Mark Bell's Power Project - Mitchell Hooper On Enhanced Games, PEDs, Heart Health & The 1,100lb Deadlift

Episode Date: May 23, 2026

Mitchell Hooper joins Mark Bell to talk about competing in the Enhanced Games, his real PED stack, the medical testing that revealed heart health concerns, and his attempt to break the all-time deadlift world record against Hafthor Bjornsson. Hooper also breaks down why strongman rewards athleticism, how he trains without frying his nervous system, and why niche sports need better athlete pay.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!

What exactly are you competing in? Is it just a straight-up 1-REP max deadlift? It's 1-R-Mex deadlift, and Thor and I are the two invited to break it. But it's really Thor and I versed the deadlift world record and can we pull it? And the whole event is designed around world records. To be clear, all of the athletes are getting paid, myself included, and we're getting paid very well. All of us are getting paid better than anywhere we've ever been for any sport. It's like, I summarize it's one of the Olympic guys.

You're like, okay, you've got the chance to win an Olympic gold medal, which is really cool. But you're going to sacrifice your whole life. You're going to submit to telling people where you are at every hour of the day or face the consequences, and you're doing all of this for free. Why would you do that? Well, let's get stuck into it. You're all good. You're looking faster. Your running's looking less clunky as time goes off.

I appreciate it, man. I remember seeing some clips of you running some 40s and you were flying, dude. Yeah, yeah, but I think it's a bad idea. The older I get, the more I think that is a real risk for my car. career that's probably not necessary. Dude, what's going on with Greg Ducet? Why has he got to stick up his ass? I don't, what's up with Greg?

He was talking trash about you. He said that you're going to die. I'm going to die. We're all going to die, aren't we? It's a matter of time, right? I mean, if... Yeah. Greg's Greg, man.

If you understand him, I actually really like him. If you understand him, he plays a social media. media game really well, and it's at the expense of making any friends. And so, like, I don't, I don't, he's accomplishing the goal he wants to, and it's fine, you know. But I think my, I think my videographer, or my editor isn't informed on steroids, because why would they be? So I think it was presented as though I'm taking 50 to 100 milligrams of Halo for an entire

prep, and then I'm taking 100 milligrams of anadrol on top of that for the entire prep, It's like, nope, that is just the last couple of days, of course. So it might have been stuff like that. I don't know. Are we recording yet? Yeah, we are. Okay. My stack into World Strongest Man was 750 tests, 300 MPP,

I had 50 milligrams of Halo a day for the week in and into comp. 50 milligrams of anodrol for two weeks leading in and 100 milligrams for the final week leading in. I've heard crazier. I've heard much crazier. Yeah, same here. What's the deal with the enhanced game? So are you allowed to like take whatever or I don't really understand what they're doing? So we're not allowed to take whatever.

It's substances widely approved for human use. So FDA is sort of the gold standard for that. We're not allowed to take experimental substances. So it's just a line in the sand that has to be drawn. And I respect and understand what they're doing. But the result is quite funny where I'm allowed to take 10. tests and Halo and Anadryl, I'm not allowed to take BPC. Okay, I get what you're saying, but the outcome is funny.

That's, yeah, that's super interesting. And plus, so pro-bodybuilding, professional strong men, powerlifting. There's a lot of organizations, a lot of federations that don't care. They're untested, I guess you would say. And so the enhanced games is like a step down from world's strongest man, classic, these bodybuilding shows, right? In terms of what you can take. Yeah, in terms of what you're allowed to do, sure.

Yeah, it's slightly less aggressive. The biggest change, though, is the closest thing I've had to someone giving a shit about my health is a really terrible set of forms to fill out for a world's strongest man, which is like you check yes, no, do you have chest pain? Yes, no. Do you get lightheaded when you live? It's so bad. And then just a doctor signed off your primary care physician, which is, of course,

good, but with enhanced. I've disclosed what my stack is. I've gone to New York City to Mount Sinai multiple times to get a CT scan on my heart, echo cardiogram, multiple EKGs at rest and during exercise, multiple rounds of blood work, and reviewed by multiple doctors, all of that medical team is here. And so it's, yep, we're allowed to do stuff. We're allowed to do slightly less than we're allowed to do in other shows. But the medical care is the stark difference that I've experienced. That's really cool. That's that's great to hear. What, uh, what, what, what exactly are you competing in it? Is it just a straight up, uh, one rep max deadlift? Yeah, though the, it's one rep max deadlift and Thor and I are the two invited to break it.

It's pitches me versus Thor because of course, we're the two trying to do it. Uh, but it's really Thor and I versed the deadlift world record and can we pull it. And the whole event is designed around world records. So we're trying to do a couple of different swim events, 50 and 100 meter, swimming events, 100 meter dash, Olympic weight lifting and multiple weight classes, and strong men. The idea being, let's show what enhancements can really do for athletic performance in a safe way. And then the back end of that and the business side of that is if we can show it in a control group of young, healthy population, and we clearly understand the upsides and the downsides and the risk factors and quantities, we can start using that as good information for the general population who could benefit from performance enhancements.

And with some of the blood work done and some of the scans and everything that you've gotten back, did you learn anything new? Yeah, for sure. For sure I did. And, you know, part of it is something that I never would know. So my left interior descending artery in my heart is 25 to 49 percent occluded. For a 35-year-old man, that's a really bad thing. And that's a byproduct of, in my opinion, chronic elevated LDO and suppressed HDL. And so that's something I got to get on top of for sure because I'm destined to have a heart attack if I don't do something about it.

And I also then understand that I have to control the amounts of orals that I take over time because, of course, they're designed to pass the liver, which is going to naturally harm the liver, which is going to have a hard time controlling your lipids. So I know that that has to be a priority. That was a new learning for me. And then as a man, I think we would rather not find things out about our health. And unless you're forced to, you're just going to say, like, based on how I feel, I feel fucking awesome, ergo, leave me alone. And finding those things out about my blood lipids is something that I would have turned a blind eye to for a long time.

And who knows what the outcome could be of that. So I'm very thankful that they've gone this pathway, and it's something that I'm not acutely concerned about, but it's certainly something where if you choose to do PEDs to performance side, you choose to be obese, you choose to have a low VO2MARICs relative to body weight, which are all in. natural consequences of being a strength athlete, there's going to have to be a health decision on the back end of when enough is enough. Do you have calcification? Is that what's going on? It's like a soft or hard black? Yeah. So it's this scan, it was just a CT scan with dye injected. So all they

can see is an estimation of the inclusion. So the level of calcification and exactly how it's calcified isn't, isn't declared in that test. Yeah. So at the next, the next step, and maybe you're already aware, but would be to get, yeah, further information on like the calcification that you have because a hard, my understanding is the hard plaque is kind of there to stay. There's really not a ton you can do about the hard plaque. The soft plaque breaking off, I guess, is what you have the most concern over. So I guess some of what I've heard is that blockage of the heart and somebody having a heart attack represents about 20% of the heart attacks that happen. 80% of the heart attacks that happen are from soft plaque breaking off and I guess I'm probably going to say something that's wrong,

but like blocking something and getting in the way than causing a heart attack. Sure, I hear you. Sorry, when I said most common, it's the most common way for people to die. And in terms of heart attacks and these types of mechanisms. So, yeah, look, at 30, it's kind of like a holy shit. But I think what people should understand, and it's very easy to say that it's because of performance enhancements, it's easy to say it's because of what I do for work. I've also read marathons.

I've existed most of my life at a healthy body weight. Five years of performance enhancements is not the reason that this has happened. It's because my dad has had cardiovascular issues. My dad's dad had cardiovascular issues. My dad's mom had cardiovascular issues. issues. And we have a really strong genetic history of cardiovascular problems. So maybe the knock on me would then be why the hell are you doing what you're doing? And I would say because I'm the fucking world's strongest man and it's paying off pretty good right now. So you just balance those

risk factors. Yeah, I have a high calcium score as well. I haven't talked about it a ton, but I've mentioned it before on my podcast. And I'm actually part of a study where we're trying to remove that plaque with things like natokinase and some other things. Maybe we could even get you in the study if you indeed qualify and have the right amount of plaque. The good news sometimes is like, hey, I made it in the study and the bad news is like you're bad off enough to be part of the study. Sure, of course, of course.

But yeah, I'd be willing to. It's, yeah, I'm not willing to die for this stuff, that's for sure. How is your deadlift training coming along? and what have you been doing differently in your training to try to break the all-time world record? What is it, like 11-06 or something or 11-10? Yeah, slightly over 1100s, 500s, 500s, 510 kilos. So just for context, I won the Arnold, then I have a five-week turnaround to the World Strongest Man. I won the World Strongest Man, and we're now on Sunday will be four weeks post-world Strongest Man.

And after those two big major shows, your body is not in good condition. So the past four weeks have been more about getting my body in good nick, staying fresh, having myself injury-free, pain-free, and doing enough to stay in touch. Personally, when I pull massive weights and when I've pulled PBs in the past, I haven't pulled something close to it to then slightly go more in comp. I find that that kills my nervous system more than anything. When I got closest to the Deadlo Ford record, it was when it was 505, 2024, ironically in Vegas as well. The closest I ever pulled in training was 400. And I pulled 400, failed it because I had back pain. I told my coach, I got to pull something close.

I got to try 400 again. The next day I went to the gym, pulled 400, said, okay, I guess I'm close. I walked 30,000 steps on Saturday. The show was on Sunday. And people were asking me, are you going to break the Deadlo Ford record? I'd say there's absolutely no chance. Like, I'm not in shape. I tore my calf the week before running in California.

There's no chance, but, you know, I think I could pull something decent. And all I had pulled is 400. then I got 505 to my knee. And that was with a lighter body weight, statically less strong than I am right now. And so a lot of my focus since World Strongest Man has been, how could I come in as fresh, healthy, and have my nervous system as sensitive as possible to get ready to go. The biggest pull I've pulled in training is 420.

It was fine. I'm not looking to break world records and training. I don't need to get close to World Records and training. And honestly, if you gave me two scenarios, one where I could have six months in a really slow, steady peak, of course I would take that. Of course I would prefer that and have 10 deadlifts of evidence of where it could be. But given the circumstance and given the calendar, I think personally, if I'm generally very strong and strong enough to win World Strongest Man, my deadlift is also very strong. The two kind of coincide. And then after World Strongest Man, you drop the intensity on everything unrelated to deadlift.

I've done tons of accessories to prepare the parts of my body. I've done enough deadlifting to stay in touch. and you know it's a hail merit it's a home run swing for sure but I think back to all of the shit that I've done in my life and would anyone have bet on me to pull 475 when I was down in Australia before I turned pro no would anyone have bet that I could press a 200 kilo log before I turned pro no would anyone bet that I could beat brian shaw in our group at wool strongest man no

did anyone think I could win world strongest man no eventually yes and then did they think I could win strongest man on earth and Arnold the heaviest shows in the world they didn't and then I did So if betting against me, anyone makes a hobby of that, it'd be a pretty frustrating hobby. So I understand why people don't bet for me this time. But I believe in myself to a naive extent. And that's where I am, where I am. And I'll continue to do that.

But we'll see. You won the Arnold this year and you won the world's strongest man this year already? Damn. That's impressive. But you've done that before, right? I did that in 2023. So I've won, I've never lost at the Arnold. I won 2023 now through 2026.

And in 23 and 26, I won world strongest man as well. Damn. There's not a lot of people that even done that. I mean, that's... No, it's me. You're on a good streak. Yeah, I'm on fire. I'm just so lucky, dude.

I don't know where all my gifts come from. I'm sure parents, sure of genetics. But I'm being pushed almost to a spiritual, religious place trying to figure out how the hell this is bestowed upon me. I'm lucky enough to work hard to take advantage of it. But yeah, the people have won the Arnold and worlds in the same year. I believe it's just me, Thor and Brian, and I think I'm the only one to do it twice. Brian might have done it twice, but if not Brian, I'd be the only one.

And four-for-four-fourth the Arnold thing. I try to comprehend what the hell my life has become in the strength world. As someone who never set out to win world's strongest man is crazy, and I'm just doing my best to soak it all up. I've had you on the podcast before, and we've talked a little bit about this, but what do you think is like the main thing that separates you out? You know, because you got Brian Shaw, he's, what, 6-8, got hapthor's like 6-10.

So sometimes when you see some of you guys in the lineup, it's hard to pick who's going to be victorious, right? For sure. I think, you know, the athletic background helps a ton, the kinesthetic awareness from things like golf and changing technique. I understand how to manipulate my body to get them. most from what I need to do. I think the best strongman proportion is actually probably 6364, not 6, 6, 8, 6.9, because there's nothing that's too tall for me to feel like it's too tall for me

to do easily. But then movements say a log clean and press for reps. I'm not tall enough for that to be literally the height of dunking a basketball over and over so I can get good reps in there. And then there's certain things that are uncontrollable. Where are your insertions on your joints? and what's your general neural drive and how many things do you have wrong with you and how much internal feelings of inadequacy do you have to continue to chase these things for no particular reason? And it's just the right mix in that soup that for whatever reason it's just all happened. And I think there's something so valuable in my case as well of not getting into this

to win world's strongest man. I got into this to follow the process of what does it feel like to get as strong as possible to relate to people with injuries and chronic conditions that I was seeing in my clinic. And since that was my mission, that's my root. That continues to be the tree that grows from that root because I don't look at the contest as the finishing point. I look at the process as a scientific journey and an exciting thing of how could I try to get the most for myself. And of course, the enhanced games and this prep has been a totally different scientific journey and effort and injury management and recovery to be able to get to a healthy spot to see what I can pull. It's gotten you into Strongman.

Was there like one particular person that you were watching or you went to an event or something? Yeah, I was in Australia and I did powerlifting first just because I knew that it exists. And I went to a gym that had power lifters. I did it up to the Australian National Championship, which I won. Then there was guys in the corner of the gym who did Strongman. And based on my heightened athleticism, they kept jeering at me that you're a waste in powerlifting. You're too tall and you can run around too much. And the one name that comes to mind is Troy Conley, who does a lot of truck pull charity work now down in Australia.

But at Adonis Athletic Granville back about seven years ago now, he was the first one to egg me into it. And then I did really four or five local shows and got invited to World Strongest Man off of Instagram videos. Like power lifters are just fat. Yeah, I'm sorry. I know it's consumed a lot of your life. man, it was one of the most boring sports that I participated in my life. It really is boring. Why do you think that golf, why do you think that golf helped you with Strongman?

Is there like almost like a finesse aspect? Or do you mean like maybe just becoming good at golf and playing for many years helped you rotate and move around a little bit better than most? No, it's the principle of like, I don't know if you do golf much. We ever golf? Okay, okay. So you have your golf swing and you're going, and then you'll go to a coach, and the coach will say, okay, let's say you've got to tuck your elbow more.

You tuck, and you're like, okay, so you tuck your elbow more, you tuck it right in. You swing, it feels like you're swinging a different club. You feel foreign and weird, and you go back and watch one video to the next, and that major change that you felt like you made in your body, you did almost nothing. And so the feeling of it, and then that's something you've got to work on over time is learn that, like, whatever change I feel like I'm making, I could go 10x. that and that's going to start looking like what it should. Applying that to Strongman, it's like, okay, if we're trying to correct my rack and the

log press to have elbows wide to elbows in and shoulder blades forward, you can't just kind to try to make that cue work and you've got to go like full in, do 10 times more than you think you're going to fully trust that and then you're probably in the right position to start building up into training that properly. So I think it's more that, the body awareness that came from golf that I would attribute some of my success too. I don't think golf into marathon running into Strongman is the recipe. But we do have three guys now that would be top 10 to top 15 in the world who have come from distance running backgrounds. I think you'll ever go back into doing some golf? Golf, yeah,

100%. It's my favorite leisure activity. I can't do it right now because the violent rotation into axial loading is just a bad recipe for back pain. But I yearn for the day. I lose weight. Go back into golf. from Strongman to Iron Man and document that journey. So I've got lots of post career plans for sure. You want to go into some Iron Man? Do some cycling and swimming and the whole thing, huh? Yeah, well, because look, you've done that journey where you were a fat powerlifter. And actually your recent post of you when you were very fat is so funny to look back on.

But I think there's something inside the average person that looks at anyone accomplish something like I have or like you did back in the day. it's like, oh, you're made to do that. Like obviously this is your journey because you're made to do it. You're like, well, yes, kind of. But also, if I committed myself with the same intensity, vigor, process to something else, let me show you that. So you can argue I'm gifted for strength for sure. But you can't argue you're gifted for strength and you're gifted to do an Iron Man.

So then it creates no reasonable excuse for anyone to say that they can't accomplish something pretty cool if they just put in a reasonable effort for a long time. What's been the hardest thing for you to get good at with Strongman? I think I find Strongman to be insanely challenging, you know, the sandbags and the yoke carry and, oh man, there's just a lot of things. But for you, what do you think's been like something that's really bothered you, especially like in the beginning? I mean, now you seem to be pretty proficient at all of them.

Yeah, yeah. Well, just by nature, my personality is that things that I'm not good at piss me off twice as much as the things that I'm good at excite me. So I just tend to want to work on them. But I wouldn't say it's an event in particular. I would say it's the rehab, rehab mobility, all of the stuff that goes along with being able to do things heavy at a high level for a long time. And, you know, I've had to sort of not tuck my tail between my legs.

Well, kind of, I guess. I just say, like, I should have listened to some more the more experienced people. And it's the stupid thing. Every young guy learns this when someone more, experience informs them or something where it's like warm up before your deadlifts and you're like yeah I feel completely warm and then they're like no but you got to prep your body I'm I'm prepping my body via deadlifting lighter into deadlifting heavier I feel great what do my what the fuck do even want me to do I feel sweet and then it's over time I'm like okay my hips are now super tight

my knees come and go and now I feel like I'm working a little bit uphill to get things back in order but it's a lesson well learned and I think it's a context dependent lesson for people who are pushing to the extreme and the lessons of prehab and rehab applied to a general population working at a 7 out of 10 intensity or lower is kind of ridiculous like just get into the gym and work reasonably hard but if you want to be the best in the world you're going to do absolutely everything that you can to get to that level and stay at that level and I think I've had a harder time staying at that level than I did getting to that level and thankfully I've learned the lessons in a small enough way that it hasn't really materially impacted me too much

Might be something kind of cool for you to do. I've seen a lot of your YouTube videos and you do a lot of collaborations and stuff. I don't know if you've ever done anything with Hunter McIntyre. No, I know him 100%. Yeah. Dude, you should go to Malibu. Like when you're done, you know, you can shoot out of everybody and all these strong men things and you have a little bit of a break. You should go to Malibu and just suck it up and go train with him.

The guy has so much fun. He's like a pro wrestler. Talks a lot of trash on the internet. is actually very, very nice in person. He's super cool. But man, you would have a blast. And I think, like, if people saw you doing, like, some high rock stuff, I think people would think that's pretty dope.

Yeah, for sure. And look, it's at a certain point with strength sports, if you get aerobically fit, is that juxtaposed and is that anti-getting strong? Yes, it is. But is it pro-improving your recovery and pro-improving your agility and your endurance and Of course. So doing a high rocks or something like that is absolutely like it's something that's not off the cards for me to think about even this year. I can't talk about what it is, but I've signed to do something in late July, early August that's going to require me to lose 20 or 30 pounds.

A pretty exciting fun thing. And yeah, I guess people can speculate on what that might be. But I'm going to have to be an athlete much more than just a strength athlete. So I look forward to that journey as well. Yeah, that's exciting. What do you think the enhanced games can do to really, like, I guess, put their name on the map? It looks like they, you know, they had this event this week and I think you're competing on Sunday, right? So, you know, getting this event going and having this first one, I think, is probably super important.

But after that, that's where probably the hard work is going to be, right? Because they'll have to figure out they're going to do it every year, every other year, every couple years. that's really. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard rumblings and I haven't heard anything confirmed, so I'm not divulging anything I shouldn't. But I've heard possibilities that they're going to do a series of smaller events. And so a one off world record here and there and that they're going to try to do an enhanced games annually. There's so many people with their careers on the line who have chosen to be here. And I'm thankful that I'm not one of them. So I don't have that anxiety. But the swimmers, the track athletes and the lifters have all been involved. that they're not welcome back, whether they're, we have unenhanced athletes here, but even the unenhanced ones have been informed that they're not welcome back into Olympic competition. The coaches are not welcome back to Olympic teams or Olympic competition. And if even if a coach coaches someone who's not, you know, enhanced in any way, that athlete is then banned by association from the Olympics in any sanctioned sport. So it's a big risk for a lot

of people and a lot of people have taken a leap of faith for enhanced to become something more than just one event. But the reality is, after this event, there's going to be a lot more intrigued by athletes and tested sports to want to be a part of this. There's massive interest in strength sports to want to be a part of this. And I think their ability to continue to market through athletes is definitely going to be there. And then, of course, they've got their publicly traded company that's hormones and peptides off the back end of it, which, you know, that's the real meat on the bone. it's really interesting to me and I get how we are doing it so we are the we are the disposed people for it and we're the people who are marketing it but if you go to a NASCAR event

you look at those cars and the cars have every product under the sun under them and it's very well understood that the driver gets the sponsor on the cars that they can drive the cars that they can be a NASCAR driver like that's just and nobody looks at the athlete and goes you're promoting ice cream do you know how to that you know how to that you're how bad ice cream is for people? Like it's like, no, I just want to be able to drive my car and they can pay. And so I think a part of this is like, yeah, we're endorsing it. We're promoting it. I'm more vocal, I think, than any of the other athletes, but here are the upsides of these supplements and substances. But in the end, I think someone should be able to compete in it very quietly,

do their thing. And just, it's an event that's being sanctioned for them to do something really cool and however much or little they want to speak about it. Just like, let's get eyes on it and let's let those eyes be turned into whatever marketing avenue that you'd like. Man, you're bringing up a really good point because we don't really realize that all of us that watch the NFL that also maybe talk poorly of big pharma or these big organizations. We're all part of it because we're supporting Nike. We're supporting, you know, all these big giant shoe companies.

We're supporting Apple. We're supporting all the people that support the NFL, the alcohol, all. all the different things that are involved. And I'm not saying any of that's good or bad. I'm just saying, like, we don't really pay attention to that. We don't really think that our favorite football player is, like, endorsing all these things. But they quietly are, just as you're mentioning, with the NASCAR racer. And it's fine.

It's just how it works. That's how the world works. And the hypocrisy and the superiority of a lot of people who don't even fully know what's going on with Enhance, which I'm happy to speak about as well in the back. business ends. It's just, it's mental. You know, it's, the only people, let's, let's put this way, Mark, who are we actually concerned about being aware of enhancements who's not aware of enhancements right now? Is it adults? No, I don't care. Is it children? No. Children have iPhones and if they're interested in these things, they're going to be interested in it. I'm just as culpable of someone

watching to be obese to be the world's strongest man as I am for them choosing to do something. is it the kids of those parents who didn't realize that this was a possibility for their kids to take in the first place? Yes. And now the parents have their eyes open. It's like, oh, right. And they're going to blame us for exposing them. No. Walk around the Olympia, walk around the Arnold. The kids, no. And that was a big deciding factor in me wanting to do this. I looked around at the teenagers there and they're all on gear. And you don't need to ask. And if you do ask like the coaches, they're like, yeah, like 80% of my teen athletes are on gear. Okay, we're not uncovering something that's not already out there. But what we are doing is lured. the population as to what's going on. And the downside is some moderate health consequences, especially if you're doing things reasonably, and especially if you're doing them medically supervised in terms of testing on a regular basis. And then the upside is middle age people, older people, people with chronically low, let's say testosterone, chronically low energy, libido, whatever it may be. And there's real upside for them. And you say, if I told you

there's a drug that, okay, it might, if we talk to the three things, it affects your cardiovascular system, your liver, your kidneys. If I say there's a small to minuscule effect on your cardiovascular system, heart kidneys, or sorry, kidneys and liver, if I said there's a very small, very, very small effect on those three, but there's a guarantee that you're going to have more muscle mass, more energy, higher bone density, better strength, better power, better balance throughout the rest of your life. And I make that pitch. to anyone 40, 50, 60, let's just work on informed consent. And the vast majority of people are going to go, yeah, I'm going to sign up for that. You couple that with mitigating those risk factors

by introducing regular exercise. That's now more motivating because you're going to get twice the results and half the time. What's the bad that we're doing? I don't fully understand the argument to the downside as long as you're not doing something stupid. It's unbelievable that Natty or not is still such a thing. So the enhanced games, they must be using, or I'm sorry, WADA, the World Athletic Drug Association, must be utilizing their right to kind of exercise.

They can ban athletes that compete in non-tested organizations, I believe, is what they can do. Because, I mean, it sounds to me like this is like a lawsuit type of thing. Like it just sounds like the day and age that we're in, it doesn't sound like they should be able to really ban those athletes. I know that they have that clause in there. They shouldn't be able to ban those athletes like that, especially if the athletes, I know like Fred Curley is saying like he's just going to go about his business the same as he always does as if he's getting drug tested. And there's other athletes who are doing the same. They just are choosing to do the enhanced games.

And some of these athletes are probably getting paid, which is great. Like, that's awesome, like getting paid. And then I love the fact that the, I love the fact that the organization is utilizing you guys as a vehicle and vessel to promote. And that's exactly what Jake Paul did recently when he had his event, the MMA event that went on a few weeks ago with, or last week with Ronda Rousey. And you saw all those athletes promoting. I'm like, man, this is so genius. A lot of times these things are under wraps. Look at a world's strongest man.

how many years they would like run the episode or you guys would have a winner for like months on end and then the thing wouldn't air for forever you're like this is an archaic dinosaur type thing that had going on there for a really long time

and times are different now and we need people to promote so I think the enhanced games is doing some things that hopefully will shake up sports a little bit and hopefully I don't know just bring in some some new bluepes. and bring in some new stuff into sports.

For sure. And to be clear, all of the athletes are getting paid, myself included, and we're getting paid very well. We're getting paid. All of us are getting paid better than anywhere we've ever been for any sport. Hell yes. It's like, I summarize it's one of the Olympic guys. You're like, okay, you've got the chance to win the Olympic gold medal, which is really cool. But you're going to sacrifice your whole life.

You're going to submit to telling people where you are at every hour of the day or face consequences. You're going to have to work a second job on top of trying to train several hours a day and you're doing all of this for free. Why would you do that? And surely this is going to start opening people's eyes to it because being here is going to be more useful to our gold medalists financially than winning the gold medal. And that's not even if they win. That's not even the second record. Just being here is going to be more useful to them in most cases. So yeah, and when it comes to the promotion side, if you look at the NFL, the model right now for our niche sports is like, how do we get more butts in seats? How do we have more people in the seat and paying the entry

fee to come watch? And if you look at the NFL, the Super Bowl has, you know, let's say 75,000 people watching live. Maybe each person is paid, let's overestimate and say $10,000, $10,000 on 75,000 people. Whatever that math is, let's say 75 million, whatever. That is like 1% of what the Super Bowl is actually worth because of endorsements, because of TV deals. TV deals funded by the cost of the commercials because people are watching. Everything in the world of sport is a commercial endorsements. And we have to embrace that in niche sports if we want to start getting paid. Because adding another thousand people into the stands divided up by 20 athletes in a contest, shut up.

The economics just never will make sense. And so, you know, we're on the same page there. And we got to just accept that corporate realities are a thing if you want to make money. Awesome, man. Well, good luck against Hap Thor. I wish both you guys luck. I'm friends with both you. But it'd be great to see you break an all-time world record in the deadlift, man.

Yeah, it'd be cool. It'd be cool. It's a home run swing. It's cool to be part of the events. I'll show you, actually, I'll show you the setup that they got going on. A little sneak preview. Sweet. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Outside your hotel, huh? Yeah, yeah. So we've got the track, the swimming pool, that massive screen, and we're lifting right there between the swimming pool and the massive screen. No way. It's going to be electric.

Yeah, and the scaffolding, on the scaffolding is all, it's all lights and speakers. And when it's lit up at night, which we'll be lifting at night, it's a production quality as good or better than any big four sporting event I've ever been to. That's awesome. What's your pre-meal go-to for a big deadlift? I keep things as similar as I do every other day. So I'll head down. I'll have a few eggs, hopefully a handful of waffles.

I'll have a big bowl of yogurt with honey, peanut butter, and granola. And we'll do the thing. But day before, we'll eat up. A lot of hydration because, of course, we're in Vegas, and that's going to take it out of you. And we'll see how it goes. The body weight up to. 340 right now.

I think for health and performance and the rest of Strongman, I want to work my way down to 320, 310. Weight moves weight, so we'll see how that works. Awesome, man. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, brother.

Of course. Speak soon.