Mark Bell's Power Project - Redefine Strength Training - It Doesn’t NEED to HURT!! MBPP Ep. 759

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Today we talked about how despite loving Powerlifting and lifting heavy, we can't do it forever without addressing mobility and our health. 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://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really does work): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code POWERPROJECT20 for 20% 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://eatlegendary.com Use 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://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok 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

Power Project family, how's it going? And listen up. We talk about meat and nutrition all the time on this podcast from the carnivore diet, keto, low carb, IFYM. And the cool thing is that we've partnered with a great company, Piedmontese Beef. Yes, it's beef.

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can't eat red meat. So Andrew, how can they get Piedmontese beef? Yes, man. So that's at piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com. At checkout, enter promo code POWER for 25% off your entire order. And if your order is $150 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Again, piedmontese.com, promo code POWER power all links down in the description as well as the podcast show notes i remember when uh i remember when i was first with andy i was late all the time too but then it stopped or i'm not i'm not as late okay that works and i i just can't fuck as many times in a row. Some things do change a little bit, right?

Like, oh, let's just do it again. Let's just do it again. Let's just do it again. Let's just do it again and again and again. Oh, man. That's Saturday. That's Sunday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

That's the way it goes, right? When you're new and things are new. When it's fresh. When it's fresh. Wait, when what's fresh? When you're weenus. Venus. Short. Oh, that what's fresh? When you're weenus. Venus. Short.

Oh, almost made it. Did you know that the skin on your elbow is actually called a weenus? Yeah, I know. I didn't know that. That's great information, isn't it? That's fucking crazy. Why would they call it that? That's something so good to share with like a young kid, you know?

Yeah. Like, that's your weenus. I told that to my nephews. They were dying laughing. Do you know what that's your weenus i told that to my nephews they were dying laughing do you know what is interesting though have you ever um assessed how that skin is actually somewhat similar in terms of texture to you guessed it i mean at least this is what i feel it's different than this skin yeah but it's very it's got the wrinkles in it and everything yeah it's it's maybe that's why they call it the weenus maybe our like i think our like lower body is like our upper body upside down and vice versa

so it's like uh i don't know shit gets real weird when you start to think about it like an elbow and a knee is kind of similar and then the skin on the front of the knee is a little bit similar to the skin on the elbow, right? The hamstring, bicep curl, quad, tricep. Yeah. It's like we couldn't,

we couldn't have a, I don't know, more variation there. Like just copy it, fuck it, copy paste. Pretty much, right? That's the body, bro.

Yeah. I had a really weird dream. Sick. Really weird. Pretty much, right? That's the body, bro. Yeah. I had a really weird dream last week. Sick. Really weird. Andy and I were in a cold plunge together. Nice. On the street.

And the cold plunge had tires on it. And we were somehow going down this road. And as we were going down the road, like, we were going down, like, an area that was, like, a downtown area. And there was, like, people. Uh-huh. And then people were like, hey, it's smelly. And people road, like we were going down like an area that was like a downtown area. And there was like people. And then people were like, hey, it's smelly. And people came like running up. And they're like, what are you guys doing in this cold plunge? Like this thing is dope.

And I don't remember. I can't remember. I'm like, did it have like a fucking steering wheel? Because I don't remember either one of us driving it. I don't know where we were going. But Andy was like getting annoyed because people kept stopping us. And then this one guy tried to give me drugs. He tried to give me weed and mushrooms.

He's like, I hear you talking about weed. He's like, I wanted to set you up. And he goes to give it to me, and Andy is looking at me. And some other fan is taking a picture while this guy is handing me drugs. It was fucking bizarre, man. I must have been out cold. It's a sign. I think so.

It's a sign that you need to get smoked some weed on the podcast. I know. Well, right, Dr. Strange. So that happened in another multiverse, right? You finally saw it. As soon as it came out, yeah. They're a party for that shit. I haven't seen it yet.

I got to check it out. It's amazing. Flip this thing upside down. There you go. So absolutely, you for that shit. Yeah. It's really good. I haven't seen it yet. I got to check it out. It's amazing. Flip this thing upside down. There you go. So absolutely, you should watch it. Did you cold plunge this morning? I guess that brings us to this. Did you cold plunge?

I did not cold plunge, but I think what happened is I started changing the temperature to be as cold as possible. And I think that's where these dreams have come from. My body's like, what the fuck is that, man? How's that been feeling since you've been doing it? Yeah. Amazing, yeah. It's also like kind of halfway makes me mad because it feels unbearable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I hate being like crushed by a challenge. You know, it's kind of like frustrating. It also feels like, I remember in wrestling, like when we used to like chop each other, we would chop each other in the chest. It's kind of just like a thing in wrestling. wrestling but yeah it feels like your whole body's getting smacked yeah like really hard like uh if you ever did a good belly flop into the water it kind of

feels like that but uh yeah i've been enjoying it and i i only did one session so far where i didn't mess with the breathing and that was just like I don't I was probably up in my head on that one that was really hard I was only in for like 90 seconds yeah but another ones where I did the breaths I was in for like eight minutes ten minutes stuff like that there we go I did last night I did 20 minutes at 56 degrees oh so um normally I can get through well it's fucking it sucks it sucks it sucks like it's really hard to get in i get in and i shiver and then i can breathe through it i dunk my head in and then it's like all right cool now we're just reaping all the benefits about like eight minutes in i'm like feeling comfortable i'll

say as comfortable as you can be as you're shivering and stuff uh but then i just i'm good i'll usually get out around 10 minutes or whatever. And I'm like, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get in tomorrow. So I'm like, let me just, I'm already in here. Like the hard part's done. I'm in here. Let me just keep going. And at about 16 minutes, I started shivering like crazy.

Like I couldn't stop at all. So I'm like, what the hell? Like it got like, it just felt like it got way colder. I stayed in there till 20 and I just had to call it because I'm like, this is, this is way too cold now. now yeah but it was interesting because it's only at 56 degrees only it's extremely cold for me yeah it's very cold for me and it dude yeah it my body was going crazy it was cool yeah literally cool tell us about this jujitsu experience oh yeah yeah yeah so jason kalipa trains over at cal terra in san jose i

was able to go there last friday i wasn't able to go this friday but i'm gonna go next friday again but the cool thing about that gym is like on fridays they have this open mat and a lot of the guys over there are competitors a lot of those guys have won panams at brown and black belt and war like there's a few guys who have won worlds mason fowler trains there it's a crazy nogi guy um american uh so does your samoa's just a lot of monsters train there and i was able to train there last friday and it was uh because when i train here in sack i usually try to go to a few different schools so I can get some different types of sparring partners. But even though I get a lot of good roles, physically, it's hard for me to find people that I can kind of just let go with physically.

Like I still kind of have to, because I'm bigger, I still kind of have to hold back in terms of the force and explosiveness I use doing some things not a ton of guys that are just even over like 200 pounds or so there's a few guys that are over 200 maybe there's a few guys over 200 but i'm still careful about being careful when i explode and how i explode and a lot of times i don't it doesn't mean that i can't get a good roll in because you can still roll well without having to use a lot of explosion on things but um there i'm careful on that here when i roll because i don't want anyone getting injured i don't want anybody getting hurt and not everyone competes so that speed of rolling doesn't necessarily always apply to the specific role but over there all those guys compete those guys are

fucking physical um and i it was it was awesome to train there because, like, you know, I was even breathing heavier than I breathe when I train here in Sac. So it's like I'm going to be trying to get over there at least once a week, hopefully. Taking the train there would actually be better because that drive, the traffic is wild. Unpredictable, too. That's the hard part.

Like, it would be one thing if you can be likeredictable, too. That's the hard part. It would be one thing if you can be like, oh, I'll just leave it this time. But that traffic going to what, San Jose, right? San Jose. So it takes about two hours and 15 minutes to get there. But getting back to Sacramento, driving, is three hours and 30 minutes. Because everyone from the Bay is coming home. So, yeah.

Yeah, it fucking sucks. But you just said the train thing the train idea is a good idea so but it's just it's it's really dope but i was i was telling you smoky will know all about that yeah yeah he'll get fired up if you ask him i was texting you guys in the text thread i was like it's like when i initially came to super training in 2015 and then there's like i had all these monsters around and i got stronger quickly because i was able to train with a lot of people who were stronger than me. That's how I feel with that school.

I feel like because they're more physical and a lot of them compete, being able to train with them and spar with them is going to help out my game a lot. So I'm excited to train there more. They were probably pretty excited too, right? Yeah, yeah. Have someone new to play with. Yeah, That's why they invited me back because like, you know, they're also trying to train with individuals who are physical that'll help get them ready for competition too. So it's, um, it's a win-win situation for all parties,

I think. But I never really thought about that with jujitsu. You know, it's an interesting thing. It's like people are participating in it for all different reasons, right? Yeah. And there could be somebody in class that, uh, ends up, uh, progressing and, and going through the belts and stuff, but it, regardless of how stringent the school is about, um, leveling people up to the next belt, they're probably kind of hard. You know, if you have a guy that, uh, you know, formerly was a drug addict or a diabetic and he's in his fifties and he's that, you know, formerly was a drug addict or a diabetic and he's in his fifties and he's like, you know, it's like, you keep the guy a white belt forever, just cause like, he's not, not amazing. Like if he's learning the skill and he's like progressing,

I think, I think kind of owe it to people to kind of, you know, lead them, lead them or let them make progress, I guess you'd say, but it's probably kind of a hard thing. And then with each person having different goals on why they're there, you can't just go in and just totally smash somebody as if everybody's in the sport. Some people are there for spiritual reasons. Some people are there because it's a sport. But it's different than like the soccer field when you're a kid or the football field. It's like you're fair game. You signed up for this, man. And, you know, you catch the ball over the middle,

I'm going to hit you with everything I got. It's just a different thing, huh? It is somewhat. The thing is, though, like a black belt, no matter if it's like a 50-year-old black belt or a guy who's been training casually but been training for 12 years and he gets his black belt, that black belt still has technique. Like that black belt will still fuck a lot of people up but within like for example within black belts there's a difference between a consistently competing competition black belt and an individual who's

been training for a long time their black belt that black belt that's been training for a long time but doesn't compete is still really good could still kick a lot of ass that competition back but black belt is like in another stratosphere in terms of the speed of which they roll the physicality of which they roll and a lot of the different things that they can do because if especially competing at a high level um it's it's it's different like i i know i know competitive purple belts uh and competitive brown belts that will mess up black belts because because the competition aspect is somewhat it's different if you're competing at a high level so it's um it it's it's cool though like uh i i always

appreciate being able to go to different places and having the opportunity to train with different people. But that school specifically just has a lot of high level competitors. And it's it. I'm so fucking pumped. That's great. I'm so fucking pumped. It's really cool when you look at stuff like that and you think of there's all these different kinds of people like you don't have to go. to go like uh just because somebody recommends walking or somebody recommends running or somebody recommends jiu-jitsu uh doesn't mean that you have to do jiu-jitsu the way somebody

else does it it doesn't mean you know some people might see me run and they might see someone like nick bear or um cameron haynes or somebody like that and they might be like yeah i gotta go then they go and run and they get like a poor time or a poor result or they're like, wow, I just – they'll say I quote-unquote can't run. Like I suck at this. And it's like, well, no one really said how fast you have to run. Nobody really said how fast you have to walk. Just go out there and do whatever is manageable for you.

And so I think it gives people more opportunity to start something if they can kind of view it that way. Like, oh, there's at a jujitsu academy, there's many different types of people, right? It's not just not a bunch of people that just look like you. There's all walks of life. There's male, there's female, there's people that are big, small, short, tall, so on. That's why I think also, you know, because when I talk about things on jujitsu on social, a lot of questions I get is like, do I need to lose weight before I start? Or do I need to get in better shape? Or I'm waiting to do this.

You better know how to fight if you're going to get in there. Like, no, no. Like, anybody who's interested needs to just start because a lot of the adjustments that you're going to make to get better are going to happen as you're doing it. You're not going to, there's nothing you'll be doing on the outside that's going to get you ready to start jiu-jitsu. Like mobility or whatever, you're going to figure those things out as you get going. So there's no reason – even how old you are. I know people who started in their mid-50s, right? So it's just something to just – if you're interested in it, just go fucking find a good academy and start training. I think a good topic and start training. Yeah.

I think a good topic for today. I shot it over to you guys and I just, I've seen this many times and we've talked slightly about it before, but, um, people have kind of a hard time escaping their, their past of, uh, some of these things that they really grown to love,

like strength training. A lot of people get really attached to the squat, the bench, the deadlift. And it's just been my experience over the years, even though I do love those things and I always will love those things and I'll always do those things. It's been my experience that the longer I've been around, the more that I understand there's just so many different types of strength. Somebody that can deadlift 700 pounds, that's really cool.

But also like what if the guy deadlifts 700 pounds and he can't do a pull-up? Like that kind of sucks. But it might be rare to find somebody that can't do a pull-up because they might have tons of grip strength. Maybe a squat might be more of a better example. Someone squats 800 pounds, maybe they can't pull themselves up because they might be more of a better example. Some squats, 800 pounds, maybe they can't pull themselves up cause they might be very heavy individual. But the point there just being like you go after strength in one area.

And when you do so with a lot of vigor, you spend a lot of time there. Like if you and you're an 800 pound squatter, you have spent a lot of time squatting. Like there's like a minimum requirement for each individual and given their genetics and given their environment and everything like that. There's just a certain amount of time. There's like a minimum quota that has to be met to squat 800 pounds.

It's a tremendous amount of weight. And so you could kind of say, well, that guy that squats 800, he's so into that, that potentially he might be losing out on strength in other areas like it would be really rare to see that guy be like yep that 800 pound squat was cool i'm gonna do a handstand walk and just like proceed to walk on his hands across the gym you'd just be like oh my god what the fuck we have seen that before we have seen some individuals be able to do all kinds of variations of things um but i think it's an admirable thing so i think power lifting is actually a good example of that yeah

i don't know if you guys know who he is yeah yeah he's that guy he's super fucking strong um but he can do the splits too maybe that was something he could move well yeah and the guy that we had here the uh huge fucking guy that was uh what if he was doing like almost like a 2500 pound something total right i'm sorry oh weedmer i forgot the steve bake steve there you go yeah yeah steve bake was uh was incredible he'd do like burpees and like all kinds of stuff but it's it's very rare and um anyway so for me uh the stuff that i've been working on i actually was kind of shocked to see like so many positive comments on like an uncoordinated version of a step up that i was doing

but yeah i was doing a step up with like a med ball and like twisting and there's just like a lot of different things to think about um but i'm doing i'm doing a lot of these new things and people are pretty pumped they're like this is kind of cool they're like that inside ankle bone here yeah they're like they're like i gave it to you guys perfect perfect good observation you're the terrible sorry for wanting to tell you something off air for a second anyway yeah i've been fucking with some new stuff, and it's feeling good. I'm enjoying it.

I have no idea if it's going to work well. I don't know what it's going to do. I don't know what it's going to produce or how it's going to work. Can you explain what's going on here? Because you kind of front karate kick the wall here. I'm listening to somebody. I'm messing with this. So I'm trying to like follow exactly what he's saying. Uh, this is just like twisting. This is just, uh, the basics of like some running, uh, mechanics. Obviously when you run, you're not going to look, uh, like that,

but this is like a drill. This is just practicing. And some of these things fall in line with a lot of the things taught by functional patterns. So that's the style of training that I've been doing falls under that category of the stuff that Naughty Aguilar preaches and talks about. And there was a lot of comments about that actually. People were saying, you know, I don't like that guy, this and that. I was like, well, I don't like that guy this and that i was like well i you know i i don't care about your observation of him i just i've heard a lot of things about this uh functional patterns um these these methods and uh i just want to give him a try and a lot of people that have experienced it a lot of people have done it they're like dude this will change your life so i'm like dope cool

sounds like i'm on the right track and some people even went as far to say is you can buy his 10 week program, which I think is like 200 bucks. Sounds very reasonable. Um, and you can, you can learn a lot just based off of that. And I guess the first maybe week or two is a lot of it's like myofascial stuff, the stuff that we've been, uh, messing with. So I'm going to purchase that as well and just try to, there's nothing like wrong with me. I can, I can do just about anything, well and just try to there's nothing like wrong with me i can i can do just about anything but i just want to be able to do stuff better and i'm just uh i made my body really really tight uh and that was for a particular purpose of lifting weights and but i just don't there's no reason for me to go around that stiff anymore

it's just like unnecessary at this point. What are you learning? So let's say we've had Weck here. We've had all these movement people here, right? Goda. What are some concepts that you're being shown, like overarching concepts in the movements that you're doing that you're like, oh, this is new or I haven't done this before because you were mentioning to me how you were feeling certain things fire that you haven't felt

fire before or in just a very long time. The movements are so different that it's like hard to be really descriptive of it. Like that movement like looks sort of normalish. It just looks like a step up with a little extra twist in there. The wall thing looks a little bit more weird. But some of the other stuff I'm doing is really strange, like where you do a – I forget what the movement's called. But you just basically hold a cable out in front of you, a single-arm cable. Pallet press.

There you go. Pallet press. And so, yeah, you kind of mess with some of that. But instead of just like twisting, you like only move your arms in the beginning of it so your arms go and then and then you try to go from one side so if i'm going from right to left i'm like pouring water out of my ear from the right side so i'll start there which is already hard enough to do because my body weight's all on my right side as i'm bringing my arms from the right side so i'll start there which is already hard enough to do because my body weight's all on my right side as i'm bringing my arms towards the left and then i will uh

rotate and as i'm rotating i'll pour water out of my ear and go this way and it fucking hurts is wild like it just lit up uh like my quadrius lombardum i guess you'd say like you know the ql muscle um and just some shit in like my back um obliques like all that stuff and i was like holy fucking the guy that's coaching me his name's john mills um and he's like all right eight more reps i was like my body's like trembling. I'm like, you know, feeling like I'm going to die. Now you can, like any one of us, we have enough training experience. We can do that to anybody. We can find a movement and we can be like, yeah, sit at the bottom of a lunge for, you know, eight seconds with 80 pound dumbbells in your hands. And you're going to feel like you're going to die. So that's not like a miraculous thing to be able to, uh, take somebody

and find, you know, find areas where they're going to shake or find areas where they're going to find them challenging. But I just have – I personally have never experienced a movement like that. I've never seen one like that. But the whole idea and concept, if you can kind of break it down, it just goes into movement. you can kind of break it down. It just goes into movement. It goes into like a lot of movement patterns, like general movement patterns of running, jumping, throwing.

I think throwing is a really good example. The transfer, if you're right-handed and you go to throw like a pitch, like you're a pitcher in baseball, you're going to step forward strongly with the left, right? And then the right is going to follow and you'll follow through and that diagonal pattern. I mean, how, how much are you moving in that particular movement? It's almost like you can't figure out a way to move any more than that. Like your body moves around a lot. And then on top of some of that stuff, um, where I guess I should back up a second

and say the whole system is respective of your myofascial. We were told recently that your fascia in your body, that the fascia in your body is one giant sack, right? It's just one giant thing. There's not like a bunch of different fascia. And so this is in respect to that, that the body works in coordination and in concert with each other. So when you do something like a bicep curl, there's not anything really necessarily wrong with a bicep curl, but it's just not incorporating all the other fundamentals that the body can do. And so like if you're going to do a bicep curl in functional patterns, you would actually like take a step. You wouldn't just do a curl. You would take a step and you would probably do almost like a tricep extension with the

other one. So everything is kind of based off of like locomotion or running. Yeah. And I don't know, like here's, here's where I fall off on any of this stuff, whether it's go to, or whether it's functional patterns or any other, or knees over toes, um, where I lack some understanding is, I don't know what it hurts to do a fucking set of hammer curls. You know what I mean?

Like, does it bother anything, you know, to do some cable crossovers, like to get a pump, you know? Um, I don't think that it would, but I understand the reason on, on why it's probably a good idea to leave some of that stuff behind for a bit because it continues to pull on the fascia in a way that it's not really – I don't want to say designed to do because obviously you're designed to do all kinds of shit. But it might be the very thing that kept you going in the same direction that you were going before. be the very thing that kept you going in the same direction that you were going before. Those movements have done a great job for me personally of keeping me tight and keeping me stuck together. So if I'm going to change myself, I have to change my behavior. So therefore, I have to cancel out other lifts for a little while.

I think that's going to be the most effective thing for me. There's a few interesting things because we've talked about something we've noticed about functional patterns is that it incorporates a lot of, and this is as the simple, the simplest aspects, I know there's a lot of more intricate things to it, but it puts forward a lot of multi-planar movements, doing things at the same time with coordination. We were talking about this. There was a movement I saw an individual do with the cable, and then he had a dumbbell in the other hand where he pulled the cable out and then he pressed, right?

There's quite a bit of coordination going on with that. There's rotational movement. There's pressing movement upwards, and then he went backwards with it again. But having everything work in concert together as a unit is something that you don't see when it comes to more simple engine movements when it comes to like powerlifting and bodybuilding. Because when we think of the bicep curls, isolating the bicep, nothing else is really going on there. A squat, it's up and down with the barbell. Deadlift, it's picking a lift up or a Romanian deadlift. A lot of these movements, they're just literally single plane, one-dimensional movements.

But what you see with like functional patterns, what you see also with this stuff from David Weck is that there's a lot of coordination with doing a few things when you're doing a single exercise. Like you're not just pushing a sled when you see David Weck talking about sled pushes. You're pushing a sled, but then you're also activating this back, this area in your back as you're pushing and maybe going from side to side. There's a lot of moving parts going on. And what it makes me kind of realize is that coordination, right? Now, not everyone played sports when they were younger, but if there is a kid that's been an athlete since they were younger, there's already this aspect of coordination or body coordination that they have over people who haven't done that until they've been older.

So functional patterns is actually, it seems that it's trying to bake in a level of athletic coordination to people who haven't had that before. I know that he also does work with a lot of notable athletes, David Weck and Nadi. They work with some notable athletes in terms of improving that coordination. He works with like a UFC fighter. This guy, Kyle Dake, who's an amazing wrestler, just insane. But it seems that, you know, helping people. Oh, I think I've seen videos of that guy.

Kyle Dake is insane. That was nuts. Yeah, yeah. There's videos online of him doing like stuff on the beach and stuff, right? That's him, right? Yeah. His movement is fucking yeah. There's videos online of him doing stuff on the beach and stuff, right? That's him, right? Yeah. His movement is fucking beautiful. He's pretty big and looks strong.

I don't know how big he is because I don't know his weight class. I know he has a lot of muscle. He looks muscular, yeah. But I think Nadi's actually helped improve him a lot too. One thing you'll see is that there are so many athletes that go to this guy and then they're like i won't do anything else so there's there's something that makes you wonder okay then what's going on here like athletes are saying this is amazing so there's something there but there's still it's everything i thought it was going to be so like this this gym that i go to this uh place in uh i think it's like sebastopol, California is where it's at.

Movement by Design. I was having trouble remembering the name. Hippie-ish. Oh. You walk in and you smell the sage and my boy,

my homie John, he's got the man bun going. Of course. And I look around and I'm like, this is interesting. This calls for...

There's John and there's like five chicks here. This is an interesting dynamic. Didn't see that coming. Yeah. And then people are kind of sitting on the ground in these stretchy positions and just... Not a lot of clothes.

Yeah, not a lot of clothes. Some people are like cold plunging in the back and stuff. That's amazing. It's dope. It's perfect for me. It's like I need something that i think is just way different than what i'm the death metal rock music yeah smelling salts another funny thing is like they had some death metal music playing i was like oh this is interesting

and like it came on like the the sound system that they have there and uh john just like kind of looks at me because there was like this peaceful like waterfall music going for a little while and then like pantera came on and i just kind of look at him and he's like yeah i think he said something about like he's like i used to play football and like used to you know do all the heavy lifts and all the other stuff or whatever i'm sure they had to like change the uh the playlist because they're like oh shit mark's coming in yeah yeah switch it all up get some stone cold steve austin music cranking in there yeah um back to like the uh the example that you gave with the guy doing the twirl and then the yeah the thingy so a lot of it for me comes down to like context like what's the goal here so like if i'm doing you know some lateral raises on the cable machine

i'm not thinking about how's this going to help my movements i'm just thinking like i want to get my shoulders really jacked and when i seen that guy he was like he pulled it with one arm and then he spun around and then he did a shoulder press i was like that's really stupid like you're doing like 10 things really badly you're gonna die like why would you do that that's let me speak yeah and then in sema was like well wait a second like dude this he's like like what you're saying talking about like you know like maybe in the fighting situation like you're not in like one single plane then it made a lot of sense and i'm like oh shit like that makes a ton of sense now so i think the the context and the goal for everything makes a huge difference when it comes to all this stuff.

Because again, like bodybuilders, they just want to get jacked. The functional patterns or even go to stuff like, you know, like how you said, Mark, like there's no rig. Like, is there going to hurt anything if you're going to just chase the pump or something? And I agree with that. I think like if it doesn't hurt you, I think you're fine. Because if it doesn't hurt you, you're still able to get into some of these awesome positions. You have access to a lot of these things. Unfortunately, a lot of people, we pick on powerlifters because we're the closest to them, but they're literally right next door.

They will squat bench and dead in pain, not be able to walk, but because it's their thing, they will not let go of it. That is causing pain. That is coding these bad patterns, right, that are just going to make them even more stuck. For them, if they did some WEC stuff, if they did some GOAT, if they did some functional patterns, it would only make them stronger. It would just make them better because they'd gain access to these amazing positions. It would no doubt make them stronger. The hard part would be just to stop doing the other stuff for even just a couple of weeks would be really difficult. I remember how hard it was, even for myself, but more so for teammates, just to stop bench pressing for like a week.

I was like, man, just, they're like, man, my shoulder is really blown up. I think I have like bicep tendonitis like my shit hurts all the time and i'm like you know what next week i i think it just should be a week where you don't bench and they're like oh man i you see it in their eyes they get like real worried like i can't do that and you're like but it will make you better like yeah you're gonna be stronger like if you just take if you could just take a little time off from that i mean it kind of reminds me of the sleep thing too, you know, where people are like, no, man, I have to. I got to be up at four. And you're like at the compromise of only sleeping for four hours?

Like if you're still sleeping a decent amount, then getting up at four doesn't sound like any consequences. If you're lifting heavy and you don't have noticeable negative side effects and you're doing the stuff that you really enjoy and you're doing things that you really love. And I think that's another side of it too, right? It's like you can – like I don't want to do that stuff. It's like why don't you want to do it? Why don't you like it? Well, that's a pretty decent argument. However, again, if your wheels are falling off, then you got to look at it. And I think that you have to be honest with yourself and you owe it to yourself to look into it and

to investigate it and at least try something different. You know, I think it's really dope how everyone that's been following you has seen your transition from powerlifting. You cut, You transitioned from powerlifting. You cut. You did bodybuilding. You stayed lean. You started running. Now you're doing stuff like this.

Your body's loosening up. You're moving better because that shows that it's possible to make that transition. One thing you mentioned that I think is really important, and I just want to read this comment real quick because this was a comment on your post when you were showing some of the functional pattern stuff. This guy, Clint Darden, said, I'm struggling to have that same mindset. I'm assuming in the post you talked about how you're transitioning and doing this stuff. My body may be forcing me to now, though. And when he said his body is forcing him to now, that probably means that he's in quite a bit of pain. You know, the movements like I know people who, despite pain, will still deadlift the same way, will still squat, will still bench because there's a connection to those specific movements and the weight that's on the bar. One thing I think is that if you're not a competing powerlifter, although you may love the lifts, there's no reason to be married to that that load there's no reason to only have that be the thing you do and i know how easy it is to be good at something and then

be like well what am i gonna do if i don't have this what am i gonna do if this isn't the main thing i'm doing and also what if i start something new like doing some functional patterns doing some weck methods shit or doing some jujitsu but i suck because i'm new it's a really hard or running fuck running you know what i mean uh but the thing is is like you kind of have to realize and pay attention to what the what the what's the end goal? Like, is the end goal to just keep putting up these numbers on this barbell because you really like it? And if you really like it, this is, this is one thing that I, I, you know, I should, I don't necessarily like this, but it is the way it is. If you really, really like something, but it is causing you a lot of pain and

discomfort, but you love it and it brings you joy, maybe that's something you keep doing. I don't want to tell somebody how to live their life or what they should do. But if you know that it's not helping you to achieve the feeling you want with your body or do the things you want to be able to do with your body, maybe you got to get let go of it a bit like you said and start looking into other things that you are really, really shitty at as far as movement's concerned to progress there because in the long run, you're not going to lose a crazy amount of muscle. You're probably not going to lose a crazy amount of strength, but you're going to be able to live life more comfortably, move more efficiently, and just feel better. So it's tough because we're all about lifting. We've all done powerlifting.

We've all done and still do these lifts. But if you want to kind of join in on this type of thing that we're going down, you might have to loosen the reins on how important those movements are to you and your program so you can actually make progress. Stan Efferding is a great example of some of this, I think. He did bodybuilding for a long time. Many, many years ago, I think late, mid-90s, he went into a powerlifting competition and just did a deadlift. And I think he deadlifted 800. I think he just, he was like, I'm pretty strong at deadlifting,

so I'm going to go and test it out and see what happens. And he pulled 804 a million years ago. And part of the reason for a bodybuilder to explore a bench squat or deadlift is because those are movements that lend themselves to you being able to utilize a lot of weight. And we know that the weight can help pack on some size. And that's why Stan chose to do some of those movements. Later on in Stan's career, he was going after being a pro bodybuilder. He trained with Flex Wheeler. He was a pro bodybuilder. He stopped training with Flex Wheeler and he switched over to powerlifting. And then he started kicking a lot of ass in powerlifting. Then he went back to flex. Cause like when I first met him, he wasn't a pro bodybuilder yet.

He had to go back and forth a little bit, but when he was, he kept having breaks from each one. He had a break from bodybuilding. He had a break from powerlifting. He had a really a career where he did bodybuilding primarily for maybe like at least a decade or so. And powerlifting, the heavy lifts, it was like a little bit more in the background. He just happened to build up an 800-pound deadlift because I think when he would deadlift, he would do reps and sets. It just happened. Yeah, because he's a fucking rhino, right?

It was just the side effect of working hard. Just 800. Yeah, I know. He's a fucking rhino, right? It was just the side effect of working hard. Just 800 pounds. Yeah, I know. He's a fucking mutant. That's so funny to me, man. It just happened. It just happened. He just accidentally.

Stan Everton, bro. He's a mutant. But my point being is that he stopped doing one thing, and then he picked up another thing, and then he stopped doing one thing, then he picked up another thing and he stopped doing one thing and he picked up another thing. And when he went back and forth, the break from one – the break from powerlifting was a welcome thing to bring back bodybuilding because when he went to bodybuilding and he went to go for his pro card, he had newfound strength. He was stronger. He could move more weight. So it was easier for him and Flex Wheeler to team up because he had more muscle mass. And then when he would diet down, he looked even crazier.

And he would just proceed back and forth until he finally just kind of stopped with the bodybuilding stuff because he got his pro card and he was pretty happy with it. though that people don't know there's a piece of the puzzle rather that people don't understand about Stan Efferding is that his career was almost completely stopped due to hip pain and he and I worked on all kinds of stuff and he went he trained with Ed Cohn for a while and we were working on all kinds of stuff and he called me up and he's like I he's like man he's like I think I'm done he's like I think I have to get a hip replacement i was like holy fuck you know and i was like well i was like we have been trying a lot of stuff so you know we've been kind of trying a lot of kelly sturette stuff and messing around with some different things stan kind of hated a lot of that stuff he wasn't a huge fan um because he just he loved to lift heavy he's also smart enough to not keep squatting and deadlifting. He

was starting to develop a limp when he was walking and he was just in a bad spot. So Stan, you know, is very resourceful and very smart. He hires Mark Phillippe, who is a former World's Strongest Man competitor and the UNLV strength coach. And Stan works with Mark Phillippe for a while, I think maybe 12 weeks later or so. So that's a long time. That's, what, three months or so, right? That's not chump change, just to stop. I think Stan stopped all lifting, trained with him only.

And I shouldn't say he stopped all strength training. He stopped all lifting. He trained with Mark Phillippe and did different types of strength training. You know, things where you would be down on all fours and you do the fire hydrant stuff with your hip. Things that you might see an athlete do on a track using like things like a hip circle and doing various things to get that hip to strengthen, but no longer in a deadlift and no longer in a squat. A couple months later, Stan returns back to the platform and does a 2,300 pound raw total and fucking destroys everybody in powerlifting and has the all-time 275 weight class record and the 308 weight class record, which I think since have been broken.

But, you know, he had to, he had to have the strength to stop. And I always thought that that was, I always thought that was amazing for myself. There's a lot of reasons why it was easy for me to stop. I felt like I pushed it as like, I couldn't have, I mean, I can, with the knowledge I have now, I could go back and do things maybe a little bit better, but I felt like I couldn't have, I mean, I can, with the knowledge I have now, I could go back and do things maybe a little bit better, but I felt like I gave it everything that I got. So there's nothing else more for me to explore there. And then the other thing was just my health was like not great. Like I was just getting so big and stuff that it just, that was no longer healthy. Like my time was running out. And that was an agreement that I kind of had with myself going into it, that I was going to give it X amount of time. So

if you're somebody that's having a hard time letting go, I think one of the best things you can do is develop an exit strategy. How long you want to do this for? Like, uh, you know, are you 20 and you want to, you know, power lift your whole life? Maybe that's a goal of yours, and you want to power lift your whole life, maybe that's a goal of yours. But then you have to understand, oh, this is a long game. If I think that this is something I want to do for a really, really long time,

I want to do this for many, many years because I want to go from a 315 deadlift to a 700 or whatever it might be, that's going to take many, many years. Then maybe you'll be more likely to just take your time with everything and to not feel like you're in such a rush. You know, I wonder, man. The first question I have for you, Mark, is like do you know of any powerlifters in there?

I know I've seen a few in their 50s, like especially in the senior divisions. A lot of times I see older powerlifters, some of them started later in life. But I'm wondering, are there any that have powerlifted for a long time and their body is still doing really well? I know there have to be some because I have seen quite a few people end up getting hip replacements, end up with some of these things. I know that like any sport, you do it really hard for a long time. You know, some injury might happen, but that's something I see within powerlifting because of the way like,

number one, you're moving all these loads that are super hip driven, squatting crazy amounts of weight for a long time. Do you know anybody who's like been able to get to a head? I think the hard thing with that is just that people will stop competing at some point because they just won't be super strong after a while. So maybe they just won't care to compete anymore, but they still may power lift. So there could be a lot of people that are kind of off the radar. But there's a dude in the USAPL. I mean, it's few and far between.

Black dude. Is it? I'm thinking Gene Bell, but I don't think that's the right name. I think it's, I don't know. Maybe we can figure out. Is that a bald black guy? Yeah, he's 240. Well, they changed their weight classes.

But like that guy has been destroying everybody for forever. And I think even like in his 50s, he's like beating people in the open. I mean, it's just, he's just fucking unbelievable. But you know, it's really, really rare. Also, I believe, I don't think he's a raw lifter. Oh yeah. I've seen him with, I've seen him with rap songs. And I'm sure he's plenty strong raw, but I do think there's some protection that the powerlifting equipment gives you.

And I actually think that that's why I'm still able to do all the stuff that I'm able to do because I competed in powerlifting gear. At least some of that shit absorbed some of the weights I was lifting for so long. One thing is I just – if you want to keep those movements in, there's no reason not to. I still like deadlifting. I still like all these movements. I'll do them in different ways. But you just don't have to be married to that number that you're lifting. Especially if you're not competing in powerlifting, you can still get great benefit out of those movements without them causing any type of negative effects in terms of like your movement or anything that you do.

I think people have a misunderstanding of powerlifting too. How so? A real powerlifter, like a competitive powerlifter, will actually only participate in powerlifting maybe 5% of the time, maybe even less, especially the longer you've been doing it. So if you're newer, you may test your max. You may do a single rep max and you might see where you're at. But it would be really, really rare for a high-level powerlifter to shake their hands up and roll the dice

and kind of see where they're at with max singles in three different lifts because that would be more rare for someone to do that on a particular day. But to take three attempts and to take three max single attempts, like that would be really rare. I know the Westside method has their max effort day, but it's with a variety of movements. It's in a bunch of different ways and it's not – it's systematic. Like there's a method to it. But for the most part, if you were to add up all the reps and all the sets that you do from the time that you pick up a barbell with your warmups and the various things and all your

accessory work that you do for the day, even if you were to go into the gym and do a max deadlift and you deadlifted 500 pounds, how many reps and sets did you do beforehand? You did your 500 pounds. Now what are you going to do? Now I'd imagine you're going to do a three by five with 80%. Like that's very typical, right? So now you did your 500 sumo and you cheated. And now you got to do three sets of five conventional with 225. Because you can't lift any more than that conventional, right? And then you would do some hammies.

And all these other things that you would do, they wouldn't be like the sport of powerlifting itself. They would all be things that are done in like higher reps. It's not like you go over the glute ham raise and grab a giant med ball and then try to do a max single, you know, and kill yourself doing that and go through all the different movements.

So when you kind of think, when you start to think that way, you start to recognize that there's so much more to getting strong than just a bench squat and deadlift. And there's so much more to getting strong than just doing single rep maxes. The single rep maxes are more, they can get you stronger. And I think that people should do them more. Um, but I would say it would probably be healthier for people to do single rep work rather than single rep maxes, like single rep sub maxes, uh, get the feel of like 80% and feel what that's like and, and drill it with the right

timing of, of doing some good singles and stuff like that. And maybe try to move the weight kind of explosively. Like I actually think that that would be more productive in some ways. But when I think about powerlifting, the actual like sport of powerlifting, the guys that are really, really good at it, they very rarely are going to their maximum on any of the lifts. Proper Ostrac Fam, this episode is brought to you by Vivo Barefoot Shoes. We've been wearing these shoes for almost a year now. They're flexible. They have a wide toe box.

They allow your feet to get connected to the ground and they will make your feet stronger and they don't look like shit like a lot of these other barefoot shoes. Andrew, how can they get them? You guys got to head over to VivoBarefoot.com and check out enter promo code Power Project to save 20% off your entire order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Let's get back to this video. I want to ask both of you guys a question. Mark and Andrew, when it comes to your physicality, what is the thing that gets you doing new physical things? What's your goal when it

comes to the gym, when it comes to your fitness? What is your goal? My goal is always the same. It's always improvement. Okay. I just want to be, I want to be better at something. And again, I think when it came to the bench squat and deadlift, I think my luck ran out. Like I couldn't figure out how to get any quote unquote better at it. But now if I look at it, like every day is different. I'm a different age. I could still have goals. I can still be better. Maybe I can't. Maybe at the moment it would be really difficult for me to figure out how to be stronger on a single rep bench press maximum.

But I could be stronger in a single rep maximum at this body weight you know what i'm saying like so there's a lot of other things i could do and uh we can kind of uh utilize the louis simmons stuff where where louis was a big fan of um he called them like mini maxes a mini mini max would be like okay i normally bench under these circumstances this way this time i'm going to bench with my feet up that's a pr i'm going to bench with my feet up and i'm going to do a set of three i'm going to bench with my feet up and my grip's going to be closer i'm going to bench with my feet up and my hands are going to be wider so

um better is an interesting term and then like when it comes to gym stuff, I've, for me personally, it's helped to just kind of reinterpret what I even think is better. Cause I don't necessarily, I don't know what a squat does all the years I've been squatting. I don't, I have no idea what the fuck it does.

I know that it can help get you bigger. I do know that I've seen enough people squat to know that a squat can help you get bigger. And it is a thing that lends itself to you using a little bit more weight, but does it make you a better football player, uh, by squatting super deep or I, I just, that's where my knowledge base runs out. I think there's so many other ways. A squat is a great way. It's one way it's one there's, but there's millions of ways to get yourself strong you tell me the guy that's going to come in uh uh every damn dray or how do you every goddamn dray every goddamn dray you can tell me that guy's not strong

fuck man that guy you know what i mean like bill maeda yeah. And can Bill Maeda squat 600 pounds? No. No. But you look at the shit that he's doing. He's shredded too. He's shredded. And the types of – like even the movements he's doing, they're not necessarily crazy heavy. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are.

Sometimes they are. Don't get me wrong. But when I say crazy heavy, I mean like when some of us think of heavy people think of like 500 600 pound squat 300 400 pound deadlift he's not doing stuff like that unless unless he's just not showing it but he shows what he does he's doing kettlebells he's doing rotational type movements where he's getting all these different parts of his abdominals going that rotational one the other day with that 25 on there yeah like look look how far his arms are from his body when he's doing that that's slow and controlled and and that like that just kind of shows you how much control he has over that load by the way guys bill is 53 years old looks incredible yeah you know what i mean like

his ability to move and his ability to control his body it's like there i think one thing you said and andrew actually you too, what's your goals? What do you like, what gets you pumped up in terms of training? Oh, sure. So just to clarify, just like kind of what gets me up and going when I'm going to go lift. To try something new, like you've embraced a lot of the new stuff, a lot of those people that we've had here. Yeah. My stuff, it's not too, I mean, i guess it can be pretty deep ingrained in the soul

and whatnot but like sometimes it's just like super like superficial stuff um you know like uh it's summers it's uh you know summertime now and you know i was at the pool yesterday and i was just super confident taking my shirt off simple things like that will get me fired up to like oh that's gonna get my legs bigger fuck Fuck it. Let's go do it. You know, like I want to do that. You know, the shorts are getting shorter, so I'm going to do that too. You know, and then, you know, freaking Melvin, man, he crushed me with that shirt design. Ah, yeah.

I'm like, I need to become that person again. And what's funny is like my wife was like, dude, he like nailed your chest and everything. And so I asked him, I was just like, did you like look at pictures or something and he's just like yeah i did i'm like holy fuck dude like you did really good so again something a little superficial a little on the surface area where it's like i just want to get jacked but that will get me up and going that'll keep me in check with my diet that'll do things like that and then the deeper stuff which is like the movement stuff uh talking to gary scheffler you know he he still recommends that i don't do like lift the way i do um so i'm kind of like skirting around that and still lifting

but he's coming here i know i know i know trust me i know we've been texting i'm just like oh fuck i gotta get back to you coming uh and then like uh july something early july yeah yeah i'll be here for like a week what he said was like um don't risk your future with your son because you can't put down the weights today and i'm like oh okay you know so um trying to get the back in line trying to um you know get out of pain that sort of thing it's for my son you know i want to be around i want to be able to roll around with him on the ground. And so when it comes to something like jiu-jitsu, I want him to do it, and I want him to see me doing it,

so that way he gets more fired up. Because right now, when he sees us working out, he wants to do it. He gets the breathing down, too. Anytime he sees a slingshot logo, he just starts. It triggers him yes yeah i had amazing i had the uh one of the i think it's the infinite infinity loop it was just on the couch and he grabbed it he's like he just starts breathing hard like he's working out and so

it's just like let's go i mean there's like other like you know things on the the couch or wherever you know he could find and he doesn't do that for anything but when he sees it's like a workout a piece of workout equipment he just instantly goes into workout mode so that's like the the deep deep stuff so like the superficial stuff is i just want to look jacked you know get my wife all excited when she sees me my shirt off like she did yesterday which was amazing and then the the long-term stuff which is like i want to be there for my kids you know my worked out with my daughter you know we did some like a little bro sesh type thing stuff like that like i want to be able to do that so that's what one will kind of like um get me like to spark right in the moment to where it's like oh yeah let's go you know like like this morning i did some decline presses and

stuff so i'm like let's go do that right now but like the movement stuff, that's like the long-term stuff. That's for me, the movement stuff's a lot harder to do because it's not as fun. It's not as exciting. It's not as, um, like you don't, you don't chase the pump when you get like, you know, if you do some bicep curls, you can be like, oh, sick. I got that vein going right now. This is awesome. You know, when you're doing some stretching and stuff, it's like, okay, this feels good,

but you know, you have to, you have to go outside of your normal thing, at least my normal thing to do it, although it's become normal. But that's the stuff that is, like I said, that's like the more meaningful stuff for me right now because it's for my son, for my daughter, for the future. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing I want to say too is for people listening, because like a lot of people listening want to look better with their shirt off. And the stuff that we're talking about as far as movement and these things that are going to help you feel better and move better, these things can also allow you to gain muscle. Don't get it twisted. Don't assume that you got to focus on this and then all your muscle gaining hopes and dreams are going to be dashed aside.

You can do this shit at the same time. I mean, I know Gary has certain goals for you in terms of your body, but I don't think that there's no reason why you can't do some dumbbell rows and bicep curls and dumbbell chest presses and still, you know, without using any type of load that's going to hurt you and still be able to do all this other stuff that you're trying to do. And on top of that, I think you can like – you can still like maybe apply like other movements and stuff. Like if you're doing – if you're thinking about like building a chest, well, maybe you have these ideas of like benching and stuff. But like maybe your shoulder hurts. Maybe you can do dumbbell presses. Maybe you can do dumbbell presses and when you do dumbbell presses, maybe you can start to do like unilateral or you can do one at a time where you have to kind of stabilize yourself. Like that shit's really hard.

You feel it through your stomach. So you can make your – you can make kind of your normal bro movements. I mean what would be wrong with just like curling one weight? You have a 40-pound dumbbell in one hand. You got to curl it. Well, now you've incorporated the whole body now you need to like body english when you have weights in both hands everything's more even and you're you're kind of more in these uh traditional positions i heard uh andrew huberman the other day talking about like he's like i was just thinking about it the other day like why not just put one foot in front of the other when i curl you you know, and why not?

People have done this on deadlifts for years. This has been something that's been talked about for a long time. Paul Cech used to talk about these kinds of things. Ian King is another guy that used to, I remember seeing articles on T Nation years ago about doing staggered stance deadlifts. doing staggered stance deadlifts uh and who's to say that you can't uh turn your hips to face a wall and then have your upper body towards the mirror and do your curls like what like why not like what somebody's like you're gonna hurt your back that way it's like oh are are you maybe you're not i mean the body is made to twist when we had cory slessinger here he talked about um you know hey just when you're on your walk, just turn your shoulders, you know, to the side and walk that way for a little bit and then turn your shoulders the other way.

I mean, why not throw a little twisting and a little bit of different movement into stuff? Absolutely. One of the most important things that was mentioned here is the idea that you just mentioned of reinterpreting what strength is. Because for a while for me, strength was, well, how much can I move on my squat bench and deadlift? For a while, strength was, okay, what am I progressing right now? My dumbbell chest press and my rows and my pen lay rows. Am I getting stronger? I must not be getting stronger. There's not more weight on the bar.

stronger, I must not be getting stronger. There's not more weight on the bar. But now with the reinterpretation of strength, getting stronger for me is being able to move more fluidly, being able to be stronger at body weight work, being able to move better in jujitsu, being able to do more things with my feet. All of these things, I'm seeing progression. I'm able to find more abilities to get stronger doing so many more things that that's all benefiting me that now I'm not lumped into. I'm only allowed to do this. And this is only the only place where I see benefit. I can let go of those progressing those movements. And I have other places where I can get stronger. movements and I have other places where I can get stronger. And I think for a lot of people, it's going to be beneficial for you to search for other places where you can get stronger because I, there's no way that I could have stopped focusing on powerlifting and just done nothing, right? Like I love working out because I need to, I need to empty the fucking tank somehow. I have to empty the tank, but I might as well empty the tank and do something that's actually going to help me out. That's why I have jujitsu and all these other

things. But now with all the, like I'm focusing on calisthenics stuff, movement stuff, there's so many new things in there that's allowing my body to do new things and I'm getting stronger. The weight on my deadlift definitely gone down. The weight on my squat list definitely gone down the weight on my squat has probably gone down But i'm stronger as a person because that's not the only way that I define strength. Yeah. Yeah Uh, that's yeah, dude So when it comes to defining strength, like I never would have thought this was strong until I had to do it yesterday It was a pain in the ass But um, you know, so woke up at a pretty good early time got some work done for the podcast

But then it was my daughter's birthday. So it's like, what do you want to do? A lot of things fell through. So it's like, oh, let's just go to the mall. Let's do what kids want to do. Let's go to the mall and shop around, do some whatever, random shopping. My son does not like to stay still in the stroller. So we find a store.

We stop to look at something. He freaks out. Walk around the store. Nope, he don't want to walk around the store you know where i art in so he wants to walk around the middle where like the sun comes in yeah i don't blame him yeah um so 18 000 steps inside the mall in a time span of four hours so a lot a lot of standing why were you at the mall for four hours dude we made a day out of it okay like okay it was um it's what she wanted to do so like we literally were there for four hours it's like holy shit um got home cleaned up a little bit went back to uh stephanie's parents house where i swam with the kids i was the only adult in there not because

by choice but just because i just happened to be there and um swam the kids with for like another two hours or something freaking exhausted but i still kept you know i kept up with the, for like another two hours or something. It's freaking exhausted, but I still kept, you know, I kept up with the damn kids, you know, like that was hard, right? 14 year olds and, um, got home and, you know, still had a good dinner and like, dude, I was shot, but I woke up this morning early again and got my workout in. So for, for parents, like, I mean, dude, if you can keep up with your kids, like that's pretty damn strong. Like I know we talk about like, oh, you can fit a workout in, you can do this, you can do that. Man, I was beat up pretty bad, but it was cool because now I'm like, dude, I feel fucking

badass that I was able to do that as silly as that sounds. Right. But I did it. And, you know, like a previous me would have just been like, oh, you didn't work out. Like, oh, you're such a bitch. I'm like, dude, chill out. So like I didn't do cardio this morning because I'm like, I got a lot of steps in yesterday. So I'm like, there's no need.

But yeah, definition of strength is different. Would you mind pulling up our boy, Justin Lovato, who we're going to have on the show soon? It would be good to show some of what he's doing. I think sometimes when you see some of these people working out and you see them doing a lot of different exercises, maybe it's just because of the mode that I'm in nowadays, but like, I think it looks fun a lot of times to work out the way that some of these

people are working out. And even when I was powerlifting and I saw the CrossFit community, I saw some of what they were doing. I was always like, that stuff looks awesome. Like it would be sick to be able to do like a rope climb. It would be sick to be able to, like, it would be awesome to be able to do a handstand walk. Like that would be awesome. It would be sick to be able to do a rope climb. It would be sick to be able to... It would be awesome to be able to do a handstand walk.

That would be sick. Just let me know if you see something. You can just click on any old thing. He's always doing something crazy. Not crazy, but just... I saw him do a barbell thing where he brought the barbell up like this. I don't know if it's in this video,

but it was pretty dope. Yeah! Like a front raise, but all the way up overhead this man is shaped like an action figure what the fuck yeah and then rather than just a regular overhead press he's just doing alternating he's doing alternating curls

alternating curls just requires your abdomen and your I mean it's not like when you curl with both hands that it doesn't require your stomach but yeah now he's utilizing a sledgehammer type thing look at that shoulder mobility and creating force slamming down like Jesus is he still in SoCal?

he's in Texas nowadays but you know just in short it looks like a lot of people are doing things that that are encouraging their bodies to feel better. Like when they're done, they're like, that felt really good. Power lifting can feel that way sometimes, but it's kind of more rare. Like usually the next day you wake up and you're like, wow.

You're like, I'm fucked up. And it takes you a while to be able to straighten yourself out when you get up from a chair and all that shit and when you get up out of bed in the morning. But I don't really have that kind of stuff going on, that same level of stiffness. But things are still getting tight because like a lot of movements are new. And so the challenge is still really high. And so the challenge is still really high. I think what we're after is to get conditioned enough to where you can stress your body enough to force adaptation but without being fucked up. It's just enough stimulus. I see the way you work out sometimes and like it seems like it's more rare for you to be like, fuck, like I really, I overdid.

I think maybe a couple weeks ago you were doing some jujitsu pretty good and you were lifting pretty good. And you're like, I got myself pretty good. But normally, I think normally you shake off your workouts fairly easy because your conditioning is up, right? Yeah. Yeah, my workouts, and I'm working on a lot of new things too. And I'm working on a lot of new things too. But it's – like you said, the main goal of my workouts is to get me enough stimulus that, number one, as far as muscle gain is concerned, maybe I'll gain a small amount over a long period of time. But I'm not destroying myself in every training session.

I am though making progress on the things that I've been working on. Like the frog thing that I was doing before, that's getting a lot easier. My wrists are stronger. And when you're messing with that, you're not thinking like, I wish this was a lot harder because you are really strong, right? But going into these movements, how do you feel when you first start doing them? It feels horrible. You probably feel kind of weak at it, right?

Yeah. No, no. Yeah. I feel like a total novice. And it's funny because some of these movements, there's really no weight at all, but it's very difficult to do. But the thing is, is like the benefits I'm seeing outside of it, it's like doing things in life is just easier. Like nowadays, when I'm working, I'm sitting at home or I'm chilling here, I'm just, I just hop into a squat and I'll just like read from that position. But now I'm not super hunched over in my back anymore. I'm able to be a bit more upright. I'm able to exude better strength in those deep ranges of motion. And it's not like I've gotten rid of working with weights.

I'm still working with loads, but I can see the benefit outside of the gym way more now. And I know that if I did want to push the muscle gain aspect of things, it's a very easy thing to do while I'm still doing what I'm doing right now, which is why, again, it's like, you know, if you do want to get better at movement or like, you know, Udo Portel was just on Andrew Huberman. Like if you want to get better at those things, if you want to include more go-to type stuff into what you do, I don't believe, and there's no reason why you need to get rid of traditional bodybuilding type movements.

I don't think those movements, as long as you still have stimulus in that allows you to exude great ranges of motion and move better, as long as you're doing both, you can get better at both. So my workouts aren't killing me. I'm moving better. I'm feeling better. And I'm not losing muscle. You know?

I think some of it's like just training like an athlete. You know, like a football player has a game at the end of the week. So on Monday, you know, what's their options? Or let's say an NBA team that they're in camp and it's not the start of the season yet. Corey Schlesinger with the Phoenix Suns, he's going to have his team doing stuff that's demanding, that's going to force adaptation. But they also have basketball practice later that day. They got to shoot free throws and they got plays to run and they got drills and they got all kinds of stuff that they're doing. They're not just like in there just lifting.

And I think that for the average person that is trying to make some really marked improvements and they want to – there's somebody that maybe is seeking to get – to be better in a wide range of things. I think the best thing that you can do is try to view yourself like an athlete as if you do have a game on the weekend, as if you do have something. And then your workouts, they can still be like long and stuff like that. But I think you'd be better off with short dosage of workouts where, again, you're getting the result that you want without the negative side effects. You're getting that adaptation and you're like, I'm taking that and I'm fucking, I'm taking my ball and I'm going to go home. Because if you do any more, you're going to, you're going to just, it's going to bleed

into the next day. And then you're, it's, it's something that can be problematic over time. You'll just find yourself in the same old rut again. Yeah. When I was super self-conscious, I would be the guy that's like, like, Oh, if I'm pressing, you know, whatever, 45s and the guy next to me does 55s, I would have to go grab the 60s because I don't want to look like a bitch, which is hilarious to think now, because like, I would maybe even be able to pick up a 60 pound dumbbell. But now just like you and see my train just for

the stimulus. Like I actually on my, my cable machine at home and the cable machine I use at the gym, the, the, there actually is no numbers on any of them. Like I just, I, when I track my workouts, I just track it as like one through whatever. So like I did on this day, I did, you know, whatever decline press, um, you know, whatever X amount at number eight. I don't know what eight means. I don't know if it's 80 pounds. I don't know what eight means. I don't know if it's 80 pounds. I don't know if it's 40 pounds. It doesn't matter. Because I got that stimulus

and that stimulus is what's pushing me to like, oh shit, I feel that. That feels great. When I get off of that thing, I'm like I probably look like a dickhead just out here flexing in front of everybody or whatever, but it feels incredible. And getting that feeling is like that's another driving factor because i'm just like dude i can't wait to do that again next week or in four days because like i'm not getting hurt because i'm not uh ego lifting

right i'm not looking at like oh that's that's 80 pounds let's see what 85 pounds feels like and then you do it okay i could i could do 100 and then it's like oh shit like i hurt myself again my shoulder whatever it may be yeah now it's like oh shit like i hurt myself again my shoulder whatever it may be yeah now it's like that was the right amount of weight for that stimulus and i'm gonna keep pushing for that same stimulus dude i saw this on a jordan shallow video a week ago or so and he was talking to somebody and he said the name of the game isn't progressive overload the name of the game is progressive over stimulus right and when you think about that when a lot of people think of progressive overload, and this is how I was thinking about things years ago when I'd program and when I'd train, it's like, I always, over time,

I always need to be moving more load, more load, more load, more load. But you think about it, and there's no way that you're going to perpetually be moving more load. But if you can figure out different ways, and that's why some people do drop sets. That's why some people do different types of things in their training because it gives them a little bit more stimulus than they had last time. A little bit more stimulus than they had last time. And if you can continue getting some type of increased stimulus to that muscle, it doesn't necessarily need to be more load, right? It could be more reps. It could be more tension.

There's a lot of ways you can get more stimulus. you can keep increasing stimulus you will make progress it doesn't always need to mean that you have to work with heavier weights all the time there's so many variables that right like you can just slow down you can just lift slower yeah you know think about so many people who've done pause deadlifts and pause squats right where they're they're like, oh, wow, I hit a new PR by adding some pausing into the movement I was doing, right? So there are a lot of things that can increase that stimulus. It's amazing. It's like endless. And that gets to be kind of fun too. Like, let me see if I can do this under these other conditions. Like, what if I go four seconds on the way down? Or what if I go eight seconds on the way down or what if I go eight seconds on the way down on like a squat or something?

It's brutal. I've done some eccentric work with and concentric work now I think about it on deadlifts. And that was so hard, like a 16-second deadlift, eight seconds on the way up, eight seconds on the way down. Remember we did a little bit of that with Marcus Philly and we were dying. Like it's, it smokes you. Like take 135 pounds and do, do a 16 second deadlift. Do a set of five.

You're going to be like, what in the fuck is wrong with me? Nothing's wrong with you. It's just fucking difficult when you change, when you slightly change some of the attributes of what it is you're doing.

And there's, there's an aspect of that that can't always be studied. You know, one of the reasons why in the evidence-based crowd, you see like just some of these concepts that are continuing to push forward is because they've been studied and they've been able to see the difference that more load over time makes. But some of these individuals still, I mean, and I, they look down on some of these training methods that you'd see maybe John Meadows utilize, right? He did quite a bit of drop setting and doing certain things to failure, not all the time, but he did quite a bit of that in his training. And people from one side would look at that and be like, oh, that's all unnecessary stuff.

look at that and be like oh that's all unnecessary stuff but when you now think of the stimulus aspect of it there's a lot of there's a lot of new stimulus that's going on that can allow a person to grow i think sometimes that's like uh and i used to shit on that stuff too by the way like totally i think sometimes i think things are like using a sledgehammer to put a nail into the wall you know like that solves that problem. Bam. I just fucking smash the fuck out of it. So like drop sets and like, uh,

you know, doing long holds and doing stuff that makes you like scream or make noise. You're like, I'm sure as shit that that fucking did something like, because, because of that effort. Um, but again,

like you don't need to do all your training that way. But does it ensure that you probably did create a stimulus? It probably does mean that you created stimulus because you did something so challenging you had to flinch over it. Like you had to make a face or you had to make a noise. And so I think that's some people's way of like handling certain things. Like I'm just going to absolutely fucking kill myself with this. But remember, it's – we want to get that adaptation. We don't want to – it's stimulate, not annihilate.

I think that was Lee Haney who said that. Nice. And he looked pretty good, Lee Haney. He was all right. Didn't he? Yeah. He was okay. I mean –

I think he's still Jack. Oh, no. I remember Evander Holyfield started chanting. I'm fucking around. Yeah, for real. And Evander Holyfield started getting more and more jacked. Like, what's going on here? Yeah, he got, I mentioned on the podcast before, but he got caught.

Well, his address was receiving certain supplements under the name evan fields that's great it wasn't even like like really like evan field like evander holyfield like he couldn't get more creative with the name on the box it says steroids yeah it was yeah it was it was a bus like that where it's like hey wait a second we know this address that name sounds familiar anyway rapid oh good by the way guys i do want to mention we don't have a code or anything but um you know our boy uh graham mentioned earthrunners to me recently and then i purchased it and they're fucking expensive for a slab like i paid 90 dollars for this it's probably hard to make that fucking thing, believe it or not. Really? I can't imagine.

It does have a Vibram sole. So this is one thing. They have a Vibram sole. What does Vibram sole mean? Vibram? Yeah, Vibram, they, what the fuck's that word? They basically let people utilize their logo and utilize their technology for some of the shoes that they have.

And they make really good. The company, like the shoe? Yeah, the shoe company, Vibram. I'm stupid, sorry. logo and utilize their technology for some of the shoes that they have and they make really good the company vibe like the shoe yeah the shoe company vibe from yeah i'm stupid sorry that's actually a big aspect of what a lot of companies about like how they make a lot of their money because they're they're fucking soul technology in terms of how long they last is really good that they'll lend it out to other companies that will pay them to use it. But I've been loving walking around in these because when summer comes, I usually use flip-flops. But these, I can still feel the ground when I'm walking because it's minimal. Yeah, people have been asking about flip-flops.

And flip-flops in general I don't think are great. Probably not horrible for allowing your toes to be open and allowing your feet to open up a bit but uh probably just not ideal i think you have to kind of claw at the ground a lot with your foot just to kind of keep them on so i don't i don't think they're you know the most ideal thing so i might look at something like that i'm not a big fan of like the zero shoes because i think they're ugly but they apparently do also have a sandal. Yeah, I'll bring mine in. It's a lot flimsier than that, though.

It is literally like a thin piece of rubber from a tire. It's super thin, but it's cool because you are definitely barefoot in that thing. Yeah. This is one thing I'm thinking, though. This is tough, though. This is one thing I'm thinking. I do think it's a benefit. If there's something that has better quality, I'm thinking, though. This is tough, though. This is one thing I'm thinking. I do think it's a benefit if there's something that has better quality. I know we love it.

It's good to save money, but the sole thing on this is going to last me a long time. That's cool. Right? So I paid $90 for it, but I'm going to get that money. I'd rather pay that than spend half the money and it wears out in a few months right listen man don't be fucking cheap out there okay so i mean guys look at both but if you guys are looking for a barefoot sandal zero has some earth runners has some i know there are other companies but i know since we've been getting onto this barefoot stuff you guys have been curious we don't have a code

for either so so let us you will yeah let us know which ones you guys like more because like i need to get some other ones. Those ones, I just feel like I was messing with you, but it's like you have to carry around the tablets. Moses in the kitchen. Because you look very, yeah. Somebody wrote those in the Bible. I was wearing these and my girl was like, I don't know you'd be worried about you and out there anymore either, man. Just making pussy dry

walking around the beast yeah you see your name's crossed off the list it sucks because in the mall like i seen people wearing like you know the the wraparound sandals like those and stuff and it's like they are exactly exactly what we're all imagining right now i'm like fuck get in the gym man like stand up for us hey guys if you're listening and you want to know how to dry out some pussy, you've come to the right fucking place. We will figure that shit out for you guys. It'll be like magnesium carbonate down there. The word I was looking for for Vibrams is they license it out. Motherfucker, I should have known that one. That's all right. the word I was looking for for Vibrams is a license it out. There we go.

Motherfucker. I should have known that one. That's all right. It took me eight minutes to figure that out. I just want to kind of end by saying, the reinterpretation was everything for me to be able to reinterpret what I thought was strong. There's just so many different versions of strength that, you know that I think...

I have been someone that has admired the strength of many athletes over the years. I remember people sometimes knocking bodybuilders saying that they're not strong, which I always thought was just kind of false anyway because some guys knocking out a set of 10 or 12 reps of 405 on a squat and hitting their butt on the ground. It's like that is – and they're doing multiple – they don't do one set.

Power lifter does one set, one rep, rest five minutes, right? They're doing almost every minute on the minute, every 90 seconds they're hitting those big fucking weights like that. So I always found it to kind of not even be true that bodybuilders weren't strong. But on top of that, how much strength does it take to be a bodybuilder to live that fucking lifestyle? Like that takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength. Uh, sometimes you're after a show, you're fucking bright orange or what, you know, like the, the tanning, the fucking posing, the, um, you're just different. You're so different that it's obvious. When you start to get to those body fat percentages and you live that life and you are doing it 24-7, you like smell weird

because like, you know, the white dudes, we got to use the tanning spray and then fucking everything like that. And it's like the whole thing, like the whole thing from top to bottom, like there's nothing normal about like bodybuilding at all. And then to be on one of those diets for 16 weeks or for 40 weeks or however long somebody needs to go about doing it, it takes a tremendous amount of strength. So there's strength in every sport. Gymnastics, like I can't do any of the stuff that someone, a gymnastics person can do unless I started to work on it, unless I started to learn it. But they have an incredible amount of strength. Some of the movements that you're getting into that you're messing with, it's like, you're not sitting there like wishing like, Oh, I wish this was a lot

harder. I wish I had, you know, cause it, it requires a ton of strength and you're not used to moving your body around like that. So it's still really challenging. I went to a pole studio yesterday with my girl. She does pole, lira, hammocks, and silks, right? And yesterday they were having some like, it was supposed like they were having some of the students were doing like a show where they, you know, do different routines and stuff. I see. A show. And it is what you're like, I did walk in and i sat there um and as i was sitting there with sam you know i was looking at this woman up on this pole and i was like i don't know if i should look or if i can look away because like i just had underwear on and i was like but but you know everything very crotchy too i'm sure you know as as like as funny as this may seem though as i was

watching i was like god damn like she's fucking strong because she was doing like these wild things where her body was out and she was like spinning but it was she had crazy calisthenic strength now i saw this other girl doing some stuff on the hammocks and she was climbing up she was wrapping her legs around flipping and like i'm like holy shit and then sam fucking al she told the teacher you know he's never really been on a lira before so the teacher is like the circle that has the pole underneath so it's it's type in lira on youtube how do i spell it l-y-r-a so the teacher had me pull myself up into the lira i did some little jazz hands and

i slowly brought myself down in a graceful way but i'm like these women are just doing this effortlessly you know what i mean so it's there is an immense amount of strength in that too because i was watching these people do this and i see you smirking i see your ass smirking as i was watching this i'm like god damn the these women are fucking strong. And like it's crazy, but it is really fucking cool. It's attractive. It's attractive to see people be able to demonstrate these different levels of strength, I think.

Yeah. And mobility. Yeah, dude. Male, female. It doesn't matter. Like it's not – it's just as cool. You're like, that's dope. That's fucking cool that someone can move their body that way. It doesn't matter. Like it's not – it's just as cool. You're like that's dope. That's fucking cool that someone can move their body that way.

It was pretty fucking dope. So there's a lot of different ways for people to be strong and I think that's the great aspect about this whole fitness stuff that we do because it's not just bodybuilding or powerlifting or jujitsu. There is way more things that people have options to become strong. And that's fucking dope. I think, again, back to the reinterpretation, if you think about why. Why did you start doing what you're doing? We've talked about this before. If you started doing what you're doing because someone stole your bike when you were a kid and you want to be able to fight and defend yourself,

well, then you should go into classes that teach you about like fighting, you know, like MMA type stuff or jujitsu, Muay Thai, something like that would probably be a better place to examine some of that. So I think sometimes the thing that we're doing in the gym, we think it's serving a particular purpose in a particular way, but it might not even be accurate of what it is that it's actually doing for us. Again, getting stronger. Like if you're somebody listening to the show and you're,

you have a really strong bench press, that's cool. And that's, and if you love that, then that's fine. But I would encourage you to work on some other attributes, work on some other things. I'm not saying ditch the bench press still, you know, do the thing that you like. Do the things you love. But sprinkle in some stuff where you're like, wow, that was like, I said today, I was doing some farmer's carries, some backwards sled drags, and the squat max. And I did a circuit.

And I was like, it's kind of embarrassing how much this is blowing me up. But find shit that's kind of embarrassing. You know, find stuff where you're like, man, I feel really foolish right now. Hope no one sees this. This is fucking terrible. I'm just going to keep this to myself for now. I think it's a great thing to do along with doing the shit that you love and the shit that you like. Absolutely.

Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. Absolutely. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please drop us a comment on anything you guys heard today. Let know how your workouts are going all that good stuff and uh subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already and turn on all those bell notifications please follow the podcast at mb power project on instagram tiktok and twitter my instagram tiktok and twitter is at i am andrew z and sima where you at we have more than 1500 people in discord right now heading towards 2000 um so join the discord because like people are going over things that we talk about here people are showing their wins it's a really good community over there it's pretty fucking awesome and i won't say too much

but we have some few things that are just coming only to people in the discord so better join up and see me any on instagram youtube and see me any on tiktok and people in the discord. So better join up and see me on Instagram, YouTube and see me on TikTok and Twitter. And the discord link is in the description. Mark. I'm at Mark's Millie Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye. Vagina dryers.