Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 408 - Sling Shot Then and Now
Episode Date: July 13, 2020Hanging out with just the crew today talking about UFC 251, Mark's history of doing Crossfit Certifications, a BIG announcement in a new supplement line, Andrew's Diet and the 10 Year Anniversary for ...Mark Bell's Sling Shot. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢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 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: 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 #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast hosted by your man Mark Bell,
co-hosted by Nseema Iyang and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. This episode was recorded on July 12th
and it is just with the Power Project crew. This comes on the day after UFC 251, so we talked a
little bit about that. Hope you guys enjoyed that fight card. We did, except for that main card was
kind of a letdown, but hey, what can you do?
Uh, Masvidal took the fight on six days notice. So that's pretty damn savage.
Uh, we also talked about, um, a little bit of history about the slingshot since it is coming up on the 10 year anniversary. Uh, we talked a little bit about its roots, but we ended up
talking more about, um, Mark and, uh, Jesse Burdick's time when they would go around the
country doing CrossFit certifications.
Mark has talked about this in the past, but it was really cool to just kind of dig a little bit
deeper into like, I didn't even know if he even got paid for that. I know that sounds crazy,
but when he does a seminar these days, he does them for absolutely free. And then also we talked
about a huge announcement because I believe this is the
first time Mark has ever talked about it on air, in public, anywhere. But we do have a supplement
line coming out very, very soon. So if you're like me, you're a dork for supplements, it's very
exciting to hear him talk a little bit more and reveal a little bit about what's coming, including what he plans on calling it. And then
lastly, we talked about how some people might have a goal in mind when it comes to their physique,
their fat loss, even strength goals, how we kind of don't really understand how long something like
that's going to take. So what that turned into is Mark and Nsema coaching me on my physique right now.
At the end of last year on Tredageddon, I got into the absolute best shape of my life.
My confidence was through the roof.
I felt amazing.
And then I didn't, I feel like I didn't do a very good job with my rebound.
And I would like to get somewhere near where I was. But again, someone like me, I don't know exactly how long something like that should take.
I don't know the exact steps that I should take. So they consulted me on that and I'm really excited
for myself and for you guys to hear what they had to tell me. Um, that's it for me. Uh, ladies and
gentlemen, please enjoy this episode with just the crew. Uh, catch you guys later. Yeah. And
sorry for, um, my neighbor will be using the damn weed whacker, the leaf blower lawnmower this entire time he just took a break
but he he doesn't stop until like monday night it's insane that's funny yeah every every youtube
video that i shoot um i do walk around a lot but for some reason i'm always like wow there's another
weed whacker there's another leaf blower So anybody who's hopping on those 10 minute walks,
pay attention to how much leaf blowing and how much weed whacking we do in
America.
I'm not sure what the major problem is or if leaves are really causing a big
issue,
but apparently the second they hit the ground,
we need to blow them away.
It reminds me a lot of the Truman show,
you know,
like how everything is staged to
like just for this one guy like i feel like these people are hired by the government to just have
like fucking gas-powered weed whackers going non-stop they're extras they are yeah they're uh
what are they called non-playable characters npcs
they just like happen to walk across the street you're like i swear i saw that same person
yesterday at the same time yep but maybe not you're like i'm kind of imagining things probably
like nah that can't happen that's that's silly that's coincidence but yeah i have instagram so
you have to um i don't know if you can text it to me. Oh, you're on Instagram. Yeah. We could send him a link and he'll be able to watch it.
All right. Yeah. I'll, uh, I'll send him a link. It's, it's, it's so funny.
Mike Tyson finds out he's part Congolese and, uh, it's,
it's like the greatest thing in terms of what they say.
He's probably so excited.
I'm an, I'm a nigga from the Congo.
It's so funny.
You got to listen to it.
Hey,
Akon was on there too.
He's like,
you know,
they,
you know,
I'm not even going to go into it.
He's like,
they fight gorillas and shit.
I'm just like,
wait,
what do y'all talk about?
This isn't good.
You guys cannot be saying this.
Amazing.
People are going to believe it.
My 1% Congo is extremely proud.
Yeah.
Oh man. But yeah but yeah i mean it seemed
we're talking about the fights last night pretty good stuff man but i feel like oh you're listening
to it he is he got part of a congo from the congo ain't that some bullshit no it's not no
can i tell you something about the congolese This is why they at war today. The Congolese, these dudes kill gorillas with their bare hands.
This is why Mike was so strong.
Yeah, for sure.
That man, it didn't matter.
Pop, done.
Congolese, you're going to find a whole bunch of Mikes over there.
Wow.
But that energy is like fearless.
Yeah, yeah.
Conquerors.
Take it on gorillas.
No, straight up.
Like they will literally go toe
to toe with a gorilla and win let's see tyson's reaction he's like really taking it in he's like
so yeah it makes a lot of sense now dude and then uh brad rowe posted a picture of him on a boat
with mike tyson the other day oh that's like's sick. I was like, what the fuck? How'd that happen? But pretty dope.
Weird.
Yeah, it was very random.
It was just a bunch of dudes all jacked on a boat.
Did you guys see those fights, though?
I did.
I caught some of them, yeah.
Pretty cool stuff.
One of the guys did a big weight cut, right?
Yeah, Masvidal he uh he got
the fight with six days notice and he had 20 pounds to cut he made weight but i i mean it's
very apparent that he was not prepared for that fight and sorry maybe that's not the right word
but like you can just tell like when you're not at elite level, you know, like that's, I think it was too, too, too little time.
And that weight cut probably just, I mean, 20 pounds, dude.
Like, would you be able to function like at that, you know, big of a cut?
It's hard to compete at that level.
It's very difficult to compete.
I think if he was doing a physique transformation,
or if he was doing a photo shoot, I don't think it'd be a huge problem.
But when you're trying to, you know, go against, I mean,
you're trying to go against some of the best, you know, it's going to be tough.
That's normal for a lot of those guys. Right. Because like Kamaru Usman,
he's a, he's a former wrestler. He talks about his weight cuts.
Like he'll sometimes drop like 20 pounds, but i think like maybe for masvidal it's
not normal for him to drop that much because he got wrecked he really did get wrecked yeah he ran
out of gas pretty quick and that's why i mean like you know the the six days notice i don't
think it was just enough time i mean i don't think anybody would say that oh that's enough
you know but credit to
him dude he took the fight on six days notice and i understand it was a huge opportunity to you know
go for a belt which has been i mean shit he has like over 40 fights and that was his first time
you know getting a title shot i think so you can't blame him but at the same time like if
he were to say no you could have been like oh like i can't believe
game bread's backing down you know but instead he's like no fuck that let's do this it was pretty
funny i i it was very like much staged but on the flight out to fighter island which is fucking
insane um he was like eating pizza like trying to cut weight but i mean who knows but i'm pretty
sure that was fake but it was just pretty funny because he's just having fun with it you know so maybe the 20 pounds wasn't that
bad for him because you know they're all fighters and they're used to it but man it was uh it was
really cool that he stepped up and did take the fight though the foot stomping was different i'm
i honestly did you guys see that yeah because i've never seen somebody yeah it's been a while
there's uh there was some foot stomping like in like early ufc but yeah it's been a while since i've seen
that it's it's funny now because like um when someone does when someone does these like weird
painful tricks from like the past the guys don't react to it much anymore and i'm like how do they
not react to that like that's got a freaking kill especially if they step like they try to step on like kind of near where your pinky toe is
it's like it's gotta it's gotta kill they try to hit all the nerves in there that's gotta hurt like
hell it's like his heel was going directly on those toes and each time i was just like
that just looks painful like it makes a lot of sense though like if you got to put weight
on that you can't anymore that was that was brutal yeah well someone does that to you in the first
round you know think about how it's going to feel 15 20 minutes later you know it's going to start
to swell up and it's going to start to be all jacked up and yeah that's that's a crazy sport man
yeah it really is it is amazing though when you know he's getting like straight
he's he has that clinch right he there's nowhere to go he's doing the the shoulder punch whatever
you want to call it the foot stomp and then he'll just like just punch him right in the body and
mozavidol just kind of just like like no reaction like dang dude like i don't know you catch me with
like not even a fraction of that force and
i'm going down and i'll be down for a week and he's just like no facial reaction it's like yeah
that's insane it's kind of the only sport we got right now you know there's not really much else
sports wise going on and so if you looked at like twitter you looked at social media everyone was
asking about the fights everybody was posting about the fights. Everybody was posting about the fights. They were posting screenshots and different things of the fight.
So it's kind of cool that the focus is on that and that the sport has gotten to
the point where it's viewed as a sport. Cause it used to not be even viewed as a
sport used to just be viewed as brutality. And it was illegal in most States.
UFC was banned in a lot of places. The UFC was like the original UFC,
the first like five of them or so they,
they couldn't get them sanctioned anywhere.
I think they even had to move them last minute because of things like that.
I think they were like one time they were going to be like,
I think I got this mixed up,
but I just,
they were going to have an event in like Colorado and then they had to last
second, go to Oklahoma. And it was like the same week of the fight.
It was just within a couple of days.
I think they already sold tickets to it and everything.
So they've been through a lot, but congrats to, you know, Dana,
Dana white and just what they've been doing,
like teaching people over the years.
I think Joe Rogan's a big part of it.
I think the announcers are a big part of it
because they've been teaching people about Brazilian jiu-jitsu
and kind of the art of fighting.
And look at the two guys that beat the hell out of each other.
They're sitting in a press conference talking you know about the
fight intelligently and no one's really messed up they're both i mean they both seem like they're
totally fine i'm sure within a couple days most of the uh whatever bumps or bruises they got
they'll heal up just like any other sport yeah and you're right i mean it was only just a couple
years ago where they weren't allowed to fight in New York. Right. So, like, they've come an extremely long way.
Yeah, they had their first ever fights in Madison Square Garden.
Yeah, that was sick.
And then now they got their own island, which I don't know which one came first, that fighter island or, like, what the NBA is doing and doing, like, their whole, like, secluded setup.
and doing like their whole like secluded uh setup so uh and see if you don't know it's they're basically like in orlando like where like disney world is oh the nba yeah and like the teams that
made it to this last like playing like season they're all quarantined they're blocked off they
can't they can't come in or out like they get tested you come in and that's it nobody can come
in and out and so that's what a bunch of people were talking about like well how are they going to get their
side hoes in and you guys have a lot of mad basketball players yeah like you gotta oh my
god you gotta think that's that's true these are dudes that probably from the age of 18 or 19
have not had any problem just getting and
getting any of that. Like I've heard, uh, what's his name? Uh, the beard,
who's the beard from the Rockets? Uh, I heard, okay.
So there's a rumor that James Harden always, always has to, you know,
get his rocks off before a game. That's like, that's a, that's a rumor.
Like he always has to, it's all the time. It's a and just imagine now you you don't have women you don't have your wives
you have to have a lot of angry basketball players like really fast jumping out of the
roof basketball players it's gonna be great it's gonna be great oh god yeah they were showing a
clip of i don't even know who it was, maybe just two younger guys.
They were just like playing cornhole.
You know, it's like that's what they got.
It's like, that's going to be tough.
It'll be tough.
Where is Fighter Island?
Abu Dhabi.
Abu Dhabi.
Yeah.
Where's Abu Dhabi?
I have no idea.
Yeah, it's kind of a cool idea that they put that together.
It's pretty pretty amazing yeah
the amount of money needed to do something like that also though it's like that organization
they've killed it it's amazing maybe he tried to do it before and for some reason they didn't
allow it to happen i don't know it was like earlier in the corona thing we were hearing
about it but he backed out because of something that Disney said, I don't know,
but it's, it's cool that it's working out. That's, it's, it's freaking amazing.
Yeah. So you guys had, uh, we threw around some questions, uh,
earlier via, via some texts. Um,
I've been talking quite a bit about protein leveraging. We've talked about it
a lot on the show in the past. And it's just been something I've been messing with a little bit more
just because I've given my diet a little bit more freedom as of late. And all I really try to do is
I just try to make sure that my protein requirements are met and I try to meet
them first. So I try to get not always all, but a good portion of my protein. I try to get that in
first before I eat anything else. Um, and it's not always just protein. So it's not always like
straight up chicken breast or straight up like egg whites. Um, but I found that it's helpful when it is that,
because you can eat a lot more of just straight up protein, um, not eat a lot more of it. I mean,
you end up with a larger serving of it. Whereas if you have a, like, um, like protein and fat,
it doesn't, it doesn't fill you up as much for the moment, but it might, uh, satiate you and satisfy you
a little bit longer. Um, but an example of that would be like, try to eat like two chicken breasts
before you eat, just kind of like whatever it is that, whatever it is that you want to eat. Um,
I've been playing around with it quite a bit and, uh, I haven't, you know, haven't like, uh,
just thrown in whatever foods, you know, haven't like just eaten completely randomly.
But so far, so good.
I mean, it's been it's been working well.
But like I've had, you know, just cheeseburgers with buns.
I've had hot dogs with buns.
I've had pizza.
I've had like kind of a mix of things that I normally wouldn't eat.
But again, I'm just making sure I'm getting the protein in.
And from like a caloric perspective, I'm sure it's probably working out to be similar or the same.
But anyway, I think this is something that a lot of people can give a try to.
Not necessarily to try to give their diet tons of freedom necessarily, but I think
the main advantage of it would be just to really try to crush your hunger.
That's the way that I would, that's the way I'd say that's the safest way to use it.
Anyone that struggles with diet, struggles with nutrition, just honestly try to eat a
shit ton of protein.
Also, to give you kind of one warning is that if you're not used to eating a lot of protein,
you got to up your dosage kind of slowly because your stomach might not be able to handle it.
So take your time with bumping that up.
But this has been something that's been working good for me.
There's been times where I'll eat like a hundred grams of protein in a sitting. And if I'm still hungry,
I'll just get up and eat another hundred grams. But it's actually very difficult to even eat much
of anything else the rest of the day. It's not that I don't eat anything else the rest of the
day. It's just that I could be pretty full from that for like four or five hours. So
then Seema, what'd you think? No, that hours so then seaman what you think no that's
exactly what you what you just said the very last part of that statement that you said was exactly
what happened to me yesterday um yesterday i was feeling really hungry in the morning and you guys
both know i usually fast for the first part of the day but yesterday i was just like oh i need to eat
so i cooked up a whole thing of ground beef um and, and then I had a New York strip. Um,
I think I had another piece of meat or was it just the ground? No. Yeah. It was just the ground
beef and a New York strip. So I ate the whole thing of ground beef with like two slices of
cheese mixed in with it, which was really good. Um, and then yeah, a New York strip and I was
legit full until the evening. Um, the evening I ate another steak but like i didn't really have to eat
that it was crazy because i was full for for almost the whole day um and all i ate was protein
yesterday i didn't eat any carbs and it's just because i didn't really want any you know so that
like what you said like even trying not necessarily you know i don't think you have to try to eat all
of your protein first but having a bulk of your first meal be primarily protein.
If you're trying to drop body fat and that's one of your goals,
that's going to keep you full for a good amount of time.
And the other part of that would be, I agree with what you said.
I don't think you necessarily have to eat the protein first,
but I would be cautious on if you were to eat something else first, I would just
be cautious on what that is. Uh, for me personally, I've learned that it's kind of hard to flip my
taste buds. So, uh, just like it's hard to, uh, brush your teeth and then drink some orange juice.
Uh, it's, it's hard to, um, uh, it's hard to like go to a movie theater,
eat some Reese's peanut butter cups and then be like, boom,
back onto like a bodybuilding diet. It's like, you're kind of like, ah, the whole day is screwed up and you're going to eat a burrito or whatever it
might be. But you can use this technique in this method with,
with any foods I think. And taking a burrito as an example,
at the moment, I wouldn't And taking a burrito as an example, at the moment, I wouldn't just eat a
burrito. I would try to have a steak first. So basically what it's representing is just that
the quote unquote bad foods or the foods that aren't typically normally on my diet,
they're just representing a really small portion of my diet by keeping those protein calories really high.
And then at the end of the day, if you were to look at carbohydrate intake on some days for me, it might be like 50 grams.
On other days, it might be 200.
On a couple other days, it might have been a little bit, even a little bit more than that.
But it's still not that high. And if you were to kind of do an average per day, you know, it's pretty,
pretty modest at best. The other side of this thing is to try to intentionally keep the fat
calories down a little bit. So try to get leaner cuts of meat, because if we start to take in good amounts
of fat and we start to have good amounts of carbohydrates, that combination does not make
you fat, but it makes it a lot easier to eat more food. So I'm using protein as a lever, as a
leverage to encourage me to actually eat less food, not to encourage me to eat more food.
If you want encouragement to eat more food,
you would simply add fat or add carbohydrates.
Take steak, for example.
If you have like a ribeye,
ribeyes are absolutely amazing because of the marbling
and because of the fat content.
That's a good combination of fat and protein.
But if any of you ever had a ribeye that has a little bit of teriyaki sauce on
it and it's like you feel feel like you can eat that thing with a straw it's so damn good so as
soon as you add some carbohydrates to the mix it makes it easier to eat more and then if you're to
consider that and you're somebody that wants to gain weight, somebody that wants to get a little bigger, get a little thicker,
then you could utilize the carbohydrates as a weapon,
the way that our boy Stan Efferding does where he's eating usually rice in
almost every meal, that combination that he has of the, of the,
of the meals that he puts together with the meat and the bone broth and the
monster mash and the rice that, I mean, shit,
you could eat a big, big ass bowl of that four or five times a day and get
jacked.
Yeah. And I think what I haven't done enough to like, you know,
pregame my meal with a lot more protein,
but like if you were to have like just a plain steak, you know,
like a New York strip and then have like monster mash after that rice tastes so much better.
And then, you know, so if you are, you know, having a hard time gaining, like you can kind
of use that to, uh, to trick your, your mind and your taste buds to just like really enjoy the food.
And when you enjoy it, you're going to probably want a little bit more. So again, if you're trying to lose, maybe take that, take that into consideration with what
you got going on. But yeah, if I eat two chicken breasts, you know, and I eat one before and then
one with, with like some potatoes or something, it's like a celebration. Once I get to the actual
meal, um, what I do normally is I'll just try to eat both of those in conjunction with like the
potatoes, but doing the pregame stuff is pretty pretty fun too i forgot all about that part man y'all really love
chicken breast huh because i have not had chicken breast literally i can't remember the last time i
had chicken breast i really can't i had chicken breast out of a can the other day it was so good
it was amazing i i uh i don't mind chicken breast but it's it's pretty rare that i eat it i mean
i'll get it here and there i maybe eat it like once a month or something like that um but yeah
it just doesn't have the pop that steak does and also you know we got the advantage of having
piedmontese beef which is lean so like why would you even consider to eat chicken breast at that point?
Yeah.
For me,
it's just volume.
I got you.
Okay.
That's true.
Yeah.
It is frustrating though.
When you look at like a Piedmontese flat iron and like all the protein that's
in there.
And then you look at like a mountain of chicken.
You're like,
wait,
hold on.
How is that equal to that?
And then even the,
the,
the steak has less fat,
you know, it's like, it just, it, it's mind modeling, you know, it doesn't make any sense,
but it's, it's freaking incredible. I've just been, yeah, I've literally just been in this
groove of eating just the straight packet of ground beef, just like add some taco seasoning.
And like, like I said, like a slice of cheese or whatever, and just mix that in. Does that
speed, does that be a lot of cheese, just a little bit of cheese and mix that in oh my god it's so freaking good i i don't i yeah it's
so good i love stuff like that that's super easy you know i take the piedmontese hot dogs i chop
them up i cook them in a pan i throw uh yellow mustard on them and some cheese and it's the
best thing ever it's like you're having a
damn party you know there's something i'll let ed you do this but i gotta i gotta talk to you guys
about something after oh man all right well while we're at it for more information on piedmontese
please head over to piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com at checkout enter
promo code power project for 25 off your order and. And if your order is $99 or more,
you get free two day shipping.
Make sure you check out the power project deluxe bundle and the jacked in
tan pack in SEMA.
What you got?
Yeah.
I'll find the video for you guys later after the episode,
but in New York,
apparently like just the culture over there for like,
I don't know,
like the, the, the culture in the black community, man, is when it comes to hot dogs, and not just the Black community, but a lot of community in general, like, when it comes to hot dogs, you cannot eat hot dogs or links around your homies.
Like, you can't, you cannot put it to your mouth and start eating that thing unless it's, like, chopped up or whatever, because he is like there's this video of this guy right he was like he was looking around he didn't know his friend was recording and then
he started putting the hot dog to his mouth and she was like hey yo then he spit it out
and threw it at his homie and it was so hilarious
because he legit like turned and he's trying to go like this and then they started screaming and he just threw the hot dog away uh yeah what are you doing so you mentioned chopped up link i'm like you probably
chopped it up for another reason yeah i don't ever eat it that way actually
something in the back of your head that's like you can't do it
you can't eat any phallic symbols.
No bananas either.
Oh, man.
I'll never look at a hot dog the same way again.
I really can't.
That's amazing.
Another thing you guys sent me was
about the 10-year anniversary of Slingshot.
Slingshot's going to be 10 years old.
Can't believe it yeah we've been we've been uh we've been doing it for a while now so
yeah it feels good um july 27th is my wife's birthday and it's also the 10-year anniversary
of the slingshots the slingshots birthday we went to uh press bistro in sacramento
to celebrate that 10 years ago um i remember like we were sitting there and we were
um like hey like did it sell like because we we put it up on the website and then we just didn't
check for a while on purpose because we wanted to see like uh you know what would happen and
stuff like that and so we checked and we're like,
oh yeah, there's like five orders for it. There's, you know, and I think throughout the night there
was a few extra orders and that was kind of weird cause we're like, oh, we're here spending money,
but like money went into our account. That's pretty cool. That's awesome. And, uh, even from
that day forward, I mean, it's like, um, I think people, you know, now it's not so much about really going to the mailbox just because everything's like electronic.
But people used to really fear going to the mailbox because they're like, all I ever get is all I ever get is bills.
But when you have an invention, that's not all that you ever get.
You actually see your bank account increase and it doesn't feel like you did anything, but you kind of get residuals for an idea or a concept, I guess, until the day you stop selling it. that people want to continue to order and then also to have taken a product that was an invention
and then turn that invention into a business because they're all different things.
Being someone who has invented something doesn't mean that you know anything about business.
They're different things.
doesn't mean that you know anything about business. They're, they're different things.
Maybe they're, they're not even as different as like bodybuilding and powerlifting. They're like as different as like bodybuilding and cycling or something like there's, they don't have a whole
lot to do with each other. And it's a completely different thing that you have to learn, even though they're both, they're both things that, uh, having some creativity would be helpful for. Um, we've all seen it before.
We've seen people with excellent ideas that haven't gotten anywhere. And then we've seen
people with ideas where you're like, that doesn't even seem that cool. I mean, a lot of people don't think my idea seems that cool, but, um, you,
you can still make it, uh, simply by working hard to make it a thing. You know, I had to,
I had to try to make it a thing and, uh, made it a thing. And then here we are 10 years later.
When you guys put it live on the website, um, how did you let people know that it was,
you can go out and buy this, this new device that you have no idea really what it is?
Yeah, so the way that that worked out, it worked out pretty good because I was already lifting.
I was in the middle of my powerlifting career.
You can probably make it the equivalent of Nsema wins SEMA wins, uh, worlds in jujitsu.
He's black belt.
He's been doing it for many years.
And, you know, at the same time, he has an invention that makes jujitsu easier, makes
it, uh, more safe or more fun or hurt less or whatever it is.
Right.
So, you know, with, with, with that, with, uh, with,
with somebody winning, you know, some competitions or somebody winning some,
um, things or setting a record or any of this stuff, like I did in powerlifting,
I was lifting some of the biggest weights at that time. And so it wasn't hard for me to just, yeah, announce to people.
I just did it via some social media.
There wasn't as much stuff then.
I think, you know, 10 years ago, I don't remember exactly what we had, but I know for sure that I at least had YouTube.
You can still see a lot of the original videos on there when
I talk about it. Um, there's videos where I lift with it and I don't say anything about it a couple
of times just cause I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but you can kind of see it in
the video if you were paying attention. Um, those videos were shot on a potato, so you can't really see, can't really see everything
that good.
But, um, yeah, just, uh, you know, I was known for, for powerlifting and for being a powerlifter
and luckily probably about four or five years earlier, I started to talk, um, and I started
to, you know, voice my opinions on lifting and I voiced my opinion on how to get stronger.
And it was already giving people information.
I don't really know what triggered that other than I just felt like I could give people information maybe in a more simplistic way.
Because at the time, you know, all people really knew was like the West side method.
And it seemed like complicated for some reason. I don't know why.
I think everybody, I don't think Louie really made it that complicated.
I think that everybody's interpretation of what Louie was trying to say was,
was they, I think they were making it more complicated than it needed to be.
And then when I started doing like 800 pound squats and 900 pound squats,
I was like,
that seems good enough for me to start voicing my opinion and telling people,
even though I still felt very much like a student. Yeah.
And I started just kind of talking and sharing with people, you know,
how to get stronger. And then the team started getting really strong too.
We had other people squatting 800, 900, you know, how to get stronger. And then the team started getting really strong too. We had other people squatting 800, 900,000 pounds, benching 700, 800 pounds, deadlifting seven,
800 pounds. And so as that was coming, that made me really confident in what we were doing.
So I was like, Oh, well, it's not just working on me. I'm not just like, you know, making shit up,
you know? So it was combination of, you know,
learning some stuff from Louie and then mixing in my own things.
And when I mixed in my own things, that's when I was really like, Oh, okay.
I have something here. And then I started sharing it.
And then as soon as I started to sell something, people weren't like, Oh,
this guy's just trying to sell me on some shit. You know, I didn't start out trying to sell anybody on anything. I just was
simply sharing information. What was it like, like, or sorry, was there somebody that was like
using the slingshot, like out in the wild where you're like, oh shit, it's reached this person
or it's reached this state or you know this part of the country
um and you know i know social media wasn't as big as it is now but like did you see something
online and you're like oh fuck like that's amazing yeah you know i i think you know jesse
burdick was a big part of it from the very beginning and uh having his team use it was was
huge um handing everything over to your friends
you know and handing everything over to your buddies like you just kind of hope that they're
they're nice you know yeah yeah i mean you want them to give you you know information but at the
same time you really don't you want them to be like hey hell yeah this thing's great you should
sell it you don't really want a lot
of resistance, but having Jesse's team use it and having people of different shapes and sizes
utilize the product. Also around the same time, I was like, you know, it's interesting now because
people are like, Oh, I know you're so busy. Well, I'm not, I'm not busy, not, not anything compared to what I used to be because I used to
just, I used to like live in the gym. And then on top of living in the gym, I was doing CrossFit
certification seminars with powerlifting. Um, and I was just, I don't know, my kids were younger
and just shit was like more chaotic. It was a lot harder to be ahead at that moment. Um,
but yeah, going through some of the,
going through, going to some of the CrossFit seminars and stuff was really big because now
I had somebody that was, you know, five, eight, five, nine, 180, 100, 190, 170 pounds, whatever
they might be. And it was just more of like a regular fit person. And it wasn't just a power lifter.
And I think maybe around the same time, I started to look into ways of marketing the product.
Not like I was like reading books or anything, but I was just trying to think outwardly more about how I can market the products.
reading books or anything, but I was just trying to think outwardly more about how I can market the products. And then I ran into something that was said by Joe Weider. And I think Joe Weider
basically said, if you go to a gym, you're a customer of mine. And I was like, that's it
right there. That's perfect. So if you go to a gym, you're a customer of ours at Slingshot.
You don't have to be a bench presser. You don't have to be a power lifter. You don't have to weigh 300 pounds. You don't have to even be
strong by anybody else's considerations. You just need to be, if you lift then. And so that, that
gave me a lot of insight into, okay, well, if we're going to try to be, you know, more inclusive, and we're going to try to be for
everyone that lifts weights, anyone that does resistance training, well, then maybe we shouldn't
just assist your shoulders in like a bench press, push up or dips, maybe we should, you know,
support the elbows, support the wrist, support the hips, support the hips support the whatever, you know?
So we're just trying to think of as many different ways to try to cover people,
uh, from head to toe.
Marketing too. I can't believe like when you guys started,
I don't think there was Instagram or Facebook when you guys started selling
slingshots or was there,
there definitely wasn't Instagram. Um,
Instagram came not too long after um and then i i do remember utilizing facebook a lot for stuff but i don't i don't remember if
that was in the beginning or not the only thing i can think of that may have been around at the
time but may have been like myspace but i don don't recall utilizing that. I think, I think it was just,
I think it was mainly, uh, I think it was mainly YouTube. I don't remember. I'd have to,
I have to go back on my Facebook page and check it out, I guess. I don't know.
I think so. By that time, my space was already like fading away and then Facebook had already well more than took over.
And then Instagram was an iPhone only app back in those days.
So, yeah, half more than half of the market wasn't even didn't even have access to it.
So I think I was two or three years late to Instagram, too.
I didn't hop on right away.
I was like, I already have like Twitter and Facebook and I don't know,
like we've seen this happen a bunch of other times. And like,
I don't want to have to have another, you know, just like everybody else.
Like I don't want to have to mess with Tik TOK or whatever,
whatever the new thing is, you know? And, uh, but yeah, eventually it just,
it took over enough. But back to your main question, Andrew, about like going around to those CrossFit seminars
was big and having other people try it on.
But I think I was, I was in, um, I was in Montana and, uh, Montana is a very like simple
area, simple part of the United States.
Uh, I remember like I saw a sign that said like airport and, simple part of the United States.
I remember like I saw a sign that said like airport and like there's the airport.
Like it's not like L.A.
Like L.A. you see a sign that says airport and there's like an arrow and you're like, OK, I'll follow that.
And then you start following that.
You're like, oh, shit, it has me turn.
There's an airport sign going that way.
Then you're like there's an airport sign going that way.
You keep trying to follow it and follow it and you always get lost.
Then you end up being spit out on like some, you know, freeway.
But I was in Montana.
I think I was in Billings, Montana, if I remember correctly.
And I went to a CrossFit place.
They were fans of super training at that time, and they had some of the product.
And somebody there mentioned, they're like, oh, man, I see your slingshot all the time.
I was like, oh, that's cool, because I knew it was at that gym.
And the guy goes, yeah.
He goes, I train on the other side of town.
He's like, and I train in an area where there's like, he's like, it's real remote.
There's like, you know, maybe 1500 people in our town. He's like,
we were one of those you know, one stoplight type of place,
one little post office type of place.
And there's a gym down the street from me and I go in there and train.
And he's like, that's where I see the slingshot all the time. I was like, Oh,
I was like, you see it at your gym over there.
You're not talking about in here.
He goes, oh, yeah, he goes, I don't train here.
And that's when I was kind of like, oh, OK, that's different.
You know, I haven't really thought about that or haven't really heard that. I did see that there was orders coming in from all over the place.
I remember for some weird reason that there was a lot of orders from
the East coast. I don't know why. I don't know if that has anything to do with where I'm from or,
or it might have to do with the, uh, might have to do with popularity of powerlifting. I'm not sure.
But, uh, anyway, yeah, I remember that, that specific day and that specific moment of the guy in the
middle of nowhere montana saying that like he sees a bunch of people use the slingshot products
and i know you've talked about the the crossfit certifications quite a bit on previous podcasts
and stuff but because it was a different time like i know today if you were to do a seminar
or something you would you do you just do them for free because you're not looking for any money when that sort of, uh, for that sort of thing.
But back then, were you getting paid to go around the country to do those?
Yeah, we would get paid from, uh, would get, I would get paid from Louie Simmons.
Uh, I didn't really officially work for CrossFit.
Um, all my checks were, had Louie Simmons' name on it.
So I worked under the umbrella of Mr. Louie Simmons, myself, and Jesse Burdick,
along with Laura Phelps, who was another person that was going around the country
and teaching some of the powerlifting certs.
I can't remember how we got paid, but I remember we got paid well,
and I just remember it was so much fun.
That was the main thing.
I just remember it was like me and my best friend get to go teach powerlifting
to a bunch of people that are hungry for it, that really wanted to learn.
You know, these people, sometimes they would take those cert classes
just to kind
of have the extra certification, but a lot of times they really wanted to learn. They really
wanted to know. And it was, uh, yeah, it was, it was a blast. How much coffee would you drink
during those seminars? Yeah, because we were traveling around quite a bit and, uh, we, um,
you know, you just, you get off of one flight and get on another flight.
And like we were moving around pretty, pretty good for two, two fat guys.
We just drank tons of coffee and we always knew like later on the night that we were going to, you know, just have some big blowout dinner. And so we wouldn't really eat.
We didn't know anything about like intermittent fasting or anything.
So basically we would just like live off of coffee all day,
probably fast for a good like 20 hours and then, and then just, you know,
bombard ourselves with tons of food, have a big, a big feast later on in the day. But we felt we would feel awful. It's like, you know, you know, bombard ourselves with tons of food, have a big, a big feast, uh, later on in the day.
But we felt we would feel awful. It's like, you know, you could, you couldn't get some good sleep
on the plane. And then it was, uh, you know, you're just, we were excited to be in whatever
town or city we were into. So we're like, Oh, let's go find the local gym. Let's go,
let's go meet up with this person. Or we were always trying to connect or hook up with other people that were in the industry and stuff too.
So we sacrificed a lot of our sleep for that.
And we would talk for six hours or eight hours and Jesse would like,
you know, be like drawing on the whiteboard or something, explaining something.
I'm like, Holy shit. I'm like, he's lost. And even worse,
I can't take over at the moment because I'm lost.
And then anytime anybody ever asked us if we needed anything, we're like, yeah,
we need coffee. And you guys know how horrible that makes you feel when you're like,
you're super tired. Like all you need is to lay down for an hour or two and you'd probably be
fine. But you just keep reaching for that cup of coffee. It was terrible.
And I'm willing to bet.
Sorry.
Go ahead and team.
How long were you guys doing that?
By the way, like how many years was that?
It was about two years.
Just two years.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's pretty dope.
Yeah, it was fun.
And I'm willing to bet you guys probably never like prep like this far is like,
okay, it's section one, section two,
or did you guys have to because it was a certification just jesse kind of did a little bit more of that you know i'm always
up there like freestyling you know but uh yeah it was um it was interesting you know it's interesting
for me to uh to work for somebody else you know it just, it was just to get what, it was just another case. I mean, it was more proof that I don't work well with
others in that way. You know,
it was like me and Louie were always butting heads and Louie's like,
you didn't explain, you know, like he,
he wanted me to always like go into super crazy detail about like accelerated
eccentrics and stuff. I'm like, Lou, these people, they don't care.
They don't, he's like, you need to make them care. I'm like, I, they just want to sit there.
I'm like, they sit there with their arms folded. They're like, yeah,
it's like somebody that goes to see a comedian. They're like, okay, go ahead.
Make me laugh. You know,
like cause these are people that already know how to train, right?
These are, these are usually these are CrossFit already know how to train, right? These are, these are, usually these are CrossFit, uh, box owners already. You know, we would,
we would kind of refer to them as like level four fire breathing CrossFitters,
you know, they, they could, uh, they could shoot fireballs out of their eyeballs. Um,
they, they kind of knew, they knew a lot already. Right. And so, uh,
I think they were just kind of fold their arms. Like,
what are these two fat guys going to teach us? You know? And so we had to,
we had to get their attention.
We had to get them moving because they weren't going to,
they weren't just going to listen to like theory about, you know,
dynamic effort work. And they also, they also were smart, you know,
they're, they're, they're like, okay,
And they also they also are smart. You know, they're they're they're like, OK, that works for a bunch of guys that are huge, that are probably enhanced because I don't know if you can squat 900 pounds drug free.
We see some people do it nowadays, but back then you just didn't really you didn't see anything like that at the, at the, at that time. Um, and then also we were still all in powerlifting
gear. So the people they wanted, they wanted to learn. Um, but at the same time they wanted you
to like prove your theory to them. So we had to get them moving. And so that's how we started out.
We started out every seminar by actually really just running everybody into the ground. Cause
we were like, this would be the best way to start seminar.
Let's first 30 minutes of the seminar. Let's just fuck them up.
Like let's have them do, let's have them do sled drags.
Let's have them do kettlebell swings. Let's have them,
let's show them a little bit of bodybuilding.
So the first half an hour or 45 minutes or so was just an all out blitz.
Like you guys are the fittest in the world. All right, let's see it.
And so we, we would just, we would pile shit on them and, and, uh,
then they would sit down, they would be like all huffing and puffing, but we had their attention right from there. We were like, let's just, let's just get on top of them the second we get in
there and let's, uh, let's just show them what's up. And, and a lot of times we would do this stuff
with them. And so they would see us dragging a sled and doing a lot of stuff with them.
And they would be like, Oh, okay. Maybe there is more to this.
Maybe there is more to strength than we thought, you know,
maybe strength is never a weakness. So we had to kind of like prove it to them.
They were, they were just kind of like, uh, sitting there like, you know,
you guys better show us something kind of thing.
Yeah. And again, because it was a different time and we weren't around,
but what were the turnouts like?
They were, they, they would vary quite a bit. It was actually really weird.
It just, it depended a lot on the box owner, how,
how into it the box owner was. Sometimes there would be 20 people at it.
Sometimes there would be like 50 and we've had
some where there was only like 10 but we got paid the same so we were always like man they should
they should load these things up more with uh with uh with more people but you know louis had
a very specific way he wanted everything taught he wanted it taught over the course of two days. And I was like, this should be like a six or eight hour thing that we do in one day.
And we could try to teach this to people for four weeks straight and they wouldn't get it.
So we may as well condense the course and chop some of the fat off of it, you know.
and chop some of the fat off of it, you know, but Louis, you know,
Louis wanted us to, to, to explain, you know, everything under the sun in terms of strength. So.
I'm curious about like, you know, nowadays,
cause like the stuff that you were explaining there,
it allowed them to get a certification in that weekend. Right. Okay.
But like, there's so much information that, you know, how there's nowadays,
there's an online certification, but then there's also an in-person thing that you have to go to.
Did you guys ever think, do anything like that or, or, or not?
It was just like a two or three day thing.
They get their, they test, they get their cert.
Yeah, it was just a, it was just a two day.
You know, the, the different certification courses they have for CrossFit,
they all work a little bit differently,
but the power lifting one was pretty much like if you just went to it and paid
for it, you pretty much got it, you know? And so a lot of, a lot of times,
a lot of times people would send,
they would send somebody from their training facility, you know,
to the event. And then they would just, that way in their facility,
they had someone who was certified in powerlifting.
They have somebody who was certified in whatever the hell else they had.
They had, you know, they had mobility with Tourette, you know,
and they had, you know, they had a bunch of different ones, which is great.
And I think they still have those.
I think they switched them up quite a bit, though.
I don't think they have powerlifting necessarily anymore.
I don't know if nutrition is separate the way it used to be.
Nutrition used to be separate.
It was taught by Rob Wolf.
But I think they integrated more stuff into actual CrossFit rather than calling it different names type of thing.
But CrossFit is interesting in and of itself.
I know it's come under some scrutiny as of late, but they did get a new owner.
And hopefully things get resolved with that because I think that CrossFit as a fitness movement, I think, is fantastic.
And I hope it continues on because I think it's just – I think the more fitness stuff we have going on, I think it's helpful.
But CrossFit is actually – I think that people, maybe they don't know, the other CrossFit certification courses are actually very hard.
And to keep your affiliate to be up to date on the coaching and how it's done.
I mean, they have the most sophisticated if you know anybody that owns a CrossFit next time they have to like re-up a test or anything like that.
You should ask them if you could sit there and watch them take it because it's
fucking hard. I mean,
we've had like five or six of us at a party before where we're like,
like one of our friends had to like do this test. And so we were like, Oh,
we'll help you with it. And we just never got around to helping her with it.
And then she just brought her computer over to this time.
We had a bunch of people over and it's like me and Jesse.
And I think maybe Katie Hogan was even there.
And we're all trying to like help our friend with this.
And Katie teaches these certification courses. So it was hard.
We were like, a lot of it had to do with like judging,
like trying to judge, like if somebody did something properly in terms of, say like a burpee or something like that, or like trying to judge, like, um, if somebody did something properly in terms of say,
like a burpee or something like that, or, uh, like a thruster, you know, or a, um, a wall ball.
And then it's like, they do everything right, but they didn't, they weren't hitting depth on
a couple of them or something like that. And you kind of just miss it. And so, um, they, they,
I think that they do a great job in terms of uh teaching people and that's really
what the whole thing is all about so would it be like a video of somebody doing it oh yeah super
clean too like the video is like you know it's all dialed in it's all professional and everything uh
everything works i wonder everything works well when you're when you're going through it i wonder
if some of that stuff's going to be uh kind of like lightened or they're going to like cramp down even harder in regards to like the certifications and passing those tests now with what happened this year.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm not sure.
We should get the owner on.
We should talk to him and see what his plans are.
My understanding is he has a business background. So there you go.
Once again, you know, back to what I said in the beginning, the inventor, the creator,
you know, it's not always the best guy to continue everything forward. I sort of recognize that
myself as well. I think, you know, the best, in my opinion, the best way for slingshot to like double what it is now
is to get somebody new in, you know what I mean? Like, cause I don't know, I don't know about that.
You know what I mean? I don't know about, uh, running a company that's of that size.
This is everything I pretty much envisioned in my crystal ball in the beginning was to kind of get to
about where we're at. And for whatever reason, nothing else,
nothing else ever came to me kind of beyond this point, you know?
So I'll have to kick myself out of my own business at some point, I think.
But there've been a lot of like, I mean,
you guys have come out with a lot of new products that have been doing really
well and that continue to do really well.
So you don't think it's just a product thing now.
You think it's more so figuring out different ways of expanding it in other ways?
Yeah.
I think it's exposure, you know, getting more people exposed to the products and continued education, you know, education of what the products are, what they do.
A lot of people don't even really know how good an elbow or knee sleeve feels.
You know, a lot of people are like, I think you mentioned and Seema, your uncle's getting into some training and stuff.
And there's a lot of people out there, my uncles, my aunts, a lot of just family members that, you know, are in my inner circle.
They work out and they know what,
they know what I make. And sometimes they don't even really realize that the stuff that I have
can, can help them. Um, I, one of my, uh, uncles actually wears our sports sleeves when he plays
golf, you know, he, and he takes pictures of them every time. He's like, I'm rocking your,
rocking your knee sleeves, you know? And I think just having that extra bit of warmth, I think gives you a little bit more confidence.
And then maybe it gives you just like an awareness of like, oh, yeah, that's the hurt knee or that's the side that's a little jacked up.
So I think sometimes, yeah, people don't even.
And then how do you solve that problem?
It's like that's a tough one to solve.
Going to trade shows and stuff
those things uh helped a lot in the beginning but it's like logistically it's impossible to try to
get to all of them and to try to get in front of that many people but as you guys seen when we go
to those trade shows and people do try on our products, they almost always buy it because they're like, shit, that feels really good.
So, yeah, just trying to get more people more experience with it.
And then advertising, you know, advertising is huge.
A lot of companies are they're like, oh, we don't advertise. Like we're not into that.
You know, we, we do word of mouth, but then they spend so much money on giving out free
product or they have an affiliate program.
Everyone has to pay the price of advertising.
No matter how they try to claim that they don't, you, you end up, you end up paying
some sort of price.
So in the beginning, we, we did do a lot of word of mouth,
and we did give out a lot of free products.
But now we spend more money on just anyone who has a new company,
just a heads up, like just spend money on advertising.
It's just easier.
Why have an influencer when you don't really know the behavior of that person and you don't know
their ability to sell something. Just pay an advertising company because they're professional
at it and they'll make a sick commercial for you. You're, you're, you're better off in my opinion.
There are, there are certain products where having the influencers can be beneficial. So you have to
kind of weigh the pros and cons of it, but it's, uh, everyone, you know,
at this, at this stage, it's just so common to see advertising. Um, everyone's more open to it
nowadays. And if you look at, um, even YouTube, you know, in the beginning when YouTubers started
having a little bit of, uh, advertising before their videos would play people were frustrated now people are like kind of they're it's like um it's part of it and i think
people are like they're more supportive of it or when somebody mentions they have like a patreon
or something like that you're just like oh well that's cool because this guy gives me like sick
information you know so people aren't as uh resistant to uh advertising as they used to be i don't think
yeah with you know given as much information as you uh feel comfortable with but looking in your
crystal ball like what would be the next step to uh you know is it getting slingshots in target is
it uh you know making slingshot a household name by doing X, Y, and Z. Like, what do you think
it's actually going to take? Like, in your opinion right now, what it will take to like,
you know, 2X what we got going on right now? It's all of the above, man. Everything you said,
try it all, you know, try to figure out as much of it as possible. Getting into retail,
of it as possible. Getting into retail, the first thing I would think in my head is no,
but that's just because I don't have any knowledge of retail. I don't know what that means.
I could say, oh, Andrew, that's a stupid idea. And then a couple of days from now,
I could run into someone that sells a product at Target and they're like, yeah, we sell just from target alone.
We sell over $20 million worth of product a year. I'd be like, what? Andrew,
Andrew knew what he's talking about. Um, so a lot of times it's,
it's a matter of just, you know, having the knowledge, being creative, um,
and really just trying stuff. I mean, we, my wife and I, we talk about many, many different scenarios of, uh, you know,
what it would look like if we did this, what it would look like if we did that,
um, in terms of like selling stuff in retail places, we have never,
we have never really explored that that much. We looked into it a little bit.
Um,'s just, it's something that ends up bringing
an entirely different, I think if the internet was further behind, we'd probably look into it
more aggressively. But the internet, you know, the internet has kind of taken over a lot,
a lot of stuff that retail does, but, you know, retail allows you to put the product on,
you know, what I just said earlier, like people don't really know.
My worry and my concern would be that it would hurt the brand because the brand might sit there
on the shelf and I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to see that, you know, but again, that's just,
that could also just be a lack of knowledge on my part. Um, especially the slingshot, like the slingshots, not necessarily,
um, self-explanatory, but with a good picture on the box of it or something like that, I think you
could, um, you know, maybe solve some of those, some of those problems, but yeah, to, to try to
get to the next level, um, with anything,
it's always just, how do we gain more knowledge? How do we, um, creativity is a funny thing
because if I came into the office and I said, all right, we need everybody to be more creative,
then it's like, uh, you try to like put your thinking cap on and it's kind of hard to think that way.
Creativity, like it doesn't usually work that way.
Usually like you're taking a shit or you're sidetracked doing something else.
Or like, Andrew, you've had a lot of issues with your back over the years.
And who better to make something for the lower back than somebody
who deals with the pain. Oh, I wish they'd created something like this that would work this way. And
so, um, that's usually how creativity works. And, um, we'll just have to keep figuring out ways of,
of, uh, of being creative. But I also just think, you know, rolling the dice and taking some risks,
like, you know, maybe having a commercial on some risks like, you know, maybe having a
commercial on TV. I don't know, like maybe something like that would, would work well.
We're really just kind of dipping our toes into, uh, having, um, you know, some professional
commercials done, not, not just things that are just, um, kind of standard for Instagram or YouTube or any of
that. We're doing some things that are on an, on another level at the moment. And so be interesting
to see, uh, I'm really excited about the, the, the future of that. Cause we have a few commercials
on the horizon that are just, they're fucking awesome. They're really cool. And then, you know,
we also have supplements coming out, you know, and that's, um, it'll be under a different brand name. Um, and you know, that,
that will take us to a new category where we have a couple of things that we're working on that I've
been trying to work on for a really long time, but again, just didn't have the knowledge of
how to work on it. We have a lot of stuff in the apparel category.
So I think, you know, sometimes there's something like that,
like just being able to having access to different manufacturers,
being able to make and create some different things, you know, just,
it can really, it can really change. It can change everything in a moment.
You know the slingshot itself obviously was like a game changer in my life.
And then the second thing that kind of came after that was the knee sleeves
changed the company quite a bit. Like we couldn't keep them in stock.
And that's kind of the goal is like,
you're looking for the next, the next knee sleeve, you know, something that we have at the offices
now that I can't really talk too much about. I feel like it's, it's a product that can be a real
game changer. The only thing is it's just, um, from a logistic standpoint, it's not anything that we normally deal with.
It's a bigger item.
It's an item that takes up more space and more room.
And so, again, it's like, well, what do we know about shipping bigger products?
We don't know much about it.
I know that my logistics guy knows a lot about it, but I don't know how much of that we want to get into.
Or do I want to just like license this thing out to a different company or, you know, we'll see.
We'll see what we're able to do. Not everything's always about profitability either.
A lot of it's just about making a mark, making the world a better place to lift. Right. So, um,
as long as I can do that, I don't mind, uh,
kind of giving my product to another company to have them make it because
they'll do a better job. That kind of thing.
You know,
quick question because there's probably someone listening that wants to get into stuff like that. If they don't know someone like you,
who knows like individuals who know manufacturers, do they just Google search manufacturers and go
from there? Because like, you've probably had to go through so many different bad manufacturers
until you found someone that helped you figure or someone that like you were able to
make something good with so how does someone go about finding a good manufacturer yeah you know
the internet is powerful and and like i i took my um i took my iphone a long time ago and i typed in knee wrap manufacturers.
And manufacturer number one wasn't very good, but manufacturer number two was perfect.
And that's been the manufacturer I've had since that time.
So that's worked for 10 years.
Just don't give up. You know, a lot of people, they run into a roadblock
and they give up or they may be put too much from a financial perspective into the first thing they
did. Just try to have your, you know, you only have, you have a small pain threshold in the beginning. You know, for example, when it comes to like betting, you know, Michael Jordan, you know,
he's kind of notorious for making bets, but I would imagine that he could be like,
yeah, well I'll bet you on that for 50 K and other people are like, wait, what?
And so if you remember in the documentary,
a lot of times when he bet it was like five bucks, 10 bucks.
And that that way,
it's just because the other guys can't afford to have that amount of money out. And so from a
business perspective, you know, just if something sounds like it's a stretch, if something sounds
like it's a little too much and you're not that far along yet, then don't do it. You know, don't, don't overstretch yourself. Don't just try to do
things, uh, on the cheap, try to explain to people that you're new. You're like, I don't know what
I'm doing. Um, and I, you know, I'd love to get this product off the ground because a lot of
times a manufacturer can help you. They can say, all right, well, cause they might, they might just think, okay, well,
if I can make this thing for this guy and this ends up being something he sells, you know,
10,000 of them every year, that gives me, you know, some business. And so sometimes
manufacturers should be able to make prototypes and stuff like that for free as well.
And when they don't, then, you know, you might have to kind of poke
around for some other people and find one that will, because a lot of times they want, they want
your business, you know, they should want your business and they, now that they shouldn't have
to make, you know, 75 iterations of what it is you're looking for. But they should be able to
make you a couple of them in the beginning to
kind of get you going. At this point, we get a lot. We get an insane amount of samples that are
free. But I'd also say that a smart manufacturer, someone that's been around for a while,
they kind of include that in the price of the product as it
is. So there's a couple extra cents or maybe even a couple extra bucks tacked on to every product
that you have, um, kind of forever because they know that there's going to be some back and forth
on, on each item. Um, the other thing is too, when it comes to, uh, manufacturers, you really want to be able to see, um, you know, what they're capable of.
So you may want to ask for, um, you may want to ask like, like what can they, you might, might, it might not be aware of all the different things that they can do.
Um, for example, they might make t-shirts, um, but you might not know that they make mugs as well.
They might be able to make notepads. They might build, they might not have access to all kinds
of stuff. And so you may as well, um, kind of ask, cause they just, sometimes they, sometimes they do
all of them do all of that themselves. And sometimes it's like easier for them to act as a
middleman for you. And so that's what you want to know when it comes to having a manufacturer.
But they're not hard to find.
Not like they're hiding, you know?
Yeah, we get DMs every day from somebody talking about what products they can make and willing to send samples and stuff.
So they're out there.
you know willing to send samples and stuff so they're out there but one thing real quick it just reminded me when you're talking about betting um last night during the fights they showed a
tweet saying that uh somebody bet two hundred thousand dollars on masvidal to win and if he
won he would have got like a six hundred and sixty thousand dollar uh payout and but yeah so it's
like if you're having a bad day just remember somebody lost
two hundred thousand dollars on a freaking bet last night yeah like that's painful
i know it might have been a drop in the bucket for that person it could have been
that's yeah yeah i don't know that's that um that stimulus package i guess
the the uh business payouts or whatever they're called buyouts or
right you know that sort of thing um but mark you mentioned um sorry i'll ask you about that
in a second but have you guys ever did you guys ever think like maybe if you just get into more
gyms as far as like uh like hey like we'll come out to your gym to demonstrate the slingshot
you guys can sell it and maybe like break even,
whatever it may be, but maybe something like that to where, you know, it's like, you know,
like the target example where it's like, well, shit, that thing is in a package. I have no idea
what it is. They can't like do a demonstration there, but at a gym, maybe that would be an easy
way to get people in the slingshot to feel it.
Right.
Cause then they can just put it on and then like,
Oh,
let me go try this out or let me go do some pushups or something.
Yeah.
We've done some things like that in the past and those things have been
fairly beneficial.
A lot of the seminars I used to do,
we would just bring like product and you know,
we'd set up a table and we'd sell some stuff and, um, that worked well. Uh,
but it was just, it was just always like, um,
you know, we'd sell like, I don't know, 10 slingshots and sell, you know,
five pairs of knee sleeves or something, which just, which, which is great. Um,
it's fantastic, you know,
to get it into more customers hands and to have that, which, which is great. Um, it's fantastic, you know, to, to get it into more
customers hands and to have that, uh, customer interaction, but it just, you know, it wasn't a,
it wasn't a huge deal. Now, the way that our gym is set up right now, you know, we have a full on
retail store in there. So to have seminars now, um, that works great. You know, in a weekend we can really do really well by having,
by having a seminar and just bringing people in and then they see all the stuff that we have,
that kind of stuff helps. I do think that
what you're talking about, I think it would actually work best if it was more geared around
the equipment and it was more advertised that the
equipment's going to be there. I think that would probably work best and almost treat it as like a
pop-up store. I know that, uh, I think it's Gymshark. They don't, they do it pretty rarely.
And so because they do it, they don't do it with high frequency. They get crazy turnouts.
But they'll sometimes go to like, they'll go to various gyms, some of the more famous gyms in the country.
And when they do, they'll have, you know, a new release of something top secret that they haven't talked about yet.
And they'll do a lot of giveaways.
And they sell some product but the
whole thing is it's more like a branding thing but yeah they'll get like i heard that they did
uh gold's venice this year and they had like i don't know like 1500 people there or 2000 people
there like that just and a lot of the gold's members didn't know oh no they didn't they didn't
know and it was just like i think they saw the flyers and stuff members didn't know. Oh no. They didn't, they didn't know. And it was just like,
I think they saw the flyers and stuff.
I didn't have any idea what it was going to be.
It was just like total madhouse chaos.
But I think,
I think doing something like that could be fun.
It's always,
it's always a good time.
It's a,
it's a matter of figuring out what's the best,
what's the best usage,
usage of our time and what has the best impact.
But I think, I mean, we've kind of talked about it in the past.
We've never really actually have done it, but we've talked about like super training,
you know, like going on the road type of thing, bringing some lifters, bringing a couple of
slingshot employees and, and going to, you know, a fairly big gym in Southern California
or something like that. And having a, uh, kind of like a party slash seminar slash,
uh, like a Tupperware party, you know, you're just like trying to, uh, yeah, you're trying to
like, uh, you know, hawk some products in addition to giving away some information type thing.
Yeah. I was just thinking it could be like, uh, we make our own like slingshot certification like hawk some products in addition to giving away some information type thing.
Yeah, I was just thinking it could be like we make our own slingshot certification course and then any gym owner or somebody that works there can pass the test.
And then we have a link on our website to who sells the slingshot.
And so people can look at it that way and be like, oh, this place in Nebraska, wherever,
they actually have the slingshot there. I can go at it that way and be like, oh, this place in Nebraska, wherever, they actually have the slingshot there.
I can go test it out.
It would certainly be a lot of fun.
We do have vendors.
We do have people.
We got various gyms, various people selling the products.
Again, in the gym, even in the gym, like I just, you know,
sometimes when you go to a gym,
you sometimes don't even remember what they have or what they don't have.
Like there's like a pair of like Vallejo or whatever,
Vallejo, however you say that company.
It's just like lifting gloves just sitting there,
but they've been sitting there for like 20 years, you know,
like I don't want my product to just kind of sit there for a long ass time.
And it's just, it's not that it's a bad product that's sitting there.
It's just that probably people kind of forgot that it's there or they're not super excited for it.
They're not searching for it there.
Whereas if they go into a department store, they might look for, you know, a soft belt, lifting gloves, those types of things.
So, yeah, trying to figure all this out
has been, um, has been interesting. The main thing that, uh, we've noticed, um, when the product does
move well at a particular gym is just a level of interest of the gym owner, because sometimes
somebody comes to the front desk and they're like, man, I don't know if you know anything about like shoulder injuries.
There's someone I can see, but like my shoulders killing me.
I love bench pressing.
And a lot of times those gym owners that are passionate about the product, they're like, oh, you got to try out a slingshot.
You know, we have a couple floating around the gym for free.
You can try one out.
If you like one, you can buy one.
We sell them right here.
You know, in addition to that, you should check out our massage therapist.
A lot of times, there's gym owners who are really smart on upselling,
upselling the members on the various things that they have.
Oh, maybe you're super tight.
Maybe you should check out our yoga class.
We have yoga classes every morning.
When you come in here at 9 o'clock, we also have –
I know it's probably different for you.
You like to lift, but we have some yoga classes that might help open up your shoulder.
It might be something that's, that's useful. And then you get, you know, you get the members paying
for, uh, you know, that's the whole goal. You want their members to continue to pay for more stuff.
And then, uh, you mentioned something that I think might be the first time you ever mentioned it, at least as far as I know.
You said supplements.
Is there anything you can share?
Because I know that probably perked up a lot of people's ears that were listening.
Yeah, supplements.
The name might change, but just because we're working on some different things, but the name is Within because all the stuff I've been working on over the last couple of years, it kind of just made me recognize that everything that you have, everything that you need, everything that you're everything you're in search of rather comes from within you. You know, all these things we're looking for externally, all these,
all these different goals and all these different things that we want to do and achieve and
nice cars and nice homes and all these different things that we kind of want. Everything that you
need, everything that you, yeah, everything that you need comes from within your own body.
everything you need comes from within your own body.
And when you treat your body correctly, everything's available to you.
You know, everything that your metabolism is supposed to do is supposed to keep you strong and healthy when you treat it properly.
And so the idea and concept behind these supplements may be a little counterintuitive because I do want to teach people that they don't necessarily need supplements.
However, sometimes it's a good idea to supplement your diet.
A lot of people are trying to be lean, and a lot of people might not get the calories that they need.
and a lot of people might not get the calories that they need.
And because of that, it might be good to supplement.
It might be good to bring in some supplements,
especially if you're trying to be extraordinary. You're trying to bring your game up to the next level.
You might feel the need to utilize some of these products.
But we have a lot of basics, but the basics are, you know,
just everyone's going to say this that has supplements.
There's an extra twist, you know, on each one of these products.
I can't say a ton about each thing yet, but as we get closer, I'll make people more aware of what
we got. But I can say this, I can say we have a pre-workout. We have an intra-workout.
We have a sleep aid.
We have a protein that is different and that so far tastes good, but we're working on getting a little extra on it because I want it to be –
I want the flavor profile of these things to be really on point.
And I've learned that it's,
you're better off just taking a little extra time when it comes to that.
So that way, I don't know.
It's good to have people think about your products when they're not using your
product. So if you can make it taste that good,
then it might get in someone's head of like, yeah, I'm going to reach.
I want people to use it.
I want people to utilize the stuff that we have.
So I'm excited about the ingredients of the stuff that we have.
I worked with Joel Green on coming,
coming up with a lot of these, a lot of these products.
And, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these products. And, um, you know,
as we get closer, uh, I'll make you guys more aware of, of what each thing is, but we also
have a hydration product and, um, a lot of the hydration products out there are awesome. You
know, we, we love, uh, some of the different ones that we've utilized. Um, we got keto vitals and
we got the ones we have at the office.
Element.
Yeah, those are awesome.
Like those guys did such a good job with that.
And the actual amount of sodium and potassium and they did a great job, you know, putting that product together.
It tastes good.
I like the taste of it.
I like the flavor of it.
But what we did is slightly different on top of it i like the flavor of it um but we did a slightly
different um on top of it being you know a hydration product it also has a little bit of
that fizz in there because i know that a lot of us like to have our uh our uh you know soda like
drinks that don't have any uh calories in them so it's got little, a little fizz to it. And, um,
it's going to be a powder. Yeah, it's a, it's a powder. Yep. All right. Yeah. And there's also, um, there's also a little twist on the, uh,
the type of salt that's in there. So I'm, I'm pretty pumped up about,
I'm pumped up about all these things. So we'll, we'll see, uh,
what the hell we can do with them, but out of the gate,
it will be different than slingshot because we will advertise, you know,
as soon as we come out of the gate, we also made a coffee, we made a tea.
But those,
I think those things are going to be kind of second round things that we bring
in because we have like eight or nine items, but we were like, Oh,
let's do like six at first.
You know, just to get, just to get this even off the ground,
we'll be like 200 K, you know, it's kind of, it's going to cost,
it's going to cost some money to get it off the ground. But for us and for,
you know, to have a supplement company for that amount of money,
even though it sounds like a lot of money is actually very, uh,
it's not, it's not a, it's not a huge, if,
if something was to not go right with it, if it was just a total loss, uh,
it wouldn't kill us. It wouldn't,
not like we're chopping off body parts over here. So yeah,
I'm really excited about it. I'm fired up.
What you mentioned about taste is super important though, because it's like I've had a lot of proteins, chopping off body parts over here so yeah i'm really excited about i'm fired up yeah what you
mentioned about taste is super important though because it's like i've had a lot of proteins but
the one protein that you guys make the keto pro that's the one protein there's one chocolate
protein that i consistently like that's a really fucking good protein and then i want to drink
other proteins are just like it's high and that was a huge consideration with the with the keto pro
was to it has kind of a little bit of a malt flavor to it and that's kind of rare amongst
protein powders you don't use you don't usually don't have that flavor that taste and so in my
opinion what attracted me as i was working on that flavor was just that it was different.
And I noticed like there was a couple of times during the day where I was like, I feel like having a keto pro.
And I'm like, well, that's different.
Like I don't I'm not not usually like craving a protein shake.
I'm like, that's pretty cool.
And that's how I knew it was going to, you know, knew it was going to work and knew it was going to work well.
And we'll be keeping some of those other supplements that we've worked on as well.
We'll be keeping the protein powder and the Keto Pro.
But we will probably, well, not probably, we will just eventually, it might take some time, we'll eventually kind of integrate them into the within product line.
Keto Pro and some heavy cream.
So good,
man.
That's the part.
How about some heavy cream and some heavy cream?
Everything was good on its own.
And then,
so are we thinking a 2020 release for the supplement supplement line or maybe
2021?
2020 has been amazing. So why not, right?
Yeah. Why not lean into it? Yeah. It's everything should be,
everything should be good to go.
Everything should be good to go by like November or something like that.
Wow. Yeah. We still have,
we still have a little ways to go with, uh, yeah, some logos and a couple of things, but like,
they could be pushed along maybe faster than that. But, uh,
I think that would be good to try to try to get something together by, uh,
by November.
Damn. That's exciting, dude.
And SEMA,
you asked a question or kind of a mentioned
something in here as we were texting each other this morning. And you talked about like kind of
timeline for goals with like this is more of like a body transformation thing. But you also said that
like most people underestimate the time, you know, the time it will take. And I'm just kind of concerning this back, back to you know,
the time commitment of, of like making a business and of you know,
getting, getting something off the ground. I just,
I just want to kind of tell people that like it,
it just consumed a tremendous amount of my time to put the stuff together that I put together.
And I didn't do much else in place of it.
So it was kind of just to get.
And I think body transformation, I think, ends up being similar.
And I think body transformation, I think, ends up being similar, and that's what makes it so difficult, is that if you want to be in good shape, it's going to take you a tremendous amount of time.
And then what happens with time is that you lose power over time.
You start to get fatigued.
You start to get beat up.
You start to get worn out.
Same thing happens with being a leader. Same thing happens with being an owner. You know, one of the most amazing traits of
a really good owner is to be patient and is to repeat yourself often. And I remember I went to
a seminar one time and I was really excited.
And I was just kind of sitting there trying to be as open-minded as possible.
But one of the first things the guy said was, and I think it was Simon Sinek, who's just an absolutely amazing speaker.
Anyone ever gets the opportunity to see that guy talk in person, you need to go.
You need to spend the dough and you need to go see him because he's unbelievable. But yeah, the first thing he said, and I mean, it made me pissed. I was like,
he said, he said, great leaders repeat themselves. He's like, you have to repeat yourself.
And I was thinking at that time, I was always super frustrated with having to repeat myself.
I was like, I hate repeating myself. I mean,
I remember saying that many, many times to myself, uh,
after having to have a conversation with, uh,
an employee or somebody in the gym,
it could be about strength training with somebody about fat loss with somebody
about, uh, you know, and from that moment that like,
I would say that kind of cured me in a way because I'm like, well, actually, you know what?
I don't know why I hate it.
I don't know why it's a pet peeve of mine because it's actually really simple.
I just need to repeat the same thing I said yesterday and I need to say it every day and I need to pretend that it's new.
10 that it's new. And it's, it's been, it's been huge for me because if you watch some of the YouTube videos that I put out, you'll see in almost every single video, I say, Hey, don't forget about
your 10 minute walks. Don't forget about your eight hours of sleep. Don't forget to stay hydrated.
Don't forget to eat enough protein every day. And it's like, why wouldn't I repeat that?
Because, you know, from a few different vantage points,
it makes a lot of sense.
Number one is if you're still communicating with the same person,
maybe they slacked off on that a little bit,
and maybe you could be the one to give them enough energy
to continue to do it.
The second part of that would be, well, what if it's somebody new
that just hasn't seen it, just hasn't heard you talk about it. The second part of that would be, well, what if it's somebody new that just hasn't
seen it, just hasn't heard you talk about it before. And so sometimes you got to repeat a lot
of the story over and over again. You know, if I, if I say, Hey, look, I do a minimum nowadays of
five miles of walking. I can't just say that because now someone's going to go out and try
to do five miles of walking and they're going to do that for a week and they're going to like mess up their feet and they're going to maybe hurt themselves a little bit because they just don't have a fitness level that works well with walking that like that's that's walking really far.
Maybe the person's 400 pounds or something that's listening to it.
So I have to kind of say, oh, well, I started walking like seven or eight years ago and it all started with
a couple of 10 minute walks a day. Those felt pretty simple to me. And as I repeated them over
and over again for many, many years, I got better at them. As I got better at them as i got better at them i started adding on more minutes started adding on more
more mileage but yeah repeating yourself uh you know it can it can kind of wear you down at times
but um i think andrew and i have joked about it before like where we've said in the gym we've
kind of make these uh backhanded uh statements to each other where we're like,
oh, okay. So when we squat, we're not, okay, we're not going to depth anymore. Okay. We're
doing things different around here. And we say that to each other as kind of a joke. Oh, when
we do pull-ups, okay, we're just cheating on the pull-ups now. We're just swinging around whatever
way we want. Like we don't have any standards anymore. These are things you have to,
you know, if you want to be great at anything, you're going to have to repeat yourself and it's going to take a tremendous amount of time. Yeah. We're not doing that. We're not doing that thing
where we like try hard anymore. Like that's out of the picture. Like, all right, I just want to
make sure so that way I can also be weak and try less work. Like I got on the podcast late today.
So you could say,
okay,
we're not all showing up on time anymore.
Okay.
Mark has different rules than everybody else.
Okay,
cool.
Cool.
All right.
Just so we got that out of the way.
Okay,
let's go.
So showing up on time,
we're not doing that anymore.
All right,
cool.
Thank you guys.
No,
but that's something you see with a lot of content,
like a lot of people.
And it's,
it's a good thing,
but I,
I can think of a few people that are really good
reinvent reinventing old content and just saying the same thing in a in a different way to perk up
ears in a slightly different way you know i mean but it's the same exact message and it's been the
same message for years it's just spit out slightly differently you know it's nothing new so that's
that's a really important
thing right there yeah gary v talks about that all the time he's like people come up to me like
dude you're saying the same shit you said 10 years ago and he's like yeah i am the exact same thing
he's like and people still don't get it like well my gosh that's that's tough i can see how that can be frustrating. But yeah.
Yeah. I have, uh, I have, uh, some friends that have some,
some goals and some things that they're trying to set their sights on. And,
you know, sometimes when I hear their goal,
but then I see what they're doing, I see their actions. I'm like, ah,
like those things aren't matching up that good. You know,
those things aren't, they're not in good harmony with each other. And when I started, uh, slingshot,
not saying everyone's, uh, everyone's journey is going to be different as well. And so I don't have
any, I'm not going to hate on someone that makes it look easier. I'm not going to hate on somebody
that, uh, does something in a shorter period of time. I kind of see that on Shark Tank a lot when the people that are on Shark Tank, they're like, it took me, you know, took me 20 years to get my business off the ground.
And I had to make all these sacrifices and stuff.
So everyone's sacrifices and stuff are going to be different, but they need to be made.
Like you have to you have to, you have to make,
you have to make sacrifices. You can't just, um, it like, I heard someone the other day that was on
Tom Bilyeu show. And the guy said, uh, um, every Sunday and then like the first of every month, every Sunday and the first of every single month, no matter what he was doing previously, he had other jobs.
Every Sunday and the first of every month, he would write down some of his goals and then he would write down if he thought he was in alignment with those goals.
Now, somebody listening to this right now
might be like, what a pain in the ass. Like, that's dumb. Like, it's just, if you're resistant
to it, you need to ask yourself why you're resistant to it, because how would it hurt you?
You know, how would it hurt you to do that? And so this guy, you know, he had kind of a regular
nine to five type job. He wrote out all this stuff and now he's, you know, just similar story that you hear with a lot of other people.
He's very successful nowadays. He teaches other people how to be successful.
And you're going to have to figure out like,
where can you carve out time to move towards, uh, you know,
whatever goal it is you have. If you're trying to start a business, um,
you have to be tunnel vision on it.
Some of the things that you love doing, you'll have to ditch them. You know, some of the hanging
out with your buddies playing pool or golfing or, uh, you know, whatever, like those things are
great. And it's nice to have some recreational time. It's nice to have some downtime, but more
than likely you're going to have to start to chop out some of that stuff out of your life for a while yeah yeah that's real yeah and then so as
far as like timeline and stuff and sema you were uh talking more about like physique and stuff right
yeah no um i was just mentioning earlier like you know you know, our buddy, Tom, I think Mark, you were helping him with his transformation.
He's been doing carnivore and he's dropped like 40 something pounds and,
and what, 16 weeks, 12 weeks.
Yeah.
Not very long. Yeah.
Yeah. So when somebody like, I find it like, it's really cool.
And I know a few people, I know some people who can drop weight that quickly,
but a lot of people will look at that and be like, why am I not dropping weight that fast?
I'm doing carnivore. Why is it taking me so long to just lose 10 or 15 pounds? Um,
and you know, Tom, like he has experience cutting, like he's, he's done wrestling cutting. He,
he has a lot of experience cutting weight and cutting weights, a pretty easy thing for him.
But for a lot of people, you know, it's going to take you longer than eight weeks, 12 weeks, whatever. Um, it's going
to take you a while. And I think that we, that, that somehow we need to kind of look at those
goals. Like we don't want, we don't want to have to slow it down and make it take too long. But
if it is taking a, you know, it is taking a little little while it's taking us a while to get used to
dieting used to working out you got to be patient with yourself and just consistent with the whole
process of what you're doing rather than you know getting frustrated and stopping because you don't
feel like it's working yeah like i said before we we started recording like i had a successful cut
and i still have a hard time understanding how
long something like this is supposed to take you know for like my next cut or just for my next
whatever just to kind of get back to uh feeling a little bit more confident with my shirt off again
you know like i don't know how long that's supposed to take yeah it'll probably take about
half the amount of time that it took the first time around especially because you're not really
like what's your body weight in comparison to where you started your cut last time.
So the goal, if you guys remember, so I got down to 170 when we had Mike Isertal.
The goal was to get up to 185 by June.
I got up to about 183.
And then this morning I'm at 178.
So eight pounds over when I was at my leanest.
Yeah.
So that's,
that's where I'm at right now.
Um,
the work capacity has gone down a lot.
Um,
you know,
the,
the quarantine,
it messed with me quite a bit as far as like getting volume in for training
and stuff.
And then also when I was cutting, I was doing a lot more cardio and a lot more meaning three
times a week versus now where I'm trying my best to, uh, to do yoga and then get on the treadmill
here, which is, is fine, but it's not the step mill. Like the stair master for me is like the
ultimate, like I love doing that. I wouldn't say I love it. I really, if I have one form of cardio,
that's what I would rather it be over anything else. So that's,
there's a lot of differences there.
There's like a lot of variables that have changed. So yeah, that's,
so like I said, it's, it's confusing to me,
even if it was the exact same, let alone certain things being different.
Let me, what are your goals right now, man?
I'm just curious.
Like, are you, are you trying to gain muscle or do you want to get lean again?
Like what are you trying to do?
Yeah.
I want to get lean again.
Um, I, I feel like when I was down at one 70, it was like, it was, I was, I was depleted
quite a bit.
I didn't feel terrible.
As a matter of fact, my back felt its absolute best when I was down that lean. I think a lot of that has to do with,
um, some of the different types of workouts I was doing, you know, cause coming off of,
uh, doing, uh, trying to get as strong as I could on shred again or Sarmageddon, um,
doing a lot of power lifting and stuff, and then switching over to doing
lighter weight, higher rep stuff with Mark. And, you know, again, like the cardio and stuff like
that, I think the Stairmaster helped my back out a lot too. So, um, I felt way better when I was
leaner. So I, I want to kind of get closer to that again, but I don't know if 170 is like the healthiest look and healthiest thing
for me to do so i guess if in a perfect world it would have the it would be um i would have the
confidence to be with my shirt off again especially now because i will be having a pool and i don't
want to be a gross slob at my own house you know with my shirt off but somewhere around like 175
with not shredded abs but something to be like oh shit all right
cool i feel good right now whatever the hell that is i would say probably the first place to start
is to start to line up some of your uh you know your goals and your actions and line up
you know just just some simple weight loss i I think, would be a good idea.
It sounds like you don't have much to lose, but I think if you were to lose like even like three to five pounds,
you would feel leaner and probably feel like you're starting to head in the right direction.
You could utilize some cardio if you wanted to implement some of that.
You could utilize some cardio if you wanted to implement some of that.
But just figuring out a way to reduce your calories, whatever way has worked best for you in the past, would probably work again.
So I think that would probably be the first place to start is to start to look into your food.
Maybe you don't have to make like huge changes maybe you can just utilize intermittent fasting every other day or just if you're not currently implementing it
start to bring some of that in maybe you could have two sessions a week of some cardio you know
that's 20 minutes you have a you have a treadmill at your house. I
think you can put the incline up pretty good. Like just make it simple. Just do that, you know,
and that, that right there should get you kind of heading in the right direction.
Bodybuilding is always awesome. I always recommend it. I think trying to pick like one body part per day sort of thing.
And that way it gives you, you should be able to recover really well from those workouts.
It gives you a lot of flexibility with what you train and when and all that.
And sometimes you can even just do it at your house.
If it's a day where you're just going to do some shoulders, you can just bust it out in your, in your home.
Those would be some of the places I would start. And Seema,
what do you got for that?
I think one of the biggest things for you, man, is,
cause I think weight training for you is something you're not going to really
ever stop, right? So you're going to always be lifting,
but making cardio a bit of a habit,
whether you're cutting or whether you're bulking doing cardio
three or four times a week and doesn't have to be like you know it's not to be like hour-long
sessions or anything but if you can do that you can maintain it then generally you're going to be
on you're going to be on the leaner side with whatever you're doing you know what i mean um
and the cardio won't be something where you're going to have to like labor
yourself to start doing it again. So I think you have,
you do have the treadmill at home.
So I think that instead of focusing on how fun the step mill was,
you can do things on the treadmill and try and maybe do maybe some run walks on
the treadmill that are kind of fun. Maybe it's not still not the step mill,
but it's fun enough where it's something you can maintain and you should be just like literally after a few weeks, you should be right
where you need to be. Yeah. And I mean, even just over the past two weeks, um, I've been utilizing
a bunch of stuff from our boy Remington James. Like he has a bunch of these dope, uh, like
bodybuilder type recipes. He has a recipe book. It's, it's, I highly recommend it cause it makes food fun.
And I really wish I had this, um, you know, right after my cut. Cause I think I would have
rebounded way better. Um, but what he was mentioning was like, you know, we think that we
get in enough, like a calorie burn or whatever you want, like our output. We think it's a lot,
like we go work out and then we sit down all day like if you really
think about it you're not really burning that much count that many calories so you know he was just
recommending doing something like 40 minutes of cardio but he's like he's in really good shape
right now but what you said and seem was freaking huge man because yeah like the cardio thing is
like one aspect of the the puzzle for me but to have that just become habit right now it's not
a habit but if i can do that i think that would be a total game changer and oftentimes i help you
probably help you eat a little bit better too just because you know you're doing it yeah yeah no it's
just everything about it and like i said like i've been having, um, like low fat, everything like I had, um,
I had like this low fat, like ice cream. It was just incredible. Um, been making the, uh, like low fat pizzas and stuff like that. It's, it's, it's a lot of fun to eat. Um, but I'm still
mixing that in with like Piedmontese. And I think that's like the, like the real big, like a key
Turner right there is still having that like good healthy red meat um but yeah i
think just getting into the habit of doing the cardio and stuff will be huge just in general
like it'll just keep me moving period you know and keep those calories keep myself in a deficit
while not really feeling like i am yeah and while you're trying to cut, I mean, since you're not going to be bulking,
you could do a bit more fasting because adding a little bit of cardio and being in that deficit,
like you will drop. And then when you want to maybe maintain, or you want to start gaining
a little bit, then don't fast as much, but keep the cardio in. Yeah. And it's, it's going to be
more so intuitive than having a, like, yeah, I know you do track, but it's, it'll be more of intuitive things. So you don't have to track as much or at all.
Yeah. I haven't been tracking much at all. Um, I have been fasting and I think that's why I
haven't been tracking because I'm, I'm looking at, you know, my intake and like, I am trying to,
trying to hit like 300 grams of protein per day, but I'm like, shit, dude, I have to eat a lot
more right now. i i know i'm
behind like just because of the short time that i have been tracking i understand that like
okay i i'm way behind so i have to eat a lot more right now and so i'm positive i've been i mean
yeah i definitely have been in a deficit because i've already lost a good not a good amount but
you know like about five pounds since i like like hmm like i think i
need to go in the other direction now and then more recently like i said within the past two
weeks i've already dropped two pounds without really trying you know just a little bit of lift
not a little bit like lifting at st and then a little bit of cardio and things have gotten
you know i'm going the right direction but again this is this all goes back to like the original
uh concept or original subject which was was how long should it take?
And I'm just like, I don't know, but I'm going to just keep doing what I'm doing with now the extra advice that you guys have given me and not really worry about how long it is going to take.
It's just a really cool question that you bring up because, yeah, I actually don't know what it's like.
Honestly, I don't really want to see an end goal. I just want this to be the way I am
like that. And that's it, you know, and just go from there.
Yeah. What you said there is going to make it super easy if you can just,
you know, build the habits of doing those things and just give it some time,
make changes that Mark mentions to you and whatever, and let's get there.
Yeah. And just, uh, what we said earlier about, you know, repeating yourself, you know, repeat,
you know, just keep that, keep that in the front of your mind that you said you want to just feel
more comfortable with your shirt off. So whatever that felt like to take your shirt off a while back
when you were a little leaner, you know, that's, that's kind of all you're, all you're looking for.
And so, you know,
what are the three to five things that will help get you there?
Sounds like we got, you know, some answers to it. Um,
increasing some of your cardio, making your cardio habit. Um,
maybe just being a little bit more mindful of your calories, just so you kind of keep an eye on it.
Maybe mix in a little bit of intermittent fasting.
Maybe just, you know, kick it up a notch a little bit with the lifting.
Seems like you are lifting.
Seems like you've been consistent with it.
So probably not even anything to really change there.
But there you go it looks like you kind of
looks like you looks like you have a uh a path you know and then maybe even like since you've
mentioned body weight um you know maybe you have a goal i think the only reason why i mentioned
body weight which i i think it should kind of be irrelevant, but I like. The goal of body weight seems to make it a little easier to keep yourself on point
with the overall amount of food you're consuming.
So if you don't see yourself going down the scale,
then you know that something's just a little off with your food
because the likelihood that you're gaining muscle at some rapid rate is probably not, it's probably not great.
And normally when you just start a diet,
there should be some initial weight loss and then you might plateau and you
might not lose weight, but you might continue to get a little bit leaner,
look better or even just feel better. So yeah, man,
I think you got a recipe to go kick some ass.
Yeah. And I mean, we've,
I've seen you do this to other
people where they already kind of know the answer but they're just waiting for you to say it and
i mean this is kind of like a good therapy session for me you know uh on probably the
best saturday school episode we've ever did uh it was just released this saturday um you had
mentioned like hey if you post a picture of yourself with abs and then all of a sudden
somebody sees you and you don't have abs anymore or they ask you about it, you're like, Oh yeah, no, not so much anymore. I'm like at me next time, man. But you know, that's how I felt. You know, I was just like, I don't want to say I didn't feel like a fraud or anything, but I was just like, like, ah, fuck dude. Like I worked so hard. like let's get back there but then like just do it the right
not the right way but like a healthier way to where i can maintain it this time instead of just
like a super just vicious cut and then you know a vicious rebound so it'd be cool to get there
slowly get there you know at the right pace to where like that's just who i am you know that'd
be sick.
I think you're,
you're being a little hard on yourself in terms of your rebound though. Cause you didn't have a vicious rebound. Like, okay, you gained some weight back,
but you didn't get crazy out of shape. You're in better shape.
I think right now than when you started. Right. Or am I wrong? No. Yeah.
So no, but you didn't have a vicious rebound.
We are our biggest critic. So I'll just,
yeah,
that's all it is.
Yeah.
All right,
man.
Take us on out of here.
Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode.
Sincerely appreciate it.
If you guys liked it,
please share it with a friend for more information on Piedmontese beef.
Check the YouTube and Facebook description as well as the podcast show notes.
Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at
MB power project on Twitter. We've been posting a bunch of stuff about Saturday school. So please,
if you guys can, um, it's a different format. It's usually just me asking Mark a question,
uh, or whatever, like we get, uh, questions from employees and from fans. So what I like to say is
it's the people asking the people's coach a question.
And then he kind of rants for a good amount of time. But this weekend, we had probably our best one.
So I highly recommend you guys go back and check that out.
Same YouTube channel, same Facebook, same podcast feed.
Just check it out.
It's just called Mark Bell Saturday School.
So please check that out.
My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ.
And Seema, if people want to get in touch with you,
how can they do so?
Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube
and Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter.
Mark?
I'm at Mark Smelly Bell on YouTube,
Instagram, and Twitter.
Appreciate all the fans that are checking out
the YouTube channel. I think we're up
to 28,000 peeps over there.
Appreciate it. Been some really
good support and the likes have been just on fire. It's been a lot of likes and not as many haters.
And so I appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. I'm sharing information about intermittent
fasting. Some of the stuff we shared on the show, I talk about business. I talk about
all kinds of different stuff.
Occasionally I'll throw a workout up on there,
here and there.
So go check that stuff out.
Strength is never a weakness.
Weakness is never strength.
Catch y'all later.
Power Project Crew,
thank you again for checking out today's episode.
We sincerely appreciate it.
Right now we want to give the biggest shout out to our homie.
I won't say his name just because I don't know if he's okay with that,
but I will just say his iTunes handle is the exact same thing as his Instagram handle.
So that's who this guy is.
And I say handle, and I had a hard time with that because I'm so old school,
I still call it a screen name.
Every time I say that, some young Gen Z or whatever they're called points it out and makes fun of me.
So, hey, that's what I grew up on.
Anyways, this review comes from our homie, BeMoreFit2020.
Really good friend of the podcast, friend of Super Training.
He trains there weekly, so it's really cool that he took the time out of his day to do this for us.
BeMoreFit says, life-changing show.
Quote, I can wholeheartedly say that the Power Project has changed my life.
Mark, Andrew, and Seema and all the awesome guests provide so much knowledge and insight
on such a broad spectrum of topics that anyone from any walk of life can find value in this
content.
Mark inspired me to, quote, do more, be more, and now I'm writing a book.
Working on a startup company and continuing to improve my health down 115 pounds. Andrew encouraged me to come to super
training gym, literally told me on the podcast live chat to get my ass down there and train.
And because of that positive and inviting attitude, I now train at ST and I have made
some great friends along with my gains. I consistently find the answers I'm looking for on this show
and sometimes they're for questions
I wouldn't have even thought of asking.
These guys go in depth on life
from a perspective that is very relatable.
Grab your headphones and your notepads
and be ready to be better from tuning in.
Thank you, Mark and crew for everything.
Thank you, man.
Sincerely appreciate that.
For some reason,
whenever your friends check in on what you're doing, they tend to like kind of sit back and just be
like, oh yeah, I know them and blah, blah, blah. But here's our homie be more fit 2020 and giving
us a shout out something he didn't have to do was sincerely appreciate that. Appreciate that
brother. So thank you. If you listen to right now, if you'd like to hear your name and a review right
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, Be More Fit 2020. Catch you guys on the next one. Peace.