Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 61 - Josh Bryant

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

Today we are live with Coach, speaker and best-selling co-author of Jailhouse Strong, Josh Bryant. Josh is the youngest person in powerlifting history to bench 600lbs raw and is one of the best coaches in the country. Rewatch the Live stream: https://youtu.be/gZKJi6wRrec ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢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 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

That is a nice airport, huh? They got a lot of good places. They got like legit places to eat. They got some good food in there. Yeah. Yeah, because they know if in Texas, there's got to be good places to eat, right? Mm-hmm. You like barbecue?

My favorite. We could do a whole podcast about barbecue. I know a lot about barbecue. Uh-oh. If we want to go any direction there with barbecue, we can bring that up. All right, Mark, we're live. We're live. Oh, my God.

We're here today with Josh Bryant. Super fired up to have him here. We've had you on the podcast before, but it's probably, what, maybe about two years ago? About a year and a half ago, yep. December 2016. Yeah. A little while back, and we had a chance to hang out together, too, after the podcast was over. Had an opportunity to grab some grub and and to kind of

hang out and to kick it but you're from texas and they got barbecue down they got barbecue there the best you you uh digging barbecue connoisseur yeah what's your favorite thing um brisket and sausage oh man brisket andrew we went to some weird barbecue place when we went to like portland right yeah yeah i don't know exactly what I ate, but the shit was amazing. It was some country, something, something. It was so good. Yeah. I think that's the thing with barbecue.

Everything's pretty good. Portland, Texas or Oregon? Yeah. Oregon. Okay. Yeah. We were in Oregon. When I went to Texas, um, because some, like I went to Austin, Texas and some of the barbecue

places that are famous there are just always packed. Yeah. So they told me just like to not even bother. And I went to some, I literally went to a gas station and had barbecue because they said you can go to any gas station and have amazing barbecue. True.

And so that's what I did. Talk about being gas station ready. Gas station ready. How, do you cook up some mean barbecue yourself? I do actually. I've kind of got that in the science. Have you known brisket, what the bark is? No.

Like that black stuff on the outside? You know how to just get it just right? Just get it right. It takes a long time to cook all that stuff, doesn't it? Yeah. You've got to smoke it and shit like that. It's about a half. Yeah, it can be like an hour per pound.

My brother-in-law makes some amazing wings. The problem is it's like we'll go over his house. It'll be like maybe 5 PM. And he's like, yeah, I'm just finishing smoking them. And then he's got to still cook them. And there's, and by the time it's, I don't know, 10 PM, you know, they're, they taste amazing, but it sucks eating wings at midnight. I get up real early.

So throw it on like 5 AM or something, and then be ready to go by like 6 or something. Have you always done that? You always woken up early? Yeah, definitely. It's just something that you've been doing since you were a kid? No, I think a lot of it's also having kids and stuff because I'm not going to sacrifice my time with them

and I can't make more hours a day, so there's no other option. You get up like 5 o'clock, 4 o'clock. 4 o'clock usually. And just fucking ready to go. Yeah, it's the best time. No one's going to mess with you. No one's going with you no one's gonna call you no one's gonna text you what about when you were younger did you wake up pretty early too when you're power lifting and stuff no no more like i mean i did when i had to when i you know the point when i um i wasn't i used to live in tennessee for a little while right, to earn income, I get a lot of good clients starting off like 6 AM.

You know, when I worked for Branch Warren at his gym, got a good client starting at 5 AM. So I did do if I had to. What's Branch Warren's obsession with 15 reps? I don't know. He, that, that's all he ever does is 15 reps, right? Like he has everybody do 15 reps for everything.

And, uh, on every exercise he goes as heavy as possible and, and does high reps and does high amount of sets. Yeah. He, he. Just kicks the shit out of people, right? You know that he actually, uh, used to be a powerlifter too.

Oh yeah. Competitive too. Not just like calling himself a powerlifter. Well, a lot of those bodybuilders are really, I mean, they're really strong. Very. You're in the hometown of, uh of one of the strongest, Ronnie Coleman. Ronnie Coleman, Branch, all those guys.

Lightweight. Johnny Jackson. What would Ronnie Coleman do if he power lifted? Like if he just focused on just power lifting back in the day. It would be a lot because he didn't train that way. I mean, so. I mean, it'd be scary if he got on like, you know, someone like the stuff that could actually convert all that muscle to being super efficient, like isometrics and things like that.

I mean, I have no idea, but it'd be a lot. You're a big proponent of isometrics and you don't really hear, I mean, still today, you don't really hear a lot of other people talk about it. I don't know, man. What are isometrics? What is it? What are we doing? Well, what we got to do? Get me strong.

Okay. So, I mean, for the isometrics, we're talking about. Try to stay a little closer to the mic there. Okay. Isometrics, we're talking about. Don't be intimidated by the size. Yeah. Choke up on it.

I've never seen one this big. I know. I know. The isometrics. It'll be okay. We'll walk you through it. Just breathe, you know. Just breathe.

Isometrics, we're talking about here you know you could isometric you'd be just flexing your bicep right but we're talking about here smoky does that a lot yeah he does he's doing it right now just periodically throughout the day 10 10 15 second holds flexing those biceps you don't build you don't build a physique like that without those advanced that's true that's true that. That's a great, a great point. We're talking about here is actually to overcome a sticking point. So like we had the video we did with you and I. Yeah. On bench press.

With Filipino Thunder. With Filipino Thunder. And you're actually pushing as hard as you can against the pins, you know, sort of deadlift would be the same thing. If you're, you know, sticking point,

you know, you're trying to work right above your knee. You just like, you know, four second warrior, like Steve Johnsonson those were huge for bringing up those sticking points and getting them over 900 pounds well how about how long do you do that for it was like eight seconds six seconds six seconds okay and then what you do about all you need you don't really need to be to do any more and if you did more it'd probably uh be too long and you're not

producing as much i think you rendered if you render it ineffective after a while, yeah, for sure. Cause you wouldn't be going as hard. So what you do is you, you did after doing that, you immediately do, um, a set of the, the exercise with full range of motion to, so you get the carry over into that motor pattern. Right.

And then it's subsequent. Does that have a name? Is that called anything? Everything's always got a name. I call it compensatory acceleration. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Right after.

So you would do that right after and you would, um, I mean, you're, you should be theoretically more explosive. So a similar theory to like, if you picked up 315 pounds off the ground for a deadlift and, uh, somebody pulled a plate off each side while the weight's on the ground and then, and then you proceeded to do 225, uh, it would feel

a lot lighter cause you lifted something heavier. So in some ways it's, it's similar to that, right? Very much so. And so you're doing a, um, does it matter like, like kind of where these points are or you're saying, uh, specifically it kind of matters where your sticking point is. It's more specifically where your sticking point is, but you could certainly use it, um, in other spots. So like if say on the bench press, if it was like a general strengthening, you could do like, you know, at the bottom, mid range, on the top and then kind of do work.

Have you seen it, have you seen it like not work for a particular movement just because the movement's different? Like, does it work in all three powers? I've done it with bodybuilding and stuff. Yeah. And have people do it like, um, with a, you know, I'd have to do like curl against a squat

rack or an immovable object, then do curls right after and things like that. So I've done it for a lot of different stuff because, um, I forget who the guy's name was. It was sort of, um, it's kind of neuroscientist was talking about, like, he thought that was like the best way to get muscle activation

wouldn't be to do like a maximal isometric. Right. Um, contraction prior. So you could use it for bodybuilding. Certainly. I mean, Charles Poliquin used to do it for, um, he Right. Um, contraction prior. So you could use it for bodybuilding certainly. I mean, Charles Poliquin used to do it for, um, he had the functional isometrics for, you know, he did a lot in close grip bench for building triceps and stuff. So. And then when you're doing these isometrics, you're not using any weight, right?

Like, is it just the bar or is there weight on the bar? Well, the weight, both. So with a bench press, it's kind of funky if you had to set it up with weights. So that, that wouldn't be like the way to go. Cause you're just pushing against the pin in the case of the bench press, it's kind of funky if you had to set it up with weights. So that wouldn't be like the way to go. Because you're just pushing against the pin in the case of the bench press, right? Yeah. And you have to get it inside there and stuff. So, but with the deadlift, I actually put a little bit of weight on there just because,

so like, I mean, it wouldn't be heavy. So like someone like Steve Johnson, say he's going to go, you know, up to, you know, he's going to do like an isometric and then do the speed rep after he can, might go somewhere like, you know, four or five on the bar for the isometric, then go up to, um, you know, 700 or something after on the deadlift, on regular deadlift.

God damn, I'm fat. Yeah. I remember this day. This is from last time. Yeah. I remember this day. It was, uh, it was tough. You know, the train, the training was, uh,

pretty brutal. How, how many sets do you do? Um, I think generally a good starting point is for like three or so. I've done it as much as like five or six. And then also I've utilized your program before. Um, and it helped me a lot years, years ago. And, uh, what I remember. 578, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I remember about it is that, um, you know, while I was doing some of the stuff, it was just a tremendous amount of work. I remember that. And I also remember, uh, doing some heavy stuff and then followed by some speed work. Yeah, exactly. And that kind of has a similar, uh, response to the isometric work too.

Cause again, you're handling something heavier and now you're going lighter. What kind of results have you seen from that? Huge ones. So that's kind of, um, my mentor, the late Dr. Fred Hatfield, he, he talked a lot about compensatory acceleration. Is he from Texas too? No, he's from, he's lived all over. He's originally from Connecticut.

Oh. But he, he talked about him and I, we used to, we do, we did a bunch of seminars together when he's still alive. And we'd always talk about, one day we were- We're both chubbier in this video. This is great. One day we were- Marcus looks the same. Look at that pec contraction.

Look at that. Not bad. There could be a bodybuilding carryover for sure. Yep. contraction. Yeah. Yeah. Not bad.

There'd be a bodybuilding carryover for sure. Yep. But he used to always say he thought the biggest difference between like strong people and weak people was the ability to compensatory accelerate the weight.

So. To be able to move the weight fast. Yeah. Or at least, and just have the intent to move it fast because a lot of times if it ain't moving fast, but you have the intent,

you still get a lot of the desired adaptations of, of moving the weight fast. Yeah. It seems to make a huge difference. I mean, even just think about anytime that you're injured, you know, like lot of the desired adaptations of, of moving the weight fast. Yeah. It seems to make a huge difference. I mean, even just think about any time that you're injured, you know, like if you're, if your knee bothers you, how fast are you going to squat? Like it's going to be reduced, right?

Like all you're thinking about is that pain and you're like, I'm just going to kind of squat down gingerly and kind of see, you know, see, see what this feels like. You built up a lot of guys to bench, uh, over 600 pounds. Um, as a, as a power to yourself, you bench press 620 pounds. You were, you were the youngest, uh, power lifter of all time to bench press 600 pounds. You benched 620, you deadlifted 810, you squatted over 900 pounds, you know, you acquired a lot of strength, but how are you getting these results on the bench press specifically? Cause you've built up a lot of 600 pound benchers. And I think you might've even been able to bring somebody up that broke your record and benched the 600 pounds at a younger age, right?

Absolutely. So yeah, that's true. So I think a lot of it. Smokey, write this down. Pay attention. Andrew, put all this stuff that he's about to say in slow motion. Sounds good. Dang, how much did you weigh there?

You're a lot. I'm probably about 700 pounds. Just a quick estimate. Not that I was looking like lean and mean either. Yeah, probably somewhere around 700 pounds, yeah. Get that sumo wrestling thing going. That's right. Look at that face.

I'm like, I'm about to like bite your neck or something. Some good intensity going. That's right. Look at that face. I'm like, I'm about to like bite your neck or something. Some good intensity there. That's right. So how are you able to build up these big benches like this? Well, I think initially it was, uh, you know, just, I, I, what I did is, um, instead of like most kids when they're college age are going around partying and stuff, I moved all around the country and trained with like people like Gary Frank and that. So I learned a lot there. I learned, excuse me,

a lot from just reading and stuff, a lot from what worked for me. Yeah. Then a big thing was what didn't work for me too. So like, yeah, that's always a bad lesson, right? Well, like elbow surgery and stuff like, uh, you know, I'm not having people with elbow problems. So I had to kind of like take one for the team there, But fortunately that's been an avenue to pass on to other people so they don't make the same mistakes. So then I think a lot of it's experience too. Like I was talking about earlier in the interview, if I don't have like a team of people working for me

that are like doing the programs, it's all me. So this is what I do. And I, since 16, I've been, I started managing a hardcore gym. So there, I've never done anything else. So either, you know, you've been, I started managing a hardcore gym. So there, I've never done anything else. So either, you know, you're not, you're either going to get better or you're going to get worse. I've gotten better over time just by experience of training people, seeing what works, you know, things like that. So. And, uh, is there a, do you think there's any like sort of, uh, you know, other than just hard work, is there, is there kind of a key element to

your style of training that's, that's leading to a lot of these results? Obviously avoiding injury is going to be huge. So if you can coach them through that, that's a big part of it. Uh, it's going to be, um, in mainly have it be individualized. I think it'd be a huge part of it because you'll have somebody, you know, stand up on their, you know, soapbox talking about like everybody needs a bench press, you know, twice a week, three times a week or whatever. And it just, these universal recommendations just, just aren't there.

Yeah. I remember when we started working together, I think, um, I think maybe you, uh, I, I think it was, I think you had me benching twice a week and then you were, maybe you mentioned that we're going to go into three times a week. And, and I kind of, I made a comment back to you and said, I do all the two times a week kind of beating up, beating up my elbows. And you're like, well, wait, where are you coming from?

And I was like, well, I, before that I was really only benching once a week. And I was doing like just assistance exercise. You're like, okay, well, it makes no sense to go from one to three. So we're not going to do that. Exactly. So like for Julius Maddox, for instance, when he hit seven or five. That guy's fucking strong. One, once every nine to 10 days is what he's benching.

So, James Strickland got it down to once a week. You know, Jeremy Hornstreet is better with twice a week, just the second day is not as heavy. So, there's not necessarily, you know, one way to do it. And I think, you know, that's going to be the hugest part of that is, and then a lot of these guys is they never have done movements that specifically we're doing that help aid in the bench press. And a lot of them have never done any kind of hypertrophy work in the off season either, which is a huge show. We couldn't say there's not one way to skin a cat, but we could definitely know that you can't go heavy all the time. You need to get some hypertrophy work in the off season because the best way to increase strength potential is by adding muscle mass.

Right. Because a lot of these bodybuilders that are like weak would actually be pretty strong if they train like powerlifters pretty quickly. So. Yeah. Once they start to kind of tap into training their nervous system rather than just working on the muscle mass all the time. Exactly.

Yeah. Because I remember going to powerlifting meets growing up and, you know, when equipment was more popular, you'd see some people you read about benching seven meets growing up and you know when equipment was more popular you'd see some people you read about benching seven or eight hundred pounds and you show up and they look like they're shaking with 405 on a bench press warm-up right but then you go to the gym and you see some bodybuilder never heard of powerlifting he's repping 405 on the incline so right it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know something's off there and i think that's kind of how i had success early on because i've never been one to like,

just believe things. I investigate things myself. I'm like, okay, you can say this, this, and this, but the bottom line is that bodybuilder that doesn't even know what powerlifting is, is repping 405 on the incline. You may bench 800, but you're shaking like a leaf when you weren't with 405.

There's a lot of guys that, that aren't, that don't do any of it. They don't bodybuild, they don't powerlift, and they're just at your local gym and they're strong as shit. Yeah. And you learn from them. Yeah. And like, so for instance, a lot of guys that, that aren't, that don't do any of it. They don't bodybuild, they don't power lift and they're just at your local gym and they're strong as shit. Yeah. And you learn from them. Yeah.

And like, so for instance, a lot of, some of the more, some of the equipped guys, like I had one guy, I don't work with him and does his programming for like the equip meets, but for off season, he totaled over 2000 at 165. And that was from doing a lot. I think a lot at large part of that was building a raw off season.

He dropped his ego. Like, yeah, the first time he came to our squad, you know, bench pressing, you know, 300 is kind of difficult, but now, you know, he gets up to 400, puts on the shirt and he's got this good base, better build, all that stuff. And, you know, his equip total jumps up. Cause I think the equip guys would still do really well by getting some raw off season work, just how, you know, with you or anybody else,

we've used slingshots and stuff to overload. So it works both ways. Right. Have, have you, have you worn power thing gear before? Of course. Yeah. Everybody did back then.

Right. Right. Yeah. It was kind of just part of it. What made you want to go after like a raw bench? Cause like when you, when you did your raw bench, it was a long time ago and people weren't really talking about it.

They weren't talking about raw. I just went to some different meets and saw that people, um, weren't that, you know, strong people that I kind of looked up to. It was kind of like a letdown. Cause I was a kid.

Right. I'm thinking like, you know, I'm actually stronger than you. And I've like idolized you. Right. That wasn't. And you're like,

what is it? What's going on? What's going on here? And then I talked one time talking to Ed Cohn. We were talking about, um, he didn't even say he should go raw, but he was like, we're talking about on the phone about how just working out and stuff and equipment, you don't feel that same sort of pump and things like that. That, I mean, it's not about being competitive powerlifting.

It's just, you know, at the time, I don't think anybody was really making any money doing this. Right. So it better damn well be fun then. Right. And you did your, your brother powered up the two, right?

My brother, he has, and he's, he's actually going to do a meet, I think in Ventura here in California in like about 12 weeks from now. But his main thing is he was all American in the throws.

Yeah. Yeah. He was a two time NCAA champ. Shot putter? From USC. Yeah. How did you get connected with Ed Cohn? The way I got connected with Ed Cohn was, I guess, like bulldog determination.

I just got tracked down his number from somebody. And then I got Salaria, one of the Fred Hatfield's business partner with IS ISSA to ask if it was okay if I called him. And I just called him and then, um, you know, I just started bothering him. He actually took the calls. Your family's actually from here, right? Yeah. From Santa Barbara.

What's that? No. How old were you when you first got in contact with Ed? 18. There you go. Yeah. Ed, Ed Cohen, he's like, you know, he's in it.

He's in everybody's story that we talked to. Yeah, for sure. Cohn, he's like, you know, he's in it. He's in everybody's story that we talked to. Yeah, for sure. You know, he's involved in like almost every single story that we get to. So, you know, in building some of these benches, um, I'm sure you get asked all the time about like accessory work, assistance exercises. What are some of your favorites there? I think two that have kind of like a, uh, it's going to be tough to find somebody that won't benefit at least to a point are dead bench pressing for multiple singles versus like, you know, so not like Reese, not do a set of five where you just let go of the bar for a second. Like actually literally one single rest, one single rest. Um, and then one I got from you guys actually Spoto pressing.

Yeah. Been huge. I think those two are like. The, uh, dead press to define it a little bit more is like you bit more is like you're, you're pressing out of a rack, right? Do we, are you guys able to link up on YouTube here when we're doing it? Cause we have a, I got a thing. A video. Dead bench symposium or something.

I believe it's called on the YouTube and you could show like kind of talk. It goes in pretty good detail about it. Right. But it basically, you press off the pin, right? And you do one rep and then you rest for 10 seconds and then you press again, correct? It could be. Yeah.

And so the set could be for three, you know, three reps or five reps or so, but you got to rest at the bottom. So you're not taking advantage of like the stretch reflex in your body, correct? Exactly. So you want to really rest at the bottom because even like a one second pause, you're going to

probably have half of that left. So like, um, with, um, with like Al Davis, pipe right there. Yeah.

With Al Davis, um, like for instance, the first time he tried the dead bench, he missed four 55, but he's benching slightly over six. Wow. So we got that up to six Oh five over eight weeks

and he bench pressed six 70 raw. So there was that up to 605 over eight weeks and he bench pressed 670 raw. So there was like a, um, I mean, obviously that was a major weakness. Right. And brought it up to snuff and the, you know. It's almost a little bit like a, an isometric overcome by like a dynamic movement, right? Because.

Absolutely. Isometric, you're holding it and you don't ever have any movement. In this case, it's like one, two, three, probably takes you a few seconds, especially if you're weak at it. And then all of a sudden you're holding it and you don't ever have any movement in this case it's like one two three probably takes you a few seconds especially if you're weak at it and then all of a sudden you're able to break it off the pin a hundred break inertia and get enough force to lock the weight out or something like that right absolutely and you use this on squats and deads and stuff too um well deadlift is going to be that way by default yeah you know? So, um, yeah, squats too. So a good way to do it with squats is with the safety bar because it's, it's just more efficient

to get under it. You know, it's like a lot of people are gonna have trouble getting into a regular squat bar, but certainly I've done it that way. Um, I think that one, um, I don't remember how I came up with the dead bench. I just, um, I think what happened was, um, obviously I'm not claiming to invent it, but I

don't remember. I never got taught directly to me by somebody, but I think by deductive reason I came up with it because I saw that Paul Anderson, you know, one of the strongest people of all time was doing like dead squats. Yeah. Yeah.

Anderson. By default. Anderson squats. Anderson squats. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. He was, uh, squatting out of, out of the rack and just kind of, you know, basically pushing

the weight off the pins. Exactly. Uh, for some of his squats, he'd handled what? A thousand pounds, stuff like that. Right. Yeah. Outrageous amounts of weight. Yeah.

Would you use the dead press as your main movement for a training session? Uh, generally not. So generally I would use the, the dead presses and accessory movement to your bench press. However, if someone like, um, had really needed it, we might do like a secondary bench day without starting off, but I certainly wouldn't just start. I think you got a bit while bench pressing isn't something like a snatch where it's so complex that, you know, you have to do it 14 times a week to look okay doing it. It certainly needs to be the mainstay of your program, at least when you're peaking. So you could do it, generally it's after the bench press on your main bench press day

because I've done it before where it starts off an accessory day. Why do you think people have gotten so strong, especially recently? I know you're a fan of kind of like the old school, and I believe that for lack of a better terminology i think like powerlifting gear put powerlifting like on pause for a little while because it was just we went through like a weird period of time where yeah the squats just kept getting higher the bench shirts just got kept getting more ridiculous and we did a one-time thing not to interrupt you but i just got i don't want to forget this so one time another kind of like um

you know epiphany i say the word epiphany, like it was some kind of like, you know, spiritual awakening, but it sort of was. Looked at one time, this guy's like, why don't you get a powerlifting USA magazine from 1982, then look at 2002 and the deadlifts. 1982 was better. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, now I don't, I mean, I'm not like bought off by an equipment company. So good point. You know, let's, let's, we need to re-examine this probably. Yeah. And, and I mean, but now, you know, because I guess maybe because raw got popular again,

we're seeing a lot of people being really strong and especially from the females. I mean, the females are lifting some outrageous weights. What do you think's responsible for this surgence of, of, uh, strong lifters now? Okay. So obviously, um, there's going to be an improvement with people that are actively pursuing knowledge. There's been improvement because, you know,

you're going to use what's useful, discard the rest, right? So there's that element of. Bruce Lee. There's, yeah, exactly. Um, there's that element, of course. There's also the element of, but then there's, there's more stupidity now, I think, than ever too.

So that's not like everybody's like elevated to some higher level of consciousness. Right. You know, there's a lot of dumb asses too. Yeah. Many, many, many. So there's just, so that, that brings us to the main point.

There's more people involved. Right. So we have a better genetic pool, one. You know, obviously, or that's two. More people participating, period. More people participating, period. So that's huge. Obviously the training techniques have gotten

better and there's a higher standard. What Roger Bannister ran like a four minute mile. How many people did it that same year? Like 40 people or something. It was something absurd, right? Yeah. Well, the guy behind him, I think also broke

a world record. He didn't run in four minutes, but he also broke a world record. Yeah. So like. Things like that happen, right? Standards increase. So, um, I think, um a world record. He didn't run under four minutes, but he also broke a world record. Yeah. So like. Things like that happen, right? Standards increase. So, um, I think, um, yeah, like during the, you

know, in the nineties, you'd read like a power lifting USA magazine and it was sort of like, you know, people would write about like someone totaling 2000 and like triple ply. Right. Loose judging is like, kind of like the standard to adhere to. And I think it put power lifting on pause, like

you said. And then, um. I think the bench shirt specifically kind of screwed powerlifting up just because. Yeah. I mean, people were still getting a lot of their squat suits and stuff and, and you were, you know, you're able to get a few pounds out

of your deadlift, uh, suit and stuff like that too, but it was really, uh. But it didn't make a poodle into a pit bull. Yeah. Yeah. The bench shirt changed, changed the game, you know, really. Cause some people could, you know,

add 300 or 400 and there were some guys even getting more out of their bench shirt. It was opposite. People claim it was evolution. It was actually the opposite because what it did is people, you know, the bench press has an ascending strength curve. So theoretically it should be hardest off the

bottom, but people are weakest at the bottom who are like the, you know, the weak and our Darwinism here, they got the most benefit from. So it didn't like increase, like it was like the opposite of natural selection. Right. And it just changed. It was like welfare or something. It changed everything quite a bit because, uh, the body type and stuff was way different.

Like if you had to work, uh, you know, in the past you had to work really hard to get a certain amount of muscle mass. And in this case it was like, well, if you're just fat and bloated, then you can benefit from the bench shirt better because it just, it worked better that way rather than being like, if you were solid muscle. Belly benching too.

Yeah. If you were solid muscle, like a bench shirt's not ever going to work on Stan Efferding. No. And it's not going to work on Ronnie Coleman who's bringing the bar down, you know, repping five plates and bringing the bar down to his chest. Yeah.

I mean, we tried to get Stan into a squat suit. I don't think we ever tried a bench or, we tried getting him in a squat suit and he squatted less. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He tried to squat like, uh, I don't know, maybe

seven plates or something like that. And he was like, this is awful. Get me out of this thing. Well, the eighties was awful. He missed it. He kind of missed a lift too, I think. The eighties was a really good time in powerlifting. If you look through the powerlifting, it says eighties, obviously, we kind of missed a lift too, I think. The eighties was a really good time in

powerlifting. If you look through the powerlifting, it says eighties, he's like a lot of great physiques, a lot of very strong lifts. I think the nineties

had actually for sure went backwards. And I think, you know, there's some raw stuff happening early two thousands, but I think like 2007, 2008, it kind

of like really picked up. Who are some of your favorite people in the strength game? Because you, you have kind of a, your idols are different than a lot of other people. Like some people will point to like Ronnie Coleman and Ed Cohn and, but you kind of have

some unconventional people that have, um, maybe accomplished some different feats of strength. Yeah. The, obviously, you know, Ed Cohn, then Fred Hatfield, um, Bill Kazmaier, Doug Young. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys. I see sometimes

you'll post like, uh, wrestlers and people that have grip strength and like, who are some of these guys that you like? Well, that's how I

got into lifting was watching wrestling event, you know, when I was like five years old. So I wanted to get that look. So, um, I liked

my favorite guy growing up there was, uh, Paul Orndorff. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was jacked. He was a badass.

Yeah. So yeah, he was, he was pretty big. A lot of the. He was jacked. He was a badass. Yeah. So. Yeah. He was, he was pretty big. A lot of the, a lot of the wrestlers back then were pretty big. And I think a lot of those guys could throw around some weight.

For sure. They had to. They can, they could lift a little something. Well, and, um, like you're saying, these unconventional people, I think a lot of it is like you said, mentioned Bruce Lee earlier. Bruce Lee to get better at his punching took up fencing.

So I think when the strength thing, you know, you have to look at like, you know, okay, if a strongman never drops a, you know, deadlift, even though they lost straps, we'll just say they've got great grip strength. Maybe there's a little inherent value to farmer's walk. Like you can't be a myopic in your worldview. You got to kind of like expand, you know, that kind of thing. Right. Strongman can recover better. Maybe they got a better work capacity. So maybe doing like some sled drags ain't going know, that kind of thing. Right. Strongman can recover better.

Maybe they got a better work capacity. So maybe doing like some sled drags ain't going to kill you type of thing. Yeah. And you've done some strongman training as well, right? Absolutely. I like it a lot for powerlifting off season

training, just not going like ape shit where you're like, you know, doing like a thousand pound yoke walk for 10 feet, resting 30 minutes and then doing a little more and leaving, then you're not building your work capacity. Yeah. You don't want it to be too then you're not building your work capacity. Yeah. You don't want it to be too much on your nervous system too.

Exactly. Yeah. When you, you, when you're doing a strongman, did you become a professional strongman? Cause you did it for a little bit, right? Yeah. I wasn't actually. Did you compete and stuff or no?

Okay. Yeah, I did compete. So one contest, I think I would've, I would've had a, my pro card, I was winning at the whole contest and this was weird thing. They didn't reorganize the events. I think I would have had my pro card I was winning at the whole contest and this was a weird thing they didn't reorganize the events so you know usually in Strongman if you finish

first you go last the next event. This one they didn't do that so I got drew names out of how I was first so I'd been won every event that day the one I did not win was they had a loading event and the reason I didn't win it because they said you get disqualified if you

drop the implements, but by the end people were dropping the implements. So I got like third place or fourth place in that one. I ended up getting second in the contest. So I was close to my pro card, but I only did like a couple of contests, but the one I did win like that was, um, strongest man in America

for Atlantis. That was a bad-ass competition. They'd like Bill Kaz. Do you remember that one? I don't. Okay. So what the events were, they had overhead or they had, excuse me, they had a trap bar deadlift.

That was first. Three attempts like a powerlifting meet. Then they had bench press, three attempts, exact powerlifting rules. Right. Ed Cohen, Bill Kaz, one of those guys with judges. And then they had a overhead press.

And I don't know if you were, you certainly and then they had a overhead press and i don't know if you were you certainly i don't think we're i don't know if you weren't allowed to split jerk it or just no one there was capable yeah you know but no one did split jerk you could push press a little bit i got uh some of those videos up there on youtube too and then after that was a pull-up for a max so if you weighed 400 pounds and you did five over your body weight you got five if you weighed 180 to 300 over your body weight, you got five. If you weighed 180 and you did 300 over your body weight, you did 300. That's kind of cool.

And then they had a Thomas inch dumbbell, like a grip test. So you basically, but it was loadable. Can you pick that thing up? I don't know. Cause it was, it wasn't the real thing. It was like, I was just doing what I had to do to win. So like for instance. Yeah, the Thomas inch dumbbell is normally a specific weight, right?

On bench press and deadlift, I only took two attempts because I was, there was, there could have been some potential competition, but once I saw there wasn't, I was going to win it no matter what. I wanted to get my best total, so I didn't do a third attempt deadlift. I didn't do a third attempt bench press. Who's the strongest person you've ever worked with? get my best total. So I didn't do a third attempt deadlift. I didn't do a third attempt bench press. Who's the strongest person you've ever worked with? Um, in person for, are you talking about like I've trained with or like. Yeah. Somebody that you.

Gary Frank. Somebody that, yeah. Yeah. Gary Frank is insane. Yeah. So he's doing like, uh, there wasn't really raw lifting, but you know, it's squatting the upper eights with just like me spotting him without any reps.

Yeah, he was crazy. 931 pound deadlift. Yeah. I mean, he was the first guy, I think, in powerlifting to go to like 24, 25, 26, 2700 pounds, all that kind of stuff. Well, he also used to do things like someone started asking him about his track and field days. And I'm thinking like, I mean, there's no way this dude still can move. Like he's just big.

Right. And he started like demonstrating these, like, uh, what they call a South African drill in the, in the, in the discus. It was amazing how quick he could move.

And he weighed like 400 pounds, right? Yeah. And he, he, one time this is a great, he's real relaxed. I went to,

um, we're training together. He, uh, ripped his bicep deadlifting went to, um, we're training together. He, uh, ripped his bicep deadlifting and he's like, just finish your workout, you know, then take me to the hospital.

I'm like, all right. And it was like two in the morning to like train with Gary. Like, um, a lot of people didn't like the long workouts because he would like stop in the middle of the

workout. Like he's, he's a Louisiana, right? Yeah. And he's workouts. He'd say, get there at seven. You wouldn't start working out until 10 or 11 o'clock at night.

And they go to like three or four in the morning. So then like three or four in the morning, we snapped his bicep. I took him to the ER and his blood pressure was 111 over 71. I was like, are you kidding me? Like you're 400 pounds and you're not even stressed out, but it's hopped up on caffeine and ephedrine and it's 111 over 71.

Yeah. He's a pretty, uh, like mild manner. I also remember that he. Very helpful to nice to people too. Is, uh, super skeptical all the time of like different programs and stuff. He's always like that. I know Matt Vincent used to train with him and Matt would bring something up to him. Cause he'd be all, Matt would be all excited about some training program, whatever.

And he'd just shake his head and be like, that doesn't work. He was, um, he was first when I got there, he was only trained twice a week, but these workouts are like six, eight hours long. Yeah. And, you know, it was mainly just heavy singles and then on bench. Then he just tried to push it as hard, far singles. And then on bench, then. He just tried to push it as far as he could every single time. Yeah. And then like the training cycle would start over, like with like,

so say the deadlift would start off at like 800 for a single and you just add each week. But then we started doing, I don't know where he came up with this. So he's like, just do your own program. I'm like, no, I want to do yours. All right. So we started doing it together. And then out of nowhere, he's like, we're I want to do yours. All right. So we started doing it together. And then, um,

out of nowhere, he's like, we're going to start going to this gym that wasn't as, cause we trained at his house. Some, some kind of like little commercial gym we started going to once a week.

And we were doing like 50 sets of back. We do like every sort of like old school, like upper back kind of bodybuilding movement machine you could think of. Yeah. Just, so he was just like incorporating all kinds of different methods. Yeah. He was just trying to. Heavy could think of. Yeah. So he was just like incorporating all kinds of different methods.

Yeah. He was just trying to. Heavy singles and that. Yeah. It was, I mean, so. What about the strongest person that you've ever programmed for? Like somebody that you're working with maybe

more recently? Man, that's a tough one. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I'll just say a lot of strong bastards. Yeah. You got James Strickland right now benching what, around 675 or so? He's done 661 and he's hit 675 in training.

So he'll be, I think the stars in line, he's at 700. And you had another guy bench over 700, right? Julius Maddox, 705. Do you think any of these guys will be able to catch up to Kirill Serkev? What are you, 738 or something? I think the quickest one to do it will be Julius. Yeah. What did Kirill bench?

Do you know? 738. Yeah. Julius at 705. You know, the Russian lifters, it's kind of weird, but like when you look at what some of their guys have done in Russia versus what they've done here, makes you kind of, I mean, it makes you kind of

scratch your head. You know, I don't know if you've seen like Believ pulled like nine, I mean, just destroyed it, but you know, maybe the flight and maybe the food and maybe like, there's a lot of circumstances of travel and. Yeah. You know, all those things probably, uh, turn

into, uh, you know, bad performances on the platform sometimes. I would certainly think they could play a role because, um, I've seen it go the other way too. Yeah. When we go to like Australia or some of our guys. Yeah.

But sometimes people, you know, thrive on that too. So you just never know. Yeah. Everybody, each guy's going to be, each guy's going to be a little different when it comes to that. It'd be nice to have like a neutral site.

Like, you know, I don't know where the hell they'll be between. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Like England or something. Yeah, yeah. What's your training like nowadays? What do you do now? Um, I. Your own training. I train or something. Yeah. Yeah. What's your training like nowadays? What do you do now? Um, I.

Your own training. I train mostly in my garage. So I have, um, I've been doing lately more like strongman type of training, but I keep the rest intervals and stuff real short. So if I'm going to do like a yoke, um, it's going to be like multiple trips, you know, and very short.

I got a chain yoke. So the weights, you know, can swing. So I don't have to go as heavy. Cause I started doing that again a couple of years ago and like, I was getting so heavy on all the strongman events that I, it was kind of counterproductive. I'm not competing.

So this, you know, and then I do, um, for upper body, more higher volume type of training. So I got like cables and stuff in there now. So. You like to move around a lot. I like to move around a lot. Yeah. It's not, it's not just squat bench dead.

No, hell no. I don't, I don't. I mean, like doing heavy back squats. I mean, I, I would be surprised if I ever do it again. You know, I don't, I don't see the point if I'm not. Yeah. If you're not competing. I'm not competing.

I don't. It just fucking hurts. Yeah. I mean, I'd rather do, you know, I just got actually yesterday, right when I left, arrived a front squat harness to do like searcher squats and front squats. So I'm gonna mess around with that a little bit, but that's.

What about for sports? Like what about somebody who's playing football or something? Do you think, you know, some of these traditional movements are important or would you still utilize, you know, would you utilize a mix of squats, deads and a strong man type training? I think it's a mix.

And I think it's also, you can look at somebody's like kind of base of where they are. So like, I think, yous, and a strong man type training. I think it's a mix. And I think it's also, you can look at somebody who's like, um, kind of base of where they are. So like, I think, you know, like, so, so, so kind of like I've found is like a generalization is like 2.5 times your body weight raw in squat or deadlift, you're going to get up into that point, get faster. So when I was totally gung-ho powerlifting,

I was, you know, and I was at, just at Metro Flex full-time, like, you know, 13 hours a day, I had all kinds of good kids that I trained for football that were really good players. And a lot of them, their school strength program was so poor that they could come in and we wouldn't say we wouldn't run till like, you know, later on in the year.

You could see them, oh, we times 40s at school today, I decreased, you know, three-tenths of a second see them, they, oh, we times 40s at school today. I decreased, you know, three tenths of a second. It's because they got stronger because one of the, you know, most efficient ways to increase your speed is by increasing your strength to body weight ratio, your relative strength. So, you know, up to about 2.5 times your body

weight. So if you weigh 200, you know, say deadlifting up to about 500, you're gonna get faster by default if that ratio improves, but you start going up to, you know, 700, I don't think you're gonna get that same increase. So there becomes like kind of like a limit strength base.

That's going to be like your base for everything for bodybuilding, for any of this. I mean, if you. Yeah. When you go after something too far, like if you were trying to chase a 700 pound squat, odds are you'd have to increase your body size and maybe your body composition changes and then

therefore you're slower. Your energy reserve too. Just like, you know, you're not going to like, we were talking about earlier today is just people bench pressing, you know, even though on, on paper, three sets of eight at 500 pounds is way more volume than 700 for a single. The 700 for a single, if you're that level of strength, you're like walking around in a, you know, Zen-like trance, focusing on that. Where the three sets of eight at 500, you could be, you know, playing video games all day, show up at the gym and do it. So it doesn't require that same sort of, you know, like just total engagement that can drain you. So I think there's that of like, of how much you're actually putting into it. Then like a risk of injury.

putting into it, then like a risk of injury, if, okay, like let's say you can, you're in the NFL, you weigh 300 pounds and you're squatting 700. Will you get a lot more to go into 900? Well, even if you did, there's a, everything's on a continuum of risk to benefit. So that risk to me is too far than the benefit you'd get. Yeah. It's too, it's a, it's too great. Right. Too great.

Um, when it comes to, uh, you know, just, just straight up powerlifting, you know, a lot of people, you know, they have coaches. Um, a lot of people have nice gyms to train out nowadays. There's, they're, they cater more to powerlifting and stuff like that. That's nice. Um, people are trying to do any and everything they can. They're trying to sleep better. They're trying to eat better, but still sometimes, um, you know, it just doesn't work out, you know, for whatever reason, what, what,

in your opinion is the reason why, uh, some people are maybe having a hard time making progress or even obtaining the progress that they're looking for. Probably a lot. Some of it is, um, you know, I think a lot of it is like the people that are obsessed with like all those things you're talking about, they're looking for so much stuff. They can't like stop and just do what they're doing. Like, you know, like I've noticed that like people sometimes I'll work with it come off as like so gung ho in the beginning. They're just like, you know, they're really looking to program hop. It's like, you know, where even if you did like maybe something crappy for a while and you stuck to, you can first off, you'll have an

evaluation of if this works, because even if it doesn't work, at least we know now that this doesn't work for you. So there's an inherent value there. Right. So I think a lot of it's been like scattered brain, not, you know. Not, not focusing, not really truly honing in.

Because any program that you do is probably going to take some tweaks along the way too. Right. Absolutely. And, um, you know, something I noticed that a lot of people do is, um, they'll get their programming from their coach and they'll just take that and they'll try to run with it.

And it's like, no, you need to communicate with your coach about how the training's going. Like if something's hurt, you know, there's any of the good coaches, if you're like, man, my knee really hurts and this, you know, squats aren't going the way they need to go. Your coach is not going to be like, fuck you, just do it. You know, your coach is going to say, Hey, you know what? Well, uh, all right, well shit, maybe we've got to take a step back.

Maybe, you know, maybe we've got to reevaluate what we're doing. Like, why'd you hurt your knee? How'd you hurt your knee? Did you hurt it training or did you hurt it playing a pickup game of basketball or like what the hell happened? You know? Absolutely. And, and I think a lot of people aren't communicating back to their coach enough and

giving that information. And that, that comes to what we're saying is operating on extremes. So you have one person that's so dogmatic, you know, they're, you know, they felt like a twinge in their pec and they're still gonna max out bench day. The other person can't stay focused for five

seconds and commit to anything. So yeah, you need to stay committed, but at the same time, within reason, like, of course you have to communicate that. I mean, because if you get injured, it, it, it can be, you know, you're gonna be out for a little bit of time. And in some cases it can be career ending for people. Your program's pretty known for, you know, being, being pretty harsh.

Uh, do you try to like ease people into it or is it just like, boom, here. I think it's a case but gotta get ready on the podcast yeah absolutely so how many of those have you had this first one he had what three cups of coffee though yeah man yeah get them get them all get them ready get me cracked out right so definitely it would depend on the situation of the person Definitely it would depend on the situation of the person because like Julius Maddox is like, um, he's a fast gainer. So like what happens is like, he's in a gain size and strength easier than most people. It's a blessing to a point, but that means he can't get away with as much work because like, you know, that's sort of, I think a lot of the old school kind of like, remember those magazines, like hard gainer and those things. Yeah.

out a lot of the old school kind of like, remember those magazines like hard gainer and those things? Yeah. Okay. They were, their thing was like, if you're a hard gainer, you can't work at, you have to work out less, not as, you know, not as much volume, blah, blah, blah.

They actually had it backwards because when you're that dialed in, you're a fast gainer, you're so nearly efficient. Like you just fatigue easy because every single ounce of your beings into that barbell. Right. Just inherently. Kind of the difference in most cases between

males and females. A lot of times. Men are normally neurologically efficient. And a lot of times females are neurologically inefficient, correct? Yeah. More so. Like women are just not typically as explosive.

They don't switch fast, switch muscle fiber. Yeah. Not saying about all ladies all the time in all cases, but just muscle fiber. Yeah. Not saying about all ladies all the time in all cases, but just in general. Yeah. So like, um, someone like that, if I tried to do some crazy high volume thing, there's, it would, it would be a train wreck.

So we'd have to, you know. We have a guy, we have a, we have a lifter in the gym and his name is train wreck. An actual lifter in the gym. Seriously? Could you just envision what that guy, what the physique on that guy must look like? No, what's it look like?

It's bad. It's something that you're going to look twice at. Let's put it that way. Point being, you'd have to definitely ease someone like that in or you're going to have a lot of problems. Yeah, you got to take your time. What's up with Keto Built? How's that been going? It's been going really well.

So I think it's the thing I like about it. I like you have a caveman on the front of the book. Kind of Neanderthal looking guy. Somebody emailed me and asked me if it was a drawing of him. I'm like, I don't even know who the hell you are. That's great. Yeah.

It's like, oh. Hey man, you can't use me. No, no, no. He's nice about it. He's like, you know, like. Oh, okay. I'm honored if this is me kind of thing. I'm like.

I'm honored that this is me and you can send me a 500 bucks. Yeah. It was the weirdest thing. And I mean, they didn't even look, I wish I had the email still. Cause I looked the guy up on Facebook's where he messaged me and it didn't look exactly like that. It wasn't like. I thought it was just you and you're a kid looking like a Neanderthal. So the thing I like about it is it's a real, it's like, there's plenty of books like you can read on keto that are like so deep into it.

Yeah. It gives you way too much information. Science. Yeah. Cause I don't think the average person reading it wants all that. Right. I mean, cause I've done books where I've gone so heavily into science, like bench press science and yeah, I was badass writing it, but it didn't get the same response as some of my other books because I think people are like, what the hell

are you talking about? Just what I need to do to do this. A lot of people just want to know like what to eat, you know? And I do think that it's, it is wise for people though, as they are going through any sort of transformation, whether it's, they want to be stronger or they want to, you know, embark on a

ketogenic diet or whatever it is, they should, I think it's your obligation to further educate yourself because then you'll be loaded with weapons that will help you in your kind of time of need. And that way you don't have to always rely on, you know, just taking someone's word for it. You know, should I have, if I'm going to fast, should I have coffee? And should I, you know, people start asking all kinds of crazy questions, but the more that you know, the better you can audible. And that's what try to make this where it's going to be kind of like a game plan, but you do have some stuff.

And then if you want to learn more, I guess you can get these other ones that are like really deep into it. Right. How do you, uh, keto diet? Everyone's got their own little spin on it. Is this a five day thing? A seven day thing?

Is it no carbs? Some carbs? With the way, when little spin on it. Is this a five day thing? A seven day thing? Is it no carbs? Some carbs? With the way, when I personally do it. So versus like, you know, anything else is I'll do it. Like, cause I'm not trying to get like shredded for a bodybuilding show. What I would do is go make sure I get. See if you can pull up some of those pictures, Andrew. He was like 5% body.

Make sure I can get up, get to every 21 days or so, at least get in a high carb day and then try to like place. It's hard to make it that long. Yeah. But then try to put then, but then you can make it where it's not like you're some social outcast by just.

Smoky. Yeah. Well just do like, if you got like some sort of, you're going to somebody's house for dinner, like once a week, say. Right. Just make that your carb day or whatever. Right, right.

You know? My brother does that with the movie theater, but he goes to a movie like every day. Just go at night so we carb night. Yeah. He's like, he's like, yeah, he's, he says, yeah, just eat whatever I want only, but only when I go to the movies.

I'm like, you go to, you have a movie ticket in your hand every day. That's funny. So you do about every 21 days and then. At most, I said, that's the most I'd go. I'd usually go more like one day a week or something. Gotcha.

Yeah. See, that was sort of doing keto dieting there without knowing what keto was and not as much fat. Like. Yeah. Where there, I used to eat five pounds. You look angry.

You look a lot happier now. I got to say that. Five pounds of steak a day. Damn. And with a little bit of broccoli, but by the end. Are you pretty much a big eater? I was just. You like to pound food in general?

I was training. Yeah, I am. But I was training so much and doing so much cardio that I don't think I had a choice. Yeah. You're training twice a day at this point? I was training. so I'd go, as far as working at branches gym, so I'd go in the morning, hit stadium.

I'd usually go to, there was a, we have a lot of big stadiums in Texas, so I'd found one of the bigger high school ones on the way to the gym. I'd park my truck out there, hop over the fence, wasn't open, do a bunch of stadiums for like 45 minutes in the morning. I'd lift weights with Brian Dobson, the owner of Metro Flux at noon. And then, um, sometimes do, um, some more stuff at night, but the night kind of like

half-assed, I would, you know, just talk on the phone or like that kind of cardio where the first two were real intense. During your bodybuilding days, how did you like posing? Um, you didn't compete, right? I didn't compete. Um, I like. But you posed for some guys. Nevermind.

Source subject. I like posing to learn, uh, you know, the mind muscle connection a lot. And. Did you utilize that in training at all? Did you pose in between exercises? Absolutely. That's fucking hard. Yeah.

And how long do you do it for? Like you flex for like 30 seconds or something like that or. Well, I would tell, uh, I was working out with Brian, so I was doing what he was saying. He would say like, I'd say we need to work on your posing. So I was like, why don't we shoot between sets

too? And he gives, I got 10, he'd be like like i got 10 minutes after we're done working out i gotta do this so right we'd practice that so i'm saying like i wanted to figure instead of standing around between sets we would do that but we were doing some absurd amount of volume then because they had um there was some kid from university indiana came down and he was like, I don't know what the hell he was doing. He was like taking notes and sent us some graph. And apparently in our chest workout, we did 66 sets. Holy shit.

And he freaked out. I mean, granted, not all of them are to failure. He's counting like. Warm up. Yeah. You know, on bench, if you're going to bench press and you're in your top sets with 545, he's counting like the 315 for 12 on the way up as a set, but still. What was that gym like?

I mean, that seems, that gym seems really intense. You were at Metroflex? Mm-hmm. And is that, you said it's Brian Dobson was, did Branch, was that part of what Branch was doing too or no? Did Branch have his own gym? Branch trained at Metroflex, but he have his own gym? Branch trained at Metro Flex, but he had his

own gym. Oh, okay. So, um, I needed a job. So, um, I was, I mean, I had. How old were you at the time? 25 or so. So I went over to, um, I was going to, so I left, I was living in Nashville, Tennessee

doing well training, a good training business there. But I wanted to train more myself. So I left there because there weren't really, I trained at Vanderbilt, which was a good gym to train at. Oh yeah. But then I wanted to train at Metroflux. I moved out of Texas and I was training people there. And, uh, that, that was going okay. But at the time there wasn't like, I remember

Brian said, no one's ever made a living as a trainer here. I'm thinking like, shit, you know, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I didn't have the right mindset. I was like, I need to get a job. So luckily Branch was gracious enough to give me a job, which was great.

But then he closed his gym down and then I ended up really killing the training business and doing awesome at Metro Flux. I think I would have had the right mindset going in, you know, most of the people hadn't made a, you know, living there, it's because they're trying to, you know, hook up with chicks in the bathroom or something, you know?

Right. They're not really like in it for the right reasons. So I think I should have, if I had the right mentality, I wouldn't have had to do that in the first place. I never even thought of that. Is that a thing?

Can we do that? Hook up with chicks in the bathroom? We got a pretty big bathroom here. I don't know, like just accidentally, what are you just accidentally walking into the ladies room? How does it work? You know, the Metro flex from, from all the

videos I used to see, um, you know, it looked like, um, you know, truly hardcore gym. For sure. And it had, you know, tons and tons of dumbbells and tons of machines and all those old videos of Ronnie Coleman listening in there. And he's just dripping with sweat. It's like literally just dripping off and you see him, uh, hitting up those big squats, lightweight, uh, doing all that stuff.

Um, and, and I remember the, um, there's like fans in there, but it looks like the fans are just, it looks like the fans are just making it hotter because it's just, there's like fans in there, but it looks like the fans are just. Oh, Corey. It looks like the fans are just making it hotter because it's just, it's in Texas and everyone's just dying in there. What's it like 120 degrees in there sometimes? It is. And that, that summer from where you saw right there, that 2006 from where those pictures were from, that was one of the hottest summers too. I think, I think these videos motivated and inspired everybody. I mean, this shit was, this shit was great.

And I still watch some of it today. Look at Ronnie Coleman's a nut. I love it. What, what makes some of these guys different? Like Branch Warren, um, Ronnie Coleman, like did they just have a different mindset? Like they don't care. They just dive all in.

They don't care. Like when they were training, they just, they're not worried about how they're going to feel tomorrow. Definitely not worried about how they're going to feel tomorrow. Definitely not worried about how they're going to feel tomorrow. I think if anything, it'd be the opposite

problem they have. They're thriving on feeling crappy the next day. Yeah. So if they're going to have an issue. So they almost like the pain. They almost like the pain. I mean, you should check it.

I don't think I sent it to you, but I just did an interview. I put it up on YouTube the other day with Branch Warren and it divulged deep into his mindset. And I think he's an animal, dude. I mean. Yeah.

I mean, he really seems to love to beat the shit out of himself. Yeah. He just, his work ethic is just like. Yeah. I mean, for sure. Um, when you were working at this gym where, um, I would imagine at a spot like this, like

I, I kind of grew up in a much similar environment to this and performance enhancing drugs were rampant and it wasn't uncommon to hear guys talk about it and stuff. Was it, I mean, obviously with these pro bodybuilders in there, it must've been commonplace for guys just to, just for it to be like mentioned, you know, mid sentence as if they were talking about walking their dog or something. Right. Nah, they're pretty smart. I think people are a little smarter than that to like be. I mean, I think. Not, not too, not too out in the open. Yeah.

Cops and stuff could be. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. One of the gyms that I grew up at, they were always, uh, they were always a little paranoid about, about cops. But then, uh, after a while, some of the cops started coming in there and they started getting a lot bigger too.

So then people are a little bit more, uh, a little bit more open about it. They had a cop get busted at the Gold's Gym that's out of, um. Ronnie Coleman was a cop too. Yeah, that's true. Here I am eating chicken again. He's in his squad car.

It's like, this is the worst police officer the world has ever seen. Do you know what year this one's from? This is probably, I'll try to find out. This is probably 2005. Something like that. Eight time.

Eight time Mr. Olympia. So maybe it's 2006. Oh no, but that doesn't mean eight time. It's like a compilation video. So they're, they're going back

over old footage. He, Ronnie Coleman actually had, um, somebody paid $50 an hour or two to load weights for him. Wow. And lift weights up to him.

A guy's name is the general Robert. He's named Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee. The general. That's great. Yeah.

Ronnie. I mean, that, that's gotta be worth it, you know, because he, the amount of weight the guy lifted, especially when he would do those, remember he did those leg presses and stuff. Uh, do you see any of these guys anymore? Do you see Branch Warren anymore? I just hung out with Branch Warren the other

day. Yeah. Um, um, last Friday for a while, a couple hours. And then, um, I met with Ronnie for like a couple hours at IHOP. He likes to meet at IHOP. That's great.

I walked in there like, I'm looking for Ron and they didn't let me finish the sentence. They just took me to his table. I'm like, okay. Yeah. They just, they, they, he's a regular. He's in there all the time. All the time.

That's awesome. Who do you look up to in the industry or who do you look up to, you know, or even when you were a kid, who do you look up to? Like of these guys. Who have you looked up to? Definitely. Powerlifting, bodybuilding.

Ed Cohn, Fred Hatfield, Bill Kazmaier. Fred Hatfield's the first guy to squat a thousand pounds, right? Yeah. Or no, I think Dave Waddington was. Oh yeah, yeah. But Fred Hatfield. He had a squat record for a long time. Record and did it lighter.

Yeah. He weighed less. And then did Fred Hatfield, he started, I think he had the first personal training certification course in America, right? Mm-hmm. That's pretty amazing. Who else were you mentioning? I think he had the first, uh, personal training certification in America, right? That's pretty amazing. Uh, who else were you mentioning? Um, well with, um, Fred Hatfield, what were we, I lost my train of thought there. Yeah.

We're just talking about who you kind of like we're looking up to. You said Ed Cohn, Fred Hatfield, and you mentioned a couple other guys. Uh, Bill Kazmaier, Doug Young. Um, I looked up, I mean, a lot of, um, from like a more intellectual standpoint, Charles Poliquin. Yeah. He's been on there.

Yeah. Yeah. He's, he has, uh, a lot of great information. Salaria to Fred's business partner. Mm. Now you traveled all over the place. You mentioned living in Tennessee. You mentioned living in, in, uh, Texas.

I believe your family's from Santa Barbara area, right? Um, I think when I first started to learn about, and I'm not sure if it's you or your brother, I don't, I don't know who I've seen videos of, but this is like, this is way the hell before YouTube was ever around. This is like 2003, 2002. I think that's why I didn't get on YouTube

originally. Cause I just been doing it like posting the videos on my website and stuff. Yeah. I used to see videos from, I mean, a really long time ago of like box jumps and all kinds of different, uh, crazy training. It might've been you and your brother.

Um, but, uh, yeah, I remember you seeing you doing that. What was something that made you want to even like document some of that stuff back then? Because that was very uncommon. I'm not exactly sure. I think a lot of it was. You just thought you were badass.

Like everyone's got to see this shit. A lot of it was, I didn't really see other people doing it. I was trying to share information. I was getting into actually training people. Then actually John Enzer is the one that suggested I get a website. So I thought, you know, this guy knows what he's talking about.

So I took the advice and did it. That's, that's, uh, that's really interesting. Cause I think like Inzer as a company, like maybe just as of like a few months ago, just got an Instagram page, you know? So it's interesting that he would, uh, turn you on to technology. I had, he suggested it before he got a website. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah. That company's been around for a long time. I haven't really heard or seen much from him. They were real helpful to me when I was starting out, so I've always had a soft spot in my heart for them. Yeah. Well, they've done a great job.

They make great products. I mean, still today when it comes to their, their bench shirts and their squat suits and stuff, a lot of the other companies chose to make their material a lot stiffer, but theirs was a lot, had a little, at least a little bit of give to it. Yeah.

Cause some of that stuff, it's like, you can't even figure out how to even come close to touching your chest or breaking parallel, you know, in, in some of those old school, uh, squat suits. Yeah. I've, I've, I've tested out bench shirts for John at random gyms and long view and stuff.

I mean, like when I knew the bench shirts were getting crazy is one time we had 765 on there and just brought it down. It was stuck right here. Just hovering. Nothing's happening. Yeah. It's, it, they're, they're, uh, it's an

interesting animal. Cause then to try to figure out how to press that is, uh, it's pretty absurd. You posted a video, uh, not too long ago of you having some sort of ridiculous amount of weight on the bar. It was like 865 or something. Oh yeah. What was that? Um, well, the guy I used to train with that I looked up to too, was a guy named George

Brink. He was the only person at the time to deadlift over, uh, 800 when he's 50. He used to live down there. I went down to Santa Paula to train with him, but then I think he, he died like a year ago, but he moved up somewhere in this area. Are you guys near Shasta up here kind of? Yeah. Up here somewhere. And he was like, I've been doing these overload

bench things and, you know, I'm like, let's do it. So we just started overloading the bench press all the time and adding more and more weight looking back on it i don't think it was the best strategy however develop some cojones in the process yeah and i mean attack any weight after that was it just like a a short range of motion no it was full thing but what what were you doing with 865? Was it just a bench shirt or what? Watch. Yeah, we're pulling up a video. We're checking this out right now.

So that bench was a pretty cool design right there. I don't know what ever happened to that, but you could kind of see, I can lean over it like that and spot it. You know what's cool is in this video, you're probably 20 years old or something, right? What's cool is how much better shape you're in now. You know, what's cool is in this video, you're probably 20 years old or something, right? What's cool is how much better shape you're in now, you know, that's fucking, that's great. I mean, I really think that that's great.

You know, um, a lot of young people should be learning from that. Okay. So he's just, uh, assisting you a little bit through the lift there. I think more than a little bit, but. Yeah. Oh, you said he deadlifted 800, right?

I'm certainly applying. Oh, wait, he was on a, bit, but yeah. Well, you said he deadlifted 800, right? I'm certainly applying. Oh, wait, he was on a, um, he was on some sort of weird, like chest supported row or something. That's on the benches. I'm saying the design was bad-ass because that's what, oh, see that. That's fucking great. Yeah, I know. I've, um, so I've brought this up to other equipment companies before just to get another one. Like, I'm not like looking to profit.

I just think this would be a great thing for. All the people I'm looking to profit. I am too, but I don't want to get in the equipment. I'm looking to profit a lot, but just not on this. Yeah. I want to run the fitness industry. The you know what? It's really cool for those of you that can't see the visual.

I know live everyone can see what we have on YouTube, but for those that are listening on iTunes. what we have on YouTube, but for those that are listening on iTunes, basically what it looks like is that the spotter, the guy that's behind where the bench press is that normally does the lift off, he has like a chest supported row type of thing where he can lean over. Now this could be viewed as a positive and it can also be viewed as a huge negative because how in the world are we going to sit on anybody's face anymore? How in the world are we going to get our balls right in the guy's face?

I mean, that's kind of part of the whole strategy is to kind of half straddle the guy to throw him off a little bit. Now we can't get the balls in the face anymore. And you can't get sweat dropping into your eyes and gum into your mouth. I think you get some decent sweat still. Yeah. Yeah. I get some good sweat drops. That is a really cool.

It wasn't a powerlifting company or anything. Hmm. That's yeah. I think it might've been body masters or something. Man. I, fuck. I used to work for a company that moved around

equipment and body masters was the worst. That was a, they was just the heaviest. Yeah. Like the, I don't know what they made their shit out of compared to everybody else, but that stuff was, was, uh, it was heavy as hell. Do you have any other brothers and sisters or anything like that? I just have that one brother, Noah.

Yeah. And then what, what were things like for you guys growing up? You guys beat the shit out of each other all the time. Yeah. Watching wrestling and stuff. Since like, um, one of my earliest memories is like, um, when I was like four or five or probably like five and he was like two or three or two, uh, we got in a fight at the donut shop and

went through the window there went through the window like broke the window not like all the way through broke the window at the donut shop fighting damn and how were your parents were your parents kind of involved in you guys in sports or they were more hands off or um i think they were like the perfect role models to mix in that regard. There's like, okay, if you want to, um, if you want to do a sport, we're going to provide the avenue type of thing and then be supportive once you're there. Though, um, like for instance, like with

basketball, they were like highly suggestive. I do it like football. They weren't like pushing me into it. When I got into boxing, I had to like, I don't think they would have let me except they, I kept begging and they realized I really want to do it. Like, I think if I would have mentioned in passing, like, Hey, I want to try boxing. They would to like, I don't think they would have let me except they, I kept begging and they realized I really want to do it. Like, I think if I would have mentioned in passing, like, Hey, I want to try boxing.

They would be like, no. But I kept bringing it up every day and got to do it. That's cool though. They were supportive in general. Did you guys have weights at the house or anything like that? We had weights.

Sound like you grew up like the Bell brothers watching wrestling. You had weights at the house. In the basement. Yeah. Same with us. It was amazing. Yeah. We had, um, and. In the basement. Yeah. Same with us. It was amazing. Yeah.

We had, um, and for some reason my dad knew, I don't know how, I don't know how he figured it out, but like he bought like, like real weights. I remember you said that they weren't like those Sears, like cement ones that were actually good. I mean, we did have that when we were really young and then we had like this machine that kind of, you know, one of those machines you can do

like leg extension in the same spot. You can do like a lat pull down, you know, it was, uh, called the Marcy monster. It was from Sears. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it was like that, that we had that. But then after that, we moved into another house. I think what happened is my brother, Chris, he had, uh, he's born with bad hips and bad knees and stuff. And he had a double knee surgery, probably at about 15 or 16 or so. And the doctor that he went to was a power lifter. And that's how we got in a power thing. Cause that guy was like, if you, uh, you know, if, if you want to, if you want to be out

of pain, your only, only way you'll ever be out of pain is to be strong. That's awesome. He's like, you got to squat. And this guy was strong. This guy squatted, um, in the sevens. And I think he weighed like 200 pounds, maybe 220. He was pretty like, he was in pretty damn good shape too. And I was probably, you know, I'm four years younger than my brother.

So we were, when we saw this guy, we were like, what the fuck? Like we knew about muscle and stuff. Cause we saw, you know, we saw wrestling and things like that. And we, our, our uncle was into it. But then when we saw this guy, we were like, holy. Cause we'd never really seen anybody up close that looked like that. And we, our, our uncle was into it. But then when we saw this guy, we were like, holy, cause we'd never really seen anybody up close that looked like that. And he was like, yeah, I power lift.

And we're like, what the fuck's power lifting? Yeah. And, uh, then my, from there, my dad, you know, ended up buying us that, uh, that weight set. But yeah, it looks like some of the stuff we have here at fucking Super Training. I had starting off, I don't know where this came from, but we had a weight.

It was like one of those cheap Sears ones, like 20-some pounds. Try to get on the weight. My dad's friend named Steve Hall was the one that got me into lifting initially, and he was crazy, but I remember he said, you can't lift the weight overhead. He's like, whatever rule you do, you can't lift the weight overhead. So I'm like five years old, and I'm thinking, okay, as soon as no one's looking, go down there every day and lift it overhead, because it I'm like five years old and thinking, okay, as soon as no one's looking, go down there every day and lift it overhead because it must

be like some kind of magical key to something. So I'd go down there. That's great. Get that barbell and lift it overhead and do curls. It's like, what does that guy have against Olympic lifting? Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's like whatever you do, don't

lift it overhead. Are you big into any supplements or vitamins or anything like that i wouldn't say big into it no you're you never seen any like real benefit from you know i have i just don't think it's like um like the game changer necessarily like some people do so like when you're taking care of all loose ends obviously right yeah i've always thought that um supplements can help keep you on a regimen. Yeah. You know, you, you, you have your protein shake at this time of day and you have your vitamins at this time of day. And if it's helping with anything, it's at least helping with that.

Yeah. I mean, I've noticed some benefits, like I've since taken like vitamin D, fish oil and things like that, but not like, I don't think it's like you're saying like a game changer. I don't think it's going to, if you're totally 1800, it's on the gateway to 2000. Right. Is there anything you do in particular for like inflammation, recovery? Like do you suggest, you know, hot, cold, like you do anything like that? I think the biggest thing I've noticed personally for inflammation is cutting back on carbs. That's been huge. Like I remember Charles Pollock, when it said that, when we talked about initially and kind of encouraged me to go back to this.

Cause when, um, I showed you those pictures before I was in bodybuilding, super shredded. I don't think I was eating enough fat. So obviously it worked, but that picture is actually when I'd gone off the diet for a couple of weeks. So I actually looked better, you know, eating Chinese buffets, pizza, Waffle House

and all that stuff for a couple of weeks than I did when I was shredded. So. Yeah. Cause you filled out and. Filled out. And gained some size and. Yeah.

Gave your body kind of the nutrition it needed because you were saying you weren't eating enough fat before that. Yeah. So then going back to like lower carb eating again, not as fanatical as that, but keep my fats up and stuff. I noticed a tremendous difference on the

inflammation. And personally for me, I noticed that everybody's going to be different is I haven't noticed any kind of drop off in work capacity and everything. If anything, it's like. Yeah. Kind of picked up.

And are you like no carbs? Like you don't eat a potato or rice or anything like that? No, I don't. And then I'll just go like when I'm going to have like a, you know, a refeed or whatever, just, I'm not like, again, I'm not trying to get on stage. So I'm not like counting out carbs, you know, a refeed or whatever. Just, I'm not like, again, I'm not trying to get on stage.

So I'm not like counting out carbs, like, okay, 200. Right. You know, I wonder that sometimes when people are that anal about things, but their physiques don't reflect it at all. If they're like lying or what's going on, because. Well, I think, I think the problem, you know, the problem with calories is, you know, if you look at Dr. Andy Galpin, he, he posted just two days ago, uh, he posted some of the problems with counting calories. A ton.

Um, you know, I don't think it's ever a great idea to like totally coach people out of like something they're comfortable with, but it's good to present them with the information. And the information is that first of all, if you're on a real diet and you want to be a bodybuilder or you want to be any sort of real athlete, then you should not be eating, uh, packaged processed foods. Sure. Packaged processed foods are the only things that have like the food label on it normally. I mean, sometimes you get, you know, sometimes meat will have it too, but if you get it from like the butcher, it doesn't say anything on it. Right. Um, we should be eating things that aren't packaged.

We should be eating things that doesn't really have a food label. The problem with the food labels, uh, in addition to it normally being something that has, you know, processed food in, in the container or in the package is that we don't really know the calorie in the calories that are in that donor, in that, whatever it is that you bought, granola bar, whatever, cereal. Um, they say that sometimes food labels granola bar, whatever, cereal. They say that sometimes food labels can be off by 50%. Yeah. And then how do we fill it, figure out our own caloric expenditure? You know, what's the math look like on all that?

And who the fuck even knows any of that? Even are the products the same as they were 30 years ago when they first measured them? Like the soil's different now, so is potato from now the same as 1975? Right. Like even this, you know, monster energy drink or whatever it is that you're consuming, um, you

know, it, it might not have, you know, three carbs, it might have 12, right? Like you just don't really, we don't really know. And, um, I don't think it's a, I do think it's a waste of time personally. Um, I do think that if you are a seasoned uh dieter somebody that's done it for a long time and you're somebody that's going to step on stage maybe like a phil

heath or some of these guys that are going to compete uh maybe for those guys maybe it makes sense because they have to figure out the overall amount of food that they're getting in their body and the nutrients and it's really important for them to uh you know feed their body what it needs to continue to grow and everything but other than that it's like important for them to, uh, you know, feed their body what it needs to continue to grow and everything. But other than that, it's like, man, what are you wasting your fucking time for? Yeah. I mean, it's, I'm with you on it.

You know, cause the, the, uh, the way that they, they pull up, uh, you know, how many calories you're supposed to have in a day. There's, if you, can you Google that, Andrew? Like if you, if you just look it up, like how, how many calories should I have in a day? There's 15 different ways or 40 different ways, you know, like they just multiply.

It would automatically just change by including this in there. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? Like, just like something that small. Yeah. I mean, it's going to make a big difference, uh,

depending on what you consume and what you eat. And really, I think that a lot of times diet is about the hormones that are in your body. And when you take on something like a low carbohydrate diet, you get better control of your insulin levels, which in my opinion, we should really shouldn't need, uh, these weird, crazy diets, but we're in a bad spot where we do need them. And also if we're trying to build muscle and we're trying to do things that are extraordinary. That's one of the interesting things too, with the lower carb ketogenic type of diets

is, um, had people go get tested numerous times, DEXA scans, you know, hydrostatically. So it's not like, you know, their buddy pinching skin. Yeah. And you, to me, to see the amount of muscle people put on too, a lot of times it happens. And then a lot of times their test levels

spike too. Yeah. So, I mean, will that happen to everybody? Absolutely not. but there's. So according to Google for an average man, uh, to consume 2,500 calories, to maintain 2000, to lose one pound of weight per week for a female, uh, to maintain 2000 calories and then

to drop a pound, a pound a week is 1500 calories. Right. And it's just hard to figure out those variables. Like what if you work construction 12 hours a day, then lift after, and what if you just sit on your ass and play video games, you know? Yeah. And, and what if you had a, you know, had a

specific job that you had that energy expenditure for the last 20 years? Like maybe your body's like so used to it. It's not really burning as many calories, but what if you took on a new job that you just started six months ago? I mean, there's so many factors that go into all this. I'm not saying they don't matter at all.

Cause I don't really, I'm not a proponent of that either. I just think that they're very inaccurate. Yeah. A lot of times, you know, when people just go on purely off of macros too, not actually looking at what the hormonal responses of food. What is going on? And I wanted to save this for the end, save the best for last.

What is going on with being gas station ready? So when you, I think this, I think this Instagram post. Do you have like a, you have like, are you a conspiracy guy? Like there's going to be like a zombie apocalypse and you need to be ready. I don't think so. I mean, but apparently a lot of people I talked to lately think the earth is flat. So I'm definitely far from that. Yeah. Flat earth. Like a lot of up. I don't think so. I mean, but apparently a lot of people I talked to lately think the earth is flat. So I'm definitely far from that. Yeah.

Flat earth. Like a lot of people. I know. I thought it was, I thought they were kidding at first. Cause I keep saying, okay, like let's, they say this is something like, what happens when you go past Japan?

That's all I want to know. Well, I know that if we were to dig a hole deep enough, we would end up in Japan. Oh, China. I got it. I got it. Yeah. I got my information wrong.

I guess when I was in New York, it was different. Yeah. Oh, China. I got it. I got it. Yeah, I got my information wrong. I guess when I was in New York, it was different. Yeah, no, totally. Gas station ready is just being ready. You know, when you're at the gas station at 3 a.m. and the bourbon bay transient walks up to you, wants your ride, your car, your life, your lady.

Are you ready? Are you ready to rumble? Are you ready to take care of yourself? You guys got to pull up the gas station ready YouTube video. Have you, um, have you taken a self-defense classes and things like that? No, just boxing. Boxing.

Yeah. This guy right here is disgusting. The Katana guy? Yeah, we're watching some video clips right now. I think this is the Katana one right here, the light rail Avenger. Yeah, somebody whips at a fucking sword. That's pretty amazing. That is just too fucking funny.

Are you able to pull up, hey Smokey, are you able to pull up the gas station ready one on YouTube? I think they like that one. On a more serious note, are you trying to educate people to be ready in case Like in case, you know, somebody is trying to attack you or is it more for fun? It's both. So my guy, my business partner, Don Bocci, the guy who did Jailhouse Strong with, he's a jiu-jitsu instructor. So he's a great jiu-jitsu instructor and teaches classes on self-defense. But a lot of it initially was just for like, you know, training. Cause a lot of people aren't training, you know, a lot of people that are following us aren't just like world-class

powerlifters or people that used to power. I don't know what you'd call this demographic of people like over 35 that still want to train to kind of be ready for anything, but not, you know, get rid of strength either. Yeah. Well, now we call them gas station ready. Now we call them gas station ready.

Um, so. Um, you also have, have, uh, like research and stuff, um, some old school lifting and some old school lifting techniques that people have used, um, even in like correctional facilities and stuff like that, right? Yeah, with Jill Howe Strong. Absolutely.

So. That's, that's where the name came from, right? That's where the name came from. Jill Howe Strong is essentially trying to make the most out of, uh, what you have, you know, whatever your situation is. So you could be at a great gym, like super training. It doesn't meaning just doing pushups in the corner, but if you're, you know, living at motel six in Evanville's Indiana, you might be stuck doing body weight training and you make the most of that type of thing.

So it's taking advantage of what you have. You like this ending right here? Yeah. Yeah. These, this is, uh, this was filmed at a real gas station too oh that's great this is uh just on your youtube channel is it jailhouse strong youtube yeah watch the ending right here stay ready it's like you have a bottle of piss right there bottle oe There you go. Intense music. Yeah. Dun, dun, dun. Gas station ready, baby. Man, you got to be ready for any and all things.

What's coming up next for you? Actually, the next huge thing coming up is coming out with a book in about a month from now. It's called Grounded in Gratitude. It's a gratitude journal, but it's an action plan too, because a lot of times with these kinds of gratitude journals, you know, people, you know, just think of it like sitting around in like a yoga class in Santa Fe and not accomplish anything. This actually comes with an action plan. It's some of the most advanced mindset techniques, um, views with myself, athletes and Adam's views of other people too. So like, for instance, like, um, before Steve

Johnson hit the 900 pound deadlift, he said to himself, um, every day to, you know, at least 20 times the way he'd make himself drift asleep at night is he'd say, I give myself permission to deadlift 900 pounds. So there's a lot of different mental techniques and how to apply them. And then there's like actually journaling

activities, this. So I think it's going to be our bestseller yet. And I'm very confident it's going to help a lot of people. It's going to be all about mindset. Yeah. The mental side of things is huge. We just talked yesterday to CT Fletcher. Yeah.

Fucking guy had a heart transplant. I mean, you know, talk about having a good mindset. He, he's so positive, you know, and he said that his faith was tested quite a bit and that, uh, you know, he definitely had his days, but when you have people around you that are positive, he had a lot of fan interaction. Um, one of the nurses read, uh, a lot of the stuff, uh, that people were sending him on Instagram and Facebook and stuff. And, uh, a lot of that just was enough to keep them, keep them strong, keep them going. So your mindset's a huge part of it. Well, yeah. And one of the chapters we have in there is actually on self-talk.

Just think about it like little small things like, okay, what's your goal? Well, my goal is to make a hundred thousand dollars say that's your goal. Well, you can't make money unless you work at, unless you're a counterfeiter or you work at the treasury, you need to say earn money because. Right. Make money's like inherently kind of shady. Earn money's not. You know, like those kind of little mindset things of like, what do you say?

Well, you know, you know, you say like, you, you know, you have to say like small things like, like that is just like, you know, real big and what we're talking about. small things like, like that is just like, you know, real big and what we're talking about. So we always like if versus when, you know, those types of things, like if this happens, when this happens, you know, I hope versus expects a huge section, all these little things that I've, you know, used, they're huge. I think, cause I mean, that's been one of the kind of like the, um, you know, biggest battles for me is, is like, um, developing that mindset just because I always had it for lifting, but I didn't have an other areas of life. Like I said before, you know, working at Metro flex, you can't ever make a living as a trainer here. Like that's a loser mentality to adopt that. So if you start saying things, you know, like people say, you know, the rich get rich, the poor get poor, that kind of crap.

And that kind of like loser mindset, you're going to find ways to fulfill that because your subconscious, I'm not sure, rant too much. It's like a servo mechanism that serves you, your helper. So it's going to do what you tell it to. So if you keep telling yourself only the rich get rich, the poor get poor, guess what? You're going to make that happen. So we're trying to, we're developing strategies that are going to help you overcome that type of thing.

It's hard because you got to do it in all aspects of your life, you know, and so it becomes an uphill battle. But if you can kind of take it one step at a time and do it day in and day out and you start to spread out into other areas of your life. I think so too. Got anything over there, Andrew? Yeah, I lost his name, but somebody was asking, should the ISO holds be used year round

or should that be like off season type thing or, you know, meat prep, that sort of thing. Okay. So let's clarify. They're not holds or pushes or pulls. If you do not, you like, do not want to, you know, hold the weight steady, excuse the nomenclature, it's like a prison rape against those pins. Okay. Is that appropriate to say?

I think so. I think it clarified it for us. Okay. So that's what you want to do. You want to try to break the pins. That being said, when you do it, I would say they're effective for about six to eight weeks at a time. Generally, it could be generally be like a meat prep when you're trying to like okay i need to pull up this ace card because i need x amount of pounds it's great for like okay i'm kind of

stuck aha i got it now i'm gonna pull it out however there could be a time and a place in the off season so like for instance if someone has extremely weak triceps we're really trying to bring up we might do like something you know especially if someone not as strong like functional isometrics really instead of just pushing against the pins where they do like something, you know, especially if it's someone not as strong, like functional isometrics really, instead of just pushing against the pins where they do like, um, you know, one, two, three, four, five, and a sixth one, they push as hard as they can. The problem with doing that with the advanced

lifters using the isometrics. So if you're intermediate or less than intermediate, you could do them anytime you want. Advanced, it might be tough because the whole purpose of off-season is generally to build work capacity and hypertrophy are the two biggest objectives here and to give your CNS a break from real heavy weights. Well, you talk to some of the more advanced lifters when they do the isometrics, they're fried. Like, I mean, they're pushing so hard because you can produce about 15% more force for a hell of a lot longer. hard because you can produce about 15% more force for a hell of a lot longer.

So if you're already an advanced lifter, like you're deadlifting 850 and you're pulling as hard as you can against pins in the off season, um, that falls on the risk side of the risk to benefit equation. If you're deadlifting 315, you know, that wouldn't. All right. That makes sense. Yeah. Are there any, uh, power lifters right now that you're not working with that you kind of hope that you or that you would like to work with um man i'm pretty open

so anybody that's um anybody's willing to work so i don't even like saying okay if someone has a bad attitude and deadlifts you know 980 they're gonna set the world record but they got a piss poor attitude i don't want to work with them where someone's deadlifting 315 and they're all about it let's let's do it you know so that that's kind of my thing is like this is more about it's also beyond just getting people strong it's like about building relationships with people and like after they actually stop powerlifting we can friends and, you know, run into each other and things like that. Not just. Yeah.

Makes sense. We're good. All right. That's all the time we got. This is, uh, Josh Bryant. Check out his book, Keto Built, and also check out his website, which is. Joshstrength.com. Check out his Instagram.

Jailhouse Strong. There we go. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Bye.