Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 533 - Lighter Weights = BIGGER STronger Athletes ft. Jim Wendler

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Jim Wendler is the creator and author of the 5/3/1 Training Program. This program has been used by millions of athletes and lifters of all ages and abilities. Jim played football and graduated from the University of Arizona where he was a three-time letter winner. Wendler went on to squat 1000 pounds in competition and is an accomplished Elite Lifter with a 2,375 pound total. Code and links mentioned on air are below! Use code WESTSIDE for 15% off all regular priced training books and programs both paperback and ebook. Code is good through the entire month of June! Jim's website: https://www.jimwendler.com/ Jim's Training Books and Programs: https://www.jimwendler.com/collections/books-programs Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use ode "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢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 ➢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

This episode is brought to you by Element Electrolytes. Now, Andrew, you recently started doing some fasting and you noticed the difference with Element by adding it to your fast. So how has it helped? Yeah, it's actually helped tremendously. So when I switched to a strict high-carb, low-fat diet, I was eating on a more scheduled, regular basis. So like I would have breakfast where I normally wouldn't have breakfast. Then I would have kind of like something in between lunch, something in between dinner, that sort of thing. And so when I decided that I wanted to kind of try to cut a little bit, I started implementing fasting again. And dude, it was a lot harder than I remember. And I think it's because I was used to eating so often. So when I started implementing Element, it's really as simple for me as like, it kind of almost felt like I was cheating on my fast. Mark mentions you have to occupy your mind. And that's really what it was for me. I just, I had something, you know, something with really good flavor, but it wasn't going to break my fast. But also like, it just kind of rejuvenated me.

It sort of like gave me extra fuel to go further in my fast. Now that's kind of like the bro science approach to it. But for you yourself, you and Mark talk about some of the, like the, I don't want to say scientifical benefits, but there is something more there than what I'm just saying. Well, it technically does give you something to actually make fasting easier because a lot of the times when you're fasting, right, you will have those pumps of hunger during the day. But a lot of the times also you have pumps of hydration. So if you're not adequately hydrated, right, you're going to mix up your feeling of lack of hydration with feelings of hunger, which will make you want to go eat. But with element, obviously you're getting the adequate amounts of sodium, potassium, magnesium, which will have you actually be

adequately hydrated. Meaning that now you won't get those signals mixed up. You won't be feeling hungry as often because you won't be mixing up your signals of hydration or feeling lack of hydration and hunger. So it actually will help you get through a fast much easier. Yeah, the hydration, that definitely makes a ton of sense. If you guys are implementing fasting and you really want an easier way to go about things,

we highly recommend that you guys check out Element Electrolytes. And you can do so by heading over to drinklmnt.com slash powerproject. Check out the value bundles. We highly recommend that you pick up a watermelon flavor, at least one box, maybe two, maybe three, maybe four. Either way, you're going to pay for three of those boxes and get one of them absolutely free. Again, that's at drinklmnt.com slash powerproject. Head over there right now. What up, Power Project crew? This is Josh Settleage, aka SettleGate, here to introduce you to our next guest, Jim Wendler. Jim Wendler is the creator and author

of the 5-3-1 training program. This program has been used by millions of athletes and lifters of all ages and abilities. Jim played football and graduated from the University of Arizona, where he is a three-time letter winner. Jim Wendler went on to successfully squat 1,000 pounds in competition and is an accomplished elite powerlifter with a grand total of 2,375 pounds. He has coached high school athletes, collegiate athletes, and has trained general populations as well as spoken globally on the topics of strength training, conditioning, fat loss performance, and program design. However, Jim's greatest success is his ability to simplify the complexities of strength training into program variations so

that anyone can apply them and achieve their goals using his 5-3-1 program. On another note, Jim Wendler and longtime friend of the Power Project, Jesse Burdick, one time had plans to write Christian erotica novels. But that is a different story for a different time. Please enjoy this conversation with our guest, Jim Wendler. He was on TV for a long time he's now he's big time movie star he's a rapper i mean he's one of the greatest entertainers of our time he is big willy style big willy style he has this on youtube series on fat loss that's coming up or

because he's losing body fat so it's like a post to the dad bod pick right yes he did that was pretty legit that was pretty cool and i think a lot of people some people like hated on him because they're like fuck you you still look like a movie star you know because he's still handsome and still in relatively good shape he just got out of shape i guess for him right for him yeah yeah um but yeah people were like after you posted and then he was coming out the series they're like oh we see what you're doing this This is a money grab. But, I mean, if you can get people to be more aware of like, you know, trying to loosen How come people are so negative towards Will Smith? Just, they're negative towards everything.

Yeah, that's true. That's right. It's like, yeah, they're negative towards everything. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to make a series on this. Oh, I'm going to be making some money. F you. Yeah, as soon as you want more money. Fresh Prince.

I grew up watching that show. My first album that I ever owned was Big Willie Style. I had it on CD. That was the first ever CD album I ever had. Summertime? No. No, that was way before. Yeah.

That was way before. Yeah. I think this one was after Men in Black. I wonder when his first rap album came out. Probably in like 1986 or something, right? No. Probably like a long ass time ago. 88 or something.

I bet you it's in the 80s. It was a minute ago, but I heard this... I'm going to say 90. I heard this one song off of one of his first albums where he was actually doing a concert to a crowd oh god and i can't even say it but he's like it was the 80s right so things weren't like eddie murphy made certain jokes right yeah so will smith was like if there any agates in the crowd like whatever you made a joke about that. I was like, well, what did you just say? Yeah. You're like, huh? What?

Oh man, you're right. Mark 87, 87. I would have, I was guessing. Well, the song,

um, the song that's in the beginning of fresh Prince is kind of his, him and DJ, DJ Jazzy Jeff, uh, we're together. And I remember some, I remember some of those, uh,

his like, I don't know. I, I think that his rap style would still work great today. Cause there's really not as much, um, there's not as much as like, I guess, authentic and what I would kind of consider obvious rap, you know, sometimes rap is kind of neat because the words do go together. And then sometimes it's really amazing when they give you that change up in there every

once in a while where one word, uh, that you thought they were going to go to and then sometimes it's really amazing when they give you that change up in there every once in a while where one word uh that you thought they were going to go to and they don't go to it and you're expecting you know when they do it a little bit like that and i think that's the way the rap used to be and nowadays i think it's just it's changed quite a bit yeah well now they just have to be more clever i guess but yeah it was like storytelling yes is what he did yeah you know an elm street remember that yeah yeah like you know him slick rick like all those guys they It was like storytelling. Yes. Is what he did. Yeah. Like Nightmare on Elm Street. Remember that song? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, him, Slick Rick, like all those guys, they would just like take you

on a journey in the store, like in one song. And it was like, it was super entertaining. Parents just don't understand. Yeah. And then like a lot of that stuff went away for, I think a bunch of years. I think Eminem may be kind of, you know, well, not kind of, but yeah, he has stories in his, a lot of his songs and, and just like pure,

like hype music. Yes. So what, what happened was fired up for workout. Yeah, there was that. And then, um,

oddly enough, like the introduction of like ringtones. So rappers started making shit for ringtones. So it didn't have to make any sense. It didn't have to make any sense. It didn't have to do it. So, um, I didn't realize that,

that Laffy Taffy song was like literally like the number one hit. And it was exclusively made to be a ringtone song. Really? And that's people were like, Oh shit, you can make a ton of money by like putting in zero effort. Kind of like Tik like TikTok right now. Long form content.

You guys know that I have a TikTok coach? Jessica? Well, I mean, that's one of them. One of them, yeah. I got two TikTok coaches. Is the other one in SEMA? One of them's right over here. Million and one views last night.

Hey! There we go. Hell yeah. You triggered the fitness community with that one on tiktok i'm telling you man good i love it what happened i didn't see it oh mad oh man yeah now people are mad i love it you getting, I'm getting rich. That's like my favorite song. That'd be my theme song. That'll be the You Mad Diet. Yeah, You Mad Diet. That's why that platform is so good, man. You can put something out, but you can't put any explanation behind it.

Just check it out. Just go. Take it. And then everyone gets pissed. You can come back and give them an explanation about it right oh god it's great that uh it's great that it's kind of the first spot that people go to is to get mad especially when you're trying to share information like that's legitimately just i was just sharing information i was like here's what i'm doing

here's how it goes here's some of the rules I follow. Give it a try. No, we're mad. What you said is wrong. You can't do that. Yeah. Oh, God. It's like shit, man. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking the other day, like, it seems like everybody likes to go to social media to, like, exclusively complain. Like, even especially Twitter. Like, nobody goes on there to say, like, dude, I had a really good experience at Phil's this morning. It's always like, ah, the line was so long, blah, blah, blah. I wish there was somehow we could add like a, like a, I don't know, like a three negative

comment limit. Yeah. Like, you know, it's literally impossible, but I hate the Amazon reviews. I hate those. Cause like a lot of times when you like look at at a product, I actually look at those to determine whether I'm going to buy something sometime. Especially if it's a protein thing or some sort of supplement. I want to see if it tastes

good. But the complaints are like, this product took so long. This was way too expensive. And it's like, that doesn't really have anything to do with the actual... Tell me about the actual product. If I could give this no stars i would because when i received it it was broken the box was destroyed and it's like well what the

fuck does it have to do with the company that makes no sense yeah yeah you're like damn bro yeah i remember uh somebody had said look for all the three star reviews because those people are not like uh whatever they're're because they're in the middle. They're going to tell you that like like the honest truth about it, which is like, OK, I kind of worked, but it didn't work because of this. Usually the one stars is somebody who's upset and the five stars is somebody like just the company. Yeah.

Yeah. They got paid. Yeah. So the three stars are the ones that are most like truthful. That's really, really smart. That's super smart. But you know what's funny? It's funny when you see a product, maybe it's kind of like truthful. That's really, really smart. That's super smart. But you know, it's funny. It's funny when you,

you see a product, maybe it's kind of new or maybe it's not, but you see some reviews that you can totally tell that like the company just had heck of people, right? Five star reviews. Yeah. You see that you're like fishy.

Why are they just every single day right after the other? And then they stop. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, uh, it's so positive.

It's like over the top positive. Like they couldn't have any conjecture towards the product at all. Life changing. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought, I mean, I think they have to disclose that they like, oh, I received the product for free in order to write this review or some shit like that. I don't know.

I don't know how that stuff works. I don't know. Jim Wendler on the show today. Yeah. That was the first powerlifting program I did. Five, three, one. Wow. Five, three, one that stuff works. I don't know. Jim Wendler on the show today. Yeah. That was the first powerlifting program I did. 5-3-1. Wow. 5-3-1.

Oh, yeah. How'd it work for you? It was good. Awesome. I did that for Hegacycles. Yeah. Cycles. Mm-hmm.

You said it, not us. But yeah, it was a great program. It was super simple to do, and it was just really straightforward. He keeps it so simple that people get mad at him, too. They're like, there's got to be more to it. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. There was a lack of accessory movement type or bodybuilder type accessory movement.

He'll just kind of be like, I don't care. Just go do some. Yeah. He's pretty vague. He is. But he wants people to execute the movements well. Kind of each person has their kind of their thing, right? Their focus.

And when he's talking about 5-3-1, a lot of times he's talking about, you know, kind of utilizing some powerlifting techniques. So in this case, he might be talking about bench squat deadlift, and he would just like to see you execute them the right, like, do the lift the right way. That's like the thing he cares about the most. Yeah. I think there was an updated version, too. I never got to do it, but there was a,

there was a second five, three one. I don't know if he ever made a third one, but there was a second one, right? I know he made a few different versions of it. I think he made one for like football and he made one for, you know,

specifically for other sports, which didn't really have too many changes in it. He was just like, people keep asking me to write one for football. He's like, it's the same program, but okay, I'll write it and I'll

incorporate, you know, some sprints and some, uh, general physical preparedness type stuff. But yeah, I think right now, I think what's going to be interesting to talk to him about today is he kind of landed on this number, uh, to help people get stronger. And I don't know if it's novice or if it's for everyone in general, but the number is actually really, really low. Um, I think it might even be just in the sevents in terms of gaining gaining a lot of strength what do you mean number yeah uh percentage of your one rep max oh yeah okay yeah so he's kind of uh stumbled upon um after years of putting 531 out and encouraging people to he always wanted people to really underdo it like the whole, he talks about it throughout the whole book. When you do your, it's a five rep max that you're doing,

then the next week you do a three rep max, and the next week you do a one rep max, but they're not maxes. They're supposed to be like more sub-maximal. And more recently, he's kind of stumbled upon this number, which I think is like in the 70s in terms of your one rep max percentage. So it'd be interesting to kind of get to that today and have some conversation, because I think I think most people think that 85 to 92 percent somewhere in there is a really good place to do a large amount of your lifting. But I think that he has a really good point.

But it'll be interesting to also learn, like, you know, is that with newer people? Is that with, you know, more advanced lifters? Or is it, you know, something everyone can do? I know he's had some experiences where I know he works with a lot of young people, too. So that might be something to have in consideration. Like they're young. They're fairly new to lifting. And the gains that they get are just different than everybody else, especially young men.

It's just like the results you get when your body's producing that much testosterone and shit is pretty awesome. All the more reason to encourage young kids to train. You know? You got like a 15-year-old kid and you're anywhere in your family, like, go yell at him to figure out a way to go train. Cause, uh, these are some years that you could kind of reform your body. I think forever.

Yeah. Slap on some muscle and be jacked for life. I really wonder if, uh, I wish there was, maybe someone does have an explanation for it because I think there is a difference, a little bit of a difference.

The earlier somebody does start and get into the gym, especially when they're developing, because I noticed that with a lot of individuals who have started younger like when they're older things just are easier right um doesn't mean that when you if you start later you're at a massive disadvantage or anything i've still seen people that have started later and had amazing transformations but there there's absolutely something to that if the earlier you can start the better i mean my brother we should just like fucking go wreck ourselves it was awesome you know like we go I mean I remember we would go and do deadlifts until we just literally

couldn't stand anymore I remember we would like lay on the floor you know we we overdid it of course but just because we didn't we didn't have the information shared out the way that they have now and probably also weren't listening we had like older guys and stuff who were probably shaking their heads they they probably told us otherwise but we were you know doing our thing thinking we're doing the best uh that we can but those were amazing years i mean i remember um just lifting for a couple of weeks after like after the football season and putting on like 20 pounds like real quick you know it wasn't all muscle but i was like real quick, you know, it wasn't all muscle, but I was like, fuck like that, you know, and every year after the football season, I would lose

some weight a little bit. And then I kind of learned that I could actually train fairly heavy through the football season. I just had to do less overall work and less frequent workouts. And then I was able to keep some size, but yeah, every year I would actually kind of lose a little bit of weight during the season and lose a little bit of strength uh but as soon as the season was over and i touched weights again yeah boom everything just exploded back up yeah that's probably like sports also plays a huge role for kids you know like i i know for so for me like i did start playing up playing sports and then everyone got hella big and like everyone started kicking my ass so it wasn't fun anymore but my brother he was a superstar in everything and he played all the way through

high school and like he had like offers for like full ride scholarships but oh snap what sport do you play soccer oh yeah he crushed and but he played everything though like he was like you know each each uh whatever team has like an all-star team that, you know, everyone in the area gets combines and then go play whoever he was always on every single all-star team for every sport he played. He just, just naturally just a fucking great athlete. Wow. Had zero interest in it though.

I know. That's so interesting. But what I'm getting at is like for him. So like these days he's got four kids now, if I said that right. Doesn't spend much time exercising. He's still like he'll bike ride and he'll do things here and there. Like he's building a home gym now after, you know, all the stuff that happened last year. Yeah.

So he's doing a little bit, not a lot, but he's still in great shape without like really needing to do anything. And, you know, same thing with my dad, he played sports all the way up into his like, you know, fifties and, you know,

he, he has heart problems and stuff, but like, if you look at him, he's still in like decent shape, you know, he's getting older. So he's getting like a little bit skinnier,

but yeah, I think for, for us sports, like really did save us. Cause like my save us because my entire family, all my uncles and stuff, everyone still would drink into their old age. But because they were all kind of already in shape, or at least close to it, I think they were able to hold on to a lot of that versus others that didn't play sports. And you look at them and it's like, oh yeah, you know, some mistakes were made. Being in shape can save you from a lot of potentially bad, bad habits. Like if you do like to have a few too many beers, but you're in decent shape, you're kind of protected.

Not suggesting it, but the truth is you're kind of protected. You know, if you're in shape and you choose to go get a bit of fast food, you're kind of protected, not suggesting you do it, but you're kind of protected. Yeah. And just don't forget, you know, having muscle mass on you, your body's working for you rather than you having to spend more time. Um, I think the time factor is not really anything that people really talk about. Um, but where you spend your time and how you spend your time is a really interesting thing. Like if you are trying to lose weight, you're wasting time. And, you know, people are talking about, uh, time being money, right? And so time, if, if time is money and you are spending a lot of time doing cardio, but you're sabotaging your diet with bad food here and there, well,

then you're wasting a lot of time and you're wasting a lot of money. People talk about, because you have to spend more time getting in shape. So I just kind of think about it this from this perspective. And I know that people are just always thinking about their immediate money issues at the moment. Like I don't have 60 bucks, so I can't get that. But I think if you are, if you have better health practices over a long period of time, you'll be saving a lot of time because you won't be running in circles. You won't be chasing your own tail. I see people doing that with a lot of cardio, which I don't have any problem with cardio.

I think it can be fantastic. And I never want to discourage people from movement. I always want to encourage people from movement, but I think your time is better spent, a better focus, more on training, more on lifting weights. I think that's where your money is because you're going to build muscle. When you build muscle and have muscle, that costs you something. It burns calories for you. You know, a 230 pound person that has a pretty good physique is going to be burning X amount of calories more than someone that weighs, you know, 270 pounds.

That's a really high body fat percentage. So, you know, or even someone that's smaller, that's still fairly lean, but just has less muscle mass. They're going to require less calories. So I just sometimes see people kind of spinning their wheels with a lot of what they do in training. Yeah, it's really tough. I get a lot of questions from people like, oh, I'm like 18% body fat. Should I start cutting?

Should I start bulking? What should I do? And they're just starting. I mean, it's pretty tough. But most people that are there, you know, they should probably just try to hold that weight and recomp, just recomp at that stage, especially if you're starting out. Like, it's a good idea to just keep the number on the scale, the number on the scale and

focus on training in the gym. I think that's one of the hardest things. It's one of the hardest things is just to, to enjoy the gym, to enjoy getting stronger, to enjoy gaining muscle, um, and enjoying that aspect of things rather than paying attention to the way your body's looking consistently. Because if you're able to do that and your weight stays the same, you're going to, and you improve your performance in the gym, you're going to be getting stronger, which means you're going to be getting bigger, which means you're going to be gaining muscle and you're going to be losing body fat. And that is just, it's just this're going to be getting stronger, which means you're going to be getting bigger, which means you're going to be gaining muscle and you're going to be losing body fat.

And that is just, it's just this focus needs to be shifted. What did the guy say to you about bodybuilding and jujitsu? Somebody said something disparaging to you that was like, you can't be like a pro body. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He told me that, like you're already a pro bodybuilder, but don't expect that you're really going to be able to do that much when it comes to juj-jitsu or like compete at a high level when it comes to jiu-jitsu. And what we'll be talking about here today is kind of this very thing with the conjugate system, the whole point of the conjugate system and what conjugate actually means. It doesn't have anything to do with board pressing and box squats and those things.

That's what Louis Simmons made popular. And that's he did adopt a lot of the Russian training and he did adopt a lot of principles of conjugate training, but the conjugate system is actually really simple and it could be applied to any form of anything that you do, uh, in life or in sport. And it's really just the raising of multiple capacities at one time. That's all that it is. And I know that you're a big believer in kind of like, fuck what you heard, man. I think that you can be big, strong and lean. Yeah. and kind of like, fuck what you heard, man.

I think that you can be big, strong, and lean. Yeah. Like, why not? And it might take a long time, and it might be some unconventional thought, and there could definitely be some merit behind bulking and cutting. But maybe, like, unless you're trying to body build, I don't know if there's, if you don't feel comfortable with your body and you feel fat, you feel like you're fat, I think that that is the best option. I think a recomp is the best option. I don't think necessarily bul cutting is a great idea either because we see heavy individuals try to do what they would consider to be a cut and they pull way too many calories away from themselves and it ends up being detrimental and they end up having such a hard time staying on the diet. Yeah.

Is our guest here? Yeah, he's here. But I definitely, we need a podcast about that whole topic. Yeah. Because I have a shit ton of questions for you guys or at least some important ones for me there's there's a confliction in my mind that i have to talk about but i won't mention it right yeah whoa oh my god he's coming in hot coming in sideways holy shit look at that beard that is a magnificent beard sir wow oh hello hey what's up buddy can you hear me all right mark we can hear you and you look fantastic

sir i am in a hotel room in texas so down there uh i'm with mason right now and it's been a clusterfuck trying to get this to work but i am finally i think i got it here we go looking and sounding good yeah how you guys doing we're doing fantastic um what's going on with your son how's he doing he's uh what in high school now and he is he he's playing sports and stuff like that lifting some weights he's actually uh a senior this year no way yeah and he uh right now he's uh he went to go to summer lifting so uh holy shit dude he's 6'2 220 yeah he's making me look like he's a quarterback which is retarded for that size but uh it's uh i always remember the day that he hugged me when he was taller than me, like hugged down. Yeah.

And it was very depressing. And that weekend, I beat the shit out of him with training. So just to let him know the old man still got something left. I think fat, disgusting Jesse Burdick told me that your son hit a pretty big PR getting ready for football or something like that. And he wasn't even really lifting that heavy. And you kind of have stumbled upon, I guess, more recently, some what people would consider lower end percentages for people to get strong. And that's something that we preach here on this show quite a bit.

What have you what have you found and what were the results for your son? The are we starting right now? Yeah, we're in. We're in. Oh, OK. All right. Good. Are we starting right now?

Yeah, we're in. Oh, okay. All right, good. So just to preface this over, I guess, the COVID or whatever you want to call it, he had access to a really good weight room. And he wanted to lift, obviously, for football. It should be noted that he's not like a lifter, if that makes sense. He's not like, you know, do or die.

Like, uh, he just wanted to lift for football and he wanted to, honestly, it was like an excuse for us to hang out three times a week on zoom. So, uh, and,

uh, so I just, I think we lifted, uh, yeah, three days a week or so whenever he had time, about three days a week anyway, uh,

to emphasize how he's not really a lifter and this, I't want to like tear into him but it's like yeah what's uh 165 what is it like 45 10 and a 5 all right and eventually i just told him what weights to put on he had no fucking clue and all we did was like a circuit of three exercises every day. So for example, on bench day, he would do bench press, chin-ups and dumbbell squat or something. And then on trap bar day or whatever, press and dumbbell incline roast. So we didn't change up exercise. We didn't do anything fancy. On the two other exercises, it was just sets of 10 or whatever. And I think the heaviest weight he handled on the bench was 165 for like five. We never did like PR sets or anything. As I tell the kids that I work with, sometimes you just got to mail it in and have great days or just good days.

And consistency is king, and this proves it. And consistency is king, and this proves it. He enrolled at a new school here in Texas, and his max out day, he did 235 on bench press. And it's funny because I love working with high school kids, Mark. You know that it's the time you can really make a difference in someone's life. And it's always the seniors who finally figured it out like don't worry about your training max don't worry just worry about doing the set correctly and pushing hard and you know the stuff that we all know and it's like god i wish i had these kids for one extra year i wish they would because it all kind of blossoms in their head about just doing the right things consistently over a long period of time.

And but, you know, I get asked this question quite a bit. Get like weird DMs, I guess you call them. I don't know. Why aren't why don't you coach somewhere else? Why don't you do this? Because we've had great success. And I can honestly say this is control-wise from like a egotistical standpoint. Like I have more control in a high school environment than I have anywhere in college. And especially, obviously, in the pros. I'm not saying I'm even qualified to work in the pros. But in number two, it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life.

And, you know, one of the things as you get older, you get less stupid. You don't get intelligent. You just get less stupid. I've noticed that I'm still dumb as shit. And, uh, like, you know, I did, you know, Mark, you you're on, you've done a lot of great things in your life. Uh, you've helped people like on the internet or, you know, videos. And I did 6 billion Q and A's, you know, on EFS and God knows how many emails and stuff like that and seminars. And it's, I finally, I feel like I'm actually in service and helping people and not just because it's Mark answering. No, this answering questions is great, but it's just kind of floating. Right. It's, it just kind of, you just it out there and you eat there and it's gone

because the next week you get the exact same question. Right. And when you have one-on-one work with the kids, you can really do a great thing. And it's not just for football. You hope it extends into other parts of their life. Now that's

on them, honestly, but you you got to give them some tools. It's just like being a dad, you know. Like I tell my ex-wife, you know, when we have some issues with Mason, it's never really bad. It's just, you know, it's his journey. He's got to figure it out, too, and we have to be okay with that. I remember when I was doing some coaching, a lot of the kids would just, you know, hang out, you know, way after, you know, we were done lifting way after practice. And I started to kind of recognize like, oh, like they're like, I can't close up. You know, I was trying to close up the gym at like 8 PM or whatever and get to go home to my, to my family.

And I was like, I can't really close up the gym. I'm like, I got, they don't, they don't want to go home, you know? And then as we got to know each other, you know, then I would find out why. And it was just like heartbreaking. You're like, oh man, but you're right about being able to make a huge impact and, and kind of set some of these kids up for life with maybe they will keep some sort of fitness or nutrition or even just any sort of discipline. Maybe they'll hold onto that the rest of their life and incorporate that in

other aspects of their life. You know, just from a, because I mean, you've been to London, it's not a very big town and the amount of kids that can go on to play, you know, they might get financial aid for football or some sport.

Usually, obviously it's football, but you know know that's they wouldn't have gone to college and you talk and this is it's just like any kid who gets you know comes from a poor family or maybe doesn't have that expectation in their family and we can talk about expectations later but um all of a sudden everything opens up and you talk about changing the uh the the course of the entire family for the generations to come and uh so i think that's you know i look at my parents and what they did and what my my sister and i have done and how we're just kind of you

just keep on building on what your parents did before. And it is one of the shitty things. It's hard if you've got to be the number one guy. If you're the first person to really make some steps, that's fucking hard. But someone's got to do it. So it might as well be you. So fuck it. Anyway, Mark, how many kids you got now, Mark? I got two kids

How old is Jake? He's got to be 17 Yeah, he's 17 And Quinn is 13 My daughter Quinn Oh my lord So far, so good No one's in juvie yet?

Not yet, not yet We're getting there, we're getting to that Real quick, I want to say thanks, Jen Because you think 1-5-3-1 was the first program no one's in no one's in juvie yet not not yet not yet we're getting there we're getting to that real quick i want to say thanks jen because um you think one more five three one was the first program for like powerlifting that i did when i was 18 i think i was 18 or 19 so that was the first time like i was training like bodybuilding type stuff up until that point but i was like i want to get stronger i don't know how the fuck how i was googling it and i was like oh shit what's this i was like oh this looks cool and that shit that, that, that got me pushing in the right direction. I did that program for a minute. So thank you. Cause I don't think I've ever met you in a minute.

I love hearing that. you came on, we were all talking here and we were like, you know, I wonder since you've worked with so many kids and so many high school athletes and also you've worked with adults, um, I would wonder to know if like, do you see a big difference and maybe a map like more of an advantage? It might be an obvious question. If a, if a younger kid gets into lifting, like, do you think it changes the way they are as like in terms of their ability to make progress even as an adult? Or do you think, yeah, you get where I'm going with this? Yeah.

Well, here's a couple of things is I should probably preface this is once we started winning, we had kids that were eighth graders trying to get in and we allowed them in. Obviously, we want anyone who wants to show up because at the beginning we had great participation, but we didn't have a lot of numbers. So it was fair, you know, four kids come in. It's not a big deal. And then we started winning more and more. And all of a sudden we had 15, 20 kids and it was crazy. The I couldn't do both because now we had more numbers uh varsity and then we had all these young kids and you cannot turn your back on young kids it is i always love to tell

this joke mark we you and i and 12 of our friends all squatting a thousand or more can have a texas squat bar for 10 years and beat the bar would be totally fine in less than a week that bar not lifting at all would be bent uh by junior high kids it is un-fucking-believable what i've seen i've seen sleeves break off of uh barbells i've seen broken plates i've seen a plate broken in half i was like how the fuck did this even happen you know and i'm back then i'm trying to get stuff from you guys and i'm explaining it to you guys you're like what the fuck i'm like these high school kids are most destructive people on the planet and uh so uh my wife volunteered because she got tired of really bit hearing me bitch because it was every day i

would come you know home from training just be like i'm so frustrated i feel like i can't do anything and i can't spend any time with the varsity kids and those are the kids that right now are going to help us win anyway. So my wife started a junior high training program for seventh and eighth graders for the football team. So now they have a kind of a pathway. So the one thing I've noticed and is the first I don't know, I'm just going to make up a number, maybe 12 or 13 years of your life will set, let's just talk physical, the metabolic standard for your body. So if you're for 12 years, you're not doing anything. You're just getting fat and just being gross.

You're going to fight that for the rest of your life. I mean, socially, it's going to fuck you up. I mean, it's going to be socially, it's going to fuck you up. Mentally, it's going to really screw you up. It's going to be more difficult if you choose to play sports because you're always going to be playing catch-up. Now, if you have that good base, and I think maybe 20, 30 years ago, regardless of really if you're an athlete or not, just because you're out playing a little bit more

and physical education was physical um even the non-athletes were set up fairly well and you can see that in adults today um as a prime example uh when i wanted to lose all you know the west side weight uh it was easy because I had so many years of being in shape and fairly lean. I'm not ripped or anything, but my body just reset to normal. If you don't have that reset point, and it has to be developed early, it is something that you're going to fight your entire life. All you have to do is look at people who are super obsessed with their diet um who that's all they want to talk about is their weight loss or what they're eating and stuff where if you have a

fairly uh athletic and healthy background it's like why don't you just do the right thing you're fine because and it's hard for us to understand the dilemma because you know we go out run uh for two weeks or a mile and do some push-ups and chin-ups and we're back to fucking playing weight and uh so i really think that's massive and socially it is huge because it's very difficult going through you know elementary school and junior high as a bigger kid it's hard and uh and it's probably harder back in the day because it's a little at least a little more acceptable, but it's not fun being weak and playing kickball and being out of breath or whatever.

And I see it, especially in the junior high kids, and I give them a ton of credit because it is one of the most difficult things because there's kids, and I'm not lying, you guys, I couldn't believe this until I started, who cannot physically do a bodyweight squat and it is like i like how do you guys shit like is there like a pulley system you know that and so uh if you can get i mean you know it's better late than never uh but man does it make a difference in something? I, you know, the discipline with our kids and this starts with the head football coach. It doesn't really start with me because he sets the tone. And I think that's super important to point out is we we take one week off a year. It's usually the last, after the last, after the last game, we take a week off now there's you know vacation time but very few

kids take it uh you know unless they go somewhere with their parents but we just lift right on through and uh because we do that we're so consistent we don't have to kill the kids ever we run year round so it's ironically we don't run during the season we found that to be you practice we're a small team you're running around for two hours you're fine um but we our running is so easy because we do it every three days a week so even if we need to you know condition up we just add a little bit more take a little bit out of lifting but we're still getting stronger so i think uh if they could take that and I always tell the kids, cause you know, we are a school as a public school and

there's occasionally you see some people running around the track when we're doing sprints or something. And I tell them, listen, at the very least, just do 10 hundreds, three or four days a week. Just, you don't have, don't sprint them, just run them hard. Cause you know, at our age, don't sprint them, just run them hard. Cause you know, at our age, you can't sprint. It's even if you run your fastest, it's not no longer a sprint, you know? And you'd be surprised at what just that just maintaining that some basic physical capabilities in your body does. And again, this is nothing new to probably anyone listen to this,

but if you can get that in, if you're a coach or a parent it doesn't have to be miserable. So anyway, you know, what, what, uh, people that hear that right now, if you're an adult or you're a late teenager and you didn't get going when

you were younger, please don't let that discourage you. No, I agree with, but the thing is, I totally agree with you because when I think about it, like, you know,

as an adult, when you're trying to start playing an instrument right it's fucking hard but when you see some six-year-old on a piano they hear some shit they're like and like two years later they're a fucking aficionado like you pick up shit as a kid so quick that like parents if you have kids get them doing some physical shit because you you will like, you're totally right. You will save them for the rest of their life. Yeah. And it goes far beyond the, the physical health. Uh,

it is unbelievable. Like, it's like, uh, being like a heroin addict when you're young, you just, you, you're always,

even if you're clean, you're still an addict. And, uh, so I, it's tough to see, but, uh,

and it, the funny thing is like, uh, I started doing a MRF every single day and I've done it for 45 days now. And when I started, I just did a quarter of a MRF twice a day. And the point being is, like, I knew I wasn't capable of doing it. I didn't want to feel like shit i hate and when you have a family and you've got a business and you've got job you've got all this shit going on i can't i no longer can afford uh doing a set of 20 rep squats till i'm dead and then doing another hour of assistance work and then pushing the probably because i'm useless as a human and mark

you know exactly what i'm talking you guys know like just, and that's fine when you're 20 or 15, but it's not. So to make a long story short, I just, over the course of two months prior to doing what I'm doing now, I slowly just knocked away at it until I felt that was completely like normal and easy. And then we just add a little bit here and there, just one or two. And now it's like, it's just nice brain numbing work and i feel fucking fantastic i've lost 30 pounds and uh you know i feel great so but the point being is i didn't start that on day one you know so if you if you haven't really done anything just do you

know some push-ups and body weight squats every single day. And it doesn't have to do – if 20 is your limit, that's what it's going to be. Get 20 to be easy. And it's unbelievable. When I first started doing it every day, I was like, oh, boy. And I was like, wow, that was it? All right. How can I? and uh so uh it don't don't get don't get discouraged but don't put yourself in a position to be discouraged um like if you don't squat like dan green it's okay like no one cares

and one of the things i remember jordan peterson said is you know don't compare yourself with others compared to how you were yesterday and it's's just, man, just, and I tell the kids too, all we're doing is chopping it down a huge Oak tree. Every day we just swing the ax once. We just make a little dent. We make a little dent. And after, and I always, I say this is a four year process. So we don't have to go fucking nuts right now.

We don't need to. And then it always happens. The young kids come up like, I think I can do more. I'm like, I know you can do more, but we don't need to do more. And then the seniors come in and just fucking listen. Jeez, we don't need to hear you bitching and complaining. So, but you know, it's, like I said, it's hard for kids to get. I mean, Mark, you couldn't, if you probably maxed out 60 times a week,

you know, like, well, I feel good. Yeah. Shoulders hanging on. Yeah. Going by how you feel yeah it never works never one piece of skin like i'm feeling good uh i remember after you uh so after you were done power lifting um you squatted a thousand pounds and had some great success in power lifting and you wanted to kind of move on and be healthier i remember like talking to you one time and you're like i'm gonna lose like a pound a month for the next like two years.

And I was just thinking like, what a slow, what a slow fucking process that is. But you tend to just kind of be that way in general, like where you, you like to chip away at stuff, right? Well, it's, um, it's meant here's a, it's mentally, it's much easier for me. It's mentally much easier for me. And as someone in months, and then they put it right back on. And I learned, and I didn't learn, like I didn't set out to learn this.

It's just you have to develop great habits. And I remember like when I was in high school, like I loved the lift more than anything. Like it was everything and any kind of like hard training. It was, I love running hills because Walter Payton ran hills. And so I had, I was developing my habits just through pure like anger, hate and motivation. It was just all emotional. And then fast forward 20 30 years and i no longer have a reason really to live let's just be honest like we don't really need

to do some of the stuff that we do like my wife says like what are you trying to be the murph king who gives a fuck i'm like yeah but i won't but anyway uh she um but it's those days like i i had this epiphany it was probably 10 below and i lifted my garage it's fucking cold what the problem is once you start training it's you start sweating and then it just gets really bad because you got a nice thick no matter how well you dress it's just horrible uh it's freezing now. And I was sitting on the bench and I looked, uh, I had a weight vest on and I kind of looked up and I'm like, what am I doing? Like I'm miserable right now. And I realized like I did a full 40 minute workout or something with the weight vest. And I never questioned the reason. It was just, that's what you do.

It's like brushing your teeth. You know, it's just, you wake up, you brush your teeth, put on some coffee and you're like, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. But, and it's like brushing your teeth you know it's just you wake up you brush your teeth put on some coffee and you're like i don't even know what i'm doing anymore but and it's just it's just the discipline of uh and those that's what really starts to carry you and i know like i we we uh came up and that's the day i came up with the we are one of our sayings and t-shirts says discipline and there's a line and then motivation it's discipline over motivation and that's the day i came up with that and uh what's the best thing is like i didn't realize it for like 10 years you know it's just with what you do and you know not i'm saying 10 years after i had gotten done with real training and uh because it's, I don't know what,

like I'm assuming Mark, you're not doing any meets anytime soon, right? Nope. And I still love to train, but it's harder to train when you don't have a specific goal. It really is. And I think that's kind of,

that's when that stuff starts carrying you. It's just like studying. I mean, I hated to study. And I had horrible study habits, but if I would have done a little better in, I had horrible study habits, but I, if I would have done a little better in high school with developing those habits, it would have been much easier for me through college. So anyway, you know, the, the discipline over motivation thing, it's, it's, that's massive because it's extremely important, especially when you're trying to change your body. And we were again, talking about a concept

before you came on of, especially when you're younger with social media and you see all these jacked strong ass people, um, when you're trying to transform your body, you're always so focused on your body, right? Whereas if you were to be able to be focused on your performance in the gym, getting stronger, just focus on the gym, getting bigger, your body comes in time, right? i was lucky when i started training when i was younger i didn't have social media i was just in the gym training and i made a lot of progress and i was like it was easier so how do you how do you get the kids that you're working with who have social media who see all these crazy strong jacked

athletic people how do you get them not to focus on the way they look in the moment and instead just to focus on training um that's a that's difficult uh the one we stress performance i mean you were in a sport so uh there's plenty of great athletes uh that don't look great and now they're incredibly talented and there's a lot of other factors that go in there, especially the elite athletes. I mean, Roy Nelson is like, I,

we, my son and I were watching some MMA and I was laughing about Roy Nelson. And there's a guy who's not just a, you know, a tremendous striker, but he's a tremendous Brazilian jujitsu. And you'd never guess, but we, we've Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and you'd never guess. But we've really focused on breaking records.

And the other thing is, at least at London, there's not a huge amount. It's a small city, and I know that doesn't matter in the age of the internet, but there's not a lot of kids who are really hyper-focused on that stuff. They're more focused on football now if you that's it's a different world in football than it is out in the you know normal world or just the gym rat and uh you know i always say that you know if you know performance always trumps looks if you don't think so ask the last girl you slept with and uh so and what's what ends up happening like you know one of our our the kind of the way i train the kids is we always want to be in good shape like just running just be we're going to be solid and then we always say we body build the upper and we athlete the lower. And so, and you guys will know this. I've never seen a 500

pound raw bencher who isn't big. So we, at some point you're going to have to put some muscle on. And so even if your goals are strictly performance related, you're still going to look good because you're going to have to develop the muscle mass to do it. And I always, I know there's always people who say, well, my uncle who was 160 bench 405 for 30 reps, there's always a couple out there, but for the most part, like that's how we get our kids stronger is in the upper body is we just got to, we have to build muscle mass. So luckily those two go hand in hand. And obviously if you start eating fairly correctly, it doesn't have to be perfect, especially at a young age. But if you just start eating, you know, maybe eating, we

always say just control. If you can control one meal, let's just do that to start with. Just control breakfast. Let's get that taken care of. Like, you know, if you're starting a new diet, some people can go 100% all in at the time, but it doesn't always work for most people. So we just take a step-by-step approach. Let's control breakfast. And as soon as you got, you know, after four weeks or eight weeks or however long it takes, once you get that down, then let's say you start packing your lunch or something like that. And I always get, it's funny, I get asked the nutrition question all the time. And it's always from people who don't work in a high school or with like large groups of athletes. And I always say the number one thing thing because they always ask about like protein intake

and shakes i'm like listen man the number one thing right that step one is just get some calories in because some of the kids don't even eat uh and then we focus on the quality and stuff like that but uh i remember we had a nutritionist come visit the university of arizona and she was asking about you know do you guys uh really push the organic foods and stuff? And I remember our coach said, lady, if these kids eat pizza and drink beer, I'm a pretty happy guy. Like you have to live in reality a little bit. And I'll never forget that. I was like, wow. He's like, dude, they just need to eat.

Most of these kids don't eat. So that's, you know, obviously a little off topic, but it's generally speaking because football is so performance related, we really don't have that. And we give the kids ample opportunity to, you know, we call it getting ready for prom or we call it, you guys win the battle of the bus. So when you step off the bus, that's the only thing that matters.

Who cares about how you play? We just want to look beefy. So, you know, the kids know that, you know, we have all kinds of stupid sayings and I, every day we train, I say, what's our goal today on this? And they, you know, we want strong fast reps and what about on our upper body circuits? We just want to look huge. I'm like, all right, now we know. So, you know, I think it's important that kids kind of understand what they're doing, but it doesn't have to, you don't have to put up like a right now we know so you know i think it's important that kids kind of understand what they're doing but it doesn't have to you don't have to put up like a diagram you know

bunch of you know this thing goes to this thing and detail the krebs cycle and stuff like that the kids don't care i don't even care can people get stronger and faster uh simultaneously can we build like multiple disciplines at the same time? Yeah. And that's funny because people always ask, hey, do you ever do any conjugate work? I'm like, you understand that conjugate is just the raising of values all at the same time. We don't have like a hypertrophy block or a power block. These kids are too young and too inexperienced and too weak, too out of shape. All that stuff that, you know, that we kind of think of with athletes.

It's easy to get stronger and get faster at the same time. And honestly, like for, I think, three years, four years, we did no direct speed work at all. And you know how you lose a pound a month kind of shit. at all. And you know how you lose a pound a month kind of shit. Whenever I did something, I added it in and we, we beated that thing, beat it. Jesus. We beat that thing into the ground until I knew it was perfect. And then we would add something else. We never, I never implemented everything all at one time because it's too confusing. And then you do nothing right. So I said at the very, and we started, honestly, Mark, you're going to laugh. We started with dumbbell squats and pushups.

That's all we did for six weeks. And we slowly started adding stuff in. And until I was totally comfortable that if I was away or if I wasn't at a lifting session or whatever the reason, that they would know how to get shit done correctly. And that's one of the reasons why we don't change our exercises very often because the kids need to, you know, we don't believe, I don't believe in, you know, shocking the muscle. Like, you know, it's not terribly smart.

Just, you know, do the fucking movement, kid. Anyway, so, but we all got faster because we got stronger. Now, the issue that lies here, Mark, is when people say that, they'll always say, well, when you squat 1,000, you weren't't fast. And like, I'm not asking the kids to squad a grand. I just want them to go from 100 to 200. And you know who Boyd Epley is? Yeah. Yeah. He's the, for those that don't know, he was the father of modern strength coaching. He was at Nebraska during their glory years from, I think, 1969 to probably close to 2000. And I saw him give a presentation. He said, let's just break this down. What is your goal?

No one wanted to raise their hand because they were going to be wrong because it's fucking Boyd Epley. Even if he said, touch your toes, they're like, I guess that's what it is. Anyway, and after you know a few hands being raised tentatively uh he said the only goal is to make your athletes bigger more muscle that's all we're looking for because it seems to affect the most things like we talk about getting stronger affects a lot of stuff when they got bigger they got stronger uh they got faster their agility went through that doesn't mean you don't do those things but that that was the main focus. And if you look at some of the old Nebraska stuff that they

did, they did insane kind of circuit stuff twice a week just to build muscle. And if anyone's familiar with Nebraska back in the late 80s through the 90s, here's the best way to talk about Nebraska. My wife, Juliette, before she met me, watched like a half of a football game in her entire life. And I put on an old ESPN classic of Nebraska playing. Now, she had no idea it was an older football game.

And so she sits down and she's eating and she's like, man, who's this team? They're all fucking strong. No one's fat. And I was was like it was a weird thing i'm like holy shit you're right and uh so that's when i really started looking to exact i mean i'm a huge nebraska fan but i never really looked into exactly what they did remember the uh lawrence phillips and uh tommy frazier like what mutants like other players just bounce right off of them. No one could tackle them. They just, I know they were, they were unbelievable. And what's funny about their defense is they played, I think a four, three, it doesn't matter. And only two of their guys, their two inside linemen were 300 pounds. Everyone else was 240 and just incredibly strong, incredibly fast.

and just incredibly strong, incredibly fast. And so the Grant Wistrom, holy cow, was he just an absolute force. But if you, I mean, a lot of those guys, just because I'm a fan, I know of them, but they didn't have, they didn't do well in the pros or even go to the pros, but my God, could they play. And so that's been for the last three years it's really been our focus is just we build muscle and in the process we tend to get stronger and uh we just keep our conditioning really solid and we we do mobility you know obviously every day

and then during the season yours truly runs the two yoga sessions for recovery so it's oh dude it's bad. The kids are probably, uh, because they're getting like bigger and they're getting stronger. Um, they're probably recomping their bodies and it's probably, uh,

more likely you're starting to see some of these young men pop their shirts off during the workouts and stuff. Then they're building a lot of confidence and stuff like that. So there's a rule that if it's, if're outside and the the seniors decide to quote pop tops everyone's got to take their shirt off and it's probably the worst part of my life just a bunch of pale gross kids i let them know too i'm like god everything everything's horrible in my life right now so but yeah and it's funny because with the junior high kids, my wife sees a massive change after about a year,

they start strutting around the coaches, notice it. The kids get a little, ah, but you know, this thing gets super confident. And again, that goes beyond just,

uh, the, the plane that goes in their social lives too. You know, they had developed confidence in themselves. And the other thing is, you know, it shows you that, man, if I apply myself to something and just admit to it, man, can I make changes? And you talk about something that will carry over if you can apply that to

whatever you're going to do. I mean, Mark, you're the perfect example, right? You were never going to technically be a businessman or anything remotely successful. It took you a long time. A long fucking time. I think that the older I get, the more I realize all this stuff. Boy, are the kids lucky to have me teaching them. You mentioned a little bit about

recovery but um how are you um taking care of the kids making sure that they don't get injured or you get anything like that okay so uh we have a saying in a weight room that says we never get hurt here where do we get hurt on the field and uh so football is 100 injury potential and once you accept that it's like uh everything kind of is okay so there are a couple things we do number one and this is the number one rule of jim wendler's recovery is you don't train like an asshole so that doesn't mean you don't bomb yourself on monday and then come back and you're tired on wednesday and you can barely do something on friday so the number one rule is you just chip away. We have good workouts, good solid workouts.

It doesn't mean occasionally we don't do something stupid. But if we do something stupid, for example, on the squat, we're going to take away something out of the running. Or if we're going to run more, it's just a recipe. You've got to have the exact ingredients. So that's number one. Number two is we don't do a ton of barbell volume. And ironically, I didn't realize I was doing this as much as I thought until I saw a recent podcast with Louie. And he talked about one of the reasons why, and this is kind of funny, but why their Westside is less injuries than other gyms.

And I'm not sure how there's, but that's what he claimed. And he said, one of the big things is the barbell volume is generally lower in that program. And you build the volume by what, Mark? Come on. I don't know. Assistance. Assistance.

Okay. So we build our volume through assistance work, and that's generally a lot easier to recover from. Obviously, like push-ups, and we do tons of chin-ups and push-ups and dumbbell squats and rows. So I think that's another major factor. yoga style work and that's just i probably needed that more than i realized especially um obviously when i was powerlifting but even in high school when we stretched all the time and did all that stuff but you know how it goes if you're not in a group setting with you know some dude telling you what to do it seems to that seems to slip more than anything else like you know you push the prowler before you do mobility work, generally speaking. That's how much it sucks. You'd rather, you know, throw up than do some stuff. So I think the combination of that, and then on the field, the other thing that we do as far as practice is we, and I've told this story many times, my first year I was a sport coach.

So I helped out on the field. And then the head coach was the strength coach. Uh, so I helped out on the field and then the head coach was the strength coach. And I told him about two weeks into this, you know, into me being there, just let me handle this. I'll take this off your plate. I know what I'm doing. And, uh, so we had a very bad year. My first year is we went, I think we won three games. And so during that off season, I was in charge of everything. And the head coach and I would talk every day about, you know, he'd come to training. And I said, listen, man, we need to look at things differently because what we're doing is not working. And so we kind of came up with a George Costanza thing. Let's just do everything opposite. So we took out two a days. We don't do two a days anymore.

What's the point? The kids are already in great shape. That was the reason that we had two a days. Number two is we don't need to run them during the fourth quarter work in the season. They're already running around. Why make them tired? The example that I always use is, Mark, if you and I had a bench press contest on Friday, you wouldn't bench heavy Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then would you be surprised if you took a giant dump on Friday? No. So why, why don't we approach the game? Like we approach, you know, powerlifting or whatever you want to say. So we started backing off on that. And then we, this is, you can't really quantify this. You know, I take them through their

pre-practice warm-up. And we do a variety of drills and gymnastic stuff. And the kids look horrible. Or if there's starts, we do a variety of starts to warm up to. If they look horrible, I'll go over to the coach. And we always have a meeting right after warm-ups. And he says, what do you think? You got to take it easy, man.

You have to take it easy. Or you know what? The kids are ready to go. And we always have a saying here, just don't fuck it up. Whatever you do, it's in your hands now. I've given them to you. You know, during the weight room, that's my job, so just don't screw this up, bro. So now our practices aren't just beating the kids down.

And one of the funny things, and I wrote this the other day to someone, is in football, and I'm sure it's like wrestling too, and probably MMA, when the kids are really tired and really weak, the answer the coaches have is to make them weaker, make them more tired. And that's not the answer. The answer is we need a little more rest. Now, the hard thing is the juniors and seniors have to take advantage of that. It's just not an off day. They have to be smart about what they're doing. So you need a lot of maturity. Now, over the years, we've built this up and we've had some great senior classes, especially the first senior class I had after my first full off season. They took care of business and they had high expectations for everyone.

So when they had, when it was a light practice, they still were mentally in tune and we always, and we don't, we rarely hit at all during practice because again, most of our kids go both ways. And, you know, we have all of our football team, for example, is freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. We don't really we have a JV team, but they just practice with us. We don't have enough bodies. And so most of the kids play both ways.

So we we can't afford to lose someone. Especially during something dumb like practice or lifting or anything like that. So I think that's one of the tricks of staying healthy is you got to put the kids early on in a good position so that they can occasionally take it easy. And like one of the examples, this is not exactly it, but we had graduation and the field wasn't open to do prowler work. We do prowlers every Friday. It's like our thing. And I, the kids were,

you know, like, Oh, that sucks. I'm like, yeah, but we do the prowler every Friday. It's okay. We missed a day.

We're still going to be able to do something. We're going to run. We'll be fine. So if you consistently do stuff over time, it's okay. If you have to take a week off, not a week off, but you know,

we have to, you know, amend or change something. So, and, uh, and the other thing is, and this is no, uh, nothing new is the stronger and better shape you are,

you're magically less, uh, likely to get injured. Now there's always freak stuff that happens and that's just part of football or part of any sport really, but you got to put yourself in the position to be healthy. And I think that's one of the great things. And you guys remember Roger Craig? Yeah. 49ers.

Yep. Yeah. I love Roger Craig. First a thousand yard rushing and receiving back in the NFL. It doesn't get the attention he has. I remember on a Sunday, he got a tackled low and the helmet rent right into his, one of his knees.

And there were Roger Craig's out for the, for the the year the next day on monday he was out running and uh now that's again that's a lot of luck too but roger craig took care of his body and magically where'd he go to school nebraska nebraska yeah he was shredded too i remember he was in great shape yeah and you know what's crazy? He weighed 225 pounds. He wasn't a small dude. And he'd be big today. It's like Jim Brown. Jim Brown would be a giant running back today.

Can you imagine him back in the day, like trying to tackle that guy? Yeah. Wasn't he like 230 or something or something like that? Yeah. Right. Yeah. He's 230, 240. And I met Jim Brown when I went to visit Buddy Morris and Miss Linsky down in the Browns. Jim Brown was in the in the building.

I got to meet him. Even he was probably 70 some odd years old. Fucking giant still. His hands just, you know, crush me. So it was a pretty cool to meet him. That's my dad's favorite all time running back. And so I got, you know, I grew up in Walter Payton. Barry Sanders to me is the greatest running back of all time.

Walter Payton is the greatest football player of all time. But I still give homage to Jim Brown just because my old man didn't. He's got my respect, does my dad. So, but anyway, so there you go. Where does, go ahead. No, I was going to say, where does Jerry Rice fit on that list? I don't count receivers as football players. But Jerry, and it's funny because my oldest son, Mason, he loves football,

and he's like an encyclopedia, just like I was when I was a kid. So if I have any question about any player, about where they went to high school, what their 40-yard dash was in their sophomore year. He always knows everything. Just, you know, it's funny how the torch gets passed. And we were talking about Jerry Rice, and we watched some highlights of him. And he's got the old Newman gloves on, which was basically like wearing really horrible winter gloves.

There are no sticky on those. And he's making these incredible catches. He's so fluid. And I remember when he got drafted, everyone thought that it was a stupid draft pick. Like, ah, what a horrible draft pick. And, you know, because he was from a very small college, if I remember right.

I couldn't even tell you where he went to school. But, yeah, I mean, I think in the annals of football, besides Tom Brady being the best quarterback ever, I think the next guy with the biggest berth between second and first place is Jerry Rice. And so, anyway. Then you got, like, Julian Edelman. Just kidding. Edelman made the greatest catch i've

ever seen in the at the falcons uh new england super bowl oh my god how he caught that ball anyway all right yeah earlier when you uh mentioned uh coach boyd i believe right and he said the boyd epley boyd epley um yes he said the biggest, boy, boy, um, yes. He said the biggest, the most important thing is building muscle. Now I understand that football and weight training are intertwined. Like that's, that's football culture, weight training. Yep.

But even when I look at other sports, like when you look at basketball and you look like Tim Grover, who trained Michael Jordan and he had this phase of building muscle, basketball was still his priority. But when he built muscle and still having basketball as the main thing he was better on the court and he was stronger on the court and it's not like he got over muscled and he couldn't shoot and he couldn't jump and i'm i look at all these sports and it seems that if the athlete just keeps the sport the priority and they spend time in the weight room

building some type of muscle that it's absolutely going to benefit them in the sport because it's odd some sports like i do jujitsu there's a big thing within the jujitsu community that oh if you're over muscled you won't be flexible etc but every jujitsu athlete that i see that builds muscle while still keeping jujitsu the priority becomes a better grappler right and i feel like yeah it's jujitsu is kind of like where baseball is still today. And so I can talk all day on this. One of the things I always bring up is, you know, when Barry Bonds and Sosa McGuire and the whole everyone was taking shit and magically what happened? Yeah.

And so and so we know for a fact that, again, if you get stronger, and like you said, you keep your skill level high. And we all know you don't need to spend a ton of time in the weight room to get stronger. Let's say you're an AAU basketball player, and the year round is crazy, but all you're doing is raising your SPP, just your skill. We'll just call it your sport. You need to raise your GPP. That's weight training. And so what I always say is quit trying to raise the ceiling, raise the floor. We need to raise the general physical preparedness. And an AAU basketball player, if you have a coach that really,

like a strength coach, even a sport coach that knows what they're doing, you could easily get away with twice a week. And over four, five, six, eight, whatever they're going to do, they will become a tremendous athlete. And the results are fairly quick, too. But it's funny because, you know, the muscle-bound athlete, that was huge in basketball. And then when Jordan went in the league, he got pushed around. You know, you're playing the muscle bound athlete that was huge in basketball. And then when Jordan went in the league, uh, he got pushed around, you know, you're playing the Pistons playing the Knicks. Like you gotta be, this is a different era. And I remember that he just completely devoted. If not, he devoted himself to getting bigger in that one off season.

I don't know how many, how much weight he gained, but he was a different player. And the other thing is, it's like talking to uh your 40 year old housewife when she's like i need to start lifting weights but i don't want to get bulky it's like dude guys spend 30 years doing this and don't get bulky but you have no testosterone just fucking relax and uh right it's insane now the one issue that we i run into because i work don't work with i answer a ton of brazilian jiu-jitsu questions on training and the hard thing is the sport coaches never deviate from their training to allow some

physical fitness so there's no real off season or in season it's just bang the fuck out of people and what happens is they'll have a guy like hoist gracie or something like well he never did anything like yeah but his dad started or his grandfather started everything that's how he lived you know um for the average person they need the the sport coach needs to allow some kind of back off to allow this to bring up and then maybe if you've got a tournament coming up then this goes up and you know your time spent training will go down a little bit but it it's, uh, that's probably one of the most frustrating things is because you, the people have no, uh, the athletes per se don't have much say in what they do on the mat. Uh, you know, so it's very difficult. And that's when,

uh, you have to have hopefully someone you can work with or at the very least you're smart enough and can figure it out a little bit on your own and one of the things that we do is with those athletes that ask questions i'm like listen i'll give them a you know a short program or something based on what whatever needs they have i'm like it's okay if this is easy. It's fine. Don't worry about it. And the one issue that wrestling has, wrestling especially, and I assume MMA, it's always 100%. It's always 100%. And one of the things I remember reading, one of my favorite MMA fighters of all time is Dan Henderson. Just because everyone knew what was coming. He just stood there just waiting for his chance.

And that guy, he's like the most unassuming fighter in the world he looks like a really good dad and just gives this kid a noogie you know and one of the things he said is you know he got older because he fought well into his 40s he's like listen i got six weeks camp i stay in okay shape i'm always doing something but i can't go like that for 12 weeks or 20 weeks or infinite. I give myself six good weeks. I really upped the training and I know I'm not going to be dead for the fight. But yeah, you're battling a lot of other things that are out of your control. But the good thing is you do have control over your training. So you can make some

smart decisions. and it's when you're dealing with that level of athlete and i should say not the level so much but that commitment and the work always err on the side of too little uh because you can always add a little bit here add a little bit there and or you know so it's better and i tell this to the head coach all the time i'm like it's better to be slightly under-trained, especially going into two-a-days, than over-trained. We don't do two-a-days. Now, I don't think we're under-trained at all,

but if you're going to be somewhere, because once the season starts, you can never get that back. It's always going to be, you're always going to be dug in a hole, no matter what you do. And sport coaches really need to realize that. So just be, yeah. And that's where consistency comes in. You just keep on chopping away at that tree.

And magically, even if you're not training hard, so to speak, like our kids, the way we've developed over the years, not a lot of people can do what we do. And it's just, it's because again, we raised the floor. So it may look, you know, if we had, we's just, it's because again, we raised the floor. So it may look, you know, if we had, we have new kids come in and we have to tailor the program to them, you know, dumb it down, so to speak a little bit, because they just can't handle the amount of work. But to these kids, it's like, oh, it's a day off.

You know, we're only doing this and this and this and this and this. I'm like, oh, it's easy. So, but man, I'll stop talking. I'm just blabbing on how do you i'm sorry how do you deal with kids uh having like some outside interests that maybe uh aren't the best for football like is just as uh you know we were talking about like hoist gracie like i don't think anybody really wants to look like hoist gracie i think people would like to be like have more muscle yeah and look a little like george saint pierre Pierre. Yeah, there you go. Um, so you have some kids that want to get like shredded and ripped and they're trying to diet

and stuff. And you're like, dude, like you can't weigh one 70. We needed to weigh one 90, that kind of thing. Yeah, that is, um, we don't have that a lot to be honest, but, uh, our only thing we've really struggled with is with people in the uh outside trainers so to speak uh the kids think that they need to do more uh or something like that and it's happened 100 no one kid did okay uh so 99 of the time the guy who's coaching them and i don't care how arrogant this sounds doesn't know what they're doing uh they squat 90 inches high they may uh for example i know this they had a kid who can uh 135 for a good solid eight to ten reps parallel under control he told my wife well we were squatting 225 and he she's like well fucking show me show me you did. And it was such an abomination.

And the kids really liked that because they don't know the difference between a good squat and a bad squat. They just know there was two 45s on each side and they're pretty excited. So, uh, but as it was mentioned before, football is very culture training oriented. So it's either you get on the bus, you're out. Uh, now if the kid generally has like the severe ripped goals, it's almost easier to work with because at least you can talk to him

because he's done some studying. So like, listen, we can still get you leaner, but you don't have to drop 20 pounds. Let's just chip. If you want to get a little, that's fine. And I always tell the kids I'd rather have a 200-pound pulling guard who is incredibly quick and can go forever than a 225-pound slow-ass guy who will lean on you two different times the first two plays and he's out the rest of the game. I'd rather have a bunch of fucking warriors out there who can go forever who may not look the part as far as like weight wise um and i think that's really done a good job because again we don't have

like my son's uh mason's team here in texas i had his old school there was like uh two um freshman teams, and each team had like 100 kids on it, just the freshmen, like 80 to 100 kids on each team. The JV had two different teams, again, 70 to 80, and the varsity was just giant. So you have a lot of – you can make a lot of mistakes because there's so many bodies.

But here we don't have that. So, uh, sometimes our, you know, we've had guards, you know, five, nine, you know, 200 pounds, you know, if they're lucky. Uh, so, uh, but again, I'd rather have a physically ass kicking motherfucker. Sorry about the language. Then, uh, just a slob who, uh, on in the program looks really good. And ironically, when we do our program weights everyone's like 40 pounds lighter and like two inches shorter so then when they come see us play you don't have a kid who's like six four three hundred pounds he's like 225 and it's funny we

had during the warm-ups uh we're playing a team and we just decimated this team. And right before, you know, during the pregame warmups, the coach yelled, they're not as big as they look. It's like, no, they're as big as they look. You can't fake that. That was always one of the greatest, weirdest statements I've ever heard from a coach. They're not as big as they look. All right.

So, but anyway. I'm curious about this because it's like within powerlifting um and it's still pretty popular to for people to be moving 85 90 95 percent loads too often right um yeah like and it's funny like i've worked with people before and they're like this program's so easy and then i like, this program is so easy. And then at the end, they're like, oh shit, why did I hit a PR? I don't feel like I was training that hard. And it's like, I see you doing that with these athletes. When an athlete gets more advanced, more and more advanced, can they still train in that way? in that way i mean i i think so right where they don't have to be killing themselves to continue to make progress or do you feel that as you get more and more advanced you get into the numbers like mark and you moved well what is there a difference massive difference i'm gonna tell you what the higher you are the lighter you can train and one of our kids uh he is a superb wrestler he's got like the vietnam stare and uh you know he's one of the most vicious people i've ever seen play anything he's the most quietest unassuming person but you

know there's something fucked up in his head but i love him he's got tremendous family i've coached uh his his brother and my wife is now coaching his little brother. And, uh, he finally really got it, uh, recently. And, uh,

so we had to back his bench numbers down because he wasn't getting the reps that I needed them to have. And I, when I told him what it was, he looked at his paper and was like, Holy shit. I'm like, just trust me.

Cause you can always go up if you feel good. But the problem is the higher you are, and I'm gonna use Andy Bolton as an example, the higher that you are, the harder it is to hold that peak. And I was lucky enough to see Andy Bolton pull the first thousand. I think it was a thousand three. Okay. And like three years later, I'm not sure when it was, maybe it was a year, but it was a while. He pulled a thousand eight. I'll never forget. Someone said it took him that long to put five pounds on his deadlift what's he doing i'm like oh my god you talk about no perspective no perspective so what ends up happening is and i've noticed this uh when i was uh powerlifting

and even after i was powerlifting i was still lifting pretty heavy and some of my friends uh they pulled their best deadlifts with about a 68% training max. And then another one of my friends I worked with, who is one of my longtime training partners, he squatted 700 and the heaviest he squatted on his program. Now, he worked up occasionally. It was 385. Now, that's extreme because now when you're older, you get the more you can. And Mark, this is the greatest thing you've ever come up with.

Fuck the bench thing that you do. As you said, sometimes you have to rely on meat magic. And it's funny because it's very funny in powerlifting. My best squat ever in the gym was 825. And I barely got it, dude. It was horrid. Then I squatted 1,000. And I think that's something

that some people have and some people don't i think you can develop it but when the when the chips are ready you know when the fucking whistle blows you're ready to go uh and so you tend to get that with more experienced athletes they know when to turn it on uh and stuff like that you can't always be at level 10 when you're in the gym so uh what i've noticed is the again we talk about raising the floor um and when you get to a certain point especially when you're about an intermediate you start to really realize um how do I put this? That 80% or 90% as a more experienced athlete takes a huge toll on you. And as an example is, let's say you squatted a thousand, 80% is 800 pounds. That's not like an 80% of a 300 pound.

Mark, you know, one half inch out of line or one weird step that squat you're going to be done and even though it represents percentage wise the same it's just not the same and ironically the same kind of idea exists for younger athletes because uh they may be able to bench 95 for 10 reps and you put 110 on there and you know the bar's tilting down somehow it ends up like horizontal, you know, and they start licking the bar or something. And so the same idea is it allows them to perform the exercise correctly without, uh, them, you know, with the risk of injury and, uh, allows them to really dial in, uh, to the actual set instead of worrying about the weight so much,

they're just worried about, you know, keeping a good arch in their back and touching perfectly and pausing and stuff like that. So it's just, it's, it works for both lifters, but it works for very different reasons. You see it a lot with athletes. We see it a lot in the bodybuilding community and powerlifting. People are,

they're in contest prep for bodybuilding show and they look like they're gonna die cheeks are all sunken in they're like can barely get up and down the stairs they're a useless human at that point yep uh powerlifters that are in prep are often like man like this prep has beaten me up and they kind of say it like it's a badge of courage but the back to referring back to like the meat magic thing, you can't have contest magic. You can't have game day magic if you're just crushing yourself all the time. No. And when I was squatting the big weights, I was usually using 405.

One of my training partners was like, I don't get it. Like, how are you? He's like, first of all, you're always using 405. And secondly, you're always squatting on the box. Then you go to the meat and you crush it and you squat a thousand and a thousand 80 and so on in, in competition. And the same thing would happen in the bench. Um, I would use a lot lighter weights.

Uh, I would bench off of boards, but when it came to the contest, you remember how long it took me to get those weights down to my chest. I would do 20 second bench presses, but I didn't practice that. I didn't do that in training. I just, that's a spot that't do that in training. I just, that's a spot that I would go to specifically for the contest, but I was fresh enough and felt good enough going into the competition to where I had this reserve energy where I can be like, I don't, I don't care how heavy the weight feels. I don't care how long it takes. This is a contest. This is a competition and I'm just going to give it everything I got. Well, you can't, I mean,

This is a competition and I'm just going to give it everything I got. Well, you can't. I mean, one of the biggest mistakes that young kids make or young lifters like power lifters is they always do the meat before the meat. And it's funny because they're like, well, I don't want to be nervous, you know, or I want to know I can do this. And it's like. I'm still in here. No service needed. Oh, hold on. It's my son.

Oh, shit. Hold on. I apologize. No worries. I'm going to actually take a pee break. Okay. And so the one thing I remember someone asking me, this was many years ago. It's, you know, what do you do like the last two weeks before the meet?

And I said, I don't, doesn't bother me because I did 14 weeks of good work. And I think that's a huge thing. And it's almost like they're trying to cram for a test. And I'm like, dude, you've been studying. You've been studying for three weeks. There's no need to go into the test day being exhausted. And so that's where I think a lot of people start screwing up, they get a little nervous, like, and they always equate more work with results instead of better work with results. And I think that's a huge issue, especially with,

you know, you got to do your first meet or third meet or whatever it is. And once you kind of get experienced, for the most part, you've had enough fuck ups and you're just like, listen, I can't do that anymore. And but I am. Again, that's just being consistently good day in and day out. And when we heard this message, you know, ad nauseum on just about every like special operator, you know, talking about, you know, the SEAL team or the Rangers or stuff like that. Well, that's another big beef of mine. Everyone thinks they're a Navy SEAL, you know, every, every coach wants to, and I always, I tell them, like, I remember we had,

And I tell them, like, I remember we had not us, but we had another someone who was peripheral to the program. They brought in like a Navy SEAL for a week or something, you know, and they did all this stupid stuff. And it's great. But the thing I remind them, I'm like, you know, after Hell Week, everyone's hurt and tired. Like, they don't even like it. And, you know, I think it uh, for, you know, it's usually like a two year process. They're doing a lot of other stuff too. It's not one week. And first of all, most of those guys quit like it's 80%. Like you don't need that. And the other thing I always tell people too, is when those guys do that, they're already in

tremendous shape. That's not how you get in great shape it's like uh i always say it's you know you don't need to use a sledgehammer to open the walnut and uh so but that i always love when uh you know it's all the great lessons you can learn from some of these guys like jaco and dav Goggins, you have to understand that they're already at that. They're already doing all that stuff, you know, before, and they hated that anyway. Like it didn't do any good. It didn't make them better. It's just a weeding out process.

And you can't have that in athletes, especially young athletes. You have to, uh, and I do this all the time. Uh, you have to bring them in with success. And so for example, any day that the kids, like we always have like a, you know, this is what we're going to do today. And then as I walk up the stairs to the weight room, if it's allowed and the kids are wrestling, there's always kids wrestling, you know, it's like a big circle. It's a big crazy fest. If I, if I see that, then I know we're good to go. We're good to train. I've gone up there

one time and I thought I missed practice or I didn't know the time because it was so quiet. So on those days you just dial it back. And, uh, but, uh, and so every day I try to set the kids up for some kind of success, even if it's like, all right, we're just going to do our main lift. Then we're going to do a pushup, do a hundred pushups. Everyone's doing a hundred to 200 pushups and they can do that, but now they've accomplished the goal. And so you, I try, and it doesn't always work. You try to put the kids in a, in a situation where they come out of the weight room feeling like they've accomplished something and they were successful. I don't want them beaten down. Now that may, that may work, uh, 40 years ago or 50 years ago. That may work with some individuals, but as a whole with high school

kids, you have to charm them with their own success. Even if it's like made up, you know, I have no, you know, it's, uh, I have no problems telling some white lies occasion to the kid, you know, if that's going to result in a better attitude that doesn't mean i'm not i don't have high expectations and the kids expect it but if a kid's really down you know something happened you have to like dude i that was the best rep i've ever seen you do and as long as it's like mostly true i'm okay like you have to get the kids uh to a point where they're they want to be where they are and they feel successful. I know John, John Wooden used to teach, uh, kids to, you know, title or not kids of college

players that he had, uh, how to tie their shoes. You know, they had specific haircuts that they had to have. And a lot of people thought that was to be in uniform and some of it was to be uniform. Some of it was to go through stuff as a team. Uh, but when they were done tying their shoes correctly and they did all the things right before practice, just to get to practice, he would commend them on that. And that was something that he was like, hey, you all got here. You all got your shoes tied on right. You all look correct. Everyone

looks like a team. Now we're ready to go. You accomplished something. Yeah, you accomplished something. You did what you're supposed to do and we all did it as a team. We we're ready to go. You accomplished something. Yeah, you accomplished something. You did what you're supposed to do, and we all did it as a team. We all had to go through it. And he's, I guess, pumping them up from the success that they've had just from doing that little tiny task. And that is a – man, that's awesome. I love that. I'd never heard that story.

It wasn't funny because I was talking to Mason two days ago about how awesome John Wooden was, and I don't think people realize. I think he won like seven national championships or eight in a row or something. I think 11. I think 11. He won 10 total. Oh, right, right, right, right. But he had a streak that was just insane.

And that's tremendous. And it's like if you wake up every morning, you make your bed. Like, at least I did that. And one of the things that I did get from a Joe Rogan podcast from Andy Stump is he another Navy SEAL who went through Hell Week and all. He calls it keep your world small. And I, I been doing this for, uh, since I've been in college, I always say just win the next battle. Don't have to worry about the war. So the next battle might be to take a shower, uh, and get dressed and make your bed the next day, you know, make sure you have a good breakfast. So every day there's like a little battle and magically, if you win all those battles, the war takes care of itself.

And in terms of like, uh, training, it's's just let's worry about we're doing our mobility. We're just do the best you can on your stretching and your movements. On this, we're squatting. Make sure this next rep is fucking perfect. Just worry about that. Don't look too far in the future. And it's like in a football game,

it's like this next play is your battle. Just win this battle. And if everyone attempts to win each battle on each play, magically the score takes care of itself. And the good thing is even if you lose, you're like, dude, they were just better. That's all there is.

And so it kind of puts some ownership into their actions and their attitude and lets them understand that there is a direct result of positive, structured ass-kicking. And one of the things I always say is when you box, you keep your chin down. As soon as you start looking up and looking towards the goal, that's when you get clocked. That's when you get the sniper putting one between your eyes. Keep your head low.

Take one step forward, little step forward, little step forward. And, uh, magically, uh, the result will take care of itself. And more times than not, if you keep going and never pick up your head, you'll end up farther and farther and farther than you ever thought possible. And, uh, I, there's countless examples of this. Um, and the other thing, Mark, is you don't get overwhelmed. If you had to lose 100 pounds, you can't do it overnight. There's no – I was watching the Lakers play – who were they playing, Mason? Who were the Lakers playing the other day? The Phoenix Suns. The Lakers were getting killed.

And it was like, dude, there's no 30-point shot. Because they're all shooting threes. I'm like, just set up the offense, get a two-point, and then come back and play defense. Just chip away, chip away. So I don't watch the NBA at all. But man, do the Lakers look bad that game. You know, this conversation has got me so hyped.

Because when we were talking about get yourself ready for the next battle, and also having your training session be like a structured ass kicking. When I think back to like when I was really focused on like gaining as much muscle as possible as a bodybuilder or like powerlifting, right? I'd like watch powerlifting motivation videos and every single training session would be a battle because I'd be moving weights that were too heavy, right? This is when I started doing stupid shit because I was like, let me me add some, it's a five, three, one. Let me add some volume. Okay. So I under, I like, I, I understood, I understand that now, but the thing is,

is every single athlete that's lifting is trying to have the feeling of when they leave their training session, that they accomplished something great. And when the training session feels too easy and they're done and they're like, huh, well done fuck like they want to do more right but you know like like you were just talking about you mentioned that that lifter that the highest he lift was 385 in a training cycle and then he lifted 700 but yeah i feel as if like a lot of power lifters especially we know that if you increase your cardiovascular capacity you're able to recover better from session to session to session so it's good to be in shape. So you can give yourself the feeling of having a battle if you have some structured cardio, like sled pulling.

If you do that well, it can be difficult. It can feel like you've got something done, but it's not so fatiguing that it can fuck you up for your next session. Having a little bit of a kettlebell complex or something where you maybe do like some swings to maybe some push-ups or something and go back and forth for a bit that can make you feel like you had a battle after your big compound movements right but it's still helping you to your next sessions and it's like if more people could could do some of that shit they feel better yeah well it's it's almost uh it kind of comes back to building our volume through assistance because as an example everyone has every weight for their main lifts charted out

and we always cap like listen we're gonna you can go up to 10 reps but no more than 10 reps or whatever there's always depends on the week and the kid and stuff like that but if they want to do something dumb or if we're going to do some kind of we'd always do some kind of hypertrophy circuit uh in the training if you want to do like uh something dumb this is the time to do it for example we had a kid who did we do all those full range plate raises you know all the way over your head It's great for your shoulders and upper back. During his circuit, he did a 45-pound plate for 100 reps straight. That was his goal. And he was sore the next day.

But it's not like doing 10 sets of 10 at 405 on a squat where you're really going to pay the price afterwards. So in that scope, that's like with the kids who are really in the training, they always ask, hey, can we do something dumb? I'm like, yeah, we can do something dumb because it's only chin-ups and dips. We're fine. We're going to be okay doing that. So we tend to do the dumb stuff with things that aren't going to sap you of your energy.

Now, this flies in the face of a lot of stuff because we all know the bench squat, deadlift, power clean, all that stuff is the king. But the problem is the king requires a lot of currency. It really does. It saps you. And the other thing is, because I look at this as a four-year process, and honestly, we get the kids in seventh grade, so it's a six-year process we we can still pay the king uh without having to look like the jester and uh so but again that takes a tremendous

amount of coaching and it takes buy-in from especially the juniors and seniors who will tell the young kids just relax and uh as an example just talking about uh we we have figured out generally speaking that if you are starter on our team the the average starting deadlift is at least 415 on the trap bar okay now obviously there's we had a kid pull 585 for five the other day, which is insane. The heaviest weight he handles in training is 435, to give you an idea. When I first started charting these numbers, we had – now, this was the entire team, including the freshmen. The average max was like 412 or something, 410. It was fairly close, but this included everyone.

So you had the high guys and the low guys. And then I looked at their training maxes, and we had eight guys with a training max over 300. So no one even came close to the 400-pound mark as far as the weights that they used. And it always happens. We had a kid on week three of the program on we do our uh final set for five good reps and then you're allowed to go up as long as you don't miss and

do something dumb so they usually have to clear it with me and uh one of the kids really wanted to try 365 his last set that day was like 305 and And I'm like, dude, you're going to be fine. He's all nervous. He pulled 365 for five. And you know how that is because it's the first time you did it. You're all nervous. And he probably could have ripped off eight. And he put that bar down and he looked at me like he had just got the winning lotto numbers. He's like, oh my God. I'm like, see, just fucking relax. And then the one thing that I always do is there's always a kid, like sophomore year, who tries to do all the weights his buddy does. And I said, you go ahead and you can do whatever you want because it always ends up the same.

They always, the next day they come in, they're just like, I'm exhausted. I feel so bad. I'm like, well, you learned your lesson. But sometimes you got to let the kids make some mistakes. The first kid that did it, we trap Art on a Friday and he wanted to go up. I was like, dude, you're fine. You're a mature adult.

He was very mature. He wasn't adult. Anyway, Monday he comes in. He's like, I'm never doing that shit again. Ever. It was horrible. I was wasted all weekend. And so but yeah yeah it's a uh as good as the lifts are they just require way you know the big lifts they just require a lot of you and uh that's what and i i was a staunch uh hater of the goblet squad the dumbbell squad

and then after i think two months of, uh, our varsity doing it, once I got hold of them, uh, everyone's hip mobility got better. And ironically, their biceps and their traps got huge. Cause if you're doing dumbbell squats with a hundred, 150 pounds for sets of 10, 20, uh, it was like a unintended consequence. And I'll never forget the, at the, towards the end of that off season, consequence. And I'll never forget the, at the, towards the end of that off season, my wife came and visited. She's like,

I just want to see what you guys do. And she's laughing. She's like, every lifter here looks like you, you have big thighs, big ass and traps. So, uh,

I mean, not, not now. I don't look like that now, but it was just, it was funny because I'm making them in my own image, you know? So, uh, but yeah, it's, uh, I don't know. I don't look like that now. It's funny because I'm making them in my own image. That's been the biggest thing.

The biggest turnaround for me was besides the building muscle thing, is just the implement of that exercise. We do it three days a week. Again, we can get a lot of leg volume. We get a lot of good training volume without killing our backs and and all that other stuff so plus the other thing is if if you tell a kid to squat the 150 dumbbell they're all pumped up if you put a 45 five and a two and a half on the bar they're like this stupid what am i doing this for so it's a little mental game you know i always call it the the uh like they always people ask me do you guys give your kid choices and i'm like yeah

chin-ups or push-ups or dips give them the illusion of choice act yourself out guys are people still buying 531 people still purchasing it every day yeah Are you confused by that? Well, here's an interesting thing is when I was at EFS, Dave did some recon work. And generally speaking, the average person that was like an EFS customer, like obviously you have like the, the lifers and stuff, guys like us,

but you have generally about three years that people are really into this. And then they'd leave. And then that new bash comes in. And ironically, that's about when training gets really hard. You know, you you make your big time gains and you try this and try that, try this. And then all of a sudden you're like, this is fucking shit. I'm not making progress. So it seems to line up fairly perfectly. But there's like billions of people on this earth.

It's crazy. And, you know, it's awesome. I'm insanely humbled. Uh, I'm not much of a business guy. You know, I, I didn't set out to do this, you know, with a, I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't think this was going to be it. And, uh, so it's awesome. And it's, you know, getting the feedback, especially from, uh, I got, you get feedback from people, you know, been following you for 12 years and this is how I got my start or, you know, I started coaching athletes. That's my, that's the thing that really makes me happy is when you get a guy like, dude,

you inspired me to help out and, you know, do what I can or, uh, with their kids and stuff like that. Just as you get older and I had, you know, I got this from a movie, but it's, you know, if you really want to change the world, raise good kids. If you don't have kids, coach, teach, or mentor. And if you don't want to do that, keep your fucking hands off of them. So I just think that you can make, and then like, this is not the, obviously teachers are important and, and you know,

music teachers are important, but this is how I, this is how I can help my community. Uh, cause this is all volunteer work from myself and my wife. And I feel like I'm, I always tell this story when I got asked to help out, I was very hesitant because I'm like, well, that's my free time. Cause all I, you know, my, I take my free time seriously. And I remember I sat down and I was like, man, if I don't do this, then who am I to say that everyone should be helping people? Because I know I have a chance to do this and I'm just a fucking liar. And my mom for decades fed the homeless at the church. And ironically, her cooking partner was a Jewish guy.

He's like, well, I don't care. I'm here to help. It didn't matter. And my mom loves to cook. She loves doing stuff like that. And that's how my mom helped the community. And I was thinking, well, I don't want to cook. I don't even know what I'm doing.

I can cook a steak, and I don't think that's going to fly. It's a lot of cash for ribeyes. And so this is something that I could do and something I'm very passionate about. And I, you know, it's funny because I'm in the DFW area right now. And there is,

I don't know if you guys have been here, but there's so many people here. I'm always amazed. It's hard to get people to help. And there's like, do you have like 10 million people in this area? You're telling me like, you can't,

there's not someone who can do this or it doesn't have to be all time consuming, but you can really give back and help people. And I think that's one of the reasons like the last seven or eight years, I just, I feel better about myself. Selfishly, to be of service to someone is a great feeling. And to be an integral part of the community. I can't tell you every time I go to the Kroger's or Walmart to pick up some food, Hey coach, what's going on? And like, I have no idea who they are. My memory's busted anyway. So I'm like,

Hey, you know, it's great, man. The people are terrific. So what were you setting out to do with five, three, one?

I don't, I, I knew, uh, I had some friends, like Zach Evanesh, one of my good friends and Jim Smith from the diesel crew, they had written some books and I had all these ideas and articles and stuff. And they're like, dude, just do it. And I was, my first thing I was like, no one's going to buy it, you know? And you know, what do I know i know that was the thing what do i know and then you

realize that yeah boyd epley's better than me but there's 10 million people who aren't yeah and uh one of the things and i mark you know this very well it's when you're at when i back then in efs like it was huge i don't think people understand the the kind of influence you had and honestly like i was like i think I can do this. It wasn't an egotistical thing because I was always kind of, you know, not scared, but tentative would be the better word. And I felt like this could work because I had done this for about two years. I've worked with people at the gym and, you know, I made a lot of mistakes.

Holy shit, did I make mistakes with that? And once we kind of got some of the stuff figured out, I was like, you know, I think this would help people. Cause I remember writing about it, you know, different areas and it got so confusing because people didn't have like a one source kind of place. And, uh, you know what, it's good to have a couple of bucks laying around. I'm not all about the money, but, uh, it's nice to be a little bit financially independent. And, uh, when I was 19, when I was in my about the money, but it's nice to be a little bit financially independent. And when I was 19, when I was in my very first apartment in Arizona, I wrote down a list of things I wanted to do with my life. I'll never forget this.

And I was full of anxiety. I didn't have heart palpitations, but I wanted to do something with my life. I didn't want to just kind of mail it in. And I didn't know exactly where I was going to go, but I wrote down work from home, do something training related, and do something writing related. Those were my three goals because I didn't want to have to go to the office

nine to five and just kind of, I don't know, just be a cog in a machine. I think that's great for a lot of people. I mean, we need those people and I think they're fulfilled. A I think that's great for a lot of people. I mean, we need those people, and I think they're fulfilled. A lot of people are, but a lot of people aren't. And we talk about taking one step forward. I didn't know how I was going to get there. All I know is if I did well in school, I kept training and kept learning and kept writing,

something would pop up at some point. And that's how I met Dave. When I first met Dave Tate, we talked and talked and he's like, Hey, what'd you study in college? And I was like, English. He's like, can you write? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you want to write some articles? And I had already written like 30 articles before this even happened. I knew I'm like, I just, you know, working on my skill. I'm like, maybe when something pops up, I'll be ready. And the old saying is, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And you have to make the most of your opportunities when you get them.

If I let that slip, who knows where I'd be today. So anyway, there you go. I don't know. I just wanted to help. How much free shit have you done? Yeah. It's unbelievable. Yeah, tons. free shit have you done? Yeah. It's unbelievable. Yeah, tons.

Most of my life is free stuff. Yeah, the job that you have now is you do it for free, right? The coaching. Yeah. Yep. So, you know, it's, and you get a lot more than you put in. And that's the honest to God truth. So, it doesn't always seem like that.

It gets very frustrating. I can't tell you how many times I walked home or drove home. Like, God, there's no one worse at this job than me. I am the worst. Like you're better off having a fucking gorilla coach. And,

uh, so, but yeah, it's, it's been good. So if anyone out there is, can, uh,

help out or do something with even training wise, it's probably better than what they have right now. You don't have to be the best. You just have to be. You have to care. Yeah. You go to a kid's baseball game, football game, and the parents complain about the coach.

It's like, well, then do something about it. You have no right. You can go assist. You can't complain unless you have an answer. That's what I say. If you don't have an answer, shut your fucking mouth. Yeah. Go help out.

They're not going to deny you of helping. No. They're going to be like, fuck, we got another person helping. This is awesome. When I first started coaching, I talked to the head coach on the phone, and I'm like, I've played football for years. I didn't really coach. He's like, honestly, can you show up on time?

I'm like, yeah. Are you a warm body? Yeah, you're fine. That's how desperate we were for people. There's three coaches there. And now the amount of resumes and offers for coaches to come in are overwhelming. So it's been a great – it's been awesome to build something, too, because the hardest thing about building something is you got to get people to believe that didn't prior believe now

we have all these younger kids come in there uh there's an expectation of winning which is great but before there wasn't that expectation and there wasn't the high standards that we now have so we had to get those kids who didn't really have that prior to believe in it. And that's why that senior class, my first senior class, I give them a ton of credit because they had no reason to trust me, none. And they all elected to come in. Our last game was on a Friday. They all elected to come in on the next Monday, 100% turnout.

And they said, let's fucking do this, you know? And so they put a tremendous amount of trust in me, which that said, you know, those guys will never get enough credit because those guys, you know, the way they trained prior to how we train now was completely different. And it, you know, it was, it's nerve wracking. I always say this, that first game that we played after that first off season where, you know, when you're warming up the team and, you know,

ACDC or whatever player it over the loudspeaker. And I have to yell to get anyone to hear anything. And so I have like a very baritone death metal bark, you know? And so, you know, I'm like, there must've been six times that I almost puked all over myself because I was so nervous because these kids had invested so much in, in what I, you know, what we did and they believed in me. I'm like, man, if we fucking drop an egg on this game,

everything we would do is just for not. And then we ended up winning like 600 to two, you know, just insane. So, um, do you, just insane. So, um, do you think that we, uh, people that work that the people that worked at elite FTS, do you think that many of us learned to give away free shit,

uh, because of maybe indirectly through Louie Simmons, who we saw give a lot of time, a lot of tons of free time. I mean, he'd take you to breakfast. He would, he would even be like,

uh, you know, paying for breakfast and paying for lunch and all these things and then dave with elite uh tons of free information i mean that's why people were going to that website they weren't necessarily especially in the beginning i think ask dave i think was fake i think his wife may have some questions and they kind of played off from there and uh do you think we've kind of maybe indirectly learned some of this from from louis and then from dave mark yeah it's you know i'm sure at some point louis had someone too you're right uh that paid it forward but in our world it was louis and then dave and then the tree just branches out you know you have two guys at the top of the stem there uh and then it just branches out and um i think you the one thing is

when i first started answering questions at elite it was the first i did a meet my first meet and i did very well and uh i remember uh that was dave's uh ip IPA national meet. And, uh, I had already known Dave for a little bit and I did some stuff for him here and there. And then he, uh, he's like, dude, you want to be part of the Q and a,

and I was like, what me? I know I can't. And what people don't understand is when we, I was so nervous, dude, I'm like, I don't know.

Is that what your normal inner voice sounds like? And, uh, I'm like, I don't know anything. Is that what your normal inner voice sounds like? No. And I remember it built up over the years. And that's one of the massive successes I had from when I released 531. I had developed such a massive following. And it was not done with anything in mind. It was just, this is what you did. If you, when you're at EFS or you're part of the West side crew, you help people, you

help. And it's just, it was just expected and encouraged. And it never dawned on me that it would be anything other than what it was. And I think it happened when things happen organically, they happen for the right, right reasons. There's, there was never, uh, and Dave always makes fun of me cause I'm the worst business sales guy in the world. He's like, if anyone had no agenda, it was you. Cause I never, I just thought it was the right thing to do. And you know, I'm not saying I'm a saint because God knows I've screwed up my parts of my

life horribly and made some bad decisions. But that was one area, I think. And I don't really do social media. I don't follow it. But I assume there's still guys that do a lot of stuff for free and help out because you talk about when I still get tons of questions and stuff like that. But I don't look at social media, really. It just doesn't don't know, doesn't really interest me. But hopefully what we help build is now branching out even farther. And with social media, you can really do some stuff. And there's always a few turds out there.

I remember one time seeing someone had made some kind of comment about something. It had nothing do with me but it had to do with training and someone responded i've been doing this for 18 months and then i do the math in my head mark like i started when i was 13 that means uh training knowledge wise you're 14 and a half and i'm like god i was horrible when i was 14 and a half like right i wouldn't trust anything i would from, from me when I was that age. And so, but yeah, that's a great way of putting it because I'm hoping that the branches get wider and wider and wider because it was awesome. And we weren't on the ground floor, so to speak, but we were very close, you know, very close.

So it's nice. And it's, you know, I think a lot of it may get forgotten. Uh, I think, you know, I remember someone asked me one time, why do you sell your books? You do nothing for free. And I was like, God damn, dude, you owe me questions. I answered for like, this is Dave and I, it was something like uh 1500 questions a month damn or like you know something like five years and then you know another five years of like 500 or something like that so you know it's like man you guys forget how this works huh like pardon me so any people are few and far between any idea any idea what gave dave the

idea to do that site that way i i don't remember anything else being like that at the time because yeah well halfway like a forum but not really a forum i'll tell you how it started there was a guy named jason burnell he had a website called deep water he lives out here in California. Yeah. He's a great guy. And I've always credited Jason for really launching the EFS Q&A because he would put up all of Louie's articles. Louie would send him the articles. Then he had stuff like Ed Cohn's program or this type, whatever, basic interviews and stuff like that. It was a very basic page, just like one giant opening page. Just click on links. That's all there was. It was really cool. And on there he had asked Dave. And so it was Dave Tate. So people would send questions into Jason. There was an email address and then he would send them to Dave. Dave would, you know, put them on a,

you know, email and then send them back. And they were updated maybe whenever Dave had the time. So maybe once or I don't know, probably two or three times a month or something. I remember like waiting and waiting and waiting. One of his greatest answers he gave is someone asked, how do you get faster at speed bench? And Dave just said, push harder. I love that. Love that thing. And so I think that, I love that.

Love that thing. And so I think that I know Dave had some ideas about selling some stuff and doing that. But I think the Q&A really rose from that because it was massively popular. And, you know, people don't understand when Dave first started, I think it was just him. And then he brought in like Bob Youngs and Danny Blankenship and Martin Rooney from the speed school and stuff who trains athletes and fighters and stuff like that. And I think I was like the next guy out of that group. So it was really awesome to be part of. And I remember when I did my, you know, it's called elite fitness systems.

It's not, it wasn't elite FTS back then. And his big thing was, you know, it's called elite fitness systems. It's not, it wasn't elite FTS back then. And his big thing was, you know, it's elite lifters teaching you. And I didn't reach my elite in my first meet. I reached it in my second meet. And I remember Dave like, I'm a fraud, dude. I was like 30 pounds off, you know? And he's like, you're fine. You're going to, you're all right.

You know, don't worry about it. So I think that's i think the the brunel thing and i think louis sold some equipment back then i remember he sold obviously the reverse hyper and like a couple other things but dave really saw a market for that and you know there's another i just did a podcast with dave and vincent and matt rhodes and i mentioned like dave i mean they're in a brand new building that you know you know, they, it's, they built it from the ground up and I was never in there. I was always in like the dirty, dusty closets that, uh, and that's how it started. I'm like, man, look at what you built when this is insane.

You know, just the weight room itself. I mean, it's like, we literally trained in the place where we answered phones. There was a monolith there and a squat, you know, bench rack. So, you know, you do a couple sets, answer a phone. So it's just, it's, it's really crazy. So, and then obviously, you know, the success that Louie's had has been astronomical. And so I haven't spoken to Lou in quite a while. Occasionally, like I'd see him out at a restaurant or something, but I haven't spoken to him,

but you know, he's still, still a stubborn, smart man. All right. So. Yeah, dude. And once again, thank you. Cause I've not only have I learned a lot from this conversation, um, but like I said, that, that five, three, and was the first program I started with. And I learned so much from that program.

So, yeah. Yeah, thank you. Man, it's awesome to hear. And, you know, people always, I don't care what people do training-wise. I just, if I'm somewhat part of that in any way, shape, or form, it's awesome to know. Because someone did that for me, and someone did that for them. because someone did that for me and someone did that for them. And, uh, you know,

it's Mark, can you imagine knowing that you were made a lifetime out of a fucking thing that cheats you on your bench? Right. I mean, think about that. I mean, it's,

it's nuts. It's wild. And you know, yeah. And so it's just really cool to, uh, to see the success that we've had and other people have had. I just,

I don't, I don't take it for granted, you know? So, but thank you guys. I appreciate it. What, uh,

you have any books that are like more recent? Obviously you've written some stuff after five, three, one, right? Yeah. There's, uh,

there's, uh, uh, shit beyond five or five beyond five, three, one. And we, I just, uh, shit beyond five or five beyond five through one and we i just uh added a ton of more stuff and i wrote five through one forever which is a giant manual it's huge it's got every workout thing that i've ever tried and explanations about everything how

to program your training for long term how to program the conditioning all that stuff how to program the conditioning, all that stuff, how to do active recovery. It's a massive book. Uh, and that, uh, has been the latest book that, uh, so it's been like five years. And, uh, I should ask my wife where there's some kind of, I don't know, whatever. So, uh, there's a discount code. Anyone read this, uh, on, uh, books, uh, it's, we had to come up with something snappy so it's west side and it's you know west side remember that oh my god so yeah there's a code i probably last a week or something my wife does all that stuff so um what's your website it's uh jimwendler.com there you go and you can find me on instagram uh

facebook is we don't do a lot of stuff on facebook just because it's we get uh it's hard to reach people on facebook it really is and we've had some issues we'll just put it that way with facebook and uh so instagram seems to be the best and i don't do a ton of updates i usually do try to do like a 60 second video where i explain something that we do with training with the kids or something with me or something i've learned and then i occasionally do like a q a it's i call it the fat fingers q a like listen don't ask me for like 30 fucking lines make it a so i can answer it fairly brief because like you know Ask me for like 30 fucking lines.

Make it so I can answer it fairly brief. Stuff like that. And if you have a question, wendlerstore at gmail.com. My wife handles all that. She'll just forward it to me. So that's the best way to get a hold of me. I check my personal email about once every month. So I never do any of that stuff.

My wife kind of handles all that stuff. And if you want to get a hold of me uh email or text my wife that's how all my friends do it and that's i don't not a big phone guy so anyway are you still going uh going hard with the music yeah oh you know the problem with uh when i was younger and like learning everything i learned how to play drums when i was in uh freshman in high school i played in the band and then you know played played and now i have such a sound massive amounts of amps in my uh in cabinets in my basement which is complete and total overkill like this is something you'd put on a stage and it's in my basement. And so, yeah, I still, I mean, I have, you know, two different drum sets down there.

I have recording equipment. I have bass guitars, a bunch of different guitars and amps. So that's kind of always been my outlet. And my parents always encouraged that. And it's, if you're a drummer in a band in high school practice is always at your house right because it's the hardest thing to move so i always give my parents a ton of credit for bringing all these kids over there and it was the loudest most the worst music you've ever heard in your life because everyone's learning their instrument you know and uh so yeah it's always

been since i've been a kid i mean it's funny because the first time I heard like real hard rock, I was in third grade. I heard the song, a live version of Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult. My cousin played it for me. And I was it's like seeing boobs. Like, I don't know what that is, but I want more of it. I want it heavier. Like when you're a young kid. So, you know, I was knee deep in like Slayer and Venom and Merciful Fate when I was probably in sixth grade.

So back in those days, you had to know someone to know someone, an older brother or something like that, who would make you a mixtape of all these different bands. And it's funny because those are all considered the underground classics. You don't know. I had a paper route for three years. those are all considered the underground classics. You don't know. I had a paper route for three years. Every morning, I'd wake up and deliver papers to people's houses and put my Walkman on, riding my

Diamondback, chucking. That's the best job I've ever had. All alone, quiet, five in the morning. It was awesome. Jamming denim. Anyway. So yeah, jimwender.com, Instagram, wendlerstory at gmail.com. Westside is the discount code.

So there you go. Awesome. Thanks for your time today. And it's good to see that you're doing well and that you're kicking it with your son out there. And hopefully your team kicks some more ass. Yeah. One game at a time, man. One practice at a time.

So we'll get there. Have a great rest of your day. All right. Thank you guys so much for everything. I appreciate the chance, Mark. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for everything. I appreciate the chance, Mark. Thank you. See you later. Bruh.

Bruh. Just like a typical coach, he was dropping so many quotes on us. Bruh, I was writing down every single one. Yeah, I wrote down a bunch of them too. The king requires currency. You don't need a sledgehammer to open a walnut. Bruh. Just diamonds, gems, man.

Just being thrown at you right and left. I love it. I love it. And I didn't curse that much, mom. Yay. She probably is checking up, but she'll check up in like two weeks. She's got her ruler ready. Or whatever it is that she wants. See? Game over.

Man, that was great, though. Yeah, I love, you know, because you look at him, you know, it's like he looks pretty hardcore. He's got that beard, a lot of 1,000 pounds. Like, this guy's not afraid of anything. And he's talking about how, like, yeah, he would be a little, he would question himself. Yeah. You know, it's like.

He had a lot of self-doubt. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can all learn a lot from that because, shit, I question myself all the time. He also is extremely sweet. You know, he's a big teddy bear, like doing all this stuff for free and he loves kids. And, you know, he's doing stuff, obviously, for his own kid, but he's doing stuff for other people's kids and fucking awesome. Yeah.

That's really cool. Yeah, doing it for free. And then the Sacrificing for the Unknown, which you spoke about in the past. But, you know, he's writing all these articles. He's doing all kinds of stuff. He's like, at some point, this is going to pay off. But he had no fucking clue. Yeah.

And then, you know, the student will find the teacher when he's ready. Another awesome quote. Mm-hmm. Fucking gold. We didn't talk about this, but, yeah, he was a scholarship or a walk-on athlete at the University of Arizona where he was a fullback and actually ended up being a starter and played his varsity year. And I think he scored a touchdown like in the Rose Bowl. Whoa. If I remember correctly, or at least he played in the game in the Rose Bowl, which had like, you know, 60,000 fans or something wild like that.

So he's done some shit, man. He, uh, he's been around and he was a, he was a really, really good athlete. I mean, to play division one footballs, you know, not, uh, not an easy task though. And then he moved into powerlifting and when he, uh, was a powerlifter, he did great at that. And then when he worked at elite, that's when he wrote five, three, one. So he's had, just like he's talking about with these kids, if they, if you can give them doses of success, then you can build upon that. And that's exactly how his entire career has gone.

And the structured ass-kicking man. I like that. I think that kind of reiterates a lot of thoughts that I've been having about multiple sports or trying to do multiple sports at the same time and being able to progress. And like the building, just focus on building muscle, you know, like real quick on that point of focusing on building muscle. If there's anyone who listens, who does jujitsu, that's listening to this or play basketball or whatever. Like the big thing is like if you're continuing play your sport, and let's say you're developing the gym two or three days a week, but you're really playing your sport every single other day, the muscle you build, you're going to be using that when you're on the mats or when you're on

the court or you're on the field. You're now using that muscle to perform. So it's not like you're magically going to get bigger and bulky and you're not going to be able to move. You're using that muscle through large ranges of motion. So that muscle is only going to be bigger and bulky and you're not going to be able to move. You're using that muscle through large ranges of motion. So that muscle is only going to be able to work for you in your sport. So there's absolutely zero negatives to that. Yeah. He's, uh,

he's so basic too. I love that. You know, he goes back to the basics and then the number that he came up with that he kept going back to was about 70%. And there might be some reasons to consider that. Mainly who he's working with is athletes, but he also mentioned that in some of the other people that he works with

that aren't young athletes, that they had success, similar success using those lighter weights. So it's something to consider when you're training. Maybe your training's going good. Maybe you're already making progress. If you're making progress, you're not hurting yourself, then I'll say carry on. But I would at least have this in consideration. Maybe there's an easier, more optimal way to gain strength. And if you can do it with 70%

rather than overtaxing yourself with 100% or potentially setting yourself up for injury, why not look into a different style of training. I also like what he said about raising the, uh, you know, raising the floor rather than the ceiling. But I think that's really tough one. Uh, you know, for me, the ceiling would be like my mobility. Right. Uh, and, uh, I guess like when I was a power lifter, you could say that the, um, the, the, I'm sorry, the ceiling would be my strength and the floor would be my mobility. Right.

And the easiest way to probably raise both would have probably been to have a little bit better mobility. Like, like, I don't know, because I didn't really mess with it much. I did meet Kelly Sturette while I was powerlifting and my numbers did shoot, shoot through the roof, but I wasn't really like, um, I, I wasn't, I wasn't focused enough on mobility, really have like really good improvements, but I did improve my mobility in the lift that I was doing, which was a squat and it paid off huge. I went from a nine 42 squat to a thousand 80 squat. And so if I would have kept that up, I think I got a little lazy with it and a little lax with it and didn't even recognize how much impact it had.

And obviously there's multiple other reasons on why I got stronger. It's not just that, but that was a factor that was kind of thrown in there right when I got to some weights that kind of made everything a lot more challenging. Like he kind of referenced the Andy Bolton story, which was amazing. Cause here's a guy gaining five pounds on a, you know, deadlift that no one's ever done before.

And he's still getting criticism. Why did it take him so long to gain five pounds? Pretty funny. Hilarious. I think there's still to this day, only two people that have, there's still only two people that have deadlifted a thousand pounds

in a powerlifting fashion. Oh, okay. Strongman guys have done it, but they've done it with straps and sometimes with the 1100 pound pulls and stuff are done with different bars and it's just different. Jamal Browner's done it, but he used straps.

I think he pulled like a thousand forty or something. But he used me. It's a thousand forty. Yeah Browner's done it, but he used straps. I think he pulled like 1,040 or something. But he used to mean, it's 1,040. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was straps, but 1,040. Yeah, no, it's unreal. He'll do it in the meet at some point. I don't have any issue with straps. I'm just saying, in a powerlifting competition, there's still only been Benedict Magnuson and Andy Bolton.

No one else has ever pulled 1,000 pounds. Just two guys. And so, I mean, just the point there is just like, he's at this crazy, crazy level of strength and he gains five pounds and people, I don't understand.

It's not good enough. But I do think that in general, whether, whether you're somebody that is, you know, 400 pounds and you're way out of shape and you want to make a change, um, there is no diet that's going to allow you to lose 200 pounds in a month.

It just, it doesn't really exist. I think that people are wishing for stuff like that and they're hoping for stuff like that. But what I would say to that is I think you're better off wishing or hoping for just a better skill set. And when you go through that, you become a different person in a lot of ways and you become a stronger person that has now armed themselves for success in many other areas of your life.

And so even though it sucks and it's not easy to go through, I do think slow and steady is the way to go. Just taking your time with it. And if you mess up and you're going slow, what's it really, it doesn't really do any, you don't have to be that worried about it. If you're trying to go fast and you're trying to lose a lot of weight really

quickly, um, that's where you end up with problems because you end up probably falling off the diet. If you're going to prayer, if you're going to wish for anything, wish for the strength to be patient, wish for the courage to be consistent, I wish for the courage to be consistent.

Because as long as you have those two things, you're going to get there at some point. But if you don't, yeah, that's not going to work. Yeah, like you said, there's no 30-point shot in basketball. Right? You're still doing something when you're 50. Even if you're 30 now, I mean, still that's 20 years,

man, you know, and you talk about, you know, playing instruments and stuff. Yeah. Right. I mean,

you could, you'll just, I just think, uh, I think a lot of people are, um, they, they maybe are just like in,

in a, in a rush. And I, I understand the anxiety and I understand, uh, the reasons on why they want to try to make a change so quickly but as we know with just so many other things you can't, I hate the word can't, it's very difficult to make many changes all at one time unless you are somebody that has done that before. These fighters talking about

going to these camps and these different things and football players going into camps. And well, they've made a bunch of changes before they started to eat better and train harder and run and lift and all these things before they're kind of a little bit more used to it. But even as Jim pointed out, like those were things they had to dial back because it was too much. Even, even for, you know, kids that are 18, 19 or because it was too much even even for you know kids that are 18 19 or 16 17 18 years old you know man i'm so pumped after that it was fucking awesome so pumped right now man i'm gonna check out that manual too yeah me too i need it i'm gonna buy that he said it had everything in it i want everything i that's yeah That's what I need. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. I will.

DrinkLMNT.com slash PowerProject. I think all of us have Element in our coffee today. I know I do. Mark does. I had it in my tea. I have to go give blood so I can take it. Yes. I'm going to go get my blood drawn.

Okay. Okay. Well, two out of three is not bad. Actually, 66% is pretty bad. I don't do math. Just keep going, okay. Okay. Well, two out of three is not bad. Actually, 66% is pretty bad. I don't do math. Just keep going, man. I think more than half is good. Anyways, drinklmnt.com slash powerproject.

Pick up a value bundle. You're going to pay for three boxes and get a fourth one free. Hit up that watermelon salt and this, I forgot what the chocolate one's called. We'll just call it chocolate salt for now. There's a new flavor coming out, but it's a secret. There's a new, new flavor? Okay. So, we now there's a new flavor coming out but it's a secret okay so we're not supposed to know about that one because I don't even know about it

let's just say Kai Green would like it huh okay well we'll run with that links down in the description the podcast show notes as well as the YouTube description please follow the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project project on tiktok and twitter my instagram and twitter is at i am andrew

z on tiktok at the andrew z and sema where you at why am i such a kid man and sema in yang on instagram and youtube i didn't see my yin yang on tiktok and twitter mark i'm at mark's millie bell and make sure you check out my twitter i mean mean, my TikTok. See how old I am. I'm sure all this thing's confused. I've been posting a lot of shit up there, and we had some success with a 1.1 million views on sound effects. So go check it out. Strength is never weak.

This week is never strength. Catch you guys later.