Mark Bell's Power Project - Optimal Protocols To Build Muscle & Increase Strength After 40

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Is it possible to build muscle and increase strength after 40? Do you have to give up heavy lifts like squats and deadlifts as you get older?In this episode of Mark Bell’s Power Project Podcast, hosts Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang discuss the best ways to train for longevity and health. They talk about how to keep training hard without hurting your body by using smart training methods and listening to your body. They also share their thoughts on how to stay strong and feel good for years to come.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 Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!Best 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!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewzChapters:0:00 - #1 Exercise for Men 40+ 0:41 - Stop Lifting Heavy After 40? 1:51 - How Powerlifting Wrecked Mark Bell 2:55 - Dangers of PEDs As You Age 3:34 - Why John Cena Can Barely Walk 4:45 - John Cena’s Legendary Career 8:39 - A Pro Wrestler's REAL Schedule 10:07 - Don’t Let Age Define You 12:42 - You're Doing This Wrong 14:11 - The Most DANGEROUS Deadlift 17:23 - REAL Reason For Cena’s Back Pain 19:00 - Are Heavy Lifts Bad After 40? 22:28 - Squatting Without Pain 25:25 - Exercises to Stop Doing 28:58 - How to Get Lean & Eat What You Love 31:36 - The Invention of the Burpee 32:33 - You Can't Get Your Youth Back 35:15 - #1 Mistake Athletes Make 38:28 - Best Equipment for Better Results 40:09 - Stronger at 50 Than 30? 42:42 - Your Best Lifting Days Are Ahead 43:08 - Deadlifts vs. Grandkids 45:54 - Finding a Doctor Who Helps 48:27 - Is Stu McGill Wrong on Deadlifts? 51:51 - Secret to Avoiding Injury 55:10 - Training for the Future 57:53 - How Mark Bell Avoided Burnout 1:02:30 - Listen to Your Body to Avoid Injury 1:04:30 - The Hottest New Supplement 1:07:47 - The Lifter's Fountain of Youth 1:11:42 - The Secret to Effortless Strength 1:14:12 - Must-Do Exercises As You Age 1:19:16 - The Best Way to Train for Life

Think about, you know, things to do over 40 or things to do over 50. The more dangerous something is probably almost the better. What I'm talking about puts on way more force than anything you can do in the gym. And that would be eccentrics. That would be stopping your body. Trying to sprint and then stop your body. Running uphill is really great for a lot of people to get started with being able to produce some force and being able to maybe move faster, strength in the hamstrings, glutes, calves, and so on.

Some people will say deadlifting is bad for you. or squats are bad for you. But that doesn't make any sense. Gravity is a level of a force. Can you bend down and come up? Can you squat down and come up? I just don't think that as you get older, that you should just negate something because of,

oh, I'm 40, I can't do that. I'm 50, I can't do that. Training after 40 years old, I don't think you should do it. I don't think you should lift heavy. I think you've got to be really careful as you age. Yeah, they said that same thing for training after 30. You know?

But maybe you can. Maybe you can. It's an interesting thing. We're going to pull up a few videos today, but there's always something. You know what I mean? Like, before I turn 30, I'd have my friends that were in their 30s who would tell me to wait until my 30s. I mean, my 30s, there are certain things I've adjusted because I like lifting certain things more. But my, you know, my metric for progression is how does my body feel fighting people?

And I feel better than I did in my 20s. So I don't necessarily feel those things. How old's Cassio? Cassio's like 49. Yeah. I think he's 49, or maybe he's already 50. I don't know. Hopefully, I'm sorry, Cassio, but he's up there, right? But, you know, he's, but the thing is, is like, when you see Cassio, he's changed, right, in terms of his physicality. But, yeah, I don't know. Like, I feel that there are things that can be done so that you can, you know, do these things well.

I think, you know, for myself, you know, the way that I've lifted for many, many years, I think it has compromised my body. compromised my mobility and a lot of different things but it was a sport you know i was deliberately trying to get as big and as strong as i possibly could and maybe not everybody else out there has those same goals but i do think this topic is interesting because yeah how should we how should we train how should we train to i guess avoid you know because you're trying to do something good and something healthy for yourself to some extent and maybe sometimes staying too attached to these deadlift, these bench presses, these squats and some of the stuff that we do in the gym, for some individuals, that keeps them attached to quite a bit of food intake to either

hold on to their muscle mass or hold on to a combination of muscle mass and body fat to do strongman or powerlifting or some of these sports, which we can say is like that doesn't seem that healthy. But most of these things, they seem to still be fairly healthy if you're doing them naturally. If you're bringing in PEDs and you're staying attached to those old numbers, that's where I think it starts to be, that's where I think it starts to be even more to your detriment. I think you're kind of throwing more fuel on the fire. You're making yourself, you know, you're just staying too attached to those weights. And because you're staying too attached to those weights, then you have to weigh a certain amount. And then you, because you have

to weigh a certain amount, you're still taking, you know, drugs that you're maybe taking in your 20s and your 30s, and maybe they're not appropriate for your 40s and your 50s. Let's play this. Yeah, let's check out this clip here from Mike. This video of John Cena is absolutely brutal. You can see the pain in his face as he just struggles to stand up. Then he

has to go and take photos. And to his credit, what a good-natured soul he is to take all those photos while clearly being in such distress. You've got to be tough to be dancing. Hey, you know, everyone where you go?

John looks like he's invisible pain. He's taking a bunch of pictures with a bunch of people, but he's moving and just a very... Where's my girlfriend? Rigid. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. He's leaned forward quite a bit. You know, for those that don't know, John's been a good friend of mine for over 20 years. We'll play the rest of the video in a second, but, you know, he's somebody that does professional wrestling.

And he's been doing professional wrestling. And actually, he's like the highest grossing professional wrestler in the history of wrestling. Oh, even above the rock? He's above everybody. He's crushed everybody. There's not, there's no crap. There's no one, there's not a comparable wrestler who's done it the way that John Cena has done it for the length of time that he's done it. I know like Hogan and stuff, like some of these guys had really long careers and RIP to Hulk Hogan, but John Sina,

It's hard to name other wrestlers in the John Sina era, whereas when Hulk Hogan was around, a lot of people that were, a lot of people that remember the 80s and 90s of wrestling, they remember, you know, the Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man and so on. Rick Blair, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of great wrestlers in that, in that era. And then when Stone Cold was around, you had the rock and you had Kane and Undertaker and, like, that was like the height. And then you had the rock kind of take over at that time And wrestling was going absolutely insane John Sina held the WWE together Kind of single-handedly

And he would never take any credit like that He's way too humble to admit anything like that But that's the truth It's hard to name other great wrestlers At the era, the time frame that John Sina was around He was like the only one to really hold everything together and wrestlers you know they they it's a year round thing like a professional football player or um hockey player or basketball player they'd be like professional

wrestling no way you guys are absolutely insane because these guys are traveling so much and there's no season it's it's all the time and so it's it's really so it's very serious it's very much unfair. John Cena was also retired for a few years more recently. Not necessarily retired, but he wasn't in WWE for a while. More recently, he came back, he turned heel, he's going until

December 13th is his last match. And they have kind of like a whole setup for him to like actually leave wrestling. And he's literally leaving the physicality of wrestling. He's, he more than likely won't wrestle again. Maybe he'll do something in the ring, but he's not going to

have any more matches. And And the reason that he cited was the second that he loses a step, he wants to be out. So he's in recognition that he's not the same John Cena he was when he was 28 or 32. He is 47 years old. But I think this is really unfair to take this video of someone who's – I could get out of the car and look the same way. I mean, I just drove my daughter down south and dropped her off at college, and I was driving for six hours. Like, I'm getting out of the car. I'm probably not looking so pretty either.

So I'm not trying to make excuses for the guy, but John is someone that has been wrestling for many, many years at a very, very high level. And he's had many surgeries, including, including, you know, very serious surgery. He said surgery on his neck, his back, and so forth. And, you know what, let's play the rest of the video,

because I have a question for you after this, Mark. I just want to finish and just saying that John Cena's not broken from, like, lifting. You know what I mean? He's broken from his occupation. professional wrestling is not good for your health you're a man over the age of 40 suffering like john is send me a DM i can help this video of john mark you you've mentioned to me like

how how much of a toll wrestling takes but also like how much of a commitment it is so like what is that commitment well i mean when you're when you're on the level of john sina i don't even have any idea i mean they're wrestling um probably four or five nights a week um every week for years on end he's done this for years and years and years and the amount of travel you can't forget you can't forget about how much travel kind of beats you up even without wrestling yeah so all the bumps and all the stuff and john's like main event so it's not like he just goes out there and does something for like three minutes or five minutes he's not like part of the show he is the show so he's out there

for 30 minutes in these grueling matches. And more recently, he's been in some really good matches where he's doing all kinds of athletic stuff that still represents him being, like, so Dulce didn't take this video and say, hey, if you're 47 and can only move around like this, where John's performing this unbelievable acts of athleticism for 30 minutes in front of 50,000 people,

he didn't choose this, but he chooses to sight when he's coming out of a vehicle after he's been traveling probably on a plane and a train and so on and so forth. It is quite a clip to take. But one of the things that I think gets me about that clip is the over 40 thing. If you're a man, because I've seen this in so many different ways.

I've seen this with people saying, if you're a man over 30 and you're a professional, or if you're a man over 40 with a family, Or if you're a man over 50 with this. It's like all these fucking stipulations about your age. Or I just saw this girl recently. I get it when people market, they want to find their niche. So this girl, I saw her on Instagram.

She's like, if you're a lesbian, this is how you, she's, that's her thing. If you're a lesbian, you shouldn't be doing these lifts. And when I heard that, I'm like, man, people really trying to find their niche. So, but the problem, the problem I have with the age thing. And I know. I'm about to be 33. So whenever I say anything about age, people are like, shut up. But at the same time, the reason why I'm mentioning this is because when I was in my 20s, people would say things about when I was in my 30s and I'm in my 30s. And I still feel great.

I still feel so much. I'm making continuous progress in terms of the things I do. I'm developing better movement ability. Things haven't just slowed down because of my 30s. And if I listened to what people said about being in your 30s, I would have not been doing the things I'm currently doing. but it's going to be the same thing in the 40s, 50s, 60s. And I think inherently what just happens is that as you progress, as you were talking about attachments, I think that you need to adjust the attachments you have to certain things. And maybe one of those things, just not when you reach any age,

but just as you get older and you're doing things physically, one of the things you need to adjust your attachment to is the weight you're working with. Because some people will say, and we'll get to some other videos, Some people will say deadlifting is bad for you, or you shouldn't deadlift, or squats are bad for you. Heavy squats, heavy deadlifts, heavy this, heavy that. But that doesn't make any sense because, you know, gravity is a level of a force. Can you bend down and come up? Can you squat down and come up?

What load isn't then unsafe for you as a person, as an individual? Right. What is that load that's too heavy? Maybe what we should be thinking about instead of just purely the load is like, yeah, we want to challenge ourselves, but we also want to have good movement ability and movement quality with the things that we're doing. And if we can maintain good movement quality, we can push the load here and there, but the load just needs to be reasonable for the movement that's being done. And if it's too heavy, we'll know, and we shouldn't be so attached to the

weight we're working with. The intensity is a big part of it, you know, the weight that we have on the bar. But if we're to just kind of think about this more logically and think about, you know, things to do over 40 or things to do over 50 or maybe things to do over 60, the more, the more like the more dangerous something is probably almost the better. Now, lifting a crazy heavy weight, like that's got some danger and some risk to it, but that's not really what I'm talking about. But what I'm talking about puts on way more force than anything you can do in the gym. and that would be eccentrics.

That would be stopping your body, trying to sprint and then stop your body. Or, you know, running uphill is really great for a lot of people to get started with being able to produce some force and being able to maybe move faster, strength in the hamstrings, glutes, calves, and so on. But having the ability to run downhill is very youthful. Usually the only people that want to run downhill or, like, run downstairs or jump downstairs are like little kids.

Yeah. And that's a sign of youth. Like a little kid will naturally do that. A little kid will just, they'll just do that. They don't think about it. They don't warm up. They just go flying right down a hill or they jump down a thing and stairs. And so actually the truth is that most of these things are actually quite the opposite of what's being preached.

Not only do we not want to avoid deadlifts, but we want to try to figure out almost like more dangerous versions of deadlifts. so we can become even more proficient. Like, what's a more dangerous version of a deadlift? Well, let's get the weight actually on the ground rather than lifting plates that are elevated off the ground, 14 inches. That's how high up the plates elevate the barbell. Let's get something that's actually on the ground,

like a sandbag, and let's actually round up. Oh, wait, wait a second. Stu McGills and enter the chat. Yeah. You can't round over. Let's not forget the rules. There's rules about putting your knees over your toes too. You've got to be very careful of that. You can't round over, but we know that like a lot of

this stuff is, a lot of the stuff is bullshit. Like, of course you should be careful. And of course, when we're talking about these barbell lifts and what you were mentioning and what I was saying about attachment, that's where we need to be more careful and we need to be more cautious, trying to live up to something that we were yesterday. And maybe we were able to be pretty proficient when we were younger. And so maybe we need to be a little bit careful. But the same would be true. If I used to run a 10 second 100 meter, well, as I get to be 50, 55, for me to try to run all out and try to maintain that speed, it just most likely is not going to happen. I'm going to get slower. You are going to most likely lose some muscle mass. You're most likely going to lose some

strength. And so just come to terms with it and you're going to start to probably use less weight. but as you're pointing out if we just have appropriate weight on there we should be fine we should be good to go we shouldn't end up getting hurt and again you know I just I don't really know

what Dolce's point was and like I know that Dolce does MMA and I know he has a grappling background himself and I know he coaches a lot of people but he doesn't have I don't think he has any I don't think he's any credentials I don't think he's ever worked with anybody

quite like a John Sina who's like actor, entertainer, this physical level. Maybe he has. Maybe Dolce has worked with Brock Lesner or something. Maybe he's worked with professional wrestlers before. But again, John Cedar is banged up from what he does in the ring, and they caught him in a moment where he's, like, in more discomfort. Now, I was in a documentary with John Cina when we were both in our 20s,

and John Cina walked kind of similar back then. than he does now um i don't i can't remember the name of the documentary but maybe ryan maybe you would be able to find it was like john sina grocery shopping because they show how much like protein and stuff that he buys and they show him like pushing a cart and all you see is like his giant ass but he has a giant ass and he's just like uh leaned forward he kind of has always walked uh maybe a little differently anyway but is it maybe this one from six years ago No, no, it's an older one. No, it's like 25 years ago, probably.

It's really old. It's part of a documentary. I don't know if you'll be able to find it, but anyway. Yeah. He's always walked a little differently. You know, I mean, probably from being jacked. I think that's the thing, though. It's like, okay, you know, I know people in their 20s that suffer back pain that would

watch that video and be like, that's me. I know people in their 30s who suffer from back pain who will be like, that's me. People in their, you know, the thing is is though that the video, was used because there's going to be a lot of guys in their 40s with a lot of lower back pain because they're probably overdoing certain things in the gym and they haven't they haven't adjusted right um and it's it's a it's a great way to market i get it uh but but the thing is is like i think that's one of the things one of the reasons why uh even in our prior episode where we talked about like giving yourself a bit of variability i i need to i need to use my words very

carefully here. I would be wary of trying to look at yourself totally differently because of your age. I'm not saying you're just like you were in your 20s, but it doesn't mean that you need to lose the mindset of achieving things or trying things like you did when you were in your 20s and like you did when you were a kid. Inherently, a lot of the things that we've been sharing with you guys is trying to get you to try new things and adventure with your body and almost treat yourself like you would when you were a kid when we talk about taking walks instead of just walking we talk about maybe taking something with you skipping a little bit hopping a little bit doing things like you did when you're a kid because when you're older you you start to think you start to take yourself

too seriously and you don't try certain things so you know there's another video we're going to pull up from this guy dan go and dan is also a really smart guy but he's also kind of zoned in on creating content for guys in their 40s or people in their 40s. And I think at the beginning of the video, actually, Ryan, can you go to, let's see, context. Can you just play that context section real quick? Hold on one second. I have it muted. All good. On mute. I get to this video, I need to add some important context.

And if you don't like context, you could just skip over this part. The truth is, there are no good or bad movements. isolation, it always depends on who's doing them, how they're being performed, and what the person's goals are. For example, a powerlifter preparing for a competition has every reason to perform heavy squats or deadlifts because their reward far outweighs the risk in that setting. But if you're a 45-year-old entrepreneur hunched over a laptop all day with tight hips and a cranky low back, those same lifts could carry a much higher injury risk compared to the other ways of building strength. Another layer to consider is recovery. So after four,

the body doesn't really bounce back the same way it did at 20. Prioritizing exercises that are joint-friendly, easier to recover from, and offer a better cost-to-benefit ratio can help you keep training consistently, which is the real secret to getting results. And finally, exercise isn't about avoiding pain, it's about longevity. So choosing movements that build strength, mobility, and also your cardiovascular health without pushing your body to the brink allows you to train every year without any setbacks. So with that said, there are some outlaw.

out there who do really well with doing these exercises, and that's totally cool. These exercises are not categorically bad. It's just that for most busy people over the age of 40 who are slightly deconditioned, they're just not worth the risk, especially when there are smarter, safer alternatives that deliver the same, if not better benefits. So, with all that being said, the first exercise to avoid... Now, Dan goes into mentioning how you should avoid heavy squats, heavy bench, heavy deadlifting, burpees and squads bench deadlifting

was long distance running long distance running and I actually I agree with a lot of these things for the specific type of person but there's just a certain thing where if you're someone who you have maybe a level of interest in

developing some of these skills the thing is is like I don't think you should totally not do that or not go towards that if you're interested in it, but you just need to be mindful of the way you do, the intensity, the weight that you use as you're going towards it. You need to pay attention to how your body feels. Is your body feeling wrecked after these sessions,

or are you feeling okay after these sessions? I just don't think that as you get older, that you should just negate something because of, oh, I'm 40, I can't do that. I'm 50, I can't do that. You know, I know people that are in their 60s and 70s that recently started jump roping, and now they're hopping.

But there are a lot of people out there who would say, oh, in my 60s, I'm in my 70s, I can't jump. I just think that there are, as much as this is well-intentioned and this is a very smart video, it can breed a lot of weakness and a level of like lack of self-belief

when heading towards certain things that you might want to try for yourself. I think that's kind of dangerous. What would you say if you were like at a coffee shop and somebody that's like maybe 45 years old or so comes over to you and says, hey, man, you got a great physique. Like, I'm getting into some of this stuff too.

And, you know, I've been doing some squats, but my knee and my back are bothering me. I'm doing some back squats. And I know that they're really important to do. Like, kind of what would you say to someone like that? I would give them movement suggestions and, like, equipment suggestions that would allow them to move better. So we were talking earlier about how, like, a sandbag is a little bit harder, quote, unquote, than a deadlift. Because you have to get closer to the ground. There's a little bit of play that happens in the spine. You get your arms around the bag. So instead of being in this external position,

you're actually in this internal position, right? You create different types of shapes. So I will tell them to learn how to do these movements with those things instead. You specifically mentioned that person says the squat, I hurt my knees hurt, et cetera. The reason why I tell them to learn how to do a lighter sandbag squat would be because it's not actually loaded. So you can pick up a lighter sandbag, put it across your chest, and squat. But you don't have this axial loading, so you can still get in a level of squatting without potentially as much stress on the system. Just like holding it in front of you or something.

Holding it in front of you. I'd probably tell them about trying to find access to a level of like a sled because you can still load your body by pushing and pulling that sled forwards and backwards. But again, it's not on top of the structure. I think one of the things that... And maybe, but while simultaneously maybe, maybe, learning how to squat still. Like say, hey, maybe down the road,

if you still want to squat, you start to work on that squat, but make sure your knees and back are good and you're not going too heavy and so on. They don't, like, this is, like, I think one thing about actual loading is that it's actually very good for the body. And you need to learn how to do it

without it causing you pain. Because since it compresses your whole structure, that builds bone density. That builds structural resilience. So I wouldn't totally just throw it out, but, you know, Dan does a good job of mentioning heavy back squats. So the thing is we need to think of heavy for who.

Like for me, 300 pounds is going to be crazy heavy, but it'll be heavy enough for me and my structure. For somebody else, that heavy might be 225 pounds. So maybe they squat a little bit lighter. But that's why I'm mentioning that I don't think you need to totally, if you're interested in developing the skill of a certain movement, you don't have to get rid of it. But you shouldn't be attached to the weight of your moving. And instead, you should be attached to the movement quality of which you're moving that weight, right? that's why one of the things I tell people to focus on

instead of just moving the weight is paying attention to their breathing right I don't want to get into all that but like too much breath holding I think can cause a little bit too much tension for a lot of people when lifting weights so it's these things that I think provide safeguards with lifting so that you're not lifting too much or more than what you're actually ready for yeah I think maybe the point of the video that this guy made was

you know also kind of demonstrating that there's just other options. Yeah. You know, and so, well, he might be a little harsh with saying, you know, certain ages, and he might say, don't do these things, don't go heavy. And some of us might be kind of disappointed,

you know, that he's saying that because we want to be able to go heavy. But no one's saying that you can't go heavy. He's actually just saying, these are the list of movements that he feels that if you go heavy on these movements, they could cause potential problems or if you go hard on some of these movements,

like I don't know why burpee's in there, that's an interesting one. Burpees suck. Yeah, burpees do suck. But there's, you know, the burpee invented by Dr. Burpee, like it was for a, it was like a blood pressure test. Yeah. And it's actually like a really brilliant movement pattern

because you're going from horizontal to vertical. Like the guy's an actual, I think the guy's a genius for creating the, exercise, which is like deadly in a lot of ways, but there's a certain amount of mobility that you need to have to be able to, you know, get yourself to the ground, get yourself off the ground, but to bring your feet kind of to where your hands are is a little bit of a skill and to get yourself off the ground. And in most burpees, you jump a little bit. So I think, for me, I think jumping, pushups, getting up on and off the ground, wow, that's a, the beautiful

list of exercises. I don't really think it's too. joint intensive i mean i guess could say like the wrist but i want my wrist to have that resilience see i think the the essence of the importance for when i look at this for myself right if i'm looking at like my personal progress and i see the mike dolce thing if you're over 40 if i see this dan go thing if you're over 40 although dan's video is a good video i'm going not going to let that negate my self-belief in terms of what i can do at 40 and be beyond. So I think like when we, when we, if, you know, I could be, I'm 33 and I could say, oh, I'm 33, okay, that's not for me, right? You know what I mean? Or I could, I could let my age stop me from

trying certain things, which is what a lot of people do, right? But instead of that, instead of looking at your age, look at your current ability right now and understand that whatever you choose to do, you can improve at it if you're smart with the way you're looking at it. If you're smart with the way that you load your body, if you're smart with your frequency, if you, Another attachment that I think a lot of people have, especially they've been lifting for a long time, is a level of soreness. If they're not super sore, they haven't gotten a good workout. Well, you need to start detaching yourself because you don't need to feel sore all the time. That's actually probably you're fatiguing yourself too much.

But if you can shift the way you look at some of these things, well, as you get older, you can actually get yourself to feel younger. We know many people who have done that and we've done that ourselves, right? Despite you being 48 and, again, I'm not in my 40s. but at the same time, I do feel better than I was in my 20s. I do fight better than I was in my 20s. So it's one of those things where it's just taking the information, but don't let that affect the way you look at your personal ability to progress out whatever it is that you're interested in.

Because I think hearing this stuff so much, because it's not just these videos, I hear this so much from creators who are trying to talk to the older population. I just think you need to be careful when you're older and you listen to this stuff, because you start to give yourself a lot of excuses for things. All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating.

So how are you doing it? I got a secret, man. It's called Good Life Protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some Good Life Protein. You know, we've been talking on this show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef, and you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins,

which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia, the website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of lamb. There's another one that comes in mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy, kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20 grass-fed, grass-finish, ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40,

grams or something like that. And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why, like, neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating. And protein, you talk about protein leverage at all the time, it's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal, and I can surf and turf, you know? I could cook up some, you know, chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp

with it, or I could have some steak. I would say, you know, the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorite. So it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bovette steaks. Yeah. And then I also love the rib-eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib-ies. So, guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, you can have to Good Life Proteins.com and use code power for 20% off any purchases made on the website.

Or you can use code Power Project to get an extra 5% off if you subscribe and save to any meats that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. Yeah, and a lot of people are, you know, Ryan, can you read the thing about the burpee? Did you find? Yeah, yeah. It says the burpee test is a physical fitness assessment named after American physiologist, Dr. Royal H. Burpee, who developed it as a PhD thesis at Columbia University in the late 1930s to measure agility and coordination. Disgusting. Royal H. Burpee.

I just met a guy named Royal. it's interesting that's a great name that's a great name very a very stylish name but how weird it's like like doctor burpee sounds like that sounded so fake when Ryan was just reading that yeah yeah it did it sounded like totally total

some total bullshit there's a lot of things that you could say like that you would want to avoid as you get older because they're they're dangerous and I think that you know jumping throwing like these are all things where you're like oh you know just

when in your 50, 60, 70, like, you know, be careful, you know, but it's not be careful because you can't do them. It's be careful because you probably haven't done them in a long time. And that is what's screwing people up is the length of time that they haven't done something. I'm not saying that, like, the way that, like, a kid would move at seven or 12 or 15, like, obviously you'll never regain some of that back. Like, when you're a baby, you could, you know, babies just like, on their foot you know they're doing all kinds of weird crazy stuff body's not fully developed but

even as you get more developed uh being a kid and then being a teenager and so on um your your body more than likely when you're 50 60 years old is not going to be able to you can't replace youth you know and and me having uh two two kids and one who's 21 and one who's 17 you know you just see like just it's a weird thing to say but like you just see like beautiful hair beautiful skin you know you're like so supple so youthful you're like holy crap and it sometimes there are certain things in life that make you do feel old when you're like these kids okay a couple kids have like a acne or something right yeah yeah but for the most part you're like these these kids like they don't understand like they don't understand like where they're at in their life like this is this is amazing

there's these like perfect perfect specimens you know at the moment so you're not going to be able to like have that like that that part of your youthfulness is gone like sounds like maleficent yeah

mirror mirror on the wall yeah yeah you're gonna lose some these things like your your eyesight your dexterity of your hands your fingers I've actually seen a girl recently on Instagram she's always doing this stuff with her

with her hands she does what does she say Oh, rabbit, she does rabbit squirt, she does. So she goes like that, like she's squirt in the rabbit, and then she goes, she goes this way, and then, and then that way. Oh. And she keeps, yeah, it's, yeah, it's a little brain. She talks about the cognition of it and the brain function of like making rabbit ears on one hand

and a little gun on the other and then squirt and then you switch. there you go a lot of these things are going to be a little bit more difficult to us when we're older and some things we're going to have not done in a long time i think it was like maybe a couple years ago you were messing around with some soccer again and maybe you still do but um i think at one point you like went to play a game and i think you got like a little bit of my hamstring yeah you got you got a slight injury right or maybe not even a slight injury you're like a legit injury. It's not because

you can never play soccer again. That's like the wrong message. Like, oh shit, okay, I learned my lesson. It's not for me because I'm my 30s. Yeah, it's not for me. I can't do it. It's not like you need stronger hamstrings necessarily.

Your hamstrings weren't conditioned for soccer at that particular time. So if you do go back to playing soccer, you have to probably kick a ball around by yourself, kick a ball around with a friend, play part of a pickup game or maybe you don't play as hard

treat yourself like a baby treat yourself like a baby and when things are when things are either new or there are things that you used to do you have to be really really careful and actually the higher level of athlete that you are

the more careful that you have to be if you used to play baseball and you used to be in the major leagues and you even if you even if you even if someone's just trying to change your stance in baseball right now and you're in professional

baseball right now, that is a very dangerous proposition. You have to be very careful. Like I'm talking about your batting coach saying, hey, move your foot out like an inch, you know, on that. Like, that's how delicate all this stuff is. Like the wheels can fall off. So you, anytime you're trying anything new, no matter how advanced you are, you have to be very, very cautious and you have to use your head. I'm sure with yourself, when you've really, roll with someone new, it's really important that you're, like, understanding, like, how this person's body's moving. And what is their skill set? Like, you have to, like, obviously, you guys have belts and stuff, and that helps, but you don't know if someone's, like, a total spas or not

until you get rolling with him, right? Is this the girl? It might be. The same, I'm going to have my index finger and my thumb out. And then this end I'm going to have two fingers up or bunny ears. And I'm going to switch as rapidly. as possible. Yeah, she just, a lot of times, talks as she's doing. The more challenging this is going to be. And you might find yourself in a predicament like this, where I'm just pointing with my index finger, and that is incorrect.

So I want to correct that prediction error, and I want to make it proper with both my thumb and my index finger. And it's okay if you mess up or throw out an extra finger, just correct it and continue to go at a pace that is challenging but where you still have a little bit of success. She does a lot of stuff like this is super cool. We want to challenge our brains

because when we create addiction error, our brains are having to overcome that prediction error which encourages neuroplasticity, which is super, super beneficial for our brains. But like things like that, things like learning how to juggle, right? Anybody can learn how to juggle with their feet or

their hands, that's super beneficial for everyone to do. But I also think, like, again, somebody could look at that and, like, they're having a little bit of trouble and then the excuse of, oh, I'm 50 comes in. I'm not saying that changes don't happen as you get older. I hope no one thinks I'm saying that I think that you're going to maintain 20-year-old youthfulness throughout your years. But I also think that I've seen so many people who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, who have done amazing things physically just because they started at their level, started progressing, paid attention to their bodies, paid attention to the signals their bodies were giving them to slow down and times to push. And then they made progress despite being older. And then people are like,

oh my God, that's so amazing, but that couldn't be me. I mean, not me and my back, not me and my this and that, right? Because of the age. So the thing I would just want people to do is like, I think it is good to make certain adjustments with the implements you have. Like that there's a reason why I love using sandbags, clubs, maces, and I do use the barbell every now and then. I use trap bars, right? But there's a reason I use these pieces of equipment and challenge myself with all of these movements

because they do make my body feel better as I improve in terms of strength. But I'm going to continue doing that stuff. It's not just because when I turn 40 or 50 that I'm going to be like, okay, this is not for me because I'm in my 40s or 50s, you know? I think the biggest mistake you can make is just say, you know, I'm just going to live out the rest of my life on the machines at the gym and on the elliptical.

Yeah. Then you're just sort of like, I'm not saying that those are bad things. Elyptical is actually magic and it's amazing because it is low impact. It's low impact exercise where you're burning calories. So it's great. You could spend a lot of time doing it. But if you just, you know, huddle in and keep everything all locked in and all you're going to do is like, you know, a couple flies, some incline bench press, an old. overhead press and a machine and the preacher curl,

that's all you're really teaching your body to do. Yeah. And you might have some other things that you do throughout the day. And maybe with your profession, maybe you're still getting some other movements in, but you're not really challenging your movements. And then, again, somebody mentions something about age, and you're like, yeah, I'm getting old.

And it's like, yes, you are getting older. That is very true. And there's going to be stiffness. There's going to be soreness. these are all real legitimate things that happen but can you continue to push it off can you can you look like not necessarily look like

but can you behave like and move like you're 30 when you're 50 we've seen people be able to do it so that should give everyone else hope maybe that they can't move the same way that this influencer or person shows but it should be it should show everyone that you can move better than what you're currently doing I know there's been some practices you've been doing and I know you're just turning 33 but

there's been stuff where I've seen you do certain things on like rings and stuff where you've been pretty proficient at it to begin with you're pretty decent at it to begin with but then there's been things where I've seen you progress where I'm like oh shit like you have progressed way beyond, even like your mobility and different things like that. And so we could say, I could say you're a high-level athlete. Well, you're a high-level athlete, but you still have room to make a lot of progress. So if someone else is, quote, unquote, lesser of an athlete, they probably have more room for improvement rather than just rather than less.

Maybe they don't progress as quickly as you do. Maybe you don't progress as quickly as someone else. but, you know, comparing yourself to somebody else isn't really where it's at. You're just comparing yourself to where you were before. Yes. And I think the things that I'm about to do for myself coming up, I'm excited because I think there are going to be things that I'm going to be doing that I've never done before, that I've never even come close to doing before.

I mean, I did mention a PR with a Farmers Carry, but, like, I think in terms of jumping, in terms of, you know, maybe there's some things that I've done when I was, like, a kid, But like being able to touch a basketball rim or something like that again, like that would be cool. But at the moment, I don't have the strength and explosiveness for that yet. But I haven't even been able to really explore that much jumping yet because I just started getting into trying to run faster and then I ran into an injury. But again, the injury happened because I'm so far removed from the sports that I did when I was young. And as I got older, of course, I've done some other things, done some running, did some pro wrestling, did a bunch of other stuff sort of in between. But there's been a pretty long gap between like really consistent sprints or really consistent jumping or anything like that.

And so I'm fired up and excited. Like maybe when I'm 50 or so, maybe between 50 and like 53 or 54, I think that that's going to be some of the best times in my life in terms of my movement practice. you know i think i think this would be a good time for the stew mcgill video that we had um this is a video from stew mcgill he was on peter t's podcast and we'll just let it play is is valuable but you have a narrow operating window in which you can potentially you guys didn't hear it but the first word peter said was deadlifting so deadlifting is valuable but you have a narrow window and then yeah they hurt yourself it's interesting when we have a back pain 50 year old coming here and i'll say what are your goals oh i want to set a personal best in deadlift

would you rather as your goal have the ability to play with your grandchildren on the floor when you're 80 and get off the floor and pick them up and they pause for a minute and they'll say yeah i like that goal i say well you can't have both if you think you're going to continue having deadlift, personal bests, you will not, you will have artificial hips. I took them out and we went for a 10-minute walk to a hill that we have. And I'll say, here's why you're not going to do deadlifts, but here's what I want you to do. I show them a monster walk. Okay, monster walk.

Now we're going to the bottom of the hill and I want you to lean back into the hill and we're walking backwards. You're going to align your foot, ankle, knee, and hip and push through the knee, through the knee, through the knee, backwards up the hill. Do you know, after 30 meters, they were absolutely done. Here they are doing all this deadlifting and they don't even have the leg strength endurance to walk backwards 30 meters. And I convinced that person after that what they're going to do and train now to get a well-rounded and sustainable athleticism that will spare their joints, still have great training capacity, but I think their athleticism is going to go through the roof.

Deadlifting is interesting. He's mentioning being able to help people to have a better capacity and better athleticism. And he's like, I guess, kind of coaching or encouraging them away from the movement that is probably like, if someone's going to Stu McGill, a lot of times they're going. to him because they have back pain right he's like the back pain pro he's the back pain pro he has helped thousands of thousands of people and so i think he's got to figure out a way to get it through his client's head that they they should probably be investing their time in other things so that they can um so they can enjoy a wider variety of movement rather than just

because like hey man that okay that's cool you really want to stick with this day deadlift thing, maybe that's kind of all the movement capacity. So maybe you don't have a lot of other movement capacity available if you're focused in on the deadlift all the time. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more.

A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have high cholesterol or these various things. It's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing, they can look at your cholesterol, they can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that.

And there's a few aspects, too, where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shades of doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious.

And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk. But that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life, little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys, when you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably

feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what things you can do in terms your lifestyle. And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation. Sometimes it's TRT. And sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit change. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked

and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, heads to Merichhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. You know, I feel like I'm such a nitpicker when I hear things,

but I really listen to what people say. And a lot of what Steve was saying is like, great. It's like, you know, shift your focus to other things. but then the either or like would you like to be able to hang out with your grandkids at 80 or do you want a deadlift because you can't have both and it's one of those things where I'm just like ah I mean you got to be careful with how we encourage people to try things because to a level you can but maybe you know something you've talked about a lot over the years has been your interpretation of the things that you're currently doing so do you have to deadlift 500 pounds no but could you potentially deadlift a kettlebell off the ground could you deadlift a sandbag off the years? the ground. That's 100 pounds. It's 50 pounds. You definitely could. And could you play with your grandkids? You definitely could. And could you walk up the hill? Absolutely. So now you're still able to deadlift, although you're not attached to the weight that you're deadlifting, but you're still able to pick something off of the ground. Maybe you're now able to deadlift different things

off the ground, but again, you're not attached to the weight. Right now you're also able to walk up up a hill and you're able to hang out with your grandkids. But it's this, this, it's this idea of this is bad, this is good. You can't have this and you must do this. That I just don't vibe with because another thing that like stew is somewhat famous for and squat university is somewhat famous for is like there's the disdain for the Jefferson curl that's another thing that they're not you know like they're not fans of loaded spinal flexion and it's one of those things where it's like how much weight are we talking about because can someone get a kettlebell and then go into some spinal flexion how much is too much until it's unsafe for that person

One 12 kilo kettlebell. Right. Doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Doesn't. It's like you don't need to load this till it's like 225 and 275 like some people. But can you maybe handle 80, 90 pounds over time? Can you build your back to be able to have that level of resilience? With a reasonable load, I don't see that being something dangerous.

Actually, that's only something that builds a level of confidence in the way wants back moves. But him and Heron are like very anti-flection. And I get it. For some people, maybe that's not. where they start but should they maybe try to build that capacity can everybody build that capacity to a certain extent yeah so it's like that's why like i'm very when i hear these people say things i'm like now we we got to we got to chill with this either or you can't do that you can't do this like no you you can it's got to be fucking reasonable with it and and maybe you know uh that person

that wants to be able to you know still deadlift deadlift PR is an interesting thing like yeah if you're trying to get a p like if you were if if you were powerlifting in your 30s and now you're 80 you're not going to be able to like the likelihood is just is zero the likelihood zero like it's zero that you can still now if you haven't really lifted much in your life and you try to you know deadlift when you were 25 and you just were skinny and didn't lift well now you could have a lifetime PR on a particular movement because you never done it before Like I mentioned a lifetime PR on the farmers carry. I haven't really done a lot of farmers carries.

There you go. I stink at them. I'm still new at them. So there's a lot of room for me to kind of grow within that. But I think we also just, we lose so much sight of intuition and of doing something that interests us and doing something that feels good. I always look at like Ronnie Coleman, you know, back in the day when he would say that he wouldn't lock out all his bench presses and stuff. And, you know, and then somebody asked him like, why. And he's like, I don't like it.

It doesn't feel good on my joints. So simple. Smart. Very smart. And he was able to, you know, do a lot of these lifts with like, you know, 200-pound dumbbells and stuff. And I know people now could say, oh, well, he got hurt. Well, he got, unfortunately, he did get hurt doing excessive amounts of leg press. And he had very, he had a lot of surgeries.

I think a couple surgeries were botched and so forth. But I think our intuition, I think, is critical. Like, why, just ask yourself this question. Like, why does it feel pretty good to stretch sometimes? Like, why does it feel good to just, like, you know, go on an angle and, like, get a little stretch in, like, your groin. Or just spread your legs wide and put your arms down towards the ground. Whoa. Hello?

That's it. That's to do it. We still on air? Spread your legs wide and to, you know, open up your groin. groin in your hamstrings like that shit feels really good or to stretch or just move i mean think about when you wake up in the morning if you you know go outside and get a little sunlight i don't know about you but i'm like kind of moving around i'm stretching like a bear like just like moving my body a bunch of different uh directions well that's just intuition and for somebody that wants to kind of open up their spine

or move their back a little bit better you know i'm not saying to get into like too crazy of positions but something like a Jefferson's curl with reasonable weights sounds very manageable. I was thinking about this as some of that stuff was playing from Stu McGill, I was thinking about Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy is not someone that...

I don't think he deadlifted very often. But could Robert Kennedy deadlift 225? Yeah. He looks plenty capable. I mean, can you do 315? I don't know. But 225... Like, so for me, like, I should always be able to pick up 225 no matter what.

There shouldn't be a case where I can't deadlift 225 for at least a couple reps or something like that, you know? Agreed, yeah. And he's 78, I think. So, you know, he's getting close to that, you know, he's getting close to being 80 years old. Now, here's the interesting thing. I just said, I don't believe that he deadlift. Maybe he does. But my point being is that you don't have to deadlift to be able to deadlift 225.

but I think that you should have a capacity to deadlift. I think you should have a, whether it's 185 or 225 or 135, I don't think it matters a ton, but you should have a capacity to be able to walk over to a barbell and to be able to pick those weights up. And I don't know shit about being 80 years old. So I, you know, I can't say anything about it, I guess, at the moment, but I'm assuming that I should be able to hold on to that strength. Yeah. And I should be doing enough movement practices with various weights to be able to handle that amount of weight without really a focus on deadlifting. You know, I think a big idea here.

And I don't think this is going to be an exact science for anyone because you have to listen to your body in terms of what it's able to handle. But you need to lift. You need to practice your sport. I think you need to do it with the future in mind. And this is a tough thing that I don't maybe think maybe elite level athletes might hear this and be like, bullshit, I'm going to go towards my goals right now because this is what I got to do. And maybe that is what you got to do right now. Okay, I get it. But for everybody else who you're trying to do this because you want to be healthy, but you also have some goals in terms of strength and movement and maybe you have goals in terms of the martial arts you're doing, still keeping the future in mind's important. And by keeping the future in mind, what I mean is like listening to your body, on any given day when you're pushing yourself at all because I'm not saying

it's bad to push yourself but I think we all know when we have days when we're doing something we're like I got some extras day and you finish that you pushed yourself and you still feel good

after you pushed yourself and then you have days where you're doing it you're in it and like you're feeling like absolute crap as you're doing everything and maybe that's one of those days

where a David Goggins is going to be like stay hard don't be weak motherfucker but then there's another maybe smarter side of things that's like you have another day in you that you could come back to this and actually perform

better but you did something that's where I think we need to lift with the future in mind because I'd love to be the Goggins every day but that's not how I'm going to operate and I actually appreciate I think I appreciate David Goggins and I've talked about him before

I appreciate him because of that his willingness to push despite everything despite anything but I also think like for me that's not a very smart thing because I've seen what what's here where his body is and it's admirable that he's still running hundreds of miles on those knees 200 miles recently right like that is that is that is amazing um unbelievable but I know that like with my goal of wanting to do this for decades I have to be smart about my jujitsu frequency and intensity I have to be smart about the ways that I lift when I'm lifting and how much I push on specific days when the battery just doesn't have it I have to do this with

the next weeks, the next month, the next year's in mind, because I know I don't want to stop. I know too many people who can't roll now, and they're in their 50s and 60s, and I know kind of how they trained when they're in their younger years, where I'm just like, it's not going to be an everyday beha, five days, just have six days a week of jiu-jitsu for me. Not going to happen. But if I can keep this certain frequency, three days, certain weeks, four days, certain weeks, certain weeks, two days, and I just keep that consistency for a long period of time because I'm keeping the future in mind, that's what's going to keep me in the game for a long time. And I think that's what you should be thinking about in your 20s, in your 30s, in your 40s,

because you know guys who are in their 20s who were like blazing hot fire when it came to powerlifting and then they just dumped everything and they're fucked. Yeah, they can't do much. For myself, you know, I think maybe sometimes people see some of the old videos or even just like my mindset at particular times. and you might think that like I just didn't care about anything in the future with my size, my weight, my fatness, my redness, the whole thing, right? You're like, this guy's burning the candle at both ends. But in my own weird way and in my own powerlifting way, there was still a path forward.

There was still like I would do a contest. I'd always lose weight after the contest. I'd always rebuild after a contest. I wouldn't compete, you know, like back to back. If I did, it would be super strategic. I would be like, I'm going to hit this competition. It's about a month away from this other one. I'm only going to bench in this contest and make sure that's going the way I need to have it go.

And then this other meet's going to, like, be a full meet. And I would prep for it, you know, very, I guess strategically. But the entire time when I'm doing these heavy good mornings, when it's doing these heavy zircher movements, when I'm doing these squats and these deadlifts and stuff like that, it was always done with like a rotation. Like I would box squat one week, I would deadlift the next,

and I would good morning the next. Sometimes every once in a while, there would be a week where I only did accessory movements because I was pushing pretty hard, and I was getting pretty taxed. But I always tried to, it was like you're saying, think about the future and I've been so excited about strength training for so long because of the

future. I remember even when I was young and I would kind of like map out. I'd write out like a five by five. I thought that this is the way that it worked. I'd write out a couple five by fives and I was like, oh shit, in like two and a half years, I'm going to bench like 455 for a set of five. You know, because my, because I was making progress really fast. Yeah. And I thought that that would just kind of continue. Just linear. Just keeps going. Yeah. It's going to keep like, you know, keep killing it. And I was always excited by the potential of the future. But as reality started to sink in and stuff and you learn actually how training works, I was still excited by the fact of like, okay, I just, I just squatted 854 in a contest, which is, that's the weight that I

squatted in. I don't even know if my squat is in bigger, stronger, faster. But in that movie, I bench 705 and squatted 854. And then two years later, I benched 854 and squatted 1,080. So I made a lot of progress on top of it. But I've always been excited about what I was going to be able to do in the future. And I knew that I was going to be able to do certain things in the future because I knew that I would do the recovery techniques. I knew that I would lose the weight when I needed to lose the weight. I knew that I would do all the other stuff to keep myself healthy enough.

Now, I guess there's like general health was definitely disregarded. And I can admit to being foolish with that. But anyway, I think that for your average person who's trying to, you know, continue to get better and continue to, you know, be on this path of trying to work out when you're 40 and 50 years old, a really critical piece of the puzzle. is to make sure that you're recovering from your workouts. It is to make sure that you're feeling good enough to try some of these new things that we're mentioning. I have a friend just like three weeks ago, I introduced him to some sandbags

and some stone lifts and all these other things. And he sent me a video yesterday of his wife doing a sandbag box squat. Yo, yes. I was like, that's amazing. And he's a retired police officer. He was a police off for like 25 years, probably like 50 years old. And so, you know, you can do some of these new things as you age,

but he's starting out with an appropriate weight. He's not starting to start out with, he's not trying to pick up a 200 pound sandbag completely out of nowhere. Yeah. Starting off with 100 pound sandbag, and you work your way up over time progressively. Yeah. And, you know, one thing I think is like to do this, because, you know, there are a lot of programs out there.

You know, there's up and lower, push, pull, legs. There's a bunch of things. But as you do anything, you know, you're going to be able to feel like when you potentially to back off. Let's say that your elbow starts screaming at you or your knee starts screaming at you. Like, sometimes with Jiu-Jitsu, my knee will do something weird, right? So I'll be like, okay, okay, shoot. I go to Jiu-Jitsu the next day.

I warm up. That's still there. I just don't go for the next two days. And I do something else. I do a little bit of rehab. Do a little bit of soft tissue. Boom. it's good, it's gone. Whereas in my, when I was younger, I'd feel that and I might just

keep trying to go through it, keep hammering and think like, okay, it's just going to go away. And it doesn't. And then something worse happens. It takes me out for a longer period of time, right? So it's one of those things where listen to these signals that your body gives you of too much fatigue, of an area that you need to try to address, of like maybe you just shouldn't do any crazy workout on maybe two days in a row. Maybe you need a little bit of extra rest. You got to be light for those two days, right? I think it's hard for us to want to do that because we're so hungry for progress, but that's shifted for me.

I'm so hungry for progress that I will back down when I need to back. Because it's long-term progress. Because it's long-term progress. I'm very aware that the only way for me to have that long-term progress and long-term longevity and consistency is if I back off on certain days, is if I don't go as intensely as I want to or lift as heavy as I'd like on a specific day, because I know it's going to allow me to get to where I want to be. So lifting with the future in mind is going to allow us to do that.

You just got to be, and this is 20, 30, 40, 50, 60s. This doesn't have an age requirement. This just, I think it's just how we should probably look at it if you're not some professional athlete that's making all your money and you're living from it. And you have no choice but to try to train every single day for what you do. But I think most people have the choice to adjust the way they think about their physical fitness. I first started hearing about Transcriptions from Thomas to Lauer

And Thomas is somebody It's an animal with working out You got a chance to work out with him I worked out with him And he's kind of always on the front lines Of like, you know Finding out about these new companies That have cool things

But I didn't really realize That Troscriptions was the first company To put out Methylene Blue Now look at Methylene Blue It's so popular, it's everywhere It's one of those things If you guys listen to this podcast You know I'm very iffy

With the supplements that I take because there's a lot of shady stuff out there. You've got to be careful. The great thing about transcriptions is that when people want to get methylin blue, usually they'll go on Amazon, they're going on with these other sites. It's not third-party testing. It's not dosed. A lot of people end up with toxicity from the blue that they get because there's no testing of it.

Troscriptions, they have third-party testing for their products. It's a dose so you know easily what exact dose of methylene blue you're getting in each troki. So you're not making some type of mistake. There's not going to be anything in it. It's safe. you can have it dissolve and you can turn your whole world blue if you want or you can just swallow it they have two different types of methylene blue they have one that is i believe dose at 16 milligrams and they have another one that's dosed at 50 milligrams so make sure you

check the milligrams uh i don't recommend anybody start at 50 milligrams but uh the 16 i feel is very safe you can also score the trokeys and you can break them up into smaller bits yeah so i do and in addition to that on top of the methylene blue they have a lot of other great of stuff as well. They got stuff for sleep. They got stuff for calming down, all kinds of things. I got to say I use it about two or three times a week. I use it before jiu-jitsu. And the cool thing that I've noticed, and I've paid attention to this over the past few months, is that after sessions, I don't feel as tired. So it's almost like I've become more efficient with my, with just the way I use my body in these hard sessions of grappling. And it's like, cool. That means that,

I mean, I could go for longer if I wanted to and my recovery is better affected. It's pretty great. I know Dr. Scott, sure, we had him on the podcast and he talked quite a bit about how he recommends methylene blue to a lot of the athletes that he works with. And they're seeing some profound impacts. And one of the things I've heard about it is that it can enhance red light. So those are you doing red light therapy or those of you that have some opportunities to get out into some good sunlight. It might be a good idea to try some methylene blue before you go out on your walk or run outside or whatever activity is that you're going to do outside. And this stuff is great, but please, like first off, they have stuff for staying calm.

They have stuff for sleep. But remember, this stuff isn't a substitution for sleep. This isn't a substitution for taking care of nutrition. This is supposed to be an add-on to all the things that we already should be doing. And it's going to make things so much better if you're doing everything else too. And I think this is just a little different, too, than just adding some magnesium to your diet. I think this is a little different than, you know, treat these things appropriately. sure you do some of your own research, but...

Oh, if you're taking medications. It's SSRIs, you better talk to your doctor first. Don't, don't be popping these things. And if you're taking any medications at all, it would be good to double, triple, quadruple check and make sure that you're safe. Transcriptions has a lot of great things that you need. So go and check out their website when you have the opportunity.

Strength is never a week, this week, this never strength. Catch you guys later. I think it's awesome, man. Some of the stuff that we're getting into, I think that by having the different guests on the show that we've had, Dave Man, Caveman, Stone Circle, and so on. We've had a lot of guests show us a lot of interesting things for, like, certain joints and certain styles of movement, whether it's a sandbag or whether it's the stones. Like, you know, I've known about these things.

I've seen these things around. I feel foolish that I didn't get involved in them earlier because I think as a powerlifter, I was thinking that's going to probably. I take away from what I'm doing. I didn't really realize just how much value it would have had tremendous. I ended up, you know, working on the deadlift and getting okay at the deadlift, but I always kind of suck that the deadlift. I think my deadlift would have had a much better opportunity of being much better had I've known about, you know, the sandbags and the stones. But to me, at the time, I remember thinking, like, that's clearly a skill set. Like, that's something I better, like, I need to learn that.

I can't just like go and do that. So I was smart enough to kind of recognize that. It was not smart enough to recognize like, man, that would have been some really great training kind of to mix in. Like I, because I mentioned I did squats one week, good mornings the next, and deadlifts the next. I could have had a rotation of some sandbag work in there maybe instead of a good morning or instead of one of the other movements. And that might have worked out tremendously well. But like I said, I feel like I found the fountain of youth in doing these exercise because my back just feels. different. How so? Just like

through the obliques and stuff and through like the sides even like carrying a sandbag like having something up on one shoulder that always felt like it was like stuffing my just like I don't know just stuffing my spine like it just felt yeah I felt stiff

and it felt rigid and it would kind of hurt when I would do a lot of things. I don't I'm not someone that experiences a lot of back pain but I would have like my back would feel iffy or sketchy sometimes and even sometimes on a deadlift or like a bent over row as i was doing i had to like position myself very specifically so that my back uh didn't hurt and so that i didn't like hurt myself like hurt myself a bunch of different times doing some of these exercises and i don't feel indestructible right now but i i do feel uh i do feel a lot more resilient especially

through the lower back. Yeah. No, dude. Agreed. Agreed. It's like it's a culmination of all these like the rotational stuff with the rope, the different ways you're lifting with the sandbag. For me, the kettlebell just allows like for you to, kettlebell is literally you are manipulating a load. You know, you don't have to juggle it, but like even when you just get it in different positions. Yeah, you were showing me how you kind of are kind of stacking stuff and moving stuff more so with like your bones and your body rather than just like muscle. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's using your structure as like a pendulum. So like the rope is hanging off of my body.

The kettle belt is literally just hanging off my body rather than me tightening up and using muscle to move it through space, which is a different type of movement ability than specifically using your muscle to push something up. I think it's, you know, thinking of like a kettlebell push press, right?

Like you have a press that you can just do like there, but with a kettlebell you come here, then you use the energy of your whole body to get that up. You know what I mean? And then you're stacked here. That's how you can see like really light people push press a very heavy load, not because they pushed it muscularly, but because they used the energy from the ground and stack their

body to create force to then push it up into that position. So it's learning how to leverage your body with all these different tools, which is, again, it's something you do in jiu-jitsu. When you become proficient at jiu-jitsu, it's not that you're strong. pulling and pushing it's like I think a great you remember that Mikey Musumechi guy yeah with the glasses the guy who eats all the pizza eats all the pizza so Mikey mentioned something and it's it's really good intuition by him although I still think it would be great if he strength trained but Mikey purposefully didn't he

started strength train a little bit or no no he still doesn't and I think recently he said he still doesn't strength train because he doesn't want his he doesn't want the strength he develops to mess with his jiu jitsu technique so he doesn't do any kind of lifting at all. No resistance. If he does anything, it's probably some calisthenics-based stuff and like maybe stuff he does with jiu-jitsu. And we do have to say that like wrestling and grappling, obviously, that can make you very, very strong. You're manipulating another human being. Absolutely. But he doesn't want it to mess with his jiu-jitsu. But the cool thing about when you watch Mikey roll, in jiu-jitsu, we have these things called frames. You know what I mean?

Like if you're next to me, right? Like I'm going to use, come, come closer. I'm going to use, I'm not going to push you like this. I'm going to frame my. arm right here, right? I'm just going to frame and use my... Contact. Yeah, just use like the pressure of my bones so that you can't get closer to me rather than me trying to muscularly push you away. And one thing you notice with Mikey is that he's able to set his body up with beautiful frames. So he stacks his structure, his bones in certain positions where his opponent can't get past certain things because he's so efficient at using his whole body and making these certain frames and shapes. That's what that martial art is essentially

when you get to a high level, you learn how to do that. Where you're not using your muscle to push, it's the structure that you create with your bones. And no one can get past that because that's your bones. You know what I mean? Stuff like this just fascinates me. Yeah. Because it's efficiency.

It's efficiency. And that's exactly why with kettlebell movements, with the rope, et cetera, when you become proficient, you don't really use much energy because you're efficient. You know what I mean? So I think that's just like doesn't mean that training your muscles is wrong. or bad that's a very good thing but it's just it's a different modality

you know so but I think that's why Mikey's super super interesting he's still super high level but that's why he chooses not to lift he doesn't want to neglect negate his innate sense of framing because he doesn't want to get too strong it's funny

that's super interesting what would you think in Seema what are just things you would maybe like so okay the guy made a list of some exercises is maybe not to do, you know, as you get to be 40, you know? Yeah. What are some, like, marquee movements or exercises or even strategies that you like to see

people that are getting older lean towards? Yeah. So the thing, I think we need to, again, think about our movement quality, right? Not just the way we're moving weights, but also the way we're moving through space. That's why I always tell people to try rope flow, because it gives you rotational movement. It improves your gate. There's many ways to improve the way you move with the rope. So that's one.

You'll notice a lot of improvements with your movement from there. The second thing is I would suggest that everybody develop a level of some calisthenic skill, because I think it's like a minimal barrier that will allow you to start working with your own body weight. you know, whether that's push-ups, pull-ups, certain aspects of dips, like you can start strengthening your body with your body weight and develop that too. That's something that I'm continuously working on, and that's something you can do pretty much anywhere. You can have that type of equipment at your home.

You can do pull-ups. You can do all these things. That's beneficial. That's helpful. Developing body weight strength is powerful for anybody at any weight. It might be harder to do if you're heavier, which is why resistance training is good. But that's why I'd suggest kettlebells, sandbags are good. the sleds are good. Why do I suggest these implements? Not that I think barbells are bad,

but the reason why I like these implements is they teach you how to move through space with weight, right? So let's say like a very light training sandbag. When we were hanging out with Ben, we did, we just put it on our shoulder, we did some walking with it, right? There's a lot of things you could do. You could do squats with a training sandbag. You could throw it up to the shoulder. But one thing that I think these things help with is it teaches someone how to move through space with weight and doing all of this while breathing. Because I think a tendency that people have, and it's not just people who lift super heavy and are lifting super maximal loads.

A lot of people who get into lifting have a tendency of holding their breath when they're moving weight. And I get why, like it's the El Salvador maneuver. You're trying to create a strong structure so you don't move under load. But when I think about that, it's like, in what situation would you typically really hold your breath in combat? I'm not going to hold my breath when fighting somebody. even if they're heavier, I'm still not going to hold my breath

when trying to do something against them. And these implements teach you how to breathe and move weight through space. I think like with a kettlebell, you can do very basic things. You can learn the swings. You can learn the cleans. You can learn the snatches.

But then you can also, you don't have to juggle, but you can learn different ways of manipulating that load to body build because you can do curls and do all those other things. But then you can learn to move through space with it, right? The sandbag, you can do, again, all these different types of movements, squats, throws, chucking it. But one thing I really like with a sandbag is going and carrying it

and taking it on a walk. Because carrying is something that is, I think, slept on as a capacity, but it's really powerful because you don't need a gym for it. You can have equipment at home. You can walk with a kettlebell. You can walk with a sandbag. But it's something that our ancestors all did, no matter if they were from Africa or whatever. You know what I mean? Our ancestors had to carry things from point A to point B. Laborers are laughing at me right now because guys in construction are like, we do that all day. If you're a FedEx driver, you do that all day. But many people have just don't carry shit anymore.

And carrying is one of the most basic forms of strain training. So I think one of the cool things is that you could have a rucksack and go for a walk. Now you're loading your walk and you're having to create posture underneath a load and you're learning now how to. Because when you walk with a rucksack, you're not going to be flaccid here walking. You're going to notice that's uncomfortable. So you're going to create like when you were walking with your weight, you create that structure so you could keep up right and walk through space.

you're going to have to learn how to do that with a rucksack you're going to have to learn how to do that if like me I'd like to carry a sandbag with me on walks you learn how to create a structure against that load as you're walking through space and then the last thing that I think would be super beneficial to have would be a sled because it's another implement that

lets you move through space with weight all of these conceptually teach you how to move with it and it's not I'm not saying that a barbell is bad because it keeps you stationary. It still has its place but I like all these other things because they still feed your ability

to move through space with the load that you're working with or to move fairly dynamically with the load that you're working with. So that's kind of, those would be my suggestions. I don't think anybody needs me to talk about traditional lifting

because I think we understand that. But that's why I like these things. That's why I like progressing with these things because for me specifically now, I'm a martial artist. I need to move well against my opponent. It's not just about being brutally strong. It's about being able to be efficient

dealing with the weight of another human being. these implements can help me with that. You know what I mean? I think all the things you listed to are they're all relatively safe. Obviously, depending on like how much weight you select or whatever, but they're all pretty safe to do. And I can see somebody using some of that stuff in collaboration with maybe some of the other traditional old guy movements of some of the machines and stuff at the gym.

Yeah. Why not still? Because a leg extension, a leg curl, a preacher curl machine, all these different, the lap pull down. I mean, I've said this before, you can get hurt doing anything. The odds of getting hurt on a lap pulldowns. They're very low. People usually get hurt, you know, trying to max out on a bench press

or trying to hit like a really heavy deadlift or something like that. But some of the things you mentioned along with some machine training, I think is a really, really good place for somebody to not really even just start, but like a good place, a good spot for you. to kind of recognize that you can lift that way for the rest of your life. And the very last thing I'll mention is the clubs and maces.

And the reason I'm going to mention that as an add-on is because you can do swinging motions with your shoulder with the rope, right? But clubs and maces load the shoulder in that way. Because when we typically lift, we lift treating the shoulder as a kind of like we would treat our elbow. It is a pressing, pressing, pressing.

pressing, but the shoulder is a ball and socket. It can rotate within there. And I think we usually don't do a lot of throwing over time if we're not doing a throwing sport. So, you know, I think we saw this video of this guy mentioning that you can't press heavy as you get older. But I think one of the reasons why people struggle with pressing as they get older is because all they've been doing has been pressing as they've aged. Can you do something that would allow you to express the range that the shoulder has along with its relation to your scapula and provide that like mobility with a club or a mace absolutely and it doesn't have to be super heavy but if you can now start moving that in that way a lot of people notice like we had colin daring on the show that healed his shoulder and i'm not saying

you need to do that heavy either it's it's a skill that you develop over time but if you if your shoulder can now express that movement ability with a little bit of weight shit like you know it's so that's that would be what I would suggest I love all this stuff man I think you know as I get older and older I'm just gonna continue to want it to explore more stuff

and I think that I'll just get better and stuff I don't think I'll get worse you know maybe I'm not lifting the same exact weights but I think in other areas I think I'll be stronger yeah so in some areas maybe like maybe for you

maybe you're you know I think you deadlifted what 755 maybe you're not necessarily deadlifting soon of 755 but maybe you're taking that 300 pound sandbag and sticking it up on your right shoulder, putting it down, and sticking it on your left shoulder. Like, that's some really cool, like, brute strength.

And then on top of that, maybe you're getting better at your sport. You know, and I think that we just have a tendency to kind of keep some of those old lifts in there, and sometimes I can keep you too, like, tethered to the other things that allow you to lift those heavier weights. Like a lot of people just hold on to too much body weight. and too much body fat.

And that's probably another podcast for another day, but that's a big mistake. If you're just trying to stay heavy to push around some of these weights and you're 55, 60 years old and you're 260, 270, like it just might not be the healthiest move for you to make. And it might be time to at least start to think about

trying to do some other things because those other things are going to cause a cascade of disciplines to happen that are going to probably move you in a different direction. strength is never a week this week this never strength catch you guys later bye