Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 414 - Philadelphia Eagles Lane Johnson

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Lane Johnson is an offensive tackle for the Philadelphia, Eagles and has been playing for the Eagle’s since 2013. He is a 2013 Super Bowl winner against the New England patriots. He is the host of his own podcast, “Outside the Lane”. As of July 2020, he has been diagnosed with COVID-19. 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

Hey everybody, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast, hosted by Mark Bell, co-hosted by Nsema Iyang, and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. Today's episode is recorded on July 31st, and it is with Lane Johnson. Lane Johnson is an NFL lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles. And so naturally, a pro athlete, we're going to be a bunch of little fangirls and ask him all kinds of silly questions about playing in the NFL. So we got a lot of background and insight information on what it takes to play in the NFL. We asked him a bunch of questions about training, rest, recovery, maybe some certain

training methods that linemen are overlooking when trying to make it to the league. And we also talked about how Lane actually was popped for PEDs twice in his NFL career, what that did to him as far as his career, contract-wise, popularity, just the ins and outs of what happens to an NFL player when something like that happens. Also really interesting for this episode, he actually, he and his coach contracted the coronavirus. He was tested once and then he was tested again to confirm it. So we got, you know, some, some information about, you know, like the symptoms that he's been feeling, what's been going on quarantine for him and his coach. So again, just really, really interesting stuff. And again, I'm sorry, I hate keep using that word

interesting, but, uh, I'm going to put a link down in the, uh, the podcast show notes and the YouTube and Facebook descriptions, uh, a link to a post that Mark made a couple weeks back with Lane in it. When I say this, you're going to not really understand it. You have to watch this video. Possibly had a baby or maybe Lane was made in a lab the way that Encima was breaking down by getting the blood of both athletes or both superstars because he somehow looks like both at the same time. I really think you guys are going to dig this episode. If you do, please reach out to us on all social media platforms. All links will be down in the descriptions below.

But that's it for me. So, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this episode with super bowl winning champion lane johnson it's a good week yeah yeah what's going down all the way on in the future right because you're three hours into the future what's it like uh yeah you guys got some rain coming your way i think damn it's wet the future is very wet. Very moist. Yeah, I'm out here in New Jersey. Jersey Shore. I can go anywhere in the world, and this is where I end up. What is it about New Jersey, though? You could go anywhere, but you guys went there. Yeah, I don't know.

I got a weird family. Turns out this is, yeah, that's where my family meets up every year. They've been doing it for the last like eight or 10 years or so. And so here we be nice. How many people would you say is like, like out there? 20, 30. like out there 20 30 um i think last year we had like about 45 or so this year it's maybe just a little bit less but still most most showed up um yeah it's all like it's all it's all it's all still very like it's not really like friends or anything even. Yeah, it's just, we just got a big family.

So it's a lot of cousins and nieces and nephews and stuff like that. Yeah, Bells. Some have different last names just because there's some girls in the family. Mainly dudes, but. Okay. Yeah, some girls in the family but yeah it's great you know being around families just different

you know and talking to everybody about the coronavirus and different things going on it's I have a lot of family that's teachers you know and so they just like everybody else just want to see things at some point

you know get back to normal and in some sort of safe way so they can kind of just get back to work and do what they love doing teaching and a bunch of my family members are coaches as well basketball yeah basketball mainly but yeah it's just been, it's been great to be out

here with my kids. My kids get a lot out of it and it's cool to see them interact with the other kids that are out here and they get to kind of visit with their cousins on the other side of the other side of the United States. Wow united states wow how was that uh gigantic slice of pizza oh that that slice of pizza was pretty damn good um yeah that's a place out here um and whenever you order pizza they always like warn you because people are always like yeah i'll get like two three slices they're like no you don't understand the pizza's really big and everyone's always like oh yeah but i still you know i want like three or four or whatever and then yeah by the time you get it you're like oh okay it's the size of a table pretty much yeah pizza's good out here on

the east coast no man okay that reminds me this past weekend we went to san francisco for the day right went to this pizza spot so we ordered this pizza we didn't know like you can't get it by the slice ended up being like this big old 20 inch pizza right we're eating it and then this this uh this poor guy he comes up he's like hey can i get a slice i was like oh yeah sure here give him a like and i give him a slice right and we're so he's like uh well can i get another one i'm like um yeah here take this one but he's like oh can you get that one with more pepperoni what i give you one slice bro and now you're trying to be picky about which slice you get on my damn pizza that's terrible because you're trying to be like it's a it puts you in the weirdest situation because you're like yeah it's not gonna hurt me to yeah sure dude be a good guy i'm gonna you can have one and then now you have to be like

well no you can't have really you're not gonna let me have the one with the extra pepperoni he was he was out here with his hands he was all reaching for it my girls looking at me like what you doing like don't let him touch our pizza so i gave it to him i was like oh yeah but it was hella funny he got so forward after the first that's funny yeah we had we had pizza over the weekend so we moved into the new spot and it's a really awesome problem to have but it is a problem because we're right next to a place called pizza bell and i i don't know how many of those exist in the world but dude it is so good and so like we that's kind of how we like uh we we like baited people to come help us move we're like hey dude help us move and we're all going to have pizza, Bill. It was worth it, but, man, it's dangerously close because I can walk there now.

It's freaking awesome. Pizza's just so easy, right? It's always – there's different types of pizza, but it's almost always good. And it's just – I don't know. It's just like the funnest thing in the world to eat, I think. Like, I don't think we've had anybody on the show that's hated pizza. Like, whenever we ask people favorite food, they're almost always like, you know, I mention a couple things and it usually ends with pizza.

You know? Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I'm pretty sure today's guest has put down plenty of pizzas in his day. Yeah, we got a big one on the show today. Yeah, we got Lane Johnson on the show from the Philadelphia Eagles. Him and his coach, his trainer, both came down with coronavirus. Interestingly enough, how, you know, all this stuff always loops back around,

Gabe, who is Lane's coach, was Jesse Burdick's first intern that he had. So everybody's always intertwined with each other. And then this guy also gets diet information and some training advice from our buddy, the Rhino as well. So, yeah, I can't wait to talk to him. I'm excited. He also has been banned multiple times for performance enhancing drugs. And he's been vocal about it. He's talked about it in the past. And he even says that he's one of the top linemen in the league, and he doesn't believe, I don't know if he still feels the same way,

but I've heard him say before that he doesn't believe that he deserves a Hall of Fame mentioning ever due to his involvement with banned substances. So, yeah, really great guest to have on the show today, and as you guys saw, when he did that little promo for us with the slingshot over his shoulder, he looked like a combination of, it looked like a video game version of The Rock and Stone Cold mixed together. He did. You know how people are doing that little thing where they bounce back and forth like they're a video game thing? He looked a little bit like that. It hurts

the head when you look at that video. I'll put the link to your Instagram show in that video in the description but because you look at him like, oh, he looks like the oh shit, he looks like the rock and then he does the beard

like Stone Cold. When I was explaining it to Josh, I'm just like, dude, you look at him and it just you can't wrap your head around it because he looks exactly like both at the same time. Doesn't make any sense. It's so weird. He hit us hard with the people's eyebrows, too. Yeah. I think he was made in a lab, guys. was made in a lab guys like i'm pretty convinced at this point that like somehow during the 90s and wwe someone went in there took some took some rock blood took some stone cold blood fused it

together and grew lane johnson i'm pretty sure that's the case and he's just that's why like you see that uh stone cold was on his podcast y'all think that's just something that happened nah nah like they figured some shit out there's some shit going on i'm convinced i'm totally convinced about that i believe that lane johnson is uh he's you know he's paid heavily for his uh duties with the eagles i think to the tune of like 60 million dollars or something like that so i'd like to hear what he has to say about uh So I'd like to hear what he has to say about Patrick Mahomes' deal. Because Patrick Mahomes got $503 million.

What? Yeah. Yeah. By $503 million. For how many years? I forget. It's pretty long. It's like a 10 or 12 year, but still.

Okay. Wow, though. Still. But man, that sets the bar so damn high. So just any quarterback that, you know, has a good game against the chiefs. Half a billion dollars, right? Yeah. Wow.

All you have to do in SEMA is just win the Superbowl and be young. Okay. So yeah, it's a 10 year deal. 50 million a year. Is that, so far, is that like the biggest contract in sports history at this point? Yeah, it's definitely the biggest for football that I've ever heard of. I know even for soccer,

there have been some big contracts, but not like one that's been that big. There have been like $100 million multiple-year contracts, but not a 503. Nothing that big. There have been like $100 million multiple-year contracts, but not a 503, like nothing like that. I want to say like Shaq and some of those guys were some of the first guys to come through with $100 million, and now it's a lot more common. But yeah, $503 million.

Looks like you should have picked football over jiu-jitsu, buddy. Hey, man. Jiu-jitsu, you win like $500 jujitsu, buddy. Hey, man. Jujitsu, you win like 500 bucks for a match, maybe. Yeah, cool 500. Baseball is definitely the one to go for, though. I remember A-Rod was the first one I remember to make a $200 million contract. I think that was with, I could be way off, but was it the Rangers? And then he got traded or something happened and he ended up in New York

with literally everybody on the Yankees. And those guys just had endless money. I mean, I know they play a ton of games, but if you're an MLB pitcher, you pitch like once a week and you make hundreds of millions of dollars that's a pretty good gig there yeah it's amazing the amount of money you can make in some of these sports Jake and I were talking about it because

you know I was kind of mentioning who we have on the show today and mentioning some of the money that goes into it and stuff and I said you know you think about it it seemed like it'd be pretty important, you know, to be a person that landed on the moon. And I was like, but like, what does an astronaut make? And he's like, I think an astronaut, he's like, if they're lucky, they make like two or 300,000. I was like, yeah.

In comparison, like it doesn't, you know, we, we put, we, uh, it's interesting where we place our value, but we place a lot of value on entertainment. We want to be, we want to be entertained, you know, going to the moon, I guess is like, not that it's not entertaining, but it's just not the same. It's not, we can't get involved with it the way that we can with a game. And I think a game or acting or movies or any of that kind of stuff is a good it's good escape from your day-to-day right yeah gets involved in something different yeah and that's what so like we were talking about it on um at mark bell's power project on instagram and uh our other social media platforms but we just asked like hey what do you guys think of the nba restart like it just happened last night lebron james went nuts uh freaking epic game uh lakers and clippers lakers won but and somebody our our buddy our buddy russ had said like oh they're just a bunch of overpaid you know cry babies and you know my thought is like well okay yeah they they do get coddled and they get treated a certain way

but they are their absolute best at what they do you know like there's there's only 30 teams and each team can only hold 12 to 15 players so if you're one of the best of the best of the best in the world yeah you kind of i don't want to say you deserve it, but it makes some sense when you're, you know, what you were just saying, Mark, how we just, we give so much money and time to entertainment. If you're there to be the absolute best, yeah, you're going to get paid for it. I think they get paid pretty fairly in comparison to, you know, what they generate, you know, they generate enormous amounts of money. And that's always kind

of like in question like i guess it'd be hard to like figure out you know percentage wise of like what the owner makes and what the but like everyone's making money off of it the state makes money off it i mean you know the stadium has to pay state taxes you know and then every time you go and buy a beer at the game, you're paying a tax, you know, you, you buy any food or any of that stuff. So it's, um, it's a positive thing, I think for everybody involved, I think it, um, what I don't really know if they're, I think sometimes they might be overpaid. Like some guys are like maybe overrated a little bit or whatever, but that's, um, that's their job.

That's their job to try to figure out how can they get paid the most, uh, the fastest, the earliest with that, with the least amount of injuries. And that's what their agents are paid to help them navigate as well. Yeah. And I don't know, like a lot, I do know some people who are like, Oh, you know, you, you pay these sports athletes this much, but then I've heard like doctors are only paid this much but i mean you gotta like it's where the attention is entertainment's a big deal people being entertained and like it's just it brings people legitimate at least a feeling

of escape and happiness and if if these players are able to do that if you're getting paid for it. Yeah. We really, really need that right now too. You know, like, no, I was just going to say like, you know, basketball to me nowadays isn't what it used to be, but when it was literally everything, like I would, I would be going nuts if I didn't have this previous season, but then now the restart and the, the, the crazy thing is how it's all going to go down. So like, there's like an eight game season playing type of thing to see who can get into

the playoffs. And if you're like, so if you're in the top eight seat or top eight standings positions, whatever you want to call it, but you are like one or two games out of that, you can actually play the team that's in eighth place to try to play into the playoffs again. It's, dude, it's like a full, like a, like a kumite for basketball. Like they are going at it pretty bad. Yeah. And then, so the other crazy thing for basketball fans, like it's supposed to end like October something-eth and then the draft is two days later and then the season starts that month again for next year so we're like for

basketball fans we're talking about basketball from now till all the way to next summer basically so this is going to give people a lot of like just like you know we're talking about entertainment but it's going to keep people people occupied of like, just like, you know, we're talking about entertainment, but it's going to keep people, people occupied, you know, keep people busy, keep people not going crazy. At least now there's something on TV that they can tune in and watch and talk about with their buddies and stuff, you know, whether via text or zoom calls and stuff like this, it's just, it's something else to do when there's not a lot of shit going on right now. Right. I think talent just always gets paid a lot of money too.

And cause it's like, uh, it's tough, right? I mean, somebody writes a play or writes a script for a movie and I'm sure they get paid well, you know,

for what they wrote, but the actor is probably going to get paid the most. Um, it's, it's a tough thing to go out there and perform in front of people, you know, and then these guys, you know, pro football players, basketball, baseball, these other sports, you know, they got, uh, a physical demand is kind of the central part of it. So you need to be gifted in the first place. And maybe that's what

people are frustrated about is the fact that maybe they weren't gifted, you know, some of the, some of these qualities, right. But whatever they might be, cause there's a wide range, you know, you don't have to just be tall to be a pro player, but it helps, you know, if you look at the big three sports, it helps if you're just long and tall and got long arms and long legs, it just, it's helpful. But there's a lot of guys who don't have that. They have other, other intangibles, but I think people are frustrated. They don't have that.

But then beyond that, I think where people are really missing the, what they're missing out on when they say stuff like that about these athletes being overpaid is they're missing out on when they say stuff like that about these athletes being overpaid is they're missing out on the fact that um these guys are also using their brains and using their minds you can't be out there on the field without without you know having you know maybe it's not maybe they don't have like a an extreme crazy understanding of the game but they know how to play the game and that's like an attribute in and of itself. And so there's a lot going on when you're on a professional field, you know, I can only imagine I've, I've only, you know, from my standpoint,

football wise, you know, I've been around Steve Smith and Chad Ochocinco and and then in wrestling being around some of those talents being around like a Brock Lesnar and a Bobby Lashley and these athletes that went to another level it's just so clear it's so clear that you're nothing like them you know they they truly are special they have something different than you and I think that it's okay to be in recognition of that. Some people are just freaks. Some people have attributes that are better. And not only that attributes that are better, maybe they pursued them better, or maybe they started pursuing them earlier. But it doesn't mean you have to feel like shit about yourself. It just means that that's the way the ball bounces sometimes that's the way things go did you ever lift with bobby lashley yeah i have lifted with bobby lashley before he's very he's very strong i remember he benched like 475 and he just you know he never really tried to like power lift You know what I mean? He's messed around with it a little bit here and there. But he's insanely strong.

Physique-wise, that guy is insane. Yeah. He also, you know, I'll say you keep in mind he was a really, really high-level wrestler. And so by the time I met him, he was already all banged up. You know, like he could still move around really well and still super athletic. Um, but his joints and stuff already hurt. So, I mean, imagine taking a guy like that at, uh, you know, 18 years old and saying, Hey, you're doing bodybuilding or you're

going to be a power lifter. I mean, it would just be just with a little bit of training. I mean, he, he was a freak when I first met him, he was really, really lean. He's actually one of the leaner people I've ever seen that, uh, that didn't care about it. Didn't give it. She wasn't trying to be lean. He just was completely shredded. I mean, he had, uh, in wrestling, you know, when we would go through our matches and stuff, you know, midway through you get pretty sweaty, almost like a bodybuilding show like when you're posing and he would just be so dry. He had striations through his stomach, striations all through his back. You were just like, what in the world am I looking at? That was right when he came out,

he was like fresh off of collegiate wrestling and he was like 30 pounds lighter. He was a lot lighter at that point he he didn't have the he didn't have the recovery and he was in a certain weight class so yeah he was just completely completely shredded and i mean i've i've run into other athletes like that too you know there's there's a there's a lot of them in the wwe i think those guys don't get credit you know they some of those guys are pretty well paid, but again, they're just, they're entertainers. Um, but they're like sportsmen and they're super athletic and strong and graceful kind of all wrapped into one. And then on top of that, they got to be able to have some skills on the microphone. Let me ask you this, man. Do

you think, cause like, I've always thought about this sports, like powerlifting, bodybuilding, um, there are a lot of freaks, you know, in, in this sphere, but then you look at the NFL, NBA, et cetera. Is there anyone within powerlifting that you've seen? And you're like, Hmm, why are you powerlifting? Why didn't you like go into the league? Or why didn't you try this because i feel like if top nfl players if any of them ever tried their hand at powerlifting we'd see some records i think but what do you think about that do you think there were any powerlifters in history yeah i think i think similarly i think uh mma in in it of itself would be in a lot of trouble if those guys tried their hands at you know like what if a lebron james know, at a young age just was like, Hey, I'm doing jujitsu. You know,

would he just be a bigger, crazier version of bones Jones? Like, you know what I mean? Like it could get really wild, but that's not where the money is. And that's not where, um, that's not, I don't think MMA is popular is, is nearly as popular at the moment, you know, but it, it will be, but yeah, I think a lot of NFL players could absolutely crush some powerlifting. Some of the problem, though, is that those athletes are tall, so it makes certain things harder. They would make for really good strongman athletes, probably.

John Heck comes to mind. Yeah, right, right. And then also, yeah, there have been power lifters that have come through the ranks before where I'm like, yeah, this guy would be, and Larry wheels comes to mind right away because he never even, he just never had the opportunity. He just, he didn't really go to high school. He, you know, some of his story that he was sharing with us years ago on, on the podcast, he, I was like, well, I'm like, what about like, what if you raced other people? Like you had to have run against other people. He goes, Oh yeah. I'd smoke everybody all the time. You know? And I

don't know how fast that is, but you know, I would imagine if he worked, I mean, look at the guys, the guy's a monster, right? So like,'s somebody, when he said that, I was like, I could be sitting next to a dude that could be like Eddie George or something like could be an all time hall of fame football player. And he just doesn't even have any idea of his capabilities just because he's never tried it. Yeah, man. I really feel Larry wheels is like that guy. I just, every, Oh, everything for him. He just gets so strong.

Makes no sense. Yeah, anything physically, he's a real beast. I do think that most, I think most powerlifters have tried their hands at football. And they either just weren't good enough or they got injured somewhere along the way. You know, because being a professional athlete is a real, that's a real trick, man. You got to somehow stay healthy enough to be able to do it for long enough to where you get the opportunity in the first place. And what about like concussions and stuff? And what about just,

some guys just constantly look at like Gronkowski. Gronkowski is one of the few players in the history of the NFL that I've ever seen just continually come back from like these brutal injuries. And he always played really rough. So he probably could have avoided the injuries, but it's like, damn dude, like that guy came back from so many different injuries and he's still like one of the best tight ends in the history of football. So a lot of times just even just being able to avoid injury or being healthy

and strong enough or fast enough or quick enough to just not get hit hard enough to where you're still healthy enough to continue onward. It seems, it seems brutal. Yeah. The NFL, not for long. I don't know if I've shared this.

I got a cousin. He was drafted by the Chargers. Yeah, he was running back. He was playing first preseason game against the Niners. He broke away. Somebody caught up to him, tackled him from the back. As they pulled him down down blew out his knee career's over it's like holy crap like that's that's insane but anyway long story short uh

he was just saying like it's impossible to get in trouble if you're actually doing your job in the nfl because he's like the stuff we have to study the stuff we have to learn plus training he's like if you want to go out at night like you have to be an idiot trying to do that so but anyway that's a secondhand experience let's get some firsthand stuff here what's up man and you're over the man what's up fellas there he is how you doing big man fucking uh Fucking sick and chilling at the house. Yeah, so you have come down with the coronavirus. You tested positive for the coronavirus. When they test you guys, they're testing all NFL players, I'd imagine.

What did they tell you with your test results today? Did they say, hey, we're 99.9% sure that you have it, or it's 100% or whatever. They just said you have a positive test and then had to come in the next day to, I guess, get double confirmation. So we did that, and now we're stuck in the house for the next 10 days. But really, I had body aches. That's probably the worst I've had. Loss of taste and smell. That's about it.

But nothing too severe. Oh, that's good to hear. And your trainer got it as well, right? Gabe came down with it as well? Yeah, I'd be disappointed if he didn't get it because he's with me every day. So he better have it. So how long you guys – what's up, man? How you doing?

Hey, eating Stan's vertical meals are a lot easier when you can't smell or taste. Let me tell you. A lot easier. Fuck. So what do you guys – like how long you guys been working together and what have you guys been working on like in the offseason? Past two years, yeah.

I mean, really, once the season's done, what do we go to? We go to, like, GPP, and then we go into different phases. But we have our swole days. A lot of times during the season, man, we do a lot of posterior chain. For what I do, you know, linemen, we do a lot of pushing. So I like to do a lot of pulling exercises. I like to do a lot of pushing um so I like to do a lot of pulling exercises I like to do a lot of reverse hyper a lot to do a lot of box squats I kind of got over to this side of training or into this whenever I met Donnie Thompson back in uh I think 2014

I saw where he was doing the body tempering online I was like I gotta go try this so I went down to Columbia South Carolina, stayed with him for probably a month and trained and, and man, got the scoop on kind of everything. He was probably one of the biggest influences as far as, you know, training for me and my career and just a great dude too. So it's, it's been really fun learning from him. How common is it for you guys to,

for other professional athletes like yourself to uh seek out this much help and this much advice uh well it just goes uh you know your position i think um you're trying to get better if you're trying to get more knowledgeable you know i look at guys that are the best of what they do are in their field so you know strong guys like him how those guys preventing injuries? You know, these guys are lifting heavy weights all the time. What can I do to prepare my body to be better suited for battle? How can I be stronger? How can I do better for injury prevention?

So really going to the guys that have bodies through hell, literally through hell, and really learning their tricks and their trades and trying to implement it into what I do as far as football. You know, during the season, I want to know about this, man, because game to game, it's impact, impact, impact. Are there ever games where you go in feeling fresh or is like you go into the season feeling fresh

and then you just degrade slowly from there? Yes, it's like a slow death. We usually ramp it up pretty good during training camp. And then once season starts, I think we lift two times a week. Usually we lift them pretty heavy all year. But, you know, as the season progresses, you kind of have to go with how you feel. I mean, you try not to kill yourself.

But like you said, we may limit the reps, but we're still using heavy weight. We still want our bodies used to heavy load, going through that stress. So when you get to the football field, nothing's going to kind of overpower you. So, yeah, but as far as the frequency, I mean, it's really two times a week,

maybe three times, but usually two. And it kind of diminishes a lot during the season just because we have so much time practicing and getting ready for our opponent. But off season is a little bit different. You know, we can have a lot more time to individualize our stuff. Do you think there's a... Go ahead, Andrew.

My bad. Do you think there's anything as far as like linemen like trying to make it to the league are overlooking when it comes to their training, whether it be a training method or even something like rest recovery, that sort of thing that you've learned along the way? Obviously, rest and recovery. I've gotten really big on just training like barefoot and barefoot shoes,

trying to get my feet and ankles strong. So, you know, with football, you see guys taping their ankles every day for practice, for games. Now we're a time that limits your ranges of flexibility. If you have stiff ankles and stiff feet, you're going to have a stiff body. You're going to have stiff mobility. So I'm really big on ankles, trying to get my feet strong. And really for all its alignment, I'm big on just posterior chain.

You know, a lot of times, you know, people's backs are messed up. We sit a lot after practice. Your glutes get shut off. So I'm really big on reverse hypers. I understand Louie kind of invented that because he broke his back, I guess, in 73. So once I had a herniated disc in my back, I found out I better start using this thing if I want to feel better.

So once I got into that, obviously ran into Donnie, and he was telling me just the few exercises I should be doing, box squats, stuff like that for my training, try to avoid deadlifts or regular conventional deadlifts. If you're, you know, a big tall guy built like a basketball player, do trap bar deadlift instead. So just little stuff. He's helped me with that.

But really a lot of posterior chain because we do so much pushing, um, you know, as all of it's alignment. So trying to reverse that. You got any precautions going on with the Corona virus now that you know that you have it, you taking any like medication or any supplements or anything to help fend it off or doing anything? We're pretty big on vitamin a, d and i think b right now i heard zinc's pretty good um so yeah we've had that other than that really i don't think there's

anything you can take um but if you have a fever you can take stuff for that but i haven't really had that uh just really just been staying in my house i got the gym in my in my barn outside so that's good for me so i don't have to travel anywhere so i got all that on the on lock so other than that man i've been pretty bored is your family uh worried about you like your mom or something like that is she freaking out oh yeah oh yeah they're caught yeah so you know what they see in the media you know just be bedridden with the oxygen tube coming out my nose by now. But, yeah, I told her I'm doing fine. I just really can't taste or smell anything.

So, you know, she's definitely still calling. When you tested positive, did something go through your mind like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I got it? Or was it more like, ah, shit, this might make training a little bit harder now? Well, I had a feeling I got it just because I started getting body aches, like I was about to catch a fever. And I had no fever, but I just had the body aches. And I had a couple nights of that. And then I went and got the test,

and I was assuming it was going to come back positive. As far as training, the cardio has been a little bit different just because the lungs are a little bit full. But other than that, I mean, it hasn't been too bad. I feel like the previous are a little bit full but uh other than that i mean it hasn't been hasn't been too bad it's like the previous two days have been the worst part of it but really today i feel fine you know before this podcast before you came on we were talking about how some people get mad at pro athletes because uh y'all just have intangibles that nobody else really has like you can can't teach 6'6".

But I was wondering, man, when you were coming up and you were playing football, because I'm assuming you played football from really young, right? Yeah, I started in junior high. Okay. So, yeah, so obviously there's a lot of guys that end up being 6'6", but they don't make it to the league. So do you think that you had certain intangibles that other guys didn't have or was it certain things and certain ways that you approached training

and your development? Like you mentioned the training barefoot thing, and that's rare, right? So are there things like that that, like, you did that separated you from the pack over time? I mean, I played pretty much every sport. So I played football starting in junior high, but really got serious about it in high school. But I ran track.

I ran the quarter. I ran the mile relay. I did shot put. So I was a big basketball guy. So I played basketball more than I did football growing up. Wow. And then I played some baseball. So really I was kind of well-rounded, I guess, when it comes to that aspect.

But I think as far as transitioning to football, I think basketball helped me the most because that was's what that was my first love was that small helped you yeah far as change the direction being quick on your feet and um you know far as uh not wanting to get crossed over and look stupid I feel like that correlates to playing off to the tackle position pretty well so moving your feet going up and down the court, being athletic, that definitely helped. I feel like more than anything was basketball. Were you a lineman in high school or did you play other positions?

I was a quarterback in high school. That's quite the transition, right? I was a quarterback. So my senior year. You just brought everybody over or what? I can throw it, though. I can throw it pretty good. My senior year, I started running a little bit more. Not so much my junior year, but once I got to college,

I played quarterback, Juco, for the first season, and then during that spring, I switched to tight end. So that was probably 250 at the time, 255. We got any plays in the playbook where it involves you throwing the football? We have had them. We just never run them. The problem is I wear like a plaster cast over my thumbs when I play,

so I don't break this ligament here because that happens a lot to linemen. They get their thumbs hung in somebody's jersey or face mask, and it'll get broke off. So if they asked me to, I'd remove that sumbitch pretty quick and thinking about like uh the young athlete because you said you were you know the quarterback in high school oftentimes you know the quarterback's gonna be like like the have the highest iq they'll probably they're the you know mvp at you know in most cases but you switched over to linemen do you have any advice for some young kids that maybe they make it to the next level in college

and the coach is like, oh, you're definitely, nope, that's not you. You're going to be over here. Sometimes they're like a little, they're not easily acclaimed to that new position. Do you have any advice for them? Take a shot to their ego. That's what it is.

Because when I first got asked about playing office line, I said, hell no. I don't want to go play that sloppy position you know look at all these sloppy dudes yeah but really man my first so when i visited tcu coming out of juco the coach patterson was like man you're gonna be 300 pounds he said you're not gonna be playing tied in so that guy he has an eye for moving guys around coach hoops has done it done it. He's moved guys from D-tackle to offense tackle. Gary Patterson had a guy that played running back in high school, moved into defensive end. His name was Tommy Blake out of TCU.

Ran like a 4-5-40 at 270. So, yeah, man, a lot of times you get guys with big frames, you know, that play tight end or play some positions they may grow out of. And so, as far as the tackle position, a lot of guys are ex-basketball players or ex-tight ends. These guys that have a big frame and the demand now as far as being nimble and quick and athletic is higher than it's ever been because the guys

coming off the edge are, you know, new breed of guys. So what I would tell those guys is listen to your coach and, you know, it can help you out in the long run. It'll be an adjustment at first, but you'll gradually get to know it a little bit more. What's the hardest part? I mean, it's got to be tough being on the end like that and then having the quickness and the speed of some of these guys nowadays.

Do you have a hard time getting out to those players the quickness and the speed of some of these guys nowadays. Do you have a hard time getting out to those players and being able to block them? Or is it – or, like, what's – if you have a weakness, like, what's something that throws you off from some of these guys? I mean, nothing really, I feel like, throws me off. Sometimes if you get beat off the snap, I mean, that's usually a play that you can't have back. So a lot of us, man, it's focus.

It's really like a chess match when it goes out there to the games. So just little stuff, like if your stances are switched up versus a run or a pass, they'll pick up on little stuff like that. Things on film that you can give away. So it's very – you know, these guys are so smart. It's such a cerebral sport, especially when you're in it, just these guys picking up on stuff. So, really, I think as far as my game, the worst enemy is me

as far as losing focus or messing up on plays or IDs or something like that. As far as blocking guys on the edge, I've been pretty solid to that. You know, since you actually mentioned focus, I'm really curious, especially coming from a professional athlete as yourself, you know, no matter what sport, you know, people play, whether it's like people are power lifters or whatever, people tend to sometimes not be able to focus on what they're doing at that moment in time.

And especially with you, the stakes are so high. I'm assuming that like, I don't know, you've learned or the coaches that you've worked with over the years have taught you certain ways to kind of click in. Are there any things that you do before a game or during the game or whatever that just makes you be there and like in the moment? Yeah, well, you do what you practice. And so a lot of times we practice being distracted.

Everybody has their phone up their ass so much. They're up there looking at Instagram, scrolling three seconds at a time. And you do that day in and day out. What are you practicing? Only focusing on seconds. Only five seconds before you're going to the next page. So you're practicing that. So our coach always says, you know,

focus on four or five seconds at a time for a play. One thing that I've been introduced to is the concentration grids. So a lot of sports psychologists will give that to players. You can do it before games or, you know, right when you wake up or before you go to bed. But basically it's a time where you get timed and you have a grid that's jumbled up with all the numbers from zero to 100. And you try to find it as fast as you can, and you gradually improve over time. But basically what it does is if you find yourself losing focus, you're able to dial it back in.

And really, man, it's about practicing it. And, you know, just like I said, what do we practice doing now? We practice being distracted with our phones. We're living in a distracted world now, and you don't realize what it does to your brain, how it kind of rewires you. What you been doing with your food? I know that Stan has been helping you out.

So what's been going on with your nutrition? I have a vertical diet. So I have all the meals in the fridge. Sometimes we make it fresh, but, man, it's really helped. I think the biggest thing with that has been the sodium, too, is how I feel like there's been a misconception behind that. And with athletes, we have a woman that comes in, part of a system called leveling. So they test your sweat and they see how much sodium you have

and how much you're sweating out per hour. And if you don't replace that, man, that's the biggest probably performance reducer there is because you don't replace the sodium, electrolytes. You lose blood volume, which equates to blood oxygen. So you lose energy. You know, I mean, you get fatigued real easy. So he's been big on the Thermatab. So I usually take three or four of those with every meal.

A lot of the ground beef, you know, his staples is ground beef, white rice with bone broth in it, egg, and sometimes we'll have orange juice, and he likes to do yogurt in there and make it like a little creamsicle, so that's kind of his dessert, so to speak. So we do that, but, man, just staying pretty consistent with that. And, yeah, I mean, as far as feeling good, you know, so to speak so we do that but man just staying pretty consistent with that and um yeah i mean far as feeling good um you know i'm not pounding a lot of the gatorade like i used to um try to

limit the sugars and yeah i mean far as my weight man i'm probably the heaviest i've been 325 close to 330 uh feeling good and um yeah just just staying consistent on it Uh, feeling good. And, um, yeah, just, just staying consistent on it. A lot different than old school, uh, linemen, you know, eating pizza and Philly cheesesteaks and stuff like that. Right. And the big thing about Stan is that this whole diet is based on being easy to digest easy on your stomach. And so, you know, when you're eating piece of pasta pancakes all the time, you're going to be bloated, you're going to be feeling like crap.

And so this is a This has been a big way to reduce this. How'd you get introduced to Stan anyway? That's dope. I think I saw him on Shark Tank a few years back with his cooler. Gabe, I think, reached out to him.

I was looking at different diets and trying different stuff. What'd you say? Oh, yeah, Jesse. Jesse got him in touch with Gabe. Gabe got him in touch with me, and he came. I guess he was in Philly, and he drove out here and pretty much brought some over. We had some, and then he gave his whole spill on the diet.

And, you know, he's just a pretty impressive individual just being around him. I love how he speaks. He'll speak for two hours. There will never be a pause. He's so... With a guy like that, he's pretty impressive. I've been following his diet. I love how

excited he gets talking about it. It's pretty bland, but just how excited he is about it every day. It works. If you stick to it, it definitely works. If you stick to it, it does. It definitely works. Do you mix in some, you know, cheat meals here and there or you stay pretty strict on it? I stay pretty consistent.

I mean, I will have Ben and Jerry's ice cream every now and then. I will order pizza sometimes. But, yeah, usually pretty strict. Pretty strict in the house. It's really cool, like, first off,, pretty strict in the house. It's really cool. Like, first off, that you're doing the vertical diet. And because when you're talking about, you know, the way you're eating now, when you see a lot of athletes on social media,

like you see some athletes going vegetarian and all this because of all the meat stuff. And sometimes I'm like, how are some of these guys performing at a high level if they're legit eating like that? So I'm curious, first off, what were you eating like beforehand before you got on the vertical diet? And did you see a big difference in your performance when you started doing this? Yeah, I mean, I was eating, I mean, really, for me, it's a lot about calories. So a lot of carbs for me. But like you said, I mean, the big reason getting off of it is the inflammation you get from all that, just the bloating, the gas, all the bullshit you got to put up with, you get tired of.

And then mixing that in with the sodium, being real, you know, cautious about how much salt you're putting in your system or, you know, really trying to optimize that. And that's been the biggest game changer. Forest performance, man, if you're really conscious about that, loading up on your salt, your fatigue levels, I mean, as far as your energy, I mean, it goes through the roof as compared to, you know, when I'm coming to rookie, I'm pretty much eating whatever, you know,

going – used to have about fucking five chocolate chip cookies at lunch every day just, you day, just being young. But once you get older, all that kind of goes away. So trying to get better in my last few years I got in the league. How do you manage your sleep? Because I imagine sleep's got to be tough, especially when you guys are playing big games and you're coming off that high of the victory

or whatever happens in the game, and then you have to go back to your hotel room and try to figure out how to sleep and start to recover for the next week. So how do you manage your sleep? We have an aura ring tracker. I'm not sure if you've heard of those. That does a pretty good job of tracking your sleep as far as your REM sleep, your light sleep, deep sleep. It tracks all that.

A lot of times, man, it's been trying to get – you know, I have a basement here, so probably when I want to sleep really good, I go down to my basement. So it's totally dark down there. So when I've done my, you know, taking naps in my regular room versus the basement, the basement I have the most REM, I have the most deep sleep because it's totally dark. There is no light at all. And you'll be surprised how much that makes a difference. A lot a lot of yeah a lot of times after games it's hard for

me to sleep um just because adrenaline so even if i want to it's kind of hard to um but usually if i go down the basement where it's it's cold it's dark there is no light i do get my best sleep try to limit the tv before um or the phone try to shut that off you know 30 minutes before bed and that helps a lot too any big uh recovery tactics that you use especially in season since you get beat up use a sauna a lot really big yeah sauna sauna's big sauna's big for stress it's uh, you know, the heat stress. It's good for your system. It's good just for your overall body stress, reducing that. I feel like it helps me sleep. We do a lot of that.

We do a lot of cold tub, getting there usually first thing in the morning. So I feel like the cold does a good job of blowing your fight or flight mechanism. So as soon as you get in cold water, you want to gas for air. So I'll do a true, as far as like breathing techniques, a few guys do the Wim Hof method. Not sure if you're familiar with that. A guy out of the Netherlands who's pretty much able to control his own immune system with breath work.

And they've, you know, he's taught this to, you know, dozens and dozens of people. And they've did this in a university study where they went to – they all got ejected with E. coli and they were all able to fight it off. So he does a lot of that. He does a lot of cold exposure. He goes a little bit deeper than I do, but sometimes I'll do that. But, yeah, those are pretty much the three staples.

I do body tempering a lot. Body tempering is huge. Cold tub, sauna, the breath work, usually I'm pretty good. This is kind of a personal question, but have you ever shit yourself in the sauna before? Shit myself in the sauna? No, I haven't. I've almost passed out in the sauna.

I've taken NL Explode before before practice and almost shit myself and had to run back up. Yeah, you got to be careful in those Philadelphia Eagles pants, right? Yeah, we actually had a guy a couple years ago. He did just that. He took a few extra scoops of N.O. Explode, and he ended up shitting himself up there in the field. He went in between series, and instead of getting whole new pants,

he just put another pair of pants on top of it and it bled through. So it was a shitty situation. Wow. No, I shot myself in the sun. I think that's why Mark asked you that question. He wanted to make it a little bit personal. So like the heat kind of spread the smell and everyone was sitting there, started looking around

and i didn't say anything but i shot myself in the sun that's why that's why i had somebody who i thought shit in the side oh so it's probably the same situation hey you know i think uh you've probably been asked this question before but i mean you've been in the league for a while. Initially, when you got, I guess, I don't know how they disperse your money when you go professional. But when you when you got that first big check or first few big checks, did you know how to handle yourself? Did you have family that was like, hey, do this or whatever? Or were you just kind of like, hey, let's go. I don't want to put it in the bank. Dumbass is what they told me.

That's what I did. Obviously, I had to get a place in Philly, so I had that. I got a place real close to the facility. As far as any big expenses, I had a truck. I think I got a house down in Texas for my mom, and that was really it. And, yeah, really, as far as the expense I've had my whole career, I mean, I bought a place in Oklahoma, a ranch, about 500 acres. But other than that, man, I'm not real big on my jewelry. I don't give a fuck about jewelry.

I guess the best vehicle I had was a Raptor, but the transmission blew up on it, so I'm selling that piece of shit. And that's about it. That's about as lavish as I've been. What was it like? Did you get, like, physically a check, you know, with a bunch of zeros on it? Oh, boy.

You either have a check or direct deposit. Mine's more direct deposit. So, probably the best thing, I don't see that. Yeah, man, as far as living, I mean, I grew up pretty modest. I mean, we didn't really have a whole lot. So, as long as I got something to eat and uh somebody to hang with i'm pretty good yeah i don't really need a whole lot and what also spurred you to create a podcast man because like first off i mean you see um like you see the trend of like some athletes are doing more things so

that when they get off the field or when they get off the court, they got something going. But a podcast, I haven't seen many pro athletes podcast, and then podcast well too because, like, you're good at conversation and, like, questions and all that type of stuff. So what spurred that? Well, pretty much my marketing guy reached out to me. He's like, hey, you should think about doing this. And I'm like, all right, man. So we're in the middle of a pandemic.

We're not doing nothing. We're at the house anyway. So we started it off. And, you know, the first episode was kind of rough. You know, my internet started just going eight shifts. It was disconnected and reconnecting. So after some of those issues with that, it's gotten gradually better and better. But, yeah, I've just found myself wanting to ask just regular questions,

maybe that the regular fan would want to know from these people. I like to ask them kind of how they got to where they are now, kind of what inspires them, what, you know, how their journey was, I guess, to where they were. And everybody's story is a little bit different. So it's been cool talking to all these different people. It's been fun. Did you ever have any times in your football career where you were thinking about not continuing onward or have you always kind of had this goal of being the nfl and you kind of just it was always

like uh maybe within reach um i mean as far as my goals in nfl i mean i'm going to be the best tackle every year that's my goal as far as you mean once you get some of your accomplishments things change but for me um you know i just signed a four-year contract probably my goal is to you know play that four years and then uh reevaluate things as far as having everything i've ever wanted i mean i have that now but I mean, I love it. I love training with the guys. I love playing football. You know, it's really something I did all my life. So moving forward with that, I mean, outside of football,

I can see myself doing maybe player personnel, something with the NFL, scouting guys or directing the organization, being in that. I can also see myself being at the house fishing every day not doing a damn thing uh training uh and just taking some time off being around my family so that's probably uh yeah those are those are kind of what i'm thinking when i'm done after the uh the super bowl i mean there's almost nothing else after that right but like how do you keep yourself motivated? How do you stay hungry?

It's really about the guys that I'm with. And, I mean, this is really all I know. So all I know is train. All I know is practice. So you're getting these habits. You've been doing them for so long, it's hard to break habits. So especially the guys I'm playing with. I've got a lot of great talent on the offensive line,

a lot of great players that push me and motivate me. So one of the guys is Jason Peters. You know, he's a future Hall of Famer, but, you know, he's 38 years old and he's still doing it. And he's, you know, I look at guys like that and some of the older bets around the league, and those are the guys that I look up to. You've tested positive in the past for performance-enhancing drugs,

and that seems to be in your rearview mirror nowadays. What was that experience like going through that? It was fun. It was fun as hell. Oh, man. I'll tell you what it did. It woke my ass up. So when everybody thought I was a fraud, I had my back against the wall.

You know, I had my best season to date. It was in 2017. So I came out. I went against the best pass rusher feels like every game the whole year and so I just kept gradually picking up and getting better and so I feel like whenever people evaluate me

or look at how I've played in the past I don't really think anything's changed so there was no drop off if anything I've gotten nothing but better ever since I've been in the past, I don't really think anything's changed. So there was no drop off. If anything, I've gotten nothing but better ever since I've been in the league. So as far as my accomplishments, everything that I've accomplished has been after suspensions. And so after serving my time, I lost all my guaranteed money. I lost a lot of people that supported me or were behind me.

So the coolest thing about it is I got to revamp myself. And with everything against the wall, man, I've done nothing but just excel. And so these next four years, I'm going to give them hell and keep proving myself right. When you say you lost your guaranteed money, what does that mean? Yeah, so if you get a suspension or if you – so if you fail a drug test, there's other stuff too that you can violate it. But so you have a contract. so you have your guaranteed contract.

So mine was five years for 64, and I had like $35 million guaranteed money. So that's money that you're actually going to see, you're supposed to see every penny. So I lost that. So no money is guaranteed. You're still making the money, but if you get hurt or if you get a career-ending injury, you don't't get nothing so that's what it means guaranteed and what's the uh like the drug testing protocol in the nfl uh i mean far as for peds i mean they test us pretty

regularly for street drugs we have usually an annual uh one time a year and if you pass that you're good but far as good. Once you test positive, you're in the program. As far as me, my career, I've been tested more than anybody. Once you fail a test, you're getting tested probably three times as much as everybody else. That's what I did. You get blood

tested for growth hormone and then you get tested for everything else. The mental side of things must be the mental side of things must be really difficult um with travel and the different teams you guys are playing and um the the uh the high level of competitiveness is just on another level and then you're dealing with uh injuries and so forth going from one game to another uh how have you been able to deal with the mental side of things?

Is there certain things you mentioned earlier about kind of practicing with focus? Is there other ways that you're training your mind? Well, I mean, a lot of it's, you know, your routine. I think the phones, I think phones only create anxiety. I feel like you do nothing but watch the news all that does is create anxiety everything you see i feel like from that perspective is usually negative usually the news is all negative um usually the internet any discussions or anything is going to be negative a lot of trolls out there so it's really what you

want to put your mind to and so i feel like if you can limit those two, that'll be huge. And then I feel like it's part about who you hang around with, the group you hang around with. If you're hanging around good people that support you, that are behind you, that are positive, it's going to feed off on you. If you're around the – our coach calls it the fellowship of the miserable, if you're around those guys, they're going to drag you down. And so be careful who you hang around.

I'm curious about this, man, because I think Mark, too, I've asked him this question, but when you – because you kind of said you have everything you could ever want, right? And obviously you have the money to pay for anything you could ever possibly want for the most part. But did that or does that change your level of happiness as an individual now that you have all of that? Like, do you – I feel like money only amplifies what you were anyway.

Okay. So, that's what I feel. So, like I said, there's a lot of guys that want to get this big contract. Okay, once you get it, then what? You think it's over? That's what I feel. So, like I said, there's a lot of guys that want to get this big contract. Okay, once you get it, then what? You think it's over? No, it only intensifies because you're held to a higher standard of play. Once you're a certain player, if you're all pro player, you know,

that's your expectation now. So, things change. So, just because you get your contract, it's not right off into the sunset. Shit only gets real. It gets more real as uh you know as that progresses in your career but like i said man there's only so much you can do in a day there's only so much you can't control and so far as me um let the haters hate i'm gonna keep doing me um i got my team i got my people that care about me that's who i hang around with we train we get after it and then we get after people on sundays and uh you know looking to have about four more years of it before i hang it up

so with that being said like what what are the things that do actually bring you happiness and like what where do you feel that your purpose lies as an individual uh i feel like my purpose lies is going to be uh helping the guys when I get done with this. Younger guys, I can kind of live through them. I can tell stories of my journey, how I got to where I'm at, the hardships, the stuff I went

through, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I use that to direct younger guys. I feel like that's where my heart is. Where I'm most happy is when I'm around my family, is i'm around my when i'm around my family when around my kids i love fishing man i love i love getting away from a lot of people i don't you know i'm from the country i'm not a big city person so yeah i like training if i'm not training i'm pretty pissed if i can train if i can eat good if i can fish or do something like

that i'm pretty happy. So there it is. What was the key to getting that Super Bowl ring? If you could kind of sum it up, you know, what was the – what was different about that team in particular that was able to get that done against the Patriots? Yeah, I mean, we weren't expected to do much. After Carson got hurt, we weren't expected – we were expected to be one and done in the playoffs. So I feel like as far as expectations, we didn't have any.

So, we had nothing to lose. So, we had only everything to gain. So, when you're going into a game, expect to lose by a lot. And you go out there and you smash somebody in the mouth, it just gives you the utmost confidence. And really, I feel like we have the perfect blend of people as far as younger guys, young energy, and then, you know, the sophisticated vets who have, you know,

some who have already won a Super Bowl and had that knowledge. I thought it was the perfect blend. And when we got to, you know, to play the Patriots, they were a great team. We knew they were a great offense, but as far as their defense, it wasn't nothing that was, you know, that caught us off guard or anything. So we knew we could score points. And then really, man, a lot of it goes down to luck too.

I mean, as far as, you know, the plays we made, I mean, it was just, you know, everything kind of clicked that night. And I'm glad it did. It was a fun season. It was a long season, but it was, you know, all the ups and downs. It was just a crazy year. And the way we ended it off was special. Very cool.

You guys have anything else? Yeah, I'm just curious. Who's the freakiest athlete you ever had to go up against? Vaughn's up there, Vaughn Miller. He's a good one. Khalil Mack's another one. Doesn't surprise me because Vaugh Von Miller uses a slingshot. Yeah, slingshot.

He was also a 110-meter hurdle state champion too, but a lot of people didn't know that out of DeSoto. So, a guy that's so good with his hips, he can bend, he's strong, good feet. Khalil's like that. He's just a little bit bigger. You know, Von's probably 24 with his hips. He can bend. He's strong. Good feet. Cleo's like that. He's just a little bit bigger. You know, Vaughn's probably 245, 250. Cleo's probably 270, 275.

So those guys are probably the cream of the crop. Have you had the opportunity to speak to high school kids about some of your experiences and has the topic of performance enhancing drugs has that come up before because i guess you could be kind of a you could be a go-to person saying hey look you know i got smacked on the wrist a bunch of times for this and it's you know here's what i found type of thing yeah i can i can i can show you the before the during and after so um you know when it comes down to that, I can say, you know, as far as learning from it, I have.

And as far as showing people what I can do when I have my back against the wall, so everybody calling me a fraud, this and that, I can show you what it can do to motivate you. Yeah, I mean, I feel like my pretty damn pretty damn strange when it comes down to as far as all my positions i played with stuff i've been through um and then the success i'm having now i feel like it's a at least be a a good short story to read right you know mark mentioned um i think it was at the beginning of this that you uh you don't want to be accepted potentially for the hall of Fame, right?

And so why are you so adamant about that? Because, I mean, I don't know if there are any guys that have ever tested positive that are in the Hall of Fame, but, I mean, I don't think that should mess you up. I don't know, man. I'll tell you what, after I fail my test, I can tell you what, I've been tested more than anybody in the damn league. And so if anybody thinks that my stuff isn't credible now, then, hey,

they're just going to be a hater all the way through. Yeah, I feel like players in the 70s and 80s, yeah, let's get real with some of these guys and how they looked. Definitely a different league. There was definitely no testing back then. So it was, yeah. I'm not going to say any names, but I'm pretty sure

there's been some guys running hot in the Hall of Fame. Also, I mean, I think I'm the one guy on this podcast who knows the least about football in general, but like basketball, the game has changed.

You mentioned that football has changed. Like basketball is like a three-point game now. It's more than ever. Has football, do you think, changed in a way too that's much different than back in the day? Yeah, I feel like guys now, I mean, we're not as big on the offensive line. I mean, there is some big guys, but a lot of it is speed. Linebackers, you don't really see a lot of the six fours, you know, two 65, you know,

Jeremiah Trotters in the film a gaps. Now you got to have guys that can cover, you got to have guys that can cover these Tyree kills running backs out the backfield. You got to have guys that have some serious speed. So if you have guys that are stiff, that are big, they can't run, you're going to get run right out of the league. So it's kind of, it's changing. It's gotten a lot more dynamic, a lot, you know know a lot more speed um in the game and so that goes you know really for all positions yeah speaking of change um you know with the uh the extra precautions that the nfl or the

nba is doing with the nba bubble and stuff have they let you guys know about any of the differences for the league uh for the season coming up? We have all these different protocols, but at the end of the day, I mean, I heard about a trainer the other day who was totally isolated and was telling all of his kids or telling all the guys on the team to stay, you know, at home, and he ends up getting it. So it's like we're trying to rope the wind. We're trying to corral something that we have no damn control of. And, yeah, you can talk about all this and all that, but's not looking good so far here i am at the house there's been a lot more people added

to the list you've been seeing major league baseball games get canceled day in and day out and really i don't think people have a damn clue about it if we're being honest yeah that's what i think in the nfl are they going to like if someone does test positive are they just trying to do what they did with you will they do that during the season as well how do you take it yeah what's gonna happen when our quarterback tests positive something or start quarterback and you know are we going to have damn chemical warfare in the NFL? Is that how we're going to sabotage people's damn seasons? Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. Yeah. It's going to be very interesting. We've said a lot of times on this podcast, we, we agree with what you just said. We, uh, you know, it's, it's great that the government, you know, stepped in to maybe put things on pause

for a minute, but at the same time, there's, there's really nothing anyone can do about it. And I agree with what you said at the end there is that it just doesn't seem like anybody really knows a whole lot on what can help. Seems like social distancing makes some sense. It seems like washing your hands makes some sense. But once we start getting beyond that, it's like, who the hell knows what makes sense. Yeah.

I mean, we're, we're from entertainers. We're out there to write people's days up. And so we're going to do that and get everybody sick and fans are going to come there. We're supposed to, you know, have no fans. And then now they're saying fans can come in, but you can wear your mask. I can tell you how that's going to go. People are going to get drunk.

They're going to take that so much off and it's going to be, and it's going to be crone everywhere. Hey, what was it like for you to have Stone Cold Steve Austin on your podcast? That must have been a lot of fun. Oh, it was fun. Man, I like his attitude. You know, especially all the hell that I've gone through, that's where I kind of changed to.

You know, I've been putting the bird up a lot over the past few years. Just, you know, I've looked up to him as far as his wrestling career. And then this is his attitude, man. He's a funny guy. He's from Texas, you know, a lot of similar interests. He likes the outdoors. He's a pretty country boy. But, yeah, man, he was definitely entertaining back in the day.

I enjoyed all his matches. I enjoyed his commentary. And, yeah, as far as being funny and authentic, man, he was one of the best. All right. How come an offensive lineman gets paid about ten times less as the pretty quarterbacks? I don't know. I mean, tackles are paid pretty handsomely.

But, I mean, the quarterback is – I mean, it's the America's position. So they got to get the America's salary, I guess. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of people like to dispute that. These guys aren't getting touched except on Sundays. That's why they can play so long. Hey, but that's why everybody wants to play quarterback. Before the podcast, and we mentioned this too, we saw a video. It's on Mark's pod it's on

mark's instagram and you were like training with stan that's right you did the people's eyebrow and immediately we're like wait what well that that looks like the rock but wait she also looks like stone cold and we're kind of convinced at this point that like looks like mankind like you has anyone ever told you that like you look like a mix of those two? Because, bro, I mean – I'm still thinking about going into wrestling. Jim Ross is a real big OU fan, so he was at our games all the time on the sidelines.

Yeah. I've been texting him. If this shit gets canceled, son, I'm going somewhere to wrestle somebody. Damn. I don't know what my name would be, but we can figure out one pretty quick. That would be amazing.

And through this podcast, man, you also mentioned a few times about just like it doesn't matter about things that you really can't control, right? And Mark, myself, and Andrew, we've been paying a lot of attention to, I mean, you've probably heard of stoicism before, and I've heard that a lot of NFL teams and pro, myself, and Andrew, we've been paying a lot of attention to – I mean, you've probably heard of stoicism before. And I've heard that a lot of NFL teams and pro –

like just professional teams, like someone there like introduces them to that. Has that just been something that you've come up with? Like you don't worry about shit that you can't control? Or do you dabble in that stuff? No, I have. No, I've done it all. I've dabbled and I've learned you're only going down a rabbit hole hole and you're trying to control all these things and you can't you can't control any of it and so everybody wants to be liked in this world everybody puts their best you know

instagram posts up with all their filters and all this bullshit up to put it put out their best me yeah and with with my journey with the suspensions all the bullshit i've been through hey i've had no choice but to go through hell and come out the other side and a brand-new man. And I feel liberated. I feel motivated. I feel like it's the biggest motivating factor in my career. And as far as changing it, I wouldn't change anything.

But it's definitely been a learning experience, a humbling experience, and thankful to just be playing. So real quick like uh when you are speaking to some of these kids um i'm sure some of them come up to you and they're saying like even coaches are you know kind of pushing me towards taking something because if i want to make it to the next level i'm gonna have to just you know get that little extra edge on everybody else. What can you tell some of the younger athletes that are listening? I can say, look at my journey, son, and say, don't do it. I said, it'll cost you a lot of money. It'll cost you your reputation.

If that's something you don't want to mess up, then I suggest staying away from it. That's exactly what I'd tell them. I'd say, look at the humiliation you're going to go through. I'd just say, just turn on a YouTube clip of me, and you'll learn a lot. Where do you think this drive came from? This drive come from grandpa or your dad or your mom? Where do you think you've just always been like this?

I've been like this, man. I feel like, you know, i was drafted fourth overall all this um had a lot of expectations they tackle and then once i failed the drug test and everybody thought i was a fraud or that all this athleticism was was fucking you know just juiced up or if i was just a steroid monkey my whole life and then i had to come out and prove myself over and over again and i've had no drop off and what i've done I've only gotten better in everything I've done um you know as far as my body my body's got nothing but bigger I'm better than I've ever been and so you know and with that um you know the first time I got prescribed tests my test levels were 500 so I got prescribed tests that was for So to put my test levels in the 700s.

So usually the higher body fat you have as a lineman, the less testosterone you're going to have. And so when I got popped the first time, I was taking that. And so whenever I guess your TD ratios are off, that's what got flagged. The second time I had no intention of doing anything. I was taking a supplement and it got popped for Osterine. And so there's been a few guys that have tested positive for that. One of them was Taylor Luan last year or two years ago.

A dude from Clemson coming out in college football. I think he's with the Giants now. Tested positive for Osterine. And so the first time was like, yeah, I learned from it. The second time, man, I was like, fuck, here we go again. I had no intention. I had my fully guaranteed contract. I had everything I wanted.

All that's gone. And so suspended 10 games. And then I come back. I played two games that season. Then the next season is when we win the Super Bowl. And so I was like, yeah, really just knocked down on my ass and had nowhere to go from there. I was like, dude, this can't get any worse.

So here I go. Here I go again. The extremely frustrating part about that is Ostrine doesn't really do too much for you. It might give you a little something, but not much. I was out there training at Donnie's, and I told him about it, and i didn't know what it was he really didn't know what it was but the second time i got i got popped was austrian so everything i'm saying to y'all is what i said under oath um when i had to go into battle with the courts uh or with the nfl so everything i'm

saying to you is what i said to them. And so definitely suck, man. There's definitely – yeah, I mean, what can you do? There is no excuses. You know, the NFL says what you take or, you know, any supplements or risk. So anything now is, you know, NSF certified. So if I'm taking anything, usually when they're taking this probiotics and and maybe some on it join all and so that's about it for me you uh you have some players on your team where you just scratch your head and you're not sure why they're so good like they don't look

the part they don't lift like they're not that big into the weight room and not that big into training but they come on the field and they just, for whatever reason, kick your ass here and there. And you're like, God damn. There's some guys that looked apart and can't play. And then there's some guys that look like a couple scoops of mashed potatoes with arms and can't really lift a whole lot of weights, but can go out there and just fucking plow dudes over and are farm strong.

I've seen lots of guys like that. And those are the guys usually from Iowa or, you know, somewhere pretty damn, you know, where they're told they're a piece of shit their whole life and they got to go work on the farm. So usually those type of guys are the ones like that. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

Thanks again. Where can people find out more about you and where can people learn about your podcast um yeah go to instagram lane johnson 65 that's where my outside the lane shows on and yeah that and twitter so those are both uh the handles on it so that's it awesome man have a great rest of your day yes sir yeah man thanks a lot appreciate it thank you yes sir damn that guy was great he really does remind me of stone cold like the goatee definitely sells yeah stone cold look hit it to the stunner at any moment wasn't he yeah he would be strong he would be great in wrestling. Oh, my God.

6'6", 320? How big is Brock Lesnar? Brock Lesnar is probably 6'3", or 6'4". And before, so, yeah, he had to lose a lot of weight to get into the UFC, because because ufc allows you to weigh 265 and brock lesnar even when he was wrestling he was like 310 or something he was huge yeah big boy at 6 6 320 that's massive yeah it's crazy and he he, and he said he's, he's better now. So he's probably like faster and quicker and heavier at that weight. So I liked a lot of what he was saying about how he basically just had to

shut his mouth and perform to be able to get past the, uh, the PED situation. So that's, that's a tough thing. It's a tough thing to lose. And then you, all you're also going to continue to have people that are going to people now, you know, probably like, Oh,

he just figured out a way to pass the test or, you know, people are probably still spitting on negativity, but he's, uh, he's doing it, man. He's kicking ass and he's, you know, just not, he's, he's not, uh, he, like you said, he's not gonna, you know, go down that rabbit hole of things that he can't control. And I thought that was really useful as well. Yeah. And again, like just reiterating how frustrating it would be to lose guaranteed contract money over Osterine. Um, that's the same stuff that I was taking. Now, obviously I am not a six, six, whatever frame, you know, whatever, but it didn't turn me into a super athlete.

Not that I was even anywhere near, like, mediocre. But, I mean, dude, an NFL player wouldn't notice a difference taking all of the Austrian in the world. They would get a lot of drawbacks, actually. They would get a lot of the testosterone drop. get a lot of drawbacks actually they would get a lot of uh the testosterone drop but that is that's do that hurts just thinking about losing losing out on a huge contract like that over a tiny i mean it is a ped yes i'm not saying like it wasn't uh justified but just the fact that that's what it was is like like that sucks yeah it's just a yeah banned substance so

they got to try to take a hard line on that and you know do do do what they can but yeah i mean you got a good point it's like uh that's not going to really do do much for you but it's hard to say you know it's hard to tell like what how much does testosterone do for you, but it's hard to say, you know, it's hard to tell like what, how much does testosterone do for you? I mean, you already have it naturally in your body, you know, um, it obviously helps increase muscle mass, helps increase strength. Uh, but so does working out, you know, so does having good genetics. And, you know, like, so it's just, it's always interesting whenever PEDs come up, you know, why, you know, why are they, you know, why is there a governing body hovering over top of them? Not allowing them. Who, who really knows?

I don't think, I think maybe initially they, they, you know, would say like player safety type thing, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why. Here's what I do believe very strongly is that if those things were not regulated, I don't think we would see a negative impact. Now, you would probably want to have somebody coaching or you'd want somebody giving information to the athletes on how to utilize these products because they could go above and beyond and start to take some, growth hormone. They would probably take some things if possible to just help them manage their hormone levels and try to keep them optimal. But I don't really see what it would do from a negative perspective. The only thing I can think of is that if somebody does take them versus somebody not taking them, maybe that person that doesn't take them, maybe they're at a disadvantage. And so maybe that's one of the reasons they don't want to open the floodgates because they don't want everyone to feel like they have to do that.

But like I said, going for a fucking run is performance enhancing as well. Maybe it's a more natural form. I guess that's, maybe that's, uh, the difference maker, but as we saw in bigger, stronger, faster, it's not illegal to go in like a hyperbaric chamber. You know, it's not illegal to, uh, you know, donate blood or it's not illegal to do these certain things that give you a similar, uh, give you some similar effects sometimes sometimes but i guess it just depends on the perception of it yeah and i know it's it's apples to oranges but i think when we had branch warren on and you know whenever we have an elite level bodybuilder the ped questions come up

and what he was saying he was just like fine take away all of the peds the same people at the top will still be at the top. Like it doesn't matter, you know, when it comes to, you know, who's going to be the best, they'll still be the best with or without. But I think what you said about making other players that don't want to take it feel like they absolutely have to take it. That's a really good point that I never thought of. That's a really good point that I never thought of. I also think though, like, I mean, when you look at athletes, they want to do every possible thing that they can do.

That's potentially within the rules to, to, to be at the top. Right. So let's say that there were no bands on any PDs. Like Mark said, there has to be somebody that could help these guys figure it out. But you're me, these are athletes, bro. Like you, there's some growth hormone. There's some tests like, okay, I'll take what you say, but let me add all this to it too. Like I think you're going to see a lot of athletes that will go too far. And you know, if you go too far with some of that stuff, it can be very dangerous. So I think that's, that's one good reason.

You know, athletes will take it to the absolute highest level if they can. And with substances that could be dangerous. I think that's a great explanation. And SEMA, I think that makes sense. And that's, that's probably, you know, it's a, it's a good reason for people not to ever get involved in it. You know, I have people that ask me about it all the time. for people not to ever get involved in it. You know, I have people that ask me about it all the time. Now, normally when somebody asks me about steroids or performance enhancing drugs, they normally already made their, their mind up. You know,

that's usually what I tell them is like, Hey, you know, kind of sounds like, you know, you're starting to kick the tires, you know, you're, you're thinking about purchasing the car, you know, you're, you're, you're really looking at it, you're giving it a once over. And, uh, you probably thought about that a lot more than just, you know, asking me by the time you ask me, you probably have kind of already thought about at some point, I'm going to do that. Now it's a matter of like when sort of thing, but I usually discourage people against it because once you, once you take steroids, um, then you have to forever figure out how to manage them. Like what's the end game. What's the next thing I can't take them. And you know, I can't weigh one 80 and not have a lot of muscle mass and just

say, I'm just going to build myself up to be like in SEMA. And after I do that, you know, that might take three years, four years after I do that, then I'm going to come off of them. Like, it just doesn't work. That would be amazing if they did. I think everybody would probably would, would I think like, you know, millions of more people would be on them, I think if that was the case, but they don't work that way. And then you have to decide like, yeah, how am I going to manage them? Do I want to donate blood a couple times a year so my blood doesn't get too thick? Can I self-regulate myself so I don't take too much, as you just mentioned? There's oral steroids.

There's injectable steroids. Some steroids are way worse on your body. Like, they're way more dangerous, like Trenbolone or something like that. It's just not, that's not naturally occurring in your body and it can wreak havoc on your body. It can wreak havoc on your sleep.

There's a lot, there's a lot of stuff to think about. I don't think people really, they don't, and we've talked about this on the show before. Maybe we should do another show on it again. Just cause it's a great topic to talk about. And I like talking about it cause I think,

I think it can be helpful to people. But yeah, if you're listening to this show and you're a fan and you're thinking, I want to be big and Jack, just know that you don't need steroids to be big and Jack. They can be an addition and they can assist. They can help for sure. But it is a major, major decision.

Andrew has some, some experience with it to the point where it's like you know, now you have to decide, you know, you're going to go back on, back off. You're going to, you know, mix and match and people that are doing SARMs and different things like that. I mean, it's, it's all something to really take into consideration because your body's natural rhythm is a pretty damn good one.

And if you can encourage your body through nutrition and through some regular supplementation, if you can encourage your body to continue down that path with good sleep and just good habits in general, then you don't have to really worry about how am I going to manage these drugs, where am I going to get these drugs from because they're illegal. There's a lot of stuff to think about.

Yeah, that'll be a fun topic. And people love it when you talk about that. It's just that dark secret that nobody wants to bring the light until bigger stronger faster came out but it is you know it's really interesting like what lane said it's like okay they he tested positive for what some tests and then some austrian and people were automatically discounting everything he's ever done. It's, it's like, that's the thing that like, that's the stigma. Once, you know, like even I, like when I, like back in the day, like I had a very negative look at drugs, very negative because like,

I don't take any. Right. So I was one of those people who were like, Oh, I see why he's that big or whatever. He doesn't have to work that hard. Right. But that, that's, that's that stigma that you're going to have to deal with. People think that everything you've, you've done physically isn't because you've worked at it, but it's because you've taken some drugs and they do help people. It's not like they don't,

but you will have that shadow over everything. Yeah. Being a, a slim Jim, like myself, dude, anytime I saw anybody, so obviously that guy's on steroids.

Like, you know, that's just some of the mentality that, you know, just inexperienced people have. But you're right, though. It's funny how we can easily discredit because of a positive test or whatever. But like being at a pro level,

I mean, all you do is play games, right? Like, no, like, dude, that guy guy's his job's 24 7 right and austrian's not gonna make his job extremely easy it's not gonna even make a difference in my opinion another cool thing i think that he talked about man and um we had this guy from OPEX Fitness on. Was his name Joe? No. Ah, okay, from OPEX. Who's the guy from OPEX?

Fitz Simmons or Fitz Gerald? James Fitzgerald. James Fitzgerald. At least I was right on the J, right? But, you know, Lane was saying how he played all these different sports as a kid, and basketball was one of the things that prepared him well for being able to do what he does in the league because of the feet. I think that's a big thing, especially if you're young and you're playing sports, playing different sports.

Fitzgerald talked about that too, James Fitzgerald, getting kids to do different things. And then there's that book that, um, persistent nutrition, uh, come on, man. Yeah. Yeah. John Variety talked about that book range where it talks about all these crazy high level pro athletes that did a lot of different things that got them ready for that sport. I think that's it. That, that might be a really cool thing for younger individuals to try to take advantage of.

Do as many things as you can if you can. Yeah, and you look at certain sports. I mean, if you're a young person and you want to be like a bodybuilder, it actually might make some sense to do something like soccer or beach volleyball or something. You look at those athletes surfing. Look at those athletes, all small waist. They all don't accumulate body fat because the sport that they do has them moving around so much that obviously your nutrition is always a huge part of it.

But what a great way to set yourself up for the rest of your life to kind of always be ahead. You look at Stan Efferding, yourself. There's a few other examples in there as well. We've run into some people where they're like, oh, yeah, I had a whole previous life of playing soccer. And we're always like, huh, really? Pretty damn big for a soccer player. But those different sports can make a huge difference. And people have talked about this for a long time. You don't want to specialize too early.

You know, if your son wants to play baseball, that's cool that they want to play baseball, but you should encourage them to try to get into some other stuff because playing and, and lining up the ball to shoot a three pointer and basketball and in basketball and learning the discipline of making it through a football practice. All those things can help assist your kid becoming better at whatever single sport it is that they want to do later on. As they get older, they're going to need to switch over and specialize because you're going to need to spend more time doing it. Yeah, a lot of high-level basketball players were high-level soccer players, especially the ones that have the really good footwork.

It all came from soccer. So, yeah, it's funny how soccer carries over to basketball, basketball carries over to football, football to WWE. And you know what's funny? There's this Lomachenko. Do you guys know who Vasily Lomachenko is? Have you ever seen his highlights, the boxer? Oh, okay.

I'm like, that name sounds extremely familiar, but okay. Okay, he's this Ukrainian boxer. And if you guys haven't, you guys got to check out those highlights after this episode. He literally dances around his opponents. He's one of the craziest boxers with footwork that I've literally ever seen. It's insane. It looks like art. but he was a dancer when he was younger. Like his dad had him dance and it's because of all the dancing he did that he legitimately is dancing around his opponents. He makes them look stupid. Right? So it's, it's, it's funny how these different types of movement can just totally get you ready for something totally different that you'll be doing.

It's awesome. That's awesome. I'm looking forward to some guests that we have coming up pretty soon. We have Ivor Cummings on. He's formerly an engineer, but he's been studying very heavily. He's been studying nutrition over the years, and he actually did an entire documentary. I'm going to need to watch it to check it out,

but he did an entire documentary on heart disease, and he just really takes a deep dive. A lot of it's pretty thick. It's not easy stuff to get through because it's just complex. Nutrition is simple in general terms, but as you get more specific, it becomes quite complicated. But he talks a lot about, you know, calcium and heart disease and all that kind of stuff.

And in addition to that, more recently, he's been really heavily diving into COVID-19. And I think he's like one of the best people, in my opinion, to look into. And that could be because I share similar opinions. So that might be why I think that. But I just have found that his information, he's presenting facts. He's presenting numbers. And when you look at some of the stuff that he's posting and talking about,

he's really giving us the straight information. And if you think about what we learned today and talking to our guests today, not to shrug off COVID-19 and not to say that it's not a thing, it's just that the way this is impacting most of the people that are healthy, a lot of people are asymptomatic where they don't really notice much of anything. And a lot of people are like our guest today, Lane, who just felt like dog shit. He just did not feel well. There are obviously people getting sick from it.

We know there's people dying from it, but it's great to continue to learn about it since I agree with our guests today, I don't really feel like there's much. I think you guys share similar feeling as well. It doesn't feel like there's a whole lot we can do about it, except for have some responsibility with, you know, washing the hands and trying to keep our distance and anywhere where you can't keep the distance, wear a mask. Other than that, it's, it's, it's really a guess, you know, and I'm getting, I just hear people all the time that like, you know, oh, this guy's not a immunologist, or this guy is not a, you know, he doesn't study

infectious disease. And, but if you listen to the people that are studying infectious disease, at the moment, a lot of them don't seem very rational. I don't know what is going on. I don't know if it's a political movement. I don't know if they have to take certain stances because of who they are, what they do. But I haven't really seen any of those guys say anything that has been helpful, you know, other than stay six feet apart, wear a mask, wash your hands, you know, the things that we're already learning and knowing. So it's great to actually have somebody on that has contracted the virus that we know, tested positive, then he got tested again and confirmed it and so on and and so it's just i think it's it's a great thing to continue to learn about yeah the uh the the lady that you had posted

on twitter was crazy she said that the uh coronavirus was the worst virus in history it's worse than the spanish flu uh sweden is not a good example because their their cases are getting worse and it's like hold on like what do you like where do you get that information from like yeah i don't even know who she was what her title is but if somebody's interviewing her on anything but like i don't even know if it was like a big publication or whatnot. But someone like me who has no idea about anything, I'll just say that, can see that and be like, oh, no, I believe she is very much incorrect. Worse than the Spanish flu. Yeah, and we know that you can also manipulate numbers to kind of tell whatever story that you want. We also know it's not a great idea to only get information just from one source,

just from one place. So always do your homework. Always double check. Always check the resources the best you can or poke around. Are other people saying this? Are other people agreeing with this? What is the situation with this? But in terms of what is going on in in sweden i mean from the charts i've

seen and again you know maybe i'm seeing stuff that's fake um they have single digit death rate at the moment um and again i know people are like oh it's only as big as los angeles county but two million people sounds like a pretty decent size population to base some stuff off of at least. And, yeah, they're dwindling down. Like, they went way up, and then they cruise back down. And I just hope that we find out enough information, we gain enough knowledge to where we can start to apply it to, you know, what we're doing here. And I'm not proposing and saying that we do the same thing here. I've actually have kind of developed a new,

a little bit of a new mindset on what's going on. I actually think that after being here in New Jersey and seeing out like how much hanging out everyone does. And I was like, I think I kind of get it a little bit better now. So I think that this is the government's way to get us exposure to COVID-19 is, is through what they've been sharing with us, because they know that we're going to go into grocery stores. They know we're going to be close to each other.

So I think they're just trying to, because why else would they open anything back up? Why wouldn't everything be shut down? Why wouldn't we be under like extreme commanded quarantine? Like why? Otherwise it just doesn't make, it really doesn't make any sense at all. Thinking that we can kind of halfway go about our business, but if we just don't get too close to each other and we wash our hands and we wear a mask that we're not going to get it. So I actually think that not that this is conspiracy theory or anything. I think that these people on the inside kind of, you know,

probably are like, Hey, if we do this, people may still catch it, but we can gain, we can gain some immunity to it by the community getting the virus in while we are also looking for a vaccine. So maybe that's the thought process. I like it. I like the conspiracy theory on the conspiracy theory, many levels. It doesn't even sound like a conspiracy like that's what's happening it's spreading it's gonna spread slower but right shoot give us our gyms back

i just don't think they would ever say that you know what i mean i just don't think they would say hey here's the plan we're hoping y'all get it you know hoping y you all you know spread the virus around just but just a little bit don't spread around too much and uh you know we'll see where we're at in a little bit but man i'm out here like i said i'm talking to my aunts and my uncles and stuff like that and they're just you know they're teachers and nobody has a clue on like, you know, what direction any of this stuff's going to go in. So it'll be interesting to see what the hell happens with this football season. Yeah. Wait, by the way, you said when you were out there, you saw how people are hanging out. Like what are people not distancing much out

there? Are you seeing like large groups of people congregating? What do you mean? You know, people are still are still um people are still like people are still social distancing to some extent um but i mean you know people are just hanging out on the beach you know they're but they're probably with their own family so you know you'll see and you'll see some people still are spaced out maybe more than they normally would be um but in terms of my family i mean there's a few family members that um you know kind of fist bump or whatever but like for the most part like i you know i i don't

i don't i don't i don't have any uh precautions um and maybe that's not the right thing to do I don't know but most of the rest of the family doesn't care either it's not that we don't care about the virus it's just that we don't feel that we're in danger if we are to get it so okay that's where we at but yeah on the beach and stuff I mean out here in new jersey like um it's similar to california the restaurants are closed on the inside but if they want to have some outdoor dining they can do some of that but out here they're gonna have to get solved really really quick because the weather's coming you know there's going to be some crazy weather that's going to come and they're not going to be able to do they're not going to be able to do any outdoor dining or anything like that.

So, yeah, hopefully they get things turned around around here. I don't know what they'll do exactly, but it'll be interesting to see. We've also got Ryan Holiday coming up on the podcast pretty soon. I don't know what the date is for that, but that's exciting. Yeah, it's going to be around August 20th, I believe. Late August. Yeah, I'm super pumped for that one. He's had some great books.

Yep, and then we nabbed Mark Lobliner. He's going to actually come to the gym. He's going to be in person, and I think that'll be a lot of fun. to the gym he's going to be in person and uh i think that'll be a lot of fun he's he's uh always a little fiery always controversial but um i enjoy his company and i think i think i think we'll have a lot of fun with him i used to watch his videos years ago when i was watching like chris jones stuff mark lobine is a character man have you like have you talked to him before or had long conversations in the past yeah he's crazy bastard he really is he really is and i wonder is he as big as he used to be or are you doing other stuff yeah he's still pretty big yeah he's still you know he

doesn't weigh a lot because he's not like he's not from what i remember he's not real tall but yeah he's thick and he's jacked. He looks good. There's only one thing I remember right now thinking of him, and it's of him yelling, it's colostrum. It's colostrum. But that'll be fun. That's going to be fun.

All right, guys. Well, I'll be heading on back to California tomorrow, and I'll probably be in the gym on Sunday and I'll see you guys soon. Cool. Sick. Awesome. Take us on out of here, Andrew.

Yep. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Sincerely appreciate that. Thanks for hanging out with us, even though we're all in different parts of the planet, just like you guys. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's power on instagram at mb power project on twitter uh we're on facebook youtube linkedin my instagram is at i am andrew z and sema where you at what's wrong with your

on tiktok and twitter uh more smooth panther videos coming out pretty soon, guys, this week. All right. Mark? That's Smooth Panther. Yes. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength.

Catch y'all later. Peace.