Mark Bell's Power Project - The Genius of the Greatest Athletes || MBPP Ep. 984

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

In  episode 894, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how the greatest athletes of all time weren't "just athletes", they were down right geniuses in how they approached their sport.   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!   ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   ➢ 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://vuori.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/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

I think a lot of times people think athletes are dumb because some of these individuals maybe aren't coaches. They'll look at this information and be like, where's the evidence? Where's the study? I can sense a good shot and a bad shot. These athletes start getting creative and then they start doing things that no one has seen before. I don't know how many people know or understand how much studying Tyson did. What I'm doing now is I'm loading up his nervous system. He said load it up with useless information.

Lean forward. Pull it up. Pull it as far as you possibly can. Obviously, there's science to it. But it seems like the science, we're always like, that can't be right. I bet you the EMG is going to be much different on the person that can activate that muscle group than the person who's like five years training and is still doing the same fucking movements because they're more biomechanically efficient.

Pay attention to the one with experience, dog. Yeah, I wanted to dive into this today talking about, you know, I think a lot of times people think athletes are dumb. The dumb jock type thing. And I think that some displays of physicality sometimes can be like brilliant and they can be beautiful and they can be kind of unreal. And we have a lot of examples today, I think that will show maybe they're like, maybe it's not pure intelligence, but maybe it's something different.

And when I think about some of the power lifters that I've run into over the years, and I think about some of these guys who just, they have a skill that is completely different than anything I've seen from other people. And one person that comes to mind is like Jeremy Avila. Like what is that ability of his brain or his body to be able to explode so well on some of the lifts that he does? Like what the hell is that? Obviously he's able to, obviously he's very strong, but a to – obviously, he's very strong. But a lot of power, which is very strong. And like someone like Kaler Wollum, like some of these guys come to mind where you're like, I've never seen anybody lift that amount of weight that fast.

Or some of the athletic stuff that Jeremy Avila is able to do, the jumping. Same thing with Kenny that we have here at Super Training. Same thing with Kenny that we have here at Super Training. These people are able to display these levels of athleticism that are like some next level stuff. And I think that sometimes when we think about people, we're just like, oh, the guy's genetically gifted or the guy has this or that. But some of the stuff we're going to get into today, we'll even show you examples of Jordan and Tyson and Bo Jackson and some of these guys just having a proficiency and like a feel that no one else in the world has. And some of this came to be because I saw these like old school tutorials of Michael Jordan explaining basketball. I was like, whoa.

I'm like, Michael Jordan is explaining how to play basketball to people. I'm like, this is crazy. You don't really usually see that, right? A lot of times it's some like retired coach or some guy who's like awesome at three-pointers showing people how to shoot or something like that. But this is the GOAT. This is like the greatest of all time. And in modern times, I have not really seen like necessarily LeBron, you know,

coaching. I'm sure he shares a lot with his teammates and all that kind of thing. But I just think it's fascinating the amount of knowledge some of these guys have and how smart they are and how they figure out stuff that is just completely different and unconventional. Absolutely. I think also one thing is, especially when it comes to people building muscle or, you know, whether it's getting stronger, there's a lot of strength athletes, really, really cool strength athletes who share some nuanced information on how they do things like Jamal, Jamal Brown explaining aspects of the sumo deadlift and even his hook grip or some of these other lifters. But I think some people, because some of these individuals maybe aren't coaches, right. They'll look at this information. I'll be like, where's

the evidence? Where's the study to prove what you're like? That's why, I mean, I do really, I do respect coaches and what they bring to the table, but, um, there's aspects of things that a person just doesn't get if they haven't fucking done it. I don't care what book you've read. Like I'm going to pay attention to some of the aspects of what this person who's doing the damn thing is saying, because they know nuanced things that some of these coaches cannot put forward. And I don't care if there's no paper to prove it. Like there's literal proof right here. Now we can't take that too far because there's a lot of bullshit within building muscle and it's been shown.

A lot of athletes talk about some bullshit, but there's a lot of gold nuggets within what a lot of these skilled people are talking about. Ed Cohen, one of the greatest coaches I've ever run into. Unbelievable. 900-pound deadlift, squatted over 1,000 pounds, benched nearly 600 pounds. He's one of the all-time great

power lifters. He's one of the all-time great power lifters. And he just had a lot of nuanced stuff. I mean, he famously said, open up your taint when you're doing your squat. I never heard anybody say anything quite like that before. He had a lot of great references, and sometimes it helps to have something that's like funny or silly so people can kind of remember it. But in in sometimes in some of his illustration or some of the things he would communicate because he's so high level and because he's built the way that he's built he would sometimes say things that didn't apply to you so sometimes you have to kind of go oh wait a second i forgot that that guy is six seven and he

has a ring on his arms yeah or i forgot that you know ed cohen is shorter in stature he's like five four or something or five five sorry his arms go yeah his arms go past his knees he's got long long ass hands so he was showing me like how to kind of open up on like a sumo deadlift and he's like and you're right there and i'm like i'm still like two and a half feet from the bar here's the bar so sometimes some of these people um like a michael phelps that will show later on i mean michael phelps is like one of the longest like wingspans in the history of mankind and so he's gonna have uh he's gonna have some advantages over some other athletes but he's also a guy that uh said that he didn't miss swim practice for five years straight. So I think it's easy just to be like, oh, these guys are probably all on steroids.

Genetics. Yeah, these guys are all on genetics. Or to think they're dumb and that they only spend time in the pool or on the mats or wherever it is. But I think some of it's just some genius shit going on. Where do you guys want to start? Play the Jordan video since Mark mentioned it. Michael Jordan. jordan mikhail is that how you pronounce it yeah this whole time let's go let's go mj right can you talk about your hand what do you see when you look at this hand if you would look at it what do you see in terms of its skill well i have a

wide thumb away from my first finger which gives me the grip of grabbing the ball and being able to move the ball and that's it's like having a paintbrush to a certain extent being able to create if you can move the ball and move your instrument some to to an extent that it's pretty different and very rare in this game. Dr. J did this. Dr. J had, if you ever noticed Dr. J's hand, his thumb is so far away from this finger, which gives him a better grip and a wider span so that he can pick a ball up off the dribble and do anything that he wants to do with it. I don't know.

I have very long fingers. I can sense a good shot and a bad shot if it comes off these three fingers i feel good about the shot if it comes off these two then my mechanics got screwed up somewhere i just weapon right can you that's being able to narrow it down pretty good andrew advantage or disadvantage with that uh that thumb being that big for video games? Well, hold on. Let's say it's a first-person shooter, and you have a controller. Controller or keyboard, though.

So this is where I'm getting at it. So if you're on a PlayStation, the analog sticks are at the bottom, so maybe that might be easier for you to reach. If you're on Xbox, it's up top. You might be too long for that controller. NBA you're on Xbox, it's up top. It might be, you might be too long for that controller. NBA Live. You can beat Jordan in NBA Live.

Yes or no? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Because. Fucking done. But check this out though. See you later, MJ. You had to create him because he was never in any of the games.

Ah. Do you know why? Wasn't licensed, huh? Because he was licensed under Warner Brothers and they made like a michael jordan like uh bugs bunny video game he's like a platform game so because of that contract he couldn't be in any other video game damn it wasn't any bullshit nope you had to like uh you could go to create a player on nba live and you would type in michael jordan number 23 and then like the rest would auto populate that. That's bullshit.

It's very much bullshit. What do you think of this clip? I think one, so if you think about a kid that watches this clip and really loves basketball, and then they start maybe that aspect of what he said about his fingers, if it comes off these two fingers, it's a good shot. If it comes off these, it's a bad shot.

And that kid starts doing reps, and then they start to feel it. I mean, it takes a bad shot. And that kid starts doing reps and then they start to feel it. I mean, it takes, it takes a certain level of expertise to start thinking of things to that level of detail. But an athlete who's doing that game in game out and thinking about that can communicate that. Well, some coaches definitely can, don't get me wrong. But when you have somebody who is in it, who is doing it, I think that's really fucking amazing. And I think another thing that probably we're going to be getting to is athletes have, at least I think really experienced athletes,

have a level of creativity to think outside the box when it comes to a lot of these things. You know, they don't always go by, okay, a coach can lead them in the right direction of concepts and things to think about. Then when the athlete starts

letting themselves be creative with whether it's doing things in the gym, whether it's doing things with whatever your sport is, then they start doing things that people have never seen before. You know, even like John Jones has talked about just watching YouTube videos and copying it. And who was the guy on Joe Rogan's podcast recently? He's the, he's a black dude who said that he just watched a lot of, you know, movies as a kid and and he just copied these things and he does those things in the ring right there's a level i think of just are the power lifter we just had on recently who loves like dragon ball z and

all that kind of stuff right yeah baki and he likes dragon ball z but yeah yeah baki exactly right anime of course anime it's not cartoons. Don't disrespect anime like that. I can't have you doing that anymore. It's powerful. Animations. But these athletes start getting creative, and then they start doing things that no one has seen before. So I think we should start really paying attention to them. Did you guys ever, like I guess we'll go with soccer. Were you ever told something, but you kind of had your own way to do it, but you were kind of discouraged

from following what you thought would be best for you because coaches insisted that you do it this way? I'm thankful I never wore shin guards. So that's so funny. So after we spoke, it was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But when you first said that, I was like, what?

Like, you know, ow. Like, oh, dude, my shins hurt for you. They stopped hurting after a while. Yeah, yeah. My shins stopped hurting after a while. You built up that bone density, right? If it kicked the fuck out of my shins, I'm not going to feel it. You know, because I never wore shins.

Because first off, I hated the way shin guards looked. And I thought they were uncomfortable. And I thought they stopped me from being able to do certain things I wanted to do on the field. So, yeah, I'd get kicked in the shins a lot. But after a while, I didn't feel pain in my shins anymore. And nowadays my shins are really fucking dense. I remember, uh, you know, uh, in, in football, like, you know, the coach would talk about, you know, very specific play, like, here's the way we're going to run this play. And, uh, we had some really talented athletes on the team. And sometimes the play didn't go as drawn up.

And the coach would be pissed, even though we scored a touchdown. Because sometimes you've got to do unconventional stuff. And he's like, no, you're supposed to run it this way. And I understand what the coach's point was and why he wanted the play to be run a specific way. Because you're setting up a lot of other stuff based off of that. And there's a bunch of reasons why you want to try to have some sort of plan or schedule but as a player you got to kind of take control of that and ultimately uh the coach isn't out there on the field the coach is not out there you know making the tackles and making throws and doing all the things and so sometimes you got to just like pull stuff out of your ass.

You know, you got to do things unconventionally sometimes. I feel like, okay, for those of y'all in the audience that love jujitsu, rock with me here. For those of you that don't, try to rock with me here. But I think we should start trying to treat the gym kind of like how some of these athletes treat jujitsu. Because there are certain athletes within the martial art, you know, there are teachers that people refer to

as professors, right? Who own schools and they teach things. But then there are these young athletes within the martial art, you know, there are teachers that people refer to as professors, right? Who own schools and they teach things. But then there are these young athletes who are coming up, who they're learning what their professors are teaching them. But then they're doing these creative things with movements that have been there for a long time. That's crazy where people are like flipping as a rolling and they're doing all kinds of crazy shit. It looks like, but they get creative. They do things outside of the box. They move outside of the box and they create these movements that people have never seen done.

And then it's named after them or it's a version of that movement. But it's like you have this base level. Just like the gym, you have a base level of things that everybody talks about is great for strength. Squat, bench, deadlift. Well, how about starting to do some of those things on your toes so that you start to strengthen your toes? How about all these things that people come and talk to us about? These implements, there's some research behind how they can be beneficial and there's some research behind some of these movements but who says that you have to do them that way we've learned that the more creative we get with it the more that we can add to it with

some of the things that we've heard from weck and all these different people we're building different levels of strength now and we're doing things in a very unorthodox kind of way. And it's when you learn some of the rules and you start to understand them, you're going to be able to break some of the rules once you have a decent understanding of them. And sometimes your coach or someone else is going to go, and they're going to go, okay, that was good. They're going to halfway be like, oh, shit, like, you know, maybe you'll hurt yourself or maybe something crazy will happen. But if you can get it done, you can get it done.

And I think it's important that we use some unconventional thought. We've seen so many players over the years. I think it's amazing. I've been a huge Bo Jackson fan forever. And some of the stuff that you've seen Bo Jackson do, some of it's like almost seems like a fable where you're like, oh, was some not true? Like he jumped over a car. He jumped over this like ravine or whatever. Like there's a lot of crazy stories about him.

But the stuff that they did capture, you know, the stuff that you did see when he was playing two sports professionally uh was completely amazing the way the way he fucking ran up the wall the way he did a kip up after an in the park home run without using his hands like he just did some wild stuff but what he said about this is that this was all stuff that he did as a kid he said everything i did as a pro i did as a kid he's like i used to run up the side of my house all the time oh shit rewind that like okay he got to the very top like like he had to stop right like he could have kept going and just like i'll cut it here it's pretty wild looking when they slow it down you're like holy shit he actually was fucking running up the wall. Dude. And he, you know, he basically just said, like, I didn't want to, I've run into the wall before and I hurt my shoulder. So he didn't want to, like, just run into the wall normal.

And he's like, I'm just going to athlete my way out of this. I want you guys to imagine that you're wearing a cast on your hand and you're going through your whole day with this cast hand. Well, because your fingers don't move, your hand will start to going through your whole day with this cast hand well because your fingers don't move your hand will start to become stiff weak and that'll work its way up your arm that's the same thing that happens when you wear these damn shoes okay sorry to curse but it's frustrating because these shoes that have a narrow toe box although they look nice in their nikes narrow toe box so your toes can't move they're not flat so your foot is in this weird thing and

it's not getting stronger. And they're not flexible so they don't move and your foot just moves like this all day, which means your feet are getting weaker. That's why we partner with Vivo Barefoot Shoes. They have a bunch of shoes for the gym and casual shoes. But the thing about these shoes is that they are wide, they are flat, and they are flexible. so your foot can do what it needs to do and it can get stronger over time that's going to allow you to be a better stronger athlete andrew how can they get them yes that's over at vivo barefoot.com slash power project when you guys get there you'll see a code across the top make sure you use that code for 15 off your entire order again vivo barefoot.com slash power project links in the description as

well as the podcast show notes throw these away watch the watch the camera yo you know that's the thing though like the key thing he said is like i did this all the time as a kid and you hear this from everybody about everything you know when when you see a kid up in the tree like remember that kid i told you guys about that. Me and my girl were walking in the park and I just look up and this kid's in this fucking tree. And I thought to myself, I'm like,

fuck, I used to climb trees. Why don't I climb trees? All the time too. Cause hard now, right? Yeah. Cause maybe if I fall,

like, you know, when you're a kid and you fall, not just your lighter, but you kind of like know how to, yeah. Like a cat. And nowadays I think i could probably fall on the ground and do that shit so i should probably go find some fucking trees and fall on purpose why not i don't know if you know how to roll stop drop and roll you know how to fucking you know you won't hurt yourself yeah hit the grass and roll you gotta you gotta not stop

doing kid type shit shit, bro. Like, go skip. You know how we were talking about jumping before? Instead of jumping, just go skip a little bit, right? That'll feel kind of good. And then you'll start jumping and shit. You cover a lot of ground, too, when you skip. My son likes skipping.

And so I was like, oh, shit, I'm ditching him. But along the same lines, my son, he gets on the couch just to jump off. Or he gets on the couch to just jump nonstop. But we have another one where it's got like an armrest and like a cup holder. And it's like a full step up. So like for him, it's like a full step up. It's higher, right? Because it's not cushioned.

It's a hard surface and he steps up. So he's like significantly higher than what he's used to. And he stood up there and he looked down and my wife and I were just like, is he going to do it? And he just like slowly. Oof. And he jumped off. He landed,

thought it was the funniest thing ever. And now that's what he does. And so I was just like, dude, that's, you know, the equivalent of like, if I jumped off something like about chest high,

you know, like that's really high and he's doing it over and over and over. And I understand he's, you know, very, very small right now.'s doing it over and over and over. And I understand he's, you know, very, very small right now. But think about these parkour motherfuckers though. That's what I'm saying.

Like if you were, if he just, I mean, cause I'm just remembering like when we jump on the couches, my parents would be like, what are you doing? Like there's, and now I'm like,

no, let that fucker go. He's going to keep jumping nonstop. Right. It's so much fun. Let him build up those calves. Right. Yeah.

Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. You parents are like, Oh, that oh that's dangerous oh no don't do that baby oh stupid it was there was a little bit of that in the beginning for sure because he'd get close to the edge because like when he jumps you know like we were talking about the trampoline like when you hit it right and it launches you so he'll get one of the cushions like right in the like right before the crack or you know whatever and it pushes him forward It's like he was doing that forward and backwards, so I was afraid he was going to fall back and hit a wall or something. But now it's like, oh, he'll be fine.

How high is it? And yeah, it's pretty funny to watch because when he watches TV, he's jumping nonstop. It's something y'all got to do. Just try not to look creepy. Go to a park and just stare at children. I haven't done this. Observe.

No, but actually, you don't need to go to a park and stare at kids because that's never good. But just think about what kids would be doing at a park, right? They'd be climbing on the monkey bars. They're going to be going down the slide. They're going to fucking hit those wood chips at the bottom and scratch themselves. And then they'll go back up and they'll do it again. They'll swing a little bit too high and they'll try to jump and then they'll hit their knees on the ground and they'll go back and do it again. Just think about the shit that kids would

do and just try to channel that shit. You know what I mean? Andrew, what was that shit about the old people in the nursery home that we've mentioned so many times on the podcast? Oh, yeah, a thousand times. Long story short, a group of elderly people were moved into a home and they were all told to pretend like it was whatever year it was. And when they were in their twenties, the TV, all the shows,

all the newspapers, all the magazines were all from that era. These old people walked in with walkers, wheelchairs. When they left, they were playing Frisbee and they would, none of, nobody had walkers.

They all felt younger. And even their markers showed that they were younger. So just by, you know, pretending that they were young again, they became young. Yeah, man. It's fucking wild. Yeah, the belief of your mind is a huge thing. And the belief of yourself, I think, is massive. If you look at Patrick Mahomes, he's had the same strength coach since sixth grade.

And so he just has a tremendous belief in like what his body can do. And he's done stuff that is just unbelievable. I was watching that show Quarterbacks. And the way that they show that he's able to like move his head and his neck. His trainer was like, he's kind of like an owl. It's kind of crazy the way he's able to like look at one person. He's able to see like another part of the field. He's able to keep his head almost like still as he's running like in one one person. He's able to see like another part of the field. He's able to keep his head almost like still

as he's running like in one particular direction. It's really weird. And it's actually really important so that he can load up and throw, you know, a very particular style or form. And then he also looks like he's parkouring, like why he's like playing football. He's doing some really wild stuff.

It's like video game-esque type stuff where you're like, that's some bullshit, but it's a legal play. And you're like, oh, my God. He's scoring touchdowns, and it looks like he's having fun while he's doing it. But so many of these things, they're, okay, like he has good genetics. That's clear. Like he definitely has good genetics. Like he has good genetics, that's clear. Like he definitely has good genetics.

But he's been working on all these things for a really long time through strength training, through repetition on the field, through coming up with unconventional stuff. And he just so happened to have a head coach who really goes along with what he does. So a lot of coaches used to be meticulous about running the plays very specifically. A lot of coaches used to be meticulous about running the plays very specifically. But now they're like, well, if we got someone like Mahomes that can move around like this and can do things unconventionally, why don't we just play into this? And why don't we why doesn't the team just kind of mold around him? Years ago when Michael Vick was in the league, no one knew what to do with that at the time. He was way too fast and like way too gifted. And it just seemed like. What type of intangibles did Michael Vick have hex even though i knew he was great i don't know how great he was he quite possibly is the fastest football player ever whoa whoa

really he was that fast just fucking smoke everybody and he was a quarterback right yeah he was fucking fat i don't like you know someone's gonna be like oh he only ran a four like so to bring up like their for 40 time, which was still really fast. But I know that there's probably a couple of guys that were faster 40 time wise. But I guess the only other guy I can think of that's that fast on the field was like Randy Moss. But Michael Vick was insane and he could throw the football. He was just such a crazy athlete. Like when you're talking about like

like urban legends or like fables of athletes like there was a bunch for him but like they i heard that he could stand flat-footed and throw like some just crazy like 70 yards it's just like like dude you're not like just flat-footed i apologize if that's like way off but it's something insane yeah like he could ease like and there's highlights of him like it looks like the ball's on a freaking rope dude it's just like a line drive like you know whatever how many yard is but like it's he like he was in uh like in his well i mean who knows when his prime would have been but like he was most popular when i was in high school and i just remember being like yeah there's no way you're gonna stop this guy like ever and of course if you pick him in madden, you're literally unstoppable.

Think about it. There's YouTube back then, and Michael Vick was just to be able to explain, how is it that you throw a football like that? There's probably some bodily details that he does that most people wouldn't think about. It's just these things. And the thing is when people can learn what these athletes do and maybe what they're thinking about when they do certain things,

then you can then think about how can I try to emulate that feeling or how can I get myself to start maybe moving in that way? Yeah. You look at how, like some of these shots of just how quick and fast he is. And he was a big dude, right? He,

I think he had pretty good size. I don't think he's like huge, but he is probably like six, two? I think he had pretty good size. I don't think he's huge, but he is probably 6'2 or 6'1. He's got to be around 200 pounds. It's hard to be an NFL quarterback and not be at least around 200 pounds because you just get your ass handed to you too much. Yeah, and then during this time, the Niners were scratching to get 8-8. His 40 time was 4-3-3.

Yeah, which is just, you definitely don't see that by a quarterback usually yeah six foot 216 yeah yeah so he had some good some good size shit but um see if you can bring up that uh that clip of a tyson because mike tyson you know, was like, he was short in comparison to like pro heavyweight boxers. Tyson's not short. He's like 5'10", 5'11", which is not like particularly short, but he also wasn't 6'3", or 6'4", like some of the guys that he fought. So a lot of coaches and a lot of people would say, oh, you know, sorry, man, like you're not tall enough. You're not cut out for this. You're not cut out for the heavyweight division.

You got to remember when Tyson's coming up, you had Ali, had his reign. There were some other guys in there that were not quite as tall as Muhammad Ali that were good too. But then you had Larry Holmes was, was a champion for a long time who was built basically almost exactly like Muhammad Ali. was a champion for a long time who was built basically almost exactly like Muhammad Ali. And then you had Tyson come along and people were like, this guy's too short to be able to do what he's doing. But his trainer, Customato, taught very specifically on how to get in on people and how to get this kind of like in fighting, but also the timing of being able to

jab. And Tyson was amazing with his jab when he was young. He was amazing with his jab. He was amazing with his movement. And I don't know how many people know or understand how much studying of film that Tyson did. His original managers, the original guys that he got with, they had the most extensive boxing library out of anybody in the world. So they had every video, every film, and he would sit in there and just watch hours and hours and hours of people boxing. Every great fighter over the years, he'd just watch it over and over and over again, studying

and analyzing the different angles and then also trying to pay attention and ask people like how tall is this guy how tall is that guy he started to find out like not everybody was 6'3 so he was like oh well maybe i can do this maybe i can do that he started seeing what was possible for him and luckily for him he had a coach and a trainer in custom auto that believed in him and said i think you're gonna be world champion someday yeah and then didn't he fight like several times a year like oh yeah he fought very often in the beginning yeah especially yeah he fought it was like every like almost like every two weeks or something he was fighting another big ass dude he he fought very often not not when he was champion necessarily because it's like that's like every takes a little longer every six months or something like that. But when he was coming up, yeah, he fought probably like once a month or something

or once every six weeks at least. Let's check this out. Most fighters are used to fighting opponents 6'3", 6'2", the average heavyweight. And I feel that I use it to my advantage because I move my head and very quick and I'm low to the ground It's very difficult to hit me. I crouched low just to make my opponents punch down because I know what I'm gonna punch it It's like I get a lot of leverage for my punches And it doesn't matter if I punch up or straight or down around I have good leverage Jabbing it doesn't have anything to do with the length of your arms anything

Jabbing is all to do with timing. If you throw your jab at the right time, you could be 5'6", and I'll jab a guy 6'4". I'm unique in being one of the shortest heavyweights in history and having the second shortest reach in history. And still, I'm tremendously successful. That's wild. I mean, you think what an advantage sometimes the reach is. We see it a lot in MMA. It's on the tail of the tape.

Yeah, yeah. It's an important feature, right? Like the guy can keep his distance, especially in a sport like boxing, where if you can maybe stay on the outside and be quick and start to kind of slow the guy down with some jabs and some body shots and you can kind of just take it into the latter rounds and hopefully you can kind of survive and win the fight but not against Tyson he moved around way too much he had so much uh head movement and in this video he's like ducking he's getting so low to the ground uh with his athleticism I don't think people people never seen anybody that strong and that explosive before uh in the sport and it wasn't like I don't think people, people never seen anybody that strong and that explosive before in the sport. And it wasn't like, I don't think Tyson was known as like some big like lifter or anything. I know that he trained in the gym, but he did more traditional like boxing style training, like jumping rope, sit ups, push ups, med ball work. I'm sure he did like a little bit of bench pressing and stuff.

all work i'm sure he did like a little bit of bench pressing and stuff but i think tyson lifting was like way later on and it was later on in his career when he just didn't move as well when he was young he was mainly just boxing 5 10 220 right the thing is is like i it's like i pay super close attention to boxing but i know that through my years i have not seen another heavy weight that's been able to move like a lightweight, like the way he does, because there are many lighter boxers who have that, that light, like that lightweight movement, the ability to Bob and weave quick and swift.

I have not seen a heavyweight emulate that. I've seen a lot like, you know, I've seen heavyweight boxers and they, they kind of box like heavyweight boxers do. Right. I think that's one thing that's super impressive about that. He, he i mean he wasn't built like the typical heavyweight but at the same time again like you said he's not like he was small he was five foot ten right so it's fucking amazing

yeah uh another i'm just thinking about great boxers but like roy jones jr always comes to mind i mean he wasn't a heavyweight but he's likeweight, but he went up to go fight a heavyweight. Pull up some shots of him because Roy Jones was like super unconventional. He didn't guard his face, right? Is that something about him? Yeah, well, he, I think, yeah, I think he just, again, tons of head movement. But unconventional. And Mayweather, same thing.

Mayweather would like – Mayweather would shield himself against his opponent. He would stand in a very particular way. Yeah, to where you only saw like, I don't know, 50 percent or 30 percent of his body. And Roy Jones doing the same thing where his shoulder is forward. And we're watching the video, and he's putting his hands out, and he's hitting the guy. Come on. I swear he's the reason why a lot of dudes can't street fight,

because they will emulate him. Yes. Because they think they got that shit going on. Dude, nobody looked fucking cooler in the ring than Roy Jones. And it's like, dude, oh, God. He was dope, man. Hey, but you see, he breaks all the rules of what a typical coach is going to tell an athlete to do in terms of boxing, right? Like a coach is going to tell you, keep your hands up.

Don't show, your chin can't be out here. And he's just like, fuck you. Hit me. But he has all these other conceptual things down where it like builds us an Orthodox form of boxing. Right. Yeah. Shit.

Yeah. There was another video where it's like, he can't be touched or some shit. I'll find it later, but it's okay. How about that? Uh, that Conor McGregor click.

Yeah. Cause yeah, that's, that's really neat too. I think, uh, a lot of these guys, they have these nuances, and I think they learn it over a long period of time.

They're training for fights. They're obviously learning stuff from coaches. They're learning stuff from other athletes. But they're also learning from getting beaten. Experience. Yeah, getting defeated, losing, going through a lot of trials, going through a lot of tribulations, being like super upset that they didn't do better than they.

That's GSP. Oh, here's GSP. Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's okay. That's all good. You can bring that up. Let's go. This is pretty dope too.

I'm looking up. You know, like flinching. You want to load up the nervous system of the opener by giving him different useless information to make him worry about. So I'm taking it, I'm reacting and flinching at all the stuff I'm giving him. In reality maybe I want to relax, I don't want to attack him but I'm like, I'm looking up, you know, like flinching.

That's what I'm doing now is I'm loading up his nervous system, making him react. And by doing so, his reaction time will diminish. Because it's like a muscle. The more rep you do, the more the muscle gets tired. At one point, you're like, you know, you can't lift as much weight. Same thing, the nervous system. The more I make you react, the more tired you become for your nervous system. Not physically, but it's a nervous system. The less performant you will become.

He said loaded up with useless information. How cool is that? Plus, what if he already connected with 12 shots to the calf or shin? Could be little baby shots at first but you're probably thinking in your head man if he keeps landing those like you know we're just going to be here all day he's going to keep kicking my leg my leg's probably going to get really sore and maybe they don't hurt that bad but you have to at least respect those kicks and an mma you see them uh check the kick where they pick their leg up. Pick your leg up.

Now you're on one leg. Now you're at another disadvantage, right? So it's interesting how he thinks. I've never heard anybody say anything quite like that. But it's no surprise because, again, there's another example of one of the greatest of all time. Pat Prochok and Louie talk about beef and meat all the time on the podcast. That's why we partnered with Certified Piedmontese Beef. But did you know this?

That 85% of all grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the United States is imported from other countries? 85%. Damn. But Certified Piedmontese is made in the U.S. of A. America. America. Fuck yeah. So go ahead and get some of the best tasting some of the leanest some of the best beef

from piedmontese andrew how can they get it absolutely uh so you guys can head over to cp beef.com and check out enter promo code power to save 25 off your entire order and if your order is 150 dollars or more you get free two-day shipping again cp beef.com links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Fuck yeah! If you think about it, when we're first born, we learn to balance sitting up so we don't fall down. We learn to crawl. We learn to stand. We learn to walk.

We learn to run. But somewhere then we stop practicing it. Get it around us. Okay. Yes, there you go. Now try to go slow. You want to get the muscles forward. Yeah, you a roundhouse. Okay. Yes, there you go. And try to go slow. You want to get the muscles firing. Yeah, you want to be strong here.

See, that's kind of like one of my gives then. You want to be able to go... with no give. Somewhere down the line, we're good now. So I like to take it back, and I've always worked on balance training. Give me more of an action at the end, at the final bit. So this last little bit has to be.

It's very good for martial arts. Very good for everything. Your balance, you're in control. I just feel like my hip is about to cramp just watching. Oh, yeah. That sucks. Difficult. Like his shirt even says fast on it and obviously

conor mcgregor had the ability to go very very fast and to be very quick in the ring but he's telling these guys to slow down and very specific so that they get like the feedback and they feel it in the particular muscles so that when they're in the ring they can probably snap and give it a little extra put a little extra on it that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do unless you kind of could feel those muscles first. Who is it that I've heard the phrase slow, smooth and smooth as fast. That's a kind of longtime military saying, I believe. Yeah. But that makes so much sense. First off, it's like, even in, even when it comes to lifting, right. Instead of like, as a, as a lifter gets good, instead of trying to dive bomb and squat and do it fast, how about slowing the rep down so that maybe you can find where your

weak points is in the lift. So maybe you'll find like, Oh shit, once I get here, I start to fucking buckle. Okay. Can you work on that phase of the movement? Because then you can probably speed up and then it can become a very good

movement. Right. But then the other aspect here of balance, like someone that gets drilled so much as like Joel Seidman for having some of his athletes do things on one leg. And then you got people like, why don't you just go squat, bench, deadlift? And I get some of the stuff that Seidman does is pretty wild, but you know, um, I can say when it comes to something like lifting powerlifting or the Olympic lifting, there's a semblance of balance, but everything is pretty much on two feet right so i can understand how people who specialize in these sports don't really train balance nor do

they really care about it but then if you do so much of this type of training and then you go try and do a sport where you have to be dynamic on more than one foot and you have to move around a little bit you're gonna find that oh shit i can get swept super easily or wow i'm not really great with my feet why Why? Because you don't really train balance. That's why the thing like from power plus with that drainage pipe, this has been so fucking powerful. And I've been, I just cut a drainage pipe in half. I have one at home. I have one here at the gym. I'm walking on that thing all the time. I'm doing shit on one leg on it now, balancing on one leg on it. And what has that done for me now in jujitsu,

my balance has been pretty good. Now my balance balance is even better and it's just from a simple practice of walking around on a drainage pipe and it strengthens the feet there's so many things that are going on but balance is being trained and it's pretty fucking fun last thing what the fuck do you see kids do all the time sometimes they go on one leg sometimes they're on a sidewalk and they see the sidewalk and they're like let me just walk on the sidewalk and see what happens here they're constantly doing these things and giving themselves these inputs where they end up moving better but then at some point we stop and then we fall at 60 because our balance is shit you were saying something though at the beginning with uh the balance thing that you heard somebody talk about

i don't i don't think you mentioned it on the show, though. I'm not sure if I recall, but I was just going to – oh, yeah, yeah. I saw a clip of somebody just talking about balance, and they were saying like if you close your eyes, it changes the proprioception. So if you just go on one foot, maybe that doesn't feel that difficult. And then if you start to kind of move as you're on one foot, and then if you close your eyes as you're on one foot, it makes things more difficult. And then if you start to kind of move as you're on one foot, and then if you close your eyes as you're on one foot, it makes things more difficult. And you see some athletes training this way and you see them doing things in this fashion. And if you were to think about, you know, just think about like what sports really have to demonstrate like a lot of balance and something that kind of comes to mind is something like gymnastics you know immediately

comes to mind maybe like maybe figure skating or so i don't know like you're on one leg a lot and figure skating and stuff like that and you're doing a lot of jumps and twists and and all that so there's a lot of balance going on with those things and then start to think about well what sport uh would a gymnastics person do where they would just do awful and it's like you can't really you know what i mean like okay they might be might be challenging for them to do like volleyball or basketball where the athletes are normally taller uh but they can go and play those sports and not get hurt yeah they could probably go and play just about anything i do realize there's a lot of injuries in gymnastics so some people are like I did gymnastics

and I'm fucked up I understand I get it I'm fucking around but their strength to body weight ratio is off the charts their balance is off the charts and our boy Graham he said that he's gone to some

gymnastics recently and he's like just even watching people warm up, you're like, what the, like, how are you doing that? You just got here 10 seconds ago, but it's just part of their routine. Like, oh, I'm just going to hop on this balance beam and just start walking across it or start handstand walking across the gym. Like, and you just got, you just got here. Like, isn't your body stiff or whatever for them it's just normal no the body's not stiff i'm good i'm just start doing my warm-ups like holy shit yeah i remember dude like my brain is scrambled with so much information but i remember feel somebody that said it on this podcast a guest if it was one of you guys or if it was uh like in one

of my classes or like whatever it was but somebody was talking about technique about slowing it down and being as smooth as possible and then once you get it and it's smooth like and you're you're so slow that it becomes boring that's when you can start to pick it up i don't i think it might have been marigali i'm not dude i like again i cannot remember who said it this way but but, but it made so much sense. And I was just like, oh, he was like, it's kind of like, you want to be so good at it that you have to like, you're annoyed that you're not going faster because it's that easy.

And I'm like, damn, like, that's a really good, like goal to try to strive for, to be like, I'm going to be so proficient at this that I'm going to be bored by it. When you're a little kid, like, how do you learn? You know, how do you, how do you start to read? You know, the kid that's like really struggling and he can't hit the words, like, okay, let's just slow it down a bunch. Same thing with a drill. You keep doing the wrong, keep grabbing the wrong wrist or the wrong arm or you're, you

know, in football, like running the wrong way or doing the wrong assignment. Your coach is like, no, you stepped with your left again. You're like, no, I didn't. He's like, yeah, you did. And you do it again. You're like, no, you stepped with your left again. You're like, no, I didn't. He's like, yeah, you did. And you do it again. Like, no, you stepped with your left again. The only choice at that point is slow down and to take a very deliberate step like, oh, that's how it feels when I go with my left. Because you have to not only understand what you're supposed to do, you have to also like feel it and i think what that's what these athletes have is they maybe they don't have an ability sometimes to transcribe it and to spit it back to you uh in a very specific way of how they did it because they're just like hey man how

did you do that like i don't know sometimes they're just gifted and they're they're they just figure it out they fit you know i don't even want to say gifted necessarily just they just figure it out. I don't even want to say gifted necessarily. No, they figure it out. They just fucking figure it out. And some people are really good mimickers. Some people are just flat out really good at mimicking. If you show somebody something.

Shit, I lost. Who's the famous? Who's the guy who's playing Tysonyson in the movie coming up um famous james jim jaja jamie fox jamie fox oh jamie fox is so talented right at everything yeah he's unbelievable at like becoming a different person you're like what the fuck uh those kind of like it wouldn't surprise me at all if that you know if he, if he's like, Oh, I'll just do a layup like Jordan did like, or a particular move that somebody else did. Cause he can,

it seems like he can just pick up what somebody else is doing right away. That's funny. He used to just like make fun of the way Tyson used to speak back in the day on his standup. That's awesome that he's going to actually play him. Right. I remember seeing some of that on the note of what you were saying about like, uh,

you know, you want to get good at something, slow it down. That's kind of what you have to do when you're starting to do some of these things that we've talked about. Like if you want to start jumping, right. Instead of trying to find a big, long, big box and jumping on the biggest box you can find, jump on a lower surface first and come down from it. Jump on a low surface, come down from it, do a, do a single leg hop, but hold onto something and then hop on a single leg. Right. So you can see how your body responds to that.

The thing you mentioned in the gym, that was kind of funny about sprinting. You were just talking about this and it's like, some people won't receive this, but it makes so much sense instead of trying to go, if you haven't sprinted forever, instead of trying to go sprint as hard as you can and increasing your stride, just try to go as fast as you can with little steps. Think about it. Because if you're not. Pretend your feet are only like, I don't know, 12 to 14 inches apart or something.

And just move them as quick as you can. Yeah. It feels kind of fucked up. If you do it, honestly. Stay low and just. And you could do that. Or literally you could fucking just stand where you are and just fucking go. You won't hurt yourself.

But one thing you'll feel is you'll feel your hip flexors go. Especially if you haven't done something like that in a minute. Your hip flexors will be on fire if you just go as fast as you can in place for a minute. And that is one of the lowest regressions of something like a sprint. But then over time, extend that. Go a little longer. Go a little faster. Go a little faster. Try to keep relaxed.

And then maybe a year from now, you might actually be sprinting. But sprint on day one, hurt your hamstring and say, sprints aren't for me anymore. I can't do them. That's fucked. You got to be careful. Yeah. Let's see who we got.

We got this guy. Oh, look. Mr. Natty Pants. Natty Pants. Seated rows, wide grip Trying to get that mid, upper back So lean forward Pull it up

Pull it as far as you possibly can Get that mid back You can also keep the chin and head up Incorporate those traps into it Beautiful to that back So today instead of going that narrow grip, I'm going a wider grip. I want to get more of those lats outside, that whole upper shelf, instead of just the mid by that close grip.

Try them both. I love them both, but today we're going wide. It's like a mind-muscle connection going on there. Mike has obviously seen his upper back a million times, probably stares at it before he heads off to the gym every morning, looking at photographs and mirrors and everything else. A lot of people don't even have that development. So for someone that's new that doesn't have that development, it might be hard to kind of envision those muscles contracting at first. But over time, as you do it more and as you get a feel for it, as you start slowly, you

should start to be able to feel something in those areas. Like maybe just you're doing a row and you're doing kind of higher reps. And then all of a sudden you start to feel some warmth in that area. You start to feel that area kind of fill up with some blood. And over time, you'll be able to kind of get a similar mind muscle connection, but it takes a long time. I think so much of what we're talking about here today is like, it's more of like an art form than it is a science. And that's where sometimes I get frustrated with nutrition. Sometimes I get frustrated with some of the

stuff in the fitness industry, because I think so much of this is an art form. And I, rather than just a science there, obviously there's science to it, but it seems like the science we're always like, I can't be right. I heard John Wellborn talking the other day, how he talked to a geneticist and they told him that he had this genetic, this genetic anomaly thing going on with his body where he was always going to be like broken and busted.

And then he's like, well, I played almost a full decade in the NFL. And the guy's like, well, this is just another case of our science not being able to like really identify what the hell's going on exactly. But he's like, this is what your genetics say. And this is normally normally the way that things are. So things are like they're not always as they appear. I think there are sometimes a little bit off. I had a foot doctor say that it had to wear orthotics for the rest of my life when I was 16 because I have flat feet. Bitch was because I had flat feet. It's because i was stuffing my feet in their ass shoes like and it's because your science told you so this is why some of that is kind of bullshit

and especially with when in fitness it's like i get how so many people are like well this is the science-backed way to do a lat pull down where you're going to get the most you know muscle activation blah blah blah but i think there is a benefit in paying attention to some of the people who have been able to do this for a long time and who have managed to build impressive physiques because we already know at this point, because science has said that the mind muscle connection is real. Lifters who have a better connection to certain muscle groups can actually activate those muscle groups better with lighter weight than lifters who don't. So how about a lifter who's been at this and is 50 something and whether you love him or hate him,

there are nuances to the way that he teaches lifting that most of these motherfuckers cannot understand, nor they can teach. They can't teach it, right? They'll say that an EMG says this, but like, I bet you the EMG is going to be much different on the person that can activate that muscle group than the person who's like five years training and is still doing the same fucking movements because they're more biomechanically efficient pay attention to the one with experience dog or at least give them a little bit of attention and don't dismiss them because it's not science backed you're being very close-minded yeah i always like what mark says you know he's like they didn't test you know anybody like me or they didn't run these tests on me like they're not running these tests on a horn they're not running you know tests on any anybody

that we can really even like point to and the other thing that i like when it comes to studies it's like like what did we do in the beginning like again i make the stupid joke but it's like when man got the first ability to like put stuff on like a scribe was the first fucking thing that he did was like oh let's run a study like no like we had to figure shit out and at some point it wasn't the science or at some point there was no study study to back up everything so it's like how the hell did we advance it's like we had to try new shit we had to listen to people in the fucking field but no for some reason with social media and you know everything it's like there's no there's no proof somebody's like cracking open a coconut

and eating and enjoying it and you're like well let me figure out the most optimal way exactly to get inside of that meanwhile someone just broke it on a rock and they're like this seems to work pretty fucking good i think you, you know, if you look at someone like Charles Glass, right, he's somebody that is going to use unconventional techniques. I've had opportunities to work with Charles before and opportunities to talk with him. And in talking to him, he's very short. He doesn't say he doesn't really say or explain a lot. He's just like, do this. Try it this way.

You know, go like this and, you know, go like this and, and, uh, you know, move your muscle this way. And then he'll be like, no, no, no, try to, you know, try to squeeze here and try to relax over here and move this muscle there. And it's like, um, it's not even really that specific. It's actually like, it's kind of like vague, but it's super specific on how you're positioning yourself on a machine. He'll take a leg press machine at Gold's Gym and he'll turn it into some sort of like the most amazing back exercise ever because it's like, yeah, I think the lats kind of, he'll say, I think, I think the lats kind of work like this. He's not really whipping out some study. He's just saying, this is what I think, this is what I feel. And

he's one of the most successful bodybuilding coaches of all time, coaching many, many champions over the years. a row, right? And let's say that it is the mid back that you're trying to hit. So close your eyes and maybe see if you can get those muscles to start firing, right? And then have some tension on the bar and get those muscles to start firing and then pull, right? Most people don't think that deeply about it, but at this point, very experienced lifters can do that. I can feel my erectors when I want to feel my erectors on any given movement. I can flex my erectors when I want to feel my erectors on any given movement. I can flex my erectors whenever I want to because I have full control of that area and almost every other area of my body because I've spent time thinking about those muscle groups when lifting with those muscle groups. Right. And you can develop that over time.

And then at some point, wow, you have really good this. You have really good that. Why? Because you have a close connection. You have a close mind-muscle connection to those body parts. But a lot of people don't necessarily think about that. And those are the nuances that Mike talks about all the time. That's why people see him lifting with his eyes closed all the time. Because he's actually really thinking about that area

and getting that area specifically to fire before he does a movement. Yeah, and he even goes into saying that he actually, not that he can see it but like he closes his eyes and he sees like each muscle fiber actually like you know like tearing and like all these other little tiny like he you know there's like levels to it right when you're like what you were explaining might be like uh i mean it's pretty deep but it's like up here right like where you're talking about like oh let's focus on the muscle and he goes like even further like inception or something you're talking about like, oh, let's focus on the muscle. And he goes like even further, like inception or something, you know, it's like, yeah, he's stays very connected, like more so than a lot of people are going to understand or even fathom. Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, if you do kind of close your eyes on some of these things, you can kind of block out some of everything else that's going on. You know, there's a lot of, there's kind of a lot of shit going on and you can almost go within yourself. And I think that's what Mike has done for years on a lot of exercises and even just your own feedback. You get off of an exercise and you go, whew, or you get done doing a certain thing with a group of people. And it's really easy to like over amplify what it is that you're doing. I'm like, fuck man, this is so hard. You know, I understand why we do that. Cause it's kind of fun to like be in some of that with somebody else,

but at the same time you could also do it, not make any noise at all. Sometimes it can, it can be difficult. And there are times where the intensity is so high where you're gonna let out a thud or a grunt or a or this or that um but again all those things are their inputs and you might watch somebody do that and you might say i don't get it like why is that guy doing that why um why does in sema or why has kelly stirtte talked about, you know, kind of having this like stoic look while you're doing a lift? I don't I don't really get it. Well, I think the main thing is just to try some of these things, try some of these things, and you'll see right away whether they work for you or not.

You know, maybe it feels awkward or it feels off. But I know for myself, like just trying to relax my eyebrows because they want to frown so much when I'm running, especially because I'm not usually running with like sunglasses or anything. It's pretty bright out. And then plus every once in a while, the run gets to be a little difficult and the eyebrows go. And they get a little mad here and there. And I'm like, no, like I like doing this. This is fun. And I want to breathe and I want to be more calm.

this is fun and I want to breathe and I want to be more calm. But if I'm listening to music that's raging and then I'm like this the whole time, what's that input into my body? You know, we're talking about a mind muscle connection. What about like a spirit and muscle connection or a spirit and body connection? So if my spirit is raging like this and I'm like running with like anger or something like that. How is that registering in my body? Is my body going to be loose? Is it going to be easier for me to turn into an athlete or a better athlete? Or is it going to be harder?

In my opinion, it's going to be harder. So I'm trying my best to just like, just dude, relax every three minutes or every or so while I'm running. Dude, relax, Dude, relax. Goose fava. Relax. Relax. Let your hands be, you know, instead of clenching your fists like this, let them loose. So that's what I'm working on. Do you guys remember Goose Fava from Anger Management or no?

No. Really? Anger Management? I don't remember that movie. Adam Sandler? Oh, yeah. I've never seen it. Well, that's okay.

Yeah. I missed it. I like Adam Sandler movies. Yeah, yeah. I'd never seen it. Well, that's okay. Yeah. I missed it. I like Adam Sandler movies. Yeah, so do I. Even the really bad ones, I like them. Well, that was one of the good ones. That was one of the very good ones.

Jack Nicholson, right? Jack Nicholson. You know it. I know. I missed it. I didn't get a chance to see it. I hate to sound like a broken record, but your sleep quality most likely sucks. It's one of the biggest things that we talk about on the podcast. So many guests have come on and talked about how sleep can help you stick to your diet, stick to your workout plan, lose body fat, gain muscle, all the good things

that you're trying to do, but it's hard to do because you might be snoring. And if you're snoring, that's why we've partnered with hostage tape, which is mouth tape that you can put over your nose, your mouth when you're asleep to help you stop snoring and breathe through your nose. But if you haven't been breathing through your nose this whole time while you've been sleeping, it's going to be a little bit difficult to get air through there. That's also why hostage tape has nose strips to help open up your nasal airways and make it easier to breathe through your nose when you're asleep. Now your partner won't be having a fuck with you when you're asleep because you'll be

actually breathing through your nose. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at HostageTape.com slash PowerProject, where you guys will receive an entire year's supply of nasal strips and mouth tape, all for less than a dollar a night. Again, that's at HostageTape.com slash PowerProject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Yeah, we got another video here. Oh, yeah, Chuck Liddell. And people would think that this punch that Chuck Liddell is going to be demonstrating here was like garbage back in the day, especially when boxers would watch MMA.

They're like, that's a crappy punch. Why is anybody going to punch like that until Chuck Liddell knocked out just about everybody with this punch? Before you play it, I also think Khabib did this punch a lot. I remember watching some Khabib matches and seeing him do this. We'll play it. We'll play it. It's like a video game punch. Yeah.

Just make it look like a... Show me your fight stance. I want your hand down. Drop your hand. He still looks powerful. I want... This one is... Right here.

I'm going to swing this. Now, I throw it. I'm over-exaggerating to start because I want this angle. The Iceman. With that punch. When I throw it, I'll come here. I just want to come here. I'm going through.

I'm not going to go. You start doing that punch down. I'd rather have you throw it straight right. Try it just from here a little bit. Try setting it up. If you're a wrestler or a try, just make it look like a right hand. That would be so scary. Remember, it's still, when you get here, it's still.

Yeah, that guy wants to be like out of there. Yeah, he wants to. No part of this stupid video. He's like, good job, Chuck. I'm out of here. I think, you know, just a small demonstration of him, you know, shooting on the leg. Chuck Liddell was one of the best wrestlers that the UFC has ever seen up into that point. And he was incredible with sprawling and blocking people's shot when they tried to take him down.

And so people had to respect that when he did like a feint. But his point in this video, he's also explaining that when you would go for some of these fakes or some of these feints, that you need to make it look like you're actually going to go through with the movement itself. And again, you know, somebody with so much experience, been in the ring probably 70 times or so for a fight, maybe even more. You know, he has the experience. 70 times or so for a fight, maybe even more. You know, he has the experience. And then he's coming up with that just giant haymaker. Like, again, it looks like a video game punch that he's just throwing this, like, bomb of a punch. And who would ever thought that would work?

Like, you're not going to get taught that, I don't think, by, like, a regular coach. No. Yeah. I mean, it became a thing, right? It was like the overhand, right? Like I, I'm sorry. I don't remember prior to Chuck Liddell.

Again, I'm not like the fucking fight historian or anything, but growing up, like I didn't remember anybody really throwing that, that style of punch. Can you type in Andrew on YouTube? Khabib drops, Conor McGregor and fine.

Just play the video that has 39,000 views. Go to second 40 and just watch from there because the reason why I was like, I was like, I know I've seen this before

is because like, you know, Chuck was saying like, actually pretend, like actually go for the takedown, right? And I've seen Khabib do this punch so much

because he threatens takedowns. Oh yeah. Right? If he takes someone down, they're toast. Oh, they're fucking fucked. But Khabib would do this type of punch a lot. he threatens takedowns. If he takes someone down, they're toast. Fucking fucked. But Khabib would do this type of punch a lot. We'll play this real quick. You want audio?

You can have it on if you want. You don't want to get fucked. Just wait for it. It comes a little bit after this. That was such a crazy fight. Guys do such good idea so well with just like changing like the levels and speed it what's your movement and everything Dagestan he's a different dog okay and he he always wraps up everybody's legs his own legs. He was doing that a lot during that fight where it was just... Well, and he also just took him down so easily.

So it's like you have to respect the takedown. You don't react to it. It's a big mistake. See if you can try to bring up just a couple clips of those haymaker bombs from Liddell so people can kind of see it in action. I know a lot of people probably have. But it's really again an impressive movement. It's something that's slightly unconventional.

Is it older Chuck Liddell? Oh yeah. Against Randy Couture. Oh. What? Hold on. He just clipped him pretty good right there. Oh against Tito. Hopefully I clicked on. He just clipped him pretty good right there. Oh, against Tito. Oops. Hopefully I clicked on a good video. Hmm.

This is still entertaining. He's just, fuck. He just goes for it. Damn. God. But even that aggressiveness and that speed, you know, Vitor Belfort, when he came into the UFC, That speed, you know, Vitor Belfort, when he came into the UFC, obviously he had a pedigree with jiu-jitsu. And he came in and just punched the shit out of everybody because he was faster and more explosive and he was a better athlete than everybody.

And no one could quite hang with it. God, he fought, I forget, like you just forget he just fought every, Chuck Liddell fought everybody. Fought for so long. Yeah, he did. Let's see here. Oh, that was quick. Yeah, a lot of times he would be able to knock somebody out, you know, off of his like back foot and stuff too. Without, you know, kind of unconventional again, without as much behind it as you would think.

Let's see if we can just bring up the clip of Phelps. Okay. So I think this is pretty extraordinary. I'll just kind of mention a couple of things before you hit the play button on it. But Michael Phelps, you know, he won over 20 gold medals, I believe. And my wife explained this to me. She's a swimmer, and she said that it's been debated for a really long time for years and years on like what's faster going under the water and being like in the water for a particular style of swimming that they're doing in this event. I

think, I can't remember if they're doing freestyle. Butterfly. Or if it makes, you know, it makes more sense to stay under the water or to come up out of the water. And I guess the conventional wisdom at the time was that you would be faster by going in the water because when you're in the water is where you're going to actually, once you complete the stroke, you're going to reach out further. And Phelps does something different at the end of this race that just blew all that shit. He's like, I'm reaching for the wall. Yeah, reaching for the wall and he reaches for the wall uh out of the water and so you know once again the athlete is kind of uh just doing their own thing you know doing their own thing by

their own uh levels of experience leading for serbia is it gonna be the seventh hurdle that he's gonna fall at he's coming back he's coming back very strongly michael phelps surely he can't do this from this space is coming back in five is he gonna get the touch no he's not oh no he's got it oh he's got it oh he's tight oh kind of looked like he was behind by a pinch now the whole time right yeah because when you showed me this video initially i was like wait oh shit michael's ahead but the guy that was ahead yeah he ended up losing oh yeah there's the famous famous meme shouldn't have looked over man stevie and play that uh that the rest of that clip like it goes to like a slow motion shot if you can

fast forward maybe just a bit. He's probably so angry that that guy was dancing in front of him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's see here. Feltz didn't have a good one. He had a stinker. Cabbage was leading by a good half a second.

He's in. This is me down in the field, but please show us this finish. Oh, yeah, here we go. I want a super slow moment. Here we go. Cabbage is in. I'm not sure what's happened here, you know. No, he's not.

No, he's not. Look, look, look. You are kidding me. Look. You are kidding me. Man. They've just shown that on the big screen. That was just gone to the crowd.

They have an electronic touchpad, too, so, you know. They got that shit, like, digital. There's a digital sensor in there. they got it they got it that shit like digital there's a digital sensor in there um michael phelps too like famously just swam like a fucking maniac in terms of like the amount of volume that he did and we see this time and time again we've seen it in bodybuilding we've seen it in power lifting we've seen it uh in many sports where eric spoto comes to mind eric spoto benched 7 16 i believe it was or 7 22 and broke the all-time bench record years ago uh all-time raw bench press record and uh in asking eric about his training so it's like holy shit man like according to like the information i have

what you do doesn't make any sense. But it clearly fucking worked. I'd never seen anybody that big before. His forearms were probably like 20 inches. I don't know how big his fucking biceps were. But he's just like absolutely massive and he could manhandle weight like crazy. You know, he'd bench five plates and just kind of stroke the weight like just so quick. He would just stroke that weight real fast. He was holy shit it's just kind of hot yeah arizona struck us some way i mean those big forearms and hands on the bench like that it's real hot chubbed up all sweaty

but he would do like a pyramid like he would uh do high reps all the way up until he got to a heavier weight and then he would pyramid back down and you know he would do like i don't know you do like 315 for like 30 reps and then he would do four yeah and then you do like i saw him do this stuff it just didn't make any sense he'd do 405 for like 20 he'd throw five plates on he'd do it for like 10 or 12 he'd throw uh five and a half plates on he would do it for like a set of six or eight then he'd throw five plates on he'd do it for like 10 or 12 he'd throw uh five and a half plates on he would do it for like a set of six or eight then he'd throw six plates on and he would do that for a set of like four or five and then he was like okay time to you know go for 635 and do that for like a single or double and then he would just do the whole thing kind of uh backwards again so he

would go to 585 and get some reps out of that he would go to 495 and 405 and 315 again he was like i mean i remember asking him like any idea like just because like the nfl combine does the 225 you like just have any idea how many times you could do 225 and he's just like no it's too light you know who this reminds me of just keeps going jesse norris yeah because jesse norris fucking trained in a barn for most of his training career like not really training with other people he just did what felt right and what ended up feeling right for jesse norris was years and years of super high volume training and then he comes onto the field super young breaking records and everyone's like oh he's

competing the usapl he's breaking these records he's probably not natural it's like bitch he's been training for more volume than you have for decades like it's when people are doing some unrealistic shit or some wild shit everyone's so quick to say oh you're on drugs or some shit but you haven't seen what this dude has been doing jesus olivares is him and his brother jesus probably strongest brothers in powerlifting jesus is the strongest powerlifter on earth right now and what's he been doing for a long fucking time? Longer than probably most people. Along with having great genetics, we can't take that away from him.

Moving around horse manure. Right? Bales of hay and shit. Working. Lots of shit. Right? But what can we take away from that? Like, right now, maybe you can't do super high volume, but can you build yourself up to being able to handle a good amount of volume?

Not just lifting heavy, but like doing a good amount of arm. Can you do that? Because if you can, maybe you can get some of what some of these guys have. Being able to handle just a crazy amount of like, just having a ton of resilience against some of the stuff that you're doing. How do you think, and Seema, how do you think some of the like unconventional stuff that we've learned in the last couple, maybe like months or last two years or so has helped you?

And do you think that it has, do you think it's changed like the trajectory maybe of your jujitsu career? A hundred percent. I remember before, like even before. Because you're already a good athlete. You're already, you know, you're already a good athlete you're already you know you're already athletic um but we're starting to implement some different shit rather than just bodybuilding rather than just powerlifting i was already focusing on mobility stuff before so i was pretty mobile but the thing that i think the big thing that started connecting a lot of things was focusing on the feet and it's funny because we've had certain people come on and they're like ah

that's not a big deal feet aren't a big deal but before i started focusing on the feet. And it's funny because we've had certain people come on and they're like, ah, that's not a big deal. Feet aren't a big deal. But before I started focusing on strengthening my feet, I had multiple foot injuries. Remember I had this tournament in Atlanta and then I injured my foot in that tournament and I had to call Kelly's Tourette and Kelly was like, okay, voodoo floss that shit, right?

And he healed. But then I had another foot injury after that. I'm like, why the fuck am I getting these foot injuries? It's partially because my feet weren't, I may have been playing soccer all my life, but I was stuck in these narrow ass shoes. And jujitsu was one of the new things in my life that I did barefoot. When I started to do things and to strengthen the feet, I really started paying attention to that. It's like everything kind of started falling into place. And then also doing all the things to loosen up my

body, like some of the kettlebell stuff, et cetera. I am a different athlete now. Like my feet look different. One thing I was telling you guys was, you know, some people have this shit just because they've been doing it for so long. This woman, Andrew, if you can pull her up, Kendall Rusling on Instagram. I met Kendall over at Masters Worlds. She was there. She's a jujitsu world champion. She's won multiple world championships, but she's been doing jujitsu since she was five. So as we were talking, I looked down, I saw her feet in some sandals. I looked up and I was like, I was like, Hey, Kendall, this is gonna be kind of weird, but can I see your foot? Can you pull

that out of that sandal for a sec? And she was like, Oh yeah, yeah, sure. I'm like, how long have you been doing jujitsu? She's like, since I was five. I'm like, look at your feet, And she's like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. I'm like, how long have you been doing judo since I was five? I'm like, look at your feet, Kendall. Look at like the they were tendinous and they were like wide and they were strong feet. But that's partially why like some athletes just have this shit. And the athletes like me who didn't have that, you need to work harder on it.

You need to pay attention to it. You know, there are certain intangibles to weight like even Casio. I look at Casio's feet, right? Yeah, that's her. Um, but I look at Casio and his feet when he's rolling. And I look at a lot of like really high level guys who've been doing jujitsu for a while and their feet are constantly doing things when they're playing guard. It's like their feet are grabbing at people's hands. And these aren't the things people pay attention to.

It's these, but these small things can make all the biggest difference. So honestly, man man if i knew the shit i knew now about like my feet when i played soccer i would still be playing soccer because that's what took me out of it i had to get part of my foot shaved because cleats were super fucking narrow i was hanging out with my uh niece like probably maybe like two or three months ago yeah and she's probably uh she's probably like seven or something. And she's just like always on the ground. She's always on the floor.

She's watching TV and she's just like shoveling popcorn in her face. She's like the cutest little thing. She's just sitting there watching TV. And I'm just like looking at her feet moving all around. And her like big toe is like moving away from her other toes. Her feet are like tangled up like underneath her. And both the heels are like pointed out. I'm like,

first of all, I would snap my fucking ankle in half. But as she's watching TV, her little pinky toes are just like moving around and she's like shifting from one side to the other. I'm just thinking, man, like we need so much of that,

you know, and we don't get any of that as an adult. You think about like, uh, think about people like just making contact with the ground. Never mind outside. No one's ever making any contact with the fucking earth. That's totally out of the question.

But for people just to make contact with the floor even doesn't really happen much. And you think about when you have contact with the floor, whether you're sitting on your butt or you're kind of sitting on like your knees, you get what Kelly Sturette has referred to before as like overpressure. You get this like pressure. Like if I take my forearm and just move it up to my forearm to my bicep, you just kind of push like on your wrist. You kind of feel this like pressure pressure in a capsule of the, of like the elbow. And when you sit down on the ground or you're on your knees in some of those positions like that, you get that over pressure. But it's like, how do we get that pressure? How do you get sensation of that? Because sometimes there's some positions in life where sometimes

you end up like that. What if you fall? What if you trip? What if you're in a fight? What if you're doing wrestling? What if you're doing jujitsu? Just playing fucking pickleball. The odds of you getting into these weird compromising positions where your knee is in a weird funky spot could definitely happen. And if you keep moving around, you get yourself on the ground without even doing like exercises on the ground, just get yourself to sit the fuck down on the ground, watch TV here and there. I think it would be really helpful and really useful and something that's been helping me a lot. You know, one thing I just realized, and I now have a theory on this, what you're mentioning about your niece, how like she's doing things on the ground and her feet are moving in these weird ways.

She's still at a young age where like her brain is still connected to what her feet are doing. Because you remember when the first time when some people came, I think Graham came into the gym and he was having us do stuff to move our toes and we didn't have the neurological connection to move our toes in certain ways. Think about that. When your brain isn't connected to your feet, then they don't move. What has been happening as we've been starting to develop our feet? We started hand foot gloving. We started doing big toe thumbs up. We started smashing our feet on things.

Well, I noticed personally that my toes are always doing shit now without me really thinking about it. I'll be sitting at home on the couch, chilling with my girl and my toes are fucking doing shit. Why? Because I'm neurological connection to my feet now. And what happens when you start actually having a connection to your feet what do you do you move more and more you naturally move more your neat increases you know you're not as you're not as a sedentary because now like the

thing on the ground you have a connection to it whereas most people have their feet always stuffed into something they don't have the ability to move their toes. Well, well, that area is not going to move. Right. So if you can develop it and get it stronger and get your toes more nimble and create some space between those toes and get the neurological connection to them, your neat might just increase. Now this isn't something I've read anywhere, but like it just clicked. And I think that's legit. Yeah. So what you're saying is if you move your toes more, you'll get shredded. Yeah. You got it. Okay. You heard it here first. Over time. You heard it here first, baby.

Over time, you'll definitely be moving around a little bit more for sure. I think for myself, what I've been noticing, I can definitely feel my feet. Even when I'm running, I can feel each individual toe. I can sometimes even feel like I can running I can feel each individual toe I can sometimes even feel like I can I can like kind of concentrate on like the big toe and I can be like hey let's let's like push off the ground with the big toe even doesn't matter what sneakers I'm in I could be in some uh Nike shoes or whatever I could be in anything and I still feel it and I can kind of like uh pull the ground like that's what I was kind of concentrating on today is like uh having my foot strike and and pull the ground.

You know, if you watch the fastest animals in the world, they pull the ground like crazy, like a cheetah or something like that. They just pull, pull, pull, pull, pull the whole time. So I'm thinking I need to pull a little bit better, pull with my hamstring, pull my heel up a little bit. But what I've noticed is, you know, by wearing the Morpheus app and by checking my heart heart rate my heart rate used to go up quite a bit when I would do some jumps like I'll jump up on like like park benches or just concrete whatever the fuck like sometimes I'll run upstairs like there's just stairs when I'm running so I'll just be like oh I'm gonna go this way I'm gonna run up these stairs or I'll hop up the stairs try to do like some hops and jumps and someone else trying to do. Yeah. Just trying to do like unconventional, weird stuff. Just keep moving around sometimes

on one leg, sometimes on two. And my heart rate, uh, used to go up quite a bit, but I don't think it was necessarily from the activity. I think it was from like the anxiety of it where I'm like, I'm not sure I would see something. And I'm like, I'm going to jump on that. And I'm like, I'm not actually sure. Like I have been. Yeah, I've been running for like 45 minutes. That's going to. Well, let me just fucking let me just let's commit to it.

Just go for it and go do it. But now the heart rate's a lot lower because I'm like, well, you did it yesterday. You know, you did day before. Like, you're totally fine now. Like, you're going to be able to do it, no problem. Doesn't your heart rate not even get over 150 on a lot of your runs now? You're chilling, right? It never does.

That's fucking impressive. I think it was, was that this morning or was that yesterday? I think it was this morning. This morning I had a hell of a time getting my heart rate up. I'm running and running and running. And I'm like, shit, I need to. That's why I was mentioning to you I need to work on running with my heart rate up. I'm like running and running and running. And I'm like, shit, I need to, that's why I was mentioning to you. I need to work on,

uh, like running with my heart rate higher a little bit because I need to like attach the two sides, you know, like I've gotten good at this, uh, this lower end heart rate stuff. I need to get a little bit better at this higher end heart rate stuff.

And then they'll, they'll connect in the middle better. Cause, uh, this morning I had to go faster and then I feel it in my legs. Like my legs actually will feel tired. Like lactic acid buildup? Yeah, I think so.

Which that hasn't really – at first I was just like fat and out of breath when I first started running. And then my legs would be tired. But my legs haven't been tired in like two years. So to have my legs get tired i was like oh shit like they're getting fatigued also what's your resting heart rate at night the shit's oh it's in the 40s yeah right that's so crazy dog and the hrv is like in the 80s you're 225 to 230 right you're you're a big fuck and your heart rate chilling is like in the 40s

yeah it's getting low yeah and fuck you're 40 something like most guys that have been doing what you've been doing as in like you know the power lifter for a long ass time they've done that shit well their heart rate is still like 65 resting heart rate right it's like you're doing some shit right dog yep this is good yeah it's feeling good everything's feeling good and it's you know huge huge part of it it is just being open-minded towards some of the shit that we've been exploring on the podcast. All right. Well, you guys saw us. We had a lot of demonstrations of some different athletes.

You saw Tyson, Bo Jackson. You saw all these different people. I just think it's, to me, these athletes I think are amazing. I think they're highly intelligent. And I think a lot of times maybe some people are dismissed because people just think, oh, they only know that one thing. They only know that. thing, there's an understanding of that one thing that goes beyond anything that almost anyone else can articulate and almost any other coach can articulate. And so people like Jordan and Tyson and some of these people, they're a gift, I think, in a way, you know, they're a gift to all of us

to be able to listen to them and to have watched them. And to me, it's, it's inspiring. So I think it's cool. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.