Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 342 - JP Price

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

We are on location at the Arnold Classic 2020, or what should have been the Arnold Classic 2020. We're starting things off with our friend and elite powerlifter, JP Price! JP is an elite powerlifter, squatted 1,003lbs and more recently opened his own gym, Strong Barbell Club in Kansas City. Follow JP here: https://www.instagram.com/jplifts_sbc/?hl=en Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT10" at checkout for $10 off $40 or more! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

What up Poopcast? Welcome to the Not Arnold podcasting trip. Even though there was an Arnold and there wasn't an Arnold, it was just really confusing because one day there wasn't, and then the next day there was. It was like real eerie because like the first day that we were there, you know, there was nobody and then little by little more and more spectators were allowed in and that was the weird thing is nobody really knew what was going on. And then when we would run into a friend or something, uh, they would be like pretty upset. And then they also kind of be like, well, it sucks. We don't have our booth and everything, but it's kind of cool. We get to watch the, uh, the strongman competition. So it was,

it was a super weird vibe, but, um, you know, despite everything that had happened with the cancellation and the not cancellation, we decided to go ahead and, um, you know, despite everything that had happened with the cancellation and the not cancellation, we decided to go ahead and, uh, you know, still make the trip out to Ohio. And, um, we, I'm so glad we did because we have a straight up murderers row of podcast guests, um, that we were able to record with. And, uh, today we're actually going to start out with our boy JP price. Uh, JP is an elite powerlifter. He's one of the very few humans on the planet that was able to walk out of over a thousand pounds for a squat. Just a super nice guy. Like he seriously lights up every single room that he's in.

Today we, or sorry, not today on this podcast, you know, we talked about the Arnold being weird. We talked about his squat. We talked about him hurting his back and, uh, more so now, um, what is, what he's focusing on, which is, uh, his new gym and one, one, uh, you know, constant thing throughout all the, uh, all the guests that we have is everybody was able to focus on one thing and they were able to pivot out of it. You know, so JP was, he was so focused on being one of the strongest powerlifters on the planet. He took that, pivoted, and opened up his very own gym, which is really cool. So we talked a lot about that.

A whole bunch of fun hanging out with JP. Make sure you guys stay to the very end because he thought he had a pimple that turned out to be a hemorrhoid. And he discussed what happened with that. And unfortunately, slash you're welcome. He had a really bad case of MRSA in, uh, yeah, in kind of a bad spot. A huge shout out to Icon Meals. They fed us throughout this whole trip. Um, I don't know if you guys are following us on Instagram, but if you're not, please do so now. Um, yeah, uh, our boy Todd Abrams, the, uh, the owner ofcon Meals, just shipped us out a bunch of meals to our Airbnb.

So even though Mark wasn't partaking because all he did was he just fasted the entire time. And then, you know, at night he ate a big old steak. But Nsema and myself and Smokey and Jessica Smith, we all were just devouring these Icon Meals. So without them, it would have been a really, really hungry trip because we don't have much time on these trips to really stop and eat because we're all just working our faces off. So thank you, Todd Abrams. Thank you.

Icon meals. If you guys want to take advantage of our 10% off code, head over to icon meals.com right now at checkout, enter promo code power project and you get 10% off. Um, I highly recommend anything brisket, uh, especially the grilled cheese brisket sandwich. That thing was incredible. Also, I highly recommend anything brisket, uh, especially the grilled cheese brisket

sandwich. That thing was incredible. Also, it was really, really cool seeing a Piedmontese banner down at the expo. Uh, again, a bummer that the expo didn't happen because we had a lot of plans set up with, uh, Piedmontese at their booth. It didn't work out, but it was really cool just seeing that they were going to be a part of it. So, you know, maybe next year or, you know, who knows at the next big, uh, big expo, there'll be another big part of it as well. You guys know it's the absolute best beef on the planet. It's got more, more protein, less fat, cooks faster, tastes better. Uh, I don't even want to say it's the best beef on the planet anymore. I'd say it's the best beef in the universe. Um, it's kind of like a, one of those things where

it's like, okay, we went from a Nokia to an iPhone. How did that happen? It's probably some extraterrestrial technology up in that. That's kind of how I feel about these cows from Certified Piedmontese. Head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout. Enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 or more

you get free two day shipping alright that's it for me I hope you guys enjoyed this episode with our boy JP Price if you dig what he's saying

please find his social media links down in the YouTube description and or the iTunes show notes and hit him up and tell him

what you thought we'll catch you guys later alright Mr. JP Price can you pick up a microphone over there? Check. Do I have the right information, but are you going to sing for us today? Does somebody want to tell me? I can. I'm the first interview of the day, so we could do the national anthem.

That's not bad. It might trigger some people, though. People are triggered by everything nowadays, right? Apparently. That's why I don't watch the news or say anything publicly ever. What do you think about this coronavirus going on? I mean, I'm a little bit salty about it at the moment as it's affected all of us. Yeah.

Do you think it's like, are you actually concerned about it at all? No. Or do you think it's... No, I live in kansas city we don't believe in those kinds of things this isn't sacramento where the moms are scared of everything getting blown blown out of proportion yeah the pta moms are running everything i mean i for sure thought ohio would be a little hardier than this but uh you know i thought it was funny i saw something yesterday and they were talking about how uh well it's perfectly fine for 20 000 people to be at a hockey game today but it's not okay for us to be in a room with a bunch of people that are really really worried about their health yeah so do you guys think it's because like uh actually chris griffin was the one

that he brought this up he's like if it was anybody else not arnold this is almost like a power play for him too to be like hey like all this money that i'm about to make it's not worth it because you guys are more important to me like i'm like well i guess it's really really cool in 2020 to take the moral high ground and be a white knight that's true you know and you know i'm just not obsessed with that notion but a lot of people really really are right now and uh you know i think that's what the government tends to do because uh the people who are the loudest even if they aren't the majority are the ones that they're trying to appease yeah i wonder like if it was really that big of an alert like wouldn't they you know when somebody come forward on tv and have some sort of announcement

like hey no one can leave their house type of deal you know we're not really hearing anything like that you know uh i mean are we just gonna fucking cancel everything yeah not leave our houses or we're gonna be a little scared cowards all day and so i thought that they had an opportunity with all the people they had scheduled to be here and health screen people and screen the athletes they said they had 88 nurses ready i thought they had an opportunity to set a precedent for how well they could do this instead of just being cowards about it. Maybe educate further so people have knowledge of what they could do potentially. Well, I mean, let's be real honest about what happened

is the companies that spent thousands of dollars to be here, yours included, and the people who spent thousands of dollars to be here, me included, didn't deserve to find that out two days before it happened. I already had athletes here. They drove up the day that they announced that and i'm like well what are these girls gonna do i mean just oh myself i just spent this money i just worked for this many months and granted now they get to compete but and then they did it so quickly and so last minute that then since then every communication since that's been incredibly confusing right yeah no one no one knows what the hell's going on oh people can go there people can't go there what

about public assembly what about we told you you can't like right you know it's getting to that point where it's like okay let's let's not you know regulate our our inherent freedoms that we're supposed to be allowed to have and then earlier you said that the uh the people that had stuff shipped here are going to get like five percent back or something like that. Yeah, don't quote me on it because I don't want to say it wrong. But the email that they got, like basically it said, hey, you know, the labor that takes care of that, as you guys have experienced and your experience has come in here, it's all union labor. Right. And so there's certain rules and things you can't get around, and they're not going to not get paid. so there's certain rules and things you can't get around and they're not going to not get paid.

And so, uh, some, from what I was told in the email that I saw that you guys probably saw too was, uh, you know, that the people that had all their stuff here that were stuck,

um, we're going to get like maybe a 5% credit to send it back home. And, uh, you know, I've talked to some of the small business owners and everybody's had a great attitude about it, but it no doubt buried some people.

Um, and it's going to be really challenging for them to come back from i mean i know companies that make well more than 10 of their yearly income in three days here what you've been up to lately uh so uh about 3 30 i think i think i mean i think last time we spoke you were kind of uh you were you were you were coming off of an injury and you were trying to like rehab back and and get back into powerlifting and i think since that time it's been it's been a struggle to try to get back into powerlifting where you at now so i mean life's been really busy in general and maybe this has been an opportunity to focus on some things that matter a lot more um because wait what you know what? Power lifting and being able to do the sport,

that doesn't necessarily matter to me that much. But being able to do what I want to do matters. It's hard not to get lost in it and have it be your identity, right? Yeah. And I've always thought, and my identity has always been everything else. I just happen to be good at that too. And so whether it's owning the gym or coaching people has always been everything else you know i just happen to be good at that too and uh so you know

whether it's owning the gym or coaching people or you know being a you know dad then all those things have been more of my identity i think than being a good lifter and uh that's just maybe how some internet people know you on the internet yeah from that yeah sure and then uh so the way that you know that's been going for me now I had hip surgery a year ago last month. What did they do to your hip? Arnold last year. They, you know, cleaned it up and fixed the labrum, you know. But the problem here with the labrum tear thing is, I mean, two out of three of you guys probably have a torn labrum.

Right. I guarantee you do. And, you know. I don't want to get checked. Exactly. It's the best way not to be hiv positive you're right don't get tested um i'm positive the results will be negative either way um so uh basically you know for me uh getting the hip surgery it was a big deal because

i've never really had surgery before i've never been hurt before ever like hurt but not injured ever in my whole athletic career and so for me the hip thing I thought would make everything better. Well a few weeks into rehab and I rehabbed with Squat University Aaron Horschig and he's a really exceptional physical therapist and he's actually local to where I live and he just recently moved. So we've worked together for a couple years and so we were doing therapy on it. Right when we got back into pretty heavy squatting, like 440 for sets of six, on like a transformer bar to a box or not, we kind of had a progression that we followed.

And then once we started getting heavy again, right when we got into the mid-400s for sets of six, something started happening in my back again. And we're not so sure I ever needed hip surgery. In my experience of kind of what's gone down with my body, I've been pretty let down, you know, by the health system in a lot of ways. I never had anybody diagnose the issues in my spine ever. I saw a pain management specialist.

I saw a spine specialist. And all they ever tried to do was correct my pain. They never tried to make anything heal. And that was pretty problematic for me. So they had gone in and they had done shots in my spine. Didn't work. They cut nerves. Didn't work.

Got worse. More inflamed. More inflammation. And then they wanted to do another round of more aggressive shots. And I just said, no, I'm tired of being experimented on because what i feared is that when these shots were off none of my problems were ever going to be gone and um so i reached out to stew mcgill and he let me come stay with him in canada oh shit um he was like hey look man i mean you need help i wish you would have talked to me two years ago when i explained all the symptoms

i've ever had. Yeah. And because we probably could have stopped this before it ever started. But no coughing in the background. It's unprofessional. So. Coronavirus. Coronavirus over here. Yeah, thanks for spreading it around.

So then, so I stayed with Stu for two days. And he did like a psych psyche valve on me to make sure it's like going to god to have him fix your back it's kind of how i felt and then like you fly into toronto and you got to drive out of town and he lives out in the middle of nowhere and uh he couldn't have been cooler his wife couldn't have been nicer to me she's a sports psychologist in her own right and an olympian she's an olympic rower um she's a Olympic rower she's a Masters World Champion in Canada and Stu was the most interesting person I've probably ever met

he's handmade 16 wood boats and has them he's a jackal he sharpened his knife on his hand one time in front of me and he was like here you go this is the best way to sharpen it wait wait pause sharpened his knife on his hand yeah so like to get the fine edge on the knife you know how they use like a leather strop

well your hand is some kind of form of leather and uh so like you can like kind of grind down the burrs on the side of the knife with your hand and make it like a really fine edge so it's interesting how big are these boats they're like little wooden boats like you know old school ones that you would see like kind of like the like a more industrial but james bond vibe you know that's wild that's yeah and crazy yeah and then specialist making boats yeah it's weird right who was the boat building school yeah oh of course yeah i mean why would you and so uh well you're that smart though like you could just pursue anything right like exactly you can like, fucking lampshades or something. I mean, you could just make whatever you want.

Right. And typically people, you know, if you meet a genius like Stu, it's like they're obsessed over three things and that's it. Yeah. And then those are their things and everything else can fuck off. So he was great. And then he did a series of tests and evaluations on me in the gym in his basement. And because he's retired now. He just kind of takes on whoever he wants to see.

And so he basically, in his basement, did all these tests on me. And then he even did tests to try to fake me out. And he was really interesting while he was converging on that. His mind was going nuts, and he's being really animated. And he's like, I'm converging. I found it. He was able to tell me that after testing and then trying to fool me that he felt like he could be within 99% certainty he knew what was wrong with my back. I had three main issues. I have spinal columns that move a little bit and need stability, and there's methods and ways to get that back.

I don't know what they are, but I'm working on it. Then there's also arthritis in my lower back and the facet joints. And we can never fix that. So that will always be uncomfortable in some ways. There's some management. Yeah. You can't really just get blood in there and try to make it feel better whatever way you can type of deal. That kind of deal.

Don't hurt yourself. Right, right. And then with this other stuff that's supposed to enhance your ability to feel better from that because you're more supported and more stable, et cetera. And then the third one was the weirdest one. And, uh, this is,

I've got a little bit of good news on it. So I've basically not really done hardly anything I wanted to do for going on a year and a half now. Shit. And it's been a long time and it's frustrating. It's really frustrating. And, uh,

I haven't gotten to do what I want for over a year and a half. As far as lifting is concerned? Yeah, yeah. I've been incredibly limited. And so for me, going to him and hearing all these things, you know, it was more of like, yeah, I knew I was going to be out for a while, but now I'm really out for a while. And, you know, but, yeah, there is some hope, too.

Trying to figure out what that hope is. Any idea what that noise is? I have no idea. There's a jackhammer outside. We can hear it. Wow. Yeah, I thought it was our equipment or something. I thought it was a jackhammer in the other room, Smoke.

Hey, now. I thought that was you. I was like, put your tango away. Has it been difficult? You know, like, has it been emotional, you been emotional to not be able to get back into it? Well, I spent the last year building a palace for powerlifting in my gym, Strong Barbell Club, and I barely use it. Right.

So I floor press once a week, and that's not even allowed. And I got hurt doing it. It hurt my AC joint. But so it sucks not being able to do what I want to do, but it's really cool to bring it to everybody else. Right. So now you're coaching a lot of people and things like that? Yeah.

Oh, and the third symptom I didn't cover, this is why it's kind of cool. So I had this symptom. It's called a neural underhook. When you look up and down, your spinal cord travels a centimeter through your spinal column. Okay? So I have a disc that's leaking out the back. It's called a fissure.

It's got gel leaking out the core of the disc. And when I look up, my nerves would get caught on it and my glutes would go down. Or they'd like lightning would shoot through them and my legs would give out. Anytime I looked up or if I like went down to like take a bite of a sandwich, like any of those motions where my cord would move and get caught. It's called a neural underhook, and I've never heard of that before. And he described it to me and showed me, and it was really, really, really specifically that's what it was.

And literally three months of rest. Last week I realized that that went away. So I'm one symptom down. I've got two more to go. And he was like, you know, you're probably going to be in this state of just doing physical therapy drills and a couple really specific movements that I want you to do and walking until we've done this for over a year. This is where I'm at until after November next year at least.

Then we can slowly maybe work back into something and get that spine spinal column calloused and working well how have you been working through it like um like your psyche like your power lifter you lift heavy shit and pretty shittily yeah i know that's what i'm saying like but how are you getting through it uh you know i i have i don't have the luxury of being not busy enough to focus on myself a lot like that. And I have tried to focus on myself in other ways. Um, Dr. McGill was really encouraging of, you know,

continuing to try to lose weight. So last time I was on the podcast two years ago, I was like 400 pounds. And, uh, I think at the time I was like probably three 75. And then when I did the slingshot, uh,

um, push pull a year ago, I was three 96 when I weighed in. And, uh, so I think I went into surgery at 380 and I came out and I stayed maintaining around 375 until May. And then, you know, Steffi Cohen and I were talking about my bad back and she was like, hey, I'd really love to help you out. And she helped me with her head nutrition coach. And I went from i started i think with him like 375 378 and i've gotten down to as low as 320 and i've been sitting at 330 for about three three months

now and uh really need to like kick that into gear and get down to 300 pounds like that's been my goal is it is it tough like do you feel like uh do you feel like deprived being being like lighter um no the hardest thing is like like are you hungry not really i mean no you feel like deprived being lighter? No, the hardest thing is like... Like are you hungry? Not really. I mean, no. You feel pretty good? I can manage it really, really well.

And I still get to eat a lot of food. Right. I mean, I can... Right now, if I want to cut, I'm probably like 2,800 to 3,000 calories. And that's not... No food. I mean, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah.

And when I started the cut, I was at 3,500. And then I would kind of... Once I lost 70 pounds, I mean, I needed to cut a little more. And so I really want to continue to get a little bit lower for my back, for me to be happier. I mean, if I can't squat 1,000 pounds or bench over 600 pounds, why the hell would I have any extra weight on me? It's not worth anything to me. And so, and honestly so on, and honestly, like this is kind of a weird way to look at it. And you've probably felt this way or experienced this in a lot of different ways in the last few years. But I think that I get skipped over or

taken less seriously or not related to by people because I was so overweight. And I think that, uh, looking better and feeling better and, you know, being in better shape, not only would it give me more confidence, stuff like confidence from being overweight for a long time too. You know, those things might be good for my business. Yeah, it's interesting to hear that from you because you have such a magnetic personality. I wouldn't take you for somebody that, but I guess we all feel different when we feel heavier. Sure. And, you know, I felt good in some ways.

I mean, I felt like confident in my strength and that people liked me and that I was nice and I got along with everybody. But you're still a fat guy. Yeah, you're still a funny fat guy. People still compare you to Chris Farley your whole fucking life. You know, and it's like. Not a bad comparison. I'm going to overdose and die early. Super.

You know, I just it's for me like it's hard to be that big for that long. You know, I've been over 300 pounds since I was 18, you know, except for one year, you know, and, uh, and I got back there pretty quick in that year too. Um, so when you're a real young, when you're a real young, were you heavy? Like even when you're like eight, nine, 10, stuff like that. Um, I was big, not incredibly heavy. I got pretty fat fat like in sixth grade ironically the year i started to wrestle i was actually so fat my tits were so big i

wore a white shirt under my wrestling singlet my first year wrestling so we had these ones that were like cut like in simo would wear for halloween or something yeah you know borat yeah and uh i was i was like no this makes me feel not good so i a shirt. I was a kid with a shirt on at the pool because I was so embarrassed of myself. And then in seventh and eighth grade, I was 12, I started to lift weights and got confidence and got bigger than everybody. And then we entered high school. Yeah, just kick everybody's ass. Yeah, I was like 220 pounds.

And I really changed a lot in that time and then got kind of popular in school and got along with everybody. And so I had got along with everybody. And so I had some confidence with that. But, you know, I think that, you know, no matter what, anybody that you see with extra weight, they also have probably some extra baggage somewhere, you know, in some way, you know, that they're holding on to that doesn't feel good. Whether that has to do with people, relationships, food, et cetera, there's something there, you know. You know, you mentioned that now since you were injured, you were able to concentrate more on, like, your athletes. You have the gym.

You're working it. And I was wondering, like, in a year from now, when or whatever, when you're healthier, have you thought about exactly what you're going to do? Like, are you going to continue dropping and find something else, or are you going to try and get back to lifting heavy weight if you get that clear? You know, before any of this happened like i really wanted to total 2000 to last 40 and i'm 35 and i mean i'd still like to do that honestly i mean if you told me that i was healthy today and i was okay i would try to squat 800 pounds you know what i mean like that's just how

i feel mentally it's i'm not scared of that i'm just not able to do it. Right now, my total is literally 551 in all three lifts. So I can bench 551, I can squat 550, and I can deadlift 550, but I can't do, like, a pound more. My glutes shut down, and I can't move. And so that's been the problem is my glutes give out, and I can't control myself, and, you know, it's a problem. What do you think maybe a misconception is about people that are heavy? Because you were saying that maybe a good amount of people are walking around,

probably maybe not everyone, right, but like almost all of them, you can guarantee they probably have some sort of baggage, some sort of issues from something they've heard or something they thought of themselves or their own perception of themselves or the perception they have that other people have of them or any of those kinds of things. But we sometimes hear people say, oh, like they're fat and lazy. But it's more complicated than that because you feel like you can't get off the couch

because of just kind of the pattern that you've fallen into, the bad habits that you've fallen into. So you're not encouraged. You don't want to move your body. I don't know what it's like to be 400. So maybe you can kind of explain that to us a little bit. Yeah. You know, it's kind of one of those things that sneaks up on you. Like I felt pretty good at like 360 actually, you know, when I was at my very strongest ever, I was like 360, 365 and I felt pretty decent at that time. Like I didn't feel like a fat sack of turds all

the time, you know, but, and then it started to get that way. And, you know, and at the time in my life, I was also drinking a lot. I was eating a lot at night, like pretty uncontrollably. And in my work, I was eating a ton of fast food and, uh, you know, meal timing was shit. You know, I'm sure I tanked my metabolism. So, you. So people say fat and lazy, but it's really fat and undisciplined. That's really the term that has to be there. And everybody is doing a diet, but diets, they don't necessarily work because that's saying that I'm only going to temporarily change my habit. And it's not lifelong.

It's not a thing. Yeah, you're just going to cut back on the amount of food that you eat and that's going to be very difficult yeah because you love eating and you're used to it it's comforting right yeah for sure i know it's hard to because i think both of you guys i'm curious about this if you look back to when you were at that 360 or 38 or whatever and even mark when you were like 320 right or 380 or whatever, and even, Mark, when you were like 320, right? Do you think you could have done what you did as far as those strength feats at a lighter weight?

And I'm wondering this because a lot of, like, especially powerlifters, you know, when you get into those super heavyweight classes, they feel like they just got to be super heavy to do that. Do you think that's absolutely necessary to produce that type of power? I think that we've seen that some of the best heavyweights are 330.

You know, that's honestly been the spot. And, you know, they're a little bigger and stronger than the 308s, you know, a lot bigger than the 275s. And we've seen them at their best in the 330 range, maybe even 350 if they're taller. But we haven't seen a lot of 400-plus guys. I mean, really just Ray. And especially with longevity, you know, because it's hard to be that big um you know when you're 400 pounds like walking sucks stairs suck sex is hard

like everything is difficult sex is soft yeah i mean you know i think uh for myself i could have been lighter um but how much lighter i don't i don't know i think well in your weight gain i mean it felt bad to you, but it really wasn't that extreme. Right, no, it wasn't. And I think when I look back at it, you know, weighing 275 to 290, I felt like I was performing really well at that weight, and I didn't necessarily need to get any heavier.

But it is kind of an accordance to your, like, height. I think your height's a big factor. You know, if you're 5'7", then you might be able to be like 240, and you might be able to kick a lot of ass, or even 220, and you might be pretty thick. One of the biggest powerlifters I ever met is Sean Frankel, and he was a 220-pound competitor. He's fucking massive.

His shoulders and stuff. He's huge. His back. I mean, he's just huge. Yeah, absolutely. So what's it like coaching people now? You know, I've coached people in a lot of sports. My first coaching job ever was college football.

I finished playing, and then they let me stay on as an assistant. And that was a really good foundation because it's like a higher level, you know. And then you can kind of take that into a lower level. Instead of, like, having to learn to get better, you almost had to take some of it back you know to go to the lower level so i coached college football for you know a year and then i helped out with the rugby team and stuff and then i worked with the high school wrestling team a couple of them and then i coached high school wrestling for a couple years at a really good high school in kansas city and uh so i had already coached people a lot like the psychology of coaching is no problem for me um that's where I'm the best at is with, you know, dealing with athletes psychologically.

That's the easiest part for me. Is there any, like, added pressure now that you do own a gym and all that stuff? Or is it just... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because this is the only thing I do. And, you know, I decided to leave a pretty good paying job a little over two years ago.

And then I started working at the gym. I got screwed over by a guy who declared bankruptcy. I got screwed over by new owners that didn't give a shit about me. And then I ended up having to break off and do it myself. It was a scary two years, you know? And, uh,

we opened the gym, uh, June 1st, two weeks in, we're sitting there and, uh, Matt Vincent and Bonnie were meeting me to go to the gym at 8am on Sunday morning on,

um, June 14th, 15th. And I got a text 10 minutes before they showed up that the roof collapsed. And we had 84 members in two weeks. We had to shut down for seven days. We found a new place six blocks away. We moved the whole gym in one day and 12 hours. And we rearranged it the next day. And then we opened the next day and we gave everybody

a week of money back and you know then we kept growing from there so we're in our location now that's really awesome and it's really safe building nice uh nice publicity stunt having the roof cave in all you hear about that gym that had the roof cave in it was wild i heard they're giving everybody their money back well we uh you know we we had a lot of buzz going for our gym because right now we have like 160 members, 155. And when we had first opened, we had 80 like that. Well, there was a lot of people wanting to come work out, wanting to come see it. We sell a ton of day passes, like probably 20 or 30 a week.

And so when it came down to that kind of stuff, everybody was wanting to come, and I'm sitting there getting messages all day long. And I don't have a building, and I can't even go into it. It's condemned. And it wasn't, the roof didn't collapse in our area. It was next door. But it was very, very stressful. I

1,000% hugged Matt and cried. I was like, here's your ass coffee. Fuck, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I was, I remember when they told me the building was condemned. Jenna and my wife had gotten me a massage because I was so stressed out. And I was sitting there and this like six foot one Swedish girl, not you, was giving me this massage. And I'm sitting there.

My phone will not stop vibrating. And I was like, give me the phone. And she gives it to me and they're like, JP, the building's been condemned. And I go, well, I can't do anything about it right now. Just hang it up. I just sat there and just waited out the massage, just steaming, you know? And then, I mean, I was at like a Coheed in Cambria

and every time I die at concert, you know, later that night and I was just sitting there in the rain thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I'm like, in between shows, I'm like answering phone calls from a guy from China I I'm trying to rent a building from him and you know, all this kind of shit. So it was wild. It was cool. But now the gym's doing really great. I personally coach about 40, 45 people at a time. And then I run the gym full time during the day.

I'm there, you know, pretty much nine to five every day and then weekends, a couple hours a day and then till 10 on Tuesday and Thursday Thursday because that's when my group trains. So the gym's doing good in that way. Coaching's doing good in that way. And then I also run about 6 or 7 local powerlifting meets. I run a couple big ones and then I run some for other gyms that don't have the resources to run them maybe or haven't ran a meet before and need help and so you know we kind of have a revenue sharing type thing and you know work with each other and so i come in and run the meet for them and

and uh you know they help me with it so what do you learn from the experience of having the building condemned and just going through all that bullshit and then coming out the other side okay i always wanted to be on like an episode of restaurant impossible. You know, that's what it felt like. It was wild. We had a lot of help, but it was a lot of stress.

And you got to remember, I'm going through this whole fucking thing with a broken back and recovering from hip surgery. So, uh, you know, that was pretty tough. You know,

uh, Jess came out for our grand opening and it was when the roof collapsed. And so she came and helped us move the chair. She's a bad luck. Yeah. No. Well yeah no well thank god you know since i was out they brought in another offensive tackle to uh to help carry the gym around and rebuild it so because i couldn't do much i can't do much but run heavy equipment yeah how many athletes do you have competing here at the arnold because you mentioned that so only a couple so we we have two girls came to our gym from another, and they've really fit in great and been awesome.

They're really cool. They're competing in the XPC on Saturday. And Ryan, my business partner and friend that's at the gym and coaches people, Ryan coaches both of them. Annie coaches another girl that's competing, and I'm going to help handle them and coach. And then I really love to come here as a spectator too. Like last time I was here it was for the cage, and that was really, really fun.

And so, you know, what we're going to do is I'm going to support a couple of the events if I can get in and watch a little bit because I love Highland Games and Strongman and all that stuff, you know. When I was hurt and I couldn't come back, it was while I was trying to be ready to pick a strongman meet now i really had aspirations to try to get my pro card in that and i probably never will be able to you know stew is fairly confident that i can get athletic again and maybe even do like local level or regional strongman but um you know i'm just not going to be as strong as i was ever again probably and i'm pretty okay with that i do want

a deadlift 804 to meet though it's It's like the only goal I never hit. I know he's helped Lane Norton quite a bit, and Lane Norton's able to get back to pretty close to where he was before. I mean, just being able to do some of the stuff, I think after you've been injured or after something happens, you're more grateful that you're just able to do the activities after a while. So if you're able to squat even three plates, but you can do it without a lot of pain,

then that might be kind of like the new goals, like just squatting with no pain. Two years ago I squatted, two years ago today I squatted, or tomorrow I squatted 925 for a double, you know. Yeah, in my gym with the safety squat bar and chains, I think you had like eight plates on each side or something 785 or something or 795 i mean it was just i was like what does this guy do on this is just and he did a couple reps and it was easy and i was like this guy's fucking out of his mind well i mean when i was when i was there i pretty i felt unstoppable man i feel like

i could do anything i wanted or anything i tried to do sorry that's okay i'm usually good about that you know uh i don't even want to look yeah i do want to go back to this because i think a lot of anything I wanted or anything I tried to do. Sorry. I'm usually good about that. You know, I don't even want to... Yeah, I do want to go back to this because I think a lot of athletes definitely should pay attention to that. You said that you think that the hip surgery made things worse, right? You know, I don't know if it made things worse. I just don't know that my hip was actually the problem.

Yeah. They did some testing to try to assure that it was and it was torn. I mean, I definitely got every single symptom back plus then some yeah after we tried to recover from that and that's when everything really just went nuts and my back was all fucked up and and i really needed intervention i needed help bad yeah you know so it's funny because so what i was trying to say was uh and i didn't finish my point was two years ago, squat 925 for a double and mad that it wasn't a thousand. And now I'm like excited.

I can look up without pain. Like shit. Things have changed, man. You know, I was I went to an appointment for an MRI one time at KU Medical, and, uh, it's pretty hard to get around some hospitals, you know, it's like hard to understand what's in what building and it's a little confusing. And I remember,

uh, the valet wasn't on duty and I couldn't use it. If anybody ever doesn't validate their car, they're stupid. It's like $2 tip, you know, $3 tip. It's complimentary valet.

Use the valet. You'll feel like a high roller. It'll make you feel good. And then you'll spend $2, throw the keys at them. Park this. Don't even look.2, throw the keys at him, park this. Don't even look, take my 96 to sell.

I know how many miles are on it. Don't go out on a joyride. I've seen Ferris Bueller. Um, so, uh, I parked and, I ended up having to walk like probably three quarters of a mile.

And I like cried a third of the time cause it hurts so bad, but I didn't want to ask for help. I didn't want a wheelchair. And then, um, I told him in the, in the uh operating room like when I left I was like hey I might I had to park really far away I need help and uh they didn't give anybody to help me so I just like kind of walked as slow as I could and took breaks and had to walk back out to my truck and it was miserable you know so I've come a long way since then, you know. And being thinner has helped out a lot with that, I'm sure. You know, because when your mobility is taken away,

if you're the one, you know, also killing yourself on top of that, it's not good. Is there anything you could have done differently in your lifting career that you think would have helped? Honestly, you know, there's not one thing that caused this. You know, I mean, in my last meat prep, I think I squatted over 900 over 20 times. But that's what we had planned, and that's what I needed to do to squat what I wanted to squat. That's where you were. It wasn't like a stretch.

That's how strong you were. Yeah, and, you know, honestly, there's a lot that I could have done different, but I honestly didn't do anything stupid. Like, you know, to be honest with you, if you ask my training partners, I didn't work very hard to squat as much as i did or bench as much as i did i did a lot of upper body work to do that but because clearly i had to build muscle and you know do those kinds of things i've got a big upper body but uh you know when it was time to squat a thousand i would come in i would work for three hours to squat a thousand i'd walk out i didn't do hip sled or leg

extensions or i like what you said there because i don't believe in hard work you know i think i think it's uh it's like a misconception now if we were if we were to go train with some crossfitters that would be hard work for us because we're not adapted we didn't adapt to it yeah but if you give us some time you know you start to adapt to you start to get better and the level should go down a little bit and i think uh a lot of people are trying to sprint at like 110 with everything that they do and then that's that's where the injuries can kind of happen and that's where you can also get burnt out i see people do it with their diet all the time starting on monday starting on monday yeah you know i'm gonna fast for 18

hours and i'm gonna you know get on the elliptical and i'm gonna do a b and c and they just made it so difficult and it's like it shouldn't the difficulty level that should match uh your adaptation previously so like where are you at and it should kind of line up with that and then you can kind of go from there so for some people it might start out with you know walking or it might start out with just going to the gym and doing one exercise. Yeah, I was really smart. I thought when I lifted and I took a lot of time off, I, you know, backed off all the time. I hardly ever was in wraps. You know, I was, I thought I was pretty smart until I wasn't. And, uh, like I said, I've never been hurt my entire life. I've never had surgery. I've never had anything until I was 34. Do you think there was a point in your lifting

where you may have lost some mobility and some of it may have been, because that's what I noticed for myself. So this could be just a cautionary tale to some young, younger people that are listening to this is that I think over a period of time, I was like, quote unquote, shoving myself into positions that I,

I wasn't able to get in comfortably without a bunch of weight on my back. So if you ever watch me deadlift, you'll already know that I don't deadlift. I squat the weight up. It's because my leverages suck so bad and I'm so fat at the time. I'm only 5'10", 5'11", and then to be that big in your midsection, and I have a huge torso. I have a really long torso and short-legged. I'm already terrible for deadlifting.

It sounds like the makings of a horrible body. That's awful. A large belly, short legs, long torso. Fucking great for benching and squatting. This does not sound like a bodybuilding physique. Subtotal champion. But I often only lifted three days a week. And if I didn't, it was two.

And I skipped deadlifting. And so I never took time to be good at that craft and it's tough for you to get down to the bar right it's challenging yeah challenging not it was like easy to move around but um you know stew he watched some videos of me and he really thought that um i errantly put the bar down a lot and he said you've gotten so big and so strong you do a lot that you shouldn't do. Yeah, you need to be disciplined with every move. I could grab a person or a chair and throw them across the room and it wouldn't be a thing.

But if you do that poorly enough, enough times, enough times over and over. Are you talking about Andrew? You're going to throw Andrew? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should try that. Yeah, that'd be like that game. He'd go pretty far. How far could you throw Andrew?

You think he weighs, what, 180? Generous 180. Sure. Quarter mile. Quarter mile. If we get it on camera, I'm down. But, you know, other than that. 400 meters or so?

Just one lap around the track there? He's real aerodynamic. I thought you'd be able to throw him a little further than that, to be honest. I think if I assist him, if I just ragdoll, I don't think he can get enough leverage. Ragdoll would be a challenge.

Yeah, but if I push off you, that might help. He has jeans on, so I think you'd be able to grab him by the pants. I don't know if you ever had to do that in a bar and grab someone by the pants

and chuck him out, but that's kind of fun. A thousand percent. So I actually lost it at a bar not too long ago i don't really i don't really imagine no i don't want to i don't really drink anymore and i wasn't that night and uh so we're at this bar we're at this bar that ryan used to general manage and it's called pbr and this guy with like a carhartt shirt on with a pocket here with like the little logo and like a camo hat that

he like was drunk and he was wearing it like up like this so he was bothering these two girls and here's the point where I lost it he put both of his hands in one of their hair both of his hands and ran his hands through her hair and she didn't know him and

I went over there and I go hey do you know this guy she's like I was like did you want both of his hands in your hair? And she was like, fuck no. And I was like, all right, get out. I grabbed him by his pants and walked him face first through the dance floor. Nice handle. Yeah.

Yeah. It worked out pretty good. I'm pretty sure his ass crack was hanging out, though, because he probably just got off the job site. But by the least of his worries, it's happening. Yeah. So I have to. So I threw him out of the bar and then i go oh you had to get a whiff i had to give him the

if you smell did you uh get any uh bouncing gigs back in the day no like uh we used to i wasn't i'm into hardcore music and uh back in the day, we had a couple friends that promoted shows, and they couldn't afford security, and so we kind of helped them out with that sometimes. But it was a good way to get into a show for free. Right. You know, and a house party here and there. But my dad bounced through college, and he tried to tell me not to do that. So he was like, you know, people these days, they don't fight fair. You know, back in the 70s, it was cool to be a bouncer.

It's not fucking cool anymore. You can punch somebody. It's not a cool anymore. You can just punch somebody. It's not a big deal. Yeah, yeah. I think he's had a guy's tooth come out in his hand one time. Oh, shit. I was like, you don't need that in your life. I've never been a fighter.

I'm too nice of a guy, but I'll wrestle. I've never punched anybody in the face or gotten hit in the face, unless it was sports-oriented. I don't really want to start that. Right. sports oriented i don't really want to start that right as you're uh lifting um you know the injuries and stuff like that uh has it given you more time with your family like has it changed any relationships that you have or anything like that with your kids or wife or anything yeah i mean it's definitely added strain like i don't have any way at all that i enjoy relieving stress except like you know two and a half minutes a day but uh so uh that's masturbating so yeah um

mark got it so uh so basically you know you take i mean you're one stress reliever and it's just gone you know sucks and uh it's really hard to not be mad it's really hard to not be upset it's really hard to like have something inside you that's like oh when i feel this way i do this and then not be able to do that you know and that's a big challenge honestly and uh you know i can see why people get counseling in those situations i can see why stew evaluated me in that way and that's a challenge um but i really have i mean starting the business i'm there sometimes 70 hours a week. And I'm trying to have it be organized in a way where my kids don't miss me too much. How old are they? They're seven and five.

And when they're that age, they're going to miss you if you're gone for six hours. And tell you that and cry. If you're gone for six minutes, they're going to miss you. So it's tough. And I've got real sensitive boys. They really love me, and I love love them and we want to be together. And so. Your job isn't to be there all the time, though.

Right. You know, every dad should know that. Like, that's. Yeah. Your job isn't to, like, be there 24-7 and get them out of every sticky situation that they're in. Yeah. And, you know, I've had a lot of dads tell me, like, oh, I used to lift and then. And I'm like, yeah, no, your kids aren't proud of anything you do.

And I'm like, my kids are going to be able to say, like, I was really psyched for my dad. He competed. We got to see this and that. He built a community. And that's the kind of legacy I want to leave. Not that they just saw me all the time. That's not extraordinary. A lot of people are seen and then don't do anything. you're not really leading by example because maybe you're not doing

that much yeah yeah i find that kids that are inspired have parents that are inspiring right you know and uh and i hope to be that kind of a parent where i'm always following my passions and but also bringing them along with me and and so uh you know i spend nine to five at the gym every day so i get to drop them off at school every day. You have a favorite kid? Oh, for sure. Both of them are their favorite, like when the other one's not around, right? Whenever Juan wants to be with a parent, like Jack always wants to be with me,

Jay always wants to be with Jenna. Do you bring them to the gym with you? Sometimes, yeah. Do they enjoy it there? Do they get a kick out of it, like, this is dad's gym? Totally, totally. That's so cool. They have some fun stuff they can do there. We have a a kid's room where kids can hang out parents don't need to spend extra money on that kind of shit that's awesome they're five or over they can come hang

out i'm really curious real quick about um you know you said that typically and even for me you know the stress reliever is jujitsu in the gym and like when i think about if i didn't have that yeah i'd be so fucking mad yeah so in your and you get to fight in the gym exactly yeah but right now i mean i know you you're working a lot so maybe that relieves some stress and coaching but is there anything that you've found to be pretty beneficial for you like is there anything new that you've added into your life or practice that that that's helpful i think there's a few things i could still add yeah you know i could be way better at doing my physical therapy every day i could be way better at doing the things

stews asked me to do every day um they're very hard for me to do because i'm used to doing shit i want to do yeah and that's stuff i don't really want to do and it's hard to see value in it until it starts working so it's easier to see value in it now, but you know, it's also, you know, it's hard to keep losing weight when you get depressed from hearing that you're not going to be able to do what you want to do for another two years, probably, you know, it's like those kinds of things weigh on you when you're in those situations. And, and it's really hard not to be frustrated sometimes. Um, but the fact that I get to do what I want to do every day really helps with that. Um, the fact that I'm kind of following what I was really,

you know, impassionate about is really helpful. Um, I've, you know, gotten a lot deeper and more into coaching now that the gym is pretty established, you know,

and we're not worried about making the bottom line all the time. It's not like it's making a lot of money, but it started to make some, and that's important because we want to be around a long time, you know, but I live off of being able to coach because that's, you know, another conduit for me to be able to generate revenue while we're building the gym. And so it's been a real blessing and I really owe everybody to get good at it, you know, and, uh, I'm the kind of person that I'll never say that I'm great at

something. You know, I could say that I was great at squatting. Like I'm confident in that, but, um, you know, with coaching, I have to always strive to try to get better at it and bring something new to my clients and i think anybody that's been with me for one to two years can see the maturation in that period of time was very fast because i get obsessed and uh so being better at that's been a real asset to me and uh and you know giving me another way to generate income i've had to rebuild my income four times in like three years. So that's challenging. You know, it's a lot of pressure. And especially when you're paying, you know, the two years ago, three years ago, we paid almost $20,000 a year in kids daycare, you know? And so

to like be in a position where you're always having to rebuild that with everybody to rely on you, that's stressful. And luckily Jenna has a good job and that's great. But you know, this day and age, like two of you almost have to. It makes you kind of question things. You're like, how much longer can I keep trying one thing and have it not work out and then try another? What made you stick with it? The coaching or running the gym? What do you mean?

Just kind of all of it. Because you could have just been like, well, fuck, man, I've got to go sell insurance or something. Yeah, I mean, I've always been good at selling and talking and relating to people and i could sell anything but um in my last job it was sales but if i found out that if it wasn't what i wanted to be doing so the job i was doing i was running high school sports fundraisers and that was easy for me but then when we went into the elementary market like it lost all its allure to me and uh you know i felt like i was doing something that wasn't needed. I felt like I was doing something that we needed them to do. And so at that point, I was like,

yeah, I can't do this anymore. I don't believe in it. And so I immediately kind of got out. I had to believe in it, you know. And when it's your gym that you build and you have established, it's easy to believe in. And, you know, I've been a guy that's always tried to do a lot of different things and always been multi-talented or multi-faceted, whether it was like being a football player and on the student government executive board or whatever. And one time I had a college football coach say, have you ever thought about being great at one or two things, not just good at everything? And it kind of fucked me up because I thought I was great at everything, you know. And so when people ask me to do things now, like I like to speak, it's pretty natural for me and I would love to do a podcast, but I don't have time. They take a lot of time, especially if you're doing it on your own and

you're trying to produce it all yourself. Like this stuff takes time. Like you work hard at this and, uh, everybody works hard at this. And so, you know, people ask about doing a podcast. People ask about doing this. People ask about doing this people ask about doing that and i just tell them like look i got three jobs and i spend 70 hours a week doing them and i have to get as good at those as i can be before i can start doing anything else and one of them's running the gym and we're not done getting good at that one of them's running powerlifting meets and we're not done getting good at that and then the third one's coaching and we're not done getting good at that and so so those are the things that I'm focused on. If it's not those three,

I'm not entertaining it very often. You know, I'm getting better at saying no and just saying like, this is what I do and this is what I have to get better at. And this is what my kids need me to do. This is what I'm going to do. I can set you up with something to make podcasting pretty easy though. I've heard there's ways,

but it's also like at the gym, it's tough. Like I get pulled away a lot of course i don't get a free hour very often and you know and then thinking about doing format yourself in kansas city i can't really have guests on all the time i could call people but um there's ways to patch people into the phone really easy these days but i uh the live is so much better i'm so much handsomer in person oh absolutely but there's just there's certain

things that i could obsess over that don't make me any money and then there's certain things i could get great at that are a service to everybody around me where i can make more money those are the things i need to focus on especially the one where you can make money while you're not there like that's i mean that's the number one challenge to figure out as a business owner right is how to make money while you sleep you know i like some of your videos that you put out on uh instagram you know where you're where you are coaching because like i i've always known you to be like fun and funny and just super fucking strong and a lot of times a lot of those athletes are they have great genetics you you've probably always been strong so i was like oh jp he's just fucking big and he's insanely strong

but then the coaching cues and the stuff that you put out there i'm like this guy knows what the hell he's talking about so that stuff is really cool to see i typically try not to say anything until i know i'm right and so if i put out content it's usually going to be something i'm just really really confident and it's going to work for some people not everybody but a lot of people and uh you know i need to do that more often. I need to do that every Friday. That is a part of my coaching business, so that is something I should be doing every Friday, is releasing content.

I would encourage you to do that. Podcasting is just a slightly different format than that. It's just communication. It will take you less time to do some of that than it would to put out a good post that you're writing. Sometimes it'll take 20, 30 minutes as opposed to just having a nice video.

You talk really well, so why not lean into that? Yeah, and I need to lean on that more. I need to be more. I've never been that into me. I've always been cool with myself, but I've never been like, well well they need to hear this from me like that's never been my thing and like usually i don't know that until like somebody tells me to do that right you know or like hey so and so would like to hear that from you i don't know that until after it happens and then uh so i should do that more often um if you notice on my page like i mean i have like not posted because i don't have

anything i feel like i'm proud of except for the gym, but I don't want to post about it all the time. Right. And so, uh, it's really, it's really hard. It's really weird. So I used to all,

I used to post about, you know, my lifting and that was like all I kind of posted about and I didn't post a lot. If you follow my stories are pretty fun, but, uh, cause it's very hard to not be,

it's very hard to not be controlled by the audience. Yeah. Totally. Like totally. If it doesn't get a lot of likes or a lot of views or a lot of comments yeah how long are you going to keep posting that for yeah for sure and the coaching videos i'll race you to zero i don't know if you saw i've been posting that i'll race you to zero followers because like i just i'm trying to care a lot less you know just fucking post it and don't worry about it yeah i always tell people that when people are always like you're really similar

you know in person as you are like on your stories. I'm like, yeah, in person, I just say fuck more because I'm not worried about my grandma hearing it. You know, I have my aunt. She's a really amazing lady. And she's like, you really cuss a lot on your stories these days. I'm like, I cuss like every once in a while. I think you're just you're highly underestimating what like people's interest of you. Sure.

I think if you posted a lot more, you just get way more people interested. Yeah what like people's interest of you sure i think if you posted a lot more you just get way more people interested yeah and that's that's a great point like you know i could complain about you know maybe not having this many followers or people not wanting me to do a seminar because i'm fat and they don't relate to me you know i could complain about that or i can lose the weight post more content and do something about it yeah you know dude i mean like out of everybody here i like in my opinion like i feel like i am the like least important right yesterday in the airport somebody came up definitely true by the way yeah that's a fact that's fine but yesterday

somebody in the airport came up to me and said i was their hero nice like the like this isn't like looking around like huh yeah exactly so if somebody there you go if somebody like out there has that much like because they uh she said she resonated with my story because of where i came from who i am where i am now and you share it and i share it yeah and i don't do enough of that exactly but so many more people would resonate with you being a bigger dude yeah being in pain yeah dude like yeah there's a lot more of that than there are more like sorry i'm very uh i'm very vulnerable too like i'm not afraid to be vulnerable like we've never not had an honest conversation about ourselves and uh you know

i'm not afraid to share that but i just don't i don't always think of stuff that i do as stuff that people give a shit about you know i think it's about what i want to do and there's certain people locally that need it but i don't maybe i should think more about like what people actually want to see or put more out just so i can figure it out you know figure it out and also like who cares if that post didn't get as many likes as the one before yeah eventually all the likes will go away and nobody will give a fuck but for now i just i don't know i just what i see from you like just because i know you personally like you're doing the planet a disservice by not like sharing more of you right you know and i like doing that in person a lot more but i think that like there's ways and i'm there so often there's plenty of ways

where i could do that and share it very often yeah you know at least weekly you know if not more more Q&A's hooking up with other coaches and talking back and forth and giving even if it's 10 people in the room you know and that's the funny thing I don't post about coaching a lot because I always get inquiries from it and I'm like I don't really want any more clients and if they're like well I want to pay you I'm like all right fine I got a spot you know what I think the the awesome thing is that the you know the more you put yourself out there the people that don't vibe with you are going to fuck off and the people that do vibe with you are going to stick around and grow right and i like when you said you know you went from sales to doing what you're doing now and the things you're interested in reminded me of mark's video that he just posted

like follow your interests i think that's a really powerful thing that not enough people are able to do you know what i mean like when i was working sales in a commercial gym i hated doing sales and i started doing something i was interested in and changed my life and i just think that like even sharing that with people because that that's that's fucking amazing what you did in the span of three years it's insane yeah you know so it's powerful yeah and going through all that shit with your gym all the ups and downs um are you far enough away from it to like say like you can appreciate some of the shit you had to eat to get to where you are now or is it still too close 100 yeah and like i still like it's still a little ptsd yeah yeah it's uh like i drive by that building, I'm like, motherfucker. That landlord.

So, yeah, a little bit. But, you know, I'm getting very secure with how things are and how we are and that we're going to be here a while and that we're going to make a living on coaching and enhancing powerlifting and fitness, et cetera. Programs that we need to build up. We need, like, more, you know, kind of class-style things in our space. We need to hook up with a nutrition app and be offering more nutrition in a more robust way. The way that people need.

You have to figure out how to get your customers to find everything they're spending money on where you are. Because they're spending it. They're just not spending it with you. And so there's a couple ways that we need to be able to get better at and do that. Ever since we moved into the gym, we've had to get better at and do that um we we ever since we moved into the gym we've had to continue building like it's gone faster than we ever thought it would we had to renovate the building we had to you know buy more equipment we're still buying equipment we're still finishing the floors we're still doing things people always joke around

you guys add something new every month you know and it's true but we're always growing we're never going to fucking stop growing either because the sport always grows what are other things that you sell because maybe somebody listening that wants to start a business so you sell a membership yeah and then you sell personal training memberships day passes personal training programming is a big one uh drinks yeah we sell drinks we've got a you know you guys help bud light with monster so on our cooler at our gym and hopefully nobody gives a shit hears this but on the cooler at our gym we hopefully nobody that gives a shit hears this but on the cooler at our gym we've got like rain and monster and all that kind of stuff and waters and stuff and then in the bottom there's all the leftover beer from all the events we have and it says you

know if you're 21 beer is free oh nice so uh we've got a basketball goal outside so the the weather that we've had recently we've got like a nice big parking lot in the back with turf and all kinds of stuff and so uh i mean it's really for like what we're trying to do it's not some shit power lifting gym people can go there and be like oh you guys actually built a real nice power lifting you know it's like kind of like being it's i wouldn't it's not of the level and it's not of the variety but we definitely have way more repetitive amounts of equipment than st gym like we have you know four combo racks and two monos and and like 10 places a squad eight places to bench it's like a nice

university gym uh i wouldn't go that far but yes you know like i mean we didn't spend a few hundred thousand dollars with sorenix or anything but but you know we we did put together a really nice space and it's the nicest one in our area for sure for what sports we cater to strongman powerlifting olympic lifting but it's really cool to be sitting there and the garage doors are open and the weather's beautiful and there's people playing basketball outside drinking a beer you know and uh we did get just get a kegerator too i don't really drink beer but ethan really wanted one so our co-owner ethan you have uh other coaches and stuff that that work not just for the gym but maybe directly under your brand kind of thing so uh not really we're kind of all independent and i'm fine with that you know um i don't really make my coaching brand synonymous with the gym

because it's kind of a personal thing like i just work with people one-on-one yeah um you know if things go on and if we do build to a certain level and if we do have enough interest where we have to turn away a lot of people uh we do need to create like a more robust and a less robust system you know based through our website or something of that nature or app or whatever we're just not there yet um you know but when we created the brand we did create it with the in mind that it could get bigger right you know there's been collegiate strength coaches that have said you know hey once we move on to the next thing like your brand looks pretty good for us to be a part of that kind of thing but uh and we thought about that when we made it but that's not been my goal right you know if somebody makes me say i have a three or

five year goal yeah i want to have another place probably right but uh you know right now i'm just laser focused on this is uh programming kind of part of it? Like do people go to your website and they can follow along with the programming for free every day if they're a member? No. So there's no member program. So I have like pretty low ego and all this shit. I don't really care. Like I don't care who's coached by who or who's coached by what. Jess left me for another coach.

She's cool. What? So I don't care what people do or who they work with or what the system is. But I think that as long as people are really trying to be happy and they're going about that in a way that's good for them, then I'm stoked for them. Yeah, I let people at my gym kind of do whatever they want. Do whatever the hell you want. Be happy and be here. I only want you to be here if you're happy.

So if working with me doesn't make you happy work with somebody else and uh you know i also think that people relate to other people better they want to work with certain people for certain reasons you down over there just kidding so uh he's probably preparing something for you probably because he knows that you're gonna be he knows that you're gonna be a microwave He knows that you're going to be. He's got a grapefruit in the microwave over there. You need to be anabolic. Yeah, exactly. Did you say grapefruit in the microwave? Yeah, yeah.

So. Got to warm her up. Exactly. So, but when it comes to like the programming stuff, I work with a pretty big handful of people from the gym. Some of them, you know, I have a price where I work with people for programming, where I work with people in the gym for programming, where I work with people online, and then also where I work with people once a week, twice a week, or three times a week. And so there's definitely a graduated tier system to that. And there's a lot more things that we can include in that.

We just haven't built them in yet. And so basically you can come there for programming, coaching, one-on-ones. I have people come from all over the city or all over the states to come and work on squatting and benching. Other coaches will bring their athletes for that and recommend them for that. One-off sessions now, it's arguable. Are you going to really change your squat in one session? For some people, yeah.

I had a 51- or 53-year-old client that had never really hit depth or tried anything, and he wanted a power lift. And I said, I will coach you from a distance. He's an hour away. But you have to agree to come to see me at least once a month. And his first time he came to see me, he's squatting in regular shoes. It's four inches high. Easy.

And that's all. I mean, he's really tight. He really can't. He didn't realize. He thought his shoulders were why he couldn't get under the squat bar. I'm like, no, no, no, no. You have to have thoracic mobility. Like we need to do these drills.

Like we're going to all these things I've learned from squat you from Dr. McGill, from all these great people. I'm like, oh, cool. I get to use this shit now. And that's the cool thing about working on myself is I can bring those things all to other people. And other coaches haven't learned that shit yet. Yeah. And so so I'm like really able to pass some of that on and i'm cautious too like i mean i'm not any

professional at that but if there's something that i know is an absolute that can help somebody then i can teach that like the mcgill three or you know certain drills that stews had me do um and certain things that aaron from squaw used them so uh so that's been really beneficial to me you know a lot that's great so has the me a lot. That's great. So has the gym helped or hurt the hemorrhoids? Oh, so I haven't had an active hemorrhoid in a minute because I haven't gotten lift heavy. I assume if I had maybe a really good sneeze it would happen. One sneeze away from a hemorrhoid.

Yeah. That could be a book. So I'll tell the story if you want me to. It's just that I absolutely love the story if you want me to. This is the I'm more than a Mercer. I'm both. The Mercer is amazing. So I've had a couple issues in my private area. That's usually pretty cool.

Private area? My private area is pretty legit. Private areas? Yeah. Is it like Area 51? My son Jay came in the other day. He was naked, like shaking like this. And he told us he was shaking his front and back privates. Oh, that's great.

I'll send you the video. That is definitely your kid. Yeah. Jay is my naked kid. He's pretty funny. And then Jack will just be like, no, I don't do things that make you laugh. I'm not here for your entertainment. He's all serious.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the other day, he didn't want to wear wacky socks for wacky socks days like i don't like to do wacky things like well you're also no fun okay jay's over there wearing wacky shit it's not even a special day like hey why are you wearing a flannel with tearaway pants he's like they're both gray like all right you match oh man um so anyway i was a freshman and and this might help some people out. I've actually helped friends that have had hemorrhoids out with this. It's always funny when you get a girl that comes in your office, and she's like, hey, door always opens, 2020.

I don't want to get caught up. So they'll come in. They'll come into my office. They'll be like, sorry, I've been gone for a little while. I'm like, do you want to talk about it? Do you want you want to talk somebody else do you want to talk not to me they're like they're like i have hemorrhoids well i've been here before my freshman year of college i was a bench pressing and we were maxing out at 455 and uh like literally like two days later i was home for thanksgiving break and i remember i can feel and remember this situation.

I'm sitting on the toilet in my parents' house. And you know big people got to wipe back to front. And they, calm down, like you don't know this. You got long arms, but you ain't special. So anyway, I'm like, God, do I have a sit there? Do I feel a sit? I mean, if i mean beyond let's we've had a couple sits on our ass right and uh maybe not you but um so uh so anyway i'm like i think that's it so i get up as hard as i can it's shot blood oh i was like

can you imagine being 18 years old my butthole's bleeding yeah and my mom and dad are like i'm like are you okay i'm like yeah leave me alone i'm 18 leave me alone stay out of my room i was in their bathroom but uh so anyway i remember um you know i had to use those uh to say to use pepper preparation each show what a hemorrhoid is, it's an inflamed blood vessel that falls out of your b-hole, right? And so that's why you can feel it and then you have to jam them back up in there and put the cream on them and stuff.

And so the way that you're supposed to wipe your ass in this situation is they have medicated pads and they're like Tux is the name of them or whatever. Great name. I didn't know when you use wet wipes that you're supposed to like use dry after. I thought you just used wet. You got to mix it up.

Yeah. So when you leave that surface wet, it'd be staying wet. And then it gets not good. Chafing, yeasty, like I had to run. Smells like bread's rising. I had to. I had to rot sourdough for sure i had i had i like the smell of sourdough i had to ride a uh i had to ride one of those scooters in walmart so i could not walk

i was walking with my legs four feet apart i was dying um you know the worst part about the hemorrhoid i could really take you out hey so i went to the proctologist have you been the proctologist no you're over 40 you've had to have been to the proctologist what's a proctologist the ass doctor oh yeah and uh so you need to go you're at that check that prostate check those polyps um so i'm at the proctologist for me sounds like you're pretty knowledgeable so this guy he is a coach this little asian fellow with his small hands. He like slicks up two fingers for me. And I'm laying on my side. Like I don't, at this point, you know, I don't know anything about this.

And I'm laying on my side. I didn't get creative. I got creative way later than Smokey. I was an 18 when I was trying that stuff out. I was laying on my side. And he picked a cheek up, slid his fingers in, fell around. He's like, and pulls them out. The worst part of the whole thing, he then wipes my ass with a paper towel.

And I'm like, hey, anybody do that for me in 17 years. Get your fucking paper towel on my ass. I was so disappointed. I felt I was like, I i knew he was gonna put his hand in there i didn't know he was gonna clean me up i didn't i don't need that from you is it true was the first time you got an erection no no no from that the sixth that's about a half a dozen feels pretty good oh yeah if you get if you uh if you end up laying on your side it's bad news yeah yeah no laying on your side it's good good for the bedroom, bad for the operating room.

Means you're in trouble. So I was getting some nerves cut in my back in August, which I wish I didn't have done because it's not good for you. So I'm laying on the table and I'm strapped down in this operating room, and the lights are like this, they're super bright. I'm strapped down to this table and my pants are down below my butt cheeks and uh i'm strapped there and they're like putting numbing shots in me and at one point they're like going in and cutting the nerves and there's like probably six or eight people in there i guess you know whatever the jobs they have i can't see them

i'm looking down and uh so i started like like i'm moving like this. They're like, what's wrong? Are you okay? And I'm like, no, I'm fine. But I'm strapped to this table with my pants down below my ass and feel like making loves playing on the radio at full blast. How do you think I feel? Feel like making love. I was fucking losing it.

I was like, what's going to be on next after Loon Delight? It's like, you guys are killing me. And they all stopped working and laughed for a good two minutes. Oh, my gosh. What's wrong with you? I'm laughing. You guys are hilarious. It's a tough visit to the doctor's office, right?

I'll tell you what. MRIs were tough. They sent me to the one at the Chiefs facility because the other one I barely fit in. I could barely get up to my nipples in that thing. The Chiefs one, I could fit in there a little bit and take a little nap. That shit's scary. You're like a weird little spaceship type thing and it's knocking and making a lot of noise. They didn't put my head in it and I'm so glad.

If they put my head in there, I would freak the fuck out. I was in there for 45 minutes. Yeah, I had my elbow checked out and i had my arm like over my head and they give you a thing that you can push yeah to uh to get you out of there i was in there for like 40 minutes and it's like um it's super close to your body you know and i'm kind of claustrophobic too so i'm dying the entire time yeah they're like oh you'll just relax you'll probably just fall asleep my arm started falling asleep and i'm like well now i won't be able to push the button.

You know what I mean? So then you start freaking out. If my arm falls asleep all the way, so I hit the button. And they're like, we didn't even get enough images. I was like, Jesus Christ. I was in there forever. So when I did it, the first time I did it too, they had my hands over my head. I don't think they understand that my hands don't touch the ground when they're over my head.

Yeah, right. Like, I'm not that flexible. I got too much muscle up here. And so I'm laying on the thing and my hands are like four inches off the table floating. Right. I'm like, do you fucking think I can sit like this for 45 minutes? You put a 45-pound plate on your hand or something. They ended up putting a pillow up there, but it wasn't good enough.

Right. And so they were like, what music do you want? And I was like this is right when the greatest showman was kind of popular and my kids loved that great movie great movie good soundtrack and i was like let's just listen to the greatest showman and because i know exactly the songs that are going to play you know and how long they are you know it's the soundtrack's probably perfect so that played for four songs which is about 20 minutes for the other 25 it was modern country and i was like guys turn the

shit off like i i like no three country songs somebody by reba mcintyre like red dirt road and like thunder rolls that's like that's all i got and uh i sang somebody by reba yesterday leave me alone and uh her show was really good by the way back in the day so i worked at the vfw as a bartender and everybody had a song on the jukebox. That was the only one that nobody claimed, so it was mine. So anyway, I'm listening to this country, and they have these stupid headphones. I fucking threw them on the ground. Get these off of me.

I hated it. It sucked. That's scary being in those machines. Yeah. You know, okay. So I think we have time. That MRSA story i i feel like people just need to understand and hear it so mrs a staff infections basically infection that your

body you know it attacks you know your red blood cells i guess and uh so it's like resistant to being stopped and so like you have to like redo the drugs for it all the time like they have like generation one two three four five seven, eight of these drugs. And so when it was very, very first happening, this is way more severe than the coronavirus. When this was very first happening, uh, people were like getting it from public bathrooms and like locker rooms and stuff. It would spread through teams. I mean like 20 guys would get it at a time and it was incredibly infectious.

Right. And so, uh, so the staff, the one guy got it in the seat next to me in the locker room and so naturally like immediately passed to me like three days later and uh it was 1000 in my private area like right behind my nuts and uh so it was like a saturday beautiful saturday in the spring we were playing spring football and uh i felt this lump and i was like man it doesn't feel right and then it started to like go back like up my crack like in like in my butt cheek and i could feel it growing and i was like this isn't right and then it started to grow forward and i was like okay i'm gonna see the trainer so i go to the football field to find

an athletic trainer and they're like you might have like an abscess or something or some kind of assist or whatever you just need to go to the hospital so i went to the hospital in atchison kansas and it uh they were like you probably got some kind of assist we'll give you some antibiotics and fuck off and so i go back to my dorm room it's like two or three o'clock i wake up at like two in the morning i'm like hallucinating and sweating and like pouring and I'm freaking out and I don't know what's going on. It's like gotten bigger. I'm like, shit, what's happening? So I go call security and I remember riding in the security truck facing with my ass out

the window because I couldn't sit down and I was like on my knees on the seat. Tony, the security guard took me to the hospital again and I go in and they're like, yeah, well, whatever's happening, we got to cut that thing out. And so they like cut it out and had to heal from the hospital again. And I go in, and they're like, yeah, well, whatever's happening, we've got to cut that thing out. So they cut it out and had to heal from the inside out. It was terrible. So the school gave me a golf cart to drive for a few months. The president of the school gave me his golf cart because he drove a car most of the time. And the old president had this golf cart he always drove, so he gave it to me.

So I parked it at the dorm. People had stolen it and taken it to mcdonald's and stuff and as long as it was back when i woke up i didn't care so i drove that to class every day this golf cart it was awesome at one time i took it down this hill and i fucking flattened like three of the tires and the guy was like i'm gonna fix it but you didn't knock that shit off yeah and uh so that was that was the best part so where we were at in the school if you drove over the practice football fields, like past the football field and then like past the locker rooms,

there was practice football fields, usually like three 100-yard fields. On the other side of that was a hospital, and then caddy corner was the doctor's office. So every day for three freaking months, because this had to heal from the inside out. You can't just close it and have infection in there, you know. So I would show up to the doctor's office. There were two nurses there.

Dr. Swayze. Patrick Swayze's office. Not kidding. And so I don't think he liked that I quoted Dirty Dancing all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would walk into the office and I'd be like, I carried a watermelon. And then they'd tell me something. And I'd be like, nobody puts baby in the corner. And so anyway, I'd go to Dr. Swayze's office and the nurses usually are the ones that worked with me.

And so right when I would pull up, I'd hit the horn on my golf cart and they'd get like a little pad, like a puppy pad, and put it on the thing. And so I'd get in there and sorry this is way better when it's visual so i get up on this table it's the kind of table jess usually gets on when she's at the doctor and i would put my feet up and then i'd like hold my nuts for them and they would it was like right here and so they would pull the gauze out like a freaking magician they'd pull the gauze out then they'd take a syringe full of like saline solution and flush it oh and like rub it in there and like clean it with q-tips people understand like this is a hole in your leg correct it was like a flesh coin purse right behind my nuts

i gotta call a picture somewhere if you see them yeah i really do please i actually am very curious there's somewhere i gotta look them up. But terrifying. We'll make that the thumbnail for this episode. It's gross. But like, so they would have to every single day repack it. And so on the weekends, though, they didn't work. So the athletic trainer should do it for me. I had one of them, the head athletic trainer, Pat.

We still talk about it anytime I call him. I was like, my butt looks great, Pat. You've been missing out. Damn. So anyway, I almost died. My white blood cell count, I guess, was like my butt looks great pat you've been missing out damn so anyway i almost i almost died my white blood cell count i guess was like 19 000 they said that if i didn't come in for another day or two i would have so that's how you got into shaving your balls all the time yes oh yes that was the whole point of the story right so smooth when you do it it's great good job i use man's baby skin again yeah manscape use manscaped? You use manscaped? I manscape about two, three times a year. I mean like the shaver, the manscape shaver.

Every once in a while I get up. Okay. You know the move. Yeah, I don't nick my balls with those. Man. They came out with the 3.0. I'm not going to buy the 3.0. Hey, you can hammer the balls with a razor.

No, I can't. I really can't. My hair is too coarse for that. Fair enough. Yo, but like not nah the stuff that happens Like at Sac State there was a hazing Thing on the first year at the soccer team So like they try to give guys jock itch

So one like literally One no and I didn't know this when I Showered I came back to my locker one of my teammates That had it like secretly They rubbed it on it And then I cleaned it and then the next day I was like why is my Why are my inner thighs itching so bad? And then it got all scaly.

And then they're like, ha-ha, we got you. I'm like, y'all are fucking evil. That's terrifying. Worst thing ever. You can't do that. So I had to pour vinegar on the inside of my legs and just sit up for hours. Because the nurse was like, if you pour vinegar on it, it'll neutralize it. It neutralizes it, but it stings like a motherfucker.

Just pour gasoline on it, light it on fire. Yeah. We used to do axe bombs. So we would take, and there were vents above everybody. So when you walked into a dorm room and turned around, there were built-ins. And there were vents up there. And we would cover them with tape, cover the door vents with tape, open their door, and we'd take cans of axe body spray that smelled like shit,

and we would tape them down so they would only spray and then we'd roll them in under their beds so they couldn't get them and then hold the door shut so you'd walk in and it smelled like jersey shore like it was full of douchebags in the room that's awesome axe bomb my god's amazing. Somebody unveiled four bales of hay in my room one time, and I found hay in there for the next six months. Oh, my God. That's too much. The RA was like, are you going to clean it up? And I was like, no, I'm going to fucking leave four bales of hay in my room, Zach.

Get back in your room. Shut up. Fucking Zach. Fucking cheerleader. What a douchebag, right? Yeah, totally. Zach was awesome. I don't think you told us how you were

able to lose weight so if you can share some of that with us yeah so uh i literally i started working with hybrid francesca was like hey here's your macros and uh the easiest thing for me by far and what i recommend to everybody is make it as easy as possible um if it's not easy you're probably not going to do it because you have poor habits you know um and one of the best things you can have is accountability i tell people I have a team. My team is people like my wife, like Ryan, like Jess, like you, like Steffi. I don't want to let these people down. There are people that are really invested in me as far as my health is concerned

and would be really upset if I backslid on this and it hurt their feelings. And I know that. And so I'm really cognizant of that all the time. You try to communicate with people quite a bit about what you're doing. Yeah. Especially if they ask. Right. And it's better than talking about being hurt, honestly.

So for me, the easiest thing to do was to eat the same food every day. I eat four meals a day if I'm being perfect. Around the same time? No. Typically, I don't like to eat until about noon. And so I try to eat, you know, like noon to 10 is accidental intermittent fasting yeah um but uh you know i still struggle at night snacking um but when you're not eating fast food during the day you can still typically lose weight in that situation i just have to have a little bit more discipline i'm like five percent discipline away from like hitting my goals soon you know um you

know like uh and you gotta have people that want to hold you accountable. Ryan said one of the best things to me ever one time. I had to weigh every day, and I didn't want to sometimes because I knew what he was going to say. And I'm less scared of it now by far. So what I did to be less scared of it is I would journal every day about how I felt in the morning and then accept how I felt and then try to make it better from that point forward

because I knew I would be at my desk at 9 a.m. every day. So I'd just write it down real quick and I'd go away and then I'd just deal with it and it'd be over and then my whole day I felt better. And when I get into a slump, I still do that. But if I'm not in a slump, I don't really need that. I don't need that extra shit in my life.

One day I was supposed to weigh and there were people around us that didn't know us and so they thought this was pretty wild. So Ryan, guy sitting over there. So Ryan Silva and I are standing there, and we're at the desk of the gym, and he's like, hey, what'd you weigh today? And I go, well, I didn't weigh.

He's like, you need to weigh. And I was like, no, I don't want to. And he goes, hey, you fat piece of shit, go get on the scale. I was like, fine, I'll go get on the scale. I got on the scale, I weighed, and we dealt with it. Sometimes you have to have people that you trust enough to say that to you and that can say that to you.

And honestly, when they're not that way to you, you're not as good. And so I think that stuff's really important. I think having a team is really important. I think that taking yourself seriously is super important. You mentioned the hardest part being at night. When everybody falls asleep, I'm by myself and I'm bored. Nine to midnight, that's the time where I struggle. I think there's people listening right now that are like, yep, that's me.

I struggle. Have you been able to replace it with anything healthier? Did it used to be cereal or ice cream, and now it's something different? It's frozen yogurt or something that just has less calories or how you're handling that yeah i mean like right now i'm handling it pretty shitty but then when i'm handling it right you know yeah you have another planned meal there you know because it's hard when we talk about you know having low-fat cottage cheese or having some fresh fruit or you know i really started to like to snack on like one cup of frozen fruit that you use for a smoothie. It's kind of satisfying.

Or when I fit in my macros, I'm like, well, I'll put the Halo Top in first. And that's a good snack. Things like watermelon, popcorn. Watermelon, you can eat a lot of it. And it just has hardly any calories. Popcorn doesn't have a lot. I don't eat that same way because I basically just eat meat. But if you're counting your calories, you try to find fillers that still taste good.

You could eat vegetables, but it's like who wants to reach in and just only eat vegetables? That wouldn't be that fun. Right. So just planning and being prepared and actually tracking. If I track a day, then I'm successful. If I don't track a day, then I'm not. And I actually learned that. Gosh, who was he podcasting with If I don't track a day, then I'm not. And I actually learned that, gosh, who was he podcasting with?

I don't remember. I listened to a podcast with Vince DeCenzo. Did you talk to Vince? Yeah, Vince DeCenzo. Yeah, it was your podcast with Vince. And I actually reached out to him. And that was the week that I contacted Steffi. He helped me. He was like 600 pounds before it was cool.

By far. And you know what? Your podcast with him was really helpful to me. I was in the car listening to that out of town. And he taught me a lot of things about long-term weight loss. Because he still has to track today. Right. And if he doesn't, it's nine years later.

And that just told me that, like, hey, I'm not near the discipline I have to have. And he made me realize the long game. Yeah. Back to what you said in the beginning. It's not a diet. Yeah. It's a permanent. Yeah.

This is a permanent change and uh you're going to try to always make a better choice as much and whenever possible yeah absolutely um so for me what that looks like is just being prepared and if i'm prepared that i can be successful if i'm not prepared i'm gonna either not eat and then when i do it's gonna be tough um you know i'm just gonna be slamming whatever i feel like but um but yeah, I mean, I like good food. I'm a good cook. I enjoy those things, but I don't have a lot of time. And so timing is important.

So we had a meal prep company that we worked with for a while, and they went under by choice. And, you know, that was a lot nicer for me. Like, I was way easier to deal with. And I'm kind of working on that right now, too. The calories are right there on the package. Yeah. The best thing that I ever did, the thing that was most consistent for me,

was I had a meal prep company make me hotel pans of food, like a whole pan of chicken, a whole pan of steak or beef, a whole pan of rice. And you can mix it in with others. I had to measure every day. So I would measure the – I weighed in on the food scale every day, and that was my part of taking a part in it. Cause heating something up doesn't really teach you any discipline.

Yeah. That's pretty easy. Um, but scooping it and doing it all yourself, like, and I can do that kind of meal prep too for myself. I've been doing that too. Um,

but, uh, but yeah, that consistency is important. Um, and then if you are going to take a little time where you're not like being so strict with yourself, you can't backslide little time where you're not like being so strict with yourself you can't backslide hard

like you have to stay within like I'm like okay I can go up 10 pounds because for me I can so that's the rule you can gain 10 pounds but nothing over that and you got to get back on yeah and I haven't honestly

like I don't know what my body looks like when I'm thinner like I feel better about it now than I did a year ago but now I'm excited to see what that next thing looks like what my body looks like when I'm thinner. Like, I feel better about it now than I did a year ago. But now I'm excited to see what that next thing looks like. What's 300 look like on me? And I realized pretty quick from, like, other parents and how they talk or look at you,

like, I was a way bigger freak at 320 with veins than I was at 400 with, you know, big traps. But I was fat as fuck. People are going to think you're more muscular. Yeah, exactly. I look bigger as I get smaller, which is kind of cool. You know, I didn't realize that last time I was about this lean i was like 275 and uh so that means i probably put on 50 pounds of muscle in 10 years shit you know that ain't bad probably probably more like 40 or 30 but but still like that's what we talk about ryan and i talk about gaining weight all the time that shit's hard to gain lean mass and and you know we always tell

people that they have to gain weight and then cut, gain weight, then cut game. There's no other way to gain mass. And I just did that for 10 years, you know, or more like 20. So, yeah. You know, one thing I think people can really take away from what you said is you mentioned it, but that journaling aspect, um, it makes a really, really big difference. Like I don't journal for dietinging but getting stuff out onto paper just like clears my mind for a lot of things I want to do and I can understand if you have like anxiety towards the scale

writing that down writing about how you feel like that's awesome that you're doing that because it's not something I hear people talk about most people that need help in this area are scared of it you know I was scared that I was unhealthy I was scared that I might have had a hurt liver from drinking I was scared of a lot of. I was scared that I might have had a hurt liver from drinking. I was scared of a lot of things. Being able to deal

with your fears is a really powerful thing. If you can deal with it every single day, then it makes it easier to make good decisions the rest of the day because you're not scared all day. Making decisions out of fear is a rough place to live. I think people do that every single day all the time. I just wasn't willing to be that way. One thing that I will say that is

really cool that I hope to get more of in my own head is as I lose weight, I become more proud of how hard I worked the last 20 years. I started lifting weights at 12, and I've been fat ever since then. I've never really been proud of how I looked ever since then. I think that that's a really cool thing to start to gain at 35 and a confidence to get because I was always really proud of what my body could do. I could jump and run and like, you know, do some pretty special things in my body up to this point.

And, uh, I never really appreciated the hard work that went into that because it came to me pretty easy. Weightlifting is very easy for me. And, uh, like I took three and a half months off a bench and then floor pressed five 45 for a two inch board. You know, it's like, that part's easy, you know? But when it comes to like actually, you know, doing that and having more discipline,

that's what I haven't been great at. Like anything that took natural talent, sure, let's line it up. But anything that I really, really had to work for, now I'm way more proud of that kind of thing. So that's the kind of achievement that feels really good for me right now. You know, because you mentioned it a few times, the drinking.

Yeah. How is that affecting you? And then, because a lot of listeners are probably wondering how they can kick that. That's a difficult one. So, you know, drinking was interesting because, you know, the definition of an alcoholic is somebody who lets drinking interfere with their life, like their day-to-day life. And I don't think it ever did that for me.

Like, I don't think my family ever really was worried, you you know but they also didn't know that it was the volume like fifth you know near 400 pounds you can drink a lot especially if you have a tolerance and so the volume was big and then that also comes along with three coke zeros to have caffeine you know so you're staying up later and i wasn't doing it to taste it. I was doing it to catch a buzz. And so that means that if you start at nine, then you're going to one, you know, sometimes they're not sleeping as much. So that affected me. Um, that would make your stress harder. It's another way to cope and deal and not handle with your fears, which I think digs in you. Um, you know, I actually had pain in my abdomen and I thought that I was hurt, digs in you. You know, I actually had pain in my abdomen and I thought that I was hurt,

but I think it was just stress because I was treating myself bad, you know, and stopped drinking. It went away. Lost weight. I stopped getting numbness in my hands. You know, your body just starts to function so much better once you take away all that distraction and noise. You know, drinking, you wake up, you feel shitty every day, you know, um, removing that's been a big deal, you know, and I can still drink. Like if we went out tonight, which we might, I mean, I'm going to have a good time and I will, and I can mentally do that and be okay with it. Cause I haven't done that for a couple months, you know? And, uh, so for me now, like I can have a bottle of nice liquor on my shelf for months

and months. And that's great to be able to do that. You know, I never was controlled by it in that way, I don't think ever. But, you know, that also costs a lot of money. It's not fair to your family in that way. You know, but to kick it, like I just had to get scared enough. I never did anything else to kick it. I just stopped having it in the house and then I went away.

You know, my parents didn't ever drink when I was a kid. So it was something where I didn't even try alcohol much, like maybe three times before I was 21. And, uh, cause I was like scared of my dad. He worked in law enforcement. And, uh, so, you know, for me it was just a discipline thing and, uh, not doing that probably made it easier to start losing weight too. So, so you said it was out of your house. I'm guessing like in terms of your food too, like you cleaned up your diet, but you have a lot of shit food that's not in the house too right now, right? So our house is pretty clean as far as food goes, but I mean, I can still, Oh, there's tortillas here. Well, that's going to turn into a peanut butter tortilla with some,

my kids cereal smashed into it with a banana. And then I know we're looking at a 700 calorie problem, you know all right so ryan asked the other day if somebody was supposed to eat two and a half tablespoons of peanut butter would it really be three oh yeah no one would ever yeah no one would ever eat that and i said a year ago it would have been three three tablespoon servings of peanut butter that's how that works so uh pretty extra large scoop right yeah and i mean like you know it's got to be a lot of stealing your kids candy it's got to be a lot of stealing their stuff and my kids eat pretty darn healthy but they've got some granola bars and oh my

it's our shot clock smoky's having some trouble over there yeah he is just uh kind of wrapping things up you know i think it's important that people understand that anxiety is a fear of something that hasn't happened. Yeah. So just anybody who's got it, just try to think about that. It's fear of something that hasn't happened. It might not even ever happen.

The likelihood that it will happen is actually probably fairly low. I find that people that actually have real problems and responsibilities don't have much anxiety. I've never felt a lot of anxiety about those things. Maybe fear, yeah, but not that thing where I can't do anything. I'm always willing to work on it.

Right. And what I've found, you know, is, look, I've got a business and two kids, and I've got real problems, and I don't have time for anxiety. I don't have time to sit and think about how scared I am of living every day. Like that's not something I'm concerned with. And that's why, you know, with the people at the gym that like get anxiety in the gym, I'll be honest, that wears me out because that's like a place where I'm so happy and free. And I'm like, that's what I want it to be for them too.

And for people that have anxiety in that space, I really want to help them because, you know, you can use. So I had a client that recently messaged me and said, Hey, uh, you know, I had a really tough time hitting my numbers today. And, uh, it's like my roughest week of work of the year. It's, you know, this and this and these outside factors and this and this and this. And I'm, I'm thinking I was really nice in that moment. Really gracious. I'm like, Hey, I totally understand.

Like, you know, and they're not like, but what you said is bullshit. I'm like, hey, I totally understand. And they're not like. But what you said is bullshit. So the honest to God truth is, I saw a post of a guy last night whose dad died yesterday. And he went and deadlifted yesterday. And I just posted to him.

I said, you know, sometimes you need to do something for yourself when all you feel is pity. And you need to do something for yourself to get yourself out of that. Don't let this be a negative thing. Let it be a positive. You can choose how you want those things to affect your life,

and I choose to have it be a good thing. And so it really kind of hurts my feelings when people can't use it that way, and I want to help them. Because this is the last place you should ever have anxiety or feelings of not belonging. We had a first-time lifter ever come in last week, and after a half hour of working out next to me and you know,

whatever else and whoever else in the room and she can't do a, a body weight squat effectively. She told me afterwards that she felt like she belonged somewhere. Oh, that's great. And that made me feel really good. You know, those are the kinds of people that we need to,

that we need to have there and that we need to affect. And then everybody else needs to learn from their example, you know? So awesome. Andrew, where can people find you and stuff on the podcast? At I am Andrew on Instagram. Make sure you guys are following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project at

MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter. Tik TOK has been blown up. It's been pretty fun. Um, and Seema, where are you at? At and see my in yang on instagram and youtube and sema yin yang on tiktok and twitter where can people find a jp at jp lifts underscore sbc and

strong barbell club both on instagram i really don't use anything else instagram feels good and feels nice and positive so i like to stay in that space um People want to come check out your gym? My gym is in North Kansas City in the greater Kansas City, Missouri. It's right next to downtown. It's a great place. I had a great experience of somebody came in one day. He's a former Marine, and he was living in Tahoe, and he moved to Kansas City. And he said, yeah, no, it was great because when I found out I was moving to Kansas City,

I saw you on Mark Bell's podcast, and I've been excited to be at your gym ever since. And, uh, it's a gift that keeps on giving, you know? And, uh,

I thought it was funny. One day a guy messaged me that he found out about me through charity posting about me. And, uh, and I was like, you haven't tried to like buy any feet pics or anything. Have you,

I gotta make sure that you're normal. And, uh, so, but it's just funny how this world works out so i really appreciate you know you know the exposure that this gives people like me and if anybody ever wants to be a part of my business or talk to me about coaching then i'm there for that the best way to get a hold of me always is through instagram i'm incredibly responsive so

please uh please feel free to reach out awesome man always fun to have you on the show appreciate it i'm excited for the seminar tonight yeah that should be a lot of fun. I'm at Mark smelly bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch y'all later. I told you guys to wait around for the very end. Uh, again, apologies. If you got us a weak stomach, uh, you're welcome. If I mean, it doesn't matter. You're welcome. Uh, JP price is amazing. Love that guy. So glad we were able to hook up with him down at the not Arnold. I'm going to stop calling it that, but we'll just call it the Arnold. I wanted to give a huge shout out and thank you to everybody that's been rating and reviewing the podcast. You know, it takes like 30 to 90 seconds to write a review, but it does so much for the podcast. We spend so much time,

you know, recording, filming, you know, researching, trying to nail guests down. So we put as much as we can into it. If you guys want to give us a thank you for any of that, that's really all it takes is just head over to iTunes and drop us a review. We want to give a super big shout out to the amazing strong man, Stan. Stan says the best podcast, quote, entertaining and educational. I followed Mark for many years and the information he and his crew put out is second to none,

not just about powerlifting, but everything fitness related. You won't find a, you won't find better guests or information anywhere else. Uh, Stan, thank you so much, dude.

Um, strong man, Stan, I should say, uh, seriously though, do that. That helps us out so much.

I can't thank you enough. If you guys listening right now, if you want to hear your name and your review right on air, please head over to iTunes right now, leave a rating and a review, and you could hear your name on air, just like the amazing strong man, Stan. Catch you guys later.