Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 350 - Arnold Classic Wrap Up - Sort Of

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Just the crew on this episode today. Still in Columbus, Ohio, we had a window of time before our next guest so we decided to do a quick wrap up show, even though our podcasting trip wasn't over. We took this time to reflect on the guests we hosted and our time at the Arnold, and Nsima and Andrew took advantage of this opportunity to pick Mark's brain about where he came from and his success. Let us know what you guys think of this episode on all of our social media which can be found below.  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

Power Project Army, what up? Today we have a cool episode with just the Power Project crew, Mark and Seema and myself. A bit of a wrap-up show, even though it wasn't the end of the weekend for us. It was just like a conversation, kind of looking back at the interviews that we did, some of the highlights that stood out to us.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, Seema and myself ended up just interviewing Mark. And I think that comes off of the backbone of, you know, we just hung out with Dave Tate. We just had like a cool reflection down memory lane with Mark. And we kind of just wanted to keep going. We wanted to keep asking Mark questions like, hey, how did you end up, you know, getting to Westside Barbell? How did you meet up with Louie Simmons? And what was great is Mark just flat out said, I just gave him a call one day.

They would communicate back and forth on the phone. And one day Mark was like, hey, I think I'm going to move out there and train with you guys. And Louie Simmons was like, all right, we'll be waiting for you. So Mark ended up moving to Ohio to follow his wrestling career. And then he started lifting with, uh, you know, Dave Tate and everybody down at West side. And, um, you know, along with all that, we did give some of our highlights, uh, some of the standout moments, the memorable moments to each of us from each podcast. And, uh, this is unfortunately where I butcher the quote of the weekend from Derek

Carver. I got it. Like it was my bad. Okay. I'm embarrassed by it, but, uh, I was the quote of the weekend from Derek Carver. I got it. Look, it was my bad. Okay. I'm embarrassed by it, but, I was running off of a couple hours of sleep on the last day of this podcasting trip. I actually watched the time go from 1 59 AM to 3 AM because there was the time change.

Um, so anyways, yeah, you guys will see what it is. It was, it's pretty bad. I will say that for sure. Um, anyways, real quick, thank you. Meals, for feeding us throughout this whole trip.

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Enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 more, you get free two-day shipping. Thanks for checking out this episode. If you guys like what we were talking about, hit us up on all social media platforms. You can just start with at MarkBell'sPowerProject on Instagram. And yeah, let us know what you guys

think and enjoy the show. I think this is fine. I don't know. You want to make it weird? Should it be weird? This is the only time I'm going to be closer to the camera than you to potentially look almost the same size. Okay, well, see you later. That really affected you to change everything.

What do you guys think is leading to all the gas and all the pooping that's been going on? Like, you guys have been... For me, it's just... What's it? Three bathroom trips between the two of you? Just one for me. It's cool. Grab the mic. Oh, yeah. You got to use the microphone. Pop, pop, pop, pop. Today's his first time. His first day. For me, it's just

the travel. No matter what. No matter where I go, it's like, oh, man, I kind of have to go right now. And then I'll pop into the bathroom and it's like, oh, potential false alarm. Like, nope, there's something. And then when we walk to somewhere, it's like, oh, here we go again. And it starts bubbling. Yeah, I think maybe you guys had too much fun last night.

I'm not trying to be negative, but I guess that's kind of negative because you had you had too much fun as far as I think the food you know you guys were partying it up with the food hard yeah I had nice pretzel sticks you think in SEMA has a bread you think in SEMA has a drinking problem because this is what I mean okay we've been five glasses of wine is not that big but how we've been with them for how many days since uh since thursday morning right and then how many times have you seen him drink okay so three nights i had five glasses of wine last night three beers the night before and two glasses of wine the night before it's not that big of a deal three out of the four days that we've been hanging out do you think you could stop drinking problem like

do you think you can stop 75 like so yeah so if you if you go you know take a whole year do you think that you have to drink to have a good time well yes the alcohol makes everything better why not okay kind of does though like yeah you know what we really okay yeah it really does work that way you since we're saying all this all of that was sarcasm people like i gotta let y'all know i don't know i better stop you better stop that was sarcasm i got some concern over here yeah i had one glass of wine last night did i have any wine the other night one glass or no i didn't have what jess i didn't have any wine yeah you had you had twice i any wine. Yeah, one glass of wine last night. You had twice.

I had wine twice? Yeah, I think so. Okay, so one glass. So 50% of the time. Now it's sounding like he's being more defensive, right? Yeah. No, I'm just trying to figure out how much I had. So I had two glasses of wine this trip.

We're buddies here. Yo, just settle down. Don't let the roids kick in. RPR. Because if they kick in, we're all going to be... You can't go roid raging and jujitsuing on us. We're going to be jacked up. I need to do my wake-up drills to fucking deal with both of them.

Yeah, I don't know, man. I'm just concerned. That's all there is to it. I've got some worry. Well, it's good to have friends that are concerned for you. What about the lobster mac and cheese the other day? You guys went to town on that. I still haven't touched it.

Ruth Chris? That's where we... Ruth. Yeah, Ruth Chris. That's hard to say. Yeah. It's hard to say that stuff. And not end up spitting all over the place.

That steak was so good, yo. That fucking tomahawk was... Delictable. What'd you like better? Did you like, we had Ruth Chris. We had, what did we have the next night? What was that other place? Just a place here in Columbus.

You know, that place was really good. What's that place called? Like Jay's, Jay Gilbert's. Yeah, Jay Gilbert's. And then where we went last night, which was Hyde Park. Tough choices, right? Hyde Park for me by far. That tomahawk ribeye that I had last night

shat all over the porterhouse at Ruth's Chris and then whatever I don't even remember what I had at the other place. I really like the tomahawk at Ruth's Chris. That tomahawk was good. Yeah I should have went with that one. I think I went ribeye. I went like

tomahawk ribeye and then I went with that one. I think I went ribeye. I went tomahawk ribeye. And then I went with a porterhouse. And then I went with another ribeye, I think. And it was wet-aged. Apparently, I like it wet. Yeah, no, that wet-aged thing was really juicy. It came right off the bone. And not to be weird with that, the 36-day dry-aged stuff, it tastes funky to me.

I don't like it. It tastes weird. I don't like it either. I don't even remember what it tastes like. To me like i don't like it i don't like it either i don't remember what it tastes like it i don't it to me it just tastes like old meat like yeah it doesn't taste good i don't like that wang i guess that just got a little wang to it yeah you're not a meat connoisseur i guess because i probably wouldn't like it either and then so if it has the bone in the closer you get to the bone the more funky it gets at least in my opinion yeah and the wet wet aged uh didn't have that same that same exact flavor it was like it was less you know it was less than that so was the tomahawk wet aged okay that yeah that was delicious and i got the

peppercorn crust on the top that oh yeah that was a game changer it was just so good yeah what are you guys thinking of this uh coronavirus ar Arnold Classic that we have going on here? Sports Festival. I'm scared of Jessica right now. Real talk. That's just what the expo does, man. Like, we don't sleep very much. So our defenses are down.

And then like a normal like dry throat turns into like the coronavirus but the dry throat turns into a deep throat in the house yeah yeah i can truly say and this is going to be embarrassing i learned how to wash my hands thanks to the coronavirus didn't know you're supposed to sing happy birthday twice twice i used to sing happy birthday half of happy birthday who's a happy birthday to me happy birthday who's a happy birthday to me do you really do it to yourself happy birthday to me happy birthday dear me okay yeah and then it ends make sure i get the right lyrics then it ends i wipe my hands off and i leave the bathroom so i've been washing my hands wrong for years but i guess that's why my immune

system is so strong i'm just that dirty that does make sense i like to wash my hands and put my hands back down my pants so the next person's hand that i shake they end up getting my balls that's a great idea though because you're strengthening their immune system yeah see i get a little bit sick i'm trying to boom yeah uh but i'm trying to help them yeah mesis right exactly i don't know what that means a little bit of bad yeah a little bit of poison. Oh, okay. But as far as the expo, it was almost like eerie, kind of looking in where the, because we went into one side where the strongman stuff was, but you can peek through to the

other side where the expo would have been, and it's completely empty. But talking to people like Matt Vincent and I can't remember if there was somebody else, but they were like man this is actually kind of nice like i can actually watch the competitions i can actually like walk around and not get like just you know you're trapped in the traffic of people and stuff and so it was like everyone's bummed but everyone's also kind of like like like almost like a plain hooky like like i should be working right now but like like, we're not, we don't have a booth. So this is actually kind of fun. And it was,

it was just interesting because like this is almost like the Superbowl for everybody. Right. Like, uh, I don't remember who, uh, Corey G was saying, saying that like my date, my years don't start January to December it's March to whatever. With that said, people are still enjoying everything that's happening right now. Yeah. If this was my first Arnold, I would have,

I would have loved it just because like experience it next year. If everything's normal, which everything will be, it really is super tightly packed. Like it kind of gets old having to shovel through everybody. Right. And gets real sweaty too. And kind of gross.

And everybody with their, uh, uh, protein bar farts. It just starts to get to you after a while. Dude, I went to the bathroom yesterday when we were at the XPC meet. And I walked in the bathroom, and it was clean. There was nobody in there.

I was like, this is cool. I wanted to take a picture, but it's kind of weird. It's very weird. It is. Yeah, and I had to pee really bad. But, yeah, it was nice i'm just like like okay yeah but um it's just i guess it's just unfortunate for all the people that were looking forward to the arnold being their expo especially like maybe new businesses that were

like let's start off at the arnold yeah think about that i don't know how many were like that but that is oh and then i'm just thinking about the suck yeah if you're a new company yeah i'm thinking about the gym bro that's like oh fuck like man i keep missing it like i'm gonna go one of these years i'm gonna go and then finally 2020 that yep we're saving we're we bought the tickets we're going i can't believe we're going and then bam it's all gone you know so it's like i wonder how many of those people still came because they're like well shit i have time off of work or school. I'm going to just go. You know, I mean, and for those people that did that, they probably had an opportunity to like sit next to Eddie Hall watching the, you know, a powerlifting meet.

Whereas before they wouldn't have no chance of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. It would have been there would have been a lot more like security around and people keeping you and preventing you from going places you know normally yeah normally you can't float around the way we were kind of floating around but there's eddie hall the all-time greatest yeah just greatest deadlifter ever um and just a magnetic uh personality but there he is sitting there watching julius maddox benched another all-time world

record 770 pounds and i like that still hasn't really sank in like that just doesn't make any sense i don't understand how people are you know and and to see the performance uh from larry wheels we didn't we weren't didn't have an opportunity to actually see him lift yesterday but um he did outstanding too i think he totaled over 2300 pounds i think he got another all-time world record it was like an 80 pound total p like i just don't i don't understand what's happening 2370 yeah he just he just crushed it you know he does 635 or 640 bench or something like that he squatted uh what did he squat eight something right 870 and he pulled like 865 yeah it was fucking wild and this is at 308 but like jessica was saying he didn't look like 308 280s jacked 285 like and

then that's the thing about larry larry's the all-around lifter like everything is amazing right bench squat deadlift amazing he's not just like a deadlift expert but that's the thing about him too it's because i feel like everything is going up like comparatively at the same so larry's gonna be squatting nine deadlifting nine benching maybe close to 700 at a point he might be the only guy that can like uh beat the crap out of michael hearn you're right you know what i mean? You're right. Because he could, like Larry would be able to beat him on probably just about everything. Right?

Yeah. I mean, Mike is like not easy to mess with either, you know, and Larry might not have done like heavy leg presses and stuff. There might be some weird movements in there, but I mean, the guy moves really well. He's insanely strong. He's insanely explosive

that'd be a good matchup this isn't bagging on mike because i love mike but i literally think larry would win everything just because there's nothing that he's weak at there's literally nothing that he's weak at if he hops on a leg person one of those weird machines at gold's larry would kill it he's just a mutant yeah he's gonna figure it out you know and i wonder if mike would be able to look at him and figure out something look at the chink in the armor like where yeah yeah because like when like ryan soper and you were up there he's like we're not squatting today we're gonna go over here yeah you know they murdered him on the leg press but yeah and we've squatted i think at the end and it was like no one like no one could do anything. I wonder if you'd be able to find some vulnerability in Larry.

I'm wondering how Larry Wheels is doing it. Because social media is a distraction for most people. And we've seen friends. We've seen people that are kind of legends in the sport. Strong man and powerlifting and even like crossfit and then they get well we all get sidetracked by social media and people are doing like showy type stuff it's rare to see somebody mixing like showmanship and still kicking everybody's ass so i don't he had a pretty bad bicep tear i think it might have been like a year ago or so now but i just

don't i've never seen anything like it before it's amazing it's exactly what eddie was talking about though and the cool thing is that like eddie was talking about how you know people aren't able to pivot out of the sport like he won world's strongest man but then he pivoted and he's going to acting he's killing it right larry's in the sport killing it and doing all this other stuff he has a great personality he's marketing great i think another person that's doing that really well i've mentioned him on the podcast before but uh russell or he um the usa pl lifter he's like this nigerian dude out of texas like he's opening his own gym but he has a great personality on youtube too and he's just but he's killing it athletically and still putting out stuff to the public that

that's just fucking crazy so i feel like if athletes want to be at that level like you need to be able to show yourself to people along with putting all that stuff out yeah larry's doing like weird tricks and like you know weird feats of strength and he's like messing around with strong man for a while he he did bodybuilding arm wrestling yeah arm wrestle i mean he's like messing around with strong man for a while. He, he did bodybuilding arm wrestling. Yeah. Arm wrestling. I mean, he's doing it and he's like traveling all over the place and stuff too.

So I, yeah, my hat goes off to him. I don't understand. Does he have a YouTube channel? Yeah, he does. Oh my God.

All of his stuff on YouTube. Yeah. All of his, he kills it on everything. Yeah. I don't think people understand how, how much, how hard that actually is.

And it wasn't until, um, you know, I did some Armageddon where I'm, cause like I've, I and it wasn't until um you know i did sarmageddon where i'm because like i've i feel mark i've you know i've done a lot of media stuff and it's like i know what's involved but when you are the content like it's like it's a dude it's it's it's hard and you know i've i've been seeing a lot of uh a lot of people trying to do their own series of things. And I've gotten messages from people saying like, oh, dude, I started because of you, blah, blah, blah. And then a couple weeks later, like, dude, I couldn't keep up.

I feel like shit because I didn't finish the series. And I didn't even finish my own, the Shred Again one. I filmed everything. I got in, in my opinion, I got in great shape for myself. You got in great shape. Thank you. But I didn't finish editing the series because it was just a lot of work. And now I feel like it's a little bit too late, but I still might do it.

But doing all that, I look at Mark, I look at Christian Guzman, other content creators, and I'm just like, how the hell do you guys do it, man? To do it nonstop, like the Carnivore 100 every single day people do not understand how hard that is and then you're also filming and editing yeah yeah i edited it before i went to bed last night and then i woke up uh when i woke up this morning i was like oh i gotta upload it to youtube and you know i just been consistent with it every day and it's just um i don't know just an extra thing that i feel like i need to do so i'm just putting it out there you know and the good thing that you know a good feeling is that i i don't have to do it i know that i don't have to do it i want to share it so that makes it easy you know

what i mean like okay it's gonna take a little while to go back and forth and like edit it and stuff and it's a little bit pain in the ass because my phone is always like full of so much crap that i gotta like delete shit off of there to record new stuff that that becomes kind of a pain in the ass. But other than that, it's really not that bad. And I know kind of what to shoot and how to do it. So it's, it's really, that's not that time consuming. It will take me like about six or eight minutes to edit a video. That's like 30 like 30 40 minutes maybe you're recording it off your phone yeah i record it off the phone i just go into imovie and i just you know dump it in there and if i do it during the day like if i do it as i'm going and i put a couple clips in there

um i can go back to it later and then it's even then it's really fast so then it's like three minutes three minutes three minutes and it's really fast so then it's like three minutes three minutes three minutes and it's like it's done you know so three minutes spread out three times is you know it's still nine minutes right but it's it doesn't seem like anything you know we all have three minutes in the day to like stop and do something a couple of times a day so um just kind of doing that and then waiting for it to upload to youtube actually probably takes about as long as it takes me to edit it. Yeah.

And especially being out and about where you're not sure if you're gonna have wifi or even a connection period. But it also helps that you do like one take everything. Right. Like you're good at that. I stumble on my words all the time and it's like, I gotta go start all over again. Yeah.

It's a lot of like self editing. This has been an awesome trip though. I think that this has been effective, you know, like we, we came out here with a plan to, you know, to get a lot of podcasts done.

And then when we heard the news that it was canceled, I was like, shit, man, like I don't think we're going to go because I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't know what it meant. You know,

I didn't know what it meant to have it canceled. I didn't know if there would be nobody here and i didn't know how they had it set up i didn't know if there was going to be i didn't even know that they were talking about how there's going to be mainly no spectators um but then once i thought about it more and i think we thought about it as a team it was like well you know we should probably still go even before i kind of found out smoky was the one who told me but even before I found out that a lot of the people were going to be there, I was like, I think we should still go. Because I knew that there would still be good people here to communicate with

and we'd end up with good content, but it just so happened that pretty much everybody that we wanted to talk to ended up being here anyway. Yeah, so I heard the news the same time you did, and Mark was just like, let's not say anything. We'll just figure it out in the morning because it was at the end of a training session. And then as I'm leaving, I can see Mark. He's filming on his phone and he's, you know, on Instagram saying like, oh, it's got canceled, but you guys can still hang out with me. I'll be here this Saturday.

And so I hopped on the phone with my fiance and I'm like, hey, I don't know what this means. Okay. Like I can't say for sure. Like, but I got good news and other news, like potentially good news. Like the bad news is the like amazing guests that we have for the Arnold potentially all gone. The potentially good news is I don't have to travel. Cause you know, everybody gets bummed if I have to travel. Cause you know, they miss me, which is awesome. I mean, awesome that I'm missed, but I'm like, Hey, like, I don't know though. Like, I just, I can't promise you that I'm going to stay home. And then Insima called me and he's like, well, what's going to happen? I'm like, dude, if nobody's going, I don't see why we're going to go. Like, but we don't know. And then, you know, as time passed on, I was like, man, I don't think we're gonna go and then

the next morning on the commute to work smoky text everybody's like we're still going so i had to call my fiance and like uh yeah we're still leaving she's like okay well i'll start packing like all right so but yeah i was you know essentially like because i don't even know what the hell is the deal with the coronavirus but i was nervous about like the trip about that after day one i'm like fuck yeah it's totally worth it and then you know getting recognized in the airport was really cool and then obviously day two was i mean everything was worth it dude so you know it was awesome it's amazing it's great that we came because we got like there's i don't know if this episode's being posted before all the others but like there's so much fucking fire.

There's so many fire podcasts that are coming out. Yeah, we'll put this at the end. So everybody has already heard everything. Yeah. If you guys heard it, like, you know, my tape is still tickled by all of this. A lot of great information. You know, we had Eddie Hall, J.l holdsworth um cory gregory dave tate dave tate cory gregory and jl all happen to live here in ohio so you know that that helped uh

you know with some of the guests in terms of them you know still being here um eddie hall is like you know i've known him for a little bit now and um you know he's he's he's a friend of mine at this point but like it's still weird to me like i i still i'm still such a fan you know i'm such a fan of the sport and um to have an opportunity to interview somebody that's done like i just think it's so cool to have opportunities to interview people that have done things better than anyone else on the planet has ever tried or attempted. And then also to have somebody that has pushed a limit. Uh, you know, he mentioned Roger Bannister, you know, being the first guy to break the four minute mile and stuff like that. And, um, I just think it's, I just think it's amazing to, to be able to talk to people, communicate with people that have done these outrageous lifts.

And they put their mind to something. And not only did they put their mind to something and do it, but they put their mind to something and they did it. But it was something that no one else has ever done. I'm always marveled at like ed cone like why like why did ed cone continue to beat the ever-living shit out of everybody like what drove him he was already so good he was already breaking like his all-time world records he's already blazed a trail that no one's ever seen before and he just continued to win he's like i'm just gonna win for as long as long as i'm in the sport

i'm just gonna dominate it even his last even his last meet that the guy did he's broken he's got a you know bone on bone hip thing going on he squats like 843 or 865 and he still ends up not only winning the contest but he won best overall lifter against a lot of other really good i mean he just you know it's just it's awesome to have opportunities to get to sit down and talk to some of these legends it shocks me that eddie you know when he was talking about when he put out that he was going to do the 1100 um even his like yeah he said his wife supported him but she didn't necessarily believe he was going to do it like and that's your wife and everyone around him literally everyone in the strongman community was laughing at him because what what would have

been in terms of pr like a 70 pound pr yeah yeah something like that right like that's fucking crazy and the biggest thing he hit in training up until that point was what like 10 if we're talking pounds like 1040 something. Right. It's just crazy that he put it out there and then he ended up actually getting it. I think he missed like 1070 or something. Yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's, but, but that's just so wild to me because it's like no one, like if, if I can't say how that would affect me, if absolutely everyone in my life was telling me that I absolutely everyone in my life that I know loved me told me i couldn't do something or told me i'd probably fail at something

would i have the courage to do it i would hope to i would like to think i would did you guys get enough out of when you were talking about the mindset because i've heard him on youtube you know he he kind of doesn't like talking about it oh yeah and then what here he was real hesitant but like mark kind of poked it a couple of times and he let out a little bit more information. What did you get out of that? I don't know. Like, I have an idea. I have a good idea of what he had to get to.

And I don't even want to I don't want to mention what I think it is, because I feel like he, if anyone listened to that episode, you know what Eddie was talking about, and we don't need to say what it was. You know what it was, you know? So I'm not even going to go there, but that's fucking crazy. I mean, talk about, like, going all in, right? Yeah, I think it's just, you know, he was trying to strike a nerve, right? You're trying to get yourself worked up over something

and you know i think it's it's an interesting thing because you can work yourself up over and this is just like a good life lesson in general you can work yourself up over something that didn't even happen and like what do we get worked up and anxious and worried about i mean anxiety the definition of it is that you're worried about something that hasn't happened you know and i some people will say you're worried about something that hasn't happened. You know, and I, some people will say you're worried about something that hasn't happened yet, but I don't even like adding the yet on there because the yet implies that you're thinking that it's going to happen. And that's what you're worried about because you're thinking that it's going to happen. But in this case, you can kind of use it for good.

You know, you can use it to your advantage in some ways. And I think you can, and Eddie Hall mentioned that a couple of times. He mentioned think you can, and Eddie Hall mentioned that a couple times. He mentioned, you know, taking some energy from somebody, somebody gave you this negative energy. You throw it in like a washer and a dryer and you spin it around and you spin it into something different. You turn it into a positive, you know, the way to turn a negative into a positive is you just put a straight line down the middle of it and turns into like a cross right and it looks like a plus sign right it's like how hard is that you know it does take a little extra work you pick up the pen you got to make it draw a line but it's just your interpretation of it you take that negative and spin it a different way and

he's obviously done that a ton of times with his career and he's going to do it again with acting like we're sitting here talking to him and we're talking about these deadlifts and stuff but we're going to be like dude like remember when we sat down and talked with eddie hall and people are going to know him for acting people will he'll be so known for acting that a lot of people won't even know him for the deadlift anymore same way that people know the rock they know the rock for movies right and i think it sucks when people don't know the rock for wrestling because he will i don't care what the guy does he'll never do anything better than the way he was in wrestling was so amazing and it's not to put down his acting or anything else that he's doing

i just think that it wouldn't matter if he was like tom cruise or anybody else his wrestling was so fun to watch but i think eddie hall is going to be able to do similar stuff. Yeah. Little sidetrack. When you're talking about being anxious about something that hasn't happened yet or whatever, when I was in a different headspace, I would be depressed about something, and I'd be down and sad, and then I would forget what I was sad about, but I would try to be sad again just thinking about whatever it was. So when you're talking about like, oh, you're anxious for whatever just hasn't happened yet. It's like, yeah, it's weird. But, um, what I really wanted to say was like, how scary would

it be? Uh, would it have, or what scary was it for, uh, Eddie's coach kind of poking him, trying to figure out what's going to be that one thing that gets him to like dude he probably was just seeing red as his coach is like saying these things he described it so well when he was like he's like on the table and like the psychiatrist was poking him like oh what's this how about this how about this and i was just like imagining that i'm just like if eddie hall's sitting in front of me and i'm that human. Like I'm sitting so far away and close to the door so that if he, bro, that essentially another room,

like it's a stranger things like test or something. Yeah. But that just shows like the, the power of the mind in that sense, because he, he like that worked, you know what I mean? Like the,

he, he, you know, when we talk about the episode with JL, he activated a bunch of shit that just wasn't there initially in training like it's it's crazy but one thing i want to get to in terms of the acting like eddie eddie is someone that like if he wants to do something he gets at it immediately like he like this whole the whole trend of all these podcasts that i got was like

the ability to pivot from something to something, to something, to something, to something right. He was talking about acting with us, but he's been taking acting classes since 2017 since he won the world's strongest man immediately after, or could have like, yeah,

probably immediately after the world's strongest man, he's been taking acting classes and now like he's been in a bunch of things, but this is, that was a quick pivot, you know? And that's so wild to me. Like that,

that's something we need to realize he didn't wait he just went right into what he wanted to do and started getting it going yeah and i and i love that he was taking these acting classes i don't know if he was talking about it but i haven't heard anything until now yeah which you know like john cena does that right by time you know about it he's already been working on it for a couple years and it's like hmm, a little similarity there. Like, that's great. Something you were just saying, you know, about,

you were talking about depression. So anxiety is, you know, you're worried about stuff that hasn't happened. And depression is you're worried about stuff in the past. It's pondering, you know, it's pondering. And it's like you're dwelling on something. And you could have people tell you a million times, there's no reason to worry about that because you can't change it. Right.

And it doesn't necessarily make you feel any better. But what you could do is you could say, well, you know, I can't change that. And that doesn't necessarily make me feel any better. But what I could do is I could learn from it. And I think what you're saying about pivoting,

I think that that's crucial is, you know, can we learn, can we learn from the different things that we're doing and then try try not to get so repetitive with those things that we end up unhappy you know because that's really all we're trying to everyone's just trying to do the best they can everyone's trying to make some money and everyone's trying to have some fun you know and the making money part is just an enabler of having some financial freedom to where you can conveniently

possibly have more fun. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're always going to have more fun, but if you get yourself to close to six figures or so, they kind of say that that's where people aren't necessarily exponentially any more happy, going from like 100K to like a million or whatever it would be. But you do need to figure out a way to make some money. And I think people are just trying to do their best and they're, you know, they're trying, they're because they're trying to do their best. They're trying to be a better person. And because of that, and because they're trying to be happy, they're trying to make sure that they're not stuck in anything. Because if we get stuck in some, if Eddie Hall is no longer Eddie Hall and he's out there and he's still going,

because if we get stuck in some, if Eddie Hall is no longer Eddie Hall and he's out there and he's still going, we're kind of all disappointed. And who's the most disappointed? He is, right? And so that's the, you know, that's the pivot. You know, if I'm still going out on the platform and I'm still throwing on my multi-ply suit and everything, you know, it's not, you know, like, oh, my God, like, Mark Bell's going to do this lift.

It's going to be sick. You're like, man, you know, it would be great if the guy, if he just kind of turned it in, that would be kind of cool because I don't think he's even having fun with it anymore. And his lifts keep going down. He looks like he's in a lot of pain. And it would be great if he could just stop being so addicted to the shit and move on. It would be really cool to see him move on and try something new and try something new and try something

that's healthier you know yeah you see it with boxers all the time right yeah i just don't know when to get out but um as far as like the i heard this on a podcast and i'll change it up a little bit so it makes sense for us but you know there's five of us in here and let's say uh we each have one 22 ounce tomahawk steak it's like cool, cool. All right. I'm listening. Yeah. Now, let's say we have... From Piedmontese? Yes. Okay. P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E dot com at checkout.

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tomahawk steaks. Sick. All right, a third one comes in. I tap out. I'm like, I'm done. Smokey has like four more. And then all right a third one comes in i tap out i'm like i'm done smoky has like four more and then all of a sudden job smoke a truck load with a thousand tomahawk steaks come in it's like what the fuck are we gonna do with all like i'm good like i'm done it's like no but here you go like you can take a bite of one throw it out take a bite of another one throw it out like so when it comes to money it's like okay you're good like after this you're kind of like what are you gonna do now and i've never had that much tomahawk

tomahawk steak but is it kind of like that you know like at a certain point like obviously you know uh what was the reference it was like oh if you had 10 million dollars in the bank that was from jl jl yeah i don't think we were recording or i think yeah he said um he said you know what would happen if you woke up tomorrow morning and saw 10 million dollars in your bank account that'd be giddy yeah you'd be like whoa like this you're thinking like this would really change my life but he said if you're bill gates it's a bad day right yeah well i'd say. So the difference there would be, you know, just your appetite. Right. So your appetite, just picture your appetite matching the amount of tomahawks that are coming, you know, and and even i could i could maybe uh buy a nicer tv that's kind of like it starts with like appliances and shit in the house like oh i don't need my shitty washer and dryer anymore i can buy one that actually works every once in a while i can

oh man man maybe i could have a car that like runs like reliably and doesn't you know blow up on the side of the road and overheat. It doesn't burn oil. Subaru. But you're still stuck with yourself. Yeah, you're still always stuck with yourself. I mean, I remember one of my goals, I remember just telling my dad, because I just had such shitty cars,

one shitty car after another. I probably don't even know how to drive. That's probably the main problem. I'm probably riding the shit out of these things, and I'm just not going to change the oil or anything. I'm just a fucking idiot when it comes to that kind of stuff so you know i'd blow up all these cars and i just told my dad one day i'm like all i want i just want windshield wipers that fucking work which windshield wipers always suck it doesn't matter what car you have i've had all kinds of different cars and they always suck even on the tesla i was gonna ask come on musk like you got to think of something better with these uh windshield wipers anyway good

windshield wipers and i just didn't want i wanted uh rims instead of hubcaps that's it that's all i ever wanted out of life this is pretty simple right but as you keep climbing the ladder you kind of just you want more and more but what he said is very true is that at the end of the day you're left with yourself you're left with you know your your family you're left with your own thoughts and um like how miserable is that to like have to actually be with your family or actually live with your own thoughts like that's terrifying life to live right is there a point that you kind of you you did you ever get like when the money really started rushing in did you ever like be like fuck this is great.

But when was the point that you kind of already realized, oh, shit, I'm stuck with myself. I need to better myself. Or were you already trying to do that? We already focusing on bettering yourself versus all the. I think I think because I grew up with like everything and anything that I knew that that didn't matter that much. You know, like it mattered less to me. Um, we didn't grow up, uh, rich. We kind of, we kind of started out in a trailer park and then we ended up in a trailer park. Um, my, my dad worked for IBM, you know, for a long time. And I saw him like,

I saw him be loyal to this company, wear a suit and tie every day and then skip, throw it out on his ass when he's got, you know, three kids at home and, and shit like that. So I was like, man, I, whatever that, whatever that was that he did in the suit and tie thing and, uh, being dedicated to that for so long, that doesn't look like it worked very good. You know, like it did work for a while. Like we, you know, he, he made a lot of money and, uh, we lived in nice homes and we had a weight, we had a weight room in our basement that was like legit. You know, we had, we had a lot of money and uh we lived in nice homes and we had a weight we had a weight room in our basement that was like legit you know we had we had a lot of great things we had we had everything we needed and then some you know someone turned 16 and boom they had a car you know and we had all the clothes and you know we wanted new shoes we could buy it all um it wasn't it wasn't like

over the top you know it wasn't you know it wasn't anything uh crazy top. It wasn't anything crazy. But in my family, family is really important. And we have a big family and we get together a lot. And I didn't really, that was just the way I grew up. That's just what I knew. I'd see my cousins all the time, my cousin Steven. I hung out with him every weekend. My entire life when I was young, basically.

He lived like an hour away, too. But we'd still see him all the time. It wasn't every weekend, but it was a lot. And he would come up and stay with us. We would go down there and stay with him. And, yeah, we were around family all the time. So I got the message just from being around that just from living in that that family was where it was at not necessarily the money and my grand my grandfather

was more of like a community-based person you know like when i went to his funeral uh there was hundreds and hundreds of people there and like i didn't i didn't understand i didn't know i was like wait this is like grandpa like why is everyone why is there so many people here but he was like famous you know like everyone knew him in the town uh because he was like charismatic and he was uh he was just different he was freaking real old school um with cigar in his mouth you know wearing like golf pants and different socks and yeah he was just a different kind of cat you know he, he knew everybody in town. He, he sold everybody cars cause he was a mechanic. And, uh, I kind of saw that and I was

like, whatever that is, that looks really cool because, um, he's really, he's making a difference. Like all these people really care about him. I was like, that's really cool. And he made money. He did well. He was able to provide for nine children. You know, that's a lot, that's a lot. But he also didn't have like this crazy excess of stuff. And it just seemed like there was just a lot of more so than anything,

the abundance of anything. If there's too much of anything in the Bell family household, it would just be like love, like just smothering the shit out of you. You know, you're not getting by grandma without a hug and a kiss. I mean mean never like you're not getting past my grandma without a hug and a kiss you know and and every time every time i would walk into their house without fail and she said this to everyone hi mark how's mark every time big giant smile as if she's like doing drugs or

something you're like you know and it didn't occur to me until I was like 30. Like, what the hell is wrong with grandma? You know, like she's like, like why is she so, how is it possible to be that happy? She's like holding two babies. She's like cooking something on the stove. Like, can I get you a sandwich?

Can I get you some milk? We have milk. We have, we got Coke. We got diet Coke. We have, and you're like, no, I'm good. And then she just kind of stares at you and you're like i think i pissed her off like you're like yeah i'll have peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she's like oh good i knew you were hungry you gotta you gotta keep eating you know yeah so you were really well grounded right yeah

i think so yeah you had a solid well shit everything. That's great. When the money did start coming in, I think you had said, like, you and Andy didn't spend any money for, like, a year or something. Like, how the hell, like, how did that happen? Like, I don't know, man. I see, like, something like a $5 bill in my pocket. I'm like, sick, let's go. Yeah, we didn't really spend much of anything uh in the beginning you know because we knew we had to you know put money into the company and we knew that we would eventually like need employees and things like that and so we uh you know andy she likes to keep

the company fairly lean you know in terms of like uh how much staff we need and uh how many other resources were you know know, anything that we've ever done that has been like, Hey, let's try this out. That's all been from me, you know? And I got to like fight for that just to see how it works. Cause I'm interested, you know, you guys know, know me. I, I just like to find out about stuff, you know? So I'm like, Oh, I wonder about that. Like, let's see if that works. And sometimes it, sometimes it costs some money. Sometimes it will cost 20 grand or 50 grand to find out that something sucked, you know, but I'd rather know, you know, I'd rather know immediately. So yeah, Andy has always been the one that has been more grounded with that. And that has to do with her upbringing,

having her dad die when she was 10, you know, is an awful situation to be in. But she also just kind of knew that life is fragile, you know, and you got to kind of, you have to take care of yourself and you have to pay attention to like details, you know. So she's always been very, I'm not very detail oriented when it comes to like finances. I'm detail oriented on some stuff. But she's super detailed on that because she kind of had to be, you know, and she, you know, got a division one scholarship and she was an ass kicker as a student and an athlete. A lot, a lot of that, you know, if you, you're like, okay, well,

her dad died. She probably didn't want to be a burden to her mom. They have four kids. She probably just wanted her mom to be like proud of her, wanted her mom to be excited and not have to deal with any drama so andy kind of did her best to like make sure that she became another mom in the household basically yeah she probably saw a grenade and just jumped on it because she knew like okay how many siblings was it four four total yeah yeah four totally so she's like maybe if i can just make it seem like three, then it'll help mom. Yeah, exactly.

Which is really cool. I could definitely see Andy doing that. When you guys lived here in Ohio, what were both of you guys doing? Because I think you were just lifting. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what she was doing. I'm doing the same thing I'm doing now, being a bum, just lifting, yeah.

Yeah, we lived in Columbus, Ohio for maybe about 14 months or so. And then we lived in Louisville, Kentucky for a little while. That didn't last very long. It's just different, you know, especially for her being a California girl. It was just humid. Yeah, it was different. Not enough sunshine down there for her. That's for sure.

And that's when the commute to the west side was going on? Yeah. So I lived in Columbus. Well, I'll back way up so andy and i met in los angeles in like i don't know 1997 or 8 or something 98 or 99 or i can't remember post tupac a long time ago yeah post tupac post biggie right yeah yeah unfortunately and uh so we met in los angeles i'm originally from new york i moved out to la you know because of my my brother chris went to film school at usc and i came out to visit him and i was like fuck new york the weather sucks there i'm moving out to california

and so i moved to southern california and i just i have worked at this bar called Sharky's and I met my wife there. And then Andy is from Davis, California, the Sacramento area. And so I went, you know, I was with her long enough to end up like visiting her parents and stuff like that. And when I did, I was like, where are we? You know, I'm like, where is this? What is this place? She's like, this is Davis. I'm like, this place is pretty cool. This is like, this place she's like this is davis i'm like this place is pretty cool this is like i don't know seems like a pretty cool community and it it's uh there's not like in the davis area anyway some some parts of sacramento there's a lot of traffic but there's not a lot of traffic it's it's pretty calm seems like there's low crime it's just there's a lot of nice restaurants and a lot of

great places to walk i like to walk so like I was like, damn, this is pretty cool. So anyway, you know, we lived in that area for a while. And while we were living there, I was like kind of, you know, checking out some stuff with Westside Barbell and stuff like that. I was researching a lot of the training that they did and stuff. And I called up Louie Simmons and talked to him about training often. You know, I started calling him like probably almost once a week. And he knew who you were. Like, did he answer the phone? Did he know who you were before?

Westside. He'd answer the phone. He'd say, Westside. His phone number was in Powerlifting USA. It was at the end of every article. You know, it was just sitting there. So I just, I was like, I'm i'm gonna call this number but i don't know you know like i'm thinking like i'm gonna call this number and i'm gonna have to wait and like

and he says west side and i'm like hello he's like what do you want i'm like well i got some questions about the bench you know and it's freaking louis simmons and he just starts you know chatting with reminds me of the uh the old commercials of uh jack in the box when the guy would show up he'd go through the room like can i speak to jack he's like sure let me put you through i'm like hey yeah he just happens to be happens to be right yeah yeah he tells him to get two tacos but it's so shocking real quick how generous like like you said he would just talk to you on the phone you never met him in person right right it's like what dave and dave was talking about like being generous with your your knowledge just

giving to people it's what's what you do it's what louis does it's what dave does and just like hearing that it's just like fuck i see why you like i see why people call you the people's coach i see why you're doing all this content it's just like you're just I see why you like, I see why people call you the people's coach. I see why you're doing all this content. It's just like, you're just giving. And he did that shit too. It's just wild. Yeah. And I saw that, you know, I saw that from him and it was, became massively important

to me to, to do a lot of the same thing, you know? And then, uh, anyway, so I, I get into a lot of conversation with him and I just talked, I talked to him one day, I'll talk to Andy and I was like, Hey was like hey you know I want to I was at the time I was already wrestling I'm like I want to pursue wrestling you know more she's like well how much more you already wrestle like almost every day you know and I was like well I think I should try to move to Louisville and or we should I let me back up a little bit I didn't say move to Louisville. I said, I would love to try out and see how I do in the Louisville. They have in Louisville, Kentucky,

they have a wrestling camp for WWE. It's like a training ground for WWE. That's where the kind of younger people go. They learn their trade, then they get on TV and so on. And they also had another school in Cincinnati. So when I kind of looked at it, I was like,

well, I don't want to move to like Louisville, Kentucky, where there's like really nothing else going on other than just like I would just wrestle, you know. But it would be kind of cool if I could like live in maybe like Columbus and maybe commute to the Cincinnati wrestling location here and there and maybe commute to the Kentucky one because the Kentucky one was bigger here and there. commute to the Kentucky one because the Kentucky one was bigger here and there. And I can kind of swing that and train at Westside because I kind of knew that Westside was going to be like almost like an internship without ever really saying it, you know, without ever calling it that. And anyway, we yeah, we moved out. You know, I called Louie on the phone and said, hey, I'm thinking about like moving out there. He's like, great. We're ready for you whenever you want to come out. And just fucking went, you know know andy well so andy's job that she had she did sales for um she did radio sales and then she moved into magazine sales and she was just selling

ad space basically and she was doing that in columbus or this was well so she so her job was in well i'm so you know i kind of messed up we We didn't move to Davis until after we were in Columbus, but we lived in Los Angeles together. So she was making Los Angeles money with the ad sales, right? And then she asked if she could move to Columbus, and they were like, sure. Oh, cool. Because Andy just always rocked it.

She always did great with her job. She always did great with her work. So they didn't have any reason to think that it would decline and they had other people that worked for them, you know, outside the office and stuff. And so, yeah, we moved to, uh, moved to Columbus, Ohio and I trained at Westside and that's where I ended up like kind of meeting Dave Tate and all these different things. But yeah, Westside ended up being like a, uh, it's kind of a massive like, uh, internship, a learning, you know, huge learning experience for me. And it just ended up, you know, ended up working out great.

But yeah, Andy kind of made that leap to be like, yeah, like this is, I don't know. I don't know what she thought to be honest with you, but like she must've thought that this is some sort of development process that I needed to go through because she was supportive of it, you know? Yeah, and how long were you guys together at that point um probably like two or

three years okay yeah probably fairly early early on um louis putting his number like out there for everybody just instantly reminded me of when you put your fucking cell phone on instagram yeah and he had so many people like dming and calling you or texting and calling it might have been like two years ago right yeah yeah andy was so pissed she's like what are you doing man of nudes just dick pics yeah you know i i learned something from that experiences that like stuff like that's not that bad now you know if you if if the rock did it like it would just yeah it would just be like... I mean, it would just... People end up being like...

When you're known to so many people and it spreads out like that, I think you're maybe known too little by a certain amount of people. I don't know if that makes any sense. But people know me pretty good. And I think that... I'm not known by millions and and millions of people I don't even know but like I'm not I don't think I am you know I don't think I'm known by like millions and millions of people so the people that do know me I think they follow quite a bit of the stuff I'm

not a name that just I'm not a name that they just know like like Donald Trump for example like who knows really much of anything about donald trump like i don't think anybody does right even though he's been in the limelight for so long there's probably some like fans or followers of his that have been kind of following him from his real estate days from the beginning and they probably do know quite a bit about him but just knowing his name and and knowing what you think of him is much different than knowing like anything about him really. So I think for me, it's, you know, for me putting my number out there, it kind of showed me who knows me and how they know me because they didn't abuse it.

People every once in a while will still text me from that. They kept the number. So he's super respectful. Like, Hey man, I got your number from when you posted a while back. Just checking in. Hey, I wanted to let you know I lost another 20 pounds. You know, like they'll just kind of, they'll even say in the text, I'm not expecting you to respond. I just want to let you know I'm still following along. Keep kicking ass.

Or I saw this post that you did. It's like, yeah, everyone's like, I didn't have anyone like call and like try to fuck with me or prank me or i didn't have there was no weird pictures or anything uh yeah i mean and sema sent me a weird picture it was just like him twerking or something but that other than that and i and i did think the thong was i mean the super training thong that was nice no dude i got a custom made red it was good you got a custom made yeah i mean that was. You got them custom made. I mean, that was not, that was a nice touch. I have two more pairs if you guys want it.

Well, I need the same color. Same color. I need a power project one though. We should get some power project. On the front it says Mark Bell's power project. I mean, if I can hang. Mine just says like you just see the MA. That's it.

So, okay. So then you guys moved um you're you're just lifting essentially and yeah just lifting in columbus and then so when uh how did the uh because i mean you you were um at the the wrestling school right okay so like what so what happened with the uh the wrestling stuff so the wrestling school in Cincinnati unfortunately shut down and so then I would commute from Columbus to Louisville Kentucky I don't remember how far it is but I think it's like two and a half or three hours I did that nearly every weekend I go down there for I think I'd get there like Friday night or so and then I'd stay at a friend's house and then I would wrestle Saturday wrestle Sunday and then and then drive back and I didn't have like a job you know I I would make some money from wrestling but it was like just whatever they could give you so it could

be 40 bucks it could be 80 bucks it could be could be 100 bucks you know just from wrestling at a certain town or certain city but it cost you like 150 yeah yeah yeah and just like food and everything else and and yeah it was you know it yeah it definitely wasn't like breaking anything in by any means but andy had her job that gave us enough uh security on that end and uh yeah i was able just to kind of like go and like play wrestler and play like power lifter and learn about it. And then like it taught me a lot because I liked wrestling a lot. I was into it. I was a fan, but I didn't love it.

You know, I didn't really I didn't know that I didn't love it until until I tried it until it started getting harder until I got like a couple of not really injuries, but started getting banged up and was like less able to do some of the moves I was able to do in the beginning. And then I didn't like it as much because I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't understand how some of these guys hold it together and stay in such good shape the whole time. I wasn't like again, I wasn't injured, but I was just banged up consistently. I was like, man, this is tough. And I like but I like lifting more. So the wrestling had a huge negative impact. It's impossible.

Not impossible. It's really, really challenging, really hard to lift weights. You can have everything on your body hurt, and you can lift pretty well. And you're going to know this one from jiu-jitsu. If your neck hurts and your neck is really sore you have like you have like no strength you have like no energy and from landing on the mat repetitively and maybe just never getting all that accustomed to it the front of the neck you know the front of the neck you know you you tend to clinch up every time you can't you're not

supposed to really supposed to kind of relax into it but you do need to stay stiff so that your head doesn't hit the mat you know you don't want your neck you know snapping back so you have some trauma there quite a bit and your neck is just super sore i don't know if any of you guys ever worked out like a stiff neck i know from jujitsu your neck must kill sometimes or used to and it doesn't matter what movement it is it could be a squat it could be a deadlift it could be a bench press it could be an overhead press it's like someone has shut down the wiring to like your central nervous system so you know i i didn't even know any of this at the time but i didn't really realize that uh how much more i loved lifting i didn't really understand the fact that

wrestling wasn't my true like interest. I was interested in it. I liked it, but I liked the lifting a lot more. And then once, once some of that stuff started to happen, once I saw the talent levels too, and the resistance that was like facing me in terms of how good everybody was, I was like, you know what? I, I did well in this i could try harder but i'm just not as interested as i originally thought so me putting in the extra work to lead me into becoming more of a wrestler doesn't make any sense and so i had to quit i had to you know people like say never give up and never quit and never sometimes you do have to turn away from stuff. Sometimes I had to quit powerlifting.

I had to retire from powerlifting. And I still powerlift. I still do the exercises and stuff. Still use the movement. Still like to push the weights and stuff like that here and there. But there are times when you have to. There's a time where you've got to try to maybe do some do something different you know and pursue something else you know it's uh let's kind of i was thinking about this yesterday when i was when

we were talking to dave and i didn't necessarily know how to word it but when i started learning about strength and a lot of stuff whenever i would like maybe talk to certain coaches that are really well known and i'd ask about like conjugate and West side, they'd shit on it. And for the longest time, like, you know, you learn these models of programming and stuff.

Right. Um, and, and I would, I would look at the conjugate stuff and because I'm getting all of this information from these coaches, they're like, Oh,

bands aren't necessary. Chains aren't necessary. Whatever. I had this idea that it was just like, Oh're these lifters are just doing a bunch of unnecessary stuff uh and then when i when like i dug into it by hearing a lot of the stuff that you guys were talking about um and not just yesterday like years ago i was like wait there's a lot of there's a there's a lot of cool stuff here why are people shitting on conjugates so much it didn't make much sense and then i was just like this must just be that like new school versus old school thinking.

Like every, every young cat now is like, these old guys don't know what the fuck they're doing. But when you like, when you mentioned like when you and JL and we're in that closet, but jail mentioned all those top strength coaches that are football players that were in that closet with the fucking Louie Simmons listening, but not let me use Simmons,

Mel Siff. Yeah. Just like all of these top individuals, that closet with fucking louis simmons listening but not let me use simmons mel siff yeah just like all of these top individuals these fucking high level individuals utilize this i'm like why are people shitting on it yeah i'd like i'd like people to kind of picture you know um the lifting that they know right now you know just think about your lifting and what it looks like if especially if you lifted a commercial gym if you're not in a power lifting setting maybe you are power lifting but you're not in an environment that's like necessarily uh conducive to power yeah right like it's it's it's uh maybe they have like

a couple things but no one really cares that much about it right well so you have like regular squat racks you have regular bars you have regular collars you know the squeeze ones that never really work um you never have good music on you know if you train you got to wear headphones to get different music going and to have a good workout you have to like get in this perfect head space right which for me now is easy to do like i don't need any music i could lift it could be pitch black or something and i wouldn't i wouldn't care but i'm older in my 20s i would never been able to do i would never be able to organize stuff enough in my head to be like yeah

i'm cool i'm gonna go lift and i'm fine you know i liked having music i liked having a little bit of excitement but everything that's in a commercial gym is like, uh, it's just been out there forever. You've seen it forever. It's kind of, in my opinion, it's kind of boring. You know, he's got some leg presses, some leg extension, leg curl, and you got, you know, your squat rack and you have your regular benches. None of the benches are great. You can't even really arch and set up on a bench. Very good. You start sliding off the bench when you utilize some leg drive, right? Now imagine out of nowhere, someone starts bringing in bands. Someone starts bringing in chains.

Someone starts bringing in different barbells. And somebody says, hey, you know what? The way that you guys have been lifting where you do the same thing every week but only add a couple of pounds or drop a rep or add a set or make some small variation that might be effective but check this shit out like this is so much more fun and you guys are doing your three sets of three and your five by five get guess what i get to do i get to rage out and go fucking nuts. I get to go to a completely different level than what you're doing. I get to max out.

I have the ability to max out every single day. And make no mistake about it, you're not doing Westside if you're not maxing out. If you're doing doubles and you're doing triples and you're doing sets of five, that is not Westside. I just picture, honestly. There's a max effort workout. I picture him with a trench coat and he's like, hey, kids, check this out. Yeah, yeah. I got some candy yeah i mean seriously it was revolutionary and it was so exciting and it was like it's stuff that just kind of it got its claws into me and i couldn't stop thinking

about it i'm like i'm like well the bands okay the bands are they're heavier at the top and they're light at the bottom and the chains are kind of that way too and then i'm like well what about the reverse band you know he does a reverse band he does the future method he calls it and i'm like wait that's the same too that's light at the bottom and heavier at the top and then you just start thinking about all different kinds of variations and changes and stuff you can make and then louis like hey hey, you can get a PR with your index finger on the smooth part of the bar, with your ring finger on the power ring of the bar. You can get all these different. Everything's freaking PR.

You have a fat bar with chains PR. You have a safety squat bar PR. And just picture now if I was already kind of stuck on stuff. You know, I, at that time I probably, I think I benched like four 55 or something like that. And I was already like kind of stuck and I didn't, I didn't, I didn't have the understanding of, of how to make some changes, you know? And once I started learning some of the West side stuff,

that's when the number started to move again and i wasn't kind of i was getting injured too because like periodization can work really good but you need to know a model that can work well for you for a longer period of time and i didn't have that knowledge at the time all i knew about was just straight up like linear periodization where you just simply you know you start out with like a five by five and it just ends up you know at the end of like eight or twelve weeks you end up with like a one by one that kind of preps you for the meet i i didn't i didn't know about like building a base and and prepping you know for prepping for whatever you're about to do next is like the most important thing about any programming but i didn't i just didn't know any of that stuff. And I, Westside to me was kind of like, it's a little bit like the carnivore diet. It was, uh, it really simplified stuff for me. It was like one day a week, you're going to lift super heavy. Another

day a week, you're going to try to lift really fast. And the two things compliment each other. And then, oh, by the way, don't forget, it's important to be big too. It's important to have muscle mass. So you just did those three things. If you were to break down Westside Barbell, people get really confused by it because they see you doing so many different things. They see you doing so many different variations. They're like, oh, it's the variations. And it's not about the variations.

It's about the actual method. And the actual method, even though it does call for some variation, the actual method itself is you move call for some variation the actual method itself is you move fat you move fast you move heavy weights and you work on hypertrophy that's it there's only like there's only three ways to really stimulate uh the muscles and the central nervous system i mean maybe it could be some other factors in there but basically in the gym you have kind of these three different ways and one way is through explosive activity plyometrics speed work right another way is through lifting heavy and another way is through um a hypertrophy work that's kind of like there's really

and then how many different things are inside of all those things it gets to be you know it gets to be really crazy but your intramuscular coordination the firing of your central nervous system you know you could call larry wheels a freak all day long but he just has access to power that the rest of us don't have access to but you could figure out how to gain access to it you might not be able to he he might, I mean, there's going to be exceptions to every rule, the way that his muscle bellies are, and I mean, you could go down this rabbit hole forever.

Who knows, maybe he did something from the ages 6 to 12 that we don't know about that made him strong. I don't know, right? But we all have access to a power that we are completely unaware of. That's a fact. You can be, I can be way stronger than I am. You can be way stronger than you are. I mean, Smokey's probably the only guy that's topped out.

No one could possibly be any stronger than that. But we all have this power inside of us, a matter of figuring out a combination of a way to exercise to access it all. Yeah. Uh, Larry wheels has muscle bellies and smoky has pork bellies. I like that.

So at West side, did somebody take you under their wing? Like how did that go? Cause you've explained it several times where like, uh, there's the, uh, the,

the like door opening and newbies just hang out in the very front and then eventually they kind of walk in but like how was it when you got there yeah you know there was really no wing you know there's a it's not that kind of place you know you're not gonna get i mean you have to earn it you know you gotta no one's gonna talk to you unless they see you like working you know um it's it's it's a little bit like our work you know like the the culture that we created at our work somebody new comes in and works for us or some are these companies that we've been working with like okay let's see like the last guy said the same thing and you know the guys before you guys said that said the same they

said the same thing as that guy you know and they said the same thing as that guy, you know, and they said the same thing as this guy. And the guy before that was in the hospital. Yeah, right. Andy put one guy in the hospital. You know, it's... What? What happened? It may or may not have happened, okay? It's a true story.

But it... Well... We're not allowed to talk about it. That's why I didn't want to say it may or may not have happened. But yeah, you know, some guy got a phone call from Andy. Next thing you know, where are you? I'm in the hospital. I basically had a heart attack.

Wow. Yeah, stressed him out. He couldn't hang. He couldn't hang. He couldn't hang. And that's what you're looking for. At Westside, they're looking like, yeah, who can hang? We saw a jacked person come in here last week.

We saw a 350-pound guy come in here last week. We saw a girl who shredded the bone come in here last week. And, like, where are those people now? They're not still. Another person said they were going to deadlift 900 pounds. Another person said they were going to deadlift 1,000. Another person said they were going to bench 700. No one cares about any of that.

No one cares about your background. No one cares about none of that no one cares about your background no one cares about none of that matters your ethnicity your race your religion no one even knows any like they barely know any of it about you as dave was pointing out like you don't even know the dude's name like oh there's smelly and there's gritter and there's chester and there's like it got so weird that people had names that like they weren't even it wasn't even a nickname but it's just like you just call someone like bob or steve or jason or whatever just because like you just didn't know their name you just make it up and then

it might stick on somebody yeah you guys remember harry potter okay you know like the never sticking hat i love harry what's the name of the picking hat thing oh yeah what is that i forgot but you know that i've never seen harry potter oh i'm so okay then it's going over your head but that guy that louis mentioned chuck right chuck i just pictured him like you know being in the corner and just like you are smelly yeah you are whatever you know uh ordaining people ordaining people with their fucking names that shit was so funny to me oh my god yes it it it kind of is that way but there was one person that took me under their wing and i'm lucky for that and that was louis you know i don't know and i don't i don't know

why i'm not sure i'm not sure the reason um but like i i had different rules than everybody in there and i don't again i don't i don't know why it was that way i think i think maybe like uh something about being like an outsider it sets you up with some different rules like we were kind of outsiders with dave castro like we're not in that we're not in that inner circle of crossfit so we can ask him a naive question and it's not like he's going to push a button and going to make us fall through the floor and disappear and be eaten alive by a bunch of fucking sharks or something right they they have that right yeah crossfit has that right and they have that ability like make people disappear kind of thing right and so i think maybe i had a similar relationship with louis

where you know he knew i was doing pro wrestling stuff and he knew i was trying to pursue something else and uh he didn't really push meets on me the rest of the gym did they're like you're doing a meet and i was like yeah i'm i'll do one i don't you know whatever uh but they were like no no we like we signed you up like you're doing a fucking meet and i was like all right well just chill yeah i'm down i'm good i'm not afraid to do a power scene meet you know but it was uh yeah they were like super super aggressive about it because they wanted everybody they want everybody there to have the same goal and that's what changed that's what makes the place so different is that you have a group of like-minded people that have the same goal. It's very clear. There's not a different goal.

And I think that when you go to a commercial gym, that can actually be kind of positive in some ways because you could get energy from other people. But I think it feels more negative to you than it does positive. You're like, man, look at the bunch of these people are just fat. They're just trying to lose weight. And that's not why I'm here. I just want to be strong. And like, no one understands me. And you kind of get that weird mindset going of like, I'm just going to be over here, not talking to anybody with my head down. West side, as harsh as it was, it's a community, you know, it's a like weird family. And it's, even when you don't want to talk and even when the other guy doesn't want to talk,

you probably do that for about 20 minutes during the workout. And then you start chatting it up because your brain's going wild from the lifting that you're doing. But I just want everyone to understand how fucking exciting that was to have Louie Simmons and Dave Tate come along. that was to have louis simmons and dave tate come along and dave tate kind of was the one to louis simmons is stone cold steve austin okay and dave tate is the rock so stone cold like stone cold heightened wrestling he made wrestling fucking crazy the rock came in and like and was able to not only uh not only carry it but help take it to another level and get it seen by even more people. You know, because Stone Cold was like, I don't know, Stone Cold is like, he's easy to understand, right? Because he just kicks the shit out of the boss.

So he doesn't have the same, Louis' stuff was a little harsher to understand. But I think The Rock being like such a good looking guy and being so like stone cold crazy charismatic too but there's no one quite like the rock when it comes to uh charisma and just being funny you know he was he was freaking hilarious and so that's the way i kind of view those two like dave tate he really put west side on the map even though louis simmons did all that hard groundwork beforehand dave tate like simplified it and got it out to more people. Yeah. What was your like conversations like with Louie Simmons? Like, cause we heard that he would like kind of talk shit to everybody and stuff. Like, would you guys go back and forth or was it

like Louie has spoken and I'm just taking it, you know, like, I don't know, do you guys joke around a lot or? Oh yeah. Oh God. He, he jokes around a lot. He, he makes fun of people a lot or oh yeah oh god he yeah he jokes around a lot he he makes fun of people a lot he likes to laugh he likes to he'll laugh at himself you know he'll he's also like he's also like mad he's also kind of mad he's like not even kind of mad he's mad he's a grumpy um it really bothers him that he can't do a lot of the stuff that he used to be able to do and i think it it really at this point you know he should be over it to do. And I think it, it really, at this point, you know, he should be over it, you know, in some way, cause it's probably been like this for over a decade or maybe even longer. Um, when I first got there, he was still able to do some pretty good stuff.

Like he'd still get down on the bench and like, you know, do some speed work and you'd go, Holy sh all right. Like, damn, he'd still be able to do some stuff here and there, but then he had a lot of atrophy in his arm and his shoulder. And so's he's uh he's he's gotten kind of grumpy because he can't do what he loves i mean he just loves he loves to lift he loves nothing more than just he loves lifting but um he talked a lot of science he talked about a lot of research he talked a lot about you know russians and how they lift and everything and he would i mean we would be at breakfast you know he'd buy me breakfast every morning he'd buy me wherever i wherever i was with him he would just buy me you know whatever he wouldn't let you ever pay for it um anyway at these like breakfast uh sessions i guess you'd call them you know he would

uh just talk about like whatever he wanted to talk about, but it's always about lifting. You know what I mean? It was really rare. I mean, it's not like he has like dogs and stuff. He's got a wife. He's got a business. I mean, it would be, it would be really, really rare for him to talk about anything else other than lifting. He might say, oh, you know, I need to go pick up this equipment today or something. It might be like something that's a little bit different than actually just like the X's and O's of lifting, but it was almost always like coaching or something. I don't know. I could order a fucking omelet, and then he'd be like, you know what the Russians said about eating eggs?

And he would just go on, and you're like, what? Pasta made my nose bleed. Yeah. Yeah. He would just like reference all kinds of crazy studies and crazy things. And his whole point was that like his whole point is that the Russians already did like kind of everything because they put a lot of they invested a lot of money and a lot of time into it. And if you were an Olympic lifting coach forussia and you didn't get your shit right you were gone you know you and the people that were doing a good job they got treated like royalty

they got paid really really well um they had a they had a really good life but if you didn't you know you were you were out and you probably had a probably had a pretty shitty life like you know getting food was probably not not an easy. But he would tell me, like, that the Russians would research, like, if you had milk before training versus having it after training. If you warmed up like this versus warming up like that. You know, if you – he'd tell me all kinds of – just, like, one thing that sticks in my head is, like, it's a simple test. But if somebody knows that you're doing it to them, then it kind of, it kind of fucks it up. But you know, if you said, um, if you came to me and you're like, yeah, my left knee is killing me. Right. And then I said, okay, well, we're going to work on some stuff and we're going to see how your, how your knee is. Right. And then,

you know, over a couple of weeks, I'm starting to think that it's like better. I'm asking you, you know, where's your pain level. And because an olympic lifter and because you're uh you know trying to win olympic gold for the russians you're like i'm good like you want to get back into that rotation you want to be treated really well those athletes were getting um getting treated really well also and so you would fucking lie you'd be like oh my pain level is like a one man i'm good and i'd be like okay so like the russian coaches would say okay um're going to start the workout on the ground. And they're not telling you like kind of why. And you'd be like, okay.

Because you just do what they say and you get on the ground. And say, actually, no, you know what? We're going to start somewhere else. And you're like, okay. So you go to get up. They watch you get up. You get up going the wrong way, you're staying with your rehab. You know, shit like that.

It's like, well, why did you get up? Or they watch you favor it even if you did get up you know using the left leg and that's the one you hurt like just little things like that and it's like i don't know i would just absorb stuff like that and be like oh that's fucking crazy yeah you know you just learn all these weird different things you know that's why it seems like there's there's so much like when we were talking about how, you know, there's this new school idea of doing things that like, everything's been pretty,

well, I don't want to say everything's been figured out because there's so much more. I think that can actually, you know, we can figure out and learn just like there's a lot to know. Yeah. Got with jail.

But you know, the big things that I think I got from Corey G and he, he was talking about a lot of this and Dave Tate. Was that like the whole thing? Shouldn be a religion you shouldn't you shouldn't be like focused on this program or that program like you should look at all of this because there's benefits everything everyone's getting stronger and try to pick and choose like i know right now because i was talking to cory i'm gonna be doing a lot of fucking lunges yeah you know every all these individuals that we have on they have like these cool things and i don't do a lot of them just like those lunges

and my knees would probably work like that that'd be fucking awesome you know there's so much to pick and choose from everything that you shouldn't just think that there's one right way of doing all this and i think that's like what the west side like louis you know louis will say there's only one way right and that's where he has probably messed up because I think that you could combine like, why can't you do, and this goes with diet too, you know, why can't you, uh, you know, count your calories, right? And then why can't you switch to being like, you know what? I don't really feel like counting calories at the moment. So I'm going to switch over and I'm going to do keto. It doesn't, and it doesn't mean that the calories don't matter. It just means that you're tired of that discipline.

You're going to move into a different discipline, right? And why not just think of your training and be like, you know what, that was a long-ass training cycle going into the last meet and I'm kind of tired of just regular bench, regular squat, regular deadlift. I'm going to try some West Side stuff. I'm going to read Jim Wendler's book and I'm going to'm gonna do five three one for like two months and just see what it's like yeah it's not gonna hurt anything it's gonna make you better yeah and sema can you remember or can you explain like the progression of your coaching like from the beginning to where it is now like

did you start out with something thinking uh dude if i have a client i'm gonna i'm to teach them conjugate if they want strength, if they want bodybuilding, whatever it might be. So I started personal training. It was right after I got injured in college and I ended up leaving. And I started doing that out of a private gym. So I worked at a gym in sales, right? And at that gym, there would be some people that would walk around be like oh can you train me can you train me and off hours when i was working out i would like the gym didn't know i was working with people but those people that are like hey can you work with

me i would work with them in the gym and just do stuff with them and act like i was just working out with them and a lot of that stuff was like people trying to lose weight it wasn't like strength athletes and at that point like my focus on training was like bodybuilding and a little bit of strength and then when i moved into the private gym it was called forever fitness in south sacramento it's not open anymore but it was me and two other trainers and we paid rent there do you know where it was it was um by ss auto you exit off of like free no you x off of um what's the fucking street 21st or something like that but um it was like it was a really small space it was me and two other trainers and we were paying rent on the space but like that's when i started learning more about like like bodybuilding programming

and then when i talk about bodybuilding program i'm not talking like like old school bodybuilding program talk about like stuff with a lot of frequency. The new school stuff with focusing on volume and making sure that there's a lot of frequency involved in training. Not just like bro splits and stuff. And then I had a few people that were kind of strong that wanted to work with me in person. So then I started learning about Wendler 5301 was a program that I did before. But then I started learning about different periodization models like1 was a program that I did before. Um, but then I started learning about different periodization models like linear, which is just your typical progression, like, and then, uh, undulating, which is doing heavier days and lighter days and speed days throughout

the week. Um, but then after that, when I started watching more of that content, I was like, this is interesting, but all of these other coaches are telling me that this is kind of like, you don't need to do it. Um, but anyway, in terms of terms i don't want to go to like i don't want to because i i think this is just ending up being a long story but anyway it i just ended up having a lot of different types of people that worked with me and i started realizing that there was just a lot of different ways to get to the same destination you know what i mean there there could be one way that works better than another most of the time but it doesn doesn't mean that there's like, like I had to get myself unstuck from thinking my way was the right way just because it was always working.

Like there is, there are certain things I could do that would work for almost everybody, but I had to get out of that and just figure like there could be things that could work even better than this. Makes sense. So with Dave Tate, how did that relationship like come to be or just same thing, just working your ass off? And he's like, damn, this guy can floor press. Yeah. You know, so with Dave Tate, you know, I went to a seminar of his a million years ago and that kind of ended up sparking my interest. You guys kind of heard me mention that to him.

You know, I made me pretty much completely obsessed with powerlifting, even though I already liked it and was already into it. That got me more into it. I started learning more about it and kind of through him. But when I moved to Columbus and I trained at Westside, like Dave was, he was kind of a dick,

you know, like he, he would train hard and kind of be out. It's real quiet. And then like, he just seemed like he was kind of a dick you know like he he would train hard and kind of be out it's real quiet and then like he just seemed like he was kind of um I don't know he seemed like he was like either like focused or like angry you know and uh I think I mean if I never really have asked him about that but I think he was just he was in his career you know he's in the middle of his career and a lot of people we see a lot of people change you know when their career's over as we talked with like eddie hall and some other people about that in the past just i've heard people say that ed cone's a dick and i'm like that's important

are you kidding me like ed cone's amazing like well i knew him when he competed and like oh okay well maybe that's fair look how nice jay cutler is but maybe when he was competing maybe he was a dick too right i don't know you know but i think some people jl talked about but maybe when he was competing, maybe he was a dick too, right? I don't know, you know, but I think some people, JL talked about what a prick he was, right? And how he punched people in the face and everything. And now he seems like he's an amazing person, but Dave was kind of like that. He wasn't real talkative. I think he probably had the stress of his business too on him because he was building elite at the time and it was like the you know kind of early stages of that and so he wasn't really like a mentor to me in that way um until i got to know him better you know once i started knowing him better and when i started you know uh writing on

the site and then we were you know kind of like buds you know kind of uh kind of through that process but that took a while you know he's a little, he's a little bit of a hard ass, as you were saying yesterday. But, you know, it's been amazing to have somebody like that in my corner because Dave has just, it's really weird because, like, Louie Simmons is an inventor, you know, and he's more of an, he's an inventor, period, right? Dave Tate is an entrepreneur right and then both these guys have these power lifting backgrounds and then like i just kind of i guess uh that stuff leaked into my maybe subconscious mind and then it was just always there you know

i was always i i wasn't ever like thinking of like oh what business am i going to start necessarily but i think that was always there's always something inside where I knew that I would like tinker with the right thing at some point and end up probably creating something that would be in the space, even though that wasn't like an intention or something I was consciously trying to do. It just, it just ended up happening. But if you look at the patterns from both of those two and their behaviors from both of those two, then you can kind of see a lot of that. But if you look at the patterns from both of those two and their behaviors from both of those two, then you can kind of see a lot of that. I think you guys were noticing a lot of that

as we were talking to them. You're like, oh, Mark does that. The way Louie coaches and some of the things that were said yesterday. So it's been amazing to have people like that because I could watch what they're doing. I could learn from it and I could maybe, um, I can maybe say,

Hey, you know what? Maybe that's not a good idea to act that way or do that that way. Or I could say, Hey, that, that actually would be great. Like I can implement some of that.

So Dave's kind of like, he's kind of gone through it already, you know, you know, I'm curious about this. I don't know if it's already been addressed, but who was before Louie? Like, cause you know,

you guys are, you know, you could see where louis poured into and like the the the vines that lead from the family tree but then who was on top that's awesome because so ct fletcher right ct fletcher when we talk when we think about like youtube and think about like popularity on youtube and like who's the guy that kind of like got everyone like fired up like who's kind of the first guy I think that's kind of where you that's kind of where a lot of people think you know a lot of people start to think of like a

like a C.T. Fletcher right Louie Simmons was that guy in the strength community as C.T. Fletcher was to like YouTube and the fitness industry and bodybuilding, right? And I think that Louis, the cool thing is that Louis was just like C.T. Fletcher. Louis was an early adopter. He was in there early. So you could never flaw his validity. Like he was legit, you know what I mean? And then he had this kind of army of lifters that backed up a lot of his practices. It backed up our results justify our methods is like one of his sayings.

And it's like, well, who can argue with a 1,200-pound squat? You can kind of say, hey, it's done under these conditions. I don't really agree with that style of powerlifting, but it's 1,200 pounds. And previously, the guy, when he first showed up there, squatted 800 pounds. And you can't deny the fact that the guy gained 400 pounds on a squat. Again, you might disagree with them utilizing performance-enhancing drugs. You might disagree with how the squats are judged. You might disagree with the powerlifting gear and all those things.

And that's fine, and that's fair. That's totally fair to not be a fan of any of those things and it's i think it's totally fair to say like hey they if you think they cheat then that's cheating to you and that's fine but you can't deny the fact that the the the methods are really justified in the fact that they're able to lift so much but yeah yeah, Louis was in there kind of early. And it was undeniable. But that's when everyone else started to pop up, though, too. So a lot of... Hey! Hey, now!

Yo, Stan Eferding! Hey, now! But a lot of other people started getting really popular at the time. That's when a Charles Poliquin started to come into play. There was Charles Staley. I mean, the list of people goes on and on you can find a lot of those people on uh you know website like t-nation.com has a lot of those kind of older articles from some from some of those people but again louis was the guy he wasn't talking about it you know he wasn't just talking about it he was actually producing really really strong lifters and he was a top 10 power lifter for like 20 years 30 years or something like that

you know he was i think i think it might have been 30 years and he was like find someone else in their sport that's been in the top 10 for 30 years you know and it's it's it's not an easy thing to find you know he's he's one of the few so he was actually doing it himself too i'm excited like i want to look back at jackass's old uh his uh program or whatever you know your uh your workout log because i think that would be hilarious because i should be like oh this is just markbell.com 1.0 yeah yeah really it really kind of was yeah anyway uh we got stan the rhino efforting uh he came through here and so we're gonna um we're gonna chop this thing down uh in a minute here but let's let's kind of just run through like who i mean it's kind of hard to pick a favorite

of the guests that we had we have we had dave tate we had cory gregory we had jl holdsworth we had eddie hall uh we had derrick Derek Carver, and we can't leave out Stan because he might end up being our favorite, but we kind of know that he's probably going to lay an egg. It's rare for him to ever come prepared to anything or show up on time and stuff like that, so it's probably going to be a mess of a podcast, but having said all that, who do you guys think is your favorite? I'll start out with jl dude i loved hearing the stories of west side when he's just like i didn't like my training

partner so i'm like hey we have to fight or else i'm moving to the am crew i was like what the like oh yeah that was a crazy story he said he went out in the parking lot and the guy wouldn't come out there and fight him and he he he didn't care if he won or lost. He's like, if I win, we're going to go back inside and train. If I lose, we're going to go back inside and train. But I'm fucking leaving this PM crew if you're too much of a pussy to fight me. That doesn't make any sense, but that's funny. Yeah, and then, you know, like it just was when you said it that way reminded me of talking to your cousin Stephen Bell about like New Yorkers,

how they pull over on the side of the road because somebody cut them off and they're gonna fight and I'm just like so somebody cut you off and they're gonna make you late so that justifies being extra late and pulling over and getting into a fight so it's like the outcome makes no sense whatsoever but um that was amazing but also like when we had Cal Dietz, I was really confused about the RPR system. Yeah. He broke it down a lot simpler, and he really has, like, motivated me to look more into it and actually take the first course that they offered. And so I'm like, dude, that was really cool.

Eddie Hall, I think we can all say that we loved that episode. Street Bike Tommy, I'm Bike Tommy he seemed like he was he's such a homie like we've seen him a bunch of times throughout the expo and he's just like we're just hanging out Corey Gregory awesome I think we're all going to start doing lunges but for me yeah I think

JL takes the cake because I'm like I already started doing more RPR stuff since then, and I'm already feeling better. I did the RPR stuff before I took a dump this morning, and that thing just shot out of me. Whoa. It was great. That was the first time all weekend.

That's scary. Yeah. For me, it's a tie between JL and Dave Tate. Now, Eddie Hall, that was an amazing podcast. It's weird saying JL and Daveave because eddie hall's a fucking legend but the reason i choose those two is because of the change and that i saw in jl you know like i didn't know jl but from marks from what you've talked about jl from what dave mentioned about jl what jl said about j? Um, it's wild. But, but the thing is, is like the way he looks at training now is kind of the way that I've been trying to approach training for years in a very relaxed

fashion, trying to continue to move forward and having that type of control over it. Like that's, I relate a lot to that. I relate a lot to getting better within that context so that's why all that rpr stuff really i vibe with that hardcore because i don't tend to want to like i don't i don't use hard like angry emotions for my lifting or my jujitsu like i feel like i can't that's not a you know a long-term thing so when jl told his story about how like he came to powerlifting and left like a flash because of that i was like i i i like this longer idea right and then the reason dave tate was so awesome to me is just because like again that that whole his ability to to move from thing to thing to thing like i don't know how old dave tate is how old is he mark like probably 53 or something like that

or something i'm not sure it doesn't look a day over 70 but but the big thing with dave tate is that number one he's never stopping in terms of like the pivoting that we were talking about the the getting better on all these new media platforms each person we talked to kind of had these different pivot points exactly and they never stopped doing that but they also like were always like dave even though Dave knows so fucking much, is still so open to new ideas in terms of strength. I know people that are my age, a little bit younger, that are in their 30s or whatever. And they're like, they have the answer. Like, this is what you got to do.

This is the thing. But I didn't get that vibe from Dave. Like, he knows he knows a lot. And it's the same thing with you. You know a fucking lot. But you're never you guys are never just like I got all the answers. You know, you ask me questions and like it still shocks me when you ask me questions. I'm like, why the fuck you ask me questions?

Right. But but that's like Dave and JL. Like those were some very impactful podcast for myself. Yeah. Dave. Dave Tate was a lot of of fun you know for me you know being a friend of his for so long and him being a mentor to me i would say like you know i got like my you know male figures you know in my life that have been you know extremely impactful you know my

dad is at the top of the list and i might forget a couple people in here so i apologize but like my dad would be at the top of the list my I might forget a couple of people in here. So I apologize, but like my dad would be at the top of the list. My brother would be in there for sure. And then that's when you start having like some of the people in our community and in, in our, in the fitness industry and stuff like that. And that would definitely be, you know, Dave Tate would be in there. Our boy Stan Efferding would definitely be in there. I mean, you know, you have these, you have it. I just think we all have all everyone. We all have great opportunities to allow the people that we know and the people that we communicate with to rub off on us in like a positive way. And you think back to when Stan,

you know, enter the gym, you know, go back and YouTube the video where Stan's doing a 220 pound dumbbells. And look who's spotting him. It's me, and I look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It's of no coincidence that Stan Efferding, someone who is successful in bodybuilding, got his pro card in bodybuilding, becomes an all-time world record holder in powerlifting. He comes through the doors. becomes an all-time world record holder in powerlifting. He comes through the doors. He's,

uh, he's lean, you know, not as, uh, not as lean as he was for his bodybuilding stuff because he, when he powerlifted, he would get, he would just get massive, but he was still fucking lean. He wasn't, didn't have any body fat on him. He comes through the doors. He shows people a different way of, of lifting. Hey, you know, Mark,, Mark, he didn't say anything to me, but it's like, hey, you know, you could lift and you can lift heavy and I lift heavier than you and I'm not nearly as disgusting as you are. You could probably figure out a way

to make some changes and kind of head more in this direction. And then also, Stan was already doing well as an entrepreneur and I was like, this guy's bodybuilding, this guy's powerlifting, this guy's killing it in business. Like, I have to stop being an idiot. And you can allow that to motivate you. Or you can be like, oh, man, he's got that because he's got a business partner.

Or somebody gave him money. Or his parents set it up. I mean, you can be as grumpy about it as you want or you could start asking questions you can say oh shit like hey that's awesome how did you get that huge house in in washington how'd you how do you have all these toys how do you have a rolls royce in the garage and jet skis and and all these fancy watches i tried on all his watches i tried on all his clothes when i stayed stayed at his house in Washington one time, he was out of town.

So I sent him a bunch of pictures. I was like trying. He's got fancy sunglasses. He had all this fancy stuff. I don't think he's that fancy anymore. He's got kids now. He can't really do that as a dad. But anyway, you can have these people

have a big, strong, powerful impact on you. You can allow it to empower you. And sometimes it might be something that lasts for just a few weeks or a few months, but it could, in my case, you know, it's something that's lasted me a lifetime and it's, it's helped a lot. It's helped in a lot of situations. And you can kind of think of, yeah, I wonder what my friends would do. You know, some of the people I look up to, what would they do in this situation? You know, can you guys picture a scenario where stan would get like really mad but could you picture stan punching a hole in a wall i could imagine it

but i could picture like a cartoon version of it that'd be fun but like he doesn't react that way yeah you know he does he does and and a lot of my friends are like that um a lot of my friends that have kind of come through the other side too of like you know maybe not competing anymore you know jl's that way now right dude like jesus christ i could i can't see jl being aggressive from the way he was presenting himself and all that i i can't see it but it's so crazy yeah and then uh one one more guest that just hit me right now and i think it'll actually have, you probably the, it has potential to have the biggest impact out of all of the guests. And it was when you asked Derek Carver, like, how can, like,

how can we all show appreciation for our, you know, our men and women in the military? And he plain and simply said, live a life worth living, live a life worth dying for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. No, it life worth living live a life worth dying for yeah yeah yeah there you go no it was worth living it wasn't i wrote it down live a life worth dying for is that what it was yeah yeah i wrote i wrote down the wrong thing but it means the same thing i feel really dumb i thought i wrote it down wrong he's gonna listen to it again he doesn't believe us i don't i don't remember what he said. He's going to listen to it again. He doesn't believe us. I don't,

I don't remember what he said, but I, I am going to listen to it. And then if I'm right, I'm going to brag. I'll make a whole podcast about it. And just loot me saying that. I love that.

Yeah. But yeah, no, that, that hit me too. That was like, it was, it was like literally that,

that Mike dropped, but it makes like, makes a lot of sense. He was someone who served, right? These guys are going overseas look they're they're dying for us to have our freedom still wrote it down wrong you look at you if you look at it again it's still gonna be incorrect but yeah it was live a life worth dying for and that can't change the ending of the titanic damn you guys are right i've never like i've never heard somebody say that before and it's it's it's extremely powerful like it's just like don't sit here and do nothing with your fucking life that guys are are are getting killed for i've

heard uh jocko willink talk about that as well he said like you know he he said that he used to be uh kind of grumpy and he used to be, you know, thinking like, man, these civilians, they don't understand, you know, it's military people. And then he realized, look, everyone can serve the country. And he's kind of said the same thing. Like, don't be a piece of shit. Like, go out there, do stuff, be active. Don't cause a lot of problems with our healthcare and insurance and all these things. Like, be healthy, be strong, be able to take care of yourself. You don't need a lot of help from the government. You don't need a lot of help from other people. You're not negatively impacting anybody. Just, no, it's pretty simple. Be a good person. Be nice. Shit like that. You know, when Derek was talking about like, you know, sometimes

I think I've mentioned this on the podcast in the past, but it's in like, you know, Oh, there are other people that have it worse than you. When I was looking at Derek, it's not like I was thinking, Oh, he has it worse than me because he doesn't have a leg but like it was more so like in america all of us and derrick was even mentioning it some of the poorest people here have it better than so many people like worldwide in general like we are so lucky in whatever situation we have here to be doing whatever the hell that we're doing. And I mean, everybody has some sort of privilege, no matter what it is. I'm very privileged as a, as a black guy here in the U S there might be a lot of things that people may talk about, but I am very, very, very privileged, right?

I have so much that I could do. So like, it's just understand that no matter what situation you're in, you have some sort of privilege that you can be utilizing and you could be moving forward with here because we literally are here. You know, I got, I got relatives in Africa that are trying to get over here and they can't, you know, and I think about that all the time. And there's just like, there's, there's no reason anything should be stopping us here. Yeah. I think, uh, you know know out of all the people that we had i think derrick carver i think his his podcast was great like i loved uh the dynamics of it too how he you know is real sarcastic he's he's uh he's really he's really fun he's really funny and

he's really serious at the same time he's got a lot of a lot of kind of different messages going on at one time but i thought probably the craziest and coolest thing that we heard is that he said he wants to be the president i think he's maybe said he's gonna be the president like that's that's just cool to me like who knows how it will work out i don't i don't know you know what he'll be able to do or not do but i'm not gonna doubt the guy looks like he's you know figured out a way to of being uh pretty damn capable of anything that he sets his mind or body to so i'm not going to be the guy that's going to say you can't do that yeah yeah and

then jp that like yo um getting under the knife i i just hope people really really take that a heart it's it's a hard thing to navigate and give people advice for because i've like again i've gone to a lot of doctors who have wanted to just cut me open on certain things and I'm just so happy I didn't but you know athletes be careful he's another guy that made a strong pivot you know he made a pivot from you know being one of the strongest power lifters I mean he's one of the first guys to walk out a thousand pounds and squat it you know um with raw you know and uh just an unbelievable lifter and a great guy and someone that he's again we talk about this a lot you know he's one of those people that just kind of like lights up there you when you see him you can't help but smile type of thing yeah and i think he's the one that uh

that said this but he and maybe on a previous podcast or something he told me in passing he said um you should think of yourself like a thermometer you you know, in a room or not a thermometer, a thermostat thermostat. You should think of yourself as like a thermostat. So if a room is like too hot, there's too much negative energy. You can you can cool it down. If the room needs to be like heated up and could use a little bit more spice, you know, you you're you can kind of heat it up as well. And I just I think that that's think that that's a great reference. And what a cool way to live and kind of thinking about a life worth dying for.

It's a life worth dying for when the second that someone sees you before you even say anything, that other people start smiling. That's pretty damn good. All right, well, it's pretty cold in here, so can we turn that thermostat up a little bit? Turn down for what? Exactly, it's pretty cold in here, so can we turn that thermostat up a little bit? Turn down for what?

Exactly. It's fucking cold. All right. Let's bring this one home. So, Andrew, if you can sign us on out. Real quick, wanted to thank Icon Meals for feeding us this weekend. Well, feeding and SEMA and myself and the rest of the team. Mark's doing all carnivores, so I don't think you touched that.

But thank you, Todd Abrams, for hooking us up with that. Again, Pete Montees, you guys know we love it but uh all links everything down in the description show notes everywhere uh please make sure you follow the podcast at mark bells power project my instagram is at i am andrew z at mb power project on tiktok and twitter i don't remember the exact address of the facebook and the youtube pages right now, but we're all over the damn place. Thank you to everybody that's been rating and reviewing the podcast. We sincerely appreciate that. We love doing this, and it is a lot of work, but that is a huge thank you. So thank you to everybody that's been doing that.

And Seema, where you be? At Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube. At Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter. Mark? At Mark Smiley Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you all later.

Ah, man. Hearing that over hurts so bad inside. Live a life worth dying for, not live a life worth living. Although, in my opinion, they mean the same thing. But, yeah, I totally messed that up. Again, apologies for that. And, you know, I was running off of, like I said, a couple hours of sleep.

So, you know, my bad. But anyway, uh, thank you to everybody that was in rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes. It helps us out a ton.

If, uh, you have found any value in any of the episodes that we've ever done and you want, and you want to give us a thank you, that's probably one of the biggest thank yous that you can do is head over to iTunes and leave a rating and a review right now. We want to give a shout out to clarice gomez uh clarice says awesome podcast quote mark and host of mark bell's power project podcast highlights all aspects of health

wellness and more in this can't miss podcast the host and expert guests offer insightful advice and information that is helpful to anyone that listens. Thank you so much. This, I mean, seriously, whatever, like the couple seconds out of your day that that took does so much for us. So thank you so, so much for that. If you listen in right now, if you would like to hear your name and review Red On Air, please head over to iTunes right now, drop us a rating and a review, and you could hear your name on air just like Clarice Gomez. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.