result of cold exposure is a loss of dexterity.

When exposed to cold, the blood shunts from your extremities to protect your vitals. when exposed to cold, the blood shunts from your extremities to protect your vitals. And his ability to tie knots, his ability to stay focused and stay in the moment, to bring his heart rate down, because in Antarctica or any extreme cold environment, if you sweat, you die. So he couldn't- Can you explain that? What's that mean? So, I mean, the risk of hypothermia when someone is wet or when your clothes are wet or when you sweat goes up significantly and your time window um for survival begins to diminish over time right so you want to

stay dry in those environments which is weird because antarctica is actually the largest desert on on the planet but it's very cold so yeah if you sweat you die cold. Water is a more efficient convector of heat than air. So you get cold 25 times faster than you would with air in water when you're wet. And he can't make any mistakes. Like you were mentioning, like tying his tent down and like if that thing blows away, he's done. Exactly. Did he write The Impossible First? Was that his book? He did. Oh my gosh, that book's incredible. The audio book is insane.

It's so good. Well, he talks about his experience of having to tie those knots and having to focus and where there's no margin for error. So in training, what can you do to simulate that? Well, at the base, at the core of it, I mean, this type of training isn't a replacement for strength training. It's not a replacement for, you know, whatever programming. I mean, the tried and true methods for getting someone stronger and increasing aerobic capacity. Those, those are staples that needed to be addressed. But what I did was take this type of training as a tool, as an add on to kind of target that I couldn't simulate Antarctica, but I could simulate the response to Antarctica

by introducing cold, by getting his heart rate up to initiating that fight or flight response and doing it. So what I had him do is I had him do something similar to what you did today, do a series of calisthenic movements. And then I had him put his hands in ice, stay in that nice plank, had him bring his heart rate down as close to the baseline as possible with his breath. And then I had him sit in a wall sit, put a plate on his lap, and I had him solve with his hands using his dexterity was now diminished, solve little puzzle pieces. So very simple, like a puzzle that you would give a three-year-old, but under stress and pressure,

simple tasks become difficult. As we saw today, just tying a knot becomes a little bit more challenging. So I had him do that for rounds and rounds and rounds. And over time, as we saw with you today, even over time, he was able to delay the onset of that tunnel vision. He was able to delay the onset of that loss in dexterity. He was able to delay the onset of that diminishment of cognition that would in Antarctica when seconds matter. He can't afford to have that delay. And with you, I had you put your hands in ice and I touched your body. I touched your body with ice, put some ice on your body. But the initial response, what was your initial response when I first put the ice in? Big gasp of air. Norepinephrine got that adrenaline rush. Heart rate went back up. Breath went back up. Very short. And then the

second round, I did it again. It was a little bit less, a little less than the third round. I would touch areas of your body with the ice and you had no response. You maintain that focus, you maintain the calm breath. And even something as short as three rounds of your first time doing this, you showed signs of adaptation and habituation to cold exposure. Now you take this, you talk about the long-term effects. This stretched out over time can help mitigate those negative effects of cold exposure when you need to perform the most. And with my athletes, I've used this with boxers. I've used this with fighters. I've used this with Parkinson's disease patients because we know that high intensity, the research shows that high intensity intervals coupled with cognitive tasks and motor skill tasks that target fine motor skills and balance and coordination and strength after a bout of high intensity has proven to mitigate the symptoms of those with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease. can improve and slow the progression of the the the diminishment of those symptoms with someone who's suffering from a neurodegenerative disease than someone with a healthy brain and we know the

brain responds to engagement neuroplasticity we know the brain constantly needs that stimulation then it can help in the long term now a lot of this a lot of this is experimental a lot of this is the research is limited more and more a body of this is experimental. A lot of this is the research is limited. More and more, a body of research is growing every day. More and more is coming out, and it's anecdotal. But like I was telling Mark, the only way to better understand the mechanisms responsible for self-regulatory functions in our body is to test them to see, to see if it works in a controlled and safe environment. I don't recommend people go and submerge himself in ice at home alone, just to see if they can, and then go solve a, you know, a puzzle. Don't do it, get, you know,

do it in a safe and controlled way with a professional. I know that like last time you were here. I mean, the reason why you're here again is because I was, I've been hearing more and more about ice therapy and cold therapy. And obviously there's been some amazing people over the last several years talking about ice. So you're not the only person that I've heard it from. But there's more and more research coming out all the time. I'm hearing Andrew Huberman talk about it. There's been these studies out of Stanford where they talked about cooling the hand

and it having more profound effects than like anabolic steroids, which, you know, I think they sometimes they do these studies just to kind of get a profound effect to get the word out there on the impact that some of these things can have. But you came here, you started talking about a little bit of that on the last podcast. And I was like, oh, that sounds really interesting. But I kind of just I didn't think about it too much. And then as I started hearing more people talk about it, I'm like that fucking Mike. That's some bitch. I was like, he's on to some shit.

And one thing I really love. So I love powerlifting. I love bench squat deadlift. You know, if people aren't like lifting weights, like I don't really want to talk to him. I want people. I want people in the gym. I want people to lift weights. Like, I don't really want to talk to him. I want people, I want people in the gym. I want people to lift weights. Right. But I do think that there's a lot of, uh, utility and you're promoting lifting weights too, but there's a lot of utility in doing other stuff. Some of the stuff

that we're seeing from our boy, Ben Patrick, knees over toes. There's a lot of people promoting, uh, some of these different movement patterns that we should be working on. And I'm like, you know what? That was kind of foolish for me to ignore a lot of those things for so many years and lose mobility and those kinds of things. But what I'm thinking right away, when I see some of the stuff that you're doing, I'm like, my dad can do that. And my dad would like to do that. My dad would be like, this is freaking cool. This is badass. I get, I'm going to stick my hands in this ice and then I'm going to do a farmer's carry holding these towels. He doesn't really want to come in here and do a bunch of curls. He doesn't want to do like lap pull downs and seated rows. And he doesn't want to like learn how to do hypertrophy

training and, and all that shit. And he doesn't want to train for aesthetics or do a powerlifting meet. But the stuff that you're showing people, I think can be really transformative, but also a great introduction to some strength training. Absolutely. Again, this isn't a replacement for strength training. It's a tool to enhance your strength training. So again, the ice improves grip strength. And that's one of the things that it does. It also improves,

it's been shown to improve isometric strength. So it improves muscular endurance over time so that's why i had you do the isometric hold so after the ice hold i had him grab uh two towels connected to kettlebells and i had him walk a course throughout the gym around these cones where he was getting lateral movement as well but working that isometric hold isometric movement, and working that grit post-ice. So a lot of these things can be done by the general public, and it will improve certain aspects of their performance just day to day. And that's the great thing about it is that

we're using tools that are innate, that we already have in us. We have this response that's been ingrained in us for thousands of years, and it's for a reason. I mean, they call it the hunter's response because after the vassal constriction, after the blood leaves our extremities, there's another, after about 10 minutes at prolonged exposure, there's a rush of blood, vassal dilation that actually sends warm blood to your dexterity that allowed us to hunt in cold environments. So we have these tools that are ingrained in us, this innate ancestral strength mechanisms. And this is what it's really about.

These mechanisms are in us to be able to survive and be strong in the hardest moments of our life in order for us to survive. So why not leverage these tools and seek to improve upon these tools that our ancestors fought and died and lived and survived and succeeded and failed and victory to be all of this to pass on to us for us to what to not use it and improve upon so i i definitely believe that you know these regular these self-regulatory functions

in our body can be improved and controlled to a great extent through training um and the research more and more is coming out and is showing that. And I like what, from what Mark mentioned, I really do dig this because you know, if somebody only does strength training or they only lift in the gym, it's really good. Like they'll get stronger, their body become more resilient, but if they're never really working on calming themselves down and working on their breath, there's, they won't necessarily understand the benefit that what you're talking about has when they do get into a stressful situation. They are having an argument with a partner.

They are in a situation where it's just like, right? Whereas if they're doing what you're literally practicing right now, they know to come back to the breath and calm yourself down. Exactly. And the cold is just a tool. There's a number of things you could do to introduce that stress. Cold is just a tool. I like to use the cold. I think it's a novel way to kind of elicit that response very quickly.

It doesn't take long. I touched your side for about one second and right away you get that response versus having to warm up and work your way up on like an assault bike to get there. We can do it instantly with cold. It's a great equalizer. Cold in water is the great equalizer. Military discovered that a long time ago. It's true.

You put any stud any great you know gifted marathon olympic athlete put them in cold water you know make them uncomfortable you know you introduce that cold aspect a lot of the uh the superficial things that we like to define ourself as uh physically kind of go out the window and it really goes down to your ability to adapt and habituate to external stressors. Can you ask, can you retain some of that stuff? So like, like with what Mark did today, if he were to do it again without the, if he wanted to like go for time or something, I don't know, or maybe go for strength. Can he maintain some of that added strength from like the grip strength that he got from using the cold therapy?

Like, will that be there later? Or is that just for the here and now to get a different type of stimulus right so like any other like any adaptation it takes time so he saw just in that short session we had today some adaptation which is cool because we're talking about the nervous system here it's not just muscle where it needs to we're going to recover and break down and go through that whole process this is the nervous system we're talking about it's not just muscle where it needs to recover and break down and go through that whole process. This is the nervous system we're talking about. It's not going to happen. You're not going to see significant changes in one or two or three sessions. You got to incorporate this over a span of an entire training cycle to really see the benefits. It's got to be consistent, just like anything, just like getting stronger, just like improving your cardiovascular, improving your maximum strength, you have to program it into a training program. It's not going to happen

overnight. And the key to all of it is consistency. There's not a single successful endeavor in the world that's happened without consistency. Come on, bro. We don't want to have to be consistent. It's the heart. It's the heart. Cut some corners here, Mike. Come on. Damn it. There's a pill. Andrew Humermann's podcast, I can't recall his name, but they talked a lot about cold therapy and they talked about the training effect. So you do the cold therapy. Let's say you're just hypothetically five percent stronger during that training session. Just exactly as you're pointing out, it's going to still take time. It wouldn't be any different if you try to gain weight to be able to deadlift or bench press more weight.

You might be able to lift more weight once you gain the weight, but for you to really keep it and to continue to make progress, you have to do it consistently for a period of time and then your body will adapt and then your body will hold on to it. The same would go with even losing some weight if you were trying to get stronger or better on any body weight exercise or maybe just have a faster mile time. You might lose some weight and notice you're a little faster for you to adapt and continue to get faster and faster. You're going to have that new weight.

That's why like people will refer to it as like a fighting weight or like a training weight and they get to these specific weights. It's because it does need to really be ingrained into your body absolutely i'm also do you have you because when andrew coopman came here he had this palmer cooling device so the difference between the palmer cooling thing um or the cool mint i think it's called and what mark was doing is that there is no vasoconstriction and it just like it circulates really cold water um and i don't know if were you talking about the episode with the old doctor yeah yeah so that was dr craig heller they were talking about how like um because it doesn't cause vasoconstriction and

it cools down from the palms uh it like speeds up recovery i think they had a guy come and do dips right and he was just doing set after set after set because he was recovering super quickly. But have you ever been able or have you done any of that with athletes or is it mainly using the ice and actually causing vasoconstriction? Right. So I know I haven't done that with my athletes without the vaso. I've just used the ice. Okay. And so with the ice comes that vasoconstriction um the peripheral vasoconstriction

it's just the surface of the skin right it's not a deep a deep cold right we're not we're not talking about nerve damage here we're just initiating a surrounds but what you're talking about is uh is is localized cold exposure which has been proven without the vasoconstriction you're still going to get some benefit from from having that cold exposure again it's going to elicit that response it's just not going to have the vasoconstriction yeah so vasoconstriction you're still going to get some benefit from from having that cold exposure again it's going to list that response it's just not going to have the vasoconstriction yeah so vasoconstriction is only one mechanism of the cold shock response you're still getting the benefit from the body's response to limit heat loss and the body's response to thermogenesis which is to produce more heat so you're boosting you're getting your metabolism and that thermogenic response

and then what goes into this also is diet and what you're eating with the things to fuel that thermogenic response you can't i wouldn't recommend doing this training on like an empty stomach or you know after a long fast or anything like that um you want your body to be balanced and sense in that sense of uh providing the right fuel for the thermogenesis um but yeah like you said you're not getting the vasoconstriction but you're still getting benefits from the cold water. Again, cold water is a better conductor, more conductive than air when it comes to heat loss, heat dissipation. Power Project family, you know how much we talk about sleep on this podcast. A lot. Because sleep

is one of the biggest things that you need for muscle gain, fat loss. I can't believe your cravings. You need good quality sleep. And that's why we are super pumped to be partnering with an amazing sponsor, Eight Sleep. Now, Eight Sleep is a mattress company that has something called the Pod Pro and the Pod Pro Cover. This is a cover that regulates the temperature of the mattress. So you can actually sleep cool. And they've done a lot of research showing that people that sleep on the Eight Sleep mattresses actually fall asleep 32% faster. But the great thing too, people, we over here at the Power Project are hot sleepers. And what I mean is that we sweat. We have many times in our old mattresses woken up in a puddle of our own liquids being sweat.

And let me tell you, that has not once happened in this eight sleep mattress because it keeps you cool while you sleep, which helps you get better restful quality sleep. Andrew, tell them more about it. Absolutely. Yeah. So, and then another thing also is if you sleep with a partner and they maybe don't run as hot as you, you actually have dual temperature zones. So I can set mine extremely cold. My wife can set hers not as cold, but still cool. And that really is like that in and of itself is like, it's so helpful. And especially again, like I said, when you sleep with a partner, they're happy, you're happy.

You both wake up extremely happy. Everyone's happy. You got to head over to eight sleep.com slash power project. That's eight spelled out. So E I G H T sleep.com slash power project. And you guys will receive $150 off your pod pro mattresses. Again, eight sleep.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes head over there right now and also you're not getting that like that shock response that you probably got by putting your hand in there but

this this also makes me curious on the day-to-day as far as like maybe simpler things that people could do to i guess train this like like i mentioned like I mentioned, like I, I do like cold showers. I do like saunas. Right. But is there anything that people can do, um, outside of this that could be easy and not even easy, just like something that they can do without having to get into a gym and get an ice bucket? Is there things that they could do that could yield this benefit? Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned a great one is, is cold showers. Um, again, you want to build up to, you know, long cold showers. Um, you know you want to build up to, you know, long cold showers. Um, you know, when I was training for the, the ice submersion record and we can talk about that, but I, we, I use cold showers to kind of, kind of initiate that, that adaptation to cold exposure.

It works. Um, you, you expose yourself to cold water. You know, you start, you might start out with a warm shower, do your normal wool shower. Then let's say the last 30 seconds of your warm shower, turn it cold and go for 30 seconds. And the next go for about 45 seconds. Then over, you know, the next week, go for a minute. And then maybe you build up to where you just start with that cold shower. But you see, you'll notice that your response to the cold, that whether it's at the last 30 seconds or 45 seconds, and you do the whole thing, your response is what you have to look out for. Your heart rate, your breath, right?

It always comes down to the breath. So that first time, that last 30 seconds, or even 15 seconds, you might just go, you see that breath? Oh my God, it's funny as well. Next time you do it, 30 seconds, you're just like, and then now you're, and then now you could do a whole shower

where you're just like, and that's adaptation. I mean, your body has adapted. It's delayed the onset onset of fight or flight. And that's really what we're doing. We're delaying the onset of those negative physiological effects that will screw you in the times that would matters most in a fight, in a competition, in life, in anything that you're doing. And that's all we're trying to do with the cold. It's just a tool. and anything that you're doing. And that's all we're trying to do with the cold. It's just a tool. You mentioned earlier about like stress and focus. And some of the stuff I've heard is that due to your interpretation of stress and maybe interpret interpreting the stress as being harmful or just bad in a sense that are our focus gets to be pinpointed on like one particular thing. I mean, we see this sometimes when someone's frustrated with somebody

and they're mentioning all these things to you and you're kind of thinking in your head, you're like, man, I wonder why they're so frustrated with this one particular person. But maybe they're so frustrated because they are focused on the singular thing and they can't really zoom out at all. Have you noticed with some of the training that you're doing that it's helped you in your personal life be able to maybe interpret some stresses that are coming your way in a little different manner? Or is it also maybe have been effective for some of the clients that you work with? Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I found in my life, you know life when I encounter a stressor, it's more helpful for me to focus, to not necessarily be a multitasker and focus on the task that's in front of me or the stressor that's in front of me.

So when you're exposed to cold, when you're exposed to an external stressor like cold, it has a way of trimming the fat so it has a way of eliminating what isn't useful to you in that moment so when your hands are in the ice bucket you were better able to focus on your breath than if your hands were not in that bucket why because your breath was the key to removing the stressor you found that through a calmer breath, the perceived pain would be less and you were able to. So it's true. So when you're faced with a stressor, you tend to zone in on only the critical elements. And so the guy who cuts you off in traffic is less relevant when your hands are in ice or when you're exposed to a stressor. So knowing that, knowing the mechanism at work that it is trimming the fat and getting rid of

really what's not necessary will help you kind of better handled and better handle stress management. Um, with other things that may happen in your life, it trims the fat, it puts you in and the same thing. I mean, we can talk about it. Cold is a tool. Another thing in life that does this and some people might be familiar is when you're going through bouts of just sadness or you know perceived depression even it trims the fat your words when you talk to people are more succinct you're not as long-winded you only say the things that are just critical to get your point across because you're battling

right you're in a fight in your mind it's a stress your body doesn't know the difference it trims the fat it makes life more succinct and you focus on the things that matter most and it's good to have control over that and this type of training will help you have control over that i'll say absolutely like for sure when it comes to like i notice this most when i do jujitsu because you're in a situation where you're grappling with somebody, but the level of calm I'm able to keep in all situations and rolling makes a massive difference in terms of like my gas tank. Um, and even if I'm not in the greatest situation against somebody, I just, I don't panic because it, it, the breath controls it. It makes a fucking huge difference. the breath controls it. It makes a fucking huge difference. People like to sleep on the breath. They like to focus on the tangible, the things, the size of the muscle. They like to look at the, but the breath is the engine. Your lungs and your heart are the engine that controls all of that.

And it doesn't get enough. I don't think it gets enough focus on. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are focused in on the world records that you've broken, you know, and it's a misinterpretation of kind of who you are. And it's a misinterpretation of some of your goals. And it's a misinterpretation of the fact that you're very, very consistent with a lot of the stuff that you do. You know, I was asking you about pull-ups and I can kind of see right away. I'm like, this is like somebody asking me about bench.

Like, I just don't want to talk about it anymore. It's not so much. I don't want to talk about it anymore, but it's, it's, it's a long history of stuff that you do to become a Brazilian jujitsu black belt or something like that. Right. It's not like, what can I do to become a black belt? It's like, it's like, well, that's a really long ass story. You know, what can I do to become a master in the bench press? What can I do to become a world record holder in a pull-up? And it's like, well, uh, you got a couple hours to listen to this story because there's a huge story, uh,

involved in, in, in some of these things. And I think that people kind of are missing out on some of the finer things. Have you ever messed personally with like changing your cadence of your breath other than like, just kind of calming down? Have you ever tried to do anything with, I know this is extremely dangerous, but you ever mess around with like any sort of oxygen debt or anything absolutely anything weird like that because i i know that i mean shit that would be that would be very very hard from a mental perspective to try to deal with something like that right so the okay so i have um intentionally and unintentionally, you know, I, sometimes I train in altitude, right? So you're looking at a decrease in blood oxygen saturation.

Again, it's how you breathe in altitude that will, you know, help either speed up that adaptation or, or make it so that you experience some symptoms of altitude sickness sooner or make it so that it's just, you can make it easier or harder. It all comes down to the breath. And so I've been in situations where, you know, sometimes, you know, recognizing that I do need to saturate myself with more oxygen, get more oxygen to my muscles, not even at altitude, just maybe an high intensity workout. So I'll do instead of the box breathing, which I had you do just with, which was the focus of bringing your heart rate down to simulate that recovery, that parasympathetic nervous system activation, I'll do a double breath. So I'll go

and I'll take that second breath in on top of it. So when I take that breath, I'll bring my shoulders back. So I'll really expand my chest, but it's a, it's a, it's a diaphragm breath, right? But I'm just increasing that lung capacity. And then as I breathe out, I'll kind of let my shoulders round, bring my diaphragm down in and really get that full breath out. And what I've noticed is I'll get, and I've looked at my pulse oximeter, I'll get more blood oxygen saturation and i'll be able to perform better so there's different types of breathing and it's breath work is the you know is important and is key to regulating your body back to that homeostatic uh state let me real quick question i know it's probably some people in the audience would be like that's so basic but i think some

people might not really know how do you train people or how do you help people to start breathing into their diaphragm? Because some people cues you can use that we can, we can talk about to get a great one. When I was going, you actually just, um, breathed. I don't know if that's the word you took a breath loudly. And, uh, I heard you do that. And then I did it. Something as simple as an audible cue like that can help. Some people need more hands on Mark. I mean, you're, you've been, it's easier. It'd probably be easier for you than someone who's just like a beginner sometimes. I mean, and that's a testament to your your level of experience and your level of training is sometimes you could just hear a cue it could maybe it wasn't me maybe it was someone like in the background that you just heard it and you were just so in tune that it just somewhere just hit that and okay but for people who just are starting out who don't know how to breathe through the diagram

i would start lying flat on your back put your put your hands on your belly and something simple is as you breathe in through your nose okay imagine a channel that's going from the crown of your head down to your uh crown of your head down to your perineum right if you don't have your perineum it's your can i say gooch on here yeah it's the space between worlds i like that you put you know just imagine that challenge as you breathe in you're sending air through that channel and you don't have a heart you don't have organs you don't have anything it's just the vase so as you breathe in through your nose that air is going down through that channel and you're going to push your hands away from your body with your breath alone. Not muscle, not anything.

You're just going to breathe in. And your hands are going to move away from your body. Once you feel that breath up, that push your hand away from your body, you filled up that base, that vase, you're now going to squeeze that perineum. So without exhaling, you're going to hold that breath, squeeze the perineum. So now we're getting pressure going down from the diaphragm. We're getting pressure coming up from the perineum. And you could really feel that trapped air.

Now when you exhale, like a snake, let it all out, all the way to its full, and repeat the same thing. Squeeze the perineum. Diaphragm down. Then let that air out. Do this lying on your back so that gravity is also working. I think I just came a little bit. Ooh. Yeah.

Yeah, my shorts are pretty short. Was I supposed to be doing Kegels during that? It's just a tool. Oh. Do you tell people to keep an eye on their shoulders? So when you're on your back, the focus I really want it to be on the diaphragm. I just want you to just move your hand away from your body and back. And as you exhale, I want you to bring that hand in closer to your spine as that air is coming out.

Imagine that you're breathing out through a straw, right? And then you want to just get that down. Once you get that down, you could do it standing up. Now you could even do it laying on your belly. And once you've progressed to where you can move your hand away, try to just lay flat and move your body away from the ground with your breath, with your belly, with your belly. So you're really filling up that six-sided cylinder, which is your core, but you're actually So you're really filling up that six sided cylinder, cylinder, which is your, your core, but you're, you're actually just filling up that base through that single channel that's running through the center of your body. And you're making room for all that air by imagining that you don't have, you don't have a heart, you don't have anything else there. He's just filling up with air.

What the hell's the deal with you submerging yourself in ice for, I don't know how long it was a world, another, another another another world record of yours um what was the deal with that and you broke it i broke the world record for the longest full body submersion in ice back in january so wim hof had it at one point it was uh it then a polish gentleman uh beat it after him and then a french guy beat it out what's the rules to full body like does it have to have you have ice around your head kind of too or what like everything but your head so it's basically shoulders down shoulders down um has to be in contact with ice so i sat in a box that was filled with 600 pounds of ice up to my shoulders and i sat in it for two hours and 40 minutes the

previous record was 234 i did 240 my. My goal was three hours, but I had some complications toward the end where I just needed to break the record and get out. What made you stop? So, again, going into this challenge, I used a lot of that breath work. So I used the practice called tummo breathing, tummo meditation. and practice used for thousands of years as a way for monks to generate heat using bioenergetic breathwork breathing and visualization so a lot of people they was like well that's kind of the wim hof method similar except the wim hof method doesn't use uh doesn't focus as much on the visual visualization and tapping into like that spiritual uh aspect of it his is mostly focused on the physiology of it,

the patterns, the pattern in which you breathe. He's like a three-step method of doing it, which is great, it works. But with the TUMO, it's more of that visualization. And for me, visualization is a key thing for me that I've used through all the challenges I've done. So for me, it was right up my alley. Not so much the spiritual or religious side of it, but just the visualization really helped in

visualizing that fire, that flame in my body and expanding out through my extremities and being fueled by the pattern in which I breathe. So that enabled me to, to, while I was sitting in 600 pounds of ice, my core temperature went up, my, uh, blood oxygen saturation maintained a good level and I was able to beat that record with two hours and 40 minutes dude when you get so god dang there's so much I'm curious about here but as far as the pattern of breathing what what was that like were you breathing a lot through your nose was it nose and mouth what was that and is it the entire time yeah it's it's it's the entire time so as as soon as the ice was right, as soon as that timer started, I started initiating that breathing pattern because I had a very small margin of air margin for which my body temperature could drop. I didn't want it to drop too low. I was exposed directly to ice. So without that generating that heat, I probably would have went hypothermic rather quickly. I probably would have went hypothermic rather quickly.

So I needed to incorporate mechanisms through the breathing and visualization, through the tumo practice to keep my core temperature and my and that visualization and blood oxygen up. And then did you get your like skin temperature? Yeah. So around me, around my body, I had a core, a core temperature sensor. core temperature sensor. It was actually a thing that sensed my core temperature. And I also had a pulse oximeter on my finger to measure my blood oxygen saturation. And so I did it live. I streamed it live on Instagram, the entire thing. And every couple of minutes, I would turn my biometrics around and show people that, hey, I got up to 101 degrees core temp sitting in 600 pounds of ice. And I attributed in large part to the breathing. I attributed in large part to using these, these techniques.

It's really, I mean, I was going through a lot of feelings too. Like sometimes I, a part of it, I was feeling, I was burning alive. I felt numb for some of it,

but despite what I was feeling, I stayed consistent with my breathing and my visualization i let those thoughts those feelings those sensations come and go and just stayed consistent with my breathing and my visualization and i was able to suppress that uh that mark and get the fuck out of that box because did you end up with like any like psychosis or like psychedelic like experiences from like going through that or not really? None other than this, the none other than the abyss. That is my own thoughts anyway, in deep and deep. Like you would go into a train right now.

Right. But no, I didn't have any psychedelic experience. Anything too crazy? No, no, nothing too crazy like that. And then what did make you stop? So towards the end, sitting stationary in, you know, the ice, my heart rate started to go up. I began to lose control of that heart rate regulation. And I was sitting there in 600 pounds of ice and my heart rate was like 220,

just sitting stationary. And so with that, I started to sweat. When you sweat, you know, you start to get wet and you start to get colder and, you know, things like that. So the breathing and the visualization isn't some miracle technique that will make you impervious to, you know, but it'll make you go a little bit further than you thought you could when exposed to those type of elements. So your heart rate ended up going to 220. But during the time when you were successful, what was your heart rate at for most of it? Stayed consistent at between 70 and 80 80 70 and 80 for about three quarters of it then the last like 20 30 minutes it started to incrementally creep back up then it got to like 220 and then blood oxygen saturation was going up because my heart was beating so much or saturation

started to go down and i made the decision to call it at 240 after beating the record instead of going to full three hours just felt at that point um you know i'd already broken the record and you know and what did whim do like what was his time i think he he when he broke it he had like an hour 30 or an hour 40 an hour 40 wow i did 240 yeah i heard joe rogan recently talking about he just got in an ice bath and he was in there for like maybe just a couple minutes. And then he was like, oh, fuck it. I'm going to stay in here for a while. And he stayed in for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, something like that.

And he said it was a big mistake when he got out. He said he was just he was like, man, that was that was really dumb. I went in like too deep. When you finish this, I mean, did it take you a day to recover? Did it take you three weeks to recover? Did it take you three weeks to recover? Are you still trying to recover from it? Like what happened? In terms of heart rate and in terms of like my breath and like the, the, those physiological

responses on the surface, like the shivering and things like that being removed from the ice, that cold temperature, then being put into like a, another environment. I went into a little bit of like a shock response, getting adjusted to that different. Cause I was going from ice to room temperature. And so that took a couple hours for me to recover from that. As far as nerve, I had some frostbite associated with my feet. So the nerve situation with that took a couple months to get back to full. I mean, I never like completely lost feeling in my feet.

But, you know, pins and needles every now and then I would feel. But that took a couple. I mean, nerves take longer to heal than muscle. We know that. So but I've pretty much fully recovered from that challenge by now. What about the pull up record? Are you still feeling the effects of that? No, no.

So the pull up record jacked me up the first time. As you know, the first time I failed that record and torn muscles in my forearms, biceps, and I had rhabdomyolysis. The kidney effects on that lasted a few years. It never really quite went back to normal. Was kidney? Yeah, so rhabdomyolysis is like a breakdown of the myoglobin in your blood. The particles are too big for your kidneys to filter, and it increases the creatinine in your blood.

You can die from that, right? You could die, you could die, yes. Did your muscles get crazy swollen and all that? Got swollen like a balloon. There's footage of me sitting in the hospital that I look like the muffin man. What do they do for that? They put a lot of fluids in you and you've got to just wait. Let time run its course and they get an IV in you and just let your body kind of naturally process that stuff out.

It depends on how severe it is. It could be severe to the point where you get irreparable kidney damage. You need dialysis. I didn be severe to the point where you get irreparable kidney damage. You need dialysis. I didn't get to that point luckily. Um, but for me, it was just like getting IVs in me and just letting me stay in the hospital for a few days.

So past that, I came back a year later and, uh, and the record at the time was 4,030 set by Goggins. Um, that was no vest, right? That was no vest,

no vest, no vest came back a year later and broke it with a 30-pound vest, did 5,804 pull-ups in 22 hours to beat the record. At the time, it had been beaten twice already. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, so while you're going through recovery, you're starting to get back into training. Yeah.

And as you're getting back into training, the record's being broken to a point where you need to do more reps. Why the third, why the extra 30 pounds? Did you, the first time you tried it, did you try it with a 30 pound vest? I'm the type of guy, like I, I don't fail. I don't, I call it a failure. I said I failed, but I don't look at it as a, I don't, it's not a definitive thing. I don't see it as like, okay, I failed. So I need to go back. I wanted to prove to myself and do other people that you can come back stronger after a quote unquote failure. So I can not only beat the record, I'll beat it with a 30 pound vest to show that, you know, it's not definitive. It's not fatal. You can come back, you can even come back stronger and get

it done. And I did it also to, uh, to symbolize the emotional and physical burden that are some of our, our vets come back with after war. I'm a vet been in Navy for 11 years, had friends that suffered some of those things. So I wanted to bring, bring awareness to a good cause. So the, the vest, it wasn't a vest, it was a pack. The weighted pack kind of symbolized that. Um, and that, that was all there was to it. I mean, the vest wasn't something to like, Oh, well look at me. I could do it with the vest. It had meaning behind it. Um, and I was, I was fortunate enough. I mean, the second time I did it, I was more prepared. I went back to the training, went back to drawing board.

And it's only failure if you stop reaching that goal or that aim. The second you stop, it's failure. But if you're doing other things, if you're like making adjustments, you're finding a different way to train, you're seeking out a mentor, you're doing that is not by definition, that's not failure because you're still moving toward that goal. You're still moving toward it. It might take you a little longer. Might've had it make a wrong turn,

but the only wrong turn is a turn not taken. So you can take as many wrong turns as you need to, but if you keep taking turns, eventually you're going to get to the finish line. You're going to get to that goal. So, you know, I know you don't care about what I'm about to ask here,

but it makes me curious. You, you know, I know you don't care about what I'm about to ask here, but it makes me curious. You know, you have this record and it's with a 30 pound vest. That means no one can really come and say they broke the record unless they wear a vest, right? Look, anyone wants to go try this record? I don't suggest I don't recommend anyone do the ice. Anything that I do, I do it. You know, I have a purpose behind it. It's just me.

What I personally choose to do to express my gifts to the world. Yes. And the risks that are involved with it, I have accepted and taken on and I do everything in my power to mitigate those risks. So I don't recommend anyone go out and try 5,800 pull-ups just on a whim. So with the vest, if someone wants to go out there and train for it, hit me up. I'll help you train. I'll give you advice.

I like seeing people go out there and getting after it. I don't care about records. I'm not defined by a record. Records will be broken for all of eternity. As long as I'm more curious about why you're- Except for your record with the weight vest. I don't know. Who knows? Who knows? I'm concerned about is why you're doing it. What drives you to do it? That's what I want to know. Like, okay, great. You're doing the record. Why though? What's the driver? What are you passionate about? What's your purpose behind it? That's what I'm more concerned. Like, okay, great. You're doing the record. What, why though? You know, that's a, what's the driver? What are you passionate about? What's your purpose behind it? That's what I'm more concerned about. What's been your main purpose. My purpose is like, okay, so my purpose is everyone has a gift. Everyone is here to express

something in their life. Everyone is here to be great at something, be a teacher, be a lawyer, be a mentor, be a, be a doctor, whatever it is, a coach. They have some sort of greatness in them, but maybe don't recognize it, right? They don't recognize it or they're unwilling to step out of that comfort zone to go explore what that is. Again, we have this strength that's been passed down to us. These responses I was talking about, it's a strength that our ancestors fought and died and they went through struggles and defeat and all these ups and downs.

You're one out of a billion sperm, right? So you're strong from the start. So the second you come into this world, you're already chosen for this work, right? And you get here with generations of strength by virtue of you even being alive is a testament to generations of strength for you to what? To squander your gifts, not step out of your comfort zone, not take the leap off that precipice for what? Because you're scared? I mean, you're looking at, so for me, that's my purpose. I want to share that message with people. And hopefully when I die, leave this world in a better place to where people won't be as afraid to step out of that zone and reach that potential.

to step out of that zone and reach that potential because it really is a waste. And I'm seeing it more and more today. People scared to kind of step out of that comfort and reach for that potential that they have. Everyone's destined to be great at something. Not enough people. A lot of people go to the grave and take that potential with them. So that's my purpose. We get stuck, you know, and we see the gifts that other people have.

We don't notice that we have a bunch sitting right inside of us too you know and you look at the next guy or the next girl and you're like man why do they have this or why do they have that or you look at their genetics or whatever the hell it is and here you are with amazing genetics but maybe just in something slightly different exactly i mean comparison is the thief of joy. You know, focus on you. You got some, you got some tremendous gifts. If you're just willing to just block out, trim the fat and block out all the naysayers, block out all what people say that you can and can't do. You're too big. You're too small. I was asking you a question about, you know, being jujitsu and being big. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that say, well, all that muscle is going to be

bad for you. All that muscle is going to be a drug problem, but you're doing really great because you didn't allow all that external, all those external factors to compromise the self-belief you have in yourself. Because you're true to that innate strength that you were born with, that we all are. Has expecting a son changed that purpose at all? I got a son on the way. He's coming in November. Michael Raymond McCaskell II. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. It has and it hasn't. My purpose has always been to leave this legacy of footsteps for other people. So now I just have a direct person. I have a direct son who can now see the things that I've done and hopefully be inspired to pursue his own path. I don't want him to necessarily follow my path, but I want him to have the courage and the confidence and the strength of will and spirit

and to step out of that zone, to trim the fat in his own life in a way that is true to himself. To thine own self be true. As a man thinketh, so is he. So I want my son, I want to instill those values in my son, and I want to do it by example. I want to say, here, look, you don't have to do this. It doesn't have to be physical. You don't have to go and break records. But look what's possible. When I trained for the pull-up record, I could do 10 pull-ups.

I could do 10, maybe. Throughout the thing, we were talking about it earlier, I could do maybe 20 consecutive the 6 inches between your ear it's the mind that you have to really it's the self belief you will always be what you believe you are so if I went into training

for any of these records or any of these things with a shitty self belief or an underlying belief that I'm not good enough or I'm not worthy enough or the record is going to be beat or if I just define myself by a freaking number on a Guinness sheet of paper, then I would I would I would not be living to my fullest potential. I think a lot of people get caught up in the weeds with numbers and records and accolades and they define themselves by that. But if it took all your degrees and accolades and paper, put it in the basket and burned it, then what do you have? You're nothing because you put all your eggs in that basket.

in the basket and burned it then what do you have you're nothing because you put all your eggs in that basket you got to find a purpose and a passion that's deeper than a record that's deeper than the goal itself that you're looking for it has to be in service to something bigger than yourself and that's what i hope to leave for my son the visualization piece that you're talking about as far as the the uh ice bath record um i want to know because you mentioned something that there's a there's a spiritual aspect to that right yes But where else along with that, where else do you use visualization to benefit yourself? And also maybe how do you advise that people do that as athletes? Because a lot of athletes talk about that. Um, and there's a lot more to it than just at least a lot more benefit than just visualizing. Absolutely. I use visualization with anything, anything that I want, any goal, anything that I put

my mind to that I really want. I have to visualize it. I have to see it. If I don't know, if I don't see it, then how can I truly, how can I create a plan to get there if I don't see it? I need to be as detailed as possible. I think people don't go into as much detail. They visualize the outcome, but they don't visualize the process to get there.

They visualize what it feels like to stand on the stage first place. They visualize the feeling of the actual lift. They visualize the feeling of the performance in the moment. We have this idea that winning is the home run. That winning is the touchdown pass with no time on the clock. That winning is the late round knockout. That's the visualization. That's not winning. Winning is the, you know, the late round knockout. That's the visualization. Doing the late round.

It's that's not winning. Winning is the process. Every single day visualization is what is it going to feel like tomorrow morning? What is freaking cold outside? And I got a set number of miles I got to run. How am I going to feel? And how am I going to respond to that feeling? What's it going to smell like?

What are the people around me? What do they look like? What are they going to say to me? How am I going to respond to that? Say it's too cold. Stay in bed. Don't worry. I'm going to skip today. You, I'm good. I'm going to stay in. You go ahead. How are you going to respond to that? That's visualization. And people don't go deep enough. They just visualize the outcome. The daily grind is the home run. The daily grind is the touchdown pass. The daily grind is the standing on the stage. You have to make it that specific it's not practice how you play it's taking it a step further and saying there's no difference between

the two there's no difference between the two i probably know a hundred people that have broken some sort of substantial world record even all-time world records and power lifting, uh, all different kinds of things. And I think I've only met maybe there's like one other person that comes to mind that like could kind of care less about the record, uh, that they have. Um, you're a unique person and I really appreciate you sharing all that with us today. I think that that's an amazing perspective. I'm not really sure how you're wired the way you are, but you're tremendously humble and it's great to have you here. So I appreciate you coming out for today. Always glad to be here. What's the next thing on your mind? Cause I know

we got to get you out of here. Yeah, man. You know, I'm still kind of taking a step back, focusing on the fundamentals, kind of recovering, rebuilding. I've done eight of these labors later, eight of these feats in a very short amount of time. So I'm just kind of reassessing things with my body and kind of seeing where I want to kind of test myself next. I talked to you about something earlier. Maybe I'll start going to the drawing board for that. And, you know, I'm kind of superstitious. I don't like to put it out there until I kind of got it all figured out. So how many labors total? I've done eight total. I'm doing 12 or 12 labors. Awesome, man. Andrew, want to take us on out of here, buddy?

I will. So thank you, everybody, for checking on today's episode. Thank you, everybody in the chat room. You guys are awesome today. Please hit that like button on the way out. I know you guys just got a huge dose of motivation the way I just did. So thank you so much for that last bit there. That was insane.

Yeah. Some amazing perspective on being a parent and you're not even a parent yet. i was like man i'm not that i know of i'm kidding i look at my wife she's gonna kill me she's gonna destroy you we'll edit that part out but yeah that that was awesome i i took a lot out of that because yeah my's eight months old. And yeah, he's amazing. But yeah, having that extra little dose of purpose and the way you laid it out, it hit really close to home. So thank you. But yeah, so everybody, yeah, make sure you guys like this video. And I don't want to mess up the spelling, but vioreclothing.com slash powerproject.

V-U-O-R-I clothing.com slash powerproject. PowerProject, V-U-O-R-I, clothing.com slash PowerProject. Head over there right now and receive 20% off your first order off of the top of the line athletic apparel, really second to none. And stuff looks good. Look at Mark and Seema. They are, yeah, looking sharp. I like that. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes.

Please follow the podcast at MarkBowlesPower on Instagram at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at I am Andrew Z at the Andrew Z on TikTok and SEMA. Where you at? Guys, don't forget. We did have a podcast with Mike about a year and a half ago when we talked about a lot of stuff and deeper into what the 12 labors were. So you heard this one. Go listen to that one. But it's SEMA ending on Instagram and YouTube and SEMA yin yang on TikTok and Twitter.

Mike at Mike McCastle and all social media Mike Mike McCastle dot com website strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later I'm at Mark Smiley Bell