Mark Bell's Power Project - “Super Shoes” Are a Runner's CHEAT Code - How to Use Them Responsibly || MBPP Ep. 875

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

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

dude you'd love the show it's great it actually is i've heard it's really good yeah i hope they did a good adaptation we're talking about the last of us right now guys they talked about how important it was for them to do the best they could with nailing the video game because they're like we didn't want video game people come so hopefully they're doing a good job i i've only seen my daughter play the game before i haven't i don't really know the game that well but how old was quinn when she was scary yeah how old was she when she played the game because that game is scary like there's a lot of blood she always loved scary shit i don't know what her deal is she's 15 but she started playing it maybe like

like about a year ago or so okay okay that shit would have scared me as a teenager i just like do it i just like sit on the edge of her bed and watch it because i'm like this is crazy like what are you doing yeah she'd like have like a flashlight and then she'd like see all these crazy zombie people yeah yeah it's it's it's interesting that quinn is playing that because in that game like there are certain ways where you can like cut people's throats and and fucking like put people on fire some sort of parental guidance is what you're suggesting just i'm not trying to throw quinn under the bus, but that is quite a violent video game.

But it is an masterpiece. I'll keep my eyes on her. Yeah. You never know. She might get a little overly aggressive during a game of volleyball. That's one thing I have noticed, though. When it comes to horror stuff, horror games, I'm a coward. There are certain games that I

purchased, and i've played like resident evil 2 the remake i know i don't think you know it but um i played maybe an hour and i was like done those games you know uh they started getting like too realistic and i would get scared of them and i'm like i can't i don't want to play this game i don't want to watch it i don't want to see it at night i was like it's too much for me so there's too intense yeah so like resident evil would have both like creepy but then the jump scaring just like i don't even want to play like no thanks but then resident evil in vr sucks it sucks so bad just like your hair starts to raise like just it's not i don't know it's not fun some people really like it though i don't know why yeah best thing like for example sam sam and i watch horror

movies all the time and she's just cool but like for me it's like oh you you want to stop watching the movie now and go to bed okay i'm coming to bed too because i don't want to be alone you know it's like i can picture sam messing with you and like come into bed with like a mask on. I pray to God she doesn't start doing any of that type of stuff. Cause I do enjoy scaring her, but if she started scaring me, I wouldn't be able to handle it. Cause I've noticed she thinks it's funny to mess with you. Yeah.

She loves it. She does love it. I made a pretty good discovery today. I found some hills in Davis and it's usually like super flat. So I found some overpasses that are like pretty legit in terms of like the elevation on them. And they go on for a little bit. So to like try to like run, run them takes quite a bit out of you. But I'm happy to have found them because they're supposedly hills when you do the Boston Marathon, and I need some.

So it'll help my training a lot to have a little incline going on. How did the hills do, especially since you were using some of those super shoes? How were you doing on those hills today? Yeah, I was doing good. I've been talking a lot about some of David Weck's methods, the head over foot stuff. You know, I've been talking a lot about some of David Weck's methods, the head over foot stuff. And, you know, anyone that's given it a try, you'll find it to be more profound if you go upstairs. If you're going up a flight of stairs, you'll find that you really go head over foot a lot. And I've been just observing just, I don't know, my own movement in general and observing leverages that you get and certain things that you do.

I'm sure it'd be really fascinating in jujitsu to try to figure out like where you put your head in relation to like where your leg goes and where your arm goes and where your shoulder goes and all those things. But even just stirring up some peanut butter earlier today. Yeah, getting the hips in there. When I was stirring up some peanut butter today i was i was putting like some protein powder in there and you know you got to use kind of a lot of you got to your grip starts to like wear out after a while but i noticed my body was tilted way to the side i was like way off to the side you know tilting and i'm like god damn david weck like david weck's right about a lot of stuff.

Anyway, messing with these hills, I found it to be pretty beneficial to really try to push yourself to one side back and forth, left and right, left and right. I did like 15 hill surges, I would call them. They're not really sprints

because I would consider a sprint more all out. These are probably, because I'm doing so many of them and each one's a minute long oh yeah there's you know it doesn't make any sense to try to just completely kill yourself with them so um I would say my average uh time when I'm looking at my uh split time was a little under 10 minutes. So a 10 minute, nine minute, 10 minute pace for me on flat surface is me moving pretty good. And so I just thought to myself, that would be a good pace to try to keep going up these hills for a minute on. And then I'm allowed to really rest as long as I want in between, but I am supposed to get in 15 of them

in one hour. What percentage do you think you're going? Because after you mentioned those to me, I started doing those surges and I feel as if like when I do those faster runs on a longer run that I end up being around maybe 85%, like maybe between 80 to 85%. And if I'm really booking towards the end, maybe like, yeah, maybe 80, 85%. How do you feel with that? Well, I think that you can get there because of the duration. The duration is a lot, a minute of anything. Try a minute of squatting or a minute of bench pressing.

You'll find out fast that a minute seems like forever. And so a minute of running at a pretty good speed, if you're not a runner, you're not a track athlete, it's quite expensive. It's a lot on your body. And so for me, I would say I'm probably in a similar spot, probably in the 85% range, which I think typically for me, I gotten used to it. But again, I think because of how long it takes. So somebody that's looking to, somebody that wants to start to sprint, I think that these surges would be a great place to start. I would say, you know, see if you can kind of pretend you're shifting gears and you can start in like gear two or three with your jog. And then you could start to kind of shift a little bit more and go a little faster and maybe try to hold a speed for like 30 seconds, 40 seconds, something like that.

You know, the cool thing that I've noticed after treating these intervals or these surges in the way of only going between like 75 to 85% is after the run, body doesn't feel feel beat up and there's a lot of factors to that there's all the myofascial release that habit that we've been implementing that's kept my body continuously feeling good every single day there's these hot tubbing all these little things make a difference but also like i don't feel anything like i feel like i could do that workout again later on today and that's something where you can get in these intervals, you can get in those, those sprints. Um, you can get in a run and then if you recover well, you can do it consistently rather than getting wrecked. It's like taking mushrooms, man, on your first trip, like make it nice and easy.

Yeah. Make it so you don't like when someone's like, oh man, I took those shrooms that you, that you said. And, uh and I didn't feel anything. I like that for people. I think that's a great place to start rather than them getting just annihilated and being like, man, I was so terrified and what was going on? I sat on a curb and I just cried for four hours.

It's like, that does not sound like a good place to start. So whether we're talking about fitness or we're talking about getting down with some mushrooms, you know, I'll always start out easy because then it's easier to, it's easier just to notch it up a bit. Like it's not hard for you to go out and make it more intense.

You know, you've brought up the Nike super shoes that you use and obviously you gifted me those ultras. I actually bought another pair of those same ultras. But I've never heard you really explain, you know, how people, if they want to grab a pair of those shoes, how they should go about using them. Matt Choi talked a little bit about it and made a lot of sense. He uses those types of shoes on runs.

Then he uses Vivos or any type of barefoot shoe outside in the gym doing anything else. If someone wants to invest in a pair of those shoes because they're quite expensive. What do they need to think about before trying to make that purchase? And why would they even consider that? You know, I think the runners, you know, kind of like lift, like same thing happens in lifting and same thing happens with jujitsu. Like everyone's got like an opinion on how you should start and what you should do and all these different things. And really you just need to figure out a way to get started and you need to figure out a way to keep it safe for yourself.

I believe that super shoes in general, a super shoe is a shoe that has a carbon fiber foot plate. It's a very difficult shoe to bend. And when you go to bend it, it wants to snap. I also believe that Nike makes the best ones. I could be wrong. There's some people that talk about Adidas and some of these other companies making some good ones.

Those Ultra ones were good. I don't know what they're called. Yeah, the Ultra ones are nice. It's a little bit wider in terms of the shoe itself, but the Nikes are reasonable in terms of their width. I mean, Nike's always going after the look, so you end up dealing with them being obsessed with the aesthetics of the shoe and not just the functionality of the shoe.

But a super shoe has a good, strong cushion and it also has a carbon foot plate in it. And the shoe itself helps to like launch you forward. the shoe itself helps to like launch you forward. So when I just started messing with this experiment of me running, the first person I hit up was Ryan Hall. Ryan Hall has all time world record in the United States for a half marathon and a full marathon. And so luckily for me, I got access to some pretty great people. And he was like, get the Nike Alpha Fly. He just, no questions asked, nothing. He just right away said that. Brad Kern, who's been a good friend of ours, wrote some books with Mark Sisson. Mark Sisson, really high level triathlete for years. Brad himself has been into endurance sports for many, many years. And Brad had mentioned how he's talked to a bunch of different people

and like the super shoe is a huge advancement in running and allows you to do a lot more, allows you to handle more volume. Kind of like a slingshot. Kind of like a slingshot. You get more reps, you get more sets, you get more overall work. More overall work with less damage is a really awesome thing. And as Nsema's pointing out, he was able to get through some of these runs

more recently without feeling beat up. And whether you're talking about doing that with a shoe or without a shoe, that is what you're trying to get from your training. Your training is only as good as your recovery. So I think that this is a great place for a lot of people to start. Obviously, you have to fit within your financial means, and maybe it doesn't make sense for you to start out with a $300 shoe.

But, again, it's going to help to mitigate a lot of stress. And if you watch, there's so many videos online of people running and showing form and technique over and over and over again. That would be great to learn that, but you're not going to learn that very quickly anyway. I don't think that you should have a disregard for form and technique because I think it's really crucial and it's important. There's a lot of different things to examine, though, and it's going to take you months. It's going to take you years to learn how to run. examine though and it's going to take you months it's going to take you years to learn how to run and since you i'm just going to assume that you don't know how to run i would say get yourself a pair of those shoes would be a great place to start pair project family how's it going now a

lot of you guys are lifters athletes you're serious about the gym and we are too and that's why we've been using slingshot products for years all right you have the original slingshot obviously the glittery pink hip circle which is my personal. But if you don't like that, then you have the normal hip circle that's used to warm up the hips. But on the website, they have tons of equipment, knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, the gangster wraps right there. So you need to go check them out and ask, can you tell them more about it? Yes, that's over at markbellslingshot.com. And at checkout, enter promo code POWERPROJECT10 to save 10% off your entire order. Links to them down in the

description as well as the podcast show notes question what size were the ones that you had me trying today those were 13 13 all right cool now i i do have another question because you know this is interesting you've gotten a lot of uh people messaging you on instagram and you've mentioned this before how like they see you running in those shoes and like i thought you were all about barefoot i thought thought you were doing this. So, you know, I've noticed even when I do longer runs with like, I've ran in my Shamas,

I've ran in, uh, the Vivo, the Primus knits, and I've ran in their trail shoes because it's on concrete. There is a level of your feet getting a little bit beat up, but I have noticed that my gate, like my,

the way i run and the way i strike the ground when i use vivos when i use shamans when i use vibrams has to be ideal if i don't strike the ground in the right way i will feel that and that's actually it's a good trainer for teaching me how i can best like the most optimal way for me to hit the ground supposed to land and stuff like that yeah you learn you learn a lot from it. Exactly. Without, yeah, land without causing any type of pain, right? But I wonder if one were to just hop on and get the super shoes, the first time I'd used the super shoes on a run with you months ago, when I started to get tired, I started to like heel strike quite a bit. And I was noticing, oh, I'm not feeling that, but that's not good. I like,

I don't want to strike the ground that way, but the shoes let me get away with it. So I almost wonder if you start off with those types of shoes and the way you're running isn't good and the way you strike the ground isn't good, you could develop bad habits in the way you run. Yeah. Cause you could just be kind of throwing these kicks to the ground that are haphazard or with your toes pointed out and and all these things that it could it could be potentially helping you um to just maybe maybe almost encouraging like shitty form in some way yeah um i i would i i would agree with that to some extent i would also just say like just work on your form like what no matter what shoe you're wearing like just you know commit to finding someone that you trust, that you believe in,

whether it's Nick Bear or whoever it is that you look up online, Zach Bitter, any of these people, you know, listen to some of the stuff they talk about. People are going to talk about cadence. People are going to talk about picking your knees up. People are going to talk about the way that your foot lands. People are going to talk about all kinds of stuff. The interesting thing when you get into talking to runners, runners actually don't care. It's kind of weird. You would think that runners would care the most, but they don't fucking care.

It's almost like if you were talking to some high level soccer players, I'm not really going to talk about like the training. They're going to talk about like soccer and how to be better at soccer. They're yeah. They're going to talk about soccer and how to be better at soccer. Yeah, they like to lift. They like to talk about running and sprinting and changing angles and stuff. I'm sure the good ones are really dedicated and got it dialed in,

but how do you handle the ball that way? How do you always dribble with your left foot like that and cross over to your right? They wouldn't be like, hey man, tell me more about your bench press press routine you know they they want to be like probably pretty specific um i have a clip from brad kern that i'll send over to andrew here of some of the best runners in the world and they're just going like it doesn't look like anyone gives a fuck you know and it's not it would be a mistake to say that anyone has bad form because these are the highest level people.

And so I and I don't think the rest of the world has any clue how they should run. It's just – because how you run is just like it's all made up stuff of what we think is best. It's all made-up stuff of what we think is best. And so we're going to say, oh, if you land with your foot pointed outward or if you had too much pronation, you're going to be really jacked up. Who are you channeling? Who are you channeling? There's so many different versions of running. Again, if we're talking about soccer, well, shit, if you're talking about soccer, it would probably be a good idea to be on the balls of your feet kind of like most of the time.

I would say occasionally maybe you go to cut and you get your whole foot in the ground. Same thing with pro football. But, like, what if you're just, like, a marathon runner? You don't have to run any. You just run fucking straight. You're not, like, really doing anything. You're not, like, juking and jiving and, like like you're not throwing spin moves and you're not bringing the knees up. You're not like doing all these different maneuvers.

You're just going, right? That's so funny too. Juking and jiving. Juking and jiving. Oh, man. These are the weirdest shoes I've seen on Nike's website for a while now. Oh, yeah. Have you guys ever seen this? What the fuck are these?

I've seen those, yeah, where you can just slide them on. I have a pair that's a little similar to them. It has a spring like in the back of the heel, and you just slide your foot around. I feel like I'd be disgusted by your shoe closet. I feel like you probably have so many shoes. Do you? I got a lot of shoes. I got a lot of kicks.

Anyway. It's interesting that you mentioned soccer though and sprinting because like I've seen a video years ago where Cristiano Ronaldo was racing some fast athlete from another sport. And the one thing you notice is like when soccer players, really good fast soccer players accelerate, the way they run is very different from the way a football player accelerates or definitely the way a track star accelerates when they're sprinting. The form is very different, but they're all very fast, but it all kind of coincides with the nature of the sport. I remember when MMA was getting to be popular and there were so many boxing people who were like, these guys don't know how to throw a punch. And it's like, well, this guy has a lot more to worry about now because if he throws a punch the way that you're talking about, he could get his ass taken down or he can get kicked in the head or get need in the face.

Like there's a lot more things going on. So the way that someone would punch an MMA, especially like a Chuck Liddell, remember Chuck Liddell would really wind up with those. Those are not punches that usually are going to do anything in a boxing match. So people were right. Like that's doesn't work great in boxing.

But the reason why Chuck Liddell was able to do those Superman crazy punches was because you couldn't take him down. He's one of the most proficient wrestlers of all time in Octagon. And Bones Jones, Bones is known for his striking, but Bones is like the greatest wrestler, but quite possibly the greatest wrestler that the UFC has ever seen, which is crazy because he basically wrestled at like a junior college or something. Yeah.

Just fucking destroys people. Yeah. But he's known for being a striker because people can't take him down. They can't do anything to him on the ground. And so he's got some good proficiency with the way he throws his kicks and punches. But again, to like pick apart his technique, you know, his form on like how he throws a kick precisely. It's like ask any of the guys that he's fought, you know, hey, what, you know, they're like

he hits really, really insanely hard. I don't know what he did, but it hurt. Yeah, they're not going to break down where his foot placement was because they were already knocked out. Yeah, they got fucked up. Alright, I got this clip. This one right here. Yeah, so this is

maybe you can say his name for us better. This is the goat of Elliot Kupchoge. There we go. I probably said it the way every other American says it. I don't know how it's spelled. Yeah. So this is just a group of beastly runners. Some of the best in the world. Is it?

Did I send you a... Yeah, there we go. Send me a couple of them, but yeah, here we go. Oh, that's good. But you can turn it. There's no need for audio. But yeah, they're just going. And people that are in the running community would be like, oh, that's so-and-so.

I don't know all the names of all these people. Forgive me. But Kipchoge, his foot points out quite a bit, especially that right foot. And his foot kind of explodes as it lands. Like when you watch him and he's going really fast, uh, and if you slow it down and you check some of it out, you'll be like, yeah, man, whoa, what's going on with his foot? Um, but again, you know, these people are highly analyzed.

Um, we're analyzing a guy that runs a marathon in under two hours. I mean, you know, I don't know what more we want to get from him. Anyway, I think one of the things with running, though, you can see he's making these almost like little circular motions with his arms. Yeah. And I don't know how many people are going to try to coach you and say, hey, you should run with these like circles in your arms. But he's ending up with these circles in his arms due to the amount of force that he's producing. And so same thing, when you go to watch Hussein Bull or any of these guys, it's hard to figure out what you're watching

because you're watching the greatest of all time. And they produce so much force in what they do that it's hard to get an idea of what it would look like if you're doing it because you're not going to nearly produce the amount of force. So to say, oh, next time I run, I'm going to kick my foot back the way that I see the great Olympic sprinters do. That might not be a bad idea, but it could be an awful idea because you're probably running way slower than the way that they're running. The force production, the amount of energy that they're kicking into the ground and the strength of their hamstrings and glutes and the proficiency of how long they've been doing all this stuff for, they're black belts of what it is that they're doing. of what it is that they're doing. And so while it's not a bad idea to kind of mimic some of what you see these people do,

you could also get yourself kind of jacked up from doing it. That's why I also like, it was really cool seeing Matt Choi come onto the podcast and talking to him because yourself, himself, he, you guys both focus and have a focus on strength training when it does come to running.

And one thing you notice with a lot of runners, people who have focused on running as their sport for a long time, they haven't had lifting. Lifting wasn't something that drew back in terms of their movement, their movement ability. One thing you notice is that people that come from the strength background or the lifting background and go into running, when they try to open up their stride, when they try to, I guess, open up their body, it's very limited, right? So it's something where if you're coming from this background, it's still a good idea to use strength training, but it's going to be a better idea for you to increase the range of motion of everything you're able to do. you're able to do because what I've noticed, and I think you've probably noticed this too, is when you take that to start running, you're now able to open up your body more and your ability to create force is a lot better too. So it's just, that's something to think about when trying to emulate a runner. If you come from a strength background, you're not going to be as open as they are since it's been something that they've been doing for a very long time, but you can build

that. I think when it comes to lifting, you know, you think about your progression over the years with lifting. You start to gain a certain amount of strength. And you're like, I should maybe get some wrist wraps or some lifting straps. Maybe I should get a lifting belt. Like I deadlift 315 now and I want to start getting into like an actual strength regimen. I want to start to do five by five or three sets of three and I want to handle more weight. So because I want to handle more weight, it would be great for me to utilize this tool that will allow me to lift more weight with better form and better skill and better precision. Now, that doesn't mean that every single rep that you do and every set that you do is now

forever with a belt on. And it doesn't mean that every set that you do is now done with wrist wraps on. Or you might see some of the great bodybuilders of all time actually wrapping their knees for sets on hack squats, leg press. I mean, the fact that I still have to explain to people why they need a slingshot and why they need powerlifting gear, it blows my mind because the best built people in the world, the people that you're looking up to, the people that you want to emulate, doesn't matter if it's The Rock or if it's fucking Superman or whoever it is, they all wear knee sleeves. They all wear

knee wraps. They all wear wrist wraps. They don't wear them all the time, but they wear them often. And they wear them for certain training blocks and for certain periods of time. So to kind of equate that to running, I think it'd be a good idea that you get a shoe that's going to assist you in your running, that's going to have good cushion on it. It could be a super shoe. Maybe you don't agree with the super shoe. Maybe you think it does a little too much for you, which I would disagree with. I think it's amazing that it does that because it mitigates so much stress. And there's so many people that get really jacked up and they get hurt from running all the time. Most of the injuries are kind of like from the knee down. So having a good shoe can really be helpful.

But I would also say you don't want to just go out and only run in those. You want to run in something else so you can actually build your foot up as well. Now, if you feel like you're like, I don't know, you know, spend 200 bucks on this one and 200 bucks on it. You feel like you're starting to spend kind of a lot of money. That's totally understandable and i would say i would i would say you're going to be best off over time with multiple pairs of shoes um but you can also just work on training your foot in the gym you know here at super training um i don't know if your gym is going to allow you to like be barefoot but we do a lot of training barefoot. And if you can't train in your gym barefoot, then wear a pair of Vivo barefoots in your training. So you can actually train the foot the way the foot needs to be trained. You

can actually let the toes spread out and splay. And then when you're home, get out of your shoes, throw the toe spreaders on, do these little extra things to get your foot to decompress and your foot to relax. You talked about it a lot, but if you have the ability at your gym, hit the sled, hit the sled using either Bear Free, Shamans, some Vivos, whatever you can manage that allows your toes to spread. Go back and forth, pushing a sled, pulling a sled, but let your feet really dig and get stronger. And if any of you guys haven't been, I mean, a lot of you have been dealing with this or focusing on this since we've been talking about it for so long, but if you're new to this, give your foot

the time it needs to increase in terms of strength and density. Cause our feet have changed a lot within the past year, year and a half, and they're continuing to improve they're continuing to get stronger but now like when i put those super shoes on and i go take a run it's like it's really cool how just the body can now handle all that force and everything is relatively pain free that was the thing i was going to mention about all those runners they're running in a certain way and they're able to increase their gait and the length of their feet, but most of them are probably dealing with not as much pain as someone from a strength background or who's bigger would. Because when we hit the ground, we have so much force that's going to be going through our body. And if we don't know how to naturally handle that when running, it's going to feel feel painful as it felt for me when I started running again. That's why I kind of stopped running and stopped doing much because when I would run, I would feel pain in my knees. If you were to think about like, um, the things that you don't

do, the things that you don't want to do, there's, there's probably good reason for them. You're probably protecting yourself from doing these things. I'm going to protect myself from like reading really tough literature because I'm not good at it. It doesn't make me feel great about myself. Maybe you protect yourself from running because you're like, that hurts my feet. That hurts my knees. That hurts my ankle.

Maybe you protect yourself with trying a diet because it doesn't make you feel good about yourself because you tried it many times and you failed a bunch of times. And you're like, I'm a failure at that. I fucking suck at that. So I'm just going to pretend that it's not a huge issue and I'm just going to keep living my life the way that I am. But you want to try to figure out ways over time to become more proficient. And I don't – there's so many drills and so much stuff when you get into running, you're like, oh my God, these people do all these drills and stuff. And what I

believe, and I don't really know much yet about running because I'm still very new to it. I would think that, you know, if I get myself to a point where I start running some proficient times and someone could say, yeah, okay, he earned it and he does have a pretty good voice in this. I would say at the moment, I'm still suspect and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with you not giving me credit because I got to prove myself, right? You have to prove yourself. It doesn't matter what your background is. I do know a lot about human movement. I do know a lot about strength training, but this is new for me.

So I'll have to put up some numbers that show something, that show some sort of level of improvement. Maybe I don't run like Nick Bear. Maybe I don't run six-minute miles for 30 miles or something wild, like Zach Bitter did six-and-a-half-minute miles for 100 miles. Maybe I never reached that level of proficiency. But maybe I take myself from being a slouch that could barely run a mile at all, and maybe I get myself to where I can run some fairly comfortable eight-minute miles. And you're like, hmm, okay, that's something. There's a lot of improvement there. Maybe if I listened to some of what he

said, maybe I can make similar improvements. I think that a lot of the drills that you see people do, I personally think that they're a waste of time. I don't think that you really need them. I think you would be better off spending your time on your feet, walking and jogging, walking and jogging and working on that for a period of time and playing with it a lot, playing with how does it feel? Why does my foot point out when I land this way? Does it really matter? Should my foot be straight?

And when I listen to somebody about my foot being straight, or if I listen to somebody about how my gait should be opened up a lot, does it hurt? Does it feel better? Does it feel worse? A lot of times you're going to get yourself hurt trying to do something, like really trying to force your body into doing something the body's not used to. Especially you'll find the longer that you've been lifting and the longer you've been doing stuff for, almost every single time you really

listen to somebody else, you really fuck yourself up. And you're like, I know better than this. Why did I do that? I listened to him too much. I put too much faith in what the guy said. And now my fucking ankle hurts. And you're so mad at yourself you're like i fell for it again damn it because you you know better than to like put everything like uh just invest everything into something that someone said so be cautious with what you hear try to blend it together what what you currently believe or know and be cautious with it and take your time to try to learn it. I don't know anything about any of the drills that you just talked about. Like,

what is a running drill that you feel is kind of unnecessary? There's a lot of them. There's a lot of them. And I'm sure that if someone showed me and I learned it and I did it for a few weeks. I go, oh, that's, oh shit. Okay, that's where that goes. Because you guys know that drills, drillers are killers, right? You guys know that certain drills you do, yeah, they're kind of annoying sometimes. But then you're like, that's where I kind of just, I just use that. God damn it, that drill does kind of work.

I want to be lazy and not do them. There's a bunch of drills. There's like A skips, people running with high knees, people doing butt kicks and, uh, all this stuff that you did, you know, playing football or soccer, the different drills. We have to just remember that when we're talking about people going on a, people are mainly going on a jog and they're just kind of jogging straight. There's not a lot to learn there and there's not a lot to master. So I think that you can be lazy and I believe you can skip out on some of those things. I would also say it's a little bit like powerlifting where the only reason why the barbell exercises are worth anything is because they're not barbell exercises. But I also believe that you could go home as well because going home is not a barbell exercise either.

Oh, do you mean the accessory exercises are worth anything? Okay. Yeah. They're not completely worthless. There's obviously some benefit to some of it. Mark says, don't drill it. Don't do your accessories.

Well, you can do your accessory work with the barbell, right? You can do your bent over rows. You can do variations of a deadlift. You could do variations of a squat. Yeah. Most of,

most of your strength, most of your strength is going to, most of your strength for something like powerlifting is going to come from the bar, from a barbell of some sort. Maybe you use some dumbbells here and there, but yeah, I've always kind of felt that the majority of the benefit that you get from barbell exercises is the fact that they're barbell exercises. And because it's a barbell exercise, it allows you to handle a lot of weight. You know, you can bench press 315, um, but then bench pressing 150 pound dumbbells in each hand would be really, really challenging. Not that striving to bench press 150 pounds in each hand wouldn't be worthwhile. Um, it just,

it's not going to have the same impact on you being able to, it's just not as important since the sport itself is bench squat and deadlift with a barbell. It's like the most related to that movement. And you could do all your assistance exercise. You could close grip bench press, you know, so someone's like, oh, well, you know, we need the dumbbells for the tricep extensions, or we need, uh, cables for tricep extensions. It's like, just do close grip bench press. It's going to, again, it's more, it's more in line with the exact thing. And again, I'm just kind of comparing some of this to running. Running is even dumber than lifting because running is so, is, is so simple. You're literally just running straight.

You're not called upon to do much other than just to run straight. True, true. It does feel different when you haven't done it in a long time, though. Yeah. It feels like a challenge when you, like, everything you've been doing up to this point. It's so simple, it's impossible. Right, right. But I do understand what you're saying because sometimes um sometimes people can over complicate just like going low and slow because you sent me that video of uh

elliott kipchoge the way he warms up and i know he's the greatest so like maybe his warm-up doesn't need to be as wild as anybody else's but he just starts by going really slow and then he just slowly picks it up until he's where he needs to be as far as his comfortable pace. And if you just want to start, right, it kind of reminds me of what Matt Choi mentioned, how he started running. He was like, I just ran a mile every day and did MRF. That's insane. That was nuts, right? That's insane. And I do get he came from the background of football, but at the end of the day, he wasn't running for a while.

He was really good at running right away too he was like he's running super fast uh kind of reminded me of uh kalipa his coach was like uh chris uh henshaw uh-huh it was like well he's like when you do run like what's the time right you know what do you get when you run like you and jason's like i don't know he's like i he's like well you've done like a 400 jason's like i'm not sure what that is he's like it's a lap around the track of 400 everyone like jason's like oh yeah i've done those before he's like what do you get when you do those he's like i don't know i just run as fast as i can and he's like okay well maybe next time you go can you time it and then jason's like yeah i think i did like 48 seconds oh something just like

something crazy something ridiculous maybe it's 50 seconds or something it's just like what but i just i love his answer is like how fast did you do it and he's like i just tried my hardest like oh how fast did you do it fast yeah as fast as i possibly could that's flying too you know to get under a minute on that movement is some proficiency for sure yeah yeah when can someone start implementing the power sandal with all of this john did fucking 10 miles in those john's a beast what he said that i was like wait oh because i've only done like three and a half or three to three and a half miles our boy john if he trains here in the gym ran 10 miles in those what yeah yeah i don't i wonder

what his running background is because i've never really i've never got an idea but he must have done some running before i had an opportunity to run with him on saturday or friday saturday no sunday i had an opportunity on him on sunday i don't know what day it is either yeah how was that great yeah it was great. The sandals are awesome to run in. I haven't run in the sandals in a while. It's just been cold out here. So it's been a while. But the first time I started to run in them, I was in Hawaii and I brought them with me specifically to Hawaii because I was like, you know what? I'm not even going to give myself an option to run in anything else.

I'm just going to bring these. And I just thought it was dumb. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, oh, they're super, wait a second, they're super comfortable for walking. So maybe you can run in them. You did think they were dumb. Yeah. I remember that.

I was like, these are dumb. And then Josh told me about them. I'm like, Josh, these are dumb. Seema told me about them. I thought they were were dumb and then i had my own experience with him and i took him first spin i had to adjust him a little bit had to tighten him up a little bit yeah because i i did jog with him and i got like a rock stuck underneath my foot for a moment or whatever so i had to pull over and you know to make a little pit stop there and make some adjustments, made some adjustments and it felt amazing. And I was like, well, let me see how

tomorrow goes. And when I was in Hawaii, I was running really far. Um, my wife was there with some of her swimming friends and one of their friends, uh, she is a really high level triathlete and she's a Brazilian woman and she's like, you're going to run with me. And I was like, you're fucked. I was like,

they told me about you but they didn't tell me that you're like shredded and I'm like, I didn't know I was in for it like this. It's like, how far are we going to go? I'm like almost crying

before we even start yeah but yeah we ran like five six miles there was a lot of hills and stuff and the sandal the sandal felt amazing i think i think in the end i think you want your feet to be able to move around like feet you want your toes to be able to spread you want your foot to get stronger you want to strengthen your foot one of the best ways you can strengthen your foot. One of the best ways you can strengthen your foot is to have as much time as possible, either with your shoes completely off or in something like a sandal or in something that's going to allow your foot to be in its normal shape. And it's really rare, no matter what kind of shoe you have, to have your foot really splay and act the way it needs to act.

And so a sandal, I think a sandal is a really awesome option. I want some Matt Choi feet. Oh, yeah, he had those tendons. I can't get those feet out of my mind, man. When he flexed his toes and I saw just those tendons go pow, I was like, oh. Yeah, you're going to be okay. It's wild. I'm going to be okay. I wish I had some before

pictures because my feet were i don't know they look like a loaf of bread or something they were just not very they're squishy tendonless yeah tendonless yeah we're all getting those thickies now working them working them feet yeah for all the bigger size people that can't get the parasounder right now because we sold out in some of the bigger sizes we will get some soon and we will let you guys know when we are restocked. The sandal, in my opinion, might take a little while for it to get used to. If you're not used to sandals or flip-flops or any of those things, we've talked about it many times on the show before why a flip-flop is not a great idea.

And some people are like, you guys just own a flip-flop. This is a sandal that grabs the heel. It's going to stay on the foot. When you wear it and you see your feet moving in it, you're kind of amazed because you're like, this thing stays on my foot really, really well. It's super comfortable. It doesn't seem like it would work. It doesn't seem like it would make any sense. But the cushion that we have on that particular shoe, you can go on trails.

particular shoe, you can go on, you can go on trails. You can go areas where there's, uh, like acorns and weird bullshit on the ground. And you're not gonna, you're not gonna smash your feet. You're not gonna beat up your feet. You got plenty of cushion underneath your foot, uh, for your foot to be, uh, healthy. We're actually making a special pair of these for our boy Russell. Yeah. Yeah. We're actually making a custom fit for our buddy Russell. It's because his feet are wide? Yeah, we gotta get this guy I just, I really think it's gonna make a huge difference when he has something

that really fits him well. His feet are big, he's a big guy and, you know, I just think it's time to get him in something that's gonna fit super comfortable. I'm excited for that sick that'll be fun did it take you guys any time to adjust to like the you know the strap going between your toes or any of that did any of that bug you or bother you did it rub on you weird or

anything like that for for me honestly like i had one pair that i wore more than all the other ones and that was because josh from shama he adjusted them for me and then so every other one i was like ah this one just doesn't fit right and i knew it was just the adjustments so i was just like being lazy about it but then for the power sandal i hadn't seen what helped me out with it and once he made sense of it because i see a buckle and i'm like i just don't know how these work but then i watched this video here that i oh my camera just went out um i watched this video right here on our site and i was like oh that's how you're supposed to do it. Takes a minute to mess with it and stuff.

It was shaking his head. Fucking hate you both. Fucking hate you both. Y'all don't understand. All right, you know what? Actually, let me clarify. You know when dogs have that little collar thing? The choke collar?

I still don't know how to adjust a dog collar to make it tighter on their neck. So in that sense, I have my girlfriend, Sam. She adjusts the dog's collars. Now, when it comes to these, though. Chicks know how to work a dog collar to make it tighter on their neck so in that sense i have my girlfriend sam she adjusts the dog's collars now when it comes to these though chicks know how to work those buckles yeah i got a message from you i got a message you guys are like these are uncomfortable i didn't say i didn't know what i was doing it's true the cool thing is that yeah they can be adjusted well and when they're well, they fit and they feel great. But like if the buckle is pushing on like inside of your toe towards like the opposite side of your foot, it can feel super fucking uncomfortable. Because like the buckles or the strap is digging into your toe. So once it's adjusted, it feels great. The leather is broken out on mine.

I've put in a lot of miles on it. So it feels even better. I dig them. Yeah, I think that's the advantage is that you can get them to fit really well yeah i think that's you know kind of josh's uh design yeah most comfortable footwear i have right now power project family how's it going now we talk about sleep all the time on the podcast because it's one of the biggest things that helps you with your health and fitness your recovery your muscle gain your fat loss everything that's why we've partnered with eight sleep for such a long time now, because the technology behind the mattress allows you

to track your heart rate, the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns, your heart rate variability. It changes its temperature through the night based off how you sleep, but not only yourself, but maybe your partner on the other side of the bed. It is an amazing mattress. Andrew, how can they learn more? Yes. Head over to eight sleep.com slash power project. That's eight spelled out E I G H T sleep.com slash power project. Along with more information, you guys will actually save $150 off of your entire order automatically links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Quick question, man. Um, so I know you've been using the, those Nike alpha flies as like your, your go-tos, especially on your longer runs.

Do you remember the difference you felt between those and the Ultras? Because when I put your Alpha Flies on today, those Ultras, I ran in them earlier this morning, and they were springy, right? But those Alpha Flies were super springy. So do you know if there's a difference in width or anything like that? I'm going to find the name of the Ultras too. Yeah, Nike is weird. They have a lot of proprietary technology. I think there is something to it.

I think they have a pretty damn springy shoe. So I don't really remember. I do remember that the Ultras – They're called the Ultra Vanish, by the way, Andrew. I do remember that I liked them a lot, but one of the reasons why I discontinued wearing them is that they didn't give me any extra comfort over the Nike. Oh, okay.

Because my foot, I don't know. I just got this like chubby foot, and it's hard for me to fit into certain things. But the Nike shoe, even though it's not the most amazing fit necessarily, the, what my foot is in is mesh and it's able to stretch around, around the foot. So I don't have any negative impact with it. But you can see those are a little wider. Yeah. It's interesting. I feel like, like uh i wish they made them even wider yeah i was you know one thing you can do and this is what i did with those they were uncomfortable when i wore them the first time

but i took out the insole i took the insole out and then i wore them again and they were super comfortable nice so it's funny though how like they choose the same colorway as nike's super shoes they do the orange and they do the green, just like Nike has their orange and their green Alpha Flies. But yeah, those are pretty comfy, too, but they don't give me as much boost like when I put on your Nikes. That shit was insane. I felt like even if you're jumping, they're going to help you pop off the ground. It's really wild. I think a lot of it, again, has to do with not just the carbon footplate, but there's something going on with the squishiness of the shoe.

And if you see someone standing in those shoes, you're kind of like you are worried about them because you're thinking, can I roll an ankle or something? You're like, that looks weird when someone's wearing those. And you are kind of high up too. When you're running, do not pay attention to your phone. Pay attention to where you're running because you will roll your ankle. I've been very fortunate to where I've done that a bunch of times, but I've been lucky. It hasn't done anything to me. It scares the shit out of you because you're like, I'm pretty sure the whole side of my foot just hit the fucking pavement. out of you because you're like, I'm pretty sure the whole side of my foot just hit the fucking pavement. So even though the

Ultras are wider, they weren't more comfortable than the more narrow Nike ones? For some reason, you know, Ultra has three different like footprints and they decided to make this one and like they're slim fit. I don't know why. I don't know why they chose

that. It's probably just because a lot of the runners that they have probably don't need that because they're not big people a lot of times. A lot of times runners are lighter weight people that maybe don't need the wider foot. There is a couple things I haven't really talked about running-wise that would probably be good to add in here. I think hydration is really critical. So I'm always bringing a lot of liquid with me. It appears that for this marathon that I'm going to need like at least a gallon of liquid with me during the run, which is kind of uncommon. I think most, you know, someone like Matt, Matt Choi, he's just going to like run and then he's going to be thirsty and he's going to maybe stop or slow down a little bit and get some liquid at those stations.

And maybe he'll have a bottle in his hand. That's maybe like a disposable thing that he'll like chuck or whatever. But he and I did talk about that and I did ask him. talk about that and I did I did ask him I was like I think if you can mitigate that I would be interested to know uh how you feel on your runs because I think you might be able to even run faster than what you're able to run I just think dehydration is real can be really limiting and uh drinking like before your run and then just getting some liquid at some stations I just I don't think that's enough personally. But I don't know, maybe you can kind of train for anything, right?

You can train yourself to be deprived of sleep. You can train yourself to be deprived of liquid and maybe you can like somehow fight through it in some way. But it's just a math in my head, you know, works out that, you know, if you start to lose more than like 2% of your body weight, you're not going to be as strong. And maybe that is a factor of just really flying on a marathon. It's just the way it is. You play really high-level tennis and you're in a tournament, you're going to be dehydrated. Even though you're drinking in between, you can't really fuel up fast enough to deal with the liquid that's going out.

But for me, I got one of those little jet pack things, and I'm drinking the water as I'm going. Is there a specific brand? So people know what you're talking about? Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know what this one is, but there's like a camel pack that people use. I don't know what the name of this particular brand is, but whatever it is, it's not very good because like it gets stuck. And I like had more liquid in there and I was like, damn it, I couldn't get it all out of there. But the liquid that I'm using is I'm using carbs and amino acids. I'm using some of Nick Bear's product from BPN. I think just find something that you feel absorbs well with you that's not going to make you shit your pants. And I think you'll end up having some good results.

But I think, let's see, today. So today I ran for an hour and I just ran back to my car and had the liquid in my car after I ran for about 30 minutes, 40 minutes. And I probably had about a hundred carbs and two scoops of aminos. So, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to implement that as I'm running, and I think for the marathon I'll probably consume probably around 200 grams of carbohydrates during the run, maybe even more because I might have some. There's like candy and all kinds of shit you can bring with you,

jelly beans and these little gel packets and all kinds of stuff. It's just really just trying to stay hydrated and try to stay fueled up for the run. Have you tried getting ahead of it, like taking, I don't know, a lot of water the night before or right before, and then how has that gone? Yeah, you can do a little bit of that, but you might have to stop a lot and use the bathroom or something like that. Um, I have, uh, I've just consumed more calories sometimes. I've tried to do it in some,

a bunch of different ways, uh, with carbohydrates, with fats. Um, a keto brick actually works really good. A keto brick, like the night before a keto brick is a product you can look up online, has a thousand calories in it. I think like 99 grams of fat, like 30 grams of protein or something wild like that. And that's a particular type of fat that could be kind of faster acting than a regular fat. I also have in my carbohydrate mix, there's some MCT oil powder in there from Bubz. And so I think that could potentially be a slight advantage because, again, it's supposed to be a fat that digests fairly quickly. So I don't know. I think it's up to each individual to kind of like mess around with some of that and play with some of that.

But I do think it helps a lot with my recovery. Like I get done with these workouts and, uh, I feel good. I'm able to usually lift afterwards. And sometimes when I lift, I'll just make another shake, um, because I'm just burning up more glucose. And so I'm like, well, let me, you know, let me sludge down some more of this. What you mentioned right there, Andrew, that was a really big thing that people should keep in mind, you know, uh if you have a run the next day, like you do always want to make sure you're hydrated each day. But the hydration the day prior can have an effect on your performance the next day. If like you didn't drink much water on a Wednesday and then you have a hard workout or a hard run or a hard jujitsu session on Thursday, you're going to feel it,

even if you try to chuck a bunch of water and electrolytes on Thursday. So what you mentioned there in terms of just trying to make sure you're hydrated each day, it's going to play an effect just like making sure you have enough food the day prior. It's going to play an effect on your performance the next day too. So something to keep in mind. Yeah, that came to mind because I remember one of the days I woke up to go to jujitsu and I'm like, man, I'm pretty thirsty. And I'm like, I'm already too late. Because if I woke up thirsty, that means yesterday I was way behind schedule and I'm not, you know,

the 10 minute drive from my house to Waza is like not enough time for me to actually rehydrate. At least I think, right? Like how much time do you need in order to replenish? Yeah. I think, uh, I think doing stuff, uh, staying way ahead of it, I think is important. So, um, I think you should try to be days ahead of it, I think is important. So, um, I think you should try to be days ahead of it if possible, but I'm running every day. So, uh,

uh, there's only so much ahead of it. You can be, I guess. Um, but I consume like magnesium and zinc and I'll probably show you guys, like I have a whole fucking box of supplements and, uh,

just different powders and all kinds of different stuff that Dan Garner has, he just told me to get all this different stuff. And I was like, okay, I'll get it all. And just, I keep mixing up these fucking potions all day long. And I just doing, doing what I'm told to do, you know, doing, doing what he's recommending and suggesting. I don't know how big of a difference each thing is making. We'll find out, I guess, in another couple of suggesting. I don't know how big of a difference each thing is making. We'll find out, I guess, in another couple days. I got my blood work done recently. He's supposed to give me kind of a report back on the blood work and supposed to be able to see what all that's looking like.

Will you guys be talking about this at all in the program that you two are making? Will you be mentioning the supplements? Yeah, we'll talk about everything. But I think, I mean, the basics of it are to make sure you have your electrolytes in line. Taurine is huge. He can go into depth on that, on why he thinks that's important, but that has helped me a lot. I'm somebody that used to get cramps a lot. I haven't had any cramps. I haven't had a cramp. I haven't had even, I haven't even had the slightest, I haven't even, I'm just making sure it's accurate.

I haven't even had the slightest soft tissue injury the entire time we've been training together so far. This is amazing. Do you think it's because of the touring or all the things that have added up in terms of your habits that you've been doing, like the myofasofascial release yeah i think it's a big combination of things i think it's you know i i started dedicating myself to getting more sleep uh just over the last couple weeks and um that has been interesting i've been trying to get eight and a half nine hours of sleep each night um i think another thing is, just communicating with him a lot.

So after every workout, I, I tell him how I felt, tell him like what I went through and how it was. I I'll even just tell him if I'm annoyed. I'm like, yeah, this is like, uh, this workout was kind of annoying. Like, I don't know why it was fucking annoying. I don't know if you guys had had annoying workouts, but I was like, I just didn't, I didn't like it don't know why it was fucking annoying i don't know if you guys had had annoying workouts but i was like i just didn't i didn't like it you know and so he'll work with that too because he's like he wants to give me what i need but he also wants to maneuver in what i want a little bit too because that's a big factor like if i'm doing what i don't want to do

every time he gave me a workout that had like bear crawls and had a bunch of stuff in there and i was just like i just told him i'm like i'm not gonna do that workout i just won't and he was like roger i get it you know and it's not because i don't believe in him and it's not because i don't believe in what he's suggesting it's just too different for me to mess around with at the moment i'm like i i'd be really foolish for me to jump into that i don't feel like it's going to work for me so why even get involved in it like just tell him flat out like you don't believe in it tell him now so that he can adjust you know and so we've had to make some little adjustments here and there and he also knows that whatever he writes down that i'm gonna uh go harder than

whatever it is that he puts down so he's aware of that so he also is like i think he's trying to like manage that so if he knows if he puts like hey do a 12 minute mile pace i'm gonna do 11 like everything i see from him i'm like fuck him i'm gonna fucking kill this workout i take this workout and shove it right up his ass and sometimes it works out for me and sometimes like sometimes the workout gets the best of me yeah i can't wait till we have him here he's gonna be here uh in a handful of days beginning of next month it's gonna be awesome yeah yeah, that's and, you know, people are like, what about performance enhancing drugs? I'm still on them. I still love them.

They're still part of the routine. Not much has changed with those, but I'm not going to sit here and try to explain to you exactly what it is I take. Because it gets banned and stuff by YouTube and all kinds of other weird stupid stuff happens. So we'll just leave it at that. Andrew, want to take a sign on here, buddy? Yeah, what a way to leave them hanging. But thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Please drop us your comments down below.

Maybe some more questions that we could hit on a future episode when it comes to running super shoes and all that good stuff. They shadow banned us before, right? Oh, yeah. Big big time you can only talk to tony huge so many times before youtube is like hey you guys need to quit fucking around so we can't be yeah anyways um make sure you guys uh like today's video and then hit subscribe if you guys are not subscribed and powerproject.life for everything podcast related socials all that other good stuff and uh my instagram is at i am andrew z and follow the podcast at mb power project all over the place and sema where you at discord's down below and

sema ending on instagram youtube and it's me on tiktok and twitter mark i'm at mark smelly bell strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye