Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 721 - Ben Clarfield: The Fitness Philosopher Talks Lessons From Charles Poliquin and the Fundamentals of ATG

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Ben Clarfield, AKA The ATG Coach is a Level III P.I.C.P. National level strength coach and BioSignature practitioner. Ben has trained with Charles Poliquin, one of the top strength coaches in the world, at the Eleiko Institute in Sweden and at the Poliquin Strength Institute in Rhode Island and owner of Reach PT. Follow Ben on IG: instagram.com/theatgcoach/ Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢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

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Again, VivoBarefoot.com promo code PowerProject 20% off. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Yeah,

stay on that mic. You'll be able to hear how far you, yep, yep. He likes movement. This man likes to move, which is good.

We're going to have to tie the headphones to the thing. Ready to like rap or some shit. Now I'm not, yeah, I'm not sure who has

more energy, him or Graham because I thought Graham had more energy but now that I'm like seeing Ben move and talk. Well, Ben's enhanced, though. Yeah.

He's got a lot of caffeine. Yeah. How much is in that Zoicin? It was only 200 compared to your 4x4x4. Yeah, so it's 71. He's running on fumes, too. That's true. The time difference.

The flight and everything. Hey, speaking of energy, let's slam down some Mind Bullet. Here we go. Especially since Ben has no idea what it is. That's even better. Pull it out. You got it? High trait openness, gentlemen.

High trait openness. Did you do the understand myself? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There we go. One percent conscientiousness. One percent conscientiousness?

Yeah, low, low. Really? High level argumentative. It doesn't taste good. 1% conscientiousness. 1% conscientiousness? Yeah, low, low. Really? High-level argumentative. It doesn't taste good. You guys are talking about something I have no idea about. I'm talking about Chinese medicine. Got it.

Well, no. Ben was saying that he takes... Oh, that was our line. He's going to nail it. He's going to nail it. Fuck yeah. God damn it. Four espresso shots? One for one, baby.

What was it? Four espressos yeah four is usually like a 6.30 in the morning kind of thing and then like mid morning another four

and then pre-workout like another four probably is it is this like when you travel or is this on a normal day normal day

yeah how much caffeine is that a lot what is it 150 per each one no 71 per espresso so I know but 150 per yeah for everything you're saying, right?

No, per double. So it's four is like $300. Oh. Yeah, so $300. $300. So like a gram of caffeine. But normally I'm like, after the first one, I'm like, hi guys, how are you doing? I talk kind of like in SEMA.

I'm like, hey, I'm normal now. Oh, it has like a U-shaped curve to it. Comes back down the other side I like that exactly and then in the afternoon maybe I'm like

I got some athletes I'm like I think I need to get myself a little bit more yipped up so I can you know sit and be like

that was a shit movement make it better so to be real just again you're typically in taking 700 milligrams of caffeine

or above each day depends sure yeah sure what is sure depends You're typically intaking 700 milligrams of caffeine or above each day. Depends. Sure. Yeah. Sure. What is sure? Who's counting?

Who's counting? Give or take. Give or take. Y'all are wild. Agree to disagree. Have you looked into caffeine? Studied it much or anything? Yeah, I like it.

You enjoy it. And the 23andMe, I do have gene that can oh deal with it pretty quickly so i can have a double at 11 and go to sleep what's that called i can't remember the whatever you can you can break it down it's uh it's that you can the half-life thing you break down quicker are you also one of those people like me who can get two hours of sleep a night and be perfectly careful i mean i i slept three hours last night if that's any and you're fine right i'm okay see like genetically you guys have that gene but also also i have three kids and the thing is that i'm pretty good in the gym of knowing not to go nuts if i don't got it yeah like pretty good auto reg it's like i'm a chill mark's trying to kill himself two hours

three hours yeah two three hours a night. That's all you need. You got. Yeah. I mean, I prefer more, but you know. You have three kids. Indeed. And they're all under the age of six, right? Six and a half is the oldest, so.

Jeez. And number four is coming in August. Yeah. That's fucking crazy. That's so easy. It means just I have no learning curve. And very lucky, a very, very lucky,

amazing wife who's an absolute, yeah, like. You said she's jacked, right? She is jacked, yeah, yeah. What's up with that? Genetic gift. Does she lift? She does, yeah.

Oh, okay. She's pretty strong. Yeah, yeah. She does jujitsu too, which is pretty cool too. Nice. How long ago did she start? Maybe a year after I did,

something like that. But again, there's a few kids that are in between that have intermittently prevented her too. Nice. How long don't you start? Maybe a year after I did, something like that. But again, there's a few kids that are in between that have intermittently prevented her continuation. Yeah. Yeah, neon belly with the pregnant belly is not awesome. Yeah. Not recommended. Yeah.

So years ago, I shot a video with our buddy, our mentor, the late Charles Poliquin, and he jacked me up with some really interesting stuff. He did a bunch of stuff to, like, my pecs. He did a bunch of stuff to, like, my shoulder. He got me to get more range of motion when I was bench pressing. He helped get me out of pain. He showed me a bunch of different things.

But one thing he did is he took a pen cap and he drilled it into my thumb, and that shit hurt a lot. And I'd love you to demonstrate this on in SEMA for today. Why do you want? No. You guys manhandled me before the podcast. It's your turn. Yeah, why not? Do you want me to do it? It's not going to do anything now. We have to show stuff.

It's demonstration. You just want to do the podcast. For what? I'll do the thyroid one. What's the thyroid one? It's a wakes you up kind of thing. Okay. Should I come to you?

I'll come to you. Yeah, sure. No, you come to me. Andrew, if you can try to bring that clip up. It's pretty neat. I'll look for it. Wait, I can't see you guys. Hold on.

Where do you need this to be? Hold on. Just give me a second. He's going to read and see my palms. So this is when people are like, my hands are cold cold or I don't feel really awake, hence caffeine. Hey, take this pen cap and jam it into him somewhere. He wants to. This is how he shows love.

Put it into his eyeball. So you go, it's right there. Ha, ha, ha. God damn, man. Oh, wow. He's putting some pressure. This is great. Whoa.

Keep going. No, this is good. He's putting lots of pressure on his wrist. He's a really good actor. It's phenomenal. And the Oscar goes to. Yeah, it's phenomenal. No, that shit hurts. Yeah, it does hurt. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I should have warned you. I'm usually really good at being chill through shit. Yeah, and what's funny is we rolled jujitsu last time, and that was, yeah, so anyway. So the Ninja Jedi McDojo trick, like, you know, maybe you would have tapped if I would have done that one, but, you know. I do feel more awake now.

Do it to Mark. No, actually, Mark, let him do it to you. I'm ready, I'm ready. Yeah, awake now oh yeah do it to mark yeah no actually mark let him i'm ready i'm ready yeah yeah let him do it to you mark mark's gonna be super stoic right now he's gonna be like i ain't gonna scream like a bitch well it's a good one because a lot of people come in and they're like i don't got any juice and it's just a little one it's also like oh they do it like you did it to me i'm actually the funny thing is i'm actually super nervous i saw and see this reaction and I already know. So I'm already in pain, basically.

I'll try to stay close to the microphone so you can get my girly screams. That shit ain't gentle. Luckily, I have very fat hands. Did you guys start yet? Yeah, he's going. He's going. Mark is just being super stoic right now. Good for you, Mark. I'm proud of hands. Did you guys start yet? Yeah, he's going. Just joking. He's going. Mark is just being super stoic right now. Good for you, Mark.

I'm proud of you. Yeah. I think he's crying. He's good. Damn it. Andrew, get your ass up here. No, come here, Andrew. You guys already fondled me.

I'm good. I'm awake. But it's for your thyroid. Yeah, exactly. My thyroid's good. So what does that do it's a an awakening point so you're like i don't got anything juice like for the gym like they walk through they walk through the door like i don't got anything yeah they're like all right

cool and then you're like all right let's train so it's a little bit of a you know also pre pre a role i would do like a fight like what's the what's the warrior point what's that about i did that to a client a hockey player and he almost punched me in the face. So that one's like a good one for – Yeah, you got to be careful with who you do. Yeah, hockey player? Yeah, man. Like it was good for a max.

Like I ran. Like I did it and then ran. And then he went – he was like, do I punch you or do I go and do my lift? And he got a nice – it was like 400-pound back squat. It was great. Like it was great. So what is the warrior point? The warrior point is –

It's between your dick and your – Yeah, I mean listen. The gooch? What is the warrior point? The warrior point is – It's between your dick and your – Yeah. I mean, listen. The warrior point is whatever it is you want to hear that it is. All right? It's just under your nose. Yeah. It's just under your nose.

And what you do is you push under and in and you rub it as hard as you can. It hurts like hell. And you hold the person in the back of their head. Oh, my God. Yeah. And you like do it hard huh yeah it's and then the person goes and you know it's the worst thing is when you do it to the person and they don't get their max lift i was gonna say it's not just not have the pr

has that been done to you before because it's like you knew oh yeah no i know someone's done that i have older brothers okay okay question does it help or hurt if their finger smells like something? Yeah. It depends. That motivation is individual. So some people really, yeah. Like even just putting like small amount of pressure there, it's just like, you just want to cry. Yeah.

Well, there's legends of old martial arts where if you were to strike there, there would be a death blow. There's the old martial arts samurai stuff where that would be a strike to the Just to the brunt just right there You could you know whatever Speaking of martial arts you've messed around with some martial arts I have I have a black belt in Taekwondo Oh shit It means you can kick stuff

But the problem is You can kick stuff really awesome Where's the best place to kick somebody I have probably a leg kick, I think. It just surprises the hell out of them, right? Just blast someone in the legs. On the inside of the leg or on the outside? On the outside.

People are not – I mean, Mai Tai dudes, those dudes can take those kicks. But most people, you blast someone in the leg, they're like, uh-oh. I love watching UFC, but when I see those guys kicking each other in the legs, I'm like, I don't want to see anymore. This seems like it's too painful. No thanks. Yeah. And then jujitsu happened and it's kind of like, oh, here's the dark arts. It's like you get into the – it's like jujitsu is such an amazing thing.

Like everyone – obviously Joe Rogan and everyone in SEMA loves it. It's a great – it's a movement puzzle. It's phenomenal. And I think the thing is that jujitsu is one of those hobbies that other hobbies you can do like, oh, how many times do you do it? Oh, I go twice a week. And you're like, oh, cool.

That's pretty serious. And in jujitsu, like twice a week. Like, well, you don't go six times a week. What's wrong with you? Six times a week is like, oh, you're a recreational jujitsu player. Like, it's like, you're not training three times a day,

like in living on the mats and like wearing your sweaty gi and just like staying in the gi and like john donahoe wearing your oh my god everywhere yeah he's a legend i love john like john is an absolute legend i love how he systematized jujitsu it's brilliant i watch all those those are amazing so you're you said you're 41 years old so you must have been around like when when i was young people used to say like hey it would be amazing to see like this guy fight this guy but like no one ever knew what they were talking about yeah exactly no one really understood that there was like uh no one even really ever talked about grappling yeah i mean we in high school i remember like okay you know don't mess

with the wrestlers because they'll pick you up slamming on your head um but other than that like nobody knew any intent any technique about anything so somebody thought if somebody was big and had some muscles they could wreck shop right or if someone's big and heavy they could beat the hell out of somebody uh if somebody was mad or just like you know gotten a lot of fights they could beat the crap out of somebody and then jujitsu came along like the ufc came along people saw what hoist gracie could do do you remember a lot of that stuff? Yeah, I remember looking back on that. But I remember kind of being like, I don't know.

I'm doing Taekwondo. But I watched that and I'm like, okay, UFC is cool. And then you're like, it just is so overwhelming. Jujitsu won, at least in the early days. Now there's like the ground and pound and the wrestlers and there's the strikers. But fundamentally, almost everyone needs some jujitsu. Like to a certain extent. It's not the only way the only way but it's i mean either early on it was and jujitsu won it was pretty much that i mean and they talk about it like all the guys like

it could have not won like one crazy punch and it would have been like everyone's a boxer or everyone's like but he figured it out and he's you know hoist like really you know and that whole family are just unbelievable and you know they're just yeah i mean it's it's just so profound and it's such a we were talking earlier it's such a brilliant combination of traditional japanese martial art but also the innovation of the brazilian this family of gracie it's just it's so phenomenally phenomenal this mix of innovation and tradition and i think that's what's so cool about it is that there's – and the new games and all the different guys with the lapels and the Nogi and Gordon Ryan and John Danner. Like it's really phenomenal. It's such a phenomenal movement puzzle.

I think I was saying earlier like I was – I always give credit to my mentors, Charles Poliquin and Ido Portal. Charles Poliquin we talked more about but I got to Ido Portal from Charles and Ido Portal talked about the three layers of movement which is isolate you know if you've hurt your ankle you do ankle movement or whatever and integrate which is more complex movement squats deadlifts this kind of stuff and then improvise which each person picks the thing that they want to do improvisationally like we I most of my, you know, my career is based on the first two, but, you know, I love movement in a way, and jujitsu is this improvisational, you know, there's all kinds of different

ways of talking about it. I think it's un-choreographed dance where there's choking and arm-breaking involved, and I think it's really cool because it's a movement puzzle where you're trying to figure out an opponent that's trying to, you know, trying to choke you.

Yeah. So I think it's very cool because it's not like it's, there's no tempos, there's no, you know, whatever. It's just trying to figure out this puzzle, this movement puzzle in a rule set and a game that's really fascinating

that you can go pretty much breakneck. But yeah, it's anyway. So I find that movement puzzle fantastic for myself. We've got a video playing right now. Oh, there we go. Paula Quinn working on me. Look how mobile I am getting up. His biceps though, by the way.

Charles, yeah. Yeah, they look like baseball. So that's a story I'll tell you. Like that's the genius of Charles is part of it was, you know, he introduced me to Al Vermeule, who was the only strength coach that won championships with an NFL team and an NBA team, Chicago Bulls and the 49ers. And he said, and this is, I think, part of what fascinates me, and Charles took this to heart, you're always selling. You're always selling your program to the athletes, and you're selling to the coach, and you're selling to the board of directors, and for everyone. And Charles's arms,

so he'd walk into an NHL gym, and they'd look at his arms and be like, okay, I'll listen to him because of his arms. And it was a selling point. And it's brilliant. Yeah, he said he'd have to take off his jacket or his hoodie or whatever and show his arms and then people are like, okay. Yeah, I'll listen to you, whatever. But it's brilliant.

But it was so brilliant. And he was also lean and shredded so he could always talk about that. And, you know, he said one of the things, I was looking through some of my notes, old notes of his, one of the most brilliant things for athletic performance that he taught me. And he taught a lot of the students of his was that body composition is one of the most underrated ways to make people perform better athletically. And it's,

you know, you're faster, less fat, less body fat. There's less friction in between your muscle fibers. And it's so brilliant. And you guys are doing such an amazing job at that from a nutritional point of view to try and bring to the fore all these different ideas about nutrition how to help

people fundamentally be leaner i mean we're societies we're there's a lot of obesity and you know i think different people are trying to help people in different ways the fastest way for a lot of people to get stronger they're listening right now is to lose body fat exactly you'll be able to hang up hang from a chin-up bar longer You'll be able to do lunges without as much pain and so on. So you might think, okay, if you're a power lifter, you might think my bench or squat might go down because of certain sensations and certain feelings you have. And you could be correct.

But for general population, a lot of your markers of strength, which would also be relative to your body weight, would improve quite a bit by simply just, you know, working on trying to lose about 10% of your body weight probably. Body fat, I should say. Yeah, I mean, he was always, he says the easiest way to get people faster is to get them leaner. And then there's all the markers and the metrics, which, you know, I've,

and again, like Charles, you know, I'm very lucky. I have to be forever grateful for him. He was a good friend and my mentor and I still miss him. And, you know, he advised me early on in my career. I wouldn't have anything. I mean, obviously hard work is involved in my own interpretation of his methods, but I really wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for Charles. And a lot of us, a lot of his students feel that way. And again, I have to talk about Ben Patrick and the two of us. We really want to further Charles' legacy in a way that's accessible to more people. And I think fundamentally that's what Charles – I think Charles would have wanted that. Maybe. Maybe. I mean with all his own –

Yeah, you know, I'm very lucky I never got into any fights with him. I never. I'm very lucky. Quick question, man. Like the fingertip thing, what you just did to our palms, all these points. Conceptually, where does that come from? Where did he learn that stuff from? Is that an amalgamation of experimenting things or did he learn it from something specific? Yeah. So Charles, I think part of the genius of Charles is he said that he reads minimally

16 hours a day and he would do consults. So actually last time we met, I said to you, listen, I respect all the work you've done. Clearly your body composition methods are fantastic. I would like to pay you your consult fee. And you said, no, no, don't worry about it. I'll share. And that was very generous of you. And Charles taught me that, taught me early on to pay people for

their time and respect their worth and learn from them so that they're in a position where they, they're willing to give more because there's a respect. So Charles would do that with some of the best experts in the world on all these things. And he went to Chinese medicine practitioners and he learned all their methods and he tried to figure out how he could use that, not just to, you know, for healing modalities, which he used and helped and advised a lot of people on, and he learned all their methods and he tried to figure out how he could use that not just to you know for healing modalities which he used and helped and advised a lot of people on but also for how to get people stronger so the methods were you know the first way he called it was pimpsed which is everything was poliquin the poliquin instant muscle strengthening techniques and i

learned those and i've used those to great effect um and i think the cool thing is they're not be all end alls but they're great tricks and ways ways to maybe get a little bit more range of motion or a little bit more energy or a little bit more juice. And, you know, and if they're a placebo, cool. But, like, I think they actually – I've seen too many times where it actually works. The pain of you digging into my hands literally woke me the fuck up. There we go. You know, that's – That's also a point, I guess.

There we go. The joke is, like, you know, my eye hurts. And so, like, I punch you in the gut and you're like, you're not feeling your eye anymore. So maybe that's the genius of Charles. But, you know, he was a genius of amalgamating all kinds of different things and taking away, you know, the Bruce Lee principle, taking what was useful, discarding what was not. So he spent hours and hours researching and reading. And he would come to us and those of us who spent time with him, you know, he said, look, I went and did this for like two days or a week or months. And, you know, these are the three takeaways. Now that's, I, I, the value for us was that he was the one that did it for three months so that we could take away the two gems

and help people, you know, do better things. So, so that was one of the things, I think the thing with Charles is that his genius was that he was so brilliant at so many things. And there's a lot of us, Ben and I talked about this. He spoke multiple languages. Yeah. He was, well, in the early days he, he learned Russian, German, Italian, so that he could read behind the iron curtain type stuff, all of their, all of their programming so that he would know what they were doing. Um, and I think what was really cool is that what was really difficult is that he was such a genius. There we go. It's like all the the pain there we go fat dog but uh but he was so brilliant that a lot of us have taken different paths there's a lot of people that went down the you know uh functional medicine

pathway and they don't train anyone anymore and they've done great things with people with really you know crazy health conditions and there's those of of us like Ben Patrick and I who are more interested in the athletic performance. And there's a whole bunch of people that were in the bodybuilding world that took his methods and went that way. And what's really amazing about him, he was also great at business. And, you know, again, no one's perfect, but he was great at psychological. Part of the thing that I really loved about him is that he was, you know, very philosophic. He was very open-minded and he would really search out knowledge from all kinds of different practitioners. By the way, I want to say I appreciate you buying me all those books. There we go.

Especially the ones that were hard to find. There we go. Yeah, I really appreciate that. My pleasure. My pleasure. So part of it was that we would talk about those things. Actually, I don't think I told you. The last book I sent to him was Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules.

So that was before he passed. I sent that to him and then he actually posted saying, thank you very much for Ben. So it was an interesting corollary of sort of circular things. But he was very open-minded. He would read all the time.

Is that 16 hours a day minimum? No, no, 16 hours a week minimum. 16 hours a week. Yeah, 16 hours a week of research. If you don't,

if you're not doing that, you're, you're, you know, you're not expanding your knowledge. You're not trying to be open-minded and try and learn new things and try and bring things to your clients and to your athletes. Yeah, this video that we're watching, excuse me, this old YouTube video, and he's just kind of like working on me. He like pulls my ears.

He sticks a pen cap into my thumb. He does all these things, and it has to do with these Meridian lines for people that want to kind of look it up more. And maybe you can explain it in a minute. But this video, like, you know, it's,

it's very old and I don't, I don't think people really cared about it, but I kind of think like if Charles did his magic, like on me for like a Tik TOK video, it'd probably go nuts. But the hard thing when you watch something like this, it's hard to believe it because you're watching and like my arms are stuck. And I'm like, oh video would probably go nuts. But the hard thing when you watch something like this, it's hard to believe it because you're watching and like my arms are stuck and I'm like, oh, my arms are stuck.

Like I can't bring my arms in on a squat. And then he is working on me for quite a while. So I don't want to make it seem like he sticks a pen cap in my thumb and I'm fixed. But what he does do is he does fix me over the course of maybe 20, 30 minutes. And I am able to get my hands in a lot closer than I normally do. My hands are normally a way out by the plates. And this, this effect is not a permanent change. It's not something that affects you permanently. So what he would say is like, I would have to do that to you every time we train for a while. Right. And

then you'll get to a point where you don't really need it anymore. The idea is, he said it was six to eight hours of effect and what you do is you train into it. So it helps you train better. And then the training, so there was never a, how do you get leaner? How do you get stronger without picking up the weights?

So at the end of the day, and here's the other thing, I think fundamentally one of the lessons I took from him was the magic of training. And Ben and I, Ben Patrick, you know,

Ben and I were very close. Like we do a lot of work together and we both agreed that I think people don't understand how, I mean, clearly you guys do. And to the world out there, I think what's so amazing is how magical training is. It's such an unbelievable gift and tool. And if I could put that out there to the masses,

I think we all debate, we were talking about this earlier, the schools of thought of, do you agree with this method or that method, or is it this or that, the other thing, and everyone's trying to help people or whatever. But fundamentally, I think I wish, I want more people to understand how absolutely magical training is. It's such a magical thing. Can you, since you're on the topic on the topic of training i mentioned to you earlier about something like not being second nature and then you gave me a little speech can you give the audience a little speech on second sure okay so here we go into philosophy and sima and i talked about you know i i think what i'm very lucky is that i've had an education in philosophy early i was meant to be – I was meant to be.

I mean, what is meant to be? But I have a master's that focuses on medieval philosophy, and I thought I was going to do a PhD and be a professor in this. But I like Ben Patrick, and it's why we're connected in that way is I blew my knee out playing basketball. So I thought I was invincible. At 5'11", and with not the most awesome genetics, I could dunk a basketball. Not on anyone, but not terrible. And I thought I was invincible. And I didn't lift weights.

I thought lifting weights was silly. If I could beat you on the court, I could beat you on the court. Who cares what anyone else looked like? And then my awakening was, wow, I'm not invincible. I actually have to work at this. So that was my wake-up moment and my research brain changed from philosophy of which I read still

and it's part of who I am and I love it and it influences who I am and how I think to taking that research brain and figuring out learning from Charles and other people

how to help fix my knee and then how to help fix other people's knees. And then the rest of their bodies so that was that's my sort of pathway on that end but the idea of second nature I think what's interesting we were talking about back to jiu-jitsu you said you haven't really done it a lot but your conception of oh you're in this bind or an arm bar or something like that and you like, your instinct is to roll the wrong way. So instinct is first nature. So this gets back to sort of, I always say, and back to Socrates, because that's sort of where my brain goes, is there's something called that people talk about with Socrates is that it's a second sailing. And Socrates' critics, so Aristophanes, who was a poet

who made fun of Socrates, said he was walking around one day and he was looking at the stars and he was so clueless that he fell down a hole. So in other words, philosophy is stargazing. It's so impractical and useless that he can't even – I can picture him doing that. Yeah. You know, stargazing. Right, Andrew? Yeah, absolutely.

I'm not making that up. No. Right? Fuck both of y'all. Let's keep going. You know, you heard what you wanted to hear. I heard what I wanted to hear. That's going to be a constant theme on this podcast.

So Socrates falls into it, but this is Aristophanes' critique of Socrates. But actually, so Socrates at first, philosophy was looking at the stars and trying to understand the universe and trying to understand where we are and who we are and what this world is. But then Socrates' realization is he had to look back and see that the human is actually what's interesting.

And actually talking to any people and talking about what is courage, what is love, you know, what is the good, what is happiness. And having these conversations where it's possible that Socrates knew more than them, but he wanted to understand it and have a dialectical, dialogic moment, which is really what we're doing right now here. And this is why I said to you guys before, the amazing thing with podcasts is it opens up the conversational world again. And back to the point about second nature. So the second sailing is the realization of the human.

So back to the second nature, when we talk about, oh, it's second nature to Encema to roll this way. Whereas when you did it, your first instinct were wrong. You roll out of an arm bar and you broke your arm yourself. It's a leg lock.

The instinct is to go the wrong way. And you do that, you snap your ACL. Bye-bye. So you have to learn. So learning, the human capability of learning, which is why I find it so profound and interesting to understand humans, is second nature. It's training.

Training is second nature. And that's the most profound thing is that we can change our first instincts, which are often incorrect, to do something that is better. And we do that by learning. And that's the second nature thing. So I think it's so interesting, these ideas of what second, what does that mean? Second nature is this learn, it changes us and we're no longer beasts. Do you think they're incorrect? Sometimes our first instinct is incorrect because we're like beings that learn from errors. Yeah, that's the magic. I think so. Absolutely. So we have an instinct that might be correct, but if we go the wrong way, we can just kind of backtrack and say, oh, I wonder if I try something different, what that would look like. Absolutely. I'll go into another philosophic story, which I wanted to share with you guys. One of my favorite books is Gulliver's Travels. I don't know if you've seen the movie or read the book. I think I've seen the movie.

So the movie, it's with Jack Black. If you saw, there was a movie. Yeah. But what's interesting is it's actually a philosophic satirical critique of both the ancients and the moderns. So there's one story, which I love, and it's about, and it's really relevant for our day and

age. It's, it's, he's traveling. So Gulliver, so Jonathan Swift was a philosophic satirist that wrote about 300 years ago. And he was profoundly critical of some of the modern philosophic ideas of certainty, which started to come out with the science and modern science and this kind of stuff. And we're surrounded by that. Because fundamentally, there's so much information out there that wading through it is one of the hardest things there is. So how do you know what's true? How do you know what's not true? You can throw up your hands and give up, or you can say, well, this is my guy. I believe this scientist, or I believe that

scientist, or my scientist says something different than the other scientist. So Gulliver's going through these travels and people sort of remember that he's a giant and there's the little people of Lilliput and this kind of a thing. If they kind of remember there was a cartoon and we're all kids. So anyway, he continues his travels and he finds this weird island called Laputa. And Laputa is this disc-like island that actually hovers and it flies. There we go. So this is Gulliver.

Continue. So anyway, so the island is this weird sort of flying saucer type disc that just flies over everywhere. And the Laputins, he makes fun of them. They're pretty much scientists. And they have this weird eye. One eye is a microscope and one eye is a telescope. But they can't see in front of them. And they're mathematical and they're obsessed with mathematics and music, but theoretical music.

And everything is theoretical. But anything that's practical, they're like, no, no, no, no, it doesn't fit our theories. So one example, they can't speak his language. He can't speak their language. They bring him up onto this island and he's trying to understand them. And the king, they can't see in front of them. And they're always obsessed with their mathematical theories. And they have a servant that flaps flaps they're called flappers that flap their eyes or their ears or their mouth so that they talk to each other because they're always so obsessed with these various theories they're constantly contemplating kind of like the joke about socrates that i said earlier and and he speaks to them and they don't

understand him and they but he tries to figure out their language and what they do is they get a tailor to give him clothes because his clothes are ruined and the tailor comes to him and he does quadrants of the you know of the earth and he does all these calculations but the clothes don't fit because the the person that was doing it made a mistake in the calculation but they didn't change the clothes because the calculations according to them were the correct calculations the joke is that the theory had to be the theory and it couldn't be that there was human error. So they continue and the story ends with the Laputins where he makes fun of them. He talks about their women.

And it's kind of like he's an adventurer, an explorer. And the women are normal. They're not like the scientists, Laputins. And they don't like their husbands because their husbands are constantly contemplating all these things. don't like their husbands because their husbands are constantly contemplating all these things. So the women go down below to other normal people and are always running off with the gardener or like the footman or whatever, because their husbands can't take care of them, even though they like them. So they're, they're constantly, they can't conceive of like normal relationships with their wives. They want it. So the story goes that one of them is beaten by a footman.

She's the prime minister's wife, But the prime minister is doing these calculations. He just can't satisfy her desires. Yeah, yeah. So this is 300 years ago, and it's very funny. But the idea is that sometimes there's a scientism as opposed to actual science, which is much more humble, which says, listen, we have a theory. Maybe it's right. Maybe it's wrong. Let's try.

I mean, the one is we talk about calories or we talk about how do people put on muscle? Well, we all know we're all meatheads. If you lift weights, we put on muscle. Okay, but is it mTOR signaling or is it the small micro tears? Like, I don't know which theory is that, you know, theory is the Greek word theoria, which is to see. So if you see it and it sticks, great. But if it doesn't stick, okay, next theory. And if you got a microscope and a telescope, the person that's blind might see the best. Exactly.

Because they might just feel their way around and get to the right thing, right? Exactly. So I think the thing is that we do things, we try things. And it could be like, was Charles Poliquin right on every percentage that he said? I think so. Yeah? I think so. Yeah, I think so. But was it 117% that the dip was versus your one-run bench? Or was it 116?

And if you're not, like, I mean, but I use those numbers. We use those numbers. Ben and I use those numbers. It was wild to go to a seminar and have someone like, they got their hand up. And he'd be like, yes. And someone would be like, I got confused. How many seconds of a pause was it on the front squat? And Charles would just be like.

3.64. And the person's like, yeah, it's 3.64. It's like, no. I mean, there's rules and there's recipes. So I guess the thing is. He wouldn't fuck with people. Yeah. But his point was like, you got caught up on the wrong thing.

I know that I prescribe a tempo, but it's just for me to be able to coach you. That's all it's about. Exactly. I mean, the example was, I remember at a seminar, someone asked, he said, it's good to have two different heights of slant board. And Ben, Patrick, and I, like, I love slant boards. Charles was like, it's great. It's great for, you know, to help with dorsiflexion and, you know, to alleviate that and allow your knees to go further forward and more quad dominance. Use them all the time. Someone said, what what angle what exact degree of slant board and he says 46.37 on the one and 32.6 and the person was writing it down it's like oh no you're missing the point yeah like have two different ones i don't know like but but people really like that precision because in some ways here's a cookie cutter way of coaching people

but for me i i always like figuring out each athlete yeah so i think that's the thing the magic is figuring out each athlete i mean when you I think that's the thing. The magic is figuring out each athlete. I mean, when you get bored of people, then stop coaching. But, you know, I think that's the, that's the cool thing is that, you know,

Mark was coaching a guy that was in here that was doing, and it's great. Oscar. Oscar's great. Like he was doing ART in him and for his troubles, Mark coached him and whooped his ass.

No, but, but the point, the point is, you know, you can see that Mark still loves coaching people because he wants to help people. He wants people to get better.

He wants them to move better and have a great workout. And I think that's the magic of coaching. I think we all have to remember, and Charles taught me this, we're in the minority. People that actually love moving, like that we're trying to improve our bodies. And I think that's the thing that coaches should remember, that most people really see their bodies as their enemy. And if we can help them not see their body as their enemy, I think that's God's work. And I think, you know, that's the sort of unification of what all of the quote unquote fitness industry should be doing, which is to try to help people not look at their

bodies as their enemy and try to help people. And again, there's, do I think the recipe that I use with, you know, like I, you know, I'm called the ATG coach with ATG and as an interpretation of Charles Poliquin and, you know, and Ben and Keegan and I have sort of discussed this and, you know, they're great guys and great coaches and it's a recipe, like fundamentally it's a recipe. And do we think it's a great recipe? Absolutely. I've gotten great results with people, pain-free performance, all that kind of stuff. Do I think it's the only recipe? No, but do I think people should use different recipes to actually try to be better and move better? Absolutely. And I think fundamentally people are happier when they do that.

So that's, you know, I don't know. That's my spiel on that one. But with what you said, you, you said like there's, there's an eight step fundamental to what you guys do.

Can you take us through what those fundamentals are? Absolutely. You know, understanding the fundamentals. I think that people can hear those things, but then take that and add in other things that may fall in line with what you guys believe is the way to do things. Absolutely. It would be my pleasure.

I think it's really great. Ben and I sat through this, and Keegan, like, you know, if people don't know, Keegan Smith is fantastic. He's really great. Yeah, Keegan's amazing. Can you just pause and back up for just a second and kind of explain a little bit of what you do with Ben, if you don't mind? Absolutely. So I own a performance facility in Toronto. I've owned it for over a decade.

All of my coaches are Poliquin or ATG, and we help people one-on-one. That's what my business is, and that's what we do. And I got connected. I have to be grateful to you guys because, you know, the last few years have been really hard. We got – it was tough in Toronto and Canada. It was COVID too. Yeah, with COVID. It was really hard. We got, we got, it was, it was tough in Toronto and Canada. It was COVID too? Yep. With COVID, it was really hard from a business point of view. I'm grateful that we survived. I have to be grateful to my amazing team of coaches. They're amazing. Like Greg,

Jacqueline, Joe, Daniel, and Dave, they're just great people. And my wife for being very smart from a business point of view that we're, we survived and, and we're, we're, you know, we're, we're growing, which is great. We're opening a new facility, so I have to be grateful. And you guys, it was the first live thing I did in a couple of years. And when Ben was here and the energy was amazing. So knees over toes guy, Ben Patrick, he connected. We connected in person here, but we were texting for quite a while before. And Ben is a Charles guy and he got phenomenal results with his body and his athletes with Paula Quinn's methods and his own interpretation thereof.

And so we connected and what Ben saw for me as a role with ATG is that now that the world is opening up again, there's room for in-person events because he's figured out the online method. I think Ben has cracked the code for online. The online world, his content is phenomenal. He's positive and he puts out great things. So my role I think is in the whole group is to really unify the in-person stuff and help coaches be better coaches because I think the desire is there and because everyone's been locked up and hasn't traveled as much, I think it's really growing and that's what we're going to do. So we're doing in-person level twos and coaching coaches of the ATG method, which I can go through the eight points. Again, and this is a recipe and there's other recipes, but Ben and I and Keegan and all the ATG family, it's very heavily Poliquin. But it's, you know, how do we make it more accessible to a lot of people? And the magic of it is, is understanding that there's no high

performance athlete and broken person. Everyone's human. And there's just a spectrum of how hard you make it. So, you know, sledding is sledding. So the principle number one is, are you sledding? And, and how do you, can you make it heavier? Can you go slower? Can you go faster? You, you can, the great thing about sledding is it's great for everyone. And yeah, there we go. Like that was a phenomenal event. It was really great just to be down there and

show everyone. It was the second live event, right? It was great. It was phenomenal. Yeah. So there we go. ATG basic number one of eight, sled. Are you sledding?

So there's different ways to do it. You know, I think a backward sledding is phenomenal. I think the two things is that for older people or broken people, it's a very easy entry point. But also, the truth of the matter is it's phenomenal for big NFL players who actually often their knees are blasted and they can't do a step up. So the entry point is actually to do backwards sledding, which is pretty much a step up. backward sledding, which is pretty much a step up. So you're getting phenomenal movement in the knees and warming it and blood flow and actually connective tissue and the foot and all kinds of magical things without having to be overly technical. So that's number one. So we sled,

you know, one, two, three, four times a week. Very passive movement. My son referred to it as advanced walking, which I thought was really smart. But, you know, like a lot of other movements that you go to do in the gym, they really accumulate, and they don't always accumulate in such a great way. If you have a banged up knee and you go and do a bunch of leg extensions, leg presses, you might have kind of caused more harm than good,

but we have this mindset of like, I got to tough it out. It's legs day and I got to go do this. Meanwhile, if you pull the sled, you can hurt yourself doing anything. I should say that. But meanwhile, if you pull the sled, it might be more restorative, especially if you do it kind of calmly, if you're in a state where your knee is banged up. I mean, I've had my knee in tremendous amounts of pain and there was points where I couldn't drag the

sled backwards. My knee was so jacked up, but I could pull it forward and I can get some sort of work, you know, get some blood flow in that area. So I think it's incredible and it allows you to get in a lot of reps and allows you to get in a lot of great work without any damage. Yeah. And that's the magic of it. And it's why it's number one, because if that's all, and we talked about this, if it's even the only thing you do magic win, you know, we talk, I think what was so great as seeing you coach Oscar is you gave him a win. i think all i think training has to be about that more than has to be about bleeding the athlete he was hyped up yeah i

talked to him about deadlifting yeah maybe in the next session and then he he picked up the trap bar for a second and was like oh yeah i could do this next time and he certainly had a lot more energy but i think that's the way somewhere along the line we got screwed up and we made the workout uh just totally and completely annihilate you. You leave it all in the gym. And the gym, in my opinion, is supposed to most of the time make you feel a lot better rather than make you feel a lot worse. Absolutely. I think a great lesson that I learned from a bunch of great coaches is, you know, success leaves clues. If multiple people say it, it's great. It's minimum necessary dose. Minimum necessary dose

is key. And I think sometimes people think maximal dose and it's a nuclear bomb and they try to annihilate people, but minimum necessary dose means you can come back and fight another day. And that's, I think that's a magical thing. So sled's a magical thing with that. And you can then up it and you can go faster and you can put more weight on it.

You can really work. You don't have to start there. So that's number one. Number two, I think it's one of those things. It's the Ben Patrick special, but Charles also taught me this and, you know and I've done it for years. I had a tear in my right knee, and I have a tear in my left knee,

but split squats are magical. So are you working towards perfecting the split squat? Why are they so magical? I think the video we put out, it could very well be the greatest stretch, strengthen exercise there is for your lower body. So it helps the ankle, the knee, there it is. Like in some fantastic, that's Michelle, she has it.

And Marcel and Isaac, they have phenomenal split squats. You're hitting three different joints at a time, but per leg. So you're hitting six joints because let's not forget about that back knee. Anyone that has a wonky knee may have noticed that when they try like a lunge, sometimes the back knee is the one that actually hurts. Exactly. And if you look at the positioning of the knees over toes, your knee is way over your toe in an ATG split squat with the back leg, even more so than the front leg. Have you guys started selling those buddies by the way yet? They're coming out. I actually brought my pair here so we can mess with them. They're phenomenal.

It's one of those brilliant, brilliant things that he's really, Ben's brilliant. And that solution for people's heels, for traveling, for squatting, for step-ups, for split squats, I love it. And I think that's the thing. It's like as you work on better dorsiflexion, that ability to wedge that in, it's a phenomenal tool. It's great. They're going to see, yeah, it'll sell out and yeah. But it's a great tool. It's great. They're going to see, yeah, it'll sell out and yeah, but it's, it's a great tool. Yeah.

I love them. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about, can you talk a little bit more about like that, why you think it's such a good stretch? Because I think there's a lot of utility. Absolutely. That knee being real open like that, right?

Yeah. So, you know, what's great about it is that you're driving the front knee forward and you're getting more dorsiflexion in the ankle. So there's a lot of data about how the better you dorsiflex in any sport, the better you can dorsiflex, which is, you know, your toe, your calf's flexibility, the lower your chances of lower body injury. But are you getting a good dorsiflexion?

Oh, yes, absolutely. Even with the heel? Yes. Even with the thing doing some of the work for you? Yes. Well, it's just that you're stable on it. It really doesn't move. Okay.

So again, like it's not to say that a flat foot split squat isn't the best, but it's that you can do that in that. And Ben's idea of that was to say, actually, like he got really good and his split squat is absolutely perfect. It's fucking perfect. Yeah. Yeah. So he got there with a weightlifting shoe. So he thought about, he's like, wait a minute, not everyone has a weightlifting shoe which already has an elevation.

So why not have this wedge to have it for people who don't have it? And you can also squat on it and elevate it. And there's nothing wrong with that. So I think the thing is, I would say, you can get that magical benefit of driving the knee as far forward as you can without the ankle inhibiting that progress

as you work towards getting better dorsiflexion. Dorsiflexion takes so much time. There's so many, you know, and, you know, there's so much in the, you know, you have the barefoot sprinter who's awesome, like Graham, you know, there's so much stuff going on in the feet. There's four layers of muscle in the foot. There's so many, the Achilles tendon is really tight. Some people are really genetically tight.

There's all kinds of stuff. So as you work towards better dorsiflexion, why not get the benefit of a heel elevation, both in your squat and your split squat? And I think that's a great solution. So that's, you know, you open up the hip, the knee, the ankle, it's great. You know, your glutes work, your hamstrings are working in the bottom position.

It's really a fantastic exercise. So, and the thing is, I would say, you know, Mark and I were talking about this, is that a lot of times people see, you know, and because Ben has blown up so much, I guess in some ways my job is to articulate the nuance of it. Which is, there's the split squad and people see it and say, ah, body weight only. No, use load when appropriate. And I think we were talking about the philosophical divide of a lot of people, and you can just say agree to disagree, is we're in the school of thought of things, range of motion before strength.

And other people think the other way around, and that's totally fine. It's, you know, back to theory. If it sticks, use that one. If it doesn't stick, use a different one. Maybe put a priority on whatever's not addressed. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah, exactly. Like we're talking about for some people that are like mobile, we'll make them stronger in certain positions. Like it's great.

So we believe in loading it. And I think we were talking about this earlier, Mark, is relatively in different, more compromised positions. Spinally, for example, we're talking about, you know, rounded back good mornings or deadlifts. You were doing it with 500 pounds. And someone can say, that's astronomical. That's too heavy. But too heavy for who? You're squatting 1,000. You're rounded back to deadlift. It's like 500 is nothing. You

do that for reps for cardio. So it's all relative. So when someone says, okay, well, what's the number? Okay. Well, am I putting 450 pounds on someone's back for a split squat? No. But if they can split squat 450, if they can back squat 450 perfectly, then maybe a 200-pound split squat is actually totally fine. So there's some numbers that we're talking about, 75% of body weight we're playing with. That's something that I think people get really good results from an elasticity and a mobility and a strength point of view where it's the combo of them all. But we're not putting 500 pounds on. And I would say I probably wouldn't do less than five reps on a split squat. So it's not something that it's like, yay,

one rep max, you know, there's the joke. It's like the guy doing a one rep max rotator cuff. It's like, no, you don't need that. What I do find interesting, though, is one of the things that Poliquin did that was quite different than a lot of other coaches is he would take rotator cuff movements and he would train them heavy. And they weren't for

one rep maxes. And I think you're seeing Ben do some of that as well. And you were mentioning that he has guys that are squatting 400 or 500 pounds with chains on the bar. And they're putting their butt on the ground. He just doesn't show all that stuff all the time. Yeah. It's an interesting thing. Like I talk to him a lot.

And now, again, I think it's an interesting thing that with fame, people interpret things that he doesn't say. So I got an old Poliquin guy who's a good friend of mine. I posted him squatting. And he's like, oh, Ben Patrick squats? I'm like, yeah, he doesn't say. So I got an old Poliquin guy who's a good friend of mine who's, you know, I posted him squatting. And he's like, oh, Ben Patrick squats? I'm like, yeah, he squats a ton. And he's got other guys that, so he had his D1 high school athletes and he showed me videos of them.

He's like, I just don't put that out because the narrative now is knees over toes guy. And it's like, people message him and say like, well, do you know anything about the shoulder? Of course he knows things about the shoulder, but now they think he's just knees over toes guy. So in some ways that that's where I come in. I'm like, yeah, I can do a whole shoulder.

Like I've rehabbed so many shoulders. But, you know, the ATG system or the Ben Patrick system is known as the knees over toes. Yeah, but that's for that show. There's shoulder work in there, though. There's a ton of shoulder work. Exactly. So speaking of, we'll probably do some more rotator cuff after. So this is actually a great Charles story, which is, you know what a Cuban press is?

I believe I know what one is, yes. I probably do it incorrectly, but yes. Again, but a Cuban press, Charles, the story is Charles actually invented it, which this is the story so far as I know, is that he had a guy that was like squat big, bench big, lift big, remedial work. I'm not doing rotator cuff. I'm not doing calf work. I'm not doing any remedial work. Just give me the big lifts. Let's go. And he, he was trying to get the guy to do remedial work. And he was like, oh, there's something that the Cuban weightlifting team is doing.

You know, you're always, you're always selling. He's like, there's like, oh, the Cuban weightlifting team is doing. Yeah. It's a secret exercise. Let me teach you. So a Cuban press, so Cuban press, if you see it or whatever, it's pretty much a muscle snatch just without the legs. So a muscle snatch. So from my understanding, the rotator cuff is actually a fast twitch muscle. But most people don't even. So why are we doing four second lower and higher rep? Most people don't even have a rotator cuff. So you first have to hypertrophy the thing, build it up before you can go, there we go.

That's a dumbbell Cuban press. Pretty much, kind of. That's a Cuban rotation more, whatever. But if he's going to go all the way. It's like an upright row into a rotation. It's an upright two into a rotation. So that's a dumbbell cuban press pretty much kind of that's a cuban rotation more whatever but if he's going to go all the way right row into it's an upright two into rotation so that's kind of a cuban press into like an l yeah so so it's more flowy but that's pretty that's a pretty good rendition it also looks a little bit similar to like dumbbell cleans yeah exactly so it's so the idea is that it's fundamentally a muscle snatch which is really you're not dropping into it or catching into it. So really like the fastest movement for rotator cuff is a snatch. But most people don't have the ability. So that's the pinnacle of rotator cuff work, but we regress it. And that's the other genius I think of Charles Poliquin and ATG and Ben Patrick is like the magic of regression. So everyone can do rotator cuff work,, you get a weightlifter in that the rotator is pretty good. We can muscle snatch or do a whole bunch of other stuff. So, you know, baseball player, they go so fast forward. So you can only go so you can only go as fast as you can slow down. So the rotator cuff is the opposite, the

antagonist to internal rotation of the humerus. So if you, if you really increase your rotator cuff strength, everything internal humerus, so that's bench pressing. And any throwing motion and any punching motion actually gets better. So that's a magical, and we'll get to that. That's actually a later point in the ATG special shoot. I have a question. I have an answer, but you go first. Now, one comment you see from certain groups online when they see people doing the split squat.

I'm not going to name these groups, but people know when I say it is like, oh, these guys are going to be needing knee replacements in the next five to 10 years. What do you think about that? Like, why? Like, number one, you know, people are thinking because they're going into such deep ranges and they're using load, like their knees aren't going to be able to handle this over time. And even Seidman has mentioned that when we were podcasting with him that, you know, he thinks people need to be more careful when trying to lift with those ranges of motion. So what is the reasoning behind it? Why is it actually more beneficial over time? So I would say two things. I would say, let's be devil's advocate where I would argue pro-Siedman. And again, like, I think everyone's trying to help people.

And it's not specifically Siedman, by the way. No, no, I understand. There's a, yeah. Yeah, there's schools of thought that are like, that's dangerous, all this kind of stuff. So I would say, you know, you, I think this is something that I've heard weightlifting coaches talk about, powerlifting coaches talk about, like, you only have so many maxes in you. And I think there's wisdom in that.

So it's possible that if I were to continue with that line of thinking, you'd say you only have so many deep knee bends in you. Let's assume that that's sort of the correlation where it's like, careful, you only have so many of those in you. There was a theory a long time ago, I don't know if you guys remember this, where you only have so many breaths in you. So if you learn to breathe slower, you can extend your life. You know, it's a theory. Does it stick? It doesn't stick for me. I don't buy it. It doesn't make sense to me. I've not seen that evidence. I've seen the opposite. I'm actually of the other school, which is if you don't use it, you lose it. And that's what I would say. That would be

my answer. That would be the theoretical heuristic that I would say that would be like, okay, I'm persuaded by that more than the, you've only got so many in you. The only way to fight it is to do it more. Yeah. Or strengthen it. Now again, like. Responsibly though. Yeah.

Again, I would say, and I think that's, it's all about the dose. I think that's the question. And I think I like, I like Nassim Taleb who's, who talks about these things of anti-fragility. You know, humans are adaptable. Like if we believe that, and I i think it is there's too much evidence you know on for that for me to not think that the question is what the stimulus is so you know the whole idea of stress you know stress is is neutral there's you stress which is from the greek good you which comes from eudaimonia is the word for happiness it's the good demon and dis, distress is bad. So it depends on how much

stress. So that's the dose. So if suddenly, you know, a grandma comes in that hasn't, you know, Mark had a great point. It's like, when was the last time someone brought their hips below their knees and she hasn't done it in 60 years. And suddenly you're going to be like, all right, full split squat, let's go with like dumbbells or a lot. It's like, no, snap. Okay. So then someone says, well, split squats are dangerous. It's like, no, the dose was too high. So you had the wonderful idea Ben was showing me with the band, the reverse band. It's sort of an, you know, it's assisted split squats. So do I think I would start that with grandma who hasn't done it? Absolutely. Would I say, okay, 75% body weight on your back. Let's go. No. Like, so I think fundamentally understanding the regression, but that's the coach's eye. So I think the magic

is saying like, well, what can I try with the person? Yeah. How, how much one legged stuff have you done in the last 10 years? Exactly. And now you go on one leg and you just put double the weight that they're used to on one side. And then it might not be a good idea. And to be fair, sometimes people who are very obese, to put them on one leg is actually way too much. So actually you get them to actually just squat on a slant board, maybe holding onto something. That might be a better move before you start the split squat.

But that doesn't mean it's not still principle number two, which is not have the perfect split squat. Mine isn't. It's a work in progress. The point is work towards a perfect split squat. So the idea is that you could be able to do that going on in your life. I mean, Ben's, Ben's mom is a phenomenal example

of it. She had terrible knees and her split squat's perfection. And she can squat all the way down and play with the grandkid with Onyx, who's an adorable little baby. Like he's great. He was, you know.

He pooped on his desk. That makes sense. That makes sense. He took a shit on his desk. Yeah, that makes sense. He marked, he marked his, he marked his territory Yeah, that makes sense. He marked his territory. He marked his territory. He marked his territory.

Yeah, his territory. Yeah, I love that kid. That kid's adorable. That kid is going to be the best salesperson ever. Those eyes and looking at you and just like with that blonde hair, it's easy.

He'll just get whatever he wants. He's got it down already. Yeah, he's got it down. But that's what I would say on that. I mean, and again, I've just seen too much evidence contra to that. And, and, and fundamentally from like, again, grandmas to high performance athletes that it's only improved them again.

But I think it's, how do you coach it? I think the difficulty with lifting and we can get on into all the details is how you teach it. And I think fundamentally the difference between, you know, you're into running now and sprinting and all this kind of stuff, running is easy for people because all you have to do is buy a pair of shoes and walk out the door and do it. The problem is, is that a significant quantity of people are in too out of shape and their knees are bashed up and all kinds of stuff. So often they hurt themselves. They have no business running, but it's easy. No one's going to tell you, oh, you're doing it wrong.

So if someone came into your office or whatever and said, oh, I ran 5k today, you'd say high five, good job. But if you saw a video, it might be like, you have no business doing that. Your psoas isn't properly firing. Your glutes are terrible. Your knees are valgate, you know, and your ankles. Oh my God. Like, no, no, no. You need a six month training regimen before you even, but no one will say that. Whereas people walk into the gym and it's like, what the, what the heck are you doing? Look at that gym fail or whatever. But the point is, is that the technical ability is so high with, I mean, we're still debating things. Like maybe I'm totally wrong. Maybe Charles was wrong in everything. Maybe we're all wrong in everything, but in the other school of thought is totally right. But, but the point is that the technical aspects of lifting is so debated and hard that most people

are like, well, I'm not even going to wade into that. And I think in some ways, because we're squabbling so much, it's kind of like, well, I'm not even someone who's like, well, I hate my body and it's too complicated. I'm not even going to do that. I'm going to go for a Peloton or a bike ride or whatever. And it's unfortunate because I actually think training is the magic is so magical. Men, women, kids, old, it's so magical. But again, like, do I think there's better recipes and worse recipes? Yes. But maybe, maybe I'm wrong. All these movements are made up too. So by whose standards are you trying to reach? And I guess you could say like, there are things that we learned where we have a good, with a high level belief, we could say, we believe this to be a little bit

safer. But I think all of us have gotten hurt before going to try to do an exercise and we believe that we try to do all this stuff I mean how do we know certain things are true? How do we really truly know that you have to brace for a squat? I mean maybe someone could argue like I've seen Stan Efferding breathe on the way down in a squat it doesn't mean that let's try to squat like that either but I've seen a lot of different, it doesn't mean that let's try to squat like that either. But I've seen a lot of different things. Like what if breathing during your squat helps you relax more? What kind of squats are you doing?

How many reps? How do we know that squatting with an Olympic lifting shoe is wise or to use a slant board is a good idea? When we could just squat down as low as possible and have our heels, maybe your heels do come off the ground. But maybe there's benefit to that. Maybe that's too dangerous. Maybe that puts a governor on the exercise so you don't lift too, you know, quote unquote, too heavy. And maybe that's not a bad idea. Just like going out and sprinting barefoot. It presents sometimes having like a limiter on an exercise due to the way that you chose to do it sometimes is a really beautiful or wonderful thing. Putting chains on the bar, bands on the bar.

You use less bar weight. Bodybuilders, I think people can bodybuild forever pretty much because of the amount of reps that you do and a drop set. There's nothing safer in the world than going to the gym, using a bunch of cables, using a bunch of machines, and doing a bunch of drop sets. I think you can do that the rest of your life. I agree. I think you can do that the rest of your life. Yeah, I agree.

I think fundamentally the understanding is that all of the toys we have, and if you're a meathead, you like toys. Like I remember talking to Charles once. He's like, look at this new thing I got. I'm like, Charles, listen, you know, you, you know. In his basement. Oh my God.

Like, you know, and one of my pride and joys is I actually have the dumbbell set that was in his house. So that, you know, part of Charles is in my facility and, you know, so, but I think one of those things is that, you know, as,

as meat heads, you raise your hand, you say, hi, my name is Charles Poliquin. My name is Mark Bell. My name is Nseman Yag. My name is Ben Clarfield.

And it's been two months since my last purchase of a meat, like we get excited with the toys, but at the end of the day, they're just toys, right? And they're a tool. So I think being wedded to, so some,

so one of my, uh, NHLers, you know, he asked me, he's like, what do you think squatting, not squatting? And I said, look, it's just a tool. The barbell is just a tool. Like my barbell is more expensive than a different barbell, whatever. Like, but it's just a tool. And I think fundamentally, if you think about human movement, you understand the arbitrary nature of all these tools. And, and thinking that one tool is better than another tool. Yeah, I mean, some tools are better than other tools for different jobs, but the question is, what's the job? What are you trying to do? So is it wrong to squat all the way down onto your toes? No, it's a pretty fundamental human movement and you should be able to do that too. Why not? But maybe that's not, let's put on max load first. And I think that's the thing. I think there's a ton of room for exploration. And I think that's-

Like a Turkish getup. Yeah. Like I think that's... Yeah, look at like a Turkish getup. Yeah. Like what is that? What the hell kind of made up exercise is that? But it can be a great exercise. But someone's like, hey, getting up off the ground sometimes isn't easy. Let's make it more challenging. And if you do it a specific way, you're loading, you know, your body different ways.

It could be challenging on your shoulders and so forth, right? Yeah. I mean, I think that's the thing is it's an interesting thing when, you know, again, I, you know, I, I think there's something about thinking about lifting and I guess like back to our sort of the system, the ATG system, call it what you will, is what is it for? And I think fundamentally realizing that it's not a sport the way I see lifting and it's not about simply chasing the numbers on the bar where I feel like you have to improve by 2% to 5% every week, or

else you're a bad person or whatever. Now, the thing is that when your sport's powerlifting, that's the sport. So you took a hit on your body in some ways because you're trying to achieve something monumental and you did it. That's amazing. But you know, there's a toll. So when that, but that's your sport. But if your sport is something different, like for example, Ben Patrick, he's so brilliant at how he lifts because he always remembers that it's for basketball and he might not play basketball for four months, but in his head, it allows him to be much more humble in the gym and, and be capable of not having an ego in the sense where it's like, yeah, I have to hit this number or I'm going to do it because everyone's watching or

whatever. And that's, we all have done that. And that's where we get hurt. But I think there's something brilliant about thinking about lifting for something else. And that doesn't mean that lifting, that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy the process. I think that's, you're brilliant about this. I've observed you and you, you were a process guy. It's not simple, but maybe it's because you've achieved such excellence in lifting that you don't think about that anymore in the same way. Um, but you know,

in SEMA, I sympathize with them because, you know, in SEMA still in his athletic career of jujitsu where there's goals of achieving. So in some ways it's, it's, but at the same time, maybe it's also better for you because in some ways the gym allows you to lift for jujitsu. It allowed me to be humble when I started jujitsu because instead of being like, well, I squatted this last week, I have to squat more or I'm, or I'm a loser. Oh yeah. It's like, no, actually like I just rolled with like in SEMA. Yeah. There's no way in hell I'm hitting anything anywhere near a max the next day. Calm down, do something to make your body feel good. So I think that's the thing. It's like thinking about what lifting is for. And for some people,

it's just living better life. You know, like, like Ben's mom, it's like to pick up her grandkid. That's better. She can carry her groceries. And I think there's so much where if we can help people do that, and that's, I would say the ATG system is fundamentally for pain-free movement, that on top of that, we can layer

performance. So it's pain-free movement with range of motion, with certain movements that we think are more beneficial to spend time on. Bang for buck, let's put it that way. So sleds one, split squats two, three is squat. I think squatting is a fundamental human movement. I think it's phenomenal for, we think it's phenomenal for your knees.

And we think all the way down, full range of motion. If you elevate your heels, that's totally fine. You can work towards better dorsiflexion. But not just do it body weight, but slowly get better and slowly add load so long as it's pain-free and the performance aspect of that is phenomenal. Oh, there we go. Power Project family, how's it going? I hope you guys are enjoying the episode. And I want to tell you sometimes when you're a lifter, you need certain pieces of equipment that's going to help you perform a little better in the gym. Just like the hip circle is going to help warm up your hips. Knee sleeves are going to keep your knees warm

when you're squatting. The slingshot is going to help you bench a little bit more. But the cool thing is that Mark made all of this equipment when he was in the middle of his powerlifting career because he wanted equipment that could help him perform better as it can also help you perform better. The cool thing is that all this equipment was made for lifters by lifters. Andrew, can you tell them 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. What do you have on your feet right there, by the way?

Those are, I have really cool lifting shoes. I have a shoe problem. I know you guys have shoe problems too. Those are Adidas and it's like, I can't remember what it's called, but they're really cool. Adidas that there's no shoelace. Yeah. It's a click. It's like a bike clicky thing. Oh, they're so cool. Yeah, they're really cool. Adidas, that there's no shoelace. It's a click. It's like a bike clicky thing.

They're so cool. Yeah, they're pretty cool. I have five pairs. It's silly. I have lifting shoes. The third is just any type of squat. Yeah, all the way down. Squat low.

All the way down. Yeah. And again, I want to highlight something you mentioned when we were talking about people saying that going that deep in split squats is going to cause knee replacements. Dosage. I like the fact that there is not a focus on how much. There are goals. There are principles. Like, okay, split squat, aim for over a long period of time, 75% of body weight. But it's not like when you see people lift for powerlifting, you're right.

The goal is to see that weight on the bar go up over time. But that doesn't necessarily lead to you moving better as a human being or living a more pain-free life, right? Like when we go into the gym, when we leave, we want to feel better than we came in. When we're going through daily life, we don't want to have lower back pain. We don't want to have knee pain because we're focused on in the gym doing things that are going to help us move better, live better, and still build more muscle. But the load, as important as that is, is not and should not be the focus. It should be the quality of movement with the load that you're using. And if the movement isn't quality with the load you're using, lower that shit. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. mean, I think the thing is to think about, you know, back to the philosophy.

Modernity is about instant gratification. Social media is about instant gratification. You guys, it's you guys. I have to be grateful to you guys and to Ben and to Keegan for showing me that the social media, I mean, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that. Because fundamentally, I'm grateful for that. And I've learned that there is positivity in that world, even though there's so much crazy stuff and negativity and like weird stuff and whatever. But fundamentally, I mean, again, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you guys' brilliance about

putting out such positivity. But what we, you know, what I sell, what we sell, what Ben Patrick sells actually is anti-modern. And what do I mean by that? It's not about instant gratification. And I think that's the problem of all of what we do. If we believe that lifting weights and eating better and taking care of your body and doing all the recovery stuff and saunas and all this kind of stuff, all these habits, sometimes when you're doing them, they don't feel like eating a pizza and like drinking a beer or whatever. Like that's instant gratification, clicking the like Amazon one, one click buy that's instant gratification. Clicking the like Amazon one, one click buy, that's instant gratification. And in some ways what we sell is, oh, this isn't going to take a long while. You're not going to be very good at it. And it's going to be kind of like

uncomfortable as you do that. Like that's anti-modern. And I think fundamentally, if you can sell that, you're a genius. And I think Ben's a genius of it. You're a genius of it. Both of you, like, you're really good at that. I'm pretty good at persuading people in person with that. How do you make that argument to do the things that everyone knows is good for them, but it kind of sucks. Yeah. And they don't like it. So how do you make it feel like it's got a better purpose? And I think what we do with the ATG stuff is we're not saying if you don't do this, you're a loser.

It's more like I think you'll do really well if you spend a significant quantity of time slowly progressing to make sure that the technique is really good and slowly adding load. But that's, it's not sexy. But again, like, how do you make the thing that's not sexy, but it's really good for people again, that we, that we think. So I think that's the answer. The answer is yeah. I mean, listen, like Ben has goals of upping his squat, but not to the detriment of the quality of his movement. So he knows if he keeps squatting every week, the detriment of the quality of his movement. So he knows if he keeps squatting every week, the bar, the weight will go up. It has, that's how it works. Again,

not simply, you know, it's not linear, but if you change stimulus and you play with it and change one week and, you know, pauses the other, whatever the various ways. So the things that we've tried not to make it is there's many different ways of periodizing these models. And I have ways and Charles liked undulating periodization. There's, you know, there's all kinds of West side, there's all kinds of different West methods. And it's not like, no, no, no. What Charles said was perfect undulating. No, there's different ways. He had different ways of doing it. Sometimes he, he did linear. Sometimes he did other stuff. Sometimes he did descending. There's all kinds of different ways. And people can really geek out on like what percentages to go in. And I think they're great.

I'm not, I think that's a phenomenal way to add to the recipe. But I think the genius of Ben Charles and the way I interpret it is actually I think the movement is first. And so make sure that the technique and the form comes first. And it's, the trick is how do you sell it such that the client or athlete doesn't get bored. So there's, you can vary the rep, you can vary the sets, you can vary the tempo, you can vary the implement. So you can do split squats with a barbell on your

back, or you can do split squats with a barbell on your front, or you can do dumbbells or low pulley or pauses or one and a quarter. And these are all methods that have different purposes, but at the same time, it's how do you get someone to continue to do split squats or can you do squats? And you can box squat sometimes and you can do different squats.

Like you can do partials. Like the world won't end if you do that. But I think you should continue to squat and make it better. Like, so that's the third principle. But I think that's, that's the, it's a hard thing to sell that to say it's going to take a long time. Like I can tell the story, like Ben had a great story when I was talking about his split squat. People are like, well, I'm special. They messaged in and, you know, he says, I wasn't trying to be mean, but the person had done 60 split squats on our program. And I said, his response, this is what he said. My response was like, have you done 10,000 split squats yet? I was like, what? No, I've got a special condition. And he's like, well, you don't, or that might very well be, but you're asking us for the recipe. That's the solution to your problem. This is what we think. Have you done the 10,000 yet? You know, and we can play the

10,000 hour idea. But the point is like, have you done enough reps for it to get good? Well, keep doing it and it'll get better. But like 10,000 straight split squats is pretty boring. So you got to change it. You do dumbbells once and you do barbell. The point is how do you keep doing the thing to get good at the thing, you know, so that you can enjoy the process? And I think there's part of that because you will feel better, but there's no miracle cure. So that's that one. So three. Four, number four is, are they getting stronger hamstrings at least twice a week?

And that's knee flexion. There we go. The magical Ben Patrick. That's an anatomy lesson right there. So knee flexion and hip extension. And there's different ways of doing that. So I'm a big fan of leg curls. Charles was a big fan of leg curls.

Ben is too. Like lying leg curls? Lying leg curls, kneeling leg curls. Charles had eight different leg curl machines in his facility. I only have two. Well, and the Nordic, so three. But that's for knee flexion.

But hip extension, there's all kinds of different. There are RDLs, seated good mornings. Ben's seated good morning is perfect. Like it's, you know, it's great all the way. But hip extension, there's all kinds of – RDLs, seated good mornings. Bend seated good morning is perfect. Like it's great all the way. By the way, what would you say is the best Nordic implement? Because like there's a lot out there. I personally like the Atlantis one the best. Atlantis?

Yeah, that's what I have and I've done the Rogue one and the other ones. Like Atlantis is really – I have to say and it's great. I think it's – I like it because it's shorter. And I like your solution with the belt, but I think that's MacGyver. I prefer a bench. Yeah. The Rogue ones, I think a bit, the Rogue one's really nice too. It's just too, I don't like it as long.

And it's just, they're a little bigger. So like moving them around the gym is a little harder, but again, they're good. Yeah. I think they're great. And I think more people are going to come out with Nordic ben, they're good. Yeah. I think they're great. And I think more people are going to come out with Nordic benches and are great. Like, yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, again, like hip extension is great also for back health. Like it's not just, you know, for the hamstrings, but yeah. Number five, this is the one that we were talking about. Have they

hit the external rotator criteria, which is dumbbell elbow on knee for 10% of body weight minimum. Okay. So we have the eight principles, but we also have the freak list, which is dumbbell elbow on knee for 10% of body weight minimum. Okay. So we have the eight principles, but we also have the freak list, which is what our level two coaches do. So I coach them up and show them that there's the basics, which everyone can do forever. But then there's freak lists, which the goal was to get Ben and I were talking about getting you to do the freak list type stuff. But anyway, but the point is that it doesn't guarantee you to be a freak, but it allows your abilities to expand in ways that are structurally balanced such that there's not really weak links. So that's the idea of the whole thing.

So yeah, I mean, knee health, knee flexion is key for knee health and it's key for athletic performance. So the cool thing is, is that I don't think there's a difference between health and athletic performance. It's just a spectrum. So people fundamentally forget when they're training properly. I think rehab should feel like training. I don't think it should feel like a boring kind of thing. So as, as people progress and get stronger,

they forget that they were in pain, which is such a wonderful thing to see. And then suddenly their goals become, ooh, I want to do more Nordics or more of the, and like, you remember you were in pain? It was like, oh yeah, well, I'm not in pain anymore. And that's, it's a spectrum.

It's not, it's, there's's no this is rehab, this is training. I think the magic of that is. I like what you're saying there because while we can recognize there's a difference between like the high-level athlete who has these specific goals, that's training a very specific way. They're dripping in sweat after every workout. And we also want to make exercise more accessible to people. So we don't always want to sell that that's the only way to train however if you get somebody in the gym and they're 50 years old and say hey i'd love to start you out with this you know 12 inch 12 inch box jump and they say

well i'm i would love to do that but i haven't jumped in a really long time and if you said why they would say well because you know my knees you know that this and that hurts right and so you i mean obviously you wouldn't want to like tempt somebody with something like that but i'm just saying like people don't really understand what an inhibition pain is and how pain you're it's it's not because you don't have discipline you're on the couch because you have bad experiences previously or you have some sort of pain that is preventing you from just getting going sometimes.

Last time I did that, my ankle really hurt. You mentioned the 10,000 reps with an ATG split squat. How does somebody get to do the very thing that is annoying to them, distracting to them? you know that you're doing something new or different or challenging when you start really thinking about a lot of other stuff. So you might go to show me something and I'm like, all I feel is like a pull in my hip really bad. Like what? And you're trying to show me something for my knee. Like I can't even concentrate on the movement. So I find all

this to be really interesting and fascinating. It's like, how do we get the average person to understand you're in way more pain than you even can imagine. And you could even think because you don't even know what the opposite of the way that you currently feel is. You don't even understand that in three weeks, maybe even sometimes in just a handful of days, you can feel way better than the way you feel right now. And I know you got to bring your kid to soccer. I know that you go to church on Sunday. I know you have a rigorous schedule. But can you just do a little bit better?

Can you trust me to like do some of this stuff? Because when you do some of this stuff, it's going to light your world on fire. You're going to feel better once that pain starts to subside now we got momentum and you can start to move with less pain over time and hopefully get you pain-free i think that's i know so it's it's brilliant the way you articulated that i think the thing is to realize how do you get some like i mean the magic of it all is regression the The magic of all of it is regression. No, but I want to do what you did.

You know what I mean? Like that's where people's mind, like, wait, I want to, I saw on SEMA do that. Like I want to, I'll do that now.

Yeah. Uh, whether it's, we're talking, why do I got to be in kindergarten? Like, why can't I play? Why can't I play in the sand with him?

You know? So the thing is to sell the set, like to sell the boring is sexy. And that's, that's the thing I was talking to one of the coaches that I was coaching up. And he was saying he got someone saying, oh, well, how come – I don't understand. I was doing the pancake stretch that Ben does, like where his legs are spread out. He puts his chest on the floor.

He's like, well, I was doing it. And how come – yeah, I think I was doing it wrong. I did it for the first time. And how come my chest wasn't touching the floor? It's like, well, how come I wasn't tapping out black belts on my first, like, I'm a pretty big strong guy. It's like, well, cause you don't like it's, you haven't done the reps. And I think that's the thing is, is that for those of us that love this and do this and love the process, it's hard to articulate to someone. Yeah. It's a process. It's going to take a while.

So how do you sell the long-term? You can sell the long-term by the short-term wins. And I think that's the thing is that getting someone a win that they can do in the workout, instead of being like, I'm going to crush them as their coach. Well, that's useless. Cause then they're like, wow, my, my coach just crushed me. I can't walk for two weeks. It's like, well, that's great because they can't pick up their kid, their grocery, you know, and they're like, kind of like, wow, it was so hardcore, but they're going to come in the next day and they're going to give zero. They don't even, they can't even do it.

And they think that that's good. It's like, no, you know, we're joking. Like I want a shirt that says, kids, just give me 85%. I don't want 110%. It's too much. There's only so many you can do. So that, that getting a win in the one workout and then doing it two times, three times, oh man, I feel so, wow, I didn't know I could feel so good.

85% is too much. If you're trying to get stronger, 85 is too much if you're trying to get stronger like it depends on what you're trying to get better for i'd say like maybe 70 75 right right right and you know people are gonna take it too far and you hop in on some of this buddy well real quick i for the uh gulliver what gulliver travels what was the island called la puta okay so puta is it's a, whore, or whatever in Spanish. He has a whole in that. He has an etymology of the word,

and that he's sort of pretending to try and understand what the word is. It's pretty funny. That is interesting. But yeah, piggybacking off of what Mark was saying, because I've tried to help people with various things. More caffeine. There you go. Let's go.

Damn, a whole monster. I need to make sure I don't have a booger in my nose. You'll be fine. But in trying to help people, whether it be diet or like knee pain or back pain, whatever it is, it is damn near impossible to be like, hey, you're going to start here, but we're going to have to take a few steps backwards. But on top of that, how do you convince somebody like, okay, like whatever the movement is, you guys know way more than me, you convince somebody like, okay, like whatever the movement is,

you guys know way more than me, but it's like, yeah, it is going to kind of hurt, you know, whether it be like even just putting ice on something, if that's the recommendation, it's like,

oh, that's really uncomfortable. I don't like that. I want to go back to be just laying down, right? Whatever it may be. Yeah. How do you just tell somebody like,

hey dude, like it's going to kind of suck for a little bit. That's a good question. So the question is when someone's like, oh my God, I think I just tore my knee. And you say like, well,

did you actually just tear your knee? Or is it like, it's kind of uncomfortable? There's two types of pain. Is it, oh my God, I just snapped my arm. Or is it like,

yeah, this is super uncomfortable. I'm not used to this movement. And the body's like, whatever. So I i also say is like our bodies are laziness machines they like the way they are yes and so to change your you're gonna you're gonna bring some stimulus and your body is gonna look at you and be like f you man i don't want to change so when i say that it's again everything's an argument you're selling this is a selling is this true is this not true it doesn't matter if the person's like oh fair enough my This is a selling. Is this true? Is this not true? It doesn't matter. If the person's like, oh, fair enough.

My body is a laziness machine. Like, it's just words. But like, if it persuades the person to be like, oh, okay, I'll deal with a little bit of discomfort because my body really doesn't want to change, but we're going to win together against this body of mine. Hey, cool. Then they do another rep or two and they're like, ah.

But it's different if they're like, I think I'm going to snap my elbow off. Okay, well, all right. But a lot of people that are noobs, quote unquote, can't differentiate those two. They think their arm is literally going to snap off. And it's like, no, you just have like not done that in forever. And so it feels super weird and awkward. And your body's like, I don't like awkward.

Awkward makes me look stupid. Listen, I think I always, the other thing is flattery is a useful tool. I tell people when they walk in, you think I always, the other thing is flattery is a useful tool. I tell people when they walk in, you know, it's an amazing thing. Those of us on the side of loving movement and that it's so obvious and natural, like Mark can walk into any gym on the planet and he will not be intimidated by anyone

because he's squatted over a thousand pounds. The amount of people that have done that are so minuscule. And he's also a confident guy. Like he doesn't walk in and and think like oh god they're all so intimidated it's not that's not they're looking at me yeah like but so many people like and it's hard for us i think for us to for those of us on the side of loving movement i feel great with the gym i'll walk in and be like oh those barbells are garbage compared to the ones i have

like it's all it's all so silly because we forget that there's so many people that are so terrified of their body and so terrified of walking into the gym that it's our job to make them feel comfortable. So you can say, listen, actually, when someone comes to me and I say, they're going to spend thousands of dollars on my services, such as life. That's the nature of the beast. But I say, listen, beyond that fact, it actually takes a lot of courage to come in and work on your weak links. And that's the first thing I say to them. It comes to have someone tell you, you're fat, you're weak, you're tight, you're out of condition. And I'm not saying that to be mean to them. I'm just saying, well, clearly, if that wasn't the case, they wouldn't be coming to me.

So these are the metrics. You're weak on this, and it doesn't make you a bad person. You have excess body fat. I'm not saying that they're a bad person morally. I'm just saying this is true because or else they wouldn't come to me to try and alleviate these things and fix them. So I always say to them, I'm like, listen, it takes supreme courage to come in and say, you know what? I'm going to work on myself and I'm going to ask for help. That is a courageous thing.

It's a very smart rhetorical ploy because I'm complimenting them on their courage. Even though I'm saying you're fat or you're overweight or whatever it might be, the weak link that I'm there to help. So it's going to be some uncomfortable stuff because, you know, you're working on things that your body doesn't want to do. So that would be, everything's in, you have to persuade. Persuasion is, being a coach is all about selling or persuasion. It's not lying. It's, you're trying to make a case that they're like, yeah, fair enough. I'll do that.

And it's the same thing with nutrition. You want to say, okay, you're going to go full carnivore. You're not even going to touch fruit to someone who's like, oh my God, like how about we get them to like even have a protein shake for breakfast? Maybe, right? Whatever. Like, or maybe have like a vegetable or some fruit or something semi-decent or not eat junk. Like, you know, it's the other thing I learned from Charles. It was a great, great way of putting it. He's like, everything is built on the speed of trust. And you can make asks of people of what to's like, everything is built on the speed of trust. And you can make asks of people of what to do when you've built trust.

And that takes time. And that's, again, that's an anti-modern thing. Patience and time and building a relationship. Yeah. Cause it's, I mean, it's freaking disheartening, you know, when it's just like, oh, like, like I said, you know, try this, whatever thing. And it's like, ah, that hurts. Or like, ah, that's uncomfortable. And you're just like, dude, but like, like, trust me, And it's like, ah, that hurts. Or like, ah, that's uncomfortable. You're just like, dude, but like, like, trust me, like it's going to get better and then you're

going to get out of whatever that pain is. So, but yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. And so the other thing I was wondering too, is like, you know, we have, you know, a shit ton of powerlifters listening. We have a shit ton of, you know, bodybuilders. Hopefully we do. But like, it's not necessarily like the biggest thing on their radar, which is like, how do I get more bendy? You know, it's like, no, how do I get stronger? How do I look more jacked? How do you make like the ATG program attractive to people that are in those pursuits? Great question.

That's a great question. We were talking about this earlier. And this is, you know, this is an agree to disagree with someone else on the podcast. But it's not, you know, this is an agree to disagree with someone else on the podcast. But it's not, you know, whatever. The thing is, I remember watching Dmitry Klokov. I did a few seminars with him, one with Charles, one when he was first doing it and his English was terrible. And that is a freak of a human being, an absolute monster who's genetically gifted and other things and also has trained in weightlifting since an early, early age. And Ben had seen him too, which is interesting.

And he's, you know, there's videos of him front squatting 250 kilos with the paws. Monster of monsters. I've seen him. I saw him snatch 175 kilos with the five-second pause at the knee. Just freakish, freakish, freakish things. You know, snatch 200 kilos, clean and jerked a truck. And I saw him do the splits, cold. I'm like, huh?

Yeah, flexibility is inhibiting his strength? I don't think so. Jacked as fuck. Jacked as all fuck. And handsome, I might add. Yeah, he's a good looking dude. Extremely. Yeah, a good looking dude. And he's, you know, and shredded to the, you

know, you know, so, so splits, so splits. Perfect splits. He's phenomenal. Like he's absolutely you know, and shredded to the, you know, so splits. Perfect split square. He's phenomenal. Like, he's absolutely strong as all hell. And I was asking Mark, I'm like, do you think he could. Just a casual. Yeah. 61 deadlift.

I don't know. Oh, this is, I mean, like, do you think he can, you know. There we go. Perfection. What? Yeah. No. Like, unbelievable.

That wasn't real. Yeah. Fake plate. And he's, you know what? He's also a great coach. He's Like, unbelievable. That wasn't real. Yeah. Fake plate. You know what? He's also a great coach. He's a great coach. Very hands-on, very friendly, really wants you to learn. Yeah, I got an opportunity to see him lift, and it was just disgusting.

It was like him and his buddy going back and forth, and one of my friends who's really into Olympic lifting, he's like, that's the most weight that's been cleaned that's the most weight that's been snatched and that's the biggest total that has been done in the united states in probably the last 30 or 40 years and he's like and he just did it because he's about to talk about cleans and snatches and it's like the beginning of a seminar he did in the course of maybe 15 minutes or something. I mean, it was just, I don't know, it was just gross. I was like, this guy is a machine.

So I remember watching him and be like, he did a pancake and he did the splits and he's super mobile. And I'm like, huh, interesting. Action figure. Yeah. But here's the thing. It takes a ton of work. So it takes a ton of work. It takes a ton of work.

So it takes a ton of work. So the other one, which I thought is that stretching, you know, quote unquote, call it open up the fascia so you can actually, quote unquote, put more muscle in the areas that have been opened up. So one could say for bodybuilders, okay, hypertrophy. You can get hypertrophy by becoming more bendy

and putting, giving more room for, yeah, like he did that cold and he's just playing. He's just like extremely flexible. You know, keep in mind when people are seeing, you know, Dimitri Klokoff do things, these are things he's been doing since he was a young kid. Yeah, he's trained since he was a kid. And I had an opportunity to interview him for Power Magazine years ago.

And he would say like he would go in the gym, he would work out. His coach, which I think was his dad would be like nope that's not good he'd get worked on he would stretch he would re-warm up his dad would be like nope he would leave and he'd come back later on that night and if it just wasn't good then that was it that was it for the day i think his dad was also an olympic champion too yeah and eventually he was actually better than him yeah right and then they kept they kept working on stuff but the point is like most people don't have access to have that much time to do some of these things. So you're not going to most likely move the way this guy is moving.

But you can always move better than what you can currently do. The other thing that I think ATG is phenomenal, Ben Patrick and Keegan, and, like, they're really big fans of being able to stretching. They stretch. It's honestly. Well, Ben doesn't like just stretch, right? Loaded stretching.

Yeah. Loaded stretching. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, Ido Portal does it like it's, I learned it first from Ido Portal.

That was my, you know, I did a lot of stuff with Ido. I think Ido is brilliant. I call him a friend and a mentor. I think he's, he's a genius. Can you talk more about loaded stretching?

What is that? In your mind, what does it look like? What are we talking about here? So, you know, a seated good morning is a loaded stretch. A split squat is a loaded stretch. But in the case of like a seated good morning, let's say that you're trying to really stretch. Let's say you guys are working with me and you're like, Mark, are you trying to cue me to like flex my hip flexors

and flex the opposite muscles or am I literally just doing a seated good morning and that's my stretch? I don't love, personally, I don't love cuing people

with various anatomy. That's my, I've experienced, I like cuing movements. Like, so I care more about look this way, chest up, shoulders back, as opposed to squeeze that or feel that, like

sometimes I'll say squeeze, but rarely I want the movement to just look better. So if I can cue you to make the movement look better, that's sort of where I would say, and if your seated good morning gets better, you're going to feel this, like some people really feel their muscles in the places that they're meant to or not meant to. And some people are terrible at understanding their own bodies.

And they're like, I don't feel it in this way. I don't care. I feel it in my tricep. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't care. Yes, I do. Yeah. I don't, I don't care.

Like if the movement's better, like people are like, I don't feel my biceps when I bend my elbow. I'm like, I don't care if you do, but guess what? That bicep's working. So I think like. And over time they will feel it more. Yeah. Yeah.

Impossible. And some people just don't. Like some people are like, I feel my low back when I do bicep curls. I'm like, okay, like it is what it is. Like, cool. I don't care, but your biceps working because you're bending the elbow with the load. Like it is what it is. So a lot of people, so I don't, so I think feel like some people are like, I feel this.

I feel great. If the movement gets better than guess what? You are stretching that or you are lifting that, loading that, whatever. Yeah, that's what I would say. And so I would say the stretching part is that. Like, I think there's a lot to be gained from stretching. And loaded stretching, you know, it could be the weight of your leg is loaded. But it depends on the person.

Like, so, you know, I think the couch stretch is phenomenal. I think that's a phenomenal stretch. I think the pigeon variation that Ben does on a bench is brilliant. I think it's very smart. You know, I love, you did this. I think it's absolutely brilliant. The low pulley seated good morning. It's brilliant.

It's a brilliant, brilliant stretch, but it's also good morning. It's a strengthen. So I think that blend of what is stretching, what is strengthening, I think that that's very smart. That's something that I really, really like. Yeah.

Like when Ben was here, I was doing my ground work from go to, you know, and he, I was working on my toes and he looked at it and he was just like, dude, that's great. He's like, that's actually phenomenal. He's like, but that's why I like pushing on the sled because you put yourself in the same position. He's like, but you're also like, you know, doing something other than just like, I guess the static stretch of it all. Exactly. But like, there's, I don't know, I like there's no right answer right like you can use whichever approach how i think the other thing like mark we were talking earlier when i was like what would you do with me a grain was asking and i said well well how much time do i have and what are your goals right so like how much time do you have and what are your goals

right so that would always be how much time do you have like are you gonna spend five minutes stretching 20 minutes an hour like dimit Chukov was spending an hour to two hours stretching a day. And he's also lifting for two to five hours of, you know, like his workouts, but then he's getting massages and he's having sauna and his, like when you're an Olympic weightlifter and you have a team, you're on

the national team, you don't get anything else to do. I mean, it depends on the funding of the, of, you know, in the United States and in Canada, the funding isn't so great. So they have to work and do other things. But the, of, you know, in the United States and in Canada, the funding isn't so great. So they have to work and do other things. But if you're, you know, the Russian, at least the Russian, it's, you're on the

national team. So how much time do you have exactly? Like, so that's what I would say. I mean, what are we at? We're number six. Have they hit the chin-up standard? Like 12 chin-ups, you can do 12 chin-ups, 12 perfect chin-ups.

I think it's a good thing for humans to be able to do. Men and women, I think it's great. Now, can you do it right now? Maybe you can, maybe you can do 12 chin-ups 12 perfect chin-ups I think it's a good thing for humans to be able to do men and women I think it's great now can you do it right now maybe you can maybe you can't but I think it's a good thing

to be able to do move your body that's you know upper body ability it's performance but it's also chin-up is palm facing

or you don't care how someone does it don't care okay like for the test it's a basic test it's not the most performance-y thing

on the planet like we when there's performance we start talking about how much body weight 50 50% of body weight for three reps. And there's, you know, there's what's the next level. It's not, oh, great, ATG, good. I've got 12. I'm done.

It's a beginning, I'd say. A lot of the things that we talk about these principles is that they're beginnings. And then the freak list is something that's going to come out and that kind of stuff. That's something I'm working on with Ben. And there's, you know. That sounds fun. Yeah. But the cool thing is,

is it's, it's, it's sort of a continuation of Charles's structural balance thing. You're never, there's no, they're there, but it's cool to have goals where you can be like, Oh,

this is a weak link. Cool. Now I'm going to address a weak link. I think there should be something on that list. Like you got to be able to eat 10% of your body weight in one sitting. You know what I mean? That's easy though. That's easy.

We got to put something like that on there. That's easy. I love that. That's easy. In ribeye only. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. We got to put something like that on there. That's easy. I love that. That's easy. In ribeye only. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. In ribeye only.

You got to put some sort of weird funny thing in there. With grass fed butter. Number seven was kind of answering Andrew is like is their mobility improving? So we like that.

Like that's, is their mobility improving? Mobility has to be improving with improving those movements. Exactly. Baseline. Yeah. Exactly.

But some people need, like I need more stretching. Ben needs less stretching but he's done so much of it that he can kind of just sort of, oh, can I do the split after I dunk? Sure. Yep. It's there. Whereas for me, I'm like working on it. Gotcha.

And number eight, this is the, this is the back to the adaptability of the human, which is, are you addressing the individual needs of the person or the athlete? So this can, you know, progress. Is it grandma who just sprained her ankle? Well, guess what? More tib work, more ankle work, more calf work. Is it a football player, an NFLer that needs more hypertrophy and more pressing? Notice there wasn't too much pressing on it, but that's where eight comes in. Okay. Guess what? Is it, is it, do they need, you know, is it a jujitsu athlete, which needs way more grip work and tons of neck work?

Absolutely. That's there. And we have numbers and markers for all those things. But the point is, a basketball player, I made all of the, most of Ben's guys are basketball players. And they're all 6'4", 6'5". And they're all, their necks are like this. So it's not that, because they're like, yes, coach, or looking down to people. So the point is actually, they need neck work. They hit their head.

Yeah. They need neck work, not because someone's trying to crack their skull. Network is phenomenally important because it reduces concussion chances. And forward head lean actually raises your chances of concussions. So we do a lot of extension with people. That doesn't mean you don't need to do flexion and side to side and all this kind of other stuff. But fundamentally, most people need extension. Also, modernity, we're all staring at our phones like at desks.

So most people need some form of extension. But again, if you're a jujitsu athlete or an NFL or an NHL or you're a fighter of any form, guess what? More neck work because concussions is a real thing. And so you need to add more of that. So whereas some people, it's like a little bit of neck work for like two minutes once a week. Great. But for, for all my jujitsu athletes, they do

a ton of neck work, tons of it. You guys mess with the iron neck at all? Yeah, I've, I've, I've had that been, it's funny, like I like bands. I like the sputting one, which I attached to brace, but you know, I think it's great. I think neck is neck, any neck training is great um but again the way i i structure it is we structure it as first we do extension and again very regressed against the wall for some people and then you work towards the bench with pauses and then you can do it with loaded in your hands

and then you can do different ways of doing it and then you can do flexion and then you can do side to side you know and then you can do it with speed because at the end of the day if you're a fighter if you're a hockey player if you're a football player you can you know you have to move your neck under resistance with speed um so yeah i think that's that's that's the that's the eight i would say but then the point is that you can advance them and you can progress them and you can progress with both load and with perfecting the technique so that's that's the at8. I know like with Ben, he tries to simplify stuff. He doesn't like for people to have to have a lot of tools. But some of the stuff that Ben has preached a lot less of,

I actually like to hear more of from him. You know, he talks about like the prowler that he has costs like 750 bucks. And he's like, he kind of almost, you know, in different words than this, because he's kinder, basically says tough shit, like suck it up and go figure out a way to get one. I like that mentality a lot. And I think that people should work towards finding these pieces, like some of these pieces of equipment that can maybe help with some of these things.

If your gym doesn't currently have it, look around, you know, there's other facilities in your area that you will start to stumble upon some of these things. And if the current gym that you're at, there's not coaches there, there's not other athletes there that seem to be vibing and they're into what you're doing or they don't have bands and you got to carry them around, just figure out a way to make some of this easier for yourself.

If you have to, and I understand a 45-minute drive might be making it harder on yourself, but if you have to make a 45 minute drive to somewhere, I mean, I've done a lot of that. I think we've all in this room have done things like are, you know, they're kind of viewing their body as the enemy, which is a horrible place to be. But imagine if you could turn that completely on itself, flip it on itself, and to turn some of this exercise stuff into a hobby. It begins as something that you hate. I hate doing this. I hate that I'm in this position. I hate myself for this. I hate that I'm too fat. I hate that I'm too slow. I hate that I'm not conditioned. This really sucks. But you start to find things that lend themselves to you being able to do them kind of freely. They hurt a little less over time. You see improvement. Somebody says, hey, have you

dropped some weight? You get some momentum going. You're pulling the sled. You're noticing some muscles in your legs. Maybe a vein starts to pop out in your forearm or something and now you're on cloud nine and you can turn these things it is really incredible what can happen over a period of time i'm sure you've seen it in your own facility with some coaches that you worked with they start to turn it into their own hobby but i think you know trying to have a block and say man i can't do that neck exercise because i don't have the iron neck. I'm not saying like you should always figure out a way to buy an iron neck. Right.

But you should always figure out a way to buy an iron neck. That should be in kind of the back of your head. I want to be able to buy a piece of equipment that's like that. Or I want to get around somebody that has a piece of equipment that's like that. Because somebody is not just going to have that piece of equipment equipment they're going to have a bunch of other pieces of equipment and i think this is the kind of stuff that i think can really you can progress a lot faster when you start getting into uh gyms that have like-minded people that want to be better yeah i mean i i can't agree more like amen like that's yeah i mean and part of it is like what

we want to do with you know ben ben's reach you know, and my desire together for us to educate more coaches to help with this recipe that we think is fantastic is there will be more gyms that do this and they'll be able to help more people. I mean, that's what we believe. We believe the recipe is great. So I think that's the cool thing. that's the cool thing. And I think Ben's working on, Ben has a team that's working on all kinds of inventions to make it more affordable or a better way, a better sled, you know, and a better, you know, better Nordic bench or, you know, a better, you know, the ATG buddies that you can take and, and all these kinds of things that, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, at the end of the, and I think this, it's kind of an interesting thing to sort of give some context. The genius of

Ben was the zero program. The zero program was body weight. But a significant part of that was contextual. It was during the pandemic where a lot of people didn't have a gym and they didn't have all the tools. So it was like, how do you, and people were depressed and upset and they were watching Netflix and just ordering craft beers and whatever your, you know, your COVID, you know, and ordering pizza. I think that, I think. Your eyes went up when you said craft beers. Is that? That was my beginning. The beginning, I was like, well, I'm going to support. Craft beers. I'm going to support, I'm going to support local and I'm going to get into it. But then it was like, okay.

And then it was cocktails. And it's like, okay, calm down. Like, you don't have to be like, you know, and then it was like, okay, let's scale back on the nutrition and actually be better and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, and the cocktails was funny because, you know, I was like, well, you know, I probably shouldn't drink a whole bottle of wine to myself. My wife was pregnant, you know, with her. I should probably not do that because she's not going to drink. So I was like, oh, I probably shouldn't drink a whole bottle of wine to myself. My wife was pregnant with her. I should probably not do that because she's not going to drink.

So I was like, how about a cocktail? You were fluffier last time. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Was he? Absolutely, yeah. Coming out of the COVID, the whole of the hibernation. I'm like, oh, people. I was like, oh, words coming together.

Yeah, so yeah. But I think, I think, I think that's the thing is, uh, is we want to educate coaches and there will be places that have more tools and, and better equipment means people get, you know, have pride in their gym and have pride in their results. And, you know, like, wow, these dumbbells are amazing. This barbell is awesome. These plates are great. This Nordic bag, I like this one, you know, these, and that's the thing. I think absolutely holding your gyms to higher standards saying, hey, can you get this piece of equipment? Or I'll buy it or whatever. Yeah, I think a ton of people are doing that.

Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. Instead of it being, well, this is something I have to do because my doctor said I should exercise. It's to being, no, I take pride. It's actually a great part of my day where I actually, I get to go. I should exercise. It's to being, no, I, I take pride. It's actually a great part of my day where I actually, I get to go. I get to like, it's, it's, it's gratefulness. I mean, I always, I always liked that. It's like, I'm grateful that I get to go because there's some people that can't. So I always liked that. And it's like, I get to go to this awesome place that has these awesome toys that get to make me better and challenge me and make me, I think absolutely.

And instead of it being this chore that it's like, I have to brush my teeth. It's like, no, awesome. What a cool toothbrush or whatever it is. It's like this habit that fundamentally leads towards virtuous excellence and a better life and a happier life. Well, take pride in it. And maybe be at a gym that you take pride in. I mean, you've built that. I mean, I've built that.

I'm building that. And I think it's awesome. I think that's phenomenal to have it be something that you take pride in. I mean, you've built that. I mean, I've built that and I'm building that. And I think it's awesome. I think that's phenomenal to have it be something that you devote your life to, at least a chunk of your week to, because it's good for you. But instead of it being a chore, then absolutely. And I think the tools matter.

We can say, well, it's just a tool, but also the tools matter. I mean, the tools do matter. Like better tools are better. So how to use them, that's we can debate and discuss and whatever. But I think better tools are better. Can we get a sneak preview of that freak list i'm very curious yes yes i can start i can start discussing some of the things i think uh you know what you're talking about you know relates a little bit to i've heard paul check talk about this before where

you're working in you know people just kind of think I'm going and I'm working out, but you're really, you're working on yourself, you know? So people that still maybe hate the movement, they hate the fitness stuff. It's, it is really a really awesome opportunity for you to be like kind of one-on-one with yourself. I know there's other people around, but you're, you're one-on-one with yourself and you are, it's literal just self-improvement. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing. I always say like, if you're alive, you can improve. Like if you're alive, you can spend today doing a little bit better. And that's the thing.

And you get to then do it the next day and be a little bit better. And you can do that on your nutrition. You can't fix the past. But today and tomorrow, you can be a little bit better. And that's, I think that's the magic. Like it's, I don't know. I think that's a wonderful thing. I think for me, one of the things that I value so much, I think it's so important

is personal responsibility. Again, I'm far from perfect. We're all far from perfect. We're all flawed. But if you think to yourself, maybe today I can do a little bit better, like a little bit better. I mean, that's taking responsibility for your fate. Again, there's luck, there's ups, there's downs, you can't predict everything.

But if you can try, if you're still alive, you can try to do something to be a little bit better. Yeah. Freak checklist. I'll give you a few of the numbers. Okay. So ATG split squat, 75% times five. Abs to bench seated good morning, 75% times 10.

Ooh. With a three second lower and a one second pause. Okay. This is one that we were playing with, ATG back squat, so heels elevated, 150% of body weight times two with the four second lower, one second pause. So really owning the bottom. You're not bouncing.

It's not trying to, you're really, you're in the bottom. Your, your ass is touching the floor and you come up. ATG front squat 127.5% for two with a three second lower and a three second pause. Okay. So really owning that bottom.

Tib bar 25% times 10. Single leg calf raise was 25 times 10. This was, we're playing with this one because not everyone has access to this, but Atlantis lying leg curl 75% times five at four, one XO. So four down, one pause. But really it was to try and mimic the Nordic.

So five perfect Nordics with a three lower and a two pause. So it's not bouncing in the bottom. It's like, you're just, you know, I like this one a lot too. I actually really like this. We were playing with this. Barbell on back, 45 degree back extension,

50% times 10. It's harder than it looks. Julian was doing some,ian baldy was doing stuff like that and that's that's sort of an ode to that stuff press behind next 63.75 percent of body weight times six three second lower two second pause like a barbell behind the next press yeah okay and all of this is you know our idea of instead of it being on the marker of the bench press, a lot of athletes don't bench press. So to have that center. So we're playing with it from a body weight point of view.

And is this a be all end all? No, we're going to play with the numbers. But I think it's the idea of the expanding balloon of abilities. You expand a little bit and then you have to work on the other thing to expand a little, but they don't, it's not linear. So you're working on these weak links and we think these exercises are such that if you work towards these things, you know, trap three,

10% times eight. Oh, dumbbell external rotation was 15% times eight. So that's more than the 10%. Most people can't do that. 45 degree incline dumbbell press, 50% times six, three second lower, two second pause. Some people can do that easy, like really

strong. And if like, and some people are like, huh, interesting. I'm weak on this. Yeah. And we also added 30 degree inclined dumbbell hammer curl, quote unquote long range, 25% times six each hand.

Dip and chin, 50% of body weight times three, three second lower, one second pause. Can you, and by the way, we haven't even spoke about this, but the benefits of long range and short range exercises, because we were talking the other day about like, you know, when you see bodybuilders move, right? And you see like a lot of bodybuilders who do a lot of bicep curls. They're stuck like this perpetually. They're not here. But if they literally just added in some long-range curls into what they do, they would probably be able to have access to that range of motion without sacrificing any muscle.

So they look better and they move better. So what would be the benefits of doing long- range movements with all of these different muscle groups? So long range, I love it for the biceps to explain this. So what's cool is elbow in front of the body hits more of the short head of the biceps. Elbow behind, and it's totally fine, but most people are stronger there.

So they do that. Elbow behind body hits more of the long. So again, if you bend your elbow, you're hitting both. It's not like one is one and one is the other. Back to the, you know, we were talking about a chin-up does not hit the biceps only. No, like if you bend, you're hitting the lat. A pull-up does not just hit the lat.

If you bend, you're hitting the bicep. But you feel it more and that's fine. Same thing. You're hitting both heads of the biceps. But if your elbow is behind, it hits more of the long head. And the long head is attached to the shoulder. So it's actually really important for shoulder health too. And it opens up the pec in that stretch position. So there's really great things that happen also with the elbow and at the wrist. So there's great

things that happen on the tendon, the joint, the ligament, all that kind of stuff. That's brilliant. Now, a lot of people are so tight that going straight into it is a tough thing. So what you do is you start with shorter range stuff, which gets the blood flow pumping and really bathes the joints in that blood so that you can then get into the more longer range things. So for example, you can do step-ups or sled before you get into a split squat. So the genius is you're warming up the joint.

You're not going straight into that really gross stretch of a split squat that when I do my first reps and first sets, it's, I feel like I'm not 41. I feel like I'm 81. It's gnarly. And then you do a few sets and, you know, after you've warmed up, you're like, oh, you can get into it a little bit better.

You know, not everyone is like Ben who gets into it cold splits, like, you know, but he's done phenomenal work getting there. So this is Keegan. Keegan's brilliance is this articulation of long head, short head. It's brilliant ATG, one of the principles. And I got to say, that guy's really smart.

And I love how he explains things. And he's so – we speak the same lines. He's so philosophic and open-minded. And he likes playing with movement. And he's inspiring in that way. And he's just a great guy. And I look forward to the day when he can travel more and all that kind of fun stuff and just hang out. You did a horrible job on our podcast though.

Unbelievable. You're continually roasting Keegan. He's a coach. I've got to give it to him straight. Absolutely. And you also have to say, you know, listen. He did a poor job. He's off the team. He gets by. We love you, brother.

He gets by so well on those good looks. He just looks there and he has the accent and the blue eyes. He is Dash. Exactly. It's funny because he made a video once and Mark said, that video sucks. You're off the team. So just continue with roasting.

Yeah, Keegan will like that. He was texting me. He looked great. I was like, man, you look great, dude. Anyway, so he's very smart. And so the long head short, I think that's the thing is the understanding is, the other thing is, how do you, I think the thing for a lot of people is it's like jumping into a cold shower real fast and it's hard.

I mean, it takes courage to do that. I mean, together is always, I mean, as long as I'm Big Spin, I'm fine. But, uh, you know, the thing is to be in the position where, where exercise, I think the genius of the sled, the genius of when Ben was doing more cab tip stuff first, you know, the thing is to be in the position where exercise, I think, the genius of the sled, the genius of when Ben was doing more calf tip stuff first, you know, the genius of doing bicep, you know, elbows in front, bicep curls, spider curls, this kind of stuff. Or like a side lateral raise first before you get into a deep press behind neck. The idea is that it's blood flow, bathing, warm up. And I think the longer you train, the more you realize any way that I can trick my body to warm up, the workouts feel better and I get better results.

Imagine doing that right when you get up in the morning, just doing some calves and some shins, like people that wake up with this really stiff back, stiff body. It's like, well, you're- It's, you have to like walk people backwards a little bit. Like your whole body's not stiff. You can move your hands around. You can move your hands around.

You can move your neck around probably. It might be your lower back that might be stiff. Legs might be a little tight. But you can probably, you know, move your calves around, move your shins around. And that's the thing. It's the entry point. I think the cool thing is a very easy entry point into movement. And it's not this straight into a cold shower.

Again, obviously there's great in the cold shower, but it's shocking. And I think for a lot of people that shocking makes them not do it. So if you can do it, so that's part of the brilliance of short range, long range. Short range is blood flow, blood flow, blood flow, and then you can get into that deeper stuff.

Yeah. And I think that's, it's, it's, it's just a very, very smart way of making sure that you're warmed up. And I think for veterans of the wars the longer you do it the more you can you know that's why i think sled before every workout is so smart you're just like yeah i can do that you're like if you're in the mood great you go and hit the squat rack and first rep bar but you know let's go but to me it's rare like i i generally don't just walk in

being like let's go from uh yeah full squat perfectly it takes me a little bit of a warm-up and you know like especially if you rolled some jujitsu, you get up like you're an old man. Like, at least I do. Like, man, I just fought wars with people. And it's like, it's, it's, that takes a toll. So it's like, oh, I can't, oh man, there's no way I can work out today.

And then you do, oh, sled. Okay. Some calves like, okay. Or like some, you know, short range bicep or whatever, or some like, you know, pulses of stuff like hangs and like some scap retraction type stuff it's i think it's brilliant fastest way to get your heart rate up is through your arms so if you did like arm circles or lateral raises or like today i did some rows so the sled

is great but if you're again if your body's tight and you are even kind of whiny and pissy about that the fastest way to get your heart rate up is through the upper body. You can even get on like a, what are those bikes? Assault bike and put your feet up on the pegs and just use your arms. You're going to be warm really fast. That's great. Yeah, I mean, it's like, how do we find ways

to enter into the hard work easier? I think that's the brilliance of short range, long range. You know, along with the joint tendon muscle like magical stuff. I think that's the brilliance of short range, long range, you know, along with the, the joint tendon muscle, like magical stuff. I think a lot of great things come with the tendon stuff. So the long range stuff, but also like short range stuff. There's just all that blood flow to the joints and the muscles. It's just great. Have you hurt yourself doing some of this stuff? Uh, yeah, I've tweaked stuff. I pushed the reverse squat like pretty intensely and I tweaked my, I was like, let me see how much I can do.

And I was like, no, I was fatigued. Actually, it was like the sixth workout of three a days. And it's like, okay. Like, and it was like, oh, I felt that a little bit much. What did you tweak? Hip flexor. Hip flexor? Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, like that was the one where I was like, huh, interesting. You got to come in. But I think it's one of those things. I think we were talking with Chris, your brother, like, you know, the realization that like you got to focus on every rep. Like you have to have intent and not just be like, eh, especially if it's something you're like, this is a challenge. If it's like the first set of split squats, fine, chill out. Like your body weights, but whatever. First couple of step ups, it's like, eh, it's fine.

The second there's load, you have to focus. And it's one of those things that we all find a position where it's unfatigued sleep electrolyte balance is low all this kind of stuff it's like you gotta you gotta you gotta pay attention so yeah i mean i'm much smarter about how i used to lift i used to be like if it's not max like this isn't a workout like that was my dopamine you know like love heavy love that feeling of like your eyes are gonna pop out like if it's not one rep you know like train a powerlifter, even though I have never done any meets or anything like that. Loved it. But yeah, I think the more time goes by, the more wise you get. And I think the other thing, there's another cool thing that Keegan said, it's on us to push the limits. So that might mean that we tweak some stuff because we're the coaches. We're the ones that are trying to experiment a

little bit and be like, yeah, that was too much. So like, Ooh, I pushed too much on the Jefferson curl or I pushed too much on that reflex or whatever. Like it was coming for your numbers. I put 150 on, which is pretty cool. I was like, Oh, that's pretty good. Like, and it was like, Oh, I felt it. Like I got 15 in and I was like, the last one was like, Oh, like I should have, and I was just holding and I was like talking to say, it's like, don't talk to someone. Just make sure you're doing, you know, it's the ability to focus. So I think that's the thing. It's like realizing that and you live and you learn. And then, you know, you do the like i think kelly starrett said this i like this you do the cousin of the movement that hurt you and i'm like oh that's a cool way of thinking about and then you you know

it's not ignore it don't do it it's move and go around it and you know we're always we're in the trenches or you're doing jujitsu or you're lifting it's like you're gonna feel stuff you're gonna tweak stuff so it's like the magic is knowing that you have something you have the recipe to make it feel better i feel much more confident with jujitsu. So do all my jujitsu athletes that I train, which is, oh, if I tweak something, we're going to come and we're going to, we have the ability to fix it. You have the ability to work on it. So it feels better. I think that's such a cool thing to have. Like, that's such a wonderful thing to know that you have the recipe unless you die to, to be able to, to improve yourself and other people. You said you, when you were younger, you blew

your knee out. I'm curious what happened with that and how that's actually feeling these days. It feels great. I don't feel, I have, so I planted, it's the whole thing. I jumped out of bounds and I was trying to save a ball in basketball.

I planted and twisted and I heard a pop. Okay. That was great. Do you know what it was? Yeah, it was a bucket handle tear. Oh, same thing. Yeah. So 75% menis tear. Oh, same thing. Yeah.

So 75% meniscus gone in my right knee. Mm-hmm. So I had surgery and the doctor, it's cool. Like the doctor actually put me on, you know, there's, Stu McGill has a great book, The Gift of Injury. Yeah. So it's phenomenal. And I, you know, the technique, Stu's great.

He's brilliant and all this kind of stuff. And I think there's something, I mean, I would not have this career. I would probably be a PhD in, you know, philosophy and that would have been a great career too because I think fundamentally I love teaching, and I think coaching is teaching. So I have a very good friend who's a prof,

and he said, well, you kind of are a prof. You do your research, you go to conferences, you meet people and you have whatever, and you teach people. I'm like, yeah, fair enough. That's a good way of putting it. So I think that's what a coach is, a teacher. So I think that's the thing. So when I popped my knee, I, the doctor said I couldn't bend my knee and I couldn't fully flex it. Like I couldn't fully

straighten it. Um, and so again, surgery and the doctor said, don't get fat. I was like, okay, that sucks. I kind of want to, but whatever. And, uh, and he says, don't run long distance, the wear and tear on your thing, the chance of arthritis or whatever, but again, and get as strong as you can around that knee. And I was like, huh, interesting. Okay. So, and then a career path changed, which was do the research. So I think the thing is with, I mean, again, vast generalization, men, when they get hurt, like women often, this is my experience. This is, this is anecdotal, obviously, but often I'm in the position where women are smarter than men where they say, well, I don't know the thing. I'm going to research the thing so I can do it within an

intelligent way. Whereas men are like, it's physical. I know how to move the body. And it's like, well, I'm not like, so men often come for help. And this is in my coaching experience. Men often, women come because like, I don't have the recipe. Can you show me a proper plan and give me a good rationale? Okay. Here's the plan. They're like, oh, that sounds fair. Okay. Let's go. Whereas men are like, so I did this thing to myself and I suck. And I did this other thing to myself and I suck, but really did this other thing to myself and I suck. But really stupid men just feel like they're done deal. Well, I hurt my knee and I'm like, I'm done now.

But if you're just slightly above stupid, which I consider myself, is, oh, I hurt my knee. Okay, now I have to do research to figure out how to fix the thing. So then you start going off. And again, for me, the path led to Charles Poliquin and amongst other things. Ah, here's the recipe. Oh my God, my knee feels great. You know, and the rest is history and I'm going to change career

instead of doing the PhD route. I'm going to, you know, I got my master's, but I'm going to do the, I'm going to research and help people in this way. So for me, that was my injury. And then my left knee, same thing. I played basketball and I tore it. So I had an MRI on that one

and I have a tear in my left knee, but I do not feel it. Like I don't, I squat all the way down. I can split squat again. I'm not the most flexible, but like I can do a lot of things and jujitsu and all this kind of stuff. I don't i squat all the way down i can split squat again i'm not the most flexible but like i can do a lot of things and jujitsu and all this kind of stuff i don't feel them which is pretty awesome because the realization that you have the recipe it's kind of awesome like that's why i say training is so magical i've had back stuff i've had shoulder

stuff i had elbow surgery actually i rolled with you it was october no no no i've i had it it was like i was j July was elbow surgery. No, like that July. Okay. I had elbow surgery because it was an arm bar. And so it was like. Not from me, right? No, not from you.

Okay, yeah. No, no. I think Mark's giving me that look like, did you do something to somebody else? No, no, no. I was very pleased that when we rolled, it was pretty much like I was very, you said you were very relaxed when I was whipping your ass. I'm like, yeah, I'm not bad at that. I didn't say that specifically.

No, but I had an arm bar and I tapped too late and whatever. And it was like it popped and it was like, oh, shit. I did everything to do whatever, but a bone chip was in there and it just had to come out. I'm hearing rumors that when Nsema shows up to jujitsu, it's like Wyatt Earp showing up at a saloon. Well, it's like... Yeah. Tumbleweed goes by, but there's no opponent on the other side.

Like everyone just kind of shuffles along and leaves. He's like, it's fine, it's fine. I'll only use my left hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like this. Like his jujitsu is like, wow, I got a dentist appointment. You're like, it's eight o'clock at night.

Yeah. Like there's no dentist working at this time. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, so that was my knee. And yeah, and the other knee, but the other that was my knee and uh yeah and the other knee but the other knee i didn't have surgery on and the right knee i did so you know the rest is history

feel pretty good power project family how's it going now i want to talk to you guys about within you supplements this is mark's supplement line and the amazing thing is mark used to be 330 pounds he was a fat guy so obviously this stuff tastes really damn good but another cool thing about within you supplements is that none of these products are white labeled. Now, what a lot of people do when they come out with their own supplement lines is they do something called white labeling and white labeling. All that means is there's a supplement that's already out there. They take off the tag of that supplement, they put their name on it, and now it's their supplement line. Quite literally, there's nothing else like within you supplements out there because Mark formulated these supplements with other individuals that he knows within the industry like joel green who we

had on this podcast so you guys should check out within you we have amazing free protein electrolyte supplements we have fasting gum and many other things on the website andrew how can they check it out yes that's over at markbell slingshot.com and at checkout enter promo code power project 10 to save 10 off your entire order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes yeah i asked you that because i think it's a it's really good for a lot of people like i had i had a same thing buckingham tear on my right knee um and i mean i still feel certain things there but because of all the things before i knew ben and like uh he came on the podcast i did some some ATG work, and my knee starts to really improve.

I stayed away from a lot of stuff with knee work because of the pain there. And me, having had surgery, it's like I can't even really tell that I had surgery. So I hope a lot of people can gain some confidence there, whether you've had surgery in a specific area or it hurts or whatever. You do a lot of this stuff, and you work with the regressions because there are really intelligent regressions that are done through that program. You can make some progress, but you need to give yourself time. Like whenever I hear criticisms of it, like criticism is good. But one of the criticisms I've seen of like what Ben does is like, oh yeah, people are going to get hurt doing that.

It's like, no, you don't realize that if somebody looks at the programming, the programming is set up in a way that there is a regression for you. If you can't do a split squat with weight, there is a regression for you. Now, if the person doesn't pay attention to do the regression, that's on them, but the regression is put in front of you. Now that athletes need to take accountability there because everyone wants to blame. Oh yeah, this causes no no no you injured yourself because you didn't do the regression and you rushed yourself that's the problem well everyone thinks they're special it's like you're not that special like there's a few people that are special i've seen some special like some freaks that it's like wow one workout they've

adapted next moving on the ballet dancer i was telling you she's unbelievable you know and some of my nfl guys it's like i don't need that much stimulus one two times and they've figured it out and they've moved on and they get it like it's amazing like you know world-class lifters well movers like phenomenal some of the jujitsu people are like that like it's just phenomenal yeah um and uh but most people it's like you need the time for the tendons and the ligaments and the muscles and the joints and everything to open up and you need the time and you need the time slowly with load progressing slowly. And you're not trying to get a world record in two weeks. Let your body adapt.

It's stimulus plus intent and then recovery so that you can adapt. That's the thing. You need the appropriate stimulus. I think that's the thing. Yeah. We talk a lot about mindset on this show. And obviously philosophy can assist a lot with how you perceive the world, how you look at things, how you interpret stuff.

How did this knowledge of philosophy help assist or maybe even make worse of a bad situation of something like the pandemic? I think, yeah. I mean, I think there's so much that we can go into with the political thing with pandemic. And I think in some ways that allowed me to, I mean, man, stoic philosophy was really useful for that one. But I mean, also thinking about,

I mean, I really thought about regimes and regimes in the sense of like democracy, tyranny, oligarchy, all this kind of stuff from Aristotle and Plato and trying to think about like, okay, someone's saying that I can or can't leave my house. Someone is saying that I can or can't, but they sure as hell can't tell me what I feel in my heart of hearts. And I'm lucky I have my family, I have my kids, I have people that love me. I'm not going to starve. There are people that

have better situations. There are people that have worse situations. That doesn't mean, and part of the trip that when I came here in October with you guys and Ben was really helpful for me to think about, okay, you know, how do I, how do I change it? And instead of being angry, because there was time moments where I was angry and upset, but working it through on a global level from a point of view of, okay, well, what's worse? Am I okay if I lose my whole gym? And there was times like we lost a significant quantity of money and revenue and significant quantity of our clients. And, you know, I'm not blaming anyone. It's, you know, it was the nature of the beast

and we're rebuilding. Something you worked on, put a lot of time into. Yeah, absolutely. You know, like there was nights where. Having clients and retention clients is like a really not an easy thing to get. I mean, I think we dropped to probably under 30% of what we had and, you know, and it's, it's pretty significant. And, uh, you know, thinking to myself like, well, what do I do? Am I going to sell my house? Do I have to, you know, all these things, very stressful. And, uh, but you know, like, like those gratefulness things and sort

of thinking more on a longer term schedule to say, okay, I still have food, still feed my kids. Like it's, you know, if we have to sell the house, we have to sell the house and that's okay. And this sort of idea of these are possessions and how do I be in a position where I can, I can do the things that are necessity and, and, and having that view where it's not, well, I want this pair of shoes or this car or whatever it might be. And, you know, it really allowed me to have that view where, what are the essentials? What are necessary? Who can control my thoughts? And, uh, and, and I think that, that, you know, some of the stoic philosophy stuff, which is the obstacle is the way being in a position where, okay, how do I figure out what do I do? Do I give up? No, when it opens up, I'm going to help people.

And I had people, I had clients that during the pandemic, they said, listen, if you don't train me, there's a chance that I'll off myself. And so, you know, I feel very grateful in some ways that, uh, that I, uh, that I had the ability to help train them and that, you know, you know, uh, again, so, you know, I do think what we do is God's work, but, you know, I'm not trying to self-aggrandize. I think helping people with their bodies helps people with their souls. It's the vessel that holds people's souls and their beings. And I think it's an amazing thing you were talking about, you know, from outside in. And I think it's a lot like that. You know, and some people it's just biceps, triceps, that's okay too. But I think for a lot of people, their bodies are so intimately connected with who they are and who their being is that I think the privilege that we have that I feel like I have, which is to train people and help people with that, I feel very grateful. So I think that idea that, okay, what am I going to do? Quit? No, this is what feeds my family. And I feel, it's funny. It's like, I feel like I have

a purpose. I love being a coach. I love helping people move better. And I fundamentally think that at the end of the day, the reason that I wanted to study philosophy was I'm fascinated by human happiness. And I feel like if I can do some things that can help people work towards being better on that range of things, that they're like, my body's not my enemy. I can start to think about greater and higher things. I can start thinking about what's good. I can start thinking about leading a good life. And again, I'm far from perfect. I'm not saying I have all the answers, but if I can help a little bit with that, I feel grateful. So for us, it was not giving up, not quitting, not closing down my place and telling all my coaches,

yeah, we're done. But being in the position where I can say, you know what, I'm going to continue with this mission that I have, which is to help people. And that's kind of awesome. And, you know, again, like, again, I have to be grateful to you guys, like putting together the event with Ben

and seeing such a wonderful energy of people. I think that really lit a fire under my, you know, a little fire under me again to say like, no, I still love this. I still want to do this. I still want to, you know, continue to do this. And, uh, and yeah. And I, and I think that, that kind of idea of like, what's human happiness to me is, is a, is a connection and a conversation with people. We were talking about this earlier, you know, there's no, you know, humans aren't boring. Like there's no one that's boring. If you pay attention enough, you know, people are interesting. So for me, I think what's really cool is I get the, I have the privilege of hanging out with people multiple times a week where we can week through their weaknesses physically and have a conversation

about all kinds of different things, you know, and, and I'd like to figure out their family and their brothers and their sisters and their wives and husbands and kids and parents and all this kind of stuff and, and get to know them and get to have relationships with them. And I think that's the cool thing about, I think the fundamental human thing is friendship. And that doesn't mean you can be friends with all the world, but I think these kinds of conversations, I feel privileged to, to, you know, to build a friendship with you guys. And, and I get to do that with my, with my athletes and my clients. And it's not just like, okay, in, out, biceps, triceps, see you later. Here's your protein shake. It's kind of seeing their, their successes and their things that, you know, seeing someone who's injured and they forget

their injury because we've done work. We've done the magic of training to make them feel better. So I think that, that, and again, it can be suffering around, oh, I'm helping people with human happiness. It's like, okay, like, are you, well, in some ways it is just pushing a sled, do some biceps and triceps or whatever. But in some ways it actually is helping with people with human happiness because the vessel that holds their soul, we get to, I get to, you know, the privilege of helping them. So I guess that would be sort of the entry point. The privilege of helping them. So I guess that would be sort of the entry point. And I think the other thing is, you know, reading philosophy and history and literature, you know, Gulliver's Troubles is 300 years old. Like Xenophon and Plato and Socrates, that's 2,500 years ago.

Like there's something magical about having that worldview. It's almost a privilege that in some ways I'm not, I don't feel like I'm so special. It's human, you know, humans, it's so, so this, in some ways you can sort of say, okay, well, is this a blip in time? Well, so what can I do to take care of it? Okay. I'll spend more time with my family, spend more time reading. You know, I thought it was very useful, like Keegan, you know, Keegan putting together calls, coaches calls where we're talking to people from around the world, even though I don't get to see them. So, you know, these things were a phenomenal help for me. And I'm like, okay, like I'm connected to people. There is a connection and, and it's going to open up and people can,

you know, travel again and, and, and connect to people again and do the things that are wonderful, train together, you know, break bread together, you know, whether you eat bread or not, like, you know, like, but that's the thing. But,, but, but it's, it's, it's that kind of wonderful thing that, that I think is what humans need. It's what I need. And I think I, I feel very grateful that I get to do that with people. So, you know, I think that's, that was, it was hard, but I think having that purpose, which is, no, I'm a coach. I love coaching people. Like I love coaching coaches.

I love coaching athletes. I love coaching like everyone that's, that wants to, to improve. And, you know, I feel, I feel pretty grateful that I get to do that. So, so that I haven't given up on that. I like, that was the driving thing. So, but that sort of more historical worldview will let me, let me sort of come to that conclusion in a way. Is what hurt the worst was the disconnect between you and the people that you're helping, that you care so much about? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, also like at the end of the day, it's also like, this is what I built a business that feeds my family and I might have to sell my house and like give up on something that I built over, over a decade. So that was sad. Um, but yeah, but also the fact that, you know, people come, it's like, Oh, what advice would you give a young person follow their passion? And I'm like, no, actually. Find something that pays the bills and then find your passion. But I think too many people are so lost and they're like, well, I'm trying to find my passion.

And it's like, you're 32 and you haven't paid any bills. You live in your mom's basement. It's like, no, no, no. Like be a responsible adult and then find your passion. So it's like, oh, what's your favorite exercise? I don't know.

Do all of them until you, for a while until you figure out what you like. So, but I know that's hypocritical because I've actually found something that's my path. Like in some ways it's like BS advice because like I love what I do. No, it makes sense. Ben Patrick was Ben Patrick before he ever, you know, stepped foot on the internet. And then same with me. Like I mentioned to you earlier, I benched, you know, 600 pounds and a squat at 700 pounds

and deadlifted like 700 pounds right around the time the internet was coming around and people saw my progression but i was already bench pressing you know what i mean i was already like lifting uh quite a bit before i even mentioned to a friend the other day i was like at some point i want to retire from like some of the uh just instagram tiktok who the fuck knows what would be around down the road but like i would love to just not be a part of any of that at some point that would be a a beautiful time for me i think i don't really know but they were like what else would you do i was like i would go back to doing what i've always done like i did a lot of shit before yeah yeah the internet came around

it's just unencumbered is all it is because you have X amount of people that are your followers. You have 10,000, 15,000 people. They're in your back pocket all the time. We can play philosophy games all the way, all day long, but we can't truly disconnect from it. We can't truly give it a poor value assignment because it does mean something in our society and when you see more people and you see more positive comments it does feed into you a bit no question and you know i would love to be more disconnected uh to that um in the future and somebody might say why don't you do it now i've done i messed around it before but like it appears at the moment at least for me that's still a substantial and I still need to be

connected to it. And I still do like it. I like it enough to not get rid of it. But anyway. Yeah, no, I mean, that makes sense to me. I was so against it and I feel it was simply bad, but that now that I see so much good that's come out of it for me, but I think at the same time, it can be a, it can be a time suck. And I think that it's finding a balance is very difficult. I'm finding it difficult too. I'm not, you know, there's no question. I read a little bit less because I'm like, what's going on? And at the same time, it's a good thing because it's like I'm answering people, but it's not, but I want to, you know, as like a couple of essays that I want to write that I'm sort of in the middle, I wrote, I was writing about the Gulliver's Travels one a little bit,

you know, and a couple of other ones that I have that I want to put out, but it's like, ah, you know, there's all these things that you feel, I want to get back to some of my language learning stuff. Like there's all these things that you really want to do, but like the time suck of it. But at the same time, there's the connections of it. So it's not all bad that you can just cut it out cold turkey. At least I'm not in the position yet. I really, I think there's good, more good than bad, but there's a lot of bad, I think. But you know, sometimes we ain't got shit to say either because we got to keep learning, you know? So sometimes you're like, I don't have a message at the moment because i want to reload i want to learn some new stuff and then at that point it feels good to disappear for a little bit then you can always come back into it

if you want to yeah i have a question for you real quick mark i actually been i'm curious too when you say like step away from it at some point what does that like what does that look like for you and what what would be the benefit because like already you don't really spend much time on it and utilize it but yeah because i already worked it out i mean i've been discussing this with myself for a long time um i wanted to kind of like retire from slingshot stuff at like 45 but then i started a supplement brand and then slack gives me it just puts me into another job and then more recently i've been like investing in some businesses and that gives me another job you know so um i don't mind having

jobs it's actually great you know because it can help uh give you purpose and can help keep you driven keep you excited about things i do like to share a lot of messages on social media but you guys know like i don't there's so much stuff that I could film in the gym. I could film stuff all day and we do film stuff all day already. Uh, but my workouts, they're pretty private. Like you, people have seen me like running, but I run every day. I lift every day. I don't, you might see a post every day, but the poster, uh, just a small fraction of what I'm actually doing. I like a lot of it to be private because it's like, it's for me.

It's like solitude. Like I love it. It feels good. I really enjoy it. It's like therapy for me. And I still feel like I'm a work in progress. I'm always like working on these things. So sometimes I'm like, I'd rather not even share that at the moment.

Not because I'm not proficient at it. That stuff I don't care about. I don't care if I go to do something and I look silly and i'm not as mobile as the next person and stuff like that i don't mind i don't mind any of that but i really want to like have a white belt mentality kind of strip myself down and just say let me just keep working on this and when there's a camera on you it just changes everything yeah it's kind of like when you do something for money as soon as you do something for money as much as you didn't want to change it it changes it fucking changes it like if you get paid for jiu-jitsu it changes it might make you better even who knows but it

still changes it you know what i mean yeah no i think that's profound i think it's i think you know the other thing that i was i was talking to ben about it but i think you're you know it's interesting smart people figure out the discussion the same way he's like that the other interesting thing about is it's also new that we're not quite sure what to do with it and I think in some ways you guys are the you know the guys like you that got our trailblazing and like succeeding at it and now Ben clearly you know um you know and the thing is like to me what's inspiring about yeah like you guys and Ben is how positive it is it's not like oh this guy's like, like, here are my pet peeves and don't do that. It's like none of that.

It's more like, here's what I'm doing. This is cool. This is cool, too. This is another cool person doing some cool stuff. And this is the stuff I think is cool. Whatever. Like, here's a product that I like or here's something that I'm doing. Have at it if you want, not if you don't want, whatever.

And I think that's inspiring to be like, ah, this is something that this medium is neutral and it can be bad and it can be good, but okay, cool. I'm paying attention to the people that do good. I'm like, okay, I can,

I can share good. My instincts were to say, well, I don't have anything to say. I'm still learning. And I have a content, a continual white belt mentality. Yeah.

You keep referencing other coaches, which you're plenty proficient. I appreciate it. And great at what you do. You don't need to push it off onto anybody else of having a mentor or anything. I appreciate that. My instincts are to give credit. Like that's sort of who I am. Because in some ways I'm like, I haven't invented anything. But again, I have, it's my interpretation of the

things. But at the same time, I think of it as like, it doesn't matter. It's like, if I can share these things, cool. But I think that's the thing. Seeing this as a positive thing is how to channel it such that it's positive. And I think we're talking about like the need to feel like you have to feed the beast. And I don't want to ever be in the position where I feel like I have to feed the beast. I'd rather find a way to ride the beast. And I think, and again, Ben and I have had conversations about it where content,

you know, it's like, oh, this is a cool thing I want to share as opposed to like, oh man, I got to post something today. And it's like, oh, you know, the beast needs to be fed. And I think that's, I never want to be in that position. So I think that's very interesting to try and find a way to do it in that way. Yeah. I mean, it's still a tool. I think it's a phenomenal tool, but I think it's like playing with fire. I don't know. I don't think we fully figured out the thing. Like clearly good things come from it, from a marketing point of view,

from a connecting point of view, from a dopamine excitement. Someone's doing an awesome thing. I want to do that awesome thing. I'm going to try that awesome thing. Information sharing, but there's also all the frivolous weird, you know, like, but that can suck, time suck and whatever.

And I really do like watching the TikTok dances. They're great. If you think about like, yeah, there we go. There we go. Oh, the internet is, I mean, it's fucking tons of fun. Any of these social media platforms, they're, they're way more positive than they are negative. There's, there's a huge negative side of it, obviously, but there's a big positive side to it as well. But if if like i like some of the

stuff where you got like someone like the rock you know people would think oh that's the greatest action you know movie star that's around but there's another guy who doesn't even have an instagram who's who's who's at least on paper made a lot more money you know someone like tom cruise made a lot more money in terms like Tom Cruise made a lot more money in terms of his box office move. I know The Rock does really well. He kicks ass. But I kind of think that's cooler

to not even have any of that. But what The Rock has done is amazing too. And how inspiring is that? And how many people has that impacted? So it is very tough to get away from some of this stuff when someone's like, he says, your message changed my life. Or how did Ben Patrick ever find out about me in the first place?

It was through YouTube or some form of social media, some sort of video thing. And then he comes here and does a seminar and has like a whole entire like society of people that are like disciples of his, you know, like it's. Acolytes. Acolytes, yeah. Like it's. They're great. Honestly, it, you know, like it's acolytes. Yeah. Like it's, they're great. Honestly, it's such a,

like the other thing that gave me goosebumps when he came here, because I was like, this is so strange. I was just showing stuff. He was inspired by me. We were both inspired by Charles Poliquin, Louie Simmons, and some of these people.

Those are the people I was always thinking about. It's Louie Simmons. It's Charles Poliquin. It's Dave Tate. It's all these guys. And then when he came in and he started talking about me that way, I was like, this is, this is fucked up. Your speech was actually like, your speech was a phenomenal speech, by the way. That was an absolutely, that was a phenomenal speech. Like it was, it was really honestly, like it was, it's like, how do you stop? Like, I don't want to stop that. Right. But at the same time, Honestly, like it was.

It's like, how do you stop? Like, I don't want to stop that. Right. But at the same time, I would love to kind of disconnect from some of that. And I just don't want to be on the hook for it. I want to be on the hook. I want to make sure that if I'm on the hook for something, that's something I truly want to do. And I also want to make sure that I'm not just in shape for social media or just strong for social media or just doing something for.

So I already know that's the case cause I've already been doing this beforehand, but you are kind of starting to lock yourself into this little box of just constant promotion and I don't love it. Right. I think there's, yeah. Yeah. I think that's the thing of the newness of it,

which is we're not sure where the boundaries of these things are. And I think that's, you know, that's a modern, I mean, that's the other thing of these things, these devices that are so wonderful and so amazing, but they're always with you. And it's, you know, the, you know that's, you know, that's a modern, I mean, that's the other thing of these things, these devices that are so wonderful and so amazing, but they're always with you. And it's, you know, the, you know, the, you know, Robert Sapolsky, the, the, the great,

you know, researcher, it's like, it's like, you know, the idea of cortisol and stress and, you know, it's, it's, there's all this saber tooth tigers running after you. But when it was actually that tens of thousands of years ago, it was a real saber tooth tiger. And when you ran into your cave or threw the spear at it and killed it or ran away, you cleared the stress. But this is like a thousands of thousands of little saber tooth tigers that every minute are like lighting you up. And in some ways that's, they're not real saber tooth tigers. So the risks are low, but at the same time, the amount of drain that there is on it from an attention point of view and from a human interaction point of view. And I think that's the thing. And I'm, I'm bad at it too. I get, I get caught up in the

phone when I have someone right next to me. It's like spend time with that person, you know, just don't forget the moment of actual person instead of this device that's so distracting. And, uh, and I think there's that, I think it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, there's that element, which is trying to balance that as hard. I find it difficult. You know, there's no question. Um, yeah. Guys go check out the book. Why You know, there's no question. Yeah. Guys, go check out the book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. It's great. It's a great book.

But also, when you're talking about philosophy, what if somebody wants to – there's so many books. You sent me like eight. What are some books that somebody can start with to get an introduction into philosophy? And then what are your most – like your favorite books with Stoic philosophy specifically? That's a very good question. I've thought a lot about this. I've thought a lot of this for many years. Okay, the first entry point, I would say one of the most brilliant entry points, and I would say the founder, at least the way I've been taught or the way I've thought about it, the founder of Mendedeanity is Machiavelli with the prince. And I would say the translation is Harvey C. Mansfield's translation, who's a brilliant, absolutely brilliant professor at Harvard. I've heard him speak multiple times.

He's getting older, but he's actually fantastic. He's also written a phenomenal book called Manliness, which I think in our time is very, very interesting, a philosophic point, a philosophic book to think about what it is to be a man and what that means in all its complex variegations. So those are two, but Machiavelli's Prince, I would say, as the founder of modernity and the idea, and if I would break it down in one sentence, I would say that the break of church and state, I would put it with Machiavelli and all of the thinkers that came after in some ways

were figuring out the details. So I think if you think about modernity, you have to think about Machiavelli. Also it being a brilliant book that is so fascinating and interesting. And it's also not that long. You want to delve deeper, the discourse is on the first 10 books of Titus Libby,

which is also not Kivali, but that's much harder. And even though that book was short, I read it. I was rereading pages. Absolutely. It was dense. I've thought about that book for, yeah, for two decades. Yeah, that's that book.

And again, I have an obsession'm, I've have an obsession with Italy. I speak Italian terribly, but I have the book in Italian and it's, there's, it's a beautiful, brilliant book. He's, he was a brilliant, brilliant thinker. Um, yeah, that was, that's one. If you're, and again, this is something that I think takes people, this will take people. I mean, this, I still think about this book, uh, Plato's Republic. I mean, Plato's Republic is an absolute brilliant book. It's in some ways, the greatest joke of politics. And it's also the best book written about politics. And there was so much going on in the last couple of years that I was thinking about Plato's Republic. And again,

I always go back to Socrates, but Plato's Republic, uh, translated by Alan Bloom, who was my prof's teacher at the University of Toronto. He was a fascinating guy, and he wrote a book called The Closing of the American Mind, which is absolutely brilliant and very, very fascinating. Yeah. Again, Jordan Peterson. I think Jordan Peterson stuff. Actually, my father's very good friend wrote the introduction to 12 rules, Dr. Norman Deutsch, who's also a brilliant thinker about neuroplasticity in the brain. Yeah. Yeah, I would say Plato's Republic, Closing of the American Mind, Manliness, The Prince.

And again, I sent you one. I would say if you want to understand America to a certain extent and understand democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America is, and again, it's a thick, thick tome, and that's translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. That's a thick tome. We were doing a reading group over the last few years, a few of my friends and my wife, and it's, that was one of the books that we worked through. And that took a while, a bunch of months, and it's absolutely brilliant. And it makes you sure as hell think about democracy and sure as hell think about america and i think those are worthwhile things to think about so i would say those that's a good that's a good uh why did the

why did the like philosophers pop up uh seemingly kind of around the same time what you mean the greek philosophers is that where yeah yeah I know there was philosophers before that. Yeah, the Greek philosophers. I think that's a good question. It's like a weird shitty time and people needed to have a different thought process. There's an interesting thing about the beginning of Plato's Republic is in the Piraeus. Like Socrates is walking in the Piraeus, which is the port town of Athens. So in some ways, I think philosophy, back to the point, the Greek word is theoria, which is theory, which is where we get the word theory from,

which is to look. And you look at the stars, but you also look at humans and you look at everywhere. And so all theories, that's the idea of what philosophy is. You theorize. But I think there's something about newness. And so the port of Athens, which was a seafaring nation, that they went and saw other cultures and other things, that they had to look and try to understand the differences between what was Greek, what was not Greek, what was a, you know, they called it Barbaroi. That's where the word comes from, Barbaroi, which is the words that they, it sounded like bar, bar, bar, bar, bar. So that's where the word Barbaroi comes from. So that they were trying to conceive of what's the difference between

us and them, or what's the difference between the Greek they were trying to conceive of what's the difference between us and them or what's the difference between the greek philosophers were trying to figure out what the difference was between physis which is nature it's where we get the word physics from and nomos which is law or custom and so what is by nature and what is by custom so that's sort of you know and there's the philosophers before so there's there's herodotus who was who is uh a greek again historian philosopher um and he you know you know he makes an interesting point in his histories which is you know just to exemplify this point the greek philosophers were trying to think about this which was they you know they started to travel and expand and explore and try to understand the differences such that Herodotus made the point that all humans bury their dead.

But this tribe over here burns their dead. This tribe over here eats their dead. And this tribe, you know, puts them out to sea. And this tribe buries them under the ground. That's nomos. That's custom. Different people do different things. But what's by nature is that humans do something with their dead.

So the Greeks were trying to figure out that. And I think that's sort of the continuation of all philosophy to a certain extent, which is try to figure out what is by nature and what is by custom. And I think that's in some ways what the Greeks were doing early on. And also trying to figure out the divine, what the divine was in connection to human. And also trying to figure out the divine, what the divine was in connection to human. Maybe because their society was like, I guess you'd say, set up pretty well that they could actually afford to think that way. Because there's like a time in human history, I don't know if you ever heard this theory, and I forget how long it is, and there's speculation about how long it is. But there's a time in human history where it seems like we didn't make any progress.

I don't know if you heard about that before but like it's like and it's like i think it's a few a few hundred thousand years right and they don't know why right and then all this is fire right when was you know there's the right i think salad paul saladino has a very interesting evolutionary thing about the the meat eating and he thinks about you know it was interesting because it was okay if we're if we're from primates in the realm of like six to seven, you know, something like six to seven million years ago or something like that. And the first primates were the ones that didn't do so well in the trees. So they went down. It was like, okay, well, here's like some carrion.

Well, I might as well eat that liver. I might as well eat that brain. And the omega-3s from that started to change the brain capability of these primates. Or maybe some mushrooms. Yeah, or maybe potentially mushrooms, but all of the above, right? Omega-3s, which made them smarter, which made them happy. Or maybe they ate the mushrooms, which caused

their trait openness to be higher so that they were like, oh, maybe I'll eat this carrion. Instead of like the berries in the trees or whatever, they ate the carrion, they ate the liver, they ate the brain stuff, you know, the omega-3s, whatever, they got smarter. And it took, what, another two to three million years of that to then say, hmm, maybe I'll throw something at one of these animals so that I can kill them, which is another evolution.

So, you know, like, and then later it's like, okay, fire, right? Like, so these are, you know, these are inventions, but the inventions, instead of it coming every 50 years that Elon Musk does something every like five minutes, it was, oh, it'll take two million years. So, yeah, there's no question. So I think in some ways the freedom of the Greeks to be able to use sailboats to go and see different cultures, I think there's something in that realm potentially at that time where they could start to see differences instead of just their small tribe. Who do you think had the biggest impact? Who? Which philosopher? Plato.

Yeah. I think Plato. Plato. You know, there's a philosopher that said. He had a university and stuff? No, he was in a school. There think, hey, Plato. Plato. You know, there's a philosopher that said. He had a university and stuff? No, he was in a school. There was a school of thought. Like, so Socrates studied, so Plato studied with Socrates, but here's the cool thing is

Socrates never wrote anything. So there's really, we have four sources of writings on Socrates. There's Plato. There's his other student, Xenophon, which, and then there's, I forget, there's another guy and there's Aristophanes, who's the poet. Um, I forget the other, the fourth, but anyway, so we have actual four sources of Socrates. Socrates never wrote anything. So then there's the school of Plato that Aristotle comes from. And then there's, you know, so, so, but I think I would say Plato, there was a, there was a philosopher, I think, I think Whitehead, who was a British philosopher,

once said that everything after Plato is a footnote. And I'm like, I can be like, fair enough. I mean, we were talking about Nietzsche. I'm like, well, it's tough. Like you get into Nietzsche and like everything is in dialogue with Plato. You're kind of like, well, okay. The platonic dialogues are pretty tough. Like, okay, so now you're going to wade back there

and be like, oh, that's what Nietzsche was talking about. Like, you know, he talks, it's- A lot of darkness in that. Very dark. Yeah, very dark, very dark. But that's why you introduced me to a lot of those and very dark yeah very dark very dark but that's why you introduced me to a lot of those books because as i was reading nietzsche i'm like the fuck like where does this even come from and you're like you gotta read this first before you even dive

i love thinking about that it's a conversation between greats like these great thinkers these great ideas it's you know nietzsche's talking and nietzsche's talking to machiavelli and machiavelli's what three four hundred four hundred years before nietzsche but they to Machiavelli. Machiavelli's, what, 300, 400 years before Nietzsche. But they're in conversation. Like Thomas Hobbes is talking to Plato. Aristotle's talking to Thomas Hobbes. And you think like, no, but they're not. But they'd thought of the arguments and they'd put it out.

But obviously there's change and there's different stuff. So you're putting together what, who, and how. We didn't even talk about Rousseau. Rousseau, I think, is the genius of all of us for all of us is that he invented the personal best, which all of us care about very much in the training world. But that's an article. That's an, you know, yeah. Did you write an article on that? No, but this is one of the things that I have, uh, planned. Yeah. Yeah. Because before that it was, are you better or are you not better? Like, can you, are you excellent? Are you the greatest athlete or are you not the greatest

athlete? But Brousseau was trying to make people happy to say okay well you're not going to compare you know what is it comparison is the thief of joy right so in some ways it's okay but but my pr of like five pounds on the rotator is better than last week and in some ways we all make money on that like that's what we do like fundamentally our whole industry is about personal bests as opposed to no did you did you beat are you the olympian that beat everyone at the wrestling in ancient Greece or were you the loser? Like, you know, that's why there's master's classes for jujitsu for us. Yeah.

Yeah, I always think it's interesting. Like there's a lot of different philosophers that you can kind of follow and there's a lot of great things you can learn and gain from them. But I think if you view a lot of what people are sharing or what people have said, and because for some reason there's like,

you place higher value on considering someone to be a philosopher. Right, right. Like these philosophies, these theories. Right. And you're pretty open to them too, for some reason. It's different than hearing like a statement. Right.

It's because a philosophy is almost a little bit more like an open-ended question. Like I wonder about this. I wonder about that. Here's because a philosophy is almost a little bit more like an open-ended question. Like, I wonder about this. I wonder about that. Here's kind of my thoughts on this and that. And there's less science behind it of saying, like, this is actually this way, although some of them are pretty stern with their message. But I always thought that, like, Albert Einstein is, like,

one of the most genius philosophers, and he's not really lumped in. But you would say he is, for sure. But, yeah, when you start to, it. Yeah, you start to really see. But I really like the fact that there's a lot of crossover between some of the science, some of the math, some of the philosophy. It's just interesting how you just, you kind of end up going back and forth on that stuff the more and more you dive into it. Well, the thing that I learned from Plato that I love is this idea of some of the

platonic dialogues that end in something called an aporia. So the Greek word poros is a hole, like a pore, like your pores, but a means not that. So it means there's no, so it's an impasse. So there's no pathway through. So it's what is courage? And you finish the dialogue and you're like, I don't know. I have more questions than answers, but it sure as hell I'm thinking about it now.

Or what is love? And you're like, I don't, I'm not, what? Or what is justice? That's the Plato. Plato's Republic is all about what is justice? What is the good? What is the good city? And kind of like, I don't, I don't, great.

So I know that that sucks and I know that this other thing sucks and I know that this, so the puzzle of working it through gives you more answers, more questions than certitude. And I think that this other thing sucks and I know that this, so the puzzle of working it through gives you more answers, more questions than, than certitude. And I think that's the thing that like back to the, we're talking about mTOR signaling and I'll remember the theories of muscle tears. That was a good theory. I liked that one. Like I liked the muscle tear theory. Can we go back to that one? Like I really like it, you know, but, but, uh, you know, it's, I'm

cool with an aporia and I think a lot of people are not. They're like, no, no, I want the answer. It's like, I'm cool with doing. And I think you, like, it's so cool that you embody that. We're talking about your running. You're like, a lot of people want to know the exact number of the miles that they've gone and the distance. Like, I just like doing the thing, like the process. So in some ways, like the process of thinking about these things and having conversations and sort of, kind of, sort of shunting towards some form of, it's probably kind of, sort of that. I'm okay with that. And I think a lot of people are scared of that's probably kind of sort of that. I'm okay with that.

And I think a lot of people are scared of that, but I'm okay with that. I'm okay with like, yeah, I kind of sort of think it's over here. And doing these things kind of sort of make you feel better than doing those other things that kind of sort of make you feel worse. Yeah, it feels good.

It's fun. And I feel like I'm improving. I'm like, why would I dig around and mess with it any further? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, so that's the upper, I like being in the position where it's not like there's not certitude, it's this or it's this.

You know, the certitude of science, I think in some ways is an illusion. That doesn't mean that there's not more kind of sorta than less kind of sorta, but I think that's the thing. And I think the entry point for all knowledge is human interpretation. That doesn't mean it's a, that doesn't mean you can make stuff up. It just means that you have to be more humble about the certitude that we put things out. So back to our point, you know, ATG, Charles

Poliquin, whatever it's, or whatever it might be, or myself, it's, I think this is a better recipe than other recipes I've seen. So I choose to do this recipe and I choose the people that want to have me be their coach or us be their coach. Well, here's a recipe that we think will really help. And we've seen evidence of that.

So kind of sort of go that way as opposed to if you don't do it, you're a loser and you're on the bad team or whatever it might be. Yeah. Yeah. We also recently got into a topic of fat shaming. And I want to kind of get your perspective, live it in Canada, if there's anything that's slightly different, like, for example, you know, can somebody, like, as you're growing up, can you, you know, tell a friend, hey, you're getting, I know Canadians are typically like. Right.

A lot of times your label has been like polite. No, you go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, you go ahead. And you stand there at the door for 20 minutes trying to get someone to go through the door. But how is it in Canada? Like, is it different? No, it's the same.

I just think, you know, when people try to talk about America and Canada, I would say the volume is just turned up more here. I mean, it's not. There's differences. There are differences. A funny example on a total random note. Like, everyone watches American television. So everyone thinks that you have, you know, there's, I take the fifth or you have Miranda rights.

There's no such thing as the fifth in Canada. There's no constitution in Canada. It's different. There's no Miranda rights. Like no one has to read it. Like there's no,

you will, you have the right to remain silent. It's no, we are different. Dying on horses takes your ass to jail. There we go.

Exactly. You know, I can neither confirm nor deny whether that is or is not true, you know, for my continued freedom. But,

but, you know, it's, it's, there there are differences but at the same time you know i i think there's you know i think just the thing for a lot of canadians america's just the volume's turned up but in some ways it's connected to what we said which is it's okay to strive for the top here no one knocks you if you're like i want to be the best nba basketball player go for it man like you might do it or you might not do it whereas in canada there's much more like, who do you think you are? That doesn't mean there's not excellence in Canada too, but it's, it's much more, you have to be more muted and much more under, you know, undertone. So I think, I just think the volume's turned up here more. And so people yell a little bit more here. Whereas in Canada, it's still there. There's still people, they're still,

you know, politically correct and this kind of stuff, you know, but I think, yeah, I haven't really gotten into internet battles that much with people. It I think, yeah, I haven't really gotten into internet battles that much with people. It's not my nature. I don't really like the trolling type thing. It's just not interesting. Is obesity in general turned up there the way it's turned up here? No, it's the same. There's no, there's the same problems. It's not like Canada's healthy and America's not. It's, you know, it's North American. Same thing with knees there. Same thing with, you know, I just think there's some differences, which is I don't think the arms race for collegiate interest is the same in Canada as it is here.

The fees aren't as high. It's not cheap, but it's not the same arms race, which is if you get into this school, you will make it this, or there's a guarantee if you make the Ivies that you'll make whatever. And I think there's that, or, you know, money spent on kids to train so that they get scholarships.

It's not the same. I mean, excuse me, there's Canadian kids that want to make to come to the states yeah so then they'll train and do all the stuff but it's not the same culturally on that end so i think some things the tone is just a little quieter that doesn't mean there aren't still people but i think the fat shaming thing is everywhere i think that's everywhere um i know in england it's australia it's the same it's like there's the battles's like, there's the battles of like, it's okay. And it's like, well, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. Like I remember Charles, I was saying, it doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it might not be

great for health markers. I mean, it sure as hell isn't. So I think that's the argument is to make it not about morality. You're a good person, you're a bad person and say like, hey, you know, we highly recommend that health markers. I think diabetes is not great. It's something you can do about mostly. Like again, there's things you can do. So, you know, is not great. It's something you can do about mostly.

Like, again, there's things you can do. So, you know, I mean, heart disease is something you can work on. It's not, you know, again, there's genetic things and all this kind of stuff, but there's things one can do to mitigate. There's no guarantees. There's no guarantees, but there's things you can do.

I mean, or else our careers are useless or else, you know, like there's things that you can do to make your knees feel better. There's things you can do to make your body fat less so, you know, there's things that you can do to work your heart better and work your, you know like there's things that you can do to make your knees feel better there's things you can do to make your body fat less so you know there's things that you can do to to work your heart better and work yours you know so there's there's things one could do like i think that's the thing that's the argument that should be had but if someone i mean the other thing is if someone wants to get into that it's like okay like go over there and do that and i'm not

interested in that debate because it's so ludicrous that i don't think you know but if someone's making fun of someone that they're fat that that they're a bad person, well, that's stupid. Like that's not, they might not know. They might not have options. They might have, you know, addictions and this kind of stuff. Fine. But that doesn't mean that I don't think there's better or worse. I think that's the thing is that not having a conception of a better or worse, not as a person, but from a health marker, I think that's where I'm not, I don't, I'm not persuaded with that. Again, back to theories, that doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't stick. If someone says, oh, it's all the same fat, not fat. I'm like, no, I don't think so. Again, but again, not morally,

but from a health marker point of view, which just doesn't make sense to me. You know, you, you've paid attention to a lot of people within fitness. I know like, you know, ATG, Ben, et cetera, but who are some other people outside of that who you think they're doing some pretty cool things or there's some awesome things here that people can pay attention to and grab and glean some things from? I think Paul Saladino is fascinating. I've listened to a bunch of Ben Greenfield. I like him a lot. I mean I think he's sort of the ADD of what's exciting right now. And I think there's – I mean there's good in that because I think that's the nature of like,

hey, this is a cool thing that I have. This is another cool thing. I think that's great. I just keep picturing him on his bathroom floor with the thing up his ass. Yeah, yeah. Listen,

it is what, you know, the enema. Yeah, listen, it is whatever floats boats, whatever floats boats. Listen,

you know, I'll be out in a minute. Yeah. Listen, you know. Daddy's in the bathroom again. Yeah, exactly.

It's like, okay, yeah. Like, I like Paul Saladino. I like, I think I'm persuaded to a certain extent by that argument from a nutritional point of view. Again, I think it's everything. It's like, it's, I'm persuaded. But again, like I used to be carb phobic and I'm not carb phobic in the same way.

And I think different people are different. I think the nutritional world is really tough because I think it's so ideological and people are so attached to various things. And the answer is like, okay, cool. Like I, you know, someone said to me, you know, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I'm a strength coach, you know, personal training, you know, and it's like, oh, well, you'd be really mad that I eat this. I'm like, I'm not, you don't pay me. You can eat what you want. And I think that's sort of the mindset, which most of us should have. It's like, you do that. That's cool. Like, all right, if you were asking me,

or if you're going to pay me to coach you, well, then it's different. Then I can be like, hey, this is the recipe I think works better for your thing. And if I get your results and you follow my stuff, I'm right. And if I don't, well, then I'm wrong. So I think fundamentally results matter. So I think, I don't know.

But again, it's back to the speed of trust. If someone's eating garlic and you're like, okay, full carnivore, blah, blah, blah, weight training, everything crazy. It's like, calm down. Maybe change your breakfast. Or maybe have a protein shake after your workout. Maybe actually have a workout.

Maybe drink more water. You know, these kind of things. I think habit-forming stuff, you know, I think is much more important than being ideologically, like, hitting your head against. I think some people caloric, like, again, like, I don't, to me, I don't want to do it. But I don't think the caloric model is simply wrong. But I also i don't want to do it but i don't think caloric the caloric model is simply wrong but i also think that it's a hand wavy motion type model it's not like i think this is i was talking about this this is maybe this is where i you know everyone's going to cancel me or whatever you want to call it where it's like i think nutritional science is

just as scientific as political science um there's too many human factors to me and i think that doesn't mean there's not potential heuristics that are, you know, like little formulas that are possible for people to figure out some form of way that will allow them to get towards their body. But so long as we say that it's not simply a truth, like this is the truth. It's like, hey, this is a recipe. I mean, if we're talking about food that could work and you try it, it works, cool. And I'm someone who knows this recipe and you try that recipe, cool. But I think there's many ways to skin the cat.

Do you think that's kind of true of all of fitness, including the way that we move? Yeah, I think so. Lifting and stuff like that? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think there's many ways to skin a cat. I think it's all kind of wishy-washy in terms of the science. Yeah, I think so too.

I'm not persuaded. You have to do it full range. You have to do it half range. You have to do it loaded. It just seems like it's kind of all over the place. Yeah, i think so too i'm not persuaded full range you have to do it full half range you have to do it i think so loaded it's like it just seems like it's kind of all over the place yeah i think so too i think i think and i think that's the thing the other thing is that back to the socratic which is always where i go there's too much too many factors in the human that mean that i don't think we'll ever be in the position where it can isolate enough such that it is x or y or z i think the only way to talk about science and the best scientists speak like

philosophers where they say, listen, with these studies that we put together, the scientific method, all that kind of stuff, we've repeated it. And it's probably kind of sort of this. We really don't know. Yeah. We're not sure, but it's probably kind of sort of this. And then you say, okay, well, are you going to bet your career on it? And they're like, yeah, this one I've done enough studies. I'm going to bet my career on this. Or you can be like, are you going to bet your life on it? Whoa, whoa, whoa, man, not my life, but I'll bet my career, you know, Hammurabi's law, which is, I don't know if you remember that, but Nassim Tlaib talks about it, which is like the architect should,

you know, what is it like you, you, the law is such where if the architect builds a house and that house collapses and kills people, their sons, they should have their son die. You know, in other words, there's skin in the game. So, so, you know, how much skin in the game do you have on your theory? You bet your career? Cool. Awesome. High five. Okay. You bet your career on that. And I respect the argument that you're putting forward the theory. I'm like, yeah, that's persuasive. Cool. You bet your child's life on that? God forbid. Whatever. But the point is, is how much do you think that that probability is true?

I'm like, nothing that I do. I bet my career on some things, but I don't know. I'm not betting any lives of any people. Paul Saladino did a great job of changing his mind. Yeah. The first thing? People very rarely do. Yeah.

He said, I changed my mind. Yeah. I was persuaded by that too. I was like, oh, this is interesting. I thought that was brave. Yeah. It's hard. That's not an easy thing to do. Yeah. He said, I changed my mind. Yeah. I was persuaded by that too. I was like, oh, this is interesting. I thought that was brave. Yeah. It's hard to, that's not an easy thing to do. Yeah, totally.

I was like. What specifically do you change his mind on? What? Fruits and vegetables? What are we talking about here? Fruits more. Just fruit pretty much. Yeah.

He was like, no. And then he was like, eh, actually like, eh, this stuff makes sense. Who else should we follow? Who else should you follow? Any other people? Pay attention to, yeah. Yeah. Pay attention to.

I might pay attention to. I might pay attention to. I'm trying to think. Maybe current philosophers or current people that move and teach strength training well. I mean, I wouldn't say like, you know, Jordan Peterson's phenomenal. Of course. There's a few friends, you know, I would say this. Oh, man. Like, it's hard because he's not on Instagram, but I would say this.

I would have to give, you know, thanks to Preston Green, who's, you know, a friend and a mentor who just got the job at the University of Miami for the basketball team. He's a phenomenal strength coach. He was a Charles guy. I was telling Mark this. He called Charles when he was 14 years old and asked him a question about glutamine. Again, like realizing he's a couple of years older than I am. He found it and looked up his book. It looked up his number and Charles was like, who are you kid? F off. And then the story goes a few days later, he got the confidence again to call him back. And Charles was like, okay, you're, and anyway, and the rest is history. He's like phenomenal, phenomenal strength coach.

I would say Preston green, you know, I've got a bunch of friends that are phenomenal. I'd say, I would say my friend Dave Lawrence at Mecca in Detroit is putting out great results in their, their social media presence is pretty great. He's an old,

old school Charles guy, but he's, you know, it's interesting. A lot of the conclusions that he's come to are similar events. We, we talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people that are really great for long-term periodization, I like a lot. Kilo Strength Society, they're great. Like, I think they're

really great. Kilo Strength Society. Yeah, they're really great. Again, they worked with Charles for many years and they have their own interpretation of like how to do long-term periodization. They're great with specialty techniques and eccentric methods and all kind of stuff i think they're great um yeah i mean edo portal you know like he just doesn't he just yeah he's like he's again i would consider him a friend and uh and you know someone that i've spent some time you know doing some stuff with like the last time i saw him was years ago but we spent a two and a half hour coffee chat where's he based out of now i think he travels I think a lot of the time he's in Berlin, but I'm not sure. I haven't spoken to him in a while, but again, he does, I think he does

a genius. Like I think he's brilliant. I think he's absolutely brilliant. He's a phenomenal mover. He's a phenomenal coach of movers. Um, you know, I just think he's devoted his life to movement and he's brilliant. Like I really think he's brilliant. Like I think he's philosophic, but I think he's very esoteric in some ways. So I really think he's brilliant. Like I think he's philosophic, but I think he's very esoteric in some ways. So it's hard to access him. And I don't think he's trying to be, he's not trying to promulgate to the masses.

That's not, you know, and again, all power to him. He's happy doing his thing. He's brilliant. I like him a lot. I get along with him really well. And I agree with a lot of the things he says. So it's, you know, it's cool because he came through Charles too.

So, you know. He did. Yeah, he was a Charles. He did a lot of Charles trial stuff but then he went on and did yeah absolutely that's how I got to Ido like I remember him talking about um um people were like oh you're the body weight guy he's like no just for upper body like lower body you need load and I remember him like ha he's not dogmatic interesting and I remember asking him questions he's like no you need a barbell and load for the lower body to truly develop lower body strength you actually need to load it in a way that you can't do without significant loads and guess what the barbell is a great tool so i do

olympic lifts they're just kind of boring for people to see but i do them and i do sky squat i deadlift like i do all those things he's like i do nordic curls they are curls like he's he's like this is yeah it's just more boring lower body's not as complex as a hand balance like wow you do a hand balance or one arm chin up so he's like here's me squatting double body weight i'd like he's not that big but it's so that's not as impressive but he's like but that's what i need okay so it was very interesting i was like okay you're not dogmatic you're and you know the movement stuff i think is fascinating yeah atg has a lot of like the shadows of that because keegan's inspired by that a lot yeah so that's, that's one of the things that drew

me. I'm like, Keegan's inspired by some of that stuff, which I really like. It's the idea of movement and not just sort of like, here's a, you know, a barbell, blah, blah, blah. So I think that's, you know, the idea that you're saying, like the, to me, I think that

what's fascinating finding what smart people find in common when you said all of these tools are arbitrary, like a barbell is so weird. Like it's – dumbbells are like – I'm like, ooh, I have the special – I'm like – and they're beautiful. I love my dumbbells. They're amazing. Yeah, people always talk about a squat and they're envisioning just having the weight on your back. Yeah, and you're like, but why?

It changes the dynamics of everything as soon as the weight's on your back. I mean we're trying to talk about like natural movements a lot of times. And then like a squat is such a natural movement. You're like, well, is it? I don't think so i mean it seems kind of it seems fairly unnatural to load a bunch of weight on your spine especially double yeah double your body weight like it's very awkward very odd it's uh back to what's what back to the question what is nature yeah and what is it well and what the fuck is it for right it it in some ways to me it seems like idiotic in a way you know it seems like a lot to

ask of your body right to go do a sprint or to jump or to a lot of those things make a lot of sense but sometimes but i don't know i mean laying down and bench pressing and stuff but they're fun they're all fun things are great but they're arbitrary and you've been at the peak of them but again like if you think like what and sema and i have chosen to do which which is jujitsu, this is a fight that's got these, you know, I love how John Danaher talks about it. It's like this is a rule set. Wait a minute. I just got elbowed in the face.

That's not allowed. I mean the rule set is such that it is fighting but not because – Right. And it's like, oh, this lapel grip is the good way to – it's like, I mean, it's an arbitrary rule set, but it's a fun rule set. So I guess the thing is that it's the same thing. It's like here's a bar,'s an arbitrary rule set, but it's a fun rule set. So I guess the thing is that same thing is like, here's a bar, here's a rule set.

Like how much do you play with the rule set? Yeah. Everything has its little tweaks and stuff, whether it be gymnastics or CrossFit. It's like, this is allowed. Like this is not. It's like, why are women not allowed to do ring muscle ups?

They don't in the Olympics because there's no rings in the Olympics for women, but that doesn't mean women can't do ring muscle ups when they're playing. Like, it's like, well, the Olympics just don't have the event for ring muscle-ups. It's parallel bars and non-parallel, you know, unparalleled, like, there's no rings. I did not know that. Women don't do rings.

It's only an event for men. Okay. Like, and the male bars is, you know, like, there's the single bar and the parallel, like, uneven bars, like, that's for women. Like, why? I don't know. I never understood softball versus baseball. I don't get it.

I don't understand. Well, it's always better with a bigger ball. Yeah, I guess so. Bigger balls pitched underhand. I don't get it. I don't understand. Well, it's always better with a bigger ball. Yeah, I guess so. Bigger balls pitched underhand. I don't know. Andrew, take us on that. Sure thing. But real quick, why do Canadians say Zed?

Arbitrary games. Or did I hear what I wanted to hear? No, you're probably right. Yeah, exactly. That too. I don't know. There we go. We end with an I don't know. Perfect. I don't hear. No, you're probably right. No. Yeah, exactly. That too. I don't know. There we go. We end with an I don't know.

Perfect. I don't know. Sounds good. All right. In the comments, let me know why. I think like the whole rest of the world says Zed,

right? It could be wrong. America's. America. America's. Yeah, we paved our own way. There we go. There we go.

Let me know in the comments down below and also just comment anything for that good old algorithm. And please like today's episode if you guys haven't already and subscribe if you guys are not subscribed. And follow the podcast at MBPowerProject on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, all over the place.

My Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? I'm Seema Indian on Instagram and YouTube. I'm Seema Indian on TikTok and Twitter. Discord links and all that good stuff is down below along with the Reddit. Ben, where can people find you? The ATG coach on Instagram. There we go. And for our ATG programs and all that stuff? Yeah. ATG for coaches, again, knees over toes guy, we're all connected. What we're doing is we're growing the in-person coaching. So if you want,

if you think it's useful, sign up for the ATG for Coaches online. And if you want to be a coach and if you want to do the program, these are for Toast Guy programs, great. And yeah, we're going to do more in-person events with ATG. And the other thing is like my facility is Reach Personal Training in Toronto, Canada. I have a phenomenal team and I'm very grateful for them. And it's what I love to do in person. And yeah, there we go. And thank you guys very much for having me.

It's amazing. Thank you. You guys are wonderful. Absolutely. Thank you. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye. Woo. Yes, sir.