Mark Bell's Power Project - Why Sandbags & Stone Carries Are the Ultimate Test of Strength

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Discover why sandbag carries are the ultimate strength test in this episode of Mark Bell's Power Project! Sandbags challenge your body like no other, pushing your limits in strength, endurance, mobility, and mental toughness. With special guest Cody Janko aka The Stone Circle, Whether you're a seasoned lifter or just starting your fitness journey, this episode breaks down the benefits of incorporating awkward objects into your training. 🔥 Key Highlights:- Why sandbag carries build unmatched strength and endurance- How lifting awkward objects like sandbags unlocks functional fitness- The mental toughness required to go beyond your limits- Real-world carryover of strength endurance in daily life- Tips for beginners: How to start with sandbag trainingFollow Cody Janko (Stone Circle): @thestonecircle  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/POWERPROJECTUse 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/powerproject1Pumps 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/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima InyangFollow Nsima Inyang ➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang

The thing about sandbags and stones and all these awkward objects too, and I think this is one of the secrets to them, is that they allow you to bring a level of intensity. They allow you to push beyond the ordinary stopping point. I hate to use the word functional, because it's like, show me a movement that's not functional, because I think all movement is functional to some degree. Humans have probably been lifting stones for so long. Maybe there's something inside us that just connects with lifting these awkward objects. So the bear hug carry in particular is my favorite exercise of all time.

I feel like it is the ultimate base builder. I think the main reason sandbags have worked so well for me is just that I find them so enjoyable. Strength endurance is so cool because it's the strength of someone who has a deep love of life. Any situation where say you're five miles out and someone has broke their leg. Who's going to be the one who can carry them for five miles out of there. Someone with strength endurance. My, I just moved up to the mountains and all these weird things have been happening. Like the first day I moved in, the septic tank was frozen. And so,

Oh, that's, it's strange up there. They make the houses in ways that you wouldn't expect them to. All your shit was frozen? It wasn't mine either. Just, just. Something, oh, it was somebody else's. Yep, just came up and there was the basement for a while. And what happens with a frozen septic tank?

They just have to drill into it and yeah. Sounds like a shitty job. Yeah. Ha ha. Yeah, it's a very shitty job. How'd you get into the sandbag stuff? We're rolling, right? We're rolling. Yep. How'd you get into the sandbag stuff? We're rolling, right? We're rolling.

Yep. How'd you get into the sandbag stuff? What happened? Well, I had been lifting barbells for a couple years. I was kind of plateaued. I made my way up from 115 pounds, just about 5'8", and I got to 142, and I was stuck at 142 for years. I just couldn't seem to make any progress.

I'm not sure why. I think I just was bad at lifting barbells. I couldn't bring the intensity that was needed to reach that new level. And then I read Dinosaur Training, which I think you said you've read that one. And Brooks Kubik, he's just so passionate about lifting awkward things.

He's sometimes a bit over passionate, but he made me want to lift a sandbag. And so I got a sandbag, got some thick handled barbells. He also recommended that. And then within a couple of years, I was up to a lean 160. So it got me through that a couple of year plateau and never looked back. You said you were drinking like a gallon,

a half a milk or something like that. Smart man. Yeah, that was one of my many failed bulks while I was at 142. I decided to do a basic three by five squats program, gallon and a half of milk. And within a couple months, I was like 190 and really fat. Oh, oh God.

Yeah. Just your cheeks were just puffed out, right? Yeah, it was really bad. I have a picture of it actually. I was like laying on my dog. My face is just like smushing out to the side. And so then I, you know, I ended up going back to 142 after that.

It was a bad cycle for a while there. You know, your book is called Sandbag Hypertrophy. And as you've been training with sandbags more and more, how have you found that it compares to your training with barbells? Because I think when people look at sandbags, they don't think that it's an implement that's great for building muscle.

Yeah, that's, first I should say, when I talk about sandbags and I talk about liking sandbags, people often assume that I'm saying I don't like other things. And that's just not the case. I think anything can work. It's, I think the main reason sandbags have worked so well for me is just that I find them so enjoyable.

So I've been able to stick with it. But the main thing I've noticed, and I think this is kind of the secret to sandbags, it might be what they have over other things is that you always have to bring such a high level of intensity to every single workout. And you can kind of just coast by without that sometimes with other things.

So I know you guys are pretty strong with barbells. I'm sure there's a certain point you get to where it doesn't matter if this is 50% of my max, it's still heavy. It still feels heavy to squat this even during the warmup. I feel like the point with that, with sandbags is so early. As early as maybe 100, 150 pounds, that it trains you to bring the level of intensity

that's needed to make it past, to make it to the next level. Why would you say that is by the way? It's, in your experience. It's hard to say. I think it's just because they're so awkward to lift. They just, they fight you every step of the way. You try to pick that thing up off the ground and it's completely laying flat.

It doesn't want to be lifted, whereas other things are made to be lifted. And I think that's part of it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that humans have probably been lifting stones for so long. Maybe there's something inside us that just connects with lifting these awkward objects, but. Cause your whole body does have to like engage, yeah, engage around it. You know what I mean? Which you don't, you do with you,

you do brace with a barbell, but it's just a different type of static brace. Whereas like with a sandbag, you're just, you're engulfing it and all of this stuff is working to keep it against your body. Yeah. I don't think it's apples to apples, like lifting a barbell versus lifting a sandbag or lifting stones or anything like that. Usually when someone lifts a barbell, they're able to lift four, five, 600 pounds

in a squat or a deadlift, something like that. And I'm unaware of anyone lifting a 600 pound sandbag and just the leverages are different. Everything about it's quite different, but if you just kind of percentage wise, 50% of like 600 would be around 300 pounds. So for someone to handle 300 pounds on a squat, that will still feel pretty light,

but once they get it over 60, 70%, it'll start to feel a little bit heavier. And maybe the same is a little bit similar with the sandbag. If you can manhandle a 300 pound sandbag, maybe the 150 doesn't really feel, maybe it doesn't feel that heavy, but once you get to the 200, maybe that's when it starts to, you feel the effects. Yeah, yeah, it just feels like that place is so much earlier. And that, what you said about the max load could have something to do with it too, just because you can't lift

very much weight, you can do so much more volume, and at least I've been able to with sandbags. I had someone comment on a video one time, and I don't know if it's actually what's happening, I just really liked it. They said lifting a sandbag versus lifting a barbell is like jumping on sand versus jumping on concrete. When you jump on sand, you know, you can't jump as high, and it's harder to jump,

but it almost feels like that weight is being distributed through your muscles more than your like your joints, but you can go higher on the cement but you might have to recover for longer and I think that definitely plays a part in it too. Yeah, it's a good way of putting it in the sandbags I can seem was saying you have to kind of engage your body like maybe in a slightly different way Obviously when you do a squat like we're all fans of squatting, when you do a squat you do have to engage the whole body. But watching you do some of these movements, especially when you're doing your box squats,

it's like a good combination of like hip hinging and good combination of hip extension kind of all at the same time. All while you're mastering this ability to like lock in with the bag. Sometimes it looks like you have the bag, your hands locked and it looks like you're kind of squeezing the bag. And I know that has a little bit different feel than if your hands are just more on the outside. It's like it's amazing how just the smallest thing could trigger such a different response. You know, if you're just holding the bag one way versus squeezing the bag towards you, how differently

you can feel. But I hate to use the word functional because it's like, I just- Oh no. Well, one of the things I hate about it is show me a movement that's not functional because I think all movement is functional to some degree. I guess we could say occasionally you can say, well, I think that movement is functional to some degree. I guess we could say like Occasionally you can say like I well I think that's gonna have poor outcomes because like that just looks a little too wild and looks like you might hurt yourself But I don't think there's any movements that are necessarily bad really

But there's something about the sandbag that feels very functional. It's hard to put your finger on Yeah It's a I always thought part of it is the fact that you can kind of get the weight in line with your center of mass. Whereas a barbell is often... if you're deadlifting a barbell, it's out in front of you. Whereas if you're lifting a sandbag, you can kind of straddle it. And it just feels more natural for some reason. And along... if we're talking about functional, that's another thing I like about sandbags is that I always hated training my arms. Like I never wanted to do curls and I still don't have the biggest arms but they're bigger than they were. Actually lifting sandbags did make my arms grow but

the fact that I realized the biceps were important, the biceps were a functional muscle or the brachialis or whatever in the arm, it's a worthwhile thing to train. It's not just this mirror muscle like people say. Suddenly sandbags made me want to do curls, which was really cool because I never wanted to before. That's part of what I like about it. It's, I view sandbags as like a sport. And so rather than going to the gym

to do bicep curls to build your biceps, now it's now because sandbag lifting is your sport, you're going to the gym to do bicep curls to build your biceps now? It's now because sandbag lifting is your sport you're going to the gym to do bicep curls to build your biceps So that's you're better at lifting sandbags. I feel like that extra layer of Purpose just makes it a lot easier to put that effort that you need into your training I know that you and obviously you enjoy sandbags much more now But have you ever like recently tested how certain old? Max's or close to old maxes on barbells have felt? Because you know JB over here he even noticed that like he went back to the barbell and he was able to lift a

PR without a belt. So have you noticed anything similar? It's it's been over a year now since I was I've been a hundred percent sandbags in calisthenics and some band work and stuff. So I haven't tried, but I will say when I went back to doing a barbell after doing sandbags for a while, it almost felt kind of strange having that weight out in front of me. Yes. And there's this guy on YouTube, I can't remember his name, but he lifted like a 500 pound stone. And yeah, it's crazy. And he put it on this high platform and I found

somewhere in this old iron mine forum someone was talking about him and they said he was the same way after he was lifting the stones he felt that dead lifts with a barbell were just so awkward because he couldn't get his body around it in the same way it's almost like once you get used to lifting the sandbag sometimes those other objects just feel strange Maybe with some time i'd get used to it again, but I think something we got to dive into a little bit is um With like conventional lifting with some dead lifting and stuff dead lifting in particular Um, how has your back maybe changed or or not changed from doing sandbag versus the dead lift?

Because we've talked about this before on the show where the deadlift, obviously the bar is raised up off the ground. The sandbag is like directly on the ground. And for me, that extra range of motion, which doesn't really sound like much. I mean, I think we're talking about like six or eight inches or something like that. Maybe it's 10 inches.

That extra amount to to wedge myself, wedge my hands underneath the sandbag and stuff like that is just enough for me to have to curtail my lower back, to have to round my lower back way differently than what I was ever taught on a deadlift. And a deadlift, it's always taught, try to get your position and then try to lock your back in, get your back flat, and then try to keep your back flat

throughout the whole range of motion. And later on I learned, oh, it's fine to have your back rounded when you deadlift, as long as the back's not rounding excessively more and more and more. But the sandbag feels way different, and it feels like it takes a different type of mobility and a different type of strength. Yeah, that's, I actually just recently got my mobility down.

It took me years of every single time I initiated the lift, I would kind of round my lower back a bit. And it's funny you mentioned it, because my back never felt, I never felt bad or anything like that. It was just, I didn't have the mobility. And I do feel like my back feels stronger than it ever has. And just recently I was able to get the mobility needed

to lift with more of a flat back, and it's almost like sandbags force you to improve your mobility, which I think is pretty cool. But as far as the back goes, I feel like my back is indestructible at the moment. At least that's how it feels. That's great. Yeah.

It's interesting though, because there's many different ways you can lift the bag. Like Brian, if you were to pull up Dr. Sandbag, let's pull him up real quick and then I'll explain what I mean. But when you see Dr. Sandbag like lift 250 pounds, 300 pounds, et cetera,

he doesn't really have to get super low or he doesn't get super low because he'll do this technique where he rolls it up his legs, right? Uh, there's that, but then you can lift it in a way where you bend all the way down to pick it up almost like you hunch over. And I like that aspect of it because I feel like it helps you build strength in these different ways of lifting an object very close to the ground. Whereas when you're lifting a barbell,

you generally will be lifting that thing the same way every single time. Which isn't necessarily bad. You can maybe handle more overall weight. But like you, I've just, I've found that I've developed a different level and a different, I guess a different comfort in my core strength where I now can comfortably bend down

and pick something up in that way. Whereas years ago, that would probably hurt. I'd probably feel like I would pop something in my back, you know? Yeah, and it's not just lifting off. Wow, that's a crazy lift. He's able to fold himself in half right there. Look at how well he's able, I don't even know what that would be called. Oh, but he's able to bend down a lot. I mean, I remember, you know, in the Olympics watching Michael Phelps, when he'd be on the starting blocks,

he's able to like fold himself in half way differently than everybody else. Almost to the point where it looked like he could put like his elbows or his forearms on the ground. And yeah, this guy's got great mobility to be able to get down there. Dr. Sandbag, Dr. Sandbag, that technique too, just look at how clean it is from like that boom Geez popping it up like it's so sharp doing reps with a sandbag just Really gases you out quick too. I mean not even a couple reps like three reps five reps really hard. That's one Yeah, that's one thing in the weight

Technically, it doesn't seem like it's super heavy, like 150, 175, but that will make you tired. Yeah. Yeah. 300 by two, what the hell. And that's the core strength too. I feel like it translates to a bunch of different positions too, like you were saying

before this with the shoulder squats. It forces you to become strong in that completely bent over position, picking something up off the ground. But it's a different type of core strength to have a sandbag halfway to the shoulder, off center on your chest. And it's like every different spot along the way

forces you to work in a different way. When I was first working with him, I was trying to shoulder this one sandbag, and I always lost it because it would fall to the side so I started doing these shoulder carries and it trained my core to stay it keep me upright during that and then I went through like a month of that and came back and I was able to shoulder the sandbag it's just cool how it trains you to have strength in all these weird ways you would never get with anything else that I've tried at least. Let's talk

about those carries real quick what What have you noticed, like, as you've been developing your sandbag strength, what have carries done for you in terms of hitting, like, going through certain sandbag plateaus? Power Project Family House is going. Now, over the years, I've learned a lot from guests that have come onto this podcast, and I've taken the time to learn

many different movement practices. So, for example, if you've wanted to learn rope flow, which is a practice I think is just beneficial for everyone, I have a free rope flow foundations course at school.com slash the stronger human. Now the stronger human community actually has over 11,000 members, so it's a great community there,

but you'll also be able to learn rope flow for free, along with many other things I teach in there like kettlebell flow, kettlebell juggling, all that good stuff. So head over there. Along with that, if you're looking for where to get your equipment as far as ropes, maces and clubs, sandbags, all that good stuff, you can head over to the Stronger Human.store and on that site is where I have all of the different functional fitness equipment that

I use to become a Stronger Human. So check those out and let's get back to the episode. Yeah, that's a great question. So the bear hug carry in particular is my favorite exercise of all time. I feel like it is the ultimate base builder. And if I was going to tell someone or if someone said, I want to get started with sandbags, I would say first learn the Valsalva maneuver, or at least a basic understanding of breathing and bracing and then start doing bear hug carries. It's like they bring every weakness to the front.

So first, it's probably gonna be your wrists or your forearms. It's kind of difficult to have your hands in this false grip position. If you're not used to it with barbells because you never really get there. After that it might be your biceps. After that it's gonna be your core, then your upper back.

It's almost like bear hug carries systematically weed out all weaknesses until there just aren't any left. And that's the main thing I've noticed from the carries. I'd say it just makes you stronger everywhere. You walk with them for distance, for weight combinations. Like what, how do you do it? Yeah, it's a, well, carries are really hard. That's, that's the first thing.

So, uh, it, it kind of depends on where my mind's at on that day. I'd say taking a carry to failure is a very, it's a difficult experience, but you can still get a lot out of going, say, maybe 90%. I like to stay in the 20 to 40 second range with most of my carries. I have done longer and some shorter, though it didn't feel like it was as worth it

to do 10 seconds, but there is something to be said for that too. Have you ever messed with going up uphill and downhill with that? I haven't yet, but I the new place I just got has a giant hill in the yard. So I have lots of things planned. You're going to enjoy that. Yeah. How come when you walk with those things, it just makes it makes you kind of like you walk and like you got to take a crap.

You know, like it's you have to walk so differently. It's interesting. Yeah, that's a, I actually spent a lot of time trying to perfect my stride to switch from more of a heel strike to a forefront strike. Just because I felt like that allowed me to keep a bit more upright. And when I first started, I was really trying

to keep my torso upright. I thought that was the thing to do. I've since realized you can get away with a lot of backwards lean, but it does force you to walk kind of funny. Yeah Dave man caveman he'd lean way back he'd lean back quite a bit when he was when he carries the stones and stuff like that. Yeah that seems to be a trait of all the strongest awkward object lifting people I've seen is the

ability to really lean back at the hips and keep the weight there. There's a guy called Andy Crawford, I don't know if you've seen him. He's one of the strongest stone lifters in the world. He just recently shouldered a 400 plus pound natural stone weighing, I think he's like 110 kilos, so whatever that is. And he's been doing this thing recently where he puts the sandbag or the stone on his chest

and does, I think he calls it a limbo, and he just puts his hands away and just stands there and it just training that directly seems to have a, a big impact. Oh, there it is. I mean it's mobility to express your strength, right? Like you need to be able to move a certain way. Yeah. And like just, uh, we talked about this before, but a big underestimated aspect of all of this is like what it's doing for the hands

What it's doing the forearms and the wrists because like when we think about the hands on a again a deadlift or a bench You're just you're kind of grabbing this object that is meant to be gripped in a certain way Whereas this you have this open palm that you're you're engaging your hands now like the false grip that you mentioned Like I've noticed just like it's helped the strength of my hands drastically since I've started. Yeah, definitely, especially in that open hand position, because that's not really something you ever do with traditional weights,

because you just wouldn't have a reason to. For me, my squeezing grip strength still isn't that great, but I can just keep hold of a sandbag with that open hand grip forever it feels like now yeah it keeps improving have you noticed anything with like the way your hands look yeah I could tell you the story of the the first day I ever did a a bear hug carry so it was actually with a stone because I didn't have a sandbag but I read I read the chapter in dinosaur training where he talks about him and his training partners. I think they had some steel beams,

they were doing farmer's walks or something. And they were talking about doing carries to failure. And then they all ended up just passed out on the ground, a little over dramatic about it. But it made me, I wanted to do that for some reason, I don't know why, lifters are weird I guess. I want to end up on the ground out of breath. So I had been living at this place for a year and I didn't think I had anything to carry but I went to end up on the ground out of breath. But so I had been living at this place for a year

and I didn't think I had anything to carry but I went to take my dogs outside and then they're propped up against a fence was this stone that somehow appeared out of nowhere. And so I picked it up and it wasn't very heavy. It was like 75 pounds, I think but I just set the stopwatch on my phone. I went for 30 minutes straight, just going back and forth

between like a search or position, a bear hug going on each shoulder and afterwards I was kind of I kind of thought you know I followed the shiny object once again I wish I hadn't done this because I didn't really feel anything and I the book had made it seem like this awesome thing you know you do the carry and you're gonna end up on the ground and obviously the stone just wasn't heavy enough but you know I didn't plan on doing it again I thought maybe it was overhyped or something and then about an hour later I was sitting there the first thing I felt was was my legs it felt like I was in the seventh grade having growing pains because I was

like going through puberty or something uh-huh like my thighs hurt the bones of my thighs hurt it was really weird the bones of your thighs hurt yeah it was like growing pains. That's important to understand. That's huge, okay, yeah. After that, it was like the spaces between the bones in my hands felt like when you wake up after a long night's sleep

and you stretch your back. That's sort of how it felt on my hands. And that was the first sign and I thought, okay, maybe this is okay, but I wasn't fully convinced at that point. and then a little while longer I I think I reached over to like grab a remote or something and the feeling in my stomach was so it was unlike anything I'd ever felt I it's kind of a tangent but not when I was younger I fell off a cliff my friends and I thought it was a good idea to go

along this cliff ledge past this fallen barbed wire and I thought it was a good idea to go along this cliff ledge, pass this fallen barbed wire. And I fell like 10 feet and then grabbed this stinging nettle and then it ripped and I fell like another, I don't know, I was 20 or 30 feet. But I ended up, really interesting, I saw myself falling from above actually. But I had a broken left wrist, my right ankle was broken. And then the worst part though was I had internal bruising on my stomach, one of my organs. And the day after carrying that stone,

I was reminded of what it felt like to have that internal bruising. It wasn't quite on that level, but it was so intense that it made me think of like actual injury, because it was just, it just worked my core in a way I'd never felt. And also the arms,

and I felt some other stuff too, but. Again, so when you carried that 70-ish, 75-pound pound stone you didn't put it down on the ground for 30 minutes You just adjusted. Yeah, I just I just moved it around to different positions Yeah, dude, that that's actually when it comes to carries with bags. That's one thing at least for from a grappling context That's one thing I enjoy about it because it's almost like I look at it as like you're fighting that stone or you're fighting the bag. You're having to keep it, you're changing positions and you're just trying to make sure you keep it upright. You know what I mean?

And just, I feel like some people might think it's a waste of time since what muscle you're working. You're not necessarily working your arms, you're not working your chest or whatever, but you're literally, your whole body's becoming more resilient as you're carrying a it's your whole body is becoming more resilient as you're carrying a heavy object through space for time. Yeah.

It's wild, you know? There's nothing else that feels like it. Yeah, it does something that you just can't get in any other way. The question is, what muscle is that working? I always figured what muscle isn't it working? I guess the triceps maybe, but it's working pretty much everything.

Yeah. And that's the thing about sandbags and stones and all these awkward objects too and I think this is one of the secrets to them is that they allow you to bring a level of intensity and they allow you to push beyond the ordinary stopping point. I think they there's something about them lets you keep going for a lot longer than you could with other things. Doing a sandbag carry, if you can go for 30 seconds, you can almost always make yourself go for 35. And a lot of that comes down to mental strength. And so I think part of the reason sandbags work so well

is they are constantly training your mind to push with more intensity and to keep going further. And so you carry that thing for 30 seconds one time, you get 35 seconds the next time, and suddenly you realize, wait, I could actually go for 60 seconds. It's like something switches when your body adapts to that new form of training.

You know what I was thinking about on the way here today? I was like- How fat you are. Yeah, I was thinking how fat am I still? I still can't lose weight. How fat you are. Yeah, I was thinking how fat am I still? I still can't lose weight. I'm still stuck. Anyway, what I was thinking about is the term sandbag. Like why do people say that?

Why are people saying you sandbagged it? Like what the hell does that mean? Ah. That kind of means like you didn't give full effort. So I wonder, maybe we can try to look that up. Like what. Yeah, why is it sandbagging? What's the deal about it?

Because like working with a sandbag is so hard. Do you know why? I don't know, I get that comment a lot though. Someone saying he sandbagged it and then the crying emoji. I never, I don't know what it means. Yeah, like where did it come from? I think Reddit has an answer for us. I mean the place.

It usually means you're half-ass in it, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's kind of how people say it. What is this? Is this an ad? Don't know if we'll get, don't know if we get to the bottom of this or not. Yeah, that's funny though.

Let's see if we can find it. There has to be something here. Okay, Wikipedia. Hiding the strength, strength skill or difficulty of something or someone early in an engagement Maybe it maybe it was utilized as like a derogatory term to keep people from using the sandbag That's what I bet it knew it was gonna make a receipt. Yeah. Yeah, keep them weak Yeah, sandbagging it. Yeah, I try to make it derogatory. Yeah. I keep them weak. Yeah. Sandbagging it. Yeah.

I try to make it derogatory. It goes together pretty well actually now that you mentioned it. If sandbags allow you to just keep pushing, then maybe every time you lift a sandbag, you are kind of sandbagging it because you could have done a little more. Cause you could have, you could have went a little harder. So urban dictionary says to deliberately perform at a lower level than you're capable of. God damn.

There it is. Gotta make a shirt. I mean, another cool thing about that though is like, when you're, for example, when you're pressing a sandbag versus pressing dumbbells or pressing a barbell or even pressing a kettlebell, you kind of have to squeeze it a bit as you're pressing it overhead.

You know what I mean? Whereas it's just, it's a whole different type of activation and obviously you can pressing it overhead. You know what I mean? Whereas it's a whole different type of activation. And obviously you can progress it. You can work with more weight over time, but it's very different, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, pressing a sandbag too is so difficult.

And I feel like it exists in a completely different realm compared to pretty much every other sandbag thing because with most sandbag exercises you always keep the the weight really close to your center of mass and if you if you feel like you're failing you can always kind of regroup for a second and just keep going worst case scenario you set the thing back down on your lap but when you're trying to press a sandbag you're moving it to a place that's as far away from your center as you can i mean it's still in line but it's just far away from your center as you can. I mean, it's still in line, but it's just far away from your torso. And it's, people who can press heavy sandbags are something else.

It's impressive. It's very impressive. I think it's interesting that, you know, the sandbag is predominantly like always, you know, right in front of you, where with like a squat, you know, you got the weight, the weight's like on your back. But in Seam was talking about squatting,

you know, with the weight on the shoulder, that poses a lot of difficulty. And then you're doing kind of almost like box squats. And you were mentioning sometimes you do the shoulder box squat and that's just, I think it's interesting how just the smallest change in where you have the sandbag changes all the muscle groups that you're working. So it doesn't really take a whole lot for you to change your workout up. I think when you were doing some reps

outside, you did like one rep regularly, did one rep with the weight on your left shoulder, one rep with your weight on the right shoulder, and you do a couple repeats of that. I mean, that's a hell of a workout. Yeah, and I think if when you're looking at it at sandbags for building muscle, I do think the best way to approach it is from a mindset of sandbags are my sport, rather than looking at, hey, I'm gonna use sandbags to build muscle, even though that's what I talk about and that's what I like about them.

I still feel like a lot of people I've talked to in my experience myself is I built a lot more muscle when I stopped focusing on it. So when I decided everything I care about now, everything that I go to the gym to do is in service of throwing a heavier sandbag up to my shoulder. Now suddenly those workouts where you're putting the bag

in a different spot, someone who isn't aware of what sandbags do might think, well, that's kind of pointless. Who cares if it's a slightly different stimulus? You're still not doing a bicep curl. But when you're looking at it as your sport, then every little side quest that you go on eventually leads to you being more just strong all around

and that leads to a heavier sandbag to shoulder or whatever you're focusing on. Yeah, and right here, the box squats that you're doing, what is, because you do these for very high repetitions. Yeah. Right? So what's going through your mind when you're progressing this, like this movement,

and doing the high repetitions that you do? Yeah, so this one was 230 pounds for 50 reps. My main, it took me like eight minutes, as you can see. So it's a slow burn. I recently got 250 for 50, that was my goal. And then 100 kg for 100 and 171 pounds for 203 reps. So like quick question, when you say like 100 kg for 100 and this for 50, like is it like this where you're doing

the reps and then over time you just, you keep holding the sandbag, you take a few seconds, you do another rep, you sit down. You never put the bag down. Never yeah. That's a so the 203 rep one that took me 40 minutes. Now I know a lot of people could take 171 pound sandbag and do 203 reps in less time, but this like a whole side thing about strength endurance. But, uh, when I'm doing these, these high rep sandbag box squats, it feels to me almost like some kind of condensed journey that you go on.

It's so I think strength endurance is just the coolest attribute that anyone can have. This, this comes, I think for me, I read a book by a guy called Steve Justa called rock iron steel. I don't know if you've read that one. Uh, he, in the book, he talks about. He, he Rock, Iron, Steel. I don't know if you've read that one. In the book he talks about, he was this really strong guy. He's passed away now.

He seemed like the coolest guy, like the grandfather who has appliances on his front lawn who's just got like Budweiser's and smoking a cigarette, just hanging out. Seemed like a really cool guy. I'm pretty sure he had some help writing the book. I don't know. So in the book he talks about how he went to work

at this factory and there was this small skinny guy who his job 12 hours a day or whatever would be to get these steel beams I think that would come down the conveyor belt. They would have this hot and sticky core sand on them so he'd have to pick it up and hit it with this hammer over and over. Sometimes he'd have to lift it three or five times.

I think they weighed like 100 pounds, and he would do that all day for 12 hours. And Steve walks up, he's this big lifter guy, and he says, I'm strong, this is gonna be easy. That guy called in sick or something, so he took over the job. And within an hour, he was just completely drained, and he had to do that for the rest of the day,

and then he realized, oh, strength endurance is a different thing, and this is something that's worth having day and then he realized, oh, strength endurance is a different thing and this is something that's worth having. And so he ended up doing all these crazy things like walking two miles with a couple hundred pounds of chains and just things like that. And that made me like strength endurance. And so the sandbag box squat to me is the perfect

combination of strength endurance while still also trying to build muscle because no matter how much I want strength endurance, I can't help but view things through the lens of a bodybuilder, just because I like muscle. And so the... The... The...

Yeah, so Sam Batboy... I like muscle. It's just cool, you know? It's hard for me to commit to something if I don't think it's gonna at least do something in terms of muscle. Obviously squatting a weight for 200 reps for 40 minutes isn't the most efficient way to build muscle.

But there is some of that there. And strength endurance, so every single one of those sets, it's like a little journey, I feel like. And you kind of get hooked on that, to me at least. I've almost kind of got hooked on that feeling 60 reps in where it's just complete agony. And you want to stop with everything you have and you have Countless opportunities to quit and say you know what today

I just wasn't good enough and then you just make your mind pushed a little push a little further You do one more rep another rep and you just keep going there's something about that that just I don't know for some reason I really like it. I do want to mention this like I like the way you're thinking about it because When I was younger when I was doing legs, it's like I want to get the, I like the way you're thinking about it because when I was younger, when I was doing legs, it's like, I want to get the biggest legs possible, right? It's just like, I just want big legs. You're not thinking about,

hey, we're using this word again, the function of your legs, right? You're not thinking about like, is this something, am I someone who could do something for a long time? Could I go, do I have endurance, right? You're just thinking about the aesthetic aspect of legs. But when you're doing this, like first off,

you will build muscle. Absolutely, you will build bigger legs doing this. But those legs, like it's whenever people say you can't show muscle and go muscle, those legs can fucking go. 100% they can go, but they're still big, right? So it's like, I like the way you're thinking about that. More of us should.

Yeah, it's just cool to have. I mean, having muscle is awesome, but it's really cool to be able to do something. And I don't know how much carry over a sandbag box squat has to real world situations, but I'm sure it has more than a lot of other things. And even just standing up is something that people lose. So just training yourself to do that. And I feel like strength endurance is so cool because to me it's the strength of someone who has a deep love of life. Because any situation where say you're five miles out

and someone has had broke their leg, who's gonna be the one who can carry them for five miles out of there? Someone with strength endurance. If you are so good at lifting ultra heavy, ultra power, then you're gonna wear out instantly. So Mark, you have been loving wearing these Paloovas for a long time.

Why is it that you like these shoes that look like this? I'm trying to get my feet to be jacked. I think it's funny how sometimes people will, when I wear these shoes, they're like, oh, those are different. And I'm like, well, maybe you should blame God because this is the human foot. This is the way that it looks.

But Paluvas are awesome because it's gonna allow you to train your feet and train your toes and allow for that toe spread because you got the five finger toe thing going on. It's like a, like put on a glove for your feet. It feels amazing. It's like walking around with toe spacers. You know, we've been working on our feet for a long time now.

You always hear the benefit of people talking about like these tribes who have gone without shoes forever and they have this toe space now these amazing feet and these shoes will allow you to just passively get that back by walking around. You don't realize what a disadvantage you're at when your foot is all clumped together from the football cleats or soccer cleats or whatever else you were wearing when you were young and so it's nice to be able to splay your toes. In addition to that though,

one thing I love about Paloova is the fact that it's not a regular barefoot shoe. I do love barefoot shoes as well, but it also has appropriate padding. And when you're stepping on some crazy pebbles and rocks and different things, like when I'm out on a run, some terrain is a little different than others. I don't have to be worried that I'm gonna get

some sort of stabbing crazy thing happening to my foot because it has an appropriate amount of cushion underneath the foot. And guys, Paloova has a lot of different styles on their website. I think one of the newest styles they just came out with, which is a little bit more of a rigorous do, is the Strand ATR.

It's not these. These are the Strands, but the ATRs have a little bit more. If you wanna go hiking with them, you totally can. Those are amazing. If you go out, throw those on and go sprint on a field, and your feet feel so strong, grabbing the grass and being able to actually grab the ground with your foot feels amazing.

I'm more of a chill guy with my Paluva, so I like the Zen slip-ons, but that's the thing. With Paluva, there's a lot of different options. So if you head to Paluva.com and use code power project you'll be able to save 15% off your entire purchase and they also have toe socks their five feet toe socks are no show so check those out too. If you have the strength endurance which is the combination of being able to hold a person and keep going and have that mental strength it's it's like you are someone who's useful and finds continuing on just something worth doing.

And that's how I look at it at least. I think there's still a lot of things that are unknown when it comes to strength or even like hypertrophy. But they're definitely things that can be examined where you're like, well, that makes sense. And you think of someone like Tom Platts, the legs that Tom Platts had. It's like, I know he has his reps and his sets out there

and there's prescriptions of how he built his legs and so on with specific hypertrophy protocols and stuff. But what about all the other reps? What about all the warmup sets? He just did so many repetitions, And I understand that somebody's gonna say, oh well, you need a certain amount of weight, and the weight represents an intensity. And then within that intensity,

you wanna do X amount of sets and X amount of reps, and you wanna brush up against failure. And you can kind of say all these things, but then there's guys like Tom Platts who basically just went nuts. He just really went for it, and whenever he thought he was done, whenever he thought he was dead,

he would say he could do five more repetitions. And the shape and the conditioning that these guys are in is very much undersold. A Jay Cutler, a Ronnie Coleman, good luck trying to hang with any of those guys. Could you imagine trying to work out with Ronnie Coleman? Oh, fuck no. First of all, the weights that he's doing,

who the hell can keep up with any of that? There wasn't a person in the world that could figure out how to keep up with him from a weight perspective, but even if you were changing the weights, and you're just like, hey, I just wanna work in just to see what it's like to train with the champ, you would be getting your ass kicked. These guys go through a tremendous amount of work

in a relatively short period of time. The workout might be an hour, the workout might be 90 minutes, but they're doing their leg curls, they're doing their leg press, they're doing their leg extension, doing the squats, and they just crank right through them. I've had opportunity to work out with Stan Efferding,

and one of the things that he pushed on me was this idea of getting more work done in less time. That alone will make you more fit. That alone will help get you more jacked. So even though what you're doing is an extreme, I think that it's a great way to, it's a great way to build self-confidence. It's probably fun in a lot of ways.

And then also it's a great way to build some-confidence. It's probably fun in a lot of ways. And then also it's a great way to build some muscular endurance. And when your muscular endurance and your strength endurance is better, you'll be able to crank through workouts at a different capacity. Yeah, I think that's a, I'm kind of excited because I'm nearing the end of the box squat journey.

I think I kind of hit most of my goals. I'm going to push it a bit further, but I'm going to go back to what I was doing before which is mainly based on doing Sand back to shoulder as if it were an Olympic lift So it's I think that the volume I'm gonna be able to do is just gonna be so high Just cuz nothing what's difficult after squatting for 40 minutes or falling off a cliff. Yeah Yeah, I can't believe you fell off a cliff that that story scares the shit out of me because like I've you know When you're a kid like a lot of stupid shit happens when you're with a friend and like something horrible happens

I had a friend that was He's on like a swing set and he like went to jump off the swing set next thing You know, he had a fork like driven right through his hand. I was just like what how the hell did this happen? We're all just playing having fun and he just happened to land in an area they were I don't know why there was a fork there, but that's what happened. It's just crazy shit that happens when you're a kid. And we're lucky that we survived some of those time periods.

Yeah, you just walk through. I was with two of my friends, it was one of their birthdays, and there were other people down at the bottom of the cliff. And one of our friends, he always did things that were just really dumb, but we followed him because we were kids. And he's like, it's the barbed wire is fine.

And go on that ledge. And it was muddy and just slipped. Yeah, it was. I have I remember pushing him back, being like, no. And then falling and like saving his life. But I'm pretty sure that didn't actually happen. It was just and I think they let me have that because I fell. Yeah. You talk, and there's a video right here of you showing, if you can maybe back that up,

Ryan, you move very fast by the way, but if you can show the row, you mentioned that this is a technique that you kind of learned by watching some other, uh, other guys picking up sandbags. You like to kind of row it first and then, and why do you like to do that? Yeah, it's really interesting. Cause I was, I was watching, uh, when I first started lifting sandbags, I kind of approached it with a deadlift mindset where you're kind of hinging the hips right away. But then I saw some of the strongest stone lifters, uh, that I and sandbag lifters I had ever seen were initiating the movement with a row and then extending the hips and I found

it's it's been a good trade-off for me lifting off the ground has always kind of been my weakness compared to everything else and doing the row first if you think about there are four different things you have to do so you have the hip extension and you have the row those are the two movement patterns you have and of those two, the hip extension is almost always going to be the stronger of the two. That's why you don't see people, you know, cheat rowing like 600 pounds that often, but you see a 600 pound deadlift every day. And when lifting the sandbag from the ground, there's the initial lift and then there's clearing the knees. So I think of that as kind of the four variables you have to play with. And so my thought behind it was if you start with the hip extension it makes it much more difficult to row later on because your knees are in the way. Whereas if you

start with the row which is weaker then you have more clearance underneath the bag so you can hip hinge later. And so in a way it's evening out the curve a bit. There's also leg drive, I should have mentioned that. When you're lifting the sandbag off the ground you can really drive with your legs. And so starting with the row and then extending the hip second, it's almost like it makes it a more even lift.

Whereas if you just do the hinge first you almost end up running into your knees and you can't make use of that rowing strength because your knees are in the way. And so you have to kind of shimmy it up. And so that was just a small tweak I made recently and it's been huge. I can finally do one motions with heavier weights

from the ground to my chest. Yeah, and if you kind of get your hips forward too early, then you're sort of screwed. Like the only thing you can do from there is like lean back and try to wiggle the bag up. Yeah, because your knees get in the way. You don't have much leverage anymore. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's that's been a really good change I'm happy with that switch and do you think that there's like Definitive ways to pick up a sandbag or have you seen people lift it like many different ways? I think there's a there are a lot of different ways

Actually one of the guys I was watching when I learned that technique, his name's Corey Rockwell, and he actually rows the sandbag to his lap and he stands behind it. He doesn't actually straddle it. He has it out in front of him and is somehow able to do it. And I can't comprehend the strength required to do that.

But that's all just with the one positioning, with the sandbag laying horizontally on the ground. My preferred method is actually to have it standing upright and then bear hugging it and lifting it straight up like that. I've felt like that gave me a bit of a leverage advantage and that's worked a lot better for me just to bypass that weakness off the ground.

And I think that's one of the great things about sandbags is there doesn't seem to be one technique that's used at the elite level by every single person. Everybody has a different shaped body and it lends itself to different lifting styles. For me, it's very hard to do the horizontal style we were just talking about with anything over like 220, which isn't even that heavy,

but just because the bag gets longer and my arms aren't that long, the wider a sandbag gets it's it's like an increasingly less advantageous Snatch grip deadlift or something like that eventually It's like your arms are way out to the side Whereas you can use that to your advantage if you stay in the sandbag up and then It's standing high because it's heavier and you can wrap your arms around it

You don't have to bend over as far. Then you can lift it up to your lap. It's a so many little things you can do with sandbags. It would be so great if there was a, maybe there is a substance that's a bit more dense than sand that could allow you to make like fill up a 200 pound bag, but it ends up being 250 pounds or 300 pounds. Yeah. If anybody has any ideas, let us know. Some shot, you like some metal or something, right? Metal shot. Be heavier. You're trying to make it heavier. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know. Some shot, like some metal or something, right? Would metal shot be heavier? Are you trying to make it heavier?

Yeah. Yeah? Oh. Yeah, that'll really kill you. Yeah, I've always been trying to do like the opposite because I think it'd be cool to lift a massive sandbag that isn't as heavy just because then I could really have that advantage. I took my sandbag, I think this one is in the video here.

I took it up to the mountains one time and it was empty and I just filled it with dirt and it actually worked really well. It was like 40, I think it's supposed to be about 40% the weight of sand or something. Yeah, and you can fill it with rubber mulch I heard and that's like supposed to be 40% or something of the weight of, so if you have a 200 pound sandbag

and you filled it with rubber mulch, it might be approximately half that amount of weight, something like that. Yeah. And just going back to the idea of sandbags being your sport, every single little thing you do like that, today I'm going to work with a giant sandbag that isn't actually that heavy. It's just going to strengthen you that much more towards your goal of improving your sport,

which in turn eventually leads to more muscle and strength everywhere. You talk about walking with a sandbag. You ever try to run with it? your goal of improving your sport, which in turn eventually leads to more muscle and strength everywhere. You talk about walking with a sandbag. You ever try to like run with it? I I did some fast carries I used to uh with the natural stones that I had in my yard more than the the sandbags just because I guess That's what I was doing at the time But I would line them all up and then run over grab it sprint back to the other side And that's what's a lot of strongman guys kind of they basically running with them sometimes back to the other side. That's what a lot of strongman guys kind of,

they're basically running with them sometimes. Yeah, that was my thought was that's got to, that has to be the ultimate zombie apocalypse move. Because if you keep having to leave your stuff behind because you can't move quickly with heavy weight, it's going to be a really tough existence. So the ultimate skill would be picking up your pack and moving fast.

You know, you, along with the sandbags, and we'll definitely come back to it, you do a lot of calisthenics with what you do. So what is, because I've been, I've been getting into calisthenics a lot, and it's so frustrating how, I guess, how much of a beginner I feel at it, but I can see there's a lot of growth

that's gonna be had there. So for you, how has that been for you in terms of gaining muscle? Because a lot of growth that's going to be had there. So for you, how has that been for you in terms of gaining muscle? Because a lot of people, again, they'll look at calisthenics and be like, why am I going to do that? You're not going to gain that much muscle with calisthenics. Yeah. Well, looking at calisthenics just as a training modality

in general, I think it's overpowered for building all of the upper body muscles. And you can lower body too if you really work at it. I've always liked weights more, but just in general, it's crazy to me when people think that calisthenics isn't gonna work, because it just does. But the way that I do calisthenics is I use a density approach.

So there was a style of training called density training a while back. I think it was Charles Staley talked about it. And basically his idea was rather than doing three sets of 10 or whatever the typical setup was, you would pick an exercise and do it for 10 minutes and then try to do more reps each time. So this actually came about that bulk

where I drank the gallon and a half of milk and got really fat. I didn't wanna count sets and reps in the normal way because I had done sets of five for so many weeks on end, I was just kind of done with it. So I went completely to calisthenics and started doing like circuit fashion. So I would pick different exercises

based on upper body movement patterns. I found the upper body allowed you to get the perfect balance of muscle fatigue and endurance. If I added the lower body, I got too winded too quickly. So the way I've been doing it for a long time is I'll do, say a horizontal push, a horizontal pull, vertical push, vertical pull, and an ab exercise. And so say you have pull-ups, dips, pike push-ups,

or decline pike push-ups, the ab wheel, and then maybe an inverted row or something like that. And I'll pick a rep scheme. 10 down is very popular, which is 10 reps of each exercise, nine reps of each all the way down to one. I've been doing a lot more ladder stuff lately, which is you could do like five reps of each,

three and then two and repeat, stuff like that. And I'll do it as many times as I can in a set time limit, and then I'll just try to beat that time. So lately I've been working within the 20 to 25 minute range. So say I can make my way through a circuit five times, I'll just come back and do the exact same circuit over and over until I get it under 20 minutes

and then I'll add another round or whatever. And it doesn't seem like anything that would build muscle, but I don't really do any pressing with sandbags and I haven't had any weaknesses in terms like shoulder or chest size compared to everything else since I've been doing calisthenics that way. And I think density training is really cool. A lot of people can't seem to...

When I say it right there, they're like, okay, maybe I get that. If you do more work or you do the same amount of work in less time or more work in the same time, it makes sense that that's progressive overload. But then you take a step back and think, well, there weren't more reps, there wasn't more weight or whatever. Seems like it shouldn't work, but it does. Makes me think of prison training.

Yeah, yeah, a lot like that. And those guys get big and jacked. Yeah, you just do a lot of volume, do it fast. Thought I had on it a while ago was sprinters. So obviously a lot of sprinters do weight training too. But you could say that a lot of the mass they get on their legs is from actually sprinting. Well, the 40 yard dash is always the same. There's no progressive overload in terms of weight or reps.

It's always the same thing unless maybe they're doing a parachute or something. The way that they grow their legs is by doing that faster, which you could say they apply more pressure into the ground, I guess, with every step to get faster. But that's just a very basic example of how density training could be used to build muscle. What are you doing working out in the snow? It's fun. Yeah.

There's a, I have a couple guys on Instagram Unknown strongman and mark carpenter and they're they got me super into just going out there and doing it They they're always out there in the lake like the freezing cold lake lifting rocks and stuff. Yeah, you're outside you get the sunlight It's also cold out. Yeah. Yeah, I tried to do it barefoot when I can I think I had my barefoot shoes on for part of get a little bit of grounding Yeah, cuz even if you weren't barefoot, your hands are still touching the ground. Yeah, half the time I'm out there

in a 11th century Viking gear too. Just, that's just another thing I do, I guess. Just because I think it's cool, but. Are you at a pretty high altitude? Oh yeah, I just moved to about 8,000 feet. So I've been winded. How's that feeling? I've been winded for about a month.

So yeah, so coming here where it's, I think pretty close to zero has felt kind of strange, honestly. Yeah. The adaptation has got to be pretty amazing once you're there for a while and you're here, you are like running through the woods and stuff and you've been doing a little bit of running too. Yeah. Yeah. I've been getting more into it with, uh, as you can see with the, with the, uh, like some like Viking music going on during this or some Celtic music or something.

I'm pretty sure I released that as a short with Skyrim music and it did pretty well. So, but yeah, I also have like this giant training sword that I'll take out there sometimes. Is it the one from Ashman Athletics? It's a, it's, it's just like a, I think the site is called Cult of Athena or something like that. It's just a basic like long sword that's made out of some word that starts with P that I

can't think of. It's just like this heavy thing. Just like trade with it. But running like that is so interesting. Like running through like a forest, you have to really be paying attention to what you're doing. You have to use a lot of your senses. You have to really, you know, it's not like you're just running out on a regular path. You don't have to, you can

look to the side, you can look at nature and so on. But like when you're running like that, running through a trail, that's not even really like marked or anything. You have to really be paying attention. And then also Have you? Because I used to do a lot of this when I was a kid and where I grew up there was tons of woods I'm sure you've gotten maybe a little lost before too. Yeah happen that can be scary as shit. Yeah, it's I Didn't get lost lost like you're like yo, I actually don't know where I am Yeah, they're actually no longer have any idea on how to get back It's a bad feeling when you get that. It's bad.

And it could be like getting dark or something. You're like, oh shit. And there are mountain lions up there. Oh, perfect. Yeah, there was this rock formation recently that I thought was a different rock formation than it was. And I was using it as my benchmark. Yeah, and then I got to it and realized

it wasn't the thing I thought it was. So I just kind of tried to retrace my steps back. Luckily there was snow. But I think that running off trail like that is really great for me. When I first started lifting, I had had minor tears in both my knees. I was doing a landmine squats and I just, I'd loaded up too heavy. And first I felt something in my right knee. I, it was some kind of small tear.

I never went to the doctor, but, uh, then that healed. And then my left one went doing the same exercise. And so ever since then, my knees, uh, doing heavy squats again, fixed my knees. It made them feel great, but I've never been, I've never wanted to push with things like running on cement just because it never made me feel very good. And so going on off trail like this, it's almost self-limiting because there are those sticks and the rocks and the little trees and everything also going uphill. So you can't go quite as fast.

You're running like a madman though. Yeah, you're flying, dude. Yeah. That place is so cool. Someone just built this like section of trails with these logs and yeah, it's so cool. That's up near a place called Fair Play in Colorado, which is actually the town that South Park is based on. So they have like a little statue and stuff. But yeah, this is like- Statue of Cartman?

Yeah, well it's like this little, I guess like a billboard thing made out of wood and it has like their pictures. I think you can put your face through one of them or something like that, if I remember right. So- Oh, go ahead. I think you can put your face through one of them or something like that. If I remember right. But so oh god. I was gonna say do you have a like a regular gym membership? No, I I've only trained in a gym for two months and it was right before I left to go I lived in an RV for a while and I like couldn't train with my stuff for for a little bit So I ended up at this gym for two months

But besides that always trained just on just just at a regular ass gym on an elliptical or something? Yeah, never. It's always been just at home. I had a calisthenics first, got my first barbell and just trained at home for as long as I could. I brought my barbell in the RV with me when I left. Any desire to do any like regular stuff ever you think?

Like, I don't know, just lifting on a machine or anything like that or? Yeah, I don't know, just lifting on a machine or anything like that? Yeah, I think machine stuff actually appeals to me more than going back to maybe a heavy barbell or dumbbell stuff just because I feel like I have that covered. I'm so into sandbags. I just don't feel like I want to. I get asked a lot to go test and I just don't want to take the time away because I'm just so committed to the sandbags. But the idea of doing some extra work for the biceps maybe or hitting those small muscles

with the machine, that sounds kind of interesting to me, I'd say. Which is interesting because it never did before. I think it's easy to think like, oh, let's test your strength. Let's have you do a deadlift. But it's like, well, what are we really doing? You're very strong. Come test your strength on the sandbag. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. I think, I understand why someone would say that. I could see why someone would say that. But I think it's like unnecessary. Like your strength is already through the roof with what you're doing. And can you attack things from like a different angle? And could there be room for you to, you know,

could you strengthen your lower back with some RDLs or something I guess so. The way that I use Methylene Blue is very similar the way that you're using it I don't use it every day I think things that push that button to change your mood you might want to be a little cautious with it in my opinion and the feelings that I get from Methylene Blue it does change my mood a little bit it's a it's a mood enhancer when I go out to run I it does change my mood a little bit. It's a mood enhancer. When I go out and run, I feel like I do have a little bit more endurance.

I do feel like I can breathe a little bit better, but that could also be, I've been training very hard as well, so it could be an adaptation to that as well. But as we've had David Herrera and many other people come on the show before, they basically just say Methylene Blue is a electron donor, and it allows the body to utilize energy just more efficiently.

And I don't know if I can feel that per se, but I know that I feel better when I'm running when I'm using methylene blue. Yeah, post sessions of grappling, that's what I usually use. I use it two or three times a week, post sessions of jiu-jitsu, I always feel like I have more energy, like much more energy than I typically have. Which makes me understand that, you know,

if I did wanna go for longer sessions, I could, but it also helps me understand that I'm gonna be recovering better for my next session the next day, which is a big deal. But yeah, I think that if you guys, first off, this stuff is great because it's third party tested, Methylene Blue and other sources like the stuff that you'll see on Amazon or random websites,

there's no regulation. So a lot of people have levels of toxicity from the supplement because it's not dosed correctly and there are other things in that methylene blue. Again, this is something that is lab made. It's not, you know what I mean? So you gotta be careful and this is why we like using this stuff because we know it's not gonna mess us up.

You can go on their website, you can go on the Troscriptions website, and you can get a report of the third party tested Methylene Blue, and double, triple check it for yourself. In addition to that, they have the Canateen, which I have not used that much, but when I have used it pre-workout, I did notice I get a zip from it. It has, I think it has nicotine in it,

along with a couple other things to go along with the methylene blue. So do yourselves a favor, check out Troscriptions, check out what they got. Strength is never weak this week, this never strength, catch you guys later. Maybe. I don't know, but they're boring, kinda.

Yeah, it's just so much more fun to lift a sandbag. And that goes back to the idea of viewing sandbag lifting as a sport. It's a, you know, I'd be willing to do, if I knew doing seated good mornings was gonna take me from a 200 pound sandbag to 220, I'd do it. Just because I have that extra layer of purpose behind it. But just for fun, I just want to lift a sandbag.

I think that's one huge thing about this. If you're listening and you don't like sandbags and you've tried it and it doesn't seem fun to you, then it's not something you have to do. But one of the reasons that I gravitated towards it is because I saw it, it looked fun, I tried it, it was difficult but it was very fun. And it's just something that I have in my house,

I look at it, I want to just go lift that thing all the time, you know what I mean? There's something about it it's just something that I have in my house. I look at it. I want to just go lift that thing all the time. You know what I mean? There's something about it that's just way more intriguing and fun. And the benefits from it are benefits that I haven't gotten from the barbell, which also makes it just like a very fun thing to get stronger with. But you know, find the thing that piques your interest that you find enjoyable because that's going to allow you to be very, very consistent

with it. Yeah, that's why I always say, you know, it doesn't have to be sandbags. It could be powerlifting. It could be Olympic lifting, whatever. I think if you like building muscle and you're feeling stuck, I think the single greatest thing you could do

is just find a sport that has progressive overload and puts the muscles under a heavy amount of tension over time has that built in and then just get obsessed with it because that's probably going to lead to the best gains ever. At least that's what happened to me when I started liking sandbags. But all sports are cool. I just like sandbags. As we've been picking up, you know, some different things, med balls and sandbags and stones and so on. I just noticed all around me, I'm like,

oh, there's big ass rocks everywhere. You know, I'll go on a walk or I'll go on a run and I'll see a big rock and I'll stop and just fuck around with it a little bit. And even on some walks, I might have a weighted vest on, I might grab a rock and I just walk with it with it for a little while 35 pounds or something like that 40 pounds It just makes the walk that much more challenging and I think I did a walk a few weeks ago where I had like about 110 pounds of weight on and I walked about a mile and I picked up a

35 pound rock probably a 30 30 pound rock something like that and It was brutal I got back, I was like, holy shit, like that was, and it felt amazing to take everything off and to, you know. But like this stuff is, it's not, it's so accessible, you know, and I think one of the things about strong men that's a turn off to a lot of people is that the weights are so heavy. Everything that they do, the people are so strong that some of the implements that they

have, like even like a yoke carry or something like that, the thing itself, like the one that Rogue builds is like 185 pounds, which doesn't sound like much weight, but if you've never done a yoke carry before, that's a pretty heavy starting weight. And then if you see a sandbag at a gym, a lot of times they're 200, 250 pounds, which is a lot to bite off if you've never lifted a sandbag before. And so it's cool that they're getting more popular.

It's cool that we're seeing smaller sandbags that weigh less, and we're seeing like a lot of other options for people to get started on it. Yeah, I think it's great. Something I like that you said is that you started seeing rocks when you were walking. I feel like that's the difference between training for bodybuilding, I mean bodybuilding's a sport,

or training for something that the only reason you're doing it is to get something from it. Say if you're bodybuilding, your only reason for doing it is the goal at the end. You might enjoy it a bit during the process but it's when you're playing football for example you like the end of the game you like winning but it's not it's it's that moment halfway through where you're on the line and you're looking at that other guy and you want to see if you can outmaneuver him. You do it because the thing itself is enjoyable and I feel like when you have something like that it

opens it makes the world such a bigger place. This is kind of random, but I started whittling and I suddenly noticed... What's whittling? Carving wood. Okay. Like carving like little animals and stuff. And I started noticing textures on like a staircase. I started noticing these things in the world that I hadn't seen before.

Better appreciation. And you start lifting the odd objects. It's the world becomes a bigger place because now everything is a training tool. You're like, I wonder how much that fat kid over there weighs. Yeah. Let me pick him up. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Or, or the log or the stone or whatever you see. It's just that I feel like this way of training just makes the world a very open place. I like that about it. I, that's, that's one thing I actually really do appreciate about it too. that I feel like this way of training just makes the world a very open place. I like that about it. I, that's, that's one thing I actually really do appreciate about it too. It's like for me and goals and sandbags is it's not necessarily purely just to lift heavier bags. It's also to make everything I'm lifting also feel so much

easier. Like when, when the 150 or the 200 or the 225, when it feels like it's getting mugged and it just feels easier and easier over time. I appreciate that but then I also I feel the carryover more with these implements to grappling than when I was lifting much heavier weights with the barbell and grappling. For me personally it's just, how much you bend, how active your core is when you're lifting, how you get it to the shoulder, how explosive it can be, it just feels so much better progressing with this,

with my sport, than other implements. You know what I mean? And that's one of the reasons why it's, again, it's like I can see and I can feel the carryover. So it's just, it's so damn fun. Yeah, yeah, it's nice having that thing that you're working towards. Cause I, most of the people watching this have probably accepted that they're going to be

training in some way for the rest of their life. 100%. Why not make it as enjoyable as it can be? I feel like doing something you don't enjoy for the rest of your life, knowingly doing that is, is kind of like a tragedy. Really. Why would you do that? Make, why not make it fun? And I think having a sport that guides you makes like a tragedy really. Why would you do that? Why not make it fun? And I think having a sport that guides you makes things really fun. Have you tried any step ups or have you tried to jump with the sandbag? I haven't experimented too much with a lot of stuff. I've mostly stuck to the basic heavy

compounds. I know there's a lot to be gained from single leg stuff and all that kind of thing. I just, I haven't done much of it. The step up is a real animal because it's hard to figure out like depending on how high the step is, it's like you have this kind of bulk in front of you and then for you to lift your leg and then try to figure out how to get momentum forward is actually pretty hard. I think I've just done it with like about a 70 pound bag. I haven't done it with anything

too crazy but you can also put it on your shoulder and then you can try to step up um but seeing you do some of those box squats and stuff i was like maybe that'd be kind of neat to come up off the box and get just like a little bit of a jump yeah and even just for like the bone density you know stick the landing a little bit um obviously it'd start i'd start out with something light to get a feel for it, but that might be a decent idea. Yeah, that's another cool thing about them is I feel like in a way sandbags are still kind of unexplored territory because most of the stuff you've seen is either very small

people with very light sandbags doing cardio stuff or very massive people doing the basic exercises. So there is a lot of room to experiment with, you know, step ups while holding the sandbag on your shoulder. There are countless exercises you could do that probably no one has even ever done. Yeah. Do you mess around with throwing anything by any chance? I did. I got pretty hooked on Stein's toss in for a while, which is

I think it's from Switzerland, maybe. But basically you hold a stone over your head and then you run and then you throw it. And it was really fun. It was really fun. I had a lot of fun with it, but I just, with like living situation and I didn't really have access to it for a while, but.

I would mess around with like just throwing med balls around and stuff like that. And it's, and even some of the sandbags, you know, I have, you know, being able to just, you even some of the sandbags, you know, I have You know being able to just you know, get a Some rotation going, you know and just pushing things and some different planes and stuff like that feels good Yeah, that's I think rotation is definitely missing. That's something that I want to get more into pretty soon Just because there's there's a lot there Over the shoulder tosses great. Yeah,. Like, you mean getting into the shoulders great, but like grabbing a,

grabbing a 100, 150 and just literally one bam over the shoulder. Those are awesome. I love those. Um, and these are the Steins. Oh yeah. Steinstassen I think. I could be saying it wrong, but that looks awesome. Yeah. It was part of Rogue for a while. I don't know how. What were you saying? You were saying there was a lift that really inspired you. What was that? That'd be cool if we can bring that up. There was some sort of sandbag lift or something.

Oh, with Dave. Yeah, so, Caveman Daveman, it was a couple years ago, I think there was a stone called the, I don't know how to say it, I-Gaylee or something like that. I think it's an Irish word. And he goes to pick up this stone.

I hadn't really seen much from him and I get recommended this Instagram thing. And he goes, walks up to pick up this stone and there's a Greta Von Fleet with Stardust Chords. It's just this epic guitar intro. He picks up the stone off the ground and then you hear this crazy voice start screaming over through the video and then he picks up the stone off the ground and then you hear this crazy voice start screaming Oh over through the video

And then he starts lifting the stone and it goes all the way up to his shoulder And it's just the perfect the perfect combination of things that I've watched it so many times and yeah I know he he recently pinned his uh That stone was 380, but I know he pinned his like 400 pound one recently So might be kind of hard to find but it's it's just so cool when you see someone doing something so extreme and it it catches you off guard like that because I had never seen I don't think I've seen stone lifting that heavy before I didn't realize it was even possible and then you see this perfect video show up and it's a yeah

that's that's been my motivation for a long time with shouldering things. That's cool. Oh, the, um, so you just moved to Colorado and you're, you're getting used to the, getting used to some of the weather out there and you said that you were running, but you were maybe killing yourself a little bit too much with the running. Um, have you, you're going to, are you going to get back into it or you need to back off of that yourself a little bit too much with the running, are you gonna get back into it

or you need to back off of that for a little while? Yeah, so I was living in Colorado, but I just moved further west. So I just got about a thousand, maybe 1500 foot elevation gain, I think. So it's a bit higher, but yeah, I was having so much fun because I had access to the mountains just always,

it's just basically my backyard. And so I just thought, you know, I'll just go sprint today. That'll be fun. And then I did it for like a couple hours with very small rest times, which is really dumb. And then I didn't hurt myself or anything, but I started to feel, you know, maybe my knees feel a little achy and whatever.

So I backed off a bit and I have been, I've been slowly getting back into it, just doing it a little at a time. my my backyard is actually a hill now. So I think I can do a lot of hill sprints out there. And but sprinting is just so fun. It's it's really cool. I was watching your video actually about how people move. And that was also part of what made me want to do that, because I realized, hey,

I do kind of run like the like my torso is stationary while my lower body's moving. And I saw that made me want to start running and maybe I got a little bit too motivated. Well, it's great that you're doing it on a, you know, you're doing it on soft ground and, and you're using hills. Like that's one of the best ways to regress the ability to sprint. It's like, don't go sprint on concrete on a flat surface, go sprint on a fricking hill. Yeah. In some grass too. That's amazing.

Yeah. It is really fun too to go through the obstacle course that is a mountain because it's just fun to, like you're about to take a step and you realize you have to jump to the side a little bit. It's really mentally engaging. One awesome thing that you're doing too, that it's like, stick more about it,

is you're changing directions. Like you're going through this obstacle, but you're sprinting and then you're changing,, that it's like, stick more about it is you're changing directions. Like you're going through this obstacle, but you're sprinting and then you're changing going another direction and another direction. Whereas like we don't have to train like a track athlete. We don't have to sprint like a track athlete where it's just like sprinting in one direction. You can maneuver.

Like that's also putting different types of stresses on your body laterally. You could go backwards. It's like, don't only think about going forward. So it's amazing that you're doing that right now, because it's going to yield a lot of other development than just spinning in a straight line. Yeah, I'm excited to see where it leads.

When I was younger, I was in track, and I ended up with a, because you always run to the left. And so I ended up with a slightly crooked back, and I had to like go to the chiropractor for a while and stuff. And so then I stopped doing to the left. And so I ended up with a slightly crooked back and I had to like go to the chiropractor for a while and stuff. And so then I stopped doing track as much. That was, I used to love running when I was younger. That was, I did cross country and track and all that stuff.

But it's a lot of fun to run off road. And it's like a game. You're running this direction, oh wait, no, I'm gonna go this direction. It's like, yeah, it's just fun. Well, yeah, you're pretty much kind of trail running. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. That's awesome. Where should people start with sandbag training, you think? As far as weight, I usually like to base it off of deadlift strength. So if you haven't done any deadlifts or any heavy lifting, I usually say like 75 pounds is a good place to start. If you can deadlift 225, 100 pounds and if you can deadlift 405 or more 150 pounds usually a good place to start. Those weights might become too

easy for you pretty quick depending on how fast you work with it but that's a good starting point and my recommendation is usually just start with the bear hug carries. If the only thing you do is just add a couple sets of bear hug carries to the end only thing you do is just add a couple sets of bear hug carries to the end of your training you're doing now, that's how I did it at first. And slowly over time it hooked me and I couldn't get away because the benefits were just so good.

That's where I would say to start. You're doing a great job teaching people. We had a lot of people request you to come on the show. So congratulations for that. Where can people follow along? What's your YouTube channel and where can people find you? So YouTube is the Stone Circle and then on Instagram I have the Stone Circle training and that's pretty much it. I have a book on Amazon you can find too, but that's like you can find that through the YouTube. What's it called?

Sandbag hypertrophy. There we go. Yeah, it's doing pretty good. It's a lot of people have really liked it, so I've been really happy with how that's going. But yeah, the stone circle. All right. Awesome. Thank you so much. Strength is never a weakness.

Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.