Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 39 - Nsima Inyang

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

Today's guest is Nsima "The Natty Professor" Inyang. Nsima is an elite Powerlifter with a 1777 total. He is an online coach at breakthebar.com and been with Super Training for three years. Re-Watch the Live Stream Here: https://youtu.be/7tiAKbrrIKY ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ 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 Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

So you mess around with some singing here and there? I do. It's because my mom sings really, really well. And when I was young, she would, well, first off, she had me play piano and a bunch of instruments. And then I kind of got interested in singing. So she got me into that. And that's just something that I would just build a skill on the side

and let nobody know. Where are you singing? In the car? In the shower? No, I actually had a... I stopped going to her a few months ago, but I had a singing coach that I did some stuff with,

which was cool. For like a long time? Yeah, it was quite a few months. Like a side project by the Natty Professor. Yeah. Did you know about this, Andrew? No, I had no idea. And that's the frustrating thing about him

is like, okay, you're jacked. Oh, I hate him. That's why he's on the podcast today. You can eat whatever and still look jacked. You're somehow really like elite at soccer that I did know about. But now you can sing. Yeah, it's. You realize this isn't fair for dudes like me, right?

If you practice, Andrew, you probably could sing too. Oh, he's one of those guys who tells you like, hey, if you just worked on it, man, you could do a split also. Like, yeah, right? If you practiced, Andrew, you probably could sing too. Oh, he's one of those guys who tells you like, hey, if you just worked on it, man, you could do a split also. Like, yeah, right. I'm going to fucking break my back. No, it's true though. It's true.

Oh my God. Andrew, you know about this story? Nsema hadn't been here in a while and he was playing jiu-jitsu, as I like to call it. And, you know, it was a few months since he's been back in here, you know, and he's doing some squats and I think he had like 455 on and he, I didn't really get to see his set. I didn't really see what he did or didn't do.

But I walk over to him and I'm like, man, it's a real bitch coming back sometimes, right? It's like kind of hard to get restarted again. And he's like, no, not really. He's like, that was a PR. I'm like, you're like, why do you even come here? Just to fucking make fun of all of us or what? I try not to. I really do. It's just, you just being here is rude.

So why do you guys let me come back? I mean, you do kick me out all the time. I've kicked you off the team like 47 times. Yeah. We haven't really gotten anywhere with that. I'm just like a cockroach. Have you always been athletic? Yeah,

no, I started, uh, started soccer when I was six. So my mom had me play soccer when I was six and I played that till I was like 18, 19, 19 over at Sac State. So that was my main sport,

but she had me play soccer, baseball, basketball. Yeah. And another was my main sport, but she had me play soccer, baseball, basketball. Yeah. And another time he came in, he did the like ancestry thing and he's like, I'm 99%,

99% what, Nigerian? Yeah, yeah. So like, I mean, I'm like, oh, that's a big surprise. No, I knew that. But the thing is, is I was just curious because, you know,

sometimes there might just be something else in there. And I was just curious, but there's nothing. That's it. 99. Yeah. Congrats, you're black sometimes there might just be something else in there. And I was just curious. But there's nothing. That's it. 99. Yeah. Congrats, you're black.

Yeah, thank you. I wanted to be here. Thanks. So that would, I would assume that both your parents are Nigerian. Yeah, yeah. They definitely are. It's really funny, though. Both of them were born there in Nigeria.

They both came here working. But one of the reasons why I was really curious to do the ancestry test, because people always are like, why'd you even do it? Is because my dad's, my mom's dad is like your complexion. Oh, really? Or just maybe a little bit darker. Yeah. He's like your complexion. But he's full Nigerian too.

And my dad's mom is also like maybe even Andrew's complexion. So I was like, are they just really light skinned? Or like, what's the deal here? They I was like, are they just really light skinned or, or like what's the deal here? They're just like, they're, they're just really light skin. They were, they were avoided in hanging out on the equator.

Maybe, but yeah, they found all the shade all the time. Exactly. Yeah. So you, so your parents were born there. Yeah.

They were born there. Um, once school there, my mom actually came into, uh, once college here, they were born there. Once school there, my mom actually came to once college here. They both ended up being engineers. But yeah. What kind of engineers? My mom was a civil engineer or she is a civil engineer.

And my dad was a civil and petroleum engineer. So yeah. And through their engineering, they created the Natty Professor. Yep. Yeah. Through genetic engineering, I was born. Scientifically engineered in a lab. Making a little bit more sense now.

How long have you heard the claims that you're not natural? How long have those have been thrown your way? The first one was when I was 16. And you're super young. Vividly. Yeah. Were you similar stature at 16? At 16, I was probably. Probably about the same height.

Yeah, that's when I- And almost the same weight maybe or no? No. You were a lot thinner. No. So it was kind of, I think I was lucky to, I'm really lucky to be where I am right now when it comes to my fitness because when I was 13, I got something called Osgood Slaughter. You ever heard of it?

Yeah, it has something to do with the knees, but go ahead and explain it. Yeah. John Cena has it too. Yeah. And he's a genetic mutant too. So there might be some frequency going on here. No, I had it in both knees. So I'm proof that it's not.

No, I had Oshkod Slaughter in both knees. And because of that, I wasn't able to continue playing soccer or even run for like three years. It sounded like the development of your kneecaps or something. It's the development. It's like, I think I was growing really, really fast and I wasn't. Oh, there he is.

This doesn't seem as a toddler. Yeah. That was me when I was actually four years old. And yeah, I can't believe that. That's a problem. But that kid is, who is that fucking kid?

We're watching this baby walk around with these traps going on. Oh my God. Go ahead with going on. Oh, my God. Go ahead with your knees. But, yeah. So I wasn't able to run at all from, like, late 12 to 16. And I was super energetic. That's why my mom had me play sports. And she was like, I got to find something for you to do.

Our local gym didn't allow you to get a membership until you're 13. So once I turned 13, she let me get my membership there. Just followed guys around and did what they were doing. And just tried to learn how to lift. And then when I was 16, when I returned to soccer, I was about 218, 220. And my boy- That's pretty big for soccer, right? No, it's big for soccer and it's just big in general.

So a homie of mine, we played together since we were young, but I got back. His name was Tyler Maltby. He was like, dude, you're on steroids or something? Like, what's the deal? I'm like, nah, man. He was like, you definitely are. You're too big. And he was like, dude, you're on steroids or something? Like, what's the deal? I'm like, nah, man. It's just like, you definitely are. You're too big. And I was like, what?

What? But yeah, that was the first one. And then it just all cascaded from there. Did you gain a lot of weight in a short period of time? Is that why he kind of thought that? Well, it's because he hadn't seen me in years. So he hadn't seen me in years because I wasn't playing soccer. And the last time I played,

I was like 13, 12. And when Auschwitz slaughter happens, you typically have a growth spurt. So when I was 12, I was probably around, I'd say five, eight,

five, eight, five, seven and a half, five, eight. And then I come back and I'm six, two and huge.

You know, I was already big for being five, eight, but I was taller and bigger. So, um, yeah, that, that So, yeah, that was fun. The school you went to and played soccer at was, I would assume that most of the other players were white?

Actually, no. I played, my high school was Mira Loma High School down here, but I only played there junior and senior year. I played in a developmental academy, so it's like we traveled around playing soccer. And, like, yeah, actually a lot of my teammates were white. I had a like, we traveled around in soccer. Um, and like, yeah, actually a lot of my teammates were white. I had a few other African guys on my team. Um, it was pretty mixed, but I would say a majority of the other teammates, majority of the players were white. Yeah. Um, growing up in a family that you grew up in,

you know, your parents being from Africa, was anything any different growing up? Um, or were things relatively the same? Not like, okay. So, well, it was mainly my mom because my dad, he left early on. But growing up in that household, it was me and like three other women. So it was me, my mom, my sister, my grandma, and I was the youngest. That's why he's so girly, Andrew.

You got to stop picking on him, Andrew. That's why he likes to sing and dance. Well, yeah, but... But in my household, my mom was like, you you know she let me do all these things athletically when it came to sports but she was also really really on me for academics um huge so like my every my every single day would be i go to school i leave school um she picks me up i go to her workplace i do a little bit of homework. She takes me to my soccer practice. And that was like years of my life right there. And when I was like, you know, lifting, that was the thing.

Like, you know, I'd go home, do homework. She'd take me to the gym. She'd work out. I'd work out. I'd go back home. Like that was it. Your mom worked out too? She worked out too. Like she would work out.

She started working out with me when I started lifting because she was like, well, if you're going to do it, then I'm going to do it too. Just at the house? No, no. Well, initially it was at the house before I got my gym membership. And when I got my gym membership, then she'd come with me because she'd take me there. Oh, yeah. That's cool. So here's a picture of Encima.

I mean, the caption says 16 years old. Yeah. 16 and a half. Yeah. That was my senior year of high school. So there I was probably around because... A lot of evidence that you're on steroids right there because of the cap shoulders. Yeah, no, there I was probably around like 205 because that's when I lost some weight after starting playing soccer again.

So I was a little bit lighter right there. But yeah, that's my homie right there, Takayaki Igarashi. One of your buddies. One of my buddies from high school. But yeah, that was high school. You got muscular pretty fast. I got, yeah. And, you know, have, you know, the book outliers? Yeah. Yeah. So I, when I, when I read that book, I was like, that makes a lot of sense. You know, like nowadays when people start lifting, especially guys, you know, they start lifting later on to like 1920.

And because of social media, we can see all these guys and women that just are so jacked and so developed, but you know, we don't realize that some of these people were lucky enough to start when they were some of them, like even 10, 11, 12, they were in the gym or doing gymnastics or something. And that's why they can be so jacked and so young. So it's, it's that type of situation where I was just lucky enough to get injured, you know, and start lifting early. Cause if I didn't, I probably wouldn't have as much interest in it as I do now. Did somebody advise you to lift? Did somebody say, Hey, you should probably. It was my mom because, because I wasn't playing soccer.

I was just like sitting at home. I was like depressed because I was just, I was used to having a lot of physical activity. And when I don't have physical activity. Your mom sounds awesome. She is. She sounds really fucking cool. You know, uh, for people that are listening to this podcast that have children, I mean, I would say the same is probably true with girls. But I know for a fact firsthand that keeping your boy active is really, really important.

And in general, I think you want to keep children so active that they're too tired to mess around and get in trouble with anything else. You know, you want to try to like, you don't, you don't need to, um, you know, people are worried about, uh, people judging them for forcing their kids to do certain things. But I think as a parent, it's in our best interest to always look out for what's in the best interest of the child and not even for that moment, but for the future. And so the same regulations you'd put on your kid to not play in the front yard because there's maybe too much traffic outside at certain hours is the same regulations you're going to put on their food, same regulations you're going to put on them for, hey, you know what, you know, shut your mouth. You're getting in the car and we're going to baseball practice. I never liked that part.

I never liked doing that with my kids. But it was something that I was just like, you know what? We're going to expose you to some of these sports. If you don't like them, we can stop playing them. I want you to try one season. Just fucking try it. Give it a shot. Because if we allow the kid to make the decision, they're just too young.

Their decision is going to be to play video games on their phone. My decision would have been the same. I would have played Tecmo Bowl all day long. I would have played, you know, Mario Brothers or Zelda or whatever the hell was going on at the time. I would have definitely wanted to do that, sit there, eat Doritos. It's a lot more comfortable than going to football practice or banging weights in the weight room. So if you're a parent out there and you listen to this podcast, it's important. You don't feel bad, you know, don't be an asshole.

Don't force your kids to really do stuff that they truly hate. But at the same time, uh, you're going to have to make them do some stuff that they don't want to do. Rake leaves, pick out the garbage. Yeah. Yeah. Did you grow up with a lot of discipline as well? Chores and things like that?

Oh yeah. Um, uh, I wasn't like, you know, a lot of discipline as well chores and things like that oh yeah um uh i wasn't like you know a lot of kids were everybody was was mom like mom and dad like you you didn't cross her yeah no no i got i got um so i mean a lot of parents look down on it i was spanked as a kid often uh i don't look i don't resent that at all i think it was great um because i was a like i was a really hyper, which is why she had me play all the sports. But I was also a kid that would like seek, I wouldn't seek out trouble, but I would just do stupid stuff. You know, I would do stupid stuff in class.

I would do stupid stuff at school. Probably because you had energy. Yeah, because I had energy. So, yeah, I got spanked. There was actually one day, most embarrassing day of middle school. I remember it vividly. She came to class in seventh grade because the teacher was like, Nsema just spanked. There was actually one day, most embarrassing day of middle school. I remember it vividly. She came to class and something because teachers, I can see him.

I just won't be quiet in class. He's like the class clown. You won't shut up. So she's like, okay. So she came, she dropped me off at school and she parked and she followed me. I'm like,

Oh mom, I'm going in. She's like, Oh, okay, cool. Let's go to your class. So we go to my class.

The teacher gives her a seat so that she can sit right by me. And she follows me around school all day long. She eats lunch with me. She goes to every single period with me. And that was the last of that. Like, it's just, that's what she would do. You know what I mean? If I ever got out of line, she would rein me back in.

So I went pretty early on. That's really embarrassing. You're like 13 years old or something, went pretty early on things. I should, that's really embarrassing. You're like 13 years old or something, right? It was horrible. Not like the rest of the year, which was bad. Kids would always bring it up. He's like, is your mom going to come to school again and see him? I'm like, come on guys. I don't need that from you right now. So that's great. Could you imagine her like calling the teacher, telling the teacher, the teacher was probably so excited. Teacher's probably like, okay, Hey, whatever you want. No, they were probably all down for it. I was like, I really was, uh, I was, I was a kid that acted up a lot and like, I knew it too. I

really didn't care because I made the grades, like I made decent grades, but I was just, I was just a little brat. Yeah. Yeah. This might seem like a stupid question, but I'm full of them. Um, when was the first time that you, that you realized like racism is a real thing? Like what, what a, like, were you ever subject to it? I'm sure you must've been.

I'm sure everybody is, but you know, when, like, was there an age where it clicked where you're like, Oh shit, like that's a thing. And it's pretty fucking serious.

I think that just growing up being like what I was, like a young black man, getting bigger or just getting big and seeing how I would be received by individuals around me versus other kids. Like I was in, I was in a lot of advanced programs, like as a kid, like, like again my mom she started me early in these development programs called kuman it was a learning center um i was the only i was the only black kid in there along with my other friend brian belia we were like we grew up together as brothers so we would do all these academic things together and it was like me and him were there and we were like maybe i think we were eight or seven or eight when we started kuman and it was just a bunch of other asian kids and white kids. And we just didn't see many people like ourselves and we'd kind of be outcasts in those situations together.

And we would like we were treated not I wouldn't say treated. We weren't treated badly, but let's say people would be a little bit more careful with us because they weren't sure with like maybe how we would act or what we would do. Because at that, looking back at it now, they probably thought we would act a certain way or they probably had an assumption of what they see on TV, black kids, young black men, how they act.

And I could read that even, even nowadays, you know. Yeah. I've talked to, you know, other people we've had on the show about this before where they said you can't really describe it, but it's just like a feel.

It's just like a, I'm like, what a fucking horrible thing to have to deal with. Yeah, but even nowadays when I meet someone or I'm talking to somebody or I meet them for the first time, after I talk to them for a few minutes, then they settle down a little bit. They're not as tense. But it's like I know my stature. I know what I look like. And I know the stereotypes that back how people see black men in our society. It's not true.

It's just what people see on TV, what they see on TV, what they see on, on videos, what they see on music videos. And that's kind of how they look at it. You know what I mean? Right. Even in high school, like, because I would speak a certain way,

my mom raised me to, to like, I didn't like talk a certain way. Does that maybe, does some of that have to do with where you're from? Like, or where your parents are from? Like this is like, I guess in some way you're more like an African-African rather than an African-American, even though you were born here. You know, do they, do they kind of act differently than.

I would say like when, when, african-american kids would find out that i was african like they wouldn't make fun of me for it they'd be just bro that's really cool yeah i mean um and i i would say also because there is a slight i wouldn't say there's a total difference in upbringing but there is a difference in your your root culture are african uh people of african descent are they maybe not subject to like socioeconomics as much? It totally depends. Like, uh, it totally depends on what they do when they come here, the type of job they do. So my mom came here as an engineer, you know, she went to school to become an engineer. So, uh, when it came to like, you know, her making money, obviously she,

she did fairly well for himself being, of course, also being a woman as an engineer, she did really well for herself. But I would say when it comes to the upbringing in our culture, right, African culture is different from or slightly different from black culture, although we still all meld together because we're the same people. When I was younger in school, like I was going to mention this to you when I would talk to people, people would say, you're not black. I'm like, why? Uh, and it's not black people. It's like, like Indian kids. And you talk, you talk white, you talk white. And I get that even now, like quite a bit. And

I would always be like, why do you say that? So it says you speak a certain way. I'm like, can I not speak this way and still be a black person? Like that, that, that's, that's again, even though it might, some people might be like, Oh, that's a compliment. That's not a compliment. You're telling me that I can't be what I am because I speak a certain way. That's a, that's a huge issue, but yeah, it's a huge issue in multiple ways. In multiple ways, you know. So there's just a lot of underlying things that happen.

And then when it comes to like overt racism, I haven't really, let's just say, I haven't put myself in situations where I've had to deal with people like that. in situations where I've had to deal with people like that. Um, most of the time I, I, I can get, I don't get myself into situations where I have to handle an, an individual deals with me that way, probably because of the way I look. You know what I mean? Um, but yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a real sensitive topic, you know, and, uh, you know, my, my family and I, we went to Washington DC and, uh, you know, we learned a lot about, um, you know, my family and I, we went to Washington, D.C. And, you know, we learned a lot about, you know, the people that helped build this country. We learned a lot about slavery. We learned a lot about a lot of different things. And it was really eye-opening to me.

And it was cool for me to experience that with my children and to have them understand that, like, yeah, a lot of great things happened. A lot of things happened that were just absolutely horrific. And I never even knew, and I feel embarrassed that I didn't know this. I did not know that there was 4 million slaves. Yeah. You know, I didn't, I did not realize it was that magnitude and bad on me. I'm a fucking idiot. I should have, I should have recognized that. But I think the education is crucial.

And I think that they are talking about taking down some of these monuments and things like that because these guys were slave owners and things of that nature. But I think we run the risk of having history repeat itself if we shove it off into a closet somewhere. So I do agree that maybe the way that we remember these people should be maybe a little different. Maybe we should have all the facts in front of us and we should know everything. But shoving some of it off into a closet probably isn't great because I think any culture that has been built up over the years is going to be built up through war, crime, rapes, murders, all kinds of crazy shit that none of us would ever really be a fan of.

Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. And you're not an idiot for not knowing that. One of the reasons you don't know that is because you just weren't taught that in high school. When you're going over history and the history of the United States, they talk about that topic, but they don't go deep into like that topic. Um, you know, uh, it's, it's really crazy, like realizing how much really happened then. And even myself, I need to learn more about it myself too, but it's, it's not gone over in school because they, I don't know, I don't necessarily know why, but they don't want to teach that. Yeah, one of the things I felt that kind of sucked was

when we went to Mount Vernon, where George Washington's house was, they did talk about slavery and they said, oh, the slaves, they lived over here. And I wanted, I was like inquisitive. I wanted to know more about it. My kids were too. And they were like, oh, it's a separate tour.

And I was just like, oh man, I was like, that kind of sucks. And I saw black people on the slate and i'm like this is a problem like we should all be it should all be i'll be learning this information together you know and i was like that that kind of sucks but um it is what it is you know we have a kind of a black eye on history uh it comes to that sort of thing. But it was really educational. It was fucking cool to learn that. And it was great to experience all that stuff with my kids and to go to, have you ever been to Washington, D.C. before?

I have not. No, I have not. Oh, my God. It's amazing. Yeah. We went to Arlington National Cemetery where there's thousands and thousands of people that died in the war. And that, I mean, that was like, it was almost too hard to take in.

You know, like I haven't been like real patriotic in the past, but you can kind of feel it when you're there. Yeah. And when you go to like Gettysburg and all these different places, it was pretty wild. Have you been back over to Africa before? Yeah, yeah. When I was 16, we took a trip there before my senior year of high school.

So I went there for about a month and a half. I have a lot of family there still, my mom and my dad's side. I was able to meet my grandma and my dad's side finally and some of his siblings. Are they jacked? You know what? No. It's so crazy. A lot of my dad's siblings are big, just like big people. But when I was like just walking around, because I actually played a lot of soccer there too. I found some guys, we play soccer every single day. But you would walk the street, you see some of these construction workers. And I talked with them because this dude looked like he was a gymnast, just like a jacked big gymnast. Like, do you guys have a gym around here? Do you work out?

Like, no, we just do construction. I was just, he was like, I swear, he was single digit body fat, huge, looked like he was in the gym every single day. But this man just did construction on a day-to-day basis. And it was just, it's just crazy what some people are able to do. Yeah. You know? It's just, you think it's just a lot of it's genetics, huh? You know, people that word genetics is just, uh, it's too broad. Maybe it's, it's,

it's very broad. Uh, it's the truth, but it's broad and it's something that's used as a scapegoat, you know, going back to, to, you know, like me being called not Natty or whatever. I think it's good that people say that about me because it means that people are inquisitive. Uh, some people at least are inquisitive. They want to maybe know exactly how did I get this big or they're, they're, they're more, uh, critical about the industry as a whole, because, you know, there's a lot of things that are marketed, right. That aren't necessarily the truth. So you gotta be, you know, you gotta be really, let's just say, Oh yeah, there's that. Uh, you gotta be critical you know, you gotta be really, let's just say, oh yeah, there's that.

You gotta be critical about like what you take in and what you believe is truth. You gotta do your own research. The thing though is like, you know, obviously, you know, LeBron James, right? By 14 years old, the dude was like 6'5", 6'4", 6'5". He's insane. Right? When, you know, I know that I'm never going to be a pro basketball player. You know, no matter how hard I try, I'm not going to make it to the NBA.

Um, but when you look like, when you look at someone like LeBron, you can use the word genetics and just realize I'm not going to be six, nine to 60. Uh, he could play pro football or pro basketball or whatever he wanted to do because he was just, God gave him that talent. But when we look at a lot of things, when it comes to fitness, people still should work hard, even if they look at me, you know, and they want to be as big as me, and potentially they might not be. They should still work hard to try and achieve whatever is the strength or the size

or whatever they want to be able to achieve. But at the same time, you can't be just looking at everybody and saying, I can't get that big. I'm doing his program. I'm eating the way he is, but I'm still not as big as he is. And it's been five years. He's definitely using drugs. You can't look at it that way.

We all have different skill sets. Yeah. When it comes to fitness, people tend to do that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. There's like genetics or anything physical, but even like Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs obviously was genetically superior to a lot of people. He was able to think in a lot of different ways, but no one would ever accuse him not working hard.

No. I mean, he worked so hard, it like damaged a lot of his relationships and stuff. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that even with genetic talent, they're still training their face off. I mean, Kobe Bryant was shooting free throws after every practice, I think his entire career. Yeah, he was the hardest worker on his team. Same with Jordan. Jordan had the just disgusting work ethic where everyone around him would be pissed at him because of how hard he would be on them to try and get as good as he was. They have a tendency again, you know, going back to black and white, you know, with someone like Larry Bird, they'd be like, he's the hardest worker.

And then somebody like Le uh, LeBron, they'll say genetics. And it's like, wait, why Larry, Larry Bird? I know he looks unassuming, but Larry Bird was six foot nine. Yeah. He could dribble like a motherfucker. Obviously he worked, they all work hard. Everybody's worked hard to get in their position, but Larry Bird was insanely athletic.

Yeah. You know, just to sell him short on athleticism is, is a huge mistake. It is. Or John Stockton and any of these other, I mean, Tom Brady,

Tom Brady's slow. He's just like, how many times he gets sacked and he gets sacked way less than everybody else. He reads the defense faster. His feet are quick. Yep. He may not be fast. Like when it comes time to like roll out of the pocket or whatever,

but he's fast enough to get the job done. He works hard enough to get the job done. And yeah, I think that people tend to just say, oh yeah, you know, he's just, he's always been good at that or he's always been big like that. It makes it easier for them. Makes it, yes, because then they can, they can make the excuse that why they can't do that. But a lot of these individuals, even myself, like a lot of people just put a lot of work in. these individuals, even myself, like a lot of people just put a lot of work in. And if they have, if they have a gift that's helping them or a talent that's helping them move to that place even faster, that's awesome. That doesn't mean you shouldn't work hard yourself. Have you seen

anything, um, since being in the fitness industry for a while, have you seen anything that's like a telltale sign that somebody may be on stuff? Um, well, you know, I used, I used to think when I was, when I was like looking into this stuff when I was younger, I used to think that gyno was one of those things, you know what I mean? But that's not true necessarily because I've, I've worked with individuals and younger guys that just have had gyno all their lives, you know, and it's just part of them. Yeah. Some people get a huge cascade of like testosterone when they're young and then it kind of sits around forever. Yeah, the main thing that I look for

and I would suggest to people is for myself, right? I don't just tell people to train the way I do and eat the way I do and get my results. I don't mark things that way because I know that no matter what, like even if you train and eat the way I do, you might not be as big as me, but try and do your best to figure out everything you can in terms of your own training and nutrition to get to, to get to your results. The, the big, the big issue. And I don't think

there's really a way to know if this person's not natural or not. Um, like even one, like even you remember Kai Green when he was super young, you know, when he was, when he was not taking drugs, he was still just disgustingly huge. The, the, the biggest thing is just when, when looking at all of this type of information, just to try and do your best to, like I said, do that. But there was something I was going for here that I totally blanked on. One thing that I see is like normally when somebody's natural, there's kind of some holes. There's some holes in their game. For you, it's bench press. Yeah.

Your strength is awesome, and you have achieved a lot in powerlifting in a really short period of time with a 755 deadlift, but your squat's not outrageous, and your bench is fall as has kind of fallen behind the other two lifts. Um, and so that's, that's kind of what I look at. And then sometimes even when somebody is more well-rounded, it still doesn't mean that they are definitely taking stuff. But one of the things I've been looking at for years is, and, uh, you know, there's going

to be outliers to this rule too, but somebody who's under 10% body fat and they're over 220 pounds, that's when you kind of get a little bit of a red light and you're like, okay, this guy's either, you know, genetically gifted, but you're also tall too. So, you know, if someone's going to be six, five or six, seven or six, eight or something, obviously they're going to, uh, they're going to be heavier, and they might be leaner. But in your case, you're, what are you, 6'2", 6'3"? I'm 6'2", and typically my walk-around training weight is like 245, 250. When I was only doing powerlifting and bodybuilding, my peak off season would be around 260, 265. But when you like under 10% in 220 or above, when I got down to my leanest

level for my bodybuilding shows back in like 14, I was around 229 pounds, maybe five, six percent. Right, right. You know, and then that, and that's like. In my opinion, that's about as much muscle as a natural person can hold. Yeah. And, and that, at that point I couldn't perform in the gym.

Like, you know, I was, that took like about 40, 42 weeks of dieting. So it's like that, that's one thing. 42 weeks.

Yeah. I remember that you, you do long, you do long diets. Yeah. When it comes to like when a natural athlete has to cut a lot of weight, they can't do it in 12 or 16 weeks. And when I, when I talk about drugs, I have no – I'm not putting down any person in the NPC that does take things to get leaner.

But it will take an athlete that doesn't take any drugs a longer amount of time to lose that body fat and maintain as much muscle. Because if you're not taking things, you'll tend to shed muscle a lot easier. So you have to prolong that process so you can maintain as much muscle as possible as you're losing body fat. You kind of do it in like stages almost, like do you lose like five to seven and then, you know, almost add a little bit of calories back in and then kind of drop. Is that kind of the method? There are stages where like you'll, you'll go into a dig and then after maybe about 12 weeks of digging in your diet, you'll take a diet break. A diet break can be about three or four weeks where you bring your calories above maintenance to try and reestablish a little bit of your metabolic rate. You're not eating whatever you want, but you're just eating more calories.

You're eating more calories. You're still tracking your food. And then you go back into a dig period because stalls happen all throughout that diet, which is why it takes such a long time. Stalling happens with every diet. Oh, yeah. That's something really important to share with people. You're going to get stuck. Yeah.

You're going to hit a fucking brick wall. And for you, you know, during that dieting for that competition, did you hit some brick walls where you're like, fuck, man, some of this ain't working and each day you got to tweak stuff? There wasn't any, like, tweaking on each day. At that point also, I want to know, I worked with Alberto Nunez when, when we were dying. So he was my coach at that point. That guy gets shredded. Oh yeah. Alberto's unbelievable, disgusting human being in the best way possible. Um, but yeah, there, there'll be points like, like that I would stall for five,

six weeks and not drop any weight, but that was fine. We kept the macros the same. We, we'd stall. And then after a while we just start to drop again. We kept the macros the same. We'd stall. And then after a while, we just start to drop again. That's all part of the process. And it's hard to understand that even if that happens during a diet, just keep it going and be patient with your progress. Keep doing the same thing. Don't get mad at yourself and revert back to your old habits and gain a bunch of weight. And just be patient with it because it takes a long time to get to a certain weight. Like, let's say you get really big, really fat. It takes a long time to get there. It's going to take a long time to get lean. Yeah. You know, so.

Where did all this knowledge come from? Cause how old are you? I'm 25. Okay. So you're, you're, I mean, I'm 33 and I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. So, yeah. Where did this all come from? I learned a lot by just like reading a lot i i love it nowadays because uh you know i was in school how many people been on this podcast telling us it's like you and i gotta read andrew i feel so dumb all the time well all we do is podcasts we don't read yeah i just uh yeah i just write books i don't like to read them there you

go that's that's pretty sick um Um, but no, like when, when I was in school, I was in school cause my goal at the time was to be a doctor. Um, and I, I, I, there he goes acting all white again. No, it's not true. But no, but, but when I, when I stopped wanting to do that and you wanted to do something in fitness and everything that I was learning, just like it was cool, but it wasn't applicable. So then I was just like, where can I find resources and information to give me things that I can apply to people right now? Give me things that I can use right now so that I can easily relay this information that's like maybe a little bit complex, but relay it easily to individuals so they can understand and use it right now. And that's where all this outside information came.

Like the Muscle and Straight Pyramids by Eric Helms, a lot of books from Juggernaut Training Systems. There's this cool little... Eric has a lot of great information. Yeah. There's this newsletter called MASS, Monthly Application of Sports Science. They come out and they'll have all this research, but then they'll explain it practically so that you can take this information and use it.

Because I don't like all the science-y stuff. Yeah. That helps a lot. You know, I like what I, what can I tell someone that you can understand it right now and use it. That's what matters. And that's going to help somebody get. You're very inquisitive in the gym all the time too. You're like, you know, if I, if I mentioned something to you, you're very coachable, you know, a lot of guys are like, yeah, whatever. And they revert back to, but I've, I've told you before, like, Hey, you know, on this lift, let's slow it down a little bit. And we've had to take weight off the bar so you can relearn. You're like, all right, I'll invest in this. I'll try it out. And sure enough, it, you know, it works. Yeah. But a lot

of guys, they just, uh, they don't have the patience for that. And that's, it takes a lot of patience to be able to try to incorporate, uh, some of the stuff that we're, we're talking about. Yeah. Um, with, uh, Alberto, he's, uh, kind of a proponent of flexible dieting, right? And is that a method that you used for that bodybuilding show? Yeah, it is. So flexible dieting, you know about it. When people look at it, they think that they can just eat whatever they want. They immediately think of Pop-Tarts. Right? Yeah. It was once deemed the Pop-Tart diet. I still ate a lot of

whole foods, about 80%, 90% of my food mostly were whole foods. I ate a lot of vegetables. I hit my fiber. But the thing about it is I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't really binge much because I wasn't limiting myself from, you know, sometimes if I want to go out and eat a pizza, if I want to get sushi, if I wanted to eat these foods that some people would sometimes seem dirty, I can make a bit of it fit to my food because then I wouldn't end up craving it too often. Because I wouldn't end up craving it, I wouldn't have a need to really binge on it. That's where I think the benefit is. Not because it's some special crazy diet, because you could achieve a lot of these same results using keto. You could achieve a lot of these results using a lot of different diets. But the reason why I was drawn towards flexible dieting is because I was allowed

to give myself these things that, you know, a typical bodybuilder would be like, oh, that's going to mess up my diet. I was still allowed to eat these things. I was still able to get shredded. I was still able to be healthy. I was still able to perform, you know. How often would there be room for stuff like that to achieve that level of being that lean? So this is the thing. At the beginning of the diet, a lot. At the beginning of the diet, I was like, I think my macros were like maybe around 85 to 90 fat. I was able to eat around 600 grams of carbs per day.

And when it came to my protein, it was probably between like 240 or 250. Getting to the leaner stage, getting leaner and leaner, you have to eat less and less food. So when it came down to it, when I was really, really lean, right? Because I wasn't able to eat nearly as much food and I wasn't getting full as much, I had to start being a lot, I don't like using the word cleaner, but I had to start eating way more whole foods and way more fiber rich foods to actually fill my gut because fiber rich foods make you feel fuller. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I couldn't really, I could still fit some of these foods in, but very small amounts of it because a Pop-Tart is maybe two Pop-Tarts that come in two packets.

Maybe about 45, 50 grams of carbs, right? He knows a lot about these. And if you open the pack, you can't have just one. You can't have just one. Oh yeah. What are you going to do? Put that back. It's going to get stale.

Yeah. That's no good. And if I have 200 grams of carbs, that's already 25% of my daily carbs in those pop tarts. And it didn't make me feel full at all. So you can't do things like that when you're not working with a lot of food. It's like a budget. That's, that's what I've been sharing with people for a long time. It's like ultimately flexible dieting will become a strict bodybuilding diet. If you're trying to get on stage or do a photo shoot, like it's just, you're going to have to chop a lot of those things out.

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe in the beginning you were, uh, I wouldn't say seven, like on a scale of one to 10, the diet was like a seven in terms of how hard it was. At the very beginning? Yeah.

Oh, the diet. Well, the diet was easy at the beginning because I think it was a start. Cause it was so far. So, so it's like a five or six. And then as you got into it, it turned into like a nine or a 10. Oh, most definitely.

Like, and I'm not even going to act like there weren't times that I didn't binge. I did binge on multiple occasions during my diet because it gets hard. It gets really difficult, you know, not feeling full, feeling tired all the time. Also because of, I was at the end stages, I was eating around 35 to 40 grams of fat per day. Okay. There's a good story about Flex Wheeler. Um, everybody's waiting at the gym for him and, uh, Gold's Venice and everyone was all excited. They were going to celebrate with him.

He just signed a huge contract with, uh, like muscle tech. This is years ago. He signed like something outrageous at the time. It was like four or $500,000 deal and everybody was all pumped for him. And it was right before the Mr. Olympia. And I think the year before he came in like second, everybody thought it was, this was his year or it might've been the Arnold class. I can't remember which one it was, but everyone was super hyped and he was supposed to come

in and train and he didn't show up. And everyone's like, oh man, I wonder what happened. You know, he's not around. So they go outside and he's in his car crying because he just fucking ate everything under the sun yeah he wanted to go and celebrate you know because he signed this contract and he was like i'm just gonna go to like mcdonald's and get like a big mac and that big mac turned into like several big macs a shake fries and they said he did so much damage with like the you know this was like one and a half

meal window that he did that they're like, there was no getting them back because the competition level is too hard. Yeah. Yeah. No, I had a moment like that. Fucking hey, man, this one meal throws you off. No. Yeah.

That definitely happened to me. I had a jar of peanut butter and I ate the whole thing. I had a scoop and then a second one and no one was there. So I just kept going. I was like, I can see the stop, but I just kept going. Hey, if no one is there, then it doesn't count towards your calories. Or if you eat it like in your pantry. Yeah.

Yeah. Or if you throw it out for anybody recognizes, those are all things that don't count for calories. While you're still standing there at the pantry and then you close the pantry, it didn't happen. Right. Yeah, exactly. You sneak it behind, you know, no one, no one sees it. Then you're, then, then you're uh then you're good to go but yeah you know with uh having stan on yesterday you know um i think i think part of the problem is i think uh people will think

that everything contradicts itself and they don't that a lot of things they go together people are like oh mark you need to talk to alberto nunez'll set you straight. It's like, I have no Alberto. We've talked many times. He's excited for me that I've lost all this weight. He's excited about the keto diet. And what Stan was saying yesterday is he chooses to, with his vertical diet, he chooses to have foods that come in the system and get digested quickly so he can consume more food and he can make his body hungry and he can kind of tweak the macronutrients, the calories, whatever way he wants to either gain weight or lose weight. Now here's where the little tricks come in. You know, a bodybuilder is going to intentionally eat something like, like Brussels sprouts or something like

broccoli. Um, we know that it gives you gas. We know that it can hurt your stomach, but fuck man, we don't want to be hungry. And how low did your calories get on this diet at one point? Um, I think my lowest calories were the fats were what got really low, 35 to 40 grams of fats. I was still able to eat around 220 to 230 grams of carbs a day. And then my protein was high because protein helps you not feel as hungry. So I was eating around 250 grams of protein a day, which is, I don't do that right now. But in the deep portions of the diet, I had to because it was something that kept me not feeling hungry. So your calories are a lot lower than normal. Oh, for sure.

And you're just like, oh my God. Doing a lot of cardio, obviously. Doing a lot of cardio to help increase the deficit that was created. That's what Stan was talking about too. Like don't set such a huge deficit just through not eating. Oh, no, no. Or else I would have been eating like maybe a hundred carbs a day or something. Did you do kind of almost traditional bodybuilding cardio sessions or did you do more HIIT or balance of both?

traditional bodybuilding cardio sessions or did you do more HIIT or balance of both? Initially, I was doing a HIIT and a little bit of like LIS, lower intensity cardio, towards the end because I was so tired and so drained. I couldn't do HIIT and be productive at it. Like on those higher intensity sessions, I just couldn't do it. So I had to do like all the, you know, Stairmaster just for, not Stairmaster, but elliptical for a while because I didn't have the energy to do HIIT. Would I have liked to do HIIT, yes. But I was so tired all the time that I couldn't make it happen. Yeah. A lot of bodybuilders, like I used to train at Gold's gym and I would see some of the best bodybuilders just walking on the treadmill. It was like, I mean, I don't know, the thing was on like two miles an hour, maybe they had it on a steady incline and they would

just go on there. They'd be on there for like an hour. Yeah. But those guys would tell me they're like, you know, you know how easy that is to recover from and how easy it is to do. Like they're like, it's just, it's annoying to do it. I don't want to do it. Yeah. Uh, but it's just, it burns calories, allows me to eat a little bit more food and, you know, just, and I'm like, well, you know, you got to do what works. Yeah.

You know, each person needs to, so a lot of times we're, you're taking, we're taking some of these rules, you know, Stan saying, you know, some of these vegetables and stuff can kind of fill us up too much and we can't get to the next meal. Yeah. But in your case, that's a good thing because you want to try to feel full because you want to be satiated enough to where you don't lose your mind and go off the diet. Oh yeah, no, he's totally right. satiated enough to where you don't lose your mind and go off the diet. Oh yeah, no, he's totally right. At that stage, I needed to eat excessive amounts of fiber because if I didn't, I wouldn't feel full and I would want to binge nowadays because performance is at the forefront of what I do. I still intake fiber, but I'm trying to eat as much as I can with everything that I do. Right. You know, so it's, it's just the diet changes with your, your goals as an athlete.

Right. Yeah. So like before a training session, you might have some chicken and rice, or you might have some steak and rice, but you're probably not going to have a lot of vegetables for a training session. Cause you'd be like, that's probably going to slow me down. Nowadays? Yeah. Oh, well, you know, I do the IF thing sometimes. Yeah.

Nowadays. Yeah. Like I, I, I will have some vegetables a little bit. I don't feel it as much. But even with fasting, I mean, that's the reason why you fast, you know, but part of the reason why you fast is because you, you know, you're just like, man, it just, it, it costs me time, you know, to sit down and eat and there's the amount of time it takes to eat, but then there's the amount of time it takes to digest.

And I just want to go train. And now you're doing jujitsu and stuff too. Yeah. Yeah. All of that. It's how hard are the jujitsu workouts? Um, they're, they're rough. Actually yesterday was like a sixth just uh we

we did our technique work which is about 20 minutes and then we did a 60 minute king of the hill session the king of the hill session is one like um you'll have a bunch of guys on the mat you'll just get in line and you'll just keep going and submitting for 60 minutes um and it's rough uh even even so jiu-jitsu is uh it's really's really tiring, and I love it. At first, jujitsu probably isn't that hard, right? Because you're not advanced enough to like – it's probably pretty slow-paced at first, or where you're going, maybe not really. No, I'd say at first, for a majority of people, it's going to be really difficult. The reason being is because when you start jujitsu, let's say you're a beginner and you have someone that's on top of you and they'll be going easy on you because they know you're a white belt. You don't know how to breathe.

You don't know what to do when someone's like mounted you and they're just there like this. You'll tense up and you won't breathe. And because you're so tense. Even just the act of like a dude on dude. You got some dude laying on top of you. Yeah. Weighs 200 plus pounds. You're like, uh.

And you get in weird positions. Guys, butts in your face and everything else. No, you get used to, you know, sweat dripping from their beard into your mouth. You get used to things like that. But it's actually harder initially because you don't know how to breathe. You don't know how to relax. And for me, at least, and for a few other people I know, it got easier over time because you learn how to relax in really stressful situations. Because of that, you can breathe more, you can use less energy, and it's just, it gets easier, but it continues to get harder because there's all of this stuff you continue not to know when it comes to the martial art. So it's, I love it.

Yeah, we're watching some footage of you compete. You have competed a couple times now. Yeah, yeah. I think about like maybe six competitions at this point, times now. Yeah, I think about maybe six competitions at this point, I think. And you've won every single one of them, right? I have, except one match I lost by points.

It was 1-0. It was me versus this other wrestler. Actually, he watches your show. After the match, he's like, yo, you go to Mark Bell's gym. Tell Mark I love him. He's helped me lose a lot of weight. His name was Ori Elor, and he was an NCAA D1 wrestler. Our match was just going back and forth. He was trying to take me down.

I was sprawling. And because he was going for more takedowns, he won 1-0 by points. But that was the one match where I was just like, damn, I'm coming for you, Ori, if you're watching this. Was that the last one you competed in? No, no, that was the, I think, third to last one that I competed in. I did two more, and I won both of those tournaments. Yeah, this was at the San Francisco at the Cow Palace. I forgot what this tournament was called, but it's a pretty big one.

And this was still as a white belt. I haven't competed as a blue belt yet. I'm probably going to do a competition towards the end of this month. And then I have Worlds planned in June, which is in Long Beach. And Worlds is a big tournament so i'm excited for that what's the goal with jujitsu well my goal is like obviously i want to get to a black belt and i want to come like i want to compete at the top levels as a black belt not just do it as a hobby like i want to take on big name guys in jujitsu and like hopefully win

that's that's why i do it. I do it to compete. And I do know that I've started later in life. I think I started BJJ when I was 22. So I know I'm at a disadvantage versus some of these guys who started at 14, 15, but I'm just, I'm just going to train my ass off and do what I can. Is going to other gyms frowned upon or encouraged?

It's not necessarily frowned upon. I think it's more so how you approach when you go to these other gyms. Because some people come into the gym and it's like, you know, like the dojo is like, I'm going to beat your master. Yeah, they come in karate kid style. Right, yeah. But some people just come in to train. I think it just all depends on how you go into a different gym. Do you go into the gym to train and learn from these other guys?

Or are you just trying to whoop everyone and show everyone that you're the best in the room? That's the big deal. Who's your coach? Casio Wernick. He's local here in Sacramento, California. He's pretty much the granddaddy of Northern California BJJ. He trained Uriah Faber. He's trained a lot of black belts that own different gyms in this area

and pretty much going all around NorCal. Same with Nico. Same with Nico Lozada. Yeah. Casio, yeah, he's won multiple world championships and he's just a tactician, man. He's a great teacher and a tactician. I love the guy.

Does he ever put you in your place? Oh, yeah, yesterday. Yeah, we were doing King of the Hill and I was in for a while. I wasn't getting tapped and it's like, he just came and we rolled for eight minutes. He submitted me and I just went back in line. Yeah.

It's, it's, uh, he's, he's an awesome coach. That's pretty good though. You, that you lasted eight minutes or is he just playing with you? Uh, sometimes like, well, actually, you know, I don't, well, yesterday he was, he, he was still killing me. Um, but he, he goes on me, like he, he doesn't take it easy on me and I'm happy that he does it. Or he actually might be me, but he goes on me. He doesn't take it easy on me, and I'm happy that he doesn't. Or he actually might be taking it a little bit easy on me. You never know because he's so good.

But, yeah, I can't tell. Is that him right there? That's him right there. That's Casio Wernick, yeah. He's promoted a lot. What does he weigh, 180 pounds less than you? About 185, I think. You can't kick that guy's ass?

Come on, man. I wish. I don't know if I'll ever't kick that guy's ass. Come on, man. I wish. I don't know if I'll ever be able to. Maybe when he's 60. Maybe. Anybody in your gym tap him out before? You haven't heard about that? Yeah, you haven't heard about that.

At least every time I've seen him roll, I've never seen anybody do that. Yeah. You know, but even so, like. I heard it's kind of demoralizing to get tapped out, especially like the first, like the more advanced you get, I've heard that like know that if I do this, I'm safe, then you won't get tapped out as much. But if you go for new things and you continue to go for it, you'll get tapped out a lot. It's kind of part of the learning process. It's part of the learning process. And you probably should be trying some new stuff.

You should be trying those new stuff because you'll fail. You'll get tapped out. But you'll continue to learn what you're doing wrong. So it can be demoralizing to some people. When I get tapped out, I'm a little frustrated, but I go back to what I'm trying to work on, and I just keep trying to work on it. At this point, I don't – I mean, obviously, I don't want to get tapped out. But if it happens, I'm not disappointed or mad or whatever. Right. It's just – Well, your deme not, not, you know, disappointed or mad or whatever. Right.

Um, it's, it's just, it's all your demeanor. You're pretty calm. Yeah. I don't think I've seen you get mad from like missing a lift or anything like that. No. Um, uh, it's, it's funny how my demeanor has changed since I started here to now. And it's just the way I lift. Like if you go back to videos, uh, when I first started training here, you'll see me deadlifting and it'll be like 600, 620 on the bar.

I'll rip the bar and then I'll lift. But nowadays it's just like being more calm has helped me in just like I don't look at heavy weight. I don't get scared of it. My goal is just like I know it's going to move and I'm just going to it's going to move easily as long as I can just control myself. And that's helped me out a lot personally. I think the psych up a lot of times is you're trying to convince yourself of doing something that you are fearful that you're not going to be able to do. Oh yeah.

It very well could be. You want to gather as much energy as you can because you know this is going to be difficult. But like now, like even if it is difficult, I still know I can do it. So I don't psych up for it. I just go approach pool or squat or deadlift or, you know, whatever. It's a good frame of mind to have because you can, um, you can also kind of psych yourself out. You can get so hyped, uh, that it plays to a disadvantage rather than being an advantage. Yeah.

And I think there's definitely something cool about, um, just not needing things externally. You know, for me, from a lifting perspective, I always like to get fired up. It's just the way I've always done it. But I also understand the other side of it. And I think that the other side of it would be more beneficial to me, but I just, I like to kind of continue on

with what the path I'm on. But when it comes to things like coffee, when it comes to things like pre-workout, when it comes to things like certain music on when, um, when it comes to things like certain music on when you're lifting, um, all these things are external things that you really don't need. And it's kind of great to not be so fragile and to just be like, you know what? My training is where it is.

This way I, I pick this weight for myself. It's not like, it's not like I'm saying, Hey, you got a deadlift, 800 pounds. You got a squat, 800 pounds. It's not like I picked the weight for you. That would be a different situation. And maybe you'd have to get out of your mind a little bit, but you selected the weight for yourself and you should be like, yeah, I trained for this.

I'm going to pick it up. Yeah. Yeah. That's helped me a lot. And it's also like, it's helped with BJJ too, because it's just when you're, when you're, especially in jujitsu, you need to be calm when you're rolling.

If you're super, like if you're super psyched and you're super just excited, not, I wouldn't say excited, but just a hyper, you get tight and you can't move. So I think like that has also helped my lifting because I have to be calm so I could just flow around in jujitsu. And it just helps the way I approach everything when it comes to working out. Sometimes in jujitsu, people get you in positions where you can't move. Oh yeah. They don't even have you like in a lock or anything, but you just can't, you're like,

I don't understand what they did, but I can't fucking move. Yeah. Yeah. And those are the places where you got to just be as calm as possible and just wait because if you can't move then, then they'll have to do something where there's going to be a small sliver where you're going to be able to do something.

If you're calm, you can find it. If you're not, it's going to go away. It's just going to, you're not going to be able to do something. If you're calm, you can find it. If you're not, it's going to go away. You're not going to be able to handle it. Yeah, or you might even make a bigger mistake, and next thing you know, you're getting choked out.

Exactly. Because you did something that you probably shouldn't have relied on. How did you get into jiu-jitsu? A friend of mine, we were like three, two years ago now, actually. We were trying to figure out what else I could do because, I mean, I played soccer for 13 years of my life. And soccer is running, jumping, side-to-side movement just after a game or after practice, you're exhausted. And lifting never made me that tired or allowed me to use as much of my body as I wanted to. So I've been trying to find something that could allow me to use my body kind of like I did when I played soccer.

And they brought up jujitsu and found Casio School. So I went there, I saw it. And typically he's like, if you like it, we'll give you two free sessions. I was like, nah, take my money. I'm gonna go grab a loaner gear. I wanna start tomorrow. And it's been like that from then.

And the big reason why I like it so much is because I haven't had anything in my life so far that I've started. That's been totally new going from bodybuilding to powerlifting. Powerlifting is new, but powerlifting is still lifting. Um, I haven't had anything where I am a total beginner. I know nothing and I need to learn from scratch. And that's why like BJJ is so fun to me. And it also was awesome because I can take that, that I, that just feeling of knowing nothing. And now when I work with somebody that is in that boat, I know what they're feeling again. I haven't felt that way since a teenager, but I now know how it feels to be new at something when you're 20, 21, you

start lifting and you know,. It's hard. Yeah. You know, it's hard. Um, uh, there's actually a video on YouTube where there's this 150 pound black belt for maybe one 60. When I was starting out, he tapped me six times in six minutes. I was like four months in, I was two 60, you know, but that was that, that point where I was just like, I got to learn this. Yeah. This is, there's something here that I need to learn how to do. Has it helped your conditioning, you think? Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah. My cardio is like, I don't get tired now.

Like I'll get tired, but it takes a lot for me to tire out when I'm rolling. I had to drop weight so I could be quicker. Like I started around. Yeah, what do you weigh now? Around 240, 245 on average. But this is like where i can move i'm flexible i have like i i'm quicker um this is the way where i can perform at and this is probably where i'm going to be staying you're lean but you're certainly not as lean as your

bodybuilding uh oh no yeah days um is it intentional you're kind of staying around this body weight feels good to have a little bit a little bit more uh body fat for uh so injury prevention and performance maybe? Injury prevention for performance. This is just like my set point. If I were to try and get leaner, I would get more tired on the mats, and I know that. I still want to keep a level of looking good, being fairly lean,

but I don't necessarily. Looking good naked. Yeah, looking good naked is important for certain reasons. I don't necessarily. Looking good naked. Yeah. Looking good naked is important for certain reasons. But I definitely am not aiming for like close to contest levels of leanness because it just doesn't aid me in my performance. I'm not really a performance athlete.

Have you gotten hurt in jujitsu? Yeah. Let me, let me, actually, you know, I have something right now. Because sometimes when you're young, like, you know, you just, not young, but like new to the sport, somebody has you in something and you're like, I don't even know. Then you're like, oh shit, that's whole, that's a whole, they got me in something. And so you might tap a little late or even as you become a little bit more knowledgeable, you kind of get stubborn and maybe don't tap on time, things like that. Nothing, nothing like that where I haven't tapped early has happened to me. Um, but I had to get my meniscus, I had to get a meniscus surgery because of just like, I've had

issues with this knee for a while and jujitsu kind of heightened that. That's when I started actually really focusing on training for flexibility and stretching and all of that. So that's happened. And just like nicks and stuff, like my, my big toe, it's like hard to put pressure on it right now because I have a, I have turf toe. This finger was sprained, so I can't pull it back totally. This finger was sprained too. So it's just like these things happen, and they recover over time. That's part of that sport. But there's definitely obviously things that can be done for injury prevention.

Your training is probably quite different all the time, but do you guys usually start standing up? It depends. So it depends on how many people are on the mat. If it's a really busy day and there are a lot of people on the mat. It's a lot more physical if you start standing up. Is that right? Yeah, because you have to go for takedowns. people. It's a lot more physical if you start standing up. Is that right?

Yeah. Cause you have to go for takedowns. You have to take the opponent down, but you also need space. So that's why it's like, if there's a lot of groups on the mat, you got to start from your knees because you don't have space to take a guy down if there's someone else rolling right there. But we'll try,

like if, if we can, we'll start from standing up because that's how competition starts. You know, you got to take your opponent down and, you know, progress on with the roll. So this says it's 150 pound versus 250 pounder.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's some no-gi jiu-jitsu. So I do no-gi and gi. I mainly train in the gi. But no-gi jiu-jitsu is actually a lot more athletic in terms of what they do because you don't have anything to grab onto. And you really just have to use your opponent's body against themselves. You know? Um, it's, it's really fun though. What was, uh, the, the, the school and the class, uh,

pretty excited to get like a bodybuilder in there. Like, Oh, we're going to make this guy look like shit here and there. I think that, um, uh, I think probably, but you know, I didn't go into the school like thinking i was i was the shit yeah i didn't walk in being like i'm a big dude i'm about to take everybody out whatever like i do anything i mean we've talked about this i just try to go in and learn because i know that you know going in there people are going to assume some things about me like they'll probably think that i think i'm you know i know or whatever, but I try to go into these

situations just like a, just an absolute student. Just like I came in here, you gave me advice. Marcus gave me advice. All these people gave me advice on things I should do. I just took it and ran with it. Even though I had a lifting experience, you knew more than me. So I listened. That's the same thing here. If a blue belt were told me something as a white belt, he's one belt above me or she's one belt above me. But they definitely know more than me, so I'm going to listen. Yeah. You know, I don't act like I'm some sort of expert in a place where I'm not.

Has your strength helped? Oh, most definitely. Yeah. I've learned that. Because they say a lot of times with jujitsu, like, you know, the size of the opponent, strength of the opponent doesn't matter. But obviously, it's going to matter, right? Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was talking to someone else about this. Strength definitely helps. And within the jujitsu community, it's kind of odd that I think because of how the martial art was built, I forgot who was the Gracie that started it. I forgot his name.

Well, there's like a Henzo Gracie and there's, there's a lot of Gracie's, but there's like the dad I forgot, but he was like really small and tiny. And the whole marketing aspect of jujitsu was he doesn't matter how strong you are, how big you are. You can all, you can, you can be the bigger person. Well, Hoyce Gracie himself, I think is six one or six two. Yeah. And he's like 200 pounds.

They actually specifically picked him to fight in the UFC because he looked scrawny. Oh, of course. They could have easily sent in some of their other killers, but the other guys had good physiques and they were strong. And they were like, no, that's not the best representation. Let's use Hoyce. And Hoyce ended up being a killer himself. I mean, he was destroying everybody because no one knew, nobody knew what the hell jujitsu

was at that point. But that's the key point right there. Nobody knew. Strength plays a role in jujitsu by far. Because if you have two black belts and they're both 180 pounds, same skill level, but one is much stronger than the other, maybe seven out of 10 matches, the one that's stronger is going to win. Maybe even more. And it's strength. The strength in that sport is something that's actually coming up more, especially you'll

see it in like the higher black belts. A lot of those men and women do a lot of strength stuff on the side now because they realize how beneficial it is going to be for their game. Um, but it's still something that's starting that a lot of athletes within that sphere are starting to take advantage of. Some people feel that, uh, more muscular athletes that they're, they're going to, the more muscular the athlete is that they're going to wear out faster than the other opponent. And, you know, Joe Rogan swears by this and, and, and we've seen it a lot. Like he, he has a good

case. I mean, we've seen it a lot, especially in the UFC, um, where the more muscular guy, uh, gives out faster. What are your thoughts on some of that? Well, uh, it, first off, I think the bigger deal depends on like how much fuel they're working with to actually perform. So if they, if they're on a diet where they're not eating a lot of food and they don't have a lot of fuel going in, then obviously they're not going to be able to expend a lot of energy. Um, and it really depends on that athlete because nowadays, I mean, I don't take any breaks in class at jujitsu like I used to, because I'm used to training. I eat a lot of food, so I handle my nutrition so I can actually perform because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to, I stay hydrated and I don't get tired easily. It's very, very difficult for me to tire out. Um, like you have

really big legs, your legs get like tired or pumped up or anything when you're training. No, no. Um, if I was tired, that might be the case. And even if like, and when I have a double day, when I go come here and train, it's probably going to be today. I'm going to go train here. I'm going to go to BJJ after, um, because I even going to be eating enough food so I can perform.

It doesn't affect me. It all depends on everything that's going around to the athlete. Generally though, Rogan's right. And you're right because this athlete has more muscle that they need to move around. It's going to take more energy to do that. But if they don't have the input for that, when it comes to all their food and hydration, sleep, of course, they're going to tire out faster. That's just a given.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that the muscle is going to require some energy, right? Yeah. It's going to take up some energy. And a lot of times guys that are more muscular, especially when it comes to UFC, some of these guys are extremely explosive. And so they're going to be utilizing tons of energy going for these takedowns. How are you able to mix powerlifting and jujitsu?

Because I've actually seen that question come up on your Instagram. Anytime I mentioned you on anything, that's what people are always asking. So how are you able to do both kind of at the same time? It's it, first off, when I, when I first started out, um, I had to taper my training a little bit. Like when I started, I was, is that something that you thought would happen or were you like, no, I got this. This is going to be no problem. I'll do both. I knew it. I knew it happened because I was like, if I'm going to, if it mattered, like I want it to get really good. So I wanted to do it two to three times a week, but I also wanted to maintain as much strength as possible. I knew there was a give and take. I couldn't just eat more food. That

would be easy. Oh, eat more food so I can do both. Yeah. I had to eat more, but I also had to cut my power lifting down to three days and train my BJJ two to three days initially, as I was getting used to it. Um, the big hurdle for newer athletes in jujitsu, like we mentioned, is breathing. Because when you're able to learn how to breathe and relax, you waste less energy on the mats and you can actually recover better from workout to workout. So for me, nowadays, I still train about three to four times a week.

And I train jujitsu about four to five days a week. Some days I'll have a double day. But because I'm more relaxed there, I can still come to the gym and still progress now. But there was an initial regression when I started jujitsu when it came to strength. Just because, you know, you're pulling, you're pushing, then you got to come to the gym and you got to do a bench press. You got to do some deadlifts and squats. There is a give and take, but it's very possible to continue gaining strength as you're rolling.

It just really depends on how much time are you willing to put into on the mats? How much time are you willing to put into the gym? How much time do you really have? Right. Yeah. And you have to prioritize your goal. Your goal right now is to, uh, is a little bit more jujitsu oriented, right? So that's going to be the focus, the power lifting stuff.

Um, you might lift 5% less, 10% less. You're not really that concerned about it. You want to try to maintain strength and maybe even, um, you know, you lost some weight and stuff like that as well. And now you're probably at a point where you're like, okay, it'd be nice to see if I can kind of gain a little bit of strength back as I'm doing my jujitsu as the skills get better of no reason why I can't get stronger, uh, simultaneously. Right. Exactly. Um, I had set when I started ju? Exactly. I had set, when I started Jiu-Jitsu, I had set minimums for where I wanted my strength to regress to.

So I wasn't just going to be like, okay, I don't care how weak I get. I was like, I still need to be able to deadlift 700 on any given day. I still need to be able to squat 500 to 520 on any given day. And I still need to be able to bench 350. Those are my minimums I'm going to allow my strength to get to. Could I even, I mean, I could let them get lower and still be as strong as more, more than necessarily strong on the mats, but that's what I wanted to keep in terms of my strength. Right. So that's what I focused on. I wouldn't let my strength get anywhere below that.

And it didn't. Um, I can still bench around 360 right now. I can still squat mid fives. I can still deadlift seven. Um, and that's without, you know, having to peak and train for that while still doing jujitsu. Right. That was my goal. Um, and now ideally I do want to try and slowly inch my way up in strength and it's going to be a lot slower because of all the BJJ stuff, because I'm now used to, I'm very used to regulating energy on the mats and I know how to progress in the gym. I think it's interesting because, uh, what could happen is if you shifted too much towards jujitsu, your strength would no longer be your strength. You would just be another guy rolling around on the mat.

I mean, even though you're stronger than those guys and, uh, you know, it'd probably take a long time for you to lose a muscle mass and lose the strength and muscle memory and stuff like that. long time for you to lose a muscle mass or lose the strength and muscle memory and stuff like that. But, you know, in, uh, it would kind of, uh, your strength would, would start to get weaker and weaker and start to dissipate. And you would lose some of the reason why you're good at jujitsu in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, nowadays, like I still inherently when I'm rolling with someone, I'm going to be strong, but I'm not trying to like force everything like I used to when I was a white, but I'm trying to really work technique and make sure because my strength's

going to be there. Everyone's like, dude, your strength's going to be there. If you can nail down this technique, when you actually need to explode with something, you've got the power to just, just explode. Um, but, uh, you know, something really cool, which is why I think all jujitsu athletes need to strength train. Uh, I was on another podcast a while ago, and this woman, her name was Katie. She was talking about how she was training jujitsu and she never did strength training. And then when she started lifting, after a few months, she was like, why am I smashing these people so hard? And everybody else was like, Katie, stop, you're smashing. But she was like, the strength from lifting helped me out so much with just my, my power output when it comes to

jujitsu. And this is like 140 pound woman. And it just shows like, as an athlete, as like, you can't just, you know, you can't just roll around. I mean, it's cool. Yeah. You can gain amazing technique, but once you meet someone that's far stronger than you, um, and that can just ragdoll you with your level of technique, you will bite the dust, you know? So it's, it's, it's really important. Does it get pretty intense? Uh, you know, like I, I know you guys are training and you're trying to, you know, get someone to leg lock, arm lock or, but does it ever get kind of heated? Um, heated in a good way. You know, I, I think I'm very fortunate to be training at Casio School because I walked in and I could already tell that everyone's there to train, but no one's there to, it's not a, no one's trying to hurt you. Right.

You know, you go to other schools, you will see that there is an air of, I see that guy. Yeah. I'm going to get him. No matter what, I'm going to get that guy. People have that. They're like, they're out for certain people. They want to prove that they're the best in the room. It's like Cobra Kai.

It really is, dude. No, it really is. But at Casio school, yeah, it gets heated, especially when you're trying to submit your opponent and they're trying to submit you. But no one in there is trying to assert their dominance on another individual. It's really cool the type of culture

he's been able to build there when it comes to learning jujitsu. That's the goal. The goal isn't necessarily just to become the best so you could beat everybody. The goal is to become very good at jujitsu. Um, and everybody there is really down for that. Even the upper black belts, they, yeah, they still want to beat you, but they're going to tell you why they did. They're going to be cool about it and tell you why they beat you. You know what I mean? Um, so yeah, there's a lot of little shit in jiu-jitsu that people don't realize.

When you're watching UFC or you see a jiu-jitsu tournament, the elbows and the knees and putting your knee in someone's stomach or putting your knee on someone's inner thigh and stuff, these are all techniques to advance your position. A lot of people have used it too for collegiate style wrestling.

They do all kinds of things, even sticking their fingers over the guy's butt and all kinds of weird, crazy things. They'll do anything to get position, you know? Yeah.

Was that something that was pretty new to you? And was that a reason why breathing was so hard in the beginning? Yeah. I never, I wasn't a wrestler. I didn't grapple, you know?

So having someone, you know, put their knee on my belly and I'm just sitting there like, oh God. You're like that. It hurts. It just sitting there like, Oh God, you're like that hurt. Like it hurts. It almost feels like a kind of pain that you're like, I don't think I'll ever get used to that. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, like just, just again, being in those positions where you are at another individual's mercy and you realize after bucking around like a, you know, like a, like a horse that there's nothing you can do about it. Um, it, it, it's crazy. Cause I've never been in those types of situations. Um, and also like, it hurts so bad. It makes you squirm and then you're in a bad position and they put you in something else. Yeah. You just continue to get into a worse and worse position. And it's like, they're just, they're just sitting there

watching it all happen. And you're just, you can't do anything about it. Um, it's crazy. And like, like I was, I was saying this too, um, getting like getting choked out or being in situations where you, you could die. You're not going to die. You know, it's like not going to choke you out till you die, but being in situations where you could die on a daily basis. It's, there's something there that I don't know. There's something special about it, you know, where someone could break your arm or someone could choke you out and, you know, you could just die. It does something to you, you know what I mean, as a person. And like, yeah, it's really cool. No, I think, you know, danger is a big factor, you know, even with the lifting that we do. factor, you know, even with, even with the lifting that we do. Recently, recently I saw a paper pop up about how heavy lifting is almost in some way related to the same response in the brain. They got to do more studies on this to like opioids. And I found that to be fascinating. Then I heard

just the other day, somebody said, and again, I'm not giving out prescriptions, but there's gotta be more information about all this stuff. But somebody said they helped cure their own bipolar disorder with the carnivore diet. And it's just like, holy shit. But it really makes a lot of sense that the physical activity that we do and the foods that we ingest can have a huge impact on our lives. And what you're talking about, getting yourself in these dangerous compromising positions, I think for some weird reason, when it comes to power lifting, there's something in all of us that was always there that is drawn to this level of like compression, getting a lot of air in your system and just holding it in and

building up a lot of pressure in the system, that's like a thing. I don't know what the fuck it is, but it's definitely like a thing. And you go and you do something and you almost close your eyes, almost pass out from it. And then you do it and you're like, oh man, I'm better off for doing that. It seems so dumb in some ways, but I think people get similar rushes from a lot of different things, climbing rocks and different things like that. But the pressure that we get in the gym and the pressure that you get from jujitsu, from somebody, uh, putting all their weight on your stomach, from somebody choking you out

from being in the bottom of a heavy squat. Um, there, there's not a lot of other places in the world where you can find those same sensations. We had somebody on the podcast a long time ago who mentioned they liked scuba diving for that reason. When they went down or snorkeling, you know, because they would go down without the scuba gear and had to hold their breath on their own. They said they fucking loved it. And I was like, maybe that's why I like powerlifting. I never even thought about it.

But are we just crazy or what? No. what the hell's going on with us over here? You know, I've been trying to figure out a reason why like we're drawn to that because you, you imagine you've, you've had a thousand pounds on your back before, you know, there's, there's something crazy. Like when you, you go into that bar and you know that this could crush me if one wrong step and this could crush me there's something there you know as an athlete too that you know you just want to challenge it and you want to win yeah you know same same thing with like bjj like i said you know especially what's amazing is like getting in a position where you think you're gonna you know you're getting choked out and you're you're going out but then you figure out something and then you're just like pop you get

out of it it's it's something liberating there where you're just like, I just cheated death. And you know you're not going to die. Yes, I get it. But it's just, I haven't had anything like that with any other sport I've did. Like powerlifting was close, like having heavy weight on my back.

Yeah. But it's what, getting choked out isn't what makes me keep coming back. That just sounds kind of weird. But the challenge't what makes me keep coming back. That's just sounds kind of weird, but the challenge of it makes me keep going back. Yeah. And, and you know,

with, uh, with lifting a lot of times when you pick up a heavy weight and you don't have any balance, you're like, I, not only, not only was this really heavy to pick up and does this feel just

absolutely terrible, but I don't even have any balance. I'm shaking all over the place. Then you're like, well, I'm just going to see how it goes. And there you go. You hold your breath and you kind of, uh, you kind of hope for the best, but yeah, you, I mean, I fell with 1,085, took a big ass spill with that weight. And I've seen other lifters, um, come back from dumping weights

and meets and then they come back and they hit the next squat. What is, what is something that, what, like, what is something that compels you to, you get choked out by somebody kind of repeatedly? Like, man, this guy, I don't know what it is about this guy, but this guy's got my number and you're kind of frustrated and the guy keeps kicking your ass. But what is something that compels you to keep going back to that same guy? Um, the fact that they can, they continue to beat me. Uh, like. Cause like, if you thought about it, like for a street fight, right? keep going back to that same guy? The fact that they continue to beat me. Because if you thought about it,

like for a street fight, right? That would be insane. Like you met some guy on the street and something got heated and he kicked your ass. And you're like, hey man, I'm going to come back tomorrow and we're going to fight again. I'm going to say thank you for that. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah. It sounds like absurd, right? Yeah, it does. But it's that whole idea of progression. You know, if this person's continuing to just beat you and beat you and beat you, they know certain things that you don't. And like, I've had situations like that from a white belt where I was continuing to get beat by a certain individual, and then I tap them once, and I tap them twice, and then they don't tap me anymore. And now, now we're, now we're actually, we're actually having a match here. Um, that's just natural progression. And it's just like, like I, I'm, I was, I'm trying to figure out like, yeah, you could do that with boxing, except like, you know, getting punched is a little bit more different than getting choked. But with this, it's, it's obviously non-impact. So yeah, you're in danger, but it's a danger that you can continue to look in the eye day after day, you know, and, and sooner or later, you know, you, you beat that

person, you're like, dang, you know, like Casio, I wasn't expecting to, to, to even like, he was, he was getting me, but I was able to escape from certain positions. And when I escaped, I was like, oh snap, I escaped Casio Wernnex armbar. That's insane. But before, when he used to roll with me in the past, first off, I knew he was going easy on me. And he would just get these things like clockwork. And now it's harder. He'll tap me, but I can see it's a little bit harder for him to tap me. So I know that I'm progressing.

I know I'm becoming a better athlete. I'm becoming a better martial artist. But if that scared me, I wouldn't progress. I have to continue to tackle that danger every single day. Yeah. It's interesting, yeah, because, you know, the guy is like, you know, physically kicking your ass. But then, yeah, you want to progress. You want to continue to get better.

Has there been some people in the class that are completely unassuming and they've tapped you out like especially in the beginning like some 80 year old dude or somebody who's just like really tiny or just you're just like there's you're just like this there's no way this guy's gonna get me and sure enough he demoralizes your ass no there's this he actually teaches casio school in roseville his name's darren figgins he's like this he's like this 58 60old white guy. Computer programmer or some shit. Honestly, he just has a beard and some gray and black hair, and he'll just walk like this. Dude, could you imagine, though? Could you imagine you get into a fight with that guy?

You know what I mean? You're like, fuck you. And you look at him, and you're like, okay, yeah, we're going. And he just jumps on your back and chokes you out. Seriously, yeah. Makes you look like a bitch. Uh-huh. No, he's tapped me out before, too.

And I was like, what? This isn't okay. This isn't right. I can't be. This is embarrassing. Look at me. Look at you. But that's the thing.

At the end of the day, it comes down to knowing what you're doing, having good technique, being strong is a plus. But technique, I'd say, is more important than strength. Although strength is going to definitely just increase your athletic prowess in the sport. Yeah. Well, uh, you know, uh, also to the, um, yeah, it's Darren. That's crazy. You found it. That's Darren Figgins right there. Oh man. Yeah. Um, when it comes to, uh, powerlifting, you've, um, you're a little different than everybody. You know, I've seen, uh, you kind of go off on your own. Um, there's times where I look at you and I'm just like, the fuck is that guy doing?

You're just sitting there and just fucking staring off. Or sometimes your eyes are even closed. Uh, but meanwhile, you know, 750 pounds is loaded on the bar. The fuck are you doing? Yeah. So at that time, like, I'm, I'm not thinking about anything. Uh, you know, whenever I train, I try to like, and you, you were one of the big reasons that I do this. Like I try to make every

single rep replicatable so that I don't have to think if I don't have to think, then it becomes second nature. And if it's second nature, then I know I can approach any single weight, do the same thing. And no matter what, it's going to move. So I've kind of had that, like before I get in front of or under a really, really heavy load, I'll relax. Um, it's going to move. So I've kind of had that, like before I get in front of, or under a really, really heavy load, I'll relax. It's kind of opposite to a lot of people that'll tense up and get really tight.

I'll just try to relax and clear everything and just think about just darkness. Just nothing. And then I'll open my eyes, and you've seen this, I'll open my eyes, go to the bar, rip it off, put it down, go. That's what I try to do.

Even before jujitsu matches, like at tournaments, I'll just sit there with my eyes closed. People think I'm weird or whatever. I'll just sit there and I'll just think of nothing. I'll go in. And oddly enough, when I do jujitsu, I don't think. You know, same thing with lifting. When I'm lifting weight, I try not to think and I let all my cues become second nature. It's just something that's helped me out a lot as an athlete, even when I played soccer. And it's actually, looking back at it, it's just something that's helped me out a lot as an athlete, even when I played soccer. And actually, looking back at it, it's because of what my soccer coach, I had him for like four or five years.

He would have us sit in the field in the circle as a team, and he would have us visualize what we were doing on the field. So we'd close our eyes, and he'd be like, you know, in SEMA, you're going to be passing the ball to Conte in midfield. Conte, you're going to pass it to back to Mills. He'd just describe things and we'd sit there and we'd think, we'd just meditate. And from there, that's when all these things, I started doing that as an athlete and it's helped me out a lot. Yeah. Was your soccer coach in some way like a mentor to you? Oh, he was.

Marcos Mercado was awesome. I think he coaches soccer over at ARC right now, but his mental aspect and his mental outlook on the sport is what just changed the way I look at, you know, sport as an athlete. Like outside of lifting, you know, before I'd come here, sometimes I'd visualize weights before I'd hit them on a heavy day. Like I'd spend substantial time. It's a mistake a lot of people are making. Sometimes they're not realizing, hey, you know what coach said in soccer? Oh my God, that can apply to anything else. You know what I mean?

I can, I can apply to everything that I do. Yeah. A lot of times people aren't thinking that way. No, you're totally right. Like I'll, I'll, I'll visualize when I'm like, if I want to have the goal of pulling seven 50 or whatever, like that beat, I pulled seven 55. Um, my goal was to try and. That was absolutely ridiculous too. I was like, he just pulled it. Um, my goal was to try and that was absolutely ridiculous too. I was like, he just pulled it. So it was so effortless. Yeah. But before that meet, I had,

I have an app on my phone that lets me look at like what weights look like when it's calibrated. And I saw what 755 looked like. And before that I would just day by day, just think about pulling 755. Yeah. So when you look at those weights, you're not like, it's not anything new, you know, it's not anything new. And, and that's, that's huge to me. That aspect of sport is, it's absolutely massive.

It makes a big difference. Do you meditate? Yeah. Meditate every morning for about 20 minutes. I'll try to meditate another time. Where'd you get that from? Is that, is that mainly from the soccer coach or?

That was from there, but actually I heard it in a Tim Ferriss podcast. Like I heard about, I heard about transcendental meditation and then I I looked it up, and it's simple. It's not as hard as some people make it be. I just sit there for 20 minutes, and I just focus on my breathing. My thoughts will go other places, but I'll just bring my thoughts back to my breathing and just there. You get an opportunity to do it every day?

Yeah, usually. If I can't do it for 20 minutes, I'll try to do it for maybe 5 or 10. This morning I was only able to do it for about 15. But typically I'll just try to sit there for about 20 minutes. And the main, when I started actually doing meditation more, was when I was in the deepest parts of my bodybuilding prep because I was just so brain fogged because I wasn't eating a lot of food. And brain fog is something that does happen when you get really lean and diet,

but you just can't think clearly. And that would actually help me focus. I was able to, when I had work or whatever, I could actually focus on a single task in a much easier fashion. And it helps me now too, with a lot of the things I do, I can actually focus on that task without getting pulled from side to side by other thoughts. When you meditate, do you listen to anything? Any music or anything just complete silent? Yeah. Even if it's like stuff going on in the background or you know people saying stuff or whatever i can still focus on the breath i think that's like ideally you you want that because even if things are going on around you you want to be

able to focus on whatever task you have at hand right you have a heavy lift and everyone's doing something around you you want to be able to focus on that one thing i think that's the big way it's helped me out it's given me a better ability to focus on tasks how thing. I think that's the big way it's helped me out. It's given me a better ability to focus on tasks. How do you deflect like just thinking about, oh man, I got this to do later today. How do you, like that'll happen, right? You sit down and start thinking and you think of like 87 things that you're supposed to do later in the week. I journal stuff. So in the morning I'll, I have a, I have a journal that I use, which I just brain dump a lot of stuff. Like all the things that I may have to do or things that's on my mind or whatever, I'll just, I'll write it all down so that I'll have a clear vision of what needs to go on.

Maybe things I need to get done, random other things. And yeah, I'll still have those thoughts, but it's not nearly as often since I've started journaling things because everything's on a page. Then there's not as much to think about for me. Right. So you'll, you'll, you'll keep track of some of your thoughts. And because of that,

there's, there's not as much stuff flowing through your head. Because there's a lot of stuff flowing through here. And if I don't get it on paper, then I'm be, I'm be super distracted because now I'll forget certain things. And it's just, just a lot of jumble.

Sometimes I have people on the podcast and then I get this question later on and people will be like, the guy like works out, does jujitsu, but then does he have a job? So what, so what's, what's he doing for money besides, uh, selling your ass on the streets out here in West Sacramento? Selling, selling that booty. Yeah, no, there's quite a few people out here that, no, I'm not going to take that any farther than you took it. No, I coach athletes. So I work with like powerlifters, bodybuilders. And recently I've been working with a few athletes that do jujitsu when it comes to strength training. Oh, cool. I do their programming and nutrition.

That's all I do, online working or online coaching as people call it now. Yeah. Do you get an opportunity to work with people in person as well? Or mainly it's just, uh, through email correspondence, phone calls, text messages. I have one guy that actually comes in. He he's, he started training. His name is Marcel. Um, I haven't, I used to train people in person. Personal training was, was my job before online coaching my, on my online business got bigger. Um, and the, the main issue with that I had with that at that time was that, you know, either people would text me right before and wouldn't show up or, um, it was just. Personal training can be very tough.

It can be. And I wasn't the type of person, like I knew that there was an opportunity in like group training. Um, but at that time I didn't, I wasn't someone who could just focus on a bunch of people at once. Um, so. You're pretty calm too. And a lot of times people that succeed in, in a group training setting, a lot of times they're, they're cheering for the guy. Rah, rah. Yeah. I can't really picture you doing a ton of that. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm when I, when I was personal training, that's when I also started working with a few people online and the way I

built that was just, I had just like, you know, I've had a few friends and I was like, yo, let me, let me do your programming. We do your stuff and. Let me just do it for free. And let me handle all that for you. And they're like, okay, cool. Cause I wanted to test the waters and see what I could do. What kind of things weren't going to be possible. What kind of things I had to, you know, things I didn't think I'd deal with that I'd have to deal with. So before I ever started charging anybody for coaching, I did it for free for like a few months, quite a few months before I was like, okay, this is going to work. Then I started actually working with people and marketing that as something that I do. You mentioned when you were young that you had a lot of energy, but you also mentioned something about depression.

Yeah. Has that come and gone over the years or pretty much doesn't hit you anymore or what's the deal with it? I think, I don't think necessarily that I, like when I was young, that slump was a depressed state. I wasn't. How old were you? I was like 12, 12 and a half. Cause that's why I got injured.

Cause I wasn't able to do anything. I was just like, I was sad all the time. I started eating a lot, um, more than I needed to. Uh, I started not wanting to hang out with people as much. Even my best friend, Brian, um, I wouldn't talk to him at all. I was just like. This is where it's so important to have parents, you know, that care. Yeah.

You know, it really is because you should be able to recognize that kind of stuff in your kid. You know, maybe you won't recognize something happens on one day or two days or whatever. But if something's kind of reoccurring, that's when you're like, hmm, something's going on with this guy. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. No, just focus wasn't where it needed to be anymore. Even school, everything was just down until I was able to start doing something again. Nowadays, I'll still have times where I feel like I'm in a slump, right? Like a week where I'm just feeling low energy.

Isn't that weird? What is some of that? I can't say. Because other days, you have a day where you get in you get in your car and your favorite song is on and like. Just go. Everything just worked out. Like you feel great. You're all fired up.

You're super motivated to train. You're excited to see your friends. You're excited about, like, you're just excited about everything. Everything is heading in the right direction. Yeah. You're super. Then there's the other days that are a complete opposite of that. Yeah. You just feel like you're in a slump. And it's the other days that are a complete opposite of that. Yeah.

You just feel like you're in a slump. And it happens, but I wouldn't call that depression. I would like, I'll call that a slump. One thing that, and it's one of those corny developed book books, but I think it was, it was something that helped me out a lot and that I found was really awesome. It was a book by Mel Robbins called The Five Second Rule. I don't know if you've heard of it. I know who she is.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've contacted her for to have her on their podcast. We'll get her, we'll get her on the show at some point. I would love to listen to that show because like, after I listened to that, I'm like, a lot of this makes a lot of sense. It sounds kind of corny, you know, count down in your head and just start moving. Yeah. The five second rule. Yeah. But as I started to do that more and more, even on those times where I'd have a slump and I would like, I'd open my eyes in the morning, I'd count down for five seconds. I'd just be, I'd just like, before I just like get out of bed and go and my day would just be so much better. Cause I, I would just decisions that I would take a long time to make. I think about it. I'd just count. I'd just

go. It made such a big difference. If it was a, if it's applied, it made a big difference. If not applied, then of course there's nothing, nothing made a big difference. If not applied, then of course there's nothing, nothing's going to work. Right. But for me, when I was in those situations where motivation isn't high, where I don't want to do something, where I'm not feeling it, that is something that helps me to just go, just get it done. Even when I'm not feeling like I want to do it at that moment in time. When we're in fitness, I think that people don't understand how complicated it can be for us at some, at times. I mean, we're very privileged. We have privileged lives. I mean, to sit here and be able to podcast for two hours and then I have to do some real work and you're able to program for

people kind of on your own time and you're able to pursue jujitsu and pursue powerlifting and stuff. But there's some things that get a little complicated during the day where, I mean, it could be the smallest thing like, oh, I want to eat this, but it's going to, you're thinking about what you're going to eat. You're thinking about how it lines up with your goals. You start getting all stressed out about it. But if, if again, if you just take a second to yourself and think about how does this help?

How does this hurt? What am I doing? Then you can reposition yourself and you about how does this help? How does this hurt? What am I doing? Then you can reposition yourself and you can start heading in the right direction. And I think that five second rule, it really does work. And try that, try that out with emails,

try it out with text. You get a text from somebody that's inflammatory or an email, someone that's inflammatory. Let it, let, you know, not five seconds, let it sit for 24 hours

or so. Yeah. So you can make a, cause you can't really, I guess what we've been talking about the entire time, uh, through talking about meditation and through talking about getting psyched up for lift is, uh, not letting your emotions get the worst of you, right? Like people say the best of you. I say the worst of you because sometimes, uh sometimes it can lead you down a road that's not great. And if you send me a text and it comes at me kind of sideways and I'm like, what's this about? And I just text you back, F you, da, da, da, da, da. Then where are we at now? Like what happened?

I can look at it and I can say, you know what, I'm going to let that sit. And then maybe later tonight I'll read it and be like, oh, he's probably upset. Cause I said this on the podcast. Maybe, maybe I said something that upset him. I'm going to give him a call. Yeah. What a huge difference that is rather than us having this miscommunication. And then we got to set up a wrestling match here at super training gym. Yeah. Which I would win by the way. Cause I would cheat. I would hit him with a chair and his jujitsu wouldn't matter as much. And I'd be the ref. I'd be super lopsided.

It really wouldn't. Foreign, foreign objects. Uh, I had a brother, uh, who, uh,

suffered from bipolar. So anytime we get to talk about, uh, mental disorders and stuff like that, I, I hate talking about it, but I like talking about it, like sharing it with people,

uh, to get the message out there that we all deal with, that we all have family members that have issues. You have a family member that had mental disorder as well? Yeah. Yeah. My older sister, bless her heart. She's awesome by the way. My older sister's great. But yeah, so she has schizophrenia and- What is that? It's a mental disorder where it ranges with individuals so um some people may have times where they see things some people may have times where they hear things in their head um voices telling them to do things etc uh and um it's it's it's you know it's different from person to person

my sister was like brilliant she was super smart um like i think she's six years older than me so she went to davis she's going to davis for law she was doing really really well like she was uh like she did this mock trial and one of the judges there's actual judges like this woman is going to be an amazing judge if she when she gets older so she everything was like she everything was lined up for her um and she's actually part of the reason that when I was growing up, I kind of tried to stay on a certain road because I was just like, shoot, well, my mom has this, right? I can't be this failure of a kid. Yeah, you can't cause more stress for your mom. Exactly.

I think I was in the same position, yeah. Yeah, my mom was doing everything. So I was like, I got to follow in her footsteps. And then it kind of just happened. doing everything. So I was like, I gotta, I gotta follow in her footsteps. And then it,

it kind of just, it happened. Um, the schizophrenia is something that typically is seen to happen when individuals are like they're later and like a later stage brain development. So like maybe 2021, 22,

it tends to onset if it's going to happen. Um, and then happened, I think when she was 21, you probably don't really know the reason why it happens. A hundred percent. Yeah. Typically it's a very high stress situation happens.

The switch is flipped. Yeah. And that's what happened. Um, and yeah, like the things were, things were just different from there. Like she, she's not in school now, but she's like, we're helping her all we can. Um, she's, she's better. Like she's getting better. She's still heat.

Like she still hears things, but, um. But she, I mean, she knows she has it. She, she's better. Like she's getting better. She's still heat. Like she still hears things, but, um, but she, I mean, she knows she has it. She knows she has it. She knows she has it. And she's,

she's doing all she can to, to control and to deal with it. Um, uh, what are things that they do for people like that? Like, is it, is it a medication type thing?

Is it a, you got to go to like a therapist or a combination? All of that type of stuff. Honestly, like they'll, they'll have a therapy sessions. They have all types of medication, um, medication for that. It's so hit and miss for the individual because they'll try something. Okay. This doesn't work. Let's try this one.

Uh, this kind of works. Oh, it doesn't work anymore. Let's try this one. And then the side effects of all these medications are just the worst. Like my sister, she's back down in weight now. She's been exercising. But one of those medications made her so tired and so hungry all the time that she got up to about 290, 300 pounds. Right.

And before that, by the way, she was like maybe 160. Right. Right. Because of that. And then some made her sleep like all day long. Like she just couldn't do anything. Some put her in like almost not a comatose state, but she would just be like in a, in a, just a, her head wasn't right the whole day. It's just, it's, but now she, she's doing a lot better.

She's lost a lot of weight. She's walking a lot. She's, she's taking control more of the situation, even though she knows what a lot better. She's lost a lot of weight. She's walking a lot. She's, she's taking control more of the situation. Um, even though she knows what's going on, it's, it's still something that bothers her a lot and she'll still hear things a lot. Um,

even my own voice sometimes, like she'll hear that, but she's, she's doing much better to control it. That's cool. Um, which is, yeah,

which, which is great because it's, it's been a, it's been a, it's been a struggle for her over the years, but she's doing better. Yeah. It's tough to have, which is, yeah, which, which is great because it's, it's been, uh, it's been a, it's been a struggle for her over the years, but she's doing better. Yeah. It's tough to have stuff like that in your family, but you know, the thing is, is, uh, you know, family needs to come together and, uh, it's hard to be understanding of stuff

like that. You know, it's one of those things where it's like, uh, sometimes you can get, people don't realize this, but it sounds insensitive to say, but you can be really frustrated with it. Like, why are you acting that way? And it's like, well, I have, I have a real disorder. I have a disease. And I think that sometimes we don't place that kind of strength on it and we don't realize that it's truly a disease. Yeah. No, um, definitely when I was, when I was younger and it happened, um, I was very, I was much more immature about it than I am now. Yeah.

Because I was like 17. You're like, that sounds fake. That's what a lot of people think, right? Oh, you get over it. No, she'd sometimes say things, outrageous things and outrageous claims about some like family and stuff. And I'd just be like, how could you do this? How could you do that? I can't believe this.

I'd be mad. But as time went by, like, and I just realized more and more about it. I like, I just couldn't blame her for anything. And my mom, my mom is again, I keep mentioning her, but she's amazing because from the beginning, it's like, she just was understanding of it. Like she would never anything that my sister may have said against her or anything that happened. She would never take things personally and she would do everything within her power. I guess it's just because you have to take care of your kid to take care of her kid. Right. Um, you know, a lot of people with that have relatives or children in this situation, just put them in a home and go about their

business. Right. They just leave them. You know, that's why you see so many people with mental disorders that are just poor and living on the street because their family has given up on them. And my mom and myself. Yeah. Every single person you see on the street has family. They do have family. They came from somewhere. Yeah.

But they've given up on them. And my mom has just been determined not to let that happen. She's always been in my sister's corner. I'm always going to be in my sister's corner. And it's just amazing what she's, she's always been in my sister's corner. I'm always, I'm going to be in my sister's corner. And it's just, uh, it's just amazing what she's, she's just done like through all of her life. My mom and my sister herself. How old is she? Uh, she's my mom or my sister, your sister 30. Oh, okay. Yeah. She's 30. How were you able to grow up without a dad? That's a very tough thing. You said your dad left at a left at a young age, right? Yeah, man.

So, yeah, two months after I was born, he left. And then he came back when I was like five or six. We did a little bit of visitation. I actually had to tell him to just leave again because a lot of times when we would like, he would have visitation. He would take me to go with him on weekends. He would make fun of my mom a lot and just say a lot of messed up stuff about her. And when I was a teenager, I'm like, yo, either you stop doing this or you're not going to see me again.

And then he made this sly remark about my mom's height and whatever. And I was like, cool. So I went back home that weekend, talked to my mom. I was like, we need to call somebody because I don't want to see him anymore. I talked to them. We thought about it. But again, then like I just like he just decided, okay, we're not going to see each other then. So I didn't see him since I was like 13.

Oddly enough, I saw him once like in an airport when I was 20. What was that? What kind of weird? It was weird. He sent me a text saying, yo, I'm at Sac Airport if you want to see me. I was like, whoa, it's been seven years, but okay. So then I went and I saw him. But growing up without him, I just, again, it's a testament to how good of a mother my mom was.

First off, she kept me busy. I never felt that I lacked anything, even though there wasn't a father figure in the house. She did a good job of putting me in a lot of situations with a lot of different people. Like I had coaches and my soccer coach, basketball coach, um, had all these people that were able to, you know, input wisdom into my life that just wasn't just only coming from her. And then I was just able to see how hard she worked because like quite literally, I don't think she's been on a vacation. Just period. Period. No, seriously. And that's not a joke. She's never like gone, you know, to like Maui or just done something for herself because of just all the time she spent raising her kids. And

that's why like, I just knew I lacked nothing, you know? Um, I, I don't, you know, I, and I, at the same, at the same token, I don't hold any resentment for my dad. Um, you know, there's still love in my heart for him because that's my, that's my father. Right. You know, even though he wasn't there, right. Um, if he ever, you know, if we are ever to talk or anything, I wouldn't bring up the past. I just want to see how he's doing and move forward with him.

Because again, that's just my dad. How are you able to do that? Are you a religious, spiritual in some way? I'm Christian, which I think honestly has helped me morally. Help hold things together. Help hold things together for me, yes. But it was also my mom because, dude, even though my dad. Well, it doesn't do you any good to hold out that resentment.

As hard as it is. Yeah. When I was younger, I did. Like when I was like 13, 14, 15. So you spent a lot of time being angry. Yeah. Yeah. When I was younger.

But the thing is, I saw how not angry my mom was. She had all the reason to be mad. You know what I mean? But she never, even though he would say so many bad things about her, not a bad word has ever been uttered out of her mouth about him. Wow. You know, who left her with like two kids. Talk about being strong. Right?

Yeah. So that's why I was like. That's incredible. You know, if he's put her through all this and she's just cool with it, she deals with it, you know, she still says good things about him. There's no reason that I need to resent this man for anything. If anything, I should be like, if, if, if like, yeah, as ever I meet him again, which I probably will not going to hold it against

him. You know, it's just, it's just, we're just going to move forward. You never had a conversation with him? Like, I have like, Hey, like where the hell have you been? No, no, I have. He's in Nigeria right now with, with family there. And he, I've talked to him on WhatsApp before that, that because WhatsApp, so he can use that over there. And I've talked to him on WhatsApp before, that message app, because WhatsApp, so he can use that over there.

So yeah, I've done that. But again, it's like, there's no hate for him in my heart. Like I know what he did and it's a great example for what I'm not going to do. But at the same time, like even when I say it,

it still surprised me sometimes that I really don't hate the dude. Yeah. Like I don't. And I dude. Yeah. I don't. And I could easily, but I don't. Yeah. Yeah. C.T. Fletcher, growing up with his dad was abusive.

He's in a quite different situation. He spent many, many years waiting for his dad to apologize. And C.T. had all these different things happen over and over again. His dad was really sick. C.T. got really, you know, all these different things have happened. Yeah. CT finally went to him and, and, and, and CT just said, you know what, I'm just going to go the complete opposite. So he went to his dad and he apologized. He said, dad, I just want to apologize for having so much hate in my heart for you for so long. And hugged and that was it and he's like he's like man he's like i wish i would have done that 50 years ago you know 30 years ago because maybe i wouldn't

be getting a heart transplant yeah you know he just had all that weight on him all those years all that hatred and um it doesn't really matter the situation, how, how bad it is, uh, the severity of it, but you got to try to let some shit go. Yeah. Seriously. Um,

I, I think that situation, I don't really, I don't hold things against people anymore. Like even, even situations where I've had bad situations with individuals. Um, it's just like,

I just moved past it, you know? Um, I think that that's helped out a lot. Otherwise you're just like everybody else. You're just stuck. Yeah. Yeah.

You're literally just stuck on all these different points that you've been stuck and hung up on forever. Yeah. That's like, I think that's, it's pretty huge that, you know, we have control of so many things. And the big thing that we have control about is ourselves and the way we look at certain situations um it's been really important for me to be able to can like if if i ever get in a bad situation with somebody to be able to control myself and how i act towards them um so even if i feel a certain way i don't i don't like let them see that from me right um you know because that that can you know like let's say we get not everybody's deserving of seeing all that. Right. Yeah. And it takes a lot of energy too. But I'm not saying I'm perfect that there have been times that I've never been angry or whatever.

But I think just by understanding that I do control, I can control my emotions. And even if someone ticks me off, I can control that type of thing. I think it's just that understanding has just made me that much better with being able to deal with people. What are you passionate about? Um, obviously fitness, well, jujitsu, but a big thing is for me is just controlling, like control of the self. I really, um, it really interests me being able to help people become better people. You know what I mean? Through fitness and that stuff, that helps them too. But being like we were talking about, being mindful of your emotions, using tactics to be able to learn how to just grow

when it comes to the way you deal with other people, yourself. That's really interesting to me because it's helped me. I'm so much different of a person right now than, I know it's not saying much, but I'm like 20 years old. 20 to 25. 20-year-old in SEMA is much different than 25-year-old SEMA. It's been five years. But I wouldn't have thought that I'd be who I am and act the way I am right now. I wouldn't have thought that.

But that's why I'm so curious to see what 25- and 30 olds seem up with it and what the difference is going to be between. Um, yeah. No, it's fun to share with people, you know, like, uh, like basically you feel great. You feel great about powerlifting, bodybuilding, jujitsu, uh, your nutrition and you want other people to feel it too. Yeah. It's like that simple. Like you're, you're like, wow, these things have made me feel great. I'd love to share that people, you know, sometimes we'll, I'll hop on my Instagram and be like, shut the hell up about the war on carbs or shut the hell

up about this or that. And, uh, again, that's all I'm trying to do. I feel excited about it. I'm enthusiastic about it. Uh, a lot of these things have helped me and I'm like, wow, this would be cool to have other people feel the same way that I do. Part of the reason why the gym's free. Yeah. Like I've, I've loved powerlifting. I've always known that it was going to turn into a bigger thing. I still think it has potential to be bigger than it is, but I've always known that it was cool. And I always was like, I just want to figure out ways of showing people how cool it is. I want to figure out ways of showing people how cool and how intellectual and how brilliant a lot of the people that I know are. And that's the point of the Power Project is to showcase people, shed light on people and show people Stan Efferding is not just some world record breaking monster. He's brilliant.

He's a genius. You know, a lot of these people are special people, and you sharing your story today was awesome. I didn't know a lot of those things about you. I knew some of the stuff, but it was an incredible story, and so I really appreciate you sharing that with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's been awesome.

Where can people find you at? Obviously, Instagram and YouTube, at the Natty Professor. How did the name pop up? Was I just thrown in everybody's face? Yeah. It's like, if you have Natty in your name, you're not Natty. It's just so funny. But I was sitting on a couch about four years ago and we were trying to think of Instagram names. Cause I was like, let's make a fitness Instagram. And then we thought of the Nutty Professor.

And we were like, ooh, the Natty Professor sounds cool. I'm Natty. Yeah, cool. Never realized that name would piss so many people off. But, yeah, that's how it came up. That's how it came up. What about the centaur? Oh, the centaur.

Yo, yeah. In my first show, this dude was like, dude, you have like these centaur legs. Your legs are so huge. I was like, that's dope. I'm gonna take that. So yeah, this card going by the centaur. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. The, uh, I, so I was, um, messing with my phone one day in the gym and I'm, uh, trying to airdrop something to somebody. And I think if I remember, I'm remembering this correctly, like Black Panther or something pops up. Is that right? Yeah. And the funniest thing is like, just my positioning in the gym where I was, I'm like, Black Panther? I'm like, who in the?

And I just happened to, right when I looked up, I saw on the scene there, I'm like, that's the Black Panther right there. I'm like, yo, bro, what's up with the Black Panther? saw and seen there, I'm like, that's the black Panther right there. I'm like, yo bro, what's up with the black Panther? Yo, black Panther is dope. Yeah. So I, uh, I took that too. Um, yeah, I think, uh, so yeah. Did you see the movie? I saw the movie. The movie was great. The movie was great. I saw it three times. Oh, did you really? The movie was awesome. I loved it. Um, what are some of your favorite movies? Uh, coming to, well, I really liked coming to America. Oh my God. That's, that was great. Like just a couple of weeks back,

I was sending them all these video clips and pictures of, of, of that movie. I love that movie too. It's great. The matrix. Honestly, I think the matrix is my favorite.

First off that one movie and the trilogy, just because of the whole idea of that movie. Have you, have you seen the trilogy? I have. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like,

I love the matrix. That's like where, uh, one of the, the saying from break the bar is a beat anomaly. That's from the matrix because Neo was like an anomaly out of the system and all that. So that's,

yeah. That says that on your, on your Instagram, right? Yeah. Be an anomaly. Um, that's because of the matrix.

I love that movie. So the matrix is great. Uh, obviously black Panther is really awesome. When it comes to favorite, no, I think that would really be my absolute favorite trilogy, The Matrix. There are a lot of other movies that I like. Who do you look up to? Who are some influencers in your life?

Like in my life right now or just people I look up to? Yeah, period. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So The Rock is awesome. Gary Vee is awesome. I really like him

and like this kind of stuff he puts out, he's great. Let's see who else. Who doesn't like The Rock? We got to find, we got to find people that don't like The Rock.

That's, that's our mission. We got to find people that don't like The Rock. Yeah. No, I think everybody loves him. Tim Ferriss is great

because of the kind of content he puts out. Yeah. Amazing information. Yeah, amazing information. Yeah. In terms of fitness, guys like Nunez, Eric Helms, all those 3D guys, just, again, the content that they put out is just so amazing. What about books?

What are some good books that you've read? You mentioned a few already. A fitness aside, the five-second roll of Mel Robbins, Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Actually you, you were in that book. I liked that book mainly because, um, it, first off you, it was showing you exactly what type of habits that some of these people had, which was great because you can just pick off some of the greats, even if they're not in your life, you could pick that up and see what you can do with that.

Um, so that was, that was a really good book. Tim Ferriss is, it's hard to, it's hard to put your finger on it, but he has a real talent of kind of showcasing other information from other individuals. He's like a portal. Oh yeah. That kind of holds all of it together. And he shows it to you in a very digestible way. You know, I think some of the chapters in there on each individual, just like page or

two. Yeah. They're really, very, really easy to consume. You don't have to like read the whole book front to back. You can just kind of pick and choose who you want to read about. And I thought it was really, really cool. And he's got a lot of, a lot of stuff like that. His podcast is that way too.

Exactly. I think the, the, the amazing thing about, especially today with how much information there is, like you were in that book, Tribe and Mentors, youors. I think you were in both Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. But even if I didn't know you, I could kind of get information from this book from what the top performers do and try to input that in my life. And it has made a difference. Those are some of the big reasons why I meditate, some of the big reasons why I journal, some of the big reasons why I have some of the habits I have is because I've been able to siphon off what these great people said that they do. See where they're like, okay, a lot of them do this.

A lot of them do this. Okay. I should be doing these things. Yeah. And a lot of times you'll, a lot of times you'll find your own niche too. Like you might, maybe you don't love writing things down. Maybe you always lose the notepad or the pen. Maybe you just, maybe that's not your thing.

So maybe record stuff on your phone. Yeah. You know, I do a lot of audio recording on my phone. If I'm, I'm going for like a walk and something pops in my head, I'm like, oh, that's a cool idea. Sometimes I'll even say stuff that on my phone, it's just, it's totally random thought. It has nothing to do with anything. Yeah. And sometimes I'll go back and listen to it and I'll be like, that was actually really cool.

I should actually act on some of that. And sometimes it's just pure garbage. But the point is, is, is you should be practicing some of these things and you should be trying some of these things. So that's smart that you, you're not only, uh, reading about it, you're implementing it. You know, that's a, that's a crucial factor. Yeah. Um, anything that you want to, uh, you want to do, uh, coming up, um, anything in particular? When it comes, you mean like athletically or just in general?

How about like, like business-wise, work-wise, anything that you want to change or anything you want to try to be heading towards in the next couple of years? Yeah. Business-wise, like, obviously I still want to be working with individuals, but I want to be able to try and have, um, um, uh, I want to be able to have a little bit more of an impact when it comes outside of the fitness realm, when it comes to helping younger individuals develop. Actually, me and my friend Brian, the childhood friend I have, he works for Caltrans in architecture. So he's 25. He's African descent, young. We're going to be making a podcast called We Don't Know Yet. And the reason why we called it that, the reason why we called it that

is because we're developing. We're young dudes. We are, I mean, we're doing well, what we're doing, but we're not at the Mark Bell level. We're not there yet, but we want to be there. Yeah.

And we're figuring out all these things and we're learning all these things that we haven't found out, but we're going to be able to learn. And we can put that information out for other people to learn too. Things that we're figuring out, things that are helping us, things that haven't helped us. And the cool thing about that is because we're still on that journey. Like you're still obviously getting bigger and bigger on that journey, but you are Mark Bell, right? Like I'm

still like fairly unknown, you know? Yeah. Well, it took me another 10 years from where you're at to even remotely start to figure out some of that process. And, you know, I think it's important to tell people that your age doesn't matter a ton, but it's going to play into it just to some extent, because it takes time to have all the right experiences for everything to kind of come together. experiences for everything to kind of come together. If you look at Stan Efferding, Stan Efferding is somebody that's accumulated a lot of wealth over the years, accumulated a lot of knowledge. He's 50 years old. He's built things up to an extraordinary level to a point where he had a $2 million mansion in Washington and he had everything, you know, he had everything going on. Well, then he also kind of lost a lot of that and he had to downsize. He had to move to Vegas. He had to get a smaller home. He had to sell off. I mean, he had a Rolls Royce Phantom. I mean, he had jet skis. I mean, you name it. I've been to that place before and it was actually

really amazing. He had to sell off a lot of these things and he had to reinvent himself and he had to keep trying to come back. Then he just follows this dream to be a professional bodybuilder and to be a professional powerlifter all while his businesses are kind of falling apart. Wow. And he's losing stuff like in the process. He goes and gets his pro card and bodybuilding. He does all the things he wanted to do in powerlifting, breaks all the records he wanted to break, refocuses back on business, invests some money here and there, does decent with a couple things, does not so great with a couple other things. And then he has the cooler. And then people are like, oh, that's a stupid idea. That thing ain't going to work.

Ends up on Shark Tank. Yeah. He only doesn't end up on Shark Tank. He works very hard and gets himself in a good position to up on shark tank. Yeah. He doesn't end up on shark tank. He works very hard and gets himself to, in a good position to, to be on shark tank. Um, from there does a little bit of business with,

uh, Damon John, cause he was selected on shark tank to advance. Um, and now, you know, he seemingly out of nowhere, but it's again,

he's 50 years old. Uh, he's had this long, this long, uh, story of being a pro bodybuilder, a pro power lifter, somebody that's broke records before he comes up with the vertical diet. And all of a sudden in a very short time span sells 2000, I hopefully I can say this sells 2000 books. You can, you can do, and they're not books. They're just downloads, but you can do the math and they're not books, they're just downloads. Yeah. But you can do the math and they're a hundred bucks each in a 10 day span.

And so I think sometimes what happens is I think sometimes we're just not really ready for a lot of the things like, who knows at 20, if some opportunity came along, someone's like, Hey, I want to put you in a movie or something. Who knows what you would do with that opportunity because it wasn't really maybe like, quote unquote, like earned. Maybe you would screw it all up. Yeah. Or maybe you would just be another, you know, Hollywood case of somebody overdosing on drugs or something like you don't really know. But it does take time and people that are young right now, I think a lot of people are

suffering from anxiety and depression. And they're so worried about what this guy's doing, what that girl's doing, all the likes and all the different things people are getting, all the attention people are getting. And you sit there and you just feel like shit about yourself. And you're like, what can I do? How do I make an impact? Well, if you feel that way, that's totally normal. And you should feel that way. You should feel that way for probably a while until things start to build up. It takes a long time to, uh, to build things up. So I think that's great that you're starting a podcast like that. Yeah. It's, it's just like, I, the goal I think is, isn't like one year or two years. I think the goal is more of like, like you said, a 10 year goal. Um, because

30 year old and SEMA is going to have very different viewpoints of 25 and SEMA had and 25 year old Brian had, but to be able to go back and see what we were doing and what we were thinking about at that time where we were still getting things going is going to be great. So that when I'm 35 and I'm where I want to be or close to where I want to be, right, that whole thought process and all of those things when it came to development can be seen. when it came to development can be seen, you know, cause like, I think that it's like, when we look at guys like yourself, rock Gary, all these people, you wish you kind of wish you knew what they were doing at 20 years old, 22, 25, you could see what was this person doing that molded them to that, to the person that they are today. The rock said he was unemployed. Right.

Just the other day. He, he posted that up on Twitter. Yeah. He said something, I made some joke about being on like an unemployed bum. Like he was trying to like tease somebody else that made a comment. And hey, he was like, actually, you're just like me because at 22, I was unemployed too. Yeah. Something like that.

Yeah. Seven bucks productions because he had seven bucks in his pocket when he went and played in the Canadian Football League. Yeah. He had no direction, didn't know what the hell he was going to do. Exactly. Like he talks about it. I wish I could have seen him then. You know? But because you want to know how he transformed. Well, I used to know him that way.

Like, I used to go into the firehouse when I was at Gold's Gym in Venice. And he'd be like, hey, guys, you want to sit down and eat some pancakes with me? And me and my brother would sit down and eat some pancakes with him. How old was he then? Was he late 20s, 30s? Yeah, he's probably late 20s. You know, he's already in WWE. He's already kicking ass.

I mean, he was probably, you know, pretty successful already at that point, but nowhere near the status he is today. And also, too, what a great thing for people to learn. Like, The Rock didn't become the quote-unquote best actor in the world because he's the best actor in the world. Obviously, he's working very hard at that. I'm not going to take any credit away from there. He's been working on his craft very hard, but there's a lot of people that have been acting for a long time that have taken a lot of acting courses

and classes and have been in movies and won Academy Awards and so on. But he's the best because he has made himself the best because he's so active. He says, be the hardest worker in the room and you can't help but be inspired by that. Now, if he was just sitting on his ass all the time, we'd be like, why is he even write that? Why is he hashtag that all the time? Hardest work in the room.

He doesn't even really working for anything, but people admire that. I think it's cool that he's found this like portal for Hollywood to kind of get into this realm of being the highest paid actor. And he's deserving of it because he's working his ass off. My point is, is that without social media, a lot of that wouldn't have been possible. You're right. Even though he's got the interaction of he was on TV a ton. You've got guys like John Cena, you know, and pro wrestling. Um,

John has a different outlook. He doesn't care about social media that much. His Instagram is completely a hundred percent, uh, random. He's hilarious. Yeah. Like he'll just post a random picture of somebody and,

and then he doesn't, he doesn't say anything. Yeah. Um, but the rock has taken advantage of his social media in a different way. And, uh, look,

look what, how it's resulted for him. That's worked out pretty damn good. Yeah. Anything to add over there, Andrew? No, we're good, man. All right. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength.

Catch you guys later. Peace. Bye.