Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 552 - The BJJ Strength Coach Josh Settlage

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Josh “The BJJ Strength Coach” Settlage aka "SettleGate" is a strength & conditioning coach, wrestling coach, competitive jiu jitsu athlete, and podcast host. Josh works with grappling athletes all over the world helping them become stronger, more explosive, and better conditioned so they can win more matches & get injured less. Submit an application to get coached by Josh here: https://settlagestrength.com/ Check out Josh's Jiu Jitsu Instructional: https://www.themobilitymatrix.com/ Subscribe to Josh's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5LpYPNiaPVEH4VmStGwiGA Follow Josh in IG: https://www.instagram.com/joshuasettlage/ 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! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel! ➢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

What up Power Project crew, this is Josh Setlidge aka SettleGate here to introduce you to our next guest Josh Setlidge. That's right, ya boy made it and is on the podcast. Josh, the BGJ strength coach Setlidge, is a strength and conditioning coach, wrestling coach, and competitive jiu-jitsu athlete. Josh originally began his strength journey by doing push-ups and sit-ups and dumbbell curls of course with his dad's weight set at the age of 12. Shortly thereafter Josh found the sport of wrestling and the two passions for grappling and strength training were always closely aligned. Josh went on to study kinesiology at William Jessup University and was originally set to become a physical therapist when he came to the realization that helping other grapplers win more matches, all while reducing their risk of injury, was his true passion.

Josh started his own company, Settled Strength, in 2017, and now works with wrestling and jiu-jitsu athletes all over the world, helping them become stronger, more powerful, more explosive, better conditioned, all while making them more resilient and less likely to be injured. His ultimate life goal is to set the world on fire with daily discipline, a message and mindset that he shares on his podcast, The Daily Discipline Manifesto. On a side note, Josh first started working for Mark Bell as a free intern during his junior year of college, which is where he originally earned the moniker Settlegate. But that is a different story. Before I sign off and let you guys go enjoy this

conversation with our next guest, I first of all want to say thank you for listening and tuning into each and every episode. It's been an honor introducing these guests to you and giving you an inside look at who we're having on the Power Project. As I transition into this new stage of my career, I just want to say thank you and wish you all the best. Power Project crew, it's been a pleasure. You guys can follow me on Instagram at Joshua Settledge and on TikTok at Joshua Settledge. And please enjoy this conversation with our guest

Joshua Settledge. Peace. Exactly! What's wrong with this guy? Oh man, you've known him for a long time. I've known him just about as time. I've known him just about as long as I've known almost all you guys. You're not going to tell us a story about how you made him cry

in practice, are you? No, well, I will say... Or has he made you cry? He's never made me cry. He's beat the brakes off me like four times that I can count, but there was one time... That's not very nice. No, he's a bully. You're a lot larger than this guy. There was this one time where Casio had a start on someone's back,

and I started on Encima's back. And I'd have one choke. It's hard for people to escape. Well, because my arms are smaller than Encima's shoulders and neck, so it's hard to pull it out once it's set in. And I got it. No pulling it out. That's right in. And I got it. No pulling out. That's right.

Pull out game is not good. But I got it. And then Encima tapped and Casio was there and it was in front of Casio's chair. And if you're rolling in front of Casio's chair, it's like the high pressure spot. And I got wrecked so bad. For the next whatever it was was like five minutes and 30 seconds because we do six minute rounds i thought you're gonna say next couple months uh yeah pretty much basically the next couple years between that and then when we were training here when the gym

closed it was just me and sema in the gym that was rough i have all those saved on video yeah every video is me just getting clapped left and right. Just getting worked. I'm pretty sure you tapped me a few times when you did positional stuff. You tapped me a few times. I think it was just the one. I would remember. You've been keeping score.

Yep. You know it's like a pent-up aggression, and it's an issue when everyone else has to come in and separate you after he's tapped like 20 times, right? Yeah. I've never seen... Like, what's going on with Josh, man? Why is he so upset today?

You won't believe what he did at work today. Oh, man. Getting fired up. Yep. So what's going on, man? You started off our show and you signed off. What are you doing? Are you kicking us off the team?

Yeah. Yep, that's right. You guys are all out. What was it like researching yourself? That was so weird. I thought it would be easy. Like, I thought that would be the easiest

guest description because it's like, I don't need to do anything. And then I realized, like, what do I even say in 90 seconds about myself that's, like,

vague enough to where people don't sign off right away and be like, God, screw this guy. But not so much where it's like, this guy's making his own description and sounds really

really good. I pray to God you spoke about yourself in third person. You did. I did. Yes! I did. Don't you listen to him when I said that? I do. No, he doesn't. I do! It's just like the pre-

the warm-ups or whatever you guys talk about. That's right. He just walks in. Who you got on today? Hey, Josh, what are you doing here, buddy? Is this a black belt I tied around my waist? Whoops. Sorry about that.

Hey, now. What are you guys working on over here? Anyway, yeah, give us a little background. What the hell happened? What are you doing? You're out of here? You a slingshot friday super training friday is my last day this has been uh this has been like to be honest like the craziest uh experience i've almost had in my entire life just the series of events that led to uh just everything that led up to going to college for strength and conditioning and then having originally started as an internship which we didn't have an internship program here and i asked you and i said hey like i'd be your intern

and you said we don't really do that here like the uh t'challa meme we don't really do that here make it up but um just how everything has been going over the past couple years has been amazing and all the different things I've learned. It really has been like a second college education just with all the people that are surrounded within the Slingshot community. Just the team members we have here but then also the people that we've been able to bring in and connect with outside of Slingshot. With that I was able to start my own company, Settler Strength, and work with jujitsu and wrestling athletes all over the world now, which has been pretty sick, helping them

get stronger, helping them decrease their risk of injury and improve performance and things like that. And so now that has gotten to a point where it's grown enough that I need to decide whether I want to continue working with Slingshot for the next 10, 20 years or whether I want to take Settler Strength all the way for the next 10, 20 years. And as amazing as Slingshot has been for the past several years, it's time for me to kind of jump off and take my own thing. How do you have the confidence to jump off?

A lot of that I think comes from you and seeing what you've done and seeing what you've built. You've been listening to the show. I've been listening to the show. Taking some notes. That's right. I was listening. So I first heard about you when I was in high school. Let's not make the whole show like this. Although I'm enjoying myself. I first heard about you in high school and I listened to your episode on Barbell Shrugged and that they interviewed a lot of CrossFit people, which I was balls deep in CrossFit at the time, which was cool. But then there was this one guy who's bigger than everybody,

stronger than everybody and doesn't do any burpees and is an entrepreneur. So that was like, oh, like I'm definitely going to tune into this. How does somebody get through life without burpees? I know. Right. And you were telling stories about Mark Henry trying to dunk and all sorts of crazy stuff. Mark, are you going to train today? He's like, no, I'm going to play basketball. I'm like, okay. He's like, you want to see me dunk? I'm like, sure.

I'd love to see a 400-pound guy dunk. And he was dunking, kind of. It was kind of amazing. He was ridiculous. Most mutant athlete I've ever seen. Yeah, but just being able to start kind of my interest in seeing what you've built and seeing what you've done and then being able to get to know you

on a much deeper level over the past couple years, basically you kind of laid out the blueprint for people like me to establish something as, okay, establish myself as a material expert, establish myself as an authority figure on this specific subject. And maybe I can't win an ADCC medal. Maybe I can't be an Olympic gold medalist wrestler, which are things that I used to want to do and was really invested in. And then I kind of discovered like, wait a minute, maybe this is my niche over here being the best strength coach for all grappling, jujitsu, uh,

wrestling, judo athletes in the world and being able to establish my name that way. So ultimately the confidence comes from watching you do it, watching you do it and seeming with what you're doing, watching you do it, Andrew, with what, with,

uh, what you're doing with the podcast and things like that. So a lot of it stems from you guys. So I know a lot of guests come through here. Um, and I'm curious, like which of the guests do you think had i know a lot of guests come through here um and i'm curious like which of the guests do you think had some of the biggest impacts on like maybe the way you look at how you program i know when phil came here yeah like you clicked immediately so so which of the

guests do you think were super beneficial for you because like a lot of athletes that are jujitsu athletes and grapplers are probably listening to this episode because of you um so they're probably curious of like who who else maybe should I maybe look at in terms of information that might be useful for my sport? Yeah, absolutely. Phil Daru was probably the biggest one. I had been thinking of a lot of different ways to train and a lot of different kind of pulling from bodybuilding, pulling from powerlifting, pulling from even from some

CrossFit stuff and was having a little bit of pulling from bodybuilding, pulling from powerlifting, pulling from even from some CrossFit stuff and was having a little bit of a hard time blending all those things and not sounding like, hey, you're going to do this CrossFit workout for jujitsu or you're going to do this 5-3-1 workout for jujitsu or wrestling, which those things can work, but having an equal balance

between all those things is really important. And when Phil came the first time, that was like getting plugged into the matrix and seeing how he put everything together. And I think what he's doing is even a higher level of complexity since he's working with MMA athletes. And they get hit in the head. And they get kicked.

And they do all this stuff. And so seeing how he was able to do that with MMA athletes and then kind of condense it down for jiu-jitsu and wrestling athletes was really helpful. Stan Efferding, of course, I've listened to basically every episode we've ever done with him two or three times over. Jim Wendler recently was a big one because everything he does is so simple and it's easy to understand. And when you're working with high school wrestlers, they don't really care that much about periodization. They don't really care that much about why you need to go. They don't care what dynamic effort means. They don't care what max it. Well, they kind of do care what max effort means because that sounds a little bit

more fun. But some of the other stuff about GPP and all those other technical terms, high schoolers don't really care and most aren't interested in that stuff. So seeing Jim Wendler kind of break it down, make it really simple, bodybuild the upper, athlete the lower. I think most jujitsu athletes can benefit from something like that. Jim Wendler was a big one. And then from a business perspective, the episodes we did with Bedros Koulian and just hearing his story about being an immigrant from Armenia and what he's built, the David Goggins episode, of course, was huge. But I'd say those, what is that, four, probably five or six episodes I've listened to almost at least five times over, just constantly repeating them over and over.

And then some that just the three of you have done have been great as well. The ones on fasting, the ones on your experiences about learning. I've always found those very interesting about how this typical structure of education, how someone learns it. Sure. Maybe it's like a common way, but that doesn't mean it's the only way that doesn't mean it's the right way for you. Doesn't mean it's the right way for me. Doesn't mean it's the right way for it. Seymour and Andrew. So having the kind of like, um, the opportunity to expand and change the way I learn and find new ways to learn really helped a lot along with those podcast episodes. Sick.

You mentioned a material, material expert. And I think that this is where, this is where, Oh, Hey now, I think it's a, this is where we kind of lose a lot of people because somebody listening is

like, I, I'm not an expert at anything, you know, like they, they might right now, they might be studying some nutrition or they might be studying some training or they might be studying photography or whatever it is. And they're like, I don't, I don't have any right to go out there and speak because there's a lot of people speaking, a lot of people talking. There's a lot of people speaking, a lot of people talking. There's a lot of great information, a lot of great resources. Who am I? How did you get the confidence to kind of throw your hat into that?

So I used to feel the exact same way, like who am I to even speak on any of these things? I've never done a powerlifting meet. If you look at all my numbers, my powerlifting numbers, they all suck. By CrossFit numbers, I was the fittest teen in Roseville in 2013. There we go. my if you look at all my numbers by powerlifting numbers they all suck by uh crossfit numbers i was the fittest teen in roseville in 2013 so you know i do have like can't even walk down the goddamn street in roseville that's right that's right that's why i live in uh sacramento you know about our stats in the cayman islands you know about that oh i don't yeah we're number one number one really in the cayman islands wow okay number one podcast let's in the Cayman Islands. Wow, okay. Number one podcast. Let's go.

Yes, sir. All right. So I did have that feeling of imposter syndrome and kind of wondering like, why are like, okay, like I feel like I know these things. But at the same time, I kind of don't know everything because all I would do is defer to experts like you, like you and Seema. I'd ask Jesse a ton of questions. like you, like you and Seema, I'd ask Jesse a ton of questions. And then I forget who exactly worded it this way, which really opened my eyes to everything. But they said, look at all your wrestling teammates, look at all your wrestling athletes, and look at all your jujitsu teammates. No one else is interested in this stuff like you are.

So they're probably don't have the investment or time or energy to learn these things. So that makes you compared to them, the material expert. Now, if Phil and I, Phil DeRue and I have a conversation, he's the material expert. He has more time in the game, has a lot more experience, has a lot more knowledge. And I think that's just natural to recognize when certain people have more knowledge and you can learn from them. But as far as building confidence and becoming a material expert, just recognizing that like, hey, I love jujitsu, I love wrestling.

I also love being a freaking meathead. And I've spent so many years reading and listening and studying all these things that maybe other people that I train with aren't as invested in. So that kind of establishes me as a small material expert in that community. And then that will slowly grow and grow

the more time you put into it. Yeah, I remember when I first started talking about strength training i was like uh it's like man a lot of people are gonna hate me for doing this because i think at the time i think i squatted like maybe we squatted like i can't really remember i think i was starting to squat around 800 pounds and somebody listening might be like, that's a lot of fucking weight. They got every right to say something, but I was really,

really nervous. I mean, we have some DVDs, you know, that we made like a long ass time ago. Never enough DVDs. And like, I had a hard,

I had a really hard time, you know, speaking and just getting used to, I was used to like being in front of the camera a little bit for like a little bit of lifting because we would we would show some lifting. But speaking and talking in front of a camera was like just you could tell like when I talked, I mean, you could tell that I was nervous. But I just kind of thought I needed to like jump out there. I just thought I needed to like do it. jump out there. I just thought I needed to like do it. And I think the only way that you really truly end up learning and the only way to become a material material expert is to share material.

And then over time you will error correct and you'll learn like as you're learning with what's working for your fighters, as opposed to like something you might read in a book or something that you might hear someone say, you might hear somebody. I mean, I remember Dave Tate telling me one time that and this is no knock on Louie Simmons. Louie Simmons is my mentor and will forever be. But he was like and I was working with high school athletes, 40 or 50 kids in a room at one time. And I was probably about a year into it or so. And Dave said,

Louie would never, ever be able to do what you're doing right now. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? He just meant because of the fucking mayhem. Because to coach 40 or 50 kids and to get their attention and to make sure they're not getting hurt

and to try to organize the workouts in a way that they get good workouts in was really, really difficult. And so that made me recognize like, oh, shit, like the stuff I'm reading in the book and the stuff I'm learning from Louie, that only gets me so far. I'm going to have to kind of like make up my own shit because of what I'm seeing, because there's these kids are breaking barbells and breaking plates. And I've never seen that before. I don't know what the fuck's going on. And so I had to kind of use some unconventional stuff, as you're probably doing now. When you, at that time, when you were coaching the high school kids and working with them and establishing your confidence as a material expert, did that expand as you kind of developed the slingshot? Like, as you grew in those areas, you recognized areas of, like, who am I to make this revolutionary product that I know can change the world?

But who am I? Like, I've never invented anything else before. Did that carry over well or did you almost have to re-inspire that confidence within yourself to do that? I was nervous about talking, but I wasn't sure on confidence because like I I once once I started lifting when I was young, I really truly felt that it was I was like destined to do it. Like I felt like I felt like it was I felt like I found something that was like really like part of me almost in some weird way, almost as if you might hear some people say that something is like a calling for them or that like I didn't necessarily find powerlifting. Powerlifting found me type of deal. Yeah. Without my brothers, I wouldn't have I wouldn't have found it.

But it just like it just fit really well. So in terms of like having confidence to share out the slingshot and stuff, I was like, no, I'm a bad motherfucker. Like I lift a lot of fucking weight. Like at that time, I think I, uh, you know, already benched over 800 pounds, you know, I'm like, I'm lifting some fucking heavy shit. And when I'd go to competitions, when I was in, like, I would be in a flight and a competition and I'd be like, uh, sometimes middle of the pack and a squat. But every time we benched, I was the last person to lift every single time because they raised the weight every single time. But it wasn't like a jump of like 30 pounds. It was like they put on another red plate, you know? So I was like,

I'm fucking people up in this. So I'm going to tell people about, you know, how this can be utilized, how this can be used. So it wasn't hard for me to talk about. Ed Milet has said something recently. I know you're a big fan of Ed Milet. And he said that the best performers in the world have two extremes. And one extreme is they have an insane level of confidence that whoever touches that bench, they're dead. They'll get crushed under the bar, but I'm not getting crushed. I'm here to kill everybody on this bench. But they also have an extreme amount of humility, the type of humility that where they seek out mentors, they seek out experts in that area. And when did you feel that it sounds like you had that from an early age, like you felt like lifting was your calling, you had the confidence there, but also the humility to

seek out Dave Tate, Louie Simmons, Charles Poliquin, all those people. Did you recognize that early on and kind of lean into that? Or were you more so it just kind of happened that way? No, I always knew I needed help because I was dumb. You know, that was the story that I bought, you know, for myself. That was my identity. And so I was like, I need to learn from other people. And when I went and saw Dave Tate's seminar, that was really transformative because he in his opening thing, he talked about this kid that couldn't learn. And he had this super sick story.

And he's like, that kid is the guy standing in front of you today. And I was like, what? Like, and then he just blew our minds with all the stuff that he shared that day. He was like, I didn't think I could learn this. I didn't think I could learn that. And now I'm here, you know, teaching all of you guys. He's like, I couldn't put two words together in front of people. I'm like, that's me. And so that was, that was really big for me. But yeah, I think just kind of knowing that I had

strengths on one side and had some real weaknesses on another. I just kind of always knew that I wouldn't be able to do much of anything without other people and growing up with great parents, you know, that was really helpful as well. And then growing up with a good with a good family structure was awesome because i had my cousins my brothers i always had other people around and i was like i want to whatever this is like this way i want to try to keep that going and uh keep things in that direction with uh anything that i do i think that's a great thing, though. I mean, not that, because we know the story. When you were younger,

they put you in certain classes. So thinking you're dumb, one would think that that's not a good idea. But I think, in essence, that's a really good thing because you want to realize how much you don't know, and then you seek that out.

But if you're like, oh, I'm super smart, I know all this, I'm super intelligent, I got this, then you're going to be kind of stuck leaning on what you know and what you do you know but i'm curious man with you uh working with so many high school athletes um first off how has that developed in the way that you work with people in general because i don't work with any teenagers and i feel like that's a different ball game and And that probably opens up a lot in terms of the way you think. And then along with that, when I was a teenager, I wasn't fucking disciplined.

And this man is all about fucking daily discipline. So I think it's a really dope thing that you can work with young athletes because you're drilling into them the idea of discipline. So how's that change the way you work with people? And then how do you get them to buy into the aspect of discipline because every teenage boy doesn't care about discipline almost every teenage almost almost solely is a teenage a teenage boy that i like we were like star-crossed disciplined lovers because he told me like what he'd do in high school i was like my

main like you're speaking my language but uh when it comes to working with high school athletes, that was a huge wake-up call right from the beginning. And so when I was in high school, I had led some of the wrestling workouts, and I was just an idiotic wrestling meathead. So everything was 100 reps because 100 is better than doing three sets of 10. And I didn't understand what I was doing. So when I left for a couple years, went to college for a little bit, and then in the middle of college came back to be the strength coach for my same high school wrestling team,

I had this idea of like, okay, we're going to squat on these days. It's going to be structured like this. The first day, nothing went right at all. Nobody knew what they were doing. Like I thought, I think Jim Wendler mentioned this, like how are you 13 years old and you don't know how to squat? Like, I'm going to work with athletes.

This is going to be sick. And you recognize that they can't even, they can't perform anything that looks even close to not only a squat, but they can't deadlift either. They're like hamstrings are like the tightest things ever. They can't bend forward somehow. You're like, what's going on around here? Absolutely. So that was a huge wake up call.

And there was a little bit of a learning curve of like, okay, I can write all this stuff out in a really dope looking spreadsheet, but only 10% of it is actually going to get done in an hour and a half. So that was a big learning curve for me. And that helped me just work with adults and college athletes because they do have a little bit longer attention span. They do have a little bit more structure and discipline in their life to carve out time for these things. But it made things really, really simple. And I think at the time, because I was so interested

and because I was so invested in learning about this stuff, I was over three sets of 10 and I instantly wanted to jump into the Westside Barbell Book of Methods and go for like the most complicated, intricate type of training because that seems like the secret. And I think I needed to learn that lesson of, again,

these kids aren't as invested in this anywhere close to as I am. So they're probably, their attention span and what they're, you know, willing to buy into is more closely aligned with like, hey, you're going to do this exercise, get two heavy sets of five. After that, you're going to bang out some pull-ups, three sets, as many as you can. And then when you're done with that, I'll give you one extra thing to do and we'll call it a day.

And that was a big wake-up call for me for making things simple. And then from the discipline side of thing, I think a lot of that was a blessing in disguise because when I came back as a strength coach, most of the kids were my teammates' younger brothers. So I kind of knew them a little bit, or I had a little bit different of a relationship with them outside of just be, Hey, here's this new coach. You got to do everything I say. So they grew up watching me wrestle with their siblings, which created a little bit of a buy-in for the lifestyle that I was living. But then also they saw, I would try to work out with them and I tried to wrestle with them. And for as long as I could, I tried to just like, not completely beat the brakes off of them,

but like, just show them that like, I still got game, you know, at least, at least a little bit. And, uh, that was cool too. Cause the other coach at the time, the head coach, he was older. He couldn't wrestle. He couldn't do any live training and not that you have to be a good coach. You have to do live training. Cause once you get old enough, you just can't, especially with high schoolers, you're just asking to get injured. But being the youngest coach on the coaching staff and being in the wrestling room, doing all the conditioning workouts with them, doing all the wrestling drills with them, I think that established a lot of trust between me and the athletes. And then they also saw how I performed and I wasn't getting tired. I was

lifting more than them given I'm a little bit older, but I don't think they put those two things together necessarily. So they saw how I performed and they were more invested. Then they started asking questions like, Hey, like, did you really get up at three 30 this morning? I was like, yep. They said, well, how do you do that? I said, well, I just get up when my alarm goes off. Like, well, I can't do that because you know, I'm just so tired. Well, what time did you go to bed? Oh, I wouldn't know. I don't know. I don't really remember. I was playing games and you know, then you start to build up a relationship and you can start implementing, kind of giving them lessons on, hey, get to bed on time. Start with that. Why were you up so late? Oh, I was doing homework.

Get your homework done earlier. Make the time to get that stuff taken care of ahead of time. Kind of built from there. Speaking of waking up early, the AM crew is in full effect, dude. They're in the house. Yeah. Yes, sir. I told them all to jump on the live chat and throw some heat in there. So that discipline is definitely working right now. But I wanted to kind of go back to, I guess, the mindset change of being an athlete and then becoming a coach. Because as the fittest kid in Roseville, I mean, you were probably destined for some big things. You know. You had recruiters at every workout and stuff.

for some big things. You know, you had recruiters at every workout and stuff, but, you know, so you were kind of going down one path and then, you know, like you said, you kind of realized like, maybe I'm not going to be a champion over here, but I can do this. For a lot of people, I feel like that would be a very hard thing to do.

You know, I'm joking about the Roseville thing, but like, I look back at some of your workout footage and like, dude, you were killing it at a very young age. So I'm curious, like what that transition was like um well so when I started wrestling like as soon as I started I wanted to be a state champ national champ olympic champ like I like there's this thing called wrestling so I'm just going to be the best at least that's what I wanted to do and that was my goal for a long time and every year that goal kind of came down a little bit as I recognized, like, I don't think I'm Dan Gable. I don't think I'm John Smith. I don't think I'm Terry Brands. So maybe I'm not a gold medalist wrestler, but national champ, like that, like I'll get there.

And so as time went on and as I kind of grew more in the sport, I recognized more and more, there's just a different level of athlete. And even the time I spent wrestling just didn't compare to the other athletes that were competing at the highest level. They had two, sometimes three times as much wrestling experience as I did. And then when I got into just being a meathead and lifting, I kind of found my lane in that. And so then I did the same thing. Like, okay, I looked at the back of Power Magazine and said, who's at the top? That guy's going down.

And I'd see the numbers and I think that guy weighs as much as me and put 600 pounds on his back. And so that I kind of recognized like, okay, they're a little bit of a different beast as well. And then when I started jujitsu, I did the same thing and was watching like, okay, Gordon Ryan, Gary Tony, you guys are going down. I'm chasing everybody. And I just had kind of like an attitude of piss and vinegar, I guess. And then I started to recognize not this. I mean, we've seen it all in those corny Instagram, uh, their pictures of beaches.

And they put that quote on there. Like, if you can't be the best, just be the best version of yourself. And I always hated that because that sounded like you're settling for something less. And then I remember talking to you, we were driving to see the guys at Mind Pump and catch up with Jesse and Kyrian. And you said, how about you just be the best at being a material expert and what you know how to do, which is lifting and doing jujitsu and wrestling. And that was like a light bulb moment that just exploded for me. And everything after that point has been, okay, what are the odds that I'm going to be an ADCC champ? Probably one in a million national

champ. That dream has sailed. Olympic champ, that dream has sailed. Just the way you qualify for those things, it's really not going to happen. But what dream hasn't sailed yet is being the best strength and conditioning coach for grappling athletes in the entire world. That dream is still on the table and that's something I actually care about and I'm passionate about. And so to answer your question, Andrew, that was kind of the shift that went from, okay, maybe instead of being the best competitor in the world, I'm able to see some of the impact I'm having, being able to see some of the benefits that I'm able and value I'm

able to provide to some of these other athletes. And maybe I can be in the best in the world at that. And then I just took off running with it. A really cool thing about that is you'll be crowned that by other people, you know, and it won't be by you. You'll just be working, working, working. And there's kids right now that you already worked with or like, that's the best coach that I've ever been around. That's the best teacher I've ever had. Like, remember that dude? Like he'd wake up at fucking three. I remember he said he'd wake up three 30 in the morning. Like, do I remember that shit? Right. And then he was always there like at practice. And then he fucking invited us into the gym and he trained us

in the gym. Like they're going to remember that shit, you know, and that's going to be like, you know, something that's, uh, you know, really, really impactful for them, which is really cool. And then that'll continue to grow and it'll continue to spread and you'll continue to gain more and more ideas on the different stuff that you're working on. Thank you. Yeah, that's kind of like the funnest part is seeing them succeed is not necessarily like I'm living vicariously through them,

but I feel like I get as excited, even more excited, when I see someone like Joe Bond, who's been competing just a crap ton lately and he's doing really well. Someone like him, seeing him compete and seeing him win matches, I get super fired up. And it's almost, it's like, it's better because it's better in the sense that I know that he's doing what he loves doing, and he has a dream and a vision and a passion for those things. And my dream and vision and passion to be a competitor is probably dwindled compared to his, but I'm able to chase my dream wholeheartedly. He's able to chase his dream wholeheartedly and those things kind of mend well together. So we can both experience the benefits of being winners in that particular sport for him and then career for me. Something I like about combat sports in general, it's just like being able to really like push the pace, you know, and being able to really push the pace.

And you watch these athletes pushing the pace, and you're like, you know that they're both tired. And obviously, one guy can be better conditioned, and maybe he's not as fatigued. But somebody's getting their ass kicked, and the other guy keeps getting stronger and stronger as they go along. Just as people go through their day, I I personally like to kind of like view my day that way. Like I like to just have transitions from one thing to another that are done like quickly and swiftly and smoothly-ish for me. But like I've noticed this when I noticed this when I was training, when I was powerlifting, that the biggest difference between the best powerlifters or the best lifters that I was around was the transition from the main exercise that they would do. So the main exercise sometimes would take like 90 minutes because people are really fucking strong and we're loading plates forever. But a lot of people are kind of done after that.

And they would help each other out and they would kind of make excuses on why they didn't get to those assistance exercises. And I was like, I'm going to just, I'm going to have the quickest turnaround time from this damn squat that I'm doing. Once this stupid thing is over with, I'm going to make sure I get in whatever the other exercises were, four or five other exercises and, and you know, have a good transition and be out the door. For yourself, how have you been able to kind of like manage that? And how have you taken some of the things that you've learned in jiu-jitsu and wrestling and transition them into your life? Yeah, there's a, so to give some context, there's something that I would call like the myth of willpower.

And they did some study at some fancy school. I don't remember where, but they said, you know, you have a limited amount of willpower. You have a limited amount of not necessarily discipline, but the mental energy to make these discipline choices. So you make all these discipline choices throughout the beginning and middle of the day. By the end of the day, your willpower is tanked. Your mental energy and fortitude to make discipline choices is tanked. So you're probably going to make an undisciplined choice later on.

And I think that's like the biggest lie in the entire world, because if you got so many reps of disciplined actions, just so what you can do it in the morning, but you can't do it in the evening. And just because instead of it being a reverse snowball, it should be a snowball, like one disciplined action in the morning, getting up when your first alarm goes off, not your 10th alarm and not hitting snooze six times, get up

right when it goes off. You should only use one alarm. I mean, probably it's a good idea to have more, but you should get up on the first one. So just because you did that, does that mean that you just ran out of energy to have a good breakfast, to drink plenty of water, to do some personal development time? And that mindset of like, there's this myth of willpower and it willpower and discipline is actually a snowball came from wrestling because in matches, you see this all the time. You see first period. So wrestling is broken up into three periods. And so, uh, in college, it's a three minute period followed by two periods of two minutes. So in that first three minute period, things are looking pretty even. There's a lot of scrambles and it's exciting. Second period, they flip the disc and you get the choice

to start either a neutral, you can start on top or you can start on bottom. And there's something that happens sometimes when like this, the hammer starts on top and just starts beating down the bottom guy. And one of two things happens. The bottom guy slows down and when it's his turn to be on top He doesn't do anything. He's already defeated. He already lost the match in the in the middle period And then another thing that happens is the top guy is beating down the bottom guy beating down the bottom guy beat him down The bottom guy and he ends up getting one escape and it's neutral again And then it's like he turned into A werewolf or something and goes nuts and starts pushing the

pace again starting to scramble and shoot takedowns and things and watching that happen in wrestling and being inspired by that those are the most exciting matches that we all love watching like someone get beaten down like like rocky like in round 14 he hits apollo creed in the ribs and now everyone's like there's so you're saying there's a chance, you know? And that I think was really inspiring for me in wrestling. And then when I left the sport of wrestling, I just carried that mindset and that excitement over those moments in life into everything else that I do. So as far as like the start of daily discipline, what do you think, when did that start for you?

Was that in high school that you started like waking up super early, et cetera? And how have you kept that for so long but like what inspired it totally was it the wrestling aspect that inspired that for you or was it reading a certain book what was that for your dad come in your room yell at you every morning or something yeah that's the it's funny that you say that because my dad like i think he's only raised his voice like once in my entire life oh that's scary that one time. If he did come in a room like that, I'd be crapping bricks, but, um, it did start in high school. And so, like I'd mentioned, a lot of my teammates had two or three times as much wrestling experience than

me. And I recognize and was just so hungry to get better and be the best that I started putting in extra work and I didn't have time to go to the gym after school. So I'd go before school and I'd get up early and before everybody and just lift and run and do what I needed to do. And I saw the results very quickly with that. And the way wrestling set up is you have a lineup of 12 to 14 weight classes, that varsity lineup. There's only one guy in each weight class. And if there's a team of 60 kids, everyone in the 145 pound weight class basically does a little tournament. And then the winner of that tournament

gets the varsity spot. And you do that every week. So mentally, it's like every week you have to be on point. Every week you got to be on game because anyone can take your spot. And it's the fairest way to do it. And so I saw the results of my extra training just pay off very quickly because I went from

getting knocked out the first round of that challenge tournament to making it all the way to the finals of that tournament. And then I kept floating between varsity and JV and stuff. So I got fired up by that, but that was kind of the first example. And then the second example that really paid off was when I did the fittest of Roosevelt CrossFit competition. Our boy, Charlie Zamora, actually put that competition on in 2013. And when I signed up for that event, I didn't know how many other teens in Roseville were signing up for that event.

And I told my boy, Zach, who might be on the live stream stream right now I told him he should sign up for it too and we wrestled together and we were doing CrossFit together so we both signed up and we were just like gassing each other up the whole time we were there to smash everybody and we show up and it's just us so it was just me and him you just said that there was like 15 other guys

they were so fit and you just wrecked them all. Yeah, we were getting fired up and stuff. So I don't always share that second part. That's great. Me and my boy, Zach. But I do remember. Zach's still bitter from it, by the way.

Maybe he is because now we're like, we both like talk trash to each other all the time. We're pushing each other in the gym. But there was one moment where he asked if I wanted to hang out with our other friends who weren't competing and grab pizza and i said no and i did an extra workout and i always remember like that text message and that day and that extra workout and i'm not saying that that one workout was the work with that like pushed me over the edge it probably wasn't but i just remember how good i felt in that moment like okay i'm gonna set aside this temporary pleasure of having pizza and I'm going to train instead.

And I'm going to do that every single day. So every time there's a moment to indulge in some temporary pleasure, that's taking me away from the goals that I have. I'm just going to say no, and I'm going to hold it off for after the competition. And once I kind of established that over the course of two months or two and a half months, I was full bore from there on out. Everything that I did from homework to school, to my relationships, to lifting, to wrestling, to jujitsu, everything. I tried to fit into that model of daily discipline so I could maximize the results I got out of it. What the heck, Josh?

And you were how old? I was 16. We were both 16. heck josh and you were how old uh i was 16 we were both 16 so uh real quick because like even just yesterday we were talking about like why is it towards the end of the day you start to make bad uh food choices and i had mentioned that exact well i didn't say it was a study i just it was some shit that i remember but that study that you were talking about that's what i had referenced but i've never heard anybody say like, think of it the opposite way of a snowball effect. That is huge.

I'm going to start using that now. Go for it. But I remember. You already did really well when I'm built upon it further by putting an exclamation point on a day. Yeah, that's so good. But also like at your wedding. So talking to your dad, I'll just like raving about you.

I was just like, dude, I wish I was like him when I was his age. And your dad was like, yeah, me too. And so I'm wondering where does this come from? did you just i mean wake up one day are you an alien yeah like i'm gonna be a savage and i'm not saying that your dad didn't instill this in you but like his response also was like yeah i want to be i wish i was like him too and so i'm just like oh fuck i thought he was gonna be like oh yeah because you know that's how i was or like i i don't know i made him do burpees when he was like be like oh yeah because you know that's how i was or like i i don't know i made him do burpees when he was like four years old or something like every day

you know and like so that's where the discipline came from but where the hell do you think it came from like literally like just a lot of it was uh initially was inspired by my dad and i've kind of always been a morning person um so usually every time I'd wake up, even if I wasn't trying to get up early when I was six or eight years old, I'd see the light. So you know how there's that little half inch of space underneath like most doorways. And I'd see the light in my dad's office be glowing under,

you know, the hallways dark except the light coming out from under the door of his office. Every single day when I'd walk in there, he was always doing some sort of studying, reading his Bible, praying, doing something. Personal development time where he was not distracted until I showed up, but he was taking time out of his day before everyone else was awake to invest in himself and be disciplined in that aspect. And I saw him do this every single day. It didn't matter if it was the weekend. It didn't matter if it was, he had the craziest day of work. He did it every single day. And he had one of the, like those super old school Sears weightlifting sets in the garage. So I'd see him do curls,

pushups, dumbbell French press, uh, one arm rows, like just, rows, just classic bro stuff, which was awesome, which I liked. And so that was kind of the first inspiration of discipline, kind of the first example that I saw. And then the other big example was we were hanging out when I was a kid, kind of like some of our friends from church, we had the pool party or something. And I remember my dad was talking to another dad and his son was a couple years older than me. And I looked up to him. He was like the cool guy.

And this other dad said, yeah, my son, Logan, he's been doing like pushups and sit ups in his room every night before he goes to bed. And I overheard that. And of course, like you want to be the cool guy. So I started doing pushups and sit ups. And it kind of like just took off from there, seeing the results. And my mom told me about Arnold and her brothers, or my uncles, who were all super into lifting and stuff.

So then everything just kind of exponentially grew from there. And the discipline aspect just was always rooted in trying to be better. I think we talked about this one time on a 10-minute walk. In wrestling, I'd put my identity in wrestling, and I was disciplined because I wanted to win more matches. I wanted to be the best wrestler.

And if I didn't win, I felt like I had failed. So a lot of the disciplined habits were rooted in not being happy with who I originally was because I was putting my identity in wrestling. And it did take some time to learn how to be disciplined without putting my identity in the results of me as a competitor and just me as a person. But yeah, that's kind of the origin story, Batman origin story of daily discipline. Let's talk about Batman real quick. Just real quick.

If we're going to continue this podcast, we have to talk about Batman. When did that obsession start for you? Because I didn't realize how much you were into batman until i talked with chris griffin yeah so when did that start and how has he inspired you uh well he's the freaking best between him and gsp like they're like the greatest and jesus but between like between those three they're the best he's right here by the way jesus that here that's right and John Cena no disrespect to John Cena close second tier

but there was one time I was at a friend's house and we and him were the same age and my brother was a year younger

and then he had a younger sister who was around the same age as my brother and when you're eight and someone's younger sister is seven

you know like calling them names and just being kind of a punk. And we got in trouble. And so we had to go on timeout. And I got put timeout in his dad's office. And his dad had just the dopest framed picture of Batman that had like these graphics on it. You push a button and the pictures would change and stuff.

And I was like, that's freaking sick. And that was it. So then ever since then, I just got deeper and deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole and i mean i don't know if you want to talk about all the psychology of batman and stuff but he's just like such talk about discipline like that guy is a freaking savage like he never misses anything he like just claps everyone in the justice league and he has a plan to clap every single Justice League member. He does. How could you do that if you're not disciplined?

Exactly. That's kind of how I got invested in it. I don't keep up with the comic books now. Bane did break his back. He did. I don't know if he did the McGill Big 3 or... He did come back and smash him pretty good.

That would be such an amazing shot. He's all shaking when he's doing planks. He's just sitting there reading Stuart McGill's book. Yeah. What did Ron Penna tell you guys about Doing the splits How to get more sleep And like something that you guys Like have to do in your life

In order to make more time for yourselves You remember? Yep Make a lot of money Make a lot of money What's Batman's superpower? Money He's rich

That's it He's wealthy I love Batman too Yeah he can hire help Yeah he doesn't even have superpower maybe he's just disciplined and wealthy yeah maybe he's wealthy because he's disciplined you know that's right but the wealth came before i was gonna say but either way though you could be a dis you could be an undisciplined wealthy person that's even more disciplined to not blow it yeah that's true

great point that's the true. Great point. That's why Batman's the goat. And he also lived as a bum for a long time, traveling the world. So he experienced the ultimate depths of poverty and the ultimate heights of being wealthy. So he has the perfect balance. Yeah, that's some rich people shit, though. I'm going to make myself. What about diet?

Do you coach your guys up about their nutrition? Yeah. Yeah. So when you talked about podcast episodes that were really impactful, Stan's episodes were huge for diet because he takes some really complicated diet stuff and just boils it down to something that's really, pun intended, digestible for a lot of high school athletes. And not even high school athletes, but people who aren't experienced in eating in a way that's going to fuel their performance. And I know you see this all the time. They train hard.

Like every day, pull out a horse. They're all fired up. And then they're going to like jack in the box and just crushing all this junk food, which there's a time and place for that, but that's not necessarily the best option for you. If you're trying to win worlds,

you know? Um, so just, I take a lot of stuff from what stan everton talks about a ton of stuff uh at least for me personally right now with what you guys have all shared about fasting cory gregory was also a big resource for me when it came to intermittent fasting and plan around with diet and high carb diets and low carb diets and things like that but for most of the the wrest I work with, I just tell them like, look, dude, red meat,

easily digestible carbs, put your carbs around your workouts. If you're getting too fluffy and you're starting to move out of your weight class, then let's have a different conversation about it. And if you're losing weight, just eat a little bit more. Eat what comes from the ground or has a mom and you're probably going to be okay. And a lot of red meat too. That's right. Yes. Are you guilty still of like pushing things off you know you're supposed to do something at certain time and maybe it's even written down and scheduled you're like yeah get to it tomorrow yeah yep and i think i've had

i've struggled with both sides of the spectrum one side of like no i'll do it later and then it bites me in the butt later uh which is never good and also on the side of like, no, I'll do it later. And then it bites me in the butt later, which is never good. And also on the side of like, I have to do this right now. Like, no, babe, I'm not going to sit down and watch a movie. I'm going to do this thing for work instead. Or I'm going to take care of this homework thing instead. And we're not going to spend quality time together. You're going to be doing all this stuff by yourself for the rest of your life.

Yeah. So I've definitely struggled with both sides. And I think it just takes time and experience. You know, when you're training, it's the same thing. Like, have you ever over-trained? I'm sure we've all over-trained when we first started. Have you ever under-trained? Yes, that was before we started training.

So we've seen both sides of the spectrum. And now all four of us are kind of at a point where we understand, like, I know when I can afford to push it a little bit. And I also know when I need to dial things back a little bit. I think it's pretty common. People will say they're working for their family. And it's like, well, the best way to work for your family is to try to get your ass home. Yeah.

You know, you do need to work for your family because you've got to make the money. You've got to figure out a way to make money. But at the same time, you know, there's going to have to be some sort of balance. How do you balance out the food? Because the food can be hard too, right? Like just, I don't know, having a drink or eating whatever you want for a day, something like that. The reason why I'm smiling is because I just had this conversation with my brother. My brother is, I love him so much.

He's through and through a foodie. He is really invested and interested and talented at cooking and coming up with different flavor profiles and all these things. I like them already. And for me, I've just never cared for that stuff. So eating bland food, the same thing every day. And if it takes less time, then that's better for me. So the food part, honestly, just for the past several years was never difficult in the sense of like, I would get tempted a lot by other foods.

What would be difficult though, is kind of all the other stuff that you have to take care of the little things. So like vitamin D now take vitamin D tomorrow and then the next day. And I'll just, I got good news about vitamin D. Yeah. Vitamin D is fat soluble supplement. You don't have to take it every day.

Oh, okay. So you can push vitamin D off till tomorrow. All right. fat-soluble supplement. You don't have to take it every day. Oh, okay. So you can push vitamin D off until tomorrow. All right. You can take it three times a week if you wanted to. Okay. Very cool.

Maybe that's a bad example. I wonder if that's why my vitamin D levels are high because I'm getting leaner. It's burning in... Burning up the fat. I don't know. Oh.

I don't know. I don't know. Did your brother ever get that Xbox Series X or is he still on the hunt? I think he's still on the hunt. It's weird.. I don't know. Did your brother ever get that Xbox Series X? Or is he still on the hunt? I think he's still on the hunt. It's weird. So I just got married in February.

And I don't get to talk to him every day, which is a trip. Not allowed to play video games anymore? Well, yeah. Basically, I would just play his. And I'd wait for him to leave for work and jump on his Xbox. Rack up all these cotton points. Come on, Riley. Get the guy some slack.

Let him play some video game we both agreed we had this conversation because uh her brother has an xbox and he was telling me like the newest things and she saw my eyes lit up and stuff and she's like well you know like you can get one and i was like no no no we have to keep it always at someone else's house you know and then we'll just leave it there the best xbox is someone else's xbox i have a question for you yes um so we noticed uh a change in you post-marriage and that was your hair yep so i have a theory i have a theory that my man was like i gotta keep this looking like this and you look amazing by the way with short hair i think it looks great. Thank you. But I feel like the female gaze would be like, oh, he looks better with his flowing locks. Now, did you purposely wait to put the ring on that finger, secure her, and then you're like, I'm done with this.

I did. I was sick. I was like for a while I cared about my hair. I worked at another gym in Roseville and we had to have like buttoned up shirts and ties and stuff. So in that period of my life, like i did care about my hair but then once i started working here i noticed everybody had a shaved head i was like that is so this seems so convenient and uh we got riley and i got engaged and then we have to take engagement pictures and i was that close like you know what babe i'm just shaving this i'm shaving my head and i don't have to think about it ever again and she said no no no You have to wait for engagement pictures.

I was like, okay, I can respect that. And then the wedding is like, you got to have some hair for your wedding. And then we get married, go on our honeymoon. Then we would get back schedule one and get rid of it. There we go. Does she miss it? She said she used to, but she doesn't anymore. Yeah.

I think I've heard, maybe it's a rumor, but I think I've heard that you brought some meal prep to a wedding. I did. Yeah, I did. It's been confirmed. That's sick. I brought it to my cousin. You're going to have some cake. You're like, nope, I brought some bone broth with me.

It's Monster Mash. To be fair, it wasn't at my wedding. I did enjoy the tacos that I had at my wedding. Great tacos. I had my cousin's wedding and my sister-in-law's wedding and my other sister's sister's wedding or other sister-in-law's wedding also you've done this more than once yep yeah what have you noticed with your diet um have you noticed anything in particular like with uh i guess, like, you know, trying Stan's diet and utilizing that?

And then have you learned that like, because we talk about it all the time, like maybe people don't need as many carbohydrates as they think. Have you noticed that to be true for yourself or do you feel like you meet a good surplus of carbs? I do agree with that and I do think that, but I think I came about it in the opposite way. Because I started when I kind of the first time I really took dieting serious was when I followed Corey Gregory's anabolic fasting. So it was a little bit lower carb, lots of fasting, which I really enjoyed, and it was great. But then as I was starting to do more jujitsu, and I was starting to lift a lot more, and I was lifting here with the team a lot, and I was doing just, the training volume was getting a little out of hand,

and I couldn't really sustain high performance. So then I started adding carbs back in, and everything felt better. Everything performed better. And I've gone through periods where like, okay, I'm having a ton of carbs, and maybe I should wean myself off to get back to someplace neutral. But I've seen that happen with a lot of my wrestling athletes they think like do i need

a carb load before this tournament it's like no bro like you have to weigh in tomorrow you should probably like cool off for a second um so i've seen that happen with a lot of athletes like recognizing like hey you can move your carbs around your workouts and be just fine you can fast 24 hours if you wanted to and still do a light training session and be just fine you're not gonna die or anything well i probably shouldn't say that but you're you're probably gonna be just fine but um i think a lot of times it just takes trial and error and i encourage that a lot with all the guys that come in the morning they say hey coach should i eat this or should i eat this say well how'd you feel well i haven't tried it yet. Well, let's try this first, you know,

see how you feel. And if you feel good, then carry through with it for a couple of weeks and then test it again. Maybe pull it out for a couple of weeks, test it again. And I think with nutrition, there's a lot of stuff that like lays the base foundation of nutrition that's for general health that everyone can benefit from. Calorie deficit or calories in versus calorie out is huge. But then when it comes to performance, it seems like there's a lot more nuances for someone like Nsema. Whatever you eat, Nsema, may be entirely different than what I would eat if we both had to compete in five matches tomorrow.

And that may be different. But what we did for the past six months leading up to this tournament tomorrow may look more similar. But what we do a couple of weeks before may get a little bit different because he's really dialed in. I'm really dialed in. And those things just may be a little bit different. Yeah.

One thing I do want to mention before we continue on, since we're talking about nutrition, a lot of athletes, especially when they're dieting, they like to eat a lot of like white meat, fish, et cetera, really low fat stuff. Well, we work with a company called Piedmontese. They have really awesome meat, but the cool thing is that their red meat and their steak, some cuts have really minimal fat. Like we talked about the flat iron, that's like 80 grams of protein, four grams of fat per serving. And then they have other cuts like the ribeyes that have more fat. So if you're an athlete and you're trying to be lower fat, you don't have to eat chicken or turkey or fish, right? You can have red meat. They got briskets and stuff too, man. You can

throw those bitches in the slow cooker. I got a question for you and Siva. When it comes to Piedmontese, how do you kind of vary the cuts that you're using as you led up to your last competition in Atlanta? Did you change that at all? Or did you just say Piedmontese, getting everything and then you just grab one a lot i mean i eat the hot potty patties as much as i can which have a lot of fat because i generally do low carb high fat so the fat always just stays high um but the thing is i do have to get through my lower fat cuts so i will just add them in like because my big thing is making sure i get enough protein in um making sure my fat's high enough and then i eat carbohydrates then i eat

carbohydrates but i eat it on a need to need like depending on how i need it on a day-to-day basis so if i wake up the next morning i'm like okay i'm feeling good i'm good when i get to that night i'm like i'm feeling kind of drained maybe i'll have some extra carbs before the next morning because as you guys know a lot of my workouts are fasted so the most carbs i'll generally have when folk when I'm focused on performance is usually maybe 200, but I'm 240 pounds. So that's not a crazy amount, but I have a lot of fats and a lot of protein. And you can like literally kind of feel it when you're like, yeah, I can feel it. And I think that's a benefit because in the past, I mean, you've probably done

this too. I used to eat excessive amounts of carbs, like an average 400, 500 a day. So I'd always like, I wouldn't really be able to tell that big of a difference. But now being lower carb, higher fat, I'm generally good, but carbs can be useful to help me just feel a little bit better. Gotcha. Yeah. And tell them how to get hooked up. I sure will. So we're talking about Piedmontese beef.

I mean, hands down the best beef in the universe that this stuff's incredible they do have the higher fat cuts but they have something like the Nebraska cut ribeye it's a center cut ribeye it has something like 3 grams of fat and like 80 grams of protein also it's a ribeye too so it doesn't make any sense

but head over to piedmontese.com it's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout, enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order. And there's tons of different cuts. If you're not sure where to start, you can check out one of our bundles. We have the Power Project Deluxe Bundle

that really has just a whole array of different cuts that we like. If not, I seriously highly recommend the Flatiron steak, the bavette steak, if you can get your hands on some. They've kind of been sold out lately. We've been talking about them a little bit too much. But if not, check out that Nebraska cut ribeye. It's seriously incredible.

Again, piedmontese.com, promo code POWERPROJECT at checkout for 25% off your order. Even that 96 lean ground beef that they have, it tastes different to me than other lean ground beef. It's really good. It's pretty tender. Let's jump over a little bit to training. How should someone train? Are there a lot of things that someone should be considering when they're in a contact sport, like wrestling or jiu-jitsu or any of these grappling sports?

Is there specific things that someone should be really working on from a weightlifting standpoint? Yeah, absolutely. I think Andrew and Jesse and I talked about this. Have you seen those memes, the change my mind memes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those templates where we were talking about if you had to say one thing, like what's your change my mind memes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those templates. We were talking about if you had to say one thing, what's your change my mind statement? I said, no one ever got injured

or lost a match because they were too strong. I think developing a base level of strength is just arguably one of the most important things that you can do outside of your mat time. Your mat time, you're going to get a lot of your conditioning. If you're just taking five to ten minutes before and after your mat time to stretch and do mobility work, your mobility's

probably going to be good. Maybe you have to dial things in a little bit if you have an injury, but for the most part, you'll be fine. The strength aspect is going to be, in my opinion, one of the most important things. And so structuring your workouts, you got to be careful. You don't want to go too heavy, too close to a competition. That's just not smart. But especially in your off season, which right now during the summer is the off season for most wrestling programs, taking time to build more muscle, taking time to develop more strength, it's going to be one of the best things that grappling athletes can do. And there's a way that you can do it in jiu-jitsu, especially since, Insuma, you know,

if someone wanted to, they can compete every two weeks, 52 weeks out of the year. And I think there's value to, as a jujitsu athlete, if you're super invested in jujitsu and you really do want to take your jujitsu career as high as possible, looking at the entire year and setting aside at least like just six to eight weeks, just do six to eight weeks. You're still going to do jujitsu. You're still going to train hard and get your roles in. You're not abandoning jujitsu, but you're at least going to take a little bit of a break from the weight cuts, a little bit of a break from just the poundage that happens when you're doing these live competitive matches. Just take some time to develop more muscle and get a little bit stronger

because nobody ever lost a match because they're too strong and nobody ever got injured because they're too strong. For you, what movements do you think are really great for jiu-jitsu athletes i know you're a big fan of the zurcher squat and that makes sense and maybe you can explain the benefits of the zurcher squat the zurcher squat for grapplers but what other movements do you believe that grapplers jiu-jitsu athletes wrestlers can get extra benefit from that like maybe because i've seen bodybuilders and stuff like look at yourself and be like, Oh, Zurcher squat, that's stupid. It's not. So talk to us about some of that. Yeah. So the four movements that I like to kind of rotate and use as testers when working with

these athletes is definitely the Zurcher squat and or Zurcher box squat, depending on how experienced the athlete is and what mobility restrictions they have. But for the Zurcher squat in particular, I's just explain it just real quick. And Andrew, maybe you can pull up a clip, but basically it's just a, an exercise where you put a, usually a barbell in the crooks of your elbows. Uh, so where your arm bends, you're putting in the barbell there and you're just kind of squatting down with it. Correct? Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And what's great about that is it's very sport specific because you do get double under hooks a lot in wrestling and jujitsu.

But a lot of times wrestling and jujitsu athletes have poor shoulder mobility and or a lot of shoulder. Oh, there we go. Yeah. So they have sometimes a lot of poor shoulder mobility or shoulder injuries, and it's maybe not the best idea to cram their arms and elbows back under a straight bar. If you have a safety squat bar or something like that, you could definitely use one of those, but most high schools, most jiu-jitsu gyms don't have safety squat bars and other types of specials. I used to just actually wrap a t-shirt or sweatshirt around a regular bar just to make it a little thicker so it didn't hurt as bad,

because I actually got into being able to handle some pretty good weights on that. But a Zurcher squat, it's working your hips, it's working your quads, but it's working your stomach and your stabilizer muscles just in ways that they maybe otherwise just aren't getting work. Yeah, it's very, and that's part of what makes it great is that you get a lot of posterior chain, hamstrings, glutes, low back, a lot of posterior chain activation. You also get a lot of core activation.

And the biggest thing that I think is awesome, it's great for strengthening your upper back. And Seema, you're very familiar with this. One of the key things that happens when you start to lose any sort of position in jiu-jitsu is your posture gets broken down. And when you're wrestling, the only way you can shoot in on someone's legs is if you break down their posture and get them out of their wrestling stance. And so using the Zercher squat to strengthen the muscles of your upper back so you can keep your chest up and maintain good posture is going to be huge. We know how fucking strong Encima is and that weight is kind of pulling them forward a little bit. So it's a really challenging exercise. It's awesome. Yeah, I was going to ask, is there a progression

to, I mean, other than just using light weight at first, is there something else that somebody can do? Because I'm picturing, like I'm seeing this and I'm like, fuck, I should probably start doing these, but I just know how wrecked my back is. Like it's going to take me a while before I can, I don't know, even do a quarter. So is there anything other than just keeping the weight super light at the start? Is there something else I could be doing? Yeah. So for anyone that has, you know, a lot of mobility restrictions or even just a beginner, most high school athletes that have never touched a weight before, I have them start with the air squat, which is pretty basic, but then just transition to a goblet squat, holding the kettlebell or a dumbbell up by your chest. You get a lot of

the same benefits of strengthening your upper back, getting some lower body activation in there as well, getting some core activation. It's not, okay, it's not double underhooks, sport specific, but that's fine. That's just like one added bonus of holding the bar in that way. So I'll have them start with the goblet squat or a goblet box squat. And as they get better at that,

then we'll transition to like, hey, you're going to do, if it says five by five on the spreadsheet, three sets with a decently heavy dumbbell or kettlebell. And then on your last two sets, you're going to go a little bit lighter and just try out the Zurcher box squat. If it feels great, maybe we'll add a 10 and a five on the side. If it doesn't feel great, then just keep practicing with an empty bar and then we'll move on to the next exercise. That'd be the first exercise that I like to use. The next one is going to be the floor press, which you're a big fan of

the floor press. And I picked it up from you. I'm a big fan of both of those. I used to do tons of Zurcher squats. I think I eventually was handling like 675 or something on a Zurcher squat. I couldn't quite lock them out. Like as I got to the top, I couldn't get my hips all the way forward. So it was kind of a shit lift. But that was with a Zurcher. That was with a Zurcher squat harness just to be clear because that way you know like trying to hold

I think I got into still holding like 4 or 5 plates I can't remember but that shit would just start to hurt your arms at a certain point. Oh one of these things? Yeah yeah that Louie Simmons thing. Yeah it's like it puts you in this like crazy like good morning position off death trip

turning purple turning red. red god you have changed color yeah that thing looks even like it'd be even more brutal it's deadly because it's pushing that plate is pushing on your stomach the whole time that's uh janet lavelle yeah she used to squat like six uh i think she maybe squatted 700 one God damn, Janet. Oh, dang. She was strong as fuck. That's our boy, Juan. Dang. So the next exercise you like after the Zurcher? Floor press.

It's awesome just because it's kind of like a box squat for your upper body. And if, you know, a lot of times high schoolers think they know how to bench, but they really don't. But they still want to go heavy and not just use an empty bar. So it's kind of like a give and a take. Hey, let's gangster out a little bit on the floor press. use an empty bar. So it's kind of like a give and a take. Hey, let's gangster out

a little bit on the floor press, but then we're going to teach you how to really bench and you're only going to use an empty bar until you can progressively add more weight. And then the other two exercises

that I like to use are the deadlift, which is just one of the best exercises ever. Build up a really strong posterior chain. In wrestling, you pick people up

and throw them on their head all the time. And in jujitsu, if you have a big deadlift, you have a really strong upper back, strong grip, strong hamstring, strong glutes. Do you prefer sumo or conventional or just either whatever the athlete likes uh if i'm like trying to like gangster out then i'm pulling sumo because my conventional kind of blows and mark and jesse

have been putting me on game for several months now telling me to get my conventional up so i it has gone up a little bit i think like 40 maybe, maybe 45 pounds, so a decent amount, but sumo I definitely prefer. Some of the stuff I'm liking that you're saying and in the video here, we had Nsema doing a box squat with the Zurcher squat. And I think that things like box squats are great and floor presses are great. And I would also suggest just, you are great and floor presses are great. And I would also suggest just, you know, you're mentioning deadlifting. Deadlifting can be amazing, but have you personally, like, have you overdone some of your training in the gym and gone to jujitsu and just been like, I mean, that is part of the training process though, right? You do want to go into, like, it's great to go into class a little bit wrecked, right? into like, it's great to not to, it's great to go into class a little bit wrecked, right? Because then over time you can, uh, you can have some accumulation to that and you can, your body will

respond to it. You'll get used to it. And then when you compete, you'll be like fresh. Cause you might take a little bit of time off of training or something, but have you kind of overdone some of the lifts, especially something like a deadlift and been in practice and been like, that didn't work so great. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we've all started out with that thinking like, oh, because I like, I'm so familiar with lifting weights. Okay, I'll just work up the four plates for a quick single and then I'll go to jujitsu and I'm assuming everything's going to be fine. And it usually doesn't always work that way.

I think it's important, especially with the group we have now, the AM crew, we have wrestlers and jujitsu athletes. Some jujitsu athletes are competing in a couple of weeks. Others are competing in a couple months. And I think as a coach, it's important to recognize, okay, this person probably has 20 pounds left in the tank, but they compete in two weeks. So we're just going to call it there. This person competes in two months and has 20 pounds left in the tank. Let's add another five, maybe a 10 and a five and just get one more single. And I think as even as the jujitsu athlete kind of coaches themselves, if anyone's listening to this and starts to implement some stuff in the gym, always saving

a little bit in the tank is going to be huge. And something that you and Seema, Andrew and Jesse Burdick all talk about is just don't miss reps in the gym. If you, and I think Louie Simmons even says, just take the five pound PR and get out of there. You don't always need to just smash a 20 pound PR and then be wrecked for whatever sport training you're doing later. Just take the two and a half or five pound PR and move on. So I've definitely overdone it, but I think, uh, you just learn from experience and kind of get more familiar with what you can handle. Fourth movement. Oh, oh, fourth movement is the Z-press. I'm a huge freaking fan of the Z-press.

The biggest reason being, you can't cheat. You can't cheat. When people do overhead presses and stuff, we've all seen it. We've seen some really good overhead presses and some really just dog crap overhead presses but they do this crazy standing bench press thing and it just looks awful sometimes

but the Z-press, you have to have adequate shoulder mobility. So it's a great test to see where someone's shoulder mobility is at. If they press at a 45 degree angle, it's like, okay, bro, let's work on your lats and your shoulders to get your arm directly over your head. It's great for strengthening your core and your trunk and just balance. And then you know this position, if you're playing guard and you have to press overhead or push something away from you, you can't fall backwards. You have to stay upright the whole time.

So learning how to keep your chest forward and keep your chest up is going to be huge. So those would be my four. Zerch to squat, floor press, deadlift, and the Z press. What is the Z press? I don't even know. It's a journey to Savickus. Yeah. Yeah.

It's basically an overhead press where you're sitting on your butt. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Okay, gotcha. You can do it with dumbbells or a bar. That's a tough exercise. What I was going to recommend and suggest is I think there's just so many different ways to train. And we know you can go in the gym and you can get after it and go with a heavy lift.

And that might work out great for people. That might work out great for people. It might not be a bad choice to do three sets of three or one heavy set of three or, you know, even like one decent max set that's not like a max max, right? And you might be able to go to your wrestling or jujitsu practice and do fine. But also, you know, don't people just don't forget that you have other things that you can do. You could do partial range of motion movement, which will decrease the volume quite a bit. You know, I think people sometimes forget that distance is actually really important. And for athletes, I think like doing things like a rack deadlift or a deadlift where the weight is raised up a little bit can be really, really beneficial. And then the absolute reverse of that, you know,

doing like a deficit deadlift, which is going to be more taxing and have kind of more strain and probably make you tighter and different things like that can be super effective, but you want to use higher reps on something like that. So there's different ways to kind of like, I refer to it sometimes as like underloading, you know, you can get yourself, if you can get yourself into an example would be rather than just doing a regular squat, you do a kettlebell squat, kettlebell front squats on the slant board. That's a way different thing than doing like regular sets of squats with four plates. Regular sets of squats with four plates, you're not conditioned for it and it's a heavier weight for you. You might be going to jujitsu practice kind of wrecked.

Doing some front squats with the kettlebell coming out of bad positions, which seems like that's a lot of what jujitsu is. Getting out of those bad positions could be maybe even more important and therefore the squats and the slant board might be more effective. What are some things you do to help people get out of bad positions? Because that is part of the game, right? In wrestling and jujitsu. Is there anything specific you're working on in the gym other than some of these exercises you mentioned? I think sometimes you can be a little too sport specific. And I think we've all seen some great examples of sport specific movements

like the Zurcher box squat where you have double underhooks. But then we've also seen some really bad examples where you're standing on one leg and you're trying to do a collar drag with a band and a kettlebell. And like, it's fun to play around with that, but that's not always practical. And I think in wrestling and jujitsu, when it comes to escaping bad positions, the more of a base foundation of strength that you have, as long as you just dedicate adequate time to learning how to escape those positions, that's going to be a better option for you. The floor press, you know, is very specific to getting those positions, that's going to be a better option for you. The floor press is very specific to getting strong, but that's the absolute worst way to escape bad position in jiu-jitsu.

And I get lit up sometimes in comments of people saying, you should never do floor press because if I'm mounting you and you do that, I'm going to break your arm. And it's like, okay, well, time and place, dude, right? And so John Danaher has talked about this how he's emphasized just a really um you just put a lot of emphasis on drilling escapes and learning how to skate bad position and i think in jujitsu and wrestling that's huge and thankfully my wrestling coach was really big on that well drilling certain positions learning how to get out from underneath somebody

if you take a shot and they sprawl on you, the stronger you get, the more you're able to use those techniques more effectively and with a little less energy. Or if you put a little bit more energy, they're a little bit more powerful and they have a little bit more umph behind them. So specifically for escaping bad positions, I think just establishing a base level of strength and then really taking the

time to learn how to escape those positions in your technique training and your mat time is good. Having a good skillset, which is something that people aren't usually people aren't normally intimidated by it but you know because people are usually like holy fuck that guy was really fast yeah like i just i couldn't keep up they might say just the match went long and i got tired and he didn't and he fucking killed me. Or that guy was really strong. I think maybe where somebody might recognize the skill set is as you go deeper into the sport. Yeah.

And you're like, that guy wrecked me because he's better than me. Yeah. You know, he's got a better skill set than I do. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You bring up an interesting point. you bring up an interesting point that someone that's come from like until you went against Chad Wesley Smith, no one probably has ever been close to the levels of strength that you developed in the gym. So how did you kind of dial yourself back a little bit so that you didn't just, you

have as a white belt, you start with like, okay, I know five moves. I'm going to go full bore on all five of those moves, but full bore for me versus full bore for Nsema is very different just because he's much stronger than me. He's been lifting longer than me. So did you put almost like a damper on yourself or like a limit on yourself to like I'm not going to push

as hard as I could? Yeah. How did that work out for you? I think the first thing that helped out a lot was the breathing, nasal breathing. Because I think at this point

you can tell how big of a difference that makes when you roll. It keeps you calmer. But a lot of the times i'd go into jujitsu already having done lifting so i'll already be a little bit naturally fatigued and then i i kind of have a limit for myself in my mind in terms of how much i actually even want to exert myself when i train with people because i already know i'm so much stronger than most people that i do train with just just physically stronger so if i do ever find myself like like, first off, I don't go 100%, but I make sure that I don't have to.

I work in a way that even if they manage to beat me in a certain position, I'm still not going to try to push them off with all my strength to do that because that's not going to work typically when it actually comes to a competitive match. So I just, I think mentally, I'm just trying to be like okay let's keep my my output let's try to keep it at 70 and let's try to beat this person with this type of output if i'm rolling with a black belt i might bump it up a bit but i still don't want to go full bore because i'm physically just much more dominant than a lot of people i'd typically be rolling with now the funny thing is when i was rolling with chad not the funny thing but the

interesting thing is like getting ready for that match i just did a lot of positional training trying to escape bad positions so i'd have big guys go on top of me and mount or start inside control or start on my back because i was like if chad gets on top of me i need to be able to get out of this 300 pound dude but because i play a lot of guard um and he is at the time he was very stiff he wasn't that hard to deal with even though he was very strong so i think that's a big thing in jujitsu it's like someone can be very very strong but if they can't move and that strength is almost useless because they're stuck in these you know and you can't move and or get tired and or get tired yeah you're done so i think that's

like that's a big thing what you're probably doing with your athletes. Your athletes are getting brutally strong, but your athletes are also able to move. Absolutely. Did you do any of that for wrestling? Like limit yourself because you were coming into wrestling so strong? Or was it more common for people to have that extreme base level of strength in pro wrestling compared to jiu-jitsu? Well, you know, pro wrestling is just kind of just a totally different animal. But, you know, I think to go along with what Nseema is saying and just kind of this overall

theme of this podcast in general, what we talk about often is, you know, it's weird that like when it comes to lifting, I guess because we get so motivated and fired up and excited and we see the old videos of, or not even old videos, but you see videos of bodybuilders, you know, lifting and screaming and people getting jacked. And we see powerlifters, you know, headbutting the bar and bleeding. And it's all like, it's all cool. It gets you fired up. But whenever you're really trying to like retain something, like whenever you're trying to condition your body to hold on to anything and to additionally not just hold on to it

to make further progress in it, you know, you don't sit down and like try to read a book and you're not like, ah, you know, you're not trying to like read it as fast as you can and shit. And if you were to like study for a test or something, sometimes people do that, right? They cram, you know, they study the last minute, they study, you know, midnight until 3 o'clock, and then

they have their test at 8 a.m., and they could have done a lot better if they would have done it at a different time in a more timely fashion with better efficiency. That's how you're able to retain. That's how you're able to make progress. It always works that way, or we see people do it with their diet and or their training where they're, I'm going to start on Monday. And they try to go all in. And Monday's a thousand calorie deficit. Tuesday's a thousand calorie deficit. Wednesday rolls around. And man, all that's dancing around their head is pizza. They're running and they're lifting and they're playing their favorite Rocky montage over and over again to get hyped up every day and just kind of running off of fumes so things just never really

work that way where we're going to get the most out of like going too hard on anything and even in professional wrestling i mean you had to take things really you could just like totally fuck each other up you take things really slow you had to to make sure you had to trust each other a lot. Just like you guys got to trust each other with each other's bodies. You know, somebody wrenches on something or, I mean, it's got to be tough because you are trying to get in practice. You are trying to work together. But at the same time, like you're trying to like, it's practice,

but you're trying to win, right? You're trying to, so I could see where occasionally you might get a little angry, a little like frustrated, even frustrated. Oh, I finally got this dude's arm. You know what I mean? But it probably helps that you guys see each other every day and you're like, that's not the way. And also I'm sure there's probably a pecking order where someone put your ass in line if

something like that happens. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, Atima, but I feel like that happens at the lower belt levels. And then usually, like, as soon as it happens, like, your next roll is, like, an upper belt. They say, like, hey, like, you know, that was pretty cool what you got there. Like, oh, thanks, man. And then you just get destroyed for six minutes straight and remember that,, oh yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't mean much. You shouldn't be doing that.

We had a question from Ray in the chat, the live chat, and just simply asked, is 30 years old too old to start jujitsu? Nope, not at all. And what's been cool about jujitsu is that it's, and it's different from wrestling. Wrestling is very high impact and that's kind of like the culture of it. You have takedowns in there. So taking the highest weight class is 265. So a 30-year-old who weighs 265 trying to take down another 30-year-old who weighs 265 and neither of them have any grappling experience is probably not a good idea. But with jiu-jitsu, it's almost infinitely scalable. You don't have to start on the feet you don't have to start from a really complicated position that really strains your your limits of flexibility

you can start at the most basic uh just the easiest position and work from there and i think that's what's kind of helped it be so popular and has included so many members in the total jujitsu community and why people enjoy it so much is because there is a starting point for everybody there's also a maybe not a finish line for everybody but there is kind of like a route for everybody some people are really into competing and that's awesome some people have been black belts for 10 years and have never competed but they still mess up all the competitors in the competitors class they just don't have the desire to compete and it's kind of it's almost like a choose your own adventure book. So you said his name is Ray.

So I would just suggest Ray, wherever you're living, try to find a jujitsu gym near you and just do the two week trial or the one week trial and then try out the other gyms in your area and see if some of those gyms are a good fit for you. And then just ask lots of questions.

Tap early, tap often. Don't be a jerk. Please remember what he just ask lots of questions tap early tap often don't be uh don't be a jerk please remember what he said right there tap early tap often because some people are too gung-ho about holding things and they hurt themselves because they don't tap and then another thing ray is uh i don't know how it was for josh since josh had a grappling background but for me jujitsu was very frustrating for quite a while because grappling made no sense. Like I didn't understand underhooks. I didn't understand all these things.

So kind of getting yourself used to those movements takes a while. It's like a lot of things are going over your head. Every time the instructor is talking about something like, wait, what? Wait, wait, what? So be ready to be frustrated for a while, but just understand that that is part of the process of learning this new physical language. And that's OK. Are there any like, I don't know, I don't want to use the word chronic, but like, are there any like nagging injuries that like, you know, I guess experienced jujitsu practitioners get that something somebody should be aware of when looking at this like you know i got i got my lower back has always been bugging me so the way i feel

right now if i were to just lay down on the floor like that's gonna hurt me so i have to like i wouldn't be able to i know insima has been like really pushing me to start um but like is there anything that somebody should really like kind of take into consideration when they do start yeah absolutely i think uh well low back is a big one uh there is a study i forget the uh where which college they did this study but they basically did a survey of college wrestlers and i think olympic judo athletes and maybe they had some jujitsu athletes in there but the most common injury sites were their knees shoulders low, and then of course their freaking neck. So going in, if you're brand new to starting jujitsu, at least go in planning on doing some form of self-care for your knees, your low back, your shoulders, and your neck. And the next probably the sleeper one that most people don't expect. I mean, they see people get choked out,

but they don't necessarily think like you're going to get some serious neck problems. And I know for me, like I've had tons of neck issues that have just been driving me nuts for years. And so I've had to do a lot of work to kind of mitigate those and fix some of those things. And when people come to me and say like, hey, like I saw you train at Casio's, I'm going to slide through and do my first class.

I'll tell them. And if I'm drooling with them to say like, hey, if it feels tight around your neck, it might be a little too late for you to be tapping sometimes. If you really feel that pressure, as soon as you feel a little bit of it and feel like you can't escape, just tap because you just started. You're probably not going to escape if you just keep fighting out of it. And you might just mess yourself up even more.

Makes sense. Give us a little background on the hey now story. Oh man. Okay. So like I said, I started listening to Mark in high school. I was in math class watching him do good mornings and I hid my phone behind my math book like this and had one headphone in my ears and he would would just say hey now at everything and it's usually like on something perverted or sexual and i thought it was funny because i was 15 at the time and i think that i still think that stuff is hilarious it is so when i uh i would say that all the time and then when i met my girlfriend and we started hanging out and stuff i'd say it all

around her so we'd like go to church or we'd be hanging out with their family and they'd say like, man, like this, you know, this meat is so juicy. And we'd be like, hey now. And most like, most of the time it got dismissed and then probably three or four months

into us dating she finally said like, okay, why do you keep saying that? Why do you keep saying hey now? Hey now. I think you like shouted

at a movie or something, right? Yeah. You said it to her like you leaned over like, hey now. Yeah. Yeah. We were in a movie and I can't even remember what they said, but it warranted a proper hey now.

Afterwards, she's like, why do you keep saying that? What does hey now mean? She's about ready to drop your ass at this point. Yeah, but now we're married, so hey now. Hey, let me ask a question. What is the origin of hey now? Because that has like seeped its way into my vocabulary too and i can't let it it's not it's it's never going away where's

the origin of you know it's a good transition you know like uh like you're addressing like somebody said some like uh just i don't know like male ass shit and you're just like or a female says something where there's like kind of the double meaning but you don't want it to get really weird so you just say hey now kind of like a way of like i heard you but knowledge we're just gonna say hey now we're gonna move on we're gonna keep going but uh howard stern says it a lot and he had someone on his show um i forget it's like one of the guys from like star trek or something. And Stern would hit the button all the time and go, hey now, hey now. He'd hit the button all the time.

Would he use it in the same context, like as a transition piece? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he would. Yeah, he would hit that button like whenever just, yeah, somebody would say something like sexual or something weird or whatever it was. That's amazing. Have you said said during sex before probably like if i had to bet my life savings on it i bet that i have but i was like wait what stop but at least at that point we'd been dating for so long and like

we're married we're married now so she was with me for the whole ride. And now she says it all the time too. We'll be watching Loki and she'll be like, hey now. I love it. We were talking a little earlier about some hip hop and you were saying that you listen to a podcast and you just dig into lyrics and stuff. And I found some of that to be fascinating. Some of that get you inspired. Some of that get you fired up. Yeah.

Oh man, absolutely. Andrew and I at least once a week probably unplanned talk about hip-hop all the time um but i love music even though i don't play any instruments i think as meatheads we all kind of like have a different affinity for music than maybe a musician you know just like what music we listen to going into the gym that gets us fired up or what music we listen to, uh, to get fired up for jujitsu or wrestling practice or whatever. Um, and just rap music in particular, I've always been so interested in how, uh, lyrical and how much of an art form it is for people to say certain things and to communicate things in not just one way, but sometimes two or three different ways. And when you really like are just driving, you just driving in a commute or something, you really listen to what's being said, it'll blow your mind how many double meanings there are. It's just a really simple bar that may at face value just seem kind of like standard, you know, and you slow it down and you really recognize like, wow, that takes a lot of talent to understand how to communicate that

effectively to have that many double meanings and one you mentioned something to me one time where you said uh when you were learning how to like be a better speaker and communicator at these seminars that you did with jesse you would listen to uh preachers and you'd listen to rappers and i think that's i think that's freaking awesome like learning how rappers communicate in these certain ways even what we even what we said uh we're saying today about lil wayne and how almost everything he says has multiple meanings and one song we were talking about which came out when i was a freshman in high school i listened to like a couple months ago and i got a new meaning out of it. And it's just like a fun little Easter egg, I guess,

when you're listening to music and enjoying that type of type of communication. Dude, no, absolutely. So even in the gym this morning, I think it was Biggie hypnotized. I've heard that song. I can't, I mean, possibly a million times like at this point. And I heard something that i just simply never caught before and i'm like how the like i said like i actually technically i seriously can't remember what it was now but i heard it and i'm just like fuck did that just get added in like it was like

this like a director's cut of the song or whatever yeah but so it's just you're right like you can you know go back and listen to something and catch a different meaning but uh dude when i come in early enough to catch the like the tail end of the am crew workout you guys listen to some pretty hardcore stuff yes sir uh so what made you gravitate towards like some of the like the pretty hardcore west coast gangster rap um are you wearing the chain i'm not so that chain that chain was fake and it was literally like 10 bucks and that's why i called it ten dollar sauce because like i'm not gonna claim that it was a real chain i don't have that kind of money and uh it lasted way longer than i thought i think it lasted two months before my

wife said like what's up at the back of your neck and i was like oh time to retire this thing um but so i growing up uh i listened to like kind of like the more popular rappers at the time in 2008, 2009, 2010. So Lil Wayne, Eminem, a little bit of 50 Cent and Drake was kind of coming onto the scene at that time. And back then he was way different than he is now, obviously. But those were kind of the rappers that I would listen to and kind of just enjoyed. And then once I got into high school, our wrestling coach was a decent hip hop head and he was always putting on Biggie and Tupac, the Dog Pound.

He'd put on some like East Coast stuff, but most of it was West Coast stuff. So that kind of just West Coast gangster rap in general always brings me back to that time in the wrestling room. And then as I got older, I found other artists and other rap groups from that era and that time that just their sound was just awesome. So and now it's like kind of transitioning. Soley's put me on to a bunch of metal music that before I started working here, I probably would have never found or enjoyed. But you kind of build these associations with

music and some like great experiences or some um really empowering experiences so you kind of go back to those songs or go back to those albums to experience those things again yeah part of the reason why i'd listen to some rap was just because uh they just take risks you know they say stuff that like i think that's what i admire about little wayne the most i mean i know he's high as fuck but i admire the the fact that he's not afraid to say stuff that doesn't even rhyme or make sense sometimes. But he still makes it work because it's the way that he wears it. It's the way that he delivers it and he makes it work. So I always thought that was savage.

I'm like, you can have people buy into anything if you say it with the right conviction and you believe in it. Yeah. Do you like Kendrick or are you like Andrew who's a Kendrick hater? I've been watching this debate from the podcast. I'm not necessarily a hater. I've been watching this debate from the background of the podcast

Power Project Universe for a long time and it doesn't make any sense. And I've sent Andrew so many freestyles and mixtapes and even some ciphers from Kendrick that i don't understand like i don't i understand that you don't necessarily need to be like a super fan on his nuts the whole time but he is like pretty talented he's one of the greatest ever for this generation i have no arguments with everything you just said because he is one of the greatest of this

generation agreed you don't like him though no i'm just saying he's one of the greatest of this generation. Agreed. You don't like him, though. No, I'm just saying he's one of the greatest of this generation. Do you like him or not? A generation that thinks Drake is a great rapper. Yeah, that's... Do you like him or not? I don't think I've ever listened to one Kendrick Lamar song. Dude, I sent you three SoundCloud links, bro.

How could we take... I worded that incorrectly. So I've heard him, obviously, because I know his voice and stuff. And it's just like, oh, bro. I worded that incorrectly. So I've heard him, obviously, because I know his voice and stuff. And it's just like, oh, skip. It's just not for me. All right. Since you like Kendrick, I got a question for you.

So Kendrick's supposed to drop an album this year. Oh, is he? I think so. That's what I saw online. So who knows? They say that every year about every rapper that hasn't dropped an album yet. I'm just thinking that song with A$AP Rocky is really good.

It is good. I love that song. That's a great song. A$AP Ferg is pretty cool. Joey Badass is pretty cool. I know some of these newer rappers are cool, but I just don't know. I just don't know.

Kendrick, I don't know. Did we i just don't i don't know kendrick i don't know what did we just have silence for 30 minutes of the podcast 30 seconds of the podcast i thought i heard something but it just why was there such a long pause is kendrick about to say something about a new kendrick oh yeah i mean is he gonna be singing like the other rappers i don't i don't know i would i would assume not but my question for and see him since he's a big kendrick fan is what do you put uh because we have this conversation with the am crew all the time like most not everyone's a hip-hop head but quite a few of us are and probably half of the group is kind of siding with j cole is better and kind of half the group side really kendrick okay j cole's great i like j cole a lot

his new album is good but kendrick i just i love his lyrics i also love the person i like how he's like low-key okay and he's not like he's not all out here like he's i like his mind jake has a way better sound um did did you did you hear something i don't know man it's mark did you hear something? I don't know man Mark did you hear something? I didn't hear shit So yeah Kendrick What's everyone's beef with Drake? What's wrong with Drake? He tricked everybody

Into thinking he's a real rapper But who cares if he's real Who cares if anybody Writes anything for anyone As long as it sounds good I don't know if Eric Duka Is online Watching this right now

But he had a great point And he said that Yeah he is People don't, I think a lot of people that are really into hip hop and rap music don't like Drake because he's just so freaking good,

and he always knows how to stay on trend with every EP that he drops. When God's Plan came out, it was completely different. It wasn't one of the harder hip hop songs that most people would enjoy, but it was on trend with what was popular at that week, at that time.

That motherfucker's good at what he does, man. Yeah. Like maybe he doesn't, I don't know, maybe some people write his songs or something. I don't know. Maybe. Did you see his last picture though?

Picture? I don't really care. Eric sent me this. Eric sent me this picture. He's on a date in a completely empty Dodger Stadium. Eric sent me the picture and said,

we're about to get the, like the meanest, the meanest album ever. The meanest breakup album of all time, like within six months or something. It was, it was pretty funny. Oh shit. It's a picture of Drake in the empty stadium.

It's a picture of him on a date in an empty Dodger stadium. That's the thing though. The thing, the reason why people hate Drake is because he really just like, he's good and he just doesn't miss. That's right. He doesn't miss. He just doesn't miss. Like like it's not like he's great great great all the time but it's like he comes out of the album you listen to you're like fuck this is good i can't really say it's bad it's good he makes all the time he makes sad robot music man but uh he knows g4 pilots on a first name basis because of people like you he does yeah

yeah absolutely that's pretty that moment of silence was just so pungent had a weight to it yeah yeah i was thinking like sad robot music yeah because he you know he uses auto-tune reminds me of connie's 808s and heartbreak yeah yeah sad robot yeah that's that's so that's where it kind of erupted into 808s and heartbreaks and that's when like the death of auto-tune came out which didn't kill a fucking thing but josh i'm gonna miss these conversations man i want to cry like i'm not going i mean i'm not going anywhere i'm still training it's different time it's different going off to roseville to run around with your title yeah this is roseville title tour we'll never see you again it's like when you break up no

we're still good friends right like yeah oh i don't know about that that's that is sad i know i know uh where we can catch him here at the gym at four in the morning god damn it i'm never gonna see him again well all you have to do is go to bed really late yeah i was gonna say yeah right before you go to wake up yeah no that's what that's what i was just saying in the uh in the live chat with brian we're just like yeah it sucks but i know he'll be around but josh is probably the funniest person i've ever worked with oh my god when we get rolling dude you and i were like in tears over like the dumbest thing but like it's just we just lose our shit though it's fine with the jokes i don't know if you caught the potholes thing that's why after

he said that i was just down here on the mic because everyone that like like likes jujitsu what he did that shit was just probably the fucking laughing batman gsp and jesus like the hero trifecta i like that josh has a nerdy side to him and he'll he'll fucking giggle you get him laughing and that's what makes shit funny you start laughing with him he starts laughing and it's over with then you're both rolling yeah yeah absolutely so i'm i'm ecstatic for you but yeah it's kind of it does suck but i'm happy for you well well thank you i mean kind of like what i mentioned earlier in the opening of this podcast this job uh has been i mean even more than just a job like everything that happened leading up to where i met in sema

and asked them like, hey, do you know if they do internships? And he said, I don't know. Here's this guy's email. You just talk to him. I forget how it worked out. And even from you just saying like, oh, we don't really do that here, but maybe we can figure something out.

And everything that's happened since then and how I've been able to connect with you, Andrew, and establish justlish. Just like everyone in here, in a way, has been like an awesome mentor to me and has taught me so much. It's been, this has been an absolute honor and a privilege to be working here with all of you guys, and especially with you, Mark, and just to see what you've built and see the behind the scenes of the work it takes

to build something like this, but to see that it's done. Like the work has been done, and this is the benefit or the byproduct of all of that work. The work has just begun, Josh Settledge. How long have you worked here for? I started April 20th. What's your first name again?

I started April 20th, or April 18th, when we did the Stan seminar, you, Jesse, and Stan. That was April of 2018, and I started as a free intern, and then I officially got hired with the W2 on July 3rd, 2018, and today's July 14th, 2021. So you went from making no money, right? Yep. And then I think you were making minimum wage

yep and then if you don't mind sharing you don't have to say the actual number but if you don't mind saying like what you started to increase from because it you went on a rapid pace of like we gave you raises i think without you ever even coming to us mentioning anything we're just like uh i'm going to talk to this guy i'm going to give him anything. We were just like, I need to talk to this guy. I need to give him more money. And that happened like more than once. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a, it starts, and that's kind of what's been so, so cool about it is, talk about like the benefits of daily discipline is not worrying about, you told me this one time, like don't worry about the money.

It'll all take care of itself in the end, which at the time when I was in college and broke, I was saying like, Mark, you're freaking crazy because I don't have any money right now and I hardly have any gas to get home. So money does kind of matter at the moment. But it did all end up working out in the end. And it did start from going from making no money to making minimum wage to getting the first like one job that I've ever had. Up until I got hired here full time, I'd always had two or three jobs all throughout high school, all throughout college. And so having just one job was a,

it's a huge testament of growth and one of the blessings of working here. And then seeing like, I actually get to invest in a 401k. I didn't even know what that was. And your friend Matt came and kind of explained it to me. And my parents had talked to me about it a little bit, but when they talked to me about it, I was never in a position with a job to even invest in something like that. And so to be able to work

here and grow in a way where someone can come in and have a conversation with like, hey, this is an investment you're making for the rest of your life. And if you do it right and you keep working hard and you keep doing all the same things you've been doing to get to this point, there's a really good chance you can provide just like a bedroom, like a comfortable living for yourself. And you just keep stacking on that and take it one step further. You can create generational wealth for yourself, your kids and your kids' kids, which has been really amazing to see you do. And so it's just been it's just been amazing just being able to experience that level of growth working here. I used to think that was cool. Now I have different thoughts on it because I'm just thinking like no one's going to fucking care.

You know, like they got, you know, money from Grandpa Smelly or whatever, right? It's like down the line somewhere someone's going to be like, ah, fuck it. Like let's just sell this or let's just, they just won't. At some point, you know what I mean? Like at some point they just, like we mentioned earlier, it's like, who's mainstream? Like, God? Yeah. Hitler?

The fucking president? Trump? Charles Manson? Yeah, Trump. Like, people who've done really horrible shit, right? True. Trump, right? Some people who people get annoyed with or whatever, right?

Yeah. So it's hard to kind of, like, have, like, a legacy, like, cemented in any sort of way, whether you make money or whatever, right? Yeah. So it's hard to kind of like have like a legacy like cemented in any sort of way, whether you make money or not. That's true. It's been amazing having you here. You've been an amazing employee. Thanks for just always being real straightforward.

Like we don't really see that as often as we would love to because just having people that are straight shooters just come and say, hey, I don't know if I can do that or I think i can do that or i have a problem with this you've always been uh just straight up with us and it's been awesome to have you here and it's you know great to see i you know i i think i might have said this to you i know i said it to solely um where i was just like i don't know you know one day one of you guys are going to be like i'm going to you know move on to do uh something else and after you move on to do something else, it wouldn't surprise me four or five years from now I hear from somebody else,

like, oh, my God, did you hear they started this new thing or they're doing something really awesome? And I would be like, yeah, of course. Makes fucking sense. Guy works for it. So thank you so much. Thank you. Been a huge pleasure and an honor. All right.

You want to tell Andrew to take us on out of here? Yes, sir. Thank you, everybody, for checking out. I know I'm sad for checking out today's episode. Thank you to P. Montice for sponsoring today's episode. Links to them down in the description below, as well as the podcast show notes. And again, Code Power Project for 25% off your order. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's's PowerProject on Instagram, at MBPowerProject on TikTok and Twitter.

And if everybody that was watching today's live stream, if you're not subscribed, please do so now and hit that bell notification. We would sincerely appreciate it. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZinSima. Where are you at? IamAndrewZinSima, ending on Instagram and YouTube. IamAndrewZinSima, yin yang on TikTok and Twitter. Settle Gates. That's right.

That has been confusing because people look up like settle gate, like from jujitsu. They say like, Hey, I heard you on Mark's mentioned something about you. I don't, how do you spell settle? Settle gate strength.

It's not. It's a Joshua Selig, J O S H U A S E T T L A G E. Everywhere that I care about being on social media and YouTube and all that stuff. So you guys can find me there. Things have never been the same here at Slingshot ever since Settlegate. We never talked about how Settlegate came about, but I guess. Yeah, what happened?

I don't even know. To be honest, I don't know the full story. Do you want me to explain it? Go ahead. Well, everybody, we all know. It's it go ahead well everybody we all know josh setledge we all knew we we know this one day and sema just kept calling him settle gate he didn't realize because at the time we had two joshes that were in the building and it's like no he's like oh josh settle gate yeah okay and then it just kept he just kept saying it and like no one corrected

me at first i was just like okay and then he said it again and then he did it i'm like it's it's actually settlage he's like wait really and then so he had said that he was gonna stop saying that but then eventually we all started saying and he just like he like put his stamp on it like nope i'm the one that came up with that nickname he's like i'm the one that blessed him with this and now it's like, you know, kind of ruining everything for his business. Oh, sorry. Just have to buy the SEO for that or whatever.

That's right. Yeah. Have it redirect to at Joshua Selich. I'm at Mark Smileybell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later.