Mark Bell's Power Project - You MUST Exercise If You Want A Safe Pregnancy - Chelsea Karabin & Andrew Martinez || MBPP Ep. 988

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

In 988, Chelsea, “ChelseaLifts” Karabin, Andrew Martinez Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the training methods and amazing success the "Built Well for Birth" program has had with hundreds of pregnant women, even helping first time mothers deliver their babies in less than 10 minutes! Follow Chelsea: https://www.instagram.com/chelsealifts/ Follow Andrew Martinez: https://www.instagram.com/amartinez1320/ Follow Built Well For Birth: https://www.instagram.com/builtwellforbirth/ More on Built Well For Birth:https://www.builtwellforbirth.com/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!   ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuori.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

I've been with the WAC method guys for upwards of six years now. What if we brought all these principles and applied this to pregnant women? We've had almost 400 women in and out of active delivery in less than 10 minutes. Even first time laborers? First time mothers. Active labor is shorter for them. That sets them up so much better for those early years of actually starting a family because how much easier is postpartum training when you weren't in active labor for six for six hours is there a different protocol when they're 35 no not at all 39 years old with

ms and she was in and out of active delivery in 13 minutes does this process that you have women go through does it reduce any of the vaginal damage that might happen absolutely it doesn't matter if you had a child two months ago or 20 years ago, you're still a postpartum mother, and you could still potentially make this core a lot stronger than ever. Are you guys offended or intimidated by this little guy here? This guy? I didn't notice that.

What do you mean little? I love how... I love how... There you go. I'm looking at you guys. Whoa. That eye contact. What's up, guys?

That's interesting. The color is interesting. I love how much it jiggles. That's mine. That's my color. I have a little bit of dick vitiligo, you know? That's funny. Is that what it's called? You of dick vitiligo, you know? That's funny. Is that what it's called?

Yeah, you can get vitiligo just on your dick. You know what vitiligo is? Nope. Yeah, it's when you get some white spots. Well, mine's on my dick. Wow. Unfortunate. Or fortunate.

Who knows? We had to start all over. Why did we have to start over? Because I don't want to start that way i can't start with what we're gonna be talking about later can they give a fuck why are you gonna start it over man just bleep what i said just keep the podcast going all right andrew got all shy that's jesus christ well because i'm just trying to have some fun he's like no we gotta start over my family trying to be professional here are we professional you

did like that by by the way. Why can't your family know that you get blowjobs? Don't edit this out. It's just the weird conversation. Like, oh, I haven't seen you guys in so long. It's like, oh, I've been checking out the podcast. So you're getting some BJs, aren't you? Like, hey, Stephanie.

Y'all have a loving relationship. Is that something not to be happy about? Oh, man. She will listen to this episode. There we hello stuff we love you i would like to get just jump right in to uh learn a little bit more about your youtube channel because you were all in on youtube back in the day one of the early adopters yeah and then you bounced on out of there yeah dipped right out yeah i mean i i started a channel when I was 19. And the thing about that, like a lot of people do that nowadays.

How old are you now? I'm 30 now. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I didn't understand what I was getting into because back then people weren't trying to be influencers. Like I just, there was someone that worked out with me at the gym I was at. He was like, yo, you got a pretty impressive physique. Why don't you share it online?

See what happens. So I just shared. And I could never have imagined what it would have turned into. I wasn't looking to necessarily start my own business. I was just open to posting and seeing what happened. And I think just the nature of being early at that time it made it easy to grow so i ended up with a decent following by like 2013 14 it was back in the day when like christian guzman chris jones hodge twins you know ogus yeah dude those full

day of eatings way way back in the day i saw a post the other day and somebody was like what the fuck happened to this and it showed like mike rashid and ct fletcher all these guys yelling and screaming and training hard and then just cut to like dudes with man buns like how did we get here just like this just like that and that's that's beautiful by the way but you're 250 with size 14 feet so like at the end of the day. Thank you. No one's going to say shit. Yeah. Yeah. So man, it just,

it grew and I found I, I buried myself in it. Like my competitive advantage back in the day, like before powerlifting really started to pick up, like when Candido and Meg squats and like other people in my, my, what became my circle started coming in. My competitive advantage was just like outworking people like beating the shit out of myself to a degree where like a lot of people

wouldn't so early on I was able to get a following because like not a lot of girls were posting lifting heavy either like I was just kind of out there as this little bit of an alien like hey I'm just doing my thing I'm gonna lift as much weight as i possibly can and that was kind of that was kind of the start of the channel was just going in and lifting as heavy as i possibly could that's like 10 years ago now do you think uh like you think starting like if someone starts now do you think it's um obviously like it might be harder because there's like more competition but uh what about even in terms of like comments and stuff and just uh i think like to me from what i can remember it seemed like youtube was more fun like people would people

would say stuff but it was like more jokes and then other people would chime in there'd be a lot of joking it wouldn't be yeah at least from what i remember it didn't seem like it was so serious yeah it did in many ways felt like this tight-knit community back then it was very cool but there was also like something i experienced i don't know how many other youtubers back then experienced it but like the fit misc and like jason genova found me that crew that that was rough that was rough for 20 year old me you know i didn't know quite how to how to handle that people like what did he. What is that called? 6'6"?

Order 66, baby. Order 66. That does sound familiar. Meg squats. There she is. Yeah, so it was an interesting dichotomy between those things. And I didn't, back then, again, I was so young. It was interesting how those comments came to affect me.

I didn't even realize it in the moment it wasn't until I hurt myself and I got myself far away from YouTube like I did have some problems leaning into oh man that was a blast back then we had so much fun but also I've always been pretty hard on myself so it was also very easy for me to lean into those comments that that were you know a little more brutal so I kind of had to find that balance and that took me some time why'd you vanish into thin air for years how many years were you were you like uh off the grid so yeah it was really like it was like four years okay yeah yeah it was like four years. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It was like four years. And for me, like the big wake-up call was we were just going. Like I opened the gym. I had the clothing company.

I was just going and going and going. And eventually towards the end of when I was on YouTube, like I was getting sick all the time. Like it was a running joke. I would go to an expo and I'd be like sick on the plane back. I wouldn't even make it back before I'd be sick. I'd get bronchitis, pneumonia, like I'd be out of it. And then it all came to a head in 2018 when I fractured my spine. I, my husband and I had taken his nephew to a trampoline park and we're just messing around, you know, I'm doing some flips. I didn't land on my head or anything. I

just like, there's this platform that I jumped up onto and I thought it was like one of the gymnastics mats that had some give and it was just a platform. And when I hit it, it felt like someone stabbed me in the back. And ultimately looking back, it was like, okay, I had developed all this strength as a power lifter, as a bodybuilder. But I couldn't funnel it through my body. So, you know, when I hit the ground with all that force, that was it. Like my spine was just done at that point. And although it was it was hard, like my identity had become Chelsea lifts that that was something that I hadn't I hadn I was Chelsea lifts. So to have that change so fast was wild. And, and when I hurt myself like that, I realized like, I, I got to step back and just reflect on

everything that had happened because it all happened so fast. There was so many expos, so many people I'd met. And, uh, yeah, I just, I, I had to, I had to figure out what I was outside of the work and outside of the beating myself up through lifting because fitness is a beautiful thing. Like lifting is incredible. I'm always going to do whatever I can to encourage people to get into that but also encourage people to be aware of the reasons they're getting into it. Like I think a lot of people start dieting just because they can't

accept themselves or they get into the gym because they just can't accept themselves. And being conscious of those things can save you a lot of pain down the road if you can take the time to work through those things beforehand. And for me, I just dove in headfirst so fast. I had to take a big step back. I mean, my life totally changed when that happened for the better, but yeah. Question real quick. Uh, the accepting themselves thing. What, what do you mean? Because like, it's not always a bad thing if somebody doesn't accept themselves the way they are. Right. So, so what do you mean when you say that? A hundred percent. So for, for me, I guess a better way to put it would be I've always been very judgmental of myself, like always kind of taken the stance that I could always be doing better.

Like I would always, always look to do more and more. I would judge myself in that way and how that manifested was overworking. Like not hiring people to help me with the clothing business is that scale. not properly hiring people when I opened the gym doing stuff like that and uh yeah it was really more of that more of that for me gotcha but it also took things to a pretty incredible level too like you know so you got to balance those things I don't think you I don't think you see people build big things without some level of always wanting more, always pushing and pushing. But for me, yeah, that was my journey.

Gotcha. Andrew, you were mentioning getting out of pain earlier. Yeah. And what are some sports, what's some of your background, and what kind of has led you to this point where you're trying to now, I guess, maybe reverse some of the things that you did previously? Amen. Yeah. So I started out, I've been a baseball football guy my whole life. Pushed it pretty hard in high school.

Had a lot of opportunities to go play in college. And I ended up choosing baseball just because I allowed some scouts and some coaches telling me I can make a lot more money playing baseball. But by the time I was 21, I had like three knee surgeries, torn this, torn that. I hit the weight room heavy and hard. I was probably 260 by the time I was 19, just stacked. But I couldn't move. I couldn't move. But I couldn't move. I couldn't move. And it was so frustrating, like Chelsea was saying, not being able to express your athleticism that you thought you had. So again, by the time I was 19, 20, so much pain. I was tired of being in pain.

You could probably still do your sport, but you were still in pain, right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I love all my coaches to death, but in high school, I didn't receive correct weightlifting coaching. Even in college, love my coaches to death, didn't receive the best coaching. So it kind of wrecked my body early, and I was so frustrated. I just wanted to get out of pain. But luckily, because of my athletic career playing at San Diego State, I got my grad school paid for. So playing my fifth year was really, really opportunistic. And getting your master's degree in Homeland Security, all these opportunities you thought were going to come your way,

they didn't really come i was getting recruited by a couple different agencies um and ended up choosing the strength route because i didn't want to get shot at all day i didn't want to go into some crazy agency and uh just be that bad guy catcher so um i ended up choosing the strength route just because I wanted to get my body strong. I wanted to move better and get out of pain. So, yeah, baby. Finally, like we were just talking about earlier, Mark, I'm 29 now, and I live pain-free, basically.

And it makes me emotional because that's kind of my, that's for us coaches, that's what you get your kicks out of is you help the average Joe, you help the average Jane, get out of pain for just one day, and to see the emotional monkey off their back, just be like, you know what? I don't have to live through this every single day. Things can get better. Just teaching them just new types of movement, new ways of thinking.

So that's really kind of how I ended up getting in the strength game. Yeah, I think the term working out is a really interesting one because you are trying to like work things out. Oh, yeah. Like mentally, physically. And as you're pointing out, like sometimes you go and work out and it maybe puts a lot of life questions on pause and you go and you squat 315 and you're like, I'm fucking badass. Like that was cool. You accomplish something, you feel good about

yourself and you kind of forget about the other problems and you maybe aren't advancing in some of the ways that you otherwise could. And I think we kind of, we fall short and not recognizing that it's kind of, it's a body mind spirit. Like this whole thing needs to be a practice. It needs to be like a martial art. Lifting weights needs to be treated like a martial art where we're not just, not just getting the inputs, like the inputs aren't enough.

We need to recover from the inputs and we need to really strategically think about what we're doing, how we're doing it. If we want to grow stronger, maybe it would be wise to think about how can I grow stronger in some other areas. Maybe I can read a book, or maybe I could listen to a podcast, or maybe if I have anxiety, maybe I can do a YouTube search, start to look at these things, start to investigate. That's what I've always found for me has been so great with fitness is that it's allowed me to explore a lot of things. It's given me confidence in fitness, which has been able to carry over into some other things. Amen. Yeah, I've never been confident.

I was never truly confident in myself until I kind of broke out of the box and started to really learn. Obviously teamed up with Weck Method guys and finally found like I was able to express my athleticism. I was able to express myself. So, yeah, it's been quite the journey, but very happy where we're at right now. So, Chelsea, like how did you, you know, come across Weck Method also? Because like you were a big lifter. And now, I mean, I haven't seen any lifting on your feet. You probably do some, but I just see ropes, Weck stuff, rotational stuff.

Why'd you start vibing with a lot of that stuff instead? Yeah, so the crazy thing is I only found David's work like a year ago. And that alone blew me away because it was like I had my CSCS. I was well studied. You know, that was what I went to school for but back in the day you know it was kind of popular to like clown on the bose ball and stuff like that you know yeah more like Chelsea Flo's nowadays but when I when I found David's work I had noticed he followed some other people that were like out of the fitness space, like Robert Edward Grant and other people that were applying more metaphysical concepts and seeing how he was applying that to the body. And then I learned more about

how he took the time after he invented the Bosu ball to actually go study Eastern medicine. And that's where things started to click. I saw that actually go study Eastern medicine. And that's where things started to click. I saw that he was merging those things. And when I started using the Bosu ball, started playing around with the rope, that nutritive movement that I'd get just from doing simple figure eights did so much more for my pain management than anything I had done for the previous three years since I had hurt my back. So I'm a, I'm a pretty extreme person. Just like when lift, when I got into lifting, like that was what I got into. That was my life. Like I became Chelsea lifts. I really got into rope flow. I really got into those things

and it, it totally took away the pain. And it also, I loved rope flow because it, it was a practice I craved. It wasn't something I woke up and felt like I needed to do. It made me feel good. So I just woke up and I wanted to do it. And when I started to get out of pain, that was like a whole other layer of reflection because I hadn't realized how much the pain was impacting just my decision-making process. You don't think clearly when you're in pain. So I thought I had reflected on a lot in like 2018, 2019

after I hurt my back and I was out of it. But like there was a whole nother awakening beyond that when I was actually finally out of pain. At first I slowed down and then finally I was out of pain. I'd like to pause on that point just for a moment and for people to understand if they can think about a day where they just felt really, really sick, just a day where you felt you were really nauseous. What's your drive? What's your determination at that point?

You have none. Like your whole goal is just to get better. You just sit there and your stomach's aching and just like moan and groan and like it just takes time to get over it. But you're certainly not going to go to the grocery store you're not thinking of healthy foods you're not thinking of and so for a lot of people people are in so much pain that they can't think outside of their own pain something hurts it's preventing them from doing a lot of the things they want to do and so it's easy to point the finger and say oh look how lazy these people are they're not doing you know not doing a b and c

and they they could be doing all these things to get better. But literally some people are in enough pain mentally, physically, maybe a combination of the two to where it's very difficult for them to take their first step. Pat Project family, we love beef on this podcast. We talk about it a lot. All right. We love our meat. But sometimes eating the same meat all the time can get a little bit boring. That's why we partner with Good Life Proteins, which also has certified Piedmontese on their website. But sometimes you might just want to eat some chicken or fish or duck. Duck. Who eats duck? But you can eat duck. If you go to goodlifeproteins.com, you can select their build-a-box options and input all the proteins you want. Then you'll select subscribe and save to save money on all of your meat. If you enter code POWERPROJECT at checkout, you can save up to 25% on your subscription.

That means you're going to be saving 25% on all of that different meat that's going to be heading to your door. Once again, head to goodlifeproteins.com. You can enter code POWERPROJECT and save up to 25%. Links are in the description box below as well as the podcast show notes. Amen. I deal with, uh, one of my coaches right now is DJ Murakami. He's strong camps. I see him every week. Great guy. Um, and I'm recovering from this, uh, broken ribs of mine. And I'm recovering from this broken ribs of mine. And there's this trepidation of being scared of heavy loads again, working out because one of the worst pains, it's actually rated. There's a medical level or grade of pain, of course, at the top, which we'll talk about is pregnancy or childbirth. Right under that is broken ribs and broken femurs. They're extremely excruciating

breaks i would say stubbing your toes much worse exactly right or a kick to you you know what might hurt but uh anyway so um dj's kind of helped me get over this like being scared of heavy loads again and like andrew maybe maybe the heavy loads maybe that you know heavier weight is what your body needs again so getting over this this mental barrier that, you know, I'm just going to deal with this every day. It's going to be there. It's not going to get better. DJ's been huge in helping me just, you know, throw up a little bit more weight. Let's lift some heavy stuff again.

Don't be scared of it. Like this is a controlled environment i got you let's lift and uh it's it's worked wonders so if anybody obviously those listening check out strong camps the guy's an absolute beast andrew if you pull him up the guy and he's he's like uh he's like a yoda inside this tiny gym and he's one of the most knowledgeable men i've ever met but um dude just an insane guy so uh what about the heavy lifting has been helpful if you know chelsea brought this is a great one and i believe you spoke on it recently as well chelsea just mentioned a gentleman named ro Edward Grant. He's just an academic.

Sounds like someone from the 1800s or something like that. He's a very smart individual, but he speaks on a principle called softening. And softening is the ability to basically put down all these hard barriers, all of our masculine hard barriers that we usually put up, and really getting deep into the tension and learning how to relax and really just learning how to get soft. I believe it was a video you posted in SEMA about your heavy lifts and how you don't create over tension in your head or your chest cavity. So, uh, I had to learn that principle in the sense for lifting heavier loads to be like, you know what, if, if you're going to go lift this 200-pound sandbag, you have to inhale.

You have to relax first to get the most pressurization. So I think I'd say that. Learning how to get soft again to really create true tension, that's been something that's been big for me. Nice. Yeah, I know from a powerlifting perspective when I'd bend down to grab a bar for something

like a deadlift I would get myself in what I would consider to be the worst position round over intentionally like just and the reason why I do that is just so I had the contrast like you're talking about between soft and hard having that contrast of being able to uh kind of feel your way through the lift so i would get into a bad position and i would kind of pull on the bar i would use that tension to wire it all

through uh my body and to create tension like let's create tension in the lats let's create tension in the arms let's create tension in all all these spots. And then if I went through some of those checkpoints, then I was ready to go. I'd do the same thing on the bench. I would lay flat. And I didn't really arch like crazy on the bench, but like, okay, this is flat. And then that's the way I would teach it a lot of times too. And it really seemed to click with people because everyone has like a certain degree of an ability to do something wrong, especially the first couple times they do it. So all that can register with them.

They're like, oh, this is the wrong way. Like, yeah, let's get into a position that doesn't feel great. And now you see why we're not using that position to lift the heaviest amount of weight. Okay, now let's retract the shoulders. Let's get the chest up. Let's try to arch, drive energy through the floor, whatever it was I was teaching. Yeah, and one more personal experience about this softening ideology is I was a fat kid whole life, biggest fat kid in class, obviously extremely insecure about it.

And I would suck in my gut all day. And you want to talk about hypertensive qualities. all day and you want to talk about hypertensive qualities like i was really never truly connected to my lower core my pelvic floor until five six years ago when i really started to learn all this stuff so the ability to finally relax this and then truly get a much greater inhale and obviously a bracing because of that i've never been stronger in my life and it's because i'm not just going hard hard hard i'm learning how to get soft again and i know that sounds funny but uh uh you know what i mean fellas so uh i've been thinking that the whole time yeah exactly exactly so uh yeah i that softening idea is a pretty good one

ladies are like i don't think this soft yeah what is this yeah let me let me ask both of you guys this because um chelsea you mentioned like you just found yourself seeking out the rope and then doing rope flow stuff for that spinal movement when you started doing that was it at all uncomfortable for you was it at all uncomfortable for your spine to move in that way with the ropes because i think some people look at it and they're like oh that looks nice that looks flowy and whatever but they don't necessarily see how beneficial it can be amen yeah so for me i mean this is just my experience it felt incredible right out of the gates just simple figure eights and um yeah like i said because it felt so good out of the gates the beautiful beautiful thing about it is, I mean, you can get real complex with rope flow.

You could piece together all sorts of flows, but almost anybody can just get started with a simple figure eight. so many realizations that like in the past when I was just in it and like obsessed with just programming and power lifting and all of these hyper masculine things I'd become muscle bound is the way I I've come to think of it like I got stronger and stronger and stronger but I was moving worse and worse you know I'm like waddling around by the end of this. It was not good. So my biggest goal in the last year has been to get soft, like Andrew said, find that flow again, develop good movement patterns before I really start to dive into strength training again

because, I mean, that's always going to be something I love. I've been an athletic kid my whole life weights were the thing like I got into swimming and like that that became my competitive advantage none of the other girls and like junior high and stuff wanted to lift weights but I was all for it and man as a sprinter did it make a difference fast like it was it was exhilarating to put on that that muscle fast. But like Andrew had mentioned, sometimes like especially when you're doing sports in high school and, you know, you have coaches that are spread thin. They're not going to be hyper educated on what exactly to do in the weight room. They're a lot of the times going to kind of throw you in there and you're going to be doing a mix of stuff.

You know, some great stuff, some stuff that might not be programming good motor patterns. Uh, but with the rope, it, it, it just got me into good fundamental patterns that I know are now going to be the base of the next period of my life where I do start lifting heavy again. Yeah. And I think it's great that you mentioned lifting heavy again, because it's like, there's nothing wrong with lifting heavy, but you do notice, you know, when you're an athlete where that's the only thing that you do,

it's very good to get very good at that. But then when you're walking around and you're moving around, everything is moving as one unit because like when you're squatting, benching and deadlifting, you create this global tightness, which then you take into the rest of your life. It seems like running is your way of getting soft. I think so. I think it's softened me up quite a bit with, uh, with lifting. I mean, you, yeah, the whole intent, especially when those weights are really heavy

is you're just trying to be as solid as you can. And if you think about it, there's really not a lot of other, there's not, there's really not a lot of other there's not there's not other areas in sport where that's similar you know uh in something like swimming or tennis uh you know you get one shoulder lower than the other one shoulders higher than the other i think we have a tendency to think of like uh whatever arm is like the main arm that's moving like in a in a pitch or when somebody's throwing football or again when somebody's swimming you're thinking of like the lead arm but there's the back arm and there's the the twisting of the body um it's just kind of it's interesting like we don't

move anything like we normally move or the way that we teach to move oftentimes in the gym and so for me it's like let me just try to make some small adjustments to some of the lifts that I do. Cause I do like them. And I, I like, um, I do think that bodybuilding will have good use for me and good utility for me probably forever. So, um, you know, doing some curls and stuff, someone may argue like, oh, it might cause some tightness or it might cause some problems. But to me, it seems to be more benefit than there is negative. And then why not just do a mix of things? So I'll do a little bit of bodybuilding. I'll do some rope flow. I'll do some running. I'll do some movements that are allowing me to express and challenge

some athleticism. And I think for powerlifters and for some bodybuilders, I think it would be a good idea to explore some of these things. And for the young people out there, if they can just try to keep and maintain some of the stuff that they got, like if you have any capacity to run, you know, a mile, two miles, three miles, something like that, you should really work on trying to keep that. You don't even really necessarily need to work on being much better than that. But I think if you can keep that throughout your lifting career and keep that throughout your life, I think it would be really useful. And then things like some sort of jumping, some sort of throwing, and maybe just, I don't know, trying some different sports. Like go play some pickleball or soccer or something.

Try some different things, especially if you're're young there's really no reason why and if you go go to do those things and you really struggle to do those things or you get hurt then you have to kind of ask yourself the question about like what is your what's your training really doing for you yes shouldn't be getting hurt out there just playing a pickup game of pickleball everybody just wants to feel good and that's why that's why i uh's why I, uh, I love being a part of this WEC method community. It's just about making people feel good and really trying to inspire the younger generation in terms of like physical education and getting them inspired to go do something and do different types of movement. Um, yeah, I, I, I love that idea.

Love coaching the younger guys. guys um switching into some of the stuff that you you're switching into with more athleticism are you um are you losing size i mean you're a huge guy yes i'm definitely losing size thank you for noticing mark absolutely yeah losing size and you know what i'm okay with it right now because we are working our butts off we're really inspired with this work we got going right now so um yeah i definitely need to schedule more time for myself to get in the gym but uh right now is just really making myself want to feel good myself i love learning new things right now so i'm in in my, this, um, learning phase, but, uh, yeah, we're pretty busy right now. We need to get more in. Yeah. You got to practice what you preach,

right? And that's one thing I don't, I really don't fall to is it's hard to go take fitness advice from somebody who's extremely overweight. It's, it's kind of just hard for me to accept that. So when I have pro fighters, pro baseball guys, younger guys, pregnant women come train with me, like I do, I look at myself and be like, hey, are you living that life you're preaching? You're not insinuating that you're overweight though, are you? Do we have a body dysmorphia, Bill? Yeah, exactly, right? Let's just say I know I could be a lot better where I'm at. And, yeah, I've just got to spend more time on myself, to be honest.

It can be so easy to compare yourself to the perceived peak. Like, that was something I did to myself. I mean, with all the expos and different things, I mean, I would do, like, Lyle McDonald's PSMF. Like, shit that I would never recommend anybody else do. Just because, you know, I know these things are going to live on the Internet forever. And it's crazy to look back and see even what that's done to my mind since. Because, yeah, it's human nature. You know, you want to compare yourself to whatever your perceived peak state is.

But it's like, what was that peak state? I know my peak state where I looked super jacked and like lean, I was getting sick all the time. I was well on my way to injuries. So, um, yeah, yeah. You gotta, you gotta step back a little bit and not just, you know, not just look at whatever that image is of yourself, you know, cause it differs person to person. What are some of the movements that you guys are incorporating now that you think might be fairly easy for people to implement? That's just a small add on because, you know, we fill up people's plate with a lot of stuff. And they're like, shit, man, these guys keep giving me more stuff.

They're talking about sunlight. They're talking about this, talking about that. What are some things that maybe just wouldn't really take that much time you do it maybe before workout at the end of a workout but it's still going to have still going to reap a lot of benefit yeah i'll go first uh this is a this is a warm-up that we have basically everybody do uh everybody performed before a big lift but it's basically hitting all sides of the core. And again, this is a lot of the WEC methods principles, but we go do a unilateral exercise, a bilateral exercise, and a rotational exercise. So we'll go do some side bending, some coil warm-up each side, whether it's to your actual core front side or it's to hitting your lats on the posterior side.

Can you explain the coil just a little bit more? Of course. I remember when David came doing that. You just start doing that shit every day. Oh, I know. You start to cramp up. So coil is a type of lateral flexion. It's just basically side bending.

And again, everybody knows anterior, anterior posterior kinetic chain you have your core here but you also have your core back here and um so it's just a simple side bend and you're learning how to connect again to really your external obliques and then your big strong lats so you go side bend and then you go do a bilateral exercise. Think of like undulation. I believe that's the term, but full expression of flexion extension. So think of like a cat cow or something like that. And then go do some rope flow. Go do some rotational movement.

So you're not just all bilateral all day. You've expressed the full limit of the side bend on this side of your spine the full range of motion on this side of your spine and to be honest you just you wake up it's it's something that kind of uh for someone who's never truly moved in those positions like we've had people come into the lab who've never bent in that way before and it is the aha moment because and again just for the viewers sake think about think about doing your whole life in the bilateral plane think of yourself just rowing i'll turn around for a second think that you've been rowing like this your whole life you're only getting upper lats, trap, round boy, everything.

But until you apply this small side bend, you're never really truly getting like the QL, lower erectors, everything deep down there. And that's where everybody's bugaboo spots are. Yeah, that's our homie Josh Bell. He's a beast. So, yeah. I do think that most of the injuries in the back are from those muscles that

you're talking about. I mean, at least, at least for me, like that might be a weakness of mine, but I noticed whenever my back will flare up, it's kind of always in those areas that you're talking about right there. And, and, and it might not, as you know, you know, your spot of injury or spot of pain is not necessarily where you need to be focusing your attention. So somebody might have a lower back pain, but it's probably because they have a foot collapse on the opposite, on the opposite leg. Um, so yeah, just, just having people think differently is really cool in the gym. It is quite, uh, you're thinking a lot when you come to the Weck Method Lab, you got to have your have your brain ready to go because we are going to make you think as well as move differently.

I think that you utilize these methods and techniques in the weirdest ways and the most unexpecting ways. So when you start to do this stuff, you start to see that it's everywhere. Yes. And that it's been kind of hiding in plain sight for years something as simple as like if i over put this uh if i screw on this top too hard to this shaker cup and then i try to get it off of here of course i'm going to use my wrist and stuff and my arms but then i'm going to find myself twisting yeah i was mixing up something at my house the other day like a yogurt and a protein powder. And I was like leaning to the side because it was like thick and I had to like get extra leverage.

So I'm like head over foot. David Wex in my brain. He's living, swimming in my brain. Yeah. You don't really realize like how often you use that. And if you're in sports, if you're in something like jujitsu, you guys are utilizing these movements a lot. And that's why I would recommend for people to try to work their way toward a sport. I think what makes the rope so effective is that you could probably go out and practice like tai chi or some other movements that maybe are similar.

But the rope is kind of like a distraction. Like really, you're kind of just dancing. But it might feel awkward to you to just randomly dance if you're not used to that. Yeah, the reason I like the rope so much as well is because of what we're talking about. The softening and the hardening and like living on both ends of the spectrum. I live by this principle. It's fire and ice. Us men, we know the most aggressive state.

We know how to get aggressive when we get there. But we also know the complete opposite, the soft, how do I say, very tranquil, very just relaxed manner. And living in that balance is really good. So when I'm rope flowing, I feel the softening. I feel it. I feel loose. But then I also, when you amp up the intensity and overall mindset of it, I feel like a freaking gladiator. I feel like a badass. And I feel if I had a pair

of nunchucks in my hand, I could do some dangerous things. So getting to play in between the hard and the soft, it gets pretty addictive. It gets pretty addictive. Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on eight sleep mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its

temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they can have their own temperature settings. We all sleep hot here. And I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. Gross. That doesn't happen anymore because of the Eight Sleep mattress and I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep.

But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash powerproject and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, 8sleep.com slash power project links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. And I think one of the coolest things about all of these things is, for example, the rope is something you can pretty much do anywhere. You don't need a gym. You don't have

to schedule it for after you get off work and you go to the gym and you do rope flow right but as you start accessing these different areas first off if you're someone who's only been lifting for the longest time that's going to be one of the ways you can start getting out of pain because now you have access right if you had a lot of lower back pain and now you start actually getting some bend there you'll start just like moving more with that area because it's like now your brain is connected to it whereas before you've only been doing these movements in a certain way and now like when you're brushing your teeth you're programmed to do that when you're walking down the stairs when you're getting out of your car those are the only sets of ways that you tend to move so the stuff's fucking it it has a cascading effect on the way you do things globally. Amen. Couldn't agree more.

Couldn't agree more. Yeah, it's basically for everyone. I would recommend Rope Flow to a child. I could recommend it to a senior citizen who hasn't moved in years, pregnant woman. We're basically recommending. How do you point at yourself when you said pregnant woman? I don't know.

That's our business. That's our business right now. And we're kicking butt in what we do. Absolutely inspired in this business. That's our business right now. And we're kicking butt in what we do. Absolutely inspired in this business. So to transfer maybe. I'm massively attracted to pregnant women. It's a thing. I'm sorry.

Really? Yeah. They got to glow. Nope. That pregnancy glow. And you know they put out. So there you go. Jesus Christ.

How'd you guys get into this? So I'll start in that. Like obviously, again, I've been... All the pregnant women that were just here are like, I'm out. Just out. Or they're like, I'm in. Let's go. They just got a really good compliment.

I think they did. Anyways, I started this business about four years ago. I've been with the Weck Method guys for upwards of six years now. And, again, training some of the best athletes in the world um you know jordan burrows the janji ribiero the all the mlb all-stars and and world series winners so best of the best and to be brutally honest i was getting bored as hell of it i was just getting so bored i i thought it to be very um just single-, like I was telling Nsema. Like I'd be with, you know, my pro baseball buddies.

They'd be training. I'd be coaching. They'd go do one set, and then they'd go text their girlfriends. It's just like, I'm just like, this is not that fulfilling as I thought it would be. So I was with my buddy, and we were basically just writing out 20 ideas that was going to, you know, take us to the top 20 ideas to get us about five to 10 million. And one of my ideas was, you know, what if we brought all these principles and all the different academic learnings that I had and applied this to pregnant women? Because it's a very, very underserved field. And I was doing I was doing a hip thrust, and I was performing.

You guys are familiar with the torsion, right? External torsion, internal torsion. I was externally torqued on this hip thrust, and I was like, God damn. I had my aha moment. I was like, I feel like a pregnant woman right now. And I feel like I could push so well if i had to and so the first person i went to was my mother and my mother is a 35 year career clinical nurse

specialist in labor and delivery so and she actually works in the research and education department for her hospital now that click makes sense yeah yeah yeah there we go so i go to my mother and i just i told her i told her the pitch and i stumped her sicilian ass just the jaw dropped and she's like and she just she was in awe and i was like mom this works we're gonna get women's back and core stronger than ever because what do you think about you know when you think about pregnancy what do you think of back pain so we're gonna get women's core and back stronger than ever. Because what do you think about, you know, when you think about pregnancy, what do you think of back pain? So we're going to get women's core and back stronger than ever. We're going to teach them to walk better, alleviating the pregnancy waddle. I don't know if you boys understand that.

The women, it's an anti-fall move. Women get this thing called a pregnancy waddle where their feet and hips go in external rotation. Because, again, one of the biggest scares for pregnant women is tripping and falling and harming their baby so what do they do they lean back and it obviously messes up their gate their gait process so that is a big reason for back pain so pregnant women and power lifters amen brother exactly so we're going to make their core and back stronger than ever we're going to teach them how to walk with greater balance. And then most importantly, we're going to prepare them for labor and delivery by teaching them how to push more effectively. So we created this method called the push practice. And the push practice along what we call the labor flow is teaching

them how to create tension in a more efficient manner in specific positions that opens up the birth canal. And I wish I had the video to pull up for Andrew right now, but here's a big secret that a lot of people don't know. And Mark, I don't know if you have heard so much of our success, but in the past three and a half years, we've had almost 400 women in and out of active delivery in less than 10 minutes. Wow. So, I mean, the average delivery for a first-time mom is upwards of four to six hours. Is that four to six or four to six? Four to six.

Okay. Four to six hours. So we are preparing these women by teaching them how to push more effectively, how to breathe, how to push more effectively, harnessing this tension, and then this labor flow is a different position. So here's the real kicker on terms of the positions. What's the number one position, Mark, that you would think that a woman has, you know, delivers in? She's normally in the inclined bed, right, with her feet in the bootstraps and their legs in external rotation. One of the biggest secrets of what we preach is your birth canal is about this big

when your hips are in external rotation. When you apply internal hip rotation, your birth canal, yeah, just practice it right now. Like if you just went out like this, do you feel like you have a big hole down here? And now internally rotate, and you just feel your hips open up. I'll forward a video, but it is so much, it's such a dramatic change when you imply this. So quick question. Yes, sir. I mean, in hospitals, they typically have them on their back on an incline.

So what would be the birthing position? Does the birthing position change? For women in the hospital? For like the woman that- Or women in our program. Women in your program. So this labor flow is giving them the options. So we basically teach the woman on how to be the boss when you go into a labor and delivery room. Because if you're not the boss, those nurses

are going to basically tell you everything to do you go sit in the bed this is where you're going to push so we have to teach our women how to communicate with their nurses say hey i've been practicing multiple positions i i have this rhythm of which i'd like to breathe please encourage me in this yeah that's walking downhill that's pretty badass um so anyways uh it truly doesn't matter in sema in terms of the position as in our respectful advice again i'm not a doctor but i'm an exercise specialist uh either one or both legs in hip internal rotation and that baby's out i mean mean, I'll bring up the video maybe after, but the difference in terms of the birth canal with hips externally rotated and internally rotated

is literally like that. We've had women push for only two to three pushes and the baby's out. So we've had experience of this two minutes, three minutes, four minute pushes. Even first time laborers? First time mothers, brother. So, I mean, that's what we do in a nutshell

to kind of wrap this back around. We get women's core and back stronger than ever. We teach them how to walk with greater balance. We teach them how to push more effectively. And then most, most important too is the postpartum exercise because women don't get a lot of resources. When you, Mark, either when you go in for your first time visit with your nurse or your doctor,

congratulations, you're pregnant, Susie Q. All right, we'll see you in a couple months in your checkup. Good luck. Research states that it's less than 50% of the time any woman is recommended any protocol for either exercise or even labor and delivery. So it's basically self education for these women. And yeah, that's where we that's where we want to kind of flip the script, right? This is where I wanted to flip the script. This was my initial intention was, you know, sports science, right? Exercise science, multi-billion dollar industries.

What about maternal fitness and health? It's literally at the bottom of the totem pole. So giving these women, especially like I was saying, resources come postpartum is most significant because postpartum depression is one of the biggest, it's a huge complication for women because they don't get any resources or referrals on how to put themselves back together. So unless you're a coach or an exercise specialist, good luck putting your core back together.

If not alone that you had a vaginal birth or potential tearing, obviously if you had a C-section, there's so many long-term negative effects of not getting that correctly healed. So that's what we do in a nutshell is those things, back strength, walking gait, push practice, and postpartum fitness, baby. And we're kicking butt. So you have a hot date coming up and you look in your closet and all you see are the old, ugly clothes that you usually wear and you're going to wear tonight. It's time to end that, guys. That's why we've partnered with Viore Clothing, because they have some amazing athleisure clothes that you can wear in the gym when working out, but also clothes that you can wear on a date or during Hanukkah or whatever. You can wear these clothes wherever, and they feel

amazing. Some of our favorites are the Ponter Performance line, which has Dreamknit fabric, which literally feels so soft on your skin. But they also have this. This is the Rise Tee, also soft, also feels nice and fits great. And they have a lot of amazing clothes that you need to check out to step your fashion game up. We're trying to help you out. Andrew, where can they get it? Absolutely. You guys got to head over to viore.com slash Power Project. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash powerproject, and you'll automatically receive 20% off your order. Links to them down in the description

as well as the podcast show notes. When it comes to internal rotation, where there's internal rotation, there's flexion. And so a pregnant woman with the belly distended, they get an arch in their back. They end up being overextended. with the belly distended, they get an arch in their back. They end up being overextended. And so if you were to take their feet and kind of have them inward and take their knees and point them inward,

it should actually release the back a little bit so the back can be inflection, which is something that for people that are running, it's something you want to really be conscious of when you're running. You want to actually take your hips and just tuck them underneath you just for most people. People have different bodies, right? But for most people, just tuck the hips underneath you. It'll make all your running safer. But, yeah, it's really interesting when you were bringing up internal and external rotation.

You were bringing up what you were doing with the hip thrust and the torsion. I was thinking like, oh, yeah, those two things, they go go together so the back is probably the spine is probably flattening out and it probably just makes uh everything a lot easier yeah and and when i was with my mother going back to kind of the origin story of this all i showed her this video of uh the birth canal opening up with hip internal rotation and i was like like, mom, like what the hell? Like, and she's like, Andrew, we're just not taught this stuff. And it kind of, and I've probably talked to upwards of 2,000 labor and delivery nurses in between these four or five years.

And maybe 5% know of what we're teaching. A lot of the people who know these type of methods are like the really experienced doulas or the really experienced midwives. I truly believe, yeah, labor and delivery nurses, I'm not bashing on them at all, but maybe they can just spend a day in the gym and learn what movement does to help a woman during her delivery, it helps tremendously. I'm curious, have you, because I've seen other people talk about, and I've seen a lot of female fitness influencers, you know, they're training while they're pregnant. What are the pieces that you think are most likely not being thought about?

Because I mean, lifting is great. Lifting is awesome. But what are those other pieces that you think, okay okay if you maybe just think of it and you might just repeat some of the things you already mentioned but what are the pieces that they may should they may think about adding in i i think i think one of the first and foremost ones is pressurization because um i mean think of think of chel Chelsea in her third trimester. Do you believe that she should create so much intradominal pressure to a level 100%? Do you believe that would be safe for this growing fetus?

In my respected belief, I don't know if 100% of the pressure, like we were for our our max out deadlift or max out squat that might be too much pressure for that growing baby um so we teach this method called tension management there's my beautiful sister and mother right there come on baby shout out to moms anyways um over pressurization i believe is a huge problem so we teach women a principle called tension management like we're talking about both sides of the core anterior core posterior core over pressurization, I believe is a huge problem. So we teach women a principle called tension management. Like we're talking about both sides of the core, anterior core, posterior core. What we teach with women is maybe 50, 60% here. Like when you're going and doing your lifts, maybe 50, 60, you still have to learn how to connect to these bad boys. But then to a point

past that might be uncomfortable it might be potentially too much for that baby to handle so pressurization on the front side compared to the back side though the back side 110 percent this is what this we teach women in this push practice technique we teach them to use their lats that's where they're really pushing from. They're externally rotating and they're using their lats. So teaching them the difference. And again, if a woman's not really, if she doesn't have too much exercise experience anyways, just getting her to feel this side compared to this side and how to, you know, manipulate those, that's huge. So I uh pressurization is a huge one chelsea can you think of any other particular principles oh man that that was the one that really blew my mind when i came into it because i i saw so many women just kind of continuing on with what they were doing before

continuing on with the same exercises and i feel like what you do really well is get people into the back like that so that they are like when that pregnancy waddle comes when that weight comes on they can actually keep themselves stable by staying in that back amen yeah i'll go right real quick right back to uh the push practice and what we teach there um the first stage of labor is called the latent phase. It's actually clinically termed as the fight versus flight stage. It's in that initial moment when the majority of cortisol floods their bodies and they either freak the F out or they're actually in a much more relaxed state. And when you go into this freak out state, when you go into this freak out state when you go into the flight reaction what do you normally do you normally want to go into the fetal position like curl up into a ball so imagine i'm a

woman who doesn't know how to push or she doesn't know how to breathe correctly she's normally going to react to her first initial initial contractions like this like and like obviously blowing up her head and her chest cavity, right? But if you saw what I was doing with my fist, gentlemen, like I'm creating internal pressure. This is like the fetal position and like telling like I'm scared and like I'm not ready for this baby to come out. So flight reaction. What if we can do the opposite? So applying the external torsion during these pushes. Oh, okay.

Dude, you could tell. I mean, what's the goal of pregnancy and delivery? To get this baby out healthy and safely. Let's go, baby. Let's get it out. So giving them the difference and even teaching them about their pressure. If you freak out, you're going to react and create internal pressure. If you know what you're doing, you're going to create external pressure. And that flow of pressure is going down and out, baby. So yeah, love that stuff. I love the ability to, again, teach people about their tension. I love the ability to, again, teach people about their tension. I'm pretty good at telling where somebody's holding the majority of their tension, up here, here, here, here.

So I think that's a huge part of what we do. Have you guys been able to systematize this for other coaches? Because I know you two are working on this. Do you guys have a team of coaches that also does this? Yes, we do. We have our own coaching certification. Nice. And thankfully, we've certified over 100 coaches around the world, nurses, doctors, doulas, fitness coaches, basically anybody that handles a woman during her pregnant years, we've certified. And that's what we're doing now is traveling the world certifying people

because one of the going back to fitness gentlemen and mark you can tell me different if you believe different but if we if a pregnant woman walked into a 24-hour fit or an la fit 99.9 of the time those coaches aren't going to understand or be confident in coaching a pregnant woman in the gym. And Chelsea was kind of leaning on the idea where we truly believe pregnancy fitness is not a regression of just traditional lifting. Pregnancy fitness is its own science. And you need the understanding of how to do that correctly because one rep for a pregnant woman could potentially be

extremely harmful toward that baby and even the mother i mean like a hyperflexion just bending over like this all day and they don't even know how to properly hinge they're literally just squishing their their poor child so um it's it's really an inspiration and a drive for us to to get us coaches and fitness experts a little bit more in tune with helping pregnant women because this is our motto when you help the pregnant woman you're helping the whole family and and and we truly believe what we do is not just maternal health it's familial health and um so yeah it really inspires us yeah and on that note something else that's kind of become a part of the certifications we're starting to have partners come in and get certified like we

had spencer oh yeah down there you know we're starting to get partners involved because obviously if you know if you can have your man come in and give you that support not only in the gym but like like andrew said earlier it things can get hectic when you get in the gym, but like, like Andrew said earlier, it, things can get hectic when you get in the hospital. You know, all the nurses have, have their timelines and different things that they tend to want to stick to. Like you really need to be able to step up and speak for yourself. Like for me, the thing that blew my mind, I met Andrew through David, like he was at the lab the first time I came and I was just trying to, I was just trying to fix my back at the time, but I've been going through a whole fertility journey. You know, we've been wanting to start a family for years now. And

as the algorithms work, like what I started to see as I was researching down that was some of the really tough stories that women had when they would actually go to give birth, like whether they didn't expect to end up in the hospital or their birth plans weren't followed. It can be so impactful to go through something like this with a partner because then it's not only you saying, hey, I've went through these, you know, I've went through these, I've practiced these different positions. I don't know which one I'm necessarily going to use when the time comes, right? Like you can have a birth plan, but things are going to get crazy. But you can have your partner there and have them actually back you up and have that second person

just rock solid to help you get through that time. And, you know, when women are empowered, knowing that they can come in, you know, the boss, and they understand their body to the point where, yeah, a lot of times active labor is shorter for them. That sets them up so much better for those early years of actually starting a family because how much easier is postpartum training when you weren't in active labor for six hours? I know my mom had a rough time. when you weren't in active labor for six hours. I know my mom had a rough time. I had forcep marks on my head for a couple days when my mom had me there trying to pull me out with those things. It's tough for some women.

Yeah, it's tough for a lot of women. Going back to the whole paternal health, fitness and health, that's what I think I do a great job at. I'm going to get a search just for my girl. We would love to have you in SEMA. And it's important because who wouldn't want a supportive partner like that? But I think I do a good job at that because people see me big hairy guy and they're just like, again, what is this guy doing coaching pregnancy, fitness and health?

And and but to get the partner involved i i absolutely love that dude it's like we we talked about getting bored in the gym how freaking cool is that to have a pregnant woman and her partner in the gym working out together to to basically jump start their their their offspring and making sure this child's healthy so it it's such meaningful work, I can't tell you. You got to get these women healthy because we got to keep them in the kitchen as soon as we've got them popping out that baby. They got to get back to making sandwiches and stuff, right? There's a lot of requirements.

As fast as possible. What you got going on over there, Andrew? I'm glad you pointed that out. That's a joke, guys. I don't have to. What was the joke? Okay, keep it going. Earlier, we were talking about how, so when my wife had my son, she was 38.

And at every turn she took, she had a doctor explaining, you're older now. Geriatric. We have to take every picot. And she's just like, well, shit, man. Like, yeah, I guess I'm old now because everybody's reminding me. But everything went so smooth because she's very health conscious. She exercises. She does a lot of body weights or she did a lot of body weight stuff when she was pregnant.

And I'm very proud of her because she was the only mother at that hospital that walked out. Everyone else was in a wheelchair. Like literally, I didn't find another mother that had – not that I'm looking, but as we're walking out, I see a bunch, right? And it's like, oh, way to go. We're walking. I had to clarify because you guys are like, oh, yeah. All in wheelchairs.

Babe, hold on. I'm going to take another lap. I want to see if I can find it. We have a lot of older women get referred to us. Yeah, that's what i wanted to ask like is there a different protocol when they're 35 no not at all no every every woman every pregnancy is it's it's they're unique if you go back to that video andrew of that woman doing a seated good morning with her child that's one of our her right there this is our friend um 39 years old with ms and she was in and out of active

delivery in 13 minutes yo she ms you have no control of your muscular like she has no control but she was so well prepared to push at 39 with her first child uh 13 minutes in active delivery dude come on man so like it's stuff like that that keeps us rolling right and how cool is that like that's what we do in the postpartum training is we we we tell them bring your baby like you're with your baby 24 7 it's actually there's there's actual research that states if you work out with your baby alongside you, you're teaching your baby that, hey, this 30, 40 minutes is mom's time. I can cry all I want right now, but mom is taking time for herself. I see her doing it. And there's a lot of benefits there.

So a lot of our exercises, instead of grabbing a freaking kettlebell or dumbbell, you're grabbing junior and you're working with that baby. Baby is an amazing counterbalance. I remember when I was fat, I'd use my kids to get off the couch. I'd actually put them out in front of me as I was getting off the couch. Works great. Yeah, it does. 13, 14 pounds. Perfect. You're absolutely right. So yeah, that's a big thing. And it's very disheartening for women when they get told by their doctor, Andrew, that like, hey, you are geriatric.

You're geriatric. You're in line for a bunch of complications. And it scares the hell out of women. So just giving them a little bit more strength, getting them in the gym and putting some muscle on them, it is, as you know, it's extremely confidence boosting. Yeah, because she got labeled with something and it's like, whoa, I thought I was totally fine. And it's like, no, you are fine. Yeah, it's kind of BS. How about, sorry, go ahead.

I'm just thinking like, you know, when you see most doctors, you see most people. Like, first off, people that like exercise and do that, they're already a minority. So a majority of the people that these doctors are seeing are people who maybe they're getting pregnant and giving birth, but they don't do much things to take care of themselves and their body. So a lot of these complications happen to most of them. Yeah. And then so how do you guys coach? We had a pretty good birth team. I think that's what they're called.

But we still did kind of get bullied a little bit, even to the point where it was like, I don't remember the terminology, but basically they were like, when this happens, that's when you're ready to go. And right now you're not ready. And she like sprinted out of the room and we're talking and I'm like, oh shit, no, you are ready. And I had to go grab the nurse and then she came back in and it's weird and seem like you'll get there soon. But like she just put her finger and like, oh yeah, you are ready to go. And it's like, whoa, if I didn't say anything, you wouldn't have like, what the heck?

And I'm terrified the whole time because I'm a wimp. So all this stuff is scary just being in the hospital so what's your question and you just like just like what what does that look like when as far as like the mental coaching for getting ready for that uh that aspect of childbirth the first thing that comes to mind is learning how to deal with the pain of contractions this external torsion is the way i i dealt with my rib pain when I broke my rib. When I got my ribs tattooed, how did I deal with it? I dug into my lats and I learned how to deal with the pain.

So we teach women how to deal with this contraction pain. And then number two, like we're trying to say, you have to teach these women on how to be the boss. like we're trying to say, you have to teach these women on how to be the boss. Unless they're a very aggressive woman, this is such a, how do I say, this is such an important time for them. They're not worried about, like, defending themselves in that moment. They're just worried about having a baby. So we have to teach our women, hey, Susie Q, when you go in there,

you're telling the nurses that you know how to push. know the positions of which you'd like to push and going back to your story as well we've we've heard the trauma stories of of doctors not being in the room fast enough and nurses asking the woman hey can you not push right now we're not, and it's not there. When the mom's ready, the mom's ready, the baby's ready. Who cares if the doctor's not there? So I feel this, and it's difficult. So just basically teaching our women how to communicate with their nursing team. A lot of women don't even know.

If you don't like this labor and delivery nurse, you're more than welcome to ask for a new one so uh just knowing options giving the woman as much education in this and resources as possible um is most important to us yeah how about um because you know like i mean chelsea you mentioned you know you guys have been trying um does anybody come to you to help i guess with i guess get healthier so that way they can prepare their bodies for getting pregnant? Oh, absolutely. Preconceptionally. Yeah. So what does that look like?

Because there's people in my life right now that are trying and have been unsuccessful. And it's like the worst thing ever. And so I'm just curious, like, what goes on there? There's many things. And like I said, everyone's unique. Everyone comes to the table with either their own types of injuries, their own types of pain, where they're at with their exercise experience. But my ideology is this is the time to move.

You know, second and third trimester when you're a lot larger, it's going to be a slight regression in terms of how much you're rotating, how much you're truly coiling and stuff. So preconception, and this is why I think it's fun, it's more athletic training. It's moving in all these ways that you're probably not going to be able to move so much come third trimester. So it's pretty rigorous. Chelsea and I are going to get into a preconception workout right after this, and I'm going to kick her butt. She's going to do a lot of stuff. And it's just preparing the body for the most important moment of their lives.

Like research states two things, gentlemen, in this field. At the bottom of all research articles, it's always in bold. If there's any time for a woman to get fit it's during her pregnancy and then uh and right after that follows this field needs more research and and and thankfully uh starting this next year we're starting a clinical research study with um this organization called mom's tour and ask me your md shout out. Patricia Marsh, who's our primary investigator for this study. But our research study is with a population of 100 black pregnant females. And so we are implementing our exercise protocol. And we're basically going to be proving

that our exercise protocol can help the rates of c-sections and it'll also help decrease uh birthing complications and uh how cool is it too that we get to address the racial bias in maternal health as well giving this protocol to the women who really need it um because if you look up uh the racial discrimination in maternal health, you're going to find a lot of stuff in terms of BIPOC community, black, indigenous, people of color. So, yeah, we're thrilled to have this research study get afloat. Have you guys tried to get closer to the hospitals or not necessarily like have you tried to because i think there's like um there's like lamaze classes and there's like some uh bradley method yeah there's some interventions that people can utilize along with going to their doctor regularly as they're uh in pregnancy and i would imagine i

never really thought about it but i imagine some some of the stuff is paid by insurance or whatever. Have you guys thought about ever trying to get into that realm of things or how to even break through? Yeah. Well, the research study is going to be a huge step in helping us get there. Once we've actually got it on paper and we can show rather than just saying, hey, here's these women, I think that's going to be the point where we can actually start to have these services covered by insurance for women. And working with, trying to get there with doulas as well, because doulas are kind of in an interesting space where it comes to, when it comes to getting coverage for the

services. Like they're just now getting to the point, like New York finally just passed York finally just passed legislation that would cover doula services. I believe – yeah, you said California? California had it like maybe a year ago and New York was recently like a couple months ago. They're just getting around to it. So yeah, diving into the medical insurance route 100%. You know, what's close to my heart too, because of my academic background is dealing with, is giving this program to the military, the women in the military, active service women, veterans, because there's something, there's a term, military term called a force multiplier.

And that means basically you do, you do good in more than one area. So imagine you're a pregnant woman in the Navy or something. Our exercise protocol can keep you working longer because you're stronger longer into your pregnancy. And then it can also bring you back to work sooner because you're, again, getting stronger after. And then we're obviously helping the birthing complications. Then we're obviously helping the birthing complications. So we're helping the mother, but we're actually saving millions of dollars for the institution because they have to pay for the replacement when that mom is on maternal leave. They have to pay for those additional birthing complications. So, yeah, military insurance agencies, large-scale gyms, hospitals. We're dealing with everybody now. It's pretty fun.

And what about something like gestational diabetes? Oh, yeah. Have you guys been able to effectively help people with some of that, or have you seen, run into some of that? Of course, of course. And just getting women like that a fitness routine like we'll start with this i'll actually start talking about um dr dr carol dr carol jean marat is is our lead medical advisor and um she's she's one of san diego's first black uh obgyns in san diego county there's a beautiful soul look how beautiful she is like that smile could just light up a room and And then you hear her talk in her Haitian accent. And it's just like smooth

operator, baby. It's just like the most peaceful voice. So anyways, Dr. Carol actually specializes in diabetes work. So she's doing her own work right now with women with gestational diabetes. And we're really trying our best to address that too because that's one of the greatest complications for women yeah it seems like lifting weights definitely helps with that oh of course like i said like just get them giving them a legit protocol a protocol that they can believe in that's not just the average p90x or a regression from traditional training giving the woman an actual program that they know is going to get them stronger, it's going to protect their baby, and help so many different aspects of their life.

Once they're bought in, they're bought in. And like going to the confidence thing, we teach our coaches in our coaching certification a little bit more of the mindset coaching because this is the most vulnerable time for a woman and if Susie Q walks into the gym and she notices Andrew's not confident in what Andrew's coaching today dude it's like it's completely you're potentially going to harm my child like why the hell would I listen to you so um just being extremely sure of what we're coaching, that's what matters a lot to us as well. But going back to what you're saying, for women with gestational diabetes and stuff like that,

getting them out and getting them new habits, new exercise protocol, maybe a referral to nutritionists. Again, just giving them all the resources they need. And curious about this. Are the majority of the women that are working with you guys, are they a majority giving vaginal births? And what do you notice with the difference between women that go through your program that choose to do vaginal births and the ones that choose to do C-sections? Because there are probably some who choose to do that. So thankfully, we have an extremely low C-section rate for the women that are working with us. I believe in upwards of four years, it's like 5%. And the growing rates of C-sections is one of the biggest problem in maternal health.

Like, dude, it's high, high up there. And I don't know if you've – you said why? Why, yeah. C-section is a business. I just want you to explain it. Yeah, yeah. You make a lot more office. C-section is a business. I just want – I want you to explain it. Yeah, yeah. You make a lot more office. C-sections is a business.

There's whole – You get to schedule the day. You're like, I'll pick that day. Dude, it's a whole business. There's documentaries on Netflix, all kinds of documentaries now. There's the business of giving birth is one you could check out if you're interested about it. Exactly. So, yeah, thankfully the Women in Art Program, very low rates of C-section.

And, yeah, we actually have a great return of VBAC, of vaginal birth after C-section. And so imagine a woman who, child number one, C-section. When she comes and trains with us us knows how to use her core finally tap into her pelvic floor uh getting her breathing mechanics better because that's a big part of what we do as well um just getting her fit extremely high rate of v-back births so um stuff like that is extremely exciting to us to formally study in this research study because, again, we can have our own qualitative work. But until it's medically supervised by doctors in a study, like then it can be taken to the next level.

There's also just like an insane amount of complications that can happen oh somebody has a child uh my first son he wasn't he wouldn't flip so they had to do a c-section so i think there's just sometimes like certain circumstances that happen i've had some relatives have some complications where the mom was just like in in so much pain um because they were like passing kidney stones yeah and they were really considering doing a C-section, but they still toughed it out, which was kind of interesting because there's so many things that happen. It's like they were thinking about giving the mom painkillers

for the kidney stones, but then they're like, you have a baby, so how do we help you deal with this pain? There's just like a lot of weird scenarios and seems like every pregnancy for every woman is like vastly different yeah it's completely unique you're right mark there's no there's no repetitive story that we've ever had every story is unique every woman's unique every pregnancy is unique and and but there's commonalities in terms of what could potentially help, what could ease this process, what can make you stronger. And

going back to maybe the preconception talk is that's why we think preconception training is so important because if you come to our program first or second trimester, yes, we can put muscle on. There's still time, but if we had a few months prior to to put some muscle mass on, dude, that pregnancy is going to be smooth sailing. So we're really advertising to the preconception of mother, also the postpartum mother, because it doesn't matter if you had a child two months ago or 20 years ago, you're still a postpartum mother.

And you could still potentially make this core a lot stronger than ever. So, um, yeah, we're, we're really dealing with all ages of women. I have a naive question when it comes to this, uh, cause you mentioned that a lot of the women that you work with, like labor was 10 minutes. So, um, I know someone that who like, who was like scared of birth because of like the damage that can happen down there, right? Does this process that you have women go through, does it reduce any of the vaginal damage that might happen because of their ability to push, relax, et cetera? Absolutely. Why?

How does that work? Because they know how to create an external force of pressure. Okay. They know how to create an external force of pressure. If you know how to truly pressure, it's similar to like the hernia. And if you know how to pressurize yourself, you're going to be in a lot less chances of potential tearing or any other complications. Wait, so question. Does tearing always happen? Doesn't always happen. Really?

Not always. No, not always. Not always. Not always. I didn't know that okay so uh again just learning how to properly pressurize yourself and properly push i i mean fighting this internal pressure does it look like i could push very well here but applying different methodologies of pushing and different ways to breathe and create tension and learn how to relax and get

soft um that stuff works my man that stuff works and it's uh it's a passion of mine to kind of show to people because i'm a c-section baby and i and uh my mother has no functional use of her core and um dude it's pretty sad it's pretty sad that these women don't get any other resources to help them out like i said research states you only got one of two chance if if chelsea just had a baby today she has 50 chance that her doctor would refer her any protocol at all so imagine like chelsea trying to put her whole abdominals back together and she's not a coach. How like, wow. So just giving them resources to not only get back to what they were, but potentially get them stronger than they were to birth.

Like that's pretty powerful as well. Because, I mean, like I said, you strengthen the mother, you're going to strengthen the whole family. And I'm a big mama's boy. So whatever I can do to get my mom in the weight room and put a little muscle on my mother who's never really had any true muscle mass, I love that stuff. I want you guys to imagine that you're wearing a cast on your hand and you're going through your whole day with this cast hand. Well, because your fingers don't move, your hand will start to become stiff, weak, and that'll work its way up your arm.

That's the same thing that happens when you wear these damn shoes. Okay? Sorry to curse, but it's frustrating. Because these shoes that have a narrow toe box, although they look nice in their Nikes, narrow toe box so your toes can't move. They're not flat, so your foot is in this weird thing and it's not getting stronger. And they're not flexible, so they can't move. They're not flat. So your foot is in this weird thing and it's not getting stronger and they're not flexible.

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

code across the top make sure you use that code for 15 off your entire order again vivo barefoot.com slash power project links in the description as well as the podcast show notes throw these away dude watch the watch the camera how did you get yourself out of pain you mentioned early in the show that you got yourself to start to feel a lot better to be honest i i can't beat around the bush a large part of it is because that guy's sitting right there um uh yeah david weck by the way yeah that good looking guy right there um uh yeah i went by the way yeah yeah that good looking guy right there um yeah i can talk about different types of breathing modalities i'm studied under but to be honest until i learned how to properly walk and run with greater balance and and side bend like dude it was eye opening like i i told you earlier three knee surgeries

all neither of my knees have any meniscus in them so i have no cushion on my knees and i'm 250 pounds and i run like a freaking gazelle and it's because i know how to move my body and and use it with balance so um to be honest just short answer is just i i'm indebted to the weck method team everything that they've taught us and and really encouraged us with they've just been world-class the entire time i've worked with them has it been hard to get away from like traditional lifts because they're fun and you know what gain strength and to be honest the traditional lifts are still there but uh i just use different modalities like if i'm in a back squat now i know how to truly truly externally torque to get even more braced in my lats and back

before that it was kind of like all right i think i'm supposed to brace my back but like he's telling me to brace my core and i'm just like up in the mix of all of it and and um again just fully committing to the principles of like internal torsion external torsion that's a big one in terms of injury prevention in my eyes is is learning how to really truly brace either this side or this side because if say you're in a like a front squat or goblet squat core exercise but if if if you're not taught well you may think a back a squat is a back exercise so you're like oh what do i brace again my core or my back yeah and that's when potential injuries happen so in terms of the you know how do i get myself out of pain um a lot of it goes to dav, DJ Amerikami at Strong Camps.

I'm learning actually one more methodology. One of my coaches is this gym in Point Loma down in San Diego. It's called S10 Fitness. It's owned by a gentleman named Dave Sten and then Chris Daly, who is a mentor of mine, RIP, passed away tragically. And they're teaching me a lot of the modalities of this education called Z-Health. You ever heard of Z-Health? Nope. Look it up, brother.

It's a good one. Z-Health is all about like the neurology aspect of training. So visual balance and Z-Health is a great one as well to look into. That's helped me particularly a lot. How'd you get yourself out of pain? Yeah, so again, same thing. A lot of David Weck's work was the thing that finally clicked for me. I was very, like I said, I was just muscle-bound.

I was getting stronger and stronger and stronger, but so stuck in so stuck in just the typical power lifting type movements. You know, it took me really far down the road. And when I started, it was really rolling the rope that like opened me up back into it. Because the nice thing about that is if you have a bit of an understanding about the body, like it will, it's like the rope just shows you the correct way to move, like to get a nice smooth flow, you have to be in those, those, uh, mechanically advantageous positions. And, um, as soon as I started doing that, that got me moving more, uh, started using like the BOSU ball, the soul steps, those types of things. And once the pain was gone, I finally started moving again. Because when I was in a boatload of pain,

I didn't want to keep doing the things that were pushing me further. So like that was that was like the key that opened the door for me. And yeah, it's wild because it's only been a year. But the difference in my movement quality, my quality of thought, my outlook on the future, all of these things has fundamentally changed. And really, yeah, for me, it started with the rope. You messed your back up really bad, right? Like with the trampoline thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. Cause when I, when I would tell people the story, I'd like get into it, like, Oh, we were at a trampoline park and they're like, Oh, you like fell on your head or something. Right? Nope. Just jumped up onto a platform. That was wake up call number one. And then I was telling Andrew earlier, wake up call number two

was I broke my ankle walking down our driveway in 2021, 2021. And I was watching your podcast where you wrap your head around somebody falling off a curb. And I was like, okay, what up? So like here I was, you know, pulling three plates, doing these things in the past. And I really hurt myself just trying to go down an icy driveway a little bit too fast. Yeah.

And then getting just gentle, nutritive movement in from the rope was like my way of being able to step back into it like i said i'm absolutely gonna return to lifting heavy i'm in that process now but it just became so clear i had to get the fundamentals down because i was just go go go go go since i was young. I really like this question. And I'm going to open up to you, Jens, now. Like, Mark, I know you maybe had a couple injuries. Like, what was a big factor in you getting out of pain? You know, I had a bunch of injuries. I'm trying to think of, like, chronic pain.

I've been pretty good at avoiding chronic pain. I have like tightness in certain areas. Like my hip has been tight forever. That's been something that's bugged me. But, you know, I've torn my pecs a couple of times. I've torn my tricep and my hamstring. So luckily, even when I was powerlifting, I was pretty – from a lifting perspective, was pretty healthy and pretty like – just not in a lot of pain. I guess the only thing I can think of is like my elbows and joints would flare up a little bit here and there. But that's not really an issue at the moment. But that's also just because like I – just to reduce the amount of like pulling and pushing that I do because the elbow is involved in so many different things in the gym. So just having different inputs I think has been really helpful. And then also like having my mentor be Louie Simmons, it was always that we mixed stuff up quite a bit. And so you would get – you would move a lot of different exercises into the mix. you would move a lot of different exercises into the mix.

And so I didn't really – I don't feel like I really walked around maybe as much pain as a lot of other guys did, especially considering the weights and stuff. And then just moving on from powerlifting into bodybuilding, to me bodybuilding was easier from a standpoint of like less overall like pressure on my body and just felt better. And then now that I'm a total pussy and basically just running, I feel really good with that and I'm fortunate that I'm not really running into any injuries. But I think I'm just resilient.

You know, I think not like a mental resilience. I mean more so I trained myself to be resilient and then there's also maybe some good genetic factors in there. Yeah, you're lucky, son of a gun. Yeah, speaking of, have you overcame some significant injuries in SEMA? Was it continually learning from new principles, or what was it that got you out of some significant pain? Yeah, dude, there's a bunch of shit. I think one of the big things

was really strengthening the feet over time. I mean, I played soccer for a lot of years. And when I started doing jujitsu pretty much eight years ago, I did have like a string of foot injuries that I couldn't necessarily figure out. And it's not until I started being deliberate with like doing things for the feet,

strengthening them, that like then I started being deliberate with like doing things for the feet, uh, strengthening them that like, then I started like learning how to put everything together. It's like my body was like strong, right. But my feet weren't necessarily connected to everything that I did. And when they got stronger and now it's like, even when I do jujitsu, when I'm using my feet and playing guard, as people call it, people always always comment like if your feet feel like hands, because now like my toes are grabbing at things. My toes are grabbing at their bicep or grabbing at their knees and that's instinctual. But along with that,

since that's all wired together now, I'm just starting to be a little bit less conventional with the way I move over the past few years. Cause like with a lifting background, you always think of like, okay, hip crease over or like a rib cage over hips and brace and everything is here. And you're moving that same fashion all the time.

But like as I started to like start pulling in different ways, start pushing in different ways, start like lifting in really long, potentially dangerous ranges. Initially shit felt sketchy, but then my body developed the capacity to almost be strong everywhere. So I can do things with deep flexion, deep extension, and my back and everything feels great. And it doesn't feel like it's going to be at the risk of injury because I've built that capacity. So I think slowly over time, kind of getting out of the conventional lifting dogma and doing things in that way is like now I really don't deal with anything unless like you know some stupid shit happens here and there but then it's it's minimal I think if we get hurt we usually come in and try to figure out how to fix it you know so like if I'll get like a little tweak in my back or something sometimes I know better I mean sometimes

you know sometimes you hurt yourself and you actually do need a few days to really not mess with the injury at all yeah um but luckily i haven't had anything like that in a long time but when i have like something just little you know you get like something in your back like man what is that rather than like avoid it and right like that's what i used to do i used to just be like all right we'll just brace and hold on everything everywhere you walk and try not to move too much. And hopefully over a couple of days it will go away. And it usually did. Or it would result in me being tighter and then I had to kind of figure it out later.

But nowadays it's like if something happens, if I feel the slightest of anything, I go in and try to have some maintenance on it. Go in and try to mainly round the back. I've been really playing around with trying to straighten my spine and the weird it's the weirdest thing because i can kind of look at it in the mirror and i'll straighten my spine but when i straighten my spine and i like kind of tuck my hips underneath me then i'm like leaning forward and i'm just like crouched in this weird ass position but my spine's flat i'm like how do i stand more upright while the back's flat while the back's straight but just learning and investigating and digging in on all these things has really been really helpful and even

just that motion right there i feel like it's allowing my spine to open up and to start to move a lot better along each segment of the spine whereas before it's just like one unit and it's just like to stay on this topic real real briefly again posture and then working the non-dominant side as a rotational athlete um i've probably performed about five million reps here five million reps here and maybe 500 here 500 here So think about your musculature and just your overall skill level. Once we, this is an incredible work method again for this. Once you start to, you're aware of this non-dominant side and you start to work on that non-dominant side,

it's not only balancing you out to prevent injuries, it's potentially making that dominant side a lot better so uh addressing my non-dominant side is a big one of these and then kind of like what and seeing what i was talking about much more of the postural stuff like the way we distribute the weights and the feet getting out of the heels all day and maybe shifting a little bit more forward to the balls of the feet, hip position. This was my posture until I was 22. I was significantly anteriorly tilted. I thought I was a tough guy, so I kind of like shrugged my shoulders and shit,

and I was screwed up, bro. So just until I learned how to move and how to just live in a different space i'm i'm caught up in the feet too because it has a lot of the neurological aspects of this we teach this to women we teach this to everyone but imagine that i am i'll i'll act like i'm talking in sema here with my weight shifted the majority of the heels like i look a little timid talking to you i look like i'm not very sure myself and if you gave me a scary face i'm gonna go run the hell away but there's some people that come to mind right now as you're standing yeah but look at this look at this significant change if i just shift weight in terms of my feet.

Like how much more intentional do I look talking to you? Much more. And it's a confidence thing. It's actually a fight versus flight thing again. Like if Mark is going to come kick my ass, what am I going to do? I'm going to dip out and run away. Not with those feet being that big. Anyway, yeah, we'll get a close-up on these later.

I mean, if I wanted to fight back, what am I going to do? feet being that big anyway yeah we'll get a close-up on these like anyway uh i mean if i wanted to fight back what am i gonna do i'm gonna lean in and be confident that i'm coming after you as well so it's a lot of the postural stuff i love the whole postural restoration type work because it's important shit yeah and and for a woman who's been, I mean, majority of women have a significant anterior tilt, getting them connected to this side of their body or getting them out of this kyphotic part and like learning how to express this other side. It's like the aha moment. And I mean, producing those aha moments day to day in the gym, dude, it's so – it's awesome. It truly is. Chelsea, actually, what have you noticed?

Because, like, you did a lot of powerlifting. Did you ever have foot issues? Did you notice, like, when you started paying attention to that, if there were any – like, there's any improvement? Or was that something that you already kind of had down pat so i i really didn't think about my feet much until i broke my ankle to be honest with you like it just wasn't even on my mind i was focused on growing the channel and lifting more weights like i i was not uh i was not practicing a lot of the things i preach because you know i i would i would absolutely do my best to make sure anyone who was watching the content i put out was looking out for themselves.

But I would get so lost in just the end goal. I didn't pay attention to those little things. It wasn't until that injury. And, like, yeah, it was tough. Like, that really laid me up. I expected I would bounce back in, like, two weeks when that happened. Uh-uh. Not even a little bit.

Yeah, it wasn't until that point and I love the work you've been doing even just with like the the like three inch pipe just doing little exercises like that and something that helped me with my feet a lot as I was coming back from that energy uh injury was Tim Sheaf put out like a free foot program oh yeah yeah and it it helped me so much just doing little strengthening exercises rolling out like i did not realize how tight just the arch of my foot was until i started doing work on that thing and bring up a video of tim sheaf he's another weck method disciple and his background i mean call it like it is he's his actual background is parkour so this guy's jumping off of buildings like like

unbelievable but then he found weck method he found rope flow and he's actually doing a lot of work now with plyometric balls it's funny i've been getting into doing like stability ball stuff and i see like this guy is doing that same shit i started doing it because i saw it from paul check that's what david got that's where david got his inspiration is from paul check yeah awesome and um yeah tim sheaf is a great guy he's he's a great coach he's putting out some great educational content um shout out to Tim. Wow. Where can people find you guys? So people can find... Go ahead, Chelsea.

Go ahead. Hey, I mean, if you can find me online, if I'm going to be online right now, it's pretty much my Instagram, ChelseaLifts, still. And doing stuff for Built Well for Birth is the other place you're really going to find me right now. So still laying low, still doing the work on the deal. She's like Batman.

She only comes out. Like being a little bit of an enigma right now. Yeah. And then you can find me, you can find me on Instagram, amartinas1320. And then definitely check out the Built Well for Birth page. That's where we host all of our pregnancy,

fitness and health content. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, wherever the hell you can find us, TikTok, wherever. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.