Mark Bell's Power Project - What We Learned About Movement and Strength This Year Will Transform Your Workouts || MBPP Ep. 1116

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

In Episode 1116, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about all the things they learned this year on Mark Bell's Power Project, especially the new approach to movement and exercise.   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

If you could get either West African or Mexican descent urine, you'd be on the right track. We all have our different things that we're doing, but we're also paying attention to what is the thing that's going to maybe speed this up. I will do a squat. I will put a squat bar on my back probably, but I would probably choose to use a safety squat bar, a transformer bar. The biggest thing for me as far as movement and fitness and all this stuff,

and that is of course rope flow. Yeah, I'm loving the rope flow. Just do a little bit every day. It's helping me with my running and stuff like that too. I can feel it when I'm running. If you just try it for yourself and come to your own conclusion rather than waiting for a scientist to tell you it's okay, you'd realize the benefits. 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 gonna be something that helps the podcast move forward.

So if you can, leave us a review review there and enjoy the rest of the show. I don't know if I'm making the right move, but I got some copper cups the other day and now it tastes like I'm drinking pennies. I was going to ask that. You heard about any of this stuff? Yeah. Depressed glass I heard about too. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. Depressed glass? Maybe it needs an SSRI. There you go. Yeah, you put the methylene blue in the depressed glass and then you cheer it up, right? Yo, this has been a wild year in terms of like all the things that... We learn shit every year, but I think this year there's been so many things.

How about, you know, drinking your pee? Oh yeah, that's been great. Yeah, right? You notice like the gut... Like I noticed that after I started drinking my get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee.

I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee.

I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee.

I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. I'm gonna go get some coffee. more virile from drinking my urine. It was weird too. Like one of the doctors that we had on the show, he was like, if you could get either West African or Mexican descent urine, you'd be on the right track, Mark. And I was like, what the fuck? And so that's why I started blending your guys' urine together. And that's been helpful.

With energy, strength, I mean, everything's going up. Have you run out yet? Do you need more? I could use a little bit more at this point I'll get your refill. I couldn't stomach it I tried and I know you guys give me so much shit about like you got it like, you know Your palates all messed up. But like it also helps with your palate. I can't get over the hump though It's like I tried so hard

Sprayed piss all over the bathroom window or bathroom mirror. It's still there. Have you ever had sushi and you know like when they have ginger, like when you eat your sushi roll, you eat the ginger so it clears the palate? What you're supposed to do is when you're eating something like, what's your favorite meal? I don't know, maybe I should go for like a Flying Dutchman or something right now? Say it's a Flying Dutchman.

If you took a bite of that, took a little sip of piss, took another bite of that, then it's like the first off the taste stays. And it trains your brain. It trains your brain. And then also if you're trying to train your palate to like things like you don't like, for example, let's say cod liver, right? If you drink a little bit of urine before having cod liver,

you'll actually be able to stomach the cod liver better. Okay, so legit question, cause this is still new territory for me. So, you know, they have mustard fried hamburger patties. Could you urine fry some food to kind of like mix it in there so that way you don't really taste it but you get all the benefits. I think it's not supposed to be over 98 degrees you know because the human body is around there so yeah don't heat it up too much. Got it. What if you mix it with olive oil and you fried like put some olive oil? Like the extra

virgin or whatever? Yeah yeah yeah yeah, I think that'd probably help. Okay. Take some of the sting out of it. Makes a lot of sense. But actually on a more serious note, I actually did have like a weird thing of skin on like my knee and I actually did pee on it and it actually did go away. Very, very rapidly.

100% legit. I was like, oh, it's just right there. And I'm like, tink. Hose it down a little bit. Anytime I get a little something on my feet, like it's like, ah, it's getting a little itchy or something. It's like, damn, I hope I don't get like athlete's foot or something. Just in the shower, just kind of extend my foot and it goes away.

Get a little, are you serious now? One million percent serious. Yes. Oh really? Yeah. It just gets rid of it. There is something about that actually. It's the Mexican urine that Mark referenced. Yeah.

But you're not, hey, we learned this year, we learned a lot of things, but Mexicans don't exist was kind of a shock. Yeah, I was like, well, I guess I'm not real. Wait, who told you, who, I remember somebody said that. Jack Cruz. Oh my God. But he, there is like the descent of where Mexican people came from is a little controversial or something like that, right? Yeah

Aztec versus yeah We won't get into the the history lesson, but yeah, it's just like there was a Group of people here group of people over here. They came over here raped a lot of people. Hey Mexicans So that's why a lot of a, hey Mexicans. Oh God. So that's why a lot of Mexicans are kind of angry. Born out of hatred basically. Yeah. Oh, by the way, it's the urea in the urine that I didn't realize.

And it's in like every beauty product I guess. It's in all kinds of skin products. Yeah. There you go, tip of the day. Mm-hmm. Whoa. Whoa. That was my watch. No, was my watch. Time to eat. Too much good information.

We are getting into some serious stuff from what we learned from the podcast this year. Yeah, I was just thinking the other day, I had a revelation. I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. And I just felt like that's a good move for me. So it doesn't mean I don't squat. I still squat, squat all the time, squat all the time. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again.

I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again.

I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular back squat with a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular barbell ever again. I'm not going to do a regular barbell ever again. And I just felt like that's a good move for me. So it doesn't mean I don't squat. I still squat, squat all the time, squatted yesterday, did a lot of belt squats. I still have legs day or still train my legs. But even legs day isn't legs day

because I don't want to annihilate my legs. I just want to give them a good stimulus and then move on to something else. You know, that statement though, I think is like a very big deal coming from you, because first off, you were a huge power lifter. You made a living off of squatting some heavy weights. You mean fat.

Well, I mean, do you think you were fat? No, I thought I looked great. So you... Okay. I mean, maybe compared to a professional bodybuilder, I was fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought I looked great. You can tell that you just haven't come to terms with the times, huh? That's like, you know, that's like, you're very, you're very 2025 Gen Z.

Because they'd be like, I'm not fat. Love me as I am. Exactly. Okay, Mark. I was ahead of my time. What were you gonna say? I still train the legs, still get a good stimulus doing stuff, but just kind of, just out of all the guests we've had over the years

and just research and my own lifting and so on, I just have decided I don't really need that particular movement. I will do a squat, I will put a squat bar on my back probably, but I would probably choose to use a safety squat bar, transformer bar, a Duffalo bar, or a cambered bar of some sort. Just because the arrangement of my shoulders and everything

when I'm in that position of a squat, it's just way more comfortable with these other barbells. So that's how I kind of came to that conclusion. Yeah, no, I think that's one thing that's been huge this year too. And one thing to think about the way that any of you lift is first off, you don't have to be married to a specific movement, but you want to find things

that are going to serve you towards your specific goals, but not necessarily do it because everybody thinks that that's the thing to do. So like you saying, I'm not gonna do the traditional squat anymore, somebody's gonna hear that and be like, oh, Mark's going crazy or, you know, can't believe that. But at the same time, it's like, does it serve you anymore?

No, you're not a competing power lifter. You have different goals as far as movement and that's just not helping you. So why force yourself to do it? Right, exactly. And why force yourself to do things that maybe are no longer like feeling great either, you know? Just getting under the bar and getting in certain positions

with the squat just at a certain time just wasn't feeling great to me. So, you know, time to move on to different things and to find different patterns. But additionally, just with my lifting. Functional patterns. Everything's gotta be functional. I, you know, actually have always found that term

to be really interesting when you talk about functional movement, because I've said before, like, show me a movement that's not functional. Like, why can your body do it? Why would it be a dysfunction? Like, even if somebody walks around on the inside of their ankle bone, it's not necessarily just pure dysfunction,

but that's a movement pattern of the human anatomy, of the human body. We have a lot of different ways we can move, and we've seen examples of it on all different kinds of levels. We've seen, there's marathon runners with really jacked up form. There's high level

Olympians with form that's not considered to be great. And they're doing awesome without their movements being particularly super functional according to a book or someone, an authority. This year, one of the podcasts that did really well for good reason was our conversation with Functional Patterns, which I suggest everybody go check out. I know I've been critical of them, but they're doing amazing work with people.

And I'll always sing their praises with the work that they do and the different concepts that they provide for the community, because they provide so many things that the community should look for. But one thing that I think I've just really, my mind is always willing to be changed if I'm given enough, if I work at something enough

and I notice something. But one thing that hasn't changed necessarily is like, I do not think that there is any problem with developing many different types of strength. I think Functional Patterns actually, they do a good job of educating people on different ways you can move with load and different things that you can do. But unfortunately, there is a totally, you know, there's a, the kind of shit on traditional lifting. And this is the thing, I think that there are aspects of traditional lifting that I don't take part in either, but I still will use a squat in a different way.

Like we mentioned, I will still deadlift certain things, but in a different way. These things aren't gone. They help you bolster your structure. We had this whole podcast where we talked about Barry Sanders realizing that being able to squat was the thing that kept him safe in the NFL. So what I'm saying here is like, I just realized that there are so many ways to improve your movement ability and there is no reason to totally demonize something. Although we should call it out. And one thing that I think is necessary to call out is like overdoing the neutral spine in training when lifting weights. Overdoing loading that position when training and lifting weights.

Because you see it reflected in how many people move where they don't move their spine well when walking or running or trying to bend down and tie their shoe. Like they're very stiff. So you can, you can, if you look at that and you are that person you got to be like Maybe I should shift something here doesn't mean I can't do any of this anymore But I should do different things to improve my human movement ability I think for a lot of young people that are getting into sport, you know it's a weird time to get into different sports because I think Years ago kids would play multiple sports But now a lot of sports and you played played soccer where they kind of had travel ball

like for a pretty long time. And it's been like, you know, adopted in like baseball, but like pretty much most of sports that you play, even at a pretty young age are almost a year round now. And so you don't have the opportunity. You do have the opportunity, but it just puts you in a weird predicament of maybe not being able to start,

maybe not being able to play, plus you wanna be with your friends. Like there's kind of a whole thing to it. And so kids don't get the variety of different sports anymore. And kind of because of that, kids also probably need to figure out a way to train in order to keep up since people are playing the sport

so often. And then that leads kids into the weight room and then you get kids like benching,. And then that leads, you know, kids into the weight room and you get kids like benching, squatting, deadlifting, power cleans, all those things are amazing. But maybe they could, maybe they could fast forward their efforts. Maybe they can get better efforts faster if they kind of understood like strength is one part of it, but conditioning and mobility is another huge part of it. And I think for most sports, from what I've seen over the years,

and even just myself when I was younger, I didn't really understand the conditioning side of it that well. I didn't really realize, you know, some of these athletes, you just kind of forget how well conditioned they are. Even a football player, you have some rest in between each snap of the ball and everything like that and the linemen and stuff like that.

They're not running really far, but these are explosive movements every single play, every single time done 60, 70 times a game. Plus you're running into people. Like there's a lot of other things that are happening. And so strength is cool. Being kind of strong and being explosive is very, very important.

It's like one of the most important things, but your conditioning is also really important. That's why I think we're seeing so many NFL players nowadays just getting kind of annihilated because people don't have the conditioning, because I don't think that people have the same base that they did years ago, because I think people are just playing the same sport all the time.

And then when you're getting in the gym, I don't know if there's enough attention to... I think there is now, but it's going to take a while for that to start to hit the younger audience. Yeah. By the way, guys, it's going to be good to check out the podcast we did with CJ Kowalski. Not Kowalski, Kowalski. I really hope I said that right. Katie Bowman, Functional Patterns. We went into a lot of movement stuff in those podcasts. But did you talk about any of this with Fred Duncan? Yeah, we had a great conversation with Fred Duncan about all kinds of stuff. And he was, you know, Fred does a really great job

of kind of like breaking down like, you know, what each sport needs and all those kinds of things. But he's really big into, I guess you would say, almost like air dovey. He's a huge fan of exercises that are that look really simple, that are actually kind of hard. And so Fred is a huge fan of just so many of the movements we grew up doing, skipping, you know, hopping side to side,

you know, high knees, butt kicks, like all these things. I did a bunch of this yesterday before I did some 400 meter sprints. And you know, I went through it. I took my time. I wasn't like trying to go fast or anything, but that kind of stuff gives you tremendous amounts of conditioning, that's GPP, general physical preparedness.

And when you start to, you know, an example of it would be like if the three of us just went and practiced with the soccer team and we just went through some drills before they actually started like practice, practice, we would all be pretty tired. You know, even though you played it, Andrew's probably played it,

I've never really played soccer, but we would all be pretty like winded and then they'd be like, all right, now it's time for practice to start because we don't have, we're not doing it like currently, you know? But we do, all three of us do have a general preparedness. So we would be able to do it,

not like we would totally die, but somebody without that preparedness would really start to fall apart. And so having that base is huge. Yeah, one of the like bigger key moments of this year that I've noticed just from all the guests, and this is, I mean, I think the whole podcast is like you can kind of unwind almost

anything. We just had the podcast where I asked that question, like, can't you just go all in on one thing and then unwind it later? And both of you said like, well, if you get too far away from it, it's just going to create more problems later, which makes total sense. But seeing different people at different ages, and then just the way that I've learned how to speak to myself because of this podcast, which is like, even before we started, I was like, yeah, my shoulder hurts when I do this,

but when I turn my, I don't even remember which way, my wrist a certain way, it doesn't hurt. What is that? So now it's like, we know that there's paths for all of this stuff. It's just a matter of like actually exploring them instead of, oh, when I bench, my shoulder hurts. You know, then it's like, yeah, that's right.

End it with the period, right? Like Mark says, end it with the question mark. My shoulder hurts when I bench? Like, wait a second, okay, well, let's explore that. Instead of, yeah, that's just what happens, bro. Like, yeah, shit happens, you know? That's just, it's gonna catch up to all of us. But now it's almost like a superpower where almost any ailment, we can look back at any

of our episodes and be like, what did that guy say about the knee or something? Can I use that for my shoulder? I think I can. You know? And so just kind of like, I don't want to like get like conspiracy theory type stuff, but like it makes you really look at everything that we've been quote taught. Like, I think that's kind of all bullshit. Like, I think we can kind of figure anything out and we can like use all the people that

we've had on the show as examples as to like, no, actually, yeah, we kind of can. Yeah. Yeah. I hope that people that are listening to the show understand that we're really just trying to give solutions. You know, and that's why we might be critical of a guest or that that's why we may be agreeable with a guest as well because we're trying to provide people

with options and solutions. And when somebody says their shoulder hurts from benching, one option is to not bench. But for some people, they don't like that option, the option to not do jujitsu, or the option to not run because your ankle hurts or whatever. But you should be aware of the options

because the options actually might be something that would actually progress you and make you way better. Because like, what is the root cause of your shoulder hurting on the bench press? Maybe there's some sort of weakness or maybe there's some sort of neglect. Usually it's neglect. Usually you're neglecting something.

Are you training your back muscles as much? Are you training the smaller muscles, the shoulders as much? Are you training your triceps? Is there some sort of lack of mobility? Usually when someone's shoulder hurts, you'll find that their internal external rotation, there's usually something off with some of that somewhere. And that doesn't really mean just to, you know,

hammer out a bunch of internal external rotation exercises, but it wouldn't hurt to explore it. It wouldn't hurt to try it. And that's what we're always trying to share here on the Power Project is this idea of like, let's just explore, let's just explore. Let's just try a couple things. Did it work? Did it make you feel better? Was it helpful? And most of the time when it comes to injuries,

it seems like somebody just taking time off of that very specific thing has the hugest impact by far. There's nothing even comes close to comparing to that. But you can still do mimickers of your sport. You can still do other things. So that's why we talk about rope flow. That's why you see me trolling around a towel. That's why you might see like a lot of different things from us, a lot of different exercises,

because if you only do the sport, if I just go and sprint like I did yesterday, every day, I'm gonna be hurt really fast. I'm not gonna be able to last very long. And I think I wanna mention this because we're gonna get to more stuff, more specifics, but that is a theme of our show. That is a theme of our show.

We like, you know, you go back four or five years ago, you see us talking about a lot of lifting stuff. We still talk about a lot of lifting stuff, but we are always curious, always exploring. Some people will actually make comments about some of our stuff and be like, oh, these guys found another fad or look, they found another fad. And it's, I find that somewhat unfortunate because the thing is, is we are looking, there are many solutions. There are many ways to get the desired outcome that

you're looking for. And what we're trying to find is we each have different goals. Andrew has goals in terms of jujitsu. I have goals in terms of jujitsu and the things that I do. Mark, you have your goals as far as sprinting and stuff. We all have our different things that we're doing, but we're also paying attention to what is the thing that's going to maybe speed this up for us or allow us to make smoother progress towards that goal. Because if we kept squatting, deadlifting and benching and lifting in the traditional way that we were years ago, none of us would be where we are right now physically.

I mean, fuck, you're doing fucking jujitsu and you're a blue belt. I have my black belt now. I'm stronger than I've ever been and I'm sprinting and I have all these capacities. You're fucking sprinting and doing all these different things and getting out of pain and you're more mobile and flexible than you've probably been in a very long time. And it's only come from the constant exploration

and never thinking that we have all the answers. So it's not a fad, it's being curious and putting things under the fire to test them. And if something is a little's not a fad, it's being curious and putting things under the fire to test them. And if something is a little bit of a fad, there ain't nothing wrong with that. Fuck, whatever. It's okay if something- Like drinking pee. It's okay if something kind of comes and goes,

it's all right. Like if you start to do something for a little while and tons of other people do it, did you enjoy it for that period of time? You know, maybe you find out that it wasn't useful, but that's kind of the science of this whole thing. There is a, we could say we don't love studies or we don't love science, but we're really lying because we're all practicing science all the time because we're always questioning our own beliefs, our own knowledge to try to expand, to grow, to get closer to a truth

of things that we think are gonna advance us and put us in the best position possible. And we don't leave it to research to tell us what to do. Like that's a constant thing with us. Like the science is good, but if I were relying on strength science or the stuff that a lot of like what is you're telling stuff, if I was just relying on those things, I would be moving like those people do.

And I don't want to move like... I've said this on the last podcast, but I don't pay attention to how somebody just looks. I pay attention to how they move. And when they're moved, like when I see that they move like the fucking Tin Man, that they can't do shit, you know what I mean? I realize I don't want what you're doing. I'll pay attention to aspects of what you're doing because there may be aspects of hypertrophy that I can bring into what I do.

That's gonna help me out, but I don't want everything you have. Because I'm trying to be better. Yeah, when it comes to fads, trends and all that stuff, I think it's silly to not explore something because when you get the reps in on certain things, like I'm just going to use like barefoot shoes as like a fad or a trend. It's like, well, we implemented it and now it's just a part of the thing. So it's no longer like, oh, I got to do this, I got to do that. And then I got like, oh my gosh, I got to change my whole life around. It's like, well, no, we've been kind of leveling

up little by little. and now it's like, it's just another thing we don't even have to think about. But with trying out different things, when something does come along, we can be like, I don't know. Okay, I can see a couple things here and there. And then when we see something else, we're like, oh shoot, I gotta try it all.

Like, yes, sign me up, let's get the best person in the building and let's learn from them that only comes if you actually are getting the reps in and trying more things as opposed to What does the science say? Okay hypertrophy? This guy over here says fuck with the cable. That's stupid. No, I'm just gonna go do some I don't know some satchel plane stuff. I Think it was like 1995 or 1996 or so when I first did the ketogenic diet. And I've talked about it for many years.

I wrote the book The War on Carbs and the keto diet won't die. It will never die because it's too useful. It's too helpful. This year we had one of our guests on the show was talking about how it can be used for severe mental illnesses. Unbelievable. And then just the other day, Nick Norwitz made a post where he talked about the ketogenic diet

being a treatment potentially for multiple sclerosis. I have a hard time saying that. Sclerosis. Sclerioresis. Yeah. And so, I have a hard time saying that. Sclerosis. Sclerioriasis. Yeah, and so I mean, it's just, there's a lot of things that we've talked about on the show and we didn't invent these things. We didn't like, we may have been like early adopters

of some of these things, but they're all things that are gonna stick around for a really long time. Something like red light, something like cold. Chris Palmer, by the way. Chris Palmer. I just want, I wanna get you. Yeah, Dr. Chris Palmer. I just want, I want to. Yeah, Dr. Chris Palmer, make sure you check out that episode. And I also want to mention this real quick.

Don't forget, you're about to go on Red Light and Cold, but when it does come to that, that has been a huge thing for me in my life because I have somebody in my life who has schizophrenia and they were able to implement the ketogenic diet and lose a lot of weight and they're actually mentally feeling better. And back to the study thing,

I wanna mention this, because I mentioned it before, Lane was critical of Dr. Chris Palmer because of some things that Chris Palmer mentioned. He's like, well, we don't know if it's the ketogenic diet or if it's a caloric restriction. And this is why I think that it's just necessary for people to not just depend on what studies say,

like if you were in need, put things to the fire, put things to the test. Because if there's somebody that needs a change and they see a post from Dr. Lane Norton saying that it's not helpful, then they might not take the step towards actually changing their mental health because this doctor said that it probably isn't, you know, it's there, we don't know. You know what I mean?

And it's not like Chris Palmer saying we absolutely know, but Chris Palmer's getting people results by applying, getting people with mental illness, getting people with schizophrenia, results by applying the ketogenic diet. And then we have another doctor over here saying, oh, we need the studies. Like, fuck, try things.

We know how useful it is for diabetes as well. And then there's, it seems like with type two diabetes, it's also linked to Alzheimer's and dementia. Your rate increases a ton when you're already diabetic that you might end up with like memory loss and all these other things. And the ketogenic diet again, another victory for the ketogenic diet

seems to work really great for that. And yeah, there probably does need to be a little bit more research on like, oh, you don't have to calorie restrict or something like that. I don't mind that, yeah. But a ketogenic diet, one of the things that's interesting about it

is not all the time, but many, many times, it's just a switch. It's a small switch of like, hey, can you, all right, I know I'm telling you not to have all these sugars and different things, right? But you get to have bacon. And you get to have some cheese, and you get to have some fatty meats and things like that. You get to eat, you know, chicken with skin on it. And you get to eat all these— There's a lot of really nice options, right?

You know how much of a difference that makes. Chicken with the skin on. Oh man. It's a huge difference. I made some wings the other day. They were ungodly. Oh, before I forget, this is super important. Did you guys see the guy poop his pants in the football game? No.

The guy shit himself in the football game and I told my wife, I said, this guy got things confused. You're supposed to eat buffalo wings while you're watching football, not while you're playing football. And I think that's what this guy might've did. I put it on my Instagram.

The guy shit himself making a tackle during the game. Shit. Poor guy. That's a force to cause like his coaches, he was probably like, coach, please. And coach was like, no. And it's just, aw man. Like, no, please. And the coach was like, no. And it's just, aw man.

Like, no, you said you were sick. You can't go in. That's like, dude, that's gotta be so tough though. Cause like, I mean, if I had to poop while having to do jujitsu, I just like, I don't do it. These guys are like, look, he pooped himself. Oh no. You see him like spray his...

Oh no. That sucks. Dude, before, look, he pooped himself. He seemed like spray is a... Oh no! That sucks. Dude, before... Oh, damn. Oh, that's smelly too. You know, they're all sweating and sh... Oh, yeah. Game over.

He couldn't even probably come back into the game. I wonder what happened to him. And white? Like that? Yeah. Light. Oh, dude, poor guy. You know, just a couple things, you know,

that we talk about a lot that have become popular that maybe people think are fads. You know, you got cold and red light. We're talking a lot about the sun. I'm wearing these weird glasses, barefoot, but even like powerlifting, you know, powerlifting. Somebody made a comment the other day about, I posted that thing with David Goggins

where David Goggins, you Goggins was laughing his ass off about the weights that I did when I was powerlifting. And somebody just mentioned like, hey, would you do raw? Like they weren't being a dick or anything. They just said, hey, would you do raw? And I kind of like, almost forgot to,

I almost forget these things sometimes, but raw powerlifting was basically invented in super training gym. There was no category for raw powerlifting was basically invented in super training gym. There was no category for raw powerlifting back in the day. And when I started having running powerlifting competitions, there was only like one, I think there was one powerlifting federation that had a raw division.

And that was the SPF, Southern Powerlifting Federation. And so I joined forces with them and we started to have raw powerlifting meets. But no one fucking cared about raw powerlifting federation. And so I joined forces with them and we started to have raw powerlifting meets, but no one fucking cared about raw powerlifting at all until myself and Stan Efferding started to kind of go on this like campaign and Stan, you know, wanted to break these all time world records at 275 and 308. And he did. And then you had Dan Green and you had all these other guys, all these other monsters

start to come into the fold. We had the backyard meat of the century, part one and two. And that's where raw powerlifting really exploded. So you might think some of the stuff we talk about as a fad, but it's like, no, like look at the history. Look at the history of the stuff that we have going on here. It just, it continues to grow. It really continues to grow.

And things might come and go a little bit. Like I just imagine like red light and some of the stuff that we know about these like glasses and stuff, it's just gonna advance. And so we'll probably have better understanding of what's really actually effective. Cause even like EMR tech, they're making some of their light fixtures now have UVA and UVB light as well.

So you're getting some of the aspects of the sun on top of just getting the red light therapy. So I think over time we're going to start to learn like what's bullshit what actually works, but I mean just try some cold therapy. Turn your shower to cold for 30 seconds. Go into a cold plunge, go into a cold lake or something like that or the ocean and just tell me that you come out of there and just you tell me that it made no difference. Yeah. That's cool. Tell me that.

This is why I love us doing this podcast. We had Dr. Jack Cruz on. We just recently had Alexis Cohen on who's a, she's a doctor and she has, I think she's in a lab where they research light and many other things 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 While your sleep quality is compromised. That's why we partner with the best mouth tape in the game Hostage tape if you have a beard it, hostage tape. If you have a beard, it's going to stay on.

If you have a CPAP, it's going to stay on. This tape is not going to 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 powerproject 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 nail strips as well as a bedside tin. Again, that's at hostage tape.com slash power project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. We were talking and we've been doing cold therapy for years.

We've been using the red light stuff for years, red light glasses. And back then, I think three years ago, fucking three half, four years ago, people are like, oh, this is a scam. Oh, like look at these guys. Not realizing that we are getting benefit from this. We feel the difference when you put on some red light before we go to sleep, or not red light, but we have some glasses before going to sleep, like bam.

And now there's more research coming out how beneficial these things are, more protocols for cold about how it affects your health positively. And people are like, oh, okay, there's something to it. But the thing is, is like, if you, I'm not speaking to our audience, but if y'all motherfuckers just try it,

if you just try it for yourself and come to your own conclusion rather than waiting for a scientist to tell you it's okay, you'd realize the benefits. You know, if you try some Myofast Release, even though a coach says, oh, it only makes you feel good, and then you heal yourself, maybe you wouldn't think that Myofast Release doesn't work

because you gotta put it to the test on yourself. You have to. It's the NPC mentality. I like that. It's harsh NPC mentality. I like that. It's harsh, but you're only going to do what, you know, so, and the reason why I say that, because I don't remember exactly what Layne Norton said that he flip flopped on. We're always pulling Layne up. Because he will, he'll be very like, this is the end all be all because of what the study says.

And he will do his due diligence. He'll read study after study after study. And he said this on Andrew Heberman's podcast. I'm sorry, I don't remember what the subject was. But he will say it's not just one study that will convince him. Sorry. It's not just one thing. He'll read one study.

Okay, it was in favor of the thing I not just one thing. He'll read one study, oh, okay, it was in favor of the thing I thought the opposite of. He'll read another study, oh, damn, that's two now. And he'll just keep going back to it. So he will have one stance and tell everybody this is the stance. And then he will let science change that stance and then be like, oh, actually,

I think this science does prove otherwise. But I just think that it's not okay to then just all of a sudden tell everybody, this is the way it is, don't do anything different until the studies say otherwise. Because I just think like, what an opportunity for many people to get benefits from the thing that like might show some evidence,

but in practice is actually showing a lot of results, I think is kind of like, it's a bummer, right? And it creates that NPC mentality where you're only gonna do the thing that everyone else is doing because you're not gonna be thinking for yourself. And I think this is the way to look at it because I think it's good that we have guys like Lane,

Dr. Andrew Huberman, all these people that pay attention to the studies and put forward what the studies are saying. Hear it, understand it, and then try the shit you wanna try. Use yourself as your N of one. Put it to the test on yourself. Because you might find like,

I eat a lot of red meat and saturated fat, I have perfect APO-B. You might eat a lot of red meat and saturated fat, and you might have your APO-B might fucking skyrocket. And you have to treat yourself like an N of one, and you cannot do everything just based off of what studies say. If there's something contrary to that

that you think might be beneficial for your health because you are your best, you're the best practitioner for yourself, right? And you can't do things that just everyone's doing just because a paper says so, but it's good to pay attention to it. I'm not saying we'd be saying be oblivious, but try shit.

Yeah, and just walking and getting outside, I think is just, people getting sunlight and stuff like that, I think that, I think in this country, we have a little bit of a misunderstanding. I think here in Sacramento, it gets to be closer to the spring or summertime, and then people want to go and they want to get the UV light when it's its highest. And then they go lay out, but then they lay out with sunscreen on. It's kind of confusing. It's like, well, wait a second.

Obviously, if you're not used to it, you're not conditioned to it, you wouldn't want to go out when the UV is the highest because you want to develop over a period of time some sort of solar callus, some sort of relationship to the sun so you don't burn up. But I think that getting outside routinely is so huge. It's like, it's hard to even put into words, but even the ancient stoic philosophers,

supposedly they just walked and walked and walked. They probably had nothing else to do because they didn't have technology and have TVs and all that other shit that we have now and internet and whatever. But they walked a lot and there's a lot to those stoic philosophers in their journals and these different things of them just walking for miles and miles every single day. So I'm not saying everyone's got to walk a tremendous amount, but just get outside, try to find ways to calm down, try to find ways. I know for Ensima has a great practice, pretty much every time we're done with the podcast, you're usually right outside,

right away. And sometimes you're just sitting down and you're on your laptop. Sometimes you're even just not doing anything, just relaxing. You're not even like running out there to train necessarily. And I think that if people can get that into their mind, I think that would be a huge health benefit. I think a day or two ago, it was like kind of rainy, like maybe Sunday or so. It was kind of rainy here.

And I looked outside and I was like, oh crap I was like I'm gonna go out anyway, and I went on a little bit of a walk in the morning It was you know kind of shitty out but then maybe like two or three hours later The Sun pops out and it was a beautiful day and I was thinking like there's probably so many people that would discourage to like Go and do their normal morning thing that saw the Weather this way. Then they went to work

and they're kind of trapped inside all day. And they never really had the opportunity to enjoy the sun, you know, the way that they could have on that particular day. But it's a lot warmer out than you think. I know certain areas get cold, but you know, I took a walk around here. It was 50 degrees, popped the shirt off. Again, I realized there's some areas it's like 35 degrees and shit like that, it gets

to be cold, cold. But get some exposure to the outside, it's really beneficial. I'm not going to be surprised if corporate jobs in like maybe the next five years start having lamps in cubicles and lamps above in offices that do some of what the sun does. Hospitals would be huge. People feel so much worse. Even when you visit someone at the hospital, you feel sick. You don't want to be in there, man. All those bright ass lights everywhere.

It's already starting. So again, the company that I brought up with Alexis Cohen, Chroma, they make like office, like they're kind of like circular lights for your desk, right? And they don't have any of the blue light. They're freaking an amazing company that's doing some really cool things. But yeah, you're absolutely right. I believe that an employer is going to recognize like, wait a second, when my employees get sunlight, their performance goes through the roof. How do we, okay, skylights everywhere. Let's get rid of these fucking flickering,

you know, fluorescent bulbs. And, you know, again, hopefully I don't overdo it, but like, or like overwork people. But I mean, if I'm a business owner, that's what I'm doing. Instantly. Yeah. I'm, I cannot remember what the hell it's called, but they used to build everything many, many years ago with the outdoors in mind, especially in areas where you could get outside a little bit more where the weather was a little bit nicer, but they would basically square everything off. It would be like a square

and then be like hollowed out in the middle. So it'd have like, the building would be around the outside and the middle would be a place where you can go and get sun and for some reason, whatever the hell that name of that design's not coming to my head. Like a courtyard type thing? Like a courtyard, boom, there you go.

Yeah, so things like that have been around for a long time and if you have access to anything like that and if you're in an office space and you can get yourself outside, that'd be awesome. And if for some reason you can't, see if you can get one of those lights at your desk or something like that. Yeah, that's definitely been the biggest thing for me this year.

Like I've already been like, yeah, I do wanna avoid blue light, but I didn't know exactly how bad it was. It was just one of those things where it's like, hey, if I can, it's like the scoop of creatine, let me just do what I'm supposed to do. And like, you know, this is like a, another, uh, point on the scoreboard, but then after Jack Cruz and then, you know, just all this stuff that we're not Mexican. So I'm not Mexican. Maybe I am, but I don't, I'm, that's no such, I

don't know whatever he said, but once I had my son and then thinking about my daughter being on her phone all the time, I'm just like, oh my gosh, there's blue light everywhere. You start going down the rabbit holes of what conditions can occur. And then for myself, I called it self-diagnosed and self-induced ADHD with my phone. And I'm like, oh my God, this makes so much sense.

And then you start just noticing all kinds of things, how it's like, dude, even my car is just nothing but blue light. If I get out of my car, all the streetlights is just all fake ass lights. Like all of it, it's just surrounding us. And it's like, no wonder why I've been depressed for so many years. I've been working inside under fluorescent bulbs for a majority of my life. And it's like, Oh, what if I get outside? I feel better.

Holy, what? How come nobody else is talking about this? It's like, oh, it's a whole industry behind it. You know, okay, I don't wanna get into that right now. But for me, that has been by far the biggest change of my life this year, for sure. The other night had our, what's the company? The Daylight Co. computer finally came in.

My son was playing like, I don't know, some game on it. Cause this was, you know, it's a tablet. So it's like, he's like a tablet baby now. But it was the first time where finally, finally, finally, finally, after trying to figure this out for months, there was not one single blue light on in my house. It was nothing but red lights,

you know, that we had like lamps and stuff. And then the, what's it called again? Daylight computer. Daylight computer was on. There was no TV, there was no artificial blue lights. It was just, everything was all red. And I just took a step back and I'm like, ah, finally.

Like, you know, I'm just thinking like, my dogs are gonna get bigger. My son's gonna get bigger and, finally, like, you know, I'm just thinking like my dogs are going to get bigger, my son's going to get bigger and he's not going to, you know, develop any weird like addictions towards blue screens. Hopefully that right there has been the biggest thing because I'm like, this is good for me. This is good for my family. And this is like really, really good for our future. And it's stuff that again was kind of like, oh, that's just like quack science or whatever, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah. And now it's like, now it's like, wait a second.

And so again, it's one of those things where I don't have to switch my whole life over after reading an article and being freaked out. It's like, oh, I could just go hit that switch, you know, and we're good and just keep building and adding onto that because we dipped our toes in, oh, I feel better. Damn, I need to get rid of all the blue light now, indoors. And again, it's the end of one or whatever,

but fuck it, it's my experiment, so I'm gonna take it. I think people looking to get away from maybe bad habits, it'd be a really great place to look, is get yourself some red light glasses, get yourself some yellow glasses. The whole red light thing can be a little bit confusing. Basically the gist of it is that you can use red lights in your home.

You can have just red light bulbs that aren't anything special, they're just red. And those are gonna be less harmful to have on later on in the evening. And then same thing with wearing red light blocking or blue light blocking glasses. But you want to get a pair of yellow glasses and a pair of red glasses. Because the red glasses make it very, they make it way more difficult to see. And if you're trying to like watch TV or something, like everything's gonna be just a different color,

that's usually the way I watch TV because I just deal with it. But for some people, they might want the yellow. But what I've found is this can pull you away from addiction and this can pull you away from just being stuck in the same old habits all the time. I find myself like, I wanna do more stuff. It's the end of the night.

I feel relaxed just as I always have in the past, but I'm like, ah, I feel like going outside. I just wanna go on a walk. I'll take my dog outside or I'll just hang out outside for a few minutes. Let's look at the moon. I'll walk around in my front yard a little bit and then I'll just go back inside.

I'm not like exercising. I'm not like doing a bunch of pushups or anything crazy. I'm just kind of relaxing in a different way. And I was just thinking the other day, I'm like, I just need different strategy other than just like plopping down in front of the TV. It's like what I've known since the time I was a kid that later on the evening and after dinner,

that's sort of just what you do. And so I'm like, you know what? And I think the blue light blocking glasses, I think was the start of it. Because I think it keeps you hooked into so many different things that you're completely unaware of. Your bad food habits are probably connected

to blue light pretty heavily. Like heavier than you fucking think. I mean, think about it. Like you play a video game And what do you do like you have like some snacks with you, right? I'm gonna sit down like game against your buddies without like a bunch of shit next to you, right? Mm-hmm No, no what she mentioned right there is is huge. You know what's funny my girlfriend. She she's a bikini competitor She's she's into fitness. I've been telling her like she sleeps like 10 hours a night

Okay, so she already slept a lot, which is great for her. But there have been phases where she would be like, fuck, I'm waking up at 3 a.m., I can't fall back asleep, or, ah, I found it so hard to fall asleep last night, I'm like, where are the glasses? She's like, I hate those glasses. She was super resistant to them for such a long time. And then she started wearing the glasses.

And then after a few months, I didn't say anything about it when I'd see her just like, you know, using the glasses while we're just chilling and watching TV. I was like, well, hey, hey Sam, how do you feel with those glasses? She's like, fuck you. I ain't trying to say I told you so babe, but I mean, like, I mean, she's like, yeah,

I sleep better and I wake up better and... You just gotta, you gotta try these things. You gotta put them to the test. And you'll notice it'll make a difference for you. Even though it's annoying, because like, when I first started wearing it, I was annoyed because I was like, I wanna see the colors of the show. Like, I like the colors. But you shouldn't want the colors right before you go to bed.

And you're right, it does encourage different types of activity, like, you know, you'll start to feel more tired or you'll get up and like, I like to move around and stuff too, but yeah, man, it's a big deal. I think over the next year, 2025, 2026, you're gonna start seeing more stuff on Huberman, Diary of a CEO, these bigger podcasts are gonna be talking about light and I'm happy about it.

But I just hope that the people that are listening to this right now, start doing something right now without waiting for somebody, I mean, I know we just told you, but just try for yourself. Look at the shine up that our buddy David Herrera got from being on- Judy Mufu? Yeah, for doing stuff with Jujimufu.

Amazing information and just to kind of reiterate just a couple things... You guys also just say shine up? You didn't say glow. You said shine up. I said shine up. He got shined up. Did you make that up? Oh, wait. What do you mean? I don't know. Maybe I did make it up. You just made him shine up. I like it.

He got shined up. I've never heard that before. So blue light can negatively impact your glucose levels. Obviously, I think it's pretty, it's like not well known, but it seems to be fairly connected to people just being a little bit more depressed, people just wanting to stay inside more. I think it's kind of connecting you to being inside.

I did mention, I think it's connected to a lot of addictions, but red light therapy on the other hand, it's like the opposite. Red light therapy is a nice boost of energy and red light also is something that is more of a positive for your glucose levels. So even just something like being in the sun can help you, that can help your metabolism because it's helping your mitochondria, which can just help you be more energy efficient.

And don't take it from me because I don't know how to word it as well as guys like David Herrera, Jack Cruz, and Alexis Cohen that we've had on the show. So check out those episodes for sure. Mitochondrial health. Another thing that like I think some people are talking about, but you're going to be hearing a lot more that soon too. Right. So again, these are things to try to pay attention to. These are things to try to optimize in your life right now. That's why all these peptides are coming out that are like for your mitochondria.

They're they're all like, you know, stimulating stuff that you could do kind of naturally just by getting sunlight and by utilizing the cold. You don't have to inject yourself with LMNOP 33. You can just start to implement some really healthy habits. Yeah. Anything else you guys want to say on light because there's something else, but- Yeah, just real quick. Go for it. No, no, go quick, you're good.

The thing that I'm super excited about with the whole shift that we've learned with, or not shift, but the whole concept of trying to avoid blue light when we should avoid blue light, and then taking in red light when we shouldn't have red light, and then the spectrums of the different red lights. Going back to when you said you started keto, there wasn't a keto bomb, you couldn't go to the store and get something that was quote keto friendly, even though some of those things are kind of like going in the wrong direction.

But what I'm hoping for next year, again, Daylight Co. I think is a huge start for it. Get Chroma is another great start for it. EMR Tech, another amazing start. But I want to be able to log into Amazon and then go to like an Amazon storefront and it just is like blue block your house. It's got it's already got light bulbs, right, which is really easy, but like outdoor light bulbs, TV covers, right, like the screens, right? Yeah, is that exist?

They they somewhat they exist kind of like my glasses where it doesn't really do much, but it is a thing. But they're very expensive, and I don't think they do a good enough job. So what I did is I got some film to cover mine, so it looks orangish, but it's not completely blue. And is it like that all the time, though? All the time, yeah, there's no chance.

And I have the brightness down as low as possible. How Stephanie and Jasmine feel about this, just curious. Ain't no way I got a choice. I'm a fucking man. Yeah. No, it's a bummer during the day because if a window's open and there's a movie's on and it's a dark scene or something, you can't see it.

That's on purpose though. I don't want you, if it's bright outside, I don't want you inside. So there's some method to my madness. Laying down the law. Yeah, but. Nate, no one watching color TV in this house. I would say a huge advantage of that is that,

as Alexis pointed out and other guests have pointed out, it's not just our eyes. We gotta be kind of cautious of our skin in general. And so if you're sort of like, quote unquote bathing in like blue light, because you're sitting there with your shirt off or whatever, and you got the glasses on, you're cutting out a lot of the signal to your eyes and to your brain and everything like that, but your body's still getting exposed to it. And you know, from what we know right now,

it seems like it's not a great idea. You're trying, we're trying to eliminate as much of that as possible. Yeah. So again, with that light fixtures, like your kitchen, big old fluorescent bulbs, it'd be sick if there's just a way like, hey, I just wanna swap those out for the exact same fit. I don't wanna like retrofit anything. I just wanna be able to plug and play. Boom, we're good there. So like, that's what I do is everywhere I can,

I will put an amber bulb or a red bulb. And at night it's tough because they're not as bright as your like the regular like house bulbs. So it's sometimes I they're not as bright as the regular house bulbs. So sometimes I have to pull my phone out to look for something, like whatever it is, a phone charger or something, because I just can't see. But again, that's kind of on purpose, right? It's dark, we're not supposed to be in the bright light right now. So again, all this to say, like I'm excited for the upcoming,

hopefully companies that start releasing stuff that's just more accessible to people. Like, hey, you want to watch TV, but you don't want to absorb as much blue light. Here's this blue light filter that will still allow you to watch TV, but it just won't be as bad. So it's kind of like putting the blue blockers all over your house, not just on your glasses. And so then again, making it more accessible to people because more people are gonna be more educated on it

and they'll be more likely to purchase those things. Yeah, yeah. No, I agree there. All right, one thing that I think has been like huge, and I wanna reference the episode we did with the great and powerful Ian Danny. Now, technically I believe that this episode was December of 2024, but it

happened after we did our 2020 wrap-up, so I'm going to mention it anyway. You know, when Ian came here, gave us so many nuggets, and that year we had a lot of great podcasts that we talked about My Fast Release with Chris Kodowski, with Kelly Sturrett, Ian Danni came in. I was having a wrist problem, Ian came, did some stuff on my forearm and boom, you know, wrist issue went away, right? I was already doing Myofas release at that point, but I think what that turned me on to was making sure that I hit all of my tissues consistently, and I have things within my toolbox that will allow me to do that. Because as I've made my al-fashr release and taken care of my own tissues,

as I've made that like a priority, every little time that I have a little niggle, haven't used that word in a while, but a little niggle for my UK friends, every time I have something like that, I can literally pull out something that will, and I can attack some tissues and I can get immediate relief. I want to tell two quick stories. First, I had something going on in my ankle after I came back from something in jujitsu, right?

So I had an ankle issue, went home, I was sitting down at the end of the day, I took my body lever, I smashed my calf, both sides of the calf, right? Found some tissues in my tibs that was like, ooh, this doesn't feel right, right? So immediately I was like, this doesn't feel like the other side. Let me hit this tissue up. Boom. That, after that, wow. The ankle pain that I was having for the day went away, right? I just came back from a trip to go do some stuff with Supless and the Bulgarian bag,

and we were doing a little drill playing tug of war, and this guy, he took a tie cut kind of intense, and my hand, he was going kind of like a throw, and my hand went, and I felt a crack in my elbow, I felt like a small crack in my elbow, and I realized, oh shit, I can't really straighten out my arm without pain. Got back to my hotel room, I was feeling,

fuck, I was feeling down, right? But then I was like, wait up, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, you're here, both arms aren't even, go to the mirror, I take my tool, I fucking just go into my tissues on my elbow and I find that there's gnarly tissue right here. I start hitting that tissue up, okay, relax, breathe, find the areas that hurt, okay, wow, I can straighten out my arm more. Oh, I can fully straighten out my arm. Now, a few days later, this is pretty much fully healed. Whereas if I didn't have the skill of being on my own body worker and taking care of my tissues,

this is something that I would still probably have a bent arm and I'd be doing rehab exercises. And there's nothing wrong with rehab exercises, but we all know, and all the listeners that have been listening to this podcast understand, figuring out how to take care of your soft tissue, whether you go to a body worker, but I think you need to do it on your own,

taking care of your soft tissues is gonna help you with so many problems in life over the long term. Because everyone understands that massage feels good, but you need to figure out a way to do this on your own. We've had so many professionals that have already come in and said how beneficial it is, that if you start hearing a coach saying, oh, it's not that helpful, or it's not that useful,

run the fuck away. Because I still know coaches that are like, oh, that makes you feel better. Like, you think that these pro NBA players are getting soft tissue work done on a daily basis because it just makes them feel better and it's just in their head? Dog't get, get out of here, man. So that I think is huge and that's something that we're going to continue to do.

That's my favorite response is, well, if it makes you feel better, like go ahead, waste your time. Yeah. What I was going to say though is like, that's kind of what I was trying to explain earlier, but you just did it way better, which is like, Oh no, my elbow hurts. Like shoot. Okay. what do I do? Maybe some tricep extensions or something, you know? Now it's like, wait a second, hold on,

let me just look at it and figure it out. That's been really, really cool and empowering. Yeah, you have pain somewhere and then you do something and the pain goes away. You don't have to, again, I love people who are in this space. Like our boy Oscar, he does great work. He works with my mom all the time. And I'll, like if I have anything that I can't deal with,

I'll still go to Oscar. But the thing is, is I haven't had to go to him nearly as much because I have the skill of taking care of my tissues. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to someone like this, but learn the skill. It should almost be, like, it should almost be something you learn as a kid. Yeah, it's amazing.

Just have to take care of your body. It's amazing. I still do it all the time. I learn as a kid. Yeah. Just have to take care of your body. It's amazing. I still do it all the time. I was in a sauna the other day. Just grabbed one of the yoga tune-up balls or whatever it is from... Joe Miller. Joe Miller. And yeah, just dug it into my hip and screamed for a little while and got some pain out of there.

It feels awesome. So it's not hard to do. It's just a little commitment. Once you commit to like getting yourself on the ground and rolling around, you're gonna find that you're probably gonna spend, you're kind of thinking like, I'll just do two, three minutes,

a couple quick things here, and you'll probably be on the floor for like 20 minutes. Working on a bunch of stuff, because it actually feels really good. It makes me really curious about like older people, people in their 50s and 60s, 70s. Like this is stuff that's beneficial for everyone, but I imagine if you're someone who hasn't been really

taking care of your tissues much and how powerful that is, that will be to just like transform their body over time. It's a tough undertaking, but it's something that can make so much change, your tissue health. It's the health of your fucking muscles, ligaments, it's your health of your tissues. I got pretty sore from doing my sprints yesterday, but this morning when I was just like getting

changed and stuff, I was like, oh, I didn't even realize it. But during that 400, I had absolutely no fear or reservation about how fast I was going. I just, I didn't run 100%, but I ran at like 95% and there was no thought in my head of like, hey bro, you know how you get that thought in your head? Like you're going, it's cool that you're going hard, but like you might wanna back off a bit. Yeah, I had no reservations about like getting injured or anything like that.

So that is a lot of that is the resilience of, strength training, but also the myofascial release. And I don't let things go. On my car, you'll always have a check engine light on. So who the fuck cares about your car, but on your body, on your body, those check engine lights come on, man. You gotta pay attention to them.

You gotta stay ahead of the curve on that. I wanna add in too, I think this is something important and it's been a shift. I feel like in the past, if I tweak something in lifting, that would be a sign you're doing, you gotta fucking check that out, dude. But I just kinda like, I'll just chill out and maybe do something lighter.

But I wouldn't ever do anything to attack that issue. You know what I mean? And I just kinda lived through it. And then maybe something else would happen. And then I'd just have these string of issues that are just part of what I deal with. Thing is, is just like, for anyone who's dealing with that, that's not how things have to be.

And you can change your situation. For years on this podcast, we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons. They are flat, but they're not very wide and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with

and we've been using Vivo barefoot shoes. These are the Modest Strength shoe, because not only are they wide, I have wide ass feet and so do we here on the podcast, especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping, or you're doing split squats,

or you're doing movements where your toes need to flex and move, your feet are able to do that and perform in this shoe, allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger, improving your ability to move.

Andrew, how can they get the hands on these? Yes, head to vivobarefoot.com slash power project and enter the code that you see on screen to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's at vivobarefoot.com slash power project. Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Ian, Danny, by the way vivobarefoot.com slash power project links in the description as well as the podcast show notes Ian Danny, by the way is absolutely amazing. So make sure you check out his episode Ian has had a couple NFL guys this year just absolutely explode. One of the guys is Montgomery from the Detroit Lions

Earlier this year. He caught like a screen pass and just got completely Annihilated or he should have got annihilated and the defender just completely fell off of him. And then you watch the moves and the different things the guy's doing on the field and you see Ian directly training him. And it's like, holy shit. And then Ian also, and I forget the woman's name.

Sydney McLaughlin. There you go. Yeah, he trained her as well and had been training her for a long time. Gold medalist, unbelievable athlete. So that guy, Ian Danni, is one of the greatest strength coaches in the history of strength coaches.

He is completely unbelievable. The stuff that he's able to do, he does have a lot of high level people that are coming to him at this point, but it's rare to see it like get implemented on a field right away from the training. You can't tackle him. Oh my God.

He's still coming. You see that. Oh, that skip. Hey. Well, and then they showed that track athlete training and somebody was like ripping it apart and they were like, oh, she's, you know, trained her abs this way

and she doesn't know what she's doing. Oh, Sidney McLaughlin? Yeah. You're gonna tell the fastest four, does she have 200? I think she does, I think she does 400. You're gonna tell the fastest 400 woman in history that she doesn't know how the fuck she's trained.

Oh, you know what some people say? She's good despite the way she trains. She's the greatest despite the way she trains. And Ian Danni is like right there training her too. She's this high level, crazy amazing athlete, and then the best in the world is training her. And people on the internet are still like, that's not the right way to do something. But you know the amazing thing that I think we can learn from Ian and Danny, I don't know if Andrew,

you could pull up his page. Ian is doing this with people and he is constantly, I don't, I want to say Ian's constantly just doing new things, but Ian's putting men, Ian's giving these athletes many different options and doing different things for their things. He's having athletes static stretch. He's having athletes do dynamic work.

He's having athletes do soft tissue. He's having athletes do traditional lifts. He's having athletes do functional lifts. He's having athletes... He uses bands and chains and right? Yo, he, but there's this thing. Ian is a... I don't want to say wizard because it makes it almost seem like what he's doing is like,

it's very tactical, but he has so many tools. And if he had like a, he has like Batman's belt on, where he can pull anything out from that belt that's gonna help the person in the specific situation because he's not bought into some type of system. That's fucking Ian Dany. And I love, I love what he does. Yeah.

It's like, it's almost hard for me to say like, oh, he's the best coach in the world because it's almost like there's coaches and then there's Ian. Like, it's a whole different level and it was so funny watching that video of like the training being, you know, kind of criticized and it's like, hey bro, that's Ian Danny. You're not going to tell me anything that's going to convince me otherwise that this is not the best thing for this athlete. He knows what these athletes deal with and he knows how to help them with their specific issues.

He's not shotgunning the same thing at every single person. But again, he knows how to use all these different tools and all these different practices with them. I think that's a mindset that we try to have here. That's why we try to use all these different tools and all these different practices with them. And I think that's a mindset that we try to have here. That's why we try to learn all these different things. So that, you know, we try to apply it to ourselves and anybody who we're helping out. Yeah, it was super funny when I was telling him that I got a groin injury from Jiu-Jitsu.

And he's like running through some tests and he's looking at me like, where does it hurt? And I'm like, oh, you know, right on here. And he had this look like a parent that's like, I know you're lying to hurt? And I'm like, oh, you know, right on here. And he had this look, like a parent, that's like, I know you're lying to me, but I'm gonna wait and see if you admit it. And I'm like, dude, this is where it hurts, I promise. And then he's like, all right, flip over.

And he just dug into my glute. And then all of a sudden, boom, the pain was gone. I was like, what the? So in that moment, of course it relieved it. And I think people would say like, oh, it feels better. Because what happens after... What happens afterwards, though, right? The pain will come back because it's no longer as, you know, as loose.

It's funny to kind of put those two words together, gluten-loose. But kept working on it, kept rolling that part of my body out before Jiu-Jitsu. And you know, again, this was about a year ago and I haven't, thankfully, haven't had any any issue with my groin anymore. And I pretty much didn't stop training. So that's the other thing is I was able to train through it got better. And now it's like, oh, that's right. I forgot I had that. Like, that's pretty cool. Who are some other people we've had on the show that if people are looking for, you know, learn more about sprints and athleticism. I know Fred Duncan was another big one that we had on the show.

I mentioned Air Doovy, right? Yeah. We had Stefan, Julian Pinao. We talked about quite a few things that podcast. That podcast is pretty deep. So, but he talked a lot about different aspects and use of the sled. Let's see. Let's see.

Let's see. I mean, we did a really good one on the beginner's guide to sprinting. Oh yeah. That was good. Yeah. You know, I really do think that that is a capacity that everyone has the ability to get back. I think you're a great example of that.

I mean, your progress, you're getting faster and faster and faster. But it's one of those things guys where it's like, I think one of our big goals here is like, we're trying to, we want our childlike abilities back. Because as a kid, you could do everything. You had to know responsibilities too, but you could do anything, right? And you can totally, you can totally get that back.

When it comes to diet, what kind of shifts have you guys made? Has there been any big shifts in the last year or so? I mean, just right out the gate, actually like being accepting of mackerel, sardines, and these things that I 100% wrote off just because they're icky. And he's like, dude, okay,

can you be a grownup for five seconds and just have this amazing like nutrient dense food and not be a bitch about it? Just start there. Like you can do jujitsu, you can compete in jujitsu. Can you eat some food and not be a little bitch about it? Have it be a challenge. Yeah. Right. So when I looked at it that way, I was like, yes, of course I could do this. So I ate it and I'm like, all right, guys, that wasn't that bad. Like, what was I scared of? And so again, my whole shift, and this has been going on for more than a year now, but

you know, the eating for performance, no longer trying to be in a caloric deficit 24 seven, 365. I think maybe it was this year where I just got rid of all artificial sweeteners. Yeah, you still out, they're still out? Yeah, I don't fuck with them at all. Okay, good. And that helped you out.

Big time, the worst that all, not worst, but like the only thing that I'll really still mess with is like a Keis bar, which again has minimal ingredients. Yeah. Right? So good though. Those things are amazing. They're so good. Honey and peanut butter or almond butter, which again has minimal ingredients. Yeah. Right? So good though. Those things are amazing. They're so good. Honey and peanut butter or almond butter, depending on what...

Those can be fucking dangerous. Bring those up. Those are so good. So the ones I've been crushing is the one that's just like peanut butter and honey. How do you stay responsible, bro? I probably couldn't have those at home. I don't think I could do it. So I just walk away because I'll get a couple of them

and then I'll open one up and I just, I have to walk away. Cause sure enough, I mean, they are pretty small, right? But I have a lot of different protein bar type things, but I cannot keep those in my house. They're so good. I run right through them. They're actually good for you. I'm always like, ah, there's, I know.

At least they're good for you, right? They're not, they're not insane. They're not, you know, it's like, I don't know, 14 or 15 grams of fat. 15 grams of, and it's like 15 grams of protein and 15 grams of sugar from the honey. But it's an amazing snack. Like, you know, that's a great thing for me, like before a run or something like that. But then I have it before the run, then I have it after the run, then I have it on watch TV. Oh, I've never had that one.

It's literally, I've gotta be careful with my words here. When I say it's nothing special, what I mean is it's peanut butter, honey, oats, and dates. So when I say it's nothing special, I mean it's nothing special as in, like there's no crazy magic behind it. It's just clean ingredients in a nice little square. That's what we want. And it's just, it's nothing special as in like, there's no crazy magic behind it. It's just clean ingredients in a nice little square.

That's what we want. And it's just, it's perfect. Cause I think it's like 200 calories total. Like again, like nine grams of fat or nine grams of protein, I think. So it's an energy bar is how I look at it. I don't see it as a protein bar. I see it as like, oh man,

I'm kind of having a low point in my day. Let me just have Kai's bar. And then all of a sudden it's like, boom, let's go. It's freaking awesome. I love that bar. Yeah. That one and then the, there's like a chocolate chip peanut butter one too. That shit's...

That was the one we were messing up when he was here. It's a cookie dough one. This one just, yeah, peanut butter chocolate chip. Dude, get out. Oh, it's so good. I think that's one thing, you know. So it's always good to remember, peeps. Nutrition, there's so many options.

Things you could switch out if you're finding that you're like binging on something in your house. Like, at least if you have a binge and it's a bunch of Kies bars, it's not gonna be as bad as if it's a bunch of Oreos, right? Yeah, you might gain a little bit from that. But you're not gonna feel like you wanna throw up. Like you're gonna be like, like I probably shouldn't have did that,

that was a bad move. But then you're like, now let's go do something. Like you can move after that. If you did that with like, I don't know, like Snickers bars or something, your teeth would be all hurting. So you would feel gross.

Absolutely. I would say like a change a little bit for me, food wise has just been eating fermented food. I've always liked fermented food, but then after talking with Andy Triana Superbrain about it a little bit more, he just encouraged me to eat it more. He's like, oh, if you like it,

he's like, you should eat that more often, especially with the amount of meat that you're eating and everything else. And I was like, oh, if you like it, he's like, you should eat that more often, especially with the amount of meat that you're eating and everything else. And I was like, oh, okay, well, fuck it. So then I started getting more and more into that. So I have a bunch of different fermented pickles and sauerkrauts and a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, yeah.

No, I like, I always have like bins of kimchi and radish in my fridge. I love that stuff. I did a lot of like, you know, sardines, because I've been eating sardines forever. But this year, like I've been eating sardines way more than I typically do, along with like cod liver and stuff.

You know, though, something that I don't think is ever gonna leave is fasting. You know what I mean? You know, there's a time where we were talking about fasting a lot, but even though we where we were talking about fasting a lot, but even though we haven't been talking about it as much, I still do it. And it's been interesting because, you know,

there was a way, there was a years ago, three, four years ago when we were talking about fasting, a lot of people were into fasting, then there came this wave of people being anti-fasting. And it's one of those things where I'm always going to use that method of eating in some way. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be going like, I don't do a day fast all the time.

I'm always eating like, not eating for 16 hours. But there is benefit conceptually to giving your body a break from digestion, right? There's an absolute health benefit to that. I don't believe, like if looking at a health context, I'm not just thinking about ways to eat to gain muscle or whatever. I'm trying to figure out ways to structure the way I eat

so that I have the best longevity and long-term health. And one thing that's like, I'm happy that my grandma and my mom drilled that aspect of eating into, and I wasn't doing it when I was younger, right? But I would always see my grandma go on multiple day fasts and pray, it wasn't for dining when I was younger, right? But I would always see my grandma go on multiple day fasts and pray. It wasn't for dining, it was fasting and prayer. And I always see my mom do multiple day fasts and pray.

My grandmother lived to 100. My mom's doing great nutritionally. You see fasting in many different cultures around the world used for not necessarily losing weight, but for cleansing your mind and cleansing your spirit and being able to get closer to God, like that's how other people look at fasting in other places in the world, whereas in the US, it's like we do it to lose weight and caloric restriction.

So I'm just saying like that's something that I still do, you know, and I just do it because I know it's healthy and I don't care what any type of American study comes up and says about fasting. I really don't give a fuck about it because I know it's healthy. And I don't care what any type of American study comes up and says about fasting. I really don't give a fuck about it because everywhere on this world is finding benefit. And this country, this is the country that we have problems with fucking eating

and getting away and creating some distance with food. So if there's anything, I'm just gonna continue being able to distance myself from always putting food in my mouth. And it should be noted too, like I still do a lot of fasting, but for Incema and I, we can both still get the nutrients that we need from even just like one meal. That's not hard. So for some people it is hard.

And so for some people you probably should be a little cautious with maybe how much fasting you're doing. If you're somebody that doesn't have the stomach to knock out enough food independent or in accordance to how long you fasted, then you might wanna think about that or just have like an extended eating period. Cause for some people, if they're gonna do like a 24 hour, 48 hour fast, coming off that fast,

you might wanna just give yourself a full day of like kind of normal eating, get back to normal from a calorie perspective. So you're just not like too nutrient deficient, but in most cases, we have way too many macronutrients coming in, in a lot of cases. And so fasting is amazing. It's a great tool.

It's just a great reset too. Like you could mess up and you could eat this and you could eat that and you could have a good time and you could say, oh, tomorrow I'm just gonna fast. You just course corrected everything. It's like you just, you know, and you don't wanna get like an eating disorder on that like, cause that can happen too,

where somebody's like, I need to go on a treadmill and they get panicky. So I'd hate to see that happen to anybody. But for the most part, it's like, I overate, I made a mistake, I'm gonna correct the mistake by doing this tomorrow. Let me mention this, man. Please don't forget your next point,

because I know you're probably gonna switch gears, but what you mentioned there is like very money, and it's not, it can be an eating disorder for someone, but I don't think that if you, if let's say that you, you know, you and your lady or you and your guy go out and you eat a lot of food that night. You overindulge. And the next day you're like,

you know what, I'm just not gonna eat today. That's a perfectly healthy move. Especially if it's not something that's done consistently. Like this is a weekly thing or a daily thing for you. You're bingeing fast. But if it's something that you just do because the next day you're like, I'm satiated from what I did yesterday, that is what you should do.

There's no eating disorder there. You should not eat the next day. Or you should eat very little the next day because you just gorged yourself the day before and hopefully this isn't something you do often, but that's not an eating disorder. But that's a smart thing. Is it an eating disorder if it works though?

Is it a knee disorder if I'm shredded? I'm shredded. I don't know, bro. Case by case, I guess. Yeah. I think, like moving forward, I'm going to start messing with some low carb, potentially keto stuff. I don't really have that much right now, but with every meal I will have some carbs.

So like breakfast is usually like breakfast sausage and a bunch of eggs and then some toast. Costco breakfast sausage. Yeah, dude. The chicken apple one I think. It's so good. That's good. So good, but I'll have that with toast.

It's like a sausage patty or like a link? Like a link, yeah. I know the patties are really good. Those have a lot of flavor. Oh yeah. Have you guys ever had the Jimmy Dean ones? Yeah. Those are so long, but those are so good.

But what sucks is that- That beats the hell out of bacon every day of the week, I think. Those are so good, but it has like 9,000 grams of fat or something like that. And I don't know what it is about the grease. Maybe they're cooked in some kind of different oils or something inside, but I get so sick afterwards. Like I feel heavy and I just like, ugh, like I don't want to eat in the moment. It's definitely worth it.

But yeah, I think we're gonna mess with some keto stuff moving down the road. I don't know, I just like, I like that full feeling, but I don't like that little feeling, you know? And the way that I eat, which is still about two meals a day, I some days will kind of be like, like I've, man, I probably just did a little bit too much today. Like I just don't feel good.

And then dinner time comes around. It's always rice, sometimes potatoes, but I'm going to start leaning into a little bit of the ketogenic diet. I've heard enough to understand the benefits, you know, inflammation all over the place from head to toe, literally. And I just think that it's silly of me to not explore that with so many good examples and proof that I've seen that it's a beneficial diet. And I'm not going like strive for any goal.

It's just, hey, let's just start implementing this. You know what I love, by the way, from that, it's like, first off, the approach you're gonna be taking, you know, you're not doing this diet to try to lose a bunch of weight. You're doing it to test something out for yourself because you have yet to test it. But like, you're gonna find, and it's so funny, you know, whenever I feel like, ooh, I'm feeling a little bit inflamed in certain areas, I just don't eat carbs

in the food I eat for a day or two, right? And then bam, it's like I'm reset. You know what I mean? And this doesn't mean carbs are bad, but it just means like, because I use carbs very strategically when it comes to certain types of training, right? But it just means that like, oh, let me just back that off. Oh, I'm healed. Okay, let me let me

Let me go back and eat normally for my performance. Yeah, right. It's like you have that thing you can now pull from Yeah, I want to super brain it, you know, like have no carbs first thing or no carbs early no carbs later Just if I'm gonna have them are gonna be in the middle of the day And I just makes sense. Another great podcast, by the way, guys. We had Andy Shroud on this year. Great. Anytime that man speaks.

Yes. He's amazing. Just looking at my boy, Chris, you know, Black Belt Chris, he pretty much doesn't have any carbs, and when he does, he's like, I don't really feel good. He's so dialed in now, so it's like, yeah, there's definitely something there. Yeah. One thing I will say, though, is I don't think that's bad, by the way. But, you know,

if you can, you know, if anybody, I'm talking just to the listener, if you can learn to use carbs to have the benefit, whether it's like a bodybuilding workout you do, because when I have some carbs in my system and then I go and do something that forces me to like really use tissue, right? Not just movement stuff, but really like, I'm working certain muscle groups, I'll feel that pop and that difference

because it's a glycolytic acid, I now have glycogen in my system from the carbohydrates I ate, right? If you can do that strategically, like I usually will have carbs around the times where I'm gonna be doing something like, I usually will have carbs around the times where I'm going to be doing something like, I want a good sprint workout today, I want a really good lift today, but outside of that, I don't necessarily feel the need for it and like jujitsu and all these other things, right?

So it's like, I'd say think about it in that way, because if you can have carbs and then literally go into the gym and use that shit, that's how I think about it. Carbs are a supplement, you know? I think you mentioned that, right? I look at that the same way now. Carbohydrates in my diet are literally like a supplement to help me really use my tissue when I need it. And I think people would be surprised

on like the amount that you need. It's probably not that much. Yeah. Like 30 to 50 grams might do a lot. And I know you wanna eat 100, you know And I know you want to eat a hundred. You know, I know you want to scoop in some extra rice in there, but you may not necessarily need that.

Sometimes it does depend on what you're doing. You know, if you're powerlifting and bodybuilding and you're trying to get as big as possible, then it's going to make some sense to fill in with some carbohydrates. But I've always just kind of, I've noticed a lot of people, they're just what I call bloated on carbs.

I see people just, they're just like puffy, you know? And I always kind of think like, if that person just went on a low carb diet just for a few weeks, a lot of that puffiness would go away and then you could reside and you could start to have some carbs probably back in your diet. But I would say a couple things that were big changes for me this year was mainly the seafood.

I always liked seafood. I always ate seafood, but now I pretty much have it every day. And that was per the recommendation of David Herrera. David talks a lot about basically the earth being this like electromagnetic field and that we are the antennas where the receivers of that electromagnetic field and that by eating things like fish, it helps make us a better antenna. Again, listen to his episode because he's going to word that better than I'm wording it right here. But having DHA and EPA. And then also interestingly enough, like you can just look this up, you can Google it,

you can try to look up foods that have vitamin D. It's actually really rare. Like there are a lot of foods that have vitamin D, but most of them are seafood. Even like even mother's milk, even breast milk doesn't have vitamin D in it. So we're mainly to get it from the sun and, or the, or, Mama. Yeah. Mainly to get it to from the sun or either from there or the sea. And then along

with in SEMA, I still do a lot of fasting too. I just don't always mention it or talk about it, but I'll do. Are you though, are you fasting if you don't talk about it? or talk about it, but I'll do. Are you though, are you fasting if you don't talk about it? I got a post about it and you can tell the world. I have a, what I have found to be the easiest way to do a 24 hour fast and I just shot a video on it the other day. But basically it's just, just stop your fast,

just stop your eat. This works for me. Maybe somebody else have to change their schedule around to make it work at a different time for them. But I found that simply stopping at like, you know, starting or sorry, ending the fast at like somewhere between 12 and two. So in the middle of the day,

and then just resuming it right from there. So the earlier that you start it, it seems like the easier it is to handle. Plus you're getting the benefit of improved sleep. Now, if you do this like day in and day out, your calories might be so low where you're hungry and you're gonna maybe have trouble sleeping, but if you do this just periodically, occasionally,

it actually feels really, really easy. So you could even plan it out to where you stop at like 4 p.m. and then the next day you eat at like six and have a normal dinner with friends or family or whatever. But I have found that to be an absolute cakewalk. Like that is very, very easy. It's like one night of like, you know, just doing your normal night routine without food.

It ain't that bad. It, you know, there's like a pulse that hits you and you want to be involved and you want to eat when the family eats or whatever, but that will go away and you can maybe eat some pickles or some other recommendations that I've talked about in the past, bone broth or something. If you really feel like you need something, some decaf coffee, something like that. But I found it to be the easiest way and it's been like really helpful for me. Around this time, maybe about two years ago, I was around 240 to 245. And around this time last year, I was around 230 to 235.

And this time, this year, I'm around, I woke up today around 215. So I'm continuing to lose weight and there's not, I cannot think of another person in all of fitness that has lost the amount of weight that I have and has kept it off the way that I have. And also is still like performing and still doing like cool shit.

So there's a lot of people that talk about weight loss, but who's fucking done it? Who's really done it? Like I lost the weight, like over probably over the course of like 10, 12 years, I don't know how long it's been. Over the course of a very long time, and I'm still working my way down.

So this is gonna be the hardest part will be to get down to around 200 to 205. That's gonna be a real bitch, but I'm gonna get there. And when I get there, I'm going to start to really hone in on being able to run a faster 400 meter. But I think I can do the 60 second 400 meters is going to take me a little bit of time, but I think I can get under 115 in pretty short order. And for anybody that thinks I'm slow, go out to track, go run a 400, time yourself, enjoy. For anybody that thinks I'm slow, go out to track, go run a 400, time yourself.

Enjoy. Real quick, Mark, because there are probably people who don't know, right? They're looking at you like, okay, well this dude's veined up. Why is he every single year, why is he losing weight? Does he have an eating disorder? What's going on here?

What weight does he have to lose? So, Mark, what's going on, dog? Are you okay? I got an eating disorder. Thanks for bringing it up. What weight does he have to lose? So Mark, what's going on, Doug? Are you okay? I got an eating disorder. Thanks for bringing it up. It was really helpful to have somebody say it because it was hard for me to talk about.

You gotta come to terms with your issues, bro. This is it. You know, the main thing has just been, at this point, it's just performance-based. I just wanna be able to run a little bit better. And there are people that run at heavier weights and that's great for them. but I just think for me, I think it makes the most sense to continue to go down

in body weight a little bit. And I think that my time in the 400, I think will improve quite a bit just by even losing like another maybe five or six pounds. So yeah, that's some of the reason for it. I got you. And you know, the very interesting thing, you're mentioning this rate of loss you have, like you are purposefully losing a little bit of muscle tissue, right?

It's not like you're so lean that you're not just targeting body fat anymore, but you're purposefully losing muscle because you know that like all of this muscle is not serving your goals, but you're also not going to let yourself wither away into oblivion, right? So I think- I'm not necessarily like intentionally trying to lose muscle, but you're also not gonna let yourself wither away into oblivion, right? So I think- I'm not necessarily intentionally trying to lose muscle, but it is probably part of the territory at this point. There's just no way to go from 330 to 215

without a significant loss of muscle mass. And I wanna say this too, yes, significant loss of muscle mass, but at this point, right? You're getting, because you're probably still like 10% body fat at like 230, 235, right? But, you know, for your performance goals,

I notice it too, like I can sprint well, but I know I'd probably be a better sprinter if I was a good 225. For sure I'd be much better, and I'd be better at running distances too, right? So, you know, in the future, I don't know, maybe I might feel like I want to purposely downsize a little bit, you know what I mean?

Because like, this is a great weight for me with jujitsu and to be able to perform everything I wanna perform, to sprint fast enough to be able to move well. But I think that there are aspects of my movement that would probably be improved if I was 230. It would be hard to get to 230 though. But that's the thing, like, you know, and some people are like, well, look at you guys.

You guys are trying to lose muscle. Oh, you know, maybe everything I just said should be taken out. Cause it was just so, most people are like, I want to gain muscle. We're like, we want to lose muscle. It's not that you want to, it's just you got performance goals.

You got performance. Yeah. So for all of you who are out there just you have performance goals. You have performance goals. Yeah. So for all of you who are out there just like having performance goals, don't worry if you lose a little bit of muscle. It's a strength to weight ratio scenario, you know? And for a lot of people listening, like I have a lot of friends that still love to power lift, they love to lift heavy, but they are also trying to be healthier. They're trying to lose weight and they hate to lose weight because they lose some strength.

But with some of that loss, we've talked about it many times before, you're gaining a lot of things like your endurance, your cardiovascular is getting better, your overall health is getting better. If you start tapping in because you started to lose some weight into getting better sleep, that's gonna be able to help your training performance.

And like over time,'s going to be amplified. Especially if you get a hold of your nutrition and you can start to make better choices like over time you're gonna keep kind of you're gonna keep be able to like pick at this stuff kind of one day at a time and over a period of time you're gonna be able to gain a lot of that strength back maybe not all of it but you'll be able to gain a lot of it back. To get people to dislike you even more, both of you have cut back on caffeine and coffee, right? What has that experience been like for both of you?

Boy, yeah, man. I, you know, I mean, I remember, I think I had a cup of coffee last week. I'll have some green tea, like every few mornings I'll have a little bit of green tea, but it doesn't have nearly as much caffeine, maybe like 30, 40 milligrams. For me, it's been great, man. I think there's so many things that we've done that have changed, that improved our, like, different things for us. But I know, like, that's one thing that's helped improve my sleep, and that's one thing that's even helped improve my digestion.

And I say digestion because, you know, it used to be for me that like, I couldn't take a dump until I had my cup of coffee. That was like, that was actually my thing. Your signal. My signal. Poop juice. Right? It's... That was my poop juice.

It really is magical, though, when you have that coffee and it's like, woo! Sometimes you just take a sip and your stomach goes, blub blub blub. You're like, what? You guys know those mugs that say, coffee makes me poop? It's because so many people have this experience. But like, you know, when Eriduvi came in, he turned me on to traditional Chinese medicine. And, you know, one thing that they talk about a lot there is just drinking warm water instead of drinking cool water, right?

Something my grandma also did. She was onto a lot of shit. But now I just usually like have warm water in the morning and I'm off to the races, right? And my poops are nice, solid, and they come out great. My digestion is super consistent. My sleep is good. And my consistent mood is better.

Because I think I've mentioned this in the past, I would feel bad in the morning, and then once I had my cup of coffee, I felt like I could literally kill the day. I'm like, yeah, this day's, it changed my mood so much that that's when I also realized, that's probably not the best if I need this thing to put me into a state that I want to be in.

That's not a long-term thing for me. So it's had a lot of benefits. Yeah, some people say like the digestion stuff is kind of just triggered even by the warmth of the water. Yeah, the heat. Yeah, I think that's interesting. Maybe some people could even like if they... Caffeine is a hell of a drug.

It's not an easy thing for everyone to come off of. So I know people are probably mad like, but you could try something else. You could try bone broth. You could try decaf. Decaf is like a good way to kind of cheat the system. We cannot talk about things we learned this year. I know I can't without mentioning the biggest thing for me as far as movement and fitness

and all this stuff and that is of course rope flow. Seen it, I don't know how many years ago, a year ago with David Weck. Didn't make sense to me. Didn't give it two thoughts. And then when he and the two people we had on. Chris? Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting her name. Old school YouTuber.

Chelsea Lutz. Chelsea Lutz, Kylie, sorry. And then the other guy, shit. Anthony. Something. Anthony Martinez. Martinez. So she-

How could you forget this? Dude, because I- Because you're not Mexican. Because we have 1,000- As Jack Cruz said. 1,112 episodes, bro. It's a lot. I feel you.

She was talking about how rope flow basically helped her pain and a lot of that stuff. And so I'm like, OK, what's going on here? Picked my interest, didn't pick up a rope. You got into it. The ropes were everywhere now. I'm like, let me pick up one of these stupid things. Instantly, back decompression.

Within seconds of moving this stupid rope. I'll take that back. Instantly, felt back pain relief, back pain decompression, all this stuff when I picked up this amazing rope. It's not stupid. And I was like, oh my gosh, like what the heck? I don't even know what's going on, but here I am twirling this rope around, I'm dancing, I'm feeling good, I'm gosh, like, what the heck? I don't even know what's going on, but here I am twirling this rope around.

I'm dancing. I'm feeling good. I'm happy. I'm in the sun. Like, this is the coolest thing ever. And now my favorite thing to do because I still drink coffee is to drink some coffee and then get out into the sun and move with the rope. It is the best combo that anybody will ever experience as far as waking up. Because you can have your coffee and go sit down at your desk and you're gonna, if you feel like shit, you're probably still gonna feel like shit. If you have your coffee, go outside, do some rope flow

or whatever, go outside and have a walk, that'll work too. But get a rope, that's gonna change your day. It'll change your outlook on the entire day. You'll be in a better mood and you'll be full of energy. And as a byproduct of just having fun moving, my back does feel way better. It's been feeling better, but now it's like I can like do the thing where like you rotate and you pop your back and stuff.

Like there's days where I just, I can't do it. I can twist and pull as hard as I can and there's just nothing there. It's a good stretch. And then now like I'll do it and it's like crack, crack, crack. Like, okay, cool. Crack, crack, crack. All right, let's keep moving. You know, like it's just unlocking so many Like, okay, cool, crack, crack, crack. All right, let's keep moving.

It's just unlocking so many things, helping my shoulder, helping my balance. You've mentioned this, the left and right side of things. If I were to swing a bat right-handed, it looks a certain way. And then if I go left-handed, it's like, oh, you're clearly right-handed. With the rope, I can kind of do both and it looks the same.

And if you ever take a bat again, do the rope, do some of those things both and it looks the same. And if you probably have, if you ever take a bat again, do the rope, do some of those things and then take a bat and try it, you'll notice you can, wow, you can swing on your left. Yeah, yeah. The biggest thing about all of it too is I got my dad doing it. He's 72 years old, pretty banged up

from working hard his whole life. And you know, he's not doing anything crazy, just the overhand race and chase and and barely moving, but he's getting the rope to go and he's moving outside of being forced to move, what I mean is outside of just working. He's actually in the backyard and he's throwing the rope around. So for me, that's been the biggest thing that I've learned this year in regards to fitness is just picking up the dang rope and having a blast with doing it

Yeah, I'm loving the rope flow. Mm-hmm every day. Just do a little bit every day every morning It's just it feels it's helping me with my running and stuff like that too. I can I can feel it when I'm running Especially like if I'm just sort of like striding or kind of jogging, I kind of feel myself go from one side or the other. So that's been a big, a big change for me too. And I think even just kind of looking at movement and looking at like exercises just quite differently than I have in the past and just, I guess, rethinking them, reinterpreting them a little bit. Like, let me try this exercise as a, not an exercise maybe traditionally done the way a bodybuilder or powerlifter might do it, but let me take this exercise and let me do it

for the movement sake of the exercise. And an example of that could be like a dumbbell bench press. And maybe I have two dumbbells, but I bring one down and I actually let my body rotate more to one side and then I'll switch. So just things like that, just trying to get more rotation, more movement, even from commonly recognized like bodybuilding exercises.

Yeah, and you know, the funny thing is like, I think whenever, in the past when I posted things, just different stuff, people would be like, what most of those that work? And it's like, I mean, now I ask different questions, you know, because like, yes, you can isolate tissue, but like, sometimes what muscle does that work? Is it like it works everything? That's like, that's why the rope has been for me, it's been really great.

Because it allows me to get in all this different type of rotation to work my whole body to get all these spinal benefits. I think it also has helped me sleep better because my body is overall more relaxed and lacks as much tension because of just being able to swing that rope around. So it's one of those things where it's like, it falls in line with many of the things that we talk about,

especially the aspect of being able to microdose things, because now I don't look, and I think it's been a long time since I've really looked at training as like training. Now all of us have practices that we have, right? And it's just like these things, like right now, I've been working my wrist this whole podcast, right? And I'm not even gonna get into it,

but that's how it is with the rope. I think some people have asked, I forget this question a lot, how do I program in rope flow with my workouts? It's like, don't treat it like a workout. It's like what Andrew said, you know, he just goes out in the morning, gets some coffee, gets his rope and swings it around and puts it down. Right? It's something you can keep with you. You can take it out on a walk.

You can do it as much as you want during the day. And the thing is, it's not going to make you feel worse. It's only going to make you feel better after you do it. For anyone curious, I do have a foundation course that is free on school, so you're also able to check that out. But I'd say when it comes to practices, look at your fitness like that. I think that's something that we've learned from a lot of guests and we've implemented. Just don't, don't, it doesn't have to be this hard thing you do. You can make your training hard and it's not bad to make your training hard,

but outside of that, change your environment to facilitate better movement and facilitate you feeling better. Do you have any, on your school thing, do you have any examples of like a 30 minute workout or anything like that? Do you guide people ever through like a workout? With the rope?

You know, I have that on, there's a new YouTube channel I made that's kind of like a, kind of, I'm gonna be putting more guided, kind of follow along stuff there. But there in the school, I just have tutorials for like all the movements. I do have tutorials within like the course that'll give you like drills so that you can,

you know, get some of these patterns down and drills putting certain patterns together so you can learn to link some of these patterns together. So that would be a version of that. But full like 20, 30 minute guided routines. I have one on my move with, or actually I think the YouTube channel's called the Flow Matrix is that YouTube channel.

I have one follow along routine there, but I'll have more. Yeah, I think that that's important too, because for us three, we don't have a real job. And so we can kind of set up our environment and we can kind of get to stuff at different times of the day, but for other people, I still think that, I still think like a 30 or 60 minute, like I'm focused in on just this thing is really nice.

So they don't get distracted into something else because it's really easy to just prioritize something else. You get a text message or whatever it is when you're working out. So guided stuff I think can be really cool. And I think people will really like that. And you can probably do all kinds of different exercises in between.

And you could probably make like intermediate, advanced, all different kinds of things like that would be really cool. Absolutely. There's something I do want to mention. And I get it. We don't have real jobs. So like, you know, after this podcast,

going to go outside, going to move around, right? Not everybody has that opportunity, but I think what everybody does have the opportunity is to at their house, at their apartment, wherever they live, set their environment up to serve them. Maybe even at their jobs. Resilient Jiu-Jitsu climate. Yeah. So, so what I do and what I have at home right now is I have a 100 pound sandbag that I sit on. Because me and my girl, we like to watch movies. We like to watch and chill, right? But instead of just like,

cause I'll sit on the couch with her and we'll cuddle, but outside of that, I have my sandbag and then I have my rice bucket in front of my sandbag. So I'm sitting on my sandbag, I have my rice bucket right there. I have this stuff sitting there. So like as we're watching something, I can have this in my hand and I can move around with it.

Right? My environment is set up so that I can get in movement. I have a rope there, too I can just get in movement and it's not arduous I can enjoy something else while still improving and finding things in my body that I can prove, right? I have myofascial release tools right there. So while we're chilling, if I want to hit something up, I can That's I think one of the easiest ways that everyone, I don't think anyone can do that. I stuff, but just stuff like that myself. I have a hunker and stool. I have a bunch

of stuff for myofascial release. I have a mat. What's that called? I have a go mat as well as also like some other mat. I can't remember the name of the other one, but just if I wanna get down on the ground and have something be like a little bit more padded in case I'm doing like movements or exercises. But, and then also like in our home, my wife has like a little mini gym in our house, which is kind of nice. So I can kind of walk by there and sometimes grab some weights.

I've grabbed weights a couple of times over the last couple of weeks and just brought them outside and just like lifted in the grass. It feels amazing. With lifting in the grass, getting some sunlight feels awesome. So yeah, bolster up your environment with, I mean, just like you're doing with the food, right?

Just like people are doing with food. When you have a lot of food options lying around that are healthy, you're gonna make healthier choices. If you have exercise stuff, just kind of lying around, you have a rope, a weighted vest. That's been a big change for me this year. I kind of forgot to mention the weighted vest,

but I try to wear a weighted vest, I'm wearing one right now. I wear them quite frequently on walks. I don't wear them every single time that I walk, but I have a 40 pound vest and a 25 pound vest and a 15 pound vest. So just kind of depending on, you know, how heavy I want to, the heavier weight I want to handle,

I'll just pick a weighted vest. Just a really easy way to just get your heart rate up a little higher when you're walking. I need to get one of those, because I have a weighted vest too, but it's arduous to put on that one right there. It's like a little jacket, bro. You know, I think that's a hack for people, man.

Like, if you have a standing desk at work, you have to work at a computer, why not load yourself up a little bit, right? I have right now, you know, these wet sole steps underneath my feet, which puts your foot in a specific type of position and you're at your desk, you have your vest on, you're at your computer and you know, you just start moving. That's why you see us like, I think what we do when we're at this table are things that a lot of people can do when they are working. You can pick something like this up and while you're reading something and then you could

just boom, you could literally hit up something like that. People might look at you weird at the office or whatever, but at the end of the day, your body's feeling better than theirs. So who gives a fuck, right? Yeah. Yeah, they're gonna look at you weird when you pull out healthy food, and it's like three times as much food as they're eating,

but you're not falling asleep at your desk because you're, you know, toiling shit around or whatever. It's like, yeah, you don't wanna look like everybody else, so don't move and, you know, go through life like everybody else. How about your penis, guys? Keep pumping it up. Pump, pump, pump it up. Pump, pump, pump it up. I'm on that Cialis grind, you know?

I stopped using it, you know, because I was like, is this really helping me? Or the Dr. Mo, and like, there's just been so much in terms of how it helps your vasculature and just actually helps your health if you're not taking a crazy amount of it, if you're taking a small dose. So I take like 2.5 milligrams of Cialis a day,

you know, for blood flow, and that's one thing that I'm just gonna probably just keep doing. It's apparently good for heart health, etc. So just, I don't overdo it, right? I also massage my dick, right? I wanna take care of this thing. Staying ready. Do some mile faster release for this thing, man.

Yeah, take this thing, stab it in there, just. No, I don't use this tool. But I mean, the episodes we had, guys, you really should take the, I think it's funny, because when we had those episodes, people were like, oh, is take the, I think it's funny, because when we have, when we've had those episodes, people are like, oh, is this the Mark Bell dick podcast? Or is this what you guys are doing now?

Like, yes, we want healthy penises. We want healthy, we want good sexual health. Yeah, sex is a big part of life, right? So why are we not gonna talk about it? You don't want that to run out. No, you don't. That won't feel very good. Yeah. Literally won't.

Have you guys messed with the milk thistle and the horny goat weed? I have not. Oh, it's just, I don't know. No, I haven't. Your boy has. Nice. And let me tell you.

It's got horny in the name. Yeah, horny goat weed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like, yeah, just go to the episode to do the Axe Kickle, right? Go to that episode. We're probably gonna forget a bunch of guests by the time we hop off here. As soon as we end, we're gonna be like,

we forgot about this. Yeah. But I think we covered everything. I think so. Yeah. Strength is never weak this week, this is never strength. Catch you guys later.

Bye.