Mark Bell's Power Project - Unlock Your Body's Wisdom Through Movement - Stefan Duvivier || MBPP Ep. 1100

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

In Episode 1100, Stefan Duvivier, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how you possess everything you need right now to become a better athlete. 2028 Olympic Hopeful Stefan Duvivier explains how to be more self aware and look inward as opposed to seeking external guidance. Follow Stefan on IG: https://www.instagram.com/airduvi   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!   🥜 Protect Your Nuts With Organic Underwear 🥜 ➢https://nadsunder.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your order!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   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 ➢ Become a Stronger Human - https://thestrongerhuman.store ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/JoinUNTAPPED ➢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 ➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/ ➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Have we given away too much potentially to coaches and doctors? I definitely think there's a lot of value with experts, but the biggest thing that I've learned is that nothing is really outside of yourself. What do you think were some things that dulled your ability to be in tune with what's going on inside the body? Shoes, technology. The stuff you showed us today, pretty much any person that I know can do. That's what I found a lot with people I've worked with and some of my training partners as well,

is that they may have been doing all this strength work, all this power work, and they're really maxing out those areas of themselves in terms of athletic qualities, but they haven't really paid attention to things like how they're breathing. You kind of look at it like any information that the body's giving you is just information.

Negative and positive are up to our perception. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns to Ben Patrick to Jack Cruz, who roasted us on air, but we did that for you, to bring you some of the best information in fitness.

We're learning along with you, and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast is really going to be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can leave us a review there and enjoy the rest of the show. All right, air doofy. Here we go. Let's go. I'm excited, man. Great.

Great to have you on the show today. Appreciate you. You coming out from the East Coast to be out here in Davis, California with us for this podcast. I connect with you on a bunch of different stuff, a bunch of different stuff that I'm hearing you talk about. And one of the ones I heard you talk about was internal awareness.

And I was like, man, that sounds familiar to some of the things that I've found for myself and found in my own practice of lifting and exercising and fitness. So what does that mean to you, internal awareness? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think a really good way to depict this would be to think about if I have a face, right?

And the room, let's say like I can control the light of the room, okay? So I have this face in a dark, a dimly lit room, let's say like I can control the light of the room, okay? So I have this face in a dark, a dimly lit room, but then I'm gonna turn up the voltage a little bit. Then I'm gonna see more details of the face. Maybe before I couldn't see, you know, the little bumps on the face. Maybe before I couldn't see that this person

had five o'clock shadow. And then I turn up the voltage a little bit more. And then I see that this person is ugly as fuck. And then you scream and you run out of the room. Right, right, right, but no, so you can see what I'm saying. Like every time I turn up the voltage, I turn the light brighter, I can see that person's face

more and more and more clearly, and I just see a deeper aspect of their face every single time. And I think it's the same with our ability to be aware of the sensations and happenings in our body. It's like, you just wanna keep on turning that voltage up so that you can see the intelligence within us that essentially informs all these different aspects

of our life. And the body doesn't really come with a real instruction manual per se. So we have to bring ourselves inwards to find those instructions of how to best live our life and operate our body. How do you know when something's like too much or when something's too little?

Just trial and error, I think. So it's like a mixture of like, again, just finding that intuition, but then also just collecting data over time. I think there's no one right or wrong answer. It's gonna matter on like your specific situation, your specific, you know, whether it's hot or cold outside or whether you're on a full stomach, empty stomach.

There are so many different variables. And essentially you just have to assimilate all this data to be able to make the best decisions. Going back to what you were mentioning too, about becoming more aware with your body and interoception, that's what it's called, right? What are some things that like, before you started thinking about this,

what do you think were some things that dulled your interoception, that dulled your ability to be in tune with what's going on inside the body? That's a good question. Shoes, technology, just the structure of Western life in general that's just so analytical and mind focused as opposed to being focused on the sensations of your body. I think of the mind not necessarily as, you know,

this thing that's separate from us. I think of it as this, right? Okay, so you have your body here, you have your flesh, you have your bones, you have your brain that holds your mind in a sense. And then you also have this thing that's outside of yourself, whatever you wanna call that, that's observing it all, that's watching it.

I mean, just take a second and just like, feel that. Like your body and your mind, they're not the ones observing your body and your mind. That's not possible. It's something outside of yourself that's observing your body and your mind. And so I think that a lot of times we'll confuse that observer, that awareness with our mind, especially in Western culture. And so you miss out on what this whole vessel has in terms of information. So to answer your question,

I think the biggest thing was probably getting too caught up in my mind as opposed to understanding that the body and the mind are one. Have we given away too much potentially to coaches and doctors and people like that? Cause maybe for someone like yourself, you have a little thing going on in your ankle and you're thinking you have to go to a specific PT person

and stuff, but really the answers are probably on the inside and if you poke around, you can probably fix it yourself. For sure. I mean, I definitely think there's a lot of value with experts, somebody who's literally studied that one thing for years, decades, maybe their whole lifetime. I think there's a lot of value in being able to communicate with that person and allow them to guide you. But the biggest thing that I've learned is that nothing is really outside of yourself. Even all

these tools, these teachers are simply showing you, like you said, what is inside. Now, yes, you can find all these answers inside, but you can probably expedite that process by talking to the right experts. But the thing is, is that I do feel like a lot of experts are like, just do what I say, do this, do that. Whereas I think the best experts, the best teachers

are simply showing you where to direct your focus. And in doing so, then you become the medicine, so to speak. I know recently Dr. Sean Baker has been working on becoming more bouncy and that was some stuff that you showed us today was how some people that may have been lifting for years can maybe get some of that bounce back and get back into some of that athleticism.

And you've been an athlete your whole life. Have you ever had a pretty long period of time where you weren't involved in athletics? Not really, actually. I've been involved my whole life. So maybe that makes it a little less relatable, but I think, yeah, it's just always been so important to me. I just like can't stay.

No, I think what's relatable is like people out there listening don't stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you do is just, whatever you can do to continue to participate in lifting, fitness, and a little bit of sport activity, just do your best to stick with it. For sure, yeah.

I wanna know about this because I think we're gonna be probably talking about being able to kind of understand what's going on inside and tuning into certain feelings through a podcast. So why do you think that that's important? And the main reason I ask is I know some people, they hear that, they're like, what, you think about the inside?

Like, I'll just lift, bro. So why is it something we wanna actually pay attention to? That's a really good question. I like that one. Just think about it. Like, have you ever experienced anything outside of your body? Wait up.

Think about it. Maybe just being high. Wait up. Think about it. Maybe just being high. Even that was inside of you. Like, cause it's tapping into something that's already there. Yeah.

Cause think about it. Even when you're looking at the moon in the sky, you're not actually understanding the moon. You don't fucking know what the hell the moon is. You're perceiving the moon through your senses. You see what it looks like and it's the real moon. You don't fucking know what the hell the moon is. You're perceiving the moon through your senses. You see what it looks like, and it's the reflection of that moon in your eyeballs,

and then how your eyeballs send that signaling to your brain, and then that's what, oh, that's what a star is, or that's what a moon is. So you're never actually experiencing anything outside of yourself. So I think everybody can agree, they want to live the fullest, richest experience of life. So if you can't experience anything outside of your body,

and there's obviously levels of depth in terms of how much you can connect to your body and thus how much you can actually truly experience what's there, then obviously I want to go inwards and figure my shit out as much as I can. Yeah, you have to visit James Smith. He's in New York City. Do you know James? No, I have no clue.

The thinker from elitefts.com. He was a strength coach for many, many years and he kind of just dove into this whole practice of just, I guess, communicating a lot more about the psychology and mind, philosophy, and those kinds of things. I think that for you, where you're at in your athletic career, it's not like you're not looking into research

that pertains to jumping. It's not like you're not looking into the specifics of it, but you learned a lot of that and you found other interests. You found other things that are like moving the needle for you still today. That's probably the case, right? I think the thing is, is that information is valuable.

I'm not gonna ever discount science and research and all of that. I think that's built me to who I am today and how I'm able to help people. But at the same time, if we externalize the truth, which is again, within us, like we understand again, like sometimes it may not be the best thing to have this certain kind of food.

Sometimes it may not be the best thing to have, you know, this kind of training regimen. Maybe the seasonality affects things. So research could never really delve into all these infinite variables that are out there, but your body intelligence can. Your body is made so much more intelligently than any computer programming

or any research design can ever do. And so that's why it's so important to tap in and like, yes, you can kind of see the research studies and all this and that, but at the end of the day, you have to really be able to look at that research and those things outside of yourself within the lens of your own body and your own experience. You know, the really funny thing

about what you're mentioning right there is like there is so much information, like an excessive amount of information, good information that we can glean stuff from. But for some people, I remember a few years ago, this, this younger guy wanted to work with me. But he ended up having paralysis because he was like, well, you know, there are so many good programs. And a month later, he was like, I'm still thinking about the program that I want to start.

A month later, after we had our conversation, like what's stopping you? He's like, well, I've heard that this is really good and I've heard researchers showing that this is really good. I'm just like, you need to just trust yourself and start something. And a lot of people are getting paralyzed just because they focus on the research so much and don't take any action.

Yeah, that's a huge issue. I think that at the end of the day, we just have to do what's in front of us, take the next step forward. And a lot of the times that is a very clear action step, you know, like a lot of times I think, again, like you said, people will look to the research, look to this, look to that, and it'll confuse them when in fact the next step, I think we always know the next step. There's rarely ever a time where we're truly stumped. Like even if it's just like an off day and our body's really sore,

we know the next step, just rest, hydrate, just chill out. So I think just like going in that next step mentality, being present in the here will inform you of what's to come. And you just keep on going down that path and you'll figure it out. Do you kind of look at it like any information that the body's giving you is just information?

So like, you know, you get done with a training session and then you start limping around and you're like, man, I don't know what that is. Do you kind of almost view that as like a, kind of a positive feedback in a way, even though it just could have been something that you did in that day, it could be a reminder, like, I didn't really do my warmup like I should have.

For sure. I think it's, you know, negative and positive are up to our perception, ultimately. I think it's all just feedback. It all just is. And it's up to us to piece together all of that data that we get from the body. Like you said, like even if it's pain, even if it's tightness, piece that together to

understand how to bring us towards our end goal is really the way that I go about it. Understanding, okay, like here are the components, at least what I think, what I hypothesize is going to take me to my end goal, and then test that out, put that into a program, into a routine, and then assess maybe a month later, a week later, okay, did it get me to where I thought it would? No, then I need to change courses,

I need to adjust something. Yes, then okay, great, then let me just keep doing this and see if it keeps on giving me results. I think one of the most transformative things that I've ever found was just myofascial release. Just being able to like heal myself and then be able to heal friends

and people that I care about is also amazing as well. But I cannot even believe how quickly the turnaround can be sometimes. I had something going on in my Achilles like the last week and a half or back of the heel. I don't even know exactly what was going on. But I just kept poking around and poking around. And a lot of times the area that is of concern

isn't like the actual area that's like mangled or needs the work. You gotta kind of go upstream downstream and search for it. But I found it and then it's just, it's gone, you know? So now I'm able to be right back to running just a couple days off. Cause I was like, I don't know what that is. I don't want to find out, you know,

that it's anything worse than what I'm thinking. Did some myofascial release and bam, it's gone. That's money. That's money. Yeah, I think a lot of times is the recurring little aches and pains that we have, those you can play doctor with. And I think in fact, you should play your own doctor in those issues.

Now, the way that Western society kind of structures the whole medical system is the way that I see it, it's not really meant for recurring injuries. It's meant for acute injuries, acute issues, medical concerns. And so if you go to a doctor with that recurring pain, with that recurring injury imbalance, whatever, they're going to give you an acute fix, which is medicine or surgery or whatever else.

And so yeah, I think it's just so important to be able to understand, yeah, I can just poke some buttons on my vessel and be able to heal this thing that has been going on for years. I was- You got there, Andrew. Yeah, we did. Do you want me to just play this one? Yeah, actually, we can play this one. Because I figure it's, actually, you know what?

Before we get there, in terms of my fashion release again, what is it that you've noticed with it when doing some of that stuff yourself? Because I'm not like, you mentioned that you like to use a little cross ball. When did you get into it and how have you found it useful? Just because there's so many people that have different views.

We've had a lot of people on the podcast that talked beneficially about it. But then you have some coaches who are like, it's useless. Really? Yes, yeah, we know quite a few coaches who think it does really nothing. I think in particular, some people that just don't think there's science behind it. So therefore they don't really trust in it.

Or they would say like, it doesn't even exist, right? Like the fascia or something. Yeah, the knots. You can't get rid of knots and adhesions. It's, yeah. Science. Yeah, so the first experience I had with biofascia release was actually back in college.

So I had this sports hernia that I was coming back from, which was pretty tough. I think it was my freshman year of college. It started developing worse, like to the point where coughing was tough, laughing was tough. It started being pretty painful. So it was one of those things that would get worse with a lot of stress, a lot of activity,

but then get better when I was resting, but it was just unsustainable. So I was like, all right, I don't know how to fix this. I've tried what I can try. I've tried the activations, the stretches. Let me just get this surgery so that I can be back for my next season. So I ended up getting that surgery,

but with what I know now about myofascial release and how it impacted me after I had that surgery, I probably would have been able to fix it myself and been able to really heal myself in the way that I needed to. But basically after that surgery, I got into this rabbit hole of how to just fix my body, how to essentially bring and restore my body back

to its natural state. And so I looked up stuff, I forget where I found this, somewhere on Google, you know? It's one of these physical therapy or physio sites probably brought me to it. Just teaching myself how to release these different knots, whatever you wanna call them. I think they're just blockages of flow in your body and just learning how to

release that and learning how to basically progress from there into these like a more activation based types of movements. Yeah. Those changed the game for me. Um, so yeah, that's where I started with it. You know, a really cool thing about my fashion release too. And it's just like, conceptually, when you think about it, you're putting pressure in places where your body

probably hasn't potentially had pressure for years. Pressure or sensation or touch. Like, think about the fucking, the rect fem, high rect fem. How often do we put any pressure there, right? Even your rib cage that you were talking about earlier. The only way you're going to get pressure is maybe to lay on the ground, but how many of us are like laying on the actual ground? And then when you lay there,

you have the sensation everywhere. So you're not really thinking about a single point, right? Whereas My Fast Release gets you thinking about, oh, I feel this weird thing that's uncomfortable or more uncomfortable than everything else right here. And that's it right there. I think you just hit the nail on the head because at the end of the day, again,

it's not the various techniques and modalities that we can do. It's simply what they teach us about our body or where they draw our focus to within our body because I see a lot of people who do do myofascial release and they don't really get too much out of it. Whereas I'll have people with similar injuries, similar histories of pain and whatnot

do the same myofascial release and they will get results more than the person who has the same kinds of issues. Maybe because you teach them to breathe and relax and do it and stuff like that. Exactly, there's a difference maker there. There's an X factor of your awareness, of you bringing that attention to your body.

Cause I can roll out and just be talking to Sarah and be having music in my ears. These women that are in track, by the way. Oh, Jesus Christ. You picked a great sport to be in. Amen. Amen. Yeah. These track athletes, I mean, men and women, men and women. They're impressive. Yeah. Side tracked all of us.

I'm just, I have a girlfriend, guys. She's gonna be watching this. Andrea, I love you. As you walk in the door. How do you guys coach somebody through some myofascial release? Because I think one of the issues is, like, oh, you have tight hamstrings, touch your toes. Like, everybody can kind of feel that.

But with myofascial release and kind of rolling on something, it's gonna feel different for everybody. So what are some coaching cues for some people that maybe have tried it, got some less than maybe have tried it, got some less than, you know, adequate coaching through it and kind of have already written it off in the second they hear us talk about it. They're like, oh, here we go again. That stuff doesn't work. But it's like, well, maybe you weren't, you know, kind of shown the right way. So how do you coach somebody through some of this, this,

these techniques that like aren't gonna be the same across the board. The way that I account for these different experiences is to simply tell somebody to pay fucking attention. And I'll give people different anchor points to pay attention to, right? You know their breath, first of all, because the breath is connecting the whole entire body. So let's say I sit on that lacrosse ball,

I sit on a really tender point, it's super painful, and I notice my breathing stops, I get super shallow, maybe my neck and my traps tense up. You need to learn how to relax through that and basically bring yourself to a state of calm and relaxation instead of like, I'm up here, I'm super tense, I'm super sympathetic.

Just learn how to relax through that. That's probably the biggest thing that I tell people, not only learning to relax that area of the body where the trigger point is, where that, the lacrosse ball or whatever other implement is digging into, but also to the rest of their body. And again, just like a body scan, being able to search your whole entire body,

be inside of yourself, again, not outside of yourself, paying attention to all these different things, your awareness is in your head, in your mind, just bring it down to your body, be able to pay attention to these subtle little details like breath and tension through the chain being, the two main ones that I find are the most, they're most applicable to most people,

most acceptable for most people starting out because they're more surface level, but still impactful. Yeah, starting out with those is huge. Okay. I think giving it a little bit of time I think is important too, because sometimes like let's just say someone has a really, really tight quad

and they go to lay down on some ball or something like that. Their body's just tight and it's gonna take a minute to like sort of cut through some of that and they're gonna have to learn how to relax. So the pain might be a lot, they might be super sensitive to it, and then they'll be like, oh, I don't really feel anything,

but it's because they haven't like relaxed or melted into it just yet. Yeah, Oh, I don't really feel anything. But it's because they haven't like relaxed or melted into it just yet. Yeah. Sorry. I was going to say like, let's just assume that they haven't escaped the matrix and they're still like in their ego and they can sense like, Oh, this hurts the stings or whatever. My thing that I like to tell people like a cue is it shouldn't necessarily sting. It should almost feel kind of like a bruise. Does that make sense? Like, would you agree if they're still on the very surface level, like I don't understand what you're talking about,

but this hurts. It's like, okay, well, let's make it feel kind of like you're massaging out a bruise almost. That does make a lot of sense. Yeah, I definitely feel that. Cause if it's a sting, then it's, yeah. You're almost getting like a pressure point or something different at that point, right?

Right, right, right, exactly. Yeah, just going off of what you said, that makes a lot of sense for sure. I do want to mention this. Being able to relax with pressure of any kind is a skill. Like in Jiu Jitsu, I think it's a prime example because guys in Jiu Jitsu, when they start fighting, they're like really tense.

And you'll see guys for years, they're not able to relax their bodies while rolling. So they're easy to move, they're easy to sweep, and you can tell when they get in certain positions, it's quite painful. So when starting myofascial release, you need to understand that like being able to melt into whatever tool you're using is actually a skill.

I remember when I started years ago, when I would do it, I would sweat a lot. And the reason why I was sweating was because I was tense. And every time I would put the implement somewhere, I'd seize up a little bit. I'd probably hold my breath a little bit. Or when I breathe, I breathe up here. I wouldn't be breathing deep into my diaphragm.

It took a while to learn how to let everything relax, breathe deep into the diaphragm, take the pain face away. So don't grimace because when you grimace, it informs the rest of your body how like to that, that this is dangerous. And all these things, if you're able to develop the skill Myofascial release will become more effective over time and what's really cool to you you touched on this you alluded to this a little bit It's like learning how to cope with pressure isn't only good for training, but also life

Just I think you can think of all of training as a microcosm of the macro of life. And it's like, okay, if you can learn how to withstand this pressure in myofascial release, then you can learn how to withstand pressure in almost anything else. Whether it's a conversation with your girlfriend that's really hard or like, you know, you're trying to get promoted with your boss or whatever, like whatever it is, you can really learn how to channel that same energy of learning how to relax and be calm into anything else. What's this training that you're going to get yourself into coming up? You said you're going down to San Diego and you're going to be there for a while, right?

Yeah, sir. So I don't know if anybody watching would know Jeremy Fisher, but he's one of the goats of high jump. He literally writes the training for the USATF, which is like United States Track and Field Association. And so I'm going out to train with him. He's trained other Olympians and really elite dudes. So yeah, it's going to be really exciting to get out there with him, train with a couple partners. Well, that, you know, that will cause, you know, to up the ante of like pressure and stress and stuff like that.

But you've been an elite athlete for a long time. So it's probably a combination of nerves and excitement. Right? For sure. Yeah. I think we can always have that choice of channeling things into worry or excitement. I mean, it's the same energy, but we can really choose, like, okay, am I gonna be worried about this?

Like, oh, are things gonna go wrong? Or am I gonna be excited about all of the things that can go right? Man, your sexual performance is very, very important to us. Because our sexual performance is important to us. Which is why, you know, if you are getting ready and maybe you had a stressful day, you're not feeling the greatest, blood flow isn't working,

you walk into a situation and your shit is just, it's not moving the way it should. That's why I partnered with Joy Mode, because rather than being like that, we want you to be like, oh, we want you to be like this. Okay, we want you to be able to perform when you need to perform. And the reason why we love Joy Mode so much

is because it's not like your gas station dick pill or Cialis or Viagra, which are things that aren't bad, but guys end up being reliant on these things and they can't end up working the way they should themselves. But Joy Mode has all natural ingredients that will actually help with your blood flow. I don't only like using this before having some fun,

I also like using it before working out. And the ingredients are as follows. Vitamin C, L-citrulline, arginine nitrate, Panic's ginseng root. Joy Mode makes it easy and puts it in a packet where you can literally just put it in some water, drink it, and then before you know it, you're where you should be. And I'm serious. You guys give this a shot, you won't be disappointed,

and it's not something that you're gonna feel dependent on. This is good stuff, and I'm excited for you guys to get your hands on it. So, Andrew, how can they do it? Yes, that's over at usejoymode.com, and at checkout, use promo code... It's hard to hold, brother. ...promocode power project to save 20% off your entire order. Again, use joy mode.com, links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. We want to get y'all throbbing.

Throbbing veiny. Let's get it. I break the table. And you can usually talk yourself down to about the worry because it's like, what would you be worried about? Like that you can't jump maybe as high as like a couple other people there. That's like, well, that's just a matter of time. Maybe you can catch them.

Maybe you can learn from them. Maybe you can absorb and maybe everyone can get better. Exactly, exactly. What's this clip we got? This is just one of the things, I think it's probably good to watch first anyway. You need sound or no? It's just music.

Okay, even better. Alright, let me actually pull this up and read it, because I can't read that from there. Andrew, are you able to read it? Man, I can't read. Okay. You can read, it's just the text is probably too small on screen.

POV, you've been doing this foot squeeze iso regularly to improve your foot core connection and ankle stability Now your feet are pain-free and you're bouncier than ever. Sorry. I told you can read That's good, but But you know you're showing us a lot of stuff in the gym and Activation is just a drills that like start at the feet So what what's the concept here of connecting the feet to the glutes and the core?

What are a lot of people missing that maybe they should think about there? It's really just total body connectivity. I mean, of course we talked about the foot to the core here just because I think that's, you know, a good way to show people exactly where their gaps are because a lot of it is, okay, I mean, if you're an athlete, then you're on your feet all the time.

But generally, it's this concept of just maintaining tensegrity through your whole entire chain, because you can think of the body like all these different pulleys that are pulling in different directions, keeping things supported, keeping your bone structure nice and tall

and resisting gravity. And when we have excess slack in the system, then we're weak there. We're not really pulling that slack out. We're not really tense there. So I think of this as just really balancing out the tension in the body. A lot of people don't really have very active feet.

A lot of people don't really know, again, how to connect and take out the slack through their legs from their feet to their hips. And this is a great way to start exercising that and just bringing awareness to those connections. And is your heel on the ground there or no? Heel is on the ground there. You could just as easily do it without.

But this one I did with the heel on the ground just so I could really focus on that foot that's in the air. The stuff you showed us today, but this one I did with the heel on the ground just so I could really focus on that foot that's in the air. The stuff you showed us today, pretty much any person that I know can do those exercises. So I think that's encouraging. You're doing, some of the exercises are flat footed and you're literally,

I think the first thing you showed us was, oh yeah, just balance on one foot for two minutes or so. And obviously you can make that way more difficult by just getting your heel slightly off the ground. And then you can get that more difficult by getting movement with the other, with the opposite leg. But it's interesting how challenging it is. And it's interesting that these are exercises,

these are things that you believe in and these are things that you do every day, along with probably a lot of other track athletes and they're seeing amazing results from stuff that we would consider to be like fundamental basics, right? Yeah, it's beautiful, man, because I think that oftentimes the best training for you

is gonna be what you haven't been doing. That's what I found a lot with people I've worked with and some of my training partners as well is that they may have been doing all this strength work, all this power work, and they're really maxing out those areas of themselves in terms of athletic qualities, but they haven't really paid attention to things like how they're breathing and things like how their rib cage is able to move independent of your pelvis and these other areas of your body. So when you really focus on those little things,

which 99% of people in this Western society don't really, then that's gonna take you to the next level. I think honestly, simply because it's something different, it's a new stimulus. It's just like when you're new to lifting, like you're gonna put on muscle quite easily. When you're new to losing weight, like when you're really fat, you lose weight a lot faster than when you've already been at it.

So it's the same thing, like when you're new to this stuff, I think it really just has a huge impact quite fast. I think it'd be worth it if you're listening and you're not driving and you can like get up on one leg and maybe attempt going on your heel and just kind of standing there and It'd be worth trying out so going on your forfeit getting your heel off the ground and Stefan I want to know When people are attempting this and you see them flailing all over the place and able to control any aspect of their balance there I know there's a lot of things that are lacking

But what light bulbs should this help people switch on in their head when they find out that they're horrible at this? And no shame to anyone who is horrible. I think most people probably are horrible at this. No shame at all because I've been there. I mean, I'm sure all three of us have been there. All four of us in the room have been there. It's just a lack of focus, I think.

It's that you're not really able to stick to one essential pattern in your body. I mean, there's two components to it. One of them might be that physically your body's not able to hold you up, but among athletes, that's probably not the case. Maybe the general population, sure, like your muscles aren't able to hold that position,

but among athletes, it's probably more of a mental thing that you're not able to lock in, keep yourself centered instead of kind of like moving all over the place, looking this way, looking that way, thinking about this, thinking about that. It's really just a focused thing that will allow you to balance and really hone that. Have you noticed any differences on balance with somebody

that is maybe more mobile or male versus female? Have you noticed anything like, anyone seem to be better or worse at it for any particular reasons? Definitely the older people get, the worse they get at balance like generally. I'd definitely say that in terms of men versus women, haven't really seen that too much.

But I know for myself personally, I've been in places even just now in the present moment. Like sometimes when I'm more stressed, when I'm a little bit more, you know, overthinking, my balance is off versus when I'm more locked in, I'm more grounded. I can sit here, stand here for ages and be able to balance without having to like move and go all over the place. And it's something that I'm learning more and more how to consciously switch on. It's like literally like a button or a switch that I flip inside of myself that I can come into

and then just like, oh, yep, I'm there, I'm balanced. The balance of your life is off and the balance of your feet are all over the place too. Exactly, exactly. And I think one of the really awesome things about this is that first off, you know, we can do this kind of stuff behind the table. But if somebody's at an office or a cubicle, they can probably work on some of this stuff

as they're getting other things done, or if they want to take a few seconds and work on it. But the long term benefit is, well, as you get older, you have better balance and think about when people are older and they're like you mentioned, their balance is bad. Falling is not a fun place to be. Right? And when you fall, because you have better balance, you're gonna be able to just recover that much quicker.

So it's an easy capacity to keep with inputs that don't have to be just in the gym. For sure. Yeah, you can put anybody on this stuff and they'll get it right away. I mean, even if they're not super in tune with their body, you just tell them, hey, just stand on one leg, practice doing this. If you just tell them, hey, just stand on one leg, practice doing this.

If you just put in the time, build those deposits of time spent in that position on one leg or whatever else, then you're gonna find that somebody improves. So it's really- What has been like maybe top two or three things in the last couple of years that's really helped your high jump?

I don't think we mentioned that you have high jumped successfully over Shaquille O'Neal, basically seven feet, two inches, which I just think is absolutely ridiculous and amazing. But yeah, what are a couple of things that really have been things that you're like, man, that really surprised me that that had that much impact? I think the biggest thing that's built the foundation

for me to go further is that I haven't fully actualized yet in terms of the actual results is just really being able to come to this meditative state, just really control my mind because there's so many things that will pull us away from our goals, whether it's doubting whether you can do it or, oh, I'm feeling kind of lazy today, let me go and do something else,

I don't feel like training, all these little things, I mean, I said them out loud, but they're not so obvious in the moment. A lot of times they're really deeply hidden in our subconscious, and unless you're able to really pinpoint those things and see them in the present moment, then you're gonna succumb to them

and you're gonna act on them. So I think to answer your question, the biggest thing that again, like isn't like a specific tactic or anything, it's just generally the principle of learning how to be aware and in control of my mind and my emotions to be able to just get me to do the things that I need to do.

How do you balance that though? Because earlier in the conversation, you were like, you can't ignore the body. You got to listen to the cues that are that it's telling you this, you know, like, okay, you're sore. Maybe you just need to chill and hydrate. But now you're saying like, okay, now my body's telling me some or my mind is telling me something different about like, you know, today's training will just use that as an example. So how do you take into consideration what the body's telling you and then also what your mind is kind of trying to talk you out of? I think that's really tough. And that's why it's so important to have a coach when you're trying to access these higher levels of performance.

And even if you're not, I recommend if you have the financial ability to get a coach, get a coach. Like, why not? You can't figure everything out on your own. I mean, if you're an expert in whatever you do, you understand that you need to put in the time, you need to put in the work to be able to understand something at a level where you're actually going to be able to get yourself results. And so it's just so key to number one, have that outside guidance to again, guide you,

not tell you exactly what to do, but to guide you. And then number two, it's just over time, you just collect that data of what works, what doesn't work, what kind of was affected in certain situations. And you just piece things together and you eventually realize, okay, this is the way, this is when I should train, even though I feel tired. This is when I should definitely not train and just understanding those different variables

I think I think also like from what you're saying right there It's good to be okay with certain things not working out as in like what you just mentioned Some people might just train better in the morning and some people might just train better closer to the evening But you don't realize that unless you like start doing then you realize realize, I really feel like shit here and I feel great here. And you gotta be, that's just data, like you said. And a coach like yourself is gonna help you compile all this data for your personal computer, because everyone's computer is a little bit different.

Exactly, yeah, I think it's crucial, just being able to understand there are ways to, different ways to skin a cat at the end of the day. Can people high jump well, but not be fast? Depends what you mean by fast. Cause the best high jumpers are definitely faster than the average person, but compared to like the best hundred meter sprinters,

like the guy who won, I think he, like this last Olympics high jump, he runs, I could be wrong, but I think like an 11.3 or so. I've seen him run. That's so slow. That's so ridiculous, and I'm joking. Well, but again, compared to your elite sprinters who are running under 10 seconds.

It's like a decent high school speed, 11.3 would be, you know, right? Solid, yeah, yeah, yeah. But still not even elite on the high school level because people are fast. People are fast, people are fast. So you don't necessarily have to have like some crazy top end speed.

You need to be fast enough. I think there's, I don't know the exact numbers, but yeah, there we go. There's a Hamish for sure. We could look up his world athletics even. So there's probably some things to like check off the box, right? Like if you already run a hundred meters

in 10 seconds or something, there's, I'm not saying there's no reason to work on your sprinting because maybe that's part of the strength that makes you who you are, but maybe there'd be less focus on that. Definitely, definitely. It's like a soup, right? Like you might have too much salt, not enough salt,

like too much fat, not enough fat, et cetera. You just want to be able to understand what are the ingredients and the amount of them that's going to make for the most balanced soup. And how much is flexibility a part of it once you're up in the air like that? You just got to contort yourself around the bar. Definitely important now.

It's another question how you should actually train that, but I think that it's definitely important to be able to be flexible. But you know, funny enough, oh yeah, there you go. I'm not sure. Is this? Oh yeah, that's him. Yeah, that's my coach. Yeah.

Not doing the exercise, but his page. Yeah, I think that's one of his para-athletes. Never even seen that before. Yeah, he has a lot of really cool stuff on here. He has the like Power Plus type stuff too. Well, let me ask you, what do you think is like some of this type of stuff? It's interesting because, you know, when you look at the comments of these videos,

you'll see so many people like, oh, they're just having convulsions, right? They don't see the benefit in it. But as a high level athlete, what do you see with that? No, that's awesome stuff. I mean, it's really just teaching your muscles. I mean, one way to put it is that it's teaching your muscles, your nervous system to just fire really fast.

And why would that be a bad thing? I don't think, I think what I can see where people disagree with is that it's not very quote unquote specific, but what makes something specific isn't just one variable, it's a bunch of infinite amount of variables that can make that, what we're watching right there, specific to high jump, between the speed of movement, the actual positions that you're

hitting. I mean, even the environment, the surface that you're doing it on can make it specific versus not specific. So I think when people try and say, oh, this exercise is so unspecific, it's not going to help you. I think that's kind of bullshit because in that way of thinking, no exercise can be specific. Right? Yeah. Do you incorporate a lot of barefoot training?

Definitely. I try and do a lot of barefoot stuff. In the past, I feel like I've overdone it and tried to do, you know, a hundred meter all out sprints barefoot. I even did some high jumping a little bit barefoot, but at the end of the day, I think you don't necessarily need to be barefoot in everything.

You just need to know how to control your feet. And you can do that within the shoe. I think the issue with shoes is that they get us out of touch with our feet. But then once we learn how to get back in touch with our feet, get back to activating them the right way, then we can go back and put them in shoes and learn how to use them. Because at the end of the day, shoes are a helpful invention. They allow us to run on concrete for long periods of time. They allow us to do sports

like high jump where I might tear the skin on the bottom of my foot when I'm running on that curve so sharply. So shoes are really helpful. I think we just need to learn how to work with them. I'm curious about this because you know, Mark's been getting into sprinting more, we've all been sprinting more, right? And in general, more people want to get that capacity back. Because for a lot of people, it's been lost, they haven't done it in forever. And then when they go try, it doesn't end up being so pretty, right? So what do you think? And there's probably a lot of things, but if somebody wants to successfully go and sprint

without tearing their hamstring or hurting themselves, what are the fundamental steps that they need to build to be able to get there? First off, having an actual plan, because I feel like a lot of people just go out there and just start sprinting, and it'll be such a random thing. Just have a plan.

I mean, even if it's not perfect, just put something together. Think again, like what do I hypothesize is going to take me to where I wanna go? And this again is where having a coach comes into play because their hypothesis is probably gonna be a lot more well-informed than yours because they have actual experience

and they've collected that data over time. But what I will say is that you really wanna make sure that you progress your way up. I mean, it's really not rocket science. Instead of running at 100% intensity, you wanna start running at like 60% intensity. I mean, can you even jog without feeling pain, without feeling like your body is disconnected and discombobulated?

It's like just first be able to jog, first be able to run strides at 60 meters. Don't try and go super hard with the volume. So those are probably the two main variables that I'd look at are, let's say three, volume, intensity, and quality of movement. Those are the main three things, and those are also the things that lead to pain. When one of those three things is off, when you're either doing too much, too hard, or your movement quality just sucks,

that's gonna lead to pain in the same way that moderating those things well is going to allow you to progress back up to where you wanna go. And then probably also just not giving yourself a really long timeline. Because doing that, it could take more than seven to eight months before you can sprint pain free.

Maybe more for some people. You got to look at the inputs. And that's one of the biggest things I've learned as a life lesson. I don't care about where I am in this moment, except for it showing me how far I've progressed. Because if I'm so focused on the outcome, like, oh, I'm not where I wanna be sprinting wise,

well, what am I gonna do about it? Just put in the right inputs. So that's all we can control are the daily inputs. So I like to have daily non-negotiables with certain things, whether it be for business or for my relationship or for training. I have daily, like one of them is myofascial release, 15 minutes a day, daily non-negotiable.

There we go. 15 minutes meditation, daily non-negotiable. So just having those things, I think brings the goal down to earth because we separate ourselves from this big distant goal and we don't really have the process to get there. So it's just like, okay, well, what can I do every single day? Because that's really what our brains can think in, like the short-termness of like that every day. I can be like, okay, I checked this box off. I did that every day. And then again,

you just assess a little bit down the line, maybe in a week, two weeks, a month, okay, did this actually get me somewhere? Trying to reverse engineer the high jump in a sense, right? Because you figure it would just be as simple as just going out to the track and working on the high jump and just like lining up and trying to jump higher and higher. But as we know with lifting,

like things don't really work that way. And we've seen that with sprinting as well. And we've seen it in other sports with swimming. It's rare for people, I know there's some coaches that might prescribe higher percentages for longer periods of time, but it's rare that athletes are really doing the exact thing that they're trying to get better at to that max degree.

So like, how often are you trying to jump for a PR? Not often at all. I mean, especially like, let's just say in a training week we'll jump, I mean, twice a week max. And one of them maybe depending on the point in the season is gonna be a maximal intensity jump. And even when it is that maximal intensity jump, it's relative to your actual best.

It's not gonna be very close because if you're constantly trying to get more out of your body, you're gonna deplete yourself. I mean, it's just like, you know, race car drivers, they don't race every single day in practice. They don't deplete all of their resources, their tires, their gas, burn through all that stuff, because it would just be costly for no reason.

No, they just kind of fine tune things. Maybe they do little tests, see where things are at. And then when it comes to the actual race, Daytona 500 or whatever, I don't know that much about racing. I don't know if I sound like it or not, but basically the concept is NASCAR. I was like, oh shit, he's got a car race. They don't try and push it every single day,

every single week, it's the same with your body. Let me ask you this too, because you're mentioning in the gym a pre-pre season, are you even jumping at that? So that's kind of really interesting to me because you're training right now, but you're not even doing your sport, right? Yeah, no sport, no high jump at all.

No high jump at all. How long? We probably won't do high jump stuff probably until like maybe like mid November, December we'll start doing some high jump stuff, probably until like, maybe like mid November, December, we'll start doing some high jump stuff. And even then, it's not gonna be the same full out intensity that you're gonna do in your actual sport, in the actual competition rather.

I just think that's like so interesting compared to other sports. Like with martial art or with power lifting, like yeah, you don't squat heavy all the time, but you're still gonna squat, right? Well, you're still jumping though, right? I'm jumping, yeah. There's like some hops and jumps and things, but no high jumps.

Look at this. Oh, shit. That was ridiculous. It was so crazy, it made the internet stop. Yeah, that's a fun one for sure. Yeah, I mean, just, I'm pretty sure you weren't out there with the measuring tape, but that's a 10-foot rim, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's crazy. It looks like there's some sort of spring on the court. That's what I'm saying. On that note, though, how do people get some of their springiness back? Because that's something that people want back. Most people aren't doing anything jump-wise, right? And when they do, it hurts. I think there's a couple of different components to it.

Similar like getting back to sprinting. It's like you have to understand how your body actually functions, number one. Because remember what we were talking about in terms of learning how to squat your body down, keep yourself pulled down, so that you can keep that elastic potential in your body. Once you unsquat, then you lose that elastic potential, AKA bounciness, right?

So I think that's probably the most important component that most people miss is learning how your body actually works, what positions make sense, what sensations to feel for to guide your movement, guide your athleticism. That's the most important thing. Then yes, secondarily, I think it's the progressive overload principles that people oftentimes harp on like, yeah, you need to build tissue resilience, you need to over time expose yourself to more and more stimulus, you need to get stronger, etc. So I think that's definitely important.

But first off, just learn the positions, the technique behind being athletic and doing the athletic things that you want. During this period of time where you're not high jumping, what are some main focuses? What are you trying to get better at? Yeah, the main thing, I think everybody has a little bit of a different focus,

but for me, running is a big one because if you can't run, then you should like that's honestly the whole sport of high jump is learning how to run up to the bar properly. Because if you don't have that run correct, then whatever you do with your takeoff, I mean, some really talented guys are able to salvage it. But for the most part, you're carrying that horizontal momentum of the run into the vertical lift of the takeoff. And if you're running badly, incorrectly,

then that's not really gonna happen that way. So I'd say running is a big focus, but generally just kind of getting my body more connected, just filling the gaps, really making sure I'm in tune with myself fully, really making sure that I'm able to, you know, come into my body and move correctly. That's kind of some of the biggest focuses

on a more high level. Is there more lifting or less lifting or? Right now it's lifting, but more so just to kind of move the body and kind of get the tissues acclimated to some kind of strength work. So we'll do, you know, power cleans, we'll do back squat, we'll do hamstring curls, just kind of almost seemingly

random movements just to get things moving. Any bodybuilding type stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually important for sure in track and field. Even we'll do that up until maybe even like February, March, some elements of bodybuilding. So I mean, what we consider that is more like, you know, two sets of 10 exercises will go through things like bicep curls, bench press, you know, shoulder press, and we'll do that in a circuit fashion. That actually makes a lot of sense because it's like following some of the rules of hypertrophy, but not so much that you're gonna like,

you know, because I would imagine you guys don't really wanna gain, maybe you wanna gain a little weight, but for the most part, probably not too much. Right, right, yeah, I mean, to me it's just all about varying the stimulus, just going on all these different ends of the spectrum in terms of what you can do training wise.

That's the best way, and I think a lot of people can get a lot of insight from this. That's how you keep your body healthy. That's the best way. And I think a lot of people can get a lot of insight from this. That's how you keep your body healthy. That's how you keep yourself balanced. Is not only doing strength work, not only doing a bunch of stretching, not only doing knees over toes,

but also doing, not also, but doing everything. Doing all of that. It's like you nudge up against it, but you don't get like locked into it. Exactly, exactly. And of course, as you get into these specific goals, then you have to specify in a certain direction. But even when you're specifying,

you want to make sure that you have a broad, like understanding and practice of these other things too. I thought this was interesting since we're talking about track athletes doing some bodybuilding. When I saw this video of like train like Noah Lyles or whatever, he pretty much goes through squat, bench, deadlift and barbell hip thrust.

I was like, wait, what? Just wait. So. I was like, oh, I went right over your head. He'll injure himself, right? But you, like, you know, again, we've had so many people talk about lifting and how negative it is for speed, et cetera. But again, when you guys use these movements, it's not like it's the only thing you guys are doing, right? No, it's how do I explain it? It's not using those lifts to get better at track.

It's using those lifts to keep your body balanced so that you can do other things that will get you better at track. That's what a lot of people don't understand. It's like, yes, I get it. Barbell squats aren't perfectly in line with sprinting and how that actually works with all the rotation and all that.

But people are missing out on the fact that it simply will balance your body out because you're not doing the same types of movements all the time. Not only in terms of the movement pattern, but also, yeah, he went crazy on that. Jesus. Dude.

He went absolutely crazy on that. Yeah, so not only in terms of the movement pattern, but like the speed of the movement and all these other variables that go into it, I think it's really important to surf that curve of all those different varieties so that you can keep yourself balanced. I mean, it's just like being a human, right?

Like if you're only an entrepreneur, if you're only an athlete and not a well-rounded individual, you don't have a family life, you well-rounded individual, you don't have a family life, you don't have friends, you don't have like social life, etc., then you're going to be unhealthy. You're not going to be feel well. Yeah, I also think that, like for a lot of what you guys do, it just appears that I got myself in the same predicament, I guess you'd say. When I was powerlifting, you can only do those top end things so often, they're just so dangerous.

They're not worth it. So you have to almost make up a bunch of shit that's a mimicker. These are all things that mimic, and these are all things that help you get better in tune with your body. So dragging a sled, how does a sled relate to a thousand pound squat? It kind of doesn't, but it also sort of does because you need to work hard, you need to be consistent,

you need to stay active, you need to keep your hamstrings and your glutes and your ankles and calves healthy, and one way to do that is to pull the fucking sled. You also need to be like, you don't need to be in much shape for powerlifting, but there's some level of fitness to doing nine lifts in one day and having it span sometimes over 10 or 12 hours, at which you know in track, because track meets are the only thing actually that can take longer than a powerlifting meet is a track meet.

But yeah, it's just like a lot of things to mimic that top end, top level speed and strength that you need to be able to get yourself over that bar. Exactly. Yeah. I think people oftentimes get too entrenched with, is it specific or not? But in a lot of ways, specific is subjective. It's like how you relate to that movement. What are you getting from that movement?

So yeah, I think people get too caught up in that. And some people move so differently too. Somebody might be like, oh man, I got so much out of doing cleans. And you watch them do cleans and they have impeccable form. You're like, oh my God, you could have been an Olympic lifter. And it's like, well,

now I can see why they got so much out of that. Or one of the greatest power lifters of all time, Ed Kohn, he squatted and dead lifted very, very frequently. And he could do so with pretty heavy weights, but his form was amazing. Every single time, didn't matter what weight he had. So it's like, oh, when I squat, my form is all jacked up. So I can only do it once a week,

but he can handle it multiple times a week if he wants. Right, right, exactly. I think this video we pulled up of you is pretty perfect. Lifting is a complete waste of time if your body is disconnected and your movement patterns are off. Once you build the right foundation, building strength only makes sense.

And you were mentioning earlier that you are quite a bit heavier than a lot of the other competitors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm definitely on the heavier side for sure. A little bit chubby. 190 pounds, 4% body fat. That's not a joke guys.

This dude's actually 4%. And it's legit. We can see this shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's really interesting with high jump. Just because there's different strategies of movement, I think that I can still tap into that elastic potential that's necessary to be able to jump high. Some people, I think there's a spectrum of muscle driven

versus tendon ligament driven. To a certain extent, you definitely want both, but I think people can get away with being closer to one side of the spectrum of the other. Can you explain that a bit deeper? Because, you know, we've actually, I've brought this up with two different strength coaches. I'm not gonna mention their names,

but they mentioned that that doesn't exist. An athlete that is like tendon, ligament, or fascia driven or muscle driven, that that's just a myth An athlete that is like tendon, ligament, or fascia driven or muscle driven, that that's just a myth. So when you say that, I want you to explain what you mean, because I think this could help enlighten a lot of people to what is going on here. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, you see, like an easy example here, I'm not even gonna get into science or anything. It's just, you see the really skinny dude who's able to jump out of the gym and he's never lifted a weight in his life versus the person who lifts all the time and they jump just as high, right? And when that person who jumps just as high,

who lifts a lot, they stop lifting, they stop kind of like being strong, they go back to the jump, their height is diminished. They're not able to jump as high. I mean, I think that's an anecdote, obviously, but I've seen that time and time again, that some guys just really rely on their strength. Whether it's, maybe they're just kind of getting caught up

in the semantics of it. Maybe it's not necessarily muscle driven per se, but it definitely is a strength component to it in terms of the way that they actually try and drive the movement. From what you're saying, it is actually really interesting because when I think about this, I think about when we had Kador Ziani here, like when he was here and he was showing us like,

how he like literally, he almost described it as jumping off of his bones, right? Where he would- Like punches the floor with his feet. Punches the floor with his feet so hard where like I would bruise myself. But you see him do it, he just pops up into the air. It seems like, it seems oddly like there's no muscle

involved in the movement, right? So what you're saying, I can understand, because like we've seen people who do this. Yeah, and I can do both. Like I've learned to be able to tap into both. Like I'm not really gonna do it here, I guess, but I can be able to jump in that more strength driven way versus the more elastic way, just bouncing.

I can control for both. Like the Messiah, right? When people think about that, they're jumping like that. Yeah, they're on one end of the spectrum for sure. Okay. And it's interesting to watch people navigate how they're gonna jump, especially if they're gonna like jump onto something, like jump onto a box.

Some people will feel the need to squat down pretty low. Other people won't jump, like really bend their knees much at all and they can kind of spring up. Some people use their hands a lot. They feel like the need like I better really rev myself up for this. And sometimes in both cases, sometimes both athletes can jump fairly high. There's some people that for some reason are able to sort of float a little bit. Like they not only can get up there, but they can kind of hang up there for a minute.

And then they land really gracefully. They land and it's like hardly any noise. I mean, it's just interesting. I love, that's why I love sports. I love watching the Olympics and different sports because it's just interesting. I love, that's why I love sports. I love watching the Olympics and different sports because it's just fascinating. You start watching these different athletes perform different things and just be able to move

their bodies through space in so many different ways. For sure, yeah. Now, to your point, it's like, there's also the speed of contact that they hold on the ground. Like some people get off the ground really quick. Some people get off the ground a little bit slower, but they still jump as high.

That literally just looks like they're on a trampoline. Yeah. An interesting thing though is when you like, do you notice the body wiggle as they get into the air, right? A dolphin kick kind of thing, like a swimmer. What would you describe that as? Because like I noticed as I've been practicing, just trying to be more

tendon driven and jumping and after a while I can feel my body kind of doing a little bit of that and it feels right. Right? I know you've done this a lot so do you have any descriptor of what that is or what's what the body's understanding there? Yeah I think it's kind of a recoil thing. I think it seems like they're exaggerating it a little bit for like the fun and kind of style of it. But I do think a big element of that, like for sure their leg is going back behind them, that's recoil. That's simple, like a gun recoiling, same thing.

Being able to handle the stresses of your day, the stress of exercise, and being able to stick to your nutrition plan takes good rest and good quality sleep the night before. And if your mouth is opening during sleep or if you're snoring, well, your sleep quality is compromised. That's why we've partnered with the best mouth tape

in the game, hostage tape. If you have a beard, it's gonna stay on. If you have a CPAP, it's gonna stay on. This tape is not gonna fall off your mouth like most other tapes do when you're asleep. And to enhance the way you breathe through your nose, they also have no strips. Head over to hostagetape.com slash power project

where you can get a three month supply of hostage tape for only 65 cents a night. On top of that, you're going to receive a free pack of no strips as well as a bedside tin. Again, that's at hostagetape.com slash power project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. So in a lot of your content, sorry, not a lot of content, but the stuff that I've been kind of going through

on your IG, you've been kind of mentioning to like getting pain free or like, you know, waiting for people to understand they can, you know, live life pain free or they can be an athlete pain free. Is that coming from like a history from a history of going through it and figuring things out, and then now you're able to be springier, faster, jump higher, and all these things while being pain-free?

Is that what happened? Yeah, exactly. So I went through a period where I was a really good athlete. I think I've been a good athlete my whole life, but I just had all of these issues. I had joint pain, I had tightness, I couldn't touch my toes. All these issues, low back pain,

that was the one that was probably the most constant and consistent. I just had all these issues and I could still perform, but there were times where I would just get, you know, hamstring strains, ankle sprains, all these little issues that prevented me from continuing to perform, continuing to train to perform better.

So I went through this rabbit hole of, I mean, essentially everything we've been talking about, and that's what's been able to get me to a place where now I can truly train close to as hard as I want without having any issues really pop up. Mm-hmm. And then what, so like you equate that to just being smarter in the gym then? Being more aware, I would say. Being more aware of myself and being more aware of all these different things that go into performance, I'd say,

and maintaining the body. Bones Jones had an interesting statement where he talked about how he used to train in kind of a particular way, and he used to be a little bit cautious. And then one day, things just opened up for him, and he just said, I'm no longer gonna be the guy that's scared to get hurt.

I'm not gonna. So I think it's an interesting thing if you're able to like, you know, kind of blow that governor off of your, the way that you think when you're training, because if you kind of think you're gonna get hurt, you probably more than likely are gonna get hurt. If you think when you're running that you're tight,

you probably are tight. The tough thing is just that kind of balance of like, oh man, that was really stupid, I shouldn't have done that. I wasn't quite ready for that versus like knowing when to dive into that like extra level, I guess you'd say. I think that's where smart training comes into play. I think that's really crucial because if you have that smart training program

that you really trust in, then you can just let go and do your thing. And at the end of the day, you just have faith that that training program is gonna get you to where you wanna go. And even if yes, sometimes you do have injuries and you trusted the program fully, I mean, there's always gonna be things that come up

that you can't account for. And that doesn't mean that you don't trust in the program. So I think it's just having a program, sticking to it, and being able to see that clear progression to where you wanna go. What about just some stretching? You guys spend a lot of time stretching or doing mobility work? Definitely stretching is an interesting one because I think this is another one where you really want to learn to... You're over there kind of laughing.

Am I? I just scratched my chin. Okay, I'm glad you didn't imagine that. No, no I don't know. I was scratching my chin. Okay. I'm not even imagining that. No, no, no. I was scratching my chin. Okay, okay. Now, so with stretching, we definitely do a good amount of that. I think that it's really important to make sure that you have the ability to enter these different ranges of motion. I think that

a lot of people kind of overemphasize like, you know, like super extended ranges of motion. And that's just not necessary for being an athlete. Cause you- It's kind of part of track culture, right? Stretching, like just you're talking and one guy's lacing up his shoes and the other guy's down.

Just kind of like, not maybe not like actively like 60 second holds or whatever, but just movement, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's definitely important to get that in. And again, it goes back to this understanding that you need to, if you want to keep your body balanced, go through all of these different modalities. You're gonna do flexibility work,

you're gonna do strength work, you're gonna do mobility work, you're gonna do all these different things to keep your body healthy and balanced. Do you think that stretching can become excessive where it actually takes away or it's any non-benefit to it? For sure, I mean, depending on your goals, I think if you do anything too much

that's going to have a stimulus, then you're going to go towards that direction. So, I mean, the extreme of that is gymnasts who have this crazy flexibility or ballet dancers, right? You're gonna turn into a ballet dancer if you flex too much. That's true. If you stretch too much.

So it's just like understanding that there's a specific tension level in your body that you need to be as a high jumper or another specific tension level as a sprinter. Like sprinters are a little bit more wound up than high jumpers. Then somebody like a distance runner is less wound up than a high jumper. So there's multiple different, you know, spectrums to it.

I want to, Matt, want to ask about this because when Andrew asked the question about, you know, how you've been able to find benefit, you said being more aware. I want to figure out what are some ways that people can become more aware when they're training. And I think one of those things, I've seen you do it a lot, is really slowly eccentric on certain movements. And on that note, one thing I've noticed when I started doing slow eccentrics

when I was actually powerlifting, was I became more aware of where my holes were within the movement. And then I realized, oh wow, in my squat, I seem to like, I seem to have this portion of the movement where I just drop down a little bit and I don't have control over it. And the slow eccentrics helped me get control

over the full movement, right? So along with that, you'll probably have more to mention there, what else can people do to lock in and become more aware of their training so they can fix some of these issues? For sure, yeah. So I have a process that I actually take my clients through. So number one, it's understanding,

what does it even mean to be aware of your body? Because a lot of people don't understand this. And so I'll take people through oftentimes that body scan I was mentioning earlier. I'll just have them learn how to occupy these different areas of the body. The way that clicks a lot of the times when I tell people is that you wanna think just like you're doing a bicep curl,

you're bringing that attention to your bicep. You wanna be able to bring that same attention to literally every area of your body. Not only external, like superficial, like what we can see and feel, but also internally inside. So a good way to think about this also is when you're nervous, you have those thoughts of being nervous

circulating in your head, and then you have butterflies in your stomach. It's a physical sensation. It's not necessarily, maybe it's a mixture of tension and pressure and some other things, but you just feel that. And you can feel that deeper and deeper

the more you, again, like I said, at the beginning of the, of when we started shooting, shining that light, turning that light up. So that's the very first step is showing somebody being able to be like, okay, this is what conscious awareness actually is. Then it's developing it. So we can develop it through things like isometric holds

where I'm telling somebody, hey, pay attention to the pressure that's being distributed through your feet. through things like isometric holds where I'm telling somebody, hey, pay attention to the pressure that's being distributed through your feet. Pay attention to how your rib cage is expanding and contracting. Pay attention to where you're holding tension in your hips, things like that. And then as they develop that sense of awareness and they're being able to better tell me, oh yeah, Steph, like I actually feel what you're talking about.

Whereas when I started, I had no idea what the fuck you were talking about. So then we start progressing them into more athletic based movements and just being able to feel when I'm sprinting, okay, am I relaxed while I'm sprinting? Okay, what am I doing with my neck and my traps? What am I doing with my feet? What am I doing with my breathing? All traps? What am I doing with my feet?

What am I doing with my breathing? All these different things, we're just carrying those same principles from lower intensity things and more, you know, still practices like the body scan, progressing that up all the way to more dynamic actions. I mean, it's a sense of progressive overload. It's just the variable is being aware.

And the name of your business is Mind Your Movement, right? Mind Your Movement. And you're preparing for the 2028 Los Angeles, is it in Los Angeles? Los Angeles. Yeah, the Los Angeles Olympics. Man, that'll be amazing. That's gonna be sick. And the training that you're gonna be doing in San Diego, are you gonna be competing with or not competing, but I guess teammates with, or training with athletes

that have already maybe made it to the Olympics? Yeah, there'll be a couple there. So there'll be some other guys. I'm not sure who all exactly is going to be there, but one of them that Jeremy has worked with is Woo. So he was at the last Olympics. He's a Korean jumper. He's, yeah, he's came up through the ranks

in big part, I think, because of Jeremy's coaching. So yeah, it's gonna be cool to hopefully be able to work with guys like him. One of my training partners has jumped 230, 10 centimeters higher than me. And he actually jumped 225 in high school, in high school. Wow. Yeah. I actually jumped 225 in high school. In high school. Wow.

Yeah, so he's nasty for sure. So yeah, just gonna be cool to be with other elite guys, man. Have you been around other elite athletes like this early in your career? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Mostly at training meets, or I mean at track meets. Yeah. Some trainings where I'll go and like just link up with somebody

Yeah, definitely the thing I was curious about is like do you notice your level like go up when you get around? People that are better than you in that way. Yeah, definitely. I think I'm really a competitor I really like to be around people and compete when I'm around You know people who are just not as skilled at me and whatever, it definitely has, it's just not as exciting. Like I get a little bit bored. I get a little bit complacent sometimes. Something I'm working on for sure, just maintaining that high level of operation all the time.

But yeah, it's hard to get the right feedback sometimes from people that haven't or even even sometimes your training partner could be like well intended and everything, but it's nice when somebody's actually like beating you. I think it's a good thing. Yeah, and even there's a lot of what you can look at in terms of sprinting next to somebody who's elite. Like you guys have done this before maybe, but just their rhythm and how they're moving their body.

And then your brain kind of conceptualizes how fast they're going based on their rhythm and how they're moving their body. And then your brain kind of conceptualizes how fast they're going based on their rhythm and cadence and things like that. So it's just more data, more feedback, like you said, to collect. Yeah, I remember just in powerlifting, just as I kind of worked my way up, you'd get around some different people,

some people that were a little bit better than me, and then I'd be like, oh, that's kind of how it's done. And then you get around people that are better than them, and you're like, oh shit. And then it just kind of kept happening, and you're like, oh my God, this is like never ending. Never ending battles to try to figure out how to make it to the top.

For sure, levels. And one of the cool things, when you're super aware of all that, and you pay close attention, that shit rubs off on you. Oh, it does. Like I always feel like I come back with something whenever like, whether it's a tournament where I went over some hard people

or where I had some like hard training sessions with some people that were better than me. It's like, I took a bit of that and then it just stays. Congratulations by the way on another Masters championship. Thank you, appreciate it. Two time champ. Awesome dude. That's so cool.

Did you beat three people or four? Four. Damn. How many people were in the bracket though? There was a lot. That's a lot of humans. That's sick. That's a hell of a day.

Four fights basically. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. How long do each one of those last? Well, the match is six minutes, I think, but it'll last as if somebody gets submitted, it ends. Yeah, so.

Gotcha. Mm. So did you want to get into why air conditioners might not be best for my health? I would love to, by the way, if we can. Let me just first preface with the fact that I'm not an expert, I'm not an acupuncturist, but from what I've learned and gathered

from one of my mentors, Sam Wiest, who is an acupuncturist, especially when you're going from outside hot temperatures to inside colder temperatures, your pores open up. I mean, just the same way that you purposely steam your face to open up the pores. So when your pores are open, Chinese medicine, again, from what I understand, it's like they view the cold as entering your pores

and that cold can wreak havoc on your body. And it's not always that cold is bad or that too hot is bad. It's just that they believe in balance, having that balance through your system. And so there's different things like damp versus dry, cold versus hot, and these different variables that they kind of see the body within

that when you go too far into one end of the spectrum, then you're going to experience these imbalances and health issues. So that's kind of it. I mean, you know, your grandma one time at some point has said, oh, don't sleep under the fan because it's going to make you sick. Yeah. So there's truth to that.

Interesting. And that's wind. So one of their things is wind. They don't want wind to enter you. Like, have you ever gotten a stiff neck after being out in the wind? And a lot of people who live in out in the wind. And a lot of people who live in places by the water. It's a Russian thing too.

Like in Russia, it's cold, you know? So they think if they leave their window open, they're gonna get sick. They don't understand why here in the US, why we put ice in our water. That's another thing. Cause it's like they over cold everything. There's like so much ice in everything all the time.

But Chinese medicine is a no on ice. Do you know why? Yeah, because. Fire and ice, earth, wind, fire and ice. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. So like. I'm lost. I mean, it's like.

We want to catch up. One way that I've heard it described is that your stomach, your digestion overall is kind of like a fire. It's like a furnace. And so when you have cold and wet things on there, then it's going to dampen and well, it's going to diminish the furnace. You can find some of it too,

if you just search it maybe a little bit, Andrew, you might see some stuff. Yeah, I'm sure if you search like, you know, like TCM cold water, like there's going to be so many things sure if you search like TCM, cold water, like there's gonna be so many things that talk about why you shouldn't have cold water. In Chinese medicine, do they talk about the sun? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I know you're into that as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know too much, but they definitely talk about how crucial it is. I think every discipline agrees that the sun is just crucial for just health. Not Brian Johnson. That man is pale. No offense.

What's your diet look like? It's really simple, honestly. I have a few main principles that I follow even as I'm traveling because sometimes when I travel, when you travel in general, it's harder to keep on that consistent routine. But some of my main principles are not eating just to eat. So making sure that, which sounds really simple, but a lot of people do this.

They'll be in social settings. They'll be at a party. Then there'll be a platter of food and they're just like snacking on it. Like, yeah, no, I don't do that. I eat at very routine times. So I'll eat three times a day. I'll try and mostly stick to that,

although sometimes I will need a snack. But for the most part, I try and stick to that. And that's to keep my digestion from working all day. I don't want that. I don't want it to be burning all the time. I want it to have some rest in between my meals. So I'll do that. Generally just focus on quality as much as I can,

organic ingredients without the shit that they put in foods these days, hormones and antibiotics and stuff like that. What else? Oh yeah, I don't like eating at night, too close to bedtime. That one, especially as I've gotten older, and I think it's maybe just as I've gotten more aware

of myself, I've seen more and more how much sleep quality is impacted if you eat too close to bed. So that's one that I'm trying my best not to compromise on. It's hard sometimes though, isn't it? Definitely is hard for sure. Like, I mean, if you get off of a flight at like seven and you wanna go to bed at like 10, 10.30, then it's tough.

Like it's either you're gonna be hungry or just you do it. But I think an overarching principle I'll say that I'll wrap this up with is not being too attached to keeping these certain standards. Because I think that when you, you know, obsess over it too much, then your relationship with food

kind of just goes to a bad place. And I've had that happen to me before, but I've tried every single diet. And I can tell you there's not one right diet. It's just like different ways to do different things that have different pros and cons. Just some general principles. Eat some fruits, eat some vegetables, eat some meat. Make sure you get as an athlete, make sure you get enough protein. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And even carbs too. I think carbs get a bad rap these days with

carnivore and whatnot. I've experimented with it I think carbs are really important. You guys know PJF performance Paul februits. Yeah, I think I just You got some basketball players, right? Yeah On the show for sure. I just saw stuff the other day that dude is good Yeah, yeah, he he talks about a lot of this stuff as well This more holistic way of dealing with athletes. You gotta get them on. You gotta get them on.

You have to get them on for sure. You're probably, it's probably very normal for you to train twice a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like how long you've been training twice a day for you think? For the last almost decade, yeah. For sure.

I have a quick question. On the amount of carbs you eat, you know, it's funny, I was watching the sprint documentary and all the track athletes were like, people say carbs are bad, we need this, all the track athletes were eating a bunch of carbs, right? I mean, I don't think you count your calories,

but if you were to maybe have an estimate of how many carbs you might be eating a day on average, I know some days are less or more, how much do you think it ends up being? That's a good question. So that's actually why I just brought up PJF Performance because he had this post recently that went pretty viral and was really popular among athletes

where he was talking about how when athletes eat really clean, you saw this? Yeah, I saw it, I'll find it, I'll find it. So go ahead. Almost too extreme because I have so much activity type deal. Yeah, I saw it. I'll find it, I'll find it. So go ahead. Almost too extreme because I have so much activity type deal. Yeah, and because carbohydrates are, and this is for explosive athletes specifically,

because fast twitch muscle fibers are fed by carbohydrates. And so if you basically get into this place where you're eating salads and you're only eating meat and fruit and not, well, maybe not fruit, but you're eating meat and like things that aren't really carbohydrate rich that you can get to this place where you're not fueling those fast twitch fibers enough and so when you go to try and be explosive they just don't

have the same output. Here it is actually I think this is it. Crazy but I've actually heard this from numerous athletes I think I know what's going on here. It's not the clean eating that's the problem. It's the fact that you pack down way less calories when you get rid of processed foods and fast foods and foods that taste really, really good to you because those things you tend to just over consume and they're not the best for you, but they do help you meet your energy demands and your carbohydrate demands. Then you go to clean eating and you just can't pack down enough food due to increased satiety,

due to boredom, due to lack of meal prep. When we consistently under eat, we don't recover very well, our anabolic hormones go down, our catabolic or stress hormones go up, and we become weaker and we become less explosive. A lot of times when you start eating clean you also pack down way less explosive. A lot of times when you start eating clean, you also pack down way less carbohydrates. That's the number one fuel source for fast-twitch muscle fibers. So you shouldn't be surprised

that if you're not eating enough carbohydrates, that you feel less explosive. The final reason why I think a lot of people feel a lack of explosiveness or lack of energy, they feel over-trained the moment they go on that strict diet is a lack of sodium. You're sweating out a lot of sodium as an athlete and then we might not be replenishing it when we're eating super clean unless you're paying attention to adding salt to your foods,

maybe even take an electrolyte supplement. I like upper echelon, hydrate myself, but these are things to consider. Play the first few seconds now that, by the way, real quick. Losing your bounce on a strict diet. This sounds crazy, but I've actually... Just missed that part in the beginning, it wasn't planned, but yeah. Yeah, and then I think in a part two,

he went on to say that you should, in his recommendation, have an 80-20 ratio of eating good to eating whatever you want, and that typically will help you satisfy those energy demands. Yeah, it's really interesting. Two days a week, there'll be two or maybe sometimes three days a week,

depending on how hard the week is. Because I'll eat carbs, but some days I don't eat any. But there are two days where it could be 200 to maybe 300, sometimes more if it's been a hard week. And it's like my body can use that for a while where I don't need to eat 400 grams of carbs every day, but I have like a few days where it's a bit higher and that just boom, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it just refuel you. Yeah. Yeah, I'd also say that it's a skillset too, to like learn how to eat well, you know, and eat healthy food. So like people that just transition to healthy food, they're gonna almost feel bad the same way that someone that goes from healthy food to shitty food.

It's a skillset to be able to digest the proteins and be able to digest fibers and stuff. I mean, any of us, like the four of us, if we haven't been eating broccoli and then we just eat like a bunch of broccoli, it's gonna make this room smell pretty bad, right? So it's a skill set to be able to digest certain foods and then when it comes to health foods in particular,

when it comes to protein, it's a real skill set. It takes time, you can't really just tell someone who's only having 100 grams of protein to start to double their body weight in grams of protein, they're gonna be probably on the toilet all the time. Definitely. Where can people find you? Where can they find out more information about you?

Biggest platform is airduvi on Instagram. So A-I-R, like what we breathe, and then duvi, D-U-V-I. Thanks again for coming out. Appreciate it. Appreciate you guys. Strength is never weakness, weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.