Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 356 - Martin Tye

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

Martin Tye is an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran from Britain. He was severely injured in a suicide bomber attack while leading his team on patrol, leaving him with no feeling below his knees and intense damage to his shoulders and lungs. 10 years, and 20 surgeries later, he is one of the top adaptive strongman athletes in the world, and currently holds the all-time world record for the Seated Deadlift at 1,113lbs. Hit Up Martin on IG: https://www.instagram.com/strongmantye/ 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 "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off $99 and free shipping! ➢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 crew, what's going down? Hope you're having an amazing day. Today we have an awesome guest. We podcasted with our homie Martin Tai. What makes him great? Well, he's done something that no one else on the planet has ever been able to do. He is an Afghanistan war veteran where he unfortunately was blown up. So he is an adaptive athlete. But we just had Eddie Hall on and, uh, everyone's been freaking out about his 500 kilogram deadlift, um, which equates to 1100 pounds. Uh, it's like 1102. I know pounds to kilo doesn't quite, you know, carry over correctly. Uh, whatever the case. So 1102, uh, tie or Martin tie, I should say he, he deadlifted 1113, 1,113 pounds. Now, he admits on the podcast that the distance travel is a lot less for him because he does it seated. But I mean, I don't care how

far you pick something up and put it down. If it's that much weight, I mean, like I said, no one else has been able to do that. Pretty incredible. So obviously we got into a bunch of a deadlift and strongman stuff, but, uh, Martin went in to explain how, if it wasn't for strongman, um, he, he doesn't know where he would be, you know, uh, he's, he says strongman saved his life. And, uh, you know, it's, who knows, man, I don't even want to think about what could have been because this dude was freaking awesome. I think you guys are going to find a lot of value and a lot of motivation out of today's episode.

So I'm going to quickly get out of your way. Speaking of finding value and stuff, hopefully you guys have taken advantage of markbell.com. Right now, Mark is giving out a free trial of 30 days. Normally, it's seven days, but because everyone's doing self quarantine, self isolation, social distancing, all that stuff. Um, basically, I mean, especially because everyone's gym got shut down. So we're all kind of having a workout at home. Um, so what he's doing now is he's doing a bunch of body weight movements and a bunch of movements with the hip

circle and the slingshot. Again, that is free for 30 days. All you have to do is go to markbell.com, sign up, and you have access to the entire website. There's more than just workouts on there. You guys can learn about carnivore stuff. There's bodybuilding. There's tons of stuff on there. It's free. You have nothing to lose. Just head over to markbell.com, sign up. And again, like I said, he's doing a lot of stuff with the hip circle and the slingshot. So on top of that, we're giving you guys 20% off of a hip circle and slingshot combo. So go to markbellslingshot.com, add any slingshot, any hip circle, and you'll receive 20% off that. Lastly, this episode is brought to you by Piedmontese Beef, the absolute

best beef in the universe. It's got more protein, less fat, cooks faster, is more tender, is more juicier than anything that's available right now. I don't know how they do it, but somehow they get the job done. And on top of all that, they'll deliver straight to your door so you don't have to worry about fighting lines or keeping six feet apart from everybody. Anyways, yeah, it's amazing stuff. Head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout, enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Again, really hope you guys enjoy this episode. If you do find some value in it, hit up Martin Tai on Instagram.

Links down in the show notes and YouTube description. And, yeah, enjoy the show. Scratch my eye again. Yep. Bro, this is... You're about to kill over. Dude, your eyeball has so much of the virus right now, it's not even funny. I don't even know.

It's crazy. You were working on some new sound today? Yeah, I'm going to mess with the sound pretty bad today. I don't know. I'm just trying to see if there's something else. I sound like he's got a really bad cough. So this morning, I actually was

just holding the boards for our boy Ricardo. He's on the team. He trains here. And I'm like, let's go. I'm like, come on. And then I'm just like. I had to start coughing all over the damn place.

It was bad. I don't know what happened. Everyone just staring at you? I just got like a dry throat patch or something. I don't know. It was weird. Yeah. Sure you did.

You need to like chop to the throat. Hi-ya. Are we on right now yeah i was uh walking in downtown davis this morning i you know we're supposed to be like on lockdown but i'm too dumb you know i i can't sit still yeah for very long you know so i went on a walk with my son and it was cool. It was actually kind of like, great. Like there's no one around. There's like no, nobody around at all. Yeah. There's nothing dangerous about going out and taking a walk.

No, I don't think so. Yeah. There's no issue with that. It's if you, uh, go and you take 30 people on your walk with you. Yeah.

That's what I got to have a problem. I got to update on Starbucks too. They still don't give a fuck. There's still, there's still wide open. Just like yesterday they still don't give a fuck they're still they're still wide open just like yesterday they don't care that's actually really crazy to me i still don't understand that especially starbucks but uh you know it's all good are you able to share what you found out from ronda patrick oh yeah let me uh let me make sure i have the right information here so i got more information on kratom umom. We talked a little bit about Kratom, how it can help with the immune system. I just took half a potion.

I had so that that article that I saw and there was other articles that popped can assist in fighting off the coronavirus i don't know if it'll be a vaccine or what they'll call it but it seems like that's the direction that they're leaning towards the article and articles that i saw they were being super tricky about how they were wording it it didn't ever really directly say, actually it did directly say it, but it was super misleading. So Mitrogene Specioso, which is Kratom, Kratom is the street name for it. There's some other type of Mitrogene that has traits of that chloropin in it, but not from MindBullet, not from Kratom. So I had inaccurate information. I apologize for that.

I was just going based off of what I saw and I thought it was newsworthy and turns out that's bullshit. However, I still believe that, I still believe Kratom can help with your immune system as I think a lot of other plants can. So I still think it's effective. Now trying to take it to like fend off, you know, coronavirus, they would have to do studies and we need a lot more information on that. But I got some cool information this morning by reading Rhonda Patrick's tweet. And she said, the good old doctor, she always has great information. If you haven't heard of her before, you should listen to some of her information from Joe Rogan's show.

And then also, you know, check out her her tweets because she's got a lot of great information. But she said the antibiotic erythromycin with a hydroxy chloropin is showing to have some really, really good results. It's just in the very early stages. But that's super cool you know hope i i just i don't know how we'll get back to normal because let's say the government is like hey everything's chill like you're good to go like let's just say they did that tomorrow i think people are still going to be like well what's different about today you know right people are gonna know what's different about today and And so I think that

they'll have to try to come up with some answers about what's different today. And I think a vaccine, even though the vaccine might not, you know, positively impact people for a while, because it might take time for them to get the right thing. It will take a long time for it to get administered out. It'll take a long time for them to have enough stuff for everybody or however that works. But I think even just if they had a vaccine, everybody, thank God, we're safe, right? Yeah. People still have to be super careful, though. I mean, yesterday, apparently, China had no new cases.

I don't know if you saw that. But when I was reading that, I'm like, wait, China had no new cases. They're usually really careful about the type of things that they put out. So I don't know how true that is. Yeah. But like that's if that's if that actually is true. That kind of doesn't make sense to me. Right. You know, like, how are you like, how are we getting all these cases? And suddenly in with the place that has that many people, there are no new cases. Unfortunately, with a place that has that many people, there are no new cases. Some of the information I've seen is that about 140 people here in the United States have died. I think there's several thousand people that have it. There's, you know, and by most estimations, people think that a lot of people already have it here, you know, and I think if, if we were able to test everybody, I think, I think people might be even more panicked, you know, if, if all of us here could very easily go get a test done, which I don't think at this time you can do that that easily without like big lines and stuff like that. Um, you know,

I think we would find out that a bunch of us probably have it and it would just probably create more panic. But I think the good news is if you do know that you have it, then you can say, okay, well, I really, you know, I guess, I guess our job here is to, I guess we should just pretend that we already have it. You know what I mean? I guess that's the best thing for, since we don't know, the best thing would probably be to pretend that you already have it.

And I don't know how many days it sticks around, but I think it's like two weeks or so, right, that you're still very contagious. Andrew, do you know? Something like that. I can't remember. I just know it can live on so many weird different surfaces, like Dr. Paper and stuff like that. Yeah. Ken Berry had posted a study that

hadn't yet been peer reviewed, but it was just saying that it can last on paper for like nine days. Yeah, that was refuted. Okay, so it was. That was refuted. Thank goodness. Because that was scary. Peter Attia talked about that. He did a Q&A on that because

he was saying some stuff like it could be on a steel for whatever but like yeah stainless steel forever yeah i think peter just lives there yeah peter said it could live on certain surfaces like that for potentially i think it was like 18 hours or something like that um that's a lot it's still a long time yeah yeah but it's not like nine days and i think it was yeah 18 to 20 something hours but um nothing like multiple days on end i think so yeah when i heard that i was like oh thank you jesus it's not that well it's bad but yeah it's not nine days and then also like what you're saying about china which it does it raised some eyebrows right because it's

like how do you go from all this to now nothing so like are they like they weren't honest in the beginning yeah they were trying to hide it they didn't admit it right away so like is it more of that or is it the 5g towers like what's going on well i think about all the business that's affected yeah just hear about that there right so i want to start like getting things moving again so we'll be like oh yeah no new cases let's come on get shit go get stuff moving so yeah it is a it is a communist country so they can kind of they get to get the opportunity to kind of do whatever the hell i want yeah anyway for today you know we're going to hopefully take your mind uh off of these matters

for a little bit and we're going to shift gears a little bit and we're going to be talking to a guy that I just I've seen some of his lifts on social media and I was like what is up with this guy how is this a guy able to lift these amounts of weights uh this guy Martin Tai I saw recently do like an 1100 plus pound deadlift from a wheelchair yeah and I was like, I don't, I mean, as far as I know, that's the most, well,

I guess I've seen. Sojourner Savickas do a, maybe like 1300 pound Hummer tire deadlift. So be interested to see if this guy knows like, what's the most weight ever picked up period. But this is even, you know, a heavier weight than,

and obviously done under different circumstances, but this is even a heavier weight than what Eddie Hall has done. I mean, this is like, this is, when I saw it, I was like, this just makes sense to me. Like, how is this guy able to do this? Especially, you know, considering, you know, his, what has happened to him from the war in Afghanistan and stuff like that. It's just, it's a, it's a cool story.

So I just wanted to, you know, have an opportunity to talk to him and our boy Smokey. You guys know Smokey? Yeah. The little short, angry guy that's always running around here. I remember him.

Yeah. Yeah. Why is he so mad? I think it's a beard. Andrew? I, I don't know, but it was really cool.

Um, after we had LJ, JL, sorry, got dyslexic about like, you know, you're, about being unhappy or just everything was like, oh, you're, you're, you don't feel safe. So you're trying to take the safety from someone else. And just you and me, we just both looked at Smokey like, stealing everyone's safety. And then afterwards, he's probably listening.

He's probably so sad right now i know well then after he was just like i just feel like he was talking directly to me because he was just attacking me the whole time he's like i literally have to change everything about everything i do that's what i remember that when jail said that we both looked at smoky why are you taking our safety, bro? Stealing your safety and your happiness. Stealing it all from you. Anyway, it'd be great to have an opportunity to talk to this guy today and figure out why he's such a stud and why we're such a bunch of duds.

Yeah. So I sent him the invitation, so we're just waiting on him. He's in like the UK or something. Yeah. So we can maybe ask him what's going on over there, too. Yeah. So we can maybe ask him like what's going on over there too. Yeah and then also it's like what time is it over there? It's game time baby. It's about to be it's 5pm

over there. Oh. Yeah. Anyways did some more lunges this morning. Yeah. You got some more lunges in there? Yeah. I did a back attack workout and then I finished it off with some lunges. Nice. Yeah.

I'm digging it, because I'm going to be really sore. Trained some lats today? A lot of lats. Yeah, lat city today. Yeah, just the hammer, whatever that thing's called. Just supported row? Yeah, there you go. And then the T-bar row, but i stood on the side of it and just

pulled it with one hand i really like doing those because like doing bent over rows heavy if i'm not careful it really jacks me up but if i do those i kind of get the same feeling and it's not as bad and then after that i did also like the uh the laying down pull-up type things yeah those always light my lats on fire. And it just felt good. And then finishing it off with the lunges. Cool. Pretty awesome, yeah.

Dude, that's super smart. You know, I think everyone is built so differently. We all have different, like, pre-existing conditions. And so, like, when something doesn't feel right, just try to do something else i know in sema said he struggled with the bench he likes benching but he feel more comfortable doing some dumbbells i have had you know some hip issues like some limitation in the range of motion with that so doing like a regular squat i end up being kind of sore and tight for a few more days. And I just found that box squats feel a lot better, so I do those.

You know, find stuff that doesn't hurt. You know, find stuff that feels, it shouldn't really hurt. You know, exercise should not really hurt. I mean, as you're warming up, you might be like, hmm, that doesn't feel great. And on a scale of 1 to 10, there might be like a two or three in there, here and there. But once you're warm and ready to go, there really shouldn't be muscle discomfort, for sure. You know, as you're going through reps and things like that and fatigue, all that's very normal. But you shouldn't really have pain.

I think people think, you know pain no gain but no pain no gain is like no suck it up and do an extra rep as long as you're able to still have good form and technique and you don't hurt yourself then we're good to keep going yeah and then i also like kind of working backwards you know kind of pre-fatiguing things so like i did eventually i like that a lot yeah i did eventually do the bent over rows but only did it with uh you know 25s on on the bar so like i still got the stimulus i still got in the work but i didn did it with uh you know 25s on on the bar so like i still got the stimulus i still got in the work but i didn't get hurt and you know like i didn't have to go heavy to really feel like i i needed to i didn't feel like i needed to go heavy to get the work in i still think and seem as disgusted by the fact that you only lifted 95 pounds on a bit of a row

no i could see it in his face no you can't hide it bro what i'm really impressed with is that you're doing the lunges every single time you work out yeah but so i did the bent over rows in conjunction with some uh some uh lat whatever pull downs i don't know what they're called they're just uh you grab the other cow udders and then you pull them yeah yeah so i did every milk in the cow milk in the cow so i do pretty much everything and in at least two two two different movements wait was this the big black ball no no no no no no sir those are the encemas okay i really need to ask what like what prodded you to buy those handles did somebody give them to you like no i think i think they're like part

i think it was like part of a we ordered like a handful of things and i think that was in there the big giant black balls yes because i'm just like who saw these and were like this would be just really great i mean they're cool but like you're just holding these two massive balls and and it's y'all just need to see it there's a lot of weird stuff goes that goes on this gym you know we don't we don't you know we don't really know like the handle for the uh hammer strength chest supported row it's like just it's just a black penis so you're like why all i gotta do is put some balls right there well so i i have like when you put your hand there it's like and it's like right where your dick would go you're like oh man that'd be nice if your dick was that hard like that you

know it'd be perfect right all the time yeah okay like a jackhammer it would be you just walk around saying i have a condition you'd have to explain it to everybody yeah even like right when you met them yeah you have to be like, oh, I got it. Be like, look, everything you're thinking, I've tried it. Is that a thing? If you want to help. Like everything's like a medical condition of some sort. Like I wonder if that's a thing. I don't know about that.

I don't know. I've never noticed it before on anybody. Yeah. I've never seen it. Well, no. No, no, no. Just a constant. There are those people that like whenever they move they just constantly have

orgasms you heard of those people like they're like there are men that are like constantly you know and it's just dust coming out but they can't stop it so over time you just you just see them go man that's good like they're just doing that all day long and that's an interesting condition there's a youtube video on it that's like it interviews some of these people and almost it's so sad but this woman like while she's doing the interview she she's just talking and then she's just like like what the hell y'all need to go watch that right now i've trained women before where they're like i can't do that exercise and i'm like oh okay we can progress into you know doing the exercise some other time

and they're like no no like it's like embarrassing i can't do it and i was like oh okay you know not a big deal and then after a while you know i had one woman I was training where she was like, yeah, she's like, I'm like, what? Get an orgasm from doing exercise in the gym? All right. Just research purposes. What was the movement? Yeah, we can pick something else. Program that into Stephanie's workout.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think this is kind of, I think it's somewhat common, but I think she was doing like that. You guys are so interested in this. This is great. Both of you guys are like, hey. Both of us got our notepads out. Yeah.

You don't like that kind of like half sit up bench, you know, that's in the gym. It's like real steep. You put your, you put your feet, you hook your feet in and your, and your knees are bent in there and you do like, it's called something, but I can't remember what it's called but you do like sit-ups off of it basically yeah but it's not a yeah but it's not a full bench it's just like a it's almost like a half bench like kind of your butt mainly just goes on it oh i think i know but there was that movement and then there's also the movement where you put your you you um sit down the opposite way on a decline bench and just move your legs up.

And then just some other women that I've trained kind of just said, like just moving their legs, you know, in that way, like on any sort of abdominal exercise, it happens, you know? Yeah,

it happens. I mean, I, you know, Hey, Hey, now some people got it. Some people don't,

you know, yeah. So making women come without even touching it. Just count. I mean, you know, hey, hey now, some people got it, some people don't, you know? Yeah, so? Making women come without even touching them. I'm just counting your reps. I'm sorry, I didn't know it was going to get you that excited. I can't remember. Maybe I can count them differently, or maybe I can get further away.

I can't remember which comedian it was, but you know he was making well he was making a joke about the uh the viagra commercial that says like if your erection lasts for more than four hours call a doctor he's like shit i'm calling all my exes being like look what you're missing out on just bragging about it all day long like hmm it's got a point sounds painful really you know it's exhausting you know that um there we go yeah yeah it's no big deal so there there was one day and it wasn't it wasn't because like lag or anything but um but it might be no no it's making a spike to your drinks y'all know how I don't like, you know, I don't mess with porn or anything like that. So there was just one day, I don't know what happened, but like nightfall came.

And I was trying to sleep, but I couldn't because a tent was pitched and I just like, I was just sitting there like, God dang. So an hour goes by. Multiple hours go by. I'm like, what is going on here? I couldn't do anything about it. It was just there. I was just like, do I need to call somebody? Do I need to actually call a hospital?

Because I've heard about this before. But it's only because of dick pills and i was so concerned i think i ended up getting like two hours of sleep but i woke up and it was still kind of there and i was just like what did i do what did i eat because i should figure that out tell you what you didn't do i know it would have got i know taking care of everything. Yeah. I'm a little excessive, but anyway,

that, that it happens to the best of them, buddy. Yeah. Oh, that was so funny. Ooh, what a night.

All you could do is beat it into submission i'm just thinking like you know we have an awesome guest today and this is the uh this is the intro yeah hey but real talk though i'm curious because i'm at the arnold right his world record for the guinness book of World Records was 505, 1113. But apparently at the Arnold, he pulled 550, which is 1210. Shit. Oh, my God. It's like, how the hell? And the world record was like, what, like 10 months ago?

Or when he pulled the 1113, it was like, yeah, 10 or 11 months ago. So how's he getting an extra 100 pounds? What's this guy up to, man? It's insane. It is insane. He has a strong ass back and everything. Yeah, here it is. Yeah, May 20th. Some of this shit must get kind of confusing, like adaptive strongman.

I would imagine that maybe you can't do as many movements. I would imagine that like maybe you can't do as many movements, you know, like, like he's able to handle certain movements, but then there'd be other things that he wouldn't be able to do. Right. And that also makes me wonder in competition is like they all they all have different, you know, abilities. Right. So how does how does that work with the injuries yeah i'm having yeah do they just kind of pick do they kind of pick one movement to do or you know are they able to sign up for like a full contest and be able to do multiple things yeah i mean it looks like he's got full capabilities of the upper body you know he's very freaking jacked, too. Yeah, he's fucking, he's massive. He'd probably do a lot of, like, shoulder stuff, I would imagine, but then. Lock pressing. Yeah. It must get complicated, man.

Yeah. How the fuck do you, how do you figure some of that out? Mm-hmm. You know, with our boy Tyler here at the gym, you know, watching him, you know, do some of the stuff that he's been doing with jiu-jitsu and stuff like that. Watching him even just use chains for pull-ups or something. The amount of shit that he's got to go through just to even set that up is crazy. And then, yeah, every time I see him and we're just training around each other, I always want to help,, I always want to help,

but I always want to help everybody. And I don't know how much is like over like doing it, you know, like I've helped him with like some of the, um, uh, some of the barbells, like putting them like, cause those are fucking pain in the ass,

no matter what, you know, you have going on. But I just like, you know, like, Hey dude, I'm just your gym,

like bro, like I'm not trying to like overstep or anything, you know, but he's always so cool about everything too. So yeah, you know, like, hey, dude, I'm just your gym, like, bro. Like, I'm not trying to, like, overstep or anything, you know. But he's always so cool about everything, too. Oh, yeah. I think he's special. Even watching him put weights on for, like, a bench press. Yeah. You know, it's like he's got to kind of stabilize the wheelchair he's in.

And he's got to kind of, you know, try to put the weights on there like one arm at a time. And it, it just looks like it would kill your shoulder and stuff like that. But he figures it out. Yeah. Yeah. No, he puts in a,

every, every movement takes a little bit of work, but like he loves it. Obviously you can tell. Yeah. That's a crazy ass amount of weight. I, I like,

I was thinking when I saw some, like, could I do anything remotely close? Nope. Nope. Like I, I, I, I saw this, I'm like, could I do anything remotely close? Nope. Nope. Like, I couldn't. Like, that's. And I realize, you know, he's not lifting the bar very, very high, but the hardest part of a deadlift is to break the ground.

You know, and there's not many people that have lifted anything over like get to like that 800 pound mark it doesn't matter how you try to lift it yeah there's not a lot of people who've done that whether it be you know a deadlift from iraq or even like um you know the wagon wheels or something like that like it doesn't matter how you try to do it yeah it's uh it's gonna be difficult no matter no matter what you do you know one weird thing that i uh i noticed after talking to cal deets and it's about bracing remember how he was talking about how uh flexing your ass kind of thing yeah yeah not not to flex your ass but like how you you shouldn't have to be focusing on you know when

we talk about bracing and doing all of that before right when he was talking about that i was like huh i wonder so when i was doing deadlift and squats recently i just tried kind of bracing it like without without doing all of the pressure that i usually do first off it felt more comfortable and i felt like i lost position less which i'm confused about you know what i mean like i'm still like trying to wrap my head around it because initially i would have thought that wouldn't be as the safest thing to do under really heavy load but um i think he i don't know i can't explain it but there's i what i'm what i can't explain is how would you coach somebody to brace like that brace enough, but not way too much. Cause Cal is against the, the, the bracing as hard as possible where you can barely move.

Right. Is yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how would you coach somebody to just like brace just enough for the lift? Yeah. It's not easy to do. I think, I think what, you know, he was talking about like really just kind of just flexing

your butt, you know, like flex your, flex your glutes and make sure they're turned on and you should be kind of good to go. Um, and I, I agree with that a lot. And I also have noticed for myself that, uh, squatting with my rib cage kind of down, um, has been more conducive to me hitting bigger weights. Um, and having your rib cage down and like kind of flexing your stomach not really sucking your stomach in or anything but just flexing your stomach like you're doing a crunch that's always felt pretty good to me as opposed to like trying to really take a lot of air in and really like you know brace the belt so much. The problem with some of that can be, like, if you're trying to arch and you're trying to take air into your stomach at the same time,

it's, like, kind of impossible. You can't really – I can't really do it very well. Some of what Duffin talks about where you're trying to push out on the sides of your obliques, I still think that there's room for some of that. As you flex your as you flex your butt and get your hips underneath you i think you can still um kind of poke your um your kind of sides out you know you can push out on your like obliques a little bit yeah but i would have to say that yeah the the more that you're going to like bear down on everything like the more you're

probably going to shake and tremble and it might be a little bit like bodybuilding where the best bodybuilders, they can pose and flex and stuff like that, but they're not going to really, I mean, if they really have to, if they're trying to make every vein come out, they'll go drastic with how they flex. But for the most part,

they do it pretty relaxed. And I think that's what we're trying to do in embracing and a lot of lifts. Yeah. What's up, my man? How are you doing guys? Wow. That is a glorious beard. Yeah. in terms of this whole coronavirus thing? It's going mental. Yeah, all the schools have been locked down now. The gyms have all been closed.

It's just going crazy at the moment. Are people buying up a lot of toilet paper like they're doing here in the States? Yeah, man, I don't understand that at all. Surely food's more important than toilet paper. Yeah, we're kind of confused ourselves we don't even really know where we don't understand why people are going like so hysterical for even for even food really um you know i i kind of don't get it at the moment but anyway it is uh it is just the way it is but yeah most of the streets and stuff are kind of shut down. People are quarantined and staying inside even where you're at. Yeah, it's pretty quiet around here now.

All my upcoming comps have been canceled or postponed, which is a bit of a bummer, but, you know, these things happen. How are you able to pick up, you know, 1,100 and then more recently 1,200 pounds? I mean, how in the hell is this uh is this happening um well it all started a few years back when i watched eddie do his world record of 500 and i just thought that was pretty cool and uh then i got introduced to the disabled side of the sport and the seated deadlift came in. And for some reason, I just clicked. I don't know why.

You know, I trained, I trained. The first couple of years, I weren't lifting very much. But then, you know, I just perfected the technique. And yeah, just technique and and yeah just hard training and then just smashed it it also smashed me as well so you know you know um i had all the blood eyes i had a headache i couldn't see properly for about two and a half hours um so it's yeah it takes a big toll out of your body. How do you prepare for that? How do you train to work with that much weight? So I train quite heavy. Obviously, five days a week for about three hours, heavy weight.

And then, obviously, the diet comes in. I'm about 8,000 calories a day at the moment. Whoa. God damn. Yeah. You need that. So obviously in powerlifting, you want to try and get your weight down

to push a bigger weight. But in strongman, that doesn't matter. So you want that layer of fat to get that explosive power. So yeah, it's just a lot of eating and a lot of training and i've trained trained up to the arnold's uh went really well it's the first time i've been injury free in three years um so yeah it was it was pretty awesome what do you think contributed to you staying healthy

with regards to what sorry uh just yeah what what uh what led to you uh being healthy going into this uh contest as opposed to maybe previous contests was it your nutrition your sleep you know your train your your training things like that so sleep's always been a bit of an issue with me i'm an ex-serviceman who was blown up in Afghanistan. So I suffer with PTSD, so I have dreams and stuff. So sleep's always been an issue. And in the past, I've let it take over. But for the last probably year, I've learned to deal with it a lot better now.

My nutrition has been really good. My training has been really good my training has been really good my aftercare you know i've got uh awesome chiropractor awesome massive sunboard i go to um so yeah just the whole package came together and it just went really well you know in the uh there's a video i saw where you were talking about the the initial guinness record that you broke uh with the 505-kilogram deadlift. And you said something that I thought was really cool. The way you approached it, you said that a lot of people,

you see a lot of people, they get really hyped up and angry, but you tend to think about the lift and calm down. Even when I saw you doing it, you just had your hands there, you opened your eyes, lifted it. So have you always been that type of lifter or how like how did how did you end up there so it's a little bit weird if i'm if i'm powerlifting and doing the bench press um i tried to say i actually psych myself up for that and i get really pumped for that but going into a deadlift um i don't know what it is that happens to me, but I kind of always go into like a state where all I'm thinking,

I'm not looking at the crowd. I'm not looking at any officials. I'm just concentrating and I'm visualizing what I'm going to do to make sure I've got the right movement, got the right height. Yeah. And then it just goes splash, eyes are open and it's going up are you uh stronger now um after you know surgeries and after uh you know being hospitalized and after being you know um in in a wheelchair you're stronger now as a person uh than you were

previously oh yeah, 100%. So when I was serving, I used to box for the military at 83 kilos. Now I'm like 137. Wow. Holy shit. It was really only from getting blown up that I fell into this sport. So I didn't really interact

with my rehabilitation very well mentally I wasn't in the right place when I was at the centre but then I got some guy that basically took us out to do adventure training and I fell in love with sport

and then we moved on. Have you guys heard of the Invictus Games? Yeah. Yeah, so I went and did two Invictus Games, came back with 11 medals. Nice. Well, the funny bit is

I didn't even apply for the games, my partner did. Without me knowing. But yeah, it was from that that then I got invited over to Strongman. And then I went to my first competition and I placed second. And I was only really going to have a look to see if there's something I want to do. So yeah, my strength has come since rehabilitation. Were you into lifting prior to getting blown up?

No, not really. We used to mess about in the gym a bit, but nothing seriously. That's, like, that's honestly, like, so wild to me because obviously you're just ridiculously strong. And the fact that you didn't, like, how many years have you been, like, lifting seriously now at this point? Four years with a well damn okay so can you like how i guess when you started lifting seriously how did that progression start were you lifting just a few days a week or did you go straight into like serious lifting off the bat um so well at the time when i when i came over to strongman

i was already doing a lot of gym work um i did a lot of rowing i'm three times british indoor rowing champ wow um so i did i did a lot of rowing anyway so physically i was quite fit and i did have some muscle um and then yeah and then it went into the powerlifting side of stuff um and i had a good coach uh who basically gave us a training program told us what we should be doing and what we shouldn't and from there i just tailored it into my strongman and ever since then i've just yeah just been smashing it did you have a was it a um, you know, after you got blown up like this, this all take a long time or did you find strong man, uh, pretty quickly? Um, probably about six years after I got blown up, I got blown up in 2009. So it took a lot.

I mean, that, that must've been just a shitty time. You met, you mentioned that you weren't really uh accepting of the uh rehabilitation process you and you do you mean that from like a mental perspective yeah yeah definitely um i was really struggling to come to terms with um what happened the issue is um i've got a brain injury so i can't actually remember what happened. I was the commander in my vehicle. We lost an American that was sitting behind me, and my driver broke his back as well. And there was also some fatalities, some more fatalities.

So getting your head around that was, well, for me, it was massive because I couldn't go back to my memories to see if there's anything I could have done to change the outcome. So just that whole process was very hard for me. And yeah, basically, I just sat in at pizza and got fat. Right. How have you kind of turned the corner on that or have you been able to? So I don't think I've ever turned i've just learned to deal with it better um you know obviously i've accepted that i'm never going to know what's really happened that day now um you there's no physical way of me getting that memory back um it did tell me

initially that i might get it back in about two to three years, but nothing came. So it's just about learning to deal with what you've got and get on with life. Have you ever considered psilocybin mushrooms or anything like that to get in better touch with any of that? Or you feel really strong and comfortable now? You're not really worried about it? i'm not i'm not too worried about it now i you know i i can deal with it a lot better um i did initially have some meditation and stuff but it didn't really work for me right now with these strongman comps, I guess they're, they're pushed back. Um, how's everything looking for you?

Like, are you able to train at all? Are you, are you legit quarantined also? Like, like we are where there's some gyms closed. So I think there's still a few gyms open. I'll find out on Monday.

Um, I, I haven't trained because I've had a few days off since coming back from the States. Um, just to regather myself and stuff. Um, I, I haven't trained because I've had a few days off since coming back from the States, um, just to regather myself and stuff. Um, but, but it is pretty crazy out there. I know there is still some gyms open, but I don't know which ones. And with like, you know, with a lot of people, a lot of people I've been getting messages from clients, like they're distressed.

They're not able to work out certain individuals. Like they, the gym is a stress reliever for them. Um, how, like, how are you going and dealing with, with all this, not being able to lift like you usually do?

Well, I think in the next week or two, it's going to send me stir crazy. Um, yeah, it's a hard one. Um, if,

if there is no gyms that are going to be open, I'm just going to have to find something at home to do to adapt i don't know maybe bench pressing the dining table or something um yeah you know i'll just i'll just have to um change my routine and do what i can how is the rest of your uh body you know we've? I've seen some of the deadlifts and seen a few other movements that you do, but what other movements, you mentioned bench press, what other movements are you capable of doing at this point when it comes to strongman? So when it comes to strongman, we do pretty much everything

the able-bodied do, apart from we don't do any sort of crucifixion stone run or anything like that the able-bodied do. Apart from we don't do any sort of cruciform stone run or anything like that, obviously. But we do atlas stones, but we do that in a wheelchair. We do loading races from a wheelchair. A log.

Hercules hold. Basically, anything that the able-bodied guys can do, we can normally adapt it to fit in with us. Man, a log press must be really challenging. I would think that you would lose balance and fall over. So they let us go a little bit inverted rather than straight up, obviously, because if you were standing and did it, you would have that natural curve back in your back.

Yeah, I got you. So they let us go back a little bit more which which steadies you on and you can use straps if you need to um i don't personally need need to like from from the top of my knees up i'm pretty pretty good um so yeah and then also in terms of like a lot of these competitions um how like because you just started doing strongman like to a year ago or four years this will be my fourth year going in okay fourth year going in now with a lot of the movements that you guys are doing right now how how is it like ranked i'm guessing because when i was when i was looking up some adapt strongman stuff obviously they're like people have different abilities you know people have different injuries so yeah even if there's a top i'm guessing if there's a guy that's

a top level at something couldn't it be that he literally can't do another type of movement? So I'm wondering like, how would they? Actually, it's, it's kind of crazy at the moment. The issue we've got in the sport is it's only been around for a few years. It's still quite new in the scale of things.

Um, so getting the word out to disabled athletes to come and give it a go. And that's what we're really trying to work on at the moment within the sport is get new competitors in because we haven't got enough people to make all the classifications we need to so at the moment we have two seated classifications and two standing classifications and that's a men and women do you you think in some cases it's super important for people to have stuff just to look forward to, and maybe that's what you attached yourself with for Strongman?

You used to box. You did a lot of rowing. You always had something competitive that you were into. And then after getting blown up, you probably went through some really hard times for a while, but then you found this new passion, this new thing that you could be excited about. Yeah, definitely. You know, I would probably go so far to say is, you know, the sport has saved my life. I would not be the man I am here in front of you today if I wouldn't have fallen into that.

So it is massively important. Did you try other things first? Yeah, so I'm a disabled water ski and wakeboard instructor. And then, so from that, I went over to rowing and then rowing to get Invictus, and then on to Strongman. I didn't apply for Invictus this year, so I'm concentrating on the Strongman. I always find that to be fascinating. There's a lot of people that we have on the show that are high level, and they typically have bounced around from one thing to the other until they found the thing that like perfectly fit them that suits them just right

yeah yeah definitely um you know when although i did i did enjoy my time when i was rowing it was always about watching your diet and all cv and cv and i'll take a rain check on that one well that's a no brainer. Lynn, what is it that made strong man different from everything else that you did, including the Invictus games? Like what, what,

what makes strong man so different for you? Um, we, we basically, um, so you don't see it as much in the able-bodied, but in the disabled side of it, we're basically one big family. We're not going to sit there and wish people didn't make their lists and stuff.

We're screaming for everyone that's on the floor at the time to press what they can, even if it means that they're beating you. And just, yeah, that whole thing blew me away and how tight everyone is. Yeah, it's brilliant. You mentioned how you struggled with kind of accepting what happened. Do you help a lot of other people that have had PTSD and things like that now?

So it's – I never got into support to inspire people, but recently I've had an influx of a lot of messages off disabled people, which, which said, you know, you've really inspired me. You know, I'm going to get off my ass and get to the gym now. And, and yeah, it's a pretty, pretty cool feeling to have. And yeah, it's a pretty cool feeling to have. And also, we're trying to head up one of my gyms to do a specific PTSD course just to get the guys into the gym, lifting weights. It doesn't matter what weights, just any, because getting them out the door is 90% of the battle. You know, when we had Derek Carver on, we asked him, is 90% of the battle.

You know, when we had Derek Carver on, we asked him, he was saying that here in the US, a lot of vets don't get the help that they need after situations like he went through. Now, with situations like PTSD or the other types of problems that happen after horrible events like that in the UK, is there a lot of help for vets like yourself?

Not a massive amount, to be honest. We're still a little bit away behind you guys. Basically, when you get discharged from the military, we don't have anything else to do with you now. So then you go into the National Health Service, which means you're on waiting lists. I've been waiting for back surgery for about six months now, and I got told it was going to be 18 weeks.

So psychiatrists and stuff are available, but they're through the National Health Service. They don't know what they're talking about when it comes to combat-related issues. What's the Benchpress app? So I've written it down. I've converted it for you already. Thank you. Yeah, you knew it was going to be asked, huh?

4-8-5. Nice. God. Yeah, that's gotta be that's gotta be that's gotta be that's gotta be tough and then and then as far as your uh lower body is concerned do you have any uh usage of your lower body or yeah so um when i'm at home i do i do walk around with walking sticks and basically what happened is um so i've got no feeling from any down in my leg but they still function um and and the issue is what i used to be on my feet a lot more but i kept falling over

um and then i i'd end up going hospital, so it wasn't worth it. Yeah, it looks like your legs still have some pretty good size to them, right? Yeah, because I'm not paralyzed. Okay, I understand. That's the difference because from a spinal cord, that blocks everything, so you get muscle wastage. So although my legs are quite big, I would say, but they're not strong. They're just big. But, yeah, it's a sensation really. So,

so you probably, I'd imagine you have to get up and you have to move a little bit to try to keep them healthy. I would guess. Right. Well, this, this is a battle I have, cause I also have arthritis in both of my knees now. So, so I'm trying to move but there again i'm trying to rest at the same time um so it'd be a bit challenging some days you know it's it's so wild you said that you've been waiting for back surgery right but you also just pulled 550 kilos so my like what

what back surgery are you waiting for? Basically, what they're going to do, they're going to burn all the nerve endings off the base of my spine to help with the pain issues I've been having. So, it's not like a massive operation or anything. But I was hoping to have it done before the Arnold's. So, I wouldn't be in pain, but it didn't work out. So are you, when you're doing all these lifts that I'm curious,

like, are you in pain when you're lifting to like, no, no, not at all. Um, I don't even know how to explain it. Um,

but when I load my spine with weight, there is no pain at all. It's only when I put the bar down that i feel pain again yeah it's it's a bit weird but yeah what uh what initially got you motivated you know you mentioned that uh somebody exposed you to some strongman stuff but like what was kind of you know for someone else listening to this that's uh you know just not not very active uh never mind whether they're, whether they have some of the things that you have encountered,

but like just, they're just in a slump. They're not in a great spot. Like what was the thing that was kind of the turnaround where you're like, I, you know, I, I gotta go try this. Right. And then, but beyond that is I need to do this again. Like, shit, I need to do that again. That that awesome. I got to keep doing that. I got to keep going back. Yeah, but, you know, the gym's a bug, isn't it? Once you get in there, you get hooked on it.

And like I said before, you know, your first step's always the hardest. So to get yourself in the gym to start with is a real big challenge. But once you're in there and then you just start, like, don't try and go and be a hero straight away. Just do some light work, you know. Look at other people training. Try and incorporate some of that into your training. And then within a week, you've got that bug.

And then there's no doubt I have to go to the gym. Did you end up going to a strongman gym right off the bat? Is that how you got exposed to it? No. What it was, we were at an Invictus training camp, and one of my friends had one of his friends come along that competes as well, and he saw the size of me, and he says, like, dude, you've got to do this. I tried to put him off for ages because i couldn't really be bothered i don't

think i'd like it um but he kept on bugging me and bugging me so i was like all right i'll come so yeah and then after that one comp i was like i need to be doing this with like i guess the the uniqueness of strongman movements right like strongman isn't like normal lifting it's i feel like it's more complex than more typical lifts um yeah how what drove you to continue dealing with the frustrations of that because you guys are moving stones and especially like you know you're having to do things in different ways was it the complexity that got you so like hooked to it or what exactly was it um i think for me is i wanted to show the world that i'm i don't want to say it but i'm not disabled i want to show the world that you know i can lift

with all the big boys um and just because I'm in a wheelchair, that doesn't mean anything. It's hard to explain really, but I always tell my friends this. I went into a gym one day and I was doing some bench warm-up and we had a young kid come over and said,

do you want to hand me some of these weights? And he started taking them off and I said, no, you need to be putting them on. And then when he saw my bench, he was like, whoa, shit. And that feeling there,

that's amazing. You know, like, for me anyway. Do you make fun of Eddie Hall because you lifted more than him? I haven't spoke to him actually since we got back. But, but, but yeah,

we're going to probably have words at some point. Oh, seriously. It's not the same as a standing lift. I've never, I've never said it is. They're both very different. And what he's done

is amazing. And no one can take that away. I think he was sitting the one that was sitting across from you. Was he judging the lift when you did it? So what was that like? How did that whole experience go? It was pretty cool. we i met eddie

the first time uh arnold's last year um and that's when i did a 501 um and he was meant to be there for the lift but eddie being eddie came late uh so it was just after the lift so uh so i've been talking to him. I was speaking to him for the rest of the year, and I was like, that would be awesome if you're over there. And, yeah, we just managed to sort it out. And I think that's what, you know, the lift was just as much for me as it is for the sport.

And I think having the able-bodied guys around us is only going to elevate us and bring our sport up to the standard of the able-bodied guys around us is only going to elevate us and bring our sport up to the standard of the able-bodied. Has it elevated your game to gain some popularity and to be on social media? And I would say that you're now in a leadership role. A lot of people are looking to you for inspiration and motivation. Does it kind of keep you on point with like doing better, like eating better and training harder and stuff like that? Give you a little extra boost?

Yeah, definitely. You know, like it's for me, it's amazing when people from social media just say, look, we saw your left and we were blown away. You're doing awesome. And that for your self-, does a lot of stuff. And yeah, every time something like that happens, I want to just push and push and push. I want to hit these boundaries. I want to find out where the end game is.

You're mentioning how, in terms of the sport, how there needs to be, like, more, not regulations, but, like, it has to be smoothed out. There need to be more, like, rules and movements or whatever. So I'm curious, what kind of changes would you like to see from the sport? Have you thought about exactly what you think could be added or should be done? Yeah, I'd like every event to be with Deadlift Max Rep. No, I'm quite happy with the events we have. The only issue we have is, well, not so much now,

but in the past, we haven't had the sponsors on to the sport. So getting the equipment and the specialist equipment we need to do some of the more complex things like the stones or loading race you know we need to get the chairs to be these countries um but we've uh we've just took atx on the manufacturer manufacturer equipment and hopefully from here on in it's going to be getting a lot better That's awesome We've already been talking to

some of the guys about having an athlete governing body so either me or one of the other athletes can go to everyone and say look look, what's your issues? Let's take it upstairs to the big man and see what they say. And then one thing that I noticed about strong man. And when we had world's strongest gay, he, he mentioned this too. Um,

that's his Instagram people, by the way. Okay. Um, he was saying how like, how like within strong man, like it really is kind of like, like a brotherhood. Yeah. There there's competition and there are some guys that don't get along with other guys, but for the most part, it seems that within that sport,

the athletes are really, really supportive of each other. Now I'm just curious, like, why do you think that is? Cause I like, it's not only it, it just seems to be like a theme throughout the sport yeah you know for me i wouldn't want to go into a competition knowing i've won it before i've got there so i want the athletes to push themselves as much as as much as i'm pushing myself because

i want that competition and you know even if I'm getting beaten I'll be there saying well done and yeah it just clicks together really well and like I said we call it a family now because

we all get together, we all take the piss out of each other normally around able-bodied people so they can their mouths can drop when i call them special or a spacker or something like that um with uh 8 000 8 000 calories a day like like what are you uh consuming consuming what am i not the whole fridge um so breakfast um maybe do some eggs or some cereal something something straight in straight out kind of thing um you want it in you want it out basically um that's the way that's the way you need it um and then so i split between between about six to eight meals a day depending on what i'm doing

um and you know that that's also bringing in my nutrition side so my protein shakes as well you know one of my protein shakes is a thousand calories alone so um but but, but yeah, it can be quite challenging in 8,000 calories a day. Sometimes you just don't want to eat. And like, for me, I hate eating before I work out. It just makes me feel bad. Um, but, but you have to do it. The group that you train with,

is it a mixture of, uh, adaptive athletes and regular strongman athletes? Nope. Just me. Basically. So I go to three different gyms. One of them is Pacific Strongman Gym, which I do get guidance with if I'm not too sure about something. But the rest of it is self-taught and i've trained myself wow do you have to have a

like a certain kind of car or anything like that or certain uh you know things adjusted to your car for your condition or no yeah yeah so we uh basically they're called hand controls and it's basically a lever that you pull and push so you'll pull it to accelerate push to brake and then a steering ball on the hand on the uh steering ball on the steering wheel that's what i was looking to hear and i'm curious about this because okay whenever I hear strong men talk about the amount of food they eat, it sounds, there's a lot of food that you guys eat. It sounds like a job. It is, yeah.

Oh, yeah, it's part of the sport. Now, you've been eating 8,000 calories a day, and I don't know, you said you started at 86 kilos, and now you're 130-something kilos? 137, I think. 137 kilos and now you're 130 something kilos 137 i think 137 kilos are you still moving up or is your weight like where it is uh so i've been struggling um so before the arnold's i was trying to put an extra little bit on um i know it's smashing everything i could and it just wasn't moving um but since i've come back uh i've started putting on again a little bit so uh just keep eating and get bigger and bigger is there an end goal for that weight like are you just trying to be like okay 150 i'm good or are you just climbing yeah just climbing um i i will move up to

to uh a level where i feel healthy enough to compete. I won't push that. I won't go over that. You know, if I feel bad, then I'll just trim down again. I wouldn't, I don't,

I don't want to be unhealthy. So. Is your upper body pretty healthy or do you have pain like in your shoulders and different things like that? Yeah. So I've got, I've got four screws and a meter of wire in my right shoulder holding that together.

So I get a lot of issues through that. I get a few issues through my elbow as well because I shattered that. But, yeah, it is normally the shoulder. So obviously the metal work was in there, and then I was on a powerlifting camp about three years ago and did my rotator cuff. Didn't listen to the doctors, carried on training, which didn't help at all.

And then, yeah, I worked the Worlds last year in Canada. I threw my shoulder, a very high part of my pec, I tore doing a deadlift. what do you have coming up? nothing at the moment yeah everything's getting cancelled right so we did have the Britain's strongest man coming up

and then the world's was meant to be in Germany but now they've said we're going to postpone it and we're going to take it over to Iceland and do it there. Is that messing with your motivation at all or you're still doing okay? No, for me, the Arnolds and the Brits were a little bit close together anyway, so it's given me a bit more breathing space so I can get my prep sorted and go into it strong. I'm curious how you fight giving yourself excuses because you know you mentioned you just mentioned you had a shattered

elbow um but you still bench and press like crazy and you have other injuries you had to deal with and a lot of people um that don't have just nearly as many things that they had to deal with always give themselves excuses for why they can't do something why they shouldn't be doing something did you ever fall into that or and and if you did how like how'd you combat that well i probably did very early on when i fell into that depressive state um but but yeah i don't really give myself excuses now. Um, I know I'm going to be in pain. I'm going to be in pain every day for the rest of my life.

Um, that's just the way my injuries are. So rather than, than sitting down and sulking about it, you know, you've got to get on with your life at some point. Um, and then you just,

you just drive through that and, and you just get on with your life. Do you think maybe the hardest thing about what happened to you is just accepting the fact that, like, everything that you go to do is just going to be different? Everything that you do is going to be different from the way that you remembered it from when you were younger? You know, everything that you do is going to just, it's going to take you longer, take you longer to go to the grocery store. It'll take you longer to set up the grocery store you'll take you longer to set up doing this log press like everything will just take longer you just at some point i imagine you're just like f it like i'm just accepting of it this is the way it's going to be yeah definitely

you know life life does run at a different pace now for me um and it was quite hard for me to deal with. But again, you know, you've got to live your life. So you just get used to it. And it does take a little bit longer, but, you know, it's not too bad. What do you think you can push this deadlift up to? I mean, it went from, you know, 1,100-something to now over 1,200 pounds. I mean, went from you know 1100 something to now over 1200 pounds i mean what do you think you got the minute the bar went down all i thought is that the year before when eddie didn't see my 501 he did come afterwards and he said to we want to see 600 next time. So when that bar went up at 550, I had this ringing bell in my head that was saying 600, 600.

Obviously, that's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a long time. I don't even know if I'll be able to push it that far. But I'm certainly going to go as far as I can. Is anybody close? Oh, wait. What happened? He's still there what happened wait he's still there oh he's still there okay there you go sorry guys all good is there uh anybody close to like even touching your 501 or your 550 or are you just like up here and everyone's trying to catch up yeah it's pretty weird the uh the second

biggest lift after me in competition is 460. wow so yeah 90 kilos man they got a lot of catching up to do over there huh yeah how about right now as far as like strongmanman placing, how have you been placing on all these different competitions? So last year... I didn't win the Worlds last year. I came fourth because I injured myself in the... Injured myself in the first event doing the deadlift

where I tore my pec but I carried on and got fourth place I won the Arnolds this year I won the Arnolds last year I won the

Iceland's strongest I won the Worlds in Norway so I've been doing alright I normally place at each event I go to to be honest without sounding

too much like a dick but yeah so this year's been a good start obviously new world record and winning the Arnold's I've just got to see how far i can push it this year and see if i can stay injury free do you like a lot of other types of lifting

like do you follow along with like power lifting or even just uh you know regular strongman olympic lifting those kinds of things that get you fired up yeah yeah definitely um. My chest routine is pretty much a powerlifting routine that I do. I haven't really adapted it too much to strongman. I don't feel there's a need to. Every now and again, like I said, every now and again, I'll go and do a strongman technical session. But I believe having that base level of strength is what's going to win these competitions so you could be someone

that's got all the technique in the world but if you haven't got the strength there to lift it um so so that's what i work on mainly are you right now close in terms of like any other records like are there are there records as far as the the log press for adaptive strongman or any of these other lifts or not really yet so it's all getting rewritten at the moment because we've had this new sponsor come in and we've had a new company called strong fit come over um to help us out um they're rewriting it all so in the next six, there will be a list of records. I definitely would like to do the log, and I reckon a stone as well. Hopefully this year we're going to get up to Scotland and do the Dinny Stones, which do you know what the Dinny Stones are? Yeah, is that the weird-shaped stones?

Yeah, the weird-shaped stones, right. The one with metal hooks on. Yeah. Is that the weird shapes? Yeah. The weird shaped stones, right? Yeah. Um, which I believe I will be the first disabled person to lift them if I do. Wow. Yeah. Those seem awkward as hell to try to pick up. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, so, you know, I just, I'll go for as many records as I,

as I can, you know, just keep, I just keep working and keep pushing the sport in the direction that it should be. Check out to see what you're up to next and what kind of lifts you can hit. Hopefully some of your competitions, hopefully they reschedule them and don't cancel everything. But thank you so much, and we appreciate the mental fortitude that you have to push forward and to do these lifts. I was inspired by it, and that's how we got in touch with you. So keep cranking, man. Keep kicking ass. Awesome.

Cheers, guys. Thank you. Have a great rest of your day cool stuff man awesome yeah guy's a beast just damn like the fact that he still needs to to get surgery at the base of the spine and he's doing all the stuff that he's doing right now it's it's i can't wrap my head around that like you can't yeah it's funny because like it makes a lot of sense though mark and i'm sure you've experienced this too like it's when there's no weight on you when it hurts oh yeah like i feel the same thing too like it's that's that's, yeah, that's weird.

It's the constant pain that really bothers you. You know, the pain that just is, it's kind of always there. That's the stuff that really bugs you the most. It's not so much like, you know, something kind of hurts when you're lifting. I don't know. It's to be expected that there's going to be things that aren't always perfect. You feel a little something in your neck or your elbow, your shoulder, your knee. You're going to probably always feel a little something here and there.

But to have it when you're just like getting out of your car, you know, to have it just as you're, you know, just trying to put your shoes on or whatever it might be is really annoying and frustrating. And then to have it there every day, all the time, I can't imagine, you know, what it'd be like to be in his shoes. I mean, I'm sure he has also endured a lot of pain, so that may help, that may help a little bit. His, you know, his one out of 10 rating for pain might be different than what the rest of us are experiencing.

But yeah, that was remarkable. What I always find interesting about people, you know, kind of in these circumstances is like, when you go into the gym, and you kind of have that mindset, or not even really so much in the gym, but like, even just before getting to the gym, you think about what it is you want to do for the day. Sometimes I can be a little lazy about like, I don't even want, I just don't even want to set that up. I don't even want to like, you know, I don't want to take my time to like mess with that exercise, you know, like, cause, cause it takes a while, like even just something like bench pressing or squatting or deadlifting, like it just takes a while to load the weight, you know, and you can be so lazy about it. Like, I don't feel like doing that. Or

sometimes in this gym, um, you know, somebody else is using a rack or somebody else is using something and any, any of the, just this tiniest deterrent and you're already talking yourself out of it. And I think it's awesome that there's people like Martin that just, they don't care about that part. They're just going to, he's going to go to the gym. He's going to do what he's scheduled to do. He's going to get it done.

And he's just accepting of the fact that, Hey, it just takes time. It takes me longer to get it done. And he's just accepting of the fact that, Hey, it just takes time. It takes me longer to set it up than the next guy. Doesn't do me any good to sit over here and complain about it. Cause I have a certain amount of work I need to get done. So I think it's, it's a cool attitude to have. It is. And I think the really cool thing too, is like, you know, for the things that, that Martin's doing right now, things that Tyler's doing, the things that Derek Carver is doing, um, there's no roadmap for it. Like you were saying, you know, we go into a gym and see

something, feel a little uncomfortable. You don't do it. Right. But those guys, like they have to experiment with almost everything that they're doing right now. They're like, they, they're, they're figuring out what works. And I feel like a lot of us have some, in some situations, we kind of just like, unless it's something shown to us or unless we have a roadmap for how to do it we just don't give it a shot right you know we talk ourselves out of it and to have the mentality that they have is would be just that that would change everything for a lot of people i think so and, where can people find you? You guys can hit me up on Instagram at I'm Andrew Z. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project podcast.

That is also on Instagram. TikTok and Twitter is at MB Power Project. And again, I don't know. People still keep commenting nice on a lot of our videos on TikTok. Nice, bro. I don't know where it came from, but it's happening. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. Thank you, everybody that's it's happening uh linkedin facebook youtube uh thank you everybody that's in rating and reviewing on itunes it helps us out a ton

really appreciate that and sema where you be and see my in yang on instagram and youtube and see me in yang on tiktok and twitter mark did you guys see that roast that i cooked up that made i was gonna say something nasty but you know that made you spooge all over the place it made me a little wet it looked so good like just the the the it just looks big and thick thicker than you thought and that was a that was a piedmontese chuck hell yeah yo i was like that oh my god i think it was fat you You know what though? What's this though? This looks cool. I got all excited. I thought it was nachos.

Because it was yellow. Just anything yellow is nachos? No, because it looked like it was like yellow. Like, yeah, look at that. You just automatically think of nachos. I love it. I do like nachos. I love this.

I have a client though that got some Piedmontese and he said he got his whole family on it too. And he was like first off saying how tasty the said he got his whole family on it too. And he was like, first off saying how tasty the meat was and his whole family loves it too. So I'm just loving how we're the, we, so many people are just loving this meat and that, oh my God, smoking.

That looks how, how compared to your hand, how big is that Chuck roast? Like, is it? I think it's massive. It's like two, it's bigger than two hands, you know, put together. it's a it's a it's a fatty it's a fatty

yeah it was really good i threw some i always throw down some bacon some bacon grease just to make it just to make it more yummiest extra flavory well i just like to i don't know it doesn't really need it on there but just having that extra fat down it just it uh helps you kind of grizzle up the outside of it a little bit easier yeah uh last night so remember how i was saying like i went to costco and the ground beef was gone so i'm like well shit i'm here i already probably contracted the damn virus i gotta get something so i picked up some new york strips cooked those last night i i'm gonna have to throw them away like they it's not even close how like they don't taste as good no i mean it almost like it tastes kind of like i had a hard time eating it like in comparison to like what we have at piedmontese i was i was really you know

how frugal i am and i'm like i'm gonna eat this but i'm not happy about it i hate that i hate when that happens and i'm like like you've messed up to eat this, but I'm not happy about it. I hate that. I hate when that happens. And I'm like, you've messed up cooking something or you just have not good quality food. Yeah. You're just gnawing on it and you're just kind of pissed at yourself. You're like, why did it? How did I get myself in this? It's so bad. You go to a restaurant that you really kind of didn't want to go to.

That's that's the worst. That puts you in a grumpy mood. You're just eating it. You're like, yeah. What about like you have your go to at the restaurant and you're like, you know, I'm going to step outside the box today. I'm going to try this. And you're like, I should not have done that.

It screws you every single time. Every time. Yeah. Don't make the same mistake I did, guys. Head over to Piedmontese.com. It's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E dot com at checkout. Enter promo code PowerProject for 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 more, you get free two-day shipping.

Although they did say that as of right now, it's possible because everybody's ordering food, having it delivered, that they might not be able to hit that two-day mark. But they said no more than a week. Highly recommend it. The flat iron steaks are the most delicious thing like i i know you guys like the the fattier cuts like the new york strips ribeyes i just for me a flat iron just is it dude it's it's like it's like if a new york strip and a filet kind of had like a like a jacked baby that's what it is wow because it's super lean tons of protein but it still has full flavor and super tender and there's no bad parts of it like there's no stringiness to it

it is just all just my stomach's growling yeah what are what are our bundles called uh so there's the jacked in 10 box and then the or or yeah, box. And then the power project deluxe bundle. Yeah. Check it out. Yeah. All right. Where can people find you in SEMA? Once again,

yeah. And see me on Instagram, YouTube and see me union on Tik TOK and Twitter. Oh, I'm at Mark smelly bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch y'all later.

What up power project? Uh, thank you again for checking out this episode and thank you everybody that's been rating and reviewing the podcast um it's seriously like the best thank you that we can receive so thank you so much for everyone that's been taking the time out to do that uh real quick we wanted to give a shout out to rj gomez uh rj says christian guzman episode that was a good one quote yoote, yo, first saw Bell in the doc, bigger, stronger, faster, and never knew he had this podcast until hearing it from CG. That's Christian Guzman, YouTube video. Just binge the last few episodes today and love this amazing job. You guys, uh, dude, amazing job on that review. Seriously, that, that, that is a, I mean, I can't even like

overstate it, but that helps us out so freaking much. So thank you for that review, man. I sincerely appreciate that. If you listening right now, if you would like to hear your name read 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 our homie RJ Gomez. All right, y'all. We'll catch you later. Peace.