Mark Bell's Power Project - Re-inventing Yourself Takes Effort, DO IT || MBPP Ep. 911

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how small efforts over a long period of time can create massive changes in your life.    New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements!   ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off!   ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order!   ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

You don't put as much effort in because you're like, it doesn't matter how much effort I put on, I'll never catch up. And that's literally the worst thing you could do. What's your life look like if you just stick with something for the next five years? You double down and research that and become a material expert in that field. You can have these thought experiments. What if I do this for the next three years, the next five years? You got to think of where you could be literally a year and five years from now if you put in consistent effort. What can I be?

What can I become? You guys want to know something? What do you want to know, man? What you got? I got chickens. I got chickens. And this all happened in just the course of a couple days. Like live chickens?

Yeah, I got little chicks. Yeah, little tiny chicks. Didn't you have a coop at your place? They just go peep, peep, peep. Yeah, the coop has been there since we, you know, when we bought the place, it came with everything, but I don't know anything about chickens. We don't know anything about chickens. So we wanted to have a chicken coop for a while and then we finally bit the bullet and

got some chickens. And you know where you get chickens from? The chicken store. The fucking chicken store. The hardware store. yeah yeah tractor supply and and they fucking yeah and they ship they ship chickens to you it's fucking crazy what's the price of like getting chicks i don't know that's actually a good question i need to ask andy about yeah because they're little tiny things man they're so cute they're like uh they're like

the size of this little kettlebell that we have here. They're tiny. I mean, obviously, they're going to get to be pretty big. They're going to make some. And then be ugly as fuck. Yeah, make some eggs. Then they're a pain in the ass. Yeah, make some eggs for us. But we got some chicks, and then that has caused a stir with Daisy.

She's been upset. Our little puppy dog. She's like, who the fuck are these? Why are these other animals? Because we have them in the house. We have them in a box, and they need a lot of heat and stuff. puppy dog she's like who the fuck are these you know yeah why are these other animals because we have them in the house we have them in a box and they they need like they need like a lot of heat and stuff otherwise they're not gonna like survive you gotta feed them and cold feed them and stuff and then um casey came over and he uh worked on the chicken coop and like maxed it out so they

have like a little uh chicken coop hotel over there yeah that's like the fucking four seasons and uh yeah we're transitioning them to to go outside um but my wife has been kind of like messing around with the chicken coop and jake's been all excited about it and uh they went out there the other day and there's fucking uh a cat that had a bunch of babies, a bunch of kittens. Oh, okay. So there's like five or six cats out there now, too, little kittens. And are they going to fuck with your chicks? Well, not the kittens, but the cat.

I think eventually they will. Yeah, they... I don't think so. I mean, the chickens will get big enough at some point where the cat, I don't think, will really mess with it. But I don't know. But the chicken coop is set up to where, like, coyotes and all that shit can't really. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah, they can't.

I mean, I don't think they can mess with it, but you never know. Dude, it looks like, I mean, for 40 bucks, you can get, like, 10 of them. That's great. I think, if I'm reading that right, 31 to dude our fucking neighbor i'm not sure they got a rooster recently oh yeah yeah and every morning at like 6 a.m 6 a.m that thing goes off but like for the first week the dogs were just hitting the fence oh yeah because they were just like trailing that thing especially huskies they're gonna fuck that thing up yeah dude but luck like i think they've gotten used to it but initially they were just fucking staring through the holes and i would like i would leave come back the dogs are in

the same corner of the fence just staring at it and i'm looking back at it and it's staring at the dogs just far enough away that dogs can't do anything yeah god animals yeah when i lived in south sac a bunch of people had roosters what the fuck is people having roosters mexicans love them i'm not sure we have a lot of them you said it yeah i know that's right yeah but no that's true and then like the one down the street used by chickens by the way like i'm like the chickens have sex or like what just the rooster just fertilizes the egg there's youtube that shit's super dumb they are not smart at all chickens having sex do i remember when i was a kid i was just like how did animals do it i got homework chicks having sex dude lions are fucking it's it's it's sad the way lions do it because i think they're they're you

know their things have little pricks on it so it's painful it's like dogs yeah yeah dogs don't have pricks on their they get stuck dude what do you mean they get they get stuck so if if like the way a dog's fuck his his you know that that red rocket comes out yeah so it like basically has little things too that once it inserts unless it busts and like shrivels up to nothing they're stuck they can't come out isn't it great that like as humans at least we enjoy our shit most of the time right i don't want to get into other situations but most of the time it's a fun experience yeah it's always but in nature it's just like you me now let's go yeah and then sometimes like the uh well the black widow will just eat the dude you know it's like oh thanks

thanks for your services there are other animals that do that shit. Yeah. Where the women eat. Yeah. Imagine if that was a human thing. That wouldn't be good. There would be no guys around at all. We'd all be dead. Oh, God. That's the next point of evolution.

Yeah, that wouldn't be good, I don't think. No. Anyway, what we're talking about today is effort. We want to talk a little bit about effort and focus in and hone in on that. And I think with Andrew getting started in his jiu-jitsu career and with me messing around with running and then Seema is far along with his jiu-jitsu, I think it's important that people kind of understand that you can make a change and you can make a change really fast within even just a few weeks. Three, four weeks from now, you can be a pretty different person by the things that you start to do. Somebody – I always think for a lot of people, it's a good idea to go back to something that you used to like.

Like maybe you used to like to shoot some hoops. I think for some reason, as we get older, we think that we can't do it. We think that we shouldn't do it. I'm not talking about like randomly going and playing a pickup game of basketball out of nowhere. Like that actually probably is a bad idea if you haven't done that a long time. But just to go shoot some baskets, if that's something you really like to do, that'd be great to gravitate back towards that. But imagine what it would be like if you put a little effort into that. You do it for a handful of weeks. You go out and you do it with a friend.

Same thing with hopping on your bike. You know, some people for exercise, I ask friends and family members. They'll say, ah, you know, the gym. I never really got into the gym. And I'm like, well, as much as I would love for you to go to the gym, you don't have to go to the gym. There's no law that says you have to go there. It does a lot for you. It can help with muscle mass. It can help with longevity. But for your average person, that's not really moving that much. Walking some hills, jogging some hills, hiking, getting on a bicycle, these things will actually increase

their strength. It is a form of resistance training in some ways, something more than probably walking. But if you can commit to something like that and do it for X amount of days in a row or a couple times a week for five or six weeks, you can really change who you are right now or at least change and develop a new skillset. And when you develop that new skillset, you'll feel good enough about that skillset to continue it on for a while. Absolutely. Yeah. My mom, actually, my mom, my sister, they've been, instead of driving everywhere, they've been just starting to walk everywhere. So the other day, that's awesome. decided to walk to walmart from their house and it was about i think they were walking for about three to four hours they took 20 27 000

steps that day but my mom that's a lot man that's fucking awesome yeah that's my sister i was like how many how many steps did you guys watch she's like 27 000 i was like do you know how big of a deal that is but like that's like my sister she's trying to lose some weight and she's trying to build in these, these habits of walking every day. And once a week, her and my mom will take a really long walk and that's been helping her progress, you know, but that does take a bit of effort. And I think something that's kind of interesting is when we do talk about a lot of things, we try to make it things that don't take that much.

It's just like, start walking a little more, start moving a lot of things. We try to make it things that don't take that much. It's just like, start walking a little more, start moving a little bit more. But to really make a lot of change, it's necessary to put a decent amount of effort in. Because it did take effort if you're out of shape currently. You might not think it took effort to get there, but it was doing certain maybe bad habits consistently. So to get out of that, you're going to need to put some work into other habits you don't have or other things you're not doing. It's going to take some work, but that's not a bad thing.

And what I like about what Mark was saying, just putting a little bit of effort towards something that you enjoyed or whatever it may be. Maybe the walk or the bike ride is not going to give you the body that you wish that you had or whatever but what it can do is like start a domino effect and it can change the trajectory of where you

were heading so like let's say you were gonna head towards some kind of like i don't know cholesterol heart issue or whatever it may be a broken foot or something because you were out of shape and you fell off a curb like if you kept going in that direction maybe that's what would happen i just can't think of anything okay i'm sorry you're out of shape and fell off a curb yeah dude have you ever rolled your ankle off of a curb you've never done that no no dude oh my gosh so like think about somebody wearing somebody who's like out of shape there's like yeah they got a shot look check it out if somebody has really really thick hokas on and they don't see a curb and they walk off of it and they roll their ankle they have no agility to like fall correctly they're just gonna put all

their weight on that busted ass ankle and look now they can't work out they can't walk i feel like such an asshole that's realistic i know see now who's laughing i'm so sorry everyone you on athletic pieces out there oh my god let's start the show over be serious okay instead of ending up in the hospital because you have anyway anyway people do end up with a lot of problems especially like from being on their phone and they fucking stumble and fall and all kinds of shit happens changing the trajectory a little bit you know maybe you avoid something like that yeah there you go you're welcome in semen oh i'm such an asshole man

you're right i just couldn't i couldn't compute when you said that man you're right i just couldn't i couldn't compute when you said you're gonna have to do we need to like film a reenactment of andrew like those commercials i've fallen and i can't get i rolled my ankle wear my thick shoes i'll remember those life alert commercials the old lady on the stairs that's why people need to lift. I feel like. Get that resistance training in there. Work them quads.

It's real though. But, you know, I think another point on this is like a lot of people have a lot better genetics than they. I think people want to like kind of push their genetics to the side, you know, and then try to take credit for everything. You know, when I first started like bench pressing, I was just a little stronger than my friends. And then also, I mean, there's also like access. There's access to stuff. I think I've heard a story about Bill Gates, how the place that he grew up in Florida was one of the first schools in the country to have computers in

a lot of different classrooms you know there's just like stuff that just happens you're like well fuck how did that happen that makes yeah literally during summers for him he would get to work and on coding that other people weren't able to get access to it was just him and some other people and they were able to get ahead of all of these people it's a malcolm gladwell's book outliers y'all can check it out. But it wasn't trying to take away from how brilliant he was, but it was showing... It didn't take anything away from him, yeah.

He did have a big leg up of literally everybody else in the United States. I got access to computers. I ain't doing shit. Right. Yeah. Way better computers, too. And for me, you know, when I was a young kid, like I've told the story before, but it may be worth mentioning, Yeah. Way better computers too. Financially, he also did income taxes and real estate. And the other half of the basement was our weights. And I had good access to weights because my dad, we were upper middle class.

My dad made pretty good money. He tried to buy us stuff and tried to whatever shit we were into. He tried to push us in, not push us into that. He tried to encourage us into that more because, you know, having three boys in the house, like we're going to destroy each other and the house and eat all the fucking food. So my parents, rather than being annoyed with us all the time, tried to just encourage us to spend our energy, you know, somewhere else. So like weights and finances kind of always went together. And then it's, you know, it's not coincidental that I started a company that's in the fitness industry. I think, I think those things did not coincidental that I started a company that's in the fitness industry.

I think those things did go together. So I had a nice advantage there, but it still took a lot of effort to do what I did. But I always try to reference my background. I always try to reference my family. I always try to reference mom and dad were fucking right there for everything. My life wasn't that hard. You know, they were there. They were literally there for everything. They were literally there for everything. My life wasn't that hard. You know, they, they were there, they were literally there for everything. They were literally there for everything.

And then as you get older, you kind of recognize like, oh shit, like I have to kind of intentionally make stuff a little difficult for myself. And I have to figure out things where I can put in effort myself because I need to become my own person. You know, I can't just suck off the teat of my family, my whole life. I need to figure out my own path, my own way. And know, I can't just suck off the teeth of my family, my whole life. I need to figure out my own path, my own way. And so then I leaned into something like powerlifting. I leaned into football, professional wrestling, track, boxing, a bunch of other things until I started to find my own way. Yeah. And that, that is one thing though, when you're trying, I mean, I know I do, I've done this before. Like when you're trying to get better at something, one thing, though. When you're trying, I mean, I know I've done this before.

Like when you're trying to get better at something, one thing that you end up looking at is like you look at people that are good and then you'll see, oh, they've been doing this since they were six. Or, oh, they've been doing this since here. And then what that sometimes is, or if someone's really in shape, you're like, oh, they've been doing this since they were like 13 years old, right? And then you start to think well i'm 25 or i'm 28 or whatever looks like it's a little bit too late for me or it's like that's not i can't get in that good of shape or i can't get that strong and then you you take away from what you would actually do and because of that you don't put as much effort in because you're like it doesn't matter how much effort i put on i'll never catch up and that's literally the worst thing you

could do because we, you got to think of where you could be literally a year and five years from now, if you put in consistent effort, not where you're going to be a few, 90 days from now, even though 90 days of good effort is good, that shouldn't be your timetable for trying to be able to achieve something big or achieve something great. Look at where Kenny was. You know, i don't think he we we didn't we didn't know him five years ago but kenny is so young kenny williams he's 21 so five years ago

he was still a still a young teenager probably still in high school and look at uh look at the changes that he's made look at the maturity look at there's just been so many changes motherfuckers got three jobs. He and I are about to start like a podcast thing together. And it's interesting because all that it is kind of, I don't want to say like all, like quote unquote all, because it is a lot of effort, but all it is is him doubling down on what he loves to do.

That's bodybuilding. You know, he loves that sport. He loves doing it. And so I think somebody could try this as just like a thought experiment. If you're 30 or you're 25 right now, what's your life look like if you just stick with something for the next five years? What's the thing that you like? What's the thing that you enjoy? Maybe you still have to have a regular pain in the ass nine to five job because you can't figure out how to monetize that thing

that you love hunting or whatever it might be. But at some point over the next five years, if you double down and research that and become a material expert in that field, or at least come close to being a material expert, or at least appear to be somebody that is super passionate about that topic and that really enjoys it, then maybe you can start a podcast. Maybe you can figure out ways to monetize things. I think nowadays there's so many different ways that you can go about doing that. And just thinking of something like hunting, I'm sure you can start like a Patreon and teach people about all the different types of guns and

what's the best thing for a beginner and what do you use when you hunt? I don't know any of these things, but there's people that do. What's the best gear? What's the least thing for a beginner and what do you use when you hunt? I don't know any of these things, but there's people that do. What's the best gear? What's the least expensive, but it's going to get you the furthest. I mean, the list of shit goes on and on and on and on and on that you can do. And even someone like Andrew, who's been engineering this podcast for a while, even someone like Andrew is already in a good spot could have a show with a Patreon

that teaches people how to podcast to buy the best. I mean, if you just sit there and think for a little while, you can come up with some really cool stuff. And sometimes it's not right for you at that particular time or that particular moment because it might cost you in other areas.

But it's just kind of neat. You can have these thought experiments. What if I do this for the next three years or the next five years? What can I be? What can I become? Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now, the Pod Pro is like the Tesla

of beds. It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they could have their own temperature settings. We all sleep hot here. And I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. That doesn't happen anymore because of the Eight Sleep mattress. And I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover. And you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep.

You can just get the Pod Pro cover, and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash powerproject, and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, eightsleep.com slash powerproject. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. It's the knowledge business because the thing is is everybody's interest there are people out there who are interested in fucking knitting right and then what's the first thing someone's probably going to do most people are going to go on youtube and

type in like knitting tutorials or knitting whatever and they're going to learn from someone who's a material expert who spent time, maybe five or eight. Can I knit? No. Right. But it's a cool skill. Right. I know how to do a lot of shit. So I wouldn't.

Yeah. If you're like, yeah, my mom made me knit. Like you never forget that loop and the thing and whatever the fuck they're called. Yeah. Yeah. But that like and that's that's where a lot of shit's going but like if you can be if you can spend some time become good at something something you're actually interested in you can do a lot with it even if and that's the thing though because certain things are so niche like fucking knitting there's a certain amount of people that are doing

cool shit but you could also be one of those people right and then people like you for your personality and who you are along with being really good at knitting when you were um when you were first doing jujitsu um were there points where uh trying to word this the right way but like uh like the word give up is an interesting word i guess in juj. Cause you do have to like tap out. Like you do literally, I guess, have to surrender. Oh yeah.

You can get to tap a lot. Yeah. That's interesting. Um, I imagine it's so frustrating and like in the beginning, I know you're really fit and especially nowadays it's, it's harder for you to get tired and stuff like that. But in the beginning, like sometimes when you just be so exhausted and just so like overwhelmed by what the dude was doing you're like i'm fucking just i'm out like i'm

fucking dead i mean yeah it feels like you're in the matrix dog in a bad way it's like you're uh you're not neo on the other side of it you can't see anything neo's fucking over here right bouncing your bullets off and kicking your ass that's what you feel you can't see anything neil's fucking over here right bouncing your bullets off and kicking your ass that's what you feel you can see the ones and zeros but you have no like nothing you can do about it the ones and zeros aren't they don't make any fucking right yeah the ones and zeros yeah no dude initially this shit felt really impossible because um none of it made sense and people were just consistently wrecking me in tons of different ways. Well, that's something that you told yourself to like, what, what do you think, uh, what do you think led you to want to come back?

Like, were you like, if I just, I think if I just stick with this, I think there's a lot to learn here. I think there's something really cool I can pull from this. Oh yeah. Like I need this for some reason. Yeah. I would just like, one of the big things is i would watch really skilled people it's the same thing when i like i started powerlifting and i was trying to like progress the deadlift or whatever

and then i was watching a lot of yuri belkin at that time and i was just looking at his form i was just like if i could just copy that shit right i did i just did the kind of the same shit with jujitsu where i'd watch a lot of those high level competitors at the time there was like obviously i'd watch a lot of hajime Gracie shit since he was in ultra heavyweight, but Boucher, who's this big athletic dude who was wrecking it at the time. I think he was like a 10 time world champion. I just watch a lot of that and just be like,

well, you know, at some point I could do shit like that right now. No, cause I'm getting my ass beat, but I just knew I had to kind of stick with it. And I really just really, and I wouldn't say I enjoyed getting my ass beat.

It was really frustrating. But just the martial art itself, I really liked it. I liked how challenging it was. Most of the time when you were younger because you played soccer and you've always kind of – I guess it's fair to say like you've been kind of ahead. You're a big guy. You're tall. You've been athletic.

You were in sports from the time you were young. There's some genetic components to all this, but you've been literally playing sports for a really fucking long time. So when somebody, like if a friend wanted to race you, you probably were able to beat a lot of people. If someone wanted to arm wrestle you, you probably, like there's all these little things you do when you're like a little kid and you get competitive

and probably most of the time you were probably pretty athletic and able to mimic and or do things a little better than most people. You brought back some bad memories with the arm wrestling thing. There's a picture on my Facebook with this there's this like a buff jacked Mexican guy when I was in high school

and arm wrestling is fucking funny man yeah dude i mean it's a serious sport but like when it gets to that level right when you're a kid you don't know what you're doing it's yeah i ran everybody runs into like a razor blade on that one and jason and james hudak the hudak brothers were fucking tough to beat and i was like yeah they were they were were fucking Can you pull this up, please? Who the fuck are the Hoodacks? Harry and Jack. James Hoodack, I think, actually listens to the podcast sometimes, but

you know like those little fuckers that are ripped? There's just people that are ripped. Yeah, usually wrestlers. Dude, both these guys. Actually, yeah, James Hoodack, I think he did wrestle. Yeah, dude. He was just shredded. That's sick, yeah. He was just shredded. Had the sickest fucking mullet anyone's ever seen. Ooh, nice.

And he was shredded on top of it. Damn. A mullet and he was shredded. It took all the girls with that shit. Yo. But yeah, like I was big, you know, I was big and like heavy. And so all my friends were like, oh, you're going to kick his ass arm wrestling. And then I would get my ass kicked by those guys usually.

Or at least it would be like a stalemate to where anybody doing anything against me was good because i was big and heavy you know uh-huh yeah made me look like a chump put your weight into it yeah exactly really pissed me off there was this fucking yeah there's this thing we did in high school called sports arama and we were you know arm wrestling each other to see okay who's going to be the guy who arm wrestlers like the the seniors and the juniors or whatever and the last round was me versus this really stocky mexican dude fuck man i was holding for so long and then slowly he took me down and i was so dejected i have the picture somewhere on my facebook i'll find that shit that guy went on to be so successful after that he's a cool dude i'm just saying like

he's got that one giant arm i definitely i definitely landed him some high school i'm gonna stop my statement right there no but what i was getting like uh fuck was it it's an adam sandler movie where like he wins a uh like a basketball game when they were like 12 and he goes on to be super successful and then like the guys that he beat they're all still stuck on it living in that same hometown i'm trying to i forgot what it's what i was going to say though and sema was yeah you know you you um you did sports when you're young and you had some proficiency at it then you did it for a longer time and you got better and better at it and most of the time you were able to do well you were able to be a starter you were able to be a proficient soccer player um but when it came to jujitsu it was like no you're a beginner you're gonna fucking be

terrible oh yeah you didn't have a wrestling background you don't have you don't have a combat background of any kind i guess in soccer it can get kind of physical but you didn't have a background in anything like that before right no no combat sports background no wrestling background which was uh thigh wars yeah thigh wars yeah college thigh wars um but yeah that one guy's dick would get in the way this dick's like this big right yeah yeah yeah we need to have that guy's dick on the podcast all right so guys there's a there's a game i'll be so quick with this there's a game we played in college uh called thigh war it's fascinating when someone's really hung i think

it is it's fascinating it's scary what's that like it's like it's not okay to have a dick that's the size of this bottle which his actually was i wouldn't own a pair of shorts and i actually never thigh ward with him that's the guy that I never chose to thigh wore with. No one did. I'm not going to say his name because I don't want to put him on blast, but he was a big African on our team. And one day I was in my locker. I was just looking down.

I was on my phone, had my towel over me. And then I hear, oh, and then I look up and then this guy's midair. Dick is to the side because he had his hips, whatever. And he was getting ready to swing his hips and slap his dick across my face. And like literally like Neo in the Matrix. I fucking came back. I just had that dick wind. That's such a good visual.

Yo, man, I dodged that shit so quick. It was wild, man. But what were we talking about, man? Hairs. That's outstanding mobility. Yeah, man. And reflexes. Yeah.

I was just so happy because that was about to be a bad moment for me. Basically, I was just explaining that you didn't have a background of combat sports. You got into jiu-jitsu. And there was something there where you were like, this is really neat. This is something new that I have to figure out. It was challenging. Some of the other stuff you gravitated towards,

soccer, and you lifted for soccer to get stronger. And then you got into bodybuilding. But bodybuilding wasn't like a departure from some spot that you weren't close to being able to do something in. Powerlifting and bodybuilding, but bodybuilding wasn't like a departure from some spot that you weren't close to being able to do something in. Yeah. Powerlifting and bodybuilding there, you know, there's enough crossover there. But for me, you know, going from, you know, uh, powerlifting, messing around with a little bit of bodybuilding and now, and now, uh, run like running is just like, not, it's not related, right?iu-jitsu is not related to bodybuilding or

powerlifting especially the running you're doing yes you're not something like you're trying to figure well you are getting better at sprinting too right which is not like you know something you used to do but you're trying to run distances at 230 something pounds and with jiu-jitsu yeah i haven't lost a pound but yeah no thanks rosemary bell appreciate it appreciate those jeans in your jeans man but that's i think that's why i i didn't it's not that bill appreciate it appreciate those jeans in your jeans man but that's i think that's why i i didn't it's not that i liked it because it was a big departure but i just liked it because it allowed me to move a lot more and if i did something with lifting like crossfit or whatever it's it's kind of more of the same um and that

that just kind of bored me to be perfectly honest Like I didn't want to try to do another lifting-based sport because there's really nothing new to learn. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot to learn with CrossFit. There's a lot to learn with Olympic lifting. But at the end of the day, it's still lifting. And then once you get proficient with those movements, it's like you just add more weight on. You get stronger. It's the same thing but i think one thing is i i i kind of

learned and when i look back at it you know i did bodybuilding for a while then when i got kind of bored in my off season of the bodybuilding i picked up some power lifting but then i got kind of bored with that then when i started jujitsu when i looked at i'm like there's a lot here like there's a lot of variability there's a lot to learn and even right now there's a fuck ton still to learn in seven years in. And it's not getting boring. I feel like maybe I'm just

a variability junkie in that sense. But that's why it keeps me personally engaged. And I'm not trying to go to another sport because there's still so much to figure out, you know? And that's why I dig it so much. And even with good genetics,

you're still fucked. Oh, yeah. Like you sucked when you started and it's a tough, tough game to figure out, you know? And that's why I dig it so much. And even with good genetics, you're still fucked. Oh, yeah. Like you sucked when you started and it's a tough, tough game to figure out no matter where you start, right? Uh-huh. And everyone you go against, you know, your training partners, they all have different styles and ways they do things. You go to competition, your competition, everyone's built differently.

They have different aspects to their game. They have different specialties. So whether you're doing it just to have fun for yourself and you're at you're at a gym, right? You're going to have all the training partners you can train with. But then if you go and you compete, it's a fucking, it's, it's a free for all. You don't know what you're going to go against. And that is really exciting. You know, it's really exciting. I was thinking it's amazing like that. You know, you started this journey of jujitsu like about six or seven years ago, seven years ago, seven years ago, about seven, about seven years ago. And, you know, now you're

going to Pan Ams and you're going to worlds and you got your, your, uh, goals set, you know, pretty, pretty fucking high. But when I met you, you weren't doing any jujitsu. Nah, no, I didn't start jujitsu when we met. It was like, it was after, like maybe about a year after we met, I started jujitsu. That's kind of amazing. I mean, it's such a huge part of your life now.

Yeah. And Andrew, like you just got started and kind of almost like having a baby. You can't even, can't imagine your life without your son. He's not even that old. Yeah, absolutely. You can't imagine your life without ju son. He's not even that old. Yeah, absolutely. You can't imagine your life without jujitsu now.

You're like, kind of, what the fuck did I do with myself before? Yeah, you really can't. I for damn sure cannot imagine not going to jujitsu. And you're like six months in. Yeah, exactly. About exactly six months in. I think that's fucking cool. It's like the first six months.

I know, dude. Well, like, yeah, it'll be six months six months. I know, dude. Well, like, uh, yeah, it'll be six months in, in April. Holy shit, dude. I know. No,

that's, that's wild. Yeah. That's sick, dude. Yeah. I did miss some time with my like back, like rib thingy,

but like, that's probably everybody, right? Yeah. It probably gets in. So probably like a couple absences. Yeah. Yeah.

I was talking to, yeah, I was talking to one of my training partners cause I was just curious and he's like yeah it's been like 10 months but like really he's like closer to eight because i keep you know getting a little banged up here and there but yeah no it's the first thing that like so like even when i played sports as a kid and i was a kid so there's a huge difference there but like just going to practice i'd be like shivering because i'm like super nervous and then game same thing like i never like got super pumped for practice i never got super pumped for a game it was always like damn it here's this thing i gotta go do with jujitsu i'm just like i'm

already looking forward to tomorrow morning you know like i can't wait to go and you're probably sometimes kind of nervous depending on like what drills you're doing or who's in class type stuff oh yeah my camera just took a shit but no i i uh like i get i still get super anxious and like um uh yeah anxious and not in like a like i'll have anxiety but just like i'll you know it's the second wave will hit as i'm driving to the gym because i'm like oh we're gonna we're gonna go choke each other out for a little bit and it's like i get there and i'm like oh i to get out of the way. I got to go to the bathroom.

Your body, mind and spirit wants you to like choose something different. Kind of. Kind of. Yeah. But then that feeling afterwards, you know, it just I mean, I do get pretty gassed, you know, like I'm kind of like a zombie. But it feels incredible. When I was wrestling, I was so nervous going into a lot of practices and just the different drills. And sometimes, you know, if you get yourself in a position

where you become efficient at some of the movements and stuff, then you're in a position to, like, do a lot of the drills with the instructor. You're talking about ring wrestling, right? Yeah, pro wrestling, right? Yeah, pro wrestling, right? And that's where I was when I was like around 20 or so, 20 or 22 or so. I would do a lot of the drills with the instructor as the person to like show you like this is how it's supposed to look. And so I was like, fuck, like I'm still new to this.

I'm the guy who's choosing to like show all these other guys what it's supposed to look like. I better not fuck anything up. And luckily I grew into it and I got pretty good at it. I think one of the reasons he chose me for that is I just – I put in effort. I showed that it was something that I wanted to do, something that I was there on time. I had all my shit on. i wasn't like tying my shoes as class starting and like just little little things and uh those were things that yeah i would have some anxiety towards i'd have a little bit of um like fuck man i hope i don't mess this up because in wrestling pro wrestling you do things that are called like a spot and the guy will do certain things to you and he'll tell you like what you're going to do.

And then you have to try to fucking remember the sequence. And if you're not in the right spot, you can injure the other person really easy. Or if your timing is off, there's just a lot of stuff that can happen. And so you're like, fuck, man, I better get to the – but anyway, my point in bringing some of this up is that it took a lot of effort for me. I had to like, I had to push and it wasn't, um, it wasn't like an aggressive push. It wasn't like, uh, I was going to like hurt myself, but I had to pay attention and I had to move fast. Uh, I had to learn the movements the right way and they take a certain amount of like athleticism and stuff. And so it was something I really wanted to do.

I wanted to be good at it. And so it was something I would put, I don't know, it was just like obvious that I wanted to be there. And then even with other things, transitioning from, not necessarily transitioning from wrestling, but pulling something that I learned from wrestling into necessarily transitioning from wrestling, but pulling something that I

learned from wrestling into just a regular job. When I was a bouncer at Sharky's in Hermosa Beach, where I met my wife, the owner of the bar, he owned a bunch of other places, him and his dad, they owned a bunch of spots and they were very, very wealthy. They've always done really, really well. And just one day at work, I was just sitting there and i was just started talking to him and he's like you know he's like mark he's like you're a lot different than the other guys he's like you're gonna do something big i think because he's like you just care he's like you're because i'd throw away the bottles and i would i would try to make sure that there wasn't any fights a lot of bouncers get into fights and he's like when you're here there's't any fights. A lot of bouncers get into fights,

and he's like, when you're here, there's never a fight. He's like, I don't fucking... He's like, it's pretty awesome. And part of the reason I'd throw... Because when you look at somebody, you're like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your fucking white-ass blue eyes just staring at their soul. Yeah, and they're like, oh.

I'm actually not that upset. The reason I would throw away the bottles and do some of the little extra stuff was so that the place was less dangerous. Because I've seen people get hit over the head with a fucking bottle before. I've seen people trip on bottles and things like that. And so his whole point was just like you're putting in a little extra effort. You care. And whatever that is, that's going to probably turn into something cool. And I actually took that.

That like meant a lot to me. And it was just like some dude at a bar, you know, my boss at a bar. Maybe some people wouldn't think much of that. But I was like, I'm different because I put in effort. That doesn't really cost me anything. It feels good anyway. I'm here. I'm getting paid.

And I ain't got shit to do anyhow so i don't want to sit around i'd rather like you know go through the bar make sure it's cool i can throw the shit out or do whatever i'm supposed to do so yeah for me i always uh i always kind of like that it always felt good to me to put in extra effort pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing i love that two chains iains, I'm Different. I'm Different. Yeah, Andrew only listens to fucking Nas. I didn't really listen to much Two Chains, but I remember that song.

That's a great song. It's a great song. I don't know if I've heard it. His ceiling's missing. Yeah, I'm Different. Oh, I have heard that song. Yeah, I remember it now. But it's just funny. He's saying I'm Different, but it sounds exactly like everybody else.

Yeah. He's the same. I'm the same. I'm the same. That's true, actually. That song is very generic. See if you can pull up this clip of this. This gives you a fucking really good visual

of some effort that maybe someone didn't have to do, but they chose to do it. He said football game. Champ Bailey, Hall of Famer, too. Savage. Come on. Come on.

Ben Watson. Where the fuck did this guy come from you know what's funny you can tell he slowed down at that last like he thought he was in the clear he was like here and then that motherfucker came up I don't even know if Coach Belichick would have said anything because we lost the game. And it was the last game of the season.

If I dogged it, I would have had to deal with it myself. Some of my college coach used to tell me was that stuff like that doesn't take a whole bunch of talent. It's just effort. Where did he come from? Where did he come from?

And we didn't know until replays. We saw Ben was on the other side of the field, so he basically had to run like 120 yards, even longer than that, to get that. Until I saw that, did I truly appreciate about the effort that he put forth. That it was a play that sort of signified just never giving up. Jesus Christ, man.

That's something I think anyone can respect, right? I mean, regardless of what sports you like or don't like i mean that's just a guy just hustling uh you always hear people talk about going to the whistle i mean he went and he didn't hear a whistle so he just kept going and going and going that's so cool really pushing through right there that that's fucking crazy that's fucking crazy but you know a really cool thing from honestly what you, what you're all mentioning is like, as far as your running mark,

uh, you're not someone who, I guess you're not, you're not built to be a distance runner, right? And Andrew, you've picking up jujitsu in your mid thirties and you fucking love it. Late thirties.

Late thirties. Actually. I think the cool thing is that anybody listening, if there's anything you want to do, you can literally reinvent and start at any, any time. You know, you're not limited by your age or how early you started. You can do it anytime. And as you can see, like Mark, you have experienced runners who are complimenting you on your running form. Right. And you're not, you're not like some professional marathon runner, but these people who've been running for a long time are like, damn, you have really good fucking form.

And it's just because you've been putting in time each day. You've been paying attention to people like Weck and other people's advice. You've been doing things from functional patterns. You've been putting in effort to remold your body into now somebody who can run proficiently, even though you're not a runner. And so now somebody who can run proficiently, even though you're not a runner. And even with the effort, I don't think, I do think that when you do something new and when you start to put your heart into it and you do have a good effort, you are most likely going to run into some injuries.

You're most likely going to get dinged up here and there. It's very difficult to avoid because sometimes you just get overzealous or sometimes you're most likely going to get dinged up here and there. It's very difficult to avoid because sometimes you just get overzealous or sometimes you're just – sometimes it's just new and it just fucking hurts. So there are like little things like that where you might need a little bit of a Goggins type of thing going into that. But I think Goggins' message gets confused. I think there's like effort and like working really hard, but there's also a skill set. Like David Goggins has developed a skill set. Now,

how has he developed the skill set through like a mindset? I think, yeah, that's probably true. Like he's probably developed it through a mindset, but he's also developed a skill set within his body. His body allows him to do these things. And yes, I've heard him talk about like, he's like shitting himself and he's like bleeding. And, and so he does have a propensity to be able to carry on maybe longer than the next guy. Um, but I don't think that has to be everyone's journey. And I don't think you, I don't think you i don't think i don't think that's necessary to be good at something and i don't think it's necessary to be great at something to be that way for everybody maybe david goggins decided this is the way this is the way that i'm

going to be fucking great and i'm going to share that out with people and it obviously works really well for him it motivates and stimulates a lot of other people. But in my experience, I have been able to do things in a little bit more reasonable way, although I get lost in it too. I was really, you know, in deep into powerlifting to some dangerous levels, you know, some levels that, you know, probably I can look back and say, there's a couple of things I probably shouldn't have done. I did that a little too hard or did that a little bit too many drugs, too many reps, too many sets, too much weight.

I did combinations. Too much weight? Yeah, too much. Too much weight, 330? Too much body weight, yeah. But I had to kind of butt up next to a lot of those things to learn. And that was, you know, kind of my experience with it. But each person is going to have their own experience. But I think just to get good at something and just to be more proficient,

you can really fucking relax and you can really take your time. I try to share with everybody in the kindest way that I can that you're not going to be that good anyway. You're just not going to be that good. I don't mean down the road. I just mean in the beginning. You ain't going to do nothing. Like you're not going to do nothing.

So just, it's okay. Just fucking relax. Just enjoy the process. Like I'm not going to go to Jiu-Jitsu when I'm done with the Boston Marathon and really shock or surprise anybody after doing it for two or three weeks with some sort of – I'm not going to like invent some new move that fucking taps everybody out or something. You know what I mean? It's just not going to happen. I have to learn all the right steps.

I got to learn everything in a similar way. And then over time, yeah, then maybe I can start to think, oh, maybe I'll kind of become something in this and maybe I'll push myself a little harder beyond just the effort that I'm given right now. Yeah. Like be nice to yourself, especially when you're starting any of those things. Be really fucking nice to yourself because I've seen a lot of people burn out. I've seen a lot of people burn out because they just went way too hard, too fast and they didn't know where to pull back and i've been close to those situations too but as i got older i just realized okay just do what your body's willing to give you and yeah push yourself and see what you can do but don't don't fuck yourself up for for some stupidity i was shocked at watching uh some of the roles that you did at pan Ams and seeing like,

I mean, I guess everyone's on such a high level, but it just, it doesn't seem like violent. It doesn't seem like it's everyone's like, I'm sure there's guys that maybe aren't as smooth as others, but most of the matches I saw you do, I was like, man, this is fucking cool. I'm like, I don't even know what I'm watching because I'm like, these guys are so chill but still moving fast and explosively. I'm like, this is fucking wild.

That takes a long time. Yeah. You know what's interesting? The first match I had that wasn't reported because he was a qualifier, for some reason, I don't, okay, it was weird because that guy had the most points and you're the way it works in brackets is that like um the person with the most points is going

to be the first seed right and i was 10th seed because i haven't competed as a brown belt yet it's my first career as a brown belt so um i was 10th seed but the guy that I beat first was technically the first seed guy. And in our match, something happened where I think I landed a sweep on him. I think I hurt his back, right? But anyway, yeah, it doesn't seem violent. And that's kind of why I like jiu-jitsu because it's all about chokes and joint locks. But it is. It's's something you could you know but yeah man it just looks so smooth i guess i guess uh violent might have not even been the

right word but it just didn't look uh it didn't look like jerky it didn't look it looked pretty smooth from everybody yeah even though you guys are like trying to like kind of hurt each other or tap each other out like You're trying to aggressively. I guess that's the word I would use. It didn't look that aggressive, even though everyone is being aggressive because everyone's so proficient. It looks smooth. Oh, yeah.

I didn't see a lot of guys just smashing into each other. When you watch white belt matches, you'll see that. That's what I was going to say. Andrew, what does it feel like for you when you when you were watching him like what like uh are you just like holy fuck like melt your brain a little bit a little bit i have to be careful with so in sema you have you always mentioned like guard your inputs and stuff like so i i obviously don't want to watch bad jujitsu yeah but but at the same time like if i watch some of these matches or some instructionals where they're going inverted and they're flipping people upside down and taking their back, it's too much. It's that fire hose approach.

I have to watch stuff that's at my reading level. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know what's funny about this match right here? I don't know if we need this match by points, but when I was in, because to the right of us is the bullpen. It's where you wait for your next matches, right?

It's where everyone's all nervous. It's where everyone's, yeah, chilling for their next match. I think he was my second match, right? And I think he was third seed. So I had a match. The guy he's going against is real big right here yeah big old bear yeah you didn't go against anybody small yeah it's because they're all ultra heavyweights but he was third

seed i was 10th seed right and i was just sitting down on my headphones and uh a guy that a friend i met who was actually in this weight class his name's nathan and he asked this guy he's like do you know who you're going with next and the guy guy was like, I don't know, just some fucking 10th seed guy. And then I heard that. And I just chilled. I was just like, okay. I didn't say shit. But then they called our names. And it's not like I had some type of chip on my shoulder.

But I was just like, oh, that's funny. Because you're just like, oh, just some fucking 10th seed guy. Yeah, yeah. of my shoulder but i was just like oh that's funny because you're just like just some fucking 10 seed guy yeah yeah and then so yeah the match after this was the judo dude and that match was fun because he he did big guy jujitsu but yeah man i would right in the background there's mason right there that was cool i loved him being on like in your corner this yeah this was the first time that i actually had a coach uh in the corner for for a tournament because usually i usually i don't and he was super helpful uh mason's a ultra heavy black belt and i'm super fortunate to be able to go train with him over at cow terror a few times a week because he's dominating in the black belt sector um but having him as a training partner i feel was like one of the big reasons why i was actually able to do well at this tournament. Like training with him has improved my skill drastically within the past three months,

two or three months. Because it's like none of these guys didn't feel, they didn't feel crazy difficult because I'm training with Mason so much. Would you say like some of the guys that you're training with now, it's allowed you to maybe explore putting in more effort? Because you have to be around people that are just – at this point, you have to be around some more people that are on a pretty high level. Yeah, I'm getting rid of bad habits. Andrew, you got to pull up that match with the last guy with that tape. You got to pull that up because that was fucking funny.

So this is something that i can actually understand here this this pass right here and i want to say mason was like calling out like do the the funny thing is with the pass right here me and mason drilled the pass he was like before he's like do how or he said something along the lines of like how you get past my guard do it now yeah and then he just did i was like yeah i was sick so i'll i'll tell you what i mentioned mark but like so what andrew was saying real quick there's there's a hat mason is a big half guard player he's really good at it and there was one day that he was just wrecking me with his half card and i was like mason you

got to tell me what am i supposed to do to pass your half guard he's like fuck i don't want to tell you this but yeah here let me show you how to do this and it was it was a pass that that landed here and all he said was like pass my half guard the way I taught you how to pass. And then I was like, Oh yeah, that. It was so nice. So that's,

that's one of those things. But in terms of the, the effort when training with Mason, one of the big things is like training with him and the guys over there has helped me get rid of a lot of bad habits because where I train at Casio school, there isn't anybody like Mason or some, some of the other guys. So I'm able to get away with certain things. I'm going to be able to get away with like, I can let somebody pass my guard because I'll retain my guard again. But when you

get to a higher level, once somebody passes your guard, if you're not frantically trying to get your guard back, you're going to get passed. It it's like and that's a bad habit that i've built because with some people i train with some of them um i'm able to just get away with doing that but by training over there in san jose you give them an inch you give mason an itch like an inch he will fucking just keep drilling forward so one thing that's been helping a lot now is like i'm i'm much sharper at like something bad happens. Okay. I frantically try to get something else. I'm not,

I'm not playing as lax days as I usually do because I'm able to do those things, which has been super helpful. So I, I, I think it's super fortunate that the dude's just right in San Jose. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Um, it would be cool if he was in Sacramento, but I mean, at the end of the day, like he's right there and I can, I'm able to train with somebody like that and it's helping me really improve. I'm super thankful for that.

He coaches people too, right? Oh yeah, yeah. He, I mean, he, he, I think he leads some classes over at Kyle's. That's probably helpful too because it's a different level of communication when you start to coach people. Yeah, yeah.

It was, it was super fucking helpful. And I, I, it is a rare thing too because, again, he's an ultra heavyweight. Mason's like 230, right? I know some high-level guys that are maybe in the lighter weight classes, but I'm literally getting to train with somebody who at some point I'm going to probably

have to compete against. Like in a few years, my goal is to be able to compete at the top level black belts, right? And if he stays in that weight class, he's going to be someone that I have to compete against, but I'm able to learn and train with him currently. But that's the thing. Like as I continue to get better, my goal is to be able to push him too. And he's just going to keep getting better too. So I just need it. my goal is to be able to push him too and he's just gonna keep getting better too so i'm just

i just need it i know what to look for because i'm training with somebody who is doing the thing right now and it's been it's been so fucking helpful sounds like obi-wan against darth vader a little bit which one's this one um this is the last match yeah fucking hated this one i thought that's the one you wanted no horacio the judo guy it's like no i'll never. I thought that's the one you wanted. No, Horacio, the judo guy. I was like, no, don't ever show this again. Yeah, that's why I was like, I don't want to pull that one up. No, the guy, the fucking Tito, he was the guy who won. That was a good match. But I was talking about this one.

People that don't know, Encima got second place, brown belt, first brown belt competition at Pan Ams. Yeah. What the fuck for? Open class, heavyweight. Ultra heavyweight. Ultra heavyweight. What's the weight classes?

And yeah, because. There's heavy, which is like one. Super heavyweight is right below ultra, which is like, I think, 208 to 220. Heavyweight, which is below that, is 198 to 210. Ultra heavyweight is 222 and above. they're they're more classes below yeah i was yeah because i can't when i was looking at the brackets trying to find your matches i was just like oh yeah he's probably heavyweight i'm like oh wait he's probably super i'm like i didn't know i'm 250 ultra just sounds i don't know man so that is a he's a big boy yeah so this guy's a judo guy from Brazil and he has an Olympic tattoo on his neck because he, he was, he, I think he did the Olympics for Brazil in judo.

So his whole thing was just like, he just wanted to try to play on top. He just wanted to take me down and get on top of me, which almost worked a few times. I think, yeah. So I was just trying to pull guard at him, but every time I pulled guard, he would literally just come back and stand up. We should just skip to the fucking collar drag because that collar drag is nice. How do you manage your effort and how do you, like,

you know, is this something you had to learn over the course of like a little while to manage like how much lifting you do and how much other exercise you do with your jujitsu? I think one thing that I'm, I, if you're really fortunate with is that lift, it would be cool if jujitsu was my base,

right? If I did jujitsu since I was a kid. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And since we landed out, I think it might have counted as a counted as an advantage or something for him. But this is what technique does.

Andrew just loves replaying shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just really good. You fucking whore. You want to replay it a third time? Yeah. Just in case the audio people didn't see it. Come roll with me at Casio's on Friday.

I can't wait to have some fun with you. I hate you so much. I hate you so much. These mats, you know you so much these mats you know the slippery right a little bit right there not slippery i see what you're doing yeah dude they're super fucking slippery at one spot i think there was actually some oil or grease for you but not for the other guy yeah but that's but this this uh arm drag though dude i it's a collar drag. A collar drag, sorry. I let out a very loud, audible, fuck yeah, in my house, and I think I scared my son. But it was really good.

Yeah. Once I find it. A big, big boy. It's also cool because we were drilling collar drags with Kalipa. So that was pretty helpful. But I felt kind of good because I threw a judo guy. Like, this is his game. And then took his back.

You see a lot of good wrestlers. They do kind of what you just did right there where they go for something and they don't stop. They go for a single leg or a double leg. Maybe they go for a double leg and it turns into a single leg. But they keep at it. You see that a lot in the UFC. He's stuck with that shit. He ends up wearing the guy down.

That's something that, again, training with Mason has been super helpful. You had to go all the way through on that. Yeah. Mason, when he does things, when he gets a leg, he doesn't stop. When he's going for a pass, he doesn't stop. He's just continuing to pressure. I haven't had to do that with a lot of people that i train with at times so training like working with him like oh shit i can't kind of half-ass certain

things because i it's not going to land i have to go all the way so like that's that's one thing that's super fucking helpful uh to your question on the effort thing when it comes to this stuff uh what did you mean necessarily you said like dude do i have to yeah like i don't know you're excited and and you you want to be you want to be better you want to be the best and you're pumped up and it's like you know how many fucking like kettlebell swings and like i don't know just uh how do you kind of like manage all that because if you put much, like you love it, but if you put in too much on one particular day, it could actually take away from your training quite a bit. Absolutely, dude. Um, I think nowadays when it comes to like lifting, I still will lift, but I've been doing things that will give me a big return

with not a crazy amount of fatigue investment. right? So box squats rather than doing full squats, right? I can get the benefit of that. Penalty rows, explosive penalty rows, still super good. But since I'm proficient with that movement, I'm getting the benefit of an explosive row, which is going to help me when doing all this stuff with guard. But again, I can go do jujitsu after that. And a lot of the stuff I do now, it's still strengthening aspects of my athleticism, but it's not a crazy investment in terms of fatigue so I can still train effectively. And I do have an advantage because I've been lifting for a long time. I think that's one thing that I realized is a benefit for me, even though I haven't been doing jujitsu since I was eight or 10 years old. I have this base of

lifting that most guys in jujitsu don't have. So now I can try to focus more on the jujitsu stuff that I'm kind of maybe behind on. Whereas if they want to try to, they, most people aren't going to try to catch up to my strength. And if they did, it would take away from jujitsu too much. So now I'm trying to double down on that. And I think most people, like if you're starting jujitsu and you don't have a base of lifting, yeah, you're going to have to be a bit more crafty and it depends on your goals, but you're going to have to spend some time still doing strength conditioning. You, you, you, you shouldn't back off of that because that's just going to help you

be better at jujitsu. Um, and it's hard for some people because like you want to focus on grappling, but you also can't be weak or you shouldn't be physically weak if you're going to do that so you deadlift in like 755 or something uh most likely has too much of a risk to reward ratio perhaps right and then maybe you can spend your time doing something else uh which you've been doing a lot of weird shit lately, like balancing on one foot, rolling out your feet, training your tibialis, training your ankles, training like you're getting into kind of the finer things. And I think that a lot of people miss even kind of like the recovery aspects of stuff. Like there needs to be a good strong effort there. And I think if you take, you find like some weaknesses that you have and you hone in on them a little bit along with making sure that your strengths don't like go down, make sure they don't depreciate.

They don't depreciate. And you do that every day and you put in like a level that is reasonable for you to manage to where you can recover from each day and then get through each day with proficiency and still do your job and still make money and have a girlfriend and have a particular diet. And you do that every day. And that's what fucking builds up. And that's what ends up in the end making a champion. And that's where people scratch your head and they're like, I don't understand how the fucking guy does it. I don't get it. And they'll just be like, well, he's a genetic freak. He's a fucking mutant.

It's like they didn't see. You know, you're sitting here with your fucking hand spreader thing, toe spreaders, wearing certain shoes and certain sandals. And like it's just this never-ending pursuit. Dude. Yeah. No. Funny thing is a lot of those for all of us, a lot of the – everything has turned into certain habits. Our nutritions are habitual.

Our actions are the way we wake up, the way we sleep, all those things that – It's not really extra for us at this point. It's not extra for us at this point. But for a lot of people, it would be extra for a little bit. If you put in some effort, it just becomes what you do. I do have to give a shout out real quick to this. These guys sent us these pads. I want to show you guys what's under our feet now real quick.

We will be doing stuff with them soon, but it's from Wild Gym, right? It's this pad. It's fucking crazy. It doesn't feel like a pad. It feels like a fucking hard plastic underneath your feet it kind of hurts but kind of feels good at the same time this thing is this thing's so fucking amazing turn it over and use it as like a balance thing a little bit there's a bunch of stuff i don't really they were super generous they sent us a

lot of stuff where we're trying to figure out what the hell some of this stuff is yeah but we usually have stuff underneath our feet and this is literally perfect because there's like a ball in between it too. Don't get it yet though because we'll have something for you guys. But keep an eye on it. Yeah, we'll help you guys get a discount. Yeah, it's so sick. But yeah, man. It's – you know when Nicky was here, Nicky Rod, right?

Actually, I think he got his blood work done by Derek. He has high cholesterol or some shit. But a lot of the stuff he does in terms of his recovery, his sleep, all this stuff he talks about, it's habits for him, right? Whereas for a lot of people, they haven't implemented that, so it's work for them. None of this stuff, I think for you with the running, like it's effort, but it doesn't necessarily feel like work because like you have it cemented in. And same thing with me with all this shit the nutrition the habits of food the fasting all these things that we do we've been doing it for so long that it's just a part of our lives but it's because it's set in it's now helping us progress

even faster at what we're doing power project family your normal shoes are making you weak this is why i partner with vivo barefoot shoes because they have a wide toe box they're flat and they're flexible. So with every single step you're taking, if you're taking a 10 minute walk outside or when you're working out in the gym, your feet are able to do what they're supposed to do in this shoe. They have tons of options for hiking, running, training in the gym, chilling and relaxing, casual shoes. If you're out on a date, you need to check them out. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at Vivo barefoot.com slash power project and you guys will receive 15 off

your order automatically again vivo barefoot.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes andrew um what would you say the effort level was on a scale like one to ten when you ran the furthest that you ever ran when you ran with me that day oh man oh that is hard um because on paper i'd be like oh that's definitely going to be a 10 out of 10 um and it did take a lot out of me and it was difficult um but it wasn't the hardest thing i've ever done and that's what a 10 out of 10 would be um so i mean it was somewhere between like a six and an eight it's hard for me to really gauge that yeah a lot the last mile was probably an eight right yeah yeah because last mile you're getting kind of quiet that's how you can tell someone's fucks when they start getting kind of quiet yeah some of those hills and then

like you're like they're having a rough go of it after after so long that's when you start to realize that little tiny thing that was bugging me is now like yelling at me and so then it's like oh shit i don't know how this is gonna how much further we got to go so yeah somewhere in there you know it kind of varied but yeah yeah and you said it really well right there that little tiny thing that was bugging you. I think that too many people ignore that. Like it's, it's okay to ignore it once in a while, but you haven't like revisited that since that time. And maybe in jujitsu, maybe there's been a couple days and times, but I think what's misunderstood about running is that a lot of times you're out there for like a long time. If you're going to run five miles or 10 miles, um, and you're new, it's going to take you a while.

Like that's a lot of reps. It's a lot of, you know, if you run like 10 miles, I mean, that's a lot of steps. And I think that people seem to be confused why there's so many injuries for running. And it shouldn't be confusing to anybody. People are running when they don't have a proficiency at it. They haven't been doing

it in a long time. Then they think they're just going to go out and like run because they saw somebody else run. Maybe they see me run and they're like, I'm going to go run. And I try to explain to everybody that they shouldn't run. Don't even try to run, just jog and walk. But people don't want to do the easier low hanging fruit stuff fruit stuff but when you do that if you can just do that for just a little bit um it's going to give you access to be able to jog better over a period of time and the fuck thing about running is it's really important to go slow when you go slow it builds out your aerobic system it builds up your aerobic capacity. And if you run, if you were to just run at like a 12 or 13-minute mile pace, which is most people would regard that as being like very, very slow,

if you did that and you can do that for three months, you're going to be able to run at probably like a 10-minute mile pace pretty easily for like four or five miles. And it doesn't sound like it makes any sense. You're like, how? Well, I don't really understand how necessarily. But I guess I would say this, you're going to be able to recover from the workouts. That's a huge part of it. And you're most likely not going to hurt yourself. People are getting hurt. They might run with like their foot pointed out a little bit. Having your foot pointed out isn't really a problem.

It's not necessarily a really harmful way to run. But if you're landing with your foot pointed out every time and there's just a little something going to that pinky toe every single time or a little something going to that knee every single time and that shock kind of generating from the ground up and you're running faster than you should well every time you jump you're or every time you run you're jumping a lot and you're leaving the ground a lot you're just keep slamming on that spot over and over again whereas if you do

that with like a bench press and you have a little thing going on your elbow how many reps did you do maybe you did like 10 it's like not that big of a deal. Maybe you did three sets. Maybe you ended up with 30 total reps that kind of fucking hurt your elbow or 30 reps of squats that kind of hurt your knee. It's way different than doing 30,000 reps or 20,000 reps on something that just hurts a little bit with every single step that you make. The re the reason why things like rhabdo and things like that happen is because people, even within a given workout, they're not able to recover from what it is that they're doing.

Probably one of the more common ways to get rhabdo through like CrossFit is by the bending of the elbows. They do sumo deadlift high pulls. Then they ask someone to do like a pull-up. And then they might ask someone to do like a pull-up and then they might ask someone to do like a clean it's like bend the elbows bend the elbow or they might ask someone to do a row bend the elbows bend the elbows bend the elbows hundreds of reps hundreds of reps in a condensed period of time against the clock but there's no there's no rest it's like you just reverse curled yourself to death, and you don't have any proficiency with a clean

and probably no proficiency at the pull-up or the row or something. Everything's just thrown off course, so it's really obvious how you can get hurt in these things. And in something that's cyclical, like running, you just keep landing on that thing over and over again. How much rest is it getting from one step to the other like hardly any right it's just fractions of a second of rest so you got to like pull way back and i realize we're talking about effort we're talking about ben

watson running down champ bailey that was fucking amazing you're like i want to be able to do shit like that. Now. Right, right now. How long has Ben Watson played to be able to do that? You know, he probably played his whole life, and that's probably the best play he ever made, and it was one circumstance in one moment where who the hell knows, maybe his fucking calf kind of hurt when he was doing that. But in other areas of practice practice when he's been working on stuff maybe he was smart enough just to pull back so he had it for the actual game and the

event itself rather than just being a practice all-american yeah and you mentioned you know going into the gym and stuff so it's like if somebody was like hey mark i haven't benched since i was like in high school or even younger. But when I go and bench today, I want to bench exactly what you bench. Right. Like, okay, look at running kind of the same way. Like you got to start with the bar. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. You got to start way, way back.

You got to start slow. Want to take us on out of here, Andrew? All righty. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Please drop those comments down below and hit up powerproject.live for everything podcast related. Follow the podcast at mbpowerproject alllive for everything podcast related uh follow the podcast

at mb power project all over the place my instagram is that i'm andrew z and sima where you at discord down below guys check that out and see my in you and you're showing youtube and see my yin yang on tiktok and twitter mark peeps if you never looked at it before take a look at what andy frisella has uh when he talks about 75 hard there's a bunch of different rules there's a bunch of different things that he wants you to try to do within the confines of that. But a lot of what we talked about today is really an idea and concept of, like, what's shit going to look like if you do something

for the next 30 days straight, 60 days straight, 75 days straight, and you actually really try to commit to it and you really try to check off those boxes? and you actually really try to commit to it and you really try to check off those boxes, I think you'd be surprised that the amount of change that I had in just a, maybe you can look it up, Andrew, real quick. The amount of change that I had

in just a few weeks of running was just, it was unbelievable. And I'm sure Andrew's experienced the same thing with jujitsu minus the top of his feet getting fucking ravaged. I got to make a video. You go from not knowing something, not knowing really anything about it, other than a couple words you heard some other people talk about or say, to now you're in practice. And not only are you able to do some of the moves, you're able to do some of the moves

in an actual kind of fight sequence where someone else is trying to block you from doing that or someone's trying to do something else to you. And I just think that's really amazing. So however dumb or useless or worthless you feel about something, you can become very proficient at it in a short period of time

if you just dedicate yourself to it. And are you talking about this video? No, this is 75 hard. Oh, my bad. I thought you were talking about your... Yeah, yeah. See if you can find a... Oh, man.

It has some pretty cool, like, I don't know. There's just like little rules to it that I think are kind of sick. I don't think it costs anything or anything. think it's free oh yeah the 75 hard thing people do that challenge all the time it's totally free yeah it's uh very simply follow a diet complete two 45 minute workouts one of which must be outdoors take a progress picture drink one gallon of water read 10 pages of a book audiobookss not included. What else? A bunch of other stuff, but that's like the main thing of it.

Make some of your own rules too. You know, eat a pizza every day for 90 days. I like that rule. Yep, yep, yep. You drink wine every day. Sweet. Don't forget, peeps, if you want to check out how I've been running, how I've been lifting, you can go over to withinyourbrand.com and you can download or if you give us your email, we will send you information that my coach helped me with, Dan Garner.

And he gives you a full program of the lifting that I did and the running that I did to get ready for the Boston Marathon, which is coming up April 17th. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.