Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 697 - JL Holdsworth: Past Success & Trauma Influence Your Every Move

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

JL Holdsworth is a world champion powerlifter, author, and former strength & conditioning coach of the University of Kentucky. He is also the owner and founder of The Spot Athletics in Columbus, OH and the creator of Reflexive Performance Reset (RPR) Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/ Code POWERPROJET for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% off your first order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ 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 ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell 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

Power Project family, I hope you guys are doing well today. I want to give you guys a quick piece of fitness equipment lifting history. The hip circle that you see before you is actually the first hip circle ever. All right, there were no booty bands before the hip circle, which is pretty interesting. That's why you see it in gyms like The Rock. We've seen Kim K using it on Instagram. It is the OG. But that's also why we have the slingshots, gangster wraps, knee sleeves, elbow sleeves,

everything that you're going to need in the gym so that you can protect yourself before you wreck yourself. So, Andrew, you tell the people how to get it. Yes, that's over at markbellslingshot.com and at checkout, enter promo code powerproject10 to save 10% off your entire order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Pick up your stuff there. Yeah, there we go. Throw that on that big old head of yours. Big old pumpkin head. And grab the microphone. We're recording, right?

Yeah. That needs to be the beginning right there. I was waiting for you to put the microphone by my face. Coach House, you know that guy? A little bit. Joe Kent. A little bit, yeah. He went and saw your place and had nothing but good things to say. He said it just was fucking spectacular.

We've been really fortunate. I think know when you're lucky, know when you're good, and I think we've got a lot of both. So House walked into our facility and just went, you know, holy shit, because we built, you know, 20,000 square feet of private training facility. There's no open gym, and everything's, you know, it's work hard and, you's no open gym and everything's, you know, work hard in a, you know, a hundred foot graphic and, you know, everything's, you know, if you're not training, you're not stronger.

And just, we, we branded everything from when you walk in, right. Like, you know, the obstacles, the opportunity. And so for us, it's the culture we've built and the facility we've been able to build. It's like, I told house, I was like, I walk in here half the days and just kind of look around and go, I can't believe that this is mine. How'd you build a training facility like this? Well, I mean, you know, you know a lot of that, but moving to Columbus, I mean, my first two nights here was sleeping in my car, right? You know, training Westside.

sleeping in my car, right? I'm training West side. So, uh, you know, just, I was very fortunate, uh, when I got to a point where I wanted to have my own facility, I had no money, you know? And so I always tell people, well, I had zero capital, but, uh, I had a ton of relationship capital. And so I went to two clients that I'd had for a long time. I said, guys, I want to do my own thing. I want to start this gym. And so they, you know, I knew, I knew you had a business plan. Right. So it was funny. So it was kind of like this. And SEMA is my client. You know, I'm, I worked on this business plan. I mean, I was, I was Googling what a business plan was and then I was working on it. Right. And so I sit down with them. I'm sweating. Right.

I'm just like, Oh my God, I hope he gives me the money I want. And I, I handed him the business plan and he, he takes it from me and he goes, I believe in you. I believe in what you do. I'll give you whatever you need to get this started.

Now let's look at this and see if it makes sense. And that's why I tell people like that shit still to this day gives me chills like i was like fuck and so you know i went to two clients of mine and both of them basically not exactly but kind of did the same thing and so for me that was how it started was was you know just helping people and then when i needed help they were willing to help me and so that's how it started we were small we were 2,000 square feet I mean all of our equipment was you know used and you know Dave gave me kind of an old rack that he had I mean it's just and it built from there and you know I think it's one of those things where you know I the guy, those guys worked for me for 10 years. And Matt, when he interned for me where I ran before I opened my gym.

And so I called him and I said, hey, I'm starting something. He came in and I said to him, he had a full-time job offer from another personal training company. And I said, look, I can't offer you any kind of salary. I said, I can't even tell you we're going to be open in a year. All I can tell you is you will learn more here than anywhere else. And he goes, I'm in. And so, I mean, that dude worked like 80 hours a week. And I was like, I can pay you $300.

And so it was just, I mean, and that's, but that was what it was. It was just, you know, building community and teaching. And we were just nonstop. I mean, we just, I would teach all the time and it just built. And slowly over time, you know, just I made tons of mistakes and everything. But, you know, I think what it boils down to is for me in life, I love helping people. And so it's never like I want to help this person because this is what they can give me. It's just I love helping people and help everyone be better.

And I think if you do that enough in life and give enough, I think people are a lot of times willing to give back to you. I think the last time we saw you, you did some sort of weird voodoo magic on Encima over here. I think you might have just believed that he could move his hip better, and then he was able to move his hip better. Since that time, we've had more and more people come on our show and talk about the power of belief. We've had people talk about rehab. We've had people talk about rehabbing off of drugs and rehabbing off of injuries, and then also kind of referring back to it's about believing in yourself,

and it's about believing that you can get out of back pain and these different beliefs. How big have you seen that come into play with some of the theories and some of the things you're helping people with? Because I know you do a great job of, I mean, many things at your facility, but one of them being to help people and assist people get out of pain. Yeah, I think one of the biggest things is life. It comes down to the behaviors that you're building and whether it's losing weight, getting out of lower back pain. And part of that is there's an awareness, what I call a conscious nervous system, and then there's the unconscious nervous system.

And so the conscious nervous system is just your awareness or knowledge of how to do something. Your unconscious nervous system is your ability to execute. And so when people are working on different, whether it's diet or pain, what happens is that one person gets told a piece of information and they just implement and go and crush. The next person comes along and they're told that piece of information. Doesn't matter. They can't make it happen. And I think in our world,

everybody goes, oh, they don't want it bad enough. They're not motivated enough. No. The problem is, is the way modern medicine views things, psychology, all these pieces, is they do not address

the unconscious nervous system, their ability to execute. If they did, if they were changed, because there's two sides of that equation, and everyone's just focused on this conscious nervous system. So one of the great things you guys do, through exercise, through being healthy, sleep, there's something called your global neurological sequence, and GNS for short. But the GNS, the more optimized it is, the bigger your unconscious nervous system's ability to execute. And so the GNS is affected sleep, nutrition,

right? Fitness, all these pieces. And so what, that's a big thing that we work on at the spot athletics is that when people come in, we have a pyramid of physical fitness. And that pyramid of physical fitness starts with breathing, then sleep, then mindset, then nutrition. So we have four layers of that base, that pyramid. Before we even get to training, once we get to training, we get to flexibility. Because if you can't get in positions you need to every day in life,

whether it's sport or whether it's just bending down to pick up a laundry basket, you're going to get hurt. You're going to have pain. So it's flexibility, strength, and then endurance. And that endurance part or condition, however you want to talk about it, that's the tip of the pyramid. It's the easiest to build, right? Everyone can go for a walk. Everybody can go, you know, a jog or a bike ride. It's funny that, you know, what I always say is in the fitness industry, I call it junk food fitness because basically everybody is, takes that pyramid and flips it upside down. They focus on the conditioning, the endurance, this, they do a little strength, probably not much flexibility. And then maybe, maybe they look at

nutrition. Well, now what about mindset? What about sleep? What about breathing? Like that stuff comes first. That's the base of the pyramid. And so when I look at, you know, say a healthy diet, right? Fruits and vegetables.

We all know you need them. You got meat and potatoes. We got dessert or junk food. So my son's seven. if i let him just eat junk like dude like you know you got like you got kids like they would eat junk food why would they eat junk food well because there's a hormonal release from eating it and it tastes good well why do people go do the crush you work out endurance workout because there's a hormonal release and you feel like you did something so when someone someone walks into the spot, just like my son's seven, if I don't care about him, I let him eat junk food.

What do I do? I educate him, right? You got to eat something healthy first before we have to, right? Because I love him and I want him to understand the consequences of that. So when someone walks into the spot, we treat them the same way. So we don't ever, I don't want to say a lot of people in fitness that person was i just want to get across through this and they just hand them junk food and let them go but to us that we call it pfb work and that's pain-free body work so it's flexibility stability control we're going to start every workout with that that's your fruits and your vegetables right so like we say people you pay us because we're going to make you eat your fruits and vegetables in fitness then that means potatoes that's your strength work and then of course are

we going to add some dessert in that stuff that you know that hard condition that makes you of course right because that's part of a healthy diet whether it's fitness diet right or the actual food you eat and that's to me that's where i think you know we're really missing in fitness if what we did as an industry because there's obviously, you guys interview people all the time. They're doing amazing work. Right. So sometimes I use like every, but as a whole, we're failing in fitness because like I tell me when someone's like, oh, I've always failed. If it's no, no, no, no.

I hate to tell you, but fitness has kind of failed you because the way that we do it, if it worked, then everybody be fit. Right. Like, but we're more obese than ever. So obviously something we're doing is broken. And to me, it comes down to flipping that pyramid upside down and where we put our values in that pyramid. That's huge because the junk food fitness. Because people in the fitness world, I'll say that they'll shame the average everyday person for eating junk food. And like, why don't they just stop?

They can just get healthy. But yet I injured myself again because of the junk food fitness. That's pretty freaking incredible. And that's very eye opening, in my opinion, because I do a lot of junk food. I did a lot of junk food fitness in my day. What's a sign that you're getting too much junk food in your fitness? Well, so to me, when you look at your training, I have, I went over this with house. So I have this programming optimization system that I've created. And part of that is looking at what's

your goals, right? So if I'm going to run ultra marathon, I mean, now it's not about health and fitness, right? It's about, it's like us squatting a thousand pounds. That ain't about health and fitness, right? Benching 800 pounds. There's nothing healthy about holding 800 pounds over your face. But that's not the goal. That's not what we're talking. We're not talking about that. And that's where people, they use these extremes and like, well, this and that.

Yeah, that is a performance goal. That's different than the 99.9% of the people in the world. And so for me, you look at your training and you say the way my programming optimization is, it's different than the 99.9% of the people in the world. And so for me, you look at your training and you say the way my programming optimization system, it's really simple. So in my training, I've got every, every single thing you do in your training falls into three categories. PFB, pain-free body work, LBN, look better naked, your conditioning, and SFL, strength for life. Unless you're a performance athlete, right? Then we're different, two different categories. And so to me, look at your training.

How much of that am I spending in PFB work? Well, if I'm hurt, because I have this conversation with clients that come in all the time and it's, oh, I just want to get lean. I want to get, you know, of course, I mean, if I was to take, you know take you set the spot like we have a 220,000 square foot facility like we deal with a lot of people we start with people at eight years old and so it's kind of our thing is a long-term athletic development model we want an eight-year-old kid we want the spot athletics to be the first place an eight-year-old kid trains learning how to move learning to value their body their health we also want it to be the last place an 85 year old person trains and we want to be able to take them through that and so it's cool as we've been open now uh 10 years and we have kids

that started training with us in high school left for, are now back as young professionals training with us. And actually, we have a kid, probably one of the coolest. We have a kid who's training with us now. And it's the third generation of their family that we've trained. So, yeah, his grandpa was one of the first guys I trained. And he wasn't a grandpa, obviously, back then. Like, his kids were middle school. But then the kids became young adults.

So, it's like the grandpa trained with us. The kids trained with us. Now, this is the third generation in that family like that for us. That is the ideal. Right. Their whole family values fitness. Our whole family understands. And so to me, when you're looking at how do I know it's no different than looking at your diet. Right. So everyone's like macros, this and that. Right. Like, OK, so in a meal, this part of my plate was fruits and vegetables. This part of my plate was meat and today's and this part was dessert. And so when you look at your training, it's easy to go PFB, LBN, SFL, classify. Right. And so if I'm resting in between sets and do it right, that that's strength work. If I'm not doing any resting right then now we're conditioning but so you just look at i worked out for an hour 90 minutes whatever it was just look at what you did you can put them in a category and go oh man my body hurts

but 90 of my training was lbn and i did 10 sfl and zero pfb And so I have this conversation when they walk in all the time. I say, you know, what's your goal? Everybody. You know, lose weight, tone up for adults, right? So I say, okay, I get that looking great. So what I say is, it'd be like this. In SEMO, okay. I get that looking great's your goal. So tell

me this. If you look the best you ever looked, right? And obviously you're in good shape. Like you were shredded. You're like blasting. If you look the best you ever looked, right? And obviously you're in good shape, like you were shredded. You're like blessing, right? So you're just the best you've ever looked in your life. I mean, you've never looked better walking down the street. People are just like, oh my God, you look so amazing. But your knees and back hurt so bad you could barely stand. Would that be okay? No. Okay. So it sounds to me like your number one goal is to feel good. And number two, close behind it, is to look good.

And that's the conversation I have with people all the time. They think it's to look good, but no one wants to feel like shit. But most people don't approach their training that way. And most of what is done in fitness doesn't approach people that way either. Because, again, it's junk food fitness. They come in, they want candy, and they go, I need to make money. Here's some candy. And to us, you know, I'll tell you this, it's a lot harder to make a living doing it the way we do it.

Because at the Spot Athletics, like, we have to be really careful. We can't do marketing where it's like oh like six week booty challenge and we can't do any of that because that's not our beliefs and even to the point the way we do things at the at the spot is you know like i said we're private so everybody who joins the spot has to do a training tryout and what that is is you come in and we just tell everybody like hey we're private we just at the spot hey, we're private. At the Spot of Flakes, we do things different. And because we do them differently, we're not for everyone.

And we tell them right in front, we go, look, if you want to be sore after every workout and just exhausted, we're not the place. You need to go somewhere else. However, if you want long-term sustainable results, you're going to love what we do. And then, you know, like, oh, yeah, man, I want a year of training. Right. Awesome. Right. We'll, we'll obviously sign you up for that, but just know the first session you come in, it's your train track. So everyone has to be there. They want, they need to work hard. They, right. Like I got to work hard tattooed on my arms, right? Like it's pretty integral part of my philosophy in life. But my thing, too, is work hard, train smarter. Right. I mean, that's it's not just hard. It's got to be smart. So they come in and if they want to work hard, if they're coachable and they're a good fit for our culture, then awesome.

We'd love to have you in our program. If those three things aren't true, then we go, hey, we're going to refund your money. Less, you know, the cost of the training tryout. And we hope we find something that fits for who you are and they'll, they'll find something that fits for who they are. And a lot of people, you know, they're so wrapped up in like, if I don't get crushed in this workout, it wasn't worth it. Well, you, you walk off, right? So, so is that crazy hard? But what kind of what kind of difference is that making your fitness and your health? Consistency beats intensity every single day. And that's just not how I think general feel like you talk like I did a lot of that junk food fitness because it does. Like it feels good to work hard in those things, but it's got to be planned. But it's got to be planned.

You know, with what you're saying right now, it makes me really wonder. Because people have come onto the show, and I always pose to them the question, if somebody wants to. Because you work with a general amount of people, like a lot of different types of people at the spot, right? And I always pose the question, can't someone get to an elite level while also being able to be healthy? And there have been a lot of professionals that have said, you know, there's a difference between wanting to be elite, like you're not aiming for health there. But I think that you can, I think that you can become elite and you can be super healthy. But the difference is how fast are you trying to aim to be elite? Because I think about when I see guys and they're burning out or I see guys and they're killing themselves to try to be the greatest

a lot of them when they're killing themselves it's because they want to be the greatest now not seven years from now I agree 100% and can I take a Captain Morgan's pose let's do it go for it I feel I feel kind of anybody wants to move around thank you and can we all

be sitting like point like we're pointing at something out here I'm pretty sure just my balls are in the camera yeah right now it's just your legs views just went through the roof yeah gosh just a billion trillion views so i i mean i think like it does feel good to stand you guys yes i mean you guys been doing this all day so uh i think to your point seem i'm the perfect example of how not to do it right because i learned powerlifting was a sport is that not i mean exactly but basically all of a sudden and this is where you know mark and i first met it was louis simmons mel siff it

was 2002 i mean it's 20 years ago joe ken was there that's right joe ken was there buddy i mean it was it was a i mean it was a broom closet with amazing people that I'm still friends with today, which is kind of cool that it was just that conference 20 years ago and we're all still friends. It was really weird, yeah. So I think back, you know, I learned powerlifting was a sport in 2002, let's say, and then I'm traveling around and learning. I come to Westside, and, you know, between learning it was a sport, having my name on the

record board at west side with the biggest bench in the gyms two years steve goggins who's if people don't know he's one of the greatest powerlifters of all time and steve came out to me and meet and we competed in the same weight class and he said jay you're setting the world on fire i mean within two years i had the fourth highest total in the world all time, right? He's like, you're doing this. He goes, but you have to slow down. He said, you're going too fast. He's like, you have tons of time. And, you know, at the time I was so young, I just, you know, he walked away. And in my head, I thought to myself, well, he's just mad because I'm going to beat him, right? Like that, because you're young, you don't know. And then, you know, late in 2004, I was doing 1100 pound squat, herniated L5 S1. And I, you know late in 2004 i was doing 1100 pound squat herniated l5s1 and i you know i went

from i'm the strongest guy in the world to i can't put my underwear on and you know you have two 300 pound guys helping each other get you know get one guy's underwear on it's not a pretty sight but but it's but i think that's the point i wanted it now i didn't do it the right way and i was too young and ego driven to know that and so there's another guy that i went to college with who was an awful power lifter he was so awful like we made fun of him he was so weak yeah he just kept slowly slowly moving and he would never go to a meet it's kind of like well a Alexi did it for different reasons because he got paid for world records, but he would never miss in a meet and he just slowly, slowly went up. Well, over 10 years, he became a world champion, squat over a thousand pounds, but he was awful. But, and he never got hurt because he never missed a weight in a meet.

He always took weights he knew he could make. And that, to me, watching him do that, in my experience, I think that's a lot of the reason I have the philosophy I have with fitness today. Because I look and I always tell people this. People ask nutrition advice and like, well, diet, put me on this, do this. And I always start with everybody this way. To me, it's behavior-based. And so it's consistency in behavior. And so I tell people, look, if you just eat, eat what you're eating now, as long as your weight's staying the same, right?

Because if you're gaining a bunch of weight, that's, you know, there's a different calorie piece. If you weigh what you weigh now and you've been that way, say, for six months, and you eat two less bites for dinner, that's going to be, maybe it depends what you eat, but 100, 150 calories. If you just, for a year,

eat two less bites at dinner, don't change anything, you'll lose about eight pounds of fat. And if you do it for five years, you'll lose 40 pounds from two last bites. But everybody overestimates in the short term and underestimates in the long term. Because when I tell people that, I don't want to do that. I got to lose it now.

To your point, can you do it? Yes. But do you have the patience? And can your ego take that? Because everybody, I mean, it's the world we live in. Everybody wants things now. But I think that, to your point, yes. I didn't do it that way, and I think that's why when people come in,

I'm so adamant of this long-term sustainable plan because I did it in a way where it basically screwed up my life for six years because I was depressed and all these other things. So yes, I agree with you a hundred percent. I think it's very hard to do that. So outside of that six years, um, I was going to say the rebuttal, the rebuttal of, but JL, it worked because look at you now. So that's where a lot of people are going to go. They're going to be like, no, not me, bro. Like I'm going to do it the way you did it and i'm gonna be something well i think this is it it's all about what do you want and so in life you've got these highs but then because i did it so fast and wanted it so fast you have yeah you have great highs

then you have insane lows or you can just keep climbing up that mountain and just be there. And eventually you'll get there. It's a tortoise and the hare. I mean, that fable is as old as time. And so I think in today's world, it's even harder to maintain being that tortoise. And again, like you said,

oh, you did this, but here's the thing. One of the greatest compliments I think I've ever had was the same guy, Steve Goggins. We were out at Elite doing a learn-to-train seminar, and we were at lunch. They were talking about the current world records and the crazy numbers, and everybody was sitting around like guys do. Steve stopped everybody, and Steve doesn't talk a lot. Steve stopped everybody and goes, hey, I lot Steve stopped and he goes hey I'm gonna

tell everyone stand at this table right now JL stays healthy he's destroying every single record that's out there today he was stronger than any of these guys and I know that's true if I would have stayed I mean this is what are we talking like 2004 shit dude i inclined bench 600 pounds like what the fuck oh my god i mean like my i was i remember i went to a wedding and i didn't know because you're at west side you're just like yeah i'm the strongest guy at west side but like there's other guys that are close right there's hey that guy you know he did 500 i mean that's like 100 pounds so it's not that much different and so i went to this wedding in new york i went to this gym to get a lift like today and i'll never forget i'm on the incline bench i'm just doing like sets eight with 455

or whatever and i was like hey man you give me a lift off and dude comes in like everyone in the gym's watching and i literally went i was so unaware at that point i went back and i was like it was so weird all these people were watching me now at this point in my life i'm like oh my god i would watch that too like i would but at the time I was just like, yeah, I was just getting a lift before the wedding. Like, and so I think like that part of just wanting to go so high, so fast, like I live that life and it, it's not worth it. Yeah. I got to, so here's what I said. I went, but if I would've went slow, it had just been, and I would've got way higher than I ever went without all the issues, without a lot of the problems. And that's to your point.

I think you're 100% right. Yes, you can do it. But can you have the patience to do it? What is this subconscious nervous system? Because I think it's really interesting to get into that a little bit more. And I think last time we saw you and spoke with you, you mentioned some of that stuff. You were talking about my cousin, how he was kind of standing in the corner he wanted to be out of everybody's way and you know you can start to kind of pick apart like who that person is you're like okay he's probably a dad you know he probably

wants to do shit for other people first and probably always puts himself second maybe that's why his health is compromised it's like really strange right you can start to analyze like if you were to tell all three of us individually to jump over that couch i would probably be like huh like i would i would need a second andrew might be pretty reserved but in semen he's gonna be like oh yeah you didn't even say he was almost gonna do it yeah even that sounds like a good challenge like what do you want me to do i'll jump over the couch and go through the wall yeah you know so is that some of the stuff that you're kind of talking about like somebody having like kind of this almost awareness like i Like I would try to stall you a bit if you're like, hey, Mark, jump over this couch.

Well, yeah. So, I mean, that gets into obviously there's some different personalities in that. However, what I would say is the guy that I met 20 years ago would jump over that couch. Right? No problem. I mean, see it, right? Yeah. So what's the difference still you're still the same guy the difference is your physiology dictates behavior now obviously psychology and i i got really deep into this and i got to a point where i really felt

like like physiology it's everything, all the people. No, man. I had to come back on that because then I had some failures. And I'm like, oh, okay, this isn't it. It really is this yin and yang where your physiology does drive a lot and predict the patterns of your behavior. But you can still change that physiology through behavior. And that comes through positive affirmations, what you believe, all these pieces.

However, when you start working on that physiology piece, you can actually change the psychology piece much quicker. Because here's how I'll explain that. Why right now do you not want to go into it? If everything on your body felt amazing, hips, knees, everything, would you go do that? Absolutely. So physiology drives behavior. It's not a personality thing it's it's how my body feels thing because what's the number one thing so what does your body want to do more than anything i'm trying to think like for me i'm trying to think okay my left hip has been hurting forever and my right knee so like

which leg am i gonna try to propel myself over the fucking couch? I know I can jump over the couch. I don't have any doubt about that part of it. Yeah. It's the landing. It's not falling out the window that hurts. It's the landing. And to answer your question, I just would say protect itself. Survive.

That's it. Yeah. No, no. Protect itself is the same as survival. That's 100%. Your body just wants to survive. So it doesn't matter if we're talking about jumping over that couch or if we're talking about you know having a conversation

that's a crucial conversation with your wife or an employee like it's all just accomplishing something how you accomplish that is influenced very largely by your physiology but that all happens in the unconscious nervous system and so that's where you know you get into a lot of these pieces and once you really start to understand this unconscious nervous system and the global neurological sequence you can start to look at people and start to test them through things and i'll do it to people sometimes just have fun because you know me i love i love to have fun so to me, like if you're taking yourself serious, like I told you, like I'm basically a five year old. I have a seven year old. And dude, we love life because we are right there.

Right. Like when he gets 10, I'm scared because I might be a little too mature for me. Right. So but for me, I'll do that with people where, you know, I was visiting a friend out in San Diego, and she brought me over some friends, and they were like, oh, yeah, we're really into some of this stuff. So then I was like, all right, let me test some things, boom, boom, boom. And they were about to get married. And so I said, okay. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

No, no. No, no. This is a happy ending, happy ending. You guys are very incompatible. Oh, my God, don't get married. No, no, they were great. but what i did was i tested some things and then i said okay guys and i looked at her i go isn't it frustrating how when you're just trying to be close and hold him he won't do that and he either keeps you away or puts him over your

shoulder and won't look you in the eye closely isn't that annoying in bed and she was like what the fuck because when you start to test some of these pieces, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So when you start to pick apart this unconscious nervous system, the behavior of not jumping over that couch, that's going to translate to a lot of different other places. And so that's what, you know, to the point, right? So most people, modern psychology go, well, that's just, that's a personality. That's a mental thing, right? No, it's not. Your hip hurts.

Like, that's not a mental thing. That is literally, it's there. It's your physiology. And that's where someone would go, oh, well, this human just loves a challenge and he's going to do that. No, fuck that. Because the dude I knew 20 years ago would jump through that wall and have me hit him over the chair with, you know what I mean? Like, and that, because, and that's it is in that part, it's, it's like, it's a deep rabbit hole stuff. I've really dropped down, but a lot of what I've done, uh, with, with a lot of my coaching is working with, uh, really successful entrepreneurs

who, I mean, they've killed it in business. They value their health and fitness. Because if you don't value your health and fitness, I think of the GNS, the Global Knowledge Sequence, I think of it like a dial on the wall. So if I had this dial on the wall and that dial's turned down, it's real dim in here.

I dial that up, it gets real bright in here. Well, the light bulbs all have the potential to be really bright but that dial so that gns is a dial on the wall well like i said all these pieces affect it your sleep like all these health fitness and so that dial if someone's not taking care of their sleep they're you know drinking all the time eating awful not doing fitness well that gns job it's a two so they don't they don't need somebody who has a deep understanding of that. They just need to do the things that literally everybody in the world knows you.

So my, my specialty is coming in to the guy who already does all that. And his GNS is an eight and he's super successful. However, there is one place in his life or her life that no matter how hard they try, no matter how many books they read, no matter how many consultants they bring in, they can't get that part of life where they want. And the reason they can't, in my experience, is because nobody has been addressing the unconscious nervous system with them. The ability to execute the things you know you should do. If everybody with them the ability to execute the things you know you should do if everybody had that unconscious ability to execute you have google

everyone would be ripped and be a billionaire yeah right like i mean it's not hard to be a billionaire right like sell something for a billion dollars right or you know what i mean like there's but and that's the thing is this part is just it flows. And for me, right. Fitness, strength. I mean, it's it's a part of who I am. It'll always be a part of who I am. And honestly, me understanding these pieces. It really came from a lot of my deep understanding of motor learning because I realized that, OK, the nervous system goes through the brain. Same nervous system goes to the nervous system goes through the brain. Same nervous system that goes through the brain goes through the body. When it goes through the brain, it sends the exact same signals it sends through the body.

However, when it goes into the brain, it becomes a thought, conscious awareness. I can say something. When that same signal goes in the body, it becomes an unconscious action. And so those two things are so integral. And when I started understanding, like, wait, I understand how motor learning works. I understand how this works. So then when we look at behavior, so, okay, you know how to squat. Your squat pattern, I mean, it's dialed or in jits, right?

And so you've learned that. That is an innate pattern you have. Well, we know this from lifting geared and raw and all these differences. The pattern that made you successful, let's say to squat and gear might not make you successful to squat non-gear, right? It's a little different. Well, the thing is with behavior is that the behavior that I might have used when I was 25 years old, that made me really successful. It's going to make me really unsuccessful at 35. The difference is, is that behavior is just like squatting. Once the pattern gets ingrained, that pattern's there. My body's

like, Oh, that makes, cause we want to to survive so we go to patterns that either keep us safe and this is the one no one talks about everyone talks about like oh trauma's trapped in body and 100 success is gets trapped in the body too so like no one talks about that but success experiences are just as powerful as trauma so there's that there's an old quote right rowing the boat is successful across the river carrying the boat up the mountain isn't and so what got you someplace isn't going to get you to the next and that's where i really see the gap in what we're doing today as far as that behavior or weight loss or any any kind whether it's like you just sold a bill, a business for whatever,

but you know what? You have shitty relationships with your kids and you want to change that, but you just haven't been able to, right? Because what it took you to get successful and build that huge business that you learned that like having those relationships, you had to, you sacrifice some of those things and now you're like,

okay, I don't know how to do this because I'm only been successful in this. And that's, I think people don't talk about that. Like there's so much behavior that made me successful in powerlifting that made me really unsuccessful in other parts of life. And that, that gets trapped in your body. Success gets trapped.

Just like, it's just a pattern, right? It's just a pattern that gets, and your body's going to run those patterns. You know, there's so many things that's going off in my mind about what you're saying, because when you talk about like having a success somewhere, like, for example, Michael Jordan, if you watch the documentary, see how he's such a savage on the court. But then you also see, well, that is also the way he handles gambling, maybe the way he handles certain types of other relationships. Like he's always like, oh, right. And he's he can he said he can be kind of a fucking dick, right? So even though he's the GOAT of basketball, being the GOAT of basketball, that's success.

That is not success in maybe relationships. That's not success in lifestyle. It's like the way you're approaching things, if we can have potentially a holistic way of finding success, right? Because your success in powerlifting was still success. It was two years, but it was success. But that doesn't drive success later in life, maybe doing things long-term.

And you adjusted and changed. So the thing is, how do you teach somebody that? So I do want to put this in, and this is where the ego comes in, because then I did come back and win a world championship 10 years later, but I had to grow and do things like that no no no no but i did but i had to learn but no but i did like coming back like i hurt myself hurt myself try to travel and learn and do all these things because i'm like the way i'm doing things isn't really working right

like i did it and that was that was exactly it i did it this way it worked and i did this way and then after that injury i tried doing it that way and it was like oh no i hurt myself again now i did this and so as far as how you do it there's there's a lot of approaches the approach that for me is and we kind of talked this last time i was here but you know i went and learned a system there's a guy out of south africa his name's douglas hill we were talking about and you said you're going to san diego doing a seminar you know i'm yeah i'm bringing him in from south africa so i'm bringing him in we're going to do a four-day clinic in Columbus and then then we're going out to San Diego to do a four-day clinic in May and so he teaches a system called be activated and what happens with that system is that's where basically

it's I went and did a clinic and that started my journey on learning a lot of this. And so it just all of a sudden I'm like, holy cow, I'm so different. Why is that? Right. And so you just start dropping down these rabbit holes and figuring these pieces out. And so in my mind where I think, and who knows, 10 years, whatever the nervous system, it's getting that way in sports a lot because performance is easy. So when we talk about jumping with coach, couch, everyone can visualize jumping over the couch.

But when it comes to just kind of behavior, it gets a little more arbitrary. Well, to me, in 10, 15 years, what I think will be at a place where any psychologist counts or anybody you go to, to have that kind of behavior type change. It works really well as long as you have the unconscious ability to execute. So if you go there and you can't do it, that's when you'll get paired with a body worker who will help shift that nervous system and give you, or not give you because you can't give someone anything it'll help you find that way to get in a place where you can have that unconscious ability to execute and that's really to me there's you know obviously psychedelics or or something that's is blown up the way that i see you know a lot of the deactivated work and and you know and there might be a million different ways i'm just using my experience of what I know.

And it's be, it's that like the, you know, so basically RPR, which we, this, we talked about last time. Yeah.

So when I learned to be activated, it was so powerful and I wanted people at the spot athletics. I'm like, coaches, I'm like, Oh my God, I'm showing you guys this, but like,

I can't have my 24 year old strength coach rubbing the chest of a 15 year old volleyball girl. We wouldn't be talking about the spot athletics right now. We'd be like, oh, JL, it's so unfortunate that you're homeless. Mark, can I get a dollar? But I think, so what happened was, it was like, okay, hey, can we make this self-applied? And that's when I came up with the name Refive performance reset and kind of started but i talked to douglas

and that's where we set that up so be activated it we simplified for rpr you do yourself with be activated it's much deeper it's hands-on it's practitioner based it's not anything you do yourself but the cool part is is that rR helps you sustain those pieces because your nervous system changes instantly. So, you know, that you can't fix anything in the nervous system per se. You can make a change because the nervous system can change so fast like it can change. So it's about sustaining the change. And that's where RPR comes in handy with the activate is that okay now you've made these big changes and i can tell you personally like like huge emotional releases like got rid

of stuff that's like i mean crazy stuff like i didn't talk to my mom for eight years and like i was going through this work and finally like just going through and i got when we talk about a release like we're talking like uncontrollable, right? Because that kind of stuff gets stuck in your body. Just from having somebody do what, like massage your body essentially? Well, it's body work. It's not massage because we're not working on the muscles. It's actually creating a shift in the nervous system.

But you do that through body work. What does it feel like or what does it? No, so what I would say is. Somebody has their hands on you you're breathing yeah so it would be kind of i would say the closest for people would be it feels a little bit like massage right it definitely feels a little bit like massage but the difference is you're not working on any kind of muscles you're working on the nervous system and getting the nervous system to be in a place so what is your thing safe right so why do you hold on to

these things well because you don't feel safe to let Safe, right? So why do you hold on to these things? Well, because you don't feel safe to let go. So, right. So I didn't feel safe maybe to talk to my mom. Well, once I did all this and got this out of my body, I mean, it was Mother's Day. I called my mom. I said, she's like, I'm sorry. I was like, you don't need to apologize. I was like, I know you love me. I know you did your best. But like for eight years, I couldn't have that conversation, right? She wasn't at my wedding. She didn't see my seven-year-old like at all. You know what I'm saying? Like all these things, but my physiology, my body wasn't in a place to just be like, I'm, I'm cool with everything that happened. I'm like, you know what I mean?

And so that's where I really say, like, I, I, that's why I believe that, you know, psychedelics is another way to do it. And so to me, you're just, you're getting on the same merry ground. The difference is, is psychedelics. You obviously you're using a drug. It's changing your state. It's allowing you to drop in a place you just can't by yourself and normal everyday life would be activated. That's been my experience, is that it's the same thing. It's allowing you to drop into a space you can't get in normal life. So just like psychedelics, you need a guide.

Well, in Be Activated, the person working with you is the guide, right? Where I think Be Activated is harder than psychedelics is that once you take that psychedelic, you're on that merry ground whether you want to be on it or not with be activated you can just say hey i'm done right like stop okay so where where the where it's a little harder is that you have to want to do the work and and so i always say when i work with people with a lot of this and so this gets into like how i integrate this into my coaching, right?

Because I have to. And so because people are coming and saying like, here's something I can't accomplish. So it's like, okay, do you care for your fitness and health? Have you worked with counselors? Have you worked with, yes, I've done this. I've read a book. Okay, awesome. Now you're a person like, okay, now I can come in.

Because if you haven't done any of that stuff, you could literally read a book and be like, I'm good. Okay, well then you have the unconscious ability just but most people that are highly successful there there's an area that they've been working on they just can't get right i mean it's just it's that one area and so for me doing that work you still you have to have that guy because it becomes a journey because all of a sudden like for me that was hard like calling my mom and doing it like first i was like what the heck am i? Like there is this, there's this interplay where when, when you have more space to operate in the world, it's like, okay, if you were stuck in a dark room all the time, yeah, it's uncomfortable. It's super hot in this dark room, but guess what? You're used to it.

So then when all of a sudden the room opens up and it's huge arbitrarily we say oh that's so much better so much better it's freaking scary like there's a reason that people win the lottery who are really poor and several years later right back to where they were right because they were in that dark box and and all of a sudden the room opened up the world opened up and it was scary and their physiology couldn't handle it so the unconscious nervous system was like I'm going to gamble my money away right and so that's the hard part

is you open up that space but you have to do something to maintain it and like again and part of that could be working with psychology and there's a lot of different ways to approach all of this I think for me there's a way I found that has been successful for me right and i'm by no means saying that this is going to be successful for everybody or because everybody needs something

different and that's whether it's fitness whether it's food like we all need something different to work like everyone is different but to me what it comes down to is like a you're getting the body into a place that now it feels safe. So when the body feels safe, all of a sudden a lot opens up. So think about it like this. Okay. We're in Columbus, Ohio. Beautiful day. I rode my motorcycle down. I mean, awesome. You've been in Arnold's when it's ice, snow, right? Like awful. So think about walking outside, right? So you walk outside, it's super, super slick ice. What happens? You start moving real slow. And what happens? Your world closes down. All you can focus on is what's right in front of you. Right. That's because your body doesn't feel safe.

Closes everything down. So like Mark could be here. I love him. He's here and he just walks by. But I'm just so I don't want to slip. I don't't want to fall but it's sunny and it's nice out today i'm walking around i feel safe my world's open and that happens to us every day through our physiology shutting different pieces down for different people how project family how's it going you guys probably have watched a lot of mark's lifting videos and some of my lifting videos and you've probably noticed that our shorts never go past our knees. Nope. There's a reason for that. Y'all got to show those quads off, baby. And the shorts that we're always wearing are from a company called Viori. That's called V-U-O-R-I. But Viori

has amazing clothes for the gym that we wear, but also outside the gym. So you can wear them to dinner parties, dates, gatherings, all that good stuff. But all their clothes fit well, like fit amazing. This is a shirt from Viore, by the way. Look at that shoulder. Just look at this. It fits so well for people in fitness. And even if you're not, just check them out.

Andrew, how did it go? Yeah, clothes that look good inside and outside of the gym and work just as well inside and outside of the gym. Head over to Viore.com slash power project. That's V U O R I.com slash power project to receive 20% off your first order. Uh, links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. So is it as, so like, uh, yeah, I'm going to definitely be reserved jumping over the couch because my back hurts and it hurts really bad right now from sitting all day.

That's why we're standing. I know. I think that's a great idea. Is it as simple as fix my back, fix my physiology? No. So you got to remember all this stuff, it's a yin and yang. So we could adjust your GNS and your back could feel better. Your back could feel better and it could adjust your

gns like that's the thing that's that flow back and forth that at first i didn't understand there's the psychology and there's the physiology so like the term that i talk about it's like i work on the physiology of success i don't i'm not a psychology person it's cool because i i got with the behaviorist and like i'm not an expert in the behavior side. Got with behaviors. We started working on a lot of this and it's cool to watch some of the theories and things we've talked about and be like, oh, that's true. This is true because they were theories at first. And so you have to remember there's that cycle. So we come to belief. So when we believe something, it can change our physiology. Our physiology starts to change. It can work on changing our belief even more.

And so it's not fix my back, my physiology better. It's not fix your physiology, your back gets better. You have to work on both ways. And that's where people miss is that it's not, you know, the people are like you think and all your behavior, everything come from your brain. It doesn't. Your brain is just the conscious nervous system. There's the unconscious nervous system as well.

It's like putting your hand on a hot stove. If we had a hot stove right here, I don't care. You're going to go, oh, geez. If the human body had to think, God, that's hot. I wonder if that's my hand burning. Like we wouldn't survive as a species. But that's happening all the time. So to your point, you got to think about it as a circle

work on both ends yeah and it makes a ton of sense because right now i'm focusing on fixing my back uh 100 for the first time ever congratulations i am also believing it 100 for the first time ever and i am having the most success that i've ever had so thank you yeah so that it just helps solidify everything that i'm doing right now. Dude. So when I was in, it's funny how stuff comes back around. Right.

And how did things stick with you? Like we were talking, uh, Louie Simmons. I think I would hope everyone who listens to this maybe knows, but at least most people, uh, I would hope,

but Hey, you know, I met a dude, no lies. I was speaking at a clinic in Florida a couple of weeks ago and there was a young trainer and I was like, he was like, who's Louie Simmons? I was like, oh my God. But, um, so when, when I first met Louie, like he was asking a 15 year old kid and he

had that just childlike curiosity and that's a moment that sticks out in my mind. And something that stuck out to me when I was 15 was, it's a Latin saying, it's mens sana in capor sano, right? A sound mind and a sound body. I was 15 years old when I read that. And to this day, it's stuck with me. So it's one of those things where I was like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. You can't separate the mind and body. Greeks knew it, right?

Everybody throughout history has known that until about 200 years ago. And then they went, all right, psychology, you get the brain, you get all that. Medicine, you get the body. So literally what you're talking about, the belief in working on your back was the philosophy for 10,000 years. But 200 years ago, a little cat said, I think therefore I am. And it started our current modern medical model philosophy. You know, with what you're saying right now, we've, we've like Mark mentioned, we've been talking about belief so much and what you said about the feedback loop of your physiology feeding your belief the the belief of young men i think has been like really fucking hijacked as far as fitness concerned especially and what i mean by

is that like i i see it on tiktok i see it on instagram i see it on youtube where a lot of creators are saying oh these guys are on drugs these guys are on drugs these guys are on drugs young men watch this they're 15 16 years old they train for a little bit because remember we talked about longevity and trying to do things for a long time to get good so they train they don't gain as much size as they wanted in a year or two so they're like well greg said that these guys are on test and i want to look like them so it looks like i'll have to take tests to get bigger maybe they hop on test at 20 years old and they start getting a little bit of size now the only way for them to get fucking big is by taking tests and if they ever get off test they won't get big anymore because

they don't believe that they can get big without taking tests and it's a fucking beat i'm sorry it's just a fucking annoying feedback loop that's frustrating to me fucking greg i love greg listen i love greg but i feel like honestly some of his shit is fucking up a lot of young dudes. Because he's like, I'm just being honest and saying what happens in the industry. I'm trying to watch out for you. Trying to watch out for all of you. But it's just making them pessimistic, sad. I don't even know what you guys are talking about.

It's okay. It's okay. But I understand exactly what you're talking about. I know. It happens. I mean, to get to your point, fitness, but here's the thing.

And this is why, so here's one biggest, when I got done, like powerlifting was everything. It was the most important thing in my life. There was no, I mean, it was like,

Hey, it's your wife's birthday. No, it's bench day. Right? Like it's, it was the most important thing. So fitness,

the, the, you know, the advice people give on nutrition. And that's why I love what you guys do, right? Because it's real from people who have other interests in their life. Like, this isn't the only thing. And so what I realized when I got done with pilots, I would hand people these diets and do all this.

Like, why can't you do this, right? Because it was everything in my life. Then all of a sudden, I've got kids. I've got two businesses. I'm doing all these pieces, and we're growing the spot athletics from 2000 to 2020, right? Like all of a sudden that can't be the most important thing. So what I realized was that, wait, in fitness, it's people where fitness is the most important thing in their life.

Giving the same advice that works for them to people where fitness might be third fourth fifth and then getting mad at those people because they can't live like the people where it's first but the thing i'd say is guess what guys that's first for you but you need the person whose money it isn't first so maybe we got some values mixed up because they got money to pay you to do your job. So you're mad because you want them to be like you, but if they were like you, they wouldn't be able to pay for your service.

So maybe we should change our approach to this a little. So to me, man, the whole thing, getting on tests, I don't know about you, but it's just the information so out there like when we were in high school it was like oh like roy really can remember the commercials it's just so different today where like even 10 years ago trt was this awful thing and now it's so that's so that's part of it too is kids see a lot of this and it is so acceptable and the things are changed but they don't understand like you have as much testosterone as you need. Like you're,

you're 16, 17, 18 years old. Like you got everything you need. All you need is time and consistency. That's it. Yeah. Assuming everything's in line.

Can I focus just on LBN? Look better naked. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So that's, that's really like, you can,

that's really what I want. Once I start getting out of this, you can focus on it and then you're gonna be fucked up again. And then we're going to be talking about how you're really working on her helping your back because you can't. So can you go? So the way we run our group program at the spot with my system, I sat down,

I soak it over a year, right? Over a year. I would like my adult clients to have a good percentage of lbm because that is the goal however i need a really good percentage of pfb and i need some sfl right give us those names again in terms of yeah so sorry yeah i know i'm so used to saying so pfb is pain-free body work so pfb pain-free body work. So PFB, pain-free body work, stability, flexibility, control. And there's a million things that fit into that, right?

It could be crawling. It could be soft tissue work. It could be flexibility work, mobility work, right? There's so, like, our categories for that flows, right? Like, all of those pieces fit in that PFB category. And so I have this year planned. And we have a percentage of pain-free body work we want. We have a percentage of look better naked. We have a percentage of strength for life.

However, that year plan, it breaks down into four 13-week phases. Those four 13-week phases break down into four, three or four-week blocks. So I can tell you right now at this spot, we're in our strong and fit phase. And, or sorry, no, lean and fit right now. High LBN, pretty good amount, pretty high PFB because we're doing more LBN. So we need to up the PFB a little bit, low SFL. We go into strong and fit, higher. So you have to look at your plan as a macro,

like just when you talk to long-term. So if you go and your back feels better and you go all, I'm all in, it's short-term. You're looking at these hard workouts today. Look at your yearly plan and go, hey, I need 25% PFB. Maybe I need 50% LBN and 25% SFL because I'm strong enough. Because I always ask people, are you strong enough to do everything you want in your daily life? And if you are and you don't compete, then the goal is just maintaining that. Maybe making it a little better in weaknesses so you don't get injured. But that's it. So for you, I mean, obviously we haven't sat down and talked, but I would say 25% PFB, 50% LBN, 25% SFL.

Now, so if you've got that pain-free body work, what hurts? Let's go to that. LBN, hey, if your back hurts, let's do things that are closed chain. Let's not do jogging or sprinting because there's a lot of pounding in that, right? And so you just adjust for what you need. But you know what? You might start because it hurts. If I'm getting out i might be when you go back to say training hard you might start in that macro that year plan and you might

say hey my pain-free body work when i start training it's gonna be 50 because crawling flows those burn calories really well but they make your body feel good right i mean i know you do a lot of stuff as well right no they do more crawling feel good, right? I mean, I know you do a lot of that stuff as well, right? Well, no, they do more crawling stuff than I do. I do like, I'm gravel. Well, you do jits. So, I mean, that's basically crawling the whole time. But they've been like doing a lot of like go to stuff recently

and they've been, you guys have been reaping all the benefits. It's been feeling good. Right, but that's the PFB work, right? Like now you're starting to go, well, you weren't saying pain-free body work. That's obviously a term that I came up with. But that PFB, that pain-free body work, like crawling fits in that. But is there a metabolic demand to crawling?

Oh, yeah, for sure. It's pretty hard. I mean, and especially if I haven't done much of it, right? And so I would say, hey, you come back. 50% is going to be pain-free body work. Maybe 25% is going to be look-free body work maybe 25 is going to be look better naked conditioning and and because the lbn doesn't have to be jogging it can be weight training just with low right there's a million things that can fit in that a squat could fit in pfb depending like if you're

doing like what we call breathing squats where you just get down we're belly breathing and feeling through the hips now we're opening up range of motion like that can be so it's not the exercise it's the intent in what we do with it or we could do one rep max right that's some sfl five minute 10 minute rest in between one squat right or we could do some lighter load higher rep and now that can be lbn look better naked category so it's not the exercise. It's the intent, how we use it, the intensity of the loading, the rest. And so I would start 50% pain-free body work, 25% look better naked and 25% strength for life. And the only reason I said that is because you need that strength for life to maintain enough strength in your weaknesses. So your back doesn't get injured again, paired with that pain-free body work. Then that might be your first, you know, say four week block. How does my body feel? Okay. Now I can

ramp maybe the LBN, look better naked up and drop some of that pain-free body workout because it's feeling great. So it's not about like, can I go to it right away? Yes. And then we're going to, next year at the Arnold, we're going to do a podcast where we're having the same conversation about your back. You got to look, that's what, so what you just said, next year at the Arnold, we're going to do a podcast where we're having the same conversation about your back. You've got to look. So what you just said, it's what everyone does, right? It's like, what am I going to do? Can you talk to them about not wanting everything instantly?

You were just saying that. He's saying next year, he's like, I'm going to go right to the LVN. But that's how hard it is, right? It's hard to go, okay, I'm going to crawl. I'm going to do 10 minutes of flexibility work, right? That's what we say to the people like, Hey, Spotify, you're going to pay us. We're going to make you eat fruits and vegetables. We're going to give you a lot of the meat and potatoes. We're going to give you a lot of dessert too, but it's, it's built off a yearly plan. It's built, it's a long-term development model. And so that would be my thing to you is start low, right?

Make your PFBs high and your LBN low, because here's the thing, you know how long you have to change that forever? The rest of your life. Yes, exactly. A lot. Right.

And so like you didn't go from 300 pounds to where you are now overnight. Right. I didn't go from 310 pounds to where I'm at. Like these things take time, but you know, yeah, you want to go to LBN right away. And that's,

it's just, you can do it. IBN right away. It's just you can do it. I highly recommend it. It's the junk food. It's junk food fit. You're like, I feel good again. I just got off diabetes. Where's the cake? So sound mind, sound body.

You can't heal the body without the mind, and the mind can't be healed without the body. You need them both and then also you were mentioning like psychedelics is psychedelics somehow connect those two really well or for sure like like have you personally used uh psychedelics for pain or are you aware of some people that have utilized it in uh some some forms of pain management and stuff like that well so uh not so much for pain that uh my experience with psychedelics has been more for the shift so i went through basically all these pieces so my use was more for okay i've opened up a lot of these pieces to my body i've heard about this so i want to see what it's like to open some of these pieces up through a different avenue right

and so uh you know again like I would like I'm not here to say psychedelics are great or I'm not here to say be activated it's great I'm here to say like here's some of my experiences I'm going to share them so I don't want anyone to think like I'm like oh this stuff's all amazing it's going to fix you in my opinion nothing can fix. You have to want to change yourself. There's nothing that anyone can give you that will fix you. Being better is a choice. And it doesn't matter if it's psychedelics, if it's be activated, if it's fitness, if it's diet. Changing is a choice.

No one can change you. No one can give you a pill to change you. It's a choice. And so for me, I made a choice no one can change you no one can give you a pill to change you it's a choice and so for me i made a choice right and and obviously you've known me for a million years but i mean psychedelics are interesting though because it can hold a mirror up right in front of your face and your friends can tell you they can say dude you're fucking up you still have anger issues you still have this just love that but then when you do mushrooms or something like that and you see who the problem is, you get to literally see it and you get talked to. And whatever weird thing happens to you on your journey or trip.

Well, and I think what was really cool for me. So much of this, it all fits together, right? It doesn't matter if we're talking about you want to get your back but right it all because it's all the same like you said like you can't make your body better without your mind you can't make your mind better without your body like you cannot separate the mind and body like i don't care what you know cartesian modern like i don't care what they say like it just doesn't happen right so what I would say is that for me, going through that process was like Delix was it was actually like for me, I was like, because I had, you know, RPR. So I knew like I had my breathing. I knew how to shift my nervous system. So as I was going through it, I was using the tools that I've had that I learned to be activated and doing RPR so I could control my breathing.

that I learned to be activated and doing RPR. So I could control my breathing. I could control where everything wanted to go. And so what I learned was like some people I've heard, like they get in things and they freak out and they don't, cause they can't handle that mirror. Right. Like you hear about it. And so for me, it was, it was different. It was like, not only do I like having the mirror, it's like, let's change where the mirror, like, let's, let's move it. Right. Because I want to, cause for me, it it was like i want to see shit that i haven't seen and so but that's why i think it becomes effective is because when you make the choice to change the change then occurs and i think that's where anytime i coach someone like when i when i put them on the table before i ever start working with them the thing i say to them is this journey is really hard.

This, you're ultra successful. This is, you've, you've killed everything you've done, right? But this is the one area of life that you haven't. And there's a reason that you haven't, right? If it was an easy fix, you had already done it. So what I always tell people is if you are not ready for a really hard journey because again remember these are people where the dial's on eight we're going from an eight to a ten right it's that one area of life if you're not ready for a hard journey

and it's going to be harder than you could ever imagine let's not start let's not start. Let's not start. And when I do get people on a table, I always go, look, you're the one who's going to do all the work. Like I may be doing the body work, but you're the one who's going to do all the work. The hard part with this is until people go through this process, like everything I'm talking about,

people are probably listening and they'd be like, I don't know what this dude is saying, but he punched a 17 foot. That's's cool, right, like, but it is true, like, you can't really understand a lot of these pieces until you go through them, and it's like anything else in life, if you've never done jits, it's kind of hard to explain to someone what that's like, if you've never had back pain, right, like, I've had back pain, you tell me you got back pain, like, instantly my heart's like, oh, dude, I want to help this guy because like i think i've been there in such a bad way right and that's what i think you know when you're talking about psychedelics like there are people like they get in that and they

they say i want a chain i want you they weren't really ready for that change and and they really hadn't committed to that choice or they didn't understand what that mirror was going to look like and then once they saw it they're like whoa put that mirror was going to look like. And then once they saw it, they're like, whoa, put that mirror away. Like I said, I was psychedelics. You ain't putting the mirror away. The mirror's there. You're going to ride that mirror out for a while. What you're saying reminds me of all of us here into personal development.

And there are a lot of books out there that can teach you the things you need to know, like the power of habit. You read that book, you kind of have the formula to be able to change your habits. And a lot of people get themselves in a self-development hole where they're reading these books and a lot of these ideas are echoed over and over and over again. And the only thing is they haven't made the choice to take action on the things that they're hearing. It's like all these things are very similar. I'm not saying that what you're saying can be read in a book, but a lot of people have those answers and they know what they need to do. Well, I think the difference in what I'm saying is that the people who read those books and do it, they had the unconscious ability to execute. What I'm saying is people say, oh, they read that and they didn't take action. The way I view is that that person

read it because they wanted to take action. It wasn't that they didn't take action the way i view is that that person read it because they wanted to take action it wasn't that they didn't want to not that they weren't motivated it's that they didn't have the unconscious ability to execute the action but nobody's talking about that so they read book after book after book instead of actually doing something to change the unconscious ability to execute. And that's why I think like when I talk about the GNS where fitness, sleep, all these pieces, that's why when people look at self-development and all these pieces where exercise is such a key component of it, because being fit, being, you know, having good sleep, those things start to shift that Gns that global neurological sequence and it

gives them more x ability unconscious ability to execute so now they read that book when they were 50 pounds overweight it's not that they weren't motivated and that's why i said like this whole piece of they didn't want to batten up they didn't take action they do this okay so let's take it to something physical jump over the couch and see me goes boom he's standing oh so let's take it to something physical. Jump over the couch and see him. He goes, boom. He's not as motivated as you. He's not as driven as you. But that's how we approach the psychology piece.

Now, when we go to the body, it makes total sense, but the same thing's happening in your mind. It drives me crazy sometimes because we take it into that example. You're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But you read a book. You're like, oh, that person won't take action. No, no book. You're like, oh, that person didn't want to take action. No, no, no. Just like his physiology is in a place only he can feel that. For someone else, their physiology, they just can't feel it because it's shutting them down.

But they don't know it is. And no one's talking about it. No one's really working on helping them with it. So what do we do? They didn't take action. They didn't want it. They weren't motivated. Let me ask you this.

Because I'm going to try to shorten up what you're saying a little bit. Are you saying that the unconscious aspect of this comes with you starting to try to take action on changing habits to change your physiology in a positive direction? And that will change your unconscious habits to be able to do a lot of these things. So it starts with that. It does. That it does the, the, you, so for me, the body work of changing your physiology, that sequence through the body work. Now that starts, so I'll give you an example with me. It's how it worked. Body work went. I'd never read a book cover to cover in my life. I went through deactivated process, went through this six months later, I shut a book. I read a cover to cover. It's never

that I didn't want to read the book. It's that I didn't want knowledge. I read chapter here, chapter there. It's just literally my nervous system. My unconscious ability did not allow me to just go through an entire book. And so what I'm saying is that if you read something or go to a conference or whatever it is and you do it, awesome. You have the unconscious ability to execute. If you've been working towards something and you just can't, you seek out all the knowledge, all the information, and you cannot seem to do it, what I'm saying is the component you're missing is the unconscious ability to execute. That's your unconscious nervous system. And you can affect that GNS in lots of ways. The most instant, predictable way that I know how to do it is by working with someone on BeActivated or doing RPR with yourself.

And RPR just maintains it. It's really by working with someone and doing BeActivated. But then that doesn't matter if, because how else do you affect it, right? It's just slower, right? But sleep, fitness, nutrition, mindset, all of those pieces will eventually change it. It's just when you go through, it's like psychedelics, right?

So everything that you want to accomplish with psychedelics, you can accomplish. It just, it jumps, right? It's a cheat code. It's a cheat code, right? I've been working on this part of my life. I want to do this. You do that in order to have a cheat code to jump you forward exponentially

that's what deactivated is it's just another way of doing it it's going through the body versus going through the mind like what you do in psychedelics does that shit hurt yes it hurts because you yes 100 because basically you're shifting the patterns and you're holding that neural tone. You're holding those experiences in certain parts of your body. And part of it's dropping in and getting those things out of your body. It hurts. It's, it is not pleasant. And the thing that's interesting about it is some points in basically store different experiences in different parts of your body. So people's reactions can be different.

Some people, it doesn't, it doesn't hurt so much as like they laugh. So I know people who've gone into like two hour laughing fits because basically that's how they got rid of those pieces that were stuck in their nervous system. And some people it's crying and some people it's shaking and you know, it can be different for everybody. But I would say for the most part, yeah, it's super uncomfortable. It definitely, it hurts while you're going through it, but that's why you've got to be ready for the journey

because it feels amazing on the other side of it. And so that's 100%. I tell people it's going to hurt, but is it? To me, guys like us, okay, it hurts. Some people are like, oh, I don't want to do that. Okay, well, it's not for you, I guess, right? Like, I mean, that's fine too. Well, it hurts worse to have the pain trapped inside your body probably, right?

Yeah, I can't even. I can't emphasize that. I mean, like my knee, I've had seven knee surgeries in college. I blew it out of skin. Nine years ago, I went to two different orthos who told me I wouldn't make it five years without a knee replacement. So it's nine years next year because I looked at it and I'll make it 10. Well, if I didn't have, you know, if I hadn't gone through be activated, if I didn't know RPR, how to shift my system instantly myself, like my knee locks up, you know, every day at this point. Like I got on my truck the other day and literally I was like, I can't like it was like someone said I couldn't move.

But then I go through RPR reflex performance reset with that self-applied breath and body work i shift my system and then i go on but it's really just it's not it doesn't fit it's still in the inevitable but i'll take the delay i'll take that i can actually move and play with my kids and you know what i mean all the things because like i still roll right now do i have to do a lot of things to do i have to do is my pfb my pain-free body works real high yeah I don't need a lot of sfl at this point in my life how uh how should we stand I noticed that for you like you're standing with your feet pretty straight and we've had some people kind of comment on how you should stand how you should walk how you should

move what are some kind of general things just with people standing that might be able to help them with their hips and their knees and ankles and stuff like that well i think the the lovely thing i think as soon as you say you should do this or you should do this to me you haven't worked with enough people in my mind i like that thank you because it's just like what i talked about this i thought physiology drew all behavior and then i started failing with some people and then i learned oh the psychology is just as important it's just like when I talked about this, I thought physiology drew all behavior. And then I started failing with some people. And then I learned, oh, the psychology is just as important. It's just this yin and yang. And so for me, there's a component of, like, I'll give you guys a simple thing. So when people, so when I used to stand the way I used to be, I literally couldn't stand still.

Just like this all the time. So why is that? So you guys know you talk about being grounded. just like this all the time. So why is that? So you guys know, you talk about being grounded. So if you're not standing still, it's because your body's not in a place where you feel grounded. And so when you're doing this, you start to make other people, you start to knock them off of being grounded. I'm not saying, sorry guys, I've been moving like madman over here. No, you're moving like that because your body doesn't feel good. So have to keep shifting like that but that you can't be grounded right now because of the pain you have to shift your physiology before you can be grounded and so as far as how you stand

to me i think play with it see what feels best and to me this is where i get really like i work with like right now i got this pro baseball player who, he's a pitcher. He throws 98 miles an hour. He should be in the bigs. But there's some mental aspects. And so we're working on those. And that's the fun part of what I love to do with the coaching I do. It's not like getting people stronger is boring at this point to me.

I mean, it just is, right? Like I care more about like, okay, let's work on some really high level stuff or let's just help people who just are everyday people, right? And so I think the big thing as far as how you stand, how you walk, how you do those things, the human body is exponentially smarter than our minds will ever be. And we're at a point in time where everybody's trying to outsmart a system that's existed for 10,000 years and has allowed us as the slowest, smallest people on the planet to dominate large. Our nervous system is super

smart. It's how we got here. And so, you know, it's funny. Like, I know you guys like with knees over toes, right? So how many old paradigms did he blow away? A lot. We can never be smarter than our body. It's like, I'm going to drop. Okay. I'm about to drop something on you guys that literally nobody in the world has probably ever said or heard other than myself because i've run this by tons of really intelligent like top people and everyone's like oh

shit that makes sense foam rolling so you know how it came out and a lot of people did it then they started doing studies on cadavers and they said it's as strong as steel. There's no way that rolling on that piece of foam makes a change in the fascia. And then, so there was this whole fight, like foam rolling is useless because that's like steel. Foam rolling is great, right? Like there was all this, and we're still kind of in that place where people have gotten like, I don't really know. I guess do it if you like it. And I think that's kind of where we've landed at this point. So here's what's going to blow you

guys away. Yes, in a cadaver, fascia is as strong as steel. And in a cadaver, you definitely cannot make a change in fascia with a foam roller. Those people are correct. The people who say I like it and it does a lot, they are also correct. The thing that's missing in the cadaver is an active nervous system. And so the fascia maybe cannot change in a cadaver. I agree because of the tensile strength. However, your nervous system integrates every single piece of that fascia. So now when you're rocking back on that foam roller, back and forth, back and forth, it activates your vestibular system. And what do we do with babies that are crying? We rock them. The solution is as old as time.

When we rock a baby, it activates a vestibular system. It creates a parasympathetic response that then calms them. That's why there's rocking chairs. So when we're rocking back and forth on the foam roller, there is of course a change because the rocking activates our vestibular system, which drops us parasympathetic, which takes neural tone off the fascia. So the foam roller is not the thing creating the change. It's the rocking. The foam roller is the feedback loop that tells us when we've rocked enough. Okay. With what you just said, too, it's so fun and it's so great because a lot of people will get on a foam roller and it'll feel good.

And they're like, this feels good. And I feel like I've done something good for me. But because the research says that foam rolling doesn't do anything well that doesn't really work well in 10 years i'm gonna do research that finds out what i just said's true so and and that's my whole point when you said how to walk how to do this it's like it's like nutrition okay i'm a vegetarian and i'm lean and i feel great. Then do that. I eat meat and fruits and vegetables and I feel great. That's kind of how I feel.

But to me, it's not how you walk, how you stand, how you do any of these pieces. It really just, how do you feel? So if you hurt, then let's do something to change that, right? Let's not do 100% LVN. But I think a lot of people are in pain, though, like a huge percentage. And so wouldn't you think that there's like some sort of particular way that humans should kind of move around? Actually, so yes, 100%. But it's not. This is the whole point.

We live in this whole mechanical world. So we say you should stand like this, do this, but really you have a global neurological sequence in your body. So when you stand, here's what should be happening. It's not about how you stand. It's about what neurological patterns should be happening while you stand. And no one's doing that. Why? Because modern medicine, we can't, I can't take a picture of your nervous system, but as you stand there, here's what we would want. You're standing straight up.

Your glutes are firing first in the sequence. Your hamstrings fire second. Your lower back fires third. His back hurts because his lower back, when he stands, I don't give a shit how he stands. He's not going to find something that's comfortable

because of his global neurological sequence is off. His lower back is firing first. So literally if we, and I guess we could film it after the podcast, I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about and we'll shift his system and I'll show you how it changes because you can shift it instantly when you understand these pieces. Now it doesn't stay, it's the nervous system, right? But you can shift it and then you can work to maintain it by keeping that GMS optimized, obviously, right? So I don't think it has to do like, how should you walk? It's not the mechanical piece that matters. Well, it does. So here's the dial on the wall. I talked about the global neural sequence being that dial, the wires that connect that dial to the light fixture. That's the local nervous system,

dial the wires that connect that dial to the light fixture that's the local nervous system global neurological sequence local nervous systems wires fixtures joints tendons all that that's the fixture light bulbs the muscles everything matters in order for these lights to be on however if i don't start by optimizing the global neural sequence no matter what i do down the line isn't going to work. So for him, it doesn't matter how you walk, how you stand. It matters what sequence everything's firing in so that you can be in an optimal place. Right now, when his back fires first, what happens is his lower back, instead of if his glutes fired first,

it would open up space in his facets and his joints, and his lower back would feel better. But because his lower back fires first, it creates compression in the back and pain. And so tons of people are in pain. That's why at this athletics, we have four main, our training philosophy is built on four foundational pieces.

Number one, build better movement. Number two, positive energy always comes into the mindset and positive thinking. Three, teach perfect technique. Four, zero pain tolerance training. We tell people, if anything hurts, tell us. You're not required to do anything at

Spot Athletics except get better. There's no exercise to do anything. So if something hurts, it's pain, your body's saying something's wrong. It's not about how you walk, how you squat, how you do any of this. It's about the sequence in which your muscles are firing to create a pain-free body. And that's why our PFB work, our pain-free body work, we start every day, every client from eight years old to 80 years old starts with reflexive performance reset. And in our PFB work, it says GNS work. Well, we do RPR, we teach breathing all the way through, and we do all these other pieces, right? So to your point, everyone who's saying you should walk like this, stand like this, do this, depending on the neurological sequence your body's firing in, it's going to feel different for different people. That's why physical therapists have a problem with somebody.

They put a solution in and it works great. They put a solution with another person. They see exact same problem, same pattern, like you're walking like this, just change this because it worked for Encima. And then you do it and it feels awful because very, very few people in the world are addressing the global neurological sequence. And it's the foundation of all mental and physical performance. Once you do that, now you see that pattern and you might say, Oh God, he's walking like this because he's literally driving all his, he's driving, he's driving his hip extension when he walks from his lower back. That's why he walks like this. Well, if someone else is driving it,

maybe from their hamstring, they're going to walk differently. And if we tell them to both walk the same way, cause it worked, it helped him feel better. And we tell that person to do it. It's going to make them feel worse possibly. So that's why when you say how to walk, how to stand, dude, I have to test your GNS first before I'm going to recommend anything. Because if I don't know the sequence you're firing in, I don't understand neurologically how you're compensating. And so I might tell you to walk a certain way and how I understand compensation pattern neurologically.

We're not talking about mechanically, but when people are telling you how to walk, how to do everything, they're just making a mechanical prescription without neurological understanding of the global neurologic sequence. And so I might test this and go, man, this is your sequence. So here, let's shift that sequence. And now when you walk, God, I feel light. I feel great. I feel taller. So it's not how you do it. It's what's the sequence you're in. Can we make that sequence more optimal? And then, like I said, your body's insanely more smarter than your mind. So what will your body do when that sequence is now more optimal?

smarter than your mind. So what will your body do when that sequence is now more optimal? It will find a place that's more optimal for you to walk, for you to stand, for you to squat. And so that's why I just do this, do that. What's happening is they're seeing a pattern among people. So when you look at people with distress and everything today, there are general patterns that displace in population. So when I say stand like this, it's not because that person isn't smart. They're really smart. They've actually picked out a pattern in a thousand people they've seen and standing like that has worked for 980 people in that pattern or 600 or whatever it is, but a lot. So they recommend it to everybody because it works for the majority. The issue is, is what if you're not one of those people? So I don't recommend any.

I want to look at your global neurological sequence before I tell you how to do any of that stuff. Awesome. Andrew, take us on out of here. It's time for us to go eat. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Sincerely appreciate it. Please drop us a comment because there's definitely some things that we need to discuss down in the comment section. So, so yeah, get in there. It's actually Greg.

That's so good. And if you're on iTunes and Spotify, come over to YouTube. We want to hear what you guys have to say as well. And subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you guys are not subscribed as, as right now, follow the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power

project on Tik TO TikTok and Twitter, my Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ and Seema, where you at? I gotta say, I do love Greg. I do love Greg. It's just, man. I bought his cookbook. I literally paid full price for his cookbook. I love that shit. I know Greg Doucette. I just think, man,

a lot of that stuff is dangerous for belief systems. That's just my opinion. JL, quick question. If people aren't training with you in person at the spot athletics can they purchase these uh the systems online to be able to do globally or is it yeah no no they can't i mean a lot of that like i said we're bringing douglas heel in uh so he lives in south africa so like he has been in the u.s in three years so uh we're bringing him in uh so they can go to the spot athletics website and there's a clinic they can go to the Spot Athletics website, and there's a clinic they can register.

There's one in Columbus, and like I said, one in San Diego. So it's May 7th through the 10th here, 14th through the 17th out there. And then really like on Instagram, Coach underscore JL, I put a lot of our stuff. Because a lot of things I do as Coach JL is like a lot of stuff we talked about. Like I got kids from eight years up, right? Like I don't talk about – like the Spot Athletics is like it's of stuff we talked about like like i got kids from eight years up right like i don't talk about like the spot athletics is like it's geared towards our facilities like my coach jl work like the stuff i do there it's not work i'm gonna be like it's not the work we're

doing with with the kids working out right like so so that's where really more the deeper pieces so you know like i said we were having that clinic and reflexive performance reset. You know, people want to look at that. We have a website as well. So, um, you know, lots of places, but like I said, the coach, coach jail is kind of where I merge the pieces we do with RPR, the pieces we do with this GNS, all these pieces, I kind of merge them all together because, you know, I got a lot of different pieces, but to me like you, man, what makes you dynamic? What makes you successful? It's the diversity of experience., but to me, like you, man, what makes you dynamic? What makes you successful? It's the diversity of experience. And that, to me, that's where

innovation occurs, and that's you're an innovator. Why are you an innovator? Because you are able to pull from so many areas of experience. That's what creates innovators. Always awesome to catch up with you. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. I'm at Mark Smiley

Bell. Catch you guys later.