Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 220 - Sleep, VR Porn and Deadlifts

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

Today the guys talk about the importance of sleep, how different porn used to be growing up compared to now, and we help fix your deadlift. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

How long has it been since it's been just us? Too long. It's been a while. Too long. Shouldn't have left you without a dope podcast to step to. Step to. Step to. My new anthem, and if you guys are interested, go listen to it.

Little Duval, Black Men Don't Cheat. Yesterday was National Black Men Don't Cheat Day, by the way. So it's good. What does that even mean? Black Men Don't Cheat cheat that's what it means and yeah what was yesterday's date june 13th uh let me yeah the 13th national black men don't cheat day that it really is no joke it sounds like a black dude made that up though but just don't cheat for that day is nah nah we don't cheat in general that's just the rule this is we don't cheat it's

just who we are that's cool that's the first i've heard of that find that song man it's a jam man yeah it's good i like it if that's true then what never mind moving moving on i'm just messing around um we were going to talk a little bit about sleep today and how to figure out how to get some sleep because it's not always an easy thing. You'd think it'd be easy enough because it feels good to get sleep. But everyone's got some FOMO. They don't want to go to bed when they're supposed to.

They're afraid they're missing out on the basketball game or missing out on the ending of Game of Thrones or whatever it is they're missing out on. And we tend to just, I don't know, we tend to just kind of suck every single day at these transition periods in each day where we can probably get more from every day. I think a lot of people are like just kind of trying to get through the day rather than get stuff from the day. I think a lot of people are like just kind of trying to get, get through the day rather than get stuff from the day. And if I think if you look at it as you're getting stuff from the day, you can find small advantages in each and every day. Um, rather than kind of like looking at obstacles, if you can figure out a way to kind of, how do I set this day up in a way that I can A, be successful, and B, be really set up for the next day? I think that's what great athletes do with their workouts.

That's what great powerlifters do with their workouts and great bodybuilders. They leave the gym and they quote-unquote left everything in the gym or quote-unquote left everything on the mat or the field. quote unquote, left everything on the mat or the field. But they did just enough and they left the area just enough or left the gym just in a way that allowed them to come back the next day and kick some more ass too. And so like, how do we kind of figure this out? One way to figure it out is just to get some damn sleep. If you get sleep, you're not going to be fatigued. You'll

make better decisions. You'll probably be on point with your diet better. You'll probably just feel better. Your mood will probably just be better. Yeah, no, it's, it's literally, it seems like it's the precursor for all the good things that can happen during a day. Because first off, like you mentioned, if you have, you know, full nights of sleep, like a full night of eight hours of sleep, your decision making the best day is better. So instead you have a little bit more power to choose the right things to eat than the bad things. I mean, we know that like when you're really tired and your inhibitions are low, it's much, much easier to reach towards bad food. It's much, much easier to make the decision not to work out because you're tired. It's much, much easier to do things in a less optimized way because, I mean,

your mind isn't as working as sharp and as well as it can. So it's literally a precursor to all the either good decisions or bad decisions that you can make during a day. But for some reason, it's the thing that a majority of us, if we're going to lose out on one thing, right. We'll typically make the decision to be like, I can get maybe, let me just get six hours tonight so that tomorrow I can do all the things I want to do. Or let me just stay up a little bit later so I can watch this game or, or do this thing that I don't really have to do. So I can, you know, you know, wake up a little bit earlier the next day. It's the one thing that we're letting to let, we're willing to let go of.

I always think it's, you know, it's easier to catch me at seven in the morning than it is to catch me at like 11 PM, you know, because I like to try to shut my day down. Um, and even if there are occasions where I stay up a little bit later, um, but even, even in those cases, I like to have the end of my day kind of shut down. I like to have the end of my day, uh, be at my house. I'm not out. I'm not at a restaurant or a bar or anything like that. I'm, I like to have the end of my days, uh, calm and relaxing. And so sometimes it's not always even just sleep, but it's getting prepared to sleep. And then something I've learned kind of the hard way is, you know, some people will say that you have to have your workout schedule be the same every day. You know, and they'll say your sleep has to be the same every day.

And I do think that you should have a routine that does help trying to get to bed at a similar time every day uh trying to eat at the same time every day is actually a huge like that's something that's very rarely talked about um but just eating the same on a same schedule every single day can be hugely beneficial getting yourself to bed as if you're a child um the same time every night and waking up around the same time every day can really help you have a schedule but it's's your life. You get to do whatever you want with it and you can kind of make audibles appropriately. So for myself, I have four days a week normally that I wake up pretty damn early around three o'clock and I work out around four o'clock, four 30, somewhere in there. But you also go to sleep kind of early on those nights i go to bed very early now this the key factor here is what i'm going to say next is that on wednesday saturday and sunday

when i uh wake up about two or three hours later i still try to go to bed around the same time so i don't you know i know there's some conflicting research on like makeup sleep. Some people say that you can't get it. And some people, it works well enough for me. I'm sure that if I got better sleep all the time, that it would probably be even more productive. And it's something I'm always working on, just like everything else in my life. I try to get a little bit better at it all the time. So it's probably an area that I can still improve upon.

But this is working great for me. And when Wednesday comes along and I get to sleep in a little bit, I feel like a million bucks. But also in some weird way, I also feel a little bit lazy. And my I have like kind of a head fog in the morning because I don't think my body is always used to getting that amount of sleep. So it's definitely a different feeling. But I still need to work on, unfortunately, I'm probably waking up about an hour or half an hour earlier than I should be on the days I'm training super early, but the reason why I do it is because of scheduling of my friend, Sean, that who we've had on the podcast for Sean provost,

who owns a bunch of Dutch brothers. He has to get back home because his wife goes and does a CrossFit workout about six o'clock. So he usually jets out of here at about five 30 so he can go home and, and then be with his kids. And so to take his excuses away, I had to, I had to kind of say,

all right, well let's fucking work out at four in the morning. to kind of say, all right, well, let's fucking work out at four in the morning. It's all Sean's fault, actually. Yeah. It's all his fault. I mean, I love working out in the morning, but I would probably ideally work out about a half an hour later or an hour later than what we're currently doing.

Yeah. I think an hour later would be, would be pretty nice. Yeah. It would be a little bit more manageable because going to bed at seven or eight is hard it's very very hard i think probably you know most of us are probably getting to bed somewhere between nine and ten almost you know and not waking up at three or or 3 30 is uh going to be uh very difficult but as i'm mentioning it's your own life you can set it up whatever way you want. So adjust your stuff accordingly, but still try to make sure you're getting a good amount of sleep for you. For

myself, I've noticed that seven hours feels really good. I noticed that eight hours consistently sometimes leaves me a little bit foggy and leaves me a little bit, uh, slower. Maybe it's something I need to get used to over a period of time. But for now, the seven hours is working good. And I used to only get like five or six. So it's an improvement upon what I used to do. Exactly. For me, eight hours is great.

I try not to let that sacrifice, even if it's on a night and it's not ideal. If it's on a night that maybe I do have to work a little bit late, so I go to sleep at one. I'll be up at nine. Like it may sound horrible. I'm happy that I do have the freedom to do that, but I'll be up at nine. I don't want to sacrifice that because, I mean, I've noticed like through college playing soccer and, you know, doing jujitsu now. I noticed the impact that it has on the way that I perform when I get less sleep. So that's been something, even when I didn't know how important it was, I just knew how I felt when I didn't get enough of it.

And I was like, okay, well, I have to get more of it. Or I have to make sure that I get enough every single day or else I'm not going to perform well. I think for a lot of people listening, one of their biggest gripes is like, ah, you know, I'm trying to get stronger or I'm trying to get leaner. Um, and you're doing all these things as far as working out and nutrition, but you're still, you know, only getting maybe five or six hours a night. So like, like you were mentioning, um, doing little things during your day to make sure that you can save your time so you can get to sleep a little bit earlier. That's super important. Like you, you, you really should not, you should try not to let sleep be

the thing that gets hit. Um, I think, uh, in that book that we were talking about, you know, guys, I mean, I'm not some sleep expert by the way, obviously we all know this, but Matthew Walker is. Um, so if you guys are interested in like learning more about why it's so important, all the intricate aspects of it, grab that book, why we sleep. Um, or I don't about why it's so important, all the intricate aspects of it, grab that book, why we sleep. Um, or I don't know if it's on audible or something, but just try to try to get it because you, when you understand and have an idea of all the things that sleep can affect, then it's going to be very hard for you to make that decision to actually let it go. When you know what's going on and you know how it's actually affecting you

and your health and your performance, then you'll be like, oh God, I can't do this. But he mentioned, I think, Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors. They did like, not a study on him, but they tracked his sleep and they were tracking his sleep because before apparently he was getting

six or seven hours a night. So they tracked his like three point percentage and all these parameters on his performance in terms of the court. And then they made sure he started getting eight hours of sleep. Literally every single positive metric went out in terms of three point percentage, free throw percentage, lack of turnovers, everything went up in terms of performance because he started getting more sleep. So if you think about this as a power lifter, you're trying to get stronger, right? Or you're trying to get technique, right? Well, if you can get more sleep, your performance is going to increase and you'll probably like be able to get stronger much, much faster.

It just makes sense. Yeah. And then he breaks it down like as far as like percentages too. Like if you get six hours of sleep you'll you'll be you know lacking this much percentage versus like eight hours of sleep you'll be like 30 better than if you were to just keep working hard and then you know also about like you can't like mark was talking about this earlier about you can't really like make up for sleep yeah so saying is it's only beneficial if you get good sleep the night before you work out and then if you try to catch up like no i'm gonna get less sleep tonight but tomorrow i'm gonna get like way more sleep it yeah it doesn't add up so it's like it has to be before the workout because after

you do get a lot more recovery but it's not as effective as the sleep before so it's really interesting that book is huge man you know it's funny. Like when I was at Sac State and I was volunteering at the ER because I wanted to be a doctor. Right. One of the big things I kept hearing from a bunch of the ER docs was like, hey, you know, they're there telling me because I was trying to find out all the reasons why I maybe should or shouldn't do this. And one of the big things that they were like telling me was like, I don't get really a lot of sleep. It's pretty rough. And I was like, that was one of the things I was like, maybe this isn't the job for me. Like, I don't like that. I like to be rested so I can, you know, perform well. So. Yeah. And also, um, you know, naps, you know, as somebody who doesn't feel like they can get, you know, sleep for eight hours straight for various reasons. Uh, that's where naps can come in and be really, really helpful.

What I've learned from about, you know, waking up super early and then also about napping is that it seems to me that a nap will work a lot better earlier in the day for me. It's a little bit harder to do it later in the day, but wherever you can get one in. And I think that I wouldn't really worry too much about all the science behind, you know, whether it's 90 minutes or 40 minutes. Don't get too caught up. Just try to take a nap and then try to work on it and try to have it whatever way makes you feel good. When you nap, how long do you usually nap? It's usually probably somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes, I would say.

Every once in a while, it might be like 10. It might be just like a 10, 20 minute, like quick. It's surprising how much that can actually like make you feel better. Oh, it can make you feel great. It can make a huge difference. One thing I've noticed too is like, if I'm tired, you know, if I'm really fatigued,

when I come into the gym and when I grab like a 45 pound plate, it'll feel like a hundred pound plate. You plate, it'll feel like a 100-pound plate. You know, it'll feel, I mean, just imagine just literally rolling out of bed and like grabbing a 45-pound plate. Like you wouldn't feel very strong. Like you wouldn't feel great. Even if you were fairly well-rested, you're just not like cognitive yet.

And if you are sleep-deprived, you're not really all that cognitive the whole day. It's almost like you rolled out of bed the entire day. And your concentration levels are down. Your strength levels are down. Everything is just like a little bit compromised. And so it's important to try to figure out how can you get yourself in a better spot for the day so you can get to bed on time. It sounds like a ridiculous thing to say as if you're a little kid and you got this curfew, you know? But I think it's important.

And so for myself, one of the kind of things that I've learned is I tend to, I'll let my guard down here and there throughout the day, right? Like we all do. We, we all like, like to work hard and like to do all these things. And then like, sure enough, oh shit, my hands are down. My hands are not by my face again. You know, I got to keep my hands up. And like when I was boxing, my boxing coach would hold my mitts, you know, for me. And he was like, keep your hands up, keep your hands up. Hey, keep your hands up. Every once in a while, he'd pop me, and holy shit, does it hurt to get hit by somebody who's holding mitts.

You probably shouldn't do that to somebody. But it was like, hey, dude, like I told you five times to hold your hands up. I've taught you from the time that you first started here that your hands need to be like glued to your face. So I'm not you from the time that you first started here that your hands need to be like glued to your face. So I'm not sure where the miscommunication is happening, but let me reassure you that there is a miscommunication happening by punching you, you know, with this hard end of this mitt, you know, just slip a jab in there and the guy could punch so fast. It wasn't even hard, but it's like, it'd give you like a fat lip. You know how bad that hurts if you ever had

a fat lip. And it was like just hurts if you ever had a fat lip. And it was like just a reminder to kind of keep those hands up. And I think throughout our day, we need to kind of keep our hands up and we need to keep trying to find and keep trying to fight for time, trying to fight for how do I set up the next day to be the best day that it can possibly be so I can be in front of it. And you know what? It sounds like a lot of work, but life is fun when you're ahead. Life feels really good when you're kicking ass, when you're getting PRs in the gym, when you're getting leaner, when you're doing all these things that you agreed that you would do, you're reading the books that you said you're going to read, you're taking action on all the things that you said you're going to do. Life feels fucking

awesome when you're doing that, but you're not going to be able to do that if you're fatigued. So when I get home from work, a lot of times, one of the first things that I do is I usually go, I usually go right to the shower, take a shower, knock that out, lay out my clothes for the next day. And at five, 6 PM, like that part of my, my next morning ritual is already done because I got the clothes ready. I mean, it's pitch black in my room, you know, and I'm with my wife. Like, I don't want to wake her up, so I don't turn on a lot of lights. I probably make a lot of noise, but I try not to make a lot of noise. And I try to kind of get out of there in, you know, some stealth mode so I don't bother her because she wakes up about an hour later than I do

and she goes swimming. But everything's already kind of set up for that next day for it to be a little more efficient. So find in your day, find where there's a spot where maybe you're sitting on the couch or maybe there's, you know, just this like lull. And I'm not saying you can't ever rest or take a break, but find a dead spot where no one else needs you for anything in particular. Because when I come home, my wife a lot of times is like cooking dinner. My kids don't care that I'm home. They're off doing their own thing.

And I'm like, well, no one cares about me for the moment. So I don't have any responsibilities. I'm going to go and take a shower, be ready for the next day, and lay out my clothes. And that's where I find a small advantage towards making my next day a lay out my clothes. And that's where I, uh, you know, find a small advantage towards making my next day a little bit better. Yeah. And one big thing is like right now, if you might be maybe sleep deprived, or if you, if you know, you're only getting five or six hours a night, if you just have the confidence that if you can do this now, cause right now you might

feel that you're okay. Uh, but you might feel that it might be a little bit hard to do these things. If you do what Mark's talking about here, you optimize your day so that you can get a little bit more sleep. The next year you're going to feel a little bit better because you're more well rested. And it'll be easier to do that the next day because you have more rest. And then the next day, if you're able to do this more and more often, you're just going to be feeling better and better and better. It's going to be almost like you had kind of a little bit of a shade over your eyes before, but now all of these habits are easier because you're making better decisions and it's easier to make better decisions. You know, I feel like it'd be so difficult, you know, turning down bad food,

et cetera. I can see why people find it so difficult just because it's like I think first off dr. Lester Lee talked about how much right you know lack of sleep can affect hormonal levels but it can also affect things like you know ghrelin which is your hunger hormone if you're sleep deprived of ghrelin goes up by a bunch and you're always feeling hungry and leptin that hormone that makes you stop eating that hormone goes down when you're sleep deprived. Yeah. So I've said it on the podcast before. It's like you get the munchies when you don't sleep. Exactly. So, so like you want to make these good decisions, but your body's literally working against you telling you, you can't do it.

And if you just do this simple thing and try to like, you know, do different things during your day so you can get more rest, all of those decisions will be so much easier somebody on Facebook asked this question or a similar question of this basically they they work a long long 12-hour shift seven days like they know whatever they work hard how much would you guys sacrifice like a training day to catch up catch up on sleep instead of doing it every single day? Well, like maybe doing it every other day, that sort of thing. Well, somebody that, that works a lot, they might be able to, you know, almost like work out every other day.

So that would entail that, you know, some weeks they would work out three days a week and other days and other weeks they'd work out four days a week if they trained every other day. And they might be able to get a lot of sleep just by doing something like that because a three-day-a-week lifting program should allow you to get pretty good sleep. Another thing you could do is, and Seema and I were just talking about this, get some bang for your buck in the gym and figure out what in a gym is like taking you forever anyway. Maybe just get rid of that exercise. Like deadlifts are great and deadlifts have great bang for their buck. But if you're spending an hour on them and you're trying to figure out, you know, how do I spend more time with my wife? How to spend more time with my kids? Or how do I, you know, work on some of these things these guys are talking about. If your workout's taking you two and a half, three hours, um, maybe you

need to take out whatever's causing the biggest problem there. And it's okay to go in and, uh, have different workouts for a while. You know, it's okay to start a workout with, uh, RDLs rather than just starting a workout out with deadlifts. Because I know once we get into a powerlifting workout, especially someone like Nsema who's lifting 755, it's like, if you're lifting 700 plus pounds on a deadlift, it's going to take us a while to go from one plate to six plates to seven plates and so on, right? So while those exercises are great and they do have a lot of bang for their buck, you might want to try to decipher like, how am I going to use these exercises? Like you want to get through a

workout really fast on deadlifts. Try some snatch grip deficit deadlifts for sets of 10. Your workout's going to be over really fast because you know how much weight you're going to use? Not very much, maybe 315, maybe 405 if you're strong, but it's going to be brutal. And you'll be done with those deadlifts very quickly. You can maybe move into one or two other exercises that you feel are really efficient and you can be out of there. You'd save a lot of time that way. Tell everybody what we did this morning. Because like we volume wise, I mean, we did quite a bit, but we didn't like you only went up to, I think, 405.

I only touched two plates today and I still. Yeah, I'm still torched from it it killed me yeah so you know like i i've just been trying to do a little bit more reps i've been trying to make sure that my training makes me feel better rather than make me feel worse is one of my goals and so we did 315 on the trap bar for a few sets and like set number one i did a set of 10 then i did a set of 15. And the last set I did a set of 20. And then, um, you know, I, I kind of like to, I don't know. I like to make the workout harder when everybody thinks it's about to get easier. I like to kind of like mix

things up and give everybody a little trick, give everybody a little present. And so I went to 405 and then I did that for 10. And then of course my brother did it for 10 and a couple other guys jumped in and they were hand, they were fired up. And that's what I love to do. I love to like kind of lead by example, like, Hey, let's, you know, this is normally where the workout would come back down. No, let's, let's rev it back. Let's rev it back up and let's keep going up that mountain together. And so we did that. And then we were done with that. We, we actually broke off into a conditioning workout because, again,

Sean's got to get out of the gym early. I want to make sure he gets a good workout. So I'm like, oh, shit, now we've got to switch back to a conditioning workout, and then we're going to finish with hypertrophy. The workout from a strength conditioning standpoint doesn't really make any sense. Most strength coaches would take a giant poop all over this workout, but it is what it be, right? It just is the way it is.

And so we did some hammer stuff, and we did a set where we did 15 pounds all the way up to 40 pounds. And then we did wall balls in between that. And then when we were done with all that shit, we came back to the trap bar and did some hypertrophy work with our heels elevated, kind of in like a hack squat type of fashion. But the workout didn't take very long, right, Andrew? I mean, it was like. No, I mean, you know, in perfect Andrew fashion, I showed up a little bit like 15 minutes late. Fashionably.

Yeah. Yeah. No, in Andrew fashion. Like that's my style. Whatever the time is, you can add 15 minutes for me in Andrew fashion. Like that's, that's, that's my style. Uh, whatever, whatever the time is, you can add 15 minutes for me in the morning. Uh, but no, I, I got there and I seen everybody was on the trap bar. So I'm like, Oh shit. Like, ah, like, Hey Mark, is it cool if I just set up another bar? Cause like, you know, I don't want to slow anybody down. Cause I don't know what the

plan is. Right. I'm thinking I see two, three plates. They're probably going to go up, you know, know what the plan is right i'm thinking i see two three plates they're probably gonna go up you know five six whatever and he's like no just hop in there like oh sick okay so you know pretty rough night of sleep so picking up 135 was oh boy here we go he kind of asked me like he didn't really want to do it partially he's like should i should i set up on a different bar i set up the 25 he wanted me to say yes so bad i was like no man jump in there and a different bar? I set up the 25. He wanted me to say, yeah, so bad. And I was like, no, man, jump in there. And then the pink Olympic bar was already kind of out there on the wagon wheels. He was looking at that hard.

I was like, what do you think? I was looking at it. Yeah, he was eye-fucking it pretty bad. He was calling me. I was like, hey, what's up? Anywho, yeah, I see Mark was going high reps i'm like okay cool so then i was trying to get above 10 each time but you know a couple sets through uh it didn't take very long and then the conditioning with the um uh whatever those are called sledgehammers yeah and i thought that was going to be it. And then he loads up the, uh, the trap bar again. And I'm

like, Oh man, here we go. Like the, that last, that dude, that the, the death trap is what we call it. Yeah. Elevated heels. You know, it's, it's, um, dude, it's, it's brutal, but, but I mean, all in all, like we normally get out of here between six 30 and seven. So I'm thinking in my head, as you guys are texting last night like oh i'm gonna be sweaty all day like i'm not gonna have time to go home and shower and come back for work so i looked up and i'm like oh it's barely six o'clock all right mark i'm gonna get out of here so i can go get cleaned up and come back and not be all you know whatever yeah so it was a very quick workout but i'm still beat from it so it it was

very like the you know bang for your buck like dude it worked today we yeah we got our money's worth for sure yeah no i i like i like really like super setting stuff together yeah because super setting takes like like saves time like for example on a certain day i'll maybe if i plan on doing some rows or something i'll do some pen lay rows and I'll superset that with overhead press. Or I'll maybe superset like, I may be superset some rows with a squat because they don't really get too much in the way of each other. And then literally all of my smaller movements, I'll find a way to superset them with each other. So we were just talking about like maybe a bicep curl with the leg press or a hamstring curl with a shoulder press. Because those movements, if you do a hamstring curl with a shoulder press because those movements if

you do a hamstring curl you can still go do a full set of shoulder presses without it being affected right by the amount of load you can move and if you can set your workout that way so every single movement doesn't affect each other and you can go from one to the other and maybe take 30 second or 45 seconds rest in between you could save yourself a good hour to hour and a half on that whole workout you don't have to spend that long yeah and how good is like dog crap training oh like i mean explain dog crap training to me because i don't remember it oh i've heard of it i don't remember i just just take any any movement where you can get a like high reps so um lat pull downs so you'll you'll find where 20 reps is like that's it like i maybe have one or two more to go. Yeah. Okay. So that's half,

like it's almost one set there. You break for five seconds or like five breaths and then you do five more reps. Oh, so rest pause. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So like the thought is like do five of them in a row. Yeah. Yeah. So the thought is like, okay, 20 right here is where I'm at. And then I dropped down for five seconds and then back up to five dog crap training is wild man it's really good i like it it really works really well uh dante tridell is the guy who created it um he was a pro bodybuilder for a few years had like you know 20 plus inch arms just jacked right um but the interesting thing is like you it i mean it might only tell how long does it take to do to do it like because you do two exercises so it's like uh not not i mean fuck dude you might

be done in 12 minutes yeah yeah you and you're totally done yeah like i done done maybe like uh i mean you kind of it's one of those things it's like you kind of need straps if you're going to train back because just your hands are going to die. Your forearms are going to die. But other than that, I mean, it's super convenient. It's a super convenient way to get something done. You want to talk about chasing the pump. Like, dude, if you do any kind of back workout with it, your lats are just, it's so nice.

And you can modify it, too. I mean, like, you know, Dante set it up so you do a little bit higher rep, and by the time you're done, you end up with like 50 reps. But if you wanted a different stimulus and you wanted to go heavier, you could certainly do it that way too. You can do, you know, the heaviest set of six or eight or something that you can handle with like dumbbells or something, and you could, you know, work way uh down for those those five sets yeah but another thing you can do too um you can mix muscle groups have

nothing to do with each other as well like so you got opposing muscle groups you have like a bicep and a tricep or chest and back chest and back workouts can be awesome i used to do those quite a bit uh in between bench pressing i would do like pull-ups and things like that and go back and forth. And that always felt really good. And you get a really cool pump and it actually kind of, somehow it kind of, it would like open up my shoulders a little bit more for bench pressing when I would do lat work in between. It just felt really, really good. It felt like I was able to contract my chest more. And then when I went over to the back exercise, I felt like I was able to contract my back more. But in addition went over the back exercise i felt like i was able to contract my back more but in addition to that you can do muscles that just have nothing to

do with each other like you could do uh biceps and in between doing biceps you could do um like a step up or something like that or like i demonstrated the other day uh some rotator cuff exercise because most people have bad posture and their shoulders are shitty from trying to go too heavy on the bench press so there's so many different ways you can mix things mix these things up but i think that um you know a lot of us love being in the gym and we love we love training but we make the mistake of maybe being there for too long sometimes yeah man i working out for three hours i remember when i used to do that here i can't do that anymore i like i had to shorten up my workouts um

yeah just it can't happen anymore it's a it's a it's like um it's a sacrifice you know you gotta make because like you want to hang out with everybody yeah you want to kick it with everybody but you can't like and same thing when i I'm, you know, at home and, uh, you know, my wife and I, we eat dinner. We watch, we watch TV for a little bit. I watch about an hour or 45 minutes of TV. That's, that's what I have. She'll look at me and she'll be like, you want to watch another one? I can't, I gotta go to bed. Like I, yes, I, yes, I'd love to do this with you, but I can't, I got shit to do. I gotta, you know, I gotta be up in the morning and I got to kick ass and, again, try to set my day up so it can be the best day. And her and I have plenty of time together.

So it's not like I'm compromising that just so I can wake up early and train. Yeah. Last night, there was 39 seconds left of the basketball game. That took forever. It took like four hours. I don't know how it ended. Oh, the Raptors. Wait, you don't know the Raptors won?

We are the North. I mean, I'm going to do what Warriors fans did a couple years ago. I'm a lifelong Raptors fan. So, yeah, we finally did it. The North. Taking it back to the classics like Vince Carter and Vince and uh uh vince carter and you know those guys those are my my heroes i promise bandwagon what no no no no real quick though air canada son we don't talk about basketball much here but let's just let's just mention this quick why

leonard right yeah of the raptors last year he was on the spurs the whole organization including pop who's the coach where they were all getting pissed at Kawhi because he had this major injury that like he himself as an athlete knew I can't play this season if I play I'm gonna get hurt his teammates were like oh you had we've had worse injuries than you they were dogging him on it right right okay he goes to the Raptors he wins Kevinvin durant what it really sucks what happened to kd because you know how he got injured um i think he injured his calf in a game a few not the last game was the game before yeah the game before but not he had an injury before he came back right they like and he had like an ankle thing and then he had a calf thing i think right

yeah he ended up tearing his achilles recently but the thing is when you look at kd and you see all the pressure around him to be like get on the court get on the court get on the court he may have known like hey maybe this isn't the best idea but i gotta do it for my team and an achilles injury for basketball players like the worst thing that could possibly happen kobe had it he was scared that he'd never play again yeah you know but he never was saying he was never the same he was never the same and it's just that kind of thing where like as an athlete, just like think of the long, think of the long game. I think when I heard Kawhi say that I was just like, okay, that's, that's smart.

You know, you have an injury. If you can't work through it, just think of the long game because if you can, if you can survive that like good things can happen, but it's just, it's so crazy. It's hard to stay in your own lane. You know, like you, I mean, that amount of pressure is insane, right? Like we're just, we're just talking about like hanging out as bros, really not a lot of pressure, you know,

like I just want to like, you know, and SEMA and Andrew and stuff come in the gym. I just want to chat with you guys cause we're friends. Uh, so it's not the same right like this is this is a different level yeah but uh yesterday when we were bench pressing uh josh came in josh uh setlage came in and he saw us benching and i and i was like oh what do you got for today he's like i got ben i got a bench press too and i was like oh you want to hop in and josh is like he follows shit to the teeth. That kid, you know, is, is like his own drill sergeant somehow. Right. Like he's not gonna, he's not gonna waver off of any plan.

Right. He's like, nope, I got to do my warmup. And there he goes into his normal warmup that he always does. Josh is disciplined. Yeah, he is. He's like stretching and foam rolling and doing all these different things. And I kind of went over to him and I was like, I was messing with him and stuff. But I was like, no, I think that's great.

You know, you're staying in your own lane. You're doing your thing the way that you're, this is what you're supposed to do. And if you get excited and you come over and you're all fired up and you bench press with us, you're supposed to take 185 instead of 225. You say, screw it because 225 is on there. And then what happens? Yeah. And you hurt your shoulder because you just wanted to be like hanging out with us.

And it doesn't actually really make any sense because it doesn't help you towards your goal at all. Yeah. Slow yourself down sometimes and just think, like, how is this helping me? This isn't really helping me. It's really easy. You said something the other day i think it takes more courage to uh back off of a weight than to actually go and do it and and i've been in so many of those situations where i just like uh i can't do this this is not like we were messing with you one day because you had like tens and fives and we're like come on dude we only use

quarters and plates around remember you're like bent over road or something yeah you're like nope and you wouldn't waver but like that's great like it's that's the way it should be like this is what i'm doing for today yeah everybody else can go screw themselves yeah you know i i always mention this i feel like even if you're not someone who works with people um if you've ever worked with uh like a trainer or a coach and now you're working on on your own, try to look at everything like someone's looking over your shoulder. Try to make your decisions that way. Because if you do, you'll probably always make much better decisions in terms of maybe backing away or maybe potentially even pushing yourself. But I feel like the longest lasting athletes, the ones that are able to do it

for a long time, treat themselves with that kind of respect. Like always try to treat themselves like they were trying to help somebody else out. So try to do that. You treat yourself with the care that you would, uh, have for, um, training your aunt or training your girlfriend or something like that. Like you would, or your mom, you'd be like, mom, like, you know, I'm going to show you how to deadlift and we're going to, we're going to start with the bar. She'd be like, Oh, we're just, you know, I could, maybe she gets excited and maybe she feels she can lift more. No, that's what we're doing for today. We're doing the bar, you know? And maybe the person can lift, you know, with the tens on each side or whatever, but,

and you have them go through some of those progressions and feel it out and they might get excited. They might want to do more. And you're like, Nope, that's where we're going to stop. But we'd never do that for ourselves. We never like stop. We never, uh, we never stop ourselves before it's too late. Yeah.

You know, we're always like, ah, screw it. I'll just do what he did. Yeah. We get to be lazy almost about it. After bench yesterday,

I had said like, man, I feel like I still have a lot left in the tank and you joked, but then you said like, well, that's kind of how you want to say, I want to see this tank. Yeah. I was like, yeah, I feel like I have so lot left in the tank and you joked but then you said like well that's kind of how you want to say I want to see this tank yeah I was like yeah I feel like I have so much left in the tank he's like I want to see this tank and I'm like all right maybe I feel like I have a little bit left instantly was like oh really like kind of called my bluff yeah but he said like

that's how you want to feel so it was pretty cool yeah when you're like driving home you know you don't want to be like sobbing that you gave it everything you got and that you still suck. You want to think to yourself, that was a great workout. And you know what? I bet next time I could probably do a lot more weight because like that actually felt pretty easy. I got a lot. I got a lot more in me. I imagine it'd be similar like in jujitsu when you're working on certain drills and stuff. And it probably can get to a point where you get so fatigued.

But you're like, this doesn't make sense for me to keep practicing this anymore. It's like too frustrating. I come back. That's enough for today. That's a great amount of learning for today. I learned some of the skills that I need to learn. I'm going to sleep on it. Right.

I go home. I'm going to rest. And when you come back, it like all of a sudden starts to click. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, I could do the move that I've been frustrated about for three weeks. Yeah. And it's funny because that sleep, I don't even want to go back to the sleeping. But that's what happens, man. Like when you're sleeping and you're resting, your mind is like pretty much cementing a lot of the things that you did or learned during the day.

And if you don't get enough of that, then your mind can't cement those things that you learned during the day. The next day you just might be just as shitty as the day before if you didn't. So you're totally right, though, you know, especially in jujitsu. I really make sure, you know, especially as I work all these different techniques that I get enough recipes. I notice when I, when I don't next day, it is harder to do it. But when I do, it's like the things that I was drilling become more natural.

I don't need to think as much about it. I can, I can just do it. It's crazy. It really is. I think Matthew Walker was all, he also has kind of talked about how you basically in your sleep, whether you realize it or not, you walk yourself through a lot of the day that you just went

through. Right. So if you were practicing free throws and you were working on it and you were thinking about keeping your elbow in and the way you were shooting and your rhythm and all these things, I think that gets replayed when you're sleeping. Yeah. Right. And so it's like when you're sleeping yeah right and so it's like you're gonna and they've even done studies and they show people come back 30 better 40 better when they had better rest because they are like literally relearning this is being like reintroduced to you while you're sleeping it's uh almost like that scene the matrix like he's like i want to learn jujitsu and they implant it into their head i I think your dream sequence. Yeah, it really is that

because your mind doesn't know the difference between imagining it or actually doing it. So when you actually do step up to the mat or whatever it is that you've already played in your head, you're like, oh wait, yeah, we're just doing this again. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. How long are your workouts nowadays? Because you usually

are kind of in and out of there. Usually I try to get it to be an hour 15, hour 30. The hour 15 to an hour 30. That's reasonable. You got a warm up, right? And you got some stretching usually on your way out, right? Yeah. And so it's like 40 minutes, 45 minutes of. The stretching I don't count as part of the workout.

The stretching is just like on its own. I do that afterwards. But the warm up and the workout typically take an hour, 15, hour, 30. And it's cool also because since I am like so flexible now, my warm-up doesn't take me 30 minutes anymore. My warm-up maybe takes me about like literally about 5, 10 minutes. You feel ready to go as soon as your heart rate is up and your body temperature is up, right? Yeah. And then I get at it, finish it go do my uh usually

stretch and then go to jiu-jitsu usually and i never i never see you doing anything like fancy you're always just doing simple stuff like um i see you doing overhead presses and bent over rows and deadlifts and now you may may not be you're not you don't have the same frequency that you used to have right in terms of the some of the power lifts that right yeah my frequency for my squatting decreased i usually squat one time a week my deadlifts i wasn't able to deadlift this week yet but i'll probably try and deadlift during the weekend so i usually deadlift once if it's a good weekend i feel good i'll deadlift twice during that week um rowing i do rowing twice ohp i do quite a bit I do a lot of OHP and a lot of control decentric OHP because of the issues that I was having with my shoulder

You know with jiu-jitsu as it became more mobile something happened where my shoulder would like a Subluxate right subluxate so like would move around there and it's because there is a period of time where I actually lowered my frequency of overall shoulder movements so what happened was the the tendons weakened in strength faster than the muscles did so because the muscles are so active they would just move around in there so I started doing a lot of that it repaired I just maintained that a lot I maintain a lot of control eccentric movements and a lot of the movements I do now I um, I can, that's helped a lot. Just a low,

like lowering the weight slowly on an overhead press, lowering the weight, slowly bringing it up and controlling it. And I actually, I don't only do that on the OHP. I try to do that for a lot of my different movements. Um, not like maybe is it, is it hard? Like does your shoulders, like do your shoulders like get lit on fire when you do it? yeah yeah they really do um but they've been getting a lot stronger with that way too so i haven't had any of those issues like at all not even remotely yeah um but yeah what do you think about uh art i think if you need it um if you need to get it there's a period of time that i once went arty specialist a bit, I think like two and a half years ago. But I also think that it really just depends on what you've got. Because as I started, as I started stretching more and like doing a little bit of mobility stuff, I haven't needed to do anything like that in a very, very, very long time.

Yeah. I'm just asking because I just recently, you know, I told you I was training and I got coached by Coach Marco at the gym. So we ended the session with like some pretty hardcore, well, in my opinion, hardcore, like ART stuff. It's just, I don't know, man, it's grueling. And I don't know if I like really understand the benefits of it. Were they working on something specific on you or? It just kind of stretching everybody out but i had mentioned i'm like hey like my lower back is like it's

you know it's a really big issue so like don't even you know like we're just on the floor in the gym you know so it was just um like all like upper body so like chest uh pecs like dug deep into my armpits like i even started like bleeding at one point i was like oh my gosh oh god yeah because like he got like dug deep into my armpit and like my armpits are like uh like uh like i can't find a deodorant that doesn't just make me peel for some reason so like yeah broke the skin but uh and then the forearms and everything and yeah i don't know i don't i did have a really good bench day this week. Okay. I don't know if that has anything to do with it

or the fact that I've just been getting stronger and eating and no longer natty. No longer natty. I think, you know, back to kind of what Nseem was saying is like if you're mobile, then your tissues are probably going to slide around and move around the way that they need to. They probably won't be obstructed. You know, I've had this, uh, this elbow pain for a while. Um, and I would imagine that if my shoulder mobility was better, the elbow pain would go away. And I, from, few months ago, one of our guests showed me like a tricep

shoulder stretch. And I've been doing that and I do it almost every day. I do some version of it almost every day. And it's helped a lot. The pain has dissipated a lot. And if I did the stretching as much as I'm supposed to, it probably would be totally gone. In addition to that, I think a lot of times people need a lot of chiropractic and a lot of, um, active release therapy or somebody to like help them stretch or whatever, because their, their programming's not great, you know, or it could just be, uh, they could have done a couple of contests in a row because when you compete, things are going to get unhealthy quickly. If you compete in anything and you compete multiple times in a year,

maybe you're going to start to get banged up. And maybe because of that, it makes sense to get your neck worked on or get your shoulders worked on to keep them healthy. But yeah, a lot of times you don't really need a lot of that stuff. The controlled eccentrics are huge for injuries. Anybody listening to this podcast right now with any injury, start out with something really ridiculously light. You know, just take that advice, just to have it be super light.

I don't even want to associate it with a percentage because I don't think there's a reason to. Just start very, very light. And when you move slow, you only need like six to 10 reps because, uh, you'll, you'll find out quickly what I'm talking about. You'll be in some excruciating pain because it's going to be very, very difficult. But let's say that doing an overhead press is a big no, no for you. Let's say you can't do it because your shoulders hurt, take a five, take a 10 pound dumbbell, whatever that weight is that you can do and try to perform very strictly, uh, 10 repetitions

coming down nice and slow, controlling the weight, not pausing at the bottom, not pausing at the top and not even really locking any amount. Stay in a good consistent rhythm. You'll get so much blood to the area. And I think that's how the healing process is really working. So you got like, you know, don't overdo it, get a lot of blood in the area and, um, just make sure you're not working out like an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I mean, a lot of power that just listened to this, but when you do some of your accessories, really think of it like a bodybuilder. Um, A lot of bodybuilders, their focus isn't on just moving the most load possible or getting in the most volume, even though volume is super important. Their focus is that they feel whatever movement

that they're doing, the specific muscle group that they're trying to work. What I've seen a lot of is like, for example, like a hammer strength row, right? You know how guys, now, if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about that chest supported row that you have in the gym where you can put your chest on it and you you can row with both hands or a single hand i see a lot of guys load four or five plates on there and they're just going at it right i don't need anything but maybe two plates i could get a crazy pump and stimulation with a single plate on that thing because I really focus on only pulling back with my lat. I could do four plates, but I haven't done four plates on that machine in the longest time because when I do that, I can feel my biceps compensating and taking a little bit of the load. I can feel

a lot of other muscle groups that I'm not trying to work helping me out with that movement. So I'll do two plates or maybe two plates and a quarter and people will think it's super light but you do you see what this is doing on my back like really think about that so when you're doing a lot of these movements really focus on your that muscle group you're trying to work don't don't just load it up because you could do more because yeah maybe you can tricep push down the whole rack but then how much your shoulders and maybe your back and all these other muscle groups you're getting involved yeah what are some some of your favorite accessories for the deadlift? A question came in earlier, just didn't get a chance to get to it. Accessories for the deadlift. I love pause deadlifts. I love double pause deadlifts. So pause deadlifts, you should, when you, when you,

if you do program these, think about where maybe your, your worst point is my initially, I worked a lot of pause deadlifts from the ground, meaning that once the bar left the ground, I would pause that immediate section because what would happen for me is I would lose my hip position immediately when I started the pull.

My hips would rise and I would kind of go forward. So I'd focus on using a fairly light load. And once I break the ground, pausing and holding that good position to get myself used to not tipping over and that problem fixed. Some people have a really bad problem with locking out on the deadlift at their knees. So maybe they'll get to their knees and they'll start shaking. So use a really light load and pause the deadlift at the knees.

Hold that position well and then drive your hips through explosively. I really dig pause deadlifts block uh, block pulls. I like a lot too. I like those, um, in terms of movements that I think also helped me in terms of positioning. I think the pen lay row was really good for me in terms of my back position for my deadlift. Um, because it helped me to really maintain good position while strengthening my back. I know there's people that like Kaver Wollum's Kaver Woolum's pools. Those are cool too. The Ed Cohn deadlifts, ones where you keep consistent tension, those are really good also. And then obviously I think anything that helps strengthen the back, the hamstrings, the glutes,

all of those are good accessories. But direct deadlift stuff, I just really, really like Paws deadlifts. Yeah. I think people can get a little carried away about having their accessories be so different than the actual movement um i do think some lat work can really come into play because the the grip is involved forearms are involved biceps are involved all these muscles are involved in a deadlift but you know this kind of idea of like you know heavy one-armed dumbbell rows are going to really improve your deadlift, uh, drastically. I think they, they can in some certain situations, but I think the best bang for your buck is going to be, uh, deadlift variations, you know, some form of

deadlift variation. I even consider a bent over row, a deadlift variation, um, just cause you are already in like a deadlift position,lift position as you're doing the movement, kind of no matter how you do it. And I think this other idea too of like building up the posterior chain is going to really build up a strong deadlift. I think it's kind of a misconception. I think the central nervous system still needs to be attacked through heavy weight through, and that's why I'm saying other forms of deadlifting is, is where it's at for assistance exercises. And I would say the same thing on bench and the same thing on squat, but this idea of like doing GHRs and building up your, your hamstrings is not really going to be the thing that's going to help you pull 800 pounds.

It can assist the whole process because ultimately at some point your hamstrings are going to go, holy shit, this is heavy weight. And they may need to need, they may need to contract and be on board with what you're doing. So they may need to be put together really well. They may need to be strong enough to handle what you're going to try to do. But I wouldn't really look at it as that being a builder. I'd go back to what Nsema said earlier, but I wouldn't really look at it as that being a builder. I'd go back to what Nsema said earlier, treat your assistance exercises like a bodybuilder and really think about them.

Power lifting, we don't often have enough time to really think about stuff because we're doing a squat, we're doing a deadlift, doing a bench, and a lot of times it's over 70% of our max, and too often it's probably in the 90% range. And what can you think of with 90% of your max? Nothing, right? Holy shit, I hope I don't die.

That's all you can really kind of think about. So, you know, you probably have heard, you know, bodybuilders in the past say, you know, think big, eat big, right, that whole concept. That's a great concept to have. And that's what you should be thinking when you're doing your assistance exercises. So when you're trying to have something transfer over, you know, back into a certain lift, doing your tricep pushdowns,

again, that's not going to build up a big bench press. And I think having a larger muscle can help you because you can have better leverages. So having bigger triceps, having bigger biceps, they can help you because you can have better leverages. So having bigger triceps, having bigger biceps, they can help, but it's not gonna be the main driver of what's gonna turn your central nervous system on and have it ingrained into your body on how to bench press bigger weights.

It's only gonna assist you in a very small way. So rather than kind of thinking of like, I'm gonna blast these assistance exercises real heavy, I'm gonna work on increasing the muscle size and I'm going to work inward on myself. And I'm going to work inward on my drive to keep kind of pushing forward the mental aspect of the game. And also to almost like you're looking inside the muscle and you're trying to work the attachments of the muscles, trying to work. Like if I have elbow pain, I'm trying to think of the connective tissue. I'm trying to think of everything. I'm trying to think of all the little different things that are in there. And I'm actually visualizing the bench press sometimes when I'm doing some tricep

exercises, or if I'm working on, um, a pause deadlift, I might be thinking about if I'm working on a pause deadlift, I might be thinking about, if I'm working on a pause deadlift, I might be thinking about getting back to deadlifting over 700 pounds again. So when I'm doing it, even though the weights are lighter because the pause makes it more challenging, I'm still thinking that there's 700 pounds in there. I want to lift it like an animal and I want to do it the right way, but I have an appropriate weight on there that allows me to think and allows me to feel because we can't think and you can't feel it. It's going to be really hard to learn it. Oh yeah, most definitely. Um, one, one more thing that I think might be

really beneficial for, uh, anybody like you, you, you mentioned that you don't want to make too much of a departure from that movement, you know, to, to actually strengthen that movement. Um, something that helps, uh, help my sumo deadlift a lot was actually, I think working conventional deadlift for a while also, because there were a lot of weaknesses that I had throughout the ranges of motion of that movement. Um, and there was a period of time at the old gym when I was really for like three months, just conventional deadlift progressing that, because I think my best at that time was maybe like 640. So by the time my conventional deadlift hit 700 on that in the gym, I think my sumo deadlift got stronger in the time that I wasn't working conventional because there were some things that weren't the weaknesses that I had in the conventional. Well, they helped some

of the weaknesses that I may have in my sumo. And one thing that I noticed actually a lot is that individuals that I work with that pull conventional, there'll be a period of time that I'll have them pull sumo for a bit. And it'll help them get used to using their hips better because sumo, as you guys both know, is super hip driven. Then when they move back to conventional, they're better at activating that area when they're doing conventional pulls. And their conventional ends up actually getting much stronger in the period that their sumo got stronger. So whatever the movement is, you know, maybe you're trying to progress your bench press. You're trying to progress your squat.

If you're not close to a meet, maybe take some time out. Maybe try and progress a front squat for a little bit. Doesn't need to be half a year. Could be just two, three months. Maybe try and progress a close grip bench press for a period of time. Because- I noticed he said two or three months. I don't think people have patience for that.

I don't think people- You're right. I don't think they do. I don't think they're sticking out. Like they're not using their assistance exercises for like long enough periods of time. You know, I like to switch up a lot of things, but I still normally,

even though I'm not trying to be the strongest power lifter in the world, I still normally will keep an assistance exercise in for a while and then try to learn how to master it, try to gain something from it. And then it's like, ah, I feel tapped out on it or I'm bored of it. I'm going to move it out and try something different. Some of the kind of fluff and puff, as I like to call it, the stuff later in the workout that I might do just to kind of bro out at the end of the session to feel good and get a good sweat going, get the heart rate up. Those kinds of things, those can be interchangeable. It's not a huge deal. Like cable crossover, like who really gives a shit, right? There's certain movements, a lat pull down. It's

like that could be changed. You could change different handles and you could do them whatever the hell way you want it doesn't matter a ton but when it comes to kind of these um as i like to call them secondary barbell movements or secondary movements yeah you got to leave them in there for a while because you got to get better at them you got to get stronger at them and any anyone that's programming out there uh that's that's worth worth a shit they they know that and they'll do that for you they'll make sure that your your assistance exercise they're in there for a while because you got to be able to build them up just like you build up just like you build up your bench press just like you build up your squat a movement

that I really like a lot that helped me a lot that I haven't really even shown much or yeah I think I maybe shot like one youtube video on it like a million years ago and i should probably shoot another one but i'd go back and forth between stiff leg deadlifts and and regular deadlifts back and forth to learn where your hips are because a lot of people will go oh my god my hips are in the same spot and it's like yeah that's why we're doing them dude because they shouldn't be you know that'll probably be me yeah yeah and so you do one rep uh you know one rep stiff leg and one rep uh regular go back and forth whichever one you start out with doesn't really make a difference um and you could do that with sumo as well

sumo stiff stiff leg deadlifts are actually really beneficial too, but you got to be careful with them. You can kill yourself on them. You got to keep the weights very modest at first. But that exercise alone, again, it can be, I would start with like 40 or 50% of your max just to get a feel for it. Maybe do three of each. So it'd be six reps total. Move slow, move controlled, and learn a lot about your back. I still, to this day, I'm trying to figure out like, do I set my back first and then

my hips or do I set my hips first and then my back? Like I'm still always trying to figure out these things. And I went back and forth with a bunch of different techniques and methods. And that's what you're going to be doing too. You're going to be messing with your stance and messing with your hands, where they are. You're going to try to play with hook grip for a while. You're going to try to go under over with the opposite hand. I mean, you're going to want to explore it all because it's going to be worth it in the end.

So try that out. That's a great way to um build up your deadlift but it's a great uh learning tool and it would be a secondary barbell movement so it'd be after like a whatever your main intent of the day would be you would mix in those stiff leg deadlifts back and forth with regular deadlifts can you mix that in conjunction with like trying to like like right now i i wouldn't want to slow anything down like you know i want to try to obtain a really high deadlift number before this whole thing is over with me would i be able to combine that as an accessory movement like a lighter weight like stiff leg

deadlift to figure out where my back is or take everything away and not make any adjustments before i go for a big weight. Wait, what, what was your question? Like, should you, so like right now, like I, you know, before the whole summer getting things over, I want to pull a really big deadlift. But like, if I were to come in next week and Mark's like, Hey, we're not going over, you know, one 35, cause we're going to to figure out we're going to fix your deadlift right now like i would be a little bummed you could you could still do it as an assistance so that's yeah of course because i just don't want to like make any big changes and then all of a sudden it's like oh my gosh there's x amount of weight on the bar and try what we did last week yeah a lot of times when you're trying when a lot trying, anytime that you're trying something new, in my opinion, it should be done almost as the very last exercise of the day.

And it should be done very, very, very lightly. Especially if you're trying something new with a barbell. Let's just say you got fired up and you wanted to try like an overhead squat. I would do an overhead squat with the bar. and you wanted to try like an overhead squat, I would do an overhead squat with the bar. Maybe get like a little bit of weight on there for like one set, you know, a 10 or 25 or something. But it's not a great idea when you first try an exercise out

to try to have some heavy weight on there. You're going to probably blow something up. Especially not an overhead squat. Hey, it's Joey Lee. Joey. Good morning. Gold chain, gold watch. She ain't messing around. something out especially not an over hey it's joey lee joey good morning mvp gold chain gold watch she ain't messing around thanks joe dog i get my morning crack yee that's all right oh if you guys are listening to now the podcast coffee so now the warm-up's over you know

yeah that might have sounded weird actually we're like joey lee morning i'm like gold chain gold yeah uh sorry about that oh god yeah it's all the fun part of watching it live though yeah we're talking about coffee everybody let's Just clarify that again. Yeah, that BBC. No way. I guess it's big black coffee. It does take big and black and light coffee. Man, this is my bullet, man.

I just had three of them. I feel so good. You just start smiling. Everything's just so nice. I've told Chris Bell, I'm like, dude, I don't know what's been going on, but usually when I leave here, I'll throw an audio book, I'll throw on a podcast. I'm like, but man, every day I just like, dude, let me dig into like these, you know, uh, my music list, my library. I'm like, Oh, I haven't listened to this in so long. And I'm just like, so like just amped and just in love with the music. Yeah. just like so like just amped and just in love with the music yeah and he's like uh it's probably

just because you're happier you don't really want to focus on you know like learning right now and i'm like dude that's right because i have been taking more mind bullet yeah and i'm just like by the time i go home dude i'm just i mean i'm talking like like old school stuff like some really really like the stuff that you would hear you'd'd be like, oh, that's, you know, that's like an old Common song. Yeah. It's like, no, no, no. Like this is the original sample. Like it's.

Yeah, dude. I wonder how many people listening just don't know who Common is. Go to Spotify. Yeah. Originally known as Common Sense. How many people know that? Probably less. Mm hmm.

Yeah. But he's still around. Yeah. Yeah. I know he's done like movies. Yeah. I think that's what he's probably focusing more on but it's actually pretty damn good actor he's really good yeah really good just talented man that voice is just so deep just yeah sexy it really is it's almost as good as yours uh no it's much better yeah every guest that comes on here is like, why is this guy just trying to seduce me?

I don't know why they say that because I'm just speaking to them, just talking to them. Just trying to get them to take their pants off. I think that's really what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, man. The last thing I want to mention on this whole sleeping thing and getting to bed on time,

just kind of ask yourself, why are you staying up? Are you staying up because you are creative at night and you like to kind of work through the night a little bit that, that might be okay. Um, that might work great for you. You might be very successful doing that, but I would also look at like, you know, what are your food choices like during the day? And what are your food choices like at night? Because this might help you get to bed a lot earlier. Are you going to stay up later and just watch TV and then just eat some junk? I mean, that's not really, you know, look, you're probably already getting 60 to 70% there in terms of your fitness, in terms of your strength.

care in terms of your fitness, in terms of your strength. So if the option is, you know, should I stay up and watch another show and just like snack on a bunch of bullshit, you should probably just say, you know what? I want to make this, I want to make this sacrifice. I want to just, I'm just going to go to bed and just fucking go to bed. Like make that decision. See what it looks like when you make that decision just five days in a row, just for five days in a row, even three days in a row. And I guarantee you that by the third day, you're going to wake up, you look at yourself in the mirror and go, Oh my God, like I'm quite a bit leaner than I was three days ago. That's how quick you can turn around those little, a little self-sabotage that you might have

while you're watching TV or while you're letting your guard down. Could be the thing that's just messing up the other, you put all this effort in during the day. You work so hard for everything. You have a nine out of 10 day going and you kind of throw it all the way kind of towards the end of the day and you end kind of throw it off. You throw it all the way kind of towards

the end of the day and you end up with like a six or a five and a five or six is just not enough to really make progress. So, you know, take it from somebody who's done, who's self-sabotaged himself probably more than anybody in the history of the planet myself and just, you know, say, you know what, I'm going to just make this different for today. I'm just going to go to bed. Just say, you know what? I'm going to just make this different for today. I'm just going to go to bed. Get your ass in bed.

Very true. You know, I think in that book, Matthew Walker talks about something called micro-sleeps. It's when you don't get enough rest, right? And you find yourself just going like that all the time, right? I got in my first car accident because of a micro-sleep. Oh, shit. Yeah, man. I was like 20, 21. I wasn't getting enough rest because i like it like

that shit's dangerous it really is man it was finals and i remember i was driving down the road after work and then i remember boom and i hit a car like it was that quick and the the the the crazy thing is man like if you you want to do this for your safety too because when you have a microsleep it's not like driving drunk and I'm not saying driving drunk is good by the way, where you have, like, you can control your car a little bit, right. A micro sleep in that, in that time where your eyes are closed, you literally, every motor function just stops. So you're in literally like a rocket and Matthew puts it like this in the book. You're like in a rocket going down at 50 miles per hour and nothing's stopping it. And that's how I got on my first ever car accident in my first car,

you know? So like what I didn't realize that like, well, obviously I knew it was because I didn't have sleep. But when I realized what micro sleeps were, I was just like, God dang, why did I do that?

Why was I so stupid to put myself in that situation? That's how I totaled my first car. And if you're falling asleep like that too, you know, maybe if you're in your 20s, probably not a huge problem, but if you're falling asleep like that and you're in your 30s and 40s and 50s and maybe even upward,

you might have sleep apnea. Like if you're falling asleep randomly during the day, like that is not normal. Now, if you're just fatigued because you got your ass kicked by the week, that's pretty normal, you know, and you're a hardworking person and every time you sit down in a chair, you fall asleep.

That's not that uncommon. That's not really what I'm talking about. But if you're falling asleep while people are talking to you or you're falling asleep in a car or just normal spots where you normally wouldn't fall asleep, you're taking notes on something and you fall asleep, that's abnormal not, that's abnormal. Yeah. And you need to look into it.

It's a medical condition and sleep apnea can be extremely dangerous. But no one really cares about how dangerous it is. They just care that it might be taken away from their gains, right? So we'll stick more to that. You could be more jacked. You can be in better shape because your resting glucose levels could be better. They could be optimized better if you get better sleep. Your insulin levels could be a lot better. They show that a lot of times even like I don't know how true some of these tests are or how accurate they are.

But I've heard people say that your insulin levels represent that of someone who's pre-diabetic from one shitty night of sleep. Like that's how serious some of this stuff is. And maybe, you know, maybe Matthew Walker, he's got books to sell. So maybe he's a little, you know, but same time it's like, I, I, shit, I, I would agree with that. I would agree with that in a sense that I have felt stuff like that before I have felt just off. And I don't know why, you know why you know i might eat carbs you know that day and uh feel my blood sugar be like all over the place and i have no idea why and it's like well you didn't get any rest you idiot so you know that's your whole body your whole mechanism our whole system is set up off this premise that we're going to get a certain amount of sleep

yeah you got to get it in somehow you really do yeah the hardest part for me has just been trying to get to bed early because like there's just too much going on and i always keep saying like oh tomorrow i'll take a nap or i'll do this and you know yeah it just it just doesn't happen and it is also weird that it's right now this time of the year it's not just light outside it's like full on the sun is out yeah yeah so you're like excited you on your drive home you're like more excited than normal because it's yeah it's like bright outside yeah and it's really tough to tell your daughter like no like we're getting ready to go to bed and she's like what like it doesn you know, it's hard for her to understand,

but my kids think I'm nuts. They're like, what? Like, what are you doing? Yeah. And then extended family too. They're just like, what,

what do you mean? Like it's, it's so early. What do you mean? They think it's not just, you're going to sleep earlier. Yeah. That's one.

I'm not going to go on too long, but like in the book, it talks about like the way your circadian rhythm changes through your lifetime. And like for you, it makes sense that you're wanting to go to sleep earlier because like how old you are you're not an old man but you're an old man i'm getting close you know but like that's the thing it makes sense but you know what was really interesting about what he talked

about the circadian rhythm changes of like teenagers right because like apparently like teenagers when they get to 15, 16, 17, their circadian rhythm naturally changes to be later. So they actually, it's not that they want to stay up. It's that there's kidding rhythm change that they want to go to bed or they should be going to bed at like 11 or midnight. Right. And then he's talking about,

about like early school start times and how like that is really actually like affecting kids because they want to go to sleep later. They really can't fall asleep to like 11 and then they're forced to wake up at six or seven. Right. Get me started about school, man. School is fuck. Kids are at school for eight. I don't understand even what they're doing over there, but they're at school for way too long.

I don't see my son until like around four. Yeah. You know, and it's just so he's supposed to get home from school and he's supposed to have, I don't know, an hour, half an hour or so, like to kind of like unwind. Then we eat dinner and then it's like he's supposed to only do homework. And that's it. And my son's not even an athlete either. So it's like, what are these other kids that have baseball and basketball and wrestling practice? How in the hell are they figuring out?

I mean, we all had to figure it out at some point, but it's just excessive. I tried thinking back. I was like, do we need that much school? Like, do we need? It's, you know, I think, so I have always said, I think the school is just set up for parents and not for kids. Because it's like, this is my nursery, right? Every day. Because it's like, this is my nursery, right?

Every day. I'm going to send my kids here and they're going to be there from, you know, nine to, you know, or eight to four. And which is around conveniently wrapped around the same time that I, you know, go to and come back from work. Right. Yeah. Because what the hell else would you do with your kids from that, from that point? But it's just, man, man would they they would learn a lot better if school was faster school was quicker it's like all right you're gonna be here for three hours not even any lunch like there's just like you go to school for three hours

maybe they all get to kick it for an hour after that and then it's like boom they go home that's it how about having school all year round and having shorter days yeah right just like instead of having the summer vacation just have school all year and because like parents school all year round and having shorter days? Yeah. Right. Just like instead of having the summer vacation, just have school all year. And because like parents work all year, right? Right. Have shorter days of school. So they're not spending eight hours in school that that might work. But dude, like I was, I was literally thinking about this.

I'm like, okay, maybe to do what I want now in terms of work. But there was a time in my life that I played sports and I went to school for eight hours of my day and I did homework. That just sounds horrible. You know, I can't, I can't even read, like, think about how I did that. Yeah. I remember coming home from, uh, a basketball game my freshman year of high school. Yes. I played basketball. Oh, wow. played basketball oh wow that's crazy small forward i was uh fat forward yeah um i uh so i came home from uh like a double we played two games in a row of basketball and i had a track practice that day too and i didn't have to go to the track practice because my coach was like hey like you know i know you got basketball and i was like well I was like it's a home game so I could still make it to practice but I was you know gone from you know 7 a.m until 10 p.m and like some of this

stuff kind of happened for a while and it's like I don't think anybody like no one regulates it no one's paying attention to any of it um i just kind of loved all of it so i didn't i didn't care you know but um there's a lot of kids that are in those situations even if they're not even in a sport they're just in an after-school activity how are they supposed to do this after-school activity and get home at seven get homework done be back in like how are they getting enough sleep and then what's their nutrition like like how they don't have a lot of time getting out the door um i mean we can make all these excuses right but it does make things harder and it just uh it's just not the most effective way to go about doing it and

it's just the way it is because it's the way it is and it's the way it's always been yeah stupid and dude out of weird yeah adding social media into the mix like kids with social media like they have all these things they have school they have all this other stuff and now they have this device that's totally taking their attention day by day and they don't even realize how much it's doing that you know they're probably sitting in bed on instagram or something it's could you imagine having that much access to porn oh yeah i had to work for my stuff when i was a teenager i had to go on limewire and do all this but now it's right there you remember limewire andrew oh yeah yeah

i've messed up so many computers i was gonna say my parents computer with limewire you couldn't walk by you'd catch an std like that's how many viruses were on that computer dude my mom's like why is the computer broken again oh no mom i mean i think we gotta i think we gotta change the internet or something something's going on yeah man okay quick story when i was a kid man um yeah so like i started i started down that road like at 13 i discovered limar and i was typing music and you just see like xxx this you download it and you're just like whoa tits anyway um so my uncle came and checked out my computer one day this is why he's not a musician so my uncle two years later comes and he checks out the computer and he's like uh i make sure to try and delete all the history and delete

everything right but he's a techie so he goes to some backlog thing yeah he sees it and then he tells my mom and yo so my mom she brings my best friend brian belaya down to the house i love where this story's going your mom thinks you're a freak and she's sitting there talking to me and she's telling brian brian look at your friend look at what your friend does and she tells him about all the porn and all this and the thing is brian's sitting there he's like but he does the same thing he's taking notes so oh god that was just like bad and then i got the worst beating of my life on that day. It was the worst spanking of my life. It wasn't even.

Did your mom, did your mom like, did she talk to you about anything or is she just, what do you think she was frustrated about? I think, okay, so first off, it's, she was in a very difficult position being a single mother with a son that's doing that. Like we never had that talk so she she just she didn't have any other way to express it to you that she just didn't think this was a good idea basically right she knew she was like she knew it was bad but she couldn't really tell me why right like that's the thing like she didn't know like she just like this is this is bad for you yeah what an awkward what an awkward position to be in with a mom and a son, right?

So it's like, it's super awkward. The spanking is almost maybe better than the awkward conversation that may have happened, right? She talked, trust me, she talked to me about it. But she also spanked me for it. There was both. It wasn't just, oh, this, boom, you get spanked. But she talked. But she just knew it was bad.

And like she had my pastor. So my pastor talked to me about it. My uncle talked to me about it, but no, your parent, your mom's also religious and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. My play into that too. Yeah. It is weird. Cause it's like, I don't know. It's like, you didn't really do anything wrong.

I just, yeah, but it's definitely like not a good path for a down for a young kid because you just can't, maybe you can't internalize what you're seeing. You don't know what you're seeing. Yeah. And that's the thing. That right there, that phone.

Oh, bro. Kids. Kids got it rough. I had to work to get mine. And you had to work to get yours. You had to get like, if you had to, you had to buy DVDs. Yeah. Nudie magazineds yeah nudie magazine

nudie max yeah yeah oh my gosh yeah kids these days will not know the struggle and the the risk involved when clicking on a link or something i'm sure i don't know if you guys had anything like this happen but i remember there was like uh a kid in school that like brought like a magazine into school like in like fifth or sixth grade we had a guy that being the sports illustrated swimsuit edition yeah yeah i don't know i don't know why or how that like i don't know if the kid thinks he's cool like and there's always just like this weird yeah you don't want to i can't i couldn't imagine be like check this out yeah yeah imagine yeah imagine if like i i brought in a magazine into work it's like guys like dude like this you got to check out this edition you know like this is

look at this girl i don't believe like that's so weird right but i guess you're a kid so i mean all bets are off right now yeah we don't know better as kids i've heard people say that they found magazines like uh pornographic magazines like in the woods and i've heard that many times i'm like who are these weirdos that are dropping magazines in the woods they're just what is they're paying it forward yeah what is that story but i actually thought about having like a stash of magazines to like prevent my son from like messing around on the internet i'm like maybe i'll have some magazines that are like conveniently like halfway hidden, but not really. You know what I mean?

And like, I'd rather it'd be safer. Like if he's looking through Playboy and Penthouse, it's like, those are just naked chicks and it's not a huge deal. And I don't, you know, but who knows what I'll get into on, you know, some of the free websites you've got access to. That's way better than internet. Man, when I was a teenager, I went to a soccer trip in Vegas for a tournament. I was like 15, 16. You know how down the strip they have all the little things of the naked women? Yeah.

Yeah. So like me and my teammates, we were like collecting them. And then like we would be like, hey, what'd you get, man? Oh, let me get that one. And we had like trading cards. Boys, bro. We're so stupid. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. boys bro we're so stupid yeah oh my god yeah i remember like you know like a lot of the 80s movies and stuff back in the day like you'd see titties in them and stuff like that and it would be like the most exciting thing in the world because they like nowadays it's it's you got so much access yeah you have so much access so uh you know see seeing a nipple in a tv show or something just it wouldn't be that surprising right uh even though they still have censorship and stuff but i remember that as a kid and like like revenge of the nerds and these different movies you would see these like you know naked images and they'd be like branded in your head forever because it's like the coolest thing you ever seen at that at that time you know? I just think things are way different now. I don't know if things stick to you the same way they used to, you know?

I don't know. I think they definitely affect you differently. There's been research done on that. They affect you differently. But, like, we talked about this, man. VR is going to be a whole new game. I don't know. Did you guys watch that Black Mirror episode?

I'm sorry. No spoilers. I haven't seen it yet. Oh, you haven't seen it. Okay, I'm not going to tell you. That's my my homework for this weekend i don't know if you watch black mirror mark do you watch you mentioned it to me i need to check it out yeah i know see my my wife she's the worst she fucking watches everything i don't know how she does it because she's supposed to work for us she's supposed to work for slingshot and uh i'm like hey let's you know like

we we go from like one series to the next just like a lot of their couples do right we watch some stuff together sometimes i dig it sometimes i don't but like we just that's something that we do together so we'll watch some different netflix stuff right and so um everything i ask her about though she's fucking seen already and i'm like where what did you do how do you have time for this like you're you're mad man how do you how do you figure it out but yeah she's watched Black Mirror already she's you know I don't know is it has the it gone through its full you know progression is it done or is it over with are they still running it that fifth season just came out yeah okay yeah and I don't know

if this one's any different but normally the like episodes don't really have anything to do with each other so it's like it's they're all like just short movies basically and it's pretty much it's it's called black mirror because like when you turn off your phone it's like a black screen so that's the metaphor so it's the show is mainly a metaphor for like what technology can do in the future like the the different dark paths it can go down and there's uh in the new season there's an episode and you'll see it in the preview yeah no we're all good but there's like vr stuff right it goes into like the depth of what vr can like yeah yeah but um yeah man kids have vr porn now and that's that's a whole different type of deal because it's right there in the visor yeah i wonder i like i wonder if that'll be

if that'll like surpass a real experience. You know what I mean? You already got a lot of dudes that they don't really seek out real women anymore because they're so used to just beating it every day. And this is totally serious. A lot of dudes don't really have the urge to go find a woman because they're just like, well, you know got it right here yes it's a lot less complicated that's for sure less complicated she she's way more attractive less expensive yeah well i mean and this is like a weird thing like i i wouldn't change anything in my past to get me to where i am right now however in high school even junior high high school early college yeah i would be i would have been so much

further like on with my life if i didn't think about chicks like if i could just rub one out over here like all right let's focus back on school like i think i would have progressed so much better that's actually a mate that's actually amazing conversation because like you know what like uh what if you could just take something that kind of did like just uh like left you um suppressed yeah like like you just didn't care that much about it for a while i think that would be amazing because if you could do that for just a couple years yeah probably between the time you're like i don't know 17 and like 24 yeah because then you can kind of get over that

hump and you can be more mature and not like you want to fuck everything inside taking uh testosterone's a real trip because like yeah it sends you down that path so much worse right because it that's what it does it heightens your yeah veto and you're like oh my god it's really it's it makes it harder so to speak that's exciting can i get a hey now makes everything harder what about like uh like trend and that sort of stuff i've heard some differing stories but so uh well anabolics in general like any any, like any form of steroid that you would take to get bigger or stronger, they can enhance your libido and they can also suppress it. They can, as Joe Rogan has put it, make you feel like your dick got run over by a truck. Oh, God.

Yeah, that's not good. Oh, yeah, that's not good. There's things like DECA and there's things like trend that can sometimes have a larger impact on, you know, on your ability to like get it up and things like that. too i think people like recklessly just take uh anabolics for like the doctor was saying that we just had on here dr lee he was saying people just take them and they don't think about it they don't get any blood work done um and then they're wondering why they have problems so they're they can work really great in terms of like libido and in terms of uh sexual performance and all these things can work great for those things for periods of time but just like anything else it it will like dissipate over a period of time so it's like you have to you have to get it's it's complicated and that's why i want that's why like i thought

having him on the show was great and i unfortunately i don't think enough people really listen to what he said because he's not like Jay Cutler. He's not like this big. Right. So like people want to know the extreme. Like, just tell me the stack, bro. I just want to be fucking jacked. Yeah.

And it's like, no, dude, like I'm trying to tell you like this is a very complicated thing. Like, do you want to have kids? You know, because if you do, it's probably not, probably not a great idea to take these, you know, I had Jake before I ever took anything. And then when I had Quinn, I had to come off and coming off was actually really hard and it was pain in the ass. And it was, um, it was difficult. It was very difficult. And then fortunately I was able to have Quinn, but what if I wasn't able to have like, that would change my life forever. Right. That would be way different. Um, I wasn't able to have like that would change my life forever right that would be way different um I wouldn't know what it would be like to have her and I wouldn't know what it would like otherwise right but um it's just something that really serious like it's a very serious thing to

like think about and I think that people kind of take it too lightly but the gist of it is if you take some it can be really effective and it can help you a lot. You just have to be kind of careful that you don't end up going down that rabbit hole where you just want to take more and more and more of it and stay on it forever. Yeah. I'm really happy we had Lester on because it, you said it'll help educate a lot of people into the, it's that world is difficult, you know? And I think Andrew mentioned something the other day to me um and i was like you're probably saving a lot of future lives because what what did some guy message you

or what what did you see you had to go and just i mean literally like chills when you said it but um no somebody had come up to me at the seminar and they're like dude starmageddon saved my life and i'm like well please continue and uh basically he just wanted to follow like the whole protocol that i did um starting with the blood work and then going from there um because he he's been working hard and he's just like i'm not really making the progress everyone else in the gym is like it's really frustrating so i wanted to you know kind of follow suit and when he got his blood work back his testosterone level was uh 130 and he's like oh well that's what it is it has nothing i don't even need to bother with sarm so he's now on trt

and he's like uh talking about how like just everything's so much better now he's in a more positive mood uh his girlfriend is like he's a different person. He's so much better now. And then what actually, this is what you were talking about. The BHRT doctor and my buddy Nick that I interviewed for last week's episode were like, yeah, you need to keep your dosages at 20 milligrams. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And somebody had DM'd me and they're like i've been taking a hundred milligrams per day i'm like oh my gosh you are way over you know and then so that's when in sema was like people just don't know they don't know what the hell they're getting into they don't know what's right what's wrong he's like you know so i was telling him like you know i'm

helping a lot of people and he's like think about the people that you're going to help. Or how did you say it? Like, I can't even word it. Think about the amount of guys that are like, maybe they're doing something right now that could potentially stop them from having kids. They hear about this kind of stuff. They start doing it correctly. They can have children and you're saving future lives. Yeah.

They're going to be little babies that are born because they now have the education or their parent now has the education and they had them safely. You're saving kids that haven't been born yet, Andrew. And you too, Mark. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, that's what that hit me really hard because I'm just like, oh, my gosh, like I'm just thinking about the people that are considering it right now or anybody that I can help. But you're right. anybody that i can help but you're right yeah there's been a lot of relationships that end you know because like yeah it's so frustrating sometimes because people can't sometimes

sometimes they're not compatible for various reasons but like what if that was a thing like in your relationship and you right like i don't know it's these are they're definitely things to think about you know and uh it's kind of understandable sometimes when an 18 year old kid or someone who's 20 or something like that it's just like ask fuck it i'm gonna go for it it's kind of understandable but for anyone who's a little bit older a little bit more mature that's actually paying attention yeah shouldn't be just diving into this stuff recklessly you know we like to have fun we like to be jacked and we like to kid about it and stuff but it's in my opinion it's a very serious thing and i think you know you go back and watch bigger stronger faster and i think it's really easy to get caught up in like the home runs that are getting hit it's easy to get

caught up in some of like the power lifting and stuff that you see in there and and some of the things that are shown in there but if you really are paying attention um the movie the movie does a good job of teaching you like hey like this is a serious decision and you shouldn't uh shouldn't take it lightly i'm not going to name any names or anything but something that uh i think is really really irresponsible and i get how people like really like being honest now about their drug use which is good you should be honest if you're taking stuff but there are a lot of there are a lot of younger guys on youtube that that are taking a lot of stuff and they're sharing all the stuff they're taking but it's not probably

that smart like they're probably just doing too much you know and they're saying oh this is my stack and this is what i'm taking and every kid that watches them is like, that's what I should do too. But it's just so damn irresponsible. Like it's, it's cool. You're sharing and you're being honest, but you're also being super responsible because you're, you're now being, you're,

you're having an impression on young, young individuals that don't know what the hell. And where'd you get your information? Yeah. Where'd you get your, yes, from dude. It's,

it's crazy. Yeah yeah i mean what i would like for everyone to do is just train you know just just train just work you know work hard train put in some time legitimately give stuff time like give it some time give your diet some time give your trainings uh some time and ask yourself some questions. You know, are you at like a five, a six out of 10 in terms of your effort? Are you able to put in more effort or are you not able to, you know, start to kind of walk yourself down some of these roads and start to kind of figure out, you know what, it does make sense for me to do this now because I do feel like I'm at the end of the line. I don't really feel like I can put in much more effort.

Nutrition is pretty good. I'm pretty good on a lot of these other things. I just want to be stronger, so I am going to make that leap. But nowadays, too, it's not that hard to find doctors. It's not that hard to find a doctor. You may not find someone who's smart as Dr. Lee was, but maybe you can find uh just a doctor that can help read your blood and help prescribe it for you so it's also not now you're not doing some uh parking lot deal as he was mentioning in the in the show you're doing it more um more on the up

and up anyway shifting gears uh what do you think about having kings boo here kingsbury kingsbury is awesome kingsbury sounds like royalty yeah he's always great thinking about his kids names man bear kingsbury and potentially wolf kingsbury like those are those gonna be some regal kids but yeah man kingsbury he was awesome um his the whole human optimization thing i really like him because he is doing the things that I like to do and he's doing it on a really high level. Like I like to learn about a lot of new things because first off, I like to use it on people I work with, but I like to use it on myself. I want to figure out ways to optimize everything I do because if I can live, if I can live a longer life, I can do

more things with that life. Right. So he's just an awesome dude. Lots of awesome information. He's like mixing performance and health together which is cool because like a lot of times we hear so much about performance and it's like regardless of your health and it's like well that's not great yeah and he's a he's a high performer too like he he's he's one of those people that's just super interested in not just learning and consuming we talked about that there are individuals that just like read and read and read and read but read and read, but he takes action on all these things.

And something that really impressed me when we were talking was like, he's not only learning about these things and talking about it in his podcast, like he lives it. Like you talk about no way having no chairs in his house and having a trampoline and doing all these things. Like he lives about what he talks about. He's not just someone that yaps,

yaps, yaps, yaps, yaps, and has a bunch of information to tell. He's a living embodiment of the things that he preaches, which is, you see that, but you don't see that a lot. You see a lot of people that talk about this and then they do something else.

That's a true leader. And I think that's what I'm attracted to with him. I love having that guy around. I'm always inspired by him, even though he like he couldn't be any different than me. Like we're we're very different people. But I love having around because like you get that feel when you're around him that he is a leader. You know, like you said, going into his house and it's like, no, we're going to sit like Indian style on the floor and eat. And I'm like, OK, I'll try to figure this out.

It was different. And, yeah, we had some awesome food there was nothing unhealthy like even in his house at all i don't from what i remember in terms of food anyway and uh yeah trampoline in front of the tv and uh you know bear had all his like toys out and it was very much set up for like their child like the house is set up for their kid. And I just, it's really cool to go into somebody else's home and kind of see like, okay, like these people are living their life for their kid, which is, which is really cool. Like what a great, uh, environment. And then bears such a, such a little beast jumping around the house, uh, like a maniac.

But, uh, you know, we did get into the uh conversation of uh the open marriage thing and you know i i'm i'm fairly open with stuff and i i'm fairly accepting but even with him being my friend and everything i'm kind of thinking man like well i don't i don't like talking about this that much because i don't want other people to like to hate on him because I like him so much and he he's a good friend of mine um so I I was kind of nervous as we were walking through that even though you know I was I was the one kind of pressing some of the questions but I thought it was important you know I thought it was important to talk about and to you know kind of figure out like why like why would, why would you, why would you choose to go down this road that could potentially be, uh, it's super dangerous and super destructive to your relationship.

Yeah. That meant like, first off, I, when people hear that, you know, like we were talking, you know, they, they can hear everything. They could be cool. Right. Um, but once they hear that, they immediately turn off. It's, I look at that type of thing. Yeah. I may not, I don't actually, I really don't agree with it.

You know, it's not for me, but at the same time, just because like, that's something that he chooses to do. Doesn't make him any different of a person. In my opinion, he's just someone who does things differently than I do.

That's literally just it. You know, and if you, if you're, because I think a majority of people feel that like they, that's not something they want to do, then just, that's fine.

It doesn't change the information he puts forward. It doesn't change the type of leader he is. Like he still has a lot of great information. But yeah, like I, that, that, that still is for me.

You know, I don't have that. I don't have that bandwidth to handle that stress yeah more than one woman and that when uh you know they were talking about how they want you know they're going for another another baby i didn't have the balls to ask and i also i just felt like it was quite very much disrespectful but you know when natasha gets pregnant like whose baby is it kind of thing yeah like what like you do like dna like how like yeah because there's someone else they're all you know i mean like they probably have guidelines or something set up you know

i'd imagine so but like i mean shit if i just it's it's not a relationship baby's like half asian or something you're like i wish you got some questions on this. I wish you could pull this video up, Andrew. I don't know if you'd be able to find it in time, but there's this video of this African soccer player who he's doing an interview post game. And he's like, he's talking to the reporter. He's like, I'd like to thank my girlfriend and my, oh, oh no, no, no, no, no. My, my wife, my wife, wife baby i'm sorry i'm sorry baby

please forgive me i'm so sorry now i think it was gets himself in some deep water yeah you really had a girlfriend but um what kyle uh because he i think this is it oh man all right well so so what happened was was Kyle said something and then he said my wife's boyfriend and it reminded me of the video yeah I always wish to win one of these and I got it so

thank you very much for this for giving me this and I appreciate my friends also my wife and my girlfriend I mean my wife yeah sorry to say I'm so sorry my wife. Yeah, sorry to say. I'm so sorry. My wife, Lizzo. I love you so much.

Hiya. I love you so much. I love you so much. So, you must keep on supporting me. And thanks for... You know, he's out. He's done. Oh, my God.

You know, he's trying to explain it, too. Like, I just got done with the game. And, like, you're my girl. done with the game and like you're my girl you're my friend and you're my soulmate and we're like best friends and on top of that you're my wife yeah he's trying to explain it all right he's just like digging himself a deeper ditch yeah but um brutal yeah man first off also i hope no one takes uh the the thing serious about me doing ufc because i made that post like started getting a bunch of comments and dms like dude that's so awesome you're stepping the octagon blah no i'm not like what no no it's not gonna happen i'm just sticking

to get we signed you up to fight bones jones yeah well you're gonna have to get me out of that i'm not trying to die so i just want to make that clear guys i'm not stepping into the octagon i do want to learn other martial arts in the future yeah boxing and stuff. I'm not trying to die. So I just want to make that clear, guys. I'm not stepping into the octagon. I do want to learn other martial arts in the future, boxing and stuff, but I'm not stepping in the octagon. People are funny, huh? Complicated, man. Yeah, man.

Complicated stepping inside the octagon. That was a sick picture, though. Your abs were insane. Yeah, man. Yeah, they were. Thank you. So were Kyle's. You looked ready to rock.

Yeah. Yeah, he's always in in good shape and you know i i was uh so i went we had date night last night with the wifey my kids they finished up their last day of school and uh my daughter went to uh her first school dance and i told her i said hey you know you got one rule and she's like what's that i said no talking to boys and she's like okay and she gave me a hug and she kind of went on her way and then when she came back i was like did you talk to any boys she's like there weren't even any boys there and i'm like they were probably there they're probably just like off in the corner she goes yeah i think so too she's like i didn't see many of them though oh okay hiding in the corner you know how it goes

like there's the girls on one side and the boys on the other yeah that was pretty weird i bet you know to to see her like you know she doesn't really kind of always like just rocking like a sweatshirt you know and she's not really like she's not a girly girl you know and so to see her dressed up last night with her hair done and stuff like that was was super cute That must have been a little emotional. Jasmine's been going to her elementary school dances since she first learned about them. Once music starts playing, you can't get that kid to not dance. It's great.

Bruh, when I was a kid, there were so many dances, but my mom just didn't let me go to some. She's like, what are you going to do? Talk to girls? Are you going to marry them? I was like uh no like she's like oh so so what's what's what's a dance huh no so i only went to like senior ball that's like the only dance i went to that's all good but that's africans man that's actually great though you know your mom was trying to probably keep you from like

i don't know some puppy love right where it's just like a huge distraction, as you mentioned earlier. Yeah, she was right. Kids are getting in relationships at, you know, really young ages. And it's like, I don't know, what are you doing together? Because you shouldn't be doing too much, you know? So how long are you going to be together for? And yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

And because of that, like that's why I look at relationships the way I do. I've never gotten in a relationship that I wasn't serious. Yeah. That, and because of that, like that's, that's why I look at relationships the way I do. I've never gotten a relationship that wasn't serious about like literally. So if it didn't have an intention, it wasn't going to happen. Is our relationship serious? Let's not talk about it on the podcast. This is the place. Whoops.

Working on it. Okay. Andrew, please delete that little part. We don't need that on here. I don't need drama in my life now. It's already live. So,

so I have either one of you brought up to your uh girlfriends uh about kyle about about kyle's open relationship uh i mentioned to her that we talked about it but but uh i like because we talked about open relationship did your girlfriend get like defensive right away about it she didn't get defensive no um because i was actually talking about i was like hey uh so i want to talk to you about this game because i just want to make sure that we're still in the same ballpark here you know like you know i'm not about this right and she's like uh you know i've become a little bit more open to it recently like wait what it's like no no i'm joking i'm not open to

it for myself right but i'm less judgmental on the people that do it like i can see why they do it and it's it's good for them but i am not open to myself so she tried effing with me for a little bit which for a second i was like girl don't don't don't do that right now yeah i was actually uh i was i knew stephanie was going to be bummed she loves natasha and she loves kingsbury she it's like she wants she wants us to be like them like just a bunch of hippies like running around naked and you know sitting on the floor to eat you know an awesome salad and whatnot and i was like oh yeah by the way like kyle and natasha have an open marriage now and her response was like dang it aubrey she's like she blamed aubrey yeah i mean

because i don't know i feel like maybe if you're playing an influence yeah he definitely influenced her or influenced him them so she was pretty heartbroken to be honest because she loves them and she's like oh no like i don't want anything to get weird yeah they're still awesome people bro like i want i want to continue saying like people realize you're still dope people so yeah no she definitely she's not gonna like unfollow them or anything but she just like hopes that like you know they there's no problems or anything weird that can happen between them as a like couple in a family something you know something i i didn't ask but it's almost like uh and i know that they got married first and then

they had the open relationship uh but it would kind of beg the question of why get married um right like and then like it also the whole conversation of an open marriage uh makes you kind of rethink everything a little bit like uh is that a uh perhaps further evolution or is it like de-evolution or is marriage a made up thing by religion or are we supposed to be? You know, if you're religious, then you're going to believe the things that are laid out in the Bible, which I'm not super religious, so I don't even know what those things would be. But I would imagine that marriage you know probably came from like religion and um it's just as we mentioned earlier with the school system the school system just is the way it is because it's kind of always been that way yeah and uh we just kind of follow everybody else so uh we have a girlfriend and then we get engaged we have a fiancee for like a it's like a midterm contract you know short-term contract

but it is a it is kind of a mutual uh you know agreement without an actual contract and then there's marriage which is kind of like uh the final nail in the coffin i mean uh the uh you know real contract that kind of binds you together. So all of it's very interesting. You know, I'm Christian, but when it comes to that, when I really think about it, it's not because of my Christianity or whatever that I choose to be monogamous. It's just like, it's what feels right for me.

Like my grandpa had multiple wives. My mom's dad had multiple wives. He had a few, right. And that was, that's just normal. But I like some people when they hear that, they're like, Oh yeah. But when I, when I hear that, I'm just like so much stress. Like I could, I don't want to deal with more than one woman. I want to like, just, that's just like, I just want to deal with one woman, love that one woman and that we're good. I don't need more. Like, that's just, I don't want more.

Right. Some people, they, they just like want to have a harem and they want to be able to, you know, mess with a lot of different women. Is it different in Africa? Well, or did it used to be? It used to be. It's not, there are still men that do that over there. not um there are still men that do that over there uh yeah there are still men that do that over there but like back in the 50s or whatever whatever yeah 50s 60s 40s um it was more normal for like like men and he was like a chief you know to have

multiple wives like he he literally would have one have children with him then have another one have children have another one have children it was it was normal yeah um nowadays there are still people that do that not as often um and you you'll see that in a bunch of other countries too like uh like in the middle east you'll see that a lot in the middle east so um you just don't see that as much here but even so like different people have different propensities you know what i mean so different people they they don't feel it's wrong for them to, you know, be with multiple people. For me, it's not that I feel that it's wrong.

It's just that I don't even feel it to be an attractive thing for you. Like I'm don't, I don't feel attracted to that in any sense. So it's just like, if you're wired that way, then allow yourself to be wired that way without really, if that's just your lifestyle. That's it. Right. You know? Yeah, it makes sense to me. I think when it comes to children, I think it's pretty obvious that children need to be raised by somebody.

You know? They need someone to be around. I don't know if that's a reason for marriage or or really what you know but marriage aside it does seem like it does it does seem like it feels right you know but maybe it feels right for me and maybe it feels right for you but maybe it doesn't feel right for someone else yeah you know I don't know not exactly not not everyone first like it is culturally accepted so it's like get married but i don't even when i think about marriage or like the the legal side of it um that's not even the biggest deal to me the biggest deal to me is like finding someone that you know

i want to be with and i want to spend my life with and yeah we'll get married but it's not really the marriage that consolidates things it's it's it's the way that we feel about each other and what we know about each other the marriage just like okay that that's that but it's not byproduct yeah it's kind of like graduating from college or something like uh you're not any different on graduation day because you got a diploma yeah you you work through this journey and whether this journey and whether they had a certificate for you or not, you're better off than you were before. You're further advanced than you were before.

And I guess you can look at your relationship the same way. If you've been together for eight years, you're further along than you were eight years ago, whether you're married or not. Ladies, stop bugging us us we'll get around to it but a lot doesn't need to be thought about working on it a lot doesn't need to be thought about though in terms of that because like the divorce rate's super high man yeah divorce rate is super high so like yeah marriage is cool but there's definitely something that we're missing out on because

like what's like for high 40 percentage of it's high I'll look it up yeah yeah it's yeah damn I so well it's understandable too I think that people tend to change a lot and if you don't change and grow together then there could be there could be issues and I have friends that have I've seen kind of before my very eyes I've seen them change a lot. And it's not, it's not that they changed in any sort of negative way. They just changed and grew in a certain way and their wife didn't, you know, one person, you know,

may have been after something totally different than the other. And it might be something totally different than what they got together for. So like in your case, um, lifting has been a huge part of your life. So it's of no surprise to your girlfriend that you're into fitness and that you're right. Let's fast forward. And let's just say you're into something, uh, way different down the line, right? Well, that might not work anymore because maybe you love doing that more than you love to do any, maybe it's like fishing or maybe it's like rock climbing or who the hell knows what it is, but maybe it's more complicated and maybe it makes you away more. Maybe it doesn't work, you know, for the relationship. So we see that a lot,

you know, where there's like this kind of like thing, you know, what I've seen too is like social media, um, people becoming quote unquote famous that has played into things a lot. Um, and people just, man, it sucks to say it, but people just losing themselves a little bit. It's like, man, you, you kind of fell into a trap, you know, you, you're kind of like buying into, uh, your own hype, which is like hyped up by people that don't know you or really actually, maybe they think they care about you, but if you weren't there today, they, they wouldn't be by, they wouldn't be by your side if you got seriously injured or hurt. Yeah. They, they're not going to be at your funeral. You know what I mean? Like, so as you get older, you become a little bit more responsible and you start to kind of think about those things.

You're like, who are the people that love me? Who are the people that really care that are like really there? And, um, that's the most important shit. And you got to figure out a way to make that stuff work. Yeah. So yeah, I've gotten different numbers, but yeah, it's like 40, 50%. However, since 2008, it's dropped 18% thanks to millennials because they're going to school, not getting married. They're trying to set themselves up first before they hop into a, yeah. Yeah, they used to say financial stress was always a big deal.

So I guess that would make a lot of sense if you got your shit together first. School debt, school loans, man. That's that, that's, that's one thing that's stopping a lot of millennials from getting married. Those,

you don't think about it, but then when you're 60, $70,000 in debt and you're 25 years old, it's rough. Yeah. Yeah. That is a, that is a big deal.

Anyway, when I brought up to my wife that Kyle Kingsbury was in an open relationship on our date night, I'll, I'll have, you know, I, you know, I'm like, Hey, you know, I had Kyle on the podcast. It's great having him around. And, um, you know, a lot, a lot of cool things came up on the podcast, but I said, Hey, you know, he's, cool things came up on the podcast but i said hey you know he's he's in this uh you know open marriage and my wife right away says oh did he did kyle ask about me yeah you mentioned that and i was like wait what and she was like she's like i'm just kidding yeah uh but you know we talked about it a lot and actually it definitely got like uh uncomfortable a little bit but we both have the same both share the same feelings but she was kind of um you know almost like defensive about it and i'm you know i was like i'm not even gonna say anything because if i say anything defensive hasn't defended it or no no she was defensive like almost, almost in terms of, like, um.

Like, don't get any ideas? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, she knows that I like Kyle a lot, and she's probably thinking, like, don't be, you know, I don't want you to get, you know, influenced by this in any way. But we talked through it, and actually, it's, I think all these things, look, man, it's not good to sweep stuff under the rug, you know? Because eventually, eventually you're going to have to move. There'll be a moving day. And when you have to move all that shit that's underneath the rug is going to be piled up. Right. So it's, it's always, even if you fight, even if you throw a couple punches at each other, I think it's not literally yeah yeah yeah no even like what i meant by punches is like even if you hurt each other's feelings it's better than not talking about it you know i've been married for a long time and it it makes a difference to like you you sometimes need to go there you sometimes need to talk to somebody and tell them uh what you like what you don't like you didn't like you know how how they treated you or they didn't like uh the

way they handled a certain situation with another person or anything like it's just better just to i didn't like that you uh you know hug that guy that way or what it doesn't matter even whether it's right or wrong you gotta you gotta voice it because otherwise like i said you'll just keep sweeping under the rug oh yeah yeah and jealousy is a motherfucker you know that's a tough one so i don't know how they deal with that in those open relationships yeah i think well he said he's still like he still feels it but it's just something that you're like well i i love you that much so which didn't make any sense to us, but whatever. Yeah, man, I can't do it. Can't do it.

What else you got over there, Andrew? Just trying to figure out some because I was just trying to figure out your life right now. Yeah. Well, no, it's funny because I was talking about the guy that told me that he's on TRT now. Someone else with the same name was said the exact same thing happened to him. He ended up having low tests but i was trying to figure out um like his insurance will cover up to a certain like amount of testosterone or whatever but because he was over that limit they didn't cover him so it's just like i was trying to ask him right now but i got you covered bro okay cool

thanks more well that's so weird you were consulting with somebody i guess we don't need to name names but they were giving you all of the uh symptoms of you know like oh man i'm kind of moping i'm a little depressed you're like oh you just need tests yeah i gotta go to the doctor i don't worry i got you but that was great. Yeah, I got you. I'll be along, brother. It is funny that your insurance will cover some of it. I mean, that's a step in the right direction. You know, because for some people, it could really make a big difference.

I really hope a lot of people take a listen to that episode. Like, if you guys haven't listened to that Lester Lee episode, you really should because I think, again, the big thing that I took away from it is that, yeah, a lot of these interventions are necessary. But do realize that a lot of people listening that think that they do suffer from low test or hormonal issues. If you get the things like, you know, enough sleep, your nutrition and you start being a little bit more active, you can fix a lot of things on your own. You know, and the sooner or later, yeah, you can get TRT or whatever later in life when it becomes really necessary.

But earlier on, you could really fix these things if you get better habits. And that's really comforting to know that you can just kind of sail your own ship that way with making simple habit changes. You know, they could make that big of a difference. That's what we're trying to teach people here is to, you know, be able to fix themselves in some way, whether it's just in your day-to-day life or whether it's in trying to get better sleep and improving your training. But so many things can be fixed through just better sleep, through better training, through better nutrition. Your nutrition is probably the most important thing because I don't believe that, I do believe if your nutrition is

messed up, it will impact your sleep. Of course. And so I think that maybe they're tied for first as like priorities and then everything else kind of would be down from there. And obviously we got to get to the gym, but everyone listens to this podcast. I don't think that's a problem. I think you're all getting to the gym, but maybe you're not, you know, taking the sleep and nutrition as, you know, as for being very important, even just having a glass of wine or something like that, or a beer before bed. It's just, it's, um, you just have to understand it doesn't mean you can't ever do it. It just means that, uh, it's going against some of your goals. You want to be bigger, you want to be stronger, you want to be faster. It's pulling, it's pulling you, it's, it's pulling

against you. And so you got to just weigh that out. Is it worth it? Sometimes it might be strength is never a weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.