Mark Bell's Power Project - Stop Training Like a Robot: Build Real Athletic Skills

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Most people train in two lanes: cardio machines and lifting weights. In this episode, we zoom out and talk about the “full adult athlete”, the overlooked skills that keep you capable, coordinated, and feeling young.We get into:1. Why you don’t need a perfect program once you’ve trained long enough2. “Capacities” beyond force production: coordination, reflexes, balance, finesse, and control3. Jump rope and hopping for tendon strength, rhythm, and athletic bounce4. Rope flow, juggling, and micro-dosing skill work without living in the gym5. Nasal breathing, weighted vest walks, and making brutal conditioning more productive6. How to stop feeling worse as you get older: expand your movement “scope” and keep exploringIf you’re training for life, not just the bench, this one’s for you.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!

We've transitioned into some different workouts in 2025. We're not just lifting, but we're developing all these other capacities. Implementing some of these things, which I think doesn't cost you a lot of time, can introduce some fun into your training. These things can be microdose pretty easily. I don't spend a lot of time comparing myself to others. I just compare myself to where I was before. No, no, I'm not on steroids. You, you are.

Let's make that clear. People think my wife's on some shit. I know, you know, I think we both. Speaking of transitioning, I think we've transitioned into some different workouts in 2024, 2025, and we've got the new year coming up, so I'm sure we'll be doing some different stuff. But you were kind of just telling me that, and I'm a little similar, that you don't really have a program. No, no, I don't. How the hell you know what to do?

Yeah. You know, well, I think one thing is both of us haven't had a program for a long time, right? We've been training for a while, so we know the things. things we need to do but benefits of being on steroids everybody no no I'm not on steroids you you are I am not let's make that clear people just people think because I hang around you I'm on some shit people think my wife's on some shit which is great she's like I don't care if they think I'm on that's great not but um you know I I think there are things that there are capacities that I'm interested in developing their capacities you're interested in

developing weaknesses that I'm working on like with my relative strength trying to do a lot of more gymnastic things that's a weakness of mine so I'm working on that but it's been really cool learning from a bunch of people because we're able to just I'm able to just kind of like take my time and develop skills there's there's a focus on you know when we were talking to Rob Wilson I asked him about like the focus on force production because a gym is set up in a way where you have your cardiovascular machines and then you have a bunch of stuff that's going to allow you to lift weights and resistance train. And resistance training is powerful. I mean, shoot, who's a set's a five. Who is he? Who is he? Five. Five. Huh? Rip a toe. Rip a toe. Rip a toe. Like,

you know, for him, it's like that, that's, that's, that's what's important. Um, but I do think that there are. He barely even liked the Benover Row from my remember, remember. Thought the trap bar was an abomination. I love the way he said abomination. And I think he invented the suitcase deadlift. No, that was, John, no, that was Dan John. Dan John. Dan John. Okay. There you know, there's so many other capacities when it comes to, not just sport, but when it comes to movement, like your ability to control objects, right? Your ability, your hand-eye coordination, your foot-eye coordination, right and I think that these are skills that anybody can build like I've been working on a lot of juggling with my hands and my feet and there are so many coaches not even coaches but there are there are a lot of

therapists out there that do a lot of stuff with athletes in their eyes and notice that oh when I fix the way this athlete's left eye works with things on that side of their body right oh wow they're positioning is much better on the field they don't have certain pain in certain areas but when we look at most of the population, when most of the population thinks of fitness, it's again within the lens of let me do my running and cardio, let me do my lifting. But there's so many other things that you can do that can benefit your, I guess, full adult athlete. You know what I mean? And that's why I think we're having so much fun because we're doing not just lifting, which is great, but we're developing all these other capacities. And I think that you and I have a lot

of knowledge in terms of lifting and in terms of exercise. And then we see these certain exercises, it's easy, maybe easier for us to say, oh, I can see where that fits into my workout or I can understand where that would fit in my workout. There might be some practices where we might want to try it every day. And maybe something come and go with the everyday flow, like you don't do them every day. But something like rope flow is something that is easy to manage every day. Meanwhile, while something with your own body weight, while you could do it every day, certain days when your hands and stuff are tired,

maybe it's not the best day to work on your pull-ups. Yeah. Just little things like that, which seem super obvious. Yesterday, yesterday I was going to do like a more intense like cardio session and I actually just, I threw on a weighted vest and went for a walk.

I was like, this feels perfect. I'm just going to continue with this. So I did that for a while. And then even, you know, I walked on a flat surface outside. my house for a little while and then I walked on the treadmill and put on an incline and worked on nasal breathing which nasal breathing again there's another practice that you can work on every single day you can work on it throughout the day you just might observe that when you're

doing certain things you're holding your breath you might observe that when you're carrying groceries that you're breathing a little bit harder than you would like and that's a moment where you can say oh I wonder if I can do the same task but just nasal breathe and so you and I have all these different things that we could kind of throw onto something so you could do the assault bike okay the assault bike's great assault bike's already brutal we don't need to necessarily make it harder but here's a way not just to make it harder but here's a way for you to improve faster and we do that sometimes with nasal breathing i did the you do you did uh 300 watts and i was like holy shit that's really cool i want to try that so i did 200 watts um and then uh just the other day i did

250 watts but i did it on a slightly different bikes i don't know what's the measurement is exactly but and you do that for 20 minutes straight and you try to not only have it be nasal breathing but you're also trying to be calm as you're doing it to help build up some of these capacities and to build up your fitness you mentioned earlier too about the jump rope I think the jump rope is something I should go back to it's been a while I had a heel injury for a while so I wasn't able to really mess with it for too much but I think that I should go back to actually working on jumping rope because of of the annoyingness of it, the frustration of it.

It only takes a few weeks to get past that little hurdle of the thing hitting you and you not being in sync with it. And it will always hit you. Yeah, yeah. Like I was doing jump rope a hundred percent. And, you know, I like there's, you will get hit and you just keep going. It's like that's not an issue, you know? And then why?

Like, so why, like, why would you, why would you, why do you do some of these things? Building a body that's able to jump. a body that's able to hop, right? It's something that most people, again, they just stop doing at a certain point. And then it's like maybe they'll do some running here and there, but they don't have the ability to jump anymore. It's seen as like a youthful skill, right?

But I think jump roping is so great because it is, when people think about, I wanna build the ability to jump, they immediately start like setting up higher boxes, doing depth drops. But their ability to hop effortlessly is, They can't because when you're jump roping, you're almost not supposed to be trying for your body to leave the ground and propel.

It's a very, when you become pretty good at it, it's a very like tendon driven type of thing where your whole body is just, pop, pop, pop, pop, right? Not you building the momentum and bending your knees a bunch. It's just your body being, your body being able to bounce, right? And I think the jump rope is one of the best things to be able to build that capacity. because you know when you're bouncing off the ground there are certain areas that you're going to be holding a little bit of tension right but there are certain areas that are going you're just going to learn how to send all the energy of the ground through your body receive it send it receive it and I think it's something that anybody can do for that but not only because like you know obviously to do this you don't need the jump rope but the reason why I do like the jump rope is also the coordination aspect of it because now you have a tool that you're trying to get into a rhythm and see syncopate with. So you have that. After a bit, it's a practice that I think you can kind of get

into a nice little flow with it, right? Where it's like you're just, you're moving, you're breathing, and you're getting in a really good cardiovascular stimulus. So for me, I don't really, I don't like to do long runs. I like to sprint. But the other form of cardio that I really, really like is hopping, you know, even within, because again, luckily for me, my garage is my gym. So I don't have to go to a So like in between stuff, I just do hops. I'll do backward hops, lateral hops, hopping from foot to foot. And that's another thing about it. You can learn to just hop off of one foot. The amount of foot strength and ankle strength. And again, receiving and propelling yourself off the ground that you're building, anybody can build that. Right. And then over time, if you want to start jumping higher, you absolutely can. But you've built the foundation within your body and within your your plyometric ability to do that safely. It's a lot of fun. too and the variation can be huge because you're talking about like jumping on one foot well somebody that tries to jump on one foot and quickly recognize like oh i feel not even that you're necessarily a heavy but you just might feel really heavy um you might just want to start out by just

you know having some capacity to be able to jump do some hops for like a minute and maybe do a couple sets uh with both feet yeah and then maybe build a capacity to where you're trying something where you're jumping off of two feet and just landing on one. Just little things like that. It doesn't have to be a big jump. It could be tiny. It could be just as high as the jump rope. Yeah.

It doesn't have to be some monumental feet of strength or anything like that. But you can also practice some depth jumps and stuff like that as well. You know, starting out low, not jumping down from something really high. A depth jump is just something where you're maybe standing on a box or whatever it is. It's something stable. And then you're just jumping down from there. Yeah. And that's another practice.

that you can implement very easy and when we're on the treadmill a couple days ago that treadmill the grade goes up really high so while i've been doing the treadmill i'm like i might as well get like a jump in while i'm on the treadmill so hop off the treadmill it's like a plyometric you know so i'm like i'll do it with more intent i'll hop off the treadmill and then i'll jump yeah and so i didn't do it on like every set because that can be like super taxing even though it's only one rep but we ended up doing like a lot of sets so or i ended up doing a lot of sets on that particular day so i still got in like 10 or 12 sets of that uh in between and i'm also working on some other aspects like like you're talking about where you get to really implement a lot of other things while you're working on

you might have a main thing that you're working on and then you have these little peripheral things that you're doing in between you're mentioning juggling i haven't really quite gotten into that just yet but there's really no reason i mean if you're out of commercial gym that might feel weird yeah but there's really no reason why you can't juggle or hop in between your sets of leg curls so you could be working towards getting just as jacked as you've always wanted to get meanwhile you're doing these little things in between they are not going to hurt you where it could slow you down to hurt you're just circus tricks I mean you literally just mentioned juggling that's a circus trick dog that's true it definitely is um there would be some things that can like hamper your strength

Like if obviously we're sprinting really hard and doing leg curls in between, that might not be a smart move. But you can work on your calves and your shins and stuff like that in between your sets of curls or in between your sets of lateral raises. And these are things that I haven't really, I didn't do when I was younger. And I probably could have like saved, like not only saved time, but probably could have kept some athleticism in the mix without it really being harmful. The only time maybe I would kick some of that stuff out would be like when I, I had a power lifting meet and it was like six weeks away. Yeah. Just because there's like there's the, the chance of me getting hurt doing something

outside of power lifting would probably be fairly high. And the reward would be lower and lower as my main goal would be to, you know, lift as as heavy as I could on that particular day. But other than that, could have kept it in there all the time. Absolutely. And, you know, with what you're mentioning with the juggling thing, it's like some of these things don't have to be, if you don't have a workout. setup at home. And when you go to the gym, you got to focus on gym stuff. Totally get it.

But that's why one of the cool things is with some of these activities, they don't necessarily have to be done in a gym. You know, when it comes to rope flow, jump rope, juggling, juggling a soccer ball, you know, even doing body weight work and work with like relative strength, not all this stuff has to be done at a gym. These things can be microdosed pretty easily. You could have, if you wanted to learn the practice of juggling and honestly juggling, I think is like, It's a circus trick, but it's also something that is, it's really good for your coordination, both sides of the body, really good for your eyes, especially as like you grab two balls and you're juggling two balls in one hand and then let's say you're not, I was talking to you about this, but can you coordinate that without having to look at the balls? And now you're actually doing something with your body with your peripheral vision. You know, I think I did mention this, but so many coaches do these different types of drills for athletes in their eyes. And with most people, over time, like your eyes and the way you use them degrades. Most people's vision starts to get worse as they get older. So a question you can

ask yourself is, do I have anything that is developing the strength and the ability for me to use different aspects of my vision, right? And it doesn't have to just be juggling. You know, I told you I'm going to be getting a table tennis, you know, table so that me and my girl can just play at home every now and then but we're not going to like play all the time we're just going to like do a few minutes but the coordination the reflexes you know like these are things that it's it's it's builds a more complete kind of look at movement and athletic development and again you don't have to be someone who does a sport but I think that these are things that keep the body young if you have good reflexes that's one thing that they say older people don't have well reflexes but I guarantee that

There are some old folks out there who've been doing stuff for a minute who have amazing reflexes because they just have activities that develop it, train it. And, you know, throwing a ball back and forth is another great example. You get like a little bit of reflexes in there, your eye coordination. We had Ido Portel here recently and he was doing that deal with the stick where he's dropping the stick and we had to catch the stick. I mean, there's not like a ton of eyesight required in that particular movement, but there is coordination.

and then he was also giving us cues as we were going, which made it harder. He'd say left and you had to try to use your left hand. He might throw it to your left side, but then make you have to try to catch it with your right, which causes you to have to move in a particular way that maybe you're not used to moving because maybe you're sport or maybe you just haven't moved that way in a while. So there's a lot of ways you can kind of create some of these things, and it can be fun. You know, you're mentioning ping pong with your girlfriend. I don't know why, but like we're not, we're not very creative when it comes to like hanging out with our significant other.

Like all we tend to do is just like, let's just watch TV, you know, which is fun and feels good, right? And it feels good to have your favorite food or snack and sit down with your significant other and just watch some TV and just veg out and kind of halfway zone out. Like it's we everyone, I think almost everyone does it. But could you go for a run? Could you just go for a walk? You know, like sometimes, a lot of times in relationships it's about like try to meet each other halfway. And this podcast is not necessarily about relationships, but it is about getting your ass to move. And maybe your wife hates running or maybe your wife loves running and you hate whatever the situation is.

Maybe you can meet each other halfway and say, well, I kind of hate doing that. You say, I hate doing that too. Maybe we can make a compromise. Maybe we can walk jog or something like. that or maybe we can just walk at a faster pace or something like that you know so i think we just need to get a little more creative with some of our leisure time even yeah and come in it because it's not really it's an activity you know it's an exercise to some sort but it's not like working out question for you man i think one of the things about this stuff is uh the the cringiness you feel at the beginning

of anything right like i know people who have tried to jump rope and they hit themselves they're like ah not for me right uh then a lot it's it's typical for you know if you start juggling and you're dropping the ball all the time it's like not for me right um so how how how do you look at that for yourself and like what would you're suggesting be for people because i think that is a big barrier for a lot of people trying any of this stuff um especially like skill type work because you're not going to be good at it. It was not. I think, you know, it's good to look at things as a challenge. Like I've told people before, I've never had a bad day. And they automatically assume that means all my days are good. But I've never said that. And something interesting about a

statement like that is that because you said you never had a bad day, people might think you're shut off emotionally and that you don't experience the same things they, experience. Well, what if I can get like a thrill out of being able to control my emotions? What if I can get excited about that? What if that's something that I champion? What if that's something that I enjoy to do? And so I think when it comes to your exercise and your activities that you're doing, I think you end up with a similar situation where you could take great pride in the fact that I'm not that good at this today, but I'm going to get better at this. I'm going to work at this.

And maybe when you do it, maybe it'll never like, quote unquote, look great. Maybe it will never be amazing by other people's standards, but you know where you were and you know where you're coming from. And that's really what matters the most. And you'll feel that the most. You know in your heart where you started with a particular thing. You know how hard it was for you. And a lot of times it feels exponentially harder for you than it does for somebody else.

That's why everyone's so passionate about their own story. get so connected to their own story because this is my story in my situation you don't understand my situation was so hard and I still made it or I still made it to hear but none of that really matters what matters is how you actually feel about how about the improvements that you're making and for me when I find something that I'm struggling with I kind of get excited by it I'm like this is great this is a great opportunity while have huge holes in my game on this particular thing thing. All I ever did was power lift. All I did was lift heavy weights. I started doing, I started lifting when I was like 11 and just never really looked back. Got into power lifting

like 14, 15 years old. And it's been like it was a huge portion of my life. I never really felt like it totally defined me. But to other people, that's who I was. It was power lifter. And I enjoyed all that. I really loved lifting all those weights. But once I lifted all those weights, but once I lifted all those weights and wanted to move on, well, now I'm responsible to be good at like a lot of these other things. It's just opened up a gateway, opened up a doorway, into, okay, let's see if you can run. Let's see if you can, you know, run long distance. Let's see if you can run fast. Let's see if we can gain some capacities that you had when you were younger, if you can gain some of these things back and then some. And that's where I'm at now. And so what's interesting about

that is, and I don't really, I don't, it's impossible not to compare yourself to others, but I don't spend a lot of time comparing myself to others. I just compare myself to where I was before. All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how are you doing it? I got a secret, man. It's called good life protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some good life protein. You know, we've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef. And you can get that under the umbrella of good life proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind

of meat that you can think of lamb. There's another one that comes in mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy, kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20, grass-fed, grass-finish ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that. And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why, like, neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating. And protein, you talk about protein leverage it all

all the time. It's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal. And I can surf And turf, you know? I could cook up some, you know, chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it. Or I could have some steak. I would say, you know, the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorite. So it's hard for me to lock one down. But I really love the bovette steaks. Yeah.

And then I also love the rib eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib eyes. So, guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, pause, you can have to goodlife proteins.com and use code power for 20% off any purchase. made on the website, or you can use code Power Project to get an extra 5% off if you subscribe and save to any meats that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. And it feels to me like I'm making amazing improvements.

It feels really good. And that of itself is rewarding. So like if I hit myself with a jump rope, I'm just thinking like, well, that ain't going to happen three weeks from now. Like I'm going to hit myself with the rope all the time forever. but I'm not going to do it like on the first jump every single time the way I am in week one. The frequency isn't going to be, yeah, yeah, nearly as much. Yeah, man, it's, I think that's another really cool thing about, about this stuff.

You know, you always have this saying of following your interests, and I think it's cool that all of these things are, there's a level of play to them, you know, and I think because of that, like, when when people talk about feeling, younger. I think this, I think that does that. Like learning new things does that. And I think it's, cool because like over in the stronger humans, so many people like learning new skills. And I think it's really cool for people to realize that no matter how old you get, you can continue to get very good at other things that you never thought you would do. You know what I mean? Some people just like, it's like they get good at certain things and then that's, that's it. You know,

there's no exploration, especially with movement. There's no exploration to other things. And I feel like, you know, because I was doing some stuff out in the street, I was, I was telling you, just like juggling around a soccer ball, doing some dribbling. And I started, like, launching myself for headers and shit. And it's just, the body is just feeling better and better and better. It makes me want to go back to a soccer field. But my sport focused jiu-jitsu, but it's like, that's something that I never thought I'd, like, be able to really do again. And at this point, I kind of know I can. You know what I mean?

So, you know, I think that when you develop youthful type skills, I think it's one thing that not just, not just resistance training, even though resistance training is great, but other skills, things that your body is able to do. Because one of the reasons why I think, I mean, firstly, one of the reasons why a resistance train is to have the body structurally strong for all the things that I want the body to be able to do. because my intent isn't just to be good at lifting like that's important if you're someone who lifts for sport but you know if you can have a structurally strong body what can that body now do right do you have good coordination or can you can you jump can you sprint like what can your body do and I think that that is like that's just something that feels really good you know I think when it comes to lifting another interesting thing about it is you do just get like stuck I mean there's like a level that you just sort of stop like you don't forever get stronger you know

you get to a point where the 40 pound dumbbells are adequate for muscle growth for you doing bicep curls and tricep extensions they feel plenty heavy maybe you could curl the 45s maybe you can curl the 50s but maybe it just kind of feels unnecessary to like use heavier weight you just get to a point where you know it'd be it'd probably be wise to just explore some other things. I get it if that's what you like to do. Yes. I, because I love doing that and that was my thing. Um, but it's still cool to be able to explore some other stuff. And if you have a sport that you used to do, maybe you used to box, maybe you used to, um, maybe used to play baseball. Like, I just think it would be a good idea to still throw some punches to still throw a baseball

around here and they're not the way you used to, not out of nowhere, but in a way that allowed you to work your way back to having a capacity. Because again, the lifting side of things at some point, it's most likely going to sort of, you know, even Michael Hearn, who's like one of the most consistent, one of the strongest lifters that we've ever seen, you know, doing behind the neck presses with 315 and doing reverse grip bench press with 405, even into his 50s. Now he's even like in his later 50s, I think, or mid 50s. It's just unbelievable. Yeah. But even he's not necessarily getting any stronger. It's not like, you know, he lifted his weights when he was younger, the heaviest he could lift.

And now he, you know, has regressed to a certain amount where he can still lift extremely impressive weights. But it's almost more like he chose a different challenge in the weight room than most other people because he still wants to express really good, solid ranges of motion on top of sometimes being like expression. And sometimes breathing a very particular way with the exercise that he's doing. And he's one of the few that really does that. You watch most other people lift. Like I have a tendency to like look at some of my friends like lifting from years ago. They're still doing the same lifting now. And I'm just like, ah, like I just kind of like just I just flip through it.

Because I'm like he's still lifting with the same like like still doing the same shit. And I would just like to see some of my friends do some things. that would just allow them to maybe age gracefully, I guess I'd say, rather than just being like, you know, more and more stuck. I'm not saying that what they're doing is not working, but what I am saying is like that that can lead to your body being extremely tight and it can lead to you getting into a compromised position, just even your day to day, just because you love grinding it out in the gym.

Yeah. still a fan of it. I still like it. I still do it myself. That's a tough thing for some people, though. I mean, I think that's a tough thing in general just because, again, when I was young and when I was my early 20s, mid-20s, I built such a relationship with the gym because I've been doing it since I was 13 that it's just like, what else is there? You know what I mean? You lifting, it then becomes the challenge, right? It's like, well, you got to lift heavier. Well, you got to lift more. Well, you got to lift more. Well, you got to lift. to have more muscle. Like that's, that's the sport. That's the challenge. That's, that's fitness for whoever it is, me at the time. But bodybuilding is a little different, right? Because you have to lift with some sort of accuracy, right? What do you mean? Um, like, uh, bodybuilding to me kind of seems like almost a little bit like a video game. Like when you, when you're doing your, when you're doing your sets of 10, it's like you need to be in this like particular zone with how you do your set to tent not necessarily that you have to be yeah but it's more ideal bring a level of

fatigue to certain tissues yeah you know what it's like a little bit of like uh i mean you got that mind muscle connection that people talk about that's kind of a real thing how do i blow up this muscle and how do i make this uh hurt and how do i do this with good form and precision to where i'm actually you know really hammering the bicep or whatever the muscle is yeah right no i mean yeah there's precision but even so it's like it can it's not it's not that difficult it's like your lip yeah when you get better at you know doing bicep curls doing chest presses you get better at doing bicep curls and chest presses and feeling it in those areas and making those areas grow and it's like that that's that's cool and especially if it's something you're very interested in bodybuilding um and bodybuilding isn't

bad by any means but i think for most people bodybuilding is something that can help build your physical foundation but most people it's it's not the thing it's not the sport and it's again I think it's important for just everyone to do what you you always say figure out the things that you're interested in the and I think a question to ask yourself is also like what are ways that I'm interested in moving how do I want to be able to move what type of coordination do I want to have along with what I'm doing here because if you ask yourself that question then it might open up, it might open up some ideas in terms of what you can add to what you do so that you're not just doing that same thing over and over for the rest of time. So that you're building

different skills and different capacities. Yeah. And I think if you look at someone like a Josh Bryant and what's the guy that he, that he trains and works with, um, Maddox. No, the big white guy, right? Yeah. I cannot remember his name right now. But, uh, his name will pop in our head and Tom Havlin. There you go. I mean, there are people like Josh Bryant and Tom Havilland who,

who they figured it out. They are lifting heavy. Josh is jacked. He's massive. He was just here not too long ago and he's extremely explosive. Now does he have, you know, amazing, you know, mobility to where he can do all these crazy things. He can do all the crazy things that he wants to do.

Exactly. And that's important. right? Exactly. But he's also not like so stubborn where he's just stuck in this pattern of like overhead presses, bent over rows, bench, squat, deadlift. He's doing a lot of other things. You see him doing hill sprints. He's actually a football coach for his son's football team. And he's, he's a strength coach. He's actually showing these guys and how to do these movements. So when you're doing stuff like that and you're doing these demonstrations of agility and stuff, you better be able to do it. Yeah. Especially when you're doing it in of a group of teenagers. They are going to just like, they're going to completely rip you apart. So he's still able to do this stuff. And you see Tom Havlin, he's not, you know, maybe his mobility isn't some crazy thing, but he looks like he has pretty good movement pattern, especially when you see him jump. And he'll jump with like weight. He'll sometimes wear like a weighted vest. And sometimes he'll even have weights in his hand and a weighted vest. He's able

to bring his knees up really well. So he obviously has some good movement and good explosiveness. And again, I'm not saying that everyone has to shoot for what that guy has or what Josh Bryant has, but I think just a little bit of extra thought could really be useful for a lot of people to help them to still feel young. Because again, I think at some point, when you're training and training and training and just stacking these things on top of each other without much other movement, it can slow you down. You know, this kind of got. me thinking of like the fascination with with sports and athletes and athletics because like you don't have to play a sport to be a sport fan you know a fan of watching football watching basketball

watching soccer um because the things that you see those people do it's just like i think people people find an enjoyable watch but also there's a level of like shoot that'd be cool to be able to do right and it's a question of then like okay well if if you're watching baseball can you grab yourself a tennis ball maybe and throw it off of a wall and catch it with your right arm and your left arm right it's like can you can you exude some of the capacities that these athletes are doing on a daily basis because that's not just good for you it's also pretty damn fun you know what i mean um and like that tennis ball thing that i mentioned to you it's a very easy thing that anybody can do anywhere but again it's one of those things that has very good downstream effects for not just the way

your body moves and your coordination, but just the way you age, you know what I mean? I think an aside benefit of these things is like getting low to the ground, right? If you're juggling, juggling balls or throwing tennis balls at stuff, it's going to hit the ground and then you have to go down and get it. You know, and one thing that I actually have a lot of fun doing, especially with juggling is like a game I'll play when doing that practice is like going down to the ground in different ways, right? So doing a weird lunge, doing like maybe a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, a single leg type of movement. So it's like a lunge down to the ground

that you do in grappling or squating or juggling or doing something in a squat. But getting down to the ground consistently is I think one of the fun parts of that type of practice. So again, it's one of those things where develop these skills. Outside of the lifting stuff,

develop coordination-based skills and movement-based skills because it will make a very, very big difference. I think that was one of like Ida Portel's things for like five, six years. He was just talking about getting low. Just like get close to the ground. Yo, yeah.

It's hard. You know, you'd be surprised. You know, just, I saw our buddy, Corey Schlesinger the other day talking about just dropping down into like a lunge. Like rather than like, you know, rather than just doing like a lunge, you like just put your front foot forward and you fall and you just like drop into a lunge. And he was just talking about. like the forces that you have when you do stuff like that.

And again, I just think that things like that are interesting and they're great things to explore because they do require a little bit more athleticism. It does require something more than just your regular lunges, your regular lifting of weights. It's going to require you to kind of catch yourself. There's like a pliometric effect, a polyometric impact of movements like that. I was watching Survivor a couple days ago with my wife

And the challenges So often I've never watched that so often I've never watched it My wife watches it all the time Okay And so it's on a lot It's been on the air for like 30 years

Or something crazy But when you watch the challenges Ryan our screen is black I don't know if you know that Okay I'm sure you've probably been pulling stuff up And we haven't seen it We haven't been able to see it

But Survivor is super interesting Because It made me think about It made me think about us for a second. I was like, oh, I wonder like if the three of us are doing it. Like,

I'm gonna get my ass. I'm gonna get my ass kicked on some of these. Some of these challenges. But I was thinking about you. I'm like, and seems as big, like some of these challenges would be hard. And Ryan would probably,

would probably do really well on some of them. Yeah. But some of it was like, you're climbing up like these boxes. And then you had to kind of like go across this like waterway. And some of it was just balance and the stuff was slippery and whatever. And you'd probably do great on some of that. Yeah.

But then they fucking like, they dive down. into the water and then they go underwater and they're like unhooking something in the water and then they come back up and they got to and I was just thinking like how cool it is that they made these challenges so that you can't just be a big jacked ogre and just like out muscle everybody on these things yeah but at the same time what they're asking people to do does require some strength like there's there's some weight to some of the stuff that they're doing um it's just interesting but it but it makes me kind of think to myself we we like to work out you know and and

when you work out and you're say like on the beach or something you you know people have their shirts off on the beach and you're trying to look good or trying to look better than most right but what about being able to outperform other people like is that something that's ever in your head or what about being able just to be on par with other people so that they're not so damn far ahead of you on everything like if you're at the beach and they say hey let's go for a run and you're going to like totally die if they said hey let's go into the ocean and let's uh you know swim you know to that buoy over there are you know are you going to be like dying when you go to do that those are just some weird interesting things i've been kind of thinking about more um because

you would think that lifting gives you like a superpower over everybody and it doesn't necessarily always do that i think how you lift would probably matter a lot but you can see the balance the coordination, the different skills that these people are exhibiting in these survivor challenges. And I'm not saying to turn your workouts into survivor challenge or anything. I just think that implementing some of these things, which I think doesn't cost you a lot of time, can introduce some fun into your training and allow you to be more of a badass in your day to day rather than just maybe in the wait room. Dude, you know, we've talked about this. When you see certain athletes do things, there's a level of like finesse and control that you see some guys have that some guys

don't. You know what I mean? And that capacity and of itself, like even, even this survivor challenge we're watching on screen right here. It's like some of these people have a better ability to control that thing on top of, we're watching a challenge where somebody has a stick and they're trying to have balance some stuff on top of this stick. But there's a sensitivity to pressure that you need to be able to feel and have and control. And it's like that's something that that's a capacity that like you can work on. I think if you do a like jujitsu is a sport where you you'll be able to train that a lot by being able to do things smoother and you're training it against another person's body. But even on your own, there are certain things that you can do

not just like balancing on one leg, but I was I was telling you like freaking grabbing a ball and like seeing if you can right just like something like that it's it's it's it's a way of kind of improving your ability to handle weight and have a level of finesse with your body right and that's that's that's that's something we can we can all do with whatever we choose to do it with i know you don't watch a lot of football but ryan see if you can bring up the monday night football clip it was uh the redskins or they're not called the redskins anymore sorry uh it was Washington and the guy made a one-handed catch in the end zone against the Broncos. And it's just this, there you go, you got it right there.

Dude, watch, I mean, finesse on both ends. The quarterback has to throw this ball so precise with such touch and finesse. And it's like, how the F did that guy catch that? And when you watch, like, there's a massive expression of being able to stretch and being able to move through your rib cage. Yeah. As this guy catches the ball, things you just don't think about that much.

Yeah. And, you know, these guys are doing it at high speeds. Like, that defender could not defend the pass any better if he tried. Mm-hmm.

Like, that was textbook defense, but. Boy. That guy pulls that ball in like that. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Jumping off of one foot,

catching it with one hand, a lot of, you know, finesse, coordination. But that's one, like, I'm not saying this,

this guy doesn't train clubs. I'm not saying that, but like when you train with a club, it's another type of implement, you know, ropes and clubs and, like, these are implements that like you can manipulate. Because you'll see people doing certain type of club work and kettlebell work or whatever and they look clunky. And you'll see certain people where they're swing

these implements and they're manipulating them and they look smooth, right? These are movement practices where, I mean, you could, the same can be set for a barbell squat or whatever. Like there are people that squat and whatever. But, you know, with more dynamic movement practices, you're able to, you're able to have more, I guess, movement, dynamic movement with them, right? Where you're able to have more of a level of control on slowing it down, speeding it up,

changing the angles of your body when working with it. Like, you can work on all of these things. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan. And a lot of us just want to look good, feel good.

And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have, high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing. They can look at your cholesterol. They can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects, too, where it's like,

yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into.

to the Hulk. But that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys, when you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro. even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out

what things you can do in terms of your lifestyle. And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things.

Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, heads to Merrickhealth.com and use code Power Project for 10% off any panel of your choice.

And I think that's just like, that's one of the coolest things about broadening what you do with your fitness. Because there are so many of the capacities that maybe you haven't thought of working that automatically you can start. start working. You know? And for me, you know, I work out with a guy that's 36 and I work out with his younger brother who's 26. And it's great to be around people that are young. Um, you know, like I might already be in my gym. I might already have like been warming up, you know, and, uh, Aaron, who's 26. You know, I'll be like, hey, you want you need to warm up. He's like,

no, I'm good. Like he just, just, uh, so for some people, it's just a, a mentality. It's just a, a mentality thing it's just like a little bit of a mental thing obviously you don't want to do stuff out of nowhere and hurt yourself um but working around working out with other people that aren't like oh you know that come in and they're just like oh man everything you know and they're just like down and they're uh just like beat up you know not moving around like that they come in they're ready to train and it's great to be around younger people and then even when i say hey like what are some of your suggestions for other exercises after we get done with a couple movements, they kind of always suggest stuff that I kind of hate.

And I just hate it because of the movement that it requires. But I'm like, this is great. I'm just going to do that. Because if I do part of what they do and they do part of what I do, they're going to be able to get strong and get some of the results that they want from some of the stuff and some of the knowledge I have. And if I just submit and do some of the shit that they do, I'll get some of that youthfulness and stuff too.

And I think, oh my goodness, why? I turned the volume down on this thing. Shit's blowing up, dog. Oh, my gosh. What was I about to say? Ah, yes, I was going to say, oh, we should play this video because I think it kind of goes in what we're talking about. But I want to first mention, I think a big thing to think about, too, is like,

one, people are worried about wasting their time. I think that's one big thing. Everyone's like, that's going to be a waste of time. When we had, when we had Edo Portale or when we have some of the, different people on people like that's a waste people are thinking about that but I wonder why is it a waste of time because when you become good at something it's not a waste of time anymore right like if you if you're really good at jump roping I don't think you're going to see it as a waste of time I think they think about it in terms of and this is why I've always like to do stuff

that's new I like to do stuff that's new on an off day so it doesn't so it feels like less of a waste of time like if I never did rope flow before and I was dead set on like I'm going to go do legs or whatever which I don't really train that way anymore but if I was dead set on this particular workout I was going to do I would just wait until the next day and just say I'm going to do that kind of like on my off day yeah just to practice it and a move with it and then to decide how dumb it is or not you know like how dumb is this is this really dumb or is this like maybe this is something I should give a chance to you know and so I usually try to do stuff either when a workout's already done

so it doesn't feel like that but I do understand what people are saying I think that people they want people usually just want the intensity to be maxed out they hit their white monster on the way to the gym

and the monster hits the music hits their headphones you know all these things hit their buddies there at the gym at the same time whatever the thing is and they just want to like I just want to like get together and like red line you know do the stuff that they saw me do,

do the stuff they've seen you do, do the stuff they've seen Ronnie Coleman do. And all their kind of heroes, they see them do these intense workouts. And maybe they just think that that's how you work out all the time. Is this intensity is always super high and that there's never like a back off

or there's never, because there probably really wasn't for someone like Ronnie Coleman. His gym time was probably like, it's either an hour of cardio or it's 90 minutes of just a blue And that's what it took for him to get to that level. And we see the workouts that he did.

It doesn't really look like anything was that calm. There are some other guys who took different approaches and got to, I mean, he has the best results ever. But there are guys who used lesser weight and trained a little bit more calmly. But I think that's what's in people's head when they're thinking about a waste of time. Yeah. No, no, you're right. You're right.

I'm going to go juggle. Like, I want to get a pump. Right. I'm not getting like how's this going to improve my bench like this is it's like yeah yeah it's yeah I get what you say it's not a waste of time I know I know but it might feel like it because it's pulling away from something else but even that pulling away is actually a really good thing like if you just think about it if you already bench 315 or 405 probably the last thing you need is another bench session you're not going to your benching is not going to really

suffer if you go from benching 52 weeks out of the year to 45 it's still going to be there you're still going to be strong especially if you're still doing uh pressing motions you're still doing some dumbbell work here and there it's not going to disappear so you don't have to sweat it obviously again if you're a powerlifter then there's different rules but if you're just training for life mix mix some shit up yeah let's let's play this video okay i thought this was interesting So they're trying to jump up on a box while not letting the tennis ball fall off of the dumbbell. Oh, right. I've seen stuff like this before. Oh, I wish they showed everybody else because there's the full video has everybody else trying to do that, land softly. And Islam was the only

person who was able to jump up there and have the ball fall off the dumbbell. And again, like when we think about finesse and control and movement and like control the body, there are some people you see jump and land and you can just, you know it's like you know it's ploppy, right? And then there's some people where you land, you just see them pop and pop, they're like a bunny rabbit. They can control the pressure of their body against the ground or against another person. Oh, is this the full video? That guy completely just like dove off of there. Nice. Again, I think what this also does, what I like about this is that this, okay, you have to be able to jump, right? Yeah. But it changes who's going to win big time. You know, even at the old super training, when,

people were at their strongest and stuff like that. If I said, hey, we're going to max squat 600 pounds. Well, it doesn't really, that doesn't really open up the doors for everybody else to be involved. Yeah. But if I said, we're going to max squat 185 for as many reps as possible. Now it opens up the doors for all the guys to participate at least, right? Yeah.

And you don't know who the hell's going to win. It might be, yeah, it's probably going to be one of the lighter guys. You have no idea who's going to be able to like handle that because, yeah, bigger guy might gas out a lot earlier. And so things like this is showing athletic intelligence. Yeah. And you could just say, okay, well, elite level athletic intelligence is to be able to jump up there and not have the ball move.

But there's probably a freak. There's probably a mutant somewhere that can do that and just land on one foot. Yeah, exactly. They can jump up there. Maybe they can jump off of one foot, land on one foot and still not make the tennis ball move. There's probably a mutant out there somewhere that can do that. And that's the thing. It's like there are there are so many ways to think about like your own movement practice

and adding certain elements into it that have maybe this type of level of play or or just, you know, develop, develop different things outside of just force production, more force production, more lifting. Yeah. And you know, everything I do is not like centered around, you know, try to be like youthful and trying to be young and all these different things. I don't always make the safest decisions with my training. I don't always make the safest decisions with my supplementation or whatever you want to call it. I do my best. I, you know, get blood work done and I am paying attention to that.

But I do, I do want to continue to not really necessarily, it's not so much about like just feeling better. I would just love to not feel worse. You know, I would love to, like I still have aches and. pains and I still have times where I overdo or over train. I still have a little bit of that stuff going on, probably a little bit more than I would like. But as you get older and older, you know, like your eyes start to go a little bit. Your hearing starts to like everything starts to just kind of just fade really, really gently. And you're like, how do I just put a stop to that shit? How do I just slow that stuff down? And one way to do it is to get.

get your blood work. One way to do it is to train some of the ways we're talking about. Another way to do it is just try to hang out with people that are younger. I think that's a really good move. We have a clip from LeBron James talking about some of that. If you can bring that up. Let me unmute this real quick. I guess tell your mind you are. And I'm around a lot of young guys. I'm around a 10-year-old who's running through the house all day, every day, screaming. I was my, I got an 18-year-old son who's in Tucson. He, see him on TikTok dancing with his mom and his sister.

And my 20-year-old is right over there, turning 21 in a week. Like, how could I not feel young? And, I mean, my wife is beautiful. I look good. I mean, I look at my age. It's like the wine that I drink. The older wine I drink, the better it is. You are of age.

Why is he drinking? Maybe that's the key. And the first thing I think he said is you are the age in which you... I guess tell your mind you are. Yeah. That's probably the most important piece of puzzle right there. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, he's got, you know, still every night, every time. I think, like, last night, I think he did really well again. I don't know how many points he scored, but I saw it watching ESPN, and he was draining three-pointers and stealing the ball and Duncan and doing all kinds of shit. I think it's maybe 1,800 games. Oh, yeah. Like, he hasn't scored less than 10 points. Yeah, yeah, it was something wild like that.

And the next closest person has like 200 games. Yeah, yeah. It's like Kevin Durant or something like that. Yeah, he, I mean, it's just disgusting how long he's been able to do it. And people, they just always want to point out to the fact that like someone's wealthy. And they're like, oh, he's wealthy. He can get all this work done. Well, he's smart enough to get the work done.

He's smart enough to pay for someone to assist him and help him with all that stuff. and who the hell knows maybe he takes a bunch of peptides and stuff too who even cares he the fact is is that he's able to still play at this really high level yeah last time this dude had a game with less than 10 points was January 5th

2007 and his whole's career he's only had eight regular season games that he's scored less than 10 points like legoat is amazing yeah he's he's unbelievable but again I think that's something like I'm just trying to think about some of the stuff that we share with people that they could do you know and for years now I mean I just I just always I've always

loved kids not everybody loves kids but um for years now at the holidays I'm always the one that takes the kids out and like does shit with them yeah every all the time whether it's throwing around a ball or going to the beach and a lot of other adults they don't usually they don't usually go with me a lot of times it's just me. This year it was me and just me and Jake but um yeah I just I like doing that and I like talk like it's crazy the stuff that kids will uh talk to you about it's crazy the stuff that they want to do like oh it's cool over here and like and then they're like oh like my mom wouldn't want me to jump off this thing or whatever I'd be like oh it's mom's not here so let's go for it you know yeah um with my uh with my nieces

and stuff like that but yeah I mean that kind of stuff and even just watching them just like what they do. They run every, like everywhere. They just like sprint everywhere. Oh my gosh. It's all of a sudden, they just sprint everywhere. Sprinting downhill in like flip flops. You're like, what the? You're going to totally hurry yourself. What are you doing? We're at my girlfriend's sister's wedding dinner thing, right? And they're, one of their sisters has two young boys, like maybe six and seven. And then there are these random two young girls that were there too. And we were outside. There was like this long ramp. And when those kids started playing, they just were sprinting back and forth

and back and forth for like 20 minutes. Like jumping over the crack or something weird, right? They were just racing. And like it was, it was interesting. Because I'm just like, yeah, man, like kids move. And they'll just move. And then that's one of the reasons why I think that, you know, when it comes to your specific movement practice,

I think one of the biggest things is just learning different ways of moving. And in having that be comfortable. Because it's one of those things where as you get older, your scope of movement continues to decrease and decrease and decrease unless you do something about it. And all we're saying is increase that scope, do something about it and realize that with all these things we're talking about, you got so long to get good at any of it. And it's like just give yourself the opportunity of not losing those capacities or just gaining them back. Right? Because that's what kids do. You know, kids will throw shit. They'll jump on shit. They'll

they'll just sprint right why can't you start doing some of that again because if we if we think about like what lebron said getting younger like man it's like i have so much fun with all this stuff but it also it makes me feel like a kid straight up like it it it's it's just it's so enjoyable in that sense i think what you said there was important too is make it you know try to think make things more comfortable so even though you're trying to explore new things try to have to be more comfortable at first like i was just messing around with the juggling balls it's like you just start out just throw one in the air of course that's not juggling right then you throw two in the air you know and then over time you work at it you don't have to make it so uncomfortable right away

you don't have to make it hurt so much right away um you know we were talking about getting low getting on the ground is super important um the go to guys we had them here years ago they talked a lot about getting on the ground uh we had kador here as well talking about getting on the ground getting on the ground is a great youthful thing to do and it's just my wife and I were both laying on on the ground we were watching watching TV with our family and they're like hey you want the couch like no like they're like are you guys okay you guys crashing like are you out and we're like we just we like to just be on the floor sometimes couch is nice yeah the sofa you know seat whatever all that stuff's great I like sitting on those things too but being on the floor can be

really restorative. And if you think the floor hurts too much, do something about it. You know, get yourself a pad. In my kitchen, we have this like, this like runner mat kind of thing that is just soft. You know, it's like when you're standing there doing the dishes and whatever else you're doing, if you're standing there for a while and the ground, the surface is soft. And I was like, I just buy this for my gym too. This thing's great. So I just ordered one the other day. I haven't used it yet. But you can also get like a go mat, like the go mat that we have from Jason Kalipa. That thing's great. You just roll it out. You were laying on it today just to get some like sunlight. It's a lot of times when you when you think about like oh yeah, I need to get on the

ground more. I need to stretch more. You probably won't want to do it. Yeah. So have a yoga mat or have something close by that you could put down or just leave it in an area where it can always be and just get your ass down the ground and rather than just sitting there watching TV like doing a whole lot of nothing maybe you're mobilizing a little bit or maybe you're just sitting in a way that kind of automatically has you mobilizing yeah yeah finding these positions strength is never weakness week this never strength catch you guys later bye