Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 632 - Is Transparency about PEDs in Fitness good or bad?

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

More and more influencers and athletes are admitting their PED use. They're describing their experiences and telling you not to follow their lead, but young minds might have a difficult time seeing their success and not wanting to hop on as well. Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vertical Diet Meals: https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for free shipping and two free meals + a Kooler Sport when you order 16 meals or more! ➢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

What's up, Power Project family? This episode's about to come with some heat. So with that being said, here's a medical disclaimer. Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast YouTube channel does not contain medical advice. We're not doctors nor the featured guests. The contents of this YouTube channel, such as videos, text, graphics, images, and other material are intended for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only and not for the purpose of rendering medical advice. The contents of this YouTube channel are not intended for the purpose of substitute professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Although we make efforts to keep medical information on our channel updated, we cannot guarantee that the information on our channel reflects the most up-to-date research. Consult your physician for medical advice. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health care providers regarding a medical condition never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice or treatment because of something you have heard in a youtube video before taking any medications

over-the-counter drugs supplements or herbs consult a physician for thorough evaluation this channel does not endorse any medications vitamins herbs nor do we condemn the use of illegal drugs or use of drugs for unintended purposes a qualified physician should make a decision based on each person's medical history and current prescriptions. Enjoy. Dude, I'm so excited to announce today's sponsor. So when I was a kid growing up, cereal was an actual food group for me. Now that I'm a mature adult, cereal is actually a food group for me. Unfortunately, the stuff that you buy in the store doesn't really fit very well with my macros. And now we actually do have an answer for something that is healthy for us.

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magic i'll take it yeah all right well magic there it goes so uh yeah head over to magic spoon.com slash power project um i recommend that you guys get a variety pack so that way you can figure out which flavor is your favorite um it's kind of hard to pick one but that frosted is just incredible but yeah magic spoon.com slash power project and you're going to receive five dollars off that variety pack links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes head over there right now so you can enjoy cereal again owen i saw him today he had a clear shot at like a normal spot there's no one else around and he had like a repark i was like that's bad and then the whole side of his car is all dented up i was like ah i could totally see why that side is dented up

i don't want to you know go too far off topic or anything but like you saying like i've only hit a pole like listen that was not pause okay hitting anything ever is not okay it's an l can i at least tell you how this happened? Guys, I've only been to jail once. No big deal. Let me tell you how that happened. I was going to go see Aziz Ansari in the Bay Area and I was parking in a parking garage

and there's this spot and there's this big like, it's not a pole. It's more so a structure to keep the parking garage thing up by the space. In your defense, those things are tough to maneuver around yeah so i'm like i agree i agree i can do this so i go and i turn in and then i just hear my car go and i'm like oh no no no no i take i accelerate a little bit i was like fuck i have to come back and then i just come back and it's just right so it wasn't even that like it's just i i'm it wasn't as bad as it sounds i didn't just like hit a pole

it was just a misjudgment of an angle that pole came out of nowhere yeah bay area sucks for parking so it's okay are we recording yeah i crashed once. And I was going probably like, I don't know, freaking like six miles an hour or something. Because I was driving in the snow. Yeah. And the car in front of me stopped kind of abruptly. And I was probably following too close because I was just a young kid being stupid. But I had like a decent amount of space. I was just a young kid being stupid.

But I had like a decent amount of space. And as he put his brakes, I hit my brakes. And then, you know, you're supposed to kind of like pump your brakes, which I was trying to do. But nothing was working. I was just sliding on like a giant sheet of ice. And I look at my brother. I'm like, we're going to crash. And he's like, all right.

You know, it was just like real slow and just banged into the car. And it was like no big deal but uh from that point on i mean i i i uh i take like stupid unnecessary risk driving just like anybody else but uh i usually try to leave a good distance between me and whoever's in front of me oh yeah no i always do that because some man this happened actually downtown the other day i'm very careful about how close people are behind me. And it was a few weeks ago. Remember when I texted you guys that someone rear-ended me and just drove away? Yeah, I was like, this guy's going a little bit too fast. Dude, I'd drive away, too, if I hit you.

And I looked in, I'd be like, yo, I'm out. I'm not talking to this guy. Fuck that. Yeah. Motherfucker rear-ended me, and I looked back, and then they're just like, and they just speed off into the other lane. That is so funny. What if you hurt somebody? Yeah.

I mean, even if you just tap their car. I mean, I don't know. I don't understand that. Yeah. I did get their license plate, but then I looked at my car. There was barely shit, so I was like, I'll just fucking leave it. It's a lot of stress. What do you guys think about, you know, there's a lot of talk on the internet on whether, you know, it's a good idea or bad idea to talk about steroids.

And we're hearing more people discussing the topic. People are talking about their stacks and exactly what they're talking about. And you brought up a video from a certain influencer to me and to Andrew. And we've been kind of discussing it this morning. We've been kind of discussing it this morning, and it'd be good to dive into that and just kind of have some what they were doing, I would want to fast track my progress too because it's a weird thing where like they're talking about it and they're being open about it. The ones who are responsible are saying, hey, I'm doing this, but you shouldn't, right? doing this, but you shouldn't. Right. But when you're, when you're young, just because someone tells you not to do something, if you see they're doing it and it's getting them results, you're going to want to do it too. Right. So it's like, it's a weird thing where obviously the responsibility comes down to the individual. Right. But in a lot of these situations, the individuals that the

responsibility comes down to are teenagers. And when was a fucking teenager i wanted everything now oh yeah right so it's like it's it's a weird thing where like it's a this fitness right fitness bodybuilding um getting big this isn't sport it's not like you're watching a basketball influencer teaching you how to dunk or teaching you how to dribble and you have to put in a lot of hours and there's nothing you can shortcut. Bodybuilding, you can shortcut and people are telling you how to shortcut it. Is that a good thing though for teenagers to know how to do? Yeah, it's a really brutal topic to try to navigate. You know, if, um, if you're thinking about like,

uh, strength training programs, you know, and you're thinking about, you know, how, how some of the guys of today and girls of today get to be the absolute strongest. Let's put steroids off to the side momentarily.

And we're just talking purely about programming. Well, a lot of the programming used by some of the best athletes in the world, drug tested and not drug tested. Um, they use a really high frequency. You know, they might squat three times a week. It's not uncommon to deadlift like twice a week, to bench three times a week. Most people, when they see a program like that and they hear it shared by, you know, some of the top lifters in the world, they're like, I'm doing that program. But meanwhile, the influencer flat out says, Hey, don't, whatever you do, don't try this

because this is my program for now. And I squat 733 pounds in competition. I bench 501 and I deadlift 777 or whatever, right? It's like, that's a well-established lifter who's been lifting for a long time, but no one's gonna, no one's going to listen to that advice. They're just going to dive right in. They heard squat three times a week. So that's what they're going to do. They're going to bench three times a week. They're going to deadlift three times a week. Meanwhile, they're also missing out on all the assistance and accessory work that the person does. And they're missing the fact that that person has been lifting for a decade and they built themselves into whatever they were about to do. They're prepared for it.

So I think that when it comes to the topic of performance enhancing drugs, steroids, a lot of people are trying just to call it TRT type of stuff nowadays or hormone replacement therapy. And you're really just taking steroids is what's going on here for some sort of enhancement. And that's usually what's going on, right? But I think that when people start to consider this, when a person, a kid who's 15, 13, 17, they should just really be as prepared as possible about the weight of what they're about to do, which would be hard to do when you're a kid because you don't understand the weight of what you're about to do. You don't understand the implications. You don't understand that there

could be really negative health problems down the road from what you're doing today. And when you're young, you don't think that way. You don't think that way, but that would be the best possible route would be to try to gather as much information as you can about whether you're ever going to do them or not. And if you are going to do them, investigate them even further. For me, when I was a kid, I didn't really know much about steroids. But as I got to be, like, I don't know, training for five years or so, I started to learn more about it. There was more information in magazines. Let's just be clear. You started to learn more.

You weren't doing anything. Correct, yeah. Five years in. Yeah, just learning about it, reading about it. So there was a magazine called Muscle Media 2000 back in the day from Bill Phillips. Okay. And there's a legendary guy that we bring up all the time in this show. The guy's name is Dan Duchesne.

Dan Duchesne saw a lot of people hurting themselves using steroids. So he wrote a book called The Underground Steroid Handbook. I believe that he wrote it with Bill Phillips. And I also think that Michael Zampano had something to do with it as well. He was on our show. Um, when they made that book, they were like, they printed some copies and they're like mom's basement or something. They made like, I don't know, like a hundred of them. They're going to give them out to like their buddies and stuff. Turns out there's a lot of people on steroids even back then. And I want to say they sold like 150,000 copies or something wild like that, which sounds pretty crazy.

But there was a lot of people that were, they were misinformed. They didn't know just simple stuff. Like you can't use the same needle twice, you know, just a lot of things that are really, really simple that seem to be common practice. You only know these things if you're in the medical field or if you're somebody who has any sort of experience with any of these things that you need to utilize to inject steroids. Sometimes people don't even know that you inject steroids. They don't know some of the basics. Quick thing, because there's a lot of new people that are watching this stuff, and they don't necessarily know your history.

Like, yes, you were on stuff when you were an athlete. You're on stuff, like some HRT now. But how long did you train before you started using anything? I started lifting when I was like about 12, and I started taking stuff when I was 25. So it was like 13 years. 13 years of training before doing anything. And you were how, like what did you weigh when you were 25 before you started?

When I was 25, I would range between 210 and 220 pounds. I just wanted to let that be known because again, like that's 12 years in the books and you didn't just go on after two, three, four years. You put in more than a decade of trading, and then you made the decision after building a really good fucking base that, okay, this is what I want to do because you've put in work already. Yeah, I was pretty strong. I mean, by standards of like high school athletes and stuff, I was incredibly strong in terms of like, you know,

where the power lifters are today and some incredibly strong in terms of like, you know, where the power lifters are today. And some of the young kids of today, not that strong in comparison to that. But I did bench press 405 before I finished high school. I benched 225 pounds for 40 reps. I ran a 4.6 40 yard dash. Yes, I could run at certain points. And so like I did some stuff that I thought was pretty good for me, especially because it did seem like I had a, it did seem like I was kind of preloaded to be able to lift heavy weights because I lifted more than my friends, even like my first couple of times lifting and their first couple of times lifting. I remember doing the bar with like 25s on each side for a

couple of reps, you know, 95 pounds for a few reps. And my friends were only able to do like the tens and they were like real squirrely and weird. And I was able to, for some reason, you know, bench press it with some decent like proficiency, you know. But yeah, and I remember at Westside Barbell benching, doing a 500-pound floor press. These were all things that I built up, and I deadlifted 633. I could never squat, which is actually kind of weird because then I built my squat to 1,080. But I really, really struggled with the squat. I just would always round over quite a bit.

And even handling like 405 and stuff like that was pretty difficult for a long time. But because the squat was difficult, I didn't train it that much. bit and even handling like 405 and stuff like that was pretty difficult for a long time. But because the squat was difficult, I didn't train it that much. I didn't train it the way I trained everything else. I didn't have the confidence to do it. And once I got more and more into things and later transitioned into getting on steroids, that's when I was able to really push the numbers, you know, even higher. You know, an interesting thing is that we're talking about and and noel put out that video about um transparency as far as drugs and the the good and the bad because there is a good and a bad but also like at the time you were training people were getting plenty strong and that that was great but now in the age of like you know social media

and all these great lifters on instagram all these people showing the way that they train. For example, you mentioned how Kelly Sturette came in and he gave you some mobility tips that allowed your squat to go from what to what? Like 940, yeah, to 1,080. 940 to 1,080. Now I'm wondering like, okay. In like a year. In a year. So at that time, I mean, you're already on or whatever, but if you had some of that information about potential mobility things or whatever, when you were having the problems in your squat, when you were like 24, 23, 24, 25, I wonder if you would have been able to potentially blast through that and develop a great squat because of that, again, great information, right? Yeah, it could be. I mean, I think for myself, just having extra weight helped a lot.

That was a big factor for me. And plus, like, you know, you got to keep in mind, I was coming from a professional wrestling background. So, like, when I was natty, like, I didn't want to get fat. I remember that was, like, a thing that actually held me back from, like, making progress in powerlifting. Not that you have to get fat for powerlifting. I'm not saying that because there's plenty of examples of people that are in great shape were you natty here uh that's like right around the time i went on

yeah so like i could or could not be i can't really uh tell from that exact picture but i would i would say that uh if i am on anything it was for maybe a couple of months or something like that. Yeah, I remember pictures when you were Natty. You were quite close to that size, if not that size. Looking for them. But, you know, I think, you know, back to the kind of the main topic here is, you know, my brother Angeles, which was an incredible, it was incredible to have like this kind of screening of this movie in Hollywood. It was really, really a special, special day. Stone Cold Steve Austin was there and a lot of our friends and family and stuff like that was there.

So it was really, really fun. But the USC football team was there as well. Cause my brother's, that's where he went to school. He went to USC film school. So the USC football team, you know, they get done watching it and we don't know, like we have no idea of people's reaction. You know, we, we never even really seen the full movie ourselves. So this was maybe my brother did, but I didn't see the full movie complete until then. We get done and we come out of the movie theater and all these kids are like, dude, where do I get some steroids? Like, where do I get this stuff? And my brother is looking at me,

he's like, oh my God. He's like, that was not, he was like, that was not the intention. He's like, I thought we covered both sides pretty good. He's like, I thought I was pretty down the middle, but now we got all these people fired up about steroids. So steroids, I mean, you know, people get really insulted that it's a shortcut, that it's a little bit of a cheat or something like that. And if you're comparing yourself, if other people are trying to compare themselves to you and you're taking stuff, then it is kind of a cheat. If you're not comparing each other to each other, then it's not a huge deal. But steroids are an interesting thing because, as I've pointed out many times before, once you take them, you end up with that mentality of then what? Like, what will you do next? Imagine being a female and you've been flat-chested your whole life.

You get some implants and wha-bang. You're right on par with some of the other girls and you have all the things that you ever thought of or hoped or dreamed of to be able to wear certain outfits and be able to... A whole new world. A whole new world, right?

But then what if those were taken away from you? Like, that's what it would be like. You know, you have this, it's an advantage. And it's not necessarily an advantage over other people that play the same game, but it is an advantage over those that have chose not to. Yeah. When you mentioned your brother's reaction, it reminded me of that quote from Robert Oppenheimer who made the atom bomb. I am the bringer of death in the story of worlds. Like I've opened Pandora's box.

I don't know how the fuck to close it. And your brother kind of did open Pandora's box when he made that movie. Because the amount of people that he says like come up to him and say, I saw bigger, stronger, faster. And then I hopped on. It's like, hey, it's a really interesting thing. It got people talking about it openly. And what I am proud of is the fact that it got people talking about it within their families. Because I knew a lot at the time, I knew a lot of guys that were on shit that didn't tell their wives or girlfriends.

And I always thought that was a mistake. I was always like, ah, like, they should know. You know what I mean? If you're serious about this person or it's your wife, I mean, they should know what's going on. Natty fucking jacked, Mark. Yep. On the right, I don't know what picture that is. But on the left is I'm probably like 19.

Damn. Something like that. 19, bro. I think so. Maybe 20. And that's, that. 19, bro. I think so. Maybe 20. And that's, yeah, 19, 20, that's maybe six, seven years into training for you. Not seven or eight years into training. Yeah.

And, man, that's. That's nuts. That's the thing. And that's a keto diet right there. Really? That's full blast. That's like full blast keto, like eating just like tons of fat. And how much further along is this guy?

blast keto like eating just like tons of fat and how much further along is this guy so that so the difference in body weight between the two pictures is probably about 20 uh maybe even maybe even more like 30 pounds that actually just happens to be a good picture too you know the other before you were on to no no no this is when i'm on show all right but this is like what's interesting and the reason why i say that it's fair game to call it a cheat or to call it like, you know, fast tracking or whatever you want to call it,

is because I instantly put on around 20 pounds. And I don't want to make like false claims and say that it was like 20 pounds of pure muscle or anything like that. But from what I,

I mean, if you look at the picture, it doesn't appear that I put on a lot of fat. I'm definitely just like thicker and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, if you look at the picture, it doesn't appear that I put on a lot of fat. I'm definitely just like thicker and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, I put I recall weighing around 220, 215 to 220. My issue was I it was hard for me to go from and I just didn't have the knowledge on how to do this. I wish I wish that I did because it would have been interesting to give it a go. I would be between 210 and 215. Most of the time when I got above 215, I would start to

look flat. I would start to look fatter, like my veins didn't show and stuff like that. And so I didn't really know how to do a proper bulk. I never really messed around with any, I don't know anything about bodybuilding. Still to this day, I don't know a ton about it. I just have participated in it and I'm a fan, but I never really dove all the way in on it. Had I done that, I think that I would have been able to still make massive improvements on my physique. But I was more into continuing to do the things that I was used to, which was more powerlifting stuff. And that was comfortable for me. So I stuck with that. And I didn't, I, you know, I wish at that time, I wish I would have learned a little

bit more to, you know, see if I could get bigger and leaner simultaneously and push that a little bit more before I took anything. Bodybuilding training and all, the only thing that bodybuilding training really is, is just like high volume accessory training. At least that's how a powerlifter would look at it because when a powerlifter thinks about accessory movements, it's your bicep curls, your incline chest press, your lateral raises. It is high volume accessory training. I definitely have done a lot of that, but it's been like sporadically.

It hasn't been like, you know, like when you, when I've trained with Branch Warren and I trained with Stan Efferding and some of these, you know, really high level bodybuilders at when the workout is over with, you're like, holy shit. You're like, I get it. I can see how these guys are. So Jack, that fucking hurt. Like that was really hard. Same thing with CrossFit. And I think that, you know, the CrossFitters are always under fire too for taking stuff. But man, you do a, you do a couple of CrossFit, and I think that the CrossFitters are always under fire too for taking stuff. But man, you do a couple CrossFit workouts, you will be blown to pieces.

You'll be like jacked up. But you'll also, in a weird way, even if you're not lean, you'll actually kind of feel lean. Like your stomach muscles and shit will be sore. You'll be sore in some weird spots. I don't know if you guys know what I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about. Sometimes you have a workout where you're like, man, I must be shredded. Then you go check in the mirror and it's like not anything you were thinking about.

But anyway, I think when you build consistency with the right style of training, who the hell knows what the ceiling is. And one thing I mentioned was like it does – it shortcuts bodybuilding. One thing I mentioned was like it does – it shortcuts bodybuilding. I understand that individuals who do – bodybuilders who do use drugs, you still have to work hard. But like your rate of gain will speed up. That is – that's why people do it because your rate of gain speeds up. One thing that I find really cool is that the recent videos I've been seeing from Greg Doucette, especially after these deaths have been happening, Greg has been literally more so saying, do not do this. And again, I know that some people take steroids totally safely. You've done it safely, right?

But he's literally telling younger individuals, do not do it. And even though you tell a young person not to do something, it doesn't mean that they're not going to do it. I don't really know if there is a safe way to really take any drug. Like even something like smoking some weed, you know, it's like, it's like it does alter you. Like who knows, like, does it do some, yeah, does it do some like tiny minuscule thing that we don't have a great measure for? I think, yeah. I'll just be totally open and just say, I've used steroids a bunch of different ways. And for many years, I did use them pretty recklessly because I was just trying to get after whatever I could. I just wanted to lift the most amount of weight.

I was addicted to it. And so I was just like, well, this is kind of part of it. And part of me wanting to be the best is I'm also making these decisions that aren't in my best overall interest for my health. I'm compromising that part. I'm giving up that side of it to kind of jump in and go full blast over here to this. Now, there's a lot of people, that's a pretty bloated picture right there. There's a lot of people who would think, man, that's really dumb. Like you would over inject yourself with these hormones. But if you look at most high level sports, you're going to get yourself into some really weird compromising positions if you're into skydiving, if you're into black diamond downhill skiing. You're going to get yourself in some – I mean, look at the stuff that Goggins does.

He's draining his knee and he's going out for a run. So I'm not trying to say that – I'm not trying to minimize what I have done. I'm just giving perspective. You look at Jordan and you look at a lot of these athletes that I grew up idolizing. I was like, yeah, that's just the way shit's done, man. You just do any and everything that you can. Do anything you can do to win. Yeah, you just do whatever you can to win.

And for me personally, in powerlifting, it doesn't seem like anybody really cares. And in powerlifting, it's been talked about openly for so long. And that's, I think the advantage that my brother had over a lot of other people was that in the powerlifting community, we talked about it quite a bit. So me and my brothers, we talked about it all the time. We, it wasn't like, it wasn't this hidden thing. Even at the gym that I went to when I was a kid, it was talked about all the time. It wasn't like, it wasn't this hidden thing. Even at the gym that I went to when I was a kid, it was talked about all the time. I remember the guys that were there, they were like, they would always just like dismiss me. They'd be like, there's no reason for you to even learn anything about any of this at

the moment because you're 16. They're like, and every time I worked out, it felt like I got stronger. So I never thought there was any, and they told me, they're like, you're just going to keep getting bigger and more jacked anyway. All you got to do is keep showing up. And I was like, cool. But I never even was like really all that enticed by them until about three to five years into training.

Then I was like, I think that I'm going to end up doing these, so I should learn about it. And I learned, I don't want to say studied, because people throw that word around so much, but like I investigated it. I looked into it as much as I possibly could at the time with the information that we had. And then from there, you know, made some decisions that were at least informed decisions on what to take, how much to take, when to take it, and so on. If you don't mind me asking, you don't need to say all the things that you actually took,

but what were some of the side effects when you were at your peak? Like what were some of the things that you had to deal with or some of the health issues that maybe you had to like, oh, this is happening, so I have to do this, if there was anything notable? I would probably say like some of the most notable things, one really notable thing is your breathing. Just because I was also really big, but I think, is the guy's name Brandon? Brandon Harding?

Brandon Harding, is that the video that you? That was the one I sent you, yeah. Yeah, Brandon Harding, he said that in the morning he's posing, and then he gets out of breath. And you're thinking, how's that like in the morning he's like posing and then he gets like out of breath. And you're thinking like, how's that possible? This dude's so fit. Sometimes from taking in the extra calories and getting a little bigger and a little thicker than what your body's used to is part of it. But I also think it's a side effect of, you know, increasing the dosage of like what you're taking and you just feel like bloated.

So breathing can get a little out of whack. And again, that's for a power lifter who's not doing anything for conditioning. You can get really bloated, which doesn't sound like... Getting bloated doesn't sound like it's all that negative, but I think it's tremendously negative, especially with some of the deaths that we've had. I think the deaths are from high blood pressure. High blood pressure a lot of times is related to water retention. I also think it has to do with their blood being thicker. So my red blood cell count would go up. These are all things I really didn't know much about until I was probably using stuff on and off for about two years. And then as I wanted to, like I was on like normal cycles, all the kind of cycles that you hear people talk about on the internet.

I'm not going to dive into that too much because it just gets to be weird. But when I wanted to take more, I was like, I need to look into this a lot more because I don't know what it's, like I can already feel that my blood pressure is higher because if I bend down, like pick something up, I feel like my head is like underwater or something like that. So I already knew that there was, um, and my friends and stuff that took similar amounts, they'd get under the bar to do a squat. Their nose would bleed. And, um, I've seen guys bleed out of their ears. We had one guy who bled out of his eyeball during a bench press. It was just, it was insane. But like all kinds of weird

shit can happen to your body when you're, you know, utilizing these drugs. And I think for young guys, for young men, especially the worst thing that can happen to you is to have your dick taken away from you. If your shit ain't working, like, man, it's a really sad day. Wah, wah, wah. One of those days. And I've had that happen, you know, many times because I think a lot of times maybe you get desensitized to the amount of testosterone. You're not supposed to have that much testosterone in your body. And I don't know all the mechanisms behind why you get shut down like that. You'll hear people say, oh, I got shut down. And they're not really talking about like their testosterone necessarily.

Well, Greg was mentioning that when you do like take exogenous sources a certain amount, your body's like, I don't need to produce this currently. Right. And so it will shut it down. But usually when that happens, when your body starts to shut down its own production of like testosterone and stuff like that, for example, a lot of other things are getting thrown way off too. Like your sperm count, your body just is like, we don't need to utilize these parts anymore. Like this, you've got plenty of testosterone. It's coming from your testicles from my understanding. And anyway, they'll, they'll shrink. And I mean, you just, you can run into all kinds of different things, but I think as a young man, like that would be demoralizing. Like if I was trying to date people and that shit was happening to me,

that would have been a great reason to be like, Hey, I think, I think I'm going to come off this stuff. But luckily for me, it was an informed decision after I've been with somebody for a really long time. I was already married at the time. I had full-on discussions with my wife about it. We went back and forth. She didn't want me to do it. I didn't even really want to do it when I started it. But for some reason, and I don't really know what the calling was or or where it all came from, but I was just like, this is something that I think I have to do.

And I still don't know what that exact reason was. But I think that, you know, maybe there's some sort of psychological thing where I just always want more. I just always want to try to be better. I just always want to try to be better. I just always want to try to do the best. And maybe I thought that that was my way of doing that. So number one, it's like, it's great that you mentioned all the things that you had to personally deal with. Since again, we have a lot of new listeners. I'm not on anything, despite what some people think I am. Some people think I'm not. I'm not. Now, with that being said, we were watching Brandon.

We watched Brandon Harding's video because Brandon made a response video to Noel Deisel talking about the transparency of steroid use. And we've talked about how I think there are some amazing benefits to people being transparent. Like Derek goes to all these videos talking about people that do stupid things. Like people understand what can happen to your blood, your blood pressure, et cetera. So people are now having a really good understanding on how to use these things in a safer manner because things can always happen. Brandon was talking about how now his cholesterol is a little bit out of whack.

He, I think he said his cholesterol is out of whack. I think he set his cholesterol out of whack. He has some thyroid issues currently. He's a young guy. He's a young 24-year-old guy. And then in his video when he was talking about Noel, I thought something that was very interesting was he started training at 16 years old. 16, right? And when he started training, he was like, you know, I'm going to stay natty, et cetera. Three, three and a half years in, he hops on.

He's, you know, he's built a very successful channel. He's doing well in terms of competing, right? And in that video, like he mentioned how it is a tough line to toe being transparent, trying to tell young kids you shouldn't be doing this. But also, you've gotten very successful, not just because of steroid use, but it does like you getting that big, that did play a role in terms of the speed. And what had me think about was like, you mentioned before we got on the podcast how, you know, normal athletes, like when I was younger, the athletes that I looked up to weren't bodybuilders because I was a soccer player. I did start training at 13, but I started training so I can get bigger for playing soccer. So the athletes I looked up to were like Zatani Behimovic, Garlis Puyol, Messi, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho.

Those were the athletes I looked up to. And playing soccer, there's no real shortcuts, right? But if you're 16, 17 years old and you look up to Brandon Harding, and this is, again, all the responsibility of what I'm about to say comes down to the individual who's watching the content. It's not Brandon. Brandon's doing a great job of saying, you're young, you shouldn't take this. But 16, 17 year old, you just start training. You see that Brandon Harding started taking stuff three years into training, only three years into training. You see the success he's had. You have a pretty decent, like, let's say you have a job working at a department store or whatever. You have some money, you can get yourself some tests,

you can get yourself something else. You look up and you'll probably want to replicate the things that your idols do. And hopping on stuff three years into training, in my opinion, makes no sense because you're not, okay, if you know you want to be a pro bodybuilder, maybe that's different, but you're not even eking out what you have the ability to do, right? You did that 12 years into training. You had over a decade of training and before you decided to do anything, even though you had the knowledge of it. I'm seeing guys on TikTok

that have amazing looking physiques and they've only been training for three or four years and they're like, yeah, I'm like, they're like, oh yeah, I'm going to let my audience know. I'm probably going to hop on some stuff pretty soon. I'm looking like,

dude, you look amazing. Why? Like you look so fucking good. Why? They're i mean it's it's normal right that's only four years into training it's it's definitely early you know to hop on something um i think you know back to your point about brandon um you know he he did uh say hey i i don't promote steroids. And then they were like, well, not only him, but a lot of us are promoting steroids because we're, and myself included, we're showing our success. And then we're saying, Hey kids, this is bad for you. You know, it's kind of like, uh, the parent who, you know, is telling the kid to stray

away from drugs, but they're drunk, you're drunk while they're telling their kid that, or they're drinking. And so it's hard to figure out what the correct message is, but I did like how he wrapped it up at the end. And he said, if you are natural, you should try to stay natural for as long as you can possibly. And I agree with that. And I think most people would agree with that. I think

the other thing to think about too, when it comes to steroids is that it's like playing a card and you only get to play the card one time. And this was an analogy that was brought up by Dave Tate. If you have to use the card for something that is kind of um like not a really large goal then you like let's say you have to play the card in high school you play this card that you have in your deck you play it in high school just to make your basketball team or just to make your football team well you're not going to the nfl or the nba like you just it's it's just not likely that that's possible because you had to take performance enhancing drugs just to make the football team. Most of the people that are going to be pro people at that point, people know when someone's 10 or they know when someone's like 15 and they got all these accounts of like, hey, remember when that kid did this?

Hey, remember when that kid did that? Like, and everyone in the town knows everyone except for the parents for some reason. They're always clueless. Like my boy is going to, it's like, no, he's not. And then all the kids that make it to Division 1 are like, I'm going to be playing pro ball. And it's like, no, no, no.

You ain't going nowhere. But when people go to college and they need to take something just to play in college, kind of same thing. You most likely are not going to be an NFL hall of famer. You might make it to the NFL. You might have to size,

you might have some of the credentials they're looking for, but most likely you're not going to be like an all time. Great. If you play that card later in life, then maybe you have more of a shot. Maybe you have more of a chance. Um, and the only reason I'm saying that is because you probably have more of a

natural talent. You look at Barry Bonds. I don't know what Barry Bonds did or didn't do. I'm saying that is because you probably have more of a natural talent. You look at Barry Bonds, I don't know what Barry Bonds did or didn't do, I'm not sure, but it does appear that Barry Bonds took shit after he was already in the Hall of Fame. I mean, he was one of the greatest baseball players of all time with his home run prowess, with his defense, with the way he was able to steal bases and shit like that too mark mcguire was a savage um and it seems like these guys took this stuff at a later date when it comes to bodybuilding though so much rides on and just even being a fitness influencer everything kind of rides on your size and you because your size can help dictate your strength it's not the

only dictator of strength but if you weigh 20 more pounds especially if it's 20 more pounds of muscle which is very common for people to gain when they take steroids might take a couple months or something like that but it happens in a fairly short period of time if you're training hard you have 20 extra pounds of muscle on you you're going to be able to move a lot more weight. You're going to look well above average, and that might be enticing for people to follow you, and that might be enticing. Somebody might end up being like Brandon who had,

it appears like he's got a lot of sponsorships, like in that video. He's got, it looks like he has some of his own shit going on, which is really cool, but he's got like belts and wraps and knee sleeves. And he's got, you know, a clothing company sending him stuff. He has like supplement companies sending him stuff. And if I'm a kid watching that and I'm already into lifting, I'm like, fuck yeah, man, like sign me up. How do I, how do I'm a kid watching that and I'm already into lifting, I'm like, fuck, yeah, man, like sign me up. How do I get a piece of this guy's life? This seems legit.

And maybe you're watching and you're like, I don't really even know if I can get that jacked. But even if I just get close, maybe I can enjoy some of the shit that this guy enjoys. This seems really cool. So while a lot of us say, hey, we're not promoting steroids to kids, we are. And I think one of the only roads to go down, which is also a hard road to go down, is to really not say anything about it at all. Because people can't handle it. If I'm sitting here, let's just say I came off stuff. Let's say I'm like dude and same I've been off for two years and I really don't look that much

different like I lost I don't know five pounds of muscle but but I'm still lean I'm still pretty strong no one would no one would buy that they'd be like well why would he come off now just like they don't believe you just like they don't believe O'Hearn just like they don't believe John Cena justarn, just like they don't believe John Cena. Just people don't, once somebody is in a, once somebody looks like, quote unquote, unnatural or abnormal, then you're thrown in with all, I mean, I've been accused of steroids well before I ever took them. Yep. I think it was like 15. I had stretch marks on my shoulder.

16. Yeah. And people were like, oh oh man you're on tons of shit like they're like don't get roid rage all that weird shit and this is like so long ago before anyone was talking about trend and all this other shit that's going on now power project found that you guys remember stan the rhino efforting right you should because you've had him on the podcast like four different times. Well, Stan, the creator of the revolutionary Vertical Diet, we have partnered with him with Vertical Meals. And the awesome thing about Vertical Meals is that if you go to this website, there's an amazing selection of different meals that you guys can partake in.

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is use promo code POWERPROJECT at checkout. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. But it's even amplified now. Like, for example, Brandon mentioned in his video, and this is like, it's the odd thing about it because, you know, when he started lifting, he was looking up to these physiques that he said he thought was natural. I think he flashed up a photo of Z's, Z-Y-Z-Z, if anyone is interested, Ziz Ulysses, the black dude on

Instagram, and Jeff Saeed, right? He flashed up those pictures. And then he was like, but you know, then I realized that 90 to 95% of these guys aren't. And that's the thing that's just kind of, kind of, kind of stupid in my opinion, because maybe a lot of people are, but you got to realize the things that you say, brother. Like if you say 90 to 95% of the people you see that have great physiques online are on drugs, look at your placing. You decided to hop on three years in. You believe that 90 to 95% of people are on. The people that you watch respect your opinion

probably are now going to believe that 90 to 95% of people are on, which means that now when they look at anybody who looks remotely good, that maybe they are natural and they're saying they are. Well, Brandon said that 90 to 95%

of these fuckers are on steroids. So look at that, dude. There's no fucking way he's not on drugs. Brandon looks good and he's on drugs. I'm going to fucking take steroids. So look at that, dude. There's no fucking way he's not on drugs. Brandon looks good and he's on drugs. I'm going to fucking take steroids. You got to look at the logic path here. That's the logic path of a teenager. That would be my logic path if I was a teenager looking up to him. Luckily for me, I wasn't lifting in the age of social media and I started before I got a job

and by 19, I already put six years in the fucking training, right? You got to be careful about how you voice these things. Because you chose to get on drugs doesn't mean that anybody that looks like you or looks better than you is on drugs. You just needed that to get there. And I perfectly, I think that Brandon could have gotten close to what he looks like now if he didn't choose to hop on. It would have just taken him a longer amount of time because I've seen many people who have trained for over a decade really well, especially natural bodybuilders that have trained for over a decade that look better than a lot of these guys, better than Brandon, better than these guys who are on.

They've just trained for a long time and they really fleshed out their potential. You know, it's kind of obvious when you start to hear about people talking about their body weight. I think he mentioned sometimes being like 190 to 200 pounds. His stage weight is like 190, I think. Which, by the way, is massive when you're on a bodybuilding stage. 6'1". It's a great physique. He looks incredible.

It's a great physique. He looks incredible. Yeah. But my point being is that there are people that are natural that walk around with 190 pounds of muscle. Like it's not – it's uncommon. You don't see it. But not every single person that has 190 pounds of muscle plus is on steroids. There can be a – you might find a fairly high percentage, but it's still not all. And I think that what I would like to see most people do is I think it would be best to – in terms of like the way someone is built, I think it would be best to not only be into the way that someone is built, but the way that they can express their body,

the way that they can move their body. That way you're not just admiring some dude who's jacked but has the mobility of a trash can. You're admiring somebody that can be multifaceted in some sense. Like I've seen some guys, I think Joey Swole, he's totally and completely fucking yoked, but he could do all kinds of cool shit.

He could do crazy box jumps. There's a lot. Bradley Martin. Bradley Martin is dunking basketballs and shit. Even Dan Green, because he was a cheerleader, he can do the splits. Yeah, he's doing splits. You're like, what the hell?

So, I mean, I think if I could do some stuff all over again, that's what I would admire. I wouldn't just admire just the big and just the strong, which is still cool and I still love it. And I love watching Ed Cohn from back in the day and I love watching

Eddie Hall do the first 1,00 pound deadlift and all that kind of stuff. But how cool is it now to see someone like Hap Thor or Eddie Hall getting into boxing? It's like how much have their followers increased from now doing something slightly different? Or what about someone like a Larry Wheels who's, who's switched gears and, um,

is kind of just almost lifting just for Instagram, right? Lifting and doing arm wrestling and shit. Yeah. He's doing all kinds of stuff. And he, I think he benched like he benched six 61 the other day. I don't, I don't even understand anything that that guy does anymore.

I don't get it. Like he does. Does he even train? I mean, he must train like an animal, but like it seems like everything's like a feat of strength. So I'm always like, how do you get stronger when everything's a feat of strength? And I know these are all people that we look up to

and they're people that, you know, we really admire, but it's hard to, I think, admire them for the physique and admire them for what they can do. Period. And then don't admire anything else about them because you don't fucking know anything else about that person. You have no idea of their moral code, if it matches up to any of the things. Their morals are their morals and your morals are your morals. And once you start going down that road, now we're splitting hairs and we morals are your morals. And once you start going down that road, now we're splitting hairs and we're trying to figure out like, okay, did this guy do this? Did this guy do that? Has this guy ever been in a bad relationship? Has he ever been

weird to women? Has he ever been shown to be racist? Has he ever been shown to discriminate against anybody? It's like, oh my God, like we're getting into a lot of shit trying to figure all this out. And you don't like this person because they take stuff, but you like this other person who claims that they don't take stuff, but maybe they do. It's like, fuck man. Like just believe what you want to believe and probably just move on. But I think if we get caught up in people's morals too much, it gets to be really difficult. Yeah, that's what you said there in terms of like other things. Even when I was like – when I was really focused on trying to get like gain size, like one of the people that I really dug was Greg Plitt. I remember that.

Greg Plitt was one of the guys that I was really paying a lot of attention to when I was younger because he was – He was shredded. He was shredded. He was shredded but he also looked really good. He could move his body well. I wasn't looking up to like any of these like just mass monsters because of their size. Greg Plitt could do some really great things with his body. If you guys ever go and look back at his content, he was a multifaceted athlete. That was one of the main dudes that I was like, oh, he's dope it was really no no other person really it was mainly greg um and even like nowadays for me i'm looking at guys like edo portal people that are able to move their body well because as much as i i i'm like okay i'm

gonna maintain this size maybe gain a bit more size i want it to be able to like move my body well and do different things with my body but um see fucking greg plitt was sick he was so fucking sick man um and he was motivational as hell i'll got to go back and watch his speeches man greg was the fucking man that's the other thing that i think that people should uh be admiring too is if people are sharing um kind of the mindset behind stuff and sharing like their philosophies on things. Yeah. Look at this guy's a fucking, he must've had some martial arts background or something.

He's a fucking savage dude. Dragging it. He was just dragging a tire on the blacktop. Yeah. Like that's how you know someone's a fucking maniac. Rocking those gray sweatpants too. Can I get a hey now? Hey now. Damn.

Yeah, Greg was the man. He looks incredible, man. He looks unbelievable. I think, is it Noel, right? Noel Deisel. Noel Deisel. He has been sharing a lot of philosophical stuff as well. I don't know if you've seen some of that stuff.

But I'm like, this is fucking awesome. He's great. Yeah, because people are – there's a lot of young people that are listening. And there's a lot of young people that could – a lot of this stuff, a lot of this philosophy stuff is fucking old. Like really, really old. You know, Stoic philosophy and things like that. They're like thousands of years old, but're things that are are young people of today can really we can all benefit from it but you want to see those messages passed on he's doing a great

job with that he's absolutely and i do like the way that noel shares his content like the reason why we're talking about this right now is because of noel's video where he was like is this a good idea what is the good and bad of this but whenever he does actually talk about this stuff, he's open, but he's also very adamant that, yo, like you don't need to do this. You like, this is something you need to just save for later if you're going to. So I appreciate that about him.

He's doing it super responsibly. What you got over there, Andrew? When we were going back and forth through text, I was really, I hadn't really paid attention to it. Obviously you had, but you were saying that we mainly see this where a young kid or young athlete, abusing or not, we'll just say taking a lot of PEDs, they're usually coming from, or their past, they have a past of being just a skinny person

and i was like now that i think about it like maybe like maybe that's actually 100 true because like for myself like yeah i wanted to take some arms because i didn't want to be skinny anymore and looking back i don't i mean i don't regret anything that i did but you know i I think I probably could have made those gains. It just would have took me a lot longer. But I do say that I got a net benefit from all of it, but that's just because of the access of the people that I have. I can reach out to damn near anybody to read my blood work and tell me how to fix it. You're making sure you were safe. Yeah, but if I didn't, it would have been a net negative.

I would have lost gains. I would have been in worse shape or whatever. But what you had said was like, yeah, it was because I was skinny. I didn't want to be skinny anymore. And so I thought that was pretty interesting that, you know, you noticed that. Yeah. I think, uh, a lot, a lot of high level bodybuilders. I mean, we've pointed this out before. Um, probably the best of the best are probably somewhere in between, but the majority of them start out really thin. They usually start out really thin.

They usually just have never had excess body fat on them. I think we pointed out Mark Lobliner. We probably need to look into it further, but I don't know really anybody that was a fatty. Mark Lobliner was legitimately a fatty. He was like 280, 290 Mark Lobliner was legitimately a fatty. He was like 280, 290 like in high school. I didn't know that.

He was big though too. I mean he was working out. He wasn't just like a big old fat kid. Oh, I thought he was like an athlete. And I'm not saying that we haven't seen people lose tremendous amounts of weight. I'm talking about seeing somebody that's like in bodybuilding shape that had to kind of come from that background of being like a fat kid. So I think a lot of these guys are skinnier and they're people that probably get frustrated with not being able to, they're trying to put down food and they're trying to do all this shit all the time. And they're like, man, like I'm trying all these things. And I think that those things

will work for somebody, but it takes such a tremendous effort sometimes that after a while while you're just like, man, I've been doing this for a long time. I'm tired of eating the six meals. I don't really want to mess with that anymore. I would like the gains to come along maybe the way they are coming along for other people. And so I think that's the thing where people want to hop on. you know that's the the thing where people uh want to hop on for me it was it was actually kind of a similar scenario even though i was not necessarily skinny in being a pro wrestler i was just recognizing like these guys all have better builds than me they're like they're bigger than me and plus i'm not super tall especially in comparison to athletes in the wwe i mean there's

not a guy there's there's a couple guys that are maybe not super tall, but for the most part, everyone's like 6'3 and up. Everyone's fucking giant, and everyone's like so, so for me, there was definitely a feeling of inferiority, where it's like, hey, you're pretty good at this, you're pretty good at that, you can do some of these other things pretty well, but you ain't like these guys, you know, so you better figure out a way to,

to kind of keep up with them. And then once I transitioned into powerlifting, there was definitely like no way I was going to like turn back to not taking them. And that's the, that's the main thing that I hope is if there is anything to gain from people talking about anabolics so often is hopefully people understand like there's not a good like exit strategy to it. You know, when you go into business, when you do, when you take any risks in life, you always want to think of like, what's my way out? You know, even just when you go into a building or you sit down in the airplane, and you're like, all right, you're going to notice this is the emergency exit aisle.

And like, they tell you where the exits are. You always need an exit strategy out of stuff. And so when it comes to this particular thing, this is your body. You know, this is like, you get one of them. This is the thing you're going to be cruising around with for a long time. And maybe you do want to take risks, and is like this. You get one of them. This is the thing you're going to be cruising around with for a long time. And maybe you do want to take risks and that's fine.

But if as long as you understand what the risk entails, you know, if you jumping off this cliff or you taking steroids or you being a high level skateboarder or whatever the hell it is, then I think it's fine. or whatever the hell it is, then I think it's fine. I mean, I'll also say the one thing that kind of gets missed in all this is that there are teenagers, there are young people out there doing all kinds of crazy shit that's very unsafe. And steroids might be very low on the list of dangerous shit that you can do. You're right. You know what I mean? Like, again, I don't want to downplay them.

And I do want to express my concern of like, once you take them, I'm not sure exactly what you're going to do from there. And there's people that still believe that you're going to hold on to those gains and that you took them or that Nsema took them when he was young, and now he's all jacked forever. That has not been my experience. jump from being on SARMs and then you were off them and then like, you're not going to, if you hold on to anything, you would have to work really hard and really intently at trying to hold on to any of it. I think if I came off of everything and it was off for two years, I don't think it would hold on to anything that I did previously, which people are like, huh, what, how could that be? But I, I,

I just don't think, I don't think I would hold onto on to it. I mean, I went off to have Quinn. I went off for like nine months. And yeah, I deflated quickly. It was wild because what will happen is, so I came off like cold turkey. I probably would have done something different nowadays, but there could have been maybe some other strategies. But I came off and I remember like that transition phase of like of having that stuff kind of run out of your system.

It was an awful feeling. I don't normally have like any sort of depression or anything, but I've only experienced depression like one other time in my life. It was after the bodybuilding show that I did. And it was for one day. It was for one day of feeling like sappy and feeling weird. But the only other time I experienced it was from coming off of steroids. That's another thing that people don't talk about often. It's like there's side effects of steroids.

When you're on them yes it will mess with your liver profile it'll mess with your cholesterol a bit but as silly as it sounds like those things are not like a crazy concern unless you're taking like a lot of them and those things are very reversible and they usually reverse quite quickly if you just take less stuff or you come off completely. But the main thing to note is that when you come off of stuff, that's where people see a lot of the side effects really smashing them hard, like acne, depression, change in your mood. I mean, you have all this testosterone running through your body, which is kind of motivational. I've seen that happen to people.

Yeah, and it's just you. So like a lot of times when somebody comes off stuff, they look kind of wrecked. You're like, what? What the fuck happened to that dude? Like we've known some guys. We see them around and ask them how they're doing. Like, oh, man, I'm off everything.

And it's usually not off everything, but they'll say they're off everything, and they just look a lot different. They look like someone kind of like snatched their soul from them. And there's not an escape from it. Like it's not because of the individual. It's not because the guy is not working hard.

It's not because the guy doesn't want it. It's not because the guy like said F his diet and everything. Sometimes that's the case. But in my case, yeah, I lost a lot of size. I lost a lot of strength. I remember getting injured a couple times too because I was like going to the gym and I'm like, oh, I got to be more reasonable with the weights that I lift because I'm not, I don't have that shit running through my veins. I'm not the same person I was even though it was only a couple months prior.

And I remember hurting my elbow and hurting my shoulder. And I'm like, man, I was never experienced this this before I was flying right through a lot of these injuries previously so it's something to really you know if you're 15 years old I mean are you just going to take them till you're 70 you're like what's the what's the goal why are you trying to take them are you trying to be like the next Larry Wheels? Are you trying to be the next Arnold? It's just if that is a goal of yours, it's still worthwhile and it's still important for you to understand that these people that you idolize, they have been genetic freaks their entire life. They have been ahead their entire lives.

And maybe they took stuff when they were really young. Maybe they did take some risks early on, but they have a combination of great genetics, great training, and being on drugs. Real quick, when you mentioned earlier, some people are like, I want to be a professional bodybuilder, right? When they're like 16, 17, 18, like that, like, I want to be a professional bodybuilder, right? When they're like 16, 17, 18, like that, like I want to be a professional bodybuilder. Shit. When I was 16, I was like, I'm going to be an ER doc. Right. Um, and getting into it, like I'm not going to go into the whole story, but I realized that I didn't want to spend my days doing that. So if you know, you want to be a professional bodybuilder at 16 and then 22 comes around and you see the lifestyle you see the training you see the opportunity or lack of opportunity and then you're like fuck

i actually don't want to be a professional bodybuilder but you played that card because at 16 you're like i want to be a professional bodybuilder but right nah you just just the easiest thing to do is just to train for over a decade or train for a decade. Right. And then see what you can do from there. How many your choice? How many years does it take to like how many years does it take to master, say, jujitsu? You've heard everyone say that mastering. It's funny that everyone that does, that's done jiu-jitsu at a super high level, right?

Like Boucher and all these guys, they're like, you never really master it. What about soccer? You don't master it. You can get really good, but even like guys that are playing professionally in the MLS, you look at them and then you look at guys that are playing in like Europe and fucking Brazil and those places. There's a skill level gap. So those guys that are playing here in the U.S. can get so much better. They're not mastering it.

They have a long way to go. How long does it take to reach your quote unquote genetic-ish potential? I realize you can move around a little bit. How long does it take to reach your genetic potential in lifting? According to social media, it takes three years. No, seriously. According to some reports. Yeah.

A lot of these guys that are listening to or making content, you reach your genetic potential in three to five years. I would say that most of the stuff that you're going to get, most of the good gains that you're going to get are let's just chop out the first year or two and say that you don't know what you're doing.

So the first two years, you're just trying to learn shit. So I think that within five years, you're going to probably get to a weight or a size that is probably going to represent a weight or size that is similar to where you're going to be most of your life, unless you have a tremendous amount of weight to lose or unless you're coming from being very, very, very thin. I think that that can be extended with training knowledge. And you can bump that up from that five-year period, maybe to like an eight-year period. Getting stronger.

Because like how many stuff are we doing currently? We're like, wow, we're progressing at this. Right. And you've put in more than two decades of training. I'm at year 16, right? But one of the key factors to continued progress is to do something completely different. And that's something that we did take up. So it's like you never reached your genetic potential in bodybuilding.

I never reached my genetic potential in powerlifting. We don't really have any idea of how far. We definitely – I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I would say that I definitely could have done better. And it would have been interesting to see. But at the time, I felt like I was taking all the information I had and taking everything that I got and giving it the best damn game plan that I could possibly do. And I felt like I was all in. I felt like I gave it my best shot.

But time could have changed everything. Like if I just took longer, if I just, you know, if I just continued to, um, compete and stuff, but it is interesting how, when it comes to sport, you don't really ever master sport. And I would say that you don't really ever master like lifting weights necessarily, but you do get to a certain size. Andrew, you probably have been a similar body weight for the last six years or so even though you've had some shifts even with taking sarms and some other things right so i was i would fluctuate between like 160 165 but then eventually after probably like five years i would fluctuate between 170 175 and then sarMs bumped me up all the way up to like,

now I just was eating everything possible. I was eating tons of Monster Mash and like for the first time ever, like actually like bing on my phone, like yep, I have to eat again, have to eat again. But I was also on MK677, which makes you hungry, makes you want to eat. The way I put it was just it made me really happy to eat,

whereas before it was just like a burden. So i plumped up to about 200 pounds um that's huge gains right there uh so it have fluctuated quite a bit but i would say how long you've been lifting for so it'll be 10 years next year there you go yeah so but i will say that around the 170, 175 was like the average of where I was. And then today I'm at like 185. So yeah, under 185 above 165 has been where I've been since forever. And then how long you've been like two, like 240 plus? 240 plus. Well, people look back on my Instagram. When I came to super training, I was 265. That was me focusing on powerlifting. That was after my bodybuilding show in 2015 where on stage I was around 225 to 228.

So I was in a bulking period then at that point. And I got up to about 272. And then when I started jujitsu in 2016 slowly my weight started trending down and I was primarily losing body fat and I've been this average weight for the past three to three and a half years because there was a point where I was like just chilling normally around 250 to 255 then a point where like 240 to 245 but this this is the thing. I am not focusing on lifting. Like I'm lifting, but I'm not focusing on just getting bigger. If I focused on just getting bigger, I could get up to 280.

And I could probably, yeah, if I just focused on gaining size, I could get there. Yeah, but one of my points here is that shifting gears and like doing something slightly different for a while, I think all three of us could agree that all three of us could make tremendous progress. Like if all three of us are like, Hey, let's really dedicate to like pure bodybuilding for a bit and let's, and let's see, you know, what, what kind of, let's do it. Yeah. What, what kind of, what kind of progress we can make? We would all make a lot of progress because we all have shifted into, um, it's really messing around with a lot of different protocols, a lot of different training techniques, a lot of different exercises. And

maybe those exercises don't lend themselves to only hypertrophy. You know, maybe those exercises aren't, maybe we have other things in mind. Like I'm working on running. You're working on jiu-jitsu. Andrew's always working on something new and different, and he's been doing a lot of the Doug Brignoli stuff. We're always switching gears with our diet and our nutrition and stuff like that. So if you really just – if we really honed in and said, all right, let's get carbs before the workout. Let's get carbs after the workout.

Let's just get big and see what kind of happens. We would all be able to make that progress. But I think a lot of people get so locked in to what it is that they're doing, whether it be powerlifting or whether it be bodybuilding. We've talked about this many times. If you switch back and forth a bit

or just interrupt any of that cycle with something slightly different, the progress that you can make can represent some of the progress that you made when you were new. different, the progress that you can make can represent some of the progress that you made when you were new, some of the progress that you made in that first. So what I'm saying is that I think in a five to eight year span, you kind of,

you kind of reach a little bit of a ceiling. Obviously there's still always plenty of room to improve, but the improvements are going to be incrementally smaller. The way to have those gains become larger again is to fuck with some different stuff for a bit. And I totally agree with you there. It's funny, when you were mentioning, did you reach your potential with powerlifting? I don't think I reached my potential with bodybuilding because I was going at it hard for a good amount of time. I got to the world stage.

Your body's not even fully, like, you're, like, your body's probably at its, like, full maturity now. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it takes a long time for the human body to get to, like, a refined state. But, you know, by doing all the different things that we've had people come in and show us,

like, it would be interesting because now I have different levels of mobility. I have different levels of body control. My lifting technique overall is better than it was years ago because of the access. You have a lot more confidence. Yeah. The whole thing. Exactly.

So like even me getting back up to that weight, I would be moving better at that weight just because I have all of this new ability in my body. So it's, it's like, you need to really, you need to really just give yourself time. Like, and it's, it's weird. I understand with lifting how gaining muscle isn't the same as getting better at a sport. Like it's, it's like the skill level you need to get better at soccer, basketball, baseball, football, et cetera, all of that. It takes a long time to eke out everything there. The body is a little bit more one-dimensional,

which is why I can understand why people say three to five years. But with the amount that we've been able to do and the things that we've been able to improve on at this stage of our training, more than two decades, 16 years, I don't believe in the five-year fucking genetic potential limit thing. I think it's more so – There's no proof of it. There's no proof that your muscles stop getting stimulated by resistance. People always bring up the sarcopenia thing after 30.

But I don't necessarily agree with that. I think it doesn't happen until you're like 65. And this is, it's within the context of not doing anything. If you're 30 years old and you just stopped lifting, like the gain, like 30, 40, whatever, the gains might get harder. But if you just lower your training volume and stop lifting, okay,

you're going to be losing muscle over the years. But if you just lower your training volume and stop lifting, okay, you're going to be losing muscle over the years. But if you continue to try to improve, because Jeff Alberts is part of Team 3DMJ. He's a 40-something-year-old bodybuilder, and he's looking the best he's ever looked. He looks better than when he was 35. He looks better than when he was 30. He looks better than when he was 25. He's the biggest he's ever been as a natural bodybuilder. And people talk about sarcopenia. No, this man has continued to improve his training that's why i think that more people need to pay attention to a lot of these high level natural bodybuilders because they've been proving year after year decade after decade that i'm in my 40s and 45 i'm still beating these fresh 25 30 year olds who are

on stage at the world stage these guys that are are fucking them up. What I like is that you get to choose nowadays. There are, there's a lot of different people to follow. The people that we mentioned, you know, we want all ships to rise. We want to see the fitness industry continue to grow and for there to continue to be more, you know, prominent, healthy, convenient foods around. And just, I want to see the whole thing increase. Anyone that has apparel, anyone that has their hat in the fitness game, even if you're selling the same shit as me, I don't care.

I want to see all of it explode and all of it continue to grow because there's so many people that are, in my opinion, suffering unnecessarily from a lot of different things that they could otherwise probably fix with some sound nutrition and with some like basically just some general conflict training of like running or taking up a new sport or doing some lifting like all these things are really really important to do and then people that we mentioned today i encourage you all to go follow their information will be in the show notes go subscribe to their channel. Go check out

what some of these people are doing. Even if you don't totally dig it, even if you don't totally love it, it's just, it's a way to get more information and it's a way for you to navigate and to figure out, oh, that would actually be kind of cool to be like a fitness influencer. Man, I wonder how does someone become a Greg Doucette? How does somebody, and even if you follow these people and even if you mimic every single thing that you do, you're most likely not going to be Greg Doucette because there's only one coach, Greg. He's, he's got a certain style. He's got a certain way about him. By my cookbook. I fucking love him. Yeah. He's, he's fucking crazy, right?

Yo, in the video I saw him today, I was like like man greg is giving people the blueprint because as he's going through the video he's like because brandon looked at my cookbook and then it's like his cookbook pops up on the screen he did that three times in that video this is advertising at work that's awesome he's probably selling a crazy amount of them but good like that's a that's a real weakness in people's homes is they don't know how to cook people are ordering door dash all the time and they're just not taking care of themselves and we know that if you eat out how many extra calories you're getting and all that kind of stuff so it's it's awesome to have all these different options and if you really hate that

people take stuff you don't have to follow any of those people. You can follow people that you believe that are in these, I mean, if you go down the rabbit hole, you can look far enough and you'll find some of these federations do some pretty good testing. They do. And if that meets your standards and you can follow Alberto Nunez or follow this guy or that guy who gets tested frequently and still looks shredded or still looks the way that you want. You can just – that was the thing that you mentioned about Brandon is when he said that number of 90 to 95 percent, it was 90 to 95 percent of people that were in his feed that he was following. So be careful about what you're following and who you're following. In his case, I don't really think it's necessarily a negative in any way.

He was following what he's interested in. But still be careful. We talked about that in previous podcasts. Be careful of what is in your feed. If you're a parent, be careful of what is in your child's feed. If you're going to allow them to have some social media and stuff, you should be able to have a little agency over it until they're a little older. That way when they're 14, they're not trying to inject themselves with Trent.

Where'd you learn that from? I got this from your drawer, Dad. Your podcast. That's not the way you shoot that. Give me that thing. Don't waste it on that. That's right. What you said about it's 90 to 95 percent of what's

in his feed holy shit that's important yeah but also like you know i'll see people in the comments going nuts over freaking out like oh they're a fake natty this it's like okay well what is it to you it's like oh i don't want him lying to people. It's like, okay, well, if he's not tricking you, don't buy his shit. It's like, well, it's not me. It's the other people. Like, do you also, like, are you their accountant? Like, do you worry about the dumb shit that they buy on Black Friday? Like, okay, no, you don't do that either.

So what is it to you? This guy's hustle is working right now, whether he is on or not, whoever the fuck this imaginary person we're talking about. But they get so angry, and I'm just like, well, if you're so smart to understand that he's a fake natty, then just unfollow. But they don't want to do that. You know, that's the thing, though. I mentioned just going to go find some of these natural bodybuilders and look at what they do. But when people do see what some of these top natural bodybuilders look like, they'll still say, well, they're on a little – that's the thing.

They'll still say they're on a little something. So it's what you mentioned earlier. It's like if someone does look pretty good, really good, a majority of people are going to be like they're on something. You know what I mean? So it's a tough conundrum. It's what you believe and it's honestly what you want to believe. Like if you want to believe that somebody is – if they're saying they're not, if you want to believe that they are, that's going to be your belief no matter what the facts may be about them. And that's going to inform the decision you make for yourself in the future.

Yeah. the future yeah even before i even got into like lifting and fitness you know huge sports fan and that's where i was exposed to peds first was you know the home run race and so it was just a known thing that like oh pretty much everyone at the top is taking something and this was before i had even fell in love with like bodybuilding and lifting or anything so before i was ever exposed to any of this i already had that implanted in my head thinking that like if you have to if you're bodybuilding and lifting or anything. So before I was ever exposed to any of this, I already had that implanted in my head thinking that like, if you have to, if you're going to be the best, you got to be taking something because everyone already is. It's not true. You know, I know people have different like views on stuff, you know, but I am a person that like, I like to believe in fate. I like to believe that there's things that are like,

there's things that are like higher powers. There's like, I like to believe in shit that's like a little mystical, magical. I like to believe that there's things that are unexplained in this world that we can't quite figure out. And they're not even meant to be figured out. To me, it's easier to like,

for me to walk through my life that way than it is to just always think that everyone's always trying to get one over on you. Everyone's always trying to lie. All these people that claim that they're natural, they're not. Like, I want to believe that there's someone that's 270 and 5% body fat and never touched steroids. Like I would rather believe in that story than to not believe in that story. If someone was to come forward and say, hey, man, I never touched anything. I deadlift 900 pounds. Here's what I do.

Here's how I train. I would just rather jump aboard and be like, that's fucking sick. Like I hope that that, I am hopeful that that is true. Also not naive enough to think like, I'm going to believe everything this guy says, you know, still be a little cautious, but I'm hopeful that that is true. Because I'm like, fuck man,

maybe other people could be that way too. That would be sick. Yeah, I'll take this one from our boy Sully. It was a conversation we were having in the break room. And I mean, we had this conversation just about every day about insima being natty or not he was like yes i believe he's natural he's like because what does it take away from me if he is or he isn't he's like i'm gonna believe that he is and that's what i'm gonna believe like doesn't hurt me either way now like damn son

like because he's like how's he's like it doesn't matter it's like if he is natural then yes that's awesome i believed him and it was true if he's not natural it doesn't take anything away from me that's how i look at michael hearn and people think i'm stupid for that shit but i really do think mike's natural because i've seen what he's been doing for the years i've seen like and i've trained with him and it's crazy it's fucking crazy so like it's like he has another gear he does have another gear it's like he's on other gear you got it you did it it's like oh you mean that as a natural you couldn't keep up with him huh he's the best though he'll just send random text yeah it's just yeah he's a good dude i love him take us on out of here all right thank you

everybody for checking out today's episode uh please follow the podcast at mark bell's power project on instagram at mb power project on tiktok and twitter and please subscribe right here on youtube uh subscribe on it, Spotify, wherever the hell you get podcasts. And let us know what you guys are thinking about the podcast. Follow me at IamAndrewZ on TikTok or on Twitter and Instagram at TheAndrewZ on TikTok.

I fumbled that all over the place. You did. I tried to hit it in a different route. I fucked that up. Shouldn't do that again. And Seema, where are you at? At SeemaYinYang on Instagram and YouTube. And Seema, where are you at? At Insima Ending on Instagram and YouTube. At Insima Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter.

Mark. Man, all this steroid talk is so polarizing. It is. You know, you just can't help but like get involved in it. Even though it's like you shouldn't care,

but for some reason we care so much. Yeah. I was thinking back to like when I was a kid and I watched, you know, professional wrestling and Hulk Hogan was always on talking about training, saying your prayers and taking your vitamins and, you know,

and a lot of, at that time there wasn't as much, nearly as much like press to like get to him and to ask him questions and stuff. But I'm sure when he was asked, you know, publicly, he probably always denied steroids. But I think when people would watch the show and he would say, Train, say your prayers, people would always be like, yeah, but he's on steroids too. But it's like it's still what he was doing is still kind of positive. It's just

entertainment. It's supposed to be fun. He's like your action hero in this role. And he's just playing a role. So I don't know. It's just always interesting how caught up in all that stuff people get. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.